I Kinda Think I Am

by Alestar

"time must have snapped back
just a little and then forward--
because that is what
happens when we cannot wrap our minds
around the moment."
~ Elizabeth Parkhurt, "Homecoming"

One time Rogue said a word that lifted in the middle, that she puncuated by tilting her head, and Dominic Petros said, "jeez, kid. That Carol Danvers really did a number on you, didn't she."

He and St. John were in a jail cell-- Rogue was on the other side of the forcefield. She slumped tiredly against the far wall while the authorities glanced at her nervously.

She ran a gloved hand through her hair and said that most times she couldn't clearly remember what she'd been like before, that it was like looking through dark glass, which was imagery somebody else would have used, and not Rogue. St. John smiled and said, "You were a moody smart arse and you liked to hang upside down from trees."

"Like a possum," Avalanche added.

Pyro nodded. "Like a possum."

~

"Hey, chere," Remy said, coming up behind her. He slid his hands inside her jacket and pulled her back against him. She elbowed him lightly in the ribs.

"Get outta here, swamp rat. I'm tryin' to concentrate." She punched a few buttons on the hidden external wall console she was trying to repair.

"Remy can help you concentrate." His hands slipped down to her hips. Rogue stilled.

"Remy," she said stiffly. "If you please."

"I have it on excellent authority dat, yes, I do please." He nudged at her ponytail with his nose. "But don' take my word for it. Come find out f'y'self."

Rogue snorted and pushed Remy off of her without turning. "Jesus, Remy, I swear. You're gonna be the death of me."

"Maybe not," Remy said low, sinking unpreturbed back into her space. He grinned. "Maybe you'll be de death of me." He touched the back of her neck with a gloved hand and she whipped around, shoving him less lightly away.

"Just maybe I will," she said, scowling. Remy ducked in quickly and kissed the inside of her covered arm, his smile wild and reckless.

"Sounds nice."

~

On the way back from Long Island, Bobby had been frighteningly quiet and Rogue told him that sometimes you just had to overcome where you came from. She talked to him to fill up the gaping silence in the car-- she told him about Mystique and a handful of the wrong things she'd taught her-- but Bobby's nodding had been distant and abstract.

When Bobby's dad got attacked, months later, Rogue didn't say anything because Mystique's son had done it and Bobby knew Rogue didn't like his dad; and she knew without having to ask that she was the bad guy, somewhere in the back of Bobby's mind.

~

Rogue kept saying, "oh my god" into Remy's mouth and he kept running a hand up her side, across her throat, up to cup her head-- even though it didn't hurt, the hard cold cave floor against her back didn't hurt-- and saying, "shh, shhh." There were insects scurrying all around them, Remy pulled one from her hair. Rogue's fist clenched in the small of his back and she said, "oh my god." His hips pistoned slowly against hers while he murmured brokenly in French.

~

St. John was dying and Rogue found him on a dock in South Carolina, where Mystique had put him up. He was a wanted man, so when Rogue sat down next to him, he looked over and said, "You still a hero, luv?" She replied, "fuck if I know."

St. John nodded and he looked out to water and Rogue looked out to water. After they'd been silent for a long time, Rogue released a breath and said, "I'm back t'killin' folks."

"yeah?" said St. John.

Rogue said, "I don't wanna talk about it."

~

Bobby stopped cutting his hair after he shaved it that once, because Remy asked him to, so that by the time he cornered Rogue in the driveway with squared shoulders, it curled around his ears and fell into his eyes. It was so easy to see the fatigue in him, the toll of deep preemptive sadness.

Rogue was pinned on her knees to the ground, looking up at him, muscles rumbling against the ice squeezing them.

Bobby's fist was ice-white and clenched, he stood over Rogue, next to Rogue's mangled car. He said, "All I was trying to say was leave him alone. All that I care about right now is that you stop trying to put your shit off on him and just let him focus on getting better. If you wanna have a heart-to-heart with him, wait until he comes to you." His voice thickened. Rogue's breath came in sharp pants. "You don't have the right to reach out to him," Bobby said. "Not after what you did."

Bobby kept speaking but Rogue couldn't make out the words over the sound of something bursting behind her eyes. Or it might have been the sound of cracking ice, or someone screaming-- could be anyone screaming, in Rogue's head, some good guy, some bad guy. Could be Remy. Could be some voice saying, this is not news, this is nothing new.

Rogue twisted her shoulders sharply and the ice shattered violently around her. She slumped back down, trembling against the pavement, her wet eyes closing. "Stop," she said flatly, hoarsely, while Bobby gazed down at her. Her horrible hand came up to her lying deadly mouth. "Just stop."

