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Chapters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
 
 
 

The Ante - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Lucia de’Medici
Last updated: 05/11/2007 10:19:38 PM

Chapter 16

Chapter XVI: Unglued

---

The shadows seemed to stretch longer before him, their fingers sliding into the places that marked his path as Gambit slipped through the cemetery.

In the shells of broken tombs, looted of their occupants by the sun and heat through the natural cremation process that made the aboveground cemeteries of New Orleans unique, the darkness gathered in thick mottles of grey that offered little compassion for the complaints of the living.

He didn’t stop to think of the irony that something he’d grown so familiar with had turned right around and shunned him.

Try to cross over into the light, even once, and the night spurns you for it.

He laughed without humor at that, marginally grateful that his head had cleared at last.

His own damnable darkness should have been enough to sate him. If you’d figure, with enough nastiness tucked away on the inside, there were enough holes to crawl up into and die - at least figuratively - should the opportune moment present itself. That was the foundation for insanity, wasn’t it? Deal with enough evil on a regular basis — some forced upon you, some initiated by you, some so utterly and completely incomprehensible — and you just tucked those moments away entirely, never to reflect on them though you know, somehow, they’ve contributed to the person you’ve become. Unfortunately, he couldn’t very well hide from himself within himself, could he?

"Merde," he said flatly, his own voice returning to him in the descending silence.

At this point, it didn’t seem as if he’d be able to conceal himself from Rogue either.

Gambit frowned, stalking onwards between the rows.

He shouldn’t have done that; he reprimanded himself for the fifth time in ten minutes.

The words "monumentally stupid" rang true, clear as a bell and just as resonant. He shuddered against it, yanking up his collar and stopping to rest, finally, against a mortuary slab bearing the name of some long-dead politician who no longer mattered.

He needed ten minutes and two cigarettes to set his head straight and settle his racketing heart, in the very least.

Rogue had fallen silent where he’d left her. She had not pursued him. Whether or not he was grateful for the temporary solitude was another matter entirely.

Remy shook a Marlboro from his pack, tossing it into his mouth and igniting the tip. He pulled on it hard, tasting the paper filter and hating the way the smothering flavor of the tobacco drowned out the taste of her mouth left on his lips.

Absently, he licked them, and catching himself trying to recall the dewy urgency that accompanied Rogue’s kiss, Gambit grimaced.

Why the hell had he done that, he begged himself silently. The mingled, fading sensations of that momentary solace, the pleasure of it, still thrummed in his veins. It set his pulse hammering at an erratic rhythm — a torrid pace he was familiar with from having run many heists in his day. He swallowed the smoke; he was uncomfortable with the comparison but all too certain that it was an accurate metaphor.

Thieves took things that didn’t belong to them. He was living up to the archetype wonderfully, he thought sardonically.

He tapped the cigarette, and ashes flitted to the ground, brushing against the length of his trench coat and tumbling to the wet grass near his boots.

Gambit squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that as the scene replayed itself, he was taking masochistic pleasure in recalling it just the same.

Her hands had tangled in his coat uncertainly, and she’d trembled - he’d felt the vibration through the soft press of her breasts, the shudder in her shoulders as she curled into him, seeking warmth - that fire he knew too well.

It made him ache. It made his mouth go dry at the thought. It made him hunger, and it had been a long time since he’d felt the urge to sate a need that was so bone-driven.

She might as well have been hard-wired into him. Rogue was automatic - responding to each touch, each nip of his mouth, the same old tricks he’d used on hundreds of others reinventing themselves and adjusting to accommodate her. Only her. She filled his senses, smothered out every similar exchange he could possibly compare that kiss to, and Remy found himself wanting to go back there, to her, and drown inside it all over again.

An aconite kiss, he concluded, which made him sound like he was romancing the entire interlude. It was something he would brag about, if he could — if there was anyone to listen, which there wasn’t.

There were only two, three if you abstracted a little — two Queens and one Joker — a Jack of Hearts gone awry, and respectfully, a girl who couldn’t decide whether or not she’d bewitched him or wanted to kill him.

He’d certainly made that decision easier on her, he concluded with self-deprecating confidence.

