Angelo and Nathan; Angelo and Yvette
Oct. 9th, 2006 11:06 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsAt lunchtime, Angelo and Nathan sit out on the dock and chat about smoking, Angelo's new trainee name and Elpis.
It was the official lunch break, and Nathan had stopped letting him work through lunch breaks weeks ago. So, Angelo was sitting out on the dock with his feet in the water and a cigarette in his hand, Joyita flopped out comfortably next to him.
Nathan, being something of a hypocrite, wandered out twenty minutes later, having finally finished up a summary for one of the several reports they had on the go. "You're going to have to seriously consider quitting that particular bad habit," he said, gesturing at the cigarette. "Team fitness training is a bit stricter than you're used to."
"I've been cuttin' back", Angelo protested. "Down to five a day most days now." He looked up at Nathan with a crooked grin. "Keepin' this busy has its side benefits."
"Ask Dom about how and why she quit smoking, sometime. Should be instructive." Nathan sank down in one of the other chairs, staring out at the lake. "It'll be too cold to do this, pretty soon. The leaves are changing fast these days."
Angelo laughed. "Hell, summer was too cold for me when I first came out from California. But I got used to it."
"I like autumn. The sun, but no real heat..." Nathan's voice was reflective, his expression distant as he looked out at the lake. He looked tired, and had for some time this fall, although it was generally noticeable only in moments of inactivity.
There hadn't been so very many of those... but there'd been enough for Angelo, at least, to notice. He looked sideways at Nathan. "You okay?"
Nathan opened his mouth to give the standard 'I'm fine' answer, but then hesitated, shaking his head. "Just feeling the insanity of the schedule a little this week. I don't think I've caught up from Tajikistan yet." And having the Alcatraz mission on top of that hadn't helped. "So much to do," he mused, "not half enough time. Adding the team training back into my week wasn't as bad as I thought it would be-" Most of it could be done at nights, after all. "-but still."
"Same old problem, in other words", Angelo said, taking the edge off the words with a half-smile. "You thought about maybe hirin' on another person or two for Elpis? At least part-time?"
"For here, you mean?" Joel was busy hiring on more program managers, after all. "Possibly. I've been considering some sort of volunteer thing. Community service and volunteer work looks good on college applications, after all."
"It'd get the work done as well as anythin'. Medusa sounded interested in what we do." He meant on the journals. "Maybe Sooraya, even, when her English's a little bit better."
"Either way," Nathan said, although he filed away the comment about Medusa - when had she and Angelo been talking? "it's going to take a while to get anything like that going. I should talk to Charles." He sank further down in the chair, propping his feet on the deck railing and closing his eyes. He really was tired.
"So," he said after a moment. "Sancho, huh?"
"Then maybe you should take a day off Elpis stuff", Angelo suggested. "You left me in charge for longer than that, when you were lookin' for David. An' yeah... Sancho."
"Moira's been on my case about coming to Muir for the weekend sometime soon. She claims to wonder if I've taken a dislike to Scotland, given how long it's been since I was there." Nathan opened his eyes, giving Angelo an amused sideways look. "It's unique. Sancho."
He looked entirely too innocent. "Scott's idea. He said it fit, an' he told me a bit about the story."
Nathan laughed, rubbing his jaw. He rather badly needed to shave. "I really have to protest, you know. I am not Don Quixote. I take umbrage to that, I really do..."
"Are you not?" Angelo asked, amused. "I looked him up. An' okay, so you're not deluded into thinkin' you're a knight, but the rest of it..."
"I like to think I pick my battles a bit better than the good don." Nathan couldn't help a sigh. "Although occasionally they do look rather like windmills, don't they?"
"They have done once or twice, yeah", Angelo confirmed with a half-grin, taking out his cigarette packet and looking at it without getting one out. "Or more like... ones you can't win." On your own.
"We need more cavalry charges and fewer horrendously complicated political messes we can't take two steps into without pissing someone off," Nathan said, closing his eyes again.
