Frank and Angel: Checking in!

[x-pinnochio.livejournal.com]

Frank meets Angel. Also a ferret.


Frank sat on the stairs with a pad of paper in front of him, blank, beautiful and untouched. It had been like that for the past half-hour. He’d been taught by both parents that the best thing a writer could do- like, ever- was go looking for trouble and write about it. The stairs seemed a perfectly good place for that. Problem was...
He growled. Writer’s block was a cruel mistress.

"You know what a great idea for a story would be?" A cheerful voice piped up behind Frank. "The misadventures of shiny-loving ferrets."

"Nah. I was told never to work with-" Frank stopped. Frank saw the small, furry animal looking back at him consideringly. Frank did not continue his previous statement.

"Is that... is that a ferret?" He asked, slightly disbelievingly.

"Yup!" Angel said happily, flopping down on the stairs and holding the blonde ferret out so Frank could examine it. "This is Twinkie. His partner-in-crime is currently locked away in their cage, this little bug decided to escape though. If you own anything shiny and it ever goes missing, there's a whiteboard hanging up outside my suite door, just leave a note because these two probably took it."

Ferrets. Kleptomaniac ferrets that lived with a crazy redhead chick. This school was insane. "I, uh... I'll keep that in mind," he said eventually, before tentatively reaching out to scritch the blonde little beast behind the ears. He stopped, just a little out of range. "He doesn't bite, does he?"

"Nah." Angel shook her head, readjusting Twinkie a bit so she could pet him too. "He's a teddy bear. Well, he's a ferret. But he's a teddy bear ferret, aren't you Twinkie?" The ferret's nose twitched in response.

Best to take that as a yes. Frank's fingertips nuzzled behind the little mammals ears and scratched tentatively. "Hi Twinkie," he said, a tiny smile building over his lips. "'M Frank. Nice to meet you."

"Hi Frank!" Angel said in a high-pitched voice, bouncing the ferret a bit. "Do you have any shinies? I like shinies!"

It was a credit to Frank that he did not immediately snatch back his hand and stare at Angel. Instead, he moved his hand around to under Twinkie's chin. "Sorry, Twinkie. No shinies. I'm a very... not-shiny kind of guy." He looked up at Angel through his eye-lashes as he said it.

Yeah. Definately crazy.

"Aaaawww, that's too bad," Angel continued in the same high-pitched voice before laughing. "No, really, I swear, I'm a responsible adult." She was still giggling as she made herself more comfortable on the stairs, readjusting Twinkie, who was trying to squirm out of her hands. "So how've you been? Settling in all right?"

Frank didn't respond immediately. Then, "this is about Mr. Espinosa's office, right? I'm really sorry about that." As soon as Angel had settled in next to him, he gently started scritching Twinkie again. It was weirdly relaxing.

"Dude I set someone's pants on fire once, punching a wall is not the worst thing ever," Angel assured him, petting Twinkie down as well. "Walls can be fixed and you didn't break any fingers. Do you mind if I ask what exactly happened, though?" Angelo had explained, but she wanted to hear it in Frank's words.

Again, there was a long pause. He didn't want to talk about this. But then, she wasn't going to go away otherwise, was she...

"We were talking," he said eventually. "I'd heard about Elpis before, but I never heard the details. Dad had- he'd talked about it, but there were never any specifics. I wanted to hear- to know- the full story. So he told me." Scritch, scritch, scritch. Take a breath. Let it settle before you speak. "Turns out my dad had been keeping a lot of stuff from me. Genosha, for example."


Angel tilted her head a bit as Frank spoke, her expression neutral. "Genosha's one hell of an extreme example. But...yeah. I can see why that would make you want to punch a wall. Sounds like your dad was trying protect you." It wasn't easy being a mutant in this world. She could see a parent wanting to shelter his kid. Didn't mean it was good for him, of course...

"Sure. Protect me," Frank muttered, face blank. His finger tips scritched just a little too hard for a moment, and Twinkie squeaked in protest. Frank winced. "Sorry, Twinkie," he muttered stroking the ferret's head gently. Then, "It wasn't Genosha that... set me off. It was- we got onto other stuff. Homelessness and things. Just general stuff we have to deal with because we're such freakish perversions of nature, right?" The venom and derision in his tone could have etched steel.

