xp_logs | Doug and Domino, Doug and Alison

Set last night. Domino finds Doug wandering the halls after the comment fight with Marie-Ange. She manages to get him to talk about it a bit, although he does a lot of staring at things morosely. Domino parks him in a guest room and puts him to bed. Later, Alison comes in and moves Doug to the common room of her suite and, between a lullaby and light show, manages to get him to sleep.

Having successfully raided the kitchen for a midnight snack - she supposed it was a good sign, her appetite returning and all - Domino was on her way back upstairs when she heard oddly stumbling footsteps heading down the hall. She limped back down the few stairs she'd managed to climb already and frowned as she spotted Doug. "Hey," she called, hobbling to catch up with him. "Are you all..." Her voice trailed off as she got a good look at his face and knew what the answer to her question was. "Hey," she said very gently, reaching out to touch his arm. "Doug. What's wrong?"

Doug jerked back, startled out of his reverie. He gaped at Domino, mouth moving silently as a hundred different reactions attempted to force their way out of his mouth at once. His eyes looked alternately sad, angry, scared, and haunted. If pressed, it was unlikely that even Doug could identify what exactly was going on in his head at the moment. All he knew for sure was that he was thinking entirely too much, and he had no idea how to change that.

Domino grimaced and kept a careful hold on his arm. "Come sit down," she said, leading him back to the stairs and urging him to sit. "Something's happened. With Angie?" she ventured.

At the mention of Marie-Ange's nickname, the one he had been so angry he had intentionally not used, Doug suddenly clung tightly to Domino's arm (thankfully, not the one with the knife wound) and began hyperventilating.

"Shhh," Domino soothed him, detaching his grip, but only so that she could slide her arm around his shoulder and give him what seemed to be a much-needed hug. "Breathe, sweetie. I don't see doctors or teachers running around like chickens with their heads cut off, so whatever's wrong, it's got to be fixable."

Doug whimpered, still unable to articulate the dozens of thoughts whizzing throughout his brain. He grimaced, flagellating himself with all the anger and fear he was feeling.

Domino kept murmuring reassuring nothings at him, rubbing his back gently. For someone who was so self-possessed and mature at some times, he was still very much a kid at others, she realized. Still at that awkward in-between stage, and something had clearly thrown him tonight. "If you want to talk about it, I'll listen," she said softly. "If you don't, we can sit here for a while. Either's good."

Doug stood abruptly, unable to sit still. His fingers flexed spasmodically, and he dry-washed his hands. "I'm pissed, I'm scared, and I don't know what to _do_, Dom!" he exploded at last, clutching his hair in clumps as he paced in quick manic fashion.

"Tell me what happened," Domino said steadily, folding her hands together on her lap and watching him. "Hard to think when you're in the middle of something."

Doug shrugged, and his face took on a bitter, self-mocking cast. "Angie spent five days going without sleep trying to figure out one of her precog visions. And she hid it from me. And now she's being pissy that I called her on it. And rather than go up and have a screaming match with her, I ran away." He sighed wearily. "I always run away. She's right."

"Wait," Domino said, raising a hand. "I know this makes me sound like the most unbelievable hypocrite, Doug, but sometimes the best thing to do is not to have the screaming match." She sighed. "Nate told me about what happened last night. If she was that messed up, I doubt she's actually caught up on her sleep yet. And if that's the case, the screaming match probably would have done more harm than good."

Just as abruptly as he had stood up, Doug slumped to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut. Sitting in the middle of the hallway, he wrapped his arms around his knees and curled into a ball. "And she's jealous that I helped Nathan find you. Well, I would have helped her too, if she hadn't, y'know, lied to me..."

"Jealous?" Domino tried not to sigh. "Gah. She and I need to talk, I think..." She got up, coming over and sitting down beside Doug on the floor. "As for lying to you about what she was trying to do... you think it's a precog thing, maybe? Nate lied to us - the Pack, I mean - for the better part of a year. Nearly got himself and us killed several times before he finally 'fessed up."

Doug shrugged listlessly and lay down on his back, staring idly at the ceiling. "I don't know what to do, Dom," he whispered. "I'm so angry at her I can't see straight, and I'm scared that any conversation that we have is going to end with a breakup. So I wussed out and ran away. And now I've got all these emotions spinning around in my head, and all I can do is just sit here because I don't know what to do."

"Better to run than to act on it when you're that confused," Domino said firmly. "Give yourself a chance to sort it out, her a chance to catch up on her sleep and find out where her sanity got to..." She reached out and patted his arm. "We're allowed to be upset when they hurt themselves, Doug," she said. "Don't be afraid of your anger. You feel it because you love her so much."

