Morgan & Jean-Paul | Monday night

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Morgan decides she needs to get out of the house and have some fun. Naturally, she has to battle Jean-Paul's bout of surly to get him to go with her.

Hunting was helpful. It was cathartic. The immense amount of venison now in the mansion was a testament to just how much therapy she'd needed thanks to Christmas. Now that most of the mopey was worked out of her system, though, she wanted to do something with her pent up energy. At the very least she wanted company. She'd spent nearly thirty minutes reading and twirling the lock of hair between her fingers while she waited to get a really good physical copy from it. She could have had the body in about five to ten but picking up vocal chords took more time. Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door of Jean-Paul's suite.

When Jean-Paul answered the door he was greeted with a simple, "Mi corazón." There was an affectionate smile on Daniel's face and he held a single white rose out to the man in front of him. Most conspicuous was the fact that Daniel was dressed in a rather well-fitting suit. It was clearly not exactly off the rack but if one looked closely enough there were hints that it had been tailored for someone with a very similar body, but not for Daniel himself.

Jean-Paul blinked at the sight before him, then laughed, snaking an arm around his visitor's waist. "Missed me that much, my fair?" he teased. The kiss was supposed to be friendly, but turned into something a bit warmer before the speedster stepped back. "I do not think you are dressed for staying in."

It was very difficult to not end up smiling into that kiss. The smile had been replaced by a smirk. "I missed you so much there were tears at the thought of the many hours and days until your return." The accent managed to make the words sound more sincere and romantic than overly cheesy, which they would have with Morgan's own vocal chords. "I was hoping all that charm and sophistication came with the ability to get around a ballroom gracefully. I'm hoping to entreat you to come out ballroom dancing with me."

"I'm passable. I won't step on your feet much, at least." He heaved an exaggerated sigh as he leaned against the doorframe. "I'm being anti-social today, but you do look very good in that suit. Can I go out and snarl at anyone who looks your way?"

"I've danced with women who couldn't manage to keep their feet off of mine," she told him with a smile. An arm slid around Jean-Paul's waist and Morgan pulled him away from the doorway and into the hall in a wide arc. "Si, you may snarl at all those you wish. But why, mi corazón, are you being so antisocial? You must be smiling, did you not receive a copy of the decree?" A playful kiss was left on the tip of his nose.

"Don't you start too." Jean-Paul retaliated by wrapping his arms around Daniel and zipping back into his room. He was not going to go out dancing in jeans and stocking feet, after all. "Christmas is over, I am allowed to be surly and disgruntled. I may bite some poor innocent's head off just for the joy of it."

"Christmas is when you're allowed to be surly and disgruntled." Jean-Paul may have pulled them inside from the hall but Daniel still had his arms around the Québécois and as such was keeping him close and causing the pair to sway to and fro. "Now that Christmas and all the unpleasant memories it has likely drug up have gone you have cause for celebration and more happiness." A kiss was left on Jean-Paul's lips this time. "After all, all that surly could leave me pouting and I think this face could be quite devastating if left to pouting."

Jean-Paul found himself with his hands on Daniel's hips, trying to keep steady. Onslaughts of affection were alien enough to Jean-Paul's experience that they circumvented his defenses quite neatly. He was certain his companion had figured this out long ago. "Well, I'll be flattering and kind to you, and a beast to everyone else. Does that work?"

Daniel grinned at him. The effect was quite dazzling; the man was clearly made for smiling. "Mm, it is a beginning from which to build. I'll promise to not feed you astronomical amounts of liquor so you don't fall all over the both of us on the dance floor, even." A look of mischief swept into Daniel's eyes and then into his voice as he whispered, "Besides, you are devastatingly gorgeous when you smile and I wish for everyone to be jealous of the pair of us tonight."

"You are making it very hard to stay surly," Jean-Paul murmured in return. "Or to want to leave this room." His own words about self-delusion chimed through his mind and he finally forced himself to step back. "See the willpower I'm putting forth for your benefit?" He half-smiled and turned, heading for his room to rummage up formal wear.

Daniel was grinning again, a very self-satisfied look on his face. "The willpower to leave the room will be worth the night out. It sounds as though you need one, as well. You were not quite so surly before you left for Canada. What happened?" While Jean-Paul went to change Morgan went looking through his cupboards to locate a vase. Eventually a simple, slim crystal one was found and it was filled with water so the white rose could have a home.

"Your part-time paramour is a cheating cheater who cheated," Jean-Paul called back, managing to keep his voice light. "A nasty shock, but I will live with it."

"Excuse me?" The words were enough to stop Morgan in her tracks. "Care to explain that one?"

"I was using my powers during my skiing competitions. Why do I have no black socks?"

Morgan cringed. Right, skiing was the thing he was famous for, after all. "But you said it was a shock, yes? You didn't use them intentionally, I'd take it." She trailed over to the doorway but kept her back against the wall so as to afford Jean-Paul some privacy. "Perhaps no one has taken you out anywhere which requires black socks in too long. Clearly I have to work harder on getting you out of the mansion more often."

"No, I am sure I did. I'd manifested by that point and...I swear, the ghost of the damn cat is still stealing my socks!" There was a brief scraping of wood against wood, drawers being opened and shut. "Aha!"

"You used them intentionally but until now you were unaware you'd used them for certain? Exactly how does that work?" Daniel's head popped out from the other side of the doorway to peer inside the room. "Socks? Is Catseye stealing your socks. That's a bit more hassle than her trying to sleep on your stomach all night."

Jean-Paul was sitting on the bed, pulling on his socks. "Nevermind, I have found them. And I thought I might have used them unintentionally, but then I timed myself over the holiday. Even allowing for the fact that I am older and heavier now, there is no way that I was holding the times that I did back then without a substantial boost." He shrugged and began buttoning his shirt. "So I suppose I can be proud of having had very good control for a sixteen year old."

Seeing Jean-Paul mostly clothed, Morgan wandered into the room with that slight saunter Daniel had to his gait. Daniel came to a stop in front of Jean-Paul and tipped the other man's chin upward so that they could look one another in the eye. "Or you could remind yourself you were sixteen and we all do incredibly stupid things as teenagers that we may not be proud of as adults. You can leave sixteen in the past where it belongs and learn to not dwell upon such things because they no longer matter. What has happened has happened, you are who you are because of them and there is no turning back now. What you do now matters, what you did then no longer does."

"Sixteen builds to seventeen and so on. Understand, it's not that I cheated that bothers me so much. That would not have been the first time I lied and laughed about it. It's the lack of self-awareness." He stood and went hunting for his shoes. "It's a rotten foundation to build on."

"But it's the foundation you have." Daniel replaced Jean-Paul on the bed when the other got up to look for something else. "If lack of self-awareness is your greatest sin as a teenager then you are miles ahead of most of us. You were using your powers to win skiing competitions. I did much worse with mine. Besides," she said as Daniel waved a hand through the air dismissively, "houses can be torn down and when they are foundations can be repaired, reinforced. All is not lost unless you let it be, mi amor. So don't let it be."

"I expect my younger self to be stupid. I also expect my older self to be honest about that stupidity. But, in the end, it might as well be ancient history. It changes nothing except how I think of myself." Jean-Paul shrugged on his jacket and offered his hand to Daniel. "As I said, I will live with it."

The offered hand was taken, though Daniel's arm was soon around Jean-Paul's shoulders. "I'd much prefer you accept it and move on rather than merely live with it. Smiling, you'll find, is rather enjoyable. My intent is to find cause for you to do so more often." Daniel smiled and raised one of Jean-Paul's hands to his lips to place a kiss across the man's knuckles.