Title: Late Night Craving
Author: Earl K. d'Azrael Wolverine/Gambit
Rating: NC-17 for gratuitous sex between an unlikely couple.
Disclaimer:The X-Men do not belong to me, they are the property of Marvel Comics. Who would sue me down to my knickers if they could – but they can't as I exist only in cyberspace – moo ha ha!
Author's Notes: This endeavour is entirely my friend Sally's fault: I did it for a dare in return for some Lord of the Rings slash. Please ignore my crude attempts to render the Cajun accent phonetically (surely I can't be any worse than that guy who does the voice over for the XMen cartoon of yore – he sucked!).

This story is set some months after Gambit's 'Antarctica' episode and during the period when Wolverine had been stripped of his adamantium and was going a bit mad and feral.

New Orleans factoid: the Dragon's Den is a real place in the French Quarter. I have many fond memories of it . . . ah, tequila sunrises and smoking dope on the balcony that some weird inbred guy gave me, singing a French song at an old, baffled French man. Er anyway . . .

Remy LeBeau leaned over the railings of the balcony of The Dragon's Den, Rue Esplanade. It looked like an opium den, lit by candles and with no chairs, only cushions scattered around low tables, and everything was infused with the scent of long-ago burned incense. The heat and humidity were oppressing, so Gambit had ventured on to the balcony to clear his head, but the cloudless, dark atmosphere outside was just as stifling. He rubbed his red eyes and rolled a cigarette. The Cuban music of the local band playing in the club filtered through the curtain behind him. He looked down onto the pavement, with its verge of straggly yellowed grass and considered jumping the balcony rails and escaping. The shutters swung open and the girl who had accompanied him appeared carrying shots of tequila.

"Remy! What'cha doing out here on yo' own?" She was a pretty sort of girl from Baton Rouge, who had recently moved up to the big city to become a music star. Recalling this fact reminded Gambit why New Orleans irritated him: it was a city of tourists, of part-time bar staff, of aspiring artists. No one lived there, at least, no one had been born there. It was easy to fall in love with the city, but hard to settle down in it. Gambit himself was one of the few people who could call the place home, though he was born a Cajun swamp-rat from the Bayou, he had grown up on the streets of New Orleans. He seemed to be the only one left who could see that the walls of the buildings were infused with history, that the air hung heavy with the scents of colony, slavery and the old death of the first St. Louis Cemetery where bones stuck up through the earth. Well, maybe it was just him and Anne Rice.

Gambit lit his cigarette and swiped a loose bit of tobacco from his bottom lip. He turned his demon eyes on the girl and she seemed to notice them for the first time.

"Cool contacts!" she said, handing him a shot glass. He wanted to laugh at her response, recalling that when he was a boy the superstitious members of the New Orleans Thieves Guild had called him Le Diable Blanc.

"T'anks chere." He said. He was making his accent more pronounced because the ladies liked that. She raised her glass to propose a toast.

Gambit said: "Laissez le bon temps roulez."

The girl, whose name he had formgotten, babbled away inanely in the gushing manner that women often adopted around him. She was desperate to impress, desperate to catch his interest an pull a response from him. It was far too easy, all he had to do was wear a leather trenchcoat, let his auburn hair fall over his eyes and look moody.

He was suddenly overwhelmingly tired of his home town, and he felt no welcome in it. He privately swore that he would have one more night here and then be gone: he would beat some suckers at cards and get himself enough money for gas for the journey to the Salem centre. New York and its refreshing, cold indifference was calling to him.

Wolverine sniffed the air; he was hunting in the grounds of the Salem Centre, something he could not explain to the others. Since losing his adamantium his feral nature had become overwhelming and it frightened them. There was something unsettling to them about his claws of naked bone, about his wild eyes and his quick, jerky movements. He knew they were talking about him behind his back - he was a lose cannon – the kind of mutant that the late senator Kelly would have held up as an example to the public while scaremongering. Wolverine understood their concerns, but he still felt betrayed. He caught the scent of a roe deer and went into stealth mode. He crept closer, staying downwind of it, until he was only metres away. The noise of a motorbike startled the animal and it bolted, springing off on its powerful haunches into the deep foliage. Wolverine growled in irritation and crashed out into the open to throttle whoever it was that had ruined his hunting.

