The air in Warren's room is stale, and his lungs fill with a thick, stifling mustiness when he inhales. Head swimming through last night's beer, he is dragged unwilling from the comforting emptiness of sleep, thrust back into the dull, thudding roar of reality, groaning and reeling and squinting his eyes shut. He has little more than a moment to try and think before he feels something ungodly bubbling up from deep within him, and when he leans forward over the side of his bed, he manages to choke up a good deal of second-hand, second-rate booze. Still woozy, he is only dimly able to wonder how the waste bin that catches most of the putrid mixture got there. A clumsy hand fumbles for his nightstand, catching wood after a few attempts. Vague memories return, a leaky faucet drip-feeding him disordered, nonsensical fragments one or two at a time. The clink of shot glasses. A giddy laugh that fills him with dizzying contentment. A chord struck on an electric guitar. Lips against his, warm and graceless and desperate. Quickly finding the prospect of standing an insurmountable task, Warren allows himself to fall back onto the bed, his head sending him a fresh wave of agony as it hits the pillow, wings crushed uncomfortably at odd angles underneath him. More shards of memory circle him, enveloping him as he sinks back into the void.

When he next wakes, he finds the world a little easier to bear. The scents of citrus and chemicals fill his nostrils, eyes opening to see that the waste basket of the unspeakable has been removed, the carpet underneath damp and scrubbed vigorously, the majority of the stain scraped away. Presently, as he frowns down at the faint splotch, a glass of cool liquid finds its way into one hand, the other pried open by steady fingers and a pair of pills placed on his clammy palm. The same fingers then move slowly up to his face, sweeping stringy, sweaty blond curls to the side and pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead.

"Drink. You need water."

He obeys without hesitation, downing half the glass before heaving his head up to meet his rescuer's eye. Kurt is looking worse for wear himself, hair a mess, yellow eyes missing their usual gleam, still clothed in last night's shirt and jeans. Warren catches the man's hand as it retracts from his cheek, pressing his lips to the blue skin and smiling weakly. He still feels, to put it most simply, like absolute shit, but the sight of that tired face smiling back at him makes everything alright, if just for a moment before his throbbing head interrupts.

Hours pass in silence, slow and sluggish and sleepy. Kurt has found his place beside Warren, lying on his back, chest-to-chest with Warren. Idle fingers trace abstract shapes into the small of Warren's back, while his tail curves up from beneath him, straightening the feathers of his wings one by one. It takes Kurt a moment to gather himself when Warren speaks, pulled out of his stagnant thoughts.

"How did you… when I woke up," he mumbles, unable to find the words to finish his question. Nonetheless, Kurt seems to get the message.

"Knew you'd need to throw up sometime in the night," Kurt answers simply. "Figured I should be ready for it. Save some awful cleanup."

"But you still had to—"

"It was nothing. I couldn't get all of it, but I think it'll dry up okay." He shifts his weight on the bed, groaning softly. "How are you feeling? Any better?"

"I'll be fine," Warren dismisses. "Back to normal by tonight. You?"

"Just tired more than anything. It was a late one."

Warren makes a noncommittal humming noise, letting his arms tighten around the man beneath him, comforted to find lean, supple muscle under his fingers.

"Shouldn't've gone out," he mutters, not to Kurt, nor to himself in particular. "Shouldn't've dragged you with me. Shouldn't've left the house at all…"

"It's alright," Kurt soothes. "It wasn't all bad. You weren't feeling good last night, you just wanted a good time."

"I wanted a distraction," comes Warren's steadfast correction. "I wanted to forget." A long pause, muscles instinctively tensing, holding Kurt even closer. "Wanted everything to go away."

"I know," the voice below him whispers, chest rumbling with the words. Warren finds himself suspended in Kurt's silence, leaning into his breath as it leaves his lungs. "I suppose I should have seen it, stopped you before it got too bad. I'm sorry I didn't."

Warren shakes his head against the cloth of Kurt's shirt.

"Not your fault. You just thought we were going out for fun."

