xp_logs | Angelo and Nathan, late Thursday

Nathan comes to check on Angelo, and ends up making sure he gets one dream-free night's sleep without resorting to pills or potions.

Angelo was sitting in his room (he had promised Madelyn he'd do his thinking in the warm, after all), on his bed with the bedroom door open in case someone came by. The puppy was curled up next to him, half-heartedly licking his hand but more than halfway asleep.

Nathan stood in the doorway, wondering just how long it would be until Angelo noticed him. "You look like you're a million miles away," he finally said quietly, deciding not to wait him out.

Angelo looked up at him sharply, startled, accidentally disturbing the puppy, who whined a little in protest. "Nate. Hey. Didn't hear you come in."

"I should learn to make more noise." Nathan leaned against the doorframe. "How are you doing?"

Angelo lifted the puppy into his lap absently, soothing her back to sleep. "Better than I was. Clarice tells me Jono's gettin' better...?"

Nathan took a deep breath. Someone ought to have a word with Clarice, he thought a bit wearily. "I don't know what she means by better," he said as directly as he could. "He's calm. Responsive."

Angelo nodded, resigned. "Yeah, I figured... it's not somethin' anyone's gonna fix overnight." If at all...

"He's alive, Angelo," Nathan said after a moment. "Alive and... healthy, for the form that he's in now. Stable."

Angelo looked up, his gaze direct. "Do you think they'll be able to get him back in a physical body? Sometime?"

"Askani had thought that his own body might not be salvageable. She had something in mind if it came to that, I know..." Nathan frowned, one hand rubbing at his temple briefly as the buzz in the back of his mind grew louder. "I'm just not sure what."

Angelo shot him a worried glance, seeing him rub his head. "She's not talkin' to you? ...Oh, right, yeah, you hit your head..."

"Amanda's healed the concussion most of the way," Nathan said lightly. "I think the problem is that I was linked to Jono when it happened. Backlash. It's..." He made a helpless gesture. "A bit scrambled in there, just now. They'll sort themselves out."

Angelo nodded. "'s the Professor had a look, or is he too busy with Jono?"

"He has," Nathan confirmed softly. "Don't worry." Joyita lifted her head and regarded him sleepily, and Nathan smiled faintly. "She's getting big."

Angelo grinned wryly. "Yeah, she is. Half-grown now, aren't you, chiquita?" he said, stroking her head gently. "Six months, or thereabouts."

"I wasn't sure she'd ever grow into those feet of hers, but she seems to be making a good stab at it." Nathan leaned a little more heavily against the doorframe. "Are you sleeping?" he asked a bit abruptly.

Angelo started to say something possibly not entirely honest, then stopped. "At least every other night", he said cagily. "I don't like... takin' stuff... more than that."

"You can't keep that up for very long." It wasn't condemnation, just a statement of fact.

"I do get some sleep most nights", Angelo pointed out. "Just... not full nights lately, not without the pills or the potions."

Nathan nodded slowly, silent for a long moment. "Why?" he finally asked.

Angelo thought, then shrugged, genuinely not sure. "Jono, mostly. Paige... different things. Still from Halloween some, too."

"Have you talked to Samson?"

"About Halloween? Yeah. He says it'll go away, hopefully 'fore too long. Just... always gets worse when I've been reminded, for a while."

Nathan shook his head. "Not just about Halloween," he said quietly.

Angelo tilted his head. "...Jono? I haven't had a session since it happened - 's only been a few days. Got one this weekend, though, so I will."

"That's good..." Not really much he could do here, Nathan thought with an inward sigh. He couldn't even reassure Angelo that he would help Jono. After all, he'd been trying to help him when he'd blown up...

Angelo nodded. "Yeah, I... try to fix it when I'm not doin' so well - or there's people to help if I can't." He couldn't resist a vaguely snarky, "I'm not Jubilee."

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Not particularly productive," he pointed out, trying not to wince as he thought of that scene in the medlab.

Angelo looked down, focusing on the now-sleeping dog in his lap. "Yeah, well. Can't be productive all the time."

"It's okay to be angry, you know," Nathan said softly. "Just... don't pick the easiest available target because there's no one to be angry at when it comes to the really important stuff."

Angelo blinked. "Jubilee deserves it some, though", he muttered. "Not, like, really losin' it at her or anythin'... but I saw what she said t'make Dr. Bartlet think Amanda would ever not heal her if she had the juice to do it."

"Just keep in mind that everyone's been under a lot of stress," Nathan advised him, no edge to the words. "If we all started duking it out over every stupid thing we said or did, this place would be a bloodbath in about an hour flat."

Angelo paused, then nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, I guess."

Nathan took a deep breath. "Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked a bit tentatively.

Angelo shrugged. "Don't know. I would say... one night without either the dreams or the medication'd be really good, but if you've still got problems from the backlash... an' I don't even know if you can do that normally."

Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it again and glanced at his watch. "You have anything you want to do with the rest of the evening?" he asked.

Angelo blinked, then smiled slowly, guessing what Nathan was getting at. "Not really. Was pretty much just gonna stay in here anyway."

Nathan made a monosyllabic noise in response. His head was markedly better today, he told himself, and it wouldn't be as if Angelo was fighting him, as Amanda had that time he'd had to knock her out. "Get comfortable, then," he said, "and start counting backwards from ten."

Angelo hesitated, unsure if Nathan should really be doing this, then shrugged and got himself comfortable in the bed, the puppy nestled next to him, before he started the count.

It was easier than he'd thought. As Angelo counted back silently, Nathan reached out and gently nudged his mind into a sleep-pattern. It was a little more difficult to set up a loop of some of his better memories to prevent bad dreams, but some of what Charles had been teaching him had to be sinking in.

His head had started to throb very slightly by the time he was done, but it was done, and Angelo was quite peacefully asleep. Nathan sighed quietly, and Joyita raised her head to peer at him.

"Night, you," he murmured and turned to go, closing the bedroom door behind him.