Shiro and Jean-Paul: Purgatory on Wheels

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

Shiro accompanies Jean-Paul to Canada and gets an earful of his teacher's past exploits, much to Jean-Paul's chagrin.



It was still dark out when Jean-Paul and Shiro arrived, morning being just a pink stripe across the horizon. They landed on a barely-paved blacktop about half a mile away from their intended destination, still suited up for flight. The area was semi-rural with a scattering of homes across the landscape. The walk would, at least, give Shiro time to cool down and Jean-Paul time to explain the situation.

"Anne-Marie is really a nice woman, she will just talk your ear off if given half the chance and then take the other off apologizing for the first. We need to change into civvies when we get to her place and then it is just the drive."

Shiro nodded, still breathing too heavily to speak. He'd pushed himself to keep up with Jean-Paul and get to Quebec quickly, and the fully illuminated power display on his glove indicated just how taxing the trip had been. It was almost a relief to land. "Who is this old woman, anyway?" he asked when he'd finally caught his breath. "I forgot to ask."

"A force of nature. I've known her since I was a teenager. She worked for Raymonde and now she runs the bistro for me day-to-day; I just make sure the paychecks are signed." Jean-Paul's breath fogged in the morning cold. "She still thinks I'm a stray in need of feeding and grooming."

"You own a bistro? Oh! Is she the quintessential old woman who force feeds every living thing who comes her way? That is my favorite kind of old woman. It is time for breakfast and we did just fly four hundred miles . . ." Shiro's stomach growled at the thought.

Jean-Paul shrugged and glanced away. "I inherited it. But please recall, she is an old woman on a broken leg and I would not like to see her overexert herself. If I can beg access to her kitchen, I will cook. And if I cannot beg access, I'm fairly certain that I am faster than she is...unless she has a spatula in hand, in which case, we're better off fending for ourselves."

It didn't take long for the two athletes to reach their ultimate destination, a modest one-story with an open yard and a cluster of holly bushes in need of pruning guarding the front stairs. Jean-Paul knocked and then everything else happened quite quickly: the door opened, a happy voice exclaimed "P'tit-loup!", and Shiro's teacher was towed inside before he could get a word of greeting out. On the plus side, the smell of cooking was wafting enticingly from the open doorway.

A chuckle escaped Shiro's lips as he followed his mentor inside, but that sound was quickly drowned out by an even louder borborygmus. "What was that about being faster?" he asked.

Jean-Paul shot him a Look, but really wasn't in a position to snap back. A heavyset woman with steel-grey hair, a generous bosom, and blunt features was interrogating him in rapid-fire French while feeling up his biceps as if she were about to pack him off to market. The speedster finally managed to get a word in edgewise and directed her attention to Shiro before switching to English.

"Anne, this is Shiro Yoshida. Shiro, this is Anne-Marie Cormier, who is still under the impression that I am a starving waif."

"You have been gone too long to complain," she informed him. Her left leg was in a walking cast and she stumped over to examine Shiro. "This is the new boy, then? Tres bien! So good to meet you, monsieur."

"Eh? No!" Jean-Paul had gone utterly pink. "Shiro is a student of mine; I'm teaching again. He's along to help keep me sane."

Shiro was halfway into a bow when the woman spoke, and he nearly lost his balance. Savagely clinging to whatever remnant of grace he maintained, he straightened and offered the woman his hand. "I am not his type, I think," he sputtered.

"Mais oui, I see now," she agreed, taking Shiro's hand. "Obviously too well-mannered to take up with this one, who vanishes and does not think to keep people from worry." Shiro's stomach took that moment to let forth another plaintive growl, which seemed to horrify Anne as much as if he'd started to wither away in front of her. "And I am getting as bad as he is. Go and sit! I have breakfast waiting."

"We're never going to get an early start at this rate," Jean-Paul objected weakly, even as he fled to the kitchen.

"Your sanity comes second to my appetite," Shiro proclaimed as he removed his boots and pulled off his gloves. "Are you in such a rush or are you afraid that this kind woman will tell me your secrets?"

