Race Around The World - Madrid
Aug. 8th, 2006 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsBackdated to August 8, 2006 - After a day of dealing with Guild paranoia, Amanda and Doug decide to relax for the evening. The choice of recreation possibly isn't the best one.
The Spanish evening was close and hot as the pair of them finally left the meeting that had been arranged.
"That went... all right," Amanda said wryly, visibly relaxing as soon as they hit the streets. Madrid had a charge, as she'd informed Doug the minute they'd gotten into the city proper, something more lively and closer to the surface than Cairo or Kathmandu, and after the tension of meeting with Remy's dodgy Guild contacts, she was glad of it. "But you know what I think we need right now?"
Doug ruffled his hand through his sweaty hair and unbuttoned his shirtsleeves, rolling them up past the elbow. Loosening his tie, he undid the top button of his shirt and sighed in relief. "As long as it involves someplace where there aren't any of Remy's people, and possibly a drink, I don't know that it really matters, Amanda." He stretched. "God, that was exhausting. I don't know that I've -ever- met anyone that untrusting in my life." He supposed it made sense, given what Remy had been willing to say about the Guild tensions in New Orleans, but it was difficult to relax when the people they'd met with had loads of tension hidden behind their carefully schooled expressions.
"Oh, I'm right with you there with the drink." Amanda grinned wryly at him. "I'm used to the whole untrusting thing with Remy and Tante, but yeah, that lot certainly didn't make life easy. You did really well in there." Actually Doug had done most of the talking, with Amanda making a few strategic mentions of Tante when things got difficult. "You know what'd be really good right now? A club. Lots of young sorts out to have a good time without any of this espionage shite, a couple of drinks, a bit of a dance... Could be fun, what d'you reckon?"
"You don't have to sell me twice," Doug replied. "We should probably go change out of our 'business clothes', you think?" Doug wasn't sure if he had brought clubbing clothes with him, but at worst he'd call the concierge and make Remy pick up the tab. He could get used to traveling on an expense account. "Meet you in the lobby in, say, an hour?" he asked.
"Sounds like a plan to me." Amanda tugged uncomfortably at the collar of her business shirt. "There's bound to be plenty of places to take it easy in this city."
***
It was easy to find the clubbing district - the throbbing music was obvious from quite the distance. The club Amanda picked was much the same as the rest of them - loud, the dimness punctuated with with neon and lasers, packed with a thronging crowd of Madrid's young and beautiful. Amanda didn't mention how she knew about the club - like the rest of her Madrid knowledge, it came from Manuel's stories and reminiscences. But the music was good, the energy high and she could feel the tension relaxing from her shoulders as soon as she entered. And the best thing was, they were both legal here.
"You want a drink?" she yelled over the music to Doug, gesturing her head at the bar. "My shout for you coming with me on this trip."
"Sure!" Doug had to yell just as loudly over the driving beat of the techno mixes the European clubs all seemed to favor. Doug wasn't one to go clubbing and drinking every night of the week, but every so often it was a good way to relax. And after the meeting hell he'd been through during the day, today definitely qualified. The crowd was large, which could have set off Doug's mild power-related agoraphobia, but in a setting like this, the motion was much less random, and the carefree youthful energy of the clubbers' body language helped drain away some of Doug's own tension, replacing it with a toe-tapping desire to dance himself.
Amanda used her small size to squirm through the crowd to the bar. The Castillian accent to her Spanish raised a couple of eyebrows, especially considering she was wearing her Union Jack t-shirt (almost mandatory clubbing wear for her), but she came back without much trouble with two glasses of vodka and orange. "There y'go, get that into you," she told Doug with a grin, remembering that night, so very long ago now it seemed, where they'd gone out clubbing in Salem Centre. She'd been an awful tease.
Doug also remembered the night they'd gone clubbing, but for slightly different reasons. He resolved to pace himself with the drinking, as he would prefer not to wake up to the third hangover of his life. After the pair had finished their first round, Doug turned to Amanda. "Want to dance?" he yelled, waving a hand toward the dance floor.
