xp_logs | Operation: Shaboom: There are worse things

Marie-Ange manages to get Doug alone at the sock hop to try to shock him back to normal. It does not go well at all.

Joe Crockett whistled along with The Dell Vikings' "Come Go With Me" as he pushed open the door to the mens' room. Flash Valentine was something else, as everyone had been dancing pretty much since walking in the door, even the ones who were usually more inclined to be wallflowers. He'd drunk quite a bit of fruit punch to stay hydrated, and it had gone right through his system. So he and Anna had decided to take a quick restroom break before getting back to the dance floor.

Marie-Ange had, for the first time, been grateful for her alter-ego's smoking habit. It gave her a reason to flit in and out of the hall and watch people. And engage in a little private sulking over "Joe" and "Anna" cutting quite the rug on the dance floor. Illyana couldn't dance, but apparantly Anna -could-. Or like Doug, Joe was a natural and lead well. Either way, it wasn't any fun either trying to figure out which of the punch bowls had been spiked, or avoiding getting felt up by the handful of greasers who hadn't yet gotten thrown out of the dance for trying to spike the punch.

She'd caught sight of the pair heading to the restrooms, and followed behind discreetly. Her attempts to get any conversation in with Joe had failed miserably. He hadn't so much as given her more then a sparing glance, which had been followed by Anna tugging him back to the dance floor.

But now - Anna was in the ladies room, and hopefully she would stay there for at least a few minutes. Either way, she certainly wouldn't go looking for Joe if he took longer then expected. Good, nice girls didn't go wandering into the men's bathroom, Marie-Ange thought wryly.

She cracked the door to the men's room slowly, listening, and only hearing one person at the sinks, slipped in and almost immediately bent to shove a doorstopper under the doorjam and wedge it in tightly with her foot.

Joe was soaping his hands thoroughly when he heard a soft squeak behind him. He turned around just in time to see Marie-Ange straighten, and he cocked his head in confusion. "Mary Ann?" he asked the girl. "What are you doing in here? This is the mens' room." He pulled a few paper towels from the dispenser and dried his hands.

"Yes, I know." Marie-Ange's hands went up to straighten her hair, and gave the stopper one last kick under the doorjam. "I need to talk to you. Privately." She leaned against the door, and forced her hands to stop twitching towards her purse and the packets of gum and cigarettes that were tucked inside. "About Anna. Your... girlfriend. Does she seem odd to you lately? Distant, or cold, or just not herself?"

"Huh?" Joe was even more confused now. Mary Ann was acting strangely, even for her. "I'm not sure how that's any of your business, but no," he said coolly. "I can definitely say that she's not the one who seems odd to me," he added with a raised eyebrow as he threw the towels into the trash can.

"Merde..." Marie-Ange muttered under her breath, and then looked up at Joe. "Are you sure? She hasn't said anything very odd, or been particularly rude lately?" She shook her head before Joe could answer and held up a hand. "No, do not worry about answering that. Even if she had, you would probably not have noticed."

Joe had no idea what Mary Ann was getting at, and it was starting to make him uncomfortable. He tried to move around her towards the door so he could get away from her. When she didn't move, he motioned at the door. "Um, excuse me, I'd like to..."

"Yes and I would like to be wearing a pair of slacks and have hair that did not personally destroy the ozone layer, but we cannot always have the things we want, can we?" Marie-Ange's temper had finally snapped. Amanda was a dippy librarian's aide in pink tulle, Sofia and Wanda were baking cookies and hiding drinking problems, for all she knew, and -Illyana- was necking with -her- boyfriend at the drive-thru. "You are I are going to talk before I let you leave.."

This was a new and rather disturbing side of the gum-chewing, cigarette-smoking, fountain girl. Joe had heard Mary Ann had a reputation for being 'fast', but he hadn't heard anything about the sort of temper that she was showing right now. Slacks? The ozone layer? He had no idea what she was so upset about, and to be honest she was starting to scare him. "We have been talking," he told her. "I'm not sure what it is you want to talk -about-."

Marie-Ange sagged against the door slightly. "You really do not remember anything at all? Not New York, or the school? You do not have any strange memories, or dreams about people? Strange people? A man with claws in his hands? Your friend Angelo, who can stretch his skin?" She had switched in the pause between sentences to French, hoping to gently nudge Joe back into Doug. "Your music teacher, who could make lasers? Marie? Jamie? Kitty? You do not remember any of these people?" And then into Asgardian, though her command of the language was rusty and halting.

