Jean-Paul and Johnny

[x-ricochet.livejournal.com]

Jean-Paul and Johnny make the trek into New York City and get caught in traffic. The speedster is not pleased.



He had to have been out of his mind to agree to drive into the city on a weekend. On any day. The traffic was at such a crawl that it would have been faster to walk (not that the heavy clouds and occasional rain spatter against the windows made that the most tempting of propositions).

Jean-Paul sighed and tried to calm down. They would get there when they got there. He glanced over at the boy in the passenger seat. "We should be there in about an hour."

Johnny nodded, seemingly unphased by the creeping traffic or the already overpowering sounds of the city that were spilling into the car despite the closed windows and the fairly early hour. He'd grown up here, after all. It was all par for the course. Jean-Paul, however, had not and the occasional quick tapping of the steering wheel and the worn sigh made how he felt about it fairly obvious. The boy couldn't help but imagine the speedster stuck in the myriad of other delays that came with city life: waiting for the subway or stuck in a long line at the grocery store even at eleven o'clock at night. He smiled just a little. The Big Apple likely wasn't the his professor's cup of tea. "...Sorry. I didn't think it would be quite this bad."

"I have music, I have conversation. I will live." Behind them, someone honked. Jean-Paul twitched. "Though you may have increased your French vocabulary somewhat by the time we get back to the school."

The white-haired teen's smile remained, sheepish and faintly amused despite his best efforts. "I know you will. It's the guy behind us I'm worried about," he replied as he looked out the window again. The neighborhood was familiar; his dad's house wasn't far from here. The thought was somewhat sobering, but he did his best to keep his tone light and looked back to Jean-Paul, "Just not the kind I'm allowed to use, right?"

"Precisely so. I am not supposed to be teaching you these terrible things." Jean-Paul quirked a smile, which vanished quickly as they were honked at again. He wondered if he could quick-dissasemble the man's steering column and swear Johnny to secrecy on the matter. "I miss my car. I may go home to get it this summer."

"I don't think the car would make much difference in stop-and-go," the teen offered with renewed sympathy and soft amusement. And, of course, an unspoken curiosity that he couldn't help but act on a few moments later. "...'Home' isn't Xavier's?"

"The fact that it is my car makes a difference." Jean-Paul turned down the stereo and considered the question. "'Home' is a rather elusive concept. It is getting there, I suppose. I have a house in Laval that I have not really lived in for more than year. A couple of other places I hide out at occasionally. But I am thinking that I need my car here, so I suppose I must be leaning in that direction."

Johnny nodded along as Jean-Paul spoke, even if he didn't have a clue where Laval was and found the notion of living in so many different places, let alone at the same time, to be utterly foreign. Still, the last of the man's words made him smile a little. He supposed he was starting to lean that direction as well. "So...what kind of car is it, anyway?"

"Mercedes SL55 convertible." The older man looked just a bit wistful. "I have not really given it as much attention as it deserves over the years, but you know...things come up."

The teen was far from an expert on cars, but the words 'Mercedes' and 'convertible' were more than enough to impress. His smile widened a small degree. No wonder Jean-Paul missed a car like that. "Never a boring day at Xavier's, huh?"

Jean-Paul grinned. "I did bring it with me the first time down. It was my Christmas present to me and I did not feel like leaving it behind." The reason why he'd felt the need to distract himself with an extravagant gift really had no place in this conversation. "I should go back and get it. Take a week off over the summer, fly to Laval, and take my time coming back."

The notion of such an escapade was immediately exciting, even if it had nothing to do with him, and Johnny's features lit up faintly with eager curiosity. "Like a road trip?"

"Something like that, yes." The entire situation was sad, really. He was driving a boy to pay his respects at his mother's grave, and, while, his father did not live so far away, but Johnny might as well have been an orphan. He did not think that Johnny had been given many chances for road trips, given his father's neglect. "Would you be interested in such a thing?"

This clearly caught Johnny off guard. The young man hadn't been fishing for an invitation and even if he had been, he never would have expected to actually get one. "Y-...yeah! I mean...if you'd actually want me along..."

