He had been sitting
on the edge of her bed, toying with an unlit cigarette but dutifully abandoning
all idea of lighting it because he knew how much she disapproved of his dirty
little indulgence, one amongst many.
She'd been lying on the bed behind him, staring up at the ceiling and
thinking that this was inevitably going to lead to one disaster or another,
because he was in her bedroom again, because three hours of sweet-talk had left
her burning with a fire he couldn’t quell, and because she was beginning to
think that Storm had actually been right.
This was all a
beautiful, lyrical mistake.
“Did she?” she'd
asked nonchalantly, running a hand idly through her hair.
“Yup. But you wouldn’t want me t' go away, would
you.”
It had been a
statement, not a question. She'd stared
at his back helplessly, unable to confess either way. The plain truth was, she
had always been utterly unable to turn him away, and that night had been no
exception. From the very moment he'd
asked her out to dinner they'd been doomed.
Doomed to flirting, doomed to empty promises, doomed to torrid romance,
doomed to her taking him up here and doomed to him trying it on once again and
failing abysmally.
It was a miracle
she'd even bothered going through the motions anymore.
When she hadn't
answered he'd flipped the cigarette back into its packet and thrown it casually
up onto the nightstand.
“'Ro's probably
right,” he'd muttered half to himself. The
next moment he had been staring down at her, each hand pressed into the pillow
at either side of her head, his eyes gazing down into hers with fiery intent.
“But I'd be crazy if I didn't try t' pin you down.”
He'd been talking
in that way again, low, seductive,
almost aggressive; aggressive because however much he pushed and shoved he'd
never get her.
“But yah can't,”
she'd pointed out to him for about the hundredth time.
“Bullshit,” he'd
declared heatedly.
“Not unless yah
wanted to end up in a coma or somethin'…”
“I don’t need t'
touch your skin.”
The declaration had
made her quiet. She'd stared at
him. He'd smiled.
“Remy --”
“For de love of all
dat's sacred, chere, I want you. Please
don’t tell me t' back off again.”
“Remy --”
“You want me too,
don’t pretend you don’t.”
“Yeah, but it's
just lust.”
“So what? Why do we have to wait until we're in-love
and it screws us over? Why don’t you
want anyt'ing less? Shit happens, chere. Get used to it.”
“Remy --”
Her protest had
been ineffectual, half-hearted - his hands had already been on her body,
feeling her through the chiffon of her dress, and she'd closed her eyes,
wanting it, wanting it more than anything, not caring if she hurt him, not
caring if he hurt her and spoiled everything because she wanted to love him,
because love was the only thing that could make her into the creature she wanted to be…
And she had let
him, she had let him kiss her through the chiffon, kiss her breasts, her
stomach, feeling the wet bloom open up inside her, feeling his hand on her
thigh, snaking underneath her dress, his fingers on her panties, teasing
against her softness… A moan escaping her lips as the fire exploded inside her…
Too much, too soon, too fast…
She'd pushed him
off her, panting heavily, her mind spinning.
It had been too close, too close, even for him…
“Stop it,” she'd breathed.
“Fuck, chere, you want it.” He'd been panting heavily too.
“You want it so bad it's screamin' at me.”
She'd dared to look
at him. Fire, desire in those beautiful
eyes…
“Ah don’t,” she'd
protested breathlessly. “Not… not like this…”
“We can't have it
any other way.”
“Tomorrow you'll be
with someone else…”
“I'll only be
thinkin' of you.”
Somehow that had
made it worse.
“No you won't, shut
up!”
She'd bolted upright,
clutching her gloved arms about her, still shivering from the heat of his
caresses.
Silence. She hadn't been able to look at him.
“What are you so
scared of?” he'd asked quietly.
“You know what.”
“Is it really dat, chere? Or are you just afraid of goin' de whole
way?”
“You don’t
understand…”
“So tell me.”
She still hadn't
been able to look at him. She'd hugged
herself tighter.
“Bein' with
someone… with me, it's a matter of life and death, Remy. There's just too much to lose.”
“So you'll only let
me get close to you when there's nothing left to lose, right?”
She'd nodded. Silence.
He'd touched her upper arm through her satin opera glove, as if
reluctant to let her go; she'd still been shivering.
“You sure drive a
hard bargain, p'tit,” he'd murmured. “For yourself as well as for me.”
He'd stood up;
she'd closed her eyes, her breath still coming short and choppy, the imprint of
his fingers still burning into the core of her…
“When there's
nothing left for you to lose in dis crazy world, chere,” he'd said, “you let me
know. I'll be ready and waitin' for
you.”
He'd left.
Why, why, why had she been so stupid, why had she brought
him up here, why had she pushed him away…?
She'd slumped back
onto the bed, clutching herself tight, her cheeks, her entire body blazing.
“Remy…”
* * * * *
Remy.
She'd called his
name a lot since then, in the darkness of her mind, where it was safe to do
so. In bed at night, when she lay with
her face pressed into her pillow hearing Irene's cane tapping outside her door
with the screams of her ghosts still echoing about her.
