xp_logs | Nathan and Jean-Paul, Tuesday night

Well into the evening, Nathan and Jean-Paul retreat for a quiet moment on the dock. Jean-Paul is relaxed enough to allow himself to reflect.

"Nathan..." The name was said slowly and with great deliberateness, as if it might fall off of Jean-Paul's tongue and break if he spoke too carelessly. "I have a question for you. Also, I believe you have gotten me drunk." As if this were not enough in evidence by the speedster using Nate's thigh as a pillow while his legs dangled off the edge of the dock.

"Well," Nathan said cheerfully, gazing out at the lake, "I could have gotten you worse things, I think. So I hope that's not a complaint."

"I suspect you got me Jake as an overlarge tart..." Jean-Paul paused. "If you say it, I will push you off of the dock, I promise. Oh. Yes. Question. Am I going to wind up laked if I start reflecting? Because I can always just get us more beer." Jean-Paul held up his own bottle of brew and pointed helpfully, just in case visual aid was needed.

Nathan laughed softly. "I won't push you in the lake. I promise." And God forbid I try to silence you when you're actually willing to be talkative. It happened rarely enough as it was.

"I was thinking...I really should not be out here. I should be hiding somewhere. One country up or down. Because birthdays are not much fun. Only I am not and this one is and I hold you people responsible."

"This is my repentant face," Nathan said gravely. "Really. Look at how I am visibly repenting."

"You should! I am supposed to be off somewhere lamenting being middle-aged, alone, and unloved. You ruined that."

"You're not middle-aged," Nathan said, oh-so-helpfully. "Next year you'll be middle-aged."

Jean-Paul chuckled. "So next year, get me really drunk and have Jake in nothing but ribbon. Who knows, maybe we can find Jeanne-Marie in time for the next one, hmm?"

There was a distinctly twisty sensation in the vicinity of his heart for a moment, but Nathan smiled, instead of saying anything about that second comment. "I think I did well enough, getting him into the cake. He wasn't sure how he let me talk him into it."

"You are a persuasive man and Jake is a very non-confrontational man." An uncertain emotion pinged off of Nate's shields, definitely not the "yum/want/mine!" that Jean-Paul projected every time Jake came within arm's reach...or occasionally even just as a topic of conversation, depending on where his thoughts had been already. "Put the two of you in the same room, and I think it is easy to see who will fold first." Jean-Paul chuckled again and drained his drink. "Or at least run fastest."

"I've never actually driven him to flight. Well, there was the once, but that was just a misunderstanding," Nathan claimed. "Not to be repeated. Promise." He wasn't about to chase Jake away. Not when he was having this salutary an effect on Jean-Paul's mood. "By the way, Dom said to tell you that if he ever gets really squirrely on you, feed him Tres Leches cake."

"I will hold this information dear, yes..." His mind wanted to make associations between cake, milk, Jake, and mother's milk but, fortunately, the alcohol kept aborting such thoughts. "Mmmph. Nate? Thank you for putting up with my crap this year."

"Putting up with your crap," Nathan murmured. "Unspeakably onerous duty. I soldiered on most... soldierly-like."

"As befits a soldier." Jean-Paul sighed. "We should go back in before someone finds us here. Or I fall asleep and roll off the edge."

"I'm not going to let you fall in the lake on your birthday," Nathan protested mildly. "And screw 'em, if they find us out here and don't like it. Them, I'll toss in the lake."

"Then I will stay for a while."