[Quentin does not sleep for very long in general. In fact, the five and a half hours he spends dead to the world is longer than he's usually asleep. So hey, Sophie can pat herself in the back for that achievement.
By the time she wakes up, he's dressed, eaten the snacks she retrieved for him, and apparently taken up origami within the past couple of hours, judging by the hoard of paper cranes littering the floor and every available surface nearby him. He doesn't even bother looking up at her when he senses her stirring. He's busy.]
(Can't get him to shut up while he's awake, but by God, she can get him to sleep longer.
Sophie hates waking up with a passion. The rays caress her face, and she glares right at them with the strength of a thousand suns, before her hand taps around the bed to see if she can find the owner of this atrocity of a room. Ah. He's already left it. He's... Speaking, already.
Very confusing morning for Sophie Cuckoo. The room is a slap of stimuli to her senses, the feeling that a truck ran her over with how achy her legs and back are, not to mention her face from all the silly smiling she had been doing. Yet, she's still flooded by all those pesky feel-good hormones that are basically holding her down like a club bouncer and keeping her from throwing hands with the sun itself.
Very slowly, so as not to give an opening for her muscles to punish her, she sits up, hands rubbing on her face before she looks over. Paper cranes. A lotta paper cranes.
[He glances over when he sees her pat the bed where he was. Looking for him? Okay. Not sure why, but okay. Quentin also notes with a slight tilt of his head how stiffly she's moving. Huh. Guess he's in better shape than he thought. Sure, he's a bit sore, mostly abs, thighs, lower back, but nothing debilitating or as bad as what she seems to be suffering. Makes sense, he supposes. X-Men shit isn't exactly leisure, though Quentin certainly doesn't go out of his way to work out or anything. That's for shmucks.
Well. He's just going to use it to feed his ego. What's she going to do? Try to tell him the reason she can barely move isn't how good he fucked her? Obviously not.]
Nine hours and 13 minutes. Give or take. I was asleep for some of that so. Harder to keep track.
[Shit, what do you even do when the girl you had sex with because it was literally the only thing you could agree on is drowsily waking up in your bed and calling you nicknames? Fuck if Quentin knows. He's never done this kinda thing before. But what he does know is he refuses to let this be awkward. Or at least, no more awkward than it absolutely has to be.
Look. If he can manage to not, you know. Be a pathetic sap when he's butt-naked, surely he can manage it now. Get it together, Quire.]
Not to be a buzzkill, but the nickname thing isn't really helping with... whatever this is. Just so you know.
You try getting fucked three times, Quentin. See what that does to your legs and back. Good thing she had no plans today, just shower, get in her bed with a game, and die. Sounds pretty good, actually. There's an inherent laziness in the way she searches for clothes, as if her synapses in her brain are still rewiring to the beat of awareness. The shirt she stole from him yesterday is within reach, so she puts it on again, and TK brings her shorts to her, and she can at least cross 'getting dressed' off her very short to-do list.
Also, shit. That was a coma. Applauses to her exhaustion, because with how he sleeps, not waking up to take back blankets or kick him over a little so she has some space is a feat.)
... Holy shit. Okay, yeah, that tracks.
(His brain is concerned with awkwardness, but from Sophie? There's none. It's just Quentin, and she's just Sophie. Perhaps it's the grumpiness of being awake that hinders her from feeling anything weird, or perhaps it's the fact that she doesn't think it's weird at all. They did what they did, and even now that she's no longer so horny that her brain isn't functioning, there's not a shred of regret within her. She remains...
Ugh, happy, she supposes. Whatever the fuck. Look, the way she sees it? That's more than enough. Names, titles, quantifiers, certitude, those things are wholly unnecessary. All she wants is for is equality between them, and that they're satisfied with what they have, whatever that may be.
That said, God, she's too sleepy for this. He could give her some grace and 20 minutes at least to shake up her neurons before he called it, but of course not.)
I'll make sure to call you by your full name next time.
(God forbid. Why are there so many damn 'Q's?
With some difficulty, because her lower back is murdering her, she'll shift her position to face him, a hooked finger still rubbing on her face to see if that helps her wake up. She looks positively adorable, kinda like a very precious cat who shows you their belly, all cute and all, but if you come too close, it will claw you. Mornings, etc.
