Flying Lessons

[Warren Worthington III]

((OOC: This picks up from Memories ))

Warren resists the urge to stunt-fly, tempting as it is... nobody else ever seems to enjoy it as much as he does, and he's trying to be educational here. It's just that introducing new people to the third dimension is a total thrill, and he doesn't get to do it very often.

Josh definitely seems to be getting into the experience, even if he does seem a little nervous... but he wasn't kidding about being no good at floating himself. He can feel Josh's telekinesis trying to grab hold, but they're still losing altitude just like an ordinary glider would.

It's OK, though... they've reached the edge of the Institute grounds, so they don't have to worry so much about being spotted if they lose altitude. Also, Warren has advantages an ordinary glider doesn't: he spots a thermal updraft a few hundred meters away, not far from the lake, and banks his wings a little to set course for it. That should give Josh a little more practice time before Warren has to take over.

> "Warren... how do you think about it? Maybe if I can get in the right mindset?"

He hums thoughtfully. In some ways it's like asking him how he thinks about walking or eating a sandwich, since by this point flying just comes naturally. But he does remember his early practice sessions, and how embarassing they were, and some of the tricks he picked up through experience. It's actually not a bad question.

He shifts his grip on Josh and leans forward until his mouth is just next to his passenger's ear... much easier to have a conversation in mid-flight this way, rather than shouting over the wind.

"Well, for one thing, you've got to stop thinking about the ground as your baseline. You aren't flying over the ground, you see? You're flying through the air. Completely different." He chuckles softly at the absurdity of that, but it was true. His driving instructor used to say "your car goes where your eyes go", and it was a little bit like that... thinking of the ground as "home" always made him fly too low. At first he'd tried to ignore the ground altogether, and that was disasterous, but the trick was to think of the air itself as a medium. Oh, which reminded him...

"Also, you're probably in the habit of thinking of it as 'empty', but it's not. It's not really my wings holding us up right now, you know... it's the air! It may seem like we're falling, but we're really just sinking... slowly... into a mattress of air half a mile high and bigger than the planet. Relax! Enjoy it!"

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

"Yeahhhh! Warren, this is amazing!" Josh yells over the wind. Even if he sucks at levitation - this is still great.

>"Also, you're probably in the habit of thinking of it as 'empty', but it's not [...] Relax! Enjoy it!"

Josh gives it a try. He visualizes the air, and him and Warren within it, trying to convince his brain that the air is a big pillow supporting the two of them in it. I'm not in the middle of empty. Climb through the air! And, miraculously, it works. He's able to teek them into level flight.

"Warren - I think I did it!" In his excitement he drops the TK shield and they get a spray of mist, but he quickly begins repelling the rain again.

Now that he understands the mental techniques behind it, Josh thinks, all he needs to do is practice. With the correct focus, he should be able to pull off some pretty crazy jumps. He smiles wickedly, thinking of suprising Bobby with this. Ice-Boy has always teased me about being stuck on the ground...

"Do you ever worry about falling out of the sky?" He asks curiously. "If I lose concentration, bad things tend to happen." Josh tries to not think about the time he was trying to levitate Bobby and Jubilee decided to "surprise" him with her fireworks.

[Warren Worthington III]

Warren cheers as he feels Josh's TK field strengthen around him, as they level out without his having to think about it. "You sure did! I'm just a glorified hang-glider at this point, you're doing all the work. Nice job!"

He banks a few times, circling around the lake and letting Josh get the feel of it.

> "Do you ever worry about falling out of the sky?"

He laughs. "About as much as I worry about falling over when I'm walking. I mean, sure, if I toke too much it can be a problem... or if I'm really distracted." He chuckles and continues "A while back I was giving this girl I met at a party, um, a joyride, you know? Nearly crashed both of us into a tree when, um, the moment came. That was a rude awakening." It's hard to tell whether the flush on his face is due to embarassment or windburn. "These days I either land on a rooftop or get way more altitude for that sort of thing."

"But yeah, it's hard work when you first start out. The flight, I mean. It'll get easier for you with practice." He thinks about that for a minute and adds "Or, well, probably. Usually I rely on the wings, which is pretty much like standing upright, or keeping your arms out at your shoulders for a long time... once the muscles get used to it you hardly have to think about it. Might not be the same for pure TK."

