Post by Nightingale on Jan 20, 2007 2:42:34 GMT -5
[Timestamp: The morning after the party]
Lucas was in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette- he figured he wasn't supposed to, but didn't really care- and nursing a bottle of beer. It was all of 7 oclock in the morning, but that was Lucas James' routine. A week-old New York Times Gill had handed off to him was under his beer bottle. He was reading the funnies- it was easier to get what the words were saying because the pictures told half the tale.
"Ohhh, god." Swallowing hard, bracing herself against the cool metal wall with one hand, Angie paused for a moment to breathe. What she wanted to do was go back to bed and sleep until the nausea went away. What she was doing was wandering down to the kitchen hoping for a coffee and something greasy to help her feel better. Or did everyone go to Maccas in the morning because it was easier than cooking?
They even had Maccas, didn't they? Though she wasn't entirely sure how she felt about eating something that the animates had been stuck in the hold with.
She was rubbing her stomach gently when she walked in the door, looking as miserable as she felt.
Why am I even awake? Raising a hand in greeting, Angie grabbed a coffee from the machine before she slid into a chair and slumped over the table.
"Oh, god. Why?" She raised her head for just long enough to take a sip of her coffee before slumping back down again. "Morning."
Lucas looked at her across the table, barely lifting his head. Smirking, he stared at her miserable self for a good long time.
She was cute. And he'd done his share of gruffly nursing teenaged hangover victims, so he knew the trademarks right away. What was it with kids and overdoing it? Lucas just slept a hangover off. Why did they always get up?
"Hey."
Taking a swig of his beer, he kept watching her. "You need a shot. Let me get you something, I think there's some whiskey left over."
"Oh, god, no." She sat up properly, a look of horror on her face. "No, no, no more alcohol."
How much had she had to drink last night? Far too much. Well, that was what you were supposed to do on your 18th, wasn't it? But god, she felt like crap today.
"I'll just have some coffee..." Angie swallowed again, ruining the image she'd been trying to cultivate that she was just fine, "and maybe some toast or something." If she could keep it down. She pulled her legs, pale skin showing at the gap between her long socks and her little pyjama shorts, up onto her chair and hugged them to her, resting her chin on her knees.
She still looked miserable, as though she actually thought that she was dying. Another sip of coffee and she offered Lucas a very weak smile, as if to say, 'See? I'm fine. No more whiskey needed here. Uh uh.'
He snorted. "Yeah. You'll drink it. It'll help with the headache." He took her coffee cup back and walked over to the counter, doctoring it just lightly enough that she might not taste the alcohol beneath the acidic flavor of the coffee. Might.
Setting it down in front of her, he put a large hand on the edge of the table and half leaned over her. He smelled like clean, freshly showered guy-ness, and his voice was that low smooth tone when he spoke. "Just trust me. And if you're going to throw up, TRY to make it to the sink. I think Gill wants his paper back." He gave her a light clap on the shoulder as if she were just one of the guys, and resumed his seat opposite her, lighting another cigarette off the first one.
Shaking her head, silently mouthing the word 'no', Angie couldn't - or wouldn't - do anything to stop Lucas in his quest to give her... what did they call it? Hair of the dog? Yeah, really not appetising. She was feeling so miserable that she didn't even notice how close he was, though the young Australian did wince when he clapped her on the shoulder.
"Yeah, not something I'm planning on doing, but I'll keep that in mind." As long as the first taste of more alcohol didn't send her heaving.
She sniffed at the coffee suspiciously. It didn't smell too strong... A tentative sip told her that it didn't taste too strong, either, though her stomach did roll - maybe just at the thought of it.
"So obviously you're just fine then." It was a miracle that she didn't inject a strong note of resentment into that. "You slept well, then?"
Angie frowned slightly, doing her best to remember exactly what had happened the night before. There were... fuzzy bits. She wasn't going to ask about those, though. Hopefully everyone would just forget if she'd done anything too embarrassing.
Lucas cracked a grin. "Heh. Yeah." He wasn't going to go into exactly WHY he slept well, or WHO he was with... but he had slept well, in any case.