Her system is rebooting, so several firewalls are down — meaning she can show a shred of person before she hates it.)
It's not a buzzkill, you're okay. If you wanna talk, we can talk, if you don't, that's fine, too. Up to you.
[He's very certain hearing that name is going to be like a bucket of ice water on her head, but look. The Phoebe in the room was gonna need addressing sooner or later. Sex is a no-Phoebe zone, but that's it. That's a rule that he's just decided, and she hasn't pushed back on any of his established rules as of yet, so.
That said, he's going to give her a break by rambling a bit for levity's sake, letting his tone smooth back into pretentious nonchalance, waving one hand around lazily. It's funny. This whole shtick is both familiar as his usual behavior but also oddly foreign in this context. Like putting on shoes before taking a shower. Weird.]
"Quentin" is fine. "Quire," sure. Eh. If you call me Quintavius I will find your least favorite song and play it on loop over the telepathic airways until either it's stuck in either your or Deadpool's heads. And it's hard to say which is worse.
[Okay, that feels... a little more "normal" Quentin Quire Snark. Probably a bit more standoffish than what he's going for, though. He doesn't dislike having Sophie here, and he certainly doesn't have any regrets about sleeping with her. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Nor is he all that concerned with defining what they are so much as drawing lines about what they aren't. Thus.. Phoebe namedrop.
Fine, he'll be... nice. A little. He can manage that without becoming a complete puddle. He looks back at her and offers her a crooked half-smile.]
Nothing against talking, though. Just cool it on nicknames. Yeah?
(Yesterday, she would most certainly have yelled at him to no end about the comparison. She's not Phoebe. The shittiest part of it all. It's not either of their faults that the Stepford Cuckoos are identical clones, so whatever she says, even if it's her saying it? It will remind him, and in turn, remind her.
To be fair, he did tell her he wasn't going to do anything that fell into that category, aside from, well. Sophie herself. She can't just be herself without stepping on an eggshell, but that's the agreement they reached, and she'll honor it. Sophie's resigned, and she won't make a big deal of it. They chose this, didn't they? She doesn't regret it for a second, either. It's fine.
Instead of dwelling, she gets out of bed in slow-motion, careful where she steps because again, what the fuck, tiptoeing around the paper. Good thing she's Barbie-coded, her feet can withstand her weight pretty easily, this is not a difficult task.)
I'll make it easy for you. It's that stupid 'If You Like Piña Colada' song. Go for it, I'd love to get everyone on my side on how moronic it is. Catchy doesn't make for good storytelling, and that story is whack.
(... Okay, that's reasonable, and it's... Easier to swallow than the first thing he said.
Cute smile, though. A crinkle of her nose is what he gets for it.
Wait, nope, no. Don't use boyish charms when she's vulnerable, man. Conduct unapproved by Corporate. Wait until she's a little more awake so she can roll her eyes at him. Her hand extends as if it were an agreement, mostly playful and more so she can tell him she's on the same page.)
Ugh, that song's probably already playing nonstop in Wilson's construction zone porta-potty of a brain.
[He grimaces, lip curling in disgust. Sure, it seems like the Deadpool here maybe isn't the one from their universe? Possibly? But honestly, one Deadpool is basically the same as any other. They're all trash.
Anyway. He sees her pick her way through the origami he's scattered around on the floor and waves his hand, pink TK picking up the numerous paper cranes and flying them away into a neat little stack on the other side of the room. That completed, he looks back at her to see the crinkle in her nose and sense that sentiment of "cute smile," which... does make his expression fade ever so slightly. But at least she also seems to be rejecting that. So that's nice. The sooner they find a nice even balance of low-level bitchiness that doesn't involve tearing each other's throats out, the better.
Quentin does take Sophie's hand when she offers it, though he rolls his eyes at her facetiously formal demonstration, and he nods his head at the chair opposite him at the table to indicate she can sit if she so desires.]
See? Point made, but pretty sure his brain loops 'That's The Way I Like It'. Not sure what's worse.
(The face of sheer dismay she makes, and Quentin gets to hear her wondering how the hell those two songs would probably be in his brain and trying to put those two together, only to her further dissatisfaction. God, how does Wade even do it? There's a very good reason why she takes a whiff of his brain and shoves it far, far away from her awareness. Ugh. Gross.