Warren wonders if they could modify Josh's uniform to include some kind of collapsible hang-glider or something like that, to let him rest on the wing, and makes a mental note to mention it to Dr. Mc-- to Henry.

"So, feeling up to a solo flight for a few feet? Don't worry about speed, don't worry about whether we get wet, just focus on keeping yourself up here in the air, just bouncing on this big fluffy air-filled mattress all by yourself... and don't worry about falling, either. You won't, but if you do just relax and let me do the work. From this high up it takes forever before we're anywhere near the ground, I'm guaranteed to catch you." He mentally crosses his fingers... there's always some risk. But Josh doesn't need to hear that, and it's still safer than walking through urban traffic would be.

He grins and adds "Think of it as a trust fall on steroids. You trust me?"

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh listens to Warren’s little in-flight… mishap. Wow. I wonder what that would be like while flying across a lake. Warren sure knows how to pick the right um… spots. Now I’m really glad that he’s not telepathic, he thinks while giving a chuckle at the story.

After playing around with the field for a few minutes, even being able to lift the two of them higher, Warren speaks up again, asking if he’s ready to attempt it on his own.

Crap! It’s one thing pushing around the two of them while Warren is gliding. Doing it on his own is something entirely different.

>"Think of it as a trust fall on steroids. You trust me?"

Josh cocks his head around so he’s inches from Warren’s face. “Alright. But if we die it’s totally your fault.” He closes his eyes and reaches out with his powers.

“… I’m ready.”

[Warren Worthington III]

He wasn't sure if Josh was really going to go for it... wasn't sure what he would have done if the positions were reversed.

Go for an unassisted stroll half a mile over the Xavier Institute? Even Logan's healing factor might not be able to handle the resulting splat, let alone Warren's, and Josh didn't have even that much going for him.

And for all that they were both students, they really hadn't gotten to know each other. He was asking for a lot of trust, and he wouldn't have blamed Josh one bit if he'd turned him down.

But he had to admit, it felt awfully good when he didn't.

> "Allright. But if we die it’s totally your fault."

For just a moment, Warren flinches, thinking about the girl who'd been shot because of him. But just for a second, because this really isn't the time or the place. A second later he grins in return, his eyes twinkling. "What do you mean, 'we', white man? Have you forgotten who wears the wings in this little flying lesson?"

With that he lets go of Josh, folds his wings tight against his back and drops, enjoying a couple of seconds of freefall before snapping them out again, ready to catch the boy if he falls.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh sees Warren laugh, then snark right back. And then he drops him.

Fuck! Somehow proper mental techniques for psionic levitation elude him as he free-falls towards the lake. Maybe I should have gotten a little more practice first… He reaches out with his powers, envisioning himself in a telekinetic bubble.

This effort brings him to an abrupt halt. <Yes!> He arches an eyebrow at Warren as he hovers high above the lake. “Not too shabby, hm?” This has to look pretty odd - a boy floating with an angel swooping around him - but at least he’s finally broken whatever mental block was preventing him from teeking himself.

He stretches his arms out to each side, soaking in the raiI won. At some point he must have dropped the TK shield. I wonder if I can… Josh reaches out with his powers, and he begins flipping across the sky, end over end.

“Ahaha! This is awesome!” He laughs as he draws closer to Warren, pinwheeling through the sky.

[Warren Worthington III]

Much as Warren had imagined, Josh glides just like a bird without wings once the TK stops holding him up... which means he'd better get his mental act together soon or Warren will have to rescue him from an fall into the lake even more dangerous than his ill-fated little skinny-dipping session with Riley.

He needn't have worried, though... Josh only plumments a few seconds before coming to a screeching halt. Warren cheers inarticulately and matches the other boy's head-over-feet flipping with a grin that looks like it's about to split his face open.

I could get used to this, he thinks during the synchronized pinwheeling. In a lot of ways flying is about freedom for him... no boundaries, no walls, no constraints, just wide empty space as far as he can sense. But it's also pretty damned lonely sometimes. It'd be nice to have a friend to share it with.

Once the initial flush dies down a little, Warren adds "OK, so you've got lift down. Let's see what you can do about speed, shall we?"

He matches trajectory with Josh until he's grabbed the other boy under his arms, feels their TK auras meshing together again... a weird feeling, but he's getting used to it. "Relax, let me drive for a sec."

