xp_logs | Kevin & Jean-Paul | Backdated Monday

After getting out of the medlab Kevin detours on his way back to his suite. There's talk of his worries about his mutation, escape and finally some giving in to the possibility that maybe it's all real.

Kevin was just as layered and clothed as he always was save for one very important exception. His gloves were in his pocket rather than on his hands. He walked through the mansion with his fingers constantly skimming the surfaces of something. Mostly he kept contact with walls or the railing on the stairs. The Southerner kept waiting for that familiar tug from behind his navel when his mutation activated on contact but it never came. Hank had said he didn't actually have an x-gene anymore. It hadn't gone wonky. It wasn't a virus. It just wasn't there at all, just like it never had been.

Outside of a door on the third floor Kevin stopped. He actually paused to consider if this was the best idea in the world. There were lists of reasons in both the 'pros' and the 'cons' side. Honestly, he wasn't sure he should stop here. Very likely he should have kept going on to his own suite. Instead he knocked on the door because even if it wasn't what he should do, it was where he wanted to be.

"Oui?" Jean-Paul called, not actually looking up from the puzzle he was doing. It had lots of liitle pieces that, if he could hold together properly, would stay together in a sphere. This, at least, he knew he hadn't forgotten. No, this was just impossible.

Kevin wrapped his hand around the familiar feel of cool metal and turned the doorknob. He only opened the door wide enough to pop his head through. "Hey. Busy?" Mentally, he reminded himself that he should go paint or draw or maybe cook. He should test this away from other people until he believed it more. He wanted to believe it the way he believed other things when it came to his mutation, beyond the shadow of a doubt. But part of him knew no length of time would ever be long enough for him to truly believe what he already knew in his gut. It was gone.

Turning, Jean-Paul let the three pieces of the spherical puzzle that he'd managed to fit together fall to the table and smiled. "Non, aime. You are well? The doctors, they did not wish to keep you longer?"

"Nah, they figured out that there wasn't a virus so we're all free to wander through society full of decent folk and all." Kevin slipped through the door and leaned back against it as it closed. "Course, doc McCoy isn't real sure what happened so we gotta assume what 'Vette says is right and it was that mutant doctor at the fair." Jean-Paul hadn't really known why Kevin was in the medlab in the first place so he supposed this was probably all a little confusing but Kevin was still wrapping his head around it all. How did you suddenly accept and get your head around not being a mutant anymore? Overnight, poof!, no mutation. That was like waking up and finding a mummy trying to kill you.

"Quoi?" Jean-Paul wasn't entirely sure why Kevin had been in the medlab in the first place, let alone why he'd been kept there over night, but one word did clearly register. "Virus?" He'd assumed the younger man was ill, but 'virus' made it sound far more serious than he'd initially thought.

"S'not a virus," Kevin reiterated. He pushed away from the door and trailed across the room toward the couch Jean-Paul sat on. "You seen 'Vette since yesterday?" If he had then this explanation would be somewhat easier. Knowing Jean-Paul and his amazing hermit abilities, though, Kevin wasn't banking on it.

"Non," Jean-Paul answered, shaking his head slowly. "She is well, also?" He watched Kevin approach, knowing something was different but not quite able to pinpoint what.

"Yeah, she's well. She's...a brunette." Kevin wasn't sure how much Jean-Paul had been paying attention last year when Yvette was on her inhibitor. He knew the man had been aware of it from the journals but that didn't mean he remembered it now. "Brown hair, brown eyes, peach skin....not spiky." He trailed off. "Cammie's all normal colored, too. Ah think she's gonna miss anti-freeze, though."

Jean-Paul arched an eyebrow, processing what Kevin was telling him slowly. "So this thing that was not a virus... it made them normal-coloured?" He was sure there was more significance here than that. He just didn't want to jump to conclusions.

"No." Kevin perched on the arm of the couch, regarding Jean-Paul silently for a moment. "Them not having an x-gene anymore did."

