Sarah Vale and Jean-Paul

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

Sarah and Jean-Paul meet. Twin issues and typical Xavier's weirdness are discussed, and the two decide to get away from the school for a bit.



Jean-Paul wasn't sure which was more disconcerting -- having to constantly brace against a barrage of horror-show images, or rounding a corner and coming across someone who provoked no reaction whatsoever. The girl was sitting on the patio, bent over her laptop and seemingly unconcerned with the world around her at all.

Jean-Paul set the animal carrier in his hand down and cleared his throat softly.

"'Allo. You are new here?"

The technopath's dark head lifted at the sound of a man's voice cutting into her concentration. "Oh, um, yeah. Hi," she said softly and turned back to quickly finish off the sentence of her email on her screen before looking up at him once again. "I'm Sarah Vale." The student couldn't place him though; too many names and faces over the last month had crowded into her head leaving a hodgepodge of people she could barely sort. "I'm sorry, I don't know who you are, though."

"Ah, yes. We spoke briefly on the journals. Jean-Paul Beaubier. Literature teacher." He looked down at the carrier. "And this is Jenner, the most spoiled rodent in all of Christendom."

The reflex to flinch was too powerful and Sarah ended up inching nearly half a foot more away from the cage. "No offense, but does everyone here have rodents?" she asked with another of her confused frowns. The expression was almost constant these days and she was beginning to wonder if her mother was right and that her face would freeze that way.

"Not everyone. Sefton and Angelo have dogs, Kyle and Scott have cats, Nathan had a parrot, I believe Madame Frost has a tank of scenery that she likes to pretend are pets, and Kitty had a dragon just before I left." Jean-Paul inched the carrier further away from the girl to keep her discomfort to a minimum.

The young student did a double-take with the last animal listed. "Dragon? Like a komodo dragon? I didn't know those were legal in New York."

"My answer is going to depend entirely on whether or not the school has maxed out your tolerance for weirdness this month." He offered her a slight smile as he sat himself on the low wall bordering the patio.

"More like this year," she replied with a little sigh and a glance back at her computer screen where Jessie's email waited. "The people here are nice and all but... It's just really different, you know? I mean, I like it and all, but it's not home. And all the weird stuff is kind of making me wish I was back in DC."

"This place can be overwhelming, even if you are used to a certain amount of abnormality in your day-to-day life. Who did you leave behind?"

Sarah nodded her agreement. "Very overwhelming. Especially when you find someone crawling up your wall who looks like an overgrown smurf. And my mom and dad and my twin sister."

"Ah." Jean-Paul nodded. "It is especially hard to be away from a twin, non? Though sometimes just as difficult to be in proximity."

Again the student's head bobbed. "Jessie can be a pest and all but she's still my sister. We did a lot of stuff together, which, yeah, it totally typically twinliness though I didn't realize how much I really didn't want to be different until I was."

Sarah's words caused a twinge of sadness (and darker memories) in the Canadian. How long had it been since he and his sister had even been alike enough to touch without causing each other pain? Almost twenty years? "It is not pleasant to find yourself differentiated from your other half, especially when the choice is not your own. But the bond between twins is surprisingly tenacious. It will endure this change, I think."

"I don't know. It's kind of a big change," she sighed, saving the email then closing the top to her laptop over. Some research had been done and documentation twins and their mutations. Pairs who both manifested. If powers were similar... but not nearly enough specifically focused on sets in which only one child was the mutant. "Do you have another half?" Sarah asked after her mind wandered back to the teacher.

"Yes. A twin sister as well. Our powers were practically identical, until she managed to change them." He shook his head. "Do not ask me how this happened. She said it was not my business. Now we cannot touch each other without both of us losing access to our powers. But still...we are siblings and love each other. Do not discount your sister yet, hm?"

Biting her lower lip, the technopath started to fiddle with the steampunk watch on her left wrist. "I'm not. It's just hard being away from each other like this, especially now that there's this difference." Defect. Mutation. It didn't matter what it was called; it all meant the same thing in the end. "I miss her. And mom and dad, too, but mostly Jessie. Especially when the weird stuff is happening."

"It is not so far to DC," Jean-Paul suggested gently, "and this is not prison. Do you think any of them would be up for a visit?"

She gave a little shrug. "I don't know. I mean, I'm going to see them in August and that's not that far away..." A month. She could make it a month.

"You sound as if you are counting the minutes. I am sorry that your adjustment is going so roughly." Jean-Paul glanced down at Jenner. "I could put the rodent back in his cage and take you on a tour of Salem Center if you like. That is a bit closer to normal. It might be good to have a respite." For both of them.

