The X-Project

Jean-Paul takes desperate measures to exhert some sense of control over his condition, starting with Jake. Jean manages to intervene in time.



Jake hesitated outside of the door to Jean-Paul's suite. He didn't want to go inside, didn't want to be here, didn't want to know what was waiting on the other side of the door. He didn't do well with sick, much less mentally broken. But he also found himself intensely curious and, if he were being honest with himself, genuinely worried.

Not that he was being all that honest with himself lately, but still.

He knocked softly on the door, not sure if he was more afraid of it being answered or of no one being there.

The door opened before he could consider that too intensely. It would have been a lie to say that Jean-Paul looked good. He was noticeably thinner and he looked as if he hadn't slept in a couple of days. His hair was in need of washing. His left arm was still bandaged and there was a fading a burn on the back of his right hand. He was dressed carelessly in a white t-shirt and a pair of school sweatpants. Still, he didn't really look like
someone who'd had his mind ripped to bits.

"Hey." Quietly, not smiling. "Come in. You have good timing; even Nathan has to sleep sometime." Jean-Paul nodded toward the closed bedroom door. "Sorry for taking so long. It has...been an odd week."

Jake nodded, eyes flicking uneasily from their assessment of Jean-Paul to the door that separated them from Nathan and then back again. He stood awkwardly in the middle of the living room, hands in his pockets, fighting off the urge to reach out and pull Jean-Paul towards him, or to at least touch him to make sure he was real; he wasn't sure how touch would be received just now. Instead, he cleared his throat. "How are you?" It was only after he'd spoken that he realized what a loaded question that could be.

"I am...doing as well as can be expected, I suppose. I have a therapy regimen. Nathan says I am going to get through this. He tells me so frequently." Jean-Paul looked away swallowing hard. "Have a seat. Do you want anything? I warn you, the selection is limited...I have not been shopping."

If anyone knows mindfucked, it's Nathan, Jake thought but decided not to say. He sat on the couch carefully, as though it was the kind covered in plastic and referred to as a 'davenport' instead of the comfortable sofa he'd helped Jean-Paul christen just weeks before. "I'm fine," he said in response to the speedster's question. He hesitated, a dozen questions on his tongue but no idea where to start.

After a few moments, Jean-Paul came to sit beside him. He reached out hesitantly, trying to straighten Jake's hair, almost out of reflex. "You...do not look as if you have been sleeping well yourself. I am sorry for that." His hand dropped back to his lap after only a few seconds, as if the attempt had been too much effort. "This...is so fucked up, I know..."

Jake held himself still as Jean-Paul's hand reached for him, torn between flinching away and leaning into the touch, before the decision was made for him and the hand dropped away. "It's okay," he said quietly. "It's not your fault." Jake's fingers flexed as if he were going to reach for Jean-Paul's hand, then stilled.

"No, it is..." Jean-Paul shook his head, struggling to hold on to his neutral expression before it finally resolved to something distant and unhappy. "Jake...before I left, I said that we should redefine things between us. I still think we should. It...I think it would be better if we did not see each other any more. Not when I am...like this."

Jake had braced himself at the phrase "redefine things between us," trying to figure out how to keep from being entangled without pushing Jean-Paul away entirely, and so it took a moment for the words to process. He blinked and looked away, eyes focusing on the copy of Le Petit Prince he'd been reading when Jean-Paul had tackled him, the day he and Johnny had returned from their road trip. He was almost ashamed to admit that he felt oddly relieved, if conflicted. "Oh."

"I am not going to be much like myself for a while," Jean-Paul continued quietly, his voice quavering, "and I will be leaning heavily on those around me. Neither of us will take that well. I think you would try, but...there are only so many people that need to be pulled down with me." He glanced at the bedroom door again, then back to Jake. "This is a relief, I know. You do not have to pretend otherwise." His voice had steadied a bit.

Jake bit his lip, still unable to look at Jean-Paul. "That's not entirely true," he protested, but it was halfhearted.

