Rogue woke up with a jerk, gasping for air, her nightmare replaying in her
head. She quickly took in her surroundings, frightened that that horrible
dream had been true, and that she was in a lab, in a cell. She sighed in
relief, she was in her bed and on the other side of the room was Kitty,
sleeping heavily. It had only been a bad dream, just a bad dream.
She got up, opening the door of her room slowly, she sneaked out in her pyjama pants and tank top, heading for the bathroom. In the dead of night, her footsteps seemed to echo down the corridor. If Logan was about, he surely must have heard her.
She locked herself in the bathroom, heading to the washbasin. Splashing water on her face she thought about her nightmare. It was maybe created from Gambit's existence. She shuddered, wandering if in reality, she would have chosen to be cut up by a mad scientist, just to have control. She shrugged it off, wiping her face dry with a towel.
There was a light knock on the door, her head wiped around, frightened that her dream was replaying again. But no, she was still in the bathroom. She chuckled to herself, it was amazing sometimes how she would get frightened for a nothing.
"Stripes?" Logan called from the other side of the door. "Is everything alright?" There was no: "Stripes, is it you?": Logan could smell out anyone.
"Yeah," Rogue said opening the door to the bathroom.
Logan looked dishevelled: she must have woken him up from bed. His blue hair was in a mess, he was only wearing a pair of boxers, an old T-shirt and some socks.
"Ah'm fine," Rogue told him again forcing a smile, trying to make his worried expression leave.
"Don't pretend with me, kid."
Rogue dropped her smile. "It was just a nightmare, sorry t' have woken ya up, Wolvie."
He sniffed in displeasure, "Don't call me Wolvie, Stripes. It sounds like I'm a big teddy bear."
This got a true smile out of Rogue. It felt good to be with Logan, he was some sort of surrogate father.
"Ah'll just go down t' have a drink," she told him.
He nodded. "I'll come with you."
They both padded down to the kitchen.
Rogue took a glass of milk for herself, while Logan popped out a claw to open his bottle of beer. They both sat down at the table, facing each other.
"Tell me about your nightmare, Kid."
Rogue sighed, Logan just didn't know when to drop something, he was way too stubborn.
"Ah dreamt that Ah would have done anythin' t' get control of mah pow'ar."
"We all do that dream, once in a while. Don't need to worry about it."
There was a pause; the silence filtering threw the scene. Rogue lifted her eyes to look at Logan's brown ones. They shone with worry and suspicion.
"Ah dreamt that Ah had done somethin' terrible t' get control."
Logan seemed more interested than ever.
"A bit like ya, Ah suppose..."
"How like me?" Logan asked, he seemed to have forgotten his beer, something quite intriguing to Rogue. She wasn't too sure if she wanted to continue anymore.
"The operations, the mind controlling, a contract that would have made meh some kind of assassin."
He frowned. "I never told you anything like this, Stripes."
"Ya 'in mah mind'..." Rogue started, pointing at her head. The gesture seemed familiar. "Ah absorbed ya." Then the realisation struck her hard. He was maybe in her mind, but she never found out something like this from his memories, because he simply didn't have any memories going back that far.
"I'd prefer that ya don't go looking threw my memories, Kid. Ya won't find anything good." He scratched his chin, where a couple of days beard had grown. "I couldn't sleep either," he confessed.
Rogue was intrigued about his mood: he seemed distant...
"Ya scared us all: ya were gone a month." Rogue's mind started to real. What was he talking about? She'd never left the Institute! "We thought ya were dead, Kid. It's nice to have ya back, even if ya don't want to tell us what ya did."
Rogue's hand trembled as she took a gulp of her milk. 'Gone a month'... What did this mean? Why couldn't she remember? Was it a trick of her psyches, had she 'laid back' to long? Had they taken control of her that long? Logan was saying that she didn't want to tell where she'd been. The problem was: she didn't know. She was waiting any second now for the prank to be revealed, and he would say: "It was just a joke." Bobby would come out of his hidden corner, a camera in hand. However, this was Logan, and he was still fixing her with a grave expression.
"I just hope it was worth it, Rogue," he finally said retreating from the kitchen with his beer.
