Hope and Doug

[x-trance.livejournal.com]

Hope comes to ask Doug for a favor.

Doug looked up from a batch of files on his desk as Hope knocked on his door before entering.  He put a sticky tab on a page to mark his place, then put the folders away in a drawer and turned to the young woman.  "So, what can I do for you?" he asked.  He knew Angelica had sent her his way, but not much past that.

"I hope I am not interrupting, Mr. Ramsey?" Hope asked a little hesitantly as she took the chair he pointed out him. "Angel told me you might be able to help me with some things I have been wanting to work on."  

"Please, no need for formality," Doug replied with a wave.  "At the risk of sounding like a cliche, Mr. Ramsey is my father."  He supposed that said something about every generation and maturing into adulthood, that physical maturity came long before a person started truly thinking of themselves as an adult.  "And what is it you're wanting to work on, then?"

Hope nodded, the hesitancy quickly fading from her eyes to be replaced with a serious look "Alright. During my time in Ksavia I received some training in observation skills. It is something I would like develop more for various reasons. It is something that is both useful for my current job, but more importantly... it's also vital for the safety of myself and possibly those around me in this new world."

Doug nodded.  Being more observant was a useful skill in just about any arena.  Too many people never noticed the things that were right under their noses.  "So what did your training consist of?" he asked, quietly turning his own powers of observation on Hope.

"In Ksavia itself?" Hope collected herself for a moment. Her experiences with the Archduke were still not an easy thing to talk about... "First it were simple things. Be shown a tray of objects and try to memorize them, then name them when the try is removed. Go into a room, observe for some time, leave and come back to figure out what is different. Games really... After two weeks of that it became far harder though. We would be shown a video of treaty talks and be asked to figure out which side felt they were winning or who might be lying. Or a three interrogations and have to tell who was the culprit and why we thought so. Each day there would be something different."      

"Hm."  That didn't sound so much like training, just testing.  And given the personality of the Archduke, from what he knew about Hope's time with that group, the consequences for failure were probably unpleasant. "Let's go from the obvious starting point, then.  What does your observation say about me?"  He leaned back in his chair to see how she dealt with the open-ended question.

Oh boy. This was almost doing a Sherlock scan as CJ had called it and she was not hèr. But between her mother, CJ and her own experience she did know some. "You just leaned back, but before that your were leaning forward a little. That generally shows interest. And when I mentioned my experiences in Ksavia, you were pursing your lips and you ran a hand through your hair. You were upset about something in the story."

"Not bad."  She could clearly see things beyond just the most obvious, but at a sort of intermediate level.  Doug could definitely teach her to do more.  "Now my turn?"  It wasn't exactly showing off, more demonstrating how she could glean more from observing.  "You took a very long pause when I asked you about your training.  Ksavia is still a sore subject with you.  You flinched when I asked  you what you observed about me, though you tried to suppress it.  That suggests that you were afraid of disappointing me, and that you were concerned about not performing well enough."  His eyes flicked up and down.  "You're sitting forward in your chair, not touching the back at all.  You want very badly to learn, but you worry that I might turn you away."

He smiled to take the sting off of the example.  "I won't.  And I promise to actually teach, not just test and punish."  He tapped a finger on the desktop.  "Let's see, what else.  You didn't eat enough for lunch - half a sandwich at most."  He grinned, a bit wolfishly.  "And from the flare of your nostrils, you just got distracted by a passing sexual thought about someone."

"Half a sandwich, huh? What makes you say that?" Hope ignored the last remark, though she could not stop her cheeks from coloring a rosy pink. "I will have you know it was a lovely Crab Louie salad."

Doug was feeling mischievous, though.  And he would have picked up on the conspicuous lack of response to his last comment even if there hadn't been the blush to go with it.  And he wanted to see how Hope would react if he pushed her off-balance a bit.  "So, who was it?  Boy?  Girl?  Anyone I know?"  His eyes twinkled.

Okay, he clearly was not giving up. "Someone handsome with a gentle touch." She retorted, her blush flaring even more brightly. This was so not her...

"Well, that was remarkably non-specific," Doug observed, letting the subject go, at least a bit.  "So, improving your observational skills.  Anything else you're interested in?" he asked.

"What else are you offering?" She tilted her head curiously. She had some idea's what she wanted to learn, but let's see what was offering her first.

"Oh, I have plenty to offer."  Doug couldn't resist another try at making Hope blush, depending on how she took that.  Not that it was all that serious - she was quite a bit younger than him.  But 'what would you?' 'what have you?' was a very familiar negotiation to him.  "If you're observant of people, then the next step is figuring out their motivations - what they want, that sort of thing."

"When you know what a man wants, you know who he is and how to move him." Hope spoke thoughtfully, then raised her eyebrow. "Both my mother and certain people in Ksavia said something like that and it's true. Even if I mostly have seen it in practice to get on the board of the local charity."

"Oh my sweet summer child."  Doug had watched a few episodes of Game of Thrones the night before, so the parallels between Hope and Sansa Stark seemed a bit obvious to him.  "If you want, I'll show you people who operate way above the level of a local charity."

"You say that like you think I don't have any of that at all..." She muttered before looking up again and tilting her head curiously. "So you say you play the game?"

"I didn't mean to imply you hadn't."  Doug's fingers flicked on the armrest of his chair.  "But there's definitely a difference between working with and for a couple of players, and trying to read an entire Club full of them, and make sense of all their motivations, and secrets, and plans."  These days, the information overload of a Hellfire Club social was second nature to him, and trying to discern where the next threat to Emma might come from.

"Too many sharks who might bite first?" Hope lightly joked. On the inside she was very curious though. What Club was he referring to? Especially since Doug seemed to imply they played political 'games'.

Doug's teeth flashed as his smile turned a bit shark-like.  "The Hellfire Club is like cramming the entirety of Shark Week into a single night.  Influence and favors are always getting shuffled around, just that...well," his eyes twinkled, "sometimes 'who's screwing whom' can be a bit more...literal than figurative, depending on the night."

She hoped the blush was a lot less fierce this time. "It sounds like an... interesting place." Hope replied with a raised eyebrow. "Though I suppose many people prefer the literal version over the figurative one in that world?" She just hope that made some kind of sense.  

"You'd be surprised."  Doug shrugged.  "At the end of the day, whether sex is involved or not, it's really about power.  Sex games is just one of the manifestations of that.  And it's very rarely overt, so navigating the Club involves a lot of reading between the lines and understanding subtleties."

"And even while not overt, I bet everything is a tool or even a weapon in the struggle for power." Hope nodded. It was not that hard to put the puzzle pieces together.

"Precisely."  A grin stole over Doug's face.  "But I think we'll wait a while before tossing you into that particular deep end, if at all.  We should at least wait until you don't blush quite so readily at even an oblique reference to sex, certainly."

"Not like I do it on purpose." Hope grumbled goodnaturedly, though a faint tinge her cheeks remind.

"Well, we can work on it."  Doug leaned back.  "So, I've done a lot of talking.  What do -you- think?  Are you interested?  Do you think I have things to teach you?"

"Definitely interested. Very interested even." Hope nodded with a small smile. "And yes, I think there will be much for me to learn here."