Room 222, Sunday Afternoon

[wwiii]

Things were finally starting to settle down a bit. Sure, everything was maybe still a little raw for the people that he was close to, but at least Warren had managed to find himself something to occupy himself with after a visit to The Boards yesterday had gone better than he'd expected.

It was too cold out for flying, and Warren was quite happy to take it easy today, which apparently involved scribbling out things that he'd have to take into consideration while working out a reasonable budget for DOGS, this season. And then after that, he could look into what it would take to rent out the Zoo on the mainland, so that he could finally get back to Wesley about that.

There were way, way worse ways to spend a Sunday.

[Open! Warning for triggery topics in the thread with Bobby.]

Comments

[longislandiceme]

Bobby had been on the way up to his room, which involved passing by the second floor since his own was on the third, when he happened to spot Warren's open door.

And without even really being aware of what he was doing, he abruptly changed course, barging through that open door, right hand curling in to a fist.

[wwiii]

Abrupt and unexpected visit was abrupt and unexpected! What was even more unexpected was the fist, and the complete and total lack of anything resembling a greeting as Bobby barged into his room.

Warren at least had time to close his book and set it down before pulling himself to his feet, somewhat concerned, here. This did not exactly strike him as the entrance of a happy, well-adjusted Bobby Drake.

"Hey, Bobby? What's up?"

[longislandiceme]

What's up?

What's up, Warren, was that fist flying right towards your face.

Hello to you too!

[wwiii]

And that had been unexpected, right there. Warren had enough time to widen his eyes, before Bobby's fist collided with his nose with a healthy crunch. Warren's hand flew to his face and he retreated as best he could, which mostly amounted to taking a seat on the bed while blood dribbled from his nose into his hand.

Okay. That had not been cool. Please, pardon Warren a moment of outspoken incredulousness, here.

"What the hell, Bobby?"

[longislandiceme]

"Screw you!" Bobby snarled back. Which was not really forthcoming as far as explanations went. "Why-" he started to say, when that little thing called reality kicked in and he realized where he was. And what he'd just done.

Just as quickly as the anger had overtaken him, it fled, leaving him standing in the middle of Warren's room, looking- and feeling- utterly lost.

"Oh god," he whispered, eyes widening in horror as he saw what he'd done to his best friend. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he muttered.

[wwiii]

"No, no, it's... Uh." Warren took a moment to kind of crunch his nose back into place, and the bleeding stopped almost instantly after that. Thank goodness for healing factors. "It's... okay?"

It kind of wasn't, but Bobby was freaking out enough that he was willing to put being angry on hold for a little bit. It was gross and kind of crude, but he wiped the blood from his face onto his sleeve. Bobby probably didn't need to be staring at it, here.

"Bobby, sit down or something. Really. Breathe."

[longislandiceme]

"No, no, it's really not okay, it's- I didn't even mean to," he babbled, breath hitching, "it's not even your fault, I know you're not him, but at the same time you are and it isn't fair!"

Sit down? Yeah. He could do that. Right here in the middle of the floor was good, right?

[wwiii]

Well, it hadn't really been what Warren had had in mind, but...

He exhaled, slowly, and then slid off the bed, crouching down on the floor in front of Bobby. He had that gut-sinking feeling that he really didn't want to know, but at the same time...

"No," he agreed, in that soft, careful tone that was so much more him than it had ever been that other Warren, "I'm not him. We've got the same name. We look the same. But I'm not him."

He reached forward, tentatively, to put a hand on Bobby's shoulder.

"What happened?"

[longislandiceme]

And Bobby just sort of... clung to Warren for a minute or two, trying to remember how to do that breathing thing and organize his thoughts in a way that made sense. "We were in the Morlock tunnels," he paused and frowned. "I don't know if you know who they are?" Probably not, he was going to guess, from what he knew of this Warren's upbringing.

[glacial_queen]

"Kiss kiss?" Karla called, poking her head through Warren's open door. "Up for visitors?"

Karla had stopped clinging to Warren like a lamprey after the memorial, but that didn't mean she wasn't taking every chance she could to visit and be near him. Being alone was still more difficult than she liked to admit.

[wwiii]

Warren was quite content to let Bobby cling. Clinging was a step up from breaking his nose, at least. And... he kind of seemed like he needed it. A lot.

"I've heard the word," he offered, carefully. Worthington Labs had gone to a lot of trouble to find Jimmy (Codename: Leech), in his father's search for that so-called cure. It had come up somewhere in there, he was certain, but the what or the why or the how of it, Warren couldn't really put a finger on. "But not much more than that."

It had been an attempt to take his wings away. He hadn't been paying much attention, at the time.

[wwiii]

"Has my answer ever been no?"

Well, okay, he might start rethinking this approach to his open-door policy if he kept getting punched in the face or horribly maimed whenever he spent time with somebody. But for the time being? Bring it.

"Come on in," he replied, smiling softly. "I'm just poking at numbers, anyhow."

[longislandiceme]

"They're mutants, the ones who... can't really get away with living with humans. So they live underground." A few weeks ago, he probably would've used the term 'normal people'. Funny how his perspective had changed on that. "Anyway, we were there- and this group calling themselves the Marauders just came in and started killing people." Deep breath, before he moved on to the next part: "They caught him. The other Warren. We got him out, but not before they, well..." there really was no way to put this delicately, was there? "They crushed his wings."

