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xp_logsJean-Paul's attempting flight-on-purpose when he meets Quentin on the roof.
It was a beautiful summer day and for once, no one was attempting to drag Quentin down to their stygian pits of ignorance. To celebrate, he donned a pair of red and black square-cut swim trunks and headed up to the roof where he could listen to the new Years & Years album for the hundredth time, smoke a bowl, and soak up some sun.
He detected the presence of another person before he opened the door, but it was an unfamiliar one. Not in the sense that it was another one of the peons who lived here whom he'd never bothered to meet, but someone new altogether. Quentin shook his head and tsked as he stepped out onto the rooftop to lay down his towel. "Another poor soul lost," he said mournfully to himself.
Jean-Paul was relatively certain that he would not die if he fell off the roof of this ridiculous mansion. For varying quantities of both 'relatively' and 'certain.' He hadn't died getting thrown from the car, he hadn't even had a concussion. However, purposefully triggering the flight that had carried him so far away from the wreck of the car was not going as smoothly as he had assumed it would.
He'd been trying to figure out the feel of it so he could do it whenever he wanted to do it and he had managed to hover. Then he'd shot straight up, panicked, stopped mid-air, and dropped like a rock right back to toward the roof. Only instead of hitting and crashing through the roof, he wound up on his back - hovering. Well, at least until he realized he was hovering, at which point he dropped six inches to the patch of stone he'd wound up over. An irritated sound escaping him, he laid there for several long seconds, one hand balled up into a fist so he could smack the roof minutely.
Quentin had just packed his pipe when he heard a panicked yelp from up above. His eyes followed the plummeting figure, and a curious eyebrow was raised when it suddenly stopped just half a foot off the ground. He suppressed a chuckle when the guy finally fell to the floor and lit his pipe to take a nice long drag. "You know," he called to the stranger, "You can probably find a bunch of pillows inside to bring out here."
Startling a bit, Jean-Paul sat up properly and looked around. He didn't see anyone immediately, but then he caught sight on the trail of smoke and followed it down to the pink-haired boy with the pipe. "Ah, bonjour," he said, pushing himself up and off the roof before cursorily attempting to dust himself off. He wasn't sure how he felt about being caught here as he attempted to fly on purpose. He rubbed briefly at the bandages covering his forearms before continuing, "Why are you smoking here?"
Now that the stranger was on the ground and right side up, Quentin could get a good look at him. And it was definitely a good look. The guy seemed so cut that it was a wonder his clothes hadn't fallen to shreds. Almost made Quentin ashamed to be lying there in just his short shorts. "Because it's the best place to watch fap material literally fall from the sky," he replied, not realizing until after he'd said it just how candid that was. Wow. Gabriel's weed man made some good stuff.
It took Jean-Paul a moment, but then he laughed despite himself. It suddenly didn't matter that this person he didn't know had seen him failing at something. "Merci," he said, offering the young man a half-bow before straightening and rolling his shoulders a bit. The bruises had faded, the cuts on his arms still itched. "I am Jean-Paul. New to this... place," he said, glancing out over the grounds.
"Quentin. Political prisoner," he quipped. He took another toke before withdrawing a bottle of spray-on sunscreen so he could apply it to himself. "Jean-Paul, huh? You French? You don't sound like the other French people around here. Colbert and her basic cousin."
"Pah," Jean-Paul shook his head. "Non, I am Quebecois, not French." His nose wrinkled at the thought. "Political prisoner? I did not think they did such things here in this... oasis of acceptance."
"Oasis of acceptance. Good one. Just don't violate the hivemind, buddy. You'll summon all the white knights." Quentin finished covering his front side, arms, and legs, and was going to just telekinetically spray his back, but he stopped himself and grinned wickedly. "Hey, do you mind?" he asked, indicating his back with the bottle of sunscreen.
Plucking the bottle of sunscreen from the air, Jean-Paul gave a negligent shrug and moved behind Quentin so he could apply it. "What do you mean, the hivemind?"
"Free thought is forbidden here! We do not tolerate differences of opinion!" Quentin answered in an exaggerated fake German accent. "It's a conformist heaven. So if groupthink is your thing, then you're gonna love it here."
Jean-Paul snorted. "This was not what they advertised when they told me to come here for training," he said, recapping the sunscreen as he finished Quentin's back. "Though I am not having so much luck with the training yet. The pillows are not such a bad thought."
"Aren't there people who're supposed to help you with that shit? Thanks." Quentin put the bottle back into his bag and after taking another hit from his pipe, offered it to Jean-Paul. "So you fly? That a new trick for you?"
"Oui," Jean-Paul said, moving to sit downwind of the pipe. He did not begrudge others smoking, but he saw no reason to breathe something that might kill him in twenty years. "It is a new trick, as you say. But I have not met with anyone about my... powers training. They tell me there are several people who can help me with it."
Quentin shrugged and puffed on his pipe again before setting it carefully aside and lying down on his back, hands under his head for support. "All three of the Generation X fuhrers can fly, I think, so one or all of them will probably take you under their wing. Heh, wing." He laughed at his own unintentional pun.
