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Felix & John, Halloween, middle of the party
John finds Felix in real life to celebrate being fabulous. He quickly convinces Felix that ghosts really are romantic, and together they come up with the plot -- and the main character -- of John's next romance novel.
John, as usual, was having a fantastic time--but he seemed to have lost anyone he actually knew to talk to. He glanced around until a flash of white caught his eye, realized who it was, and started directly for his fellow ginger boy. (Who was decidedly not so ginger tonight, but it was a cracking costume anyhow.) He'd meant to chat Felix up at Shinobi's party but that had all gotten a bit out of hand and he'd missed his chance. Here it was!
"Hello, hello--that's an excellent ghost costume, you know. Where'd you find it?"
Felix smiled a small, white-painted smile when the red-haired fireman approached him. It wasn't difficult to recognize him when he'd seen those photos on the journal of, well, a great deal of John Allerdyce. The costume was the rest of what gave it away.
"Here and there, but more there than here," Felix answered, in his usual round-about manner. He spread his arms, glancing down at the tattered white and gray jacket, trousers and hose that gave him the appearance of a Revolutionary War-era spectre. "Ellie helped me with some of it, but mostly it's clothes I outgrew, bleached and torn up some. We rubbed ashes from the fireplace on some of the edges to make it look old." Felix couldn't have afforded a pre-fabricated costume, not even one that came in a plastic bag.
"Last year," he added, "I just wore a sheet. This is a step up."
"Well, there's something to be said for leaving things to the imagination," John reasoned seriously. "But then, this is fantastic. Ellie's really the greatest; not surprised to hear she had a hand in it. She's magic in the art room."
It was strangely pleasing to hear Ellie praised, even though it wasn't unusual. Most of the students at Xavier's understood enough to look past her outward appearance at the kind and troubled person she really was. Felix's smile was still thin, but perhaps that was an effect of his white powder and the low lighting. "Mmhm. I tell her what they look like, and she helped me look like them. It is sort of magic."
"Which is a little funny considering how much actual magic there is around here." John giggled, then paused mid-giggle when he had a thought. "Who's they?"
"The ghosts," Felix responded, as simply as if he were speaking of one of their classmates. "I told Ellie about how they usually look."
Then, he remembered that John was new to the school, and probably hadn't read all of the journal posts going back to the start of last year. He wouldn't know about the creepy side of Felix's powers... but he also seemed like the kind of guy who liked unusual things. So, hesitantly, Felix swallowed and admitted, "I can see ghosts and astral things. It's part of my ability."
John's eyes went wide and he grinned. "You're not taking the piss, either, are you? Well that is just bloody brilliant, man. Next time I'm working on a paranormal, I'll have to get all the details from you."
Felix's experience with colloquial British was mostly limited to Eames, who didn't speak at all like Johnny, so it took him a few moments to figure out what 'taking the piss' even meant. Tentatively, he smiled, gaining confidence when John appeared impressed. It seemed rude to point out that 'paranormal' wasn't a singular noun, even though Felix was tempted. "A paranormal... what?"
"Romance novel," John supplied readily. He thought everyone knew about those, but then, some people were just sheltered about those kinds of things.
The 'novel' part did not seem to surprise Felix as much as the 'romance' part. He blinked several times, and tilted his head in curiosity. "But how can you have a romance with a ghost? Ghosts would make terrible boyfriends."
"Possibly, possibly," John conceded. As he went on one of his very typical plot rambles, he got more and more obviously excited, eyes lighting up, hands becoming animated, going up on the balls of his feet occasionally: "But that's not using your imagination. What if it was someone who didn't like being touched, but craved romantic companionship? Or what if the ghost had the ability to possess living--or newly dead--bodies, kind of like Alice--and could come through that way? Or what if some mutant had the ability to bring them back to life through some sort of inter-dimensional somethingorother? Think of it--you fall for a ghost and spend the whole plot trying to get them back into some corporeal form just so you can be together. That is romantic."
As John talked, Felix's eyes got larger and rounder, and his whited-out fingers crept up to cover his pale lips. Because it was awfully romantic, and Felix would never have imagined such a thing. Now, in just a few minutes, he wanted to know the rest of the story. When John finished his string of sudden, imaginative ideas, Felix curled his fingers back so he could ask with a breathless giggle, "When are you going to start it?"
Ah-ha, a ready audience! Nothing could please an author more--well, not much, anyhow. "As soon as I finish one of the two I'm working on now, how's that? Actually I've been looking for a story for my new hero type." John glanced around, then pointed at Remy--who was painted blue and very sparingly clothed in an approximation of some sci fi thing, apparently. "What do you think, someone like that? He even likes that boy who looks like a ghost. It's perfect."
