Coquine and the Suicide King - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Jintain
Last updated: 01/02/2007 02:01:11 AM

Chapter 1

When they came out of the mansion he was smoking a cigarette on the front lawn, sprawled out and leaning back on his elbows in the grass. The sun was a fireball in his eyes even with shades on, and Kitty was only a vague silhouette as she stood over him. Still, he knew it was her, just like he knew it was Rogue hanging back on the porch steps, watching.

"That's so bad for you," Kitty tossed.

He gave her a shit-eating grin. "Oui, cherie, but who wants to live forever?"

"At least I won't die hacking up my lungs."

"Thanks for lookin' after my health, chere -- 'specially since I be riskin' my neck *and* my lungs for the X-men every time we fight the good fight." Gambit closed his eyes and motioned her away with his cigarette.

Kitty sniffed. He sensed Rogue move a split second before he heard the gravel of the front walk crunch beneath her feet. Then he heard her say in that soft Southern accent, "Kitty's right, sugar. It's a nasty habit."

"Oh, *Rogue.*" He opened his eyes again and saw the cloud of her hair with the afternoon light shining through it. "I be sure to 'member that next time I see you smokin' one of Wolverine's cigars."

She shifted. "You been spyin' on me, Gambit?"

"I'm a thief. Helps my profession to know things."

"Just as long as you stay out of my underwear drawer," she drawled.

"Don't worry. I'm not interested in stealin' underwear unless somebody's wearing it."

Kitty snorted. "I think I've heard enough. Let's go, Rogue. Jubes'll pitch a fit if we're late."

"Bye, Gambit," Rogue said, her voice curved like a smile.

He sat up as they crunched away, blocking the sun from his eyes with the flat of his hand. There was a sway to her step, he saw, in the movements of her thin limbs and in the swing of her hair. They reached the section of concrete at the edge of the driveway that the mansion's flying inhabitants affectionately called the Launchpad. Gambit watched as Rogue grasped Kitty at the waist and lifted into the air with a graceful flex of the knees.

He smoked quietly as their figures got smaller and smaller, finally disappearing, then shook his head and stood.

Westchester was blanketed with the summer heat that day, water locked into the air and making every movement seem slow and heavy. Nothing compared to New Orleans, but he'd been outside long enough. Gambit strolled back into the mansion, seeking the coolness of its interior and a respite from the glare outside. Not for the first time he wished Xavier allowed smoking inside the house.

He took off his sunglasses on his way up the stairs. One of the younger students was passing on the way down, and his kinesthetic sense told him she stopped for a moment to look back at him.

It was his eyes, of course. The mansion inhabitants still hadn't gotten used to them yet, even though he'd been there almost a month. It was ironic, considering some of their own appearances. He thought briefly of Cyclops' red lenses, Storm's odd coloring. The white streak in Rogue's hair and the white skin that rarely went uncovered.

Rogue. She'd arrived a week after him, but she wasn't a stranger to the Institute. She'd had a welcome home party, a dinner with all of her favorite dishes, hugs and gifts and congratulations from just about every person who lived in the mansion. As if she were the only person in the world to ever make it through her first year of college.

She had shaken his hand politely when they were introduced. Her grip was strong inside the thin fabric of her glove.

Too bad she spent so much time hanging around with people like Wolverine and Kitty, he thought. At least Jubilee was entertaining, but those other two were about as fun-loving as a door in the face.

But then, when he really thought about it, he could say the same for most of the people here.

Gambit shook his head as he let himself into his room, checking the locks out of habit. He'd installed them himself, prompting not a few questions from Cyclops about the need for extra security within the mansion.

"To gain trust, you have to give trust," the team leader had warned Gambit.

"Save the morals for the classroom," he retorted. "You trust Gambit 'bout as far as you can throw this house."

"I think Scott is trying to say that you don't help the situation by closing yourself off so blatantly," Jean interjected. "We'd like to get to know you, Remy. That's how we work."

