Crash and Burn: Part 3
By the time we got the Dinobots settled in it felt like sometime in the late afternoon, but the truth of the matter was it really only about eight in the morning. So that meant that we were expected back at the house for breakfast. Alyssa and Wheeljack said that they had already eaten on the way up there so they didn't come back with the two of us. Angel and I how ever got back to the house and got to experience the full force of her family when they are around the table.
We walked in and I found my self thanking Primus up above that I had remembered to put the power converter on lock down the night before. This was due to the fact that the self same grandfather that had reset our clock for five a.m. was now in the process of playing with it and trying to get it to do something. Tempted as I was to let him actually try something with it, I had a funny feeling that Angel wouldn't have liked a huge hole in the side of her house, so I left him alone and left it in lock down.
We got around the table and started getting comfortable when I noticed that the room now was filled with utter and complete chaos. Angel's mother, her grandmother, and the aunt who had some how had a miraculous recovery, were running in and out of the kitchen and in the process of complaining about the fact that they had been forced to cook all of this. Angel sat down at the table and did not proceed to go and help any of them, I could tell that this was yet another ritual that got on her nerves, but she was doing the best she could for my sake, to not blow up.
That was when something else happened, something that almost set me off. Her grandfather finished trying to kill the power converter and then went over to where the women were in the process of cooking. He insinuated him self into the mess and began to become the biggest nuisance I have ever laid optic sensors on. That would have been plenty for me but unfortunately he didn't stop there. With in a few seconds he began to talk at the top of his lungs and with in a few more moments, he started being more than a little bit verbally abusive to Angel's grandmother. He made cracks about her age, and how a younger woman would be so much better at everything from cooking to "other" matters. More than once he happened to refer to the poor woman as "You old Bitch". I stopped gaping at this long enough to take a look at my poor life mate and found Angel with her hands clenched on the sides of the table looking like she was on the verge of getting up and going in there. I was all for someone stopping the bitter old jerk from being like that, and was going to let her go put him in his place when some one stopped her.
Her own father's hand landed on her arm and she stopped and glared at him.
"Don't Angel," He told her.
"Why not?" She growled back, "Maybe if some one put him in his place he'd stop it."
"He's done it for years, you know that." The man shrugged, "You don't have to and show out for your husband."
She silently stared at her father for a few second and then pulled her hand away, "I'm not showing off for Orion Dad, I'm just sick and tired of him treating her that way!"
I think more would have been said at that point had the problems in the kitchen not moved them selves into the dining room at that point. I took one look at the food that had been cooked and found my self suddenly very glad that I wasn't going to be the one that would have to eat it to make the relatives happy. Angel on the other hand took one look at it and got a look on her face that told me we were going out to find some thing else as soon as she possibly could get away.
Still she did an okay job of making it look like she wanted to eat the stuff, but honestly I DO NOT know how. I did a quick analysis of the stuff just out of idle curiosity to see what was in it and I wanted to gag. I don't consume that much oil and grease and I'm silicon based. My poor Angel was probably going to be sick as a dog tonight from just smelling that stuff let alone putting it into her body. But for the sake of being polite she actually did manage to down some of the stuff, though I don't think she said two words the entire time she was working on eating it.
Which gave me a chance to discover something else about her family, all of them love to talk. They love to talk and they love to talk at the same time, as loudly as possible. The grandfather that I had in the last twenty minutes developed specific opinions about, also turned out to be one of those fun types that thought, if he couldn't be intelligent then he was going to be loud. So he sat there and talked the loudest of any of them. Not only did this wonderful phenomenon take place, but every single thing Angel picked up to eat he had something to say about it. Then when she didn't completely wipe her plate clean he began to rant about how she was wasting food and money.
He went on like that for several minutes and then Angel had finally had it; she wiped her mouth on her napkin and set it on her plate. Then headed into the next room to try and get some peace and quiet. As she walked by him the grandfather tried to insist that he have some kind of affection from her and finally she gave in and gave him a rather stiff hug.
I took the plate from her and told Angel to go wait for me in the living room while I put these in the sink for the moment. She had already gone into the other room and so she didn't hear what the man she had been annoyed by all day had to say.
"You know Amy, doesn't act like that to me! She still hugs me and shows me how much she care's even though she is married"
"Dad," Angel's mom told him, "You know that Angel just isn't the touchy feely type."
"Well I bet she dose plenty with that thing you let her all marry." He snarled, "How could you let something like that into this family, its just as bad as if she married…" He used a particular epithet for African American humans here that I will not repeat, but he got his message across.
"Well I can't help it," Her mom sighed, "She's a grown woman."
"Still bringing something like that in here, She's never gonna be happy with him. He's some kind of metal monster; I bet it's not even really alive."
At that point I stepped out of the kitchen and walked up behind him, "Sir, you're her grandfather so I will do my best to try and be civil to you." That was when it occurred to him and all the rest that I had heard it ALL. "But if you keep making comments about my life mate then I will take steps to make sure that you keep your mouth shut, Understand?"
The man gapped up at me for a few seconds and I didn't even wait for a reply. I turned on my heel and marched out to where I had seen Angel go a few seconds ago. I found her in there and realized that she must have heard what was going on, what had been said on both ends, because she had a look on her face like she was about to cry. Granted having your family argue is a hard thing to live with. This however did not explain to me the look on her face. It wasn't sadness or for that matter a whole lot of pain. No what it was, was a look of resignation. A look that told me something of this had happened some time before now and she was merely accepting it. I wanted to say more but before I could get it out it was just gone and she was simply looking at me again.
The rest of the day you would hope would have been peaceful, it turned out to be any thing but. The first thing that caused trouble was the arrival of the aforementioned cousin Amy. If there could have been a person that was more opposite my Angel than this I can not possibly see how. She was all dress suits and high heels, and her husband was just as immaculate as she was. To top all of that off the woman produced what had to be one of the most unattractive human babies I have ever laid eyes on.
I actually find most human infants to be rather cute. This one however just seemed to be either dull or not all there because all it did from the moment she introduced it, all it did was bawl.
"Well here we go," Angel muttered, "She pulled that child out, now everyone is going to go gaga over the thing."
"Why?" I looked at it, "I don't think its any thing that special."
"I don't know Orion, but that's how they always are."
"Well then," I grabbed hold of her and proceeded to tug her in the direction of the doors. "Let's go off and find some place that the two of us will be happy in."
Angel smiled up at me and was about to take me up on my offer when some one else showed up. This wasn't another cousin, or someone else from her family. No this time it turned out to be a pack of Autobots that had shown up and were planning on keeping us out of trouble.
"Jazz?"
Angel asked as we came out to see them after learning they were
there.
"Darned right kitten," He grinned more, "Some one
has to come with you and the chief to make sure you don't go
walking face first into traps again."
"Oh are you ever going to let us live that down?" I asked.
"NAH!" This was Bluestreak popping out of his own altmode and smiling at all of us. "It's so much more fun to have something that we can pin your all ears back with when we need too!"
Angel's family was less than happy about more of her "Friends" showing up, but there wasn't really that much they could do about it so they let it go. Still from seeing what her family was like and how at least some of them thought, I can understand now what was going on. However as much as that showed me why she didn't want to be around them it kept me in the dark about why she still seemed up set. There was something I was missing about what was going on, some thing that made the family this way. I kept on hoping that she would just come out and tell me, as it were the person who arrived the next day. Would be the one that would give me a lot of the answers I wanted about what was happening.
