ax_main | Jean-Paul, Percy, and Gilmore, post-Murderworld

Jean-Paul comes to Percy's room bearing pastries, and finds Gilmore there, too. A number of uncomfortable feelings about their Murderworld ordeal come to light.

This would have been a lot easier if the visit to Percy's room had been motivated by guilt. Guilt was awkward in the moment, but certain flavors of it were easier to leave behind than others.

But no, this was on of those actually motivated by concern and liking for someone things, complicated by the fact that there was a decent chance of said someone blaming him for an outlandish kidnapping-murder attempt.

Really, he probably should have just texted to see if Percy was OK. But cowardice was a bad look, wasn't it? And Jean-Paul didn't have a whole lot left but image these days.

So he shifted the plate of cooling food to one hand, braced himself, and knocked.

There was a quiet exchange of voices from inside the room, and then a few beats later, the door opened. Rather than Percy or Vax standing there, however, there was Shaun Gilmore, looking very comfortable in an embroidered designer hoodie and extremely skinny jeans. As soon as he saw Jean-Paul, he slid one hand up the frame of the door and cocked his hip, leaning there to grin at the visitor. "Why, hello there. It's good to see you all in one piece. Percy," he added, just barely turning his head without looking away from Jean-Paul, "you have a visitor.”

“The knock at the door would suggest that,” Percy said as he came up beside Shaun. He was dressed as neatly as ever, though the sleeves were rolled up to accommodate the cast on his right arm.

Percy smiled at Jean-Paul. He looked a little worse for the wear, but he was standing and by Vox Machina standards that was a win. “Hello, Jean-Paul. It’s good to see you well.”

"I wish I were seeing you in better shape," Jean-Paul said. "What's the prognosis?”

“Six to ten weeks, and a new lewd remark left by my boyfriend when I wake up every morning.” Percy held up his arm to show keep it stiff written in a slanting scrawl on the cast.

"He's such a charming heathen, though," Gilmore sighed, and stepped back away from the door to make room. All right, Jean-Paul was immune to flirting. It made sense, since he'd been inoculated by Warren Worthington himself. Lighter on the innuendo, heavier on the honest concern, he asked, "How are you doing, Jean-Paul?"

"I got off light. Just stitches." And bad dreams. But he doubted he was unique in that respect. "But I have brought sustenance to aid in your convalescence." Jean-Paul held up the covered plate. "Have either of you ever had clafoutis?”

Percy stepped back as well, eyebrows lifting in surprise at the offering. “I have. It’s been some time since, though.”

Gilmore shook his head and said cheerfully, "Can't say that I have, but if you're making introductions, I'd be delighted to meet it." He stole a glance at Percy, who seemed pleased, which was in turn pleasing to Gilmore. Jean-Paul got extra credit for making Percy happy.

Jean-Paul set his plate down on Vax's desk and uncovered it. Several paper plates and plastic forks shared space with a flat pastry that looked like a very thick pancake, studded with cherries and raspberries.

"Well, I hope it's a welcome re-acquaintance." He nodded to Gil. "Or first meeting. I figured Percy could use the pick-me-up.”

Percy hadn’t been hungry, but his mouth watered in response to the dessert. It looked delicious. “That’s very kind of you. Thank you.”

"This looks fantastic. Are you a super-powered chef, too?" Gilmore asked warmly, stepping around to get a whiff of the unexpected gift pastry. "We hardly had the opportunity to exchange power-sets in the Exploding Pinball Game of Doom.”

"The culinary talent is all a matter of training and necessity." It looked as if his offering was more than acceptable, so Jean-Paul began serving. "The speed and flight are a matter of nature. I'm a little surprised you didn't know, though," he said. "I've pretty much given people the advantage on that point since coming out."

That startled a low-voiced chuckle from Gilmore, and he reached to assist in separating the plates and utensils. Naturally, he handed the first slice that Jean-Paul cut to Percy, careful to place everything so he could balance it with one hand. "I know who you are, Jean-Paul, don't worry. I'm friendly with Warren, and I do pay a bit of attention to the mutant world. Usually my jokes come off vastly more charming." He sighed, and cast an exaggeratedly woeful, doe-eyed look to Percy, batting his long black lashes. "Am I losing my touch? You'll validate me, won't you, Percy?”

With his plate balanced in his good hand, Percy was able to pat Shaun’s arm reassuringly with the tips of the fingers on his casted one. “I promise you, Shaun, your touch is far from lost. Your remark was both witty, and flattering.”

"And your target just got off the good pain meds," Jean-Paul deadpanned, handing over another plate. "Don't take my spaciness personally."

