Have another ten Rogue/Gambit thingies, and two more drawings.
Because I am just ficcing like a champ lately.
041. Caught
“Girl, if it’s so embarrassin’, when’re you gonna learn t’ shut de door while you’ singin’ into a hairbrush?” Remy drawls from her doorway for-what, the third? fourth?-time, hip-checking the door shut behind him.
Rogue colors from head to toes and slaps down the volume knob a little less violently than the last time he’d walked in on her serenading an empty room. She folds her arms, makeshift microphone still gripped tight like someone’s been trying to pry it away from her, and lifts her chin defiantly in hopes to detract attention from the blush. “Maybe Ah want t’ be caught. Sometimes.”
“On’y sometimes?” he asks, strolling past her to sit on the edge of her bed. His eyebrows raise.
“Dependin’ on th’ song. Y’ don’t think Ah’m gonna let y’all walk in on me beltin’ out Hannah Montana, do you?”
“Mon dieu, please tell Remy you ain’t never been guilty o’ dat.”
“Relax, Swamp Rat, yer girl’s lips’re untainted by th’ likes o’ her.”
“Ooh,” he smirks, gearing up for a glorious resurgence of the blush receding from her neck, and he isn’t disappointed. “Dat sounded dirtier den you intended.”
“Shaddup, y’ know Ah meant her music! Now Ah need eyedrops full o’ bleach fer th’ images y’all jus’ conjured up, thanks fer that.”
“Alright, alright, no more,” he laughs, pulling her down to his lap, “if y’ tell dis one what sort o’ songs you’ been itchin’ t’ get caught fo’, dat is.”
Rogue rolls her eyes and colors again, biting her lip through a self-conscious smile, and stretches to turn the volume back up with her toes. The singer’s low, country drawl curls through the room, and she smiles.
I wanna do real bad things with you.
042. Jones Beach
Beach weekends off like this one are few and far between, and a part of her wishes they did this more often, the bunch of them. Jubilee’s been in charge of the day’s entertainment, playing music all day from the speakers’ safe spot on a picnic bench, while Hank helps Scott and and Piotr clean out the charcoal grill they’d cooked dinner on. Jean finishes braiding Kitty’s hair and twisting it up around her head, while Logan lounges on a bench next to Ororo, a little ways away, moodily sipping his beer as only he knows how. Remy shoves Kurt’s shoulder good-naturedly, teasing him something about his fur smelling kind of like wet dog, and Kurt’s laughing and shoving right back, kicking over Tabitha’s sandcastle by accident while Bobby tosses shards of ice over their heads to Warren, who catches them in his glass of lemonade.
The red sun hangs low over Long Island Sound, sky awash in pink and orange watercolors, and as Rogue swings her feet underneath the bench, another part of her is almost kind of pleased these days away are rare enough to be special.
Jubes cranks up the music and starts yelling for people to dance, did she lug these speakers all the way out here for nothing? Hop to it! Work those burgers off! And Kitty and Jean are all too happy to drag their man-friends out to do just that as the first notes of ‘90’s synthesizer ring across the beach.
“Doctor Jones? Aqua? Really? Y’all’re embarrassin’!” Rogue teases, and Kitty sticks her tongue out and twirls, laughing, under Piotr’s arm. Waggling his eyebrows, Remy pushes Kurt out onto the sand with him and they dance hand in hand, mocking the girls and drawing laughter from everyone else. Logan, on the other hand, groans and trudges off to jump back in the water and avoid the whole ordeal. A few summer songs in, when Kitty and Kurt have had enough of Rogue’s excuses not to join them, Jubilee spins through the song selection and strains of country guitar curl and and dance around them on the breeze. She points at Rogue and Remy, grinning devilishly and mouthing something to the effect of “This one’s for you” and “I will shove you two out there if I have to.”
(An’ Ah’ve never been kissed, never been kissed, never been kissed like this, no, an’ Ah’ve never been touched, never been touched, baby, ‘til Ah felt your touch)
She’s safe enough, long white sundress and sweater taking care of that, and though she flushes and protests and pushes his shoulder away, Remy won’t take no for an answer. He picks Rogue up and spins her around and sets the soles of her sandals to sit on top of his feet, and she howls with laughter with him tromping around in the sand with her like that. He kisses the top of her head.
(Oh, your love’s goin’ to my head so fast, jus’ like the bubbles in a champagne glass, and now Ah know what Ah’ve been missing)
043. Permission
“Remy?”
He looks up from the grease and chrome under-workings of his motorcycle, rubbing his hands clean on his jeans. “Oui, love?”
“Remy, Ah…Ah wanted t’ apologize t’ you,” Rogue says. She grips the frame of the door with one hand like it’ll collapse if she lets go. “Fer bein’ so scared all th’ time. Y’ deserve better than this, an’ Ah cain’t force y’all t’ go on bein’ with me if Ah cain’t even bring myself close enough t-”
“What’re you sayin’, girl?” He stands up, ruby eyes reading her wide ones as best he can without her meeting them.
“What Ah mean is…Ah don’ think Ah could live with myself if Ah did somethin’ t’ hurt you again.” Her body shifts, a step or two forward. “Ah won’t ever let it happen like that a second time.”
“Rogue, if you’ sayin’ what I think you’ gettin’ at, we’ll find other ways t’ get around it. One accident ain’ enough t’-”
“No, love, that’s not it at all.” The smile she offers is nervous, and Remy fails to find it comforting. “Ah feel ridiculous even havin’ t’ say it, but can…can Ah touch you? Like Ah did before?” She just bites the inside of her lip, pushing her hair behind her ears to keep from wringing her hands. “Ah wouldn’ be askin’ at all, but, God, Rem, Ah thought Ah’d never see those eyes again an’ Ah jus’ don’t feel right without askin’ after what Ah did-”
“It’s alright, chere.” His back loses some of the tension he hadn’t realized was there. “You get past it in you’ head any way you have to. Dis one’ll still be here.”