Gambit was sitting astride his bike, hands cupped around a cigarette while he tried to light it. His auburn hair and tan leather coat were whipped around by the wind.

"Hey Logan," he said without seeming to look up.

"LeBeau, you think you could have made any more noise on that thing?" Wolverine growled.

"Yeah, but I aint in de mood for no dramatics. I jus' rode here all de way from n'awlins."

"I hope your Cajun ass is numb."

"It is. Dat make you happy?" Gambit took a deep draw from his cigarette and swung himself off the bike, then stretched, managing to make such an ordinary gesture look refined. "Hear you loss de metal," he added conversationally, as if Wolverine had misplaced it. Wolverine popped his middle claw in his customary 'fuck you' gesture.

Gambit began speaking as if Wolverine had asked him a question, or had asked for advice: "Don' worry. De others findin' it hard to understan' right now. Dey'll get over it. I'm sure I done worse . . . an' dey always have me back." With that, he flicked his half-smoked cigarette onto the gravel and turned his back, heading towards the main building with that swaggering manner which never failed to piss Wolverine off. Wolverine caught a waft of Gambit's scent as he moved upwind, stale smoke on leather, bourbon and the tang of sex. The man reeked of pheromones.

"Damn peacock," he muttered and walked back to the copse of trees which he knew hid his elusive deer.

Wolverine stalked through the corridors of the mansion, unable to sleep. The rage in his blood was worst at night, perhaps he was supposed to be nocturnal. He had walked several steps past a classroom door before he caught the scent of Gambit.

"You're in big trouble if Scott catches you at that, Gumbo."

"You gon' tell tales, Logan?" Gambit was sitting on the long teacher's desk at the front of a classroom, smoking out the window.

"Nah, bub. Just so long as you extend me the same favour." Wolverine sat down next to him and took out a cigar from his jacket pocket. "Sad times, huh – when they make us sneak round like criminals 'cause of their new 'no-smoking policy'."

"Dey don' like us bein here. We a bad influence on de kids." Gambit's leather duster coat was slung over the desk beside him, he pulled a quarter bottle of whiskey from the pocket and took a drink before passing it to Wolverine. "We not dependable like Cyke, like Stormy. Always know where you stand wit dem, non? Good people t'have at y' back in a fight. People like us . . . y' never know what dey might do next."

Wolverine nodded and took a deep swig of whiskey. "You noticed that too huh? How come you came back if you feel you're not welcome either?" He leaned forward to put the whiskey down on the window sill, bit the end off the cigar and spat it out onto the lawn outside, below them. Gambit rummaged in his coat pocket and produced a gold zippo, leaning across to light it for him.

"Mebbe I jus' wanted to remember de times when it was no' so. Long time ago, de X-Men were a team."

"Think so?" Wolverine snorted, then he paused for a moment puffing on his evil-smelling cigar and looked over at the Cajun. Gambit was still wearing his civilian clothes: worn jeans and black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, exposing his bronzed, sinuous forearms. Oddly, he wasn't wearing any shoes; Wolverine deduced that he had probably been in bed when the craving for nicotine came upon him. Gambit had feet which were long and slender like his hands, with high arches. The only light in the room came from the moon outside and its cold illumination rendered his handsome face ethereal, the sharp angles of his nose and high cheekbones highlighted. His eyes remained in shadow beneath his unkempt eyebrows and strands of wayward hair. He smelled different than usual, there was the scent of another person on his body.

"So, where you been all night LeBeau?"

"Miss me?"

"Smells like you got lucky."

"Gambit always lucky."

"It's that charm thing you got going . . . your other mutant power. Some guys get all the breaks."

Gambit smiled and lay back across the desk, hands behind his head, his long legs dangling over the edge and almost to the floor. "It is a curse mon ami. It is de charm that draws dem, and dat knowledge makes me hate dem."

