Planned Parenthood (II)

It was windy and bitingly cold, but the gale was blessedly silent compared to what he'd been growing used to. So much so that he could finally listen to his own thoughts again.

What a difference leaving his walkman behind made.

Once he was passing the stables, he headed for the first pile of floating straw he saw and flagged down the unseen servant to lead him to his old man. It was hard to keep up with it even at its most moderate speeds, due to how short his legs were and how hard it was to walk wrapped up in a thick coat several sizes too large. But he managed, somehow, until he got where he wanted to be.

Jason Quill was near the lake in a mountain clearing just off the main estate. More specifically, at the top of the waterfall that fed it. It was a very high waterfall. Surrounded by Himalayan pine trees everywhere. Several of which had grown out of the mountain sides almost horizontally until they outright overhung the lake below. Grandpa Jason was on one such overhanging pine. The biggest pine. Widest. Longest.

Doing a handstand.

Peter Quill boggled. Stood there. Gaped.

Then he clamped his mouth shut, opened it to speak, and closed it back again before he startled the man into falling to his death by thud and splat against the hard top of the frozen lake and what the fuck? Did he mention his grandpa was practically naked? In the Himalayas? In January!? He was only wearing shorts, how the hell hadn't he frozen to death or gotten frostbite on his skin and… well, things?

Fortunately, the man was facing his direction, upside-down though he happened to be. Not so unfortunately, he didn't interrupt his routine of… whatever it was. The man briefly opened an eye and shook a finger with his free hand, telling him to wait. So what else could Peter do but wait? He waited.

And waited. And waited. And watched and waited. And watched and waited and was amazed at his grandfather raising to the tips of his fingers and then pulling them back one by one until he stood upside-down on just the one. For a long time. And then his grandpa flipped to his feet towards the far side of the tree, stepped to the end, took a deep breath and jumped.

Peter Jason Quill watched and gaped, aghast. "Grandpa!" He rushed to the edge of the waterfall and looked down just as the man dove and disappeared beneath the lake's surface through a waterhole he hadn't known was there. The splash was muffled by the thick ice all around it and the waterfall itself. Even the echoes barely reached his ears because of the intermittent wind, but it felt brain-breaking all the same. "Holy shit." He barely remembered how he got down to the lake bank. "Shit, shit, what the shit!" By the time he was there, his cloak laces were half undone and his hood and scarf had long flown back, exposing him to the biting cold he couldn't' be arsed to heed. "Old man! Come on old man, come out come out wherever you are!" His attempt to sound unflapped failed miserably. "Oh grandpa, what terrible humor you have!" His attempts at staying calm over the next several minutes failed even more miserably, and he was just about to start throwing boulders to break the ice or go running back to the estate screaming for help when he saw signs of life.

Specifically, a saw blade breaching the surface of the thick ice at an angle, ten or some meters away from the bank.

Peter Quill watched in stupefaction as the grandfather he couldn't see sedately cut himself a new hole in the ice as if he hadn't been holding his breath and swimming under freezing water for he didn't know how many minutes.

For another minute and a half, Peter Quill watched in dumb shock as the saw cut a round manhole half a meter wide. Had his old man dumped it in the lake just to have something to find? What kind of training was this even!? This was deadlier than his worst unexpected space walks! Grandpa's hand then made a brief appearance to push the ice up and aside, before the rest of the man rose from the water below without even breathing hard. He didn't even sputter!

Jason Quill climbed out of the water, kicked the ice plate back in place – it was wider on top like a cork because of course it was – and stood tall on the ice, breathing slowly. And there he stayed with his head tilted back and eyes closed while the water flowed off of him, flushed pink all over his body but not a single goosebump anywhere in sight.

Peter gaped in astonishment.

"Peter," Jason Quill said some time later when he laid eyes on him, motioning at some point to his right. "Think you can help your old man out?"

~Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy~

Peter closed his mouth, stumbled to where he was directed, and stumbled even worse under the towels as he made his way back due to the most severe case of male envy he had undergone in any of his lives. Thor the Thunder God had been bad enough, but now you're telling him that was the sort of physique he himself could actually have had? That he even had the genes for it. Fuck Yondu for kidnapping him before he could find this out, seriously.

Shenanigans! He called shenanigans!

And where was grandpa's change of clothes? There had to be one, right?

