Players:
Summary: Quenton and Heather discuss power struggles, romance, and family.
Date: February 1, 2012
Log Title: Consider
Rating: PG-13
Xavier Mansion - Gymnasium
This big room with wooden floors is build with powered students in mind; the entire room is power proof. Blast the walls all you like, they are not breaking. The gym can either be one large room and it also has dividers to make it two smaller gyms. This large Gym has basketball nets, equipment to set up equipment badminton, volleyball, hockey, soccer, gymnastics, fencing, and everyone's favorite, dodge ball.
If there is any meaning to the term "Bouncing off the walls," Quenton is doing just that, literally. The room is indesctructible, it seems. And he's testing that, with his head and fist, and feet. Headbutting one wall, kicking off it, punching another, he just… bounces off the walls, his growls, almost animalistic, echoing through said walls that he does said bouncing off of. Yes. Anger management for the angriest student at Xavier's Institute.
Heather is wearing her squad uniform, or rather her former squad uniform, though its colour has been altered to feature deep purple rather than her usual squad's colours. Her eyes are behind goggles as she watches as Quenton bouncing off the walls, eyebrows slightly raised, in her calm tape recorded monotone played through a speaker mounted on her shoulder and attached to a headset, "They really are unbreakable, aren't they?"
Crashing down in front of Heather, though she probably sees it in slow motion, Quenton grunts. He's wearing only his synthetic pants, and so his obnoxiously (yes, obnoxiously) well toned form, perhaps part of his mutation and from countless days of working out since, is on display, but the red veins on his body shows part of the toll it is taking on him, not that he's harmed by it yet. "Yeah. They sure are. What's up?"
Heather shrugs lightly and says, "I was going to throw basketballs at the hoops, but since you are here already, there are some things I need to mention to you. Also, you have a lot of muscles." She folds her arms behind her back and says, "Would you like to sit down?"
"The mutation got me a little… ripped. It's not exactly the kind of ripped girls like, either, I don't think," Quenton mutters, glancing over himself. He shrugs his shoulders though. "I got Shane, though." He shakes his head, now. "No, I'll stand," he murmurs.
Heather nods her head and says, "As you wish." Her motions are rather awkward and jerky, as usual, as if she is on fast forward as she gestures. "I've been investigating your family. I was following up on the missing persons report for your father, and it seems there is one for your family in general. When I did more digging, I found out that they were going to be placed into a protection program." She tilts her head slightly, watching Quenton for his reaction.
"So that's probably why they haven't been contacting me, right? Because they're in a protection program?" Quenton wonders, brightening now. "That's why they probably don't have contact with the outside world! That makes sense! So they're probably okay, right?" he wonders, and he can't help but grin at this information.
Heather shakes her head and says, "There are still missing persons reports. Do those usually happen when a person is put into protection?" She purses her lips lightly and furrows her brows slightly, "I… do not think that is what happened. They were going to be placed into that program… but I think they disappeared before that could happen. A crime family that had a problem with your father may be responsible. The Ferellis. Most recently, I have been investigating why that is. But I told you that I would keep you up to date on my research. I think I will be requesting from Headmistress Frost that I investigate this more directly with this new information in hand."
Quenton furrows his brow at Heather's words, then presses his own lips tightly, grin fading away now, shifting awkwardly on his feet. "Oh," he mutters, carefully. "I see. Alright. Uh… well. I guess that maybe…" He trails off. "I mean. I'm sure they're still okay. Can you… can you keep me updated?" Even as he speaks, steam starts rising from the skin on his back.
"I will continue to keep you updated whenever I can," says Heather, nodding once as she watches the steam rising from Quenton, and she refocuses on him, "It would not be right for me to keep you in the dark, even if it does distress you. But I assure you, everything possible will be done by staff here and by me."
"Thank you," Quenton murmurs, though he still looks a little rigid, eyes closing briefly and then opening as he glances at the door. "Has Miss Frost… I mean, I haven't got much of a chance to talk to her. Has she found anything out herself?" he wonders now.
"I do not know," admits Heather, shrugging lightly, "I've passed on that there is a problem, though and that I've been investigating as best I can. I will give her my present information." The young woman frowns for a moment and then says, "In any case, I have hope that this will turn out okay."
"Thank you," Quenton agrees, sighing quietly now as he falls back, hitting the ground with a thud. "I don't know what I can do. I feel useless." He sighs quietly. "All I did was give you a password you could have probably found out anyway."
