xp_logs | Manuel, Marie-Ange, and Doug Ramsey - We Were Halfway To The Distributor When The Empathy Took Hold

Who: Manuel de la Rocha, Marie-Ange Colbert, Doug Ramsey
Where: New York
When: Monday, Aug 23rd
What Happens: They go out to make arrangements for the Asgard Party

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Manuel took a deep breath, and then knocked on the door to Marie-Ange's room. He had a healthy to-do list, and he was in the mood to Share The Pain. Especially since Amanda was getting all dolled up to go out clubbing with Shinobi, and the less he thought about _that_, the happier he was. ~Come on, answer your damned door. I don't want to have to scan to find you.~ he thought to himself.

A few long moments passed before Marie-Ange answered the door, looking just a bit more mussed than usual - obviously having been interupped at Something. What she had been interuppted at was more than obvious by the additional occupant of the room, who was sprawled in Marie-Ange's desk chair, looking a bit more than pleased with himself.

"Manuel? This is.. unexpected. Did you need something?" she asked, completly not-having-expected him at all.

Manuel blinked as he got a brainfull of the emotions coming off of Marie-Ange and her boyfriend. "If this is a bad time..." he offered. "You're apparently preoccupied. I was doing some party planning things, and I've got some people I need to visit in person to get things ready. I could use your help." He smiled charmingly, and then took a step back away from the door. "I can find someone else. No big deal."

Doug did indeed look rather pleased with the mussed state of Marie-Ange, though he was slightly miffed at having been interrupted. He was grateful they hadn't been interrupted in flagrante delicto, however. He shrugged at Manuel's offer of finding someone else. "Nah, it's okay with me, Manuel. I did say I'd help out, besides which, you'll need someone to drive, yes? What do you think, Angie?" His eyes sparkled slightly as he glanced at his girlfriend, though he tried to marshal his emotions out of deference to Manuel.

"I think that I need a few minutes to make myself presentable." At this, Marie-Ange gave Doug a Look.

"What kind of help did you need, Manuel? I still have those sketches.."

Manuel couldn't help but smirk. "I need a ride, actually. I was doing some websearches, looking for a place that might be able to get us mead. Found a place maybe a few hours from here, but America has stupid laws about minors buying alcohol, and I have no way to get there myself. I can handle the buying, but I need a ride." he said apologetically. "Go get cleaned up, I'll wait for you out here. And scrub out my brain." he said with a teasing smile.

Doug raised an eyebrow as Manuel softly closed the door behind him. "So, do you really need to get cleaned up, or would you like to take another minute to be mussed a bit more thoroughly, love?" he asked with a grin.

Marie-Ange gave Doug another Significant Look, one that his power easily translated to "You think you are funny, but you are not.", and proceeded to pull her top off, throwing it at Doug's head.

Once she had finished changing into a skirt and blouse, and had pulled her hair into a neat braid, she gave Doug the once-over and frowned. "Somehow, I think a Tattered Cover t-shirt is probably not appropiate attire for Manuel's errands..."

Manuel waited out in the hallway, amusing himself by cleaning his fingernails idly and very deliberately _not_ scanning what was going on on the other side of that door. Nope. Don't want to know. Except that he did, he _knew_ what was going on, but at the same time, down that road lay Madness, and he wasn't quite prepared to go mad. Again.

Doug quickly caught the top and enjoyed the show of Marie-Ange changing, pouting when she had finished putting clothes back on. "You're probably right, love. I'll just nip over to my room for something a bit more apropos." Opening the door, he peeked out at Manuel. "Just give me a minute to change into something nicer, and I'll be ready."

"Take your time." Manuel said pleasantly, keeping his expression neutral. "You're driving, so we're waiting on you." At least he was wearing clothes, and his emotions weren't off in satisfied-land, so perhaps he did interrupt them before they could get to the really fun parts.

Too bad for them.

While waiting for Doug to turn himself into something less like a scruffy teenager with a newly expanded libido, Marie-Ange very deliberatly stayed outside the boys' room. Going in would just make this process take all the longer.

"You know, your "I am trying not to say anything" expression is really very obvious when I know who taught you how to do it." It was the bland smile that did it. Or perhaps just that after a semester of having to watch Manuel's expressions closely in Speech class, Marie-Ange was just better at guessing. She was not entirely sure. She was, howver, certain that he was holding back at least one all-too-clever comment.

Manuel just rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything immediately. "I'm not saying anything." he said, voice neutral. "I'm sorry I interrupted playtime." he said, with the ghost of a grin. "I am trying to be a little more social. It takes my mind off of things."

