Dani and Jean-Paul

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

Dani takes Jean-Paul out to play pool and they get to know each other a bit.



There wasn't a lot going on. It was Wednesday and it was reasonably quiet. Well, quiet for Xavier's anyways, which wasn't very, but Dani had long since learned to tune a lot of it out. She was currently walking around outside, enjoying the spring weather. As usual, she was alone, but it was not something she considered to be a problem. She enjoyed it, both the weather and the solitude, though she was making an effort to be more social. Now just wasn't one of those times.

The man seated beneath the tree was a plethora of sinuous, sharp-toothed fears, all held in check by the thinnest of threads or else loomed over and browbeaten by more urgent, consuming horrors themselves. He looked up from his book and nodded as she approached.

"Ca va, Danielle?"

Oooh. She liked his fears. Sharp and contrasting. Delicious. Reining her powers in, Dani approached, her shields automatically growing stronger. As nice as they were, losing herself in them was rude. She knew that, though it was always so tempting. Looking down at him, Dani stood there for a moment before replying, "I don't know what you said."

"Sorry. I asked how you were doing." He marked the book with a metal clip shaped like a silver starburst and shut it. "I do not think we have actually spoken since I arrived, have we?"

"Probably not," Dani sat down a little ways away from him, "Dani. You knew that though," he had called her Danielle. No one called her Danielle, but with his accent it didn't sound so bad. "You're...JP? Jean...Phillipe?" She took a guess. She was aware that there were two JP's from France.

"Jean-Paul. Though if you wish to mistake me for a man twenty years younger than myself, I cannot complain too loudly." He affected a pained expression. "But not 'JP'. It does not even cut down on the number of syllables. Just 'Paul' will do if the rest is too much."

Shaking her head slightly, Dani smiled, at least he had taken her blunder well, "Jean Paul then. But Dani is fine for me," Danielle always seemed so...hoity toity and feminine, neither of which Dani was. She'd grown up as one of the boys for the most part, despite learning to cook and clean and take care of a house and then later having a baby and such. Pregnancy had not put her in touch with her feminine side. "I'm alright though. You?"

"Honestly, Dani? Pining for the pool hall. My usual mentor is only allowed on his feet for so many hours a day, so no pool for me." He held up his book again. "So I am attempting to be virtuous instead -- reviewing material for the fall semester. Fitzgerald. The senior class is not going to love me."

Wrinkling her nose, Dani was glad that she was not in school anymore. She had spoken with one of the counselors at her school and they were hesitant to let her come back with failing out her first semester and the dropping unexpectedly last semester and being thought dead. She'd been passing until that point. It just seemed that she was getting further and further away from her goal. She had missed the spring semester too. Right now, she had a place for fall, but she wasn't sure. "Glad I don't gotta read that," she said, but her eyes had lit up on the idea of the pool hall. "I don't play much pool, but...I'd be willing to play with you, if you'd like," she offered. She'd liked pool back home.

"I would offer to buy you a beer for the rescue, but you do not drink, that is right? So a Coke minus the rum?" Jean-Paul rose and stretched carefully, frowning a bit as his back popped. He'd have to do more limbering exercises with the next work-out. "If I am driving, we need to check out a car."

"I don't," Dani agreed, falling in step with him easily, they were almost the same height. "It's a personal choice, I don't mind you drinking so long as I drive back," her parents had been killed when she was a toddler by a drunk driver. She wouldn't ride with someone who had been drinking and on the reservation growing up, alcoholism had been rampant. "But yes. A car is useful to go places."

"Then off we go."

--------

They were set up with non-alcoholic drinks and a pool table at Harry's in short order. Jean-Paul sipped his water as Dani broke, eying the table speculatively. "So how long have you been at the school?"

"Um," she watched the balls scattered, though none fell into the pockets. Darn. She was not a great pool player, "Four years, about," since she was 17, though she had turned 18 shortly after arriving. She was 22 now. "Ain't the most social usually."

"Nor am I. But I have fallen into the habit. My job rather requires it these days." Jean-Paul lined up his shot and sank the four ball. "I confess, I never saw myself as the type who would voluntarily work with children."

