SquidgeWorld Archive

Monday Morning Blues
by Scorpio

There was darkness everywhere he looked. A swirling churning vastness. Confusion and mild fear filled his mind and he spun around in circles, desperate to find *something* in this expanse of nothingness. Then, suddenly, he was free falling. Gravity disappearing from beneath him as if it had never existed. His body felt far too heavy as the air rushed passed him. Mild fear morphed into panic as his arms and legs flung outward in the hope of grabbing onto something in the darkness. Anything that could stop his rapid mad descent. He was falling, falling, falling. Then, suddenly, he hit the ground.

"Aaaauuuughhhh!" ::thump::

Instantly thrown into complete awareness, Remy opened his eyes even as he continued to flail about... only to find himself on his bedroom floor. Logan's scowling and half asleep face was peering over the edge of the bed staring down at him in half concern and half irritation. Relief flooded through his body and almost made him giddy as he realized that it was just a dream.

"Ya all right down there darlin'?"

Remy offered up a wobbly smile to his lover and nodded his head, even as he tried to get his panting breath back under control.

"Oui, mon cher. Jus'... jus' a bad dream is all."

Logan grunted and nodded his head. This information didn't seem to surprise him at all. And it shouldn't. Both of them were prone to suffering nightmares. In fact, one of them dealing with nightmares was almost a weekly occurrence.

"Yeah. I figured that. I mean, ya kicked me in the shin an' punched me in the jaw an' then leaped outta the bed an' onto the floor as if the sheets were on fire."

A flash of guilt hit Remy, but only a small one as he offered up a sheepish grin and a whispered "oops" to his lover. Logan just waved it away as no big deal and truthfully, it wasn't. They had both done much more violent things than that in their sleep to each other in the past. In fact, it was a running joke among the X-Men that the only reason that they were together was because they were the only one's crazy enough to share a bed with their respective partner.

Beginning to feel a little sheepish about lying on the floor in a tangled heap of sheets and having the vague notion that it would be fun to climb back into bed and kiss Logan's owwies all better, Remy pushed himself up off of the floor. Once standing, he took a brief moment to untwist the sheets and let them drop back down. Glancing over towards the bed, Remy had an excellent view of Logan sprawled out on the sheets and pillows, the thick comforter pushed down low on his hips. That broad expanse of heavily muscled chest called to Remy and images of him licking and nibbling his way down it fluttered through his head.

Turning fully, Remy stalked over to the bed as the faint stirrings of arousal began to shiver through his body. Reaching the foot of the bed, he climbed up on it on all fours. Then, his imagination still supplying him with lots of lovely ideas of what he could do with and to his lover's body, Remy began to crawl up the bed. When he reached Logan's head, Remy smiled softly and then leaned down to kiss him. Gently his eyes closed as he got closer. He could feel the heat of his lover's flesh with his own lips and knew they were seconds away from kissing.

"Teheh-hee."

Instantly stopping all motion, Remy cracked open his eyes in confused irritation.

"Cher?"

"Yes... he-he, Rem?"

"Did y' jus' *giggle*?"

"Uh... he-he-he, sorta."

Leaning back, Remy closed his eyes and sighed.

"*Why* y' laughin' at Gambit?"

"Teheh-he-he... It's hard to explain darlin'. I think only a mirror could truly clue ya in on it. Besides, even if ya *didn't* look like a refugee from a hair conditioner commercial, ya *still* gotta get outta bed anyway. Don't forget that Scooter put ya on monitor duty in the Control Room for the morning shift."

Remy resisted the urge to fling his hands up to his hair and instead reacted to the second part of what Logan had said. He had truly forgotten that he had monitor duty this morning. His teeth ground together in a scary imitation of his lover.

"Merde!"

"Yeah, well. Ya don't have much time to fool around, so ya should start getting ready. And, um... he-he-he, do something about your hair while you're at it, bub."

With a mild snarl that he had learned from the amused and smirking man next to him, Remy pushed back away and got up out of the bed. Angry about having monitor duty soon and a touch hurt by Logan giggling at his hair, Remy turned to stomp his way to the bathroom. He made it halfway there before the desk's chair leaped out and bit him on the toe. Okay, so maybe it didn't exactly *leap*, nor did it really *bite*, but when Remy stubbed his toe against it, that's what it *felt* like. He howled like a stuck pig and grabbed his injured foot as he hopped about the room.

