So I'm not quite sure how to express how I feel about this story. At first I was sort of turned off by the idea of Rogue screwing everything that breathed. But then I saw where you were going with it - showing us her terror of intimacy and love.

Your characterizations are AMAZING. Absolutely dead on Gambit and that guy is not easy to write.

It's a beautiful, sad, sweet story and I'm just sorry it had to end.

"Most important thing is knowing how to fall right."

I think that one line summed up the entire story for me. Fantastic, fantastic job.

i'm a bit annoyed that she didn't end up picking between gambit and wolvie, I mean in the real world you can't have both. They're very jealous men if you know what I mean.

how long before they get annoyed with her reluctance to choose?

begs for a sequal don't you think?

-Hellboy

Author's Response: Haha, well, for a more detailed answer to this very common reader reaction, please see my multiple long-winded responses below. To summarize: I don't know that I agree that in the "real world" (while we may all live in one world, we do not all live in it the same way) "you can't have both," or propose an alternative way of living and loving others, despite its being uncommon--and certainly not without complications. I think I mentioned something in a comment about wanting to imagine a way of inhabiting love that admits the reality of possessiveness, but resists the violence of possession. I don't think this is a reluctance to choose, but a refusal to choose. And I can say almost certainly that this story will not have a sequel; at least not one that "resolves" this threesome into a duo, as some might prefer. :)

So you wanted to write a story about closeness and it became one big old mess on the way, eh? Yes, luv, that's what it usually does, it seems. Exactly the mess I'm in at the moment, if you allow me the personal note - and I used to be a young married monogamous person, too.
Still think that one love deserves another, completely. But then, fate rarely seems to consider fairness. And in many people's lives, smaller blessings have to be good enough. And maybe this uneasy, precarious balance of three is the best these three blighted, carefully unfolding souls can hope for. It might even be god enough.
On a minor point:
Glad to see the illness of liking secondary characters has a good strong hold on you - there's not enough of that virus around.

Author's Response: Thank you for this lovely comment, as always. I agree about the gift of having one love deserving another, completely--it's a gift beyond gifts. But I don't necessarily think this is a story in which that kind of love is absent--or a story that is about an "unfair" love. Complicated, yes; unfair, no. I think it's radically fair, actually. I think in this story, each love DOES deserve each other--and answers each other. What I suppose I am opposing is the idea that because one love deserves another completely, that must mean no other love deserves a place. I suppose what I am looking for between these three, is a kind of love without the violence of ownership, particularly because these are people who have been exposed to that kind of violence in other avenues. A love that admits possessiveness, but that resists exerting possession. I don't know that I think this story provides a "smaller blessing," simply because there isn't a singular relationship at the forefront; but, rather, the opening of a different way of being, living, loving. And I think that's more than good enough of a blessing. There seems to be a fair bit of response that this threesome is some sort of a compromise--a poignant, but still painful compromise--and I would like to adamantly argue against that. While I don't deny the possibility of pain in this (or any) relationship, I would rather imagine that there can be things we are capable of that are perhaps not what we have previously conceived of--but are nevertheless not compromises. What we are able to do in the gesture of loving--and knowing--others. The received idea of "the couple" and its supremacy is a strong one; I am by no means against it. But moving outside of it doesn't necessarily mean moving outside of the realm of fairness. In any case, there is enough precarious balance between two people, especially in either of these two "couples"; I don't think the precarity in this new relationship comes solely from it now being three, but from being who they are, themselves. In addition: thank you for the comment about secondary characters! I feel like I'm writing stories about other characters, with Rogue and Logan somewhere thrown in absent-mindedly. I don't really ever forget that X-Men is an ensemble piece, and I find this site's famous duo much more compelling when they--and their unique relationship--is exposed to the influence and gaze of other people.

Derrida, Celan, John Berger, and Tellier?
I like your style of light storytelling.

(This whole story is fantastic.)

Author's Response: I. love. this. comment. (Also: please punch me in the face the next time I say I'm going to do a light story. Or suggest a light story I'm actually capable of writing, without letting my own dominant concerns get the better of me.)

Throughout this story I have loved the fluency and flow, you’ve given small reminders here and there that take us back and forth and kept everything within the fic together during it’s progression yet taken us back at the same time. Lots of people try, not all succeed. There are a lot of fics out there that do not read as a story, they’re choppy and incomplete with chapters that don’t fit together -this is not one of them.

I have to say that I absolutely loved the way you wrote the whole section where she remembered/realized all the things Logan has done for her /been to her and how she finally found the courage to tell him she loved him. I love you / I’ve loved you since I was sixteen / I love you. The dead you. The you now. The things that made you. The you you. Etc. In-between all of this you’ve got how he squeezes his eyes shut, his hands shaking, the pain in his face as he listens. Then in her own way telling him not to be afraid and we’re back to the beginning with his hands shaking all over again. – I love passages where you’re there, where you can see it and feel it as you read.

I will just point out that had you written that section with Remy I would be saying the same, It wasn’t a shipper comment just a beautiful, full of emotion with great imagery piece of writing.

