Chapter 9: vs Each Other

Late Saturday afternoon Rogue wandered out to the old boathouse. Gambit and Logan were hard at work putting up new walls. She made sure to make plenty of noise as she got close, as she didn't want to startle Gambit out of his concentration and blow holes into the new place before it was even finished.

"Hey Rogue," Logan greeted her before she could open her mouth. "You here to chit-chat or to lend a hand?"

Rogue eyed Logan for a moment. "There's only one answer to that question, isn't there?"

"Yup."

"What can I do to help?"

Logan pointed with his claws to a pile of cut boards. "Give Gumbo a hand putting those up."

Rogue glanced from the boards to the part of the wall that Gambit was working on. Several boards were already fixed in place. Logan was busy cutting the boards to size, using his claws rather than a saw.

"Alright," Rogue said and nodded towards his efforts. "Doesn't that get you splinters?"

"Nope."

"Okay then." With a shrug she turned to pick up the first board.

"Lift with your knees, not with your back," Logan added before she even attempted lifting anything.

"Ugh, you sound like my Aunt Carrie. What's next, Logan? You gonna tell me to sit up straight at the dinner table?"

Gambit chuckled. Logan just gave Rogue a long, silent look. Rogue poked her tongue out at him, then picked up the board. She lifted with her knees, as had been drilled into her as a kid.

"Aren't you going to be seeing your aunt soon?" Gambit asked Rogue as they set the board into position.

"Yeah, early February." Rogue sighed heavily. "I can't wait until it's over it."

"Expecting it to go bad?"

"I'm expecting her to be her usual strict, opinionated self," Rogue said with irritation. "She's always right, just ask her, she'll tell you all about it. Probably has a list of things she can't wait to criticise me on."

"Do I need to ring you at a set time so you can have an excuse to leave early?" Gambit asked with a grin.

"Tempting, but it will only draw things out in the end."

Gambit chuckled. They set the board in place and got the next one.

"So," Gambit said, "How'd your date go with Lionel last night?"

"Yeah, not too bad. We broke up."

"Ah. Got the friend speech you were expecting?"

"Yup. But it's cool. The feeling was mutual." Rogue gave Gambit a grin. "Besides, there's someone else I'd rather be with."

Gambit sighed. "It's Kurt, isn't it?"

"Kurt? No!" Rogue turned up her nose. "I love Kurt, but as like, a big brother or something."

Gambit snickered and Rogue blew raspberries at him.

"Although, speaking of Kurt," Rogue went on, "has he talked you into making yourself a new pirate costume yet?"

"No, but he's working on it."

Rogue chuckled. She wanted to ask him if they'd figured out the whole impaling thing yet, but decided against it. She didn't want to cause an incident by bringing it up. She mentally kicked herself for even asking about the pirate costume.

"Speaking of which," Gambit said once they finished with the board and turned to get the next one, "we were going over the data from the Christmas Day session and found out something…interesting."

Rogue paused and looked at him curiously. "You sound like 'interesting' isn't the word you really want to use."

"Heh, well, I guess it depends on how you look at it," Gambit replied with a shrug. "There wasn't a great deal of data collected about the impaling itself," his gloves flickered briefly with magenta light, "but the actual speed at which that shovel left Spyke's body was impressive. We ran a couple of sims, and yeah, I should either be dead or in a critical condition right now." He shuddered and the magenta light flickered across his clothing again.

"We don't need to talk about this if—" Rogue began.

"Ain't the first time I should've died, but didn't," Gambit replied, and the charge returned to his clothes and stayed this time. An irritated expression appeared on his face. "Look, if I tell you, then you can tell everyone else who's curious but too afraid to ask in case this," he gestured to himself, "happens."

Rogue smirked. "Okay, point taken."

"So. The conclusion we've come to is that my powers are still developing. Because apparently it's perfectly normal for mutants not to come into their full power until their mid-to-late twenties. Sometimes even early thirties. So yay," he said sarcastically, "that makes me feel soooo much better."

