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The Also Rans; Beta
Topic Started: May 15 2013, 03:11 AM (325 Views)
Butterfly
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'Knows Stuff'
May 7th
Afternoon


Layla was a bitch. This was known. What wasn't known was why she was a bitch. No one, it seemed, cared to ask about that too much. If they did ask though, she would probably give them a snide comment, say something vague that she knew she would never be asked to explain, and walk away with a spring in her step. That was part of what being a bitch meant. But, if she was being honest; a hard nut to crack when it came to the girl who 'knows stuff', she'd tell you that she was a bitch because the future was an even bigger one, and when you're called to be fate's advocate, you sorta have to represent it honestly.

That hadn't done her much good though. For what it was worth, things were not ont rack; at least not personally. Yes. Things on the bigger 'world wide' scale were shaping up the ways they were supposed to, but Jamie was-Jamie was nowhere near where he was supposed to be.

Alix was there, and not in the role she was supposed to play. She was, at this point, supposed to be a supporting player in Jamie and Layla's love story. Instead, she was stealing the spotlight; a spotlight that was tied into the future so drastically that the idea of messing with it sent shivers up Layla's spine.

"Are you gonna stare at me all night or are you going to come over and talk?"

Layla asked from the bar. Drink, it turned out, helped things a little. It seemed that someone else had that idea too. He was dealing with similar issues and, more than that, this meeting was to be a fateful one. Layla 'knew' that much.

"I'm not gonna ask again," she said. Then turning to the bartender, pointed to the man and said, "He's going to buy me a drink. Actually, he's gonna buy me three. Then he's gonna stiff you on the tip."

She pointed to herself with two thumbs. "Knows stuff."
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Jamie Madrox
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Of course he knew she was there. He wasn’t actually ‘staring’ at her, though he’d stolen a glance or twenty her way. For the most part he didn’t really want to talk to anyone right now. He’d already been imbibing a little bit with the drinks. Nothing extremely personal…but he was brooding right now and that always wound up going a little smoother when he was alone. And there was something about Layla that always tended to draw some sort of knee-jerk reaction from him.

And then of course there had been the time when Layla had tried to shove her tongue down his throat…

Suppressing a rising tide of loneliness, Beta took another sip and continued to pretend that he didn’t know she was there, studying his phone for something to look at, and looking through all of the messages that he hadn’t received. It only served to heighten the sense of sadness somewhat, to the point where he heard what Layla said to the bartender as if it were on some sort of echoed delay.

“Wait…what?”

He did get up, but not because she said he was going to. He was the master of his own fate thank you very much. “I’m going to buy you a drink?”

The bartender obviously hadn’t heard that as a question and he nodded. “Coming right up.”

Beta turned to him sharply but then laughed it off. “Okay, I see how this works.” But he didn’t have a fight in him so he just pulled seat out next to her and plopped down into it beside her as the drink was delivered. He felt tired. Beaten down and tired. It had been a few days since he’d decided to strike out on his own and though he wouldn’t admit it, the loneliness factor wasn’t doing any wonders to his depression or resentment.

“You here to tell me how I shouldn’t exist? How I don’t belong here and how you were right all along?” His voice was strained a little, reflective of his darker than usual mood. “So go ahead…tell me you told me so.”
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Butterfly
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"Ugh. Get over yourself," Layla said, downing another drink and sliding the cup toward the bartender. "Why don't we try that again. And this time, see if you can get some actual booze in there."

She turned back to Beta. She could tell her was in a lot of pain. Though she didn't need her eyes for that. He was always supposed to be in pain right now. It was the reason he did what he does. Well, one of the reasons anyway.

"Not supposed to be here? Who is supposed to be here?" Her head was already swimming, but that didn't stop the bartender from serving her another. She took a huge gulp. "I swear, sometimes I think the whole damn world would have been better off if we'd have just went poof alongside the dinosuars."

She took another swig. Turning back to beta, she gave him a coy smile. "You still don't have any idea what you are, do you?"

She ran her fingers through his curly Jamie-like hair. "You still think you're like the rest of them." It wasn't a question. "Little dupe, there's a reason they call you Beta."

