No matter the situation, Quinton was the sort who would appreciate company so long as it was friendly. Which, from his perspective, for the moment, the woman had been. 

Quinton could only offer an understanding smile in response to her written statement. They certainly weren't going to be able to have a quick fire exchange, not like this. "That's alright. I can talk enough for the both of us." That in itself wasn't entirely accurate. Whilst he was most certainly the friendly-sort, he wasn't exactly a chatterbox either. Perhaps he could make a change given his current company. He would once more free Mia from her leash. The golden retriever mix was quick to move away but curiously enough, rather than charge off in order to burn off some of her pent up energy as she usually would have, the dog opted to remain close to them, eyeing the stranger uneasily. That much was mostly lost on her owner but something still struck him as being rather unusual, he simply didn't associate it with his companion. "She's in a funny old mood tonight." He noted. 

The young man would allow Anna to dictate the pace and decide on just where they were going, having no real plans himself.

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.

He was quick to clip Mia back onto her leash. He didn't know quite why the dog was worked up but he certainly wasn't going to take any chances with her. She didn't resist, although certainly the prospect of getting any closer to the stranger wasn't an appealing one. The canine dug her heels in as soon as he tried to encourage her to come within a yard or so of the woman. Unwilling to embarrass himself, the country boy decided not to insist in case the dog attempted to make a sudden run for it.

"My name's Quinton." He replied with an honest smile. "I'd welcome the company. Whereabouts are you heading?" Quinton had nowhere in particular to be and was out essentially for exercise. As such, he was more than willing to accompany her pretty much wherever she was heading, assuming that it wasn't ridiculously far out of the way given that he had work tomorrow.

"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.

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.

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."

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.