She does catch sight of the eyeroll, thank God, and her shoulders raise in a shrug. Roll your eyes all you want, at least they're agreeing. This is new ground, and she isn't sure whether the whole full connection is needed. That said, she will keep her brain pretty open for him to pick up from if he wants to as she sits.)
It takes me a good two to three hours to person, so just slap some cortisol here and there, and I think I'll be okay.
[Quentin doesn't typically hang out in other people's heads, preferring to rely occasionally on "vibe checks" if needed. Most of that is due to a long history of getting his ass kicked by people who didn't want him snooping around upstairs, but these days he just doesn't see the point of it as much as he used to. He's got enough shit in his head without everyone else's, thanks. All that to say, a full connection between his and Sophie's minds is largely unnecessary, at least on his end. Having Sophie camping out in his brain gets, well. A little claustrophobic, if he's being honest. But for now she's not being as clingy, so that's nice.]
Got it. One cortisol shot to the brain, coming up.
[He puts his fingers to his temple—an entirely unnecessary visual indicator for a process she's fully capable of feeling for herself but nonetheless is habit for him by this point—and gently nudges her cortisol levels higher. Not enough to give her a jolt or feel unnatural, just speedrunning her usual experience of getting to an alert state.]
(She doesn't really need it anymore, to be honest. It had been a frustrating, discouraging uphill battle with him up until this point, and they just couldn't talk. Right now, she feels the opposite. If anything, they're finally... Okay-ish? She can listen to what he has to say without her negative bias coloring every other word, almost like she's finally ready to.
She's a little sorry it took a while.
Sophie knows she's impossible, for all that she likes calling him that. With the waking up work on the way, she gives her face a last rub and a few very light pats to the cheeks.
[He's not listening to every single thing running through her head, but he can still feel that the undercurrent of tension that was running behind her thoughts previously is gone now. It's disappeared for him too. Well, mostly, but what's left is mainly related to her sister. Sophie... tried. In a way Phoebe never did. She made him feel confidence coursing through his veins, made him feel—ugh, cheesy and trite it may be—desirable. Wanted. For who he is, not who he could be. She soothed an ancient wound—which yeah, she played a part in creating, though she was certainly not the only contributor—and that's... pretty cool of her, actually. You know, for a Cuckoo.
The weirdest thing about all of this is he doesn't feel... indebted to her. Well, "indebted" isn't the right word. Loyalty? They don't owe each other. Anything. They both got what they wanted from each other. An exchange of mutually beneficial services between largely self-serving assholes, both clutching to a few crumbs of selflessness.
Quentin ponders for a moment before deciding that apparently he starts.]
Guess the first thing is to decide if we want to do it again.
[A beat, and he quickly adds, putting his hand up.]
Not right now, I mean. In general.
[Yes, she said they'd do it again last night, but she was on round two and three of mind-blowing sex that was at the time happening on two different planes of reality so. She'd be forgiven if her head wasn't exactly in the clearest state at the time.]
(Isn't that the funniest thing? For someone who manages to get her blood boiling in milliseconds, she doesn't want anything other than him as is. He's the most aggravating, challenging, complicated, baffling person she's ever met, and yet, she wouldn't want him in any other way other than himself. It's a little fucked up, really, but no one said she's normal.
Maybe she's just as fucking insane as he is. It happens, who knew? Not her. This whole free-falling, unthetered Sophie is still learning about herself. Individuality arrived at the Cuckoos when she was buried under the ground, she's navigating it the best she can.
It's a very fair question, though. She's on the same page as him, she owes him nothing, and he owes her probably even less than that. What's important to her is that they're together in this, the rest? It will fall into place.)
Wow, the jumpscare you gave my lower back.
(Just for the sake of levity. There's a moment she pauses there, as if she was thinking on how to construct her thoughts. She's not about to lie to him, pretty sure they're past that stage, but honesty without her brain connected to another is still pretty new.)
If it's up to me, yeah. I meant everything, even if you made it very hard to think things through, but now that I have, my answer doesn't change. How about you?
[Quentin huffs a chuckle out through his nose at her joke.]
Don't worry, your lower back is safe this time.
