xp_logs | LOG: Doug & Terry, Friday evening

Doug tracks Terry down to get eyeliner lessons.

The apartment has felt pretty crowded since Terry returned yesterday, despite her attempts to spend as much time out of it as possible. Still dressed from a visit into the office, she'd hit the corner bodega on her way home from the looks of the bags on her arms as she climbed the stairs. An apartment guide stuck out of the top of one of the bags, and she juggled keys around in her hand.

Doug was not above using email headers to track down a person's location at the best of times. And these weren't perhaps the best of times. He knew that Terry had been 'couchsurfing' of late, going from place to place and staying with friends. That meant that she could be a handful of places, so it had been a bit more work for him to track her down than it had been for her to find his apartment.

But he was very good at his job, and the security protocols of the Xavier's journal and email systems weren't exactly designed to impede him, since he'd done a good portion of the design himself.

So he arrived at Amara and Callie's apartment and had spotted Terry on her way back from the bodega. "Let me get that for you," he murmured, plucking one of the bags out of her arms so that she could more easily get at her keys.

This had become her more or less stable situation, though how Amara and Callie enjoyed a third mate around the apartment, who knows. Terry jumped and nearly fumbled the keys, her instincts apparently turned off. She exhaled an exasperated sigh and glared at him, though much of the heat was missing from the expression. "I suppose you warned me you would be showing up," she said, pushing past him to jam her key into the lock and turn it.

"I did," Doug replied quietly and gently. He'd brought the black eyeliner in his back pocket, but he was starting to find the shape of things, and it seemed more serious than playful now. He knew that there was probably a point he shouldn't push past, but neither would he be simply pushed away like she was clearly hoping.

Terry thumped the door open with her hip and pulled the key free as she moved inside, leaving the door open in permission if not exactly invitation. "Home! Doug's here," she called out as warning to any other potential apartment occupant. At no answer, she frowned and moved into the kitchen to unpack the perishables. She avoided looking at Doug for more than the briefest glimpses, but color creeped slowly into her face anyway. "/Why/ are you here?"

Doug shrugged at her. "Because I'm contrary." He watched her body language carefully, not wanting to step on any conversational landmines. Terry seemed much more...skittish than usual since her return from Attilan.

Terry's snort almost turned into a laugh, though her smile collapsed quickly. She opened the refrigerator and slotted cartons and containers into spots. "So if I were telling you come here and bully me, /that/ would have kept you away? I am making a note of that," she said, a little querulously. She straightened and shut the door, the jars inside rattling a little. She moved back into the main room, sliding her jacket off her arms as she went, and said bluntly, "I don't want to talk about it. It was a shitty trip with shitty things happening and I am tired."

"No, I probably would have come over anyway." Doug didn't really think of it as 'bullying', anymore than Terry likely had when she had come over to visit him. But he'd been on the other side of the coin, so he understood her perspective. "Fair enough," he allowed. "We don't have to talk about it." But that wasn't going to stop him worrying about her.

Terry gave him a sidelong glance as if she didn't quite believe him, then turned away and folded her jacket over a chair arm before collapsing into a sprawl on the chair itself. It wasn't fair and she knew it, but she couldn't get rid of the simmering burn of emotions that was like an all-over internal itch that made her alternate between wanting to curl into a ball and lash out. She watched him, lips thinning as she lifted her brows. "Okay?" she challenged.

"Okay," Doug said blithely. He could wait her out. He could definitely interpret the tension and alternating urges in the set of her shoulders. "Talk about something else, then?" he offered with a matched eyebrow lift.

"Guest's choice," she answered, though her expression dared him to take that as entirely true. She crossed her arms in front of herself defensively and screwed herself back into the chair cushions. The defiance didn't last long however, because a moment later, she was back up on her feet and crossing back into the kitchen area to dig in the bags again.

Doug recognized the challenge for what it was. And Terry's inability to sit still for what it was, as well. He made sure to give her the space she seemed to be needing, but followed her at least to the doorway of the kitchen rather than stay seated in the living room area. "Mostly I've been working. Terribly boring, all computers and my usual nerdiness," he said easily to fill up the empty space.

Terry put each box or bottle away, then scooped up the remainder and moved them to the bathroom, squeezing by Doug in the doorway as she crossed. "I would be taking boring over..." Her voice trailed off.

