Nathan and Jean Paul

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

Nathan spends the night with Jean-Paul again to help him with his worsening nightmares. In defiance of experience and common sense, they make plans for another trip.



A piece of meat, that's what his brain was. A contrary piece of meat. Apparently, all that it took to do dispel the nervous energy that kept him from sleeping was to resolve to stay up all night. All it took was that one resolution, and suddenly he found himself wanting nothing more than to nod off, nightmares or no.

In the end, he'd wound up retreating to the roofcouch with a cup of black coffee. Even with the sun down, he found the air muggy and unpleasant, but all the better. If he had to annoy himself awake, that was what he would do.

A head appeared soundlessly at the edge of the flier's platform, the rest of Nathan following as he floated upwards. "I would not suggest camping out up here," he said mildly. "I think it's going to rain."

"Excellent. I hope it hails." Jean-Paul moved over to make room. "Moira and the ankle-biter head out?"

"Yep. All is quiet on the western front." Nathan eased down onto the couch beside him, silent for a long moment. "You haven't been sleeping well," he finally said. It wasn't a question.

"Hardly surprising, given the last month," Jean-Paul countered quietly. "And it has been an eventful week besides. Jeanne-Marie is back. People are randomly swapping powers. I passed up the chance to seduce Jean-Phillipe. It is a lot for one poor, cracked mind to process."

Nathan tilted his head, regarding him sideways. "You up for a houseguest again, then?" he inquired, not quite lightly.

"I always enjoy your company Nathan." A slight smile that was more heard than felt in the dark. "So much that I do not even really mind needing it. Especially if it keeps me from scaring Jeanne-Marie again."

Nathan paused. "Is she all right?" he asked after a moment. He'd seen some of Jean-Paul's reactions, before he'd gotten the hang of blunting the nightmares before they really got going instead of just bringing him out of them.

"I think so. I hit the wall the other night. Literally. No damage, but she had come to my suite and was sitting up in the other room. She came in to see if I was all right and..." He sighed. "When she touched me, I threw myself in the other direction. It was dark and I thought...I thought for a moment that we were wrecked in that ditch again..."

Nathan's expression was unreadable. "Yeah," he finally said softly. "Camping out at your place again. There's no reason you need to keep dreaming about that."

"I was awake for that part. Half-awake anyway. The power nullification has not ever been a pleasant thing, but it did not...I was not frightened before." He put his mostly untouched coffee down on the slope of the roof. "I still have not told her much in the way of details. I am not sure how much she got from the bond awakening."

"... do you want me to talk to her?" Nathan's voice was still low, but faintly unsteady, suddenly. "I could give her the details. I probably owe her that."

"No. I will tell her, eventually. When we are more settled, and if she wants to know." Jean-Paul flopped against Nathan's shoulder, as if to weight him in place. "Besides, if you tell her that it was your fault, I will have to growl at you again. Better if I make sure things are kept straight."

"See, I'm not sure I'd do that with your sister," Nathan said, the banter sounding a little feeble. "With Johnny, I had a reason, and well, your duckling doesn't have that much of a bite yet. Jeanne-Marie, on the other hand..."

"...can bare surprisingly sharp fangs at a moment's notice." Jean-Paul laughed softly. "I might have wished for better timing, but it is good to have her back. I may have almost gotten her familiar with my students by name by the time the week is out. She wants to meet Nori."

"Of course she does." Nathan found himself smiling more naturally, suddenly. "The poor thing's scared to death about making a bad impression, by the way. You might want to keep that in mind."

Jean-Paul nodded. "I tracked her down at the quarry. We talked, scorched rocks, went for a run. But she does not have anything to worry about. I think Jeanne-Marie was impressed."

"Well, she was quite fierce in defending you." Nathan gave Jean-Paul a steady look. "I hope you know she adores you."

"I know," Jean-Paul replied softly. "I am not blind. The feeling is mutual, though I am not sure just how that happened. But Noriko has worked hard to improve after the sour start she made." The speedster chuckled. "Not that I knew it. I had to actually look up her school record to find out why everyone kept staring at me like I had grown a third eye when I would say that I enjoyed our training sessions."

"She reminds me so much of Dom at her age, it's a little frightening," Nathan said, looking away. "Then I remind myself of how well Dom turned out, and it's a little less frightening."

"What I want to know is just when I wound up being a father figure to half of the kids here. That is frightening."

"They smell empathy like blood in the water, and swarm," was Nathan's entirely straight-faced reply.

"Insidious place." Jean-Paul yawned. "I should have turned and run the first day I showed up. The cat liked the room, though."

"Come on, you," Nathan said, getting up. "Much better places to sleep than the roofcouch. No, seriously," he said when Jean-Paul just gazed up at him, "up. To your own bed. Don't make me carry you. Because I will." He grinned.

"I am tempted to make you. My dignity can be salvaged. Your back I am not so certain of." Jean-Paul hauled himself onto his feet. "You would think I would be getting used to this nonsense by now." It had been an eternity; three whole weeks.

"There's no such thing as 'should have' when it comes to situations like this," Nathan said, steering him towards the door and the stairs downwards. "Besides, don't tell me you don't enjoy our nightly, uh, soirees. Me forcing warm milk on you. You waking up to find me watching infomercials. By the way, I ordered you one of those Magic Bullet things. You muttered something last week about wanting to try and make pesto with it."

