[Tanya Dawson]

The dorm room is small, less than fifteen feet in width and roughly twenty in length, with two single beds occupying the majority of the space. One of those beds is neatly made, with the other a tangled mess of sheets, pillows and blankets, as though an animal has made it's nest there. Two small desks, wardrobes, and a bookshelf occupy the rest of the space, as clearly every inch of floor space has been utilised.

One desk is leaning haphazardly, propped up by a collection of books that look like they have been there for several years. Closer inspection would reveal that they had, each is several editions out of date and if one were to move the desk they would discover a deep impression from the shortened leg that runs all the way through the pile.

The desk beside the messy bed is in a similar disordered state, strewn with papers and books propped open on specific pages, with a Macbook plugged into the wall. It's playing music, the tinny speakers offering only small comfort to Tanya as she paces up and down the small corridor formed between the beds.

"So you're hooking up, no need to be this nervous.

The drawled comment comes from Tanya's roommate, a tiny olive skinned girl with large front teeth and half-lidded eyes. She's sat cross legged on the made bed, peering into a small mirror as she wields eye-liner with surgical precision.

"I told you it's not a hookup."

Nina shoots Tanya a disbelieving look before returning her attention to the mirror. "Sure, you meet a cute guy and invite him back to your place within an hour, totally not a hookup."

Ignoring the other girl, Tanya starts to straighten the covers on her own bed nervously, getting them into some semblance of order before sitting down heavily. "I thought you were going out?"

Finishing her preparations and packing away her things, Nina climbs off her bed and heads towards the door. "I've got to look beautiful don't I?"

"Right..." Tanya jumps off her bed as well, following the shorter girl to the door, checking her reflection in the mirrored wardrobe as she does so. "I'll come down with you, I'm meant to be meeting him in the lobby anyway."

---

The lobby is at least as worn as the furniture in the dorm rooms, if not more so. Several battered couches occupy the centre of the large room, with several students lounging on and around them. One girl absent mindedly picks stuffing from a tear in the arm of one of the chairs, while someone else is industriously graffitiing the opposite arm.

Looking towards the glass doors, Tanya waves as she spots Quinton waiting there. Her roommate gives the tall workman an appreciative look. "Right, well if you aren't going to hook up with him, I will." Tanya simply glares in response, then moves away from her roommate to let Quinton in.

"Hey! My roommate's going out so I thought we could... Uh... Chill in my room, so we have, like, some privacy."

She flushes immediately afterwards, aware that what she is suggesting sounds exactly like what her roommate is suggesting. Even if the reason she wants privacy is so she can experiment with her powers, not jump his bones.

Tag: Quinton Summers

[Quinton Summers]

Quinton had took the precaution of leaving early enough to ensure that should he get lost, it wouldn't make him late. He'd made sure to be at least somewhat presentable. Putting on a clean pair of jeans, shirt and a jacket which he generally avoided getting anywhere near a building site. There was little that he could do for his boots but they were given a clean and polish so that he didn't end up traipsing mud into wherever it was that the woman planned for them to experiment with her powers.

The man had already taken his dog for an extensive walk and taken the opportunity to run the creature ragged so that for the next few hours at least, she would likely be out cold. All the same, he have the creature a rub on her head, regretting the fact that he had to leave her alone at all. There was a time back on the ranch when she'd never left his side. Now, life seemed to have other ideas. Not being entirely sure just where it was that Tanya intended for them to meet up or go to practice her skills, he deemed it safer to leave his pet in the tiny flat that he was renting out as opposed to dragging the creature with him where she could potentially become a nuisance. 

"Be back soon girl!" He promised as he slipped out the door, the dog's tail wagged a couple of times in response as she settled down for the evening.