* * *

Remy breaks the bread in two, dips one half into the saucer of seasoned olive oil and lays the other half back on the plate in the middle of the table-- but the lady in green is the one make gestures tonight. She blinks down at her tomato basil soup, pushing soft brown hair out of her face with a gloved hand. She knows that she's the bad guy. She doesn't know how it happened, has no memory of it happening, but after all it is nothing new.

"Y'not eating, chere," Remy says.

Rogue picks up her spoon, slips it into the bowl. "Just tryin' to save myself for the main course. I figure you order a thirty dollar entree, you better damn well eat all of it." She stirs the milky red broth, spoons a bite but doesn't bring it to her mouth, stirs it more.

"Y'havin' appetite problems?"

She shakes her head no.

"hey," he says softly. She looks up. "How y'doin'?"

Rogue laughs, abandoning her spoon with a clang. "God, Remy. I'm fine. How are *you*?"

Remy doesn't laugh. He says, "I'm good. You worried?"

"I think you're forgettin' I'm the bitter ex-girlfriend. I ain't allowed to be worried."

Remy does grin then, a slim slant of his lips. "Y'allowed to be worried."

"I kinda think I'm not, sugar."

"Trust me, chere-- I got more bitter ex-girlfriends dan you got gloves. I consider myself an expert on de subject."

Rogue's chin dips, she laughs incredulously. She shakes her head. "I can't believe you're still such an unbelievable fucker."

Remy's grin widens. "Ain't no amount of chemotherapy ever gonna fix dat."

Rogue's smile wilts. She looks down at her soup. "God, Remy."

"Hey," Remy says again, and he reaches across the table to touch a hand to her chin, pull it upward-- gloves, she notices, she can't believe he wore gloves-- and he says, "I have cancer."

"I know you have cancer," Rogue says roughly. She adds, "I got the memo."

He lets go and pulls back, remote sadness flickers over his face. "I shoulda told you, chere. I shoulda come and told you. I'm sorry."

"Christ," she says and her hands lift, she wants to stand up, go away, but she doesn't, she puts her hands back on the table, palms flat. "Don't apologize, Remy. Do not apologize to me. You got nothin' to apologize for."

Remy face slides into a lazy smirk and he leans back in his seat. "oh, now, dat's bullshit."

"In this particular situation, okay, at this particular dinner, you got less to apologize for than I do. so let's leave it at that."

"What do you have to apologize for, chere?"

Rogue snorts softly and says, "uh," because it is obvious, it is so painfully obvious to everyone how sorry she should be.

"Seriously," he says.

"jeez, Remy." She turns her head, looks at the expensive candlabra at the head table, at the servers milling around it. "I don't know." Her hands fold. "I'm sorry for what happened with Bobby the other day." She's not looking at Remy, but she can feel him shrug.

"Yeah. Dat was inevitable. I didn't handle things like I should've."

"and how should you have handled it?"

He shrugs again. "well." He doesn't say more, so she looks over at him. He grins at her. "If I'da known y'all were gonna throw down, I coulda arranged a nice mud-wrestling match."

"mud-wrestling," Rogue says.

Remy's smile glitters. "Don' like mud? How 'bout baked beans?"

"You're a pervert."

"Oui."

Rogue shakes her head fondly, but then her smile folds in on itself and she looks down at the table. She breathes, "Oh my god."

"Rogue," says Remy, reaching for her hand.

"Yeah," she barks, jerking away. "Rogue. Rogue."

"Chere--" he says and Rogue's voice breaks, in the middle of saying, "stop calling me that."

Remy sighs. Rogue blinks away the wet fog in her eyes, and she sees Remy slump back in his chair. She remembers how exhausted he must be, how sick he is. She hears a voice saying, you're killing him, you're killing him. It's not a memory, she doesn't think, and she doesn't know whose voice it is. Maybe it's Bobby's. In Rogue's head, it could be anyone's voice.

The entree comes. The waiter dishes out the roast duck and then leaves.

Rogue sticks her fork into a plump golden speckled thigh, pulls it out and sticks it in again. She takes a small bite.

"So how are things going?" she asks.

"Things?" Remy says.

"How's Bobby?"

"Bobby's good." His eyes flit to the side. "He's tired."

"Yeah . . " Rogue's gaze sinks to the slow play of Remy's hands around his plate, salting the lamb, cutting carefully into it. She smiles. "He really loves you."

"Oui," he says, swallowing a bite. "It's funny how some things work out."

