A little fic inspired by 'To Rogue, From Remy', because I'd wanted to incorporate my headcanon that Rogue's favorite color is not green, and how Remy had figured that out. It went too long and didn't fit into that particular fic, so...here we are. Enjoy!

—•oOo•—

"Let's play a game, you an' me, chere."

She shoots him a look out the corner of her eye and through her lashes. "A game, Cajun?" She asks him, trying her damndest to ignore the fact that he's sitting too close to her on a roof under a gorgeous starry sky, and looking entirely too damn good while he's about it.

Anyone else would consider this situation one ripe with hot romantic potential, and flirt her ass off at the beautiful man who is always receptive to such advances from a pretty gal.

Anyone else but her. Because she can't. Romance isn't for her, and neither is the man known as Gambit, not really, no matter what he too glibly says otherwise.

"Mm-hm, a game," he repeats in a warm tone lit with humor, his unusual eyes bright as fireflies in the dark.

"Huh," she grunts sourly, looking away, "that all anything is to you, some dumb game?"

She knows she's being a bitch to him for no real reason, and it stings a little, going opposite of how she'd like to be. Because she wants to play, wants to so badly. She likes him, she wants him to like her, and she wants to know him.

But she knows it's all a downhill slide, because she's already sliding too fast, and unlike him, she can't easily climb back up.

"Non, not everything," he replies, his expression sliding from rakish to serious on a flick of his eyes over her profile. It simultaneously makes her heart surge into her throat and hollows out her gut, his intensity, and she knows she'll be over-analyzing every noise out of his face for the rest of the night at this rate. "But some things, yeah, and this right here is."

"This?" She echoes warily, sliding him another sideways look. She's a bit (a lot) unsure if he means what he's about to suggest, or her, or them, or— "what's 'this'?"

He cocks her a smirk engineered to drop panties and burst hearts, and his eyes flash like the grade-A lady-killer he is. "Two lies, and a truth, chere. You guess the truth, and I tell you another. And vice versa."

She snorts and stares at him. She's beyond intrigued; if she guesses him right, she'd have two given truths and two implied ones out of him every turn. Depending on how many turns they take, this hard man to learn might give her more tonight than he has in the several months she's known him. And she wants to know him, which is setting off all kinds of sirens— "really, shug? A bit juvenile, don'cha think? Besides, it's two truths and a lie, ain't it?"

He shrugs. "Maybe I ain't got so many truths that're so easy to share as that, yeah?" His eyes turn curious on her, and then he shrugs and continues, "an' maybe it's the same for you, too, Ms. No-Name."

She stills for a moment, guarded. Then she shrugs in some relief as she realizes he won't pry even though he's pushing, and looks away. "Then why you wanna play it, huh?"

He chuckles deep in his throat, and it makes everything between her navel and her knees clench in a shot of pleasure. God, what would it be like to have him do that same laugh against her skin— "'Cause I like knowin' you a little more, Rogue, that's why."

She flushes clear to her feet. Stupid, stupid girl, getting all spun up over a man at all, let alone one like him, and getting flustered over a dumb game for teenagers. "Whatever. I guess," she concedes in a huff and a sharp flick of her hand at him, her tone maybe a tad too harsh. "I like dogs better than cats, any dessert's made better with lots of whipped cream, and my favorite color's green."

He whistles at her response, then throws her a grin that has her digging her toes into her flip flops. "So very glad to know you like cats best, chere, might have to find me 'nother girl to get to know otherwise. Whipped cream, eh?" His grin turns positively gross and still somehow charming, "mais, I can work wit' that, I like me some whipped cream on...desserts...too." He pulls a drag off his smoke and blows it away from her before continuing, "and bullshit, green's y' favorite color."

Her brows knot up at him. "Look at you, actin' like you actually know all that," she scoffs, hiding how naked he's just stripped her, rattling off all her truths like he's known her forever! It's not fair, because she hardly knows anything about him!

He takes another puff off his cigarette, and blows the smoke out in a series of circles inside of circles before easily answering, "chere, you don't gotta say everything for someone to know something about you." He shrugs easily and continues, "you gotta room full of stuffed animals, and they're all cats, a few bears, a turtle, a duck, and a couple of horses. Didn't see no dogs in that mix, so I figured you a cat lady in the makin'. Whipped cream, mais, of course that ain't a lie, who lives and don't like whipped cream? Plus, I seen how you eat y' pancakes. As for your favorite color, that's blue. Light blue. You gotta little of it everywhere. Clothes, in your room, and," his eyes slide appreciatively down her legs to her feet, "it's the color of your favorite flip flops."

