Warren & Vanessa | Thursday afternoon

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

On her first day off after her strip club case Vanessa spends the day falling asleep with Warren on and off. During a period of being awake their playful conversation takes an unexpected turn.

A leg stretched out and then wound itself around Warren's waist once more, careful not to catch on his wings as it slid beneath. Her other leg was already wrapped around his leg. Despite his bulk Warren was so light that there wasn't really much weight to speak of with him laying on top of her like he was. It was a little scary to think how much she'd missed his very presence but Vanessa was pointedly trying to ignore that fact as she laid on her couch and let her fingers stroke through his hair.

The strip club job had kept her so busy that this was the first time she had managed to be awake for more than five minutes when he was around. Though he had been lovely to curl up with in the wee hours of the morning since coming back anyway. They'd been hazily dropping off to sleep and waking up only to drop back off again for the better part of an hour or two now. The DVD had been muted at some point when one of them had woken and Vanessa had watched the rise and fall of Warren's back, noting the shift in breathing that likely indicated he was awake.

"You got the incriminating, possibly naked, pictures of yourself back from that woman in Europe, right?" she asked in a quiet murmur. She hadn't been coherent enough when he was around until now to even think to ask.

Crashing at Vanessa's rather than returning to the mansion had become something of a habit for Warren since his return from Europe, and one he hadn't particularly stopped to think about. He'd returned to his usual X-Men training and comms duty schedule, but he'd been a little broody and restless otherwise, his attention distracted from the myriad of projects he'd been working on before he went away. Seeing Vanessa was a nice distraction from everything, even if it was only for brief periods.

"Hmmm, yes," he replied sleepily, blinking himself further awake. "Photos, image files, all of it. Presuming she's not lying, but Monet was pretty sure she wasn't." He moved his head slightly around to nuzzle at her chest, not really wanting to fully wake up quite yet.

"Damn," she replied with faux disappointment. "I was really looking forward to cutting a bitch for you." Vanessa's laughter was near silent but the the way it shook her body made it obvious. "And you took away my moment of bragging I was going to have when the pictures came out. I was practicing my smug smile so I could tell everyone 'yeah, I tap that.'" He'd gotten the photos, won the day and was back in the country so Vanessa figured that was enough distance from it all to be able to joke about it.

Warren grinned, his face turned up to look at her. "So next time I should just let the scandal happen, to give you the opportunity to brag?" The temptation had been there to just let the photos be released at will, and damn the consequences, but in the end, his desire to control his public image was too great. And now that the risk was gone, he could joke about it. And wonder about how much it was worth to keep on keeping this secret.

A smile full of mischievous intent curled up the corners of Vanessa's mouth as she nodded. "Mmhm. You've totally taken away my bragging opportunity and you know I really like to slide into openings like that rather than bring them up myself." She couldn't really kiss him without moving them both, which Vanessa was in no way inclined to do, so she bent her head and laid a kiss atop his head. "Next time, though, next time I'll be all over that before you can squash the story." Her fingers lazily danced down the back of Warren's neck from his hair and traced along where one wing sprouted from his back. "Mm...though I may have to beat the ensuing admirers off with a stick to get some time with you when that happens," Vanessa comment, tone both thoughtful and amused.

"Should I be worried about you leaking pictures of me?" He asked teasingly, a wide grin on his face. He knew perfectly well that she wouldn't, she had far more integrity than that, but he couldn't resist teasing her. "Don't worry, I think you're safe from me returning to my bed hopping ways. It's far too much drama for my liking." Not that he hadn't had his fair share of drama when being in a monogamous relationship with someone, but at least that was drama he was used to.

"Well..." Vanessa pretended to consider the finer points of leaking pictures of him. "You know I tend to be just a tad bit greedy, aye? I probably won't be the one to leak pictures. But if you're worried you'll just have to keep me occupied when you're around so I haven't got the time to take them. Though, I'm sure the world mourns the loss of opportunity." Her voice was still very quiet but that unmistakable note of playful teasing had finally crept into it. "I'm sure they're also mourning the opportunity of getting you in their beds if you've given up your playboy ways for now."

