"Warren! Side step, side step! No, ah! Horizontal attack, now!" Peter said eagerly.
But it was too late, Warren's character crumpled to the floor, knocked out. By a girl.
Warren heard a satisfied chuckle to his left and glared at the chuckler sitting next to him. Thea smiled as she readjusted herself on the couch. Warren glared at her before handing the video game controller over to Peter so he could take a crack at beating her. So far no one had. The only breaks Thea was taking was when she voluntarily handed over her controller because her fingers needed a break.
"You need to learn to sidestep or block. You can't just attack, attack, attack, you'll die every time," Thea said as she proceeded to fight Peter's character.
"Hey, this is my first time playing," Warren said.
"All the more reason to develop good technique now," Thea countered. "Oh, damn! Nice block, Pete," she added. Her character's combo attack with her staff did no damage as Peter's character held up his sword in defense.
"Thanks," Peter said, his eyes wide with concentration.
"It's okay, Warren," Kitty consoled, as she watched the television screen. "The learning curve on fighting video games is pretty steep at first. You'll be able to beat Thea after a few sessions."
Warren heard Thea snicker.
"Thanks for your support, dear," Warren said.
"Anytime, honeybunny," Thea said.
"Ah, damn!" Peter said as they all watched his character crumple to the floor as well.
"You totally had me, Pete," Thea said. "That was just luck."
"Even so," Peter sighed. "I only beat you like twenty percent of the time."
"But if you wanted to beat her more, you would have to play as much as Thea does, and that means I wouldn't get to see you," Kitty said, getting off the couch and pulling Peter with her. "We've played for two hours, time for a change."
"Fair enough," Peter conceded as he got off the couch. "I'm going to beat you consistently…some day," he said to Thea.
Thea smiled. "I'd like to see you try," she dared.
Peter laughed and walked off with Kitty to the kitchen.
Warren looked over at Thea to find her looking at him already. She put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
"You're not really mad, are you?" Thea asked.
Warren shrugged. "Not mad, just…"
"Embarrassed that a girl beat you so soundly at a video game?" Thea supplied.
"When you put it like that, I sound like such a loser."
Thea climbed onto his lap, and the pressure of her weight was a comfort. Warren had to remember to get her to do that more often. She kissed his cheek before wrapping her arms around his neck.
"You're not a loser in real life, just a loser at video games."
Warren laughed uneasily. "Wow, thanks Althea, you sure know how to make a man feel…like a man." He knew she was just teasing him, but sometimes, the things she said really got to his ego.
Thea's eyebrows creased with concern. "You know I'm joking, right?"
Warren nodded. "Yeah."
"I'm serious," Thea said sternly.
"You're serious that you were joking?" Warren said.
Thea opened her mouth to reply, but closed it soon afterwards having said nothing.
Warren smirked. "I like it when I leave you speechless," he teased.
Thea smacked him playfully on the chest, and Warren remembered that a girl hitting a guy was a good sign rather than a bad one.
"I'm just sorry if I bruised your ego," she explained quietly with her eyebrows furrowed as she stroked the place she had hit him almost unconsciously.
Warren reached up to kiss her forehead. "Don't worry about it."
Seeing her concerned about the well-being of his ego was actually an ego boost in of itself. It was sort of weird, really. Thea wasn't the mushy-gushy type who would expound upon the many wonderful qualities he had that made her like him. It had surprised him how emotional she got when he had talked about his struggles with his wings while growing up. But that, too, had been an ego boosting experience. To get Thea, the non-mushy-gushy type to become all gushy must mean that she cared about him greatly. That meant a lot to Warren.
However, a month into their relationship, she had yet to show that level of emotion towards him again. Instead, she continued doing what she did best – giving him a hard time. But the little time-outs from the endless banter and ribbing gave Warren reassurance that underneath all those playful insults was genuine affection and concern. He would never tell her this though because that made him seem a little too much like the mushy-gushy one in the relationship, and he wasn't, obviously.
"Okay," she said, moving to place her forehead lightly on his.
A comfortable silence passed for a few moments where all Warren could see was the tip of Thea's nose that led eventually to the lips he wanted to kiss.
"You know," Thea said, breaking his train of thought, "you can always pick up a different hobby. One that I suck at. Like…cross-stitching."
Warren leaned back to see Thea's bright, glistening eyes challenging him to retaliate. The tender moment was gone, but that was okay with Warren. There would be more, he was sure.
"Very funny, dear," Warren said just as his stomach began to gurgle. "Hm, I think Kitty and Peter had the right idea. Let's get some food." He tapped her hip gently as a signal for her to get off of him, albeit he was reluctant for her to go.
