Julian, Nathan, and Jean-Paul

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

Jean-Paul catches the Amazing Death-Defying Keller in action and tries to rein him in a bit.



If Jean-Paul hadn't been airing out the suite in preparation for the next Cammie experiment, he might have missed the sight of Julian hurtling past his window and hitting the ground not quite hard enough to prompt his literature teacher to dive after him in a panic. Instead, Jean-Paul slipped out of the window and landed in a controlled hover, looking mostly annoyed as Julian sat up and dusted himself off.

"Monsieur Keller, please explain what just happened."

Busted. "Oh, hey...Mister, Beaubier, um," Julian wiped a trickle of blood off his lip. When he'd hit the ground he'd had a telekinetic shield around himself and while it had absorbed most of the impact, his body was still hurting like he'd belly flopped off a high dive. After he hadn't died when Angel didn't catch him- which would have been much funnier if she hadn't felt so bad about it- he knew the fall wouldn't kill him, unless his powers stopped working for some reason. In his attempt to learn to fly, all he'd managed thus far was to make a vaguely human shaped impression in the soft spring earth under the flyers platform. He ran a hand through his hair, "I was just...learning to, um, fly?" he smiled apologetically.

'If I laugh, I lose all credibility.' Jean-Paul was still sorely tempted. He looked up at the roof, giving himself a moment to steady his hold on his composure, then offered the boy a hand up.

"Is Nathan about to jump off after you?"

His own hand grasped Jean-Paul's a moment later and he was pulled up with what seemed to be very little effort. Julian shook his head, "No, no one else was up there when I took attempt number..." he thought for a moment, "thirty-one...I think."

"Julian..." Jean-Paul shook his head; not just jumping off of the roof, but without even a spotter. "I know that TK flight doesn't fall under my purview, so perhaps I am missing some nuance, but this doesn't seem to be working all that well. Come on, let's get you cleaned up. Is there anything besides the split lip? I have a first-aid kit in my office."

"I'm fine, really," he wasn't, there was a slight ringing in his ears after that last fall and what he assumed as a bruise slowly forming on his chest. Fortunately, his legs were working fine as he hurried to keep up with the teacher. "I'm getting close to figuring it out. Of course, I thought that about thirty attempts ago too." He sighed, a little frustrated at yet another failure.

"If I may suggest from experience, throwing yourself off of heights doesn't work very well at inducing flight once you've figured out that you're not going to die." The speedster offered a rueful smile. "Not that I'm suggesting the alternative. I thought that you and Nate would be concentrating more on a standing lift-off."

There was a visible reaction at the statement, one part frustration and the rest trying to suppress it. While Nathan assured him it was possible, they simply had other things to work on first. When Julian Keller set his sights on something, nothing was going to get in his way. "Yeah, he has me working on some, um, other things right now."

"Some other things that do not include throwing yourself from the roof, I take it?" No smiling, Jean-Paul. Absolutely not.

On the other hand, Julian did chuckle. "Yeah, he has me working on moving multiple objects at once. Basic stuff. He showed me how he flies, in that giant...bird...thingy of his, but I'm still not one-hundred percent on how it works."

"I suppose if I try simply forbidding you from this type of training, you'll just try to be more circumspect than you are currently?"

One of his eyebrows rose above the other, he could probably guess the meaning of the word, but wanted to be sure. "Mister Beaubier, I don't understand, what's circumspect mean?" A very feint tinge of blush appeared in his cheeks, embarrassed at not knowing what must have surely been a common word.

"It means that you'll continue to jump from the roof, but you'll be sneakier about it."

"Oh," the definition was close to what he thought it might be. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"Reason it is, then." Jean-Paul opened the door to his office, sparing a moment to note how bare it was. He really did need to stop just carrying all of his work upstairs to his room. "While your determination and your willingness to take the initiative in your own training are admirable, I cannot say that I approve of the method you've chosen. For one thing, the roof is not nearly high enough to achieve the effect you seem to be going for -- by the time you've been in the air long enough to start adjusting, you've already hit the ground. More importantly, you're battering yourself black and blue and you don't seem to have made any progress. A split lip is little enough to worry about. A cracked sternum and broken ribs are far more serious. You need to consider other options."

Julian plopped down into one of the conveniently located chairs, feeling the bruise at Jean-Paul's last comment. "Okay, other options then. What did you have in mind?" He resisted the urge to look at the discoloration beneath his shirt- it would have to wait until his teacher couldn't see. 'It might hurt, but it's no big deal- I've been hurt worse.'

Jean-Paul took in the faint shadow of pain on the young man's face as he flopped into the chair. Maybe more than a split lip after all.

