Jubilee and Jean-Paul: Monday Night

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

Jubilee takes one of Jean-Paul's journal entries as a challenge, then the pair proceed to share the couch and get drunk.



Jubilee slipped into Jean-Paul's suite and artfully arranged herself on his sofa, her grin deepening as she imagined the look on his face when he entered. She hadn't been able to resist the challenge that his post had presented and the stress of looking for any information on Pete and the others had left her with a decidedly stressed edge. She needed the de-stress that would come with irritating the hell out of someone, and Jean-Paul seemed the perfect target so far. If she'd been wanting to really push it, she'd have arranged herself on his bed but there were limits even she wouldn't cross, at least not without a good reason.

As headed up the stairs to his room, it occurred to the speedster that he might finally have pushed himself too hard since starting up his training again. On the one hand, there was that faint sense of elation that came with having found another limit to push. On the other hand...ow. He wanted to take a long, hot soak, fix himself a drink, and maybe lie down and read the new Carey on his comfortable sofa...

...currently occupied by trouble in human form.

"Is there a particular reason you wanted to piss me off today, madame?"

"The wind was blowing from the east? I figure everyone should have a certain amount of irritation in their life, excites the blood and all that bullshit." Jubilee noted, yawned slightly and stretched luxuriously before grinning at him in an impish fashion. "Come now, you surely can't be that much of a grouch that you'd deny a beautiful young lady the chance to buy you a drink."

"What could possibly have made you think I didn't have enough irritation in my life?" Window. Sofa. Immediate, visceral gratification. Soft cushions. "Move over."

Jubilee shifted from her position, giving up one of the cushions with an air of someone granting a significant boon. "No one ever has enough irritation in their lives. It's a scientific fact, you know. Besides, Forge was busy doing whatever it is he does with that giant brain of his and Scott is probably off somewhere rocking and wondering why the hell he ever let Xavier bring in more students after the last lot."

Jean-Paul snorted quietly and crashed. "Oh, I see what this is now. You wish to spread the joy. Congratulations, by the way, on being the voice of reason."

"And you have no idea just how surreal that is. Amanda would say there must be some weird crack in the universe for that to have happened." Jubilee noted, allowing her head to sink back on the cushions. "Spreading the joy now, that I do well. So why haven't you gone completely nuts yet? I have bets, you know. With people willing to make me do really nasty, boring work if they win."

"Perhaps I've mellowed in my old age. Or it could be that I'm storing it all up for when I officially have a classroom to rule with an iron fist." He tried to settle into a more comfortable position and winced. "But I suspect it is because I simply haven't the energy for a really spectacular breakdown right now."

Jubilee noticed the wince and poked him in the shoulder. "Turn around, I'll see if I can get the knot out of your back. That is if you trust me to contain myself from ravaging your innocent self."

"If you're looking for an innocent, you're about thirty years too late," he cracked. "Forget the massage. Wasn't I promised drinks?"

"Touché" Jubilee said with a grin, and then stood to walk over to a carafe she'd placed on his kitchen table. "I hope you like white wine. I don't tend to drink red, gives me way to bad a headache in the morning."

"If I drink enough of it, I expect it will do the job nicely." Which wouldn't even need to be that much really. Stupid metabolism. He stretched to take up more than his fair share of cushions as soon as Jubilee was on her feet, but did at least have the manners to expend the energy to turn his head and speak in her direction as she walked. "So I deserve drinks for my self-restraint and for trying to put myself in traction. What are you medicating for?"

Jubilee retrieved two wine glasses after a moment of rummaging in his cupboards and then started to pour. "I think the more meaningful question would be 'what aren't I medicating for?'. I find that a state of relaxed drunkenness eliminates the possibility of many a bad dream. Any particular reason you're pushing yourself to traction needing? Or is it simply a state of 'you against the world'?"

Having finished pouring she moved back toward the couch, leaning over it and holding out a glass.

That got a tired smile out of the speedster. "Just trying to get back into decent form. Unfortunately, I think I'm remembering a decent form that's not coming back without a time machine. Merci."

