Title: That's the one
Prompt: 44. Skateboard... loosely
Pairing: None, just Angel
Word Count: 799
Summary: Angel plans out his art project, with a little help from a stranger.
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Believe me, if I owned Rent, Angel would never die… That's all Jonathon's fault (love you Jonathon!)

Angel leaned back against the crumbling high school behind him. He would have found it odd that his father was an hour late picking him up, but it was Monday, which meant that his father had just gotten home from business the night before, and he was at home drinking off his trip for the day. He would go back to being a great dad tomorrow. Mondays were always the same, and he didn't really resent it anymore.

Besides, it gave him a chance to sit on the steps of the school and watch the cute punks of the school attempt to learn and perfect their skateboarding tricks. He sat with a sketchbook open on his lap, trying to get a jump start on a huge art project he had due in a week. Draw, paint, or sculpt, whatever medium you wanted, but show your perfect self. Make yourself thinner, longer hair, less pimples, whatever you didn't like about yourself, change it. Angel had to keep going back and changing the skirts he was wearing in the sketches into pants. This project would be a whole lot more fun if he wasn't living in a town where they used to shoot gay people for fun on a Wednesday.

Frustrated with his attempts, he now had four sketches on the same page, and in all of them he was wearing a skirt, he threw his pencil, which ended up hitting another student in the back of the head. Angel gasped as the student turned around and picked up the pencil, smiling at him. Angel gave him an apologetic smile, and the boy stood up with the pencil, snapped his gameboy shut and walked over to Angel, handing him the pencil.

"Here. I think you dropped this." He held it out to Angel, who took it slowly, with another smile.

"Thanks. I didn't mean to hit you, I'm just a bit frustrated with this art project."

"Eleventh grade studio?"

"Ya."

"Ya, I'm in that class too." Before Angel could close his sketch book, the boy took it off her lap.

"Hey!" He reached out to take it back, but the boy kept it out of his reach, looking the page over. "Excuse me."

The boy caught Angel's hand in the air before he could grab the book back, and sat down next to Angel. He pulled his hand back and as he was reaching for his sketch book, the boy pointed to one of the pictures and smiled at Angel, a smile that made him stop in his tracks. "I think this one is best."

Angel's hand dropped in disbelief. He wasn't making fun of her, or stealing her sketch book to make copies and publicly out him? "What?"

"This one." He pointed to the book again, looking over one of the pictures. "I think this one is best, if you were gonna paint that is. If you're planning on sculpting, these dangly things may be difficult to keep straight." He looked back up to her with a smile. "But ya, for painting, I like this one." He held out the sketch book to her again.

Angel took the book, and couldn't help but smile at it. "Thanks." They both looked away when there was a honk from a car in the parking lot. "Ohh, that's my ride." Angel stood up, and the boy stood up beside him, looking from the car and back. "I'm Angel by the way."

"That's a beautiful name." The boy took her hand, palm down, and did a small bow. "My name, although painfully common and humble compared to yours, it Thomas Collins." He quickly kissed the top of Angel's hand and placed it back at his side with another bow. "It certainly was a pleasure meeting to Angel." He stood back up, with a wink, and turned away, walking back up the steps.

Angel could feel himself blushing as he turned to walk down the steps. How had he not met that guy before?

"Hey Angel?"

Angel turned around when he head the boy calling his name from the top of the steps. "Ya?"

"You have third period art?"

Angel nodded and cocked his head to the side curiously. "Ya, why?"

"I just transferred here, and they put me in that class today." Angel couldn't help the smile that spread across her face. "I'll see you in class tomorrow. Can't wait to see how your project comes out!" He waved and turned around again, walking back into the school.

Angel turned back to his fathers car with a smile and slid into the front seat, pulling the belt on. His father turned to him with a questioning eyebrow raised. "Who was that?"

Angel leaned his head back on the seat. "I really have no idea."