[Which answers his side of the question well enough, but just in case it doesn't:]
It's the only thing we've ever done where we haven't hated each other's guts and was pretty damn incredible to boot, so yeah. I'm down. As long as it's just, you know. Fun. For both of us. And, uh, speaking of.
[Aaand now comes the less easy stuff. Quentin sighs and adjusts his glasses. What he has to say is going to be unpleasant. For both of them. As all Phoebe-related matters are. It also occurs to him that, being a hivemind, Sophie may already know what Phoebe's end of what he's about to say, but. Whatever. Sophie wants to be treated like an individual, right? Well here goes.]
When Phoebe dumped me [no point in using any euphemisms here] she said—more or less—that I cared too much. I saw a future with her. She didn't. Which, you know. Happens. C'est la vie, right?
[He shakes his head, rolling his eyes at himself. God, Quire, keep simping to the girl you just slept with about her sister you still have feelings for, why don't you? That's not super weird or pathetic or anything.]
Whatever. Point is, I need you to stop that from happening again. Stop me. From... caring too much or whatever.
[He cringes at himself briefly but soldiers on. Too late to turn back now. Quentin squares his jaw stubbornly and makes eye contact with her for this last bit.]
Means no corny shit, okay? Nicknames, holding hands, cute dates, all that baloney. We fuck when we wanna, but when we're not, we're... normal. Just without hating each other's guts. Yeah?
(Hey, at least he pulls a laugh out of her before he starts talking about unpleasanties. Incredible is a word for it, so are many, many other very positive adjectives. Sophie wasn't sure what she expected when they first got into it, but she can easily say that not only did he fulfill the mission she had given given him — or else she'd have left —, but also she had so much stupid fun, and that was news to her. Pretty pleased, you know?
She pestered him to talk to her for months, and now he is, so the least she can do is listen. Funny how getting something good going for once makes her not want to rebuke every point and fight every word. Quentin is right, though, it is unpleasant, but perhaps it's a small victory that she doesn't want to bite his head off for it, greatly because she is getting what he is coming from.
Although, as previously stated approximately a billion times, she isn't Phoebe, this isn't exactly about that; however, when he rolls his eyes, she does too. It's Quentin's bizarre way of trying not to ruin whatever the hell he has with Sophie. Not to get all puddly, romantic and mushed, like she's seen he gets, and to be quite honest? She wouldn't like that either. The Cuckoo in her adores the thought of men simping, but Sophie herself? She likes being challenged, snark, sarcasm, and laughing herself silly. She's seen Quentin simping, and it's not for her, personally speaking.
That said, it's... Considerate, in a confounded, kinda fucked up way that he doesn't want to repeat his shit with her and set more fire to the flaming garbage can that is Sophie Cuckoo and Quentin Quire, protect himself from it in a weird sorta way. So, at the end of his talk, there's a very quiet laugh that comes from her, a shrug of shoulders.)
Good, because I don't care for any of that.
(Like, she'll do it, but care for? Blergh. She feels the gaze upon her, and lets her own meet his.)
We managed to be normal while at it, so I think the prospects are good, but you got a deal. Can't promise you I won't kiss you on a whim when we're alone, but other than that? I got you.
(Meaning she will shake him if he gets too much.)
As for me, what I care about is that we make decisions together and talk shit through when we need to, 50/50, which is what we've been doing. Can't complain, don't want more than that.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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By the time she wakes up, he's dressed, eaten the snacks she retrieved for him, and apparently taken up origami within the past couple of hours, judging by the hoard of paper cranes littering the floor and every available surface nearby him. He doesn't even bother looking up at her when he senses her stirring. He's busy.]
Good, you're awake. I was really bored.
[Clearly.]
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Sophie hates waking up with a passion. The rays caress her face, and she glares right at them with the strength of a thousand suns, before her hand taps around the bed to see if she can find the owner of this atrocity of a room. Ah. He's already left it. He's... Speaking, already.
Very confusing morning for Sophie Cuckoo. The room is a slap of stimuli to her senses, the feeling that a truck ran her over with how achy her legs and back are, not to mention her face from all the silly smiling she had been doing. Yet, she's still flooded by all those pesky feel-good hormones that are basically holding her down like a club bouncer and keeping her from throwing hands with the sun itself.
