MAGNETIC ATTRACTION

Part Eleven

That night, Remy had his very first sex dream about Rogue. It caught him by surprise when he awoke from it, because he never usually dreamed this vividly at all and he very rarely even remembered his dreams once he'd awakened. The climax of the dream had been what had awakened him, followed by the familiar warm feeling between his legs which told him that his pleasure had spilled from dream to reality. He reached over to where he kept his phone and hit the home button to check the time. It was well after three in the morning.

With a sigh, he lay there for a few moments, memories of the dream still lingering. For some reason, he'd been wearing pantaloons and a feathered hat, and Rogue had been in a beautiful gown of thin, gossamer white material so sheer, he'd been able to see her surprisingly spectacular body beneath. They'd spoken like characters from an Elizabethan play, lulling words of poetry and romance. Somehow, they'd ended up in a huge bed, curtained by fine lace and rich gold velvet; Rogue had made love to him like no woman had ever made love to him before. She had rode him with more fervour and passion than Wanda ever had.

And when Rogue had done those things to him...he'd felt bliss like he'd never felt before. He'd wanted it so much, and been longing for it. In this dream, he had felt as if he'd longed for that experience his whole life, and as it had come to its explosive and climatic close, he felt almost as if he'd understood why it had been worth the wait.

Memories of every detail stayed with him, memories that for any other dream would never have remained as vivid. His lips almost seemed to tingle with the warmth of kisses he'd never even shared with the girl, and even the tender tentative touches the Rogue in his dream had given him seemed to linger, as if he'd really felt them, and not just in a dream he would never live out in real life.

Everything in that dream had been wonderful. Everything.

Remy couldn't even remember actually recalling a dream similar. He'd certainly had dreams about sex before but he rarely ever remembered much about those dreams afterwards other than the vague memory of who the dream had been about. In all the time he'd known her...he had never had a sex dream about Rogue. She'd been one of the only girls in fact he'd known that he'd never even fantasized about being with sexually, nor had ever dreamed about in that particular way.

Why now? He wondered as he got up, feeling the uncomfortable wetness on his groin. Normally, he slept in the nude, but this particular night it was cold and he'd just gone to bed wearing the clothes he'd gone out with earlier, meaning that at least he wasn't going to have to change his bedding.

He peeled his jeans and underwear off, and tried to clean himself off as best he could since he'd run out of tissues (the last of which had been used to clean himself off from his encounter with Wanda earlier). He made a mental note to buy a few more boxes if he should go out today. Realising he was not going to get another few hours sleep after this rather bizarre awakening, he decided he would go take an early shower.

As he left the basement, he heard the volume from the television upstairs in the living area, and he realised that he was not the only person still awake at this hour. Someone else also couldn't sleep...or had fallen asleep in front of the television.

He went for his shower, spending a little more time in there than he usually would being a little more careful and mindful of the various bruises he'd gotten from the obstacle course. It normally wasn't in his nature to be so careless when training, but exhaustion and stress, and his mind always elsewhere had lately changed everything about his normal way of functioning. He hadn't felt this sore or bruised since he'd first started learning to fight in his early teens.

He was sure that half of those bruises had probably been made worse by Wanda's deliberate pressing on them during intercourse. He shuddered at the thought of her trying to deliberately leave her mark on him. Even if it would be where most people wouldn't see.

After dressing into some old jogging pants and an old faded band t-shirt, he went up to the living area to see who was still up at this ungodly hour.

He hadn't expected it to be Rogue.

She was stretched out on the couch, remote in hand as she went about changing the channels, her expression was serene, but tired. Her hair was tied back and her face was completely free of makeup. Remy was almost entirely sure he hadn't seen her looking quite so fresh-faced and young before.

Except in that dream, of course.

No. Don't think that. Don't think about that right now.

She glanced up at him, and her expression changed immediately. She sat up, looking strangely alarmed, as if she hadn't expected to see him either. "Remy," she blurted, the remote nearly dropped from her bare fingers.

