2014.02.11 - Open Communication

Bright lights burning through a hazy fog in the New York wintery afternoon. The shadows cast itself across the wainscoting, a sepia haze forming in the filtered sunlight.

TIpping the shades down, Douglas Ramsey sat at the desk, watching the cars streak across the streets. The cars' neon in the dark foggy grey winter afternoon only served to occasionally accentuate the sepia even more so.

There came a knocking at the door, a knocking. A woman stepped through. She was gorgeous. Skin like snow, what there was that was visible. Dressed to kill, her dark brown hair curling about, dancing across her face, a femme fatale, calling on the service of ....

"Jamie?"

"Ack! Rogue!" Doug leapt up from Jamie's desk, quickly trying to look like he wasn't just sitting there staring at Rogue in the middle of a noir fantasy. "Uh. Jamie's not here."

Rogue rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in front of her chest, "Not like Ah'm here like every day! Starin' off into space again? Glad to see yer bein' productive."

With a roll of her eyes and a small smirk on her lips she shrugged off her leather jacket and tossed it onto the coat rack in the corner. "How ya been?"

"Well, most of my day job's teaching students, at the Institute anyway. I'm just here to sort out Jamie's computer stuff," Doug replies, as he motions towards the computer on the desk. "Got all the arrangements set for his digital videos of different things. It's just a matter of timing... you want to help?"

Observing Rogue, more because she -could- pass for noir if she had wanted to vamp it up, Doug grins. "Not too bad, really. We know where the quarry we were looking for is, just have to sort out what we need to do with him."

Placing his feet up on Jamie's desk, and leaning back, hands folded behind his head, Doug grins. "Things're much better now. Betsy and I put things behind us, just friends now. And how're you doing there?"

Rogue has done a fair amount of Noir Vamp lately, after getting two fabulous dresses for Christmas and the new years X-Factor party, she's learned how to do the victory rolls specifically. But that something she busts out on special occasions. Today the outfit is a green lace top with long black gloves, cutoff black shorts with layered tights and thigh high socks, and grungy looking boots. But her hair was worn with soft waves today.

Shehe moved to his side of the desk and looked over his work, "Hope you didn't uninstall any of his games. He was just boastin' that he got one of those Steam sales. Do you play any, by the way? We get some good gamin' nights around here."

And she shrugged when the question was addressed back to her, "Been alright. Went out with Daimon for the Smallville assignment. Sorry to hear about Betsy."

"No worries," Doug replies, as he moves over a bit to give Rogue a better look at the computer. "Things change, the center cannot hold, and so on."

"Although I had a lot of work to do to get all the malware and spyware out. Jamie's been busy with, uh..."

Right. Brotherhood. Don't annoy the women by indicating what the boys have been up to.

"... investigating."

"The Smallville assignment. Ho boy. Yeah."

Glancing up curiously at Rogue's face, Doug ventures to ask, "Um, if you don't mind my asking, how did you... and uh, Daimon too, of course... get involved in X-Factor?"

Rogue let out a laugh, typical boys club behavior. She took a sip of the coffee she purchased from a shop down the street, "Suuure. Look nuthin' wrong with that. But Ah've been tellin' him to quit leaving it up when I borrow his computer durin' work hours. Scatterbrain"

She shook her head and let out another soft chuckle before answering his question, "Heard through the mutant grapevine that Jamie was lookin' to hire, and Ah was squattin at some guy's place after the Genosha mess. So Ah came over here and interviewed, so here Ah am! Told Daimon about it, and he wanted to join too."

"Ohh... squatting?" Doug tilts his head, trying to get a read off her body language. Probably nothing, from the way she seemed to toss that off casually. There was a quick grin. "Yeah. I can't make sense of that Daimon guy... he seems like, from what I saw, a paranormal investigator, but not exactly a mutant." Blue eyes lift up to eye Rogue curiously. "While you are."

Reading her body language, both of these topics in a way make her feel slightly uncomfortable, the first more then the second. Her eyes dart to the side in regards to the first statement, "Yeah. Kinda had a thing with the Luthor guy for a while, didn't work out. But he helped get me out of Genosha, so there's that."

As for the second subject there is a slight blush on her cheeks, "He aint all that bad, real good friend of mine. Real obsessed with causin' conflict, but really he can be a sweetie."

"You were in Genosha?" Eyebrows arched, Doug runs a hand through his hair. "That had to be... well... hard."

Deciding that it would be a good idea to just not embarass Rogue, Doug nods, skirting free of her male friends. Except...

