DA Revelations

Episode 11 – After

Chapter 1 – Afterlow

Remy LeBeau wasn't sure when he moved into the bed, he couldn't remember even getting dressed into the same jogging pants and sweatshirt he'd wore the night before, but when he woke up at three pm on the first of January 2011, he was fully dressed, socks included, and wearing a pair of woollen gloves.

At first, he couldn't even remember what date it was until he glanced to the clock on the bedside cabinet and saw the date on the bottom of the digital display of his alarm clock. Memories of the New Years Party were just barely there and he, for one moment, wondered if perhaps he'd gotten drunk and passed out – it'd certainly explain why his head was throbbing as if he'd been hit with a frying pan.

He rolled over to get comfortable to find Rogue asleep in the bed beside him, her eyes closed lightly, her bare shoulder exposed to the dim light seeping in through the blinds. He sat up, groaning from the aches of lying too long in an uncomfortable position. It took him several moments to examine the room through tired squinting eyes. And as he glanced around the room he saw the pieces of Rogue's costume strewn about the room as if they'd been tossed in some careless manner. Some of the blankets were on the floor and there was a very vague, just very nearly undetectable scent of musk hanging in the room.

For a few moments, he cradled his pounding head and tried to piece together everything else. Some things he remembered, and some he didn't. He could only vaguely remember going to the supermarket...and what he ordered for breakfast. He could remember making a fool of himself at the New Year's party. But pieces were missing in between.

A sudden sickness hit him and he leapt out of bed; he fell to the floor, his incredible sense of balance had been somehow compromised and he fell, slamming his head into the dresser hard enough that he was almost positive he saw stars and flashes when he opened his eyes.

"Remy, what the hell..."

Rogue had awoken and was sitting up in bed with the quilt up to her chin, watching him curiously.

"I...don't feel so..." he didn't have enough time to finish the sentence; the sickness hit him far too quickly for him to do anything other than fold over and throw up on the carpet with a horrible retching cry that shook his body.

"Oh, fuck," Rogue jumped out of the bed and rushing over, she placed her hands gently on his back, "you're all pasty."

Very little came up in the second wretch, and he sat on the floor, back against the dresser, head spinning like the world's worst hangover.

Except...he couldn't remember having been drunk – and if he'd been drunk surely he'd be throwing up a whole lot more than what he just had.

Rogue awkwardly stepped across the carpet in bare feet, trying to avoid the mess, she returned from the bathroom a moment later with a washcloth soaked in cold water, and she brought it over to him, kneeling beside him.

This was...odd, he thought, as he stared at her completely nude body in a sense of bewilderment; he might have even enjoyed the sight if he weren't so perplexed. Still, he accepted her help despite his confusion; the cold compress felt wonderful on his pounding forehead. While he sat holding it to his head and sitting with his eyes closed, he heard Rogue going about scrubbing up his vomit.

"I don't get it, you were so...fine earlier..." Rogue remarked as she rubbed against the carpet with a wet towel.

"Maybe a bug," he mumbled, "I feel...so weird...disorientated," he admitted.

"What do you mean disorientated. Like you regret earlier?"

He opened his eyes to stare at her, she wasn't looking at him, she was focusing on the task at hand, her expression determined. He'd done something earlier...what was it he'd done? He glanced around the room for evidence. "Course I don't..." he answered quickly, and tried to sound very sure of the answer as if he hadn't needed to put the thought into it. The suspicious white stain on the carpet a few feet away confirmed that he and she had definitely done some romping around earlier.

"I know what this is," Rogue said quietly, sounding serious.

"Yeah, well, you don't need a CSI team to tell you what that stain is," he rolled his eyes; he thought she'd meant the stain.

"What?" she raised her eyes to him, then caught the direction he was looking in, "I didn't even see that..." she moved over to it and began to rub the wet towel into it. "I guess I wasn't paying much attention to you when...you know."

"I know," he nodded, although unfortunately he didn't know at all.

She was quiet for a time, until she'd finished cleaning the carpet; there were three wet patches on the carpet; evidence of a good time and then of the sickness after. She reached for his shirt from the new year's party and pulled it on, buttoning it over herself. They sat in silence.

"You always said that sex changes things..." Rogue said after a moment, "did it?"

"Yes and no," he said. How could he answer this properly without knowing exactly what had happened? "Nothing is different...apart from that we did it..."

Sex...sex...I can't have had sex with her...because she can't control her powers and I can't control mine yet. So how did we...?

"Well, we didn't technically. It was just...I don't know...touching. But it was so..."

He suddenly remembered the touching; seeing the little sparks dancing from his fingers and seeping into her skin. "Electric," he finished.

"Literally," she laughed nervously. "Never felt anything so..."

"Incredible," he finished. He took the wet washcloth from his forehead and pushed his damp hair back.

"I didn't even touch you..." she gestured to the damp patch on the carpet where the evidence of his pleasure had been.

His mind drifted to the alleyway, to putting the dealer's drugs down the drain...and then being alone in the bathroom having taken the pill before his shower. What was I thinking?! He demanded of himself, he cradled his head.

"You sure you don't regret it?" she asked quietly.

"Of course I don't," he had to say it for the second time. Of course, he did; he regretted that the actions had been...influenced by a pill rather than his own desires. It felt sleazy and even more wrong that to her, it must have meant so much more.

She smiled, "okay. 'Cause...I don't regret it, don't even regret that it hurt like hell..." she chewed her lip, then stopped after feeling the pain of the bite that she'd apparently forgotten all about. "I...I've never felt closer to you than I did right then..." she admitted somewhat coyly, she lowered her head but kept his eyes on him. "Like I connected with you..."

"I'm probably just suffering from that really foul breakfast earlier," he lied, he wiped his face off with the cloth and then tossed it onto the floor.

"You haven't been eating enough, it's no wonder you're getting ill..." she stood up after picking up the towel and the washcloth. "I'll have these cleaned," she said to him, "I'm gonna go get properly dressed and then I'll come see if you're feeling any better."

"Okay," he nodded.

When she left the room wearing nothing but his shirt which luckily hung just below her hips, he pulled himself up unsteadily, feeling very off balance and shaky. He made his way to the bathroom to pick up his jeans from earlier – beneath them was the baggie of pills, still in tact. Luckily, she hadn't picked up his dirty laundry to have that washed, or she'd have known right then what a terrible mistake he'd made.

I should get rid of these... he thought, he moved over to the toilet and opened the bag; something nagged at him that it'd be a mistake to dispose of them just yet. But she's happy...I gave her exactly what she needed and it was because of these...

He stared at the bag in his hands.

No...this is a bad slippery slope – and I've been down it before. And that was fine when I had absolutely nothing to lose...

And there was so much to lose now. Kitty, Jessie, and Rogue, all who would be dismayed and disgusted with this use of illegal substance.

But yet...he had to wonder...would he lose Rogue if he couldn't connect with her like that again? He couldn't rely on his deflated sex drive to improve on it's own, and he couldn't just pretend to enjoy that kind of intimacy if his heart truly wasn't in it. Now that the fog in his mind was clearing, he remembered almost feeling as if his heart had been in it.

I can't make this decision now...I need more time to think, he thought.

Sighing in defeat, he took the bag of pills to his bedroom, where he used some of the scotch tape from christmas present wrapping to tape the bag to the underside of the drawer in his bedside cabinet.