There had never
been an answer, no matter how much she had yearned and prayed and wished him
into existence, or begged a god she didn’t believe in to bring him back to life
and take her away from the intolerable agony of her life. In time, she had come to stop calling for
him; she hadn’t even whispered his name when she was alone anymore, because she
had known he would never come.
And yet there he
was when she had least expected him, standing in that dingy alleyway with the
ash floating around him, gazing at her with that same small smile on his face,
as if the world hadn't changed one iota when everything in it had changed
inexorably and she couldn’t get any of it back.
“Nice work back
there,” he greeted her casually, with just the smallest hint of congratulation
in his eyes. “I guess you beat me t' de punch.”
There was a short,
split second where she had the faint impression that she had died, or was
unconscious, and that this was a dream, or a nightmare, or a blocked memory
replaying itself as her life flashed quietly before her eyes. Every fibre of her being told her that Gambit
was, after all, dead. He had been dead
for two years, killed by the military in the raid on the Xavier mansion that
had slaughtered the X-Men. Mystique
herself had told her that she had
been the only survivor - there had been no other bodies, no other remains.
Yet this was no
dream. She could smell, she could taste;
and besides, dreams never held the quality of tiredness that she felt now, a
tiredness of the soul and not merely of the body. And he was
there. He was nearly close enough for
her to smell him over the stench of burning - cigarettes, leather, and that
unknown, spicy aftershave that she knew so well, that caused her memory to leap
into conscious hyperactivity.
She said
nothing. Despite the knowledge that he
was solid and standing there right in front of her, she still couldn’t quite
believe her eyes. But there he was,
looking so strong and supple and beautiful when most mutants now went around
looking gaunt, emaciated and haunted.
Words couldn't describe the feeling that sparked in her heart as she saw
him standing there, and it was more than joy, or love, or passion.
It was hope.
“How long were you
followin' me?” she found herself asking him instead, her tone one of forced
neutrality, as if daring herself to believe that such a thing as hope could
still exist. Even she was surprised by
her own nonchalance.
“Since way back at
de factory.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the
fireball she'd just run from. His voice
was just as she remembered it - husky and sultry, insinuating itself into all
her senses, drawing her in… Her heart trembled at the sound of it. She knew now, with certainty, that he was real. “Got so surprised t' see you, I
went ahead and let you take de credit for blowin' up dat shithole. But, chere - while I thoroughly approve of de
end result, I gotta tell y' you lack a whole lotta style.”
She couldn’t
believe it. He was joking with her,
bantering with her; it was as though not even a day had passed since their last
encounter. To hear it, to hear him speak
to her as if time and space had changed nothing between them made her heart
blaze wildly - with rebelliousness and defiance more than anything else. As though the terrors of this world, of this
mission, could have no hold over her.
The shadow of a
smile began to curve on her lips. It was
the first genuine smile that had crossed her face in years.
“Lucky Ah don't
care for your brand of style then, Cajun,” she retorted coolly, turning
slightly to pack away her supplies. He
said nothing, made no movement towards her.
He merely watched her as she continued with her task - she knew this
because she could feel his eyes on her back, on her neck, on her cheek; she
could feel them enveloping every line and curve of her body with a voluptuous
intensity. They hadn't been together in
one another's company for more than three minutes, had barely exchanged more
than a few words, and yet already the old tension was palpable between
them. Rogue felt an involuntary blush
creep up her cheeks. She had always felt
like this, whenever he had scrutinised her; he had never made a secret of the
fact that he found her attractive, and now was no exception. She found it almost surprising that despite
the intervening years of pain, death and hardship, the chemistry still existed
between them. Somehow, passion felt out
of place in a world where anguish and sorrow were the daily norm.
When she'd
finished, she turned round. He was still
standing there, in exactly the same position, watching her. They stood there a long moment staring at one
another through the rainfall of ash now flittering about them, not knowing what
to say. There were so many questions, so
many that neither of them liked to ask.
Why was he here, what was he doing now, why was he still alive at all?
All these questions
and many more flooded her mind so abruptly that she didn’t even know where to
begin. And so, she said nothing.
He was the one to
break the silence first.
“Dat cut dere, on
your arm…” He pointed to the wound she had just bandaged, his voice casual,
matter-of-fact. “You go to a hospital, they'll ask too many questions.” He
paused, raised his eyes to hers again, added; “I can take you back to my place,
fix it up for you if you like.”
At the words, her
heart throbbed painfully; the fire flared in her belly. She could just as easily go back to base and
have Mystique fix it for her. But she'd
known, from the first moment he'd appeared in that darkened alleyway, that she
would refuse him nothing.
“Yah have your own
place?” she asked him in that same strange, neutral tone that bewildered her
even as she said it. His smile was
lopsided, cocky, confident.
“A safe house o'
sorts. Don't use it much. Too dangerous t' stay dere more den a day at
a time.”
She knew it.
Whatever it was he had been doing, whatever it was that had brought him
to the Sentinel parts factory that day, it had been as dangerous and illegal as
what she had been doing. It didn't
surprise her. He'd always been that
way. Her heart sang with an odd kind of
triumph.
“All right,” she
agreed, non-committal. She grabbed her
bag of supplies, hoisted it onto her shoulder, peeled the gloves from her hands
and stuffed them into her pockets, slowly, deliberately, just to let him see,
just to let him know…
“No gloves?” he
commented, eyebrow cocked.
