5/House of the Rising Sun

House of the Rising Sun
Date of Scene:	15 February 2020
Location:	A seedy bar and card club in Manhattan.
Synopsis:	A Cajun meets a Belle.
Cast of Characters:	Rogue, Remy LeBeau

---

Rogue has posed:
Rogue had been with Xavier's School for almost a month now. Shortly after her 24th birthday she'd been picked up in Alberta Canada after a fairly testy bar fight. The men in the bar that she'd gotten in to the scuffle with had set out after her on the roads to try to 'take care of her' for what she'd done to two of their friends. The X-Men had arrived to stop them, to save Rogue and to help her. She'd gone with them... and has been settling in at the school in Westchester ever since.

But now, tonight, she's made it down to New York with the help of some of the other girls. A Friday night, in Manhattan of all places. Rogue had never been to Manhattan, but it was on her list of places she wanted to travel to some day, maps on the wall of the US had little markers pinned in to them across the east coast with a bit heart around New York drawn with an old pink sharpie she'd had for years at her Aunt's place in Mississippi...

Much has changed since she ran away from there at age 14 though. Absorbing Carol Danvers at age 16 and now, here... it'd all gone by in a blurry haze.

Tonight? Rogue's friends wanted to score with some fake IDs they'd gotten from a guy in Salem Center. They were hitting up places in Manhattan and now arriving at this random seedy joint. Two of the girls didn't want to come in here, Rogue was indifferent about it, not worried because she knew she could handle seemingly anything now...

They made it in with little trouble, claiming to be NYU students brand new to the city. The girls dispersed to the bar. Rogue with them. Wearing a black long coat, with a dark red hoodie on beneath it, Rogue's white bangs streak out from inside it and her eyes roam around inside the card club. She looks to the tables where the gambling is going on, the smoke in the air from the cigars and cigarettes... her green eyes roaming over the faces of those lit up beneath the lights over the tables.

When her beer glass is set down, the 18 year old jumps a little on her bar stool and looks to the glass, then accepts it with a smile. "Thanks." She tells the bartender. Her gloved hand goes around it and she raises it up for a sip.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
"Ah, I don't t'ink I got much more in me, cher," comes a voice from one of the tables, a man with a tumbledown shock of auburn hair half-concealed by the dim, smoky light, "Pa un seul piastre! Ça me fait de la peine an' all dat."

A groan of disapproval rises from the table as the man plants hands clad in fingerless, black gloves on the table and rises to his feet. He wears a long coat with the collar drawn up high, the sleeves rolled up to his elbow. He leaves the grumbling behind as he moves to the bar, slipping into the space alongside Rogue as liked it were made just for him. His fingers drum on the countertop and he smiles, white teeth in contrast with the dark sunglasses he wears.

"Hey, cher," he gets the barman's attention with an expectant lift of his eyebrows, "Same for me an' - "

He pauses, drifting off as he appears to pay close attention to the row of bottles arrayed behind the bar that are likely never touched. Some of them even coated in dust. The customers prefer what's on tap, it seems.

"Your green bottle dere," he finally decides, raising two fingers up alongside his face as he brushes a loose strand of hair away from his forehead, "An' two glasses."

He doesn't turn to look at Rogue, instead he simply continues smiling after the bartender as the beer and green bottle are prepared.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue's drink is held in her gloved left hand. Her gloves a dark wine red hue and her fingers wrap gently against the glass' surface. Her eyes are on the back of the bar, the mirror there that sits just behind all of the bottles. Her friends on ehr left and they're gabbing with each other and talking about their phones and all the boys who are trying to contact them on Tinder, or Facebook, or Instagram, a bunch of shit that Rogue doesn't care anything about.

Its the French that draws her attention. She can see the man stand up after speaking it and she stares at him in the mirror as he approaches the bar and settles in on her other side. She looks over at him and if he looks at her she'll breka eye contact and look away again, she's afraid of people at this day in her life, afraid of touching them and hurting them. Just a month ago her mind was so far gone she barely knew who she was, and who all the people she'd touched and absorbed were. One minute she was Rogue, the next she was Carol Danvers... and sometimes the others all goth peppered in their as well.

Professor Xavier and Jean Grey had helped with that though, Rogue was herself again today.

She feels a desire to speak to the man though, his face visible in the mirror she can see how attractive he is. She likes that. She glances over at him then and speaks something out. Its quiet, but audible. "Je suis sûr que la douleur disparaîtra avec le temps. Si vous êtes patient." She keeps her eyes on him for a moment, green pupils surrounded by dark eyeliner. She's dolled herself up tonight, and has an intense stare, when she wants it to be. Her hair is brushed straight too tonight, snow-white locks down her face and laying over her chest.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
"Oh, patient? Je suis envié, cher!"

