Vanessa & Warren | Wednesday morning

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

With Warren's shiny new unemployment Vanessa whisks him off to the Bronx Zoo where they plot the liberation of a snow leopard, discuss her future goat farm in Wales and what Warren's going to do and who he is going to be now that he's given up on bowing to his father's plans for him.

After going on about how she wanted to be a predatory cat in her next life and trying to convince Warren that she could smuggle a snow leopard out of the zoo without anyone noticing, Vanessa had dragged him along to see the polar bears. Now she was half flopped over the railing in an approximation of the polar bear's sprawling pose on a bit of ice and rock. He looked like he'd had a long day of playing in the water and now he was due for a nap. Or maybe he was just staring at his reflection in the water. "I don't think I could smuggle a polar bear out. Besides, where would I keep one? At least the snow leopard would fit in my apartment. I could put him on a leash, take him for walks. It's district x, people would probably just think I had a weird D/s relationship with a leopard shifter mutant."

"I'm not completely convinced you could smuggle a snow leopard out," Warren said with an amused smile. He'd been generally amused or bemused through their whole trip to the zoo, Vanessa's enthusiasm rather endearing. "And I'm not sure about the legalities or the practicalities of keeping one in your apartment. Don't they need to be outside?" Damn Warren and his logic.

"I have a roof," she pointed out as if this was the most obvious thing in the world he had overlooked. Obviously a roof wasn't much access for a wild animal, but if you didn't count the tail a snow leopard wasn't more than four feet long anyway. "I'll build a little mountainy sanctuary up there for him. He can climb around and he'll still have snow for the six months of the bloody year it likes to fall on New York. It'll be the most elaborate cat tree thing ever." Her head rolled to the side until it was nearly laying against her shoulder so she could look over at Warren. "I'm not sure the snow leopard would get along with the goats when I retire, though."

"It sounds like you've got it all planned out then," he said with a chuckle, tilting his head to try and meet her gaze properly. He had his hands in the pockets of the trench coat he was wearing, and his shoulders hitched slightly as the harness tugged on his wings again. How annoying. "So how are you going to smuggle him out then?" Since he had no doubt that she had a plan all worked out for that as well.

"Like any self-respecting woman. I'm going to zap him with my shrink ray and smuggle him out in my purse." She grinned, the expression downright dazzling in its joy. Vanessa was not carrying a purse; she never did unless she was wearing Aoife, really. The tall metamorph unfolded herself until she was standing up straight again and went to perch an arm on her friend's shoulder. "No, seriously, the bear is in on it. He's going to pretend to attack the visitors so all the attention gets diverted over to him, then the monkeys are going to launch an aerial assault while I pick the locks on the leopard's enclosure and snare him with one of those catch poles. We'll have a chat, I'm sure he'll see my way. He seems like a very reasonable sort of feline. Leopards are highly adaptable animals, actually. At least normal leopards are. They can figure out how to live in damn near any environment. He'll skulk about in the shadows to follow me, ducking under bushes and behind trash cans, and follow me out."

She explained this all as if it were entirely plausible and reasonable, the hand dangling off Warren's shoulder gesticulating as she spoke. The smile she gave him was both self-assured and entirely amused. The expression reached her eyes, the corners of which crinkled up. "See, absolutely fool-proof. Nothing could possibly go wrong."

"It definitely sounds like you've got it all figured out." He paused, sliding an arm around her waist to hold onto her. "Well, almost. I think you've forgotten one very important part." He attempted to keep his grin under control, but it was honestly really quite difficult. How did you not smile when a woman like Vanessa was outlining a plan to sneak a snow leopard out of a zoo involving a shrink ray, polar bears and monkeys? He pressed his lips together, trying to hide his grin, but the look in his eyes as he looked over to her completely gave him away, since he was just as amused as she was.

