xp_logs | Quentin & Betsy, backdated to October 16

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Quentin inquires about the recent X-Men mission with Betsy over Indian takeout, and she teaches him a fun new psychic trick.

Quentin had been out of the loop for . . . he didn't know how long, actually. Time was a meaningless social construct. But, it meant he had no idea the X-Men had been on a mission, and that his roommate—whom he'd been charged with psychically monitoring—had gone with them and gotten herself hurt. Oops. The least he could do was come home with several take-out boxes of Indian food.

"No, don't get up, I have dinner taken care of," he said telepathically to her as he entered their suite. "Brits like Indian food, right? I mean, you colonized the continent for 300 years, you must have taken something from that."

Betsy looked up from where she was lying on the floor with her braced ankle resting on the armrest of her sofa. “I do like a curry,” she admitted, also keeping to telepathy. Rooming with Quentin had its difficulties but being able to default to telepathic communication was rather nice.

Quentin set the bags on the counter, and the boxes flew out all Fantasia-like. Drawers and cupboards opened of their own accord, too, summoning plates and utensils so he could hands-free make them each a plate. He briefly stepped into his room to retrieve a half-finished joint and a lighter, and took a hit by the open kitchen window while dinner assembled itself.

"So. A man named 'Toad' handed you your ass, huh? No brain to fry in a mutant like that, I guess."

“Not much of one as far as I could tell, no, and they did have pretty good shields. Jean looked quite bad as well.” Betsy watched the plates setting themselves up and idly wondered whether she should move to a sitting position. “Besides, I unfortunately lack the ability to make things fly and he pinned me to a rock.” She knew the last statement was likely to lead to a lewd comment, but couldn’t bring herself to care. Painkillers and exhaustion were an effective combo.

He just gave her a look that said he could be crass but he would not. It was much too easy. "When did you even become an X-freak, anyway?" he asked instead. "And why? Those outfits couldn't have been such an attractive proposition for you."

She actually had to think about that for a bit. “About a year ago, and because I’m easily influenced?”, she hazarded. “I was eating seafood and talking to Garrison Kane, and suddenly I was an X-Man. Something about making the world a better place for mutantkind or suchlike.” She made grabby hands at a poppadom, then sighed and started the painful process of getting upright.

"Yeah, and see where that fucking cop ended up for his troubles," Quentin muttered verbally before switching back to speaking directly into her mind. "Teep's not an in-your-face showy kind of power. You gotta fight with it from a distance. Shouldn't've let this 'Toad' motherfucker near you." He handed her a plate once she got right-side up. "Want some raita?"

“Yes, please. And yeah, I was slightly preoccupied at the time. Jean had just gone down and the feedback loop was something wicked,” Betsy shrugged and grabbed the offered dish. “It’s weird,” she continued while tearing off a piece of her naan. "When we were fighting literal demons, it was easy to believe I was on the right side. But this was mutants, who believe they are working for the betterment of mutantkind just as much as we do, and us on the side of US government. Now Kyle is regrowing his skull, Maya barely avoided bleeding out, Nica is incorporeal, and Sooraya has spent most of last week as an actual pile of dust.” She popped the piece of bread in her mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. “Anyway. How is your chinchilla?"

Quentin stubbed out his finished joint in the ashtray he'd put by the window, and then took his plate to the couch. "Fuckwad is fine. I found a new feed he seems to like a lot. But don't 'anyway' this. Have you ever thought Mags is on the right side? What were you fighting him for, anyway? Especially if his target was the fucking government.”

Betsy sighed. “It was worth a try. As for Magneto, I always thought it made sense to try and work with the non-mutants since there are so many of them and so few of us. Now I am not so sure.” She shifted her food around her plate. The topic was not doing wonders for her appetite. “They do just hate us. They called the X-Men, a mutant team, to protect a ‘research' facility from big bad Magneto. Want to guess what they were building in there?” This would have been a really good time for a drink, medication side effects be damned. “Sentinels.”

Sentinels. Mutant-hunting robots with the cruelest, most vicious AI. He nearly dropped his food. "Wait, didn't the X-fucks destroy those like years ago? I thought Jean told me about those. Holy fuck. Why didn't you fucking team up with him? 'Magneto was right' is a meme for a fucking reason. What the fuck."

“I guess they are trying to rebuild them. You know. For research.” She gave him a mirthless smile. “By the time we found out what they were, they had buggered off and left most of us unconscious."

"You're right about one fucking thing. They do just hate us. They will always hate us." That sentence almost came out as a snarl, the anger and bitterness he sensed in her mind manifesting through his own telepathic voice. "They will never respect us, they will never trust us. They use us and expect us to comply. When's Summers finally going to learn?"

