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xp_logsRecovering from power-swap shenanigans, Quentin and Gabriel catch up and try not to feel feelings.
Warmer weather meant it was time to ditch long sleeves, jackets, and smoking indoors. So Quentin, clad in fashionably ripped jeans and a novelty t-shirt inviting the reader to inquire about his mutant agenda, was up on the roof with his vape pen in one hand and a package of trail mix that was 75% chocolate in the other. He sat on the ledge, legs dangling off the edge. One wrong move and he would be a pink-haired pancake. Whatever he was smoking was doing the trick, because the mental image of a puddle of blood and broken bones and meat topped with a shock of pristine pink hair had him shaking in laughter.
"Should have figured I'd find you here." Gabriel emerged onto the roof, drawn by the same impulses as Quentin. He held a lighter and a rolled joint in one hand, and he studied the other man as he stepped toward him. "Clearly whatever you've got in there is pretty good."
"Hey there, gorgeous. 'Gorgeous Gabriel.' Not quite hitting as a good mutant name. We'll workshop." Quentin patted the spot next to him and took another puff. "I dunno if I like this strain. I'm too happy? Doesn't feel right. Or maybe seasonal disaffective disorder is finally going away."
In a split-second, Gabriel was seated next to Quentin, though he was slightly away from the ledge with his legs crossed. "Happy's not a bad look," he said, though it wasn't as if he'd had a ton of experience with that emotion of late. "You're allowed to be in a good mood, you know." He lit the joint and brought it to his lips, taking a considerably long drag before blowing smoke away from them. "This is more mellow," he said. "Peaceful."
A handful of nuts and chocolate chunks delicately floated out of the snack bag and into Quentin's mouth. "Existence hasn't been hell for once," he admitted after he chewed and swallowed. "It's a nice change from usual. Sure it won't last long. Any day now, Barton's likely to open another portal to an even worse dimension and turn us all into anthropomorphic ducks, or worse, French people. So, enjoy it while you can, I guess."
Gabriel responded with a cryptic smile. It was true that things had not been acutely terrible lately, and for that he was grateful. But he hardly felt relieved. It was well into a new year, but he could not shake the general awfulness of 2022. Their trip to Vegas had been aggravating, and things with some of the people he was forced to be around still felt tense.
"I don't even pretend to understand what he's doing down there," he finally said. "It's all a bunch of physics gobbledygook to me."
"They clearly have no fucking clue, either, hence the powers flu. Speaking of, how was your out-of-body experience? Seems like you made a decent time of it."
"Yeah." Gabriel shrugged. "I mean, I spend hundreds of dollars and pollute my body to feel like I'm floating outside it and to see things that maybe aren't there." He wiggled the joint between his fingers to punctuate the point, then took another hit. "So, like... I'll call that a win. Seems like I had it better than most, anyway." He grabbed some trail mix without asking. "Still kind of weird," he added after the second. "My powers are so physical, you know? This was... not that."
Quentin grinned at Gabriel but did not say anything about the theft. He did scoot closer, though, ostensibly to put the bag in closer reach. "I lost my telepathy again. It was bad enough the year it was on sabbatical, but this time all I had instead was a real-world Emoji Movie and a tongue that honestly? The novelty wore off after the second self-beej. No, the third," he amended after consideration, then took another puff from his pen. "Guess I'm lucky enough Maddicks is at least part psychic so it wasn't a total switch to physical."
"Hm." Gabriel could not help but picture the auto-fellatio, and as he took another drag on the joint, he did not even bother trying to hide that mental image from Quentin. "I dunno," he said after a second. "Just a different way to experience the world. Felt like trading one set of weird lenses for another, slower pair?" He drummed his fingers idly on his thigh. "I didn't hate it," he added. "But you spend long enough getting used to the cross you have to bear. You know how it is."
"Yeah. And you don't have to make up pictures in your head. Sub to my JustMutants already, it's premium content. What do you think would've happened if you and me had switched? Maybe I would've gotten to top one time." Quentin jabbed Gabriel with his elbow and grinned at him.
"Please," Gabriel snorted. "Don't act like you wanted to top so badly." He popped a few nuts in his mouth, then jabbed Quentin back. "I'm not unaccommodating, you know. Maybe you just didn't know how to ask."
