Disclaimer: No characters here are mine.
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Author's Note: Sorry, I guess it will be four chapters. No resolution here, but I'm answering some questions with this section.
Note: This is NOT a bash fest for Rogue, Joseph or Remy. Fanfiction can be bash, but that isn't a central element. Just because I write angst doesn't mean it's bash.
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"Who's gonna hold me tonight when I'm feeling lonely? Who's gonna show me the light? 'Cuz I need to know. With all the things we've got, how can love just stop? Somebody tell me, somebody help me understand." ~Trace Adkins, Help Me Understand .
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For Rogue, regret was second-nature. She wished dearly that she hadn't sent Joseph after Remy. She wished that Remy could accept that her life didn't revolve around him. She wished that she'd been more understanding.
She wished for a lot of things.
After watching Joseph return from the men's room with a guilty look on his face, she'd confronted him. Joseph, sheepishly, had explained the entire conversation at a rapid rate, then had run off as Rogue had threatened to tear his eyes out. How could he? She hadn't sent him in to say that.
Even so, she didn't wish to change who she'd finally chosen.
And what Remy had said, she had expected nothing less from him. He'd taken the imprinting of his psyche as a token of trust, not as a simple effect of her power. And just because she knew that he prone to depression and stress, did that mean she had to base her life around him? What was so hard about just being friends?
The hard thing was he hadn't stopped loving her. Not even close. And she realized, grudgingly, that she'd never stopped loving him back. That was why she'd sent Joseph in, to tell Remy to move on. That was why she feigned indifference to their past, to beg him to be happy. That was why she was at times even cruel to him, to prove to him that she wasn't his anymore. If he finally stopped pining for her, wouldn't he be happier? Wouldn't they both be happier? Why couldn't he understand that sometimes everyone had to make sacrifices, for themselves and for each other?
"Rogue?" Joseph peered around the corner at his pregnant fiancé, and at the several empty cans of sliced pineapple around her. "Rogue...I'm sorry."
She turned her head slowly, without blinking, and stared at him. He'd done it out of jealousy, true, but that didn't make it justified. She'd wanted to break it to the Cajun gently, and Joseph had the subtlety of a large hammer.
"You aren't going to gouge my eyes out, are you?" He said, trying desperately to lighten the mood. Despite the hopelessness of her situation, Rogue smiled.
He moved over to the bed, sat down next to her. She leaned her head on his shoulder, staring at their reflection in the mirrored door of the closet.
"Joseph, am Ah cruel?" Joseph ran his fingers through her hair, trying vainly to comfort her. Sometimes she could be, but she wasn't on a consistent basis. Most of the time, she was lovely and kind and wonderful and he loved her, it was just those little times when her temper snapped, or when she was making a hard decision.
"No. No, Rogue, you aren't cruel."
"Am Ah selfish?" Again, sometimes she was and sometimes she wasn't. He figured that she was no more selfish than anyone else, just a normal person.
"No, you aren't selfish."
"Am Ah-"
He interrupted her. "Do you think I really would be engaged to someone who was cruel and selfish and anything other than perfect?" True, she wasn't perfect, but in his eyes she was.
The long pause that followed was broken only by the laughing of children outside. Joseph looked down at her, but her expression told him nothing.
She finally broke the tension. "Joseph?"
Joseph cringed at the thought of another question. "Yes?"
"Thanks." Looking up at him and smiling, she felt the slightest bit of morale. They could get through this, though it would be a rocky road for her, Joseph and Remy. It would be hard for all of them, but whatever came, they'd manage.
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Why did he have to look at that picture? Of all pictures, he'd had to choose that one. The one of them on the motorcycle, smiling, open and daring to take on the world. Rogue with her green scarf, back before she'd learned how to control her power, and her ever-present gloves. Grinning mouth parted ever so slightly, brow furrowed, she was telling Jean "Don't you dare touch that camera". But she'd liked it. She'd thrived on the attention.
And Remy in his KBUL T-shirt and jeans, leaning cockily against her shoulder. Back when. Way back when.
Why did he have to look at that picture?