"Can't sleep either, huh?" he asked with a sigh as he dropped casually onto the couch. He hadn't meant to sit quite so close, and when his thigh pressed against hers completely by accident, he felt his body flush with the same kind of passion that he'd felt at the dinner table last night.

"Ah got a few hours," she confessed with a shrug.

"How come you aren't watching TV in your room?" he asked curiously as he reached for the remote, taking care to not let his fingers brush against hers.

"Ah tried but Ah can't seem to get a signal..." Rogue seemed to chew her cheek, her dull green eyes fell to the floor.

"I'll look at it later if I get time," Remy promised her, he switched channels, finding it ironic that even at ten to four in the morning, at least three channels had characters engaging in carnal acts. Normally...he'd have not minded, but to be seeing all this in the presence of the young woman he had just had the most intense sexual dream about...well...it wasn't helping take his mind off of it. Quickly he changed the station, settling on a really bad talk show, some stuck-up British guy in a suit was trying to give advice to a pair of young promiscuous women who were fighting over the same man. He supposed it would have to do, as there seemed to be little else on television at this rather odd hour.

"Ah hate this guy," Rogue remarked, she leaned against the back of the couch and folded her arms casually.

"Yeah, I don't like the guy either," Remy admitted, he leaned back lazily, putting his feet up on the makeshift coffee table after kicking an empty KFC bucket out of the way.

Remy watched as Rogue brought her feet up onto the edge of her seat, her black painted toenails were quite pretty even in the low lighting of the living room area. As the television screen flickered, he spotted little tiny flecks of silver glitter on the paint. He realised, as his eyes fell on the bottle sitting on the table not far from where his own feet were, that she had just done this a short while ago.

"Funny..." he said suddenly, "you painted your toenails even though you always have your feet covered."

Rogue tilted her head to the side and looked down at her toes, she gave a casual shrug, but didn't seem to have an explanation as to why she'd done so. He supposed her only explanation would be boredom.

He looked down at his own bare feet, they weren't quite as pretty as hers. He had bony, unattractive feet, the kind of feet that he decided should never be put in flipflops even on the hottest days of the year. "I hate my feet," he confessed casually, "they're the ugliest thing about me."

"They aren't too bad," Rogue said, examining them. She gave another shrug, "Ah've seen worse."

"Oh?"

"Kurt has really weird feet," she pointed out.

He supposed he hadn't thought of it this way before, and had only ever seen his bony feet as a flaw to an otherwise satisfactory body.

"He can hang upside down with them. Hank too."

Remy smirked at the thought of this, "I don't suppose I'd be able to do that quite yet. If my toes get any longer though, I dunno, I...hope that isn't part of my mutation or anything..." he wiggled his toes thoughtfully.

Rogue sat forward, grabbed the bottle of black nail-polish from the table and shook it before opening it up. Without so much as a word, she leaned forward and began brushing it with such delicate care upon the big toe of his left foot. He watched with absurd fascination at this incredibly peculiar act. He was positive no woman had ever put nail-polish on him before.

"Feels cold," he admitted; the strong smell that had immediately escaped when the bottle was opened was already making his head swim a little too.

She went about painting each toenail, carefully and precisely, which made him wonder if she, much like Piotr, was any good at artistic crafts like painting, or drawing. She was certainly skilled at applying her makeup, so it wouldn't have surprised him, he decided.

The silence between them was beginning to irk him; she seemed content with being quiet, and not saying even a word, but he didn't like this. Usually, it wouldn't have bothered him, he was generally quite content to sit silent and listen to others around him, but with Rogue...it was so different. He wanted to talk to her, he found himself wanting to talk to her about things he never ever spoke about with others. He found himself thinking she was the only one around her who was perhaps worth talking to.

"You know how we had that discussion in the restaurant?" Remy asked.

Rogue lifted her head to look at him for a moment, her cheeks went pink incredibly quickly, and it looked adorable, like a couple of English roses upon a white wedding dress.

"Well..." Remy continued, "I had the most insane dream about you and me..."

Her eyes quickly averted back to his toes; he stretched his legs over her knees so she had better access, and surprisingly, she did not object to this but simply went about painting the toes as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

It felt strangely comfortable now, like a thing they might have always done together.

