Jean-Paul and Victor (and Johnny), Sunday night

[x-victor.livejournal.com]

After finding the less-than-informative note Johnny left behind, Victor goes looking for his missing roommate and finds him asleep on Jean-Paul's couch. While Johnny sleeps, Vic and Jean-Paul talk.



Victor didn't want to get Johnny in trouble. He really didn't. But he had to admit that he was worried. He clutched a now-wrinkled piece of paper in his hand as he wandered through the halls, searching for the staff quarters, trying to find the only adult he really knew so far. He hesitated outside Mr. Beaubier's door, then glanced at the note. No, something was going on with Johnny. He raised a green hand and knocked on his teacher's door.

Mr. Beaubier answered the door with a brown and white rat on one shoulder, and a bulge in his shirt pocket likely connected to the rodenty tail hanging over the edge. The older mutant looked mildly surprised to see Victor standing there; the green youth's expression certainly didn't look as if it heralded good news.

"Victor. Is there something wrong?"

"Oh, good, you're still awake. Um." The boy's relief was short-lived. He glanced down at the note in his hand, then shoved it at his professor. "Johnny left this note and I don't want to get him in trouble but I'm not sure what's wrong and I don't know if I did something to make him upset or if it's something else but--" His verbal barrage came to a stumbling halt as the older man took a step backwards to reveal Johnny asleep on his couch. "Oh. Um. You found him."

"I do not know that 'found' is precisely correct. Johnny got some upsetting news today and asked if he could stay the night. I agreed, on the condition that he let you know he would be gone." Jean-Paul glanced down at the note in his hand.

"Not going to be in tonight. Not sure when I’ll be back. Sorry.

-Johnny"

One dark eyebrow rose.

"Not the most reassuring message in the world, is it?"

Now Vic felt sheepish. "Um, no, not really. But if he was upset..." He trailed off, worried eyes fixed on his sleeping roommate. "Is it...Is there anything I should do?"

Jean-Paul closed the door to his suite and went to cage the rats, while he considered how to respond to that. Nicodemus, well aware of what was coming, tried to scramble free, but rodent desperation wasn't a match for mutant reflexes.

"I am not sure there is much that can be done, save giving him some time. A mutual friend of ours recently left the school to deal with a hospitalized family member back home in Canada." Jean-Paul headed to the kitchen to wash his hands. The flickering light of the French animation on television continued to cast shadows over the pale boy on the couch. "She will not be returning. They were close, it was a sudden departure, and he just needed to be near a familiar face, I think. Not that having friends nearby will hurt at all."

Vic continued to linger near the door, unsure as to whether or not he was intruding on his teacher. "I'm sure it didn't help that he had to move in with a stranger, too. Was his friend a student here?"

"Not precisely. She was part of an exchange program up north, but she was an adult training with the other adults here as part of a teamwork exercise. She mentored him a bit." He emerged from the kitchen again, hands in pockets. "But do not feel badly about your presence. I do think you and Johnny are getting on well. He was concerned about upsetting you with his problems; that is part of the reason he is here tonight."

"He doesn't have to worry about me," Vic mumbled, brain still working over the first part of what Jean-Paul had said. "So...she was a teacher doing training?"

"Not a teacher, no." Jean-Paul considered a moment. "Have you heard of Alpha Flight?"

Victor wrinkled his nose, thinking. "I don't think so, no. Some military thing?" he guessed.

"Close." Jean-Paul gestured to the chairs in the living room and turned down the volume on the movie. "Alpha Flight was a mutant response team backed by the Canadian government," he continued, taking a seat himself. "They mostly handled disaster relief and mutant-related crises. Our friend, Lillian, was a trainee, but she came down here to work with the X-Men, to polish up her teamwork skills. The two teams were aware of each other, as you can guess."

"Oh." For someone who'd grown up around a lot of adults, who'd spent his whole life seeing the more private side of his teachers, Victor was still a bit thrown by how blurry the lines between teacher, staff and student could be at Xavier's. Add in the X-Men and things got even more complicated. He pulled his bare feet up onto the seat of his chair, careful to keep his toes off of the furniture. More than anything, the last few days had been full of changes and information, and he hadn't quite processed it all yet. "I just wasn't sure where Johnny had gone, or if something was wrong," he said finally, tucking his knees under his chin.

"It has been a rather rough summer," Jean-Paul admitted. "Having someone he cared about leave on top of everything else was hard to take, and Johnny and I are fairly close anyway. I did not mind giving him somewhere to crash." The older man chuckled, relaxing into his seat. "That is my role here when I am not in the classroom -- I feed people and lend them sofa space when they need it."

The green boy perked up a bit at that. "Are you a good cook? My mom gave me some recipes in case I get homesick." Victor wasn't quite ready to admit that he already was, now that his parents were gone. "But I don't know how to cook, really, other than mac n'cheese. The kind from the box, not the real kind."

"The general opinion seems to be yes. I lived over a restaurant when I was a teen and my metabolism meant that I burned through calories quickly, so I took a rather keen interest in food." Jean-Paul stretched and resettled, leaning forward. "

'He who likes to eat should learn to cook' and all of that. I can teach you how, if you like. The basics are not hard to pick up."

"That would be awesome," Vic replied with a smile. "It's nothing fancy--meatloaf and pierogies and things like that. Although I don't think I got the crazy metabolism thing, unfortunately. I have to be careful, otherwise I'll start falling off of the ceiling. And that could get awkward."

"There are downsides. It has mellowed somewhat as I have gotten older, but there was a period where I was almost literally starving if I did not eat a full meal every four hours." Just thinking about that time made Jean-Paul glance back toward the kitchen and rise to his feet. "Are you hungry? I was just thinking of making a snack."

Vic's stomach growled before he could answer. "I think that's a yes," he admitted with a startled laugh. "Can I help you with anything? And should we wake up Johnny?"

The automatic response to the question was no, to let him sleep, but a moment's thought had him reconsidering. At the very least, they could give Johnny a chance at cheering up a little, even if it was just making a late night snack with friends. Not much, but, with any luck, better than nothing.

"That is a good idea, Victor. Let us see if we are a bit more interesting than the movie, shall we?"