"I'm not good at figuring out passwords, it gave me what I needed without making me spend a lot of time at it," says Heather, shrugging lightly, "And time is of the essence." The young woman looks down towards Quenton and adds, "However, if you know anything about the Ferellis, heard anything from your family about them…"
Quenton shifts slightly now, grunting while he stares at the unbreakable ceiling. "Dad didn't talk much about work at all, believe it or not," he admits. "He usually told us about the stuff that wasn't dangerous, like shaking a superhero's hand or pulling someone over for speeding. Nothing about Ferellis."
Heather frowns at that and nods, "That's fine. Usually when I have done investigations in that past there really wasn't anyone to ask about it… so just coming up with no information is not much of a deterrant." She shrugs and then says, "He probably never wanted you to worry. I am sorry for making you worry now."
"So me being useless isn't an obstacle," Quenton translates, grunting now. "And I can't help but worry. Hell, if we were doing this investigation my way we'd find these Ferelli fucks and interrogate them." He sighs slightly. "You're not the one making me worry, though. Like you said, it'd be… I mean, I want to know."
"Oh, I imagine it's quite possible that we will find and interrogate one way or another," admits Heather, considering that. "I only recently got the name, and I need to get Frost's permission for direct action. I'm not supposed to leave school grounds without an escort."
"Thank you," Quenton murmurs, yet again, glancing over to Heather. "It'll probably be you she lets interrogate him instead of me, given my history, even if you are the one who's supposed to be…" He trails off. "You know. What they think of you," he murmurs now.
"A crazy person?" says Heather, tilting her head lightly, "They also know that I'm passive and tend not to resort to violence, because it usually means a depletion of some kind of resource. But I can and will if it is required of a certain situation. I imagine Emma Frost is the most likely to interrogate. She can tear the memories right out of their heads."
"A crazy person," echoes Quenton at Heather's words, clearing his throat now, muttering to the young woman, "I'm sorry." He watches her for a while, before he's propelled to a standing position by an unseen force. "Right. I guess that'd be the safest way." He doesn't mention the monster in him thinking, 'Where's the fun in that?'
Heather nods her head once and says, "Yes, I imagine that it is. I am not much of an interrogator in any case." She flips up her goggles and rubs her eyes lightly before she says to Quenton, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Quenton murmurs, steam still rising at his back, fingers digging into his face as he glances aside at the wall. "Just worried about my parents is all. And my brother and sister. My sister… she isn't ready for this kind of world. Really, none of them are but my father."
"No, it should be a burden only for those of us who already live under such terms," says Heather, watching Quenton carefully, "But we will do the best that we can, and expend as many of our resources as we can, I am certain of it."
Quenton shrugs his shoulders now, while he watches Heather, frowning at her words and turning his crimson gaze aside. "Expend as many of our resources as we can. It sounds like looking is a waste," he murmurs no, sighing quietly.
"It is how I speak… it's a habit from when I was a girl," says Heather, tilting her head, "My resources had to be used wisely, or I would lose the mad games. Shane may have told you of the Crystal World. A game I played as a child. Everything is a resource. My things, my blood, my breath. For me to say I will expend as many of my resources as I can is what others may call an oath," explains Heather, watching Quenton mildly, "An oath on my life, that I will do what I can, everything in my power. Is that a better formulation?"
"Yeah. A better… formulation," Quenton echoes, pressing his lips faintly together, before his shoulders lift in a shrug now, and he crosses his arms over his chest. "Thank you again for helping. You're better then I am. I don't know if I'd do the same for you." He wets his lips needlessly. "I mean, now, maybe. But before…"
"No. I don't expect that you would have," says Heather, expression not changing as she tilts her head lightly, "You have previously only insulted me. I do not understand the insults, but I understand that they are intended to be insults, and that alone makes them insulting. To you, I am likely merely a strange stranger, a broken mad pitiable child to be reacted to as such. It is how most people perceive me, so I would not be surprised." She flips up her goggles to properly look Quenton in the eyes, "But it is irrelevant how you perceive me, past, present or future. You are an important person, and that is how I shall treat you. How you treat me is incidental to that unwavering reality. Betterness is not even a thing I wish to consider on the matter." She lowers the goggles again, and folds her hands behind her back.
"I'm not an important person," Quenton replies to Heather, while he rests against the wall now, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm sorry about the insults. I uh… I don't know. You seemed cold. And it reminded me of myself, and myself isn't someone I like very much." He scratches just above his lip, close to his nose, leaving a little red scratch there.
"That you are an important person is not something that is even in question to argue against," replies Heather, frowning slightly for a moment, "I understand that I seem cold. Perhaps I am cold. Though I can blush and cry. What about that reminded you of yourself? What aspect of who I am intersected with who you are? Is it an aspect that you hate?"
