Pure, romantic mush (puke!) set against a backdrop of the criminal underworld. Two best friends have broken all the rules, and now nothing will ever be the same...
A/N: Hello, welcome, make yourself at home... I don't often give in to writing romance, but a little every now and again doesn't do any harm, does it? This ficlet fits in to mine and Corrinth's timeline before my songfic Fugitive Motel and the flashbacks of my R rated story Overload. Also, part of it is a flashback included in my third ever fic Darkest Hearts. That said; you don't need to read any of our other works to understand this one, its fairly self-explanatory. Please be warned about adult themes and implications throughout, and don't forget to review. Thank you, Lamby
Disclaimer: Don't own Gambit; do own Blaze
Nothing Ever The Same 01It was, she thought as she gradually acknowledged the fact that she was waking, the cruellest morning of her relatively short but vivid life.
She didn't want to wake. She didn't want to acknowledge the carpet-taste of her mouth after the sweet champagne of last night. She had no desire to succumb to the throbbing, pounding headache that even now was beginning at the base of her skull. Soon she would have no choice, the hangover would swell and resonate through her sinuses. The dry bitterness of her mouth would gag her in her pain. Her stomach would heave and heavy vomiting would follow. Even pretending she was still asleep, denying the symptoms she knew too well, was rushing them closer like the headlights of the express train at the other end of the night's dark tunnel.
Yet it wasn't the hangover that eighteen-year-old Laura Williams, aka Blaze, was so afraid of. There was something much worse waiting to maul her shattered, exhausted form in the realms of conscious thought. She was used to waking from wild nights wondering 'What have I done?' But today, this bright, crisp Cape Town morning, that question took on an indescribable urgency. Urgency marred with guilt, horror, and in contradiction of everything, an innocent excitement.
The English girl opened her eyes. Though bloodshot and mascara-smudged, her deep chestnut pupils and naturally long lashes were still reminiscent of a fawn. Blaze peered out over a small, curved nose dusted with light freckles. She pouted with full rosebud lips as the bright light this side of wakefulness made her squint. And then she sighed a bittersweet sigh, melancholy and elegant. She had woken alone.
Blaze hadn't known he could be so cruel, or so kind. Here, in this luxurious hotel room after a day of lucrative criminal escapades, laws of a different kind had not been broken so much as incinerated. Unwritten rules that should never be spoken had exploded in escapades of an entirely different sort.
What had she done...
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The view from the penthouse of the hotel was a spectacular panoramic feast of the city. Glass oozed floor to ceiling in the room, allowing the occupant to gaze uninterrupted all across the horizon just as the sun dipped below it. Champagne in one hand, red hair stubbornly pinned up off her neck, draped in a shimmering almost translucent designer dress and make-up flawless, Blaze smiled to herself contentedly. She could pull off this thief lark by herself. She'd just pulled off the biggest job of the underground's year so far; nothing would stop her now...
A knock at the door interrupted her gloating. Expecting room service she shouted "Its open!" and did not turn from the view as someone entered behind her.
"You come up in d'world, Petite. Word is you made a fortune without Gambit?" Remy le Beau didn't wait for her to invite him; he walked to stand besides her at the window. Blaze didn't know what to say, or even feel. She'd half expected him to track her down sometime, and she was glad to see her old friend. But he'd run off and left her for no good reason, and now he expected to just walk back in here and be offered champagne? She settled to answer his question instead of punching his lights out like she'd sworn to do next time she saw him.
"Maybe. Depends on what 'the word' says I've been up to?"
"Oh, not much specific," Gambit met his friend's eyes and smiled. "'Cept extortion of a well-known designer perfume manufacturer with an animal testing facility of dubious legality. Clever, Amie, clever."
"They'd only pay me off with stock, but at a trade price of thirty dollars U.S. per bottle, twenty bottles per case, and fifty-five crates in a storage lock-up on the other side of town to be emptied tomorrow once the payment from my buyer is cleared, I've made about thirty three thousand dollars U.S. And I don't have to pay for this hotel suite, it's all from my buyer." Blaze couldn't help but grin out over the city; she'd been having a whale of a time.
