Title: Can’t Touch This
Author: Lucia de’Medici, under the sordid influence of one Ms. Carmine LaCroix
Fandom: X-Men: Evolution
Summary: Stop! Hammer time! (A scrap of stupid humor courtesy of Rogue and Gambit.)
Rating: M
Warnings: language, nudity
Notes: Partly inspired by partimeninja’s work on DevArt.

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Can’t Touch This
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The ultimate in oversimplification, the boiling-down of every single issue created by the presence of that boudin-brandishing bumpkin from Louisiana at the Xavier Institute, and Rogue announced her two-syllabled reaction to the showers like it was a declaration of war: “Fuck it.”

The words echoed back to her, half-lost under the sound of spray still issuing from next door.

Gambit was still in the showers, then. Great.

Rogue slapped off her gloves, dashing them to the part-ways sodden bench bisecting the girls’ side of the locker room and eagerly ripping off her uniform leathers. They made sucking sounds as she peeled her top away from her skin. All the while, she fixed the far door and the trickle of steam issuing from beyond the entry to the communal showers with a look that could wither plastic greenery.

You would think that titanium-reinforced concrete didn’t carry sound so well. You would think that given the foot of solid stupid dividing her from the oh-so-perfect shit-fit she was about to take, that got her blood pounding in her head like the fuzzy drone of insects would be enough to blot out the sound of his singing in the shower. Stupid because she was still standing there, smoking at the ears, over something that should have been dead and buried over a half hour ago – beaten out with the mechs and the virtual reality artillery that knocked a person’s ass flat when they got distracted.

See, the problem was the distraction itself: it stood six foot even, smelled like the bottom of an ashtray, and had an ass that could crack walnuts hidden under his trenchcoat.

One unladylike slip from her over Remy LeBeau wouldn’t shock anyone. But two? Two was a price she was willing to pay if it meant hollering at him across the showers would get him to just shut up.

“Crap on a goddamned cracker, Cajun!” she bellowed, yanking at her hair elastic and snapping it off with a furious tug. He paused in his singing, mercifully putting a temporary mute on something that sounded like a bastardized “Swampy Grasshopper”.

Hugh Boynton. Rogue bet Remy was playing air banjo with the soap and the washcloth too.

Before she could linger too long on the mental snapshot of all those sluicing, slithering suds down tanned skin and corded sinew; before Rogue could possibly find herself any redder in the face than she already was, the offending party spoke,

“Chère?”

If it wasn’t for that obnoxious forced-innocence to his tone, she might’ve actually believed him to be delighted that she was within shouting-range.

Truth was, he’d been in the Danger Room just as long as she had. He’d probably set up the whole of the godforsaken training session she’d botched up perfectly, timing things so that she’d be forced to camp out in the girls’ locker while he beautified himself. Hell, he’d probably staked the game out, hacked the console and arranged for her defensive manoeuvres to be driven to exactly the corner she’d found herself before the whole goddamned sim had boxed her in with only one way out in sight, and that escape route was the one that Gambit had chosen for a smoke break. Just to spite her, he’d given her a foot and a half gap to squeeze by, and as luck had it, the two point eight nanoseconds it would have taken to eek her way past were the two point eight nanoseconds that he had to use to “develop their teamworking skills”…

Which is to say that somehow Rogue had found herself with a hundred and eighty five pounds of solid, sweaty swamp rat digging her hips into the wall.

Totally inappropriate. A total invasion of her personal space. Even if it was “an accident.”

She’d told him as much once he’d recovered from his five-minute bitch-slap-induced coma.

Asshole.

“Shut up, Cajun – ‘fore I come over there and flush a toilet on ya.”

She heard him snicker, echoed briefly by his psyche, who declared that Swedes came up with hands-down the best ideas when it came to steamy, claustrophobic spaces and shared company.

“Water pressure ain’t that bad, girl,” Gambit’s physical counterpart – the one not setting up the pornographic memory reel in her head – murmured.

“Ah was thinkin’ Ah’d rip it out of the wall, actually,” she threatened. “Are ya done yet?” she demanded.

“Mixed blessin’, huh? Separate lockers but a co-ed shower?”

“A mixed blessin’ would be your unexpected and tragic demise from hittin’ your head on the faucet. And how in the hell would Ah explain the bar of soap crammed up your ass?” she asked pleasantly enough.

“‘Prolly in th’ same way you’d explain the missing fixture in the boys’ locker,” he replied. The taps in the shower shut off. “Big ol’ hole in the wall, scene of hormonally-induced mass destruction… Not exactly smart t’ leave your callin’ card lyin’ around like that.”

