Chapter Text
“You are going nowhere, and that is final.”
Angela crosses her arms. “You’re not my mother.”
Binah looks like she’s about five seconds away from strangling Angela all on her own.
“If I have to monitor you like a hawk at a hospital while you are healing from a fractured clavicle ,” she grits out, grinning tightly, “Then you can be sure that you will be going nowhere without reliable supervision . I almost had to tell Benjamin that his hospitalized spawn had gone missing.”
Angela has the decency to look a little awkward then. “I already spoke to Benjamin.”
“ Benjamin is very likely off his tiny little ass on enough coffee to poison even Chesed. I highly doubt that he’s able to handle any cognizant reasoning past his paperwork.”
Chesed sits up at Roland’s side. “Hey—“
“Quiet, coffee boy,” Gebura snaps, punching him in the shoulder.
“ Ow…”
“And you,” Binah snaps, turning sharply to Gebura with a pointed finger, “Are not exempt either. Do not think for a second that I am unaware of just exactly how Angela got ahold of your,” her head snaps to Roland, “home address, and not to even mention your condition.”
It’s the most directly irate Roland’s ever seen Binah. Roland doesn't even bother to try interjecting like Chesed did, simply electing to raise his hands in surrender.
“It’s not Roland’s fault,” Angela interrupts. “He was sick.”
“Yes, I’m aware,” Binah says back, an eyebrow raised and a cruel smile on her face, “He was surely delirious enough when I finally found the both of you.”
“I—It’s not my fault!” he tries. Netzach pats him encouragingly on the shoulder. “I just…”
Angela’s expression hardens. “As I said. Roland was sick, I obtained his address from Gebura after hearing about his condition and Gebura’s concern—“
“Don’t tell her I was concerned,” Gebura interjects. Angela continues to speak.
“—and I, of my own volition, left to go see him.”
“On foot. ”
And that wakes Roland up. “Wh—“ he looks at Angela, heart rate spiking, “You walked? To my house?”
Angela and Binah eye him with equally sharp looks, before Binah’s eyes snap to Angela, eyebrows raised in expectation, as though to say you better hope you have a good explanation for this.
Angela shrugs noncommittally, arms still crossed, and Roland feels his heart rate spike again in real time. “I walked to the subway, took public transportation nearby, and then walked to your home.”
“Oh my god. Okay, Binah, I didn’t know about that, I swear—“
Gebura laughs, holding a lollipop stick between her fingers— Gebura gets antsy (re: violent) without her regular nicotine fix, so for the safety of Roland, Chesed, Netzach, and the general school populace, just in case, Hod had started buying her lollipops; sure, it didn’t satisfy the same urge, but the motions of it seemed to keep her content to a degree— and trying not to double over. Malkuth, for once truly stumped, drags her hands down her face. Binah just… twitches, a little. Roland just stares between Angela and Binah, preparing himself to bolt at any moment. Surely, in the long dresses she wears, she can’t run very fast. He could outrun her.
He finds out, a few minutes later, when the bell rings, and they actually have places to go.
“Well, I— I mean. Me and Angela usually walk together,” he says.
Binah looks at him. Stares at him really hard, silently, like a predator surveying prey. Roland takes the initiative to book it. Good motive, bad move.
“She’s like a panther,” he mumbles, holding an ice pack to his forehead. Netzach just pats him gently on the chest, and Chesed glances under his hand with a concerned expression.
“Indeed, my friend,” Netzach says.
“I think that’s going to bruise,” Chesed adds.
“I think I’m going to have a concussion.”
—
By the end of the day, the world is good, because despite the bruise on his forehead from Binah bodily shoving him into the ground with one heel for her own entertainment, he doesn't have a concussion, and he’s only left with an unpleasant, vague headache.
He sits idly outside, kicking his legs and waiting for his own bus home. Then, suddenly, a hand is wrapping around his wrist, and bodily hauling him up before breaking into a near sprint off the school grounds.
“H—Hey!” he tries, stumbling over his feet and trying very hard not to jerk his own head because of all things he does not need any more pains in the goddamn neck, figurative or literal— they stop running, and he doesn't have to squint anymore because they’re under the shade of a tree, and—
Angela lets go of his wrist and shakes her hand out, smiling. “Sorry. I had to get away from Binah before she realized I was gone.”
He blinks. His thoughts don’t go nearly fast enough, and as he’s frozen, Angela busies herself with pulling her stockings down to the edges of her shoes and socks.
He finally manages to open his mouth.
“Wh—?”
But Angela is already grabbing him and tugging him along through the treeline again. He can’t do anything but follow along— and it’s not like her grip is unbreakably strong like Gebura’s, who could break your wrist if she tried with enough purpose.
He yanks his hand back out of her grip, and Angela stops, nearly toppling over. She doesn’t fall but her steps stutter unevenly with a quiet gasp and Roland instinctually reaches out to grab her, but he shuffles back and straightens his back once it seems like she’s fine.
“Angela,” he breathes. “Don’t just… grab me. I thought you were—“
Angela raises an eyebrow inquisitively. “…Apologies. I must have gotten… excited.”
“It’s alright,” he placates, wiping his forehead. It’s warm, spring air feeling refreshing, so he takes his— Angelica’s— gloves off, and zips them up safely in one pocket of his jeans. He glances around, seeing the school through the trees, students pouring out and going all different directions. “What— you,” he blinks, snapping his head back to her, “Are you running from Binah?”
Angela just gives him a look. He’s come to be able to decipher them at this point, and he’s pretty sure that this particular one means something along the lines of you heard me, dipshit .
