Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men
A/N: Warning- original character approaching! Title this time is taken from Terrorvision's 'Hide the Dead Girl'.
Humble neighbourhoods
04: We're sick of feeling guilty when we haven't been caught
Six months later...
Blaze didn't have a key to Gambit's crummy, ant-infested apartment. He'd consider it an offence to his tutorage if she needed one. The seventeen- year-old's well-used lock picks had the door opened in seconds, despite having one hand holding a cardboard tray containing a takeaway breakfast.
"If you want coffee get your lazy backsides out here now!" Blaze called loudly in the direction of the bedroom door, kicking the front door shut with a thud behind her. Plonking the three coffee-shop lattes down on the table and dropping her breakfast besides it, she shrugged out of her coat and tossed it on top of Mercury's. Only then did she turn to the reason she'd come calling; a very nice laptop Remy had swiped not so long ago, with internet access and all the best security upgrades he'd been able to wrangle.
"Get your own damn breakfast Rem." She ordered without turning round, making Gambit grin as his hand stopped centimetres from stealing her bacon sandwich with the works. He settled for the coffee, adding extra sugar and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, as Mercury appeared already dressed to apply her make up in a room with better light.
"How did your date go Blaze? Mercury asked coyly, uncapping her mascara as Gambit went on the hunt for a vaguely clean shirt.
"Didn't go." Blaze answered shortly, frowning as she tapped on the computer keyboard. Gambit and Mercury exchanged glances, confused.
"But..." Mercury continued, "You're still wearing what you were in last night. If you weren't on your date, or at home, then where were you?"
"Working, obviously." Blaze slurped her coffee and turned to face her friends. "Ditched my date for someone worth a bit more." She shrugged and turned away from the couple again, voice wise and sad. "Its amazing what men'll do when they think they're getting somewhere...Oh, I'm in. Remy?"
"In where?" Gambit asked, coming to lean over her shoulder, one hand besides hers on the desk, the other on the back of her chair.
"Accounts department, outgoing payments override. How much do you want?"
"It secure?"
"As it'll ever be." Blaze answered, trying to concentrate on what she was doing, not on how close he was to her. She'd thought setting him up with Mercury all those months ago would cure her of this irritating crush. Shows what she knew. At least he was oblivious.
"Then make it random amounts, low numbers, an' not addin' up to anythin' in particular."
"Backdate some of them?" Blaze asked, glancing sideways at him, noting how intently he was reading the screen. The hairs on the back of her neck were tingling, that's how close he was. Concentrate! She admonished herself.
"Yeah," Gambit nodded, thoroughly impressed with what Blaze had been up to, wishing he'd been there to watch her back. Who knows what danger she'd put herself in to get these codes? "Make it look natural Petite. Non. Chere, try four-five-one not four-fifty, seven-nine-t'ree not eight hundred, okay? Looks better."
Mercury sighed over-dramatically, well aware that they were cutting her out. Part of her was suddenly suspicious, was this the beginning of Gambit dumping her completely? Maybe was the best comfort she could form, as she sluiced together her belongings into her bag and headed for the door.
"I'll pass on the coffee, thanks Blaze." She offered, hand on the comforting cold metal of the door handle.
"You're welcome." Blaze answered, clearly not listening. Gambit was on a mobile now, talking fast in French, no doubt asking for his Internet line to be cut.
"Bye Remy." Mercury finished, leaving and not quite slamming the door in disgust. Dust swung through the air, disturbed by the force of her disapproval. Gambit and Blaze both looked at the slab of wood in mild confusion, then went back to what they were doing.
"Ouch." Blaze commented consolingly as Remy finished his call, removed the SIM from the handset and lobbed it out the window to explode. "Sorry, but this couldn't wait or he'd most probably change the codes..."
"Don't worry 'bout it little one." Gambit brushed off her concerns for him and Mercury. "I'se thinkin' 'bout endin' it anyways."
"Fool if you do." Blaze commented, more lightly than she felt. Them being together was her security, the common sense that kept her thinking straight. She switched off the computer. "All done."
"How much?"
"Four thousand, nine hundred and eighty six euros fifty, currently flying through various sub-ether bank accounts to land in the real world this afternoon." Blaze could at least be proud of that; that was a good night's work.
"So when I take my seventy percent..." Remy started, not surprised when Blaze turned on him with fiery eyes.
"Not in this life time!" She laughed, "Best you're getting is forty, and that's only because I feel mean for barging in!"
A brief flush of sirens in the streets outside floated in like the stench of a corpse, destroying the amicable teasing. Both thieves glanced to the open window, then back at each other nervously. Blaze gave an anxious smile, and then picked up her coffee to hide how her hands were shaking. Gambit closed the window.
