xp_logs | Angelo and Shinobi

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Angelo finds a pensive Shinobi out on the smoker's porch. They talk - a lot. About Jono, about themselves, and about Boston. The smoker's porch once again proves that it can get these two to stop bottling better than Doctor Samson can. Go figure.

Shinobi hadn't been out here in a while.. long enough that he was aware of just how foul the ashtray on the smoker's porch smelled, and while it wasn't enough to chase him back inside, he did sit down as far away from it as he could get away with. An unlit cigarette perched between his lips, his attention was focused on his hands - his lighter in one, a fresh nicotine patch in the other. Choices, choices..

Angelo, having seen Nathan off to the basement in search of Moira and deposited the sleeping Joyita in his room, headed out to the porch for one final cigarette of the night. Seeing Shinobi, he stopped and leaned against the doorpost, amused by what he was doing. "Patches just aren't the same, are they?"

"I usually prefer the gum," Shinobi admitted, looking over his shoulder with a tired smile. "Just in a more band-aid-y mood tonight, I suppose."

Angelo nodded, moving out onto the porch to join him, although staying at a little distance to light up, in deference to the "trying to quit". "What's up?"

"Oh, the usual," Shinobi replied lightly, eyeing Angelo a moment longer before returning his attention to his hands. "You?"

"About the same", Angelo answered, trying to match his tone. "At least one thing's started to get better, as of today, but... well, you know how it is. There's always somethin'."

"Someone's always helping to break someone else," Shinobi agreed, surprised by the lack of bite behind the words, twitching his thumb to open up the lighter.

Angelo eyed him carefully for a moment, unsure whether that had been at least partly directed at him, then shrugged it off (helped to do so precisely by that lack of bite) and nodded. "Or the whole situation is."

"Situations don't come out of nowhere," Shinobi observed, tilting his head down at his hands. "Decisions people make lead to them. Nothing just happens. Something is done that leads to it."

Angelo shook his head. "Not always true. I know it's probably not what you're talkin' about, but Jono didn't decide to have his mutation start breakin' his body up, an' for none of the possible ways t'fix it work so far. An' that had Paige close enough to broken to pretend to be sick so as to miss that party last week."

"How do you know?" Shinobi asked, his voice distant, detached. "Maybe Jono was depressed. Maybe he was distraught, lost, feeling boxed in, hating himself. Maybe he made it happen. Not necessarily on purpose, but maybe he did. We don't know that he didn't." Shinobi shrugged lazily. On went the flame, but the lighter stayed down. "He's a psi. Maybe it's all in his head."

Angelo looked at him sharply. "You're sayin'...?" His first reaction was to deny that Jono could want to die that much, so much he could unconsciously influence his mutation to give him that, but after a moment's thought he slumped, defeated. "Maybe you're right", he answered dully.

"I'm saying we don't know. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. Emma will help him find out, or realize what he already knows, whatever the case may be." Shinobi shrugged again, and looked up from his hands. "She won't let him die without a fight."

Angelo nodded, drawing heavily on his cigarette. "I know. I just... I want him to be okay, you know? An' not just for Paige's sake, either. Can't be roomies for this long without gettin' to be sort of friends."

"Can't share a woman between you without a hell of a lot of trust, either," Shinobi agreed, propping his chin up in one hand, the patch held between two fingers. "Don't know how you do it."

Angelo laughed wryly. "Honest? I've never been sure either. It just sort of... happened. Jono punched me once, at the beginnin', and after that it just seemed to be taken for granted she'd be with both of us. An' it makes her happy, so."

"What about you?" Shinobi asked curiously, closing the lighter and shifting in place so that he could face Angelo, without getting up. "It make you happy?"

Angelo gave that serious thought for a long moment. "Bein' with her does. An'... she's no less with me because she's with him, if that makes any sense. So... it doesn't make me unhappy."

Shinobi nodded slowly, dropping both hands into his lap as he watched Angelo with a small, thoughtful crease to his forehead. "He bothers the hell out of me," he finally said, shoulders rising in a shrug. "A little corner of my head has convinced itself that if he comes back and tells Sarah he wants her, she'd do it without a second thought."

Angelo turned to look at Shinobi, and spoke with all the sincerity he could. "Never happen. He's too much with Paige now, I think. An' I don't know Sarah as well as I could, it's true, but I'm fairly sure she's too much with you."

"He's her precious fucking nightlight," Shinobi grumbled, eyeing his lighter with serious temptation. "You know, I was the last to know? When she went to the tunnels. I found out from Amanda. Who found out from him."

"He's her friend", Angelo said quietly. "Like Amanda's mine - an' we're workin' on fixin' that now, by the way. She didn't tell any of us she was goin' to the tunnels until it was too late to stop her, an' then only by e-mail. She wanted to go in alone. Not with Jono, not with you, not with anyone. I'm guessin' she'd have told you when she got back, if it'd gone like she planned."

"Which it didn't," Shinobi pointed out needlessly, looking up with dark eyes. "She died."

