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Life just outside of a polycule can be hard, if Doug may be honest with himself. Of course he’d never tell them, he loves all of them very dearly and they’re his best friends and what would he do without them and sometimes he even wishes he could be part of it all, because this whole situation looks really neat. On the other hand, they’re all sprawled on top of each other and snuggling and whispering and he’s just trying to watch his favourite movie, goddammit, and he knows they’re not paying attention at all and it makes him go a little bit crazy because they’re missing the whole thing! And then Renée will say that it wasn’t that great of a movie and Isabel will say that it was okay and her favourite part was when this happened but that’s not even the best part but she missed it because Alana keeps showing her things on her phone and Alana will just straight up say that she found it boring and didn’t care and Warren will laugh and agree just to rile Doug up and he hates it here , he thinks while probably being the only one paying attention to the alien cow baby as it makes its way to the ship crew that will inevitably end up as alien cow baby food and he just knows as soon as the blood starts flowing everybody will pipe up with ‘hold on, what happened?’ and ‘what is that’ and ‘where did that come from’ and-
“God, that’s disgusting,” Daniel whispers next to him.
“I know right. It totally is!” Doug’s voice is way too loud to be only answering him and everybody knows it. The pile of bodies next to him shifts and quiets down for a second, but the whispering starts up again just as quickly. Doug huffs. The disappointment is real tonight.
Daniel just giggles and Doug is so close to just jumping through the wall, but then the other man speaks up, “He’s right, you PDA-weirdos. Watch the fucking movie or fuck around in the other room.” A pillow is thrown in response, but it misses Daniel and instead hits Doug square in the face. This is fine, Doug tells himself. It’s just jokes, he tells himself, but can’t help but notice how they really aren’t funny to him. He clenches his teeth tightly to stop himself from going absolutely off the rails.
Instead he gets up and goes over to the kitchen.
“Oh my god, Doug, don’t take this so seriously,” Alana’s voice sounds from the pile. It drips with boredom and makes Doug want to disappear into the void.
Renée sits up, too, but she sounds actually concerned. “We’re just goofing, Doug!” she says. “Please don’t be mad.”
“It’s just a movie,” Alana says. “And you’ve seen it so many times, you can just tell us what’s happening!”
“Don’t say that,” Isabel pipes up, “that’s not the same thing and you know it.”
“Well, to me it would be-”
Warren’s voice cuts through the bickering, loud and with the clear intent of just raising the volume in the room: “How about we take a break, everybody eats a bite, and then we’ll see how we feel?”
“We literally just ate, what are you on about?” Isabel says.
“Well, how about something to drink, then? Maybe that will loosen up all the tension in this room.”
“I’m really not in the mood for that right now,” Renée says.
“I could go for a shot or two, actually,” Isabel says.
“Same, could work in raising the fucking morale in here,” Alana says.
“I need them out of my living room, right now,” Doug says so very, very calmly that Daniel almost doesn’t understand him through the other’s voices spilling through the door to the kitchen. He’s gripping the countertop with both of his hands, hard enough that his knuckles turn white.
Daniel has his hands shoved deeply into his pockets, looking unsure what to do with them otherwise as he just stands there next to Doug. “Well, tell ‘em then. It’s your place after all.”
“Yeah, but it’s not. It’s Renée’s place, too, and those are her friends. Can’t just kick out her friends like that.”
“They’re your friends, too. You can indeed kick out your own friends, believe me, I’ve done that often and liberately. I’d argue that it’s an absolute necessity sometimes.” Doug knows that Daniel tries to make it sound like a joke, but it doesn’t land. It doesn’t land at all.
A huge, round tear falls onto the countertop.
“Oh, fuck,” he hears Daniel whisper, then a hand on his back, soft and kind of unsure of what to do. It makes him flush with embarrassment, pulling an imaginary strap across his chest tight so abruptly that he starts gasping for air. “Oh god, Doug, no,” he hears. Arms wrap around him and pull him in and it makes him want to scream .
He hears the kitchen door open up and it makes him want to howl in pain and embarrassment that they will see him like this, so he claws into Daniel’s shirt and buries his face in his chest so at least his crying is a little bit muffled.
He did it, he absolutely ruined the function. No coming back from this one, even if he did get it together now - which, by god, is so not happening right now -, no way they wouldn’t be able to see that he cried, and they’d all feel bad for him and weirded out and Renée would be totally mad and he totally put Daniel on the spot, like, now he probably feels responsible or something, which is the last thing Doug wanted, he wanted this evening to be nice, too, and now he’s ruining the guy’s shirt with his snot and tears and his everything-
Daniel says something, which Doug feels in his chest more than he hears because his head is filled with his own erratic heartbeat buried under a ton of white noise and his own pathetic gasps and sobs. He wants to disappear off the face of earth, now, forever and ever. He cries and cries and cries, until after fifty-seven years the tears suddenly just stop coming and all that‘s left are shaky breaths, hands rubbing circles on his back and a deep humming in Daniel‘s chest. Slowly, Doug manages pull himself together again.
