Jean-Paul and Jake, Wednesday night

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Jake arrives home from Kyoto to find a message from his dad in his mailbox and Jean-Paul and dinner in his apartment. He reacts...poorly. Things go downhill from there.



Jake was exhausted. They'd been lucky enough to get nonstop flights over and back, but it had still been nearly thirty hours of travel to and from Kyoto in under two days. Even with Jubilee there to shield him from the prying eyes of their fellow passengers, he hadn't felt comfortable enough to sleep on either flight--every time he felt his arm start to give way, he'd snapped back to fully conscious, afraid someone would see. Add in jet lag and the running, shifting, and drinking that had made up their trip, and it meant that he was a stumbling wreck by the time he and his fake trophy wife dragged themselves and their overnight bags up the stairs and into the building.

He'd managed to pull it together enough to get his mail on the way in, and he found an envelope that had been addressed in familiar handwriting amidst the ads and junk mail as he stood in the hallway outside of his apartment. There was no note inside, only a color copy of what looked to be a cell phone picture that had been printed in a trashy tabloid. More importantly, it was the picture of Jean-Paul that the clerk had taken at the chocolate shop, with Jake visible in the background, a warily amused smirk on his face. He let himself into the apartment on autopilot as the implications hit, and he was in the middle of the living room before he realized that the lights were on and there was someone else there.

Jean-Paul poked his head out of the kitchen, looking beyond pleased with himself.

"Did you know that you have perfect timing? Dinner is just ready." He vanished back into the kitchen for a moment, then walked out reaching for Jake's right hand. "How was the trip? Hm. You look as if you could use some looking after. Fortunately, someone in this room is done with grading for the semester and has the time to spare."

Jake started and backpedalled a few steps before he realized who was coming out of his kitchen. He blinked, flinching away from the hand that reached for his as if it were on fire. This...was not what he needed, despite the hungry rumblings of a stomach that had been forced to survive on airplane food for the last half-day. This was all very charming and irritating and domestic, and he was standing there with a picture of the two of them that his father had sent from--he checked the postmark--London, of all places, and he couldn't help but say the first thing that came to mind.

"How the hell did you get in here?" Nevermind the window that he couldn't remember locking, or the residents in the building who adored the speedster, or dammit, he hadn't given Jean-Paul a key, had he? All he could think about was the utter lack of the solitude that he'd been expecting to find in his apartment upon his return.

"Morgan let me in." Jean-Paul didn't pursue as Jake backed off, but he definitely did not looked pleased with that greeting. "Sorry. I suppose I should have called."

"I was on a plane," Jake mumbled, confused. "You couldn't have reached me." He dropped his carryon bag suddenly, heedless of the laptop inside, and scrubbed at his face with his free hand. After a second, he thrust the magazine clipping towards Jean-Paul. "I got a present from my dad." He was fairly sure that he wasn't making any sense at all. This was bad.

"Called here, Jake. To see if you were back yet." Jean-Paul looked down at the clipping, tilting his head to one side. It wasn't anything conclusive...the pictures with Morgan-as-Daniel had been far worse than this. "So you were in the same room with a washed-up athlete."

"In New York." The urge to scoop up his bag and head for Grand Central Station was overwhelming; he'd been found once already, and who was to say this picture hadn't been the reason? "I should be covering my tracks better than this." I shouldn't be here, he thought, but if he ran he'd have more people hunting for him, people he liked. It was enough to make him feel claustrophobic and off-balance.

"I can try to track down the magazine if you want. It may not even have any link to where the picture was taken; it was probably buried on the last page with a snarky remark about me no longer being on an Olympian's diet. All this says for certain is that your father knows where you are." Jean-Paul sighed and followed Jake as he stalked toward the kitchen. "Jake, calm down."

