Kindling [Macaria, W. Stronghold, Warren]

[Will Stronghold]

A Continuation from Afraid of Ghosts?[/b][/i]

Will stood behind Warren, who was sitting on the couch in the den, running a brush through his long and tangled locks. "Yell at me if I'm pulling to hard. I don't wanna rip your head off." Will attempted a joke to break the tension in the air. Warren didn't respond. The 14-year-old swallowed and cast his eyes down, uneasy. He worked out the last of the knots in Warren's hair and smoothed his arrow-straight mane down.

"You sure you don't want to talk about it?" Will asked quietly for the third or fourth time. Warren only shook his head and refused to hold eye contact with the superhero-in-training. Will's face fell. "Is there anything at all that you want me to do? You can tell me." he almost urged Warren to get the pain out of his mind.

"Just... I want to be alone for a little bit. I need to think." the pyrokinetic answered in a quiet and reserved tone. Will nodded, reluctant. He turned towards the kitchen, giving Warren a side glance before he went in. The pyro had laid down on the couch, his face miserable. Will had even brought Corbie over for the cat's fluffy comforts. Warren stroked her absently as she snuggled into the crook of his arm, almost carefully avoiding sitting on his cast.

Will shuffled into the kitchen and waited a beat. He then had himself a little temper tantrum.

Will massaged his temples and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to hold back an urge to punch something. He settled for pulling his lips over his teeth and punching the air. Just ugh and ugh and UGH. How the heck was he just supposed to stand here like an idiot and do NOTHING?! Will couldn't get a word out of Warren. He was always like this, so typical of Warren to be either quiet and antisocial or sarcastic and relatively willing to talk to people, though it usually involved getting insulted. And since he wasn't talking, Will had no idea what to do, who to go to for help, or even what had really happened besides the single fact that someone, probably a super, had broken into Warren's home and raped him.

Winding down from his anger surge, Will dragged his feet off to the dining room, pulled out a chair, and slumped into it. He let the tears fall for Warren. It was almost a bit depressing - they both considered the other their best friend, and yet they knew so little about each other. Will had simply been respectful of Warren's privacy, but now it'd crossed the line. It was drilled into Will's nature: he couldn't stand to see someone so disturbed, especially someone he cared about. He had to help. It was simply who he was. And it was slowly driving him crazy that Warren wouldn't let him.

Will dried his eyes and tried to think. Was there anyone else that Warren would talk to? The pyrokinetic was bottling up dangerous emotions, and he would explode higher than Diet Coke and Mentos when he finally couldn't take any more. Will racked his brain for names. Jim wouldn't work, since he'd been claimed by Maleficent. Will thought Layla was excellent at sympathizing and considered her for a moment, but she was also his girlfriend... he admitted to himself that it would be awkward for her to offer Warren a shoulder to cry on when he was in the same house. He pushed his bangs back. Wasn't there someone that he was friends with enough to talk about this to? Will felt another pang of guilt that he knew was unreasonable as he thought about Warren's depressingly small circle of friends.

At a loss for names, Will climbed the stairs to his room and picked up his cell phone, scrolling through the contacts list. He passed a name as he scrolled on to Magenta's contact, one that he didn't recognize right away. He flipped back to the contact and looked at it. Macaria. He opened it to find a picture of the pink and wittily cynical goddess Warren had brought to Will's sleepover a while back. Will furrowed his brow in thought. The pyro had stuck pretty close to her the whole evening, talked to her, laughed with her... and Will couldn't say for sure, but maybe... he'd given her the same look that Will instinctively gave to Layla sometimes. The puppy-dog look, or Warren's own subdued version of it.

Will pursed his lips, then selected the option to call her from the menu.

"Macaria?" he said when the other line picked up. "It's Will Stronghold. Remember, from the sleepover you went to with Warren?" he paused, drawing in a breath.

"I... I'm really sorry to bother you so late, but something's happened with Warren. I think it'd be better if he told you about it himself, but... but he needs someone to talk to. He's not listening to me, and he needs help. I just thought... maybe you could try. He's so depressed, it's driving me nuts!" Will babbled, his voice rising near the end. He swiftly quieted himself, since he was directly breaking Warren's order not to tell anyone. Well, not completely... he hadn't told her what had happened.