"I would not have made the offer if I did not." The idea that he might not have been entirely kidding about diffuse brain damage with Jay did occur to him as he spoke.

Recovering from his shock, Johnny smiled with transparent enthusiasm, "Then count me in! Definitely! So...where is this Laval place, anyway?"

---

The visit to the cemetery ends with appropriately stormy weather and the discovery of common ground.



It had begun to rain in earnest by the time they reached Woodlawn. Teacher and student shared an umbrella as they made the walk from the parking facilities to the gravesite-for-two, currently occupied by one modest, white headstone -- a slant marker bearing the simple inscription: "Allison Gallo -- beloved wife and mother. 1971 - 2001."

Johnny walked silently alongside the older man, listening to the rhythmless patter of rain on the umbrella and the dull sloshing of soaked grass under their feet. The light mood from the earlier moments of their drive had gone, seeming to follow the same cues as the increasingly gray and sober sky. This place always left him feeling worn and tired and the blank face of the stark, white marker they settled in front of was so unlike the woman it meant to represent it made him want to cry. He shoved his hands into his pockets, saying nothing for the time being.

"Would you like some time to pay your respects privately?" Jean-Paul asked, his voice pitched low enough that it was almost lost beneath the rain, as if the he could disturb the buried dead all around them were he not careful.

"...If you don't mind." The teen was surprised by how soft his own voice came out. He had always come alone and was not accustomed to speaking to anyone here but his mother.

Jean-Paul nodded and left the umbrella with Johnny as he wandered off, looking to the trees, to the mausoleums in the distance, to the gates leading out...everywhere but the graves themselves. He'd left more than a few of his own people buried and he had no desire to be reminded of them now. He wasn't even sure why he'd agreed to bring Johnny, except that he truly hadn't had plans at the time.

Johnny took the offered umbrella inattentively. By the time he had any thought to protest the matter, seeing as they only had one between them and it did belong to Jean-Paul, the man was gone and he didn't have the energy to follow. His eyes returned to the marker and he exhaled quietly, feeling the remainder of his strength seep out with the breath. There was so much to tell her, but he wasn't certain where to start or if there was any point in trying at all. Eight years of coming here and he was still wondering that same thing. He kneeled to touch the marker.

Jean-Paul kept his distance for a time, until he saw lightning starting to flicker in the distance. Respects or not, it was time to leave.

"Johnny." He gave ample warning as he approached. "I am sorry, but the weather is getting worse. We should go."

The boy halted in whatever quiet words he was offering to the silent earth and raised his head, his teacher's careful words and the distant rumble of thunder breaking his focus. He gave a small nod and stood, offering the man a sad smile and a weak joke as he moved to meet him with the umbrella, "...She did a lot to keep me safe. I guess electrocution while paying a visit to her grave probably wouldn't be the way she'd want me to go."

"I doubt it," Jean-Paul agreed softly, laying a hand on the boy's shoulder to guide him back to the car. "Certainly not so young, hm?"

"...Yeah," Johnny agreed quietly and allowed the older mutant to lead him back through the familiar field of stones. After what seemed like a long while, the city started to come into view again at the edge of this surreal place and he added, "She...was a mutant, you know. My mom. I think she'd be happy that I got to go to a place like Xavier's." Circumstances notwithstanding.

"She was not out?" It was just barely a question, but Jean-Paul allowed for the slimmest possibility that Johnny's father had other reasons for being a bastard to his son besides bigotry.

"No. It was...our secret, I guess." Johnny smiled thinly, the expression bittersweet at best. "Rumors left and right after she died, though. It made Darren furious."

"Just when I think I cannot dislike your father any more..." Jean-Paul cut himself off. "Sorry. I should not have said that."

Johnny lowered his gaze and shook his head, coaxing a few unkempt bits of white hair into his eyes, "...Don't be. I know the feeling."

"I think my job description calls for me to be a bit more objective." A gust of cold wind tugged uselessly as their sodden clothes. "I lost my mother when I was very young as well. I do not even remember her face."