He blinked. "Sorry if I ain't into heart-to-hearts. All you need to know is whether I can watch your back when the fightin' gets rough. Seem like that's been proven several times now."

"There's more to it than that," Jean said. "I think you'll see what we mean, the longer you're here."

There had been an expectation in her words that he found hard to shrug off later. For Gambit, this was all still a trial run. Maybe he couldn't go back to New Orleans if the X-men thing didn't work out, but it wouldn't take ten minutes for him to leave the mansion with all that was necessary to start over somewhere else. That was how *he* worked.

Gambit shook his head again, pushing Jean and Cyclops out of his head. Trial run. As long as he remembered that, he would be fine.

At the corner of 6th and Park Avenue they parted ways with Jubilee, who bounced across the intersection as if the cars in the street were made of tissue. Kitty and Rogue watched her, amused and shaking their heads, then turned down Park.

Kitty swung her shopping bags from one hand to the other and wiped her brow. She looked apologetically at Rogue.

"I shouldn't have asked you to come. This must be hell on you in those long gloves."

Rogue shrugged, lifting her hair away from her neck and fanning herself with a department store catalogue. "I'm okay. But maybe we should get somethin' cold to drink."

They sat in the window of a corner delicatessen, sipping iced raspberry freezes. Rogue swirled the taste of fruit over her tongue and pulled her shirt away from the slick skin of her back and chest.

Kitty, across from her, studied the crowded sidewalk outside. "So I wanted to talk to you, before I told anybody else. I can't trust Jubilee with this yet."

Rogue raised her eyebrows. "Spill, Kitty."

"I'm thinking about going home," the other girl said to the window. "Permanently."

"What?" Rogue leaned forward. "Why?"

"Look, I mean it when I say don't tell anyone yet. I'm just thinking about it."

"At least tell me *what* you're thinking so I can talk you out of it."

Kitty shook her head. "It's weird being away at college, don't you think? I mean, I thought all of this was so cool when we were kids. All we had to do was go to classes everyday, and the rest of the time we just lived there, like a family. And I couldn't wait to be a real X-man. But now..."

"What?"

"Well, come on. Haven't you thought about what that means?"

Rogue furrowed her eyebrows.

Kitty elaborated. "I guess I don't like the idea of killing people."

"You know that's the last thing Professor Xavier wants!"

"Maybe it is." Kitty lowered her voice, her gaze locked onto Rogue's. "But you know if it came down to you or one of the bad guys, you'd pick yourself."

"But that's *natural*, Kitty."

"Yeah, but the situation isn't. You know what women our age are doing? They're dating, they're looking for jobs, they're thinking about the latest trends. And we're all out trying to save the world."

"It's for the future of mankind. We can't let mutants like Magneto -- "

"Since when are you singing the party line? I thought you were one of Wolverine's little proteges."

Rogue sighed and slumped back in her chair. "I stopped wishing a long time ago for a normal life, Kitty. We're different from them. We can't hide that." She studied Kitty for a moment. "Well, maybe you could. Better than me, anyway."

Kitty reached over the table and clasped Rogue's hand, her grip strong through the thin cloth of the glove. "I'm not all that normal," she said. "Look. You know what I'm most afraid of? More than being a mutant or having to kill someone?"

"What?"

"I'm afraid of *getting* killed. Dying." She swallowed. "We're too young for this shit, Rogue. We've got years ahead of us. Or we would, if it weren't for the X-men."

"Why are you being so pessimistic? Besides, if somebody tried to shoot you or something it'd just go right through you."

Kitty grimaced. "Not unless I know it's coming." She squeezed Rogue's fingers. "Don't you ever just look around and think, fuck, I don't want to die? I do that every time we go in for combat training. Every time they put us behind the controls of that Firebird. I can't sleep at night because I'm thinking about all this."

Rogue searched for something to say. "It's...it's okay to be scared. I mean, we all are at times."

"But we don't *have* to be, Rogue. There's another life out there. We had it before, and we can have it again."