"Warren's at my house. If you can do anything at all... thanks."

[~Elisa Maza~]

....

Oh no.... What's Maci gonna say?

[Macaria]

((well, you'll find out, won't you ^^))

If her parents ever found out that Macaria had gotten a cellphone, the piece of technology from the future would have been smashed to pieces, burnt to a crisp, and thrown into one of rivers. Both Hades and Persephone refused to let her have anything from the eras in the future (quote, "stick to your own damn century", unquote), and, in fact, it was only thanks to the Fates that she had gotten one at all.

Probably the only reason they had done so was to piss Hades off. But the ending result was that she got was she wanted and so Maci could live with that.

Besides, she only used the phone to call her friends from the futuristic Earth. Those friends were scarce. She only had, like.....four phone numbers in her phone.

It was late at night now and Macaria to say the least was exhausted. Demons enjoyed frolicking around and causing trouble. Their ways of destruction applied to everyone that crossed their paths, including the king and queen of the Underworld, or in this case, the princess.

After a few hours of demon taming, Macaria was more then ready to collapse into a state of unconsciousness aka sleep. But she had no sooner walked in the room and sat down on her bed before her phone rang.

Macaria cursed under her breath and rolled her eyes. She stood up reluctantly and crossed to the room, releasing her cellphone from a drawer and glaring at it.

"This had better be important, otherwise I'm slaughtering the person on the other line," she muttered, before pressing a button and putting the phone to her pointed ear.

Will Stronghold....the name rung a bell. As he continued to speak, pointing out that he had been at the sleepover Warren had brought her to, Maci nodded, even though he couldn't see. She remembered.

Her expression of extreme annoyance faded to confusion then concern as he continued to talk; the flames that had sprung up as her temper rose flickered and died off.

"I..." she said uneasily, biting her lower lip and sitting back on her bed once he had finished, running her hand through her hair, "I can come over. No problem. I'll be there in a second."

She hung up and sat still on her bed for a moment. She was more then happy to help out a friend in trouble, as ironic as that seemed considering her parentage. Warren was a close friend of hers, and Will was right, he would probably open up to her. Even if he wouldn't, it couldn't hurt to try.

Thankfully she had literally only walked in her room when Will had called; her ponytail was still in place and she was still wearing her traditional chiton, so there would be no time to waste getting dressed and such. Maci glanced upwards absentmindedly, thinking to remember where Will's house - then she got it, and snapped her fingers.

The goddess disappeared in a whirl of smoke.....

***

....and reappeared at the door of Will's house. Macaria went to open the door and enter herself, then hesistated, stepped back, and knocked instead. She waited for Will while staring at her twisting hands, growing more nervous by the second. What had happened to Warren?

[Warren Peace]

Warren sat up suddenly as someone knocked at the door, putting an arm over his ribs as they ached. Corbie leapt off the couch and threw her owner an annoyed glare for taking away her seat.

He hoisted himself off the couch and limped over to the door. Who on earth would be on Will’s porch in the middle of the night? Dread settled into his stomach as he moved his eye to the peephole. Had Will told anyone? Was it Persephone again, following him to give him even more hell? Was it Hades, come to torture and kill him because he’d found out that he’d had sex with Persephone, was completely head-over-heels for his daughter, or even both? He looked through the peephole, and his mouth fell open in a silent scream.

“Warren, don’t!” The pyrokinetic barely heard Will tearing down the stairs in a lost attempt to get to the door before him. Macaria was here. Will had told her, heaven knew how much, and now he had end his friendship with her, to tell her to leave and never come back. Warren bit his lower lip to keep it from shaking. It felt like someone had carved a hole in his chest, and was slowly tearing apart his heart, the pain growing with every beat.

“You told her.” Warren said, his voice shaking.

“Warren, I-I’m so sorry, I had to, I didn’t tell her just what happened, this thing’s too huge to keep to ourselves—“ Will prattled, apologizing.