"Some birthday party. When I can remember my birthday, I'll let you know." He chuckled and took another drink.
"God, I don't think we can do that too often." Or maybe it was just her who couldn't do that too often. Another sip of coffee, another pathetic face, and Angie curled up around her knees again, looking for all the world like she was going to fall right back asleep. Or maybe she was just trying to keep the light from making her headache worse.
"I think all the bourbon is gone. That's something, at least." There was a short pause and she cracked one eye open to look at Lucas for a moment before she closed it again. "Not exactly where I thought I'd be spending my eighteenth, but I'm glad we did something. I just don't think I'll be able to manage... You know, if we have another one soon."
The next words were muffled as she buried her face into her knees, her hair falling all over the place. "How do you like the island so far, anyway?"
Lucas just s hook his head, amused as all hell at her antics.
"It's alright. I'm a little ticked Pyro didn't tell us where we were headed in the first fucking place, but... secrecy and all. I miss the city like you wouldn't fucking believe. Gotta get off the island sooner or later or I'm gonna crack my head open banging it against a tree or somethin'."
"Where you from, anyway? What's that accent?"
"Try not to crack your head open today, I don't know how much help I'll be." Angie looked up again at the question about her accent, a little bit of a smile appearing. She liked talking about home. She missed home so much sometimes, though she was trying to remember that she had a home here, too.
"Australia. I grew up in Sydney - where Pyro was born - but moved up to Brisbane when my mum found out about my mutation." Because her mum had found out at the same time as a bunch of other people, and had been scared for her safety. Apparently.
"Always lived in close to the city - it's so quiet out here, isn't it?"
"Dead quiet. 'Tween you and me, it scares the shit outta me sometimes." He ashed his cigarette.
"Pyro's from Sydney huh? Well I've known him- well, known of him- since he was just a runt in Queens. You shoulda seen him. Nothin' like the guy you know now. Heh. Well okay mabye a little." Lucas smirked. Pyro was still a bit of a runt, but at least the guy had grown some hair where it mattered since the last time Lucas had some across him.
"Mmm." Non-commital noise. The Pyro she knew now seemed to change all the time.
"He's so skinny. He doesn't eat enough." Angie sighed, taking another sip of her coffee to stop herself from blurting out her concerns. It wasn't exactly her place - and Pyro was the leader. She didn't want to cut him down in the eyes of the others.
"So you didn't actually know him? I think Dom's known him for years - Pyro's told me a few stories." It was really cute, actually, hearing about them and seeing the two of them together.
Her brow furrowed as her ears picked up a clicking noise, and when Angie turned toward the door she saw Mr. Bones wandering in. He brought a slightly larger smile to her face, but she didn't lean down to scratch his head. She'd been wondering where he got to.
"How old are you? I mean, you look older than Pyro, but... I've never been much good at telling people's age." She felt so awkward. She always felt awkward. She buried her face in her knees again.
"We all hung around the same circles, but New York is a big place, mutant or not... we knew of each other. I helped out their gang a few times." He'd helped out a lot of gangs, it's kind of what he ended up doing, being one of the last people his age to not die or make it out of street life. Truth was, Lucas had never really wanted anything else.
"I should be around 25, 26." He shrugged. He felt a fuck of a lot older, that was for sure. "What'd you have guessed?"
"I dunno," she shrugged, "about that?" Truth be told, she really just had no idea. Angie knew that she looked younger than she actually was, but she didn't really know how to tell how old people actually were. She'd just always known.
She tended to put people in broad categories. Kid - about my age - older than me - about mum's age - old old. It was a fairly good scale, but rather imprecise.
"I'm really bad at guessing. Like... Dharma, he could be a hundred for all I know." He probably was. Dharma was just weird. But in a good way.
"I only saw New York once, I went there with Aurora to pick up some new recruits a little while back." It was really big. Big enough that they'd lost one of the new recruits... Or never been able to find her. "I liked it there. I mean, it's dangerous for us now, with so many people, but it's better than being stuck out here with all, what, twenty of us?" There just wasn't that much to do with the same people for months on end.
