*
Monday Morning Blues
by Scorpio
*

There was darkness everywhere he looked. A swirling churning vastness.
Confusion and mild fear filled his mind and he spun around in circles,
desperate to find *something* in this expanse of nothingness. Then, suddenly,
he was free falling. Gravity disappearing from beneath him as if it had never
existed. His body felt far too heavy as the air rushed passed him. Mild fear
morphed into panic as his arms and legs flung outward in the hope of grabbing
onto something in the darkness. Anything that could stop his rapid mad
descent. He was falling, falling, falling. Then, suddenly, he hit the ground.

"Aaaauuuughhhh!" ::thump::

Instantly thrown into complete awareness, Remy opened his eyes even as he
continued to flail about... only to find himself on his bedroom floor.
Logan's scowling and half asleep face was peering over the edge of the bed
staring down at him in half concern and half irritation. Relief flooded
through his body and almost made him giddy as he realized that it was just a
dream.

"Ya all right down there darlin'?"

Remy offered up a wobbly smile to his lover and nodded his head, even as he
tried to get his panting breath back under control.

"Oui, mon cher. Jus'... jus' a bad dream is all."

Logan grunted and nodded his head. This information didn't seem to surprise
him at all. And it shouldn't. Both of them were prone to suffering
nightmares. In fact, one of them dealing with nightmares was almost a weekly
occurrence.

"Yeah. I figured that. I mean, ya kicked me in the shin an' punched me in the
jaw an' then leaped outta the bed an' onto the floor as if the sheets were on
fire."

A flash of guilt hit Remy, but only a small one as he offered up a sheepish
grin and a whispered "oops" to his lover. Logan just waved it away as no big
deal and truthfully, it wasn't. They had both done much more violent things
than that in their sleep to each other in the past. In fact, it was a running
joke among the X-Men that the only reason that they were together was because
they were the only one's crazy enough to share a bed with their respective
partner.

Beginning to feel a little sheepish about lying on the floor in a tangled
heap of sheets and having the vague notion that it would be fun to climb back
into bed and kiss Logan's owwies all better, Remy pushed himself up off of
the floor. Once standing, he took a brief moment to untwist the sheets and
let them drop back down. Glancing over towards the bed, Remy had an excellent
view of Logan sprawled out on the sheets and pillows, the thick comforter
pushed down low on his hips. That broad expanse of heavily muscled chest
called to Remy and images of him licking and nibbling his way down it
fluttered through his head.

Turning fully, Remy stalked over to the bed as the faint stirrings of arousal
began to shiver through his body. Reaching the foot of the bed, he climbed up
on it on all fours. Then, his imagination still supplying him with lots of
lovely ideas of what he could do with and to his lover's body, Remy began to
crawl up the bed. When he reached Logan's head, Remy smiled softly and then
leaned down to kiss him. Gently his eyes closed as he got closer. He could
feel the heat of his lover's flesh with his own lips and knew they were
seconds away from kissing.

"Teheh-hee."

Instantly stopping all motion, Remy cracked open his eyes in confused
irritation.

"Cher?"

"Yes... he-he, Rem?"

"Did y' jus' *giggle*?"

"Uh... he-he-he, sorta."

Leaning back, Remy closed his eyes and sighed.

"*Why* y' laughin' at Gambit?"

"Teheh-he-he... It's hard to explain darlin'. I think only a mirror could
truly clue ya in on it. Besides, even if ya *didn't* look like a refugee from
a hair conditioner commercial, ya *still* gotta get outta bed anyway. Don't
forget that Scooter put ya on monitor duty in the Control Room for the
morning shift."

Remy resisted the urge to fling his hands up to his hair and instead reacted
to the second part of what Logan had said. He had truly forgotten that he had
monitor duty this morning. His teeth ground together in a scary imitation of
his lover.

"Merde!"

"Yeah, well. Ya don't have much time to fool around, so ya should start
getting ready. And, um... he-he-he, do something about your hair while you're
at it, bub."

With a mild snarl that he had learned from the amused and smirking man next
to him, Remy pushed back away and got up out of the bed. Angry about having
monitor duty soon and a touch hurt by Logan giggling at his hair, Remy turned
to stomp his way to the bathroom. He made it halfway there before the desk's
chair leaped out and bit him on the toe. Okay, so maybe it didn't exactly
*leap*, nor did it really *bite*, but when Remy stubbed his toe against it,
that's what it *felt* like. He howled like a stuck pig and grabbed his
injured foot as he hopped about the room.

