Warren's Dorm Room, UC Sunnydale, Sunnydale, CA

[glacial_queen]

Between the flower sale and rehearsal, Karla barely had enough time to grab her mail before catching the portal to Warren's dorm for Valentine's Day plans with Wesley at the ballet. Upon arrival, there was the traditional 'God/Mother Night, I missed you' greeting which took up some time, but eventually, they settled in for a relaxing evening in, with Warren working on a paper for class, and Karla memorizing her lines for Frank.

Eventually, however, she remembered that she'd shoved her mail into her coat pocket and pulled it out to go through. Junk, junk, bills, invoices for 'Dite's, letter from Grezande...and a letter from Worthington Labs. Just looking at the envelope made Karla's heart pound and throat dry. She...honestly hadn't expected a return letter. At least, not quite so quickly. For her to have gotten a reply from him this soon, Warren, Jr must has responded the same day he had gotten her missive.

The letter was short, only three sentences long. And now that it was here, she was going to have to talk to Warren about it. She'd been hoping for a little more time to figure out exactly how to broach the subject to him, that she'd contacted his father about a business arrangement on behalf of Glacia, but it looked that time wasn't something she had anymore of.

"Warren?" she asked, trying not to sound tentative. "You have a minute?"

Comments

[wwiii]

"Kind of?" Warren offered her a tentative smile as he looked up from his desk. "I've got midterms to study for, and a few papers I'm a little behind on."

Sort of a lot behind on. His taking off from Thursday until Tuesday the other week had thrown him more than a little behind. Apparently, in college, 'days off' were not actually a thing that people were meant to take.

"... A lot behind on. But I should be finished with them pretty soon. I hope."

[glacial_queen]

"Important stuff?" Karla asked, sliding out of his bed to come stand behind him, wrapping her arms around his shoulder. None of the words on his screen made any sense to her. "I didn't realize you were majoring in gibberish."

[wwiii]

Warren laughed softly, leaning back against her as he looked thoughtfully at his laptop.

"If it's actually gibberish, I'm in more trouble than I thought," he shared. "Economics is supposed to have at last a couple of real words involved. And I need to spit out a few thousand more of these for Friday."

So... pretty important stuff.

[glacial_queen]

"Well, there's 'the.' That's a word I recognize," Karla teased, pointing at the screen. "Ooh! And fiduciary. That's two out of...what? Four hundred?"

[wwiii]

"Something like that," Warren agreed with a wry smile. "I need five pages of this, believe it or not. Single-spaced, ten point font... I'm pretty certain this professor crawled out of the hellmouth just to assign us essays like this one."

Around here, it was a fair assumption.

[glacial_queen]

Karla leaned in and pressed a kiss to Warren's cheek. "So I shouldn't bother you, then?" she asked. "Let you work in peace?"

...Not talk about his father while he was working?

[wwiii]

That would be good for productivity...

"You're never a bother," Warren countered, turning just enough to catch her lips with his own for a moment. "I should have had this done days ago... I had intended to finish it up before you arrived, actually, but..."

Well, had Karla met Warren's roomate?

[glacial_queen]

She had. Poor Warren.

"Then I'll let you finish up," Karla said, not entirely displeased with letting the conversation drop. "I do have something I want to talk you about, but we can talk later, okay?"

[wwiii]

"Later sounds great," Warren agreed, leaning back for a moment longer, caressing her with one invisible wing. "We can discuss it while we cuddle."

He was expecting a lot of cuddling, between now and tomorrow.

Odds were, he was going to be up until stupid-thirty working on this paper, and then he was going to pass out face-first on his bed and not move until it was time to head to Wesley's side of reality.

[glacial_queen]

Karla nodded, resolving not to say anything about his father's letter until after Valentine's Day. It would be a long discussion as it was, laying out her plans for Glacia, and the landens, and their healthcare not being dependent upon local Healers and Black Widows.

"Cuddling is the best," she said, nuzzling him. "I miss your quality snuggling. Come to bed when you're ready, okay?"

[wwiii]

"The second I'm ready and not a moment later," Warren promised. "If I just start typing and edit this in the morning, I can probably get it done in an hour or two."

It was going to be a very late night.

[glacial_queen]

Karla picked up her script and went back to going over her lines, lounging on Warren's bed. "You take all the time you need," she told him. "After all, I get you for the rest of the weekend. I can wait."

And maybe outline the conversation she'd have with him on Friday. Explain why she'd gone to his dad, the dearth of other options, the desire to not upset him with news of it until she knew for sure, because she'd honestly believed he'd say no and Warren would never need to know of it or stress about it...

Yeah, she wasn't upset about getting a day's reprieve.