Strange Brews

[Miriam Bell]

"No thoughts head empty, yes. It's like one of those meditation tapes to me. Probably why you seem to attract telepaths." she laughs.

[Will Stanton]

"Like an ever-burning stick of incense, just for the brain.

See, I always assumed that it was because it was just fun to mess around with someone so open. Like a fidget spinner, but for powers."

[Miriam Bell]

"Well I won't lie, it's satisfying to think something into existence, in a way."

[Will Stanton]

"This is why I wouldn't be trusted if I was a telepath. Or, at the very least, I'd be in Professor Grey's ethics class basically nonstop."

[Miriam Bell]

"Still better than being carted straight to the shrinks. It's not a fun power to have if you care about, you know, not being a horrifical piece of shit."

[Will Stanton]

"Oh, I've seen my fair share of psychologists in my time, though you saw how I reacted when I was carted to Muir. I'd be a disaster."

[Miriam Bell]

"Yeah, I don't think they have the mundane tools to unpick whatever is going on in your head." she chuckles.

[Will Stanton]

"Just throw that onto the pile of things that make me catnip for telepaths. It be fucky up in there."

[Miriam Bell]

"At least it's not boring." she says as if that'd be the greatest crime imaginable.

[Will Stanton]

"Again, more evidence for the animate fidget spinner hypothesis. I should write a paper," Will joked.

[Miriam Bell]

"The first paper that would defend itself."

[Will Stanton]

"Oh, being mass-produced like that would defeat a bunch of the purpose of trying new and exciting things, wouldn't you say?"

[Miriam Bell]

"But think of all the different kind of stuffy academics you would get to talk to!"

[Will Stanton]

Will was silent for a minute, as if considering it.

"Being thumbed through once every five or six years when someone needed to check something would seem like a waste," Will finally concluded.

[Miriam Bell]

"T'was a joke! Who wants to talk to old fogeys who are set in their lukewarm takes anyway."

[Will Stanton]

"I want a lot of things," Will chuckled. "I am a creature of want. Anything can be interesting if you lean into it hard enough."

[Miriam Bell]

"I'd rather be a rock in the woods than deal with those people, but you do you." she chuckles. "We could make money out of some of you again, send it around the country to end up in all kinds of vending machines or on coke mirrors or napping in cash registers."

[Will Stanton]

"I've got my fingers in a few pots," Will admitted. "Not all of whom came back for the whole thing; you'll probably have to deal with me's showing up wondering where the hell the mirror is for a while yet. Wouldn't or couldn't return. But I'm always interested in outside ideas..."

[Miriam Bell]

"How in the world do you even keep track of all of you? Is there gonna be a growing percentage of Will among the big pacific garbage patch? Are people gonna be full of microplastic-Wills in ten years?" she chuckles.

[Will Stanton]

"Part of a balanced breakfast," Will deadpanned.

"I don't...really keep track? At all? There was the sign-out sheet, but that quickly fell by the wayside. And it's not like I'm a discrete quantity or something; it's not like there's any sort of limit of how much of me is around. At least, not that I've found yet.

I assume that if there is a me out there, stuck in the garbage patch or whatever, then I'll eventually get bored and come home again."

[Miriam Bell]

"Truly wild." she laughs, shaking her head slightly. "The sum of you was already staggering, I can't even imagine how much that'll grow."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, you should have thought about these things before taking responsibility for a pet," Will mock-chided. "I start out cute and small, but I do get bigger."

[Miriam Bell]

"Cute, sure. Small? Hardly! You're just lucky I like you or I'd be shirking this level of responsibility."

[Will Stanton]

"I'll endeavor to stay on your good side then."

[Miriam Bell]

"You did try to kill me once. I'd probably be rather cross if you tried that again." she smirks.

[Will Stanton]

"It was only a little attempted murder. That happens in the X-Men all the time. You shook it off."

[Miriam Bell]

"Water under the bridge, huh?" she laughs. "Too many brushes with death, mine or otherwise, thank you very much. I'm good for the next 70 or so years."

[Will Stanton]

"I'll make sure to put it on your calendar, then," Will joked. "Sam and I will make adjustments for the mortality-challenged."

[Miriam Bell]

"Sure, laugh it up. We'll see who gets the last laugh when I get eternal rest and you two have to keep dealing with this insanity forever."

[Will Stanton]

"Ah, but if you're the source of the insanity, then people have to deal with you. Protip."

[Miriam Bell]

"You know, that explains a lot." she laughs and briefly pulls herself a little out of the bubbling clay to grab the champagne bottle and little caviar dish. "Hmm. You have some kind of bath table bobbing around down there?"

[Will Stanton]

"I hate to alarm you, Miriam, but I'm a shapeshifter. I have everything bobbing around down here," Will deadpanned, a wooden table emerging from the surface of the clay.

[Miriam Bell]

"I'm well aware. I was being polite, you muppet." she says and puts down the caviar and, after taking a rather undignified sip from the bottle, the champagne as well.

[Will Stanton]

"No need to excessively stand on ceremony; you know that, right?"

[Miriam Bell]

"I do, but I'm taking a mud bath and sipping champagne from the bottle. Have to keep up some decorum."

[Will Stanton]

"No one here but us chickens," Will teased.

[Miriam Bell]

"See this is why you need to be a tasteful dress in order to attend anything fancy."

[Will Stanton]

"I'll have you know I can be a wide variety of fancy things when the situation calls for it! That situation is just rarely 'your naked ass inside of me'. Next thing you know, you'll be asking Sam to wear a cummerbund to bed."

[Miriam Bell]

"She could pull of a tux, couldn't she..." she muses, intentionally missing the point.

[Will Stanton]

"In a variety of forms, yes. Thinking about implementing a dress code?"