Then he beats his wings a few times to regain altitude and locks his wings again. "So, right now we're gliding. It's like skiing downhill: gravity pulls us down, and we end up sliding forward on this mountain of air. The steeper the slope, the faster we go." He goes into a relatively shallow dive to illustrate the point. "See? Gravity does all the work."

"Or, alternatively..." he maneuvers them into a tailwind as he levels out. "You feel that? We're still gliding, but the air's moving too, so we move faster. Like skiiing down an escalator." He frowns. "OK, so that's a lousy analogy. Like sliding down an escalator railing, instead of a staircase railing." He shrugs. That isn't much better, but it's the best he can do.

"Or, third version..." he stays level but starts beating his wings hard, establishing a frantic rhythm that pushes him forward faster. After a few minutes of pumping his breathing is rough and ragged, and he'd probably be sweating if the wind weren't so strong. He catches his breath for a moment and continues. "This is pretty much like swimming... I push the air behind me, I move forward: Good Old Isaac's Third Law. It's a lot harder when I'm carrying freight, though... screws up my sleek aerodynamic lines!" He grins.

"And finally there's the strictly mutant version." He accelerates again, but without changing the rhythm of his wings. This time, instead of Warren pulling Josh forward, both their bodies are pushed along by a telekinetic field. "That's pure go-juice, I just think about moving faster and I do. It's tricky for me to do intentionally, but it's probably more like what you're used to, right?"

The acceleration ends and Warren returns to normal flight. "So, don't know what works best in your head... skiiing? escalator? swimming? go-juice? Something else? Truth is, flying really isn't like anything but flying, but if the metaphors help then Warren's House of Aviation Metaphors is officially open."

WHAM? Yeah, that'll build up the new guy's confidence. Yeesh. He chuckles to himself.

"Anyway... give it a shot. I'll worry about keeping us up and on track, you just concentrate on GO GO GO!"

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh listens intently as Warren demonstrates different forms of flight.

Of course, I don’t have wings - but it’s good to hear him out. He’d found that the more he used his telekinesis, the easier a given task became. His mind seemed able to develop mental shortcuts to make certain feats easier. Then again, the more you used a given muscle, the stronger it became. There’s a reason I levitate stuff around the Mansion for fun - it’s good exercise.

Warren was also rather hypnotizing. His personality seemed to be made just for the public. By no means was Warren giving him a spiel, but he could see how people were just drawn to him. In fact, after looking past the poster-boy exterior, he was sincere, charming and positively bubbly.

>"Anyway... give it a shot. I'll worry about keeping us up and on track, you just concentrate on GO GO GO!"

“Here we go. You know, you’re really not a bad teacher. I can’t imagine you’ve taught anyone else how to fly, though.” He cranes his neck around to look at Warren.

Josh reaches out and forms a telekinetic bubble around him and Warren, and focuses as much energy as possible into forward momentum. If anything, better power usage was one reason he’d always paid attention during the Professor’s Physics course.

They accelerate quickly, soaring high over the lake. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’d never thought too much of it, really. There was never anyone to teach me. I know Storm manipulates wind currents - that’s pretty different, so she’d never been able to give me any pointers.” He looks at Warren again. “Thanks for the lesson.”

[Warren Worthington III]

The sensation is strange to Warren... he's essentially a passenger now, being carried along by Josh's TK field. So this is what it feels like! "Wahooooo!"

At first his wings shift position instinctively, sliding around the stream of air as it gushes past them, lowering air resistance and translating Josh's powerful forward thrust into height and direction as he makes sure they stay over relatively safe territory.

After a few moments they're going faster than Warren ever has on his own. Wow... once this kid gets the idea, he moves FAST! He pulls his wings in to reduce air resistance, using just the tips to steer with, like a falcon. A few moments later the windshear is too much even for that, and he wraps his wings around both of them to minimize their airborn cross-section and goes along for the ride, a bullet of flesh travelling... well, actually he has no idea how fast they're travelling.

> "you’re really not a bad teacher. I can’t
> imagine you’ve taught anyone else how to fly, though."

Warren chuckles. One advantage of this style of travelling is that conversation is much, much easier. "Nope, you're my first! Riley and Storm were both already pretty experienced at the airborne thing when I got here. But you're a natural... just needed a little nudge in the right direction, is all.."

He feels the wind stinging the outside of his wings, but ignores it at first... he's having too much fun to stop just because of some friction burns. But he's really not used to moving at these speeds, and eventually it gets to be too much. "Um... so this would be a good time to slow down."