That earned him a sideways look. "Can we make sure you don't have a broken arm, the next time there's a cavalry charge? Anyway, I kind of like the debates."
"You would. You're developing a very twisted mind... says the man with the law degree, I know."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
Later, he runs into Yvette in the kitchen while making a dinner-type snack, and she's adorably stern and makes him eat a real meal.
It was well past the time Angelo should have left the boathouse when Nathan finally kicked him out - but he had taken a lunchbreak, so that was all right. Realizing he hadn't actually eaten since lunch, however, he headed for the kitchen in search of a snack.
Yvette was getting used to wandering around the mansion, although she still tended to get lost sometimes. But the kitchen was one of the places she could remember. Now to find something to eat that she could prepare for herself - whilst the gloves stopped the damage, the length of her finger-talons made things a lot more difficult in terms of managing things.
Catching sight of Angelo, however, her eyes flared bright. "Hello Mr. Angelo!" she said, almost chirping. She was always glad to see one of the people who had been kind to her.
It was impossible to see her happy and chirping like that and not smile back. "Hey, Yvette. How's things? Findin' your way around okay?"
She nodded. "It is being a very big place, but I am learning. How are you? You cannot still be working today? It is getting late." The last was said almost sternly.
"No, I've finished workin' for today", he promised her, truthfully even if he omitted the word 'just'. "Have you been talkin' to people about me workin' too much?"
"I am watching. And listening. I am learning much about things by doing so." Her vocal tone was a little bashful. "I am being small and quiet and many people here are not. It is not so scary to be watching. I am reading the journals too." She tilted her head. "Are you being eating yet? We could be sharing a meal together, if you are liking?"
He smiled, reaching for one of the kitchen chairs. "Yeah, I'd like that a lot. What d'you want to eat?"
"I was not sure..." Yvette said uncertainly, looking around the kitchen. It was bigger than the kitchen and living room of her mother's apartment put together. "Something I can be eating with my hands? I am not being able to hold a spoon like this..." The confession was made with a slight duck of the head. Laurie had been very good about the mess with the cereal, but she still felt embarrassed about the mess she'd made. "Marie is making chicken... maybe there is some left?" This was said hopefully.
"I'm sure there is", he assured her, moving toward the fridge to check. "There's almost always leftovers."
"I am hoping so. It was very good food. She says it is from her home?" Yvette joined him at the fridge, peering under his elbow. "What are you liking to eat?"
"I like to eat a lot of stuff. If there isn't enough chicken for two, then I'll just make a sandwich with somethin's else." He turned to look down at her. "You won't have ever had Mexican food, will you?"
"Mexican?" She repeated the word curiously - it was a new one for her. "No. What is this being, please?"
"It means from Mexico. Mexico's a country south of here, where my parents came from. The food's good - spicy, sometimes, and good."
"Are you being born in Mexico?" Yvette asked, spying an apple and reaching for it. Apples were always good.
"No, I was born in Los Angeles. On the other side of the country, but still in America." He grinned at her. "You really like apples, huh?"
"Oh, near where Angel is coming from. She is showing me on the map. America is being much bigger than my country." Looking down at the apple, she nodded. "When I was being small, there is not much fruit. But sometimes, the Red Cross people, they would give to my mother. They are being good to eat." Those glowing blue eyes dulled a moment. "When I am eating them, I am thinking of her. I miss her very much, but Mr. Professor, he is saying she has been moving the house and they are not finding her yet."
Angelo looked at her then reached out to touch her arm, careful to keep his hand on her sleeve rather than her skin. "Hey. They'll find her, you'll see."
"I am hoping so. I am thinking she will be very sad, and I am not there to help her. That is what I do, help my mother when she is feeling sad." She looked up at Angelo, eyes brightening a little. "Like my new friends are doing for me. I will try and be patient, although it is hard."
Angelo leaned down and put his arm carefully around her. "They'll find her. An' then what happens'll happen. Until then... my mom makes the best Mexican food in New York."
