Angel and Dazzler 2 Warrens Redux Chapter 7
Once they were back at his place, Warren swept into action. A quick flick of a switch got the gas fireplace going. Warren tucked Alison onto one of the comfortable chairs in close proximity to both the fireplace and the kitchen. She still seemed a bit distant so he brought her a glass of Chateau Angelus Saint-Emilion red. The occasion warranted it and he personally liked the name. She said a quiet thank you and studied the flames.
He pulled out several pans and started chopping up mushrooms, tossing them into butter with crushed garlic. As he cooked he decided to start the conversation. "We've had quite a day today, don't you agree? Theater, dancing, your concert, and now dinner, made by your own personal chef, me. I promise you that I've improved since our days in Australia. So I hope you are hungry." He stirred the dish to keep it from burning.
"Mmm-hmm. I'm sure I can eat," she said without enthusiasm. He hoped she didn't hate mushrooms. Her dossier had suggested she liked them, but the taste of food and the scent of it cooking were not always equal. This dish required a lot of his attention. For all his boasting, he rarely cooked for himself these days. It became a hobby before he lost his wings. He drank a lot of his meals or had food delivered these days. His personal chef usually got to lounge around wherever he lived. The man must have been shocked enough to get a call to stock the place tonight.
He stirred the mushrooms and added salt and pepper then tossed them in the air. They landed perfectly in the pan and he glanced over pleased to find Alison didn't see any of it. He tried to draw her out again. "The play's themes reminded me of the plight of mutants, did you think so as well?"
Finally she glanced over to him, her normally bright eyes shadowed. "I think everyone thought they knew what was best for the girl when all she really wanted to do was sing." She turned back towards the fire.
Well, that failed spectacularly. Warren threw in some rosemary and added a cup of red wine. Stirring, it gave off a heavenly aroma. The fresh mussels were on ice in the sink, he needed to get them going soon as well. Maybe he should have started them first, now that he thought about it. Pulling out a pot he filled the bottom with water enough to steam the mussels in and prepped them. As he turned on the burner he thought of another topic to draw Alison out. "I wanted to thank you again for the dance in the park. I would never have thought to try dancing outside like that if it weren't for you. I want you to know how special it was for me and how special you are to me as well."
Alison said, "Yeah, sure." But as she swirled her glass he heard her say under her breath, "For as long as it lasts. Once you sober up you'll realize you can have any woman you want again."
Warren's mind flashed back to the images on the television earlier and to the many women he had flirted with, dated, or even slept with long ago and realized at last what Alison meant. When she last saw him, he chased nearly anything with a skirt. She lost touch before he settled down and never learned that he quit being that person.
Reaching for the stove, Warren turned off the burners and set it all aside and came over to sit in front of the fireplace. He motioned for her to join him and settled her in front of him so he could hold her hands and they could just gaze into the dancing flames before them.
"Let me tell you about Candy," he said. And drawing her close he began his tale.
"Scott and I used to have a crush on the same girl, Jean Grey when we were studying at Xavier's Institute together. In the end, she chose Scott and in my frustration, I got pretty wild." Warren squeezed Alison's hands for a moment. "I really couldn't understand why she picked Scott over me. It's not that I begrudged the man; it just hurt. So I went out and started chasing every girl I could. I came out as a mutant, Professor Xavier wanted me to show the world mutants weren't all scary, but I'm sure I made him shake his head some at my exploits. I made the papers all right. But everything changed when I went out to a spot I thought I knew that had turned into a new club. There I ran into Candy."
"Guess who, Warren!" A voice startled me out of my reverie as hands covered my eyes from behind. It sounded familiar, but it simply couldn't be.
"That voice! It can't be, but it must! In fact, it is!" Turning around, the hands fell away and I couldn't believe my eyes. "Candy Southern, the light of my misspent youth! What're you doing in the big, bad city?" My mood brightened considerably. Candy knew me from the days before my mutation showed up. Our shenanigans were legendary, well, at least in our minds.
