Like the first bird...

[Warren Worthington III]

(( A San Francisco hotel room, the morning after the Worthington Family Reunion. Intimations of intimacies but nothing explicit. ))

It takes Warren a minute to figure out where he is when he wakes up.

Identifying his surroundings as a hotel room takes no effort at all; he doesn’t even have to open his eyes. It’s a familiar setting for him, given the amount of traveling he does. Mostly it’s the sounds: the ice-machine down the hall, the complex plumbing demands of a hundred simultaneous guests, the low droning of dozens of television sets.

(When he’d first started traveling a lot, the hardest thing to get used to had been the vacationing couples whose privacy his enhanced hearing inevitably invaded. Eventually he’d learned to tune out the sounds of people, but somehow he’s never managed to do the same with machines.)

But, although he’s woken up in hotel rooms all over the world, this time is disorientingly different, as he’s also waking up to the feel of Josh’s back draped along the inner surface of one of his wings, to the smell of Josh in his nostrils and the warmth of him curled against Warren’s side and the slow comfortable lub-dubbing of his sleeping heart. All of which says “you’re home” on levels far more fundamental than the sounds of hotel infrastructure, and it takes him a moment to reconcile the two.

Not more than a moment, though. Once he’s fully awake he remembers everything… after that absurdly banal scene with his parents Warren had been an emotional basket case for a while; Josh had taken charge, renting the hotel room and talking him through everything, and sometime around 2 or 3 AM the intimate conversation had slowly metamorphosed into intimacies of quite another kind, at once tender and urgent. He shivers slightly with the memory.

Sadly, one thing last night didn’t involve was dinner, and Warren is famished. His first thought is to call room service and have them send up page 2, but he stops before his hand has quite found the phone… he’s not paying for the room this time, he remembers, and he’s reluctant to put room service surcharges on the bill. Not that Josh would complain, but it doesn’t feel quite right.

Josh is still asleep, his back pressed up inside the curve of Warren’s wing and his right leg curled around the inside of Warren’s left, and for a long time Warren lies there and contemplates the best way to wake him, and the fastest way to get some breakfast, and how sadly disjoint those two sets are. To his own surprise, hunger proves the more compelling drive for the moment, and he grins at himself. So much for that playboy image… I must be getting old!

On the other hand, if he can get food before Josh wakes up they might not be so disjoint after all. Slipping out of bed without waking Josh is a long-mastered skill, made easy by a combination of his frictionless force-field and the patience to wait, tuned to the sleeping rhythms of Josh’s mind, for a moment of especially deep slumber. He slips last night’s clothes back on silently, unwilling to wear anything clean until he’s had a chance to wash off the various residues of last night’s exertions, and leaves a quick note on hotel stationary (“Go back to sleep… I’ll be back soon with food. – W”) before stepping quietly out into the hall.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Even in sleep, Josh’s mind has been trained to shield itself against the casual thoughts of others. So, despite the fact that the hotel is waking up around him, Josh sleeps on, oblivious to his surroundings. Eventually, a rumbling feeling in his stomach brings him around, and he sits up in bed.

Where am I? Josh rubs at face. After his eyes finally focus, his location is obvious - a hotel. He shivers involuntarily, and glances down. He’s totally naked, and the air conditioner is turned way down. Absently, he wraps the bedsheet around his body. We’re in California!

Images from the night before flash through his brain, and Josh frowns. He couldn’t quite believe everything that had happened, even after talking about it the night before. Warren had rolled with the punches at his parent’s house, but after they’d arrived in the hotel room it had been a different story. No wonder… I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like to go through that.

Which wasn’t quite true. Through their shared mental bond, he’d experienced Warren’s subsequent doubt and self-deprecation nearly firsthand. Their link was wonderful for sharing positive emotions, for combat efficiency, for… he colors slightly. For all around intimacy, really. But it enhanced everything, including negative emotions. What made the difference with Warren, he supposed, was that he wanted to share it all, good and bad.

The two of them had laid on the hotel bed in each others’ arms for hours, just talking. Warren had done a lot of it, with Josh content to listen and let him lay things out one by one. Josh hoped that Warren was feeling better about all of it after a night’s rest. Where is he, anyway?

A note on the table catches his eye. Josh extends a hand, and it glides across the room into his fingers. He reads it quickly. Go back to sleep… hm. It was tempting, but he kind of wanted to go and take a look at the city. And he was hungry. Hopefully Warren would be back soon with something to eat.