Remy knew that that had been here favorite photograph. Maybe that's why he'd looked at it. Either way, despite the smiles brought by temporary reminiscence, it was a very bad choice. That was in the past. He'd had his life good in the past, but it didn't do to dwell on things.
Which he thought, was precisely what he was brooding over. The past.
He hated that picture. It was some demon that had haunted his sleep with temptation. It would be so easy to go back to her, to beg for her love, to explain to her how lost he was. It would be so easy to track Joseph down and beat the snot out of him. Neither situation, however, would end happily.
That was all he wanted for Rogue, a happy ending. The kind of ending he couldn't give her himself.
What he wanted for himself, though, was a different thing entirely.
He wanted her to be happy; he wanted her to be his. And if neither could coincide, he'd feel cheated whichever way it ended.
He couldn't even admit to himself how much she still hurt him. She was an old wound that had never healed, and each time she laughed the memory of the pain arose again. Every smile he hadn't been the source of was a new dagger; the unintentional bounce in her step was a fresh injury. Acceptance was the way to healing, but God knows it hurt like all hell.
Without thinking about it, he'd picked up the photograph. With an equal amount of thought, he pulled back his fist and punched it. He punched it until the glass shards fell to the floor, until the frame had broken, until his knuckles were raw and bleeding. Only then did he look at the torn remains of the photo and realize what he'd just destroyed.
With that picture, he'd destroyed a connection to her.
And it felt wonderful.
He didn't want to put it in the past and forget. Putting his head in his hands, he shuddered. The beads of blood dripped from his hand to the white sheets on the bed. They left stains.
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"What did you do to yourself?" Hank bustled about the medical lab, finding bandages and stitches. Remy sat on a chair in the corner, inspecting the cuts on his hand. They'd inflamed over the two days he'd kept them hidden.
"It was an accident." Discreetly, Hank rolled his eyes. Of course it was an accident, heaven forbid Remy tell the truth to his doctor. Heaven forbid he told the truth to his friend.
"Was keeping it hidden and waiting until it got infected an accident too?" The doctor asked sarcastically. Remy's face betrayed no emotion. Only the sudden tensing of his shoulders told Hank he'd been unnerved.
"It was an accident." The thief repeated again, meekly.
Hank fought back the urge to say something else. Instead, he pulled out a needle, threaded it with synthetic catgut and started stitching. Was Remy so depressed he'd sunk to self-mutilation?
"How's Trish?" Remy broke the uncomfortable silence, mainly because it allowed time to think of the needle plunging in and out of his skin. No matter how many fights and wounds he suffered, he hated stitches the most.
Hank found a cleansing solution and finished with the first row of stitches. "She's fine. She's hoping for a raise soon, you know. Hang on a second, this'll sting a bit."
Remy bit his lip as his lacerations were cleaned, but didn't make any other indication of pain. Hank decided to abandon the cheery atmosphere.
"Everyone's wondering why you haven't left yet. It was never in your nature to stick around before." It was the question everyone had wondered about.
Remy didn't seem affected by the interrogation. "Where to?"
So that was it. Hank had to admit, he didn't know a lot of places Remy could head to anyway. Not many places would take in a mutant thief, and since he'd been banished from New Orleans, well, there weren't many options.
"Is this the notoriously impulsive Remy LeBeau thinking ahead for once?" Hank asked playfully.
Remy gave a smile back. "Peut etre."
Several minutes and many stitches and antibiotics later, Hank patted Remy heartily on the back. "You're free to go now."
Still smiling, Remy jumped with a bit of the old hotshot flourish. "Merci. Happy holidays and joyeux noel."
"Oh, and Remy?" Hank wanted one last word. At the door, Remy turned. "Take care of yourself."
Knowing fully well what Hank really meant, Remy nodded, but his smile became a work of artifice. With a quick wave of his hand, he walked away.
Hank stayed in his lab, wondering why he bothered to interfere with lovers' quarrels. Maybe it was because they seemed so inept at sorting it out for themselves. Sometimes they just needed a bit of a push in the right direction.