"Oowwwwww!"

Logan sat back up quickly, his expression clearly stating his confusion between the urge to kill whatever had hurt his mate and the urge to laugh at Remy's dance of pain.

"Wha... what the hell happened?"

Stopping his impromptu dance, Remy put his foot back down on the floor, carefully, so that only the heel was touching the carpet and his toes were all waving in the air.

"De chair ambushed Remy an' den attacked his toes!"

Turning his glare from the chair to his lover, Remy was not at all surprised to see Logan snickering at him. Remy scowled.

"That'll teach ya to pop me in the chops in your sleep, then won't it? Obviously, the Hair-Gods *and* the furniture are angry with ya."

Remy gave vent to an inelegant snort of both disbelief and injured pride then turned with his head held high and stormed the rest of the way to the bathroom, a whispered muttering of French profanity lingering in the air in his wake.

Flinging open the bathroom door and then slamming it shut behind him, Remy reached out and flicked on the light switch. Carefully shading his eyes with one hand, he blinked them rapidly to get them adjusted to the bright lighting. Finally, he could keep them open without pain, so he moved his hand away. The first thing that he saw was his own reflection in the mirror over the sink.

"Aaiiiieee! Mon Dieu! Wha' de hell happen t' Gambit's hair!"

Muffled laughter exploded from the bedroom at his cry and Remy spared a second to turn his head and *glare* at the door.

"Dis is *not* funny Logan!"

Turning back to the mirror, Remy leaned over the sink and studied his hair closer, assessing the damage. The left side and what seemed to be most of the back was fine. It hung in shimmering waves of dark red. The *right* side and part of the back was *not* hanging in soft smooth waves, however. Instead, the hair on that side of his head was tangled into what could only be called a snarl. A huge matted tangled *evil* snarl. The knot to end all knots. A *mutant* snarl. The kind of burr that animals *chew* out of their fur.

Suppressing the urge to cry and the need to fill the air with blush inducing profanity, Remy reached down and grabbed his favorite brush. Cringing at the expected pain he knew was coming, he brought it up to his head.

There is a trick to working knots out of long hair. And as anyone *with* long hair will tell you, *never* let someone who has never worn their own hair long brush *yours* until *you* have gotten all the knots out first. They don't know this trick and will practically *kill* you from the pain of doing it wrong. With long hair tangled into huge mutant knots, you have to start at the *bottom* and work your way up. Not that this *doesn't* hurt, but it hurts *less*.

Grabbing a literal clump of hair, Remy put the brush into the mess down near the bottom and slowly worked the brush through it and down. It hurt and it tugged at his scalp even as it took four separate tries to get the brush all the way through. Still, when he was done, the bottom three inches of the first clump were tangle free. Then, still on that single clump of hair, he moved the brush up three more inches and began the long involved process of working *that* part of the tangled out.

Slowly, painstakingly, more and more of Remy's hair was detangled, unknoted and generally made snarl free. In exchange, the beginnings of a headache was forming from the continuous tugging and pulling against his scalp and his arms and shoulders were starting to ache from holding them up for so long. All in all, Remy was *not* amused.

Finally, after only God knows how long of brushing and tugging and muttered curses in both French and English, Remy's hair was completely free of the mutant tangled snarl. The brush was able to draw down smoothly without snagging or pulling on any bit of hair, no matter which point on his skull that Remy started it at. For a swift moment, triumph and relief swirled up inside of him and all was right with the world. Then, Remy glanced in the mirror once more.

The side of his hair that had *not* been ensnarled in the mutant knot hung in soft shimmering waves that brushed against his skin like living silk. The side of his hair that *had* been tangled up in the matted mess was now unknotted, that's true, but the snarl had left it's mark. That portion of his hair was frizzy and untamable. It pushed out away from his scalp in billowing clouds of fluff. It was... *poofy*. Remy growled at it.

"C'est con pour Gambit!"

