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xp_logsDoug drops by Marie-Ange's office to return her mice, and for almost an entire five minutes they are civil and then it completely falls apart. They just can't get along any more, can they?
Doug walked into Marie-Ange's office, a slightly guarded look on his face. He was carrying a small cage in which a trio of mice were industriously scurrying around, doing whatever it was that mice did. It certainly seemed important to the mice, at least. He set it gently on a corner of Marie-Ange's desk and waited for her to look up from whatever paperwork it was she was doing.
Marie-Ange glanced up almost immediately, and while she started to say "You could have knocked." she only got as far as "You could.." before she cut herself off, and held up a hand that indicated she wanted Doug to give her a moment. A second of re-composure and she returned his guarded look with a pensive one. "I thought they might have died while I was gone. You did not have to take care of them..." she said, and yet it sounded a great deal like "Thank you".
Doug shrugged. At first, it had been some kind of way to not quite believe that she had gone and left him that damn impersonal letter. And then, after a while, it had become habit. He'd always enjoyed the quiet sense of having another being around that came with pet ownership, that sense of never truly being alone. But, at the end of the day, they weren't really his to keep, so he'd brought them.
Not that he knew how to express, oh, -any- of that to Marie-Ange. Because it seemed like too large and too complex an explanation to be entirely truthful about. So instead he went with a simple "It wasn't a bother." Which sounded a bit like 'you're welcome'.
"And they are not even fat from being fed too many treats." Marie-Ange opened the top of the cage, and peered in closely at the mice. They seemed to look the same, not that she would really know if they'd been replaced. Mice were mice, they were cute and scurried around in the cage and sometimes did cute mouse things, and were hard to tell apart sometimes. "Though, I always thought I should have one fat one, one old one and one young one if I was going to truly stick to their names, but then I would be replacing them often, no?"
"More often than general, I suppose." The mice had been replaced a few times in the time that Marie-Ange had been keeping them. Talking about the mice was good. Talking about the mice wasn't all that awkward, and was almost like the past year hadn't come between them. Had it only been a year? It seemed much longer to Doug.
The mice went and hid in the plastic 'house' that was part of their cage, and Marie-Ange took her hand back out, and closed the lid. She usually tried to acclimate them to some contact, but mice were such nervous little things that it rarely took. "I almost wonder if I should use them more just to justify keeping them..." She said. It would mean she could avoid having to admit things like "Mice are cute and I like to watch them do cute mouse things.".
"You don't really need justification to have them," Doug said, almost fondly exasperated. They'd had this same discussion about the mice before, come to think about it. He shook himself out of thoughts, remembrances of him and her. That was then, this was now. "Sure, they have a use, but they're also pets. And lord knows there are some pets at the mansion that defy reasoning."
"Wade bought Molly a moose." It slipped out before Marie-Ange could remember that talking about your current boyfriend with your ex-boyfriend was the very definition of awkward. "I do not do 'pets'. You do pets. Amanda does pets. Jubilee would probably..." Again, awkward and she held a hand up and took a long moment to try to reorder her instinct to be sarcastic and cutting. "I am trying to not be such a horrible bitch. Amanda yelled at me and shook her cane."
And magically, they were right back in the Land of Awkward, between the mention of Wade, who he was pretty sure was currently dating Marie-Ange, and Jubilee, who he was definitely dating. "Yeah, I was referring partly to the moose, and partly to Laurie's pig." The guarded expression was back, even though it had only been down for a moment. "That's...good, I guess?" He wasn't really sure what to say to it, and probably wouldn't have even if he hadn't considered all the history between him, her, Jubilee, and Amanda.
"I am not sure I can let myself believe in the pig." Marie-Ange said. "It is easier to believe in the baby dragon than the pig." Why on earth would anyone have a pet pig that was actually pig sized. The tiny teacup piglets were cute. The adult sized pigs were bristly. "When did Amanda turn into Pete? I left and she wore clothes in colors and I came back and it is all black and white when she is in the office. I would have a conniption if it did not save me from having to shop with her."
"I'm...not really sure, actually." Doug was sure that there had to have been some kind of transitionary period, but he could clearly remember Amanda's more casual approach to office dress, and now that Marie-Ange mentioned it, he could see how the witch had patterned herself after her 'Uncle Pete', but he was damned if he could figure out when it had happened, or why.
If this was one more thing she was going to blame herself for, Marie-Ange was going to drink more often. And she was already going through alcohol at a somewhat astonishing rate these days. "She threatened to beat me with a cane. It is like she ... " Marie-Ange stopped. "She did not somehow become merged with Pete, did she? There are no psychic antics going on in her brain, Pete is well and recuperating and still calling Remy names over the phone and asking you for the moon on a stick Thursday?"
