Disclaimer: Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.
Author's note: My plan was to have finished Arrow of Time (HoC Book 3) by July, but yeah, that's not gonna happen now. Rogue and Gambit are on extended leave on some tropical island and took the plot bunnies with them. But it will be ready by September. There's about a chapter and a bit left to write. Once they get back from messing around in the sun, it'll get done, I promise.
So in the meantime, here it is. Twenty-two Romy drabbles, based on the comic series (up to the Valle Soleada/X-Treme X-Men period), written as a big eff-you to writer's block. They are 'pure' drabbles in that each one is exactly 100 words long. I actually wrote them as a Christmas present to a dear friend and fellow fanfic writer a couple of years ago. You know who you are. Thanks for all the inspiration and joy.
And thanks to all my readers, for caring about what I write. Love yah.
-Ludi x
-oOo-
1. Room 47
"Whatever's in there," Jean-Luc had said, "it ain't likely t' be pretty, boy."
Two decapitations, three guttings, and one gibbering mess.
"And no one even knows what's in dere anyways."
He's young, seventeen; he's full of cocksure arrogance and he'd liked the odds. He'd just had to try it.
Heart thudding, adrenaline pumping, breath belaboured… Who needs sex? Between his fingers the skeleton key doesn't even make a whisper of a sound.
His gut churns with anticipation, and Death is right there on the other side of that door and he's ready to tango.
Lock open. He grins.
Let's dance.
-oOo-
2. Living Walls
Walls have ears. Hers have a pulse and a voice.
She hears them at night. Cody and the old guy. Whispering. Muttering. Heartbeat fluttering.
She itches her palm through her glove, takes a swig from the bottle. It's all teenage angst and rebellion. She loves it.
The old guy remembers the taste of beer. Cody goes "uuuuurgh, gross!" and she laughs.
Wimp! She jeers.
But when she tries the cigarette she coughs and splutters.
The old guy sighs an appreciative sigh, flush with memories.
Ha ha, told ya so! Cody heckles from the sidelines.
Go ta hell! she snaps back.
-oOo-
3. Vertigo
From way up here he can see the world; just a stretch and he believes he can touch it. Nights like these he was made for.
"Remy!" the woman calls from the room behind him.
He teeters on the balcony railing, breeze cooling the flush of his body, and he wonders what it would be like to fall, to lose himself in something other than flesh and shame.
He wants intensity of feeling. Not sensation. It isn't the same.
He wants to dare himself to be naked to his soul.
He sways.
"Remy!"
He opens his eyes.
He steps down.
-oOo-
4. Welcome
He was smoking a cigarette. It reminded her of the first one she'd tasted.
"Bad habit," she quipped from the doorway.
He noticed her. She noticed him.
"Have a feelin' somethin' else will get me first," he grinned. Lopsided. The curve of his mouth unnerved her.
"New guy?" she asked.
He stuck the cig between his teeth, held out a hand.
"Gambit," he said.
She took it. "Rogue."
His fingers were long. She liked the feel of them against her gloved palm. He used his hands a lot, she thought.
"So what d'you do?" he asked.
"Read palms," she replied.
-oOo-
5. Adelaide
She was sweating.
Back home it was winter. Not here.
"Oh Gawd," she complained, fanning herself with a glove. Her hands were white. Not white white. Just the pale blush of skin that had never seen a tan. Nice. Delicate. Untouched.
"Do we have to wait out here for the others to come?" she groaned.
He leaned against the wall and shuffled his cards.
"You heard what de boss said," he said.
"Screw Cyke!" she exploded. "Ah'm boilin' here!"
She tugged the zipper right down to her cleavage. More skin. Unwitting striptease. He swallowed.
"Me too, chere," he muttered back.
-oOo-
6. Sleep Tight
It's hard to be sceptical around him. Especially when he's half-naked and staring at you like you're a box of cherry liqueur chocolates.
"So. Dinner. Tomorrow?" he asks.
"Uh huh." She stares at his pecs. And a little lower. Does he have to go walking around the mansion right after he's showered?
He's tricking her. He has to be.
She feels stupid because she's standing outside her door in pink teddy bear pyjamas and fluff-ball slippers. She tries not to look at his pants.
"Seven?" he asks.
"Okay."
