[Quinton Summers]

The thought of the young woman looking for another volunteer wasn't entirely good news to Quinton's ears. He was something of a cautious type where his gift was concerned. Most certainly, he wouldn't have gone revealing it to others. Tanya was... Luck or fate. One of the two. He wasn't presumptuous enough to say one way or another. "Yeah... I'm sure there's someone else out there." He declared, doing his best to sound hopeful.

Perhaps it wasn't so much finding someone who would be willing to volunteer which would prove to be a challenge so much as someone who would do so knowing that she might possibly take in all of their memories. Whilst it wasn't a prospect which particularly bothered Quinton, he could envision why it would be more problematic for others or even for Tanya herself. He could only imagine what some people had in their heads.


The young man smiled softly upon taking note of her enthusiasm. To him, it was very much what he'd wanted to hear. A little bit longer with someone whom he "sort of knew" in what was otherwise a big and strange city. 

"Great!" Quinton was as perky and smiley as he ever was. "You good to go now or do you want to wait and recover for a bit?" If she did, he was as comfortable staying here as he was giving her some space. If she felt that she needed the time and would rather have some space, then he would likely just walk a couple of turns around the block to pass the time. The time it took him top get back to his flat, he would in all likelihood need to return home. As such, he couldn't quite see the point in venturing back there if she intended to  leave right now or in the next hour so.

[Tanya Dawson]

"Trust me, I'm in no rush, it took long enough to find you, and I only trusted you at first cause I thought I could blackmail you."

Tanya looks slightly guilty, "Sorry about that by the way." She really had thought that he might expose her. Perhaps if she'd taken a proper look at the memories she'd absorbed she would have realised that would have been very out of character for Quinton. Although now she actually understands how to do that because of her time with him, so she can't take all the blame on herself.

Tanya catches sight of herself in the mirror. She looks tired, and is still dressed in the same, relatively comfortable clothes she put on first thing this morning. She doesn't look bad in them, persay, but they're definitely not the kind of clothes she would wear to impress. No wonder Nina thought that Quinton was just a hookup, this was definitely a Netflix and chill outfit more than anything else. Her head still hurts a little, and she could use a shower to help refresh her head.

"Give me an hour?"

That should give her time to shower, change and make herself up. "I just need a bit of time to, like, clear my head if that's cool."

She stands up awkwardly, "So uh... Meet you downstairs in an hour?"

---

One hour later and Tanya feels like a new woman. A luxuriously long shower, even in the run down bathrooms of the dorms restores some freshness to her head. Unlike Nina she's never been that bothered about her appearance or doing herself up for boys, so her beauty regime takes a few minutes where it would have taken her roommate over an hour. Her outfit, equally is less high maintenance than Nina's. No short dresses or tottering heels here. Jeans, white leather Chelsea boots and a top she'd picked up in the thrift store just the other day. She'd thought it had looked cute, Nina had clarified it to hot, and she'd taken her roommates advice.

Adding a leather jacket (another thrift store find) and a clutch for her phone, she locks her room behind her as she leaves. She's a minute or so late, so she moves quickly through the corridors and down the stairs, grateful for her frequent attendance of the gym. She's not even breathing hard when she reaches the bottom, but even so she takes a moment to gather her breath and thoughts before stepping out into the cool night air, hoping to see Quinton there waiting for her.

[Quinton Summers]

When it came to blackmail, Quinton only shrugged nonchalantly as if it was the sort of thing that happened to him on such a regular basis that he no longer took any notice of it. "It's okay. I understand why you did it." Had he been in her shoes, he wasn't too sure what he would have done... Would he have ignored the stranger, hoping that they hadn't picked up on the fact that he was different or would he have reached out? Offering either the hand of friendship or alternatively, if he wasn't particularly trusting, doing whatever he could to ensure that they remained silent about whatever they could conceivably have picked up.

