Jean-Paul and Felix, Tuesday afternoon

[om_ghost]

Felix is startled to see Jean-Paul back home (he forgot to check the internet apparently), and reveals a mistaken understanding of the entire Alpha Flight situation. Jean-Paul gives him the kind and honest truth, and talks him into taking Home Ec.

Felix didn't really keep up with Eames' schedule, and now that he had an apartment in the city somewhere, it was even more difficult to find him. He had already tried Arthur's room, but no one answered his light knocking. If they were in there, they were up to something Felix probably didn't want to know about.

Blowing out a sigh, Felix turned around, considering going further down the hall to Philip's, when suddenly there was a terribly unexpected figure there in the hall with him. Not someone supposed to be there, but too solid to be a ghost. "Jean-Paul!" he exclaimed, hopping back a step or two, though the delight in his voice was that of someone who would normally run forward. "Are you real?"

"Last that I checked." Jean-Paul flashed him a smile, not even bothering to hide his pleasure at seeing Felix in the flesh. "It has been a while, non? How have you been?"

Felix almost wanted to hug him, except for how he couldn't quite figure out how to go through with it, so he settled for fussing with his hands and smiling distractedly. "Good. I mean, well. I mean... it's been an eventful summer," he settled on, eventually. "I didn't know you were coming back." Not today. Maybe not ever.

"It was an opportune accident," Jean-Paul admitted. "I didn't know I was coming either. But here I am. And no more trips to the uncivilized parts of the great north for a while, either."

"You're back for real?" Felix asked artlessly, then put a hand over his mouth as he hadn't meant to blurt that out. "I just mean... you seemed enthused, and then there was all of that..."

He gestured rather helplessly, glancing toward Simon Tam's room, unable to help himself. As far as Felix knew, things were going very wrong there.

"I said I would be back for my car, didn't I?" Jean-Paul's smile faded when Felix didn't seem to get the joke. "You are serious? No one told you what was happening?"

Oh. He'd made a mistake, somehow, Felix could see it in Jean-Paul's expression. The older boy didn't look angry, but Felix's chest tightened anyway, because making mistakes never had meant anything good. You're not afraid of Jean-Paul, he told himself, and then again a few more times to be sure. "You... did. But you went off to, I don't know, save Canada, and then there was that photo... ?"

Felix trailed off, and then added, less certain, "People don't really tell me things. I'm not in the Hero Group."

Jean-Paul frowned, then headed for the stairs, gesturing for Felix to follow him. "Come on. I think this is going to be an explanation that requires a snack and at least two cups of tea."

Of course Felix followed, after only a moment's hesitation. He knew he wasn't in trouble, not really (Jean-Paul's patience with him seemed infinite, like Philip's), but he couldn't shake the idea that he'd done something incorrectly. Or failed to realize something that everyone else already knew. That last one seemed more likely. Keeping quiet, he trailed down the stairs and to the kitchen on Jean-Paul's heels.

It didn't take long for Jean-Paul to set them up with sandwiches and tea, then it was a retreat to the sunroom for privacy. "So firstly," Jean-Paul said as he settled onto his favorite windowseat, "I wasn't off to save Canada, I was off to make sure Canada wasn't getting ready to fuck the rest of us over with their silly superhero team. It was an undercover thing."

Since he had grown another two inches since his birthday at least, Felix never turned down offered food, and since it was made by Jean-Paul it was even better. He went along dutifully to the sunroom, a place he rarely spent time, and felt somehow as if he were being allowed a look into more grown-up affairs. Still, he sat with his feet tucked under him and his plate on his lap to listen, as if he were still the waif he'd been when he arrived. "You were like... a secret agent?"

"Something like that," Jean-Paul admitted. "The group seemed to pop up awfully quickly in the wake of all the mutant outings, and when they reached out to recruit me and Jeanne-Marie, it was a good opportunity to see what they were really up to."

Felix's eyes widened, and slowly took on the faraway quality that meant he was imagining his own version of events, inspired by Jean-Paul's explanation. "You had to leave Simon behind because he wasn't Out."

"Simon stayed here because River needs him and he had to think about his future," Jean-Paul corrected him. "He got to visit me a few times in Ottawa, and I had other people looking out for me. Jack was part of my cover."

"So you didn't actually cheat on Simon," Felix realized, blinking slowly, and then quickly flushing in a pink stain over his cheekbones and up to the tips of his ears. "Oh! I was so mad at you for no reason!"

Jean-Paul raised an eyebrow. "You could have asked Simon about it. Or Jack, for that matter. But no, I did not and would not cheat on Simon. I respect him and myself too much for that."

Felix glanced down; Jean-Paul was right. He looked on the lives of others as a play that happened out of his reach, and rarely even thought to intercede, even to ask a question. "I didn't mean... just the two of you are... I just really want you to be together." They were a brilliant couple, beautiful and intelligent and respectful of one another, and it was unlike anything Felix had seen before.

"You're not the only one." But there was a hint of an amused smile creeping around the words. "So should I take this to mean there's a faction at the school that legitimately thinks I was stepping out on my boyfriend?"

"I wasn't leading a picket line or anything," Felix answered, peeking up from beneath his lashes and a significant curly fringe of growing-out hair. "Though Caius and I clucked our tongues at you a bit."