Angela’s hand tightens around the strap of her bag that’s slung over her shoulder, and her expression pinches in defense. “I thought we might be able to… spend some time out together.”
And he’s not against that, it’s just— “We’re both already on Binah’s shit list,” he mutters, like that pantheress is going to come creeping up behind him when he stops keeping his guard high over his own ass. “You already saw what she did to me!”
Angela’s eyes follow his pointer finger to the bruise on his forehead. “Trying to run from her is incredibly stupid.”
“Yeah,” he mutters, “I noticed. Okay, anyways, what I’m saying here is that she’s going to kill both of us if she— she’s probably already planning my death!”
Angela shakes her head. “She won’t. I’ve known her for years.”
“Yeah, and I think she likes you more than me! ”
Angela’s expression hardens, reaching her already low patience threshold. “I’m going out today, Roland. You’ve been feeling awful. I’ll go with or without you.”
She shrugs, and turns on her heel, stomping through the grass in her dress shoes, surely unfit for walking through even the slightest of uneven terrain. God forbid she walk into a puddle or something.
“W—wait,” he tries. Angela’s already walking away faster, her shoulders tensed noticeably, even despite how she clearly tries to make herself seem unaffected.
“It’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow, Roland,” she says in the type of tone that signifies not fine.
It’s a battle of wills.
…His shoulders slump. “ Fine.”
Angela doesn’t turn around, but she does stop walking. He uses her graciously-given one chance to jog to catch up to her. “But when Binah kills me, and then kills you, I’m gonna make sure you feel real bad about it,” he mutters petulantly. Next to him, Angela just smiles peacefully, perfectly content.
“I’ll make sure we’re buried together, then. How’s that?”
Roland feels heat rush to his face. On instinct, he punches Angela in the shoulder, like he always used to do with Olivier. “Shut up,” he laughs, “Don’t— Ah, did I…? Sorry…”
Angela pauses, shaking her shoulder out, and then shaking her head. “You’re fine.”
“I think I should be asking you that?” he winces. “My old friends and I were always sort of rough with each other like that.”
“Mm. Come on.” They’ve finally climbed their way through the artificially planted tree-and-grass line around the school past the parking lot. Angela steps over the curb, and almost walks herself right into oncoming traffic. Roland yanks her back by the same arm he just punched.
“Shit, sorry! You, you walk this every day, you should really learn to watch where the damn road is!” he laughs nervously. He’s upset, actually. More than he thought. He doesn’t like the idea of Angela wandering herself into oncoming traffic, or anywhere on her own for that matter, considering just how well it had gone last week. But he can’t find it in himself to be terribly upset like he was then, because Angela’s giggling softly, wheezily, leaning against his shoulder for balance.
This is new. It makes him laugh a little bit at the absurdity of it all. Angela straightens herself. Some part of him misses the slight weight at his side.
“Come on,” Angela says, offering her hand to Roland instead of grabbing him like she’s had the tendency to do even after a year and a half, “You hesitate any longer and she’s going to catch us.”
That’s enough to kick his ass in gear. “ Okay, okay, fine,” he says, taking her hand, “Just watch for the crossing sign…”
—
Roland takes his earbuds out of his pocket. “So, uh, where are we going?”
Angela, in the seat next to him, holds her bag in her lap. “You’ll see,” she says cryptically, staring out the window past Roland.
“That makes me feel great…”
He plugs the earbuds into his phone and flicks through his saved music. He’s hardly ever taken public transport, and even less has he ever actually enjoyed it to any degree, but Angela seems to be used to it, and it’s not walking to wherever she wants to go, so he’s willing to tank it.
Angela peeks curiously over his shoulder at his phone, bright eyes veering from the passing city line to his music. She gives him another look .
“You can listen if you want,” he offers, taking out one earbud and offering it out to her. She smiles and takes it. “You have any preferences? I pretty much listen to anything…”
Angela shakes her head, busying herself with taking a book out of her bag to read while Roland cycles idly through music. His constant skipping of songs seems to bother Angela, if the furrow of her brow as she reads says anything, so he stops on the next song that comes on and shuts his phone down. The intro to Take A Chance On Me nearly scares him out of his seat with how suddenly it starts playing in only one of his ears.
Angela just smiles, making no comment on his particular choice of 80’s pop songs. For the ride, Roland just leans against the window and watches the world pass. He clicks his foot against the steel bus flooring to the song; it’s a classic, who couldn’t?
If you change your mind,
I’m the first in line
Honey I’m still free
Take a chance on me
If you need me, let me know, gonna be around
If you’ve got no place to go when you’re feeling down
If you’re all alone, when the pretty birds have flown
Honey I’m still free
Take a chance on me
Gonna do my very best, and it ain’t no lie
If you put me to the test
If you let me try
Take a chance on me
He puts the rest of ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits on after the song finishes, purely because halfway through, Angela had started nodding along happily to the beat of the song.
—
Roland glances around furtively. He doesn’t know exactly off the top of his head where they are, and he had fallen asleep in his uncomfortable little bus seat about three songs into ABBA’s greatest hits album. Angela doesn’t walk very fast, but she walks with a single minded sort of determination that means Roland has to intermittently jog to catch up to her. The sun and sky shine through the gloom of the city that he’s come to associate with places like A Corp., constantly haunted by drear no matter where you went.
“My therapist took me to a lot of places years into the recovery process,” Angela says as they walk. “I wasn’t able to do anything with Benjamin, and Binah had her own dealings,” and oh, yeah, Roland knows perfectly well what kind of dealings Binah was taking part in, but he resolutely keeps his stupid mouth zipped, “So they took the time out of their schedule to take me to places in the city often, despite how much they liked to tell me that I was lucky to even receive their attention.”