Quinton wasn't really the sort to notice if others were dressed - perhaps not poorly but not in clothes which would have been considered "fashionable". Probably about the only time he would have noticed would have been in church if someone was wearing something other than their Sunday best. He was however, somewhat aware (mostly thanks to his sisters) that most girls liked to look their best before going on an outing. Whatever the case, he didn't question it. No doubt also buying into the young woman's explanation regarding the need to clear her head.

"Sure thing! I'm looking forwards to it!"

Quinton walked around the block for a bit. Even although he'd left his hometown some months ago, he was still struggling to get his head around the whole "city" thing. It felt rather foreign to him. He moved around with his hands in his pockets, wondering what some of his siblings and friends would have made of all of this hubbub. No doubt they would have found it as strange as he currently did with these massive towering buildings and a seemingly never ending stream of people coming and going. Some part of him wondered if they all had somewhere to be or if a couple of them, much like him, were simply trying to kill some time. As he walked, he took note of the places they could possibly go to, never having visited any of them himself, it might be one of these things where Tanya chose.


He did keep track of the passing minutes.


The young man drifted back to the lobby of her building, ensuring that he made it back a good five minutes early, unwilling to be the one to make them late. He wasn't particularly nervous. Waiting patiently until she turned up.

"Hey! You look real nice! You feeling better?" He would inform her when she did show up.

[Tanya Dawson]

Tanya smiles as she steps out of the door to find Quinton waiting for her. "Hey! Yeah, thanks! I feel much better."

She is, the shower went a long way towards clearing her head, and despite the strangeness of how they met, she's looking forward to going out for a drink with Quinton. It might not have been on her mind when she first met him, or even when she'd first invited him back to her apartment. That was until Nina had brought it up, now, while she didn't want to just hook up with the guy, she certainly wouldn't mind if her relationship with the tall, thoughtful labourer developed into something more.

She shrugs her small clutch over one shoulder, wanting to link arms with him, but not yet confident enough to do so. He's dressed the same as he was earlier, but that's not a bad thing, the clothes suit him, and to be honest anything would look good on his lean form. Mentally Tanya slaps herself down. This is just a drink, she doesn't even have any evidence that Quinton wants it to be something more. Instantly a half-dozen memories, Quinton's, of her, spring up in her head, but she pushes them away. Looking at those would feel like cheating.

"So... Where, like, did you wanna go?"

[Quinton Summers]

Quinton didn't have any particular plans for the rest of the day. In fact, he was relatively relaxed. They could have skipped the drink and just gone for a walk, he wouldn't have minded. It was the sort of thing that he missed from his old life: the chance to spend time with others innocently, without having to worry about the potential implications of him getting a graze and someone else noticing his flesh heal up in a matter of moments.

In fact, he was rather excited by the prospect of just being able to "hang out" with another person, just like normal young people would do. 

"I don't know..." He shrugged more out of uncertainty than actual indifference. Quinton fancied a drink, certainly but he wasn't the pickiest man on the planet. Quite the contrary, he was the sort who could and would consume pretty much anything typically considered to be comestible. He couldn't account for Tanya however and the last thing that he wanted was to end up leading them into what would be a mediocre joint. "I reckon you probably know this city better than I do. How about you pick?" A thought crossed his mind as he thought back to the last time that they'd met. "I'm buying this time round though. Non negotiable." He had a few dollars in his wallet, enough to cover a few drinks that was for sure - well, assuming that Tanya didn't have what would be considered to be expensive tastes. 

[Tanya Dawson]

Tanya opened her mouth to argue, after all, she had spent most of the day rooting around inside Quinton's mind. She closed it again. She wouldn't deny that she enjoyed the thought of him buying her a drink. It reassures her that maybe she hasn't jumped to conclusions here and this might actually be a date.

The place she picks is small, relatively quiet and fairly cheap. It's not as if it is a student night anyway, but the small bar gives the impression that it is never particularly busy. There is room for about three people at the bar itself, and the tables are all sequestered into alcoves, seating no more than four or five people. Quiet music plays in the background while a low hum of conversation fills the air.