A small shiver ran through the teen's shoulders and his expression weakened as he looked up at Jean-Paul. He couldn't imagine what his childhood would have been if he had never known his mother even enough to recall the gentle qualities of her face. "...I'm sorry."

"That was probably the least painful way to have it happen. Thank you anyway." They finally reached the car. Jean-Paul unlocked the doors and flicked on the heater. "Your mother, what was she like?"

Johnny frowned quietly, but even he had enough sense not to push the matter. He slipped into the car as quickly as he could manage, shaking out the umbrella against the floor mat while the older man started up the car. The question drew him into stillness, the answer lingering on his lips and the tip of his tongue but somehow seeming impossible to get out. "She...mom was the kindest person I've ever known. She was the only thing that ever made us a family."

Jean-Paul was quiet a time, giving the boy room to speak further if he wished, but Johnny remained quiet.

"I am sorry that you had to lose her, to lose that security. But I do think that you're right...she probably would have been happy to see you at the school, someplace where something so much a part of you does not have to be kept a secret."

There was much more to say, but finding the words proved an increasingly daunting task. Johnny frowned faintly to himself, but allowed the silence to linger until Jean-Paul spoke again. "I just hate that hers did. When I was a kid...I thought it was cool. Some secret pact between the two of us. I never thought about how hard it was for her."

"As it should be," Jean-Paul said quietly. "There is something to be said for honesty, I suppose, but a parent's first instinct will be to protect her child from the harsher aspects of the world. I do not think we are supposed to be grateful for that until we are old enough to realize the why of it."

"...Maybe. But now I'll never have a chance to thank her for any of it."

"Not as such, no. But it is still a good thing to acknowledge it, even if for your own sake."

Johnny took an extended look out the window at Woodlawn, then returned his gaze to Jean-Paul with thin brows inwardly knit, "For my sake?"

"When the world looks very bleak, it can be a comfort to know that someone cared so much," Jean-Paul clarified. The windshield wipers started up, swishing against the glass as they pulled away.

This silenced Johnny for a time. The most bleak moment of his life had been losing her and such knowledge had been no comfort then, but how often had he looked at his mother's picture after the events with Darren? With the Stepfords? Maybe the older mutant was on to something. That she was still taking care of him after all this time...somehow it didn't seem like such a strange notion. "I...bet your mom did too."

"She died saving my life. It is hard to think otherwise." Even if it was a relatively recent revelation, and a confusing one that he had not quite managed to fully integrate into his view of the world.

"She did?" This hit so close to home it was impossible to keep any fraction of the resulting sympathy from his face.

Jean-Paul considered the unspoken request for details before deciding that it would be all right, so far as he kept the graphic details out. He wasn't especially keen on dragging them up either. "It was a bad automobile collision. My father was killed on impact. My sister and I were very little, only two years old, and trapped in the wreck. There was a fire from the collision and so she went back in to get us."

Perhaps a little too close to home. Johnny shrunk in his seat despite himself, swallowing tightly and saying nothing.

"Des-...sorry," Jean-Paul sighed. "This is my day for poor conversation topics."

The teen shook his head, replying only once he could trust his voice to remain mostly even, "...I appreciate it. That you trust me enough to tell me." Especially after what had happened with the Cuckoos. He owed his professor the same candor in return, at the very least. "My mom...it was a wreck too. We were walking home and this car ran up on the sidewalk. She used her powers to push me out of the way, but..." He couldn't say any more, not without having his throat lock completely. And there was no need to.

Jean-Paul glanced over at him. "I have never actually been to my parents' gravesite," he confessed. "I never saw that there was a need until recently. Perhaps we should do that during our trip."

Johnny was relieved despite himself. They had both told their stories and there had been no need for further discussion on either of them. The unspoken comprehension of such similar experiences was enough. He turned to meet the brief glance, "...We should." He added, with a small smile, "Maybe you'll get some of that 'closure' stuff I've heard so much about."

Jean-Paul laughed softly, though there was no actual humor to the sound. "Maybe. Anything is possible."