![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_wallflower posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logs Trigger Warning: Emotional Manipulation/Emotional Abuse
Laurie visits Doug, seeking help with her situation.
Laurie paused at the door of Doug’s suite of rooms, having given herself several pep talks to get to this point.
She didn’t regret. That was for others.
That did not mean asking her ex-flame for help with growing a new arm was something she particularly wanted to be doing. Ever.
“Do you really need me to knock?”
Maybe Doug had suspected she was coming sooner or later to talk to him, but it wasn't like he had just been sitting around waiting for her and instantly knew who was outside his door. And maybe he had foolishly thought she wouldn't be quite so combative, but with the way she had been on the journals, that was just deluding himself. He got up from the couch where he had been reading and opened the door. "Hello, Laurie. Please, come in."
Laurie's lips twitched upwards briefly as she moved past him, a sort of smile, almost reaching out to run her fingers across his face as she went by.
It was an involuntary movement, leftover from when she’d had the right.
“I see your arm is re-growing well.”
"It's getting there." Doug still wore the sling for the most part day to day, but the nanites had been steadily fabricating a skeletal structure for his replacement arm. For the time being, it mostly looked like a low-quality rendering of the T-800's metal skeleton, which was part of the reason he kept it under the sling. That and keeping people guessing. "Is this a social call?" He very much doubted that it was, but he would be damned if he would be impolite, even if Laurie had seemed to want to push every last one of his buttons lately.
“It could be.”
Laurie glanced around briefly as she walked further in, finally coming to stand in front of a window that looked onto the grounds. She knew he would be reading her, it was inevitable given his abilities. That did not mean she had to make it easy for him.
“Would that help, do you think?”
You didn't need to have the advantage of Doug's power to read the closed-off body language, the way she refused to even really face him and make eye contact. His power just made it that much more obvious. "Maybe if it were honest and not a pretense," he told her. He knew that wasn't the case, though. This had the sort of inevitability of the late stages of a strategy game where move and countermove were hedged in by the rules of the game and the state of the board, and all options were gone except to play out what was in front of them.
Minutes passed as Laurie continued to watch the world outside, almost as if she'd not heard him at all. The rigidness of her posture gave away hours of training, as though she thought at any moment there might be a snap quiz. There was no give there, no softening.
“I don’t know that you would have accepted social, even given honestly. But, so be it. I need your help.”
"I would have. It's not like I stopped caring, you were the one that called things off," Doug noted. While he had sat back down on the couch when Laurie had entered, his body was just as rigid as hers. His shoulders were hunched forward, arms in close - if his hand closed into a fist, it would look just like a fighting stance. "But I'll help if I can." He didn't like the emphasis she had put on it, more demand than a request.
“Would you? Marie-Ange and you certainly made your feelings known that I was not welcome.”
Laurie's posture, even with her back turned, somehow conveyed both dismissal and offense. Her shoulders, somehow, becoming even more rigid than previous.
“I walked away because we were not healthy. Wade leaving after must have shown you that.”
Doug's flesh and blood hand flexed minutely at the reminder of Wade's departure. He'd spent a long time developing a poker face, but that hit had scored. And stung deeply. Thankfully Laurie was at least spending most of the conversation looking away from him. "Marie-Ange doesn't speak for me, nor I for her," Doug noted. Certainly, there had been times when she had encouraged him to walk away rather than say something worse to Laurie, but it was still ultimately his decision.
“Of course. None of us ever let those we love affect our decision-making processes. We are after all, completely devoid of all emotional reactions.”
Laurie turned then and leaned back against a short table that had been placed under the window, her hands deliberately loose at her sides as she gave him a look that might best be described as removed.
It might have been hard to tell for others at that moment if she was talking to him or describing herself.
“Far be it from me to go over old history though. As I have said, I need your help. Painful as it is to admit, you have resources that I do not.”