“But Ah cain’t, unless Ah know…” She swallows. “it won’t affect you.”
“Y’ can touch me now, if y’ up to it.” His voice is gentle, aching with something he doesn’t mean for her to hear, far underneath simple reassurance .
Hesitant eyes follow the line of his body to his face, and Rogue reaches for him, gloved hands still faltering just shy of touch. For a moment Remy wants to sigh and turn back to his work, to hide how she’ll tear him apart when she stumbles back and stammers she can’t do this. Then trembling, silk fingertips just graze his neck and trace the set of his jaw, the line of his shoulder, feather-light and halting. Slowly, she lays her palm in the curve where his neck and shoulder join and slides her arms around his neck for the first time in months.
“Thank you,” she whispers into the collar of his shirt. Her arms squeeze his body close and she can feel the sigh of his relief flush against her body when he folds her tight into his arms. “Fer not shyin’ away from me. Ah’ve missed you so much.”
“Missed you, too, Anna.” He breathes her in and doesn’t let her go.
044. Violated
“Goddammit, Remy! What don’t you get?” Rogue whirls on him as if he’d slapped her, green eyes blazing with rage and something that runs far deeper than mere anger should be. “Ah. Will not. Touch you! And so help me, if you force yourself on me again, Ah swear t’ God-”
The hand he’d extended to brush her face is now held clenched at his side, his own ire rising under his skin as she spits the words in his face. “Christe, if dis is how y’ treat every man who tries t’ make y’ feel like y’ desired, I’m sorry I ever wanted y’ to feel dat ‘cause o’ me!”
“Remy, Ah am a prisoner in mah own body.” She swallows hard and sucks in air through the tightness in her throat, venom leeching from her voice, dripping from the words and out of her with every jagged syllable. They well up and tear their way out her throat, choking her while she fights to force them into the open, anywhere but festering inside of her. “Ah ain’t even free inside mah own head! Tryin’ t’ separate mah thoughts, an’ mah memories, from th’ hundreds of other voices stealin’ th’ senses an’ places an’ people that should’a been mine alone is like tryin’ t’ hold constant, rolling thunder in yer fist.”
Her arms are tight as cable and it makes her shoulders ache, and the mix of fury and molten, leaden despair in her voice feel like a slap in the face. “Every minute. Of every day. Ah feel like a goddamn circus bear, poked at an’ taunted an’ stared at by strangers Ah can’t hide from. Except they’re inside me, tearing through mah thoughts until Ah can’t tell which belong t’ me anymore.”
The anger bleeds away until it leaves her spent and trembling, trapped between Remy and the wall at her back and she wants to run, or scream or anything but stand cornered where she is. “Mah body was the one thing Ah had that no one could take from me, an’ now that Ah want t’ give myself t’ someone else Ah can’t. It kills me to hold myself back when th’ one thing in the world Ah want is you. But Ah don’t want yer voice in mah head, ringing with all the others through things that should be private. Ah don’t want t’ know what you think of me like that. Ah don’t want t’ see yer memories like that.”
Her rage burns out like fire under glass, until all that’s left is the dull smoke of despair left in her eyes. “Ah want you t’ tell me, like everyone else. An’ if you touch me, you will be the one who feels violated by it. Ah will not do that t’ you, Remy. Ah will not invade your head the way mine’s been. Ah wouldn’t wish that on anyone, let alone someone Ah-”
Love hangs on her lips, just beyond his reach.
045. Riding Lessons
“Don’t walk behind him!” Rogue lunges for Remy’s wrist just before he steps around his horse’s tail, and yanks him back out of the way. “Yer gonna get yer ass kicked. Literally. They don’ like people standin’ in their blind spot.”
“T’anks fo’ de heads up,” he says, running a nervous hand through his hair, “Maybe nex’ time give it t’ dis one befo’ he does somet’in’ stupid?”
She giggles behind her hand as she watches him sidestep around the horse’s nose, startling backward slightly when it nickers at him. “Calm down, city boy, she ain’t gonna bite. Bring me the two halters hangin’ on the left.” She resumes checking the saddle belts while Remy does his best not to trip over the mountains of unidentifiable stuff on the tack room floor.
“You’ sure takin’ Remy out ridin’ is a good idea?” he calls back before a loud thud and audible swearing waft towards her.
“Aside from the fact that y’all don’ know a halter from a horse’s ass, yes,” Rogue laughs and gives her horse one last pat on the shoulder before she extricates her man from the tack room and collects the halters herself. “Put the bit flat on yer hand-that’s the shiny metal bar-and hold it up underneath her nose,” she instructs, as her horse obediently mouths it and she slips the rest of the leather harness over his head, buckling the cheek straps and giving him a kiss on his forehead. “There’s my good boy.”
Remy’s horse, on the other hand, seems to want no part in this tacking-up ordeal, and jerks her mouth out of his reach every time he tries to get close. “Little help, here?”
“She’s jus’ messin’ with y’all,” Rogue tries to smother her mirth and fails. “Roulette’s got…personality. But she’s the easiest ride here, once she’s all suited up. Ain’t that right, girl?” She guides Remy’s hand up to the horse’s mouth and Roulette snuffles once, then gives in and lets them slip the halter over her. “An’ Ah am fully aware how dirty that sounded, Mr. LeBeau, do not be makin’ sex-with-horses jokes at me.”
