xp_logs | Mark & Amanda, Saturday afternoon

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Amanda helps Mark pack his belongings so he can move to the brownstone. It's a glimpse inside the real DJ.

Looking into Mark's closet was like standing in front of the Great Wall of China had it been made of cardboard boxes and milk crates. The relatively small space was crammed with clothes, CDs, and LPs. All well-organized, yes, but there was a whole lot. Mark scratched the back of his head and hrmmed. "When did I get this?" he asked himself, pulling a Grateful Dead record out of one of the crates. "Oh, right. Nicked it from my dad."

Amanda raised her eyebrows at the sight, impressed and a little daunted. "Too bad we can’t recruit any of the kids from the mansion as minions," she reflected, considering just where to start. "You, mate, are a pack rat. Big time."

"But it's all good stuff! Look." Mark carefully picked up a box and put it on the floor. The word "HATS" was written in big black letters on the top. And unsurprisingly, it was full of hats. Wool caps, berets, trucker caps, fedoras, even a cowboy hat or two. "Shit, I was looking for this!" He pulled out a dark brown trilby and softly ran a hand over the fur. "So that's where it was."

She giggled. "Let the journal hat wars begin!" she proclaimed, picking out a fedora and putting it on. "How's that? Good for the spy-in-training look?"

Mark pulled on a cowboy hat and pointed to another box in the closet. "I think I win by sheer volume alone. And I ought to have a container of bandanas around here, too. But those are light and easy to carry. It's these LPs that worry me. A lot of 'em are irreplaceable."

"Only you would have a box just of bandanas," Amanda told him with a roll of her eyes, but she considered the LPs seriously. "Maybe put them up the front of the van, in the passenger seat?" she suggested. "Keep 'em away from anything else that might get dropped on 'em. And get Wanda to help carry 'em down - she'd be able to counter any accidents with her powers..."

"It's just a small box," Mark pointed out, nodding at it. "And easily squishable. Doesn't matter where that goes. Yeah, I think the front seat would be fine. Let Wanda drive, too. I really don't want anything to happen to them. I mean really really."

Amanda could have protested over this slur against her driving, but she knew the whole 'precious, my precious' attitude. She tended to be the same way with her magic books, although those were a lot sturdier. Tipping the hat back on her head, she gave the closet a considering look. "'S probably best to keep the heavier stuff on the bottom, so books, CDs, any kitchen stuff, that sort of thing, and then clothes on top since they won't damage anything and cushion stuff a bit. Might take two trips, tho'."

"Unless you brought a Hummer," said Mark as he began to unload his closet, "Then I think two trips is the minimum. I have a lot of stuff. You saw the living room. I've got all that mixing and electronic stuff, too."

"Cain wouldn't let me take the Hummer," Amanda joked, taking the box of hats from him as he passed it to her and moving it to a place where it would be behind the heavier things they needed first. "Something about me cackling about crushing puny commuters." She grinned. "And I think Doug has gizmo-envy. He's just got the computers. You have things that go beep, whirr and whizz. Plus they light up. How long did it take you to collect all that?"

"Don't forget ping. I have things that go ping, too. Just not in the hospital sense." There were so many carts of LPs in his closet that Mark idly wondered if Tower Records went out of business because he'd simply bought everything they sold. "I've been here for about three years, but I didn't have much money until I'd been working at Silver for at least a year, so that's when the collection started. The mixing board was a Christmas present to myself."

"All right, remind me never to go shopping with you and Angie. It'd kill me," Amanda declared, uff-ing a little at the weight in the next crate she was handed. "Except maybe music. That sort of shopping I could stand, and according to, well, everyone who isn't Pete, my musical tastes need expanding."

Mark laughed maniacally and indicated the dresser with a nod of his head. "Oh, sweetie, we haven't even gotten to the clothes yet. There's that, the bureau over there, and the coat closet in the hall. Plus a lot of stuff in boxes, I think. I don't know if I've even worn half the stuff I own."

Amanda just stared at him. "...I think I'm suitably terrified now," she squeaked, then shook her head in disbelief. "Fuck, when I moved in I had about a dozen boxes of books, but that was magic research shite that Strange had been keeping for me. Clothes, I think I had... one bag? Angie's been helping me add to it since, what with the whole 'work casual' thing, but seriously? How do you own this many clothes? Why?"

"Um, because they're fabulous?" replied Mark as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. Really, who asks that kind of of question? "I mean, why wouldn't I? It's very important for both my jobs that I look good, right? I'm the front man. And the clothes make the man."

"Well, can't deny the looking good part," Amanda admitted, making an over-the-top show of checking him out. She'd heard similar from Manuel when they'd been together, but usually with more comments about her complete lack of dress sense thrown in. "As long as I don't have to rescue you after a freak wardrobe malfunction incident that buries you under the entire collection..."

"I've thankfully never suffered a wardrobe avalanche and only survived by eating my legs." Mark knocked on his desk to ward off bad luck. "Which according to Angie are stumpy so I shouldn't where these." He pulled out a pair of well-worn low-rise jeans that had obviously seen better days. "What a bitch."

"Hey, she's dealing with the cockroaches in the kitchen, I think you're even," Amanda pointed out, snickering. "Angie's all right - hell, I wouldn't know anything about this work wear and turn up in jeans and ripped t-shirts if it wasn't for her. Just sometimes, when she's in the zone, she loses her tact function." The witch grinned wryly. "Which is why I never ask her if my bum looks big in whatever I'm wearing."

Mark shrugged and tossed the jeans onto his bed. "It's because she's French, you know. But we'll forgive her for that. She can't help it." He gently placed the last carton of LPs on the floor with the rest and sighed. "And your butt looks just fine, too."

She preened. "Thank you, kind sir," she said, poshing up her accent to Betsy's standard before dropping back into her own. "You've made me a happy little packhorse. Just point me at a box and I'll start hauling stuff to the lift." She pouted a little. "Just wish I still had the levitation spell, buggerit."

"Well, think of it this way. This is like working out, so there's nothing bad Angie can say about your butt at the end of the day."