Clearly, Gilmore did not, because he shone those Bambi eyes and flashed those white teeth to Jean-Paul in one of his signature smiles, accepting the plate of pastry for himself. "And I've been told that I need more attention than any three people could possibly provide," he joked, gently self-deprecating. "It might look like I'm here to take care of Percy, but no. He is looking after me while Nolan is busy with work and Molly is taking a break with his friends. You're doing glorious work, too," Shaun added for Percy's benefit. He waited until Percy was comfortably seated and able to manage his own utensils, before taking up a post on Vax's bed to try his portion of the treat.

It was frustrating to lack the manual dexterity for even using a fork properly, but Percy managed well enough. He speared a piece of cherry-laden clafoutis. “I excel at being a distraction.” He smirked at Shaun, teasing. “Even when I’m the last resort.”

"I doubt that happens very often," Jean-Paul mused. "I can't see Vax letting you stand neglected very long."

Even if Percy was teasing, Gilmore pressed his mouth into a reproachful moue at him. “You’re hardly the last resort. Not everyone can bear the brilliance of my glorious presence for long.” He winked, and it wasn’t anything like subtle. Outright flirtatious actually. At first bite of the clafoutis, though, it was Gilmore who was fully distracted. “Oh, this is fantastic.”

“It is,” Percy agreed after swallowing his own first bite. “And you’ve silenced Shaun, which is a feat few can say they’ve accomplished.”

"What can I say? I'm an overachiever." Jean-Paul glanced over at Shaun. "You look like you came out of it all right.”

Almost unconsciously, Gilmore cast a lingering glance over at Percy's cast, his brows turning down guiltily. That was his fault. "My ears were ringing for a couple of days, and I didn't sleep very well for a few nights, but otherwise... you're exactly right," he admitted, very much more subdued. It sounded more like a confession than a confirmation. "I had an unfair advantage in there.”

Percy gave Shaun a look that was part concerned and part admonishing. “I think you give yourself too much credit. Your mutation is very useful, there’s no doubt of that, but I don’t think it grants you much of an advantage against exploding pinballs and go-kart deathtraps.”

Jean-Paul nodded in agreement. "Everything in there was meant to counter any advantages our powers gave us. That we got out at all was quick thinking and luck.”

Trust Percy to make him feel better by curbing his ego. Gilmore might have smiled a little, though he hid it behind another bite. "We were lucky to have teamwork on our side, too. I wouldn't have made it without Percy and Wynonna." He stabbed at his pastry. "I still can't get over the fact that he knew who you were, but he didn't have the slightest idea who we were, and he didn't bother to find out.”

Percy was relieved for that. If it was famous mutants Arcade had been after, he shuddered to think what would have happened had he realized he had a not-quite-dead-as-believed de Rolo in his possession. Never mind what Arcade may have done had he known Shaun could read a machine as easily as someone could a picture book.

“He was an idiot,” Percy said with the practiced dismissal of the over-privileged. “He didn’t know who we were or what we could do so he wasn’t prepared.”

"Hubris has been the downfall of better men than Arcade," Jean-Paul agreed. "I'm glad it worked in our favor.”

Gilmore didn't look convinced. "Still, I don't want to be murdered anonymously." Then again, the idea of anonymity went against every fiber of his personality.

“I don’t think notoriety makes being murdered any better. Either way, in the end, you’re still dead,” Percy observed as he cut off another bite from his slice of cake.

"If it helps," Jean-Paul put in, "when we inevitably track down this asshole, we can tattoo our names onto his forehead before letting the authorities have him.”

That did, apparently, help, because Gilmore sat up a bit and stopped looking vaguely sulky. "Are we? Tracking him down? Don't tell me this is some 'superheroes only' plan," Shaun added, his brow furrowing. "Because I would want in on that.”

"'We' is limited to Tessa and the Professor at the moment, from what I understand." And oh, Jean-Paul looked just thrilled about that. "I get it. They have resources we don't. And I don't think we'll be left out if he's found. But it does mean we're probably sitting out the hunt.”

Percy had his doubts that Xavier and his superhero squad would let them be involved in any way. That being said, he wasn’t sure how long Arcade would last once he was found. He’d made the mistake of pissing off a mutant who could travel through shadow and was very talented with knives. “If he’s in possession of any intelligence whatsoever, he’ll keep his head down.”

"Nolan said they tried tracking him by energy spikes, initially," Gilmore offered. "I could build something to do that. Hell, give me a few minutes with whatever they've got going on in the basement here, and I could probably build something track down whoever you want." Even though that thought clearly made him a little bit uncomfortable. He grimaced, and muttered, "Good thing I'm taking Ethics, I suppose.”