"It really is. I mean, Bobby--" she's still smiling and she shakes her head. "It's like he only had two modes-- jokin' and broodin'. Now, he's got this whole new thing, that nobody's ever seen in him before."

She looks up and Remy's watching her. He says, "Sometimes I forget dat you two used to be friends."

"Close friends," she says. "Not best friends, 'cause we already had people-- but we were real close." She grins. "He used to have a thing for me, ya know."

Remy returns the grin. "Is'at right?"

"Yeah. It was--" Her head cocks and her smile goes bemused. "Actually, now that I think about it . . . it was right after I'd absorbed you for the first time. So I was all full a' you." Her eyes twinkle. "I shoulda guessed. He was just usin' me for my Remy."

Remy leans back in his chair. "So I guess we could consider you our matchmaker."

"Yeah, I think y'all should do that." The pleasure on Rogue's face softens to fondness, and then her head dips and sadness rolls across. "It's funny how things work out," she says.

"I'm sorry, chere."

"It's not your fault me and Bobby ain't friends anymore."

Remy cocks his head. "How's that?"

"Well, I mean--" Rogue klomps her elbows on the table, clasps her hands. "It's only your fault that Bobby cares about the reason me and Bobby aren't friends."

"Y'll hafta explain dat one, too."

Rogue brings her clasped hands up in front of her face, turns her face to the side. "Jesus, Remy."

"Rogue." Remy's voice is firm and Rogue bends her forehead into her fists. "What," she says.

"Bobby's hurting right now. He's lookin' for someone to blame. He might be looking at you, but dat's--" He shrugs. "It's not right."

"It's not right," Rogue says dully.

"It's not right. An' it's my fault. I made it easy f'Bobby to blame you. I didn' wan' to talk about you, to you, didn' want to be around you."

Rogue pulls her arms toward herself.

"Not, hey--" says Remy, touching his hand to the table beside Rogue's elbow. "Not because it was . . " Remy takes a slow, careful breath. "Dere's lots of things I've had to get used to. Bein' tired all de time. Bein' weak. Things I didn' necessarily want anyone t'see. least of all you. Y'see?"

Rogue looks up at Remy, watches him for a long moment. "Weak?" she asks. Remy nods, his brow pinching. Rogue shakes her head. Finally, she drops her hands back to the table and says, "You know I'm a mutant, right?"

Remy cocks an eyebrow.

Rogue says, "Do you know what my mutant power is?"

"Intimately," says Remy.

"That's right." Rogue's mouth slants. "An' as a side effect of that, I can fly around and I'm also damn strong. Guess you could call me a badass." Remy grins and Rogue shrugs modestly. She says, "Sugar, the whole time we were datin', there wasn't hardly a moment when I wasn't lookin' at you and thinking, 'I could break him like a twig.'"

Remy laughs. He coughs, takes a breath, and dabs his mouth with a napkin. "Dat's, eh. Dat's actually weirdly comfortin', chere."

"Yeah, well. It's true."

"Do you think dat about all the men you date, or was I a special case?"

"You were always a special case, sugar."

"Well, you know what they say. You always hurt de one you love."

Rogue brings her hands up again, pressing her mouth against her folded thumbs. Remy sighs.

"chere. Dat's not the reason I didn't come around." Remy shakes his head, eyelashes fluttering down. "I didn' come around 'cause I was eat alive wit' guilt. Y'know. like I do."

Rogue frowns. "Guilt."

"F'your sufferin'. F'your sufferin' on my behalf."

Rogue opens her hands, moves them to either side of her forehead. "That's. You, uh. You didn't come around 'cause you felt bad that I felt bad?"

"Oui." Remy blinks slowly. "In other words, I blame myself f'you blamin' yourself and you blame yourself f'what happened when I blamed myself."

Rogue's mouth twists. "we're so fucked up."

Remy grins. "It's a Southern thing, chere. Be proud of y'heritage."

Rogue laughs, and the sound of it fades slow across the space between them, even though her face stills. She stares at the middle of the table for a long moment, and then puts her hand there. Remy puts his gloved hand on top of it.

"What's gonna happen?"

"I don't know, chere. Whatever happens."

They sit in silence and their fingers curl around each other, fabric smoothing over fabric. Remy's breathing is thin, stirring through his damaged chest, and Rogue's is thick with relief-- though this thing, it isn't all better. They are not all better. They are old friends and they are both alive right now.

Remy says, "Y'realize, dis whole thing-- it's jus' been an elaborate plan to get you t'go out to dinner wit' me."

Rogue nods, smile ghosting around her mouth. "I figured."

back to Alestar's stories | X-Men archive | comicfic.net