Doug had changed so much in the intervening years, Amanda decided as she nodded and followed him out onto the floor. And she liked the change - she could relate to him much better now he wasn't constantly apologising for everything. And he'd become a much better dancer now
he'd stopped worrying about what he looked like. "I could get used to this whole jet-setting spy lifestyle," she joked, leaning in so she could talk in his ear and be heard. "And you're bloody born to it - you handled those blokes really well today."
"Power helps, to be honest," Doug demurred. "If it weren't for that, I'd be totally lost in the woods. It's not like I was trained to it, like Remy or Pete." But the rest of what Amanda had said was true. Doug could definitely get used to the jet-setting spy lifestyle. Seeing the world, staying in nice accomodations... sure, the downside was meetings like the ones they'd had, but at the end of the day, he enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment. The drink and the company
certainly didn't hurt. He and Amanda had developed a friendship of their own, rather than simply relating through Marie-Ange, and it was nice.
"If it works, don't knock it." Amanda grinned. "And how's the rest of it, personal life and all? Marie told me about that date of yours - any follow up?"
Doug nodded. "We've been on a couple of dates. And then she and Angie and I were trying to make heads or tails out of this journal she brought back from her trip home..." And hadn't -that- been a world of awkward. Not to mention that Doug wasn't sure why Logan had gone along, while he hadn't found out until pretty much after the fact.
"Yeah, sorry to end up giving you lot two sleepless brainstorming nights in a row..." Amanda looked a little sheepish. "There's so much going on, tho', and it's not like I had a lot of options for help..." Especially now Remy had gotten back in touch with his inner bastard. That bothered her. A lot. "This the pre-cog's journal? Think I heard something from Angie about it before we took off."
"It's part of the job description," Doug joked, though the back to back long nights -had- been a little exhausting. "And yeah. Her name was Irene something, and from the stuff we managed to translate, she could probably give Tante a run for her money on crypticness." He tossed his head and grinned. "I thought we were leaving work at the door, though," he said, closing his eyes and concentrating on the music.
"Well, you can't beat old magic books for cryptic wank, so if you want another set of eyes to look at it, toss it on over," were Amanda's last words on the subject as she poked Doug in the ribs a little. "All right, enough of the work talk. We're young, we're in Madrid and we're incredibly attractive," she teased. "And we have an expense account. Want to see just how much relaxing we can do?"
"I doubt I can keep up with you, but 'lay on, Macduff, and cursed be the first that cries nay, hold, enough!'" Doug quoted with a wide smile. Relaxing and enjoying himself sounded just fine.
***
Several hours later and they were still dancing up a storm. Both being blonde had meant a certain amount of attention from the locals, so there was no lacking for partners. For dancing and various other offers, all of which Amanda turned down as casually as she could. Sure it was vaguely tempting - it had been a long bloody while - but... no. Not here and not now. Just as well Doug made a good excuse - she didn't out and say he was her boyfriend, just let people assume. It worked well.
"Get us some water, will you?" she asked Doug, having gravitated back to him. "'S bloody hot in here." Both of them were watching their alcohol intake - wouldn't do to get trashed if Belladonna's people were possibly about.
Hot night plus crowded club plus alcohol plus dancing was an easy equation for dehydration, so Doug had been alternating alcoholic drinks with water. Where Amanda relied on her smaller size and looks to get to the bar through the throng, Doug used his mutant ability to help him see where holes would open up in the press. The bartender obviously would have rather sold drinks that cost money, but Doug managed to talk two glasses of water out of him, leaving a bill in the tip jar as thanks. Turning around, he made his way back to Amanda, careful not to get jostled and spill any of the water.
Amanda caught his eye as he made his careful way back and waved. The music was changing, and the DJ prefaced the new track with an announcement in Spanish:
"~Something from one of the legends of the Madrid clubbing scene! Gone, but not forgotten!~"
Electronics filled the air, underlaid by a drumbeat that was almost exactly the same as a heart beat. In English, a man's voice said: "You must feel pretty good by now. But that isn't good enough. I don't want you to just feel 'pretty good', I want you to feel great."