"Yeah. I know", Angelo said quietly. "But she didn't know it was gonna go down like that. I'd lay money she expected to be back safe with you by the end of the next day or whenever. She wouldn't've told Jono if he hadn't been too far away to interfere in time, an' if she hadn't thought he'd keep it quiet."

Shinobi merely grunted unhappily in response, turning his scowl on the grounds. "Scott ripped me a new one, when we got back," he muttered. "Said they thought they had an X-Man on site to keep an eye on her. Showed me pictures of what that X-Man didn't prevent, just to drive the point home."

"Even an X-Man couldn't do anythin' about her leavin' on the quiet while he was sleepin'", Angelo pointed out reasonably. "Short of chainin' her to the furniture every time she was out of your sight, what more could you do?"

"Could have stayed here, where Charles could have kept an eye on her," Shinobi replied, just managing not to roll his eyes. "Could have not helped her find out who they were, not helped her find out where they were, not encouraged her in the first place. There are a lot of could haves and should haves in this entire fiasco, Ange."

Angelo just looked at him, unsmiling. "Okay - first of all, as I remember it, nothin' short of lockin' her in the basement would have kept her here when you guys left, an' that's not what this place is about. ...I didn't know about all that other stuff. But there are always a lot of could haves and should haves. I believed for a long time - still do, on the really bad days - that I should've died at fourteen, avengin' a friend of mine instead of... killin' him to save myself. Everybody's got their things they could or should've done differently. Some of us just have 'em bigger than others."

"Charles is the most powerful telepath on the planet, for God's sake," Shinobi pointed out, and this time, he did roll his eyes. "He could quite literally have stopped her with a thought. But I took that opportunity away from him. I trusted Sarah, and it got me ditched in Boston, Alison with a hole lasered through her leg, and Sarah dead in the fucking sewer." He eyed the cigarette for a moment before grumbling something to himself and breaking it in half, tossing the halves in the vague direction of the ash tray before he began rolling up one of his sleeves. "Self-preservation is nothing to be ashamed of, Angelo, but I know we're both ashamed of it anyway."

Angelo didn't look away. "Yeah. He could've stopped her leaving telepathically, but I don't think he would have. He doesn't work like that." He took a final deep draw on his own cigarette before stubbing it out, pulling out the pack and studying it without taking out a fresh one. "I know I am, a lot of the time. If I could do over... well, I don't know what I'd do. I don't wanna die, not anymore, but I didn't wanna die then, either."

"If she were leaving this house with murder on her mind, Angelo, he would have," Shinobi replied confidently, shaking his head as he slapped the new patch onto his bicep, holding it in place for a minute to make sure it stuck. "He's been keeping an eye on her since we got back, to make sure she wasn't not-coping in any dangerous way."

Angelo nodded, eyes downcast now, not sure what else to say to that. "My mom said she came down to see you two while I was gone?" he said finally, opting for a slight change of subject.

"To pick up Joyita," Shinobi confirmed, rolling his sleeve back down. "We were keeping an eye on her before then, while you and Paige were gone."

Angelo looked up, surprised - he hadn't known about that, but he supposed he should have guessed someone from the mansion had to have cared for the puppy, and asked who. "Oh, hey, I didn't know or I would've said somethin'. Thanks, man."

"Oscar liked having a roomie," Shinobi said with a wave of his hand, dismissing the thanks. Though talk of the puppies did earn a very small smile.

Angelo spotted this and smiled quickly to himself in the dark, deciding it was a subject worth continuing. "They got on well, then? Good."

"They're puppies," Shinobi explained, shrugging and tucking his lighter away before leaning back on his hands. "They bounce, they frolic, they chew on Sarah's pile of bones in the corner."

Angelo grinned. "Yeah, that sounds like my girl. Bet Oscar loves havin' his own little pantry in the corner."

Shinobi nodded sagely, glancing back towards the door. "He's a momma's boy."

Angelo followed his glance. "It's gettin' kinda cold", he said casually. "You wanna go back inside?"

"Just as cold in there," Shinobi replied lightly, shrugging and looking out at the grounds again. "I'm okay here for now."

Angelo nodded, finally getting out another cigarette and lighting it. "Fine by me. How's your trainin' goin'?"

"The existing stuff's going okay," Shinobi replied after a moment, tilting his head slightly in thought. "I still need to ask Mister Cassidy to help me out some, though. I start more with Moira and Nate soon."

"You signed up for this extra powers trainin' Moira's offerin'?"

"Need it," Shinobi nodded. "Been signed up for months."

Angelo nodded back. "I'm still thinkin' about it. Not really sure there's much to learn about usin' my powers - they're pretty simple. Got the trick of pullin' the skin back in way back, an' that's what I get most use from."

"Wouldn't hurt to find out," Shinobi shrugged. "No sense coasting along if you can be doing more, and just haven't gotten around to finding out yet." He eyed Angelo thoughtfully, then tilting his chin at him. "Remind me what your mutation does? All in the skin, right?"

