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Chapters
Prolog
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilog
 
 
 

The Vault - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by NicoPony
Last updated: 08/15/2007 08:57:57 AM

Chapter 3

What Do You Want Me To Say, The Dismemberment Plan

I lost my membership card to the human race

So don’t forget the face

Because I know that I do belong here

Go down the checklist let’s see:

Feelings are good

Dishonesty is bad

And keeping it inside is worse still

You want a problem, well I guess we got one now

I really don’t know how

There’s injuns over every goddamn hill

What do you want me to say?

What do you want me to do?

To let you know that I do mean it

The door to Remy and Piotr’s dorm room was practically rattling in its hinges with the force of sound behind it. Rogue knocked, but she was certain she wouldn’t be heard over the sound of the music which was thunderous, angry, and in German. She turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. She knew from personal experience, opening doors uninvited was usually a big mistake.

“Oh, geez!” she immediately clapped her hand over her eyes.

“Relax, all ready,” Remy told her. “I’ve got shorts on.”

She peeked from between her gloved fingers. Sure enough, Remy was standing in front of his dresser wearing nothing but jockey shorts. He was in the process of yanking on a pair of jeans. She tried not to notice just how he filled out those shorts...or the flat planes of his muscular abdomen...or... She looked away. If Rogue hadn’t been wearing so much makeup, he’d have seen her face was beet-red to the roots of her hair.

Piotr was standing in front of the window, chin in hand, staring at the canvas before him. The room reeked of turpentine and oil paint. From the doorway, Rogue could only see the back of Piotr’s painting. Judging from the splatters of paint on the canvas drop cloth around him, he was still going through his Jackson Pollock phase.

“Greetings, Rogue,” the hugely muscled man said.

“How can y’all even think with this music so loud?” Rogue said, cranking the stereo’s volume knob to a lower level.

“If I can’t hear myself think, that means no one else can hear my thoughts either, enh?” Remy replied.

Rogue distracted herself from Remy’s semi-nude appearance by looking at Piotr’s painting. She was wrong; he’d gone from Pollock to Kandinsky. Several colorful geometric figures materialized from a deep blue void. “What do you think?” the Russian asked.

“You’ve got a good eye for color, Piotr. It’s real nice,” she replied. She was uncharacteristically genuine in her response. She liked Piotr’s paintings, even though Kitty had secretly said they looked like they were painted by a four-year old.

“Just think Petey, some day, your paintings may be worth stealing,” Remy said.

“What an honor, Gambit, to have you steal one of my paintings!” Rogue couldn’t be certain, but she was pretty sure they were both joking.

“Ah’m supposed to tell you that dinner is in fifteen minutes,” Rogue said to Remy, now that he’d pulled on a shirt. His hair was still wet from showering. The dark red shirt he was wearing didn’t fit the image she had of him. Until now, she’d never seen him wearing anything with a collar, let alone something from a high-end store at the mall. In fact, the shirt looked like one Scott used to wear, before it had gone missing several weeks ago. “We’re eating on the patio, since it’s still nice out,” she said.

Piotr pulled his apron over his head and hung it on a peg on the wall. “I’ll be down as soon as I wash,” he said, showing them his paint splotched hands. He left for the washroom.

Rogue and Remy stared at one another for a moment. He was wearing an insufferable smirk on his face, despite the growing bruise over his left eye and the scratch across the bridge of his nose.

“So, are y’okay?” she pointed to her own forehead, to indicate the cut along Remy’s hairline. It was held together with a butterfly bandage.

He ruffled his hair so his bangs fell over the cut, hiding it from view. “Me? I’m fine. Jeannie’s plenty mad, though. Remind me not to get on her bad side.”

Rogue didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she stuffed them in her pockets. “And you’re not mad? Jean said it was some racist jerks who jumped y’all.”

“Nah, getting mad’s a waste of energy,” Remy replied, imitating Rogue and hooking his thumbs into his own pockets. “Why bother?”

“What’dya mean, ’why bother’?”

He shrugged. “They’re just humans. They’re not worth my time.”

“So, you think humans are somehow not worth the trouble? Like they don’t matter?”

“Yeah, that about sums it up,” he replied.

“Don’tcha think that’s a dangerous way of thinkin’? Ah mean, here at the Institute we’re supposed t’be learnin’ about how humans and mutants can co-exist.”

“They can exist as long as they stay the hell outta my way.”

“Is that how Magneto taught you t’think?” Rogue said icily.

“Basically,” he said as he walked toward her. “Look, Rogue, if it ever came down to us versus them, I know what side I’m gonna be on.” He walked past her and out into the hall.

“What we’re here t’do is make sure it never comes t’that,” Rogue said quietly.

“You’re wrong. It’s inevitable, and we’ve got every right to fight first and fight back. You won’t see me rolling over for any human in the name of peaceful co-existence. Now are you comin’ to dinner, or not?”

 

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