Hot Bayou Nights
Chapter 1
Interstates 55 and 59

Remy sighed as he looked over the façade of the house in front of him. It was a big old house, probably almost as old as the city around him and had a proper porch wrapping around it. It was kind of on the small side compared to the rest of the houses in the Garden District, but it was plenty for Remy. He had no real idea of how he had come into possession of the thing, but he had a feeling that he won it in a poker game some how. He shifted his travel bag so that it was more comfortable on his shoulder and walked through the front gate. It squeaked loudly in protest as he moved it and Remy put it at the top of his list of things to fix around here. As he walked up the front walkway and he got closer to the house, the list of things to do got longer and longer and Remy realized he had a daunting task in front of him. By the time he was actually standing before the front door, Remy was half wishing he had never thought of returning to New Orleans.

Figures dat while I'm on vacation from de X-Men fo' de first time in years, I gotta spend it doin' home repair. He thought as he had to throw his shoulder into the door to get it to open.

The inside of the house wasn't nearly as bad as the outside. At least, that was the way it looked. It was very dusty inside and Remy knew the first thing he had to do was open the windows or else he would choke to death. On the bright side, the house was already furnished, the previous owner having put dust covers over everything. To his immediate left was the living room, or, what he would make his living room. To his right was a staircase leading to the upstairs bedrooms, Remy presumed. Under the stairs was a utility closet and directly across from that was another closet, this one more for coats and the like. Remy walked past the closets and came into the dining area which was separated by a breezeway from the kitchen on his right. He peered out a window at the back of the property and saw that it was just more grass, relieving his fears of some monstrously overgrown garden hiding there. All in all, not too shabby for winning a poker game.

The stairs creaked under his weight as he ascended them. Reaching the top, he saw that if he kept going straight he would end up in a bedroom. The bedroom was connected to a bathroom which was also connected to another bedroom on its other side. Across the hall was the master bedroom with its master bathroom and Remy threw his bag down on the bed. With a grimace, he realized he was going to have to go –gulp—shopping. This stuff was just too damn ugly for him to put up with. But not today, he was done for today. He lay down on top of the ugly bed sheets and tried to relax. He had driven all the way from Jackson, Mississippi to here without stopping except to eat at some dive of a diner. That had been a bad idea, he thought as his stomach gurgled strangely. Looked like his cross country road trip had ended early. A couple of weeks ago, the X-Men had gone on a 'temporary hiatus' as Scott had put it. It looked more to Remy like a disbanding. Anyway, Remy's plans had suddenly been cleared for the foreseeable future and had got the idea to go on a road trip, just him and his motorcycle. That reminded him, he was going to need a car or something if he was going to make this dump livable. So he had packed up a couple of days later, said goodbye to everyone who hadn't already fled the second that particular meeting had ended, and left. He had taken the long way around things. Down through New York, across the top of Pennsylvania, through Ohio and Indiana and to Illinois where he hopped on Interstate 55 and headed due south, ending up in New Orleans. It was nice driving for hours on end; it gave him time to clear his head and he had a lot of clearing out to do. It was all mainly concerning Rogue. He hadn't even been surprised when the next morning after Scott's announcement her room had been empty, the only sign of her ever being there was the stuffed animal left at the head of the bed. Good riddance to her, he couldn't put up with her anymore. She flirted, dressed revealingly at times and yet, he wasn't allowed near her with a ten foot pole. It drove him up the wall. He could give her what she wanted, he was creative like that. But she wouldn't believe him, wouldn't trust him. So they had broken up (again) a while back and he had been trying to move on ever since. A road trip, he had decided, would be good for him.

Tomorrow, he would start fixing things.

The next morning Remy woke up late, but it was before noon; so it was early for him. He cursed falling asleep the night before and not going out and getting food. So breakfast was cooked courtesy of IHOP and afterwards he went and rented himself a car, a black Trans Am. Then it was off to the hardware store.

Remy's cart was full of crap. Hammers, nails, even a couple of moderately expensive powers tools. He was done shopping, at least for hardware tools. Now he was pretending to be interested in some of the impulse items at the checkout as he waited his turn to be checked out. The cashier was cute, real cute. Remy wasn't sure what would look better on her, the little apron she was currently wearing over her t-shirt and denim shorts or a tool belt. He got a nice view of her derriere as she came out from behind the counter to help the customer in front of him lift a heavy box onto the counter so she could scan it. Hell, Remy decided, it didn't matter what she wore, she was a blonde Southern gal with legs that were to die for.

"Hi, how ya doin' t'day?" she greeted Remy as it was his turn to check out.

"M'doin' jus' fine t'day." Remy replied with a charming grin. "And yo'self?"

The grin had the desired effect. She smiled and he could tell she was trying not to giggle and blush as she scanned his items. "Ah'm doin' fine as well."

"Bon." Remy replied. "S'shame such a pretty little t'ing like you should be cooped up in here on a day like t'day."

