Bragging Rights

Some 'great news'. Angelo had very different opinions about 'great news about their life'. He was a teenager. He was dating someone. And he was fully expecting Smokey to gush about some new guy (or girl) they'd started dating.

I got a wish was not what he was expecting, and he paused for a moment before flagging Smokey over to the couch, flopping down himself.

"Power stuff, right?" He said, trying not to look amused. He already knew. He'd known the moment Smokey entered the room. But he was willing to play along anyway.

There was, at least for a moment, a pang of guilt. Smokey was a creature intended to gather knowledge. That was their purpose, or at least part of it. Their entire species had been made for this.

But Angelo had been bonded to something that was more or less the incarnation of knowledge. It had changed him in ways he was still discovering. There was still, even with Giltenn gone, that gnawing desire to learn more. To go farther.

It had pushed him in ways he doubted he would have been pushed otherwise. To being able to consume knowledge at a voracious rate.

But saying I can read faster than you, I'm already miles ahead would be an awful thing to say. Smokey was excited, and he tried to be excited too, even if it probably didn't come across as entirely genuine. Angelo was equal parts great and terrible at lying. Hiding who his father was? Sure, he was among the best. Trying to lie to save his friends feelings?

Not so much.

"Don't feel bad for bragging," Angelo said. "Making a wish is always exciting. And getting new powers is exciting too. I guess you've already tested it?"

"When I first started noticing," Angelo said, "I did that test they use. Putting objects on a tray and you memorize them for a few seconds, and then the tray gets taken away. Helped me realize the limitations on mine."

"There's a lot of perks," he added after a moment. "Reading books is a big thing. Consuming media. Once you start reading textbooks, it speeds up how much you can learn pretty quickly."

Ouch. That was guilt, right there in verbal form, because Smokey was right. He should have been more excited. They'd got a new shiny toy, and he wasn't even properly excited for them, and he couldn't even fake being properly excited for them.

He was being a shitty friend, and he knew it, dragging his fingers through his hair and exhaling hard through his nose as he tried to pull himself together.

"Sorry. I know this is going to sound like it's not you, it's me, but it is. I should be excited. It's nice to have someone else with a memory like mine." Aside from Caissa, who had never seemed to like him all that much. "I'm just... I guess.. distracted from education? From knowledge. For my own reasons." He wasn't sure if it would help to say it, but mercifully for Smokey Angelo didn't get any of the I have a crush vibe, just the Angelo you're being a shitty friend he was projecting onto them.

The whole thing was awkward. No way around it. He shifted uncomfortably on his seat, feeling like his emotional discomfort was giving him physical discomfort.

"It's not - it's not like that. It's not like there's something wrong. I just..."

He forced himself to breath, to try and flip it around and see it from Smokey's point of view. Oricenta liked honesty, didn't they? Was he doing more harm then good by trying to dance around the point?

"I was just expecting something different. Relationship stuff, or something like that. Not... power stuff. I set my expectations wrong, and then I didn't want to... to demean your accomplishment. A wish is a cool thing. It's a good thing. I just... couldn't figure out what to say without sounding like I was naysaying it, and I'm shit at lying about things like this." He didn't want to disappoint them, and he knew he already was.