Yvette nodded, patting his arm carefully - she was still nervous about hurting people, even with the special clothes. "Thank you, Mr. Angelo," she said, with the telltale flare of blue light that was a sign of strong feeling. "When I am learning to not look so scary, I can be coming with you to New York. If your mother is not minding a strange person?"
"She won't mind at all. An' if you wanted to go out, you can go now. I'll drive you there, not very many people would see you..."
Yvette made a little startled noise, and shook her head. "I am not ready to be leaving just yet - Mondo is saying New York is very big, with very many people. I am to be afraid to go there just yet." She clutched the apple in her hands like a lifeline.
"It's okay, chiquita", he said gently. "Mondo meant the place where the tourists go, I think. It'd just be you an' me in the car, an' the places where people live are quieter. But not until you're ready."
"Later, perhaps?" She didn't want to be rude to nice Mr. Angelo, but the idea of leaving the mansion filled her with no small dread.
"Later", he said with a reassuring smile, getting out the plate of chicken. "Here you go."
"Here 'we' go," she corrected shyly. "Mr. Angelo needs to eat too."
Angelo chuckled. "Well, aren't you the little den mother. Yeah, I'll eat."
"Good. I would not be wanting your mother to be thinking you are not being looked after." Yvette motioned him to take the plate to the counter. "I will look for vegetables. They are being important."
"Vegetables are important", he agreed solemnly. "Think there's enough chicken there for the two of us?"
"I am still not eating very much, so I am thinking so." There was potato salad still, and lettuce and tomato and cucumber. Angelo came back, and she pointed out the potato salad bowl. "I can be making salad too, I think," she said, a thought occurring to her. "If you are not minding me using my hands to be making?"
He grinned. "If you want to make salad, you go ahead an' do it. I don't mind your hands."
Yvette would have beamed, if she could. She was tired of needing everyone else helping her and not being able to do anything in return. Salad components on the counter, she found a handy footstool and climbed up on it so she could actually work. "Please to be finding a bowl?" she asked, pulling off her gloves.
Angelo nodded and turned to the cupboard to get one down, putting it on the counter next to her salad. "There."
She nodded her thanks, taking a deep breath as she turned to the vegetables. A simple enough matter, but she hadn't deliberately used her skin to cut things before. Unless you counted Mr. Logan. Carefully she spread her fingers, pressing them down on the lettuce. It fell apart under her touch into segments, and she looked up at Angelo proudly.
"Very good", he said, equally proudly. "Look how neat that is."
"Can you be putting it in the bowl, please?" she asked, pleased at the praise. Cucumber next - she used one finger like a knife, slicing it carefully. This was actually fun - she hadn't thought that of her power before.
"Course." He nodded and started lifting the salad into the bowl. "There we go. Couldn't do that better with a real knife."
"It is good, to be using my power to help," she admitted. She delicately rolled a tomato over in front of her with a talon-tip and sliced into it. "It is being hard, finding a good..." Tomato juice ran over the bench and dripped from her talon, and she blinked, forgetting what she'd been saying. Blood, there had been blood...
He glanced at her sideways, worried when she trailed off. "Yvette? Is somethin' wrong, chiquita?"
She glanced up at the sound of his voice. "It is being nothing," she said, shaking away the unease. "I was being reminded of something, that is all." Almost briskly she finished cutting up the tomato, hopping off the stool to wash her hands whilst Angelo finished putting things together. Luckily the kitchen was equipped with easy-to-use faucets. "Is that being enough food for you?" she asked, hoping to change the subject.
"It looks like it", he said reassuringly. "I don't really eat that much myself." He made a note to mention the odd little incident to someone, later.
"But you are being much bigger than me. You should be eating more," she admonished, shaking water off her hands and returning for her gloves.
"You're still growin'", he retorted, grinning. "I stopped that years back."
"Big people are needing more food than little," she replied in the same vein, carefully wrangling her gloves back on. It was a tricky operation, but she was getting practiced.
