xp_logs | Jean-Paul & Kevin

Jean-Paul nearly runs into Kevin, literally, while trying to make a hasty retreat.

There was a towering plate of chicken in front of Kevin. There was no way on earth he could actually eat that much food but he figured he'd either stick the rest in the fridge or hand it off to someone who ate an obscene amount of food, like Angel or Kyle. One gloved hand was flat beneath the plate and the other was trying to not pluck chicken off of the plate. Cloth gloves really weren't the thing to manhandle chicken with. Sadly, he didn't have a pair of vinyl gloves left in the cargo pocket of his pants. He always had vinyl gloves on him for stuff you just couldn't touch with cloth gloves on, like when he dealt with paint. His pocket supplies were depleted, though, which meant he had to head off to his suite so he could attempt to devour his towering plate of chicken. Sure, he could have eaten his chicken with a fork and knife but that was just wrong. That just wasn't how it was done.

Jean-Paul was running away from yet another person he couldn't remember correctly. At least most of the time the memories were simply out of order. This time, though, they'd been wrong. They'd been wrong and the reaction he'd had to those memories had been... upsetting. That was an understatement, but he couldn't make himself actually consider what he'd wanted to do. He rounded a corner on his way to his suite, to the open window he knew would toss him out into the comfortingly empty January air... only he nearly collided with someone instead.

He needed to stop doing that, nearly running into people.

Kevin came up short, reacting quicker than most people would have. When contact of any kind could result in irreparable damage you learned to be very aware very quickly. The gloved hand that had been edging toward the plate was shoved into his pocket. No, bad hand! His fixation on the chicken had stolen half his attention away. Kevin should've heard someone in the hall sooner. He should have reacted quicker. Luckily for him the man he barely recognized was quicker. If he hadn't been though...the Southerner tried to shake off that thought.

The thought wouldn't flee, though. If the man hadn't been quicker something could have happened. There wasn't more than an inch or two difference in their heights. Half that man's face could have been gone except for the quick reflexes and the plate between them. Kevin frowned and looked down at the chicken. He couldn't get comfortable like this. He couldn't let his attention slip like that. When he looked up his brow had furrowed. The plate was held up and out to the other man. "Chicken?" His voice made it clear there was an apology in there somewhere and quite a sincere one at that.

"Ah..." Jean-Paul paused, looking from the young man to the plate of chicken and back again. "Merci?" He wasn't sure what the etiquette was for this sort of situation. "Thank you," he said again, the English an afterthought. Reaching out, he took a piece of chicken from the top and then held it almost like he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Mostly, that was because he was fairly certain he'd never had chicken like this before. He couldn't be sure, of course, since like everything, his memories of food had been chopped to bits, but... he was fairly certain.

Something about the man accepting the chicken, and as such the apology it was meant to be, seemed to relax the younger man. Some of the sudden tension in his shoulders eased away and they dropped a little. He even gave the other man a smile. "You're welcome." Only Kevin would apologize for the potential of melting off your face by giving you fried chicken. But everyone liked fried chicken, right? Except for weird people. And vegetarians. Who were also weird.

Kevin took a step toward the wall in order to get out of the man's way. The hand he'd shoved into his pocket came out to pull up the hood from his long sleeved shirt. He didn't need to risk a hole in the wall because he hadn't realized his hair had brushed it.

Something was niggling in the back of Jean-Paul's mind, context, but he couldn't put his finger on it, so he just nodded a little and started to walk down the hall again. Of course, then he realised it would be rude to walk away without actually tasting the food and so he stopped once more to take a bite of the chicken. It was very... fried.

Chewing almost contemplatively, he nodded again. "It is good." Greasy, but then, Americans liked that in their food, didn't they?

"You don't look that sure 'bout that," Kevin said, a small quirk of a smile on his lips. He sounded more amused than anything and certainly not offended. It was the accent, he decided. This guy was French and the French didn't deep fry stuff, did they? Kevin was pretty sure they at least didn't fry their chicken.

"It is... something new," Jean-Paul replied, taking another bite just to test it out again. "But good, yes."

New? The French were really missing out. They were dying as a country for lack of good chicken, Kevin was sure of it. He made a mental note to find out who the French guy was and leave some of the inevitable leftover chicken for him in the main fridge downstairs. "Ah'm glad ya like it. Good chicken's hard to find." Because Yankees had no idea how to make chicken, not really.

Chicken wasn't hard to find. Jean-Paul did not follow the logic there, but he just nodded agreeably instead of saying anything and then mumbled, "Thank you, again. Have a good evening."

Kevin nodded and gave the man a small salute with his free hand. "You, too." He then made a mental note to maybe look into a burqa. Clarice liked to joke, but some days Kevin was pretty sure that was the answer to his life.