Again, the girl smiled. Remy was surprised. He hadn't expected to be doing nearly this well right off the bat with this girl. ….Who was he kidding? Of course he expected to be doing this well, he was Remy LeBeau after all.

"Please don't take dis de wrong way, but I couldn't help but notice you've got some very nice legs." Remy continued on in his flirting. "Do you work out or somet'in'?"

"Actually, Ah'm a gymnast."

Dieu. A little piece of Christmas had just come early. "Really?" Remy asked with his eyebrows raised above his sunglasses.

"Yes suh." She beamed proudly. "Ah was gonna make state this past season, but Ah had kinda a nasty fall and hurt my ankle. It didn't heal up in time for me ta get back inta the swing of things, so ta speak."

At Remy's curious look, she continued on. "My specialty is the uneven bars and Ah'm always swingin' and flippin' around. Even when Ah was little my momma always use'ta say Ah should be a gymnast 'cause Ah was always swingin' from the trees in our backyard."

Remy smiled at her little story. "Y'know, it jus' so happens dat I used t' be a gymnast fo' a while."

The girl pouted with a kind of sad curiosity. "Use'ta be? What happened?"

Remy sighed. "Couple'a years back I was on de rings and blew my rotator cuff." Remy put a hand to his right shoulder and rolled his arm forward, grimacing a bit. "Jus' was never de same after dat."

"Oh my goodness, ya poor thing."

"Merci." Remy thanked her for her sympathy. "Still hurts once in a while, though."

"Do ya need any help gettin' this stuff ta ya car? Ah could get one of my associates in the back ta cover the register while Ah help ya out."

Remy shook his head. "Non, ya don't have t'. I wouldn't want t' be--"

"Oh it's no trouble at all." She said and disappeared into the back.

Remy smiled to himself. Hook, line and sinker. She came back out a few minutes later and accompanied him to his car. They chatted some more and exchanged names and numbers while they loaded up Remy's car with his purchases. Jeanette (that was her name) "casually" let it slip that she got done work at five o'clock and Remy took the oblivious cue to ask her out. That was the whole trick with women; let them think that they were the one to get you to go out with them. If you could get that done, then the rest was easy. By the time all of Remy's things were in the car, he had earned himself a peck on the cheek.

Not a bad start to the day.

Rogue groaned and squeezed her eyes shut tighter in pain. When it had subsided some what, her eyes opened. She was outside, on the ground. Alone as far as she knew. She sat up, her body feeling achy and strangely heavy all over. Where in the hell was she? And why was she only in a green tank top and jeans? What the hell happened? Rogue tried to remember. Just before the team disbanded Xavier had sent her on a secret mission. He said it could help her with her powers. He told her to leave right after the announcement so as to not arouse suspicion. Everyone would just figure that she had been dying to get out and had seized the opportunity as soon as it arose. She was supposed to go to some place just outside of Caldecott. It was here where things started to break apart into flashes and bare wisps of memory. There was an old desolate dirt road and then along driveway and an old abandoned looking house and then, and then . . . and then there was nothing but blackness in her mind. Lordy, she had sure gotten herself into a fine mess. With a grunt, Rogue got to her feet and dusted herself off. There was a bag not to far from where she was and upon closer inspection she found that it was hers. She was at the bottom of some kind of shallow gully and Rogue began to climb her way up to the top. What she saw at the top she was not expecting. It was a road stretching as far as the eye could see; an interstate it looked like. Rogue guessed she was in some backwater part of the South because there was no one around, not even a car in sight.

Looks like Ah'm gonna be hitchin' it ta . . .somewhere. Rogue thought as she slid both arms into the straps of her pack and set off along the road. After a few steps she turned and started walking backwards, sticking her thumb out over the road.

What felt like hours later, Rogue was practically dragging her bag along the road and only half-heartedly keeping her thumb out. The good news was, wherever she was, it was still down south. She would never be able to mistake the unique heat and humidity. It clung to her skin like a thick goo and moving through it felt the same way. Giving up on hitchhiking, she turned back around and started walking forward. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. It was hot and she had no water, no food, no cell phone. Rogue looked farther up the road, putting a hand over her eyes to block out the sun. Was that? It was! A roadside diner. And it looked like it had people in it. And if it had people in it, then that meant that they were open and that they had food and water. Rogue quickly checked her pockets for money and found a wadded up twenty.

Ten minutes later, Rogue walked into the diner. The air conditioning felt marvelous on her overheated skin. She wiped the sweat off her brow and stood in the door way for a few moments, soaking in the cool air. A throat cleared somewhere in the diner and Rogue opened her eyes and took a seat at the counter. A woman walked up to her, with big curly hair like hers and chewing some gum.

"What'll be dear?"

"Water." Rogue said, surprised at the desperateness in her voice.

The waitress gave her an odd look. "That all?"

Rogue looked up at the menu on the wall behind the counter. "Catfish and hushpuppies please."

