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xp_logsDarcy gets what's probably the hardest talk out of the way first, by asking Doug to meet her before anyone else is aware she's back.
Content Warning: Discussion of mental manipulation
Doug felt a bit awkward waiting in Darcy's room without her there, but she'd suggested it, so he sat and waited as he heard her voice coming down the hallway. It had been quite the whirlwind of emotions the past few weeks.
"--course, it's fine. Thanks, Boss." The doorknob jiggled slightly as she turned it, and Darcy stepped into her room for the first time in almost a month. It was thankfully not anywhere near as dirty as her astral landscape had been, although she had the feeling she'd be tackling everything with the duster and a follow-up clean once she'd gotten a little settled. She toed her shoes off carefully, letting them settle next to a distinctly larger pair before she turned to the table, bag still firmly over a shoulder. "Hope you didn't have to wait very long."
Doug shook his head. "Not long. Just long enough to have one of those 'what the heck do I do with my hands while I'm waiting' sort of dilemmas," he admitted with a wry smile at himself and his foibles. "It's really nice to have you back in the mansion," he told Darcy. "How are you holding up?"
"Some days are better than others, but Jean helped me clear out the traps that'd been planted. Mindscape's still a bit of a mess and Dr. Stearne said I might not ever get some of my missing time back, but I've got at least a.. broad idea of what was happening. And lots of therapy to work through it." She took a few steps closer, letting her bag drop into an empty chair. "I know we texted a little at New Year's, but I missed you."
Doug stood and offered his arms for a hug, letting Darcy decide what she was comfortable with. "I'm glad therapy's helping," he said encouragingly. "Just...wish it hadn't been necessary like this," he added more quietly. "I missed you too."
"Therapy sucks," Darcy replied as she stepped into Doug's embrace, sighing into his chest as her arms wrapped around him with a tight squeeze. "But I'm doing it by the boatload right now, and hopefully.. between the defenses Jean helped me set up and doing the actual work, it won't be necessary like this again." She let his warmth seep into her bones as she enjoyed the hug for a moment, letting the quiet settle around them. "And you? Have a chat with Dr. Grim, let Emma help you do a little winter cleaning upstairs just in case?"
"Yep, I went to Emma right away when you mentioned what L had said." Doug didn't particularly feel like using Laurie's name, especially at the risk of bringing up nasty emotions in Darcy, but calling her 'your ex' or 'our ex' felt pretty wanky, so he split the middle on her initial. "She cleared me, guessing it was just another way to take a swipe at you." Chalk another item on the very large list of things he'd like to hold Laurie to account for. Granted, with Essex involved, the likelihood of that was pretty low...
"Good, I'm glad you did, even if there wasn't anything there." Darcy reached up, a hand tracing along Doug's temple gently. "She did have some for me, but it was encouraging me to seek you out instead of her. Something I would've been doing if I hadn't been trying to be fair about splitting my time and fairly benign, considering the other things we found." She let her hand drop. "That's not really a standing conversation, much as I'm enjoying our very long hug. Where would you like to talk? I'm comfortable with couch or bed. Kitchen chairs are a decent third."
"Couch sounds good." With the serious subject matter, Doug felt like cuddling in the bed would have potential to mix signals, or encourage them both to simply be wrapped up in each other and not talk about things. After they both had settled on the couch, Doug took one of Darcy's hands gently in his and squeezed it. "So, you found other stuff," he picked back up on the previous thread. "How bad?"
"Pretty bad," Darcy admitted. "Some of it my own fault, too." She grabbed one of her throw pillows and let it settle in her lap, holding tightly to Doug's hand. "The most benign one, aside from encouraging me to seek you out, was probably to see covering up her purple as a normal thing. We had the.. mishap, with our powers? And everything got cleared up, but sometime after Nepal and Madripoor I think she stopped bothering with not using them. Certainly by mid-November. And she was out of the mansion enough that it would'be been pretty easy to hide, especially with so many people having the tendency to give her a wide berth or ignore her in general. She might have used her powers to make that more likely, but there wouldn't be a way to tell after so long. And well... encouraging people to do something they mostly want to do anyways? Not really something I can get angry about, given that my own powers worked that way. Not an issue anymore, of course, but can't throw stones about it."