She gave me a grin and replied, "You mean there's a law that I had to stay in Marshall County forever? Treat me to a diet Pepsi, and we'll compare notes on the last couple of years."
How could I say no? "Best offer I've had today! Talk about your small worlds!" I got us both drinks and we sat down at a booth at the club and talked for hours.
Candace told me all about how she moved to the big city, got a job at the United Nations, and went to night school. I told her how I went to an exclusive school with only a few other talented students and that we were all pursuing college-level work. I didn't mention that our "talents" happened to be mutations. But I must have described the school in glowing terms a little too strongly because she got a completely different idea.
"Sounds like a posh place! Do they take applicants?" she asked me. I had to think fast to dodge this bullet.
We were in a club so I figured I should make use of the atmosphere. "Say…I've been out of touch for a while, Candy. Think you could show me some new dances?"
That seemed to do the trick because she replied, "I thought you'd never ask."
I'd like to say, that's all she wrote, but in actuality, the Professor contacted me mentally with an emergency. Now I had to ditch my date with an excuse. "I'm sorry, Candy…I just remembered an errand I promised the professor I'd run for him! Tell you what…how about I give you a buzz tomorrow?" My heart sank to my stomach. What a pitiable excuse!
"If that's the best you can do…I'll take it!" Candy replied to my utter shock. I needed to leave so I bid her a quick goodnight and roared off in my Mustang. All I could think about was what a stroke of luck it was that I ran into her again. And it seemed she liked the idea of seeing me just as much since she took the lamest excuse in the world and still wanted to see me again. But how could I get things to work out between us? She was a human and I was a mutant. I had no idea how she would react to that news. But for the moment, I intended to make the most of my good fortune.
And I did, too. I started dating Candy exclusively. I even took her to Bobby's 18th birthday party in Greenwich Village. Bobby and Hank's dates were there and Scott showed up with Jean, but I showed up with Candy and oh, did she turn their heads. Her dark hair turned everyone's head and I finally felt on top of the world. What I searched for all this time was Candy.
I really liked her but I didn't want to end up using her as a rebound from Jean. So I took my time and dated her, just hanging out and going to clubs or movies or other events. I made sure I had my head sorted out before I tried to get serious about things.
But then my uncle Burt showed up as the super-villain called The Dazzler. He killed my father and set up an explosion that nearly took all of us out. I tried to rescue him and Candy, but he started fighting with her and I couldn't keep my hold on them. I could only save one of them, so I chose Candy. I took her to the hospital since she got injured during all of this. Turns out that she saw my wings when I escaped my uncle's trap, before I changed into my suit. She figured out that I was the Angel.
We agreed to take a break for a while so she could decide how she felt about all this. Without her I wandered through my daily routine but I couldn't stop thinking about her. She discovered that my uncle didn't die in the fall and had shown up in town to ask my widowed mother to marry him. Candy came to the mansion to warn me and we raced off to stop him. But my mother claimed to be in love and the asshole tried to ask me to be his best man. I wanted to clean his clock but my mother was ill. Our family physician, the man who birthed me even, warned me that my mother was in a fragile state and that I should go along with it.
Turns out my uncle had been poisoning my mother. And my doctor not only knew, he helped! He hated mutants so he sided with my murderous uncle and helped him kill my own mother and planned to help get rid of me as well. I beat my uncle but we were too late to save my mother.
She saw my wings and thought I had turned into a real angel to carry her off to heaven. So…I did. I picked up my dying mother and flew into the bright sky with her, circling around until she died right there in my arms. I tried to go on but I finally quit the X-men. I needed to start my own life. Candy and I lived together and she took care of the Worthington business ledgers while I decided to reveal to the world that I was a mutant. I founded or funded various super groups and Candy stayed with me through it all.
But I simply couldn't bring myself to fully settle down. I kept flirting and pushing the envelope. And the day finally came where Jean Grey walked back into my life, Scott turned out to be missing and I tried to console her. Candy got sent upstairs to find me by Cameron Hodge, my old college roommate that I made our PR guy for X-Factor. Candy walked in on us as I kissed Jean on the head trying to console her. And that was it. Her words still echo in my head.
