xp_logs | Julian & Inez: Coffee Talk

Julian and Inez get 'coffee' and a number of issues in their lives are discussed, including who would have won in a fight: Julian or Angel.

It was nice to be outside again and even nicer not to be generating one-point-twenty-one jigawatts of sparkyness whenever he moved. Even the kitchen's disinfectant smell was palatable after having been self-sequestered in his room for the last week and some days. Of course, he didn't want to be in there now anyway...given that Callie was also back to normal and making up for her rude behavior to Fred in their room.

Julian grabbed an apple and bit into it, savoring the richness of flavor as a dribble of juice ran down his chin. He wanted to get away from here and began to wonder if there were apple orchards in New England. Granted, his status as a student of Xavier's limited his mobility, but maybe he could go into town...but to what end? Wednesday was a half-a-week away and Doreen was off in the trees right now anyway. As he leaned on the island and stared out the window, he didn't realize he was no longer alone.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Inez said as she skipped past Julian and hopped up to sit on the island, snatching the apple out of his hand and taking a bite. "You're looking all deep and introspective and stuff."

Julian smirked and thought about taking the apple back, but thought it might send the wrong message. "Do they have apple orchards in New York?" this had to be the most random thing he'd ever asked an attractive girl.

"I dunno?" Inez replied, chewing thoughtfully. "Maybe? They have pumpkin patches, they probably have apple orchards somewhere here. Feeling the need for freshness or something? I can imagine you're hungry after that whole powers wackiness. I told you all, modern art is evil. And also dumb." She yawned and fidgeted on the tile surface of the kitchen island. "What's got you all orchard-hunty?"

"Just spent the last week and some in my room- I'm enjoying being out and about, but I'd love to get the hell out of here, ya know?" He turned and leaned with one arm on the counter, smiling at her. "Know anyone who might want to go with me? I can't promise apple orchards, but I can probably guarantee coffee or something."

"Ooh, coffee!" Inez chirped, jumping off the island and bouncing up and down. "I'll drive!"

***And a cut to the coffee shop about twenty minutes later***

A large hot chocolate with Irish Cream flavoring sat in front of Julian as he settled into the coffee shop table in a darkened corner. Despite the fact that it was warm outside, this was his drink of choice, never having acquired the taste for the coffee bean that everyone else seemed to- with the exception of coffee ice cream. Taking a sip of the sweet concoction, he set it back down, absent to the fact there was whipped cream dabbed on the end of his nose. "Not bad, passable at least, but I've still got it beat I think."

"You are the cocoa master, I'll admit," Inez replied, sipping through a straw as she enjoyed the mixed sugar and caffeine rush of the blended frozen coffee drink. At least there was a rumor that there was coffee in it under the chocolate sauce and caramel. "Although you've got to try it how they make it in Mexico, so awesome. Cinnamon and vanilla and it's the best thing ever first thing in the morning."

The thought brought back memories of being bundled in a blanket in her dad's pickup, sipping the sweet hot chocolate from a styrofoam cup while she watched her father talk his way through a border checkpoint. Not many kids would have thought of "good times smuggling guns with Dad" as a treasured childhood memory, but Inez had never been like most kids, even at an early age.

"I went to Mexico with my dad when I was younger...we weren't allowed sweets, my brother and I, I mean." Taking another sip he took a deep breath and released it as a contented sigh. "Wonder if I'll ever get back down that way." He was sitting across from the one person who he felt a tangible connection with at the mansion based of similar family situations- or at least neither of their families seemed to want them around.

Inez snorted and raised an eyebrow expressively at Julian. "I'm surprised you don't just pull out the platinum card and rent a jet. Or is that just for special occasions?" she teased, smiling to show that she didn't mean any malice by the jab.

"Of course not," he smirked back, "sometimes I like to just charter a flight to Oslo on the weekends and get out of town." Julian stuck out his tongue playfully. "Actually, I didn't tell anyone this so please, ya know, don't repeat it. After that date, I got a letter from home from dad...he was not happy."

Inez thought about that for a moment, given what she knew about Julian's parents. "Is he cutting you off? I mean... oh god, that'd be funny." She giggled a little, then shook her head at Julian. "No, no, not your parents cutting you off. Just laughing at the idea of you having to get a job. Maybe with one of those... Burger Shack hats..."