Lucas lit another cigarette, half grinning. "Know where I'd like to see us go? Mexico. That would kick ass. Nice quiet place, out of jurisdiction for the feds, living's real cheap. I took a road trip down there once with some guys I did a job for. Pretty damned cool. Specially Tijuana. But you end up with a lot of druggies there. Can't fool with those jackasses."
"You said your mom got tweaked when you came out as a mutant, huh? So whatcha do then? And how'd you end up with a crowd like us? You don't seem the time, pardon my french."
"Hmm? Yeah, mum moved us out of the state - she wasn't the only one who figured out what I could do, it kinda... got around where she worked, she didn't think it'd be safe." Shifting a little, Angie took another sip of her coffee and made another face. She was almost starting to feel better, but the liquid hitting her stomach had reminded her of the nausea.
"Well, she couldn't figure out how to fix me, so when the cure came out she dragged me over to the US to get it straight away. I didn't want it, I took off." She shrugged, chewing on her bottom lip. "I didn't really have anyone else to ask for help, but it wasn't just that. I mean, it's bullshit, isn't it? The cure. I don't need it, people shouldn't think that they do either. I mean, I can't touch people, but big deal. I still don't need to be changed to fit in with everyone else."
Draining the last of her coffee, Angie rested her chin on her knees and regarded Lucas thoughtfully. "What is the type, though? I mean, why'd you join?" She didn't think that they wanted to be fighting forever. Then again, she didn't think that they necessarily had to fight at all. She wanted to help build a world where people like her didn't have to think of themselves as freaks. Where the rest of the population knew that they were normal just like everybody else.
"Seen a lot of bullshit go down since I split from home." He finished his beer, and folded the funny papers in half.
"Mutant kids always got kicked outta their families. Every kid on the streets has a fucked up life- no matter what you want to think, no one chooses to be on their own like that. So every kid has some reason, right. Mutant kids were always forced into it." He shrugged. "That ain't a big deal, until they started talking about it in the government. THe police started acting weirder. Then they shot a bunch of my people up with the "cure"." Lucas had never really explained this quite so clearly. There was something about Angie's honesty that allowed him to open up a bit.
Angie couldn't know that Lucas didn't have a habit of referring to anyone as his "people". But it's just how he'd seen it- until the cure came along, he'd thought of them as just more mutants. Then half of them lost their identities, a few of them lost their lives because of it. Then he understood that 11 years on the streets changes a person's idea of family. Those mutant gangs were the closest he had to it. They may have feared him, but they respected him too. If he needed something, they gave it to him. That was just about what family had to be, in Luke's opinion.
"Callisto was raising hell in the city, but she wasn't doing any good. She was causing more problems than she prevented. When I saw Magneto take a bunch of kids out of the city, I watched. He fucked up, he used them like fodder. I've told Pyro there won't be any more of that bullshit. I'll pop his head like a grape before I watch the Brotherhood treat people that way again. But that guy, Magneto, had a point, too. It's us or them. And if I can help matters some by supporting the cause?" Lucas shrugged. "Then I may as well do somethign with my life other than watch more mutant kids die."
"Oh, you know Callisto? She's around here somewhere. Keeps to herself a lot. Cain doesn't like her." Neither did Angie, for that matter, but she didn't normally like to say that kind of thing. As it was, she was trying to ignore the idea of Lucas doing anything to hurt Pyro. She liked Lucas so far, but the idea of him telling Pyro what to do, of him threatening the young leader...
She chewed on her bottom lip for a little while. It seemed like she was the only one who thought there was a way of doing things that didn't involve killing all the humans.
"I never knew Magneto. I just wonder sometimes if it really does have to be us or them. I mean... I know there's some people who'd probably lock me up and make me heal people until I keeled over dead, but... I mean, it's not everyone, is it?" She sounded almost anxious. Angie wanted to believe the best of everyone. It was hard for her to look at what they did sometimes, all those people that had been killed, and think of the Brotherhood as any better. There was a moral line that that she was just not quite decided on.
"No, I don't think it's everyone. But you know what, it doesn't take everyone hating us to make us all dead, honey."
