Kevin & Jean-Paul, Monday Evening/Early Tuesday Morning

[x-quebecois.livejournal.com]

Kevin and Jean-Paul have an evening in, but it's disrupted partway through.

"But Ah like you wet, remember?" It was a sly little smile he gave the other man just then, but he also turned off the water and led the way out of the shower. While Jean-Paul stripped off the dripping wet clothes Kevin dried off. A towel was handed over to the other man when he was nude once more.

Kevin definitely preferred him that way most.

A soft pair of pants got pulled on without Kevin bothering with boxers. It was always sleep trousers or boxers with Kevin, never both. A long sleeved, hooded shirt followed along with a pair of gloves before Kevin went padding out of the bathroom. "D'you want clothes," he asked in offering over his shoulder.

"Non," Jean-Paul said, smiling even as he laid the wet clothing over the counter and the toilet to help it dry out a bit. Then he followed Kevin out, into the suite, and considered himself for a moment. It was good, he supposed, that a side effect of his mutation was a slightly increased resistance to cold. "I came here in nothing. I will stay here in nothing, if you do not mind."

"Why would Ah mind?" The question was genuine just as much as it was playful. Kevin turned, a mischievous grin on his face, and his gloved hands easily found a place on Jean-Paul's hips with which to draw him nearer. "You stayin', then?" He didn't mean just right now. He meant into to the dark, quiet hours of the night and that was in his tone.

"Oui," Jean-Paul said, smiling a little. It meant Kevin would be in danger if he fell asleep, but since he didn't intend to do that, he decided to set the worry aside. He wasn't ignoring it and it wasn't gone, he just didn't let it rule him. "I told you I did not intend to leave."

Settling his forearms on Kevin's shoulders, he quirked a brow.

Kevin pulled the other man in closer so the barest of kisses could be brushed across his lips. "You can say 'no,' y'know. Since it's all selfish of me and all." Kevin remembered the plane ride, remembered Jean-Paul buzzing slightly with all that caffeine in his system even with his sped up metabolism. But he couldn't help that he wanted the other man there. He should have just not asked, but the words had come out without thinking.

"If I did not want to stay," Jean-Paul said, sliding his arms around Kevin's waist and then pulling him toward the couch at a slow walk, "I would not have agreed." He felt the couch cushions at the back of his knees and sat, tugging Kevin down with him.

It was Jean-Paul's decision and he had made it just as he had on the plane. Kevin had made much the same decision while Jean-Paul had been healing just after India. With that in mind Kevin followed him to the couch without another word on the topic. Settling easily, Kevin wound up half-collapsed on top of his boyfriend. An arm was slung across Jean-Paul's waist and a hood-covered cheek laid against his chest. The remote to the tv was handed over without much thought. "Ah think History Channel's got somethin' interestin'. Or bad movies on SciFi?"

"Mm... you mean you do not want to watch food competitions avec moi?" Jean-Paul asked the question with a straight face, but there was laughter lurking at the corners of his eyes.

"Ah'll make you breakfast in the morning if you don't put on the Food Network or anything specifically food related." He would be passed out so quickly if subjected to food competitions.

"Waffles?" Jean-Paul asked, expression unabashedly hopeful.

"Normal ones or you want fruit in 'em?" Kevin's eyes moved upward and caught that expression on Jean-Paul's face. Silent laughter shook him softly.

"I am very fond of fruit," Jean-Paul answered. "Strawberries, I think." And he put on the History Channel.

"Strawberry waffles with strawberries and powdered sugar," Kevin confirmed with a nod. "You still get breakfast if you're elsewhere in the suite." It was pretty much permission to ditch him if he fell asleep on the couch and crash in Kevin's bed if Jean-Paul wanted to sleep.

Smiling a little, Jean-Paul nodded. He didn't intend to leave Kevin asleep on the couch by himself, but he didn't intend to go to sleep, himself. "I like this bribery of yours. It is good incentive, I think."