She slumped away and finished off her drink.

"I can't tell which one of us is more pathetic. I rana way when I thought the love of my life was dead, and you're about to run away because he isn't. What a pair the two of us make."

She leaned in closer. "Wanna know something? They never think about us; not really. And I know that you and I are different, because at the end of all of this, he will be with me. But Alix; her story doesn't end in the arms of Beta, I'm sad to say."

She rested her head on his shoulder. "Not like it matters much now though. RIght now, we're nothing more than pesky gnats buzzing around their ears. Did you know I got fake engaged to undo all this 'Alix' damage? None of it's real. And if I have to, I'll get fake married to fix it. How sick does that make me?"

She looked up at Beta. "Do what you gotta do. Go where you gotta go. But don't be surprised if you trip along the way."

She looked up at him again. "Yeah, take that however you want. Just get me another drink."
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Jamie Madrox
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It was pretty plain to see that there was no ‘off’ switch for Layla Miller. She was always on, and evidently had almost no qualms about kicking a man when he was down. Of course Beta was fairly well numb right now, anesthetized by copious amounts of alcohol and self-pity, but it still made him flinch just a little to hear her tell him to get over himself. It evoked a rather childish reaction in him which amounted really to nothing more than him making a face at her when she wasn’t looking.

Still, it made him feel a little better.

Of course it didn’t slip past Beta’s keen senses that Layla was more than a little tipsified. For whatever reason this amused him, and seeing how ‘thirsty’ she seemed to be, who was he not to comply with her request for another drink? Nobody, that’s who.

There was one empty bar stool between them. He remedied that, sitting right beside her and lifting his freshly filled glass to hers when they were finally served by the lethargic looking bartender. The glasses clanged and he tossed back the drink while thinking about what she was saying about who or what he really was.

“Guess I never really thought about it. I thought it was just a VHS reference to be honest.” That wasn’t true. He knew he was different than the other dupes, at the very least by experience. It was he who had been taken, it was he who spent all of that time in that Skrull world. He’d sort of lost track of things in that time. It was pretty easy to forget who you were in when faced with unending solitude. There was no mirror to look into for a point of reference.

But he gave her words a few moments of ultra-sincere reflection.

“Would you really get fake-married just to score some of this,” he gestured at his body-which was of course an exact replica of Mr. Jamie Prime. Actually, Beta thought he looked better because he didn’t have that gay M on his face. But he wasn’t going to say that, especially not to Layla. “I know, I know..this isn’t about some skanky naked wrestling thing with him. It’s about the future of all mankind…”

Maybe it was his turn to mock a little.

“But just so you know, we guys like it skanky every now and again.” Two more drinks hit the counter and Beta tossed a fifty down, giving the bartender an encouraging nod to keep ‘em coming. Then he turned back to Layla. “You know what I think? I think you don’t like me because you can’t read me like you can everyone else. You look into my eyes and you don’t know nothin’.”

He raised his glass to her again, smirking saucily.
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Butterfly
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She would have smirked at his assertions had she been in her right mind. He was being quintisentially Jamie. Though, she figured that made sense.


"You really think that's a good thing, me not being able to read you?"

She arched an eyebrow and inched a bit closer. In truth, there was a certain peace that came with being around Beta. He had no future, at least none that Layla could see. At with that, there was freedom. He was a mystery, so far as a drunk horny guy in a bar could be mysterious.

Being around Beta was like being around a blank slate, being around an exemption to a rule that had shaped every facet of Layla's existence. She would have admitted she enjoyed it, that the peace of not having to know what came next when he was around was something she probably needed, if she wasn't so stubborn. Sadly for Beta, she was.

"Do you know what that means for someone like you Beta? It means you have no future. It means you have no past. It means you barely have a present."

She leaned in even closer, so that he would be able to feel her breath on his face.

"You are a shadow. Somebody cut you away from Peter Pan and nobody cares enough to stitch you back together."

She almost fell off her stool, tipsy as she was. Her hand reached out and settled on his leg, steadying herself.

