Different Breed: Conclusion

[xp-northstar.livejournal.com]

Jean-Paul meets the contact Raymonde reached through his various associates and agrees to go to the 'sanctuary' the man promises.


Jean-Paul sat quietly, now going through the motions of being awake and semi-alert even though he was mentally locked in a repeating loop. The same things happened over and over again in his mind - could he have changed them? Could he have done something differently? Would Leblanc still be alive? Would Maurice not be in a coma? Would he still be a normal twenty-one year old? Or as normal as you could be, having won six gold medals?

His arm ached beneath the bandages covering it, but he still murmured a few words of agreement to the nurse when she asked him to sign something for her son. He didn't know what he murmured exactly, but it was all pretty much the same thing these days. Or it had been, anyway.

When the nurse was gone, taking her exclamations about his unexpectedly improved health, Jean-Paul reached for the glass of water on the table beside the hospital bed, hoping it would help him combat the headache building behind his eyes. Then he went back to staring at the wall, mulling things over on repeat.

There were footsteps in the doorway, then they stopped. Angelo stood there, taking in what he saw in the hospital bed. Eventually, gentle but businesslike, "Jean-Paul?"

"Oui?" The accent, the voice - they were unfamiliar. Jean-Paul turned from his contemplation of the wall, the movement slow. It took him a moment before he said, "Raymonde, he said he would send a friend. You are this friend?"

"I am," he confirmed. "Raymonde contacted me through other friends, and I've come to take you somewhere safe, if you want to go."

"Safe?" Jean-Paul asked, not even attempting to hide his incredulity. "What place is safe for me now?" He kept to English on the off chance that the nurses would pay less attention to it. There wasn't much hope of that, truthfully. "No place," he answered himself softly. "No place is safe. Nothing will ever be the same."

"Nothing will ever be the same," Angelo agreed regretfully. "But I know a sanctuary where no one will follow you. No photographers would even get past the front gates and they're a long way from the front door."

"A sanctuary?" Jean-Paul asked, skepticism showing through still. "For - what? For people like me? Pah." He shook his head. "J'men calice! I have no, how is the word - I have no options." He half-gestured with one hand, an attempt to convey just how much he didn't care, but he stopped because it hurt. "Marde," he muttered.

"For people like us," Angelo said calmly. "So you can have some space to think and work out what options you really have got."

"Oui, let us go. I care not. Only that I am not here any longer looking at this wall." Jean-Paul knew he would need to change but also that he would need to find Raymonde. He did not think the older man would appreciate it if he came back to the hospital room and found Jean-Paul simply gone.

The apathy was a bit worrying, but not too unexpected at this point. "All right, then. You good to walk?"

"Did Raymonde not tell you?" Jean-Paul asked, sarcasm permeating his lowered voice as leaned forward. "Apparently, I can fly."

Angelo positively beamed at him. "See, that's so cool. I always wanted to fly."

The enthusiasm caught him off guard. This man obviously did not know what it meant, that he was a mutant who could fly. Jean-Paul simply shook his head and pushed himself slowly off the bed. "It is not so good. I cannot do it whenever I like."

"You'll learn," he said with confidence. "It's been what, a day or two? And that's one of the things we do in Westchester, powers training. And... let me show you something." He moved to the door, closing it and pulling down the blind.

Stopping halfway off the bed, Jean-Paul watched the other man somewhat warily. "Oui?"

The only thing Angelo did, without moving towards Jean-Paul, was turn his image inducer off.

One moment the man before him was normal, the next he was grey. Jean-Paul blinked. "This is what you do? You turn grey?"

"My skin stretches," Angelo said calmly. "The grey is just a side effect. I brought a bit of tech to hide that, for obvious reasons - I can be a normal colour without it, but it gives me a headache."

"Huh," Jean-Paul said, standing up properly now. It was only his arms that he'd injured when he... landed, he supposed. Pushing that thought aside, he asked, "Can you make other colors, also?"

"No." He grinned. "Wish I could, but it's one or the other. When we get back, though, we've got a purple girl and a guy with blue skin and a tail."

"What do the colors mean?" Jean-Paul asked. "How long does your skin stretch?"

"Luck of the draw, except they're both teleporters." He raised his hands and glanced at Jean-Paul. "Want to see?"

"Oui, yes, please." A small voice in the back of Jean-Paul's mind muttered that he probably shouldn't encourage the strange mutant, but then, he was a strange mutant now, himself, and there seemed to be no harm.

Angelo nodded and stretched his fingertips out as far as they would go. "It's not just my fingers," he explained, "it's all my skin, but it's easier from an extremity."

"It has... purpose?" Jean-Paul asked. "It is... mutations, they have purposes, oui? They are... adaptations?"

Angelo made a face and a 50/50 gesture. "It's more useful than it looks, but they aren't always. Some kids get really unlucky."

Jean-Paul was twenty-one. He could think of plenty of uses for a mutation like that, he just didn't think it wise to mention anything because he was supposed to make a good impression on these sanctuary people. "I am a lucky one, non?"

"It might not feel like it right now," Angelo said with sympathy, "but you really are. You're going to be okay, Jean-Paul."

Exhaling a tired breath, Jean-Paul reached for the stack of clothing on the chair near the bed. They were clean, which was nice. Raymonde had promised him that his other belongings would be sent along, if he needed them, but he still wanted to go by his apartment to get the few personal items he didn't want others to touch. "I will call Raymonde, oui? We must... coordinate, I think."

"There's no rush", Angelo said with a nod. "The quicker we get you out of here, the sooner no one bothers you, but we can get your stuff or whatever."