Disclaimer: Don't own the X-Men. Do own both Blaze and Raven. Ilehana Xavier gets a brief mention in this chapter, and she belongs as always to Corrinth, my wonderful co-conspirator in all things X-Men.

A/N: Please review? It would mean so much to me! Not that I'm begging or anything here folks...

05

A few hours to go before sunset, the two X-Men were still pounding the grey streets of Cincinnati with grim resolution. Genie wasn't where Cerebro had told them, so they were looking the old fashioned way despite it seeming they'd both be in their graves before they found him. And as time dragged on ad infinitum, it was becoming more and more likely that they were going to put each other there.

All day Gambit had been trying to think of something to cheer Rogue up, tried to make her laugh. It just wasn't natural, a beautiful woman like her being so down. But she wasn't having any of it. Her retorts right back in his face were becoming sharper and more insulting every time he opened his mouth. He could put up with her insulting him but when she started insulting Blaze, Remy forcefully bit his tongue rather than snap right back.

"Well, it ain't as if you both aren't as cheap as each other anyway…" Rogue muttered on bitterly, brushing her hair back out of her eyes, trying to have the last say in their rather one-sided argument. "Can't remember the last time Blaze had a guy she didn't cheat on, but then you're just as bad, so…"

That did it. Gambit, normally so suave and placid, turned on Rogue with viciousness the feral Wolverine would have been proud of.

"You don't know nothin', Rogue! Not 'bout Laura, not 'bout me, an' not 'bout where we bin, why we like we was!"

"I'm only sayin' you deserve each other." Rogue tried to deflect his anger, failing miserably as his eyes narrowed at the hidden sarcasm in her voice.

"You sayin' it jus' a matter of time before one of us goes behind the other's back! That all you t'ink we worth?"

"Gambit…" Rogue pleaded shallowly, trying to appease him with the small pout that usually brought Iceman to his knees. "I don't mean it Sugah…"

"Like hell you don't." He wasn't shouting, at least that was an improvement. Rogue felt her embittered confidence rising again as she stalked after him down a narrow alley, not caring where he thought this particular shortcut was taking them.

"So tell me Remy, why's it so different this time?" Her tone rich with sarcasm, her eyes twisted and cold as Remy turned back to face her. Why wouldn't she just shut up? But Rogue was on a roll. All the sourness, all the jealously she'd been storing up suddenly found the audience it had been waiting for. Let Gambit take the brunt of this, it had all been his fault! Gambit's fault she'd broken up with Bobby way back when they were little more than kids! His fault she'd left university and the X-Men, his advice she'd taken because it was the easy way out! His fault that now she found life had passed her by with no cure, no way of controlling her powers! Maybe if she'd stayed with the X-Men they could have done something, anything, but because of him she was still cursed! This day had been brewing and Gambit had it coming.

"Why is it now you and that cheap slut Blaze get your damn acts together? Hell knows how long you two bin drivin' each other round the bend! But now you're both just the perfect parents, right down to walkin' Raven's mongrel! I never got why that judge thought you two should have Jess back, y'know? Everybody knows you're a scumbag sleaze-ball with all the self-control of a bitch on heat! You're a liar, a thief, a cheat an' a coward! You don't have the right to have it all your own way. Don't you realise everyone's just holdin' their breath 'til you or Blaze screws this up! An' then the X-Men gotta pick up the pieces, while you two rip each other an' Jess apart!"

Rogue stopped screaming, gasping for air with the coolness of the day scorching her lungs. Her face had turned a stressed-out red with terrified pinpricks of white on her cheekbones. Shaking, she dropped into an athlete's recovery position with her hands lodged on her knees as her hair streamed past her face, eyes staring at the pavement. Safer than meeting Gambit's expression at any rate…

Gambit didn't even see her, thinking he should have seen this coming. That was all the X-Men thought of him; a major screw up dragging Blaze and now Jessica through the gutter on his way to hell. All nice and cheerful and coy when he and Blaze turned up hitched on the doorstep of the mansion they part-owned, laden with luggage and a giddy eleven-year-old. Behind their backs their so-called-friends were taking bets on how long they'd last… Turning again away from Rogue he clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth, muscles in his neck so tense they hurt. Damn them all, he an' his filles would show 'em!

Chance overtook them as Rogue realised that if Gambit left in the jet without her it would be a long walk home. She stormed after him, yet still wary not to get too close, knowing by his silence her words had cut deep. She was right though, Rogue kept telling herself like a mantra to make her feel better. She was doing him a favour pointing out what all of them knew…

They'd landed the jet on the roof of a neglected apartment building, not far from where Genie had been pinpointed. It was the last place they'd expected to actually run into their quarry, certain that if he had been here he would have run at the first sign of their arrival. But apparently the thought hadn't even crossed his mind as the man from Cyclops' images left his flat to pick up his paper, just as the two X-Men were going back to the roof. What alerted Gambit to trouble, set his mental guards in place just like Ilehana Xavier had long-ago taught him, was that Genie did not even run or feign surprise as he was marched back into his flat by the two black-clad X-Men.

Gambit forced himself to try and remain calm, put his anger at Rogue to one side as he concentrated on his job. He could argue with the X-Men 'til gators grew wings, but hell would freeze over before he'd let a creep like this get away with manipulating young mutants in the same world as his daughter…

Genie was in person rather an interesting-looking, middle-aged gentleman. He certainly didn't come across as a twisted psychopath with a penchant for 'living art'. Broad rather than round, dressed in a red lumberjack shirt, he was constantly smiling and even humming to himself as Rogue and Gambit tried to interrogate him. It got both Rogue and Gambit's hackles up, his chirpiness in the face of their screaming row, his friendly manner throwing them both a little off guard.

"Come my friends," He laughed smoothly, kilting his head to one side like a green-eyed blackbird, voice distinguished yet choppy. "Surely you can see I did exactly what the young lady requested? If she failed to be more specific about her requirements then that is not really, well, my concern to put it frankly."

"Maybe it time you make it your concern, eh Ami?" Gambit replied threateningly, taking a step to tower over the seated man.

"I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement beneficial to all parties, hum?" Genie spoke hurriedly as Rogue removed a glove distractedly. "I can make it worth your while to leave me be…"

"You don't got nothin' we want." Gambit reasoned.

"You're not telling me, my good mutant, that a striking man like you has every, um, well every passion in his life fulfilled? There must be something lacking, something you desire? After all we are only I suppose human?"

"It obvious you ain't met my wife." Gambit stated haughtily, shuffling cards in his hands methodically.

"Very well, very well." Genie staggered to his feet by himself, trying to placate Remy with a cheery wink. "Enough said. But what of you my dear?"

With that he looked straight at Rogue, his bright green eyes boring into her like drill bits. She shuddered, squirming like a fish out of water or a worm on a hook. Rogue stuttered, trying and failing to break the eye contact. Genie knew he was in control and took a curious step towards her, tilting his head this way and that like an ostrich as he waited for her answer. "I…"

"Don't let him get to you Rogue." Gambit warned. Differences they may have but this wasn't playing out by Gambit's rules, and he wouldn't stand for that. Rogue was turning a funny shade of purple, as if trying with all her might not to open her mouth even to breathe for fear of what this telepath might make her say. "Rogue!" Gambit spoke her name intensely, taking the woman by the shoulders. It was the wrong thing to do and Genie smiled craftily as Rogue found she could bite her tongue no longer.

"I wanna be able to touch…" The Southern belle sobbed, white hair catching in the breeze, eyes young and innocent.

"Then say the magic words…" Genie prompted, rubbing his hands together in actual glee.

"I wish I could touch!"