Amanda and John | Thursday Evening (Backdated!)

[x-pyromania.livejournal.com]

'It's the kid inside of us that keeps us all from going crazy.' -J.D-

It had been another long day at the office but John was glad he managed to stay focus enough to complete his report on the situation in Haiti. He was supposed to have met Amanda for Chinese at their usual spot but already late, he had called to see if she would be okay with ordering take out, and to meet him at the loft instead. He let her know that the spare key was kept under the welcome mat and that she could always let herself in if she got there first.

John took the elevator up and took his coat off when he got to the door. He pulled the welcome mat back and noticed that the spare key was gone. Smirking a little, he used his key, turned the knob and opened the door.

"Honey, I'm home."

Amanda looked up from her sprawl on the couch, where she was ruffling Joyita's ears. The chocolate Lab had her head laid on the witch's stomach and seemed rather blissful about the attention. Several bags on the coffee table emitted an aromatic mix of food smells.
 "Took your bloody time," Amanda complained, although her tone was far from cranky. "I was about to eat your share and all."


John placed his briefcase on the floor; right where he thought Angelo would trip over it when he got back, and walked over to the couch. "Joy Toy. Get off my woman." He leaned down and gave the dog a light flick on her ear before he turned his attention to Amanda. "Sorry you had to wait. Nathan would have strangled me if I didn't send that report out. You know how the old man is." Of course, John had spent the better part of his afternoon catching up on some schoolwork. It seemed that juggling Elpis and his masters education was no easy task.

"Hungry, huh?" He let out a smile as he surveyed the number of takeout bags on the table and reached for the chopsticks, handing one over to Amanda. "I forgot to tell you that it was just us. Angelo's at his mom's place."

"Oh." For a moment Amanda seemed disappointed, but it passed soon enough. She sat up, dislodging Joyita who made a small wuffing noise and headed off towards Angelo's room. "Well, then, all the more for us. Which is good, 'cause with all the magic I wound up doing down in New Orleans, 'm starving." The last was said with an exaggerated pout at her suffering while waiting for him to show.

He smirked and tapped Amanda on the nose. "You can have additional wontons then." And maybe a peek at his fortune cookie which he never read out loud or shared with anyone because he always had the worst fucking luck with them. "I thought you were in New Orleans for..." He searched for a word that would best describe her attempt to be normal. "Recreational purposes or something like that?" John handed Amanda the fried dumplings as he sat next to her with his box of spicy noodles.

"Teaching," she replied, slightly muffled by the wonton she'd stuffed in her mouth as soon as she'd gotten her hands on the box. "I took Nico down to meet Tante Mattie, but of course, something came up as well. Marie-Ange needed a helping hand to get back home, finally."

"Yeah? Well, Nick's back too, I heard." John had overheard the boy's name being mentioned while he had been at the mansion last week. "But what the hell happened with Marie-Ange anyways? Is she all right?"

"Yeah, Kurt called me to let me know about Nick. Poor kid doesn't know who he is, but at least he's alive." Amanda reached for the container of fried rice and dumped some into her bowl. "As for Angie... she's fine. It was a pre-cog thing that made her up and leave the Trenchcoats, she had a vision that needed something doing, but if all of us got involved, we would have died, so she says. So she took off on her own, spent months trying to work an angle and at the end needed a bail out. Since I was in the area any way, I obliged." She grinned at John. "All in a day's work, really."

"Definitely better than being cooped up in the office all week. All that trouble and chaos, to be honest, sometimes I wonder why I'm not working with your team of misfits and rogues." John got up to get two bottles of beer from the fridge. "Did Angelo tell you we're planning on taking over the White House? He's running for President someday. The boy has big ambitions. Me? I'd like to convince him to gather all the humans and ship them off to, hell, I don't know, outer space?"

"I have to admit, sometimes I wonder the same thing," Amanda agreed with a grin. "Then again, you couldn't handle the pace. Too much discipline for you," she added, teasing. "And is that even a job title? Besides 'Lord Bastard'?"

John grinned right back. "Don't you be dissing his dreams. I fully support it. Out of complete self-interest and all that." He opened the beer bottle, threw the cap into the bin and handed one over to Amanda. "So what else has got you busy these days, Mandy? Cause we don't see each other as much anymore. I'm starting to feel a little neglected." Not that he could remember the last time he made an effort to get in touch with her seeing as to how he was playing the part of an antisocial hermit these days. John drank his beer and stole a piece of wonton from Amanda's box.