Very slowly, so as not to give an opening for her muscles to punish her, she sits up, hands rubbing on her face before she looks over. Paper cranes. A lotta paper cranes.
What the fuck is happening
Nerd
What)
Good morning to you, too, Q. How long was I out?
(A good 9 hours, probably.)
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Well. He's just going to use it to feed his ego. What's she going to do? Try to tell him the reason she can barely move isn't how good he fucked her? Obviously not.]
Nine hours and 13 minutes. Give or take. I was asleep for some of that so. Harder to keep track.
[Shit, what do you even do when the girl you had sex with because it was literally the only thing you could agree on is drowsily waking up in your bed and calling you nicknames? Fuck if Quentin knows. He's never done this kinda thing before. But what he does know is he refuses to let this be awkward. Or at least, no more awkward than it absolutely has to be.
Look. If he can manage to not, you know. Be a pathetic sap when he's butt-naked, surely he can manage it now. Get it together, Quire.]
Not to be a buzzkill, but the nickname thing isn't really helping with... whatever this is. Just so you know.
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No comment.
You try getting fucked three times, Quentin. See what that does to your legs and back. Good thing she had no plans today, just shower, get in her bed with a game, and die. Sounds pretty good, actually. There's an inherent laziness in the way she searches for clothes, as if her synapses in her brain are still rewiring to the beat of awareness. The shirt she stole from him yesterday is within reach, so she puts it on again, and TK brings her shorts to her, and she can at least cross 'getting dressed' off her very short to-do list.
Also, shit. That was a coma. Applauses to her exhaustion, because with how he sleeps, not waking up to take back blankets or kick him over a little so she has some space is a feat.)
... Holy shit. Okay, yeah, that tracks.
(His brain is concerned with awkwardness, but from Sophie? There's none. It's just Quentin, and she's just Sophie. Perhaps it's the grumpiness of being awake that hinders her from feeling anything weird, or perhaps it's the fact that she doesn't think it's weird at all. They did what they did, and even now that she's no longer so horny that her brain isn't functioning, there's not a shred of regret within her. She remains...
Ugh, happy, she supposes. Whatever the fuck. Look, the way she sees it? That's more than enough. Names, titles, quantifiers, certitude, those things are wholly unnecessary. All she wants is for is equality between them, and that they're satisfied with what they have, whatever that may be.
That said, God, she's too sleepy for this. He could give her some grace and 20 minutes at least to shake up her neurons before he called it, but of course not.)
I'll make sure to call you by your full name next time.
(God forbid. Why are there so many damn 'Q's?
With some difficulty, because her lower back is murdering her, she'll shift her position to face him, a hooked finger still rubbing on her face to see if that helps her wake up. She looks positively adorable, kinda like a very precious cat who shows you their belly, all cute and all, but if you come too close, it will claw you. Mornings, etc.
Her system is rebooting, so several firewalls are down — meaning she can show a shred of person before she hates it.)
It's not a buzzkill, you're okay. If you wanna talk, we can talk, if you don't, that's fine, too. Up to you.
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[He's very certain hearing that name is going to be like a bucket of ice water on her head, but look. The Phoebe in the room was gonna need addressing sooner or later. Sex is a no-Phoebe zone, but that's it. That's a rule that he's just decided, and she hasn't pushed back on any of his established rules as of yet, so.
That said, he's going to give her a break by rambling a bit for levity's sake, letting his tone smooth back into pretentious nonchalance, waving one hand around lazily. It's funny. This whole shtick is both familiar as his usual behavior but also oddly foreign in this context. Like putting on shoes before taking a shower. Weird.]
"Quentin" is fine. "Quire," sure. Eh. If you call me Quintavius I will find your least favorite song and play it on loop over the telepathic airways until either it's stuck in either your or Deadpool's heads. And it's hard to say which is worse.
[Okay, that feels... a little more "normal" Quentin Quire Snark. Probably a bit more standoffish than what he's going for, though. He doesn't dislike having Sophie here, and he certainly doesn't have any regrets about sleeping with her. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Nor is he all that concerned with defining what they are so much as drawing lines about what they aren't. Thus.. Phoebe namedrop.
