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Monster Is A Relative Term

Chapter One: Hurricane

A/N: So I have a well-documented thing for vampires—actually to bastardize a Nic Cage witticism, I’m a vampire super-freak—so when I saw vampire as one of the prompts…here ya go. And it would also qualify for living in New Orleans and family shenanigans too, because, well…you’ll see. ;-)

This is a no-mutants AU, so abilities are all magic and/or creature-based. Preemptive apologies if I butcher the French and/or German languages, I relied upon Google.

Rating: Teen (some salty language that I’ll keep under the read-more just to be safe).

——

“He who fights with monsters should take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

—Friedrich Nietzsche

——

Remy LeBeau slouched low in a corner booth of Hell’s Belles, a hole in the wall nightclub on the outskirts of the French Quarter. His sunglasses were still firmly on despite sunset being hours ago, going for a hungover tourist vibe as he nursed a tumbler of bourbon, not suspicious or worse, creepy. But he was—suspicious, not creepy. The sunglasses were a necessity on the best of days—his eyes were best suited to low light, and had an unfortunate tendency to freak out the uninitiated—but tonight his needs were two-fold: inconspicuousness and to keep the woman he’d followed from knowing he watched her. She didn’t give any indication she’d made him, but this was the third night in a row he’d tailed her from the big, old house in the Garden District to various locales around New Orleans.

He’d be getting bored of the rather tame routine—bookstores, clubs, home, lather, rinse, repeat—if the view weren’t so good. Tonight she wore a silky emerald green tank top and black cutoff shorts so tight they looked painted on her pale, toned curves, with black fishnets and worn cowboy boots to complete the southern goth look. Her wild auburn hair fell in loose curls down her back, that distinctive shock of white framing either side of her face. And what a face it was: pale like the rest of her with a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks that gave her an air of innocence, but that was immediately belied by those mischievous green eyes heavily lined in kohl and the grin curling her full lips. Everything about her drew him in, and that was the point, wasn’t it?

Remy gripped his glass tighter as he took another sip, gaze tracking her steps from the bar to the dance floor as the band started up a new song, and slow, sultry guitar strains filled the room. She apparently favored live music and crowds, weaving her way through the throng of bodies easily. Her eyes dropped shut as she lifted her arms above her head, her entire body moving in time with the music, a bluesy cover of The Band of Heathens’ “Hurricane.”

She swayed in place, seemingly oblivious to all the attention on her as she danced. He dropped his gaze when those green eyes opened, flashing in his direction. When he glanced back up, she’d turned and started dancing with another woman, the two of them an arresting tangle of wandering hands and curves. He gave up the pretense of not openly watching her now—as it seemed like the entire room was equally transfixed, and it would be more conspicuous for him not to be—her head tipping back on her shoulders as her dance partner trailed her hands along her pale neck. This time their eyes met and held before she returned her attention to the other woman, leaning in to nuzzle her ear, lips moving to her neck. The music crescendoed, nearly drowning out the thudding of his own heartbeat in his ears.

High black water, a devil's daughter

She's hard, she's cold and she's mean

But nobody taught her, it takes a lot of water

To wash away New Orleans

Remy froze, even his heart seeming to stop a moment as he stared, hand clenching hard around the tumbler as it vibrated against his palm with a telltale whine, but she merely kissed the other woman’s pulse and stepped away with a wink as the song came to a close. She turned and applauded the band along with the other patrons, her dance partner looking a bit disappointed as his quarry returned to the bar alone.

He threw back the rest of his bourbon to cover the relief washing over him as he rose from the booth, watching her collect her long coat from the bar. She slid it on over her shoulders and flipped up the hood despite the night being clear and too hot for the garment—although he supposed he couldn’t talk what with his ubiquitous trench coat. Remy slipped his hands casually into his pockets and waited until she’d exited the bar and nearly turned the corner to follow, keeping his strides slow, quiet, and in the shadows as she started the familiar trek back to the Garden District. She never looked back or changed her pace, the clomp of her cowboy boots on the sidewalk the only sound until she rounded a corner shadowed by a large tree and a gust of wind sent the leaves rustling. He followed only to find an empty street yawning before him, frowning as he strained his eyes and ears for any sign of where she’d gone. His hand tightened around the blade stashed in his right pocket, muscles bunching in anticipation.

