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“Hey, sugar!” Rogue called out from the centre of the lounge. “Where d’ya want these?!”
Remy, who was still labouring through the hallway with a box of her favourite, well-thumbed books, merely replied in a distracted tone:
“Wherever you want ‘em, chere. Don’t matter t’me.”
Rogue swung round, easily balancing two large cardboard boxes in each hand, smirking when she saw that he actually appeared to be struggling.
“Why, sweetheart,” she lilted at him teasingly. “Ya actually breakin’ out a sweat there, hun? Need a hand?”
He slapped the box onto the kitchen worktop and gave her an upbraiding look.
“Chere, y’really gonna read all these books? Again?”
He stretched out the kinks in his joints, cat-like, so darn languorously that she could almost imagine him with his jacket off, the muscles rippling over his lines of his shoulder blades and his arms and—
“Can’t beat a good romance, Cajun,” she drawled back, still a little distracted by the sight of him – a distraction that was promptly broken by him snapping back into a standing position, a leisurely grin lighting his face.
“Oh, chere,” he murmured, the words sweeping out his mouth like liquid chocolate. “You ain’t gon’ have no need o’ those vanilla fairy stories now that you’re here wit’ me.”
A thrill of warmth curled up from her stomach at the delicious insinuation of his words. She tamped it down with an effort.
“Darlin’, neither of us is gonna get t’test that theory out till you help me with these boxes.”
She jiggled the boxes in her hands with an ease that belied the fact that they were actually filled to the brim with shoes, clothing, and other feminine titbits. Remy pursed his lips in answer, only partially successfully managing to hide a smile from lighting his face. He made no complaint as he sidled on over and relieved her of the two topmost boxes, turning back to place them next to the one already on the counter. Rogue followed, her step as light as if the load she was carrying weighed nothing at all. It was sometimes easy to forget, she thought, just how intimidating her strength could sometimes be. There were plenty of times in the past where she’d wondered just how he felt about the physical power differential in their relationship – there were plenty of men she’d known who’d been unsettled by the fact that she could overpower them with ease. Remy had never acted like it bothered him at all.
There were times she figured he actually thought it was a turn-on.
“Y’know,” she commented lightly as she set the boxes down next to his, “you have a really nice place here.” She spun on her heel and took a look round. “Can’t believe I never paid ya a visit here before.”
“Yeah, well, every time I asked you if you wanted to hang out, you always turned me down,” he replied pointedly. He could’ve made it accusatory, but there was a shot of humour to his voice that told her he wasn’t aiming for snarky. She slid him a smirk, a side-eye.
“’Hangin’ out’ in your place would never have been as simple as you make it sound.”
“Oh?” He leaned back against the counter casually and shot her one of his most winning smiles. “What makes you say that?”
“Remy LeBeau, you and I were on the outs for a long time,” she levelled back at him. “And while – yes – I admit I had had thoughts of doing the whole friends-with-benefits thing – like, for half a split second,” she hastened to add, when she saw the smug smile between to twitch at the corner of his lips, “you and I both know that, had I come here and ‘hung out’ with you, and things had got out of control, we both woulda regretted it.”
She stopped on a matronly tone of finality, but – goddamn the man – that insufferable smile was growing wider by the minute.
“Half a split second, huh?” he quipped, giving her a playful elbow in the side. “I’m willin’ to bet it was a lot longer than that, neh?”
She tutted and slid slightly out of his reach.
“And I’m willin’ t’bet you thought about it all the time.”
“Mebbe.” He grinned wide, making her stomach flip flop and knowing he was doing so. “But I don’t gotta worry about that now, do I, chere?”
So saying, he pulled her into a bear hug and smacked an exaggeratedly affectionate kiss on the top of her head. Six months ago she’d have pushed him away and grumbled about a thousand different things… but now she didn’t have to, nor did she have any inclination to. Instead she giggled and pulled him down into a kiss that soon ran the risk of setting fire to the place.
They’d had so much sex recently she was surprised they hadn’t even nearly got bored of one another yet. It hadn’t exactly helped that their honeymoon had been completely derailed.
“Okay, Cajun,” she spoke breathlessly, pushing him playfully away once they had a chance to breathe. “I think we’d better quit that before we end up wrestlin’ in bed again.”
“Chere,” he murmured, still barely an inch from her lips, “when you decide stealin’ my pillow is fair game, wrestlin’ is what you’re gonna get.”
He aimed for another kiss, but she dodged him easily.
“Listen to ya, Rem, gettin’ all put out just ‘cos of a pillow! I might just steal it off ya again, you’re bein’ so rude about it!”
“Please do,” he crooned sexily. “I love it when you’re naughty and I get t’tell ya off.”
“Pfft!” This time she pushed herself away from him fully, her eyes sparkling wickedly as she turned back to the nearest box. “Ya tell me off, and I could beat your ass silly, Remy LeBeau.”
“Oh really?” he leaned in seductively, his breath trailing her neck and making her shiver. “Kinda like when you go all dominatrix on me too, chere – when can we start?”
