Log: Quentin and Clint
Nov. 12th, 2017 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_hawkeye posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsAfter finding Quentin passed out on the front steps of the mansion late at night, Clint takes him inside and they catch up. Sort of.
A pained moan came from the lump on the front stoop of the Xavier mansion. It moved, too, rolling over to reveal a young man with smeared eyeshadow and messy pink hair. The drunk, semi-conscious Quentin moaned again, swatting away whatever was poking him and keeping him from a blissful inebriated slumber.
Clint poked Quentin with the stick he'd found on his way back to the mansion after a late walk. He'd only been back from his most recent trek to Siberia for a day or two, so he was still reacclimating to mansion-life, but he was pretty sure it hadn't changed drastically enough to make people-lumps a common occurrence. Still, he was cautious enough about people with powers, especially TKs, thanks to Rachel's demonstration when he'd first gotten to the mansion.
Also, the kid smelled like a distillery, which meant that Clint was being a little warier than he might otherwise have been. Drunken TK reflexes didn't seem like the most fun thing to deal with tonight and he didn't wanna get squished.
He was lucky, then, that Quentin could not have done any more than ineffectually swatted a fly in his current state. It was a titanic effort just to open his eyes. Good thing the sun had not risen yet, because judging by how red his eyes were, he would have been instantly blinded and would have ruined this lovely brand-new body. "Get out of my bedroom," he whined, waving off the intrusion again. "Sleepy time."
"You've moved onto the porch?" Clint asked, smirking a little as he poked at Quentin again. "What aesthetic are you going for now? Hobo chic's kinda old at this point, isn't it? Or are you going for authentic hobo? Cause if that's the case, lemme tell you -- you've nailed it."
That voice. Even though he had not heard it in a long time, Quentin surely could not forget it. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes and forced himself to focus on the source. "Oh wow, it's the white knight. You're not dead. Hey, me neither! We should drink to that!"
"I think your kidneys wouldn't thank me," Clint said, finally setting the stick aside and moving closer to Quentin. "What brought on the drink-a-thon?" Last time, it'd been pretty damn serious. He wasn't sure he was out of his science-brain enough to deal with that kind of thing at the moment, but given there weren't any other options, he'd do his best.
"Didn't you hear?" Quentin sat up, smirking when he saw his head was level with Clint's crotch. That was a pleasant thing to wake up to. "I killed myself. Gun to my head. Boom! 'Cept it was actually quiet more. More like." He gestured wildly with his hands and nearly fell over. "It was that or kill Jean Grey, and people like her more. Also the brain monster would've just killed her, too, and then everyone else. You woulda come back to a house full of corpses. So you're welcome. Boom!"
Clint didn't reply for several long moments. He chose to sit down on the steps near Quentin and lean back. Maybe he should've told somebody official about Quentin's 'if I have to die to protect some other mutant' speech that one time... he'd thought he'd addressed it, though, by pointing out that one dead mutant amongst many others wouldn't make a difference the way the kid seemed to want it to.
This, though... this was a different beast entirely.
"Dude," Clint finally said, not entirely sure what else he could say in that moment. He'd always known he might have to make the sacrificial play at some point in his life -- he'd do it for Ev or Tasha or Matt in a heartbeat, and there were other people here at the mansion he'd started to get attached to enough to consider it -- but he'd never been faced with a situation where there was literally no other choice.
"DQ, man. That's heavy. Do you like... I don't know, do you need a hug?" Had anybody been checking up on the kid? They'd better have been fucking checking up on him. Goddammit. He left for a few months and this is the kind of shit he comes back to? What the hell?
That was an offer Clint would instantly regret. Freed from what little inhibitions he normally carried, Quentin did the only thing he knew for finding comfort in a cold, lonely, violent world: like a striking viper, he was on top of Clint, lips pressed against his, one hand on the back of the archer's neck to keep him close while the other fumbled to unbuckle his belt.
