Psi War: Astra | New Life
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xp_logsJean and Quentin have a long overdue talk about what's happened these last couple of weeks and they come to a new understanding and respect for each other.
It was 5 am. The sun hadn't even started to form over the horizon but Jean was already up. She was normally awake at this hour anyway for a variety of reasons (mostly because she did it naturally), so she decided to set her alarm for then. Keeping the lights off, she headed for her dresser and pulled out her workout clothes to change into.
A voice groaned in her head. "This is your conscience speaking. GO BACK TO BED."
She slipped her sports bra, workout pants, and a bright green tank top with some geometric design printed on it on.
"Nope. But you're more than welcome to," she said mirthlessly, making her way into the bathroom. The light clicked on, and she grabbed a hairtie, pulling her long red hair into a ponytail. Her injuries were finally on the way to healing. She could see out of both eyes now, at least. And it only hurt to breathe just a little.
"You know I can't." Quentin yawned obnoxiously loudly. Not that he actually yawned so much as made an exaggerated sound effect. This whole living in someone else's head thing did not leave him with many options. "Don't tell me we're running before the sun's even up. Is that legal? I'm pretty sure it's not."
"Fine, I won't tell you," she said. The light to the bedroom clicked on and she pulled on her running shoes.
"You could at least have turned on the light when you got dressed so I could've had something to look at," he lamented. "You gonna shower in the dark, too? We could take a bath, you know. Lights off, just some candlelight, bottle of wine . . ."
For a moment, it'd mentally feel like putting one's hand against a door with an inferno on the other end. Except all around him. A nice, neat little cocoon.
"God, will you just be fucking serious about this?" she said sharply as the door ripped itself open and she tore down the hallway.
"I know you don't want to be here. But you should've thought about that before you killed yourself."
Jean was treated to a string of inventive curses that, if Quentin had a body, would have earned him a good beating. "What the actual fuck, Jean. What else was I supposed to do? Watch you die instead? No thank you. That thing would've killed everyone, but instead I stopped it. You're welcome."
"You were supposed to let me do it! I had a plan," Jean said.
"You didn't have to die. I--" The words were left unspoken, but implied.
I was going to do it if I had to.
She shook her head as she stormed down the stairs, then shoved her way out through the front door. The open lawn of the mansion extended outward toward a countryside. The stars twinkled overhead, with the glimmer of dawn on the horizon. She started running.
"It was my fault. I brought him here. You were possessed because of me. So it was my responsibility."
The presence in her head had been light, flippant until now. With Jean's brief psychic conflagration, he responded in kind with sleet and ice, a freezing blizzard in her brain. "And that means you have to do everything all by yourself, doesn't it? The great Marvel Girl, queen of the X-Men. Gotta rescue every victim she can. Well you know what, Jean? I'm not a victim. Shadow King took me over, used me to kill people. That means it's my responsibility. And I don't take that lightly, no matter what you or Worthington or Chuckles or anyone thinks. Fuck."
Jean's mental shielding was lowered since she trusted Quentin, and the burst of blistering cold sent a sharp pain blasting across her mind. A literal brain freeze. It caused her to misstep during her mid-sprint and they tumbled, rolling once, twice, three times down a small (thankfully) grassy hill. She came to a stop at the foot of the hill, sprawling on her back.
"Shit. Jean! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to." Not knowing what to do, Quentin pulled inward, hiding in what could only be described as a psionic igloo to keep the two of them separate.
Chest burning with every breath (which she was used to by now), Jean lay there for a moment, starting at the stars and the moon. They were dim from the lightening sky, but she could still see them twinkling. She was silent for awhile, just watching them. They seemed infinite. It made her feel small, yet grand at the same time. Because the odds of them being there right now, after everything, were one in...she didn't even know how big.
Finally, she spoke.
"I think we both need to accept the fact that we are feeling a huge amount of guilt and have massive martyr complexes," she said.
He poked his head out the igloo. "I don't do guilt," he said. "Are you in such a rush to die? You know that's what would've happened. You saw what he did to me."
Jean closed her eyes, joining him on the astral plane. She sat down beside the entrance to the igloo, cross-legged.
"If it means saving you, and the world? Absolutely. Do I want to die on principle? Not particularly. I just saw no other way."
She glanced down, letting out a breath.
"I'm still angry, because if I had been wrong--But I understand why. I know you didn't see any other way either. But your life hasn't really started yet. You've barely left high school. I'd just...rather have spared you the burden, along with everyone else."