Rogue had completely forgotten about her own drink.
Her fingers travelled threw her hair, trying to understand... She put her elbows on the top of the table, her palms resting at the back of he neck.
"Ah hope it has nothing' t' do with ya," she told her psyches.
Then her fingers felt something rough on the back of her neck. She traced it: it was a straight line going from her scalp to the top of her back... that went even further down.
She took her hands away in panic. What was it? She never knew that she had something like that on her body.
"Professor! Kurt! Logan! What is it?!?!?"
She waited for a response, but only silence answered her.
"Kitty?" She even called for Jean and Scott. Why weren't they answering?
She wandered the mansion aimlessly. She couldn't sleep. This was too much for her. Logan was telling her that she'd been missing for a month... Maybe she hadn't listened carefully enough, he'd maybe said something else like: "Listing for lunch" or something stupid like that. She had heard it clearly, it was: "missing for a month." And where had her psyches gone? They never stayed this quite...
She arrived to the living room: the couches were disposed of differently from what she remembered, the TV was bigger and there was now a pool table. She walked over to the wide windows and gasped as she saw the garden outside. It was in shreds, even in the pale moonlight she saw that there were no more hedges, no more pretty lanes of flowers: it looked like as if it had been abandoned. Nothing like the last time she'd gone jogging, trying to soothe her headache.
Something caught her attention, the reflection of red eyes in the window. Her heart was suddenly beating franticly, her body covered in cold sweat.
"It's only Remy, chere..." the owner of the red eyes said, lacing his arms around Rogue's waist.
The touch made the Goth rebuke, quickly punching Gambit in the ribs with her elbow. The gesture made him step back.
Rogue took a defensive position, waiting for her enemy to make the next move. She saw him put up his hands in a peaceful gesture. He was about to speak but Rogue didn't let him, aiming for his head with a right punch.
Her hand hit something hard: Gambit had caught her flying fist in his hand.
"Calm down chere, ya not in danger right now..."
He took her other hand tenderly. This was all very confusing to Rogue, she was attacking him and he was... What was he doing in the first place?
"Ya safe..." His words seemed to soothe her and she actually let him step forward. She suddenly became conscious of his closeness, much too close than she'd allow anyone to come, 'anyone'... Her fear was forgotten as she became aware of the warmth of his body, her fin pyjamas not being able to hide it from her.
"Miss meh, chere?" he asked with a smirk.
Rogue gasped as his hand travelled down her side onto her hip, his firm but soft grip pulling her forward. She was like a puppet in his hands. Rogue forgot her troubles for a moment, her supposed disappearance, her missing psyches, the scar along her back. The only thing she was focused on were his blazing eyes, two spots of red light dancing in the dark. Why she'd thought them threatening was lost to her.
The slow caresses on the small of her back, his breath against her face were making her lose her mind.
"What." she whispered, but was cut off as he kissed her. It was a tender kiss, soft and comforting. His lips lightly left hers to come back more forcefully.
Her breath was taken away, maybe even her heart, giving everything to him, stripping her bare of the protectiveness she'd tried so hard to create by staying away from everyone. She lifted her hands as if to stroke his cheeks, something she wished so much to do, touch him with her bare hands...
Instead, he got a punch, the same punch she'd tried to give him earlier, but not as hard as the first one had attended to be. She felt the usual pull of memories, but they retreated as quickly as they had came. Her skin had no effect on him. His head jerked back from the thrust.
"Don't play with meh, Swamp Rat. Ah'll kill ya if ya tempt any of ya other tricks."
He growled. "What's gotten inta ya, chere? The diable got up ya pants?"
"Ya filthy thief," she hissed, using Sabertooth's favourite line. "How did ya do it?"
"Do what? Ya not in ya normal state. Maybe de trip was harder on ya than Remy thought."
"In mah normal state! Hell Ah'm not!" Rogue said in low voice. She didn't want Logan to come down, she wanted this to be between him and her. "How did ya touch meh?" Her voice trembled on the last word. His kiss, his caress... How? Another question added to her list.
