12Disclaimer: I do not own this maze of bone and flesh and word and wit. But I do swear, that if I dare, I'll make something of it.
A/N: A birthday present for Blackberry! Sorry it's late, m'dear.
A note added after actually writing story: Oh joss, I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.
Remy sighs as he steps out of the X-Jet, wincing slightly as he does so and then immediately wanting to smack himself in the head. Now she'll know that he's been injured, and she'll be all over him. Great.
Y' idiot, he scolds himself. Y're gonna wind up half naked 'gain an' it's all y' own fault.
"Sugah!" Rogue's drawl cuts through his thoughts abruptly. "Ya okay?"
He smiles at her, shy in a way he only seems to be with Rogue. "Remy fine, Roguey," he says. "Jus' a few bumps."
She hums and steps closer to him, ignoring the way Logan rolls his eyes and Kitty sighs dreamily over the two of them. Remy feels himself blushing and silently curses his inability to form a coherent thought around this girl.
"Are ya sure, sugah?" Rogue says, reaching out with one gloved hand to caress his arm. "We might need ta check an' make sure ya haven't cracked any ribs." She waggles her eyebrows up and down at him suggestively.
"You just vant to see him vith his shirt off," Kurt grumbles as he stalks by. Remy blushes, scowls to hide the blush, and then blushes more when the scowl earns him a grin from Rogue's purple-made-up lips.
Someone wearin' Goth makeup shouldn' be so sexy, he grumbles to himself. But she is, undeniably, incredibly sexy, and what's worse? She knows it.
"So what do ya say, Swamp Rat?" she asks him cheerfully, winking at him so slowly he would have mistaken it for her simply closing her eyes if she hadn't only closed one of them.
"Ehh, non, merci," he sputtered. "Remy… Remy's fine." He's talking in third person again. Pere had told him to stop doing that so much when he got to the Institute, lest "dat Professor man t'ink we don' teach y' t' speak properly or somet'in'." Remy's been trying, he really has, but sometimes, when he gets nervous, he forgets not to use the third person, forgets that not everyone here speaks French.
And he gets nervous an awful lot around Rogue.
She shrugs at him and smiles, softer this time, like she can tell he's about to jump out of his skin. "Une autre fois, alors," she murmurs, finally stepping away from him and turning to leave with a flirtatious sway to her hips.
Remy lets out the breath he's been holding and glares at Logan, who is watching him with both amusement and disgust on his face.
"Why doncha just tell her how ya feel about her?" the short, scruffy man asks sensibly as he begins to escort Remy towards the infirmary less-than subtly.
Remy sighs. "It ain't so easy as dat, Wolvie," he says. "She's…"
"Been flirtin' with ya since the day ya got here," Logan interrupts gruffly. Remy ducks his head and blushes again.
"It ain't her mutation is it?" Logan suddenly asks sharply, his tone suggesting that anyone who dares to take issue with the fact that Rogue's skin is dangerous will answer to The Claws.
"What?" Remy is honestly startled, not having even thought of that. "Non, Remy jus'… jus'…" he blows out an exasperated breath. "She's a lot t' handle. An' Remy… Remy ain't so good wit' handlin' stuff sometimes."
Logan rolls his eyes again. "If I know Rogue," he mutters, "she'll be doin' most of the handlin' anyway."
"What?"
"Nothin'. I'm just sayin', Gumbo," he points his finger in Remy's face meaningfully, "that if you like her –and I know ya do, so don't bother tryin' ta deny it, then you should tell her. And if ya don't… well, for one thing, I won't believe you, but if you really didn't like her, all you'd have ta do is say so and she'd stop with all the over-the-top flirtin' and stuff, you know that, right? She's only doin' it in the first place 'cause she knows you like her."
"If she knows, den why do Remy have t' say anyt'in'?" Then, "What? How does she know?"
If Logan rolls his eyes any harder, they're going to roll right out of his head. "She absorbed ya once, remember? It wasn't that long ago, only a couple of weeks. And this thing of yours has been going on longer than a couple of weeks, hasn't it?" He raises a knowing eyebrow at Remy.
Truthfully, it's been going on a lot longer than a couple of weeks –ever since Rogue showed up in N'awlins with Scott and Jean in order to offer Remy a place at the Institute and he fell for the Southern girl with stripes in her hair, in fact, but it's bad enough that Remy can barely talk to the girl he flew across the country for, he doesn't need her surrogate dad to know about it too.
Although apparently she knows about it now. Mufliers, he thinks.