Clint held perfectly still, neither responding nor attempting to immediately push Quentin off of his lap. Instead, he pressed his lips together and pulled his head backward, away from the kid. Raising his hands, he gripped the sides of Quentin's face between his hands and raised his eyebrows. "Okay, so that was pretty bold. Not gonna lie, that wasn't what I was expecting. You're cute, but you're definitely outside the range of acceptable hookup ages for me, so. No more kissing, DQ. Let's get some water into you so your hangover's not as terrible as I suspect it'll be otherwise. And then we can talk about what your definition of 'a hug' is."
"You can hug my cock." Quentin struggled but only briefly. Even in his best shape, he wouldn't be able to escape Clint's grip. And that annoying shrill voice of self-preservation demanded he stop, too. Dammit. That did not stop him from getting a nice squeeze of Clint's butt when they both stood up. "Fine, fine, hands to myself," he surrendered. He leaned over to pick up his coat from the ground and lingered, hoping the view might change Clint's mind. When it didn't, he sighed and stood back up again, and had to be caught when the sudden rush of blood to his head disoriented him. "How come you're always catching me? Remember that time in the tree?"
"I carried you out of the tree," Clint said. "There's a bit of a difference. Sorta. But there was also that time with the cramp in the woods. Mostly I think it's cause you're not taking care of yourself so great whenever I run into you. Oughta work on that, kid."
"You're my white knight, that's what you do." Unable to find his keys to open the front door himself, Quentin waited for Clint to do it and followed him in, stumbling all along the way. "And I turned 20 a little while ago. I'm not a kid. Let's stop with that. I sucked this many dicks tonight." He held up one hand, all five digits extended. "Kids don't do that."
"You used condoms for those dicks, right?"
Quentin looked at Clint like he'd grown another head. "Why? If I get AIDS I'll just die and come back again. It's fine."
"But herpes."
Had Clint grown a third head? Or was Quentin just seeing triple now? "Everyone already has herpes. And HPV. Leave your lectures for the virgins, boo."
"Ugh, gross," Clint said, shaking his head. "Fine, whatever. Let's get you all the water," he continued, hands half-hovering in case the kid decided to try and take a second nosedive. Then a thought occurred to him and he had to stop himself from cracking up again. "Wait, how many dicks did you suck tonight?"
The exact number could not be known, and the memories likely would not survive past daybreak, but five sounded like a reasonable estimate, so Quentin held up his hand again. "New personal record for one night. It's not too late to top myself again. I seem to be doing all sorts of new things recently. Can't slow down when life's passing you by. You only live once. Unless you're me."
"Man..." Clint said, still chuckling. "You say you're not a kid, but you keep holding up your hand the way a four year old does to answer the question 'how old are you' and it's..." He shook his head. "Anyway, you're gonna have to tell me about the whole Lazarus thing."
"Is there any ice cream in the freezer? Get me some and I'll tell you." Quentin perched himself on the center island, but unable to keep himself up straight, he lay down, resting his head on his hands. "It's real simple, yo. Jean got possessed, then I got possessed, then I got into a fight and shot myself in the head, then telepathy stuff and I'm alive again." He kicked a leg into the air triumphantly. "Killing myself was the right thing to do. We can all agree on that."
Making sure Quentin was horizontal enough that he wouldn't roll off the counter, Clint went for the freezer to check the ice cream situation out. He mulled over the kid's response, pretty sure that he definitely shouldn't agree that killing oneself is the right thing to do under any circumstances, but still -- it's like that dude in Independence Day. Sometimes it really is the last, best option.
"You sure do manage to get into impressive, usually terrible situations," he finally commented, prying the top off a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia. He grabbed a spoon and sat both items on the counter near Quentin's head. "I'm glad you're not dead-dead. What happened to the thing possessing you? What was the thing possessing you?"
