Karla and Warren's Tent in Glacia, Friday Night Fandom Time, Going on Winter

[wwiii]

It wasn't quite the thick of a Glacian winter just yet, but there was just enough chill in the air that getting to climb into a warm bedroll with someone to cuddle up to was one hell of a luxury, these days. There was snow on the ground out there, it was windy enough tonight that the walls of the tent rippled, and Warren actually found himself wondering from time to time if tonight was going to be the night that their shelter would simply fall down around them.

Sure, it hadn't happened yet, but Warren had a healthy sense of pessimism and not a hell of a lot of experience with sleeping in a tent in a snowstorm.

Still, he'd been assured by several people that their shelters would stand strong through the night, so he only looked a little antsy as he wrapped an arm and a wing around Karla and wriggled a little more thoroughly under the covers.

"You know, wind like that actually bothers me less when I'm outside trying to fly in it?"

[OOC: For the lady!]

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[wwiii]

Huh. Warren had fantasies, sure, but he wasn't so sure that they were the elaborate ones that Karla seemed to be asking him for now. He pursed his lips for a moment while he tried to piece together something.

"Well, I still think about that one time we made love on the roof a lot," he offered. Even if 'made love' wasn't so much the proper word choice as 'fucked desperately.' "And about you in businesswear, splayed out on the table under my name..."

Under the family name. It wasn't his table, exactly.

[glacial_queen]

After everything they'd done on that table, it might as well be his. He'd also--consciously or not--left three long clawmarks under the Worthington name that would never be able to be buffed out, no matter how hard a restorer tried.

Worthington III. That wasn't a sign or anything. Really.

"Mmm," she agreed with a smile. "Those are nice trips down memory lane. But what about fantasies that about things we haven't done yet?"

[wwiii]

"Things we haven't done?" Warren pursed his lips a little, giving his head a slight tilt as he mulled that one over. "There's... Hm..."

Hawaii wouldn't do, then. They'd already done that. And Paris. He sometimes wondered what it would be like to take her in the back seat of a fancy sports car, but he'd have to be able to fit back there for that to happen, and the Bee did not make the cut.

"There've been... a few landmarks over our march south that I'd like to revisit with you," he ventured. "Some of the places in the woods?"

He wouldn't have managed that much if the thought, 'this would be an awesome backdrop for some alone time with Karla,' hadn't crossed his mind right while he'd been standing there, though.

[glacial_queen]

Hey, now! If he'd left the Bee alone, they wouldn't have that problem! The roomy backseats had been a selling point!

Though perhaps he might have had better luck mentioning the sports car thing anyway, if Karla's darkening expression was anything to go by. "...Your fantasies all involve landmarks?" she asked.

[wwiii]

"... There was a waterfall," Warren said quickly, noticing that darkening expression. "It's more a backdrop than anything. And... and I would lay you down on the water's edge and the mist would shroud us both from the rest of the world completely..."

He'd been inspired! Of course, 'having sex in the mist' was not the most elaborate fantasy out there, but it was probably one of his better ones.

"They all involve you. The places along the way just kind of struck me as places worth revisiting with you someday. When things have calmed down?"

[glacial_queen]

Karla just looked at him and sighed, fondly shaking her head. "You just made that up on the spot, didn't you?"

[wwiii]

Warren made a bit of a face at that, something a little bit sheepish, verging on apologetic.

"Kind of, yeah," he admitted. "And that's about as far as I got. I think I'm prone to spending more time reminiscing than actively making up scenarios."

He fidgeted a little, and then added, "It's not your first time asking for a fantasy from me. I just... Don't really get into the big elaborate ones often, I guess. I don't know that it should feel like an accomplishment that I managed not to blank out on this one, this time."

[glacial_queen]

Than answer called up a frown again, but it wasn't a frown directed at him.

"I--oh," she said, teeth finding her lower lip as she mulled over that statement. "I never thought--" She had fantasies. Didn't that mean everyone did? "You don't think about stuff you'd like to try or new experiences to have or anything?"

[wwiii]

Warren shrugged his shoulders a little, shifting his weight around some so that he could look down at her more easily.