Doug hissed a breath. It made sense, he supposed, but that didn't make it any less fucked up. "So that's probably when she first connected with Essex, then, when you went to Nepal." It at least tracked with the rest of her behavior. "The rest...I don't know. Her behavior wasn't something you could control, so I don't see how that's your fault."
"In Madripoor, I think. He wasn't in any of the stuff I vetted, but then she was fairly cagey about what she'd found there." Darcy let out a sigh. "And that's really where my fault in this shitshow starts. Not letting anyone know after, aside from the bit of digging I did, and letting her use her powers on me, during. The first time I let her do it on purpose--she offered to help get me over the jetlag so I wouldn't be a complete mess when I got back, and it turned out to be a good thing that time... but it also made it a lot easier to say yes, next time she offered." She gently withdrew her hand from Doug's and hugged the pillow in her lap to her chest, pretty sure he wouldn't like the next part. "Then that awful fortnight of Baltimore, Halloween, and Topaz disappearing happened, and it felt like she was the only person I could turn to. I was having nightmares when I fell asleep and basically just shoving protein bars in on a timer because food wasn't appealing and she offered to help. A stopgap measure until I could talk to a professional. Mostly to help me sleep, but sometimes to dial down my anxiety enough to actually eat and enjoy it again. Usually only once a week, especially after you were talking to me again, because I knew her powers were addictive. But by that point she was using her powers on me almost anytime we were in the same room. Did you know she's able to induce an almost hypnotic state? I didn't."
"I didn't either." Doug's left hand tightened on the arm of the couch. Not that he felt like he had to keep a poker face, and he was failing, but he also didn't want to show a lot of anger and have Darcy believe he was angry at her. Truth was, he felt at least a bit of anger at himself. "I'm sorry for my part in things, making you feel like she was the only option." He grimaced. "I've spent a couple long sessions with Dr. Grim as well," he admitted.
"You were stressed and worried too." Darcy set the pillow aside, leaning forward until she could wrap her arms tightly around him. "I forgave you for that a long time ago, honey. It's just important, I think, that you know where my head was at. Please don't-don't be mad at yourself for that. It was a shitty situation. And if she'd only been using her powers when I asked her, it wouldn't have even been a big deal. I'd have gotten an appointment booked, probably done a lot of talking and gotten put on medication, end of story." She twisted until she was comfortable, still able to see Doug's face while keeping at least one arm around him. "So that's... that's the nastier bit. She can combine her powers with trigger words and make someone open to suggestion. Part of why I was having the headaches, I think. Not all of it. But able to manipulate what you remember. And nastier, able to make you forget something either mostly or entirely." She slumped into Doug's shoulder, feeling gross all over again just thinking about what had been lurking in the depths of her mind.
Doug ran his arm soothingly along Darcy's biceps. "It makes me wonder," he said quietly, trying to find a way to say things that made it clear he wasn't really blaming himself or Darcy. "How she got to the point where she would be so willing to use her powers on people she professed to care about." He had spent some time thinking back to the time he and Laurie had been together, trying to determine if there had been warning signs he might have missed.
"She wanted functionality back to her arm so desperately," Darcy murmured. "I don't know how closely the searches on the machine-you-refuse-to-name are monitored, but some of the things we looked into... I've got a list of things I want to blow up, and a smaller list of things that need a call between explosions and anonymous tip. And she was so angry, and then that mission where Kane went missing... being thrown out of medical when she was actually putting her head down and just doing her job because we needed the triage really fucked her up, I think. I told her it had to be very bad if we had an all-hands but she couldn't stay, but in hindsight I really wish that had been handled better. I don't know that it would've changed anything, but it just added fuel to the notion that everyone hates and fears her for her powers, while glossing over her other bad behavior."
She sighed, rubbing her free hand over her face. "Ultimately, I think it was easier to go after what she wanted regardless of the hurt she might cause. Maybe she would've just let me go that day remembering a bittersweet breakup and bolstered in my interest in you. But I realized she was in my head, and I was just so angry, because it wasn't necessary. So I pushed back, and we feedback looped again. I might have done some damage to her, but in the end she was able to walk out and I ended up powerless. Mind trapped, panicking, too scared to talk to you to your face, too much of a coward to smother her on my way out so the problem was dealt with."
