Jake and Jean-Paul and Nathan

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

During Nate's party, Jean-Paul investigates Jake just long enough to confirm that he hasn't dropped helicopters on anyone who matters.



The party was going well enough -- better than expected, actually. Nate seemed to be in excellent spirits over the whole celebration. Given this, it stood out tremendously that, every time Nate caught sight of a certain newcomer to the festivities, the man got a glare that would have made Hades' chamber pot look inviting. Matters were not improved when it became obvious that Dom and the oddly familiar stranger were on friendly terms.

Jean-Paul supposed that he could have asked Nate about the matter himself, but talking about the things that pissed you off didn't usually improve a mood, and there was not going to be anything like brooding tonight, dammit.

"Excuse me." Jean-Paul walked up, finally reuniting the face and name of his target. "Jake, isn't it? I believe we've spoken on the journal system."

Jake had been on his best behaviour all night--partly because Wanda had made him promise to play nice, and partly because he was too hungover to cause much trouble. He was sitting off to one side, on the edge of the crowd, a drink in one hand and a piece of cake in the other. He looked up as the stranger approached. "You're not a Guthrie," he responded, trying to remember who the stranger was. "And not the cupcake recommender. Which makes you the former guidance
counselor and literature teacher--Jean-Paul, right? Which would make you the organizer of tonight's events." He raised his glass of whiskey in a salute to the other man. "Nicely done, by the way. Excellent, if bizarre, cake."

Jean-Paul accepted the compliment with a nod. "There's a very short, boring story behind the cake. I think I'll leave it to your imagination." He spared a moment to be fascinated with the concept of taking whiskey with anything so sweet, then remembered why he'd come over in the first place. "You wouldn't, perchance, be one of the people who attempted to drown Nathan by dropping a helicopter on top of him, would you?"

Jake blinked, tilting his head to one side. "Drowning by helicopter? That's...creative, I suppose, would probably be the safest word to use there. But no, I've never dropped a helicopter on anyone, least of all Nathan." He took a sip from his drink. "Besides, Dom would absolutely murder me." He took a bite of his cake, frowning up at Jean-Paul. "Why do you ask?"

"He dislikes you enough that he's still sparing the energy to give you the occasional death glare." Jean-Paul shrugged. "That was the first explanation that came to mind. Anything worse and I imagine that we'd be fishing bits of you from the lake already."

"Fair enough," Jake shrugged. "Honestly, these days I think he gives me the patented Nate Death Glare because it makes him happy. And because Moira would kill him if he did anything more. She feeds me," he explained with a grin. "It's why we get along so well."

"Ah. Well, so long as he's enjoying himself." Jean-Paul relaxed a bit. "I need to figure out the secret of getting the people around here to feed me. It usually winds up the other way around -- I appear to be the designated provider of food."

"Really?" Jake raised an eyebrow. "Then clearly we need to become friends," he declared, grinning at the other man. "I'd feed you, but I'm not a very good cook--I fall more in the 'burning water' category. But you're welcome to join me on my quest to find the best bakery in Manhattan."

"That...sounds like a worthwhile quest, actually. We should definitely confer on this." The speedster was distracted a moment later by a small redhead in a pink dress tugging insistently on his hand. He glanced over at Jake, faintly sheepish. "Later, perhaps. I was guilted into promising someone a dance."

Jake raised his glass again. "Nice to meet you. And let Nate know that if he really needs to hit me, we can make arrangements. It is his birthday, after all."

Later, Nathan and Jean-Paul pop out for air and the "no brooding" rule is enforced.



"This is all your fault." Jean-Paul brushed purple cat hair from his shoulders, regarding Nathan with tipsy dignity. "You alone. You made me. I do not even know that song."

The party was going well, at least, if you measured "well" by the fact that the available blackmail material was likely to all balance out in the end. Or so he hoped. Now that the students had been packed off to the main house again, things might not be so restrained.

"Would I do that?" the guest of honor asked idly, adjusting his party hat. Rachel had insisted that he wear it, and as ridiculous as it was, he hadn't been about to deny her. She'd been having more fun than anyone, wandering around in her new pink dress greeting everyone. I seriously doubt she's actually sleeping back there, though...

"And laugh about it the next day. Absolutely. Because you are an evil old man." Jean-Paul took a deep breath of the chilly, lakeside air, trying to shake the fuzz off of the world. "But old is the important part. It's good that you're old because the alternative is so depressing."

Nathan gave him a very patient look, a smile twitching at his lips. "I am old, aren't I?" he said, forebearing to comment on the last bit. "Forty-three." His eyes shifted back to the lake. "Damn... there was a large part of my life where living to this age seemed like some sort of fantasy."

"And yet, here you are -- the focus of love, respect and songs sung in your honor. Badly, but it is the thought that counts." Jean-Paul grinned. "There are worse ways to end up at forty-three."

"Oh, loads." Nathan looked back over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow at the sound of someone - he wasn't sure who - caterwauling to a song he quite honestly didn't recognize. The smile escaped, finally. "I am so going to kill Juliette for bringing that karaoke machine."

"It adds that certain God-knows-what to the festivities. About those DVDs...you do know that you're getting an actual gift when we're both sober enough to act like proper adults about it? Because if I do it now, one or the other of us will do something unspeakable. Not allowed."

Nathan gave him a curious look. "Now you have me wondering about this gift," he said, then smiled again, crookedly. "Thank you," he said after a moment. "For organizing this. I'm surprised at how many people came - pleasantly surprised, I mean."

"You're welcome. Though it was not so hard -- hold up a 'Who Wants to Have Fun at Nate's Expense?' sign and watch the people stampede to the door." A pause. "Of course, if anything remotely similar were to happen where my birthday is concerned, there would be gore, death, and damnation."

"Oh-ho. What's good for the - actually, there is no right way to use that metaphor in this situation," Nathan conceded after a moment. Something close to a snicker escaped him. "You know that sometime before the night is over I'm going to go back in there and sing 'Eve of Destruction'."

"Mmm. Of course, I do not know that song either. And whatever happens will continue to be all your fault. Just so we are clear on that."

"Did you see Rachel introducing herself to everyone?" Nathan asked, still smiling. "As if anyone didn't know who she was... I think she was trying to be the perfect hostess. She's been watching her mother in clan-chief-guise a little too much over in Scotland."

"I saw," Jean-Paul said with a laugh. "I'm convinced that she thinks the party is for her -- you are just a handy excuse. Obviously, too much fun is being had for it to be a grown-up thing."

"I don't mind sharing my birthday. I'm surprised she didn't want to take a turn with the karaoke machine." Nathan fell silent, staring out at the lake as the caterwauling finally stopped, to accompanying laughter, from behind them. "Thirty years," he said. "Or almost. Of variations on a particular lifestyle, I mean. Such a frightening thought...."

"You think so?" Jean-Paul flicked Nate's party hat. "I was just thinking the very opposite. If you can manage to fit a home, family, and Elpis into your life after all that you've been through, there has to be hope for certain others around here."

"I'm allowed to be reflective on my birthday, you know." The smile was back, despite the mock-petulant tone. "It's in the rules. Especially when you're over the hill like me."

"By all means, be reflective. I am just here to keep you from sliding down, down into brooding. Continue on; pretend I am not here."

"Eh, I think I've had a little too much to drink for a soliloquy tonight," Nathan said, the smile growing. "It would be a monstrous and poorly rhymed thing."

"I believe you are thinking about 'Eve of Destruction' again." Jean-Paul grinned and straightened Nate's hat from where he'd left it crooked. "In any event, happy birthday and many more to come."