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A/N: My first Lo/'Ro/Rem experiment.

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Breakfast Confessions

"Ahhh--crap."

The Cajun propped his legs on the kitchen table and grabbed a cigarette from his jacket pocket.

"Rough night?"

Remy smirked and patted his left duster pocket, finding the hidden matchbox. He scraped a match against its sandpaper sides and winced. "You could say dat, homme. Got merde for brains now, but dat game was worth ev'ry dime."

Logan grabbed two beers from the fridge and slid one over to the younger man. Remy made a face at the bottle but realized a little hair of the dog would probably do him some good. He popped the top with a gloved palm and watched as Wolverine straddled a chair, looking all-and-all like the king of all cats who caught himself a prized parakeet.

"You oughta take it easy on those long nights, Gumbo. Rogue ain't gonna like you two-timin' her for some drunken all-nighter."

"Uh, huh," Remy said, sipping his beer. "Now, you t'ink I' gonna pass up a poker game, w'it de roi of all players in it?"

"How much you lose?"

"Moi? I'm shocked you even suggest--"

"Spill it."

Gambit sighed and stared lovingly at his fingers. "Must be losin' my touch. Seven hundred. Heh."

"In love, more likely." Logan scooted away from the table and grabbed some vegetables and eggs from the refrigerator. "You ain't the shark you used to be."

"Neh? I c'n still beat your puny ass, ol' man."

Remy meant his words as an insult, but Wolverine was laughing as he tossed a green pepper on the counter.

"We'll see who owes what."

"You wanna owe me 'nother coupla hundred? I'll take it, if you keep givin' it 'way like dat."

"Bring it on, Cajun. It don't take me long to learn someone's system. Their scent always gives 'em away, no matter how good they are."

Remy smirked and sucked on his beer, enjoying its cool bite on his parched throat. He'd been in that smoked filled room so long it killed his lungs. Not that it mattered, he thought. He took a deep drag off his cigarette. Nothing went better with cold beer than hot cigarettes.

"Yeah, homme? Well, dat's somethin' I' like t'see, if you willin' to lose all your money. What the hell you doin' up this time of night, anyways? You should be sleepin' like everyone else, neh?"

"5:30's late enough. Sometimes I like to get up before everyone else. That a crime?" Logan was chopping up the green pepper, but Remy noticed a small smile on his face.

"Nah, it ain't a crime...I guess. Not like I'm up early, 'less I'm up all night. But las' thing I 'member before leavin' was you talkin' to Stormy. Dat argument you two were havin' didn't look like it was endin' any time soon. Thought you'd still be sleepin'."

Wolverine grabbed a bowl underneath the sink and cracked six eggs in it. He didn't answer for a while, which made Remy's eyebrow rise.

"We made up," he finally said. He whipped the eggs without turning around.

"Took you long enough to say dat."

"Took us a long time to make up."

Remy was about to open his mouth, until he started thinking about it. He was still a little drunk, but he certainly wasn't blind. A slow grin spread across his face. "I bet you did," he muttered.

Wolverine stopped blending the eggs and grabbed some grated cheese and a few other items from the fridge. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothin'," Remy said, taking a long drag off his cigarette. He blew a huge cloud into the room before snubbing it. "Jus' dat it's 'bout time, dat's all."

"Time for what?"

He grinned. "You ain't dumb, an' neither am I. You know 'xactly what I'm talkin' bout."

Logan put the bowl down and slowly turned. Remy was a little alarmed at the smolder behind the shorter man's eyes, but he didn't back away from the glare.

"What I do on my personal time--"

"--is none of my business, I know," Remy finished. "But we're talkin' 'bout Stormy, here."

"No, we ain't. We're talkin' about me. And I don't wanna to talk about it."

"Okay, okay." He waited until Logan finally stopped staring him down. "Fine. It's all 'bout you an' your damn ego."

"Best be careful where you tread, bub."

"I'm always on t'in ice. What's one more fragile pond?"

Wolverine flexed his fists, as if threatening to release his claws. "Plenty, if you don't know where yer treadin'."

Remy held up his hands. "Hey, I don't got any problem w'it you and Stormy havin' any kinda love life. Shoot, the two of you deserve it. 'Bout time the two of you saw what the rest of us been seein'."

