Hey everybody. Long time no see.
I was feeling a little sappy, a little stoned and the product turned into angst with a happy ending settled with Rogue somewhere in her thirties. Enjoy!
And let me know if you'd like to see me post more often again
Antidote
Piercing, dissatisfied eyes sliced across the room with an air of apathy. "Faster." She sounded as if she had better places to be. Those same eyes roll into bloodshot pitch black scleras. "Come on." Juvenile hands fumbled even worse under her intensity and the clang of tools as they collided with the broken concrete spelled failure loud and clear. "Get out."
It was not necessarily the kid's fault, but as he went to stutter out a thrown together plea in order to save his examination, the woman snapped. "Get out! Y'think someone can trus' ya wit' their lahfe? Ah can't evehn trus' y'wit' the control panel!" The combination of her southern accent with her late lover's almost chokes her words whenever acid drips off her tongue, scarlet corneas essentially glowing. "Dat's how teammates dahe! Dat's how fa'ters never come 'ome t'd'eir babies!" Hot tears burst from the woman's devil eyes as she desperately wipes them with hands meticulously covered in yellow fabric. The trainee backed away in horror, unsure if he would be punished for his subpar performance.
"Rogue!"
A third voice cut through the tension with a literal whoosh of smoke and wind as the woman's brother flung fur covered arms around his sister's distraught form, careful of any exposed skin.
"He can't flahy Remy's ship, Kurt!" The woman whipped into her brother's hold to whisper, "damn kid didn' even know where d'thrusters were."
Kurt's tone softened, it was not Rogue's first breakdown and it would not be the last, "Okay, schwester. But eventually we will need someone besides just you that can fly Gambit's stealth craft. Someone you have to approve of because you'll have to train-"
"Because Ah'm d'one wit' all mah dead husbahnd's knowledge in mah skull? Yeah, Ah know Kurt! But guess what? It ain't jus' his knowledge! It's his- our!- memories an' hopes an' dreams and it's all trapped in meh forever now," her hand weakly formed a fist and tapped against her sweat-slick temple as she whispered, almost dissociated, "forever."
Her brother only sniffed his own tears back at her distress and tightened his grip as he repeated, "It'll be okay, Anna, one day it'll be okay," with a comforting hand rubbing circles into the back of her uniform.
...
"Shugah!" Rogue's voice sparkled with mischievous mirth as she threw herself onto Gambit's hunched over back, nearly tossing them both into the underside of his plane's cockpit. "Y'been playin' with this rusty pahle a'junk all day, tahme t'come play with meh instead," she giggled into his ear, probably a bit loud for absolute comfort.
A dark chuckle escaped Gambit's throat as he twisted Rogue off his back and she landed on the cement of the bunker with a thud. He dramatically fell on top of her, his back landing flatly on her stomach and causing the pair to gasp. "Dat so, chère? He lazed his body around to twist and broaden his form until he hovered inches above her face, his devil eyes boring into her glossed over emeralds.
"Yeah," she breathed out, no sign of jest or hesitation, "Ah've been practicin'."
Gambit's crimson eyes lit up and he dove in to taste his wife's soft lips.
(He loved practice days.)
...
"Hey Rem," the soft breeze carried Rogue's mournfully desolate tone across the open embankment the cemetery lay between. "Kurt's leadin' his own away team now. He'd neva' admit it but Ah know he wahnts meh t'tell him Ah'm proud. Which Ah am-" her voice fades away, carried on falling leaves. "Kitty's startin' t'get the hint y'r boy's inta' her. They're cute, Piotr's already stressin' about a'ring that'll faze wit' her." The grass crunches beneath Rogue's figure as she sits on Gambit's plot, directly opposite his headstone.