It's warm, refreshingly so after the bitter wind, and the faint smell of alcohol greets the pair as the door shuts softly behind them. A chalkboard is situated above the bar, drinks and their prices scrawled out in an uneven hand. Prices range from 3-4 dollars for a beer, to 30 dollars for a selection of cocktails. All in all, they are reasonable, though with the occasional higher priced choice for those with more expensive tastes.

Tanya does not have expensive tastes. She spends far too much of her time in these places counting pennies, so she's developed drinking habits that match her limited funds. Not that she's inclined to get drunk anyway, limited inhibitions didn't pair well with an uncontrollable contact-based power.

She leans into Quinton a little bit, the physical intimacy both deliberate and feeling intensely forbidden at the same time. Her excuse is to speak to him more privately. "I'll get a table, and I'll have a Vodka Cranberry, ask for the house stuff, it's like two bucks cheaper."

She finds a table in a corner alcove, isolated from most of the rest of the patrons, and settles down to wait for Quinton to return with drinks.

Tag: Quinton Summers

[Quinton Summers]

This wasn't quite the sort of joint that Quinton was used to.

The bars around his neck of the woods tended to be a good deal livelier than this. They were the sort of places that people piled into after they were done with work. It wasn't just the men but the women as well. It was the place to be to rest and recover from a hard day's labor and, if you were lucky enough pick up a guy or a girl. More or less everyone knew everyone else which served to generate an atmosphere that could best be described as familial. It was a noisy place - albeit less so than some of those he'd seen around the city - but the ambiance was still different. Truth be told, he missed it a bit. Just another reason to be homesick. For all that, the young man didn't allow it to dampen his spirits.

Instead, he listened to Tanya's order, making a mental note of it. He couldn't say that he'd ever tried such a drink. He could only guess what it was from the name. Quinton would make his way towards the bar and place the order. For himself, he took only a beer. He wasn't overly fond of alcohol (not something that he readily admitted), especially not the strong stuff. A good beer was something that he quite enjoyed, especially when it had been chilled. He took his own, taking a familiar brand. 

Taking both drinks away from the bar. He had to pause for a few moments as he searched for the young woman. He spotted her a few seconds later and would approach taking care not to spill any of its contents. "Your drink Madame." Quinton didn't speak French but he'd heard a few words spoken by posh waiters in some old black and white movies and attempted to call upon them. He would sit down opposite her, settling down briefly before declaring "Can't remember the last time I did something this... "Normal". Must have been before the event I guess." 

[Tanya Dawson]

Tanya raises her new glass to Quinton once he has handed it over. At the same time she makes bunny ears with the fingers of one hand and crooks them as she toasts, "To 'normal'. Or whatever we can get that's closest... I guess..."

She clinks her glass gently against his beer bottle, before taking a sip of the red liquid. It's good, sugary sweet with just the bitter hint of the vodka underneath the cranberry juice. She takes another sip, before putting the glass down on one of the battered old coasters left on the table for this very purpose. "Thanks for the drink." Any time she spends drinking has to be carefully monitored, she hadn't been drinking in a long time, too afraid of what lowered inhibitions might lead to with her power. Even before that she'd rarely gone to anything that wasn't organised on campus, too concerned about the money she might inadvertently spend on booze.

"I've never really been a big drinker." It might be expected amongst college students, and Tanya has had her own bad experiences with alcohol, but unlike many, she's already learned her lesson. For the most part anyway. "But it's nice to go out for a drink with someone."

She smiles, "I guess you just drink with the people you work with usually?"

Tag: Quinton Summers

[Quinton Summers]

Quinton chuckled upon hearing the proposal for a toast. "To 'normal'." He agreed raising his bottle to tap it against her glass. Truth be told, he wasn't too sure what "normal" was any more and if they could ever hope to return to what he would once have considered it to be but he pushed those thoughts from his mind.

