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xp_logsMarie-Ange helps Amanda dye her hair, they have that promised 'natter' from the Asgard Going Home Log, there is gossip and female-type-chatter.
Marie-Ange had changed out of her regular slacks-and-top into a pair of khakis that looked suspiciously a touch too big, and a tank top that had obviously seen more than its share of time in the art classroom before she headed to Amanda's room. Dying hair was not always a messy process, but she had just -gotten- new clothes. No need to need even more new pairs of pants when a pair that Doug didn't know were missing would do. She knocked lightly on the door, then rolled her eyes at herself and pounded loudly with the side of her fist. A light tap wasn't going to be heard over .. that... well, she supposed it was music. Maybe. By some standards.
There was a pause, and then the door opened, revealing what was presumably Amanda, although it was hard to tell with the towel draped over her head. The holed black jeans and the bottom of a baggy black t-shirt, visible under the towel, gave Marie-Ange a pretty good idea of who it was. The suspicion was proved right as Amanda pulled the towel down to around her neck, revealing damp blonde hair that had previously been shoulder length and rather nicely shaped had been roughly cut to jawline level.
"Hey," Amanda said briefly, turning without ceremony to turn the music down - she knew not everyone (and in fact most) liked her taste in music. But punk, loud and brash and obnoxious, suited her mood. "Come in," she said, when the noise was down to what with any other type of music be called 'ambient level', turning to face Marie-Ange. She looked terrible, so pale her skin seemed almost transparent, and her eyes huge in her face. Obviously food had not been a feature the previous weekend. "Just gettin' rid of the excess - not point dying what's gunna get chopped off."
Telling Manuel he was stupid was one thing. Telling Amanda she was being stupid was another thing entirely. "You know that we could have done this right without you chopping up all your hair?" Marie-Ange paused, and tilted her head to look at Amanda carefully. "And I think during that long boring part where we have to wait for the dye to set, you need to eat."
"'S the way I've always done it. An' the less I look like Amora's little blonde doll, the better," Amanda replied, more snippily than usual, but not as much as she could have. She _liked_ Marie-Ange, liked the sense of normality she got from the girl, without feeling completely out of her depth. She shrugged off the mention of food. "Ain't been hungry," she went on. "But the last thing I want is people in me face tellin' me t' eat, so you win. Got some stuff stashed somewhere in here..." She beckoned Marie-Ange into the room and closed the door behind her, only to cross to her desk and hurriedly close the top drawer and lock it: Marie-Ange caught a glimpse of some kind of statuette inside as she did. "Here, or the bathroom? 'S the non-drip stuff, if you can believe what they put on the box." The witch tossed the box of hair dye over to the French girl so she could examine it.
Marie-Ange wasn't commenting on the statuette. She had enough odd things in her own room, and for all she knew, any explanation would involve delving into an explanation of Amanda's sex life. That was a scary enough prospect to keep her curiosity at bay, at least for a while.
She frowned at the box of hair colour and examined it. "I am not sure if I should believe no-drip. With a colour this dark, I think maybe we should not risk it?" Besides the boxes lied, always. "Did you do the test to make sure you are not allergic?"
Amanda shrugged. "Been doin' this long enough that if I was gunna be allergic t' somethin', I'd know by now. 'Sides, I can just poof it away, can't I?" She made a vaguely-magical gesture with her hand as she said it, and a few random sparks came off her fingertips. "Shite. Sorry, control's up the creek at the moment. 'M havin' trouble findin' Rom's 'serene state of mind'." She adjusted the towel around her shoulders with hands that shook a little still. "Guess the bathroom's the best place for this, then?"
If Manuel was still as morose as he had been a few days before, Marie-Ange could perfectly understand Amanda not finding her calm state of mind. Even without a link, she had a hard enough time herself being in a good mood if Doug was upset. Links would just make it all the worse, she figured. "Bathroom, definitely." she didn't add ~that way if you sick up from the smell, it won't go everywhere~, although she thought Amanda definitely looked quite close to either falling over or being ill.
Amanda led the way, perching herself sideways on the closed toilet seat so Marie-Ange could reach the back. She'd already rinsed out the excess loose hair, so it was as damp as needed to be. "So, um, how've you been?" she asked a little awkwardly, trying desperately for normal when she felt anything but. She could sense the magical items she'd picked up in town during a clandestine visit, stashed in her top drawer - she hadn't touched them yet, but they were there, just in case. Just a little, to tide her through all this. "Asgard an' all that? We haven't had the chance t' talk since before then."