"Mierda," Doug cursed with feeling under his breath, instinctively searching the room. He'd recognized the polished, self-assured voice immediately. But no, the DJ had said 'gone but not forgotten'. Which meant Manuel wasn't actually in the club. His initial instinct covered, Doug looked over at Amanda to check her reaction.
The music switched into pounding drums, overlaid with piano samples and around her the club patrons exploded into movement, whooping and cheering. Amanda herself was standing stock still, face unnaturally pale despite the flush of exertion earlier, lips moving silently as she formed useless apologies. She didn't seem to notice the buffeting of the other dancers as they collided with her or tried to get her to dance with them.
Then she abruptly turned and bolted, shoving her way through the crowd towards the exit, only one thing on her mind - escape.
Doug's swearing was even more heartfelt this time, and he elbowed clubbers out of his way as he chased after the Briton. "Amanda!" he called out, bursting from the door of the club and looking around frantically for blonde hair.
He didn't have to look too far - a little way down the road from the club (and away from the patrons) was a railing, bordering the road. Amanda was leaning against it, facing the traffic. Her hands were wrapped tightly around the metal her knuckles were white and she was breathing
deeply, trying to bring herself back under control. But all she could see in her mind's eye was Manuel's face, that last time she'd seen him, twisted with pain and streaked with tears and blood as she tore the link out. "I'm so sorry, love," she gasped, clenching her eyes tight to stop herself from crying. They were here on a job, she had to be professional, prove to Remy she could take anything he dished out...
A pair of hands placed themselves over Amanda's, gently prying their death grip loose. "Hey," Doug said gently, leaning down next to her to look at her. "You okay?" He didn't have to ask why she'd left in such a hurry.
"Not really," she replied, with a shaky laugh that wasn't really a laugh at all. "I will be, I just..." Her face crumpled slightly. "Who the fuck am I fooling? It'll never be okay. I shouldn't have come
here. I'm sorry, Doug, I thought... I thought I could hold it together."
"You don't have to hold it together every minute of every day, Amanda," Doug told her with a quiet, sad smile. "That's what friends are for. The times when you can't hold it together. And it's just me here. You were there when I couldn't hold it together." He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her to him. "Want to go back to the hotel? We can order lots of room service and watch silly movies."
"Probably best to - think my partying's done for the night." Surprisingly, she didn't pull away from the hug, instead wrapping her arms around his waist and clinging to him. "'S just... I miss him," she murmured, so quietly he almost missed it. "The good times, the bad times. All of it. And sometimes I think that maybe Manny was my only chance to have someone who... wants me. Broken and all."
"That's not true, Amanda," Doug said a bit sternly. "You're my friend, and I won't stand for you putting yourself down. It's not true, either."
"I loved him, Doug. Manuel. Even when he was being a complete bastard to me... I still loved him. And it wasn't him making me with his powers, it was me. How can I even think I'd stand a chance at something more normal, something healthier for me, when that's
what I think is a relationship? Him putting me down, being jealous of my friends, making me feel like crap when he wasn't jumping me every five minutes? Even when he was being nice he was still being an arse. And I let him." Anger filled her tone, anger at herself, at Manuel, even at Doug for not seeing it. "I let him 'cause I didn't see anything wrong with it. 'Cause in a way, I wanted it. So what does that say about me?"
"Everyone wants to be loved, Amanda." Doug looked off into space as they walked down the streets of Madrid, his arm still around her. "Sometimes it makes us do crazy things, or it blinds us to things we don't want to see about the other person." He snorted. "Or ourselves." He shrugged. "But it doesn't make you a bad person. Did you learn something from it?" he asked after a moment. "Did you learn that love, real love, isn't like that?"