Rogue frowned. "What does that have to do with—"

"You missed a step there," Logan said to Gambit, then looked at Rogue. "What we think happened is that Gumbo here immediately started charging the shovel the moment it touched him. When the shovel reached popcorn intensity, it was able to pass through him without touching him. We did a couple of tests of that theory and it seems to check out."

Rogue looked between Logan and Gambit, and settled on Gambit. "You can phase through walls now?"

He blinked, then chuckled disbelievingly. "Well, didn't think of it like that, but yeah, I suppose. Sure as hell not going to start doing that, though. One slip and the whole place would explode."

"That would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?" Rogue said.

"Yeah, just a bit." Gambit took a deep breath and turned his attention to the next board, his clothes still charged. "Anyway, we should get back to work."


Rogue and Gambit looked up from eating their late night snack as Spyke entered the breakfast nook. Spyke immediately stopped in his tracks upon seeing them.

"Oh, um, hi," he said. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything…"

"Nah, Gambit replied and gestured to the pie pan that was sitting on the bench next to their plates. "Want some pecan pie?"

Rogue gave a mock-horrified gasp. "No! My pecan pie! Mine!"

"Thanks, but no," Spyke said as he headed over to the fridge. "I don't like pecans."

"You don't like pecans?" Rogue exclaimed, then grinned wickedly. "Good! All the more for me."

Gambit chuckled lightly at Rogue.

"So, there any beer in this place?" Spyke asked as he eyed off the contents of the fridge.

"Logan's got some Canadian. He used to keep it in here, but now he keeps it in a minifridge in his room," Gambit replied. "I can steal some for you, if you'd like."

Rogue almost choked on her bite of pecan pie.

"Uh, thanks for the offer, but I'll pass," Spyke said as he took out some juice from the fridge instead. "I'll just…" he paused thoughtfully, "ask someone else to pick me up some next time they go down the street."

"I'd offer, but I still have another year before I'm 21," Rogue said and looked at Gambit. "And I can't believe you would actually try to steal from Logan. Or would you? Just talking out your ass again, sugar?" She eyed him suspiciously.

"Oh, I would absolutely do it," Gambit replied with a wink.

"He would catch you. He would sniff you out."

"I'm pretty sure I can figure out a way around that nose of his."

"Yeah, and I'm pretty sure he can smell what colour underwear you're wearing."

Gambit chuckled and Spyke frowned as he sat down with them at the bench.

"What would different colour underwear smell like?" Spyke asked.

"I don't know, I was just exaggerating for effect." Rogue waved her hand in dismissal.

"Yeah, I figured that. I'm just…"

"Wondering if it's possible?" Gambit asked.

"Yeah." Spyke nodded.

"Maybe different dyes have different smells."

"Maybe. Might get confusing if you're wearing multiple colours though."

"Probably. Although, you'd still be able to tell what colours were on your underwear."

"How do you figure?"

"Well, those are the colour smells that come with—"

"No!" Rogue cut in, giving Gambit an evil glare. "Don't you dare say it."

"—skid marks, and other related toilet smells," Gambit finished and grinned at Rogue. "What?"

"I'm trying to eat here," Rogue said, and pointed empathically to her pecan pie with her fork. "This is not the place for toilet humour."

"You're the one who brought up underwear."

Rogue glowered at him, and Spyke chuckled.

"Oh, hey," Spyke said quietly. "Umm, Remy, I just… I haven't apologised yet, and I… Yeah, I almost killed you the other day 'cause I wasn't paying attention. And I knew I had a control problem, but I was too busy showing off and… And well, there's no excuse. So, yeah, I'm sorry."

Gambit was silent for a moment, then held out his hand. "Apology accepted. I know exactly what it's like to have out-of-control powers, to put people in danger every time I lose control, and to almost be killed. So, yeah, I get it, and I'm more than happy to move on."