The intensity in Kitty's eyes was like a flare of sun, too bright for Rogue to look at. She sighed and shook her head. "If you're already convinced..."

Kitty's laugh was small and brittle. "Of course I'm not. I'm blowing smoke out of my ass, Rogue. The truth is, they'd never let any of us go."

Some days Gambit did ask himself what the hell he was doing there. He was no superhero. He had taken pride in being just the opposite for longer than he could remember, looking out for no one but himself and the Guild, slipping through the dark, pungent streets of New Orleans like a knife through flesh.

And so what if he did give a little something to scrabblers here and there? Didn't make him a damn hero.

The problem with Xavier was that the man thought too much. "I've seen you, Gambit," he'd said in that calm, measured voice. "I know what you're capable of. Further, I know what you're running from."

Gambit knew a bluff when he saw one, but there was something in the Professor's cool conviction, in his belief that the Institute served a high and noble purpose and that Gambit could contribute to it, that had swayed him. Enough to bring him here, and keep him despite his moments of doubt.

Unfortunately, Xavier's conviction didn't extend to the rest of the mansion's inhabitants.

"You take perimeter patrol or you don't come on the mission. That's final, Gambit." Cyclops' jaw was tight beneath the red shades.

"That's no kind of strategy," Gambit snapped. "You need a thief in a buildin' like that." He looked around at the other X-men. Their expressions were set, blank. Christ, even Ororo had her gaze on the table.

"What I need are people I can count on," Cyclops told him. "I can't anticipate what you'll do in a situation like this."

"You're an idiot. You're talkin' about people's lives here."

At that, Cyclops' face closed. "I'm not going to argue with you anymore. Are you coming on this mission or not?"

"Consider yourself a man short," Gambit ground out. "Have a wonderful fuckin' time."

He stalked from the room, sensing they had all turned to watch.

Rogue landed lightly on the Launchpad and walked up the moonlit path, pulling out her keys. There were a few scattered lights still on in the mansion windows, but at this hour all the doors would be locked.

Carol Danvers' powers might have made her invincible, but tonight Rogue's shoulders hurt, a dull tense ache on either side of her neck like an old woman's pain. Her eyes felt dry and itchy as well. Hours spent peering into a microscope was not the most comfortable way to spend her summer, research grant or no.

Still, she had needed the time away from the mansion today, especially after Kitty's confession. The thought of hiding what she knew from the rest of the X-men -- it was too much. She'd always been horrible at lying.

A cool breeze kissed her face, bringing with it the smell of cigarette smoke. She looked around and saw a tall, hunched figure under the tree, watching her with glowing red eyes. Gambit.

"What's goin' on?" she called softly.

"Came out for some air."

Later Rogue supposed she could have just walked past, gone inside and found some dinner and then gone to bed. But it was nice outside. The humidity of the day had dissipated and cicadas and crickets were out in full volume, the hisses and chirps reminding her of home.

And, of course, there was Gambit. The shadows made his angular face seem even sharper and longer as she approached. "Want a smoke, chere?" he offered.

She hesitated. No one at the Institute would have cared, and she'd done her share of substances at college, but it gave her an odd feeling to know that the rest of the X-men were just inside. She looked at Gambit, whose voice was slow and lazy-sounding and who had asked as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Sure," she said.

The cigarette was hand-rolled, looser than a machine-made one, the paper thinner and softer. She could smell the sweet tobacco inside it -- heavy, earthy.

Rogue put the cigarette in her mouth and he leaned toward her, his hand long and blue-tinted from the moonlight. There was a brief spark of pink as his finger touched the end. It illuminated his face and she was surprised at how close he seemed, the hollows of his cheeks hidden in shadow. Then the cigarette was lit. She inhaled, dragging as far back in her throat as she could.

When she exhaled the rush made her head feel like it had just lifted from a pillow. The smoke blew out from her mouth in a stream of white that disappeared quickly.