"It called itself the Shadow King. Ooh, spooky," Quentin said sarcastically, waving his hands. He then dropped his arms and sighed. "It actually was spooky. I knew everything I was doing. Felt like I was making all the choices. But it was just Shadow King pulling the strings, saying the right things to make me think it was me. We did bad things. Almost killed Sefton and Haller and Jean. Did kill someone else. I know, I know, it's not my fault. Who cares. Still happened. Still the reason I had to die."
"Wait, you offed yourself because you killed somebody? Or you offed yourself to save Jean and everybody else? In the end, I guess there's not much difference in the guilt," Clint said, frowning as he opened the fridge to grab a few bottles of water. "Who'd you kill? Y'know, if you feel like talking about it."
Quentin belatedly noticed the ice cream, removing the top and scooping a spoonful into his mouth telekinetically. At least that fine motor skill seemed to be working fine despite everything else. "Some guy. Does it matter? He's dead and if he had a family then they're all mourning and I don't really want to know more. But you're missing the big thing, sexy. Shadow King was pushing my powers too far. Everything people used to be afraid about Chuckles? That was me. My brain would've exploded and taken out everyone with me if I didn't put it down, flipped it, and reversed it back on us."
"Aw, DQ, no," Clint said, shaking his head sadly as he leaned back against the counter. He twisted the cap off one bottle and sat it in front of Quentin, just in case he wanted it. He'd worry about forcing hydration on the kid when they weren't going over the nobility and inevitability of suicide. "You can't use and abuse Missy Elliott's lyrics like that."
"I think she'd understand and respect me for it," Quentin said with the typical conviction of a drunkard. "So, whatever, fast forward, Jean pulled me out of psychic hell, Colbert made me a new body, and here I am. I wouldn't believe it either if it didn't actually happen to me. It's fucking ridiculous."
"Wait, aren't Marie-Ange's drawing things squishy? A little bit?" Reaching over, he poked at Quentin's cheek. "Like, you're not gonna dissolve, are you? Cause that'd suck a lot. Like, a lot a lot." He didn't actually think the kid'd dissolve, but it amused him to poke Quentin.
All that got him was a lazy smack to get his hand away. "I don't know all the details, none of it makes sense. But they did DNA tests and MRI and a PET scan, and I'm realer than Pinocchio. Something about my goo mixing with the body. Oh right, the goo. My body melted when I died. They put me in a fucking jar."
"Well that sounds disgusting," Clint said, nodding slowly. How do you even respond to something like that. "DQ, man. You know this just means that you have to be really careful with this body, though, right? Cause like, yay resurrection! But there's no guarantee it'll actually go down that way again. And, y'know. There's some stuff I could say here about second chances or whatever, but I have a feeling you'd just TK that spoon at my head, so."
Instead, Quentin flicked a small scoop of ice cream at Clint. "Oh, what do you know? How many times have you died? Don't judge me. If I wanna go out, get fucked up, and forget about the fragile mortal coil for one night, then I fucking well can."
Clint managed to dodge the ice cream, though it did come perilously close to his side. "I feel like I shouldn't condone that, but at the same time..." He shrugged. "I've only had the heart-stopping kind of dying, not the whole like. Body goo kind or whatever. So you do you, DQ. After you get some sleep. And clean up your ice cream mess."
This conversation was getting boring. Quentin took another scoop of ice cream before capping the carton and floating it back to the freezer, and then he curled up on the island. "Fine, I'ma do me. Going to sleep. See you in the morning."
"C'mon, I'm sure your bed'll be way more comfortable," Clint said. "You want me to carry you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes?"
Quentin rolled over so now the side of his face was pressed against the cool marble of the island top. "I want you and your whole judgey attitude to leave me alone."
Reaching over, Clint ruffled Quentin's hair. "You sure?"
"I gave you your other option earlier and you said no, so let me wallow."
"Yeah, yeah," Clint said, shaking his head. "You got it, kid." Instead of actually leaving the room, though, he plopped himself up in a chair a little ways off and kicked his heels up on the kitchen table. He'd quit messing with Quentin, no problem, but he wasn't gonna leave him by himself as he was. That just wasn't safe.
