Angelo and Sarah (backdated)

[x-marrow.livejournal.com]

Last Monday, Sarah and Angelo chat after a sparring session. There's a bit of reminiscing, and some discussion about the current state of their lives.



"So", Angelo said, cheerfully ignoring the three months between him and legality and reaching to pour another drink, "anythin' interestin' new with you, while I was in Africa?"

"Bellydance classes." Sarah said this as if there was nothing at all strange about her going out and taking dance classes. After tossing back the rest of her beer, she added, "And I seem to have rediscovered my sense of humour. It was behind the couch the whole time."

"I saw that on the journals", he said, giving her an amused sidelong glance. "You an' Mark at the lessons, huh?" He didn't comment on the last part, though he was pleased.

"He was going, and I figured I hadn't done anything crazy in a while. Good crazy. Not the psychotic kind." She shrugged, glancing down at the floor for a moment. "I get enough of the other kind."

"Everybody needs more good crazy in their life", he declared in agreement. "The other kind's... got its place, for some people." He wasn't entirely ruling himself out, to a point.

She nodded, though about what wasn't clear. "Logan's helping me work through the other kind. He gets it too."

"Yeah, he does", Angelo said neutrally, not disputing what she said and understanding why she needed it, but... that didn't mean he had to like it. Or anything that brought Logan closer to his life in any way.

She glanced around the room, suddenly unsure of what to say. They'd hit the topic that never ended. And she was sure she didn't want to stay there. "So... how was Africa?"

He seized on the new topic readily, not having wanted to get into that argument much either. "Hot. Good beaches. An' the lemurs, of course."

"Of course. Getting away is good sometimes." She smiled. "It's good to have you back though."

He grinned. "Good to be back. An' saner than when I was first back from Israel."

"I'd say sanity is overrated, but well, that takes us back to that topic we just artfully avoided. So I won't." She ignored the fact that she had anyway, and stretched, bony shoulders snagging at her shirt.

"Only some kinds of sanity", he said with a shrug. "But, okay, not that topic either." He took another drink.

After a long pause, Sarah rolled her eyes. "Great. So now we've run out of conversation topics that don't delve into self-pity. Can we just start hitting each other again? That seemed to work really well."

Angelo laughed. "We could. Or maybe we should get the self-pity ones out of the way."

"Why? It's just the same old shit all over again." Sarah had been in such a good mood. Surely she could have come up with something engaging to talk about? That's what you did with friends right?

That got a shrug. "Or we don't have to. You could tell me what's goin' on with Mark's Shakira fixation instead."

Sarah laughed again, almost relieved to have a less heavy topic to work with. It kept her from wondering why she had such a hard time talking to him now. Just friends, how hard was that? Honestly. "Sometimes there is no explanation for Mark. That's just Mark."

Angelo had been wondering the same thing - sure, 'friendship' hadn't really worked out with Paige after their break-up, even if there was no hostility, but it had to be possible to be friends with a woman you'd used to sleep with. Didn't it? "On the good drugs", he said with a nod. "An' he offered to share. Shame I was on meds, or I'd have said yes."

Smiling, Sarah hummed thoughtfully. "I must've gotten the contact high. Yes. That's my excuse."

Angelo laughed. "What, for the dancin'? Or for encouragin' him?"

"A little bit of both. Why I decided that now was a good time to quit being boring. Why I actually told Logan to lighten up last week." Sarah exhaled dramatically. "And here I was thinking maybe I'd gone soft."

"Can't imagine you ever really goin' soft", he told her with a crooked grin. "Tellin' Logan to lighten up, though - that really is takin' your life in your hands. But then, he likes you, I guess."

"He does. I think part of it is because I like -him-. It's nice to have a few people who don't think you're going to kill them in their sleep."

"Well, I figure nobody at Snow Valley thinks that", he said lightly. "An' I know I never did."

"I didn't mean me, I meant old 'Mr. Scary'." While she spoke, Sarah picked at the bone at her knuckles to let the skin heal over. "And he doesn't have -you-." Looking up, she smiled lightly.

"Ah, okay." He offered a faint smile back, mostly acknowledgment that no, Logan didn't have him as a friend, without saying it out loud and opening that argument again. "He's got enough people to make him stick around, at least. However many that is."

"So I empathize." Sarah shrugged, and went back to pick at the bone on her hand. "And I don't think he had much choice about liking me. I was determined from that first self-defense class."

That got another quick laugh. "Back when you were at the school? Feels a hell of a long time ago, now." They'd all changed, since then.

Sarah sighed in reply, but it wasn't entirely unhappy. "Yeah, I latched on to the things that reminded me of home. The basement. Logan. Stuff like that."

"Makes sense", he said with a nod. "If I'd had anythin' that reminded me of home much, I'd probably've done the same." Sarah herself had been about the closest he'd found.

She gave him a sideways look, eyebrows raised. "Nothing here reminds you of home?"

Angelo shrugged. "Well... you do, an' my mom of course. An' I guess Julio just because he's Mexican. Nothin' much else, really." And he had latched on to Sarah, in a way, right from the start.

