gooseberryhigh | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: Quentin and Miguel
What: Quentin gives birth to a second feel
When: Right after this and this, Feb 14, darkish
Where: Coppertot cabin
Warnings: Language, possible talk of God, the messy birth of a feel

Quentin tossed his journal aside. He’d been in his bed, muttering “fuck” every two minutes for a solid twenty minutes now. Had he been thinking clearly when he’d filled out Karen’s form for the stupid blind date bullshit? Yeah. He thought he had. He hadn’t been entirely serious on it, sure, but he’d painted her in what he thought was a good light, because she deserved it, because she was awesome. But these stupid divination students. Had to go and pair her with Dia. So now Karen was obviously not fine even though she told him she was about a hundred different times and Dia was over there having a religious existential crisis and it was all because Quentin thought putting down “financial security” was funnier and more honest than putting down “dudes”. But apparently Karen was one of the four straight students at Gooseberry and if he’d just put down Dudes, this wouldn’t even be a proble.

He needed to lie down.

So he muttered fuck a final time, this time with more feeling, and rolled out of bed. He walked across the room and climbed into Miguel’s bed and collapsed with a sigh, his head on Miguel’s leg. Quentin was generally a loud kind of guy. He was a loud friend and a loud roommate. But he didn’t say anything here for a while.

And then quietly - and slightly pathetically - he finally said, “can you rub my head?”

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"...hi?" Miguel said, peering down at Quentin from over his textbook with an uncertain look. Without thinking too much about it (which was probably indicative of how normal this kind of thing was becoming: terrifying), he shifted slightly to better accommodate the sudden addition to his bed and to prevent the circulation to his legs from getting cut off. Okay, fine, so his legs assumed a Sukhasana pose even when he was lying down; fucking sue him.

He glanced longingly at his unfinished homework and then down at his friend who was obviously having some kind of crisis and made the only decision he could. He mumbled a flotation charm at his textbook and was pleased when it levitated up to eye level and held steady. That accomplished, he sank his hands into Quentin's hair, carding his fingers through it to deliberately disorder it and then smoothing it back into place until the motions became repetitive.

Edited 2018-02-20 05:44 (UTC)

Quentin sighed and closed his eyes. That felt really good. Quentin could fall asleep like this, to be honest. He had half a mind to. But then he felt the glimmer of a half feel that felt bad about being content when he'd just fucked over Karen and Dia, and that made him open his eyes and scowl.

And then he sighed again. But he didn't elaborate. He was just laying here, sighing dramatically, at this point. While laying here, sighing dramatically, he decided to organize his thoughts.

1. Is Karen's preference not actually financial security, because crowd sourcing gifts seems like she'd prefer to be financially secure, yes or no?
2. If Dia's God is giving her stomach ulcers and grey hair, why does she even fuck with him anymore? He sounds like a dick.
3. Does Miguel not realize that they're practically already married? How the fuck can Miguel still view him as a friend? How many other heads of hair has he fondled? Does he just fondle every head of hair?
4. Why the fuck does that thought even bother him? They're in an open friendship. Miguel can fondle all the heads of hair he wants to.
5. If he eats every time Dia stress cooks, is he really just enabling her existential crises? Is there a different way to not enable her that doesn't involve not eating the food she stress cooks? Is he a bad friend if he can't not eat her food? Because he's probably just gonna keep eating it.
6. Has he been staring at Miguel the entire time he was making this list? Because that's probably gotten weird and he didn't mean to, but Miguel has a mesmerizing face.
7. That was really fucking gay.

Quentin sighed again. Miguel's magic hands weren't helping.

Edited 2018-02-20 06:33 (UTC)

"You had a pretty good mantra going there," Miguel said after a moment, lifting a hand from Quentin's hair to turn the page of his book before resuming. "Pretty good background noise for studying. I thought maybe you were practicing sutras for Profanity Buddhism or something. Or maybe the reality of owing me five hundred dollars just struck you and now you're freaking out or something."

He frowned briefly down at Quentin; it was a thoughtful expression rather than one of irritation. He watched Quentin's face move silently through a series of troubled expressions as he cycled through one idea and then another, seeming to discard one as quickly as he picked up another. Miguel, for lack of much else to do until Quentin collected his thoughts, went silent and instead pressed his fingertips more firmly against Quentin's scalp.