When Rogue was young her parents used to throw parties at their house, in the summer time when it was ideal for barbecues and friends crowding the yard. She'd sit on the steps of the back porch and watch the people strolling around with their drinks, voices filling the air. They would come by and talk to her with tanned smiles, easy conversation, teasing her with offers of beer or cigarettes.

She'd thought, I want this life. I want this every day.

Gambit was watching her with a slight lift at the corner of his mouth. "You look like you just found a long lost friend."

Rogue smiled. "Yeah, well. It's not the cig, it's just...." She trailed off and looked at her shoes.

"Oui," Gambit said, nodding.

They stood in silence for a while and smoked. Then Rogue glanced over at him. "You ever been up on the roof?"

He tilted his head. "Can't say that I have."

"Wanna try?"

He grinned. "Yeah."

She put the cigarette between her lips and grabbed him beneath the arms. Through her gloves and his shirt she could feel the corded muscles, the tenseness that said he was nervous despite his eagerness for adventure.

"Hold tight," she said.

"Shouldn't I be sayin' that to you?"

Rogue giggled in answer and pushed off.

It had taken her so long to get over the novelty of flight -- truth be told, she didn't think she'd ever quite get used to it. The first month or so she'd used her feet a grand total of five times, preferring the weightless feel of hovering, or the windy expedience of zipping through the air to wherever she needed to travel. Sure, she'd had trouble learning to steer in tight places, and the mansion had suffered a few ill-timed crashes, but that was what invincibility was for.

She still had nightmares about Carol Danvers sometimes, but if it came down to having her powers or not, she didn't know if she could give them up.

She took Gambit high enough so he could cover the mansion with his shoe, then wafted them gently back down to the roof. Even in the dim moonlight she could see the glow of perspiration on his face, the brilliant smile looking too wide to fit there.

"I'm fuckin' jealous," he laughed at her. "Who needs to blow shit up when there's flyin'?"

She blew smoke at him. "That's what I always say."

He lay back against the roof tiles and grinned up at the stars. After a moment, she stretched out next to him.

She was thinking of her parents again, of the little sunlit house in Mississippi. She turned her head toward him and asked, "So how come you left New Orleans?"

"Lots of reasons." Gambit shrugged. "Had some family problems."

"Don't I know that story. Was it your mutation?"

"No, they didn't care 'bout that. It was...other things."

Rogue waited for him to explain, but he didn't. That was fine -- years with Logan had trained her to read silences. She sensed that this one was not flexible, but would welcome an effort to fill it. She said, "With my folks it was my mutation. They couldn't deal with it, and I couldn't deal with them not dealin' with it. I left home when I was just a kid, haven't been back since."

"You miss them?"

She snorted. "I stopped missing them a long time ago. I know who my real family is."

"Then how come you go away to school?" His voice was odd-sounding all of a sudden, like someone had stepped on it.

"Sure, I guess I coulda gone somewhere nearby, but I like seein' new people and places. I know I can always come back when I'm finished. Besides, most of my friends went away for college, and Logan's hardly ever here." She ground the cigarette out and tossed it over the edge of the roof. "You travel much?"

Gambit pitched his cigarette as well. "Yeah, I been around. Got contacts all over Europe and Asia. You?"

She shook her head. "I used to want to travel a lot. I still do, I mean. But lately I've been thinking I'll just go when I'm ready."

"Sounds like you countin' on plenty of time to decide. Lately I been thinkin' that ain't necessarily the case."

Rogue stiffened. "So what do you do, if that's what you believe?"

"Tryin' to work that out now. Don't seem like Gambit's wanted here, so maybe it's time to make some tracks."

"I guess I'd be one of the last people to tell somebody not to leave a place," Rogue said slowly. "But I think you're wrong about not bein' wanted."

"They *don't* want Gambit. They just want mutants. Want us all to be one happy family, fightin' the bad guys together. Thinkin' the same things."

She sat up and studied him. "You sound like Logan now."

"And ain't he right? I won't be flirtin' with death for a damn *idea*." Gambit snorted.

