WHO:
morespeed and
hackeralastair, anyone else who wants to jump in.
WHERE: Spark Roast, the only coffe shop in the city.
WHEN: Early Sunday afternoon
SUMMARY: JP meets with Alistair. They have a lot to discuss. JP wants to hear all about himself.
FORMAT: Prose opening, I'll follow your lead after that.
NOTES: Ahahaha now in the right community. /fails
(
A long time ag, we used to be friends )
Even if this wasn't his JP, judging by the reaction to the nickname.
It wasn't warm enough yet for his favorite coat, so he had on his leather winter jacket, but the sunglasses and bright red hair were obvious to anyone who might have seen him before. He went straight to the counter and ordered up his usual latte before looking around. There he is. All right, here we go. Alastair took his coffee and drifted over to the table where Jean-Paul sat.
"Uh. Hi."
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Jean-Paul had been tracking Alistair since he arrived. There something about this man that had made him important to another version of JP; there was no why to know what that was just from looking at him, but Jean-Paul had so little to go on otherwise he couldn't help himself. Nice jacket (not as cool as his own), good sunglasses (he didn't have any, one point for Alistair), red hair (undecided).
Jean-Paul was shallow.
"Please," he said, standing up and gesturing to the seat opposite his own but, confusingly, also putting out a hand to shake. It wasn't easy to fall back on his rarely-used reserves of politeness. "Alistair, yes? It's good to meet you in person."
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"I guess, with all the X-people and their school and whatever, you haven't had too hard a time settling in," he chanced. "A lot of people you know, or should probably know. Right?"
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He smiled, swiping a strand of hair out of his eyes. "I don't know how much my... other self told you about his time with the X-Men, or if he was even part of the team. But I did know many people at the Institute, as an active team member and later solely as a teacher. And more recently, when I joined the team again and we were forced to move to our own...fortress, I suppose it could be called. I can't pretend that I liked all those people, or even most of them. And so many of them are different here, in a lot of ways." He glanced back at Alistair, half smiling. "As I'm sure you know. But there's so many of them, it can be a little tiring at times. Even I run out of insults eventually."
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Thinking about it brought one other thing to mind, something Alastair had nearly forgotten in the time since his friend was ported out. He looked down at the table and the coffee cup between his hands. "He, uh. Saved my life once, too."
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And speaking of, that sounded like exactly the sort of thing that would happen in this world. Jean-Paul leaned forward. "He did? Well, you must tell me how! Exciting, dramatic adventures are much more interesting than me telling you how Emma and I once smoked all of Logan's cigars. Especially if I'm the one being exciting and dramatic." He leaned back in his chair, raising an eyebrow. "Unless it's something you'd rather not talk about?"
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He smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, I feel like a police officer interrogating a witness. If I'm asking anything too personal, please just tell me so. You won't hurt my feelings."
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He offered Jean-Paul as casual a smile as he could. There was something so familiar about him that this meeting was coming off far less awkward than he anticipated. For now, at least.
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He did feel oddly at ease; maybe working with the X-Men had mellowed him out more than expected, or maybe this who alternate-world scenario subconsciously made him seek out allies like this young man, as strange as the connection between them might they might be. For some reason Jean-Paul didn't want to question it too hard right now.
"I think I would like it," he continued, not quite meeting Alistair's eyes. One might almost think he was nervous. "If we were able to forge such a friendship between ourselves? I can't ever promise to be the same Jean-Paul that you knew, but...maybe I can be his equal."
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He didn't really address the comment about entities running the city...it made him think of the Porter and how much he hated it. Especially at times like this, with Saitou leaving and coming back, and dead friends staying dead. Instead, he concentrated on the rest, and found himself nodding in agreement. "Friends is good. Can never have too many, right?"
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He dropped his hands to the table again, his smirk broadening into a grin. "And I can hardly fault someone for having a big mouth. As long as no vitriol is poured on me, I will gossip with you until the sun sets. You'll live to regret saying you can never have too many friends, when I start introducing you to the million X-Men just so I can talk about them behind their backs."
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He took a sip, seemed to mull it over, and set the cup back down. "So was life treating you normal back home, or was it one of those end-of-the-world issues people come in talking about sometimes? I never can tell, there's obviously so many different dimensions all criss-crossing here."
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But then he laughed, dissipating whatever macho persona he might have been projecting for a moment. "Viarge, it is never quiet back home. We just exiled ourselves on a hopefully-self-sufficient island to escape Norman Osborn and his terrible haircut. But what about you?" Jean-Paul leaned forward. "Tell me about your world."
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And then it happened. One word triggered his power, and the rest of his comment spilled out involuntarily in French. "Osborn...oh god, that guy. I know he's around this place somewhere, I'm always seeing the back-and-forth between him and Stark..."
He paused, and then shook his head in order to give himself a moment to reset his mind to English. "Crap, it happened again...."
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He watched with interest, head slightly tilted, as Alistair launched into French. "Hmm. I take it you weren't supposed to do that?" he asked in his native tongue. "Can you understand me? One of the children at the school used to have powers like this, I think."
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