Sorry for the long wait. The last two months have been crazy busy, and at this point I have a strong longing to throw something at my history teacher for being incompetent. Yes, I KNOW WHAT A F***ING MUSKEG IS! WE'VE BEEN ON THIS FOR FORTY FIVE MINUTES! CAN WE PLEASE MOVE ON!

Grrrrrrrr. But things have started to slow down, with less than half of the weddings, confirmations, major projects, quizzes, ridiculously complicated assignments, random times of my parents saying 'CLEAN THE HOUSE OR DIE!' and new purchases of computers of the last two months.

Sorry, I've been rambling. If you're still reading this note, kudos to you.

Here it is, enjoy.

Her sleep was restless. Remy watched as she whimpered and tossed and turned, the invisible monsters of her mind ruthlessly attacking her. He could feel her horror and fear rolling off of her in heady waves, berating his own mind and making sleep for himself impossible as his muscles automatically clenched to face any threat she feared that he couldn't see, even though his common sense told him that there was nothing to be worried about.

But still, her fear had set off his adrenalin, and it was hard to sleep when your heart was racing specifically to keep you awake.

So he instead watched her on the other side of the room, watched her as a sheen of sweat covered her pallid skin, as she mumbled objections and exclamations of fear, as she moved arms over her head as if to try and protect herself from an inevitable strike, and finally as she shot up from her uneasy slumber, rod straight and chocking on her own breath, clearly holding back a scream.

Remy saw her eyes shift a few times, brown and blue and hazel and black, as she tried to blink away the tears that were gathering in her eyes. Tears of relief or tears of horror, he didn't know for sure thanks to the strong mixture of non-compatible emotions coming from her, but he did know that whatever it was that was wrong with her head was doing something.

Judging by the way she kept cringing and by the despair that came from her whenever her eyes became green, it wasn't a good thing.

Tears of despair then.

He watched her carefully as her eyes shifted more and more rapidly, at times almost blending into one another, and her eyes becoming glossy, her lip beginning to tremble.

And she screamed at the silence to shut up.

He had thought the blood lust she had been feeling towards him earlier was alarmingly potent, that the way she had genuinely wanted to see him die was frightening.

But it was nothing compared to this… passionate loathing. The way he could actually see that her hatred made every muscle in her body clench and spasm. The way she lifted her head as if she was glaring at God himself, demanding that her wishes be heeded or she would set fire to his earth. The way she felt ready, and able, to get up and crush the world in her palm if they disobeyed her.

And then, before he could comprehend the transition, she was in tears.

Remy hadn't known what to do with that. The Rogue, the one that every last one of his sources had told him was always carefully cool, carefully blank, carefully emotionless, that he had witnessed himself being calm and collected, was weeping right there in front of him like… like… oh, who knows? Like every last one of her family members had been slaughtered in front of her?

That was something that made people sob so hard that their whole body shook with the effort of it, right?

So what did Remy do? Why, he did what any gentleman with half a mind would have done in his situation. He went over there to comfort the lady.

Of course, this 'lady' did snarl at him wildly and jerk away as he tried to place a comforting hand on her shoulder, her eyes continuing to rapidly shift into every possible (and even some not-possible) color as she glared at him with tears still running down her face.

"Chère?"

Her eyes snapped back to green, despair returning tenfold as he said that one word. Then there was a dash of anger, and of brown in her left eye, and her face crumpled as renewed sobs wrenched her body.

He sat next to her awkwardly for a moment, hands hovering over her, unsure what to do. She was, for obvious reasons, sensitive to any kind of physical contact. Remy had had his fair share of girlfriends, many of whom he had seen cry in front of him more then he would have liked. But on all of those occasions he had been able to comfort them with flattering words and tender touches, neither of which he expected to work on Rogue.

But, never the less, he tried. He tried to give her a friendly hug, though it turned out just being an awkward sort of arm-over-her-shoulders… thing.

He opened his mouth to try and give her some comforting words, but before a sound could escape...

She leaned into him.

He honestly hadn't known what to expect, but that hadn't been it. Push him away and call him no-good Cajun scum, maybe, at the very best remain indifferent, but accept the embrace? He had not seen that coming. Just like he hadn't expected for her tears to slowly disappear, or for her to tiredly lean her head onto his chest, a sort of… contentment radiating off of her.

