Okay, what happened in that last scene: night after Rogue kicked him out, Remy went out to get drunk and well, laid. But while he was fooling around with a girl, he reached out with his empathy, like he was accustomed to doing with Rogue. However, random girl was unfamiliar and feeling pure lust – he freaked out at the alienness. Then he freaked out about freaking out – thus drunk stumbling in the wee hours home.
Night after Joseph, Remy goes out to get drunk and now, after having taken a break from carousing, he thinks he can have casual sex. Except he calls the girl Rogue and well, drunk!Remy actually inadvertently explains it's a name of a girl he's hung up over. Girl ditches him. (To X-Storm)
Oh, people really, really don't like 'Joseph;' well don't worry, he's not going to get too much screen time. Not that he's the real one to worry about… -evil grin-
Rogue actually touching Remy, well yes and no. The energy barrier was/is to his energy, not to his skin. She does have control with him, but it is a bit symbiotic because she is picking up some of his 'shielding' even as he's kindof 'feeding' off her emotional energy.
Ah, everyone's noting the couple's issues with trust and emotionally stability. Well yeah, that's a huge issue for these two, especially learning how to accept intimate relationships. This story is about that and well, I'm going to experiment with actions vs. words…
Wisdom from the fanbase:
Mazdamiatta: "This is destroying me. I can't pick a side. One minute I'm rooting for Remy and then the next I can't help but want to hug Rogue." Yes!! That is what I'm going for – you have to remember each character has their own biases and perception issues!! And when they think the worse, they look for and see things that build it up! Rogue's admission of love – nope she is not in denial there!
ishandahalf: "I can see Xavier guiding them along behind the scenes, like he's been doing, but if he actually called them both out into the open, I think that would just end in tears or outright denial or rage. Or all three, most likely." I couldn't agree more.
Thanks to my reviewers!! (Where are you, ajax41 and Sassy18??)
Chica De Los Ojos Café: I love the Spanish song! Oh if only Remy was Spanish, it would fit perfectly… "I want to grab those two, kicking and screaming, lock them up in a tiny room so they can vent, and then just have make up sex on the floor!" Lol! Aren't all the very best couples like that?! As to Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together" it's good, but for Rogue's p.o.v. "Long Ago" by Mariah fits perfectly!! Also, "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough" by Patty Smyth would work too for her.
ishandahalf: lol - hippy love commune! Remy emotionally sane, LOL! Aren't they a great emotional contrast? Rogue is usually seen as the resister, but it's more like suppression. Remy on the other hand, at least in this story, is fighting it.
Rogue181, PyroWhore (thanks!), Conquistador Imp, Dmik33, thegambit23 (ah, shallow feelings showing deeper now! And the song is cool!), musariven (lol - I wish), Wiccamage (er, depends on def. of 'real fun'), Captain Annie (what did you mean about the end? departure from normal p.o.v. is important to mark), cream tea anyone, coldqueen ("I LOVE that he's so tortured about this. It amuses me." LOL! As to how long draw this out -evil grin-.)
Best quote goes to Chica De Los Ojos Café: "They could live with JUST complicated."
Runner-up – ishandahalf: "Man, they need therapy." Lol! But true…
It Takes Two...to Practice
13) Dealer's Call
It was just past noon when Remy staggered into the kitchen, sunglasses and massive hangover in place. As his brain proceeded to beat a rhythm that'd fit well in Mardi Gras, he swore this was the last time he got dead drunk for a while. These past two weeks were starting to become way too eerily like his leaving of New Orleans.
He'd carefully listened to find out if anyone was already occupying the room – he was hardly in the mood for company. It was probably a vain hope though; it was Saturday and the student residents' movements tended to be unpredictable on weekends.
He obviously hadn't listened well enough, because Kitty's head immediately popped up from the tray she was arranging on the main kitchen island.
"Remy!" He paused, but considering he was already in the kitchen, it was too late. Anyway, Kitty was a great source of Manor gossip – and he was sure there was plenty going on now.
"Mornin', petite," he half-mumbled, making his way to the coffee machine. Caffeine couldn't cure the hangover, but at least it'd wake him up.
"Late night?" The shrewd question caught him off-guard, but his back was to her. He settled for a shrug.
"Whatcha up to?" he asked to deflect, making a gesture towards the rather large tray she was loading with sandwiches and closed drinks, even as he fished for a mug for his brewing coffee.
"I'm making lunch for Magneto," he turned just in time to see her make a face, "Joseph and the Professor. They've been cooped up in the Prof's room all morning coming up with some weird plans for him to help us out in training."
Remy snorted. "T'ought he already did dat." Kitty acknowledged the jibe with a barely suppressed grin.
"Technically so did you," she commented, but without malice. "Anyway, apparently he's given up his plans for like, mutant domination of the world and wants to help other mutants gain control of their abilities, so at least they can like, defend themselves."
