A/N: I meant to update and reply to the reviews, but the website has been acting weird for me over the weekend and wouldn't let me. Am I the only one? Anyway, thank you for the reviews! I freaking love reviews.

Remy's Diabolical Plan

Chapter Eight: Too Much Diabolical-ness

~X~

When they all finally were back in the van, everyone wanted to go somewhere different. Amara, Tabitha, and Kitty all wanted to go clothes shopping (swimsuit shopping mainly), Kurt wanted to go find out which restaurants served the best breakfast (he refrained from saying pancakes but they all knew that was what he was thinking), Scott wanted to go home and talk over the new mission, and Jean looked torn between agreeing with Scott and agreeing with the other girls. Remy and Rogue didn't have any preference (though they didn't really want to go home and do more work) so they just kept naming random things to do mostly just to confuse and annoy the others. It was working.

"Look, I'm the one driving, so I'm going to drive us home-" Scott argued as he attempted to pull out of their parking spot.

"You do that and I'm grabbing the wheel!" Tabitha screeched.

"You will do no such thing!"

"Watch me!"

"Scott, honey," Jean said hesitantly, "maybe we should take a little break from working first and then go home…to you know, boost team morale."

"Well…Ok then, that makes sense."

Kurt made a whipping sound from the backseat. "Dude, you're whipped!"

"I am not whipped!" Scott yelped.

"Speakin of whips," Remy said as he tried not to laugh, "lets go to the rodeo!"

"OO, the rodeo!" Rogue said with false enthusiasm.

"That's animal abuse!" Kitty said disapprovingly. "And if you think it's not, then run off, I'll throw a lasso around you and drag you through the dirt and then you can try to tell me it's not abuse."

"Uh…" Remy paused. "You're right, we should find an arcade instead."

"Or the movies," Rogue said.

"Or—I know!" Remy said excitedly. "Let's go to one of them places where they put you in a fat suit and then you wrestle like sumo wrestlers!"

"Awesome!" Rogue grinned and she and Remy high fived.

The van fell silent.

"What?" Remy asked and looked around as everyone stared at the two of them. "No one wants to sumo wrestle?"

They ended up go to a place called 'Fat Bob's Malt Shoppe' where they all purchased different flavored malts. They also got to meet Fat Bob, who turned out to be ninety pounds, eighty-years-old, and bald. When they questioned him about the name of the shop, he explained that he used to weigh more before he finally shed the pounds in nineteen fifty eight but by then he had already named the shop and didn't want to change the name. Then he introduced them to his son, Fatter Bob, who now owned the shop. Fatter Bob was a lot heavier than Fat Bob, and he had a lot more hair.

It was while Scott was distracted by talking to Fatter Bob that everyone else (except for Jean who looked at them half with disapproval and half with longing) escaped and ran loose through the town. Amara and Tabitha ran into the first clothes store they saw, Kurt teleported without saying where he was going, and Kitty headed for the beach. Remy and Rogue followed after her at a leisurely pace, walking along the sidewalk and taking in their new surroundings.

Rogue watched Remy out of the corner of her eye, wondering if he was looking to where Kitty was up ahead of them. And she also wondered something else. If Remy was in love with Kitty, why did he hang around her so much and not Kitty? Maybe she had assumed wrong, maybe he wasn't in love with Kitty but in love with some girl named Jessica. Or…maybe he wasn't the kind of person to ditch his friends when he fell for someone. Or maybe his love for Kitty just wasn't the real thing? What if he thought he loved Kitty, but he...didn't?

But these thoughts were all washed away when she saw that he really was keeping a steady gaze in front of them to where Kitty was, walking way up ahead. That was annoying. If he would rather be with her, why didn't he just go up there? Rogue rolled her eyes. It didn't make any sense. If Remy would just be honest with Kitty about his feelings then he might not be standing here, suffering in her company when he could be with the one that he really wanted to be with.

