xp_logs | Angelo and Amanda, in dreams

As Amanda warned she might, she goes wandering into Angelo's dreams, and witnesses a thing or two he never told her about. But they straighten some things out in the end.

The whole discussion about atonement had brought certain memories to the forefront of Angelo's mind and so, on this particular occasion, his nightmare wasn't about his manifestation as usual, but rather about the incident he most felt he had to atone for.

Once again, he was back on that street in LA, Jorge at his side, surrounded beyond escape by their enemies. He looked around frantically, looking for a gap in the circle, but now as then, there wasn't one, and the part of his mind that was no longer fourteen knew what was coming next...

She was on a street - how did she get here? It wasn't Brighton, or London... the air was warm and somehow gritty, and smelt of car exhaust and eucalyptus. Amanda looked wildly around, realising that she was dreaming, and spotted the knot of teenaged boys across the road. They were surrounding someone, and suddenly it all clicked. She _had_ been here before, once. This was LA, and one of the boys in the centre of the circle was Angelo... She tried to call out, to stop what was happening, but her presence in his dream was too nebulous, not heightened by a link like the one she'd inadvertantly formed with Jubilee.

On Angelo's side of the road, he and Jorge were being slowly but inescapably herded towards the rival gang's home base - a warehouse much like the one the boys knew as their own territory. He knew it with his conscious mind, as he'd suspected that was what was happening then, but had been unable to stop it. The two boys continued to look for an escape route, every step of the way, but none presented itself.

"Ange!" Amanda shouted, running forward, but the younger version of her friend and the other boys just ignored her. When she tried to block their path, reach out and grab Angelo's arm, it was like she wasn't even there - they simply walked straight through her. It was like Manuel's dream all over again. Grinding non-existent teeth in frustration, she followed the group as they entered a darkened, clearly-abandoned warehouse - it was all she could do, at least for now.

It was when they were inside the warehouse, out of sight of anyone who might have acted to help them or stop what was happening, that the "fun" really began. The two boys were separated, four teenagers standing between them to keep them from helping each other, while the others laid into them brutally. Angelo fought back as best he could, while knowing on some level that it was pointless - but at the very least, he'd have the small victory of not making a sound.

Sometimes Amanda hated the magic. With a passion. It wasn't enough to have headaches and nosebleeds and screaming nightmares, or the hours of study and meditation, or even the possibility that one day she'd turn evil and kill all her nearest and dearest, it was things like this. Watching helplessly as her friend was beaten, _knowing_ there was nothing she could do, that the dream had to play out. She winced as the blows landed, hearing the meaty sound of bone hitting flesh.

He was still able to stand unaided when the punches and kicks stopped coming - just about, anyway. And then he realized that, for some reason he didn't fully understand, they'd only stopped hitting him. Jorge's beating continued until the boy was on his knees on the warehouse floor, Angelo's arms held firmly so he couldn't intervene, though he desperately wanted to.

Amanda frowned, not liking how this was panning out. She knew Angelo survived this, the evidence had been smoking with her and complaining about Math: homework that very morning, but there was something going on here, something he hadn't told her about.

They'd made their choice before they even got into the warehouse. Awake, Angelo knew that had to be true, because there had been no discussion or signal that he'd seen afterwards. They had to have chosen at the start which of the boys would be given the chance to live. And here it came. Jorge was hauled back up off the floor and held upright, barely conscious, and Angelo found himself being dragged across the suddenly clear space to the other boy's side. At a signal from the gang leader, his captors released his arms and then, in a few sentences of rough Spanish, he was told his choice. Uncomprehending, not wanting to understand or believe, he watched them load the gun with one bullet, move it round to the firing chamber... and the gun was pressed into his hand.

"No. Bloody fuckin' hell, no, they can't, they can't make him do that..." Amanda was unaware she was speaking, transfixed by what she was seeing. "Oh Christ, Ange." She reached out again, not physically this time, but with the magic, casting a shielding spell around Angelo in the hope of separating him from the dream.

Angelo blinked as the warehouse around him suddenly seemed... less real, somehow. It was still there, it just seemed to have become oddly flat, like a stage set. He looked around, his conscious mind taking control again, and saw her. "...Amanda? What are you...?"