The waitress wrote it down on her pad and then tore it off. She took the piece of paper over to the window between the kitchen and the counter, hanging it on a spinner. "Fish and puppies!" She called back. The waitress then turned and reached under the counter and brought up a bottle of water and handed it to Rogue.

"Ah know this is gonna sound weird, but where are we?"

"'Interstate 59, 'bout a mile or two south of Picayune. Almost right on the border with Louisiana."

"Thank ya." Rogue said and opened her bottle of water. Interstate 59? How did she get this far east? Caldecott was near Interstate 55, right along the Mississippi River. Where the waitress had said they were put her a hell of a lot farther south as well. If her memory served her right, then she was closer to the Gulf and maybe less than 50 miles northeast of New Orleans. Shit, just what had happened to her?

Her food was placed in front of her and Rogue dug in greedily. It had been a long time since she had had her favorite dish, and even longer since it had been cooked the right way. She just couldn't find the proper supplies needed to make proper catfish and hushpuppies up north. She was almost finished her meal when a man came up to her and sat down next to her.

"Couldn't help but notice that ya walked your way here." He said in a gruff voice.

"Ah had car trouble a few miles up the road." Rogue lied coolly.

"Where ya headed?"

"New Orleans." She said. It was the closest major metropolitan area and Rogue had a feeling that she would need a city to get her bearings on things. She would be safe in the city. Besides, she had never seen The Big Easy and now was as good a time as any.

"Well, you're in luck." The man replied. "I just so happen ta be headin' that way myself."

"Ya wouldn't be offerin' me a ride now, would ya?" Rogue said, looking the man in the eye and getting straight to the point.

"Only if you're willin' ta ride in that big rig out there."

Rogue turned and looked out one of the diner windows to see the tail end of a semi truck that was parked on the side of the building. If worst came to worst, she could always throw his truck on top of him. "Deal."

The man stuck out a hand to shake. "Name's Ted."

"Anna." Rogue replied, using her current favorite alias. She looked uneasily down at Ted's outstretched hand. "Ah'm sorry, Ah don't shake hands. Kinda an OCD thing, don't like ta touch other people's hands."

Ted frowned for a second but then closed his hand into a fist. "Bump fists?"

At Rogue's odd look, Ted elaborated. "Ya know, like that Howie Mandel fella on TV."

"Oh." Rogue nodded slowly with realization. Well, if he was going to be that insistent on making some kind of handshake. . . Rogue closed her hand into a fist and quickly 'bumped fists' with Ted. She was expecting there to be some kind of pull, at least to make Ted dizzy or something. But there was nothing, nothing at all. Just flesh meeting flesh. There was no intake of memories or thoughts even in the slightest.

Rogue smiled to herself as she paid for her meal and followed Ted out to his truck. If she would have known going on some secret mission and waking up on the side of a highway would have canceled out her power somehow, she would have done it a long time ago.

"Ya know, normally Ah don't do this on a first date." Jeanette said as Remy pushed her up to the door to his house.

"Dat's okay chere, dere's a first time for everyt'in'." Remy said into her neck as he unlocked the door. They stumbled inside and closed the door behind them by way of pushing it closed with their bodies. Remy had cleaned up considerably since his stop at the hardware store, but still had a lot of work to do. Hopefully, he would be able to keep Jeanette distracted from it. Remy wasn't sure if he would be up to doing this tonight, after all, he had been doing manual labor for most of the day. But when he saw Jeanette at the restaurant in her little black dress that showed off her perfect legs, Remy knew he'd have to be neutered not to want that. He reached down and grabbed the hem of her short dress and lifted it up over her head so that she was now only in a bra and thong. Yay. Remy shifted them away from the door and started making his way up the stairs, lips connected to Jeanette's the entire time. He lost his shirt at the bottom of the stairs and his pants somewhere near the top. When they got into his room, Remy pushed Jeanette down on the bed and removed the rest of her (and his) clothing. He took hers off with his teeth, which Jeanette seemed to like very much along with various other things Remy was doing to her body.

When they were done christening the new sheets he had bought that afternoon, Remy laid back contently. He laced his fingers behind his head and smiled slightly as Jeanette snuggled up to him and fell asleep.

The women of New Orleans had best lock their doors because Remy LeBeau was back in town and he was on the prowl.

A/N: I know, I know, I know. I really shouldn't be putting out new stuff but this fic and another have seemed to eaten my brain for the summer. And since a full time job with boxes and such saps a lot of time and energy out of me, I rarely have energy to work on anything else. But damn it, I'm trying! I have done some work on Runaway Rogue and Affliction, so don't lose hope! This was inspired by the first romance novel that I bought. It was set in the Bayou and had Cajuns in it and I immediately thought of Remy the entire story. I'm going to try my best to keep things romance-based and not get too drama-y, but I'm not making any concrete promises. It's basically just semi-fluffy summer romance crap to feed my Romy muse. Ye be warned. Review and tell me what you think!

M.W.