xp_logs | Doug and Angie

With an appearance by Rogue. Set just after this thread: http://x-cypher.livejournal.com/24141.html

"You do not get to run away from me!" Marie-Ange came running down the stairs, grabbing onto the bannister for support to keep from stumbling over her own feet. "Why do you .. . why? You start to argue, and then you just run away and refuse to say anything at all!" She threw up her hands and huffed in frustration. "And you are doing it again now! Trying to run away from things like you always do!"

Dammit. And of course she'd catch him in the middle of the entryway, where everyone could see and hear what was going on. And while Marie-Ange may not have had Terry's mutant power to help, her voice could definitely carry when she put her mind to it. Turning around slowly, Doug folded his arms across his chest and stared at his girlfriend. "Because you push. You push and you push and you push and you never let it go," he replied in a voice as quiet as Marie-Ange's had been loud. "You always have to have the last word," he said, waving a hand to indicate how she had come storming down the stairs to do just that.

"Why should I not push? Why should I let things go? Why?" Marie-Ange ignored the urge to storm back upstairs and slam doors and kick things, just to show Doug how irritating it was to be ignored and walked away from. She was -not- going to be a hypocrite. "It is not as if you ever push back, or push at all. If I did not keep on you, you would just let everything slide and nothing would ever change!"

"Why is that such a bad thing? Why does everything have to be 'improved'?" he asked, making little air quotes with his hands. His voice was rising in irritation. "You meddle. You meddle and you push, because nothing's ever good enough for you!"

"If I did not push and meddle and try to make things better you would leave them just the way they are and... " She was repeating herself, Marie-Ange knew it too. But he just was not -listening- to what she was saying. "I never let things go because you never start them! I always have to, always! Things do not just get better by magic!"

"Not better, -different-," Doug corrected. "Different does not automatically mean better." He might not have been Manuel de la Rocha, but he could practically feel the undercurrent of curiosity that was drawing people to the fringes of the entryway. Not close enough to get caught in the hurricane that was brewing, but close enough to watch it happen. It was human nature, even if it wasn't pretty.

He did -not- just say what she thought he'd said. "I think that of anyone, I would know the difference between better and -different-, Douglas." With a wrist-flick, a handful of cards were tossed onto the floor between them. "You just leave things as they are, and sit in your safe room at your safe computer where you can pretend things are fine the way they are."

"And that's the trump card," Doug replied with a frown, arms still crossed. "Pun very much intended." He flicked his own wrist at the pile of cards on the floor. "If nothing else, you get the last word by making some vague spooky precognitive pronouncement. And things -are- fine the way they are," he shot back.

"Things are -not- fine the way that they are!" Marie-Ange said, somewhat shrilly. "The way that they are is you hiding in your room and moping because Marie came back!"

"What the hell does Marie have to do with anything?" Doug shouted, definitely worked up now. Marie-Ange had definitely scored a touch with that little jab. "I do not sit and mope in my room," he backpedaled, clearly on the defensive.

"Yes, you do!" He did, he knew it, and now he was trying to cover it up. "You have been hiding in your room since she came back, avoiding Marie, avoiding everyone. Avoiding me!" Marie-Ange stomped down the last few stairs. "And then you go and take out all of your ... I do not even know what it is on everyone else!"

"And of course you have to show me the error of my ways, in front of everyone!" Doug yelled in Marie-Ange's face. "On the journal system, or even right here in front of the entire mansion!" He waved an arm to indicate just where they were, and that people were watching. "Because I really enjoy having my myriad shortcomings dissected in excrutiating detail where everyone can see them! Everything has to be perfect with you! You're always perfectly dressed, perfectly made up, perfectly behaved," he ticked off on his fingers. "God forbid I could have an argument with someone without getting called on the carpet by my girlfriend."

"At least here you cannot run away from it!" Marie-Ange yelled right back, just as loudly. "You cannot run and hide from me or anyone else, if it is out in public where you have to confront it! Because that is the only way you ever change, if someone throws it in your face!"

"Why do I -have- to change?" Doug practically screamed in Marie-Ange's face, his nose inches from hers and his hands thrown upward in frustration. "Why does nothing I do seem to be good enough, and always need that little bit of a push from you?" He snorted. "You don't love me, you love what you can mold me into," he said in a deadly monotone.

