6 minutes (Wren)

Tobin was bored, through and through. There was nothing to do in this place and because he couldn’t leave, he was stuck in his boredom. He wondered if the television was free, so leaving his room, Tobin made it down the stairs and into the main rooms of the mansion that housed the Xavier Institute. He stepped into the living room, but predictably it was full of teenage mutants gathered around the television, all watching a movie together. There was no way he was going to convince all of them to change it to something that he wanted to watch, and he did not want to watch the movie they were watching. It was one of those romantic comedies that he only sat through if he was on a date.

The frustration of finding the television occupied mixed with his boredom caused Tobin to crave a cigarette. He hadn’t really had one since he had arrived at the Institute, so his body was craving the nicotine. Of course, it wasn’t strong enough to cause him to smoke just to satisfy his craving. He never wanted it to get that bad, but he knew that unless he stopped it would. Tobin couldn’t stop though. After all, his mother had told him not to smoke, so he had predictably done just that, started smoking. That had pushed them farther apart from each other, but Tobin didn’t care. He was happy with his life, sort of.

Moving from the living room, Tobin decided that he would take his smoke in the sitting room. After all, wasn’t that where rich people took their cigars and pipes? The room was made to smoke in, with its lounge chairs and fine rugs. As he walked into the room, Tobin saw that the room was relatively empty. The only person occupying the room was the one person in the mansion he could have done without seeing. Wren McKenna, beauty and brains extraordinaire, was curled up in a chair reading. Tobin didn’t even bother to look at the book because he figured it was still Wuthering Heights.

Tobin kept to himself but made sure to move right in front of Wren so she would know he was there. Sitting in a nice recliner, Tobin pulled out the pack of cigs that he kept on him at all times. After packing the cigs, Tobin pulled one out. The beauty of his ability was that he didn’t need a lighter to light his cigarette. Concentrated light had just the same effect. Once he had it lit, Tobin sat back and took in a long drag. The taste was something he had gotten used to, and the nicotine racing through his system relaxed him.

It was almost eerily silent in the sitting room tonight. Wren had wanted to wind down after dinner but it looked much too stormy and cold outside tonight for anything out there, which was depressing to her, cause she’d been dying for a chance to go for a run. So with that option out of the running, Wren had decided she could do some more reading. She was sure people were probably starting to think of her as that girl with her nose stuck in a book constantly, but she could live with that. Wren loved reading, and it wasn’t as if she was anti-social. Books were just a comfort for her, they always had been. They provided an escape of sorts.

She’d started in the TV room, which had been fairly empty when she’d arrived. However, that didn’t last long and soon there was a group coming in wanting to watch a movie. They’d been kind enough to ask her if it was alright if they did so, and she’d of course said yes. Then they’d asked if she cared to join them. She had smiled brightly but politely declined, saying she’d take them up on the offer another time. She sat for a few more minutes, but was afraid she was making them choose to keep their movie on a lower volume so as not to disturb her. So she decided to relocate, waving to the group as she left, saying she hoped to run into them all later, perhaps actually get to officially meet them.

Wren wasn’t exactly sure where to go after that, she’d been at the mansion for a short time, and she had yet to really explore completely. She wandered around for a while, finally discovering the sitting room and the solitude it offered. It seemed like such a warm cozy place, offering overstuffed armchairs for Wren to perch in. And that was just what she did. Sitting in the chair, Wren pulled her legs up with her, her knees bent almost under her chin, her book held out in front of her. The silence in the room was so complete, that it was a feeling similar to wearing earplugs. It was pure solitude.

Wren was completely lost in her book when she heard the footsteps of someone entering the room. She knew she couldn’t see them unless they came around in front of the chair, so she waited until then. Of course, she would have much rathered not being able to see who it was at all once she saw the familiar shape of Tobin Abernathy. She let out an exasperated breath and rolled her eyes, immediately turning back to her book. As she did, her eyes ran over her wrist, the one that Tobin had meant to scar during their last altercation. She stared at the skin for a moment. Since that afternoon, every time she thought about it, she could feel a warmth in her wrist, one she explained away as a residual heat from the radiation burn Tobin had tried to leave her.

Wren was just getting back into her book, finding it easier to ignore Tobin this time around. Of course that was until she saw a concentrated flash of light, making her blink from the sudden brightness, and look up at him in annoyance. That was of course when she noticed the cigarette. “Of course…” she muttered under her breath. She stared at him indignantly waiting for him to at least acknowledge that there was another person in the room as he was lighting up.