"Must have been delirious." Jean-Paul let himself be herded, glad for the distraction and desperate to be able to close his eyes safely.


=====

"You're mocking my taste in movies," Nathan growled, keeping the smile carefully repressed. "I can hear you over there. Mocking." They were both on the couch in Jean-Paul's suite; Jean-Paul had seemed a little twitchy still, tired or not, so Nathan had decided that wearing him out a little was the best strategy. Falling asleep watching a bad movie - and 'The Island At The Top of The World' definitely qualified - would probably be easier than falling asleep in a quiet bedroom, and Nathan could always float him over to the bed if need be.

"You are a miserable sham of a telepath," Jean-Paul informed him, lifting the hand that was shielding his eyes. "I am not mocking. Mocking requires a sense of humor. I am despairing, Nathan. I have entrusted my mental well-being to the care of a man who thinks that this is a worthwhile expression of cinema. Where is my sister? I need rescuing."

"Wuss," Nathan said, with dignity. "There's nothing better than Vikings. Especially when they're Vikings with prophecies of dooms and a dislike for airships. Wait until you see the whale graveyard." He eyed the other man. "Drink your milk, it's getting cold."

"It is good to know that whatever I do die from, it will not be from osteoporosis-related complications." Jean-Paul sipped from his mug. "Why is it always warm milk? First you, then my sister, and now you again. You people really need to let me drink myself to sleep more often. I think you will get more amusing stories out of it."

"We love you," Nathan said mock-gravely, "all the parts of you. Including your liver. Besides, if you really want to get drunk, we can do that too. Just in moderation. I imagine you're a very cheap date, though, so maybe I don't need to worry too much about that..."

"I am not a cheap date! I appreciate the finer things. Just...not too much of some." Jean-Paul sighed and drained his cup. "Speaking of which, I will have to let you take me home again. I am all out of the whiskey from the mainland."

"Well, how about next weekend?" Nathan paused for a moment. "Jeanne-Marie's invited too, of course. I think she'd like the island, don't you?"

"You know, I could not say. We did not holiday together." Jean-Paul chuckled. Oddly enough, the laughter seemed genuine. "We did this, actually. We made plans. We talked about what would do and the fun we would have. And it never quite happened somehow. We were very good at sabotaging our own efforts. So you will have to watch us carefully. Herding sheepdogs."

"Oh, I can take you both," Nathan said breezily. "Either of you start looking squirrely or like you're going to fly off to New Jersey, I'll just pack you aboard the plane. Telekinesis is such a great, great cheat."

"There is only so much abuse I will let myself be subjected to before I make a daring retaliation, Dayspring. I will teach your daughter the same words I am teaching Johnny."

"Ooooh, scary. Or it would be, if her first word hadn't been 'fuck' anyway," Nathan said cheerfully. On the television screen, the valiant explorers and the suspicious Vikings interacted in ever more horrifically amusing ways. Nathan watched for a moment longer before his eyes flickered back to Jean-Paul. "But serious. How about next weekend? The weather's just getting really nice over there. We could visit the distillery again, and all those bookshops... hell, we could even take the boat out."

Jean-Paul snorted. "'Here, dear sister, my only flesh and blood, let me put you out onto the North Sea in a bathtub.' The trip sounds good, but we are flying to the mainland this time, dammit."

"We can do that." Nathan was sounding indecently cheerful, and the look in his eyes was as close to happy as it had been since prior to the events of Moldova. He was a big believer in the healing powers of certain Scottish islands, after all. "I know where we can go! Eas a' Chual Aluinn. I've always wanted to see it." He made a grandiose gesture. "Big-ass waterfall. Well, tall."

"Do they let the tourists approach from the source? Not that it matters. We can see if from any angle we like."

"It takes tourists a two mile walk through a bog to see it," Nathan said, almost wistfully. "Or a boat ride. Middle of nowhere. Like all the really great views."

"What did you just finish saying? Being a teek is such a great, glorious cheat?" Jean-Paul smirked. "That goes doubly for very fast fliers. There will be no slogging through bogs on this trip."

"And we could take Jeanne-Marie to see castles," Nathan said. He was maybe a little tired and punchy himself. "Women like castles, don't they?"

"Women like being treated like royalty," Jean-Paul said solemnly, trying to stave off another wave of yawns. "I do not know if that is supposed to be taken literally. Are castles very much like convents when they get old? She would not like that."

"Not at all like convents," Nathan said, noting the yawns. "We could go look at standing stones, too. And seals. There are islands just north of Muir when there are colonies of them. So much to see," he said more quietly. "Maybe we should stay there for a couple of weeks?" And Muir was quiet. Relatively few people there who'd trigger any sort of false memory in Jean-Paul, aside from the obvious.

Jean-Paul made a sleepy noise of assent even as his eyes drifted shut. "'fter I take Catseye to the animal shelter people, we can go."

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Odd non sequitur there," he murmured under his breath, smiling. Then settled back against the couch and watched the explorers make a deal with the Vikings so that they wouldn't be made into human sacrifices. "I win at strategy," he whispered. Smugly.