Remy (unbeknownst to Rogue) was enjoying himself. He was in a new place, the weather was nice, the air smelled good, he had just had a really good strawberry malt, and best of all, the woman he loved was walking next to him. He had been watching her out of the corner of his eye, (catching little peaks of her when she wasn't looking was a favorite pastime of his) but had looked away quickly when she looked over at him. Staring at a woman that was supposed to be your good buddy wasn't normal behavior for just a 'buddy' and so he couldn't let her see him looking. But the longer he kept his gaze trained on the sight of Kitty, walking way up ahead of them, the longer she stared at him. She wasn't just looking out of the corner of her eye at him anymore, either. Now her whole head was turned his way and she was barely watching where she was walking.

"You could take a picture," he drawled as he continued to watch Kitty up ahead. "But then I still wouldn't know why you were lookin at me."

"Sorry," she muttered and turned her gaze away from him. "Just thinkin."

"Bout…?" He questioned and turned his gaze away from Kitty to her.

She sighed but didn't look over again. "Well, to be honest, I was thinkin about how you're in love with Kitty and you lied and said you were in love with some girl named Jessica."

Remy tripped over a fire hydrant.

"Remy!" Rogue yelped and rushed to his side.

He blinked in confusion up at the blue sky. How had he gotten on the ground? Why did his head hurt? Did Rogue say something about Kitty? And also—OO, Rogue was gripping his bicep. He flexed and held it like that.

"Remy," she leaned over him but then paused. "Wow, your muscles are huge. I mean—are you ok?"

"I-" he started to say that he was fine, if a little dazed, before he remembered what had gotten him on the ground in the first place. "Wait, you think I'm in love with Kitty?" He yelped. "Why would you think that?"

"Keep your voice down," Rogue glanced around, noting that more than one person was staring at them. She scooped a hand under his arm and tugged. "Come on; let's get you off the ground. Is your head ok?"

"Its fine," He grumbled as he slowly stood up. The world was a little crooked at the moment, but there wasn't anything wrong with that. Right? "Just tell me why ya said that."

"Maybe because it's true," she said this as though it were obvious. "Can you hold yourself up or do you need help?" She asked but before he had answered she had already let go of his arm and continued walking as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

Blinking in an attempt to rid himself of the dizziness, Remy followed. "Don't say that," he rubbed the back of his head and grimaced. "I ain't in love with Kitty. Why'd you think that anyway?"

"Cause…she keeps starin at you."

"I've noticed that," he remarked and looked up ahead for Kitty. Thankfully, she was no where to be seen now and so didn't hear any of this conversation. He didn't know why Kitty stared at him so much. He had never thought to ask. The thought that she might have thing for him had never crossed his mind. It certainly wouldn't surprise him, and he couldn't blame her if she did, but he couldn't say that he was interested. But he had always thought that she watched him so much because she was nosy and that's what nosy people did.

"Right," Rogue nodded without looking at him. "And you love her back."

"Whoa, wait," he touched her arm and they both stopped to turn to one another. "Love her back? You sayin that she loves me?"

Rogue crossed her arms as though this whole conversation was pointless and was bothering her. "You would like that, wouldn't you?"

"Um—NO."

"Whatever, just keep lyin about it, Remy."

"What!" He spluttered. "I ain't lyin! I don't love Kitty!"

"Yes you do!" Rogue glared. "Stop lyin!"

"I'm NOT!"

"Yes you are, your eyebrow is twitchin."

"That's because the wind is blowing this way and I don't wanna get sand in my eye," he said, starting to get angry at this cycle. He wasn't in love with Kitty; he was in love with the impossible woman in front of him! Why couldn't she understand that it wasn't Kitty that he loved, but some made up woman named Jessica? How hard was that to understand? Not at all, that's how hard! And his eyebrow twitching—well, he had learned that he did that a long time ago and taken care of the problem. Now he could lie all he wanted without any eyebrows twitching, except when he made them twitch. But the wind really was blowing sand in their direction at the current moment.

"Liar!"

"Fine," he fumed, "maybe I'll just turn toward the wind and get sand all in my eyes and go blind. You'd like that, I'm sure."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic!" She shot at him before turning towards the wind. "It's not blowin any sand, anyway. You're makin that up just like you're makin all this other—AH!"

"What's wrong?"

"Dammit!" She cursed and ducked her face away from the wind, frantically rubbing her eye with a thumb. "I got sand in my eye."

