The music video on the television flickered pointlessly, casting weird shadow-and-light patterns over my face as I sat on the sofa, absently twisting the sleeves of the sweater I'd taken off. I wasn't really watching the boy-band that was doing choreographed moves on the screen; it was just something to focus on, something to make people think I was occupied so I could have quiet time alone, to think. About Jono and me. About the link between us...and everything else that was and wasn't between us.

I didn't count on Angelo plopping himself down next to me and picking up the remote control, flipping around to the other music stations we got on the Academy's satellite dish until he found some hip-hop trash.

Annoyed, I stared at him pointedly, hoping he'd get the hint. I was fooling myself. He just stared blankly at some trio of sci-fi looking girls doing choreographed moves, clutching the remote control as if I'd take it away from him.

"Do you mind?" I finally barked, tired and not in the mood for his idiocy. "I was watching the TV first, in case you didn't notice."

Angelo looked over at me, broadcasting his usual ~indifference~ flat expression. "Sorry," he said blandly. "Didn't think you'd mind."

"Well, I do."

"You're a big fan've the Backstreet Boys, then?"

Trust the only time Angelo Espinosa makes conversation with me to be about something so totally inane, at such an inopportune moment.

"No," I said shortly. "But I was here first."

He raised an eyebrow at me, clearly feeling that this was no kind of reasonable explanation.

Fine. He wanted to be that way, fine. I had better things to do than sit around listening to cooing hip-hop girls.

"You can have the TV," I muttered, picking up my sweater and standing up. "Have fun."

Turning, I was about to head out of the room when I felt something...warm and fleshy wrap around my wrist. Out of instinct, I pulled away, whirling to see Angelo half-rising from the sofa, two of his fingers retracting rapidly.

"Don't go, Jen," he said. I could feel ~sincerity?~ that he really meant it. This was new to me. The only emotions I'd ever registered from Angelo concerning me had to do with total lack of concern, cold evaluation, complete detatchment.

Startled, I curled my numbing fingers into the nobbly wool of my sweater and stared at him. "Why?" I finally asked.

"I wanna talk to you."

I sat down on the edge of the sofa, ready for flight. I didn't want him to think I was making myself comfortable and settling down for a long heart-to-heart. Jono was sending strong waves of ~blue~ over our link and it made me impatient with company.

"What?" I asked, since Angelo didn't seem to be about to say anything.

He sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair. "About Jono...." he started, and I tensed immediately. Light, even just the mention of his name sent jolts through me.

"Jono," I prompted, keeping my voice level.

"Yeah. I don't know if you noticed, but he's kinda my best amigo an' all."

I could feel myself bristling at the ~condescension~ that came with the statement. "You don't have to patronize me, Angelo. I know Jono better than you can ever understand."

His eyes widened and he sat forward a bit. "'Patronize'?" he repeated incredulously. "That's the pot callin' the goddamn kettle black! For your information, chica, you're the most condescending person around here, short've Senora Frost!"

"That's not true!" Frost? He was comparing me to Emma Frost?!? "I am not condescending! And it's not like you would know, anyway, considering--"

"Considering we ain't spoken more than three sentences to each other since you joined up? Si, that's true. But I don't need t'be psychic to pick up the fact that you don't like me."

Angelo saw me open my mouth with an angry retort and cut me off brusquely. "You don't hate me either, I know. In fact, Jen, you don't _anything_ about me."

"I could say the same for you," I said coldly. "You never exactly held out a welcoming hand for me either."

His eyes narrowed for a moment. Then Angelo grunted ~amused!~ and sat back, offering me a little half-grin. "Y'got me there, chica," he acquiesced. I wished he'd stop calling me that. I wasn't Paige or Jubilee or even Alison for him to call me that.

"Okay, so we ain't been what you'd call hermanos," he continued. "But...since you're all mind-linked to Jono and stuff, I figured it was time we...y'know, talked. Got t'know each other. Actually behaved like we live at the same school together."

I didn't know what to say. To be honest, I didn't really care to get to know Angelo. He always seemed so...disdainful of anything I said or did, like growing up in L.A. meant that his street credibility outranked anyone else's feelings or actions.

Tenatively, I reached out to Jono. His presence was right there, as always, right inside me and yet still so hard to decipher.

/What should I do?/ I asked, desperately.

(*Don't ask me, luv,*) came the ~wry affection~ reply. (*I can't choose yer mates for yer.*)

"Are you talkin' to Jono?" Angelo demanded suspiciously, interrupting us. "Cause if you are, tell him t' screw off."

Frowning, I relayed the message to Jono, who, oddly enough, found it funny. (*Duly buggering off,*) he sent back, and then I felt his shields slide gently into place. Not enough to cut us off completely, just enough so that he wasn't so aware of what was going on with me.

Great. Just what I needed.

"He gone?"

"Yes." I shifted myself, pulling on my sweater. "So what else do you have to say?"

"Nuthin' much, I guess, chica."

That was too much. I was tired and cranky and without Jono's open, soothing presence, I'd had enough of this. "Angelo," I snapped, "_don't_ call me 'chica'."