Pretending to not notice the look on his face, Vanessa gave him wide eyes and her most innocent expression of inquiry. "I forgot something? What did I forget? I've already got names picked out. He'll get to choose which one he likes best, of course. I'm partial to Spencer. Spence for short. He'd make a lovely Spencer, wouldn't he?" She shifted in his arm, so she was pressed against his side as she awaited his opinion on the name with what could only be described as girlish anticipation. It was like she expected someone to come up and hand her a puppy any moment from the look on her face. Or a leopard, anyhow.

"Spencer isn't a bad name," Warren conceeded, still trying to keep a straight face. It was becoming very difficult, especially with that look on her face and with her pressed up against him like that. "And it's only a minor detail, really, but what I am supposed to be doing while you execute this daring smuggling operation?" Never let it be said that Warren wasn't occasionally up for antics that completely ruined whatever dignity he had.

A long, blue finger came up to tap against her chin as she considered that. "You're in charge of the getaway car. Spencer is very well behaved for a confined, hundred-seventy-pound wild animal, really. I'm sure he'd love to stretch out in the bed of a pick up, but any old back seat will do for him until we're in the clear. He'll pretend to be a rug, of course, or possibly stuffed. Rich guys can get away with having eccentric taste in things like taxidermied animals and the like. If anyone asks you can say he's for your country lodge and no one will be the wiser."

"Getaway car, check," he replied, the grin he'd been holding back finally breaking over his face. "And you know, if you did want to let him have some space to run, there is still that offer of the country estate when you want it. I'm sure Spencer would like to stretch his legs occasionally. Breathe air that isn't tainted by smog." Not that he really got that here in the zoo, but... that was beside the point. Vanessa would clearly be a better owner than the zoo.

"Ooooh!" Her eyes lit up, both figuratively and literally though the slight increase in the luminescence of her red eyes was faint and not easily detected. It went along with the expression on her face so well that the intensifying glow seemed more like an inference of one's mind, putting it in where it wasn't really but seemed it should be. She even leaned in and kissed his cheek. "Really? Spencer would like that. You could end up being his favorite non-Nessa person. How do you feel about nights spent with snow leopard in your lap? Until I kick him out of it to assert my own claim, however."

Warren might have missed it if he hadn't been focusing on her so intently - and even so, his enhanced eyesight helped him see what most people would missed. He grinned and squeezed her waist, holding her up against him a little tighter. This would be much easier, he thought, if not for the damn harness and jacket. "That would be nice. Provided he didn't decide I was something good to eat. Cats and birds don't get along all that well, you know." And those claws would shred through his wings in a single swipe. "But I think I'd much rather have you in my lap," he finished playfully.

"Leopards don't eat birds, I don't think. Too small for them. So I think you can skip the problem with wings being associated with food. He's strictly a veal kind of guy, my Spence." The arm perched on Warren's shoulder stretched out so her hand could dangle off the opposite shoulder, fingers tracing circles on his arm until they found the edge of the harness he wore under his coat. She frowned just a little bit as her fingertips traced along the edge of the strap, but it was quickly erased from her face as she nuzzled into the side of his neck. "And you, my love, can always have me in your lap. Spencer will have to deal with the floor. Or another couch."

"That is good to know," Warren murmured, his head turning slightly to nuzzle his cheek against her hair. Whether he was referring to the leopard not wanting to eat him, or Spencer being banished to the floor, it wasn't entirely clear, though he did mean both. "This sounds like a perfectly reasonable plan to me," he continued, sounding amused again. "Just let me know when you need me."

The smile that stretched across her lips could be felt against his skin where Vanessa's face was still pressed into his neck. "I need to confer with my co-conspirators. The baboons are still on the fence but the lemurs, chimpanzees, marmosets and gorillas are all on board." Her face tilted upward until Vanessa could gently tug on Warren's ear lobe with her teeth. Of course the smile that followed was more playful than mischievous. "How do you feel about snakes? They found the cobra so I think the reptile house is open." She was batting puppy dog eyes at Warren shamelessly. A lot of people didn't like reptiles but Vanessa loved them, particularly serpents.