For a brief moment, confusion passes over Quentin's face. Mostly because he'd forgotten about his mantra, and also owing Miguel money. But it passes relatively quickly. "I'm not freaking out about the money," Quentin finally says honestly. "That shit's easy, simple, completely emotionless, just carnal, base actions. Men have been owing men money since before money existed, I can do that shit just fine. Prefer it actually. Got no problem with it." Despite talking at length, about mostly nothing, Quentin's voice was still mostly quiet and somewhat more deflated than usual.

"Karen and Dia got matched for that dumb Valentines Day match bullshit," he finally sighs. "But listen, I filled out Karen's form because she didn't want to and I offered to and she said okay, so it's not like I tried to do some sly shit because I didn't," Quentin finally elaborated, automatically defending himself against an unvoiced accusation. "But the form had a lot of questions I didn't know the answers to so I just started making shit up. But apparently Karen isn't into chicks, and Dia is having an existential crisis about it, and I probably ruined their friendship with each other and also with me because I thought it would be funnier to put Financial Security down for a sexual preference. But both her and her brother crowd sourced fucking birthday gifts and Dia says her brother's probably gonna be homeless in a couple of months so how the fuck is financial security not relevant? Dia isn't even fucking rich, how does that match even make sense? It goes directly against the sexual preference I put down for Karen. But Dia really thought this match would be like fucking God sent and me filling out the form instead of Karen just proves that it's not God sent, so I fucked her entire faith in, I don't fucking know, reality itself, and so now they're both pissed off at me."

('Carnal,' Miguel thought silently to himself, and fought down an inappropriate grin.)

Miguel listened in silence, his book set aside for the time being.

"...so my opinion is that the Valentine's Day match is a bunch of bullshit," he said finally. He cupped Quentin's face between his hands and gently tipped his head back so that he would have to look at Miguel. "Like, I already think Divination is, at best, just educated guessing. So if you have a bunch of goddamn randos and a questionnaire, matching people up is more like a stupid fucking personality quiz out of Witch Weekly and not some fucking providential romance dictated by the stars. Such bullshit. Listen," he said firmly, leaning down slightly. "If Karen couldn't be fucked to fill out her own damn form for what basically equates to a bunch of dipshits playing matchmaker, then that's on her. I like Karen, and I know you like Karen and that you wouldn't do something to intentionally fuck her over. So if she had all these built up expectations but couldn't put the effort in, not your fault. As for Dia--"

Here he paused, his mouth twisting to the side as he pondered the most politic way to say what he was thinking.

"...Dia and I are different people," he said, "and we come from really different backgrounds and have different opinions on religion and just about...everything else, honestly. I don't know how she got the idea that God was collecting these forms and making Divine Selections or whatever. Dia's mad because Dia decided to put faith in something completely unscientific with a high chance of disappointment and didn't prepare for an alternative. So I think, probably, Dia's mad because of Dia, even if she doesn't know it yet. But," he added, "I also know you, so don't push her either." He pressed his palms firmly against Quentin's cheeks and grinned at the result. "Even though you can't help it sometimes. Give it a day," he advised. "It'll be fine."

Quentin had always been easy to manipulate by touch, so when Miguel cupped his face and tipped his head back, he remained compliant, though the touch threw him off and distracted him more than anything. Even when Miguel pressed his cheeks between his hands, he was more distracted by the grin on Miguel's face than the actual result. This was ... a precarious position, he was starting to realize. A distracting position. He wanted to reach up and pull Miguel close and kiss him.

"I don't think Dia thinks her God gives a shit about the match making," he said honestly. Miguel's hands on his cheeks - which he hadn't bothered to move yet - distorted his voice slightly, so he reached up and took one of Miguel's hands off of his cheek and pulled it down. And then didn't... well, he just didn't actually release the hand, he kinda just hand it on his chest, almost absentmindedly. "I think she thinks her getting matched with a straight girl is another sign that she shouldn't be kinda gay about girls. Like getting divinationally cockblocked. And like okay maybe I know that because she already warded me - they both fucking did, but like separately, and we already got into an argument because I already pushed it and I did not give it a day so it's probably not fucking fine. Dia doesn't think her God gives a shit about personality tests, she thinks her God is in everything she does so like why would she think that and then think he's not in the results of something as dumb as randomized match making because even that dumb shit is God basically, I guess. But like what about lottery tickets? Technically it's all randomly generated, and literally anybody can buy that ticket, but a billion dollars is gonna change your life so if you randomly choose to buy a ticket and end up winning a billion dollars - you gotta think that's like manifest destiny or divine intervention or whatever the fuck the word for it is - because that shit probably feels like a fucking miracle even though miracle and probability isn't the same fucking thing, but it doesn't matter which one it is because it's gonna feel like a miracle anyway. So while this stupid match making test isn't as serious as a billion bucks, it's the same kinda thing, I feel."