Not quite sure why he had to tell her about the dream, he continued in a relaxed, casual tone. "We were in some kind of old time setting...totally talking like they do in those plays they used to make us watch in high school – at least on the rare days I actually went," he explained.

"Oh?" she asked. He wondered if he'd accidentally given her the impression that this dream was quite innocent. The thought of embarrassing her about the details somehow began to tickle him with absurd delight.

"You were wearing this...this dress," he stared up at the ceiling, eyes eventually adjusting into space, "white...flowing...completely and utterly see-through. It looked bananas, and you...well...you just looked insanely bananas in it."

"Bananas..." she repeated, her cheeks flushing hot now.

"If I ain't said it before," he continued, "you have very nice assets...from what I saw, anyway."

She went on painting the toes on his right foot although now it was with less care; he glanced down briefly to notice that her hand was somewhat trembling, and she had smudged the polish a little on his middle toe. This delighted him although he couldn't explain why.

"Then...somehow, me and you end up in this big ass bedroom, in this bed...four poster, the kind you see in those old period movies...and you fucked me like no woman has ever fucked me. It was incredible. I didn't know you had it in you."

Rogue managed to smudge the paint across the final two toes, it looked quite disastrous compared to the nice job she'd made with the others. "Ah..." she stammered, "Ah wish you wouldn't joke about it..." she took a deep breath as she twisted the bottle of nail-polish shut tightly.

He moved to sit up straight, and leaned forward to look at her closely, "Oh, chere," he breathed heavily, "I wasn't jokin'."

Her cheeks flushed scarlet, she leaned across to put the bottle of nail-polish back onto the table, and when she did, he put his hand against her back, noting that he could feel no bra beneath her t-shirt. The thought made him practically twitch.

"You ever thought about experimenting over the clothes?" he asked, suddenly quite serious.

"Remy!" she gasped, trying to break away.

"C'mon...what's to lose...? Just a little fun...everyone is still asleep...no one gonna hear a thing..." he smirked.

"That isn't funny..."

"Wasn't meant to be," he stated. "I'd..." he chewed his lip as his eyes dropped down to her bust; the v shaped collar showed just a hint of her cleavage , "I'd love to know...exactly what it is about you that's makin' me so goddamn hard..."

Remy sat up straight, confused. For a moment, he couldn't understand what had happened. He'd been on the couch with Rogue one minute practically ready to seduce the poor girl, and the next, he was stretched out on his stomach across his bed in his basement room.

He leaned up, looking around in complete bewilderment. The light was still on, and he was still dressed. His hair was dry, he'd never even made it to the shower.

"Seriously..." he muttered, realising that he had dreamed this. And that wasn't all. He realised the worst part was that he had dreamed a dream within a dream. How could that have even happened? He rarely ever dreamed at all and now two dreams in one night? Or was it technically one dream? It was completely baffling.

The door burst open, and Rogue was standing there, looking slightly flustered, her hair a mess, her eyes dark from makeup that hadn't quite been washed off completely the night before. Was this another dream? Was she here for more dream sex? This was getting confusing, he wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't any more.

Momentarily he considered propositioning her, just to see if this was a dream or not, if he were about to wake up a third time. Perhaps I've slipped into a coma and this is some kind of weird sex dream limbo I'll be in for the rest of my life, he thought as he stared at Rogue's frantic expression.

"Remy, it's six am," she gasped, her voice thick of the sound that said she'd just woken up.

"What?" he asked anxiously, he hopped up and reached for his phone, hitting the home button to check the time, it was five past six. They were already meant to be at the obstacle course. "Fuck!" he yelled in disgrace with himself. "My alarm didn't even go off! Okay...uhm...we need to just...get out there, fast as we can, or Magneto is gonna be pissed. Just head straight to the course!"

"Ah need time to get changed!" she called over her shoulder as she ran off.

"Yeah...me too..." he realised, hoping that she hadn't noticed the damp patch on his jeans. It was something he definitely didn't want Rogue knowing about and he hoped she'd neglected to notice. After she'd left his room, he pushed the door shut, and leaned against it for a moment, shaking his head at himself.

