xp_logs | Marie-Ange and Amanda and some girl-talk

While out for girls' night out, Marie-Ange declares men to be stupid, and gets the dirt on Amanda and Angelo. And a little dirt on Amanda and Doug. And Sekrits are Revealed. Well, not so secret, really. Who DOESN'T know that Doug's still in love with Angie, and vice-versa? Oh, Right. Doug and Angie.

Marie-Ange leaned against a lightpost and pulled her scarf down so that she could be heard clearly, and held up a finger, puncuating her point before she had even made it. "Men? Are stupid. I think that I shall just give up on them." She paused, and shook her head. "Except that I do not think that I have found any women attractive, and I would make a terrible nun. So I am stuck."

"Pity." Amanda had stopped when her friend had, and was standing in the mushy snow, swaying slightly. Now she was pouting a little at Marie-Ange, and amused - and rather drunken - glint in her eye. The combination of exhaustion and stress had meant the alcohol she'd drunk had hit like a train. "I think you'd make a lovely girlfriend."

Marie-Ange giggled, and kicked at some of the snow and slush on the ground. "I would make a terrible lesbian. And I sit on too many other fences to not pick men or women." She pouted back at Amanda and sighed dramatically. "Which is a shame, since it would give me so many more options. And I could set revenge upon my enemies by causing them to have heart attacks." She paused and giggled again. "Or at least revenge on Doug..."

"Christ, Doug would drop dead on the spot. But he'd die a happy man at least, so it'd be worth it." Amanda snickered. Then she blinked. "But what did Doug do this time that needs revenge? He told me about being a prat to you before, don't tell me he's gone and done something stupid again and I have to kick him in the arse more."

It was probably unfair and mean, but really. It wasn't as if they both didn't deserve it. "Nothing that requires an arse-kicking exactly. He just somehow managed to be quite put out that I was dating Garrison and yet forget to tell me that he had a relationship of his own." If Marie-Ange hadn't sounded so amused, it might have been bitter, but to be honest, the whole situation was funny to her.

"The fuck?" Amanda blinked owlishly at the redhead. "Doug's got a girlfriend? That sly dog, he didn't even tell me!"

"Well, of course he did not tell you..." Marie-Ange said. "How often does one announce to the person they are seeing that they are seeing someone?" She waved a hand airly. "Good morning, Amanda, who I have just kissed quite throughly under the mistletoe, would you do the honor of being my girlfriend despite that we have apparantly already had enough sex to be comfortable with each other?" Marie-Ange's impression of Doug's neutrally American accent was not nearly as good as his impression of her accent, but it was passable.

So now Marie-Ange was joining Angelo with the making her speechless. Amanda opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying to find a response, and failing utterly. "Huh?" she managed, not terribly intelligently.

She knew Amanda well enough to know that she wouldn't lie to her like that. Which meant she'd either managed to miss -something-, or was intrepreting things entirely wrong. "You.. are not seeing Doug? But then... " She raised an eyebrow at Amanda, now entirely confused. "The mistletoe kiss? And you... he... there were... and he has been so much more relaxed lately..." Marie-Ange crossed her arms and frowned. "You both act like you had naked time. More than the teapot song naked time."

The expression 'naked time' elicited a snort, and then, incredibly, a blush that was visible even in the dim streetlight. "Weeeellll..." she began, dragging out the word reluctantly. "Just the once? When we were both really trolleyed and miserable? But that doesn't mean we're seeing each other."

It was like a tiny explosion of repressed need to gossip and talk about something. She'd been so good not snickering at Remy that Marie-Ange's series of questions came out in a flurry of words. "What do you mean just the once why didn't you tell me it must have been okay because you are both still talking and more than you used to and ..." She paused to take a breath. "It was that day that Garrison picked me up for lunch, wasn't it?"

So that's what it was like when she did that... Fortunately, Amanda didn't have to use Angelo's method to get enough space to answer. "Yeah," she said, knowing that Doug would probably die of embarrassment if he knew she was talking about this with Angie, but buggerit, he'd shilly-shallyed long enough. "He was pretty torn up about that, so he came and grabbed me and dragged me out on this pub crawl. You know that little globe we use for the take out? Never use it to pick bars. Seriously."

"This is why I give up on men. They make no sense. Doug broke up with me, and then he was upset enough about my dating Garrison to get drunk?" Marie-Ange was -so- confused. "At least I had the good sense to not advertise it when I was upset about him dating Marie!" She stomped her foot a little and then shook it, frowning. "My boots are getting slushy. This is a sign. A sign that I need to be indoors, possibly with coffee."

"Well, I never said they made sense." There was an all-night diner on the next corner, so Amanda slipped her arm through Marie-Ange's and began directing her that way. "And you know Doug - wears his heart on this sleeve. Besides, dragging me out to a pub crawl wasn't exactly advertising - not even Mark knows what happened, which is as it should be, since it's not a big deal. He was upset, we got drunk and ended up in bed." A slightly smug grin touched Amanda's face. "And it was more than 'okay'. Boy's got talent."

Marie-Ange didn't respond until they were both inside the diner and she had a large mug of coffee. The coffee helped cut through the slightly fuzzy feeling in her head, and also the creeping wet cold in her boots. "It should not have bothered him. He broke up with me!" She protested. "He broke up with me, dated someone else, why should he get to be upset over my going on a date?"

