Whispers

She was a fighter, all right. He got the hard end of her boot, the backside of a sharp elbow in his ribs, and a floor rushing to meet his face before he hardly knew what hit him.

He liked it.

She was fire and she was passion. She fought hard and dirty and for the sheer pleasure of it. He fought her back in like terms.

One look at Logan's face and he knew he'd get a talking later. No, don't you dare touch my girl. She doesn't deserve to be hurt.

But she does deserve to live, neh?

He was a southern boy to the bone. He opened doors for her, pulled out her chair, then promptly cooked up a heavenly warm-smelling feast of southern cooking.

She pretended away their first encounter in the self-same kitchen and simply enjoyed the difference between her own boyfriend, Bobby, and this new X-Man. Bobby was cold, icy as his mutation, and firm and northern and old guard rules. Remy was warm and spicy and all shadows and liquid motion and southern and old school gentleman and it warmed a part of her that had been cool too long.

She liked it.

The third year was a haven. It was good to give up and give in and just start living, and both of them could admit that it was just blessed, aching relief to stop expecting and let themselves love. Remy had not courted anything like the steady way they fell in together, her head on his shoulder, his arm 'round her waist. Rogue had never wanted this, hearts beating gently as they just were together, not talking, not doing, just were. But she wanted it now.

They stopped forcing it along. They stopped forcing it apart. For once, they took everything in stride.

Rogue wasn't the kind of woman that knew how to open up and trust, and Remy wasn't the kind of man that wanted her to. She wasn't the woman that gave in and surrendered without pitching a battle, fierce and loud enough for the entire world to hear. She stood her ground. She fought for what she wanted. And Remy was just stubborn and fierce and strong enough to fight her right back.

It wasn't stable. It was in and out, trust and don't trust, silence... It wasn't healthy. It wasn't right. But it was theirs and they cherished it.

It didn't flicker, didn't flame, but it burned.

He found her with Logan's motorcycle, thought it a little odd at first. That is until he saw the keen gleam in her eye, the practiced appraisal of a wounded beauty, the confident way she settled down to work.

"You like motorcycles, chère?"

She popped her head up, startled, then eyed him warily. "Yeah..."

He smirked at her over his own Harley, grinned when her gaze blazed hungrily over it. "Mind if I join you?"

She licked her lips, eyes still on the motorcycle, and he almost laughed, but he didn't. Not at that shy smile, that hesitancy.

"Sure, sugah."

The second year was a knife's edge. They tore each other apart just to put themselves back together.

She scoffed in disbelief when they told her it couldn't--wouldn't—last forever. There was nothing in Remy and nothing in her own self that could ever be anything less than passion and pain and fear and desire and fire.

Of course, she was wrong.

Somewhere between the fighting the good fight and coming home and playing cards and laughing together and riding their motorcycles, or working on them in the garage, and facing each other day after night and night after day, something stuttered painfully between them, nameless, faceless, but hopelessly, undeniably present. It was too stable—up and down but always, always drawn back into that center again with breathless, aching love and passion and fire and fear and pain and fierce, stubborn hope that would bind them together for just too long. They didn't know how to handle it.

She told herself that distancing herself and watching him from afar when he showed up less and less, this was how they reminded themselves of who they really were. When it hurt too much—and it always did—Rogue told herself she was just full up, tired of the fighting and the tears and the making up and the loving and the waking up each morning to his intent gaze and quiet talk. She didn't want it any more. She was done, through. Neither of them were the kind of person to settle down. They just weren't.

But it was all a lie. She knew it too. He knew it. They both felt it and gravitated awkwardly around the fact that their fire wasn't what bound them together.

Somewhere between the flames she had seen on the surface of their first year together, his life and hers had grown together and intertwined like the roots of trees planted side by side and knotted beneath their skins. To stand too close was suffocation. To walk away was brutal agony. And suddenly, being separate, living separate lives, if only to find themselves and not each other, stopped being an option.

The first year was a whirlwind. She fell out of love with Bobby and somehow fell into the arms of her nearest friend. Remy was the kind of friend who held her, cooked for her, let her cry as long as she needed, fed her ice cream, blew off the people trying to drag her depressed hide out of bed, dragged it out himself when he decided she'd had time enough to start living again. He wasn't a girlfriend or particularly trusting and trustworthy. He certainly wasn't open with his own secrets or life, but they had bonded upon his arrival over their shared love of all things southern, their joy in motorcycles and adrenaline rushes, and the unstated but tacitly acknowledged ability of both to keep their mouths shut.

And that is where she always thought it would end.

But somehow, almost before she realized what had happened or what she was doing, late nights in the kitchen turned into late nights in his room playing cards, and those in turn became late nights doing things to each other that had nothing to do with simple friendship or comfort talks. It startled Rogue how easily their easygoing, stable relationship became a whirlwind of fire that set off sparks in her belly when he looked at her and made her heart stutter and her tongue trip and every part of her melt and fly and crash with the dizzy, heady giddiness of--

Neither of them admitted it right away. Rogue denied it by hanging around Logan. Remy denied it by hanging around the clubs, like as not with a girl or two on his arm.

And it hurt when Rogue saw him come in with lipstick on his collar and the color of perfume smudged somewhere he hadn't got it washed off. She'd snip at him and yell, and it was oh, so satisfying to hear him yelling back.

Yelling turned to fighting. Fighting turned to grappling. Grappling turned to holding so fiercely, so tightly to each other that it seemed the world would simply stop if they ever let go. She loved him. She loved him.

It wasn't stable. It was up and down and fling them around and laugh and cry and scream and stony faces, stony silence and kisses, caresses, cruel retorts, hold close and push away. It wasn't healthy. It wasn't right. But it was theirs and they cherished it.

It was fire.