A pained moan came from the lump on the front stoop of the Xavier mansion. It moved, too, rolling over to reveal a young man with smeared eyeshadow and messy pink hair. The drunk, semi-conscious Quentin moaned again, swatting away whatever was poking him and keeping him from a blissful inebriated slumber.
Clint poked Quentin with the stick he'd found on his way back to the mansion after a late walk. He'd only been back from his most recent trek to Siberia for a day or two, so he was still reacclimating to mansion-life, but he was pretty sure it hadn't changed drastically enough to make people-lumps a common occurrence. Still, he was cautious enough about people with powers, especially TKs, thanks to Rachel's demonstration when he'd first gotten to the mansion.
Also, the kid smelled like a distillery, which meant that Clint was being a little warier than he might otherwise have been. Drunken TK reflexes didn't seem like the most fun thing to deal with tonight and he didn't wanna get squished.
He was lucky, then, that Quentin could not have done any more than ineffectually swatted a fly in his current state. It was a titanic effort just to open his eyes. Good thing the sun had not risen yet, because judging by how red his eyes were, he would have been instantly blinded and would have ruined this lovely brand-new body. "Get out of my bedroom," he whined, waving off the intrusion again. "Sleepy time."
"You've moved onto the porch?" Clint asked, smirking a little as he poked at Quentin again. "What aesthetic are you going for now? Hobo chic's kinda old at this point, isn't it? Or are you going for authentic hobo? Cause if that's the case, lemme tell you -- you've nailed it."
That voice. Even though he had not heard it in a long time, Quentin surely could not forget it. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes and forced himself to focus on the source. "Oh wow, it's the white knight. You're not dead. Hey, me neither! We should drink to that!"
"I think your kidneys wouldn't thank me," Clint said, finally setting the stick aside and moving closer to Quentin. "What brought on the drink-a-thon?" Last time, it'd been pretty damn serious. He wasn't sure he was out of his science-brain enough to deal with that kind of thing at the moment, but given there weren't any other options, he'd do his best.
"Didn't you hear?" Quentin sat up, smirking when he saw his head was level with Clint's crotch. That was a pleasant thing to wake up to. "I killed myself. Gun to my head. Boom! 'Cept it was actually quiet more. More like." He gestured wildly with his hands and nearly fell over. "It was that or kill Jean Grey, and people like her more. Also the brain monster would've just killed her, too, and then everyone else. You woulda come back to a house full of corpses. So you're welcome. Boom!"
Clint didn't reply for several long moments. He chose to sit down on the steps near Quentin and lean back. Maybe he should've told somebody official about Quentin's 'if I have to die to protect some other mutant' speech that one time... he'd thought he'd addressed it, though, by pointing out that one dead mutant amongst many others wouldn't make a difference the way the kid seemed to want it to.
This, though... this was a different beast entirely.
"Dude," Clint finally said, not entirely sure what else he could say in that moment. He'd always known he might have to make the sacrificial play at some point in his life -- he'd do it for Ev or Tasha or Matt in a heartbeat, and there were other people here at the mansion he'd started to get attached to enough to consider it -- but he'd never been faced with a situation where there was literally no other choice.
"DQ, man. That's heavy. Do you like... I don't know, do you need a hug?" Had anybody been checking up on the kid? They'd better have been fucking checking up on him. Goddammit. He left for a few months and this is the kind of shit he comes back to? What the hell?
That was an offer Clint would instantly regret. Freed from what little inhibitions he normally carried, Quentin did the only thing he knew for finding comfort in a cold, lonely, violent world: like a striking viper, he was on top of Clint, lips pressed against his, one hand on the back of the archer's neck to keep him close while the other fumbled to unbuckle his belt.
