Quentin & Xavin, Wednesday night

[xp-erverse.livejournal.com]

Xavin continues some post-second-day-of-school revelry with Quentin, and they both decide to explore more about themselves. Gets kind of blue towards the end . . .


The bus went past the front gate of the mansion, which was good, since Xavin could more or less roll off the bus and onto the driveway and through the security. Phone out, Xavin texted 'hey u bzy? bc im bored af n want n other drink'. Quentin would come through. Quentin was probably the only person at the mansion who would come through and supply a drink, other than, you know, people old enough to be your dad and urg. Seriously, urg.

The message came at a less than opportune time. Quentin was wrist deep in dirty chinchilla bedding. Fuckwad sat peacefully on his bed, curiously observing the psychic cleaning its habitat. It perked its head up when it heard the ping from Quentin's phone, and then squeaked loudly to call his attention. When Quentin ignored him, still busy replacing old bedding with new, it chirped more loudly. For a whole freaking minute until Quentin finally gave up and telekinetically called his phone over to him.

"You know, that's a fucking lot less helpful than you think it is," he admonished the rodent, who had promptly curled up again to nap now that it had been answered.

He read the text and his eyes widened in surprise. Admittedly, he did not know the shapeshifter well, but he hardly thought them such a juvenile delinquent. Well. Far be it from Quentin Quire to do anything but encourage such behavior. He quickly went to wash his hands before typing out his reply: "not busy. u want light or dark liquor?"

By the time the reply came, Xavin was indoors, heading upstairs. It wasn't too hard to head toward the grad suites, rather than the student ones and knock on Quire's door rather than text back. "Light is like, vodka? I like that. Haaaate whiskey."

In the short time it took Xavin to arrive, Quentin had transferred Fuckwad back to its cage (and dropped in a couple tiny slices of dried apple as a treat for being so fucking adorable). At the knock, the door opened on its own accord, and then swung closed behind Xavin. "It means the actual color," he answered, digging through his freezer for some bottles. "Dark usually means worse hangovers but it's got antioxidants or some shit." Quentin turned to face Xavin and held up two, one gin and the other SoCo. "Hey. Femme. Good look. Bringing back the crop top, I approve."

Xavin shrugged, uncomfortable and defensive. Making a point with the clothes had seemed important this morning, before dealing with the wanna be frat boys in Econ 100. "You got a problem with that?" The 'I will fight you if you do' was unstated. "And I'll have the gin. Never had gin before."

"I said I liked it, didn't I? If Worthington wouldn't dock my pay, I'd were it to work every day," Quentin said, brushing off Xavin's wariness, as he summoned a couple of glasses from the cupboard, ice from the freezer, and a bottle of tonic water from the fridge. It was as if Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey were a functioning alcoholic. "Sorry I can't do any fancier than a G&T. Gotta ask Gabriel for that."

Xavin drank it quickly. "That's uh... that's really strong," they muttered, coughing and looked over at the chinchilla. "What the hell is that?"

Quentin frowned, taking a big swig of his own before taking back Xavin's glass to make another. "Hmm, more G than T. Gotta work on that." He followed Xavin's gaze and grinned. "That's Fuckwad. You're not allergic, are you?"

"You called your whatsit Fuckwad? Dude." Xavin took the refilled drink and leaned back against the wall, sipping more slowly and eyed off Quentin, looking him up and down. He was hot and probably didn't even appreciate it because he was too antiestablishment to care about that kind of thing.

"He's a chinchilla. It's not like he understands. Don't blame me for dumb, edgy decisions I made when I was fifteen." Quentin's castigation came with a smile, though, and in good humor. Truth was, he would give the pet the same name even now. "He's surprisingly docile, if you wanna pet him."

Xavin stuck a cautious finger into the cage and scratched him behind the ears. "I won't. He's really soft..." The distraction and gin meant that Xavin's control slipped and their skin slipped back to green. "Er, sorry."

Second drink in hand, Quentin sauntered up to Xavin, standing awfully close behind them. "Why're you apologizing? It's just skin color. I don't really know anything about shapeshifters, but if you're, like, holding it in or whatever, then you can let it out and just be whatever your regular shape. This suite is an anti-repression zone."

Turning to face him, Xavin said, "It's not holding it in, exactly. More like habit, I guess." What did you do with your hands when someone was standing this close to you? Xavin licked their lips and said "But I can get behind that." Really, what were you supposed to do with your hands?

Quentin smirked and brushed past Xavin to plop himself down on one of the two love seats in the otherwise pretty spartan living area. He kicked up his feet, lying on the sofa like a disinterested aristocrat. "What's got you drinking on a weeknight, anyway? And where did you drink? I know you're not 21."

"Second day of college, dude. Well, community college. I had a drink with the queer students' alliance after meeting the wanna be frat bros because like, Westchester Community is totes full of rich dudes with tiny dicks. Only, you know, it isn't, so mostly they just shout at people and pretend like they're in a real frat house."