"Would you have said yes if I'd asked? Doesn't matter. I would never deny you the pleasure of this ass." Whatever was in Quentin's vape pen must have been good, because he giggled like a little schoolgirl. at his own comment. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed by his outburst. "You know, times like this after a weird whateverthefuck, I'd pack up and leave for a while," he said, abruptly changing topics. "I've always wanted to go to Sicily. Can't do that now, though. X-Factor needs me."
Gabriel took one more puff before licking his fingers and stubbing out the joint, at least for a bit. "You can go on vacation." He shrugged. "It's not like Sicily doesn't have cell reception. We're basically reachable wherever, whenever these days, you know?" He scratched the back of his neck and closed his eyes, settling a bit into his high. "Not that you're not, like, essential, I'm sure."
Quentin gay gasped. "I am absolutely completely essential. Didn't you hear? I'm licensed. I own them now. They can't do shit without me. They would literally die if I were on the other side of the ocean."
"I hate to tell you this. I really do..." Gabriel scooted a bit away from the ledge, then kicked his legs out from under him. "But that is the mindset of workaholic capitalist bigwigs, and I have listened to you enough to know that it is kind of nonsense. But then again," he gave a dramatic sigh, "I guess we always become the things we most fear."
The world came to a screeching halt. Quentin gripped the ledge tightly to keep himself steady. He was so close to becoming the pancake he was laughing to himself about earlier. "I can't believe you just called me the C-word. Even in jest, that's just mean."
"Then take a vacation." Gabriel closed his eyes and shrugged.
"You're such a bitch." Quentin flicked a peanut at Gabriel, which hit him square on the nose. A second one got his forehead. "Have you, too, then? Become the thing you fear most? Or are you at least waiting for a midlife crisis like Barton?"
Gabriel fired his powers. Within his bubble, he sat up slowly, re-lit the joint and inhaled for quite a bit. He wasn't entirely sure how to answer any of those questions. After all, the things he was afraid weren't things he could become, were they? They were things he'd been? Well, that wasn't quite it; the weed made that sound profound, but he knew it wasn't. And anyway, this wasn't the time or the place for this conversation, even if, in many ways, it was the person. Though he wasn't even sure if Quentin was the person anymore. But then, who else?
He returned to the real world as he exhaled. "Hard to say," he said, because it really was. And then, after a beat: "You and Barton seem to be getting close."
The fast motion blur was hard enough on Quentin's eyes, but Gabriel's thoughts moved too fast for Quentin to process in this state and threatened to give him a migraine. He took another puff as prophylactic pain relief.
The two had an unspoken agreement not to sleep and tell, especially with the other men of the mansion, and Quentin did not want to violate that rule. But the high was loosening his tongue and he found he did want to talk about him and Clint with someone, and if anyone would understand the situation, it would be Gabriel. So the telepath shrugged and put up a nonchalant expression. "Yeah, you know how it goes," he said simply.
Gabriel wanted to raise an eyebrow but had the decency not to. He wasn't entirely sure why he'd followed that stray thread (though when he looked back on this conversation later he'd realize how telling it was that he chose to go down this path rather than talk about his fears), but the marijuana had left him in a peaceful enough mood that it was as enough of a time to half-raise a question that Quentin had only half-answered.
Still, he wouldn't prod. "Wow, he's fresh out of jokes," he said, clearly teasing. "Interesting."
Quentin rolled his eyes and shook his head, but he was grinning. "Yeah, because let's be real, I'm slumming it, so there's no humor to be found. I wouldn't've told anyone, but he ran his fat mouth on the journals 'cuz he's so dickmatized, so." He shrugged again. "Which, I mean, can't blame him. If I was pushing 40, I'd also go full chicken hawk."
Gabriel once again laid flat, his eyes closing. His mouth suddenly felt intensely dry, and he could really sense his pulse in a way that was distinctly uncomfortable. He must have smoked too much too quickly, enticed by the weather, egged on by Quentin, he hadn't paced himself; he decided any other explanation was too stupid to consider. That's what he needed to believe.
"He is old," Gabriel agreed, though he said it aloud mostly because he really needed to hear it. To be grounded in the reality of this particular Clint. "Kind of a mess too." Another thing he needed to hear.