"Ah think bribery's the best way to get what you want." As if to make sure all present parties knew what, precisely, it was he wanted Kevin's arm squeezed a little bit around Jean-Paul's waist. "There could be juice, too. Maybe. Ah don't remember."

"Orange juice?" Jean-Paul asked, sliding his free arm around Kevin properly and then shifting so the knee closest to the back of the couch could crook. Bracing his foot against the cushion, he considered their positioning and then decided he was grateful that he wasn't twenty years younger, since they would probably have been dealing with the very obvious remnants of his earlier arousal if he had been. "I could get us juice, you know. I believe I have grape juice in my suite."

"Ah think Ah've got orange juice and maybe apple juice." Raising his head up and stretching his neck, Kevin strained to look over toward the kitchen. It didn't do any good since he refused to move from his rather comfortable place situated on top of Jean-Paul. Also, he couldn't look through walls to see inside it anyway. "Ah could get up and check but," he trailed off, a small grunt signaling what he thought of that idea. Kevin dropped his head back to the other man's chest and resumed his previous position.

"But I am being inconsiderate and will not let you get up to check," Jean-Paul supplied, nodding sagely. "My apologies, but I do not think I will be more considerate this evening." He pressed a kiss to the top of Kevin's cloth-covered head.

"Yeah, well," Kevin trailed off a little and words were replaced by a sly smile. "You're French-ish. Everyone knows they ain't got no manners anyway. People expect you to be rude. You're just provin' their point right now. You gotta reinforce your reputation and all."

Jean-Paul's eyes narrowed just the slightest bit. "I am French-Canadian," he clarified, though he made no effort to contradict Kevin's assessment of the French.

"So that's like defect French?" He was kidding, tone playful. It seemed like a better route for making his case than diluting the French was.

Pausing for only a moment, Jean-Paul nodded. "Much like you are a defective American, oui?"

"Nah, it's the Yankees who're defective. We're just biding our time 'til we point it out to 'em. The South ain't fallen, just restin' up," Kevin insisted sagely.

Jean-Paul snorted. "I think that is not right."

"Course it's right!" Kevin's head shifted and he placed the hand of his free arm on Jean-Paul's chest so he could prop his chin up on it. "Would Ah go and lie to you 'bout somethin' as important as my heritage?"

"It is not impossible," Jean-Paul said, fighting the urge to smile.

Kevin looked as offended as he could possibly manage, which wasn't all that much considering his current location. "Ah'm a man of honor! Ah give my word and it means somethin'. Ah wouldn't go lyin' 'bout my people. Ah'm one hundred percent Southern, born and bred and datin' back hundreds of years."

Jean-Paul held one finger up in front of Kevin's nose and said, "One hundred and a few decades."

Swatting at the finger, Kevin insisted, "Hundreds of years. Seventeen-eighty-eight was more'n a century and a couple decades ago, but Ah can see how you'd get confused bein' a lit teacher and all." He resisted the urge to stick out his tongue at the older man.

"But the fight for independence did not begin until the mid eighteen hundreds, oui? And so your Southern identity could not have existed before then, truly." Jean-Paul's tone was reasonable, though in truth... he had no idea what he was talking about. American history had always seemed boring to him.

"Where's your French identity come from," Kevin asked, almost entirely serious. "You're Canadian. Quebec's a province like Georgia's a state. It never even fought to be it's own place, to carve out it's own piece of land that no one could take away. It's not just Canada, y'all still answer to a queen in another land. So why're you French Canadian if you've never stood up and fought for the right to be your own people? Least we did that once."

"Twice, if you consider the American Colonies and their success against the English, non?" Jean-Paul quirked a smile, then shook his head. "It is not a topic I am very familiar with. Only generalities, oui?"

"Ain't no one gonna go and fight to be separate if they ain't already got a different identity," he pointed out. "But that's just sense talkin' there." He wasn't exactly annoyed at Jean-Paul so much as the challenge to his claim ruffled him. Kevin was, if nothing else, Southern. He might have grown up outside Atlanta but his momma and his daddy hadn't been from Atlanta and they didn't raise him to be a displaced Yankee or no rude, ghetto wannabe either.