Fine, he'll be... nice. A little. He can manage that without becoming a complete puddle. He looks back at her and offers her a crooked half-smile.]
Nothing against talking, though. Just cool it on nicknames. Yeah?
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To be fair, he did tell her he wasn't going to do anything that fell into that category, aside from, well. Sophie herself. She can't just be herself without stepping on an eggshell, but that's the agreement they reached, and she'll honor it. Sophie's resigned, and she won't make a big deal of it. They chose this, didn't they? She doesn't regret it for a second, either. It's fine.
Instead of dwelling, she gets out of bed in slow-motion, careful where she steps because again, what the fuck, tiptoeing around the paper. Good thing she's Barbie-coded, her feet can withstand her weight pretty easily, this is not a difficult task.)
I'll make it easy for you. It's that stupid 'If You Like Piña Colada' song. Go for it, I'd love to get everyone on my side on how moronic it is. Catchy doesn't make for good storytelling, and that story is whack.
(... Okay, that's reasonable, and it's... Easier to swallow than the first thing he said.
Cute smile, though. A crinkle of her nose is what he gets for it.
Wait, nope, no. Don't use boyish charms when she's vulnerable, man. Conduct unapproved by Corporate. Wait until she's a little more awake so she can roll her eyes at him. Her hand extends as if it were an agreement, mostly playful and more so she can tell him she's on the same page.)
Yeah.
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[He grimaces, lip curling in disgust. Sure, it seems like the Deadpool here maybe isn't the one from their universe? Possibly? But honestly, one Deadpool is basically the same as any other. They're all trash.
Anyway. He sees her pick her way through the origami he's scattered around on the floor and waves his hand, pink TK picking up the numerous paper cranes and flying them away into a neat little stack on the other side of the room. That completed, he looks back at her to see the crinkle in her nose and sense that sentiment of "cute smile," which... does make his expression fade ever so slightly. But at least she also seems to be rejecting that. So that's nice. The sooner they find a nice even balance of low-level bitchiness that doesn't involve tearing each other's throats out, the better.
Quentin does take Sophie's hand when she offers it, though he rolls his eyes at her facetiously formal demonstration, and he nods his head at the chair opposite him at the table to indicate she can sit if she so desires.]
You need a minute? To wake up.
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(The face of sheer dismay she makes, and Quentin gets to hear her wondering how the hell those two songs would probably be in his brain and trying to put those two together, only to her further dissatisfaction. God, how does Wade even do it? There's a very good reason why she takes a whiff of his brain and shoves it far, far away from her awareness. Ugh. Gross.
She does catch sight of the eyeroll, thank God, and her shoulders raise in a shrug. Roll your eyes all you want, at least they're agreeing. This is new ground, and she isn't sure whether the whole full connection is needed. That said, she will keep her brain pretty open for him to pick up from if he wants to as she sits.)
It takes me a good two to three hours to person, so just slap some cortisol here and there, and I think I'll be okay.
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Got it. One cortisol shot to the brain, coming up.
[He puts his fingers to his temple—an entirely unnecessary visual indicator for a process she's fully capable of feeling for herself but nonetheless is habit for him by this point—and gently nudges her cortisol levels higher. Not enough to give her a jolt or feel unnatural, just speedrunning her usual experience of getting to an alert state.]
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She's a little sorry it took a while.
Sophie knows she's impossible, for all that she likes calling him that. With the waking up work on the way, she gives her face a last rub and a few very light pats to the cheeks.
Okay.)
Alright. I'm... Good enough.
(Talking, right? Where do they even begin?)
... You start or I start?
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The weirdest thing about all of this is he doesn't feel... indebted to her. Well, "indebted" isn't the right word. Loyalty? They don't owe each other. Anything. They both got what they wanted from each other. An exchange of mutually beneficial services between largely self-serving assholes, both clutching to a few crumbs of selflessness.
Quentin ponders for a moment before deciding that apparently he starts.]
Guess the first thing is to decide if we want to do it again.
[A beat, and he quickly adds, putting his hand up.]
Not right now, I mean. In general.
[Yes, she said they'd do it again last night, but she was on round two and three of mind-blowing sex that was at the time happening on two different planes of reality so. She'd be forgiven if her head wasn't exactly in the clearest state at the time.]