He had the feeling that today was going to be tough.

Rogue was the last to arrive at the obstacle course; she'd had no time to really prepare herself, and so she arrived in a pair of black leggings and the same t-shirt and hooded top she had worn the day before. Her hair was far too messed up from the pillows to even sit right so she'd thrown it back into a messy ponytail and hoped that no one was going to give her grief about it, or the fact that she hadn't been able to remove all of her Kohl eyeliner the night before.

The training was already in full swing when she got there. Magneto looked at her disapprovingly as she ran up to the starting line. Pietro was standing there looking rather irritated; apparently he'd been made to wait until she'd arrived, because today she was being made to pair up with him.

"Ah'm so sorry," she apologised to Magneto, her cheeks hot with embarrassment and rage. "My alarm didn't even go off..."

Magneto glanced over to where Remy was standing, he was writing something in that small notebook he'd been keeping. She noticed as he looked up briefly and glanced towards her. Was it just her or were his cheeks slightly flushed this morning? He definitely didn't look as if he'd had enough sleep. "I've already heard that excuse, this morning," he said, irritably.

"Ah'm sorry..." Rogue chewed her lip. She wondered how it could be that she'd somehow managed to not set her alarm properly. And how Remy had experienced the exact same issue? It seemed quite likely it was just coincidence, but somehow, it felt wrong.

"I'd like you and Pietro to be team-mates today. Please do this course together,"he stated, he looked towards his son, and spoke loudly, Rogue felt he was mentioning the word together just for his benefit rather than hers.

Rogue's surprise – other than waking up late for the training session – was that Pietro and she worked rather well together when it was necessary. The rules this time around on the course were that there was no time limits, and they did not need to race, so they were able to take much more time getting to know the various niggles that before, had caught them and held them back. Rogue found it quite astonishing that having more time to notice things around her actually helped her get through the course faster than when she had thought she was meant to be racing through it.

"By the way," said Pietro, quite randomly as he was walking slowly across the same log that had caused him to fall into the muck below only the morning before, "thanks for, you know, taking the time to stop and help me out yesterday."

Rogue, who had been several feet behind him, balancing carefully, stopped and stared across at him, she could only see the back of his head, but she got the distinct impression that he wasn't making faces or being sarcastic.

"Ah...uhm..." she faltered.

"I know you didn't have to," he said, he hopped off at the end of the log and waited for her, "my sister sure didn't," he uttered coldly.

Rogue was genuinely surprised by his thanks, she got to the end of the log and hopped down, drew her breath and said, "Ah know you hate the X-Men..."

He gave a slight snort as they continued onwards.

"But..." she jogged behind him slightly, "we were always taught to watch out for each other. And when you watch out for each other, you make it out of sticky situations a lot easier."

"Yeah, well, I don't need a lecture," Pietro responded, "I said thanks. That's it."

"Okay then," she responded somewhat awkwardly, as she followed onwards.

Their first run as a duo made it through in under twelve minutes. Their second, made it through in under ten, Remy announced, as the two came down the ending slide all muddy but slightly less worn out than they had been the morning before.

"You did way better, this run," said Remy casually, noting the numbers in his little notebook, "but it's getting predictable, you know what you're doing now, so you know how to get through it a lot faster. Tomorrow, it won't be the same. I'm going to change some shit around."

"Oh come on," said Pietro, wiping mud from his forehead, "that's completely cheating."

"Cheating is knowing your way through an obstacle course and being able to predict everything that could go wrong," Remy pointed out. "The point of this crap is to keep you on your toes, and that's what it's going to do."

"Whatever."

"The good news is," said Remy tiredly, once everyone had gathered after their third runs (including his own with Piotr). Everyone was standing or sitting in the clearing, exhausted, muddy and sweaty and were waiting on further instructions. They'd been mumbling between themselves that they thought perhaps the duos would be mixed up now, or turned into trios. For today, it seemed that this would not be the case.

"Come on, man, out with it," Lance sighed.

