Kitty tracks down Doug

[x-kitten.livejournal.com]

Doug sat quietly in his room, puttering around. Occasionally, he would check the journal system for any new posts, then go back to browsing through his collection of D&D books. Yawning, he pondered wandering down to the rec room and seeing if anything was on TV. ~Bored. Bored bored bored. Bored-y bored-y bored.~

Kitty had been wandering around for a little bit, thinking, running over ideas in her head about where to continue the search next. Finally growing tired of the inside of her own head she headed towards the rec room, thinking she would decompress for a little bit.

Entering the room she spotted Doug and grinned. "Hey! Glad to see you up and about."

Doug smiled back. "Likewise, Kit. Good to see that Her Goddess-ness hasn't locked you in your room for the rest of your natural life." He had been slightly worried about Kitty, especially after running into one of Jamie's dupes outside their suite who had told him in no uncertain terms that Kitty and the dupe in the room were not to be disturbed. But seeing her up and around and not overtly depressed helped.

Kitty frowned sharply at the mention of Storm and droped into a seat. "Yeah well... The professor said it wasn't going to happen, and it's his call. Whether or not I deserve it." She shook her head. "The good news is, I've not been ordered not to help you and Mr. Wisdom with looking for Ms. Frost."

Doug noted the frown and filed for future reference. Nodding at her second comment, he said "That's good. Two hackers are better than...wait. The professor does know about Mr. Wisdom asking us to help him, right?"

Kitty nodded. "He knows we're working with Mr. Wisdom, yeah. I specifically asked him if I was still going to be allowed to help."

Doug sighed, relieved. He knew how important helping to find Ms. Frost was, but didn't fancy getting in trouble with any of the faculty. "So, um, what'd we find while I was dead to the world? Mr. Wisdom mentioned something about France last I saw."

Kitty nodded again. "Yeah. Did you see the email I sent you about Northern Italy?" Without waiting for a response she went on. "He followed the trail from there all the way up in to Norhtern France, around Paris. But the trail's basically dead. He's getting frustrated and needs us. He basically gave us permission to go hacking through private emails although..." she paused. "Although I don't know. If we can find her without doing that it'd probably make the Professor happier. The new non-teacher, Jake Gavin, Jr. suggested we look into telepath suppressants."

Doug nodded and tried to sound comforting. "Well, okay. We'll try without invading too much privacy first. But I think one of the faculty getting abducted kind of overweighs any qualms over invasion."

"Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too..." Kitty looks at the ground as she says it, well aware of what it sounds like. Good ends and bad means? It's illegal, but so was the original kidnapping, and probably the building of the sentinals. And if they don't follow the laws do we have to? And is that the point? Or am I just doing it again?

Doug narrowed his eyes, aware of the internal debate raging in Kitty's head. "But that sounds a little bit too much like this whole mess with Dr. Essex and Ms. Braddock, doesn't it? Means justifying ends and so forth." He stretched out an arm tentatively. "Need a hug? And, y'know, to know that someone isn't judging you about all of that?"

Kitty chuckled a little and looked up at Doug with a small smile. "Yeah, that'd be good," she said, leaning towards him. "Honestly, I think I _ought_ to be judged, but I'd rather get Ms. Frost back first. And that's probably what Storm'd say was the problem." She scowled at that. "Which may just be too damn bad for her."

Doug hugged Kitty carefully, relieved not to be rebuffed. He figured the fact that Kitty was willing to be touched was a good sign. "Yeah, Ms. Munroe sometimes has a tendency to believe that her point of view is the only valid one. The real world is not black and white. You make the best choice you can based on the information you have at the time. And if she doesn't like it, she can...well..." Doug blushed slightly. "She can suck it."

Kitty chuckled, glancing up and catching sight of Doug's cheeks. "Indeed," was all she said.

Doug scrubbed his cheeks, wishing he didn't have such a fair complexion and get embarassed so easily. "So, you doing better?"

Kitty shrugged. Lying to Doug was no use. "A little," she admitted. "Seems like everyone's still walking on eggshells, half way stuck between decideing to yell at me and decideing to hug me, and I can't decide which I'd rather they did."