“Oh,” she returned snidely, “You mean like a certain playing card lodged into the sofa cushions with a phone number on it?”

“Or that Queen of Hearts in y’ underwear drawer.”

Rogue rolled her eyes to the ceiling, stepping on the heels of her boots to urge them off as she struggled with her buckle. Too hard of a yank, and she’d likely rip it clean off. It had happened a few times prior, not that anyone was keeping count of how many studded belts she went through in a month. (The number had increased considerably since a certain dirty boy with a liquid leer and chip on his shoulder had magically appeared one morning, hunched over a bowl of Lucky Charms at the kitchen table. Her Lucky Charms. She’d written her name on the box and everything. It figured: the theft of breakfast cereal was an occupational standard of being a former member of the New Orleans Thieves Guild. Old habits die hard, and all that.)

“Now what would ya gain by goin’ though my things, Cajun?” she muttered, tipping her head to the side as Remy stepped out into view. Like she knew he would: the Exhibitionist. Rogue pursed her lips. Sometimes, Remy was so predictable it was almost painful. Funny, how that only seemed to involve full-frontal nudity.

Raking his hair out of his eyes, he deliberately met her gaze, rather than making a pointed sweep of her state of undress. She wondered which would break first: Remy, for all his posturing, knew exactly what a few droplets of water and gusting steam could do to enhance his entrance, but that wasn’t the clincher: The hand towel he was wearing made the ensemble. Six inches of terrycloth and a smile. That’s our Remy, she thought wryly. That scrap of fabric didn’t cover much more than his fingers did anyway.

“Nice puddle.” She jutted her chin at the growing pool of wet as his toes.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Want that I should mop it up?”

“With that little thing?” She considered briefly if he’d do it. “Suit yourself, sugah.”

He leered. He actually was considering it.

Rogue set a hand on her hip, dipped her thumb into the waistband of her panties, and snapped the elastic.

“What were you sayin’ about goin’ through my underwear drawer?”

Remy’s smile faltered, quivering a moment before his attention covered the length of her body, and he laughed outright.

Shaking his head, he said appreciatively, “No point at all when seeing ‘em modelled is that much more educational.”

“You lose, swamp rat,” she said. “We don’t teach drop-out anatomy.”

He paused, his grip on his package – er, towel – shifting an inch counter-clockwise.

“You’re pissed,” he observed. He didn’t appear the least bit disconcerted by his lack of clothing, or the growing lake he was creating as the water dribbled down his calves.

“You’re a jackass,” she countered, undaunted. “Logan saw that whole godforsaken stunt you pulled in there.” She snatched up her own towel, turning and presenting him with her backside.

For a second, Remy said nothing. Silence. A miracle? Must be the thong, she thought, a moment of triumph cut short by his next assurance,

“Got in on tape too, most likely. Ain’t nothin’ better than watchin’ Remy work his magic again and again.”

“Cheap entertainment,” she shot back over her shoulder, unhooking her bra with a snap and a deft flick. She dropped it on the bench.

Remy made a low noise in the back of his throat.

“You damn near got us both blown up.” She added wryly, “Way ta pass out on me.”

“Can’t fault a man for fallin’ for you, chère.”

“Next time, make sure you fall out of the way of the exit.”

“Pinch m’ right butt cheek, then, if y’ want t’ veer left.”

“Ah did nothin’ of the sort.”

“Huh. Then what’s this bruise doin’ here, hein?”

She didn’t turn around to inspect what was sure to be a perfect patch of flesh. Instead, Rogue wrapped the towel around her chest with enough force to jab herself in the sternum as she folded the corner into the cleft made by her breasts.

“You’re a pig,” she said.

“And you’re jealous.”

That shut her up, she thought, mentally tearing through her repertoire of snarling comebacks and coming up with little more than a petulant sniff.

Having nothing suitably scathing, she resorted to the end all and be all of any discussion: “Fine.”

At which point she hitched her towel up, and yanked down her panties.

…

Turning, she saw that the effort hadn’t been for naught. The look on Gambit’s face, situated somewhere in between ecstasy and pure apoplexy made baring her naked backside for exactly one bat of an eyelash entirely worthwhile. Sauntering past him, dangling the trump in her deck of tricks on her thumb, she flicked the scrap of fabric squarely onto his shoulder as she passed. Her sashay to the shower would have made Kitty proud, but better still was the trailing sound of swamp rat hitting his head into the lockers as she turned on the faucets to her shower, and began bellowing MC Hammer at the top of her lungs.

-fin-

Post-Script: Bah nah nah nah. Nah nah. Nah nah. (You can’t touch this.) Bah nah nah nah. Nah nah. Nah nah.