Challenge: Word #187 at 15_minute_fic LJ comm
Not beta'ed. For whipsy.
Ritual
Gambit pulled over hard to the side of the road and cut the motor. He waited about one half of a heartbeat for the gravel to settle and his breath to even out before yanking off his helmet and staring out at the dark horizon. It was morning, but he'd never know it without a watch and a crazy accurate biological clock that always drove Rogue nuts because he was always right.
It ached a little in his chest that she wasn't with him to be irritated, that he couldn't sit at the foot of her bed staring at her until flushed with annoyance, she woke up and tried to pound him for peeping. Even so, this was one ritual he couldn't quite give up, and he hoped she felt the same.
Kitty groaned at the blare of Rogue's alarm and buried her head into her pillow—phasing did come in handy for something. "It's like waaaaaaaay too early for this," she muttered threateningly, only it didn't sound all that threatening, just like a mumbled protest from a generally ignored roommate.
Rogue emerged bleary-eyed from her own cocoon of covers and stared at the clock for almost a full minute—with Kitty still whining at her to turn it off—before she finally reached out and put the sorry sucker out of its misery.
Kitty poked her head back up out of the pillow. "Rogue?"
But Rogue was too busy untangling herself from blankets and sheets to answer. With a few grunts and a bit of a whine of her own, Rogue managed to finally tumble out of the bed and stalk over to the balcony door. She didn't go outside; she just stopped at the glass and stared out into the darkness of the morning.
Gambit had never been much for romantic gestures. Having a girlfriend who preferred a sparkly new Glock to a sparkly new diamond sort of put a damper on his developing sense of chivalry. But Bella aside, Rogue wasn't all that big on romantic gestures. She wanted to be romanced, but only in a very practical way. (Try that on for a challenge.)
But this was different.
His night vision was phenomenal, and it didn't hurt that he could see in the infra-red spectrum. He caught the very first hints of approaching light.
Rogue shivered in the early morning. She was still ignoring the muttering behind her. She didn't have Gambit's knack of moving about without disturbing anybody else, and this was just too important to miss.
Somewhere on a road to or from or in Louisiana was a red-eyed mutant staring into the brightening sky. And right here, she was watching the sunrise with him.