xp_logs | Jay & Warren

Warren and Jay return from a nice birthday dinner out. Everything is fine until something is said by mistake and a comparison turns an awkward moment serious.

Jay could still taste the sweet and expensive chocolate ice cream tickling his taste buds and urging him to have another entire bowl, ordered directly off the menu but modified to his own liking. He'd not been to a restaurant like that in sometime, actually, probably since before graduation and now that they were walking into the mansion from the garage, he was content to reflect and roll around in his head of possible ways he could get that icecream to his room without having someone raid it before he got a chance to eat it. It would never happen, even with Bobbby here, someone would help themselves and though Jay was intent on getting the icecream, he was now intent on getting a mini freezer inside his room - one that could fit seven tubs of icecream - one for every day of the week.

Of course, at some point, his healing factor would not be so forgiving and roll out the belt a little more like a welcome wagon for weight. "Yeah, Ah think Ah'm gonna have ot work out extra hard now cause Ah could go for 'nother round of that decadant-whatever-ya-called-it."

Warren had enjoyed the evening out - spoiling someone never got old, especially when there was a perfectly good reason behind it. And everyone should be spoilt on their birthday. He was feeling pretty mellow after the wine he'd had that evening, and he was strolling along with his hands in his pockets, his jacket left behind in the car.

"You enjoyed it that much?" He said with a bit of a smirk. "Maybe I'll have to bring some with me next time, make sure I get a good reception."
"So there's a next time huh?" Jay asked with a laugh, tilting hishead back, drunk off the night's vibrancy. Instead of making his way to the stairs, he turned, heading down the corridor towards the classroom, if only to prolong the night. "Bribin' us all, one xman at a time," he mused.

"Unless you're sick of me already," Warren said with a shrug, not actually believing that was possible. No one could ever get sick of Warren Worthington after all. He meandered after Jay, curious as to the change in route. "Oh, I don't know if I'd go around bribing everyone," he laughed. "Just the ones that deserve it."

"Bobby bribes with icecream so you've got yer work cut out fer you." Although if Jay was being honest, he would have admitted that he was avoiding Bobby because he'd only want to talk about Terry. And talking about Terry made him mourn a friendship lost due to the significant changes in himself. Not something he wanted to think about on his birthday.

Turning around, Jay mimicked Warren's easy pace, walking backwards and mirroring his hands in his pockets. The only difference was that Warrens wings were white and Jay's were just not there anymore.

Warren just smirked at that. "Oh, I don't know about that. I can get my hands on better ice-cream than he can." He flashed Jay a grin. "And I know I'm prettier than him, so there's another plus." No thinking about sad things on your birthday, Jay, you had an arrogant angel to deal with instead. Lucky you?

Ugh, Terry use to say that, That's because I'm prettier than you Jay. His expression dropped a fraction and he turned, dropping his head a little and looking down at his feet as he paced in front of Warren, just so that Warren wouldn't see. "Ah think Bobby might have somethin' to say to that."

"Oh no, Bobby's well aware of this. Though he could possibly do with a reminder." Warren didn't catch the expression, though he did catch the bowed head. Had he said something wrong? "I could always come up with another bribe. Expensive chocolate, good wine, the sky's the limit, really."

Jay stopped in the hallway and he turned around, the dim light in the hallway creating an odd shadow across his face. He looked defeated, off beat and out of sync with the entire night. "What are you doin' with me War?" he asked finally. "Ah didn't see mah birthday last year, is that why yer throwing all this stuff at me?"

"What?" Warren stopped as well, looking over at Jay with a perplexed expression on his face. The conversation had suddenly gotten serious, and Warren was not entirely sure if he liked serious. "I thought I was taking a friend out for his birthday. I didn't know you'd missed your birthday last year, and..." He paused, looking slightly sheepish. "If I'm throwing anything at you with an ulterior motive, it'd be the fact that I didn't know it was your birthday, and you would have been spending it alone if I hadn't shown up. And I can, it's nothing to me to drop money on this sort of thing."

...and you would have been spending it alone if I hadn't shown up. Jay suddenly looked pained, Warren's words hitting its mark. "Where'd you think Ah was last year? Growin' a pair of these?" came Jay's hushed accusation, barely a whisper over the wings that slipped from his spine. He knew Warren didn't know, he knew this, but Jay couldn't help but feel like this was an anniversary to a transformation that made him lose everything that mattered to him in life. Everything and everyone.

Warren looked away, suddenly ashamed by the words he'd thrown at Jay thoughtlessly. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, suddenly studying the ground between them. It wasn't easy to get Warren to admit he was being a shit, but to be really honest, he was being one now - thoughtlessly, he didn't mean it. But he still was. "Jay, I didn't know, I'm sorry."

An apology was always one way to knock Jay down a few notches from his emotional high and he cleared his throat, hooking a hand to hang off his neck and shaking hishead at himself. "Forget it. Ah know you didn't know." He sighed and let his head roll back on his shoulders, dropping his hand to rake both through his red hair and tangling in it. "Ah'm the one who should be sorry. It's mah own shit to deal with and Ah ruined a perfectly good night on it."

"Hey, the night's not over yet. I'm sure we can work out a way to salvage it." Warren's rakish smile made a brief appearance before Warren sobered up again. "But you don't have to deal with it by yourself, if you don't want to. I've got a lot of work and family shit leading up to Christmas, but I can make the time." He honestly probably couldn't, it would involve a fight with his father, but he would anyway.

