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Sometimes a girl wants to get away from the oppressive weight of her peer circle, those children of earth and flowers and crystal healing, to a truth more profound and deep than their own. Sometimes she needs to leave behind well-adjusted middle class urbia, the pioneers of academia to seek relief in another tangible form. Sometimes, she needs to be honest with whom she is.
It's here, then, she slouches like the beast of Bethlehem. A long green tunic split up the sides might have been pinched from an Indian bazaar in Hell's Kitchen, and those capri pants paired with it might shock the eyebrows right off Professor Xavier's face if he actually could survive without them. The older generation isn't at all prepared for things that flatter the knee. Add a pair of big round sunglasses, she looks a bit posh. A bit. Or a total bohemian. The bouncer is given a plain stare through them as she gets closer to the door, sizing up the opposition. "Any cover?" No, she hasn't been here.
*
"Ain't no cover," says the burly mutant with porcupine hair and an a-shirt. He nods towards the bar, allowing Rogue in, before looking out on the street to see when and if the next fight might break out. It's a rough part of the roughest neighborhood in town.
Inside, loud music is blaring bebop music and it is packed with mutants of every type. When she enters, Rogue may realize she recognizes the man with the dark hair, large glasses, smoking cigarettes on the bench near the far wall.
*
Sure, Rogue looks too clean to be in here. On the other hand, the cotton she's wearing is thin enough light can pass through, neon reduced to a sickly glow on her fair skin. Then again, it takes a brass pair to come down here dressed that way. She reaches up to push her round glasses up over her foxfire hair, glittering green eyes taking in the rush of people, places. "Thanks," the redhead mentions over her shoulder, slipping past him. The long sleeves of the tunic end in a band of embroidery that just lands past her knuckles, good to cover her long fingers.
Of course, there's just one problem. Mutants, so many of them, in front of her before she gets where she wants to be. Smoke churns around her while she cuts a path, stride hitched, like a unicorn trying to tiptoe among the ponies and drafthorses. She's just not going to elbow people out of the way, but the inevitable destination is a pool table and God in His heaven help anyone who tries to pinch her ass. One of those rare mutants not obviously so, at least off the bat, she eases her way on. Outer wall. Outer wall. Then table.
*
As Rogue makes her way across the outer wall, Remy notices the southern belle walk by. "Lil bit late, cherie," he says with a grin and removes his sunglasses to get a better look at her. "S'posed to meet a few weeks back, but like ole Remy always say, 'better late than never.'"
"Who you comin' to meet? If he ain't no one in particular, maybe you're fixin' to have a drink and maybe Remy be buyin."
*
"I put the whiskey out in a bowl every night on my windowsill thinking it might bring you, but then I remember, silly girl, you don't use whiskey to catch that kind of Frenchman." Beat. "You use bourbon." Rogue's words have a kind of beat to them they never do in the city, the moments when she lets that indelible southern stamp touch her voice after so much conscious effort not to. After so much conscious effort for everything else, the burden never leaves.
"But what's that say about a man, that he leaves a lady doubting his intentions? I do believe, sugar, you have a few things to make up to me." She plucks out a few coins and peers over at the pool table, sizing up the likelihood of a vacancy.
*
"Oh, I t'ink whiskey or bourbon would do just fine, chere," Remy says with a smile as he reaches out to put his arm around her. "My intentions always been clear, Scarlett. It's just my watch that needs work."
In truth Remy has been pretty darn busy. It was he and Raven who had kidnapped that pig who kickstarted the Mutant Riots a few weeks ago, the guy who had killed a mutant girl. As much as Remy loves to spend time with folks, especially Scarlett, there are some things that are even more pressing for him. He reaches toward the bartender and shows two fingers as he orders drinks.
Once LeBeau realizes that the lady wants to play pool he leaves her side and says a few words into the ear of one of the bricks who is playing. The giant of a man gives a quick nod and then he and his partner leave their sticks on the table and head toward the side. "T'ink one just opened up."
*
"Can't be helpin' you with that, sugar. Learn to tell time by the sun or moon then." A joke? Might just be, as she folds her arms across her chest and eyes down the felted pool table. Sticks left where they are, still warm from foreign hands, warrant an arch of her eyebrow and not much more. A challenge is a challenge, and far be it from Rogue to kick that gauntlet away. She'll bend plenty fine to pick it up.
As the men go, she saunters over and takes one of the sticks, the end eyed in case it requires a smear of blue chalk ground in like some magical totem. "What incredible timing. Well, seeing as how that turned out providentially for you, I better rack the balls." She doesn't wait for approval on this, leaning down to check the pockets for any sunk stripes or solids, and starts collecting in the middle of the table more of less. It means plenty of bending and leaning, which those capri pants are suitable for. A skirt? Not so much.
"And just what are those intentions? Don't keep a girl breathless with anticipation over that." Over something else? Of course.
*
"Guess I best be gettin' myself a pocket watch," Remy replies with a shrug of the shoulders as he takes the other pool stick and rolls it across the felt back and forth to check how smooth it rolls. Satisfied, he takes it up into his hands and sets it on the side of the table as he watches Rogue rack.