"Oowwwwww!"

Logan sat back up quickly, his expression clearly stating his confusion
between the urge to kill whatever had hurt his mate and the urge to laugh at
Remy's dance of pain.

"Wha... what the hell happened?"

Stopping his impromptu dance, Remy put his foot back down on the floor,
carefully, so that only the heel was touching the carpet and his toes were
all waving in the air.

"De chair ambushed Remy an' den attacked his toes!"

Turning his glare from the chair to his lover, Remy was not at all surprised
to see Logan snickering at him. Remy scowled.

"That'll teach ya to pop me in the chops in your sleep, then won't it?
Obviously, the Hair-Gods *and* the furniture are angry with ya."

Remy gave vent to an inelegant snort of both disbelief and injured pride then
turned with his head held high and stormed the rest of the way to the
bathroom, a whispered muttering of French profanity lingering in the air in
his wake.

Flinging open the bathroom door and then slamming it shut behind him, Remy
reached out and flicked on the light switch. Carefully shading his eyes with
one hand, he blinked them rapidly to get them adjusted to the bright
lighting. Finally, he could keep them open without pain, so he moved his hand
away. The first thing that he saw was his own reflection in the mirror over
the sink.

"Aaiiiieee! Mon Dieu! Wha' de hell happen t' Gambit's hair!"

Muffled laughter exploded from the bedroom at his cry and Remy spared a
second to turn his head and *glare* at the door.

"Dis is *not* funny Logan!"

Turning back to the mirror, Remy leaned over the sink and studied his hair
closer, assessing the damage. The left side and what seemed to be most of the
back was fine. It hung in shimmering waves of dark red. The *right* side and
part of the back was *not* hanging in soft smooth waves, however. Instead,
the hair on that side of his head was tangled into what could only be called
a snarl. A huge matted tangled *evil* snarl. The knot to end all knots. A
*mutant* snarl. The kind of burr that animals *chew* out of their fur.

Suppressing the urge to cry and the need to fill the air with blush inducing
profanity, Remy reached down and grabbed his favorite brush. Cringing at the
expected pain he knew was coming, he brought it up to his head.

There is a trick to working knots out of long hair. And as anyone *with* long
hair will tell you, *never* let someone who has never worn their own hair
long brush *yours* until *you* have gotten all the knots out first. They
don't know this trick and will practically *kill* you from the pain of doing
it wrong. With long hair tangled into huge mutant knots, you have to start at
the *bottom* and work your way up. Not that this *doesn't* hurt, but it hurts
*less*.

Grabbing a literal clump of hair, Remy put the brush into the mess down near
the bottom and slowly worked the brush through it and down. It hurt and it
tugged at his scalp even as it took four separate tries to get the brush all
the way through. Still, when he was done, the bottom three inches of the
first clump were tangle free. Then, still on that single clump of hair, he
moved the brush up three more inches and began the long involved process of
working *that* part of the tangled out.

Slowly, painstakingly, more and more of Remy's hair was detangled, unknoted
and generally made snarl free. In exchange, the beginnings of a headache was
forming from the continuous tugging and pulling against his scalp and his
arms and shoulders were starting to ache from holding them up for so long.
All in all, Remy was *not* amused.

Finally, after only God knows how long of brushing and tugging and muttered
curses in both French and English, Remy's hair was completely free of the
mutant tangled snarl. The brush was able to draw down smoothly without
snagging or pulling on any bit of hair, no matter which point on his skull
that Remy started it at. For a swift moment, triumph and relief swirled up
inside of him and all was right with the world. Then, Remy glanced in the
mirror once more.

The side of his hair that had *not* been ensnarled in the mutant knot hung in
soft shimmering waves that brushed against his skin like living silk. The
side of his hair that *had* been tangled up in the matted mess was now
unknotted, that's true, but the snarl had left it's mark. That portion of his
hair was frizzy and untamable. It pushed out away from his scalp in billowing
clouds of fluff. It was... *poofy*. Remy growled at it.

"C'est con pour Gambit!"

