Angelo and Paul

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Angelo is forced out of his hermitage by the need to walk Joyita. He runs into Paul on the way and is given a little perspective (at least for now), before they decide to watch a Hugo Weaving movie.



There came a point where, whatever Angelo might have wanted to do, he had to go outside. This was being made very clear to him by the puppy sitting by the door to his room and whining plaintively. With a silent sigh, he got up and fetched her leash, and off they went, quite deliberately avoiding the back porch on the way.

Merde. Paul trotted around the corner of the house, looking for Delphine. He'd just found the kitty-clippers and discovered that she'd disappeared - poof - out the half-closed door to his suite. By the time he'd figured out that she wasn't in her usual spot under the couch, she was long gone. He didn't find Delphine along the side of the house but there was the chocolate-coloured ball of energy that was Joyita springing along. At the other end of her leash Angelo was trailing along, looking like a boy-shaped manifestation of misery. Joyita spotted Paul and raced toward him, yipping, until she hit the end of the leash and flipped over gracelessly with a strangled bark.

Angelo blinked, sped up until he reached her, and gave her a quick check over for damage. Satisfied that she hadn't hurt herself, he put her back down - and only then, looked up to see what she'd been gunning for. "Oh. Hey, Mr. Beaubier."

"'Afternoon, Angelo," Paul said, looking about. "Have you seen Delphine?" He had the clippers in one hand and was looking distinctly annoyed and a little dishevelled from crawling around under the couch and the bed, looking for his cat.

Angelo shook his head. "Can't say I have, sorry. She runnin' away from those?" he asked, indicating the clippers.

"Yes. On principle, damnit." He tucked the clippers in his pocket and put his hands on his hips, exhaling heavily so as to blow a few locks of hair out of his face. He looked Angelo over again and quirked an eyebrow. The boy was usually glum and anxious but right now he looked like he'd lost his best friend. "Everything okay? I saw Nate this morning and he seemed fine. Nothing's happened since that I missed while I was crawling around my suite after Delphine?"

Angelo glanced up, making a show of 'everything's fine', at least for now. "No, Nate's fine as far as I know. Still fallin' asleep a lot, but as good as he could be."

"The narcolepsy was a nice touch," Paul admitted. "Rather endearing, really. I think this entire school would look like Sleeping Beauty's castle inside of a day if Charles did that to everyone. Delphine and I would be bored to death."

Angelo managed a half-smile. "I think it was a joke, myself - the form of it, anyway. When Nate first got here, he was havin' trouble with his precog, an' he was passin' out - an' worse, sometimes - every time a vision hit."

"I read about that." Joyita was licking Paul's foot happily for reasons only known to small puppies and Paul crouched down. "Mademoiselle," he said lightly. "I do prefer dinner, or at least a few drinks, before the licking starts."

Angelo chuckled a little, looking down at her affectionately. "Watch out, she'll decide she likes your face better than your foot in a... minute", he finished, the pause being because Joyita had done exactly that.

Paul sputtered, standing up and wiping his face with the back of his hand. "Cats... they may be arrogant and deceitful but they're not soggy." He really didn't look that annoyed. Joyita looked pleased with herself. Paul looked over at Angelo again. A little smile, a little laugh. That was better. It obviously wasn't quite the end of the world, whatever was wrong.

Angelo gave a little tug on the leash, distracting Joyita from Paul's foot again, and glanced around as he heard something rustle in the bushes. However, there was nothing to be seen, and he looked back at Paul. "You been here long enough for her to have a usual hidin' place outside?"

"I'm guessing the flowerbeds over by the patio," Paul said. "The truth is, I hate clipping her nails but if I don't, it's at least a couple hundred dollars a month in snagged shirts and slacks, not to mention what it does to my sheets when she decides to paw them. I'm more annoyed that I didn't realize she'd take off out the door instead of going under the couch."

Angelo looked sympathetic. "Never does what you expect, huh? She'll show up again when she decides it's safe, though, right?"

"I don't like being outsmarted by my own cat." Paul crossed his arms over his chest and his expression was just shy of being an actual pout. He looked down at Joyita. "I'll bet you wouldn't humiliate Angelo by being smarter than he is, would you?"

Angelo scooped up the dog, ruffling the fur on her head. "No, much as I love her, this one's not brain of the century. I'm told her breed tend not to be."

"I wish people came in breeds," Paul said thoughtfully. "Because then you'd have a better idea what you were getting. Less guesswork." He scritched Joyita's chin, avoiding her attempts to kiss him again.

Angelo nodded. "Sometimes it's pretty clear right off the bat", he answered with a faint frown. "Others, it's really not."

"And that," Paul said, talking partly to Joyita, and partly to Angelo, "gets us in a world of trouble sometimes, doesn't it?" His tone was light and amused but his personal history with finding out about others - or himself - too late wasn't very pretty.

Another nod. "Yeah, you can say that again. Even with people you think you know..."

Paul looked over at Angelo, at the misery written all over his face. "Whatever it is, Angelo, it'll pass," he said, feeling obligated to at least hand the young man a platitude or something. He hadn't even started teaching yet. Paul had the feeling it was downhill from here as far as staying uninvolved went. "Things will work out, they usually do. Try and put it in some perspective, given what you know about the person. You're all young, things happen."

Angelo shrugged, head bent. "She doesn't wanna know me any more", he muttered, less to Paul than to himself. "An' even if she did, it's better for her this way..."

"Angelo, how fast do things change around here? Whatever it is, time and maybe a little effort will fix it up." Paul didn't know quite what the boy was on about but, frankly, in a place where miracles literally happened, getting distressed about something too soon was a big mistake. "By the time Joyita here learns not to chew your textbooks, it'll all be in the past."

Angelo looked up doubtfully. "Maybe. This was kinda just the crunch point of somethin' that's been brewin' for awhile, though", he answered, unwilling to go into too much detail without prompting.

Well, there'd been no fires, no explosions, no earthquakes, the boy wasn't bleeding, no one else seemed to be, none of the teachers had been alerted to anything... "Then it needed to crunch," Paul said, shrugging. "It's passed and now you have the rest to deal with. I, personally, suggest a good book or a movie. If you can't fix it, Angelo, then let it go for a little while."

Angelo paused, taking that in. After all, there really was nothing more he both could and should do that would help anyone concerned now... "Yeah, you're right. Movie it is, then..."

Paul smiled at him. "Any idea what you're going to watch?"

Angelo shrugged. "Not really. Wouldn't mind company if you wanted to see anythin' in particular..."

"How about something with Hugo Weaving in it," Paul suggested thoughtfully, nodding toward the house and then wandering in that direction. "I liked him even before he got his pointy ears." He looked over his shoulder at Angelo and grinned mischeviously.

Angelo couldn't help returning the grin, however faintly, as he carried Joyita back towards the house after Paul. "Works for me."

"Should we invite anyone else?" Paul asked as they headed indoors.

"Paige, if she's around an' not busy", came the immediate answer. His next impulse was to add, "Amanda", but he suppressed it, trying to hide the flash of pain that came with that. "Some of the others'll probably be interested - we could just see who we meet on the way?"

"I'll tell Cecilia," Paul added. "And anyone else who shows up is welcome. I'll meet you in the common room, shall I? I'll bring all the movies I have with Hugo in them and you kids can argue over what to watch."

Angelo nodded. "Sounds good - say half an hour?"

"With bells on," Paul said cheerfully, then reconsidered. "Or maybe not. I'll have to read that appropriate conduct document over more carefully. See you in a bit."