"Ya just got out of it," he said. "and ya want t' talk 'bout it again so soon?". He wiped the little blood that Rogue had spilt from his brow. "We were kissing just two days ago, an' now ya hitting meh? It's meant t' be de other way 'round, chere."
Was he lying? Had her memory been wiped?
Worse... Had it been more than a nightmare? Was this control?
"Chere, don't ya remembe'?"
"Ah don't remember... anything."
"Who's down there?" Logan called from up the stairs in the big hall.
Of course Wolverine would be suspicious, he wouldn't manage to identify Remy's smell. Some part in Rogue didn't want him to leave, but neither did she really want him to get caught.
She was considering about trying to knock Gambit unconscious when he whispered something to her ear before lightly kissing her on the lips. He slipped into shadow as quickly as he had come out of it, leaving Rogue once more on her own.
Her temples started throb, not because of talking psyches anymore.
****
This wasn't what you expected, isn't it? Now, how did Gambit get close enough to be kissing her this familiarly? Wwoooowoo! (is he faking?) Her psyches are shut out, no more advice, and a suspicious scar on her back... This is plot for you!
I confess I was little nervous last chapter, I couldn't figure out really how to make the transit for rogue, make her choose what she did (in this case: being cut up by a mad scientist to have control, and other after- actions she's going to have to do for him...). Well, I couldn't let Rogue stay with the Marauders, not for now. She's an advantage, being in the X- men, she can give Sinister some precious information on the group to destroy them in the end (oops, I'm telling all my plot! That's not good!)
Well? Tell me what you think?
Weeble Wobble Chic: Thirteen and talking like a teacher? Mhmmm... I'm not sure if that is good sign... You might sound like a bicentennial in three years! Keep going! I'm not sure if making you confused to who is speaking is a good thing or not, because it shows how Rogue gets confused between her psyche people, and the real people... But things like * * would do the trick to make you follow more easily...
Sarah-Crysala: Don't worry about not understanding who the girl with purple hair is, I'll answer it soon enough.
Snitter in Rivendell: Oo!! Don't worry! Still lots of Angst!! It's worse than just fighting against them, she's going to be fighting against them, from inside.... Evil!
Winter Fire: You won't fall off! Except if Fanfiction's server is out any longer.... Grh...
Thanks for all the Reviews! You're my gold pot of motivation!
She got up, opening the door of her room slowly, she sneaked out in her pyjama pants and tank top, heading for the bathroom. In the dead of night, her footsteps seemed to echo down the corridor. If Logan was about, he surely must have heard her.
She locked herself in the bathroom, heading to the washbasin. Splashing water on her face she thought about her nightmare. It was maybe created from Gambit's existence. She shuddered, wandering if in reality, she would have chosen to be cut up by a mad scientist, just to have control. She shrugged it off, wiping her face dry with a towel.
There was a light knock on the door, her head wiped around, frightened that her dream was replaying again. But no, she was still in the bathroom. She chuckled to herself, it was amazing sometimes how she would get frightened for a nothing.
"Stripes?" Logan called from the other side of the door. "Is everything alright?" There was no: "Stripes, is it you?": Logan could smell out anyone.
"Yeah," Rogue said opening the door to the bathroom.
Logan looked dishevelled: she must have woken him up from bed. His blue hair was in a mess, he was only wearing a pair of boxers, an old T-shirt and some socks.
"Ah'm fine," Rogue told him again forcing a smile, trying to make his worried expression leave.
"Don't pretend with me, kid."
Rogue dropped her smile. "It was just a nightmare, sorry t' have woken ya up, Wolvie."
He sniffed in displeasure, "Don't call me Wolvie, Stripes. It sounds like I'm a big teddy bear."
This got a true smile out of Rogue. It felt good to be with Logan, he was some sort of surrogate father.
"Ah'll just go down t' have a drink," she told him.
He nodded. "I'll come with you."
They both padded down to the kitchen.
Rogue took a glass of milk for herself, while Logan popped out a claw to open his bottle of beer. They both sat down at the table, facing each other.
"Tell me about your nightmare, Kid."
Rogue sighed, Logan just didn't know when to drop something, he was way too stubborn.
"Ah dreamt that Ah would have done anythin' t' get control of mah pow'ar."
