Jean-Paul and Shiro

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

Two early-risers confide and commiserate: Jean-Paul tells Shiro why he came back, Shiro tells Jean-Paul what he's missed.



Taking a swing at a stationary bag was never as satisfying as having a mobile target to vent your frustrations against, but that was fine. Imagining the proper face in front of you could go a long way and, some days, there wasn't even a need for much of that -- just enough to get the target swinging back at you, and momentum did the rest.

Jean-Paul had intended this to be a no-powers session, but, this early he had the gym to himself and the urge to cut loose was just too strong. He made a mental note to replace the bag when he was done and began pummeling it with a hail of super-speed punches.

"Cyclops gets testy when we break equipment, even if you plan to replace it," came an amused voice from the doorway. Shiro entered, awkwardly trying to tie his hair back with one hand while the other held a bottle of water. "An outsider might think that we are instigating genocide against heavy bags."

"This one had it coming." Jean-Paul had not had Shiro's foresight when it came to dealing with hair; stopping long enough to speak left him with a dark veil scattered over his eyes. He brushed it back thoughtlessly as he moved to halt the punching bag. "What are you doing up?"

"Energy manipulators do not require as much sleep as others do. And I am used to having to get up early to exercise before class, even though my school is closed for the remainder of the semester." Shiro cracked his knuckles and then launched into his regular regimen of stretches. "And you? Do Canadians not sleep, either?"

Jean-Paul considered how honest he felt like being before sunrise, then shrugged. "I woke up wanting to talk to someone. Then I remembered that he is dead and got very frustrated over the fact. Hence the abuse of the school equipment."

Shiro nodded. "If I may ask, who?" The comment made him realize that despite his admiration for his former teacher, Shiro actually knew very little about Jean-Paul. And more surprisingly to him, he actually wanted to know.

"His name was Raymonde. The man should have been my father. At least, he was more of one to me than any of the others who claimed to want the job." Despite the wash of memory, Jean-Paul found a rueful smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Poor old man didn't know what he was getting into."

Jean-Paul as a boy was such a foreign concept that Shiro could barely even picture it. His adult head on a child's body was as far as his imagination took him. "Sou ne. Did he die recently?"

The smile faded. "It was a long time ago. Not so long after I finished my first year of training and made it into Alpha Flight. So...fifteen years and some."

"O-oh. I apologize. I did not know. My father died when I was young, too. Which of course you know because Mariko . . . Sorry. Babbling." Shiro shook his head and looked away, redfaced.

"You don't need to apologize. I probably should, actually." Jean-Paul rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "I...still don't quite know how to talk about it properly. It happened on the heels of scandal about my mutancy and the Olympics and so adding a murder to that...the vultures could not resist. There was a lot of publicity and...I guess it got fixed in my head that everyone knew, everyone commented even if they hadn't any right to. So...yes. Sorry."

"Mister Beaubier, I wonder . . ." Shiro hesitated, silently wondering if he had the right to pry, and what Jean-Paul's reaction would be. "Why did you return? To the school. You left to care for your sister and, anou, she is suspiciously absent. You do not have to answer if you do not want to," he added quickly.

Jean-Paul sighed and gave the bag an absent-minded thump before finally taking a seat on the mats. He patted the spot beside him, beckoning Shiro over. "I do not like talking about this, but I suppose if anyone here has a right to hear all of this, you do. I do not see you spreading tales anyway." He was quiet for nearly a full minute, and even when he managed to speak, it was halting. "Aur...Jeanne...My sister was not a well woman by the time I decided I should take her home. I was furious, you understand -- with myself for not realizing how bad things had gotten, with her fiance for abandoning her, with our former team for not keeping tabs on her while I was not around...I admit, I also was not so pleased with her. We two have a habit of declaring that we will never speak to each other again, but always it seems to come back to her finding me again and then I drop everything to be her off-white knight. But I am her big brother and she needs me, non? There is nothing else to do.

