(no subject)

[butterflyfactor]

Layla couldn't say she was worried by the sound of Jamie having a conversation with Richards. Everyone needed a sounding board. This sounded particularly purposeful, though, and not the usual 'I can't believe you chewed up/peed on/hid that' exchange. She walked into the hut, ponytail swinging where it was tied low between her shoulder blades- she was due for a trim, she figured; it was starting to get to conventional super-heroine lengths- and went to lean in the doorway to his room, absently sliding her hands into the pockets of her khaki shorts.

"Don't you make the conspiratorial pair."

Comments

[howmanylives]

There were several sheets of paper lined up on Jamie's bed, each bearing the name and information of someone who'd auditioned for The Mousetrap. Above them, written on the backs of repurposed playing cards, were the names of characters from the play, though these were decidedly less ordered, as though Jamie had just haphazardly rearranged them not a second before Layla had entered (which was, in fact, the case). Richards, who'd been sitting obediently in the small cleared space at the foot of the bed, bounded over to greet her, disrupting the whole system further, much to his owner's dismay.

"Dammit," Jamie muttered, quickly darting forward to pluck the card marked Mollie from Felix Unger's sheet where it had landed. That would've been a controversial choice, to be sure. Realizing he'd yet to greet his own girlfriend, he absently added, "Yeah, we're planning a murder."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

Layla knelt lightly to catch Richards' front paws, then his muzzle. She roughed him up a little, caught and pushed his nose away a few times, then scratched his ears and stood again.

"I wonder whose," she murmured, smiling a little.

[howmanylives]

"Surprisingly, not Brad Colbert's," Jamie said lightly, finally turning around to face both Layla and the dog. As always since Moira had disappeared, he couldn't help from feeling the slightest relief to see her come home to the hut they've shared for nearly a year, some part of him unable to shake the abject fear that one day she wouldn't, and he'd be stuck here alone all over again. While Richards was decent enough company, all things considered, he couldn't really compare.

Pocketing the card for the time being, Jamie sidled towards them both, reaching out a hand to rest at Layla's waist, as he leaned in to catch her mouth in a quick kiss. "We finished those back in September."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"Mmn," she replied, less to voice her understanding than pleasure at the gesture.

"Well, you're industrious. You can start your own mafia eventually if you keep it up." She looked past him to the bed, head tilting curiously to one side.

"Whats the line-up?"

[howmanylives]

"Undecided," he said, pressing another quick kiss to the corner of her mouth, and then one last to her cheek. He wasn't generally one to be quite so affectionate, but it was something of a habit he'd fallen into the past few weeks, taking advantage of whatever time they had together, alone or otherwise. Despite what had prompted its development, he couldn't exactly see it as a negative. "But it's for the play."

Given the number of scripts he's had littering his room for months, sandwiched between detective novels, it didn't occur to him that he never actually mentioned to her that he was finally putting on a play -- he just assumed she knew, whether from seeing the notice on the bulletin board or from some alternative means.

Reluctantly pulling away, he nodded towards the dog. "Richards, here, apparently thinks Felix Unger ought to play the female lead, but after careful deliberation on my part, I've dismissed that as a possibility."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

Layla hadn't commented on the increase in displays of affection because first off, they were great, and second off, it would probably force Jamie to deal, to an extent, with the reason for it.

He was just doing such a good job avoiding it, she figured she'd give him a little longer.

"...so you're putting on a play?" she said, looking up at him with a mild sort of expression, content to let Jamie realize on his own that possibly he missed a step or two here, like the telling her part. Granted, she'd known he would eventually, but she didn't know which one it was r when it was happening, and not knowing was hardly her favorite thing.

[howmanylives]

The question struck him as curious -- of course was on the very tip of his tongue, in fact, but when he finally picked up on the way she was looking at him, he stopped dead in his tracks. His mouth hung open for a second as he realized his mistake, and he shut it again, wordlessly, as he scared up a look of mild contrition.