“And no one recognized you?”
“Of course not,” Angela snaps. “I know how to be subtle.”
He’s not particularly sure he believes that— out of the two of them, one of them has pretty inconspicuous black hair and eyes, and the other has bright, observant, sharp yellow eyes, and long, bright blue hair, and dresses like she’s going to an interview every single day that he’s known her. Roland just raises his hands in surrender, “Hey! Okay, okay, sorry. Go on…”
Angela huffs. “It’s a training exercise office,” she says simply. “They would bring me here to watch them and their friends exercise. I suppose it interested me heavily, but there was little I could do in the first place to get Dante to consider letting me involve myself in even just their warm ups. Really, it was akin to babysitting.”
They stop, and Angela glances through the window briefly before pushing the door open. Roland just follows her inside.
“But in some strange way, I suppose that their… particular approach did work, in a sense.”
Angela knocks on the plastered wall with her knuckles. “Emma, Noah. I’m here.”
There’s a crash from the backrooms, and one figure springs out from the door, leaning up on the glass front desk upon his elbows to adjust his glasses and get a clear, good look at Angela. His face breaks into a large smile.
“Angela!” he cheers. The man stands up straight and runs around the counter to hug her, nearly picking her up in his arms. “It’s— oh, it’s so good to see you! Noah, it’s Angela!”
There’s some shuffling from the backroom and then another softer, quieter but still quick pair of steps, and a melancholy, longer-haired man steps out, breaking into a soft smile.
“Angela, it's good to see you,” his eyes trace over Roland. “I’m glad to see you’ve made friends, too.”
Emma, the shorter-haired man with the large, round glasses, grins widely and finally lets Angela out of his hug. He looks over to Roland, and Roland immediately flinches back at the attention, but Emma’s face remains kind. “Good to meet you!”
“Emma, Noah, this is Roland,” Angela introduces, stepping out of Emma’s arms as Noah rounds the counter.
Immediately, Emma, clearly the more energetic, sticks his hand out for Roland to shake. Roland tries to receive it equally warmly, but he's not quite sure that he could ever match Emma’s exceedingly amicable nature. Beside him, Noah nods, a slow smile on his face.
“Good to meet you, Roland,” he greets. “Angela. We haven’t seen you in a while… How’s everything going?”
Angela shrugs. “It’s fine.” And Roland wants more than anything to interrupt and tell them that Angela was just in the hospital, and is still wandering around unsupervised— and Roland does not count as responsible supervision!— but he doesn’t have the heart to interrupt her, knowing that she brought him all the way out here for… something, at least, that she seemed to think would help him, especially after…
“We had some free time—“
Roland makes a noncommittal sound. Angela elbows him in the side for it. “Ow!”
“—We had some free time, and I wanted to bring Roland out to some places that I hadn’t been to in a while,” Angela finishes.
Emma nods. “Well, if you’re here for the gym, then you chose the perfect day, because it’s rented out all night, and the people who rented it aren’t going to be here for… say, an hour, hour and a half, you think?” he says, turning to Noah. The downtrodden man beside him nods.
“Free for you guys to use, long as you don’t hurt each other,” Noah says.
Roland blinks, raises his eyebrows, glances down slightly at Angela.
But she’s just slinging her bag back over her shoulder and acknowledging the two with one nod, then shaking her head the other way to gesture Roland to follow. He follows, of course, wandering with her into the backroom Emma and Noah had come from, chasing at her heels until she stops at one of the doors and pushes it open, walking into…
Well, a gym. A studio, moreso. The room is big and generally empty, aside from mirrors on one stretch of the wall, a long metal bar akin to the ones used for ballet practice along the other, and some scattered chairs and unidentifiable equipment alongside some benches.
He’s…
“I’m, uh, not really sure why you brought me here?” he laughs.
Angela drops her bag and strides through the room, kicking her dress shoes off halfway and leaving them in the center. The ground is padded slightly; enough to keep someone from injuring themselves. “My old therapist, Dante, started to bring me here after my physical and occupational therapy sessions as an ‘extra work-out’, as they put it. It’s only with you that I particularly found myself with the drive to come back. With a purpose, at least.”
Angela stops at that corner of stuff, and leans up on her toes to rummage through it. “Ah, there they are,” she mutters. Angela falls back on the heels of her feet and spins back to him, holding…
“Wh— where the hell did you get kendō shinais?” he asks incredulously.
“Dante was part of the Seven Association for a period of time, and often came here with their colleagues and subordinates to practice. Having proper swords somewhere like this is rather… stupid, wouldn’t you say? So instead, they used these,” Angela says, holding one up by the hilt in her hand to inspect it. Suddenly, she tosses the other one to Roland, who drops his bag in his haste to grab it purely from reflex. Angela smiles, holds out the dull bamboo practice blade towards him as though she were pointing a real weapon. Her eyes sharpen dangerously.
“I want you to teach me.”
He sucks in a breath.
“…I, I’m not doing that, Angela.”
The idea of raising a sword— even a bamboo one used for practice, one that requires an inordinate amount of force and will to actually injure someone with— against anyone, much less Angela, makes him feel sick to his stomach.
Angela frowns, but she doesn’t drop the shinai from its position pointed straight at him. “I want to do this.”
“I can’t, Angela—“
“I’m not made of glass, Roland,” she spits. “I’m not some helpless damsel that requires the protection of Binah, or you, or anyone that thinks that I’m unable to hold my own. Benjamin— he doesn’t look down upon me, and he knows what I can handle,” she starts to slowly walk in a circle around the room, and on instinct, just like a battle, Roland matches her pace, keeping his distance from her, “But he still doesn’t see past that. In his eyes, I am that same child that requires protection.