“Ugh!” She groaned theatrically. “You are too much sometimes, ya know that?! Here,” she said peremptorily, hoisting up a box into her arms with little effort and heading for the bedroom. “Why don’t you make me a coffee, while I start unpackin’? Then I might entertain the idea of wrestlin’ with ya!”
-oOo-
The cats were being a pain in the ass.
Any hint of a good box, and they were bound to be all over it – five boxes in total was like heaven to them, and unpacking was swiftly turning into a nightmare. One box was already being occupied by a lazy Figaro; and also by a curious Lucifer, who was doing everything he could to annoy his brother by pawing at his tail; Oliver, meanwhile, was toying around with a screwed-up hairband like it was something suspicious.
“C’mon, Oli-cat,” Rogue murmured, picking up the black ball of floof and, now that she had the nullifying collar firmly fixed around her neck, planting a vigorous kiss on his nose. “I actually like that hairband.”
Since Oliver looked none too impressed being coddled, she plonked him in the box with his brothers, and got to work opening up the second box. She hadn’t given much thought about what she was going to bring, apart from essentials – everything else had just kind of been slung in towards the end of it all, and she hadn’t even gone through most of it. If there was one thing she was bad at, it was de-cluttering. Most everything got shoved to the back of closets before it ended up in the trash.
The first layer of contents turned out to be a favoured blanket from her days at the mansion, one she’d never had the heart to throw away, despite how threadbare it now was – and under that, a few ancient DVD’s. Further down were some odd pieces of clothing, including a long-lost hoodie.
It was halfway down that she found a face-down photo frame; and when she picked it up and turned it over, she saw that it was a picture of them.
An old picture, from their Valle Soleada days – a close-up, candid selfie of them on the beach in a moment of uncomplicated joy – him, with his arm round her shoulder, pressing a kiss into her hair; her, laughing, hand clutching at his wrist in a lacklustre attempt to get him off of her and stop ruining the picture!
A whimsical smile slowly touched her lips as she remembered that day. A picnic on the beach and sex in the sand… Gawd, look at how tanned she was, in her skimpy string vest, made all brave by loss of her powers! And him, all shirtless and effortlessly sexy, his auburn hair all bronzed up by the sun! She’d kept this picture because it’d reminded her of the happiness she knew they’d been capable of having… And later, she’d buried it, precisely because that happiness seemed so unattainable, such a cruel reminder of what they could never have again.
How wrong she’d been!
CRASH!
Rogue jumped out of the memory at the sound, starting round to see that somehow the cats had overturned the box, Figaro darting into the lounge with an indignant yowl. Oli and Luce appeared to be fighting under the upturned container.
“Boys!” Rogue huffed, both annoyed and amused. “Stop it! Gawd, you’re worse than Wade Wilson when he’s won a dare!”
She lifted up the box, only for the two cats to emerge like bats out of hell, growling and whapping at each other before Oli decided to escape into the lounge, Lucifer close behind.
“Dumb cats,” Rogue shot affectionately behind them. She’d fast come to adore the crazy felines; and to be honest, she adored them all the more for the fact that Remy clearly adored them, and they he. She’d never pinned him as the kind of guy who was into having pets, but seeing how affectionate and attentive he was to ‘his boys’ had given her all sorts of funny feelings in her tummy. That man was so gosh-darned cute when he was gushing over those cats!
Unlike now, when he appeared to be hollering at them for tearing up his couch and ruining his rug.
She stifled a chuckle as she heard him finally join her in the bedroom.
“Don’t tell me those cats were fightin’ over you again!” he grumbled half-humorously as he sat down on the floor beside her, her coffee in one hand, and a woebegone Figaro cradled in the other.
“Not this time,” she bantered back. “Here,” she held out the photo to him. “Remember this?”
She watched as his eyes softened and small smile touched his lips.
“Oh, chere… Don’t think I could forget that day even if I tried.”
“Me neither,” she sniggered. “You were so careful about arrangin’ all those blankets, and you still managed to get sand in unmentionable places!”
He pouted teasingly, letting Figaro squirm out of his grasp and up onto the bed.
“So did you, if’n I remember correctly!”
“Oh shush!” She dug him in the ribs with a playful elbow, unable to help a blush from suffusing her cheeks. “I came outta that li’l escapade so much better than you, and you know it!”
Her poking didn’t even manage to halfway ruffle him.
“Was worth it,” he stated with a shrug.
For a few seconds they looked at the photo together, silently.
“You look so happy,” he finally broke the silence. “Didn’t see you lookin’ like that for a whole long time after.”
She acknowledged the comment, chewing on the inside of her cheeks thoughtfully.
“Yeah, well… things were so uncomplicated back then. No powers… no superheroics… No X-Men! As soon as they turned up – drama! Didja notice?”
His expression was wry.
“Yeah, and I ain’t gonna forget that neither. Bishop and Sage bargin’ in, ruinin’ the fun!”
“Ha! Yeah!”
She pondered a moment.
“Ya know… I really think… If you’d asked me t’marry you back in Valle Soleada… I think I mighta said ‘yes’.”
His eyes widened a bit at that. She’d surprised him a lot the past few months, but this had completely taken him unawares. He glanced at her as if to ask whether she was serious, saw that she was, then said quietly:
“Can’t say I wouldn’t have said the same thing too, if you’d been the one askin’.”