He arrived early. The address that he'd been given proving to be easier to find than the construction site on the campus where he'd met her. So he distracted himself by walking around the block for a while, trying to get a feel for the area and the sort of life that Tanya lived. When it grew closer to the time, he would find his way into the lobby, waiting there for her to show herself. It was a curious, almost alien place for him. Growing up in the rural Midwest, he was far from accustomed to such sights. Graffiti had been rare and he'd never gone to college to get used to the way of life of that strangest of creatures the student. So he watched, a mixture of entertained and fascinated.

There was a certain amount of relief as he spotted Tanya. The man raised his hand, having briefly to let her know that he had indeed seen her. Briefly, his gaze fell upon the stranger. For a moment, he wondered if she might be one of the sisters that she'd mentioned before. There was only one way to find out... Quinton approached giving the two a sincere smile. He wasn't the type to plan ahead or worry about just what he said. So his greeting was as spontaneous as it was sincere: "Nice to see you again Tanya. Mrs." He would give the other girl a small dip of the head in recognition.

He would come to assume that she was in fact, the roommate that Tanya referred to. 

Thankfully for Tanya, the farm boy was the innocent sort. Any potential other interpretations or implications flew over his head and he saw only what she had actually meant. "Sure thing!" He'd been preparing himself a little bit for that, imagining just what it was that he would have to do in order to help the other metahuman. Presumably she would be somewhat better versed as far as practice was concerned given that it was her powers they were talking about. 

[Tanya Dawson]

The dorm is typical student fare, walls painted a cheap and inoffensive taupe, dark carpet littered with dried gum, and harsh white lighting in the corridors. On their way up the stairs they pass several other students, several of whom give Quinton a sideways look. There might be thousands of students at Stanford Law, but you notice when there is someone new in your dorm.

A few raise their eyebrows as well, they've seen Tanya about, but her breakup with her last boyfriend had been pretty spectacular, and a long time ago. Quinton would be the first boy anyone had seen Tanya taking up to her room since then. No doubt the gossip would be running wild tonight, if Nina hadn't already started it.

It's embarrassing, but Tanya focuses on the fact that keeping things in her room means she can control the situation more easily. It gives them privacy so if something does go wrong no one else will notice what's going on. She can't deny she's nervous as she opens the door and gestures to the two beds at the end of the room. "Make yourself comfortable."

She closes the door quietly behind the two of them, the faint click loud in the sudden silence. Staying at the door a moment, she doesn't turn around, taking the pause to breathe in deeply. Thoughts gathered she turns to face the room, and more importantly, Quinton.

He is good looking. With high, defined cheekbones, carelessly tousled hair and the kind of effortless physique that comes from manual labour rather than the gym. He's exactly the kind of guy she'd normally go for.

She pushes that thought aside as she crosses the room. There's a notebook open on her cluttered desk, the page equally cluttered with copious notes in different colours. She's spent most of the time since she met Quinton working out how she might experiment with her power and trying to avoid picturing his eyes.

Sitting down on the bed, she keeps her distance from Quinton at first, her hands clasped together before her. "I've not done this before, not even with my sisters. So it might take a while."

She glances up at him, tearing her eyes away equally as quickly. "I thought I could try controlling whether I absorb memories or not. That's the reason I've not done much experimentation yet, I can't seem to control whether I get people's memories or not."


Tag: Quinton Summers

[Quinton Summers]

Quinton followed Tanya Dawson without hesitation. Trust came more naturally to him than hesitation or suspicion having grown up in an environment where, for the most part at least, there was no reason to fear or mistrust others. The few bad eggs in the local area were known about and avoided by all those who were considered to be of good company. So that left the young man still rather naive and trusting despite the stage of life that should in theory, have seen many wisen up. 

So the notion that this could all be a trap or that he might not be all that wise to follow someone whom he had only met a few days ago given his current position, hadn't even crossed his mind. Blame it on the upbringing and what to him seemed like the inability to actually die.

