For skyrogue, because my last line are apparently cult-worthy

TITLE: Stacked Deck

SUMMARY: Rogue. Remy. Vignettes.

RATING: K+

DISCLAIMER: I just enjoy playing in other peoples’ sandboxes. While making money off this would be nice, it’s not happening. Everything you recognize (and maybe even some things you don’t) belongs to Marvel.

AUTHOR’S NOTES: The first of these is for skyrogue, because my last lines are apparently cult-worthy. It’s news to me, but thanks anyhow. And since there’s really two here, the second is for jutwfiniei, who paid me a great compliment by saying I do honour to the Evo name.

When he tells her, he doesn’t offer any explanation.

She kind of wishes he would.

Instead, she gets a chilled outline of the facts – he’s knows he’s leaving, he’s not sure where to, he’s not sure when he’ll be back. She has her suspicions about what’s going on, but can’t bring herself to give them voice. She’s afraid that maybe she’s right, and that he’s heading back home to that very literal den of thieves he’d fought so hard to escape. More than that though, she’s angry that he doesn’t trust her enough to be honest with her, regardless of what the truth actually is.

“Have a good time,” she says, but the words are dry and barely manage to escape the back of her throat.

“Not promising anything.” It hurts like a bad joke. She’s not going to point it out though, because that means admitting just how deeply she’s dug herself in to this. She just crosses her arms and thinks of hard things. She wills herself strong by association.

He lingers in the doorway, looking back as though asking her to stop him, challenge him. She doesn’t. She knows it’s only out of some sick sense of pride, but she’ll not give him the satisfaction of reducing her to begging, even if there’s a part of her that’s screaming for her to do it. If he can’t give her they honesty she wants, she wont give him the validation he’s looking for either.

It’s better this way, she tells herself. It has to be.

He walks out.

xXx

When he tells her, he doesn’t offer any explanation.

He’s not very good at them anyway.

Instead, he goes out of his way to be vague. A lot of not sures, maybes, and sometimes are spoken in an attempt to hide the truth – it’s hit the fan back home. Again.

“Have a good time,” she says, but there’s a distance to her words that nearly makes him ache. He steels himself by remembering that she deserves better, and even if he earns her ire for a while, at least she’ll never know.

“Not promising anything.” It sounds empty, even to him, and he tries to remind himself one more time that he’s doing the right thing. Involving her is the wrong thing to do, especially since she’d been so proud of him for the way he managed to separate himself from his past. In a moment of rare intimacy, she’d even confided in him that it gave her hope that she might be able to rip herself away from her own someday. Though he’s a thief down to his very marrow, he can’t bring himself to take that from her.

He waits in the doorway, silently begging her to say something, anything. To call him back, or even call him out. He doesn’t get so much as a take care, an I’ll miss you, or even a why. He’s at a loss to explain why this bothers him so much.

It’s better this way, he tells himself. It has to be.

He walks out.