“Do you even know what you just did?!” he said as he turned away from the door, his voice rising in volume.

“No, I don’t, since you didn’t tell me anything!” Will snapped.

“I told you not to tell anyone!!” he roared back at Will, pacing away from his friend with his hands over his face.

“We need to tell someone about this! You do this all the time! You--you’re just a total loner and all you do is go psycho whenever someone’s trying to help!” the younger of the two boys screamed back. In his rage, depression, confusion, infatuation, and everything else that he felt, Warren hadn’t noticed that Will had opened the door.

“And YOU have to realize that sometimes you can’t fix everyone’s problems!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking. “You just made everything worse, moron! Macaria is involved in this! Her own father did this to my arms!” he spun around to face Will and brandished his casts. “And her mother is the reason why as of tonight, I’ve just been f***** and my virginity is GONE!!”

Warren squeezed his eyes shut and screamed as hard as he could. “YOU JUST RUINED EVERYTHING!!”

The pyro breathed and opened his eyes, his chest heaving and his tantrum over. His words were still ringing in his ears. Had he meant that? Or had his anger and anxiety just taken over his mind and lashed out at whoever was most convenient, like he had before?

Will was crying.

His best friend’s hand was still on the doorknob, and the door was wide open with Macaria on the porch. She’d seen and heard everything he just said, along with probably most of the neighborhood.

He felt like he’d just kicked a puppy as he wished he’d never said those things to Will. He felt like he’d just single-handedly betrayed his friendship to Macaria, knowing that she had liked being his friend as much as he had. It was exactly what Warren’s dad had done to him and his mother.

Warren tried to apologize, tell Will he didn’t mean it, tell them he wanted to take back his words, tell them it was really all his fault, tell Maci that he would never do anything to upset her like this, tell her that he loved her so much that it hurt, tell them something to make it better…

But his throat was tight and stuck, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he tried to swallow and speak. Oh god, what have I done? was the single lucid thought that ran through his mind. His lip wobbled uncontrollably, and he pulled them back over his teeth in a tortured expression. His brow contorted, and his eyes were watering. Warren pleaded with himself to keep them from spilling over. He desperately didn’t want to cry. He didn’t want her to start crying, too.

He backed away a few steps, but he couldn’t stop looking at her, even as the tears sparkled and ran down his cheeks. He felt them on his face and hiccupped, knowing he was losing control. Crying was something that looked so wrong on him, a disturbing contradiction to his intimidating appearance. It made him feel awkward and alone. He was a teenager, a man, and boys his age weren’t supposed to cry. His deep voice sounded comical when he sobbed, and he had cultivated and depended upon his image so much that he simply couldn’t stop when his stoic and daunting demeanor broke.

It was a whole other kind of hell when two of the people he cared the most for were watching him, one already weeping because of him. Warren’s breathing gasped and heaved, and he fought to control the inarticulate sounds that his voice kept making as the tears freely spilled out of his eyes. He was going into hysterics, and he simply couldn’t stop.

Warren finally broke the spell Macaria’s face had on him, then he limped and stumbled back into the den, clumsily trying to wipe his face with his casts and sniffing. Walking hurt, he was unsteady, and Warren tripped over the rug and fell to his knees. Only crying harder, he crawled out of her sight and wept like a beaten dog with its tail between its legs.

[~Giselle~]

*is seriously crying*

Loki... that post killed me... Oh my gosh...

*cries and hugs Warren*

[Macaria]

((omg, that's seriously heartbreaking..... *tear* ))

Macaria tilted her head as she heard the voices on the other side of the door. Something was obviously going on, and she wondered if maybe she should leave....come back later, maybe, when they were....calmer? Had Will been not supposed to tell her about whatever had happened with Warren? He hadn't told her anything. Just that something had happened.

Before she could reconsider her descision to come and help, the door flew open.

It was like the two of them didn't see her standing there. Warren was in awful shape, she noticed, his arms were broken, he was bruised and hurt...Macaria's eyes slightly widened as she watched and listened to the two fight, frozen to the spot. Her hand flew to her mouth, a reflex that she didn't bother to stop, and it stayed there.