"Cry me a river. I never did believe you when you said you can't control it."

Gambit laughed deep in his chest and took the cigarette from his lips, blowing some smoke rings absent-mindedly before confessing: "Gambit can control it, alright. I jus' got no self-discipline when it come to pretty femmes."

Wolverine looked over at him again and reflected on the irony that the most handsome guy he'd ever met would be given the gift of seduction. It didn't seem fair – the charm should have been given to Hank, or one of the other mutant misfits who really needed it.

"Den dere's de empathy. Can you imagine what it's like to feel sex from bot' perspectives?"

"That must be weird." Wolverine considered this. He wasn't sure he liked the idea of knowing what it felt like to be fucked.

"Twice de pleasure." Gambit laughed again to himself and then sat up to throw his dwindling cigarette out the window.

"No wonder you reek of sex LeBeau. You live for it."

Gambit nodded and rubbed his eyes again, he was tired. "Dis is true. No' much of a reason to live for, n'est pas? At leas' if I didn' have de charm I'd have de t'rill of de chase."

Wolverine studied the Cajun's face and saw the haunted look in his eyes. What kind of person lived entirely for physical sensation? Sickening of the bitter taste of the cigar on his overloaded senses, Wolverine ground it out on the windowsill.

"La'ley, I been getting bored of it. Just don' have the imagination to do anyt'ing else. Helps me empty my mind, y'know?"

Wolverine found himself fixating on Gambit's full lips. He wanted to kiss LeBeau – where the fuck was that thought coming from?

Wolverine leaned over closer to him and inhaled the scent of his hair. He wrinkled his nose and took another sniff, lower down on Gambit's neck.

"What de fuck you doin', Logan?"

"Who were you with tonight?" Wolverine demanded.

"None of yo' business, mon ami."

"Smells like a man."

"Since when did you start carin' who Gambit decide to have a li'l fun wit?"

"Hey LeBeau, you using your charm now?"

"'Course not. You t'ink Gambit get off on tryin' t' seduce his team mates—"

Gambit found himself suddenly crushed to Wolverine's body, the breath taken out of him by a savage kiss. Wolverine's lust infected him and he felt himself carried away on the waved of dark, taboo passion that the other man was feeling. With a gasp, he found himself leaning into the broad chest, opening his mouth to an insistent tongue. He brought his hand up to tangle in Wolverine's wild black hair, moaning as this provoked a growl and a sharp bite to his lower lip from the other man. Abruptly as he had begun, Wolverine pushed him away, leaving Gambit's lips cold, bruised and bereft. Narcoticised with lust, Gambit looked at him in confusion.

"What . . ? What was dat for?" he asked.

Wolverine wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Well I tell ya what kid, it wasn't 'cause of the charm. Whatever that was was got on your own merits." Wolverine stared at him in the darkness, with his endorphin-dilated eyes he could see every detail of the Cajun's handsome features, the faint luminescence to his skin that lust produced, his full lips reddened by attention. He had the desperate eyes of a starved creature and Wolverine wondered if any of the women had ever noticed it — they betrayed his need, his craving for the physical contact which made him complete.

Gambit brought his slender pick-pocket's hands up to Wolverine's face, feeling his rough stubble and leaned in for another kiss. It occurred to Wolverine that he had gone insane — wanting to fuck someone who was a team-mate, a long-time friend and — perhaps most bizarre of all — a man, was not something he had ever imagined before. Maybe the others were right: his feral nature was seriously inhibiting his judgement. His body was overflowing with rampant hormones, so, much as he pitied Gambit's desperate nymphomania, he himself was not in any position to be the voice of reason.

Kissing a man was strange to him: Gambit tasted of neat whiskey and Golden Virginia, and he was pulled tight against Wolverine with the inhuman strength of an X-Man. Wolverine growled as Gambit began working kisses down his neck, throwing his head back and letting his claws unsheathe. Gambit's red eyes sprang open like a camera shutter, gazing in alarm at the claws protruding around either side of his back.

