Alex and Angelo || Sunday Afternoon

[xp_havok]

Alex and Angelo run into each other while Alex is bringing home a new stray. There's talk of life and,
more significantly, marriage.

"Come on little dude," Alex said gently as he carried the dirty, mangy pup through the mansion gates. "We'll get you cleaned up and hopefully Mama Lorna won't be mad that I brought you home."

The puppy whined, clearly scared, and Alex sat down, letting the little guy settle in his lap and petting him gently. "It's okay, nothing's gonna hurt you bud."

Twigs crackled under something's feet in the woods nearby. Something that soon proved to be a chocolate lab, greying a bit around the muzzle, on an extending lead.

She stopped, cocked her head at the puppy, then barked cheerfully.

The puppy whimpered and apparently decided Alex was the safer option here; it burrowed into Alex's chest. He laughed. "It's okay bud, she's friendly, see?" He reached out to pet Joyita and looked up the lead to see the human holding it. "'Sup?"

Angelo came closer and started retracting the leash slowly to encourage Joyita back towards him.

"Hey. She really won't hurt him. Never been in a fight in her life."

"Oh, I know that. I think he's just a little nervous. I've been seeing him on the streets for a few weeks now." Alex nudged the dog, petting his head. "It's okay, dude, really. No danger here."

"Poor little guy." He crouched down. "Looks like he could do with a good bath, to start with... I'm Angelo, and this is Joyita."

"Yeah, I'm hoping Lorna won't be too mad I didn't ask to bring him home first." Alex nudged the dog again, and he turned slowly in Alex's lap to see the new people. "See? Everyone is friendly." The puppy slowly crawled out of Alex's lap, sniffing Angelo's knee.

"I can't see how she would be, when she gets a look at him. Unless she really hates dogs." He held out an outstretched hand, palm up, as Joyita settled at his side.

"I'm sure she'll be fine with it," Alex said confidently. The puppy hesitantly sniffed Angelo's hand. "So what's up?"

"Just giving the lady her exercise", he said easily, petting Joyita with his free hand and making no sudden movements with the other. "You, apart from the new arrival?"

The puppy finally seemed to decide that Angelo was cool, and gave his hand a small nudge. "I'm alright. Mostly quiet, ya know, besides the whole getting caught in a hostage situation. Lots of wedding planning."

Angelo grinned and slowly lifted his hand to scratch the puppy behind the ears.

"Hostage situation? You mean the bank thing, or something I missed?"

"Bank," Alex clarified. "Though to be honest, I think I'd rather go another round with a guy with a gun than keep looking at china patterns. They just all look the same to me."

Angelo pulled a sympathetic face. "Yeah, when you get down to that level of detail, I can't say I blame you. But I'm guessing it'd upset Lorna if you didn't take an interest."

"It's not even that I'm not interested, ya know?" Alex said quickly. "I spent hours staring at two patterns last night trying to find a difference."

"See, in that case, I'd just have picked one and said you liked it better. 'Cept then you might have had to explain why."

"Yeah I think I'm gonna just have to tell her they all look the same to me and maybe we can move on to invitations." Alex laughed. The puppy finally moved slowly to Joyita, sniffing at the other dog's paws.

Angelo grinned. "You never know, she might be thinking the same thing and be glad you told her. When's the wedding planned for?"

Joyita kept still, patiently letting the puppy investigate her.

"October." Alex smiled, a bit stupidly. "We're thinking a nice outdoor wedding. Ya know, use the backyard here. There's plenty of it." The puppy sniffed for another moment before nudging Joyita.

Angelo nodded. "And the weather should still be nice enough in October. Bit of a bite in the air, but not freezing. You got a minister lined up?"

Joyita responded by licking the puppy's face.

The puppy yelped, then realized it wasn't hurt and hopped forward onto Joyita's paws. "Neither of us is particularly religious, so I don't know if we're going with a minister. We might just try to find a friend who's registered to be an officiant. I'm sure somewhere here is."

She set about trying to wash him. "If they aren't, give them enough warning and they could be. That way you wouldn't have to worry about anybody's reaction to our more unusual folks, too."

Alex laughed. "Yeah we'd already have a hard enough time explaining why her hair is green, never mind anything else."

"Well, no, plenty of people dye their hair funny colours. Not that that's really a safe thing to do in America these days."

"Yeah." Alex's mind drifted to Collin for a moment, but he shook that thought off quickly. "I think it'd be more personal to have someone we know officiate, anyways."

Angelo nodded. "It's a nice idea. I might even have to think about stealing it."

The puppy yipped, bouncing and headbutting Joyita, and Alex's eyebrows shot way up. "Is that a 'someday in the far future if I ever have the occasion to do so' thought or a 'I should suggest this to my fiance as soon as I get back inside' thought?"

Joyita pushed herself to her feet, the better to join the play, and Angelo shrugged.

"Somewhere in the middle. I mean, we only started talking about marriage a couple months ago. Didn't get into the fine details yet."

"DUDE!" The puppy jumped at Alex's loud exclamation, then decided playing with Joyita was more fun. "That's awesome, though, congrats!"

He grinned - it was difficult not to, in the face of that kind of enthusiasm. "Yeah, we think so. And we'll be going for a civil ceremony too, so it could easily be here."

"This seems like a good place to get married, I think." Alex looked around at the large grounds. "Nice, secluded, good scenery... short travel for you and your guests."

"And everybody here already knows about visible mutants. Which, I can pass, but it either takes technology or serious effort."

"Besides, you've got bigger things to worry about on your wedding than 'what if the image projector goes nuts' or focusing on passing."

"Yep." He grinned. "Not that I'd be worrying about it in the room, if the judge already knew, 'cause the only people there would be friends, but outside, yeah, good to have one less thing to think about."

"You'll have plenty of other stuff to think about, I'm sure." Alex grinned. The puppy headbutted Joyita's legs.

"I think we'll probably wind up leaving most of the planning to his cousin." The 'his' was as casual as the rest of the sentence, as Joyita ducked her head to snuffle at the puppy. "She's good at it."

"Wish one of us had a cousin who was good at planning." Alex sighed exaggeratedly. "So is this like a common knowledge thing that I've just missed, or is it a 'we haven't told many people yet' thing?" Not that he was going to go around yelling it down the halls or anything, but it was always good to know how private people were keeping things.

"Sorta the second. We will, just haven't got around to it yet. Some important people've been away, it's not the kind of thing you should tell somebody close over email - though for my sister I might have to - and I wanted to tell them first." He smiled wryly. "Or at least before the whole mansion knows, since I pretty much failed at that already."

Alex chuckled. "Well, your secret's safe with me, dude. And seriously, congratulations. For all I complain about the wedding planning, it's pretty awesome knowing you're gonna spend the rest of your life with someone."

The smile turned more genuine. "It is, isn't it? Even if you kind of knew it already - or hoped, I've thought it before - it's pretty good to get the confirmation."

"It's amazing. Especially when you know they'll stay with you when you do stupid things like, say, bring a stray dog home." Alex grinned at his knew friend, who was now play growling and nipping at Joyita's legs - the only part of her he could easily reach.

She was tolerating it for now, and from time to time going in for a surprise lick to his head or face.

"Hey, there's a lot more stupid things a guy could do than that."

"And I'll do them all at some point, I'm sure." Alex laughed.