"I'm dissing your dreams, not his," Amanda pointed out, too distracted by the beer to stab John's thieving hand with her chopsticks. "Mutant world domination an' all - what would the X-geezer say?" Her scolding was mostly teasing, as the twinkle in her eyes showed. "I dunno, the usual. Work, mostly, teaching Nico how not to use her roomies as snack bars, that sort of thing. It seems like everyone else is busy with stuff lately, so I just don't seem to hook up with you all that much." She paused. "Which reminds me. The rumour mill has it you've been at the mansion more often lately." She winked at him.

He choked on his beer. What the hell was it with people noticing that? John shook his head with a wave of his hand and he put his takeout box on the table, proceeding to locate another dish to occupy Amanda with. "Doppelganger." He handed her a box of Dim Sum, hoping that would distract her.

"Of you or of me?" she asked, not to be dissuaded from her teasing quite so easily, not when John was so rattled. "Word is you've been seen with another blonde. Should I be jealous?"

John narrowed his eyes at her, wondering just how much she knew. There was no way in hell was going to tell her that he might have found someone he wanted to spend the rest of next week with. Only he wouldn't be in New York next week as he was heading off to Sudan. Damn Nathan and his fucked up timing.

"No, never," he said, giving her one of his best smiles. "As it is, you already own a sliver of my cold, cold heart, Miss Sefton."

Ooh, she'd landed a hit, to judge from the narrowed eyes. Amanda put on her best innocent face as she nibbled a dim sum. "Well, then, that's good. Since there's your rep as a arrogant bastard to think of. You'd be the last person anyone would think would fall for the whole spring fever thing that's going around."

"If I didn't know better, Mandy, I'd think you were looking to keep me to yourself." John smirked. "'course we're such spitfires," he said. "We'd argue ourselves into bed. Out if it. You'd tell me when I was being an arrogant bastard and I'd tell you when you were being a complete and utter bitch. Then when Angelo finds out, he'd punch me in the face, kick me out of this lovely home we've built. And where would that leave us?"

"You caught me, I'm pining away for you." Amanda laughed and put her hand to her forehead in a dramatic fashion. "Woe is me, for our love must forever be denied! Alas for our forbidden passion!"

"It's a damn shame." John shrugged and finished his beer. He then remembered something important.

"Hey, uh... I'm leaving for Sudan on Saturday but I promised Rachel I would take her to the park, Sunday..." Nathan's daughter was quite possibly the only child in the world John could tolerate, so he would occasionally spend time with her whenever he could. He thought it was good fun teaching the kid to be a little mischievous. "Angelo's gonna take her, of course. But I figured, the more the merrier. Kid likes playing tag. Think you could go along with them?"

Amanda hesitated a fraction - Rachel had been the cause of a lot of the problems between her and Nathan, back in the day, and Amanda still felt a little uncomfortable in the mini-telepath's presence - but nodded. "Sure. Unless I get sent off somewhere myself. What's on in the Sudan?"

"Wells," John replied before proceeding to steal another dumpling from Amanda's box. "Also, a lot of thirsty mutant refugees. You know the kind those bastard humans tend to herd together after they force them out of their homes?"

She made a muffled protest at the theft, mouth full of fried rice, and jabbed at him with her chopsticks. "Mmf!" When she'd swallowed, she said: "Seen plenty of bastard mutants too, like Apocalypse. Having an x-gene doesn't automatically give you victim status. Still, 's good you're going out there. There's a lot of folks need help."

John chuckled and popped the dumpling into his mouth. "Awfully stingy," he commented and braced himself for another jab. He dropped some dim sum into her bowl to make up for stealing her wontons. John wasn't about to get into a debate with her about the mutant-human issue. He preferred to keep his noodles in his bowl and not on his lap.

Amanda smiled to herself, recognising John was going for silence rather than one of their ding-dong debates that usually wound up with property damage of some kind. She tweaked his nose with her chopsticks. "I seem to remember someone saying I could have all the wontons. Just defending what's mine, that's all."

"No, no no. I said additional wontons. Not all." The last time they argued, their fight had turned into something of a sparring match, resulting in a broken television set and a very mad Angelo. John was not about to max out one of his credit cards that way again, although he still claimed it was mostly Amanda's fault for pitching a hissy fit. "But have it your way." John grinned, reaching for the fried chicken. "I'll just have these then."

She poked her tongue out at him. "Are we going to get to the whole spitting in the food to claim it stage? 'Cause I didn't get my cootie shots."

"... Gee, thanks. I think I just lost my appetite right there."