Room 324, Tuesday Afternoon

[wwiii]

Okay. Things. There were things happening, and Warren needed to... to do something about them. Frat had been skipped last week because of the holiday, and this week, after losing his entire world, he just hadn't had it in him to coordinate anything resembling fun and games. He'd meant to go to the library to help research over the weekend, and that hadn't happened, and he couldn't really remember the last time he'd eaten, though he was vaguely aware of stumbling off to raid common room fridges at least a couple of times in there.

It was stupid. He hadn't so much as thought about going home in the past two years, and now that it was gone...

He needed to be doing things, but he had no idea where to start. So he just kind of cuddled Thor and stared at the ceiling.

When had moping in his room alone with a bunny become the status quo, anyhow?

[Open post, closed door, IDEK. Someone smack him or something.]

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[wwiii]

Warren had been wallowing in silence long enough that hearing people outside of his door was generally enough to get him to blink and take notice. After all, Karla hadn't come back yesterday after her shift at Dite's, and now he was kind of waiting, and...

Answering the door. Answering the door totally counted as doing something, so he was putting the bunny down on his bed and going over to investigate.

"Hey," he murmured, when he opened the door. "Missed you."

... Oh, that was not a good look on her face, there.

[glacial_queen]

"Missed you, too," Karla mumbled, dropping her eyes to the vicinity of his waistband somewhere. "Sorry 'bout not coming back last night. I kind of fell asleep downstairs."

While clutching pictures of a vanished friend and sobbing. As you do. It was a totally healthy reaction, okay? Especially after hours of smashing glass at your place of work.

[wwiii]

"It's fine," Warren replied, not... not really liking the way she was mumbling and not looking up at all. "Come in...?"

He was already stepping forward to wrap his arms around her, to lead her into his room, sit her down on his bed beside the bunny. She looked like she needed it about as much as he did, just then.

[glacial_queen]

That guess was backed up when Karla immediately reached for Thor and cradled him in her arms, burying her face in his fur. She took a few deep, watery breaths, mentally scolding herself about pulling it together. She'd lost Dinah, yes. And Leda had left to vanish with her people.

But Warren had lost his father and his whole damned world. She needed to be the strong one, for him. Right? That's what he needed?

...She was just going to sit here for a few more seconds with Thor. Then she'd see how Warren was doing. Promise.

[wwiii]

Bunny therapy was a powerful force. They were all soft, and Thor had floppy feet and lop-ears, which made him a double-threat. Warren knew when he couldn't compete, and he embraced that knowledge for the greater good.

"... You okay?"

[glacial_queen]

Karla nodded, half-turning so she could be curled up against his side while cradling Thor. She nudged him ever-so-slightly in the side. He had a wing and it wasn't being wrapped around her, just saying.

Another few breaths to make sure she could speak without her voice wobbling and she added, "Yeah. Just got some bad news is all. How're you? You seem...better."

Upright. Not in a daze. That kind of thing.

[wwiii]

That wing was taking the hint and folding gingerly over her shoulder as she spoke.

"I'm... trying," he admitted. "I want to do something, but I could barely get through class yesterday, so I'm kind of..."

Contemplating the ceiling.

"Do you... want to talk about it?"

[glacial_queen]

Karla took a deep breath. "I..."

And then another, because that first one was playing tricks.

"I put Dinah's picture on the board on the school gates yesterday morning."

There. Saying it that way...didn't actually approach the reasons why she'd had to put Dinah's picture up there. She could almost pretend that she had just been making a collage or something. If it wasn't for the heavy fist pressing onto her chest.

[wwiii]

"Oh, Karla..." And that wing that he'd just draped over her shoulder was pulling her tightly to his side, now, while he reached his arms around her to hold her close. Mindful, of course, of the bunny between them. "I'm sorry."

Sorry for her loss, sorry because Dinah was a good person, sorry that there wasn't more that he could do, beyond tell her how sorry he was...

[glacial_queen]

No, Warren! Karla was supposed to be making you feel better, not struggling not to cry all over your chest!

"I--I was on the phone with her--said goodbye to her and Helena and Barbara and Alfred--" She was losing the struggle with tears. Losing it so badly. "She made me hang up--before it got all the way to the top--"

And now Karla was biting her lip to keep from just bawling.

[wwiii]

Too bad, Karla. Warren was here to be cried on, and you were stuck for it, now.