"Just lookin' for a friend to spend my time with. Ain't ever implied any different."
*
The smile thrown up across the table is something sunnier than it has right to be in a place like this. "That'll be the day." The triangle wherever it is gets used to center up the balls on the worn out dot marking the center, and Rogue stands back to check the effect. "I think that will do, you agree? First shot is yours." The white cue ball sits off to the side, still trying to roll away and make a run for it.
Easy on the balls of her feet, the girl who calls herself Scarlett to some moseys past Remy and flashes a smile at him, circling to take up a spot to watch at a corner.
*
"Me first?" Gambit says, looking hurt. "But, mademoiselle, dat'd prevent poor Remy from bein' a gentleman." A devilish smile broadens on his face as he nods to the table, insisting that she go first.
"Don't t'ink you ever did say your 'ntentions, miss. Y'been less than clear yo'self."
*
"I'd like to get to know you, provided that isn't too forward for a lady to say. Not how it's done everywhere but then I am getting awfully tired conforming to all the nice things a good girl is supposed to do." Rogue sighs softly and then circles the table again, passing the opposite side. She takes up a good look, but a triangle is a triangle. The cue ball put center, she will soon have the business of figuring out how to angle up the cue without smashing said sphere through the opposite wall. It's not an easy thing. Her brows wing together and she exhales slowly, each inhalation more rhythmic than the last, giving a sort of meditative focus.
Focus. Focus. And then her arm moves a bit sharply, striking the ball forward. She doesn't use much force behind, and she really need not, choking at the last. Still that will be sufficient for a resonant crack. Provided the ball hasn't hopped away like a demented rabbit.
*
"Fair enough," Remy replies. "Open book over here," he lies as he leans back a bit when she strikes the ball, careful not to get hit in the face should she not have much experience in playing the game. He watches the balls whip around the table and will take his turn if she doesn't get any in.
"What would Scarlett like to know about Remy LeBeau?"
*
Dear Diary,
Today I inquired after a strange man in a bar for mutants about whom he was, and he actually agreed to answer my questions. That means picking one. Daisies and bourbon, where do I begin?
<3 me
Such may be entered into her journal some other day. Rogue bites her lip waiting for one of the balls to sink, and the choking of force may not have helped her. It won't help Remy either in a way becasue they scatter in abstract heaps of primary colours splintered by the green felt. "What you look like without the shades." She taps her own, back on her head. "Why you came to New York, if that's too personal."
*
Remy gives Rogue a good look at his eyes. Black all over with red irises, it's easy to see why he was called the white devil ever since birth. The more people learn about the mutancy issue, the more they find that it tends to happen at puberty, and that's when Remy's main power took over. His physical abnormality though, that's been with him since he was a child, in stark contrast to most of his kind.
"Why did ole Remy come to New York?" he asks tilting his head as he stalks around the table. "T'fight de only fight worth fitn', course."
He lines up his shot, a very tricky bank shot that he comes close to, but misses.
*
Her own irises just skirt the line between lovely emerald and unnatural phosphorence, something distinguished more by the lighting and shadows. Mind the white streak in her hair, easily called a bleaching accident, and Rogue could pass for whomever she likes. And that's the only way to keep herself straddling the line of known and unknown, unless the man comes around to grab her unexpectedly. She meets his eyes, all the same, and whatever of herself is mirrored in Remy's eyes, hers are the altogether verdant mirrors for another blank otherworld.
"Some are saying it's more than a fight, that it's almost a war. One to survive," she murmurs under her breath, and winces when he misses. Sympathy is as does. The cue ball settles near a corner, and she takes aim at the patch of stripes together like grapes. The angle is a bit oblique, but a sharp, cut snap of her wrist shuttles forward the white ball to smack them and the cherry red one goes wobbling into the battered pocket.
*
"Dey brought de war t'us," Remy says as his eyes leave hers and look at the table. "And almost don't cover it. It's a war. Others who wish it wasn't are just foolin' demselves."
"Looks like you're solids, love," Remy says as he nods to the table. "Your shot once more."
"What about you, cherie? Why are you here? Must be a mutant—normal gals don't come around dese parts in dis part of town."
*
"Hard to say. I've never been to war myself, only seen the pictures and the news reels. Looks and feels different than that, but some people around here might lynch me for saying that too loud." She runs her hand over her hair, dislodging one of the small flowers worked into a braid. It's real, a delicate single peony with papery petals in white, something common to the south. Rogue checks the narrow spot where the cue ball hovers in a sea of felt and balls too close. Time to measure angles and trickshots, neither of which are much her speed. No harm for it, she can use beginner's luck.
She looks up to him when he calls her out. Hesitation there, it spells volumes. Such as she is, Rogue smiles a bit wanly. "I never come 'round here either. Decided to see what the fuss was about but still doesn't feel like home." She pulls the cue back and neatly smacks the white sphere into rolling around like a demented satellite.