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Author's Note: Sorry, I guess it will be four chapters. No resolution here, but I'm answering some questions with this section.
Note: This is NOT a bash fest for Rogue, Joseph or Remy. Fanfiction can be bash, but that isn't a central element. Just because I write angst doesn't mean it's bash.
.
.
"Who's gonna hold me tonight when I'm feeling lonely? Who's gonna show me the light? 'Cuz I need to know. With all the things we've got, how can love just stop? Somebody tell me, somebody help me understand." ~Trace Adkins, Help Me Understand .
.
For Rogue, regret was second-nature. She wished dearly that she hadn't sent Joseph after Remy. She wished that Remy could accept that her life didn't revolve around him. She wished that she'd been more understanding.
She wished for a lot of things.
After watching Joseph return from the men's room with a guilty look on his face, she'd confronted him. Joseph, sheepishly, had explained the entire conversation at a rapid rate, then had run off as Rogue had threatened to tear his eyes out. How could he? She hadn't sent him in to say that.
Even so, she didn't wish to change who she'd finally chosen.
And what Remy had said, she had expected nothing less from him. He'd taken the imprinting of his psyche as a token of trust, not as a simple effect of her power. And just because she knew that he prone to depression and stress, did that mean she had to base her life around him? What was so hard about just being friends?
The hard thing was he hadn't stopped loving her. Not even close. And she realized, grudgingly, that she'd never stopped loving him back. That was why she'd sent Joseph in, to tell Remy to move on. That was why she feigned indifference to their past, to beg him to be happy. That was why she was at times even cruel to him, to prove to him that she wasn't his anymore. If he finally stopped pining for her, wouldn't he be happier? Wouldn't they both be happier? Why couldn't he understand that sometimes everyone had to make sacrifices, for themselves and for each other?
"Rogue?" Joseph peered around the corner at his pregnant fiancé, and at the several empty cans of sliced pineapple around her. "Rogue...I'm sorry."
She turned her head slowly, without blinking, and stared at him. He'd done it out of jealousy, true, but that didn't make it justified. She'd wanted to break it to the Cajun gently, and Joseph had the subtlety of a large hammer.
"You aren't going to gouge my eyes out, are you?" He said, trying desperately to lighten the mood. Despite the hopelessness of her situation, Rogue smiled.
He moved over to the bed, sat down next to her. She leaned her head on his shoulder, staring at their reflection in the mirrored door of the closet.
"Joseph, am Ah cruel?" Joseph ran his fingers through her hair, trying vainly to comfort her. Sometimes she could be, but she wasn't on a consistent basis. Most of the time, she was lovely and kind and wonderful and he loved her, it was just those little times when her temper snapped, or when she was making a hard decision.
"No. No, Rogue, you aren't cruel."
"Am Ah selfish?" Again, sometimes she was and sometimes she wasn't. He figured that she was no more selfish than anyone else, just a normal person.
"No, you aren't selfish."
"Am Ah-"
He interrupted her. "Do you think I really would be engaged to someone who was cruel and selfish and anything other than perfect?" True, she wasn't perfect, but in his eyes she was.
The long pause that followed was broken only by the laughing of children outside. Joseph looked down at her, but her expression told him nothing.
She finally broke the tension. "Joseph?"
Joseph cringed at the thought of another question. "Yes?"
"Thanks." Looking up at him and smiling, she felt the slightest bit of morale. They could get through this, though it would be a rocky road for her, Joseph and Remy. It would be hard for all of them, but whatever came, they'd manage.
.
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Why did he have to look at that picture? Of all pictures, he'd had to choose that one. The one of them on the motorcycle, smiling, open and daring to take on the world. Rogue with her green scarf, back before she'd learned how to control her power, and her ever-present gloves. Grinning mouth parted ever so slightly, brow furrowed, she was telling Jean "Don't you dare touch that camera". But she'd liked it. She'd thrived on the attention.
And Remy in his KBUL T-shirt and jeans, leaning cockily against her shoulder. Back when. Way back when.
Why did he have to look at that picture?