Josh crosses the hotel room and flips on the bathroom light. It was time for a shower. It was hard for him think straight without one. After turning on the water, he’s sure to leave the door to the bedroom open an inch or so, in vague hopes of hearing when Warren returns. I’m sure he’ll hear me long before I hear him… Josh closes his eyes and lets the water run through his hair and down his face.

[Warren Worthington III]

Fortunately, the hotel’s free-breakfast buffet lets Warren take food with him, so it doesn’t take very long for him to return to their room with a plate piled high with eggs and bacon, another boasting a stack of blueberry pancakes and toast, two glasses of orange juice, and a small basket of butter, jam, and syrup. It does earn him some strange looks in the elevator, since he’s not so much carrying it all as he is balancing it, with significant assistance from his telekinetic talent. Then again, he’s no stranger to strange looks in elevators.

He has to put everything down in the hallway in order to fumble his key into the door, and decides to ferry it in the rest of the way in multiple trips. Josh has already woken up, and Warren is tempted to join him in the shower… but really, it’s too small for both of them to actually shower, and having already opted for food over the often-more-palatable alternatives once this morning, it seems silly to change his mind now let it all get cold.

So he settles for the mental equivalent of a lecherous grin, and Back! And you’d better come out of there soon or I’ll eat this all myself and feed you on crusts! He kicks off his shoes and lies back on the bed with a crunchy piece of bacon, and carefully composes his mind into what he thinks of as the “Josh-broadcast” mode before consuming it in several small bites, carefully savoring it.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

(slight content warning for sexual innuendo and that sort of thing.)


> Back! And you’d better come out of there soon or I’ll eat this all myself and feed you on crusts!

Josh jumps slightly, surprised at the mental voice. He'd been zoning out, and predictably, Warren had caught him doing it. It didn't seem like something that should happen to telepaths. On the other hand, surprises are what make life worth living. If I knew everything that was ever going to happen between the two of us, it would definitely make for a boring relationship.

He catches Warren's mental state, as well as the bacon business. His stomach grumbles sympathetically. Ugh. You and my stomach win... Finished with his shower, Josh switches off the water and towels himself off. Throughout the minute or so it takes him to dry his body off, the pointed pleasure Warren was taking in his breakfast continued to make his stomach whine. Ooh, two can play at this game.

Josh exits the bathroom, toweling off his hair. He's purposely wearing nothing at all. "Good morning, Warren." He blinks innocently and drops the towel on the ground, climbing onto the bed and picking up a piece of bacon.

He takes a bite. "Thanks for finding something to eat, hon. I'm starving. It all looks good, doesn't it?" Josh bats his eyes over the rim of his orange juice.

[Warren Worthington III]

(( yeah, what he said ))

> " Good morning, Warren."

Warren manages to finish swallowing his drink of orange juice without spilling it all over his shirt as damp!naked!Josh climbs back onto the bed, but doesn’t quite manage to articulate his return “Good morning”… in fact, he doesn’t get much further than "Guh." He even manages to put the glass down on a stable surface, despite the fog that Josh is making of his mind – and that’s without using telepathy.

> " It all looks good, doesn't it?"

"Good enough to eat," he growls back, his eyes fixed on Josh as he pours imitation maple syrup on a pancake and the balance of power among hungers shifts in his blood. "So – and I’m only asking for verification purposes, you understand – you did want to get out of the hotel and do some sightseeing some time today, right?" He spreads some butter on the pancake and rolls it up, letting some of the melting butter drip onto his tongue before taking a bite off of it. (He briefly considers trying to swallow the whole thing at once, but decides that’s more likely to be asphyxiating than seductive.)

"Because if you don’t put on some clothes before I come up with more creative uses for pancake syrup, I foresee some implementation delays for that plan."

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

(content warning)


Josh leans back against the pillows piled near the headboard, trying to keep a straight face. He pulls his feet towards himself and takes a stab at the plate of eggs sitting on the bed. Mmm. Warren had added salt and pepper, just the way he liked them.

> "Good enough to eat,"

Color spreads slightly across Josh’s face, but he plays it off. It still amazed him on a daily basis that he could seen as so desirable by Warren. I’m just… me. Granted, he himself was completely head over heels for Warren - but it was easier to find that normal from his own perspective. Sometimes he felt like he could spend his entire life with Warren and not even scratch the surface of things he wanted to do and see with the other boy.