"Good. I.. ah.. " Marie-Ange paused, covering up her own awkwardness by tearing into the box of hair dye. "Trying to remind myself why I wanted to take university courses." She frowned at the contents of the box and unceremoniously dropped them onto the counter. "You know Doug is dreading you and I talking. He gave me a very nervous look when I said I would be busy.." She grimaced briefly, realizing belatedly that maybe talking about relationships wasn't the -best- idea right now.
"Huh? Oh, that's right, the spell..." Amanda glanced over her shoulder to smirk briefly at Marie-Ange, the happier expression doing much to improve her appearance. "The teleportation spell, the one he did t' get us back... It had a sort of requirement along the lines of 'no virgins allowed'. So he had t' tell me he wasn't any more. An' since there's no way in hell he'd ever go near anyone else..." Here the smirk died away, a shadow crossing her face as she thought of Angelo, and what Manuel thought was between them. "Any way, I couldn't help teasin' him a bit. I told him you an' I would have t' have a good gossip when we got back, only that got sort of delayed, what with all this." She turned back to face away from Marie-Ange as the other girl pulled on the plastic gloves and mixed the requisite components of the dye. "So, what happened? You don't have t' give me all the gory details, but it'd be nice t' hear somethin' good came out of the whole place, y'know?"
Marie-Ange blushed, just a bit, at even considering talking about the 'details'. "Doug.. well, we found him in a meadhall being a skald. He says he saw us right after we came in, so he had a chance to prepare, and... " At this, to cover up the faintly embarrassed tone in her voice, Marie-Ange shook the bottle on her hand and wrinkled her nose. "You would think modern science would make this not smell so bad..." Once she had started working the colour into Amanda's hair, she continued. "He was Doug. He made a big romantic gesture and sang for me, and he paid for a room for Shiro and Jamie and Miles, and I went back with him to his... and .."
"An' there were fireworks an' big romantic overtures an' all the rest, right?" Amanda teased, just a little. "But seriously, about bloody time Doug remembered he's a bloke an' showed some gumption. Tho' he did a pretty good job of fendin' me..." She paused. "Um, he did tell you 'bout that? At the Enchantress's castle, he was doin' the skald thing, an' I..." A slight blush came to her face, more on Marie-Ange's behalf than her own. She had no regrets about that part of proceedings, although she was _very_ glad she hadn't been able to use the compulsion spell. It would have been too big a mess to clean up. "It was the brainwashin'. Wouldn't have done it if I'd known who he was," she added defensively. Be nice to the woman with your hair in her hands...
"The singing was the big romantic overture, but other than that, yes." Marie-Ange answered. "And yes, he told me about the party. You did not know who he was, or who -you- were. I am not going to get upset over that." Well, not much anyway. She had gotten past being irritated while -in- Asgard. "Nothing happened, so I have no reason to get upset."
"That's good. 'Cause Doug's all right, but he ain't my type. At all. An' I wouldn't want you t' think I was poachin' on yer grounds or somethin'." Amanda cast around for a less-awkward topic. "How's he been doin'? I ain't seen much of him since Asgard either. Strange said he'd be all right after the spell, but sometimes it's hard t' wrap yer head 'round the whole magic thing."
"He is... stressing over trying to take university level courses. I think maybe Dr. McCoy cannot teach him any more programming languages." The dye in Amanda's hair was looking a bit more -purple- than black, and Marie-Ange hoped dearly that it was just part of the dye needing to set for a bit. One purple-haired person in the mansion was quite enough. "And he is Doug, so he is making more of it than it needs to be." Of course, she wasn't going to say at all that -she- was stressing over her own courses.
"Sounds like Doug all right." Amanda chuckled, relaxing a little. Strange how pleasant company and normal conversation had that effect - the knot in her stomach was still there, but for the first time in days, she didn't feel like she was about to throw up. "You still doin' that college Art class? 'M gunna miss you back here."
"I am. I think one more semester with the pillock and I would probably have to feed him to Sarah's dog." Marie-Ange grimaced. Piotr got on her nerves in a way that no one else did. "I will take getting up early and driving in traffic over another semester of not learning anything any day." She paused, thinking for a moment. "I only have that class three days a week. I could still crash Art class and glare at Piotr with you.."
"Sounds like fun. Tho' if Lee takes the class like she said she would, I might drop it altogether. Take up music or somethin'." She turned around at Marie-Ange's surprised snort - or tried to, since the French girl still had a good grip on the hair she was smearing dye over. "What?"
