Jake and Jean-Paul

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

Jake comes to Jean-Paul for comfort in the wake of the Geneva mission. Both men wind up getting a bit more than they had foreseen out of the visit.



This was a really bad idea. Not as bad an idea as going to Geneva and getting screwed over by his mother and sister, perhaps, and there was a strange and awful sort of comfort in that thought, just enough to screw up Jake's courage to knock on the door he'd been waffling outside of for almost five minutes now.

It wouldn't have been quite honest to say that Jake was the last person Jean-Paul expected to see on the other side of his door, but he still wasn't expected. They had made up, so to speak, but still had not seen very much of each other lately. More concerning was Jake's expression: upset and uncertain.

"Jake." The question was, did he really have it in him to be anyone's shelter tonight, let alone Jake Gavin's? Stupid question, really. Even if he and Jake were over, Jean-Paul could at least admit to himself that he was far from over Jake. "Come in. What's happened?"

"I..." Jake hesitated, not sure where to start and still not convinced that this was a good idea. "...Am I interrupting anything?"

"Believe it or not, even we Beaubiers must sleep at some point." Jean-Paul smiled a little. "My sister is in her room. I have the place to myself for a while."

"I know you do. I've seen you sleep," Jake pointed out, before realizing that he'd sailed right past the joke and further into awkwardness. "Sorry. I just...I didn't want to be at the Brownstone tonight."

"All right. I can...set you up on the couch, if you need to crash." Jean-Paul stepped a little further back from the door, trying to encourage Jake that his offer of sanctuary was genuine. "Have you eaten?"

Jake shook his head, finally stepping into the room. "Not in a while, no."

"I can throw something together." It was easy to slip into old habits, especially those you half-regretted losing in the first place.

"That...I'd like that," Jake said quietly. This was unfair, he realized, just walking into Jean-Paul's suite and expecting to be taken care of, and he searched for a way to explain without having to explain. "I just got back from Geneva."

"Not a pleasant homecoming, I take it?" Jean-Paul studied that half-forlorn expression again, then began hunting up eggs, flour, sugar and milk. Yes, he was a sucker. He didn't really care at the moment.

Jake let out a dry, bitter laugh, seating himself at Jean-Paul's kitchen table. "No. Worse than I'd expected, even. Which can probably be chalked up to me being an idiot, but..." He trailed off, not wanting to finish the thought.

Jean-Paul kept his attention on the cake batter he was mixing, for the most part. "You do not have to talk about it if you do not wish to."

Jake closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the wall. "I don't know what I want, Jean-Paul," he said truthfully. "I'm just so...angry." It was an unfamiliar feeling, and he wasn't sure how to cope with it.

"And your family is very well-protected." Jean-Paul brought his project over the table. "What did they do?"

He didn't open his eyes. "Screwed me. Worse, they used me to screw me." A sigh. "It's a long, stupid story." It was a testament to how upset Jake was that he hadn't even acknowledged the proximity of the cake batter, nor tried to stick his fingers into the bowl.

"And not something that needs to be rehashed while you are still dealing with it." As much as Jake dealt with things, anyway.

Jake was quiet for a moment, seeming to take the out that Jean-Paul had offered him. He still hadn't moved, and stayed that way long enough for Jean-Paul to move back across the kitchen, long enough for the other man to wonder if he'd gone to sleep. "Am I an idiot?" he asked finally, quietly.

"Such a loaded question." Jean-Paul walked away from the oven and took his seat at the table again. "On occasion, yes. Though more in the 'selectively oblivious' sense than in terms of raw intelligence."

The shapeshifter rubbed a hand across his face. "'No, I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be'," he quoted, muttering almost to himself.

"And yet at my doorstep, distraught at being an easy tool in the wrong hands," Jean-Paul countered quietly. "Family makes idiots of us all, Jake."

"Mine more than most. At least your sister was crazy." Jake opened his eyes to glance at Jean-Paul wearily. "Mine is just a bitch."

"So why have anything to do with her this time?"

"Part of the job. They had something we needed," came the muffled reply as Jake rested his head on the table. "And I naively thought that the fact that I'm family would give me some kind of leverage."