"We all do that dream, once in a while. Don't need to worry about it."
There was a pause; the silence filtering threw the scene. Rogue lifted her eyes to look at Logan's brown ones. They shone with worry and suspicion.
"Ah dreamt that Ah had done somethin' terrible t' get control."
Logan seemed more interested than ever.
"A bit like ya, Ah suppose..."
"How like me?" Logan asked, he seemed to have forgotten his beer, something quite intriguing to Rogue. She wasn't too sure if she wanted to continue anymore.
"The operations, the mind controlling, a contract that would have made meh some kind of assassin."
He frowned. "I never told you anything like this, Stripes."
"Ya 'in mah mind'..." Rogue started, pointing at her head. The gesture seemed familiar. "Ah absorbed ya." Then the realisation struck her hard. He was maybe in her mind, but she never found out something like this from his memories, because he simply didn't have any memories going back that far.
"I'd prefer that ya don't go looking threw my memories, Kid. Ya won't find anything good." He scratched his chin, where a couple of days beard had grown. "I couldn't sleep either," he confessed.
Rogue was intrigued about his mood: he seemed distant...
"Ya scared us all: ya were gone a month." Rogue's mind started to real. What was he talking about? She'd never left the Institute! "We thought ya were dead, Kid. It's nice to have ya back, even if ya don't want to tell us what ya did."
Rogue's hand trembled as she took a gulp of her milk. 'Gone a month'... What did this mean? Why couldn't she remember? Was it a trick of her psyches, had she 'laid back' to long? Had they taken control of her that long? Logan was saying that she didn't want to tell where she'd been. The problem was: she didn't know. She was waiting any second now for the prank to be revealed, and he would say: "It was just a joke." Bobby would come out of his hidden corner, a camera in hand. However, this was Logan, and he was still fixing her with a grave expression.
"I just hope it was worth it, Rogue," he finally said retreating from the kitchen with his beer.
Rogue had completely forgotten about her own drink.
Her fingers travelled threw her hair, trying to understand... She put her elbows on the top of the table, her palms resting at the back of he neck.
"Ah hope it has nothing' t' do with ya," she told her psyches.
Then her fingers felt something rough on the back of her neck. She traced it: it was a straight line going from her scalp to the top of her back... that went even further down.
She took her hands away in panic. What was it? She never knew that she had something like that on her body.
"Professor! Kurt! Logan! What is it?!?!?"
She waited for a response, but only silence answered her.
"Kitty?" She even called for Jean and Scott. Why weren't they answering?
She wandered the mansion aimlessly. She couldn't sleep. This was too much for her. Logan was telling her that she'd been missing for a month... Maybe she hadn't listened carefully enough, he'd maybe said something else like: "Listing for lunch" or something stupid like that. She had heard it clearly, it was: "missing for a month." And where had her psyches gone? They never stayed this quite...
She arrived to the living room: the couches were disposed of differently from what she remembered, the TV was bigger and there was now a pool table. She walked over to the wide windows and gasped as she saw the garden outside. It was in shreds, even in the pale moonlight she saw that there were no more hedges, no more pretty lanes of flowers: it looked like as if it had been abandoned. Nothing like the last time she'd gone jogging, trying to soothe her headache.
Something caught her attention, the reflection of red eyes in the window. Her heart was suddenly beating franticly, her body covered in cold sweat.
"It's only Remy, chere..." the owner of the red eyes said, lacing his arms around Rogue's waist.
The touch made the Goth rebuke, quickly punching Gambit in the ribs with her elbow. The gesture made him step back.
Rogue took a defensive position, waiting for her enemy to make the next move. She saw him put up his hands in a peaceful gesture. He was about to speak but Rogue didn't let him, aiming for his head with a right punch.
Her hand hit something hard: Gambit had caught her flying fist in his hand.
"Calm down chere, ya not in danger right now..."
He took her other hand tenderly. This was all very confusing to Rogue, she was attacking him and he was... What was he doing in the first place?
"Ya safe..." His words seemed to soothe her and she actually let him step forward. She suddenly became conscious of his closeness, much too close than she'd allow anyone to come, 'anyone'... Her fear was forgotten as she became aware of the warmth of his body, her fin pyjamas not being able to hide it from her.
