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.]

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[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Apart from his room and Katniss' room, Wesley hadn't been spending much time away from the library lately.

But it was in the process of moving from the former to the latter that he witnessed the last minute or so of that demonstration or heard it if the door was closed, and he stood there and blinked for a moment, filled with incredible sympathy for his friend and whatever else had piled upon Warren's existing grief, before knocking gently on the door.

"Warren?"

[wwiii]

Warren didn't look up. So help him, Warren didn't have it in him to look up. Hell, it took him a few moments to manage something that involved a voice.

Eye-contact was completely out of the question.

"Hey."

A few moments more, and he was slowly relaxing his wings, slicking them down against his back, careful not to let them drag against the floor.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wesley closed his eyes for a moment. This -- what it was doing to people -- it was too much. Just too much.

"May I come in?" he asked, making sure to keep his tone as even and gentle as possible.

[wwiii]

There was another moment's silence. And then a nod, barely a nod at all.

"I guess."

It was... kind of a mess in there. He'd been practically camped out since he'd learned about his home, and now this, and it was a wonder that he hadn't started clawing up the furniture or something, trying to get this out of his system.

"Maybe... close the door behind you... so Thor doesn't... You know. Get out or anything."

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wes did, stepping carefully into the room and avoiding the garbage on the floor as the door clicked shut behind him.

Right. First things first.

"Have you eaten?" Today, yesterday, it didn't matter. Wesley wasn't sure what had brought this on, or when, but it seemed important to get the essentials out of the way.

[wwiii]

Warren was quiet for another few seconds. It took him about that long to register what that particular combination of words even meant. And, once he did, it was a little longer still before he managed a little shake of his head.

"Not really hungry."

Had just been getting back into a state of being that somewhat resembled being semi-functional. Now was... not so much.

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Er. Right." Avoiding the garbage, avoiding the garbage, and in time Wesley managed to make his way over to Bobby's bed. He didn't sit, just stood there, keeping enough distance from Warren to try to avoid spooking him any worse. "Do you... want to talk?"

Proooobably not, Wes, no.

[wwiii]

That was... a really difficult question to answer, actually. Warren looked down blankly at his phone, and then shrugged.

"Dunno. Worried. Maybe you could do me a favor and... check on Karla sometime today. Make sure she's okay. Tell her... It's gotten Bobby and Sookie by now, too."

That was probably the most hollow amalgamation of syllables Warren had ever managed to string together all at once like that. No inflection at all. If he let himself feel it while he spoke, he would have broken down completely.

[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."

[endsthegame]

Ender had promised to help try and keep Warren from floundering; he'd just gotten swallowed up in other work and, well, other people who'd needed the support.

Now that he'd made it here, he was wondering if maybe he should've come a little earlier after all.

At least he was polite and chose to knock?

[wwiii]

Knocking was pretty nifty. It meant that Warren had a moment to kind of... pull himself together, mostly with a few strangled gasps for air and a half-assed attempt at kicking some of his phone under his bed that was thwarted by just how many bits of phone there were to be kicked.

He gave up after a few seconds, and just slumped forward a little, staring at the floor.

"... Yeah?"

[endsthegame]

"Warren," Ender greeted. He took one step inside the room, but no further - he figured he'd give Warren his space. "What happened?"

You'd have to excuse him; he'd shot straight into tend-to-the-troops mode with people lately.

[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 glanced up about as far as Ender's knees, and then his gaze dropped down to the few bits of phone that were still crunching underfoot.

"Bobby and Sookie," he said, quietly. "I just got a text."

Which wasn't the whole story, not by a long shot, but it had been very much the last straw on his way to something that was starting to edge into a complete breakdown.

"Karla... almost Karla, too," he murmured, his voice dropping a little lower. "She... she wrote a note. Tried to go back to Glacia."

[endsthegame]

Tried.

Going by Warren's intonation, there was a longer story there. Ender pushed the door mostly-shut behind him, and then he made a judgement call and sat down so at least he'd be at Warren's eye level.

"Just a message for you, too?" he asked.

He was going to have to talk to Karla, too. Just not today.

[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."

[wwiii]

Oh. Oh, good. Ender had gotten that damn note. He would know what that tried meant. Warren almost let himself breathe a little, at that realization.

"Yeah. Just a message for me, too." He swallowed, and then gave his head a shake. "I... I know I probably shouldn't have... have... but..."

He knew damn well when he'd held on that she'd never look at him again.

But it hadn't been about him.

[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.

[endsthegame]

"You stopped her." Ender's voice was soft, but the tone was firm. "Good."

Not for either of them emotionally. But from a rational standpoint, yes: good.

[wwiii]

Good. Absolutely good. If he had to find some place to go after all of this blew over, if he had to leave so that she could stay on the island in peace, he'd do it and it would have been worth it entirely.

"Good," he agreed, weakly. "I had to. I couldn't just..."

Just let her...

"She can't do anyone any good if she doesn't exist," he muttered, "no matter what she thinks her duty really is."

[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.

[endsthegame]

"My old mentor in my previous school would say that she has misunderstood the fundamental point of her duty," Ender said. "The very first thing our people - our species expects of us is survival. The second thing it expects of us is to be brilliant on its behalf. Everything else is not important."

He stretched out his legs and slanted a look at Warren. Gave him a quick once-over, just to make sure he hadn't hurt himself in some haze of pain, loss and guilt.