Tabitha & Jean-Paul, Sunday Night

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Both Tabitha and Jean-Paul wind up in the kitchen late Sunday whilst looking for snacks.


If asked, Tabitha would later admit that she was probably a bit dazed as she wandered down to the kitchen that night. Passed the hour when normal people went to sleep and before the party-goers returned home, she went in search of food not to be found in her own tiny refrigerator.

No one was supposed to be in the kitchen. No one else, at least. Jean-Paul had woken from another nightmare and, reluctant to stay in his suite, decided to see if there were any leftovers in the kitchen downstairs.

Instead of day-old enchiladas, he found... a woman. A woman standing between himself and the enchiladas. Rubbing at his eyes, he weighed the pros and cons of attempting to get the enchiladas. He suspected they were very good. And he was hungry. Apparently waking up in a panic several nights a week really took it out of a person. So he mumbled a vague, entirely unintelligible greeting and skirted his way around the woman, making a beeline for the enchiladas, simultaneously hoping she wouldn't decide to put up a fight about them. He could run faster than her, he'd bet.

"Oh, hi, Jean-Paul," she said absently, as if seeing him here at this hour was nothing unusual. Instead of the fridge, she went for the pantry.

"Bonjour," he muttered, more audible this time. Enchiladas - spicy, chicken-y, cheesy, wonderful enchiladas. He supposed he should offer one or two to the woman, but he couldn't remember her name and he couldn't figure out if that was because he was tired, he hadn't seen her in a very long time, or if it was that his memories where she was concerned had been chopped into tiny pieces.

That's when she spotted it, and she didn't know where that blush came from but, wow were her cheeks hot. "Jean-Paul," she choked out his name. "Is that a hickey?" She blinked. "From a vampire?"

Caught up in putting his enchiladas in the microwave, it took Jean-Paul a moment to register the question. "Quoi?" He pressed the buttons on the timer to set it, then start the microwave, before turning to look at the woman. He knew her name. He thought.

She pointed. "The giant bruise on your neck. The one with teeth marks."

Should he answer that? He didn't really feel like discussing the mark. So Jean-Paul adopted a contemplative expression just in time for the microwave to beep, at which point he took the enchiladas out so he could take a massive bite of one of them, them chew. Mouth full of chicken and cheese, he said, "I do not know what you mean." Only it was muffled and almost entirely impossible to understand that, what with the accent and the food.

She could only stare at him for the first few moments. She shook her head with a small smile. "Okay, I can work with denial." She grabbed a box of triscuits from the pantry and hummus from the fridge. "What are you doing up?" She hoped that was safe territory at least.

Swallowing his mouthful of chicken, Jean-Paul considered that question and then shrugged. "I was hungry. There is not so much to eat upstairs for now." All the leftovers were in Kevin's suite. "You have turned very red." His brows rising, he asked a question of his own, "Why?"

Tabs waved her hands around helplessly. "I don't know? Embarrassment? Acute envy? Take your pick, but I thought we weren't talking about it?"

"Acute envy?" Jean-Paul asked, taking another bite of his enchilada as he propped his lower back up against the counter and settled in for a bit. "Of the hickey, the vampire, or the teeth marks?"

Not helping the blush, not a bit. "This mean you're going to talk about it?" Divert! Divert! Divert!

"Non, it means I am talking about you." Jean-Paul gestured toward her with his enchilada before taking yet another bite. It was very good, all things considered. "And so - one of the three. Which?"

"So it was a vampire!" She ate another triscuit thoughtfully. "Maybe not the vampire part. It looks kind of painful." The blush didn't let up in the slightest, but at least she wasn't stuttering.

Quirking a brow, Jean-Paul said, "It was not so painful at the time. You are envious of the hickey, then?"

"You really want me to analyze my feelings at two in the morning?" She rested her chin in her hand as she crunched on another cracker.

"I would not have asked if I did not," Jean-Paul pointed out, his tone reasonable.

"Anyone ever tell you that you're like a dog with a bone?" she asked. "Fine, I envy your courage to take grab the opportunity before you."

"Grabbing the opportunity..." Jean-Paul considered that, finishing off the first enchilada and then chewing contemplatively. "It is not courage so much, I think. Maybe foolishness. And being stubborn. Have you not done foolish things because you were being stubborn?"

"You consider sex and love to be foolish?" She countered. "I've done a lot of dumb things because of stubbornness and pride. I don't imagine any of them feel as satisfying as a good necking session."

It was most certainly foolish of him to be involved as he was with Kevin, given their respective mutations. But stubbornness absolutely had him digging his heels in at the thought of foregoing it. "There are things that are more important than necking, as you say." And a great deal that necking led to that was now entirely off the table for Jean-Paul. That thought made him smile. He honestly didn't regret that.

Now she felt bad for not saying what she really meant, but she still didn't have the guts to say it out loud, so she poked the hummus with a Triscuit. "You should probably get that looked at," she said instead.