The scene shifted shortly after Jean's arrival. The Arctic wasn't really Quentin's style, anyway. The penthouse overlooking the Seine was much better. Quentin didn't touch the bottle of wine sitting in the bucket next to him, though. "I really hope your sense of — eugh — heroism doesn't rub off on me."
Jean cast her attention to the river. She smiled sadly. "I think it might already be a little too late," she said. She glanced over.
"Just...don't do again, please? I don't think my heart can take it. Because I will resurrect you again, then kill you."
"That might be the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me." There was little exaggeration in that, even. "And that's dumb as fuck," he added with a short laugh. "You have got to chill out. You are way too passionate."
Looking back toward the water, Jean smirked. "Nope. Hardwired into my DNA," she said. She shook her head.
"I've really got to sit up. This breathing thing is becoming an issue."
Quentin hesitated but then, without argument, he dissolved the psiscape, allowing Jean to focus all her attention on the material world instead, while he remained a disembodied personality in her head. "Why do you so readily risk your own life for someone else's? What do you even get out of that?"
Opening her eyes, Jean slowly sat up, letting the burning in her chest slowly start to ebb to a dull ache. She took a few breaths.
"What do you mean what do I 'get?'" she said.
"Exactly what I said. You don't get an X-Men bonus for every life you save or every time you nearly bite it, do you? No afterlife rewards. No afterlife. So why are you willing to go all the way all the time?"
Jean pulled herself to her feet. "Because I've felt death, many times. The first time...it was with my childhood friend, Annie. She ran out into the road and was hit by car while were playing. My powers manifested at the same time and I felt what she was feeling as she died in my arms. After that, I promised myself after that that I would do everything I could to try to help people, whatever way I could."
"That's a quintessential superhero origin story if I ever heard one. But I'd think you'd save even more lives if you didn't, you know, die trying to do it."
Jean laughed. "I don't go into something with a death wish. I go in, prepared for the possibility of death, but I try to avoid not dying whenever possible. It's kind of final," she said with a faint smirk, making her way back up the hill they'd just tumbled down.
"I guess what I'm saying is...I'm not afraid to die for the people I love. My friends, my family. But I always try to find another way, until there isn't."
"You know if you'd taken my place, no one would've forgiven me. They'd all think of me as your killer. And, you know, who gives a shit what those fuckers think? They suck. But . . . they'd be right."
Jean was silent for a couple of moments. "They wouldn't think that," she said. A somber thought crossed her mind like a storm-laden rain cloud but she pushed it away.
"It was the Shadow King. Not you. Or me. They've seen enough possessed people to know the difference."
"Would it?" Quentin wondered. "I never would have forgiven myself if I'd hurt you. Sefton and Frost and whatshisface, who gives a shit? You, though."
Jean tilted her head, eyes widening a little. She continued to trudge up the hill, waiting until she made it back up to the top before speaking.
"I---thanks. I wasn't expecting that." She didn't know what she expected.
"Oh, don't let it get to your head," Quentin shot back, constitutionally unable to let a nice, pleasant moment pass for too long.
Jean laughed.
"Can't help it. You're already in there, young Padawan," she said with a light grin. She glanced up at the sky after a moment.
"Can I show you something?"
To his credit, Quentin did not say the first five or six things that came to mind, although being a psychic specter haunting Jean's head, he couldn't keep flashes of thought from her. "What is it?"
Pausing, Jean rolled her eyes. "No, not that," she said, mentally swatting him. After a moment, she slowly started to lift off the ground.
"This," she said, taking to the sky as she climbed higher and higher toward the rising sun before leveling off and soaring through the clouds.
He saw everything through Jean's eyes, felt the cold air blowing against her skin and through her lungs, smelled the fresh, crisp aroma through her nose. "Majestic" was the word that came to mind. He had never seen such a spectacle before. And to think, he almost never would have been able to see this if his original plan had been seen to completion. He would never have any of these sensations again. Trapped for eternity in oblivion alone, untouched.
But true to form, what he actually said to her was: "I thought you were going on a run."
Jean smiled, letting the wind blow through her hair as she turned to face a few of the lingering stars, now much, much closer now. She reached out to "poke" one.
"Changed my mind," she said with a smile.
"This is my other favorite spot to go when I need to think. Thought you'd enjoy it." She spread her arms out, spinning around to see the dawn emerging all around them. The air was much colder up here, and it made her skin goose-bump, waking up all of her senses.
"So what you do think? Good enough to wake up for?"
