Running for Home - 60. February 28, 2022

February 28 2022

Jean-Paul and I went out tonight. We didn’t plan any details out ahead of time, other than we’d skip having dinner with everyone else at the school and get food while out. I didn’t have too bad of a day teaching, though Bobby was exhausted. He was being a bit cute, to be honest, and when Jean-Paul came knocking on my door I had a moment of temptation to cancel on him and just drag Bobby into bed for a lazy massage and blowjob after dinner. I was a good boy, though. Bobby will survive.

Fuck, sometimes I forget that Jean-Paul is rich. The bastard owns a high-end BMW, not that I really know anything about the different kinds. Cars aren’t my thing. Mine gets me from point A to point B, and that’s good enough for me. At least, generally speaking that’s how I feel. Well, tonight was an excuse to take a ride in his dream car so I let Jean-Paul do the driving. I won’t lie and say that it wasn’t fun, or that it wouldn’t be awesome to own something similar, but the reality is that it’s not really part of who I am to need something like this in my life. Jean-Paul, on the other hand, is a speedster. Going fast and looking dead sexy while doing so is just intrinsically part of who he is so why not have a car that matches that? He certainly can afford it.

Talking about his car and the irony of him owning something to get him from place to place slower than he can fly himself gave us some time to settle into things before the conversation turned to anything difficult. There were any number of topics to avoid right now, but the biggest elephant in the room was, of course, Bobby. We stopped in at this cozy little gastropub he likes. Great food, and a great beer and scotch selection - not that we were going to be hitting it very hard on a Monday night, but it’s nice to have options. Jean-Paul snidely referred to it as the as the grown-ups place much more worth spending money at than the ridiculous chain restaurant Jubilee brought us to for my welcome back dinner.

We decided to keep things simple and order from the tapas menu. After the waiter, who Jean-Paul eyed up appreciatively, took our order, we sat in silence for a moment. Neither of us really knew what to say, where to start. It was incredibly uncharacteristic of both of us, which made things worse. Eventually I broke and asked him about my student Quentin Quire - whether he’d taught him before, what he knew of him. The look of relief that came across Jean-Paul’s face was so intense that it broke both of us into a smile.

That smile wore off pretty quickly, though. Jean-Paul said he does not envy me. He hasn’t taught Quentin, and he hopes he never does. Apparently they had a teacher quit last year because of him, and another two years before. Jean-Paul confirmed everything I already knew or guessed about the brat, specifically that he’s pretty much toxic to most classroom situations and I’m going to spend a lot of time and energy dealing with him and his flunkies. Jean-Paul advised that I have a sit-down with Emma about Quentin, since she’s the one who has championed the necessity of keeping him here in the past. She must think we are making a difference with him. Xavier would have believed that, anyway. Maybe Emma just thinks it’s far better for him to be in the School where we can keep him contained, rather than let loose on the public.

Jean-Paul then congratulated me on how well the Big Gay Talk went. He hopes it made an impact, seeing their teachers open up about their lives the way we had. I guess only time will tell. My classes weren’t a problem last semester, but I think the students I was teaching were all used to Victor Borkowski, and he’s a likable enough kid so that helps. But the shit going on in Daniel and Connor’s classes… I am not so sure that one talk is going to be weighty enough to change things. Emma made it clear in the meeting that the faculty and staff are to be all over any incidents we see, but to one degree or another the students just need to grow up some. Maybe Connor coming out will help. Maybe not. I don’t know. I can’t think that it won’t have at least some sort of impact. He was a more popular student in his year.

Speaking of Connor and Daniel, I’m not sure what’s going on there. When I tracked Daniel down a couple of days ago to check in on him, he seemed… I don’t know. He didn’t want to talk about it. I really wanted him to open up to me, but he wouldn’t and I had to respect that. I told Jean Paul about that, and he agrees not to push him on it. Connor and Daniel need to sort themselves out now, and it’s going to be a messy process. I will be there for Daniel, of course, but who’s going to be there for Connor? Like, I know Xi’an and he made a bit of a connection, but I don’t know if it’s remotely what he needs. I mean, she’s a woman. Maybe that shouldn’t make a difference, but for some reason I feel like it does. I asked Jean-Paul whether he or Piotr could take Connor under their wing, but he gave me a non-committal response. He thinks it’s too personal, and since he doesn’t have an existing rapport with Connor he’s not sure whether he should try to jump in and fill that role unasked. Connor knows there are several adults here that he can come to now, so perhaps he has enough information to get him to take the first step. I disagree, but fine. I just know that I can’t be the one Connor relies on because I’m already supporting Daniel and I feel like that makes me a bit biased. Maybe someday I’ll be able to be there for Connor, but right now I don’t want to do anything that would push Daniel away.

Jean-Paul asked me what it’s been like supporting Bobby through coming out. And suddenly there we were. We had reached the elephant in the room, the topic we’d avoided so far that night. He seemed a bit… I don’t know. The way he asked the question was pretty bittersweet. I told him that I hadn’t been expecting Bobby to come out during the presentation, that Bobby hadn’t told me he was going to do it. I was completely caught off guard, just like everyone else. Jean-Paul was floored that Bobby was doing it, so soon, but said he wondered if we were both underestimating Bobby.