Felix folded his hands together carefully, so as not to smudge the makeup concealing the bright markings on his skin that would utterly destroy the illusion of his disguise. "Is that Remy under all that paint? Hm." Tilting his head, Felix looked thoughtful for a few moments. "There's no way anyone would believe he doesn't like to be touched," he eventually mused. "But he seems like he'd do a lot for love."
"I like the way you're thinking." John nodded along. Yes, he could certainly see all that in the way Remy was ever-so-comfortable with closeness. And his hands everywhere. Good mannerism to write in. "And I think you've hit on a major conflict point. So he falls in love with some ghost-boy, and it kills him that he can't touch him, so... motivation to find a way to bring him into the corporeal plane!"
While he and Johnny were making up a story as they went along, Felix was watching Remy dance with Pietro. The two of them were so comfortable with one another, which Felix found strangely fascinating. Like watching some exotic ritual from a land far away. "It's a big risk," murmured Felix, dreamily. "Ghosts are dead. They're hard to look at, when you're alive. He'd be putting his own mind on the line just to see the person he loves. His sanity, just to be together."
"Brilliant." He could get more details on that later--what fantastic information!--but for the moment this was too hot to stop. John went up on the balls of his feet then rocked back again, grabbing for his mobile and opening his notes app, typing this and that as he went on. "He can start to fall in love without really looking at the ghost much--but then he finally looks and in spite of the ghost being hell to look at, there's something just extraordinarily beautiful about him, too.
"Oh, this book is going off already and it's not half-written. Well done, you!"
Felix's smile of pleasure was a beautiful thing to see. Though he seemed only partially focused -- still caught up in the dream his imagination was spinning to illustrate the story -- he soaked up the praise and practically glowed from it. "I never really thought ghosts could be romantic. I wouldn't have thought of it on my own. What do you think you'll make the ghost like?"
John scrubbed a hand through his short hair thoughtfully, considering the affectionate couple in question. "Maximoff's pretty, but I don't think he'll do for this kind of story. Too bratty." Of course, he said all this cheerfully; he was vaguely aware that Pietro tend to side-eye him distrustfully more often than not, but all that really meant to him was that research would be difficult. John liked a good brat story, but this was not to be one, he felt sure. "For someone to go through so much trauma to achieve happiness, the boy has to be perfect for him. Maybe have some connection to his past, even.
"We could ask Remy what he likes and go from there?"
Almost drowsily, Felix blinked away from the couple and turned back to Johnny, still with dreams in his mis-matched eyes. "You mean just... go up and ask him? What if... what if he tells you?" There were a lot of things Felix did not want to know. The exact type of ghost that upperclassmen would like to turn into corporeal beings in order to touch were suddenly pretty high on that list.
On some odd level, John agreed that the idea was appalling--though he neither knew nor cared if it was the same level on which Felix found it to be so. "Well, the key in these situations is to leave it wide open and not be too specific. Ask for general opinions, not the precise opinions in re the scenario you're writing.
"For example, I might ask him, 'So what is it about this twinky blond boy you're so attracted to, Monsieur LeBeau?' And then it's open to interpretation; believable in the story, but without too much pesky, mundane reality getting in the way."
Felix gave an over-solemn nod of agreement; reality was terribly bothersome that way. "You must have done this quite a lot. You sound like a professional about it all. I didn't even know you could be a writer when you're in high school."
"Why not? What's to stop us being anything--especially seeing as we're mutants?" John turned his attention fully to Felix, looking him over with interest. The mismatched eyes were particularly interesting; he'd like to see a hero of some kind like Felix. Physically small, odd, pretty, strong in deceptive ways.
Well he didn't know that Felix was strong at all, really. He'd just rather think he was. Felix, he now knew, would understand.
Slender and delicate-looking, features on the elfin side of masculine, and an awkwardness to his posture that wasn't quite yet sure of its own height, Felix hardly looked a traditional hero. Flamboyant side character, perhaps, if he could shake the ducking and the glancing-away he tended to do when in conversation. "Not that. I just thought all writers were adults."
"Adults have traded their soul and imagination for what they deem safety. Imagination is chaos, and growing up means bowing to order." It was largely meaningless, but John meant it all the same. He nodded once as if to prove it. "Ask me, I say anyone who names themselves 'adult' shouldn't be allowed to be a writer."
That was quite a statement, and quite a lot, but Felix's brows just went up and up, fascinated. People who were so sure of things were a marvel to Felix, when he himself wasn't always certain if he was actually interacting with reality. "So you're going to remain Pyro Pan and stay a writer forever, never growing up?" he asked, unable to quench a tiny smile at his own silliness.