"Hmmm?" He said with a smile, distracted momentarily by the teeth on his ear lobes. Whatever she was saying, it wasn't entirely sinking in. Something about monkeys and snakes and... "You want to go see the snakes? Sure." He didn't mind. Though possibly a lot of that had mostly to do with the way she was snuggled up against him rather than any personal preference for reptiles. Vanessa was turning out to be much more of an animal person than he would have imagined.

A quiet, girlish squeal of delight followed his agreement and a small bounce came soon after. Warren got another kiss, this one down on his jaw by his ear, before she was nudging him along with her hip. Vanessa waved at the polar bear who was still flopped over. "Bye, Bob!" A little kid gave Vanessa a funny look, then waved and said hi to Bob. Bob the Polar Bear. Vanessa dissolved into a fit of giggles as they walked along the paved path toward the reptile house. "One day, lover boy, I will have massive amount of land and Spencer will get to roam and hopefully not eat the goats and I will have my own little reptile house for snakes!"

Warren just laughed, his arm staying around her as they walked. He listened to her plans with a smile, his gaze on her rather than where they were going. She was paying attention, right? "So. A snow leopard, goats, snakes and a pony, I presume. That sounds like an impressively eclectic menagerie to me. Where will you buy this very large amount of land?"

"Wales. I should show you some of the pictures I took on my phone. It's beautiful. You'd fall in love, too, even if you're too much of a city boy to want to stay out in the country where my menagerie will clearly need to be." Vanessa veered them around a group of giggling little girls, half her attention on the man at her side and half on where they were going. "Though maybe two ponies. Spence is a pretty solitary guy, but I think the others would want company and it wouldn't be fair to the pony if everyone else got company but her, aye? So two ponies, snakes, a herd of goats and Spence the snow leopard," she relayed thoughtfully.

"Does Wales even have enough land to contain you?" He countered playfully. It was a pretty small country, after all. "You should probably have some chickens as well, while you're at it. And maybe a milking cow." He paused thoughtfully. "How far is London away? Because I could make that work. Bouncing between them." He grinned, leaning over to press a kiss against her hair.

The frown and furrowed brow at having chickens and a cow quickly turned into a smile when he kissed the side of her head. "But I don't want a farm farm. I want a goat farm. An, uh, embellished goat farm. Are you running away to Wales with me, then? I think it's about a three and a half hour drive from where I was in Wales to London, but who knows where I end up. I need enough land to contain me after all." She grinned, both arms now looped around Warren's shoulders as they walked, and pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips. "I'm not running off to raise goats for at least another twenty or thirty years. You should really consider full time, live in lover boy status by then," Vanessa told him with a wink.

"You can't have any sort of farm without chickens," Warren argued with a smile. "Something about your own eggs being better than store bought ones, and ditto with the milk. Just think, you could almost be self-sufficient, with a decent enough vegetable garden." Not really, unless she wanted to start killing the chickens for meat as well. He angled his shoulders so he could wrap a second arm around her waist, leaning in to return the kiss. "Presuming I'm invited, of course. I couldn't possibly leave Spence lapless now, could I?"

"But you would leave me lapless?" She gasped in the most affronted manner possible. They had all but come to a standstill with Vanessa taking small, inching steps backward so they continued to move toward the reptile house even as she slid fully in front of Warren. "What if I have a neighbor with chickens and a dairy cow? I could trade them vegetables and let them borrow some goats for lawn maintenance in exchange for milk and eggs." She pressed a brief kiss to his lips fully this time and grinned. "After all, we can't risk the goats nibbling on the chickens and starting to associate your feathers with chicken snack time, can we?"

"Hmmmm, yes, I could see how that would work." He grinned, clasping his hands behind her back to keep her close. "Just as long as you don't go getting too friendly with the neighbors. I might get jealous in my old age," he continued in a teasing tone, leaning in for another kiss.