"Over things we aren't talking about?" Doug offered to save her from actually having to go there. His breath had caught when she'd squeezed by him, and one of her arms had brushed against his. "I suppose boring is an improvement over sixteen and emo," he allowed.

Terry looked over her shoulder at him. "Are we having an emo competition over things I am not wanting to talk about?" she asked, humor leaking into her voice.

"Not at all." Doug tended to think there would always be things to be emo about, and trying to one-up each other was just...counterproductive. "I'm just talking about my emo things since we're not talking about your emo things," he said with a wink, trying to encourage her humor to come out more.

Terry disappeared into the bathroom and reappeared a moment later. "Is that the only thing we have to be talking about, boyo?" she asked after taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "I need a hobby."

Doug stuck out his tongue playfully. "No," he retorted. "I have hobbies, too. They're just, y'know..." He made air quotes with his hands, clearly goodnaturedly mocking himself. "Nerd hobbies," he said, elongating the r. "You could start playing World of Warcraft!" he suggested brightly and clearly not seriously.

"Oh sure. Like I need another place to be getting m' arse handed to me," Terry retorted with dry humor. "Can't you find me a... a gateway nerd hobby?"

"Oh, there are all sorts of gateway nerd hobbies. I mean, even World of Warcraft if you get right down to it." Doug babbled cheerfully. "Some people play it all super hard core, but some people just play it like a computer game that's fun and you have the ability to talk to your friends in it." He tapped a finger to his lips and thought. "Or you could start collecting comic books?"

"You are in need of friends to be able to talk to them in a computer game," Terry pointed out, popping his cheerful babbling with a twisted sort of humor.

Doug folded his arms across his chest and gave Terry a half amused, half cross look. "And what am I then, hm?" he asked her, the question at least a little bit more serious than the playful tone might indicate.

"I haven't quite figured that out," Terry answered to both levels of the question, unfolding her arms to rub her temples with her fingertips. "Right now, I think you are a headache," she added peevishly.

"Guilty as charged," Doug allowed. "But no more than you were to me." He pulled the black eyeliner out of his pocket and waved it at Terry to remind her. "So." He grinned. "Besides, can't I be more than one thing at the same time?"

"Me? /I/ was charming and relentlessly cheerful. There is a difference." Terry's eyes followed the eyeliner with a rueful half-smile.

"Mhm. It's charming when you do it, but a headache when I do it, is that right, rua?" Doug shook his head. By this point he was well used to Terry's ability to turn everything possible around in her favor. It was one of the things he enjoyed about their friendship since she'd returned, her ability to keep up with him in clever word games and conversation.

Terry's "Of course." was easy and light, and utterly, utterly unrepentant. She was not above shamelessly exploiting the infamous 'woman's prerogative.' A moment later though, the brittle humor suddenly turned transparent and her shoulders slumped as she moved to the couch and dropped down, picking up a pillow to hug it to herself. She pushed her shoes off one at a time and pulled her feet up to shove under the other seat cushion. "'m tired, Doug. Just... tired."

"I know." Doug had those sort of moments himself, so he could recognize them in others. He would have offered a hug or some other physical gesture of comfort, but the way Terry was curled in on herself seemed to indicate that the offer would cause more awkwardness. "What can I do to help?" he asked gently instead, letting Terry determine what she needed.

Terry watched him for a moment, chin on the pillow's edge. She wiggled her feet to bounce the cushion up in an invitation of sorts. "When you and Jubes broke up... Was it because of me? Our... flirting, I guess is as good a term as any."

Doug took the invitation, and crossed to sit at the other end of the couch - closer than he had been, but not so close as to be inside Terry's personal space. He leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. "It's never any one thing," he said. "She and I just kind of...fell into things when Marie-Ange left for New Orleans." He sighed. "And I was starting to realize that she was much more invested in the relationship than I was, and that wasn't fair to her. I couldn't...be whatever she needed."

"Couldn't be, or didn't want to be?" Terry pressed, eyes narrowed on him. Kane's empath-influenced words gnawed at her, making her second-guess her every interaction since she came to New York, and to be honest, before.

Doug wondered what the hell had happened with Sayyid the empath, because it was clear something had happened. He spared a moment to mentally curse his accidentally predictive naming the man an Islamic fundamentalist Manuel de la Rocha. It had apparently come true. Of course, thinking about Manuel gave him some very nasty and vindictive thoughts on what could be done now that Sayyid was back in custody...