Julian gave her a look of look that left no meaning to interpretation, "Har har. No, they're not cutting me off, but they threatened to." Turning his cup slightly, "I don't know what I'd do if that happened. Basically, I can't spend too much or," he made a gesture for being cut off. "They weren't to happy when I sent those Apple Blossoms to Kosovo or wherever."

"Sarajevo. It's in Bosnia." Inez shuddered a little at the memory. Julian hadn't been there, after all. He wouldn't know what it had been like to see the people there living in the kind of poverty he'd probably never seen. All of a sudden Inez was reminded of the giant gulf between the world he'd grown up in with privilege and money, and the kind of upbringing people like her claimed.

"You ever thought of getting a job, seriously?" she asked. "And I'm not trying to poke fun, I'm being serious here. Like, what do you want to do when you're done here with school?"

With a shrug, Julian put off answering with another sip of chocolate. "I was brought up to take over as CEO of Keller Industries. When I manifested...James started getting that attention. All I've really been good at was business. Maybe I could start my own company."

Inez pointedly didn't ask how a seventeen year-old was "good at business" beyond maybe finessing the connections a rich family offered. Part of her really wanted to dislike Julian for how much he seemed to take for granted, but on the other hand, he was someone who was genuinely kind - if a little clueless. "You ever think about making it on your own without your parents' money?" she asked earnestly. "I always figured... I dunno, you know I don't come from much. After they sent my daddy away, I didn't have much from him but his name, no savings, no secret safe deposit box full of cash and diamonds, nothing like that. Pretty obvious that anything I'm gonna get, I've got to work my ass off for. Ms. Frost's really been giving me a good chance there, but I'm not sure being someone's personal assistant is a lifelong career goal, you know?"

She sighed, taking another long sip of her drink. "She's been making all these hints about college, too. Leaving brochures around when I file stuff in the office. I don't know if college is the thing for me either, though."

"So, what do you want to do?" Julian asked, glad that the attention was off of him for the moment. In truth he'd never given he question much consideration. Suddenly, on a very small scale, he felt a little bad for having taken the life he'd been given for granted. Then he remembered that he'd been an outsider to that life since he'd first floated in his sleep.

Inez thought about it. "I totally want to say, y'know, go off and rock and roll, be wild, just go wherever the wind takes me. But, then again... doing the stuff with Red X, getting to help people? It just felt right. It's still kind of new to me, though."

She shrugged halfheartedly. "Never really had much chance to help people before. Never really had anyone to help."

The only Red X activity he'd ever participated in was the train accident a couple months prior to this cup of cocoa. Taking another sip he nodded, setting the cup down, "What about the X-Men?" It was still fully his intention to join up when he turned 18.

Inez laughed out loud at the suggestion. "You really think I'm the taking-orders, save-the-world type?"

With a smirk, Julian quipped a response over the top of his mug, "I'd think it would depend on who's giving the orders and what they are." He winked at her and hid a grin with a long drag from his mug.

Setting it back down he shifted slightly in his seat. "Besides, wouldn't you be taking orders in Red X too?"

"That's different," Inez insisted. "The Red X people are professionals and stuff. I just..." she bristled slightly, and looked down at the remains of her drink. "I don't like the thought of people trying to tell me what I can and can't do. The whole 'these are the rules, blah blah' thing. Plus, you see how bad they get tore up out there? Garrison's looked like hamburger all week. I'm far too pretty for that."

"That's true," he smiled and tilted his head slightly, "it would be a shame if anything happened to your pretty face." It sounded corny enough to make him blush slightly, which he promptly hid behind his red ceramic mug. Setting it down and clearing his throat, "Could always start a third option or something. Like a new team, though I don't think the Professor would care for that idea." It wasn't a new thought since the choices seemed limited to Elpis, Red X, the X-Men or College.

Inez set her drink down and looked at Julian for a few long seconds. "Julian?" she finally asked, "Do I seem like someone who really cares what the Professor thinks? I'm eighteen in a few weeks. Once I graduate, I'm out of here, seriously."

"Oh," for some reason the absence of Inez around the mansion hit him as something of a loss. Another moment of silence passed between them before he found something to say. "Where will you go?"

Inez shrugged again. "Guess I've got this year to figure that out. Or to find a reason to stay. Maybe."