Doug quickly changed into slacks and a silk button-down that Marie-Ange had bought for him on the post-Asgard shopping trip and ducked back out into the hallway. "All set," he said with a smile. The trio made their way to the garage quickly and uneventfully (when you'd just been hijacked to an alternate dimension, you tended to take the simplicity of getting where you wanted to go a little less for granted). Looking at the box of keys on the wall, Doug pondered. "What do we feel like driving in today?" he asked the other two.

Marie-Ange frowned. "I suppose borrowing Shinobi's car is right out? It is too nice a day for cars that are not convertable.."

Manuel looked at the fleet of cars, and his eyes glowed just faintly red as he studied the cars available. "That one." he said, pointing to Paul's pride and joy. "That one feels right. And it's suitable for our purposes."

Doug blinked, torn. The Quebec license plate with "VEGA" on it gave a pretty good indication of whose car it was, but he remembered that Paul kept a set of spare keys in the lock box. "You guys do realize that's Monsieur Beaubier's car, yes?" he asked slightly nervously.

"Uh. Manuel? If we borrow Paul's car, he will drop us from a very, very high place and drop us on our heads. It will go -very- badly for us." Marie-Ange folded her arms sternly. "I like breathing. I would like to continue breathing for a very long time. It is a goal I have."

Manuel shrugged. "It felt right. If you don't want to use it, let's try _that_ one." he said, eyes flashing red as he pointed to Scott's sweet little roadster. "That one also feels good."

~Oh, thank God~ Marie-Ange contemplated this for a moment, then shrugged. "Mr. Summers cannot drop me on my head. He can make me go running in the morning, but he cannot drop me on my head. I should keep up with early-morning runs anyway. I have no objections."

Doug grimaced. Annoy Paul, annoy Scott. Rock, hard place. Whee.

He picked up the spare keys to Vega from the lockbox and shrugged. "When Paul gets pissy, I'm totally telling him it was your fault, Manuel," he said with a grin. "Gives me a head start. Not that it'll matter against super-speed, but still, it's the principle of the thing." He grinned wider as he popped the locks and slipped behind the wheel. "Besides, at least I'll die happy."

Manuel grinned. "Now you're talking." he said, sliding into the shotgun seat. "Besides, if it comes down to it, I can fairly guarantee that he won't really be all that upset about it. As long as we treat his car right, and fill it with petrol, there shouldn't be a problem, right?"

Marie-Ange covered her face with her hands and sighed. "I am blaming both of you." After seating herself in the back seat, - and giving Manuel a very stern glare, she pulled out a battered sketch pad. "Pardon me for a moment. I need to make out my will."

Doug grinned and ran a hand over the red leather and cherrywood interior before putting the key in the ignition. "Everybody strap in, and we'll see what Monsieur Beaubier's baby can do." Turning the key, he listend to the basso growl of the engine. "Oh, now this is going to be fun," he murmured, putting the car in reverse and carefully making his way down the driveway. Once he was past the gate, he opened it up, downshifting into turns and accelerating out of them, centrifugal force pressing the trio down in their seats.

Manuel grinned as the car slammed him back into his seat. "Remind me to thank Paul for the loan of his auto." he said over the purr of the car's motor. He then relayed the directions to the distributor to Doug. The car ride took maybe an hour at the speeds Doug liked to drive at.

Marie-Ange stepped out of the car, smoothing out her skirt, and tucking the wind-loosened stands of hair back into the tight braid. Looking at the plain office building and warehouse, she raised an eyebrow skeptically. "This is .. it?"

Manuel looked at the building with some amusement. His eyes flashed red for a brief second, and then he nodded. "This is definitely it. Bored receptionist inside. Who is apparently reading something arousing. I didn't need to feel that. Ugh." he said, swatting at his own head melodramatically.

Doug wrinkled his nose. "I probably am better off not knowing." Straightening his shirt and slacks, he began walking toward the doors. "So what exactly are we picking up, and are they expecting us, Manuel?"

"Believe me, you are." he said, reaching into a pocket and putting on a pair of extremely dark sunglasses. "We're not picking anything up right now. We're just here to feel them out, and see if they sell what we'll need for this party. Mead, ales, roasted beasts, porridge, that sort of thing. They supposedly specialize in re-enactment banquets."

"Porridge. Is the porridge -really- necessary?" Marie-Ange wrinkled her nose. As she passed through the office door, her posture changed, nearly in mid-step. A faintly bored expression crossed her face, and she pulled a notepad from - well, somewhere, presumably the bastion-of-all-things-female, her handbag.