"No offence, Logan, but it all fun an' games 'til someone gets an eye put out."

"Shut up, LeBeau. You talk too much." Wolverine slit all the way up the front of Gambit's shirt with one claw.

"Hey! Dat was my favourite!" Gambit's protests ended in a sharp hiss as Wolverine leaned down and bit his white chest.

"You gonna get out of those jeans or you want me to shred them too?" Gambit laughed and stood up. Wolverine let his claws slide back in, and reached out to Gambit, who batted his hands away. "Non," he said, stepping back, letting his eyes fall almost closed and gazing seductively at him through a curtain of auburn hair.

Gambit shrugged off his shirt and let it fall to the ground behind him. Wolverine growled again, perversely fascinated by Gambit's spare, muscular form. He was impossibly tall and lean in a way that would have made him look ridiculous were it not for his perfect, nonchalant way of carrying himself. His flesh was perfectly white except for his dark nipples and the angry red bite mark rapidly surfacing on his left pectoral muscle. His jeans hung low on his sharp hips, his waist was so narrow it looked to Wolverine like he could encircle it with his hands were he to reach out and grasp him. Gambit continued to undress, pulling at the buttons of his jeans. As he let them fall, Wolverine's eyes widened on seeing Gambit totally naked and aroused. He had never seen a man in that state before.

"What's d'matter ol' man? 'Fraid you don' measure up?" Gambit smiled and advanced towards him.

"You aint putting that thing anywhere near me, Gumbo."

Wolverine, who was still sitting on the desk, suddenly found Gambit between his legs, pressed up against him. The heat of his body was scorching even with a layer of clothes between them. Gambit cocked his head to one side, feeling Wolverine's hips twitch at the contact. "Non? Oh, je suis desolé." Gambit teased him with soft kisses and pulled down the zip on Wolverine's yellow and black fighting suit, loving the feel of the coarse black chest hair underneath on his palm. "You the one calling the shots, Logan. What you wan' t'do?"

"I thought that you were the expert," Wolverine said in a mocking tone, before reminding himself that he had instigated the scenario.

"Ah, you' talking to an empath. Your pleasure is my pleasure."

Wolverine noticed that the accent was not so pronounced as usual. He was letting his 'dumb-ass Cajun' façade slip.

"Get on your back."

Gambit complied, lying back on the desk and leaning on his elbows. Wolverine struggled out of his boots and fighting suit - damn spandex, he cursed inwardly. His breath caught in his throat as he looked up and saw Gambit regarding him under lowered lids.

"You got a nice body for an ol' man." He teased. He lay back and closed his eyes in anticipation as Wolverine clambered on top of him. He felt skin against skin at last and began to slip into the thoughtless fugue which for him always accompanied sex. He ran his hands down Wolverine's back in a languid caress, he loved how the muscles twisted under his fingertips. Gambit let out a heavy sigh and hitched his legs up over Wolverine's shoulders. Wolverine growled at his tacit invitation and let the red fog of instinct blind his eyes. He surrendered to the baser sense of smell and touch, thrusting inside Gambit's body which was drawn as taut as a bowstring, his red eyes squeezed shut. He was still slick from his previous encounter, the look of what seemed pain on his face was actually his shared pleasure. He had tuned out from his own body and was concentrating on the sensations conducted through Wolverine's. Wolverine had no patience left, he stopped caring whether he was hurting the Cajun and sought his own satisfaction, hips snapping back and forth in a ruthless cadence.

"Oh . . . Dieu, Logan—" Gambit was feeling an intensity through Wolverine which he was not used to.

The muscles strained in Wolverine's forearms as he leaned his weight forward to growl in Gambit's ear, continuing to pound into the Cajun's narrow frame with a spiteful twist to his hips.

"You like that LeBeau? You're a slut."

Gambit laughed deep in his throat through his haze. Wolverine found himself suddenly on the receiving end of Gambit's catlike reflexes as he was flipped unceremoniously onto his back. The Cajun leaned down, his fingers threaded through Wolverine's, pinning them down on either side of his head in a playful display of dominance.