"Anyway. This time, I decide, I am done trusting my sister to others. No doctors, no Alpha Flight, no stupid brutes with too many degrees. I will take care of her myself, keep her safe and calm, and then surely she will begin to heal. And it did not quite work out as I planned." He turned his head to show the long scar at his throat, lifted his Xavier's sweatshirt to show the short, jagged line carved deeply over his heart. "She went from feeling abandoned to being smothered and she struck back. Some times were worse than others -- one day she would say I was keeping her prisoner, the next day it would be that she did not deserve to have anyone care for her, that God Himself should turn away from such a wretched creature. I did not even feel safe in leaving her alone for fear of what she would do to herself. We did this for three years, feeding off of each other's need, before she had enough." A bitter smile. "She struck down her jailer and set off to heal herself. As for myself, I do not learn so quickly. I spent another year looking for her before it got through my skull that I would not find her until she wished it. So I came back here, the last place where I think I did some good." Jean-Paul took a deep breath and released it as a leaden, weary laugh. "Not the best showing for four years."

Shiro sat in seiza as he listened to Jean-Paul's story, respectfully silent through the whole thing. The admission, from his protective streak for Jeanne-Marie to the revelation of his injuries, made his heart skip a beat, honored that Jean-Paul chose to entrust this to him. "I would do much the same for my sister if she were in a similar condition," Shiro asserted solemnly after a pause. "So you have no idea where she may be?"

"Non." Jean-Paul leaned back on his arms. "No word, no sign. She may be dead or it may be that she will show up tomorrow, needing me again. It is an odd place to be, but there is nothing to do but wait now."

"I am sorry that you have had a difficult few years. I am glad that you have returned here, at least, although I know that does not offer you much comfort," Shiro said wryly. "If you do not mind my candor, it is a good thing for me to see a friendly and familiar face again."

"You would be surprised, I think, at how much comfort that does offer. I did not think you would be pleased to see someone who walked out so suddenly. But it does not sound as if you have had an easy time of it yourself."

"I understand your reasons. Especially after what I did to you . . . I have made so many mistakes since you left, Mister Beaubier." Shiro's face fell. "I discovered a drug, Kick. Have you heard of it? It increases a mutant's powers to stellar levels, but it is also highly addictive."

Jean-Paul nodded, feeling a twist of guilt, but pushed it away as he leaned in closer to the younger man. "How did it happen?"

"A friend. A classmate of mine is a mutant, and I witnessed him being harassed by his dealers. I confiscated his supply when he refused to give up, and then I . . . Magneto kidnapping and torturing the Richter kid was the biggest and most dangerous mission I had witnessed as an X-Man. You have to understand, the tsunamis that resulted from the attack threatened to destroy San Diego even further than Richter's earthquake already did. Cyclops directed me to stop the wave and I did not think I had the power until I remembered the Kick." Shiro sniffed and inhaled deeply, then turned away ashamed when he realized that he'd just mimicked taking the drug. Old habits and all.

Jean-Paul lay a steadying hand on Shiro's shoulder, misinterpreting the sniff. "And you could not very well let them know how you managed it?" There was no judgment there; it anything, there was empathy.

"I would have been kicked off the team. Lost Clarice. Been expelled, maybe arrested. It is impossible to hide such a habit for long, though. I thankfully had not been on it long enough to do irreparable damage, but it was enough, ne? I cut myself off, anou what is the term, cold turkey? That was an even worse mistake, though, because then Alex . . ." If Shiro was blushing before, now his face was the color of the sun on Japan's flag. "Have you always been . . . you know? Different. With other men."

Shiro and Clarice?

The idea of it caused Jean-Paul's thoughts to go into a momentary ouroboros of agitation and protective instincts, further confused by the fact that he wasn't certain whose honor he was supposed to be getting growly over. He'd only just managed to focus on what Shiro was saying when he got the second mental pie in the face --

Shiro and Alex?