"I think they'll survive," Warren replied with a low chuckle. "I'd much prefer to devote my time keeping you out of mischief." There was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke, and a slight shifting of position. "I'm not really the playboy everyone makes me out to be, recent behavior notwithstanding. I spent a year or so celibate, I couldn't possible be as bad I seem."

An unhappy little noise accompanied a pout. "Why would you want to do that? I enjoy my mischief. It's a hobby." The arm laying over her head shifted so she could tweak the end of Warren's nose lightly. "I don't believe you. You've self-admittedly been bed hopping. There's me, there was Wade at least once and who knows how many countless others? I think you may be a Lothario. A genuine Don Juan with a string of broken, racing hearts left in your wake. A Casanova, even. Recent behavior is the only behavior that should be withstanding, lover boy." The nickname brought an affectionate tone to Vanessa's voice. "All prior behavior can be seen as having been abandoned for a new, hedonistic path unless you veer back into your ways of celibacy. Which, by the way, I am thoroughly against."

"Heaven forbid." Warren mock-shuddered at the thought of being celibate. "And I'll have you know that I was completely monogamous when I was with both Jay and Piotr. And Piotr and I were together for six years. So if anything, monogamy is my default pattern of behavior, not celibacy. Celibacy is unnatural and should never be allowed." Warren was quite determined not to have a repeat appearance of that kind of behavior.

"Well then, I suppose you would need to find yourself in a monogamous situation again in order to claim recent behavior really is an anomaly and not truly who you have become." She said nothing about his previous boyfriends. Piotr she had met once and had mostly come to the conclusion he was somewhat dense and maybe even stupid. She was also incredibly judgmental at times when she initially met people. Jay...well, she hadn't really interacted with the guy but she had been dating his brother when he had turned up blue, metaled and all fucked up. She knew Jay through Sam and couldn't see why anyone would want to be involved with someone that unhinged.

Vanessa made a face as if there was a bad taste in her mouth. "Is it really weird that we're sleeping together and we've dated brothers?"

"I suppose I will," he replied, the teasing note fading from his voice. Warren wasn't entirely sure how much he did want to seek out another relationship -- companionship was one thing, and he more than enjoyed all of the time he spent with Vanessa. He just wasn't sure if he wanted the commitment that came hand in hand with a relationship.

"What?" Warren blinked a moment, then wrinkled his nose. "Don't even go there. Because I really don't want to start thinking about that. HIstory is best left where it is. In the past." Because really, that could lead to strange and dangerous places, examining histories.

"You," she pointed until her fingertip pressed against the tip of his nose, "brought up past involvements. And I was thinking about how I only really knew Jay through his brother and that led to the thought." She was going to offer up the fact that she had never slept with Sam as some sort of consolation but that probably wouldn't be comforting. Vanessa also wouldn't explain why she hadn't slept with him. Sam's virginity was his own business and that of whomever he may be involved with.

Warren honestly didn't want to know that much about Sam. Not just because Warren had briefly dated that brother, but Sam was just not one of those people he felt comfortable discussing in that manner. He tilted his head up to try and catch Vanessa's fingertip between his lips, grinning again.

"At least we haven't slept with the same people? That would just get weird." Warren knew it happened within the fairly small community that was made up of mansion residents and alumni, but he was fairly certain that it was unlikely Vanessa had slept with anyone he had. Mostly because his list was almost completely made up of gay men.

Her hand wiggled in a fake attempt to free her trapped finger. "No, no we haven't. I can say that pretty definitively without even having to know who you've slept with." She had made out with one of the people Warren had slept with. Multiple times. Vanessa was pretty sure that didn't count, though, and she was pretty dedicated to thinking about Wade as little as possible when she was with Warren anyway. It was something of an unspoken rule with herself because she was fairly certain things could get confusing and awkward otherwise, even if only for herself. "Though one day some very, very lucky person will manage to get tag teamed by us," Vanessa joked. Honestly? She was pretty sure she wouldn't want to share Warren with someone else at the same time. Sharing Will with Jean-Paul was entirely different, no one there had any romantic or sexual history with one another. Here, though...Warren wasn't just sex. Will hadn't been either but he was much more black and white. Warren was something much murkier to define.