“Ah can control my
powers now,” she informed him, her voice sounding even stranger than before,
lighter, quicker, more breathless. “Ah can touch.”
She didn't dare
look into his face.
“Oh,” was all he
said.
*
There was no doubt
as to what this all entailed. No
allusion was made to it, but it was as explicit as the fact that day followed
night, that the moon rose when the sun went down.
She went with it
because this time she wanted it.
She followed him
because ever since he'd appeared to her in that alley she'd been presented with
an ungodly chance she was never going to get again, and she craved it more than
she'd craved anything else in her life.
But most of all she
did it because this time, there really was nothing left to lose.
Neither of them
said a thing. Words were superfluous in
the face of what they both knew would follow.
There was no contract to sign, no bargain to be made, no agreement to
reach. In many ways they had done all
these things long ago, and this was the long overdue conclusion.
Neither hurried
toward their destination. He led her
silently and leisurely through the back streets to his Harley, which was parked
in an abandoned alleyway the next block down.
She clambered up behind him reluctantly - this was the closest they'd
ever been, the closest she'd ever been to anybody,
and that in itself unnerved her.
He looked back over
his shoulder and smiled at her.
“Hold on tight,
chere,” he said.
She placed her
hands gingerly on his hips, feeling awkward for infringing into his personal
space. He smiled again, turned. Then they were off.
The journey was strangely
exhilarating, not merely physically, but emotionally. With every minute that passed she found
herself clinging to him harder and harder, her hands snaking further and
further about him, until her fingers were clasped together about his
waist. It seemed surreal. Here she was, with a man she hadn't seen in
years; not more than fifteen minutes had passed since that first encounter in
the alley, and yet she already felt connected to him in a way that she couldn't
explain. The rest of the journey passed
in a blur of streets and lights and traffic and voices. She heard nothing. She rested her head against the back of his
trench coat, that old, familiar, leather smell, and closed her eyes.
She didn’t open
them again until they'd stopped.
It was a filthy old
quadrant of filthy old apartment blocks that appeared to be falling apart at
the seams. Light only poured out of a
quarter of the windows; the rest were great, yawning chasms of black, disused
rooms that had long ago been vacated for greener pastures. By now the pain in her arm had gone numb, and
she could barely feel a thing in her extremities. The bandage on her wound was cold and moist,
dark with blood.
Remy parked the
bike in an alleyway between two of the buildings. He moved with a confidence that told her that
he knew the place well. When she
clambered off the back seat he joined her, taking her arm and looking first at
the bandage, then at her. His gaze had
been long and intense, making her blush, making her look away. He had always looked at her in this way,
making her feel self-conscious and embarrassed.
In the silence,
away from the sirens and the wails, away from the ash and the fire, he seemed
different. Maybe it was because he was
closer to her than he had been back in that dingy alley that he seemed more
substantial, more real to her. She found
a moment or two to study his face. He
was still very beautiful, handsome in that wolfish, rugged way. His face hadn't changed much, but there were
lines under his eyes now; eyes soulful and hypnotic as they always had been,
making her feel naked in every sense under his gaze. His entire body still exuded strength and
grace, passion and cunning, danger and sex.
Standing there with
him made her feel, for the first time in years, like a woman, pure and
unadulterated. He made her feel
vulnerable and sexy and timid and desirable; he confused and bewildered her
completely, and yet she knew instinctively what he meant to ask her by pausing
in this way, by looking at her.
Is this what you want?
She answered by
returning his stare unflinchingly.
He dropped his
gaze, and she knew she'd accepted the moment with both hands - there was no
turning back. Her stomach churned with
dread expectation.
He turned and began to walk round to the front of the nearest apartment block, casting her only a fleeting glance before saying: “C'mon.” She followed.
Inside the building
was little better than outside. Several
of the hallway lamps had been blown out; there was litter strewn everywhere,
mildew growing on the walls, cracks and chipped paint, and the elevators didn’t
work. A cold and uninviting stairwell
had spiralled up forlornly towards a skylight that let no light in, for even in
the darkness Rogue could tell it was caked in dirt and grime.
“We'll have t' take
de stairs,” he warned her. She
nodded. She wasn’t weak and was by no
means at death's door. She followed him
up the stairs, which resounded dangerously with every step they made; he
ascended slowly enough for her to keep up, and it seemed that she climbed for a
very long time without any progress.
At the fifth floor
he stopped and turned off into a long, badly lit corridor. She couldn’t be sure that anyone else lived
in this part of the building, for everything was deathly silent, and there was
the mouldy, fusty smell of uninhabitation.
Remy ignored all this, walking down the passageway with the briskness of
habit - he stopped about mid-way down the corridor, and she followed close
behind.
It was a red door -
once it would have been a deep, dark red, but now most of it was cracked and
peeling, and had been bleached under years of summer sunlight. An old, quaint, gilt plaque had been nailed
to the front - '554', it read. Remy said
nothing, producing a key seemingly from out of nowhere, and stabbed it into a
lock - not the original lock, but one that had been fitted more recently and
that looked more high-tech. She didn’t
have the time or inclination to ponder on it.