He scratched an ear, obviously not getting it. "Why not?"

"It's something you call your close girl friends," I explained, enunciating each syllable distinctly so he would get the hint. Which, apparently, he did, because I could tell he felt ~rebuffed~ and didn't like it.

"No," he said, "it's something I call girls."

"You call Paige that."

"So what?"

"I don't want to be called the names you use for Paige. I realize she's so special that everyone needs a wonderful pet name for her--you call her 'chica' and Jono--" my voice hitched on his name, on the remembered pain of bright shining temptress blonde hair, "calls her 'Sunshine'--"

Angelo laughed shortly. "Dios, Jen--you gotta stop taking everything so personal. I call Jubilee 'chica' too. I'd call Monet it, but I don't think she'd like that...."

He actually noticed that I wasn't laughing and sighed again, reaching over to briefly pat my shoulder. "You still worried about the Jono-Paige thing?" he asked. Expecting me to answer! Light! Of all the wool-brained....

I shook him off and kept my mouth tightly shut, trying to banish the image of her from my mind. Miss Perfect Paige, head of the whole school, beautiful and smart and everything a boy could want. Even though Jono had told me--sort of--that he was interested in me, that Paige was in the past, I couldn't help but hate her. Hate her in all her glory.

"She's Sunshine," I muttered, spitting the word out with all the venom I had.

"Jen, Jono calls _everyone_ that. I'm Sunshine too, as a matter've fact."

Scowling, I pushed my mind out towards him, not caring if it startled him. The feelings coming from Angelo were ~warm~ and ~reminiscent~ and even ~concerned~. He was telling the truth, although it didn't make much sense to me.

He could probably tell from the way my mouth was twisted, because he chuckled. "Not that he calls me that a lot," Angelo said. "Just in times've extreme pressure, when we took off for Los Angeles. When nobody else was around--macho male bonding and all that kinda stuff. So don't go tellin' everyone and embarassing me."

"What do you think of us?" I asked abruptly, ignoring his joking. "Of Jono and me."

Angelo was quiet for a while, and I could feel him ~considering~ gathering his thoughts, working out the way to say what he was ~unsure~ feeling.

"I think," he said slowly, "you might just burn each other up."

I turned to look at him, challenging him, and he met my eyes steadily. "I think you don't know how deep, how important this link between us is," I said.

"Don't give me that, Jen. I know a self-destructive relationship when I see one. You'n Jono, you're both the same kind've people. Always swirling down into depression and choosing the painful path instead of the smooth one."

"It's not the same."

"Yes, it _is_. You don't need a mind-link to be so much in synch with someone that you feel everything they do and feel and think. Trust me, chica. I've been there."

Angelo's eyes were burning with intensity, his voice getting gravelly and rough, pitched so low I could barely hear him. My head was spinning with the hot bursts of emotion that were punching against me, battering at my mind. ~Pain.~ ~Self-loathing.~ ~Lust.~

"Stop it..." I gasped, putting out a hand to steady myself against the couch. Couldn't he see that this huge burden of pent-up black emotion was hurting me? Couldn't he tell? I could feel the pain pouring out of me like blood....

Instead he leaned closer to me, vicing my elbow in his grip, eyes staring intently at the suffering on my face. "Recognize it, mijita?" he grated. "Just like yours. My pain is _just_ like yours. That's what you're in for if you and Jono decide to do this and sink into the holes inside you...hating yourselves and loving each other and going up in fucking flames."

"Stop it!" I expected the words to come out a shriek, to rip themselves bloody from my throat, but instead they were a cracked mockery. Angelo's mind was racing with one name, over and over and over until everything else was obliterated. I didn't care who it was, who Torres was, I just wanted to get away, get away, oh Light Jono why can't you be here to help me?...

My aching screaming mind lashed out, snapping the dark river between us, and Angelo flinched as if I'd hit him. I jumped up, my heart racing, as he sank back into the recesses of the couch, blending with the shadows, only the stark planes of his face visible.

"You see?..." he rasped, panting slightly. "I ain't so ignorant as all that, chica. Didn't you ever wonder _why_ Jono and me could be friends?"

I saw the glint of teeth as he bared them, no humor at all behind the predatory smile. "We both got the same damn blackness inside us. Only I...hide mine better."

Drawing in great whoops of breath, I turned and ran up the stairs, up to my room. A tube of acrylic paint squooshed under my foot, leaving what I was sure would be a huge mess on the hardwood floor in the morning, but I didn't care. All I wanted was Angelo out of my head, all of his dirty horrible stained emotions. I didn't even want Jono; I couldn't stand the thought of him opening our link to find all that evil in my head. I couldn't stand it if he had to wade through all this.

Throwing on my headphones, I cranked up the volume of my CD player--

~She said they all think they know him well she knew him better everyone wanted something from him~

Tears fell unbidden like precious blood as I fiercely mouthed the words along, losing myself in them, in the music, in the wash of lyrical sanctity, hoping it would make me feel clean by the morning. Light, Jono....

~I did too but I shut my mouth~