Remy knew that that had been here favorite photograph. Maybe that's why he'd looked at it. Either way, despite the smiles brought by temporary reminiscence, it was a very bad choice. That was in the past. He'd had his life good in the past, but it didn't do to dwell on things.
Which he thought, was precisely what he was brooding over. The past.
He hated that picture. It was some demon that had haunted his sleep with temptation. It would be so easy to go back to her, to beg for her love, to explain to her how lost he was. It would be so easy to track Joseph down and beat the snot out of him. Neither situation, however, would end happily.
That was all he wanted for Rogue, a happy ending. The kind of ending he couldn't give her himself.
What he wanted for himself, though, was a different thing entirely.
He wanted her to be happy; he wanted her to be his. And if neither could coincide, he'd feel cheated whichever way it ended.
He couldn't even admit to himself how much she still hurt him. She was an old wound that had never healed, and each time she laughed the memory of the pain arose again. Every smile he hadn't been the source of was a new dagger; the unintentional bounce in her step was a fresh injury. Acceptance was the way to healing, but God knows it hurt like all hell.
Without thinking about it, he'd picked up the photograph. With an equal amount of thought, he pulled back his fist and punched it. He punched it until the glass shards fell to the floor, until the frame had broken, until his knuckles were raw and bleeding. Only then did he look at the torn remains of the photo and realize what he'd just destroyed.
With that picture, he'd destroyed a connection to her.
And it felt wonderful.
He didn't want to put it in the past and forget. Putting his head in his hands, he shuddered. The beads of blood dripped from his hand to the white sheets on the bed. They left stains.
.
.
"What did you do to yourself?" Hank bustled about the medical lab, finding bandages and stitches. Remy sat on a chair in the corner, inspecting the cuts on his hand. They'd inflamed over the two days he'd kept them hidden.
"It was an accident." Discreetly, Hank rolled his eyes. Of course it was an accident, heaven forbid Remy tell the truth to his doctor. Heaven forbid he told the truth to his friend.
"Was keeping it hidden and waiting until it got infected an accident too?" The doctor asked sarcastically. Remy's face betrayed no emotion. Only the sudden tensing of his shoulders told Hank he'd been unnerved.
"It was an accident." The thief repeated again, meekly.
Hank fought back the urge to say something else. Instead, he pulled out a needle, threaded it with synthetic catgut and started stitching. Was Remy so depressed he'd sunk to self-mutilation?
"How's Trish?" Remy broke the uncomfortable silence, mainly because it allowed time to think of the needle plunging in and out of his skin. No matter how many fights and wounds he suffered, he hated stitches the most.
Hank found a cleansing solution and finished with the first row of stitches. "She's fine. She's hoping for a raise soon, you know. Hang on a second, this'll sting a bit."
Remy bit his lip as his lacerations were cleaned, but didn't make any other indication of pain. Hank decided to abandon the cheery atmosphere.
"Everyone's wondering why you haven't left yet. It was never in your nature to stick around before." It was the question everyone had wondered about.
Remy didn't seem affected by the interrogation. "Where to?"
So that was it. Hank had to admit, he didn't know a lot of places Remy could head to anyway. Not many places would take in a mutant thief, and since he'd been banished from New Orleans, well, there weren't many options.
"Is this the notoriously impulsive Remy LeBeau thinking ahead for once?" Hank asked playfully.
Remy gave a smile back. "Peut etre."
Several minutes and many stitches and antibiotics later, Hank patted Remy heartily on the back. "You're free to go now."
Still smiling, Remy jumped with a bit of the old hotshot flourish. "Merci. Happy holidays and joyeux noel."
"Oh, and Remy?" Hank wanted one last word. At the door, Remy turned. "Take care of yourself."
Knowing fully well what Hank really meant, Remy nodded, but his smile became a work of artifice. With a quick wave of his hand, he walked away.
Hank stayed in his lab, wondering why he bothered to interfere with lovers' quarrels. Maybe it was because they seemed so inept at sorting it out for themselves. Sometimes they just needed a bit of a push in the right direction.