Chapter 2: Invasion of Privacy
When Rogue got to the hall leading to the bedrooms, Kurt was heading down it, so instead of going straight into Remy's room, she had to go to her own. When she tried to leave again, Hank was in the hallway making sure everyone was in their own rooms and in no one else's, she had to pretend she was heading to the bathroom, and ended up waiting in the bathroom for ten minutes, removing her makeup.
She had hoped by the time she left the bathroom that Hank would be gone, however, it didn't work out that way. Hank was still in the hallway when she left, "Rogue, it's bed time," Hank ordered.
"I know…I forgot to get my nightgown…" Rogue admitted, she clenched her teeth.
"Why don't you just get changed in your room," Hank suggested.
"Are you nuts?" Rogue made a face, "My room has no lock," he went back into her room, and grabbed the first pair of pyjamas she could find – a pair of dark grey plaid ones, she headed back down the corridor and into the bathroom, and she changed slowly.
When she came out, Hank was gone.
She went back to her room again, realising she couldn't just turn on the light in Remy's room, it'd be too obvious, and since Remy's room overlooked the area from where the direction of the pub was, she gathered if he was on his way, he'd probably see the light on, and know someone was snooping in his room.
Rogue searched the whole room for a flashlight, finding one in a box under her bed, obviously there for black out emergencies – she noted a few candles and a battery operated radio in there also. She checked the flashlight, and it did indeed work.
She tried to leave the room a third time, Moira this time making rounds to be sure no one was in anyone else's room, Moira was with a man Rogue had never seen before, he had sandy coloured hair and was fairly talk and well built. Rogue remained silent, and closed her room door, luckily having not been seen. It had almost been an hour and a half before the whole building seemed to plunge into silence and finally, Rogue could leave the room to go explore Remy's belongings.
Knowing that there was a chance someone would check in on her room – probably Hank just to make sure she was in bed. She pulled her clothes out of the dresser, and her bag out from under the bed and she pulled the covers back and set them out along the length of the bed, throwing the covers over the lot, once she'd pushed the lumps where her clothes remained in just the right way, it looked as if someone were laying under the covers. She quietly made sure everything in her room looked as if it was in order, and she turned the light off, she opened the door a crack and stood listening for a while. When no one appeared and no sounds were evident, she realised it was time to snoop.
She left the bedroom quietly, closing her door behind her, and crept across the hall silently, pushed Remy's bedroom door open, and slipped inside, she turned the flashlight on and shone it across the room left and right, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
Remy's room was more or less identical to the one she'd been put in, the only furniture being a small dresser with a lamp upon it, and a single bed.
Rogue studied the room quickly, a pair of jeans were hanging over the metal bed frame, and a T-shirt was on the floor. On the dresser by the bed he had a personal CD player and a book and a pile of CDs, Rogue sat down on his bed and picked up the pile of CDs curiously, using her teeth to hold the small flashlight, she flipped through the CDs.
"Evanescence, Creed, Linkin Park, Vertical Horizon, Seether…" she read off the names of the bands from the CD with a muffled voice, she put the CDs back exactly how she'd left them. She picked up the book and glanced at it, "Interview with the Vampire," she read out. She'd seen him reading it a few nights ago.
She noted also a bottle of Cologne, on the front of the bottle was written 'Paul Smith For Men'. She smirked, amused of her comment to him about the stuff a while ago. She picked the bottle up and opened it, taking a sniff. It was the same cologne she always smelt on his Leather Trenchcoat when she had worn it. She'd always loved the scent – even if it did belong the biggest liar she had ever met.
"What are you doing looking at CDs?" she demanded of herself angrily, "you're looking for evidence of stolen equipment or stolen chemicals, not CDs and Books!" she frowned at herself.
Still sitting on the bed, she opened the drawers of the dresser and searched through them carefully, trying not to mess up the order of his clothes too much.
In the top drawer, there was underwear, and socks, and a large white candle about four inches wide and six inches tall. "What's he doing with a candle in his drawer?" She queried herself curiously.
