xp_logs | Doug and Amanda (Reply)

Set last night (forgot to post before I went to bed). Amanda brings a move-in box to the newest resident of the brownstone in New York City. Of course, it's Doug, and he figures she's there to read him the riot act. Instead, she makes him some tea, tells him she's just as worried about him as Angie, and prods him a bit until he actually shows some spirit. Then he falls asleep and she steals his takeout.

If it hadn't been for Pete's announcement and the fact the security guy in the lobby had mentioned someone moving in, Amanda wouldn't have known Doug was there. Doing that hiding thing again, she thought to herself with a wry grimace, remembering what Marie Ange had said about that particular habit of his. As much as Amanda was sympathetic about Doug's need to hide himself away, having done it herself many a time, none of them were kids any more. And she had some questions that only Doug could answer.

Still, she wasn't going to barge in and start interrogating the poor bastard. So she had gone down to the store down the street and gotten a bunch of essential food items that she was reasonably sure he wouldn't have gotten around to getting yet: milk, coffee, sugar, basic sandwich fixings and bread, that sort of thing. Balancing the box on one arm, she tapped on the door of the apartment Doug had moved into, choosing not to announce herself in case he thought she was here to enact Best Friend Wrath on him and refused to open the door.

Doug opened the door without looking, expecting the Chinese delivery he'd called out for. By the time he'd noticed it was Amanda, it was entirely too late to shut the door. "Hi," he offered, his eyes skittering around, now watching her lips, now examining the box in her arms, now fixing on the light sconce across the hall.

"Hey," she said, keeping her voice non-threatening. "I picked up some stuff for you - I figured you probably haven't had a chance to explore the neighbourhood yet." The sight she caught past his shoulder of various take-out containers confirmed that theory. "Toothpaste, bog roll, some foody bits and pieces. Mind if I come in for a sec?"

Doug looked...haggard, was probably the best word. His hair was lanky, a day's worth of stubble suggested that he hadn't shaved that morning, and bags under his eyes attested to the amount of sleep he wasn't getting. But still, it would have been rude of him to deny her request, even if he wanted badly to take the box and shut the door in her face so he could go have a panic attack in his room. If he kept this up, he wasn't sure how he was actually going to be able to accomplish work.

It was his appearance that settled things. As he hesitated, she thrust the box into his hands and nudged him gently aside so she could come in. Once there, she headed straight for the kitchen. All the brownstone apartments had been supplied with the essential appliances and she filled the kettle and turned it on before returning to Doug and taking the box from him again. "Go and sit down before you fall down, mate," she said gently. I'll make some tea."

The gesture of kindness, coming from the former roommate and best friend of his now ex-girlfriend, was almost enough to break Doug. He turned towards a hideous overstuffed green chair to mask the tears that sprang up unbidden at the corners of his eyes. He'd been doing a lot of crying lately, behind double-locked doors. He curled up forlornly in the chair, drawing his feet under himself and leaning against the side of it. "Chinese is supposed to be here in a bit," he told Amanda wanly.

"Pete give you the start-up package with all the local delivery places too, huh?" she asked with a small grin as she dug around in the box for the tea bags she'd included for just such an eventuality. "Tho' to be fair he picked the good ones. The pizza's not bad at all."

"Hadn't gotten around to the pizza place yet," Doug admitted. The conversation was inane, and utterly normal. He shook his head, confused. "Why are you..." he asked hesitantly, waving a hand to indicate the half-unpacked state of the apartment, and Amanda herself where she stood in the kitchen.

Amanda hid her grin by turning her back and pouring the now-boiling water into the cups she'd scrounged (and washed first - it looked like Doug had been living on coffee and Chinese since he moved in). It was good to see Doug wasn't so beaten as to let her presence go unquestioned. Signs of life. "A few reasons," she said, coming back into the living room with the cups in hand. "First one is we have to share an office. More 'n that, we're probably going to end up having to rely on each other to get the job done, sometimes when everything's going to hell around us. Angie's one of my best mates, but that's personal stuff. Not work. Second... you didn't write me off when you had plenty of reason to. I owe you one. Well, more 'n one, but yeah, wasn't going to leave you to mope yourself to death. And third..." She handed him a cup, a sympathetic look on her face. "I was worried about you."

"Worried? About me?" Doug was well and completely confused now. He'd have thought that, of all people, Amanda would be the one most blaming him for whatever state Marie-Ange was in since the breakup. "And you don't owe me anything for anything," he continued stubbornly. "It was the right thing to do."