"Not being ready to commit cold-blooded murder in the mansion doesn't make you a coward." As angry as Doug was, and as much as he wanted to deal with Laurie in a way that removed her as a threat, he didn't know if he could go through with it in a premeditated way like that. "People like to think of killing as a binary thing that you either do or don't do. But the truth is, context matters. Here where we all live most of all." He squeezed Darcy's hand in his.
"I mean, if she would've died that morning I wouldn't--okay no, that's not true, I definitely would've cried about it. Part upset because I'd never get the closure of a why, part relief because she couldn't hurt anyone else. The rest a lot of regret for what could have been. Probably about the same level of frustrated, although Clint said something about her leaving a voice-to-text post? How upset is that going to make me?" Edging around the current subject before hadn't really been helpful for anything except maybe preventing an argument or two, at least in Darcy's opinion, but she wanted Doug's take on it. "I know you don't like talking about her, but I don't want to feel like I have to hide all of this from you, either." She squeezed his hand back, tipping her head up so she could watch his face. "Maybe it won't be as terrible if we tackle the Collins-shaped hippopotamus in the room together."
Doug didn't even bother to cover the derisive snort at the mention of Laurie's final post. "Don't read it," he advised Darcy. "It's just a bunch of passive-aggressive 'everything is about me' nonsense with a totally insincere 'I'm sorry' at the end." He made an effort to unclench the fist that had formed on his free hand. "I definitely don't want you to feel like you have to hide this from me," he agreed. "And yeah, I'm down to help you tackle all the crap." Caring about someone meant doing the hard stuff too, after all.
"You know I'm going to read it and have Opinions," Darcy replied dryly. "If I don't look for myself, someone will reference it later and I'll end up having some sort of explosive meltdown at a really inconvenient time. That's how luck with the bad topics go, right? I can save it for later though. I've got therapy Monday so I can transcribe it for Stearne and let him do his thing with the "how did reading this make you feel" and "what logic can you use against this so that it doesn't linger in your mind" and all that." She squeezed Doug's back in a one-armed hug. "She really upset you with it, didn't she? I'm sure my running off didn't help. I do apologize for that. Not for needing the time to get my mind together, and not for wanting space just in case she'd been pushing you into a relationship you didn't actually want. But for the way you found out I'd left, and for leaving my stuff here so you had to wait for me to reach out. It was shitty of me. I should've at least called to tell you I needed to peace out alone for a while."
"Thanks, I appreciate that." Doug leaned back and looked at the ceiling, remembering some of his own mistakes that he'd made in the midst of trauma. "I mean, there have been times I haven't made the best decisions in the face of things, so no judgment. Ask Angie about how I wound up seeing Dr. Grim in the first place some time if you want to hear 'Douglas is an idiot' stories."
"Or you could tell me sometime. We can trade stories about being young and full of dumb decisions. Thank you for not telling me there's nothing to forgive." She pressed a kiss against his shoulder. "So, um... once we're done with the shitty hard talk, I'd really like to move to the bed, if you're interested? Full disclosure, the other going away present from Collins is that my libido's basically dead right now. I'm really open to hugging and cuddling and even kissing, they sound great, but we might have to work back up to the rest?"
If Doug had one ironclad rule in his life, it was to always have consent. For sex, powers use, just about anything in life could benefit from making sure everyone involved was okay with it. And really, if you thought about it, that was where Laurie had gone wrong - her presumption that she knew best overriding things like Darcy's boundaries. "So we cuddle and hug and maybe kiss, that's fine with me," Doug told her as he began to stand up. "Nobody ever died of not getting off, despite what too many horny men would have their partners believe." He helped Darcy to her feet with the hand that was still holding hers. "Talk to me about what level of sleepwear you're comfortable with?" he asked. Usually that would be naked or close to, but if things were off, he wanted to be sure he stayed on the right side of the comfort line.