As Tobin sat in his chair just opposite of the harpy who was named Wren, his gaze fell on her wrist. He had burned her there the last time they had talked. She had been rather frustrating, and he had wanted to remind her just exactly who she was dealing with. However, as his eyes fell on her wrist, he could not find a scar. In fact, her wrist looked just as it had that day by the pool. A small amount of relief floated up in him, but it was squashed by his frustration. He had gone to all that trouble, and she had somehow healed it. What the heck!? Sometimes, life just was not fair to Tobin Abernathy. Still, from the look she gave him when he came into her view, Tobin had made sure she wouldn’t forget him, which was the first step. Why he was still trying, Tobin didn’t know. The only thing he did know was that for some reason, Wren was special, and he wanted to show her that.

As he was smoking, he heard some noise come from Wren, but he wasn’t sure exactly what she said. “Excuse me?” he asked in a mock concerning tone. “I am sorry, but did you say something? I thought you were above the actions of us mere mortals. You are, after all, immortal, right? I mean, you don’t have a mark resulting from our last interaction. That means you can regenerate, right? So how about you leave the mortals alone, and you bury yourself in that book. Next time, you might actually know what you’re talking about.” Taking another dreg of the cigarette, he relaxed back in his chair. Why was he so upset? Life needed to be chill and calm.

Wren felt his gaze on her wrist first, and she felt a bigger flair of warmth in her skin, radiating through her arm. Instinctively she moved her hand into her lap and out of his view. For some reason she was nervous about being alone in a room with Tobin. Not because of what he’d done the last time they’d spoken. This was an unexplainable case of nerves, one she was afraid to investigate further, so she decided she wouldn’t.

He took his sweet time noticing her annoyance. Typical… she mused internally. When he did finally turn her way, she could only grant him a look of total annoyance. Of course that was before he even spoke. Leave it to Tobin to find exactly what to say to make her the most angry. How could he have guessed that she was immortal. The only person who knew about that part of her ability was Angel, and she knew he didn’t tell anyone. A blush flared on her cheeks and she broke eye contact for a second. She didn’t like Tobin knowing that much about her, knowing an something she considered an intimate detail about her that she didn’t share with anyone.

He mentioned her lack of lasting evidence of their last encounter and she glanced down at her wrist again. Apparently he didn’t know about the healing aspect, so he’d been basically grasping at straws, and she’d all but confirmed his suspicions with her blush. Just what she needed. His words were biting, much more angry than they had been last time, and that was saying something. Wren, in fact, had to flinch slightly at the harshness of them. In a few simple sentences Tobin had managed to make her reveal a secret about herself, make an insult out of her favorite form of escape from her life, and make a slight of her intelligence. It was all she could do not to try and blow him across the room in an explosion of flames.

Instead, she took a moment to collect her thoughts and just re-centered her glare at him. “You have a lot to say about mortality. You’re certainly trying to prove yours…” she murmured. “I don’t know how miserable your life might be, but even you can’t be so intent to suffer a painful death enough to enjoy those…” She glance pointedly at his cigarettes. Wren turned back to look him in the eye and waved a hand in front of her face as if to dissipate some nonexistent smoke, trying to make a point. “And immortal or not, I don’t think anyone appreciates secondhand smoke…”

Tobin had just been guessing with his words. He had more wanted to point out her attitude of superiority than to actually say she was immortal, but from the look on Wren’s face when he had mentioned immortality, she must really have some kind of power that made her immortal. What it was, Tobin could only guess. Regeneration only made someone conditionally immortal, meaning they would not age and they would heal, but if they were killed, they would stay dead. However, when Tobin mentioned her regeneration, she seemed to be somewhat relieved, so it couldn’t be that. She was even more mysterious than Tobin first thought, but he was determined to solve the case of Wren McKenna.

Just then, Wren said something indistinct. He continued to smoke as she talked about the small stick in his hand. She seemed affronted, but Tobin attributed that to her personality rather than the actual smoking. Caring about his smoking would mean she actually cared about Tobin, and he doubted that she would ever care about him, especially after what he had done to her at the pool. Tobin couldn’t even remember where that rage had come from, and when he remembered the pleasure he had from hurting Wren, it tore at him. That was a memory he didn’t like to dredge back up, but he couldn’t live it down, either.