Laughing at that, Remy rolled his eyes skyward and thunked his head against the tomb behind him, trying to recreate the sensation of his life force being drained from him. His vision darkened a little, but the swoon that should have accompanied it did not.

That he’d been able to stagger away, breaking into a light jog, and then a flat out peel across the cemetery was a miracle in and of itself.

Gambit took another drag, wiping his hands against his coat to rid them of the soft feel of her hair. The cigarette hung from his mouth, blinding him with the sting of smoke.

Fingers follow their own path. He knew that when the way is found once, they don’t forget. Thief’s hands: calloused yet sensitive, demanding, but at the same time gentle and giving - they’d remember Rogue’s curves even if his mind forgot.

Wryly, Gambit reasoned that he wouldn’t - he’d already filled in the blanks from that damnable security tape. It hadn’t taken much.

Groaning, he thumped the back of his head against the crypt behind him again, wincing a little at the low throb it produced, but still nonplussed that his powers - his supposedly bolstered mutation - had failed at the exact moment when he really, really, really hadn’t wanted them to.

"Suppose dis is what inadequacy feels like," he muttered derisively. He didn’t like the feeling one bit.

Back and forth, he balanced out his current options. He wanted to go back to her, wanted to look into the descending blackness ringing her irises, and the matched red gleam of her pupils that mimicked his own. He wanted, even more desperately, to see himself in her - even if it was just for a moment. To see what she could see, to see if she hated him with the same passion now that she’d matched with want only minutes before.

Perhaps it wasn’t because of him that she’d responded so eagerly. Perhaps it was only a convenience that he had taken what he’d wanted and given her back something she probably didn’t recognize yet. Perhaps... if he had been someone else... then maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.

The thought made him wince. When had he become so starved for her?

Remy sighed, dashing his cigarette to the ground half-heartedly.

He’d kissed her. He’d kissed her after telling himself he wouldn’t touch her. He’d kissed her after telling himself he wouldn’t touch her, and he’d liked it. Hell, he’d liked it a lot - liked to the point of not so much liking but longing and lusting and languishing ten minutes later in a spot where she couldn’t see or follow or -

"Dieu," he breathed, his eyes widening as he realized fully what the consequences of his actions were. Not that he hadn’t before, no - that’s why he’d ran, wasn’t it? Grimly, Gambit conceded that was at least part of it; he hadn’t wanted her to know the intimate details of his life, his past, and thus far, he’d been successful in keeping them shrouded under a thick blanket of suggestion and misdirection. Worse, in one stupid move he’d probably broken her confidence in him. A thousand jagged little shards of promises; that he’d see her through if she absorbed his memories; that he’d stay with her, that he’d take care of her - all of them littered his mental playground and mocked him with the eerie echo of cicadas clinging to the arched tree limbs overhead.

Their song pointed out the fool and his tragedy.

Now, all bets were off. Rogue’s powers worked in such a way that even if he’d gotten the luck of the draw, she’d have taken a substantial chunk of his memories with that kiss. The problem was, there was no telling which memories she’d gotten, and there was definitely no way of knowing how or when those memories would surface.

It was ironic, really, since he hadn’t meant to let her absorb those things from him to begin with. Saying one thing and doing another were two different matters entirely.

He’d controlled it once; when they’d fought at the mansion a few days ago. All it had taken was a little concentration, the willful, deliberate shutting down of his mental shields for a few moments, and a brush of lips against her bare knuckles. His body had done the rest, and thankfully, he hadn’t needed much time to recover from it.

The contact had barely lasted three seconds, and in turn, he’d handed over three memories. Under controlled circumstances, that had been an accomplishment. He had shown her just enough to leave her wanting more. The problem had only surfaced the night before - she had spoken their names in slumber; three names for three sins that he had yet to forgive himself for. Moreover, that meant she had taken more than he’d been willing to give initially, and that, in turn, gave rise to a whole new problem.

There was no telling what lurked in Rogue’s subconscious now. Remy shuddered, swiping at his forehead with the heel of his hand and sucking in a deep breath to steady his nerves. Even the half-truth he’d told her about Julien’s death, would she learn the rest of it too? There was no telling.

Higher stakes meant a higher payoff, but it appeared that the cheat had finally been bested at his own game. By kissing her, Remy had all but handed over his winning hand with a smile on his face.

