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| Put my faith in something I know; Doug | |
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| Topic Started: Mar 24 2013, 02:13 PM (335 Views) | |
| Butterfly | Mar 24 2013, 02:13 PM Post #1 |
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'Knows Stuff'
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March 21st Layla sat intently on the park bench. He be here soon, huffing the huffs of the self righteous and muttering to himself all the enraged questions he was planning on asking her. They were the usual. How could you let this happen? Don't you have a heart? What kind of horrible person are you anyway? Layla had gotten used to all of them. When you were her, with the sort of dark responsibilities she took on everyday,you get used to the hate. People didn't understand most of it, the way the future ebbed and flowed, the way things had to happen, not because you wanted them to, but because the alternative was so much worse. Still, it would hurt coming from Doug. Against her better judgement, she had actually gotten to like the guy. He was, in so many ways, her polar opposite. Maybe that was why she was fond of him. He was all straight lines and black and white, every bit the grade a hero that he'd never believe he could be. Maybe that was why he had gotten to like Layla too. She lived her whole life in the gray, in the space between good and bad where the future lived. Still, his affection had wained. She cringed, knowing he held her responsible for what happened to his hero, Scott Summers. Big surprise People always blamed her, always came with their pitchforks when something horrible happened. It was easy like that when you only saw half the board, she gueessed. Still, she needed tot alk to him. There was something she needed from him, something else. This, what happened to Scott, it wasn't th end. And Layla needed an in. She needed a way to get closer. "Stop!" She said as she saw him near. He would be expecting her at the Brownstone, but this is where it happened, in the park. "I got your stupid coffee, the one with the Italian name and the six shots of whatever." She stood. "Let's hear it, Dougie. Get it out of your system." |
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| Cypher | Mar 24 2013, 06:34 PM Post #2 |
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They said grief was supposed to come in five different stages; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. Doug wasn't sure what number he was on, or what number he should be on or even if he'd make it through all of them. Losing Scott had hit close to home in a way deeper than a normal loss would. Because Scott Summers was supposed to be invulnerable, Cyclops was the rock they built around and upon and losing him had set them all adrift somewhat at a time when they needed to be closer more than ever and now everything just felt so hopeless. It was wrong to think that way, but Doug couldn't help it. When the shock had passed and the reality settled the pain and sorrow were only equaled by fear. What would they do now? Who would lead them in not for Cyclops? What were the X-men without the man who had served as both leader and example, and if he out of all of them could be struck down so easily and callously what hope did any of the rest of them have? Thought split and divided into more and more questions as though they were living organisms at a cellular level dividing up and multiplying. When he couldn't stand it anymore and felt that his frustration would drive him mad he decided he needed fresh air and a sky open enough to contain all the mass flood of emotions he was feeling. He reached into his rooms closet to retrieve a jacket and there hanging on a hanger was one he almost forgot he had. It was a leather jacket, expensive, exquisitely cut and not something he'd ever get himself. Layla had got it for him just before they had been ran out of Morocco. She told him he'd need it someday and when he did to think of her and she'd be waiting. He hadn't took what she had said at anything more than face value. Who wouldn't need a coat in winter in New York? Yet suddenly as he looked at the expensive piece of leather through his cried red eyes her words seemed less innocuous and more ominous. She had known this was going to happen? She could have stopped it no matter what the future needed done. How could any future without Scott Summers be a good one? He jerked the jacket from it's hanger and put it on, it fit him perfectly, something that shouldn't have surprised him but did. He grabbed his phone from his desk and texted furiously for the woman who had procured it for him to meet him and explain herself, explain anything, something. She didn't answer. Storming off he figured he could catch her at the XFI brownstone and he'd save time even cutting through the park. In his mind he went through the list of what he would say to her what he would ask. He had worked up a pretty good spiel when the mysterious Layla Miller cut him off at the pass. Seeing her standing there midway through the park, a route he seldom took almost spooked him it was as though she had known where he would be and what he would want five minutes