Even though Laurie was clearly working very hard at hiding any tells in her body language, Doug knew her well enough to spot hints of unease and resentment - minute tension at the corners of her eyes, a barely-there twitch of the lips. The words made the explanation - he was very aware that she hated to admit that she couldn't do everything herself. "That's true," he said cautiously. "But you have some that I don't, too." There was...something in the way she was talking and standing that made him instinctively want to soften expectations.
“Don’t patronize me.”
Laurie’s glare was overt, a sharp snap followed by the ripple of a tightly controlled rage, swallowed in a second by an iron will.
Like a passing storm, it disappeared and she shrugged her shoulders in a brief 'my bad' shrug before twitching her lips in a self-deprecating smile.
“I mean to say, you have those nanites building you an arm as we speak. Surely you could spare a few for me to work with?”
Jesus. Doug had seen Laurie frustrated or upset over the course of their relationship, and he'd certainly dealt with her tendency to provoke and lash out on the journals of late, but what he'd seen off of her was something very different just then. He took a moment, shifting in his seat and abruptly very conscious of the location of every weapon he had hidden in the room against something going very wrong.
He took another, longer pause to look down at his sling and assess what progress the nanites had managed in building a replacement for his arm. "...I can't," he replied slowly. "I could certainly transfer them, but they wouldn't be able to interface with you. The only reason I'm able to coexist with them is because of my power filtering the processes of my body into something they can understand."
“I see.”
Laurie’s remaining hand relaxed from its clench as an almost imperceptible shiver ran through her body at the loss of tension. Reluctance she might have been able to fight, maybe even a ‘won’t’ but a can’t?
That was not something that could be changed.
“Will you talk to Emma for me? She’s often busy but for you, she might find the time to help me.”
It wasn’t that Laurie thought Emma would send her away, but Doug had an in there that might affect a bit more urgency than if Laurie merely asked.
The tension in Doug's shoulders gave way as Laurie's did. He hadn't really expected it to come to a physical confrontation, but he couldn't discount that glance he'd seen of something raw and primal deep down in her. "Certainly. I'll help however I can."
Laurie visits Doug, seeking help with her situation.
Laurie paused at the door of Doug’s suite of rooms, having given herself several pep talks to get to this point.
She didn’t regret. That was for others.
That did not mean asking her ex-flame for help with growing a new arm was something she particularly wanted to be doing. Ever.
“Do you really need me to knock?”
Maybe Doug had suspected she was coming sooner or later to talk to him, but it wasn't like he had just been sitting around waiting for her and instantly knew who was outside his door. And maybe he had foolishly thought she wouldn't be quite so combative, but with the way she had been on the journals, that was just deluding himself. He got up from the couch where he had been reading and opened the door. "Hello, Laurie. Please, come in."
Laurie's lips twitched upwards briefly as she moved past him, a sort of smile, almost reaching out to run her fingers across his face as she went by.
It was an involuntary movement, leftover from when she’d had the right.
“I see your arm is re-growing well.”
"It's getting there." Doug still wore the sling for the most part day to day, but the nanites had been steadily fabricating a skeletal structure for his replacement arm. For the time being, it mostly looked like a low-quality rendering of the T-800's metal skeleton, which was part of the reason he kept it under the sling. That and keeping people guessing. "Is this a social call?" He very much doubted that it was, but he would be damned if he would be impolite, even if Laurie had seemed to want to push every last one of his buttons lately.
“It could be.”
Laurie glanced around briefly as she walked further in, finally coming to stand in front of a window that looked onto the grounds. She knew he would be reading her, it was inevitable given his abilities. That did not mean she had to make it easy for him.
“Would that help, do you think?”
You didn't need to have the advantage of Doug's power to read the closed-off body language, the way she refused to even really face him and make eye contact. His power just made it that much more obvious. "Maybe if it were honest and not a pretense," he told her. He knew that wasn't the case, though. This had the sort of inevitability of the late stages of a strategy game where move and countermove were hedged in by the rules of the game and the state of the board, and all options were gone except to play out what was in front of them.
