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The Park, Sunday Early Evening

Hercules was going to have his cake and eat it too. Metaphorically, at least. No, he was out to share the cake he'd baked, and also keep a vigilant watch for the evil Redditors who were out to destroy reality.

He'd show them an upvote they'd never forget!

So as it stood, Hercules was in full heroing garb (the modern-looking outfit with pants and belt pouches), standing near a picnic table which had a slightly lopsided chocolate cake sitting on it, with a serving knife, some paper plates, and even some plastic forks nearby. There was even a sign he'd put up saying 'Free Cake!'.

He just hoped it didn't start to rain.

[ooc: Open post! I am possibly procrastinating on homework.]

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Warren had spent the day in the library. Hell, he'd sat there staring at books until he thought that his eyes were going to start bleeding, and then he'd stared at them some more. After a while, it just made sense that he was going to need to stretch, before he did something like freak out and just claw his eyes clean from their sockets.

He didn't notice the sign, no, or even the cake, really. It was the large man standing in the park that he recognized, and he swooped down to land nearby, his eyes dropping to somewhere around his feet.

"Hey, Herc..."

He had some pretty crappy news.

[SP Party!]

Edited 2011-12-05 00:37 (UTC)

"Hello, Warren. Or should I let you decide what I am to say?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at his young friend.

Warren recoiled a little bit at that, too tired and heartsick to really have it in him to hide the reaction.

Right. Okay... right, then.

"No," he replied, not looking up as he moved a wing forward a little, unconsciously hiding behind it. "You can say whatever you want. I mean, I can't really... I..."

It was a bit of a battle to keep him from just blurting I should go and taking off.

"It got Bobby." .... "I should go."

At least he skipped the taking off bit.

"No, you shouldn't," Hercules said. "But I won't stop you if you choose to leave. I bear you no malice, boy. But I am saddened by what I think I know."

He folded his arms across his chest. "And I think I'd like to hear the other side."

"What is there to say?" Still not looking up. Still more or less hiding from the world at large, behind that one wing. "She tried to leave, to die with her people. She left a letter so she wouldn't have to face anyone before she ran away, and I... stopped her. And maybe I went about it wrong, maybe I did the wrong thing, but she was running off to die because she decided that we were fighting a losing battle. Rolling over and giving up isn't going to help anyone, no matter how much her sense of guilt makes her think it will."

He managed to raise his chin a little, at least. His eyes were still on the ground, but there was that. He shifted his weight, looking torn between staying to defend his decision or just taking off to hide somewhere. He'd told Herc about Bobby. He didn't owe anybody any more than that.

"And that's why you did it?" Hercules said, unfolding his arms. He went to close some of the distance between them. "You didn't want her to give up? You thought she was quitting because it was easier?"

He wanted to know why Warren did it. "Or did you do it because you didn't want to lose her?"

And at that, Warren looked up at Hercules, his jaw set, his brow furrowed.

"I knew I lost her the moment she decided to run away."

He had nothing left but his wings and a small handful of friends who were hell-bent on keeping him from rolling over and giving up, as tempting as it was. He could have let her go, and lost her forever with a kiss, or he could have held on, destroyed everything between them, but at least she'd be alive. Where there was life, there was hope, right?

He needed that more than he needed her to love him.

"And yet you still went after her," Hercules said. "I'm not accusing you, I'm not judging you. And if you absolutely will not talk of it, I will not force you. But I just want to know why."

He kept his tone even, but urgent. He'd seen that sort of look on many men and women in the past. The time for speeches had long past for Warren, he thought. "...you are welcome to some cake if it might help you calm down."

"I don't want cake," Warren replied, murmuring and glowering at the ground. "I just... I went after her because she's... she's this strong, beautiful woman, and so many people need her. Even the ones she actually believes do. They just... they don't need her to die for it."

He took a deep breath, and then spread his wings a little.

"I don't regret it. She hates me. She thinks I'm a coward. She clawed at me and screamed at me and I deserved every bit of what she said. Fine. But she's alive, and she never has to see me again. Go on. Call me selfish for that."

"I will not, because I would take nothing from it, nor would you," Hercules said. "This time is dark, and tensions are high. I do not wish the fair young queen to have run off to oblivion, either. It's not as if this is something easy, like one of you is right and one of you is wrong. You're all being bloody-headed teenagers and no one is having any of my cake. Life isn't easy. And neither is duty, neither is hope, neither is fighting against a seemingly unstoppable foe. Nothing worthwhile is easy. I... I do not want you to throw anything away either."

He was losing his train of thought, his voice catching and his breath loud. He was riled up, his eyes just near the edge of tears. "I just wanted you two to spend these last days happy."

Oh. Oh, that was... That was it. Warren's wings flared out, and he hissed between his teeth, feeling the urge to yell rising and not even caring about biting it down, now.

"It isn't over yet! This thing took my home, and my dad, and my best friend, and it cost me the woman I love, and I haven't been anything remotely resembling useful up until now, but I'm not dead yet! Neither are you! So... stop it! Just... Everyone stop talking like this can't be fixed! Her telling me that it could be was the only thing that kept me going when I found out about home! And then you told me the same damn thing, and now this? These last days? I don't know about you, but I'm not planning on dying any time soon and I'll do everything I can to stop it until it takes me too, even if I am just the scared little rich kid with the useless powers!"