The tree branches shifting and creaking overhead was all the warning Remy got that he wasn’t the proverbial cat anymore, but the mouse.

——

Rogue let herself fall backwards, hanging upside down from the branch like a bat—cliché, sure, but why not have a bit of fun with this?—before breathing right into the ear of the man following her, “Boo.”

He didn’t jump, to his credit and her disappointment, merely whirling to face her with a flap of that ridiculous trench coat of his. She unhooked her knees from the branch, twisting around midair to land in a crouch, eying him as she slowly rose to her full height.

“Boo back, chérie,” he said, accented voice tight.

Cajun, she noted, looking him up and down. Brown hair falling messy across his tanned cheekbones, dark shades hiding his eyes, an angular, rough-hewn face with a few days scruff darkening his cheeks as he loomed over her—the definition of tall, dark, and handsome. She tipped her head to the side, offering him a grin. “You lost, sugah? ‘Cause you been following me an awful long time just to ask directions.”

His broad shoulders fell a fraction, realizing he’d been made. “When did you catch on?”

“Oh, don’t feel bad, handsome. You’re very good, I’m just better.”

“And modest.”

Rogue shrugged, unrepentant. “Modesty’s for amateurs.”

“‘S true,” he allowed with a nod.

“I might not have noticed if it weren’t for you always wearing that trench coat and sunglasses, but the real killer,” she stepped closer, eyes closing as she took a deep breath in, “was that smell of leather, cigarettes, and chicory coffee. It’s actually nice, but when I smelled it outside the house, then following me into the Quarter, then to Dauphine Street Books, then to Hell’s Belles, and back…” She trailed off with another shrug, “Not hard to connect those dots, sugah.”

He hummed, frustration narrowing very kissable lips into a thin line. “So why wait until now to confront me?”

“You were watching me, I was watching you. Wanted to know what I was dealing with before I decided what to do with you.”

“And what have you landed on, petite?” His voice was a low rumble that was also very nice, she noted unhelpfully.

Rogue folded her arms, biting her lower lip thoughtfully. “Depends on you, sugah. If you tell me you stalked me for three nights just to work up the courage to ask for my number, I’ll hurt you just enough to teach you a lesson then send you on your way. But if this is what I think it is…”

“It is,” he finished, pulling both hands from his pockets, a long blade gripped by his right hand, the other loose at his side. She narrowed her eyes at the odd gloves he wore, they left some of his fingers bare but not all.

She let out a deep sigh, lips curling as flashed her fangs at him. “Oh, sugah, it’s a good thing you’re pretty, because you sure as hell ain’t smart.”

“Really?” he prodded, the blade glinting in his hands as he shifted more into a fighting stance.

“Not if you’re hunting me, you’re not.”

“Who says you’re the one I’m hunting?”

Rogue froze, all humor draining from her and leaving her seeing red as the penny dropped. She launched herself at him, fisting that ridiculous trench coat by the lapels in both hands and flying them 20 feet down the street, slamming him back into another wide tree trunk. The knife slipped from his fingers and he wheezed as the air was punched from his lungs. She yanked him off his feet, pining him to the tree as she glared up at him, hissing, “You’re dumb enough to admit that you’re hunting my moms right to my face?”

It was the only thing that made sense. She’d first noticed him outside the house, which was in Irene’s name, not hers. He’d been casing it, not Rogue, and started following her mostly likely to gather intel on everyone living there. But for what? Was he really dumb enough to try to attack all of them?

