Gambit sat on the window sill and looked out on the dark of night. It was three in the morning and he had been home from a good nights work for about half an hour. The cool breeze brushed against him and he closed his eyes and remembered:
"Do you suppose anyone heard us?"
"Dat would depend on how sound a sleeper your roommate is, cherie," Gambit replied.
Rogue giggled softly and then flinched a little as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
"Don't get too close shugah," she said warningly. "Ah wouldn't want to absorb you and make you lose your footing up here. It's a bit of a fall."
Gambit grinned at her mischeviously and moved in closer so that their lips were only an inch or so apart.
"Mebbe it's worth it."
Rogue caught her breath.
"You like ta live dangerously, dontcha swamp rat?"
"Life's no fun if yo' don' take risks, cherie."
Rogue smiled at him.
"Not many people like ta get this close ta me," she said softly.
"Dey don' know what dey're missin'."
Gambit looked over at Rogue, sound asleep in their bed. A faint smile crossed his lips as he remembered the first time he'd watched her sleep:
This was how it should have been the first time they slept together. A romantic dinner, dancing, and then the bedroom for a night of love making. Not that... that... that atrocity at the mansion after they'd come back from Australia. He didn't know who he had sex with that day. Was it really Rogue? Or had it been Julie? If he had just known beforehand that Rogue had absorbed her...
He leant over and kissed Rogue's head softly, before slowly slipping out of the covers so not to disturb her. He pulled on some clothes and headed out to the main/dining room to clean up. That was another thing too: Rogue should never have gotten stuck sneaking out of the mansion to see him, especially in this rat hole of an apartment.
Gambit closed his eyes. Why'd this have to happen? He missed holding her in his arms. He missed kissing her. He missed everything. But it was so awkward. It was so hard to be with her when he felt like every time they touched he was losing more and more of himself. He knew it was only his imagination - not even the time so long back now, when her eyes had turned into his, had either of them even noticed he had been absorbed.
Maybe... maybe he wasn't really as lucky as he first thought after all. Perhaps he really was getting what he deserved: a slow death as she gradually took away his life, piece by piece. Gambit opened his eyes again and looked back out the window.
He supposed he could always leave. Get a hotel room somewhere until he found a new place. Gambit snorted softly at that notion as he looked back at Rogue while she shifted in her sleep.
"I love yo'," he said softly.
Rogue's eyes lit up, a wide smile appearing across her face even as Gambit was amazed at himself for even saying those three words. Only to one other woman before had he'd ever said that before: Bella Donna. They weren't words he could just say lightly, and yet he found that he meant them. More than anything he really did love Rogue.
"Ah love you too, Remy," she said.
She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close and kissed him thoroughly.
No, he could never leave her. He loved her then, and he still loved her now. Maybe she was slowly stripping away his life, but without her, he didn't have much of a life to lose.
Gambit got off the window sill and made his way to bed.