Spyke shook Gambit's hand. "Good, good. Well, not good, because all those things suck, but good that my apology is accepted."

Gambit chuckled. "I knew what you meant. So, if you don't mind my asking, what exactly is the problem you're having with your powers?"

Spyke sighed and took a sip of his juice. "Bones have started growing out of me without my say-so. I mean, you can see the body armour. It's like it's become a permanent part of me now. I can try to shed it, but it just grows back. And sometimes when I deliberately grow bones out of myself they go shooting out, like, uh, like you saw. And they'll also shoot out when I'm super stressed, but that doesn't happen very often. And when it does I can usually feel it coming and extract myself before any spikes can fly out."

"Sure, sure." Gambit nodded. "I usually charge and/or blow things up in response to intense emotion."

"Ah, you've been doing that emotion control course with Auntie O, huh?" Spyke asked.

"Yeah. Turns out cooking is the key hobby I need to teach me control." Gambit shrugged. "So I'm on 4 out of 7 dinners during the week and all special events."

"He was responsible for Christmas lunch," Rogue said. "It's a good thing I take so many training classes with Logan."

Gambit chuckled and grinned at her.

"So, uh, you two dating?" Spyke asked, looking between them.

"I wish," Rogue replied.

Magenta light flickered around Gambit's sleeve for a mere eye blink. "Nah, there's no way I can date anyone right now without killing them."

Spyke frowned. "Ah, yeah, I can see how blowing stuff up in response to intense emotion can make dating a bit too dangerous. Sorry, should've realised that myself. You two just come across like you are."

"Oh goody." Rogue winked at Gambit.

Gambit sighed and shook his head at her. "I don't know, chère, you've broken up with Lionel for two seconds and you're already making moves on another man."

Rogue blew raspberries at him. "Don't give me that. We've been outrageously flirting with each other since the day we met."

"Shh! Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."

"I really think the truth makes a better story on this occasion," Rogue replied with a grin. "Jubilee would agree with me." She turned her grin on Spyke. "Jubilee ships us like crazy."

"Riiiight…" Spyke said slowly.

"Speaking of which," Rogue went on. "Looking forward to rehearsals tomorrow?"

Spyke shrugged. "Yes and no?"

"I guess things happened pretty quickly for you huh?" Rogue asked sympathetically.

"Well, they did, and they didn't. I've been coasting along aimlessly for awhile, so everything was bound to come to a head sooner or later," Spyke replied and grinned at her. "Just wasn't expecting to get back on screen any time soon."

"You spent a lot of time on screen?" Gambit asked.

"You should check out my YouTube channel. I have heaps of skateboarding videos," Spyke said smugly. "I'll say one thing for this place: I'll be able to get back to skateboarding here. I'm waaaaay out of practice."

Gambit nodded. "Morph suggested I should put a skateboarding park in the suburbia program. Since I don't skateboard, maybe you'd like to design a layout?"

"Oh sure, that would be great." Spyke's eyes lit up in anticipation.


"Whhhyyy do we even need to rehearse anyway?" Bobby demanded. "This is stupid."

"The only thing that's stupid is the fact that this whole project was your idea and yet you're refusing to put any effort into it," Morph retorted.

Rogue stifled a sigh. They were in the drama room, which had been set up with their proposed set: a pair of two-seater lounges in front of a pale patterned back drop. She, Jubilee, and Spyke were sitting down, watching as the two argued.

"I am not refusing to put any effort into it. I just don't see why we can't just start filming now," Bobby replied irritably. "Rehearsing just seems like a waste of time."

"We have a script, and if you bothered to learn your lines—"

"Why can't we just improv? It's not like we don't know what we're talking about."

Morph gave a long-suffering sigh. "We've been over this a million times already. We have a script because we want to make sure that everything that needs to be said gets said, and that it's worded correctly. We don't want to spread misinformation, especially when it concerns legalities."

