Doug & Laurie log: Eye of the Tiger

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Doug comes by to see why Laurie hasn't been to the Dojo in awhile.



An extremely brusque and businesslike rapping came at the door to Laurie's portion of the suite she shared with Jean-Phillipe Colbert.

Doug was rather glad that Marie-Ange's cousin was nowhere to be found, because the abrasive Frenchman tended to grate on him. He supposed that his girlfriend's opinion might be rubbing off on him, but the electrokinetic didn't really go out of his way to make friends and influence people, either. Doug tapped his foot and crossed his arms across his plain undershirt and waited for his knock to be answered.

Laurie pushed open the door to her suite with her foot, attempting to hold the cup of tea and the toast that she'd made for herself while still managing to make her way inside. She noticed Doug waiting at her room door with raised eyebrows. She hadn't heard anything from him about coming to see her, so she wasn't entirely sure what was up.

"Doug?" she called around a mouthful of toast.

Doug looked rather pointedly at his watch. "Good evening, Miss Collins," he said in his formal 'dojo' voice. That, plus his clothes, gave the strong clue as to why he was at the mansion, and specifically in Laurie's suite. "Forgetting something?" he asked mildly, with ever-so-slightly raised eyebrows.

Laurie could have tried deception, but she'd never been particularly good at it, and besides, Doug's mutation made it exceedingly difficult to pull off that sort of thing with any measure of success. Instead, she simply shrugged and walked over to the suite kitchen and placed her plate and tea down on a bench.

"I'm assuming you're here to drag me back to the Dojo," she replied, taking another bite of her toast and chewing thoughtfully. "Master Lee suddenly start worrying why I hadn't returned, or did you?"

"I wouldn't call it worrying, so much," Doug replied. "More like...curiosity. I believe his words were 'Miss Collins didn't sustain any injuries on her travels, did she, Douglas?'" He delivered the line in a fairly accurate impression of Master Lee's businesslike tone.

It felt like almost an age before she answered, her throat moving as she swallowed the toast she'd been chewing on, and then picked up her cup to take a sip of tea. Doug would be able to tell she was stalling, but right then she didn't mind so much. It wasn't that she didn't want to go back, there'd just been so many other things to do.

"I've been a little...I always meant to start back, you know?" She finally answered, placing her cup back on the bench.

The brusque businesslike exterior cracked, and Doug quirked a wry, ever so slightly self mocking smile. "In fact, I do," he told her, recalling his own return to the dojo.

"Oh?" Laurie asked, hands still gripped around her cup, eyes on the tea within. "I haven't heard this one, I don't think. Story, I mean."

"Hm, I believe it was before you started studying at the dojo," Doug mused. "Let's just say that I was in a...similar situation. Master Lee had some rather strong words with me about quitting on him." He saw the nervous look on Laurie's face at that, and shook his head. "But I'm still training, aren't I?"

"So Master Lee doesn't eat his failed students then?" Laurie asked, a smile breaking through what had been a tense expression as she ate the last of her toast and washed it down with the last of her tea. "We'd better be going then, hadn't we?"

Doug jingled his keys in reply. "If it were done, 'twere best done quickly," he quoted.


***

"You sure he won't yell, or make me do that 'stretched between two barrels using only my legs' thing?" Laurie asked, a slightly nervous look as they pulled into the parking lot of the Dojo.

"Please." Doug rolled his eyes. "This is not 'the old country'," he told her, complete with air quotes. "He's going to talk to you about courtesy and perseverance and all that stuff, and he's going to send you in the back with one of the black belts, almost certainly not me, and then you're going to get a rough workout, and then it'll be over."

"Why not you?" Laurie asked, taking off her seatbelt and slipping out of the car. She'd never known Doug to go easy on her in practice just because he knew her.

"It's just easier to go through that sort of thing with someone who you don't know as well." Doug didn't ever go easy on her, but the potential for grumpiness or holding the 'punishment' against him was there, and Master Lee was very conscious of interpersonal dynamics.

"I suppose so," Laurie replied, not entirely sure she agreed with that observation but willing to go along with it for now. She pulled her gym bag higher on her shoulder and followed Doug into the Dojo, only a small uneasiness settling like a weight on her stomach.


***

"So, how're you feeling?" Doug teased as he and Laurie sat at their post-workout lunch. Laurie had flopped rather bonelessly into the car after class, and barely managed to stagger from the car to the booth that was currently holding her up.

"I think I may be dead," Laurie replied, watching as her hands shook against the menu she was holding. She could barely grip her fingers around the thin plastic. "Although, since I don't feel like brains, maybe not quite so dead."

"The good news is, it's a one time thing. So back to normal. Unless you go months without going back to class again," Doug joked with a smirk. "Planning on doing that?"

"Not on your life," Laurie muttered, finally finding something she liked on the menu, she pushed it over to Doug. "English big breakfast, it says they serve it all day. I would kill for crispy bacon right now."

"Did your vocal cords break suddenly and leave you incapable of ordering for yourself?" Doug asked with a tilt of his head, as the waiter came back towards their table.

Laurie grinned suddenly and used her hands to sign '~Yes, yes they did~' at him in ASL. Yes, she was being a smart ass but it felt good to just be silly.

"~Two can play this game, Miss Collins,~" Doug signed back rapid fire with a rather evil smirk. The waiter hadn't really seen them talk yet, so he carefully watched the waiter's lips as though reading them, then indicated several items wordlessly on the menu where Laurie couldn't see, and then handed their menus over with a grin.

"~So you say, Mr. Bond, but we shall see,~" Laurie signed, and leant back in her chair with a sigh, she really did feel like a wet noodle after that workout, but she'd learnt something about herself as well.

She could keep up, and she hadn't lost much of her form while she'd been gone. She'd only earnt a few hits where her legs had not been in position, or her arms had been too straight.

Doug was a bit curious as to how well Laurie could hold up her end of a conversation in sign language, so he continued on in it. "~So, why did you decide to pick up sign language?~" he signed. It was a bit of an odd decision, not extremely strange, but still a bit out of the normal for someone without a deaf friend or relative.

"~Being a doctor means being able to talk to your patients,~" Laurie noted, settling herself into a relaxed teenage slouch in her chair. Posture was for people who weren't exhausted by several hours drill. "~And I'm good with my hands, spoken languages are a little more difficult for me. I actually started learning it in Sri Lanka.~"

"~Well, if you ever need to learn any spoken languages, I'm your man,~" Doug signed nimbly. He provided tutoring for a fair number of students still, even though he didn't spend as much time at the mansion due to the demands of his job. He grinned as the waiter returned to their table with the food, and set a large tostada salad in front of Laurie. "~You were saying?~"

"~Touche~" Laurie signed, before pulling the salad toward her and taking a bite. "~It's also great for when your mouth is full. I might take you up on the languages though, but I warn you that I'm a horrible student.~"