"They not comin' for us. Not yet anyways." He tried to comfort her, but folding his arms defensively at the same time. Blaze nodded.
"I know. And I was careful, I swear Gambit..." She put her coffee down and looked at her bacon sandwich, suddenly not hungry anymore. The man she'd ripped off had been decent enough; just another easy target who'd never think anyone would be out to steal from him. Guilt was not a nice feeling.
"You always is." He agreed seriously. "That why you're so good at this Blaze."
"You ever wish that we weren't?" Blaze asked him with a sigh. Gambit couldn't help but grin.
"Why? So we can get caught? There always bin thieves, Petite, an' there always will be. If we ain't doin' this, someone else will be..." Blaze smiled back at him, he was right of course. "Besides, even if they ever catch us Petite, ain't no jail gonna hold us for long..."
"True." Blaze agreed, tearing her bacon sandwich in half and passing half to him. "Fifty percent of my breakfast good enough for you, or do you want seventy percent of that too?"
"How 'bout we go fifty-fifty on everythin', an' I tell you you as trained as you ever gonna be, Petite." He replied seriously. For a moment Blaze just looked at him, before her face cracked into as smug a grin as he'd ever seen her wear. If he'd known his approval meant that much to her, he might have told her the truth a long time ago. Or maybe not.
"And here I was thinking you'd ditch me first chance you got, soon as your thieves guild rules were filled or whatever. You sure you don't want me to just clear off?" Blaze asked, her self-esteem needing to actually hear him say that he wanted her to stick about.
"Hey, that fifty percent of the money you just stole the easiest work I ever did, why I wanna cut myself outta that?" He fired back at her, ducking as she lobbed the plastic top off her coffee at him.
"You agreed to forty on that one! The fifty percent only started from the bacon sandwich!"
"You want me to change my mind, eh Amie?" He grinned, both knowing he wouldn't. "Look, I need a favour Cherie..."
"Sounds ominous." Blaze tilted her head to one side, marvelling at Gambit's sudden change of mood. "What is it Rem?"
"Mercury." He sat down heavily, dismantling the bacon sandwich for no apparent reason. "She want too much, Amie. I'se had enough..."
Blaze didn't say anything, and Gambit knew she was busy judging him. Good friend as she was, he kept almost forgetting she was still a girl, and Mercury's friend. Of course she wouldn't understand. But he just couldn't face finishing it himself; even knowing he was being a coward. Hell, he knew that anyway, was only a year ago the nineteen-year-old had left his girl stood at the altar and fled to France. His girl... Wasn't that a good enough reason to end things with Mercury if no other, he was still thinking that a girl he'd abandoned back in New Orleans was his... Damn it Belle, how'd you do this to me! He demanded, but long-range telepathy was not one of the assassin's many talents...
"You know I think you're making a mistake." Blaze told him slowly, carefully, dragging him out of his gloomy reverie. "But if you're really serious about this..." He didn't need to say anything to that; just looking at her was enough. "Then I'll do whatever you need me to..."
"You will?" Gambit didn't know who was more shocked at that admission, him or Blaze.
"Just this once, mind." Blaze warned him. "I'm not ditching every girl for you. But maybe it would be better coming from me, I've known Mercury longer, and if you're ditching her its going to have to pretty much be the end of our friendship too, isn't it? I mean, if I'm staying working with you?"
"That's what I've done, ain't it? Made you choose between us, Petite?" He asked her, red-on-black eyes guilty.
"It was always going to come to that one day." She consoled him. "And you know how I hate to inflate your ego, but Mercury never stood a chance..."
"Inflate my ego?" Gambit sniggered, "I'se knew you sucker for Gambit's charm, non?"
"Naff off!" Blaze swore. "Charm? A twat like you doesn't know the first thing about the word!"
"You accent go strong when you annoyed, non?" Remy laughed at her, "Where the hell that all from anyways?"
"At least my accent's only strong when I'm annoyed," Blaze countered, eyes dancing. "I hate to tell you this, Miss New Orleans, but that really avid look on the faces of the girls you pick up, its not them being swept away by that 'charm' of yours. Its just it takes that much concentration from your average bimbo to follow a single word you're spewing. Actually, now that I think of it, maybe that's not a bad thing given the dross you come out with..."
"Naff? Twat? Dross? Je ne pas comprende Cherie..."Blaze came to his side as he spoke, voice teasing as she asked, "You call that French?"
"You call that English?" He bantered, brushing a strand of her loose curls back from her face. Smiling, examining her expression as she looked up at him without fear or apprehension, he took her hand in his, a deal-clinching handshake. "Partners?"
The corner of her mouth twitched, rose-red lips moving into a smirk. She took his handshake and turned it into a fighter's clasp, grasped hard as though for an arm-wrestling match.
"We'll show them all what we thieves are worth..."