She nearly chokes on her tongue at the way he'd just looked her over. She's aware of her looks, and she's aware that men appreciate them. She's also aware of how quickly men lose interest once they know, and as a result, nothing ever escalates.

This man knows, he's still interested, and it's definitely escalating. Well, it is for her, anyway. The fact that he's so obviously chasing her (giddy thought, that—no one has ever pursued her!), a man so goddamn mouthwatering, she's literally drooled while staring at him from a distance (in her defense, he'd been shirtless in the Danger Room, and she hadn't been the only one drooling)...

Well, it's a heady situation, him being so unsubtle in his pursuit. So unsubtle, that he's noticed such little things about her, and he wants to know more.

It excites her, terrifies her, makes her nervous, and makes her absolutely, ridiculously, stupidly giddy—

"Whatever," she grunts at him and looks away. "You're right about the cats and the whipped cream," she grudgingly admits, "but green is too, my favorite color," she insists maybe a smidge too snappishly, then flushes and dials her tone back a little (a lot), "I mean, I wear it all the dang time, and—wait, what're you laughin' at?"

"You, sittin' over there, all hissy-fied 'cause I guessed 'em all right," he rejoins, not actually laughing, though he might as well be, with the way those eyes are sparking. Then he softens a second, that fine-drawn mouth tugging out of his usual smirk into a genuine smile. "Now, how about that other truth you owe me, yeah?"

That smile rarely shows, and when it does, it does things to her.

She scowls at him. "No, I ain't," she snaps, her voice getting loud enough to make even her cringe, "I said green's my favorite color, and so it is, and I don't owe you nothin'."

There, she thinks, he can't damn well argue with something that final—

He hoots at the sky. Just...shifts back on his hands, his arm brushing hers, his thigh bumping hers, his hand placed so close to hers, she's itching to wriggle her ring and pinky fingers over and through his, and tosses his pretty head back and laughs at the stupid stars—!

Before she can gather her momentarily scattered wits and snatch away from him, he slides her a wildly uncharacteristic open look, his smile easy, and his eyes flashing a humored light show, the tip-tilted corners crinkling in such a way as to make her want to kiss them.

Stunning eyes, she thinks, and he's beautiful when he laughs...

Impulse has her reaching out before thought, and she only catches herself when his eyes drop to track her hand, her fingertips already halfway to tracing those lines around his eyes.

"I—I'm sorry, I just—!" She makes to pull back, utterly mortified. She hadn't thought! At all! She can't just...just go touching people, touching him, as much as she'd like to, as badly as she wants to know the texture of his hair, the bristle of his jaw, the feel of his skin—

She was stupid, and she can't believe—!

He reaches out, curls his fingers around hers, his thumb running slow across her knuckles and scattering her shot wits further. "Ain't nothin' to be sorry about, chere. You just what?"

"It's nothin', I—I gotta go," she stutters sharply, frantically yanking her hand out of his, already airborne to fly off and maybe die somewhere in her embarrassment and shame.

God, she'd almost touched him, and it matters not one bit that she has gloves on, what if she gets into the habit of touching him, because she totally could, and she unthinkingly does it one time without gloves, what if—she could've killed him, what if she does…!

"You didn't have nowhere to be til jus' now," he comments easily, then pats the spot next to him she'd just vacated. "Come back here, girl, you ain't done nothin' to run off from. 'Sides," he adds with a grin that makes her wish she could lick it off his face, "you absolutely do still owe me another truth, and I still gotta turn."

She swallows hard, eyes trained back to his hand patting that spot so close to him, where her butt had just vacated. He has nice hands, she thinks, I wish—

She abruptly stops that train of thought and jerks a glare up to his face. She can't be thinking about his hands, and how they feel on her. Because she knows they touch well, he's always been hands-on with her.

"N-no, I don't think so," she snaps at him, defensively moving up higher out of his reach, the hand he'd had earlier clutched to her chest. "And I—uh, I do have somewhere to go—" she stammers out, her brain frantically searching for just where that somewhere could be, and drawing a blank—"I need to go to bed—" (that trips her up, because goddammit, now she's imagining him in her bed)—"'cause yes, I hafta meet Logan early in the Danger Room tomorrow, and I ain't got time for your dang games, swamp rat!"

