Now
*
Pete was still three feet down the corridor from his room when the smell hit him. A familiar brand of cigarette, though he couldn't place them right away, and a whiff of aftershave. Male, then, whoever was intruding on his peace of mind and privacy.
The scent of smoke hit him full in the face a moment later, and he wrinkled his nose as he stepped inside. It was dark and shadowy in the room, leaving places for a face to fade away into, and smelled like a stale ashtray. Naturally. It wasn't as though any sane person would *open* the window after smoking -- hell, it smelled like ten cigs at least.
And then he placed the brand. His voice caught in his chest as he mumbled half-heartedly, "Teenagers."
A shadow slightly darker than the rest of the room rearranged itself languidly on his couch. "Something you want to share with the rest of the class, hombre?"
"Since you're asking," he said, and walked to the window, "I was thinking up some lesson plans. The way to open a window. The dangers of smoking the more stinkin' kinds of fags. Especially in other people's flats."
The shutters opened with a low dramatic rumble, giving in to the sharp tug on the strap. The room was flooded with light.
Espinosa blinked at him, turning his head away and raising a hand to block the all-too-rare London sunshine. The same light revealed him fully, now, sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest, his bare feet resting on the edge of the seat. Grayish tan skin looked strangely normal, healthy even, as he moved again to better hide his eyes.
"Ta for keeping the furniture clean, kid," Pete said, but he had to admit to himself -- even before Ange did something equivalent to an eyeroll using his whole face -- that his ratty couch was already so dirty, not much could hurt it further.
He remembered the day he bought that couch, come to think of it. Another pimply faced teenager, working on twenty percent commission, had convinced Pete it was just 'him'.
That was a very long time ago. 'Lots has changed,' Pete thought to himself.
Including Espinosa.
~*~
Then
Angelo had seen some strange things in his time -- various battles, demons, monsters, people, teachers, practical jokes. He thought they were going to have a relatively quiet semester, maybe actually get some classes done. But Cassidy had a background, and now it was giving them a day off class.
'The only time I study for a Calculus test, and some Brit rat comes to tie up Sean,' he thought grumpily.
Though, he was an interesting houseguest. The only person he'd ever see stand up to the White Queen with a cigarette drooping out of the corner of his mouth.
Ange threw the textbook he'd been pouring over for the last two hours down to his grungy floor, and hopped up. He grinned at himself in the mirror, straightened his sunglasses with a confident flick, and went out his door to find some trouble.
He had just hopped off the last stair and onto the second floor when he saw the guy again.
Startled a bit to find he was not alone while being that uncool, he breathed in relief when he realized the man -- what was his name again? - wasn't looking at him. He was standing by the railing, looking down, and it was only when he calmed down enough to see the smoke that Angelo realized there was a lit cigarette hidden in his hand.
They were in the part of the second floor directly above the den, but Angelo couldn't tell whether he was looking down at it or just staring into space. He stayed very still for some reason, watching the Brit not doing anything interesting, regulating his breath to something calm and quiet.
After a few minutes, the Brit sighed a quiet "Bloody kids." Then, right in front of Angelo's wondering eyes, he made ten times greater his previous sin by dropping the cigarette and grinding it to the floor. He grumbled something and leaned down to collect it, but Angelo knew for sure that whenever he went by that spot he's see the sign of rubbed ashes, real or imaginary.
When he stood up, it was a sharp motion that ended up with him facing Angelo, who took a step back on pure instinct. "What do you want, kid?"
"Nothin', hombre," he said easily. The distance between him and the Brit was somehow shorter than he had thought before. "Y'just became my personal hero."
The face before him had "Fuck off" written all over them. Then the man grinned, suddenly, a crooked something that had his eyes dancing. "Don't tell me the White Bitch managed to get you lot not to smoke in the house."
He shrugged, a little more at ease now. "The woman's in a position to make me write a twenty page essay about smokin'. She'd do it, too. Doesn't even need her mind to find out, she can smell a cig from a hundred yards downwind."
The brit gave a short, low whistle of appreciation. "Housebroken teenyboppers. Very nice." Angelo raised an eyebrow at him as the man mused, "Guess Em has a few more hidden talents than I thought."
Ange leaned against the wall casually, greedily eying the cigarette packet sticking out of the man's jacket pocket. Pete caught the look, and rolled his eyes. "There's no bloody way you're getting one."
Ange couldn't help giving him a resentful look, and Pete added, "I'm not going to add to the fallacy that just because a superhero smokes, he's cool as fuck. Get a life, kid." The grin on his face was a little nastier, and Ange bristled.
"You're a super hero, hombre? Man, if you weren't standing in Emma Frost's hallway, I would have pegged you in insurance sales."
Pete chuckled suddenly, but the wistful tone was unmistakable. "Touche."
Jubilee ran past, then skidded to a halt. "Wisdom, you doling out smokes for the young junkies?"
"Jubilee, always good to hear your gum-chewing ass around. No. Would *I*, give *away*, smokes? You must be daft."
Angelo turned to Jubilee, a grin on his face. "Jubecita, would I smoke?"
Jubilee looked from Pete to Ange and back again, and then snorted. "I'm looking at bookends." They both choked, and blurted out denials. She scoffed at them, petite frame giggling at their mirror-image disgusted faces.
Pete looked a little more disgusted than Angelo, and he glared at Jubilee before continuing down the stairs in disdain.