"Oh, and you love me for who I AM?" Marie-Ange answered, forcing her voice back down to normal tones. "You love having a girlfriend who dresses well and looks pretty so you can show her off to all of your classmates so that you can feel like less of a computer nerd!"

"I never show you off," Doug growled, his hands clenching into fists. "I can't believe you think that I am actually that shallow that I think you're some kind of trophy to be displayed so that everyone else can admire it and be jealous of me."

"How often do you talk about your 'hot red-haired girlfriend', Douglas?" Marie-Ange snapped. "How many times do you talk about how I look, how I dress, rather than who I am?"

"And we're back to the part where I have to be perfect for you. I'm never allowed to slip in frustration when Forge takes those little swipes at me?" He hissed. "And it's Doug. Douglas is what it says on my birth certificate. But my name is -Doug-. Just once, could you stop being so damn prim and proper every second of the damn day?"

"There is no -Doug-." Marie-Ange said coldly. "There is the Cypher, and there is the singer on stage, and there is the Douglas who taunts Forge and his classmates, but there is no Doug. You hide behind so many names, why should I bother to use anything but the one you were given at birth?"

"This from the Queen of 'I must be under control at all times'? God, you give Mr. SUMMERS a run for his money sometimes," Doug replied just as coldly. His eyes narrowed. "This enough standing my ground for you, _Marie-Ange_?"

"If I was not in control of myself, I would break down into a wreck and you know it!" And with that, Marie-Ange's hand came out, and connected onto Doug's cheek. "I do not think you know me at all. You obviously do not know what I want, or who I am, or what I see in you."

Doug very studiously did not raise his hand to where Marie-Ange had slapped him, though he did work his jaw slightly. She'd definitely put her shoulder into it. He could practically feel the handprint from the way his cheek throbbed. "It's obvious you don't know me either, if you think all I think of you as is some kind of trophy to be shown off." It was like a train approaching a car parked on the tracks. Inexorable, inevitable. But the words Doug never thought he'd hear himself say were bubbling up out of his mouth. "It's over." Two words, so simple, and yet so earth-shattering.

There was nothing else to say. Nothing she -could- say, nothing she wanted to say. Marie-Ange just stood silently, hoping Doug would say something else, until it was obvious that he was not going to.

She made it all the way back to her room before the tears started, but once they did, all she could do was sit on the floor and bawl.

It was done. The die was cast, and it couldn't be taken back. Turning on his heel, Doug cast an angry glare at the people who had heard the argument and come to see what was happening. One white stripe in brown hair stood out in particular, and Doug raised his eyebrow at Marie, a vicious scowl on his face. "I hope you enjoyed the floor show," he said viciously.

The look on Marie's face could best be described as a deer in headlights. She had left her room to find a suitcase for the trip to Egypt, but had been drawn to the noise like many of the others in the hall. When she saw who it was that was fighting, she had been so shocked she hadn't been able to tear herself away. When Doug singled her out her cheeks flushed a deep shade of red. "Ah…Ah'm sorry, Ah didn't mean…" she stammered.

"Didn't mean what?" Doug asked neutrally. All the jabs Marie-Ange had made about him moping over Marie, he certainly wasn't going to make things easy for her.

To cause problems. "…to stare." Marie fiddled with her gloves and took a step backwards, resisting the urge to turn around and flee without another word.

"You're hardly alone in that," Doug shot back. "I guess there's no such thing as privacy in this mansion," he snapped, ignoring the fact that they were standing in the entryway.

"But you're in public," Marie said without thinking how stating the obvious would go over with Doug. "It is perhaps not the best place for something you wish to be discrete about."

"No, really?" Doug shouted. "Thank you for a recapitulation of the blinding fucking obvious, Em!"

Marie felt like she had been sucker punched. She knew Doug was mad, but she had never heard him speak this way to anyone before, let alone to her. He had been one of the few people she had always thought of as truly caring about her, no matter how awkward things got between them and hearing him yell at her was more than she could take. Bursting into tears, she spun around on her heels and ran as quickly as she could.

Fantastic. Just fantastic. This called for a fast car with a stickshift, and any place that wasn't the mansion. Storming out through the front door, Doug swung it shut behind him as hard as he could with a bang.