"The good news is...that because it all went really well this morning, we don't have to keep repeating this crap until afternoon."

Magneto stepped beside Remy, he took the small note book and glanced over the numbers, "these times are looking quite positive. You are all doing much better than yesterday. Exceptionally. Do you understand now that working as a team is what helps you get through these situations much more quickly?"

No one responded, but neither did they complain.

"With some work, you will all begin to see that working together is the way forward to making your time with each other a success."

"Can we go yet?" Lance asked, he looked at his sports watch.

"Is there somewhere you must be?" Magneto demanded.

"Actually, yes. I have a date at ten."

"With pretty Kitty?" teased Pietro.

"Yes," fumed Lance, his cheeks going pink beneath the splatters of mud.

"Fine. You may all go and get showered and changed, and enjoy your Sunday."

Everyone went about leaving, including Magneto. Rogue, noted, however, that Remy was sticking around, and setting off to walk around the course. Curious, she headed after him.

"Are you going back in?" she asked curiously.

He looked over his shoulder at her, he seemed strangely uneasy this morning, she couldn't place what was wrong with him exactly, but the moment she'd walked in on him just as he'd woken up, he'd seemed rather flustered and irritable. "I have some stuff to adjust," he responded.

"Do you need some help?" she asked.

Remy stopped, he put his hand against the nearest tree after turning to face her. "Don't you have homework or coursework, or whatever it is you do at college?" he asked.

Rogue stopped abruptly too, and looked up at him, "Well...yeah..." she confessed, "but it's mostly just, you know...drama stuff. Lines to go over, that's it."

"Lines?" he asked, he raised an eyebrow.

"Did Ah not tell you they want me to be Juliet?" she asked.

Suddenly he looked quite stricken, "Juliet..." he repeated, "as in Romeo and Juliet? That...play by Shakespeare..."

"Yeah," she answered, she moved a little closer, "we're doing it for this year's production."

"That's...interesting..." he said, his voice almost a whisper. Rogue ignored it, wondering if he were just being sarcastic.

"Everyone wanted Grease, so of course, our drama professor decides against everyone else and goes for Romeo and Juliet. It sucks..." she sighed.

"Why is that?" he asked as he began walking again.

"Ah'm not sure how...Ah'm gonna get around all the physical contact stuff. Romeo and Juliet is a romance, and there's supposed to be kissing, and touching...and..." she sighed, "well...Ah don't know how Ah'm gonna pull it off."

Remy walked with her slowly, his hands in the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, "can I ask something?"

"Sure, Ah guess," she shrugged.

"Does...uhm...your drama Professor know about...what's...the deal with your powers?" he asked. Rogue thought it odd he used this wording, as she'd been almost positive he had been intending to say 'does he know what's wrong with you?'.

She put her hand on his arm and stopped him. "Thanks..." she said softly.

He looked down at her, tilting his head curiously, "for?"

"For not wording it the way everyone else does."

"What do you mean?"

"Everyone would have said 'does he know what's wrong with you?'," she explained, "as if it..." she drew her breath, "As if it's some kind of stupid...contagious disease."

"It's not a disease..."

Rogue dropped her hand from his arm, she looked away from him, "Ah know that but...the normal people...they don't see it like that."

"Come on," he nodded his head in the direction he was heading.

She quickened her pace to keep up with him, he was a fast walker and he seemed to have a lot of plans in store for the course. He changed a lot of things around with her assistance. The hidden nets, he took up and moved into less than obvious places; he asked her to demonstrate that they worked by her deliberately stepping into them just to make sure she'd get caught and dragged up into the trees.

"There's a few other traps I'm gonna set up," Remy stated as he let her down from the final net trap, "but I'll do those when you head off. I don't want you knowing where all the stuff is and having the advantage," he explained.

"Oh, so you think Ah'd actually deliberately side step everything?" she asked, giving a soft laugh.

"I know you would," he admitted, "you tend to learn from your mistakes, I've noticed that."

"Oh?" she helped to scatter leaves and twigs over the net, "what else have you noticed about how I do things?"

"You're resourceful."