Julian sighed, scolding himself for being selfish. It seemed like everyone around him was leaving- first his parents, then Cas, then Karolina...even Angel had left him at this point, or at least the state of their relationship had changed. Despite his regret that Inez would soon be added to that list, he smiled, "You'll figure it out. And if you need to bounce ideas off someone, you know where to find me."

Inez smiled, and reached out to pat Julian's hand. "Hey, it's not like I'm running out the door. I made a promise to my dad that I'd graduate high school. And yo, you know the New Mutants would totally fall apart without me there."

With a momentary realization that he'd had a crestfallen expression, Julian's smile returned and his head tilted even more. "I don't know about that, I mean, they'd still have me."

Inez looked horrified for a moment. "Oh em gee," she drawled dramatically. "Now I know I'm not going anywhere. Talk about letting the fox loose in the henhouse."

A chuckle rose involuntarily, as he dramatically cast a look toward the unfinished ceiling of the cafe'. "Yes, I can picture it now, everyone turning to me for advice. Noriko swearing at me over the journals. Yep, I think I like the sound of that."

"Oh, over my dead body!" Inez exclaimed, mock-offended. "Well, okay, you can have Noriko. But I don't think you're allowed to try and take charge when you've been sneezing lightning bolts for a week."

"Dude, I was sick," Julian said with only a hint of defensiveness in his voice. "You know, next time you get a cold, I'm totally ripping on you."

"You and what army, yo?" Inez joked, playfully poking Julian in the arm. "I think between the two of us, we can keep everyone in line, though," she conceded. "I can keep Angel off your back if you can handle Nori."

Catching himself, Julian almost found himself telling her that Nori wasn't so bad. Instead he chuckled and nodded in agreement, "I'll see what I can do." He definitely needed to talk to Angel tonight, she had to know that it was Esme's fault for everything that had transpired between them since prom night. "Angel and I sort of came to an understanding though," he said with a wink.

Inez just smirked right back. "I'll just bet you did. I hear there was a whole lot of 'understanding' going on locked in a darkroom."

Julian flushed slightly, "What?! No, nononono, it wasn't like that. We just agreed to stop trying to kill each other and try to be friends." He shifted slightly and took another sip from his mug only to find it empty. "Dude, for the most part, we were fighting in there- she was going to try to pick me up and toss me out, but the door got jammed."

Inez laughed around her straw as she finished her drink. "Poor Julian," she teased. "Life must be so hard. But yo, it's not many guys who admit their ex could totally beat them up."

"Hey now, I said she was going to try to do it," he smirked and cocked his head ever-so-slightly. "I think you and I both know who would win in a fight between Angel and I."

"Duh," Inez said, leaning forward with a grin. "Angel's actually been in a fight before. Besides, she can fly." With a laugh, she leaned back and stretched her long legs out. "No offense, Julian, but Angel's way ahead of almost all of us when it comes to her powers. And she was with us kicking butt in Manhattan during that whole Apocalypse thing. She's tougher than you might think."

"Hey, I've been in fights before too, you know." A bit ruffled by her assumption he leaned forward and continued in a whisper, "I used to bust up meth dealers and drug lords, remember?" The idea that Angel could actually take him nearly made him scoff.

"When you had that Gordon guy to give you a boost, yeah," Inez responded, her voice suddenly losing its teasing tone. "I hate to be the one to bust your bubble, Julian... but you're still kind of a rookie scrub. That's nothing bad, hon, that's just how it is."

She leaned forward again, this time putting a hand on Julian's arm. "The ego thing? It's kinda cute, but don't fool yourself, babe."

She didn't believe he could handle himself! He'd been shot at, beat down and was still here. Despite the fact that she did have a point about Gordon boosting his powers, he still earned his confidence. "Yeah," was all he could manage as he picked up his mug and looked at the counter. "You want another?" he asked without looking back at her.

"Oh, definitely," Inez said, her appraising grin going unseen. "But I'll pass on the coffee."

Julian turned back to her and winked, shooting her a charming, albeit false, grin. A plan was already formulating in his head, he was going to prove to Inez that he wasn't a 'scrub-' though he was at a loss for a reason why he felt it was so important. "I'm going to get a go-cup, okay?" Without waiting for an answer he stood up and swiftly walked toward the counter.