…And I held my own against Myo, as you saw.”
“ Angela— “ Yeah, to a degree, sure—
“Everyone sees me as some fragile glass bird, or a fledgling left in the gilded cage that Carmen and— and that… that Ayin left behind.”
She sighs. The shinai lowers slightly, but doesn’t drop. “I trust you, as my friend and as my confidant,” she says slowly, carefully, as though allowing the words to sink in to their separate skins. “…And now, after yesterday, I’ve bared myself clearly to you. I’d like us to be there for each other. If you’ll have me.”
And Roland crumbles.
“God, you fucking—“ he mutters, dropping the shinai to weakly wipe his eyes with his shaking arm before he actually starts crying. “You knew, then? About… the case.”
Hesitantly, Angela nods. “…Of course. It’s difficult to avoid such things in the pursuit of knowledge. The crisis has calmed down, but you’re still particularly infamous in some more high-class parts of the city.”
“This is the worst possible way you could have done this, you know,” he chokes out. If he lifts his head out of the crook of his arm and lets the artificial fluorescents hit his eyes, he might get sick. “Just… Just ask, like a normal person, and I’ll tell you stuff, okay?”
A few soft steps on the mat, and he can sense Angela’s presence in front of him. She pauses, then… gently reaches up, and pats him on the head. It’s… it’s so absurd, so particularly Angela, that it makes him laugh, an ugly sound when mixed with the grief that’s caught in his throat. He lets his arm drop, and when the light hits his eyes, Angela is just looking at him. Not smiling, but simply regarding him.
“Yeah yeah, fine,” he chuckles, swatting her hand off his head, “Not fair that you have to tell me all this stuff and then I keep you in the dark, anyways, I guess. Just wish you could ask, like a normal person?”
Angela leans down, picks up his discarded shinai, and holds it out to him, blade down. “And where’s the fun in that?”
And now she’s smiling.
He laughs. “Never struck me as the type of person to enjoy fun.”
Angela raises an eyebrow, completely unentertained, and smacks him in the ankle with the edge of her own shinai.
“Hey! That can still hurt if you’re unprepared, you know!”
—
“Your stance sucks,” he mutters, moving Angela’s arm up a little. “And you keep shaking. You okay?”
Angela stares ahead at herself in the mirror, past the punching bag they’re using for practice. “Fine,” she huffs. “Get on with it.”
“Okay, okay! No need to be so prickly. You’re just never going to get a good hit in if you’re not steady and sure.”
Roland’s played with a variety of weapons over years. He’s familiar with things all across the board, and their fighting styles thereof.
“Move your leg back a little. No, right. And lean up on your toe. Keep your heel off the ground.”
Angela shuffles.
“Okay, good. And then you draw this arm back,” he continues, moving her arm to display what to do, “And— swing! Knuckles out for a direct hit, remember. Keep your hand steady, or else the hit’s gonna make your entire body vibrate.” And he really doesn’t want to be responsible for Angela fracturing something in one of her arms. He steps back. “Just take a breath, and calm yourself. You got this.”
Angela breathes in, out. He watches her in the mirror. Her face is hardened, determined, focused on her goal. And then like a snap—
She draws her right arm back and shifts forwards on her left foot just right, landing a solid hit into the punching bag and leaving it to swing back and forth.
“See! You did it! Now, next time anyone fucks with you, you’re gonna do that, and it’s going to be kick-ass,” he grins, running up to her as Angela shakes her bandaged hand out. “You okay?”
“Fine,” she says, but she hisses when Roland grabs her hand. “Well not when you grab me like that.”
“Don’t shoot the messenger, alright, I’m the experienced guy here!”
As they walk over to redo the bandages around her knuckles, Angels gives him another look. The only thing he can do is grin back.
“You know, I was a pretty kick ass fighter myself.”
“Really?”
“…You don’t sound very convinced, you know…”
—
Emma and Noah check Angela’s hand over once each before they’re actually allowed to leave.
“See you again soon, Angie?” Emma asks hopefully. Roland giggles like a toddler.
“ Angie ?”
Angela resolutely ignores him. “Hopefully. Thank you, Emma, Noah.”
Emma and Noah wave them off happily. Angela slips her gloves back on.
“Whew,” Roland whistles, “We were out for a bit, huh?”
Angela looks up at the sky. It’s not anywhere near dark, but it sure is later than when they had arrived. “I suppose so. If you’re hungry, we can…”
Speak of the devil and he shall appear, because they both glance down as Roland’s stomach rumbles loudly.
“Heh…”
“It’s alright. I don’t know many places around here, but if you’re willing to wander a little before we go back…”
“Hey, fine by me. Been a long time since I indulged in the good ol’ by the horns, wild and free lifestyle— Ow ! Okay, okay… I’m going to start getting sick if you keep elbowing me, you know…”
—
“I can’t say I’ve ever been around here…” Roland mumbles, mostly to himself. And it’s getting later and darker out since they had stopped to get food, so he really doesn’t recognize where he is. He glances around the neighborhood they’re walking through. Residential buildings and offices rise high to the sky in the crowded city, and one side of the street is lined with actual separate houses. Cars rush by, far too fast for a residential street, but Angela just beckons Roland to follow her across the street.
“Is this yours?” Roland ask, nodding his head at the house they’re walking to. It’s simple and small, inconspicuous and unnoticeable.