His eyes ran over the room quickly, he'd never before set foot in a student "dig". All he knew from them was what he'd seen on some of those TV shows and films. Amusingly enough, this matched up pretty much with what he'd been expecting. "Nice place." Had they just walked into a flaming dumpster, he would likely have said the same thing. It wasn't necessarily insincere so much as an automatic reflex when visiting another.

He nodded once accepting the invitation. 

It was only once he sat down on the end of the bed, wondering if it belonged to Tanya or her roommate that it suddenly occurred to him that whilst he assumed that she knew a good deal about him from that briefest of touches, he knew next to nothing about her. His eyes might drift around and try and find a few small clues as to what sort of a life she lived. A busy one, by the looks of things. His own little room was in much the same state, plus an added amount of disrepair brought on through damp which the landlord really should have addressed a long time ago.

Whilst the fact that they were strangers had once more registered with him. He had also come to the sudden realization that he was in a girl's bedroom. A very pretty girl at that. Hopefully she didn't have a boyfriend. It might not be easy to explain.

Her speaking to him came as a welcome change to prevent his mind from wandering too far down that particular alley. "No worries. I've got all day." He would stretch out his own hand, palm up and offer it to her for when she was ready. "Yeah. I can see why you'd want to get that under control." He could try practicing with his own abilities but then he'd have to hurt himself and the idea of sitting alone intentionally causing damage and trying to wish it away didn't much appeal to him. "Don't worry. There's nothing up here I'm worried about you seeing." Was there some embarrassing stuff? Yeah but then he was willing to just laugh about it should she pick it up."

[Tanya Dawson]

"OK. Cause I might see... Uh... Everything..."

Tanya takes a deep breath. She had gotten a lot with just a brief touch before, but not his whole life, that was too much for even her power to instantly snatch. The only worry was that If she picked up everything in his head her power might just stop because there was nothing new to absorb, not because she'd achieved her aim. She'll just have to take this slow.

She's spoken to her sister's about their powers before, therefore has some idea of how to start experimenting. Breathing deeply, Tanya closed her eyes in an attempt to shut herself off from the world. Centring, that was what it's called. She tries to let the world fall away, without much luck, every time she pushes one thought down, another bobbed up into it's place.

Eventually she achieves the closest she is able to real focus. Opening her eyes, she reaches out towards Quinton's hand. It's warm, rough, and for a moment she thinks that perhaps she has achieved it, she's managed to hold back her power.

Then it all comes rushing in, Mia as a puppy, brief flashes of a town general store, sweat and aching muscles after a hard days work on the farm, her-his hand held up in front of his eyes as the jagged gash on the palm seals shut. She snatches her hand away and the onrush stops as soon as it has begun.

"Fuck."

The expletive makes it clear that the beginning of their experiment has not gone to plan. She can feel the memories floating turbulently in her head, seeking a place to go. She focuses on them instead, trying to get them under control. To her surprise she can already feel them receding into the back of her mind.

"Wait."

She prods at them mentally. One of them seems to flow up to her minds eye like a video on YouTube. She pushes it away, and it goes. Maybe that's her problem, she's been treating the memories as unwanted intruders, trying to avoid them, making every attempt not to engage. Now that she's actively connected with them they seem to respond to her whims.

"Shit... I've got some more of your memories, but if I, like, try and control them then I can sort of make them do what I want..."

She calls up another memory, this time focusing on how she remembers Mia looking when she met Quinton's pet. A hundred or more memories all immediately start vying for her attention so swiftly that it makes her head hurt. She pushes them all away again, and is delighted to find that they actually go.

"I should have done this months ago. Like, I can push them away, but when I try to call up specific ones I still seem to get everything linked in. Like, if I think of your dog, I get every memory I have of your dog, rather than, like, a few."


Tag: Quinton Summers

[Quinton Summers]

Quinton was aware of the risks such as they were. 

