Catseye & Jean-Paul, Friday Evening (backdated)

[x-quebecois.livejournal.com]

Catseye brings Jean-Paul a present and all seems to be going well until she swats him in the face and he wakes up from an unplanned nap with a feeling of foreboding.



"Mister Beaubier?" Catseye called out, kicking at his door since her hands were full of brown-paper-wrapped packages, stacked up to her chin. "Mister Beaubier? Mister Beaubier?" She kicked each time she called out. "It is Catseye can I come in? I brought you some lovely deer meat!"

"Lovely deer meat?" Jean-Paul mumbled, walking out of the kitchenette with a carrot in his mouth. Heading for the door, he opened it before the catgirl could put a dent in his door - he was more than capable of managing that on his own - and raised his brows. "Bonjour - por quoi?"

"Ouiouioui! Je suis... allé la chasse et capturé... un cerf et j'ai... pensé que... vous... pourriez la... faire cuire quelque temps!" she answered, stumbling over the French awkwardly but happily.

She'd gone hunting and caught it and wanted him to cook it. Jean-Paul reached over to take some of the boxes. "Merci," he said, not entirely sure what to do with the meat - there seemed to be a lot of it. It was a good thing, he supposed, that he'd gone to another bookstore and found some cookbooks. "You caught this all yourself?"

"Laura the new girl helped me! I gave her half the kill because that is The Way Things Are. And I know you have not had deer meat since you came back so I wanted to give you some!"

Laura the new girl? Jean-Paul remembered reading something about her - from her? - on the journals. "This is very good, thank you," he said, nodding as he closed the door behind her and walked through to the kitchen so he could put the meat in the refrigerator. Some of it would likely have to go into the freezer until he figured out what to do with it. "It was a good hunt, oui?"

"Oui, very good! Just like the time I went hunting with Morgan and we were both BigCats! Laura is a feral so she is a good hunter but it is not the same as hunting with another cat. Two cats make a much better hunt! But we ate that deer instead of bringing it home like Laura and me did this time."

Nodding, Jean-Paul closed the refrigerator door and then propped one hip against the counter. "I am glad that you had a good hunt, even if it was not so good as hunting with Morgan." He smiled a little, then nodded toward the shelves John had repaired few days ago. "I have many books once more. Have you started another play?"

"Nopenopenope! Can we read one of your new books? It makes me happy that you have books again," she nodded happily. "It did not seem like your home without books. The shelves smell nice. So do the new windows. How come you have new windows?"

"I broke the old ones," Jean-Paul said simply, shrugging. "Which would you like to read? Shakespeare, still, or something else? There are many things to choose from."

"Mmmm... something else!" the catgirl grinned, jumping onto his couch. "Can we read now?"

"Oui," Jean-Paul said, finishing off his carrot before moving toward the shelves and letting his fingertips skim over the spines of the books. "What would you like to read? Did you read The Scarlet Letter?"

"Nopenope." She squirmed eagerly on the couch. "But I think scarlet is a pretty name for a letter. It is a pretty name for anything really. Not as pretty as lavender or violet, but I like scarlet. How come you broke your windows Mister Beaubier?"

Picking the book off the shelf, Jean-Paul moved to sit on the couch, shifting until she could see the pages as he opened it. "I could not help it," Jean-Paul said. "That is why it is not safe for you to stay, you see?" He wasn't going to attempt to explain things, since this would make the hundredth time or so (approximately), but he did want to point that out. Again. Just in case.

"Yes I see. Did you get hurt?" she asked with concern, poking her fingers into his arm to check that it was all in one piece.

"No," Jean-Paul said. Strictly speaking, that was true. "A few chapters, yes? And then we will see what we might make with the deer meat you brought."

~*~

"I do not think I like this book very much," Catseye said with a yawn, a chapter into the novel. "Does it get better? Are there hunts and fights and skulls and killing with swords? Or at least jokes?"

Marking his place with a finger, Jean-Paul laughed softly. "Non, mon chaton. There are no jokes in this book, I think. You would like something else?"

Catseye pondered this for a moment. "I think I will like the book better when I am not so sleepy. Can we see what we can make with the deer meat? You mean like in a cookbook?" Books about food were books she found particularly intriguing.

"Oui," Jean-Paul said, finding a bit of paper to serve as a more permanent bookmark before standing and placing the book on the table. He moved through to his bedroom, quickly finding a cookbook and then heading back toward the couch. "We will see what we can find, yes?" He offered the cookbook to Catseye. "There is a section for deer meat."

"I wish I could catch you a cow," she mused, flipping through the cookbook and past the 'beef' section. "Or chickens! I could catch them no problem both cows and chickens but there are none to hunt around here. And the fishies are not good. Ooo! I wish I could catch a moose for you! One time can you take me to Canada so I can catch moose?"

"A moose? I do not think they taste very good," Jean-Paul said, his tone more musing than anything else. "And it would have to be... after my head was repaired. But we sill see, oui?"

"You have had moose before?!" Catseye jumped up onto her knees, turning to him eagerly. "But it did not taste good? Did you hunt it yourself?"

"Non, chaton," Jean-Paul said, laughing softly. "I did not. It was in a restaurant. It is possible it was just badly prepared. It is also possible that you would like it when I did not. But I have had it, oui."

"You ate moose in a restaurant?! Canada must be the bestest if they have moose in a restaurant! I wish your head was better now so we could go see!" She had reached the deer section of the cookbook and held it open for Jean-Paul to read. "Looklook! This one is called Burger Soup! Burgers! In soup!"

Suppressing yet another smile, Jean-Paul nodded and said, "Read the recipe - I think it is because it is ground up, oui? I would have to grind the meat and I do not have a grinder. I think something with whole pieces would be better?" All things considered, he was quite fond of Canada, himself. The thought made him smile despite his efforts not to.

