xp_logs | Doug and Terry (Backdated)

Backdated to May. Terry comes over to see the My Little Pony painting. As usual with Doug and Terry, banter edges into serious, awkward topics.

Terry looked a little worried as she knocked on Doug's door. She hadn't bothered to see if he was actually home after she finished her shift, but he had said to come by, and so she did. Surely if there was anything that could dispel the sudden tension their email exchange had prompted, it was a Douglas Ramsey My Little Pony, right?

Doug had hoped that having a reason for Terry to visit, and expecting her arrival, would quell the tension that had been between them ever since her very sudden backpedal. Not that Doug blamed her. After all, he'd been the one tacky enough to call attention to January, which undoubtedly was when her separation from Bobby might formally turn into divorce. It was him that was too impatient to push the question of what exactly was between them. She was totally within her rights to pull back. And maybe if he told himself that enough it might stop the spike of hurt feelings that happened every time he thought about it. "Hi," he said with a smile that was -almost- natural as he opened the door to let Terry in.

She'd visited enough that the doorman knew to just buzz her in these days, so the knock had been that bit of surprise when you know someone's coming over, but not precisely when. Terry had folded her arms across her chest and bounced slightly in place in agitation as she waited to see if the door would be answered. She licked her lips when the door opened, and by the time Doug had greeted her, her cheeks were puffed out into a tight lipped smile in reply. "Howya," she drawled, lifting her brows in silent inquiry as to whether or not she'd be left in the hallway. "So I hear My Little Pony drawings are the new velvet Elvis', and I had to see one." Under her arm, her fingers wiggled and flexed.

She wouldn't be left in the hallway. Doug didn't do that, no matter how awkward things might be. If he wasn't going to let her in, he wouldn't have even opened the door. "I can't decide if a velvet Elvis would be more or less classy than Miss Pryor's little 'masterpiece'," he told her as he made way for her to come in. True to his word, the glitter-crusted painting had been framed and put on the wall in his apartment's living room. "Mostly I think I'm glad she didn't just photoshop my actual face onto a pony," he observed.

Terry slipped into the room, brushing lightly against him as she slid past. A quick scan of the walls discovered the picture, and she ambled over to examine it with a snicker. "I don't know. I don't think there is enough eyeliner here," she teased, voice made airy by the effort to sound totally normal. It was pretty close.

It might have worked on someone else, someone who wasn't well aware that things were rather badly frayed between them. Besides, Doug could see the little hints of tension still in Terry's body language. "Well, don't you have the eyeliner currently?" he asked her with a wink. "I suppose you could come over and 'graffiti' it up while I was out or something. Though I'm not sure if you could tell against all that glitter."

The corners of Terry's eyes crinkled as she smiled a little crookedly and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "I would never try something like that. I would be afraid of your security system. Lasers might shoot out of walls or something like."

"Nah, I doubt I could get permission to put lasers in the walls. Most of it's passive warnings, really. And if anyone gets near my servers, some stuff designed to keep them from getting anything useful off them." Really, the number one security failsafe in any of X-Force's apartments was the people themselves. If they lived out in the country, perhaps their countermeasures might be more lethal, but in the middle of a city, there was too much risk of collateral damage to innocents. Oh, there were probably a few nasty surprises designed to maim or otherwise strongly dissuade casual B&E, but the other truth was that if someone wanted at them badly enough, no amount of security hardware was likely to completely keep them out. But that was a rather grisly sort of topic.

Especially when Terry was joking. "Doug. I was joking," she said with an amused snort as she turned back toward him. "Though you have now significantly lowered my expectations for a system when I get a flat."

Doug rubbed a hand sheepishly at the back of his neck. "Oh, um, right." Not that he'd really thought she'd been serious, just that he'd gotten a bit...serious in his response. "Well, I'm sure you could find someone willing to help if you felt like you needed some extra security in your flat..." he said with a smile and a wink.

Terry rocked back on her heels and grinned, though the expression turned a little wistful when she added, "I have to find one first." She stumbled back a step and turned to pace into the center of the room. "Finding a place with rates I can afford /and/ a reasonable termination policy..." She shrugged and made a face, then let a long dramatic sigh out and dropped down into an overstuffed chair.

Doug nodded. He was lucky to live in a rent-controlled building subsidized by one of his bosses. New York's housing market tended to be brutal, and he didn't envy Terry's search. "Well, if I can help somehow, let me know?" He'd certainly at least run some searches, try to find something for her.

Terry rubbed a finger on the corner of the chair, looking a little amused as she traced a trail into the pattern. "If I find a place I like, maybe you can encourage the current tenants t'move out." She turned her palm up and dropped her chin into it, then proceeded to stare at him, eyes wide.