"I don't know why you're so shy with her anyway," Logan is saying. "I mean, you're really not the timid type, Gumbo."
This is true, and Remy actually has been wondering the same thing himself. Why is it so shocking when Rogue flirts with him? Maybe it's just lack of experience. Remy didn't have many girls lining up to flirt with him back in New Orleans. It wasn't that he was an unattractive kid, because really the exact opposite was true. It was more that his red and black eyes were startling and slightly scary, and that his father and older brothers were even more startling and definitely scary. Being the youngest son of the Thieves' Guild patriarch was sort of off-putting to the girls in Louisiana.
Except for Bella, but Bella scared Remy and so that was obviously not going to be a good flirting experience.
Rogue is gentle when she flirts, unlike Bella, who is so aggressive she reminds Remy of a 'gator. When Rogue is flirting with him, Remy blushes and stammers and tries to remember how to speak English properly, but he always secretly enjoys it (even when she contrives to get him out of his shirt). When Bella flirts with him, Remy always kind of wants to start running and not look back.
Bella makes Remy want to stare at the ground and plead for mercy. Rogue makes Remy want to flirt back.
Logan is watching him knowingly. "You should tell her," he advises. "Even if she already knows how you really feel, she won't do anything until you actually tell her."
Remy feels himself nodding slowly, a grin starting to curl up the corners of his mouth. "Ah do like her," he says, relishing in managing first person for the first time all day.
Logan nods, satisfied. "Good. Make sure she knows that. I can't stand much more of watching you two dance around each other. It's annoying as all get out." He pulls open the door to the infirmary and maneuvers Remy inside with the smug sort of air that always settles around him when he's managed to get Remy to do something he doesn't want to do. "Now be a good kid and let Dr. McCoy take a look at ya," he says.
"Not a kid," Remy mumbles, but Logan is already gone and Dr. McCoy is coming forward with a smile and big, blue furry hands outstretched to preemptively administer a sedative to one of the Institute's most difficult patients.
Did Ah really jus' have a conversation 'bout Rogue wit' Logan? Remy thinks fuzzily as the sedative takes hold –it won't last long, his metabolism will see to that, but for now, it's making him incredibly mellow. An' did Ah really jus' tell him dat Ah really like her?
His thoughts pause.
Holy chipotle. Ah really like Rogue.
000
Rogue had been an unusual case for the Institute. For one thing, she was completely out of control when Professor Xavier had found her with Cerebro. For another, she was hostile and tetchy, and had absolutely no interest whatsoever in joining them. She was angry about losing her home in Mississippi and having to relocate to Bayville, and she certainly wasn't happy about being forced into a new school. No, Rogue definitely would rather be on her own.
But then they found out that the woman Rogue had called "Mama" for sixteen years was actually Mystique, the enemy of the X-Men and the same person who had tried to manipulate Rogue into joining the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
After this harsh betrayal, Rogue ended up coming to the Professor of her own free will, warily eyeing Logan and being soothed against her will by Storm.
"Look," she'd said to Xavier with a toss of her head, "Ah don' want ta live mah life bein' tossed around an' treated like Ma –Ah mean, like Mystique's treated me. So what Ah wanna know up front is –" and here she'd leaned in closely and glared at all three adults with all the determination one scared sixteen year old girl could muster, "are ya gonna make me inta a soldier for your cause? Or do Ah get a choice?"
"Of course you have a choice," Professor Xavier had replied instantly, with such sincerity that it was impossible to doubt him. "You will be a student, a part of the family, but in no way will you be obligated to fight at all if you don't want to."
Rogue had studied his face with hard eyes for a few moments before suddenly relaxing, sprawling back into her seat with languid muscles. "Okay, then," she had said lightly. "That's alright then."
(Of course she did fight with them; it was a matter of principle, not of unwillingness to fight.)
This is how the thing with Remy starts:
Rogue has always been a flirt. It's kind of strange, because her mutation does not allow her to touch anyone without immediately knocking them unconscious or sending them into a coma, but she's never let it bother her, which Remy supposes is admirable, in its own way. At least she's not scared of herself.
The thing with Remy begins four years after Rogue joins the X-Men, with Professor Xavier discovering a mutant living in the bayous of the New Orleans area. The situation is "delicate," he tells them, so only the most tactful and experienced of their number should go down there to invite the mutant to join the Institute.
(By this, the professor means, only Scott and Jean and maybe Storm should go down, but that seems a bit too much like playing favorites to be something that's said aloud.)