It was true, he didn't have all that much to hide. At most, he supposed that she might have come across the occasional personal memory which might have been a little bit... Sensitive? Especially involving a couple of his girlfriends. He could only hope that she wouldn't dwell on those for too long should she come across them somehow. He was in his mid-twenties and she was a girl he was quite convinced had seen more of life than he had and was, as a result, more worldly-wise.

So when she spoke of seeing everything, Quinton just smiled. "Don't you worry 'bout that." The reassurance was genuine, a way to tell her that he wasn't bothered. "I've been told plenty of times that there's not much up there, so it's not like you're going to get lost." 

He wasn't aware of just what she was or wasn't seeing as she touched his skin. He assumed that even the briefest and most casual of touches was enough to transfer some of his memories. It wasn't as if they'd been holding one another in a deep embrace when she'd managed to absorb enough to know that he was a meta. He paused, studying the girl's face in search of some sort of clue as to just how things were going.

So long as she didn't scream then he was going to assume that it wasn't an absolute catastrophe. 

He wasn't quite expecting the swearing. True, Quinton wasn't exactly a prude but he still came from a background where such language wasn't exactly commonplace. His mother was a church goer through and through and if she'd ever heard such a word slip out of his lips, he could only imagine that she would have washed his mouth out with soap. That wasn't to say that he'd never cussed a little bit if she wasn't around of course.

Still it came as a surprise.

Leaning forwards, he peered at the young woman anxiously. He couldn't quite make out just what was going through her mind. In truth, the meta hadn't exactly been expecting things to work out easily first time round and for her to suddenly master it. Whilst he didn't know much about powers and metahumans, his experience with life told him that it usually took a while and a good bit of blood, sweat and tears to come to terms with anything. Had she just come across something that she didn't like? Heat rose to his cheeks at the prospect as he wondered just how he could justify himself. Her explanation, although comforting wasn't entirely enlightening as it came across as somewhat abstract for someone who wasn't experiencing them.

"Well, that's good. Right?" Control, even in its most basic form, had to be good. At least that's what he told himself from the position of someone who had absolutely no ability to moderate his own powers. He would however, wait for some sort of clarification from her on that front. 

"Is it just my memories or all of them?" He asked, genuinely curious as to just what Tanya had managed to achieve on her first go at regaining some sort of control. 

[Tanya Dawson]

"I... Uh... I don't know..."

Tanya tries to recall something specific from her own memories, as they always have, they seem to spring up obediently on command. She'd always realised that this was some part of her power, but had been too ashamed of absorbing other people's to try the same thing. She widens her approach a little, again they begin to spring up, so fast that she can't keep track of them. It takes longer this time, but as she pushes for more her head starts to ache again.

She pushes them all away. "Yeah... I can... But trying to do too much really makes my head hurt."

The ache has already subsided, and she wonders if it's just a result of a lack of practice. After all, searching through her own memories seemed to be a lot easier, at least until she called on too much. "Maybe it's... Like... A practice thing?"

She focuses again on his memories, this time just thinking about ones from that morning. These would have been close to the surface, so a collection springs up almost instantly, accompanied by only a slight twinge in her temple. She can almost visualise them and she closes her eyes.

"It's kind of like... Like..."

She struggles to equate the experience to something Quinton might be familiar with. She's been in telepathic contact with her sister's before, and this is a little like that, but less... Alive.... Than that contact had been. This seems more responsive to her mental touch. They aren't images per say, more images made up of feelings.

"It's a bit like... Ummm.. Y'know when you look at old pictures in your feed? It kind of feels like that... Except they aren't really pictures..."

She reaches out one hand to swipe at the feelings, and feels like an idiot when absolutely nothing happens. She blushes as she looks at him again. "Sorry, thought I could swipe them like on my phone..."

"I guess you never really had to do much practise?"



Tag: Quinton Summers

[Quinton Summers]

Quinton smiled as he listened to the girl's words. At least they were getting somewhere. He wasn't entirely sure that they were making what most people would have called progress but at the very least Tanya now had some added - perhaps not control - but elements to her powers that she had been rather more unaware of. 