“Oh, I am certain our dear leader has a plan. I mean, surely he is not just be waiting for SHIELD to go ‘oops, sorry we sent you out to defend weapons specifically designed to rend you and yours to itty bitty pieces, now here’s your next assignment, be a dear.’” Fuck it. “Do you happen to have any vodka?"

Surely she knew it to be a rhetorical question, because he was never unstocked. Not trusting his telekinesis to not spill everything all over the kitchen in his current upset state, Quentin set his dinner aside and got up to go open the cabinet he'd specifically set aside for liquor. He found a half-full bottle of Tito's behind some cheaper stuff. "Straight or with soda?" he asked, pouring himself a glass, too. After Betsy's story, he needed booze to go along with the weed.

“Neat, please,” she said, then downed the offered glass as soon as he handed it to her. The liquid went down with a satisfying burn, and she closed her eyes and let out a long, slow breath as she stamped down the anger and anxiety that was threatening to bubble out of control. The telepathic air she was projecting changed suddenly into one of almost preternatural calm. “I’ve been trying something new lately. Want to see?” Without waiting for a reply, she concentrated on pulling some energy from the Astral Plane. Instead of the usual knife, it was taking the shape of a tiny throwing star. She lifted it to eye level and smiled at Quentin before suddenly lobbing it at him.

Thankfully, Quentin had not picked up his plate yet, or his aloo gobi would have gone flying everywhere. His drink ended up on the couch, though, as he dropped his glass to hold up his hands in protection of his face. But the glowing purple shuriken vanished mere inches from him, leaving him unharmed and just a little damp.

"The fuck, Braddock!" he lashed out, but then paused as realization of what he'd just seen hit him. "Wait. What did you do? How'd you do that?”

His bewildered expression actually made Betsy laugh. “Like I said, I’m trying something new. Sorry about your drink though.” She had the decency to look repentant. “As for how, well. You know my psychic blade, right? I have been looking for a way to make it more long-range. Have not had any luck in keeping them one piece for long enough to hit anything though. Maybe you would have better luck, with your fancy teek and all?” She raised her eyebrow in challenge.

He recalled the first time they met, after their jaunt in the Astral Plane with Jean, Betsy had woken up with that glowing knife in her hand. He hadn't given it much thought since. But now that she was doing it on demand and could shape it how she wanted, he was intrigued. He forced himself to calm down before speaking. "So, okay. First, if that worked, it would've saved your ass from fucking Toad. Still gross. And second, how'd you do that? Show me again.”

“Yes, that is the idea,” she rolled her eyes at him, then sent out a telepathic tendril that nudged his perception just a tad and brought the faintest overlay of the Astral Plane over the room. Then she started gathering energy again. “So, I just pull a bit from the ‘plane and concentrate it - “ she demonstrated, shaping another throwing star “ - and voilà. Catch!”

It was so clever and simple that Quentin hated himself for not thinking of it on his own earlier. The Astral Plane was so easy for a telepath of his caliber to manipulate. Surely he could do it, and better than she could. But the surprise attack jerked him back to reality, and he cowered before the weapon blinked out, this time even closer than the first. "Stop fucking doing that! God damn. Here, let me just . . ." Still reeling from the near miss, he mimicked Betsy's psychic motions, grabbing hold of Astral Stuff and molding it. It slipped through his fingers like unkneaded focaccia dough, but with some focus, he gave it a basic shape, and held a glowing pink boomerang in his hands. "Well, fuck me.”

Betsy watched Quentin’s attempt closely, idly pondering about the difference in colour of the manifested energy. Why should there be a visible difference when it was all psionic? Then her eyes widened and she started forming another shuriken. Fortunately she was considerate enough to not throw it at Quentin this time as this one stayed intact, keeping it’s course through the window pane before finally dissipating halfway over the lawn. She let out a surprised laugh. “It’s not physics because it’s not physical. Of course,” she said mostly to herself.

Quentin's boomerang pulsated in sync with his heartbeat, the tempo speeding up as his imagination ran wild with the possibilities of this new art. He threw it across the room, and despite his rather pathetic throw that belied how he was never picked first for team sports in high school PE, it embedded itself in the wall. Physics didn't matter, just like Betsy said. It was all telekinesis. He snapped his fingers and it disappeared, leaving a shallow gash in the drywall. He laughed, a sound she had rarely heard in all the time they lived together.

"Well, Braddock. You might be my least unfavorite person here right now.”

“High praise,” Betsy replied drily. She ate a few more mouthfuls of her cooling methi, then put the plate down on the floor in front of her and used one of her arms to push herself up without putting too much weight on the sprain. “I hope that means you won’t mind clearing out the dishes, then?” she asked innocently before limping to her bedroom.

Not like she gave him much of a choice. But bringing in dinner and cleaning it up was an appropriate price to pay for what she had just taught him. He had some Ideas. Everyone would rue the day he learned to make the visions in his head into reality.