Julio and Angel

[x-firestar.livejournal.com]

Julio and Angel help to set up the holiday decorations around the mansion. They discover a horrific thing in the attic that no one should have ever found and talk about Christmas plans. And Angel shows off her new found flying ability.



Somewhere, God only knows, Angel had found an elf hat. It was a pointed hat with red and green stripes, and little pointed elf ears attached to it. Currently, she was waist deep in a box, digging through various Christmas decorations. "We could totally see if Mr. Marko would stand still and wrap lights around him," she said, raising her voice so Julio could hear her.

Julio himself had a wad of Christmas lights in had, already lit so he could go through and make sure there were no broken bulbs. "Good idea," he said, holding up the lights and peering at them with a frown. "Only, you get to ask and I get to run, yes?"

"Aw man, you saw Mr. Marko on the football field," she pouted, "why do I have to ask?" There was a pause as she popped up with plastic mistletoe. There was going to be lots of the real deal but apparently there were too many places and plastic was a good back up. "Oh yeah. Because you saw him on the football field."

"Big Daddy is a smart man," Julio murmured, finding the broken bulb. The lights sputtered to life and he and Angel were suddenly lit up in whites and blues. "Ah-ha! Success! Big Daddy rules."

Despite Angel rolling her eyes, she couldn't help but snicker. "I think you've just burned out my eyeballs," she muttered, dumping the mistletoe on the floor so she could dig back into the box. "Now we just have to...what on earth is this?" With a grunt, she yanked backwards and fell on her butt, holding a mini Christmas tree in her hands. It was wearing a Santa hat. And it had a plug. "...oohh, this turns on."

"Well, plug it in. See what it does." Julio tried to extricate himself from the Christmas lights, but discovered they clung worse than ivy. "Mierda de la estupida..." Angel, meanwhile, had plugged in the Christmas tree and was peering at it intently. Julio knelt down beside her. "So, what does it d--" he was cut off when the tree sprang to life, literally. It opened it's eyes and began singing "Deck the Halls" Both Julio and Angel yelped and fell over.

"It's a demon!" Angel yelped, mostly kidding. "Oh God, turn it off before Terry murders us in our sleep!" She scrambled over Julio for the plug, wondering if anyone would really, really mind if she set it on fire. Just a little fire because if it was on fire then it wouldn't be singing. Grabbing the cord, she pulled and then there was blissful silence. Even if the things eyes were set to half open, giving it a Chucky vibe.

"Remind me to not let you plug things in anymore," Julio said from the floor, Angel still draped over him. "Uh, you can get off now? You are crushing my ribs?" Granted, he was enjoying the fact that he had a girl on him, but it was Angel. Come on.

"Oh, like you couldn't have stopped me," she huffed, suddenly red in the face. "Ahh, am I squishing you? Heavy thing like me and such a little thing like you." Despite the fact that she was fairly positive she liked liked him--Marius was so dead--it was still Julio and that meant showing no quarter. Unless it was needed. She poked him in those nearly broken ribs as she rolled off of him. "Who knew they kept pure evil in a box in the attic?"

"Right next to the demons they are always talking about," he wheezed and rubbed his ribs. "And who are you calling 'tiny'?" he asked, mock-offended. "Just because I live in a suite full of giants does not make me tiny. The proportions are off." He finally disentangled himself from the Christmas lights.


"Who knows what else we'd find in there?" Cautiously, Angel peered into the box, waggling her eyebrows. "Maybe something truly evil, like a singing bass. Those should be outlawed." She glanced over her shoulder at him and grinned. "Good thing you got out of those Christmas lights or I would be tempted to plug you into the wall."

Julio snorted. "So you would leave me tied up and turn me on?" he said innocently, now trying to untangle said ball of Christmas lights. It was okay to say things like that to Angel, she was mari-macha, so he didn't feel any guilt in teasing her.

"I will so set your britches on fire," she said, trying not to laugh and to look at him sternly. How her mom pulled off the "Ugh, men" look she had no idea. Instead, she threw a fake mistletoe at his head and watched it bounce off. "Speaking of tyeing things up, we should start actually putting some of these up."

