Julian and Johnny (backdated to April 19th)

[x-ricochet.livejournal.com]

A round of Street Fighter leads Julian and Johnny to a serious discussion about the rumors floating about the mansion.


As much as Johnny's current mood made him feel like locking himself in his room for the entirety of the weekend, the simple fact of the matter was that doing so would just make him feel worse. It was like he had told Jean-Paul when he'd still been able to approach the man: dwelling on anything that much wasn't good for anyone. After a long and restless Saturday he had remembered this fact and so today had retreated to the (thankfully empty) recreation room, attempting to distract himself and take his frustrations out on all the humanoid bundles of pixels Street Fighter IV had to offer. He was on his way to a decent score, but it didn't help as much as he'd hoped. Every time one of them fell he couldn't help but think about...

He sighed tightly and paused the game, tossing the controller carelessly onto the coffee table and slumping back into the couch.

For the last few minutes, Julian had been standing behind the couch, unaware that Johnny's super-active senses hadn't told his younger roommate he was there. "Usually people get mad when they're loosing."

Johnny jumped despite himself, quick to scramble and turn to look at the older boy. How he could have missed Julian's arrival was beyond him and he wondered quietly just how long he had been there and how wrapped up he must have been in his own head to ignore his fastidious senses. "...I don't like this stage," he replied, but with such with such transparent insincerity that no one would believe it for a minute.

Julian vaulted over the couch and picked the second player controller off the coffee table. Without asking he tossed player one back at Johnny as he pressed start; the game resoundingly proclaiming that a new challenger was approaching. "Then let's play a different one."

The white-haired boy's reaction time, at least, seemed to be up to par. He caught the controller easily, albeit with a somewhat dumbfounded expression, "O-..okay." The character selection screen came up. His own cursor was already locked on Vega and the game waited impatiently for Julian's decision.

"I guess I'll try Zangief this time," he pressed the button and smiled, "don't want to beat you too badly." In truth, Johnny's powers made him very good at this particular kind of game and he'd beaten Julian more often than not. The match started and the fight was actually going in his favor- which was odd- "Are you trying to lose?"

Johnny gave a thin and fleeting smile. For a time they played without speaking, his unfortunate character's life bar gradually wearing. He wasn't trying to lose, but he definitely was. "No. Just doing it the old fashioned way," he tried to joke, though that nonchalance toward the fact, too, was odd.

As Zangief finished Vega off with a pile-driver, Julian threw a triumphant hand up in the air in a silent cheer of victory. The second round began, "Not really my place to tell you how to play, but...using your powers isn't exactly cheating."

"It's not like I can turn off my reflexes. I'm just...having off day." As if on cue, Vega found himself on the receiving end of a body slam.

"Yeah?" Zangief followed the body slam up by tossing the Spanish cage fighter to the other side of the screen. "What's going on?"

Johnny frowned tightly and feigned a focus on the screen as the dispassionate battle continued. "...Nothing really." It didn't take long for Julian to earn the victory, his hulking Russian avatar gloating on the screen. The character selection menu returned and the white-haired teen toyed idly with the controller in his hands without giving much thought to it. "...Can I ask you something?

"Yeah," Julian made his new selection, trying on C. Viper for their next match. After a beat without Johnny selecting a character, Keller turned to face his younger roommate. "Sounds like it's something serious, what's up?"

Johnny lingered long enough that the game had to select a character for him. Balrog was a humorous fit at best. He met Julian's gaze briefly, then lowered his eyes, "Good people...can do really bad things, right? Or are there just lines that you can't cross without...?"

A philosophical question was not what Julian had been anticipating. "I guess that depends...I mean, a good person is someone who makes the right choices, but accidents do happen. Why do you ask?"

An accident. Johnny wished he could consider the possibility, but the option simply wasn't there. Whether the teacher's action had been forced or not, it was not accidental. He shook his head. "I heard..." he hesitated, then opted to keep the names to himself, "Some of the teachers talking. It...sounded pretty gruesome."

"You mean about Mister Beaubier killing someone?"

The white-haired teen was momentarily dumbfounded, then a heavy frown settled on his features. He nodded mutely. How Julian had heard about the incident, he wasn't sure, but there was little point in being subtle about it anymore.

Damn Cuckoos. "Lemme take a guess. Sofie, Esme, Celeste and Pheobe told you that he'd killed someone in Canada and gotten away with it. Dude, you shouldn't listen to them, they get off on causing drama." Julian offered Johnny a confident smile.