He lit yet another cigarette, and got up to get another beer, cracking it open. "All it takes is the wrong law being written, or the wrong incident giving society the cause to authorize the wrong action by the police, or the national guard, or the fucking army. You were at Baltimore right? Saw that Sentinel bullshit? Yeah. I heard about that. Now you want to lay down and take their gun up your nose when shit hits the fan? I doubt it. Otherwise you wouldn't be here."
He sat down, gesturing at her with his cigarette, finger, and beer bottle all at once somehow. "There's a stopping point, Angie. We're not talking genocide, at least, I'd hope we weren't. But shit's gotta change. Black folks didn't get their freedom by waiting for everyone to start liking them. They got into the streets, into people's faces, they caused problems. It's just gonna take some time for people to start thinking about it. If causing some mayhem in order to keep the talk about mutant rights going is what we have to do? Well... I'm willing to sacrifice myself for that."
She just listened, silently, her expression more sad than anything else. Yes, she had been at Baltimore, and what she'd seen was a lot of death, fighting between mutants, Cain and Dead Man and Jane causing trouble for... well, she couldn't really understand what for. All it had done was make everyone say how dangerous they were, how much more important it was for things like the Sentinels to exist to keep them under control.
Angie watched the news. She seemed to do a lot more of it than any of the others currently at the base. She didn't have much else to do. She knew how Jane's picture being taken at Baltimore, all the people her plants had killed, had ruined a guy's campaign which was focusing on mutant equality. She knew the names and faces of every man, woman and child who had died there, knew how many of them were mutants. It just didn't seem right to her, that they were killing other mutants in their fight for equality. Or was it surpemacy?
She didn't feel like her powers made her more special than anyone else. She just didn't think they made her less special, either.
"Yeah, I guess so." Reaching across the table, fingers outstretched, Angie nodded and sighed.
"I dunno. I'm just not much help there, am I?" She took her hand back, uncurled her legs and waited to see if her stomach protested again. So far, so good.
"Think I might wander back and have a shower." Chewing her lip awkwardly, she shrugged again. "Thanks for the whiskey and sympathy." Not quite tea and sympathy, but it would do.
Lucas nodded, sitting back and picking up his paper, cigarette lodged in his lips.
"No problem."
Lucas was in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette- he figured he wasn't supposed to, but didn't really care- and nursing a bottle of beer. It was all of 7 oclock in the morning, but that was Lucas James' routine. A week-old New York Times Gill had handed off to him was under his beer bottle. He was reading the funnies- it was easier to get what the words were saying because the pictures told half the tale.
"Ohhh, god." Swallowing hard, bracing herself against the cool metal wall with one hand, Angie paused for a moment to breathe. What she wanted to do was go back to bed and sleep until the nausea went away. What she was doing was wandering down to the kitchen hoping for a coffee and something greasy to help her feel better. Or did everyone go to Maccas in the morning because it was easier than cooking?
They even had Maccas, didn't they? Though she wasn't entirely sure how she felt about eating something that the animates had been stuck in the hold with.
She was rubbing her stomach gently when she walked in the door, looking as miserable as she felt.
Why am I even awake? Raising a hand in greeting, Angie grabbed a coffee from the machine before she slid into a chair and slumped over the table.
"Oh, god. Why?" She raised her head for just long enough to take a sip of her coffee before slumping back down again. "Morning."
Lucas looked at her across the table, barely lifting his head. Smirking, he stared at her miserable self for a good long time.
She was cute. And he'd done his share of gruffly nursing teenaged hangover victims, so he knew the trademarks right away. What was it with kids and overdoing it? Lucas just slept a hangover off. Why did they always get up?
"Hey."
Taking a swig of his beer, he kept watching her. "You need a shot. Let me get you something, I think there's some whiskey left over."
"Oh, god, no." She sat up properly, a look of horror on her face. "No, no, no more alcohol."
How much had she had to drink last night? Far too much. Well, that was what you were supposed to do on your 18th, wasn't it? But god, she felt like crap today.
"I'll just have some coffee..." Angie swallowed again, ruining the image she'd been trying to cultivate that she was just fine, "and maybe some toast or something." If she could keep it down. She pulled her legs, pale skin showing at the gap between her long socks and her little pyjama shorts, up onto her chair and hugged them to her, resting her chin on her knees.