The boy caught the next one she flung at him. "You and the fire, so violent, you are." He laughed and pulled himself off the ground before extending a hand to help Angel up. "We should these in hidden places, where finding them would be awkward. like over the front door, or in the refrigerator door." Mistletoe seemed like a slightly bizarre custom, but anything that advocated kissing he wholeheartedly supported.

Dusting her pants off--god only knew what kind of weird dust was in that box--she grinned at him. "And, our secret weapon!" With a flourish, she pointed to a notebook and pen she had laying near by. "We're going to remember where all of these are, so we don't get stuck under them and have people pointing and laughing. It happened once with my cousin Jack and it ended with a fist fight."

"Was he caught with a guy, or something?" Julio said as he bent down to pull out some more pieces of plastic mistletoe. "Why do we even have these anyway? This is just asking for trouble. And maybe someone bleeding."

"No, he had to kiss his sister's friend, Gertrude, who, uh...yeah, let's just say it was bad. I think she's eaten men for breakfast." She shrugged and fingered the plastic. "I dunno. I think some people like it and other people like the amusement that comes from it. It's a "tradition"."

"Humiliation is always a good tradition, especially for the holidays. For me, holidays are about food. Oh, how I miss the food." He hadn't had decent food in a long, long time. It was what made him especially homesick. Especially now. Kyle still gave him hell for eating Tabasco on everything.

"My mom says that because of how I'm eating now we're going to have two turkeys at dinner!" Angel gloated, trotting over to rescue the step stool that had been tossed their way. "So what are you doing for the holidays, exactly? I need to know so I know when to give you your gift."

"I, uh, I am staying here." He accepted the step stool and stood on it awkwardly, so he could attach a piece of mistletoe in one of the lesser-used doorways. "I cannot go home yet, and my father cannot come here, so," he shrugged.

Angel stared at him, utterly horrified. "What, really? I mean that's not a horrible thing, I'm sure there'll be people her but..." She frowned. But he was one of her best friends and he'd only just been getting out from under that dark cloud. "Julio? Would you like to have Christmas dinner with my folks and myself?" She was serious, frowning just a bit. Kyle was going home to see his folks, so she didn't have to worry about him--if he hadn't, he'd probably be getting dragged home with her as well. "We'd have done all of our personal Christmas stuff that morning."

"I, uh...yes. I would like that." He smiled, and then finished attaching the mistletoe. He jumped off the step stool. Off the look on Angel's face, he added quickly, "Not that it is because I am being punished or something bad," he held up his hands. "It is just, my control is not something I would like to test with the fault lines in Guadalajara or in Mexico City. And as much as my father would like to come he, ah...he cannot." What with the arrest warrant.

"I can understand that, sometimes things happen. And good, it'll be fun." Angel laughed, nudging the footstool along the hall. "My mom is so cool. My dad can't do a lot of the rough housing stuff with me because he's got a messed up leg, so my mom did it. I totally got it from her. If you're lucky, you might get to see her make the turkey dance when she's making it. It grosses my dad out. But! No worries about weirdness. They're totally divorced but totally friends as well."

"Divorced?" Julio blinked. Then again, why should he be surprised? This was America after all. "If it is all right with your parents having me along, then. I look forward to the turkey dance."

"Yep, they haven't been married since I was about 1 or so," she mused. "They'll be thrilled, really. Normally we've got a small horde of people so I think mom will be happy with another guest to eat." Angel poked him in the belly and giggled. "Especially if you eat at least half of what I do."

"Ay! Woman! Not the stomach!" Julio gave Angela sour look and rubbed his stomach. To tell the truth, Julio was actually now sort of nervous to meet Angel's parents. But they couldn't be any worse than their daughter, right?

"I only eat so much because I am a guy," Julio said loftily. "Not because of my powers. Comes from being an ambient energy manipulator."

"We all have that excuse...well, except for being a guy." She snorted as she stepped on the stool to attach the next mistletoe. "I might act like you guys but, really, so not a guy. Hey..." Angel grinned at Julio, eyes sudden looking very evil. "What do you say we go, once we're done here, decorate a certain sour pusses door? We'll be all quiet and stuff and cover it in mistletoe."