Her arm was now beginning to burn again and her legs were aching from
the long climb upstairs. Her gut was
gnawing painfully, her nerves were tingling with anticipation. It seemed to take him an age to unlock the
door; when he did so, he opened the door with a flourish, and gestured for her
to walk inside.
She did so, slowly,
uncertainly; the room was dark and smelt overpoweringly musty, and she could
tell it had not been used in a very long time.
Behind her, Remy flipped a switch - the lights buzzed reluctantly into
life, filling the room with a putrid, sickly glow.
It was very
small. Into one room had been crammed a
dresser, a stove, and a nightstand next to a double mattress laid out on the
floor along with a meagre bedspread.
There was only one small window located in a wall adjacent to the
mattress; opposite this was a door that probably led to the bathroom. For a safe house, it was functional, even
comfortable, but it was not attractive, and held no sense of personality or
warmth. To an outsider, it could easily
have been a squatter's domain.
She stood in the
middle of the room, collecting her bearings only very slowly. She could hear Remy behind her, locking and
bolting the door – there seemed to be a lot of locks and bolts. Though her arm pained her, and though her
body was protesting, her heart was pounding with expectation and she felt sure
he could hear it. There was only one
thing she knew. Whatever was going to
happen she wanted it, and she was ready.
She was ready.
He had finished
locking the door, and the next moment she felt his hands grasp her shoulders,
firm and reassuring.
“Take a seat,” he
murmured. “I'll be back in a minute.”
She watched him
sweep off to the adjoining bathroom, and when he was gone she walked
uncertainly over to the mattress and sank down onto it. There was a tenseness in her as she heard him
open and close the medicine cabinet, as she heard him wash his hands; she
couldn't explain the tension in her, as if she were waiting on tenterhooks, as
if she had been waiting all her life for something that was finally within arm's
reach. She said nothing when he emerged
from the bathroom, silent and efficient; he slipped the duster off his
shoulders, slung it over the back of a moth-eaten old armchair, threw the first
aid kit on the mattress next to her. For
a moment their eyes met - he broke the glance first, rolled up his sleeves, and
moved to sit beside her. She neither
moved nor spoke when he removed the bandage, which was by now soaked with
blood; she could feel the sticky dampness of it permeating the sleeve of her
bodysuit, smell the metallic scent of it, strong and pungent, clinging to her.
Still she looked
ahead of her; the tension was a palpable thing inside her now, making her jaw
and throat tighten.
He touched her arm,
gently, just below the elbow, murmured softly: “I'm just gonna undo dis a li'l
bit… get your arm out so's I can deal with it.” He reached out with an ungloved
hand for the zipper at her neck, and her throat involuntarily tightened a
little more. “Do you mind?” he asked in that same quiet tone.
She shook her head
no.
He undid the
zipper, down to her waist - he was still careful not to touch her when he
pushed the bodysuit back from her shoulders and away from her arms. His whole demeanour was gentle, inoffensive,
telling her he had no intention of hurting her, and she relaxed a little,
helping him by shrugging the sleeves off her arms, though still unable to look
him in the eye.
If he felt anything
at all when she bared her skin to him, he said nothing; having undone the
bodysuit, he leaned over, pulled the first aid kit towards him, unzipped it -
she heard him unpacking the supplies behind her, and she shivered involuntarily
as the cool air crept over her now goose-pimpled skin. To say she did not feel self-conscious,
sitting there close to this man with only a bra on to cover her decency, would
have been a lie. And yet when he
addressed her again, it was only to say: “Dis might hurt a little.”
She nodded yes.
But any pain she
might have felt as he washed and disinfected her wound was lost in the gentle
touch of his fingers as he tended her; her heart beat painfully within her
breast, faster and faster with every minute he lingered there, so close, closer
than she'd ever imagined possible. That
first time when his bare skin touched hers was a moment like no other she'd
felt before or since, something indescribable and intensely, inexpressibly
emotional. He cleaned her wound, sealed,
dressed it; and yet it was something far more - an awakening when she had not
known she had slept. Until that moment
her flesh had been asleep to touch, and when he had finished she was trembling,
her body fighting against a dam that had been broken, that could never be
plugged again.
And yet still she
stared ahead and said nothing.
He too was silent
as he packed away the supplies, and when this was done she felt the heat of his
gaze fall on her cheek, searching the contours of her face, making her heart
beat even faster, but she could not look at him, she was afraid to see that
look in his eyes…
Touch me…
As if he'd heard
her he reached out a hand, brushing her hair from her shoulder, revealing her
neck to him; she froze instinctively. It
was gentle, it was soft, but it was so incredibly alien to her that she
couldn’t help her own reaction. His hand
did not leave her shoulder, stroking the soft curve with his fingers, trying to
ease her, trying to make her relax, but if anything it made her freeze all the
more; her stomach clamped with fear, with pleasure… The palm of his hand, warm, unfamiliarly so,
trailing down her shoulder blade, following the curve of her spine to the small
of her back, lingering there, imprinting her flesh with a pattern never again
to be matched… It was then that a small, soft, tremulous sigh escaped her lips,
unbidden.
