Angel & Arthur | Food & Welcome

[x-longshot.livejournal.com]

Angel visits Arthur downstairs with some food and talk.

It probably wasn't as strange of a sight as it should have been to see Angel walking through the halls with a tray of food piled to the ceiling.

She'd heard about what had happened in Nevada, and she knew the new guy was sequestered in a temporary room. But he still had to eat, and to the best of her knowledge nobody had seen him venture out for anything, much less feeding himself.

And it really wouldn't do to have him die of starvation.

She stopped in front of his room, knocking quietly on the door - loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to be obnoxious. "Xavier's human food truck, at your service!" She called cheerily.

"S'open."

Arthur was sprawled on the floor staring very intently at the ceiling. He did, however, prop himself up on his elbows to greet his visitor with a trademark smile.

Angel nudged her way into the room, raising an eyebrow when she saw him laying on the floor. "Dude I know you like, climbed the Mount Everest and slept in caves and stuff, but we've got really good beds here and I don't think the pillow gods would mind if you made use of 'em."

She got a smirk for this, and the man held up a finger to his mouth before motioning to a pile of pencils at his side. He raised both eyebrows dramatically before lying back down and pointing a pencil at the ceiling.

A twist and a flick later, the pencil's tip was embedded in the ceiling with ten or so others.

"Ah!" Angel laughed at that, kneeling to set the food tray down. "Mind, whoever has to fix the ceiling probably won't be too pleased, but I supposed whoever had to fix my room after I nearly burned it down a couple times didn't like that too much either." Quiet was not her forte.

Arthur let out an amused chuckle as he settled ungracefully into a criss-cross applesauce position. It was only then that he blinked his eyes open slowly. "I've been in a few fires recently. It isn't really the thing you guilt people about."

"Fire's my biz, no one can make me guilty about randomly exploding." Angel giggled as she sat as well, pushing the tray closer. "Go on, eat. Bad for our image if someone starves to death on the premises."

The television stared blankly mouthed "Fire's your bi--" before his expression morphed into a quiet "oh" shape at the implication. He looked dispassionately at the food, and dialed the enthusiasm up several hairs. "Thank you so much, really, -- awesome! -- but I am not not that hungry."

Angel giggled as the realization finally settled over the man. "Not hungry? Really? Is that feeling?" She couldn't remember the last time she had been not hungry. Even when she was stuffed to the point of exploding she was still hungry. One of the downfalls of being an energy projector.

"I've had a tough week. I'm doing my best to keep up a brave, handsome, and unbelievably macho facade." His tone was self-mocking, but his eyes couldn't hide that part of that statement was true.

"Yeah, I heard," Angel admitted, letting the smile fade a bit. "Not that it's all over the mansion or anything, I'm just special." AKA she had access to X-Men files. "But hey, you're among friends here. No need for silly facades."

"I'm an actor. Silly facades are my bread and butter."

"Yeah but I'm not paying you to pretend you're okay." Angel gave his knee a tiny, barely there poke. "Put your mad skills to rest and save 'em for when you really need them."

He sighed defeatedly. "I vote we change the subject. You said that this was a mansion?"

"Fair enough dude." Angel was inwardly smug though. She knew she'd won. "Yeah guess you didn't get the grand tour when you came. I'll give it to you when you're feeling up to it - did I ever introduce myself by the way? I'm Angel - but yeah, big ol' bonified mansion. Complete with secret passages and probably ghosts and twenty-billion rooms we never use and everything."

"Well now," Arthur leaned forward in interest, "You should always lead with ghosts and secret passages. They make a much more compelling story. Mutants on the run for their lives take refuge in a haunted mansion, only to find a dead end."

He bit in lip in consideration. "Probably needs more friendly ghosts seeing as how you live here and all."

Angel shook her head, laughing. "You just can't turn it off, can you?" She teased. "Besides, the ghosts are much less interesting than the demon attacks."

He bit his lip again, but for entirely different reasons. "Demon what?"

"Ah shoot, I'm supposed to find a better way to introduce that stuff." Angel sighed. "Don't worry, it doesn't crop up that often at all. There's just a...thing sometimes. Demons come and kidnap people or something."

Yeah, no. Arthur was still struck speechless. Mostly. "You... well, you lot need to work on your sales pitch."

"I have an idea," he said with brightening eyes, "Tell me your favorite thing here instead. What do you all do for fun?"

"Yeah, this might be why I'm not allowed to talk to new people." Angel laughed, rocking back. "For fun? Well, I eat. And swim. There's a nice lake out back, I wouldn't generally recommend swimming at this time of year but something tells me that might not bother you?"

This got a laugh. "Contrary to what my publicist may say, I do not consider freezing to death 'fun.' A good high? Sure. I've had enough frostbite for one lifetime." He wiggled his right hand to show off a lack of complete digits.

"Aaaawwww, but a little frostbite is so refreshing." Angel laughed. "There's also an indoor pool if you really want to avoid frostbite though. We've also got New York City close by if you want a real life-threatening adventure."

"I..." he hesitated, "I'm good for now on the life-threatening. Check in next week. Plus, I've always been more of a rock climbing kind of guy."

He sighed, slumping back into a front hinge. "They tell me I'm going to be here for awhile."

"Hey, fair enough man. I'm sure we can arrange for some rock climbing if you ever want it." Angel grinned, winking.

"Yeah, probably. But there are definitely worse places to be. You could be like...stuck at the circus with monkeys." She shuddered at the thought.

"What's wrong with monkeys? I've known plenty of apes in suits."

"Dude they're creepy! with their weird fingers and those tails — nope, man. They're weird. Gimme fuzzy cuddly things any day."

Arthur was trying very hard not to giggle too loudly. "I honestly hope there's a story behind this."

"Well you see, it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Our protagonist, a beautiful, brilliant, modest redhead..."