"Oui," Jean-Paul conceded. Then a thought occured to him and he asked, "The South, it is really waiting to rise, as you say?"

"Mm...well, parts of it are. Other parts accepted defeat already and gave up. That's mostly 'cause of the carpetbaggers who showed up and settled into our space." Kevin gave a forlorn sigh. "And Kentucky. They never really had much backbone anyway. Took 'em forever to side with the Confederation in the war. They were all 'bout not pickin' sides and goin' with the winners. Ain't no honor in that." Missouri had done the same but who cared about Missouri anyway?

Jean-Paul quirked an eyebrow. "Carpetbaggers?"

Kevin nodded. "Yankees who came in after the war to try'n shove their ways down our throats and take advantage of people. Oh, and buy up all the plantations. Even the KKK ain't like them and you gotta wonder how bad white folk gotta be for them to wanna lynch 'em." After a brief pause Kevin added, "They shoved their Yankee ways on us and brought margarine to the South. Ain't right."

Kevin nodded. "Yankees who came in after the war to try'n shove their ways down our throats and take advantage of people. Oh, and buy up all the plantations. Even the KKK ain't like them and you gotta wonder how bad white folk gotta be for them to wanna lynch 'em." After a brief pause Kevin added, "They shoved their Yankee ways on us and brought margarine to the South. Ain't right."

The majority of that explanation went over Jean-Paul's head, but he just snorted softly. "Margarine... it is... a poor substitute, oui."

"Ain't no substitute at all," Kevin insisted. "Ain't no dignified person gonna go and use margarine. It's the devil's doin', that stuff."

"Oui," Jean-Paul conceded. Then a thought occured to him and he asked, "The South, it is really waiting to rise, as you say?"

"Ain't no substitute at all," Kevin insisted. "Ain't no dignified person gonna go and use margarine. It's the devil's doin', that stuff."

"Oui, because Satan is very concerned about the things we eat," Jean-Paul said quirking another small smile.

Something exploded on the television and he turned to see what was going on. The History Channel usually just talked about explosions and things.

Despite Jean-Paul's distraction Kevin nodded and returned, "Just one more way the Lord of Darkness corrupts our souls with sin." He then let his own eyes drift over to the TV screen as well.

"Margarine is a sin now?" Jean-Paul asked, pulling his eyes away from the documentary on nuclear warfare and quirking a brow at Kevin. "I thought it was simply very distasteful." He shifted a bit, shoulders sinking into the cushions a little more comfortably, and then checked the television in time to see another mushroom cloud rising.

"Course margarine's a sin!" Kevin looked a bit horrified that Jean-Paul didn't already know this. "You shouldn't be puttin' unpure things in the body God gave you...or somethin'." Clearly he'd run out of argument.

There were so many places full of innuendo that Jean-Paul could have taken that. So, so many. He chose not to, though, mostly because he was comfortable and Kevin had flopped on him and things were blowing up on the television. That didn't really combine in a way that made saying dirty things in English workable for him. "Hm... this rule could be applied to other things, though. Like tattoos."

"Those're on the body, not in it," Kevin pointed out. "Think Ah'd just decompose those away if Ah got any." His head turned so his eyes could go over the tattoo on Jean-Paul's arm with the people falling out of their crumbling tower. "'Sides, Ah don't think the ink's impure."

Jean-Paul considered that for a few moments, then nodded. "Oui, maybe it is not impure, as you say." But it was marring the body God had given him. It was a good thing he didn't believe in God, he supposed, since constantly disappointing Him would be sort of depressing. Then he noticed the direction Kevin's eyes had gone and turned his arm a little so the younger man could better see the tattoo there. "It is a tarot card. The Tower." It seemed to fit him very well, when he'd read the description of it. And he'd desperately wanted to get the tattoo he'd originally had there covered.

