(Untitled)

[butterflyfactor]

The early years of her life aside, Layla hadn't spent much time wrapped up in luxury. She'd gone from orphanage to what was effectively the team's Bowery barracks to run-down, borderline post-apocalyptic ruins. The island wasn't bad, although real mattresses, couches, pretty much anything from Pottery Barn would have been nice. As much as she

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[howmanylives]

The dupe, in turn, seemed disinclined to stop, deepening the kiss with a moan of his own, his weight shifting on the bed far more comfortable than Prime had fallen asleep in the night before. The cold air bit at his bare chest, the hairs on his arms standing on end, but again, his focus was on her; the same could not be said for his maker.

Jostled by the movement, Jamie Prime woke with a start mid-inhale, choking on thin air as his eyes registered the unfamiliar room with the unfamiliar view before quickly -- and inevitably -- falling on the pair of love birds making time on the unfamiliar bed. It likely said something of his life that this wasn't the most disorienting thing he'd ever woken up to, but given the relatively lackadaisical pace of island life, it was jarring all the same. And so, despite the fact that he could once again choose every option without compromise, his inner monologue was remarkably single-minded.

What the hell.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, the clarity of his confusion belying his lingering drowsiness. He grabbed at the dupe's shoulder with no small degree of force, yanking him back and away from Layla, but before Prime had a chance to get in another word edgewise, the dupe said on a startled exhale, "Marry me?"

[butterflyfactor]

Layla grinned, eyes widening and eyebrows lifting.

"Oh, Jamies," she said, only slightly breathy herself, "of course I will."

[howmanylives]

"What?!" said Prime, looking at the back of his duplicate's head before turning to Layla, fixing her with a disbelieving stare. If marriage had been on his mind at all in the past few months, he certainly hadn't been conscious of it; while he wasted no time in absorbing the wayward dupe, however, it wasn't without commentary, the dupe using the last moments of his short-lived freedom to spit out: "Register us at the M&M store! Call me!"

On some level, Jamie supposed it ought to have felt strange, absorbing a dupe after all this time, but the fact of the matter was, this was his reality more so than life without his powers; this was his normal, waking up to find his girlfriend kissing some aspect of his manifested personality. Not that it had been his normal for approaching two years, granted; the last time he'd had his powers had been during a shared dream to Rogue's era. He'd met a ten-year-old Layla Miller in an orphanage. Which really wasn't something he wanted to be thinking about, given his position relative to the twenty-two-year-old Layla Miller at that particular moment.

Breathless and still disoriented, he propped himself up on an elbow, pushing himself to sitting. "That wasn't a real proposal."

[butterflyfactor]

"No take backs," she said, looking entirely unruffled by the exchange and, indeed, the situation.

She knew why she was in Latveria. She knew that, and it was good to have that kind of knowledge back again. What she didn't know was how or why, although she'd been on the island long enough to have heard about this sort of thing.

[howmanylives]

"I beg to differ," replied Jamie, swinging his legs off the side of the bed as to stand, suppressing a shiver when his feet hit the floor. He'd lived all over the world, but he'd never quite forgotten the chill of Moscow; the dupe he'd sent to Hawaii had had a much better experience, truth be told, making Tabula Rasa somewhat ideal in terms of climate. Wherever they were, though, it wasn't Russia; the view outside the window was all wrong, for all that it was picturesque.

Not bothering to turn around, he added, "Where the hell are we?"

They were home, or in some facsimile of it; that she'd know wasn't in question.

[butterflyfactor]

"Latveria," she said, slipping out of the bed with some reluctance, pulling the thick, downy coverlet with her, draping it around her waist. She padded to the place the balcony windows were fitted so masterfully into the stonework and leaned against it.

"Nice view."

[howmanylives]

There was a moment where Jamie froze -- in multiple senses of the word, for that matter -- his arms wrapped around his torso at an attempt to get warm, as he became quite still. Every time he'd been on this kind of trip in the past, it had been to someone's version of home. Seattle with Meredith. Xavier's with Rogue. Given that there was no evidence, yet, that anyone else tagged along, he was left to work under the assumption that Latveria was home to either himself or Layla, and it took all of a second to eliminate the former as an option. This, of course, begged the question of why in the world Layla would expect to end up in Latveria in the first place, a query that was concerning for a number of reasons, not least of which being Dr. Doom, whose guest suite, Jamie realized, they were probably in.