Anne's face lit up. "It is a long drive and I have so many stories. We can share." She spied Jean-Paul attempting to serve up breakfast before she could and squawked. "Out! Out of my kitchen. Go sit or go put on some decent clothes."

"And she wonders why I stayed away." Jean-Paul slunk over to take a seat beside Shiro in the alcove that served at the dining room. "You are supposed to be off your feet."

"I have the cast and you are driving. I am not about to fall over on you." Her guests soon had heaping plates of sausage patties, pancakes, and eggs set before them. Shiro was offered coffee; Jean-Paul didn't even bother asking for caffine and drank his milk quietly. He had the feeling it would be a long drive indeed.

--

The sun was up by the time Jean-Paul, Shiro, and Anne-Marie hit the road. The two men were in front, while the old woman had the back seat entirely to herself. Though Jean-Paul had rather hoped that Anne-Marie would be curious enough about Shiro that he could keep her occupied with questions while he drove, the plan had backfired spectacularly -- Shiro was instead encouraging the woman to share what she knew about Jean-Paul and she was obliging. Cheerfully, even.

"...and here, you see?" Anne passed a photograph up front to Shiro. "I had to call him something those first few days, and 'p'tit-loup' fit him better than anything else could have."

Shiro looked between the photograph and the driver. "You looked like a little elf," he teased, biting back a laugh (at both the picture at Jean-Paul's expression). "Kawaii ne."

"I did not!" Jean-Paul took his eyes from the road long to toss Shiro a glare. "That's a terrible picture."

"I have others," Anne piped up. A moment later Shiro was being offered another photo, this one of a slightly older Jean-Paul, closer to fifteen than fourteen, sprawled out and asleep on a sturdy couch that would have been out-of-date even forty years ago. There was a tented copy of Tai Pan on his chest and an enormous tortoiseshell cat curled up on his belly. "Now, that is Tadeo, Monsieur Raymonde's cat. He was there before Jean-Paul, though not by so much, and he was very fond of him. He thought the newcomer was very good for sleeping on."

"And so began Mister Beaubier's affair with felines. This photograph should be kept away from Catseye, I think, else she might prove a further disturbance." Shiro handed the picture back to Anne-Marie and turned to face Jean-Paul, still grinning. "Such an exciting adolescence you led."

"A whirlwind!" Anne agreed before Jean-Paul could get a word in. "One day, all is peace and normal, the next day, Monsieur Raymonde comes home from his walk with a bruised face and the boy with the stormclouds over his head following him. Pauvre bébé!" In the front seat, Jean-Paul winced. Anne was oblivious, caught up in her memories. "He was all so thin, worse than the alley cats. But we fixed that with some time, non?"

"I will run this car off the road if I have to."

"Tsst. It is your own fault for bringing Monsieur Shiro. Am I supposed to leave him bored?"

"You could talk to him about his stories."

"And for what? He knows his stories already, don't you, monsieur?"

"My stories are not as riveting as yours, though, Mister Beaubier," Shiro countered, though some of the levity in his voice had fled. "I was raised by my father until I was thirteen, and then by my cousins for just a couple of years before I came to America. There, that is my story. It is not so captivating as that of the childhood of an Olympic athlete."

Jean-Paul sighed. "This is payback for the journals, isn't it?" Despite his put-upon air, he seemed willing to let the matter of Shiro's past drop.

"Shush." Anne tapped her chin. "Where was I. The cat?"

Shiro looked up at Jean-Paul for a few seconds before responding. "Anou, we ought to save the stories for another time, ne? And not use them all up now. You must have many stories of your own, Missus Cormier."

"Oh, oui! Where to start...ah! My mother's family was part of Le Grand Dérangement, you know. My father brought us all the way north from the States when I was just a small girl myself..."

"She probably has pictures for that too," Jean-Paul murmured under his breath. All the same, there was no mistaking the grateful look he gave Shiro.