Doug nodded slowly. "Well, I guess I'm in the 'give you a hug' group. Of course, I make no bones about the fact that I'm the mother hen of the mansion second only to Paige." He couldn't quite help a wry smile at the mention of Paige.

Kitty grinned, pulling back a little. "Wouldn't that make you, I don't know, den father or something? It'd be too wierd calling you a momma hen."

Doug snickered. "But calling me a den father just sounds so...pretentious. Besides, I run a very distant second."

"So it's den mother and den father, and den mother wins." Her grin widens. "Makes you a matched set," she said, wondering if she'd get another blush out of him with that.

Doug stared off into some indeterminate distance, trying desperately to hide the pain in his eyes, knowing Kitty didn't really mean anything by the joke. "Or something," he replied weakly.

But Kitty caught it. She hadn't been swimming in her own world of pain for the past couple days not to recognize it in somebody else. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, brown eyes gazing at him seriously. More was clearly going on here than she'd known.

Doug sighed and flopped back on the couch. On one level, it was still very tough to talk about, and on another, he was just tired of holding it all in, and not talking to anyone about it. And he wasn't really sure which part to listen to. "Not your fault, Kit." He shrugged. "Not really anyone's fault, when you get down to it."

Kitty just watched him, not sure how far she could push. He does look like he needs to talk though...

Doug closed his eyes and tried to relax, feeling all his muscles tense at the thought of laying himself bare, even to someone safe, like his roommate's girlfriend. "Let's just say...I have this tendency to fixate on girls I'll never have."

Kitty pulled her legs up on the couch, turning to face him more comfortably. "Ok..."

Doug fidgeted, not really knowing what to do with his hands, tensing up despite himself. "And it's hard to talk about, because I wind up feeling silly. I've made a real idiot out of myself once, and, it's like if I don't talk about it, I won't do it twice."

"Yeah," she says quietly, "but if you don't talk about it there's a lot of other things you won't end up getting to do either." Like deal with it, is the unspoken addition.

Even with his eyes closed, Doug is savvy enough to hear that little bit of an unspoken poke in the ribs. "Touche," he chuckled wryly. "Well, you know about one of them. Probably most of the mansion does. I am anything but subtle."

Kitty nodded a little. "Yes, but subtle is over rated." Which is honestly what she thinks, and probably why she's with Jamie.

"Yeah, but she...and..." Doug stammered. "She's never going to think of me like that. And Jamie told me once that being friends isn't second place, but..." He stopped short of the deep down truth of his opinion, something he's balked at telling anyone.

"But it feels like it anyways," Kitty said, sighing and leaning against the back of the couch.

Kitty took a deep breath. "Doug, did you ever go reading back through some of the older journal posts? From, you know, the time of the big mutant headache?"

Doug shook his head. "Not so much. The whole daily format gets kind of hard to wade through." He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. "And to me...it's worse than that. Between Jono, and Angelo..." He whispered softly. "...it feels like _third_ place. And I hate that I can't just accept that. I really hate myself for that sometimes."

"Yeah, I know," Kitty says quietly nodding. "Back before Piotr and Waren got together I... I was... I had a thing for Piotr. Obviously didn't work out so well. I made quite a mess of things too. Told him and then ran off because I knew I'd lost and couldn't deal with it."

Doug nodded, not really sure what to say. "And there's someone else I'm interested in. You can probably figure that one out too. I'm trying really hard not to make the same mistakes being an idiot about her, but...she hasn't been all that available, off doing her own thing. And I just...have no idea how she feels about me." He snorts. "Who am I kidding. A plain old guy like me?"

It took her a second, but she figured out who he was talking about. She probably needs someone, after everything that happened with Bobby. Raising an eyebrow she answered the second part of his statement. "Right, because the farmboy from Kansas is so glamourous?" Kitty smiled. "Honestly, that's not what girls care about, and you're a great guy Doug."

Doug shook his head, trying to rebut Kitty, but not really coming up with anything. "But Jamie's...Jamie. He's funny, and smooth, and a lot of things that I'm not."