Angelo nodded. "'s right. It stretches out, an' I can hold an' lift stuff with it. That kind of thing."

Shinobi nodded, and slowly tilted his head to one side. "You probably don't even need an image inducer," he said after a moment, squinting slightly. "Could just rearrange your skin into a new nose, new lips, new jaw.. wonder if you could do anything about the pigmentation.."

"I don't think it's so much pigmentation as it's just the skin's really thick when it's not stretched out", Angelo corrected. "So, probably not. Might be able to do somethin' about the other stuff, true, but it'd still be gray if it was all bunched up. I think."

"Moira could help you find out for sure," Shinobi observed, grinning and pushing himself up to sit straighter.

Angelo chuckled. "Yeah, point taken. I didn't say I wasn't goin' to, just I'm still thinkin' about it."

Shinobi nodded sagely. "Thinking is good," he replied seriously. "So are finding your limits. Finding mine in the field instead of the Danger Room got a warehouse dropped on my head. It kinda sucked."

Angelo winced. "Yeah, I can see how that's not the best of outcomes", he said wryly.

"Paige would be very sad if you got a warehouse dropped on your head, I think," Shinobi observed lightly. "And if you made Paige sad, I'd have to punch you in the mouth."

Angelo grinned ruefully. "If I upset Paige, I'd probably let you."

"You say that like you'd have a choice," Shinobi grinned, with a quick wiggle of his eyebrows.

Angelo laughed. "Well, that'd depend on if you were bein' super-solid at the time or not. If not, I think we're maybe about balanced."

"Think so?" Shinobi asked, more curious than anything else. "Think you're on-par with an X-Man, huh?"

"Depends what you're talkin' about. I know I can't beat Nathan, but he's twice my size an' he's been trainin' a lot longer than either of us. You're at least closer to my match, I think."

"In terms of size, maybe," Shinobi agreed, eyeing Angelo thoughtfully. "My training's been.. intense, especially since I got back from Boston.. hm." After a moment, he gestured curiously to one of his hands. "You use your power at all, when you're in a fight? I thought of something you could do it with. Not-lethal, very useful."

Angelo tilted his head, curious. "I've been startin' to a bit more lately. Nathan had me use it the last time we sparred, an' I did a bit with Sarah, too. What'd you have in mind?"

Shinobi pointed at Angelo's hand, shifting to scootch a bit closer. "Let me borrow your hand a second."

Angelo held it out without hesitation, wanting to know what Shinobi was planning.

Shinobi took it carefully, and eyed it clinically before tapping his palm first, then his fingers. "Stretch it out like a rag," he explained, before lifting Angelo's hand up, to hold it in front of his face. "You could wrap it around someone's head from behind, get their nostrils and mouth covered. Nice and quiet, lack of oxygen'd get them unconscious and uninjured. Could probably keep them from struggling with your other hand."

Angelo nodded, seeing what Shinobi meant. "It doesn't stretch as far as it used to, since the fire, but it probably still goes far enough. Good thing to keep in mind - nice to know I can maybe use it to stop people gettin' killed."

Shinobi nodded, grinning and patting Angelo's hand before he released it. "Just takes a little creative thinking.. and I'm sure you'll get it back to where it used to be, given a little physical therapy. That, you should mention to Moira."

Angelo pulled his hand back and stretched the skin out experimentally as far as it would go - which was, indeed, still a considerable way. He pulled an expressive face at the mention of physical therapy, having gone through enough of that for one lifetime, but nodded his agreement. "You got any other ideas, while we're on the subject?"

'Not yet, but I can think on it," Shinobi offered, grinning wryly. "Easier to think of new uses for other peoples' powers than for my own, sometimes."

Angelo nodded again, in thanks this time, grinning back. "Easier to see how they could work from the outside, I guess."

Shinobi nodded, lightly scratching the side of his head. "I'm just not sure if I'm missing anything with mine," he admitted. "Though, come to think of it, if I'm going to find out if I can ghost people with me, I should find out if I can dense people up, too. Need to ask Moira if we can work on that, too."

Angelo nodded thoughtfully. "I know Kitty can phase people and things with her, so it's probably worth a try at least."

Shinobi nodded, grinning. "I'd never even thought about the possibility, before I found out she could do it," he chuckled. "Self-centered, I guess."

"Well, did you even know anyone had powers anythin' like yours before you met Kitty?" Angelo pointed out reasonably. "It's not like telepathy, that lots of people have."

"That we know of, but no, I didn't," Shinobi agreed easily. "Wonder why psis are so common.. it's not like evolution to run out of ideas. Very bizarre."

"Maybe it's a successful mutation?" Angelo suggested. "Although you'd think it'd be too soon to say either way on that... An' I don't think you could say evolution's run out of ideas, even for all that. Look at the variety we got here."

"I suppose that's true. It makes me weep for originality, though, just the same."

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Okay. This game has affected me too much. I read the tagline and my thought was "Patches? THAT BASTARD! Where is he? What's he doing here? GODD... oh. Wait."