With him sinking the ball, he became solids and her stripes. Alright. Waiting while he took his next shot, Dani leaned on her pool cue and nodded, "Not sure teenagers count as 'children,'" though there were some younger kid-types at the school, the majority were teenagers, especially older teens. "But I understand. Don't think anyone ever expected it," she certainlt hadn't. If her life had gone how she had seen it at 17 she'd be married, have several kids and would still be in Oklahoma. She was pretty sure she was glad she wasn't there now, at least, most days.

"Oh no?" Jean-Paul glanced up. "Where were you headed?"

She looked up at JP as she lined up her shot, "When I came to the school I was pregnant and married. You can do the math," she took her shot, missing the ball she was aiming for completely by a hair. She sighed and stood up to give him a turn.

"'Nowhere fast', I am guessing." He hadn't noticed any talk of Dani having a child on the journals, but, as she has said, she wasn't the most social. Still, if the baby was still around, surely someone would have mentioned something when she was presumed dead. It seemed likely to be a painful topic, or at least awkward. "You know, I do think I owe you another drink. Possibly more."

"Nowhere fast was all I knew," she pointed out, "Came from nowhere. Don't know what you know of reservations, but the ones without casinos are generally not places you want to be. I was living the only life I ever expected...then turned out I was a mutant and here I am. I'll tell ya, this ain't the rez," she chuckled, "Ain't a bad place though most of the time. Got its character."

"And characters." Jean-Paul sank another ball. "I suppose I had a lot of options. I just could not see any of them. Or I did not want to. Selective blindness. But it is working out for the best."

Nodding, Dani understood. That was a lot of what she had faced as a kid, it was hard to see options when there was so much failure surrounding her. Now it was easier, "Yup. What's that poem? The road less taken? It might be valid," she finally managed to sink a ball! Score! "Anyways, I'll start college back in the fall. Planning to graduate eventually."

"No rush on that, I think. I took my own time getting my degrees." Dani had to move up beside him to take her next shot. Something about her proximity sent a frission of nervous energy across his fears, tingling against her shields, though he seemed unaware of it, or was at least good at hiding it.

"Even if I don't get them," she shrugged, "Got farther than expected," and she was free to make her own life, no husband, no children. Her choices without having to consider the impact on her family. Her friends were different. "Anyways, tell me about you? Other than your prank wars and not being Jean-Philipe."

"Not so much to tell that cannot be found on Wikipedia." Jean-Paul contemplated the table. "Orphan, former skiing champion, former government-sponsored superhero type. I stopped by here briefly about five years back, intending to teach, but left due to family issues showing up on the doorstep. And here I am again, still needing to have sense knocked into me on occasion." He made his shot, but left a stripe teetering on the edge of the pocket. "All in all, I have been in far worse situations. I think I will stay this time."

That he had his own wikipedia entry was more than a little horrifying, "...wikipedia?" she asked, not wondering what it was, but boggled that he would have one, "You have a wiki entry? That is...unreal...Should I ask for your autograph or something?" she'd had no idea.

Jean-Paul laughed. "Oh, I know I like you now. And no, you definitely should not ask. Anything noteworthy I did happened decades ago. The rest of it was all just work and shouting."

"Hey, you're the closest I've ever met to a celebrity. And I didn't even know it," she was amused. Sinking her 7 ball, she tried again and only succeeded in getting her 3 ball away from the 8 by about an inch. She'd take it as a success, "Nice to know famous people end up with real lives and not reality TV once in a while."

"Well, there was that business with Arcade and the field trip," the speedster mused, "but I suppose kidnapping does not count."

Her face darkening, Dani nodded shortly, she didn't want to discuss kidnappings, "Your turn," she gestured towards the table.

"Sorry." There wasn't any need to elaborate on the subject of why, he hoped. "This is not that much like real life, I expect."

"I don't know," Dani replied, sinking a ball, "My life seems pretty real to me. At least, the consequences. Maybe yours isn't, Mr. Olympic medalist-turned-high school teacher," she was joking and intentionally not referring to his more extra-curricular activities. "Reality TV ain't real, you know. This is," she gestured to the bar around them.