xp_logs | Fried Eggs and Hillbillies (Reply)

The plate was swimming in grease. It looked like Pete had even found a way to fry the baked beans. Egg yolk dripped off his fork, as he paused with it halfway to his mouth, to swear the television. Half a pot of coffee was sitting at his elbow, and his body language made it clear that any attempt to take it away would be met with extreme violence. In deference to the rest of the breakfast eating world, he wasn't smoking, although the sight of his breakfast was putting most people off, anyway.

Angelo walked into the kitchen, and headed for the cereal cupboard without looking round. When he'd found what he was after and made his breakfast, he turned to sit down and stopped dead, surprised to find a man he'd never seen before at the table.

"Er... hi..." he said uncertainly.

"Morning", said Pete, barely pausing in his eating. "Espinosa, isn't it?"

"Yeah, that's me", Angelo answered, suddenly realizing who this must be. "And you're Mr. Wisdom, right?"

"Yeah. Me reputation precedes me, then?" He grinned.

"You're the one Summers brought in, aren't you? Just before the business with Allerdyce?" A brief scowl passed across his face.

"How're you finding the place, then?"

"Everyone's been great", Angelo answered. This was his stock answer to give to faculty, and had the benefit of being mostly true. "I'm pretty much settled in now."

"Yeah, they've gotten pretty good at making anyone that pitches up on the doorstep feel at home here." He paused to shovel more bacon in.

"You look like you're recovering from sitting post on Paige, anyway. She seems to have every bloke in the place watching over her..."

"Yeah, I've had some sleep now. And that's Paige for you. She attracts loyalty..."

"Loyalty and puppy dogs." He paused for a second, watching Angelo's reaction, before continuing. "No, not you. The Ramsey kid. I get the idea that you're a bit more savvy then he is, at any rate. Must be a bit of a culture shock for you, a place like this..."

"It is, at that", Angelo admitted. "Not in a bad way, it's just... different."

"That's one way of putting it, yeah. Still, you're not tempted to go back, ever?"

"I can't", Angelo answered grimly. "There are people there who want to kill me, and they already tried once. That's how I ended up here."

"Doesn't mean you don't wanna try though, does it?" Pete grinned wryly. "There's a number of people back in London would love to put their hands on me, I suspect."

Something occured to him. "Oh, hey, if it ain't a personal question - how d'you know Allerdyce? Something he said when you first signed on to this system made me think he knew you before the school?"

Angelo froze for a moment, unsure how much he should tell Pete. "No, I never met him before I got here. We have similar backgrounds, though, and he was one of the first people I met when I arrived."

"So the two of you just started 'acquainting'? Fair enough." Pete's tone was bland.

Angelo eyed Pete warily, unsure whether or not he was being judged unfavorably. "Hey, I needed the company, badly..."

"No, seriously, fair enough." Pete grinned. "How's he doing, anyway? Figure it must have been weird for him, settling back in here..."

Angelo frowned suddenly. "I... I think he's OK. He was getting on better with Marie... but I haven't seen him for very long at a time, for a little while now, for one reason or another..."

"Sorry, didn't mean to pry. Force of habit." He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. "So, if you can't go back, what d'you reckon you'll do when you're done here? You're what, seventeen?"

"Seventeen, yeah", Angelo answered. "And I don't know. Might stick around, see if the Professor can find me something to do. Or maybe I'll go to NYC and get a job there. I should be safe everywhere but LA - the guys aren't likely to leave..."

"Oh, I'm sure Charlie'll be able to find a use for you. Seems to be able to do that for anyone that knocks on his door."

At that moment, an ad break interrupted the news.

"Bloody things. I've been in the sodding country what, two weeks, and I've already seen more adverts than I'd catch in a year back home..."

"Two weeks? But you only got back to the mansion a couple of days ago, right?" Angelo asked.

"Yeah. I make a point of not letting this place become me entire world."
He gave Angelo a steady, assessing look. "There's a bunch of, well, milita boys, I guess, that my former employers were funding. Offshoot of some of the weirder black-book stuff the CIA were up to in the cold war, that found a home with a faction in British Intel when the CIA left 'em hanging. I didn't like some of the stuff I was seeing in the reports just before I was fired, so I went to go have a quick dekko at them meself. It all went a bit pear shaped, and after a couple of misunderstandings with the top boy there, I called a friend in the FBI, and well, it weren't dreadfully pretty.""

Observing Angelo's slightly shocked look, Pete grinned.

"Like I say, I try and make sure this place isn't me entire world. Mind you, if you'd told me I'd be chasing hillbillies in the Smoky mountains with the FBI when I was your age I'd have laughed at you. After I was done nicking your car, at any rate."

Angelo grinned. "Chasing hillbillies with the FBI? Sounds... interesting..."

"Yeah. Something like that. I've spent the last month doing a couple of jobs like that - the sort of thing I couldn't do when I was being paid by British Intel, you know? Now I've just to figure out what to do next..."

"No rush, though, right?" Angelo asked. "Why not just kick back for a while here?"

"Yeah. I figure something'll turn up in a bit." He wiped his plate with a slice of bread. "But I wanna have something to kill time with, y'know? I've never been very good at doing nothing. And if I just hang around doing nothing here too long, I'm gonna teach the kids my bad habits, and then Charlie'll have me head."

"How about making it official?" Angelo suggested. "You must know how to fight, from what you were saying, and with Mr. Logan gone..."

Pete looked a bit surprised. "You know, that hadn't even occured to me. Lemme think about it a bit, but you might be onto something there. Not that I'm half as good as him, but at least I've had a bit of training..."

Pete got up, looking a bit lost in thought, dumped his dishes in the sink, fished a battered pack of cigarettes out of a pocket, and headed for the door. "Cheers, kid. Don't think I'll be teaching hand-to-hand quite like Logan did, but you've given me an idea."

"No problem. See you around."