"I do?" She hadn't really considered that before. "Because of the sparring?"

"That's part of it", Angelo said with a nod. "You were like the people I'd hung round with before. Not like the girls I knew back in LA, or most of them", he added with a wry grin. "But like people." Tough, in other words.

Sarah responded with a laugh, nodding as she added, "Yeah. I'm not like most girls people know."

"You can say that again", he said easily and affectionately. "You were kind of... somethin' familiar anyway, though. An' the sparrin' didn't hurt."

"You always were a little weird. Into violence and handcuffs." She grinned, completely ignoring how odd it was that -she- should be calling someone else weird.

That got a blink. "Okay, violence I'll give you, but... handcuffs?" It had been several years ago, and he'd been drunk. Yes, he'd forgotten.

Sarah's smile widened. "I was flipping through some old pictures. I found one with you and Jono handcuffed together."

Angelo's frown grew, in puzzlement rather than displeasure, and then light dawned. "...oh God. You've got pictures from Brighton? That was totally Shinobi's fault, so you know."

"What? The handcuffs? Or that there's evidence of said drunken silliness?" She stuffed her hands in her back pockets, swaying back and forth on her feet. "Because I don't remember him ever being into other -guys- in handcuffs."

"The handcuffs", Angelo insisted, raising his eyebrows at her for her own implications but not otherwise commenting. "We were drunk an' suggestible an' he put us up to it. The photos are his fault too, though."

"Uh-huh." She giggled then, bringing a hand up to cover her eyes. "Now you know how I felt. Of course, when I was drunk he was always trying to get me to do something respectable."

"...now that's just all backward. Since when did anybody ever do anythin' respectable when they were drunk?"

"That's what happens when I'm drunk, and -he's- not. It's like drinking with a babysitter."

Angelo considered this image, and pulled a face, reaching for his drink again. "No fun at all, in other words."

She grinned mischievously. "Not unless I could wander off and find somebody else to dance with."

"An' how often did that happen?" Angelo wanted to know, amused. "I seem to remember a time with you, Paige an' a red dress..." It had been very memorable, after all.

She shot him an amused look, eyebrows raised. "As often as I could manage it." Then she shrugged. "It got to a point in Japan where I was just going out by myself. I didn't even bother trying to get him to go out and have fun anymore."

Angelo nodded. "Picked that part up from a couple things you said. How long'd it go on like that before you came back to America?"

Sarah sighed. "Too long. And then we finally got sick of each other."

He looked at her for a moment, then picked up his glass decisively and took another drink, gesturing in a vague toast immediately afterward. "An' so here we are."

She nodded, mirroring his toast with her own glass. "We've come a long way since then."

"We really have", he agreed. "Look at us - legal jobs an' out to make the world better. Different methods, different teams, whatever, it's still the same thing."

She shrugged. "I don't know about making the world better. I'm just along for the ride."

"Takin' out the bad guys counts", he said quietly. "An' you'll never hear me say there's no place for the way you guys do it."

"Didn't say there wasn't any place for it. Just that I don't see it as being a hero and saving the world."

"Then what would you say it is?" he asked, genuinely interested. "I mean, forget all the hero stuff, forget 'savin' the world'... even if it's not that big, it's still makin' the world better somehow."

"It's a job," she said matter of factly, "and I'm not in it for making the world better. If the world is better because of it, fine, but I'm here mainly because there aren't many places that will put up with my bad days."

Angelo shrugged. "Whatever works for you. I took the job at Elpis 'cause Nathan offered me it an' I didn't have anywhere better to be." It was a simplification, of course, but not untrue for all that.

Sarah grinned slightly at him. "And you're the hero type."

"I guess I am." He returned the grin, crookedly, but his voice was serious. "Turn-up for the books, huh? I'd never have said I'd be on the team, two years ago. Or even one, probably."

She nodded in agreement. "No kidding. Of course, I didn't have -this- team in mind when I swore I'd never join one."

"Well, no." He grinned again and lifted his glass. "It didn't exist back then."

"And the ones that did exist were definitely not for me." She rubbed her palm on her forehead, as if she were rubbing away a headache. "Course, nothing was really for me back then."

"Another way things change", he observed calmly, watching her. "You okay?"

Sarah smiled brightly back at him, almost immediately. "Yeah. I am now."

The almost didn't go unnoticed, and he wasn't entirely convinced by the brightness, but... she wouldn't tell him if she didn't want to, he knew that well enough. "Okay. Good."

She stretched out then, her smile no less bright (though possibly more sincere). "So. Should we do this again next week?"

"I think we should", he said firmly (and maybe the tiniest bit relieved). "Same time?"

"Sounds good. I'll call if we get held up at work. Saving the world and all."

Comments

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

"Then what would you say it is?" he asked, genuinely interested. "I mean, forget all the hero stuff, forget 'savin' the world'... even if it's not that big, it's still makin' the world better somehow."

"It's a job," she said matter of factly,

PING! Marrow absolutely totally gets it! Beauty.