xp_logs | Two Meeting Charlie Logs

Busy day for Charlie - first up, he meets Angelo, and there's talk of what happens after high school.

"I've got to say, that's one hell of a book collection," Charlie was saying as he followed Amanda through the kitchen and towards the back porch. He was sounding much less nervous, mainly because she'd been sneaky and taken him to her study first. Nothing like a bunch of magic stuff to distract him nicely. "I can't believe I just handed over Ignatious to you when you had all that just sitting there." His tone was mostly teasing, although there was a note of envy.

"Well, you can borrow whatever you like," Amanda replied with a laugh, pausing by the fridge to grab a couple of bottles of water, handing one to Charlie. "I figure you'll get more use out of 'em, an' hey, I get the benefit. Did you get the chance t' look at the work Forge did on those spells for me? The ones I emailed to you last week?" She opened the back door, and grinned to see Angelo already out there. "Hey, big brother."

"I glanced over them - I'll look at them in more depth when I'm not up to my ears in home... oh." Charlie blinked at Angelo, reminding himself that staring was considered rude. "Um, hi." He glanced at Amanda. "Is this your, um, the boyfriend?"

Amanda burst into laughter. "No, this is Angelo, probably me best mate here. Ange, this is Charlie - the bloke from the magic shop I was tellin' you about?" She opened the cap on her water bottle, posture relaxed - she wasn't expecting any trouble from this end, although warning Charlie about Angelo's mutation might have been fair. The grey skin tended to be a tad confronting.

Angelo, cigarette in hand and no-longer-puppy sprawled across his feet, turned to grin at them both. "Hey, little sis. An' Charlie, good to meet you finally."

"Ah, pleased to meet you, too," Charlie replied awkwardly. He reminded himself that he'd known he'd be meeting Amanda's friends during this weekend - that had partly been the point. Besides making sure Amanda was all right after the state she'd been in on Tuesday. 'Get a grip, Charlie,' he told himself, absently pushing his glasses up his nose a little. Then something registered and he looked from Amanda to Angelo and back again. "'Little sis'? But you're… and she's…" Helplessly he gave Amanda a 'help me out here!' look. "You're not, aren't you?"

It was hard not to laugh, and Amanda couldn't help the grin that escaped. "We sort of adopted each other," she explained, helping herself to Angelo's cigarettes and pulling herself up onto the railing. It was perhaps showing off a little, but she lit up with the fire spell.

Angelo shot her a mock-scowl and stole back the packet, regardless of whether or not anyone else could have reached it, as Joyita roused herself to investigate this new person. "I'm Latino, yeah. Met Amanda here an'... like she said, we got t' be family."

Charlie wrinkled his nose at the smoke and took a seat upwind, stiffening a little as Joyita sniffed his shoes. "Ah, nice dog," he said nervously, obviously not used to animals but trying not to look too dumb. "So, ah, does that happen around her a lot? Getting to be family?"

Angelo grinned and took pity on him, whistling the dog back to his side. "Thanks, she was a birthday present. An'... yeah, it kinda does actually. There's somethin' about the place, maybe."

"Or the people," Charlie mused thoughtfully, relaxing a little as Joyita went and flopped back onto Angelo's feet. "From what Amanda's said, a lot of you don’t exactly have normal family backgrounds, so you tend to reach out and make your own…" He realised what he was analysing and coughed a little. "Um, no offence."

"'S all right, Charlie," Amanda told him. "'S pretty much it, 'least from my side of things. Plus Ange an' I have been through some pretty fucked up shite together… makes a bond, doesn't it?" She glanced at Angelo. "I told him 'bout Rack already, an' Mexico."

Angelo blinked slightly - that was unexpected - but quickly recovered. "Yeah, Mexico was... the kind of thing that ties you to someone who was there too", he says quietly. "An' no offence taken - I'll be the first to say my life before Xavier's wasn't exactly the ideal."

Charlie caught the surprise, and shrugged. "I, ah, saw the binding spell on Amanda's back one afternoon when I met her for lunch and asked who'd done it." Amanda nodded and shrugged a little.

"You lot are a bad influence," she said with a grin. "'S gotten so I forget 'bout 'em when I'm gettin' dressed of a mornin'. It was warm an' I was wearin' somethin' like this tank top… You should've seen Strange's face when I walked in for class that mornin', tho'." She snorted. "Thought he was gunna keel over."