"Sure I do. I mean... it's why we went to Paris. Or sometimes I see something and I think, 'that would be fun.' But I'm not really good at daydreaming. I never really had time for it, when I was growing up. Apparently it wasn't good for me."

He'd spent a lot of time alone, a lot of time locked away from society as a whole when his wings had come in, but his father had always made certain that he was putting that time to some sort of productive use. Sitting and quietly thinking had better be for good reason. He was a Worthington, and having his head up in the clouds was not to be tolerated.

Especially since he was the Worthington who was completely physically capable of putting his head there, and his father had noticed early on that Warren had a tendency of staring out a window at a sky that no human being should be capable of reaching using just what nature gave them.

[glacial_queen]

"Hmph!"

Her expression now suggested that if Warren's dad were here now, he'd be nursing a bruised shin. She could read between the lines, thank you.

"I find that...very weird," she admitted. "I mean, I understand why you don't, it's just hard for me to imagine not daydreaming, you know."

Beat.

"It bothers me, a little," she admitted softly. "I'm not entirely sure why, but it does."

[wwiii]

"That I don't really daydream?" Warren chewed the inside of his cheek a little, at that. "Or something else?"

Best to understand what was bothering her before trying to sort out why it was.

[glacial_queen]

"That you don't daydream or fantasize about us," Karla said, wrapping her arms around her knees. "About me. That you have to make something up when I ask. I mean, I know it's stupid, but...I don't know. Something about that hurts a little and I'm not sure why."

[wwiii]

"It's not stupid if it hurts," Warren pointed out, the cheek-chewing he was doing a moment before now shifting a little, so he was biting his lip. "I mean... it's not that I don't think about us. I think about us, about you all the time. I'm just... not really the idea guy, unless it involves budgets or business plans."

[glacial_queen]

That helped crystallize a few things for her. "And I am the idea girl, at least when it comes to us," she said slowly. "Usually, I'm the one who imagines us on a ship in Hawaii having dinner under the setting sun."

But Warren was the one that always made that happen, so why didn't it feel equal? Especially since he was the one doing all the work?

"Never mind," she said. "That's a stupid example that doesn't even make sense."

[wwiii]

"You keep using that word. I really wish you wouldn't," Warren replied, frowning a little at her second use of 'stupid' in as many minutes. "Is it that I'm not coming up with things for us to do, then? I mean... now is kind of a bad time, but if it bothers you, I can put more effort into us things, instead of... everything else."

There was no small amount of stuff already on his plate, but this seemed worth figuring out. Especially since Karla seemed to be demeaning herself over it, now.

[glacial_queen]

"No, no, no!" Karla said, shaking her head furiously. "I don't want you to kill yourself over something this st--this irrelevant."

Because using a different word that means the same thing would get her off the hook.

"I can't even explain it and trying to explain why my idea of dinner on a boat is somehow more meaningful than you actually making it happen is just ridiculous." Karla flopped over backwards on the bed. "Forget I said anything, okay? I'm just being difficult or something. Probably just war stress cropping up in weird ways."

[wwiii]

"Did it just start bothering you now, or is this something that pre-dates the war?" Warren frowned at her, and then wiggled under the blankets again, folding his wing around her. "Because... I mean, making it happen... that's the easy part. I think I can see why it might bother you."

Dating a billionaire, Karla.

"It... bugs me sometimes, too. I mean, that it's so difficult to do anything that actually means something. Sometimes I come up with something that matters, but it's so easy for me to just throw money at things, I worry that when I do take the time to come up with something thoughtful, it still doesn't mean as much, because it's coming from me."

Rich boy problems.

[glacial_queen]

"Everything you do means a lot to me," Karla assured him, neatly sidestepping his question about when it had started bothering her. Because that would involve admitted that, yeah, it had sort of been niggling at her for awhile. "I mean, the cattle...Paris...they were wonderful!"

Because they had shown that he'd put thought and effort into coming up with something, rather than just throwing money at someone and saying, 'Here. Make it romantic.' Even if that's what she suspected had happened for Paris.

"I guess I equate fantasizing about us as, I don't know, wanting maybe?" She was getting frustrated again at her inability to explain what she meant. "Like, half the reason I sent you that video was because I liked imagining your reaction to it."