The word 'envié' is said with great emphasis, the man splaying his fingers against his chest as though he has been mortally wounded. His eyes are on Rogue, though the reflective glasses make it difficult to tell that for certain. He continues to speak, not even looking at the bartender as he deposits the green bottle from the shelves on the counter. The French-speaking man picks it up, tugging the silver stopper out with one hand and pouring the amber liquid first into one glass and then the other.

"Patience is for de old an' de dead, mon catin! You livin'? You movin'! Dat pain? She jus' remindin' me who I am. She come. She go. She never gone liss'en t' me!"

He pushes one of the glasses across the counter towards Rogue, lifting his own up and holding it just beneath the level of his mouth as he speaks.

"Dis is Armagnac? You know cognac, cher? She like her older, dirty cousin, n'est-ce pas? I don' know how much I'm payin' for dis, so make d'most of it, no?"

Rogue has posed:
Rogue's friends seem to be getting a little antsy about this place being a little more quiet than they thought it'd be. To many people into the gambling rather than the socializing. But they got their drinks so they're holding on for a bit longer.

Meanwhile, Rogue is looking back to the man after he gives her that sweet response and she just summons up a smile across her pink painted lips and glances down. A second later she looks up again, her dark red hooded head concealed partially from view as she looks over at him and tilts her gaze just a little forward. "I've never had cognac before, no." She says to him then after stopping the glass that he slide her way with the back of her gloved right hand fingers.

Its fairly warm in the club, so her being so bundled up still might start to look a little off, especially since what lies beneath all her clothes will likely please the eyes of many who start to see what she's got to offer there-in.

She uses the hand that stopped the glass to pluck it up and take raise it to her nose to sniff it. She then sips it. The reaction isn't great. Her pretty features scrunch up and she has to suffer through the hard liquor flavor that rolls across her tongue and down her throat. But she's tough, she reminds herself, and she sets the glass down.

"Its..." She nods her head in a circular motion. "Its. Great." She forces it out, as her eyes go back to the Cajun man. She'd met a few Cajuns in her days in Mississippi, she knows the dialect. And her Mississippi Belle accent is thick so much so that Remy likely knows it all too well too.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
The Cajun doesn't laugh uproariously. That isn't his style. Instead, he chuckles low and turns to look back into his own glass. He lifts it up, taking a faint sip of it before setting it down on top of the bar. He juts out his lower lip, raising his shoulders a little in a polite shrug.

"A chacun son gout," he offers airily, picking up his own beer now and taking a sip of it. His own nose wrinkles, as though the taste doesn't sit well with him, but it doesn't stop him from upending the glass and swallowing down half of it in one draught. When he's done he puts the glass back down, lays both hands flat on the counter, and groans, "Trop amer."

"You tell me sometin', no? It warm in 'ere an' you got de look like un'erneath all dat you - quel est le mot? Une joli catin. A pretty girl."

He leans forward, the sunglasses he wears sliding down the bridge of his nose to reveal his eyes. Red pupils with black sclera. Nothing human about them, it would seem. He doesn't hide them, instead locking eyes with Rogue before he pushes them back into place lest someone else get a look.

"You got somethin' t' hide, pretty girl?"

Rogue has posed:
There's a small laugh from Rogue, it sounds sweet and like a lullaby song. "Trop amer..." She agrees with him, adding two quick and small nods before she smiles at him and is about to speak again--

When her friends grab her attention. "Come on, we're gonna get out of here, this place is lame." One of them says to the Belle. Rogue does a quick back and forth look between her friends, Remy and then back to them. "I'll be fine, go ahead. I'll catch up."

One of them protests, insinuating that Rogue won't be 'safe here'. To this, Rogue smirks at her. "I can push a city bus over. I'll be safe. I promise."

The girls eye Rogue, then eye Remy, then Rogue again. "We're headed a couple blocks over. There's a dance club. Text us." One of them says to her before they start to leave.

Rogue, then looks back to Remy. She eyes him closely. "Don't even know your name, and you're already wonderin' whats underneath my clothes, huh?" She quips back at him, grinning some though as she raises her apple ale up for another sip. After she sips it, she sets the drink down again, folds her forearms over one another and looks back to Remy. "Ah got, lots t'hide, Monsieur. And only the best get t'see it all." And that is said with no small amount of flirtation lacing it. She can dance, clearly.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
"I don' even know your name, either," the Cajun points out with an innocent roll of his shoulders, "Is dat so important? You jus' call me Weird Eyes an' I call you Bus-Pusher Girl, eh?"

He takes another sip of the Armagnac glass, letting it swish about in his mouth for a moment before swallowing it. A moment later he half-climbs over the bar to reach one of the unused coasters piled up neatly behind it, earning a nasty look from the bartender. He glances around for a moment before he sees someone still in their office attire chatting, leaning backwards to surreptitiously pluck a ballpoint pen from their breast pocket without them appearing to even notice.