She turns the handle, her cheeks flaming.
"Sleep tight, Rogue," he says.
-oOo-
7. Arrival
She laughs and throws her arms round his neck. They hug under the sweltering moonlight and it's only in that moment that he lets himself think I'm home.
A pot of gumbo on the stove and the scent of Southern Comfort on the upholstery. Tante Mattie's the only woman who never lets him down.
He swirls his supper round the plate and thinks of what he can't make his.
It's unfamiliar. Rejection.
Mattie hugs him and makes him feel like a little boy again. He doesn't have to be a man with her. Just a boy.
"Welcome back," she says.
-oOo-
8. Whispers
She gives Bobby the finger. She's so not in the mood.
He shrugs and walks off. She fumes by the car.
And the old guy says grow up, darlin', and Cody laughs at how bad she is for telling Bobby to fuck off, and Remy says…
Well, nothing really. He just smiles. Smirks.
"What are you smilin' at?" she mutters mutinously, slamming the gas pump hard into the tank. And his smile widens.
Chere, I can't wait till de next time we get to tussle.
She drops the pump and the gas splashes all over her jeans.
"Damn," she swears.
-oOo-
9. Sanctuary
The pews are hard and cold. He sits there with the smell of frankincense swirling around him, not sure what this means. Not sure why he's here.
Her heels clap against the mosaic floor. When she slides in next to him he says nothing.
"It's cold," she whispers.
He nods. Warmth is his sanctuary. Warmth is being held. Being safe and loved and connected.
He sits in the cold to see what it's like to be her.
"Let's go," she pleads, but he can't and…
Her gloved hand curls round his own. And she is warm.
And he is loved.
-oOo-
10. Residents Past
The wall is made of damp brick, notched and slimy. She runs her fingers over it, trying to read it like she reads flesh.
Logan sniffs. He's standing next to the mutant's body with a grimace on his face.
"No scent," he growls. "He's long gone."
She's touched this wall before. In someone else's memory.
When she touches the wall she sees this room as it was. Occupied by the smell of death and human detritus. And the man…
She heaves. Hyperventilating.
"You okay, stripes?" Logan asks, concerned.
"I need to get out," she croaks, and oh God, she vomits.
-oOo-
11. Alternative Therapy
Bam.
He's hooked her. Line and sinker.
Four rotating hips and acres of tanned flesh.
He needs this, and all he needs now is not to compare. This is just about need. About filling a hole. Scratching an itch.
And he can't compare.
He's hardly touched her, for Chrissakes. Hardly knows what she feels like, and yet…
The texture of her is imprinted on him. All it took was a moment.
They dance. They swirl. They parry and they spar.
Back and forth.
And when he's done he wants to cry.
Because nothing in the world can compare with her.
-oOo-
12. Unseen Eyes
She wallows neck-deep in the water and closes her eyes. This is the closest she's felt to being at home in her own skin. She allows herself to dream.
She dreams that he comes knocking, that she lets him in.
That he sees her naked beneath the bath-water.
She wants him to see her naked. She wants to know what he thinks when he sees her with nothing between them but themselves.
Sometimes she wants so much she aches.
A knock on the door.
"Rogue?"
His voice is soft, uncharacteristically uncertain.
She slides down under the bubbles and says nothing.
-oOo-
13. Fight/Flight
He runs like the devil's on his tail, leaping over puddles and rooftops with the same practised ease.
The rain stings his face, the air sears his lungs. He can hardly breathe. His power is thrumming under the pores of his skin, electric, crackling through every nerve and for the first time in a long time he feels pain, raw and physical.
He throws himself between the space of two buildings, lands clumsily, bites dust.
There is blood in his mouth, on his stomach and fingers, and he tries to ignore it, he tries to push himself up, but—
-oOo-
14. Hunger
Sleek and satiny, she crosses the room in a red dress and walks right up to him, says:-
"Dance?"
She places a gloved hand on his abdomen and he winces. She moves her hand, confused.
"Ribs got busted," he explains, snatching back her hand and placing it higher, on his chest. "Punctured a lung…"
"Remy…"
He smiles.
"All in a day's work."
"No dancin'?"
"No dancin'. Sorry."
The mistletoe sparkles in the twilight. He doesn't even joke about it anymore. He lifts her hand to his lips and she feels the heat of them on her fingers.