"I'm cold," Quenton replies. "In a different way. I spare you guys most of it, because I'm struggling against it, but my mind… well. It's like my brain mutated to. I have a low opinion of most people, an eve lower one of myself. That's the aspect of me that you sort of seem to have to." He sighs quietly. "I don't know."
"Do you think I have a low opinion of most people? Perhaps. And a lower opinion of myself? Perhaps," says Heather, considering this for a few moment of silence, "How is your coldness different from mine? I suspect you think mine is that flattened affect."
"I do," agrees Quenton now, while he crosses his arms over his chest again, glancing over to Heather's face. "My coldness comes from some sort of gene in my body. Your coldness sort of does, too, but yours is because time moves so damn slowly for you, and you had to get cold. Because it seems the rest of us are in slow motion. You had to mature faster then we did."
"I merely mature faster than others because of time passing. I have lived forty years, and only eighteen have passed. Fifteen lived years in the White Prison and thirteen in the World of Illusions. The rest, here, sometimes caught in stranger places or stranger things than I had yet seen," says Heather, nodding passively, "My perception of time makes me cold, as does the way I have spent it." She watches Quenton and says, "But your affect is not flat. Your emotions are always clear. Perhaps blunted, held back. But still, I can tell that you are disconcerted, you've been offended, angry, grateful and relieved in this conversation. I could tell if I were deaf. When you say cold, you do not mean like me. Do you mean like a solitary predator?"
"A solitary predator. Maybe. Sounds right. A monster, it feels like. Intelligent, well… you know, smart as me, so not that intelligent, but hateful and cold. I don't know how to explain it. It feels like another person, almost, but not another personality. Just my own, magnified," Quenton explains now, jerking his gaze to the door a moment. "Like it's just another part of me. My mutation, maybe."
Heather follows Quenton's gaze and she looks towards him, "Does this person inside of you make you want to flee, or does the person you are want to flee facing the person inside?" She considers for a few moments and says, "Have you talked to Headmistress Frost about this sense of coldness?"
"No, and I don't plan to," Quenton grunts now, while he glances back to Heather. "She probably already knows, anyway. And we're the same person. I know that. I'm the monster. It's not a split personality. It's not… it's just like having an urge. Like to eat, or drink." He releases a breath, gaze returning to the door.
"But still, talking about that aspect of you makes you want to run, it seems. But hunger, thirst or lust is not a person. It is an urge. The person is the piece that controls those urges or gives into them. The one who finds a way to slake them, through creativity and through work, or to ignore them, through fasting or abstention," says Heather, frowning lightly, "What is this urge? Is it cruelty? You say it is hateful and cold."
"It's rage. Just… pure rage," Quenton replies, furrowing his brow. "Destruction. I want to hurt. I want to destroy." He releases a breath. "And if I let it loose, I become a true monster," he murmurs, furrowing his brow. "I've killed people once because of it." He wets his lips again. "But if I control it, I can release that monster on… my enemies. I just need to teach myself who my enemies are."
Heather listens in her passive manner, watching Quenton evenly, "Indeed. I think all people have a desire for destruction to some extent. To shatter, to tear, to burn. But it sounds like yours is intense, blown up far beyond that of anyone else." She considers for a moment and says, "Do you want my help? I am not a psychic being, but I may be able to help you. I am in a unique position to. You cannot touch me. And even if you did, you could not kill me in one blow. The equation for kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared. A blow is a mere transfer of energy. But if you divide that velocity by five, for example… the energy reduces by a factor of twenty five. Do you understand?"
"I think being unable to touch or hurt you would just anger me more. So I'm sorry," Quenton murmurs, furrowing his brow. "I wouldn't want the oppurtunity even if I could." Inside, the rage is tempted. Can't touch or hurt her? The rage wants to test that theory. His eyes stare at the door now, and his hand lifts to his face to dig at it roughly, cutting into it and causing little bloody streaks across his face.
"I am not saying that you could not hurt me," says Heather, frowning lightly, "You certainly could. But I am likely to experience anything you do to me as if you were a man with normal strength. You are still bigger than I am. The idea is only an assurance. That if you lost control, it would not be a death sentence for me. But the idea is not losing control, but pushing that control forward, so that you may harness that rage instead of having it just tempt you. You would not be engaging me in combat or anything, not unless you did lose control, which is why the reassurance."
