Quentin & Jean, Monday morning

[xp-erverse.livejournal.com]

Jean has the good fortune to give Quentin a telepathy lesson. It goes predictably poorly.


"I can't get no satisfaction I can't get no satisfaction 'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try...."

Jean tapped her pencil to the beat as she finished up some paperwork while waiting for her 9 am appointment to arrive. She'd decided to use her office for now, since one of the medlab bays was too clinical, and somewhere like the sunroom or the library risked interruption.

Curse whoever invented 9 AM. Or any time before 1:30 PM. Quentin, dressed in a pair of Chubbies shorts and an oversized tank top, practically zombie-shuffled into Jean's office, double-fisting coffees. He didn't glare at Jean so much as blankly stare at the space beyond her. "It's a crime to be conscious right now, you know," he informed her before sipping from one of the cups.

"Don't you have an 8 am class?" Jean said, sipping her own brand of caffeine in a cup of tea. She smiled.

"I was being nice by making it 9. Good morning to you too."

"I got my certificate of intellectual conformity from the sheeple factory months ago," he said. "And it's cute that you think I actually went to all of my classes, especially the ones before lunch. So what are we doing at this unholy hour? It's usually Chuckles or the less skanky Frost who has Quire duty."

Jean laughed. "Ms. Frost has some things she needs to take care of with her business and the Professor thought it might be a good idea for me to teach you some of the ropes. After M-Day he's not really able to do what he used to do when it comes to some lessons," she said, offering him a scone while she herself grabbed one.

"And wow...I didn't know you graduated. Congratulations. I'm sorry I missed it. For some reason I thought you were a junior."

"You'd find me upside down in the pool before I'd go back to high school. Andthankyou," he muttered from behind his cup. Possibly the first time anyone had heard those words from him without even a tinge of sarcasm. Jean was, after all, one of the two people who had retrieved him from certain death. That earned something resembling respect.

Jean nodded. "Yeah. I wouldn't either," she said without judgment. While she made some friends during that time, high school was a means to an end. She didn't want to go back there when adulthood had so much more to offer. Not to mention she'd seen just a glimpse of how rough Quentin's high school experience was and could understand his dislike.

Finishing off her scone, Jean dusted herself off and took one more sip of tea for maximum caffeinated clarity before taking a seat on the couch next to him. She usually dressed in something of a preppy bohemian style, with classic pieces like pencil skirts or slacks punctuated with brightly colored accent pieces. Today she'd chosen a dark denim chambray blouse over a pair of forest green tights and a pair of gold ballet flats.

"So...I'm not gonna lie, this is my first official lesson so you're going to be my guinea pig. I promise you're in good hands, though."

Quentin did not bother to hide his suspicion. "Those are literally the worst words to make me enthused or confident about this. This isn't some elaborate ruse to assassinate me and make it look like an accident?"

"If I wanted to do that I wouldn't've said anything," Jean mused with a wry grin, then shook her head.

"I'm letting you know because my way of teaching probably isn't going to be the same as the Professor's or Ms. Frost's. So if my way doesn't click with you please tell me and we'll try to figure out a way that does."

She was so disgustingly nice that Quentin wanted to argue just on principle, but the caffeine still had not yet kicked in so he just nodded and started on the second cup. "Fine. What do I need to do?"

"We're going to spend the majority of this lesson on the astral plane so make yourself comfortable and finish your coffee. It might get cold," Jean said with a smirk.

Xavier's lessons had taken them to the Astral Plane for short visits, but Quentin had not spent any extended time there since his first foray back in April. He continued to eye Jean suspiciously, but he did not put up an argument. Instead he took another large gulp of his coffee and settled more comfortably in his seat. He did not want to wake up with a sore back. "Ready when you are, I guess."

Jean tried not to laugh at the way he kept looking at her, then nodded. "Alright, let's begin."

A few moments later they'd find themselves standing in the middle of a grass field. A white, well fortified castle lay in the distance, its spires gleaming in the sunlight. Jean herself was wearing the same outfit she had on in the real world.

"For today's lesson we're going to learn about building mental walls and using them both offensively and defensively."

Dreamspace-Quentin wore the same clothes, too, although maybe his mental image of himself had more muscle definition than his skinny real meatspace body. "Chuckles has gone over shields," he said, "But we haven't done much more than theoretical work."

"Which is why we're moving past theory into practice," Jean said. Her outfit seemed to warp around her until she was wearing a glowing blue and gold version of her X-Man uniform that was modified to look like armor, complete with protective head gear that covered her neck and forehead but still allowed her hair to flow freely.

"I'm going to try to attack you, and you try to block me with your shields. From there we'll do some more advanced tactics."

The wardrobe change earned Jean another incredulous eyebrow raise, but Quentin otherwise did not comment. He called back to his previous lessons and and fashioned his power into a literal shield, a glowing pink kite-shaped construct that separated him from Jean. Even to the trained eye, it was very solid and would take formidable force to break down. Suitable for a head-on attack.