"No, I'm pretty sure I would have remembered Pete and Amanda going all Firestorm or Devastator," Doug mused with an amused expression, trusting that Marie-Ange would get the references in context. He wanted to make a joke about Pete's names for Remy, but given recent events...he just kind of didn't know what to say that wouldn't be impressively morbid.
"Who?" Marie-Ange was very slightly lost, and was not going to admit which of the two names she recognized. "No, nevermind. I know what you mean." Understanding Doug's pop culture references usually required google and active use of wikipedia. She would just look it up later. "Fill me in? What did I miss? It is one thing to read the files, but not quite the same. They leave out all the good parts."
How did you sum up an entire year concisely? What was important, what wasn't? "People left, people came back...we had an operation in England. Weird stuff. Guy got replaced with a double, and then they tried to elect him and run some weird bio-terror plot."
"Weird stuff." Marie-Ange repeated skeptically. "That is the summation of my resume, you realize, and yours, and every person who works in this office." She rubbed the heel of her palm against her eye, and tried to shut out the growing headache by watching one of the mice do that cute thing where it washed it's face with it's paws. "You are a master of understatement, Doug. I wanted gossip."
"Haven't had much taste for gossip lately," Doug muttered. He'd been the prime target of gossiping since Marie-Ange had left.
The headache was not going away. Marie-Ange was tempted to name it Douglas Aaron Ramsey. She rolled her eyes, one still hidden by her hand. "And yet, I need to know it. Who has gone crazy, who has left that I missed, when did the mansion start taking children again instead of teenagers who can at least hear the word sex without needing therapy?"
Doug could see the eyeroll in her body language, even if she'd hidden it with her hand. It sharpened the mild feeling of discomfort he was having, but he shrugged. "Adrienne left for Boston, Dr. Grey-Summers moved back from the west coast a bit after you left..." His eyes hardened. "Logan is off being Logan, and Miss Molly Hayes arrived around the first of the year. I believe that woman calling herself 'Nanny' was involved."
"Garrison mentioned Adrienne, but I thought it was perhaps the painkillers talking." Marie-Ange said, frowning. "Ugh. Nanny is the woman with the egg wheelchair and the mind control gas?" She kept grinding the heel of her hand into her eye. It distracted her from the headache. "There are days I think I need a file just for arrivals and departures. I wish someone had warned me about the twelve year old. I would not have made vibrator jokes at Kevin."
"Kind of a lot happens in a year." Ladies and gentlemen, the award for Biggest Understatement of the Year, Douglas Ramsey. "I suspect some or most people might have just not even realized that it would be a topic that needed discussing." Her departure hadn't exactly been a secret, but it also hadn't been widely broadcast.
"No one could have put a post-it note on my desk saying "We have children on the journals again, do not talk about sex!"? Marie-Ange said, tone colored with irritation and embarrassment.
"What, you expected one of us to make you a post-it like Mark's?" Doug snorted, managing to compress awkwardness, sarcasm, and a touch of disbelief into that single sound. "It's not like you ever talked about sex -before-."
Marie-Ange's face flushed, and she was momentarily overwhelmed with the old fear that she'd been right before, that the minute she started admitting that she liked sex that the people she cared about and respected would think she was a slut. It took her too long, in her estimation to tell her thoughts to just shut up and go away. "Well, kind of a lot happens in a year." She said, in a perfect to anyone not Doug Ramsey imitation of his accent.
"And you expect us to magically know what's changed?" Doug's reply was a bit on the cutting side. After all, she'd never talked about sex that openly when she was with him, but now she did? That left him wondering if it had been something he had or hadn't done that had caused her reticence, and had him feeling defensive.
If Doug was going to try to be harsh... Marie-Ange nodded once, and then her face went flat and cold and bitter. "Still cannot see the forest for the trees, Doug? You can seduce half the women you know, but cannot figure out when your high-school sweetheart stops being sweet." Or having a heart. Cliche, and not entirely true, but close enough. "I expect you to know, because that is what your job is. I expect you to know when people change, I expect you to figure it out without being told you need to, and I expect you to do it here for this team and not just for Emma Frost and her Court."
That stung. More than a bit. And since the natural instinct when one is hurt is to hurt back, the words were out of Doug's mouth before he could stop them. "Oh, so it's -my- fault that I didn't know you magically decided to stop being a frigid bitch. Just like I'm sure it's my fault that you left in the first place. And I'm sure it's my fault that Remy got taken. Got it." He stood up and brushed his slacks off. "If you'll excuse me, I have some work to get back to and thoroughly screw up." And with that, he turned and left.
