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‘ ’ indicates thought
“ ” indicates spoken words
< > indicates translations.

“I love you.”

“Come on homme’. Gambit take y’ back. Stormy be waiting fo’ you,” Gambit offered for the third time that.
“Na,” Logan shook his head, chucking the empty glass away and reaching for half filled whisky bottle lying on the table between them. “I ain’t drunk yet.”
“Not drunk yet,” Remy chuckled, his own voice slurred from being intoxicated. “Homme, this be our third bottle. Even Remy feelin’ tha effects now.”
“Then you go back,” Logan grunted.
Raising the bottle to his lips and he tilted it, feeling the bitter liquid burn through his throat. Things were finally looking up now. He might even have a chance to get properly drunk and get a couple of hours of *alcohol-induced* sleep. It would give him some respite from the bottomless pit opening up in his chest, slam-bang in the middle of his heart.

“I love you”

The words still pounded at him, as they had been for the past eight or ten or who cares how many hours. Ever since he had seen Ororo, HIS Ororo, holding hands with some half-metal asshole, and heard those words being spoken to her, he had been trying to do anything and everything possible to forget that scene and those fuckin’ words.

Those three words. The same words that he had never spoken aloud to her. He didn’t think he needed to. But then again he had never thought that he would meet someone like Ororo, get separated from her and be captured by those Weapon X assholes. Again, for a second time. Have some kind of indestructible metal grafted onto his bone that further skewered his already patchy Swiss cheese like memory.

And then, suddenly seven years later, be rescued by a some leather clad, superhero wannabes and get to meet her again.

Seven years. Seven FUCKIN’ years. Seven years of pain and torture. Seven years of being treated like an animal, a lab rat. Seven years of loneliness, with nothing or none to care for. No one except her.

----

For him nothing had changed, and at the same time, everything had changed.

He still loved her and she still loved him, or so he had thought. First that dick-head Cyclops had told her that that Indian was her boyfriend. Boyfriend. He had never called herself her boyfriend, nor had she been his girlfriend. They had just been….what had they been? They had just been themselves. They had been together. They had been there *for* each other. They had been *of* each other.

Were they still *for* and *of* each other?

Everything had changed in seven years. Look at him. Even before he was captured the first time, he knew he was an animal. He drank, fought and fucked, not in any specific order. That had been his life, as far as he could remember. He was a loner, a pariah. A fighter who won every time and on whom, people bet and won. A dick, whom women enjoyed fucking. But apart from that, he was alone and lonely.

Until he met a white haired, *shot gun* mouthed, *heart of gold* seventeen year old thief. She had….

“What are y’ think Wolverine,” Gambit brought him back to the present.
“Nothin’ Cajun,” Logan shook his head. “Just my sorry excuse for a life.”
“Ya thinkin’ about Stormy,” Gambit said knowingly.
“What else is there worth thinking about?” Logan spoke under his breath, loud enough for Remy to catch it.
“Homme’ don’t worry. He don’t mean anything to her,” he wisely avoided naming names. Both of them knew who HIM and HER were. Forge and Ororo. “You be the only man she love,” Gambit said freely.
Over the last several hours, both fighters had bonded over bikes, babes, pool and most importantly booze. While he still had some reservations about his current drinking partner and his *relation* with his sister, he had clearly seen the depth of his feelings towards her. The same depth he had seen in her for the last seven years.
“Yeah, the only man,” Logan sighed. Tilting his head, he gave Remy a rueful smile. “Except fer you.”
“That be true,” Remy grinned at him. “Stormy be my padnat, my sister. No one be able to take that part of her heart, not even her Logan.”

-----

“I am not good fer her,” Logan spoke up after several minutes of silence. “Not good at all.”
“That not be true,” Remy shot back.
“It’s the truth,” Logan let his fisted hand fall to the table. “….and even you know it. She deserves the best.”
“That’s true, she does deserve the best,” Gambit nodded, his words causing Logan to flinch. “But she wants you.”
Logan relaxed and smirked at the Cajun’s bluntness. “Ya know – yer ok fer a Cajun. Ya ain’t the complete asshole that I thought ya were.”
“That feelin’ go both way,” Remy wagged his finger at Logan. “In the beginning, Remy didn’t like you. But anyone who can hustle pool, fight and drink better than Remy, deserve Remy’s respect.”

“Ya forgot the bike riding part,” Logan chuckled before sobering up, his stare stuck at the empty glass before him. “I taught her how to ride a bike,” he whispered fore lonely.
“Who?” Remy let out involuntarily. At the look on Logan’s face he sobered up. ”Oh!”
“Yeah, Oh,” Logan lolled his head back. “She was so excited that day. The whole sky cleared up, a bright sun shining down on us.”

-----

“Come on homme’,” Remy grabbed the side of the table and pulled himself up. “We gotta go now, or ma’ cherie will track this Cajun down and kick his ass from ‘ere t’ the mansion….and then some.”

“Whipped.” Logan taunted as he pushed himself off his seat.

“Whom you be calling whipped wild-man,” Remy jokingly frowned at the shorter mutant. “Jus’ wait till we get t’ home. Stormy be waiting to kick yer hairy-ass.”
Logan didn’t verbalize his silent answer, silently hoping that the Cajun was correct and that Ororo was indeed waiting for him and was not with that Cheyenne.

*I hope yer right*