JP and Alex (it works because Kari said so)

[thenorthstar]

Jean-Paul is having the worst year of his entire life. And he has had some terrible years. He thought there would never be anything worse than the year his sister was tortured, saved, and then begged to come home to hide where she felt she belonged - just when Jean-Paul was trying to make a life in New York.

But things had gotten better. Jeanne-Marie was stronger, sometimes. And Jean-Paul had found the purpose he'd always longed for in sports. Skiing suited his mutation but didn't totally draw from it; it was like he finally had a way to channel this thing he couldn't bear to live with.

And he did it. He won gold.

And he was outed as a mutant, stripped of his medal, and all but exiled.

Jean-Paul didn't know how to come back from it; his pride was too great for this blow.

So, New York. Again. So, museums, and coffee alone, his sister too afraid to venture out unless she was too comfortable to venture out.

Usually the park wasn't his thing, but there he was at Madison Square Park, relishing the brisk chill of oncoming fall, idly watching squirrels, clutching a cup of (bad) coffee. Trying to learn to be still.

Comments

[secondsummers]

It was not the worst year of Alex's life. He was hopeful that that time, at least, was behind him. He was also fairly sure that the best years, the ones he'd spent traveling the world with his father, were also lodged firmly in the past.

As he'd always said he would, as soon as he graduated high school he'd left New York. He went to university in Arizona, studying geology and French, and spent all his breaks traveling. He wasn't sure why he decided to go to grad school in New York, of all the places in the world, but he ended up there anyway.

Some places owned a piece of you whether you wanted them to or not.

Alex walked through the park after hitting the library, doing his best to soak up all the sun he could before the days got shorter and coffee became a more reliable source of energy.