"Miss meh, chere?" he asked with a smirk.
Rogue gasped as his hand travelled down her side onto her hip, his firm but soft grip pulling her forward. She was like a puppet in his hands. Rogue forgot her troubles for a moment, her supposed disappearance, her missing psyches, the scar along her back. The only thing she was focused on were his blazing eyes, two spots of red light dancing in the dark. Why she'd thought them threatening was lost to her.
The slow caresses on the small of her back, his breath against her face were making her lose her mind.
"What." she whispered, but was cut off as he kissed her. It was a tender kiss, soft and comforting. His lips lightly left hers to come back more forcefully.
Her breath was taken away, maybe even her heart, giving everything to him, stripping her bare of the protectiveness she'd tried so hard to create by staying away from everyone. She lifted her hands as if to stroke his cheeks, something she wished so much to do, touch him with her bare hands...
Instead, he got a punch, the same punch she'd tried to give him earlier, but not as hard as the first one had attended to be. She felt the usual pull of memories, but they retreated as quickly as they had came. Her skin had no effect on him. His head jerked back from the thrust.
"Don't play with meh, Swamp Rat. Ah'll kill ya if ya tempt any of ya other tricks."
He growled. "What's gotten inta ya, chere? The diable got up ya pants?"
"Ya filthy thief," she hissed, using Sabertooth's favourite line. "How did ya do it?"
"Do what? Ya not in ya normal state. Maybe de trip was harder on ya than Remy thought."
"In mah normal state! Hell Ah'm not!" Rogue said in low voice. She didn't want Logan to come down, she wanted this to be between him and her. "How did ya touch meh?" Her voice trembled on the last word. His kiss, his caress... How? Another question added to her list.
"Ya just got out of it," he said. "and ya want t' talk 'bout it again so soon?". He wiped the little blood that Rogue had spilt from his brow. "We were kissing just two days ago, an' now ya hitting meh? It's meant t' be de other way 'round, chere."
Was he lying? Had her memory been wiped?
Worse... Had it been more than a nightmare? Was this control?
"Chere, don't ya remembe'?"
"Ah don't remember... anything."
"Who's down there?" Logan called from up the stairs in the big hall.
Of course Wolverine would be suspicious, he wouldn't manage to identify Remy's smell. Some part in Rogue didn't want him to leave, but neither did she really want him to get caught.
She was considering about trying to knock Gambit unconscious when he whispered something to her ear before lightly kissing her on the lips. He slipped into shadow as quickly as he had come out of it, leaving Rogue once more on her own.
Her temples started throb, not because of talking psyches anymore.
****
This wasn't what you expected, isn't it? Now, how did Gambit get close enough to be kissing her this familiarly? Wwoooowoo! (is he faking?) Her psyches are shut out, no more advice, and a suspicious scar on her back... This is plot for you!
I confess I was little nervous last chapter, I couldn't figure out really how to make the transit for rogue, make her choose what she did (in this case: being cut up by a mad scientist to have control, and other after- actions she's going to have to do for him...). Well, I couldn't let Rogue stay with the Marauders, not for now. She's an advantage, being in the X- men, she can give Sinister some precious information on the group to destroy them in the end (oops, I'm telling all my plot! That's not good!)
Well? Tell me what you think?
Weeble Wobble Chic: Thirteen and talking like a teacher? Mhmmm... I'm not sure if that is good sign... You might sound like a bicentennial in three years! Keep going! I'm not sure if making you confused to who is speaking is a good thing or not, because it shows how Rogue gets confused between her psyche people, and the real people... But things like * * would do the trick to make you follow more easily...
Sarah-Crysala: Don't worry about not understanding who the girl with purple hair is, I'll answer it soon enough.
Snitter in Rivendell: Oo!! Don't worry! Still lots of Angst!! It's worse than just fighting against them, she's going to be fighting against them, from inside.... Evil!
Winter Fire: You won't fall off! Except if Fanfiction's server is out any longer.... Grh...
Thanks for all the Reviews! You're my gold pot of motivation!