"There are many fliers here?" Jean-Paul asked, smirking just a bit at the pun. He did not think any of the people he'd been introduced to actually had wings. None visible, at least. But how would you hide something like that?
"I don't even know. There's all sorts. Wings, TK, self-powered, like I assume you are." Quentin scratched his midriff and examined Jean-Paul again. "You're awful old for new manifestations. It's usually teenagers around here. What happened to you?"
Rubbing at the new point on his left ear, Jean-Paul shrugged a little. "Car crash. I flew through the windshield, literally. And... dodged the car that hit us, oui? Now I have these... elf ears. And flight. If I could make it work."
Quentin reached over without asking for an invitation and poked the tip of the ear Jean-Paul had just indicated. His finger may have lingered a moment longer than necessary. "So wait, you had normal-people ears before the crash, and then five seconds later, you looked like this? Neat."
"I was... unconscious? Oui, unconscious," Jean-Paul said, rubbing at the point of his ear that Quentin had touched. It itched. "But Raymonde tells me it was not so far. Otherwise the hospital staff would have seen." He quirked a small smile and shrugged. "What of you?"
"Oh, you know." Quentin lied back down and stretched. "Got tired of everyone and everything and surprise! Turns out I can read people's minds, and part of that is being able to lock them into their own personal psychological hell. Stuff happened, and I came here to learn how to not kill myself with my powers. And, you know, to become another cog in the conformity machine."
"Pssh, conformity," Jean-Paul said, rolling his eyes. "Why conform? People, most of them - they are not so wonderful that I would like to be like them, oui? It is the same for others, I think." He snorted softly to himself before he muttered, "Of course, they tell me there is something good in not standing out so much." Then, a little louder, eyebrows rising, he said, "People are very often very stupid."
"This is a one hundred-percent true and factual statement. You, I like. And that's not totally the weed talking."
Jean-Paul laughed a little, tilting backward to lay flat against the roof. "Merci. Everyone here has been... je ne sais pas. Nice. Falsely nice, oui?"
"Some of 'em," Quentin agreed, sitting up just long enough to enjoy another puff. "But what's even worse is some of them are actually, genuinely nice. Like, they try to be. It's really gross. I don't like it at all."
Laughing again, Jean-Paul let his hands rest on his stomach as he commented, "Oui, but... you can not see them, avoid them, I mean. Or try to make them look at other people instead of you."
"I mean, I probably could, because the whole mind control thing. That might be considered ethical use of telepathy. It's for everyone's own good."
Shaking his head, Jean-Paul kept quiet, letting the silence fall and stay as he allowed himself to relax against the roof. Being here was not ideal, but perhaps it wouldn't be so awful, after all.
It was a beautiful summer day and for once, no one was attempting to drag Quentin down to their stygian pits of ignorance. To celebrate, he donned a pair of red and black square-cut swim trunks and headed up to the roof where he could listen to the new Years & Years album for the hundredth time, smoke a bowl, and soak up some sun.
He detected the presence of another person before he opened the door, but it was an unfamiliar one. Not in the sense that it was another one of the peons who lived here whom he'd never bothered to meet, but someone new altogether. Quentin shook his head and tsked as he stepped out onto the rooftop to lay down his towel. "Another poor soul lost," he said mournfully to himself.
Jean-Paul was relatively certain that he would not die if he fell off the roof of this ridiculous mansion. For varying quantities of both 'relatively' and 'certain.' He hadn't died getting thrown from the car, he hadn't even had a concussion. However, purposefully triggering the flight that had carried him so far away from the wreck of the car was not going as smoothly as he had assumed it would.
He'd been trying to figure out the feel of it so he could do it whenever he wanted to do it and he had managed to hover. Then he'd shot straight up, panicked, stopped mid-air, and dropped like a rock right back to toward the roof. Only instead of hitting and crashing through the roof, he wound up on his back - hovering. Well, at least until he realized he was hovering, at which point he dropped six inches to the patch of stone he'd wound up over. An irritated sound escaping him, he laid there for several long seconds, one hand balled up into a fist so he could smack the roof minutely.
Quentin had just packed his pipe when he heard a panicked yelp from up above. His eyes followed the plummeting figure, and a curious eyebrow was raised when it suddenly stopped just half a foot off the ground. He suppressed a chuckle when the guy finally fell to the floor and lit his pipe to take a nice long drag. "You know," he called to the stranger, "You can probably find a bunch of pillows inside to bring out here."
Startling a bit, Jean-Paul sat up properly and looked around. He didn't see anyone immediately, but then he caught sight on the trail of smoke and followed it down to the pink-haired boy with the pipe. "Ah, bonjour," he said, pushing himself up and off the roof before cursorily attempting to dust himself off. He wasn't sure how he felt about being caught here as he attempted to fly on purpose. He rubbed briefly at the bandages covering his forearms before continuing, "Why are you smoking here?"
Now that the stranger was on the ground and right side up, Quentin could get a good look at him. And it was definitely a good look. The guy seemed so cut that it was a wonder his clothes hadn't fallen to shreds. Almost made Quentin ashamed to be lying there in just his short shorts. "Because it's the best place to watch fap material literally fall from the sky," he replied, not realizing until after he'd said it just how candid that was. Wow. Gabriel's weed man made some good stuff.