"For one thing -- and I know this is probably the last thing that you want to hear -- consider that Nathan likely has very good reasons for making sure that your control is reliable before he allows you to be your own sole source of support in mid-air." He searched the drawers of the desk, finally turning up the first-aid kit. There wasn't much to use it on, really, just a scrape or two, but he handed it over anyway. No use making Julian feel like a child having his knees band-aided while they had this discussion. "Discern those reasons and come up with counterpoints as to why you should move up to flight training. Nathan likely will not crumble before your logic at once, but it will show him that you are giving real thought to how your training progresses, not just going for the flashy stunts first."

"Yeah, I know he wants me to learn certain things before others, but," he knew that anything he said at this point would likely not matter. "It's hard having friends who can fly, knowing that you have it in you and staying on the ground." He paused, opening the kit and finding a antiseptic wipe. He opened it and pressed it to his lip, feeling the cleaning sting as it destroyed the bacteria, preventing infection. "It sucks."

"I do not doubt it. Being left behind when you know that you are capable of keeping up, but not the how of it will drive you crazy. I would rather you not wind up with broken bones in the course of getting your wings. That also sucks, trust me on that." The speedster flexed his wrist unconsciously at the memory. "I cannot make you talk to Nathan and I know I cannot stop you if you are determined to do this on your own. I would sleep better if you would try a method less hazardous to your health while you try to get airborne, however. The Danger Room is an option, if you can get someone to sign off. Or the trampolines in the gym." A slight grin. "Or even just having Callie dangle you from the climbing harnesses if you get truly desperate."

Julian cracked a smile for a brief moment, which hurt enough to make him stop. "Alright, I won't jump off the roof anymore...I'll try a," he hesitated, trying to find the right word, "safer way to figure this out." He shut the case and handed it back to the Canadian. "Any other advice you might have about flying?"

"For a beginner? Windy days are trouble, do not fly in stormy weather, and looking down is about as bad as they say it is."

A bit later, Jean-Paul goes to Nate to discuss Julian's new obsession with breaking his neck.



Jean-Paul was of two minds as he walked down to the boathouse. On the one hand, while it was probably the responsible thing to do, this felt very much like squealing. On the other, he didn't entirely trust an impatient teenager's definition of "safer"and Julian was not his student so far as powers training went. So talking to Nate it was.

At least Nathan wasn't hard to find; he was on the porch, looking content enough with life that it suddenly did seem a true shame to bother him.

"Enjoying the weather?"

Nathan smiled. "Quite," he said. "I told work to take a flying leap, Rachel decided for once that yes, she was going to have an afternoon nap and is all curled up peacefully in her bed, and amazingly, my hip is barely twinging today."

"Well, that is good." Jean-Paul helped himself to a seat on the steps. "It means that this is unlikely to be the straw that causes anything to snap, at least." He offered Nate an apologetic look. "I found your young protege hurling himself from the roof in an attempt to teach himself how to fly."

Nathan blinked. And then blinked again. "... you're joking."

"To his credit, he did a passable job of breaking his own fall. Bruises and scrapes only." Jean-Paul leaned back, elbows on the porch, heels on the bottom step. "He's overeager to be airborne."

The muscles in Nathan's jaw were twitching, but he eased back into his chair. His eyes were very narrow as he stared out at the lake, however. "I'm going to kill him."

"I do not think that will be necessary. I did get him to promise to seek safer avenues, but I thought it might be a good idea if I let his venerable mentor know what was going on. Has he brought the matter up with you before?"

"Yes." The tension in Nathan's shoulders didn't quite ease, but he looked a little less rigid than he had a moment ago. "And we've been doing the necessary preparatory work. You have to scale up to flying, when you're a telekinetic."

"I think all that Julian sees right now is Angelica in the sky and himself on the ground, and so assumes that he is standing still."

"He needs to develop a little patience," Nathan said, and if there was a snap in his voice, it was faint, and not really directed at Jean-Paul. "And yes, I know he's a teenaged boy, but his predilections are going to get him into trouble anyway, so he needs to be properly trained before he starts indulging them."

"I am not arguing." Jean-Paul shrugged easily. "You know his capabilities and how he should proceed better than I -- that is why I am talking to you."

Nathan sighed, then shrugged as well, although the gesture seemed more like an attempt to shake the tension than anything else. "And I can't even say 'when I was his age', because thankfully, Julian's situation when it comes to learning how to use his powers is utterly different than mine. He's wanting to learn how to fly. At his age I was learning how to produce a stroke telekinetically."

"I think I was a little older than him when I learned to fly. I cannot even say I had enough control over the situation to have jumped off of a cliff. I misjudged my brakes and took a header." He snorted softly. "It is a good thing I was recovering from my fright when he got up; I nearly burst out laughing as it was. Too serious and too ridiculous at once."

Nathan actually cracked a smile, if a very grudging one. "I won't kill him," he said. "But he and I will be having a talk, oh yes."