"Got it in one," John agreed with a giggle. "Of course I'll grow old, just not up."
And then, out of nowhere, he suddenly remembered why he'd accosted Felix in the first place and changed the subject. "Oh! And, about those pictures, mate. Thanks for the advice, but I wouldn't have used them--at least, not those last two showing all I got. I was just fucking with Anders' head."
Felix dealt with the sudden change in conversational topics well enough, though largely by failing to understand exactly what John meant. "What would happen to Anders' head because of those pictures? Unless he.... but no," Felix contradicted himself in mid-sentence. "He takes all sorts of model-like pictures of Vance. Maybe not quite so naked, but, it's Vance."
John held his hands up, fingers spread wide, grinning. "I'm not saying anything for sure, now. I'm just saying he protests too loudly, and if he's going to be a dick about certain things, I'm gonna have a good time with it."
Felix didn't look too convinced despite John's apparently jovial air. Anders was the only one left whose powers made people nervous, now that Damon had left the school, and the only one deflecting attention from the uglier things that Felix himself could do. He had a vested interest in preserving Anders' self-earned poor reputation.
"You know he's a mind-controller, right? Most people are really wary around him. Don't trust him much. You know?"
John nodded thoughtfully. Honestly, he couldn't imagine what Anders would mind control him to do that he wouldn't anyhow. Possibly to forget certain things--but then, he wrote everything down, so surely he'd remember--or at least suspect--when he saw. Other than that--what, was he going to have him light the school on fire? Absurd; the headmaster was a telepath! "I like your sense of caution, Felix. It's a very heroic quality, how you share it with others. Nicely done."
It was, actually, the exact opposite -- about which Felix felt only the slightest twinge of guilt. Misdirection in order to keep himself safe was not something he felt badly about. Rather than answer, Felix ducked his chin and glanced away to the side, with the hint of a little smile. "Just don't put me in a story, okay?"
John cocked his head. He'd never had anyone just say that to him before. But seeing as he generally asked before he did that--well, in the cases where he knew the person, anyhow--he didn't mind saying, "If you like, yeah. No problem, mate."
"Thanks." Since John was being so accommodating, Felix rewarded him with a full-on smile, the kind that lit up his eyes and transformed his face entirely. "I really can't wait to read the Remy story, though."
John grinned again. "You'll get full credit in the acknowledgments."
John, as usual, was having a fantastic time--but he seemed to have lost anyone he actually knew to talk to. He glanced around until a flash of white caught his eye, realized who it was, and started directly for his fellow ginger boy. (Who was decidedly not so ginger tonight, but it was a cracking costume anyhow.) He'd meant to chat Felix up at Shinobi's party but that had all gotten a bit out of hand and he'd missed his chance. Here it was!
"Hello, hello--that's an excellent ghost costume, you know. Where'd you find it?"
Felix smiled a small, white-painted smile when the red-haired fireman approached him. It wasn't difficult to recognize him when he'd seen those photos on the journal of, well, a great deal of John Allerdyce. The costume was the rest of what gave it away.
"Here and there, but more there than here," Felix answered, in his usual round-about manner. He spread his arms, glancing down at the tattered white and gray jacket, trousers and hose that gave him the appearance of a Revolutionary War-era spectre. "Ellie helped me with some of it, but mostly it's clothes I outgrew, bleached and torn up some. We rubbed ashes from the fireplace on some of the edges to make it look old." Felix couldn't have afforded a pre-fabricated costume, not even one that came in a plastic bag.
"Last year," he added, "I just wore a sheet. This is a step up."
"Well, there's something to be said for leaving things to the imagination," John reasoned seriously. "But then, this is fantastic. Ellie's really the greatest; not surprised to hear she had a hand in it. She's magic in the art room."
It was strangely pleasing to hear Ellie praised, even though it wasn't unusual. Most of the students at Xavier's understood enough to look past her outward appearance at the kind and troubled person she really was. Felix's smile was still thin, but perhaps that was an effect of his white powder and the low lighting. "Mmhm. I tell her what they look like, and she helped me look like them. It is sort of magic."
"Which is a little funny considering how much actual magic there is around here." John giggled, then paused mid-giggle when he had a thought. "Who's they?"
"The ghosts," Felix responded, as simply as if he were speaking of one of their classmates. "I told Ellie about how they usually look."
Then, he remembered that John was new to the school, and probably hadn't read all of the journal posts going back to the start of last year. He wouldn't know about the creepy side of Felix's powers... but he also seemed like the kind of guy who liked unusual things. So, hesitantly, Felix swallowed and admitted, "I can see ghosts and astral things. It's part of my ability."