He’d been so confident that his powers would keep him safe, and they had, for a short time. As it were, he chuckled a little to himself, there were certain things he just couldn’t resist.

"Damned fool, LeBeau," he muttered to himself.

Perhaps she could hate him as much as he hated himself at that moment. His fuzzy logic dictated that it might take a bit of the burden off himself. Maybe.

On the downside, Remy wasn’t usually that lucky.

He hadn’t won this round. He’d pilfered the prize, narrowly leaving a piece of his hide behind in the process. Moreover, it wasn’t a clean pinch. Whatever it was that made his limbs tingle, his head throb, and his mouth water for her made it a very, very messy pull.

It felt as if he’d handed more of himself over to Rogue in that one kiss than he had ever to anyone else before, and it wasn’t just because his mutation had failed him.

Remy hung his head, his hair flopping into his direct line of sight as he tried to process that fact.

Failed powers. He could stick his bare hand in the beam of a laser and not trip a security system, but he hadn’t been able to hold onto Rogue for more than a few minutes.

Grinning a little, he mused, but what an amazing few minutes that had been.

Just as quickly, his expression sobered. Perhaps she was stronger than he’d given her credit, or perhaps there was some merit to what the X-Men had unearthed about the stone. Could it be that what had happened to him really was temporary?

Remy held his hands before him, flexing his fingers and enjoying the subtle tingle of spatial awareness that had become second nature. Everything hummed around him, vibrating at different frequencies. He could close his eyes and still feel the subtle shifts of energy from the tombs, the trees, the ground - a series of silent obstacles that he could dance around, evading them easily, even if he were blindfolded.

He’d come to relish it.

Without effort, he let his awareness wander - sliding across the cemetery to where Rogue remained. Finding her there, he exhaled at the ease at which his powers continued to function. Apparently, all was not lost just yet.

He drew a clear visual with his mind’s eye, his powers working intrinsically to calculate her posture, the boneless slump of her body where she sat against the Boudreaux tomb, and down to the smallest detail — her arms wrapping around herself consolingly, her chin resting on the bridge of her forearms.

Did she wish that it was his embrace? That he was comforting her?

Remy inhaled sharply and leaned back against the nearest mausoleum for support.

He’d harmed her by claiming that kiss, broken her trust and done himself injury in the process, and yet all he could think of was how he could steal the next.

He stilled himself, his senses working overtime to smother out his imagination as invisible fingers trailed their way over Rogue’s shoulders and into the soft dip of her collarbone, up her neck to cup her face, and down over her sternum to feel the rattle of her heart in her chest. He lingered there, in that warmth that bordered on violation for the nearness to her curves, but he couldn’t resist it. Her pulse slowed steadily, and with it, he felt her shrink in on herself. Remy wet his lips, unsurprised that his mouth felt parched. This was the place, he realized, this was the centre he wanted so desperately to touch.

His Queen of Hearts.

He did not sense tears, for which he was thankful - but if he focused hard enough, he could almost feel her steadfast pulse, the flutter of her breath, and the constriction in her chest that demanded release. In all its picturesque glory, the scene shifted a little as his attention was drawn elsewhere. The molecules reformed themselves around Rogue, dampened at the edges in a moiré of colour as she exploded into action.

Something was wrong. There was too much movement, too many bodies in motion taking on blurred contours in the periphery of his awareness.

He winced, making a strained gurgling noise in his throat as his eyes opened to the perpetual gloom of Lafayette cemetery at night.

"Merde!" he swore, launching himself from the wall and leaping at the nearest elevation, his staff slinging from his belt and snapping to full length in less time than it took to exhale.

Across the cemetery, Rogue screamed.

---

A few minutes prior...

Picking absently at an unusually long blade of grass protruding through the cracks in the granite foundations of the Boudreaux tomb, Rogue curled her legs into her body, allowing her shoulders to slide against the cold marble at her back.

She should have been elated.

She’d shared her first kiss, albeit for the second time with a former Acolyte, exiled Thieves Guild member and - she peered suspiciously at the crypt marker over her head - champion duelist, by the sound of it. If that wasn’t something to write home about, she didn’t know what was.

She should have been elated, but she wasn’t.