--and had to scrabble a moment to get his mind and his mouth connected again.

"I...since I was old enough to untangle desire from everything else crowding my head, yes. I kept it to myself until I met Raymonde, though."

That he'd managed to leave Jean-Paul momentarily speechless was enough to bring some humor back to Shiro's face, but now he just resembled a smiling tomato. "I do not know. I loved Clarice, but I also really cared for Alex. I think. That did not end up well, either, since we ultimately discovered that his powers were fueling mine and I had become addicted to him. See what you missed?"

"Hmm. I'm still not entirely sure why you challenged me to a race instead of punching me across the jaw." He scruffed Shiro playfully before letting his hand fall and sobering again. It hadn't escaped him that both relationships were now in the past tense. "It does not mean one thing or the other, you know. Despite claims to the contrary, I am fairly sure that bisexuals do exist."

"I had considered that," Shiro admitted, "But I slept with Jay Guthrie and did not particularly enjoy it beyond the immediate satisfaction." Why he was so easily admitting these details to a mentor, he didn't know. "No one wants to be with a recovering drug addict, anyway, so it really is a moot point."

Honest as it might have been, Jean-Paul reined himself from saying something stupid and inappropriate. "Declare yourself a lost cause once you've had a larger sampling in the romance department, hmm? And not to sound too much of an insensitive ass -- as good as I am at it -- but sex is sex. If you do not have deeper feelings for the person, you will likely not have deeper feelings for the act. Does it bother you?"

"Does what bother me? Sex with another man?" Shiro bit his lip as he carefully considered his response. "It is not what I expected myself to do. I had never even considered it until Alex and I began to. I am not like you, Mister Beaubier. It does not come easily or naturally for me."

"I was thinking more of the not knowing. It's not pleasant to feel so uncertain about yourself, I would imagine, especially for so intimate a thing. Perhaps what you felt for Alex was exceptional and you will not feel it for another man."

"Uncertain about myself?" Shiro laughed humorlessly. "That is, as they say, the story of my life. Like I said, I am not like you. I do not know my place or my destiny, nor do I have the will to shape it."

"It's difficult to define a negative, Shiro. What do you know? Perhaps easier, what do you want?"

Shiro shrugged. "To be a superhero? I don't know. I just want to wake up each morning and not wonder whether I will do something stupid to hurt myself or someone else."

"And yet he says we are not alike." Jean-Paul considered for a moment. "I wish I had better advice for you, but I think most of the things I am supposed to say in this situation would very quickly descend into hypocrisy. I think you have set a high goal for yourself and that you will meet it eventually if it is what you want because you cannot do otherwise; I do not remember you as a man who does things by halves. I can only ask that you remember first not kick yourself too hard the times that you stumble -- it does get counterproductive after a while -- and second that most people will not judge you as harshly as you do yourself, even if you do hurt them." He sighed. "Not that it makes failure any easier to bear, but it at least helps with the aftermath. Mostly."

"If I can grow up to be half as competent as you are - or at least make yourself out to be - then I will consider my life a success."

"Dieu, don't jinx yourself." Jean-Paul gave Shiro a mock-accusatory glare. "I came down here to indulge some cathartic destruction and here you are making me think and engage with another human being. First thing in the morning as well."

"Oh, I apologize, sir. I do know what human interaction with someone you do not hate does to misanthropy, and I would not want to be responsible for that." Shiro gracefully stood up from seiza and raised an eyebrow. "As punishment for my attack on your personal rumination, I could offer you a live target for 'cathartic destruction.'"

"I was going to suggest breakfast, actually." Jean-Paul stretched and stood. "There is always compromise, of course -- first we spar, then we eat."

"If we did it in reverse then we would vomit over each other, and I am sure that I am not attracted to that." Shiro feel easily into fighting position. "You have proven yourself to be fast, but can you take the heat up close?"