A/N: Warning- original character approaching! Title this time is taken from Terrorvision's 'Hide the Dead Girl'.
Humble neighbourhoods
04: We're sick of feeling guilty when we haven't been caught
Six months later...
Blaze didn't have a key to Gambit's crummy, ant-infested apartment. He'd consider it an offence to his tutorage if she needed one. The seventeen- year-old's well-used lock picks had the door opened in seconds, despite having one hand holding a cardboard tray containing a takeaway breakfast.
"If you want coffee get your lazy backsides out here now!" Blaze called loudly in the direction of the bedroom door, kicking the front door shut with a thud behind her. Plonking the three coffee-shop lattes down on the table and dropping her breakfast besides it, she shrugged out of her coat and tossed it on top of Mercury's. Only then did she turn to the reason she'd come calling; a very nice laptop Remy had swiped not so long ago, with internet access and all the best security upgrades he'd been able to wrangle.
"Get your own damn breakfast Rem." She ordered without turning round, making Gambit grin as his hand stopped centimetres from stealing her bacon sandwich with the works. He settled for the coffee, adding extra sugar and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, as Mercury appeared already dressed to apply her make up in a room with better light.
"How did your date go Blaze? Mercury asked coyly, uncapping her mascara as Gambit went on the hunt for a vaguely clean shirt.
"Didn't go." Blaze answered shortly, frowning as she tapped on the computer keyboard. Gambit and Mercury exchanged glances, confused.
"But..." Mercury continued, "You're still wearing what you were in last night. If you weren't on your date, or at home, then where were you?"
"Working, obviously." Blaze slurped her coffee and turned to face her friends. "Ditched my date for someone worth a bit more." She shrugged and turned away from the couple again, voice wise and sad. "Its amazing what men'll do when they think they're getting somewhere...Oh, I'm in. Remy?"
"In where?" Gambit asked, coming to lean over her shoulder, one hand besides hers on the desk, the other on the back of her chair.
"Accounts department, outgoing payments override. How much do you want?"
"It secure?"
"As it'll ever be." Blaze answered, trying to concentrate on what she was doing, not on how close he was to her. She'd thought setting him up with Mercury all those months ago would cure her of this irritating crush. Shows what she knew. At least he was oblivious.
"Then make it random amounts, low numbers, an' not addin' up to anythin' in particular."
"Backdate some of them?" Blaze asked, glancing sideways at him, noting how intently he was reading the screen. The hairs on the back of her neck were tingling, that's how close he was. Concentrate! She admonished herself.
"Yeah," Gambit nodded, thoroughly impressed with what Blaze had been up to, wishing he'd been there to watch her back. Who knows what danger she'd put herself in to get these codes? "Make it look natural Petite. Non. Chere, try four-five-one not four-fifty, seven-nine-t'ree not eight hundred, okay? Looks better."
Mercury sighed over-dramatically, well aware that they were cutting her out. Part of her was suddenly suspicious, was this the beginning of Gambit dumping her completely? Maybe was the best comfort she could form, as she sluiced together her belongings into her bag and headed for the door.
"I'll pass on the coffee, thanks Blaze." She offered, hand on the comforting cold metal of the door handle.
"You're welcome." Blaze answered, clearly not listening. Gambit was on a mobile now, talking fast in French, no doubt asking for his Internet line to be cut.
"Bye Remy." Mercury finished, leaving and not quite slamming the door in disgust. Dust swung through the air, disturbed by the force of her disapproval. Gambit and Blaze both looked at the slab of wood in mild confusion, then went back to what they were doing.
"Ouch." Blaze commented consolingly as Remy finished his call, removed the SIM from the handset and lobbed it out the window to explode. "Sorry, but this couldn't wait or he'd most probably change the codes..."
"Don't worry 'bout it little one." Gambit brushed off her concerns for him and Mercury. "I'se thinkin' 'bout endin' it anyways."
"Fool if you do." Blaze commented, more lightly than she felt. Them being together was her security, the common sense that kept her thinking straight. She switched off the computer. "All done."
"How much?"
"Four thousand, nine hundred and eighty six euros fifty, currently flying through various sub-ether bank accounts to land in the real world this afternoon." Blaze could at least be proud of that; that was a good night's work.
"So when I take my seventy percent..." Remy started, not surprised when Blaze turned on him with fiery eyes.
"Not in this life time!" She laughed, "Best you're getting is forty, and that's only because I feel mean for barging in!"
A brief flush of sirens in the streets outside floated in like the stench of a corpse, destroying the amicable teasing. Both thieves glanced to the open window, then back at each other nervously. Blaze gave an anxious smile, and then picked up her coffee to hide how her hands were shaking. Gambit closed the window.