John's eyes went wide and he grinned. "You're not taking the piss, either, are you? Well that is just bloody brilliant, man. Next time I'm working on a paranormal, I'll have to get all the details from you."
Felix's experience with colloquial British was mostly limited to Eames, who didn't speak at all like Johnny, so it took him a few moments to figure out what 'taking the piss' even meant. Tentatively, he smiled, gaining confidence when John appeared impressed. It seemed rude to point out that 'paranormal' wasn't a singular noun, even though Felix was tempted. "A paranormal... what?"
"Romance novel," John supplied readily. He thought everyone knew about those, but then, some people were just sheltered about those kinds of things.
The 'novel' part did not seem to surprise Felix as much as the 'romance' part. He blinked several times, and tilted his head in curiosity. "But how can you have a romance with a ghost? Ghosts would make terrible boyfriends."
"Possibly, possibly," John conceded. As he went on one of his very typical plot rambles, he got more and more obviously excited, eyes lighting up, hands becoming animated, going up on the balls of his feet occasionally: "But that's not using your imagination. What if it was someone who didn't like being touched, but craved romantic companionship? Or what if the ghost had the ability to possess living--or newly dead--bodies, kind of like Alice--and could come through that way? Or what if some mutant had the ability to bring them back to life through some sort of inter-dimensional somethingorother? Think of it--you fall for a ghost and spend the whole plot trying to get them back into some corporeal form just so you can be together. That is romantic."
As John talked, Felix's eyes got larger and rounder, and his whited-out fingers crept up to cover his pale lips. Because it was awfully romantic, and Felix would never have imagined such a thing. Now, in just a few minutes, he wanted to know the rest of the story. When John finished his string of sudden, imaginative ideas, Felix curled his fingers back so he could ask with a breathless giggle, "When are you going to start it?"
Ah-ha, a ready audience! Nothing could please an author more--well, not much, anyhow. "As soon as I finish one of the two I'm working on now, how's that? Actually I've been looking for a story for my new hero type." John glanced around, then pointed at Remy--who was painted blue and very sparingly clothed in an approximation of some sci fi thing, apparently. "What do you think, someone like that? He even likes that boy who looks like a ghost. It's perfect."
Felix folded his hands together carefully, so as not to smudge the makeup concealing the bright markings on his skin that would utterly destroy the illusion of his disguise. "Is that Remy under all that paint? Hm." Tilting his head, Felix looked thoughtful for a few moments. "There's no way anyone would believe he doesn't like to be touched," he eventually mused. "But he seems like he'd do a lot for love."
"I like the way you're thinking." John nodded along. Yes, he could certainly see all that in the way Remy was ever-so-comfortable with closeness. And his hands everywhere. Good mannerism to write in. "And I think you've hit on a major conflict point. So he falls in love with some ghost-boy, and it kills him that he can't touch him, so... motivation to find a way to bring him into the corporeal plane!"
While he and Johnny were making up a story as they went along, Felix was watching Remy dance with Pietro. The two of them were so comfortable with one another, which Felix found strangely fascinating. Like watching some exotic ritual from a land far away. "It's a big risk," murmured Felix, dreamily. "Ghosts are dead. They're hard to look at, when you're alive. He'd be putting his own mind on the line just to see the person he loves. His sanity, just to be together."
"Brilliant." He could get more details on that later--what fantastic information!--but for the moment this was too hot to stop. John went up on the balls of his feet then rocked back again, grabbing for his mobile and opening his notes app, typing this and that as he went on. "He can start to fall in love without really looking at the ghost much--but then he finally looks and in spite of the ghost being hell to look at, there's something just extraordinarily beautiful about him, too.
"Oh, this book is going off already and it's not half-written. Well done, you!"
Felix's smile of pleasure was a beautiful thing to see. Though he seemed only partially focused -- still caught up in the dream his imagination was spinning to illustrate the story -- he soaked up the praise and practically glowed from it. "I never really thought ghosts could be romantic. I wouldn't have thought of it on my own. What do you think you'll make the ghost like?"
John scrubbed a hand through his short hair thoughtfully, considering the affectionate couple in question. "Maximoff's pretty, but I don't think he'll do for this kind of story. Too bratty." Of course, he said all this cheerfully; he was vaguely aware that Pietro tend to side-eye him distrustfully more often than not, but all that really meant to him was that research would be difficult. John liked a good brat story, but this was not to be one, he felt sure. "For someone to go through so much trauma to achieve happiness, the boy has to be perfect for him. Maybe have some connection to his past, even.