Angela nods. He expects them to go up to the front door, but Angela bypasses it entirely and loops around the small deck to the side of the house. Roland raises his eyebrows, but still follows her off the porch and down the stairs to a door at the very back of the house, hidden from view away from everything else. “Benjamin and I use this door more than the front,” she explains, digging through her pockets to find a key and busy herself with unlocking the door. Roland kicks his feet and waits. This place is nice, sort of serene. And there are actually trees. Only a little, dotting around the house’s border and separating each property from each other, but it’s far more than A Corp until you get to one of the purposefully done-up areas. The shade is really nice. Even Angelica’s grave doesn’t have trees like this.
Angela pushes the door open, and Roland follows her inside. It’s sort of homey? Small, like Roland’s but cozier, feeling like an actual home instead of somewhere that he goes when he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
“I should warn you,” Angela begins. And oh, Roland’s heart truly drops into his ass. If this was a plan to kill him all along, he thinks suddenly, even as absurd as it sounds, Angela must have been really committed—
She snaps her fingers once, twice. “Ppodae, I’m home.”
He blinks. Ah?
The quiet is broken by… a dog. Making a ruckus as it hounds through the house’s halls and runs to Angela from out of nowhere in a mass of pure white fluff. Roland stands back a little. Of all things, he surely wasn’t expecting that. Angela had never struck him as a pet person in the slightest, and a dog—?
The dog, Ppodae, this giant white beast, pushes bodily past Angela’s legs and takes the initiative in their first greeting by jumping up onto him, paws landing on his chest. On instinct, he gasps and nearly falls down, trying to support both the damn dog and himself.
“Ppodae, down,” Angela scolds. The dog barks in Roland’s face, either unnerved or excited by a new presence. Roland assumes it’s the latter, because the big lug hasn’t tried to bite his face off just yet. “He’s… excitable—“
“I noticed,” Roland wheezes. Angela watches with wide eyes for a moment at his struggle, before actually chopping gently at the back of the dog’s head with her hand. Immediately, the big lug backs off, and Roland backs up to the nearest wall, trying to wipe white dog hair off every part of his clothes. What he gets for wearing black so often, then.
Angela stands guard as Roland gathers his bearings. Conversely, the giant dog is obedient and downright gentle and with Angela, gently headbutting her legs and covering her black skirt in fur.
“Fucker’s almost as tall as me,” Roland mutters. “Terrifying.”
“He’s not that bad,” Angela says, and oh, that’s real easy for her to say, with the damn beast huffing gently at her legs and pressing against her like a cat. Roland wonders how much of the dog is actually dog and how much is just fluff. “When I… Benjamin got him for me years ago, as I had no interest in keeping him as company after everything, and alongside being busy with his own work…” she sighs, petting the dog’s head. “He’s named after a book I enjoyed as a child.”
Roland finally finds the energy to stand up straight again, but still stands off to the side a little, just to make sure the dog can’t get at him. “It’s all books with you, huh?” he teases.
Angela smiles, still looking down at the dog— Ppodae, was it? Strange, but a book character, so it makes sense. “Indeed,” she confirms. “If you want, I’ll show you my collection. Ppodae, Benjamin’s room, if you would.”
She even talks to the dog like a person, he thinks. It tracks.
Angela kicks off her shoes and drops her bag on the floor, causing Ppodae to make a noncommittal whining noise even as he trods off and away further into the house. Roland hesitates, because he’s not quite sure what kind of etiquette he sound aspire to have at Angela’s house, but she just gives him another look when he freezes and doesn’t move to follow her, so he does the same, leaving his sneakers by her flats and his bag by her own.
“I hope he won’t eat my homework,” he mumbles, glancing between the dog and his bag.
“He won’t,” Angela confirms. Well, that’s better than nothing, even if he trusts the damn dog as far as he could throw him. “I can show you around then, if you’d like.”
Ah. That sounds good. Roland gives her a thumbs up.
The house is small, simple, equally as homey as it had felt the moment he had walked in. Angela doesn’t have particularly too much she seems interested in showing off or anything that seems worth showing off to begin with, aside from her library and Benjamin’s office.
“Whew,” Roland whistles, “This is like… fantasy library levels of collection.”
Angela pushes the door open wider. Her room is simple, but— “Years ago, when we first moved here, I began collecting books. Once this room was filled, I started spending more time at the library. This was… a closet, originally.”
Roland blinks. “ Really?”
“Mmh. I enjoyed— well, enjoy, having somewhere to hide when life gets too busy.”
Roland makes a mental note of that, in case he ever has to go searching for her, like she did for him. Angela backs up and closes the library-closet door, leaving it cracked open as she steps back into her actual bedroom. Roland glances inside. For a closet in a small, urban household, the size of it is impressive, and especially for a collection made by just one girl. Shelves line the walls, packed to the brim with books on what looks like just about everything you could ever read about. And when the shelves finally end, books are simply stacked up to the goddamn ceiling. It’s impressive . Roland admires it for a couple more seconds, then draws the door shut all the way, and follows Angela back out.
Their time in Benjamin’s office is brief. Similarly to Angela’s, there’s so many damn books lining shelves and Benjamin’s work desk that they could easily turn their own home into a library, no building needed at all. A mass of computers, tangled wires, and nebulous other machines and pieces of tech are scattered around over his desk, alongside papers and pens. Roland just thinks the man needs to clean, but from what he’s heard, it doesn’t sound like he even has the time — and it’s… not like Roland is the one to lecture anyone on cleaning…
“Benjamin doesn’t spend too much time here. It’s mostly spent at work. So oftentimes, I’m left to my own devices.”
Roland shoves his hands in his pockets. “So you’re usually, what, here, or—?”
“At the library, yes. I don’t particularly enjoy spending long periods of time here.”