Well, thank fuck for that. Amanda hadn't been sure that the spell would work that way, or at all - this was someone else's head after all... That thought reminded her she really ought to be careful about what she did in other people's heads. Still, the damage, so to speak, had been done. She came forward, walking through gang members as if they weren't there. They continued reacting to the scene as if there had been no change - the main player had been removed, but the play went on.

"Sorry, mate," she said with a slight shrug of apology. "Looks like I went wanderin' without meanin' to."

Angelo, whose physical appearance had changed to his eighteen-year-old self when she cast the spell, moved forward to greet her, then looked around at the continuing scene just in time to see Jorge turn his head weakly to say a few words to the empty space where he'd been standing. He paled and turned away to focus on her, trying to ignore what was going on behind him. "You did say that might happen", he answered neutrally, wanting them not to be there, not wanting her to be seeing this - although perhaps, part of him did.

It was the part of him that wanted her to see this that kept them here - this was his head, not hers. Over his shoulder she caught sight of Jorge, begging for his life, and bit her lip. "Doesn't make it any easier," she said, eyes flicking back to his. "Some stuff you shouldn't have t' share."

He nodded, turning back to the scene behind him. "I'd probably have told you about this soon anyway", he told her quietly. "So you might as well see it." Concentrating, he made his fourteen-year-old self appear where he had been standing, tears on his face as he sobbed an apology, over and over. His hands were shaking - both the boy's, and the current Angelo's - but he managed to raise the gun anyway.

As the younger Angelo pressed the gun barrel to his friend's head, Amanda grabbed his counterpart's hand, more for her sake than his. He wanted her to see this, to understand, but she couldn't help squeezing her eyes shut as the gun went off. When she opened them again, the younger Angelo was staring down at the crumpled body of his friend, watching the bright red blood pool around the boy's head. "Christ, Ange," she choked, unable to say much more, but squeezing his hand tightly.

Angelo turned away after a long moment. He'd seen this before, after all - when it happened, and many times after that. "So now you know", he said flatly. "I was beyond scared, they would've killed me if I hadn't, but this is probably the worst thing I ever did."

"An' that's what you want t' atone for, right?" Amanda glanced one last time at the scene - it was fading, the principal act completed, Angelo's attention focussed elsewhere - and then back at him. "Seems t' me a God that'd condemn you for doin' somethin' you were forced t' do isn't worth much."

He shrugged. "That, an' other things. Mostly that. I had a choice, after all - nobody pulled the trigger for me. Wasn't a good choice - anythin' else I could've done would've finished with us both dead - but it was a choice."

"An' intention don't mean anythin'?" Amanda's tone was more sad than angry, still too heartsick at what she'd witnessed. "Is wantin' t' live so bloody wrong?"

Angelo shrugged again, trying to explain. "It's not all about the religion part. When I get up the nerve, I'll go to Confession, tell the priest everythin' I've done, take whatever penance he hands out... but I don't know whether or not that'll change how I feel about me for what I did."

"You wanted t' live," she repeated, glancing over at the ghosts of the scene. "You shouldn't have had t' make that choice, but they made you." Shaking her head, she looked back at him. "He'd have done the same, yer mate, if things were the other way 'round."

Angelo turned to look at her, eyes full of self-doubt. "Would he? I always wondered... but maybe you're right."

"We're not all heroes, Ange, like you get on the telly. Given this sort of choice... most of us'd do the same. Sometimes you do anythin' t' survive, an' I dunno if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Wantin' t' survive got me through Rack, an' after, even if some of the things I did were pretty fuckin' awful. An' now I've got the chance t' do somethin' useful with me life, maybe help some people, like with RedX..." She squeezed the hand she was still holding. "Yer alive, Ange. An' that ain't a sin."

Angelo nodded, squeezing her hand in return. "Yeah - I guess that's the way to see it. Might not always manage to think that way, on the bad days, but I'll try. But this, here - " He gestured towards the scene behind them without turning to look at it. "This is why the whole atonement argument hit me so hard."

"I hear you on the bad days," Amanda said wryly. "An' that whole thing... should've just stopped readin' the minute I saw it, y'know? Neither of us needed that."