Remy Etienne LeBeau
Beloved Husband, Teammate, and Father-To-Be
An Honest Man
"Ah know Ah always try not ta'say it then say it anyways but Ah miss ya Rem. Gahd, sometahmes so much it hurts," her voice cracks here but her eyes, now stained with ebony and crimson, emerald nowhere to be seen, keep their steady stare with a dead name. "Ah love ya, Rem." A tear-streaked smirk lifted a heavy corner of her lips. "In fact, when Ah t'ink o'love, Ah see ya'." She paused, eyes wide as she took even herself by surprise, as her willowy fingers dragged across chapped, tingly lips. It was the first time his accent had ever come out of her mouth and it felt as if she had reclaimed something, no matter how small and she sighed in relief, relaxing muscles she did not realize were tight. "You are love t'meh Remy," her tearful eyes were attached to joyful hiccups this time and Rogue felt utterly, devastatingly overwhelmed.
She woke up the next day curled in Gambit's grave plot, a blanket meant for picnickers laid atop her as the Sun set and birds sang and Rogue simply smiled for the first time in far too long as she whispered, "G'morning, love."
...
"Hey, you okay?" One trainee skipped up to another that sat trembling along a bench, blank stare focused on shaking hands. "Whoa," the girl eyed the boy as she got closer, "do you need to go to the nurse?"
The boy's head snapped up at that as he stuttered out a negative answer.
"Okay," the girl chuckled as she tugged on one ear, following the other student's most likely path of trajectory to this spot she observed, "did you just take your flight test? I heard that's the hardest exam here! You must be insanely good to even touch the stealth jet, wow! Are you a senior?"
At the mention of the flight exam, the boy jolted. "That was so scary, I should have specialized in the infirmary. Professor Rogue-"
"Professor?" The girl interrupted, confusion overtaking her pretty countenance.
"Yeah, the mechanic? Red and white hair?"
"I know who she is! But," the girl scratched her ear again, "Miss Rogue isn't a professor."
"Oh, I just thought-"
"You mean you don't know?"
He shook his head and the underclassmen looked far too pleased with the opportunity to gossip. "She was demoted when she lost her husband during a mission and then her baby less than a month later. Guess she went off the deep end with grief for a while and never wanted the Professor title back. Now she flies all the undercover, high risk missions because no one else can and she has some," at this point the girl throws up air quotes, "nothing to lose complex."
The boy's eyes merely shown with the same fear but beneath it something akin to understanding.
...
"May I have another chance, please ma'am!" The trainee that practically trembled his way out of the bunker was now bowing at the straightest ninety degree angle his spine would allow. Rogue was taken aback, recently recalling how her and Gambit used to have super sonic races out among the stars if the night was clear enough, her husband in his beloved jet, Rogue free as a bird in her nightgown and a loose hair tie. "Please! I won't touch a damn thing without your explicit say so! Just train me, please!" Rogue stuttered at the boy's boldness, his hair, a jet black, short and thrown in to an unruly ponytail, but what scared Rogue the most were his eyes. Although resting upon a normal sea of white, this boy's eyes shown with the determination of a scoundrel and the resplendent beauty of a cut ruby. "Please," he was visibly shaking and Rogue barely heard him whimper, "I can't go home… please." and in that moment, she broke.
"Okay, enfant. Be here every mornin' at five a.m. Ah leave everyday by six p.m. and don't care what happens between those two tahmes as long as nothin' breaks and nothin' goes missin'. What's y'r name?"
"Oliver."
...
"Bonjour, mon cour." Rogue's voice was not despondent when she spoke to her beloved headstone this time. "Ah've got a new trainee that remahnds meh so much a'you it's scary." Her bare fingers trace the grooves of a name she knows better than her own. "He's a good kid, Shugah and his dad wants a livin' weapon," an airy chuckle, "sound familiar? Ah know it sounds crazy but Ah think this is what our baby would've been like and," she wheezes out something much larger than an airy chuckle, "his nahme's even Oliver!" Rogue leans on her lover's gravestone and chuckles as the name they chose for their unborn baby floated upon the cemetery's still air. "What a coincidence, huh…"
...
As always I own nothing