"Seems sorta...dark. Y'know, for something you're carryin' 'round on you all the time." He didn't exactly think tattoos should all be sunshine and daisies, but he wondered why put such a scene of tragedy and destruction on yourself. "What's it mean?"

"Many things, depending on what you believe and who you speak to. It means, for me... sudden change. A breaking of the old. A fall. Some might say ruin and disruption. Failure." Jean-Paul shrugged, looking at the tattoo again. "All of these things, I think." It was very, very appropriate for him, when he'd gotten it. And he supposed the fact that it covered up something older that had carried a great deal of weight for him, once, was symbolic as well.

"After you hit bottom the only place to go is up," Kevin murmured from memory. His grandmother would say that when he was little. Sudden change. A fall. Disruption. Kevin could guess what caused those associations for the older man but he tried not to assume. "You still fallin'?"

"Unless you decide that digging a hole would be good," Jean-Paul replied, smiling a little. "I happen to know there is a shovel at the very bottom." Was he still falling? Perhaps. But in a very different way. Shifting one hand upward so he could tilt Kevin's head back a bit, Jean-Paul leaned in and kissed him softly. "Falling... it is not the same for me, I think. Uncontrolled, it is frightening. But I enjoy falling. I am very good at catching myself." He kissed Kevin again, then said against his lips, "Oui, I think I am still falling. It is not uncontrolled."

***
Jean-Paul had nearly fallen asleep in Kevin's bed, but he'd caught himself. It was comfortable beyond measure, but the danger was such that he pulled himself from beneath the sheets and moved to turn off the small television across from the bed. It had been a simple decision to move from the couch in the living room and the History Channel documentary they weren't really paying attention to to the bedroom and the original version of The Italian Job.

When that went off, he'd flipped over to reruns of Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel, which was what he wound up turning off before heading back into the living room. He was getting waffles, so long as he was still in the suite when Kevin woke up. And Jean-Paul was very fond of waffles. Especially with strawberries. So he made himself comfortable on the couch and finally let himself drift off.

It was almost restful, until the dreams came.

They'd fallen into something of a pattern, one Jean-Paul wished he hadn't had enough practice to notice. The same general layout with small variations that tweaked and twisted the horrors of his mind into greater and lesser things. Sometimes, they weren't so horrible.

Sometimes, they were.

"Break thinks? Why would I want to break things?"

"It's therapeutic," Cammie said, "Not that's there's much in here to break, but I'm sure there's SOMETHING."

And so he broke her. Avoiding her arm, he laid several swift and deadly punches to her throat, then let her fall.

Someone took him from behind, though, twisting his arms up behind his back with supernatural strength and popping his shoulders from their sockets. The pain was there, but ephemeral, and as Shrine stepped, laughing, into the boathouse --

The wave of invisible force left Jean-Paul's body, pulsing outward.

Kevin was an incredibly light sleeper when someone was in the bed with him. As such, when he felt Jean-Paul get up, the Southerner floated closer to consciousness. He heard the TV go off, listened to the footsteps and realized they didn't go beyond the living room. Maybe the flier had left through the window or maybe he'd merely relocated to the couch. He'd be there in the morning, Kevin was sure. He'd promised waffles and Jean-Paul had never turned the younger man's cooking down. With that assurance, Kevin had relaxed back into sleep.

Until the crash came.

There was a sudden explosion of shattering glass and the distant crunching of glass on the ground. Walls shook and Kevin was bolt upright before the noise had faded. Moving quickly, he got out of bed and went to the closed bedroom door. A hand laid against it feeling for vibrations so he didn't walk into something that would get him hurt.

The crash of breaking glass and then the more distant thud and crunch of something large and electronic hitting the ground was enough to wake Jean-Paul despite the dream's hold on him. His eyes snapped open and he found himself tangled in the blanket he'd pulled about himself, his arms actually caught behind him, the pain in his shoulders real, though not nearly so awful as his mind had led him to believe it was in the dream.

It took him a long moment to rein in his fear, jaw flexing, and then Jean-Paul set about methodically untangling himself.