Quentin made a face. "I know I'm not explaining it right, because that's not my kinda shit and I don't explain shit good, like I get it. But I dunno, it kinda makes sense." He waved his hand. "Karen just hates me because I kept asking her if she was okay and she kept saying she was fine, but she said it in that kinda way that obviously means she's not fine so I kept pointing that out and then asked her if she wants to hug it out and she told me if I came near her she was gonna throat punch me, which - obviously supports my theory that she's super not fucking fine." Idly, Quentin fiddled with the zipper of his jacket. "I decided to give that one a day after that," he acknowledged quietly.

"I don't pretend to speak for divine beings other than myself," Miguel began wryly, "but it seems that a lot of the time, you can't put logic to religion, and you," he emphasized, "can't be taking the blame for Dia's divine epiphanies. Because maybe I'm way off base here--but, like, hear me out. In summary: Karen doesn't want to fill out the form. You offer to do it for her, she agrees, so you do--with the margin of error we usually allow for both you not being Karen and the fact that you have a shitty sense of humor. Everything is fine up until the point where the Divination kids start playing metaphorical darts with the entries, and so like...what, though. Dia got mad because of what? Like how much different would this all have been if Karen had actually been the one to fill out her form? Like, probability-wise, there wasn't going to be an even number of people anyway, somebody was going to end up weirdly uncomfortable on their blind date from the stars and this is just--I don't know, Quentin. It seems like getting mad about a result you pull out of a hat and then kinda blaming God for it. I just can't really see where this is something you have to take the fall for."

He frowned and pulled his hands free gently, pushing Quentin's hair back into some semblance of order before he settled them onto his lap, fingers twisted together.

"...but I don't have the whole picture either," he admitted. "And I'm biased, so--" he rolled his eyes. "I don't know how good I'll be for useful advice or anything either."

Quentin supposed that made sense. Miguel talked about everything all logically and calmly. "Bias bout what?" He asked, peering up at Miguel. "Defending me? Because like. I fucked up some shit. And I don't really got the whole picture either. But like that's kinda fucking obvious. It's the usual general consequence of me like fucking existing, it's what usually happens," Quentin said emphatically, trying very clearly to stress the situation to Miguel - the guy who had to live with him and act as prefect to him and clearly fucking understood the situation because Quentin fucked shit up on the daily.

"But listen, there's a thing called causation. Where like, the actions you do actively effects like - shit that happens, Miguel." Was that really called Causation? Quentin didn't know but he strongly felt like it really should be. "It's like that movie. Premonition. Where Sandra Bullock gets a vision about her dude dying and spends the entire movie trying to swerve the fuck out of death, and ends up causing his death in her swerving. I did that shit." He paused and made a contemplative face that completely belonged in this very serious conversation. "Okay like not fucking entirely because I didn't get a premonition or try to swerve anything. But they got into a fight because of something I actively did and if I had actively done it differently, they wouldn't have gotten paired because Karen would've got paired with a dude - the gender that she is attracted to - and they wouldn't have gotten into a fight and Dia would've gotten paired with a chick that digs chicks and wouldn't be second guessing her degree of gay. I actively caused that. I didn't mean to. But neither did Sandra Bullock, Miguel. Neither did Sandra Bullock. It doesn't fucking matter what I meant to do, but this is the shit that happened. And I had an active part in it. Causation. Fucking causation, Miguel." Quentin spoke so earnestly. He spoke so earnestly against himself.

He wasn't trying to let Miguel shove the blame back onto Karen and Dia. Because they were both bummed about some... shit. He didn't really understand it entirely. He didn't understand entirely why Karen was upset. He doubted she was trying to find love from this shit; but that also didn't matter, because she was upset and he was sure she had a reason for it. And he didn't entirely understand why Dia took this as a sign from God. Or why she was second guessing herself. Only because that act was entirely foreign to himself. He didn't even realize that he was doing that very act right now. He didn't often have moments of self reflection, or regret dumb shit he did, regardless of the consequences of them. He usually just rolled with the consequences, and made the same dumb fuck ups ten minutes later if the opportunity arose. It was probably really infuriating to bystanders and onlookers, but it had never been infuriating to him. And now he was kind of realizing that if he went back a week and refilled out Karen's form... he actually probably would've filled it out different.

