Log: Angelo and Paige and Scrabble

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Before they left for Mexico. After that post where he explained what happened.

The box rattled as Paige hopped down the stairs, humming something that sounded oddly like Jingle Bells under her breath. It’s possible that she had a death wish. Skipping down the hallway she halted suddenly in front of Angelo’s door, balancing the Scrabble box in one hand and rapping sharply with the other.

Sitting in the room, catching up on his missed homework, Angelo looked up on hearing her knock. "Come in", he called.

Paige turned the knob, pushing the door open with her hip. She grinned at Angelo and produced the box for his inspection. “Ta da!”

Angelo grinned back, glancing at the box in surprise. "Scrabble!" he said, bemused.

“Good! You can read! We’re all set,” Paige replied, jumping onto his bed and crossing her legs.

Angelo just looked at her, shaking his head in amusement. "You're... perky today", he noted.

“I am never perky. I am merely pleasant. It just seems so as I have not been pleasant as of late.” Paige nodded wisely. “Now. Scrabble?”

Angelo nodded slowly, still a little bemused. "Scrabble."

“Wonderful. Come sit!” Paige bounced a little. “What? Don’t look so surprised, I gave you ample warning.”

Angelo grinned and sat beside her on the bed. "Of course you did."

“You say that like I’m lying,” Paige replied, mock pouting a little as she unpacked the box.

Angelo took the tiles and started putting them into the bag. "Who, me?"

Paige, not falling for that for a minute, poked him. “Oui, tu.” Her French was generally hideous, but living with Marie-Ange had helped a bit, with her accent anyway.

Angelo grinned up at her innocently. "Okay, okay", he replied, laughing. "You gave me fair warning."

“That’s what I thought,” Paige said with finality. Her grin was obvious when she looked up to meet his eyes, however. “Now, who’s going first?”

"You can", he told her. "If you want."

“Okay!” Paige very nearly chirped and put down her tiles. “S-O-L-A-C-E. Solace.”

Angelo shuffled his tiles about to make the word on the shelf before putting it on the board. "Music."

Paige gave him a somewhat shocked expression for a moment, wondering, but found him concentrated entirely on the game. He didn’t know. She laid down more tiles, smiling a bit. “Tutelary. So, Angelo. You okay down here? Have enough blankets?”

"Yeah, Alison and Dr. McCoy have been making sure of that," he answered, setting down more tiles and returning her smile.

"Mm... good. Sorry I got all caught up and didn't realise sooner." It's said quickly, the drastic change of topic actually smooth and hardly recognizable but for the softness at the end.

Angelo heard the change of tone in her voice and looked up at her. "It's okay. We all... got caught up", he said softly.

Paige shook her head a bit, astounding Angelo with her ability to come up with annoyingly complex words as she held an equally complex conversation. “No, it’s not an excuse. Not a good one.”

Angelo reached to squeeze her shoulder quickly. "I told you, it's okay. I understand..."

She looked up at him with a smile. “All right. It just won’t happen again is all.” She caught his hand, letting her fingers loosely hook with his.

Angelo smiled at her, not letting go of her hand. "How are you doing, anyway?"

“Good.” She drew out the vowels of that word, thinking of how to continue. “Alex and I are on good terms again and I’m avoiding Shiro like the plague. Less lost teeth that way you see.” Paige grinned a little, only partially teasing.

Angelo frowned. "Don't be on bad terms with him on my account. He didn't do anything to warrant *that*..."

Paige waved the comment away with her free hand. “Never you mind. It’s your turn.”

Angelo, still frowning slightly, unconvinced, bent his head over the board and put down another word.

Paige giggled, much like she should, as she read what Angelo had put down. “You cheater! That’s not a word.”

"It is!" he insisted. "Promise!"

“It is not! Zatful has never, ever been a word. You just wanted to use your Z tile.” Paige tossed one of her tiles at him playfully.

