Jean-Phillipe and Yvette

[x-bevatron.livejournal.com]

Yvette, having not seen her friend around, goes looking for him. Yvette is optimistic, Jean-Phillipe not so much.


In the flurry of activity following the events in New York - new people in the mansion, the clean up with Red X, catching up on classes once they started again, dealing with suitemates in various stages of trauma - it had been easy to lose track of some of the people she normally kept an eye on. But now things were slowly returning to normal, Yvette suddenly realised she hadn't seen Jean-Phillipe around at all, in person or on the journals, except for his brief message to the new teacher. Possibly it was because his cousin was here and the two didn't get on, but Yvette wanted to make sure. With several apples tucked into her pockets, she took herself up to his suite, knocking softly on the door. "Jean-Phillipe?" she called, still a little awkward about using first names for people so much older than her. "It is Yvette. May I come in, please?"

A grunting noise came from inside, and Jean-Phillipe levered himself up from where he sat on his bed reading a book. He briefly considered not answering the door, but Yvette had been quite friendly to him, so he opened the door and did his best to put on a polite smile. "Bonjour, petite rouge," he greeted her. "Comment ca va>"

She'd been around various French speakers enough to know what that meant. "I am well, thank you," she replied with an answering smile. "I have not seen for you the some time, so I thought I would be checking up on you? You are okay, yes?"

Jean-Phillipe considered blowing Yvette off with a glib answer, but he shrugged. He would likely have to come clean with the rest of the mansion's residents eventually, perhaps it was time to start with someone who had been kind to him. "I did...some bad things," he told her after a pause, making an internal decision.

She blinked at that. He hadn't been at the final confrontation with Apocalypse, and that had involved some fairly disturbing actions. "Perhaps I could be coming in?" she suggested. "If you are wanting to be talking, that is? I do not want to be, how you say? Nudging?"

"Nagging," Jean-Phillipe corrected gently. "I...suppose," he said, looking at his room behind him. "As for the details...well, I think that I need to speak with Monsieur Summers first, and perhaps Monsieur Kane." Magneto was considered a terrorist, after all. He recalled what Mark had said to him about jail.

Yvette's eyes grew wide. The X-Men and the police? What had he done? "You do not have to say, if you cannot," she said, stepping past him into the room. "If it is the private thing?"

"Not exactly private," Jean-Phillipe said in reply. "Just that I think that I should see what they have to say before telling others." He knew that he was being cryptic, but he supposed it was better than lying to her.

"Oh." That made sense, especially if it was something serious. "I hope it will be okay. This is the good place for the making mistakes - if you are sorry, people will be giving you the new chance, yes?"

"I hope so." Jean-Phillipe was a bit more pessimistic than Yvette in that regard, though. But he did regret his actions now, and he was sorry for them. He just wasn't sure whether it would be enough for everyone else when the truth came out. "How are you doing?" he asked, partly to deflect the line of discussion.

"There are people who have done many bad things who are still here," Yvette pointed out, optimistic as always. "And I am okay. The school has more people than I am used to which is hard, but it is only for the short time."

~I doubt that anyone has done anything quite as bad I have,~ Jean-Phillipe thought wryly. For certain, there were mercenaries and others who had killed and so forth, but none of them had come to the mansion under false pretenses. "My cousin is here," he said with a distasteful twist of his lips. "So I understand hard." Probably not in the way Yvette meant, but still.

"She does not seem to be such the bad person," Yvette offerred. "I am not understanding why you are not liking each other so much. Unless it is the family business, yes?" Family feuds she understood - her country's history was just about one long family feud.

Jean-Phillipe nodded. "At this point, I think it is part habit on both our parts. But mostly, we are very different people, and not the sort that get along well together." He shrugged. It didn't bother him, really, as he was not all that concerned with what Marie-Ange's opinion of him was.

It obviously bothered him, since he raised it so often, but Yvette was unsure of how much to push - Jean-Phillipe was a very private sort of person, and this whole conversation was rather awkward. "It is happening sometimes, that we are not getting along with the family. My mother, she is very different to me, and when I go home, it can be strange. She is still not sure how to be treating me now I am the mutant, you see."

Jean-Phillipe's mouth twisted. It was all too common of a story, parents treating their mutant children differently. He supposed he was almost blessed in a way, to have parents who just didn't care one way or the other, and weren't part of his life. Despite rejecting the excesses of the Brotherhood, he still was disgusted at the bigotry that mutants faced on a daily basis. But he didn't think that Yvette was quite ready for his radical outlook on things. So instead, he nodded. "Hopefully it will get easier with time," he offered.

"Well, she is not making me hide so much when I visit, so that is the beginning, yes?" Yvette said with a small chuckle. It was evidence of how much she'd changed since coming to the school that she could actually joke about it now. "So, you are to be staying in your room for how long? Until you have spoken to Mr. Summers and Mr. Kane? Because I can be bringing you the food, if you would like that?"

"That...would be nice." It wasn't as though he had gone into complete self-imposed exile in his room, as he went down to the kitchen occasionally for food, or out to the smoker's porch to have a cigarette when he didn't feel like simply having one by the window, but Yvette's offer was kind. "I appreciate it."

She smiled. "You are my friend. Friends are helping each other, yes?"

Friends. He hadn't thought he would have any if he revealed what he had been doing, but maybe he was wrong. "Oui. Merci, Yvette."