Scene from a Mexico beach house...

[x-coldhands.livejournal.com]

Friday, early afternoon.

Bobby is sitting in a wicker chair out on the rear porch, his feet propped up on a matching table, a novel open in his hands as he reads silently.

Angelo walks out of the house and spots Bobby on the rear porch. Heading in that direction, he leans against a pillar and says quietly, "Hey."

Bobby looks up from the book and gives him a slight smile. "Angelo, hi." He glances down at the book again for a moment, before lying it, spine-up, in his lap. "What's up?"

Angelo moves forward to sit down in the other chair, not answering for a moment. "Nothing much. Just trying to give Paige and Jono some space, so I thought I'd come say hi."

Bobby nods slowly. "Well...hi." He laughs a bit. "Said that already, didn't I?" He glances back at the doorway into the house. "Nice place Al's got us here, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's great", Angelo agrees. "All the better for no snow."

"A bit more frost than you usually get here, though," Bobby points out wryly, lifting his hand from where it was resting on the arm of the chair, revealing a thin rime of ice formed there. He sighs and rubs his hand on the leg of his jeans, as if warming it up might stop the random discharge of his powers.

Angelo blinks at him, having not realized how much trouble Bobby was still having with his powers. "Does... does that happen a lot?" he asks tentatively.

"More than I'd like. Not as much as...at first." He looks away, not liking to think back on the past few months. "It was pretty much constant." He chuckles and glances back at Angelo. "Al had to keep my hot chocolate from freezing, the first few days."

Angelo smiles softly. "She's good to have around."

Bobby answers with a grin. "Yeah, Al's the best. She's a great listener." His voice drops as he adds, "And she really cares. You know? Some of the folks back home, you don't know if they really care, or they're going through the motions." Deciding maybe he's said too much, he falls silent, looking down at his hands resting on his lap.

Angelo looks at him sympathetically. "Yeah, I know. Don't know how much you heard about why the rest of us are here, but... yeah."

"Not much," Bobby admits. "Al just told me she was planning a getaway for a couple of students that 'needed it', and asked if I wanted to tag along, too." He looks at Angelo, curious, but not willing to pry if he doesn't seem to want to share.

Angelo does not, in fact, much want to share right now. Not unless Bobby asks, anyway. So he just says, "Well, let's just say bad stuff happened and I kind of didn't leave my room much for a few days. Until I got kicked out."

"Yeah, I kind of got that from the journals. So what about the other two? Why are they here?" Bobby runs his thumb along the side of his book, absently riffling the pages.

"'Cause it's mostly to do with them." And Angelo clams up again before he says too much.

Looking confused, Bobby asks, "Which, the trip, or the bad stuff that happened with you?"

"Both."

"Ah." Wondering just what he's ended up in the middle of, Bobby leans back in his chair. As it's fairly obvious this isn't a subject Angelo feels a burning urge to expound on, he changes the subject. Kind of. "I feel so out of touch, anymore," he admits, looking out past the porch, at a small flower garden growing nearby.

Angelo looks at him. "How do you mean?"

"I've been gone for two months. There are all these new faces, people missing. And even the people I knew before..." He grins, but there's a bit of bitterness behind it. "A lot happens in high school in two months--even moreso, in one so exceptional, I'd wager. Interpersonally, I mean." In other words, he no longer knows who's dating who, who's fighting with who, who hates who...which is part of why he's just avoided the whole thing ever since he got back.

Angelo gives him another sympathetic look. "Yeah, I get you. Easy to lose track in two months..."

"Yeah. I feel like I'm in one of those movies, where the guy falls into a coma, and a few months later he wakes up to find that everyone's just...moved on without him." He looks down at his hands again and says softly. "The difference is, in a way, I moved on, too...but I don't know about it." He's been terrified to talk to John, or Em, any of his old friends, really, and find out just what that blue bitch had done in his name.

He looks up after a minute and shakes his head, laughing self-deprecatingly. "Sorry. I guess I was just kind of thinking out loud." He marks his page in his book and tosses it onto the table, standing and stretching. "Anyway, we're on vacation, right? We should be enjoying ourselves."

Angelo grins wryly. "Think that's the idea, yeah. You got any plans?"

"I was thinking of seeing if I could maybe find a surfboard. I've always wanted to try surfing..."

"You should have said before we left", Angelo joked. "I'd have stolen Alex's for you."

Bobby laughs. "I'm sure I can find a place that rents them somewhere. You ever surfed?"

"No", Angelo answers. "I'm from the city, and we didn't travel much."

"Well, you're welcome to join me, if you'd like." He grins and teases, "We can look like idiots together, that way."

"You're on", Angelo says with an answering grin.