xp_logs | Doug and Marie-Ange

Doug is up late at night avoiding people. This might work better if he didn't have a girlfriend who has mutant power induced insomnia nine nights out of ten.

Between nightmares and the desire to avoid even the smaller groups of people that tended to clump in various areas of the mansion, Doug was almost becoming something of a night owl, sleeping in spurts when he managed to during the day, sometimes on Forge's couch, and sometimes in the guest room. Despite living in the same place, he and Marie-Ange saw very little of each other. So midnight found him sitting in an alcove of the sunroom, his form lit by moonlight and the reflected glow of his laptop's screen.

Doug's limited willingness to socialize meant that it was easy to predict where he'd be if she couldn't find him in the lab. Marie-Ange had noticed early that Doug rotated between their guest suite, Forge's lab, one of the smaller less-used TV rooms, and the sunroom. So after not finding him in any of the first three, she made her way to the sunroom, carrying a pair of chinese-take out containers, and a bottle of water. She'd gotten an 'educational lecture' from Amelia on Doug's need to eat, and even if she had not, she would have been bringing him food anyway.

Standing just in the door to the room, she quietly rapped on the open door, and waited for Doug to look up. The last thing she wanted to do was startle him.

"Hi," he said quietly when he saw who it was. He looked at the containers in her hands and frowned ever so slightly. "Tsarina Voght put the Fear of Crazy Russian Doctor in you too?" he asked. "Her bedside manner leaves something to be desired."

"I just thought you might like to eat?" And that she was terrified of Dr. Voight, so Marie-Ange nodded as well. "She is right, though, you need to eat." She set the containers down on the window seat next to Doug and then dragged a chair over to where Doug sat. "Jubilee approves of their food, so I think it might be somewhat authentic." She pulled a wrapped plasticware set out of the back pocket of her jeans and then curled up in the chair.

Doug's curiosity was one piece of his personality that was intact, and he popped open one of the containers. Vegetable lo mein. Clearly Marie-Ange had put some thought into this, given his impromptu vegetarianism. He was definitely grateful for that. He fished out one of the pairs of disposable chopsticks and wielded them nimbly, mechanically putting food in his mouth while flicking his gaze back at his laptop and the work on it.

"I got you some egg rolls too." Marie-Ange said quietly. "Also vegetable. I was not sure if you would want..." She trailed off, watching Doug eat. He wasn't paying attention, and while she knew it was not anything he could control, she also remembered what Emma had told her about trying to make Doug want to come back. "Amanda and Wanda went to Europe and rescued Doctor Farouk and kept a monster from eating Paris..."

"That's good," Doug said distractedly. "Monsters eating things is generally a good thing to..." What Marie-Ange had said belatedly registered on him, and he choked at the mouthful of lo mein, clutching at his throat and gasping for breath. ~Falling into the vat, light disappearing as it irised closed, can't breathe can'tbreathecan'tbreathe...~

As soon as Doug's face twisted up into the panicked expression Marie-Ange realized what she had accidentally said. She was on her feet and next to him, and had her hands almost ready to rub his back or take his hands or anything but stand mutely and not know what to do. But she didn't know what to do, too worried about making Doug uncomfortable to touch him and paralyzed with indecision. In the pause, Doug coughed up the mouthful of noodles and inhaled a gasping ragged breath, and then Marie-Ange found herself able to act, moving the container away and starting to clean up the half-chewed noodles from the window seat.

Doug leaned back, trying to calm his breath, his eyes staring at the ceiling and barely blinking. Darkness was a bit of a trigger for panic attacks these days as well. And the panic attacks proved that not all of his emotional responses had been completely locked away by Emma's work. Or perhaps it had something to do with the violence of the reaction, he wasn't sure. Either way, it certainly wasn't an enjoyable experience.

"I.. I'm sorry, I did not.. " Marie-Ange said softly. "I should have remembered." She bit her lip, unsure of what to do or say or what might help make things better, and ended up moving back to the chair and curling up in it, with the balled-up napkin still in her hands. It seemed like all she could do was wait, and try to be patient and take care of Doug where she could, and it felt like none of it would ever be enough because he wasn't getting any -better-.