"It's around time for dinner anyways. Afterwards, I need to grade some essays," Thea replied as they walked towards the kitchen. Another semester at Xavier's School for the Gifted had begun in early January, and already Thea's mutant ethics class had turned in their first assignment.
"I'm going to head over to see my dad after dinner," Warren said.
Out of the corner of his eye Warren saw Thea's posture stiffen ever so slightly at the mention of Warren's father. He wasn't stupid – he had noticed Thea's uneasiness regarding his father before, but didn't know what to attribute it to. His best guess was that Thea was intimidated by the volume of money Warren's father possessed, and now that she was Warren's girlfriend, she was all the more concerned with measuring up to his father's expectations while knowing that because she was a mutant, she could never truly live up to whatever expectations his father had. It was a pretty complex hypothetical reason, which made all the more likely to be the right one considering Thea's penchant for complexity.
"Just for a visit?" Thea asked.
"Yeah. I haven't seen him since Christmas, so it's been a month. I figure I should see him at least once a month. He's the only family I have. Well…blood family," Warren said, glancing at Thea to gauge her reaction.
Thea tentatively smiled, though she didn't look at him. "That's true," she said as they started pulling out food to make sandwiches.
"Would you come with me?" Warren asked.
Thea pursed her lips, but before she could say anything, Warren wanted to clarify.
"It just, we're, you know, 'us' now, and I thought it would be important for him to meet you because, you know, you're important, the most important," Warren explained rather poorly. The most important? There wasn't even a noun in that sentence those words were modifying. He mentally castigated himself for his ineloquence.
However, he did enjoy seeing Thea blush just a bit. "Your way with words is just so mesmerizing," she teased.
"Yeah, well, my good looks make up for it," he bantered, regaining his confidence.
Thea rolled her eyes.
"So, what do you say?" Warren asked, alluding to his previous question.
"I can't," Thea said.
She didn't say anything more, and Warren found himself quite annoyed. He understood that there were things about Thea that she wasn't comfortable talking about. He understood that she wanted to talk to him about things and just couldn't open herself up a lot of the time. But despite this awareness, the curt or vague answers he would often get from her got quite infuriating. On more than one occasion he contemplated using his voucher to extract a big secret from her, but now that they were in a relationship, it seemed weird to make her tell him something because their emotions were more closely tied now. To put it plainly, he would feel guilty using the voucher. But why couldn't she just explain herself? Why couldn't she just…tell him? He was only asking her to meet his father. He'd be more than willing to meet her parents if ever she decided to tell him where they were! He knew he shouldn't take it personally, but for some reason, he had hoped that getting into a relationship with her would mean a bit more access to the deeper crevices of her heart.
"Fine," he said, pushing his dark thoughts aside and trying to enjoy the fact that he was with Thea to begin with. They had come a long way these past six months, and Warren was grateful for that.
"Fine? That's it?" Thea asked from across the kitchen as she rummaged the cabinets for some chips. "No 'give me a reason why' or 'don't you think I deserve an explanation?'"
Warren shrugged as he spread some mayonnaise onto his wheat bread. He didn't know if she saw him since his back was to her.
At an instant Thea was in his personal space. She didn't say anything, just looked at him while he tried to ignore her. However, it became too unnerving and Warren had to stop making his sandwich.
"What?" he snapped.
Thea didn't seem at all surprised by his tone. She looked at him with a small smile on her face, which only further annoyed Warren since her expression seemed so different from what he was feeling.
"You're wonderful," she said gently before pressing her lips to his ever so softly.
Her tone coupled by her actions caught Warren completely off guard. He cleared his throat before shrugging again. "You're welcome."
Thea smirked before kissing him again. "I know you deserve more," she said, a hint of regret in her voice.
She was right. He deserved to know more. But perhaps she deserved a break. After all, the fact that she knew that she was shutting him out and willing to address that made the situation slightly better…right? At least she owned up to her shortcomings. However, Warren still wanted to know things. Eventually, perhaps, he would. Eventually.
"Yeah, yeah, nothing a couple of make out sessions can't fix," Warren teased.
Thea laughed and slapped his rear end playfully.
"Oh, I like that," Warren said devilishly.
Thea only laughed harder and Warren's heart swelled just a little bit more.
After their dinner of soup, sandwiches and chips, Warren flew to San Francisco to see his father. He didn't really know what could be accomplished by these meetings, but he knew he needed them. It was pathetic, but Warren needed that reassurance.
His father opened the door after just one ring of the doorbell.
"Warren," his father said, a small smile on his face.
"Hi Dad," Warren said.
There was an awkward pause until his father seemed to regain his footing. "I'm sorry, come in, come in. This is your home too." He stepped aside to allow Warren to enter.
Home. It had been a long time since Warren considered the posh house in San Francisco to be truly home. At the thought of home lately, only images of Thea popped into his mind.