The presence in Jean's head was tranquil for the first time since it had come to her. If Quentin could stretch and sigh then he would have. "Maybe some day I'll get the chance to myself."
It was 5 am. The sun hadn't even started to form over the horizon but Jean was already up. She was normally awake at this hour anyway for a variety of reasons (mostly because she did it naturally), so she decided to set her alarm for then. Keeping the lights off, she headed for her dresser and pulled out her workout clothes to change into.
A voice groaned in her head. "This is your conscience speaking. GO BACK TO BED."
She slipped her sports bra, workout pants, and a bright green tank top with some geometric design printed on it on.
"Nope. But you're more than welcome to," she said mirthlessly, making her way into the bathroom. The light clicked on, and she grabbed a hairtie, pulling her long red hair into a ponytail. Her injuries were finally on the way to healing. She could see out of both eyes now, at least. And it only hurt to breathe just a little.
"You know I can't." Quentin yawned obnoxiously loudly. Not that he actually yawned so much as made an exaggerated sound effect. This whole living in someone else's head thing did not leave him with many options. "Don't tell me we're running before the sun's even up. Is that legal? I'm pretty sure it's not."
"Fine, I won't tell you," she said. The light to the bedroom clicked on and she pulled on her running shoes.
"You could at least have turned on the light when you got dressed so I could've had something to look at," he lamented. "You gonna shower in the dark, too? We could take a bath, you know. Lights off, just some candlelight, bottle of wine . . ."
For a moment, it'd mentally feel like putting one's hand against a door with an inferno on the other end. Except all around him. A nice, neat little cocoon.
"God, will you just be fucking serious about this?" she said sharply as the door ripped itself open and she tore down the hallway.
"I know you don't want to be here. But you should've thought about that before you killed yourself."
Jean was treated to a string of inventive curses that, if Quentin had a body, would have earned him a good beating. "What the actual fuck, Jean. What else was I supposed to do? Watch you die instead? No thank you. That thing would've killed everyone, but instead I stopped it. You're welcome."
"You were supposed to let me do it! I had a plan," Jean said.
"You didn't have to die. I--" The words were left unspoken, but implied.
I was going to do it if I had to.
She shook her head as she stormed down the stairs, then shoved her way out through the front door. The open lawn of the mansion extended outward toward a countryside. The stars twinkled overhead, with the glimmer of dawn on the horizon. She started running.
"It was my fault. I brought him here. You were possessed because of me. So it was my responsibility."
The presence in her head had been light, flippant until now. With Jean's brief psychic conflagration, he responded in kind with sleet and ice, a freezing blizzard in her brain. "And that means you have to do everything all by yourself, doesn't it? The great Marvel Girl, queen of the X-Men. Gotta rescue every victim she can. Well you know what, Jean? I'm not a victim. Shadow King took me over, used me to kill people. That means it's my responsibility. And I don't take that lightly, no matter what you or Worthington or Chuckles or anyone thinks. Fuck."
Jean's mental shielding was lowered since she trusted Quentin, and the burst of blistering cold sent a sharp pain blasting across her mind. A literal brain freeze. It caused her to misstep during her mid-sprint and they tumbled, rolling once, twice, three times down a small (thankfully) grassy hill. She came to a stop at the foot of the hill, sprawling on her back.
"Shit. Jean! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to." Not knowing what to do, Quentin pulled inward, hiding in what could only be described as a psionic igloo to keep the two of them separate.
Chest burning with every breath (which she was used to by now), Jean lay there for a moment, starting at the stars and the moon. They were dim from the lightening sky, but she could still see them twinkling. She was silent for awhile, just watching them. They seemed infinite. It made her feel small, yet grand at the same time. Because the odds of them being there right now, after everything, were one in...she didn't even know how big.
Finally, she spoke.
"I think we both need to accept the fact that we are feeling a huge amount of guilt and have massive martyr complexes," she said.
He poked his head out the igloo. "I don't do guilt," he said. "Are you in such a rush to die? You know that's what would've happened. You saw what he did to me."
Jean closed her eyes, joining him on the astral plane. She sat down beside the entrance to the igloo, cross-legged.
"If it means saving you, and the world? Absolutely. Do I want to die on principle? Not particularly. I just saw no other way."
She glanced down, letting out a breath.
"I'm still angry, because if I had been wrong--But I understand why. I know you didn't see any other way either. But your life hasn't really started yet. You've barely left high school. I'd just...rather have spared you the burden, along with everyone else."
