xp_logs | Tandy & Julian, Dude...Demons

Julian runs into a brooding Tandy on the flier's platform, a conversation about life after possession ensues.

Julian was dressed for a night flight, the summer air wasn't cold near the doorway to the flier's platform, but he knew from experience it would be freezing a few hundred feet up. He smiled, taking in the last bit of twilight sinking into the West toward his home- and his troubles. He climbed the few steps up to the platform and was walking past the couch when he noticed he wasn't alone- a girl was sitting on the couch. A rather blond girl who looked very sad; with a sigh, he shook his head and fell onto the couch next to her, "Is this seat taken?"

"Nope." Tandy said not looking over at the stranger. She did not recognize his voice but she was sure it was a new student or returning adult - she was used to it by now. "Feel free to have a seat. Can't promise that I will be good company."

“I don't want to intrude, I remember coming up here for solitude once in a while when I was a student," he tried to place her, certain that she was one of the New Mutant students. "If you change your mind, just let me know," then it hit him, "Tandy Bowen, right?"

Tandy snapped out of her own world and looked over at the man who said her name, "It seems my reputation has proceeded me. I don't recognize you."

He put a hand to his chest and feigned injury, "And mine apparently doesn't." With a smile he extended his hand, "Julian Keller, I think we may have crossed paths at some function or another back West. I don't blame you for not remembering me, much bigger deals at those parties."

Tandy's eyes grew big. "I am so sorry. If it was one of those parties my parents went too I rarely remembered anyone from there. Mostly because they are not something a young teen wants to be at. I remember your name, wait. Now I feel like a bad person. Just have a lot of things on my mind."

Julian waved off her apology, "Not to worry- I wasn't blaming you. Those parties were boring and i wasn't very memorable then anyway." He gave her a reassuring smile and turned himself toward her. "I swear though, everyone I've met in passing always seems to end up here. Well, not here, here- on the roof. Speaking of, what brings you up here?"

"They were." Tandy thought back to how it was one of the rare occasions she went anywhere with her mother. The blonde looked around again, "It is either here, my room, or the quarry. Sometimes the lake if I am feeling adventurous." The teen looked back at Julian and bite her lower lip, "I-um...I opened a demon portal that allowed a lot of innocent people to turn into Shades and almost killed my friends in the process. Well not me, but - it is complicated."

With a chuckle and a shake of his head, Julian recalled similar feelings of guilt from years ago. "And now you are hiding and feeling like no one should be around you because you're dangerous, right? Dude, this is Xavier's, pretty much everyone here has done something like that. In my first week here as a student, I got a dozen people kidnapped and tossed into murder world." He could still recall the staged deaths by the madman who called himself Arcade...and he hadn't played flash games since.

"I know. I have heard the stories. I arrived shortly after the events of Genosha. But, I kind of feel violated." Tandy looked over at him. "What is murder world?"

He hadn't been around for what had happened at Genosha. From what little he'd heard out west it hadn't been good. "Murder World is sort of like the danger room, but with out safeties and run by a sociopathic ginger. He had it set up like a reality TV show with different stages and elimination challenges." His smile faltered for a moment, "I made it through to the end, six of us did, we thought he'd killed everyone else."

All the while he was telling his story, Julian was kicking himself for not realizing it wasn't guilt that had separated Tandy from the rest of the mansion. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be all 'butch up, we all have stuff' to you." He paused, then, "Do you need anything?"

Tandy didn't like the way murder world sounded. Completing challenges or else you get killed? "I am almost afraid to ask how many people started in the beginning." The blonde shook her head, "No. I am just...sitting here. I don't know too many people that have been possessed or even retain the memories of the one that did the possessing."

"That sucks," Julian said, with emphasis on the 'sucks.' He thought for a moment, "You know, I used to date a girl who got possessed, I think she might still be around too- Nico Minoru? Do you know her?" Was she possessed, he was always unclear on that and didn't like to think of her because of the painful memories that kept surfacing when he did.

"Yes. I know Nico." Tandy paused for a moment before looking back up at the sky. "It might be kind of twisted but I am kind of relieved that I am not alone."

"It's probably more twisted if you weren't relieved," Julian considered things for a moment, "I mean, you aren't glad that she went through it too- that would be bad- but the fact that you're not alone can be helpful." A beat of silence passed between them, "How is, Nico?" Julian shook his head, "No, nevermind. I'll find out sooner or later. Just, look- you're isolating yourself, as you said, because you feel violated, right?"

Tandy raised an eyebrow at his question on how Nico was but didn't press on about it. "Yea. I never had the feeling before of not being in control of my own body. Almost like I was playing a FPS but I wasn't in control of the controller."

"Like Twitch Plays Pokemon, do not tell anyone i just made that reference, it will ruin my image as a vapid playboy. And I've worked so hard on it." He thought about what she had said for a moment, crickets chirping in the night filling the silence. "That would really suck. I'm sorry you had to go through it."

With a slap to the knee, Julian leveled himself erect and held out a hand for Tandy. "Miss Bowen, you are about to have the best hot chocolate you have ever tasted in your life. It will change the way you look at the world and my only request is that you don't fall in love with me because of it...it has happened, ask Angelica.

"The only choice you have to make is to come inside with me while I make it, or to stay out here and enjoy the night air until I bring it to you."

Tandy snorted a laugh, "Sorry. You don't paint a picture of being a playboy. But, your secret is safe with me." Looking over at Julian and then shrugged, "Just have memories to short out."

Her eyes looked down at hand before it went back up at him. "That is a serious statement you just said." She took his hand and lifted off the couch. "I am forever single. Just ask Sue. So you have no worries there."

"While I resent the implication that I don't come off as a handsome, debonair, wealthy man, I will forgive your error this time." He gave her a wink and chuckled, "I haven't met a Sue yet," he led the way to the door back inside, his night flight forgotten. "But never say never, Tandy."

"I will keep my comments to myself then." Tandy shook her head, "Never ever."