"Couldn't," he said quietly but emphatically. "Sometimes things just don't work out."

Terry accepted his words this time with an unhappy roll of her shoulder. If she had any inkling of his thoughts, she'd spare a curse or two for the metaphor too. She waved her hand as if to disperse the cloud the conversation insisted on creating, and screwed her face up into a grimace as she nodded in agreement, thoughts casting to her own relationship woes. But only for a moment. "I am instituting a new rule. The eyeliner must be coming with alcohol."

Doug chuckled. "So noted. I could duck back down the bodega if you like?" He thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Or didn't I see you post something about the Valentine's fairy gifting you with some booze?" he asked, the poker-iest of poker faces in place behind an amused smile. "Or did you finish off whatever that was already?"

Terry lifted her chin to stare down her nose (more or less) at him with a suspicious eye. "I do not recall being terribly specific about what it was..." she drawled.

Doug quirked an eyebrow. "You said it was a shame to waste it by getting pissed, so I just figured it was alcohol of some kind." He could see her suspicion rising. Dammit, too clever for his own good. Hopefully she wouldn't get any more suspicious.

"Oh." Terry looked faintly disappointed that she hadn't caught him out, but she crawled up out of the couch to go find the bottle anyway.

Doug breathed a heavy breath, trying to keep it too inaudible to be a sigh of relief, after Terry had turned her back. He accepted a glass when she returned, and tilted it toward her. "Slainte, mo chara," he toasted her. The toast was doubly appropriate, because while he wasn't worried about her physical health, he was worried about her emotional well-being.

Terry tapped her own glass against his and echoed the toast before reclaiming her seat, turning so she sat a little closer but facing forward. She curled forward to deposit the bottle (about half-way emptied) on the coffee table, then tossed back a mouthful of the Irish whiskey.

Doug did some mental math. Two weeks or so since Valentine's Day, measuring the level of alcohol left... His results were inconclusive. Terry could have been having a drink with dinner most nights, or she could have gone on a couple of serious benders. He remained where he was, but turned slightly towards Terry as he sat and sipped more slowly at his own drink. "How's work with the feebs?" he asked, desperately searching for a topic of conversation that might not be fraught with emotional baggage.

Terry's shoulders creeped up and she grunted, aware that she was being difficult. "It's..." Again she shrugged, eyeing the bottle. Considering she had been on assignment for about a third of that time, even at drink-at-dinner rates, it was worryingly depleted. Then again, Terry had always drunk like a fish. "It is better than Dublin. At least I am doing something. As much as that something seems to entail running around after people goin' missin' or somesuch. Rookie's curse."

Terry's words reminded Doug of how much she'd been gone in those couple weeks, and his estimate revised in a more worrisome direction. And this was also treading dangerously close to the things Terry had talked about in email, letting people get hurt and the like. Mostly, he felt helpless, not sure how to help, or if he could. He tossed the eyeliner, which was still in his other hand, into Terry's lap. "Tag, you're it," he said with a smile. "I think we should start making the emo-muppet put the eyeliner on," he observed. "Otherwise we're just going to keep passing it back and forth to each other."

"Emo-muppet?" Terry queried, glancing sidelong at Doug with a smile peeking at the corner of her mouth. "Is that copyrighted to Jim Henson? Or maybe tis more Avenue Q?" She picked up the eyeliner and picked at the corner of the plastic packaging with her nail, gradually peeling it away from the cardboard backing. "I will if you will," she dared after freeing the liner pencil.

"You know, I forget who coined the term first, now," Doug admitted. "Probably Alison or Lorna. But it's become common usage. Or, y'know, at least for me." He grinned at Terry's dare. "You're on." He was not above looking ridiculous if it would coax a smile out of Terry.

"Talk about muppets a lot, do you?" Terry uncapped the pencil and pulled the edge of her lid down, applying the liner with the ease of a lot of practice before pushing up off the couch to go find the nearest mirror and put the finishing touches on. The heavy line made her look older and a little more haggard, but at least she had a smirk on as she leaned over the couches arm and handed the liner to Doug.