"No. I am sure it is more complicated. But I think I am close." Jean-Paul had his hands on his lap, folded tightly enough that they shook. "This is not your fault, Jake. If I were stronger, I would not need to do this. But I just do not have the reserves to look out for anyone but myself right now. I am not even certain I have that much. I am sorry."

Jake shook his head, but his comment about Jean-Paul always trying to take the blame died on his lips. Jean-Paul didn't need a fight right now, and he was offering Jake the out he'd been looking for anyway. He glanced at the other man. "I'm sorry I can't be what you want me to be," he said with real regret.

A quiet tension flowed out of the speedster at Jake's words. "You were honest about what you wanted," Jean-Paul said quietly, blinking to keep his eyes clear. "That puts you one up on a lot of people I have known. Thank you for that. For all of it, really. You have made me very happy these last couple of months. Even when you drove me crazy."

Jake swallowed thickly and looked away again; Jean-Paul thanking him for running away almost made it worse. "We had a lot of fun," he said finally. He glanced at the speedster's hands where they remained folded together in his lap, wanting to touch him but not sure how to do so without making things worse.

"We will have to do it again some time. If things ever get back to normal. I do not know what is going to happen. Maybe I will be able to recover here. Maybe I will need to be shipped off to MacTaggert's Home For Broken Mutants..." Jean-Paul trailed off for a moment, then seemed to recall what he had been saying. "I just did not want to leave us unresolved and I did not want to do this over the phone."

"Normal's overrated around here," Jake tried to joke, but it came out flat. He rubbed his mouth absently, standing to leave. "Thanks," he said, looking Jean-Paul in the eye briefly. "For...seeing me. Letting me see you."

"I wanted to see you. To be sure you were still...real, I suppose." Jean-Paul rose slowly. "Do you need a ride back? I will not be using the car for a while."

"No," Jake said quickly; it still surprised him which things managed to cut him to the quick, like the thought of driving Jean-Paul's car without him. "I don't think you want it parked in my neighborhood," he amended with a slight smile that didn't make it past his lips. He hesitated, then reached out a hand to lightly touch the speedster's shoulder, above the bandage. "I'm still real. I'm still here."

Jean-Paul lay his hand over Jake's for a moment, establishing a connection, if only for a brief moment. "You will take care of yourself?"

"If I don't, I'm sure Wanda will throw something else at me," he replied somewhat ruefully. "She's a good shot." The hand on Jean-Paul's shoulder squeezed once, gently. "And you. Take care, and let me know if you need anything, even if it's just a blueberry tart." Jake almost wanted to offer words of reassurance, but he was too cynical to believe they would do any good.

"You will be the first one I think of. Good-bye, Jake."

====

Jean-Paul made his way to the roof in utter silence, watching the front gate until Jake had left the grounds. There. That was done. He wished that he could have gotten them all clear, divested them of any responsibility for his actions, but he knew better. They were too invested in him. Jake, thank God, hadn't been. That was something.

He glanced up at the stars. He should have felt worse about this, but he was about burned out on feeling, period. He didn't want to think anymore. He didn't want to look at people he cared for and have the first thing to come to mind be the worst things he was capable of, didn't want to remember the things he actually had done to brainwashed children...

Enough of that. Time to go, as far and as fast as possible. There was even a sickly anticipation at the back of his mind; finally, he'd figure out if he had it in him to break atmosphere.

Jean-Paul was well trained for a non-telepath at shielding his thoughts, when he was of a mind to. But unlike Scott, for instance, it wasn't an automatic thing for him and, particularly when he was as upset as he was, all attempts at shielding went straight out the window. More so, even, because that sort of primal pain practically broadcast itself on broadband. Jean had raced up towards the roof from the moment she'd caught the psychic scent of his plan, quickly confirming with Charles what she was sensing on the way up, and while she had only just burst out the door onto the flier's platform as Jean-Paul started from the sky, luckily, she didn't need to try to get her hands on him to hold him down.

The telekinetic grip wrapped around Jean-Paul, pulling him down even as he pushed up against it, creating an invisible sort of immovable object against which Jean-Paul might dislocate his shoulder if he pushed it. Not that Jean had any intention of letting him push it.