He was surprised, but he wasn't complaining. He automatically moved his arms from around her shoulders to around her waist, pulling her slightly closer. Remy LeBeau was not someone to refuse a beautiful woman who wanted to be held.

Her eyes, emerald again, glanced up at him, exhaustion clearly clouding them.

"Hey, Gambit?" she murmured as her eyelids drooped.

"Mhmm?" he stared at her pinkish lips through mostly-closed eyes as her mouth turned into a weak scowl.

"If you feel me up, Ah swear to God I'll castrate you."

He chuckled lightly as her eyes fluttered closed. Now that was what he expected to hear from her. For a moment there, he had actually thought she was going to thank him or something.

"I'll keep dat in mind, chère." He whispered to her as he felt her drift off, back into sleep, this time soundly as he leaned them both back onto the ground so they were lying semi-comfortably. Well, she was lying semi-comfortably. He, on the other hand, got the brunt of the not-so-comfortable floor.

Remy stared down at her face as she slept, a small smile hovering around her lips, so scarce he wasn't completely sure it was really there. But what were indisputably there were the content feelings now coming off of her, the strange mixture of emotions from before now missing. Remy didn't know if he was more confused or flattered.

Flattered because it was like now that she was closer to him, the nightmares seemed to have gone away, presumably because of his dashing good looks and oh-so-wonderful personality. And confused because, judging by the way she'd been trying to kill him and gouge his eyeballs out of his head; his presence shouldn't have made her happy.

Unless he was mistaken about her being asleep and he was actually about to die. He almost checked to see if there was a dagger pressed to his stomach when he remembered that Mortis and Blink would have searched Rogue for any hidden weapons when they changed her into the prisoner uniform.

So… was it something about him? Some trait that she subconsciously found comforting? She was from the south, he could tell as much from her Mississippi accent, and yet she lived in New York. Surely something about him must have reminded her of the home she had obviously been away from for a long time. That could be comforting enough to calm nightmares. He was pretty sure there was some psycho-whatsit study that went along those lines.

Though her nightmares didn't seem like the kind that psycho-whatsits would take into consideration, and judging by the way her eyes had been changing almost spastically after she woke up, he would put his money on power-caused nightmares.

I am one hundred and one different people, all conveniently wrapped up into one little package.

That's what she'd said. Which pretty much ruled out split personality, as a person with more than two personalities were pretty much non-existent, and more than one hundred personalities was kind of pushing it. But the mood-swings, layered emotions, long pauses in conversation, changing eyes, responding to silence, blank looks, and random grimaces did suggest there was more than one person in her head, and that they didn't exactly see eye to eye. Probably a large collection of voices in her head, somehow caused by her powers.

What did he know about her mutation? If the information from his sources was as accurate as he believed (and it better be, or he knew a couple of people in New Orleans who'd just become unemployed), he knew when she came into skin-to-skin contact with someone, she absorbed their energy. This included their life force (leading to pain, unconsciousness, and possibly death), knowledge about that person's plans and abilities, and in the case of mutants, temporary power absorption.

So… she had voices in her head caused by her mutation of absorbing everything that makes a person a person through skin contact. Including knowledge. Knowledge that she'd have to go into a person's mind specifically to absorb. Was it that every time she needed to find some information from the person she absorbed she gets an imprint of their personality in her mind? One that would cause her trouble and make her eyes change color whenever the personality became prominent?

That sounded about right. But there were so many different eye colors and moods. She was how old? Seventeen? Eighteen? She couldn't have had her mutation all that long. Remy's had appeared when he was around fourteen, and he heard that they almost never showed up before twelve years of age. So six years with the mutation, tops. And probably three of those years too young to be using her mutation for information gathering, unless Xavier's was more eager to 'change the world' then Remy had originally thought.

He doubted all those eyes came from her trying to find information in the last three years, especially if she clearly was not happy about them. She wouldn't have just gone around absorbing people for the fun of it, or even if her superior had told her to, considering it obviously wasn't a pleasant experience for her.

And if he had her powers, he'd probably be mostly using it to absorb the powers of others more then to find information. Clearly, she had little to no control over her powers, and probably wouldn't be able to pick out specific information anyways. Why, she probably always took information from the people she absorbed, whether she wanted to or not.

Along with a little copy of them.

Well, that's not fun. And she was an X-man, too. He was pretty sure a lot of the people they faced were deeply disturbed people, deeply disturbed people she had probably absorbed one time or another.