"Got an answer for everythin', haven't you, little mouse?" came the amused answer. "Okay, okay, I'm eatin'."
"This is being good," she said, and waved him towards the table.
It was the official lunch break, and Nathan had stopped letting him work through lunch breaks weeks ago. So, Angelo was sitting out on the dock with his feet in the water and a cigarette in his hand, Joyita flopped out comfortably next to him.
Nathan, being something of a hypocrite, wandered out twenty minutes later, having finally finished up a summary for one of the several reports they had on the go. "You're going to have to seriously consider quitting that particular bad habit," he said, gesturing at the cigarette. "Team fitness training is a bit stricter than you're used to."
"I've been cuttin' back", Angelo protested. "Down to five a day most days now." He looked up at Nathan with a crooked grin. "Keepin' this busy has its side benefits."
"Ask Dom about how and why she quit smoking, sometime. Should be instructive." Nathan sank down in one of the other chairs, staring out at the lake. "It'll be too cold to do this, pretty soon. The leaves are changing fast these days."
Angelo laughed. "Hell, summer was too cold for me when I first came out from California. But I got used to it."
"I like autumn. The sun, but no real heat..." Nathan's voice was reflective, his expression distant as he looked out at the lake. He looked tired, and had for some time this fall, although it was generally noticeable only in moments of inactivity.
There hadn't been so very many of those... but there'd been enough for Angelo, at least, to notice. He looked sideways at Nathan. "You okay?"
Nathan opened his mouth to give the standard 'I'm fine' answer, but then hesitated, shaking his head. "Just feeling the insanity of the schedule a little this week. I don't think I've caught up from Tajikistan yet." And having the Alcatraz mission on top of that hadn't helped. "So much to do," he mused, "not half enough time. Adding the team training back into my week wasn't as bad as I thought it would be-" Most of it could be done at nights, after all. "-but still."
"Same old problem, in other words", Angelo said, taking the edge off the words with a half-smile. "You thought about maybe hirin' on another person or two for Elpis? At least part-time?"
"For here, you mean?" Joel was busy hiring on more program managers, after all. "Possibly. I've been considering some sort of volunteer thing. Community service and volunteer work looks good on college applications, after all."
"It'd get the work done as well as anythin'. Medusa sounded interested in what we do." He meant on the journals. "Maybe Sooraya, even, when her English's a little bit better."
"Either way," Nathan said, although he filed away the comment about Medusa - when had she and Angelo been talking? "it's going to take a while to get anything like that going. I should talk to Charles." He sank further down in the chair, propping his feet on the deck railing and closing his eyes. He really was tired.
"So," he said after a moment. "Sancho, huh?"
"Then maybe you should take a day off Elpis stuff", Angelo suggested. "You left me in charge for longer than that, when you were lookin' for David. An' yeah... Sancho."
"Moira's been on my case about coming to Muir for the weekend sometime soon. She claims to wonder if I've taken a dislike to Scotland, given how long it's been since I was there." Nathan opened his eyes, giving Angelo an amused sideways look. "It's unique. Sancho."
He looked entirely too innocent. "Scott's idea. He said it fit, an' he told me a bit about the story."
Nathan laughed, rubbing his jaw. He rather badly needed to shave. "I really have to protest, you know. I am not Don Quixote. I take umbrage to that, I really do..."
"Are you not?" Angelo asked, amused. "I looked him up. An' okay, so you're not deluded into thinkin' you're a knight, but the rest of it..."
"I like to think I pick my battles a bit better than the good don." Nathan couldn't help a sigh. "Although occasionally they do look rather like windmills, don't they?"
"They have done once or twice, yeah", Angelo confirmed with a half-grin, taking out his cigarette packet and looking at it without getting one out. "Or more like... ones you can't win." On your own.
"We need more cavalry charges and fewer horrendously complicated political messes we can't take two steps into without pissing someone off," Nathan said, closing his eyes again.
That earned him a sideways look. "Can we make sure you don't have a broken arm, the next time there's a cavalry charge? Anyway, I kind of like the debates."