> "Because if you don’t put on some clothes before I come up with more creative uses for pancake syrup, I foresee some implementation delays for that plan."

The serious effort Warren was putting into reforming a pancake into a phallic symbol was simply too much. The façade of aloof nudity he was maintaining breaks down into a fit of laughter. He sets his fork down on the bedstand and scoots closer to Warren, still giggling.

Josh crawls into Warren’s lap, straddling him, and kisses him hard on the lips, taking his head gently under the chin with a hand. “I’ll put some pants on in a second. I really do want to go be a tourist. But I couldn’t help it… you’re looking awfully sexy this morning.” He can feel himself getting hard, despite his intention for them to poke around the city. “And you had a bit of syrup here.” He carefully darts his tongue across Warren’s upper lip.

A pair of boxers fly across the room and land on Warren’s head. “Oops. You’re messing up my aim.”

[Warren Worthington III]

(( OOC: …and still more schmoop. They will get out of the room before things get too heavy, but Jorren-schmoop is just too darned much fun to write… ))

> " I’ll put some pants on in a second. I really do want to go be a tourist. But I couldn’t help it… you’re looking awfully sexy this morning. "

"Hey, don’t feel obliged on my account… I’ve seen the city before. " Warren returns the kiss with interest, arms and wings wrapping around Josh with both eager enthusiasm and the familiarity of long habit, then angles his head slightly to run his tongue along the side of Josh’s neck, enjoying the thin layer of moistness that remains from the shower and the combined smells of soap and Josh. "Granted, I’ve seen you naked before too, but you’ve got more to offer," he adds with a playful squeeze.

"On the other hand," he murmurs as he picks up another piece of bacon, "we wouldn’t want breakfast to get cold." He offers Josh the slice as he continues licking stray water-droplets off his neck and shoulders. "And you’re still (cough) hungry, right?"

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

(content warning)

Josh shivers slightly at the light touch of Warren’s tongue on his neck. Perhaps it’s a combination of excitement and actual temperature, though, since the feeling doesn’t quite go away. I am completely naked. Which is unfair. How come he’s still got all his clothes on? Easy to fix, anyway. Josh quickly unbuttons the front of Warren’s shirt and slowly traces a hand down the front of his chest.

> "Granted, I’ve seen you naked before too, but you’ve got more to offer,"

“I dunno. What about Chinatown? And The Golden Gate Bridge? And Rice A Roni?” At this point, Josh realizes that he’s mostly listing things off the top of his head. He kisses Warren again, letting his hand drop down towards Warren's waistband.

> "we wouldn’t want breakfast to get cold."

“I suppose not.” He takes a bite of the proffered bacon, and then glances over at the toast. The knife dips into the container of jam and begins covering it in spread. Finally, the slice of toast tumbles through the air and hovers next to Warren’s mouth. Josh laughs. “Want some toast?”

After a few minutes of kissing and flying bits of breakfast, their laughter finally dies down. Josh rests his forehead against Warren’s, staring into blue eyes. “I think I could do this with you forever.” He closes his eyes, just enjoying the silence. After a few seconds, Josh reluctantly slides out of Warren’s lap and grabs the pair of boxers off the bed. His jeans slide up onto the bed from the ground. “I would love to be a bum all morning, but I don’t get to see the West Coast much.” He begins pulling the boxers on.

Josh raises an eyebrow and hooks a thumb in the direction of the bathroom. “Maybe you should get cleaned up? I can start packing our stuff back up.”

[Warren Worthington III]

(( OOC: …OK, this is the last of the schmoop, for those of you who had your eyes averted… for now, anyway))

> " I dunno. What about Chinatown? And the Golden Gate Bridge? And Rice A Roni?"

Keeping casual conversation going while Josh is doing his best to be distracting is a challenge, but it’s become a habitual game of theirs. "Rice-a-Roni? You’re just… making stuff up now. But I do hear they… mmm… finally renovated the Golden Gate… which is good, because ‘San Francisco/Marin County Temporary Suspension Bypass’ doesn’t have (yipe!) nearly the same tourist draw…"

That game is quickly replaced by the mutual feeding of breakfast, which becomes an utterly absorbing multi-tasking operation involving alternating kisses with catching food in mid-flight while their hands are busy distracting each other. Warren’s TK, while not nearly as advanced as Josh’s, is still capable of manipulating morsels of food… at least, it is when he’s concentrating on it, which (as usual in this context) means no small amount of food ends up dropped and initiating its own, sometimes far more interesting, little game. Eventually Warren gives up on controlling the TK altogether and starts using his hands to serve food again, taking full advantage of the extra limbs attached to his shoulder-blades to keep up his end of the “distraction” game. By the time the plates are empty he’s more than ready to forget about tourism.