Kevin got through his bedroom door and found his boyfriend looking a lot like a kitten tangled in a vast amount of string. His eyes swept out across the room to note all the broken glass and he was careful to avoid stepping in any of it. His furniture was undamaged, but shoved up against walls. All save for the couch Jean-Paul was on.

"Are you okay?" His voice was still thick with sleep and his accent heavier than usual. By the time the question was out he was trying to figure out if his help was needed in detangling.

Embarrassment and anger shifted through Jean-Paul in equal amounts and he held his tongue, simply nodding as his arms came free. He sat there for a moment, nostrils flaring slightly as he took in the damage he'd done. Pictures had fallen from the walls, the television was gone, the window broken. "My apologies," he said as he gestured toward the area in front of him, voice rough from sleep and still just ever so slightly tinged with the fear he'd felt at being held immobile in the dream.

Rubbing sleep out of an eye, Kevin shook his head in disagreement as much as he shhok it to wake up more. "Y'ain't got nuttin' 'pologize fer," he told the older man in a slurring mumble. Kevin crawled over the arm of the couch and perched on it, unsure if Jean-Paul wanted him nearer. "S'all cleanable 'n' replaceable. Y'ain't answer me. Y'okay?"

Half of that Jean-Paul hadn't even really understood, but he did realise that Kevin was asking him again if he was okay. Was he? He was fairly certain that, whatever he was, it didn't qualify as 'okay,' but that wasn't the answer to give, was it? "Oui, I am fine." But he wasn't really that, either, was he? He was rattled and he couldn't stop thinking about what might have happened if he hadn't caught himself before dozing off in the bedroom with Kevin.

"Liar." That single word was more articulated than anything else he'd said. The Southerner planted his feet on the couch cushion and leaned forward. A hand reached out, fingers wiggling as if to grab something. He couldn't get hold of Jean-Paul to tug on his arm. Gloved fingertips grazed the skin. Kevin could have gotten up and gone to the older man but he thought it was more important at the moment that Jean-Paul be willing to come to him. They both knew Kevin was willing to go to him.

Jean-Paul looked down at the gloved fingers, themselves a testament to the danger Kevin's own mutation represented, and made more of an effort to calm himself. The rational part of his mind told him that he should feel lucky his mutation was so obviously destructive, when it chose to be destructive at all.

He couldn't shake the satisfaction he'd felt in the dream when he'd attacked Cammie, though, nor the terror that had overtaken him a moment later. Shrine was dead, only his personal demons haunted Jean-Paul's nights. And sometimes, even they didn't make an appearance. "I should not have slept." His shoulders hunched a little as he braced his elbows on his knees.

Frowning, Kevin ceased his attempt to get hold of the other man. He watched the way Jean-Paul's body curved, downtrodden. "Yeah you shoulda. You can't stay up all the time. Ain't no good for you." Silence fell then and Kevin looked around the suite. More awake and aware now, the Southerner noticed the cracks in the drywall where the furniture had collided. He understood what that force of impact would mean for his body had he been in the room Instead of dwelling on that he wondered if he could put sheet metal up on the walls or encase them in concrete.

After a long while of considering how to safeguard the walls of his suite against his significant other and how to safeguard himself, the younger man turned his attention back to Jean-Paul. This time his hand extended with his open palm up. In a whisper he pled, "Please."

Jean-Paul looked at Kevin's hand, then up at the younger man, and shook his head. He took Kevin's hand despite himself, though, and tugged Kevin down onto the couch next to him. "I should not have slept here."

"Yeah you should've." Kevin moved until he was behind Jean-Paul so he could slid his legs down to either side of the man. A leg hooked around the Quebecois' waist and he was pulled back against Kevin's chest. His body was cradled against the younger man's but Kevin's hands rested lightly against Jean-Paul's blanket-covered legs.

"Theoreticals ain't done no one no good. Now Ah know what those concussive blasts do." And that he should put the TV in the corner away from the windows since it was suspiciously missing. "You gave me the choice and Ah chose to keep you. Ah had to find out what that meant 'ventually."