[wwiii]

"My reaction involved a Portalocity ticket," Warren noted, twitching a tiny smile. "I wanted a lot, trust me."

He bit his lip, and then ducked his head a little.

"I want to be able to do more like that. I just... don't really know where to start. The cattle... I mean, I liked your reaction to the cattle. It feels good when I come up with something that you can appreciate. It feels amazing. And sometimes I try and I come up with nothing and I just get flustered and I give up. I can hand you a small island, so what's a herd of cows?"

[glacial_queen]

Said wanting had then been interrupted by her dead parents. Such was life on Fandom Island.

"Well, yeah, that time," she said. "But...you watched it again, didn't you? I liked imagining you, laying in bed, the laptop propped up on your chest, slowly stroking yourself while you watched me jump rope. Kind of teasing and prolonging it until you just couldn't anymore. Maybe calling me halfway through so I could whisper dirty things in your ear while you finished yourself off..."

Please don't mention the reality of such a thing, considering who your exit roommate was. Karla enjoyed her fantasies, thank you.

"I--I don't want a small island. I already have a whole Territory. I don't even need things. But knowing that you sat and wasted half an hour, coming up with ten ways to surprise me with flowers or thinking about exactly how you're going to cut me out of whatever outfit I'm wearing--that makes me feel good."

[wwiii]

"It's not really a waste if it works, though, is it? If you appreciated it?" Oh, wow, the blanket was fascinating right now. "I get so carried away trying to measure up in a million other ways, sometimes I don't get a chance to pay attention to where I might be failing."

That word fell out of his mouth like a lump of lead.

"I agonized over picking that ring for weeks, though. And I worked through a million different ways to give it to you, a million different things to say, when the perfect time to say it would be. A lot of the 'perfect place and time' stuff kind of went out the window, but I tried."

So he'd at least recognized that he couldn't just throw money at someone else to propose to his girlfriend for him. That was something!

"I guess everything else should be easy, after that."

[glacial_queen]

"Oh, no, Warren! No!" Karla practically lunged at him, grabbing his hands in hers. "No, see? This is why I'm calling myself stupid! Because I'm making you feel horrible over something so insignificant!"

She looked up at him, almost pleading with him to understand. "You're not failing or anything like that! And I never thought for a minute that you'd just picked out my ring on a whim or anything."

Ugh! Why did she ever even talk?!

[wwiii]

"It's not stupid to want to feel appreciated, Karla. Stop saying that." He pulled in a breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out in a rush, shaking his head and folding his hands around hers, careful not to squeeze too tightly. "Feeling a certain way isn't stupid. You are not stupid. I just meant that I try to put extra care into some things more than others, I didn't think you figured I got your ring out of a Crackerjack box."

He ducked his head a little more and frowned.

"But if you're sitting here calling yourself stupid, it's hard not to feel like I'm letting you down. You're the one person who means more to me than anyone or anything else in the world. You're special. I just... guess I haven't been doing enough to make you believe that."

That wasn't quite accurate, either. He'd gone to war for her. He'd learned how to fight for her. He was putting all of his energy, every waking hour, toward standing by her side and getting her Territory back into her hands. And none of that could be solved with a Mastercard.

It just didn't involve thinking terribly hard about how to actually make her happy, either.

[glacial_queen]

"But when you say that you clearly must not be doing enough, that's when I get upset because no one could ask for more from you," she said, nuzzling close. "Because it sounds like I'm not fully aware how much you do for me, every day. How much you've sacrificed for me and how much of yourself you pour into everything you do, most of which is for my benefit. It makes me sound...ungrateful. Like I don't appreciate or even notice what you do and am just...whining because on top of all that, I think you don't think I'm pretty or something."

Now she was getting exasperated at herself. She should have just used her mouth for better purposes. Like kissing him and letting him know he was appreciated, too.

[wwiii]

"Trust me, I think you're pretty. Even when we're not together, yours is the last face I picture before I sleep, and the first one I think of in the morning. You're gorgeous."

So there.

"But... it's possible to put your all into something important without paying enough attention to something else. I'm not saying I think I'm not doing anything. But... I can accept that I have areas where I can improve." His mouth twisted in a soft expression that wasn't quite a smile. "I come from a long line of people who get so wrapped up in one thing that they can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to something else."