"They not comin' for us. Not yet anyways." He tried to comfort her, but folding his arms defensively at the same time. Blaze nodded.
"I know. And I was careful, I swear Gambit..." She put her coffee down and looked at her bacon sandwich, suddenly not hungry anymore. The man she'd ripped off had been decent enough; just another easy target who'd never think anyone would be out to steal from him. Guilt was not a nice feeling.
"You always is." He agreed seriously. "That why you're so good at this Blaze."
"You ever wish that we weren't?" Blaze asked him with a sigh. Gambit couldn't help but grin.
"Why? So we can get caught? There always bin thieves, Petite, an' there always will be. If we ain't doin' this, someone else will be..." Blaze smiled back at him, he was right of course. "Besides, even if they ever catch us Petite, ain't no jail gonna hold us for long..."
"True." Blaze agreed, tearing her bacon sandwich in half and passing half to him. "Fifty percent of my breakfast good enough for you, or do you want seventy percent of that too?"
"How 'bout we go fifty-fifty on everythin', an' I tell you you as trained as you ever gonna be, Petite." He replied seriously. For a moment Blaze just looked at him, before her face cracked into as smug a grin as he'd ever seen her wear. If he'd known his approval meant that much to her, he might have told her the truth a long time ago. Or maybe not.
"And here I was thinking you'd ditch me first chance you got, soon as your thieves guild rules were filled or whatever. You sure you don't want me to just clear off?" Blaze asked, her self-esteem needing to actually hear him say that he wanted her to stick about.
"Hey, that fifty percent of the money you just stole the easiest work I ever did, why I wanna cut myself outta that?" He fired back at her, ducking as she lobbed the plastic top off her coffee at him.
"You agreed to forty on that one! The fifty percent only started from the bacon sandwich!"
"You want me to change my mind, eh Amie?" He grinned, both knowing he wouldn't. "Look, I need a favour Cherie..."
"Sounds ominous." Blaze tilted her head to one side, marvelling at Gambit's sudden change of mood. "What is it Rem?"
"Mercury." He sat down heavily, dismantling the bacon sandwich for no apparent reason. "She want too much, Amie. I'se had enough..."
Blaze didn't say anything, and Gambit knew she was busy judging him. Good friend as she was, he kept almost forgetting she was still a girl, and Mercury's friend. Of course she wouldn't understand. But he just couldn't face finishing it himself; even knowing he was being a coward. Hell, he knew that anyway, was only a year ago the nineteen-year-old had left his girl stood at the altar and fled to France. His girl... Wasn't that a good enough reason to end things with Mercury if no other, he was still thinking that a girl he'd abandoned back in New Orleans was his... Damn it Belle, how'd you do this to me! He demanded, but long-range telepathy was not one of the assassin's many talents...
"You know I think you're making a mistake." Blaze told him slowly, carefully, dragging him out of his gloomy reverie. "But if you're really serious about this..." He didn't need to say anything to that; just looking at her was enough. "Then I'll do whatever you need me to..."
"You will?" Gambit didn't know who was more shocked at that admission, him or Blaze.
"Just this once, mind." Blaze warned him. "I'm not ditching every girl for you. But maybe it would be better coming from me, I've known Mercury longer, and if you're ditching her its going to have to pretty much be the end of our friendship too, isn't it? I mean, if I'm staying working with you?"
"That's what I've done, ain't it? Made you choose between us, Petite?" He asked her, red-on-black eyes guilty.
"It was always going to come to that one day." She consoled him. "And you know how I hate to inflate your ego, but Mercury never stood a chance..."
"Inflate my ego?" Gambit sniggered, "I'se knew you sucker for Gambit's charm, non?"
"Naff off!" Blaze swore. "Charm? A twat like you doesn't know the first thing about the word!"
"You accent go strong when you annoyed, non?" Remy laughed at her, "Where the hell that all from anyways?"
"At least my accent's only strong when I'm annoyed," Blaze countered, eyes dancing. "I hate to tell you this, Miss New Orleans, but that really avid look on the faces of the girls you pick up, its not them being swept away by that 'charm' of yours. Its just it takes that much concentration from your average bimbo to follow a single word you're spewing. Actually, now that I think of it, maybe that's not a bad thing given the dross you come out with..."
"Naff? Twat? Dross? Je ne pas comprende Cherie..."Blaze came to his side as he spoke, voice teasing as she asked, "You call that French?"
"You call that English?" He bantered, brushing a strand of her loose curls back from her face. Smiling, examining her expression as she looked up at him without fear or apprehension, he took her hand in his, a deal-clinching handshake. "Partners?"
The corner of her mouth twitched, rose-red lips moving into a smirk. She took his handshake and turned it into a fighter's clasp, grasped hard as though for an arm-wrestling match.
"We'll show them all what we thieves are worth..."