"Wait, causing conflict?" Doug asks, as his fingers dance across the keyboard. Windows pop up, and then there's a brief pause as he looks up at Rogue. "Should I put in work filters for his, uh, investigating...? I mean, maybe chances are it might be legitimate, but if it is... then it probably should have a password for that."

Rogue shook her head, "Don't really care actually. We should find something to make as his wallpaper."

She let out a sigh and moved to sit on top of the desk, and placed her cup aside, "Sure was. Wanted to get away from the mansion for a while, fell for the Magneto pitch. Seemed like a good idea at the time."

She let out a sigh. Bad times, but learning experiences none the less. She continued, "He could explain it a little better, but being the son of the devil he likes to cause trouble, just for the sake of causin' trouble. But he's good at what he does. Like our team, we've all got such interesting skills."

"Yeah. I can see how we all can be useful in investigations, especially since you can absorb powers." Doug grins. "If I ever need help, I'm giving you a poke."

Tilting his head, Doug arches his eyebrow. "Though... yeah, I get the impression that we're gonna have to clean up a lot of chaos."

Tapping the screen, Doug raises an eyebrow. "Would it make you feel better if I locked down some of the, uh... possible sexual harassment stuff so you don't have to look at it?"

Rogue held up her hands as if to offer herself, "Not a problem, 'sug. Just one quick touch and Ah'm as good as you, at least for a little while."

She leaned in to take a closer look at the computer, "Why he doesn't have anythin'....weird on there does he? But yeah, set it up."

"It -is- fun knowing how to speak all kinds of languages," Doug grins. Though, of course, he doesn't quite offer himself up, simply because he's got a fair idea of what Rogue's powers are, if not personally, so it's a bit of a cipher on what exactly it was like for the 'originator' of Rogue's borrowed power.

Pulling away from the chair, Doug motions. "Help yourself." Not that he couldn't break the password, but it would probably let Rogue feel more in control. Because hey, Doug had seen enough sexual haraassment seminars in his period at SHIELD to be aware it might be a good idea here as well.

With a bit of a laugh Rogue moved in to type on the computer. She wasn't terribly worried about accidently brushing up against his skin. The cooler weather made it so much easier to cover from head to toe, "There. Ah'll tell him the password if he's good."

When she finished she stepped aside and stood next to him, with her hand on her hip and a quirked brow, "How exactly does yer power work by the way, it's more then just languages right?"

Sassy, inquisitive. Doug couldn't help but smile at the posture of Rogue, as he shrugs. "Never been too clear on that myself. It's partly, I think, clairvoyant, partly mental, and... well, if you think of language as a means of communicating information, then you could say that I gather information and translate it."

A smirk crosses his face. "Like, right now, you're being curious -and- you've got attitude."

A grin at that, "That's pretty much me to a T, I reckon. So basically you can read anythin' about anythin', good to know. Remind me to never go out drinkin' with ya, you'll find out all sorts of things Ah shouldn't even know about myself."

It's just like hanging out with a telepath, or hell even for other people to hang out with Rogue herself. Oh the joys of being a mutant.

Laughing, Doug stands up, and bows, almost like a proper Southern gentleman. Or at least, someone who's seen Gone with the Wind. "Oh I don't know, I promise I won't let anything slip. If I'm going to get to know all about you, I should at least return the favor." And Doug offers a hand, an eyebrow arched. "So if you don't want to go out drinking, how about we skip the drinking part?"

Interesting. Most people, unless it was some sort of emergency really shyed away from letting Rogue do her thing. She slid off one of her long gloves and gently placed her hand in his, "Sometimes you gotta go all in."

Doug's power was much less -hazardous-. Although his memories certainly were pretty... well, middle-class.

And when Rogue opens her eyes, she should be able to immediately translate Doug's body language as 'intrigued, interested, curious'. The city breathes its own sort of language, a sort of intermittent pattern of information that -could- tell her something if she spent time deciphering it. The computer practically sang in binary code.

And when Doug smiles, it's with the pure pleasure of getting -someone- to see the world as he sees it. << Well, Miss Rogue, what do you think? >> Doug asks in Japanese.

Curiousity, anxiety, a tinge of nervousness plays across his face, so much easier to read now.

There was a large grin on Rogue's face as she looked about everywhere, and Doug himself looked just a bit more cuter now that she can note the nervousness, << Oh this is /amazin'/ this is how you see the world? A girl could get real used to this. C'mon let's see what sort of trouble we can get into. >>

With her gloved hand she took Doug's and rushed out the front door, grabbing her coat. She was about to information overload and it was going to be awesome.