"You would. You're developing a very twisted mind... says the man with the law degree, I know."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
Later, he runs into Yvette in the kitchen while making a dinner-type snack, and she's adorably stern and makes him eat a real meal.
It was well past the time Angelo should have left the boathouse when Nathan finally kicked him out - but he had taken a lunchbreak, so that was all right. Realizing he hadn't actually eaten since lunch, however, he headed for the kitchen in search of a snack.
Yvette was getting used to wandering around the mansion, although she still tended to get lost sometimes. But the kitchen was one of the places she could remember. Now to find something to eat that she could prepare for herself - whilst the gloves stopped the damage, the length of her finger-talons made things a lot more difficult in terms of managing things.
Catching sight of Angelo, however, her eyes flared bright. "Hello Mr. Angelo!" she said, almost chirping. She was always glad to see one of the people who had been kind to her.
It was impossible to see her happy and chirping like that and not smile back. "Hey, Yvette. How's things? Findin' your way around okay?"
She nodded. "It is being a very big place, but I am learning. How are you? You cannot still be working today? It is getting late." The last was said almost sternly.
"No, I've finished workin' for today", he promised her, truthfully even if he omitted the word 'just'. "Have you been talkin' to people about me workin' too much?"
"I am watching. And listening. I am learning much about things by doing so." Her vocal tone was a little bashful. "I am being small and quiet and many people here are not. It is not so scary to be watching. I am reading the journals too." She tilted her head. "Are you being eating yet? We could be sharing a meal together, if you are liking?"
He smiled, reaching for one of the kitchen chairs. "Yeah, I'd like that a lot. What d'you want to eat?"
"I was not sure..." Yvette said uncertainly, looking around the kitchen. It was bigger than the kitchen and living room of her mother's apartment put together. "Something I can be eating with my hands? I am not being able to hold a spoon like this..." The confession was made with a slight duck of the head. Laurie had been very good about the mess with the cereal, but she still felt embarrassed about the mess she'd made. "Marie is making chicken... maybe there is some left?" This was said hopefully.
"I'm sure there is", he assured her, moving toward the fridge to check. "There's almost always leftovers."
"I am hoping so. It was very good food. She says it is from her home?" Yvette joined him at the fridge, peering under his elbow. "What are you liking to eat?"
"I like to eat a lot of stuff. If there isn't enough chicken for two, then I'll just make a sandwich with somethin's else." He turned to look down at her. "You won't have ever had Mexican food, will you?"
"Mexican?" She repeated the word curiously - it was a new one for her. "No. What is this being, please?"
"It means from Mexico. Mexico's a country south of here, where my parents came from. The food's good - spicy, sometimes, and good."
"Are you being born in Mexico?" Yvette asked, spying an apple and reaching for it. Apples were always good.
"No, I was born in Los Angeles. On the other side of the country, but still in America." He grinned at her. "You really like apples, huh?"
"Oh, near where Angel is coming from. She is showing me on the map. America is being much bigger than my country." Looking down at the apple, she nodded. "When I was being small, there is not much fruit. But sometimes, the Red Cross people, they would give to my mother. They are being good to eat." Those glowing blue eyes dulled a moment. "When I am eating them, I am thinking of her. I miss her very much, but Mr. Professor, he is saying she has been moving the house and they are not finding her yet."
Angelo looked at her then reached out to touch her arm, careful to keep his hand on her sleeve rather than her skin. "Hey. They'll find her, you'll see."
"I am hoping so. I am thinking she will be very sad, and I am not there to help her. That is what I do, help my mother when she is feeling sad." She looked up at Angelo, eyes brightening a little. "Like my new friends are doing for me. I will try and be patient, although it is hard."
Angelo leaned down and put his arm carefully around her. "They'll find her. An' then what happens'll happen. Until then... my mom makes the best Mexican food in New York."