“Sex-wit’-horses…sounds like it could be you’ Indian name, Sex-Wit’-Horses-”
“Yeah, an’ yours’ll be Plays-With-Himself if y’all keep it up,” she throws a saucy grin right back over her shoulder and unties their rides from the hitch. “Now left foot in th’ stirrup, hoist yerself up an’ swing yer right leg over her back.” He watches Rogue swing herself gracefully up into the saddle and decides then and there that he’s not going to waste time trying to look like a pro, and clambers up quick as he can to minimize time spent looking like a fool.
“Now jus’ gently kick yer heels to her sides t’ get her t’ start walkin’, an’ pull back on the reins if y’ need her t’ slow up. Got it?” Rogue strolls her horse up beside him and Remy eyes her with apprehension. “Don’ worry, we’re jus’ goin’ fer a walk around the grounds. ‘M right next t’ you if y’ need help. An’ Roulette won’t be givin you any more sass, now, will you, girl?” She reaches over to rub Roulette between the ears. “Archie an’ I won’t make fun, we promise,” she laughs and pats her own horse’s neck. “Not so bad, is it?”
Remy wobbles in the saddle, but Roulette lives up to her reputation and stands meekly still, waiting for instructions. “Remains t’ be seen. We don’ do much ridin’ down in the bayou.”
“Coulda fooled me,” Rogue winks at him, “Y’all seemed t’ know exactly what y’ were doin’ last night.”
046. Wash Up
She stands behind him under the water and smooths the last of the shampoo out of Remy’s hair, smiling at the happy purr that slides out from deep in his throat. Her fingers tease and stroke down his jawline and neck, wrapping her arms around him to reach and trace the lines of his collarbone and ribcage, but she stops before exploring any lower than his chest.
“Tease.”
“Mmm.” Rogue lets go of him and slips around to stand with her back to him, handing him the bottle of shampoo. “Help me with mah hair?”
“In a minute.” He pulls her body close until every inch of her, wet and hidden by his dress shirt, presses up against him. A hand splayed low on her belly holds her just where he wants.
“Who’s teasin’ who, here, exactly?” she gasps. She can’t tell whether the push of her body against his is of her own accord or from his hands. “An’ fer the record, Ah could do with a little help…a little lower, too.”
“Give dis one you’ gloves, den, chere,” he growls into her ear, “an’ be a good girl an’ keep you’ hands t’ you’self.”
“Excuse me, sir, but Ah seem t’ have misplaced mah innocence,” Rogue says, voice shaky already from anticipation alone. He tugs the gloves from her fingers with his teeth. “If y’ find it-” her voice fractures when his hands return to her, and she has to splay hers over the tile to keep from sliding them up around the very bare back of his neck.”-tell it t’ wait t’ call on me ‘til Ah’m done with y’all.”
047. Breakfast
It’s always nice to lie around in bed until past noon, snuggled up with an armload of warm girl and watching the world pass by, but there comes a point where even the lure of sex falls to the wayside when measured against the lure of food. Remy answers the call for breakfast as emphatically as Rogue offers it.
“Want bacon! Gonna be so pissed if dere’s no bacon in dis place…”
“Relax, sugar,” Rogue laughs, elbow-deep in the freezer. “It’s back here somewhere. Do me a favor, an’ fish out pancake things from th’ cabinets?”
“Puttin’ dis one t’ work, eh? ‘S no fair, you promised t’ do de cookin’ fo’ a change,” he mutters, tossing the box of mix onto the table. “A mix?” he scoffs. “Girl, didn’t dis one teach you anyt’ing ‘bout food?” But his red eyes light up like a retriever with a treat when he hears the thud of a frozen package of porcine gold hit the counter.
“Oh, hush up, Remy, Ah’m hungry now, an’ cookin’ from scratch takes time.” She forsakes the freezer for the fridge and then hip-checks it shut, depositing an armload of egg cartons, milk, berries, syrup, butter, and whipped cream onto the table. “Fire up the stove for me, lover? An’ jus’ as a hypothetical question, if y’all measured it right, d’you think y’all could charge the bacon juuust enough t’ thaw so Ah can get started cookin’?”
Remy rolls his eyes and sets the griddle over the burners, and picks up the bacon from the table. “Do dis, lover, do dat, sugar. Do de other t’ing…”
“Ah’ll feed it t’ you if y’all help me now…” she sing-songs over her shoulder.
“Shouldn’ be too hard, nope.”
048. Teamwork
She zips past him in the air, curving her path as close around him as she can safely gauge, and runs her fingers through Remy’s hair.
Rogue’s laughter rings back through the air and by the time he hears it she’s halfway across the ruins of the Danger Room cityscape. “Catch me if you can, Swamp Rat!”
“Yeah, yeah, dis one’ll see ‘bout dat,” he mutters under his breath and sets off pole-vaulting across what buildings are left, stuck playing rooftop leapfrog while she sails away easy as pie. Halfway there one roof collapses underneath him and Remy has to scramble to catch hold of the side of the building to keep from breaking his spine on the pavement. “I thought dis was s’posed t’ be a teamwork t’ing!” he yells in the general direction she’d taken off in.
Next thing he knows she’s grabbed him under his arms and lugging him through the air with her. “It is. An’ quit stickin’ that thing in mah face, will ya?”
“Dat’s not what you were sayin’ t’ Remy-”
“If you say ‘last night,’ Ah swear t’ God Ah will drop you.”
He re-positions his staff in both hands, horizontal and away from threatening her eyes. “You would never.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Can’t say dat I do, nope.”