Warren screamed at Will and the teenage goddess' eyes became bigger as his words reached her ears.

The only thing that moved was her racing mind. She was barely breathing.

Oh gods. Oh gods no. Bad enough that something had happened to her friend, but so much worse that it had been HER FAMILY that had caused this to happen.

Why had her parents done this?!? The obvious answer was that they had found out about Warren, assumed they had some sort of relationship together, and wanted him away from her. Hades was the type who went out and got what he wanted, and, as sadistic as the thought was, it was no suprise that her father had done something awful like that....but Persephone?! And gods, had she done something awful, if what Warren was saying was true. Pangs of sympathy and empathy and rage shot threw her and Macaria held back the urge to flare up, knowing it would only make things worse....she didn't want Warren to think she was mad at him, because she most certainly wasn't. Would he assume she would be? Why?! It wasn't his fault her parents were twisted and cruel and sadistic and....

Macaria cut off her train of thought with a tiny gasp; she had been not breathing for almost a full minute (she could have sworn her heart had stopped for that same minute, although one couldn't be sure - if it had, one couldn't really tell, seeing as she was a goddess and it would have had no effect either way), and she slowly dropped her still raised hand to her side. Will was crying and Warren looked like he was about to...Macaria herself was trembling. She bit her lower lip and stared with an expression that could have been mistaken for nervousness at Warren.

Within a matter of moments, he started to cry too, backing up as he did so, and then he had turned and stumbled away. Macaria saw him fall and shrunk back, her hand slowly raising up to her mouth again and hovering there like it wasn't sure what to do.

Macaria looked at Will, then down at the floor, then to her hand, and then bit her lower lip again, harder.

The thought to teleport to him didn't occur to her at the moment and Macaria slowly walked past Will into his house to talk to Warren. Her hand was still raised as she spoke. Her voice was almost a whisper.

"Warren?" For the third time, the princess of the Underworld bit her lip and her open raised hand closed and sank back down to her side. It met it's twin and clasped it. Macaria became aware that she was shaking. She swallowed, took a breath, because she had again stopped breathing, and then added to her whisper, a little louder.

"Are you alright?"

[Warren Peace]

He now understood why it was called a heartache. Longing, guilt, shame, and every emotion his overwhelmed mind could feel tore at his chest and tugged on his heartstrings. He was shattered, and the pain kept him immobile. He couldn’t pick up the fragments of his heart and piece himself back together, so instead he kneeled in a crumpled position and clutched at the void in his chest.

His body language spoke of someone who was trying to fold up and disappear. He’d crawled over to the wall and faced it, on his knees and bent over them. One hand was hugging his opposite bicep, and the other covered his face. His frame shook with his crying. He was desperately trying to stop, but he couldn’t remember how to push his emotions away and bottle them up like he normally did. His thoughts were racing too fast in an overflowing river, each one flashing through his mind too fast to understand, and yet they still impacted against his tender and broken heart.

It was only when she spoke that Warren realized she had followed him. Her voice brought on a whole new flood of hysterics, and he brought his other hand to cover his face, embarrassed and ashamed.

It was a rhetorical question. He wasn’t all right. He didn’t know if he ever would be, now that she was here, listening to his sobs. She made it impossible to think rationally, and instead his mind flowed on instinct and emotion, something he didn’t know how to control. She drew him so far from his comfort zone, but at the same time, he craved to be there beside her. It was a dangerous addiction, and he’d begun to drown in the unfamiliar waters.

Warren took his hands away from his face for a moment to look up at her. It destroyed him to see the concern in her violet eyes. She didn’t need to worry over him. He was worthless to her. It was just like Persephone had said; he was her mother’s leftovers. He wasn’t whole anymore, just broken and secondhand, and he hadn’t even been worthy of her to begin with. He would be dust in a few decades, if he was lucky, and Maci would move on and forget him.