„… all good, Doug. It‘s okay, you‘re good. That‘s right. That‘s right, slow breaths,“ he says. „No need to rush. You‘ve got a lot of time. There there.“
A shaky little laugh breaks out of him. He can‘t help it. „You really just ‚there there‘d me?“ he croaks.
The hands on his back falter for a moment, but then pick up their movement again as Daniel laughs with him. „Look, I‘m sorry but I don‘t exactly do this very often. And it fucking worked, didn‘t it? Didn‘t see you complaining.“
„Hm. Might be true,“ Doug says. All this back rubbing is doing a great deal to calm him down and somewhere deep inside he‘d love to just stay like this. Daniel‘s got a surprisingly huggable body. However the thought persists that he put enough of a strain on their friendship as it is, and so he carefully lets go of Daniel‘s shirt, hoping that might send the signal that he can now be let go.
The arms around him don‘t budge.
He tries wiggling a little bit.
That gets the right amount of attention. Daniel carefully lets go and takes a small step back. „You okay now?“
Doug nods slowly. „Yeah. Yeah, I‘m just … I’m tired. Oh god, I‘m so sorry about your shirt. Oh god.“
Daniel doesn‘t seem that interested in that. He just shrugs. „Whatever. You should go to bed then.“
There‘s a knock on the kitchen door and Doug flinches. How much he‘d love to go straight to bed, actually, but at least he should say goodbye to the others first, maybe apologize, maybe even beg for forgiveness-
„Doug? Are you okay?“ Renée‘s voice comes through the door. „Can I come in?“
Please don‘t. „Yeah, come in,“ Daniel answers for him.
The worry is evident on her face and he feels a thousand times worse than he already did. He sighs. „Renée, I‘m sorry, I… this wasn‘t-“
She shakes her head. „Stop that. Stop.“ Two steps and then she‘s got her arms wrapped around him.
For a moment they remain like that.
„I sent them all home,“ she says next to his ear. „I‘m really sorry. I don‘t know what‘s gotten into them today. I‘m sorry about how they acted, and about how I acted tonight.“
Doug freezes, blinks. „W-what…? No, hold on, I‘m sorry.“
She leans back and looks at him, brows drawn together. „For what?“
„Yeah, for what?“ Daniel chimes in behind him.
Doug switches glances between them. “For… well, for ruining the thing and everything…,” he says and he means it and still, with them looking at him like that, it feels kind of dumb.
Renée rolls her eyes, but a soft smile spreads on her face. “You’re really something, Doug. You didn’t ruin anything. The most you did was choose the worst movie of the trilogy to watch.”
“Hey! It’s not,” he protests, though not with much energy. Evidently it is the worst one of them, to everybody but him. “And it’s also not a trilogy because it’s got four parts. What’s that called?”
“A tetralogy,” she says.
“That doesn’t sound right at all.”
Renée looks at him and he knows that she wants to say something but doesn’t quite know the words for it. Ironic, he thinks, but doesn’t say it.
Instead he pats her on the arm softly and makes room for a dramatic yawn. A brief flash of relief washes over her face. They let go of each other and he says, “Well…” and wants to say more, wants to say sorry again and thank you and sorry you had to send them away for me and thank you for sending them away for me but just concludes in a voice drenched with tiredness he doesn’t even have to fake, “what a fun night, eh?”
They both laugh. He pushes himself to smile and tries not to feel bad about it.
“Go to bed, Doug. We’ll take care of this,” Daniel says.
He tries not to think about it, afterwards, because he might just break out in tears again, so he busies himself with everything that’s thrown his way, and it works except when, five days after the thing, his phone is ringing and it’s Alana’s name. It’s like his entire body freezes over and his heart skips three beats and so he stands there, helplessly staring at the phone for a few rings, before he remembers that calls are meant to be picked up.
He’ll try to just be casual. “He-llo?” His voice cracks.
“Hey, Doug. This is Alana.” She sounds as calm as ever. He can’t help but flush in embarrassment. “Do you have a moment? I’d love to talk to you about … recently.”
He takes a slow breath. Sure, he wants to say, but nothing comes out.
“... Okay. Okay. Well then, feel free to just hang up on me, I guess? But I just want to say that I’m sorry,” she says.
“It’s okay,” he manages, even though it feels dishonest.
“Yeah, I figured with you.” Sarcasm. Got it. “No, for real,” she continues, “like, you told us that it’s your favorite movie and I know that you’re really passionate about it and making jokes about it and saying that you’re, like, overreacting was a shitty move.” She clears her throat. “And, you know, I think of you… as a friend. And being mean like that isn’t what friends should do and stuff. So yeah, I’m sorry.”
Doug stares at the blank wall of his bedroom and tries to sort out what she just said. “That’s… a lot,” he says, unhelpfully.
Alana snorts. “Yeah, I guess. Well, that’s what I wanted to say. I hope you’re okay. And maybe we can grab a coffee some time next week or something, if you want. I, uh… I watched the movie, like, the whole thing, and I thought it was actually pretty good. So maybe we can talk about it for a bit. I’d love to hear your thoughts and stuff.”
Doug stares. And then he can’t help but smile. “Yeah. That sounds nice. Let’s do that.”