He grins up at her, practically showing off every tooth in his head, and looking a whole lot like he wants to suck her up and swallow her whole. "'S real important stuff, goin' to bed at a decent time. Me, I like nothin' more than beddin' down at a good hour, too." She flushes hotly, her mind already imagining— "ain't nothin' quite like stretchin' out across y' bed, nothing but sheets on y' skin, and passin' out after a fun night, knowing you about to wake up to more fun wit' someone in the morning, no?"

She glitches hard at the images flooding her brain. Images of him stretched out naked over his bed, a sheet tangled up around one of his legs. Him, sound asleep, his hair a wonderful mess. Him, with his scratchy face on her chest, his arms circled up under her, her leg casually slung up over his back.

Him, waking up with a grin and blazing eyes, moving up over her for more fun—

"Sure you don't wanna stay an' play the game, chere?" His teasing has her rapidly blinking her eyes and snapping out of the fantasy. "Might could shape up into a real good time here, you an' me gettin' to kno—"

"No," she huffs out entirely way too forcefully to ever be convincing, "I don't," she adds for good measure. His grin only widens, and she panics, because really, she can only take so much of his teasing before she really says or does something too over-the-top to be taken seriously. "I, uh, yeah—I really gotta, you know, go. To bed. Not to—uh—well...anyways," she practically ends on a hiss at him, "I got things to do tomorrow, so you can just keep your games to yourself, Gambit, I ain't got time for 'em."

She doesn't wait for his reaction, instead whirling up in the air and flying off before she either makes a bigger idiot of herself, or shoves that jackass Cajun off the roof for his dumb nonsense.

That doesn't stop her from hearing him, though. "'Til next time, then," he calls out, and she can hear the damn laugh in his voice, "sweet sleep, chere. Be sure t' not dream about me at all, y' hear?"

"Uuuuurrrrgh," she groans loudly in frustration, not giving even half a damn if he hears it not, and practically chases the sound barrier, she can't get away fast enough. Because goddammit, now it's guaranteed that she'll dream about him, and start doing so about the second her head hits the pillow—

"Shit," she hisses, realizing just a tad too late that she's not headed for bed like she'd insisted she was doing. And he'd noticed, too, the asswipe, hence his laughed-out comment.

"Stupid, stupid girl," she growls at herself, not slowing down for a second. Hell, he already knows she's not following through on her out. No sense in turning back now, she'd only look like a bigger dumbass if he's still there to see her fly in.

"Maybe he'll forget I did that," she mutters, changing course to shoot straight up for the best view of the stars she can do, "hell, maybe he'll forget the whole stupid evening while he's at it. 'Green is too, my favorite color'," she mocks herself miserably.

Miserably, because she knows he won't forget a thing from tonight. Experience has taught her that man remembers everything, her idiotic shit and all.

Experience has also taught her that he'll pull from any of it to flirt with her, tease her, tempt her, and sometimes (more recently, a lot of times, if she's being truthful)… just to talk to her.

That's when he throws her. His advances, she can usually deal with just fine, because those are only eventual disappointments and he's casual enough about it that it almost seems like it doesn't matter how she answers. But the being friendly part?

He takes her quite seriously then, like she matters, and he's still interested, the chemistry is always there, and he's so hard to tell 'no', yet she can't say 'yes'. She doesn't know what to do with that. She doesn't know what to do with him.

"Oh well," she sighs somewhat helplessly, punching up through the last cloud and up into the stratosphere, "at least he won't stick around long, you'll eventually run 'im off," she murmurs, looking up through the thinning atmosphere, eyes tracing the stunning starscape above her. "Hell, he probably won't even stay with the X-men that much longer, and then you ain't gotta thing to worry about."

The sky gives her none of its usual peace, instead damn near insulting her restlessness with its lack of turbulence, which only serves to ratchet up her nerves by at least a thousand notches.

She huffs into the thinned air, her laugh equal parts bitter and excited, her heart already equal parts broken at the thought that he'll leave her and excited that it's already his to break in the first place.

"Nope, not a thing to worry about at all, huh, you silly girl."