"We could ask Remy what he likes and go from there?"
Almost drowsily, Felix blinked away from the couple and turned back to Johnny, still with dreams in his mis-matched eyes. "You mean just... go up and ask him? What if... what if he tells you?" There were a lot of things Felix did not want to know. The exact type of ghost that upperclassmen would like to turn into corporeal beings in order to touch were suddenly pretty high on that list.
On some odd level, John agreed that the idea was appalling--though he neither knew nor cared if it was the same level on which Felix found it to be so. "Well, the key in these situations is to leave it wide open and not be too specific. Ask for general opinions, not the precise opinions in re the scenario you're writing.
"For example, I might ask him, 'So what is it about this twinky blond boy you're so attracted to, Monsieur LeBeau?' And then it's open to interpretation; believable in the story, but without too much pesky, mundane reality getting in the way."
Felix gave an over-solemn nod of agreement; reality was terribly bothersome that way. "You must have done this quite a lot. You sound like a professional about it all. I didn't even know you could be a writer when you're in high school."
"Why not? What's to stop us being anything--especially seeing as we're mutants?" John turned his attention fully to Felix, looking him over with interest. The mismatched eyes were particularly interesting; he'd like to see a hero of some kind like Felix. Physically small, odd, pretty, strong in deceptive ways.
Well he didn't know that Felix was strong at all, really. He'd just rather think he was. Felix, he now knew, would understand.
Slender and delicate-looking, features on the elfin side of masculine, and an awkwardness to his posture that wasn't quite yet sure of its own height, Felix hardly looked a traditional hero. Flamboyant side character, perhaps, if he could shake the ducking and the glancing-away he tended to do when in conversation. "Not that. I just thought all writers were adults."
"Adults have traded their soul and imagination for what they deem safety. Imagination is chaos, and growing up means bowing to order." It was largely meaningless, but John meant it all the same. He nodded once as if to prove it. "Ask me, I say anyone who names themselves 'adult' shouldn't be allowed to be a writer."
That was quite a statement, and quite a lot, but Felix's brows just went up and up, fascinated. People who were so sure of things were a marvel to Felix, when he himself wasn't always certain if he was actually interacting with reality. "So you're going to remain Pyro Pan and stay a writer forever, never growing up?" he asked, unable to quench a tiny smile at his own silliness.
"Got it in one," John agreed with a giggle. "Of course I'll grow old, just not up."
And then, out of nowhere, he suddenly remembered why he'd accosted Felix in the first place and changed the subject. "Oh! And, about those pictures, mate. Thanks for the advice, but I wouldn't have used them--at least, not those last two showing all I got. I was just fucking with Anders' head."
Felix dealt with the sudden change in conversational topics well enough, though largely by failing to understand exactly what John meant. "What would happen to Anders' head because of those pictures? Unless he.... but no," Felix contradicted himself in mid-sentence. "He takes all sorts of model-like pictures of Vance. Maybe not quite so naked, but, it's Vance."
John held his hands up, fingers spread wide, grinning. "I'm not saying anything for sure, now. I'm just saying he protests too loudly, and if he's going to be a dick about certain things, I'm gonna have a good time with it."
Felix didn't look too convinced despite John's apparently jovial air. Anders was the only one left whose powers made people nervous, now that Damon had left the school, and the only one deflecting attention from the uglier things that Felix himself could do. He had a vested interest in preserving Anders' self-earned poor reputation.
"You know he's a mind-controller, right? Most people are really wary around him. Don't trust him much. You know?"
John nodded thoughtfully. Honestly, he couldn't imagine what Anders would mind control him to do that he wouldn't anyhow. Possibly to forget certain things--but then, he wrote everything down, so surely he'd remember--or at least suspect--when he saw. Other than that--what, was he going to have him light the school on fire? Absurd; the headmaster was a telepath! "I like your sense of caution, Felix. It's a very heroic quality, how you share it with others. Nicely done."
It was, actually, the exact opposite -- about which Felix felt only the slightest twinge of guilt. Misdirection in order to keep himself safe was not something he felt badly about. Rather than answer, Felix ducked his chin and glanced away to the side, with the hint of a little smile. "Just don't put me in a story, okay?"
John cocked his head. He'd never had anyone just say that to him before. But seeing as he generally asked before he did that--well, in the cases where he knew the person, anyhow--he didn't mind saying, "If you like, yeah. No problem, mate."
"Thanks." Since John was being so accommodating, Felix rewarded him with a full-on smile, the kind that lit up his eyes and transformed his face entirely. "I really can't wait to read the Remy story, though."
John grinned again. "You'll get full credit in the acknowledgments."