Race Around the World: Paris

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Backdated to August 9. In which Doug makes good on his offer to Amanda from Madrid, they go on something of a date, and completely fail to have a Moment. But seeing as they've both matured, things don't end too horribly.



It had been yet another exhausting day of meeting with Remy's Guild contacts, and Doug was once again in dire need of some relaxation. He'd told Amanda to dress up for a nice dinner out, and that he'd pick her up at her room. Of course, now that the moment was upon him, he stood at Amanda's door wondering if he was playing with fire. Sure, he wasn't sure how serious things were between him and Marie, but even if there weren't that situation to consider, Amanda was good friends with Marie-Ange. Yes, they'd started to develop their own friendship outside of Marie-Ange, but still, this could end badly in so many ways.

But Doug had seen the sorrowful look on Amanda's face, and heard the sadness in her voice. She truly believed that she was too broken, or messed up, or something, to have something approximating a real relationship with someone who loved her. And maybe Doug could help convince her otherwise. Taking a deep breath, he raised his hand and knocked on the door to Amanda's hotel room.

Gah, he was here and she was still looking for shoes. It had been a scramble to get ready after their day of meetings, but she'd needed a shower so badly after dealing with French Guilds... "Coming!" Amanda called out, grabbing a random pair of non-Doc Marten shoes out of her duffle bag and shoving them on. Hopefully they'd match - given Marie-Ange had helped her pack some nicer outfits, it was a good chance. Okay, nice white blouse, not too low cut, the cute little leather kilt Marie had given her ages ago and which she hadn't been able to bring herself to discard like the rest of the gifts to her last year, plain silver hoop earrings... It probably wouldn't have been to Manuel's standards of 'dressing up' but she felt comfortable and she looked pretty good. And Doug wouldn't insist on something too formal.

"Hey," she said, opening the door, smiling at the sight of Doug looking all smart and dressed up and slightly nervous. "Sorry to keep you waiting. Shoe gnomes."

An answering smile lit up Doug's face. "No worries. I built a little extra time into our schedule for just such an occurrence. I'm compulsive like that." He shrugged self-deprecatingly, not losing his smile. "You look really nice," he complimented Amanda. There was a definite difference between dressing up for their meetings with the Guild representatives and dressing up to go out to dinner. "Shall we?" he said, gesturing with one hand. "Dinner awaits."

She smiled again at the simple compliment - it was nice too be told she looked good without some sort of sexual reference. "We shall indeed, Mr. Ramsey," she replied in her best 'BBC English' tones, checking to make sure she had her room key and wallet before letting the door close behind her. "We're not doing snails or frogs' legs or anything icky like that, are we?" she asked, teasingly. "I'd hate to think I was eating one of Jake's mates, after all."

Doug shuddered. "I like to think of myself as cultured, and I enjoy French food, but escargot and frog's legs is where I draw the line." He chuckled as they headed down the hall. He was determined that they were going to relax and enjoy themselves tonight, after the inadvertent emotional upheaval that Madrid had been.

***

"I take back anything I ever thought about French food," Amanda declared as they entered the lobby of their hotel, rubbing her stomach slightly. There'd been a lot of food, plus wine with every course, and she was feeling decidedly full. And fuzzy, although that could have been the vibe she was picking up from Paris itself. Mellow, like a fine meal and a bottle of red, with undertones of something more energetic if stirred up. "That was bloody amazing. And I didn't even have to play 'guess which fork you use now'." She squeezed Doug's arm. "Thanks, mate. That was a great place. Didn't feel awkward at all."

It hadn't felt awkward at all, which had surprised Doug. They had a definite comfort level as friends that he never would have expected given the way they'd been when they first got to know each other. Not that he'd ever disliked Amanda, but the love potion had definitely caused him to be leery around the Brit. But her arm in his didn't feel at all awkward, and it seemed like she'd had a very good time, which had been the objective of the evening in the first place. He quirked a silly grin. "Amanda Sefton, cultured young professional. Who'd have guessed?" he joked lightly.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah, right. Me being cultured - I think I'd have to stop saying 'fuck' every second sentence for that to stick. That maitre de bloke--" she horribly mispronounced the French word. "--nearly swallowed his tongue when I was telling you that joke about the bishop and the bag of chickens."

"Cultured enough to know when you're out with friends and can make jokes like that, then," Doug replied with a shrug. "You wouldn't have made that joke during our meetings today," he explained. "And back when you first got to Xavier's, you had a lot more rough edges. I guess it's that maturity thing sneaking up on all of us." His eyes twinkled as he reached up and ruffled Amanda's hair.

"Too bad I didn't tell it - might've loosened up those bastards a bit," she replied, chuckling a little and batting at Doug's ruffling hand. "Yep, we're all getting horribly old and responsible. Next thing you know, we'll be looking at pension plans and getting mortgages." Her expression turned mock-mournful. "It's a sad thing - all those young up and coming trouble magnets, where are they going to get their inspiration from now? Me and Sarah and Angelo, all grown up and working, Jono out of the basement, Clarice a bloody X-Man... it's a tragedy, I tell you."

A long snicker escaped from Doug's mouth at Amanda's overly done mournful look. "I rather think they'll find ways to get in trouble all on their own," he said with a raised eyebrow. "I mean, look at this new kid, Julio. I don't know that anything beats blowing up a city for getting yourself into trouble." This was nice. The silly, slightly giddy feeling from the wine and joking was a welcome change from the days of boring meetings.