Doug shrugged again as he continued to stare at the ceiling. He couldn't think of anything else to say, he couldn't think of anything to do, so he just lay there. And his mind kept spinning with thoughts and impulses and fears despite all of his efforts to quiet it.

"Where is she now?" Domino asked. "Do you know?"

Doug shook his head slowly. "I think Nathan was saying something about going and finding her to have a conversation. Dunno where she was."

Well. Good for you, old man. I suppose this is what you call the 'unintentional double-teaming.' Domino shook her head. "Up," she said briskly, getting to her feet and pulling him upwards.

Doug stood at Domino's prodding and pulling, his shoulders slumped. He stared at the floor, brain locked in a second-guessing loop.

"Listen to me," she continued, slipping her arm through his and leading him up the stairs. "You and she are having a very bad night. This happens. The two of you have got some challenges to face that people your age generally don't, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible to face them down."

Every muscle in Doug's body tensed as Domino kept steering him towards his room. "Jealous," he murmured. "Angie won't like it..."

"Angie can bite me." Domino laughed a little at the appalled look he gave her. "Well, if she would have preferred me to leave you in the middle of the downstairs hall, I'm afraid she and I will have to agree to disagree on the proper care and feeding of Dougs."

Doug shrugged as he lay down bonelessly on top of the covers, not even moving to take his shoes off. "Night, Dom," he said quietly, eyes still open and staring at the ceiling.

Domino sighed sadly, taking off his shoes and then covering him with a blanket. She wasn't very good at this, she reflected. "Try and get some sleep, kiddo," she suggested gently. "Time enough for solving all these problems in the morning." Doug didn't respond, so she turned and went back out, closing the door quietly behind her.

---

Alison pushed open the door to the guest room she had been told Doug was in, light streaming inside through the opening in a straight path before suddenly becoming defuse, as she radiated a low level glow before closing the door behind her.

"Doug?"

Doug did not turn from where he lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. "Hi, boss," he murmured quietly in a dead tone of voice.

Alison shook her head a bit at the tone of voice, smiling a bit. 'It's the end of the world, as we know it...' drifted through her mind before she walked a bit closer to the bed, letting her concern take over the wry feeling at the situation - oh, teenagers. She was of course conveniently forgetting she had her own way with drama.She set that aside and concentrated on Doug instead, concern intensifying as she neared him.

"Hi yourself, kiddo."

Doug folded his hands quietly over his stomach as Alison sat down on the bed. "So, what's up?" he asked listlessly, making a token attempt at conversation.

"Though I'd offer you the couch of the common room, actually." She had no doubt Lorna would not mind hovering a bit over Doug in the least. And she wasn't going to indulge in the attempts at conversation, more concerned with just getting Doug to the couch in her common room and asleep as soon as possible.

Doug shrugged. "Whatever." He couldn't much bring himself to care about anything at the moment. He understood he was probably worrying everyone, but he didn't really care about that, either.

'Whatever' would do as an answer for Alison, really. She wasn't going to force him to interact or reply - the mind would be more amenable to being approached in the morning, after a good night's sleep. Along with a reminder that Marie-Ange had likely not been rational, what with her own lack of sleep from the previous week no less. "Up and at 'em, then. C'mon."

Doug stood, hands at his sides, at Alison's prodding. His eyes remained fixed on the floor in front of him, and without pushing, he simply stood still, as if his brain couldn't be bothered to tell his body to do anything because of the funk he was in.

That was fine by Alison. She rested a hand on his shoulder and steered him towards the door, peeking out in the hallway to make sure it was clear before leading him to the common room she and Lorna shared. The couch had already been made up (by Lorna, Alison had no doubt) and everything was ready for Doug to settle in.

With Alison's help, Doug lay down on the couch, again without touching his clothes or doing anything but staring at the ceiling morosely. He should be polite, but he really couldn't make himself care at all.

She tugged his shoes off matter of factly, placing them near the couch before drawing the comforter Lorna had set on the back of the couch over him, tucking him in as though he were a five year old. "There." She stood up, then smiled a bit at the chair that had been set right near the couch. Lorna again. She settled on the chair and stretched out her legs, the right wound creaking a bit, although that might have been her imagination. She considered her options carefully and then finally settled on a lullaby she'd learned while touring in Europe, humming softly for a bit before slipping into the words themselves.

The words of the lullaby, and the subsequent hypnotic light display that Alison began in the background, slowly began to achieve what all of Doug's efforts had not, and his out-of-control thoughts began to slow and tension began to leave his body slightly. As his eyes began to close and fell towards sleep, tears slowly and silently leaked out of his eyes.