"It's okay," Doug said somewhat dismissively. It wasn't entirely, but he was managing to deal with it for the most part. And really, when you stopped to think about it, everyone said the wrong thing now and again. He certainly could remember more than a few times when he'd put his foot in his mouth.

Marie-Ange tightened her fingers around the napkin, and then screwed up her face in disgust as some of the noodles squished out. She got up, and searched the room with her eyes for some kind of wastebasket. Not finding one, she finally shrugged to herself, and pushed open the window in the windowseat next to Doug's, tossing the napkin out. "Why do you always say that?" she asked. "Is it really okay?"

"I don't know," Doug admitted honestly. 'It's okay' had become sort of a semantically null statement in this day and age, a sentence that really had no meaning, since people so often said it when it wasn't the case, reducing its truth ever so slightly with every time it was said as a casual social lie. It had become a habit, a way to not think about how he was really feeling. "I don't know," he repeated, for lack of anything else to say.

"Can you not say it if it is not okay?" Marie-Ange asked, once she had returned to her chair and curled up again. "I do not know what to do to help, and if you keep telling me it is okay, then... " She bit her lip again, and pulled her knees to her chest, looking very much younger than twenty-one, and sad and scared and tired. "Then I do not know if I am really helping or if I am hurting you more."

Doug nodded. "I can do that." He noticed the bags under Marie-Ange's eyes from lack of sleep, the way she curled up defensively in the chair, all those little signs and signals. It seemed like the events in New York city had taken large chunks out of them, vital pieces of who they were, and they were both fumbling around trying to put themselves back together again.

For a long time, Marie-Ange sat silently in the dim room, her thoughts rolling over and over like a swimmer caught in an undertow. Even after Doug went back to his laptop, and began eating again, she still sat, not even really watching him. "I do not think we are... " Except that she couldn't even finish the sentence, she'd been doing that so much lately, cutting herself off before she was done talking.

"You don't think we are what?" Doug asked in reply. His normal curiosity and need to know things was at a higher level these days, and Marie-Ange's half-spoken sentences tickled at that curiosity. Besides, as he had told her, he didn't want her walking on eggshells with him.

"I do not think we are helping each other." Marie-Ange finished. "Emma said I should try to make you want to come back and I do not know how to do that, and..." She swiped a hand across her eyes, trying to push away the stinging before she started crying. "And I think I am... I think maybe I am not the right person to help. Not when I keep having migraines and insomnia and am cranky all of the time."

Doug remembered the somewhat anguished look on Emma's face and the hitch in her voice from that day in Forge's lab when she had come in and asked him if it was worth it. "Make me want to come back..." he murmured thoughtfully. He wasn't sure how to find that desire to come back to all the things Emma had locked away. Right now he wasn't entirely sure whether he even wanted to or not.

Marie-Ange frowned, and reached out to touch Doug's arm, the only part of him she could easily reach. "I... think maybe I am making you want to not come back, and I am not very good at... I am not very good at taking care of myself sometimes, I do not know how to take care of you." Nothing felt right, or safe, and even though Doug had asked her not to walk on eggshells, it was harder than it sounded. And there was only so much she could do besides bringing him food and making sure he had clean clothes.

Doug made a thoughtful noise. He wasn't the only one who had come out of New York City with trauma. "Maybe you need to take care of yourself too?" he suggested quietly.

"I am not sure I can take care of myself here." She was barely getting any work done, and it was hard to concentrate when there were so many people around. Not to mention that she couldn't very well make phone calls or meet contacts in the middle of a school full of teenagers. Marie-Ange rubbed the bridge of her nose, still frowning. "But I do not want to leave you alone."

Doug shrugged. "Maybe you need to take care of yourself first?" She was putting him ahead of herself, and it seemed to be taking a lot out of her. "It's not as though I'm alone here," he offered. At the very least, there was Forge, and their other coworkers.

