Ghost of a Chance - Tell Her About It.

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

After her morning class, Marie-Ange has a very odd and somewhat uncomfortable encounter with one Quentin Quire.



It had been a week. A week of chattering non-stop about one Marie-Ange Colbert to anyone who would listen. His World of Warcraft guild was sick of hearing about her. His friends in the Star Trek fanfiction IRC room he frequented were sick of hearing about her. Everyone whose ear he'd talked off was sick of hearing about her. To a man, their advice was the same. "Just ask her the hell out already, Quire, before we go insane."

So, after several days of working up to it, here he was, waiting outside the architecture building for Marie-Ange to come out of her class. He'd done his best to dress up and look nice for this. Marie-Ange had impeccable taste, he wanted her to see that he could dress up nicely, too. He fidgeted where he sat on a bench and resisted the urge to check his watch for the hundredth time.

Summer classes were going to be the death of her. Three hours of lecture, or four hours of lab, either one was too much for one day, and together they were just unfathomably long. But every summer course meant one less she had to take, and one step closer to getting a five year program done in four years.

Marie-Ange almost didn't even notice Quentin on the bench outside her class. It was where Doug usually sat, waiting for her, and she was not looking. Except that she actually -was-, her head turned automatically looking for someone who wouldn't be there. Because -he- was in New York hiding in a server room. "Quentin? Were you... you were not looking for me, were you?" And why was he wearing that godawful tie? No one with a build - or lack of one - like that should ever wear that tie.

Now that the moment was here, all the courage he'd managed to screw up had somehow left the premises. "Um, maybe?" he asked timidly. God, she was so beautiful and perfect standing there with the sun in her hair. And the best thing of all, she'd obviously seen the light and kicked Ramsey to the curb. The idiot had looked scruffy in class all week, downing coffee like it was the only thing keeping him awake. Ramsey had been ganking his characters all week in World of Warcraft, too. He was the only person who could possibly be so single-minded as to find all of his alts and kill them as frequently as possible. But even the gank-fest hadn't gotten him down, because Marie-Ange was free of that elitist overprivileged blowhole.

She had a bad feeling that the tie and dress shirt were somehow related to Quentin sitting out and waiting for her class to get out. And how had he known which class she was in anyway? He hadn't followed her, she was sure of -that-. And he had that look, the heart-in-hand staring at his shoes look that she'd seen before. On another face. And he had no idea how much she truly loathed that expression right now. "Maybe?" She asked quietly. "You are not sure?"

"Um, would you like it if I was here waiting for you?" Quentin asked hopefully. He was glad he'd foregone the flowers. That would have been too forward. There was a proper way to approach these things. And Marie-Ange was French and cultured, and it certainly wouldn't do to be too forward. Except, without flowers, he had nothing to do with his hands, so he jammed them in his pockets nervously.

It was what she had thought, despite any hope she'd had that it wasn't. ~Why could he not be on a job interview, or offering tutoring?~ Marie-Ange thought. "Oh, Quentin.. I am so sorry." She pinched the bridge of her nose, and closed her eyes. "You are very nice, and very smart, and I am sure that someday you will make someone very happy, but I think that someone is not me." And now she'd gone and used that awful cliche. But at least it was not the one about "I think of you like a brother."

So this was what it must feel like to have your still-beating heart ripped out and showed to you. Quentin winced visibly. Okay, now he was definitely glad he'd not brought the flowers. "But...but you finally broke up with Ramsey," he said forlornly. "I thought maybe I could show you what it's like to be with someone who really appreciates you..."

There was no painless way to explain. There just wasn't. "Quentin, you barely know me. You helped to teach my calculus class." Marie-Ange answered quietly. "I am .. even if I knew you, I am not really thinking about dating anyone at all. Douglas and I were together a very long time, and it is going to take me time to stop thinking about him, and time to stop being hurt.."

"But...I just thought I could help..." Quentin continued in that same forlorn tone. This wasn't going at all how he'd expected. She was supposed to realize what a good person he was, and how much better he was than Ramsey, not be breaking his heart into little ittybitty pieces...

It was hard to say no. He sounded like a beaten puppy. But she was not going to find herself being the emotional support and trophy girlfriend for another nerd in need of a pretty face to show off. "I know, Quentin. Thank you for worrying about me." And if he hadn't been thinking about it that way, he would now, in hindsight, she hoped. Maybe one less person only thinking of how lonely -they- were and not how anyone else felt. "I have to go, I have to return the car before too long. I only signed it out for the afternoon." She smiled gently, and turned to go down the hall. "I am -very- sorry, Quentin."

Quentin wrestled with himself for an very long second as Marie-Ange turned away from him. He'd always thought that those angels and devils on a character's shoulders were a cartoony affectation, but right now his instincts were playing the part of angel and devil. The angel told him to let her go and take it like a man. The devil told him to stop her. And he knew that he could stop her. He'd just wanted her to love him for who he was. As Marie-Ange took that first step away, he reached out with his hand. "Wait," he said, and as he grabbed her hand, he pushed out with his power. Touch telepathy. It was the reason he never touched anyone. But he wanted to touch that flawless French skin. And when he was done, she'd want to touch him too.

"Hrm? Quentin?" Marie-Ange asked, looking over her shoulder. And then felt the familiar needle-like pinch of someone touching her mind. He was a telepath? She hadn't even known he was X-Factor positive. He'd never said. "Quentin! No!" She tried to pull away, and found herself surprised at how strong his grip was.

Quentin had always pictured his telepathy as sort of like jacking into the Matrix. There was that brief pinch and moment of "oh my god there's a needle in the back of my -head-", and then boom, you were in the Matrix. With his telepathy, there was the brief sensation of invasion, and then whatever command he was giving (in this case "STOP.") would take effect. He hadn't used it very much, but he was adept enough with it.

Except that Marie-Ange's brain wasn't like normal brains. It was like...the astral equivalent of a black hole. His command just sank into the morass, and accomplished nothing except to cause him to break the link and stagger backward with an instantaneous massive migraine. He clutched at his head involuntarily.

As Quentin let go of her hand, Marie-Ange pulled it back, and then blinked in confusion. "I am sorry Quentin, I seem to have been somewhere else for a moment, did you .. you were not waiting here for me, were you?" She rubbed her temple and frowned. The start of a headache, she was going to need to go and lie down when she got back to her rooms.

Amnesia? Well, that was a blessing, and he wouldn't have to backpedal frantically about the use of his power. "I...I need to go," he stammered, turning and fleeing with a hand clutched to his throbbing temple. He was going to go take about ten Advil and then lay down and pray the world stopped spinning.

That was strange. Quentin was so -odd- sometimes, Marie-Ange thought. He was polite enough, but so awkward and nervous. Which was a shame, since she could see he was perfectly nice under all the stammering and staring down at his feet. And so, as he fled, she turned down the hall to go out towards the parking lot. She'd thought, for a moment that he had wanted something, but she supposed not.