xp_logs | Doug and Angie

After going to a Colorado Rockies baseball game, Doug and Marie-Ange run across some FoH bigots, one of whom, it turns out, went to school with Doug.

American sports had their merits, Marie-Ange decided. American football was still confusing and wrongly named, since there seemed to be -very- little use of feet involved - but baseball was actually rather entertaining, if she ignored the long stretches where they seemed to be not doing very much. The crowd seemed to be a little less crazed than football fans at home - though, she had certainly not expected Doug to yell - whatever it was that he had yelled. Repeatedly. It was kind of cute to watch him cheer and bellow when 'his' team won, though Marie-Ange supposed she was -just- a bit biased.

Doug grinned and draped a pinstriped arm over Marie-Ange's shoulders. He had decided before the game to splurge on his very own Colorado Rockies replica jersey. "I think this jersey just might be a lucky jersey, Angie, what do you think?" He stowed the large foam finger he had purchased under the other arm as they began to make their way toward the exits.

"I think you are -very- silly." Marie-Ange said, giggling. "But it is forgivable. I throw crisps at the television during the World Cup games." She grinned and wrapped an arm around Doug's waist. "I do not understand the chanting, but I suppose that ours would be just as odd to you?"

"Well, I understand more about soccer than the average American, so it'd probably be a little less incomprehensible to me, I suppose." Doug chuckled. "I think it's a prerequisite for any major sporting event anywhere in the world, that there must be incomprehensible chanting of some sort."

The crowd thinned out a little as they found their way to one of the stadium exits, the noise of honking cars growing louder. Some things were universal - a home team win meant that the fans in their cars made as much noise as possible. This was a -lot- of noise, between the whooping and hollering, the honking, and the random cheering.

As the crowd milled toward the exits, a pair of young men shouldered their way past Doug and Marie-Ange. Doug steadied Marie-Ange as she stumbled, and turned toward the pair of young men, a frown at his lips. That frown deepened and his eyes hardened as he recognized the logo on their shirts. Jamie had described them well to him after the Magic tournament. The Friends of Humanity.

Marie-Ange bit back a retort, and pushed back the sleeves of her light sweater, making the bracelet on her right arm - an obvious representation of a strand of DNA - all the more visible. A bunch of stupid rude kids were -not- going to make her hide what she was. She squeezed Doug's hand, and set her expression into what she hoped was quiet calm - fighting the urge to watch the young men, and trying to ignore the anger she felt just at seeing those shirts.

Doug squeezed Marie-Ange's hand back, and tried to calm himself. Picking a fight, especially in the middle of a large crowd of baseball fans, was probably not a very smart idea. Better to just let it go and not draw attention. Keeping a firm hold on his girlfriend's hand, he strode a bit more quickly towards the exit.

The crowd conjested a bit at the exits, and Marie-Ange had to fall in behind Doug to keep from getting jostled around. As she moved outside, the last rays of the setting sun dazzled her, and she lost sight of Doug for a moment - just long enough to pause in her steps to try to find him.

As Doug looked around, trying to find Marie-Ange again, a shove sent him stumbling forward as he heard a hissing whisper, full of hatred. "Genejoke."

Out of the corner of her eye, Marie-Ange caught a blond head moving - too rapidly to be just a normal step forward. She whipped her head around, to see someone shove Doug from behind again. She elbowed her way past the people who had filed past her, and grabbed Doug's arm, trying to keep him from falling and being trampled or bruised.

A mocking laugh came from behind the pair as Marie-Ange fought her way through to Doug. "So, Ramsey, not only are you a damn genejoke, you got yourself a genejoke girlfriend, too. How appropriate." Turning around, Doug met the eyes of a stocky young man whose features were a strange blend of Hispanic and Oriental. "Eric," Doug responded. "I'd say it's nice to see you, but, well..." He shrugged and grinned mirthlessly. "And I'd say I'm surprised to see you in that shirt, but, well..." He shrugged again and his grin got even colder.

Marie-Ange raised an eyebrow. "Doug? I take it you know this, ah, person is perhaps inaccurate, I think?" She asked, quietly, clutching Doug's arm with one hand. Shaking her head slowly, she tugged at Doug's arm. "We should go home. We can get dinner later. My stomach is a little upset at the moment."

