7584/The End Of Vacation

The End Of Vacation
Date of Scene:	28 August 2021
Location:	X-Factor Investigations
Synopsis:	Jamie and Rachel return from a vacation to Disneyland - only to discover a renegade Dupe has left the X-Factor building in a slobby mess. Kitty, Jean and Scott mentioned.
Cast of Characters:	Rachel Summers, Jamie Madrox

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Rachel Summers has posed:
With a resounding sigh of relief a leggy red-head idly yanks the last of her luggage from the back of a large yellow taxi cab. Due to the limits of carry-on luggage, the large amount of items purchased, and shopping that she's done - the red-head in question has three sets of mickey mouse ears on her head, a large Pluto doll under one arm, a black 'varsity' t-shirt that has Mickey Mouse on the front and white stripes on the arms, jeans, sneakers, a bulging suitcase and a plastic bag that has Disneyland written on the front that is over filled with items that can be seen peaking out from behind tissue paper.

She's in good humor, for the most part, as Rachel casts a gaze towards Jamie, making sure that the cab driver is being paid, before she moves towards the door to the X-Factor Investigations building. "I can't believe they actually had the exact same movie playing on the way back as was the way there!" Her nose wrinkles upwards, a look of annoyance written on her features. The idea of actually flying there and back had occurred, but that long of a trip would have been at the very least EXTREMELY taxing.

Hefting her luggage up over the curb and onto the sidewalk, Rachel continues on towards the building chatting away as she goes. "And I can't believe you wouldn't let me shut the kid down. Screaming and yelling half the trip has completely silenced any would-be voice in my head that says I should help teach at Xavier's."

Jamie Madrox has posed:
Following behind the redhead, Jamie Madrox has indeed paid the cab driver but not before extracating his own luggage - not nearly as jam-packed it seems - to set on the curbside. The financials taken care of, he circles around the back of the cab as the yellow vehicle begins to depart, deftly snatching up his lone suitcase as he moves up alongside Rachel. "Which is exactly why I wouldn't let you psi-whack him. You wouldn't be able to get away with that at the School and you'd absolutely hate having to deal with an entire classroom of unruly kids." He casts Rachel a sideways glance, his tone and expression both speaking from the depths of experience. "Trust me. I've subbed for a few classes before and..." Jamie pauses, before adding, "Well. It's an acquired taste." The dryness of his delivery leaves it somewhat ambiguous as to whether or not it's a taste that he has actually yet acquired, himself.

Dressed somewhat less touristy than his companion, Jamie's attire is mostly what one might expect - rumpled jeans, a long green trenchcoat - though his T-shirt does show he, too, has likely come from the same 'Happiest Place On Earth' as Rachel, as it displays a logo for the Disney+ show 'The Bad Batch' along with the boldly declared tag line 'Heroic Clone Troopers'. "Besides, it's not like we needed to watch the movie again, we already saw it on the way there." He grins as he speaks, clearly able to find the humor in it all.

That smile fades as he opens the door to the building in front of the two however, swinging the entrance open to the X-Factor Investigations offices to be greeted with a front room that is in complete disarray. Waiting room chairs are askew and jumbled haphazardly across the area, fast food cups and a few beer bottles are laying empty at odd angles on the floor, and a number of old pizza boxes are stacked rather precariously in one corner. The door to Jamie's office is partially ajar and when he starts to call out a greeting in a rather unhappy voice, the office door swings open fully to reveal one of his duplicates, standing there looking as if he may have had all of six hours of sleep in the last week. "Hey!!" the duplicate blurts out in a mixture of surprise and relief. "You're back! Great! How was the trip? Dying to hear all the detail!" The duplicate is a bit frenetic, and perhaps sensing what might be asked of him, his eyes dart quickly around the state of the front room before he clears his throat nervously. "Ah, I was *going* to clean all of this up before you got back, but, uh, I guess time just got away from me..."

Rachel Summers has posed:
Pausing as Jamie works the lock and opens the door, his words DOES cause Rachel some manner of pause as she digests that with a great deal of thought. No, she WOULDN'T be able to silence an entire room full of children. Crap. He has a point. Especially not at Xavier's. With some measure of respect at that, Rachel turns her green gems towards Jamie, appreciation written there. "You're right. I shouldn't." Not that she wouldn't, because. It's Rachel. She would. But that. She shouldn't. There's a difference.