The apathy in Doug's voice was the worst part of all of this. No matter how much Marie-Ange knew that somewhere, he still had something like emotions, the shrugs and toneless voice screamed "I don't really care." "I feel as though if I were to go and take care of myself, that I would be abandoning you." And abandoning their relationship. "That we would... "

"That we would what?" Doug cocked his head. Marie-Ange seemed on the verge of saying something that she kept pulling herself back from, and he wasn't quite sure what it was.

"Are we even a we right now?" Marie-Ange didn't answer Doug's question, she wasn't sure she could. The words kept sticking in her throat. "I do not think I know anymore. If I take care of myself, I cannot help you, but if I am not helping you, then what? Will you get better on your own? Emma did not know, I do not know." She didn't mention that -every- reading she had done came up unsure. Doug probably knew already, she thought, or at least could have guessed.

"But if all you do is take care of me, then what about you?" Doug asked. He didn't have any of the answers, either. He was well aware of how many readings Marie-Ange had done, because she tended to retreat to her cards when confronted with a situation she didn't understand.

Marie-Ange pulled her knees to her chest, and rested her chin on them. "That is part of the problem. It is either all me, or all you, and I think maybe I need perspective." A sort of idea was forming in her head, and she wasn't sure if it would help, but it probably couldn't make things worse. "Amanda and Wanda are still in Europe, with Dr. Farouk. What... what if I spent a few weeks there? I have a few things that I should do face to face anyway..."

"You don't need my permission," Doug told her. "If you think it would help you, then maybe you should. For that matter, I have a few contacts that could use a face-to-face, and I'm not exactly fit for it." Some of those contacts would probably soil themselves at the sight of a gorgeous French redhead, but they could probably use the shaking up.

"Will you promise to try to remember to eat? Because I do not think Forge is really the best person to ask to remind you." It wasn't so much that she'd needed permission, just reassurance that Doug would be okay if she went. "I suppose I could sic one of the small girls with food on you. Or Angelo. Or both." Marie-Ange said, a small note of teasing in the worried tone.

"I'll manage." Food wasn't a huge priority, but he definitely didn't want to run afoul of the Wrath of Angry Russian Doctor. And he didn't want to get Marie-Ange angry either. So he'd be good.

Marie-Ange raised an eyebrow, obviously not entirely convinced. Doug had a tendency to forget regular meals when he was working even before the attack on New York. He'd asked her to try to act normally, and that meant teasing him about his forgetfulness where food was concerned. Even if it made her nervous to do so. "Food. Three times a day, at least. I suppose I could convince Laurie to feed you. She is... persistent." Not oddly, persistent came across more as 'slightly annoying about it."

The mention of Laurie sparked a connection in Doug's brain, and he blinked. "Laurie. Master Lee. The dojo's going to be reopening soon." He had no idea how he was going to deal with that, given that the entirety of his martial arts knowledge was locked away along with all the other things Emma had closed off.

"That was... actually not as random as I first thought." It had derailed Marie-Ange's entire train of thought. "I think there are a lot of things that maybe we both need to take care of? Including ourselves?" For that matter, there was the issue with her cousin and perhaps she should speak to him before leaving, if she was going to leave. Marie-Ange turned her head slightly, looking at Doug. "Email. If... if I go to Europe, to do work, for my own health, are you... can you handle emails?"

"I think email might be easier in some ways, actually." Electronic contact created a remove, one that Doug rather needed at the moment. "I can definitely handle that."

It was a start, at least. Maybe what wasn't working face to face would be easier via email, maybe a phone call or two. Marie-Ange went quiet for a few moments, mentally organizing what she would need to travel. She'd need to check in with Wanda and Amanda as well, but really couldn't see them objecting. More barriers between them and Dr. Farouk. She gave Doug a slightly sheepish smile and looked off towards the far wall. "I... maybe might need your help getting a new phone that can email. Mine got a little bit smashed."

"I'll ask Forge," Doug said with a nod, making a mental note. He pointed with his chopsticks at the carton Marie-Ange was holding. "Are you going to eat that eggroll?"