Vanessa was smiling as their lips met again, taking another blind half-step backward as they kissed. "You'd be amazed how much my flirtation can die down when someone's keeping me properly focused on them exclusively often enough, lovely. Though I have to admit, I appreciate a certain level of jealousy in a man. Enough to want to make his claim known but not enough to hinder relationships with others..." The amused look was back on her face. The idea of Warren getting surly and squinty eyed at the neighbors for giving Vanessa eggs was just too precious an image to not be funny.

Warren smirked playfully, his face moving to drop kisses down her jaw, stopping as he buried his face against her neck, taking a deep breath. "Should I start playing the jealous lover then?" He queried, his voice low but still playful. "I do find myself with a whole lot more time on my hands, I'm sure something could be arranged." He wasn't feeling at all possessive of Vanessa in the slightest, but spending more time with her? That was certainly something he liked the idea of.

Giggling from his nose hitting a slightly ticklish spot on her neck, she nodded. "You could certainly try and we could see how that goes for a bit." Vanessa's personal brand of possessiveness only kicked in when people tried to aggressively encroach upon what was hers. Warren wasn't hers, obviously, so her possessiveness didn't come into play with him. Though she could certainly pretend it did if he wanted. "You'd need to work your jealousy around my work schedule, though. Which is erratic at best."

"Hrmmm." He pretended to consider this, nipping at her earlobe as he did. "I'm not sure, jealousy never does look good on me. Monopolizing what free time you do have, however, does sound appealing." He'd been jealous at various points with both Piotr and Jay, and it was a side of his personality he didn't particularly like very much. And he far preferred the more casual relationship he had with Vanessa right now.

"I also have a healthy appreciation for non-jealous, time monopolizing men as well." Vanessa's foot connected with a wall or door of some sort on her next step backward. A glance over her shoulder showed the door to the reptile house off to the side of where she stood with Warren. "Oh, honey, we found the anaconda!" She grinned and tugged on his ear lobe gently with her fingers. "And I do not mean the one in your pants you dirty, dirty man."

"You mean you don't want me to show you my snake?" He asked innocently, laughing as he loosened his hold on her and let her drag him into the reptile enclosure. "That's a pity, I had such plans for when I got you home later..." He grinned back at her, unrepentantly shameless.

Vanessa issued a scolding slap to his hand and then shook a finger all of an inch from the end of Warren's nose. "Now, now, you. None of that. There are children about. That and I'm horrible at sharing and your snake may get up to all manner of things when I'm not about but I really don't fancy sharing it with others when I am." Two fingers hooked into the waistband of Warren's pants and pulled him in close enough to kiss. The were in the middle of the open space in the room, exhibits lining the walls around them, but no one else was inside the building to mind their public display. "When we get home, though..." she whispered as the kiss broke. "That is entirely different."

"Possessive, huh?" He replied with a grin before she kissed him, letting his hands sit on her hips again as she did. Letting go of her at all seemed like a terrible waste of time and effort on his part, his hands seemed to find their way back to her regardless of where they were or what they were doing. When she drew back from the kiss, he flashed a smirk at her, nudging his hips forward against hers. "If you want to see these snakes," he said in a low voice. "I think you may have to keep those lovely lips of yours to yourself for awhile, before I throw all caution to the wind and sweep you off your feet and back to my apartment. I could get us there remarkably quickly, you know. New York's air traffic is not what it's ground traffic is."

"Mister Worthington, you could wind up outing yourself with such shenanigans," Vanessa warned as she took a step back from him. Her left hand found his left hand and she raised their hands up to move his arm up and then over her so as she spun she wound up with his arm around her waist. Her right arm draped itself comfortably across his shoulders and Vanessa leaned into Warren's side as she meandered them both over to the first exhibit. "Were it not for the risk of those lovely wings of yours being spotted by nearby bystanders equipped with camera phones I could be of a mind to encourage such antics in the near future."