A bark of laughter from the bedroom let Remy know that Logan had not fallen
back to sleep yet. Then his lover's deeply amused voice called out to him.

"Tell me darlin'. Just *why* does it suck to be Gambit this fine morning?
Well, other than fallin' on the floor, stubbed toes and the curse of the
Hair-Gods?"

Turning around, scowl firmly in place, Gambit flung open the bathroom door
and stalked into the bedroom like a man on a mission of pain and bloody gore.

"It's still de dammed Hair-Gods!"

Remy stormed over to the bed and leaned forward, his brush pointing at the
unruly portion of his hair, his expression a mixture of towering annoyance
and crestfallen hurt.

"Look at Remy, cher! He's... he's... he's *poofy*!"

To Logan's credit, he stared blinking up at his lover, his face a crumbling
mask of composure for a full thirty seconds before he broke down into gales
of hysterical laughter. An expression of vague insult on his face, Remy
swirled around and marched back into the bathroom, muttering comments in
French about Logan's lineage and parentage as well as the distinct
possibility that those parents were never married. His tirade ended with the
slamming of the bathroom door.

Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Remy let the air slide out of him in
a sigh of resignation. He figured that there was only one way to calm his
uncontrollable hair and that was to wash it. He eyed the tiny cramped shower
stall that was shoved in the corner of their bathroom warily. Neither he nor
Logan used it very often. It was *tiny* and cramped and you always had to be
careful not to bang your elbows and knees while in it. They both preferred
the larger shared showers down the hall or even the Danger Room's locker
room. But there was no helping for it this time. Quickly, he began to get
things ready to take a fast shower in the tiny stall.

"Um, I hope that isn't the sound of you getting ready to jump in the shower,
darlin'. You don't have the time. It took you forever to comb that mess outta
your hair. You have to be in the Control Room in less than five minutes."

Remy froze in the act of reaching for the water knob. His shoulders slumped
down in defeat and his head tipped back so that he was staring sightlessly up
at the cracked ceiling.

"W'y y' mad at old Gambit, huh, mon Dieu? He been a good boy lately. Honest."

God didn't answer him, but Remy could clearly hear Logan chuckling right
outside the bathroom door. Tipping his head around to face the door, Remy
scowled.

"An' t'ank y' fo' y' support, Logan. It means a lot t' m'."

The chuckles got louder.

"No problem darlin'. Any time."

Sighing the sigh of the long suffering, Remy accepted the fact that he didn't
have time to get back at his lover right at the moment. However, after his
duty shift in the Control Room, he planned on giving away all of Logan's
beer. Bobby and Hank would most likely take the majority of it, he knew.
Those two would sit down in Hank's office and get toasted while plotting
against the rest of the X-Men. Then the next two weeks would be filled with
pranks and practical jokes with various teammates as the victims. The bribe
of beer would be enough to ensure that *Logan*, and not himself, was the main
focus of these childish attacks.

Satisfied with his plans for revenge, Remy turned his attention to his
problem. Namely, poofy hair and no time to shower. There was *no way* that he
was going to wander the halls of the mansion looking like he did, but maybe
if he just wetted his hair down? Nodding his head in agreement with himself,
Remy stepped out of the still dry shower stall and walked back over to the
sink.

Reaching out, Remy turned on the water and adjusted it a few times until the
temperature was warm, but not too hot. Rolling his eyes at his own reflection
quickly, Remy leaned over and stuck his head under the running water. Warm
streams of water rolled over and through his hair, soaking it and he turned
his head to get the side and bangs wet as well. Then, to his horror, the
pipes made an ungodly squeal and banging thumping vibrations practically
rattled the back wall. Remy had only a brief second of terror as his eyes
widened to stare at the back of the sink in the general direction of the
wall. The wall that he and Logan shared with Bobby Drake's bathroom.
Suddenly, all of the cold water that had been mixed in to keep it at a
tolerable temperature disappeared and the water left running over Remy's head
turned scalding hot.

"Aaarrrrgghhhhh!"

In a reflex move, Remy yanked his head out of the steaming water. Not really
paying attention to anything beyond his scorched scalp, he cracked his temple
against the faucet. Hard. A wave of dizziness worked its way into the pain
and Remy swayed on his feet.

"Merde!"