"Since when do you have an interest in music?" Marie-Ange asked, somewhat apologetically. "I did not mean to yank on your hair.." She shook her head. "Jubilee... first music and computer science, then art. If I did not know better, I would think she did not have an idea of her own in her head." The time spent around Jubilee in Asgard hadn't helped Marie-Ange's opinion of the girl at all.
"Wouldn't surprise me if she didn't. I reckon sometimes if you shouted in her ear there'd be an echo." Amanda shrugged off the apology – it hadn't been that hard a pull, and she'd engineered it herself. "As for the music... since Columbia. Um, did anyone tell you lot how that all ended? How Nate an' me got away?"
Marie-Ange shook her head silently.. then remembered that Amanda was not exactly facing her. "Not in so many words. I know something happened between you and Manuel, but I could not figure out what it was. " Now that she thought on it a bit more, that was the last set of readings she'd done before their abduction to Asgard.
"I got knocked out, when they shot me, an' Manny... he used the link t' take over my body. Used his powers through me t' trigger the conditionin' in the rest of the team that was left. Saved the lot of us." It sounded ridiculous, saying it, and the reminder wasn't doing her calm any good, but somehow she needed to at least say it the once. "He sort of left some stuff behind - his music ability. I ain't sure what he got from me, tho' he did say somethin' 'bout actually cookin' for himself at one point, so maybe that." She was aware Marie-Ange had gone still, but she couldn't see the other girl's expression. "You all right?"
It was not so much that Marie-Ange had no words. It was more that any words she had she was quite sure would come out in broken French, or worse, harsh Norse expletives. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek and after a moment, shook herself out of the wave of panic that had come across her at the idea of Manuel taking over people. "I.. I will be. I think." She looked critically at the spiky purpleish-black mess that was now Amanda's hair and made a thoughtful-sounding noise. "I think .. now we wait for the dye to set and I make you have something to eat, because it is going to be half an hour at least. "
"If it helps, I don't think he could do it with anyone else. Just the person he's linked to." Which might not include her once he'd had time to think about things. The thought made her chest ache. "An yeah, fine, I'll eat. Try to, any way." She wrapped the towel more securely around her shoulders and turned to look at Marie-Ange. "Thanks. I needed a mate.”
Marie-Ange smiled - a bit embarrassed, a bit relieved. "Good. I get along with Manuel some of the time, but I do not want him in my body. I fear he would do things I would not appreciate." She paused and smiled wider. "De rien. Whenever you need someone to just talk to. I am only a little ways down the hall."
Marie-Ange had changed out of her regular slacks-and-top into a pair of khakis that looked suspiciously a touch too big, and a tank top that had obviously seen more than its share of time in the art classroom before she headed to Amanda's room. Dying hair was not always a messy process, but she had just -gotten- new clothes. No need to need even more new pairs of pants when a pair that Doug didn't know were missing would do. She knocked lightly on the door, then rolled her eyes at herself and pounded loudly with the side of her fist. A light tap wasn't going to be heard over .. that... well, she supposed it was music. Maybe. By some standards.
There was a pause, and then the door opened, revealing what was presumably Amanda, although it was hard to tell with the towel draped over her head. The holed black jeans and the bottom of a baggy black t-shirt, visible under the towel, gave Marie-Ange a pretty good idea of who it was. The suspicion was proved right as Amanda pulled the towel down to around her neck, revealing damp blonde hair that had previously been shoulder length and rather nicely shaped had been roughly cut to jawline level.
"Hey," Amanda said briefly, turning without ceremony to turn the music down - she knew not everyone (and in fact most) liked her taste in music. But punk, loud and brash and obnoxious, suited her mood. "Come in," she said, when the noise was down to what with any other type of music be called 'ambient level', turning to face Marie-Ange. She looked terrible, so pale her skin seemed almost transparent, and her eyes huge in her face. Obviously food had not been a feature the previous weekend. "Just gettin' rid of the excess - not point dying what's gunna get chopped off."
Telling Manuel he was stupid was one thing. Telling Amanda she was being stupid was another thing entirely. "You know that we could have done this right without you chopping up all your hair?" Marie-Ange paused, and tilted her head to look at Amanda carefully. "And I think during that long boring part where we have to wait for the dye to set, you need to eat."
"'S the way I've always done it. An' the less I look like Amora's little blonde doll, the better," Amanda replied, more snippily than usual, but not as much as she could have. She _liked_ Marie-Ange, liked the sense of normality she got from the girl, without feeling completely out of her depth. She shrugged off the mention of food. "Ain't been hungry," she went on. "But the last thing I want is people in me face tellin' me t' eat, so you win. Got some stuff stashed somewhere in here..." She beckoned Marie-Ange into the room and closed the door behind her, only to cross to her desk and hurriedly close the top drawer and lock it: Marie-Ange caught a glimpse of some kind of statuette inside as she did. "Here, or the bathroom? 'S the non-drip stuff, if you can believe what they put on the box." The witch tossed the box of hair dye over to the French girl so she could examine it.
