Nicholas: Hm...Been awhile, hasn't it? Well, I'm in a writing frenzy right now, so be happy! I like this chapter, by the by...it's funny.
Angie did end up talking to her neighbors above her, explaining that she had just had the chaos of hell released in his kitchen and the shout they'd heard was simply Satan being withheld by her own personal exorcist. She was making fun of them because they were Jesus-freaks in the most horrible way. But then things started to calm down and she got Marco settled on the couch with a blanket. His shoes were set by the arm of the sofa while she took his shirt and pants down to the basement—because the Landlord had made it into a free Laundromat—to wash. And then she went to bed. They both were asleep by midnight.
Waking up was very different and a lot less peaceful. The apartment began the wee hours of the morning without a sound. Angie was snoozing away in her library/bed room past the kitchen and Marco stayed sound asleep for quite a while. Though, if they could have competed who got up first they would have for obvious reasons—they both woke at the same time. At first, Marco thought it was a prison bell and it startled him, but when he opened his eyes and remembered where he was, he doubted the possibility. Lifting his head, he looked around for the source of that god awful noise. When it stopped with a ding, he decided that Angela had an alarm clock set to piss him off—no matter how irrational that sounds. He closed his eyes again and tried to get some more sleep that he knew he deserved, but found he couldn't be lulled by the sounds of the morning. Oh well, he'd try anyway.
Maybe an hour passed (give or take) of him lying still, silent as the grave. The window beside him was closed, but it hardly kept quiet the some desperate lark twittering about to tell everyone to get off their rears and go to work. I had never occurred to him before now that birds in general actually inhabited this godforsaken city. Cars were driving by in a regular pattern and some poor little virgin was being talked into giving her first kiss to some shmuck who was about to turn around and tell his buddies as soon as she walked away. Didn't people sleep? No wonder everyone is so uptight in Brooklyn. Weekdays are for working all day and weekends are for partying all night. Fucking nocturnal bush-babies.
He barely heard the door from the bedroom open with a creak before something smacked him in the face—literally. Shooting up to a sitting position, he caught the piece of cloth as it slid from his nose. "What the fuck is this?" he snapped, a sour glare directed at Angie.
"That's underwear, Marco," she replied calmly, fiddling with her ear like she was putting an earring in. "You wear that underneath your clothes."
"I know what underwear is." He lifted the pair of briefs from his lap. "You got to be kidding me." Tidy-whities…she has no idea what comfort is… Marco looked up at her again, eyebrow raised in a way that said he thought she was bat fuck nuts. "Where did you get these, anyway?"
The way she smiled seemed a tad bit wry. "Archie left them when I kicked him out. I found them in a drawer."
"Archie? My cousin Archie?" That's funny, he didn't register this Angela as the one Archie put up with for two months. Maybe that's what Philly Bates had meant by the bitch that had been hanging around lately. Either way, the knowledge of their origin made Marco even more loath to wear them. You see, his dear cousin had his own nickname. "Archie the Drip?"
The wry smile went amused quickly. Angela put in her other earring and walked around the table into the kitchen to get some semblance of a breakfast started with the little that she had to cook with. "Yes, Archie the Drip, Archie Overflow." She was almost to the point of laughing, but that definitely wouldn't be good for Marco's already stubborn attitude. And now that she knew that he was related to Archie, she knew where he got the jack ass temper from. "I didn't know he was your cousin, but anyway that just makes more sense that you should be fine wearing his drawers." Oh how wrong she was.
"I think I'll pass." He tossed them on the floor and snuggled back under the blanket on the couch.
"Oh, and I found this wallet and these cigarettes with a lighter in your jeans pocket. Since I guess you aren't going to be getting off the couch at all being that you won't wear clothes, I'll just pawn them off somewhere." Said items were placed on the counter casually, right where she was sure that Marco could see them without a problem. "What would you like for breakfast? Eggs?"
When he looked up again, saw his belongings lying there, he narrowed his eyes, wishing he could glare a hole into her back like that. Sure, he wasn't above going nude in her apartment, but there was the question of comfort here. What he wanted was his own clothes, but he very much doubted she'd go to his house and get them (and he couldn't anyway because no doubt there'd be police investigating everyone who had been involved in that stupid rumble. He stayed there, arms crossed definitely, totally opposed to wearing his cousins underpants.
"How about this," she started, lighting her stove and putting an old skillet over the flame, "I'll let you walk around in the nude as much as you want if you can stand from the couch without any help." Angela went to her fridge for butter and eggs and ketchup.
Marco was still leering at her, and she didn't even see it—though he was certain she knew and that's why she wasn't looking at him. There was still this nagging, very annoying, tight pain in his thigh from whatever it was that had torn it open. He honestly couldn't remember it happening, so it must have been after he fell unconscious. Would it hold him up? Even if I did, it really wouldn't matter because he knew she wouldn't really let him go nude. Oh well, it was worth a shot. Awkwardly, he turned himself, pulling his bad leg over and off the cushion and placing both feet on her cool, wood floor. He still held the blanket, keeping it from getting tangled on his feet. Carefully, he started to push himself up, but the moment he thought he was balanced the muscle on his thigh contracted painfully and he fell forward.
"God damn it!" Angie hissed, tossing her spatula down and abandoning her frying to go help him. "I didn't mean for you to actually try. I just thought you'd know if you could or not." Her voice was frustrated and at the same time had a hint of concern—the which Marco thought was misplaced.
"Well then you shouldn't have said it like that," he snapped as she helped get him back on the couch. With a groan hid in a laugh: "I knew I'd get you to curse sooner or later."
"Yeah? Well either way…" She picked up the briefs once more and threw them at him. "Put them on."