Suddenly, the bathroom door flew open to admit a naked and protective Logan
in full on "Wolverine" mode. Adamantium claws extended, Logan glared about
the bathroom, his nose sniffing for an enemy. As Remy watched his lover stand
ready to do battle to the death in his defense while completely naked,
something soft and squishy unfurled in his chest. Silently, Remy forgave
Logan for all the giggling and teasing. Granted, he was still planning on
setting Iceman and Beast loose with Logan's beer, but that was more a matter
of pride than anger at this point.

Turning around, Remy reached out and placed one hand gently upon Logan's
heavily muscled chest and cooed at him in a deep soothing tone even as his
scalp continued to throb with his own heartbeat and burning hot water dripped
down his shoulders and back.

"Shhhh. Mon couer, shhhhh. Remy's fine. Dere be no enemy here. Put 'way y'
claws, mon cher."

Logan shook his head in much the same way that a dog would shake water out of
it's fur and his eyes came to focus on Remy. Slowly, his tensed muscles
relaxed again and Logan's claws retracted into his forearms once more.

"But what was that yell for, Gumbo? You ain't the type to shriek at spiders,
so I know that wasn't it."

A grin spread over his lips at the reference to last week's crisis that
Jubilee had over a spider nest found in her room. She had *ordered* both he
and Logan to find and kill them *all* before she would even step one foot
back inside her room again.

"Non, no spiders, mon ami. However, de Iceman is awake an' in de shower."

Logan leaned over to peer around Remy and scowled at the steaming water still
pouring out of the faucet. Reaching over, Logan turned it off with a grunt of
acknowledgment.

"Icecube's the only man I know that *prefers* his showers to be freezing
cold."

Remy rolled his eyes skyward at this observation.

"True, but Remy jus' wish dat it didn' suck up all de cold water from de rest
o de mansion, oui?"

Logan grunted again and turned to walk back out of the bathroom. With a sigh,
Remy reached out to the counter for his brush in the hopes that he could
brush the poofiness out of his now wet hair. Too irritated to pay strict
attention to what he was doing, he knocked over the red plastic cup sitting
on the edge of the counter. Scrambling, he grabbed hold of it before it fell
off, however, the thing *inside* of it kept going.

::plop:: ::splash::

Logan halted instantly in his tracks but didn't turn back around as he
addressed Remy, who was staring in mild horror at the results of his
clumsiness.

"Rem?"

"Oui, cher?"

"Did something just fall into the toilet?"

"Oui, cher?"

Logan grunted in resigned acknowledgment.

"Want to tell me what it was?"

"No, cher. Remy don' even wan' t' t'ink about it."

Logan snorted.

"Cher?"

"Yeah, Rem?"

"Can Remy borrow y' toothbrush? Jus' fo' t'day. He go buy a new one from de
store aft'r his monitor duty over."

To Logan's further credit, he managed to mumble out a quick "No problem,
darlin'." before he erupted into undignified giggles and guffaws. Remy's sigh
was one that spoke eloquently of his feelings of being martyred even as he
briefly wondered what the hell he had done to piss off the Hair-Gods so badly
that they would enlist the help of the Dental-Gods in their quest to make his
morning a royal pain in the ass.

Distaste clearly flashing across his face, Remy reached down and only using
two fingers, scooped his toothbrush out of the toilet. Quickly, he dropped it
into the small wastebasket on the other side of the sink. Risking boiling his
flesh off his bones, Remy turned the water back on and washed his hands.
Then, with exaggerated carefulness, he reached out and picked up his brush
again.

It was a quick moment to flatten and smooth out his wet hair into some
semblance of order. Then, he grabbed up Logan's toothbrush and cleaned his
teeth. He made a mental note to buy a new brush for his lover while he was
replacing his. Figuring that since he didn't have time for a full shower,
that an extra layer of deodorant was called for. There was nothing he could
do about his lover's extra sensitive nose, but that was no reason that the
rest of the residents of the mansion should be forced to suffer.

Snatching up his deodorant, Remy pulled off the top, not really noticing that
it hadn't been pushed down completely tight in the first place. At least, he
didn't notice until he tried to *use* it and found it to be totally dried out
and crumply. Flaky white chunks shattered against his armpit and fluttered to
the floor. Staring in dismay, Remy whimpered.