Again she asked him what he thought. He didn't know. He was clueless about this sort of thing having never before met another metahuman. "Might be. I mean, if you could run up walls or something and you weren't used to it, you'd get tired right? Could be the same sort of thing?" All of this was just theory.

Quitnon watched with a certain amount of interest. The way that she moved her hands struck him as odd but the explanation that she gave him gave him some inclination into just what she'd been attempting to do. He huffed with amusement at the thought. "Shame these things didn't come with any instruction manuals." He imagined that there must have been hundreds of others out ther trying to come to grips with what had happened to them.

"Nah... I just sort of happens. Whether I want it to or not." He shrugged his shoulders. If she knew him to be a metahuman, then she must have known at least some of the details of his powers. "It's not really something I can practice with. I mean... It's kind of messy." He would like to be able to switch his power off and on. To get the odd scratch or scrape here or there that lingered on his flesh like everyone else on the planet but to no longer have to fear extreme injuries. 

In short, a comfortable balance.

Quinton leaned back a little as he pondered the matter. It wasn't as if he'd never tried before. "Maybe practice would help but honestly? I'm not too sure where I'd even start." All he could think of was somehow injuring himself and hoping against hope that he didn't fix himself, willing for it not to do so.

[Tanya Dawson]

Quinton had a point Tanya muses as she considers his power. "Yeah... I suppose it's not like you can just go around cutting yourself or anything. Might attract a few too many questions."

Tanya is awfully aware that Quinton is leaning back on her bed. Not that she can do anything about it. She might have some control over her ability now, but it's only a tiny improvement, and far from being able to stop herself from absorbing memories on contact. That's the logical next step, and the one she is loathe to try.

"I could help you practice with your power too. At least, once you work out how you want to do it." She shrugs, "Sort of the least I could do."

The short interval has allowed the worst of the sudden headache to subside. Even so, she takes the brief opportunity to massage her forehead. It offers her little relief, but the instinctive reaction has occurred before she has the presence of mind to stop it. She pulls her fingers away from her forehead at the moment that her Macbook switches to the next track in the playlist, a considerably lower tempo track that makes her blush. In a poor effort to disguise her embarrassment she raises a hand once again. "Can I try again. I want to see if I can control how many memories I pick up from you. Did you feel what I was doing last time?"

Tag: Quinton Summers

[Quinton Summers]

He'd toyed with the idea of practicing with his powers, even given it a half-hearted go on a number of occasions. It was as painful and as unpleasant as one would expect and he found it difficult to endure even more than a handful of seconds. "Yeah. Problem is even though I heal up - I don't know, I might even be immortal - it still hurts. I've tried a few times, just tried to stop but it never really worked. So I guess I'm just stuck like this, unless there's someone else out there who can help." 

Still she offered to help. He smiled gratefully. "Thanks but I wouldn't even know where to start. I mean, I can't exactly as you to start cutting my fingers off." That was the main issue he'd found with attempting to practice. His natural instinct stopped him from hurting himself or doing too much damage even although he knew that he would recover, there was still that voice in his head which commanded him to cease and not to damage his body. Allowing or worse yet - asking - another to do so filled him equally with dread. 

"If we can help you, I'll call that enough of a win for me." He would hold out his hand once more, encouragingly. If they had to spend all day here like this then they would. Quinton was determined to make himself useful to the first real friend he'd been able to make since leaving his increasingly distant home.

[Tanya Dawson]

"You're, like, the sweetest guy, you know that?"

Experimenting with her powers might not lead to any physical discomfort for Quinton, but even so his offer was extremely generous. Her powers will eventually lead to her absorbing just about everything that makes him... well... him. It won't take it away, but the guy would lose any illusion of privacy in a heartbeat. Maybe it was because he seemed so adorably disconnected from the social media of average life, he didn't have the concerns for privacy that other people might have.