“Ah’d say ‘c’mon, Gambit, yer a gamblin’ man’,” she teases, setting him on the ground as near to the recovery point as they can get while airborne, a nasty spiderweb of red light separating them from the steel briefcase that can only be the target in question. “But Ah need y’all t’ work on gettin’ past those lasers while Ah figure out what t’ do ‘bout that.”
The sounds of imminent doom and destruction and the unmistakable drone of “mutant lifeforms detected” could only mean one thing.
“Of course there’s a sentinel,” Rogue groans. “What’s a DR session without everyone’s favorite buzzkill?”
But before she has the chance to do so much as breathe Remy’s got her pinned against a brick wall, his staff across her breastbone. “Den allow me t’ put de ‘buzz’ back in dis session,” he says, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the clothed curve of her neck and releasing her as quickly as she’d been captured, “an’ send you t’ you’ doom wit’ a spring in you’ step.”
For all her trying to look disapproving, she can’t help but take off again toward their challenger with a smile on her lips.
049. Gone With the Wind
Rogue waves out the window to her man, trotting to the bench from playing basketball with some of the guys a little ways beyond the building, but by the time he notices her there Jubilee’s thrown an outfit at her face and Rogue pays no more attention to the boys on the court. She moves to lay it out with the other three currently spread across her bed, and her phone vibrates on the desk.
“Answering it!” Jubes shouts gleefully and starts punching buttons.
“Tell me what it says, but don’t type anything back unless Ah say so!” Rogue warns. “Which one, d’you think? Ah really like the green one, but Ah wore a different green one last time…”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Kitty asks from Rogue’s desk chair, “Last time I let Jubilee touch my phone she started texting raunchy things to Piotr and didn’t tell me until after he’d asked if I was feeling okay at dinner.”
“Remy wants to know what you’re doing,” Jubilee says, looking more than a little disappointed that the text wasn’t some sordid, sexy thing. “I’ma tell him girls’ night out.”
“Okay,” Rogue allows warily, “but that’s all. Now seriously, guys, green, pink, or white?”
“Pink. Definitely,” Kitty says with a definitive air as if that alone would close the matter completely.
“But Ah do look best in green-”
“Yeah, but you always wear green. I know you own other colors somewhere in that closet-”
“EEEE!” Jubes squeals, “He wants to know if he gets to give you a kiss for good luck before you go traipsing around with us hooligans all night!”
“Absolutely not!” Rogue laughs, “but put it a little more nicely, willya? He knows Ah cain’t.”
Kitty rolls her eyes and holds the pink dress up against Rogue’s body. “The pink has green accents! Just go with it! You can wear a green hairbow and shoes or something if you’re hurting to wear green so badly.”
“Oh my God, listen to this! ‘That’s a shame,’ he says, ‘You need kissing badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed, and often, by someone who knows how.’ Rogue!” Jubilee sighs like a Disney princess waiting to be swept off her feet, and even Kitty dashes over to read over Jubilee’s shoulder. “Your man quotes Gone with the Wind at you via text message. You better not ever let him go or I will be there with a rowboat and a fish hook, ready to snatch Remy LeBeau up for myself!”
Rogue grabs the phone back from Jubilee and trots to the window, but by the time she gets there, the basketball court is empty.
050. Hero
“Christe, woman, dat hurts!” Remy jerks his head away from her probing fingers, and her gloves come away slick with blood.
“Well, if y’all had thought fer twelve seconds about what y’ were runnin’ into, y’ wouldn’ be bleedin’ from six diff’rent places.” Rogue wipes her hand off on her leg, holding the back of his neck steady to clean up the scalp wound near his temple. The alcohol pad stings like hell and Remy hisses. “Stay still, or it’ll run into yer eyes.”
“Could y’ do dat a little gentler, den?” he asks, and her face softens.
“Ah’m going as lightly as Ah can, Remy love. ‘M sorry it hurts so bad. But ‘s just a surface wound, thank God. If it was anythin’ worse, without McCoy here I don't know if Ah could've…”
“Don’t t’ink ‘bout dat, chere.” He moves to brush her hair behind her ear, but she catches his wrist and sets it back down at his side while she works. Instead he kisses her palm through her glove when she moves the antiseptic to clean the smaller scratches at the side of his face. “Could’a been worse, but it ain’t.”
“Jus’ cause Ah’m thankful yer alive don’ mean yer out o’ the woods yet, Cajun.” Rogue sniffs and is momentarily glad she’d stopped him from pushing her hair out of her face. She will not cry. He’s alive and relatively unscathed and that’s more than she’d hoped for. He hisses when she moves the alcohol back up to his scalp. “Y’ have yet t’ hear what Ah have t’ say about you runnin’ down here alone with both guilds after yer hide. Yer lucky a scalp wound is the worst of what you got.” She sniffs again. Dammit, she will not cry. “Ah swear t’ God, Remy, Ah know y’ can clear yer name with th’ Thieves Guild. But would it kill y’all t’ let some backup tag along?”
“Chere-”
“Don’t ‘chere’ me right now, okay?” She swallows the waver in her voice as best she can. “This ain’t me tryin’ t’ tell you not t’ do what’s right by yourself. But Ah’m beggin’ you, Remy, don’t be a hero.” She leans down and brushes the slightest of kisses against his forehead, more breath than touch on his skin, and the gravity of her ebbing grief and terror hits him like a freight train. “Don’t go runnin’ into this thing alone. Ah’d rather have you hatin’ me forever for followin’ you into this fight, than a martyr with a spotless reputation.”
Also have some fanart that ate a considerable number of hours of my life.
Kisses! Yeah, I know, they're not supposed to. But it's my drawing and I can have them do whatever my devious little mind tells them to. So there.
Bedtime sweetness. And it wasn't until I converted the image to a JPEG that I realized I never drew Rogue's gloves. So either pretend she can control herself, or hate me for discontinuity.