It took Jean-Paul a moment, but then he laughed despite himself. It suddenly didn't matter that this person he didn't know had seen him failing at something. "Merci," he said, offering the young man a half-bow before straightening and rolling his shoulders a bit. The bruises had faded, the cuts on his arms still itched. "I am Jean-Paul. New to this... place," he said, glancing out over the grounds.
"Quentin. Political prisoner," he quipped. He took another toke before withdrawing a bottle of spray-on sunscreen so he could apply it to himself. "Jean-Paul, huh? You French? You don't sound like the other French people around here. Colbert and her basic cousin."
"Pah," Jean-Paul shook his head. "Non, I am Quebecois, not French." His nose wrinkled at the thought. "Political prisoner? I did not think they did such things here in this... oasis of acceptance."
"Oasis of acceptance. Good one. Just don't violate the hivemind, buddy. You'll summon all the white knights." Quentin finished covering his front side, arms, and legs, and was going to just telekinetically spray his back, but he stopped himself and grinned wickedly. "Hey, do you mind?" he asked, indicating his back with the bottle of sunscreen.
Plucking the bottle of sunscreen from the air, Jean-Paul gave a negligent shrug and moved behind Quentin so he could apply it. "What do you mean, the hivemind?"
"Free thought is forbidden here! We do not tolerate differences of opinion!" Quentin answered in an exaggerated fake German accent. "It's a conformist heaven. So if groupthink is your thing, then you're gonna love it here."
Jean-Paul snorted. "This was not what they advertised when they told me to come here for training," he said, recapping the sunscreen as he finished Quentin's back. "Though I am not having so much luck with the training yet. The pillows are not such a bad thought."
"Aren't there people who're supposed to help you with that shit? Thanks." Quentin put the bottle back into his bag and after taking another hit from his pipe, offered it to Jean-Paul. "So you fly? That a new trick for you?"
"Oui," Jean-Paul said, moving to sit downwind of the pipe. He did not begrudge others smoking, but he saw no reason to breathe something that might kill him in twenty years. "It is a new trick, as you say. But I have not met with anyone about my... powers training. They tell me there are several people who can help me with it."
Quentin shrugged and puffed on his pipe again before setting it carefully aside and lying down on his back, hands under his head for support. "All three of the Generation X fuhrers can fly, I think, so one or all of them will probably take you under their wing. Heh, wing." He laughed at his own unintentional pun.
"There are many fliers here?" Jean-Paul asked, smirking just a bit at the pun. He did not think any of the people he'd been introduced to actually had wings. None visible, at least. But how would you hide something like that?
"I don't even know. There's all sorts. Wings, TK, self-powered, like I assume you are." Quentin scratched his midriff and examined Jean-Paul again. "You're awful old for new manifestations. It's usually teenagers around here. What happened to you?"
Rubbing at the new point on his left ear, Jean-Paul shrugged a little. "Car crash. I flew through the windshield, literally. And... dodged the car that hit us, oui? Now I have these... elf ears. And flight. If I could make it work."
Quentin reached over without asking for an invitation and poked the tip of the ear Jean-Paul had just indicated. His finger may have lingered a moment longer than necessary. "So wait, you had normal-people ears before the crash, and then five seconds later, you looked like this? Neat."
"I was... unconscious? Oui, unconscious," Jean-Paul said, rubbing at the point of his ear that Quentin had touched. It itched. "But Raymonde tells me it was not so far. Otherwise the hospital staff would have seen." He quirked a small smile and shrugged. "What of you?"
"Oh, you know." Quentin lied back down and stretched. "Got tired of everyone and everything and surprise! Turns out I can read people's minds, and part of that is being able to lock them into their own personal psychological hell. Stuff happened, and I came here to learn how to not kill myself with my powers. And, you know, to become another cog in the conformity machine."
"Pssh, conformity," Jean-Paul said, rolling his eyes. "Why conform? People, most of them - they are not so wonderful that I would like to be like them, oui? It is the same for others, I think." He snorted softly to himself before he muttered, "Of course, they tell me there is something good in not standing out so much." Then, a little louder, eyebrows rising, he said, "People are very often very stupid."
"This is a one hundred-percent true and factual statement. You, I like. And that's not totally the weed talking."
Jean-Paul laughed a little, tilting backward to lay flat against the roof. "Merci. Everyone here has been... je ne sais pas. Nice. Falsely nice, oui?"
"Some of 'em," Quentin agreed, sitting up just long enough to enjoy another puff. "But what's even worse is some of them are actually, genuinely nice. Like, they try to be. It's really gross. I don't like it at all."
Laughing again, Jean-Paul let his hands rest on his stomach as he commented, "Oui, but... you can not see them, avoid them, I mean. Or try to make them look at other people instead of you."
"I mean, I probably could, because the whole mind control thing. That might be considered ethical use of telepathy. It's for everyone's own good."
Shaking his head, Jean-Paul kept quiet, letting the silence fall and stay as he allowed himself to relax against the roof. Being here was not ideal, but perhaps it wouldn't be so awful, after all.
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