Jean-Paul struggled against the hold for a moment, startled, until he managed to twist around enough to catch sight of Jean over his shoulder.

"Let go." No anger, or at least none that he was letting himself feel just yet. His tone was, if anything, almost a polite request. Hold the door. Pass the salt. Let me kill myself.

The telekinetic grip didn't lessen in the slightest, although she also didn't start pulling him back down. "Yeah, no, that's not happening, Jean-Paul. This isn't the answer." It might have been cliche, but it was also absolutely true.

This was Jean, he reminded himself, steeling his resolve not to struggle again. She was not the one from the room. He had to be calm or she wouldn't believe he knew what he was doing. She wouldn't listen.

"It is the best of a lot of bad options, Jean. I am tired of this. Tired of trying, tired of the nightmares. I just want some peace. It will be quick, I promise."

"I don't accept that, Jean-Paul, and you're not in your right mind or you wouldn't either. This isn't the only way away from your pain, you just think it's the easiest. Well easy is rarely right."

"Do not dare." Now she had breached that unbalanced calm; he fought against her grip, exhaustion burned away by a smoldering rage. "Do not presume to tell me about taking the easy way! You know what happens if I go back and do it again! You know! Hell is repetition and I am tired of it! I have done my time and I do not deserve this!"

"You think I don't get it, Jean-Paul," Jean snapped back. "You think I never wanted to just run, get away from what I'd done? You think Nathan hasn't? You're in pain, but you're not the only one who's been there and we can help if you'll just let us. You're right," she said, quieter, but there was still pain in her voice, "you don't deserve this. It wasn't your fault and doing this, killing yourself" no euphemisms, no hiding, "it's punishing yourself for their crimes."

"And you think I care about that distinction?" He'd gone quiet, deadweight in her grip. That brief, angry spark that she'd manage to kindle had blown out again. "You can put me back on the roof now, medlab, wherever you like. I will not run. I do not need to; this was only my first choice. You cannot watch me forever and I only need a second."

Jean did set him back on the roof, the motion gentle now that he'd stopped fighting against her hold. "No, I can't, not even Charles could. And so you'll get your chance, and you'll take it, is that it? You'll give up on yourself and on all of the people who care about you? About Nathan and Lil, Scott and I, Johnny and Noriko and the other kids? Did you actually say goodbye to Jake or was he going to get the world's worst phone call tomorrow morning?"

"Jean..." He swallowed. "Right now, there is a part of me remembering time I broke your neck because you were in the way of me having sex with...with a student. And the next time I try -- and fail -- to get some sleep, I am going to remember dismembering a girl not much younger than Nori. I concede the point -- I am a selfish bastard and only poised to do harm to those who care about me. And it is not making me feel appreciably worse right now."

"Jean-Paul..." she began, although she didn't know what she would say, what she could say, but she trailed off, eyes going briefly unfocused and then started again. "Jean-Paul, would you come see Charles with me? We want to help, there has to be a way we can..."

"If you like." Jean-Paul wrapped his arms around himself as if to ward off chill, except that his nails were digging into his skin. "I...would prefer it if you would take me back to isolation. To talk there. Less temptation."

"We can talk about it," Jean agreed, reaching out a hand to him, although she didn't really expect he would take it. "Right now, I'm not taking anything off the table."

"Beyond the obvious." He didn't respond to the hand, and only followed Jean down from the roof after it had been dropped. He could afford to delay, he told himself. He could end it any time he wanted. His choice.


Nathan and Charles stop by the medlab in the aftermath to see what can be done for Jean-Paul.




He hadn't wanted to wake up Nate. Equal parts cowardice and exhaustion, he supposed. Jean had gone to let Xavier in on the news. Jean-Paul was in the medlab again, in his white room where there was nothing he could hurt himself with. Nothing obvious, anyway. Strangulation wasn't quick enough. Someone would come running. He could always try dashing his brains out against the wall, but the odds of that doing anything except knocking him on his ass were low. Unconsciousness wasn't the wost idea in the world, though. He filed that idea away in case nothing better presented itself.

