xp_logs | Doug and Angie, Doug and Forge

Doug comes up with some sort of flimsy pretense to go knocking on Marie-Ange's door Sunday morning, and gets pretty much derailed when she opens the door.

Doug had struggled for several hours to come up with a pretense to go knocking on Marie-Ange's door, as he couldn't very well say "Hi, I was wondering if Forge spent the entire night over here", even if it was the reason he was going over there. Amanda's words about Marie-Ange still loving him were buzzing in the back of his head, and it didn't mesh with what he'd seen the night before. Finally, he strode down the hall and rapped sharply on the door to his ex-girlfriend's apartment.

At half-past eight am on a Saturday, a knock at the door that sounded like that could only be one of two people. Since Remy was 'away for the weekend', Marie-Ange doubted that it was him. After peering through the peephole and getting confirmation, she popped the topmost button of the shirt she'd put on that morning open and cracked the door. "Doug? Is something wrong?", she asked sleepily.

Doug's train of thought was completely derailed by the sight of Marie-Ange in a buttondown and a fairly brief pair of shorts. He completely forgot the excuse that he had made up, and tried in vain not to stare. The shirt certainly wasn't his, as she didn't have any of his shirts anymore. Besides, it wasn't quite the right size to have been one of his. It also didn't look like it belonged to Garrison, which left one suspect. "Is Forge still here?" he asked quietly. "I need to...talk to him."

"Hrm? Oh, no, he left..." Marie-Ange paused as if to think. "Earlier this morning. He had something that was time-sensitive in the lab, I believe." She tugged a little at the shoulder of the shirt - hopefully she could give it back once this was over, it was just a touch too tight to be comfortable. But that was half the point. "If you see him, can you ask him to call me? He left a tie here.."

"I'll just...go see if I can find him in the lab, then," Doug said, indignation and frustration rising in him like a cresting wave. What did Forge think he was doing? For that matter, he didn't understand what Marie-Ange was doing, as she'd never shown any interest in Forge before... He shook his head. "Sorry to have bothered you," he said shortly as he turned to leave.

As soon as the door was closed, the shirt was off, and thrown one-handed into a laundry basket. After pulling a loose cotton top over her head, Marie-Ange picked up her phone and dialed. "Good morning, Forge. I believe he has, as they say, taken the bait. You may have a visitor.."

---

Doug has indeed taken the bait, and comes over to the mansion to have a few words with John Henry Forge. It doesn't go at all like he suspects, and he gets smacked over the head with things. Again.

Doug didn't entirely remember the drive from New York City all the way out to Salem Center. He just found himself parking in the garage and unclenching his hands from the steering wheel. He stepped out of the car and made his way into the mansion, stalking through the entryway without really seeing his surroundings. When he got down to the lower levels, he stormed through the automatic doors to Forge's lab area. He couldn't even kick the door open in anger, which just added to his frustration level. Pointing at the genius inventor where he sat talking on his cell phone at one of the benches, he growled. "You."

Forge paused, cell phone still to his ear. He'd been expecting Doug's arrival, as Marie-Ange had phoned him as soon as Doug had left the brownstone. Keeping a poker face, he held one hand up in a 'wait' gesture to Doug.

"Uh-huh. Yeah, got company. Talk to you soon." He lowered the phone, tucking it into a pocket and then looking over to Doug. "How's it going, man?"

"Was that her?" Doug asked harshly. It was one thing to know that Forge and Angie were dating, it was quite another to have evidence of his having stayed the night and what had apparently happened between them.

Forge raised an eyebrow, saying nothing. He just looked at Doug for a moment, then nodded. "Angie, yep. Said you'd probably be headed over. Something you need, Doug?"

Amanda's words about Forge and creating an actual girl magnet suddenly popped into Doug's head. Not that he thought Forge would do something as low as that, but it just didn't make sense, especially if Angie still loved him, as Amanda had said. "What are you...I don't even...you better not hurt her," he said disjointedly.

"I'd better not hurt her?" Forge's voice cracked with surprise. "Doug, you're a smart guy. You've been learning from Scott, and Pete, and Remy, and the Professor for years now. What do you think's going on here?"

"I don't -know- what's going on here!" Doug practically screamed in Forge's face. "It doesn't make any sense. You're like, the king of 'relationships are dumb' land, and Angie's never shown the slightest sort of interest in you. I don't understand!" He panted, and took a moment to catch his breath.

And then he took a moment to actually look -at- Forge, who despite his artificial limbs obscuring some of his body language, had a stance that practically screamed that there was a purpose to all these confusing events.

And then all the pieces began to fall together in Doug's head with, so perfectly that he was surprised there wasn't a series of audible clicks.

Click. If I gave you a set of seemingly random actions, do you think you could construct a likely rationale and goal from them?

Click. A grin crossed Forge's face. "Well, that's good news, right? So are you and her, you know?" He brought his index fingers together in a sweeping gesture.

Click. Forge caught the nudge, and steered Marie-Ange towards the elevators, feigning obliviousness to Doug's presence.

Click. "Well you bloody well should!" Amanda retorted, her own temper - usually kept in check, but fuck Doug was good at getting in the way of his own life and it made her want to throttle him sometimes - flaring. "Because I managed to get it out of her that she still loves you, you great fucking plonker!"

Doug lowered his head to his folded arms as he sank onto a stool. "Damn it. I've been set up," he murmured, all of his indignation draining out of him.

"Like a double reverse flea flicker hail mary field goal," Forge practically crowed, "or some other convoluted sports metaphor. She loves you, you idiot. You love her. Jesus, Doug, even I can get that. How much more is it going to take to stick into your head?"

"Obviously it took the thought that the two of you had slept together," Doug muttered without raising his head. "The whole point of the exercise was to make me jealous, wasn't it." He wasn't sure how he felt about that. On the one hand, it somewhat validated the surge of jealousy he'd experienced. On the other hand, he didn't exactly like how easily his emotions and reactions had been played.

"No," Forge corrected, "the partial point was to make you jealous. The whole point was to make you jealous enough to get over whatever stupid nonsense emotional baggage you have that's keeping you from speeding to that girl's apartment where she is right now and showing her how you feel. For some reason, you sat on your ass after she broke up with Garrison, hopefully you can muster up the testicular fortitude to actually do something now."

Doug was still stunned from the realization of what had been going on the entire time. "Yeah," he replied, standing up from his stool and wandering to the door in a daze. "I'll...talk to you later, Forge," he said as the doors opened and he walked through them. He had no idea what he was going to say, but one thing was certain, he was definitely going to say -something-.