"You're not listening," the younger teen insisted in a small voice. If anything, that certain smile made him feel worse. "I heard Mr. Beaubier and Mr. Summers talking. He said he did."

For a moment Julian wasn't sure he'd heard him right, "What?"

Jean-Paul Beaubier...a murderer? The Stepfords...telling the truth? Couldn't be.

"What did you hear?" His smile was gone.

"Not very much," Johnny admitted weakly, shaking his head, "Not even the reason. But enough to know he did it." And how. But the word seemed too unsettling to say out loud.

"You're sure?" the remote was back on the coffee table, the game all but forgotten. "Who'd he kill?"

"I'm sure."

Johnny slumped in his seat and shook his head again, "I don't know. He didn't say." He did his best not to put a face on the dead man, whoever he might be. Especially with that image of a severed head and a pair of shoulders topped by nothing. He could feel every muscle in his body tighten. "There's got to be a reason, right?"

"Dude, of course there's a reason. Mister Beaubier wouldn't just kill someone- he's not some sort of Canadian psychopath." Julian took a second to think back, "The man helped me out when I was feeling like crap over nearly getting everyone in the mansion killed. He's not someone who'd do something like that."

This was something Johnny needed desperately to hear and it gave him the perspective that his thoughts had been lacking the last day or two, somehow lost in the disturbing nature of the matter. He smiled very weakly, "You're right. He's not." But the expression was fleeting and his shoulders soon slumped a little. "...He seemed fine when I saw him before that. But I guess this isn't the kind of news he'd be eager to spread around."

"Yeah, probably not." Julian picked back up his controller, "Did you think our school was being run by crazed murderers or something?" His smile slowly returned, but with less certainty than it had recently shown. Then a thought hit him, "Wait a second, could the Cuckoos have planted this whole thing in your head?"

Johnny frowned, seeming uncertain and even a little embarrassed that he had been (and was still) unable to shrug the matter off so easily as his peer. The teasing wasn't helping either. He seemed about to answer, but Julian's sudden question cut him off. He looked perplexed, "The 'Cuckoos'?" He knew their faces after their peculiar encounter, but their shared name had no meaning to him yet.

"Oh, um, there's four, blond girls around here who look exactly alike. They're the Stepford sisters- or as they're more commonly known, the Cuckoos. They're kind cute, but also a little," he made a gesture to indicate 'crazy.'

A troupe of identical blond girls quite possibly missing a few marbles? Johnny had only seen three of them, but it wasn't exactly a common description. The memory of the trio made his frown deepen and he nodded, "I saw them. When I was going back up to the mansion." He remembered the conversation vividly, along with the unease it had brought him. Though with this new information from Julian, the idea that they could mess with his head like that...their words seemed to take on new meaning. He suddenly understood why they had thanked him and it made his skin crawl.

"...They got it from me."

"What do you mean?" Julian turned back toward his roommate, confused.

"They thanked me. They...said they were 'bored' and that I'd given them an idea. I didn't know what they meant, but..." The younger mutant's brows furrowed and his eyes averted briefly before returning to Julian, seemingly seeking confirmation of the unpleasant fact. It was hardly necessary, though. It was the only explanation that gave the Cuckoos' teasing and sharp smiles any consistent meaning.

"Ohhh, yeah, that would explain why they've been telling everyone." He tried to remember his lessons about telepathy with Nathan, particularly about how thoughts that were more disturbing tended to surface more easily. "Johnny, you must have been really disturbed by all this- why didn't you say something til now?"

"What was I going to say?" Johnny shook his head, exhaling quietly, "Besides, it wasn't my secret to tell. If I'd gone around blabbing to everyone, I'd have been just as bad the Cuckoos." Well, maybe not quite as bad. There was something about their detached amusement that made their intentions seem considerably worse than any he could've had.

They both spent a moment without speaking, the only sound in the room coming from the video game. "So...what are you going to do?"

The younger mutant shook his head again. "...I don't know. Talking to those girls wouldn't do any good at this point." If it ever would have. He lifted one hand, pushing slim fingers through his unkempt hair as he ducked his head and considered the situation. "...I should tell Mr. Beaubier what happened, shouldn't I?"

"Couldn't hurt...probably." Julian settled back onto his half of the couch and looked at the dark clouds looming on the horizon, "He's a really nice guy, Jay, you'll see."