"I don't know what you meant by the math you threw at me and how it would affect my strength, and really, I'm glad you'd be able to take me in case I ever lost control. But I don't want to take the risk, regardless," Quenton tries to explain now. "I don't know." He furrows his brow at Heather again. "We must all sound stupid in slow motion."
"You sound like an awful green, not a pleasant green like grass or forests or emeralds, lighter and awful," says Heather, nodding once, "It is a stupid stupid sound and it makes me want to throw up." She adds, "And I ask that you consider it. We are here to learn, and to gain control. Some of us exist in a state of perpetual tension where complete control is not possible, but in some areas… it is to our benefit to practice control where we can."
The rage boils up in Quenton at Heather's words but he abrubtly falls silent now, pressing his lips tightly together and glancing away, upper lip twitching.
"It is nothing about you. Everyone sounds the same if you slow them down enough. I wear the headphones so that I hear less of the droning and more of the translations. Just as I play everything I say from a recorder, I listen back in the same way," says Heather, frowning lightly.
"You said once to someone else their voice sounds like some sort of pleasant color," Quenton grunts, shrugging his shoulders. "I'd rather spare making you want to throw up, so I'll keep my sentences short," he replies.
"Chloe, perhaps, she speaks in an orange when she speaks to me. Connor's, once… Azure. But time was broken, for a brief moment, whatever that means when time has been broken… He spoke. Azure. My own is a royal purple," says Heather, shifting lightly, before she shakes her head, "I don't listen to it anymore. I listen to the tapes. Speak in sentences an eternity long. I will only hear the recording. It only plays dull colours, near greys. I can tell you what your voice would be if I heard it properly, by the tinge to that grey…"
Quenton shrugs his shoulders, though he does glance over towards Heather a moment, curiously, though again, he opts not to speak, it seems. He just crosses his arms over his chest now, wetting his lips needlessly.
"Navy. It would be navy," is all Heather has to say about that. "I wish I could see it right."
"So do you see the world in color?" asks Quenton, abrubtly, flinching already as he speaks. "Like, how do you know the… color of our voices, I mean." He seems uneasy already that he spoke again.
"Sounds are colours," says Heather, tilting her head lightly, "When other people just hear sounds, I see colours. I can scarcely conceive of sound being otherwise."
"I wish I could see the world through your eyes. Must be beautiful, sometimes," Quenton murmurs, though he suddenly looks a lot more depressed then he did before. Luckily, most of the steam rising from his back has dispersed.
"It can be beautiful. When I was a child, and I could properly hear music, it was just incredible to hear," says Heather, gesturing absently up at the air. She looks back towards Quenton and says, "Have I said something upsetting?"
"It'll be hard for you to.. have fall in love," Quenton comments, shrugging his shoulders. "Underneath all this… stupid muscle and rage I'm a romantic. It's part of how I was able to actually like Shane. Part of how I was able to fight the rage to express that." He clears his throat, steam rising again. "It'll be harder for you."
Heather's shoulders slump lightly and her slight frown this time seems a genuine show of emotion than just an expression to indicate that she's thinking. "Connor is the closest I have to having a boyfriend. I care for him," she says, with a very slight blush (though it shows on her pale skin) as she holds her hands together near her chest, "But neither one of us are very good at handling a relationship, but I care for him a lot."
"You do like him a lot," Quenton notes, despite the two never having this conversation. He presses his lips tightly together now. "That azure blue of his? Is it an ugly sound?" he wonders.
Heather shakes her head quickly, "No, it's a beautiful sound. Like sunshowers. Azure." She fidgets with her machine lightly, adjusting it somehow.
Quenton nods his head now, furrowing his brow, clearing his throat several times, and then realizing the effect it may on Heather, he abrubtly stops, glancing back off eastward.
"I sometimes think I should not burden anyone. Any relationship I have will be abstinent. I cannot risk breaking a man's pelvis with an unintentional buck of my hips," says Heather, still focusing more on the machine than anything else, "But if I want anyone, it's him."
"We're in the same boat there," Quenton says quietly, glancing towards the machine now, pressing his lips thoughtfully. "And even if there were surpressors for our powers, I doubt it'd be wise to use them. What if we get in a situation where we need to react instantly?"
Heather stands up straight again and holds her hands behind her back. "It would be the same as any human, I suppose. React with skill rather than power." She glances aside and says, "We have been speaking for a long time. I should bid you a good whatever time it is."
"I'm not sure I'd have the skills to do what it takes…" Quenton just trails off, watching Heather before he also glances aside. "You have fun doing whatever, yeah? I'll be here. Trying to break the walls."
Heather nods at Quenton and then says, "Consider." Before her edges blur and she's out of the room in a flash.