"Any way," Charlie said, bringing the topic back to things that weren't Amanda's taste in clothes. "Once she regained the power of speech, she gave me the whole story." He frowned. "That's seriously screwed up shit. The sort of magics involved…" He shook his head. "Any way, it was pretty amazing that you'd go, when you aren't an adept yourself, but yeah, it'd mean you'd be close…" He trailed off awkwardly. "So, um, did you just finish finals?" he asked, trying for more normal lines of conversation.

Angelo shrugged and said would-be lightly, "I was there. Wasn't gonna let her go alone", before going along with the change of subject. "Yeah, I did, at long last. Not completely sure yet what I'm gonna do next, though."

"Must be nice," Charlie half-muttered, before taking a sip of the water finally, to give himself time to think. It wasn't like talking to Forge, where they'd both just gotten caught up with the flow of ideas. "What are you looking at getting into?"

"I applied to a few police trainin' academies round here - NYPD an' such - but I'm thinkin' about takin' some time out before I start any courses. Travel a bit, maybe."

"There's plenty of time," Amanda reminded him. She'd gone quiet as the subject of finals came up, concentrating on the cigarette in her hand. "Don't have t' make yer mind up all at once."

"Travel's expensive," Charlie pointed out, catching Amanda's mood shift and giving her a curious look. "But if you can do it, great. I know I'd love to be able to do something like that, go to the sources of mystical thinking, see things for myself…"

Angelo also noticed Amanda's sudden quietness, and knew what was behind it. He concentrated on the travel aspect. "Yeah - Doc McCoy says he knows people all over if I need a free place to stay anywhere. So that'll save a bit of money at least."

"Always helpful is the Doc," Amanda muttered perhaps a little waspishly - she found McCoy helpful to the point of smothering, at least in person. Email was proving to be a much better means of communication. "What 'bout you, Charlie? When's the grand tour?"

"Probably not for a few years yet," Charlie said evasively. "There's college first, and I can't see Mom bankrolling me bumming around Europe and Asia for a few years, so I'll have to cover it myself somehow." There was an almost-wistful look on his face, and to cover himself, he cocked his head at her. "What about you? You've been listening to our grand not-plans… Got any of your own?"

"Pass high school?" Amanda joked lamely. At Charlie's surprised look, she hunched her shoulders a bit. "Didn't exactly do that stellar in me finals, see. So 'm doin' the summer school thing t' catch up. An' with Meg, there's not gunna be a lot of chance t' travel any time soon." Looking down at her swinging feet, she drew on the cigarette. "Like people keep sayin', there's time yet for all that."

Angelo reached up and tugged playfully on one of her feet, not hard enough to even come close to pulling her down. "You'd be one of those people, little sis. Remember? Meg's gettin' more confident all the time, I bet you could take her travellin' a bit before too long."

"An' miss more school an' fail again? No thanks." Amanda poked her tongue out Angelo playfully. She finished the cigarette and stubbed it out. "Well, I dunno 'bout you two blokes, but I'm starvin'. Anyone up for lunch?" It was a pretty obvious change of topic, but Amanda was tired of whining.

Charlie saw the attempt for what it was, and mentally kicked himself. "Sure," he said, getting to his feet. "This place is so big, I'm going to need all the energy I can get to get around it all."

"Lunch sounds good", Angelo agreed, shifting his feet to get Joyita to move and let him stand up. "Meggan gonna be joinin' us, or is she busy?"

"She's watchin' cartoons with Doug, last I saw her. I'll go an' get her while you two make lunch, yeah?" she asked innocently, grinning at Charlie's sudden expression of panic. He caught the grin, and rolled his eyes at her.

"You think you're funny, don't you?" he said, dryly, but with a smile.

Amanda grinned at him as he held the back door open for her. "'S fun, watchin' your face turn that funny colour," she said. "'Sides, some people find it cute." She winked at Angelo.

Angelo was laughing quietly as he walked through the door behind Amanda and Charlie. "An' some of us think you're evil. But cute evil."

While Angelo takes Joyita upstairs and away from the kitchen, Amanda returns with Meggan. Musical tastes come to the fore.

Amanda came back down to the kitchen, Meggan holding onto her hand and skipping a little beside her. "Now, there's a new person in the kitchen, but he's my friend, yeah? I don't think he does a lot with kids, tho', so he might be nervous, like Jake. No scarin' him?" Amanda was saying to her, an amused note in her voice - the warning wasn't at all serious.