Mm. Roland can understand. He wanders around the desk to Benjamin’s chair, surveying the clutter as Angela watches on, silent, allowing Roland to make his own journey. Nothing particularly stands out, except for—
Roland leans down to put himself nearly eye level with the desktop, staring at— a picture of a woman? A small polaroid photo, no larger than a few inches, framed in a little wooden frame right by the corner of his desktop screen. He squints a little.
He doesn’t particularly have to think about who this might be. He stands back up, and Angela’s eyes follow him. Roland reaches out to pick up the little framed photo, holding it between his fingers.
“Carmen, right?” he says, titling his head. He looks at Angela, then looks back at the photo. “I see the resemblance, sorta…”
Immediately, Angela frowns deeply, her gentle expression hardening in upset, and Roland drops the damn photo like it burned him.
“Sorry, sorry!”
“It’s fine, Roland,” she says tersely. “I’ve heard it before. It’s just… the hair, you know?”
She reaches up and runs a hand through her hair. “So I’ve heard.”
Roland circles back around the desk. “Alright, let’s do something. We gotta end the day off right, don’t we?” As he walks, he quickly moves to exit Benjamin’s office, and Angela follows.
“Hmm.. That sounds appropriate.”
“Right, let’s see…”
He doesn’t particularly know Angela’s house well, or what they could get away with doing at the moment, but he gets an idea when they walk back into the kitchen. He spins on his heels, facing back to Angela. “You want to try and cook something?”
Angela frowns. “We already ate.”
“Yeah, yeah, but like I told you before, I’m a cook! Well,” he laughs, “I’m pretty damn good, I’ll have you know.” He pats himself on the back, grinning. Angela doesn’t look impressed, but he can tell perfectly well that she’s entertained by the nearlt imperceptible upquirk of her mouth.
Angela smiles, one eyebrow raised and her arms crossed as though challenging him. “Alright.”
Roland cheers, and immediately makes a bounding run across the kitchen and slides on his socks to the stove and fridge. “Let’s see—“
Mmm. Not much, but he can work with this. And goddamnit, he’s got a reputation to live up to! He drums his fingers on the fridge door, thinking. Something simple, uh…
“Okay, you ever had crepes before?”
Angela shakes her head. She’s standing a safe few feet back, leaning against the other counter and watching him curiously.
Roland grins. Oh, yes, he’s done this before.
“Real simple, and I’ve done this before, a couple times—“ he’d made them once with the entirety of Charles’ group, and another time just for Angelica, and making them in their shared kitchen was a bad idea in a list of many, because everyone kept trying to get one, and he had to fight off every single damn person just to get the damn things to her!— “And you only need a couple things, ah, let’s see…”
Angela watches on as he raids their fridge for a few ingredients. She doesn’t make any comment, and from what he’s heard, it doesn’t sound like Benjamin is really home often enough to notice a couple things missing from their stock, so he’s fairly certain that he’s going to be fine.
“You guys have any fruit?”
“Strawberries, in the bottom drawer of the fridge.”
He gives Angela a thumbs up. He has to raid the pantry for flour, but miraculously a family that doesn’t seem particularly inclined to cooking in any sense of the word has at least the basics. If anything, Binah probably made sure they both functioned to a regular degree.
He spins on his heels again, back to Angela, necessary items collected. “Alright, Miss Librarian, you’re going to be my assistant chef!”
Angela’s expression is amused. “Am I?”
“Well if you’re not, then I don’t have to share with you.”
She scoffs. “As I recall, you’re cooking in my house, with my ingredients.” But despite her attitude, she still sidles up to Roland’s side to watch.
“It’s pretty simple. Really, the longest part is the waiting for the batter to settle afterwards.”
He was only being half honest about the assistant chef thing. Throughout the entire process, there really isn’t a lot that more than one person has to do. But they willingly switch duties a few times, from measuring things out to handing the mixing bowl to each other every few minutes.
“Don’t freak yourself out, it’s literally just an egg.”
Angela frowns deeply and leaves her hand to hover over the edge of the bowl, holding an egg in her hand like it’s going to explode when she cracks it, her shoulders tensed.
“It’s not going to attack,” he adds. Angela looks furtively between him and the bowl a couple times, and then she slams it down on the edge of the damn bowl with enough force to nearly topple the bowl. Roland, thank god for his quick reflexes, is able to catch it, and only spill a minimal amount of flour-and-water mixture on his clothes. It stands out, because he's always wearing black, but it’s better than having something to clean up off Angela’s kitchen floor.
When he gets Angela to sweep up the shattered egg shells, she instead elects to shove her hand in his face, covered in egg white, because of course she would, what else did he expect. They nearly get themselves into a food fight in the middle of Angela’s kitchen, and it’s only by Roland’s good graces (see: him holding Angela at arm’s length with one hand on her face and the other trying to mix the contents of the fucking bowl, and only one of his legs being used for standing, because the goddamn dog decided to wake up at the racket they made.
“I’m going to hit you with the whisk if you don’t back off!” and miraculously, that does get Angela to stand off, who finally decides to wash her hands. Roland glares at her from the counter. Petty asshole meet petty asshole, he thinks, but there’s no sense of genuine animosity in any part of his heart, whether or not he’s covered in a few spots of flour and egg white.
Somehow, they do get somewhere, even if he has to keep holding the dog off to get the bowl in the fridge. Angela watches over his shoulder as leans down and wipes his hands on his pants.
“I’m never letting you be my assistant chef again, you know.”
Angela just grins smugly, leading Ppodae out of the kitchen while Roland tries to clean up the remains of their half-assed food fight. When did I start being the goody one here? he thinks exasperatedly.
