(no subject)

[butterflyfactor]

It's strange how good the sleep is when you get there by crying yourself into exhaustion. It's something I've done more than once. Even as a kid, I didn't like crying in front of people. I guess it became habit, saving it all up. I'm sure some people would argue it's not healthy, but if it spares me from insomnia, I'll take that trade off. Remembering the conversation I had with Jamie last night is surreal- the first time he'd spoken to me in a week and it had to be while I was disoriented and drained. Waking up this morning, much better rested than I probably should be, I've got it in my mind to try again, or at least get a straight answer out of him. He doesn't do the other thing as well as I do.

Except he's not here.

"Son of a bitch," Layla murmured, pulling on her denim capris and a tanktop different than the one she'd slept in. She toed on her flip flops and pushed the front door open, frowning to herself, ready to make a pretty rapid beeline for the compound, and stopped short.

"...Good morning."

There he was. She stood corrected.

Comments

[howmanylives]

Jamie was sprawled on the lone, rickety bamboo chair that occupied their porch, his arm draped over his eyes to block out the sunlight peeking through the canopy. He was dimly aware of a spider crawling across his hand. He was acutely aware of Layla standing next to him. With a groan, he let his arm fall from his face, and he shifted a little to make himself more comfortable.

"S'tooearly."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"I won't argue that," she said, glancing around for Richards before focusing in on Jamie. He was very rumpled.

"How long have you been sleeping in the chair?"

[howmanylives]

"Haven't--"

He stopped himself short with a yawn that could've swallowed the island whole, if he'd had any inclination. His memories of last night hadn't quite caught up with him yet, and for the moment he just blinked at Layla, sleepily, willing his brain to kickstart into action. It was a very slow process.

"--even monologued yet."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

One of her eyebrows tugged up a little, but that was as far as she let his admittedly endearing expression move her. Visibly.

"You should hold off and go lie down for a while, first."

[howmanylives]

"Didn't sleep for a month," he said, waving off the suggestion with a vague gesture. He tried sitting up in the chair, but his muscles were stiff from spending the night in such an awkward position, and that, too, was slowgoing. Noticing the spider, he pulled it from his hand, and tossed it to the side.

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

She sat on the edge of the porch, tucking one leg up against her chest and looping her arms around it.

"I'm surprised you're here," she said.

[howmanylives]

He very nearly asked why, but by the time his mouth had started to form the word, he'd already known the answer. His expression cleared. There was no question, now, that he was very much awake. Bracing himself on the arms of the chair, he got to his feet.

The truth is, I'm not even sure why I stayed last night. The walls of the hut are paper thin -- I heard her crying the second I closed the door behind me. I could've just left for another week, but... I stayed. Maybe because I already tried running. Maybe because I already knew it wouldn't work.

"I live here."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"Not last week, you didn't," she pointed out, calmly, watching some birds flitter through the trees.

[howmanylives]

"I'm just full of surprises, then," he said, tilting his head to the side to work out a crick in his neck.

Not to her, apparently, since she knew every move I'd make before I even knew I had to make it. What fools we must've looked like to her, marching towards an inevitable fate that she was willfully leading us to. But now... she's just as clueless as the rest of us. The playing field's been leveled.

"A regular X-factor."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

Layla shot him a look that said Really?, even though she knew the answer was yes, really. She tilted her head back, absently picking at the frayed hem of her jeans.

"You sure are." She didn't want to get into it, she realized. She'd felt powered, upon waking, by a desire to make things somehow not like they were the night before, but suddenly found herself shying away from broaching the subject.

[howmanylives]

Jamie had been about to launch into some non sequitur when Richards bounded out of the jungle covered in dirt, tail wagging. With a piercing bark, he jumped up onto the porch, and pressed his paws against Jamie's legs, unmindful of the fact that he was trailing mud over his jeans.

"That's... one mystery solved," he said with a sigh, scratching the dog behind his ears in the hopes that it'd get him to stand down. "Great. Now I need to change."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"Don't let me stop you," she said lightly.