A bark of laughter from the bedroom let Remy know that Logan had not fallen back to sleep yet. Then his lover's deeply amused voice called out to him.

"Tell me darlin'. Just *why* does it suck to be Gambit this fine morning? Well, other than fallin' on the floor, stubbed toes and the curse of the Hair-Gods?"

Turning around, scowl firmly in place, Gambit flung open the bathroom door and stalked into the bedroom like a man on a mission of pain and bloody gore.

"It's still de dammed Hair-Gods!"

Remy stormed over to the bed and leaned forward, his brush pointing at the unruly portion of his hair, his expression a mixture of towering annoyance and crestfallen hurt.

"Look at Remy, cher! He's... he's... he's *poofy*!"

To Logan's credit, he stared blinking up at his lover, his face a crumbling mask of composure for a full thirty seconds before he broke down into gales of hysterical laughter. An expression of vague insult on his face, Remy swirled around and marched back into the bathroom, muttering comments in French about Logan's lineage and parentage as well as the distinct possibility that those parents were never married. His tirade ended with the slamming of the bathroom door.

Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Remy let the air slide out of him in a sigh of resignation. He figured that there was only one way to calm his uncontrollable hair and that was to wash it. He eyed the tiny cramped shower stall that was shoved in the corner of their bathroom warily. Neither he nor Logan used it very often. It was *tiny* and cramped and you always had to be careful not to bang your elbows and knees while in it. They both preferred the larger shared showers down the hall or even the Danger Room's locker room. But there was no helping for it this time. Quickly, he began to get things ready to take a fast shower in the tiny stall.

"Um, I hope that isn't the sound of you getting ready to jump in the shower, darlin'. You don't have the time. It took you forever to comb that mess outta your hair. You have to be in the Control Room in less than five minutes."

Remy froze in the act of reaching for the water knob. His shoulders slumped down in defeat and his head tipped back so that he was staring sightlessly up at the cracked ceiling.

"W'y y' mad at old Gambit, huh, mon Dieu? He been a good boy lately. Honest."

God didn't answer him, but Remy could clearly hear Logan chuckling right outside the bathroom door. Tipping his head around to face the door, Remy scowled.

"An' t'ank y' fo' y' support, Logan. It means a lot t' m'."

The chuckles got louder.

"No problem darlin'. Any time."

Sighing the sigh of the long suffering, Remy accepted the fact that he didn't have time to get back at his lover right at the moment. However, after his duty shift in the Control Room, he planned on giving away all of Logan's beer. Bobby and Hank would most likely take the majority of it, he knew.
Those two would sit down in Hank's office and get toasted while plotting against the rest of the X-Men. Then the next two weeks would be filled with pranks and practical jokes with various teammates as the victims. The bribe of beer would be enough to ensure that *Logan*, and not himself, was the main focus of these childish attacks.

Satisfied with his plans for revenge, Remy turned his attention to his problem. Namely, poofy hair and no time to shower. There was *no way* that he was going to wander the halls of the mansion looking like he did, but maybe if he just wetted his hair down? Nodding his head in agreement with himself, Remy stepped out of the still dry shower stall and walked back over to the sink.

Reaching out, Remy turned on the water and adjusted it a few times until the temperature was warm, but not too hot. Rolling his eyes at his own reflection quickly, Remy leaned over and stuck his head under the running water. Warm streams of water rolled over and through his hair, soaking it and he turned his head to get the side and bangs wet as well. Then, to his horror, the pipes made an ungodly squeal and banging thumping vibrations practically rattled the back wall. Remy had only a brief second of terror as his eyes widened to stare at the back of the sink in the general direction of the wall. The wall that he and Logan shared with Bobby Drake's bathroom. Suddenly, all of the cold water that had been mixed in to keep it at a tolerable temperature disappeared and the water left running over Remy's head turned scalding hot.

"Aaarrrrgghhhhh!"

In a reflex move, Remy yanked his head out of the steaming water. Not really paying attention to anything beyond his scorched scalp, he cracked his temple against the faucet. Hard. A wave of dizziness worked its way into the pain and Remy swayed on his feet.

"Merde!"