Now that took her by surprise. She stared him down as if expecting him to break out into laughter, but he didn’t.
“Then… why didn’t ya ever ask?” she blurted.
“Why didn’t you?” he asked right back.
She fell into silence again. Tried to analyse it. They’d both been so damn happy back then, in a whirlwind of love and freedom and giddy hormones… Just taking each day as it had come, and been thankful for it. Every second, every moment had seemed so precious, and so easily stripped away. Neither of them had dared question it lest the fates or whoever tear it right back out of their greedy hands.
“I guess,” she murmured pensively, “that we were both ready to answer… but not to ask.”
“Hm.” He thought about it a little bit. “You prob’ly right, chere. While things were uncomplicated, we was fine. When shit got real again…”
He left the sentence hanging, letting what had happened after they’d regained their powers and rejoined the X-Men speak for itself. And yet still a part of her rebelled against it.
“We should’ve got past all that,” she insisted sadly, stubbornly. “We learned so much about each other in California. We proved that it could work.”
“Oh, Mrs. LeBeau.” He leaned in close and planted a kiss in her hair, slung his arm around her shoulders in an almost-facsimile of the pose in the photo. “What’s it matter now? We’re here and we’re together in every sense of the word. I ain’t got a thing to complain about.”
He was right of course – but the inherent obstinacy of her nature couldn’t allow her to fully admit it.
“I was in-love with you then,” she admitted resolutely, like it was a challenge she’d never managed to accept before. “No more or less than I am with you now, than all the time I spent fightin’ my way to get back to you. Why didn’t it work out?”
She looked at him like she expected him to fight the way she was fighting, but instead he just looked… sad.
“Asked myself the same question ‘bout me and Belle once,” he replied. “For a long time. Truth is, there can be 100 good answers to that question, but it still don’t change the fact that it didn’t work out, and that’s proof enough we weren’t ready, not really.”
She snorted.
“Ya don’t believe that.”
“Don’t I?” He smiled faintly. “I was too hot-headed, too impulsive to have made it work – look what happened with that whole Death fiasco.” She made a rude noise at the suggestion, but he just continued right on. “And you… well, you needed to find out what it was you really wanted. Try on others for size, play the field a bit. Hey!” he added quickly when she looked like she was about to protest, “I ain’t blamin’ you! I mean, look at me! And you know what the weird thing is? You, takin’ that decision to be your own woman, to live a life not tethered t’mine… That taught me to wait for you, riskin’ the chance that you might never come back to me. And the most important thing? It taught me to be ready for you, Anna. No matter how far you were from me, I didn’t stop lovin’ you. Even when I figured I’d never have a chance with you again, I didn’t stop. And I knew I wouldn’t.”
The words were so heartfelt, so viscerally emotional, that she felt tears spring to her eyes despite everything. And his smile widened; he held her close, murmuring into her hair:
“Aw, don’t cry, Anna. It was no big sacrifice on my part. You just pretty much admitted to me you loved me through all the time we were apart. That makes all that waitin’ worth it.”
She gave a watery laugh, feeling a little silly as the tears started to fall anyway.
“I know I said it before, Rem… but you’re a prince, y’know that?”
He chuckled and squeezed her tighter.
“I know, beb. But I’m a king now that you’re my wife.”
She laughed lightly, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand.
“Always ready with them smart alec answers, y’are!” she teased him between sniffles. “Lord knows I’m the one who’s more than a king, bein’ able to call myself missus to your mister!”
“Pfft!” He grinned, pulling away a bit and wiping the moisture from her cheeks with his thumbs. “Trust you t’turn dis into a game of one-upmanship! Let’s not fight ‘bout who’s the luckiest here, ‘kay?”
She looked up into his face – still so sinfully beautiful after all this time, still the man she loved and had never stopped loving, not for a moment, no matter how much it had hurt to do so. So she ran her fingers over the deliciously tactile graze of his stubble, said: “Deal.”
And sealed it with a kiss.
Figaro meowing from the bed broke them apart with giddy laughter.
“A’right,” Remy pouted at him. “I know! Y’want your lunch! But didja haveta ask for it now!”
Figaro merely glared at him, looking as affronted as it was possible for a cat to do so.
“Aw, how could you ignore that cute li’l face!” Rogue chided him mischievously. “Ya go feed your brood, sugar, and I’ll finish up here. Then we can play.”
He rolled his eyes and made to get up, not before stealing another toe-curling kiss from her in the meantime.
“Yes, ma’am!” he shot at her cheekily, before leaving the room and calling back, “C’mon then, ya beast!”, to which Figaro promptly jumped off the bed and followed him out.
Rogue smiled to herself and looked back at the photo in her lap. Such happy memories she hadn’t dared to face again for years, it had hurt so much to entertain them! Now that pain was all gone. Forever, she hoped. She was brave enough to wish for it now.
Slowly she stood up, and placed the photo neatly on the nightstand.
“Remy LeBeau and Anna Raven,” she murmured softly to the two smiling faces in the picture. “I think we finally got it right.”
And for once, they really had.
-END-