> " I think I could do this with you forever."

"We’d need to order more breakfast," Warren jokes without thinking, and is abruptly aware of his own nervousness, Josh’s disappointment, his own embarrassed apology, and that the moment is over… made even clearer as Josh starts getting dressed. It all happens in a moment, and an outside observer would never notice, but it hangs between them nonetheless.

> " I would love to be a bum all morning, but I don’t get to see the West Coast much. Maybe you should get cleaned up?"

Warren nods, sparing a moment to watch Josh get dressed – it never gets old, the way his clothes just twine themselves around him. It’s like something out of a Disney movie, if Disney movies were in the habit of starring incredibly attractive naked teenaged boys. "Right," he adds, peeling off last night’s clothes and heading for the bathroom. "Bye-bye Stinky Warren, hello Clean Warren."

He’s careful to keep his wings out of the spray as he showers; he hasn’t brought any of his wing-grooming supplies with him, and besides they have a way of making a huge mess in small shower stalls. But mostly he’s thinking about their little awkward moment on the bed.

It wasn’t the first time; in fact it’s becoming an uncomfortable habit. More and more often, Josh is talking about “forever” like he means it, and Warren flinches away almost every time. Which makes no sense: he doesn’t want their relationship to end, so why does he get so anxious at the suggestion that it might not? It seems absurd, on the face of it; clearly there’s something else going on, some more general fear of commitment. He’s just not sure what to do about it.

Ordinarily he’d have taken a deep breath long before now and shared his thoughts with Josh, tried to make sense of it all together… but he doesn’t trust his own thoughts right now. What if whatever it is hurts Josh, or chases him off or something? It’s become something they don’t talk about, which for them is a remarkable thing… and not in a good way.

He hasn’t come to any new conclusions by the time his shower is over, which isn’t really surprising, and it’s disquietingly easy to put the problem aside as he towels himself off, and concentrate on planning his debut as San Francisco tour guide. One thing’s for damned sure; we are not going to go see Alcatraz!

When he re-enters the room he notes that Josh, true to his word, has packed up everything except a change of clothes for him. "There, " he says with a grin as he starts dressing, "squeaky clean and ready to face the day."

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

While Warren is in the shower, Josh finishes packing all their gear. With telekinesis, the job is simple. Their hotel room is a chaotic storm of objects for a few minutes as he sorts their things into their respective cases. After all the work is done, he tosses their room keys on the nightstand and unlocks the balcony door, stepping out into the morning sun.

The view dazzles him, as it did the night before. The coast is so beautiful… still, I’ve somehow gotten used to snow in the last four years. Josh leans somewhat broodingly over the railing, staring into the bay.

Things should be perfect. But they weren’t, really.

Much of that probably had to do with Warren’s falling out with his parents from the night before. I really don’t envy you that one. Warren had taken it much better than he himself would, but Josh suspected they hadn’t heard the last from Mr. Worthington.

But a small portion of the unease he was feeling wasn’t quite that. Josh closes his eyes. Exchanges like the one a few moments ago were becoming more frequent. It was mostly a reassurance thing. I know he loves me, he knows I love him. I just can’t help it, really. He did feel like they could spend forever together and not even scratch the surface of what they wanted to accomplish. Warren definitely had no problems showing his love in a physical way, or telling him outright. But any talk of their future together clammed Warren up. So they avoided the topic. Somehow. We both know it’s there… we just ignore it. Probably not the most mentally healthy way to go about it, but Josh was too worried to push him on it. He wasn’t even really sure where the fear came from.

It really wasn’t worth making a fuss. But it was slightly disappointing.

> "squeaky clean and ready to face the day."

He hears Warren’s voice back in the room. Grinning, Josh comes back in, closing the sliding door. He makes sure to take a good long look at Warren while he’s dressing, making sure the other notices his gaze. “Well, where to first, Mr. Tour Guide? We can probably check our bags at the front desk while we’re out.” After Warren finishes his dressing, Josh slips his right hand into Warren’s left, and opens the hallway door.

