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[one__song]

For once, numbness wasn't setting in on its own. Two joints and a swig from a jug of moonshine long-ago commandeered from someplace or another, Roger was still feeling the guilt, the misery, the deep hurt. Fights with April had been either inconsequential or incoherent (especially the latter, toward the end), fights with Mark were... explosive,

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[squint_artist]

It wasn't the first time that Angela had wandered by the Hub only to see someone she knew looking to drown themselves in something alcoholic enough to burn away anything they didn't want to feel. Angela could guess what this was about. She didn't think too highly of him for cheating on his boyfriend, but she also didn't think too badly of him. Cheating happened. There were worse things in the world that people could do to each other, even though it hurt like hell and wasn't right.

She sidled quietly into the bar, sliding onto a seat next to Roger. Her nose wrinkled a little at the scent of alcohol already on him. "Long day?" she asked companionably.

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Angela had a way of finding Roger at his lowest, and unlike Roger with Jack Harkness, he didn't really find himself bitter about it. Unlike Roger, Angela had the power of patience on her side, and she seemed to have elements of harmony flowing out of every floral pattern and hippie stitch she wore. That was Angela, and in a perfect world, he would want her, possibly even despite her scary, verging-on-albino boyfriend.

"Long night," he corrected, a hand scratching through his hair. He could feel the gobs of salt from the air obstruct the path and gave up before making a complete pass, at which point his hand flopped noisily onto the bar. He turned his head and offered a curl of his lips up for a short moment, an offering of sorts.

[squint_artist]

Her eyebrows curved into slender half circles, but her eyes were kind and understanding. Angela had one time been on both sides of the cheating issue, and neither one was really a good side.

"What happened?" she asked. She figured it was a fight, but it would have been wrong to presume and would probably only put him on the defensive.

[one__song]

How to approach that question? He was unsuspecting as to the conversation she'd had with Mark, and had foolishly thought that his business could remain his own on that tiny, gossip-ridden fucking island, and worse yet, Roger didn't much pay attention. To anything.

"Prior and I..." what? Broke up? Ended? That made it sound amicable. It wasn't. They'd been a chair and a mullet away from an episode of the Jerry Springer show.

He snorted. "I'm surprised you didn't hear it from across the island."

[squint_artist]

"You had a fight," she finished for him, pressing her lips together uncomfortably. Two fights in the matter of a few days, and probably for different reasons. This wasn't like with Mimi, she figured. Roger was still doing something to upset people, but not in one fell swoop.

"I don't have that good of hearing," she said with a slight smile.

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Her patience was appreciated- since she'd had the good sense to lose said patience with Roger the first time an opportunity to presented itself, she'd set a precedent for herself, for the tone of their relationship- and Roger felt warmth in the face of it, so he smiled. Vaguely.

"If you call a breakup a fight, then yeah, I guess," he said, rubbing at his eye with his middle finger for a second before looking over at her again.

[squint_artist]

"Sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't," she said, keeping her tone in check, not accusatory but not disinterested.

"Do you want to talk?" Angela asked. If money were involved, Angela wouldn't bet on him wanting to, but there was always a one in a million chance.

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To his credit (and even surprise), Roger considered it. If he was going to talk about it, Angela was the person to do it with. She was free-spirited enough that she likely wouldn't get hung up on details (like the implied "monogamous" in the average relationship and how cheater was basically a scarlet four letter word), and grounded enough that she wouldn't let him walk away thinking that what he'd done was alright. Also, she didn't know Brian (he didn't think; Christ, he hoped) and so she wouldn't think of him what most people did. That just made the entire thing harder to explain.

"Not really," he finally arrived at, but his voice conveyed a sort of apology. "Suffice it to say I'm a cheating cockjob." It was a way of being honest without being detailed, and it was something like dodging a bullet.

[squint_artist]

Angela winced in a sympathetic way. Everyone always assumes that the cheated is the only one hurt, that the cheater doesn't feel any pain. But if that were true, Roger wouldn't be alone in a bar. He would have been kicked out of one bed only to crawl into another. True, the greater share of the pain definitely went to Prior, but emotions never obeyed rational thoughts like that. So Angela didn't say that she knew or anything callous, only treated things at face value. And at face value, Roger needed a friendly face.

"Did Prior find out, or did you tell him?"

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"I told him," Roger murmured quietly, hand tracing some scratch or another on the bar. If he was doing that, he didn't have to, like, look at Angela.

But what really sucked is that it wasn't like Roger deserved any credit for even telling him. He didn't wake up one morning and decide it was wrong and march over to Prior's and terminate. Shit, if Mark hadn't found out, he likely would still be carrying on the affair... thing. There was not a damn thing to take pride in.

[squint_artist]

"Well that's better than him finding out some other way," Angela reasoned, offering some sort of silver lining if Roger was too down to look for it himself.

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"That's what I was going for," Roger said, assuming an air of forced acceptance that surrounded him and strangled him like the air of a New York City summer. "I thought it would make me feel..." He groped for a word for many frustrating seconds and dropped his head when nothing came, not even the solace of feeling like shit when he deserved it. "I don't know what I thought it would make me feel, but it didn't."

[squint_artist]

As much as Angela didn't want to do it, she knew that pretending wasn't going to help this situation any more than honesty would. "Of course it didn't," she said. "Telling Prior wasn't something you should have done for you, it was what you should have done for him. You did a terrible thing, and you're going to feel terrible about it for a while, because even though you screwed up you're a good guy and you did care about him. But you're not always going to feel terrible. Just for right now."

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Many moments passed where Roger just looked at Angela. He wasn't scrutinizing her, but admiration was also the wrong word. He just... looked at her. Much like he'd never seen her before. Or like she'd just dished some great advice. And advice that actually got through Roger motherfucking Davis' thick skull, that was sound advice, man.

Finally, he spoke, and when he did it sounded a bit awed, "How much of that was actually truth?" Despite the fact that he was trying to remain the cool, calm, collected, absolutely depressed center of the universe, a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. You had to say this for Angela: she was good. Psychobabbly a bit, but effective, nonetheless.

[squint_artist]

The curve of Angela's mouth pulled into a wry half-smile at Roger's question. "As much of it that you want to admit to," she said. "Everything you deny I'll believe myself until you prove me wrong."

Sometimes what people needed, even though they seemed to have everything under control, was someone to believe in them. Angela didn't believe in everyone, but she believed in Roger. They were kind of kindred spirits in some ways. "Except for the part where you'll feel better again. That's 100% true no matter how you cut it."

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There's a certain brand of kindness that stings at a person's throat and eyes, that transcends all cynicism in its ability to stop short of cheesy and mock-able and cuts to the very core of person. If this particular technique could be bottled and sold, Roger was sure that Angela would be on every label and every billboard. Possibly even with Pearlygates.

Roger leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek gently, a hand steadied on the slight circumference of her upper arm.