"Sorry," said Jamie, haltingly, after a noticeable beat. "I think I'm still reeling from the fake marriage proposal, you wanna run that one by me again?"

[butterflyfactor]

"We're in Latveria," Layla said.

"In some pretty swanky digs. So, castle von Doom, obviously." She looked around the bedroom suit, at the divan, the broad oak desk, the pitcher of water, the crystal stemware that seemed a bit ostentatious for water glasses.

The huge, immensely inviting sleigh bed.

"At least there's no tapestries of Reed Richards being beheaded or anything."

[howmanylives]

"This isn't funny," said Jamie, mind reeling with the implications of what their being here meant. Even if this was all a dream -- and there was no evidence yet to the contrary, the circumstances too familiar in their pattern to really consider this was actually happening -- the fact that they were in Latveria was distinctly unsettling, a reminder flashing in big, neon lights that there was a still a lot about Layla he didn't know, regardless of how much she'd seemingly answered in the past.

"Look, I've jumped through this hoop before... I know this isn't real, but why here? Why Latveria? Why not the future or New York?"

[butterflyfactor]

"Because that's not where I was heading when I landed on the island," Layla said, walking across the room to drop the coverlet on the bed. She went to an armoire and opened it, knowing there would be clothing for her in it, a hooded cloak and- bingo. Lilac dress. She pulled it down and turned it around on the hanger.

"Yeah, that's about my size."

[howmanylives]

"And why, exactly, were you heading to Latveria?" he asked, stalking towards her and the armoire. He eyed the dress with distrust, and the look didn't go anywhere when he turned his attention to Layla. The Island had been a reprieve from all of her mindgames and machinations; he had a feeling that wouldn't last for much longer, at least not while they're here.

"What haven't you been telling me?"

[butterflyfactor]

"Only what you haven't asked," she replied, walking past him to the bed where she dropped the hangar. She spent a moment figuring out how the damn thing worked without a zipper, then started pulling it on over her head.

"There's something I need here," she said, voice slightly muffled by a few layers of silk. It was a nice reprieve, having something covering her eyes, because it meant she didn't have to try to so hard not to look at him, though at least she'd been successful so far.

[howmanylives]

"Something you need from Doom?" he clarified, because it was the only plausible explanation for why she'd be staying with in the man's house. He didn't follow her to the bed, instead rifling through the armoire's contents, before he slammed the door shut in frustration. Jamie Madrox was many things, but unprepared generally wasn't one of them; the nature of his power let him conceive every possibility. That said, Latveria came out of left field until he gave it more than just a passing thought. Eyes narrowing as he puzzled it out, he turned around.

"Does this have anything to do with those things you have stashed in your room?"

[butterflyfactor]

"Yes," she said, pulling the dress down so the full, draping skirt of it gathered on the floor. It was fitted from the bust to the tops of her thighs where it began to loosen and spread out in wide pleats. She ran her hands down over her ribs, looking it over, then turned her face to Jamie.

"Insert shock and dismay at your rifling through my things here. Just don't touch that cylinder." She went back to the armoire and knelt, pulling out a pair of furred, dark chocolate leather boots that went to mid calf, and started to step into them.

[howmanylives]

It was a nice dress, made all the nicer for being fitted over her body, which he'd already demonstrated a certain fondness for; were he in a better mood, he might have made his appreciation known, but as it was, he was too incensed to do anything of the sort. He exhaled forcefully through his nose, watching her going through the motions of getting dressed while he was left to stand in his underwear, feeling incredibly naked in addition to everything else.

"I'm a detective and you're a mystery," he said in his defense, though she'd likely already sussed out as much on her own; he never expected her to be surprised. It was in his nature to not let any stone go unturned, after all, and that included the contents of her room. "And now the first thing I want to do when we wake up is touch that cylinder, you do realize that, right?"

[butterflyfactor]

Layla swept across the room- she didn't have much choice in the matter, given the dress- to stop in front of, close to, Jamie.

"Do you love me?" she asked him.