"Ah," Jean-Paul said, taking in Kevin's bare hands now that the younger man was closer. "And..." He gestured, not entirely sure how to ask if Kevin, too, no longer had an x-gene without saying as much. "You, also?" Sometimes he truly hated English.

Kevin nodded. "Supposedly. Ah mean, they ran tests and doc McCoy says so. "Nothin's been melting under my hand." He didn't exactly have anything to demonstrate with at the moment, though. Jean-Paul's suite was nearly as Kevin-proofed as his own.

"You do not believe it?" Jean-Paul asked, tipping his head to the side now as he tried unsuccessfully to think of something that might have simply removed Kevin's x-gene. He'd never heard of such a thing. It could be that he'd lived his life in relative seclusion while massive leaps were made in the field of genetics, but he doubted it. This wasn't something that would have stayed quiet for long.

"It's a little too good to be true, ain't it? Ah wake up and suddenly Ah'm normal? Ah'm just like anyone else? Ah get to interact with the world as easy as everyone else? If God can take what God gives then what's saying whatever took my mutation can't give it back just as easily and just as silently as it took it? It's hard to wrap my brain 'round it just being gone and it being real. Yeah, it's gone and Ah could prove it...Ah just can't prove it ain't coming back." And that, for Kevin, was the problem. Jared thought he should be happy and rejoice but Jared's little forcefield, while inconvenient, didn't kill people. If that guy got his mutation back it would only affect him. If Kevin or Yvette or even Cammie suddenly got theirs back people could get hurt. People could die. In Kevin's case, Jean-Paul could die and all it would take would be Kevin taking for granted that the organic decay was gone for good.

"Do you know what it is that took it from you?" That seemed like a fairly reasonable question to Jean-Paul, considering the sudden timing.

"A woman. A mutant, Ah assume. It's someone 'Vette met at the street fair in District X that Ah went to with Cammie. Ah guess she said she could take our mutations away and 'Vette asked her to or whatever. Next day," he trailed off and shrugged. "Next day no mutations for any of us that were there."

"I see," Jean-Paul said, straightening up a bit and then carefully reaching over to tug on the fabric at Kevin's elbow. "What is it like? Très différent?"

Kevin watched the hand at his elbow but didn't move. In fact, he just sort of frowned a bit. "Ah was like this before. A couple years ago. Neutered, kinda, Ah guess." He shrugged. "It's weird and not and that just makes it weirder."

Catching sight of the frown, Jean-Paul left his hand hovering near Kevin's elbow and said, "I am not trying to, as they say, jump your bones, oui? It is only that I think staying apart is not so good." It was obvious that Kevin wasn't comfortable with the development, if only from the fact that a gesture that wouldn't have gotten a negative reaction when the younger man had his mutation had gotten one now. "I know this - I run away often, remember?"

"Ah'm not runnin' away." He just didn't know what he was doing if that wasn't it. Running would mean he'd be in his own suite right now. He wasn't, he was here. So what was the issue beyond his usual glaring issue? "Last time my mutation was neutered Ah was sorta datin'-but-not-dating Jay and he had...real specific ideas about what that could mean for us as an 'us.'" Jean-Paul had just said he wasn't after that. He wasn't moving to pop the proverbial cherry as soon as possible just because he could now. But...

"Ah don't like the grey area Ah got now. My mutation's gone but the idea of what could happen if it comes back and Ah 'ssume it's not... When Ah decay everything Ah touch I know where the line is. The point of no return is real clear. But now there ain't no line according to Doctor McCoy. Ain't no line and if Ah believe it and he's wrong..." Kevin shrugged. "But if Ah don't believe it and he's right?" It was an obvious rock and hard place for Kevin with potential losses on both sides.

Jean-Paul didn't address the fact that Jay had had many specific ideas about many things, since he didn't know or understand most of them. Instead, he flattened a crease he'd made in the fabric of Kevin's sleeve before saying, "Grey, it is like flying in a bank of clouds. Sometimes, there is nothing you can do and so you go very, very slowly. If you are not flying at top speed, it is easier to hear things, easier to pull up or change directions when you find something inside the cloud." He paused again, then said, "Fog would be a better example, non? But the point, it stands. You do not need to stay motionless in this grey where you find yourself."