Warren let her finger go with a grin, mostly because it was easier to talk without her finger in his mouth. "I don't know about that," he said playfully. "Doesn't that mean I'd have to share you? I'm not so sure about that." Warren had, admittedly, never been so adventurous when it came to sex that he'd considered having more than one person in his bed at a time, and he had to admit, he wasn't really particularly tempted by it. Especially when keeping up with Vanessa frequently took all of the stamina and concentration he had. Why would he want to add someone else to the mix?

"Aye, it would. But I'm not particularly keen on being shared in general." That sort of applied across the board for the metamorph really. The situation with Will and Jean-Paul had been very spur of the moment and it had worked because they were both about focusing on Will. He was the only one being shared and he basked in the attention. Vanessa, on the other hand, liked people being a little bit greedy with her. It had been the beginning of her real breaking point with Lex. If you didn't want her enough to be unwilling to share her then you didn't want her enough to be involved with her seriously insofar as she was concerned.

"So we're agreed," he said with a smile. "No sharing." Which was just fine for Warren. Really, who needed more than the one beautiful person in their bed at a time? Now that was greedy, and in Warren's opinion, not the fun sort of greedy. And to be completely honest, his wings got in the way so frequently he couldn't imagine how you could add a third person to the mix, and it certainly wasn't something he wanted to try. "I'm suddenly starting to feel all kinds of boring. No more bed hopping, no threesomes. How very tame." The grin on his face that accompanied his words belied his complaint - being with Vanessa was certainly not boring by any means.

"Oh, so you want to add spice?" The look that came over Vanessa's face was pure mischief. "How much concentration do you need to put into flying?" The tone was obviously leading and she was pretty sure he could guess exactly where her train of thought had gone. Would she really have sex with Warren in flight? Probably not. Potentially falling to her death was something of a libido killer.

The expression on Warren's face at the question was honestly something approaching pure glee. It was one of those things that he did want to do that was - well, out of the box - but it wasn't exactly something that was easy to attempt.

"We could see," he said with a grin on his face. 'With somewhere to make an emergency landing if necessary."

"Somewhere wide open with hopefully a soft landing. Like a beach. Sand would be ideal." Why was she even thinking about this? This was epically dangerous and it wasn't like the sex between them had gotten boring. Certainly not to the point of necessitating novelty tactics to spice it up. Warren, though, seemed incredibly enthusiastic about the prospect and Vanessa was one to give her lovers what they wanted. Even though this was an epically bad idea. "You'd really need to work up to that level of distraction to see how you did, really. Also, uh, people being wholly explicit in the air? Gonna attract attention, lover boy." The fingers that had been tracing along his spine and where his wings sprouted from his back ran along the top edge of one wing as far out as she could reach, the movement slow. "And you are not out of the closet, my love."

"My family has the country estate," he said, clearly distracted by thinking about logistics. "And I think we still have the beach house. Or I could rent one, ensure some privacy." This was an epically bad idea, why were you letting him think about it, Vanessa? It could only end badly, really.

He shiverred a little at the brush of fingers over his wing. "Maybe not for long," he murmured, distracted once more. "Staying in the closet is far more trouble than it's worth." And he was sick of having to hide.

Vanessa loved that little shiver. She loved that something so simple as running her fingers over his wing caused it. When her arm was fully extended she raised her hand and brought it back to where his wing began and this time her palm wrapped around the upper edge of his wing, fingers laying down along the feathers as she repeated the motion with more contact. "I suppose being caught mid-air with a woman would certainly be one way to announce your genetic status to anyone who cared to know," Vanessa told him thoughtfully. "Bit cold for the beach, though, innit? Ocean up here creates cold breezes, not warm ones. The level of distraction I would be capable of administering would be somewhat limited."

"That would certainly make headlines," Warren said with a laugh. "At least in all the tabloids. It'd almost be worth it, just to see the look on my father's face when he saw it." Which was a particularly bad reason to do something, to be honest. If and/or when he came out of the closet, he didn't want to do it to spite his father. He wanted to do it because it was something he wanted. Which, to be honest, he probably did. "And lord woman, why would anyone go naked at a beach that wasn't toasty and warm? I think you've been going to the wrong ones."