"She... wasn't alone, then," he offered, as if that made it better, somehow. "She had her family, and she got to say goodbye."

Which wasn't much of a comfort. But it was something.

[glacial_queen]

"She wasn't supposed to!" Karla cried out, grief changing to anger in a heartbeat. "She wasn't supposed to even be there! She was supposed to be on the island where it's safe! She promised that I wouldn't have to write her name down, she promised!"

[wwiii]

Warren flinched at the outburst, but didn't recoil, just... wrapping his arms around her a little more tightly.

He wasn't about to let go now.

"Why did she wait?"

There had to be a reason. You didn't just see the end of the world coming and then decide to stick around until the last minute for kicks.

[glacial_queen]

"She wouldn't leave until Portalocity had tickets enough for everyone," Karla admitted, drooping once again. Anger couldn't hold up against logic. "She wasn't going to leave without Alfred and her sisters. And, I think, she felt guilty about leaving everyone else behind, too. She was--is--a crimefighter in New Gotham. Maybe she felt...like, a responsibility..."

That's why Leda had gone home, after all. To be with her people that couldn't get away.

[wwiii]

"I wish I'd known," Warren murmured, quietly. "Maybe I could have talked to Portalocity. Tried to... to..."

The wind left his sails pretty quickly with that one. There wasn't going to be much in the way of bribing them for extra tickets from him. His money had gone with the rest of his world. He didn't miss it, exactly, but it wasn't helping him much with that whole 'completely useless' feeling that he was drowning in.

"... Something."

[glacial_queen]

"It wasn't a matter of money," Karla told him, guessing where his thoughts had gone. "Helena's rich. She inherited her dad's company. You've never been to the manor, have you?"

He'd had an invite this year for Thanksgiving, but...Yeah.

"It's huge. And beautiful." And past tense. Karla switched topics slightly. "If it were simply cash, Helena could have handled it. Mother Night, I could have."

[wwiii]

"It's how Bobby managed to get back to pack his things and say goodbye," Warren explained, softly. "His Warren, I mean. He just threw money at them until they stopped arguing and booked him the damn portals."

Which was... not entirely on topic, either. But, hey. At least one Warren out there had been good at not sucking.

"It's taking everyone."

[glacial_queen]

"One's a lot easier to swing than nine," Karla said. "Or even four or five."

Had she told him that Jono's Warren was gone? She couldn't remember. And now she was too tired to even bring it up. Why repeat a litany of the missing? It changed nothing. "And Bobby left before everything went extra-crazy."

[wwiii]

"I guess," Warren murmured. "But Kennedy dropped off the grid way before then."

... Which somehow made him more of a failure because he hadn't thrown money he didn't have at someone who had chosen to linger behind in the first place, yes.

[glacial_queen]

"And how is any of that something you could have stopped?" Karla asked, not seeing the connection.

[wwiii]

Because there probably wasn't one!

"I'm not trying hard enough."

Maybe there was one in his brain, if you squinted?

"I just don't know what to do."

[glacial_queen]

"Warren, yesterday I spent my shift smashing snow globes into the walls at 'Dite's," Karla said softly. "Or selling them to others so they could smash. I've been running myself ragged trying to take every note and color code it and organize it and make sense of it. But it's not getting me anywhere."

That was the long and short of it. Nothing she did mattered. Nothing she did got them any closer to finding a way to fix it.

"No one knows what to do. So if you're going to blame yourself, give me some of that, too."

[wwiii]

No, Karla. It was Warren's blame and he wasn't gonna share.

"But I'm doing nothing," he protested. "I'm just sitting here and and and I'm crying and hurting and worrying and I'm useless."

Which had been a worry of his before people started to vanish.

[glacial_queen]

"Warren, your world is gone."

Because, you know, maybe he needed the reminder. "If you weren't sitting here crying and worrying, I'd wonder what was wrong with you! But it doesn't matter--you could be crying and worrying or you could be frantically researching and you know what? You'd have an equal effect! Nothing anyone is doing is working!"

Only Karla would turn to complete nihilism in an effort to make someone feel better. In her defense, however, she wasn't at her best.

[wwiii]

"So, what, I'm just supposed to give up and wait for it to come to us because nobody's had any luck yet?!"

... From whimpering to yelling in ten seconds flat. That was probably a record for Warren.

Really, yelling at all was probably a record for Warren.

"I can't... I can't think right now but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't be doing something! What good am I if all I'm doing is nothing at all!?"