The man in question finished wiping off the excess water, didn't seem to even notice the icicles covering half his beard, laid the towel around his neck and gave him a long, thoughtful look.

Then he swept him off his feet "What the-!" and sat him on his shoulders. Peter's stomach gave a strange lurch. So did his heart.

"Grab tight onto my hair."

"What?"

"Grab tight onto my hair, Peter."

Oh shit Peter thought as he did as told. He's going to run up the path with me on.

The reality, alas, was much worse.

Jason Quill turned back to the lake, ran across the ice without slipping even once and finally leapt onto the cliff face on the other side.

Peter yelped, then clutched at Jason Quill's impressively sturdy and deeply rooted hair while trying not to panic as his grandpa scaled the vertical cliff face without any tools or rope. Climbed. Heaved. Hopped. And occasionally jumped outright.

It was… it was fucking hardcore, that's what. So cool!

~I was once like you are now~

If only.

When they were at the top and grandpa gently tossed him on the ground ahead of him, Peter half expected his mom to come storming up dramatically, incensed over grandpa putting him in danger or whatever else. Nothing like that happened. It was actually kind of weird. Bad timing used to be a really big thing for him. What had changed?

He rolled on his back and sat up, looking up at the man.

… Could that really be it?

Jason Quill finally dressed – in a shirt, casual pants and sandals, what the hell? – and sat on the freezing rocks next to him, using his yak coat to extra-bundle Peter up instead.

"M'not cold," Peter mumbled, though he didn't put up any resistance.

"All that shivering must come from excitement then," the man said dryly, patting him on the head. He didn't immediately pull his hand away.

"More like fright!" Peter croaked weakly. "How did you do that?"

"It's easy to read you as long as I notice when I need to change my frame of reference from 'dear innocent grandson' to 'adverse adult outlaw.'"

"That-you-forget how you know what I'm always thinking, that's not what I meant!" Even if he was absurdly relieved to know grandpa wasn't magically mind-reading him. "The lake, the swim-how did you do that?"

"Training."

Because of course he'd say that. "Somehow I expected magic to be a bit more… well, flashy."

"Don't be ridiculous," Jason Quill scoffed, turning to dig through his pack. For food apparently. "There was no magic involved."

"Badass grandpa says what now?"

The man smiled. He… he seemed inordinately pleased at the compliment. "There was no magic. Breathing, exposure, patience. That's all it is."

~There's so much you have to know~

Peter had somehow never considered that his grandpa cared about his approval the way he did about his. "Bullshit." Jason Quill blinked at him and waited. Calmly. "I mean 'no way'." Peter amended.

"Yes way. This isn't even the full extent of what Tibetan Buddhists and shaolin monks do. And there are a bunch of people with similar or better conditioning on just this planet, let alone in the wider universe. Mountain villagers. Everyone living above three thousand meters. Probably half of Norway. I hear even the scoundrels at Hollywood have trainers on call to condition their stuntmen to survive jumping naked in icy water and hike up and down Mount Everest while basically naked." Peter wondered if a time would come when he wouldn't so easily gape at every other thing his grandpa told him. "It really only takes a couple of months to train," grandpa concluded with a shrug. "Even less so for us."

Whoa. "So I could be awesome like you?" Peter asked before he could re-apply his brain to mouth filter. Then he reddened. Dammit, he was too old for slips like this!

Grandpa's face lit up with an even bigger smile though. "Of course, son," he held out a sandwich and Peter pretended not to notice the slip. "What do you think I'm trying to do?"

Being too cool to be true and learning magic behind his back apparently, but Peter didn't say that. He took the sandwich and ate in silence instead. Taking time to process… everything.

~Take your time, think a lot~

~Think of everything you've got~

The silence stretched. It stretched on and on. Jason Quill actually had time to cross his legs under him and begin to meditate, of all things. In fact, it stayed quiet for such a long time that grandpa seemed to almost fall into a trance. Almost. "Peter," he said softly. "I have some books and a notebook in my bag. Take them out for me, will you? Use the picnic blanket. You can have any of the other food if you're still hungry."

"On it."

He wasn't hungry anymore but he spread the picnic blanket anyway, so he wouldn't have to dump the things on the rocks and in the snow. As he pulled them out, though, he couldn't even begin to guess what any of the books were about. Their titles were in no language he knew of, and he still didn't have a translation chip. Assuming it would even have whatever language these things were written in. He could guess what they were for easily though. "You really have been learning magic." Peter said, feeling deprived and cheated and inadequate all over again.