"I don't really go to beaches. I tend to be an inland sort of girl what with the deserts and the jungles and the land locked war-torn countries and all. I've gone to a beach once since I came back to the states a few years ago and I was promptly reminded how fucking cold the Atlantic is up near Boston. I do my swimming in a pool and I've got no real need to travel to a beach for vacation or what not. Compared to what my life used to be like this right here is vacation." The simple luxury of laying around with Warren wasn't one Vanessa took for granted even if it had been nearly three years since she had lived a life where a day like this would have been entirely impossible unless she was disguised as someone else and entangled with a mark.

"What am I going to do with you?" Warren asked with a sigh. "Other than resist the urge to sweep you off to the warmest and most beautiful beach I can find." He shifted just enough to press a kiss against her shoulder, not wanting to move far enough to try anything more. "There is nothing more beautiful than watching the sunset over the water, or flying over the water and letting the air currents take you where they will." It was one thing he missed about living in California - there weren't too many people who could spot you in the air when you were flying over ocean.

"You'd need to convince me to take time off work first," she told him as her head rolled to the side so she could look at him sort of sideways when his lips touched her skin. "Admittedly, I've never seen the sunset over the water. I'm pretty much an east coast girl despite the continent. Or too busy working." Her fingers marched their way back toward Warren's spine, touching lightly on individual feathers as they went. "Though whisking...whisking isn't really trollop territory. I would need to re-dub you something and I was terribly fond of calling you my trollop."

"I think I could manage that," Warren replied with something of a smug smile on his face. He liked to think he could be pretty persuasive - he'd have made a terrible lawyer if he wasn't. "One day, I will whisk you off. Even if it isn't... what was it? Trollop territory." He laughed at the idea. "When did I become your trollop? I feel like I've missed something along the way here."

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" An amused smile was working its way back onto her lips. "Yes, you've been dubbed my trollop. There was a conversation with Jean-Paul in which I think I said I couldn't be his dearest love because of the string of trollops he has and this led to him agreeing to spend more time with me and poke at me when I've got my own trollops so I told him I had one. Thus, Warren the Trollop was born despite the staunch argument that you do not fit trollop guidelines." She skimmed over the part where Jean-Paul hadn't actually been told who her trollop was but rather discovered it for himself when he spied a naked Warren through her window thanks to the telephoto lens on her camera he had swiped. Jean-Paul had been traumatized enough over it that she didn't want to risk traumatizing Warren as well.

Warren just laughed. "I feel like being deemed a trollop should be somehow be an insult to my dignity. But now I'm just curious about these trollop guidelines, and how I don't fit them." Warren was pretty sure he'd never been called a trollop before, and now he was curious. What did these guidelines involve?

Oh the guidelines. Vanessa considered for a moment if the guidelines were going to get them into potentially murky areas of the topic of their themness before she answered. There was no graceful way to avoid the topic if it would but she thought she was probably safe. Probably. "According to Monsieur Beaubier trollops are for one night stands or are only for sex. So, you see, you don't qualify."

"Hrmmm, this is true," Warren murmured with a smile. "So if not a trollop, what does that make me?" Once he asked the question, part of him regretted it a little bit. Did he really need clarification about what they were? No. He was pretty happy with where things stood with them, and defining them just made things complicated. "Because I feel like it should involve whisking rights. I like whisking people away to places they haven't been before. I am pretty sure Tabitha loved Rome before everything went crazy."

"I'm not sure I've got a classification for what you are," she replied honestly. Her fingers were still marching along the back of his wing. Despite his comments about Tabitha and Rome, Vanessa's focus had remained on the question. He had asked so she would give him an answer. She simply had to figure out what that answer was. As she thought the metamorph chewed lightly on her lower lip. "Complicated. You're buried down deep in the grey area, lover boy." The nickname still held the affection it always did but her thoughtfulness on the topic of what he qualified as had quieted the usual playfulness to a point where it had all but disappeared. "'Lover' is too simplistic and only a partial truth just as 'friend' is. Neither 'friend-with-benefits' nor 'casual relationship' are accurately applicable to us because the focus of both of those dynamics is far more heavy on the sexual side than we find ourselves. Once it was applicable. Before I left for Wales, really. Now...?"