As their airspeed drops to a safe speed, he unwraps his wings to slow them down further, trying not to show how much they sting as the rain hits them. It's just windburn... it'll heal.

He also notices, as if for the first time, that somewhere along the line they'd both gotten soaking wet. "Heh. Forgot about the whole 'staying dry' part of the plan... whoops! Anyway... feeling up to handling the landing?" He tries not to betray any lack of confidence with that question.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Being able to levitate himself and Warren across the lake at such speeds is amazing - Josh can barely believe he’s learned as much as he did in a single day. Warren wraps his wings around the two of them and they flutter through the sky together. His wings look so soft. I wonder if all this rain and wind are rough on them?

Warren interrupts:

>"Um... so this would be a good time to slow down."

“Whoops. Got a little distracted.” He lowers them to a safer speed as Warren asks about a landing.

“I think I can do it. Ready?” He smiles over his shoulder at Warren. Erp. I haven’t thought too much about the landing part. Warren seemed to make it look so easy when I’ve seen him around the Institute.

The two of them soar through the sky together. As they near the ground, he disengages from Warren to let him hop off. Everything is going perfect.

The only thing Josh didn’t think of, though, is that at this point the ground is sopping wet. The Institute’s lawn is a a glorified mud pit. As he hits the ground, he feels himself start sliding.

Crap! He catches himself in an awkward half-telekinetic grip, but it doesn’t work very well in his panic. He flips himself upside down and smacks into Warren, knocking them both down. Josh lands on top, attempting to straddle the other boy to avoid dropping dead weight onto his chest.


And he’s eye to eye with Warren, inches from his face. “Oops. Better work on that next time.”

[Warren Worthington III]

Warren nods encouragingly as Josh decides to handle the landing. This is the really dangerous part, but he's going to have to manage it sooner or later if he's going to practice on his own, and there's no real point to putting it off.

He feels weirdly like a mother bird shoving a fledgling out of her nest when Josh disengages on approach. Well, not like a mother bird at all, really... Warren has spent a lot of time watching birds, and he's pretty convinced that they aren't at all sentimental about pushing the fledglings out. It's just what they do. The whole parental-anxiety thing is pure projection.

And, he realizes, useless projection at that. If he'd been less emotional about it he'd have disengaged smoothly, instead of hovering about anxiously to watch the landing. In which case he'd have been out of range when Josh fouled his landing in the mud (which, he realizes, he should have mentioned, except he'd forgotten about his first rain-landing), instead of ending up with both of them tangled in the fall.

Well... there's a silver lining, at least. Warren has a lot of experience at this, after all, and manages to control the fall so he comes in on his back, with most of the impact distributed over several square meters of wing surface. Which hurts like a sonofabitch, given how abraded it is, but at least it doesn't have any bones to break. And Josh is smart enough not to land right on Warren's oh-so-fragile sternum as they slide in to a landing, so ultimately nothing is too damaged but their pride.

> "Oops. Better work on that next time."

Warren can't help but laugh. Even with his hair mussed and his face splattered with mud, Josh has the same ecstatic expression Warren remembers so clearly from his own first time in the air. He reaches up and tousles Josh's hair roughly, not caring that he's rubbing more mud into it.

"Yeah... that'd be good. But they do say any landing you can walk away from is a good one. So congratulations, Junior Birdman! You just completed your first solo flight." He laughs again, from sheer exhileration... sure, flying was always a high, but he'd never imagined how much more fun it could be with company!

"If there were a certificate, I'd give you one, but I'm afraid the Worthington Flight Academy is strictly a fly-by-night operation." He smirks at his own pun and adds "In the meantime, though, I'd better go rinse this mud off before it dries... you have no idea how much my wings are going to itch tomorrow otherwise."

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

>"Yeah... that'd be good. But they do say any landing you can walk away from is a good one. So congratulations, Junior Birdman! You just completed your first solo flight."

Josh laughs out loud, feeling wild from the flight and landing. He lifts a muddy finger and scrawls a “W” on Warren’s forehead, then leaves a handprint on the other boy’s chest. “Thanks to you, anyway. If I hadn’t walked into Starbucks I’d still be sucking turf every time I tried to levitate, let alone actually fly.” He looks into Warren’s eyes, then suddenly realizes he’s still on top of him.

“Ah… sorry about that. I hope I didn’t land on you too hard.” He clambers up and rolls off.