"I mean, in a fun way, you know?" He realized he might have come off more insulting, but he wasn't sure whether that was actually true or if he had now retreated so far in his head he was overthinking things. "Like, a way that's more fun than most of the people here. A different flavor, thank God. And anyway," he added, opening his eyes again, "you like older men." He poked Quentin in the ribs, because it felt right. "Or men that look older anyway."
Gabriel's thoughts were racing again, so to calm them (and prevent any accidental intrusion), Quentin leaned over and tenderly kissed the other man on the lips. "Yeah, yeah, me and my daddy issues, I have a type. It's fine, whatever." He sat back up, though his hand found its way to Gabriel's hair and he started to gently play with it, twirling a lock around his finger then letting go, and repeating. "Look, if I'm turning into a class traitor, then at least I can indulge my other old vices."
"Far be it from me to stop you," Gabriel teased back. The kiss had rooted him in physical space, a sensation he had only become more aware of after his brief flirtation with Hope's powers. "I'm glad you're having fun." And he really did mean it; his brief pre-apocalyptic dalliance with teenage Clint had been fantastical young love, but whatever it was he and Quentin had was something more serious, more significant, more mature. Or so he felt. (God, when did weed make him so cerebral?)
"My type is carbon-based, so, you know."
The turbulence in Gabriel's head seemed to calm, which made Quentin fight back a smile. He turned his head to the side and coughed to hide it. "Hey, you sleep with me, so you have standards," he said once he'd schooled his expression. "At least sometimes. And, you know, if you ever wanted to have fun together . . ."
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "It has been a while since you and I had some fun, hasn't it?" He wanted more trail mix, but he didn't want to sit up, and so he let that thought leak to Quentin. "I guess I've been running around a lot."
"When you need a break from all that running, come find me," Quentin offered and passed the bag to Gabriel. "Or maybe I will pack up and go for a bit, after all. We could. How do you feel about Sicily?"
“I have no feelings about Sicily,” Gabriel replied between bites. “But that’s probably a good sign for Sicily.”
"Good. Maybe we can find our own Jennifer Coolidge to murder."
"Now, see, did you watch the show? Or did you just see the memes?"
"I saw the memes of Will Sharpe's ass, so I gave the whole television thing a try. It wasn't bad for trash."
Warmer weather meant it was time to ditch long sleeves, jackets, and smoking indoors. So Quentin, clad in fashionably ripped jeans and a novelty t-shirt inviting the reader to inquire about his mutant agenda, was up on the roof with his vape pen in one hand and a package of trail mix that was 75% chocolate in the other. He sat on the ledge, legs dangling off the edge. One wrong move and he would be a pink-haired pancake. Whatever he was smoking was doing the trick, because the mental image of a puddle of blood and broken bones and meat topped with a shock of pristine pink hair had him shaking in laughter.
"Should have figured I'd find you here." Gabriel emerged onto the roof, drawn by the same impulses as Quentin. He held a lighter and a rolled joint in one hand, and he studied the other man as he stepped toward him. "Clearly whatever you've got in there is pretty good."
"Hey there, gorgeous. 'Gorgeous Gabriel.' Not quite hitting as a good mutant name. We'll workshop." Quentin patted the spot next to him and took another puff. "I dunno if I like this strain. I'm too happy? Doesn't feel right. Or maybe seasonal disaffective disorder is finally going away."
In a split-second, Gabriel was seated next to Quentin, though he was slightly away from the ledge with his legs crossed. "Happy's not a bad look," he said, though it wasn't as if he'd had a ton of experience with that emotion of late. "You're allowed to be in a good mood, you know." He lit the joint and brought it to his lips, taking a considerably long drag before blowing smoke away from them. "This is more mellow," he said. "Peaceful."
A handful of nuts and chocolate chunks delicately floated out of the snack bag and into Quentin's mouth. "Existence hasn't been hell for once," he admitted after he chewed and swallowed. "It's a nice change from usual. Sure it won't last long. Any day now, Barton's likely to open another portal to an even worse dimension and turn us all into anthropomorphic ducks, or worse, French people. So, enjoy it while you can, I guess."
Gabriel responded with a cryptic smile. It was true that things had not been acutely terrible lately, and for that he was grateful. But he hardly felt relieved. It was well into a new year, but he could not shake the general awfulness of 2022. Their trip to Vegas had been aggravating, and things with some of the people he was forced to be around still felt tense.