"Aww, lookit the old man, regretting bygone days of youth past." Jubilee replied, a completely unsympathetic smirk appearing. "You're starting to sound like Nate. Next thing you know, you'll be getting furniture thrown at you."

She took a sip of the wine, a contemplative look as she swished it about her mouth before swallowing. "It's very not bad."

Jean-Paul snorted softly. "Chalk it up to spending too much of my impressionable youth around professional athletes. By those standards, I am ancient. But what bad dreams are chasing you?" A pause. "Or should I not ask and drink my drink?"

Two curved eyebrows rose, and the look in Jubilee's eyes went distant for a moment before returning to the here and now. "And spoil Xavier's reputation as the premiere house of interference and not minding your own business? Surely you jest, Sir. Recent experiences have left me feeling somewhat adrift from my old self, not that my old self was the height of normalcy but you get used to things as they are, it's like a particularly comfortable pair of jeans. I haven't exactly come to complete terms with who I am now. It makes for an interesting nighttime collage. Professional athletes, you say? Canada recruiting mutants for its Olympic team now? The IOC would be unimpressed."

"The IOC was most unimpressed, which would be why that sort of thing is tested for these days along with the usual doping and what have you. What is that they say -- if nothing else, you may always serve as a warning to others?" He moved over just enough to make room for one petite woman on the couch. "I'd always imagined that leaving your old self behind would be a liberating experience. No baggage, pay as you go."

She handed him her glass and then easily vaulted over the back of his couch, before sliding into place with the boneless ease of a trained gymnast. "It is." she said simply, taking the glass back and sipping at it for a moment.

As soon as she was in place, Jean-Paul plunked his legs down across hers, as if she were a lively species of footstool. "Maybe I will get over myself enough to try it one day. You could tutor me on the finer points."

Jubilee slouched slightly, placing her feet on a particularly convenient coffee table before poking at his toes with her free index finger in a contemplative fashion. "I'm not entirely sure you would want to go the route I did. It lacked a certain...je ne sais quoi, I suppose Marie-Ange would say. Of course, Marie-Ange would be beating me senseless for dropping pointless French into conversation about now, but we just won't tell her. What she doesn't know, won't hurt me. So, why the whole teacher thing? The sheer delight of hordes of impressionable minds to corrupt, or running from something?"

"I got bored and this was the last place I had been that was at all interesting." Very clean, very practiced reply. "Besides, why should I not teach? I may have learned a thing or two during my time on the earth that is worth sharing with the young and ignorant." He set his empty glass on the floor, then flexed his toes lazily, trying to trap Jubilee's questing finger between them. "Aren't I supposed to be upset with you about something? I'm sure it was very important."

Jubilee gave him a look of pure innocence as she evaded his questing toes easily. "I can't think what it could have been."

She pouted as she looked at her empty glass, and then at the carafe she'd left on the table. "If I said it was your turn to get up, would you hate me terribly?"

"Oh, yes. The fact that you are here." He sat up and stretched carefully. "But you also offered me a rub-down and brought me alcohol. This makes up for a lot." He collected their glasses and smirked over his shoulder as he moved to get refills. "In fact, if you're hiding a nice, thick cock anywhere on your person, I may have to propose."

"Alas, you'll have to look to Morgan, or possibly Jake were he around, for spontaneous changes in gender. I am very much a woman. Wine soothes the savage beast, hey? I have to remember that for when Pete..."

Jubilee cut off, pursing her lips softly and her fingers clenched themselves into fists before she regained control.

"You have no idea how brilliant the idea of getting screaming drunk feels right now." she said finally.

"I'm sure I've been there before." When Jean-Paul returned, he brought the carafe with him. "You can have the couch tonight, if you need it."

Jubilee hummed softly as she took a contemplative sip from the glass that Jean-Paul handed her and then nodded slowly. "I think that would be good. Better then trying to drunkenly convince Forge or Angelo to give me a lift back into New York, anyhow. So, tell me about Canada, it's one of the countries I've never managed to find myself in."

"It is good that you're here all night." Her companion smirked as he draped himself over the couch again. "If we're lucky, I may be able to sum up Montreal's nightlife by the time we hit the bottom of this bottle."