Naturally, being both tactful and experienced in engaging young mutants, Scott and Jean volunteer to fly down to New Orleans and talk to the young man, one Remy LeBeau. Rogue, being naturally curious, stows away. (This is not entirely true. This is what Rogue tells Scott when he finds her in the back of the jet, but she lets Jean get a glimpse of her thoughts with a conspiratorial wink, and what Rogue really wants was to get her hands on some jambalaya that doesn't come from a box with a badly portrayed silhouette of a jazz player on the front.) By the time Scott and Jean realize they have a passenger, they are already over Louisiana and Rogue is there to stay.
They meet Remy LeBeau at his father's house, deep in the bayou. Jean-Luc LeBeau is welcoming, more welcoming than they had expected considering the fact that they are essentially here to persuade his son to move to New York immediately.
"Bonjour," Jean-Luc says, smiling and spreading his hands. "Welcome t' our home. Y' are de friends o' Professor Xavier?"
"Ah, yes," Jean says, blinking. "Do you… know him?"
"Oui," Jean-Luc nods. "We have been acquainted fo' many years. He was de one t' help Remy when his mutation first began t' develop."
As it turned out, Professor Xavier hadn't just discovered Remy. He was just biding his time. Which sounds creepier than it is.
"So, are you okay with Remy coming with us?" Scott asks carefully. Jean-Luc grins.
"Ah am." He sobers. "Dere was… a tragedy recently. Remy… he ain't doin' so well, dealin' wit' it. We've been tryin' t' tell him it ain't his fault, but…" he shrugs. "He really don't believe us. Ah'm hopin' dat de professor can help him. An', well," he waves his hand. "Remy ain't exactly needed here for right now. He's really jus' a kid still. It'll be good fo' him t' get out fo' awhile."
"How does Remy feel about this?" Jean says with a soft smile. He grimaces.
"No' too t'rilled. Remy… like Ah said, he feels real guilty, an' it's makin' him a bit… clingy and unsure o' himself. He needs dis, t'ough. He needs t' find out dat he can live wit'out de family right under his feet. Growin' up is hard, but he's gotta do it sometime." He chuckles at his own sentimental tone. "Ah'm gonna miss him, but dis will be good fo' him. Jus' be prepared fo' some temper tantrums! He don't wanna go, so he's gonna sulk f' awhile."
Jean's smile grows wider. "Oh, trust me, Mr. LeBeau, we've seen our fair share of temper tantrums. We're prepared for some damage."
"Well, dat's good den, an' –"
"Rogue?"
They turn to look at Scott. He's looking around with a bewildered expression on his face. Rogue is nowhere in sight. "Rogue?"
"Oh no," Jean groans. "Where did she go, now?"
"The fille wit' de stripes in her hair?" Jean –Luc shrugs. "She headed upstairs. Ah figured she was wit' y' so Ah didn' need t' call anybody t' keep an eye on her." He gives them a suddenly sharp look. "Should Ah have?"
"No, no," Jean assures him. "Rogue is completely trustworthy. She's just…"
"Prone to wandering off," Scott finishes, rolling his eyes. Jean-Luc relaxes and smirks.
"Huh. Sounds like someone else Ah know…"
"What! Y'r makin' dat up!"
Jean-Luc starts visibly, his eyes widening and turning to the stairs at the back of the enormous foyer. The laugh comes again, loud and bright and sounding as though it has been surprised out of its owner.
"Ah am not! Seriously, sugah, that really happened!"
"Y' expect me t' believe dat someone was actually stupid enough t' do dat?"
"What can Ah say? There's a lot of stupid stuff that goes down at the Institute."
The speakers arrive at the top of the stairs and start down them, and Jean and Scott get their first look at Remy LeBeau.
He's tall, tall and lean. He's wrapped in a long trench coat and his hands are covered by gloves that are missing only the very tips of the fingers. His long reddish-brown hair is pulled into a ponytail at the back of his neck, and his red and black eyes are fixed firmly on the green ones in the face of the laughing girl next to him. He navigates the stairs easily, despite not watching where his feet are going. It's part of his mutation, Jean knows, enhanced agility and balance mixing with the ability to manipulate kinetic energy. There's something else there too, but she can't get a lock on it. It's like Remy has automatic shields in place against telepaths.
The pair on the stairs reach the bottom and Rogue sashays over to Jean and Scott with a smirk. "Jean Grey, Scott Summers," she says, indicating them both, "meet Remy LeBeau."
The young man offers them both an easy, though somewhat shy smile. "Nice t' meet y'," he says softly. "Pere, dis is Rogue."