He felt it, heard
it; his hand climbed again, this time to her other shoulder, stroking her,
tender, so tender…
“You're so tense,”
he whispered.
He was a little
behind her now; both his hands on her shoulders in a light yet firm grasp,
kneading her flesh, undoing the knots in her muscles, slackening the tension
within her… The massage was slow,
sensuous, breaking her uncertainty, awakening that thing inside her with a
flame so bright she could barely breathe.
His breath in her hair…
Kiss me…
And then his lips
were on her neck, feather-light, puckering against her skin…
She closed her
eyes.
Her heart was
pounding so painfully she thought she would die with it.
She couldn't
remember the last time she'd wanted anything so badly.
And he was still
kissing her, still touching her, pushing the curtain of hair away, his lips on
the back of her neck, on her shoulder, on her upper arm, her shoulder blade…
Each kiss deeper, more insistent than the last, the wetness of his tongue
teasing her tingling skin, skin that now ached for more, skin that was now
greedy, drunk with his touch…
His fingers slipped
under the back of her bra, unhooked it, slid the straps off her shoulders; and
she let him do it, shrugging the flimsy sliver of material off her arms herself
because she wanted it…
As though invited,
his arms slid round, his naked, roughened hands caressing her breasts, softly,
slowly, drawing a gasp from her, making her arch against him, arch away from
him… It was too much, too fast…
“Remy --” she
breathed, sharp, pleading.
“Hmmm?” His breath
paused on her throat, warm, tickling her senses.
“Ah-Ah…”
It was no use -
there was vocabulary for this, no words she could find to describe this wholly
new emotion, this flame now burning inside her, new and untamed.
“You want me t' stop?”
he murmured into her ear.
“Ah… no… Ah just -”
“Dis is just your
first time and you're scared,” he finished for her in a low voice. She swallowed, nodded. She felt the warmth of his smile graze her
left shoulder; his hands dropped from her breasts, leaving an aching, screaming
gap inside her where this newfound emotion had awoken. Wordlessly he shifted round to face her, and
this time there was no escaping his eyes - she was powerless to remove her gaze
from his, the power and intensity with which they held her, with which they ran
over every inch of exposed flesh, and she knew with a dread certainty that he
desired her, that she desired him, and that they had both come to this place
only for one thing.
And she would let
him have it. She would let him because
there was never going to be another chance for anything better, not
anymore. Outside the war was raging, and
this was always just going to be a little respite, a little comfort from the
travails of the battlefield. Anything
more would a falsehood, a frivolity, a pretence of something deeper.
And yet when he
trailed a lazy forefinger over her collarbone, his eyes still holding hers, a
flicker of a smile playing across his lips, she thought there was something too
reverent in his touch, too worshipful in his voice as he declared: “You're so
beautiful…”
His fingers left
her clavicle, climbed her neck, unhurried, deliberate; his thumb traced her
jaw-line, back, forth, back, forth, making her lids heavy… He leaned towards
her, until their faces were only inches apart, his eyes burning red in the
dimness, his voice drawling thickly: “I won't hurt you, chere… I'd never hurt
you, not then, not now… Tell me you want dis and I promise I'll be gentle… I
promise I'll take dis slow…”
She wanted it; her
lips parted to tell him so, but no words would come out, there was nothing
inside her that could be explained with mere words. But he understood, or she thought he did -
for the next moment he had pressed his lips against her parted ones, his
fingers in her hair, drawing her into his kiss.
She had never felt anything so soft, so delicate as his mouth on hers,
owning her, his tongue warm and rough, brushing against her own, coaxing her,
encouraging her, speaking to her in a way words could not. For the first time she found herself reaching
for him, instinctively; her hands on his back, holding on, holding onto this
moment as if it could be shattered by a mere thought; her mouth responding to
his kiss. And suddenly something was
blooming, unfurling inside the core of her, and she whimpered; and as if he
knew the meaning of that whimper his kiss deepened, his fingers twined tighter
into her hair, drawing pain, drawing pleasure…
He nudged her back
into the mattress and she made no protest.
His hands untangled themselves from her hair, before she felt them on
her bare skin again, on her breasts, making her shudder, making her melt into
the unfamiliar weight of him.
He broke their kiss
then, sat up, pulled his shirt over his head, threw it aside - she reached out
without prompting, running her hands over his long, lean body, familiarising
herself with the strangeness of him, her eyes ravenously searching every hard
contour of him. He leant forwards again,
kissed the underside of her mouth, said huskily: “If dere's anyt'ing you're
uncomfortable wit', tell me when t' stop…”
She nodded her
assent, and he dipped his head again, kissing her mouth passionately before
trailing his lips downwards, lavishing her body with ardent kisses, brushing
against her breasts, making her pant; all the while his fingers unzipping the
rest of her body suit, pushing it downward over her thighs, taking her panties
with it…
She was wet
already, burning with an inner fire he had stoked, and she choked, choked
because she had never believed such a thing could happen to her, not ever. His kisses were so delicate, so
worshipful… And at last she was naked,
at last his lips were dangerously close to where that secret inner flame
burned, and it was too passionate, too intimate, she wasn't ready…
“Remy…” she
breathed and he heard her, obeyed her, kissed his way back up her body, finding
her lips again… While she was distracted
by his mouth, he smoothed a hand over her stomach, her pelvis, sliding a thumb
inside her wet flesh, circling her clitoris while his middle finger delved
lower, testing her flesh. She moaned,
her pelvis bucking instinctively to welcome his sweet tortures.