He took a deep, gasping breath, head lolling as he struggled to meet her gaze. “They’re both your moms? Huh. I mean, I figured Irene was your sire, but Raven I wasn’t so sure what the connection was there.”

Fury rose at his conversational tone and she tossed him again, hissing as he rolled and came up on his haunches instead of smacking into the wrought iron mailbox she’d been aiming for. He’d lost the sunglasses along the way though, and she found herself staring into red irises on jet black sclera. She hesitated, assuming he’d been a human dumb enough to try and cosplay John Carpenter’s Vampires with the real thing, but what the hell was he with eyes like that? Rogue shook the thought off, reminding herself what he’d just admitted to. “You thought you could use me against Irene and Raven? Oh, you’re even dumber than I thought. Honestly, I should just take you in the house and let them have you at this point. They’d probably enjoy this even more than I am.”

“So you’re admitting you like to hurt people?”

“When they admit to hunting my family, hell yes!” She flew at him, realizing too late that he’d somehow gotten his hands back on that blade of his, and hissing in pain as he managed a cut to her forearm.

“Dammit, swamp rat, this coat is older than you and couture!” Rogue slapped the blade none-too-gently from his hand, the shallow wound more annoying than anything else. Him cutting her favorite coat though, that was worthy of maiming, even to a face like his. She pinned his body under hers with her knees, each wrist held captive by one of her hands. “Now what the hell are you?”

He smirked up at her, infuriatingly unconcerned to be at the mercy of an increasingly irate vampire. “Complicated,” he muttered, those red irises of his glowing in the dark. “How about you, chérie?” The bastard had the audacity to cross his ankles like this was just a casual chat.

“Impatient,” she huffed into his face, lips curling back to expose her fangs. Yep, that got his attention. Happy to have regained the upper hand, she leaned back a bit, still keeping his hands pinned, and let her gaze slide to his bare throat. “I’ll give you one last chance to come clean on your own before I do it for you.”

Rogue felt his wrists flex in her grasp, and pressed them down harder into the ground, not even using a fraction of her full strength. “I’m an open book if you’ll just ask nicely, chérie.”

“Nice was before you stalked me, threatened my family, damaged my favorite coat, and drew blood. But you’ll fix at least one of those in a second, no nicety required.” With that, she lunged for his throat and sunk her fangs into him. She quickly replaced them with her tongue, moaning at his taste before drinking deep. Her eyes slid shut as she focused on drawing his thoughts and memories from the blood, trying to filter through the initial chaos for what she needed to know most: Why was he after Irene and Raven? What was the plan? And who the hell was this insufferable man?

“…house in the Garden District, belongs to an ancient vampire and an shapeshifting demon. Find out as much as you can and report back.”

She saw a blonde with piercing blue eyes ordering him, arms folded, flanked by two men. One not much taller than the woman, with the same nose but with sandy brown hair—her brother, she knew from his thoughts. The other man, taller than both, had long dreadlocks and heavily muscled arms, with a mojo hanging around his neck. She tried to dig deeper, to learn their names, but the memory slipped away too quickly.

Brow furrowing, Rogue drew harder on the wound, putting more of her weight on him as she felt him tensing beneath her.

“Remy, you don’t have to do this,” an old woman with sad but kind brown eyes and a nimbus of dark curls told him. They clearly weren’t blood-related but his feelings for the woman were distinctly familial. He loved her like a mother, and she clearly loved him. Remy, Rogue turned his name over in her head, liking the sound of it, but preferring swamp rat or massive pain in the ass instead.

The memory changed again to one of pure terror: red eyes, not like his; pain, blood, and a laugh that made his blood run cold. It all became a mess at that point, flashes of laughing and drinking and dancing badly to Zydeco music with his arm slung around another man’s neck—Henri’s bachelor party, she knew without knowing exactly who Henri was—followed by a flash of Notre Dame Cathedral and blood across cobblestones, sickness cramping his guts, then her. Rogue saw herself through his eyes, felt his attraction in the way his gaze lingered on her eyes, her chest, her ass, followed immediately by guilt. Of course he’d feel guilty for being attracted to a filthy vampire. She again tried to dig deeper into his thoughts, but a high pitched whine broke her concentration. She furrowed her brow, slowly becoming aware of heat spreading from her hands up along her arms and back, the hairs on her arms rising like a static charge.

