✧ RAREGCMS ✧

ɪɴᴅɪᴇ sᴇʟᴇᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ ✧ ᴍᴜᴛᴜᴀʟs-ᴏɴʟʏ ✧ ᴄᴏᴍɪᴄs-ʙᴀsᴇᴅ ✧ ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴ ʜᴇᴀᴠʏ

ｗｅｌｃｏｍｅ， ｔｒｕｅ ｂｅｌｉｅｖｅｒｓ！

Girls.

It didn't matter if they were grown or teenagers, mutants or mutates or mundane... they were all the same. Not in a 'pssh, women, right?' way, but the kind of way where one could anticipate a reaction based on experience. He'd seen it plenty, been subjected to it plenty. And usually Julian was smart enough to avoid situations that put him at risk of bodily injury from the women that he tended to find himself in their company --

But god dang it, he had to run into Noriko just out on the street, and she just had to plant a kiss on him 'for old time's sake', and he just had to only notice Kate was coming down the other way by following Noriko's gaze as she pulled away with an only too familiar smirk on her face.

"Why not?!" Though his demeanor is still, collected, there's a haunted, almost wild look in his eyes as he looks up at the regal woman. Most people would be cowed in the presence of the Inhuman matriarch, but not Julian Keller. Not after the things they'd been through together, not after the way she'd softened after thrusting the onerous task of cleaning up his own mess. Seeming to notice the sharp tone of his voice, Julian lowered his gaze, down to his hands where they rested on his knees as he sat across from her. "Why not?" he asked again, his voice softer. "I hurt so many people. I know it wasn't my fault but… I can't help feeling responsible anyway."

He was half right. Getting infected by the M-Pox had not been his fault - it was Black Bolt, the insane plan to expose the entire human genome to the Terrigen Mists, creating a new generation and save the Inhuman race. What happened instead is deaths innumerable, some from the outcome of Terrigenesis itself and others, so many others, from the plague which mutated to be deadly specifically to the mutant population. He'd wanted someone to take responsibility, he'd wanted someone to care -- he'd been dying, half-mad, losing control of phenomenally powerful telekinesis which he'd only recently had unlocked from its natural boundaries… he'd leveled part of a city before they'd managed to get him under control.