"No, no," he pulled his hair bakc and let his arms dropped to his sides, determined not to have Warren move things around. "Ah got school anyways, yanno, some family get together on Christmas. Mah Mama hasn't seen this--" he waved his hands for a second, looking for the right word and then just gestured to himself and his overall appearence. "She think's Ah'm uh...." he rolled his eyes, half laughing because he couldn't believe he was saying this. "She thinks Ah'm normal lookin'." As normal as he was when he had wings, sung like a choir of angels and had the healing factor of a snail.

"I'll make the time anyway," Warren warned. "School will be finished, what, by Friday? And then there are still a few days until Christmas." He will be all up in your business if you're not careful. "And I don't think you have anything to worry about with your mom. If my dad can come to the terms with the fact that I have wings, and she already knows you're a mutant... I think it will be fine." Watch him be an optimist about the whole thing - easy to do when it wasn't your life you were talking about.

"Ah'm kinda crammin' for school but yeah, everyone's gonna be gone and stuff. Ah gotta few days before Ah go see mah mama. Us Guthries, we kinda stall going to see family," he joked lamely, lacing his fingers through each other before he paused, trying to ignore the optimist. "Sorry, Ah didn't mean to have a meltdown on you. Ah'm still kinda sensitive of the whole thing and it's been a year already."

"I just spent four years on the other side of the continent to my family, I know how that is," he said with a bit of a smile. "And you don't need to apologise to me, not with something like this. You'll work through it in your own time, and there's nothing wrong with that. Don't let yourself think anything different."

"'Oh god, yanno who you sound like right there," Jay asked, narrowing his eyes and pointing at Warren with a false accusation in his tone, more playful than anything. "You sound like Sam. Keep that up and we'll have to hog tie you and wash yer mouth out with soap." Oh hell no, he was not going to deal with another Sam Guthrie. Not in this lifetime.

Warren looked playfully horrifed. "Oh no, not that," he said, eyes wide. "Oh, we can't have that." Warren was not about to have Jay putting him in the same category as his brother. The distance between them closed in a hurry, Warren moving in swiftly for a kiss.

Jay didn't know what to honestly do. It was possibly the last thing he expected. Actually, he was more expecting some sort of headlock so when Warren's face came close to his, he momentarily panicked, but old habits gave way to reactions that would have had him pull away. Instead, the kiss landed right on target but Jay broken it immediately there after, lightly easing Warren's body away from his with a chuckle. "There's that alcohol talkin' again, damn light weights."

Warren frowned at the implication he'd only kissed Jay because of the alcohol, and he took a step back himself. "I don't get drunk on a couple of glasses of wine," he said, annoyance seeping into his voice. "And even if I did, I would have burnt it off by now." No, Warren knew precisely what he was doing kissing Jay (well, possibly not precisely, because kissing someone a) a lot younger than him and b) while he was still getting over Piotr was a pretty bad idea), and he resented the implication that he didn't.

Jay cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Ah didn't mean it that way War. Ah was just jokin'," he fumbled, although he should have felt like he was two inches off the ground, Jay's aggression wouldn't allow for him to be anything than higher than Warren and he tried to fight off the domineering impulse to get in Warren's face about it. Instead, he took a step back, well aware that there was alot of space between and that his own guilt ran heavily inbetween. "It's just--" What Jay? Sort of soon? Had he implied that there was anything there at all to begin with? Were they anything more? His wings bristled in annoyance, completely opposite of what Jay himself looked like to begin with.

"Don't worry about it," Warren said harshly, rapidly getting annoyed with himself, as well as Jay. He should have known better than to push - hadn't Jay always pushed him away when the flirting got too intense? Just because he had people throwing themselves at him wherever he went, that didn't mean Jay was interested. He'd clearly been out of the game for too long, he'd forgotten how to read signals.

"Happy birthday, Jay," he said eventually, turning around so he could beat a hasty exit. This night certainly hadn't worked out the way he'd expected.

Rough Sandpaper-like skin touched Warren's hand, Jay's hand closing over it and turning him around abruptly to stop him from running. "War--" Jay started and stopped himself. He sounded far too old and foreign in his own skin and yet he held Warren's hand, stopping the retreat of what was probably very embarressing to both. "Ah ain't sayin' no," he started. "All Ah'm sayin' is not right now."

Warren stopped when Jay grabbed a hold of his hand, not turning to look at him until after he finished speaking. He smiled a little, his gaze not quite meeting Jay's. "It's okay," he said quietly, his annoyance and embarrassment cooling at Jay's touch. "You're not the only one who needs time." The last thing he needed was a rebound anything.

Jay let Warren go then, throwing his hair away from his eyes and his wings shifted restlessly behind him. He would have suggested going flying to burn that off but he could tell that Warren wanted to get out of there. So he just hung back and waited for Warren to go, if only because awkward hung in the hallway like stale air.

Warren did want to leave - but he didn't want to leave things like this. "Night, Jay," he said more clearly, finally looking at him properly. "I'll see you before you head south for the holidays." Statement, not a question. He'd be back to visit before Jay left, try and recapture the friendship they'd been building. But for now, he was out of there, even if it did mean a long back drive back to Manhatten tonight. It'd clear his head.