Nathan and Jean Paul

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

Bad weather strikes on the last night of camping. Nathan and Jean-Paul discuss Jeanne-Marie and contemplate ghost stories.



The tent shuddered under the force of the wind, and Nathan looked up at the canvas roof, raising an eyebrow. "Good opportunity to see if the tent has a leak," he said as he adjusted the Coleman lantern. Thankfully, the answer to his question appeared to be no, at least so far; the rain was coming down pretty heavily, too, so that was probably a good indicator. The white glow of the lantern dimmed slightly, enough that the shadows it cast were softer, less stark. They didn't really need that much light in here.

"I followed your instructions," Jean-Paul quipped from where he lay stretched out on top of his sleeping bag, "so if it leaks or blows away, I know who to blame." He stretched with a murmur of satisfaction. He ached from another day of climbing, but in a good way; it meant he was hitting some muscles that weren't getting enough attention in his usual routine. "Home tomorrow?"

"Yeah." A brief coughing spasm hit, and Nathan waited until he'd stopped wheezing quite so badly before he spoke again. "Enjoyed this, lots," he rasped, rubbing at his side, "but I think I could do to get back to my own bed."

Jean-Paul frowned. The damp and chill could not be doing Nathan's healing bones any good. "I am glad you came with me. The only thing better than sorting your head out on your own in doing it with the right person." He sat up and began rummaging in their supplies for the stove. He'd entertained the thought of a cold dinner, but Nathan's discomfort had changed his mind. "I think Jeanne-Marie and I will have some...delayed matters to discuss when I get back."

"Oh?" Nathan said, settling carefully on the air mattress. "Guessing you're not just meaning about the powers wrinkle..."

"Well, you know...it seemed a bit inhospitable to ask first thing if she meant to kill me back in Laval." Jean-Paul strove to keep his voice light. "Especially considering that I more or less screamed and fell over when I first set eyes on her. Choose your poison -- we have beef stew, hot dogs, and ravioli."

"Hot dogs," Nathan said after a moment. "Simple and not messy." He rubbed lightly at his side, staring up at the roof of the tent, thinking. "Are you sure you want the answer to that question?"

"I am anything but. There is more for us to discuss than...that unpleasantness, but...it is hardly a small thing." Jean-Paul kept his eyes on his work; the last thing he needed to do was get careless and scorch the tent. "She had excuse for what she did. Perhaps she even had cause. But...I would like to know what it was she meant to do. If I have been too harsh in how I have judged her."

"If I was a betting man, I would lay money that if she ever heard you say that, she'd tell you that it wasn't possible," Nathan said after a moment, thinking back to that conversation in the infirmary, the look in her eyes when he'd told her about Jean-Paul on his birthday.

"We have been both overjoyed and scared to death at seeing each other again," Jean-Paul sighed. "We mean well, and always we do each other more harm than good. So I do not know...maybe this will only make things worse again. I seem to have a talent for digging up matters best left dead."

"I think you're too hard on yourself. Can't move forward when you're still wondering just what the hell happened in the past."

"Still trying to make up for what happened in the past," Jean-Paul corrected, peeling back the lid of their main course. "I know. Take my own advice: cannot change it, so let it go. I suppose I have a compulsion to keep trying to rewrite things."

"There's nothing wrong with fully understanding your own personal story," Nathan said, deadpan, "but I find that it's more productive to keep writing additional chapters. Otherwise you become a literary critic of your own life, which is disturbing." He rubbed at his eyes, staring up at the roof of the tent again. "Write new stories, instead..."

A fresh roar of wind shook the tent alarmingly, drawing wry smile from Jean-Paul. "Instead of turning over long-dead tales? But this is the weather for ghost stories, non? Out in the middle of nowhere, terrible weather, single lightsource...well, it is not guttering, but we will make do."

Nathan laughed softly. "Ghost stories? I have a head full of them, if you count the ones from the future..." The lantern promptly flickered, and Nathan blinked, then grinned. "I didn't do that."

Jean-Paul's eyes had flicked toward the entrance of the tent the moment the light faltered, but he remained mostly relaxed. No one knew where they were, and there was no one to track them this time. "I will trust to that. I know mostly stories about people wandering off and eating the wrong kind of food, but I am sure that is no shock. Also a few about freezing to death in horrible ways, but I chalk that up to environment."

"I have a few that don't involve the Askani," Nathan said slowly, the grin fading, "but I think perhaps I'll pass those up in favor of the traditional and the fictional."

"We are ridiculous, you know." Jean-Paul tipped the sausages off of the stove and onto a paper plate, pausing long enough to rummage bread, mustard, ketchup, and pickles out of the supplies, and set the fixings down between his sleeping bag and Nate's mattress. "But I do have such a hard time turning down an audience." He twitched a smile and reached for the bread. "So...once, a very long time ago, there was a hunter, the best hunter in all of his village, despite being very young. He could hike across the ice alone and come back the same day dragging ten seals behind him. Then, one day, the coldest winds anyone could remember began blowing in off of the ice -- colder than the depth of winter and out of season besides. Day after day, the hunters went out and found nothing. Dogs went into the stew, hides were chewed down to nothing, but the winds did not relent -- children grew hollow-cheeked and even the elders went hungry..." Jean-Paul paused and innocently nudged the plate of hot dogs toward Nathan.

Nathan shifted onto his side, eyeing the food. A hot dog started to assemble itself, and he grinned slightly at Jean-Paul. "I won't say anything about the irony of my dinner choice and your choice of story..."

"If you are going to ruin the atmosphere, I will not bother continuing." Jean-Paul shifted just enough to avoid the pickle slice that zinged past his head and smacked against the far wall. "If you insist, then." He smirked. "At last, desperate, the young hunter went out alone, hoping to find anything at all in a frozen world..."