Rogue blew out a breath, growing increasingly frustrated as the minutes passed without sign of Remy.

Well, frustrated wasn’t exactly it. Her head hurt something fierce, her palms were sticky inside her gloves, and she felt feverish. Add nausea and the impending sense of dread that she’d clearly forced herself upon him into the equation, and it was no surprise that he’d bolted.

How could that possibly make her happy?

Gawd, he’d run from her without as much as a backwards glance.

"Stupid," she muttered to herself, still experiencing a certain temporal dislocation that seemed to go hand-in-hand with her weak knees and fluttery stomach.

Then why was she still sitting here, she asked herself. Would he come back for her? It was just like he’d said, when things get too hot, you got the heck out of the kitchen. She snorted. She hadn’t meant to test that theory exactly, it had just sort of... happened.

He’d been toying with her this entire time, and she’d went right ahead and played it back to him without really thinking of what she was doing. She’d been so caught up with the prospect of finally being able to touch him... touch someone, she corrected herself firmly... that she hadn’t really considered how he’d react.

She’d thought, just for a moment, he’d felt the same.

Rogue swallowed hard, suppressing the disappointment and squeezing her eyes shut against her body’s protest to such a small movement.

Her thighs felt like Jell-o, and truth be told, she wasn’t certain she trusted herself to stand on her own just yet. It was best to just sit here a moment, she reasoned. It wasn’t like she was waiting for him to come back, she reminded herself, the bitterness of the thought smothered by the swell of self-loathing that accompanied it.

That was why he’d asked if she’d waited for him, wasn’t it? He’d led her to believe that he’d felt the same.

Rogue sighed, closing her eyes against the burn that gathered there, making her throat squeeze shut against her will.

Had she read him wrong? Or was Remy just being his regular self — the playboy with the devil-may-care attitude? Surely he had a pocketful of conquests and too many notches on his bedpost to count.

Not like she’d ever get that far. She wasn’t... Rogue swallowed... she wasn’t his type. It was just like Tante had said; Remy’s usual string of girls probably gave him much less trouble. Inwardly, she cringed, contemplating just what Remy’s "type" was. Rogue concluded quickly that she didn’t want to venture into those territories.

She ripped at the grass, and chucked the shivery green blades right back to the ground promptly. Stricken, she wondered if the propensity to destroy things fell into the same basket as wanting things too. Nice things. Comfortable, warm things with wide palms, soft mouths, and a demanding touch. She shivered though she was unbearably warm, uncomfortable even in her own skin. Her head throbbed viciously, sending a series of tingling ripples straight down her spine and all the way to her feet. It made her toes curl in her boots with the tension. She felt as if she might burst any second, and frustrated, she dug her fingers into her arms and gripped as hard as she could.

It did nothing but force her to choke down a sob.

Was she mooning over him? Horrified, Rogue sat up straighter and cleared her throat, blinking at the foreboding sting behind her eyes. In the same breath, she mentally checked herself, affirming that she was not, in fact, pining over someone she couldn’t have... even if she wanted him, which she didn’t. Moreover, even if she did want that someone in question, it was a yearning that, like most things, would go unfulfilled.

He’d run away from her, and the thought made her a little ill. Was she that bad? She hadn’t drooled on him, had she?

Rogue laughed a little, cynically, and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. Her gloved knuckles burned the tender flesh over her upper lip, and with a soft, "Oh," of surprise, she pressed her fingers to her mouth.

Her lips were swollen. Rogue closed her eyes and fought vainly to push aside the reasoning for why that was.

A small voice, echoing deeply within the recesses of her mind, chastised that this is what happens when you get too close.

"Just a moment of weakness," she said to herself, ignoring the way her clothes stretched across her skin. With each shift, each breath, her flesh protested violently that there was no more heavier contact than that. Her body was demanding something that went beyond logic, and there was nothing she could do to rein it in.

"Ya did it to yo’self, girl," she murmured, swallowing the sour taint to the reprimand. "And now ya know."

She knew she hated it.

Another lapse in judgment like that, and you could have killed him, her conscience snapped back at her. Horrified, Rogue shrank back against the Boudreaux tomb. She’d let herself go entirely in that one moment, too entranced by the taste of him, the gentle way he’d touched her, making her bend beneath him to his desires. They’d fit together, she thought miserably. It was the way a real first kiss should have been.

