xp_logs | Nathan and Jean-Paul - Backdated To Friday Morning

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Jean-Paul and guest show up for his meditation lesson with Nate.

Jean-Paul showed up for his usual meditation session with Nate sporting his glittery messenger bag and a vivid bruise peeking out from beneath his hairline.

"Bonjour, Nathan. Sorry about the company, but if I leave this vermin in my room alone, he'll chew his way out of his shoebox."

Nathan stared at him for a moment, then frowned. "Precisely what happened to you?" he asked sharply, eyeing the bruise. "I'm the only one supposed to be suffering head injuries around here, you know. It's one of the unwritten rules."

Jean-Paul grimaced. "I struck my head on the ceiling. Apparently I still have decent reflexes and lousy brakes."

Nathan's eyes narrowed as he focused on the messenger bag. "This is due to the rat?" he asked suspiciously. "That's not an auspicious start to your relationship, I hate to say..."

"More specifically, it was due to ice-cold rodent feet on my shoulder while I was distracted." Jean-Paul sighed. "I'm going to keep the damn thing."

Nathan tilted his head, giving Jean-Paul a look that was verging on the amused, now. At least he didn't seem actually concussed. Unless you counted the decision to keep the rat as a symptom. "I've heard rats can make decent pets," he said. "And there is something to be said for something to come home to." His tone was perhaps a tad wistful. He'd rather enjoyed having that damned parrot to talk to when Moira and Rachel were on Muir.

Jean-Paul set the bag aside and took up his usual position, settling cross-legged on the floor. "If you want the thing, I won't tell."

"Now, see, I have to wonder why you're planning to keep him if you're so determined to pawn him off." Nathan said dryly. "Qualms?"

"Maybe it just means that I trust you to look after my precious, unasked-for responsibility," Jean-Paul deadpanned. "Anyway, I'm not in mourning. If you need something small and helpless to ease the sting, why not?"

"No, no," Nathan demurred. "I'm not taking your rat. You probably need the company just as much as I do," he went on with a perfectly straight face. "More, possibly."

"It would probably just come find me again anyway. It's a tenacious little beast."

"Now," Nathan drawled, sitting down cross-legged across from Jean-Paul, "why would anyone think you needed a tenacious pet? Wherever would they have gotten the impression that you needed to have cute things forced upon you..." He was quite possibly going to die.

"Is this some sort of test that I'm supposed to fail? Instead of meditating, I throttle my instructor? The whole killing your father at the crossroads thing?" Jean-Paul smirked a little.

"No, I think I just woke up in a perverse mood." Nathan finished settling himself, wincing a bit as the more-bad of his bad knees protested the cross-legged posture. "It happens occasionally."

Before Jean-Paul could return fire, a brown-and-white blob of fur squirmed out of the neglected bag and scrambled up onto his knee. The rat sniffed in Nathan's direction, squeaked once, then curled up in the crook of the Canadian's knee to watch the proceedings.

"Not a word, Dayspring."