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Maybe she's just as fucking insane as he is. It happens, who knew? Not her. This whole free-falling, unthetered Sophie is still learning about herself. Individuality arrived at the Cuckoos when she was buried under the ground, she's navigating it the best she can.
It's a very fair question, though. She's on the same page as him, she owes him nothing, and he owes her probably even less than that. What's important to her is that they're together in this, the rest? It will fall into place.)
Wow, the jumpscare you gave my lower back.
(Just for the sake of levity. There's a moment she pauses there, as if she was thinking on how to construct her thoughts. She's not about to lie to him, pretty sure they're past that stage, but honesty without her brain connected to another is still pretty new.)
If it's up to me, yeah. I meant everything, even if you made it very hard to think things through, but now that I have, my answer doesn't change. How about you?
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Don't worry, your lower back is safe this time.
[Which answers his side of the question well enough, but just in case it doesn't:]
It's the only thing we've ever done where we haven't hated each other's guts and was pretty damn incredible to boot, so yeah. I'm down. As long as it's just, you know. Fun. For both of us. And, uh, speaking of.
[Aaand now comes the less easy stuff. Quentin sighs and adjusts his glasses. What he has to say is going to be unpleasant. For both of them. As all Phoebe-related matters are. It also occurs to him that, being a hivemind, Sophie may already know what Phoebe's end of what he's about to say, but. Whatever. Sophie wants to be treated like an individual, right? Well here goes.]
When Phoebe dumped me [no point in using any euphemisms here] she said—more or less—that I cared too much. I saw a future with her. She didn't. Which, you know. Happens. C'est la vie, right?
[He shakes his head, rolling his eyes at himself. God, Quire, keep simping to the girl you just slept with about her sister you still have feelings for, why don't you? That's not super weird or pathetic or anything.]
Whatever. Point is, I need you to stop that from happening again. Stop me. From... caring too much or whatever.
[He cringes at himself briefly but soldiers on. Too late to turn back now. Quentin squares his jaw stubbornly and makes eye contact with her for this last bit.]
Means no corny shit, okay? Nicknames, holding hands, cute dates, all that baloney. We fuck when we wanna, but when we're not, we're... normal. Just without hating each other's guts. Yeah?
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(Hey, at least he pulls a laugh out of her before he starts talking about unpleasanties. Incredible is a word for it, so are many, many other very positive adjectives. Sophie wasn't sure what she expected when they first got into it, but she can easily say that not only did he fulfill the mission she had given given him — or else she'd have left —, but also she had so much stupid fun, and that was news to her. Pretty pleased, you know?
She pestered him to talk to her for months, and now he is, so the least she can do is listen. Funny how getting something good going for once makes her not want to rebuke every point and fight every word. Quentin is right, though, it is unpleasant, but perhaps it's a small victory that she doesn't want to bite his head off for it, greatly because she is getting what he is coming from.
Although, as previously stated approximately a billion times, she isn't Phoebe, this isn't exactly about that; however, when he rolls his eyes, she does too. It's Quentin's bizarre way of trying not to ruin whatever the hell he has with Sophie. Not to get all puddly, romantic and mushed, like she's seen he gets, and to be quite honest? She wouldn't like that either. The Cuckoo in her adores the thought of men simping, but Sophie herself? She likes being challenged, snark, sarcasm, and laughing herself silly. She's seen Quentin simping, and it's not for her, personally speaking.
That said, it's... Considerate, in a confounded, kinda fucked up way that he doesn't want to repeat his shit with her and set more fire to the flaming garbage can that is Sophie Cuckoo and Quentin Quire, protect himself from it in a weird sorta way. So, at the end of his talk, there's a very quiet laugh that comes from her, a shrug of shoulders.)
Good, because I don't care for any of that.
(Like, she'll do it, but care for? Blergh. She feels the gaze upon her, and lets her own meet his.)
We managed to be normal while at it, so I think the prospects are good, but you got a deal. Can't promise you I won't kiss you on a whim when we're alone, but other than that? I got you.
(Meaning she will shake him if he gets too much.)
As for me, what I care about is that we make decisions together and talk shit through when we need to, 50/50, which is what we've been doing. Can't complain, don't want more than that.