In the second drawer, his normal civilian clothes, and a pair of leather gloves, nothing out of the ordinary, she searched through the clothes, just in case she missed something – indeed finding nothing.
The third drawer was different however, there was nothing in there but a red leather bound book, she pulled it out. Again, clamping the flashlight between her teeth to hold it still, she opened the book and searched through the pages, it was all – in what she could only imagine was – Remy's handwriting, however…it was all in French. It appeared to be a journal of some kind.
Rogue looked at it, she didn't understand any of it – except her name that in appeared in two recent entries. She felt slightly guilty looking at his journal, but since she could not read any of the words she felt it wasn't exactly the biggest invasion of privacy.
She put the journal back in the drawer, and she moved to the window, and slipped her fingers through the blind slats to pull them apart to gaze out, no sign of Remy coming back from the bar yet, she still had plenty of time.
She heard footsteps near the door, sounded like someone was checking around. She gasped and hid behind the door, listening, she heard the footsteps traverse the stretch of the corridor between her room and Remy's, it seemed to stop, and the door opened, she remained pressed against the wall as the door opened to her left, concealing her from whoever was checking in. She noted a large hand curling around the edge of the door, she drew her breath and remained very still. She knew it was Hank.
The door closed, Rogue let out a sigh of relief that she had not been caught snooping in Remy's room. She remained pressed against the wall, silent for some time. She heard the door across the hall close, Hank had checked in on her room – and had obviously fallen for her piles of clothes under the covers trick.
Rogue remained still, and listened acutely until Hank McCoy's footsteps faded down the hall. She waited five minutes just for reassurance, then, she went back to snooping around his room, there was nothing else she could really see that indicated Remy had anything he shouldn't have had.
"I don't believe this, there's NOTHING suspicious here!" she frowned, "what kind of a Thief IS he," she wondered angrily. She wanted evidence from the break in – she wanted him to be guilty because then she'd know for sure he'd done it, and that he couldn't be trusted – right now, she was still so unsure.
So far, her search had not gone well.
Rogue did another check out of the window, just to make sure there was no sign of Remy coming home yet, the last thing she needed was him catching her.
She knelt down on the floor and peered under his bed, finding his backpack, she yanked it out and opened it, finding his X-Men uniform. Inside, she found a metal tube, just under a foot long, she looked at curiously.
"What's this?" She asked herself confusedly, she turned it around in her gloved hands, finding that there was a button that there were three buttons almost completely hidden in the metal. Holding it with her hand she pressed three fingers into the buttons, the sound of metal grinding against metal startled her, and out from each end of the tube expanded at least another three feet of metal at each side. She realised it was Remy LeBeau's Bo-staff. She ran her gloved fingers across the cold steel, she imagined Remy as she'd seen him so many times training in the danger room, as he'd twirl the Bo-staff and use it to defend himself against anything that came his way. She'd never seen anyone so deadly with something no more than a piece of metal.
Rogue tried to contract the metal Bo-staff, she pressed all three buttons down, but this time nothing was happening, she winced, "fuck…I've broken it…" she kept trying, she climbed to her feet and walked over to the window, pulling the blinds apart a tiny bit and gazed down outside. She couldn't believe it, she could see Remy staggering drunkenly down the path towards the Research Centre.
"Shit shit shit!" she shrieked. She kept pressing the metal buttons, nothing was happening, the Bo-staff seemed intent on staying expanded as it was. She pushed one end down on the floor and stood on the bed trying to push the metal down as if it were like the adjustable aerial of a radio, it wasn't happening. She squealed in panic, unsure what she was going to do.
Rogue tried pressing each of the three buttons separately, "No no no! You are NOT going to get me caught!" she hissed at the piece of metal, she clenched her fist tightly around the middle of the staff, suddenly with a sharp grinding sound, quicker than a flash, both sides slid back into their home in the middle area of the Bo-staff. She fell to her knees and flung it into his bag where she'd found it, she tossed the bag under the bed and stood up, and was about to head for the door.
The door handle was turning.
