Private Finished Everything Stays

Maybe he shouldn't have, but the corner of Angelo's mouth quirked when Gabe mentioned that he didn't have the heart to do what his father did. He could understand why Gabe felt that way, but it also wasn't really the truth: Angelo knew his father did care. He know his father cared enough to let himself play the villain for the greater good.

So Angelo did what he could to play it off the way he knew Gabe meant it.

"Thanks, Gabe," Angelo said. "I get what you mean, and... well, it does mean a lot that you'd think that. And..." Whew, there they went... "It's definitely a bit awkward. Honestly, things have been awkward between a lot of the people from Halcyon. I've dealt with Xavier a bit lately and things are kind of going okay there, but I'm not really a huge fan of his girlfriend, and that makes him rocky. I guess that's the cares too much stuff you mentioned, because I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut." At least he was self-aware about it. Risky wasn't his business, but it sure as hell felt like it was.

"No, that's the problem," Angelo said with a sigh. "She's worse! Like, it felt like he was improving and now he's with this punk girl who is constantly causing trouble." To say the least. Angelo had personally run into her a number of times, and to say she drove him up teh wall...

Well, that wasn't even the half of it.

"No, it's really just them. I mean, everyone else is kind of... moving on. Everyone has their own lives now. Feels like when we first came through we all pulled together, and then after Xavier's stuff with the-" Angelo winced. "With the holy water, everyone started drifting apart."

"Could have been like Chinatown was," Angelo pointed out. Even if it was deeply implausible, that had always been how he'd imagined it: Little Halcyon, a small community that would build itself up on the island. In his head, La Bussola sat right at the entrance. Maybe there would be a statue of the people who'd died to allow them to be there.

But it was a pipe dream, and Angelo knew it. There simply weren't enough of them, and so many of the mundane Halcyonites had already left the island, resettling in the narrow reality. Relatively few of them remained, and even then there was no one cohesive thing keeping them together. Enclaves tended to pop up because of a shared language or culture, but the Halcyonites were completely different, sharing only a dimension of origin.

"You're still doing better than me," Angelo pointed out. "I've never even had a—" He paused, picking his words carefully. "A boyfriend or a girlfriend before." Would partner have been better? "So this is just... the first time for me. If media taught me anything, we should hate each other forever."

Maybe he shouldn't have (no, he definitely shouldn't have), but Angelo found himself smiling just a bit when Gabe confessed to not being nearly as well adjusted as they thought.

"I guess that's probably why they don't want us setting up enclaves. If you only stick with the people from your home, you'll never really adjust. They probably want us really settling in, and... well, that's a lot easier when you jump in feet first, I guess."

Angelo still had his safety net (at least some of his friends were still around, and his father was still there), but he liked to think he'd adjusted pretty well. He had his mentors on the scouts, and he had Alma and other people he knew. Some of his best friends—people like Erione—were island natives, after all.

"How's school been?" Angelo asked, trying to turn the conversation to something a bit more... friendly.

"I honestly felt the same way," Angelo admitted. "Being a hero was work. Like, it was something I wanted to do, but it was still a job. With my arm the way it was, I wasn't able to go to school, so suddenly going back to school felt so... so jarring."

Angelo's eyes drifted down to his prosthetic arm before snapping back up.

"I don't blame you for wanting to just get out there. I guess it depends on what you want to do as far as options go, though. I thought about doing a business degree or something like my dad's old job, but scouts seemed like a good way to burn off all that excess energy instead. Eventually I'll retire and get a normal job, but until then... well, good use of my time."

Which sort of nicely connected to Gabe's own question.

"La Bussola is still doing good. I help out when I'm on-island and they're shorthanded, but it's doing pretty well. I think a lot of the island has never had real Genoan food, so good northern Italian cooking is pretty nice to them. He's still tinkering and coming up with ideas and everything, but as it stands he's happy where he is."