Meggan nodded. "I be nice," she agreed. It was good that Manda was making friends. Having friends was very nice. "An' I won't lick him. Because sometimes makes people go 'ewwww'." She giggled. "An' sometimes people don't taste very good."

Amanda snorted at the mental image of Meggan licking Charlie. "Probably not a good idea, no," she said, giggling. Pushing the kitchen door open she raised her eyebrows in surprise at finding Charlie there on his own, cautiously peering into the fridge. "Back. Where'd Angelo go?"

"He had to take the dog back upstairs - something about someone called Lorna and scary things with metal," Charlie replied, still occupied by the fridge. "I'm half-expecting to find the long-lost city of Mu in here, you know? This thing is hu..." As he spoke he turned to face Amanda again, and paused at the sight of Meggan. "Um, hi," he said with a slight smile. "You must be Meggan. Ah, I'm Charlie." He looked back at Amanda. "She's… um, shorter than I imagined."

"I grown nearly a whole inch since I come here," Meggan told him proudly. "An' I'm not skinny any more." Well, not compared to how she'd been when she arrived, anyway. She held out her pawlike hand to shake, remembering her manners. "Nice to meet you, Charlie." Since Manda liked him, she wanted to make a good impression - she'd even put on her pretty pink t-shirt with the bows.

Charlie shook the paw solemnly, mouth twitching slightly at all the pink and the very polite little voice coming out of a furry little girl. "Pleased to meet you too, Meggan. That's ah... that's a very pretty shirt you're wearing." He winked at Amanda - revenge for all the teasing she'd been putting him through was at hand. "Did Amanda choose it for you?"

"Manda take me shopping, but she let me choose my own clothes," Meggan said, beaming up at him. "I like pink! It my favourite colour. Manda buy me pink dresses too." She wrinkled her nose. "An' pink shoes," she added, with markedly less enthusiasm. "Don't like shoes."

Charlie looked down at her paw-like feet, and nodded. "They'd get in the way, wouldn't they?" he asked. He leaned down and whispered a little conspiratorially. "I didn't like shoes much either when I was a kid. I drove my mom nuts losing them all the time."

Amanda, meanwhile, was watching the scene with pleased surprise. Charlie was dealing much better with Meggan than she'd expected, and it was good to see. "Meggan's taste in colours is all her," she said, pulling the apple juice out of the fridge and handing it to Meggan. "You want t' put that on the table, love, while I grab some glasses?"

Meggan nodded, clutching the bottle to her thin chest to carry it over to the table. She still dropped heavy things, sometimes, and it would be a terrible thing to waste good apple juice. "I like apple juice," she told Charlie, lifting the bottle carefully onto the table. "It my favourite. Do you like it? An' shoes make my feet uncomfor'ble." She giggled, and tugged him down so she could whisper in his ear. "I hide them in Angie's closet so Manda can't make me wear them."

Charlie chuckled, and made a zipping action across his mouth with his fingers. "I won't tell a soul," he whispered back, before straightening and taking the glasses from Amanda. "Um, we'll pour and you risk death by frostbite in the fridge of doom?" he suggested. "We can always send in the husky team after you."

Amanda giggled and waved him towards the table. "Go on. Won't be anythin' fancy, just sandwiches. 'M British, we don't do that fancy cooking stuff."

"Manda makes good sandwiches." Meggan gave Amanda her best pleading puppy-eyes look. "I have ham an' cheese an' pineapple?" she asked hopefully. "An' a bananana?" She loved squishy pineapple in sandwiches. Also saying 'banana' was a lot of fun, and she didn't always stop as soon as she should.

"You've been lettin' Jake feed you again, haven't you?" Amanda replied, shaking her head in mock despair. She got out a tin of pineapple, any way. There were some fresh tomatoes in the fridge, plus ham and some of that nice cheese Nate tended to get. Closing the door with her foot, and dumped the load on the counter and watched Charlie pouring juice while Meggan held the glasses down on the table with both hands wrapped around them. "Anythin' you don't eat, Charlie?" she asked as she started buttering bread.

Charlie shook his head. "Not really. I'm from one of those 'clean your plate before you leave the table' families. Doesn't give you much chance to get picky. Sandwiches are fine, as long as you leave off that scary English mustard you like." He'd seen Amanda eat some truly frightening things, and while he wasn't fussy, he didn't have her cast iron stomach, either. "Ah, I think I'll leave off the pineapple, though. More for Meggan, here."

