as_damaged | ☤ twenty-seven

[This is what we call a Bad Situation, or Something that We Did Not See Coming, or This Can Only End in Tears (or Enough Awkwardness to Make One Prefer Tears)...and there are more, but moving on, it's not good. Bad. not good. Bad. Not good. Bad. You get the point.

The blind man finds himself with his back against the wall instead of his hands and he knows this is Angela, but before he knows that it is Angela the obvious, and rather uncomfortable, more natural realization is that this is a woman...pinning him to plaster like he needs to be shielded from the rest of the world. Or like she wants him all to herself.

And suddenly he has the flash image of the helpless prey on a spiderweb.

Excellent.

Excellent...not.

His hands by combination luck and instinct find her shoulders and try to put an arm's length distance between them.

Chase. Forgive him.]

Iiii don't think I'm the one you actually want.

[His tone is not patronizing, is not accommodating, but it maintains that expression that implies he cares, whether or not she's cursed...okay and it's tinged by some mild ~~fear~~ misgivings about the whole ordeal and how it's Definitely Not Over, but there you go. Win some, lose some, and so it continues.]

Stop thinking. It's doing nothing for you.

[The attempt to push her away also does nothing for neither him or her because Angela just brushes it off like nothing. She does take a glance over to Robert down the hall, noticing that he's moving on just as fast as she is. Oh well, such is life on a curse day.]

How about you and I go get a few drinks before the Justice of the Peace opens? We'll be in and out if we go early enough and then...

[...the honeymoon. She doesn't need to break that part down too, does she? Not verbally, at least, because her hand that's slowly rubbing his forearm is actually demonstrating exactly what goes on during her honeymoons.]

But---

[Peter is trying to think of something that will get through to Angela, all too well aware that on a Curse day, the likelihood of that is not slim to none. It gives slim a miss and goes right on to the none. He knows, and yet it's so much easier to preach such things to others than it is to put it into practice for himself and the present scenario. Funny how that happens so often. Human imperfection is the worst.]

Angela!

[The hand that trails the line of his arm is a nice hand. Maybe that sounds stupid, but it's not, really. There are plenty of people in the world with less than attractive hands, and that he is going only by feel says even more. Her fingers are tapered and the tips of them seem to catch onto skin by creating temporary pulse points. It's not difficult to imagine most people being distracted. Peter already knows what she looks like. Her tone certainly isn't helping the dissuading. Everything is heightened in the dark. Don't let anyone tell you different.

Calm. Stay calm.

It helps, as idealist as it may sound, to remember his flatmate is dating this cursed next door neighbor of theirs, sobering to say the least and he swallows a dryness in his throat before in a lowered tone making up a reply as he goes along, hand of that forearm that bends curling over hers to keep her from...well continuing the exploration. Really. This is going to be awkward enough. Think...think...

Staying has its merits. There are chaperons. He hopes but can't be sure on second thought and things have gone suspiciously quiet over yonder. Damn it. Chase what are you doing over there? Then again, knowing who else's voice he heard earlier, Peter concludes maybe it's better just to avoid a third day of war for the week in their very own apartment. An executive decision? Not really. Not at all. But it is a decision.]

Okay...but we have to go out the way you came in.

[It might be a little bit of a test. And he feels bad, but it's also the truth.]

Mmm, I do like it when you say my name like that.

[Little does he know that she wants him to say her name like that while he's barefoot in the kitchen cooking her breakfast, lunch, and dinner with her million kid tribe running around his ankles begging for snacks and another weird pet and just one more bedtime story please, please, please. Even better if he's wearing one of her self-designed aprons.

This girl has plans but first, she has to make an honest man out of him.]

Fine with me. [Angela quickly spins to put her back against his chest and pulls his arms around her waist. She'll be his seeing eye Angela for the rest of the night.] Follow the leader.

[And it's with heavy, awkward steps that they make their way down the hallway towards the hole in the wall that was once a star-sticker decorated door, past the other two blonds, one that should have been hers originally.]

...

[Peter Petrelli takes a diplomatic approach to that statement, which is the silent one. Unaware of such images running through a certain someone's head right now, thankfully, he has no such notions of designer aprons, tribes of children--his or otherwise--or cooking three meals a day. What? Who does that anymore? Anyway, he lets himself be steered out, and maybe it's for the better that he's blind not able to shoot his flatmate a meaningful look of what the hell or some odd equivalent.

They make it out the door somehow though.

Er...the ....well, what was once a door, rather.]

Okay tell me where we're going before we....well, go there.

[Angela doesn't shoot Robert a look on his way out. Like her, he's distracted so why would she bother? She has her man wrapped around her right now and that's all that matters.]

I was thinking dinner and then drinks at Cafe Juliet? Then we'll rent you a suit, me a dress, and become the Petrellis. Baby, if it was earlier, I'd take you to Angelo's and let you order anything.

[She stops suddenly in the hallway to turn back to him, cupping his face between her hands. The look on her face, if his eyes were working enough to witness it, is a soft one, one she wouldn't use on Peter. It's definitely one for his roommate.]

Because I love you.

[Damn. Not even Robert got to the point of hearing that from Angela. ]

[ It isn't as though red flags have not been going up this whole time, but now it is sort of like they come accompanied with blaring sirens too, which he can actually, you know, notice.]

Dinner sounds good and...well we'll see how long that takes and...I mean dinner's great...better than great....

[ And he is trying so hard here not to back away because That can't end well either...but he knows these feelings aren't really for him, and there is a combination of guilt and disappointment, not that Angela doesn't feel this way for him, but because he realizes he hasn't had that in a long time, not even the beginnings of it. Worst maybe is that he knows it's mostly his own doing but that's neither here nor there when she continues talking and he thinks his lack of breathing is going to be a problem soon.

A breath, a quiet one escapes.

What to say. Um. Um. Um.

...

Thank you? No...that never works. Uh...]

I...

[ and now he needs a verb ]

I'm...very lucky.

[ And it sounds genuine because he means it, if not in the way she'll likely take it.]

No, I am.

[It's sad to say that while Angela considers Peter a close friend, she never consider romantic implications about him. It just never happened. It never will happen on a normal day. She's not a person to trail another one a dead end road and this here is what she's doing, even if Peter doesn't fall for it. When the clock hits twelve, things will hopefully be forgotten and forgiven.

Hopefully.

Tugging on his sleeve, Angela pulls the poor guy down to the elevator, the fastest way to the successful end of her plan.]

Now let's go get married.

[ Part of him is busy arguing that, well, worst case scenario, marriage can't possibly count here, right? That part gets promptly beaten up the side of the head with the word Stupid, and is followed by the thought that well of course it does but there must then also be divorce and well, there is an option, right there. But he doesn't particularly fancy it all the same, and he follows--he has to--into the elevator, trying to think of ways to stall.

Somehow he knows pushing all of the buttons on the panel will not be quite subtle enough, blind or not.]

So um...I don't know if there's a place to do that...here...

[Smooth...very...not.]

☤ twenty-seven

[a new face brings new change and a new way]

[a new face brings new change and a new way]

[a new face brings new change and a new way]

[a new face brings new change and a new way]

[a new face brings new change and a new way]

[a new face brings new change and a new way]

[a new face brings new change and a new way]

[a new face brings new change and a new way]

[a new face brings new change and a new way]