"Yeah but—"

"Drake, I promise you, if you don't start playing ball I'm going to kick you off this project," Morph said fiercely.

"You can't do that!"

"I can and I will."

"No one asked you to even get involved!"

"That's not how I recall the conversation going—"

Rogue cleared her throat loudly as she stood. "Okay boys, that's quite enough. Clearly we're not going to get any more done today, so, thank you for your time, Morph. And Bobby," she turned a sour glare on her ex-boyfriend, "when we return for rehearsals tomorrow, I expect you to know your damn lines."

"Oh but—" Bobby began to object.

"We've been wasting valuable time all damn afternoon because you failed to live up to your side of the bargain," Rogue said angrily. "We all agreed to have a script and learn lines. We agreed. You included. You are letting the team down here, and you are damned lucky that I'm not Logan, because we all know what he does to people who fail the team out of deliberate negligence."

Bobby winced.

"In fact, no, I take that back," Rogue went on brightly. "You're damned lucky that I have a job to go to, because if I was having time off like you guys are from college, I would haul your ass into the Danger Room for 5am sessions every day for a week. Which, incidentally, is another reason why I'm pissed off with you right now. I don't have any extra time up my sleeve like you guys do. Stop. Wasting. My Time."

Bobby swallowed hard. He opened his mouth to stammer a reply, but Rogue turned on her heel and stormed out.


The next time the team got together to rehearse, Bobby actually knew his lines. After a few run-throughs he reluctantly admitted it was a good thing they were doing things this way and he ultimately ended up apologising. It was new territory for all of them, even those who had related prior experience, and the rehearsals helped to work out some of the issues.

One evening, after a week of rehearsals that were only just starting to feel encouraging, Morph burst into the rec room, phone outstretched. His eyes scanned the room and found amongst the startled faces those belonging to Rogue, Bobby, Jubilee, and Spyke.

"Good, you're all here!" he declared. "I have the theme music!"

Without waiting for a response, Morph tapped his phone, and the theme music in question came blaring out. Kitty hastily turned down the volume on the TV so they could hear it.

As soon as it finished, there was a burst of comments, mostly asking to hear it again. Morph played it a second time, and everyone had something to say at its conclusion.

"That was so cool!"

"Sounded a little repetitive to me."

"I love it!"

"I think I'm going to have that in my head for the rest of the day."

"Ali composed that?" Spyke said in amazement. "Seems a change from her usual style."

"Working in advertising will do that, I expect," Morph replied to Spyke with a grin.

"It sounds very 90s to me," said Kitty thoughtfully.

"I liked it," Bobby said.

"Me too," said Rogue.

"I could shoot fireworks to this," Jubilee said with a grin.

Kitty grinned back. "Well, as long as you guys like it. I'm not even in the show."


It was almost as if having the theme music finally made the whole project seem like it was real. The teams finished up the last of their rehearsals, and filming finally began. The plan was to film as many episodes as they could while most of them had time off so they could have a backlog of episodes when they were ready to start posting.

Time was getting away from them.

"Morph," Rogue said irritably as she entered the gym for her training session with Logan only to see Morph and Spyke there with a camera, "what the hell are you doing here?"

"We're filming your training session," Morph replied distractedly.

"Why? What's that got to do with the show?" She demanded.

"We're going to use the footage for the opening credits."

Rogue raised her eyebrows. "And you got Logan to agree to this?"

"Yep, but he's not to get on camera, and I'm the one you're going to be sparring with." Morph turned to her and gave a shrug. "Says you need more variety in your opponents anyway."

Rogue shook her head. "Okay then."

"Now, let's see," Morph pondered while tapping his chin. "Who shall I turn into? Mutant hater? Reaver? Non-discript bad guy?"

"How about sparring partner?" Rogue gestured around. "We're in a gym, after all, and I don't see a green screen."