... He was making the mental note. Screaming felt good.

And that's when Hercules eyed Warren very carefully.

"And if you think there is a fighting chance, why did you stop Karla? You believed she stood no chance if she were to face the foe down at her home, with her people, with her kingdom. What makes that fate, which you thought was certain doom, different than what you see here?"

He paused for a moment, then shook his head. "No, actually, it doesn't matter what you think. Because I'll tell you what the difference here is. The difference that should be here is that we stand together. But you two are intent on setting rifts between two of the greatest heroes on this island, as if that won't undermine the morale of all of your friends, when it's already on such a precipice of doom. You are being selfish, you overblown cockatoo!"

"Then I'm selfish!" There! See? He'd said it! "I'm selfish and scared and stupid and I keep messing up! I don't know what I'm doing! Nobody knows what they're doing! Fine!"

He grit his teeth and shook his head, folding his wings at his back and turning away.

"You have fun with all that punching you're not planning on being around to do, then, and I won't bother you with my selfishness any more. I have reading to do. I just wanted to tell you that Bobby was gone, anyhow."

Hercules slammed a fist against the picnic table, breaking the skin over two of his knuckles. The problem with mortal hands.

"You mistake my sorrow for surrender," he said. "I plan on fighting this foe like I promised you. Like I promised myself. But I don't doubt I won't be able to succeed unless good people like you will stand by my side when I choose to fight."

"Yeah, well. We overblown cockatoos aren't all that good at fighting," Warren intoned, pausing and frowning over his shoulder. "And my phone is busted, so you can't really call me when it comes to blows with the bastards who have been breaking entire realities. But that does sound like a nice thought, doesn't it?"

Yes. Now Warren was being selfish. And he was too tired and angry to particularly care.

"But I'll tell you what. I'll keep reading, I'll keep looking into this, and maybe before this all ends, one way or the other, I'll find something that will help. And you can... I don't know. Eat cake and tell me that I'm setting rifts like I'm doing it on purpose, and even call the mutie freak some more names if it makes you feel better."

Cockatoos were intelligent, needy, hugely social birds that didn't function at all well on their own before slipping into depression and eventually starting to punish themselves for it by pulling their own feathers out. So, if Hercules was going to call Warren oh-so-clever bird names expecting him to brush it off like any Warren who hadn't been raised in captivity might, at least he'd picked an appropriate one.

Hercules turned his head and huffed.

"You do what you can. I will do what I can."

He looked down at the ground. "And I would never call you a freak." He knew where that anger had come from, though. And he would not fault Warren for lashing out with it.

Warren pulled in a deep breath and held it for a moment. This... This wasn't the conversation he wanted to be having. What had happened between himself and Karla, he saw as him saving her from herself.

Here... This... this was just burning bridges. He exhaled, balling his hands into fists so tight that his claws broke skin.

"No, I guess you wouldn't." Even if he kind of inadvertently had. "... Keep an eye out for her. Please. She needs someone who... who gets it, and I don't think many people are going to do much better at it than I did."

"I will stand beside her as if she were my queen," Hercules said. "You have my word." He looked back up. "...Please take some cake?"

Look, he really didn't want to get stuck with an entire cake, Warren.

"... Yeah. I guess I can do that."

Look, cake was cake, and all Warren had eaten in days was some popcorn with Rapunzel and some burgers with Tony. The sugar would keep him awake a little longer, if nothing else.

"...thank you," Hercules said, glad to not be shouting any more. "It was from scratch."

He scuffed the toe of his boot into the dirt a bit. "We'll fix this, in the end," he added. "Somehow."

He, of course, was vague about what 'this' was.

Vague was fine. It seemed like there were more and more things that needed fixing, these days.

"Of course we will," Warren murmured, turning around and heading back to the picnic table, even if he couldn't quite pick his gaze up off the ground again. "It's what we do."

"Yes," Hercules said.

He was then at a loss for what else to say.

"...I can share the recipe if you like the cake."

"I'm not really that big on baking," Warren replied, softly. "And besides, I'd be taking my life into my hands if I kept any recipes anywhere that-"

That... Karla could...

"On second thought, this cake looks pretty great. Maybe I will take the recipe. And if you still have too much, there are a bunch of people in the library who probably haven't slept or eaten in days. I bet they'd appreciate the cake there."

"...I should take it there, then," he said. "My vigil here is not exactly doing any good."

"And I'll get you a copy of the recipe. It's not that hard. Though the mess in my kitchen says otherwise."

Such a nice, normal conversation. Really.

"If anyone asks, just tell them you needed to beat the eggs into submission," Warren suggested. "This is Fandom. They'd probably believe it."

Well. It was true.

"... I'm sorry for yelling like that."

"We both yelled," Hercules said. "We are all on edge. And... well, certain things push us all a little bit over the edge."

He gave Warren a little smile.

A little bit over. Oh, Hercules. Your gift for understatement, sometimes...

"... We're good, then?"

"Please. Thor and I are good friends and we punch each other at least twice during each meeting," Hercules said, waving it off. "You didn't even throw a hammer at me."

"Fresh out of hammers," Warren pointed out, managing a small smile. "Maybe next time, huh?"

"Only if you get a little metal hat with wings. Otherwise it's just not the same," Hercules said. "But... next time, perhaps."

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The Park, Sunday Early Evening

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