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[minded]

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[minded]

She and I will get along very well. Maybe you could make an introduction.

[ the judgement passed on this agatha is crude, but hardly unfamiliar. after all, he has the same inclinations to fix things for other people, to help them get better. it just happens that he has the same skillset as the people he wants to help. ]

Forgive me for being indelicate, but you've been intimate with someone before, yes?

[l1]

Maybe. [ And with a fair bit of overlap on that venn diagram between them. The thing is, of course there's a swirl of questions around an adult telepath of Charles' power, questions he's wanted to but held off on asking, but the warning he's hedging around is she would resist such an offer on his behalf as a mum-coded helicopter coddler. ] Can't promise she won't try to make your other eye match. She worries if I go off tranqs I'll kill someone.

[ So you know, the usual.

Oh good, though, for a hot second he wasn't sure if this boy scout was too good for the concept of just desserts, but here we are. Now that Charles has built up his curiosity, the seething has a shallow sunburn's sting. ]

Oh yeah, loads of conjugal visits.

[ Does he spy on his therapist in the shower because she's the only person he knows and does she have the patience of saints? Yes. ]

[minded]

I take that means no, then, in terms of

[ what's a polite way to say it? ]

being intimate with another person.

[ here is where mentoring troubled youths is turning out to be helpful. let him settle in. ]

Our gifts can get interfere with physical, emotional, and psychological intimacy in ways most baseline humans don't experience. For telepaths like us, the lack of privacy can make courtship, or even simple flirting, seem like a useless venture; we already know what they want, what they're thinking. Why not just do as they like and get what we want? For others, the physical manifestations of their mutations may prevent them from seeking out a partner, either out of self-perceived unattractiveness, or their abilities are harmful to others, or any number of reasons.

What I aim to achieve with the work that I do is to ground these abilities. Give back control, and along the way, give back agency to the person. I could try to do the same for you.

[ this is the sales pitch. it's all so bitter-sweet on the mouth. ]

[l1]

[ To the professor's credit, he saves himself from the other trying to blast something nasty across his mental eyeline as recompense for calling him out, and continuing to call him out, as a virgin who can't drive. As pitches go, "get your act together, get laid" is stunningly effective for a teenage boy.

To Thale's credit, he reads it through, twice (quite the read, too). He's had so little to be grateful for; expressions of gratitude are a foreign skill issue. He makes a mental note to mull over his rusted limits communicating how invaluable simple understanding is while the laughter subsides and he gets his breath back. ]

Jesus Christ

Mate

Don't ever say courtship again. I'm saying this for your sake. Fucking hell.

[ It's a beautiful dream off someone else's proverbial tongue. ]

I make people bleed out their orifices when they get close. It's worse when another psychic gets wagging their tail.

[ That is to say, in so many words, if that's a deal breaker he ought to know what kind of uncontrolled walking Chernobyl-before-it-was-Chernobyl he's dealing with and how behind Thale actually is in the telepathic do-it-yourself program. ]

[minded]

I've a student who can leach the very life force of others with a simple touch. We'll find a way through.

[ we, meaning he and thale, or he and hank, or another configuration of minds worth putting together to find an answer to this peculiar psychic side effect. charles has never met a challenge he backed down from; married one, in fact, in tenacious spirit and contrasting idealogy if not in name.

but the younger man has the right of it, too; who ever says courtship these days? god above, his age is starting to show. ]

Should I pencil us in for a session or two? Or a consult, at the least?

[l1]

[ Messy bitch insanity is a balm for existential dread. ]

What? That's so twisted. [ (appalled, affectionate) ] Are they a looker? We'd make a fucking pair.

[ Terrifying through and through these wes, these extended hands, for how quickly they could fall apart, but the stakes are only so high because of course he has to say— ]

What the hell, why not? [ He has nothing left to lose except the rest of his life. ] You'll have to convince her to put it on the calendar. My secretary.

[minded]

[ messy bitches recognise like, for better or worse. ]

She's a lovely young woman. Troubled, but who isn't? I'll leave it up to her if she wishes to get involved. I'd rather she stay focused on classes, you understand.

[ after all, rogue can very well defend herself. anyway— ]

Your secretary. Can she be bribed? How steadfast are her morals?

[l1]

You're no fun. [ Tease. ] If you're not going to spill about that, then you have to at least tell me why you were scrapping.

[ We can't all be 10/10 X-Men material. Perhaps he'd find more to worry about in regards to his dating pool appeal as a 6/10 garbage ass bootleg if this construct of a normal day-to-day Charles casually slots him into was anything approaching his wheelhouse. Girls. School. Cafeteria lunch lines, chores, weekend plans. Passing by faces in halls, being in rooms of people. Open space. Walking. Noise and clamor. Sunrise, sunset.

A hundred gloves couldn't make those things possible. Miles of steel, and concrete, and drug cocktails couldn't make them safe. Agatha had sweated against bureaucracy and risk assessments and won with two hours outside a week in her teeth, had never fed him false expectations about rehabilitation. For that reason, he knew where her reservations would come from—she didn't want him getting his hopes up, not to stratospheric heights for the hard fall. ]

Depends. How much time you got to sit still and let her mine you for a paper on telepathic neurology or some shit? [ While they're on the matter of the quid pro quo: ] What would I have to do? Tests? Studies?