The skin between Jean-Paul's shoulder blades crawled as Kevin wrapped himself around the Quebecois, but he forced himself to stillness even as the chill air from the broken window crept inside. The cold didn't bother him, really. A voice in the back of his mind said he really wasn't sure whether Kevin should have been allowed to make that choice. Another voice, though, reminded him that he'd been given a similar choice.

Still, the practical demonstration this had turned into didn't sit well with him. Tension ran through him, though he kept his peace for a little longer before saying, "I am sorry. I do not think I told you well enough what might happen."

"But you tried and you told me." Kevin had catalogued the damage mentally. He had a list in his head of tasks to accomplish. They involved a metal cabinet for the television and metal shutters for the windows. Rearranging where furniture was happened to be included as well. "Ah told you that you ain't got nothin' to 'pologize for. It's just stuff. Ah'll fix it up and get new windows." Shatter-proof, right? Maybe plexiglass was better, it could absorb
some of the impact.

Jean-Paul wasn't sure it was so simple, but he let the matter go for a moment. Silence hung for a little while before he allowed himself to relax little by little. "You should sleep," he said at last, knowing he likely wouldn't get any more sleep, himself.

"You're not going to," was the quiet reply. Kevin remembered his own nights of waking up from nightmares of his father. He never slept and he never wanted to be alone. He'd force Jean-Paul into neither.

"Ah can make waffles now. Watch stupid late night cartoons. Go swimming. Whatever."

"Go... swimming?" Jean-Paul asked, blinking a bit. He wasn't sure what swimming had to do with anything, but it certainly diverted his attention. Then he blinked again and shifted until he could look over his shoulder at Kevin. "Waffles?" It was possible he might have seemed a little more hopeful than he had before.

Kevin shrugged. "It's somethin' to do. That's not sleep-related. Get your mind off stuff." And Kevin could appreciate the view once he wasn't worried about his boyfriend's state of mind. Waffles was workable as well. After all, it wasn't like the boyfriend in question had any clothes to be wearing anyway. "Ah gotta sweep up the glass first, then waffles're all yours." And hopefully before people started to knock on his door.

"Oui," Jean-Paul said, nodding. "And thank you." He shifted back a bit, still relaxing, before he continued, "Please, I will clean the glass. It is not so hard. And I am less likely to step on it, if I am not touching the floor."

The temptation was there to insist, but then Kevin thought about how he'd feel if he had been responsible for destroying Jean-Paul's suite. The words never made it past his lips. Instead he nodded and a hand idly stroked down along the other man's side in an attempt at a soothing gesture. "You want brown sugar on 'em?"

"Non," Jean-Paul said, shaking his head. "Just the strawberries, if they are still available." He attempted to settle himself, before carefully rising and setting about cleaning the glass that had landed inside rather than out with the television. The largest pieces were easy, of course - it was the smaller ones that actually posed a threat.

He found a small vacuum in the same spot in this suite that it was in his own and vacuumed up the pieces he couldn't see.

Kevin watched Jean-Paul for a few moments, still worried about his mental landscape, before getting up and moving to the kitchen. The basics were easy to find but his strawberries were low. He had enough for the batter but not garnish. Kevin could work with that. While he listened to the hum of the vacuum the Southerner pulled on a pair of vinyl gloves from a box on the counter and set about cleaning and cutting the berries.

Jean-Paul considered trying to get the television off the lawn outside, but he hadn't bothered borrowing more than a pair of boxers from Kevin and he didn't want to take anything else, so he decided against it. Instead, he put the vacuum back where he'd found it and padded through to the kitchen. "It is cold - do you have a curtain I could use to try to keep the weather out?"

"Um..." Did he have a curtain? No, Kevin was pretty sure he didn't. He paused halfway through cutting a strawberry and looked up at the other man. Kevin looked oddly guilty. "No? But Ah've got a heavy blanket in the closet you could try to jerry rig?"