A few minutes later, Angela’s sitting at the table kicking her feet and watching the fridge intently like that’s going to make the time faster. Eventually, Roland stands up from his seat next to her, stretching his body out.
“Alright,” he grins, “You liked the music earlier, yeah? Let’s see if I can expand your repertoire.”
Angela raises her eyebrows. Roland walks across the kitchen in a few large strides and grabs his phone from the counter. He puts a playlist on shuffle, turns the volume up, and skips through songs until he finds something that feels right.
“Hm—“
He clicks the skip button again and his thoughts are abruptly cut off by the rough, sliding baseline of Dr. Feelgood. He grins. This’ll do.
Angela watches on with an exasperated, fascinated smile on her face as Roland drops his phone back on the counter and leaves the music to play, shuffling along the floor and mimicking the motions of guitar with his hands. As the riffs start up, he sidles up to Angela’s side, rocking his head to the song.
“I don’t actually know the lyrics to this one,” he says as the singer begins, and Angela laughs soundlessly. “I know the chorus though!”
He shuffles back out to the middle of the kitchen like he’s on stage. Angela, his only audience, is gently nodding her head to the beat of the song. He drops the air guitar and replaces it with an invisible microphone and his other hand pointed to Angela.
“ He’s the one you call Dr. Feelgood,” he sings along, hardly audible over the singer’s voice, but close enough that is seems like Angela can hear him fine. “ He’s the one who makes ya feel alright, he’s the one they call Doctor Feelgood!”
Angela is chuckling, watching him with a fond look in her eyes. He mumbles awkwardly along to the lyrics he doesn’t know, the cheer infectious.
“ He’s the one you call Dr. Feelgood, he’s the one that makes ya feel alright!” he backs up on the chorus, sidling back up to Angela again, “ He’s the one you call Dr. Feelgood, he’s gonna be your Frankenstein!”
“I’ve got one thing you’ll understand,” he continues, gently shoulder-checking Angela with his arm, and narrowly avoiding her hitting him back with a well-timed slide on the floor thanks to his socks on the linoleum. “ He’s not what you’d call a glamorous man! Come on, Angela!”
He offers his hand out to her, grinning and sweating from his silly display, and miraculously, she takes his hand in kind, getting up off her chair.
“There you go,” he laughs. To the guitar solo and leading into the next verse they shuffle awkwardly along to the song with the grace of two people who have no idea whatsoever how to dance. Angela copies his exaggerated moves, lifting and dropping her shoulders.
“Let him soothe your soul, just take his hand,” Roland sings along tonelessly, “ Some people call him an evil man—“
He slides to the side, letting go of Angela’s hand and narrowly avoiding her hitting him again, like they’re playing some stupid game of cat-and-mouse. “
“— Let him introduce himself real good, he’s the only one they call feelgood!”
Angela laughs, moving to chase after him. Roland shrugs his head and shoulders to the song.
“ I’ve got one thing you’ll understand, he’s not what you’d call a glamorous man! Got one thing that’s easily understood—“ he holds an invisible microphone out to Angela, offering her to sing along.
“ He’s the one they call Dr. Feelgood, oh yeah!”
he sings. Angela mouths along to the words like she’s singing along too. He offers his hand again, and they dance around without grace to the next guitar solo. When the music calms down, Roland taps his foot along to the beat. Angela holds onto his hand, grinning. They dance awkwardly to the outro, Roland mouthing the lyrics as the song begins to fade out, a classic signature of 80’s songs, when they had to fade out for radio.
As the guitar fades, he spins Angela by the hand like a bad ballroom dance, making her laugh. And as soon as the song ends, fading out to silence, they both fall to the floor, chuckling like children and sweating like they had just come in from an elementary school recess. Angela doesn’t laugh loudly like he does— she’s never been as loud as he has, period— but as the song fades out, she’s laughing softly next to him.
He doesn’t move off his position on the floor until Angela’s laughs start devolving into wheezing coughs and teary eyes like she’s got something stuck in her throat, which makes him scramble up to grab her inhaler from her bag to the tune of a song he doesn’t recognize off the top of his head.
—
When they finally take the bowl out of the fridge, they’re still playing music on shuffle, if only a little quieter. Angela’s still gently bopping her head to the music.
“Alright, could you get, um— a pan?”
Angela nods and moves away, returning a few seconds later with a pan that he takes out of her hand with one and uses the other to click the gas stove on.
“Alright, watch and learn, Miss Librarian. This is a delicate balance.” He spins the pan by the handle. Angela watches on as he monologues the process, dipping the bottom of the pan into the batter and holding it over the flame, dropping the cooked crepe onto a plate on the opposite side of the stove. “And voila, crepe! Told you I was a good chef.”
While Roland deals with the stove, Angela cuts those strawberries from earlier into smaller pieces. He almost intervenes, because her punching hand is still bandaged and shaky, but she just bats him off and points the knife at him the second time around he asks her if she wants him to do it.
“You can do a lot with these,” he says, showing Angela how to fold them. “Desert, savory, it’s all over the place, really.”
“Mm.” Angela copies the movements of his hands, watching on intently. It’s just strawberries, sure, but she’s never had one, so he lets her try it first.
“Good, right?”
“…Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she mutters, eagerly taking another bite despite her forcibly frigid voice, a voice that Roland has come to see through as easily as looking through a piece of paper underneath a light. He laughs. By the Lady Angela’s good graces, he does get to eat his own cooking, eventually.
—
Angela continues the motions out of habit. It’s getting late, but it’s still just the two of them, serenaded by the shuffling of music on his phone. He lets her take charge of the motions while he cleans up— it’s only fair, seeing as he was the one using her kitchen, just as she said.