Clint held perfectly still, neither responding nor attempting to immediately push Quentin off of his lap. Instead, he pressed his lips together and pulled his head backward, away from the kid. Raising his hands, he gripped the sides of Quentin's face between his hands and raised his eyebrows. "Okay, so that was pretty bold. Not gonna lie, that wasn't what I was expecting. You're cute, but you're definitely outside the range of acceptable hookup ages for me, so. No more kissing, DQ. Let's get some water into you so your hangover's not as terrible as I suspect it'll be otherwise. And then we can talk about what your definition of 'a hug' is."
"You can hug my cock." Quentin struggled but only briefly. Even in his best shape, he wouldn't be able to escape Clint's grip. And that annoying shrill voice of self-preservation demanded he stop, too. Dammit. That did not stop him from getting a nice squeeze of Clint's butt when they both stood up. "Fine, fine, hands to myself," he surrendered. He leaned over to pick up his coat from the ground and lingered, hoping the view might change Clint's mind. When it didn't, he sighed and stood back up again, and had to be caught when the sudden rush of blood to his head disoriented him. "How come you're always catching me? Remember that time in the tree?"
"I carried you out of the tree," Clint said. "There's a bit of a difference. Sorta. But there was also that time with the cramp in the woods. Mostly I think it's cause you're not taking care of yourself so great whenever I run into you. Oughta work on that, kid."
"You're my white knight, that's what you do." Unable to find his keys to open the front door himself, Quentin waited for Clint to do it and followed him in, stumbling all along the way. "And I turned 20 a little while ago. I'm not a kid. Let's stop with that. I sucked this many dicks tonight." He held up one hand, all five digits extended. "Kids don't do that."
"You used condoms for those dicks, right?"
Quentin looked at Clint like he'd grown another head. "Why? If I get AIDS I'll just die and come back again. It's fine."
"But herpes."
Had Clint grown a third head? Or was Quentin just seeing triple now? "Everyone already has herpes. And HPV. Leave your lectures for the virgins, boo."
"Ugh, gross," Clint said, shaking his head. "Fine, whatever. Let's get you all the water," he continued, hands half-hovering in case the kid decided to try and take a second nosedive. Then a thought occurred to him and he had to stop himself from cracking up again. "Wait, how many dicks did you suck tonight?"
The exact number could not be known, and the memories likely would not survive past daybreak, but five sounded like a reasonable estimate, so Quentin held up his hand again. "New personal record for one night. It's not too late to top myself again. I seem to be doing all sorts of new things recently. Can't slow down when life's passing you by. You only live once. Unless you're me."
"Man..." Clint said, still chuckling. "You say you're not a kid, but you keep holding up your hand the way a four year old does to answer the question 'how old are you' and it's..." He shook his head. "Anyway, you're gonna have to tell me about the whole Lazarus thing."
"Is there any ice cream in the freezer? Get me some and I'll tell you." Quentin perched himself on the center island, but unable to keep himself up straight, he lay down, resting his head on his hands. "It's real simple, yo. Jean got possessed, then I got possessed, then I got into a fight and shot myself in the head, then telepathy stuff and I'm alive again." He kicked a leg into the air triumphantly. "Killing myself was the right thing to do. We can all agree on that."
Making sure Quentin was horizontal enough that he wouldn't roll off the counter, Clint went for the freezer to check the ice cream situation out. He mulled over the kid's response, pretty sure that he definitely shouldn't agree that killing oneself is the right thing to do under any circumstances, but still -- it's like that dude in Independence Day. Sometimes it really is the last, best option.
"You sure do manage to get into impressive, usually terrible situations," he finally commented, prying the top off a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia. He grabbed a spoon and sat both items on the counter near Quentin's head. "I'm glad you're not dead-dead. What happened to the thing possessing you? What was the thing possessing you?"
"It called itself the Shadow King. Ooh, spooky," Quentin said sarcastically, waving his hands. He then dropped his arms and sighed. "It actually was spooky. I knew everything I was doing. Felt like I was making all the choices. But it was just Shadow King pulling the strings, saying the right things to make me think it was me. We did bad things. Almost killed Sefton and Haller and Jean. Did kill someone else. I know, I know, it's not my fault. Who cares. Still happened. Still the reason I had to die."