"Yes and no," grandpa said. "Magic is an expansive, complex discipline and art. It takes months to feel, years to fathom, decades to learn and a lifetime to master. I have neither the interest nor the time to devote to it. That being said, the complete path is not the only path."

He sure could talk like a magic man though. "And the alternative is?"

"Choose and explore one specific discipline. Or in my case, one specific spell."

"You don't say," Peter said, trying and failing not to sound disappointed. After everything else he'd seen his grandpa do, he'd though he'd easily master this field too. "And what spell is that?"

"Possession."

"…What." Peter blinked and stared, uncomprehending.

Jason Quill gave a brief, secretive smile but fell silent. Then breathed increasingly slowly until he finally fell into that outright trance he'd been heading for all along. Peter watched him. He thought the man's coloring even turned a bit… less there, but it was probably just his imagination.

Peter decided to look the books over again. The symbols on them, the writing, looked even older than the books themselves. Which was a lot. Although they seemed very well preserved and sturdy. They had to be if the Sorcerer had agreed to them being removed from whatever library or shelves he usually kept them in. Old books went bad or broke to pieces if the air and light suddenly changed right? He remembered hearing about it somewhere. Sometime.

Fortunately, he did know English. And Spartan, now. More importantly, his grandfather had taught him his shorthand. Not as fortunate was that his grandpa didn't take particularly detailed notes when he wasn't writing reports. He only jotted down things for future references and whatever he thought he wouldn't be able to remember off-hand later on. Peter wouldn't let that stop him, though. He had a golden opportunity here. After all, if you're going to learn, learn from the best.

That particular entry of the unwritten Ravager code was actually about stealing but he was quite proud of his revision.

The notes weren't much of what he expected though. There was a bit of a summary about what Possession meant but then it seemed to go backwards on the totem pole of requisite secondary powers. All of it revolved around the concept of the Astral Body. More specifically, how it could detach from the physical one – save for one hair-thin crystal cord – and go off to do… any number of different things apparently? It depended on what senses it had trained and – Peter squinted, unsure if the shorthand really was saying what he thought he was saying – if it had grown dedicated organs. Among which most useful were extra eyes because Dante was apparently not full of shit when he wrote the Divine Comedy. The Astral Body of a man in its base state was just a glowing ball of light – or, well, a glowing egg-shaped body of light, if Peter could at all trust the memories of his cosmic psycho-trip – but it could be trained, shaped and cultivated for any number of things. Supposedly. Possession fell somewhere among all of this and sounded fairly straightforward on the surface. Something which supernatural horror movies certainly agreed with him on. But it turned out, how shocking, that Hollywood was really full of shit.

Possession was actually one of the hardest occult feats. One, because you needed a lot of WILL to go from Willing to Doing without Desire messing up your focus; two, because you needed a lot of self-awareness - extra eyes? – to see what you were doing while you were overshadowing something. And three, because you needed a lot of Astral Substance to do the Doing. Astral Substance which the Astral Body – the soul – didn't possess naturally. Or it did, but it was all allocated to… well, being you. Force that Self square peg into the round hole of whatever you were possessing – a trinket, a person, a chemical reaction, even a weather phenomenon that recurred enough to gain some measure of identity – and you weren't going to get much back that was recognisable as yourself. Getting back to your body and living without leaving it for a while could mitigate some of it. Especially in the beginning, since Personality arose from the physical mind. But really, there were easier and faster ways to lose your mind if that was what you were after.

There was, however, a way to gain what you lacked and eliminate all the drawbacks: making your Astral Body bigger, stronger, more versatile and just all around more. Which could be done by drinking (eating? absorbing?) astral substance and adding it to your own. Temporarily if needed immediately, and permanently with extended focus and self-cultivation. Or something. By the end of it Peter was paying less attention to whatever advanced concepts were jotted down – growing psychic eyes and tentacles, really grandpa? – and instead seeing scenes from a certain film series and comic book collection in the back of his mind.

Increase your astral body. Increase your awareness, range and potency. Cultivate skill. Enhance ability. Imagine yourself becoming more. Make that imagination real. Magic was real. Psychic phenomena was real. Vitalism was real. Mentalism was real. Animism was real.