She had obviously let her focus drift off up to the ceiling but now the downward tilt of her head made it clear her eyes were back on Warren. Her hand drifted from his wing to his shoulder, fingertips trailing up the side of his neck until her hand slid up to curve along his jaw. The leg around his waist gave Vanessa the grip she needed to shift down far enough so that when she leaned in her lips found his. "Suppose you could just be mine," Vanessa whispered when the soft kiss broke. "But I suspect that implies more of a commitment than you want here."

Warren was silent for a few moments. He hadn't expected such a serious - and detailed - response from Vanessa, and he wasn't entirely sure how to respond. It was true, they had moved somewhere beyond just casual sex, just being friends-with-benefits. If you looked closely at what they had, maybe it was something more closely resembling a relationship. He hadn't thought about it before now, or even particularly noticed it. He was so used to his relationships beginning in such a defined way, and this thing with Vanessa had completely snuck up on him.

Did he want that commitment? If you'd asked him in general terms, the answer would have been no. But he liked what he had with Vanessa, it didn't require thought or concern, it just was. And while he didn't want things to change, he didn't want things to end between them even more.

"That's not necessarily true," he said, still trying to figure out what he was trying to say. Where was all his usual confidence and persuasive words? He was completely tongue-tied when it came to this.

"Is that what you want? For me to be yours?" It was the first they'd spoken of things possibly being serious between them, and he honestly was surprised that she'd raised the possibility.

While he had technically answered he had also mostly deflected. Warren was going to make this her decision and Vanessa didn't like that. It held too much of a possibility of him giving her what she wanted even if he didn't want it just for the sake of not losing her completely. The deflection, she thought, was telling and she laid back again, hand falling away from him. "I told you once," she paused to think about when that conversation had happened, "about two months ago, actually, that I'm not really a no strings attached sort of girl. You're my anomaly and I thought eventually 'just sex' might get empty. And it likely would have, but you stopped being just sex about a month ago. I've a really bad habit of getting attached." Their current position with her wrapped around him so thoroughly below the waist was a testament to that. "But I put it on the table so you can infer from that, I'm sure. You're a smart guy. And trying to buy time with me stating something that should be obvious won't really help you avoid making a decision and having to stick by it."

"I'm not avoiding making a decision," Warren claimed, his wings bristling at the accusation. Though it was true, he had been attempting to buy himself some time. "I'm just surprised, that's all. I'm not any better with casual things than you are, in fact I think I've made a mess with things thinking I was. But I don't know if I'm any better with a relationship." One corner of his mouth tilted up. "I honestly believed Piotr and I were going to be together forever, and yet now we can barely speak to each other despite being on a team together again. I rebounded straight into a relationship with an ex-student who was basically crazy. My track record when it comes to this sort of thing kind of sucks." He wasn't even sure he knew what his point was at this point, words were just coming out of his mouth without much logic to them.

"I know I don't want things between us to end. I like you, I like being around you and with you, and yes, whatever it is that we've been or we are, it's more than just sex. And I don't want anyone else. Just you." It wasn't exactly the most romantic thing anyone could say, but it was the truth.

"I'm not crazy," she pointed out in the same quiet, reasonable tone she's just used on him. "I'm also not a dick, which is pretty much my estimation of Piotr from the one time I met him. I'm friends with the last guy I dated and the reason I'm not with the one before that is because he sort of had a meltdown and went off screaming at my colleagues outside our building after I broke up with him. But 'qualifying' myself as not them is sort of pointless since it should be pretty obvious I'm not much like either of them."

Vanessa shrugged, rubbed her eyes as if she were getting a headache just between them - though she wasn't - and sighed. "It's pretty simple, honestly. The difference between what we've been doing for the past month and a relationship is acknowledging it and monogamy. That's it. That's the big difference. So you want it or you don't. I am not about pushing anyone into anything. And I'm not about anyone doing something because they think it's what I want them to do. You say you want me but it sort of seems like you'd rather take off and hide in a hole for a while."