Minutes passed as Laurie continued to watch the world outside, almost as if she'd not heard him at all. The rigidness of her posture gave away hours of training, as though she thought at any moment there might be a snap quiz. There was no give there, no softening.
“I don’t know that you would have accepted social, even given honestly. But, so be it. I need your help.”
"I would have. It's not like I stopped caring, you were the one that called things off," Doug noted. While he had sat back down on the couch when Laurie had entered, his body was just as rigid as hers. His shoulders were hunched forward, arms in close - if his hand closed into a fist, it would look just like a fighting stance. "But I'll help if I can." He didn't like the emphasis she had put on it, more demand than a request.
“Would you? Marie-Ange and you certainly made your feelings known that I was not welcome.”
Laurie's posture, even with her back turned, somehow conveyed both dismissal and offense. Her shoulders, somehow, becoming even more rigid than previous.
“I walked away because we were not healthy. Wade leaving after must have shown you that.”
Doug's flesh and blood hand flexed minutely at the reminder of Wade's departure. He'd spent a long time developing a poker face, but that hit had scored. And stung deeply. Thankfully Laurie was at least spending most of the conversation looking away from him. "Marie-Ange doesn't speak for me, nor I for her," Doug noted. Certainly, there had been times when she had encouraged him to walk away rather than say something worse to Laurie, but it was still ultimately his decision.
“Of course. None of us ever let those we love affect our decision-making processes. We are after all, completely devoid of all emotional reactions.”
Laurie turned then and leaned back against a short table that had been placed under the window, her hands deliberately loose at her sides as she gave him a look that might best be described as removed.
It might have been hard to tell for others at that moment if she was talking to him or describing herself.
“Far be it from me to go over old history though. As I have said, I need your help. Painful as it is to admit, you have resources that I do not.”
Even though Laurie was clearly working very hard at hiding any tells in her body language, Doug knew her well enough to spot hints of unease and resentment - minute tension at the corners of her eyes, a barely-there twitch of the lips. The words made the explanation - he was very aware that she hated to admit that she couldn't do everything herself. "That's true," he said cautiously. "But you have some that I don't, too." There was...something in the way she was talking and standing that made him instinctively want to soften expectations.
“Don’t patronize me.”
Laurie’s glare was overt, a sharp snap followed by the ripple of a tightly controlled rage, swallowed in a second by an iron will.
Like a passing storm, it disappeared and she shrugged her shoulders in a brief 'my bad' shrug before twitching her lips in a self-deprecating smile.
“I mean to say, you have those nanites building you an arm as we speak. Surely you could spare a few for me to work with?”
Jesus. Doug had seen Laurie frustrated or upset over the course of their relationship, and he'd certainly dealt with her tendency to provoke and lash out on the journals of late, but what he'd seen off of her was something very different just then. He took a moment, shifting in his seat and abruptly very conscious of the location of every weapon he had hidden in the room against something going very wrong.
He took another, longer pause to look down at his sling and assess what progress the nanites had managed in building a replacement for his arm. "...I can't," he replied slowly. "I could certainly transfer them, but they wouldn't be able to interface with you. The only reason I'm able to coexist with them is because of my power filtering the processes of my body into something they can understand."
“I see.”
Laurie’s remaining hand relaxed from its clench as an almost imperceptible shiver ran through her body at the loss of tension. Reluctance she might have been able to fight, maybe even a ‘won’t’ but a can’t?
That was not something that could be changed.
“Will you talk to Emma for me? She’s often busy but for you, she might find the time to help me.”
It wasn’t that Laurie thought Emma would send her away, but Doug had an in there that might affect a bit more urgency than if Laurie merely asked.
The tension in Doug's shoulders gave way as Laurie's did. He hadn't really expected it to come to a physical confrontation, but he couldn't discount that glance he'd seen of something raw and primal deep down in her. "Certainly. I'll help however I can."