"Oh, I saw it all right." Amanda sighed, letting the anger drain away. It only made her tired and she'd been running in circles over this for far too long. She rested her head against Doug's shoulder. "And... I don't know. Look at the people in my life, Doug. Pete, Remy, Rom... not exactly good examples of emotional stability. My best mate used to be a gang-banger whose girlfriend went insane and dumped him. Another of my mates has killed people and doesn't have an issue with it. You and Marie-Ange used to be my role model for what real love was supposed to be, but..." She trailled off a little awkwardly. "Fuck, I dunno even how you start a normal relationship. With Manuel it was get stoned off Cain, fuck like bunnies and accidentally get ourselves linked."
Doug didn't have any easy answers for Amanda, and he was somewhat sad and frustrated about that fact. He would have loved to have found the one little sentence that made such perfect sense that Amanda saw immediately that she -was- worth something, and that she could find love that was more real than what she had shared with Manuel. But that wasn't the way the real world worked. The real world was hard and complicated. Doug sighed. Sometimes the real world sucked.
"You have friends who love you for who you are, Amanda," he asserted. "Like me. And Angie. And Angelo. And we all believe that you're a good person, someone who's -worth- loving. Yeah, you've made mistakes, but so has everyone else. Nobody's perfect. We just kinda do our best to muddle through life." He shrugged. "And as for a 'normal relationship', I've said for a long time since I first came to Xavier's that normal is what you make of it. If you can find someone who loves you, and treats you with respect, and you do the same for them, does it really matter how it comes about?"
"It does if you can't tell the real thing from the fuck up." Amanda pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Gah. Listen to me. Back in the Land of Self-Pity. I'm sorry, mate. Not exactly that winding down we promised. Whole new city tomorrow - how about we try this again in Paris?"
"That's fine by me. Maybe I can show you something of what a real date is supposed to be like." He made the offer lightly, but the more Doug thought about it, he thought it might do Amanda some good to see what a date with someone who cared about her was like. His mind immediately turned to Marie, but they'd only been on a few dates, and she'd taken Logan home to Meridian, not him, and that stung a little. He shrugged and did his best to avoid his own trip to Self-Pity Land. "But for now, room service and silly movies await," he declaimed grandiosely, hoping to win another smile from Amanda.
It wasn't much of a smile, but it was a smile, and she lost some of that beaten look. "That sounds great," she said. "Silly movies are just my speed right now." Her hand slipped down to take his. "Thanks, mate."
The Spanish evening was close and hot as the pair of them finally left the meeting that had been arranged.
"That went... all right," Amanda said wryly, visibly relaxing as soon as they hit the streets. Madrid had a charge, as she'd informed Doug the minute they'd gotten into the city proper, something more lively and closer to the surface than Cairo or Kathmandu, and after the tension of meeting with Remy's dodgy Guild contacts, she was glad of it. "But you know what I think we need right now?"
Doug ruffled his hand through his sweaty hair and unbuttoned his shirtsleeves, rolling them up past the elbow. Loosening his tie, he undid the top button of his shirt and sighed in relief. "As long as it involves someplace where there aren't any of Remy's people, and possibly a drink, I don't know that it really matters, Amanda." He stretched. "God, that was exhausting. I don't know that I've -ever- met anyone that untrusting in my life." He supposed it made sense, given what Remy had been willing to say about the Guild tensions in New Orleans, but it was difficult to relax when the people they'd met with had loads of tension hidden behind their carefully schooled expressions.
"Oh, I'm right with you there with the drink." Amanda grinned wryly at him. "I'm used to the whole untrusting thing with Remy and Tante, but yeah, that lot certainly didn't make life easy. You did really well in there." Actually Doug had done most of the talking, with Amanda making a few strategic mentions of Tante when things got difficult. "You know what'd be really good right now? A club. Lots of young sorts out to have a good time without any of this espionage shite, a couple of drinks, a bit of a dance... Could be fun, what d'you reckon?"
"You don't have to sell me twice," Doug replied. "We should probably go change out of our 'business clothes', you think?" Doug wasn't sure if he had brought clubbing clothes with him, but at worst he'd call the concierge and make Remy pick up the tab. He could get used to traveling on an expense account. "Meet you in the lobby in, say, an hour?" he asked.
"Sounds like a plan to me." Amanda tugged uncomfortably at the collar of her business shirt. "There's bound to be plenty of places to take it easy in this city."