Put them on wasn't as simple as that. Perhaps if she hadn't told him the origin of the pants, he would have been okay with it, but Archie the Drip got that nickname for a reason. That reason had to do with his little childhood habit of not making it to the bathroom on time. "They clean?" he grumbled, picking them up from his lap once more.
"Let's say, if they smell like piss, they aren't clean. Now, do you like ketchup with your eggs?"
"Oh thanks," he barked indignantly. With a defeated sigh, he watched her hurry back to the kitchen to save her eggs. This morning brought him to a slightly different conclusion about her than he'd come to last night. As he pulled those underwear on—awkwardly forcing them over his hips cause he didn't really have much leverage what with his bad leg—he thought about the last time someone had offered to make breakfast for him. I mean, actually offered and didn't have to be smacked upside the head once or twice. "Sure, ketchup's fine," he muttered.
"Okay." Angela had successfully avoided looking where she didn't want to once more, but when she glanced over, saw him sitting up with just that pair of briefs on, she couldn't help but notice that what she did see wasn't that bad. His form was well toned and no doubt powerful on a good day, and the tattoo that she couldn't quite read right on his left pec didn't help her distraction. "I have to work today," she stated, to keep her mind on other things. God he's an ass, she thought. The fact that he has a good body just makes him seem more arrogant. "I'll be gone mostly all day, but I'll try to come back on my lunch break to get you something to eat."
"If I could get up, you wouldn't have to bother with it."
"What's this, trying to make my life easier?"
"Fuck you."
After a very good breakfast on Angie's part (though of course Marco didn't tell her that), she tried to devise a solution for his immobility but that involved him using a chair or something within reach as a walker. Marco positively despised that idea being that he hardly did anything that made him look or feel like he was too weak to do it on his own. The things like that just made him angrier with himself, and Angela had this feeling that he hid enough anger inside of him as it is. She couldn't help worrying for him while she was at work. Not about him, mind you—she found that anything that could possibly go wrong with him today he deserved wholeheartedly—but for him. He definitely wasn't worried about himself, so someone ought to be.
By the time she got to the library, she was a little late and the one person she knew to always be at the library was already waiting by the door with an armful of books. "Good morning, Joanna," she stated, waving her key apologetically before unlocking the door.
"Morning, Miss Farrell."
Miss Farrell never quite stuck, and Angie had pleaded multiple times with the people that passed through every day just to call her Angela, but the venture was dutifully ignored. It was probably for the best, being that it did distinguish her and with a job like hers, it helped to be noticeable. Also, being called "miss" as opposed to "missus" or some other title gave her name a kind of classy sound that she'd mostly heard in the books she'd read (and there have been a lot of those). She wasn't sure whether or no she could live up to it though, being that many of the women in her books that have gone by "miss" have been strong leading ladies. Angie never saw herself that way.
Anyway, the day started out slow, with Joanna wandering about the shelves looking for something she'd been looking for going on three years now. Angie got the feeling that there was a different reason that the girl stayed at the library, but it wasn't any of her business. She chose to all but ignore the people that came and went until they came up to her. She didn't like being social (which is one of the reasons that she's still pissed off at Jonathan and Rick).
Speak of the devil… "Hey, Ange," Jonathan said quietly as he walked over to her desk.
She wasn't technically allowed to completely ignore his existence—he was lucky that he job called for at least a little human contact—so she chose the next best thing. "Hello, sir, how can I help you?" shun him with unfamiliarity.
Jonathan was one of those good-looking guys who knew it and used it to his advantage whenever he could. His skin was a delightful tan that he kept maintenance on by periodical trips to the West Coast (LA, baby!)—under the pretense of visiting relatives. The blond hair on his head was almost always sculpted just perfectly with enough hair gel to hold two angry elephants together. Currently, though, the pretty, slightly boyish, features of his face were twisted into a practiced pout. "Oh, c'mon…don't be like that."
"I'm sure that I don't know what you're talking about." She pretended to busy herself with filing.
"Look, I'm sorry, alright? I felt like such an asshole when you stormed out, but when I tried to go after you, I couldn't find you." He sighed when she shook her head, not looking at him at all. "I know I could have gone to your apartment, but did you really want me to?"
Suddenly, Angie tensed, thinking of what might have happened if Jonathan had come to her apartment and found her not alone. "No," she said too quickly, "I made it clear when I gave you my address that if you ever come over and it's not an emergency then I'll move to Barbabos…maybe I'll get a tan." The only reason she mentioned it and looked down at her pale skin was because she was trying to focus on not forgiving him—he didn't deserve it.
"It was an emergency, though! Jesus, I of all people know how much you hate being touched like that. I'm sorry, I really am." When she turned away from him once more, he leaned over the desk to try and capture her gaze again. "What do I have to do to make you believe me?"
"I do believe you, that's not the problem." Her voice remained ruthlessly calm. "I'm not even all that mad at you so much as I'm just upset. First of all, RICK was the one who thought it would be funny to put his hand in my shirt. I know that I was the one who ran out, but that still doesn't mean I liked walking over a bunch of dead bodies by the docks. And on top of that, I didn't sleep well last night, so seeing you're ugly mug this early in the morning isn't my idea of a good time."
He winced at that, but was aware that he had no right to complain. "You passed the rumble, then?" he asked flatly, trying to avoid further harsh words from his friend, "I heard one of the bodies went missing from the scene."
Opening a drawer for no other reason that the hide the fact that she almost fell out of her seat at that comment, Angie raised her eyebrows. "Really?"
"Yeah, get this, they think it was Marco Vindetti. You know that guy who just got out of prison like last week? They say he's either dead or out of the country by now, so no one's really looking for him. They searched his house, though, and found a shit load of heroin."
This caught Angela's attention. The bastard was still selling drugs? I'm going to kick his ass, she though venomously.