There was a quick detour so she could retrieve her bag before they moved into the other room. "At least underwear. I'm going to wear a shirt, but you don't have to." Darcy rummaged through her bag, pulling out a pillow and a familiar shirt before pushing it out of the way. "And I don't mind you looking, or even touching above the waist. It's probably stress, not even my favorite erotica has my brain doing anything other than a 'oh, that sounds fun' lately." She pulled her dress over her head without fanfare, letting her bra follow before pulling Doug's shirt over her head and turning to him. "You're probably not getting this back unless I want it to smell like you, by the way. " Her fingertips worried the hem as she stepped back into his space. "Wore it a few times, starting on New Year's, but mostly slept with it next to my pillow. Helped give me something positive to focus on when I was having a bad night."
Doug didn't bother to avert his eyes or hide his appreciative gaze of Darcy briefly topless - he got the impression this was a way to safely start regaining her equilibrium and nudge her libido while knowing he would respect her limits. "I think I still have a pair of sleep shorts in here..." he murmured, skimming off his shirt and jeans as he dug around in the corner of a drawer of Darcy's dresser, fishing out a so-worn-it-was-almost-threadbare pair of baggy athletic shorts that were only good for sleepwear at this point, putting them on over his boxer briefs and following her to the cozy pile of blankets and pillows on her bed. "I'm glad it helped," he told her with a smile, brushing his hand over the material on her shoulder.
"It helped a lot." Darcy rolled towards the wall, a glint of pale yellow-green catching her eye as she stopped in place. Her fingers covered the small gasp she let out, and she stared at the ceiling full of what looked like glow-in-the-dark stars with eyes full of tears. When she finally spoke, her voice was thick with emotion. "Did you.. no, but you're absolutely the sort--I bet...dammit, Jean."
She reached her hand out to Doug, waiting until they were curled up comfortably before she continued her thought. "When Jean walked through my mind, we ended up talking about the stars while we were fixing some of the mess. I guess she wanted me to remember some of that in the waking world too. Gonna get her the best teddy bear, see if I can pay Gabriel to mix her up something delicious and smooth." She laughed, the sound a little wet from her tears. "And now I'm crying on you, sorry."
Doug shook his head and rubbed gently at Darcy's back. "You don't need to apologize for having emotions, or even for getting the result of those emotions on me." He looked up at the stars on the ceiling, picking out constellations in them. "Somehow it doesn't shock me that Jean spent the effort to recreate the night sky," he observed.
"Of course she did, and of course you know the patterns well enough to pick them out, nerd." Darcy's soft laugh was muffled against Doug's chest. "I told her that looking at the stars with Jane just made me realize how vast the universe really is. Helps me put things into context a little, as self-help cheese as that is."
She rolled to her back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "We've talked a lot about me, and a little about us... I'm not sure if I'm going to word this well, but uh... any grievances you would like to air? Anything we need to do different to keep us good? Other than like, not ignoring the void-shape in the room in the future?"
"But Festivus already passed," Doug told her with a wide grin. "And honestly, most of my grievances can be aimed at the person no longer here. Preferably also involving feats of strength and smacking her with the Festivus pole." A little desire for revenge never hurt anything. "I had some struggles with the whole 'people leaving me' thing, but that's what -my- therapist is for. I promise if I think of anything we should do different to make things better, that I will let you know sooner than later."
"Yes, and I missed it, I think, so I'm catching up. I owe you a catch-up for New Year's too, if I'm remembering our texts correctly." His teasing mood was infectious, and Darcy found herself grinning up at him in return as she gave him a gentle poke in the side. "Unless you'd rather not, because it already passed, of course."
Doug could think of a few witty retorts, but he settled for just kissing Darcy to halt the sassiness she was engaging in.
Darcy made a pleased sound in the back of her throat, smart remarks fading from her mind as she melted into the kiss. Her arms slid around Doug as their mouths moved together, fingers rubbing against the back of his head in slow circles until the need to breathe overrode the desire to just keep doing what they were doing.
Their foreheads rested together as they both caught their breaths. Doug smiled, his eyes crinkling. "Glad you're back."
"I am too," Darcy replied quietly. "How does cuddling for a bit and then sneaking me some dinner sound? I can let everyone else know I'm back later tonight or in the morning."