Rogue closed her eyes. The memory careened off on its own course, making her stomach flutter, producing a delicious roll of warmth between her thighs.

She sniffed, acutely aware that her chest felt a little tighter than usual, and again, she wondered where he’d gone. Was he ok? She must have hurt him terribly to send him running scared like that. After he’d told her what had happened with Julien, she’d all but thrown herself at him.

She sighed, quieting. Where was he?

"Remy?" she whispered to the still night surrounding her, though nothing but the sound of the crickets returned to her, scornful in their nocturnal symphony.

Rogue drew her legs to her chest, pulling them close and resting her chin on her arms. She waited, trying to squash the rising, hollow echo in her limbs that longed for his touch.

He’d left her. After promising he wouldn’t, he’d run from her.

Lies, she thought, the word sinking almost as quickly as it had risen to the forefront of her mind. Rogue’s jaw clenched, working against the telltale burn and the blurring vision that accompanied it.

It settled into her subconscious, burrowing deeply to settle and then germinate. He’d used her. He’d fed her what she’d needed to hear to throw her off guard, and she’d let him. Lies, she told herself again, and he’d played innocent the entire time.

She’d scared him in the process, but he’d invited it.

He ought to have known better. She lived a cursed life, a half-life deprived of the one thing that her mutation prevented her from taking willfully.

What stopped a person, she wondered; what prevented a mutant from becoming a monster? What held her back, shackled into a life less frightening through the absence of touch - a self-imposed restriction, bound though it gnashed at its bit constantly? She did.

She controlled it.

Remy was determined to wrest that control from her grasp.

That was his angle, and that was his game.

She was the wager, no better than a stack of chips on a table topped with green felt.

Rogue grit her teeth, the points of her fingertips leaving ten sensitive bruises on her arms that throbbed a little as her grip slackened. She exhaled forcefully through her nose, her breath coming out in a muted huff.

He shouldn’t have kissed her back, she thought ruefully, and he shouldn’t have left her alone.

She winced, recognizing the sting of betrayal for what it was, and taking it into herself entirely. Roughly, Rogue swiped at her face, her gloves scratching the dewy skin beneath her eyes. She didn’t care. She didn’t feel it, she insisted silently.

Feeling things led to getting hurt, and Remy was the last person on this earth who’d hurt her again.

She bit down hard on her lower lip, unconvinced by the surge of vitriol that petered out with little ceremony. Treacherously, her chest tightened again, and she drew a shuddering breath. To feel that one more time - Rogue blinked slowly, brushing away the tears that had yet to fall - to feel him next to her, his hands doing dangerous things to her ribs, teasing the underside of her breasts without actually touching them, his other hand twined in her hair, guiding her mouth to his. She sucked in a breath, her body responding to the memories against her will. Her fingers slackened over her arms as the warmth pooled outwards again from her center. Besting that was a ripple of lust so strong that it made her moan, the sound muffled by the coat sleeve that she pressed her mouth to.

Please come back, she thought, embarrassed just the same but hardly caring since she couldn’t vocalize it to the empty cemetery surrounding her.

Please.

It was almost a relief when, not more than a minute later, she felt the heavy weight of a hand settle on her shoulder.

"Ya came back," she sniffed, half relieved and half gripped with the fear that he should find her like this. Looking up, Rogue froze as the glint of steel caught the light from beyond the perimeter wall.

"Non, p’tit. Where y’ goin’, dere is no comin’ back. Crier pour nous, et goûter vos derniers moments."

She screamed.

---

Post Script:

- Unglued: On tilt (Playing poorly and irrationally due to emotional upset, often caused by the player in question having had a good hand beat by a freak draw from another player (often in complete disregard of the odds and good play) or the player having lost a pot because of his own bad play. Also called steaming, having one’s nose open, opened up, unglued and being wide open.); usually preceded by come. "He just came unglued after he had pocket aces beat for the second time by the same live one."

Translations:

"Non, p’tit. Where y’ goin’, dere is no comin’ back. Crier pour nous, et goûter vos derniers moments.": "No, little one. Where you’re going there is no coming back. Scream for us, and taste your last moments."

11

 

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