It's the slight annoyance that rings forth from Jamie's emotions that does catch Rachel slightly off-guard before her eyes greet the reason for that annoyance. "What the ..." Heck? Chaos! A cyclone! A really slob of a duplicate?

Rachel turns her annoyance upon the nervous acting dupe. "Oh this had better not have been this way long, or if we have had clients..." There's a tone to Rachel's words. She took a long time to get this place up to speed, and to have this slob of a jerk turn all of her work into THIS.

Her eyes blaze with an intensity that is quite purpose in design. Her green gems turn almost red-gold as she places her bag down and plants her suitcase against the wall. With Mickey Mouse ears on her head (three pairs of them) and Pluto still tucked under her arm, Rachel advances towards the Jamie.

Jamie Madrox has posed:
"For the love of--" Jamie (the one that just arrived) drops his suitcase in annoyance at his duplicate's actions, muttering some rather unkind words under his breath. "Two weeks!" he finally says at an audible volume, gesturing widely at the mess of the front room. "Two weeks, was that really so long?" As he moves further into the room, he steps on one of the discarded paper cups, the soft crunching sound followed by a unpleasant squirt of sticky brown liquid out of the cup's straw, which immediately begins to pool about Jamie's sneakers. He immediately glances downwards, but isn't fast enough to avoid the spill and lifts his foot up only to see the goopy liquid drip back to the floor from the underside of his shoe. "Aw, c'mon!"

Meanwhile, the duplicate is veritably quaking his own shoes as Rachel begins to advance on him, looking not unlike a scared and cornered rabbit. "I, no, I swear it was just this weekend..." he begins to babble, "I've been working, I swear, trying to drum up new clients, I even crashed one of Betsy's parties and tried to hand out a bunch of cards..." As he rambles on, the duplicate seems to get a little bit of momentum, the fear in his voice abating as that momentum seems to bolster him somewhat. "It's not like I was rubbing elbows with Mickey Mouse and the gang, you know! Left here to mind the store while you both get to go on vacation! How's that fair? What if *I* wanted to wish upon a star?? What if *I* wanted to find out it's a small world after all?! But noooo, nobody asks the sacrifical duplicate what *he* wants..." He's really starting to ham it up, the duplicate is, perhaps a combination of pent-up misgivings, time away from the any other Jamies and what clearly seems to be a severe lack of sleep. "Nobody CARES about him, he's *just* a *DUPLIC---!" And it's right in the middle of that last word that the ranting Jamie just suddenly and completely disappears.

"Drama queen," Jamie states a bit sourly from where he's moved to next to the office door, dusting his hands off after he's absorbed the duplicate. He straightens his 'Bad Batch' T-shirt, works what appears to be a slight kink out of his back, and then shakes his head apologetically as he regards Rachel. "Sorry about that, sometimes I get a little... ah.. " He searches for the right word before he just lets out a small sigh. "Well, when one of me is separated from the rest for too long, there's a chance that certain personality quirks might, you know, get a little out of hand." He surveys the state of the front room again then, mouth turning downwards. "Kind of like this room. I'll get this cleaned up tonight, won't take too long with a half-dozen or so of me."

Rachel Summers has posed:
Sometimes, Rachel does have that affect on people. The - too scared to do anything but babble incoherently, one, at least. So, she's not at all impressed by the duplicate's rambling nonsensical noise that echoes outwards. In fact, her intense, green gems just seem to glow all that more menacing as she advances towards the blathering Jamie. She doesn't HAVE to say anything, her anger is seen through the balled up fists, the danger lurking beneath her eyes - and just when he's just about ready to get lifted up by his collar, well, he's gone, and Rachel's left to snort in a very undignified manner.

Finishing Jamie's sentence for him, Rachel intones, "Childish?" She inquires with a wry grin to her features, "And here we were just talking about that." Waving her free hand towards the squishy mess, the pile of goo lifts from the floor - dampness and all - and deposits itself in the nearest trashcan that isn't overflowing. There's one that is just full, not overflowing.

"Hopefully with non-childish ones doing the cleaning."