"After I tore out the link and left Manuel in pieces? A lot of people wouldn't have been able to forgive that. Maybe if Manuel hadn't been such a prick in general, no-one would have." Amanda shrugged slightly and took a seat. "Look, Doug, Angie's my friend. She's probably the best friend I have, apart from Angelo and he's been there from the start. But I'm not taking sides in this - you both hurt each other and you both got hurt. I don't see the point in laying any more blame than what you're doing yourselves."

"Oh, I'm laying plenty," Doug admitted before he could stop himself. He curled up even farther in the chair, drawing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. "I imagine most of the people at the mansion probably blame me too," he said bitterly. "I'm the one who broke up with her in front of a crowd of people."

Amanda shook her head. "I'm not exactly in the loop for all I'm back on the journal system - I keep away from the school stuff so I don't cause hassles. But honestly? I've been there a couple of times since and there's no "Doug Ramsey Is An Evil Bastard" posters on the wall or anything. Fact is, in the school, with all the shite that goes on there? You and Angie are just a blip on the radar, I'm sorry to say. People're wrapped up in their own stuff." She gave him a slightly stern look. "And that's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. Being wrapped up in stuff."

"Oh?" Doug asked quietly and defeatedly. It was far too late to do anything but listen to the advice Amanda was going to give him, even though all he felt like doing was shooing her out, locking the door and crying some more.

She restrained the urge to shake him a little at the tone. With that whipped puppy attitude he won't last five minutes with our lot, she thought. If Doug had been expecting a lecture or some well-meaning advice, he got neither. Instead he got a question. "Doug, why'd you choose to take this job on?"

"Because I wanted to accomplish something meaningful," he told her. He could see the urge to shake him in her body language. Lord knew he deserved it. The fact that it also made a convenient getaway from the mansion was left unsaid. He figured she probably -would- shake him for that one.

Amanda wasn't fooled. "And that's the only reason?" she asked, steadily, eyes not leaving his. "Back at the school, you have friends, you had the team, you have your classes. Here... well you read Pete's statement of intent. We're here to make a difference, accomplish something meaningful, like you said, but it's not going to be easy. And if you're here because you're running away from things... well, maybe you should think things through again. Because that kind of thinking just might get you or one of us killed."

"I think that I can make more of a difference here than on the team," Doug replied. "I don't expect it to be easy. And I'm not running away from things." Liar. "So what if I need a little time to recover from the demolition of my relationship of two years," he went on hotly. "That's my own damn business." He gripped his legs hard, his entire body vibrating with the fight-or-flight instinct.

Amanda nodded. "It's not my business, no. Except that with this bunch, I'm the least powered of the lot of you. I'm the weak link." It was said without self-pity, just a statement of fact. "Taking time off's all well and good - fuck knows if anyone understands where you are right now it's me, Doug. But I have to know that you aren't going to regret this, that one day you're not going to get a call from Captain Fuckwad and go running off to the X-Men again and leave us hanging. Because the others? They can probably get themselves out of any fix, even Remy with his leg. Me? Not so much. I guess I need to know that you'll be there when we need you to be."

"Hell no, I'm not going to leave you high and dry," Doug shot back, his blood still up. "Not even A-Angie," he stammered through the nickname he didn't really feel he had a right to anymore. "I don't do that to anyone. My personal stuff is my personal stuff. It doesn't mean I won't be there." And finally, the skittish energy drained out of him and he slumped back into the chair again.

Amanda weathered the outburst with that same calm expression she'd had since she'd started talking. Then a small smile appeared. The anger was good. The anger meant Doug had a spine, that he wasn't the whipped puppy he had appeared to be doing a very good imitation of. "All right then," she said, nodding slightly. "That's what I wanted to know."

Doug leaned over, resting his head against the arm of his overstuffed chair. The outburst had taken a lot out of him, especially since he hadn't been sleeping all that well. He watched Amanda sip her tea calmly, and even managed to return the small smile she gave him.

He didn't notice at all when his eyelids fluttered shut and he drifted into sleep.

Amanda shook her head sympathetically and went and grabbed a blanket to drape over him. Poor bastard was tired out. Letting herself out, she met the Chinese delivery guy as he was about to knock on the door. "Here, I'll get that," she said, digging out her wallet and handing over the cash. As the guy left, she peeked inside Doug's door again to satisfy herself he was still asleep. She'd come and check on him again in the morning.

At least she didn't have to cook dinner now.