“Like you have any say on what I do,” Tobin snarled back, “Ms. McKenna. Last I checked, I was a man, capable of making my own decisions. I’ll smoke if I want to.” Just as he finished that last sentence, Tobin heard someone clear their throat behind him. Turning, he saw himself staring at the X-Man who had referreed the Capture the Flag game. Tobin couldn’t remember his name, but he recognized the anger in the man’s eyes.

“Smoking is not allowed in the mansion, Tobin Abernathy,” said the X-Man sternly. “And if I remember correctly, you aren’t even 18 yet, which means that you aren’t allowed to smoke in the United States, let alone the mansion. Now, hand them over.” The X-Man held out his hand, and Tobin’s jaw dropped. There was no way this guy was going to take away his smokes. Impatience spread across Mr. Law as he waited for Tobin, who eventually handed over the cigarettes. “Thank you,” Mr. Law said. “For that, you will be reporting for welcoming duty until I saw otherwise, understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Tobin sighed. He hated welcoming duty, watching as mutants came into the mansion with ideal notions of what life would be like now that they were accepted. Mr. Law turned and walked the other way, and Tobin watched him look over the cigarettes in an appraising manner. That jerk better not smoke those, Tobin thought to himself, anger and frustrating dominating his thoughts. Then, he remembered that Wren was in the room. “Not. A. Word,” he said turning back to Wren.

Wren could feel Tobin’s eyes studying her. She could almost feel the curiosity pouring off of him, and she could only wonder what his questioning glances were about. She had a feeling around him that she was an easily readable book. Something about the fact that she was so clear to him made her nervous for a reason she could deduce. There was just something in her that wanted to make sure he didn’t get past her defenses, an instinct that knew that if he managed to see the real Wren, she’d find herself somewhere with no escape.

His response to her words was no surprise of course. She knew he’d be just as indignant to her in return. Something in her fluttered at the thrill of matched wits. For all the negative Wren could say about Tobin, there was always the advantage of his ability to offer her true conversation, intellectual conversation, heated conversation. There was something exhilarating in his ability to get her worked up. Of course he obviously had his violent streak, and that only conjured up memories that Wren would have given anything to suppress. She supposed that fact alone played a lot into her defensiveness around him, it was a good enough reason as far as she was concerned.

She watched him for a moment as he returned to his cigarette. “You know…each of those takes six minutes off your life…” she muttered to him with a smirk. “And you know what that means don’t you? Six minutes you can’t spend with me…” she teased, her voice dripping with sarcasm and the slight sting of the venom she inflected.

She was about to comment on his overly chauvinist argument supporting his right to smoke when she heard the clearing of a throat from behind them. Wren shrank more into the chair she was in, sure that whoever it was probably hadn’t seen her. She recognized the voice after a moment as the older guy who had led the capture the flag game. She listened to him chastise Tobin for his smoking and for some reason a small inclination to tell him to back off flared up in her, but was squashed easily. She watched Tobin carefully, not in her scrutinizing way like she usually did with him, but just for the sake of watching. She was intrigued by his polite acquiescence to the demand to give up his cigarettes. Wren had expected more fight out of him, and had to admit that now her curiosity about Tobin was peaked. Perhaps he was more complex than she’d let herself believe, and if that were the case, she knew her curiosity would get the better of her sooner or later.

Once she heard their unexpected guests footsteps retreat, Wren uncurled slightly. She sat still watching Tobin carefully not saying a word when he turned and growled at her not to. She raised her hands in obedient surrender to his request, shaking her head. “Wasn’t going to…” she mumbled. She sat in silence for a moment, noting the frustrated look on his face, before letting out a sigh. She turned to reach for her bag beside the chair she occupied, lifting the bag to her lap, and proceeding to dig around in it.

Her fingers closed around something that made a familiar crinkling sound. She let out another resigned sigh, pulling the item out of her bag. “Alright…I don’t want to hear anything from you about this…I have no idea how old these are and they’re probably crumpled beyond belief, but here…” she said, holding her hand out to him, revealing a crumpled half empty pack of cigarettes. “But you better find a better smoking spot, cause I’m not giving you more if you get these confiscated…” she muttered, trying to avoid eye contact with him. You’re just opening the floodgates now… she thought in annoyance, waiting to see if Tobin would take her offer, and bracing herself for the questions she’d asked him not to ask but was sure he would anyway.

