Quentin, Thursday night
May. 17th, 2018 09:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsQuentin makes poor life choices. It must be Thursday.
Quentin would have been hard pressed to find a club seedier than the one he was patronizing tonight: dark, dingy, imitation Kirkland brand liquor, and a DJ who thought transitioning from Major Lazer to Taylor Swift and back to the same Major Lazer song remixed a different way was quality spinning. It was obscene.
But it was mutant-only, flatscans turned away at the door. Quentin could accept this profanity to be free of flatscans for the night.
Standing up, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned to go to the bar for something illegally strong to reset his taste buds but stopped when his name was called.
“Eat more pineapple,” Quentin said dismissively, but a large hand on his shoulder stopped him from moving. “Look, I’m not interested in round two, so get your . . .”
“Not what I’m asking.” The other man, easily twice Quentin’s size and covered in snake scales (thankfully not all over, he had just demonstrated), smirked at him and reached into his pocket. “Thought I’d do you a favor, after you showed such kindness.”
Quentin scoffed again. “Hard pass.” He was ending a terrible day on an even worse note, no need to go deeper than rock bottom.
X-Factor was desperately close to cracking their current case, a mutant claiming to be framed by her former employer for embezzlement when bossman himself was the thief and took full advantage of New York’s lack of mutant protection laws to frame and fire his employee. The team had accumulated all the circumstantial evidence they could find, but none of it would stand up in court. They needed something direct else they would fail, and another mutant would be left cold and destitute because a flatscan made that play.
A telepath would make quick work of this case.
Too bad X-Factor no longer had a telepath on payroll.
Getting completely lost and forgetting who he was for even a few minutes seemed like an appropriate way for Quentin to end the day. Except that always resulted in remembering again, which turned his stomach.
His partner shook his head and pulled out something from his pocket: a dime bag filled with off-white powder.
“Coke? Really? You’re supposed to offer that before. Also, gross. Who even does coke anymore?”
“No, not coke,” the other man clarified, taking Quentin’s rejection in stride. Which just frustrated the telekinetic more. “A bit stronger. You can’t tell? Thought you could read my mind . . .”
Quentin’s face twitched at the reminder. “I don’t make a habit of dumpster diving,” he retorted, but the other man just laughed and tossed the bag at him, which he telekinetically caught in midair. “I told you, I’m not . . .”
“Interested, yeah yeah. Consider it a gift for the first time. And a thank you. You’ll get a kick out of it. After you try it, I’m sure you’ll be raving all about it. You know where to find me.”
It was about as subtle as a brick wall, and Quentin nearly tossed it away just out of spite. But being in X-Factor, and working with the Underground as long as he had, he knew what he had floating above his hands now. Not just a fun little pick-me-up.
It was a key to liberation. Restoration.
More than seven months now since the Shadow King had twisted him into something barely recognizable, and he was no closer to manifesting his telepathy again, no matter what tricks the other psychics tried to teach him. It was like part of him was dead. Necrotic. He was of no use to anyone like this.
With no alternatives, perhaps chemistry was the only intervention yet.
It would be dangerous. He had seen more than a few mutants on or recovering from Kick or Rave. Their powers amplified levels of magnitude beyond their control, sometime to lethal levels, all just to catch a fleeting high.
The serpent man just snickered and elbowed past Quentin, still lost in thought as his salvation hovered before him.
“Fuck it.” He snatched the bag out of midair and headed for the bathroom. Everything had its risks and benefits to measure. Quentin could die, crushed under the weight of violent, intractable psychokinesis. He might also take other people with him. Or, possibly, he could jumpstart his brain and retrieve what had been stolen from him and become himself, not this pink-haired wraith brought back from Hell.
Quentin would have been hard pressed to find a club seedier than the one he was patronizing tonight: dark, dingy, imitation Kirkland brand liquor, and a DJ who thought transitioning from Major Lazer to Taylor Swift and back to the same Major Lazer song remixed a different way was quality spinning. It was obscene.
But it was mutant-only, flatscans turned away at the door. Quentin could accept this profanity to be free of flatscans for the night.
Standing up, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned to go to the bar for something illegally strong to reset his taste buds but stopped when his name was called.
“Eat more pineapple,” Quentin said dismissively, but a large hand on his shoulder stopped him from moving. “Look, I’m not interested in round two, so get your . . .”
“Not what I’m asking.” The other man, easily twice Quentin’s size and covered in snake scales (thankfully not all over, he had just demonstrated), smirked at him and reached into his pocket. “Thought I’d do you a favor, after you showed such kindness.”
Quentin scoffed again. “Hard pass.” He was ending a terrible day on an even worse note, no need to go deeper than rock bottom.
X-Factor was desperately close to cracking their current case, a mutant claiming to be framed by her former employer for embezzlement when bossman himself was the thief and took full advantage of New York’s lack of mutant protection laws to frame and fire his employee. The team had accumulated all the circumstantial evidence they could find, but none of it would stand up in court. They needed something direct else they would fail, and another mutant would be left cold and destitute because a flatscan made that play.
A telepath would make quick work of this case.
Too bad X-Factor no longer had a telepath on payroll.
Getting completely lost and forgetting who he was for even a few minutes seemed like an appropriate way for Quentin to end the day. Except that always resulted in remembering again, which turned his stomach.
His partner shook his head and pulled out something from his pocket: a dime bag filled with off-white powder.
“Coke? Really? You’re supposed to offer that before. Also, gross. Who even does coke anymore?”
“No, not coke,” the other man clarified, taking Quentin’s rejection in stride. Which just frustrated the telekinetic more. “A bit stronger. You can’t tell? Thought you could read my mind . . .”
Quentin’s face twitched at the reminder. “I don’t make a habit of dumpster diving,” he retorted, but the other man just laughed and tossed the bag at him, which he telekinetically caught in midair. “I told you, I’m not . . .”
“Interested, yeah yeah. Consider it a gift for the first time. And a thank you. You’ll get a kick out of it. After you try it, I’m sure you’ll be raving all about it. You know where to find me.”
It was about as subtle as a brick wall, and Quentin nearly tossed it away just out of spite. But being in X-Factor, and working with the Underground as long as he had, he knew what he had floating above his hands now. Not just a fun little pick-me-up.
It was a key to liberation. Restoration.
More than seven months now since the Shadow King had twisted him into something barely recognizable, and he was no closer to manifesting his telepathy again, no matter what tricks the other psychics tried to teach him. It was like part of him was dead. Necrotic. He was of no use to anyone like this.
With no alternatives, perhaps chemistry was the only intervention yet.
It would be dangerous. He had seen more than a few mutants on or recovering from Kick or Rave. Their powers amplified levels of magnitude beyond their control, sometime to lethal levels, all just to catch a fleeting high.
The serpent man just snickered and elbowed past Quentin, still lost in thought as his salvation hovered before him.
“Fuck it.” He snatched the bag out of midair and headed for the bathroom. Everything had its risks and benefits to measure. Quentin could die, crushed under the weight of violent, intractable psychokinesis. He might also take other people with him. Or, possibly, he could jumpstart his brain and retrieve what had been stolen from him and become himself, not this pink-haired wraith brought back from Hell.
