Title: On a Night like This

Disclaimer: Bite me

Author: Sorcieré (hack_heaven@usa.net)

Rating: PG, I suppose

Pairing: Rogue/Logan, a little bit of Rogue/Gambit

Series: None

Feedback: Actually, I only wrote this to get my muse off my back, but you're more than welcome to give me feedback anyway ;-)

Archive: WRFA, other just ask. It's not like I'll say no *g*

Summary: On a night like this, the masks come off and two mutants have a talk about life, love and everything in between.

 

A/N: This little piece exists only because my muse decided that it was about bloody time that I wrote a fic with Nice!Understanding!Remy. See, muse? I wrote it! Now leave me the fuck alone and let me study for my finals, damnit!!!

 

* * *

 

"Rogue?"

 

The mutant in question turned her gaze away from the window where she had been admiring the countless stars.

 

"Hey, Remy," she replied, "how'd the date go?"

 

Gambit, resident heartbreaker, stepped out of the shadows and snorted. Rogue smiled sympathetically even as she returned to her stargazing.

 

"That bad?" she asked.

 

She heard the sound of footsteps as Gambit crossed the room and the slight movement of the couch told her that he'd sat down in the opposite end. Rogue looked at him again and watched as Gambit quickly took off his shoes and stretched out on the couch. She smiled. On a night like this, when everyone was asleep and the two of them were all alone, it was like Remy dropped the womanizer-mask he always wore. On a night like this he let her see a part of himself that he rarely showed anyone.

 

Rogue curled up next to him. What they had wasn't romantic, but not quite platonic either. Whatever it was, it felt good. It felt safe.

 

"De femme...she be beautiful, but..." Remy trailed off and tried to find the right word.

 

"...Empty-headed?" Rogue offered.

 

"Oui," Remy said and smiled slightly. "Empty-headed. She thought nail polish an' shoes be important. Her giggling give Remy a headache."

 

Rogue smiled.

 

"Poor Remy. Well, then I suppose it's a good thing you have every girl, woman and gay guy in this place fighting for your attention."

 

Remy sent her a sad smile and stroked her cheek with a gloved hand.

 

"Oui. Everyone except de femme Remy wants."

 

Rogue looked at him with brown eyes that were too old, too worn out for someone who was barely eighteen.

 

"Remy..."

 

"Hush, ma chere," Remy whispered and touched her lips gently with his fingertips. "Remy knows...dis femme belong to de Wolverine." He tapped gently on the dog tags around Rogue's neck. "Remy not stupid. He don't want to anger your man."

 

Against her will, Rogue giggled.

 

"Not unless you have a death wish."

 

Remy smiled.

 

"Ah, but it be worth it, non?"

 

Rogue swatted him playfully on the arm.

 

"Behave!"

 

Remy put on his best 'Who? Me?' face. Rogue just stuck out her tongue and then snuggled closer. There were very few people she felt safe around. In fact, there were only two she trusted enough to touch without any fear. One was somewhere in Canada on a stolen motorcycle. The other was sitting next to her.

 

Remy sighed and put his arms around Rogue.

 

"De femmes here be attractive, but too young," he explained. Rogue understood him completely. Remy had been a thief on the streets as long a he could remember. It had forced him to grow up very quickly, just like Rogue herself.

 

"Jubilee...she be funny but don't know de real world."

 

"She thinks the world rotates around the mall," Rogue added with a slight grin.

 

"Exactly," Remy agreed. "Kitty...she be beautiful, but so innocent. She never felt de cold or hunger or fear of de streets, non?"

 

Rogue nodded. She knew what he was talking about. She'd hitchhiked across two countries during her eight months on the road. She had been forced to use her mutation six times. She had only touched those people briefly, so the personalities she'd absorbed at that time had faded rather quickly, but she would never be able to forget it.

Never.

She had been forced to use her 'gift' against others, to close herself off from the outside world, to stop feeling sorry for others and instead focus on survival. And then she absorbed Logan and Magneto and could add around eighty years of memories to her own eighteen.

She grew up too quickly and now she felt ancient compared to the other students on the school.

 

Amazingly, Rogue still had some of her childlike innocence left, but she rarely showed it, having learned the hard way that innocence was a weakness that could be used against her.

 

It was a lesson that also Remy had learned at a very early age.

 

Rogue sighed.

 

"Whenever I see the others play basketball, or go on dates or shop at the mall...I feel so old. I look at them, and I can't help thinking that they're so young, so superficial. That the things they think of as important mean nothing - nothing - in the big picture. And I wonder if *I* was ever that carefree."

 

Remy stroked her hair.

 

"We were, chérie, but dat be a long time ago. Before dis," he said and gestured at the room.

 

"Yeah," Rogue whispered.

 

Remy continued to stroke her hair, and for a long moment they just enjoyed the silence.

 

"Remy?" Rogue finally asked.

 

"Oui?"

 

"Have you...do you ever wonder what would have happened if you hadn't been a mutant?"

 

Remy frowned.

 

"Remy suppose he be dead...his powers save him often on de streets. But then again - he might not be living on de streets at all. Why you ask, ma chere?"

 

Rogue sighed.

 

"Sometimes, I just wonder if my life has changed in a good or a bad way. I mean, I can't touch anyone skin-to-skin without hurting them. People are afraid of me. I've almost died several times."

 

Remy nodded.

 

"Oui. But there be good things too, non?"

 

Rogue smiled softly.

 

"There are. If I wasn't a mutant I would probably never have met Logan...or you. I would have attended some college near my hometown, and after that I would probably have returned home, married someone, gotten a few kids and lived the rest of my life as a good, southern housewife."

 

She paused.

 

"I think I would have tried to enjoy it, but I would have felt like I was missing something...you know what I mean?"

 

"Oui," Remy said and kissed Rogue on the top of her head, where her hair would protect him. "Remy knows."

 

Rogue leaned closer, longing for a touch she could never have. Then Remy lifted her chin ever so gently to look into her eyes, and mesmerized, they found themselves unable to look away. Unconsciously, Remy stroked Rogue's cheek and her lips parted slightly. In that endless moment there were only them. The world outside - the room, the students, the X-Men - no longer existed. The silence drowned the faint noises from the old mansion and the little voice in Rogue's mind that screamed at her to wake up, that she was heading into dangerous waters and that she already had a guy, damnit! Slowly, and no longer thinking, they leaned closer until their lips were only inches apart.

 

The old grandfather clock in the hallway chimed one, then twice, and snapped the two mutants back into reality.

 

Rogue's eyes widened when she realized how closed she'd been to kissing Remy, without even a scarf between them. She quickly pulled away, and Remy leaned back with a regretful smile. Then he gently kissed her hand.

 

"Remy still think we could have made a good couple, non?"

 

Rogue sent him a sad little smile.

 

"Maybe. I guess we' ll never know."

 

Remy stood up and walked to the door, then paused as he reached it.

 

"Rogue?"

 

Rogue looked at him and for a brief moment Remy saw the girl she'd once been. Then the moment passed.

 

"Yeah?"

 

"He will be back," Remy said. The words were meant as more than a reassurance for Rogue, they both knew this. That simple sentence was Remy's way of saying that he knew, and accepted, that the one woman he truly wanted was already taken and that he never really had a chance.

Perhaps, in another time and place, things between them would have been different, but in the here and now, Rogue's heart belonged to a feral man with no past, and while Remy still had a place in her heart, she would never love him like she loved Wolverine.

 

Remy smiled sadly.

 

"Goodnight, ma chere," he said softly and left the room.

 

Rogue looked at the empty door for a long time.

 

Then she curled up on the couch and cried.

 

 

~End~