before he himself even did, which considering what he understood about her powers was probably true. She was there to block him off at the pass hoisting him his choice blend of Starbucks as something of a peace offering. Dang it if the woman wasn't smooth but it would take more than the sweet nectar of the coffee gods to curb what Doug Ramsey had to say. In some ways she was challenging him by being here lessing his demands by showing him off in them, but he was not one to be deterred not when it acme to matters as important as this. "Fine." he began when she told him to get what he had to say off of his chest. "How could you let this happen? Don't you have a heart? What kind of horrible person are you anyway? You could have stopped all of this Layla! You could have told me how to stop it and don't give me that whole mumbo jumbo thing about it being a fixed point in time you know that stuff confuses me. How can this be the right thing?! How can this be okay for any future?" He could feel the tears well up in his eyes again his anger being drowned under the pain of his grief. He sniffled and looked at the coffee cup she had handed him and then at her. "This is non-fat, right?" |
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| Butterfly | Mar 26 2013, 03:30 PM Post #3 |
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"Of course not, sweetie," she said, rubbing his shoulder and looking at the coffee in his hand. "You're in mourning. You deserve the good stuff." He was in pain. She could see it in his eyes; the same eyes that were with her most every night during her globe hopping sabbatical. They were the eyes that looked to her when they snuck into the Vatican posing as part of a tour group, the eyes that smiled at her when they took a truckload of pilaged supplies to a needy camp in Africa, the eyes that got serious and reminiscent the night they had to bunk in a cave and he found carvings that only he could decipher. Layla had always been wary of letting people get too close to her. For her entire life, Layla had been running toward a fixed point, with a fixed set of characters. There seemed to be no need to add to that. But the future had changed. It was different now, and things were about as unfixed as they could get. She remembered the night she convinced Doug to go with her, to leave his entire life, break up with his girlfriend, and follow her around collecting things that would now be necessary for the new future. Surely it wouldn't hurt, she had thought. Surely she could have him, just one person; so she wouldn't have to do it alone. She had done everything alone, and for what? The fixed points were gone. The future was changed. "I was wrong," she muttered to herself. And now she would pay the price. She would pay it with his questions, with his pain, and with the fact that she cared. "You were my great sin, Dougie." She cleared her throat. "What do you want to hear? You know me. You know that I have a reason for all the things I do, and all the things I don't. You want to hear me say I knew it was coming. I did. I always knew. Since I was a little girl, I knew this day as coming. It didn't always look like this, but it always ends the same way." She walked closer to him. "And there is a reason for this. I know it's hard to accept, but it's true." She looked at him, her own eyes clearing slightly. "I want you to be able to grieve Doug, I do. But there's no time. Scott Summers is dead. Do you really think this is the end?" She turned from him. "They don't listen to me Dougie. I'm a threat to them, to their mom and pop ideals and the way they look at Alix and Jamie. It's like I'm trying to break up the Kennedys." "They have to listen to me, Doug. Things are already spiraling. If I can't get them to listen..." She ran a hand through her hair and looked at him again. "We have work to do. You have to help me make them trust me." She walked closer to him "Do you trust me Dougie?" Without waiting for him to answer, she leaned in and pressed her lips against his. |
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| Cypher | Mar 29 2013, 02:10 AM Post #4 |
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People in and unto themselves were often their own litany. Often from an initial encounter Doug was able to learn many interesting facts from a person from the language of their body and the story they told in the small details that to almost anyone else's eye and mind went unnoticed. Things like what part of the country or world their were from from the annunciation of their dialects, to small things like whether they were pet friendly or not. Every person had a story and how they told that story through actions both spoken and not was part of their unique language and Doug translated language, all of them. Layla, however, like the mysterious M tattoo on her face had always been and still very much remained a mystery. It was never possible to tell when she was lying or when she was telling the truth or when she was lying about telling the truth or vice versa. If Doug;s intellect operated on another level then Layla's operated on another galaxy. He could read all the words on the page but Layla always operated two chapters ahead which while interesting