"Calm down? Because there's nothing to worry about?" The kitchen had been a bad choice; it was enclosed, and it was full of the smell of whatever Jean-Paul had been cooking, which at the moment was combining with the stomachful of rubbery chicken from the plane and the cookies he'd split with Jubilee in the cab on the way over to make him feel nauseous and trapped. "Because if my dad found this, there's nothing to say that New Son or Cammie's crazy mother didn't see it too." He dropped the picture on top of a stack of papers that, he was irritated to realize, the Canadian had moved from a counter to the kitchen table in order to have room to prepare food.

He paced to the end of the kitchen and spun around, hands flailing. "Do you know I don't even walk to work alone anymore? Because what if the bad guys show up and grab me as I'm walking down the street, or riding the subway? I don't go out on jobs alone anymore because some asshole might tase me and drag me back to his evil mad scientist lair. I swear I can't even piss without someone coming to knock on the door and make sure I'm okay. And then I come home and you're here and--" He cut himself off suddenly, some shred of self-preservation shutting him up before he could do irreparable damage.

"Calm down because going out of your mind is not going to change anything." The words were sharper than he'd intended them to be and certainly weren't helping things, but he couldn't help but feel that Jake was blaming him for being photographed. He reined himself back. "Désolé. What do you want to do, then? Or I can go if you want your space."

"I..." Jake's brain stumbled, thrown off-balance by Jean-Paul's sudden change of emotional direction. His eyes narrowed as he tilted his head, frowning at the speedster. "Don't do that. Don't try to make this all your fault." He sat down heavily at the table, too tired to stand any longer, aware of the fact that his argument was flailing around wildly at this point. He was still wearing his coat, he realized idly, and still had his keys in his hand.

"I was not trying to." Jean-Paul leaned against the counter, his stance uncertain. He wanted to go sit across from Jake, but was fairly certain that he wouldn't be welcome at the moment. "You are tired and upset and sick of having people shepherd you, and you have just come home to the border collie in your apartment. If you want me to give you space, I can leave."

The irony of the situation, it occurred to Jake, was that what he really wanted was a couple of hours by himself to decompress, and then to curl up with Jean-Paul and sleep. He just had no idea how to get there from here. "I need a shower," he said finally; it was the only course of action he could think of that could delay things long enough for him to figure out what he wanted to do. He buried his face in his hands, elbows propped on the table. "I can't think straight right now."

It took a great deal of willpower not to go to Jake at that moment, to apologize for something so long as it took Jake's mind off of the matters that were stressing him so, but Jean-Paul only nodded. "All right. I promise not to follow you in."

The bathroom was a sanctuary lined in cool white tiles, and Jake ended up sitting in the tub letting the water cascade over his shoulders and down his back until the hot water ran out. The steady patter of water on porcelain was soothing and just loud enough to drown out his thoughts. He let go of his arm while he was sitting there, feeling the tension release in his shoulders and back as he did so, and he tucked his spare fingers underneath the skin of his shoulder to keep them out of the way for now.

It wasn't until he turned the water off and went to step out of the shower that he realized his towel was still hanging on the back of the closet door in his bedroom. Of course. "Jean-Paul?" he called sheepishly after a moment's hesitation. "Could you bring me a towel?"

There was no answer save for the tiny splat of water droplets hitting the tile. When Jake finally ventured to open the door, his towel was hanging from the knob, with a note.

"You forgot this again.

It seemed as if you could use some privacy in which to vegetate tonight. I'll see what I can do about tracking down the tabloid that picture originally came from in the meantime. Dinner is on the table. Call if you want me.

Jean-Paul

PS: Having become accustomed to living out of a suitcase is still no excuse for having only one towel. Don't make me employ drastic measures."

The note left him feeling both relieved and oddly lonely. He toweled off quickly, then wandered into the kitchen. The food waiting there looked incredible, of course; Jean-Paul had left an artfully arranged plate on the table, but he was too tired to be hungry. The food went straight into the fridge and then Jake went straight into the bedroom, where he fell into an uneasy and dream-filled sleep.