"I've overlooked your philandering before, but this is the limit! And you, Jean Grey…haven't' you wrecked enough relationships? Enough lives?" Candy turned around and left. Nothing I said stopped her. All those years together, all we did together went up in smoke in a moment's misunderstanding. And the worst thing was, I wasn't trying to cheat on her. I just wanted to console a friend.
But she didn't end up in that room by accident. Cameron Hodge turned out to be a snake in the grass. He diverted funds from Worthington industries and X-factor to fund a mutant hunting group. Candy uncovered all this and when she found out, he killed her. He abducted the woman I loved for years and lobotomized her to buy her silence. But he kept her alive, waiting for me to come to him. He took my fortune and turned my resources against me, he arranged for the doctors to think my wings were gangrenous and had them removed against my will while I was in the hospital, he booby-trapped my plane and nearly killed me, and finally, I survived to see this. Cameron Hodge stood over my beloved Candy, a knife at her throat, and grinned as he slit it right in front of me.
I snapped. I slammed my new wings together and took his head from his shoulders in a single instant. And in that moment, I lost what little piece of my soul remained to me. I stopped being an "angel" and became a cold-blooded killer. And with the blood still fountaining from his body, spraying over me, I knelt down and cradled my beloved as the last of her life's blood ran down her neck and over my hands. I could have restored her from a lobotomy, we have people skilled enough to heal even that. But they can't fix death. And I finally cried. I sat there and cried. I found out later, how much she still cared for me despite our break-up. She managed to save my business despite my uncle and Cameron's efforts, but she lost her life because of me.
The whole thing went over quietly. I had enough money to keep the papers out. My lawyers handled it and it was ruled self-defense. And then I sank back into the dank pit I had hidden in before Cypher called and made me an offer to get some new wings. If I hadn't tried to cut everyone out, I could have saved her. I didn't take her calls, I didn't listen to her, I didn't even know she had been captured. Worst of all, I never even married her. I loved her so much but I let her die never knowing she meant that much to me. All of it was because I couldn't bring myself to commit. She died never knowing the truth. I loved her. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. And I never got to tell her."
Drawing in a shuddering breath, Warren ran a hand over his face and realized his cheeks were wet. He paused for a moment and did his best to compose himself, and leaned to the left so that Alison could see him before saying, "But as much as I loved Candy, and I truly loved her, it is nothing compared to what I feel for you." Looking deep into her eyes he said, "Alison, I love you."
She greeted his words with silence. And that silence stretched out, distorting time to a crawl. The crackling of the fire became incredibly loud in the silence. He saw her lips open, then clamp down on what she seemed about to say. He broke out into a sweat. The moment became unendurable but he continued to try to read her face, figure out what she was thinking. Her lips parted again, but nothing came out. Her eyes seemed distant and he could feel panic building up in him. He knew he would be alone again. He stopped being the sweet, charming Angel she used to know a long time ago. It was too much to ask anyone to accept. He didn't want to see it when it all crumbled again like it did with Candy. His heart couldn't take it.
He watched her eyes come back to focus on him and unexpectedly, she leaned forward and kissed him. Her lips drew gently on his and her hands came up to caress his face. He saw her eyes close since his were open in shock, but at last, he allowed himself to give in. The kiss filled the space of the moment. He raised one hand and laid it over hers and returned her kiss with the same warmth and gentleness. It lacked the frenzied passion they normally shared but there was honesty in its tenderness. Finally, it ended and she pulled away.
Warren sighed, drained, and sat back. Sitting there, watching the shadows play on the ceiling and hearing the fire crackling incredibly loudly in the silence, he barely comprehended the words that came next.
"Warren, let me tell you something about my past." He felt Alison take his hands again as she turned back toward the fire, snuggled against his shoulder, and began to speak.