She still looked miserable, as though she actually thought that she was dying. Another sip of coffee and she offered Lucas a very weak smile, as if to say, 'See? I'm fine. No more whiskey needed here. Uh uh.'
He snorted. "Yeah. You'll drink it. It'll help with the headache." He took her coffee cup back and walked over to the counter, doctoring it just lightly enough that she might not taste the alcohol beneath the acidic flavor of the coffee. Might.
Setting it down in front of her, he put a large hand on the edge of the table and half leaned over her. He smelled like clean, freshly showered guy-ness, and his voice was that low smooth tone when he spoke. "Just trust me. And if you're going to throw up, TRY to make it to the sink. I think Gill wants his paper back." He gave her a light clap on the shoulder as if she were just one of the guys, and resumed his seat opposite her, lighting another cigarette off the first one.
Shaking her head, silently mouthing the word 'no', Angie couldn't - or wouldn't - do anything to stop Lucas in his quest to give her... what did they call it? Hair of the dog? Yeah, really not appetising. She was feeling so miserable that she didn't even notice how close he was, though the young Australian did wince when he clapped her on the shoulder.
"Yeah, not something I'm planning on doing, but I'll keep that in mind." As long as the first taste of more alcohol didn't send her heaving.
She sniffed at the coffee suspiciously. It didn't smell too strong... A tentative sip told her that it didn't taste too strong, either, though her stomach did roll - maybe just at the thought of it.
"So obviously you're just fine then." It was a miracle that she didn't inject a strong note of resentment into that. "You slept well, then?"
Angie frowned slightly, doing her best to remember exactly what had happened the night before. There were... fuzzy bits. She wasn't going to ask about those, though. Hopefully everyone would just forget if she'd done anything too embarrassing.
Lucas cracked a grin. "Heh. Yeah." He wasn't going to go into exactly WHY he slept well, or WHO he was with... but he had slept well, in any case.
"Some birthday party. When I can remember my birthday, I'll let you know." He chuckled and took another drink.
"God, I don't think we can do that too often." Or maybe it was just her who couldn't do that too often. Another sip of coffee, another pathetic face, and Angie curled up around her knees again, looking for all the world like she was going to fall right back asleep. Or maybe she was just trying to keep the light from making her headache worse.
"I think all the bourbon is gone. That's something, at least." There was a short pause and she cracked one eye open to look at Lucas for a moment before she closed it again. "Not exactly where I thought I'd be spending my eighteenth, but I'm glad we did something. I just don't think I'll be able to manage... You know, if we have another one soon."
The next words were muffled as she buried her face into her knees, her hair falling all over the place. "How do you like the island so far, anyway?"
Lucas just s hook his head, amused as all hell at her antics.
"It's alright. I'm a little ticked Pyro didn't tell us where we were headed in the first fucking place, but... secrecy and all. I miss the city like you wouldn't fucking believe. Gotta get off the island sooner or later or I'm gonna crack my head open banging it against a tree or somethin'."
"Where you from, anyway? What's that accent?"
"Try not to crack your head open today, I don't know how much help I'll be." Angie looked up again at the question about her accent, a little bit of a smile appearing. She liked talking about home. She missed home so much sometimes, though she was trying to remember that she had a home here, too.
"Australia. I grew up in Sydney - where Pyro was born - but moved up to Brisbane when my mum found out about my mutation." Because her mum had found out at the same time as a bunch of other people, and had been scared for her safety. Apparently.
"Always lived in close to the city - it's so quiet out here, isn't it?"
"Dead quiet. 'Tween you and me, it scares the shit outta me sometimes." He ashed his cigarette.
"Pyro's from Sydney huh? Well I've known him- well, known of him- since he was just a runt in Queens. You shoulda seen him. Nothin' like the guy you know now. Heh. Well okay mabye a little." Lucas smirked. Pyro was still a bit of a runt, but at least the guy had grown some hair where it mattered since the last time Lucas had some across him.
"Mmm." Non-commital noise. The Pyro she knew now seemed to change all the time.