Warren meandered with her, his arm snug around her waist. "I know I'm supposed to care, but I am not sure I do anymore," he murmured, his gaze moving to the first exhibit and his head resting against hers. "Maybe I should do it. Out myself." He had been keeping the secret in an attempt to make his father happy, though it had become very clear that nothing he could do was going to do that. Not without further compromising himself.

"What's left to lose if you do? I'm sure you wouldn't miss the harness or all the long coats, dashing as you may be in them." Her eyes wandered over the vegetation on the other side of the glass, trying to spot the various frogs that were supposed to be inside. A tiny brown and yellow frog that the plaque identified as an hourglass frog hopped out from under leafy shade and into the pool of water. Vanessa told herself she did not need to start keeping frogs as pets. Especially since the pretty blue frog somewhere inside was apparently quite poisonous. But pretty. "I'm sure there's likely some social backlash and loss of standing and fewer invitations to swanky parties, but I just can't imagine that any of that crap is worth it. As someone who spent most of her life after manifesting wearing someone else and hiding?" Vanessa's head tilted so her eyes could look over at Warren's. "It's a billion times better to be able to walk around as yourself."

"It's not worth it. Swanky parties? Not really my favorite thing." He looked over to her, the smile on his face from earlier faded as he descended into thoughtfulness. "There are a lot of reasons to do it, and a rapidly dwindling number of reasons not to." He pressed a kiss against her hair, before smiling over to her. "But they are serious thoughts for another day. Tell me about these snakes you want to keep." Today was a fun outing to the zoo, not a day to re-examine his life and his choices.

"I'll have your back whatever you do, you know," she murmured before pressing a kiss to Warren's temple. Her demeanor then promptly shifted as she perked up and started to drag him around the reptile house. "Probably nothing interesting enough to be kept here. Red tail boas, pythons, garden snakes. Stuff that can reasonably be kept domesticated. I'm not stupid enough to get a wild, venomous snake and try to trap it in an enclosure of some sort and it winds up being fifty feet long. You know what happens to those people? They get constricted to death and-or eaten. I do not want death by snake as my cause of death, okay?"

He smiled at the offer, leaning into her kiss and squeezing her hip before letting the subject change happen properly. "You are a remarkably sensible woman, Ms Carlysle." There was a note of admiration in his voice as he spoke, still holding on tight to her. "I've never quite understood the rationale behind trying to turn wild animals into pets. Surely they're more interesting or beautiful in their natural habitats."

"People like to try to tame wild things. I think it's an ego thing. They want something beautiful and exotic that no one else has. We're under the mistaken belief that we're at the top of the food chain and with that has come this very mistaken idea that we can conquer the fiercest predators. You could no more tame someone like me than you could one of them." She nodded at the Egyptian Cobra who had so recently caused a fuss by slipping out of his cage and hiding in a corner where none could find him for days. "They may adapt, they may choose to wait patiently for their moment to break free....but you can't change the nature of anything, just wait around until it changes on its own."

"The arrogance of men," Warren murmured. "I think there's an element of fear in there as well. People strive to control what they fear, in the belief that will keep them safe. As if, as you said, the act of locking something or someone up will some how alter it's nature, to take that part of them that makes people afraid of them." Warren's hand tightened slightly on her hip, the turn of conversation reminding him far too much of his own situation with his father. "But you're right. You can't change the nature of anything. At least not without destroying it first."

"There can be a beauty in destruction," she told him, sincerity in her voice. "Fire can be cleansing. Water washes away the past when it recedes. Wind can sweep away everything until you've a clean slate. People weep over the loss alone. It doesn't change anything, though. Everything is still as it was. Now there's simply something new. Trying to force that catharsis, though, trying to force a new thing to replace what's already there? That tends to end in violence. It's a very dangerous game to play."

"It is," he said quietly, musing over her words. Their conversation had turned serious once more, and rather than try to change the subject again, Warren let the silence between them hang for a moment or two. What was this fight with his father, if not the opportunity for a clean slate? Why not let the breakdown continue, and rebuild himself as something new? He had his own goals and dreams to pursue, rather than sticking to what his father expected, what his mother wanted. "There's something appealing about a clean slate."