Almost an hour later, Nathan appeared in front of the quarantine room. He stood there for a moment, watching Jean-Paul, and then opened the door and came in. He had a wooden box, one of those travel chess sets, tucked under his arm. That was the one incongruous thing. The other was the bandage wrapping his right hand and wrist, something that definitely hadn't been there earlier in the evening.

"How about a game?" was all he said as he came in, sitting down on the floor and opening up the chess set.

It was getting easier to be around Nathan. Jean-Paul had known the man a relatively short amount of time out of his life, after all. With all of the time they'd spent together recently, some of the after-images were getting to be repeats. The idea of that as "easy" made him want to vomit.

"What did you do to your hand?" The 'because of me' really did not need to be said.

"You have a hole in the wall of your living room." Nathan's voice was almost conversational. "Slightly to the left of the closet. Barely noticeable, really." His hip twinged, sitting cross-legged like this, but he ignored it. "I would offer to patch it, but I had this remarkably poetic thought about how our surroundings really deserve to show some scars, too. Hardly fair, that they get to be plastered over and repainted, but we have to live with it."

"Or not," was the pointed reminder. Jean-Paul rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. "I should have at least left a note."

"Oh, so that I could have slept through the writing of the note and your suicide attempt? Yes, I think that would have been so much better."

Jean-Paul covered his eyes with one hand. "Nathan, just...let me do this. Please."

Nathan's hand - the good one - clenched around the black queen for a moment before he forced himself to set the piece down on the magnetic board in the correct spot. "I don't think so."

"Stalemate, then." Jean-Paul took a deep, unsteady breath, then finally sat up. "It is not your fault how this is gone. Not any of it. You are not responsible for me." He knew damn well it was a useless thing to say, but he had to say it.

Nathan finally looked up at him, and beneath the tiredness and concern so obvious in his gray eyes was a touch of incredulity. "Jean-Paul," he said after a moment, slowly, "this has absolutely nothing to do with a sense of responsibility on my part. Zip. Zilch. Nada."

The speedster regarded him with obvious skepticism; this was some new and alien language Nathan was speaking. After a few moments, he moved to sit on the floor across from him, the chessboard between them. "We are only drawing this out."

"I'm often very tedious." Nathan finished setting up the board. He stared down at it for a moment, then turned it around so that Jean-Paul would have to take white. "So. Tell me why."

"Because when I look at the people here, I see myself -- I remember myself -- doing the worst things I ever wanted to do to them. Because every time I close my eyes, I brace for pain and against someone cutting into my brain again. And then I remember the things that I did do..." His voice cut out for a moment. "I cannot do this again. I have had my life knocked out from under me again and again and I have kept going. This time I have had enough. It is too deep and I am done."

A long, long moment of silence. "What's harder?" Nathan asked softly, at last. "The false memories, or what happened when you got free?"

Had anyone else asked that question, they would have been greeted with defensive mockery. Jean-Paul didn't know when trusting Nathan had become as habitual as breathing. If he'd had the energy to spare, that might have been more bothersome. "Why?"

"Because one problem can't really be addressed until your mind heals more. At least not in a permanent way." Nathan gestured at the chessboard. "The other, though..."

'What hurts more? Being shot in the chest or the back?'

Finally, "What happened once I was free. The things that are real."

"Then I have a solution. Or rather, Charles has a solution." Nathan stared down at the chessboard, as if studying it even though neither of them had made a move just yet. "The simple and unvarnished truth is that you can't stop someone with superspeed if they're determined to kill themselves. Not forever. One of the problems is that you're dealing with too much - memories that aren't yours, that can't be removed until your mind stops bleeding all over the place-" Part of Nathan was distantly amazed this was all coming out so dispassionately. "-and the memories you only wish you weren't yours. Those can't be removed. But they can be... suppressed, for now."

"Why can they not be removed?" Jean-Paul was frowning. "There is nothing...nothing there that I need. Just pain, and I have had enough of that from either side. There is no benefit to dragging those corpses with me."

