Amanda & Jean-Paul, Early Monday Afternoon

[x-quebecois.livejournal.com]

Near collision avoided, apologies had, and someone decides to take up a new line of work - as a fortune cookie.


There was only so much Jean-Paul could do with prepackaged food - and that? That was not much. But he'd gotten used to that fact. It was still easier to eat a pre-made deli sandwich than to suffer through failure after failure when it came to cooking his own foods.

Which was why he was walking down a quiet, apparently empty hallway struggling with the packaging of a particularly disgusting looking sandwich. He'd make himself eat it in the hopes that people would stop telling him he looked too skinny, but there'd be no enjoyment in it. There was very little about any of this situation that he felt warranted happiness.

So wrapped up in the struggle with plastic was he that Jean-Paul didn't notice the woman he was approaching. He wasn't even walking much faster than people typically would, he was just getting to the point of frustration where other things faded into the background.

Amanda was wrapped up in the notes she was reading - she'd been training Nico, and there were some aspects of the girl's magic she wanted to look up, to make sure they were using the right sort of spells for her. Since, after all, avoiding having her apprentice's brains dribble out her ears was a good thing, right? So it was that she didn't notice the man approaching until he was too close to avoid - ducking into the nearest open door at that point would have been way too obvious. So she stopped, looking - and feeling - incredibly awkward. Just her luck to have Morgan show up and accuse her of stalking Jean-Paul or something.

Jean-Paul looked up just in time to stop. At the same moment, the packaging on his sandwich finally gave. Unfortunately, the force with which he'd been attempting to open the sandwich sent the top layer of bread, a good bit of relish, some form of meat product, and a hefty glob of mustard sailing through the air toward Amanda. His eyes widened and a moment later, his hand had managed to intercept the food before it landed on her.

He sighed, though, at the mustard and relish on his hand, then looked down at the mess now on the carpet. "Bonjour," he said, tone distracted as he sat on his heels to clean up what he could.

She hesitated and then pulled some paper napkins from her bag. As she'd told Nico, carrying something for unexpected nosebleeds was part and parcel of the magic thing. "Um," she began, not sure how to make the offer in light of their last conversation. "I've got these, if it would help?"

"Merci," Jean-Paul said, putting the remains of the sandwich into the plastic container and setting it aside. He reached for the napkins, using them to clean up what he could. Tossing those into the container, too, he resealed it and then straightened. Looking Amanda over, Jean-Paul raised his brows. "How many lives have you saved?"

"This week? None. Got to wreck a couple, by all accounts." She blushed a little at the reminder - she'd been way out of line, trying to bully him into talking to her, she realised now. "Telling my magic student that she's the last of a long line of evil magicians is always a great way to start the week."

"Just checking," Jean-Paul said, letting his brows return to their normal positioning. He caught sight of that blush, though. "Evil is not born, it is made. Explain that to her."

"I'm trying. You know kids - they tend to need a few repetitions before something sinks in." She paused, then spoke again. "I'm sorry, by the way, about how I came across the other night. I was a bit of a self-entitled bitch."

Jean-Paul's brows rose once more. "You were poking and prodding. I did not want you to, of course, but that does not make you a bitch." He looked at it much the way he viewed the people at Snow Valley investigating him - and while he did not like it, Jean-Paul could recognise that sometimes distasteful things were necessary for a multitude of reasons. "Just do not poke quite so persistently when the sleeping dog grumbles."

"I was worried," she admitted. "But yeah, I shouldn't have gone in so hard." She paused, awkwardly. "You settling back in here all right?" she asked, then gave him a small wry smile. "If you don't want to say, that's fine, just making polite conversation."

Was he settling in well? He couldn't seem to stop running into people he'd known in one fashion or another, most of the time literally, none of his things from Laval had arrived, and he'd broken the window in the bedroom out with a concussive blast, as Doctor McCoy was calling it. "Yes, well enough," he said, the lie coming easily. No one ever said his answers had to be truthful when he gave them. "People keep insisting I am thin. They give me food - a boy with a plate of very fried chicken offered me some a few days ago. In the hallway."

"Well, that's how it is around here. People don't know what to do, so they feed you." Amanda shrugged one shoulder. "I s'pose Morgan told you about the Trenchcoats doing a check on you?"

"She asked to take my mimic," Jean-Paul said, shrugging. "I thought it reasonable." Another pause and then he looked at his wrists. "I am not so thin, I think, that strangers should offer me food in the hallways."

Reasonable was good. It meant she probably wasn't going to be put through a wall. "It wasn't anything personal," she elaborated. "You've been here long enough to know what it's like with people showing up unexpected and going evil and the like. Including me." She smiled a little at his protest about not being too thin. "You're thinner than you were. That sort of thing makes people nervous."

Jean-Paul was not as thin as he had been, but he didn't feel like pointing that out would really do him much good. "I understand it was a matter of security." He quirked an eyebrow, then, and asked, "Did you have Miss Lee following me? Catseye mentioned smelling her near the hostel and I ran into her in a cafe. She asked me to go shopping with her." He still wasn't sure how he felt about that, but he'd decided to find it more amusing than anything else.

"Well, it's not like I'm in charge and can tell anyone to do anything," Amanda replied. "Well, at least, not unless it's to do with magic. I thought Jubes would appreciate the challenge of trying to keep up with you, is all - I didn't really think she'd manage it enough for you to even notice, what with the super speed and the flying and all."

"I pushed myself too hard," Jean-Paul said, shrugging. "It was easier to recoup when in one place. And Catseye tackled me to the ground, so." Offering Amanda a rueful quirk of his eyebrows, he motioned with the package of ruined food in his hand and said, "But I will let you go back to your work. Have a good day."

"You too." She returned the rueful expression with a small smile. "It is good to have you back. In case I didn't say that before."

"Thank you," Jean-Paul said. "Good luck with your student." He wouldn't say it was good to be back, since he wasn't entirely sure that it was, but at least things weren't as awful as they could have been. He gave Amanda a nod and then continued on his way, waiting until she was out of sight around a corner before wiping his hand on the inside of his t-shirt beneath the leather jacket. He'd really need to work on finding a better form of prepackaged food.