Doug cracked his knuckles. "Okay. I can work with that." Striding purposefully through the doors, he fixed on the receptionist, who jumped with a squeak and stowed whatever pornographic material she had been reading in a drawer before looking at him. "Can I help you,
sir?"

Doug nodded, projecting self-assurance. "Yes, you can. My friends and I are organizing a banquet, and we're looking for a sort of..." he waved a hand artfully. "...Asgardian theme. You know, Norse mead hall, a haunch of beef roasting on a spit in the fire pit, a bard telling old tales while the warriors sit on their benches and the wenches serve them." He gestured expansively, trying to snow the receptionist into thinking he was a touch light in the loafers, figuring that it would help the image he was trying to project.

Manuel, his eyes hidden by his dark sunglasses, sent the thinnest probe of gullibility and willingness into the poor receptionist's brain. It was unethical and probably wrong, but he was in a hurry, and at the trickle of power he was drawing, unless she was spectacularly weak-willed there was no chance of the change becoming permanent.

The receptionist was obviously out of her depth, but she definitely smelled high-paying customers. "Just a moment," she said, and stabbed at the intercom button. After a short hushed conversation, she waved the trio towards a door behind her desk. "Mr. Thomas will see you now," she said slightly ingratiatingly.

"That was too easy." Marie-Ange mouthed silently, before following Doug and Manuel into the small office.

The man behind the desk was not at all what she had expected. Slender, trim, faintly Greek looking with olive skin and dark hair, and a not-at-all-amused expression on his face. "So what fancy private school is doing Mythology Night this time?" he asked. Jerking a thumb at a set of framed documents on the wall, he added. "And don't even think about trying to tell me you're from the University. "

Manuel looked at the manager, and then swallowed. Heavily. "Xavier Institute." Manuel said, playing up his Castillian accent. "I understand you stock everything we're going to need. We have a very big budget, and time is short. Can you handle a feast for fifty?" Manuel asked the man. To Doug, he whispered "Mood stabiliziers. All you."

Doug grinned rakishly. A challenge, was it? Doug leaned forward, concentrating on projecting a mix of maturity, self-assurance, and knowledge. "As my colleague said, we're from Xaviers, and we're looking for an Asgardian theme, specifically. A sort of Valhalla, with benches, mead, roasts, the like. We were told that you were the person to speak to about this kind of event," he continued, figuring a little flattery couldn't hurt.

Marie-Ange - completly at this point out of her league in persuasion, chose to sit down in one of the chairs facing the man's desk and take out her notepad. With her legs crossed at the knee, her skirt rose up just a little, and she sat forward, presumably to 'take notes'. Manuel was obviously playing the 'cash' of the operation, and Doug the 'voice' so it only seemed appropiate that she smile fetchingly and hope that this "Mr. Thomas" was a 'leg man' as it were.

Manuel didn't look directly at Marie-Ange, but her intentions came through loud and clear to his empathic sense, and he couldn't help but suppress a mental snort of amusement. The man was very clearly high on a number of noxious chemicals. Manuel could have broken through the mindfog easily, but he would have broken the man in the process, and that was, he was told, unacceptable. So he merely played his part and looked bored.

The negotiating was a bit drawn-out, especially when it got to the ordering alcohol part, but the quiet maturity of the three, paired with some rather fast talking on Doug's part, eventually got the job done.

As he walked out to the car with Manuel and Marie-Ange, Doug wiped a bit of sweat from his brow. "I wasn't sure that was going to work, especially after you told me he was on mood stabilizers," he admitted quietly to Manuel.

"I thought it was going to be a problem, but you pulled it out nicely." Manuel said with a smile. "Good work. Now, let's get back so we can start arranging the space itself, and figure out how we're going to work this."

Marie-Ange shook her head at both young men. "You are both incorrigable. That was completly unethical of us, and quite probably at least in part illegal. That man could lose his job." The effect was completly ruined by the slight twitch of a smile on her lips and the light teasing tone of her voice.

Between empathy and body language, Doug and Manuel both settled for simply raising their eyebrows at Marie-Ange, letting her know that she wasn't fooling anyone. The three got back into Paul's car, and Doug looked over at Manuel as they pulled out of the parking lot. "Anything else we need to take care of, or back to the mansion to set up the hall?" he asked.

"Nothing we can do from here.' Manuel said with some amusement, putting his feet up on Vega's dashboard. "I"ve got some more calls to make, see if we can get a hall that we can redecorate. Shouldn't be that hard."