often made things confusing. He had spent the better part of a year following her on one adventure after another getting into gray areas of trouble only to get right back out of them; it had been thrilling and exhilarating same as it had been exhausting and frustrating. Doug Ramsey liked plans, liked schedules and agendas, but Layla was always keeping her plans and her agendas safely secure in that sharp mind that rested just above and behind that mysterious M tattoo. Even now her explanations were almost half hearted wrapped in the ominous foretelling of things to come. He wanted to challenge her to beg her to tell him what was going on that so much bad had to happen but he wasn't sure he would even understand or her answer or worse that he even wanted to know it at all. He knew Layla was capable of so many things, both dark and light because he had seen her battle both and really wasn't that what the future was the fractured castings of shadows through prisms of light and darkness? One validated the other didn't it? Light cast shadows same as the darkness was needed to make the light bright. It all worked and fed off of each other like how the here and now of today fed into the makings of tomorrow. A lot of different things went through his head to say to her some less pleasant than others but before he could do anything or answer her question her lips were on his kissing him. In that moment his emotions drowned in sadness and hurt and grief the shock and surprise of it was enough to knock it all away. For one second he surrendered to the more basic instincts of carnal conditioning but then like always in his life the ability to translate ever action and it's language kicked in and he pushed her away. "Don't." he said the bubblegum like taste of her lipgloss hitting the top notes of his tongue. "Just don't. You've been a lot of things Layla but you've never been disinguneine don't start now." He wasn't angry, He wasn't anything really besides possibly more confused. He just knew what his mind and his gut told him and that was her actions weren't those of someone being genuine in their affection and he had long ago resolved himself to not settle for anything less than the truth. "You throw around a word like trust and then you go and do something like that? See that's not how trust works except for maybe in Washington DC or any Shonda Rhimes show." He ran a hand through his already messy blond hair and sighed and took a seat on the bench she had been waiting for him on. He rubbed his afce in his hands and started again. "I just saw one of the bravest men I've ever met who had more courage and more confidence then I could ever hope to have get struck down in the prime of his life leaving behind so many people that loved him, more than he'll ever know. I'm scared Layla. I'm hurt and I'm afraid and I need my friend so if you want my help again then you have to be that person. And to answer your question i do trust you. Maybe I'm crazy for it, but I've seen what you struggle with and I know that for how you try and play things off that it's a real torment, and you're my friend it's what friend do right?" He gestured to the section of the bench beside him and motioned for her to have a seat. "So tell me Cassandra where do we go from her because me? I haven't the foggiest." |
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| Butterfly | Mar 29 2013, 06:52 PM Post #5 |
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"Don't be so dramatic, Dougie. I'm just trying to get you used to the idea." She pulled away from him. He was so fragile right now, so beaten down by recent events and their effect on him. Layla used to wonder what that would be like, for something to sneak up on her and rip her heart out. She used to wonder how she would react. Then Jamie died, and she didn't have to wonder anymore. She had reacted-Well, she had reacted much in the same way Doug was reacting now. She was lost, hurt, anrgy, embittered. It turned out, for all her insight, Layla had been completely ordinary. And that's where the trouble had started. If she had held herself together, if she had just taken a breath instead of flying off the rails, maybe she would have seen what was coming, and how the future had changed forever. But this is where she was now. The future was a mash of what was always supposed to happen and these new things that didn't make any sense. She had to get a handle on it, and to do that, she needed XFI to trust her. "I know it hurts Doug. I know you wish it could be different, that Scott could still be alive. I wish that too. You think I want to see you hurt like this? I don't. You know me, Doug. You know I don't get any enjoyment out of this. It's an albatrose. What happened had to happen. I can't tell you why. It just did." She patted his shoulder. "It sucks, but we have work to do. I told you when we came back here that we weren't finished, and I meant it. This thing is only beginning. THey don't listen to me Doug, and if I cant get them to, then the whole world is screwed because of it. I need them to see me as something toher than a threat, and as long as they think I want Jamie, that won't happen. I need you to be my beard. I need you to help me convince them that I'm not a threat. It's why...It's why a lot of things happened." She walked closer to him. "I'm glad you wore that jacket today. There's a reason I gave it to you, though I'm sure you figured that out by now. In the lefthand pocket, there's a secret compartment." She waited for him to reach in, pull the object out, and waited for him to react the way she knew he would. Then she leaned into his ear, and whispered the one thing about the future that she knew would convince him. |