Angelo asked, "How can *that* guy be part of Excaliber?"
Jubilee clouted him on the arm before replying, amused, "More'n that, he was offended to be compared to *you*."
~*~
Now
Pete remembered their first meeting well. He wondered if Ange had as clear a picture imprinted on his memory. The figure on his couch unfolded itself into a standing position, with that strange grace Espinosa always seemed to have. "Y'welcome, Amigo."
He flipped his keys into their place on the table. "You picked my lock."
An eloquent shrug. "I left you a message that I was in town. You could've expected that."
Pete hadn't, actually. He'd expected -- what he hell did he expect? Another call. A drink, a cup of coffee. Not this. Not Angelo sitting in his living room, and definitely not this -- adult -- staring at him.
Those shoulders were broader than he remembered them, he thought, although the body was still as lean as something that was pulled up much too fast. "That's a VE-55 I've got out there. I didn't teach you to pick that."
He grinned, and then in the depths of his eyes, shadows reared their heads. But, his voice was light when he said, "You also didn't teach me about glo-in-the-dark condoms, Wisdom. Get over yourself."
The words -- the style, at least -- were so familiar he almost smiled at the kid. But the tone of voice held him back. Teasing, bearing the weight of familiarity. It wasn't the deadpan of an almost-eighteen year old boy who was much too cool to admit he was protecting himself in case his jokes were met with scoffing. It wasn't anything he knew.
And suddenly he asked himself what the hell made him think this too tall, too trained looking, too handsome man standing in his kitchen, had anything to do with the boy he could still hear quietly laughing in his ear.
"Hey," said that familiar too-deep voice, and he realized he had drifted to staring off into space. He looked back into Angelo's face, and told himself that at the very least, those eyes he would recognize anywhere.
"Wha?" he said, raising an eyebrow.
Espinosa grinned. Shrugged. "You don't happen to have a smoke, huh? I left mine at the hotel."
It wasn't really that Pete was smiling suddenly, as much as it was that some stray smile suddenly chose his face to sit on and left him with no choice in the matter. And suddenly he wasn't forty one, although he wasn't twenty seven either. And he wasn't speaking to a near stranger. And it didn't even matter that this kid he knew outside and out, and never quite well enough in, was giving him one of the lamest lies ever, considering they were still sitting in a cloud of undissipated smoke.
"Would think you knew me better'n to expect free smokes, Ange."
Pete didn't notice the slip into familiarity he allowed, the lapse of his guards signalled by the nickname, but Angelo did. He wondered how many times he'd seen that look on Pete's face, how many times he'd wanted it to be more approving.
He stopped thinking about all the looks Pete had given him during their time together. Whatever the past was, it wasn't sitting in the kitchen with them, it wasn't sharing Pete's apartment, and it wasn't anything they were living in anymore.
They'd both changed too much to stay there.
He gave a small smile, half-salute for things that weren't anymore. "You know what I remembered, a few weeks ago?"
Pete didn't seem more than a little nonplussed at this new tangent. "No."
"Moscow." Now it was a genuine grin that stretched his lips, he could tell, amusement and shades of old delight. "God, I feel like a black and white movie person saying that."
There was a snort; a surprised one, but the amusement matched his own. "Well, that's one mission I never thought I'd manage to get out of my head."
"Nah, you had fun." Cautious, just a little; the familiarity was setting him on edge, far too exposed, far too out there. But he didn't want to let go of it, no more that he'd ever wanted to let go of the image of Pete in that idiotic fur hat, for once letting Jubilee harass him into keeping it as though he was a shorter, saner, ten degrees sexier form of Wolverine.
"I just," he said, and coughed a little. "You know. We kicked ass."
Those solid blue eyes were thoughtful, calculating, maybe. He didn't wonder whether Wisdom was having that same flash of feeling, standing naked in the storm and waiting for some hundredth shoe to fall. Waiting for withdrawal to shrivel the hand he knew was extended too far into solid ice.
Something in him had always believed that Pete was more confident in this, less at risk. Like his years gave him weight, like his cynicism, so much wearier and more sophisticated than Angelo's, anchored him too the ground far too well for the storm to carry off.
Blue eyes flashed with something else. He muttered, "You didn't come to reminisce about old times, Ange. You're not old enough yet to be out of the field, and we didn't spend that much time together."
He didn't argue about the relativeness of time, just sighed a little without sound. "Still as quick as ever. Nah. Didn't come to trade war stories."
Pete reached into his pocket, pulling out a cigarette from the ever-present rumpled packet he carried. He put it between his lips and lit it. He looked back at Angelo's face, and saw the wrinkles, the pock-marks of time, wear, and tear, that danced across his features. After a second, he handed the cigarette to Ange.
It was blue and curling, the smoke between them, and someplace else on some other life maybe it should have made his eyes sting.
Finally asked him, "So, kid. Why *are* you here, if not just to steal my hard earned smokes?"
Ange puffed away, knuckles relaxing in a way that made Pete realize he hadn't even noticed they were tense. The kid had learned to hide stuff better than before. He said around the filter, "I need a better reason?"
Pete shrugged, unwilling to comment. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on the floor, away from those lips and Angelo's fascinating eyes.
Haunted eyes, more like it, but Pete wasn't going to look.
He didn't really care.
Ange flicked the butt away, and then ground it out on the carpet without a word.