Morph gave her a long look, then sighed dramatically. "Absolutely no fun at all, but a valid point nonetheless."

"Alright bub," Logan's voice said from behind them as he entered the gym. "You'd better be ready 'cause we're starting right now, even if you're not."

Morph saluted as he morphed into a generic gym junkie. "Sir, yes sir!"


The break came to an end, and then everyone was back at school. At that point they needed to start fitting in filming into their usual schedules, but at least they'd managed to get good amount of work done.

"So, when do you think the first episode will be up?" Cody asked Rogue as they chatted on the phone.

"The plan was for next week, but we're running behind schedule," she replied with a shrug as she continued down the hall to the staff rec room. "Morph's been pretty busy with the editing, so we haven't gotten much of an update from him yet."

"Ah alright," Cody said. "Well, make sure to tell me. I'm looking forward to seeing it."

"Yeah, me too."

They continued to talk until Rogue reached the rec room door, and then they hung up. Rogue entered to find that Jubilee, Bobby, Piotr, Kitty, Pyro, Spyke, and Gambit were already there.

"Just waiting on me, I see," she said as she headed over to the one spare seat by the lounges.

"Yep," Jubilee said gleefully.

"You've been looking forward to this way too much," Rogue said direly as she sat down. "Wasn't that game you played before Christmas enough?"

"That was a whole month ago!" Jubilee exclaimed. "Besides, we had friends over. This," she rubbed her hands together gleefully as she looked at the group, "is all in-house."

"Remind me again why I got talked into this?" Spyke said.

"Remy's catering," Bobby replied, with a gesture towards the table that was covered in homemade snack foods and drink.

"I was doing a lot of studying today, trying to learn how to get my emotions under control," Gambit replied with a wink. "The food is just a side-effect."

"A delicious side-effect," Rogue said gleefully.

"Okay!" Jubilee said, holding up her hands for attention. "We're playing Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Torture, Kiss, or Promise. If anyone wants to opt out of 'Kiss' now's the time to do so."

Kitty and Piotr both held up their hands. Jubilee gave them both a long look, then grinned. "Then I guess it's just us singlies who are kissing each other tonight. Woohoo!"

"Wait," Pyro piped up and looked towards Gambit. "Shouldn't you opt out too?"

"It's just kissing," Gambit replied. "Kissing doesn't require an emotional component."

"Speak for yourself," Kitty said.

"Hey Jubes," Rogue cut in, "what exactly is double dare? Two dares?"

"Hmm, well, it depends on who you play with. I think it's supposed to be that you do two dares, but," Jubilee replied, "one of my friends always played it where both the darer and the daree have to do the dare. We think that's more interesting, so that's the rule we usually use. And if there are no objections, that's the rule we'll use tonight."

No one objected, so Jubilee got the game started: "Ummm… Bobby! Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Torture, Kiss, or Promise?"

Bobby gave her a 'why me' look and said: "Uh, Dare."

"Show us the fifth picture on your phone!" Jubilee said.

Bobby blinked and pulled out his phone. "Okay, but it's really not very exciting. You know, if this is going to be the quality of dares, this isn't going to be much of a game."

"You say that now," Jubilee said as Bobby picked out the fifth picture on his phone, "but you'd be surprised at the number of people who have photos on their phone they have no business sharing with anyone." She paused for a moment. "Even themselves, really."

The fifth picture on his phone turned out to be a photo of one of his recent icey creations, which Bobby was more than happy to share. Then it was his turn.

After a few rounds of singing silly songs and dances, and social media status updates, Spyke chose the first Truth of the game.

"Hmm." Kitty considered for a moment. "If the Cure had been available when you lost control of your powers, would you have taken it?"

Spyke drew in his breath sharply as a frown formed on his face. He rocked back and forth for a moment. "Honestly? I don't know. I hope not, but I spent that much time being angry at my mutation and blaming it for my problems, I might have." He shrugged. "Mind you, depending on how Dr Ashton's research goes, I might still end up taking her diluted version. I'm not exactly comfortable with the knowledge that I could kill someone just from being a little too stressed."