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| Cypher | Apr 3 2013, 01:53 AM Post #6 |
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As his hand reached into the pocket hid in the lining of his jacket and felt the small hard circle; he pondered what it all could mean as Layla voice began to whisper into his ear. Temptation often came in varying form masked in symbolism or interpretation. Eve had not been tempted by the serpent with an apple simply because she favored the sweet fruit but rather by what the apple offered; a level of knowledge that would put her and Adam on equal ground with God. Wants and desires were tricky things like still ponds that masked how deep they actually ran. Doug had never been a creature of unbridled desire often he found contentment in the things he had and the person he was. Still that did not mean the translator was on such a level of self fulfillment that there weren't things he longed for secretly and in some cases not so secretly, but they had always been out of his reach and capability. Even the genies of fables could not bring back the dead or make people fall in love. His fist still closed around the mysterious thing that Layla had hid knowing all this was part of her grand scheme months ago only confused Doug more. He had hard enough time keeping his schedule organized for a week. How did she school and script things so that the smallest of actions months ago could build and flow the way she wanted. Layla used time to steer rivers and carve shores the way she wanted to he was starting to realize. She had always seemed to him something of a prisoner to the future, doomed to a set path, but now he wasn't so sure. He wasn't sure of anything anymore and her words stung his ears and filled his head. He opened his hand and there in the center of his palm was an expensive band of white gold with a respectable sized diamond in it's clasp; it was an antique piece of jewelry he knew that because he knew this ring. "This better be the one ring." he said picking it up and studying it. "Cause what it looks like to me is my grandmothers engagement ring which you shouldn't have. Which you couldn't have." He held it up and inside saw the engravings of his grandparents initials. He cut his eyes over to Layla. "I thought we buried her with this." It took but a second for the implication of her unspoken words, the engagement ring, what she had just told him all the unfurl themselves in grandiose fashion in his head. "Are you.. are you asking me to marry you? Like marriage marriage. We-We're not even going steady. Wait. We're not going anything. Back this train up. As much as I'd love to play the Ethel Mertz to your Lucille Ball sized scheme here Layla how is this in anyway going to work out. I mean I don't even own a tux." |
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| Butterfly | Apr 7 2013, 05:32 PM Post #7 |
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"Sweetie," she grinned as Doug sheepishly, and somewhat cofusedly, asked his questions. "I'm not asking you to marry me at all. I'm way too old fashioned for something like that. Besdies, I think the person with the ring is traditionally the one who does the asking." She grabbed his grandmather's ring from Doug's shaky hand and slipped it on her finger. "Oh, and in the pretext of not keeping you waiting with bated breath, my answer is yes." She shook her head as he finished his frantic rant. "You wont need a tux, Dougie. It wont get that far. I'm meant to marry Jamie. I DO marry Jamie. And you- Well, you have your own demons to bat down before Mrs. Right comes knocking on your Star Wars themed door. But there are things that need to be done. We have to make sure that the world that Jamie and I, and you and that too-sweet-for-her-own-good girl, settle down in is one worth living in." She took her hand in his. "You know me Dougie. You might not always know what I'm up to or what my cryptic little sentences, and that's necessary; it's part of the DNA of who I am, of what I do. But you know that, deep down, I'm always working toward the good of the world. What I do, there's no selfishness in it. Even this thing with Jamie, it all works toward the greater good. " "But all of that's in danger now. You know there are different lines in the future, different strips of activity. And you know that the hub of mine is with XFI. But they won't listen to me. I need them to be open, and you can help me do that. So, Imma wear Grandma Ramsey's ring, and you're gonna pretend you don't have a thing for flighty Jewish girls." She sighed and squeezed Doug's hand tightly. "What can I say Dougie? It's time for us to go to work." |
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8:56 AM Jul 11