"Richards." She whistled and patted her leg.

[howmanylives]

"You did before," he pointed out, watching as Richards went towards Layla, nose to the ground.

Yeah, because she's a virgin.

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"What do you want," she said, not angrily- Far removed, in fact- eyes on Richards as she wiped some mud from his nose with her thumb.

"Do you want me to take a shot back, or be contrite, or find someplace else to stay?"

[howmanylives]

Jamie had the good grace to wince -- a sign, perhaps, that he realized he'd gone too far with that one. She'd spent the night crying. It didn't take a real leap of logic to figure out he was the thing she'd been crying about.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, frowning. "That was out of line. You didn't... deserve that."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

I probably did, but for reasons beyond the scope of what he currently holds me responsible for.

"...thanks," she said, wiping her hand on her jeans.

"Jamie, every time I get close to you here, you make the most expedient exit possible. Which I am getting used to. But when we were finally- I didn't want to stop you, I didn't plan on stopping you, but I just." She hated this being honest crap. She really did.

"I got scared, and I couldn't. And you can hold it against me if you need to, but I can't change that it happened."

[howmanylives]

Jamie nodded -- partly to show that he acknowledged she said something, and partly to show that, on some level, he understood what she was saying -- because he didn't trust himself to reply to that directly without coming across as petty, a tactic he'd just realized wasn't going to get him -- or them, for that matter -- anywhere.

"You... do realize why, though, right?" he asked. "Why I've been... expediently exiting, to borrow your turn of phrase."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"Of course," she said, more feelingly than she'd expected herself to be capable of, at the moment, "of course I understand. That doesn't make it easier. Understanding something almost never makes it easier, actually." She rested her temple against the heel of her hand.

[howmanylives]

"So I've learned," he said with a wry smile, lifting his hands in a shrug that somehow implicated them both, and their increasingly convoluted situation. "I, uh, haven't, you know. Since Terry. Or Monet. I... can't remember who was last."

It wasn't one of his proudest moments.

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

Layla just nodded. She felt relieved in a distant kind of way. She hadn't really expected him to've slept with anyone else, even if the island was so far removed from home as it seemed. Seeing the smile was nice, though, after going a week without.

"It's a lot to get past. More than anyone should have to, in a lifetime. But I guess we're just special that way."

[howmanylives]

"I'm starting to think maybe I shouldn't," he said, looking off into the middle distance. "Get past it. Like, somehow, I don't deserve to."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"That's not true," she said, with a slight shake of her head.

"Terry's not the only one who lost a child in that moment. The difference is, she hasn't spent every breath since it happened blaming herself. You could never have known that would happen."

[howmanylives]

"Why would she?" he asked, defensive. Any hint of a smile had disappeared. "For Christ's sake, Layla, she didn't do anything wrong except sleep with me."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"I'm not saying she should, Jamie," Layla said evenly.

"Theresa went through something beyond horrific. But so did you. What I'm saying is, you both deserve the chance to move on and live a life where every possible enjoyment isn't overshadowed by guilt and bitterness."

[howmanylives]

"I wanted to."

Maybe not drunk, mind you, since I've seen all too clearly where that road leads, but the fact is, up until Mardi Gras, I was as sure as I can be that I wanted to move on with my life. Now circumstances have shaken that certainty, and I'm left to wonder if I should've ever even tried.

Sighing, he turned, and pulled open the door to the hut. He didn't walk through.

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

Layla felt a stab of annoyance, and stood. She stepped swiftly past him to block his entrance into the hut, planting her hand on the doorframe, or what there was of one.

The place where the wall ended.

"That's not fair," she said.

"And I know life isn't, and I know it wasn't fair to you for me to stop things so abruptly, but God, Jamie! I've wanted nothing else than to be close to you and I finally was and it wasn't-" She almost stopped. She wanted to. But she dug her fingernails into her palm and kept going.