He puts the pen between his teeth, giving himself an exaggerated grin which he turns to dazzle Rogue with while raising his eyebrows. Meanwhile, his hands tear the edges off the rounded coaster until it is roughly rectangular in shape. Satisfied, he plucks the pen from his mouth and writes something on it.

As he reaches towards Rogue to hand the impromptu note to her, his wrist flicks before she can take it from him and suddenly the scrap of cardboard is gone.

"The best, huh? The best is okay, I guess. But me? Je suis magique."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue certainly noticed his eyes. When he'd lowered those shades, she'd seen them instantly and it made her think he was most assuredly a Mutant. She'd seen things in mutants like that before... though something about this man seems to suggest there's a lot more to him than just mysterious.

So she watches him, she watches him take the bottle then the pen and a grin slides over her lips. His bold disregard for social 'norms'? It amuses her... she likes that kind of stuff. Her eyes flick down to what he writes down on the hacked up coaster then she looks up to him.

"I'm.--" She's about to say before she cuts herself off. When he makes the card he'd written down vanish as she was about to reach out for it. "Cute." Rogue says to him then before she sets her hand back down on the bar's edge between she and him. "I guess that means you're... Houdini?" A light grin flickers across her lips.

"Magic Mike?" Her grin returns then as she turns to face him on the bar fully, leaning on her left elbow now. "I'm Marie. Though most call me... Rogue." She knows thats a 'weird' name in the conventional sense. "And if ya say 'like the mini van?' I'll wallop ya, I've had the name longer than that damn thing." She's smiling at him though, which clearly indicates she's enjoying talking to him.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
"Magic Mike!" Remy says with a broad grin, "You wan' me dance for you? A fais do-do?"

The last words in French prompt another raise of his eyebrows, and he leans in close towards Rogue. His hand alights on her shoulder and the coat the covers it, leaning close to murmur something into her ear and make himself heard beneath the din of the bar.

"I say 'Rogue' like de charmin', good-lookin' ne'er-do-well who always know what she wan' and how she get it. Maybe I say 'Rogue' like de thief stealin' hearts. Tu es le voleur de mon coeur, catin."

Then he leans away again, once more giving Rogue all the space she could need without leaving her presence. He takes the remnants of his Armagnac and drinks it down, leaving the glass on the counter before he picks up the bottle and puts the stopper back in the opening. The bartender's back to the pair, he tucks it into his coat and it's as though it were never there. Gone.

"Come see," he tells her, rising up to his feet off the barstool and stepping in the direction of the door, "Unless you wan' go find your friends?"

Rogue has posed:
Needless to say, the man's charming personal makes a smile spread across Rogue's lips. She stares at him with rapt attention and as he proclaims her the thief of his heart, well she melts. She's 18, she's lived a life feeling solitary and alone, so to have a mysteriously hot and charming man flirt with her so well? It gets her. It gets the better of her judgment too. She can tell he's trouble, she knows it, but she... she likes trouble. She always has.

Her eyes are only taken from him when he starts to pop the cork back into that bottle. When he rises and coaxes her to go with him she moves to stand up to do just that...

But her phone rings. There's clear hesitation until she has to look at the screen and see its her friends. "One second." Rogue tells him. Standing beside the bar now she answers it....

On the other end one of her friends is ranting and raving about how a drunk man attacked them, threw a drink all over one of them and is shouting at them while following them apparently.

Rogue groans. "-Fine-." she states as the girls plead for her to come help them. "I'll be right there!"

She hangs up her phone to the sound of more girly voices talking before being silenced. Its slipped away into her coat pocket. She puts her eyes back onto his face. "They... they found me." She tells him. "Hey... I'll uh... I'll try to come, back. Okay? See if I can't find ya?" She asks, showing a hopeful but trepidations smile.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
"Oh, you find me, catin," Remy says with an easy smile, taking a few steps backwards towards the door, "I t'ink you got no trouble findin' me if you follow your heart, voleur de mon coeur!"

He doesn't wait, clearly not planning to stick around the bar any longer. Given that he's making a run for it with the bottle of Armagnac (and did he pay the bartender? It doesn't look like he actually paid the bartender!), it makes some sense that he's beating a hasty retreat. He takes a few steps towards the door again, turns and leans his shoulder into it. When he looks back, his voice rings out over the din of the Animals on the jukebox and the muttering of degenerate gamblers.

"Follow your heart!" he calls, tapping his left chest pointedly.

Should Rogue check, she'll find that bit of torn-up coaster in the breast pocket of her coat. The writing, though hastily scrolled, has an ornate and olden day charm to it. It reads 'Remy LeBeau' followed by what reads like a cell phone number and a small picture of a heart with sunglasses drawn on it.

When she looks up, he's gone.