Doug walked into Marie-Ange's office, a slightly guarded look on his face. He was carrying a small cage in which a trio of mice were industriously scurrying around, doing whatever it was that mice did. It certainly seemed important to the mice, at least. He set it gently on a corner of Marie-Ange's desk and waited for her to look up from whatever paperwork it was she was doing.
Marie-Ange glanced up almost immediately, and while she started to say "You could have knocked." she only got as far as "You could.." before she cut herself off, and held up a hand that indicated she wanted Doug to give her a moment. A second of re-composure and she returned his guarded look with a pensive one. "I thought they might have died while I was gone. You did not have to take care of them..." she said, and yet it sounded a great deal like "Thank you".
Doug shrugged. At first, it had been some kind of way to not quite believe that she had gone and left him that damn impersonal letter. And then, after a while, it had become habit. He'd always enjoyed the quiet sense of having another being around that came with pet ownership, that sense of never truly being alone. But, at the end of the day, they weren't really his to keep, so he'd brought them.
Not that he knew how to express, oh, -any- of that to Marie-Ange. Because it seemed like too large and too complex an explanation to be entirely truthful about. So instead he went with a simple "It wasn't a bother." Which sounded a bit like 'you're welcome'.
"And they are not even fat from being fed too many treats." Marie-Ange opened the top of the cage, and peered in closely at the mice. They seemed to look the same, not that she would really know if they'd been replaced. Mice were mice, they were cute and scurried around in the cage and sometimes did cute mouse things, and were hard to tell apart sometimes. "Though, I always thought I should have one fat one, one old one and one young one if I was going to truly stick to their names, but then I would be replacing them often, no?"
"More often than general, I suppose." The mice had been replaced a few times in the time that Marie-Ange had been keeping them. Talking about the mice was good. Talking about the mice wasn't all that awkward, and was almost like the past year hadn't come between them. Had it only been a year? It seemed much longer to Doug.
The mice went and hid in the plastic 'house' that was part of their cage, and Marie-Ange took her hand back out, and closed the lid. She usually tried to acclimate them to some contact, but mice were such nervous little things that it rarely took. "I almost wonder if I should use them more just to justify keeping them..." She said. It would mean she could avoid having to admit things like "Mice are cute and I like to watch them do cute mouse things.".
"You don't really need justification to have them," Doug said, almost fondly exasperated. They'd had this same discussion about the mice before, come to think about it. He shook himself out of thoughts, remembrances of him and her. That was then, this was now. "Sure, they have a use, but they're also pets. And lord knows there are some pets at the mansion that defy reasoning."
"Wade bought Molly a moose." It slipped out before Marie-Ange could remember that talking about your current boyfriend with your ex-boyfriend was the very definition of awkward. "I do not do 'pets'. You do pets. Amanda does pets. Jubilee would probably..." Again, awkward and she held a hand up and took a long moment to try to reorder her instinct to be sarcastic and cutting. "I am trying to not be such a horrible bitch. Amanda yelled at me and shook her cane."
And magically, they were right back in the Land of Awkward, between the mention of Wade, who he was pretty sure was currently dating Marie-Ange, and Jubilee, who he was definitely dating. "Yeah, I was referring partly to the moose, and partly to Laurie's pig." The guarded expression was back, even though it had only been down for a moment. "That's...good, I guess?" He wasn't really sure what to say to it, and probably wouldn't have even if he hadn't considered all the history between him, her, Jubilee, and Amanda.
"I am not sure I can let myself believe in the pig." Marie-Ange said. "It is easier to believe in the baby dragon than the pig." Why on earth would anyone have a pet pig that was actually pig sized. The tiny teacup piglets were cute. The adult sized pigs were bristly. "When did Amanda turn into Pete? I left and she wore clothes in colors and I came back and it is all black and white when she is in the office. I would have a conniption if it did not save me from having to shop with her."
"I'm...not really sure, actually." Doug was sure that there had to have been some kind of transitionary period, but he could clearly remember Amanda's more casual approach to office dress, and now that Marie-Ange mentioned it, he could see how the witch had patterned herself after her 'Uncle Pete', but he was damned if he could figure out when it had happened, or why.
If this was one more thing she was going to blame herself for, Marie-Ange was going to drink more often. And she was already going through alcohol at a somewhat astonishing rate these days. "She threatened to beat me with a cane. It is like she ... " Marie-Ange stopped. "She did not somehow become merged with Pete, did she? There are no psychic antics going on in her brain, Pete is well and recuperating and still calling Remy names over the phone and asking you for the moon on a stick Thursday?"