Tobin couldn’t believe his luck. It was appalling that such a thing would happen to him. Not only that, but he wasn’t looking forward to the nicotine withdrawals that he was going to go through now that he couldn’t smoke. He had tried to quit once, tried and failed. The desire for a smoke was just so strong, and it wasn’t like he could tell anyone about the issue. His mother wouldn’t have understood. Trish Abernathy was not known to be an understand woman. Impatient and demanding described her perfectly, but understanding did not. Tobin had hidden a lot of things from his mother, and if he could’ve, he would’ve hid his abilities too. Then again, Trish was to blame for her finding out about his abilities. She had angered Tobin so much that he couldn’t help but radiate light. Lucky for Trish, Tobin had used all of his will to make himself radiate visible light, which he radiated brightly because of the anger inside of him. His mother said he had looked like a man made of white light, and Tobin didn’t remember that. The only thing he remembered from that night was his mother’s face as he glowed. She had looked terrified, which had been immensely gratifying.

While he was thinking about his past and family, Tobin didn’t notice that Wren hadn’t said anything sarcastic and demeaning. However, when he finally pulled himself out of his reverie, he thought something was wrong in the sitting room, as if the balance of the world was tilting. Well, that thought might have been a little extreme, but he definitely felt like something was different. Instead of a biting comment, Wren was just digging into her purse. What she brought out shocked Tobin more than anything. In Wren’s hand was a pack of cigarettes. It wasn’t Tobin’s most preferred brand, but it was a tobacco product, so he couldn’t complain. Tobin grabbed the pack as Wren handed them to him. “I wasn’t planning on saying anything,” Tobin admitted, which was partly true. He was going to make a comment about how Wren hadn’t said anything about his cigs being confiscated, but now this, well, it had just shocked him speechless, which irritated him but also made him look at Wren in a new light. “Oh, don’t you worry,” Tobin continued. “Now that I know what will happen to these if they are spotted, I won’t let anyone see them if I don’t want to.” With a wink, Tobin made the pack of cigarettes disappear in his hand. He could still feel them in his hand, but he couldn’t see them.

Putting the invisible pack in his pocket, Tobin thought about something Wren had said before the X-Man had shown up. Six minutes… Each cigarette was supposed to take six minutes off of his life. Did he really want to shorten his life with each stick? Sure, it felt good to have the drug rushing through his veins, but was a momentary pleasure worth a shorter life? Tobin didn’t know if he was willing to make that trade-off. “Wren,” Tobin said after a brief pause, “why did you have those in your purse? I mean, I just didn’t take you to be the smoking type.” It changed everything about what she had told him. Had she dealt with the same temptation as him and won? “Were you a smoker,” he asked, “before you came to the Institute? If so, how…” Tobin hesitated a second before continuing. Asking this question would let Wren see a side of him that Tobin tried hard to conceal, but he was desperate. “How did you quit?”

Wren rolled her eyes as Tobin winked at her, palming the crumpled cigarette carton and making it disappear. Well at least he won’t get these confiscated…but now you’re not going to have any… A fleeting grimace flashed across Wren’s face and just as quickly was gone, and she could only hope he hadn’t caught it. From what she could tell, Tobin seemed to get caught up in his own thoughts at least as often as she did, so there was a good chance he may have missed the look on her face.

Her own mind flew back to when she’d started smoking as his hand moved the invisible cigarettes to his pocket. It had been one of the decisions she regretted most in her life. It wasn’t because of any sort of addiction, she’d quickly figured out that her desire for a cigarette wasn’t driven by actual nicotine addiction. It was more the fact that she got the calming effects of nicotine but somehow the need for more never surfaced. She’d surmised later that it probably had a lot to do with her healing abilities, but she wasn’t completely sure how, and she didn’t necessarily want to investigate. What had really been the motivating factor for her regret of the decision was the fact that smoking was one of the things she’d hated her father doing. If Wren wanted nothing else out of life, she’d want only to not be like her father.

Wren’s fingers were sparking slightly when Tobin’s words brought her from her thoughts, her anger at her father instantly subsiding. “Wha…? Oh!” she stammered, trying not to blush as she collected her focus to answer him. Just one more thing for him to notice and question that she’d rather not have to explain to Tobin. As he asked her about her methods of quitting, she had to smirk. “Yea…I definitely was a smoker…but I haven’t quit…technically…” she murmured. “Its kind of hard to really explain, I don’t have that dier need for a cigarette like most people who smoke, but I can’t really get the same kind of calm from anything else….”