Collecting her Disneyland bag up from where she had put it down, Rachel cleans off a small area on the coffee table and flops down, pulling out her items one by one. "I hope Kitty got the little Grogu ...doll? Animal? Well, anyway. The stuffed Grogu I sent her in the mail. I felt bad I went to her birthday party but didn't get her anything! It was quite rude of me. I soooo needed this vacation, Jamie. Thanks again for thinking about it." And with that, Rachel looks up from the different items she's pulling out from the bag long enough to offer a smile that lingers upon Jamie's features maybe just a little too long, before she's turning back to the souvenirs she bought.

Jamie Madrox has posed:
With a look of mock indignation, Jamie puts his hand over his chest, "Childish? You wound me! Even at my worst I'm only merely immature," he answers, following up the statement with another grin. The place may still be a mess and yes, it may have been ultimately Jamie's fault (or, at least, his duplicate's) but with the immediate root cause gone it seems that Jamie's not too proud to be able to poke fun at himself, and the situation. "And I offer no guarantees as to the emotional maturity of any duplicates involved in said cleaning, only that the place will, indeed, be clean." His smile draws wider after that then, and he drops down onto the chair next to Rachel, happy too to be able to take a load off.

"Well, if she didn't get it you can always order one online, though it won't have the official Disneyland tags on it." Jamie pauses, "At least, depending on where you buy it. I bet E-Bay or some even less reputable place might be able to get you some legitimate Disneyland gear. Don't want to think about the scalping price though..." He shakes his head. "I'm sure it got there okay though. It'll give you an excuse to catch up with her, seeing if it arrived safely." Jamie smiles as he watches souvenir after souvenier get pulled out of the sack, and his own gaze catches Rachel's for just a moment as it lingers on his features, his own expression softening and his cheeks warming with color just a bit before the glance is broken.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it so much," he says quietly after a moment then. "I know I did. I think half of the fun I had though was just watching you take in everything. I forget sometimes how different things were for you growing up, that you didn't even have a 'Cliff's Amusement Park', let alone somewhere like Disneyland. Being able to see you having fun like that..." Jamie's features get a little sappy before he catches himself, clearing his throat slightly. "Well, it was pretty special." Jamie laughs then, remembering something else. "That and figuring out that all of the gift shops had some secret communications network and by the time we hit the third one, all of the shop attendants just descending on you like vultures because of how much you'd spent at the first two....."

Rachel Summers has posed:
While Rachel hasn't given Jamie exact specifics of her timeline, she has given enough clues for him to know it was a very dystopian future. Casting a glance back towards Jamie at his comments, Rachel lets out a quiet laugh. "Sadly there was no, Cliff's Amusement Park, or Star Wars there, yeah." Maybe some day she'll explain a bit more than vague clues here and there - but she kind of likes Jamie. She doesn't want to scare him off too soon. The thought is slightly sobering so Rachel's gaze returns to the items she's pulling out.

"If I ever get the courage to approach Jean and Scott as ... as something more than an X-Man. I did get them something. For Scott, I got him a 'Galaxy's Greatest Dad' t-shirt that has the Mandorlian holding The Child, and for mo.. for Jean, I got her a snow globe that has Sleeping Beauty's castle in the middle and when you shake it up, all kinds of glitter that looks like fireworks floats about."

Pulling the two items out, Rachel holds the shirt up for Jamie to see - not that he hasn't already - and then the snowglobe. A bitter smile creeps into Rachel's expression, before she shakes her head and puts them away. No, she just doesn't have the courage right now to give them to them.

"And it will give me an opportunity to call on Kitty. I hope everything has been okay, I have made a point of just not paying attention to the news since leaving. I feel a LITTLE guilty about that, but then again, is there ever a good time to just up and leave in the world we live in?" Rachel inquires in a rhetorical question.

"And yes, there was some kind of communication, text or call, or maybe they just knew a sucker when they saw one." Rachel offers one brow arching itself upwards as the grin to her features doesn't fade. "Oh! I did sneak something for you, though." And with that, Rachel pulls out a 'Great Mouse Detective' doll.