041. Caught
“Girl, if it’s so embarrassin’, when’re you gonna learn t’ shut de door while you’ singin’ into a hairbrush?” Remy drawls from her doorway for-what, the third? fourth?-time, hip-checking the door shut behind him.
Rogue colors from head to toes and slaps down the volume knob a little less violently than the last time he’d walked in on her serenading an empty room. She folds her arms, makeshift microphone still gripped tight like someone’s been trying to pry it away from her, and lifts her chin defiantly in hopes to detract attention from the blush. “Maybe Ah want t’ be caught. Sometimes.”
“On’y sometimes?” he asks, strolling past her to sit on the edge of her bed. His eyebrows raise.
“Dependin’ on th’ song. Y’ don’t think Ah’m gonna let y’all walk in on me beltin’ out Hannah Montana, do you?”
“Mon dieu, please tell Remy you ain’t never been guilty o’ dat.”
“Relax, Swamp Rat, yer girl’s lips’re untainted by th’ likes o’ her.”
“Ooh,” he smirks, gearing up for a glorious resurgence of the blush receding from her neck, and he isn’t disappointed. “Dat sounded dirtier den you intended.”
“Shaddup, y’ know Ah meant her music! Now Ah need eyedrops full o’ bleach fer th’ images y’all jus’ conjured up, thanks fer that.”
“Alright, alright, no more,” he laughs, pulling her down to his lap, “if y’ tell dis one what sort o’ songs you’ been itchin’ t’ get caught fo’, dat is.”
Rogue rolls her eyes and colors again, biting her lip through a self-conscious smile, and stretches to turn the volume back up with her toes. The singer’s low, country drawl curls through the room, and she smiles.
I wanna do real bad things with you.
042. Jones Beach
Beach weekends off like this one are few and far between, and a part of her wishes they did this more often, the bunch of them. Jubilee’s been in charge of the day’s entertainment, playing music all day from the speakers’ safe spot on a picnic bench, while Hank helps Scott and and Piotr clean out the charcoal grill they’d cooked dinner on. Jean finishes braiding Kitty’s hair and twisting it up around her head, while Logan lounges on a bench next to Ororo, a little ways away, moodily sipping his beer as only he knows how. Remy shoves Kurt’s shoulder good-naturedly, teasing him something about his fur smelling kind of like wet dog, and Kurt’s laughing and shoving right back, kicking over Tabitha’s sandcastle by accident while Bobby tosses shards of ice over their heads to Warren, who catches them in his glass of lemonade.
The red sun hangs low over Long Island Sound, sky awash in pink and orange watercolors, and as Rogue swings her feet underneath the bench, another part of her is almost kind of pleased these days away are rare enough to be special.
Jubes cranks up the music and starts yelling for people to dance, did she lug these speakers all the way out here for nothing? Hop to it! Work those burgers off! And Kitty and Jean are all too happy to drag their man-friends out to do just that as the first notes of ‘90’s synthesizer ring across the beach.
“Doctor Jones? Aqua? Really? Y’all’re embarrassin’!” Rogue teases, and Kitty sticks her tongue out and twirls, laughing, under Piotr’s arm. Waggling his eyebrows, Remy pushes Kurt out onto the sand with him and they dance hand in hand, mocking the girls and drawing laughter from everyone else. Logan, on the other hand, groans and trudges off to jump back in the water and avoid the whole ordeal. A few summer songs in, when Kitty and Kurt have had enough of Rogue’s excuses not to join them, Jubilee spins through the song selection and strains of country guitar curl and and dance around them on the breeze. She points at Rogue and Remy, grinning devilishly and mouthing something to the effect of “This one’s for you” and “I will shove you two out there if I have to.”
(An’ Ah’ve never been kissed, never been kissed, never been kissed like this, no, an’ Ah’ve never been touched, never been touched, baby, ‘til Ah felt your touch)
She’s safe enough, long white sundress and sweater taking care of that, and though she flushes and protests and pushes his shoulder away, Remy won’t take no for an answer. He picks Rogue up and spins her around and sets the soles of her sandals to sit on top of his feet, and she howls with laughter with him tromping around in the sand with her like that. He kisses the top of her head.
(Oh, your love’s goin’ to my head so fast, jus’ like the bubbles in a champagne glass, and now Ah know what Ah’ve been missing)
043. Permission
“Remy?”
He looks up from the grease and chrome under-workings of his motorcycle, rubbing his hands clean on his jeans. “Oui, love?”
“Remy, Ah…Ah wanted t’ apologize t’ you,” Rogue says. She grips the frame of the door with one hand like it’ll collapse if she lets go. “Fer bein’ so scared all th’ time. Y’ deserve better than this, an’ Ah cain’t force y’all t’ go on bein’ with me if Ah cain’t even bring myself close enough t-”
“What’re you sayin’, girl?” He stands up, ruby eyes reading her wide ones as best he can without her meeting them.
“What Ah mean is…Ah don’ think Ah could live with myself if Ah did somethin’ t’ hurt you again.” Her body shifts, a step or two forward. “Ah won’t ever let it happen like that a second time.”
“Rogue, if you’ sayin’ what I think you’ gettin’ at, we’ll find other ways t’ get around it. One accident ain’ enough t’-”
“No, love, that’s not it at all.” The smile she offers is nervous, and Remy fails to find it comforting. “Ah feel ridiculous even havin’ t’ say it, but can…can Ah touch you? Like Ah did before?” She just bites the inside of her lip, pushing her hair behind her ears to keep from wringing her hands. “Ah wouldn’ be askin’ at all, but, God, Rem, Ah thought Ah’d never see those eyes again an’ Ah jus’ don’t feel right without askin’ after what Ah did-”
“It’s alright, chere.” His back loses some of the tension he hadn’t realized was there. “You get past it in you’ head any way you have to. Dis one’ll still be here.”