"Dr Ashton's working on a diluted version of the Cure?" Kitty asked, blinking in surprise. "Since when?"

Spyke shrugged as Rogue and Gambit met eyes. "I don't know. It was something Auntie O mentioned over Christmas."

"Storm is okay with a Cure variant?" Bobby asked. "Did we just enter Bizarro World?"

Spyke grinned at him. "The idea is that it only decreases the amount of power you have at your disposal temporarily, as opposed to completely turning it off permanently. She thinks it would be a useful tool. Apparently Dr Ashton got her hands on some of the research from Worthington Pharmaceuticals."

"How?" Pyro demanded. "We destroyed everything."

"Really?" Kitty asked him scornfully. "You honestly think they were stupid enough not to have an offsite backup of their data? They only told people all the data was gone so they didn't have to admit the real reason they couldn't continue making it was because they didn't have Jimmy anymore."

"Which begs the question, is Jimmy being used in this research?" Pyro demanded.

Everyone looked at Spyke, who shrugged. "I don't know anything about this Jimmy guy."

Pyro opened his mouth to reply, then stopped, and grumbled instead as he settled back in his seat.

"Okay, so, I believe it's my turn," Spyke said and surveyed the group.

A few more rounds later, it was Jubilee's turn again. She addressed Pyro, who selected "Kiss."

"Really? Hmm…" Jubilee considered for a moment as she looked around, a wicked twinkle in her eye. "Rogue. I definitely think you should kiss Rogue."

Rogue threw her a dire look and huffed as she stood. Pyro cleared his throat uncomfortably as he walked over. He looked at her, then at Gambit.

"Try not to get jealous, Remy." Pyro said, and before anyone else could respond, he hauled Rogue to him with one hand around her head and the other around her waist, and kissed her firmly.

Rogue could only stand there dumbfounded as he kissed her with a lot more fervour than she expected.

"Woo!" Jubilee giggled.

Then Pyro let her go, and turned back to his seat without another look at her. Rogue slowly sat back down and stared at him. He avoided her eyes and looked directly at Piotr. "So, Pete: Truth, Dare, Doube Dare, Torture, Kiss, or Promise?"

"Hmm." Piotr considered Pyro for a moment. "Truth."

"Huh." Pyro thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Ronnie Lake or Betsy Braddock?"

Piotr blinked. "Who?"

"They're supermodels. If you had to pick between them who would you choose?"

"That's a really boring Truth," said Jubilee. "You can ask that any time."

"I can, and I have," Pyro replied and grinned at Jubilee. "But this time, Petey has to actually give me an answer."

Piotr gave Pyro a long look, then fished out his phone.

"Whatcha doing?" Pyro asked.

"I'm googling them," Piotr replied. "How else am I supposed to choose?"

"Yeah okay, I'll concede that."

Piotr took a few minutes to look up the two women. Finally he said: "Hmm… It's hard to say, but I think I will go with Betsy Braddock. She looks like she would be more interesting to paint."

Pyro opened his mouth, paused, shook his head, and said: "Why am I not surprised that's the criteria?"

Piotr merely looked at him for a moment, then turned his attention to Spyke. "Spyke: Truth, Dare…"

The game continued around for awhile, and then Kitty picked Gambit.

"Kiss," Gambit replied in response to the usual question.

"Hmm." Kitty considered for a moment. "Jubilee."

Gambit gave a shrug, and met Jubilee in the centre of the make-shift circle. Jubilee grinned up at him.

"So, would you like me to dip you backwards?" he asked her.

Her eyes lit up. "Sure!"

Gambit grinned. He wrapped his arms around her back, and, once her arms were around his neck, dipped her backwards in a big, showy kiss. Jubilee giggled delightedly as he set her back on her feet.

