xp_logs | Angelo and Doug, Thursday evening

Angelo brings his birthday tequila over to share, and then there is drinking and talking.

Angelo rapped on Doug's door with a grin on his face and a bottle tucked securely under his arm. "Open up, hermano. I come bearing the tequila you paid for."

Doug opened the door for Angelo, then went immediately to his kitchen to rummage around for glasses. "I love it when people bring the booze I bought them over and share it with me," he observed. "The gift that keeps on giving."

"Only seemed fair." Angelo dropped easily into an armchair, setting the bottle down on the coffee table. "You buy this very classy tequila, you should get to enjoy some of it. 'Sides, it's been too long."

"It has," Doug agreed. "I haven't been great company for a while, though," he admitted. "Just kind of barely starting to get back to..." Well, not normal, very little in their lives was normal. "Equilibrium." He set down a pair of glasses and poured them both a healthy amount. "Salud," he toasted Angelo with his glass before taking a long sip.

"Salud", he echoed, taking an appreciative sip of his own, then nodded. "Yeah, I didn't leave the apartment for, like, a week after we got back. Equilibrium takes time after that kind of thing."

"Ain't that the truth," Doug observed as he took another sip from his glass. "I mean, I'm headed in that direction, but I'm still way off kilter." They'd all come out of Genosha with scars. Some of which were still making themselves known, like Angelo's getting fired. And Doug's breakdown on Amanda.

That got a crooked half-smile. "Well, hell, no surprise there. I was only in that prison a few days and it wasn't exactly a picnic. You guys..." The rest went unsaid, not needing to drag up the details.

Doug grimaced and drained his glass. He certainly didn't need any reminding for his brain to supply all the things that had happened. To him and to others. "Definitely not a picnic," he said hoarsely as he refilled his glass.

"So that was what the disappearing act was for?" Angelo asked bluntly, and it wasn't really a question. "To help get yourself back on balance?"

"To start, anyway," Doug agreed. He certainly had his off moments, still. "Lots of stuff to work through." He wasn't coming out of therapy sessions quite as exhausted as he'd been when he got back from the retreat, though, which he supposed was progress.

Angelo nodded. "You know the funny thing? I think way too many of us've been thinking they don't get to talk about it because other people had it worse. I know Sooraya was, and I've got my suspicions about a few of the others."

Doug grunted, not wanting to admit that he'd had those exact thoughts. He'd been in jail, and been used as leverage, and had others used as leverage against him, and he still instinctively shied away, knowing that the handful of friends who had been turned into mutates had to have it much worse. Except he remembered the horror in Marie-Ange's eyes when she'd pieced together what had happened to Doug...maybe he'd had it worse than he was thinking. "It...took a bit of a breakdown for me to admit that I needed help," he said quietly.

"Sometimes you do have to hit bottom", Angelo agreed just as quietly. "'specially when you weren't the only one who suffered and you don't want to make it worse by making them worry about you too. Important thing is you're getting it now, and you didn't have your crisis where it did any harm."

"Well, unless you count things blowing up with Amanda." Doug grimaced. This whole 'being honest' thing was occasionally resulting in being a little too honest. He waved off Angelo's concerned look and elaborated. "Just in the short term, but yeah. She...had some hard words for me about not getting help sooner."

"She can be pretty blunt about that stuff", he said with a touch of affection in his voice, taking another sip of his drink. "You know she wouldn't care if she didn't... care, even just as a teammate."

"And she was right," Doug noted, fairly matter-of-fact. "So there's that." He refilled their drinks again. Angelo was probably going to be sleeping on the couch at this rate. "Here's to being fucked in the head," he toasted with a wry turn of his mouth.

Angelo snorted and downed a good quarter of the glass on that toast. "To being fucked in the head, and which of us isn't? We're all going to make our therapists very rich."

"Thank god Emma's footing the bill for mine."