“But Ah cain’t, unless Ah know…” She swallows. “it won’t affect you.”
“Y’ can touch me now, if y’ up to it.” His voice is gentle, aching with something he doesn’t mean for her to hear, far underneath simple reassurance .
Hesitant eyes follow the line of his body to his face, and Rogue reaches for him, gloved hands still faltering just shy of touch. For a moment Remy wants to sigh and turn back to his work, to hide how she’ll tear him apart when she stumbles back and stammers she can’t do this. Then trembling, silk fingertips just graze his neck and trace the set of his jaw, the line of his shoulder, feather-light and halting. Slowly, she lays her palm in the curve where his neck and shoulder join and slides her arms around his neck for the first time in months.
“Thank you,” she whispers into the collar of his shirt. Her arms squeeze his body close and she can feel the sigh of his relief flush against her body when he folds her tight into his arms. “Fer not shyin’ away from me. Ah’ve missed you so much.”
“Missed you, too, Anna.” He breathes her in and doesn’t let her go.
044. Violated
“Goddammit, Remy! What don’t you get?” Rogue whirls on him as if he’d slapped her, green eyes blazing with rage and something that runs far deeper than mere anger should be. “Ah. Will not. Touch you! And so help me, if you force yourself on me again, Ah swear t’ God-”
The hand he’d extended to brush her face is now held clenched at his side, his own ire rising under his skin as she spits the words in his face. “Christe, if dis is how y’ treat every man who tries t’ make y’ feel like y’ desired, I’m sorry I ever wanted y’ to feel dat ‘cause o’ me!”
“Remy, Ah am a prisoner in mah own body.” She swallows hard and sucks in air through the tightness in her throat, venom leeching from her voice, dripping from the words and out of her with every jagged syllable. They well up and tear their way out her throat, choking her while she fights to force them into the open, anywhere but festering inside of her. “Ah ain’t even free inside mah own head! Tryin’ t’ separate mah thoughts, an’ mah memories, from th’ hundreds of other voices stealin’ th’ senses an’ places an’ people that should’a been mine alone is like tryin’ t’ hold constant, rolling thunder in yer fist.”
Her arms are tight as cable and it makes her shoulders ache, and the mix of fury and molten, leaden despair in her voice feel like a slap in the face. “Every minute. Of every day. Ah feel like a goddamn circus bear, poked at an’ taunted an’ stared at by strangers Ah can’t hide from. Except they’re inside me, tearing through mah thoughts until Ah can’t tell which belong t’ me anymore.”
The anger bleeds away until it leaves her spent and trembling, trapped between Remy and the wall at her back and she wants to run, or scream or anything but stand cornered where she is. “Mah body was the one thing Ah had that no one could take from me, an’ now that Ah want t’ give myself t’ someone else Ah can’t. It kills me to hold myself back when th’ one thing in the world Ah want is you. But Ah don’t want yer voice in mah head, ringing with all the others through things that should be private. Ah don’t want t’ know what you think of me like that. Ah don’t want t’ see yer memories like that.”
Her rage burns out like fire under glass, until all that’s left is the dull smoke of despair left in her eyes. “Ah want you t’ tell me, like everyone else. An’ if you touch me, you will be the one who feels violated by it. Ah will not do that t’ you, Remy. Ah will not invade your head the way mine’s been. Ah wouldn’t wish that on anyone, let alone someone Ah-”
Love hangs on her lips, just beyond his reach.
045. Riding Lessons
“Don’t walk behind him!” Rogue lunges for Remy’s wrist just before he steps around his horse’s tail, and yanks him back out of the way. “Yer gonna get yer ass kicked. Literally. They don’ like people standin’ in their blind spot.”
“T’anks fo’ de heads up,” he says, running a nervous hand through his hair, “Maybe nex’ time give it t’ dis one befo’ he does somet’in’ stupid?”
She giggles behind her hand as she watches him sidestep around the horse’s nose, startling backward slightly when it nickers at him. “Calm down, city boy, she ain’t gonna bite. Bring me the two halters hangin’ on the left.” She resumes checking the saddle belts while Remy does his best not to trip over the mountains of unidentifiable stuff on the tack room floor.
“You’ sure takin’ Remy out ridin’ is a good idea?” he calls back before a loud thud and audible swearing waft towards her.
“Aside from the fact that y’all don’ know a halter from a horse’s ass, yes,” Rogue laughs and gives her horse one last pat on the shoulder before she extricates her man from the tack room and collects the halters herself. “Put the bit flat on yer hand-that’s the shiny metal bar-and hold it up underneath her nose,” she instructs, as her horse obediently mouths it and she slips the rest of the leather harness over his head, buckling the cheek straps and giving him a kiss on his forehead. “There’s my good boy.”
Remy’s horse, on the other hand, seems to want no part in this tacking-up ordeal, and jerks her mouth out of his reach every time he tries to get close. “Little help, here?”
“She’s jus’ messin’ with y’all,” Rogue tries to smother her mirth and fails. “Roulette’s got…personality. But she’s the easiest ride here, once she’s all suited up. Ain’t that right, girl?” She guides Remy’s hand up to the horse’s mouth and Roulette snuffles once, then gives in and lets them slip the halter over her. “An’ Ah am fully aware how dirty that sounded, Mr. LeBeau, do not be makin’ sex-with-horses jokes at me.”