"No, I'm pretty sure I would have remembered Pete and Amanda going all Firestorm or Devastator," Doug mused with an amused expression, trusting that Marie-Ange would get the references in context. He wanted to make a joke about Pete's names for Remy, but given recent events...he just kind of didn't know what to say that wouldn't be impressively morbid.
"Who?" Marie-Ange was very slightly lost, and was not going to admit which of the two names she recognized. "No, nevermind. I know what you mean." Understanding Doug's pop culture references usually required google and active use of wikipedia. She would just look it up later. "Fill me in? What did I miss? It is one thing to read the files, but not quite the same. They leave out all the good parts."
How did you sum up an entire year concisely? What was important, what wasn't? "People left, people came back...we had an operation in England. Weird stuff. Guy got replaced with a double, and then they tried to elect him and run some weird bio-terror plot."
"Weird stuff." Marie-Ange repeated skeptically. "That is the summation of my resume, you realize, and yours, and every person who works in this office." She rubbed the heel of her palm against her eye, and tried to shut out the growing headache by watching one of the mice do that cute thing where it washed it's face with it's paws. "You are a master of understatement, Doug. I wanted gossip."
"Haven't had much taste for gossip lately," Doug muttered. He'd been the prime target of gossiping since Marie-Ange had left.
The headache was not going away. Marie-Ange was tempted to name it Douglas Aaron Ramsey. She rolled her eyes, one still hidden by her hand. "And yet, I need to know it. Who has gone crazy, who has left that I missed, when did the mansion start taking children again instead of teenagers who can at least hear the word sex without needing therapy?"
Doug could see the eyeroll in her body language, even if she'd hidden it with her hand. It sharpened the mild feeling of discomfort he was having, but he shrugged. "Adrienne left for Boston, Dr. Grey-Summers moved back from the west coast a bit after you left..." His eyes hardened. "Logan is off being Logan, and Miss Molly Hayes arrived around the first of the year. I believe that woman calling herself 'Nanny' was involved."
"Garrison mentioned Adrienne, but I thought it was perhaps the painkillers talking." Marie-Ange said, frowning. "Ugh. Nanny is the woman with the egg wheelchair and the mind control gas?" She kept grinding the heel of her hand into her eye. It distracted her from the headache. "There are days I think I need a file just for arrivals and departures. I wish someone had warned me about the twelve year old. I would not have made vibrator jokes at Kevin."
"Kind of a lot happens in a year." Ladies and gentlemen, the award for Biggest Understatement of the Year, Douglas Ramsey. "I suspect some or most people might have just not even realized that it would be a topic that needed discussing." Her departure hadn't exactly been a secret, but it also hadn't been widely broadcast.
"No one could have put a post-it note on my desk saying "We have children on the journals again, do not talk about sex!"? Marie-Ange said, tone colored with irritation and embarrassment.
"What, you expected one of us to make you a post-it like Mark's?" Doug snorted, managing to compress awkwardness, sarcasm, and a touch of disbelief into that single sound. "It's not like you ever talked about sex -before-."
Marie-Ange's face flushed, and she was momentarily overwhelmed with the old fear that she'd been right before, that the minute she started admitting that she liked sex that the people she cared about and respected would think she was a slut. It took her too long, in her estimation to tell her thoughts to just shut up and go away. "Well, kind of a lot happens in a year." She said, in a perfect to anyone not Doug Ramsey imitation of his accent.
"And you expect us to magically know what's changed?" Doug's reply was a bit on the cutting side. After all, she'd never talked about sex that openly when she was with him, but now she did? That left him wondering if it had been something he had or hadn't done that had caused her reticence, and had him feeling defensive.
If Doug was going to try to be harsh... Marie-Ange nodded once, and then her face went flat and cold and bitter. "Still cannot see the forest for the trees, Doug? You can seduce half the women you know, but cannot figure out when your high-school sweetheart stops being sweet." Or having a heart. Cliche, and not entirely true, but close enough. "I expect you to know, because that is what your job is. I expect you to know when people change, I expect you to figure it out without being told you need to, and I expect you to do it here for this team and not just for Emma Frost and her Court."
That stung. More than a bit. And since the natural instinct when one is hurt is to hurt back, the words were out of Doug's mouth before he could stop them. "Oh, so it's -my- fault that I didn't know you magically decided to stop being a frigid bitch. Just like I'm sure it's my fault that you left in the first place. And I'm sure it's my fault that Remy got taken. Got it." He stood up and brushed his slacks off. "If you'll excuse me, I have some work to get back to and thoroughly screw up." And with that, he turned and left.
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