"I don't," Warren protested with a little bit of a laugh. "Okay, so maybe I am a little skittish about a relationship because of my history. But you're not Piotr, or Jay, or even remotely like them, and if I keep letting what happened with them dictate anything I'll be single for the rest of my life. And that is not appealing at all." Warren moved to prop himself up on one arm so he could look down at her properly, something of a sheepish smile on his face.

"I think this would have to rank as one of my least smoothest moments ever," he continued, gazing down at her. "But if you can forgive me for acting like an idiot, then I suppose I could just be yours." There was something of a grin on his face as he echoed her words back to her.

"So no smooth," Vanessa agreed, a very faint lightness coming into her voice even as she spoke. "I can't imagine how you ever won cases with that sort of flawless rhetoric. You had such an opening to be totally smooth but you pulled such a panic moment there." She was smiling now. It really was sort of amusing how he had totally had that very male oh shit moment when in the end it turned out all he had to say was that he wanted it.

An elbow braced against the cushion afforded Vanessa all the height she needed to push herself up high enough to snag a kiss. "I'm not so sure about forgiveness." The leg around his waist tightened. "You might have to work for that. But since I'm sorta greedy I'm going to keep you anyway." The playfulness had finally gotten back into her voice, edging in as the tension had released. Vanessa had been prepared for him to say he didn't want the commitment, that he didn't want anything serious. And if he'd said that it would have been the end of a lot of what they'd had. It's not always the worst case scenario, she reminded herself.

"What can I say? You leave me tongue tied and idiotic," he said with a slightly stupid grin on his face. There was something surprisingly giddy in his voice, especially for someone who had gone into panic mode at the thought of a relationship. How did that work? He wasn't sure. He leaned in to kiss her again, one hand sliding into her hair as he took his time with it. When he finally pulled back from the kiss, the grin on his face was much broader than it had been before.

"I think I can handle working for your forgiveness. Especially if it involves a whole lot more of this."

Vanessa committed that smile to memory. She decided it was her favorite, though she also recognized the likely bias at work here. "Aye." The word came out in a distracted sort of murmur. "Loads more of this." Another kiss was stolen, this one also sort of slow and lazy but not at all lacking in that building intensity that promised nothing beyond itself. Vanessa pulled Warren back down with her as they kissed, lips barely leaving his when she next spoke. "Hope you've not many plans for the next day or eight. I may be of a mind to keep you to myself as much as possible for them."

"Hmmmm, no," he murmured in reply, kissing her again. He couldn't tell you why kissing her now was different to all of the other kisses they'd shared, but he would swear up and down that these were better than any of them. "I seem to remember something vaguely about some team I'm a member of or something like that..." He was, honestly, mostly joking - Vanessa was distracting, and very much so, but not so much so he was about to forget about his responsibilities. Just... be distracted from them for a little while.

The frown that slid onto her face lasting all of three seconds before vanishing into another kiss. "That team of yours is very inconvenient. Think they could save the world when I'm busy so I don't have to sit alone and pout? Pouting usually winds up with trips to the bar with the Quebecois and you don't want to come bail me out when I get into a bar fight for fun, do you?" She couldn't actually remember the last time she had gotten into a fight in a bar. Drunk people were too stupid to actually bother hitting most of the time.

"Not at all," Warren replied with a chuckle. "I'm not entitled to practice law in New York just quite yet, at least wait to get yourself into trouble until after that. I'll have a talk to the bad guys, make sure everyone co-ordinates their schedules so we're busy at the same time. And then have plenty of free time to enjoy each other's company." Warren might sound like he's joking, but it was entirely possible he'd attempt to do exactly that.

"Deal, lover boy. You coordinate the bad guys and I...I will keep you pretty much right here." Running off to practice saving the world or whatever X-Men had to do was fine with Vanessa. She did theoretically need to go into the office at some point anyway. Theoretically. And she was used to the 'no, I can't, I have training' reason for not being able to steal her boyfriend from dating Lex. In the end she would find her way to Warren despite their schedules and she knew it.

"What an excellent plan of ours." Warren had little doubt they'd make it work somehow - they'd already managed to work out seeing each other around their schedules, even if recently it had just meant curling up in bed together after her security shifts. And his workaholic tendencies had definitely been taking a back seat recently, which left him with far more time to spend with Vanessa.

Which really, sounded perfect to him right now.