Angel and Jake - Tuesday, late morning

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Angel and Jake meet and bond over donuts. Toasted donuts.



Wanda had resurrected the "IF YOU'RE READING THIS, IT'S TIME TO TAKE A BREAK" sign late last week, once she realized she couldn't see Jake behind the stack of files he was working his way through. He blinked as it dawned on him that he'd been staring at the sign for the last five minutes. Clearly, time for a break. There were donuts in the break room, or at least there had been that morning. At the very least, there was tea. With a sigh, he pushed himself up from the desk and wandered out into the hallway, rubbing at his mouth absently with one hand.

Language lessons finished for the day, Angel paused outside of the break room and squealed happily. Someone had restocked it with goodies! And Doug, out of survival, had told her that if she was hungry while she visited him to help herself. Cackling with glee, she bounded across the room in order to peer happily at the tasty morsels in the box. Grabbing a raspberry donut, she wriggled onto the top of the counter and started in on her prize, humming 'I've got a donut' under her breath.

Jake was three steps into the breakroom before he realized that there was someone there. And not just someone--a girl he'd never seen before. Who, he conceded, had good taste in donuts. "Any left?" he asked, walking over to peer in the box.

Angel, having figured that anyone who wandered in this far into the Snow Valley offices had to belong there, so she just gave the cute, if old, looking guy a jaunty wave. She finished swallowing before she responded. "Five! Oh, wait, no. I'm eating one. Four then. And one's chocolate, even. I'm Angel."

He blinked up at her, pausing with one hand in the box, then snorted audibly. "I--no. Sorry. Had a friend once whose codename was Angel. But you're not really anything like Warren." He picked a donut out of the box. "I'm Jake," he said, transferring the donut to his left hand so he could offer his powdered-sugar-covered one for her to shake. It suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea what she was doing there. "Are you visiting someone?"

Now they were both covered in donut stuff from both of their donuts. They would probably taste fantastic! "Yep! I was here visiting Doug - he's my language tutor. I had a roommate last year who spoke Dari so as a surprise, I started learning it. She went back home but it's fun and I get to come here, learn stuff and eat. You're the new guy at Snow Valley, right?"

"Guilty as charged," he said. He raised an eyebrow, leaning back against the counter. "You have friends who hang out in Afghanistan?" She didn't really look the type, but it was Xavier's; weirder things were known to happen.

"Teeeechnically? That's where she was from and that's where she went back to, so yes?" Grimacing, Angel eyed her fingers and wondered if Jake would mind if she were rude and licked the powder off her hands. "Xavier's tends to get a little bit of everything, you know?"

"Yeah," he said wryly through a mouthful of donut, "I know. Used to spend a lot of time there." He licked his fingers absently. "So are you in school there?"

She nodded, looking quite pleased with herself as she sucked out the innards of the abused donut. "Yeah, I've been there since I was thirteen, so a few years now," Angel replied as her feet swung lazily. "It's still school but it's pretty cool for something that's supposed to be lame." She crossed her eyes at the thought of going to a boring high school.

"You can't do that!" Jake looked horrified as she disemboweled the donut. "You'll ruin the filling-to-pastry ratio!" Instinctively, he held his donut away from her protectively, looking as though he might snag the whole box to save them from her wicked donut mangling ways.

Over the donut, Angel's eyes crinkled with mischief as she promptly hoovered the rest of the filling out. Ignoring the pained whimperings from Jake, she swallowed and shook the now empty donut at him. "If I didn't suck it all out, then when I did this -" Her hands caught on fire for a second, leaving her with a half of a donut that was toasted. "- it would taste grooooooss. Trust me, crispified jelly filling is not tasty."

He stared at her, momentarily dumbstruck with the possibilities. "Toasted donut? That's...that's brilliant! I mean, it's probably better without a filled donut, that way you don't have to ruin it first, but--" He snagged a yeast donut out of the box. "Could you make one for me?"

"But I like being a donut vampire!" Angel protested, placing the remainder of her donut on a napkin by her lap. She took the one that was being waved at her and concentrated - she knew how to do her own but she didn't want to make his be either burnt or not done enough. Both were equally gross. Between her palms, microwave energy bounced back and forth before the flames came into play and in a moment she was offering him a perfectly toasted donut.

"Mmm--ow--" He waved one hand in front of his mouth to cool it. "Thass really good," he said around toasted donut. He swallowed. "I mean, you're still wrong about sucking the filling out, but I'm willing to overlook that in favor of your expert donut-toasting abilities. That's a good skill to have," he said, indicating her hands with a tip of his head.

Maybe she should have warned him it was hot - but, then again, he probably wouldn't have cared either way. "One of many," Angel agreed, beaming at the compliment. "But one of the tastiest, I have to say. Which is good because I really, really like food. Upside of the whole mutant metabolism is I can put away as much as I want to and never worry about it. Mmm, tasty mutant side effects."

He grinned at that. "Me too. Although I don't know that I've ever heard it described as 'tasty mutant side effects.' Maybe I should add that to my resume?"

"You totally should - it'll make it stand out, that's for sure." Angel tilted her head and gave him the once over. "So what do you do? Energy projection or something?"

"Shapeshifter," he replied with a grin. He made sure she was watching, then blinked. When he opened his eyes, his irises had flames dancing across them. "Makes me fun at parties." He blinked, and his eyes returned to their usual blue.

"That ... is ... so COOL!" Angel shrieked, just a little bit. She flapped her hands at him. "So you're kind of like Morgan? Oh man, do you guys prank the office? ...wait, I've met some of them, you might not want to. You had flamey eye things, that's awesome!"

He laughed, taking a step back to keep his pair of half-eaten donuts out of the flail range. "Kind of like Morgan, yes," he replied. "We do different things in different ways, and ultimately she looks like someone, where I just look different. But we have very similar end results." He glanced at the two donuts he still held, trying to decide which to eat first, and ultimately decided to let the toasted one cool down a bit more. "We haven't pranked anyone yet, but I'm sure we will," he said through a mouthful of Boston cream pie. "After all, Wanda's sure to retaliate for the underwear thing."

At that, she started to giggle. "Oh man, that was the best thing ever! Too bad I didn't get to town in time but I've seen some of the other pictures." She glanced side ways and sulked at the fact that the number of donuts was quickly dwindling. "I don't know about you, but I'm still a growing girl and I'm still hungry. ...not saying that you're still a growing girl, though with your powers you could be."

"And have been," he replied. "So glad that's over with." He raised one eyebrow. "Are you insinuating that we need more to eat? Because if so, we might just be new best friends."

"You're real easy, aren't you?" she asked. "I think I like that. But yes, I had breakfast this morning and then that donut but I'm still starving. There's got to be something around here that'll taste good and be filling and not at all healthy because I really don't feel like being healthy today." Give her a burger over a salad any day of the week.

Jake checked his watch; 10:30 was late enough for lunch. Besides, it was noon somewhere. "There's a diner around the corner," he suggested. "Bet I can eat more pancakes than you."

Angel snorted as she jumped off the counter. "I've probably eaten your weight in pancakes before! If I manage to eat more pancakes than you, you pay for breakfast. But! If you manage to eat more, you pay for breakfast."

He gave her a suspicious look. "You're lucky you just introduced me to toasted donuts. And that I'm feeling generous."