Not. Close. Enough.
-oOo-
15. Half-Life
"Merde!"
The cards rain down all around him like a snowstorm, landing at his feet with the rest of his nearly-destroyed room.
He cracks his knuckles, his fingers, willing a spark, anything. Nothing. He's nothing. Naked.
It isn't coming back. The power. It's gone. Gone forever.
Well shit. At least he can still pick pockets, kick ass, screw women and…
"Merde!"
Not enough.
He kicks a piece of chair across the room.
He's naked. So is she. He doesn't like it. It freaks the hell outta him.
He picks up a card, tries to charge it. Scowls.
Queen of Hearts.
-oOo-
16. Tempest
Syncopated beats and neon lights; Kitty is lost in the crowd, and she plunges head-first into the tidal wave of bodies, all sweat and pheromones and touch after touch after touch after touch…
Later she stands out on the street, the bass thrumming through her stomach, her skin raw with sensation. Her bare flesh prickles with more than just the cold; her heart is in her mouth. The memory of contact is almost too much to bear.
She shivers now, wide awake. Everything is suddenly new and tumultuous, vast and endless.
Only now they unfold before her.
All the possibilities.
-oOo-
17. Reciprocity
He dares himself to be naked to his soul. He is all at once scared and elated, but he does it for her, for them. He can't tell her what this means to him. He doesn't have the words.
"I love you," she tells him.
She wraps herself around him, so soft, so warm, so willing, and this time he is not being selfish because somehow she has disarmed him and he's not in control anymore…
Neither is she.
He can do whatever he wants to her and he does, not because he can, but because he loves her too…
-oOo-
18. Landslide
Sugar and spice and all things nice. That's what little girls are made of.
Sugar and spice.
She laughs. It's bitter.
Rogue, concentrate! Emma's voice resounds in her head.
She spins on her heel, smashes a gloved fist into someone's jaw. She feels bone shatter beneath her knuckles and feels a surge of satisfaction flood her senses.
Sugar and spice.
Blood inside her gloves, between her fingers…
That's what little girls are made of.
Boot heel in solar plexus and the crunch of teeth biting dust…
Not this li'l gal.
She's made of nails an' if y'touch her you'll die.
-oOo-
19. Itch
Itchy feet, itchy fingers.
He doesn't run – he walks – but inside he's running, and the knuckles of the hand holding the emerald are white.
The darkness swallows him up like ink. When it spits him out he is back out onto the streets, wading through soupy air thick with the scent of spices and the sound of jazz. He's come home to run away; he's come home to seek refuge.
The girl on the corner smiles his way. Waxy brown curls glisten in the lamplight.
He picks the pocket of a random passer-by and smiles back.
He walks on over.
-oOo-
20. Connection
Remy isn't good at keeping still.
Even when he's silent his fingers are moving, fanning a pack of cards, back, forth, whirr, shlick.
It's been six months, and she's not angry anymore. She thinks she might be ready if he is.
She finds his foot beneath the War Room table, bumps it with her own. He bumps it back, silly, playful, forgiving.
And he's still now, the cards quiet in his hands. His foot hooks her calf, twines their legs together.
Gawd, Ah've missed yah, she broadcasts breathlessly, impulsively, and though he can't hear, she couldn't care less who does.
-oOo-
21. Last Breaths
It isn't funny. Staring death in the face.
It's goddamn beautiful… Humbling. Here he is light, he is perfect. He is new.
Let's dance.
But she calls his name and, "Ah love you," she says, just like the first time; and in this place he sees what it really means – so many nuances of emotion he'd never known existed, and this time he's not afraid to say it, he's not afraid to mean it.
She fights for him, the way he couldn't for her, so damn stubborn…
And he turns back from the light.
Because it's what he does best.
-oOo-
22. Seize the Day
Her toes curl in warm sand only to be washed by the tide, and on it goes, on and on…
And her hand curls around his, as if she had never let him go.
This is what it is to be 'normal'. Quiet. Static. Years of running have brought her here. How long she'll stay, she doesn't know but… right now, she's happy standing where her footsteps fall.
Only the sea changes now, ticking away time – but they'll ignore it, just for a little while.
She smiles.
Together they slide into the sunset without even a word between them.
-oOo-