Again, not fun.

It was no wonder her sleep hadn't been calm earlier, with that kind of crap piled up behind her skull. Heck, it was a wonder how she wasn't screaming now.

And she definitely wasn't screaming. Quite the contrary, actually, as Remy felt her arms winding around his chest, hugging him close as she shifted herself slightly so that her face was more on his shoulder then on his chest. A small, almost bubbly giggle vibrated in her throat as she nuzzled the fabric covering his shoulder.

He smiled slightly, placing a hand on her head and gently rubbing the silky strands of her hair through his fingers and deciding that she was much more likable when she was asleep.

Rogue was pretty, even though at the moment she didn't exactly look her best. Her thick auburn and white curls looked like a pile upon pile upon pile of knots and tangles, not to mention the mascara she must have quickly put on before leaving with her friends was by now running down her face and smudged around her eyes, making the dark circles already there look darker.

But she was still pretty. Her face was still appealing, her lips still full and pink, her nose still straight, her hair still shining, her jaw still femininely curved. And though when awake her features were obscured by scowls and grimaces and snarls, in sleep she looked… sweet.

She mumbled something about 'com'ere', reaching up a hand to curl into his hair and pull herself closer to his face.

He stiffened slightly when he felt her face moving towards the exposed skin of his neck, not daring to move an inch as she stopped with her nose a hair's breath away from the flesh, a light buzzing of anticipation seeming to hum along his skin.

She inhaled deeply. The feeling of contentment coming off of her increased, and he couldn't help but feel a little amused, despite the fact that her skin was dangerously close to his, by her apparent fondness of his smell.

She made a small 'Mmm' sound in the back of her throat before pressing her face right up to his skin, inhaling again.

He held his breath as he felt the contact, cringing slightly as he prepared to be absorbed. It was about ten seconds before he finally made himself relax.

Okay, good. Whatever had caused her powers to not work on him earlier was still going strong. That was good, because he was fairly certain that if it hadn't he'd be either dead or dying by now and Rogue probably wouldn't have realized it until she woke up in the morning.

Dying was not something he wanted to do just yet. Someday, yes, but not at that moment.

Her head was tucked snugly under his chin, making it impossible for him to look down at her without disturbing her slumber. And, as he mentioned before, she was more likable asleep, Remy didn't really feel like doing that just yet.

So instead he reached up to her head, brushing back some of her hair so to reveal the alabaster skin of her neck, gently brushing his rough fingertips along the smooth flesh.

Virgin skin. He was probably the first to touch it without ill-effects since her powers manifested.

How special.

He continued to lightly stroke her skin, feeling carefully for anything, anything that might indicate what was stopping her mutation from working on him.

Obviously their powers weren't being negated, as his night vision was still working in the dark room and he could still feel the energy of the room, the energy floating in the air, cackling at his fingertips, though he knew that he wouldn't be able to make anything explode if he even bothered trying to convert it to kinetic energy. It would just fizzle out before doing anything useful, like exploding. He'd had his powers negated before, and that wasn't how it felt. More like some kind of screen had been placed over his senses, and he had felt so damn normal. Ew. Normal.

So he definitely had some kind of immunity to her. Doubtful that it was just in his DNA, because there were very few mutations that could work on a DNA level anyways, even Remy knew that.

It seemed more likely that his mutation cancelled hers out somehow. He was, after all, generating the energy around him at all times whether he wanted to or not, which was why he always felt warm to others, and she absorbed energy. Maybe he was generating it so fast that her mutation couldn't keep up.

He closed his eyes, concentrating on the energy molecules he could sense hovering between their skin. They appeared in his vision like tiny dots of red on the backs of his eyelids, a tiny map of red stars vibrating and bouncing off one another.

No, it didn't seem like she was taking any energy in, though he probably wouldn't be able to recognize her mutation running right away anyways. But he assumed that her powers would have to work on an at least a noticeable rate for it to start on her… 'victims' so quickly.

He softly cupped her neck, keeping his eyes closed and feeling for the energy. His own body's energy seemed glowed red hot, pure and empty of interruptions. She, on the other hand, was like a dark void. Every place that was not covered by clothing was like a blind spot in his vision, the only energy that seemed to cling to her was either in her hair or clothing. Her mouth, the line where her eyelids met, her nostrils, and her ears were the only exceptions, where he supposed the energy inside her body was escaping.