"Alright, um…" Gambit looked around the room. "Bobby: Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Torture, Kiss, or Promise?"

"Dare!"

"Excellent." Gambit grinned fiendishly at him. "Turn yourself into ice and pour that bottle of Fanta on yourself."

Bobby looked at the half-empty bottle of Fanta, then at Gambit. "Are you trying to turn me into a giant slurpee?"

"Yes."

"It's not going to work. My iceform isn't crushed."

"Humour me."

Bobby sighed. "Fine."

"Just make sure you freeze the Fanta so it doesn't get in the carpet," Gambit added. "I don't need to be cleaning that up later."

Bobby snapped his fingers and grinned at Gambit. "Rats. SO close.

He turned into his iceform, and then poured the rest of the Fanta over his head. He let some of it drip down before freezing it over.

"And now if I turn back, I'm going to be all sticky," Bobby said with a sigh. "Oh, wait, unless…"

He switch back to his usual self, but kept all the Fanta frozen. He chuckled to himself.

"Okay, my turn," he said as he picked frozen Fanta off his person and stuck it in a nearby cup. "Rogue: Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Torture, Kiss, or Promise?"

"Double Dare," Rogue said, and grinned at Jubilee. "We're using the rule where we both have to do the dare, right?"

"Right!" Jubilee said gleefully.

"Hmm…" Bobby said thoughtfully. "What can I come up with that will embarrass Rogue, but not me? Oh, did I say that out loud?" He grinned at Rogue.

"You're gonna have to come up with some really good then," Rogue drawled.

"I dare us to…" a delighted grin appeared on Bobby's face, "take off our shirts."

"Nope!" Kitty cut in before anyone else could say a thing. "Not happening Bobby. We are not taking this game there."

"Oh but—"

"No. Pick something else or forfeit."

Bobby pouted. "Fine."

"You sure told him." Rogue grinned at Kitty.

"These things need to be nipped in the bud," Kitty said as she continued to glower at Bobby.

"Okay, okay," Bobby said. "I dare us to… sniff each other's armpits."

"That's disgusting. What are you trying to do. Channel your inner Wolverine?" Rogue asked.

"Yes."

Rogue rolled her eyes and reluctantly walked over so they could sniff each other's armpits.

"Wow Rogue," Bobby said as he waved his hand in front of his face. "You need a shower. You stink."

Rogue poked her tongue out at him, "And you smell like orange slurpee." She glanced around at the group as she returned to her seat. "Spyke: Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Torture, Kiss, or Promise?"

"Kiss," Spyke replied.

"Jubilee." Rogue said.

"Yay, more kisses for me," Jubilee said as she stood up.

Spyke kissed her, careful not to poke her with any of his spikes and then returned to his seat for his turn. "Remy. Usual list."

Gambit chuckled. "Kiss."

"Alright. Rogue then."

"Yay!" Jubilee cheered.

Rogue and Gambit didn't look at all disappointed either. He swept her up in his arms and kissed her soundly. She kissed back eagerly.

"Yeah, yeah," Pyro said when it started to drag on. "You can stop any time now."

Rogue's shirt began to glow with magenta light.

"Uh oh," Jubilee said.

Gambit pulled back from the kiss, but continued to hold her in his arms. Rogue caught his eyes.

"So, sugar," she said. "Just how did you make that delicious Bruschetta? Because it's wonderful. I want…" she ran her fingers across his collarbone, "more."

"Tease." He touched his finger to her lips before she could reply, and started talking about how he made the Bruschetta that was amongst the finger foods he'd prepared for the night.

Before he finished reciting the recipe, the charge faded. They returned to their seats.

"Yay!" Jubilee said. "Soooo Rogue, how was your first kiss with Remy?" she batted her eyes at her friend.

Rogue blinked in surprise and opened her mouth to correct Jubilee. That hadn't been their first kiss. Then Rogue grinned and said instead: "You'll just have to pick me next and hope I pick Truth."