"I... didn't tell you," he surmised, averting his eyes to anywhere but her. Clasping his hands behind his back, he rocked back on his heels. "Well, this is awkward."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

Layla smiled, slipping her hands into her pockets and shrugging.

"As awkward as you make it. Which one did you go with?"

[howmanylives]

With a choice like that, he was inclined to take the lesser option.

"The Mousetrap," Jamie said, because much as he liked Chandler, the guy was all wrong when it came to his opinion on Agatha Christie. "I figured it'd be better if I started with something relatively small, and this one isn't particularly long."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"Everyone loves a twist ending," Layla said. She went over to the bed to look at the spread, and nodded faintly.

"I know some of these people," she mused. "How's the decision making process going?"

She flashed him another blandly innocent face.

[howmanylives]

"It's going fine, thank you," Jamie said, moving to step between her and the bed, not a little defensively. "I'm just... weighing my options."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"Well, you're good at that," she said, straightening up and sliding a hand along his shoulder to come to rest at the back of his neck as she did.

"You're good at herding cats, too, so this should be interesting. Excited?"

[howmanylives]

"Don't patronize me," he grumbled, though his annoyance was mostly feigned, the familiar weight of her hand against the back of his neck appeasement enough. He bowed his head, pressing his forehead to hers as let out a quiet sigh. A part of him, he supposed, was excited, but it was for all the wrong reasons -- the promise of a distraction, and one so encompassing at that, was what had led him to pulling this all together in the first place. It was the fact that he now had something -- anything -- to fill his hours other than self-pity parties that gave him a spring in his step, not the play itself.

"I'm ecstatic."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, you look it," she said, sliding her other hand up under the back of his shirt and idly dragging her fingertips over his skin.

"Wanna bounce yours thoughts off someone who can speak?"

[howmanylives]

"What, are you implying Richards wasn't helpful?" he asked, the corners of his mouth hinting upwards, into something that wasn't quite a smile or a smirk. His own hands settled at her waist, gently tugging her closer to him, his thoughts torn between her and getting back to what he'd been doing before. Both were preferable to thinking about Moira. "Didja hear that, boy?"

Richards barked.

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"I would never disparage Richards' helpfulness," Layla said.

"Just his conversational skills. Only the verbal ones though." She leaned fractionally around Jamie to smile at the dog.

[howmanylives]

"I think I'm good, actually," Jamie replied, an answer to her earlier question more so than to what she'd just said. He was determined, in his way, to make the decision on his own steam, and while the offer of help was tempting, he figured it for the best to decline, if only to prove a point to himself. He wasn't entirely useless. "Though I could use your help with something else, if ya don't mind."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

Layla pulled back enough to give him a mildly approving sort of smile, then stuck her hands in her back pockets.

"Name it."

[howmanylives]

"I need a stage manager," he said, taking her smile as a sort of silent encouragement that he'd made the right choice in refusing her offer. "Which... is pretty much what you did back home, let's face it. I think you'd be a good fit."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I'll be a natural," Layla said. She half shrugged, and nodded once.

"Sure thing."

[howmanylives]

Jamie stifled a laugh. He didn't know why he'd expected any differently, but even so, he found himself replying, "That was easy."

[butterflyfactor.livejournal.com]

Her eyebrows lifted a little.

"Do you want me to make you work for it? I can make you work for it." She sighed shortly and looked away, about as close as she had ever gotten in her life to pouting.

"I don't know, Jamie, my schedule's a killer right now, and you're springing this on me completely last minute."

[howmanylives]

"Liar," he accused with a self-satisfied grin, stepping forward to compensate for her earlier step back. His hands settled again at her waist, and while her pout itself wasn't particularly attractive, it called his attention to her lips, which undoubtedly were. Pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth, he added, "Unless you had something fun in mind in terms of work... Not that the casting couch is traditionally associated with behind the scenes work."