“This is… nice. Thank you, Roland,” she speaks up quietly. He turns from the fridge and just sort of looks at her for a moment, his heart fond. When had he gotten here, he thinks.
“Of course, Miss Librarian,” he says, bowing exaggeratedly. She rolls her eyes and snaps a paper towel at him, making him laugh.
“Hey! I just baked for you, that’s no fair!”
“If I recall, you’re still a guest in my home.”
“ Okay, we—“
They are both cut off at the exact same time— by the sound of a car pulling in. Angela’s eyes widen comically, and they both freeze like they’d been caught red handed.
Shit.
Angela shoves his shoulders and he launches himself into action as she pauses the music, leaving the noises outside of Benjamin returning to his home to feel louder than ever as he turns off the car and gets out of the driver’s seat.
“Hurry,” Angela hisses.
“I’m trying!” he hisses back, picking up his bag and nearly jumping into his own shoes. As Benjamin unlocks the side door that he and Angela both use, she shoves him to the front door.
“This is— I had a nice time, Roland,” she whispers, leaning out the door as Roland pushes it open with his shoulder. He can hear Benjamin fiddling with the lock on their side door.
“Yeah,” he breathes out. “I had a really fun time too, Angela. I’ll see you…?”
She nods. Roland takes the initiative to book it as fast as he can, running through the dark and retracing his steps as fast as his feet will take him back to the bus. As Angela closes the door, muttering something about wanting to get some air to Benjamin and chorused by the barking of their dog at Benjamin’s return, he speeds up his run, dodging the light from the windows.
Briefly, he sees Benjamin in the window, looking particularly confused at the set up in their kitchen. He runs a little faster, just for posterity.
—
“Yeah yeah, I know,” he repeats, crossing his arms and sulking like a child. “No running away and doing stupid things. Who are you, my mom—?”
At that, Binah tugs his arm so hard she surely must have almost dislocated it.
“ Ow! Okay, okay, don’t do that again! ”
—
“A ban from my own friend, can you believe it,” he sulks. “It’s been a week, and she's watching both of us like a hawk. A crazy, bloodthirsty hawk. Or a vulture, more like…”
He stares up into the starry sky, the moon shining. Of course, Angelica isn’t going to respond, but… he’s not sure if anyone else comes to talk to her, and it’s the least she deserves. Further down on the hill, a sleek black car rolls along, blending in with the night and only standing out by its lights. Roland watches it pass idly, and draws his legs up closer to his chest, pressing his side against Angelica’s grave.
“I know I said it before, but I think you would really like Angela,” he says softly. “I mean, I sure do, heh… you know, when Binah noticed her hand, I thought she was going to kill both of us on the spot,” he laughs.
The night is clear and slightly cold, but Roland has hardly ever felt warmer, staring up at the sky like this.
“I like her a lot,” he breathes out.
He and Angelica fall into silence, watching the stars together. Another car passes by. Roland zones out, staring at the sky, leaning himself against Angelica’s cold grave like she will still offer him some sort of warmth.
“It’s late”, he sighs eventually. “I should probably get home. It’s a Saturday, but I’m going to regret it if I stay sitting out here in the cold for too much longer.”
He sits up, placing a hand on top of her tombstone.
“Thanks for listening, Angelica. I’ll come back when I can,” she sighs. “Plus, Angela’s probably concerned about where I’ve gone off t—“
“And of all places, I never expected you to show your face here again,” a voice cuts through the silence, smooth tone cadenced by steps up the path on the hill. An unintentional chill runs forcefully through his shoulders.
Oh, he knows that voice.
Roland launches himself back to a standing position, adrenaline pumping. He doesn’t even need a light to recognize the features of the person in the darkness.
“Good to see you too, Argalia. I’m… leaving, alright. I don’t want to—“
“Don’t want to start anything, right?” Argalia asks. “I’m sure. I come to visit my dear sister’s final resting place, where she should be able to lie forever at peace, and I find— you.”
“I’m leaving.”
“The nerve of you, to even step in here at all. If I didn’t want to desecrate my dear sister’s memory, I would have half a mind to strangle you right now,” he spits.
“Nice to know that you’re exactly as pleasant as I remember. Some things never change,” he mutters. The wind whistles behind Argalia as the other boy rushes forwards without hesitation and tries to punch him in the face. Roland stumbles on his feet, falling down the hill slightly, but keeping his footing.
“I’m leaving, you crazy fuck—“
“The nerve of you, to come here and to desecrate dearest Angelica’s grave— and,” he laughs hysterically, walking quickly after Roland, “To desecrate her memory with the name of another woman? You’re shameless vermin.”
Roland blinks. “Wh— what are you talking about?”
“Don’t think for a moment that I didn’t hear your voice from all the way down there. Angela, then?”
“Don’t talk about her. You don’t know anything.”
“Oh, I’m sure— But I know enough, and I know that you sit here, tainting my sister’s grave and speaking to her about the woman you’ve replaced her with, not even a few years since she’s been gone. You… disgust me.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he breathes. “You don’t know shit.”
“The heart of the man who killed her, filled with thoughts of another person—“
“I didn’t kill her! It was proven in court, you psycho!”
He doesn’t have to listen to this. He says a silent goodbye to Angelica in his mind, and he runs. Argalia shouts hysterically past him, but does not run to follow. When he looks back up, Argalia is sitting there at her grave, kneeled silently and bent over it with his forehead resting on the top.
Roland runs.
He runs, like he always does, disappearing into the night.
Another woman, Argalia’s voice shouts in his mind. Angela’s not— she’s not another woman, she’s—
She’s… she…
Oh.