She was sure she just sounded like any other person trying to tell someone that no, they weren’t addicted, they could stop whenever they wanted, they just needed it to feel good. There was no easy way to explain that it was more an addiction to the fleeting moment of calm that came with a cigarette than a need for nicotine. “I’ve tried to stop…it’s a habit of my father’s that was never very flattering, then again not much about him was…but at least it’s the only bad habit of his I’ve picked up…..” she explained, her brain whirring at the amount of information she was sharing with this guys who already didn’t seem to care about her vulnerable side. “At least I hope it is…” she finished, mumbling under her breath.

Tobin saw something change about Wren’s face when he took the carton of cigarettes from her. If he hadn’t thought so highly of the young woman, he would have thought she was regretting her decision to hand away the smokes. The look was there for a moment and then it was gone, and Tobin decided not to comment on it. If she had recomposed her face so quickly, then she probably didn’t want him to know about the look. He wouldn’t let on that he knew. Besides, he was learning so much about her that he didn’t want to stop.

There was something in her eyes as he moved to put the cigarettes away, but Tobin didn’t focus on it too much. He desperately wanted to know the secrets behind those eyes, but he didn’t want to be teased by seeing something and not being able to know. Instead, he focused more on the fact that she had the cigarettes in the first place. There was a lot more to Wren than he had originally guessed, and he figured it was complicated when he saw the sparks flying from her fingers. That was what sparked his question and his need to speak up. He wondered if she could help him because that would cause the two of them to hang out more than they did now. Tobin sat back and waited for her answer, wondering what she should say.

As Wren answered, Tobin couldn’t help but smile. How many times had he told someone the same thing? He wasn’t addicted. He just liked to feel good. Still, that didn’t change the fact that his body craved some “fresh air.” He could put it off for a while, but eventually he had to give in. Then, he would spend the time during the smoke convincing himself that he had wanted to smoke. This had been his decision. He wasn’t addicted, or so he would condition himself to believe that he was okay. The cycle continued, but Tobin had convinced himself enough. At least, he had gotten passed the shame, only to suffer it again the next time around.

Tobin was surprised when Wren started talking about her family. He had never heard her really talk about that before. “Your dad was a smoker,” he repeated. “At least, you have an excuse, someone to blame. I started smoking just to piss my mom off. Surprised? Didn’t think you would be. I know I can be a jerk a lot of the times, but I am not that guy all the time.” He sighed, rubbing the back of his head. Admitting that was not good for his image, but he figured he should share a bit. After all, she had shared too.

Wren was relieved, to say the least, when Tobin didn’t seem to notice her fleeting expression after passing along her secret stash of cigarettes. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes and smiled a small crooked smile to herself. Maybe she’d underestimated him and his ability to be nice to her. Her eyes scanned over him slowly, as if she’d be able to peel back the layers Tobin had built up to make him who he was today. There was something deeper to him…something in her was sure of it.

Something in her words made him smile and she couldn’t help but notice the warmth the expression brought to his face. She knew his smile was at the absurdly common excuse she was giving. She knew it didn’t sound any better than what anyone else who smoked would say, but she understood what she meant. She could recognize some understanding in his expression though. Maybe he does know what I mean… she thought. It was interesting to think that of all people maybe Tobin was the one who would know exactly what she meant when she said something…someone who on most occasions drove her insane.

Wren wasn’t sure how Tobin was going to react to her being so open about her family. She didn’t talk about them much to anyone, and she wasn’t sure if it was going to come back to bite her this time. Nevertheless, she decided she’d already started she couldn’t just refuse to talk now. His response to her only emphasized the fact that this was now a full conversation. “Yes…my father was a smoker, among other things…” she said with an icy grimace. He mentioned that she could easily blame her father for her smoking habit. “I could certainly blame him for much more…” she muttered under her breath.

As he continued speaking, Wren had to shake the angry thoughts from her mind. She turned her attention back to Tobin and what he was saying. He was somewhat right, his mentioning that his choice to smoke was just to make his mother angry didn’t surprise her much, she supposed some of her decision was founded on similar reasons too. The end of his statement did surprise her though. She watched his face for a moment, unsure of just what to say. However, the words she ended up saying didn’t take any thought at all, in fact she didn’t know she was saying them until they were out.

“I don’t think you’re a jerk…you may act like one…” she smirked, to show him she was only kidding. “But being a jerk and acting like one are two very different things. I think there’s more to you than that…” Her voice trailed off slightly, her mind finally catching up with her mouth, realizing what she’d said. This could end badly for her…she wasn’t sure exactly how Tobin would feel about what she’d said. In fact, she didn’t know how she felt about what she’d just said. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, trying to gauge his reaction and hoping she hadn’t said too much.