"Bet he and de prof got some disagreement dere," Remy mused. Magneto's ideas of defense had always been rather proactive.
Kitty blinked, tilting her head. "Huh, maybe. But he's also got these ideas to make the Manor more like a mutant school 'stead of just a boarding school. That's what they're discussing right now. I don't think the Professor totally agrees with taking mutants out of the schools."
Remy nodded. "Might be easier dough," he pointed out.
Kitty gave a little flip of her hair. "Well duh, but well, the Prof wanted us to go back to school to prove to people we're safe to be around – and y'know, just like everyone else."
"Prof t'inks humans and mutants can live together in paix et harmonie."
Kitty's hands, halfway reaching for a salt and pepper shaker, froze. "Peace and harmony, right?" She didn't wait for an answer, looking up at him. "You don't?"
It was too early for such a frank philosophical question from guileless blue eyes and his temples throbbed. He turned back to retrieve his cup of coffee, giving another shrug. "'s a nice idea," he said non-commitally. He deflected again, even though he could feel her sharp eyes on his back. "So how'd you get roped inta makin' lunch f' Mags?"
"Oh, Scott assigned me to it, which was kinda cool 'cause I like never get access to the kitchen. He even suggested I make something myself, but as if I'm going to like, waste my cooking on Magneto." Remy was glad his back was to her, because his knowing grin was impossible to contain. Kitty's cooking was legendary and he'd had his own experience with the girl's expertise. Looked like Scotty boy wasn't liking Magneto's presence anymore than Wolverine.
Kitty was still talking though. "But hey, at least this gets me outta of my room – Rogue's been having such funky moods lately." Remy couldn't help the stiffening effect the name had on him. He hadn't heard it in days.
"Oh?" he asked casually, settling himself on a stool on the other end of the kitchen island, instead of the other side.
"Yeah, she's been all bad-moody no-touchy no-talky ever since I moved back in. Keeps going off by herself or just hanging out in rooms around people, which is just weird for her, even if she doesn't like interact. She's always tired too, but she won't sleep – it's really weird. I'd like take it personally, but she y'know keeps saying she's glad to have me around." Kitty glanced at him at that last part, but he didn't react, just took another sip of his coffee.
"Pro'lly jus' gettin' used ta havin' a roommate again."
Kitty shrugged. "I guess. But well, maybe Bobby will be able to cheer her up – he's been volunteering to practice with her-"
He nearly dropped his cup. "Dat pipsqueak?!"
Kitty turned her face to look at him fully. "What, you have someone else in mind?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
It was a classic setup, the perfect cue for one of his infamous arrogant statements of how he was the better choice. The better choice – "It's your touch" – the switchblade words laced through his brain, but another echo now met them – "she's been all bad-moody no-touchy." His head ached with more than the force of his headache. Kitty's eyes were too knowing – and he couldn't recite the line. But he didn't dare look away. "Bet anybody'd be bettah den Iceboy," he said lightly.
She stared for a full second after the response and he actually thought she might – but then she turned away and picked up the tray. "If you say so," she said with her own shrug and walked out of the room.
Remy sat there for a full minute after before throwing his coffee into the sink.
It was too bitter anyway.
"Why Remy, I was wondering whether I would see you today!"
Remy rolled his shoulders, leaning back against the doorframe rather than continuing into the Lab. "Not here f' a checkup Henri, jus' want'd ta let y'know doin' fine."
Hank's face lost the interested excitement examination always brought on, instead settling into a cautious curiosity.
"I appreciate the courtesy, but are you sure…" he trailed off with careful pressure, vaguely gesturing to his examination chair with an oversized blue hand.
Remy gave a small grin. "Not dat I don' like y', but me an' medical tables don' really get 'long."
"Ah, I was surprised you agreed so easily these past few times, though I must wonder at the change."
Remy's cards came out and he shuffled them, telling himself it was because being in the Lab always unnerved him, not to mention his hangover had yet to completely fade. Hank was fishing, but not discretely enough. "T'ings always changing," he remarked casually. He glanced past the doctor to the infirmary rooms beyond him. "Nobody else down here now?"
Hank followed his line of sight. "Ah, no. No one was injured while you all were away, though honestly some of the younger boys," he grimaced, before going on. "Rogue's practice sometimes occurs down here, but lately Charles has been trying to ease Rogue's practice into real life settings." His eyes trailed back to Remy, even as his lips turned into a frown. "Unfortunately, Rogue has gotten into the bad habit of canceling practices due to fatigue."
Remy's hands kept flicking through the cards. He counted them.
"It's too bad really," Hank added absently, his gaze returning from being distant. "I was really hoping she was ready to make the transition to practicing with her teammates at large."
52; he slipped the cards back into the case in his pocket.