"You could use the grinder in the kitchen if you wanted to," she pointed out, "unless you are worried about being danger to people and do not want to go to the kitchen then I think big pieces are good! What about this one? It is Venison... Stroganoff. That is a funny word."

"It is," Jean-Paul said, nodding agreement. "I think because it is Russian." Not that he had anything against Russians as a whole, of course. Just that one who nearly ran him off the slopes that one time. "And I would like to avoid the main kitchen. Let me see if I have everything for the stroganoff."

"I can go get things if you want I can drive one of the cars!" Catseye offered enthusiastically, and began reading off the ingredients list to Jean-Paul so he could check to see if he had what was needed.

Jean-Paul had a sneaking suspicion there ought to be pickles involved in this recipe, but the one in the book didn't call for them and he wasn't sure enough of the idea to actually propose it. That, and even if he was sure, there was no telling whether he'd be able to remember the correct portion or... anything, really. And with his luck, putting pickles near the stroganoff would cause it to explode.

Checking through the cabinets, he pulled down everything that he had and then turned to speak to Catseye. "There are a few things we need... the spices, the mushrooms, the sour cream." He thought they had everything else. "I could go myself to the store, though." He hated cars.

"You can go yourself faster than driving yesyesyes with your superfastspeedpowers," the catgirl pointed out. "Okay I will wait for you then and do the things the recipe says to do with the meat while I wait for you?"

"Oui, this would work best," Jean-Paul said, gesturing for her to come into the kitchen. "Here, this is the drawer for the knives. And the wooden cutting board," he said. "I will be back soon."

The flight to the grocery store took almost no time at all. The trip back, however, took a bit longer. He'd had to buy a slow cooker in addition to the ingredients he lacked, and flying at high speeds would have ensured he lost all of that to broken backs somewhere over a lake, most likely.

Setting his feet on the floor after flying in through the window, Jean-Paul carried the groceries into the kitchenette and put them on the counter. Less than half an hour later, the slow cooker was cooking slowly and the timer was on so they'd know when to check on it.

"Would you like a different book, chaton?"

"Can we read a Ratha book again? Those are my favourite," she grinned happily. "I can read it to you if you want me to?"

"Oui," Jean-Paul said. "We can read that. Though I do not have those books here, I think. If you go fetch one, then we can read it while the food cooks."

~*~

The food didn't cook in any sort of a timely fashion, but Catseye didn't mind waiting because she had a warm couch, a good book, and Jean-Paul to read with her. As the slow-cooker did its work, the catgirl found herself dozing off contentedly, eyes snapping open every few minutes as she tried to keep her attention on the book. "I think I am too sleepy to eat," she mused, curling up against Jean-Paul's shoulder.

"Nap, then," Jean-Paul said, marking the page he'd stopped reading on and putting the book aside. He picked up The Scarlet Letter again and said, "I will read this while you do." And while he waited for the timer to tell him the food was ready. He'd need to take care of the pasta before serving, but that, he was fairly certain, even he couldn't botch.

"Okay but I will be BigCat because in case you fall asleep by accident I do not want you to be afraid that you will hurt me because you are danger," she explained, and shifted into her cougar form. The cougar took up considerably more of the couch than the girl did, even though she was six feet tall, so she ended up with her front half mostly in Jean-Paul's lap, settling herself with her head on his knee, tail tucked in alongside her body.

"Merci," Jean-Paul said, his tone almost rueful as he wound up with half of a cougar in his lap. Still, he opened the book and began reading. It was not long before his mind wandered, though. He thought about how he'd let Catseye do most of the cooking, how he'd essentially 'supervised.' She'd prepared the meat while he was gone, then he'd let her handle the mushrooms and the herbs... he'd mostly just read from the cookbook.

Rubbing at his temple, he tried to turn his attention back toward the book. His attempts to continue reading Hawthorne failed, though, and he finally gave up. Leaning his head back, Jean-Paul stared up at the ceiling before he let his eyes close, sure that the timer would wake him up in time to make sure the venison stroganoff didn't burn.

Catseye woke up when she smelled burning and shifted back into girlform, padding quietly into the kitchen. She turned the slow-cooker off, taking a tupperware bowl out of a cupboard and ladling the stroganoff into it, leaving the burned layer stuck to the bottom of the pot and putting it in the sink, filling it with hot water to soak. Capping the tupperware bowl, she put it in the fridge after spooning a generous portion into her own mouth to alleviate the hunger pangs from her transformation.

Task complete, she returned to the couch and shifted back into BigCat form, climbing back up onto the couch and settling back in on Jean-Paul's lap. An itch on her side was scratched with one of her back feet, which set her tail lashing out and thwapping Jean-Paul in the face in an involuntary response.

Jean-Paul sat up so quickly that he got himself another face full of fur. That... this was not right. It wasn't the way it should be. There was something... wrong. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something... it was just wrong.

"Mrrt?" The cougar raised her head from Jean-Paul's lap and cocked her head, wondering if he was alright.

Batting the cougar's tail away from his face, Jean-Paul checked the clock on the wall and then muttered, "Slept too long."

Catseye licked his nose, as if to say she had everything under control.

"Je suis désolé," he muttered, shifting until he could slip out from under Catseye.

Catseye stood up on the couch, hearing it groan under her weight. "Mrrt?" Where was he going?

Jean-Paul didn't stop to pick up the book when it hit the floor, heading for his room instead. He closed the door softly, then moved to the window and practically threw himself through the frame. It took a moment for his powers to actually kick in and he let himself free-fall for a few seconds before pulling up and heading for the woods. The treeline, at least. The horizon eventually. Flying faster than the speed of sound wouldn't get him away from that sense of wrongness, though - he knew that. He just couldn't think of anything else to do.