xp_logs | Angelo and Nathan

Angelo finds Nathan out by the pool, and gets to meet Askani.

Angelo wandered out to the pool, having remembered that Nathan had promised to let him meet Askani, and hoping he'd be well enough now. He'd checked all the likely places in the house, and since it was a nice day, he figured the pool was the best bet.

Nathan had gone out to find that lounge chair again, and had taken a couple of books with him. The Arabic textbooks had arrived this morning, and he was halfway through a historical novel that had survived the trashing of Moira's living room. He had even stopped to get some lunch and brought it out with him, remembering his promise to Moira. The iced tea was probably violating the no-caffeine rule, but damn it, he'd wanted it.

Angelo grinned, spotting him by the pool, and headed over there to sit down on one of the other lounge chairs. "Hey. Havin' fun?"

Nathan smiled back at him. "Actually, yes. I'm celebrating the whole 'first of June, still here!' thing." He sipped at his iced tea, then took a cube of cheese off his plate - leftovers from yesterday - and ate it before he went on. He had noticed that keeping up a definite rhythm at meals circumvented the whole no-appetite thing.

Angelo laughed. "Here's hopin' the end of the month breaks that unlucky streak of yours, huh?"

"Here's hoping," Nathan said with a chuckle, leaning back in the lounge chair with a contented sigh. "I feel good, too," he confessed suddenly, the smile still playing on his lips. "It felt... really good to make that post yesterday." He had dreamed about T and the others all night, and they had been happy dreams, not about China at all.

Angelo nodded. "Yeah, I think it was a good thing to do. Like Amanda an' Angie said - more of us know about them, the longer they'll get remembered."

Nathan closed the book in his lap, setting it aside. "It's always been about me being angry," he mused. "This is really the first time I stopped and thought about each of them like that, since it happened."

Angelo half-smiled. "Sounds like it's good for you, too, when you put it like that."

"I never really told you much about that part of my life, I know," Nathan said after a moment, gazing at Angelo. "Think I gave away a little more in that post than I strictly meant to, but I was a bit worked up while I was writing it."

Angelo shrugged. "'s okay. From what you've said, I can see how you wouldn't wanna think about most of it too much."

"Have to admit," Nathan confessed, picking up his iced tea again, "I wasn't expecting some of the responses I got."

Angelo raised an eyebrow. "You mean Jono? He's always like that, don't take it too personally."

"I'm a staff member now, remember?" Nathan said dryly. "I don't take things personally. Part of the job." He smirked. "When I smite, I'm supposed to do so constructively."

Angelo laughed a little, before becoming more serious. "Thing about Jono is... his manifestation was as hard as mine was, in a different way, maybe even more. There was a girl, who meant a lot to him, an' he... hurt her. Or the energy did, when it first came out. Hurt her bad. An' his parents don't really talk to him anymore. An' on top of all that, he an' Sarah were off on a retreat with Ms. Frost, to help him with his powers, an' the place got attacked by giant mutant-huntin' robots - yeah, they were real. An' I didn't tell you any of this, 'cept maybe the bit about the robots. Jono... has trouble believin' mutants could ever be accepted."

Nathan contemplated the new information for a moment, fitting it into his incomplete mental picture of Jono Starsmore. "Still," he said. "I'm not inclined to cut him a whole lot of slack for the defeatist attitude. Everyone here has opportunities and choices that my friends and I never got. Sulking and not taking advantage of them is just childish." He smiled faintly. "I'll have to have a little chat with Jono at some point."

Angelo grinned slightly. "Not a bad idea. Someone needs to kick him out of it, after all. Ms. Frost's tried, but it never seems to work for long. I think maybe the band will, in time..."

"I kick well," Nathan said blithely.

Angelo chuckled wryly. "That you do."

Nathan sipped at his iced tea. "So," he said conversationally, deliberately dropping the subject. "Were you just out for a walk, or were you looking for me?"

Angelo shrugged. "Bit of both, I guess. I was kind of wonderin' if you were up to that talk with Askani we were talkin' about..."

Nathan opened his mouth and then closed it again, cutting off the instinctive response. "Just... give me a second," he said a bit unsteadily, then turned his attention inwards. #Askani? Angelo... would like to talk with you. You can come out if you want.# One of the stars glowed red-gold, then swelled into the firebird, sweeping down onto the beach and then out...

"Oh, very funny," Nathan said as he saw her materialize on the pool, her bare feet a couple of centimetres above the top of the water.

Angelo blinked at the sight of her. He wasn't sure what he'd expected, but it hadn't been that. "Hi", he said tentatively.

