Shiro and Jean-Paul - Backdated to the 26th

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

Jean-Paul finds his time disappointing and more wine is consumed.



Staring at the stopwatch wasn't changing anything. There were only so many allowances one could make for age, for skill, for the conditions of the course. His time wasn't all that bad, really, unless measured up against what he'd been capable of...what he thought he'd been capable of.

Jean-Paul finally sighed and folded his arms over his chest.

"Well...that's disappointing."

"Two minutes and fifteen seconds is still excellent, sir," Shiro offered, though he was just as upset as Jean-Paul. "That is less than thirty seconds behind the gold medal in Torino. I looked it up before we left." It was also fifteen second slower than the last place, but he didn't have to say that.

"Yes, of course. I could have done much worse." He felt as if his heart were hammering against his lungs. He wanted to vomit. The practiced mask stayed in place. He clung to that control as if it were the last solid thing in the universe. "And it clears up a few things, doesn't it? Thank you for your help, Shiro. Do you want to head back to the beginner slopes and continue your lessons?"

"You could improve, ne? Train more. You are somewhat out of practice, especially compared to what you must have done when you were a professional athlete." Shiro was grasping for straws, and though Jean-Paul appeared resigned to this revelation, Shiro knew how he would feel in the situation and found it easy to project onto his mentor.

Jean-Paul's first instinct was to snap and he just barely reined himself in. He knew who he was furious with, and he was not going to turn that against his student.

"To what end, Shiro? I have my answer and that part of my life is long over anyway." He forced himself to release the death grip on the pole in his hand. "Perhaps I should not ski anymore today. I'm not in the proper mindset for it anyway. Do you want to go in?" Not that he'd blame Shiro for not wanting to be seen with him; at least this gave him a graceful out.

Now that was an expression with which Shiro was familiar, and he'd braced himself for a verbal onslaught (for which he was ready to snap back). He had to take a moment to reply, too, else he'd say something he'd regret. "Let us go in. We can finish last night's wine or something."


"And play at being fat, old drunkards." The idea of eating was incredibly unappealing, but a drink...that sounded good.

The numbness that had allowed him to pretend composure smoldered away as they headed back to the lodge, leaving Jean-Paul with the murderously futile urge to find his younger self and wring his neck. There were stormclouds in the older man's eyes by the the time they arrived at their room once more, and he would have given a great deal for a suitable target to throw a punch at.

Shiro headed straight for the wine and, in defiance of the previous night, deftly uncorked the bottle. "Now what?" he asked bluntly once he'd handed a glass to Jean-Paul. "You used your powers and that was the end of that."

Jean-Paul nodded in thanks and drained the glass as if it held water. Stupid, but it was something to do.

"Good question." He held out his glass for a refill. "I suppose it depends on how hard I feel like kicking myself. I already know what the general opinion was when I outed myself, so a confession changes little there. Of course, a confession also gives the IOC stronger footing to keep disqualifying those who test positive for the x-gene; they get to say that they were right all along. Merde!" Jean-Paul snarled the last word. "I didn't think I had this much capacity for self-delusion."

"Welcome to the club." Shiro refilled Jean-Paul's glass and then his own. He couldn't even taste the wine anymore, but the pleasant warmth it granted was still there. "You do not have to tell the IOC. They have not pursued you, have they? This morning was just for yourself, and there is no shame keeping it that way."

"Non. There would have been no point to dragging the matter out longer." Jean-Paul frowned into his drink. "Though a coming clean might shut up some of their detractors now...just because they were right about me, doesn't mean that their overall decision was any less disgusting. Of course, that could just be what's left of my pride talking, but I think we can drown that out. In vino veritas, and all of that."

"I do not know what that means, but kanpai. There are times when pride is overrated. And if I am saying that of all people, then it must be true, ne?"

Jean-Paul lifted his glass in a small salut. "'In wine there is truth'. And I'll latch on to yours before my self-esteem craters entirely." He took another swallow of his drink. "Though this does mean that someone owes me an 'I told you so'. I'll have to make a detour on our flight out tomorrow."

"I was speaking of pride, not self-esteem. I have much of the former yet none of the latter. Gomen." There was probably some haiku from the Hagakure that he could recite.

"I hope you'll forgive me if I take what I can get." Jean-Paul was quiet for a few moments, keeping to his own thoughts. "It changes everything and nothing."

"As far as I am concerned, it changes nothing." If there was one thing that Shiro was certain of, it was that. And it didn't escape his notice that his words were similar to what Alex had said to him after he disclosed Kick, or even what Jean-Paul himself said the previous night. "And for those people who actually count and are not just miserable little pissants, their opinions would also remain unchanged."

"I just cannot seem to get my head around this. I should have known the truth. I remember when I won my first competition, how much money the prize seemed at the time, and just...the relief knowing that I could do this thing, that I had something to me that meant I would not be at anyone's mercy again." Jean-Paul's accent had grown thicker with drink. "Winning was more important than anything else." He put the empty wine glass aside and began pacing. "I can believe that I would lie. It's harder to accept that I repeated the lie so often that I believed it myself." He found himself standing in front of Shiro and wondered if the young man had stepped into his path, or if that was simply where his feet had stopped. "But, you're right...you are one of the people who counts and I'm glad you're here to talk sense at me. I suppose sometimes the first instinct is to get in all of the abuse oneself, before anyone else can."

"That does make it easier to ignore others, certainly," Shiro agreed. He ran his free hand nervously through his hair, and then briefly patted the taller man's shoulder reassuringly.

"Merci." The Canadian managed to dredge up a smile. "As a more immediate answer to your question, I am going to order lunch, help you kill another bottle, and just let the morning sink in. If you are amiable, of course."

Shiro turned to look out the window at the beautiful snow-covered mountains and smiled. "I do not think there is a better way to spend a vacation, sir."