"Well, the next time you see him, you can set him straight on that front." Jean-Paul took a bite of his sandwich. "So what else did you want to know?"

Felix appeared to relax, and tucked himself back into his seat with his own sandwich. "Are they... using us? That's what everyone's worried about. That the governments will use us like things, and forget that we're people, because we're different." Like governments had done to every single other kind of 'different' person throughout history.

"Define 'using'." Jean-Paul's expression sombered. "They're being paid. It's voluntary for now. But they're kids being set up for military service, and they're likely more coming."

"Using," Felix answered, his definition quick and at the ready, and more emphatic than his usual breathlessly-dreamy conversational voice. "Making children do what they don't want to do by making the alternative look even worse."

"Then no, not yet. But they have a program coming where they'll try to make signing up for powers training look more attractive than not. And it's a short step from that to shuttling them off to Alpha Flight."

It sounded close enough. "It's voluntary, because you don't want to hurt anyone with your powers, do you?" Felix murmured, part rhetorically... part paraphrasing their own headmasters.

"Voluntary, but if you do hurt someone or wreck something with your powers and you're not signed up for training, they throw the book at you." Jean-Paul's voice was grim. "So there's extra inducement to out yourself and put yourself on Department H's radar."

Felix had to put his sandwich down for a moment. Delicious as it was, his stomach felt sour. "It's for your own protection. That's what they'll say, isn't it? It's not like here. People have left here and the headmasters let them choose."

"I'm not sure," Jean-Paul admitted. "I know once I was in Alpha Flight, it took extreme circumstances to get back out without any strings attached. I don't know if they'd just let mutants they consider useful just graduate from the Gamma Flight program or not."

Felix remained quiet for a few long seconds. "We could just change their minds," he said, eventually, in a much different tone as he picked up his sandwich again. "The government people, I mean. Literally. The professor wouldn't approve. But we could."

If Felix expected Jean-Paul to be horrified by the suggestion, he had chosen the wrong speedster. He only shook his head. "I don't think it can be that easy, Felix. We don't know everyone involved and I doubt there's any way we can find out. If just the few we know of start acting as if this massive project doesn't exist, it will do more than raise suspicions. It may spark a witch hunt."

Horror was not what Felix had hoped for. Practicality was. Jean-Paul considered things the way Philip did: from multiple angles at once; Felix himself tended to become too narrowly focused and blindered when upset or angry. "It wouldn't ever be easy," he agreed. "Minds are complicated, even non-mutant minds. I don't mean that we should, but we could. We could use what we have to stop things happening that we don't like. We don't have to sit by and take it. Right?"

"We don't have to take it," Jean-Paul agreed. "But we have to be careful how we stand up for ourselves. There aren't enough of us that we can afford to misstep."

That was why they had the Black and White Courts at the Club, Felix thought, attempting to hide the whirrings of his mind behind his tea cup. To keep you safe, and everyone safe, when you can't afford to misstep yourselves. Aloud, he promised, "I'm not going to go off and do anything drastic. I just don't think that Public Relations and superhero training are... really my thing."

"Even if it were, I'd prefer a situation where you had a free choice in the matter," Jean-Paul returned quietly. "But I didn't think you would."

"Was it your choice to go and be a secret agent super hero?" Felix asked, honestly curious. "Was it your idea?"

"Oui." Jean-Paul nodded at once. "When their team leader reached out to recruit me, it seemed to he best opportunity."

Felix was silent for a few seconds before he asked in a quieter voice, "Was it your choice to leave, too?"

"I couldn't get out of there fast enough," Jean-Paul assured him. "All I had been thinking about for weeks was how to get out of there and get back here."

A frown tugged down the corners of Felix's mouth, a sorrowful expression on a usually elfin face. He glanced down. "I'm glad you're back. I know how you've said you weren't sure what you would do when you were done with school. I suppose I thought you decided you wanted to be there more than you wanted to be here." Felix's nose wrinkled faintly. "I wonder what else I'm wrong about."

"I was wrong about it too," Jean-Paul sighed. "For a minute there...I thought maybe it would be something I could turn into a fresh start. But I was being naive, I think. And it's turned out all right. I'll be teaching here before long."

"Anything I might actually be able to learn?" Felix asked, peeking up again. "Or just things I'm hopeless at? Like... gym, cooking and French."

That earned an uninhibited laugh. "Well, that about sums me up, non? But it's home ec if you want to give cooking another shot."

Felix's insides got all twisted up and gooey when Jean-Paul laughed, looking so relaxed and treating him like a friend and equal. It made it a little bit hard to talk. He still wasn't used to regular people, particularly the older students, behaving like he was normal and worth someone's time. "Next semester, maybe. I'm devoted to Latin now, and... Mr. L, of course. But by next semester I expect they'll let me take three electives. I need a bit more variety if I'm going to do well on college applications."

Jean-Paul nodded. "And it doesn't hurt to know some cooking and life skills for their own sake, just in case you ever live someplace without a 24/7 cafeteria."

Felix hadn't thought much about that, but it sounded like a good idea. In theory. "I can't actually burn down the school, right?"

"Trust me, mon ami, in a school where we have the likes of Allerdyce, Pryde, and Brand running around, you're not going to be able to do much by accident."

Try has he might, Felix could stop from giggling. "All right, then, starting next semester you can try to teach me how to boil water."