xp_logs | Angelo and Marie

After classes, Angelo wandered along to Marie's room to see if she was there. He hadn't seen her about as much as usual, and was a little concerned about her uncharacteristic absence. Arriving at the door, he knocked and waited for an answer.

Marie was curled up on the couch with a psychology textbook, going over the week's course material for first year psychology. It was remarkably mundane, most of it, and she was a little bored. "Come on in," she called, when she heard the knock.

Angelo opened the door and put his head round it, smiling. He'd been unaccountably cheerful that day, especially after the last week - the silly icons must have cheered him up. "Hey, Marie."

"Hey, honey." Marie closed her book when she saw Angelo and gave him a smile. "How're you doing?"

Angelo came into the room, closing the door behind him. "Better, actually. That April Fool prank's cheered me up some."

"It was pretty cute, wasn't it?" Marie tossed her book to the coffee table where it landed with a resounding thud. "Good to see you smiling."

Angelo grinned and nodded. "Yeah, I know. 's been kind of a rough week. But hey, Manuel's not out to get me anymore, so I guess things are lookin' up."

"I hope so." Marie yawned and stretched. "I was getting a little tense about things with Manny. I know people aren't satisfied with what he had to say, but it was a start. And I can't say how glad I am that he's laying off this idea of revenge on you."

Angelo nodded again, his smile fading very slightly. "I guess his apology to Bobby was a start, an' I do know the... loop thing was an accident. But he didn't mention what he said about Bobby after - not that I wanted him to, not where everybody could see..."

"I don't think people understand his pride and what it means for him to have made a public admission like that. What he said about Bobby, I hate it like poison." Marie pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them, feeling her back crack as she did so. "But he's trying, so it's something."

Angelo acknowledged this with a nod, padding over to sit down on the couch next to her. "I know. Just... still don't know if I trust him, y'know?"

"You don't have to, Angelo," Marie said. "He's still not stable, so no wonder you don't trust him. It's okay."

"Don't know if I'm all that stable myself", Angelo muttered, head bent. "Up, an' down, an' breakin'..."

"Aren't we all?" Marie said, a bit sharply. She stood up and scooped her empty tea cup from the coffee table and headed for the kitchen with it. "No one here is okay all the time, Angelo, no one. Not me, not Logan, not Scott... none of us."

Angelo glanced up at her, blinking a bit. "Then I guess you all are just better at pretendin'."

"You get used to it. We're all broken, Skin." Marie turned the stove on under the kettle and stood in the kitchen, arms crossed over her chest. "I don't think I'm more stable than anyone else. I'm just better at keeping my feet than some."

Angelo nodded. "How d'you do it?" he asked softly. "How'd you keep your feet?"

"I don't know. Or maybe I don't even do that." Marie came back and sat down beside him. "Maybe I just fall down where few people notice." She shrugged. "I had a huge fight with Logan early yesterday morning, ended up crying all over Doug after and then just plain crying on and off for the rest of the morning. No one knows that but the two of them, and now you. See what I mean? I can't explain it. Before, that would have felt like the end of the world. Now it's just another crappy day."

Angelo nodded. "Yeah, I get what you mean. You know you can always come find me on the crappy days, right? If you need to?" He sighed, then admitted, "It's weird. I'm still gettin' used to the idea that I might, possibly, not be goin' to die young, an' I'm havin' worse days, more often, than I ever did back then."

"You slow down, you have time to think, it catches up. It'll pass." Marie gave Angelo's hand a squeeze. "You go that long under all that stress, you build up a backlog of stuff to process. You're going to live. You have a lot to lose now. That's going to weigh on you too. Again, it'll pass."

He chuckled slightly, ironically. "Y'know, I already lost almost everythin' I ever had once. Not sure I could handle it again."

"I know, honey. I think there's a lot of people here who understand that completely. I can't say it won't happen again." She looked sad. "But I know if it does, you'll know how to deal with it and keep going."

He shrugged. "Yeah. I survived it once already. But I didn't do so well last time - it was survivin', but not much more. Maybe nothin' more. It didn't kill me right off, but much longer on the streets, an' who knows? An' if I ended up back down there..."

"You're a different person now." The kettle whistled and Marie got up to turn it off. "And you know things now that you didn't know then. You're stronger, and you know that it's not the only end. You'd manage."

"But where would I go?" he asked quietly. "If somethin' happened an' I lost everythin' here? Can't go back to LA, an' where's there to go for a kid without much education an' with no money?"

"There's places to go. People like Dr Samson. People like Charles. You know they're out there because you've found it once. You'd find someone who knows someone. You'd make do." Marie poured water into the tea pot. "And even if you ended up back turning tricks, Angelo? You'd know this time that it didn't make you less of a decent deserving person, it was just what you had to do to get by. It would be different this time because it is not then, it is now."

He nodded. "Okay. I've been tryin' to believe it..."

"I have complete faith, Angelo, that you are stronger than you think you are." Marie put her hands on her hips and looked at him from across the room. "And if you forget, I'll come kick your ass. Even if I'm dead, I'll come kick your ass. So if you find yourself out on the street with nothing, at least remember that. Don't make me come down there."

He smiled faintly. "Thanks. 's good to know."

Marie smiled back at him. "Any time. You want some tea?"