"Ah am?" she asked, slightly surprised by this revelation.

"I've watched you, sometimes Magneto has taken me up with him so I can watch you guys below and I've seen how you do things. You tend to use the things you see around you...twigs, or branches, bits of rope...anything lying around that could have another use. It's kinda impressive," he admitted.

Rogue blushed a little at the mention of this, "Ah didn't know you were watching."

"Magneto says it's the sign of a good leader...when you watch and always keep an eye on the people you're meant to be leading. That you should always be aware of who they are, how they work, and what they do."

"What else does Magneto say?" she asked casually.

"He says a lot of stuff," Remy shrugged, "but...I ain't gonna stand here and give an entire lecture about things he says, though. I can think of much better ways to waste a Sunday than repeating myself about him."

Rogue watched him as he kicked some more leaves over the net, "okay."

"Rogue..." he said, his voice serious, "why are you wastin' your time here with me when you could be enjoyin' today?"

"Ah'm enjoyin' this just fine," she confessed, "you told me Ah had to participate more, after all," she reminded.

His eyes searched hers, "I guess I did say that," he agreed.

"Besides, it'd take you twice as long to do all this stuff by yourself, and it's not fair that you get left to do it all."

"I didn't get left. It's my choice to change it around," he explained, "but thanks for the help."

Rogue smiled, "no problem."

"Listen, the rest of this shit can wait 'til later. How 'bout me and you go get some breakfast?"

"Breakfast..." she repeated.

"Proper breakfast," he smirked, "not leftover Pizza and two-day old fried chicken. I'm talkn' actual, honest to god, HOT food with flavour."

"And where is this honest to god hot food going to be at?" she folded her arms.

"Well...there's this little diner, about six miles away. It has the best blueberry banana pancakes I've had outside of Louisiana. Not to mention they make incredibly good coffee...like the stuff that's so strong you can smell it from a quarter of a mile off. You might like it, you never know."

Rogue scratched her head thoughtfully. The thought of going out for real food, and not a pizza, was quite tempting. However...there were issues that she had to address. After all...didn't Remy mention he was seeing some girl? Would it be right of her to go for another meal with him even though he was seeing someone?

"What about your girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend?" he made a face, seeming to be quite confused about the question, as if he'd never even considered 'girlfriend' to be a word. "Where did you get the idea I had a girlfriend? What girlfriend?"

"The one you've been sleepin' with?" she asked.

"Oh...her..." Remy repeated, his expression suddenly quite dull, "well. I thought I'd made that clear...that what I do with her, is just...a thing...that we do. It's casual. She's not mine, and I'm not hers, and we will never be together in that way. Anyway, what does it matter. Even if she was my girlfriend...I don't give a fuck. If I want to have breakfast with a friend, then that'd be none of her damn business anyway," he said.

"Ah see," Rogue responded, wondering how it could be that anyone could have a casual sexual relationship without any complications like this. In her opinion – which she didn't intend to voice to Remy – she felt that sooner or later it was likely to blow up in his face.

"So...goin' to breakfast with you isn't gonna mess anything up for me. And you'd certainly have nothin' to feel guilty about," he explained, "but...if you don't want to go..."

Rogue thought about it. Admittedly, she did want to go for breakfast. She hadn't eaten properly in the last week, and the thought of good food and decent coffee. "Okay," she agreed, "Ah'll go..." she said, "but-"

"But?"

"But Ah want you to do me a favour and run some lines with me for my drama class. So that Ah at least can say Ah didn't just goof around all weekend."

"I am makin' no such promise," he held up his hands, "we'll have breakfast, and see where it goes."

End of Part Eleven

Thanks to everyone for their reviews (especially some of the lengthier ones, it's always interesting hearing people's thoughts on this! lol.

I do agree with some of you guys that Remy in this particular story is a little harder than he usually is (no pun intended after this part *blushes*) but his character just seems to keep turning out that way (I'm probably not the only fanfic writer who can sit and sometimes the story just starts to write itself as if someone is in my head dictating as I type, lmao).

Hope you all enjoyed this part (and the brief Romy-ness of it), lol. 3