"That sounds like just the thing."
Content Warning: Discussion of mental manipulation
Doug felt a bit awkward waiting in Darcy's room without her there, but she'd suggested it, so he sat and waited as he heard her voice coming down the hallway. It had been quite the whirlwind of emotions the past few weeks.
"--course, it's fine. Thanks, Boss." The doorknob jiggled slightly as she turned it, and Darcy stepped into her room for the first time in almost a month. It was thankfully not anywhere near as dirty as her astral landscape had been, although she had the feeling she'd be tackling everything with the duster and a follow-up clean once she'd gotten a little settled. She toed her shoes off carefully, letting them settle next to a distinctly larger pair before she turned to the table, bag still firmly over a shoulder. "Hope you didn't have to wait very long."
Doug shook his head. "Not long. Just long enough to have one of those 'what the heck do I do with my hands while I'm waiting' sort of dilemmas," he admitted with a wry smile at himself and his foibles. "It's really nice to have you back in the mansion," he told Darcy. "How are you holding up?"
"Some days are better than others, but Jean helped me clear out the traps that'd been planted. Mindscape's still a bit of a mess and Dr. Stearne said I might not ever get some of my missing time back, but I've got at least a.. broad idea of what was happening. And lots of therapy to work through it." She took a few steps closer, letting her bag drop into an empty chair. "I know we texted a little at New Year's, but I missed you."
Doug stood and offered his arms for a hug, letting Darcy decide what she was comfortable with. "I'm glad therapy's helping," he said encouragingly. "Just...wish it hadn't been necessary like this," he added more quietly. "I missed you too."
"Therapy sucks," Darcy replied as she stepped into Doug's embrace, sighing into his chest as her arms wrapped around him with a tight squeeze. "But I'm doing it by the boatload right now, and hopefully.. between the defenses Jean helped me set up and doing the actual work, it won't be necessary like this again." She let his warmth seep into her bones as she enjoyed the hug for a moment, letting the quiet settle around them. "And you? Have a chat with Dr. Grim, let Emma help you do a little winter cleaning upstairs just in case?"
"Yep, I went to Emma right away when you mentioned what L had said." Doug didn't particularly feel like using Laurie's name, especially at the risk of bringing up nasty emotions in Darcy, but calling her 'your ex' or 'our ex' felt pretty wanky, so he split the middle on her initial. "She cleared me, guessing it was just another way to take a swipe at you." Chalk another item on the very large list of things he'd like to hold Laurie to account for. Granted, with Essex involved, the likelihood of that was pretty low...
"Good, I'm glad you did, even if there wasn't anything there." Darcy reached up, a hand tracing along Doug's temple gently. "She did have some for me, but it was encouraging me to seek you out instead of her. Something I would've been doing if I hadn't been trying to be fair about splitting my time and fairly benign, considering the other things we found." She let her hand drop. "That's not really a standing conversation, much as I'm enjoying our very long hug. Where would you like to talk? I'm comfortable with couch or bed. Kitchen chairs are a decent third."
"Couch sounds good." With the serious subject matter, Doug felt like cuddling in the bed would have potential to mix signals, or encourage them both to simply be wrapped up in each other and not talk about things. After they both had settled on the couch, Doug took one of Darcy's hands gently in his and squeezed it. "So, you found other stuff," he picked back up on the previous thread. "How bad?"
"Pretty bad," Darcy admitted. "Some of it my own fault, too." She grabbed one of her throw pillows and let it settle in her lap, holding tightly to Doug's hand. "The most benign one, aside from encouraging me to seek you out, was probably to see covering up her purple as a normal thing. We had the.. mishap, with our powers? And everything got cleared up, but sometime after Nepal and Madripoor I think she stopped bothering with not using them. Certainly by mid-November. And she was out of the mansion enough that it would'be been pretty easy to hide, especially with so many people having the tendency to give her a wide berth or ignore her in general. She might have used her powers to make that more likely, but there wouldn't be a way to tell after so long. And well... encouraging people to do something they mostly want to do anyways? Not really something I can get angry about, given that my own powers worked that way. Not an issue anymore, of course, but can't throw stones about it."