>"In the meantime, though, I'd better go rinse this mud off before it dries... you have no idea how much my wings are going to itch tomorrow otherwise."

“I should probably rinse myself off, as well. Can’t imagine letting this stuff dry in my hair would be too good of an idea.” He sits up, hands splayed out behind him. “I’m pretty sure you have a room down the hall from me and Bobby, right? On the second floor? We can go get cleaned up in the bathroom there. It’s pretty big.” He leaves out the fact that if they track mud up two flights of stairs and down the wing the housekeeper will probably have their ass.

“Shall we?” He gets up off the ground and stretches a muddy hand out to Warren to help him off the ground.

[Warren Worthington III]

> "If I hadn’t walked into Starbucks I’d still be sucking turf every time I tried to levitate, let alone actually fly"

Warren laughs and points to the mud. "Well, you didn't exactly avoid the turf-sucking this time, either, but I know what you mean... you never know what you're capable of until you try, huh?" Then he laughs a little more grimly, remembering where he first heard that line. "My dad used to say that, back when I was a kid. Of course, I don't suppose he had unassisted flying in mind."

The adrenalin is draining away, as it always does, and he can feel the depression trying to move into its familiar place... but somehow Josh's wild enthusiasm is staving it off. Which is nice, actually. He could get used to this.

> "I hope I didn’t land on you too hard."

"Nope, not too hard at all. At least, it didn't break anything... and with my bone structure, believe me that's all I can plausibly ask for." Warren chuckles as he takes Josh's hand and yanks himself up out of the mud, then does a quick inventory and nods. "Yeah, it's all good. Just some windburn and some sore wing-muscles, it'll be fine by tomorrow if I treat it now."

He looks down at himself and at Josh. The rain is still pouring, washing the worst of the mud off both of them, but they're still pretty messy.

> you have a room down the hall from me and Bobby, right?
> On the second floor? We can go get cleaned up in the
> bathroom there. It’s pretty big.

"Mm-hm, just down the hall from you guys. Room to myself, since the wings don't really fit on a twin mattress. Besides, there have to be some compensations, right? But yeah, the showers are wide enough for me to mostly spread out, which comes in handy."

At least, when I'm the only one in them, he doesn't add, remembering the time he nearly smacked Drake in the head while trying getting some grit out of his pinfeathers. That was embarassing. He's gotten better at control since then, though, and it was absurd to make Josh wait until he'd finished cleaning his wings out... it was going to take forever. There was a reason he'd wanted to wait until it had stopped raining before returning to the Mansion... but in retrospect he's glad he didn't.

"We're going to make a mess out of the hallway at this rate, though..." he starts to say, then something occurs to him. "...unless you can unlatch the window from the outside?"

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

“Oh, yeah. The latches are pretty simple to operate from a distance. Usually that’s not the issue when we’re sneaking out, though - which we tend to do a lot more than the other way around.” He flicks his soaked hair out of his eyes with an impish smile, and wanders over to the back of the Institute where the men’s bathroom window is.

With barely an effort he gets it unlocked ,and pushes the window pane upward psionically. “It’s going to be a lot easier to sneak out at night now that I can TK myself down. I used to lift whoever down, and then they’d have to spot me climbing. Once, the drainpipe broke away from the side of the building and Bobby made a snowbank for me to fall into… that was in July. We flooded one of Storm’s flowerbeds when it all melted. It was monsoon season for a week.”

He looks up at the window, then at Warren, and then lifts his hands in Warr's direction. “You were saying your wing-muscles were already pretty sore. Let me lift you up there.” He enfolds Warren in a TK field as if it were a warm blanket.

[Warren Worthington III]

Warren laughs at the flowerbed story. "That must have been before I got here. I can imagine, though... she does seem to like her plants."

> "Let me lift you up there."

Warren grins sardonically as the TK-field enfolds him. "You know, just because I'm teaching you my moves doesn't mean you can steal them. Am I going to regret bringing you to the Linkin Park rave, now that you can muscle in on my action?" The twinkle in his eyes makes it clear that he's not serious, and then he winks. "Of course, I bet a dextrous telekinetic has plenty of moves of his own, huh?"

Then his face softens, and the grin becomes more of a genuine smile as he gets lifted off the ground. The truth is, he could get used to this, and his wings really are sore.

((OOC: moving thread to the bathroom... whee, it's the amazing moving thread!))