Marie-Ange wasn't commenting on the statuette. She had enough odd things in her own room, and for all she knew, any explanation would involve delving into an explanation of Amanda's sex life. That was a scary enough prospect to keep her curiosity at bay, at least for a while.
She frowned at the box of hair colour and examined it. "I am not sure if I should believe no-drip. With a colour this dark, I think maybe we should not risk it?" Besides the boxes lied, always. "Did you do the test to make sure you are not allergic?"
Amanda shrugged. "Been doin' this long enough that if I was gunna be allergic t' somethin', I'd know by now. 'Sides, I can just poof it away, can't I?" She made a vaguely-magical gesture with her hand as she said it, and a few random sparks came off her fingertips. "Shite. Sorry, control's up the creek at the moment. 'M havin' trouble findin' Rom's 'serene state of mind'." She adjusted the towel around her shoulders with hands that shook a little still. "Guess the bathroom's the best place for this, then?"
If Manuel was still as morose as he had been a few days before, Marie-Ange could perfectly understand Amanda not finding her calm state of mind. Even without a link, she had a hard enough time herself being in a good mood if Doug was upset. Links would just make it all the worse, she figured. "Bathroom, definitely." she didn't add ~that way if you sick up from the smell, it won't go everywhere~, although she thought Amanda definitely looked quite close to either falling over or being ill.
Amanda led the way, perching herself sideways on the closed toilet seat so Marie-Ange could reach the back. She'd already rinsed out the excess loose hair, so it was as damp as needed to be. "So, um, how've you been?" she asked a little awkwardly, trying desperately for normal when she felt anything but. She could sense the magical items she'd picked up in town during a clandestine visit, stashed in her top drawer - she hadn't touched them yet, but they were there, just in case. Just a little, to tide her through all this. "Asgard an' all that? We haven't had the chance t' talk since before then."
"Good. I.. ah.. " Marie-Ange paused, covering up her own awkwardness by tearing into the box of hair dye. "Trying to remind myself why I wanted to take university courses." She frowned at the contents of the box and unceremoniously dropped them onto the counter. "You know Doug is dreading you and I talking. He gave me a very nervous look when I said I would be busy.." She grimaced briefly, realizing belatedly that maybe talking about relationships wasn't the -best- idea right now.
"Huh? Oh, that's right, the spell..." Amanda glanced over her shoulder to smirk briefly at Marie-Ange, the happier expression doing much to improve her appearance. "The teleportation spell, the one he did t' get us back... It had a sort of requirement along the lines of 'no virgins allowed'. So he had t' tell me he wasn't any more. An' since there's no way in hell he'd ever go near anyone else..." Here the smirk died away, a shadow crossing her face as she thought of Angelo, and what Manuel thought was between them. "Any way, I couldn't help teasin' him a bit. I told him you an' I would have t' have a good gossip when we got back, only that got sort of delayed, what with all this." She turned back to face away from Marie-Ange as the other girl pulled on the plastic gloves and mixed the requisite components of the dye. "So, what happened? You don't have t' give me all the gory details, but it'd be nice t' hear somethin' good came out of the whole place, y'know?"
Marie-Ange blushed, just a bit, at even considering talking about the 'details'. "Doug.. well, we found him in a meadhall being a skald. He says he saw us right after we came in, so he had a chance to prepare, and... " At this, to cover up the faintly embarrassed tone in her voice, Marie-Ange shook the bottle on her hand and wrinkled her nose. "You would think modern science would make this not smell so bad..." Once she had started working the colour into Amanda's hair, she continued. "He was Doug. He made a big romantic gesture and sang for me, and he paid for a room for Shiro and Jamie and Miles, and I went back with him to his... and .."
"An' there were fireworks an' big romantic overtures an' all the rest, right?" Amanda teased, just a little. "But seriously, about bloody time Doug remembered he's a bloke an' showed some gumption. Tho' he did a pretty good job of fendin' me..." She paused. "Um, he did tell you 'bout that? At the Enchantress's castle, he was doin' the skald thing, an' I..." A slight blush came to her face, more on Marie-Ange's behalf than her own. She had no regrets about that part of proceedings, although she was _very_ glad she hadn't been able to use the compulsion spell. It would have been too big a mess to clean up. "It was the brainwashin'. Wouldn't have done it if I'd known who he was," she added defensively. Be nice to the woman with your hair in her hands...
