xp_logs | Angelo and Clarice

She hunts him down in the grounds and becomes the first to get it out of him what happened. Then they decide to go to the movies.

Clarice headed down the jogging path on a last ditch effort to find Angelo. She'd looked everywhere else she had thought he might be and was about to give up. If he didn't want to be found, then there wasn't much she could do about it at the moment.

"Oh, hey Joyita!" she said, scooping up the wiggly puppy. If she had Joyita then Angelo wasn't too far away.

Indeed he wasn't, as proved by his voice calling for the puppy and coming closer. "Joyita! Where'd you go? See if I let you off the leash outside ever again..." He trailed off as he hurried round the corner and saw Joyita squirming in Clarice's arms, trying to lick her face. "Oh, hey Clarice."

"Yo," she replied, making a face as Joyita licked the inside of her ear. "This is so gross! I don't want your kisses!"

"Shouldn't have picked her up, then", Angelo pointed out dryly, walking over to relieve Clarice of the puppy. "C'mere, you."

"Good point. At least she didn't try to French me, ugh!" Clarice gave the puppy back, "You two been out here all day?"

Angelo shrugged. "On an' off. She needs walkin', an' I could use the fresh air every so often."

"Fresh air?" she questioned, squatting down to play tug of war with Joyita's leash, "Or avoiding something?"

Angelo eyed her suspiciously, then sighed. "Maybe a bit of both", he admitted reluctantly.

Clarice nodded, somewhat unsurprised. After not-seeing Angelo around the past few days and then seeing him dragged to the movie night, something was up. "Care to share?"

Angelo made an expressive face. "You don't wanna know. Really. You don't need t'get dragged into the whole mess..."

Clarice crossed her arms, pissed. "Angelo, I didn't just spend nearly an hour looking for you to get the brush off. Besides, I'm your friend, right?" at his nod she continued, "I'm not looking to get in the middle, just to help you. And if it means listening and not doing anything, I will."

Angelo shook his head. "I wasn't givin' you the brush-off. Not what I meant, anyway. 's just... it's complicated. An' messy, like I said. An' I'm not sure how much of it's mine to tell."

"You look like you lost your best friend."

He looked up sharply, at that, wondering if she knew more than she was telling and just trying to get him to talk, then laughed bitterly. "Yeah. Well. Kinda did."

"What the fuck?" she asked confused. "Jono's coming back..."

Angelo restrained himself from saying anything along the lines of "hopefully, yeah", and simply answered, "Yeah, I know. Didn't mean him."

Realization slowly dawned. "Did I miss something then? I mean...did something happen in Asgard or something?"

Angelo paused, considering his answer. "Not exactly. I mean, a lot happened in Asgard, but this now isn't 'cause of that." He sighed. "Not really, anyway."

Clarice flopped down on the grass, not caring that Joyita was pretend-gnawing on her hand. "I am so confused."

Angelo hesitated, then joined her, and was immediately pounced on by the puppy. "Yeah, I'm sorry. If it was just my problem, I'd tell you, y'know?"

"Yeah. I guess. It's just...I dunno. All messed up."

Angelo nodded with a wry grin. "Always is. Seems like nothin' can ever be simple, round here..."

"We live in the middle of a shit magnet. All the shit is attracted here." Clarice explained, using the logic of someone being only half serious. "And we have too much time on our hands right now."

Angelo nodded, staring at the sky. "Yeah, you're probably right. This trouble's been in the makin' for quite a while, though. Had t'blow up sometime."

"I thought it would work itself out. I mean, they broke up, kinda, I thought," maybe by speaking in generalities they could avoid the acutal problems. Maybe if frogs had wings they wouldn't bump their butts either.

Angelo tipped his head to look at her, vaguely amused and wondering if she'd guessed right. "Okay, okay. Tell me which 'they' you think this is about, an' I'll tell you if you're right."

"Amanda and Manuel. Not like you have that many best friends, silly." she told him, smiling. "I'm not saying I understand why, but I can guess. And I'm not saying you're wrong or right. But still. You hurt and I hate that."

Angelo nodded. "Got it in one. An' I have no clue if they've broken up for good or not. Goin' by Saturday, I'd say yeah, but who am I to say what they can't come back from?"

She shrugged, "Beats me. I'm kinda surprised they lasted this long, but since what I know about relationships could fit on the head of a pin, that's not saying much I guess. Sucks though, doesn't it? I mean, getting caught in their drama."

Angelo chuckled wryly. "This particular drama was kind of my fault. I mean, Manuel took it worse than it deserved, I thought, but I knew he hated me. An' anyway, there's probably stuff I don't know about. Not like Amanda an' I ever talked about anythin' to do with him."

"We don't like him and he doesn't like us. Why should we pretend to like him?" she reasoned, rolling over to awkwardly hug him, "But drama you create is well...yours. Wish I had a anti-shit magnet."

Angelo accepted the hug gratefully, and returned it. "Okay. This is what happened - more or less. Told Amanda I loved her - not like that, like family - she was more 'n pleased to hear it, Manuel came stormin' out an' went off on one."

"So now you aren't talking to her?" Clarice extrapolated the end. Figures.

"It's for her own good", Angelo muttered. "She couldn't take the way things were anymore, she said so. Said she hated hurtin' Manny, but she couldn't let me go either. So I did it for her."

"Oh," Clarice didn't know how to repsond to that. "Wanna go see a movie in town?"

Angelo rolled over to stare at her for a moment, nonplussed, then smiled slowly. "Sure. Why not? Get me out of here for awhile."