Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, intended only for the amusement of the author, some of her friends, and hopefully whoever is reading this. Rogue and Gambit belong to Marvel and are being borrowed without permission. As a side note, I'm not sure what happened to their accents except that I simply didn't write them in this story; no better explanation than that, sorry. No money is being made from this story, unfortunately, and suing a college student is about like bleeding a turnip.
Author's Note: This is for my friend and former roomie Heather. She saw the Rogue vampire picture on my bulletin board (from the Haunted Mansion card set) and, being an avid vampire fan, asked how Rogue became a vampire. Well, Heath, here's my answer; hope you like it!
It was a calm night in late summer, and the air held the slightest chill, a murmured promise of the cold weather to come. The night was preternaturally still, and the soft evening sounds were swallowed up in its black silence. The night was clear, every star glistening like an exquisite diamond, but the full moon glowed eerily, surrounded by a hazy nimbus. Staring up at it, Rogue shivered, thinking she felt a soft breeze stirring the hairs on the back of her neck. She walked aimlessly across the mansion grounds, wandering restlessly, unsettled by some vague uneasiness she couldn't explain.
She felt a hand on her arm, simply appearing there with no warning or indication, not a single rustle of clothing or whisper of footstep in the grass to betray its owner's approach. The hand was cool and smooth, its skin perfectly flawless against her arm bared by the summery shift she wore. For a long second, she merely felt it, unconsciously analyzing the sensations. Then her conscious thought took in what she was feeling and she spun quickly around, a question dying on her lips as she saw him.
He was as perfect as the soft, flawless hand he had touched her with. He was dressed in dark clothes that further accented his unblemished pale skin. His hair was deep brown, long and drawn back softly into a neat ponytail. But what captivated her and caught the words from her throat were his eyes. They were of darkest brown, almost black, intense pools a person could be willingly immersed in never to surface again. He blinked, and with an effort she pulled her gaze away from them, escaping that enthralling trap to which she would have eagerly succumbed. Slowly, like someone halfway awakened from sleepwalking, her eyes traveled to his immaculate hand, still slightly extended towards her. With her gaze fixed on that pale smooth skin, she remembered her question and tried to rouse voice from her frozen throat. "How...?"
"...did I touch you?" he finished for her, his voice as rich and entrancing as the rest of him. It was softly understated with an almost musical depth adding compelling intensity. "You cannot steal the life-force of one who does not live."
She was so caught in the sound of his voice that she barely heard the individual words, and her mind had to slowly process the syllables into meaning. As their message came clear to her, her eyes widened and she stared at him again, more critically and intently this time, seeking answers instead of simply drinking and drowning in his inhuman beauty. Perfect, he was the embodiment of beauty beyond human possibility. He was flawless, untouched by human shortcomings. As her eyes lingered in awe on every line of his face, he nodded as if reading and confirming the still-unformed thoughts that stirred dreamily through her unfocused mind.
"Yes, I am as you think," he said softly, the sensual but firm lips parting to reveal even white teeth with canines lengthened almost imperceptibly to form points below the neat row of the incisors. "I have come for you," he told her, hands extended and arms open ever so slightly. Every movement and gesture was understated, executed with the most perfect grace and economical simplicity yet conveying his meaning with unerring completeness. Compelled, unable and wholly unwilling to resist, Rogue moved into his proffered embrace. He did not let her press against his body as a part of her longed to do, holding her instead carefully and gently away so her face remained inches from his own, her gaze unable to rest anywhere but his deep hypnotic eyes. "I have watched and wanted you for a long time," he whispered to her.
"Why me?" she asked, finding her voice at last, weak and trembling though it might be.
"You are beautiful," he responded, one hand releasing her arm to caress the line of her cheek softly. Her eyes closed in pleasure at the simple touch, intoxicating because it was skin and beyond that, perfect inhuman skin.
"So is every other woman in this mansion," she countered an eternity later, after his hand had returned to her arm and her mind was able to formulate the words.
"You are different; you are one of us already," he whispered compellingly. "You do what we can only long for, stealing away not lifeblood but life essence instead. You are what we are and a level transcendent we cannot reach; no frame should limit you." He stared into her eyes deeply before adding the final touch, "You should be immortal."
Drowning as she was in his eyes, his words, his exotic undefinable scent, his very presence, there was no choice she could make. As the pressure of his hands holding her away lessened, she melted willingly against his frame. She leaned against him, head pillowed on his shoulder, body pressed against his. Her head tilted back, and the hair fell from her neck, exposing it to him. The feelings that coursed through her as he embraced her and his lips neared and touched her throat were not sensual. It was a wave of complete adoration; he overwhelmed her, mind and senses. His power awed her. The attraction could not be sexual; he was too removed from her plane of existence, too far from human for her to even imagine directing such feelings towards him. He was simply perfect; it was the only word she could find. She felt the bite, sensed acutely the teeth smoothly penetrating her skin, but her neurons were so overloaded by his nearness that they didn't register it as pain. How could something coming from him, this god that reduced her to helpless eager subservience, cause her harm? After that instant of penetration, her senses were too overwhelmed to register anything. Her mind swooned into an awed state of ecstatic delirium, and she knew no more.