Overshadow other things and you can make them move without moving them yourself.

The one thing you can always safely possess and control is yourself.

Jason Quill finally breathed in after not doing so for around thirty minutes and Peter was far too overwhelmed and aghast and astonished and short-changed to wait for him to even open his eyes. The boy jumped to his feet and pointed a finger at him. "You're training to become a Jedi!"

Grandpa, you stand accused!

Jason Quill blinked back from wherever he was – and suddenly Peter wondered if that turn of phrase had a more literal meaning here – and then beamed at him.

"You don't need to look so disgustingly smug," Peter groused, turning away and crossing his arms.

"Boy, I will be as pleased and proud of you as I damn well want."

Peter flushed, because a couple of months of good fathering were not enough to qualify as experience even if they beat those two days with Ego hands down and Yondu could go fuck himself along with everyone else in the Ravagers, seriously.

Jason Quill laughed at him and swept him up in a hug, spinning him round and round. Peter didn't feel any impulse to squirm this time.

Much later, when they had settled back down and even finished eating whatever food was left in the bag, Peter finally gave voice to what he'd been holding inside for the past few months. "I want to learn magic."

"Do you plan to go to the Ancient One behind my back if you don't like what I have to say to that?"

Peter's mind stuttered. "What? NO!"

"I believe you."

Peter stared at his closed-eyed grandfather lying on his back on the blanket, belatedly realising that he hadn't lied. Because it seemed he was finally ready to admit he did care about his grandpa's approval.

That… That…

He had no idea how to even feel about that.

"The Ancient One doesn't want to test you," Jason suddenly said between outbreaths, because he seemed to be blending meditation with a lot of what else he was doing. "He's certain you'll fail."

That… Well, that didn't really surprise him. Being underestimated half the time and a disappointment the other half was practically the story of his life, bitter though the admission felt even held close to his chest. "And you?"

"I've been trying to improve you so he won't be as certain." Grandpa said, still not opening his eyes. "Have I succeeded?"

Peter looked down, feeling suddenly resentful. Resentful at himself for not being good enough. Resentful of the man for treating him like he should know the answer. Resentful for being treated like an adult. Resentful at himself for feeling resentful at getting what he asked for in the first place. "I don't know." What else could he say?

"Stand up." Jason flowed to his feet without forewarning. It made Peter start in place but the man paid it no heed. He pinned him with a stare, suddenly intense. "Stand up and show me how far you've come with the gun forms."

Blinking in confusion - didn't he know where he was from their dream work? – but finally comfortable taking direction from the man, Peter Quill did as he was told. He had actually done them a few times outside their dreams when he wasn't with his mom or grandmother so it should be easy enough. Okay, not easy but doable.

Even if it suddenly felt a lot harder to refrain from squirming or false starts when the wish not to disappoint someone was so much more real than it had ever been before.

~Keeping all the things I knew inside~

~It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it~

Peter Quill solved that by closing his eyes and beginning the routine, all the while pretending no one else was there. Fake it till you make it, even if it seemed less and less of a viable strategy with each passing day.

Gun forms were basically martial arts, but with guns. Their role was to train someone to combine use of firearms with hand-to-hand combat and traditional melee weapons in relatively equal ratios. Or, rather, to make it easy to use at any time and switch between them as desired. When mastered, they supposedly let one shoot a gun from each hand, shoot a gun from each hand while jumping at the same time, dual wield, shoot from behind the back, and even use guns as melee weapons like in knife fights. Other moves could involve scatter guns, submachine blasters, rocket launchers, and just about anything else that could be used to stab, shoot or blow up someone. They were also supposed to combine with grappling maneuvers and counters thereof once he got good enough. Or, at least, that's how grandpa had explained it.

Peter was actually past the basics and well into the intermediate forms, thanks to how much time could be crammed in dreams while mere minutes passed in the regular world. But he started with the basic forms and went through them one after another without rushing. Grandpa hadn't given him guns to use this time, but he'd trained him to form, hold and flow between various hand gestures and marks as a substitute as well. It was a way to simulate proper muscle tension and integrate manual dexterity into the training at the same time.

