Through a Different Lens

4:51am (80s, part 1)

A/N: I know this is a relatively short chapter. I've had a tough time lately and felt the need to get something published. More to come later to finish this chapter, but please do let me know how you like it so far. Thank you, have a wonderful day xxx

            11:42pm, September 1986

"Double rum and coke."
The bartender's brow furrows, leaning across the bar with her ear tilted towards Warren.
"Rum and coke. Double," Warren says again, voice raised louder against the pounding music. She nods her understanding and pulls out a fresh glass, as Warren slumps on his elbows against the bartop, tugging at the back of his leather jacket until it once again sits comfortably against the bases of his wings. Alone and six drinks passed the point of sober, he is eager to fill himself with as much liquid distraction as possible. The goal is to stuff his mind to the brim with alcohol and nicotine and neon lights and electronic music, leaving no room for any of the many anxieties and frustrations that nag at the edge of his thoughts. No room for him, no room for them, or for that. Just drinking and dancing and forgetting. And this place, this hole in the wall set deep in lower Manhattan, is the perfect place for forgetting. The kind of place where you catch glimpses of people you know; friends, colleagues, old high school classmates; only for both of you to immediately avert your gaze and pretend neither saw a thing. The kind of place that the ostensibly-closeted mutant son of an affluent businessman should by no means be spending his Tuesday night.

The drink is poured, and Warren downs it all at once, the plastic glass skittering across the counter as he discards it. Gathering his strength, he pushes off from the harbour of the bar to venture into the ocean before him. A thundering beat penetrates his ears, bright strobing lights whirl in and out of his vision, and he dissolves into the crowd, allowing its push and pull to swallow him whole like a relentless tide. The crowd, faceless and amorphous, is eager to welcome him home. An arm collides with his shoulder, a back presses persistently into the feathers of his wing, the pressure both comforting and exhilarating. The pounding of the drums is all-consuming, and Warren is not moving so much as he is being moved by it, hanging off its every ebb and flow and gladly submitting himself to its power. Its thrall is so compelling that Warren's very heartbeat has become entwined with it, so that when the tune finally fades out, the brief transition between songs stops his heart altogether, until a different rhythm kicks up and the ritual begins again.

2:09am
Years pass in seconds, and as though being pulled from a dream, Warren is ushered out of the club along with the crowd that had become his home, thrust unwilling into the cold night air of the real world. Staggering on his feet, he drags himself to the curb, shaking his wings out in the newfound space. The people who surround him laugh, and the sound seems to echo in Warren's ears as they pass him, sparing no glance for the drunken mutant they had just been so intimately acquainted with. The stench of cigarette smoke is somehow just as strong on the sidewalk as it had been inside and Warren breathes it deeply before sticking out a hand to try and hail the cabs circling, like vultures waiting to pick off the faded partygoers. Out here, there is more room to think, and though he tries to fight them off, Warren's thoughts begin to trickle back in, muddled and barely coherent in his stupor.

Months had passed since that day, yet Warren still feels the rush of meeting him as though it had been that very morning. He'd only just settled into the house that Xavier built, barely begun to let down his guard to the other mutants there, the ones that called themselves the X-Men. He'd been told to expect new teammates to appear sporadically as the Professor rounded them up and offered them positions, so he wasn't surprised when Jean had told him one morning that there was one such newcomer waiting to be introduced in the living room. No, that wasn't surprising at all. But when he dragged himself and his morning coffee into the lounge, when his eyes had alighted on that bright, innocent smile and downright bubbly "guten tag," he felt like he'd been knocked upside the head. By now he was good at keeping his cool whenever he felt the tug of attraction stirring up his insides. He'd learned to stay composed years ago, for the sake of self-preservation more than anything. But this, oh god, this was something else entirely.