"I don't... I feel like we should talk about what this really entails."

Holding her hand over his, Tanya sighs. It had seemed too good to be true. And maybe it is. Probably Quinton just hadn't understood what it was that he was dealing with. She could go ahead, after all, he will have no idea what she's doing with his memories, how much she's absorbed, he would be completely ignorant.

She can't.

"Look, it might end up being everything. And my power is weird, I might end up remembering more of it than you do. I'm gonna know every little lie you told, every person you've known and every dirty little secret hiding inside your head."

Tanya pulls her hand back a little, "There's no going back from this, once I have it... that's it. It's mine forever. Are you sure there's nothing there you don't want someone else to know? Cause if it's in there... I will. Like, are you sure there are no skeletons there you might be worried about?"

Her hand is still hovering over Quinton', perhaps a few inches from contact. She's absorbed a lot, an awful lot of his memories already. She can feel them finding their own place in her head, before long they'll be as much a part of her as they have ever been of him.

Tag: Quinton Summers

[Quinton Summers]

"You're, like, the sweetest guy, you know that?"

Quinton felt the heat rush to his cheeks. It was a while since someone had paid him such a compliment, although it had been common enough to hear around his hometown. He rubbed the back of his neck, looking down at the floor. "Thanks..." He didn't know how else to reply. The young man smiled at her, doing his best to relax. Even although he was more than slightly willing to help her however he could. The only thing that it was really costing him was time. Compliments needed to be returned right? Just to remain polite if nothing else. "You're real nice too. People here are a bit- Different, from what I'm used to." 

By "different" read terribly busy on occasion at the cost of their politeness.

He listened with a certain amount of gravity to her next warning. Some of it would most certainly have been of concern to others. Determined not to dismiss pointlessly her concerns, he thought about the matter carefully. Was there really anything in his mind that he didn't want her to see? "Well, guess I've had a few girlfriends you know. Never anything-" He stopped himself suddenly before he went off on a tangent. "Nothing like that... Other than that unless you don't mind getting bored and a few knocks and bashes here and there..." He smiled softly.

He didn't mind but could understand just why it was that she might fear what she could potentially pick up from him. After all, he could have been lying to her for all she knew. They were still something approaching strangers with one another.

"Don't you worry about me." He declared, still keeping his hand held out, offered for her to take or to think twice about and refuse. He wouldn't be offended. "You do what you think is right." 

He knew what he would do. He would accept. Anything to give him a chance to potentially have some greater form of control over his own abilities.

[Tanya Dawson]

Tanya takes note of the fact that the girlfriend's mentioned by Quinton had been done so in the past tense, then dragged her mind back onto the matter at hand. Nina hadn't been wrong, it had been a long time since Tanya had invited a boy into her room, though mostly because she was afraid of them finding out about her secret rather than anything else.

Their hands are still hovering awkwardly a few inches apart, though Quinton's has hardly wavered since Tanya hesitated. It's a potent gesture. An open hand has always been a symbol of peace, greeting and welcome, in this case, a welcome inside his thoughts and his memories. Even though she knows her own memories are safe, at least from him, she can't help but feel that there is something subtly wrong about rooting around inside someone's head.

Not that she can help it. That's the problem. Maybe she can, but without practice she has no way of knowing if she can restrain herself at all. Unless she does this, she's looking forward to a life without physical contact. At least not skin to skin, and living in eternal fear of that happening.

She clasps Quinton's hand...

---

It is two hours later, Tanya's head hurts. So does her chest. There's been very little progress, and she's worried that even with the intermittent contact and the break they took, Quinton might just be running out of memories inside his head. She's almost given up nearly a dozen times, only to force herself on with the thought that Quinton has already sacrificed so much for her.

Even so, she doesn't know how much she has left in her. She rests her head against the side of the bed, at some point over the last hour she has found herself sitting on the floor, mostly so she can press her forehead against the cool metal of the bedframe. She does so now, enjoying the momentary relief the metal brings her.