Doug hissed a breath. It made sense, he supposed, but that didn't make it any less fucked up. "So that's probably when she first connected with Essex, then, when you went to Nepal." It at least tracked with the rest of her behavior. "The rest...I don't know. Her behavior wasn't something you could control, so I don't see how that's your fault."
"In Madripoor, I think. He wasn't in any of the stuff I vetted, but then she was fairly cagey about what she'd found there." Darcy let out a sigh. "And that's really where my fault in this shitshow starts. Not letting anyone know after, aside from the bit of digging I did, and letting her use her powers on me, during. The first time I let her do it on purpose--she offered to help get me over the jetlag so I wouldn't be a complete mess when I got back, and it turned out to be a good thing that time... but it also made it a lot easier to say yes, next time she offered." She gently withdrew her hand from Doug's and hugged the pillow in her lap to her chest, pretty sure he wouldn't like the next part. "Then that awful fortnight of Baltimore, Halloween, and Topaz disappearing happened, and it felt like she was the only person I could turn to. I was having nightmares when I fell asleep and basically just shoving protein bars in on a timer because food wasn't appealing and she offered to help. A stopgap measure until I could talk to a professional. Mostly to help me sleep, but sometimes to dial down my anxiety enough to actually eat and enjoy it again. Usually only once a week, especially after you were talking to me again, because I knew her powers were addictive. But by that point she was using her powers on me almost anytime we were in the same room. Did you know she's able to induce an almost hypnotic state? I didn't."
"I didn't either." Doug's left hand tightened on the arm of the couch. Not that he felt like he had to keep a poker face, and he was failing, but he also didn't want to show a lot of anger and have Darcy believe he was angry at her. Truth was, he felt at least a bit of anger at himself. "I'm sorry for my part in things, making you feel like she was the only option." He grimaced. "I've spent a couple long sessions with Dr. Grim as well," he admitted.
"You were stressed and worried too." Darcy set the pillow aside, leaning forward until she could wrap her arms tightly around him. "I forgave you for that a long time ago, honey. It's just important, I think, that you know where my head was at. Please don't-don't be mad at yourself for that. It was a shitty situation. And if she'd only been using her powers when I asked her, it wouldn't have even been a big deal. I'd have gotten an appointment booked, probably done a lot of talking and gotten put on medication, end of story." She twisted until she was comfortable, still able to see Doug's face while keeping at least one arm around him. "So that's... that's the nastier bit. She can combine her powers with trigger words and make someone open to suggestion. Part of why I was having the headaches, I think. Not all of it. But able to manipulate what you remember. And nastier, able to make you forget something either mostly or entirely." She slumped into Doug's shoulder, feeling gross all over again just thinking about what had been lurking in the depths of her mind.
Doug ran his arm soothingly along Darcy's biceps. "It makes me wonder," he said quietly, trying to find a way to say things that made it clear he wasn't really blaming himself or Darcy. "How she got to the point where she would be so willing to use her powers on people she professed to care about." He had spent some time thinking back to the time he and Laurie had been together, trying to determine if there had been warning signs he might have missed.
"She wanted functionality back to her arm so desperately," Darcy murmured. "I don't know how closely the searches on the machine-you-refuse-to-name are monitored, but some of the things we looked into... I've got a list of things I want to blow up, and a smaller list of things that need a call between explosions and anonymous tip. And she was so angry, and then that mission where Kane went missing... being thrown out of medical when she was actually putting her head down and just doing her job because we needed the triage really fucked her up, I think. I told her it had to be very bad if we had an all-hands but she couldn't stay, but in hindsight I really wish that had been handled better. I don't know that it would've changed anything, but it just added fuel to the notion that everyone hates and fears her for her powers, while glossing over her other bad behavior."
She sighed, rubbing her free hand over her face. "Ultimately, I think it was easier to go after what she wanted regardless of the hurt she might cause. Maybe she would've just let me go that day remembering a bittersweet breakup and bolstered in my interest in you. But I realized she was in my head, and I was just so angry, because it wasn't necessary. So I pushed back, and we feedback looped again. I might have done some damage to her, but in the end she was able to walk out and I ended up powerless. Mind trapped, panicking, too scared to talk to you to your face, too much of a coward to smother her on my way out so the problem was dealt with."