"Dat be too bad," he said lightly, aware of Hank's eyes on him. And he thought he'd past the surveillance stage of being an X-Man. "She be a belle fille."
He turned to leave when Hank asked, "Will things change again?" Remy tensed. "And I'll see you for another checkup?"
"Peut-être" (Maybe; literally could be)
Perhaps she wasn't so unaffected.
He didn't go looking for her, not exactly. He had little idea where she'd be anyway and if she was in her room, well he couldn't go there. Tracking her would be hard and her shields to his empathy had only strengthened in their separation, though he'd hardly had time or genuinely wanted to coax them down. He could be within feet of her and feel nothing. At least, nothing on her side.
And besides, he wasn't convinced he wanted to find her.
Her roommate was another matter completely.
"-and looks like Magneto didn't even put up a fight; kinda anticlimactic I guess," passing the rec room, her voice was easy to make out and despite himself, his lips creased into a wry smile. "Well, at least no one got hurt."
There was a snort and Remy's fingers tensed against the doorway. "Told you he'd come back with his hide intact."
But he couldn't resist.
"How can you tell chere?" Her head shot up and there she was, all lovely and untouchable, big jade eyes and straightened chocolate hair that he just wanted to see tangled and curly against the sheets of her bed. He stepped in front of her and mockingly spun in a 360, holding his arms out to let his trench coat flare. He smirked when her eyes trailed down his form- "Y' welcome t' an inspection." –except he could see the bags under her eyes, discernable even under the makeup, the strained pale of her face, the gloves she wore…
Jade fire snapped to his red. "As if ah'd want ta," she spat, the edgings of a blush tinting her cheeks.
"C'mon chérie, no lies," he enticed with an edged grin, taking a step closer to her. She was a foot away, seated on the couch, a forgotten book in her lap. If he just reached out a hand, he could caress her cheek…
She stood, not backing away though it brought her within inches of his chest, her eyes burning into his. "What makes yah think ah'm lying?" Her chin was high, defiant. She would not give an inch - and the fury laced his blood. She was affected – but she was far too stubborn. He had no answer, but insistence.
"Je le sais." (I know it)
For a moment she seemed to falter, but then she turned to Kitty, who was watching them wide-eyed from the other end of the couch. "C'mon Kitty, ah'm sho (sure) there's soma else we can go an' talk without bein' rudely interrupted."
Icily she brushed by him.
The anger charged red-hot and his fists tightened.
Rogue stood before him, body crouched in defensive formation, eyes calculating.
Deliberately, he shed his trench coat and threw it to the side, before limbering up mockingly. He cracked his knuckles, but she didn't flinch.
"Ready t' begin?" he purred.
She didn't answer, but slowly began to circle. Gambit didn't move, instead focusing on the feel of her movement, the brush of molecule releasing and absorbing energy. It was a flow, a dance – she began to edge out of his sight and still he waited…until the last possible second. She went for his ankles and he slid out of the way, viciously whipping around to bring interlocked hands down on her shoulder. She went down with a grunt, absorbing the impact with her body.
"Yah gonna pay for that," she said – but it wasn't the same.
Now he circled her, a lion after its prey. Physically it was her – same smoothed hair, same plated uniform, same snub nose, same angular jaw, same porcelain skin, same damn curves. But nothing could replicate the challenging glint of her eyes or that sneer of her voice.
He'd been bored the day he'd searched the Danger Rooms' archive of hostiles, idly thinking he might come across himself. Instead, he'd been surprised to come across Rogue. It was an old file, with only the bare minimum of information; she'd only been an enemy to the X-Men for a few weeks after all. Still, the simulation intrigued him and, through a little fiddling which he was not about to admit to the X-Men he was capable of, he merged the new data read-outs of her current capabilities as an X-Man with the old. He marveled at the seamlessness as she picked herself off the ground.
She had the same moves, even slightly tempered by his own as their last session had been inputted, the same speed, the same dexterity. And yet…
He took the attack this time, managing to land a brutal blow to her jaw that made him swallow an apology, hurling some of the words he dearly wanted to burn Rogue's little ears with. But she didn't get upset, barely even talked back to him coldly, just focused on rendering him unconscious. If this one touched him, there was no possibility she wouldn't absorb.
Remy tired of the game and in a quick combo, he'd wrenched her off-balance then clipped her leg to send her sprawling to the ground. In a flash, he'd straddled her, pinning her in place. He looked down at her – a mask of frustration, flush of exertion, tumbling hair, the cloth of her uniform under his fingertips. He leaned closer and Dieu, even her sweat was consistent.
But it wasn't her – because this Rogue had never bantered with him, come apart in his arms, his hands that she'd tenderly stroked gloveless, or huskily asked what exactly he wanted to do to her.
With her.