Jamie Madrox has posed:
If he catches the sobering thought that crosses Rachel's mind, Jamie doesn't make mention of it. Perhaps he's too focused on the bag of souveniers, perhaps he noticed the slight mood shift but is too polite to say anything about it. Maybe he was just blind to it. Regardless, he doesn't press and instead is focused wholly on the display of the items which, yes, he has seen before but it's been a few days and a recounting of one's gathered plunder is always a good idea when settling back in from such a vaction. "Classic," he agrees to the Mandalorian/Grogu shirt. "Though, I still liked the Darth Vader Number One Dad shirt we saw..."

"That, however," he nods to the snow-globe, "Can't be beat. The fireworks snow-globe effect is just... I mean, when I was growing up, snow globes just had little shavings of white plastic in them. That was it. Now, they've got these holographic firework confetti things and..." Jamie shakes his head at the advancement in souvenir technology. "Well. Whenever you feel is the right time, I know they'll both appreciate them. Maybe by Christmas?" he offers, hopefully.

He doesn't respond much to the rhetorical question of when ever is a good time to take time for oneself, but anyone who knows Jamie also knows that he's also very unafraid to make such time whenever it's needed, regardless of the political climate, or impending alien doom, or existential threats towards mutantkind. Time for oneself is *important*. It's why he suggested this vacation in the first place, and why he'll likely suggest another one well before the workaholics over at the X-Mansion proper think about doing something similar. People need time to recharge, it's just a fact.

And then, Jamie gets suprised by a souvenier that he hadn't seen Rachel pick up, one that she'd successfully hidden until just now - a rather adorable and terribly on-point Mouse Detective plushie, complete with deerstalker cap and magnifying glass. "Oh my word..." Jamie exclaims, his face positively lighting up at the sight of the stuffed toy. "It's perfect!" He's all grins as he reaches out for the object, eyes shining. "Thank you! I'll have to make a spot for him on my desk, he's great!" Jamie turns to regard Rachel with a beaming smile on his face, before his expression becomes concerned as he apologizes, "I didn't get you anything special, I didn't know you were going to..."

Rachel Summers has posed:
"If I know gift giving correctly, Jamie." Rachel states, "It's the giving of a gift, not the expecting something that is important. And I did want to surprise you. You know. Surprise." She leans in then suddenly and without warning, to peck Jamie on the cheek. It's brief, but not unholy unpleasant. Just a brush of her lips upon his skin before she pulls back, and begins putting the items back into the bag.

"I'm glad you like it. I saw it and figured it had to do with some kind of Sherlock Holmes thing." No, Rachel hasn't actually SEEN the animated movie. Though she has watched many Sherlock Holmes! (Educational research and all.)

As the last item is put into the bag, Rachel draws towards the stairs, telekinetically collecting her baggage, stuffed pluto, and is still wearing all three Mickey Mouse ears. "I think I'll retire early tonight. See you in the morning."

Jamie Madrox has posed:
A light blush colors Jamie's cheek where Rachel leans in for that brief kiss and the thought does cross his mind that he should turn his head towards her as he sees her lean in... But the gesture is quick and the thought comes a little too late, with Rachel already pulling back almost before Jamie realizes what's happened or ponders what he might have done instead of just sit there like a proverbial deer in the headlights.

"I love it," he finally responds, glancing down to the stuffed Mouse Detective in his hand, lifting it up a bit as he adds, "And, consider me duly surprised." He watches Rachel as she collects her items and as she pauses at the stairwell, another thought passes through his mind - one that he does his level best to hide lest the telepath accidentally catch psionic sight of it. Besides - he has a mess of a room to clean up, no thanks to the duplicate that drew the short straw before vacation. Still. He does wonder, for a least a moment, about following Rachel up the stairs. To talk some more? Or to hope for something else?

Truthfully, Jamie isn't even sure himself, and the last thing he needs is for Rachel to get a glimpse of those meadering thoughts before he's had a chance to reconcile them himself. So he shoos them away lest they get him in trouble and rises from the couch with a displeased sigh at the state of the waiting room - pizza boxes, empty beer bottles and all. "Hope you have a good night, I'll try to keep it quick and quiet down here. And will definitely vet out my duplicate better next time we need to leave someone to man the place for more than a few days...."

And with that, Jamie snaps his fingers a few times to create a handful more of himself, and the group of Madroxes begin the unglamorous work of making everything neat and tidy again. If only his own thoughts and emotions were as easy to organize...