Suddenly, the bathroom door flew open to admit a naked and protective Logan in full on "Wolverine" mode. Adamantium claws extended, Logan glared about the bathroom, his nose sniffing for an enemy. As Remy watched his lover stand ready to do battle to the death in his defense while completely naked, something soft and squishy unfurled in his chest. Silently, Remy forgave Logan for all the giggling and teasing. Granted, he was still planning on setting Iceman and Beast loose with Logan's beer, but that was more a matter of pride than anger at this point.

Turning around, Remy reached out and placed one hand gently upon Logan's heavily muscled chest and cooed at him in a deep soothing tone even as his scalp continued to throb with his own heartbeat and burning hot water dripped down his shoulders and back.

"Shhhh. Mon couer, shhhhh. Remy's fine. Dere be no enemy here. Put 'way y' claws, mon cher."

Logan shook his head in much the same way that a dog would shake water out of it's fur and his eyes came to focus on Remy. Slowly, his tensed muscles relaxed again and Logan's claws retracted into his forearms once more.

"But what was that yell for, Gumbo? You ain't the type to shriek at spiders, so I know that wasn't it."

A grin spread over his lips at the reference to last week's crisis that Jubilee had over a spider nest found in her room. She had *ordered* both he and Logan to find and kill them *all* before she would even step one foot back inside her room again.

"Non, no spiders, mon ami. However, de Iceman is awake an' in de shower."

Logan leaned over to peer around Remy and scowled at the steaming water still pouring out of the faucet. Reaching over, Logan turned it off with a grunt of acknowledgment.

"Icecube's the only man I know that *prefers* his showers to be freezing cold."

Remy rolled his eyes skyward at this observation.

"True, but Remy jus' wish dat it didn' suck up all de cold water from de rest o de mansion, oui?"

Logan grunted again and turned to walk back out of the bathroom. With a sigh, Remy reached out to the counter for his brush in the hopes that he could brush the poofiness out of his now wet hair. Too irritated to pay strict attention to what he was doing, he knocked over the red plastic cup sitting
on the edge of the counter. Scrambling, he grabbed hold of it before it fell off, however, the thing *inside* of it kept going.

::plop:: ::splash::

Logan halted instantly in his tracks but didn't turn back around as he addressed Remy, who was staring in mild horror at the results of his clumsiness.

"Rem?"

"Oui, cher?"

"Did something just fall into the toilet?"

"Oui, cher?"

Logan grunted in resigned acknowledgment.

"Want to tell me what it was?"

"No, cher. Remy don' even wan' t' t'ink about it."

Logan snorted.

"Cher?"

"Yeah, Rem?"

"Can Remy borrow y' toothbrush? Jus' fo' t'day. He go buy a new one from de store aft'r his monitor duty over."

To Logan's further credit, he managed to mumble out a quick "No problem, darlin'." before he erupted into undignified giggles and guffaws. Remy's sigh was one that spoke eloquently of his feelings of being martyred even as he briefly wondered what the hell he had done to piss off the Hair-Gods so badly that they would enlist the help of the Dental-Gods in their quest to make his
morning a royal pain in the ass.

Distaste clearly flashing across his face, Remy reached down and only using two fingers, scooped his toothbrush out of the toilet. Quickly, he dropped it into the small wastebasket on the other side of the sink. Risking boiling his flesh off his bones, Remy turned the water back on and washed his hands. Then, with exaggerated carefulness, he reached out and picked up his brush again.

It was a quick moment to flatten and smooth out his wet hair into some semblance of order. Then, he grabbed up Logan's toothbrush and cleaned his teeth. He made a mental note to buy a new brush for his lover while he was replacing his. Figuring that since he didn't have time for a full shower, that an extra layer of deodorant was called for. There was nothing he could do about his lover's extra sensitive nose, but that was no reason that the rest of the residents of the mansion should be forced to suffer.

Snatching up his deodorant, Remy pulled off the top, not really noticing that it hadn't been pushed down completely tight in the first place. At least, he didn't notice until he tried to *use* it and found it to be totally dried out and crumply. Flaky white chunks shattered against his armpit and fluttered to the floor. Staring in dismay, Remy whimpered.