"How does it feel Pinocchio? Did it hurt when he came back, when she pushed you off like some cheap carbon copy? No fun being the runner up, is it?"

She took another swig of beer and let the mug fall to the floor.

"Too bad that's what you were built for."
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Jamie Madrox
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“I know it’s a good thing-“

Her not being able to read him and to creepily stalk around after him with that smarmy smirk thing she did and all those wise-ass comments about destiny and blah blah blah. It took the sting right out of her little Peter Pan nonsense she was trying to barb him with, and he was sure his own smirk had to be as infuriating as her face was. “See? It doesn’t bother me though. The whole reason you’re going super bitch on me is because it kills you that I’m some kind of wild-card. You have no idea what I’m going to do next, and it takes away all your ‘advantage’. “

He glanced down at the hand on his leg but didn’t move a muscle to either support her or push her away.

Truthfully though, the runner up comment did hurt. That was the problem with someone like Layla. She knew the soft spots and attacked those mercilessly. Did she really not care whether or not she’d die alone with everyone hating her?

“What about you,” he leveled at her seriously, putting his hands on her shoulder to keep both himself and her righted. “How could you think that Jamie would ever love someone as callous and cruel as you are? There are a lot of differences between you and Alix…but that’s the biggest one. She cares about more than herself. You stomp on everyone without sympathy. Why would Jamie ever fall for someone like you?” He laughed, leaning in. “Answer is…he wouldn’t.”

It must be killing her. “You’ve always had the upper hand with everyone. Knowing where they are going to step and what the results of every move would be. But not with me..that must kill you. You have no idea what I’m going to do next and I can see it in your eyes-you’re scared.” It was time to show her just how wild a card he was. He locked eyes with her for a moment and then quickly swept in, pressing his lips against hers as she had done to him that day in Brownstone.

The bartender glanced up from a glass he was drying and shook his head. “Hell, even I saw that one coming.”
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Butterfly
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This little copy was having a ball telling Layla all about herself; which really pissed her off because-Well, that's what she was supposed to be doing.

"You're not some kind of wildcard," she said.

He was.

"And you're not taking away my advantage."

He did.

"I don't need to know your future to tell you what it's going to look like. You're going to mope around wishing you were the real thing so that your life, or the excuse that you identify as a life, will mean something."

She leaned in closer. "And you're going to sit around wishing that Alix looked at you the way she did when Prime was out of the picture."

She cracked a smile.

"You knwo there's a reason I lost my mind when Jamie left; a reason I never looked at you like you were the real thing. It's because I always knew better."

She might have known better, but she didn't know everything, because as soon as the words had left her mouth, something else entered it; Beta's tongue.

She flinched backward at first, not used to being surprised. Soon though, she melted into him. Reflexively, she pulled away from him. She slapped him across the face.

"How dare you?" She yelled, but then dove back in and kissed him again.
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Jamie Madrox
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In a swirl of alcohol-induced haze, Beta curled his fingers into Layla’s hair as they pressed together in a remarkably passionate kiss. He couldn’t really say what he was feeling, let alone thinking at that time. It had begun as a way to prove to her that she wasn’t this all-knowing guru, and it was turning out to be something he really didn’t expect. It was almost medicinal, reaching into those wounded places in his heart and administering a type of healing as she melted into the gesture and there was this moment when he stopped doing it to be antagonistic and just paused. It was a moment when he realized just how good it felt. It terrified and sobered him.

She pulled away and he looked at her with wild and confused eyes, flinching as the flat of her hand slapped him hard enough across the cheek to produce another dupe. The dupe looked confused too and then mildly disconcerted when the two of them started making out again.

Because Beta didn’t love Layla. He wasn’t even sure he could tolerate her as a person. She was mean, and selfish and heartless. The bartender looked at the new dupe who was turning his back on the scene of Beta pulling her closer and closer with some kind of mounting hunger. “I’m going to need a drink that will make me forget what I am seeing,” he said.

“One mind-eraser coming up,” the bartender replied with a chuckle and stepped across the bar to mix his magic.

Beta pulled back from her, breathless. He looked into those eyes and for the first time didn’t see cold and jaded Layla looking back at him.
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