Quentin & Maya, backdated to Friday, September 16

[xp-erverse.livejournal.com]

At Gabriel's party, a drunken Quentin lets Maya know exactly how he feels.


“Wouldn’t have thought you’d be at a party,” Maya said, sidling up beside a noticeably intoxicated Quintin Quire. She raised her eyebrows in a faux-shocked expression, clasping a hand to her heart. “Could it be, could the great QQ actually be being...OMG, sociable?”

Telepathy dulled thanks to alcohol, Quentin hadn't sensed the goblin approach. He gazed at her questioningly with bloodshot eyes and downed the rest of his martini. "Who are you again?" he asked dismissively. "And why are you talking to me?"

Maya rolled her eyes at his obvious diss, it was like he wasn’t even trying. So lame.

“I hear they have tablets for early onset dementia, you might want to get onto that,” she replied eventually, taking her time to take a sip of her mocktail and smile widely at him in a semi-helpful way. “It’s my duty as the helpful and kind person that I am to talk to all old and lame people. Wouldn’t want you to fall asleep in your drink and drown.”

"Yeah, I'm sure you'd be really upset." Times like this, Quentin almost wished he were a smoker, if for no other reason then maybe the foul odor would drive her away like garlic against a vampire. "You can go play your little kid games with someone else. I'm not gonna be the one responsible for ruining Gabriel's party."

Maya placed her hand against her heart, as real tears welled in her eyes and slipped slowly down her face. She looked up at him with a truly heartbroken expression.

“I can’t believe you’d say that, after all we’ve shared. I care about you Quentin, you’re like that annoying bratty older brother to me.”

Quentin crossed his arms over his chest and offered her a weary expression. "Are you done? Have you gotten the validation you're craving so much? Anything else I can do to make your life less empty and meaningless?"

Maya brushed the tears away from her dampened cheeks and shrugged, matching his stance completely, even down to the expression on his face, although she gave no indication she was even aware that she was doing so.

“Maybe? What sort of validation are you offering? I feel that since you’ve offered so kindly, I should at least get a menu choice.”

"There's no a la carte offering," Quentin replied, rubbing his eyes wearily. She was going to kill this buzz if this interaction went on for much longer. "I've acknowledged your tedious existence and that will have to do. Why don't you go bother one of the other children, if you haven't alienated them all yet. Go. Shoo."

Maya wasn't exactly the type to stick around where she wasn't wanted, or talk to people who clearly disliked her but something about Quentin always drew her, made her want to needle at him or get some kind of reaction out him, whether that was bad or other. She'd have called it a crush, she found him attractive enough, but it wasn't that. Perhaps it was simply a subconscious acknowledgement of someone as angry as she was, albeit with different reasons and differing opinions. She could never see herself actively agreeing with most of what he stood for, or spouted off on the journals about. Still, she wasn't sure she really wanted to continue this whole thing, not after the talk she'd had with Garrison about whether hostility was really worth it.

"Are you an asshat because I'm an asshat, or do you actually really dislike me?" Maya asked, her expression devoid of scorn for once, although her stance seemed to mirror Quentin's perfectly. "Because sometimes I'm an asshat because you're an asshat and I'd hate to think that we've been peeing on each others cheerios because of some dumb series of misunderstandings."

A near-empty vodka bottle seemed to materialize in Quentin's outstretched hand, summoned telekinetically from the bar. He took a swig before answering. "You're an asshat and I actually really dislike you. These are not mutually exclusive features. For what you did to Xavin alone is enough to justify drowning you in the lake."

“Glad to know we’re on the same page then,” Maya noted, giving Quentin a look that could have melted lead if that had been her power. “Xavin’s fine, we never should’ve been roommates in the first place.”

"You shouldn't've been accepted as a student here in the first place," Quentin countered. "Well, this has been a soul-sucking, suicide-inducing five minutes, so I'm going to leave now. Talk to me if you need help with that whole drowning in the lake thing."

“Because you’re such a shining example to us all of the sort of student that Xavier’s should let in, QQ,” Maya noted, giving him a sunny smile that didn’t touch the hardness in her eyes at all. “Feel free to seek me out if you ever feel like living in the real world.”

Quentin stopped in his tracks. The vodka bottle fell to the grass with a dull thud, spilling its contents on his sneakers. "You have no idea what I've been through," he growled before turning back to face her, his gaze focused directly on her despite his inebriation. "You think you know the real world, you deplorable sow? Let me show you."

The telepathic contact was brief, lasting barely a second in the real world. In his drunken state, fueled only by a pithy flare of rage and an urgent need to get the last word in, it was all he could manage. But there was no need to share an entire life of neglect, dismissal, and rejection. High school could be condensed into that brief flicker. Chad Matthews, the living cliche of popular jock and bully, summoning his cronies to vent their adolescent frustrations on the nerdy, lonely, outcast freak. Quentin spared Maya the memories of the physical pain, but witnessing the slaps, the shoves, the punches, and the kicks was enough.

"For your sake," he said softly, "I hope you never have to enter the real world."

It was visceral, her reaction to the sudden intrusion, her body jerked itself into a fighting stance but she was able to control the sudden need to get him onto the ground, to take out the threat. It was lucky that her work with Jennie, North and Haller had given her some measure of powers control.

Instead, she remained, panting slightly, not sure whether to glare or cry, both emotions battling for supremacy.