Chapter Text
The riff is fast and angry, the rhythm ruminating and addictive. All of these just like his thoughts, though he uses the music to drown them under.
“We’re scanning the scene in the city tonight
We’re looking for you to start up a fight
There’s an evil feeling in our brains
But it’s nothing new, you know it drives us insane”
Warren sits on his bed, legs crossed, eyes closed, head dropped low, his whole body moving to the music. He’s playing it at maximum volume, as usually. Because usually the scream inside his head is too loud to bear.
He loves it, when the rough sound of a electric guitar seems to pierce through his skin, vibrating as far as to the tips of his wings, shaking off all accumulated agression and grief. It kind of accelerates them but not in a destructive way - like vodka does - but in a purifying one.
“Running
On our way
Hiding
You will pay
Dying
One thousand deaths”
He learned to run away to music a long time ago, in another life, when he theoretically still had a home and a family, though back then it was just some songs, hummed under the nose of a little, lonely kid. When he no longer had a home and stopped pretending to have a family (or rather the family stopped pretending to have him…) he found himself the new one in little thrift stores in Berlin with pirate cassette tapes - you could get everything there, from Frank Sinatra to Led Zeppelin and the cool thing about these places was, that no one seemed to be startled by the view of a guy with wings. Well, at least in West Berlin. When he found himself in the GDR - against his will but without a choice - it stopped being so much fun. The collected tapes appeared to be even more useful then - to help pump the adrenaline up before the fight or soothe the aching body after it.
He always could find himself - in the melody, or in the lyrics. They were the perfect, understanding company, the only one he could always rely on. And even now, when he had the memories he would have never suspected before to earn, he could find their reflection in songs.
“There is no escape and that’s for sure
This is the end, we won’t take any more
Say goodbye to the world you live in
You’ve always been taking but now you’re giving”
Warren pulls his head back, feeling shivers down his spine when the lyrics seem to reach and grab the darkest part of his mind, the memory of him losing control, finally unleashing his anger, his frustration, his pain and almost, almost bringing…
Apocalypse.
“Searching…Seek and destroy!!!”, he shouts together with James Hatfield, spreading his wings widely only to bend and cringe from a sudden wave of pain running through his back.
Oh yeah. If he ever forgets what he almost did, there will always be a quick reminder in a form of a wrecked metal construction on his back, slowly being replaced by his natural wings, but still unable to take him in the air and causing severe cramps.
That what he caused. Pain and ruin. That’s what he’s capable of.
“Warren, for fuck’s sake!”
He didn’t hear the banging at the door but he finally hears them opening with a thud.
“Scott, language!”
“Sorry, professor…”
Warren turnes around surprised and angry, only to see Scott Summers and Hank McCoy at the threshold of his room with Ororo and Kurt peaking from behind their backs.
“What?!”
McCoy takes a deep breath, but realises he would have to scream to be heared in this noise, so instead he comes to the Warren’s cassette deck and turns the music off.
“Exactly this.”
Warren wants to get up but the cramp in his back still stops him so he does everything to remain in the most natural position possible. He would rather die than let them see him being… vulnerable.
“I didn’t know it’s a prison as well…”, he grumbles instead.
‘It’s no prison. But there are rules. Concerning some decent co-existence especially, what rather excludes making everyone deaf on purpose.”
“Fuck your rules,” he mutters quietly to himself under his nose. The undesired silence falls heavily in the room and Warren feels naked in it, without the music to hide in, to lose himself in. To protect him.
“What are you saying there?” McCoy pierces him with his eyes. “You don’t want me to go beast mode on you, Warren, don’t you?”
“Whatever,” he gets up finally, starting to feel being suffocated. He desperately needs air. And space. “I’m leaving the party if you don’t like it.”
He comes to the window, wanting to open it and…
Fuck.
He forgot. He can’t fly away. He did it automatically, despite the pain, because his dumb, arrogant self is apparently stronger. Fucking idiot.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to swallow up the humiliation, before turning around and leaving the room through the door. With the corner of his eye, he catches Ororo winking to him knowingly. He almost smiles to himself, but then his eyes meet Kurt’s. And what Warren sees in them is a pure… worry?
And this startles him so much, he even forgets to tell him to piss off.
***
He finds his cover in the attic.
As always - the highest and the broadest room he can find under the roof of the place where he’s currently staying. There have been many rooms and many attics, but they all had the most important things - air and space.
And he lacks them. Especially now, when he can’t fly. The rooms and corridors of the Institute are too small for him, too narrow. He cannot move easily without his wings getting caught on various things and knocking them down or getting hurt. He feels indeed like some ungraceful ostrich with a metal harness, trapped and tame, too self-conscious of the body - which is supposed to be his own and yet seems so strange - and of all the unwanted attention. And it’s not that he feels how unfriendly some of the looks are. He knows it.
Like back then, when he was sitting on the sill of his room’s open window, watching the sunset above the garden and wondering how great it would be to simply fly away to the horizon, while some kids below were playing ball. Suddenly something hit a wall hard, just beside his head.
The kid who threw the ball came to get it back. He was looking up, straight at Warren. He didn’t say sorry. He smiled. And it wasn’t a nice smile.