"I dunno, does it count when a plonker in a bucket makes you?" Amanda had heard enough talk and seen enough on the journals to know that everyone's favourite meglomaniac had been involved. "Seems like cheating to me. In my day, we had to make our own trouble. And we lived in a shoebox in the middle of the road, too," she added, dropping into a Yorkshire accent to make the Monty Python quote.

Doug went from snickering to uncontrollable giggling as they exited the elevator into the hallway of their hotel. He doubled over, gasping for breath. It wasn't that the Python quote had been so funny, or even unexpected. Doug suspected the wine was hitting him a bit harder than he'd originally thought, but hopefully not hard enough to cause a hangover in the morning. He made a mental note to drink some water before bed, hoping he was unfuzzed enough to remember.

"See, here is a man of taste. You appreciate the brilliance that is Monty Python's Flying Circus. I mean, I tried that one on Nate once and he didn't get the reference at all." Amanda was perhaps being a bit more talkative than usual, a combination of food, wine and relaxing as she gestured grandly. "If there's one thing that the British Empire should be remembered for at all, it's the fish slapping dance and the parrot sketch. Really." Her eyes twinkled. "Not to mention the nudge nudge wink wink sketch. Say no more!" She tapped the side of her nose conspiratorially.

Doug was now gasping for breath, coming down from the fit of giggles. Amanda tapping the side of her nose, and then nudging him with her elbow and winking, caused him to completely lose it again. "You...you..." he stammered between gasps as he struggled to get himself under control again.

Breaking into giggles herself, Amanda grabbed him by the elbows to stop him from falling over completely. "Breathe, Doug, breathe. If I kill you, Pete'll pout at me for killing his tech genius and nothing withstands the pout of a grumpy Englishman. There's not enough cigarettes in the world to save me," she said between laughter. "Tho' apparently I could go get work in stand up, from this reaction."

Doug raised a hand in mute surrender. Slowly, his breathing calmed and he managed to get himself under control. Somehow, in all the giggling, they'd managed to get themselves to the door to his hotel room, he wasn't sure how he'd managed to walk amidst all the laughing. He straightened up, Amanda's hands still on his elbows. He looked down at her, mood suddenly gone from hilarious to serious. "Um," he said helpfully, words completely abandoning him.

"Um, definitely," she said, smiling at him. She slid her hands down his arms to hold his hands loosely. "Thanks for tonight, Doug. I had a really great time." The smile turned a little mischeivous. "Really made me see what I've been missing." Although she wasn't really sure what happened now. Shake hands and say goodnight? It seemed a bit formal.

The pause lengthened, as Doug looked down into Amanda's eyes. They seemed...unusually large, to Doug's slightly fuzzed brain. But the small logical part still working in the back of his brain supposed that was because they were standing awfully close to each other. He was having much the same dilemma about what came next, and before the logical part of his brain could argue that it was probably not the world's greatest idea, he leaned down and kissed Amanda gently.

He caught her by surprise. That and the wine would be what Amanda would later attribute to the fact she didn't pull away immediately. Those two factors and the fact it had been a very long time since anyone had even tried to kiss her and Doug had certainly improved in that as well since the last time they'd kissed... Then the rational, grownup part of her brain kicked in, overriding the purely instinctive reaction to kiss back, and she raised her hands to his shoulders, pushing him very gently back. "Doug... 'm sorry, but this? So not a good idea," she said, a touch regretfully. Damn logic.

Logic caught up to Doug in that same moment as she pushed him back. He couldn't even be upset with her, because he recognized just as much that it was a spectacularly bad idea for a host of reasons. "Sorry," he apologized quietly. "Just...don't use that line about being to screwed up to be loved or have a normal relationship, okay?" he chided her gently. "Because there are people out there who love you, warts and all."

She chuckled a little ruefully. "I won't if you won't use this to beat yourself up about what a stupid thing it was to do, yeah? You're a really sweet bloke, Doug, and maybe in any other lifetime, but... well, you're my mate. And so are Angie and Marie and our lives are bad enough soap operas as it is."

Doug's smile had a touch of self-mocking in it, but only a touch. He really was trying to be better about that whole beating himself up thing. He had a hunch he'd be sitting and talking with Sofia for a while about the whole situation. Therapy was a very good thing, though, it helped him put things in perspective. And when you in the line of business that they were, a few romantic troubles really weren't all that huge of a deal. At least, he tried to tell himself that. "I guess I'll see you in the morning, then?" he asked somewhat rhetorically. They still had several more cities to go on their whirlwind tour. "Sleep well, Amanda," he said as he let himself quietly into his room.

"You too," she told him with a slightly sad smile as the door closed behind him. With a philosophical shrug, she headed for her own room, a couple of doors down, still feeling largely content. It had been a good night and whilst the kiss had been awkward, it had been nice to be reminded that she was attractive. "Definitely have to try this dating thing again one day," she murmured to herself as she let herself into her room.

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And next week...on All My Mutant Children...

Who will Doug ask out next?
Where has Tommy been spending his Saturday nights?
Who will return from the great beyond?
And who's shocking past will finally be revealed for all to know?

Don't forget to tune in to find out the answers to these questions and more!