Amanda resisted the urge to bang her head on the table, especially since that would upset her tea. Had she been this clueless? Obviously, since no-one had been surprised about her feelings for Angelo. "Why do you think?" she responded. "The same bloody reason we decided us being an item wouldn't work. He's still in love with you, the daft plonker. And he's not gunna tell you, 'cause you've moved on and he hasn't."

That made no sense. Marie-Ange stared at Amanda blankly, making the occasional noise of flummoxed incomprension for a few moments until she dropped the sugar packet she'd been holding in her hand into her coffee. Without opening it.

While fishing the now soggy packet out with a spoon, she stared more, while muttering protestations under her breath about how men, and Doug in particular were all aliens.

Amanda watched all this, her eyebrow rising. When Marie-Ange appeared to be done, she went on: "...'Cause you have moved on." She paused, then asked, the thought suddenly occurring to her. "Haven't you?"

"Would I have gone out with Garrison if I had not moved on?" Marie-Ange asked, after a pause to silently determine if she could get away with outright lying instead of just avoidance. Probably not, she thought. Not to Amanda, at least.

The other eyebrow went up. "And Doug dated Marie. And slept with me. Doesn't mean he didn't still feel something for you - sometimes you try and move on any way." Deliberately, she picked up her teaspoon and stirred her tea, eyes on her friend. "You never did say why you and Kane split, did you?" she asked, casually.

Marie-Ange made a show of patting through her pockets and then glancing through her purse, and when Amanda gave her a questioning look, replied. "I am trying to find my 'avoid this question' ticket. I think I left it at home." Then she sighed, and shook her head. "I never said, no. I... Christmas. Mistletoe. Doug."

Amanda had the good grace not to look too smug. "Soooo?" she prompted. "Not so much with the moving on? Or rather, moving on, then realising you haven't really?"

It was with an amazing amount of restraint that Marie-Ange managed to not pout for a good ten seconds. "If Doug had not gone and gotten himself the rest of a spine to go with the backbone he had started to develop I could have fought it, but then he..." She waved a sugar packet at Amanda.. "He yelled at me. And then he was sarcastic at me, and he did not back down and that was very unfair of him!"

This time the smug look did come through. "Way to go, Ramsey," she murmured, sounding almost proud. "All right, we've established there's mutual something-or-other still there. When's the next step?" she prompted, almost eagerly, like a child with the prospect of a new toy. "See, you and Doug get back together, you can double-date with me and Ange, it'll be like old times, only without the whole Manuel part..."

Marie-Ange shook her head. "I am not going to go running back to Doug. If he still has some feelings for me then he can tell me." She was -not- encouraging him to go hiding how he felt. If he wanted it, he could try to get it himself. "And wait since when are you and Angelo..." she asked, distracted midway to starting a nice rant about Doug not taking risks ever. "I missed something again.... "

"But..." Amanda began to protest, but she knew this wasn't something she was going to be able to push. And Marie-Ange did have a point, considering it was Doug's lack of backbone that had made them split in the first place. Ugh. She needed tea for this. Taking a long sip, she eventually shook her head. "Not exactly missed, no. We've been pretty quiet about it, mainly because we're not even sure what it is. But I finally got off my arse and told him I love him - the whole him nearly getting killed made me realise how bloody stupid it was, keeping it in."

"I wish I had confetti so I could throw it in the air..." Marie-Ange said, smiling. "I am guessing that he responded well since you are talking about dates? Was there reciprocation?.." She briefly considered mimicing Mark and saying "Amanda has a boooyyfriend." but passed in favor of a grin and "Was there -kissing-?" in a faux-innocent voice.

Amanda's ears immediately went pink. "Maybe?" she replied, going for ingenous but caving in the face of Girly Gossip. "I babbled at him and he kissed me to shut me up. And then I told him, and he... well, he didn't say he loved me back, but he did say he was mine, if I'd have him?" Her look became a little beseeching. "Which is good, right?"

Incredulously, Marie-Ange stared at Amanda. "Yes. YES. Yes, that's good!" She resisted the urge to do a little victory dance, and instead settled for bouncing in her seat a little, ignoring any possible looks from the few other patrons of the diner. "Oh and I had hoped and maybe had seen just a little but it is so hard to tell with relationships because so many things can change and I try not to influence and I am so happy for you."

A shy little smile crossed the blonde's face despite herself. "I was hoping, only things have been so... awful for him. And I can't push him, not in the state he's in now. So... we're in a sort of holding pattern, I s'pose you could call it. But..." and here she smiled a little more strongly. "We kissed again on the beach. And there's been a lot of cuddling."

"A holding pattern means you are still in the air!" Marie-Ange practically chirped. "I know these things. I had to do those flight simulations on the Blackbird more than once." Had she been any more prone to public displays of glee, she'd have been tossing -sugar packets- into the air like confetti.

At this, Amanda burst out laughing. "You're absolutely barking, you know that?" she said affectionately, between giggles. But she was also pleased - Marie-Ange's reaction helped dispel some of the doubt that was insisting on creeping in. And, she resolved, her friend deserved some of the same pleasure. If Doug didn't do something soon, she was going to beat him with a shoe.

Seriously.