The air was eerily silent even though there seemed to be a gentle breeze, a clear indication of the place they were in being detached from reality. A moment passed, then another, as Jean studied Quentin impassively like a warrior on a battlefield, giving no hint to how she might proceed. Suddenly Quentin would feel something push him from behind, not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to destabilize his balance. The ground around his feet had also shifted from being grassy to slick, mirrored glass.

He might have been able to retain his footing had he had traction, but Jean's manipulation of the battlefield took that from him, and the right push had him lying flat on his ass. His shield, at least, remained intact. "The hell was that?" he demanded, trying (and failing) to get back to his feet.

Jean circled him as he struggled to stand up. "That is an example of what a skilled telepath will do in a psychic battle," she said. The glassy floor melted away like ice, revealing the grass field underneath it again and Jean offered Quentin her hand.

"They will find your weaknesses and they'll try to exploit them. Except they won't pull punches. I'm going to teach you how to anticipate these attacks and use them in your favor."

Quentin pointedly ignored Jean's offer of help and stood back up on his own. "How'd you get past the shield, though? It's literally right here. I did everything Chuckles told me to and it's not even dinged."

Taking a step back, Jean smiled faintly . "You're thinking of real world limitations. The astral plane is so much more than that. You have to think beyond what you normally see, because other telepaths do," she said. Her attention flickered back to the shield and she nodded.

"Try again."

So he did. The shield faded out of existence, and this time, Quentin reconsidered Xavier's lessons in three dimensions. Or however many dimensions there were here. The air all around him shimmered, faintly distorting his appearance. His own vision was distorted, too, as he felt the strain of maintaining this shield press down on him.

"Go."

Time seemed to stop and slow as Jean studied the shield like she were playing chess. Enough time passed that he might consider if she were even going to attack at all. Jean's arm dropped to its side, and a long stick seemed to form in her fingers before a chain looped itself around at the end of the stick. By the time the end of the end of the chain had puffed outward, forming into a spiked mace Jean was swinging, striking the shield.

The force was great and Quentin's shield was brittle. The result was a crack that spider-webbed all along it. It held, but barely, and Quentin could only assume that it was because Jean had been purposefully gentle, for whatever definition of gentle she believed. He was back on his feet in seconds, though, pouring his psychic energy back into his shield to repair it like caulk in cracked stonework.

"Another," he challenged her.

Tilting her head, an impressed smile formed on Jean's lips. "Adaptive. Good," she said. She continued to circle him.

"Let's try something different," she said as night seemed to fall across the countryside, a brilliant sunset quickly replaced by darkness and stars that winked into existence. There was no moon, making Jean hard to see. She could've found a different way but she did like to show off a little occasionally.

Something bumped into his shield, but it was hard to tell what it was before another crack resounded behind him against the shield only a moment or two later.

The blow knocked him to his knees again, but he scrambled back up and tried to repair the damage before a second attack distracted him, and then a third and a fourth, until the shield buckled under the force of the blows and evaporated. The look of terror at his sudden weakness disappeared just as quickly though, as a small handgun materialized in his outstretched hand, aimed right at Jean's face. Without warning, he squeezed the trigger.

Jean was, needless to say, surprised by the idea of a psychic gun. But she had a few more years of experience than Quentin, so her shield was ready, rising around her defensively at the first sign of attack. She brought up her arms defensively.

"Quentin!"

The gun did not release a bang so much as just a loud pop. A flag unfurled from the barrel, emblazoned with BANG! in large red letters. Quentin smirked and dropped the gun, letting it disappear when it hit the ground. "Oh, calm your tits," he admonished her. "It's just a joke."

Jean just stared at him, her expression unreadable though it was safe to say she was not amused. "Hilarious. I'm here to teach you how to protect yourself, not cater to your sense of humor. You have a lot of potential to be a powerful psi, Quentin. I could see that from the moment I met you. You're inventive and quick on your feet, but your recklessness could get someone hurt, or worse. This is not a game," she said, her armor melting away back to her regular clothes and night turned back to day as she passed by him.

"I think we should stop for the day."

The link gently dissolved without further warning, and next thing Quentin knew, he was sitting back in Jean's office. A brief glance at the clock revealed that even though it had only felt like a few minutes in the Astral Plane, they had actually been at it for nearly an hour. He stretched his stiff back and arms. "So, that's it?" he asked. "You're gonna give up after just one little gun to the face gag?"

Rising from her chair, Jean picked up their empty teacups and saucers. "We can continue when you're ready to start taking things seriously since you're clearly not interested in learning now," she said succinctly as she started to wash the dishes out in a nearby sink.

The door opened on it's own. The water kept running in the sink while Jean scrubbed away some leftover jam off one of the knives.

"You're free to go."

Quentin gaped at her. Who was she to dismiss him so callously over something so trivial? His look of surprise quickly melted into his more common expression of disdain. "Well, fuck you, too," he snapped as he gathered his things and all but stomped out of her office. He did not need her. He did not need anyone. As usual, he would do it all by himself.