"With that one?" Jean-Paul sighed and patted Jake's head. "Yes, for certain an idiot."

Jake lifted his head just long enough to give the speedster a look that was somehow simultaneously angry and pathetic. "You're supposed to make me feel better," he mumbled into the tabletop. "Tell me how smart I am, and what idiots they are, not agree with them."

"Sorry. I thought this is where I bake you a cake and tell you that I still like you very much, despite the fact that you can be such an idiot. It seemed the best course when I am still not entirely sure who else got stung over this." Jean-Paul tidied Jake's hair out of habit, caught himself, then kept on anyway.

"Mmm." Some of the tension vanished from Jake's shoulders at Jean-Paul's touch. "Mostly me. I mean, there was a lot of screwing going on, and the fucking Mengo Brothers showed up, and I think we managed to screw Mother and Devi right back. But it doesn't make me feel any better." He left out the part about Remy disappearing, not really ready to think about the consequences of that just yet.

"I do not think much will." It was bad enough being used; Jean-Paul knew that Jake took a good deal of pride in being good at his job. That it was family that had humiliated him so was just salt in the wound. His fingers moved down the back of Jake's neck in idle massage. "But everyone gets it wrong once in a while. You got out this time. Sounds like everyone else did too. So just try not to do it again." He grimaced lightly. "Even if knowing better for next time does not always work with family."

Jake let out a soft moan as Jean-Paul's fingers kneaded at his neck. "This makes me feel better," he said quietly into the table.

"Well...we are still friends, non?"

He nodded, careful not to move his head too much lest Jean-Paul stop. "I hope so. Otherwise this is awfully forward of me, showing up on your doorstep and making you bake me a cake."

"Well, I did volunteer the cake." Jean-Paul rose to his feet and applied his hands to Jake's shoulders. "Do not worry about it. I missed you."

"That's true." Jake leaned into the touch. "Mmm...I missed you, too." And he had, he realized. He rested his head against Jean-Paul's stomach. "S'nice."

"Jake." Yes, he was going to do this. Dammit. "You do not have to spend the night on the couch. By yourself." Well, it was good that there was more than one idiot in the room. Stupidity loves company -- gives you someone else to blame when it all crashes and burns.

Jake craned his neck to look up at Jean-Paul, studying his face. "Yeah?" It occurred to him that this is what he'd come for, what he'd hoped for, and the thought scared him shitless.

"Yeah." Jean-Paul's heartbeat sped beneath Jake's ear. "I...it may not be what you are hoping for. We can try, but...I have not had much of a sex drive since...since I got back."

Jake pushed his chair back and stood, carefully snaking an arm around Jean-Paul's waist. "I don't...I just want to be with you?" It sounded incredibly lame in his head, and even worse when said out loud.

Jean-Paul leaned into the touch. "I think I can handle that."

Jake couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't somehow come out sounding like "I need you," so instead he pulled Jean-Paul close and buried his face in the speedster's neck. After a moment, he laughed quietly. "You baked me a cake."

Jean-Paul couldn't have said why drawing attention to that little truth was making him blush like a teenager. "You looked like you needed one. Shut up."

Jake bit back the urge to nibble playfully on the skin below his lips; he was not going to fuck this up. Not tonight, at least. "When do I not need cake?" he asked instead, laughing again. Rather than biting, he nuzzled gently against Jean-Paul's neck. "Thank you," he said quietly.

=====

It was the second time that Jean-Paul had felt Jake relax into the first stages of sleep against his chest, only to snap awake with a tiny, full-body spasm of tension. He didn't say anything, only slid his hands down Jake's back again with a quiet murmur of reassurance.

Jake mumbled something into his chest, rubbing at his eyes, then rolled over with a frustrated sigh and pushed himself into a seated position on the edge of the bed. "I'm keeping you awake," he muttered, sounding annoyed at himself.

"I do not sleep that much these days," Jean-Paul pointed out gently. "If you were not keeping me up, you would probably have woken up to me in the middle of more nightmares already."

The laugh that elicited from Jake was flat, hollow. "God, we're such a fucked up pair." He buried his face in his hand. "I'm a failure at sleeping, too. Wonderful."

