xp_logs | Crystal and Angelo - Legal to Drink (Reply)

The day of the Drake-Cassidy wedding, Crystal find Angelo outside, taking a smoking break, and they end up discussing legal drinking ages in various parts of the world.

Crystal was only slighty surprised to realize how nice it had been to see so many people from Xavier's in Ireland, both those she knew from her time at the school and those she only recognized from the journals and brief glimpses around the school. It was... neutral territory. This wasn't Attilan and it wasn't New York. There was no feeling of "this is how you are supposed to behave and act here."

She was on vacation and she was free.

It was almost time to get dressed for the wedding, and Crystal landed from her flight and began to head back to the castle.

Angelo was sitting outside, having escaped from his groomsman duties briefly on the excuse of needing a cigarette. He was making the most of the little time, enjoying his smoke and the landscape in equal measure.

Angelo had been one of the few people from Xavier's to come to Attilan after it had made its second journey through dimensions, but Crystal hadn't had the chance to see him while he was there. She approached him, invisible tendrils of wind keeping the smell and smoke from the cigarette away from her. Crystal could not understand why people would voluntarily and deliberately ruin their lungs and significantly increase the likelihood of getting lung cancer, but she supposed they already knew that information and there was very little point to saying anything about it.

"Hello!" Crystal said when she was in non-shouting distance of Angelo.

He looked up with a smile and a wave, pleased to finally see her. "Crystal! Hey."

"I am sorry that I did not have the opportunity to speak with you before," Crystal told Angelo, "but I am glad to see you here."

"You too", he replied, "an' hey, it's okay. I know you must've been more than busy, back when Attilan first showed up again."

"It is still quite busy there. I was still busy, too, but I needed to get away for a bit and this seemed like the perfect opportunity." Crystal smiled slightly. "It is interesting to be able to attend a wedding I used to think had already happened."

Angelo chuckled. "Yeah, with the time difference, you must be gettin' a lot of that. This weddin', everyone bein' younger than you expected..."

Crystal sat down in mid-air, next to Angelo, still keeping the foulness of his cigarette away from her. "Well, I did have some time to get used to the idea, even if it something quite difference to actually see and experience in person. It would be different to see the students, I think, the people I thought were done with high school or almost done with it but have not even started the next school year."

"It probably would", he agreed. "Or Rachel. 'specially Rachel, even, seein' as she's still only two."

"Two?" Crystal smiled. "She was only one when I left Xavier's. She has had a birthday recently, then. You too, I hear."

"Yep." His grin broadened. "You're lookin' at a legal adult. Finally."

"A legal adult?" Crystal laughed. "Ah yes, the magical American age of twenty-one, when you are allowed to purchase and consume alcohol three years after you are already considered an adult. Most other countries have that age set at sixteen or eighteen."

Angelo pulled a face at her, joking. "Yeah, yeah, rub it in. We have to take what we can get."

"Your country, your rules," she replied lightly with a small shrug. "Not that all American wait until they are twenty-one to drink, of course, nor do people from other countries always feel the need to follow those rules when they visit the United States."

"Oh, I know that", he said with an easy grin. "God knows I haven't always followed them. But it's nice to know I won't get in trouble for it now."

"Well, there is not anything for you to get into trouble with relating to alcohol anymore, is there?" Crystal asked. "Other than purchasing and giving alcohol to someone who is not legally allowed to have it, that is."

He looked a little shifty at that. "I wouldn't do that. Not for anyone who wasn't legally allowed to have it anywhere."

"Oh, of course not. 'Anywhere' is a broad term, though," Crystal pointed out. "Some countries do not even have a minimum age for the consumption of alcoholic beverages."

"Well, then nobody I know was ever illegal there", he noted with a wicked grin. "There's still limits, though."

"As well there should be," Crystal said with a hint of a smile.