He took a couple of swigs of beer, finding that he was actually quite thirsty. "Well... You probably know that I'm not either." He replied with a knowing smile. He paused a moment later. "Bit of a lightweight actually but that's a secret." It didn't do to admit to such things around his home town. It would cause him to lose credibility in the space of a few seconds. The technique he had adopted as a result was to slowly but surely take small sips of one or two drinks and make them last the night. People rarely tended to count just how many he'd had.

"Sometimes..." Quinton replied with a somewhat non-committal shrug of the shoulders. "Truth be told, I haven't really made many friends since I got here. The construction crews change around quite a bit and I tend to just go where the work is..." It occurred to him suddenly that there was a good chance that she probably knew all of this already given the time that she had spent rooting around through his head.

"I figure you know quite a bit about me but I don't know so much about you." He replied keeping his bottle in his left hand. "Do you want to change that or do you prefer to be a bit of a mystery?" 

[Tanya Dawson]

"I guess it's only fair."

Quinton was right. At this point Tanya knew almost everything about him, or rather, she had absorbed almost every memory that made up who he was. Her head felt heavy, the shower had helped with that, but there was still that sort of feeling that she normally only got after a heavy day crammed full of lectures and seminars.

Taking a sip of the pink drink before her, she tucks a wayward strand of hair behind her ear before speaking. "I'm not really sure where to start." She smiles, chuckling, "I guess some background on me?"

She takes another sip, then puts the cool glass back onto the table. "I'm in my second year of law school, got a scholarship right out of school, basically a full ride and it means that I don't have to worry about student loans or whatever."

Tanya shrugs, then leans back a bit. "Nobody in my family really has much money, my..." She hesitates, loath to share too much information, used to protecting it. All this despite the fact that she knows more about Quinton now than perhaps his own mother does.

"My dad died when I was young, so it's just my mom and my sisters and me. There's never been much money to go around." She refrained from adding that mom's habit of selling anything worth any money for her next fix was part of that reason. Her mom had been clean for a few years now, and that dark history was really hers to share.


Tag: Quinton Summers

[Quinton Summers]

Quinton realized that he'd made a bit of a mistake as soon as Tanya started talking. He was part of that somewhat naïve category of people who periodically forgot that there were some out there who hadn't been so fortunate as to enjoy a life as peaceful and relaxed as their own had been. In truth, it hadn't even crossed his mind that there might be parts of her life which were painful for her to remember or recount. No doubt, if he'd known what it would entail then he most certainly wouldn't have made the request which had been intended to be innocent and fun.

He would listen all the same out of respect. He lowered his head just a little bit, able to envision some of what it must have been like for her. By the sound of it, they'd both been on the poorer side of things, although he'd always had his family to fall back upon. 

"I'm sorry..." It was cliché but all that he could think to say in those moments. No doubt she'd heard it all before, an expression of sympathy for a life lost and the hardships that had entailed but right now, it was all he could offer. He placed his bottle back down on the table, now only half full. He would leave a pause, waiting for things to die down just a little bit so that it felt more appropriate to continue. "What about the future? What do you plan on doing with that degree of yours once you get out of school?"

He hoped that the future she hoped for was brighter than her past seemed to be.

[Tanya Dawson]

Tanya shrugs. "It's not like it's your fault. I hardly knew him anyway." There's a slight edge to her voice, and grateful for the change of topic, she seizes on it, "I'm not really sure yet, I always thought I wanted to be, like, a state prosecutor, but as I look at things, I've sort of found discrimination and retaliation law more and more interesting."

She blushes a little. "Like, I know it's kinda stereotypical, cause I'm black, but the laws are just really fascinating and... Well..." She leans in a little, though they are already in a private part of the bar. "There aren't really any laws that protect people like us. Metahumans. Technically we should be, cause we're still like people and everything, but there's been stuff in the news recently about people losing their jobs cause of, like, their powers or whatever. There are two cases going to the Supreme Court right now about it, both on opposite sides."

She takes another sip, her voice excited. "I mean, like, if someone attacks me because I'm black, that's a hate crime, right? But if someone attacks me because I'm a metahuman? Nothing like that at all. And there should be something, because people do it! There's anti-meta stuff all over the place, and even some states are considering introducing laws to control or regulate us."