[Warren Worthington III]

> "Well, where to first, Mr. Tour Guide? We can probably check our bags at the front desk while we’re out."

"Hm… where to start? I mean, besides the famous Rice-a-Roni building, that’s a given…" He grins teasingly as he gets dressed, doing his best to duplicate Josh’s clothes-dress-themselves trick, but eventually giving up on it and pulling his clothes on the old-fashioned way.

"There’s a crepes place in the Mission, Ti Couz… not fancy, but definitely worth trying while you’re in the city… and Ghirardelli Square’s a pretty common touristy thing, and we can pick up some chocolate for folks back home… Golden Gate Park has some great views, and we could visit the Arboretum there, or the aquarium – though I guess you’re probably sick of aquariums by now, huh, with your mom being in the business – and I think the Bridge is back up and in business now. And the Exploratorium’s right there too… sounds hokey, I know, but it’s actually pretty cool, though it’ll be swamped with kids being ‘interactive’."

He smiles as Josh takes his hand, enjoying the way the door just opens for them, and keeps thinking about their destination as they walk towards the elevators. "Plus just walking around the city can be pretty cool… San Francisco has a pretty distinctive style, it doesn’t look like much of anywhere else, either the buildings or the people. So really it depends on what you want to do… there’s a lot more than we can fit in a day. And I’ve seen it all before, so really I’m happy anywhere, long as I’m with you."

Which sounds pretty hokey, itself, but it’s true. The city is old news to him; he lived there for most of his life and left it without looking back. But exploring it with Josh, especially when he’s seeing it for the first time, makes everything new and different and exciting.

[Warren Worthington III]

(( OOC: Fastforwarding to around sunset ))

Warren hasn’t done this much walking in one day since… well, possibly ever. He’s used to ending a long day with an ache in his back and his wings, not his legs and feet. Well, at least I’m not getting blisters, he thinks idly; he’s not wearing the best shoes for a long walk but his frictionless aura has kept his feet relatively uninjured.

Still, it’s a relief to just sit for a while. After exploring the Mission and the Castro and several museums and Ghirardelli Square and half a dozen other things ranging from the overwhelmingly touristy to the decidedly not, he and Josh have ended up in Golden Gate Park, sprawled on the sand. His pants are rolled up to just under his knees and his shoes are kicked off nearby, and he’s enjoying the feeling of the setting sun on his face and the icy Pacific lapping around his bare ankles and Josh’s head resting in his lap.

He’s vaguely aware of a few other people enjoying the beach behind them… couples walking, some with kids or dogs or both. He’s drawing a fair amount of attention, as he always does, but nobody has hassled them thus far and he’s grateful for it. So he’s a little anxious when a couple of other beachwalkers approach him, but decides to not notice them and keep facing out over the Bay.

“Um… excuse me?” The voice is gentle and raspy, and Warren looks over his shoulder to see a bald man, apparently in his sixties or so, tentatively trying to get his attention while another man, slightly older with a grey beard, looks vaguely embarrassed behind him. “You’re that Angel fella, aren’t you? Warren Worthington?” Warren nods and gives a small smile, polite without being inviting. "Yes, I am… I’m sorry, I don’t think I recall your name…?"

“Oh, no, no, we’ve never met… and I’m sorry to interrupt you an’ your boyfriend, you enjoyin’ the beach an’ all so much… it’s just I wanted to thank you, is all.” Warren’s puzzlement must show on his face, because the man hastily explains. “Well, y’see, me and Artie here are gonna celebrate our fiftieth anniversary, kinda, next Tuesday, an’ Artie’s little brother’s gonna be there, which is really something on account of they haven’t talked to Artie since he was a pup.”

There’s a longish pause, during which it becomes clear to Warren that the man thinks he’s explained. "Well… happy anniversary! And I’m glad your family is reconciling… I guess it’s never too late for that." Which gets him thinking about his own family, and whether they’ll ever do the same thing, which is more than a little upsetting, and his voice goes just a little sharp. "But… I still don’t see what that has to do with me?"