"Get comfortable," his father said, leading him to the living room. "Do you want some coffee?"
"Sure," Warren said. "Thanks." Warren sat down on the couch. The slightly slim-fitting jeans he wore were a bit uncomfortable with the bulge his wallet and keys were making, so he took them out and placed them on the table. Thea had teased him about such girly looking pants but Kitty had reassured him they weren't girly at all or even metro-sexual.
"Here you go," his father said, coming from the kitchen with two mugs of coffee.
"Great," Warren said, taking a sip of the hot liquid that warmed his body. "How are you?"
"Well, I'm doing well. The company took a bit of a hit with the publicity of the incident, but we're surviving. We're trying to expand and develop treatments for other conditions," his father said.
"You mean other than mutations?"
"Yes, like cancer, AIDS. It's a race to the finish line among all the labs to be the first with treatments that can truly cure these conditions, and I want to make sure Worthington does not lag behind."
"Ambitious," Warren commented. He wasn't surprised in the least. It was actually liberating that his father did not seem as hung up on the mutant vaccination anymore. It made Warren feel he wasn't the driving force behind his father's work anymore.
"So, did you fly here?" his father asked, eyeing the wings that were sprouting from the sweater Warren was wearing.
"Yeah. Cheaper," Warren.
Dr. Worthington's eyebrows furrowed. "Are you having some money troubles son?" he asked.
"What?" Warren paused to see if his father would realize that he was only making a joke, but his father's reaction remained unchanged. "No, I'm fine. I get paid teaching economics at the school. And room and board are free," Warren explained.
His father's eyebrows remained furrowed. "It still sounds like a halfway home," he commented.
Warren felt his frustration rise. "It's far from that, Dad."
"Regardless," his father said, reaching into his back pocket to pull out his wallet, "I want to make sure you don't go without."
"I'm not going without."
"Here," his father said, as though he weren't even listening to Warren. He took out five hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and reached for Warren's wallet on the table.
"Dad, really, I'm fine," Warren protested, placing a hand over his wallet to stop his father.
Dr. Worthington and Warren's eyes met. Although Warren had looked at his father, he hadn't truly seen him. His father was tired. His eyes, although wrinkled with age for years, actually looked worn out, duller.
Warren leaned back, removing his hand from the wallet.
"Okay, thanks Dad," he said.
Dr. Worthington brightened and opened the wallet to put the money in it. However, something caught his eyes in what seemed to be a flash of recognition, and Warren wondered fleetingly if he had left a condom in there by accident.
"Who is this?" Dr. Worthington asked, flipping the wallet so that Warren could see what had caught his attention.
Dr. Worthington was pointing to a picture of Thea that Kitty had taken on New Year's Eve before the whole kissing and subsequent fighting Thea and Warren had experienced. In the picture she was sitting at the table they had snagged with her chin resting in her palm and a small smile on her face. Warren had cut the picture to fit snugly in his wallet.
"Thea, the girl I mentioned before, during Christmas," Warren said, remembering clearly how Thea had gotten when he had told her he had mentioned her to his father. For similarly unknown reasons, he doubted she would be happy that his father had seen that picture of her.
Warren's father reexamined the picture for a few moments. "So you two are seeing each other?"
"What makes you say that?" Warren asked, a bit protectively.
Dr. Worthington's eyes rose from the picture to his son. "Why else would you have her picture in your wallet?"
Warren laughed uneasily. "Good point," he conceded. "Yeah, we're together."
"She lives at the mansion, right?"
"Yeah," Warren said, still feeling anxious about continuing this discussion. It almost felt like he was indirectly hurting Thea. "But I'd rather talk about other stuff."
"Sure, sure," his father said amiably as he tucked the money into the wallet and set it back down on the table. "So, how's the rest of life?"
Author's Note: Hi, yes, I know, it's been 7 months. So, before you give me a virtual beating that you rightfully should give me, let me explain. I met a boy, we got together, and it became hard to write. Our relationship started in October, just as I was writing the beginnings of Thea and Warren's relationship. Writing about the beginnings of a relationship was very, very uncomfortable when I was experiencing the beginnings of a relationship myself. I needed to have some distance between my real life and my writing. Now, after seven months, I'm in at a more stable part of my real-life relationship, and I can write this story with the distance that I am comfortable with. Hopefully this means that I will be writing more, and therefore updating more frequently. However, life always takes its unexpected turns and thus I can't promise frequent, regular updates. What I will promise is that I WILL FINISH THIS STORY. I like writing this story, and I know where it's going. It will get written, it will get posted, but I'm just not sure of the timeframe.
Anyway, thanks for the continued support during my absence, and I hope you all with stick with me. Take care and please let me know what you think!