She was ready, oh
Lord, she was ready…
He was more
beautiful naked than he was clothed.
Despite all the times she'd seen him like this in her fantasies, she had
always half-feared the reality, feared to see what she did to him and what he
did to her; but now, here, it was different somehow, so much more different
than anything she had dreamed or imagined.
And she was less certain about what she wanted, now that the moment had
come - this wasn't how she'd ever imagined it, but there could be no other
time, no other chance, not in this brave new world of theirs…
He settled against
her, careful not to jar her injured arm, searching her face, seeing the
hesitation inside her. His smile was
calm, reassuring; his fingers were light as they caressed her cheek.
“Dis may hurt,” he
told her honestly.
She nodded.
“I'll be as gentle
as I can.”
She opened her
mouth and for the first time words came out.
“Ah know,” she
whispered.
“Don’t be afraid t'
tell me t' stop,” he murmured.
She nodded again.
And for a little
while, nothing more was said.
*
At any other time,
in any other place, perhaps it would have seemed strange, this silent agreement
between them, this tacit understanding that this was nothing more than just
sex.
And yet to them it
was not strange - rather it was a given that there could be no deeper emotional
connection between them. It was not some
spontaneous decision both reached independently of one another - it was simply
the rules of war, a code all revolutionary couples followed. It had less to do with emotions than it had
to do with the survival instinct. To
create an attachment was anathema, it was tantamount to suicide, and it was
always going to get in the way. No one
could deny pleasure, that was a given - but attachments had a stigma of their
own and were best left untouched.
It was the reason
why, for that night at least, most of their time together was spent in
silence. Neither asked whom the other
was working for; neither asked what they were really fighting for, nor did they
ask for anything more personal than sex; and they certainly didn't talk about
anything as dangerous as love. All were
unnecessary risks.
In every essence
that night had been a disaster, a wonderful, terrible mistake.
Even Rogue knew it,
though she had no conscious comprehension it, outside of a strange and gnawing
feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew that in that one sexual act she had
forged an unbreakable connection with him. She'd allowed herself to do it,
because he was a remnant of her jettisoned past, because she was attracted to
him, because in all her fantasies of this moment, he'd been the one that she'd
shared it with. That night he'd taken
her virginity and made her into a woman, and that was precisely what made this
sudden sense of connection such a dangerous one.
She knew it was
there. She knew because for the first
time since she'd woken into this cold, dead world, she felt alive.
“Ah thought you
were dead.”
It was the first
words either had spoken since their shared orgasm; she was still flushed with
it, still flushed with the awareness of what now lay between them. As she lay there on the dusty mattress
entwined with him, fingers splayed upon his breast, watching the rise and fall
of his chest, he was closer to her than he'd ever been before, even though she
knew less about the Remy of now than the Remy of yesteryear.
He lay on his back
and stared at the ceiling, blew cigarette smoke at it.
“I thought you were
dead too,” he said, his voice oddly nonchalant, as if it wasn't unusual at all
to suddenly find himself in bed with a ghost from the past. She simply watched his eyes and traced her
finger down the long, thin tract of scar tissue that marred his breast. His body was covered with the faded remnants
of old battle wounds; in a way they were beautiful, they told a story she'd
never been able to touch before. Maybe
he'd got these scars from that fateful day at the mansion. She wanted to ask him how he'd survived, but
somehow she knew it was a question that was too personal and best left
unasked. She knew he was thinking the
same thing.
“Ah thought you
were a dream,” she murmured. “When Ah saw you in that alley, Ah thought you
were a dream… Ah still can't believe it… you're real… and Ah'm here with you.”
Her voice lowered to nothing more than a whisper. “Ah'm here, touchin' you…”
His smile was wry
as he reached out and stroked her cheek delicately. “You ain't de only one,
chere. I can't believe it either. It's like my dream came true. We can touch.” He paused, his smile fading,
his eyes going thoughtful. “First moment I saw you in dat factory, I knew
somet'ing was different about you. Guess
dat's why I followed you.” He reached out, flipped a lock of her hair between
his fore and middle finger. “Merde, dis is so screwed,” he muttered.
“What is?”
“Dis. We meet, we hardly say a word to each other,
and half an hour later we're fuckin'.
It's crazy.” He grinned suddenly, both charming and mischievous. “But
den, you always did whip all sense
and reason outta dis Cajun. If I'd been
able to touch you, I woulda been screwin' you within five minutes of first
meetin' you.”
She didn't know
whether to laugh or sulk at that.
“Ah bet yah would
have,” she ended up pouting playfully. “And here Ah was thinkin' bein' with the
X-Men woulda taught you some restraint.”
“Not even de X-Men
coulda taught me restraint where you're concerned, chere,” he answered
comically. This time, she laughed, and
he laughed with her. It felt good. It was only then that she realised that she
hadn't truly laughed in months.
