Chapter Text
author: Lucinda
rating: pg, angst.
main character: Remy thinking on Rogue
disclaimer: Nobody from Marvel belongs to me.
distribution: please ask first.
note: post Antarctica
Wrapping the large towel closer around his body, feeling as if his bones were still cold, Remy settled a bit closer to the fire. He stared into the heart of the flames as if seeking something, some secret wisdom or knowledge that would make everything clear to him. He held one hand out, fingers spread, the flames nearly licking his flesh as he sought to pull it's warmth into himself.
The fact that the sand he was crouched on had been warmed all day under the Caribbean summer sun was not a deterrent for him. Nor the fact that everyone else was in shorts and swimsuits while he huddled by the fire that had been set for the barbeque that night. Honestly, he wasn't certain if it was true cold he was feeling or just the memory of the cold, but he just... couldn't feel warm any more.
His mind kept returning to HER. He'd loved her, or tried to love her. He'd changed his behavior, stopped stealing, been as loyal as any woman could ever ask, all for the sake of one woman, a curvaceous mutant with a white streak in her chestnut hair. She called herself Rogue, and had left her childhood behind her, leaving only a shadow of the child she'd once been. Then, she'd joined the X-Men, leaving her past behind once again, the past of a terrorist, a wanted criminal who had caused damage, fear, and the near death of a superhero.
She'd started over, re-making herself from Rogue of Mystique's Brotherhood to Rogue of the X-Men. And everyone accepted this, gave her the occasional nod of having 'turned her life around'. Sympathized with how terrible it must have been to have Mystique as a mother. Welcomed her with open arms and teary eyes.
But he'd been given no such opportunity. Would it have been different if he'd proclaimed his crimes, declaring them with a thick accent and copious amounts of tears? Would a show of repentance have bought him the acceptance that it had gained her?
He'd just wanted a chance to start over. No more than anyone else had asked for. And for a while, it had almost felt like he'd be allowed to try to earn a place on the team, to earn their trust. To earn acceptance.
Part of him wondered if his pursuit of Rogue had been a subconscious effort on his part to blend. He'd been reading people and trying to make use of that information for so long that he hardly even noticed anymore. Had his subconscious and old habits concluded that if he had some feelings, some easily interpreted desire for one of the women that he would be more easily allowed to stay? Had he chosen Rogue because, while comely and a bit flamboyant, she was the untouchable, unattainable goal? Had he pursued her solely to carve out a place among the teams? He thought that the feelings were genuine, at least at the end...
Of all the people at the mansion, both on and associated with the X-Men, he would have thought that Rogue would have understood the desire to move away from the past. She'd been running from hers so fast and so hard that the woman didn't even use a name! But she hadn't understood, hadn't offered even the tiniest shred of compassion. She'd ranted and shrieked like a banshee, claiming that he'd betrayed her, that he'd lied about his past.
Truth be told, he simply hadn't volunteered things about his past, leaving things unmentioned, unknown. Come to think of it, wasn't that the exact same thing that she had done?
But he'd been condemned for his silences. Cast aside by the woman who'd only hours declared her love with eyes shining with tears, whispered about her fear that something terrible would happen to them, pleaded for him to hold her close, to help chase away her fears and worries...
No! He had to stop thinking about her like that. If any of that had been real, she couldn't have abandoned him to the ice. So, the only part of her that could have been real was the cold, bitter woman that had left him to die, had judged him as guilty, as a killer without hope of redemption. Certainly not the actions of a woman in love. Not even the actions of a woman with the slightest measure of respect for him.
Never again would he permit his emotions to be swayed by her sparkling eyes or buxom figure. Never again would he let her honeyed voice persuade him to try something, or arrange a small favor. She had betrayed him, betrayed her 'love', his trust, and the whole damn 'second chance' theory of Xavier's that she'd clutched at so desperately for herself. Rogue was a hypocritical, deceitful, judgmental...
He didn't love her anymore. He was almost certain that he'd loved her then, but anything that had been there before, any compassion, respect, or trust was gone, frozen into broken shards in Antarctica.
Part of him still cried out, demanding to know WHY. Why had she betrayed his trust, why had she left him to die? Why had she rejected his feelings, declaring that he didn't love her, didn't know how to love? What gave her the right to pass judgment on the existence of his feelings?
It didn't matter why. Rogue didn't matter anymore. The X-Men didn't matter, let them keep Rogue the former terrorist minion and near murderer and Joseph the youthened Magneto the mutant supremist. He could survive without them.
If he could only get warm again...
end Open Eyes.