"Saw you on CNN, Ramsey," Eric continued in a mocking tone of voice. "You and your entire school of genejokes. That bitch rockstar of yours, your girlfriend, all of your freakish kind. Rest assured, you'll get what's coming to you." Doug carefully pried Marie-Ange's fingers off of his arm and raised an eyebrow. Eric's "you'll get what's coming to you" had initially worried him, but upon further examination, the boy's body language was all bluff and false bravado. "And you think you're the one to give it to me, jackass?" Doug snorted. "Give it your best shot."

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Marie-Ange grabbed Doug's elbow. "Can we please just go home, Doug?" While her voice remained even and calm, internally she was struggling to keep from joining Doug in insulting the boy. He really was infuriating, and she could feel her temper rising. "This is not worth it." she said.

Doug turned as if to nod at Marie-Ange, then whipped his arm from her grip to use both hands to redirect the punch that Eric had completely telegraphed. Brushing the punch away with his right hand, he rolled it over to grab Eric's wrist. Placing his left forearm just behind Eric's elbow, he drove the boy to the ground as he increased the pressure of the armbar.

Rolling her eyes at the endless stream of expletives - and not even any particularly creative ones - coming from this "Eric" person, Marie-Ange took a step closer. "I think, maybe you should not taunt the 'genejokes'. You do not know what they can do."

She patted Doug's shoulder to get his attention. His ability to focus left him a bit single-minded at times. "It is very much time for us to go home now." she said quietly. Putting her hands into the pockets of her sweater, she let her fingertips brush over the new deck of tarot cards she had gotten at the bookstore before coming to the game. Just in case.

Doug grimaced and shoved Eric away from him, brushing his hands on his jeans as if afraid that touching the bigot had somehow dirtied him. "Right," he replied to Marie-Ange, taking her hand in his and deliberately turning his back on the pair of youths.

Walking quickly, without trying to look nervous was not easy - at all. Moving too fast made them look scared - but both Marie-Ange and Doug wanted to get back to the car as quickly as possible. They had gotten perhaps fifty feet before they heard a deeper voice shout "Mutie -freaks-", and they were pelted with a handful of loose gravel.

Doug snickered as he turned around, almost incredulous. "A year, and that's the best you can come up with? Although, I suppose bigots aren't exactly known for their intellectual capacity. Come on, asswipe, can't you at least _try_ to be a little creative?"

"Ew." Marie-Ange said, without thinking. "Doug, that's just disgusting." While speaking, she pulled one card out of her deck, hoping she remembed the order the cards had been in while she was looking through them in the store. ~Knight of cups, Knight of cups~ Slipping the card out of her pocket, and palming it, she scowled. Blast. The Sun.

Flustered, the pair of bigots attempted to come up with a snappy comeback and failed miserably. Finally, at a loss for anything else to do, the second bigot took the plastic top off of his large cup of soda and hurled it at Doug and Marie-Ange.

In the middle of ducking back and flinching, Marie-Ange pushed out - manifesting the image on her card. The deck had been themed around religious symbology - and The Sun was represented by light, streaming through a stained glass window. The soda and ice splashed against the more-than-illusory wall as a very slight shiver went up Marie-Ange's back. "Mother of -God-. Do they not understand that we want to just go home?"

The sudden appearance of the stained-glass window had badly unnerved the boys, though, and they quickly turned on their heels and dashed away, nearly stumbling over each other in the process. Doug sent a final raspberry after them, then turned and bowed gallantly to Marie-Ange. "Shall we, milady?"

Marie-Ange sighed, dismissed her wall, and took Doug's arm. "You are taking this far too well," she said, as Doug, still playing the chivarlous knight, opened the passenger side door to the car. "Who -was- that? He knew you?"

Doug waited to answer the question until he had gotten in the other side of the car. He waved dismissively as he turned the key in the ignition. "Eric. School bully. He was a jock with more machismo than brains. Not surprised to see that it hasn't changed, and _really_ not surprised that he turned out to be a bigot."

Marie-Ange raised an eyebrow. "He is not the reason you came to the school, is it?" she asked, tenativly. ~If Doug was able to take care of himself... to keep from being bullied, then what was stopping him from going back home. ~ She did not want to worry about it - but at the same time, being seperated from his family - he had been so upset about it when he first arrived...

Doug quieted for a moment. "He was part of it. But not the only part of it. More than a few families shunned my parents when the results of the genetic test came back. And there was a lot of harassment, phone calls at all hours of the night." He smiled. "I wouldn't trade it for the world, though, because look what I got out of it."