xp_logs | Wanda and Cain

x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com posting in

At the end of the day, after the dust settles and injuries are tended to, Wanda and Cain realize that the best kind of celebration is one in which you celebrate that you're alive.

By the time that Wanda had been booted out of the Medlab -- being told that visiting hours were over and the last thing they needed was her joining the ranks of the injured due to exhaustion -it had been far too late to travel home. Considering the amount of space and Xavier's good will towards guests, she wasn't worried about not being able to stay. But the exhaustion coupled with the tension from the last few days left her wound up and she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep for a while. So Wanda stopped by the kitchen to pick up some drinks and then found herself stopping in front of Cain's door, knocking lightly.

Cain looked up at the ceiling, then frowned. Usually if one of the doctors wanted to check up on him, they paged him. Amelia had given him a clean bill of health, or as she put it "we can't tell if anything's different", and sent him on his way with a bottle of extra-strength Tylenol.

Rising up off his bed, Cain scratched his head as he walked across his mostly-bare suite and opened the door. He blinked a few times in surprise when he saw Wanda in the hall, then caught himself and took a step back. "Wanda, hey. Uh, come on in?"

"I apologize, I know it's late but I realized you just might be the only person not down in the Medlabs." She gave him a smile as she entered and held up a bottle of beer. "Care for one? I don't know about you but after the last week, I could use a drink."

"Ain't turned a free beer down yet," Cain said with a smile, accepting the beer and looking around his rather spartan room. "Um, I'd offer you a chair, but..." he mumbled as he walked across the suite, picking up a large overstuffed recliner from in front of his television and setting it down in the center of the room. He pulled his large drafting stool over and leaned against it, nodding towards the recliner for Wanda. "Hell of a start to the week," he drawled as he opened his beer.

She looked more amused than anything as she curled up on the recliner, managing to tuck her long legs up underneath her. Wanda popped open her own drink before answered. "Nothing like waking up in another country after falling from outer space," she mused. "Story for the ages, that one." She took a long drink and then asked, "What was it like up there? Disregarding the parts that had fighting, blood or orbital impacts for now."

"Abso-fucking-lutely terrifying," Cain said quickly. "I mean, shit. Talk about feeling my age. Kids these days - hell, everyone these days grew up with the Space Shuttle and wanting to be an astronaut and talking about it like it's no different than becoming a plumber." He took a long pull off his beer and continued. "Me? When I was their age, it was all science fiction, stuff we thought would happen in some vague future. Then I go away for a while, come back and the world's changed. And then being up there in it... it's just miles and miles and miles of nothing. Ain't much I've ever seen that makes me feel small... but there it was."

Miles of nothing. Wanda shuddered at the thought and remembered what the landscape looked like when she'd been trapped in Chthon's prison. Miles of nothing and nowhere to go. She took another sip. "We think of freedom as being wide open spaces but there are some that are simply too big. They can swallow a man whole faster than they can grant him freedom. I think I'm glad I kept my feet on the ground." And would she have been a liability or good bait -- bait the father with the daughter? Or would that have ended in worse ways? "You would think I would relish the idea of going toe to toe with Magneto, after all he's done but I'm terrified of the day."

"I wouldn't mind taking another shot," Cain said, remembering the strike on the oil platform in San Diego, "but I think I got a few folks ahead of me in line there. Sure as hell glad it's over, though. Can't help thinking..." He looked away, out the window that looked out onto the front lawn. I fell out of orbit and lived. Folks ain't meant to do that, no matter how much power you got... he thought to himself.

"Hell, I'm just glad I'm alive," he said finally.

Wanda stretched, leaning out towards Cain with the bottle in her hand. He was right. They had some grievous injuries to tend to in the MedLab but they had all made it through the fight. Magneto would be there to fight against another day. "Cheers, to being alive for one more day," she said, giving him a slow smile.

Cain leaned over, clinking his bottle against Wanda's. "I'll drink to that," he agreed, smiling back.

She waited until they'd both finished off their drinks before standing, stretching her legs out gracefully. Wanda snagged the empty bottle out of Cain's hand and put it with hers out of the way. "Where I come from, we celebrate life to its fullest. Weddings, funerals -- survival." She smirked at the area around them and then grabbed for his hands again. "You have enough space -- dance with me."

Despite his size, Cain found himself almost manhandled off his stool, with one hand at the small of Wanda's back. "This is silly," he said halfheartedly, "Ain't even got any music."

"There is always music, if you know how to listen. The sounds of our feet along the floor. The wind sweeping along the outside of the house. Us, as we breathe in and out, a one and two beat..." The hand that had been holding onto his shoulder moved down slowly to cover his heart. "The bass of the heart." Wanda tilted her head back, her smile holding more than a shade of wickedness in it. "Life is music, you just need to listen."

Cain chuckled and blushed slightly at Wanda's touch. "You know," he said slyly, "some places, a woman comes by a fella's place at an hour like this with drinks and dancing, he might get some ideas..."

Wanda laughed delightedly at that, a rich laugh that hadn't come out since before the whole space mess had started. She didn't really stop dancing but she was more swaying now than anything. "Is this one of those places with some of those ideas?" she asked.

"I might have a few..." Cain said quietly, moving as gently as he was able with Wanda. She was right, he realized. Life was just going to keep throwing challenge after challenge at them, and maybe one day it'd be too much - but tonight, he was alive and there was a gorgeous woman right here that was definitely putting his mind in the frame to celebrate that fact.

Before he let that thought develop, Cain paused and raised one eyebrow. "You ain't possessed again, are you?"

Half-way through the sentence and Wanda slugged him in the shoulder and then childishly stuck her tongue out at him. "I am never living that down, am I?" she sighed. "Honestly, you get possessed once and try to seduce someone and no one ever lets you live that down."

She shifted her hands to trail up the side of his neck and smiled. "No possessions, just little old me, I promise."

"Well then," Cain's smile grew wider. "here's to being alive."

In one move, he scooped Wanda up in one arm, while reaching out with the other to hit the light switch. Three days ago, he'd been floating in orbit, and plummeted to earth like a falling star. But today, this moment, he was here and alive.