“Sex-wit’-horses…sounds like it could be you’ Indian name, Sex-Wit’-Horses-”
“Yeah, an’ yours’ll be Plays-With-Himself if y’all keep it up,” she throws a saucy grin right back over her shoulder and unties their rides from the hitch. “Now left foot in th’ stirrup, hoist yerself up an’ swing yer right leg over her back.” He watches Rogue swing herself gracefully up into the saddle and decides then and there that he’s not going to waste time trying to look like a pro, and clambers up quick as he can to minimize time spent looking like a fool.
“Now jus’ gently kick yer heels to her sides t’ get her t’ start walkin’, an’ pull back on the reins if y’ need her t’ slow up. Got it?” Rogue strolls her horse up beside him and Remy eyes her with apprehension. “Don’ worry, we’re jus’ goin’ fer a walk around the grounds. ‘M right next t’ you if y’ need help. An’ Roulette won’t be givin you any more sass, now, will you, girl?” She reaches over to rub Roulette between the ears. “Archie an’ I won’t make fun, we promise,” she laughs and pats her own horse’s neck. “Not so bad, is it?”
Remy wobbles in the saddle, but Roulette lives up to her reputation and stands meekly still, waiting for instructions. “Remains t’ be seen. We don’ do much ridin’ down in the bayou.”
“Coulda fooled me,” Rogue winks at him, “Y’all seemed t’ know exactly what y’ were doin’ last night.”
046. Wash Up
She stands behind him under the water and smooths the last of the shampoo out of Remy’s hair, smiling at the happy purr that slides out from deep in his throat. Her fingers tease and stroke down his jawline and neck, wrapping her arms around him to reach and trace the lines of his collarbone and ribcage, but she stops before exploring any lower than his chest.
“Tease.”
“Mmm.” Rogue lets go of him and slips around to stand with her back to him, handing him the bottle of shampoo. “Help me with mah hair?”
“In a minute.” He pulls her body close until every inch of her, wet and hidden by his dress shirt, presses up against him. A hand splayed low on her belly holds her just where he wants.
“Who’s teasin’ who, here, exactly?” she gasps. She can’t tell whether the push of her body against his is of her own accord or from his hands. “An’ fer the record, Ah could do with a little help…a little lower, too.”
“Give dis one you’ gloves, den, chere,” he growls into her ear, “an’ be a good girl an’ keep you’ hands t’ you’self.”
“Excuse me, sir, but Ah seem t’ have misplaced mah innocence,” Rogue says, voice shaky already from anticipation alone. He tugs the gloves from her fingers with his teeth. “If y’ find it-” her voice fractures when his hands return to her, and she has to splay hers over the tile to keep from sliding them up around the very bare back of his neck.”-tell it t’ wait t’ call on me ‘til Ah’m done with y’all.”
047. Breakfast
It’s always nice to lie around in bed until past noon, snuggled up with an armload of warm girl and watching the world pass by, but there comes a point where even the lure of sex falls to the wayside when measured against the lure of food. Remy answers the call for breakfast as emphatically as Rogue offers it.
“Want bacon! Gonna be so pissed if dere’s no bacon in dis place…”
“Relax, sugar,” Rogue laughs, elbow-deep in the freezer. “It’s back here somewhere. Do me a favor, an’ fish out pancake things from th’ cabinets?”
“Puttin’ dis one t’ work, eh? ‘S no fair, you promised t’ do de cookin’ fo’ a change,” he mutters, tossing the box of mix onto the table. “A mix?” he scoffs. “Girl, didn’t dis one teach you anyt’ing ‘bout food?” But his red eyes light up like a retriever with a treat when he hears the thud of a frozen package of porcine gold hit the counter.
“Oh, hush up, Remy, Ah’m hungry now, an’ cookin’ from scratch takes time.” She forsakes the freezer for the fridge and then hip-checks it shut, depositing an armload of egg cartons, milk, berries, syrup, butter, and whipped cream onto the table. “Fire up the stove for me, lover? An’ jus’ as a hypothetical question, if y’all measured it right, d’you think y’all could charge the bacon juuust enough t’ thaw so Ah can get started cookin’?”
Remy rolls his eyes and sets the griddle over the burners, and picks up the bacon from the table. “Do dis, lover, do dat, sugar. Do de other t’ing…”
“Ah’ll feed it t’ you if y’all help me now…” she sing-songs over her shoulder.
“Shouldn’ be too hard, nope.”
048. Teamwork
She zips past him in the air, curving her path as close around him as she can safely gauge, and runs her fingers through Remy’s hair.
Rogue’s laughter rings back through the air and by the time he hears it she’s halfway across the ruins of the Danger Room cityscape. “Catch me if you can, Swamp Rat!”
“Yeah, yeah, dis one’ll see ‘bout dat,” he mutters under his breath and sets off pole-vaulting across what buildings are left, stuck playing rooftop leapfrog while she sails away easy as pie. Halfway there one roof collapses underneath him and Remy has to scramble to catch hold of the side of the building to keep from breaking his spine on the pavement. “I thought dis was s’posed t’ be a teamwork t’ing!” he yells in the general direction she’d taken off in.
Next thing he knows she’s grabbed him under his arms and lugging him through the air with her. “It is. An’ quit stickin’ that thing in mah face, will ya?”
“Dat’s not what you were sayin’ t’ Remy-”
“If you say ‘last night,’ Ah swear t’ God Ah will drop you.”
He re-positions his staff in both hands, horizontal and away from threatening her eyes. “You would never.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Can’t say dat I do, nope.”
“Ah’d say ‘c’mon, Gambit, yer a gamblin’ man’,” she teases, setting him on the ground as near to the recovery point as they can get while airborne, a nasty spiderweb of red light separating them from the steel briefcase that can only be the target in question. “But Ah need y’all t’ work on gettin’ past those lasers while Ah figure out what t’ do ‘bout that.”