Quentin nearly spilled his drink, he was laughing so hard. "Frat bros at community college?" he repeated disbelievingly. "Wow. The millennial education slump is real. How was the 'queer students' alliance'? Christ, I hate that word."

"Well, they want to be. But it's three guys. So..." Xavin shrugged. "You might hate it but... what am I? I'm not gay - I like both. I'm not ... I don't... I'm not a guy or a girl, so I don't know what other word I'm s'posed to use." Drink finished, Xavin set the glass down and said, slightly bittlerly, "except for faaabulous."

The bottles of gin and tonic water hopped off the kitchenette counter and skipped over to the living area, jauntily settling themselves on the coffee table so they were in easy reach for more refills. "'Queer' is so fucking academic and sanitized," the telepath explained, gently rubbing his temples to alleviate the ache of so much gentle and intricate telekinesis. "It's been scrubbed of any sort of subversive meaning. That's what happens when you reclaim a word and let people who don't belong to it freely use it. Know what I mean?"

"No. I don't want to be subversive. I had a good family before I found out that I was a mutant and started living like this." One hand gestured at their body. "And yes, I can present as guy today and a girl tomorrow or just ~neither~ and it's amazing because I actually feel comfortable for the first time ever but I'm not dressed femme to screw with wannabe frat bros ideas about the gender binary or whatever. I just want to meet cute people and maybe kiss them a bit."

For once in his life, Quentin actually listened. He had his own forays into how he presented himself, but he knew he was a man; that label held steadfast. Until now, he had not considered the implications of literally changing one's body on a whim, and how other people would view that. He ran a hand through his hair — artificially transformed into appearing different, alien — and nodded.

"For what it's worth, I think you look hot."

"You think?" Xavin gave him a wary smile, burned by a year under effective mansion house arrest because green didn't play well outside and said, quietly, daring, "You are, too."

Quentin smirked, but his eyes flashed with amusement rather than their typical rancor. He shifted on the couch, pulling his legs up to him so there was a free seat beside him. "Not gonna lie about something like that," he said informatively. "I mean, I hear you about not feeling comfortable in your own skin. The people who adopted me are white, and I'm." He gestured vaguely at his face. "It's different than you but surrounded by a bunch of too-rich white breeders my whole life? Yeah, took me a while to figure out how to present myself in a way that's right for me, you know?"

"I think so..." Xavin settled on the couch, slinging one arm along the back. Casual like a fox. Like a nervous fox.

"For 'queers' like us," Quentin's lips puckered briefly at the word, like he'd bitten into a lemon, "Told our whole lives to hate ourselves, loving ourselves is radical. Loving each other is revolutionary. So being authentic, like you are, it's a victory."

"I could go back to being the girl my parents wanted. I could try harder this time but..." But that girl wasn't real and living that lie was like drowning from all things you couldn't say and couldn't be anymore and all the things people said and never even knew they were saying. Xavin's smile was brittle. "But this is who I am, I guess."

The telepath nodded as he reached for the bottle and refilled both glasses. He downed half his drink straight, savoring the sharp flavor that burned his throat. Gabriel would likely have something to say about drinking gin without mixing it with something else. But he would also probably be cheering Quentin on, too. His smirk grew bigger.

"Never change for anyone. No one's worth that compromise. There's people out there who'd be grateful to, uh, what'd you said? Kiss a bit? And more, I'm sure."

Heart pounding, Xavin leaned in to kiss him. "I like that idea..." they murmured.

If there was any worry he was being too subtle for fear of driving off Xavin, Quentin had no doubt he'd played his cards just right. He returned the kiss gently, reserving his vigor for later (if, as he suddenly hoped, it progressed that far). He managed to spare enough concentration to safely send his drink to the table so he could grab a handful of Xavin's shirt and pull them in close.

Xavin returned the kiss and the next, hands moving across Quentin.

Quentin's brushed his fingers against Xavin's exposed torso, tracing the faint outline of abdominal muscles and down to the sharp peaks of pelvic bones. His hand came to a rest on the on the waistband, and he fingered the button before a thought occurred to him, slamming the brakes on his libido. "Wait," he said, breathing heavily as he pulled away. "You're drunk. I have a very rigid consent requirement. Telepathy, you know." He tried to joke it off, smiling wryly, but his gaze bored into Xavin's glassy eyes. He'd rarely been more serious.

Xavin pulled back and nodded. "Would you be upset if I said I wanted to fuck you right now? Because I'm not that drunk that I don't really want to get in your pants. That okay?"

Well, when put that way. Quentin forced down that nagging, accusatory voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like a previous teacher-turned-lover-turned-hater. With things all quiet on the psychic front, he neatly resumed where they had left off. As his hands went back to Xavin's fly, he pulled back again. "Wait. Can you, you know, turn green? All over?" he requested, grinning.

"Yeah. Yeah. I can do that."