"It wasn't how I know it happens, and I got scared. Sorry." She pulled away, covering her mouth and then her eyes with her hand, before she crossed her arms to keep her hands from giving anything else away or covering anything up. They needed to be taken out of the equation.

[howmanylives]

"Then maybe it shouldn't happen," he said. If it hadn't involved touching her, he would've moved her out of the way, but as it was, he simply stared, at a loss.

"You've got your issues to deal with, and I've got mine. Jeez, we're like a bomb waiting to go off -- oh, wait, it already did!"

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

Then maybe it shouldn't happen.

Wow, that sucks to hear.

People talk about keeping rewards in mind, when you're going through a grueling experience. Jamie wasn't exactly that, he wasn't something I was ever going to win, because my life is not destined to be that awesome. But knowing that after the Civil War, and after the camp, and after five years of post-wasteland Atlantic City, it was... something enough like a beacon. And now here, where I'm already completely freaking lost, I'm going to lose this as well. Not gonna lie: I'm going to be pretty pissed at him if he can't get over this and cut me a damn break.

"Is this you making a decision?" she asked, not to be biting or mean, but because she needed to know.

"I can find a room in the compound. If you need me to leave, I will."

[howmanylives]

I wasted no efforts in trying to get Layla Miller back from the future -- not out of love, not out of duty, but because I was the only one willing to fight for her, and someone had to fight for her. Cyclops was too busy looking at the big picture to remember those pawns he was moving across that big chessboard of his were people.

So, what I'm trying to say is, she's not the great love of my life. That would be, in a word, wildly inappropriate. Oh, sure, in some future, somewhere, she's my wife. And? I've had wives. For all I know -- for all we know -- she's married to a dupe, just like everyone else. It wouldn't be the first time. It probably wouldn't be the last.

But none of that is me making a decision.

Jamie closed what negligible distance there was between them, stopping just short of actually touching her. Though his face was impassive, his eyes gave him away. He looked at her like he'd always looked her -- like she was a puzzle, or something to be figured out.

"If I made a move right now," he said, "would you stop me?"

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

She dropped her arms when he stepped nearer, looking up at him with clear eyes.

"No."

[howmanylives]

This is the moment where the music swells and the two leads kiss. The end credits are already waiting to roll. This is also the moment I realize my life isn't a movie.

"Then I don't need you to leave."

He rested his hand against her shoulder to move her to the side. Then, with Richards at his heels, he brushed past her, and into the hut.

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

She stood quietly in the doorway where she'd been placed staring at the space he'd been in.

"So, just for clarity's sake," she said, "as long as I'm amenable to starting a physical relationship whenever you're ready, I'm welcome here."

[howmanylives]

The question caught him so off-guard that he tripped over the damn dog. He caught himself, barely, against the desk piled high with books, and he turned to look at her, his expression almost comical in its horror.

"What?" he said, holding up his hands to stop her. "No, no, no, no, no, that's not-- Okay, that's exactly what it sounded like, but-- I asked you to stay here because you're a friend, Layla, not because I wanted to get in your pants. If you'd said yes, my answer would've been the same. I just needed to know, either way, that's all."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

Layla stared at him for a few seconds without anything shifting in her expression before she closed her eyes and let out the breath she'd been holding. When she opened them again she was smiling, wryly and only slightly, but she looked more relaxed than she had been since her arrival.

"Well, okay, then." Dufus. Was that so hard?

[howmanylives]

"Okay, then," he echoed, matching her smile, however slight, with one of his own. He felt about as relaxed as she looked just then, which, he supposed, spoke of some sort of progress. Generally speaking, Jamie Madrox was not a man who felt relaxed, so much as restless.

"So... I'm gonna put on a different pair of pants, 'cause of What-a-Mess, here," he said, gesturing at Richards who had scampered under the bed. "And, uh, maybe then we can go grab breakfast or something? If you want."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

Layla smiled more, and nodded.

"Sounds good."