He shrugged. "It wasn't so much Ms. Braddock's question, it was Rahne an' Nathan's answers to it. An' Rahne didn't mean it the way it sounded, I know that now, but Nathan did. I've talked to him too, an' Paul, though."

"Good. Talkin' helps straighten things out at least, even if yer brain decides otherwise." She gestured vaguely at the scene around them. "Takes a while for stuff t' sink in, an' nightmares never listen any way. Been havin' a few of me own since."

He nodded. "Paul said... concentrate on the good things I've done, an' doin' more from now on. Pretty good advice, really."

"Paul does that," Amanda said, remembering the chat she'd had with the man herself.

"Yeah, he does. You've talked to him too, then?"

"I did some healing on him, after the thing with Shiro. He thanked me for it." Amanda still sounded mildly surprised at that. "Wanted t' pay the debt."

Angelo glanced over at her. "Why wouldn't he thank you? 's a good thing you did. If I never thanked you for healin' me, I should've done."

"I dunno. 'S just... I do it t' help, not for the thanks. An' Paul knows about magic, knows some of the... customs, if you like. It surprised me that someone would." She met Angelo's glance. "An' you did thank me. Paid me back in kind, too - that night on the platform."

Angelo smiled suddenly, crookedly. "You know... that's one of the only good things I know I've done." As he spoke, the scene dissolved around them, becoming the flying platform, that night. "Paul said he thinks I've done more, but this..."

Amanda winced a little at the sight of herself, teetering on the edge both literally and metaphorically, and nodded. "He's right, in both cases. But especially this... After everythin' I done t' you, you still were there for me."

She wasn't on the edge long, as Angelo pulled her back. "When I thought you were goin' to... die, it didn't matter. What you'd done. I told you then, I couldn't let you do it."

"An' I'm glad you couldn't." Amanda watched the exchange between them, unable to turn away, no matter how much it hurt to see herself like that. "I got so lost, Ange, an' I couldn't see another way out. 'M glad you were there t' catch me."

He squeezed her hand. "I always will be, from now, if you need me. No more bein' stupid, I promise, little sis."

"I won't if you won't." Amanda watched Angelo use the phone to call for help, and then return to wrap his arms around her to keep her warm. "I'd forgotten that bit," she said with a slight smile. "Everythin' was so muddled then."

He returned the smile, faintly. "Yeah, you were pretty out of it. D'you remember Warren flyin' up to get you?"

"A bit. We talked, a couple of days after." As she spoke, Warren appeared, scooping her up as if she weighed nothing. Which she probably didn't, at that stage. "Christ, I was such a fuckin' mess. Yer'd think I'd've remembered that before gettin' back on the mystic stuff."

Angelo shrugged. "The bad stuff... has a way of fadin', after a while. At a guess, I'd say you only really remembered how it felt to be high?"

"Mostly." The scene ended with Warren flying away and Angelo heading for the stairs, leaving the two of them alone on the cold and wind-swept roof. "'S like it's disconnected. I remember that I felt awful most of the time after I got cut off, but not how awful. An' I remember how bein' high makes things easier t' deal with." She bit her lip. "Still, after nearly toppin' meself, yer'd think I'd have the sense t' keep away from it."

Angelo looked at her wryly. "You know better'n I do, addiction doesn't work like that."

"I know. Guess I didn't want t' admit I was an addict. That maybe it was different for me, that I'd be cured, since it was magic an' all." She sighed. "I know better now. 'S why it's harder this time, an' why I'm tryin' t' be more honest about it. Remindin' meself I can't slip again."

Angelo nodded. "You've got all the help you need. You know that."

She nodded. "I know. Just ain't always easy t' ask for it."

He chuckled. "Don't I know that. I'll try an' make sure you don't have to."

"I'd appreciate it. There's only so many times I can swallow what pride I have an' ask for someone t' sit on me, after all." She squeezed his hand back. "You wanna show me somethin' happy now? Think you owe me," she asked with a grin.

He grinned back. "Heh. Okay then. Anythin' in particular?"

"Not you an' Paige an' the wild monkey sex," she replied, chuckling. "Some things you don't want t' know about yer friends."