***
It was easy to find the clubbing district - the throbbing music was obvious from quite the distance. The club Amanda picked was much the same as the rest of them - loud, the dimness punctuated with with neon and lasers, packed with a thronging crowd of Madrid's young and beautiful. Amanda didn't mention how she knew about the club - like the rest of her Madrid knowledge, it came from Manuel's stories and reminiscences. But the music was good, the energy high and she could feel the tension relaxing from her shoulders as soon as she entered. And the best thing was, they were both legal here.
"You want a drink?" she yelled over the music to Doug, gesturing her head at the bar. "My shout for you coming with me on this trip."
"Sure!" Doug had to yell just as loudly over the driving beat of the techno mixes the European clubs all seemed to favor. Doug wasn't one to go clubbing and drinking every night of the week, but every so often it was a good way to relax. And after the meeting hell he'd been through during the day, today definitely qualified. The crowd was large, which could have set off Doug's mild power-related agoraphobia, but in a setting like this, the motion was much less random, and the carefree youthful energy of the clubbers' body language helped drain away some of Doug's own tension, replacing it with a toe-tapping desire to dance himself.
Amanda used her small size to squirm through the crowd to the bar. The Castillian accent to her Spanish raised a couple of eyebrows, especially considering she was wearing her Union Jack t-shirt (almost mandatory clubbing wear for her), but she came back without much trouble with two glasses of vodka and orange. "There y'go, get that into you," she told Doug with a grin, remembering that night, so very long ago now it seemed, where they'd gone out clubbing in Salem Centre. She'd been an awful tease.
Doug also remembered the night they'd gone clubbing, but for slightly different reasons. He resolved to pace himself with the drinking, as he would prefer not to wake up to the third hangover of his life. After the pair had finished their first round, Doug turned to Amanda. "Want to dance?" he yelled, waving a hand toward the dance floor.
Doug had changed so much in the intervening years, Amanda decided as she nodded and followed him out onto the floor. And she liked the change - she could relate to him much better now he wasn't constantly apologising for everything. And he'd become a much better dancer now
he'd stopped worrying about what he looked like. "I could get used to this whole jet-setting spy lifestyle," she joked, leaning in so she could talk in his ear and be heard. "And you're bloody born to it - you handled those blokes really well today."
"Power helps, to be honest," Doug demurred. "If it weren't for that, I'd be totally lost in the woods. It's not like I was trained to it, like Remy or Pete." But the rest of what Amanda had said was true. Doug could definitely get used to the jet-setting spy lifestyle. Seeing the world, staying in nice accomodations... sure, the downside was meetings like the ones they'd had, but at the end of the day, he enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment. The drink and the company
certainly didn't hurt. He and Amanda had developed a friendship of their own, rather than simply relating through Marie-Ange, and it was nice.
"If it works, don't knock it." Amanda grinned. "And how's the rest of it, personal life and all? Marie told me about that date of yours - any follow up?"
Doug nodded. "We've been on a couple of dates. And then she and Angie and I were trying to make heads or tails out of this journal she brought back from her trip home..." And hadn't -that- been a world of awkward. Not to mention that Doug wasn't sure why Logan had gone along, while he hadn't found out until pretty much after the fact.
"Yeah, sorry to end up giving you lot two sleepless brainstorming nights in a row..." Amanda looked a little sheepish. "There's so much going on, tho', and it's not like I had a lot of options for help..." Especially now Remy had gotten back in touch with his inner bastard. That bothered her. A lot. "This the pre-cog's journal? Think I heard something from Angie about it before we took off."
"It's part of the job description," Doug joked, though the back to back long nights -had- been a little exhausting. "And yeah. Her name was Irene something, and from the stuff we managed to translate, she could probably give Tante a run for her money on crypticness." He tossed his head and grinned. "I thought we were leaving work at the door, though," he said, closing his eyes and concentrating on the music.
