xp_logs | Shiro and Jean-Paul

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Shiro and Jean-Paul visit again. Jean-Paul is a bit more communicative the second time around.

If anyone asked, Shiro was testing himself by flying as high as he could to determine at what point the air became too thin to breathe or to support his powers. After a short recuperation, he'd try to fly higher. And then even higher. For science, of course, because maybe some day he'd have to fly up to that altitude. That he was potentially endangering his life kept his mind off other pressing concerns: Jay, Jean-Paul, and Alex.

As the oxygen began to thin and his fire form weakened, he spotted a familiar dark form approaching him at a frightening speed. Thinking it must be a hallucination from the lack of oxygen to his brain, Shiro continued his free fall back into the atmosphere before reigniting himself and returning to the heavens. The form met him, and Shiro almost fell back down. "Jean-Paul? What are you doing up here?" His aura flared as if preparing to get defensive.

"I was about to ask the same of you." Unlike the last time they had spoken, the man was shaven, his appearance attended to. The lack of sleep still showed on his face, but there was an unexplained concern in his expression -- something close to fear. "Could you...just get down from there, please?"

Science could wait. Shiro returned to a normal altitude, level with Jean-Paul but kept his distance. That the Canadian looked almost normal again so soon suggested to Shiro the worst possible conclusion: he'd snapped and was going crazy on everyone. Perfectly logical, really. "I must admit to being shocked to see you out here. Up here."

"What you cannot see is the increasingly worried telepath currently clearing his throat at the back of my mind." Jean-Paul began flying back toward the school. "What were you doing?"

Shiro hesitated at first but followed. "Testing my limits by sky diving. What has you up here, anyway? Not that I am not happy to see you in the sunlight, but last we spoke you were . . . not yourself."

"I am...closer to it, at least." Jean-Paul hesitated for so long that Shiro thought he might not say anything more. "I could not explain myself before. I was trying to cope with a host of...of nightmares out of my id, I guess you could say. This was on top of the actual memories of the ordeal. It was all too much to face at once. The Professor put in memory suppressors so that I can...handle one thing at at a time."

"Sou ka? So, what do you remember now?" Shiro sped up a little, still not quite reaching Jean-Paul but at least beginning to bridge the distance.

The speedster's jaw clenched. "Being captured. My...alteration, to an extent, but that was never entirely clear." They were drawing nearer the school, but instead of heading for the roof, Jean-Paul turned his course toward the woods. Altitude was good. Trees were better for privacy. "I am still not entirely sure what the man had planned for me before it went wrong. Jean, Nathan and the Professor think it most likely I was meant as a weapon. He...broke me down from the inside out, showed me every horrible thing I ever could have done to the people around me, made me think that I had done those things. I still see that when I look to anyone I knew before we left for Moldova."

"Did you see me?" Shiro's question could barely be heard over the crackling of his fire and the rush of the winds. But it was something he had to know. He'd been an X-Man long enough to learn about how telepaths break and reassemble their victims, and he'd never be able to forgive himself, much less Taygetos, if he'd somehow been featured.

'Over and over.'

Jean-Paul landed in the crux of one of the forest's taller oaks, still within line of sight of the school, but far enough away that any of the typical forest runners were unlikely to stumble across them.

"There was not anything...anything rational to it, Shiro." It made his skin crawl and his stomach turn to even try and discuss this. How did you convince someone who had once left you on death's door that you had never meant him any ill? Especially when you were no longer entirely convinced of that yourself. "Yes, you were there. So was everyone else I had ever known. I never...never wanted to hurt you. Not consciously." The qualifier left the words sounding false and weak to his ears.

Images of his confrontation with Alex that ended their relationship flooded Shiro's mind. He hadn't wanted to hurt Alex either, had he? He'd just needed . . . Shiro shook his head and tried to banish those thoughts. "I am sorry. I do not mean to sound so disrespectful."

"You were not." Jean-Paul kept his gaze on the school. "We are friends, non? I would be concerned too, both for my friend and for wondering if I had made things worse for him somehow. It was not anything that you did." He was quiet for a moment. "If I am changed and not quite who you remember, that is not on your shoulders either. You came to rescue me."

"No less than what you have done for me." Alex defenseless and slammed against the wall turned into Jean-Paul flying into the heart of a nuclear explosion. "So on a scale of one to ten, how crazy are you now?"

The words had not been meant cruelly, but they still stung. Jean-Paul frowned.

"I am sane, Shiro. Massively unhappy with current events -- " Oh, sweet understatement. " -- still not sleeping so well, and yet better than I was. Not crazy."

"Sorry. I should know better than to attempt levity. Jokes are not my strength." Shiro finally joined Jean-Paul in the tree, balancing on a sturdy branch near where he sat. "I do not think you should blame yourself. You are not at fault for being caught or hurt or anything else. That is on their heads." Their disintegrated heads, he reminded himself.

"It is not that." Liar. "Not entirely. I dislike inflicting my problems on others, and it seems that I will be doing so for a while yet." He sighed. "I have to rely on others if I am going to come out the other side of this. I have already had that driven home. It is not...so bad, but I am also not used to it."

Shiro's lips quirked upwards in an unbidden smirk. He carefully sat down and crossed his legs into a lotus position. "'Not so bad?' You lose your temper when you cannot drive yourself."

That did startle a snort of laughter out of the speedster. "I do not. I simply make my preferences known. Loudly. And at length."

"My point stands nevertheless. You are not an agreeable person." Shiro's smile faded, but was replaced by a look of purpose and devotion. "I will do whatever I can for you. You do not even need to ask. If I may."

"I am honored." Quietly, "For now, I am hopeful, but it is easy to be so when matters seem so much improved so quickly. When I grow...obstinate about my progress, it would not hurt to remind me that I am being an idiot."

"That is easy enough. I think everyone is an idiot and I, like you, have a tendency to make my thoughts known. Loudly. And at length." As he spoke, Shiro realized that he was crossing his fingertips, a symbol of meditative confidence. He chuckled quietly to himself but didn't unfold his hands.

Jean-Paul relaxed a bit, even managed to respond to Shiro's smile in kind...but only so long as he kept his gaze on the school, and not on the man beside him for more than a moment at a time.