He figured they probably had a word for this emotion, but he just couldn't put his finger on it. The closest word he could come up with was Fuck.

"You stopped," He added, tilting his head back to look up at Miguel more clearly. "Rubbing my head. You stopped."

"Well oh-fucking-kay, Miss Congeniality," he rolled his eyes with a feigned melodramatic sigh. "Like, putting aside that even if you had put down the right preference, there was no guarantee that enough guys had signed up anyway. It could've been inevitable irregardless--so there's that for your fucking causality."

He glanced down at Quentin's complaint and smiled back, softly, without even really realizing he'd done it.

"Sorry," he said, holding up both hands in apology. "Didn't know you were still emotionally distressed." Still, a moment later he was running his fingers through Quentin's hair again: a mindlessly familiar motion while he pondered what to say next.

"I promise I'm not trying to, like, downplay what happened," he murmured after a moment. "Because I know you're upset and the girls are upset, and you're upset that they're upset with you, but just--" He paused, biting his lip thoughtfully. "I dunno. I guess maybe I can't relate to the whole straight people Gay Panic thing." He shrugged, trying for ambivalence and failing miserably; he just looked uncomfortable at the thought. "It just...seems like such a small thing that suddenly everyone is throwing God and being gay or bi or whatever and expectation into. It's a date lottery for a school dance. That's literally it. I mean, I know a lot of people put a lot of importance on that kind of thing--like Dia does, I guess--and that's not bad, exactly, but it seems like a good way to stress yourself out unnecessarily. Or maybe I just don't get holidays and straight people, I dunno. Straights are weird."

He sighed, ruffling his own hair before he leaned forward and down to bump his forehead gently against Quentin's before straightening back up again.

"...but anyway," he continued quietly. "Just give it a day and I think they'll sort themselves out without you babysitting them. But I think it's good too, like, that you care and that you figured out that you maybe unintentionally fucked up and learned something from it. Maybe not comforting to hear from me, so I'm sorry about that, my bad, but--you should let people give you a little more credit for being a good guy, you know?

That helped a little. Well... only kind of. Miguel getting serious toward the end there and insinuating that Quentin cared made him uncomfortable. Because even if he did care, that’s just not something you talk about. Speaking it out loud worked like a curse, he felt. It made you care more, and not even about important shit. Dumb shit. Until you eventually died of a brain aneurysm caused by caring too much. Quentin wasn’t trying to live that life. He wasn’t even trying to care a little. It just sort of happened and it was distressing. He was infected already.

But... he didn’t know. He kinda liked Miguel being more serious and saying weird ~~untrue~~ nice shit about him too. Which was ... probably just evidence of the curse Miguel was starting to be honest - just fucking evidence of him dying from unwillingly caring too much.

Quentin made a face. “Pass,” he said finally. “I mean - I don’t get straight people guilt either - like you’re gonna wanna kiss who you wanna kiss, gender don’t seem to matter much in that. It probably shouldn’t, gender don’t got nothing to do with kissing anyway. Gender don’t got much of anything to do with anything so I don’t much understand the obsession with categorizing and separating and stereotyping it. But Dia ain’t really straight. She was just raised by a bunch of straight people who probably felt some type of way about tradition and gender and now Dia’s gotta go on a spirit journey to realize that it’s ok to disagree with how you was raised, especially when her traditions and family and shit are telling her that who she is is wrong by default. But she’s gotta realize she needs a spirit journey before she can realize that she’s been kinda gay all along and it didn’t make her any worse than she would’ve been if she wasn’t kinda gay,” Quentin explained.

“But I meant pass on taking credit,” he added. “You let people start praising you for being the bare minimum of a human and call it a good guy makes them expect you to keep up that level and just be a good guy forever and that’s just not practical. I’m selectively good but everybody at this school lives in black and white and wait for you to do something good so they can know you’re good and then shit on you and treat you like the antichrist as soon as you fuck something up and I’m not trying to live that kinda life. They can keep their credit, it don’t matter to me much.” Quentin paused before adding, “Unless credit means rubbing my head. Because that feels nice.” And maybe Miguel’s opinion of him mattered to him more than the opinion of most people.

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