The sounds of imminent doom and destruction and the unmistakable drone of “mutant lifeforms detected” could only mean one thing.
“Of course there’s a sentinel,” Rogue groans. “What’s a DR session without everyone’s favorite buzzkill?”
But before she has the chance to do so much as breathe Remy’s got her pinned against a brick wall, his staff across her breastbone. “Den allow me t’ put de ‘buzz’ back in dis session,” he says, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the clothed curve of her neck and releasing her as quickly as she’d been captured, “an’ send you t’ you’ doom wit’ a spring in you’ step.”
For all her trying to look disapproving, she can’t help but take off again toward their challenger with a smile on her lips.
049. Gone With the Wind
Rogue waves out the window to her man, trotting to the bench from playing basketball with some of the guys a little ways beyond the building, but by the time he notices her there Jubilee’s thrown an outfit at her face and Rogue pays no more attention to the boys on the court. She moves to lay it out with the other three currently spread across her bed, and her phone vibrates on the desk.
“Answering it!” Jubes shouts gleefully and starts punching buttons.
“Tell me what it says, but don’t type anything back unless Ah say so!” Rogue warns. “Which one, d’you think? Ah really like the green one, but Ah wore a different green one last time…”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Kitty asks from Rogue’s desk chair, “Last time I let Jubilee touch my phone she started texting raunchy things to Piotr and didn’t tell me until after he’d asked if I was feeling okay at dinner.”
“Remy wants to know what you’re doing,” Jubilee says, looking more than a little disappointed that the text wasn’t some sordid, sexy thing. “I’ma tell him girls’ night out.”
“Okay,” Rogue allows warily, “but that’s all. Now seriously, guys, green, pink, or white?”
“Pink. Definitely,” Kitty says with a definitive air as if that alone would close the matter completely.
“But Ah do look best in green-”
“Yeah, but you always wear green. I know you own other colors somewhere in that closet-”
“EEEE!” Jubes squeals, “He wants to know if he gets to give you a kiss for good luck before you go traipsing around with us hooligans all night!”
“Absolutely not!” Rogue laughs, “but put it a little more nicely, willya? He knows Ah cain’t.”
Kitty rolls her eyes and holds the pink dress up against Rogue’s body. “The pink has green accents! Just go with it! You can wear a green hairbow and shoes or something if you’re hurting to wear green so badly.”
“Oh my God, listen to this! ‘That’s a shame,’ he says, ‘You need kissing badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed, and often, by someone who knows how.’ Rogue!” Jubilee sighs like a Disney princess waiting to be swept off her feet, and even Kitty dashes over to read over Jubilee’s shoulder. “Your man quotes Gone with the Wind at you via text message. You better not ever let him go or I will be there with a rowboat and a fish hook, ready to snatch Remy LeBeau up for myself!”
Rogue grabs the phone back from Jubilee and trots to the window, but by the time she gets there, the basketball court is empty.
050. Hero
“Christe, woman, dat hurts!” Remy jerks his head away from her probing fingers, and her gloves come away slick with blood.
“Well, if y’all had thought fer twelve seconds about what y’ were runnin’ into, y’ wouldn’ be bleedin’ from six diff’rent places.” Rogue wipes her hand off on her leg, holding the back of his neck steady to clean up the scalp wound near his temple. The alcohol pad stings like hell and Remy hisses. “Stay still, or it’ll run into yer eyes.”
“Could y’ do dat a little gentler, den?” he asks, and her face softens.
“Ah’m going as lightly as Ah can, Remy love. ‘M sorry it hurts so bad. But ‘s just a surface wound, thank God. If it was anythin’ worse, without McCoy here I don't know if Ah could've…”
“Don’t t’ink ‘bout dat, chere.” He moves to brush her hair behind her ear, but she catches his wrist and sets it back down at his side while she works. Instead he kisses her palm through her glove when she moves the antiseptic to clean the smaller scratches at the side of his face. “Could’a been worse, but it ain’t.”
“Jus’ cause Ah’m thankful yer alive don’ mean yer out o’ the woods yet, Cajun.” Rogue sniffs and is momentarily glad she’d stopped him from pushing her hair out of her face. She will not cry. He’s alive and relatively unscathed and that’s more than she’d hoped for. He hisses when she moves the alcohol back up to his scalp. “Y’ have yet t’ hear what Ah have t’ say about you runnin’ down here alone with both guilds after yer hide. Yer lucky a scalp wound is the worst of what you got.” She sniffs again. Dammit, she will not cry. “Ah swear t’ God, Remy, Ah know y’ can clear yer name with th’ Thieves Guild. But would it kill y’all t’ let some backup tag along?”
“Chere-”
“Don’t ‘chere’ me right now, okay?” She swallows the waver in her voice as best she can. “This ain’t me tryin’ t’ tell you not t’ do what’s right by yourself. But Ah’m beggin’ you, Remy, don’t be a hero.” She leans down and brushes the slightest of kisses against his forehead, more breath than touch on his skin, and the gravity of her ebbing grief and terror hits him like a freight train. “Don’t go runnin’ into this thing alone. Ah’d rather have you hatin’ me forever for followin’ you into this fight, than a martyr with a spotless reputation.”
Also have some fanart that ate a considerable number of hours of my life.
Kisses! Yeah, I know, they're not supposed to. But it's my drawing and I can have them do whatever my devious little mind tells them to. So there.
Bedtime sweetness. And it wasn't until I converted the image to a JPEG that I realized I never drew Rogue's gloves. So either pretend she can control herself, or hate me for discontinuity.