Putting the crumpled remains of his deodorant into the trash beside his
murdered toothbrush, Remy turned back to face the sink. He eyed the roll-on
deodorant that Logan favored with extreme distaste. He couldn't honestly
explain *why* he didn't like roll-on deodorant. At least, not without
sounding like an idiot. It was just... *icky*. Clenching his jaw with
determination and pulling in a deep breath to steady himself, Remy reached
out and grabbed up Logan's deodorant. Cringing imperceptibly, Remy slathered
the cold wet thick *disgusting* substance across his underarm. Against his
will, he shuddered and goosebumps erupted all along his arm. For a quick
moment, Remy honestly wondered if only doing *one* armpit was enough to hide
his stink. With a put upon sigh, he switched the roll-on to his other hand
and braced himself to be completely grossed out once again.

Any semblance of good mood he might have had when he had first awoken ground
into dust under his still sore foot, Remy scowled his way back into the
bedroom to be faced with a grinning and still naked lover sprawled sexily
across the bed. Normally, such a luscious temptation would instantly catapult
him into drooling mindless lust and happiness. This morning it just worked to
make him even more pissed off and irritated from the unholy unfairness of it
all. Every banged, bruised and insulted inch of him *wanted* nothing more
than to slip into bed and let Logan kiss and pet everything all better.
Instead, he had to leave and go spend the next eight hours bored out of his
head in the Control Room.

Scowl firmly in place, Remy made his displeasure known by stomping over to
the bureau and yanking open one of the drawers. He pulled out a pair of
socks. Slamming it closed, he yanked open a different drawer and pulled out a
t-shirt. Then, he stomped over to the closet and slammed open the door.
Loftily ignoring Logan's deeply amused chuckles, Remy snatched an old worn
pair of his jeans.

Sitting down on the chair that had bitten his toe earlier, Remy viscously
pulled on one helpless sock, then the other. That finished, he stuck one leg
in the jeans, then the other. Standing, he yanked them up and buttoned them.
Grabbing his shirt, he pulled it on over his head and then bent down to grab
his boots.

::rrrriiiiiiiipp::

Remy froze completely still in the suddenly silent room. A quick glance
through his bangs over at Logan showed him that his lover's blue eyes were
open wide even as he put up a valiant struggle not to burst out in hysterical
laughter once again. It didn't matter, Remy could see Logan's lips twitching
anyway even as his own eyes narrowed down into slits of anger. He *tried* to
tell himself that it *wasn't* what he thought it was and that he really
*didn't* feel a cool draft blowing over the now exposed crack of his ass.
Unfortunately, it didn't work and his jeans were still split open wide.
Standing up again, Remy thrust his hand out towards Logan, one finger pointed
at him and the others curled down in a fist.

"Don' even say a word, mon cher. Not *one* *little* word."

Valiantly trying to stifle his giggles, Logan mimed buttoning his lips
closed. With a sound that was half growl and half sigh, Remy unbuttoned his
ruined jeans and peeled them back off again. Stomping his way back over to
the closet, he ruthlessly yanked out a different pair of jeans. Then, just as
violently as he had pulled on the last pair, Remy put on these ones. Stomping
back over to the chair to the accompaniment of Logan's soft snickers, Remy
sat down and pulled on his boots. Standing up, Remy was just about to flip
Logan the bird and then stomp off to deal with his turn at monitor duty when
there came a banging at the bedroom door and Scott's annoyed voice yelling
through the wood.

"Dammit Gambit! You have monitor duty this morning and you're *late*! Get
your lazy ass out of bed and get down there. *Now*!"

The very last of Remy's usually endless patience snapped in half. Completely
ignoring his lover's vast amusement and his team leader's confused surprise,
Remy *flung* open the bedroom door with his red on black eyes blazing. Remy
was positive that Scott had no real clue what at least half of the shouted
French curses that were spewing out of his mouth really meant. Which, in
retrospect, was a good thing since most of them were rude in the extreme and
physically impossible at best.

Then, waving his arms wildly through the air and stomping his feet loud
enough to rattle the walls, Remy continued his diatribe as he made his way
through the mansion towards the Control Room. His anger finally beginning to
run out of steam, Remy let out with one last announcement before he slammed
the door behind him.

"Gambit *hate* Monday mornings!"
 

fini