"Wait, you offed yourself because you killed somebody? Or you offed yourself to save Jean and everybody else? In the end, I guess there's not much difference in the guilt," Clint said, frowning as he opened the fridge to grab a few bottles of water. "Who'd you kill? Y'know, if you feel like talking about it."
Quentin belatedly noticed the ice cream, removing the top and scooping a spoonful into his mouth telekinetically. At least that fine motor skill seemed to be working fine despite everything else. "Some guy. Does it matter? He's dead and if he had a family then they're all mourning and I don't really want to know more. But you're missing the big thing, sexy. Shadow King was pushing my powers too far. Everything people used to be afraid about Chuckles? That was me. My brain would've exploded and taken out everyone with me if I didn't put it down, flipped it, and reversed it back on us."
"Aw, DQ, no," Clint said, shaking his head sadly as he leaned back against the counter. He twisted the cap off one bottle and sat it in front of Quentin, just in case he wanted it. He'd worry about forcing hydration on the kid when they weren't going over the nobility and inevitability of suicide. "You can't use and abuse Missy Elliott's lyrics like that."
"I think she'd understand and respect me for it," Quentin said with the typical conviction of a drunkard. "So, whatever, fast forward, Jean pulled me out of psychic hell, Colbert made me a new body, and here I am. I wouldn't believe it either if it didn't actually happen to me. It's fucking ridiculous."
"Wait, aren't Marie-Ange's drawing things squishy? A little bit?" Reaching over, he poked at Quentin's cheek. "Like, you're not gonna dissolve, are you? Cause that'd suck a lot. Like, a lot a lot." He didn't actually think the kid'd dissolve, but it amused him to poke Quentin.
All that got him was a lazy smack to get his hand away. "I don't know all the details, none of it makes sense. But they did DNA tests and MRI and a PET scan, and I'm realer than Pinocchio. Something about my goo mixing with the body. Oh right, the goo. My body melted when I died. They put me in a fucking jar."
"Well that sounds disgusting," Clint said, nodding slowly. How do you even respond to something like that. "DQ, man. You know this just means that you have to be really careful with this body, though, right? Cause like, yay resurrection! But there's no guarantee it'll actually go down that way again. And, y'know. There's some stuff I could say here about second chances or whatever, but I have a feeling you'd just TK that spoon at my head, so."
Instead, Quentin flicked a small scoop of ice cream at Clint. "Oh, what do you know? How many times have you died? Don't judge me. If I wanna go out, get fucked up, and forget about the fragile mortal coil for one night, then I fucking well can."
Clint managed to dodge the ice cream, though it did come perilously close to his side. "I feel like I shouldn't condone that, but at the same time..." He shrugged. "I've only had the heart-stopping kind of dying, not the whole like. Body goo kind or whatever. So you do you, DQ. After you get some sleep. And clean up your ice cream mess."
This conversation was getting boring. Quentin took another scoop of ice cream before capping the carton and floating it back to the freezer, and then he curled up on the island. "Fine, I'ma do me. Going to sleep. See you in the morning."
"C'mon, I'm sure your bed'll be way more comfortable," Clint said. "You want me to carry you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes?"
Quentin rolled over so now the side of his face was pressed against the cool marble of the island top. "I want you and your whole judgey attitude to leave me alone."
Reaching over, Clint ruffled Quentin's hair. "You sure?"
"I gave you your other option earlier and you said no, so let me wallow."
"Yeah, yeah," Clint said, shaking his head. "You got it, kid." Instead of actually leaving the room, though, he plopped himself up in a chair a little ways off and kicked his heels up on the kitchen table. He'd quit messing with Quentin, no problem, but he wasn't gonna leave him by himself as he was. That just wasn't safe.