"…Some of it was fun, at least. We had some laughs."

"Yeah? Good. Glad my breakdown had an upside."

"I didn't mean—"

"I know. Came out harsher than I meant it. Sorry."

"Are you going to tell me what your dad said this time?"

It's dark outside now, crickets chirruping in the grassy fields outside the mansion. The air is fresher, feels better with the window open, a crisp evening breeze streaming in like light into a darkened room. The couple are working through a pizza, and Warren pauses mid-bite to contemplate Kurt's question, finally nodding his head as he swallows.

"Yeah, I guess. If you want to know."

"Of course I do. You know you feel better when you share."

He sighs heavily, reluctantly, but he can't deny that Kurt is right. He hates it when Kurt is right, especially when it means having to spill his innermost thoughts and feelings like some corny after-school special. As much as he loves Kurt for helping him, for forcing him up and prying him out of bed and drawing blood from a stone by making Warren open up, it still doesn't come as easy to him as he wished it would.

"The basic gist was the same as always," he says, his tone almost bored but for the slightest hint of bitterness. "Nobody was ready to see a mutant Worthington, you should have just hid them forever and pretended to be a pretty little Homo Sapiens. And—" He freezes, lifting his eyes from his slice of pepperoni to meet Kurt's gaze. "And there was some stuff about you."

"About me? But—"

"Someone posted a photo of us online. Got back to him somehow."

"Oh…"

The sound of Kurt's voice, heavy with guilt and shame, fills Warren with a seething, white-hot rage.

"Hey," he says roughly. "Hey. Don't you dare feel bad about this. He's the only asshole here, okay? It's all him. The homophobia, the mutophobia, all of it."

Kurt nods vaguely, stiffly, eyes glazed over. He knows he shouldn't feel this way, feel responsible for the tumultuous and deeply unhealthy relationship Warren has with his family, but some small part of him always persists, whispers keenly to him that things might be easier for his Angel if he'd never come along to complicate matters even more than they already were.

"Are you still working on trying to cut ties?" he asks, instead of dealing with his own roiling emotions. Warren senses the need to change the subject and obliges.

"Yeah. It's just… hard. Accepting that he's never gonna be satisfied." He sniffs derisively, eyes cloudy as he reaches for another slice from the box between them. Suddenly restless, he stands, shaking out his wings with a flutter like a peacock preening. In the back of Kurt's mind echoes the same thought he has whenever he sees Warren's wings in their full radiant, elegant beauty: how could anyone hate something so amazing? Warren's feet move without a destination until he finds himself perching on the windowsill, drawing in a lungful of clean night air. "Part of you always hopes there's something you can do to just… I dunno, force him to change." The formless colours in the distance out the window slowly shift to form a line of trees as his eyes adjust, then blur again just as quickly with an unexpected wave of tears. "I know he never will. It's never going to make sense to him to just love me more than he fears what people think."

A heaving breath shudders past his lips. He tries to piece together another sentence, but the knot in his throat has choked him off. Mercifully, Kurt's voice rises to fill the cavernous silence.

"I know how you feel," he murmurs. "I know what that's like. Wanting so desperately for everything to be like it should be. Wishing you could even be what they wanted. Even though you know what they want is wrong." He speaks like a prayer, intoning each word carefully and deliberately. Warren sees the glint in his eye, knows just what the distinctive quirk in Kurt's lips and catch in his throat means.

"Mystique," Warren breathes, not a question and not an accusation, but Kurt nods his confirmation all the same.

"…Family sucks ass, huh?"

And suddenly, there it is. The high, twinkling laugh that erases the hurt in Warren's chest, fills him with warm, soft relief. Kurt's eyes wrinkle when he shuts them, tears pushed from the corners of his eyes down his cheek. He sniffles, raises his head. His tail sweeps across the carpet and catches the side of Warren's leg, snaking under the cuff of his sweatpants and gliding up and down the skin of his calf. The smile that graces his lips reaches all the way to his eyes, weak as it is.

"Not the family you choose."