"I got mad. It's so god-damn dumb, and it happens because people are so god-damn dumb. What am I supposed to do with that?"

Angel shushed Twinkie when he squeaked, petting him down again. "Yeah, it is," she agreed quietly. "It's completely dumb. But that's what makes things X-Corps and Elpis and Xavier's so important. Because people are dumb. And forty years from now people are going to look back and say, 'Wow, remember that time when people thought mutants weren't equal? That's so stupid.' But right now people are still dumb. And you know what you can do with that anger? You channel into something. Something besides punching walls, I mean."

"But it feels so good," groused Frank, shooting Angel a slightly crooked smile. Then he picked up the pad of paper again. "In all seriousness, that's what this is for. I had this English teacher who used to say the best writing is usually the angriest writing. I figure I couldn't actually be angrier without taking a flamethrower to my book collection, so..." he gestured vaguely at the stairs. Then he sighed. "Ain't really coming today, though. Seems angry needs inspiration too."

Twinkie finally managed to squirm out of Angel's hands, and hopped into Frank's lap, making himself quite comfortable. "Like I said - a story about the misadventures of shiny-loving ferrets." She laughed. "But yeah, no flamethrowers and no lighting things on fire. Tell you what, how about instead of sitting here and being brooding and angry and not writing, you come up and meet Slinky? And maybe we can talk about other things you can do with the anger. You know, when writing doesn't quite seem able to cover it."

"Slinky? You named your ferrets Twinkie and Slinky?" He picked up Twinkie from his lap and made thoughtful eye contact with him. "I cannot tell if that is awesome or insane. What do you think, Twinkie? Awesome or insane?"

He put Twinkie down, and looked at Angel squarely.

"Thank you, but no. I..." he paused, and then tried to figure out how to say what he had to say next. "I've got a handle on it," he said eventually. "When I don't, I'll let you know. I'll even bring coffee and a big ole' sign saying 'you are right and I am wrong, forever and ever amen.' But till then, I- I've got a handle on it, ma'am."

"It's completely insane," Angel said cheerily. "But hey, we're all happy, right? And dude, you don't have to call me ma'am - just Angel is fine. But I'm holding you to that - next inanimate object you punch - or animate for that matter - I'm tying you down and you're going to have to listen to the very boring Angel-as-a-mentor speech. And yes, I mean literally tie you down." The fact that she said all this with quite a smile didn't detract from the seriousness of the words.

A moment of consideration. Frank looked at Twinkie. Then he looked back at her. "Does it count as animate if they come at me first? Because I reserve the right to punch anyone who comes at me first."

"Twinkie and I do not condone violence," Angel said after a moment. "However, we recognize the fact that everyone has the right to defend themselves, and anyways there are very few people in this mansion who would pick a fight with you."

"Wasn't talking about the people here," Frank growled. There was something very angry behind his eyes as he said it. He pushed it away. "I appreciate the effort, though. Trying to get me to talk. It's- thank you."

Angel wasn't oblivious - she saw the anger. But she knew when it was time to push and when that would only do more harm than good. "Nothing to thank me for, I'm happy to listen if you ever want to talk. Or to sit here with cute ferrets and make you talk when you don't want to. Can't say no to these faces, right?"

"I admit, they're pretty convincing." He scritched Twinkie again, and then reluctantly handed him back. "Your choice in pets is awesome, by the way."

"Ferrets, man, they're the best." Angel smiled as she took the ferret back. "Seriously, you're welcome to come by and visit them any time you want, these guys love attention. Don't even have to talk, if you just need to see a cute face, they're more than happy to be adorable for you."


"May take you up on that," said Frank, smiling crookedly. "Although if I see a sock on the door, I'll try and restrain my hunger for cute." He turned back to the pad of paper. "This is never gonna get written, is it," he finally muttered. "Like, at all. You know what I need? Coffee. By the truck load." Frank stood up. "Wanna come get caffeinated?"

"Good man," Angel said with a laugh. "But fortunately for you and your appetite for cuteness, my suitemate and I don't have social lives." She grinned. "You, Frank Ludlum, just said the magic words. Come. Let us find buckets of caffeine to consume."