"I don't even pretend to understand what he's doing down there," he finally said. "It's all a bunch of physics gobbledygook to me."
"They clearly have no fucking clue, either, hence the powers flu. Speaking of, how was your out-of-body experience? Seems like you made a decent time of it."
"Yeah." Gabriel shrugged. "I mean, I spend hundreds of dollars and pollute my body to feel like I'm floating outside it and to see things that maybe aren't there." He wiggled the joint between his fingers to punctuate the point, then took another hit. "So, like... I'll call that a win. Seems like I had it better than most, anyway." He grabbed some trail mix without asking. "Still kind of weird," he added after the second. "My powers are so physical, you know? This was... not that."
Quentin grinned at Gabriel but did not say anything about the theft. He did scoot closer, though, ostensibly to put the bag in closer reach. "I lost my telepathy again. It was bad enough the year it was on sabbatical, but this time all I had instead was a real-world Emoji Movie and a tongue that honestly? The novelty wore off after the second self-beej. No, the third," he amended after consideration, then took another puff from his pen. "Guess I'm lucky enough Maddicks is at least part psychic so it wasn't a total switch to physical."
"Hm." Gabriel could not help but picture the auto-fellatio, and as he took another drag on the joint, he did not even bother trying to hide that mental image from Quentin. "I dunno," he said after a second. "Just a different way to experience the world. Felt like trading one set of weird lenses for another, slower pair?" He drummed his fingers idly on his thigh. "I didn't hate it," he added. "But you spend long enough getting used to the cross you have to bear. You know how it is."
"Yeah. And you don't have to make up pictures in your head. Sub to my JustMutants already, it's premium content. What do you think would've happened if you and me had switched? Maybe I would've gotten to top one time." Quentin jabbed Gabriel with his elbow and grinned at him.
"Please," Gabriel snorted. "Don't act like you wanted to top so badly." He popped a few nuts in his mouth, then jabbed Quentin back. "I'm not unaccommodating, you know. Maybe you just didn't know how to ask."
"Would you have said yes if I'd asked? Doesn't matter. I would never deny you the pleasure of this ass." Whatever was in Quentin's vape pen must have been good, because he giggled like a little schoolgirl. at his own comment. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed by his outburst. "You know, times like this after a weird whateverthefuck, I'd pack up and leave for a while," he said, abruptly changing topics. "I've always wanted to go to Sicily. Can't do that now, though. X-Factor needs me."
Gabriel took one more puff before licking his fingers and stubbing out the joint, at least for a bit. "You can go on vacation." He shrugged. "It's not like Sicily doesn't have cell reception. We're basically reachable wherever, whenever these days, you know?" He scratched the back of his neck and closed his eyes, settling a bit into his high. "Not that you're not, like, essential, I'm sure."
Quentin gay gasped. "I am absolutely completely essential. Didn't you hear? I'm licensed. I own them now. They can't do shit without me. They would literally die if I were on the other side of the ocean."
"I hate to tell you this. I really do..." Gabriel scooted a bit away from the ledge, then kicked his legs out from under him. "But that is the mindset of workaholic capitalist bigwigs, and I have listened to you enough to know that it is kind of nonsense. But then again," he gave a dramatic sigh, "I guess we always become the things we most fear."
The world came to a screeching halt. Quentin gripped the ledge tightly to keep himself steady. He was so close to becoming the pancake he was laughing to himself about earlier. "I can't believe you just called me the C-word. Even in jest, that's just mean."
"Then take a vacation." Gabriel closed his eyes and shrugged.
"You're such a bitch." Quentin flicked a peanut at Gabriel, which hit him square on the nose. A second one got his forehead. "Have you, too, then? Become the thing you fear most? Or are you at least waiting for a midlife crisis like Barton?"
Gabriel fired his powers. Within his bubble, he sat up slowly, re-lit the joint and inhaled for quite a bit. He wasn't entirely sure how to answer any of those questions. After all, the things he was afraid weren't things he could become, were they? They were things he'd been? Well, that wasn't quite it; the weed made that sound profound, but he knew it wasn't. And anyway, this wasn't the time or the place for this conversation, even if, in many ways, it was the person. Though he wasn't even sure if Quentin was the person anymore. But then, who else?
