BUM BA DUM BUM BUMMMMM.
Chapter 10, I'm so happy! I love reaching chapter 10 in my stories, it's like a guarantee that I'm going to finish it. WAHAHAHA.
Warren: *hangs up Milestone Poster on the fridge* So I take this down when you reach chapter 20, right?
Me: Yep, and you put the other one up! *points to a bigger poster*
Warren: Sometimes I think I'm your slave instead of your muse...
SO. As the tenth chappie, I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who's stuck with me and reviewed so far. *takes a deep breath*
Thanks to: arachnidsGrip, Auluna, Mara, Kilik Saiyaku-Captain Green, Chishio chuudoku, Gloo1997, TheOnlyMarauderette, and Echo Dancer! LOVE YOU ALL BUNCHES! :D
Who if I cried out,
Would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?
And even if one of them suddenly
Pressed me against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
Which we are still just able to endure
And we are so awed
Because it serenly disdains to annihilate us.
~Rainer Maria Rilke
Warren blinked a few times, swallowing loudly. Had she really figured it out? Had she pieced together whatever clues Kurt had given her and solved the puzzle of his mutation? "Um... er... I..." Maybe the approach he'd tried on Akira would work on her. "What makes you think I even have wings, Cadence?"
"Don't you dare pull that crap." She stalked over and began to undo the front of his coat. "I'm not stupid, Warren. Take this thing off and show me."
"W-Whoa!" He grabbed her hands lightly, and looked at her. "Please! Cadence, don't do that!"
She snorted, yanking her hands away from his. "Oh what? So now you're uncomfortable with going shirtless? My God, is there anything that doesn't make you nervous?"
"Calm down." He held his coat closed in front of him, and looked her over. And boy, did she look mad... "Why don't you sit down? It's late, Cadence - if you yell you're going to wake people up."
"I don't care." Even as she said this she was sitting down next to him. "You hid this from me, Warren."
"You asked me not to show you until you had figured it out."
She narrowed her eyes. "The sooner you find out that I'm a mass of hypocrisy, Warren, the better off you'll be. I thought you would show me anyway, when you trusted me enough, no matter what I said. But apparently you don't trust me any more than I trust you."
"That isn't true. I trust you very much."
"Not enough to go against what I said and just show me already!"
He took a breath, and reached over, placing his hand on top of hers. "Cadence... I wanted to show you earlier. Believe me, I've always wished I could show you from the first day we met. But I can't. It's hard to show anybody until I really know how they'll react... and sometimes I imagine it wrong. Everybody's always scared."
Cadence scoffed, but she didn't move her hand. "Oh please. Scared of wings? What the hell is there to be scared of? It's not like you can kill somebody just by thinking about it. If people are scared of you, little Jellyfish, then maybe I need to show some of them what fear really is. And besides... the people you showed, none of them ever knew what you were about to show them, right? I do. It's not like you're all, 'Okay, I've known you a long time so you need to know something about me'..." She let out a sigh, then looked up and met his eyes.
"Just show me, Warren. Then we can both get on with our night."
He let out a shaky, apprehensive breath. "Well, I... I don't want to scare you with..."
"Are you kidding me? Have you seen the symbols carved into Kurt's skin, Warren?" She looked down at her lap, and he noticed that she was wringing her hands. "I saw him make one of them." She looked back up at him, but her fingers didn't stop fidgeting. "Still think you're going to succeed in surprising me?"
"Why... why does he do that?" Warren asked, half hoping to make her forget about his wings and half genuinely curious.
She rolled her eyes. "He says it's punishment for his sins - apparently they're the holy symbols of Gabriel the Archangel. He told me that each symbol stands for a sin."
"So... there aren't just seven anymore?"
"Fucking bird-brain moron." She reached over and smacked him on the back of the head. "Can you ever, like, be serious?" Her hands returned to fidgeting. "He just... they stand for every sin he's committed. I keep telling him there's no physical way somebody could be that sinful, but he swears to God it's true. And coming from Kurt... it's true."
"Why was he doing it, when you watched? I mean, what sin was that for?"
"Wrath." Cadence tucked her hair behind her ear, even though it just slithered back to her face. "Earlier in the day he got angry at me and Akira. And I walked into his room to apologize... found him carving a new symbol into his hand." She let out a humorless giggle. "I freaked out. He told me... that he'd gotten so mad he wanted to hit me, and that he was wrong for letting anger control him."
Warren reached over and took Cadence's hand lightly, fitting his fingers into the spaces between hers. "I'm sure he just... felt bad. I've been so angry I wanted to hit someone, and it's an awful feeling you get afterwards - the guilt. Isn't that what you felt, on the plane with Akira? Kurt says he called you 'Okaa-chan' by mistake. That must not have felt good."