"Pineapple good!" Meggan said decidedly. "Sweet! Manda says not to have too much sugar, so I have fruit." She smiled at Charlie, who seemed very nice. "You like sweets? I do!"

"Too much sugar is bad for your teeth," Charlie told her, sounding a little like he was repeating something he'd been told a lot. "I like fruit better than candy, but there's always a place for chocolate." He glanced over at Amanda. "For someone who ah... had a bad day this week, she's doing pretty well. You sure...?"

"Meg bounces back fast. Part of the whole Innocent thing - 's hard t' corrupt her," Amanda said, focussing on sandwich creation for four - she expected Angelo would return once Joyita was safely occupied. "She did better than me, that's for sure."

Meggan shrugged. "I was only stole for a while," she explained. "I was in the Bad Cage for lots longer. I used to bad stuff happening." She sipped her glass of juice, holding it carefully. "But they gone now. When things gone, then don't have to worry no more." The past was the past... it had gone away, so she didn't worry about it any more.

"Somethin' I could do learnin'," Amanda murmured to herself. She brought their sandwiches over, covering Angelo's with clingwrap for now. She reached over and ruffled Meggan's hair as she sat. "They're gone. An' so is Patches."

Charlie raised an eyebrow. "Patches?"

"Black magic dealer. Buyer an' seller of dubious goods," Amanda said shortly. "It was him that took her."

"But you said it was someone you knew. What would you..." Charlie realised from Amanda's darkening expression this was one of those Don't Go There topics and didn't pursue it. He searched around for another topic. "So, what's your favorite thing to do, Meggan?" he asked, clutching at polite conversations overheard at various parties his mother held.

Meggan thought about it. "Bein' with Manda," she decided. "When we all done studying an' we can play and have stories. An' next best after that is playing with my piano-toy. I make music!" She reached over to pat Manda's hand... she wasn't feeling so happy, right now. Nor was Charlie, but he was sitting out of reach across the table.

"Eat up, love," Amanda told her, smiling at her and giving her small paw a squeeze. "Maybe you can show Charlie how well you make music later?" She winked at her suddenly-worried friend. "She's pretty good. Near-perfect memory."

"Do I get something nasty done to me if I say you're soundin' like a proud mom?" he replied, before turning to Meggan. "You like music, Meg?"

"Yes! But my piano too small," Meggan said, voicing the complaint for the first time. She hadn't wanted Manda to think she didn't LIKE her toy, because she did. "Only eight notes. Not 'nough for big music."

Amanda didn't seem to mind. Instead she nodded. "Sounds like a visit t' the music room might be an idea. I can't teach you, but if we ask Alison nice, I'm sure she would."

"Piano's all right," Charlie said, earning a surprised look from Amanda. He shrugged a little. "Yep, that's my deep dark secret. Piano lessons."
Meggan blinked. "Piano lessons?" It had never occurred to her that there could be such a thing. "You LUCKY," she told Charlie fervently.
"I didn't think so when I started," he said with a wry grin, much like Amanda's. "But it wasn't so bad after a while. And if you like music, it sounds like a good idea for you."

She was learning a lot more about Charlie in one day than she'd learned in weeks. This was proving to be a good idea of his, him coming here. "We can get you lessons, Meg, if you want them. I just didn't want t' swamp you with too much, is all. But you're a fast learner, so maybe that's not a problem, hmm?"

Meggan bounced. "Lessons good! Play music!" she agreed, falling back into her old single-word habit in her excitement. She paused, to concentrate on her words again, and ate a couple of bites of her sandwich. "I like music. 'specially pretty music I get from store in Mall."

Charlie watched, amused, as Amanda let her head thunk - not terribly hard - onto the table beside her plate. "What?"

"She means one of those New Age hippy places in the mall. Pan-pipes an' windchimes an' Irish harps an' all the rest of it." She lifted her head and gave Meggan a reassuring smile - she wasn't really angry or upset. "I tell you, it's a hard thing for a punk rocker t' bear."

Meggan giggled. "Manda makes faces when I play it. She like loud bang-bang-bang music." She wrinkled her nose. "Hurts my ears, if too loud. My pretty music much nicer."

Amanda gave Charlie a long suffering look. "Pink bows an' windchimes. I'm so doomed here."