The man looks puzzled, himself, and Artie laughs and shakes his head, approaching. “Harry, I keep telling you, you can’t tell a story to save your life anymore. Don’t mind him, he’s always like that. What he forgot t’mention is that Andy – that’s my brother, Andy – he’s coming on account of his son Petey, my nephew, who I ain’t never even met, who didn’t know I was his uncle… so Petey decided to come, ‘cuz he didn’t approve of his Dad not never talkin’ to his big brother, never mind what he do or don’t approve of, you know? An’ that was ‘cuz Andy was talkin’ to his granddaughter – Petey’s girl Marlene – after seein’ you an’ your partner on the TV, that interview you an’ the other folks did a few months back, remember? Turns out Marlene’s a huge fan of yours, has the little action figures an’ everything – you, too,” he adds to Josh. “Least I think that’s spozed to be you. So, well, one thing led to another an’ that’s how Petey found out why Andy don’t talk to me, an’ did he get an earful, lemme tell you! So, anyway, that’s why, and it’s kinda on account of you, both of you, so, well, thanks.”

Warren just about gives up on making sense of this rambling story, instead smiling amiably and nodding. "You’re welcome..." What? Is Artie a mutant? He doesn’t look like one, but that’s no indication. Besides, why would – oh! He finally gets it, only a few seconds late – it’s not that he and Josh are mutants, it’s that they’re a couple. Funny. I spend so much time being a mutant-rights spokesman I keep forgetting there’s other stuff going on… "… but it sounds like, um, Petey and Marlene deserve most of the credit here."

“Well, I spoze they do at that,” chimes in Harry. “Anyway, we’ve taken enough of your time, we just saw you and wanted to say thanks.” After a few more amiable exchanges the couple is walking off, arguing affectionately about exactly who had said what to who when, and Warren watches them go bemusedly, a little misty-eyed for reasons he doesn’t entirely understand.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh closes his eyes, quietly enjoying the combination of the setting sun, the sound of the tide washing in and out, and Warren’s presence. And being able to sit! They’d trekked all over San Francisco during the day. Chinatown might have been his favorite… but Golden Gate Park was coming mighty close. He lets out a relaxed sigh.

Relaxed as he is, the approaching minds zeroing in on their location catch his attention, even before their footsteps do. That’s a first. I guess I really just need to clear my mind of distraction. Josh pulls himself into a sitting position, reluctantly levering his head out of its comfortable position in Warren’s lap.

He’s slightly concerned, as random people approaching them on the street tended to turn out badly. Examples… Paris, New York… please let’s not add San Francisco onto the list. However, as the elderly man gets his story out, a bemused smile works its way onto his face. It’s like we’re well-known, or something. A voice seems to cut in. Hey dork, you’ve got an action figure. You are. Josh shakes his head minutely. It was an odd feeling - and he wasn’t sure he liked it. Warren definitely wasn’t a fan of his fame, in any case.

As the tale unfolds, it becomes clear what it’s all about. You know, if we’re able to act as some kind of role model, as responsible, out public figures… it’s kinda our duty. Isn’t it? For mutants and LGBT kids. I never would have thought I’d inspire people with my sexual orientation.

The two older men move on, down the beach, but not before Josh offers to send the Series II action figures along to Marlene - “Seriously, we have boxes of them lying around. I’m sure we’ll get a whole crate of the new ones, too. Jake will have more than enough to build an X-Men army.” - and thanks the men for the talk.

“It’s really nice to hear from people who don’t disapprove of us in one way or another. Being gay and a mutant means there are a lot of people you offend by just existing. I had to deflect broken bottles in New York the last time we were there…” Granted, New York was an exception, and one they hadn’t quite figured out. But the Worthingtons certainly hadn’t been very encouraging. “Anyway, thanks for stopping by.”

After they’re some ways down the beach, Josh slowly pushes Warren into a reclined position, and rests his head on the other’s chest. “Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting. People surprise me sometimes.”

“This is perfect. I don’t miss the heat in Florida, but I do miss the sound of the waves crashing in.” Josh closes his eyes again. “Thank you.” He gives Warren a quick kiss on the cheek, and then settles back in to listen to the sounds of the water.

[Warren Worthington III]

Series II? Warren shakes his head, bemused. He’d been startled by the action figures in the first place; the fact that there’s a second run of them – and apparently a third on its way? – is downright bewildering. Well, it helps pay the bills, I guess.

> "Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting. People surprise me sometimes."