"Greetings," Askani said pleasantly enough, floating up onto the concrete side of the pool. She had her white robe on, Nathan noted, not the red. Probably a good sign. Her green eyes flickered around, then focused on Angelo. "It is," she said very carefully, "a lovely day. Does that suffice for the pleasantries concerning the weather?"

Angelo nodded, eyeing her warily. "Uh... yeah, I think so..." He bit back the nervous urge to say "How's it goin'?", reasoning that things probably didn't change much when you were dead and living inside someone else's head.

"Excellent," Askani said. "Because it is a drain on his energies, to have me manifest, and he has not yet restored his reserves. The less time I am here, the better." She smiled blithely at Nathan's disgusted look. "What? I am not allowed to be concerned for your welfare?"

"It rings a little hollow at times," Nathan said a bit sourly.

Angelo watched them with vague amusement, before speaking up. "Yeah. Um. That's kinda what I wanted to talk to you about, actually."

"Oh?" Askani asked, raising an eyebrow. Nathan fought the urge to hide his face behind the book.

Angelo gathered his nerves - it took longer than he'd have liked, but he got there soon enough. "Yeah. Wanted to hear from you that... what happened before won't happen again. That you won't hurt him anymore."

Askani tilted her head at him, her red-gold hair sliding over one shoulder and her expression thoughtful. "I can promise you I will be careful," she said. "I can promise I will strive never to let my temper overcome me. But I cannot promise you I won't hurt him."

Angelo nodded, accepting that as truth. "A promise that you'll try will do for me."

"Then you have it," Askani said, and glanced at Nathan. "All of these protective feelings, little brother. It is rather remarkable, given the short time you have been in this place."

"They keep getting attached," Nathan murmured wryly. "Not my doing."

Angelo raised an eyebrow at him. "Not your doin'? What world are you in, Nathan?"

"His own," Askani said, her voice suddenly rich with amusement. "Where he has little faith in himself." Nathan gave her a deadly look, and she gave him what could only be described as a sly smile. "I only speak the truth, Nathan."

"No, you twist the truth," Nathan grumbled, grabbing another few cubes of cheese. He'd been falling behind with lunch. "As you generally do."

Angelo was listening to them both attentively. "You've helped me an' Amanda both, Nathan. You know you have."

He was in entirely too good a mood to start thinking about just how much he had helped Amanda - yeah, helped her to a near-breakdown - and just how little support he'd been able to give Angelo lately. So he smiled at Angelo, as naturally as he could. "Thanks," he said simply, and then eyed Askani, who was regarding him with a sort of weary amusement, as if she could see precisely what he was thinking. Which she probably could, come ot think of it. "I thought you weren't going to stay long?"

"Stubborn," Askani observed mildly. "So very, very stubborn." She turned to Angelo. "Is that all you would have of me, Angelo?"

Angelo nodded. "Yeah, I think so - I wouldn't mind talkin' again sometime, just 'cause, but not 'til Nathan's healed some more."

"Until then," Askani said amiably, and vanished. Nathan blinked, leaning back in the chair at the slight dizziness that hit him in the wake of her departure.

"Going to get used to that yet," he muttered, rubbing at his eyes, then reaching for his iced tea again.

Angelo eyed him with some concern. "You okay? That didn't take too much out of you, did it?"

Nathan waved his free hand. "I'm fine," he said. "It's like using a muscle I've never really exercised - I'm not really sure how she does it. Head's already clearing again." He sipped the iced tea. "So," he said with deceptive casualness, "what did you think?"

Angelo considered his answer. "She seems... sorta nice. In a scary kind of way. Could see how she was a leader for so long."

"Eighty years, more or less," Nathan said. "She turned a small group of refugees into a clan of millions of people and held them together for sixty years of war." He smiled wryly. "Takes an especially iron will, that sort of thing."

Angelo nodded. "Was it her mutation that let her live so long an' stay strong - physically, I mean - the whole time, or do people just live longer in their time?"

"I'm not sure," Nathan said after a moment. "Her mutation, I'd think. She is--was an incredibly strong psi. I'm not sure how much she was really flesh and blood, by any standards."

Angelo nodded, before asking speculatively, "Maybe... she should talk to Jono sometime? It sounds like they have a bit in common."

Askani murmured thoughtfully in the back of his head, and it took Nathan quite a bit of effort not to sink his face into his hands. "You're giving her ideas, Angelo," he quipped.

Angelo grinned unrepentantly. "Hey, you were talkin' about havin' a chat with him. She could help."

"I suppose she should," Nathan said, mentally conceding the point. "Right now, though, I need to finish my lunch, or Moira will have my head." He offered Angelo a bright smile.

Angelo smiled back. "Wouldn't want that, 'specially since she'd be after mine next for distractin' you. Think I'll go for a walk, then. Don't wanna waste the sun."