"He's so skinny. He doesn't eat enough." Angie sighed, taking another sip of her coffee to stop herself from blurting out her concerns. It wasn't exactly her place - and Pyro was the leader. She didn't want to cut him down in the eyes of the others.
"So you didn't actually know him? I think Dom's known him for years - Pyro's told me a few stories." It was really cute, actually, hearing about them and seeing the two of them together.
Her brow furrowed as her ears picked up a clicking noise, and when Angie turned toward the door she saw Mr. Bones wandering in. He brought a slightly larger smile to her face, but she didn't lean down to scratch his head. She'd been wondering where he got to.
"How old are you? I mean, you look older than Pyro, but... I've never been much good at telling people's age." She felt so awkward. She always felt awkward. She buried her face in her knees again.
"We all hung around the same circles, but New York is a big place, mutant or not... we knew of each other. I helped out their gang a few times." He'd helped out a lot of gangs, it's kind of what he ended up doing, being one of the last people his age to not die or make it out of street life. Truth was, Lucas had never really wanted anything else.
"I should be around 25, 26." He shrugged. He felt a fuck of a lot older, that was for sure. "What'd you have guessed?"
"I dunno," she shrugged, "about that?" Truth be told, she really just had no idea. Angie knew that she looked younger than she actually was, but she didn't really know how to tell how old people actually were. She'd just always known.
She tended to put people in broad categories. Kid - about my age - older than me - about mum's age - old old. It was a fairly good scale, but rather imprecise.
"I'm really bad at guessing. Like... Dharma, he could be a hundred for all I know." He probably was. Dharma was just weird. But in a good way.
"I only saw New York once, I went there with Aurora to pick up some new recruits a little while back." It was really big. Big enough that they'd lost one of the new recruits... Or never been able to find her. "I liked it there. I mean, it's dangerous for us now, with so many people, but it's better than being stuck out here with all, what, twenty of us?" There just wasn't that much to do with the same people for months on end.
Lucas lit another cigarette, half grinning. "Know where I'd like to see us go? Mexico. That would kick ass. Nice quiet place, out of jurisdiction for the feds, living's real cheap. I took a road trip down there once with some guys I did a job for. Pretty damned cool. Specially Tijuana. But you end up with a lot of druggies there. Can't fool with those jackasses."
"You said your mom got tweaked when you came out as a mutant, huh? So whatcha do then? And how'd you end up with a crowd like us? You don't seem the time, pardon my french."
"Hmm? Yeah, mum moved us out of the state - she wasn't the only one who figured out what I could do, it kinda... got around where she worked, she didn't think it'd be safe." Shifting a little, Angie took another sip of her coffee and made another face. She was almost starting to feel better, but the liquid hitting her stomach had reminded her of the nausea.
"Well, she couldn't figure out how to fix me, so when the cure came out she dragged me over to the US to get it straight away. I didn't want it, I took off." She shrugged, chewing on her bottom lip. "I didn't really have anyone else to ask for help, but it wasn't just that. I mean, it's bullshit, isn't it? The cure. I don't need it, people shouldn't think that they do either. I mean, I can't touch people, but big deal. I still don't need to be changed to fit in with everyone else."
Draining the last of her coffee, Angie rested her chin on her knees and regarded Lucas thoughtfully. "What is the type, though? I mean, why'd you join?" She didn't think that they wanted to be fighting forever. Then again, she didn't think that they necessarily had to fight at all. She wanted to help build a world where people like her didn't have to think of themselves as freaks. Where the rest of the population knew that they were normal just like everybody else.
"Seen a lot of bullshit go down since I split from home." He finished his beer, and folded the funny papers in half.
"Mutant kids always got kicked outta their families. Every kid on the streets has a fucked up life- no matter what you want to think, no one chooses to be on their own like that. So every kid has some reason, right. Mutant kids were always forced into it." He shrugged. "That ain't a big deal, until they started talking about it in the government. THe police started acting weirder. Then they shot a bunch of my people up with the "cure"." Lucas had never really explained this quite so clearly. There was something about Angie's honesty that allowed him to open up a bit.