"I think I've got one more try left in me. Then I just need a break. Like... A long one... My head feels like someone has turned it inside out."

She'll try something different this time. As if she hasn't tried something different every time before this. She grasps his hand and just... Does her best to relax, the slow breathing, clearing thoughts from her head. Everything she's learned from the Yoga videos she follows along with on Youtube.

To her utter shock nothing rushes in. She almost falls over in surprise as she snatches her hand away from him.

"I think... I think that might have just worked..."


Tag: Quinton Summers

[Quinton Summers]

Quinton would quite happily have spent the entire day there if it had meant that Tanya got even the most basic control over her powers. From his understanding, whilst his ability was currently something of a nuisance for him, hers was very much a handicap in her day to day life. He couldn't even begin to imagine what it must have been like to go through life unable or afraid to touch another for fear of what you might pick up in terms of memories. That was to say nothing of some of the unpleasantness which he imagined that she must almost certainly have picked up from time to time.

It was a somewhat unremarkable experience for him. He didn't share in the struggle of trying to make sense of the memories. To him, it was a simple touch and that was it. Then it was over. He understood that for her though that it was far more complex so said nothing, giving her the time that was needed for her to make sense of it all. 

That wasn't to say that it wasn't a relief when she claimed to have finally cracked it. If only because he was beginning to wonder if she would ever be able to master it and gradually losing hope for his own situation accordingly.

"Great!" His enthusiasm was quite genuine. It gave him some hope. The thought that Tanya had seemingly developed some degree of control over her powers made him wonder if he were to pursue it with just as much determination and perseverance if he might not perhaps be able to find some sort of way to prevent his own flesh from stitching itself up so quickly. It was something to experiment with another day. Right now, he doubted that either of them particularly wanted to start experimenting with his ability as well. Especially when it could only ever really be messy. "I guess you won't really know for sure until you touch someone else though, will you?" 

He knew that she was exhausted. The only thing that he could really equate it to was that her using her powers was something akin to physical activity for others. They'd been at this for quite a while now. He hadn't been keeping an exact tab or counting the seconds as they passed but he sensed nonetheless that it had been a couple of hours at least. That was quite the time to dedicate to any task.

"Hey... You want to come and get a drink or something? To take your mind off of it." His question was a rather innocent one. It had been a long time since he'd last had someone whom he would consider to be a friend, let alone one whom he could share his secret with. A thought suddenly occurred to him. "That's if you feel up to it."

[Tanya Dawson]

Tanya's elation drops somewhat as Quinton points out the obvious flaw in her plan. It could be that she has just absorbed everything that he has to offer. Her disappointment is obvious, and it's not just because she might have hit the same wall yet again in her attempt to control her powers. "Yeah... I guess I'll have to find another volunteer somehow."

It's not an endeavour she is particularly looking forwards to. It had taken this long to find one person she could try this out with. How long might it take to find another? There is always her sisters, but the thought fills her with reluctance, rather than excitement. Her relationship with her sisters has been strained for a while now, and not because of the strange abilities they all developed during the Event.

Her mother? No, if anything that is even worse. Anya has a checkered past and Tanya has wish to delve deeper into her mother's history and memories than she already has. The last time she accidentally made skin contact with her mom she'd nearly developed a craving for a drug she'd never even taken.

It takes a moment for her slightly aching head to process what Quinton has just said to her, or rather, what he has just asked her. She'd certainly thought about how attractive the rugged country boy was, but she had harboured only secret hopes that they would amount to anything. After all, she'd been resigned to being alone pretty much for the rest of her life. Had he just asked her out on a date even after she'd been rooting around inside his head for hours?

She instantly perks up. "Yeah!" She reigns her enthusiasm in a bit. "Yes. I guess that, like, could be fun."

Tag: Quinton Summers