She quietens down a little, looking around the bar to check that no one has decided to start listening in. Not one person glances in her direction and she breathes an internal sigh of relief, blushing again as she looks back to Quinton. "Sorry, I got a little carried away there.

Tag: Quinton Summers

[Quinton Summers]

The young man was somewhat relieved when they changed subjects to focus instead on something which was a good deal easier and less thorny to talk about.

Quinton couldn't help but smile as Tanya spoke of her plans. He didn't know much about the law, other than it was something best kept on the right side of. What little he was aware of was that not everyone could be a lawyer. "Studying the law, that's not for the faint of heart. You're braver than I am." There was a clear note of humor but also admiration behind the statement. 

"It's fine." Quinton assured her, raising his hands to emphasize the fact. "It's good to be passionate about something." Perhaps that was a regret of his. He'd known people who had a real drive, a motivation which made them continue getting up in the morning. It was more than just a purpose, something to make them go forwards and hopefully to drive forwards others from time to time. Somewhere along the line, he knew it was more likely to be people like Tanya who changed the world than others like himself. He'd just stand by and watch.

Quinton was sort of aware that there weren't any laws to protect them. It was why he was careful but at the same time, it wasn't a subject that he'd ever given any considerable amount of thought. "You'd think it would be something that they wanted to get their hands on. I mean..." He glanced around only briefly. "I've been being real careful. Even back in my hometown, there were some people that didn't like the idea of metas. Sort of feels like they're waiting for something bad to happen before they do anything."

[Tanya Dawson]

"Well it is something they want to get their hands on." Tanya hasn't touched her drink in a while now, and beads of condensation well up on the cool glass, trickling down to soak into the cheap cardboard coaster on the table below. "If they have laws that affect our lives like that, then they can control us. They're already doing it in Britain, you have to register powers there. Who knows what's happening in China?"

She realises that she has neglected the crimson liquid on the table, and picks up the glass, taking it up and using it as an opportunity to pause. "Sorry. I get carried away... I don't know if it's cause of how I was raised, or y'know..." She indicates her face before continuing, "Or even something else."

She puts her glass back on the table, then reaches out to rest her hand on Quinton's in a comforting gesture. "I'm sorry you feel like there are people like that in your home town, that has to suck." Tanya may avoid going home in order to avoid accidentally absorbing her mother's memories, but at least she knows that she will be welcome there if she does. It must be horrible to wonder if people you had grown up with would feel differently about you now that you have powers.

"I feel like plenty bad has already happened. Maybe they're just a little worried?"

Tag: Quinton Summers

[Quinton Summers]

Quinton was the sort who didn't tend to consider other countries much. It took him a bit of effort to sometimes picture that there was more to the world than the here and now. He was the type of guy who would be hit in the face by the legislation when it came, unable to see it coming but perhaps still capable of reacting to it. "Well, I guess we'd better not give them a reason to worry then." 

The young man watched with amusement as she picked up the glass and excused herself. "Nah. It's good to be passionate about something." He assured her, raising a hand. "Keeps things moving." He considered what was left of the liquid within the bottle before him. "Guess I'm kind of jealous. I take things a little too easy sometimes." 

Quinton only shrugged somewhat indifferently. "They'll get their heads around it eventually. Folks can take a while to get used to change." He spoke with all of the innocence of a man who hadn't ever really experienced any form of prejudice before but was convinced that everything would just blow over with enough time and patience. 

"Yeah. I guess not everyone's going to be responsible with their powers after all." So far, Quinton was basing himself on the grand total of two metahumans he'd met and one of those was himself but he knew that out there there would be some who saw the gifts that they had been granted as an opportunity to do what they wanted without fear of any reprisals. Presumably someone out there would have been contemplating the problem and coming up with a potential solution. The young man certainly didn't have any delusions about standing up to potential troublemakers himself.