It was all a dream, she knew it. She could tell by the fuzzy way the scenery faded out at the edges, by the way some things remained in sharp focus no matter how she turned her head, and how other things refused to resolve themselves despite her persistent staring, despite narrowing her bright green eyes. The vague knowledge that this was a dream, however, didn't help stave off the gnawing chill that the rain splattered against her skin, didn't ease the simmering disquiet in her heart.
Rogue stood with her arms crossed beneath her bust, hands splayed against her upper arms as she hugged herself against the rain. Too gentle to be a true storm and too savage to be a shower, it was simply rain and had already soaked her to the bone. Her hair plastered to her forehead, but she ignored it. There were other things on her mind.
She wasn't in Weschester, which is where she had been when she went to sleep. Instead, the browbeating rain that soaked the scenery around her soaked a rich, lush image of backwater bayou country. It was a childhood memory plucked from the jumble of recollections she possessed that were really Remy LeBeau's. It was his past and not her own that she was lost in, and considering how poorly they had handled their last encounter together, she was a little bit surprised.
Watching the rain patter down into the broad river was getting her nowhere, however, and Rogue sighed. Turning her head a bit too violently, she began to trudge back through the dripping forest towards the house she couldn't see and had never visited but still somehow knew was there. If nothing else, it would get her out of the rain.
She found him just far enough up the path that she would have never seen him from the riverside, standing hunch-shouldered with his hands deep in the pockets of his trademark trenchcoat. He was as soaked as she was, hair hanging limply past eyes of fire and ash. Even over the distance between them she could see those eyes burn. Her hands clutched a little tighter along her uniform's jacket, and Rogue managed to school most of the lingering anger and desperation from her voice. "Gambit."
She could feel his eyes focus on her face, zeroing in with a raptor's precision. He pulled his hands from his pockets, tilting them palm-up towards the sky and allowing rain to pool in the hollow of his hand. Head cocked back minutely and eyes shielding against something Rogue couldn't see, Remy's voice traveled the distance on the tail end of distant thunder, made all the more smooth and tumbling for it. "What is it you wan' from me, cheré?"
It wasn't a question she could answer, and Rogue felt her spine stiffening despite herself. The certain knowledge that this was just a dream faded to the back of her mind as the more pressing irritation with the Cajun shoved its way forward. She narrowed her eyes, pushing hair out of her face with one hand. "What?"
And then Remy was moving forward, his widespread hands moving forward to entreat her. "You push me 'way, you pull me close. You cut me loose an' den give me holy hell for actin' like I done been cut loose. What am I s'posed to do, girl?" She could see, as he got closer, the torn, troubled expression playing over his mouth and in the back of his eyes. It was a far cry from the normal laughter and lopsided smirk he treated the world.
Rogue's expression dragged to something a bit sharper, and she tipped her head defiantly. Arms that had begun as a loose, unconfident hug around herself resolved into a real, sassy cross that just barely lifted her bust up. "Gambit, if you think Ah--"
"Dis ain't 'bout what I t'ink, cheré." Remy's frown grew sharper, and he drew even closer to her, craning his neck downwards to fix her eyes with his own. Such a sharp gaze, when he wanted it to be, so frightfully disappointed. It made Rogue want to catch her breath in the back of her throat, but instead forced her to scowl at him as his words continued. "It's 'bout what you wan'. An' how you 'spect me t'know, when you don' even know y'self."
Her arms dropped from their cross to prop hands loosely balled into fists on her hips before Rogue even really knew she was going for the position. Deep irritation that was quickly blossoming into anger seethed beneath her skin, tangling with something that she couldn't quite place. The fact that she wasn't quite sure what it was didn't help her mood. Neither did the rain pelting down on her. "And Ah s'pose you think you're gonna help me decide what 'xactly it is Ah want, Cajun." Sometimes, she really couldn't believe the things that came out of his mouth. "Fat chance. Now, yer in mah way." Dropping her hands, she started to brush past him and up that path. She wasn't in the mood for any of his mind-games today.
Remy, however, didn't seem at all inclined to let her past. As she dropped her hands, his own left hand darted out, catching her right by the wrist and holding fast. She stopped, green eyes blazing defiant fire as she looked to his fingers and then up to his face. The barest corner of Gambit's mouth was twisting up at one side, and his words as his face tipped forward a bit betrayed an inner amusement. "Oh, I mean to, cheré."
And then he was kissing her, her chin caught between the thumb and forefinger of the hand that wasn't holding her wrist.
Rogue's initial reaction was to panic; to pull her hand away as she pushed against him, banking on her superior strength to save him from the fate her powers would doom him to. But as her gloved hand cuffed against his shoulder and did little more than force him to roll it , she realized her stolen super-strength was gone.