Angie couldn't know that Lucas didn't have a habit of referring to anyone as his "people". But it's just how he'd seen it- until the cure came along, he'd thought of them as just more mutants. Then half of them lost their identities, a few of them lost their lives because of it. Then he understood that 11 years on the streets changes a person's idea of family. Those mutant gangs were the closest he had to it. They may have feared him, but they respected him too. If he needed something, they gave it to him. That was just about what family had to be, in Luke's opinion.
"Callisto was raising hell in the city, but she wasn't doing any good. She was causing more problems than she prevented. When I saw Magneto take a bunch of kids out of the city, I watched. He fucked up, he used them like fodder. I've told Pyro there won't be any more of that bullshit. I'll pop his head like a grape before I watch the Brotherhood treat people that way again. But that guy, Magneto, had a point, too. It's us or them. And if I can help matters some by supporting the cause?" Lucas shrugged. "Then I may as well do somethign with my life other than watch more mutant kids die."
"Oh, you know Callisto? She's around here somewhere. Keeps to herself a lot. Cain doesn't like her." Neither did Angie, for that matter, but she didn't normally like to say that kind of thing. As it was, she was trying to ignore the idea of Lucas doing anything to hurt Pyro. She liked Lucas so far, but the idea of him telling Pyro what to do, of him threatening the young leader...
She chewed on her bottom lip for a little while. It seemed like she was the only one who thought there was a way of doing things that didn't involve killing all the humans.
"I never knew Magneto. I just wonder sometimes if it really does have to be us or them. I mean... I know there's some people who'd probably lock me up and make me heal people until I keeled over dead, but... I mean, it's not everyone, is it?" She sounded almost anxious. Angie wanted to believe the best of everyone. It was hard for her to look at what they did sometimes, all those people that had been killed, and think of the Brotherhood as any better. There was a moral line that that she was just not quite decided on.
"No, I don't think it's everyone. But you know what, it doesn't take everyone hating us to make us all dead, honey."
He lit yet another cigarette, and got up to get another beer, cracking it open. "All it takes is the wrong law being written, or the wrong incident giving society the cause to authorize the wrong action by the police, or the national guard, or the fucking army. You were at Baltimore right? Saw that Sentinel bullshit? Yeah. I heard about that. Now you want to lay down and take their gun up your nose when shit hits the fan? I doubt it. Otherwise you wouldn't be here."
He sat down, gesturing at her with his cigarette, finger, and beer bottle all at once somehow. "There's a stopping point, Angie. We're not talking genocide, at least, I'd hope we weren't. But shit's gotta change. Black folks didn't get their freedom by waiting for everyone to start liking them. They got into the streets, into people's faces, they caused problems. It's just gonna take some time for people to start thinking about it. If causing some mayhem in order to keep the talk about mutant rights going is what we have to do? Well... I'm willing to sacrifice myself for that."
She just listened, silently, her expression more sad than anything else. Yes, she had been at Baltimore, and what she'd seen was a lot of death, fighting between mutants, Cain and Dead Man and Jane causing trouble for... well, she couldn't really understand what for. All it had done was make everyone say how dangerous they were, how much more important it was for things like the Sentinels to exist to keep them under control.
Angie watched the news. She seemed to do a lot more of it than any of the others currently at the base. She didn't have much else to do. She knew how Jane's picture being taken at Baltimore, all the people her plants had killed, had ruined a guy's campaign which was focusing on mutant equality. She knew the names and faces of every man, woman and child who had died there, knew how many of them were mutants. It just didn't seem right to her, that they were killing other mutants in their fight for equality. Or was it surpemacy?
She didn't feel like her powers made her more special than anyone else. She just didn't think they made her less special, either.
"Yeah, I guess so." Reaching across the table, fingers outstretched, Angie nodded and sighed.
"I dunno. I'm just not much help there, am I?" She took her hand back, uncurled her legs and waited to see if her stomach protested again. So far, so good.
"Think I might wander back and have a shower." Chewing her lip awkwardly, she shrugged again. "Thanks for the whiskey and sympathy." Not quite tea and sympathy, but it would do.
Lucas nodded, sitting back and picking up his paper, cigarette lodged in his lips.
"No problem."