She’d just lifted her mouth from his neck to see for herself what the hell it was, eyes going wide at the sight of her coat glowing a violent fuchsia, the whine rising higher and higher.

“Oh, merde,” he groaned under her, shutting his eyes and turning his face away.

Rogue opened her mouth to ask what the hell was happening when he suddenly bucked her off him, rolling away as her coat exploded.

——

Remy came up on all fours, gaze immediately going to where the vampire lay on the ground, smoke rising from the lingering remnants of her coat and burned patches of skin. Her head lolled, face contorting in a wince but he doubted she was conscious, not from the force of a blast like that. He reached up to his neck, feeling blood sluggishly flowing from her bite. He hissed in a breath and clamped his palm down, collecting his blade from the ground with his free hand.

What the actual fuck was that? He hadn’t touched her coat, not with the death grip she’d had on his wrists, plus the shock of her not only biting him and drinking his blood, but feeling her in his head. Remy racked his brain to think if he’d ever heard of a vampire doing that, taking memories along with blood, let alone abilities. Because that blast had to have been all her, it reminded him too much of struggling to control his own powers when he was younger to be anything else.

He stumbled a bit, lightheaded from the blood loss and whatever the hell else she’d done to him, but he always did heal faster than most. She did too from the looks of the burns quickly fading back into her skin, aided by consuming his blood, no doubt. He flexed his hand around the blade, knowing she wouldn’t be down much longer at this rate, but despite what he’d said earlier, hunting wasn’t what he’d been here for. He was supposed to watch them and report back, it was Belle and Marius’ decision what happened next. But a vampire that steals powers as well as memories was too powerful to just walk away from, right? Especially if said vampire was blown-up, pissed off, and had gotten a taste of his blood and memories.

Remy only got half a step closer before a dark cloud of sulphur and brimstone enveloped him with a loud bamf. He coughed, raising the arm with the blade to shield his eyes when he caught a hard kick to the chest, sending him sprawling backwards. He looked up to see a blue-furred demon with pointed ears and pupil-less, glowing gold eyes barring its fangs at him, standing in a clear defensive crouch between him and the vampire. Its hands only had three digits each and two to each foot, but a long, spaded-tipped tail lashed the air behind it aggressively, brandishing an actual sword of all things.

“The fuck?” Remy muttered as he pushed himself upright.

Was this Raven? He knew she was blue in her true form, but didn’t recall mention of a tail or teleportation abilities. Plus, this demon appeared male—although he supposed gender was relative for a shapeshifter.

The demon growled at him once before disappearing in another cloud of foul-smelling smoke, reappearing at the vampire’s side and carefully maneuvering her into his arms, tail keeping the sword poised over his head.

“Rogue, geht es dir gut?”

She—Rogue, Remy amended mentally, not having caught her name before during his surveillance—groaned, brow scrunching as she turned toward the sound of the demon’s voice. “Kurt?”

“Ja, it’s me. Now tell me what he did to you so I know how slowly to kill him.” He shot Remy another glare with those unnerving gold eyes, lips curled back in a snarl.

Rogue winced as she shifted to push herself upright on one arm, the other gripping the front of the demon’s form-fitting outfit—was that a unitard? “Forget about him. Mom and Irene…get them out of here. Don’t explain about me, just grab them and teleport them somewhere safe. I’ll find you.”

“Spinnst du?! I’m not leaving you alone here with him!”

“I’m fine,” she spat, looking very much like she might throw up despite the stubborn set to her jaw.