Why was it that despite everything he told himself, he found his mind wandering back to her every single time? He didn’t even know what it was about her that captured him so tightly. Perhaps it was everything in a symphony of perfection, his own brand of a fallen angel. Her body. Her voice. Her eyes. Her humor. Her personality. Her exoticness. Her style. Her divinity. Her power. Her attitude. Her royalty. Her willingness to forget everything she had and hang out with him, who had nothing but a freak ability to light himself on fire.

He held onto her gaze as if his life depended on it, pleading with his eyes. What was he supposed to do? Was it right to sever their friendship, and was he strong enough to do it? Her features blurred in his sight, obscured by tears. He couldn’t tell what he was supposed to do whenever she was there. She was all he could see.

“W-what have you d-done to me?” Warren hiccupped, whispering in a broken voice.

[Macaria]

Macaria watched him cry feeling awkward. There was nothing wrong with him crying. He had a good reason to. But she couldn't help but feel that her being right there watching was only making the tears fall harder and faster.

She didn't know how right she was.

Maci felt at a loss for words. What could she say? There was nothing to say. Her parents had done something awful to him and he was crying on the floor in front of her feeling ashamed and that was that. Macaria bit her lip yet again, swallowed. Her eyes flicked down to the floor under her feet, which were hidden by the curling, smoky folds of her chiton.

"There's nothing wrong with crying, you know," she said in a nearly reluctant way. She had to give him some kind of reassurance. She just felt so bad....

"If...if I had been in this situation," Macaria added quietly, her hands still clasped, and her eyes sliding upwards to look at him. He was staring at her, tears still in his own eyes. Macaria continued softly and slowly, "I'd be in pieces right now, too. There's nothing wrong with...." She shook her head and ended her sentence by trailing off.

Macaria's eyes fell downwards again. And then they promptly shot back up and flew open wider at Warren's hiccup-y whisper.

"What did I do?" she repeated, her brow dipping in confusion. What...she hadn't done anything. Right? She hadn't. No. No. Was she just insane, and was....not remembering something she had done, or....no. No! She hadn't done anything to him.

"I didn't.....do anything," she said slowly, shaking her head in the same slow speed. She blinked, again slowly.

"No, I didn't...I mean my parents....must've...." She shrugged, winced, then said, her voice lowering, "I guess my...my parents must've....hurt you because....because of me, b-but I didn't do....anything else." Macaria gazed back down at the floor, breaking the eye contact she had established with Warren only seconds previous.

"I'm sorry for that," she said softly, and winced again.

"But I didn't do anything. I would never do anything to hurt you," she added decidedly. Her voice, even though it was declarative and somewhat loud, still held a lot of care in it.

[Warren Peace]

His eyes widened a bit in panic as she stammered, fearing that he’d said the wrong thing, that she’d be upset. She was upset, anyone could tell. But he was puzzled as to what she was upset about. Maci had just said that she’d never do anything to hurt him, so she wasn’t upset at him for being weak. He couldn’t tell if she was angry at her parents for twisting him until he broke. Maybe she was just troubled by the whole situation – that he was so fractured and miserable, and that it was beyond fixing.

“No!” he croaked, a little louder than a whisper. Warren pulled himself to his feet, wincing as he straightened out his torso. “N-no…” he said again, softer. “I s-said that wrong…”

He limped over to the couch and grabbed the back to support himself. It wasn’t fair. He couldn’t just let go of her. She cared about him. She’d never wanted him to get hurt. Warren squeezed his eyes and sobbed a little harder as he considered telling her that they couldn’t be friends. He knew that it would hurt her, and he’d rather take blow after blow than cause her pain.

“Y-you didn’t do anyt-thing.” Warren attempted to speak evenly, sniffing. “I-it’s just what h-happens when you’re n-near me.”

He gave a shudder and let an inarticulate moan escape, his shoulders slouching as he leaned on his elbows.

“You’re in m-my head. I think about y-you all the t-time.” The sobs were getting harder to hold back, and his voice cracked as he tried to speak. He hardly knew what he was saying anymore – his obsession with her was flowing through his lips and manipulating his words.