"An' the folder of blackmail evidence is already flyin' to half a dozen animal welfare types I'd bet." Blaze smiled up at her tall friend, he knew her too well. "Not a bridge I'd have burnt, Amie. You wont be able to do business with these people again."
"What can I say, burning's what I'm good at, Remy. Champagne?"
"Oui, merci. You look good, Chere, that cop of yours a lucky guy." Blaze smiled, Gambit was fishing for gossip he'd probably already guessed anyway.
"I got rid of Lance the week you left with Electra." She gave him the champagne flute and topped up her own. "He was so boring!"
"How long you bin drinking for, Blaze?" Remy asked as she took gulps, not sips from the full glass.
"Long enough for you to have some serious catching up to do, le Beau!" She laughed as she draped herself elegantly on a large red sofa. Remy took a seat across from her, black-and-red eyes smiling.
"Good job I was drinkin' on d'plane then, eh Petite?"
They were well and truly sozzled by the time they hit the Jacuzzi on the balcony. What happened next didn't take much, Blaze in a chestnut brown bikini that accentuated her near-flawless tan, leaning too far over Remy to reach the third champagne bottle. Bodies too close, breath on wet skin, lips on lips. The line that Remy had broken in Sidney months earlier, the line that kept friendship from being anything else suddenly didn't even exist any more. Some part of them knew that this was all because of the alcohol, that they would hate themselves in the morning for being so weak. But right now the morning was still hours away...
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With hesitancy due to emotional giddiness beyond her control, she rose. The glamorous hotel room was trashed, yet Blaze had no desire to tidy anything away. She wandered thorough the room wrapped in a white silk sheet that smelt of him. Her hands reached out unbidden, long elegant fingers stroking the back of the red chaise longue tenderly, remembering...
How many times had she drifted to daydream about a night such as last night? How long had she desired him, silently, never making a move? And how much had she underestimated him in those dreams? Could anyone have thought one boy could profess such charm, such tender skill?
A flush rose on her cheeks as she pulled her straying fingers back to brush a long red curl off her pale forehead. She was no naive schoolgirl, no innocent. And she knew Gambit as well as anyone. Chances were he'd already moved on to his next conquest. All that made Blaze was another name on his list.
How she had missed the note on the pillow when she had first woke, she didn't know. Against the haphazard background to their unforeseen passion, the neatly folded white slip seemed out of place. Blaze fought a sudden surge of emotions more powerful than any hangover as she spotted it. What could it contain? An apology? A goodbye? And yet she was determined it wasn't, it couldn't be, could it?
Mere seconds before she lifted the folded parchment, a mobile phone chirruped angrily. Blaze made a split-second decision and moved for the handset instead. The note wasn't going anywhere, she wasn't chickening out. In her profession a call missed could cost thousands she couldn't afford to lose. It was no surprise that the caller id was withheld, and Blaze answered it anyway. "Hello?"
"Well, if it isn't the thief of the moment!" A cheery voice on the end of the line asked pleasantly. Tumultuous as her thoughts and emotions were, it hardly seemed appropriate to smile in reply, but Blaze did anyway. She knew the caller, a Scot by the name of McKenna. Blaze even liked the man; he had a good sense of humour for a criminal. He boasted his profession as club secretary, but when asked what club his only reply would be 'An exclusive one.'
"Congratulations on your recent success, kid." McKenna continued without giving Blaze a chance to reply. "Got a new one for you though. Come to the Maroon Club at ten tonight, I have a client wants to see you."
Blaze nodded once, dimly aware that the man couldn't see her, and hung up. Work sounded good, would give her something to ponder other than last night. It may even get her out of Cape Town. She'd been here too long.
But what about Gambit, her treacherous heart objected. Swallowing back on it as her heart leapt to her throat, Blaze picked up the note. Her hands were warm and dry, the firepower she forebode herself from using for fear of the death it brought just under her skin. Should she read it? Or destroy it, condemning to the ashes any sweet lies in contained. If any man but Remy le Beau had left her a note on her pillow, she would not have granted them the credit of reading it. Her hands tingled as she crunched the note into a tiny white ball and flung it away across the room.
Why should she treat him any different to anybody else?