Jubilee gasped and clutched at her chest, then giggled and said: "Okay!" she turned her eyes to Gambit: "Pick me! Pick me!"

"Oh, just pick her," Kitty said. "If you don't, we'll all have to put up with her saying 'pick me' until she gets what she wants."

"Yeah, point taken," Gambit replied, and Jubilee laughed wickedly. "So, Jubilee: Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Torture, Kiss or Promise?"

"Truth."

"Hmm. What is the strangest dream you ever had?" Gambit asked.

"That the entire school was made of cheese," Jubilee replied without skipping a beat. "And everyone was eating it. Only it turned out that Logan was lactose intolerant and was just letting loose all these monster farts. Wet monster farts. But the wet part was not poop like you'd expect, it was oatmeal. And everyone started eating the oatmeal with their cheese." Jubilee nodded as her friends giggled or 'eww'ed at her story. "And this is the story of why I haven't eaten oatmeal in five months."

Gambit chuckled. "Yeah, okay, that was definitely weird. Your turn."

Jubilee grinned and turned on Rogue. "Rogue: Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Torture, Kiss, or Promise. Plllllleeeeeease pick Truth. Pretty please? Pretty, pretty, pretty please with a cherry on top?"

Rogue laughed, "Truth."

"Yay! Tell me all about your first kiss with Remy," Jubilee said gleefully. "Every last detail."

Rogue took a moment to stop chuckling at Jubilee's enthusiasm, and then said: "Well, Remy and I were in the line for the Cure—"

"Wait, what?" Bobby cut in.

"Ooooh," Jubilee said gleefully. "You were a bad girl! No wonder I hadn't heard this story yet."

"It wasn't like that," Rogue shot Bobby an irritated look. "But we were fighting at the time, and I didn't see any need to give you ammunition. As I was saying. We were in the line for the Cure, and Remy was having some issues controlling his powers. As he did." She threw Gambit an apologetic look.

"It is what it is," he replied with a shrug.

"So I thought, well, maybe for the first time in its existence, my mutation can do something useful and actually help someone," Rogue went on. "And so, because it was crowded and I didn't want to take my gloves off, I kissed him."

"Aww." Jubilee pouted. "I don't think it counts if you absorbed him."

Rogue smiled faintly. "I never said anything about my attempt to absorb him being successful."

There was dead silence for a moment, then everyone spoke at once:

"What do you mean, you didn't absorb him?"

"You had control over your powers?"

"Was he wearing latex lips like in the Batman and Robin movie from 1997 which I definitely did not watch recently?"

Rogue laughed. Gambit just sat there with a faint smile on his lips.

"We're not entirely sure why the absorption didn't work," Rogue said. "We theorised that he might be immune or highly resistant to my powers. I might have drained some of his energy, but we're not really sure if that actually happened, or if it was just a placebo effect."

Jubilee gasped and started making inarticulate noises until she finally burst out with: "Remy is immune to your mutation? It's fate! Destiny! You're meant to be!"

"It's irrelevant," Rogue replied. "I don't have my mutation any more. Which is another reason why I never really bothered to mention it." She frowned. "Wait, no, I did tell someone… Oh, it was Kurt. Anyway, the kiss was great. Honestly, I think the only reason we stopped was because he zapped me." Rogue threw Gambit a teasing glare.

"Well, one of us had to do something before we got carried away." Gambit gave her a wink.

"Mmmhmmm." Rogue threw Gambit a knowing look, then turned back to Bobby. "Anyway, once I got the Cure there was no more kissing until after you and I broke up. I did not cheat."

Bobby was quiet for a moment, then said: "You still got the Cure, even though you could touch someone."

"Of course I did. I hated my mutation."

Bobby nodded slowly.

"Alright," Rogue said, turning away from him with a flash of irritation. Let's see. Spyke: Truth, Dare…"