There was an ache in Rogue's throat. She tried to speak around it, to argue with him. "But it's not just an idea. Horrible things happen to mutants -- I've been there, I know it for the truth." She thought of Magneto, whose memories she could still sometimes feel, twisting around in the parts of her mind she kept unexplored. She thought about Carol, and about what had happened to Logan years ago in Canada.

"So?" Gambit said. He sat up as well, watching her.

"So...I feel like if we were all workin' together, we could help each other." She caught him looking at her and stumbled on. "It wouldn't have to be a happy family or nothin' like that. Just *helpin'*. I mean, Xavier's right about that at least. If he wasn't, I'd still be runnin' scared. I think a lot of us would."

"You ain't scared now?" He moved closer, his eyes catching the moonlight, the rest of his face covered in dark. "Knowin' you could die any minute on one of these bullshit missions?"

/ Don't you ever just look around and think, fuck, I don't want to die? /

"They're not bullshit!" She stood now, balancing on the slope of the roof. "And yes, I'm scared a lot, but it's better than bein' scared alone, by myself. At least here I got friends, I got people I know who'll do what they can to protect me. And you know what else? I know that if I *do* die, they'll care. They'll give a shit. That's more than I felt when I left home."

If it was possible, his face looked even longer and thinner now. "You lucky, chere. Lucky you can say that."

She looked straight into his red-on-black eyes. "You stick around here a little while longer, you'll be feelin' lucky too."

Gambit forgot to close his window shades that night and was awoken at dawn the next morning, the first rays of sun slanting into his face. He kept his eyes closed as he got up and padded toward the bathroom. His vision was too sensitive for a full-on assault first thing in the morning.

An hour in the Danger Room, working up sweat and blood as he dodged flying machinery, taking them out one by one with his charged playing cards. He could hear the heavy sound of his breathing over each crash and electric buzz. He could feel his heart running wild in his chest.

Afterwards, he made his way to the kitchen through the quiet hallways. There was something about being up early in the morning after a workout. Every part of his brain felt awake, and his body hummed with energy. It was like he could sense the movement of the air, even, tiny molecules dancing around him.

He knew someone was in the kitchen before he got through the door.

It was Rogue, sitting at the counter with a glass of orange juice and her head in her hands. Her hair fell over her face, the white streak brilliant.

He said her name and she looked up. Her cheeks were wet.

"Logan called," she said. "Idiot can't figure out the time zones. It's already lunchtime on Muir Island." She attempted a smile.

Gambit stepped closer and reached out a careful thumb, not quite touching the tears. "Didn't know you liked your sleep that much."

The smile fell. Rogue shook her head. "It's not that. I mean, I couldn't go back to sleep, so I figured I'd come downstairs and make some breakfast...." She pushed a piece of paper toward him from where it had been hidden behind her elbow. "Kitty left that."

He took the paper from her and read the words silently.

Rogue sniffed. "She left that and even though I knew it was gonna happen, even when she tried to say she wouldn't, it still sucks. She's gone and it sucks." She sniffed again.

Gambit waited for her to finish.

"And Logan's not comin' back for another two months, and everyone's gonna wanna know *why* she left, and if I try and explain it to them I don't know.... I don't know if I'm gonna start feelin' the same way. Maybe everythin' I said to you last night was bullshit. Maybe I was just sayin' all that 'cause I knew this was gonna happen, and I knew I'd wanna do the same thing myself."

He pulled another stool out from under the counter and sat. Her hands weren't gloved, so he didn't try to take one, but then again he didn't even know if that was the kind of thing she liked at a time like this. So instead what he said was, "You said it 'cause you believe it. You convinced Gambit, anyway."

"Yeah, wait a while. You'll be gone too, just like her." She ran her fingers through her hair, the white streak breaking up and disappearing into the reddish brown.

Gambit watched her scrub fiercely at her tears, the hard movements of her hands and the way her lips trembled. "I don't think so," he said quietly. "I think I'll be right here."