He lifted his hand from her neck and held it so that it just barely wasn't touching her, close enough to still feel the fine hairs of her neck. For a moment he thought he could hear a faint buzzing coming from where their skin almost met. He placed his hand down.

The buzzing disappeared.

Interesting.

He lifted his hand again, this time concentrating on the energy that seemed to be cackling when he neared her skin. Energy seemed to gather in the air between them, both collected from the air and radiating directly from his skin. The dots of red hoped and twirled and shuddered, extremely active.

Hand down.

The energy compressed to his skin, making a thin barrier of rapidly moving static between them.

He once spoke to a telepath who'd tried to read his mind. They told him that if they hadn't been trying to specifically read him, they wouldn't have even noticed his psychic signature, easily missing him in a quick sweep. But when they did concentrate, they became aware of the static that seemed to take the place of his thoughts. The energy he generated scrambled their powers and made him become a blank spot according to their mutant abilities. Like in the light of their mutation, he didn't exist.

Was it the same way with touch-based powers? Was it that, to them, they weren't touching anything and so remained dormant, even when the mutant was aware it should be working? Remy didn't know. Rogue would be the first for him to test it on.

Though, judging by the way he wasn't dead, he was pretty sure it was a success.

She mumbled into his neck, inhaling again and rubbing her cheek against his stubble as she unconsciously slid her knee up the outside of his leg, stopping at his hip before making its way back down slightly so that she could hook her leg around his thigh. She snoozed on; unaware of the fact that Remy's mouth had just gone dry.

A very good success.

So she wasn't absorbing him because his mutation seemed to be making some kind of static shield between them. But then there were the nightmares. Somehow he doubted that his being close to her was what was chasing the fears of others from her dreams.

Again, it was probably his mutation's doing. He didn't really need another thing that his powers affected. But then again, what didn't his powers affect? Energy was everywhere, in everyone, in everything, in emotions, most of it dormant until he came close to it, making the molecules heat up and vibrate, enough to cause it to explode if he chooses, without even adding any extra energy to the mix.

He closed his eyes again, reaching his senses out to the energy he could feel. He lifted his hand from her neck, this time bringing it to the patch of hair he could reach that was right under his chin, beneath which her temple laid. He lightly raked his fingers through her hair.

Her emotions came to him more clearly as he did this, his hands close enough to her brain that he could feel her feelings as they shifted and danced with her dreams almost as clearly as if they were his own.

Funny thing, his empathy. He could sense the emotions of others by the type of energy they gave off. When he goes near a person, the type of energy they emit registers with his brain as sort of mini-emotions in the back of his mind, getting more and more potent as he gets closer.

The emotions of the people around him were strong enough for their presence to register with him but dull enough that they didn't affect his own emotions. He could only influence them if he converted a small amount of energy into the kind of energy that would create his ideal emotion, the same way he converted potential energy into kinetic energy to make things explode and tap into the energy around him and convert it to energy that he himself can use to increase his stamina and agility.

But it was hard to actually accomplish anything that would make much of a difference in them.

He gave people suggestions to what he wanted them to feel. Unless they were completely zoned out or mostly asleep, it almost never did anything. But even though he'd probably be able to calm Rogue down if he wanted, it probably wasn't his empathy. That usually took a ridiculous amount of concentration, enough that it was impossible for him to be using it by accident. Reading emotions may have been passive, but trying to change them definitely wasn't.

So when else did his powers affect thoughts?

Remy grimaced as his thoughts inevitably turned to his other mental power. Hypnotic charm. Not a secondary power he was particularly proud of. And yet another reason why he'd gouge out his own eyes if it wouldn't mean blindness.

He himself wasn't completely positive how it worked. He knew that when he looked into people's eyes directly with his own and spoke with them, their tongue would loosen and they would start to talk about things he was fairly certain they wouldn't have said a single word about otherwise. And the moment he broke eye contact, they would either become extremely confused, disorientated, or angry.

His powers involved potential energy, at least all the parts of his powers that he fully understood did, so he was almost positive that this 'Charm' probably involved energy… and the brain too.

He had his theories, of course. Before he knew what a mutant was and he truly believed he was the son of Satan, he was convinced that he was using the devil's persuasive powers. But he'd since been educated otherwise, and was now, mostly, positive that he was not the devil's spawn. He'd gone through a number of other theories since then, but none seemed to fit as well as charging the energy in people's brains. Not enough to make the brain explode, obviously, just a light charge to confuse the though process like he confused the powers of telepaths.