“I l-like it w-when you’re with m-me, b-but I don’t know w-what’s wrong with m-me and I d-don’t k-know what I’m d-doing and I al-ways want m-more of you and I d-don’t und-derstand and I… I… “

His frantic babble came to a standstill as he clutched his stomach and bawled. His bruises were hurting, he couldn’t talk straight, and he desperately wanted her to know the truth… Warren covered his face with his other hand and ground his teeth together in frustration as he tried to force words out. English was completely out the window. Desperately, he tried the other language that he knew.

“Wǒ ài nǐ.” I love you.

[somechick]

[-lip wobbles- That's so beautiful Warren! OMG! ;_; -is in tears-]

[Macaria]

Macaria stared, her confusion only growing as he attempted to explain himself. Her lips parted slightly, like she was about to speak, but no words came out. Her eyes widened, something that had been happening frequently tonight, and followed him as he stood and moved himself to the couch.

"I don't understand," she said, painstakingly slow, in between his stammers, "What....what are you trying to....?" Her sentence stopped abruptly.

When you thought about it, it was....oh, after a little thought, yes, very obvious what he was saying, or...trying to say to her. But Macaria was swept up in the world of what her parents had done and Warren crying and her anger at her parents and her concern for Warren that her thought process wasn't working right and she was only left with more confusion.

She shrugged in a helpless way, her eyes searching him and asking him without a word to clarify.

He stopped suddenly. The tumble of words ended. And he sobbed again, harder.

He made his frustration evident, and Macaria blinked in the same helpless way she had shrugged. Something came out of Warren's mouth that wasn't English. Or Greek, for that matter.

Techinally, she was supposed to know...well....all languages. It was something that came with being a god(dess.). But these languages had to be taught to you and Macaria had never paid attention. She had learned Greek, of course, it was her natural language, and English, which was pretty confusing to learn, and then a bit of Spanish and a bit of Italian but that was it. As for what Warren had just said, she had no clue, and again her lips slightly parted, like words were about to come out, and her hands moved up and out to her sides in confusion.

He was still crying...

Silently, Macaria vanished and reappeared next to him, pulling him into a hug to give him some kind of comfort, taking care not to hurt his arms or chest or whatever else was bruised and/or broken. She didn't pull her arms away, but rather kept him in her hold. Because when you thought about it rationally, this whole mess with her parents was her fault, he was in pain because of her (little did she know how truthful this statement was), the least she could have done was give him some kind of reassurance instead of letting him cry alone. Macaria shook her head at him slowly, her arms still around him, and softly said, "You have to translate. I don't understand."

[Warren Peace]

It was so maddening and embarrassing. He just wanted to speak clearly for one second, to say those three little words that he knew he should have said sooner, before his world came crashing down around his ears. He could see the incomprehension swirling in her purple irises, and he wished he could clear the confusion that fogged both of their minds. His adoration for her was the answer. It was why he teetered on the edge of control when she was around him, why her parents saw him as a threat, why her guest appearances in his dreams had nearly become a permanent fixture, why he would always crawl back to her as if tied to a leash if he tried to separate himself from her.

Without warning, she vanished. His heart lurched, terrified that she had left. She couldn’t leave. He needed her like a drug. He’d fall apart.

Then something caressed him. Warren jumped, his head whipping around to find her eyes again, inches from his own espresso ones. His chest heaved in incredulous breaths, startled. He raised his arms a few inches from his sides, unsure what to do with them. Time was slowed, and he suddenly realized that he was breathing more than he was sobbing. The awe he felt created a breach in his crying. He seized it.

“It means, ‘I love you.’” He whispered, his voice wavering.

[Macaria]

Macaria's hug gave him obvious comfort and she was glad for that. It had been killing her to see him shattered like that.

She thought in an absentminded, drift-y way that she rather liked holding him like this, only she did wish it was under better circumstances then the ones they were in now.

At that moment, Warren translated what he had said to her. His voice was a whisper.

Macaria's mouth fell open in a silent gasp. She stared, startled, her arms slid off him and she forced herself to blink.

While this admission was shocking to her, it was even stranger that she had been thinking something almost similar seconds before he had confessed.

Maci stepped back, then back again, then back then back then back and then she bumped against the couch, stumbled, lost her balance and fell onto it. She blinked.

