Room 324, Saturday Early Evening

[wwiii]

Warren had just about had enough of... everything. After heading Karla off at the Causeway, after getting his bearings and picking himself off the ground and trudging back to his room, he'd done more... well, more moping with the rabbit. It wasn't until a few hours wore on that he reached for his phone, thinking maybe he'd call someone, or check to see if maybe there was new news about... anything at all, that he realized that there was a message waiting for him.

Not five minutes later, Warren's wings were pressed up solidly against either wall, his chest was heaving, and he was staring blankly at the remains of his phone, punctured clear through by his claws, and sitting splintered on the floor.

It wasn't like there was anybody left who was going to call him, after all.

Warren was done, damn it. He was just... fucking done with it.

[Open with some slight SP heads-up, since I'm still animating and running largely on energy drinks.]

Comments

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Karla... Karla and Bobby and Sookie and... oh, Warren.

"I will," Wesley promised, sinking down on Bobby's old mattress. Eye contact was -- probably not the best idea right now, if it was even attainable at all, so he didn't try, just kept his gaze somewhere in Warren's general direction. "So you and Karla...?"

[wwiii]

That... that got a shake of Warren's head. A slow, tired shake of his head as he stepped around the remains of his phone and took a seat on the edge of his bed. It felt like someone had tied metal poles to his legs. He could barely bend at the knees. And then, once he was sitting, he was pretty sure that he wouldn't be getting up again for a while.

"She wouldn't want to hear it from me," he murmured. "I don't think."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"I... then... did you two...?"

No, no, they had to just be in a quarrel. They couldn't break up; they were -- they were Warren and Karla. How could they break up? Warren's tight reins on the distribution of Karla's cookies might well be the glue holding the island together at this point. Now they were just... through?

[wwiii]

Warren just shrugged a little. Again.

He had very expressive shoulders today.

"It's a long story," he said, softly. "She has every right to be angry at me. I just... I'll give her her space. For as long as she needs it. Forever. I don't know. It's kind of..."

He had actually managed a few complete sentences in there. That was pretty awesome.

"She'll need to know about Sookie, okay? That's all. She just... Sookie and Bobby, and I can't be the one to tell her, right now."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"I'll tell her," Wesley promised. "Of course."

In the meantime, while he was still here... he didn't know Sookie, and he'd only heard about Bobby from Warren, so he stuck with what he knew.

"What happened?" he asked gently. "If you -- if you think it might help to -- to talk about it."

[wwiii]

This time, the hesitation before Warren replied was caused by the fact that it suddenly seemed very important for him to trace the pattern on his bedsheet with his claws.

"She tried to go home," he explained, in a voice that was so small that it would probably take a bit of straining to hear.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"She... she tried to..." Oh. Wesley was quickly piecing it together. She'd tried to leave but she hadn't, and Karla, as strong-willed as she was, wouldn't have simply changed her mind, so it had to have been Warren's intervention that had stopped her.

"And... ultimately she didn't," Wesley finished softly, choosing his words carefully so as not to assign blame.

[wwiii]

"She didn't," Warren agreed. "She tried. And she didn't."

He figured the fact that she was angry coupled with the fact that she was still here probably said a fair bit about how that had worked out for them both, yes.

He had been lucky to get through without being skewered with a snake tooth. He was well aware of that.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Not for the first time, Wesley wished fervently that he could be better at this, that some part of his training could have involved this, helping people cope with grief. It had come up so frequently in the past six months, but every time he had to deal with it, Wesley suspected he was only making a greater mess of things.

"It's -- good that she didn't go," he said softly, still skirting around identifying the actual reason. "She would've -- that is to say -- it's good that she was, ah, kept from harming herself."

Hello, passive voice. Nice to meet you.

[wwiii]

Passive or not any good at it or whatever, Warren appreciated that Wesley was trying.

"Yeah," he agreed quietly. "She might not agree. But it is."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"She probably felt that she needed to be with her people, yes?" he guessed. "But dying in service, when we know she can't be useful there -- it's unnecessary. Needless death, when she has so much value here."

There was a long pause. Then finally, seeing no point in skirting around the crucial phrasing, Wesley went for it: "You were right to stop her."