"The singing was the big romantic overture, but other than that, yes." Marie-Ange answered. "And yes, he told me about the party. You did not know who he was, or who -you- were. I am not going to get upset over that." Well, not much anyway. She had gotten past being irritated while -in- Asgard. "Nothing happened, so I have no reason to get upset."
"That's good. 'Cause Doug's all right, but he ain't my type. At all. An' I wouldn't want you t' think I was poachin' on yer grounds or somethin'." Amanda cast around for a less-awkward topic. "How's he been doin'? I ain't seen much of him since Asgard either. Strange said he'd be all right after the spell, but sometimes it's hard t' wrap yer head 'round the whole magic thing."
"He is... stressing over trying to take university level courses. I think maybe Dr. McCoy cannot teach him any more programming languages." The dye in Amanda's hair was looking a bit more -purple- than black, and Marie-Ange hoped dearly that it was just part of the dye needing to set for a bit. One purple-haired person in the mansion was quite enough. "And he is Doug, so he is making more of it than it needs to be." Of course, she wasn't going to say at all that -she- was stressing over her own courses.
"Sounds like Doug all right." Amanda chuckled, relaxing a little. Strange how pleasant company and normal conversation had that effect - the knot in her stomach was still there, but for the first time in days, she didn't feel like she was about to throw up. "You still doin' that college Art class? 'M gunna miss you back here."
"I am. I think one more semester with the pillock and I would probably have to feed him to Sarah's dog." Marie-Ange grimaced. Piotr got on her nerves in a way that no one else did. "I will take getting up early and driving in traffic over another semester of not learning anything any day." She paused, thinking for a moment. "I only have that class three days a week. I could still crash Art class and glare at Piotr with you.."
"Sounds like fun. Tho' if Lee takes the class like she said she would, I might drop it altogether. Take up music or somethin'." She turned around at Marie-Ange's surprised snort - or tried to, since the French girl still had a good grip on the hair she was smearing dye over. "What?"
"Since when do you have an interest in music?" Marie-Ange asked, somewhat apologetically. "I did not mean to yank on your hair.." She shook her head. "Jubilee... first music and computer science, then art. If I did not know better, I would think she did not have an idea of her own in her head." The time spent around Jubilee in Asgard hadn't helped Marie-Ange's opinion of the girl at all.
"Wouldn't surprise me if she didn't. I reckon sometimes if you shouted in her ear there'd be an echo." Amanda shrugged off the apology – it hadn't been that hard a pull, and she'd engineered it herself. "As for the music... since Columbia. Um, did anyone tell you lot how that all ended? How Nate an' me got away?"
Marie-Ange shook her head silently.. then remembered that Amanda was not exactly facing her. "Not in so many words. I know something happened between you and Manuel, but I could not figure out what it was. " Now that she thought on it a bit more, that was the last set of readings she'd done before their abduction to Asgard.
"I got knocked out, when they shot me, an' Manny... he used the link t' take over my body. Used his powers through me t' trigger the conditionin' in the rest of the team that was left. Saved the lot of us." It sounded ridiculous, saying it, and the reminder wasn't doing her calm any good, but somehow she needed to at least say it the once. "He sort of left some stuff behind - his music ability. I ain't sure what he got from me, tho' he did say somethin' 'bout actually cookin' for himself at one point, so maybe that." She was aware Marie-Ange had gone still, but she couldn't see the other girl's expression. "You all right?"
It was not so much that Marie-Ange had no words. It was more that any words she had she was quite sure would come out in broken French, or worse, harsh Norse expletives. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek and after a moment, shook herself out of the wave of panic that had come across her at the idea of Manuel taking over people. "I.. I will be. I think." She looked critically at the spiky purpleish-black mess that was now Amanda's hair and made a thoughtful-sounding noise. "I think .. now we wait for the dye to set and I make you have something to eat, because it is going to be half an hour at least. "
"If it helps, I don't think he could do it with anyone else. Just the person he's linked to." Which might not include her once he'd had time to think about things. The thought made her chest ache. "An yeah, fine, I'll eat. Try to, any way." She wrapped the towel more securely around her shoulders and turned to look at Marie-Ange. "Thanks. I needed a mate.”
Marie-Ange smiled - a bit embarrassed, a bit relieved. "Good. I get along with Manuel some of the time, but I do not want him in my body. I fear he would do things I would not appreciate." She paused and smiled wider. "De rien. Whenever you need someone to just talk to. I am only a little ways down the hall."
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