"That's the whole point of a clean slate, innit? The appeal. Go anywhere, be anyone, remake yourself in your own image. Figure out the best version of you and try to be it. I don't know how many people do much with a clean slate, though." Probably not many people, actually. Vanessa found people tended to relapse into learned behavior far too often for that. "I like what nature does best. It wipes it clean and then puts back what should have been there all along. Natural disasters tear down what man's built up and nature grows back the trees and grass and plants that were torn out so the buildings could put down their roots. Nature always wins."

"It does, doesn't it? No matter what we try to do. No matter how much we try to make things safe, to protect ourselves from it." In the end, it didn't matter what you did, how much you tried to tame it, nature had a way of doing exactly what it wanted, how it wanted, and woe betide anyone that got in it's way. "But I could do that now. Remake myself, do what I want to do. Be whoever I wanted to be. Not what I think my parents or anyone else want."
Vanessa smiled brightly at Warren. "So, lover boy, who do you want to be?"

Warren flashed her a smile back. "Warren Worthington, Attorney at Law," he said, very dramatically. "I have enough money that I could do only pro-bono work if I wanted. I used to work on a lot of mutant discrimination cases back in California, and I'd like to start doing that again. It's worse here than it was there, and there aren't a whole lot of lawyers out there that are willing to represent mutants." His conversation with Angelo had been on his mind even more recently. Why was he trying to be a businessman, when he hated it? What he loved was the law, and somewhat more importantly, being able to make a difference in people's lives.

"People hate lawyers," Vanessa deadpanned. "You should be a firefighter instead. Have you ever considered being a firefighter? Everyone loves those guys. And they're perpetually all dirty and sweaty in a really undeniable way." The mental image she had of Warren as a sweaty, smoke-stained firefighter was quite pleasant, actually. "You've got the hero impulse for it already. You'd just need fireproof whatever for the wings. That shouldn't be that hard."

Warren burst out laughing at that. "Did you know the first time I rescued someone, it was from a fire? My boarding school dorm was on fire, and I ended up saving the asses of some very grateful classmates. Not that they ever knew it was me." He grinned at her. "Think I should go back to my roots, huh?"

"Mmhm." She waggled her eyebrows at him. "You could be January in the calendar! Your hose in hand with snow falling." Vanessa giggled, that sounded so much dirtier than she was even intending for it to be.

"Well if you wanted me to pose for you, all you had to do was say so," he said with a laugh and a waggle of his eyebrows back at her. "I just don't know what it is with you today. Snakes, hoses. Am I really that hard to get naked?"

"I like the antissssssipation," she told him, laughing. "It's so much more satisfying when I get you naked if I've been fixated on it for hours already."

"What an excellent point you make." Warren paused, pulling her in close and leaning in for a kiss, even if he didn't actually brush his lips against hers quite yet. "Does that mean I should insist on seeing everything in this zoo today, even if I have to bribe people to let us stay? Just to build up the anticipation."

"There is a fine line, Mister Worthington, between anticipation and being a tease." With that her hand slid up into his hair and pulled him that fraction of space closer until their lips met. Teasing was all well and good, just not right now. Right now she wanted to kiss him. He could be a tease about the rest.

Warren was happy to let him kissing back be his reply, the arm around her waist holding her in close. It was so entirely tempting to do what he'd threatened before, and sweep her off to his apartment. But he was capable of self-control. ... mostly.

When the kiss broke Vanessa smiled and whispered, "How about we see about that anticipation build, love?" A small wink was followed by her pulling him further along through the reptile house by the lapels of his jacket.

"You think you've had enough?" Warren grinned back, letting her pull him along, mentally trying to calculate where they could catch a taxi from and how long it would take them to get home. And how much he could bribe the driver to get them there faster.