Kitty shook her head. "Yes, Jamie is Jamie, and yeah he's funny. Smooth... smooth is not how I'd describe him." Adorable, sure, and fantastic, but smooth? "Besides, you're Doug, and not Jamie, and you're clever and fun and sweet and a great guy."

Doug snorted. "Sweet." Then he leaned forward, a mischievous grin on his face. "Want me to let you in on a secret, Kitty?"

"Sure."

Doug smiled. "When girls tell a guy he's sweet, it's like the kiss of death. Because to a guy, sweet denotes puppies and kittens and other things that don't ever get sex." He leaned back with a wink.

Kitty snickered and said with a grin, "Ah well, you'd better tell Jamie that then. I think he'd be rather surprised by that piece of news."

Doug chuckled. "Okay, okay. Permission to revise previous statement. I can't speak for all guys. When _I_ get called sweet, it's like the kiss of death, because I'm never going to be anything but the sweet platonic friend."

Kitty looked at him a little strangely, then leaned back on the couch. "I plead the fifth."

Doug waved his hands quickly. "No, I didn't mean you. You and Jamie...and...no. I just meant in general." He blushed slightly.

Kitty blushed. Right, shit. Body language... "Look, Doug, all I'm saying is that there are girls who think sweet is amazingly attractive, ok? And, yeah, me and Jamie, so... no."

Doug sighed again, visibly withdrawing. "I just would like to know if one girl thinks sweet is amazingly attractive."

"Given she used to go out with Bobby she probably does, yeah." The blush hadn't quite receeded and Kitty wasn't really thinking about what she was saying, otherwise that would probably not have sounded the way it did.

Doug shook his head violently. "I just...she..." Sighing, he glanced at Kitty, looking a bit vulnerable. "Can we just not talk about it anymore right now?" Opening his laptop, he gazed at it intently. "So you were thinking of tracking medical supplies?"

"Yeah, that's fine," Kitty agreed. "Mr. Gavin's the one who originally had the idea about medical supplies, but Mr. Wisdom said it was a good one and to give it a shot. I'd say talk to Dr. Mctaggart or Dr. McCoy about what sort of drugs to be looking for, but really any large doses of seditives are probably what they'd be using. I can continue following locations if you want to head up that angle. Besides, I doubt Dr. McCoy would want to hear me asking about seditives."

Doug nodded, trying to immerse himself in something other than his continual problems with girls. "Sounds good to me. I'll talk to Dr. Mactaggart at some point, you keep on tracking the shipping manifests..." Opening a text file, he began typing notes to himself. The conversation had helped, but doing something productive would help even more.

Kitty nodded. "Sure," she said. "I'll leave you to it." Standing up she headed toward the door, thinking to get back to work herself. Pausing she looked back over her shoulder. Oh Doug... You've got to let go... relax... it'll be ok. But she didn't say anything, simply headed towards her room.

Comments

[x-crowdofone.livejournal.com]

"Ah well, you'd better tell Jamie that then. I think he'd be rather surprised by that piece of news."

S'right.

I mean, okay, Doug's technically semi-accurate in the sense that there hasn't been sex, but you don't see me complaining, do you? No you don't. Just the opposite, in fact. I have my insecurities but they're not about that. :)

*rotates hiding place of A Certain Floppy Disk*

[x-kitten.livejournal.com]

But Doug said things which "don't ever get sex" and that's just not true, I'm sure... *grin*

And which Floppy would that be, dear boy? *curious*

[x-crowdofone.livejournal.com]

Well, geez, I sure hope it's not true. I mean, what with all that ballet flexibility and stuff, that'd be fun. :)

And the floppy is a state secret. Some of the contents of the floppy may be divulged at some point, given enough arm-twisting by curious musical sensations, but I currently plan to take the existence of the floppy with me to my grave.

[x-kitten.livejournal.com]

I'm hurt. You'd tell Al but not me? *pouts at you*

[x-crowdofone.livejournal.com]

*points to previous comment* Insecurities. It's all about you, so you're the last person I'd tell about it. None of it's good enough anyway, et cetera.

I'm under orders that some of it's getting out at Christmas, though, so you'll probably find out then.

[x-kitten.livejournal.com]

*curious curious curious*

*waits, not-so-patiently*

*loves*