It was about that time that she realized nothing was happening.
Perhaps 'nothing' wasn't quite the right word. Something was clearly happening, but it certainly wasn't her absorption power. No, instead, it was Remy's lips against hers, soft and closed and insistent. A heartbeat longer, and then Gambit pulled away, peeling his fingers away from around her wrist. Knowing, fiery eyes watched her face carefully, and Rogue was sure that he could see the flush rising in her cheeks despite the rain and the chill. "…wuh?"
He didn't say. Maybe he didn't need to; Rogue wasn't sure she really wanted to know what had changed, what allowed this to happen. Instead he was reaching out, and with fingers unfiltered by gloves or a careful layer of her hair, he was skimming across the line of her cheekbone. Fingertips made rough by a life of prying into things and dragging heavy, plastic-coated paper across them, and now they were dragging so delicately right across her cheek. And nothing was happening. Rogue's voice half-died in her throat as she watched him, vaguely confused, as she felt his fingers trace over the top of her ear and twine gently with the hair behind her head. Soft and silently demanding, he pulled at her to step closer, and Rogue was a hair too stunned to let anything else happen.
The second kiss was nothing like the first. The first one was chaste and fleeting, as if only a means of imparting information. This one imparted nothing but desire. His mouth was hot and practiced; with it he took what he wanted and encouraged her to take from him in return. The tip of his tongue traced the edge of her lip, and then the edge of her teeth, and she realized he tasted of musky, used nicotine and something exotic and indefinable. Despite herself, Rogue found her fingers trailing up his shoulder, dragging to the back of his neck to knit with the short, soft hair there.
Remy's hand unwound from her hair, sliding down even as the second hand skittered across the hip of her uniform, and he pulled her closer still, until his body pressed against hers. She could feel the natural heat of his body, feel the strength of his desire in the air between him as he leaned into her. She could taste it on his lips as they pulled away from hers only to touch close again. One hand was restless once she was close enough, dragging lightly up her back and under the jacket, tracing soft patterns through the tight fabric. Slow an insidious motion, Rogue didn't quite realize where Remy's fingers were wandering until the rugged knuckle of his thumb brushed against the bottom of her breast. Her fingers tightened against his neck, which only made the irascible Cajun pull away just enough to smile impishly.
"Relax, cheré, an' trus' Gambit." He leaned his forehead against hers, breath warm against her mouth, and the brushing knuckle turned, resolved into fingers smoothing over the swell of flesh there. Briefly, Remy's palm pressed against the very crown of her breast, and then his hand was trailing away, soothing down her side and along the flare of her hip and leaving a wake of incredible, shivering heat.
Hesitantly, Rogue turned her head barely to the side, running her cheek along his as his fingers slid once up and back down over the corduroy pattern of her ribs. Rough stubble scraped her skin, harsh and sharp, but she didn't care. She reveled in it, just as she reveled in the practiced play of his hand through the uniform. Long fingers trailed across her stomach carefully, contoured the design of her abdomen, before suddenly dropping downwards and insistently drawing along the crease of her leg, where it met her hip. Her voice was high and breathless with shock. "Remy!"
"Rogue." Gambit answered his name with hers, voice low and husky. His teasing fingers slide to the side to go cupping and still, and Rogue's eyes widened fingers in his hair tightening into a ball. Heedless of what might have been a warning, the Cajun drug his mouth in a series of kisses along her jawline, repeating with more imperative tone. "Rogue."
Rogue had no words to answer him with, not caught up in the sudden surge of sexuality as she was. She closed her eyes against the rush of sensations, and found herself vaguely disappointed as Remy pulled his hands both oh-so-slowly back to her shoulders. Hot breath against her neck faded, and Rogue was left puzzled as Remy called her name again, this time giving her body a firm and undeniable shake. He did not sound as pleased as he had only seconds ago. Green eyes rolled open.
The Louisiana countryside was gone. Likewise was the storm, the water soaking through her skin and hair. Gone, too, was the hot-mouthed and tangible Cajun, all the desire and sex he had been charged with and imparting into her. Instead, Remy's face--hovering over hers as he leaned over her bed--was drawn in shadow and frowns, and he pulled his hands away from her shoulders at the first indication she was awake. "Com'on, Cyke says you was s'posed t'be up an hour 'go an' meetin' him in de Danger Room." Voice dull and clipped, Remy turned as soon as the message was delivered and stalked out of the room in a swirl of trenchcoat. His voice echoed in the hallway, muttering, before the door slammed itself shut. "Nex' time he bes' be findin' someone else t'run his messages, what do I look like, de paper-boy?"
Rogue blinked dumbly after the door for a long moment before managing a shakey sigh and tousling her hair with her fingers. She could already tell it was going to be a long, long day.