“Do you think…” she
asked in a whisper, once their laughter had died down, “do you think any of the
others survived as well? Not just us?”
He raised the
cigarette to his lips, sucked on it and stared down at her.
“Y' mean you don't
know?”
“Don't know what?”
she asked.
“De X-Men…” He
paused and she shook her head. He looked
away momentarily, blowing smoke, frowning as he tapped ash into the ashtray
that lay on the floor beside him. “Some of them survived de attack on de
mansion. And there were others who were
away from de mansion dat day, ones dat were captured later.”
Rogue propped herself
up on his chest and looked down at him, the animal hope he'd already sparked
within her leaping, unbidden.
“You mean… they're
still out there? Alive? Like us?”
His lips twisted
into something wry, yet not without sympathy.
“Non, chere. Not like us.
Destroyed, beaten, incarcerated.
They ain't free.”
“Neither are we,”
she murmured half to herself.
“True,” he mused.
“But at least we're free to blow up factories, destroy Sentinels, and come up
here and fuck. From what I hear, de
survivin' X-Men were put in secret internment camps dotted across de country.”
He took another drag, his gaze on hers, watchful. “They prob'ly bein' tortured…
Or worse. Who knows.”
She looked away,
biting her lip, unable to contain this thing inside her. His words were the first and truest tokens of
hope she'd been given in this bleak and unforgiving new world of theirs; for
the first time there truly was
something to fight for, there was a
purpose in all this pain and misery; she was
a true rebel, a true soldier in a real fight for freedom she'd never truly
believed in, and now it seemed so fitting, so fateful that the two of them
should have crossed paths once more, that perhaps they'd been brought together
to fight together…
“Then we haveta
save them,” she began decidedly. “We can find them, free them, together… bring them back, be a family
again…”
He was still
staring at her with those dark, dark eyes, assessing the sudden fervour that
had crossed her face. He merely brushed
her hair from her shoulder and said nothing, making her frustrated, impatient.
“Remy, let's do
it…”
His fingers
lingered on her cheek, stroking her lightly, his gaze pensive. At last he smiled wanly and said: “Okay. We'll do it.”
It was an illusion,
a pretty fancy - even she knew it, but it strengthened her sense of triumph,
that the two of them alone possessed the knowledge and the power to conquer the
world. She burrowed into his warmth
then, and he drew an arm about her shoulder, pressing her closer, his fingers
teasing her skin with light, fleeting caresses.
He was making her stupid and bold, making her want to ask things she
shouldn't…
“Remy?” she found
the word suddenly spilling from her mouth.
“Hmm?”
She paused, took a
breath.
“You really believe
in it then?”
“Believe in what?”
“In what Xavier
taught us. That it makes a difference.”
Somehow it seemed
more important to her than anything else…
His hand did not stop stroking her shoulder.
“I dunno. Maybe.”
“Then why are you
still fightin'?”
“Am I fighting?”
She felt him lean over slightly to stub out his cigarette, and when this was
done he put his other arm round her. “I dunno if it's fightin' dat I'm doin',
chere. Just scrapin' by, maybe, but not
exactly fightin'.”
“But you were at
the factory today,” she protested. “You were gonna blow it up too…”
“Non. Dat wasn't my
mission. Not entirely anyways.” There
was a pause, and she could tell he was calculating just how much he should tell
her; when next he spoke his tone was measured, cautious. “De powers dat be tell
me t' find mutants. Find them and break
'em loose. It's what I do. It's how I make my livin'. It pays well and it provides me wit' de
ever-essential cheap thrills.” She felt him grin to himself; it made her smile
too. “Dat factory you were in today… There were some mutants in there; Trask's
cronies were gonna test de new Sentinel prototypes on them.” This time he
didn't even attempt to hide the contempt from his voice. “I freed de prisoners
and decided I'd torch de place afterwards, just to make 'em hurt a little
more.” He paused, continued in a helpless tone of voice: “Den you showed up.”
She was silent a
moment, weighing this information in her mind - she sensed it was as much as
she was going to get from him. She
didn't even know how much of it was the truth.
“Ah didn't know
there were mutants in there,” she said at last.
“Would you have
saved them, if you'd known?” he quizzed her.
She slid an arm round his waist, breathed in his scent, the heady aroma
of cologne and tobacco.
“Yes,” she said at
last, her voice muffled in his chest.
“Hmm. Because you're a fighter, and you're
passionate about what you do, huh?”
“It's what Ah do,
sugah.”
“Well, there's one
t'ing I always knew about you, chere,” he began teasingly, his left hand
trailing down her arm and lightly tickling her waist. “And dat's dat you're
passionate about just about everyt'ing you do.”
She snorted.
“Ah was, back
then. But life suckin' the way it does
nowadays makes it kinda hard t' be passionate about anythin'.”
“Non.” His hand
moved to tenderly tilt her chin so that he could gaze into her eyes. “You still
are. For a virgin,” he added with a
wolfish grin.
“Ah ain't a virgin
anymore, thanks to you. And besides,
virgin's can be sexy too, swamp snake,” she drawled with a wealth of meaning.