Logan chopped more vegetables, and didn't respond. Remy wondered how badly he'd ticked the man off after Wolverine rummaged around the cabinets for a frying pan without saying a word. The X-men's world was complicated enough without adding love between team members in the mix, and Wolverine had to be thinking about his choices. That, and how it affected everyone else. He probably hadn't expected anyone to stumble on the secret so soon.

"A bit of advice for you, homme," Remy muttered, taking out another cigarette. He carefully cupped his hands around it as he lit it. "Don' hurt her. She been t'rough hell 'nough."

Logan growled and dumped the eggs into a sizzling frying pan. "You think I don't know that? Flamin' hell."

Gambit shrugged. "Yeah, well. Jus' take it slow."

"You my mama, now? We're adults. We can handle it. We've been down this road."

"But not wi't each other."

"No. Not with each other," Logan admitted. He scraped the vegetables from the bowl into the pan. "We'll work it out."

"You better." Gambit took a slow puff off the cigarette. As he exhaled the smoke through his nostrils, he took the cigarette from his lips and examined the glowing butt in his fingers. " 'Cause if you don't, I'm gonna kick your ass 'til you ain't movin'."

"I know."

"I ain't jokin' w'it you, Logan."

"I ain't gonna hurt her, you moron."

Logan sighed, and Gambit looked surprised. It must've been the first time he'd ever seen the Wolfman with a look of tenderness and uncertainty about him. He turned down the heat on the omelet and sat across from Remy.

"It ain't like that this time. You got my word on it."

"Oh, really. Your word. You ain't no boy scout, homme." Remy wedged his cigarette between his fingers and leaned in close with his elbows on the table. Using his right pinkie, he stabbed each individual finger on his left hand. "Jean. Mariko. Silver Fox. V--"

"Fuck you." Logan scraped the chair back and left the table. He scowled darkly at the omelet and probed it with a spatula while Remy shrugged.

"Just layin' out the facts. You get over dem, I let you have Stormy."

He slammed down the spatula. "Let me? You'll *let* me? Naw, you ain't my ma. You're worse. Yer actin' like her goddamn father, or her older brother. Or a jealous b--"

Logan stopped cold, and Remy could feel the chill in his own bones. The Cajun took a deep drink from his beer and stared straight ahead, avoiding Logan's hunting eyes. Logan knew. Logan finally understood.

"You love her."

"Yeah? So? Ev'body loves 'er, and she my padnat. Dat a crime?" Remy drained the beer and got up angrily from the table. He slammed back the refrigerator door, searched for the pint bottle of vodka he'd hidden beneath some green liverwurst, and grabbed a shot glass from the cabinets.

"Yer the king of double talk, Gumbo. Yer tellin' me not to run from my feelings, but as 'King Loverboy' you ain't dealt with yer *own* shit. An' all this time I kept thinkin' it was Rogue your heart beat for."

"Shut the hell up." Remy tossed back his drink, but thought better about a refill. He was close enough to drunk to tip himself over the edge, and he was dangerously close to telling too much as it was. "I love Rogue. You know dat."

"And Storm."

"No. Yes. Goddamn it, it's different, homme. Way different."

"Heh. I shoulda smelled it off ya sooner. Don't know why I didn't."

"Yeah? Well, if you hadn't been so busy sniffin' shit over in de wrong backyards, you might've."

Logan chuckled darkly. Remy stared into his glass while he heard Wolverine turned off the omelet, put it onto a plate, and get two forks. He examined the glass in his hands, hearing Logan throw the plate onto the counter and come over to the table. He felt the table jar sharply when the man placed his hands on it. And from instinct, he knew Logan was inches away from his face. In all this, Remy refused to look anywhere but the shot glass. But he definitely flinched when Wolverine's hot breath tickled his forehead.

"You had yer chance. You made your choice. Now it's my turn. Get used to it."

Remy said nothing. Logan grabbed the breakfast and the forks and headed for Storm's attic, considering the subject closed.

Sighing, Remy tipped one more shot into his glass, drank it quickly, and put the bottle back in its proper place under the liverwurst. "Homme," he said with a small smirk, "you may rule de roost now, but dis ain't over by a long shot. You c'n bet on dat."

...Fin...