xp_logs | Jay and Jean-Paul - backdated to Sunday afternoon

Jay takes Jean-Paul up on his offer of baking lessons.

"Ah feel like Ah should be singing some bad Italian song cause this feels more like pizza than pie," Jay mused, up to half his arms in flour. He squished some dough, enjoying the feeling between his fingers and brought it up to his nose. "Smells good huh?"

"The smell of pastry always makes me impatient for the small of it baking," said Jean-Paul as he scattered flour across the kitchen counter and coated the rolling pin, "which in turn makes it seem an eternity before it's ready to be eaten. Really, the entire process is one long tease, but worth it at the end, I think. Did you want to do a lattice crust or a closed top?"

He couldn't disagree more. Jay loved the long, drawn out process of baking, if only for the sake of filling the kitchen with a rich sense of home. He liked the warmth from the oven, the sun blazing through the window and that the whole process called for disaster and chaos when a Guthrie participated.

"Ah dunno. Which is better?"

"A lattice top means we get to use more butter, so the pie is slightly richer." Jean-Paul gave the waiting bowl of sugared apple slices a quick dusting of cinnamon, adding another familiar scent to the mix. "They are easier to burn, though. I suppose it all depends on how confident you're feeling."

He leaned over the bowl, ducking his head down so he could catch sight of what Jean-Paul was adding. "Well, " he squished the dough again. "Ah'm somewhere in the middle? Better to take it slow and make it good. Ah don't wanna burn it. Then again, you're here so, maybe it'll go good?"

"Let's try for a closed top. It's more traditional anyway." Jean-Paul smiled and handed Jay the rolling pin. "Here you go. Roll it out to about a quarter-inch thick."

"All right." He set the dough down and picked up the wooden rolling pin, bathing it in a generous layer of flour itself and set to rolling out the pastry. "Yanno apple pie is good with cranberries too? Mah mama use to do it for me all the time after a holiday cause she was always stuck with extra cranberries. It was good, but like hell if Ah know how she did it. She always said that it wasn't the usual, called it her Pie 'o leftovers." He wipped a hand on the side of his black shirt, now turned grey, an old Toby Kieth concert t-shirt that he wouldn't part with.

Jean-Paul watched, not interfering as Jay lined the pie tin with the first crust -- managed without even tearing the dough he noted -- and began rolling out the remainder of the dough for the top crust. For all his claims to clumsiness, the boy was doing quite well. Perhaps it was a "don't think of elephants" situation -- so long as he was thinking of anything but his task, he'd be fine at it.

"I haven't tried that variation. I did have a friend who used cranberries in her tourtaire when she had them."

"You can add cranberries to anything," he nodded, linking his fingers together and leaning against the counter. "They're good with meat, fruit salades, stuff like that." There wasn't a whole lot Jay didn't like on his food palette, enjoying a wide range of red meats especially though he did swipe an apple slice and popped it in his mouth. The benefit of cooking is being able to sample.

Jean-Paul regarded the theft with a mock-glare that really didn't hold up for long. "How has your appetite been since you have started flying more? About the same, or have you become more of a bottomless pit?"

Jay countered the glare with an innocent look of his own and a helpless shrug of his shoulders. "It's more, sorta. Ah always ate a lot anyways cause Ah gotta hyper metabolism but uh, lately Ah'm a little more on the hungry side. Maybe Ah just need to snack more."

While Jean-Paul finished the crust, Jay picked up the bowl and scraped out the contents, adding it to the pie.

It was amazing. After all of the physical changes Jay had undergone, he still managed to pull off the perfect 'puppy-dog eyes' look. Jean-Paul grinned and tossed another apple slice at him.

"Can't starve a growing boy, I suppose."

He caught the slice inbetween fingers and popped it in his mouth, cocking his head to the side to lick between the fingers as he spoke. "Ah'm twenty one this year." As though that itself should have been enough to make the boy into a man. "Thinkin' of going back to work at Silver, if they'll have me, since school is outta the question now."

Jean-Paul placed the second crust over the top of the pie and used a fork to crimp down the edges. "Are you thinking of putting school off for the time being or forever?" The question was simply a question, with no hint of disapproval attached.

"Ah dunno," he admitted and slid along the counter, leaning on a forearm and hooked a hand behind his neck. "Ah missed two semesters already. Ah'm prolly gonna have to reapply and stuff. It's still surreal, yanno? Next September's out. Didn't put in mah application in time, so," he shrugged, watching the way Jean-Paul finished off the pie. "It's lookin' pretty far away right now."

"Time and space to reconsider your options and reconnect could be useful." Jean-Paul scooted the pie toward the youngest Guthrie on campus. "You may decide that you don't want to try picking up where you left off."

He picked up the pie and walked it to the oven, leaning over to slide it in. "How long's this go in for?" he asked.

"Fifteen minutes, then we dial it back to three-fifty for another forty-five." Jean-Paul leaned against the counter, willing to let the topic go without a fight. Today was about pie. Tomorrow could tend to itself.

"So why you here?" Jay asked him, setting the timer and turning to face Jean-Paul. "Like teachin' and stuff?" Hopping up on the counter, he pressed the metal plates of his closed wings into the corner of the cabnet, enjoying the faint warmth of the oven on his thigh.

Jean-Paul offered a one-shouldered shrug, determined to make the confession sound as casual as possible.

"This was the last place I'd done anything close to useful and had not fucked up too badly in the process. It seemed worth trying again after my sister left."

"That's surprisin' comin' from you." He was taken back by the admission, considering Jean-Paul was up there as one of the people he'd always looked up to. In fact, he was a huge fan but kept that toned down because he didn't want to embarrass the other man.

"It is surprising, all the little insecurities that crawl out from under their rocks once you've been knocked down hard enough." Or often enough. "I was not in good shape when she left, but I am getting better." He scratched the scar at his throat unconsciously, then laughed softly. "It's easier to stop picking at things when there are other people around to keep me distracted."

Jean-Paul scratching made him itch and he behind his ear, trying to keep the tone conversational. "Ah think you're being a bit hard on yourself. You seem like ya got it all together. Better than the rest of us, yanno?"

"Chalk it up to impossibly high standards. If nothing else, at least they keep me from getting too self-satisfied. But thank you. It's good to know that I'm keeping it together. It is hard to tell from the inside sometimes."

"Oh everyone's got standards. High ones too," he smirked. "One of mine's singing on stage with Toby Kieth. And you can see how far that's gonna get."

Jean-Paul considered. "How is your sense of touch these days? And if you turn that into anything like innuendo, I promise that you will be wearing apple peelings."

Well of course all sorts of scattered thoughts went through his head and he bowed his head, picking at his fingernails despite the grin on his face. "Sounds promisin'," he joked and nodded his head to the side, brushing the bangs from his face. "Dull sorta, if that makes sense. It's okay Ah guess. Ah don't like it, if that's what you're meanin'."

"I noticed the way you were handling the knife earlier and wondered." A flash of a grin. "And when we were playing tag."

"Ah can still feel, but if ya havn't noticed, it ain't the same as it was before." He didn't share Jean-Paul's smile, drawn to the fact that when he threaded one of his old feathers through his fingers, he could barely fell it but the cutting edges that bent to his skin and he imagined it was how Kevin felt when he couldnt' touch him. Maybe similiar, but not the same. Sliding off the counter, Jay started to clean up. There were somethings he didn't want to talk about too much, changes being one of them.