[wwiii]

Warren was holding his breath again. And it came out all in a rush of air when Wesley just out and said it. That he had done the right thing.

"I can... I can see it being... being a noble sacrifice," he murmured, "but her people wouldn't have even realized. She would be there, dying with them, and they'd all be oblivious to the fact that anything was happening at all, and it would just be that. Gone. Gone because she figured that was what she was supposed to do, when she could be here, fixing it. She's not useless. She can do... do so, so much here, and maybe what she can do is something that'll help stop this."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Yes," Wesley agreed without hesitation. "Precisely. She wouldn't -- well, that is, I know she couldn't be reasoned with, I've met her -- so whatever you did to prevent her from getting herself killed, it's -- it's all you could've done. And now she's in a position to help others, help herself. Even if she... resents you for it. It was incredibly brave of you."

Wesley understood it. He had to. He was the man who would one day abduct the infant son of his closest friend and benefactor, knowing what he was giving up, to avoid allowing a horrible prophecy to come true. What Warren had done wasn't something Wesley could do now or today -- but it was what he'd been trained to do. To be prepared to give up everything if it meant equipping one more warrior to face what was out there.

[wwiii]

Brave. That... wasn't the word that Warren might have used, if he'd been asked. But it was... flattering, sort of, and maybe he kind of needed that a little, too.

"It was the only thing to do. What she was doing wasn't what had to be done. It was quitting."

No matter what light she tried to paint it in.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"It was," Wesley agreed gently. "You -- even if she doesn't forgive you -- and she might not, though she should -- you did the right thing."

It probably hurt just as much to hear even when you hid it in the middle of the sentence like that, Wes.

[wwiii]

It did.

But Warren was prepared to never be forgiven. It was just one more world-shattering loss, to add to the list along with his father and his best friend and his entire reality. And this way, she was safe. that was more than he could say for the rest of them.

"I don't know if there's any coming back from this one," he murmured. "But I hope you're right."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Even if there isn't," Wesley said, "and she doesn't forgive you, or she takes quite a while to do so -- it's still less permanent than the alternative. At least she's alive. And she stands to help the rest of those who otherwise stand to be hurt by this thing."

He hesitated, then continued, "I was -- I, that is to say, back home, I was always taught that nothing is so important as the safety of the Slayer. My primary concern was making sure she was equipped to fight. Anything else was secondary. That's... rather how it sounds here."

[wwiii]

Warren hesitated. Again. It was kind of becoming his modus operandi tonight, really.

"I... honestly wasn't thinking much about fighting," he admitted, softly. "Just... how much of a waste it would have been for someone like her to throw that much away for a bunch of people who would never realize, when she could... could maybe even save them, instead of some empty gesture. It would be like... Like choosing to jump off a bridge because someone else's car went out of control and dragged them over the edge."

Mmm, colorful metaphor.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wesley nodded thoughtfully, sitting in silence for a moment before he formulated what he wanted to say.

"She... I wouldn't have expected it from her, even," he said. "When Katniss... I mean, after everything, Karla wanted her to be productive. Even shouted at her for it. But now, I mean. One would think she'd've thought the same now."

Except it was different and he knew it. It was always different when it was your own world.

[wwiii]

Warren bit the inside of his cheek.

"With all that's going on? Maybe she's just not thinking straight," he murmured. "I don't know what she's heard about from here home, but... I can see how she'd want to be there for her friends and for Morton, at least."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"To the extent that she chose to shut you out entirely," Wesley summed up dryly. "Not a perfect solution."

[wwiii]

"Maybe not." He shrugged a bit. "But it isn't like I can compete, really."

He wasn't worth as much as her territory. He knew that.

"It doesn't matter."

It did. It mattered so, so much.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Of course it matters," Wesley persisted gently. "You two are... were... in a relationship." Because he knew so much about those. "It's only natural that you'd expect her to afford you some level of consideration."

[wwiii]

"She left me a note."

That was consideration, right?

... Okay, no. The note just made him angry about the whole thing. Which, granted, was better than moping. But only marginally.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Sorry, Warren, give Wes a second, here.

"A note," he repeated. "After ev--" Sigh. So much sigh for you, Karla. "That's -- completely inappropriate."