Knew you wouldn’t take the easy option and kill one of them off, was interested in how the ‘threesome’ part was going to be resolved, except it wasn’t and I sort of already knew it wouldn’t be but still hoped for it one way or the other. They may have said the words but for me it was meaningless, nothings changed. This is not love, this is getting what you want at any cost to others and yourself and settling for less than what you’re worth. I think maybe I’m too old, too set in my ways and have been married too long because having read the epi I’m still stuck with the world cruel and the last four lines? – just mocked it a bit more for me.

Having said that, this has been an amazing fic, I love your style and can’t wait for you to write more. Like I said before – You write it, I’ll definitely read it!

Author's Response: Thank you for your wonderful and detailed comments, as always! Yes, I definitely tried to keep certain details and lines 'recurrent,' in an attempt to show their evolving significance as the story progressed. Things like Gambit's staff, Logan's shaking, certain lines, etc. I'm also happy you enjoyed the "confession" scene to Logan; yes, hands are important in this story. I found myself gravitating back to hands, again and again, here. Also: while I understand your response to the ending, I would have to say I disagree with the assessment that the result (Rogue also staying with Gambit) is "not love," but "getting what you want at any cost to others and yourself and settling for less than what you're worth." In fact, I think the ending is quite the opposite of that. I think had Rogue "decided" on only Logan or Gambit, when the story makes it clear that she has strong and complex feelings for both, would be the real "settling for less than what she wants/what she's worth/what either of them are worth." I think there are many, many faces of love--and many, many ways to live love. And I find it moving, the idea of being able to love people complexly, unconventionally, and still truly. While not all people find themselves capable of that kind of love--a love that accepts the other person in his/her entire situation, which may include another person--this story would like to imagine three people who are capable of that, for various reasons. The last four lines (Rogue implied to be cheekily suggesting a threesome, and the two of them suspiciously quickly shutting the idea down--indicating that they may be a bit too quick to object, for their own nervously naughty reasons) are by no means meant to sound cruel, but humorous, and hinting. I don't typically make definitions about what stories ought to "mean," as I definitely swing closer to the "reader knows all" side of things in terms of literary interpretation, but here I feel it necessary to disclaim the idea that Rogue's final decision is deliberately cruel. Gambit's statement about cruelty is about her refusal to look at him in his wholeness; not her refusal to be "tied down" only to him or to Logan. There is no cruelty intended in this ending; rather the opposite. What is intended is the idea of a compicated (and certainly not "typical," or one that is a conventionally "happy") love that is, nevertheless, love. I don't think people are nececessarily "worth" choosing one person and only one person to love, and to be loved by. Rather, I think love is worth being seen in all its possibilities, which may not always be comfortable or commonplace. While this is the Wolverine/Rogue site; I would like to imagine all the possibilities of that relationship. I don't necessarily think a threesome needs to be "resolved," because I don't think people must necessarily live and love that way. And I think there is a difference between monogamy and fidelity; I think in this case, Rogue is being faithful to two people, while not being "monogamous." I think that's an interesting way to live. (And I say that as a monogamous young married person.) That's also, I suppose, why I gave the story its title--as an attempt to challenge, or outright oppose, the conventional conception of a romance. It's an anti-romance story; but not an anti-love story. In any case, thank you again for your always lovely and thoughtful responses! We'll see if in the next story you read, I go a bit easier on Rogan diehards. ;)

Okay, I'm really glad that I got that box of tissue out before I read the end. I love how she told Logan that she loves him and that she didn't have to hear him say the words back to her. That whole scene made me cry. His reaction to her words was awesome too.

Now I know that I should be happy with the ending which is basically a happy ending for all three of them, and I am, mostly. I was nervous that it was all going to end in sadness, especially for Logan. But I'm still a bit uneasy and I think it's because of my Rogan bias. But when I really stop and think about the story that you wrote and their thoughts, emotions and complicated relationship, it all makes perfect sense. I mean, Logan and Gambit both love her and gave her so much of themselves, how can she not love them both in return, right?

This is a truly compelling and complicated story and I'm so glad that you wrote it, shared it and finished it. You are an exceptionally talented writer and I can't wait to read your next story. That you can make me, a devoted Rogan fan, think to myself, "You know, it might not be exactly the ending I was hoping for (please forgive my obsessive Rogan bias), but it works and it's perfect and beautiful" says a lot for your talented writing.

Author's Response: Thank you so much for this amazing comment--and for donating your tissues to this story! Thank you for appreciating the fact that Logan did not respond; as I said in another comment, I can't ever really imagine him saying that to her--at least not the way he's interpreted in my stories so far--and I like that about him, about them; their wordless intimacy. And thank you for appreciating the ending, despite your Rogan bias! :) I genuinely cannot imagine any other honest or true ending but this one--so thank you for understanding the story and its efforts to suggest an atypical vision of love (or the Rogan relationship). This was a lovely and thoughtful response; and is much appreciated by this writer. See you next story!

Absolutely loved this story. But the epilogue seems to cry out for a sequel, yes? Surely Rogue will get what she wants, she always does.

Author's Response: Haha... sequel? The only sequel I can imagine for these three is a smutty one-shot. Though I'm sure people wouldn't mind that...