"And how d'you mean 'encourage' there, lady guard?" Doug asked with a touch of an imitation of Terry's brogue. "Sure an' y' wouldn't be suggestin' I do anything illegal, now would you?" He grinned. "I mean, then some attractive agent of Interpol might have to come and handcuff me and take me away for...questioning."

Terry lifted a brow at the imitation, lips pursing for a moment. "Are you making fun of my accent, bucko?" she asked, carefully stripping away the hints that still clung to her everyday speech as she narrowed her eyes in mock indignation. She scooted down in her seat and pulled her feet up. "I'll be sure to warn the attractive contingent of Ipol that you might /like/ the handcuffing a wee bit too much. They might have to resort to stronger measures." She smirked over at him from behind the shield of her knees. This was better, the teasing banter they had, with not much hint of the awkward.

Doug raised a finger. "I don't know where you've been getting your stories from, rua, but police brutality? Not actually a fetish of mine." He'd heard a few words about 'that green haired bitch' that Garrison worked with from Kyle. Banter was safe ground -- familiar and easy as long as it stayed to superficial verbal paths. It was when they veered off course that things got awkward. Of course, that was also when things got honest.

Terry snorted and shook her head, shifting in place to move her knees to one side and sit on one hip as she leaned against the chair arm. "Now who was saying a thing about brutality? A good interrogator should not have to resort to such measures," she nearly purred while her eyes gleamed brightly.

"Oh, the honey trap interrogation?" Doug asked with an answering twinkle in his eye. "Well, the po-po would have to make sure they used someone that was attractive enough to me. That -might- work..." he mused playfully.

"Doesn't it just have to be female and breathing?" Terry teased, crinkling her nose at him as she obliquely sideswiped the reputation his position fostered. Knight or not, interest or not, he was still just Doug to her.

"Depends on who you ask." Doug's eyes hooded a bit, as he felt a little bit defensive about his reputation. Especially since he'd admitted some things to Terry that he hadn't to others, like how sometimes he felt like a bit of an Ivy League fratboy, binge drinking and sleeping with anything that moved. Not that he didn't enjoy the perquisites of his associations, but there were times when he felt the dissonance between the person he was and the person he thought he should be instead.

"I'm asking you." Terry curled her hand under her chin and watched him. She didn't have his abilities at reading body language, but she'd picked up enough in her line of work to catch the dimming of humor and slight withdrawal. She let a moment pass, then shifted in the garish overstuft chair to sit cross-legged and straight backed. "Yours is the only answer that matters."

And just like that they were back on rocky uncomfortable ground. Sooner or later one of them was going to get emotional whiplash from the lightning-fast shifts in mood. Doug's shoulders hunched inward, curling in on himself and clearly uncomfortable at being on the spot. And being on the spot made him examine his mishmash of conflicting feelings. "To honestly admit things to? No, that's not enough," he said. The liasons he had at the Hellfire Club were...recreational. Devoid of emotional intimacy, even if they were full of the physical sort. He looked away, having difficulty meeting Terry's eyes.

"I suppose honesty is to be desired in an interrogation," Terry said carefully, dropping her eyes as she reached for the flow of their banter and verbally eased back from the emotional precipice. She was not ready to go there, and it wasn't fair to play chicken with him.

Doug had chickened out first, anyway, if you counted the inability to make eye contact. Because there -was- part of him that enjoyed being young and having a lot of sex. But then he felt ashamed of it around someone who he wanted more emotional depth with. Because was it really fair to Terry that they were edging around something more while he slept with...well, he supposed the recent pattern of redheaded ladies at the Hellfire Club said something about him, as well. "Well, you can always have honesty from me," he told her softly. Even if he didn't like the answers that he might give, she deserved honesty.

Terry eyed him sidelong for a moment, then nodded in acceptance and acknowledgement of both the words and their implication. Then the corners of her mouth curved upwards in a sly sort of smile and she rocked forward and up out of the chair. "Perfect honesty is a dangerous promise to make to a woman, boyo," she teased archly.

Doug leaned forward in his own chair and smiled, with a twinkle in his eye as they got back on a more even keel. "I work in a dangerous business, rua," he told her. "I think I'll take my chances with you." He looked at her standing, and arched an eyebrow. "Why, did you have something in mind?"

"So I am a chance, am I?" Terry sing-songed as she moved over to his seat. She hooked a hip onto its arm and sat, back turned slightly to him, though she looked back over her shoulder and snorted with mild amusement. "I have not a thing in mind. Just making notes for future reference. Hungry?"

Doug grinned slowly, his eyes traveling up the curve of Terry's back. "Oh, I could go for a nibble," he murmured wickedly.

Terry narrowed her eyes and hid a smile by turning away as she stretched her arms over her head. "Well, I've a mouth on me," she said, standing slowly and then peeking back at him. "And I do not mean yours. Come along, Ramsey-man. Take me some place fun."

Doug's eyes twinkled as he stood. "As you wish."