"It's not bad," Sarah admitted. "I talk to my sister a lot on the phone and computer and my parents, too. It's just, well, there is a lot of weirdness and I kind of had an incident with another student."

Jean-Paul sighed. "Tell me it wasn't one of the Stepford girls."

"Is Catseye one of them?"

"Catseye? Non. She can be...unconventional, but she is not a malicious little snot." He barely caught himself on the last word and even looked a bit sheepish after. "Desole. I really should not speak of students in that manner. Forget I said that, please. But what happened with Catseye? The usual issue is drive-by pouncing, or a case of mistaken identity."

Sarah looked back at her watch and started to play with it. "I didn't know she was another girl," she said softly, frowning. "She was always a cat when she visited me and I didn't know she was another student and then, then she turned into a girl and I didn't know what to say or do." A light rose stained her cheeks.

Jean-Paul might have been amused if Sarah hadn't been so obviously upset. "When I first came back, Catseye decided to climb through my bedroom window with a freshly killed midnight snack and nap on my chest while I was asleep. I spent a minute petting her before she had a question to ask me, and then I wound up with a teenage girl straddling my chest instead. I had to literally toss her out of the room to get my bed back." He rested his chin on one knee. "Which I suppose is the long way of saying that Catseye truly doesn't understand a lot of human behavior and why people will act one way with a cat and not with a human. I know it likely does not help much, but she does not mean to offend. She has been here for a while, and certain aspects of human interactions still result in a bit of culture shock where she is concerned."

The pink turned a brighter scarlet. "She didn't straddle me or anything but she still slept in my bed. And um, was there when I was getting undressed and all for bed." Sarah's eyes never left her watch as she put the thought of waking up to the purple-haired girl in human form straddling her out of her head. "I didn't know she was another girl and I got upset when I found out and then she got upset because I was and everything was a mess but I'm not used to this! I've never been around other mutants!"

"Sarah, you are not at fault in this. No one is saying that this is all right, or that it is a mutant thing that you need to get used to. Catseye upset you and if you would like me to explain to her why what she did was inappropriate, that is fine." Jean-Paul did find himself somewhat disappointed in Catseye, even as he made the offer. He had thought that she understood better the difference between cats and people by this point, and why such behavior, even well-intentioned, would be considered a breach of privacy. "Catseye does not mean to deceive people with her cat form, she just truly does not see the difference. That does not excuse things, but I imagine that she felt she was being up-front about who she is."

A little sniffle and Sarah shrugged again. "I don't want to get anyone in trouble. I just, I don't know. There is so much here that's different and overwhelming at times and I haven't really been away from home or around other mutants before." Brown eyes slowly lifted back to the teacher's face and she made an attempt to offer him a half-smile. "I'm sorry. I feel like I'm rambling about this but I don't really talk to anyone here a lot."

Jean-Paul rose to his feet and walked over, offering his handkerchief as he arrived. "Have no fear, mademoiselle. Listening to students ramble is in my job description. This is no hardship." And he meant that sincerely. Being able to just talk to someone without making the effort to filter out horrific after-images was a relief.

"Thanks," she replied, taking the little square of cloth to wipe her nose. "I really appreciate it. I mean, I talk to Mr. Forge but not about this kind of stuff." No, it was all powers-related issues with him; what she could do, what she could be, and how she could get there while avoiding temptation as much as possible between rambling bouts of technobabble the girl still couldn't understand. "It helps though, so thank you."

"You are quite welcome. But please, do not feel as if you cannot talk to the staff here. We have all had to go through the adjustment period ourselves." He cleared his throat lightly. "To be quite honest, some of us are still adjusting. Have you been introduced to the RAs? Or Monsieur Haller? He is the guidance counselor here."

Her brow wrinkled at that, brown eyes growing a bit less watery. "No, I haven't. I did some exploring the first few days I was here but since then, I've sort of just stuck to my room or the rec room," Sarah confessed. Playing with her computer, trying to stretch her powers, it worked better when she was alone. Besides, she hadn't had much reason to interact with the other students. Even at the Fourth of July Bar-B-Que, she'd kept her distance.

"That sounds lonely indeed." Jean-Paul considered. "Would you care to take that tour? I can try to give you the Cliff Notes on some of the day-to-day oddities and better sounding boards here if you like."

"I think the tour sounds wonderful," she said, wiping her face again then sheepishly offering the handkerchief back to him. "Give me time to run my computer back inside? And um, do you mind if we leave the rat, too?"

The Canadian grinned. "You put away your laptop, I will put away my rodent, and I will meet you in the garage in fifteen."