"I told you!" He said, trying not to feel too satisfied.

"Shut-up! This all your fault."

"What!" He gaped. "How is it my fault that you got sand in your eye?"

"It's your fault because you lied so much about everything else-"

"No I didn't!"

"-and so I didn't believe you when you said that sand was in the wind…you cat lover."

"…What?" He asked, confused, before it finally clicked. "Stop it! I don't love Kitty!"

"Fine," she shrugged as she continued to rub at her eye, "Just keep denying it."

"Fine," he shot back, "just keep being delusional!"

A tense silence fell. A one eyed Rogue glared at Remy but Remy wasn't backing down, he glared right back. How dare she assume that he was lying about something? Even though he really was lying (but Rogue hadn't caught on to that yet), it didn't give her the right to be…insightful. And yet not insightful at all. Maybe he was getting upset so easily by this because Rogue had kind of caught him, but not really caught him? He didn't like it. If he didn't go about this carefully, then his whole plan would fall apart. At the moment he was finding it hard to remember how he and Rogue had ever gotten along. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes said the same thing his did at the moment: I'm not going to lose.

And he wasn't. He couldn't let her go off thinking he was in love with Kitty because that couldn't be a good thing. If Rogue wasn't so close to Kitty he might be able to say yes, that he had lied and really did love her and not 'Jessica'. But if he said that to Rogue, she would probably back off and let Kitty have him.

And he didn't want Kitty to have him.

Not that Kitty even wanted him in the first place.

He sighed and dropped his guard. "No more fightin for now," he said calmly. "Can we be friends again?" He reached out to pat her on the head like he always did…only to get his hand slapped away.

"No!"

And he was instantly mad again.

"You're impossible!" He nearly shouted, causing a few birds on the tree next to them to fly off in alarm. "What the hell do you want me to SAY?"

"I want you to say the truth!"

"I HAVE fifty billion times! But you just gonna keep yammering on and on like an annoyin little bird that makes me want to tear my own ears off just so I won't have to listen to you anymore!"

With a look of pure fury on her face, Rogue opened her mouth to retort when a distant sound made them both stop. They listened in silence as the sound drew closer and closer until…

"It's the ice cream truck!" She squealed happily before shoving her hand into her pocket and searching for any change.

Remy copied her actions, hurriedly reaching around for his wallet. They had already had ice cream two times that day, but it was just wrong to the hear the ice cream truck coming and NOT run to it. It was especially impossible for two adult children to ignore that music and not get happy and excited inside. Most of the time when this happened at home the others looked at them as though they were insane and shook their heads as they ran out the door. Now people on the street who had witnessed their fight were staring at them and wondered just how they had managed to break out of the mental hospital.

The ice cream man stopped the truck and looked a little surprised to see two adults there along with a few kids that had run up. But he didn't say anything as he handed over the fudgesicle and banana pop that they ordered.

Once they were back on the sidewalk, now quiet and happily eating their ice cream as they walked, Remy sighed happily. There was nothing like an ice cold fudgesicle after a fight on a hot, summer day. Really, there was nothing like ice cream. Whether it was chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, a strawberry malt, or a fudgesicle, Remy had a considerable weak spot when it came to ice cream. Of course, he would never tell anyone this; that just wasn't manly. Men were supposed to like things like big chunks of steak and maybe the occasional potato. Sometimes an onion was ok, and a mushroom every now and then, but frozen treats were not manly.

Remy was getting hungry and for some real food this time. He turned to Rogue, intending to ask if she wanted to head into the next restaurant, but she spoke before he had the chance to.

"I'm sorry," she nudged him with her elbow affectionately. "You're right, I was being delusional…if you say you're not in love with Kitty…well, I don't believe you, but can we be friends again anyway?"

"It's not Kitty, I swear," he sighed but smiled and patted the top of her head. "But of course we can. There ain't nothin I want more."

Yes there was. But he was a patient man and he could wait.

"Except for Kitty," Rogue muttered and turned back to her banana pop.

"Stop that!"

"You stop it."

Remy grimaced. Maybe being so patient wasn't a good idea. He needed to hurry this along.

To Be Continued...