Yvette nodded, patting his arm carefully - she was still nervous about hurting people, even with the special clothes. "Thank you, Mr. Angelo," she said, with the telltale flare of blue light that was a sign of strong feeling. "When I am learning to not look so scary, I can be coming with you to New York. If your mother is not minding a strange person?"
"She won't mind at all. An' if you wanted to go out, you can go now. I'll drive you there, not very many people would see you..."
Yvette made a little startled noise, and shook her head. "I am not ready to be leaving just yet - Mondo is saying New York is very big, with very many people. I am to be afraid to go there just yet." She clutched the apple in her hands like a lifeline.
"It's okay, chiquita", he said gently. "Mondo meant the place where the tourists go, I think. It'd just be you an' me in the car, an' the places where people live are quieter. But not until you're ready."
"Later, perhaps?" She didn't want to be rude to nice Mr. Angelo, but the idea of leaving the mansion filled her with no small dread.
"Later", he said with a reassuring smile, getting out the plate of chicken. "Here you go."
"Here 'we' go," she corrected shyly. "Mr. Angelo needs to eat too."
Angelo chuckled. "Well, aren't you the little den mother. Yeah, I'll eat."
"Good. I would not be wanting your mother to be thinking you are not being looked after." Yvette motioned him to take the plate to the counter. "I will look for vegetables. They are being important."
"Vegetables are important", he agreed solemnly. "Think there's enough chicken there for the two of us?"
"I am still not eating very much, so I am thinking so." There was potato salad still, and lettuce and tomato and cucumber. Angelo came back, and she pointed out the potato salad bowl. "I can be making salad too, I think," she said, a thought occurring to her. "If you are not minding me using my hands to be making?"
He grinned. "If you want to make salad, you go ahead an' do it. I don't mind your hands."
Yvette would have beamed, if she could. She was tired of needing everyone else helping her and not being able to do anything in return. Salad components on the counter, she found a handy footstool and climbed up on it so she could actually work. "Please to be finding a bowl?" she asked, pulling off her gloves.
Angelo nodded and turned to the cupboard to get one down, putting it on the counter next to her salad. "There."
She nodded her thanks, taking a deep breath as she turned to the vegetables. A simple enough matter, but she hadn't deliberately used her skin to cut things before. Unless you counted Mr. Logan. Carefully she spread her fingers, pressing them down on the lettuce. It fell apart under her touch into segments, and she looked up at Angelo proudly.
"Very good", he said, equally proudly. "Look how neat that is."
"Can you be putting it in the bowl, please?" she asked, pleased at the praise. Cucumber next - she used one finger like a knife, slicing it carefully. This was actually fun - she hadn't thought that of her power before.
"Course." He nodded and started lifting the salad into the bowl. "There we go. Couldn't do that better with a real knife."
"It is good, to be using my power to help," she admitted. She delicately rolled a tomato over in front of her with a talon-tip and sliced into it. "It is being hard, finding a good..." Tomato juice ran over the bench and dripped from her talon, and she blinked, forgetting what she'd been saying. Blood, there had been blood...
He glanced at her sideways, worried when she trailed off. "Yvette? Is somethin' wrong, chiquita?"
She glanced up at the sound of his voice. "It is being nothing," she said, shaking away the unease. "I was being reminded of something, that is all." Almost briskly she finished cutting up the tomato, hopping off the stool to wash her hands whilst Angelo finished putting things together. Luckily the kitchen was equipped with easy-to-use faucets. "Is that being enough food for you?" she asked, hoping to change the subject.
"It looks like it", he said reassuringly. "I don't really eat that much myself." He made a note to mention the odd little incident to someone, later.
"But you are being much bigger than me. You should be eating more," she admonished, shaking water off her hands and returning for her gloves.
"You're still growin'", he retorted, grinning. "I stopped that years back."
"Big people are needing more food than little," she replied in the same vein, carefully wrangling her gloves back on. It was a tricky operation, but she was getting practiced.
"Got an answer for everythin', haven't you, little mouse?" came the amused answer. "Okay, okay, I'm eatin'."
"This is being good," she said, and waved him towards the table.
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