"You are having a bad night." Jean-Paul sat up and wrapped his arms around Jake. "Want to get up and do something?"

"Yes. No. I have no idea." Jake groaned in frustration. "I can't make my brain shut up. I'm starting to understand why people can't stand me."

Jean-Paul gripped Jake's shoulder and calmly tipped him backward onto the bed again. "Hello. Have we met?"

The shapeshifter blinked up at him. "I don't know. You look kind of familiar."

"Ah, good. He is aware of his surroundings. I was sure we had had this conversation before, only with the roles reversed." Jean-Paul kissed him. "You spend an awful lot of time around people who care very much for you for someone who is unbearable."

Jake closed his eyes. "I pay them all lots and lots of money to pretend."

"Hm. I am beginning to feel as if I have been taken advantage of." Jean-Paul stretched out beside Jake regarding him calmly. "What is your enormous, sexy brain nagging you about?"

Jake shrugged, rolling to wrap his arm around Jean-Paul's waist as he tried to figure out how to put all of his anxieties and issues into words. "Everything," he said finally. "Geneva, and the job, and...you."

"You do not have to worry about me." Jean-Paul brushed Jake's hair away from his forehead. "You still have me. The job, though...I thought you liked what you were doing, the occasional trip to Madripoor aside."

"I do, it's just..." He bit his lip. "I still keep waiting for Remy to throw me out because he doesn't need me, because really, what do I do that isn't already being covered by someone else, especially after I got ripped to pieces by my fucking mother on a goddamn job in front of North, and then if that wasn't bad enough they used me to--see, this is what I'm talking about. I can't fucking stand it myself. I don't have any idea how anyone else is supposed to put up with my shit." He buried his face in Jean-Paul's shoulder in order to shut himself up. "Fuck."

"I cannot speak for your employer, but I was under the impression that the Brownstone folk were quite pragmatic. It does not seem to me that such people would be in the habit of hiring people solely on the virtue of their being unique snowflakes." Jean-Paul relented, dropping a kiss on the top of Jake's head. "You are very good at what you do. You are very experienced at what you do. And it is good to have people with overlapping skill-sets. Do not fret too much about that pink slip yet. And your mother is a vicious, raving bitch, by the way. I doubt this has escaped your co-workers' attention."

"I didn't see the last pink slip coming. Or the knife in the back." Jake growled, grinding his teeth together to keep from biting into Jean-Paul's shoulder. "I've told myself all of this. It doesn't help the feeling that the rug is being yanked out from under me, inch at a time." He settled for licking the skin beneath his mouth, tasting it.

"So what do you plan to do to keep from it happening again?" Jean-Paul's breath caught a moment as Jake's hot, frustrated breath hit the damp skin of his shoulder. "Jake...?"

"I don't have any idea," Jake replied, his voice laced with frustration. "Clearly I'm not any good at this." He traced Jean-Paul's collarbone with his tongue.

Jean-Paul could have sworn he had something to say, but it was getting harder and harder to focus. "What do you want?"

"You," Jake breathed. Maybe just the hint of teeth grazing over Jean-Paul's skin... "I missed you."

It was a relief and a torment for Jean-Paul to realize that he wanted Jake in return, definite proof that one more part of his mind hadn't been irreparably damaged, but, at the same time, they were not together. But what was that, then? Surely all it meant was that there were no expectations. He wanted. Jake needed. Where was the harm?

He slid a hand under Jake's chin, tilting his head up for a searching kiss, more forceful and demanding than any of the night's comforting caresses.

Jake moaned, pulling Jean-Paul on top of him, all of the nervous tension that had been coursing through him and keeping him awake suddenly narrowed and focused on getting as close to the speedster as possible. The endless loop of doubts and fears that had been running through his head were replaced by a single word: This. (As Jean-Paul's teeth fastened on his lower lip.) This. (As fingers dug into flesh with a grip desperate enough to bruise) This. (As legs tangled together, fighting for leverage.)

"Please," Jake found himself gasping, and then his teeth discovered the skin they were looking for, and he gave in to sensation and need.