xp_logs | Doug's family visiting the office (backdated)

Backdated to March. Doug's family decides they want to see where he works. Hijinks ensue.

Doug excused himself from the table and went to the restroom while his dad settled the breakfast bill. He walked into a stall and pulled out his cell phone, thumbing a button.

[--DIALING: JUBILEE (MOBILE)--] *bzzt* *bzzt* *bzzt*

"...pick up, pick up..."

"Yo, Doug, 'sup?"

"Jubes, thank god."

"What's up, dude?"

"Is Remy in the office?"

"...I don't think so. Why?"

"Is there any way you can find out? And make sure he -stays- out?"

"Doubtful, dude..."

"...shit."

---

"So, um, this is where I work," Doug said lamely as the five of them came through the glass door that had "Snow Valley Memorial Centre for Mutant Affairs" etched into it. He waved a hand at the generic looking reception area and glanced to see who was manning the desk, since they didn't really have a regular receptionist these days. He breathed a sigh of relief at seeing Amanda, but it cut off with a wince when he identified the books spread out in front of the Brit. Still, it could have been worse. It could have been Illyana's turn.

Amanda glanced up as the door opened, blinking at the newcomers. Clients? Doubtful, they didn't have the right look... Then a look close to horror crossed her face as she remembered just what day it was and who it had to be with Doug.

"Um, hello!" she said, rising and pasting a bright smile on her face. "You must be Doug's people."

"And you must be Illyana," Mary replied with a big smile as she took off her coat, it still being somewhat chilly outside. "How are you doing, my dear? Not working you too hard, I hope?"

A sudden coughing fit caused by her nearly swallowing her tongue made it hard for Amanda to answer. "Actually, I'm Amanda," she managed to say. "Amanda Sefton, pleased to meet you." She stuck out her hand, then belatedly realised as Mary crossed over to the desk to shake it, that she had her magic research open at a rather unsavoury page on demonic eating habits.

Doug wasn't sure whether to be mortified at his mother's faux pas, appreciative that she was clearly making an effort, or anxious about the contents of Amanda's desk materials and his inability to tactfully steer attention and discussion away from them. He silently thanked Amanda with his eyes for being graceful, and smiled at his family. "Amanda's a very good friend, and we go pretty far back. She and I came to Xavier's at right around the same time." He struggled for a moment trying to articulate more, but any further discussion would either get into the disagreements they'd had recently. Either that or trying to explain how he wouldn't really rather have anyone at his back would blow the cover right off the true nature of their work. So he had to settle for merely attempting to communicate all of that to Amanda with a crinkling around his eyes and a half-smile.

Jenny was looking not at Amanda, but at the books. "Oh, are you into magic and stuff? I love that, like Harry Potter. I so read all of those growing up."

It took all of Amanda's training to control the wince. "Ah..." she began, not sure where to go with this. Admitting she was actually a witch probably wouldn't go down well. "Um, yeah, so do I. Love all that stuff. Yay, Harry." She looked over at Doug rather desperately, begging him with her eyes to save her. "How about you?"

"Oh, they're totally the best books ever," Jenny said, "Well, there's parts in the last one that aren't very good, but really. I mean, I guess I grew up reading them so I'm totally a biased."

"Yeah, that last one... not as good as the rest," Amanda replied weakly. "I'm sorry, I didn't get your name...?"

Doug had caught the abortive wince, and had to restrain himself from a sympathetic wince of his own. "Oh, um, right," he said at Amanda's prompting. "My mom, Mary, my dad, John, and my sisters, Katie and Jenny." He indicated each of them in turn with a wave of his hand, and then cast about wildly in his brain for an excuse to shuffle his family off and show them around as quickly as possible so as to get them -out- of the office as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, he couldn't come up with a single one.

"Pleased to meet you, Amanda," John said, stepping forward to shake her hand. "I hope we haven't caught your office at a bad time."

Amanda shook the offered hand firmly, with another smile. "Oh, no, it's fine. Not to say we aren't busy - we usually are - but we don't get family visits that often, so it's a bit of a..." Problem? Panic? Disaster? Her free hand slid into her pocket to her phone, where she was dialling the front desk number by feel. "...surprise. And it's obvious where Doug gets his good looks from, yeah?"

"His mother?" John replied with a polite smile, and then turned as Mary placed a hand on his shoulder and nodded her head toward the now ringing phone. "So, we should let you get back to your work, young lady. I'm sure Doug can take it from here."

~Oh thank god.~ Doug made a mental note that he owed Amanda a drink. Possibly several. Possibly even needing the return of the globe. He shepherded his family along, pointing the rather fairly mundane and standard layout of the office in a wry tourguide tone. "So, that was the entryway. My server room is back this way..." he pointed and tried to move them in that direction and away from the other offices. Especially Remy's.

Unfortunately for Doug's nerves, a nearly six foot tall interruption came from around the corner. Wanda, nose in a book and her mobile glued to her ear only managed to see her coworker and not his family following like bemused ducklings. "One moment, Mr. Ramsey!" she called, turning on her heel so she could block him from running away - she'd cornered him a time or two on language issues in the past. She asked the other professor on the phone to wait - a fellow Rom who had helped mentor Wanda through some projects.

"~I have an old friend on the phone,~" she commented, cradling the phone between ear and shoulder as she flipped through the book in her hands. "~We Rom do not, normally, pass down stories through the written word as illiteracy has always been high. Outsiders tend to write them down for us and we think someone might have gotten something...~" She trailed off finally when she felt Doug's eyes boring holes into her and slowly looked up at the group standing behind him.

