JP and Laurie

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Jean-Phillipe forgets he has a suitemate, Laurie gets an eyeful, and they talk about life and decisions.



Jean-Phillipe strolled out of the bathroom in his suite, a billow of steam following behind him. There was nothing quite like an extremely hot shower to relax and wash away the stresses and dirt of the day. An extremely brief towel, almost as small as a hand towel, was wrapped around his waist, and he made some idle thinking noises as he puttered around the living room area.

Laurie looked up, and then smiled slightly as Jean-Phillipe seemed completely unaware of her sitting on the couch with several medical textbooks spread open before her.

"That looks like it would've hurt," she noted mildly, seeing the scarring on his back and forearms.

She wouldn't have minded a closer look to see just what sort of scarring it was but she figured Jean-Phillipe wasn't about to assuage her curiosity.

"That would be an understatement," Jean-Phillipe replied evenly, managing to cover his slightly startled reaction to Laurie. Not that he had much in the way of body modesty, but he was rather self-conscious about others seeing certain parts of his body without his being aware and deciding on it first.

"What happened?" Laurie asked, remaining seated. "An accident?"

"Yes," Jean-Phillipe said a bit more curtly. Some things he was rather intensely private about. Still, he thought after a very pregnant pause, he should possibly be a bit more sociable, especially with his suitemate. "It was when I manifested."

Laurie's own manifestation had been tame, an increased popularity with her fellow students and better results for her cross country track team but otherwise there hadn't been much outwardly changed from how she'd been before. But she knew not every mutant was as lucky as she was with how they manifested, Jono Starsmore being a somewhat spectacular example of that.

"That must have been terrifying," she finally responded, tone decreasing slightly in volume as she said it.

Jean-Phillipe nodded. "It was," he agreed. He smiled wryly. "And then a man came and taught me how to master my power rather than letting it master me."

"A man," Laurie mused for a moment, and then remembered the files she'd read in the X-man databases. "Magneto, you mean, the one you were meant to report to about us?"

There was no judgement in her tone, merely a statement of facts as she saw them. While Laurie could be judgemental, none better when it came to that particular habit, she had learnt through a very long path, one that spanned countries as well as months, that what you thought and what was could be entirely different things.

"Indeed." Jean-Phillipe didn't seem all that flustered by Laurie's pointed comment. He knew she was in X-Men training, and a compulsive overachiever. "He taught me quite a bit, really."

"What sort of things?" Laurie asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

She closed the books in front of her, after marking their pages with a slight dog-ear so she would be able to find her place later on. She wondered if Jean-Phillipe was a tea drinker, as her mother and she in turn had made a habit of having conversations over a good cup of tea.

"He taught me about life, and being a mutant, and the things that others can be capable of, both good and bad." He was slowly getting to a point where he took some of Magneto's more radical teachings with a grain of salt, but the man had seen and done much in the time he'd been on the planet.

"Life? How so?" Laurie asked, getting up to walk to the kitchen. She waved a cup at Jean-Phillipe. "Want some tea? I'm making a pot."

"Shall I start calling you la petite profeseur?" Jean-Phillipe asked jokingly, but accepting the cup. "Merci." He held it in both hands. "I had a somewhat...sheltered is not the right word, but...I had a very limited view of the way things were when I was younger."

"Luckily, suffering from female pattern baldness is not something I have to worry about," Laurie joked back, taking a sip of her own cup as she thought about what Jean-Phillipe had said. She knew a little of his cousin, and Marie-Ange had mentioned that her mother had often thought she was the reincarnation of Jeanne D'arc. "Your family is very religious?"

"Marie-Ange's side of the family is. Mine was very...hands off." Jean-Phillip pursed his lips. "In some ways it was nice, but in others, it allowed me quite a bit of leeway to get myself into trouble."

"You were a precocious child, then?" Laurie asked, and then grinned as she took a sip of her tea. She could imagine that Jean-Phillipe had been a handful as a little boy, always getting into things, or being places he wasn't meant to be.

"Mm. I believe the American term is 'hell raiser'," Jean-Phillipe replied with a smirk. "I suppose it stuck on into adulthood," he said loftily, brushing back his hair with a toss of his head.

"Misguided and arrogant would probably fit better," Laurie observed, but her smile softened the remark slightly. She took another sip of her tea and lent her hip on the small kitchen island. "So then, the Professor gave you a second chance after you confessed to spying for Magneto. What exactly is it you want to do with that chance, if you want to do anything, that is?"

Jean-Phillipe was silent. "I...have no idea," he said somewhat bewilderedly, Laurie's question having taken him rather by surprise. He was acting as a resident adviser, TAing for those students learning French, and driving the weekend van into town, but those were all things that had just sort of fallen upon him without much effort on his part. "I confess that I had not given it much thought," he admitted.

"Might be worth giving it some thought then," Laurie said gently, and then took a sip of her tea, before looking back down at her books. "The Professor believes in us, all of us, no matter what we've done before coming here, or in some cases, after. I didn't see it at first, but that belief means we need to do the very best we can with the chance he's given us. We're lucky, not many people in the world get an open book to do whatever it is they want to do with their lives. But look at me, being all preachy. I'm not exactly the person to be giving you advice. I'm just as much of a stuff up, but it's never too late to try."

"I would perhaps be hypocritical to take you to task for being preachy. It is not as though I cannot be that way myself sometimes," Jean-Phillipe said with a smile. "Thank you, for the tea and the talk. Perhaps I shall go put clothes on now?" he asked mischievously.

"Perhaps that might be best," Laurie said with a grin, she was pretty sure Eamon didn't have a problem with her looking, he was a mercenary but she wasn't about to push it too much.