"Your mind is a structure," Nathan said. "You start yanking out bricks, and it collapses. Especially when it's been so badly damaged already." Getting tired of waiting for Jean-Paul to make the first move, he turned the chessboard again, taking white himself. "The false memories are... those creeping vines you see on old buildings. Parasitical ivy. Once the structure is stronger, they can and should be removed, or they'll do as much damage in the end."

"Before this month, I might not have minded the risk," Jean-Paul mumbled, keeping the last half of that thought to himself. He'd seen what had happened when he didn't have all of his mind, when he didn't have control. That it could happen again was too great a risk. He watched Nathan ease a pawn out onto the board. "If I say I will not live with that...with that in my head, will you think I am taking the easy way out?"

Nathan's jaw clenched, but his voice was still level, if a shade rougher than it had been. "I would neither think nor say that. But I would probably remind you that it's not the only thing in your head. And tell you that I think you're strong enough to go on, whatever it feels like right now." He swallowed, his throat feeling raw again, even if his carefully cultivated calm hadn't quite fractured. "It's hard to believe that when your own memories are choking you. The blocks could give you time to breathe."

"You make me crazy, Dayspring, did you know that? Elpis. 'Hope'. It suits you too well." Jean-Paul's expression didn't change, but a black pawn inched out to join the white. "If this does not work, I am no worse off than before. I can try again."

Nathan stared fixedly at the board, but the rapid blinking was a dead giveaway. "I'm glad," he finally said, not quite gruffly. "I mean, not that I didn't have other arguments tucked away just in case..."

A scrap of a smile twitched at one corner of Jean-Paul's mouth. "I do not think either of us has the energy for the lake right now."

Nathan's laugh was faint, and sounded like it hurt. "I think you get a free pass on the lake for the foreseeable future, Beaubier."

=====

Jean-Paul knew that he could have gotten cleaned up before Xavier arrived; he doubted Nate would have denied the request, only kept watch on him the entire time. The simple truth of the matter was that he didn't trust himself not to give in to temptation if it presented itself. For all his bravado about the memory blocks being incapable of leaving him worse off, he was not all so certain of how well this would work out. Further, the idea of consciously allowing another telepath access to his mind frightened him in ways that rational thought could not overcome. Better to remove the chance that, one way or another, he would break and run. So he sat on the floor and played out a game of chess that neither he nor Nathan were terribly invested in while waiting for the man who was going to do a bypass on his brain.

Charles's chair, as always, was soundless. But Nathan sensed him coming, and looked up as the Professor appeared at the door to the room. "Should I go?" he asked, and couldn't quite keep the uncertainty out of his voice. It was a reflexive question; he didn't know how involved a process this would be from Charles's perspective, whether he'd be a distraction.

Charles shook his head slightly. "I see no reason for you to leave," he said gently, then looked at Jean-Paul. "I am very sorry," he said, "that I did not offer you this option immediately. But I had hoped to minimize any further interference with your mind. In such situations it so often seems to be a choice of the lesser evil."

"I doubt that I would have accepted before I was desperate anyway." Jean-Paul climbed slowly to his feet, swaying as he did so. He was sure that he'd slept at some point -- ridiculous thought; you couldn't have nightmares without sleeping -- he just didn't feel like it. "When we do this, what will happen? If...the X-Men who came to rescue me speak of what happened, will I even know what they are talking about?"

"There is a difference," Charles said, his chair moving farther into the room, "between knowledge and memory. It would be..." He paused. "Most inadvisable, to remove either entirely. The point of this is to reduce trauma, so that you may continue to deal with the events in more conventional therapeutic ways. Judging by what you told Nathan, the best course of action seems to be to cloud the specific memories that drove you to what so nearly happened tonight."

Still sitting down, Nathan was staring hard at the chessboard, not looking at either Jean-Paul or Charles.

"Intellectually, you will know what happened," Charles went on, "but you will not have access to those specific memories for a time. The other memories involved in the incident may become less clear, simply because of their proximity to the blocks. It would make very little sense to create a hole, even above and beyond the additional damage it might do to your mind. A hole is... a mystery," he said. "You cannot learn to re-integrate a void."