"Oh. Hello. Did I ... miss a memo?"

Doug closed his eyes and counted to five. In Sanskrit. "Wanda!" he greeted his coworker with a cheerfulness that belied his stress levels. "I think I told you about my family visiting?" he asked rhetorically. "My mom decided that it would be nice to see where I work and meet some of my coworkers," he explained, doing his best not to grit his teeth at all obviously. "Mom, dad, Katie, Jenny, this is Wanda Maximoff. She was one of my teachers at Xavier's for a while. She speaks -almost- as many languages as I do, since she's often off doing her best 'Indiana Jones' impression in some back end of beyond."

"Hi..." Katie said, making an effort not to stare. First, there was the mystery of how Doug ended up working around so many beautiful women in the first place. Secondly, well, there wasn't a secondly, other than trying not to stare at Wanda. This totally wasn't the right time for anything like that.

Jenny smiled the smile of someone who was totally innocent. Completely. Despite the roll of tinfoil she had in her purse. She was waiting for access to Doug's desk, "Nice to meet you."

Wanda eyed Doug's sisters for a moment both in amusement and suspicion before turning back to him. "My apologies, I must have forgotten - too many meetings," she said, slipping her book further into the crook of her arm so she could shake hands all around.

"Pleased to meet you, Wanda," John said, shaking Wanda's hand firmly, and then moving aside so Mary could do the same. "What language was that you and my son were speaking? I didn't quite recognise it."

Wanda had a sudden realization that she had no idea how much Doug's family knew about his mutation ... probably something she should remember from her stint as Xavier's guidance counselor. But many years separated that time from now and so she cast a glance towards Doug and smiled sweetly. "Would you care to fill them in, Douglas?"

"Wanda was raised by the Romani," Doug explained. "She has a tendency to...curse in it around the office, mostly." He chuckled. "But between that and her background in anthropology and archaeology, she leans on me to do translating for her a fair amount of the time."

"I know a great many languages," she picked up, relaxing a little bit, "enough to outspeak, for the most part, a number of our fellow staff members. But Douglas certainly has me beat. He's been invaluable these past few years." "It must be fascinating, knowing so many languages. Do you travel much?" Mary asked, standing rather tall and straight beside her husband. For all that, she seemed relaxed in an office environment, her gaze alive with curiosity.

"Constantly," Wanda responded with an easy smile. "Ever since birth, actually. I really know no other way to be." In fact, the idea of a family with a so-called white picket fence was so alien to her mind that it was hard to take in. She took in the family before her and shook her head as she tried to imagine her uncle doing a tour of the office.

Worlds would end before that happened.

"I'm sure you have other places to go," she said, offering her hand around, "and people to meet, so I would be remiss in keeping you." She eyed Jenny somewhat knowingly and decided that an early lunch at her favorite pub was probably the safest bet for the rest of the afternoon.

“What?” Jenny said somewhat sweetly, Katie doing her equal part to feign innocence, “We’re totally not planning anything.”

“Yeah. That would be wrong,” Katie echoed. Maybe this meant the tin-foil was a no-go.

---

Herd family into server room, show them his shiny computers, whirl around to a few more cubes, and then do his best to give them the bum's rush out without actually -seeming- like he was in any kind of hurry. Every additional minute in the office area was another potential for well-meaning disaster. "So that's pretty much it..." he said brightly as he started shuffling everyone toward the lobby.

Remy stepped out of the elevator, trenchcoat flaring around his legs and streaked with dirt and grime and what could only be hoped to be someone elses blood. "Dis id de last time dat I rely on you people for direction through Detroit. You know dat place is a swapped letter 'way from being called de'riot by everyone--" He stopped at the horrified look of strangers in his office. Unannounced strangers in his office.

If emotions could be displayed as coffee mugs, the one on Remy's desk would have read 'So Remy going to have to choke a bitch'.

He coughed, twice, and motioned at the walls. "So, uh, you called 'bout seeing a rat, right? I'm, uh, building maintenance."

Doug had no idea how to react and attempt to smooth over the awkward tableaux in front of him. His eyes briefly flashed with the desire to run and hide under his desk, and completely avoid the situation, but then he stepped forward. "Ah. Remy, this is my family. They're in town visiting and wanted to see where I work. Mom, dad, this is...Remy."

As soon as he'd noticed the strangers in the office, Remy's accent had disappeared, replaced by a typical New York boroughs accent that could be heard from any of the normal run of janitors, booth operators and bus drivers in the city. "Pleased t' meet'cha. Your son don't cause no problems in de building, not like those other computer whatsits. Always leaving their junk food wrappers around, pulling in the rats. I tell youse, it's a full time job just keeping this place rat-free without some pencilneck and his pile of hot pockets waving the buffet signs for dem. Folks," He nodded and walked over to Wanda. "Youse called, Miss Maximoff. Show me where youse saw the rat, and I'll get that toilet fixed while I'm up here."

To Wanda's credit, she didn't even blink as she stood up from where she'd been picking through the file cabinets and attempting to not get noticed by Doug's family. "Wonderful timing, thank you - I think the rat in question was starting to answer the phones. I saw it back here, actually..." In the complete opposite direction of where Doug was leading everyone, of course.

~Oh thank god,~ Doug gave thanks mentally. "Let's go have lunch at Finnegan's!" he suggested brightly to his family. "It's the pub where a lot of us like to go for lunch or after work..."