She stiffened, and yanked her hand away. "Damn right it didn't. But boy, we are not talking about that right now! Okay? We're talking about your wings that you haven't shown me!" She stood up and took a few steps back. "So... come on, off with the coat and out with the wings."
"I didn't think you had figured it out yet."
"Oh, I hadn't. But then I had this dream, where Kurt's clues were the soundtrack, and I fell off a building, and you caught me, and you were flying. I mean, in my dream you didn't have wings... but I heard Kurt's voice going 'Angel, Angel'." She put her hands on her hips. "And it wasn't all that hard to piece together when Akira came running into my room yelling, 'Tenshi-senpai! Tenshi-senpai! Mitsubasa!' while going like this." She flapped her arms. "Future reference, you probably shouldn't trust the kid with any secrets."
Warren felt his face turn red. "B-But he promised he'd be careful who he told! He said he wasn't going to brag about it."
Cadence snickered. "The boy learned to lie from me."
"That explains it." Warren sighed, pressing his hand to his face. "Do we really have to-"
"Yes, right now. Can't wait till morning."
"Alright, fine." He stood up and took his coat off, laying it on the couch. He gave the raven-haired woman a glance before beginning to undo his harness.
"Um." He could just hear the annoyance in her voice, and she probably had both eyebrows raised at him. "Warren... the hell is that thing?"
"A harness," he answered simply, feeling déjà-vû from his conversation with Akira earlier.
"For?"
"My wings. They're folded up right now, held in place by this." He undid the next part of it. "It's hard to fit clothes over them unless I have this on."
"Couldn't you just, like... keep them folded up without the harness?"
"No. Sometimes they react to my emotions, and if I get upset they kind of start to... lose control. Like, they'll start unfolding by themselves, if I don't have the harness on to keep them against my back. Hold on, I'm just about done."
He unfastened the last part over his stomach, having undone it in reverse of how he put it on. His wings spread out, unfolding in a sort of relief like always, spanning a length slightly longer than the couch. He flapped them slightly, nervous of how she'd react.
She was just... staring at him. Her mouth was open a little, and her eyes weren't really wide, but she was staring. Her arms hung limp by her sides, and she blinked fast several times. He saw her take half a step back, one foot shuffling behind her on the carpet. "Holy Lake Michigan..."
He rubbed his arms, timidly taking a step toward her. He wings were swept back a bit by the motion. "Well... what do you think? Because that really wasn't a very well conveyed interpretation of your thoughts..."
She shook her head slowly, taking another step back for every step he took closer to her. "I... really should have taken Kurt seriously when he said you're an angel. I thought he was just trying to be all spiritual..."
He fluttered his wings lightly, still nervous. Why was she backing up whenever he took a step forward? "Do you... like them?"
She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him an intense look. He really, honestly thought she was going to levitate something (something heavy) and hit him in the head with it. "I don't know," she finally replied, looking at him but refusing to meet his eyes. "Do you like them?"
"W-Well..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Sometimes..."
"Then I'm undecided." She took one last look at him, then turned on her heel and walked away.
Warren blinked after her, almost not believing what had just happen. She'd asked him to show her, and he did, and she just walked away. He held back a barrage of hot tears, blinking rapidly, as he picked up his harness and began to fasten it over himself again.
People always left when he showed them, but...
"I thought she'd be different," he mumbled as he buckled the first strap. "I thought she knew..."
Japanese translations: (there's only one but WHATEVER)
mitsubasa = beautiful wings (mi = beautiful, tsubasa = wings)
... ASDFGHJKL; POOR WARREN. ;( ToT
What is Cadence thinking? Does she really not like his wings? *gasp* When are they going to fu-
Warren: AHEM!
Me: Uh... I mean... kiss?
Kurt: ... Hopeless, zat dirty mind of hers... ve need some soap...
Me: *runs away* I DON'T WANT MY BRAIN WASHED! IT'S PERFECTLY CLEAN THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
*Pyro and Gambit walk in, totally unaware of what's happening*
Gambit: ... and I told ya, I just don' get how ya don' like ICE CREAM!
Pyro: Oh I dunno, maybe because if I get any on me I'm USELESS?
Me: *comes back in* Uh... guys? You're not IN the story yet. And why are you arguing about ice cream?
Gambit: Hey! Gambit jus' wan' a l'il screen time!
Pyro: ... And I just wanna blow shit up. :D
Me: Well, you'll get your wishes, but not right now! Out! *shoves them out of frame*
Well... reviews equal love, so if you love me and this story and Warren, please review! They're like my CRACK.
Love you all! ^^