Kurt shot her an incredulous look. “Rogue, you look like the last time Mom tried to cook a meatloaf.”

“I’m healing already,” she protested, the burned left strap of her tank top choosing that moment to snap and undercutting her words.

He quirked his head at her pointedly, and she growled under her breath as she used her hold on him to leverage herself up onto her knees. Kurt heaved a sigh and braced her with one hand under her other arm, holding his free hand out, palm up, as his tail brought the sword up and slashed across it. He barely winced, but Rogue hissed in a deep breath, freezing in his arms. “If you expect me to let you stay behind, you’ll be doing it at full strength.”

Her green gaze flicked from the blood pooling in his palm to his face and back, the indecision written across her face possibly the most confusing thing Remy had seen tonight—and that was saying something. A wounded vampire refusing blood willingly offered? What the hell? She certainly hadn’t needed an invitation to bite him earlier.

Seemingly losing patience, Kurt prodded in a overly-casual tone, “Or I could just bust in the house and tell Mom and Irene that some weirdo blew you up in the street, and you asked me to leave you alone with him while your clothes literally fell off…”

“Fine,” Rogue retorted, petulantly snatching his hand and bringing it to her mouth. Remy could only watch in a mixture of disgust and fascination as she drank carefully from his palm, the last of the burns on her skin knitting back together in seconds. Her eyes flashed gold as she lifted her head, tongue swiping across her lips. “Danke.”

One corner of Kurt’s mouth tipped up in a grin. “Bitte schön.” He helped her stand, both of their expressions hardening as they returned their attention to him. “Want to borrow my sword?”

“Nah, I won’t need it.” He shot her a long look and she gave him a shove. “Go on, get Mom and Reenie out of here. I’ll be right along.”

Kurt stepped away from Rogue, shot him one last golden glare, then disappeared with a bamf.

“…So that’s your brother? Because I am not seeing the family resemblance.”

She glared at him, and that oddly enough did look exactly like the one Kurt had just given him, then effortlessly rose several feet in the air, levitating in place. Remy couldn’t help but notice that even more pale, toned skin was bared by the burns and tears in her clothes, and immediately reminded himself she’d not only fed on him that night, but apparently her own brother right in front of him. Not sexy, nope, not even a little bit. “I don’t discuss family dynamics with lunatic stalkers that try to blow me up.”

“First off,” he held up an index finger to start ticking off his points, “that explosion was not my fault. You stole my powers somehow when you decided to tap my neck like a Capri-Sun.”

“I only bit you after you stabbed me!”

“And I,” he retorted, eyes flashing, “only cut you after you had attacked me.”

“I attacked you because you were stalking me and my family,” Rogue growled.

“I wasn’t stalking you, I was following you, there’s a difference,” Remy huffed in frustration.

“Yeah, semantically,” she scoffed.

“You know what, can you just kill me now? That might actually be less painful than this conversation,” he snapped, almost immediately regretting his hasty words as she narrowed her eyes at him.

“Kill you?” She grinned, and he was definitely rethinking the entire last hour of his life with that look on her face. “Now if I kill you, who’s gonna tell blondie and the two chucklefucks to back off?”

Ice settled in his gut as he could only wonder exactly how much she’d gleaned from his memories. And the victorious glint in her eyes told him that was precisely what she’d intended him to feel right now.

“Because consider this your first and last warning, Remy: You or them or anyone else comes after me and my family again, I will cheerfully tear all your fucking throats out. Fair enough? Au revoir.” Without waiting for his response, she bamfed away as well, leaving him staring up at the empty sky, bleeding, bruised, and frustrated.

“Well, that coulda gone better.”

——

A/N: I’m just posting this much for Rogue/Gambit week, but if there’s enough interest, I could definitely continue it. I kinda have an entire headcanon universe of these characters spun out—because my brain loves elaborate backstories. Hopefully y’all enjoyed this as much as I did!

Agentsassydirewolf

@roguegambitweek

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