Putting the crumpled remains of his deodorant into the trash beside his murdered toothbrush, Remy turned back to face the sink. He eyed the roll-on deodorant that Logan favored with extreme distaste. He couldn't honestly explain *why* he didn't like roll-on deodorant. At least, not without
sounding like an idiot. It was just... *icky*. Clenching his jaw with determination and pulling in a deep breath to steady himself, Remy reached out and grabbed up Logan's deodorant. Cringing imperceptibly, Remy slathered the cold wet thick *disgusting* substance across his underarm. Against his will, he shuddered and goosebumps erupted all along his arm. For a quick moment, Remy honestly wondered if only doing *one* armpit was enough to hide his stink. With a put upon sigh, he switched the roll-on to his other hand and braced himself to be completely grossed out once again.

Any semblance of good mood he might have had when he had first awoken ground into dust under his still sore foot, Remy scowled his way back into the bedroom to be faced with a grinning and still naked lover sprawled sexily across the bed. Normally, such a luscious temptation would instantly catapult him into drooling mindless lust and happiness. This morning it just worked to make him even more pissed off and irritated from the unholy unfairness of it all. Every banged, bruised and insulted inch of him *wanted* nothing more than to slip into bed and let Logan kiss and pet everything all better. Instead, he had to leave and go spend the next eight hours bored out of his head in the Control Room.

Scowl firmly in place, Remy made his displeasure known by stomping over to the bureau and yanking open one of the drawers. He pulled out a pair of socks. Slamming it closed, he yanked open a different drawer and pulled out a t-shirt. Then, he stomped over to the closet and slammed open the door. Loftily ignoring Logan's deeply amused chuckles, Remy snatched an old worn pair of his jeans.

Sitting down on the chair that had bitten his toe earlier, Remy viscously pulled on one helpless sock, then the other. That finished, he stuck one leg in the jeans, then the other. Standing, he yanked them up and buttoned them. Grabbing his shirt, he pulled it on over his head and then bent down to grab his boots.

::rrrriiiiiiiipp::

Remy froze completely still in the suddenly silent room. A quick glance through his bangs over at Logan showed him that his lover's blue eyes were open wide even as he put up a valiant struggle not to burst out in hysterical laughter once again. It didn't matter, Remy could see Logan's lips twitching anyway even as his own eyes narrowed down into slits of anger. He *tried* to tell himself that it *wasn't* what he thought it was and that he really *didn't* feel a cool draft blowing over the now exposed crack of his ass. Unfortunately, it didn't work and his jeans were still split open wide.
Standing up again, Remy thrust his hand out towards Logan, one finger pointed at him and the others curled down in a fist.

"Don' even say a word, mon cher. Not *one* *little* word."

Valiantly trying to stifle his giggles, Logan mimed buttoning his lips closed. With a sound that was half growl and half sigh, Remy unbuttoned his ruined jeans and peeled them back off again. Stomping his way back over to the closet, he ruthlessly yanked out a different pair of jeans. Then, just as violently as he had pulled on the last pair, Remy put on these ones. Stomping back over to the chair to the accompaniment of Logan's soft snickers, Remy sat down and pulled on his boots. Standing up, Remy was just about to flip Logan the bird and then stomp off to deal with his turn at monitor duty when there came a banging at the bedroom door and Scott's annoyed voice yelling through the wood.

"Dammit Gambit! You have monitor duty this morning and you're *late*! Get your lazy ass out of bed and get down there. *Now*!"

The very last of Remy's usually endless patience snapped in half. Completely ignoring his lover's vast amusement and his team leader's confused surprise, Remy *flung* open the bedroom door with his red on black eyes blazing. Remy was positive that Scott had no real clue what at least half of the shouted French curses that were spewing out of his mouth really meant. Which, in retrospect, was a good thing since most of them were rude in the extreme and physically impossible at best.

Then, waving his arms wildly through the air and stomping his feet loud enough to rattle the walls, Remy continued his diatribe as he made his way through the mansion towards the Control Room. His anger finally beginning to run out of steam, Remy let out with one last announcement before he slammed the door behind him.

"Gambit *hate* Monday mornings!"

fini
~*~ scorpiofic@aol.com ~*~