Warren nods slowly, thoughtfully. "Yeah… I know what you mean. I mean, I get a lot of hate mail and sob-story mail and everything in between, you know how that is, but every once in a while I get a letter like that and it makes the whole mess seem worthwhile." He laughs, still looking at the couple’s receding back. "Well, OK, not like that exactly… usually it’s about the mutant thing rather than the gay thing… but still, you know, appreciative. It reminds me that there’s some point to staying visible." He frowns, wondering how he’s going to keep doing that now that he’s lost his funding, but puts the thought aside for now.

"And, also…" he trails off, not quite sure what it is he wants to say. His thoughts are a whirling mess… really, they have been all day, but that couple has gotten them more so, for reasons he really doesn’t fully understand. He almost lets the thread drop, but Josh looks up at him questioningly, and after a long silence he keeps going "Well… forty years! And nephews, and children, and grandchildren, and…" he waves a hand vaguely "…everything. That…" he hesitates again, not sure he wants to finish the sentence, but forcing himself to anyway, "...that, wouldn’t be so bad, really. "

He can’t quite bring himself to look directly at Josh, whose incredulous gaze he can imagine in his own mind. "Yes, I know, I know, who replaced Warren with this alien, right? After all the squirming and dodging and tapdancing I do whenever you talk about plans more than six months in the future. But, well… what’s the line from Much Ado? ‘When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I would live until I was married! The world must be peopled!’" He blushes a little at that and adds "Or, well… I guess the world is already plenty peopled, but…" he trails off again, then looks Josh in the face. "Am I making any sense at all here? I’d let you peek upstairs, but I think that’d be even more confusing than what’s coming out of my mouth."

Not for the first time, he wonders why all of this is so difficult for him. They've been together for almost a year, they’ve been through things that most other couples wouldn’t begin to survive, they’ve been inside each other’s heads so intimately so often that Warren sometimes forgets where he ends and where Josh begins. They don’t keep secrets from each other, they live perfectly compatibly in most areas and are well able to compromise where they don’t. Plus Josh is smart, funny, unspeakably sexy and impossibly talented, and seems to feel the same way about him. So… why not forty years, and nephews and children and grandchildren and everything?

He doesn’t have an answer… he suspects there isn’t one.

But that doesn’t make this any easier.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> It reminds me that there’s some point to staying visible.

“You know, I was just thinking that. If there’s just one kid who realizes it’s okay to be gay or be a mutant because of seeing one of us in the media, I think it’s worth it.” Josh sounds thoughtful. “You know, it’s funny. If you’d told me last summer that I’d be a public mutant and have my sexuality splattered across People by now, I’d have said you were nuts. But here we are. It’s been a crazy year, hasn’t it?” Josh nuzzles against the material of Warren’s shirt. “Can we just go to sleep here? Josh is tired…”

> "And, also…"

Warren doesn’t speak for a long moment. His preface is innocent enough, but Josh can feel the emotions roiling around inside him. Whatever he’s about to say is extremely important, no matter the package it comes wrapped in.

> "...that, wouldn’t be so bad, really. "

Josh is utterly silent, and for a few seconds the only sounds are the waves in the background. He tries not to gape. In a million years, this is not something he’d expect from Warren. The two of them had just kind of stopped talking about the future when he’d realized how uncertain it made Warren. Josh just supposed there was something else at work, and had left it be. I did not expect this when I signed up for meeting the parents…

> “Yes, I know, I know, who replaced Warren with this alien, right? After all the squirming and dodging and tapdancing I do whenever you talk about plans more than six months in the future…”

“I thought I was the mind reader here...” He’s only able to get the single sentence out before his mind rapidly begins flipping through all the possibilities in the future. College. Medical school. The X-Men, the Institute. His residency… a home together. Careers, vacations, even kids. Wow… I’ve never really thought about kids. Josh’s eyes wander up the coast, to where others are walking on the beach. A mother and father are each holding the hand of their toddler, who is between them and jumping madly every time the tide comes in.

All of it is appealing, perhaps the sheer volume of possibilities, most of all. So many things to experience. So much time, too. And, Josh realizes, as he lays there with his arm around Warren’s waist, while there are a lot of people he can imagine involved with it all... there’s only one person he couldn’t imagine it without.

Warren.

> Am I making any sense at all here?

Josh sits up in the sand, looking into Warren’s eyes. “Yeah, more than you know. But where did this change come from? And… what are you asking me, exactly?” Are we actually having this conversation? It doesn’t seem quite real.