[glacial_queen]

"There's a first time for everything," Karla said, giving him a little smile, "but I'm glad it's not today."

Under different circumstances, she might have given him the kind of greeting that would have ended with the door getting closed and the book being ignored for the next few hours. Instead, however, she simply curled up next to him, brushing her lips across his cheek, and rested her head on his shoulder. "What kind of numbers?"

[wwiii]

Oh.

... Oh. God. It took Warren a moment to actually realize that Bobby's version of him didn't heal the same way that he did. Really, Warren wasn't certain that even Bobby knew that he was capable of doing so. He didn't exactly broadcast it, for all that it seemed to save his life, around here.

"Ouch," he managed, softly.

They'd done to that other Warren what his father had been trying to do to him. But with added horror and trauma and agony to go along with it.

[wwiii]

"For the Boards," Warren explained, content to curl an arm and a wing around her shoulder, to rest his cheek against her hair. "DOGS really isn't my kind of musical, but I still wanted to be involved somehow. So I offered to take care of advertising."

Which had turned into human relations. Which had turned into pretty much anything that had anything to do with finances. And a lot of dusting in an empty office that he was totally claiming for himself.

[longislandiceme]

He'd seen the evidence of that healing ability a few times, and in fact, it had even crossed his mind that maybe, somehow, this Warren could've helped the one back in New York... somehow. He wasn't the biology expert here, but he was sure Hank would've figured something out. But then he'd gone and gotten on that plane before Bobby could even bring up the idea...

"Yeah," Bobby said. And oh, there was more, Warren! "And we got to the hospital and the doctors got a fucking court order, said he was unfit to make his own decisions and since he didn't have any family- blood relatives-" because what were he, and Scott, and Jean, and Hank, if not Warren's family? "And they cut them off."

[wwiii]

All it would have taken to heal him up as good as new was a simple blood transfusion. Warren didn't know what the limits of his blood's healing capacities were, but if his blood had healed Karla, he suspected that it would have done an adequate job on himself.

But there was more to the story. There had to be. He had a bloody smear on his sleeve from a briefly broken nose to attest to that. And a lump in his throat that suggested that he was beginning to see where this story was headed.

"They grounded him," he murmured, taking a slow, kind of shaky breath.

Not that he would have been able to fly with shattered wings, but...

[longislandiceme]

Bobby nodded against Warren's shoulder. "Yeah," he confirmed. "Which, I think you can guess how well he took that. He ended up stealing a plane, and once again, we couldn't get there in time, because next thing you know he's turning out over the ocean and... boom," he said flatly.

A deep breath, and then: "And then I come back here and there you are and I was just so angry at him for just... giving up like that. For leaving. And I took it out on you and I shouldn't have and- I'm sorry." He was babbling again, in a last-ditch effort to keep from breaking down into completely un-manly tears.

[glacial_queen]

"I auditioned yesterday," Karla said. "After staring at Genesis for a few minutes after he told me to skip the monologue and jump right to singing."

She glanced down at what he was working on, tried to make heads or tails of it, and then shrugged. "One of these days, I'm going to have to ask you to sit me down and help me really learn that kind of stuff." She taken courses, but hadn't been able to muster enough enthusiasm to do more than just barely pass. "I mean, my Steward will be taking care of most of the budget and whatnot, but I should at least be able to understand what he's saying when he presents his work to me."

As opposed to staring blankly and nodding off, which was about where she was now.

"What kind of advertising?" she asked. "You mean like posters and stuff?"

[wwiii]

Warren wouldn't hold any tears, manly or not, against Bobby just then. He nodded, and lifted his arms, and returned Bobby's hug. Which was just as manly as the tears were, anyhow.

"Hey," he said, much, much more softly. "I'm fine. Okay? Don't worry about me. I understand."

He probably wouldn't have been in his right mind under similar circumstances, himself. For all that was worth. It wasn't like he had any friends back home, at all. His dad didn't count.

Boom. That was...

"I won't do that to you, okay? No matter what happens, I'm not going to do what he did."

[wwiii]

"Posters and stuff," Warren agreed, smiling faintly. Any time she wanted to sit down and learn these things, he'd be happy to show her. "And maybe commercials on the radio. Those would probably be paid for in rum, so there's a blank spot on the page until I can find a half-decent rum to bribe Jack with. And if I'm not losing my mind, I'm pretty sure that there was a table for the school newspaper at the Club Fair this week, too."

[longislandiceme]

"Gonna hold you to that," Bobby sniffled. "Tired of losing people I care about."

Even if they did tend to come back eventually. It wasn't like he had much experience with that part yet.

[glacial_queen]

"I'm pretty sure you don't have to hold out for half-decent rum to bribe Jack with," Karla said, with a very lady-like snort. "You could probably pour turpentine into an empty bottle and write rum in Sharpie and call it good."

Not that she was advocating for that! But the point needed to be made.

"Don't prove to be too good at this," she teased lightly. "Otherwise you'll end up with me looking to you in a panic, trying to figure out how to put my economy back together. Or worse yet, having to fight Genesis to get that opportunity."

[wwiii]

People weren't supposed to come back, was the thing. It was kind of what made dying... dying.

"I know," Warren sighed. There was way too much loss and pain going around, lately. And he was just sitting on the fringes, watching everyone else hurting, and it was tiring. "I think you deserve a break from that, any time now."