"Not being ready to commit cold-blooded murder in the mansion doesn't make you a coward." As angry as Doug was, and as much as he wanted to deal with Laurie in a way that removed her as a threat, he didn't know if he could go through with it in a premeditated way like that. "People like to think of killing as a binary thing that you either do or don't do. But the truth is, context matters. Here where we all live most of all." He squeezed Darcy's hand in his.
"I mean, if she would've died that morning I wouldn't--okay no, that's not true, I definitely would've cried about it. Part upset because I'd never get the closure of a why, part relief because she couldn't hurt anyone else. The rest a lot of regret for what could have been. Probably about the same level of frustrated, although Clint said something about her leaving a voice-to-text post? How upset is that going to make me?" Edging around the current subject before hadn't really been helpful for anything except maybe preventing an argument or two, at least in Darcy's opinion, but she wanted Doug's take on it. "I know you don't like talking about her, but I don't want to feel like I have to hide all of this from you, either." She squeezed his hand back, tipping her head up so she could watch his face. "Maybe it won't be as terrible if we tackle the Collins-shaped hippopotamus in the room together."
Doug didn't even bother to cover the derisive snort at the mention of Laurie's final post. "Don't read it," he advised Darcy. "It's just a bunch of passive-aggressive 'everything is about me' nonsense with a totally insincere 'I'm sorry' at the end." He made an effort to unclench the fist that had formed on his free hand. "I definitely don't want you to feel like you have to hide this from me," he agreed. "And yeah, I'm down to help you tackle all the crap." Caring about someone meant doing the hard stuff too, after all.
"You know I'm going to read it and have Opinions," Darcy replied dryly. "If I don't look for myself, someone will reference it later and I'll end up having some sort of explosive meltdown at a really inconvenient time. That's how luck with the bad topics go, right? I can save it for later though. I've got therapy Monday so I can transcribe it for Stearne and let him do his thing with the "how did reading this make you feel" and "what logic can you use against this so that it doesn't linger in your mind" and all that." She squeezed Doug's back in a one-armed hug. "She really upset you with it, didn't she? I'm sure my running off didn't help. I do apologize for that. Not for needing the time to get my mind together, and not for wanting space just in case she'd been pushing you into a relationship you didn't actually want. But for the way you found out I'd left, and for leaving my stuff here so you had to wait for me to reach out. It was shitty of me. I should've at least called to tell you I needed to peace out alone for a while."
"Thanks, I appreciate that." Doug leaned back and looked at the ceiling, remembering some of his own mistakes that he'd made in the midst of trauma. "I mean, there have been times I haven't made the best decisions in the face of things, so no judgment. Ask Angie about how I wound up seeing Dr. Grim in the first place some time if you want to hear 'Douglas is an idiot' stories."
"Or you could tell me sometime. We can trade stories about being young and full of dumb decisions. Thank you for not telling me there's nothing to forgive." She pressed a kiss against his shoulder. "So, um... once we're done with the shitty hard talk, I'd really like to move to the bed, if you're interested? Full disclosure, the other going away present from Collins is that my libido's basically dead right now. I'm really open to hugging and cuddling and even kissing, they sound great, but we might have to work back up to the rest?"
If Doug had one ironclad rule in his life, it was to always have consent. For sex, powers use, just about anything in life could benefit from making sure everyone involved was okay with it. And really, if you thought about it, that was where Laurie had gone wrong - her presumption that she knew best overriding things like Darcy's boundaries. "So we cuddle and hug and maybe kiss, that's fine with me," Doug told her as he began to stand up. "Nobody ever died of not getting off, despite what too many horny men would have their partners believe." He helped Darcy to her feet with the hand that was still holding hers. "Talk to me about what level of sleepwear you're comfortable with?" he asked. Usually that would be naked or close to, but if things were off, he wanted to be sure he stayed on the right side of the comfort line.