"You don' know what you want Logan. Let Gambit show you."

"Gumbo, what the fuck—"

"Quiet," the other replied sharply as he settled himself back onto Wolverine's cock. Wolverine bit down any further protests as the Gambit began to grind down upon him in agonisingly slow circles.

"Yessss . . ." Gambit hissed scraping his fingernails down Wolverine's chest and letting them catch on his nipples. It was quite a sight, Wolverine realised, from this perspective. Gambit was possibly the most erotic thing he'd ever seen when he was carried away by raw lust. His high, beautiful features contorted and his hair stuck to his face with sweat. His abdominal muscles heaved and his long white thighs clenched desperately as he moved up and down. Normally Gambit was aware of his own body during sex, but Wolverine's needs totally overtook his own, he was utterly shameless in his movements. He placed his hands on the table behind himself and leaned back, flexing his long body like a contortionist. He brought Wolverine to the brink of orgasm, drawing out the pleasure of the frustrated Canadian against his will. Wolverine had begun growling, grasping Gambit's thighs hard in frustration.

"Agh! Quit teasing me!"

Gambit grunted indignantly and opened one eye. "I'm not teasing. You got no patience."

Gambit found the wind knocked out him as he was, without warning, thrown to the floor.

"Hey! What de big idea Logan?" Gambit sat up, rubbing his shoulder, which he had wrenched trying to break his fall. He had been rudely torn from his warm world of sensation and hefted onto the cold tiles.

Wolverine just growled and Gambit realised that perhaps he should not have teased a wild beast: his friend Logan was clearly not in possession of his reason. Wolverine slid off the table and advanced towards him; he grabbed the alarmed Cajun roughly by one arm, hauled him to his feet and then pushed him face-first over the desk. Gambit grunted as Wolverine caught hold of his narrow waist and rammed back into him. At the contact Gambit's senses were reunited with Wolverine's and he realised how much the other needed release. He moaned softly, whispering something in his demotic French and held on to the table top, burying his face between his forearms and ignoring the sharp line of pain on his stomach as it met the edge of the table with every thrust .Wolverine's hands were crushingly strong around his middle, he could do nothing but submit and let his brain empty of any of his own thoughts, he tuned himself to the hot surging of Wolverine's blood. Wolverine bit down on Gambit's shoulder as he came, fingernails drawing blood from the other's hips. Gambit shuddered as his orgasm overtook him in sympathy and he slumped on the desk, knees too weak to support him. It was only Wolverine's hands that kept him from sliding onto the floor. They were both breathing erratically, stuck together with sweat. His body sated, Wolverine's senses returned to him like an admonishing slap in the face and he quickly pulled himself away from the Cajun's body and gathered up his clothes. Gambit groaned, stumbling a little before half sitting and half collapsing on the floor with his legs sprawled underneath him. He was a mess, he realised, his stomach covered in translucent fluid. He rubbed is eyes, feeling weary and cleaned himself off with the remains of his shirt. Wolverine had his back turned and was zipping up his suit. Gambit knew his nakedness would be a guilty reminder to Wolverine and so he managed to pull his jeans on along with his leather coat that had been swept on to the floor and then he sat back up on the desk. He took out his tarnished silver tobacco tin and began to roll a cigarette. Wolverine had pulled on his boots. He was staring uncomfortably.

"I'm going to bed." He said finally.

"C'mere Logan. Dere's no need t' go slinking off." Gambit lit the cigarette and held it out to Wolverine as a peace offering. "Gambit aint a woman. Don' suffer from no illusions bout what you wanted from me. We still friends, still team-mates. Everything is what it was before."

Wolverine condescended to sit back next to him and took the cigarette. Yeah, no-strings attached nicotine. Gambit leaned down and picked up the quarter bottle of whisky (which had remained miraculously unharmed amid the carnage) and drank deeply then rolled himself a cigarette. They sat smoking in silence, both drowsy and drained; satisfied for the present.

- Fin