I told him that I was under no illusions that I had a good grasp of who Bobby was anymore, not after two decades apart. But I was doing my best to learn, each day, what had stayed the same and what changed in him. The Bobby I loved as a teenager had gone through a lot of traumatic shit with the X-men and big life changes between working here, and then at the firm in New York, and now back here again. He couldn’t possibly be the same, not completely, but I hoped that those changes were things I could live with. Things that I could help him through, or things that made him an even better person than he was back then.

Jean-Paul nodded, took a long drink, and then regarded me with tired eyes. He said that as far as he could tell, Bobby was adapting to being out far better than Jean-Paul would have expected. Jean-Paul said he’d quietly dated someone, a long time ago, who wasn’t out and it was a trainwreck on his emotions and self-confidence. Bobby’s choice to come out to the entire school was brave and Jean-Paul was glad that it saved me from having to go through the emotional labour of always having to check up on yourself, to hold things in publicly, to have your freedom restricted by secrets.

And then we started talking about our pasts with Bobby, about what it was like to be in love with someone who would draw us in endlessly, yet remain just out of reach. Unattainable. Jean-Paul admitted to me that it got to the point that he almost quit the X-men to get away from Bobby because he drove him so crazy, but Jean-Paul was too stubborn to let something as stupid as unrequited love force him away from a job he loved and from the X-men who were relying on him. I told Jean-Paul that he was a stronger man than I, since I left the X-men’s care at Alkali Lake to get away from Bobby and the unending despair at the fact that he was with Marie as much as anything else. Jean-Paul told me that I needed to go easy on myself. It was tough being a teenager. He didn’t think I was the type to run at the first sign of trouble, and living in such close quarters with Bobby must have been unbearable, especially after Marie came into the picture.

I sighed.

Marie.

I shifted the topic and asked him if he knew what she was up to, since Emma hadn’t ever gotten back to me about having Marie come in to at least talk to Kevin Ford about what it was like living with his powers, and living without human touch. Jean-Paul shook his head, saying that he’d been out of contact with her for years. I guess I’d better take that up with Emma again.

And then Jean-Paul did it. He asked me how Bobby was taking Dominik’s presence at the School. I took a sip of my scotch. I explained that Bobby was sympathetic, given Dom’s condition, but concerned for me. Concerned about my mental health and the pressure Emma was putting on me to be responsible for him. And concerned about the fact that, even after everything Dominik has done to me, I still have feelings for him.

Jean-Paul just stared at me for a moment, considering. Pressing his hands together in front of his face, he said he can empathize as he himself struggles with his own feelings sometimes. He told me he was taken advantage of as a teenager by an older man named Raymonde Bellemonde, and had been deeply hurt when he had been cast aside for someone younger. Raymonde had played with his feelings and preyed upon his weakness for a few years before Jean-Paul finally left him for good. But there was still a part of him that loved Raymonde, even all these years later, even through all the pain. Jean-Paul said it’s maybe not the same - Raymonde never raped him - but he feels like he at least somewhat understands how I could still have a shred of love left for Dominik remaining in my heart.

And then I asked him if he still loved Bobby. Jean-Paul looked away, nodding. But he said it wasn’t the same anymore, that he had let go of a lot of it when Bobby left for New York. That his relationship with Piotr was the most important thing for him. Piotr seemed to get him in a way that Bobby never had, and he made Jean-Paul feel safe in a way that no one else had ever made him feel before. Piotr could counter some of Jean-Paul’s more neurotic tendencies with his calming, gentle influence. They were a good match. A better match.

I don’t know if this was a good idea or not, but I told Jean-Paul that Bobby had admitted to carrying feelings for him as well. Jean-Paul shook his head, sighing. He could tell from the way Bobby looks at me that he never stood a chance. I didn’t really know what to say to that.

We sat in silence for a few minutes before Jean-Paul asked me if Bobby had come out to his family. I sighed, not because of the fact that Bobby hasn’t come out to his family yet, but because it will probably be a dramafest. I told Jean-Paul that from what I remember of his father, he was a salt-of-the-earth Republican and his mother was concerned with appearances. Maybe they had changed since we were teenagers, and since all the drama with Bobby’s brother had gone down, but I had a feeling that finding out that their remaining son was a faggot wouldn’t go over too well in the Drake household.

Jean-Paul asked how things were with my family. It was an innocent enough question, but for some reason it hurt more than I thought it would. So I explained to Jean-Paul that I hadn’t seen my parents since I was a child because of the abuse. I have no idea where they were, or even if they’d want anything to do with me after my life as a terrorist. And then, of course, he asked if I wanted to see them.

I choked up.

It’s not something I’ve really thought about. Not something I’ve ever really let myself think about. I’d always treated it as case closed since I came to Xavier’s and they made no effort to get me back. I hurt so much, they hurt me so much, and they had basically abandoned me to the government. They never tried to get me back. I was a virtual orphan.

It hurt so much, but fuck…

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t want to see them, even just once. Just so I could know. Just so I could spit in their faces and let them know how much they’d fucked me up, and how much better off I was without them. How much better I was now.

...How much I still loved them, even after everything else.

We went home soon after that. Jean-Paul gave me a tight hug before heading off to his room. I tried to be quiet slipping into bed, but I woke Bobby anyway. He pulled me to his body, kissing me tenderly. He knew, he just knew I was exhausted and not just because of the late hour. But he didn’t ask me to talk about it. He just held me in his arms, caressing my body, showing me how much he loved me. I fell asleep so easily, and I love that.