"Well, you can't beat old magic books for cryptic wank, so if you want another set of eyes to look at it, toss it on over," were Amanda's last words on the subject as she poked Doug in the ribs a little. "All right, enough of the work talk. We're young, we're in Madrid and we're incredibly attractive," she teased. "And we have an expense account. Want to see just how much relaxing we can do?"
"I doubt I can keep up with you, but 'lay on, Macduff, and cursed be the first that cries nay, hold, enough!'" Doug quoted with a wide smile. Relaxing and enjoying himself sounded just fine.
***
Several hours later and they were still dancing up a storm. Both being blonde had meant a certain amount of attention from the locals, so there was no lacking for partners. For dancing and various other offers, all of which Amanda turned down as casually as she could. Sure it was vaguely tempting - it had been a long bloody while - but... no. Not here and not now. Just as well Doug made a good excuse - she didn't out and say he was her boyfriend, just let people assume. It worked well.
"Get us some water, will you?" she asked Doug, having gravitated back to him. "'S bloody hot in here." Both of them were watching their alcohol intake - wouldn't do to get trashed if Belladonna's people were possibly about.
Hot night plus crowded club plus alcohol plus dancing was an easy equation for dehydration, so Doug had been alternating alcoholic drinks with water. Where Amanda relied on her smaller size and looks to get to the bar through the throng, Doug used his mutant ability to help him see where holes would open up in the press. The bartender obviously would have rather sold drinks that cost money, but Doug managed to talk two glasses of water out of him, leaving a bill in the tip jar as thanks. Turning around, he made his way back to Amanda, careful not to get jostled and spill any of the water.
Amanda caught his eye as he made his careful way back and waved. The music was changing, and the DJ prefaced the new track with an announcement in Spanish:
"~Something from one of the legends of the Madrid clubbing scene! Gone, but not forgotten!~"
Electronics filled the air, underlaid by a drumbeat that was almost exactly the same as a heart beat. In English, a man's voice said: "You must feel pretty good by now. But that isn't good enough. I don't want you to just feel 'pretty good', I want you to feel great."
"Mierda," Doug cursed with feeling under his breath, instinctively searching the room. He'd recognized the polished, self-assured voice immediately. But no, the DJ had said 'gone but not forgotten'. Which meant Manuel wasn't actually in the club. His initial instinct covered, Doug looked over at Amanda to check her reaction.
The music switched into pounding drums, overlaid with piano samples and around her the club patrons exploded into movement, whooping and cheering. Amanda herself was standing stock still, face unnaturally pale despite the flush of exertion earlier, lips moving silently as she formed useless apologies. She didn't seem to notice the buffeting of the other dancers as they collided with her or tried to get her to dance with them.
Then she abruptly turned and bolted, shoving her way through the crowd towards the exit, only one thing on her mind - escape.
Doug's swearing was even more heartfelt this time, and he elbowed clubbers out of his way as he chased after the Briton. "Amanda!" he called out, bursting from the door of the club and looking around frantically for blonde hair.
He didn't have to look too far - a little way down the road from the club (and away from the patrons) was a railing, bordering the road. Amanda was leaning against it, facing the traffic. Her hands were wrapped tightly around the metal her knuckles were white and she was breathing
deeply, trying to bring herself back under control. But all she could see in her mind's eye was Manuel's face, that last time she'd seen him, twisted with pain and streaked with tears and blood as she tore the link out. "I'm so sorry, love," she gasped, clenching her eyes tight to stop herself from crying. They were here on a job, she had to be professional, prove to Remy she could take anything he dished out...
A pair of hands placed themselves over Amanda's, gently prying their death grip loose. "Hey," Doug said gently, leaning down next to her to look at her. "You okay?" He didn't have to ask why she'd left in such a hurry.
"Not really," she replied, with a shaky laugh that wasn't really a laugh at all. "I will be, I just..." Her face crumpled slightly. "Who the fuck am I fooling? It'll never be okay. I shouldn't have come
here. I'm sorry, Doug, I thought... I thought I could hold it together."