The scene shifted shortly after Jean's arrival. The Arctic wasn't really Quentin's style, anyway. The penthouse overlooking the Seine was much better. Quentin didn't touch the bottle of wine sitting in the bucket next to him, though. "I really hope your sense of — eugh — heroism doesn't rub off on me."
Jean cast her attention to the river. She smiled sadly. "I think it might already be a little too late," she said. She glanced over.
"Just...don't do again, please? I don't think my heart can take it. Because I will resurrect you again, then kill you."
"That might be the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me." There was little exaggeration in that, even. "And that's dumb as fuck," he added with a short laugh. "You have got to chill out. You are way too passionate."
Looking back toward the water, Jean smirked. "Nope. Hardwired into my DNA," she said. She shook her head.
"I've really got to sit up. This breathing thing is becoming an issue."
Quentin hesitated but then, without argument, he dissolved the psiscape, allowing Jean to focus all her attention on the material world instead, while he remained a disembodied personality in her head. "Why do you so readily risk your own life for someone else's? What do you even get out of that?"
Opening her eyes, Jean slowly sat up, letting the burning in her chest slowly start to ebb to a dull ache. She took a few breaths.
"What do you mean what do I 'get?'" she said.
"Exactly what I said. You don't get an X-Men bonus for every life you save or every time you nearly bite it, do you? No afterlife rewards. No afterlife. So why are you willing to go all the way all the time?"
Jean pulled herself to her feet. "Because I've felt death, many times. The first time...it was with my childhood friend, Annie. She ran out into the road and was hit by car while were playing. My powers manifested at the same time and I felt what she was feeling as she died in my arms. After that, I promised myself after that that I would do everything I could to try to help people, whatever way I could."
"That's a quintessential superhero origin story if I ever heard one. But I'd think you'd save even more lives if you didn't, you know, die trying to do it."
Jean laughed. "I don't go into something with a death wish. I go in, prepared for the possibility of death, but I try to avoid not dying whenever possible. It's kind of final," she said with a faint smirk, making her way back up the hill they'd just tumbled down.
"I guess what I'm saying is...I'm not afraid to die for the people I love. My friends, my family. But I always try to find another way, until there isn't."
"You know if you'd taken my place, no one would've forgiven me. They'd all think of me as your killer. And, you know, who gives a shit what those fuckers think? They suck. But . . . they'd be right."
Jean was silent for a couple of moments. "They wouldn't think that," she said. A somber thought crossed her mind like a storm-laden rain cloud but she pushed it away.
"It was the Shadow King. Not you. Or me. They've seen enough possessed people to know the difference."
"Would it?" Quentin wondered. "I never would have forgiven myself if I'd hurt you. Sefton and Frost and whatshisface, who gives a shit? You, though."
Jean tilted her head, eyes widening a little. She continued to trudge up the hill, waiting until she made it back up to the top before speaking.
"I---thanks. I wasn't expecting that." She didn't know what she expected.
"Oh, don't let it get to your head," Quentin shot back, constitutionally unable to let a nice, pleasant moment pass for too long.
Jean laughed.
"Can't help it. You're already in there, young Padawan," she said with a light grin. She glanced up at the sky after a moment.
"Can I show you something?"
To his credit, Quentin did not say the first five or six things that came to mind, although being a psychic specter haunting Jean's head, he couldn't keep flashes of thought from her. "What is it?"
Pausing, Jean rolled her eyes. "No, not that," she said, mentally swatting him. After a moment, she slowly started to lift off the ground.
"This," she said, taking to the sky as she climbed higher and higher toward the rising sun before leveling off and soaring through the clouds.
He saw everything through Jean's eyes, felt the cold air blowing against her skin and through her lungs, smelled the fresh, crisp aroma through her nose. "Majestic" was the word that came to mind. He had never seen such a spectacle before. And to think, he almost never would have been able to see this if his original plan had been seen to completion. He would never have any of these sensations again. Trapped for eternity in oblivion alone, untouched.
But true to form, what he actually said to her was: "I thought you were going on a run."
Jean smiled, letting the wind blow through her hair as she turned to face a few of the lingering stars, now much, much closer now. She reached out to "poke" one.
"Changed my mind," she said with a smile.
"This is my other favorite spot to go when I need to think. Thought you'd enjoy it." She spread her arms out, spinning around to see the dawn emerging all around them. The air was much colder up here, and it made her skin goose-bump, waking up all of her senses.
"So what you do think? Good enough to wake up for?"
The presence in Jean's head was tranquil for the first time since it had come to her. If Quentin could stretch and sigh then he would have. "Maybe some day I'll get the chance to myself."