He was half-way through the main forms when he heard his grandpa walking around and beating things into the ground, but he didn't pause or open his eyes. He was starting the intermediate forms and starting to feel that infamous workout high he'd never gotten before when his grandpa called his name. He didn't pause – he'd learned a long time ago now not to pause without being specifically told to – but he did open his eyes and looked.

It was to find three dummies set up ahead and to his sides.

"Here." Jason Quill tossed him two quad-blasters almost identical to the ones he'd favored in his last life.

The surprise almost broke his routine, but reflex saved him where his mind stuttered and he caught and integrated them in the current form just as he reached the end. Fleetingly he noticed the Ancient One was also there all of a sudden but that was alright. Having his guns in his hands made an unprecedented feeling of accomplishment bubble up from somewhere within him. And unlike any other emotions, it didn't distract him at all. Instead, it filled every last bit of him and smoothed his motions, made him feel comfortable in his own skin like he'd never felt since remembering his life before.

"Form six," Jason Quill commanded. "I expect bullseyes. All of them. Go!"

Blast.

Crack-Blast.

Forth-blast, back-blast, under-arm, over-the-arm, headshot, center, center, center-shot, base round-robin, bang, bang, bang and round he goes aaand… one last for the beheaded head to go.

The dummies fell and scattered all over the snowy ground, in red-hot bits and smoking pieces.

The form had been on point. All his shots had hit right where he wanted them. There was that one moment when it looked like he'd miss but the bolt struck where he wanted anyway because he'd not mess this up. Not here, not now. He'd score 100% on this test no matter what.

And he had.

He rose from his crouch, grinning with the satisfaction of a job well done.

His grandpa, though, didn't seem wholly proud of him when he looked at him. Or, well, he did. But he was also strangely grim in his satisfaction, somehow. The man strode over and held out a hand. "Gun."

Peter blinked but handed it over without a comment.

Jason Quill then looked down at him wryly and snapped the blaster in half.

Peter gaped and stared at the gun halves, aghast. Then he looked closer and didn't know if he should be astounded or appalled.

It was a flash-printed dud.

What in the…?

Looking between the old man and his remaining gun, Peter tried to break it in half too. He failed because the upper body strength of his eight-year old body was crap. But when he knocked on its side and got a distinctly wrong sound for his trouble, he could only look at his grandfather in shock. Then Peter recalled the only other time when he'd tried to fire a flash-printed dud.

He dropped the gun replica and staggered backwards, face going stark white.

"Before you go all histrionic, let me assure you that there was almost no chance of you doing this back then, nor was I aware of the possibility," grandpa's words were calm and steady as they almost always got when he freaked out about something. "Ask the Sorcerer if you don't believe me."

Peter looked from the man to the Ancient One entirely because he was told to. His mind wasn't much good for anything right now.

Said old man was giving Peter the strangest look he'd ever seen. It was a bizarre mix between the stare of a harassed door-to-door salesman, and the look Drax sometime gave him when he tried to explain a metaphor in the old timeline. "Vishanti protect me from overachieving fools," the Sorcerer lamented, shaking his head. Then he gave grandpa Jason the driest look Peter could imagine. "And overachieving geniuses as well, it seems."

"Okay," Peter said numbly. "And for us mere mortals that just got our brains broken in the extremely recent past that means what?"

"Something I noticed during your training is that you're not as creative when learning as when applying teachings, but you imitate very well," grandpa Jason 'explained' in such a way that he could suddenly understand jack shit. "It turns out the subconscious side of that goes a lot farther than either of us thought. Or, well, extraconscious."

~How can I try to explain?~

"… I have no idea what you just said."

"In brief," Yao interjected. "Our time frame until something irreversible or un-concealable occurs has been reduced considerably." The man looked to his grandpa again then. "We must focus on expediency but can no longer make allowances for procrastination or cowardice."

Before Peter could even figure out who the wizard was insulting, Jason Quill nodded sharply, took him by the shoulder and marched him forward into the portal that the Ancient One opened between them and the room where his real self waited because he'd been just a projection all that time. Of course.

"Where are we going?" Peter asked.

"Off to see the wizard and then to you following through on your promise of being a man."

It took him a few moments to figure out what grandpa meant, but then Peter felt whatever colour had returned to his face drain out of it again.

~You will still be here tomorrow~

~But your dreams may not~

He'd pushed the boundaries of their pact and had now been pushed back.

As he'd once promised to his grandfather, he had to go and finally confront his mother.