"Oof. S***," she cursed under her breath automatically, readjusting herself to a more upright postion. Macaria inhaled slowly and closed her open mouth, returning to her thoughts.

No. I'm sorry. I don't love you back. I don't like you like that. Can't we just be friends? I'm perfectly happy with just being friends. She almost said it. But didn't.

It would be such a lie, Macaria, astonished at the thought, realized.

It had never occured that she could have other options with Warren. To hold him, to hug him, to kiss him, to touch him, and Zeus knows what else, it had never crossed her mind before. Thinking about it now, she realized she quite liked the thought and for a literal half-second, a smile crossed her face. And then it faded. She had no idea what expression she was wearing as her thoughts enveloped her.

But she didn't love him, right? You didn't just....just fall in love all of a sudden with someone when they declared they were in love with you, it didn't happen that way. Maybe she had had feelings for him all along and was just realizing it now? No, she would have suspected something, something before.

Still, though. Maybe...

Macaria's mouth sprung into action. She had to say something, not just sit there like an idiot and wonder if she was suddenly (hah, yeah, right) in love with someone she just found out had loved her...

"Uh," said Macaria. She blinked at her hands, picked at a black polished fingernail with her other thumb, then met Warren's eyes in a somewhat steady way. She realized it was so hard to pinpoint her thumb on her finger because she was trembling again.

"F-for how long?" she stammered, forcing herself to say words. She was curious about this, actually. How long had he been in love with her? For the entire length of their friendship?

[~Elisa Maza~]

*lip wobbles* If I could nominate this thread again, I would. Like, a thousand more times.

*settles for exaulting Maci and Warren*

[Warren Peace]

She let go much too soon.

Immediately his heart sank, though he knew her reaction was perfectly appropriate. He knew that she hadn’t felt quite the same way for him. She was always so easy and suave, while he fought to keep a mask of calm whenever she was around him. Warren knew that he occasionally slipped and let down his guard, though not everyone noticed it. He was more attentive than most people, and he knew what it looked like when someone was in love. He’d seen it in Layla at the beginning of the school year, when Will had stood her up at the Lantern. He’d seen it again in Will on the night before Homecoming, when he’d been a jerk to her and all the other sidekicks he hung out with. Warren just didn’t see it in Macaria. He was only a friend to her, but he was so grateful for even that.

He just wished that he had hugged her back, to hold her for a moment and pretend that she was his.

She stumbled onto the couch, and he couldn’t blame her. A guilty look crossed Warren’s face for a second, wishing he’d kept silent. His mouth had seemingly acted of its own accord, bursting with the need to explain himself. True, a weight was lifted from his shoulders now that she knew the truth, but accepting that she couldn’t love him was even heavier. But I’d carry it for her. I don’t care how hurt I am, I’ll let her be. he told himself truthfully, swallowing back a few sobs and calming for the moment.

“The Phlegethon.” he whispered steadily, though he was still sniffing and his voice was still cracking. “I… I just turned around and saw you, and…” Warren drew in a shaky breath. “I thought it was just from how hot everything was, it just getting to my head, but when you took me home… I couldn’t look at you the same after that.”

He felt his stomach tingle with nervousness and self-consciousness. He’d almost come to embrace the fluttering inside him and hearing his heart thud in his ears, for it happened whenever his feelings for her were at their strongest. It reminded him how alive he felt when he was around her. Warren folded his hands across his abdomen, wincing as he forgot how tender it was. He released himself, then settled for lowering himself down on the couch. He sat on the opposite side of Macaria, respecting her space.

He sniffed and let a few tears trickle down his cheeks. “I understand if you don’t feel the same way.” He said timidly, dipping his head. Warren leaned forward and propped elbows on his knees, touching his interlaced fingers to his forehead. “I… I just wanted you to know. It’s all right.” He took another shaky breath. “It’s kinda silly, I know. You’re a divinity, a princess, and I’m just a mortal, and I know it makes no sense, but I just don’t know how to control it… Just, it’s okay if you just want to be friends, or even stop being friends. I can understand. I’m just sorry everything had to happen like this.”