The tile landed on the bed between them, and Angelo picked it up and tossed it back at her. "Well, what else was I supposed to use it for? Making up words is part of the game."

“Perhaps, I don’t know, an actual word?” Paige ducked away from the tile, although it really came nowhere near where it would hurt. “There is no part of Scrabble that involves making up words!”

"Of course there is!" he insisted, now playfully flicking the spare tiles in her general direction. "Otherwise you're just taking it too seriously."

“Oh! Are you calling me too serious now! Is that what you’re doing? Oh no, you just didn’t.” Paige folded up their game board and thwaped him with it, since Angelo has pretty much at this point stolen all the tiles to flick at her.

Angelo ducked, laughing. "I said no such thing! But now you mention it..." he replied teasingly.

Paige pretty much launched herself at him, mindful not to hit his head on the wall. “That’s it, you’re… how do they say… going down.”

Angelo braced himself to catch her, placing his hands flat against the wall behind him. Laughing too hard to speak, he grabbed her free hand, anticipating a tickle attack.

Paige play growled, trying to yank her hand back to no avail. She contented herself with snapping her teeth at his nose instead. “Rawr. Meanie.” This only accomplished sending herself into more giggles.

Angelo was still laughing, but managed to say, "Meanie? Me?"

“We’ve been over this,” Paige replied as well as she could, butting him with her head as well as she could. “Oui, tu, meanie.”

"Ow", Angelo said, letting go of one of her hands to rub his forehead - which didn't hurt anywhere near as much as he was pretending.

Paige stuck out her tongue at him. “You lying cheater, I’m not even being tough. Yet.” She took advantage of her now freed hand to pry his other hand off her wrist.

Angelo took this opportunity to thread his fingers through hers again.

“Hey… now you’re certainly cheating,” Paige said slowly, her playful grin turning soft. “We seem to do this a lot, don’t we? Are we getting in a rut already?”

Angelo returns the smile. "I see it as comfortable routine", he says, deadpan.

Paige chuckled and leaned over to kiss his nose. “Except for the fact that generally it keeps you up much past your bedtime. Bad Paige.”

Angelo looked at her warmly, dropping a kiss on her forehead in return. "Have you ever heard me complaining?"

“No, but you will eventually, if only in your head. Everyone needs to sleep. Even you.”

"Maybe", he answered. "But not today."

Paige laughed and shook her head. “Yes, silly. Even today. I came down for a quick whipping of your rear end at Scrabble and a little reinforming and then I was sending you to bed. That’s still part of the plan, even if you did ruin my Scrabble victory.”

Angelo blinked at her. "Sorry about that. We'll play again some time, properly." He hesitated, before asking tentatively, "Reinforming?"

“Yes. Reinforming. Since you clearly didn’t believe me the first time or you’d not mope so.” Paige tugged on a piece of his hair, giving him a look. “Love you.”

Angelo looked back at her seriously. "I did believe you, it's just..." He trailed off, not willing or not able to explain what he meant. "Love you too."

Paige nodded, content. “Good then. Now you can do the sleeping thing. You can clean the mess up and get the Scrabble back to me in the morning.” She couldn’t help but grin cheekily at him as she was kind enough to, well, get off him, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

Angelo gave her hand a final squeeze, then instinctively leaned forward as if to kiss her, before drawing back again, seeming shamed. "I will."

Paige ignored the look and chucked him on the chin “Good boy. Sweet dreams.” She hopped off the bed, carefully avoiding the tiles that littered the floor.

"See you soon?" Angelo asked, hating the pleading note in his voice.

Paige turned to face him again and smiled brightly. “Of course, Angel. It’d be much easier if you’d promise to come out of your room occasionally, though.”

Angelo nodded. "Yeah. I'll try to be better about that now..."

“Then you’ll be seeing a heck of a lot of me.” Paige gave him a wink and headed out the door. “Now, sleep!”

OOC: Ah, if only she knew how true that was. XD