"Even if it doesn't always feel that way, right?" Jean-Paul shrugged; he wasn't here to judge. "If you are planning to start your own investigation, let me know. I'm more on the braun side of matters than brains, but I'll help however I can.”

“There are no plans at the moment, but, if that changes, we’ll let you know.” Vox Machina hadn’t talked about tracking down Arcade and Percy felt comfortable asking them to partake on only so many missions of revenge on his behalf.

Gilmore clearly didn't look best pleased, but he wasn't about to gainsay Percy on this point. "Wish we'd taken more than that indestructible bunny suit out of there," he rumbled, stabbing another bite of deliciousness with untoward, and uncharacteristic, ferocity. "We fought for our lives and all we have to show for it is trauma and injury."

"I got the footage of my brief time on the slopes, but I take your meaning." Jean-Paul sighed. "I guess I should get used to it, if I'm going to be running around with X-Force, though. 'Trauma' seems to come with the territory there as well.”

“It seems to come with being a mutant.” It was said almost as an aside, Percy’s furrowed brow attention more focused on Shaun than it was no anything else. He put his plate down, his cake unfinished. “Do you want to go after him?”

That was Percy's serious voice; Gilmore was very familiar with it. What he wasn't accustomed to was feeling like his heart couldn't decide if he was angry, defensive, or afraid, and kept delivering erratic doses of all three without any warning whatsoever. Right now it was anger, and Shaun's voice was tight and strained. "What I want is for him not to hurt anyone else. I want him to be found and arrested, and I want the world to know there are crazy assholes who think that mutants are monkeys they can play with and kill for entertainment. I'd like some damn acknowledgement that we're people and that something happened to us.”

Seeing Shaun, always so full of light and warmth and positivity, so haunted made Percy’s heart ache. He stood and went over to Shaun, putting a hand on his shoulder that rested there briefly before sliding to the other side to pull him into a one-armed embrace. He kissed the top of his head and gave him a gentle squeeze.

Percy didn’t know what to say. His brands of pragmatism and cynicism were no good right now. And offering to suffocate the bastard in shadow wouldn’t help. God, he wished Vax were here. He’d know the right thing to say.

Jean-Paul frowned and folded his arm over his chest. "You're more generous than I am," he confessed. "I just want the son of a bitch dead. I wish I hadn't pulled my punch.”

Gilmore realized with a start that he must look pretty awful, if Percy had gone so far as to hug him without any other provocation. He slipped an arm around Percy's waist and leaned into him, unwilling to let such an opportunity pass by. "It doesn't feel generous. It feels like shit." He looked across at Jean-Paul, brows furrowed. "You really would have killed another person?”

"That's hard to answer now, isn't it?" Jean-Paul forced himself to open his body language; he wasn't mad at Shaun or Percy. "I checked my speed in the moment, when I was half out of my head and bleeding. When I guess most people would have considered me justified in putting my fist through his skull. But the more I dwell on it..." He trailed off with a stiff shrug. "The more time passes, the more I think I'd do it differently if I had it to do over again. Or so I keep trying to convince myself.”

An unpleasant feeling crawled in Percy’s stomach, and he avoided looking at Shaun. He would kill a person. He’d kill the Briarwoods. He’d kill Ripley, and Anders, and Stonefell. And his reasoning wouldn’t be so noble as wanting to stop them from hurting anyone else. He just wanted them to pay for what they’d done. “You did what you thought was right at the time. That’s the best any of us can do.”

Gilmore couldn't see Percy's face just then, but he could see Jean-Paul's, and that told him what he needed to know. He gave Percy another squeeze, but mostly because he thought Jean-Paul wouldn't accept the hug that Shaun very much wanted to give him just then. "You survived, and so did we, and I sure as hell couldn't have asked for more."

"Well." Jean-Paul offered them both a brittle smile. The sight of Percy in Shaun's arms was making him very much want to go find Simon, Warren, or, ideally, both. "We've all survived, and there's pastry. So we've come out ahead.”

“It is scientifically proven that dessert can improve any situation.” Percy released Shaun from the hug with a final squeeze. “Thank you again for it. It was very thoughtful of you.”

They had reached the end of Jean-Paul's capability to make nice with other people; Gilmore could almost feel it in the air. He'd been feeling like that a lot, lately, himself. "You're a prince, Jean-Paul," Shaun agreed. "Thanks. We needed it.”

"I think we could all use some special treatment right now," Jean-Paul agreed. He straightened up and headed for the door. "Enjoy. Just drop the plate off in the kitchen when you're done and I'll get to it." God, he wanted to go find his boys.

“See you later, Jean-Paul,” Percy said as he followed to see Jean-Paul out. “Let us know if you need anything.”