He returned to the real world as he exhaled. "Hard to say," he said, because it really was. And then, after a beat: "You and Barton seem to be getting close."
The fast motion blur was hard enough on Quentin's eyes, but Gabriel's thoughts moved too fast for Quentin to process in this state and threatened to give him a migraine. He took another puff as prophylactic pain relief.
The two had an unspoken agreement not to sleep and tell, especially with the other men of the mansion, and Quentin did not want to violate that rule. But the high was loosening his tongue and he found he did want to talk about him and Clint with someone, and if anyone would understand the situation, it would be Gabriel. So the telepath shrugged and put up a nonchalant expression. "Yeah, you know how it goes," he said simply.
Gabriel wanted to raise an eyebrow but had the decency not to. He wasn't entirely sure why he'd followed that stray thread (though when he looked back on this conversation later he'd realize how telling it was that he chose to go down this path rather than talk about his fears), but the marijuana had left him in a peaceful enough mood that it was as enough of a time to half-raise a question that Quentin had only half-answered.
Still, he wouldn't prod. "Wow, he's fresh out of jokes," he said, clearly teasing. "Interesting."
Quentin rolled his eyes and shook his head, but he was grinning. "Yeah, because let's be real, I'm slumming it, so there's no humor to be found. I wouldn't've told anyone, but he ran his fat mouth on the journals 'cuz he's so dickmatized, so." He shrugged again. "Which, I mean, can't blame him. If I was pushing 40, I'd also go full chicken hawk."
Gabriel once again laid flat, his eyes closing. His mouth suddenly felt intensely dry, and he could really sense his pulse in a way that was distinctly uncomfortable. He must have smoked too much too quickly, enticed by the weather, egged on by Quentin, he hadn't paced himself; he decided any other explanation was too stupid to consider. That's what he needed to believe.
"He is old," Gabriel agreed, though he said it aloud mostly because he really needed to hear it. To be grounded in the reality of this particular Clint. "Kind of a mess too." Another thing he needed to hear.
"I mean, in a fun way, you know?" He realized he might have come off more insulting, but he wasn't sure whether that was actually true or if he had now retreated so far in his head he was overthinking things. "Like, a way that's more fun than most of the people here. A different flavor, thank God. And anyway," he added, opening his eyes again, "you like older men." He poked Quentin in the ribs, because it felt right. "Or men that look older anyway."
Gabriel's thoughts were racing again, so to calm them (and prevent any accidental intrusion), Quentin leaned over and tenderly kissed the other man on the lips. "Yeah, yeah, me and my daddy issues, I have a type. It's fine, whatever." He sat back up, though his hand found its way to Gabriel's hair and he started to gently play with it, twirling a lock around his finger then letting go, and repeating. "Look, if I'm turning into a class traitor, then at least I can indulge my other old vices."
"Far be it from me to stop you," Gabriel teased back. The kiss had rooted him in physical space, a sensation he had only become more aware of after his brief flirtation with Hope's powers. "I'm glad you're having fun." And he really did mean it; his brief pre-apocalyptic dalliance with teenage Clint had been fantastical young love, but whatever it was he and Quentin had was something more serious, more significant, more mature. Or so he felt. (God, when did weed make him so cerebral?)
"My type is carbon-based, so, you know."
The turbulence in Gabriel's head seemed to calm, which made Quentin fight back a smile. He turned his head to the side and coughed to hide it. "Hey, you sleep with me, so you have standards," he said once he'd schooled his expression. "At least sometimes. And, you know, if you ever wanted to have fun together . . ."
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "It has been a while since you and I had some fun, hasn't it?" He wanted more trail mix, but he didn't want to sit up, and so he let that thought leak to Quentin. "I guess I've been running around a lot."
"When you need a break from all that running, come find me," Quentin offered and passed the bag to Gabriel. "Or maybe I will pack up and go for a bit, after all. We could. How do you feel about Sicily?"
“I have no feelings about Sicily,” Gabriel replied between bites. “But that’s probably a good sign for Sicily.”
"Good. Maybe we can find our own Jennifer Coolidge to murder."
"Now, see, did you watch the show? Or did you just see the memes?"
"I saw the memes of Will Sharpe's ass, so I gave the whole television thing a try. It wasn't bad for trash."