That was good, Doug decided. A smirking Terry was an improvement over mopey Terry. It was a start. "It's a useful expression for people who are being all mopey," he said a bit defensively. Maintain eye contact...maintain eye contact... he thought to himself as Terry draped herself over the arm. Even if his eyes -did- want to flash lower as he accepted the eyeliner from her. "I'd like to state for the record that I have no idea what I'm doing with this," he noted. "It's my first time, after all."

Terry's lips twitched, then disappeared as she sucked them in to capture in place. Color splashed over her cheeks, making her eyes sparkle brighter against the liner's backdrop. "Well... Do you trust me?" she asked.

"Yes." The statement was unqualified, because Doug did trust her implicitly. His own lips twitched mischievously, and he batted his eyes outrageously at Terry. "Just...be gentle with me."

Terry exhaled and straightened, leveling a look on him that said 'I know exactly what you are doing' before taking the pencil back from him. She repositioned herself into a seat on the couch arm and swung her legs over, holding herself as if she were trying to decide how to arrange her feet and legs to give herself the best position. Ho, feck, she thought to herself as she realized the only position that seemed to be offering itself was... well, she colored harder and turned away, dropping her feet back onto the ground on the other side of the couch as she stood quickly. "Come here," she demanded, grabbing for his hand to pull him up as well and drag him to a mirror.

Doug wasn't above being ridiculous and resorting to innuendo to get smirks and smiles and hopefully laughs out of Terry, but he definitely didn't want her to feel uncomfortable. And he'd seen that flash of uncomfortable on her face when she'd realized what her best position was. So he came easily along when she pulled him to a standing position, and he tried to avoid thinking about how natural it felt to squeeze her hand before he let it go and followed her to the hallway mirror she'd used for her own eyeliner application. "Seriously, though, I have no idea what to do here," he admitted candidly. "Do I close my eyes, or what?"

It had been too easy, too close to sticking a toe over that line, and once a toe was over... Terry shook her head, then squared her shoulders and feigned a stubborn cheerfulness that almost bordered on the manic. "Come here--" She grabbed handful of shirt and pulled him down to her eye level, then held the pencil near his eye. "You really trust me?" she asked again.

Now might not be the time for Doug to be thinking about how much he liked assertive women. But it not being the time didn't stop him from thinking about it. "Yes, Terry, I trust you," he told her quietly, but firmly. He could understand needing the reminder, the inherent permission, everything that went along with repeating it until she might believe it.

Terry looked him in the eye for a long moment, not even entirely sure what she was asking or searching for. "Look up," she ordered, then quickly ran a line under each eye. It's not the most pleasant experience, having eyeliner applied by another person, but with a second demand of "Close your eyes," and an application to the top along with a exaggerated cat's eye point at the corner, she was done. She snorted in amusement and released his shirt, stepping back from the mirror so he could see while she capped the pencil. "I suppose now is not the time to be telling you they say not to share these things."

Doug did his best not to chuckle while the pencil was still by his eyes, but let it loose when Terry finished. "What, I might get your cooties or something?" He snorted. "I'll take the risk." Especially given the elephant in the room, and the possibility of something much closer than sharing eyeliner. He opened his eyes and looked at the effect in the mirror. "So how do I look?" he asked.

"Eye infections are nasty little buggers," Terry answered, glancing to the mirror to see her own handiwork. "Like a raccoon," she judged with a smile that was coming closer and closer to sincere and relaxed. "We are needing the baggy jeans and chains to be proper though, I am thinking."

Doug examined himself, and shook his head. "I was going to go with swagger cane and a black bowler, and call everyone 'droog'," he said with a wink. He shrugged. "Much more flattering on you than me, though," he decided.

"Droog? And people make fun of /my/ sayings," Terry snorted and rubbed at the corner of her eye with her fingertip.

Doug blinked as he carefully cleaned his own eye. "A Clockwork Orange? Malcolm McDowell? 'A bit of the old ultraviolence'?" He threw his hands up in mock frustration. "My references are completely unappreciated."

Terry looked entirely unsympathetic, lips pulled into a mildly amused twist. "That they are, but at least you are not?" She handed back the eyeliner pencil, letting her fingers linger against his for a moment. "Thanks, Doug."

There. Finally something like a real smile. Totally worth it, Doug decided. "You're welcome," he told her, taking her hand in his free one and squeezing softly as he put the eyeliner back in his pocket.