“Really?” He cocked
a playful eyebrow. “I always wondered what de old, untouchable Rogue got up to
in her fantasies. It was enough to keep
me awake all night.”
“Ah just bet it
was,” she sniffed.
“Aw, come now,
chere,” he bantered back lazily. “Didn’t I keep you awake at night too?”
She couldn't help
it. She blushed. For the first time, he laughed loud and deep.
“No wonder
real-life sex wit' you is so good,” he joked seductively. “De Rogue's had
practice.” Her blush grew even deeper, and from his expression she could tell
he enjoyed getting under her skin. “So,” he asked cajolingly, his eyes dancing,
“does de reality measure up to de fantasy den, p'tit?”
“And then some,”
she murmured, refusing to give him the benefit of seeing her further embarrassed. He chuckled.
“I'm always glad t'
be of service t' such a beautiful femme.” He captured her lips in a passionate
kiss before she had time to reflect on the implication of his words. By the time they'd broken apart, she didn't
have the heart to question him anymore.
“It's a good t'ing
though,” he muttered half to himself, his eyes back on the ceiling.
“What is?” she
asked, yawning.
“Dat you can
touch. Always thought it was a
waste. God couldn't have made a body dat
soft and beautiful for not'ing.”
It's all for you, Remy… she wanted to
say. It's
all for you…
He touched her
cheek again and she nestled against him, knowing that tomorrow they would part,
that all these pretty words meant nothing.
And yet she could not allow herself to regret. She could never allow that. She had come here
accepting that one single fact, and yet now, as sleep enveloped her, as she
held him to her as naturally as if they'd always been together, she allowed
herself to believe that maybe, just maybe, this was one connection that would
not break… …
*
Once the morning
came, she knew she had been foolish to think so.
She woke to
sunlight, pale and shimmering through the dusty windowpane, colouring her face
with a watery yellow. Her wounded arm
was aching dully and she rolled onto her side, reaching for him with her
uninjured arm; but he was gone. The charade was over. Whatever they had said the night before had
been banished; it was as if it had never happened.
It was cruel,
crueller than she'd thought it would be.
She opened her
eyes.
He was fully
dressed and leaning on the windowsill, smoking, looking out of the open pane
with a small frown on his face. Outside
the air was still thick with the stench of fire; the faint sound of sirens
still drifted over the horizon.
“We should both be
gettin' back,” he murmured. “They'll be wonderin' where we are.”
No other clarification was needed. She knew what he meant - that if she stayed
with him, if they ran away, they would be chased to the ends of the earth. And Mystique… Mystique would never let her
go, not for a man, and especially not for a man who would never have her. Especially not for him.
She didn't
care. She didn’t want to go back, not
ever. She was prepared to leave it all
behind in an instant - all he had to do was say the word. But even then, in her naïveté and her
innocence, somehow she knew he would not.
She wasn't enough for him to change; she never had been.
She wanted to weep
and wail and cry against the betrayal, the loss. Because he had changed her; he had made her into something new and different, he had
opened her eyes and somehow she knew she would never get the old her back. He'd stolen what innocence remained in her,
thrown it back in her face. But she
could not blame him for this - she had walked into this room knowing it would
never be anything more intimate than sex.
It was for this reason that she swallowed back her agony, the ugly fist
now clenched about her heart. Wrapping
the grubby comforter round her, she stood, crossed the room and went to
him. He hadn't looked at her when she
put her arms round him. His body was
tense and unfeeling as bamboo.
You've got to accept me, Remy, she
thought desperately to herself, you've
got to accept the creature you've turned me into…
Somehow, he felt
her unspoken call. His arm slipped round
her shoulder, squeezed it in weary and half-hearted reassurance. It wasn't nearly enough but it was the most
she could expect, and she was grateful.
“When will Ah see
you again?” she finally found the courage to whisper.
He was silent for a
long moment.
“I don't know,” he
replied at last.
She knew what he
meant to say. There won't be another time.
She wanted him to say it. She
wanted him to take responsibility for the terrible thing he'd done to her, for
him to apologise and tell her it had all been a mistake. She wanted him to say he'd used her, that she
meant nothing, that he had no intention of there being anything between them,
ever.
She wanted to hear
it so that this could be easier, that she could look back on this moment
without wishing him back every last day of her life.
Instead he turned
and took her by the shoulders, stared into her eyes for a long while, brows
creased, that small frown still touching his lips. It was as though he was searching for
something in her face and could not find it.
“I haveta go,” he
finally said in a stern tone, as if daring her to challenge that fact. His fingers were hard on her bare shoulders.
“Ah know,” she
merely replied.
There was a long,
awkward interval where nothing was said or done; she stood, uncertain, not
knowing how this should end or what he wanted.
At last he lent forward and she thought he would kiss her forehead, but
instead she felt his cheek in her hair, his breath against her ear in a clumsy
caress. She closed her eyes and waited
for something more that she knew would never come.
It was finally
over.
He stepped back,
half-smiled, picked up his pack from the floor beside him.
“Bye, Rogue,” he
said.
“Bye,” she
whispered.
She was still
standing at the window when she heard him go.
* * * * *
Go to Chapter 5
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