Remy frowned slightly, absently tracing a small circle on Rogues scalp with his fingers. He doubted that he was charging the brain tissue itself, considering he couldn't even charge organic things. So he must charge the thoughts directly…

And with his eyes.

That was a creepy thought. Sometimes he had trouble controlling his powers when they were activated by his hands, and he usually wore gloves that he couldn't charge. But if he could start to make things explode just by looking at them…

He squeezed his eyes shut a little tighter, trying to push away the unpleasant scenarios he pictured happening. He shouldn't get ahead of himself, at the moment all he could charge things to explosive potential with were his hands.

But if he was charging Rogue's thoughts and making them confused… maybe the psyches were sort of like a telepath's presence… a weak telepath. Maybe they could get scrambled when he was near. Why, he wouldn't even need to charge her thoughts on purpose. From the look of how she was shivering earlier, this cell would probably be cold to a normal person. He'd be passively charging more energy than usual around himself to keep himself warm if it was.

And all she'd need to do to be affected would be to come close to him. In turn making any voice-in-her-head induced nightmares go away.

Rogue gently rubbed her face against the skin of his neck, giggling lightly as she pressed her face closer to his skin.

Wow… she was one happy girl when she didn't have voices-in-her-head induced nightmares.

He continued to idly stroke her hair, noting somewhere unimportant that if the scenario had been different, Rogue would have been his type. Pretty, yes, but she was also one hell of a fiery girl. She was a mystery that was just begging to be solved, a challenge that only he could possibly meet.

She was interesting.

But she was out of bounds. Not because of her powers, or even because of the shell she'd pulled herself into, or even because of what he was sure was a low social status. But because she was a danger to him, to his family, to everything, because of who was after her and who wanted her. And as much as he'd like to solve to mystery that was Rogue, if the situation he was in right then wasn't a perfect example of the risks of lingering with her presented then nothing was.

Selene wanted her. So Selene would have her. One way or another. He didn't want to be anywhere near this place when it happened.

He shifted slightly, attempting to make himself more comfortable in vain. Rogue murmured her objections, tightening her grip on his neck and wrapping her leg around his securely. He stiffened when her hand trailed from his neck and down his chest, somehow landing on his hip.

Remy smiled to himself. Ha, and she'd been warning him not to feel her up.

He may not be allowed to have her, but at least at that moment he could pretend. Give a little more comfortable sleeping surface and a little less clothing, and he could get used to this. He wouldn't get the chance, but he could.

He stifled a yawn as he felt his tiredness start to weigh down his thoughts. It had been a long day, even for him. He'd been awake most nights, with only an hour or two of sleep in between, of the last week, researching his latest 'job' of kidnapping. Stealing people wasn't exactly his forte, and he had wanted to be positive that he wouldn't get… how had Rogue put it again? Sliced and diced? Ya, he didn't want to get sliced and diced.

But even if he was tired, he shouldn't sleep. All of his instincts were telling him not to, that sleep would be letting his guard down when he was clearly in danger and leaving him vulnerable to attack…

…But then again…

There was a beautiful woman curled up against him.

And, uh… if he was well rested he would be more prepared to defend himself…

Aww, to hell with it. He just wanted to sleep.

He let himself relax, Rogue's content, safe feelings slowly lulling him to sleep as his breath evened.

She smelled nice. Had he already mentioned that? Well, if he did, that was fine, because it was worth repeating… over and over and over and over and over and over and… and…

Mmmmm...

The next thing he knew, he was jerking awake up to someone screaming bloody murder.

Grrrrrr. This isn't even the whole chapter. Hell, it's not even half. The last…three quarters have been really ticking me off. All of this 'nessissary chapters' thing is getting dull for me. But hopefully not for you.

And there was this funny scene I had for the end of this chapter (pouts). I was really looking forward to posting it but I guess I'll just have to wait. (goes into her corner to cry)

Flames are for envisioning setting your teacher on fire with (*cough*but not actually setting them on fire in real life… ehhm). But flames are NOT for reviewing.

Review, or Hat Man will find you and follow you with his creepy cheerful smile 24/7. This is extremely weird and scary, so I suggest you press that button.