"M' pleasure," Jean-Luc manages, still staring at his son with something akin to wonder on his face. Remy meets his eyes with a sheepish sort of grin and rubs a hand over the back of his head.
"Sooo, Remy was t'inkin'…" he starts, "maybe Ah should've packed befo' now."
And Jean-Luc starts to smile, because he knows his son, knows that this is Remy's way of giving in, of admitting that, yeah, okay, maybe the Institute will be good for him. And, judging by the look this Rogue fille is giving Remy, and the shy way Remy can't really keep his eyes off of her, it'll be good in more ways than one.
Besides, Remy hasn't laughed since the accident. Jean-Luc would give Rogue practically anything she wanted at this point, just as long as she kept making his boy laugh like that.
That is how the thing with Remy starts. It continues like this:
Rogue flirts constantly, and Remy blushes and stutters and curses his inability to act like a normal human being capable of rational thought around her. Rogue trails gloved fingers over Remy's arms and face, teasingly, and Remy stares after her with not-quite-hidden longing. Ignoring the fact that she really cannot touch anyone at all, Rogue leans in close and talks to him, telling him stories about growing up in Mississippi. She sits as close to him as she can without sitting on his lap.
The first time he gets injured while on a mission with the X-Men, she finds him in the infirmary and leans in the doorway nonchalantly, staring unabashedly at his bare chest as Dr. McCoy wraps his cracked ribs. When he realizes what she's doing, Remy blushes so hard he's surprised his face doesn't catch fire. She laughs and leaves him alone, but then seems to start a campaign to get Remy out of his shirt whenever it is feasibly possible.
(She watches him carefully at first, gauging his level of discomfort and making a note of his reactions. One day, she asks him point blank, "Does it bother you when Ah flirt with you?"
Startled, he replies instinctively. "No."
Nodding in satisfaction, she says, "Do you mind when Ah touch you?"
"No…"
"Alright then," she says, and that's the end of it. He doesn't exactly realize until later that he's essentially given her permission, but by that time, he doesn't even care.)
000
"Hey, sugah," she says softly as she joins him on the roof. He's smoking, which makes her wrinkle her nose a bit, but she doesn't comment.
"Hey," he says back, voice a little rough from the cigarette. She sits down next to him, closer than she sits to most people.
"What are you doin' up here all by yourself?" she asks.
Remy raises one eyebrow and gestures expansively with the hand holding the cigarette. It leaves a trail of smoke in the air. Rogue rolls her eyes.
"Ah can see that. Ah mean why are ya hidin' on the roof?"
"Besides de fact dat de Professor don' like it when Remy smokes?" he asks dryly. He shrugs again and hunches his shoulders. "Ah miss home," he mutters finally.
Rogue is quiet.
"Why doncha go visit?" she asks eventually. "Ah mean, you're a grown-up. Jus' go tell the professor you wanna see your folks."
"Dey're de ones who sent Remy away in de firs' place," he says, taking a final drag and stubbing out the cigarette. Rogue narrows her eyes at him.
"You're sulkin'," she accuses. His head snaps up and red and black eyes pin her in place.
"Maybe Ah am," he practically snarls. "What's it t' y'?"
She stares at him in silence for another minute before standing up abruptly and stalking away.
000
Remy wakes up with a splitting headache and a curious drained feeling he has come to associate with Rogue's cool fingertips touching his face.
"Rogue," he says carefully, sitting up with a wince, "why are we on a train?"
"Because takin' someone through airport security while they're unconscious is generally frowned upon by pretty much everyone as it turns out," she replies comfortably, sitting back in the seat across from his in their little compartment and crossing her arms over her chest.
"An' loadin' 'em ont' a train while dey're unconscious ain't?" he asks incredulously. She shrugs.
"Guess not." She flips her hair over her shoulder and smirks at him. "Don't ya wanna know where we're goin'?"
"Do Remy gotta choice?" he mumbles, slipping into third person automatically and mirroring her stance. She grins even wider at him, her purple made up lips curving at the corners and sending a spark through his chest.
"Nope," she says, popping the P and looking entirely pleased with herself. "We're goin' t' Louisiana!" she informs him, sounding more excited than Rogue has ever sounded about anything.
Remy stares at her, feeling both slightly horrified and slightly infuriated. "We're what?" he chokes out.
"We're goin' to Louisiana," she repeats, softer this time, giving him a look that practically screams compassion and yet makes him want to grit his teeth and pull all of his hair out.