Jean-Paul nodded once. He tried to cling to the reassurance of the explanation, but his mind kept lingering on Jean's words. The easy way. Was this really all that different, or just more running away? He'd tried to dismiss those dead children as nothing more than corpses minutes before. He'd wanted to erase them. Now he wanted to strip them of meaning.

"All right," he said slowly. "It...would probably be better if you knock me out for this."

"Simple unconsciousness may not suffice," Charles said, then looked at Nathan. "It's why I suggested that you stay, Nathan. Taking Jean-Paul onto your mindscape would provide distance it would be difficult for him to achieve unless I put him into a very deep state of unconsciousness."

Despite the events of the evening, Nathan smiled, although the expression was strained. "Well," he said to Jean-Paul, "you did miss out on the beach in Tel Aviv..."

He couldn't smile back. Being between the two telepaths -- even though one was Nathan -- was causing his fear to saw its way up through the gray barrier of his exhaustion with every breath.

"Make it quick." He headed for the bed, lying himself out on his back. He pulled his knees up without thinking on it, leaving room for Nate at the foot. "I do not think I am going to be able to keep telling myself that this is for my own good for much longer."

Nathan's weight settled onto the bed an instant later. "Just breathe," he said softly. "You know I'd never hurt you. Whatever they might have grafted onto your memories."

He didn't wait for a response. It was very quick, in the end. One moment, Jean-Paul was lying on the bed. The next, with only the briefest sense of disorientation, he was standing on a beach of pure white sand.

Behind him was thick forest, the leaves on the trees a dark, glittering emerald, and green mountains. High up on one of the slopes was a blazingly white house that looked like it had strayed onto Nathan's mindscape from Santorini.

In front of him was a shining, blue-green ocean, beneath a sky all but choked with stars. Strangely, it was full light on the beach.

Jean-Paul spent a few moments staring up at the out-of-place sky, letting the waves tug at his ankles. Or at his boots...?

He was in his Alpha Flight skinfit. Definitely not appropriate beach attire.

"There we are," he muttered. "If we needed further proof that I am brain damaged, I think we have it."

"No," came a familiar voice from up the beach, "I'd say that's a good sign." Nathan approached, barefoot and comfortable-looking in a white shirt and cargo shorts. "Your mind's manifesting armor," he went on, the gray in his hair glinting silver under the strange starlight. "Means that at least part of you is still in the fight. You don't need armor if you're going to give up. I'd be more worried if you were standing there naked."

"You would not be the only one. People already think I am trying to turn you. I do not need my subconscious getting in on the act." Jean-Paul took a deep breath and let some of the tension flow out of his muscles. He couldn't quite recall the specifics of why he was here, except that something very wrong had happened to him. Still, it was not worst place to wait and Nathan seemed at-ease enough. He cocked his head as Nathan drew closer. "Is this real?"

"It depends on your definition of real. Come on, let's walk," Nathan said, turning to head down the beach. "There have been times I've wound up here, when I had no where else to go that I felt safe. More times than I'd like to count, to be honest. It's... very, very far from the conventional 'real'."

Jean-Paul jogged to catch up, frowning at he drew up to Nate. His joints ached. Definitely old and falling apart, even here.

"Reality is overrated most days." He fell into a walk beside the older man, synching pace. "This feels...sheltered." The non-psi groped for concepts that he didn't quite grasp. "Buried," he finally managed, though he was obviously not pleased with description. A slight smile. "And very you."

"It's deeper than it used to be. I don't want to lose it. After Farouk's little meltdown-" There was an indecipherable undertone to Nathan's voice. "-it looked like a hurricane had come through."

"You would not know to look at it." Part of Jean-Paul was itching to go explore, but that seemed a bit...presumptuous, considering the nature of the surroundings. He'd settle for a tour. "Is it usual for non-psis to have something like this?"

"I like to think I'm a special snowflake. That's my way of saying 'I really don't know'." Nathan's trajectory was leading towards a path, heading off into the forest. "Come see the house," he said, glancing sideways at Jean-Paul. "Sometimes Rachel pops in while she's sleeping. Scared the hell out of me the first time she did it."