xp_logs | Doug and his sister (backdated)

Doug and Katie meet for lunch out in the city, per parental decree. Katie needles her brother, per the rules of the 'sisterly duty of torment'.

Doug fidgeted in his seat and quashed the ever-so-slightly panicked urge to be somewhere else. It wasn't that he disliked his sister or the rest of his family at all, just that he was still dealing with being taken completely by surprise at his sister's presence in New York. But then, he supposed he was to blame for not paying attention, and the self-blame was part of the reason he was feeling unusually fidgety. He fought the instinct to check his watch for the third time in as many minutes, recognizing it as a nervous tic.

"There you are!" Katie said, she finally had spotted her brother and wandered over. It was taking some getting used to, moving around New York City. But she was getting the hang of it. She had only gotten slightly lost on the way here, but hadn't even had to stop to ask for directions. "Gee, I'm not THAT late, am I?"

"Nah, you know me, I'm fifteen minutes early to everything," Doug said dismissively with a wave. He waited until she sat down and the waiter had taken Katie's drink order before engaging in small talk. "So, how was the move-in? Sorry I wasn't there. I was out of town for my job."

"It was okay. A lot of heavy lifting and boxes and trying to figure out how to deal with a roommate that isn't our little sister. You can't smack them, it leaves very little room for establishing whose in charge," she joked, mostly. "Other than that, it went pretty well. How was the business trip?"

Doug made a little moue, shrugging his shoulders. "Boring. Lots of sitting around and poking at the computer. But at least I get per diem when I travel, so I can always try out interesting local restaurants. But that's about the most exciting thing that happened." And really, he wasn't even lying. The last 'work trip' to England had been on the calm side as X-Force's operations went.

"Yeah, you're a real man of action," Katie said dryly with a snarky grin, "Must've been really exciting. All that sitting around and eating food."

"That's me, all right." Really, Doug was fine with Katie having that continuing mental image of Doug as her boring, dorky, sedate older brother. It would be much better and easier to handle things that way.

"That has to get boring," Katie said, "Maybe I should do everything I can to make your life more exciting while I'm here," she said with a way too sweet smile, "Sisterly duty of torment and all."

Doug's first instinct was to pinch the bridge of his nose, but he knew his sisters well. Any sign of weakness, and the 'sisterly duty of torment' would probably be five times worse. "I think that I'll pass," he murmured, knowing that he wouldn't really dissuade Katie from whatever she'd set her mind on.

"Awww, but it'll be so much fun. For me, anyway. And isn't that all that matters?" Katie returned.

"How are classes going?" Doug asked. An obvious change of subject, but he figured he wasn't going to get much of anywhere with his mischievous sister's plans for wreaking havoc on his life.

"Pfft, you're no fun," Katie said, "But they're going pretty well. It's a lot harder than high school, but I expected that. I like it that way, actually. A lot of stuff back home outside of the AP classes was just sleep inducingly easy."

"That's good." Doug tended to prefer being challenged himself, so he wasn't surprised that it seemed to run in the family, along with intelligence. "Have you decided what you want to major in yet?" he asked curiously.

"I could be really evil and make this part of the conversation a 'How Well Do I know Katie' guessing game," she said happily.

"Is there anything you can't turn into a 'harass your brother' game?" Doug shot back a touch sarcastically.

"That depends on if Mom and Dad are in earshot. Since they're not? You name it, I can make it into a game all about harassing you," she said, still grinning widely. "Come on, guess."

Doug cocked his head and examined his sister. She seemed far too happy at the concept of being around to bug him on a more regular basis. He tapped a finger on his lips and thought. She wasn't much into the technical things like he was, as far as he could tell. "Something in the humanities," he said finally. "History or sociology, something like that."

"Close, kinda. I'm going to end up having to tell you, I just know it," she said, taking a sip of her drink, "You've always been so hopeless."

"What can I say, you're more well-rounded than me," Doug said with a shrug. "I mean, is anyone really surprised that I majored in computer science?" he asked self-deprecatingly. "Best I can do is narrow it down to an area."

"No, but only because you're such a massive nerd. How you ended up with a hot girlfriend baffles us all," Katie said, "One more guess, then I'll tell you. Come on, take your best shot."

Doug's eyebrow twitched at the mention of the 'hot girlfriend', but that was all the reaction he showed. He hadn't said anything about Marie-Ange's departure to his family, partly because it might involve delving into a discussion of his work. He knew it would come up sooner or later, but his preference was for as much later as possible. "I dunno. Political science," he said, throwing a mental dart at a list of majors. That seemed general enough.

"You're half right," Katie said, "See? Was that so hard? Now, you get to try to guess the second half. And now you're being timed."

Doug resisted the urge to rub his temples or pinch at the bridge of his nose. He didn't tend to like getting put on the spot, even in a relatively minor way by his little sister. "I honestly have no idea," he said. "Even the PoliSci was a complete shot in the dark. Take pity on your clueless older brother?" he asked playfully.

"You're so hopeless. How did you even manage to get a desk job?" she teased, "Double major, Political Science and Journalism. Say hello to the girl trying to kill herself with school work. ...who finds it fun. Shut up."

Doug chuckled. "I think killing yourself with work runs in the family. You're certainly not the only one." Although in the one case for him, it had been literally.

"Hey, we all know Dad does it too," she said with a shrug, "And please. How are you going to kill yourself at your work? Get buried under a massive avalanche of files?"

Doug resisted the urge to smirk. She had no idea, and hopefully she never would. "I had a project that I got so into I practically forgot how to talk," he told her, remembering the race to rebuild Haroun al-Rashid's cyborg parts with Forge and Kitty.

"I'm still trying to figure out how you learned in the first place," Katie quipped, "Of course, I'm under orders to make sure you call home more often. So call home, or something."

"Okay, mom." It was a bit eerie how much she'd sounded like their mother for that brief moment.