He got up, standing on the sill and spreading his crippled and - because of this - even more frightening wings, ready to jump down. It was the first floor, which normally would be nothing for him but now posed some threat, as even with his extra endurance, he was still recovering. However the adrenaline was pumping in his veins, though he knew the rest of the kids was observing him carefully and that there was too many of them. It didn’t matter.
The thing that saved some of their and for sure his own sorry ass was a sudden downpour coming from the sky, completely out of the blue. A downpour or maybe he should rather say a Storm.
And yet it was just one episode of many others with someone saying something - not exactly about him, throwing something - not exactly at him, looking in his eyes - not exactly in a hostile way. Exactly to provoke him.
And Warren can’t let himself to be provoked again. Because now he knows too well what happens next.
Mayhem. And ruin. And dust. And loneliness.
But what more has he now?
It isn’t his place, his home, with the walls that seem to be closing down on him and they really do it in his stifling dreams, from which he wakes up slicked with sweat. Yet he has nowhere to go. He can’t. Not with this sick joke of wings on his back. He’s no better than a fancy little bird in a cage.
And if he could?
He smiles to himself bitterly, because he knows the answer is the same. Nowhere to go.
So he stays mostly in his room, blasting the music, his sole redemption, letting go of the anger that has no other way to vent.
Of course, he can’t say no one talks to him. Ororo comes. Sometimes they talk, sometimes she listens to the music with him, sometimes they fight over the superiority of punk rock above heavy metal and vice versa, sometimes she wants to borrow his leather vest, sometimes she sneaks in a pack of cigarettes or a beer. Sometimes she just sits with him.
Then Professor Xavier keeps talking with him, though Warren remebers to not make it too easy. Especially since he has asked to gain access to the Danger Room and the Professor refused. “You’re not ready yet.” Not ready his ass. That only put the boot in.
And then, there was Nightcrawler.
Warren sighs, leaning his head against the wooden wall and watching the dust hovering in the light. Considering its amount, his black jeans will be grey, when he leaves this place. He’s sitting straight on the floor - unfortunately he has to leave all the rafters to bats for now - tapping the rhythm of some song with his fingers on his knee.
Nightcrawler. Kurt Wagner. This fucking blue freak. His the most serious problem in this damned school.
Who destroyed him. And then saved him. Who is his contradiction in every possible sense.
Dirty angel and pure devil.
Warren, with his golden hair, fucking awesome proportions and majestic wings, from a good and wealthy family. And Kurt, with his blue skin, his tail, sharp teeth and claws, a foundling from a circus.
Warren, with his anger and grief, howling emptiness inside filled up with alcohol and loud music, his battle scars and family that was too perfect for him. And Kurt, with his kind smile and gentleness, his courage, his faith and bunch of good jokes and tricks for everyone, taught by the family who didn’t choose him but wanted him anyway.
Angel who almost destroyed the world and devil who helped the fallen angel rise.
They were like each other’s reflection in a distorting mirror, like souls that swapped the bodies.
And it hasn’t been long - though it doesn’t automatically mean that he understands and accepts this - since Warren realised that both his soul and body crave for Kurt. Like they would like to find their missing jigsaw piece.
And Kurt comes. Kurt talks to him. Kurt seems worried, which drives Warren insane, makes him want to howl, and hide, and run away, and cry, and scream, beacuse he doesn’t know what to do with such a feeling someone has for him. And at the same time he wants to fall to his knees and worship the fuck out of this angelic demon and then…
Suddenly the silence and the stillness of the attic are interrupted by a familiar sound and a cloud of dark-blue smoke.
“Na ja. Ich habe dich gefunden!”
How does he do this? That even his voice seems to smile?
He often speaks German to Warren, knowing he will be able to understand him.
“Did you steal some new powers from Jean Grey?”
“Though it could be useful sometimes, I didn’t.” Kurt smiles wildely and comes to him closer. “But I have something for you anyway.”
Warren looks up at him.
“What?” and he adds right away: “What for?”
“To solve some of your problems, mein Freund. Komm mit mir!” he reaches out his hand.
Warren hesitates. Because of many reasons. Finaly he takes Kurt’s hand and let him teleport them right back to his room.
“I wanted you to try it on at once,” Kurt explains and then hands him a pair of headphones.
Warren doesn’t take them. He doesn’t say anything.
Kurt tilts his head.
“You know, now you can listen the music and not piss off anyone. And no one will piss you off too. Komm schon, schau’s dir zumindest mal an!” *
And before Warren does anything, he puts them on his head.
He’s close. Too close and Warren can feel the adrenaline pumping in his veins again. It’s like before the fight, but different. Yes, it’s more dangerous.
“Varren?” he sometimes still pronounces his name with this funny accent and maybe this wakes him from the stupor enough to realize he’s squezzing Kurt’s wrist and…
And he simply can’t let it go. Because Kurt is too close, his face is too close, his eyes, and Warren can see in them the same worried look.
He doesn’t know, maybe that’s somethin in his face too, but Kurt doesn’t move away and he soon finds himself holding him tightly, his face burried between Kurt’s neck and schoulder, his skin is so warm, clinging to him so much, he doesn’t know if it’s Kurt’s or his heart beating like mad.
For a quick moment he gets an impression Nightcrawler wants to teleport himself, but instead he feels his arms embracing him equally tightly.
“Varren… Engel…”
And for that one moment he feels whole again.
________________
* * "Come on, check it out at least!"