Jean-Paul wasn't sure what jerry rigging was, necessarily, but he nodded. Reaching over, he stole a piece of strawberry, then headed for the closet to see if he could figure out how to keep the cold out until the window could be repaired. So long as he concentrated on other things, he thought he might be alright.

Kevin narrowed his eyes at the thieving Quebecois and watched the man go before returning to his task. The cut up strawberries were added to the batter and that got mixed while the waffle iron heated. Butter got slathered all over each side of the iron before Kevin poured the batter - made from scratch, not a box - in for the first waffle.

A bit of strategic hanging followed by some folding made sure the blanket wasn't going to fall down, though it certainly wasn't pretty. Once that was done, Jean-Paul headed back through the kitchen and leaned against the cabinet. What did you say to someone who was making you waffles after you effectively demolished their television and their window? What could he say, really?

"It smells good, aime."

Kevin gave Jean-Paul a bit of a grin. It wasn't fully genuine. Kevin was worried about the other man, what his reaction would be to this incident when he had quiet time later and what it might do to him. The Southerner knew he'd have seen nothing but the potential destruction of a person had he been in the other man's position. But it wasn't for himself he worried right now. That could come later.

"They'll taste better," he said and watched for the little light to come on to indicate done waffles.

Jean-Paul was studiuosly not thinking about how badly things could have gone if it had been Kevin instead of a TV laying on the lawn outside. Three stories up, no preparation, and he was fairly certain the younger man didn't know how to properly break a fall or land, anyway. There were no good ways for that scenario to end.

So much for not thinking about it.

"I believe you," Jean-Paul said, eyes on the waffle maker.

Sometimes giving people space was hard. If all you could give was an attempt at physical comfort then staying away became the hardest thing in the world. Kevin did, though, and patiently waited for the timer to set off the little light on the waffle iron. In silence the finished waffles were set on a plate, a few more strawberries placed atop them, and the plate was slid over toward Jean-Paul. Kevin put the rest of the batter into the fridge for later. Right now these were just for Jean-Paul. Comfort food.

Jean-Paul sat down and ate a bite of strawberry, then picked up the fork and cut off a piece of waffle. "Merci," he said, chewing slowly. It did taste good.

But Jean-Paul was thinking. "You have trained some in self-defense, oui?"

The oddness of the question caused Kevin's brow to furrow. "Not really." He could throw a punch, his daddy had seen to that, but that was about as good as Kevin's offensive or defensive skills got.

"Hm..." Jean-Paul nodded, ate another bite of waffle, and then continued, "I would like to teach you some, I think." The first lessons of many forms of self-defense were in the correct ways to fall. "Will this be okay?"

"Yeah, it's fine." Kevin's voice trailed off, something like hesitation in his voice though it was more confusion than anything else. "But why?"

"So you will know how to land," Jean-Paul answered, tone subdued. "If... something should happen." He shrugged his good shoulder toward the blanket-covered window.

Eyes followed the shrug to the blanket covered window. Kevin couldn't help but think that if he was getting flung out a window he had bigger problems in front of him than landing. He didn't say that aloud. This was what Jean-Paul could do to try to keep Kevin safe. The Southerner understood that and he understood how very helpless one could feel where the safety of others was concerned with such an uncontrollable mutation.

All Kevin said was, "Alright."

"Merci," Jean-Paul said, nudging the plate toward Kevin in offering. It was unlikely that teaching Kevin how to fall would do much good if the younger man was asleep when one of Jean-Paul's concussive blasts went off, but it was something, at least.

"Ah'm not really hungry." But he did snag a strawberry from the plate with a murmured thanks before pushing it back toward the older man. "You're the one with the metabolism, 'member?"

"It is difficult to forget," Jean-Paul said, nodding as he took a larger bite. Several moments later, he asked, "Swimming? Is the pool open at this time of night?"

"Yeah, Ah think it is. We can check?" Was that rule about not swimming after you ate still valid with Jean-Paul's metabolism? Kevin wasn't sure but he figured the other man would know. Maybe swimming would finally help them relax.