And yet…
Her chest heaved beneath him, a faux imitation of a living being, not an illusion – and her eyes still were that shade of green and it made him ache to be so close after so long –
She is so close…
He closes his eyes, his senses, and presses his lips against hers.
"Session terminated." The voice is cold and impersonal. "Reason: suicide."
And she melts away leaving him with nothing.
I keep looking for something I can't get
Broken hearts lie all around me
And I don't see an easy way out of this
Her diary, it sits on the bedside table
The curtains are closed, the cat's in the cradle
Who would've thought that a boy like me could come to this?
He didn't get drunk that night. But by the time he stumbled into his room, he was reasonably glad he hadn't gone to a bar far away.
He'd gotten three steps in, his coat half-shrugged off his shoulders when the presence registered – his eyes snapped up and –
She was there.
She stood before, a swirl of shadows and pale luminance, long legs and slender arms, upturned face framing cloth lost in the darkness. But then she stepped into a slanting beam of moon light and the determination revealed her.
"Yah were right."
It takes him a few minutes to comprehend the low murmur. Her eyes, emerald now, turned to him and her face is unveiled – she wasn't wearing makeup. Inevitably though, his gaze traveled downward and his breath caught.
She was wearing black lingerie with tracings of red over the faux corset ribbing – it was the same he'd imagined, once upon a time and he didn't know whether to be pleased or horrified.
He blinked. "Quoi?" tumbled inelegantly from his lips.
"Yah were right," she repeated, this being that had to be an apparition. His fingers itched…
"Ah need more practice."
Practice?
The idea was preposterous, unthinkable, insane, ridiculous –
She had just dum- ended their arrangement without warning and now she wanted to what, just re-start like nothing had occurred? Like she hadn't just spat that afternoon that she wouldn't want to touch him?
- and yet…
He can't deny the thrill of seeing her before him again, wanting him. It made him grin, flash his teeth like the predator he is to the dog who's bared her throat to him in submission, even as his body tensed in eager anticipation.
She shifted under the intensity of his gaze and a strap, precariously perched on the cusp of her shoulder, slid down.
The possibilities flooded his veins. He wanted to crow at her desire, toy with her, make her beg.
The strap was off her shoulder.
He wanted to revel in it and then refuse her, shove it in her face and then kick her out the door.
The strap was off her shoulder, two inches of bare skin between where it was and where it was supposed to be.
He wanted…
Her strap was off her shoulder - and he hated her, hated her indifference, her fickleness, her dismissiveness, but he reached anyway. His hand, as if listening to another rationale, reached out and slid the strip up, into place.
The illusion… can't bet on it though…
His gloves were fingerless and the bare pads of his fingers trailed over her soft skin. Her body quivered and it sent a very real echo through his body. Once the strap was in place, it ventured over her shoulder, down to her bust line, and then one by one, trailed down the links of her corset. His hand wove into the last tie and with one jerk, she was in his arms. He dropped his head to her neck and breathed her in. She shuddered.
He so desperately wants to hate her - hate her, even if he can't, won't figure out, confront why.
But he can't.
He touches her - she lets him - and once is not enough.
And he knows he wouldn't be able to turn her away. He wishes he could, but the wish can't be too vehement when he's sinking his hands in her hair, his lips between her bared breasts after he unlaced her before him and slid his gloves off to caress her naked thighs and rest the grip of his palms on her hips, even as the perfume of her scent floods his nose and her pulse twines with his own and her walls part to accept his empathetic delving into the rhythm of her desire and passion that he, he damn it!, unlocked within her.
Not that he wants to remember that, the smiles, the sneers, the whispered words, the flung insults – he just wants to feel the friction of her skin against his, the heaviness of her breasts in his palms, hear gasps against his ear that are only natural, insignificant. He can lose himself in her, in the essence of her femininity, and that is all, that is all that he cares about.
He closes his eyes and the corset hits the floor and it is just them, man and woman, and he doesn't have to think of why this has taken so long or is wrong or special.
Fuckbuddy.
If he can just forget...
And then she says it.
A secret.
Three little words.
"Ah missed you."
She whispers them into his skin, tattooing them against his shoulder, even as she grips his hips, her eyes closed.
And he is unraveled.
He clutches her and he cannot pretend this isn't her, isn't Rogue and exactly, exactly what he wants and has wanted for what feels like forever now and the fiery anger, the blind desire softens into warmth and as he slides into her, he cannot be anything but tender.
And he must be tipsy otherwise he would not hold her so tight and confess -
"You were more than a challenge."
Always.
And they plunge into oblivion.
It must've been something you said,
I just died in your arms tonight
Oh, I just died in your arms tonight
It must've been some kind of kiss
I should've walked away, I should've walked away
Is there any just cause for feeling like this?
Song: "(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight" by Cutting Crew