There was a quick detour so she could retrieve her bag before they moved into the other room. "At least underwear. I'm going to wear a shirt, but you don't have to." Darcy rummaged through her bag, pulling out a pillow and a familiar shirt before pushing it out of the way. "And I don't mind you looking, or even touching above the waist. It's probably stress, not even my favorite erotica has my brain doing anything other than a 'oh, that sounds fun' lately." She pulled her dress over her head without fanfare, letting her bra follow before pulling Doug's shirt over her head and turning to him. "You're probably not getting this back unless I want it to smell like you, by the way. " Her fingertips worried the hem as she stepped back into his space. "Wore it a few times, starting on New Year's, but mostly slept with it next to my pillow. Helped give me something positive to focus on when I was having a bad night."
Doug didn't bother to avert his eyes or hide his appreciative gaze of Darcy briefly topless - he got the impression this was a way to safely start regaining her equilibrium and nudge her libido while knowing he would respect her limits. "I think I still have a pair of sleep shorts in here..." he murmured, skimming off his shirt and jeans as he dug around in the corner of a drawer of Darcy's dresser, fishing out a so-worn-it-was-almost-threadbare pair of baggy athletic shorts that were only good for sleepwear at this point, putting them on over his boxer briefs and following her to the cozy pile of blankets and pillows on her bed. "I'm glad it helped," he told her with a smile, brushing his hand over the material on her shoulder.
"It helped a lot." Darcy rolled towards the wall, a glint of pale yellow-green catching her eye as she stopped in place. Her fingers covered the small gasp she let out, and she stared at the ceiling full of what looked like glow-in-the-dark stars with eyes full of tears. When she finally spoke, her voice was thick with emotion. "Did you.. no, but you're absolutely the sort--I bet...dammit, Jean."
She reached her hand out to Doug, waiting until they were curled up comfortably before she continued her thought. "When Jean walked through my mind, we ended up talking about the stars while we were fixing some of the mess. I guess she wanted me to remember some of that in the waking world too. Gonna get her the best teddy bear, see if I can pay Gabriel to mix her up something delicious and smooth." She laughed, the sound a little wet from her tears. "And now I'm crying on you, sorry."
Doug shook his head and rubbed gently at Darcy's back. "You don't need to apologize for having emotions, or even for getting the result of those emotions on me." He looked up at the stars on the ceiling, picking out constellations in them. "Somehow it doesn't shock me that Jean spent the effort to recreate the night sky," he observed.
"Of course she did, and of course you know the patterns well enough to pick them out, nerd." Darcy's soft laugh was muffled against Doug's chest. "I told her that looking at the stars with Jane just made me realize how vast the universe really is. Helps me put things into context a little, as self-help cheese as that is."
She rolled to her back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "We've talked a lot about me, and a little about us... I'm not sure if I'm going to word this well, but uh... any grievances you would like to air? Anything we need to do different to keep us good? Other than like, not ignoring the void-shape in the room in the future?"
"But Festivus already passed," Doug told her with a wide grin. "And honestly, most of my grievances can be aimed at the person no longer here. Preferably also involving feats of strength and smacking her with the Festivus pole." A little desire for revenge never hurt anything. "I had some struggles with the whole 'people leaving me' thing, but that's what -my- therapist is for. I promise if I think of anything we should do different to make things better, that I will let you know sooner than later."
"Yes, and I missed it, I think, so I'm catching up. I owe you a catch-up for New Year's too, if I'm remembering our texts correctly." His teasing mood was infectious, and Darcy found herself grinning up at him in return as she gave him a gentle poke in the side. "Unless you'd rather not, because it already passed, of course."
Doug could think of a few witty retorts, but he settled for just kissing Darcy to halt the sassiness she was engaging in.
Darcy made a pleased sound in the back of her throat, smart remarks fading from her mind as she melted into the kiss. Her arms slid around Doug as their mouths moved together, fingers rubbing against the back of his head in slow circles until the need to breathe overrode the desire to just keep doing what they were doing.
Their foreheads rested together as they both caught their breaths. Doug smiled, his eyes crinkling. "Glad you're back."
"I am too," Darcy replied quietly. "How does cuddling for a bit and then sneaking me some dinner sound? I can let everyone else know I'm back later tonight or in the morning."
"That sounds like just the thing."