"See, you are nice and wanting to decorate. I would just sabotage the door to fall on him," Julio said, holding the stepladder steady with a foot. "Would save us all the trouble. The man has more than enough evidence against him, why do we need to protect this asshole for his evidence? I alone could send him to jail for the rest of his life and then some." There was no question about who Julio was talking about.

"I know." She patted him on the head, not in a condescending way but because that was the part that was easiest for her to reach while still on the stool. "I haven't met him yet but...you know, this is a school." Angel quieted down and fiddled with the mistletoe. "And this is home, too, you know? I mean, we have other homes but we live here and it's like a huge family so...it's home. I guess that makes him the ornery uncle no one wants because he smells funny."

"I have one of those. Two, actually. We just feed them alcohol until they pass out and do not bother anyone anymore." Julio handed Angel a garland to attach to the mistletoe to hide it better. "I would suggest we do the same for tio cabron, but the bastard might have a sped up metabolism."

"I need to remember that little trick the next time there's a family get together," Angel muttered, sticking her tongue out as she hooked up the garland. "Man, this stuff makes my nose itch. And yeah, he'd probably burn it off before you managed to find a second bottle, or something. We should see if we can get Forge to set his T.V. to play only "It's a Wonderful Life" until the New Year."

"No, we need a really bad movie. How about the one with the Home Improvement guy? The one about him killing and becoming Santa?" Julio sneezed at the dust from the Christmas decorations. He extended a hand to help Angel down off the stepladder.

"...but I kind of like that movie," Angel muttered under her breath, not looking sheepish at all. Bad movies were a rite of passage between her and her dad. "Now that would work because Tim Allan would annoy the ever living daylights out of the old fogy."

"It is done," Julio said solemnly. "Something to bring Christmas cheer to the bastard. And we should do something to his door. Something shiny and hideous."

"We'll give him Christmas cheer even if we have to spike the eggnog! My uncle's very, very good at that. One year, they totally didn't mark which eggnog was the eggnog of doom and I ended trying to climb up the chimney to see if Santa got stuck." Angel paused. "Actually, that was last year."

Julio coughed, "I will not mention what happened at last year's Christmas party that did not involve tequila at all." Especially since it involved the loss of his virginity in a coat closet.

"Not at all, huh?" She snickered and then stepped back to admire their handiwork. "Wow, it's starting to shape up. The only thing we have to do is burn that stupid tree and then a few other places, since I know we're not the only ones helping to decorate." Angel pointed a finger at him sternly. "We must remember where we put these."

"Yes, we would not want to be caught under one. Especially say, if I got caught with one of the Stepfords." Julio shuddered.

"Thankfully, if I get caught with someone muuuch older than I am, I just scream jailbait as loud as possible and run away. Now what...oh, oh I know!" Tossing down the remaining Christmas items, Angel grabbed Julio by the hand and started to tug him towards the door. "Flying! I need to show you flying!"

"Now?" Julio asked as he was yanked out the door. "I guess now it is. If you fall, I promise to run away and get you help as soon as possible," he promised.

"You're such a gentleman." Once they were outside, Angel had him stand on the porch while she went onto the grass. "Just in case of, you know, fire. Better scorched earth than porch any day."

Closing her eyes, Angel took a deep breath, pushing everything out of her mind. As she concentrated, the sheen of fire around her body came to life, casting a moving blue glow on everything around them. It grew brighter until she opened her eyes and grinned at Julio, hovering a good foot off the ground.

Julio whistled appreciatively. "Now if we could hang a garland from you, we could use you as a Christmas decoration." He held up his hand quickly. "Kidding, kidding. I found out If I work at it correctly I can actually move the ground around. We really are the planeteers."

"I could be the angel," she said, giggling as she willed herself down. Angel stumbled a little bit and rubbed her eyes. "Man, that makes me tired but not as much as it did before. And you can? Oh man, that's awesome! We should make shirts or something."

"I shall show you one of these days." He reached out and steadied her, wrapping his arm under her shoulders. "Come on back inside while you can still walk. I am not carrying you again."

Angel mock pouted at him. "Aw, man, and there goes half the fun of showing you," she teased, not pulling away because that felt nice. Argh, all Marius' fault. "And you do have to show me, fair's fair and all that. I wonder if there are any cookies left over..."