"Oui," Jean-Paul nodded. "I will." Then he gave her a smile. It was a slow thing, that smile. Simple. And yet it said a great deal. Jean-Paul liked that it did that without him actually having to say anything at all. "Have you not been necking recently? And this is why you are envious?"

Instead of swallowing her next bite, Tabitha nearly inhaled it. She coughed and sputtered, eyes watering. She glared half-heartedly at Jean-Paul. "You could say that," she conceded, wiping away the moisture on her eyelashes.

"Ah," Jean-Paul said, nodding sagely. He took a bite of his second enchilada, then asked around the mouthful, "Who do you want to neck with?"

"Heh, the other sad half of the equation," Tabs rolled her eyes. "The only one who's piqued my interest enough for me to get passed the... issues. Left. Gone, poof." She shrugged. Why was she talking so much?

Maybe it was because it was getting later, but Jean-Paul hadn't really understood any of what she'd just said. He was pretty sure that wasn't it, though. She kept speaking and he just... did not see how what she said answered his question. "The poofing person, they have a name?"

"Most people do, this one included." Yup, long since passed the point of nonsensical babbling. "There was a bookseller last winter, that might have been interesting. Except it wasn't. Very fizzly date. Didn't go on another." She could avoid answering questions too, just not nearly as elegantly as Jean-Paul. Hers was more of a "babble until they run" type of defense.

"Mm... I do not know this term, fizzly," Jean-Paul said, swallowing the bite he'd taken and then pausing to get himself a glass of water. "But you did not like the bookseller so much." He thought on that for a moment, then asked, "How old are you?"

Now that was a swing she didn't see coming. Tabs widened her eyes worriedly. "Twenty-seven, why?"

"I am only curious," Jean-Paul said, shrugging. "There are many people you can neck with. I am sure most are even legal, oui? Do not be so discouraged."

"Legal? What?" Now she was really confused. Had Jean-Paul beaten her at her own game? "Wait, are you feeling old?"

"I am old." Jean-Paul paused, then rephrased his answer. "I am older. But this has nothing to do with me. You will find someone to neck with. It is only that, since this is a school, there are many who are not legal, oui?"

Tabitha nodded. "Necking with students is bad. Also, a little creepy. I never did understand why people thought women who slept with students were somehow less creepy than men." She shuddered. "Talk about abusing power."

"I know not," Jean-Paul said, not entirely sure where that had come from - he supposed it related in a tenuous sort of way to his comment about the legality of those in the mansion, but still. It wasn't as though he could really comment on the age difference, per se, given that Kevin was literally half his age. He reminded himself that was only true for a little while longer, at least. But still, that didn't make the number any different. Especially now that he was forty. "Is it true that people think females sleeping with students is not so bad?" Though Kevin wasn't his student and never had been, so that was a moot point, anyway, wasn't it?

Tabitha nodded. "If you look at conviction rates and sentencing, chicks get off way lighter than dudes." She shrugged, not sure what would come out of her mouth next, as it was clearly not connected to her brain at the moment. "And who said you were old? You're not old. The professor is old. Nate is old. You're not old."

"Nate is not so old," Jean-Paul said, frowning just a little. "And I am forty, mon ami." He didn't mention the fact that, for another couple of weeks at least, his boyfriend was twenty. "But... maybe you are right. The Professor, he is older than the rest of us all, oui." And probably listening in on the conversation - inadvertently, of course. But Jean-Paul still hadn't managed to work himself around to truly trusting telepaths. "Is this for the same reason that women are more often given custody of children in divorces? That they get off, as you say, more lightly?"

"Nate's old in his head, this probably accounts for ninety percent of the whole "old" concept. And forty isn't old." She grimaced. "It's like... people don't think women capable of just being crappy people. Evil, sure. Just not truly crappy human beings." Both her mother and step-mother fell into that category.

"So they are allowed to be masterminds of epic criminal exploits," Jean-Paul said, just for clarification's sake, "But not to forget to pick their children up from school?" He'd had foster parents who were like that, sort of. But again, that wasn't precisely something he felt like discussing. "Someone said to me - they said that forty, it was the new thirty. I do not think I believe this."

"That would mean thirty is the new twenty and midlife crises don't show up until the fiftes," Tabitha concluded. "I think I approve."

Jean-Paul finished off his enchilada, shaking his head as the last of it went into his mouth. He rinsed the plate off and put it in the dishwasher, then reached over and stole a Triscuit. He didn't eat it immediately, though, just swallowed the last of the chicken and cheese, then stared contemplatively off into space. "Perhaps you have a good way of seeing things, then."

Tabitha held up the hummus tub in offering before she sealed it. Getting back to sleep now just might be possible. She stretched and rubbed her hands over her face. "I've adopted a militantly positive attitude out of sheer self-defence. Otherwise I'd never leave my room."

"Oui," Jean-Paul said, shaking his head. "I do not have this positive outlook, I think, but I understand its need." Eating the Triscuit, he gave her a smile and then nodded toward the door. "I am going to fly now, just for a short while. Thank you for the conversation."