"You don't have to hold it together every minute of every day, Amanda," Doug told her with a quiet, sad smile. "That's what friends are for. The times when you can't hold it together. And it's just me here. You were there when I couldn't hold it together." He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her to him. "Want to go back to the hotel? We can order lots of room service and watch silly movies."
"Probably best to - think my partying's done for the night." Surprisingly, she didn't pull away from the hug, instead wrapping her arms around his waist and clinging to him. "'S just... I miss him," she murmured, so quietly he almost missed it. "The good times, the bad times. All of it. And sometimes I think that maybe Manny was my only chance to have someone who... wants me. Broken and all."
"That's not true, Amanda," Doug said a bit sternly. "You're my friend, and I won't stand for you putting yourself down. It's not true, either."
"I loved him, Doug. Manuel. Even when he was being a complete bastard to me... I still loved him. And it wasn't him making me with his powers, it was me. How can I even think I'd stand a chance at something more normal, something healthier for me, when that's
what I think is a relationship? Him putting me down, being jealous of my friends, making me feel like crap when he wasn't jumping me every five minutes? Even when he was being nice he was still being an arse. And I let him." Anger filled her tone, anger at herself, at Manuel, even at Doug for not seeing it. "I let him 'cause I didn't see anything wrong with it. 'Cause in a way, I wanted it. So what does that say about me?"
"Everyone wants to be loved, Amanda." Doug looked off into space as they walked down the streets of Madrid, his arm still around her. "Sometimes it makes us do crazy things, or it blinds us to things we don't want to see about the other person." He snorted. "Or ourselves." He shrugged. "But it doesn't make you a bad person. Did you learn something from it?" he asked after a moment. "Did you learn that love, real love, isn't like that?"
"Oh, I saw it all right." Amanda sighed, letting the anger drain away. It only made her tired and she'd been running in circles over this for far too long. She rested her head against Doug's shoulder. "And... I don't know. Look at the people in my life, Doug. Pete, Remy, Rom... not exactly good examples of emotional stability. My best mate used to be a gang-banger whose girlfriend went insane and dumped him. Another of my mates has killed people and doesn't have an issue with it. You and Marie-Ange used to be my role model for what real love was supposed to be, but..." She trailled off a little awkwardly. "Fuck, I dunno even how you start a normal relationship. With Manuel it was get stoned off Cain, fuck like bunnies and accidentally get ourselves linked."
Doug didn't have any easy answers for Amanda, and he was somewhat sad and frustrated about that fact. He would have loved to have found the one little sentence that made such perfect sense that Amanda saw immediately that she -was- worth something, and that she could find love that was more real than what she had shared with Manuel. But that wasn't the way the real world worked. The real world was hard and complicated. Doug sighed. Sometimes the real world sucked.
"You have friends who love you for who you are, Amanda," he asserted. "Like me. And Angie. And Angelo. And we all believe that you're a good person, someone who's -worth- loving. Yeah, you've made mistakes, but so has everyone else. Nobody's perfect. We just kinda do our best to muddle through life." He shrugged. "And as for a 'normal relationship', I've said for a long time since I first came to Xavier's that normal is what you make of it. If you can find someone who loves you, and treats you with respect, and you do the same for them, does it really matter how it comes about?"
"It does if you can't tell the real thing from the fuck up." Amanda pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Gah. Listen to me. Back in the Land of Self-Pity. I'm sorry, mate. Not exactly that winding down we promised. Whole new city tomorrow - how about we try this again in Paris?"
"That's fine by me. Maybe I can show you something of what a real date is supposed to be like." He made the offer lightly, but the more Doug thought about it, he thought it might do Amanda some good to see what a date with someone who cared about her was like. His mind immediately turned to Marie, but they'd only been on a few dates, and she'd taken Logan home to Meridian, not him, and that stung a little. He shrugged and did his best to avoid his own trip to Self-Pity Land. "But for now, room service and silly movies await," he declaimed grandiosely, hoping to win another smile from Amanda.
It wasn't much of a smile, but it was a smile, and she lost some of that beaten look. "That sounds great," she said. "Silly movies are just my speed right now." Her hand slipped down to take his. "Thanks, mate."