*
"Not bein' fair, Scarlett. Ole Remy tells you anything you want to know. Y' respond in kind by bein' cagey." Le Beau holds his cue on the ground and holds it against his body. "Don't seem fair."
Remy watches as the balls go around his table and preps for his shot; an easy sinkable one at the one with the yellow stripe. Le Beau slowly knocks the cue ball against it to prevent the white cue from going too far. He begins to line up the next shot.
*
"I'm not trying to be cagey. The truth is I don't have an answer for why New York City over Atlanta or over Chicago. Ever felt pulled without having reason, and it goes against every reason you got? That happened. It happens now and then, this fuzzy hook that drags me in." Rogue's protest is soft and a touch harsher, as though she hasn't come down on a solution to accept it herself. She watches him sink the yellow ball vanish from sight, toppling into the darkness. Distaste at herself makes her frown, and she empties her lungs in a puff of air. No feeling sorry for herself.
"Fair it isn't, but at least you know your damn self, now don't you? And that's better than some of us got."
*
"Knowin' yo'self is pretty easy, Scarlett. Ask yo'self tough questions and answer honestly," Remy says as he leans low over the table. He takes a few practice slides as he attempts to get the stroke right. After a moment, he sinks the shot with some gusto, the blue striped ball slams into the pocket loudly.
Don't mean to be tellin' you how to live yo'life, Scar, but maybe iffen you focused on what you got rather than not. Sure you know yourself plenty."
"
*
"Means 'I don't know' comes up an awful lot. And getting to know takes some patience and practice. You put up with me doing a bit of digging, then there you go." The young woman shakes her head and then scrubs her hand over her face, casting a look at the table. Another ball down, another neat shot. A clap is given then, since that shot wasn't easy.
*
The next one is easier, but Remy misses it all the same. The focus of the previous shot must have been all used up. He straightens, clearly unhappy with the performance, but the moment is quickly gone. "Fair enough," Le Beau says with a nod. "What else does Scarlet wanna know?"
*
The performance is what it is, and unless the ball is rolling across the floor he can still sneak in a shot if he wants. "What's your favourite thing to eat?" Rogue steps back onto safer ground, the sort of conversation that never fails to bring a smile to her lips. She isn't really even paying attention to the game now, and if the green ball that goes shuttling off for a corner, careening off a bumper and rolling into the opposite pocket that she originally aimed at, it's fool's luck.
*
Remy doesn't take any extra shots. Instead, he acts fairly. Take a picture because it won't last. "Dat's a great question. For me? It's two dishes: Gumbo and Jambalaya. Nothing else for ole Remy even compares. What about you?"
*
"What's gumbo?"
Please don't hit her for that. The girl did admit, nearly, her memory is in worse shape than the economy of France in 1946. It took nearly the same battering, too. "For me, that's awfully hard. I do love me some hushpuppies, but you can't be letting that out. Otherwise anything spicy does the trick. Get into Hell's Kitchen and they have some awfully good places to eat, but you need someone to be a guide."
*
"Gumbo? You aint ever had Gumbo? Well, dependin' how dis works out, I know what we're doin' next time," Remy says with a nod. "Gumbo is like a little spoonful of heaven with a pinch of spicy hell."
Last time Remy LeBeau wandered the streets of Hell's Kitchen he had to dodge bullets. He was also the recipient of quite a bit of cash. "Hell's Kitchen ain't no place for a woman like you."
*
"The woman you see? Takes a little more than a mean guy with a chip on his shoulder to stop anyone in here, for the most part." Rogue slides her sunglasses down from her forehead, and the sweeping arc blanks out her vision again, turning her into just another chic bohemian wandering out of the Village in the wrong direction. "Reckon there's a lot of girls down there who ain't got anything to protect them except the color of their skin or the way their voice sounds, and not even then." She slides right out of English into French, battering it up to go right along with it, skewered constants rushing. "Besides, the Westies are the ones knocking things around up there, yes? Anyone sees my hair and eyes, they go right on thinking I'm some Irish girl. When something goes bad, I fly out of there fast as you can say boo."
*
Remy doubletakes when she mentions the term fly, as if for a moment she means that she could actually fly out of there. Now that'd be something. "Not sure 'bout the politics of the neighborhood itself," he says with a nod. "Remy more interested in what goes on de outside."
As he's about to say something else, another thick man comes and whispers something into Remy's ear. The latter immediately looks forlorn, "Cherie." He looks heartbroken. "You must accept my apologies, but I ahm needed."
*
Fly. Run, scram, begone. Or fly at a ridiculous acceleration that would defy common thought. One day, one soon, perhaps. "I know that much," Rogue-as-Scarlett confesses, giving the balls her attention again to figure out the next angle to take on pool. Then someone has to interrupt the reverie. Tinted shades do block her eyes, and perhaps the stricken stare there.
Her mouth works, finally resolved to a smile. "Go. They need you more, I imagine. I'll just stay here a while and if you get away, you get away. Otherwise there's a bowl of whiskey."