"I...didn't know you spoke other languages, Mary Ann," Joe replied, shaking his head. "I'm not sure what you were saying, but it sounded really pretty." Being from New Mexico, he spoke a smattering of Spanish, mostly enough to ask 'donde esta el bano'. He recognized the first language as French, but had no idea what the second was.

"It was nothing important." Marie-Ange said dejectedly. Except that it was, and there was Doug right in front of her with no idea of who she was, no memory of dating her, and nothing remaining of who he was. "I had thought someone like you, a smart college boy, would be interested in someone who was a little smarter, I guess. Your girlfriend, she isn't real bright." She snapped at her piece of gum and smiled broadly. "Didja know, I'm taking a stenographer's course? And I might take some shorthand, and I can already type."

"That's nice," Joe said in the bored neutral tone that said he was bored out of his mind. "Uh, Mary Ann, I'd like to get back to the dance, now, so if you'd..." He stepped forward, and awkwardly took her firmly by the shoulders to move her to one side so he could get out the door.

"What in the hell do you think you're doing, Joe Crockett!" Mary-Ann Colby's voice, when angered, was shrill and sharp. She kicked at his ankle, and on contact, went stiff for a moment. And then Marie-Ange Colbert hooked her foot behind Joe's leg, and pushed him away, sending both of them to the floor. "I do not quite know what you think you are doing, but I know that the person you are would never lay his hands on me like that." She said, straddling his hips.

Joe Crockett knew how to take a body check without getting seriously hurt. But that was on the ice. And this was a girl. So he never saw it coming. He landed on the floor with a thud and 'oof', and then she was on top of him, and there was no good place to put his hands to get her off. "What the heck?" he asked. "Are you crazy?"

"Yes, of course." Marie-Ange answered easily. "But not in the way that you likely mean." She shifted forward, learning more of her weight on Doug's hips. "When I knew you - when you were the person I remember, you liked it when I did this. Perhaps not on the floor of a men's bathroom, but in your room, in your apartment."

"I don't -have- an apartment, I live in a dorm room, and you've never been to Ann Arbor!" Joe was beginning to sound a bit strident at this point, as Mary Ann's behavior had gone beyond odd and straight into inexplicable. "I am not this person you keep talking about."

"Yes! Yes you are!" Marie-Ange yelled. "You are Doug Ramsey, you work on computers, you play video games, speak fourteen hundred languages and have a job and live in New York City in a brownstone apartment! You wear funny t-shirts and Converse sneakers and glasses and you eat chocolate chip muffins for breakfast no matter how many times I tell you that they are very bad for you!"

He wasn't listening. None of her words were even making him think twice about who he was, and whoever Joseph Crockett, Junior was, he was convinced that he was not, nor had he ever been Douglas Aaron Ramsey. Marie-Ange pushed herself off the boy she still saw as Doug, looking away so he wouldn't see her eyes welling up with tears.

Joe pushed himself up to a sitting position, and gave her a look that clearly said just how crazy he thought she was. "I am not Doug Ramsey. I am Joe Crockett, I'm an engineering student and I'm lettering in hockey at Michigan. I've never even been to New York City. You obviously have the wrong person." And he wasn't sure why he was still arguing the point.

It was desperate and ridiculous and the only thing she could think of. Words hadn't done anything, maybe she thought, she needed not to use them. Marie-Ange had been seated on the floor awkwardly, one leg tucked underneath her skirt, and then she was pushing Doug back down to the floor, one hand in his hair, with her lips pressed against his, and the other hand expertly undoing his belt, and then snaking it's way down the front of his pants.

The slight squirming Joe started as she tried to kiss him turned into a full-blown convulsion at the hand down his pants. He pushed her away rather violently and sat up against the wall, panting heavily. He could see why Mary Ann had a reputation for being fast. "I think you have the wrong impression of me," he said, trying to calm his breathing. "I have a girlfriend, and I love her very much."

"Yes, and it used to be me!" Before Joe could react, Marie-Ange was already on her feet, kicking the wedge out from under the door. "Please, just forget I said anything. Go back to your cheerleader girlfriend and your hockey team and your perfect life and never talk to me again!" She threw the bathroom door open, snarled out a expletive at the pair of teens waiting impatiently, and stormed down the hall.

"O...kay," Joe murmured to himself. But on the plus side, at least the door was open and he could finally escape and get back to the dance.