"Why?" he grinds out finally. Rogue's eyes narrow and she frowns gently. It's so weird, Remy didn't even know it was possible to frown gently until he met Rogue, who has so many different frowns and scowls and glares that it is incredibly obvious when she is being gentle.
"Because, sugah," she says, and he shivers a little at the pet name, "you miss your family. You miss 'em, but you're too dang stubborn to jus' go see 'em, so Ah'm helpin' ya along a little."
He stares at her for a moment, completely flabbergasted. "Why?" he says finally, looking right into her eyes and not relinquishing eye contact even though he knows his red irises are probably glowing a little bit in the dim lighting of the train compartment and that some people don't like to look at him when they do that. Somehow, he doesn't think Rogue will mind.
"Because Ah care about ya, Remy," she says firmly, staring right into his eyes with her own green ones burning just as bright as his. "An' Ah hate that you've been so miserable the past few days. Ah…" she shifts a little bit in her seat, but doesn't break eye contact. She takes a deep breath and finishes, "Ah don't like it when you're sad, Remy. Ah… Ah jus' want ya to be happy."
The moment has become extremely serious, and Remy blinks at her, unsure of what to say.
"T'ank y'," he says softly, "Ah… Ah 'ppreciate dat, Roguey."
She smiles at him then, almost blinding in her beauty and charm. "Aw, sugah, it ain't nothin'. Ah wouldn' want that pretty face of yours to get all grumpy like that permanently, now would Ah?"
Remy feels his face go red, even though he knows she is only teasing. "It ain't grumpy!" he protests anyway. She laughs delightedly and he blushes harder.
"Sugah, you're like that one Care Bear wit' a thundercloud on his stomach."
They were both silent for a moment, staring at each other with wide eyes, as if trying to discern whether or not she had actually just said that.
"Did… did y' jus' compare Remy t' a Care Bear?" he asks finally, voice wobbly.
She bites her lip and nods, wide eyed. "Yeah. Ah think Ah did."
"Okay. Dat's what Ah t'ought."
He peeks at her from beneath his eyelashes. She catches his eye and they both lose it. Remy slides sideways in his seat until he's laying lengthwise across it, chuckling so hard his ribs are starting to hurt. Rogue has slumped over, burying her face in her hands and giggling hysterically.
Just when they start to calm down, Remy gasps, "Wait… wait 'til Ah tell Wolvie dat his spot 'as been taken!" and then they're off again.
000
They get off the train in New Orleans. How Rogue managed to get them on a train that passes directly through the city is a mystery that even she doesn't exactly know the answer to. Remy finds himself inexplicably nervous.
Fo' goodness' sake, Remy, he scolds himself, dis is y' pere and y' frère an' y' Tante Mattie! Dey ain't gon' hurt y' an' dey'll be happy t' see y'! What y' nervous fo'?
They'd sent him away, though. And even though meeting Rogue had instantly soothed some of the homesickness, there's still a tiny little ache in his heart that suggests that maybe his family had sent him away because they didn't want to deal with him anymore. Or maybe, even worse, maybe they were afraid of him, because of what had happened with the accident.
Rogue's gloved hand slides into his and squeezes. He looks down at her, finding her big green eyes looking up at him with something he can't quite name shining in them. (It looks a little bit like adoration, but Remy's not quite ready to deal with that yet.)
"It'll be fine," she whispers to him, thumb sliding over his gently. "They're waitin' for us." And then she's pulling him off the train and into the station.
And there's his pere, and Henri, and Tante Mattie, and Henri's wife Merci, and his cousins, all gathered around a really tacky homemade sign that says Welcome Home Remy! in mismatched handwriting and poorly colored markers. They're all waving and shrieking and carrying on and Remy is most certainly not crying, it's just dusty in here, that's all.
Rogue gives him a gentle shove and he's half inclined to kiss her, actually leaning forward to do so before stopping just short of her face, nose to nose with her, frustrated for the first time about her mutation. She laughs at him and offers him her hand instead, which he gratefully receives and presses a fervent kiss to the back of.
"One day, sugah," she whispers before she lets him go, "one day Ah'm gonna collect that one."
And before Remy goes to meet his family, he cocks his head and raises one eyebrow and just breathes, "Remy lookin' fo'ward t' it, chere."
A/N: Oh my lord, this was supposed to be all cute and happy and then?
Happy Birthday, Blackberry, in spite of this. This is not as happy as I wanted it to be, oh joss. Seriously prompt me something happier and I'll write you that instead, Blackberry, and I really, really do mean that.