"But any motion could throw you head first, unconscious off the top of the Eiffel Tower straight down to the sidewalk. And what if Ah can't grab you before you're over the railing?" That was Kevin's biggest problem and always had been. When things went pear-shaped it wasn't Kevin who got hurt, it was someone else.

"Aime, if you do not wish to move, then we do not have to," Jean-Paul said, the words simple and honest. If Kevin wanted to wear three layers for the rest of his life, Jean-Paul wasn't going to bicker with him about it. "But also, if you wish to take slow steps, then I will help if I am able."

"Ain't never been 'bout what Ah 'wish.'" Kevin was pretty sure they both knew that what he wanted and what he did were rarely the same thing. Kevin's desire to not hurt people took top priority, always. Everything else he ever wanted took a backseat to what he had to do in order to preserve others. What he wanted was in front of him. It was being handed to him by some lady at a street fair whose face he couldn't remember. But what he'd actually do...that was probably something totally different.

"Come, sit with me," Jean-Paul said, shifting so there was more room on the couch itself. "I have a feeling you are going to fly away and I will not be able to catch you. Which is a difficult thing to make me think, oui?"

Kevin frowned again, but he slid off the couch's arm and onto the cushion properly. "Why d'you think Ah'm gonna fly away?" It seemed an odd thing to think he'd do, really. Kevin wasn't sure where that thought even came from. If he was ever going to fly it would have been when he was dangerous all the time, not now.

"It is what I would have done," Jean-Paul said with a shrug. Yes, they were very different people, but it was difficult to look at the Southerner, perched as he'd been on the arm of the couch, and not envision him fleeing.

"Not really the flying sort." Unless you counted that time he hid in a junkyard after he killed his dad. Or that time he took off for three days and only told Nathan that he wasn't coming into work after nearly not managing to resist decaying Jay's face off. Or that time he moved to California when his not-quite-boyfriend was missing, presumed dead. Maybe he did have a tendency to flee, but that was all much bigger stuff than this. This was retreat stuff, not fleeing stuff.

"Perhaps not here," Jean-Paul said, gesturing to the room around them. "But here." He tapped his own temple. "You see? It can be like the same thing."

"Your startin' to sound like Yoda in that 'what did he just say?' sorta way," Kevin told him.

"Yoda?" The reference was there, he knew it, he just didn't like the comparison. "I am not green," Jean-Paul said, repressing a smile. "And my ears, while pointy, they are not so big." He paused to consider his previous statements, then finished, "Also, I am taller than you."

"Seriously? Two inches. You're taller'n me by two inches." Kevin, however, had more muscle mass on him. Jean-Paul was lean, but Kevin spent more time working out than just exhausting himself the way the Quebecois did. "You're not like Yoda with your vague, philosophical comments 'cause you've got two inches on me and aren't green?"

"Oui," Jean-Paul said, nodding sagely. Settling back against the opposite arm of the couch, he nudged Kevin's thigh with his own socked toes. "I mean that... you might be here, as you are, oui? But you withdraw into yourself instead of... interacting." That wasn't quite what he meant to say, but he wasn't actually going to say that Kevin should talk to him about his feelings or anything like that. Vagaries tended to work better for him in general. Until they made him sound like Yoda, anyway.

A dismissive gesture responded. "Whatever, Ah always withdraw. It's like my schtick or something. Ah'm sure my therapist has some sort of technical soundin' term for it and everything. But apparently that word's not 'antisocial' 'cause Ah guess bein' antisocial would make me a dick and Ah don't qualify for that yet or something'."

"Non. I am antisocial," Jean-Paul said, shrugging almost philosophically. "But there is a difference, you see? Between only being quiet and... actively not speaking?" He wasn't sure that made sense outside his own head, which didn't bode well for him, considering the state his grey matter was in.

"Nope, you don't count either," Kevin replied, focusing on the actual definition of antisocial. Well, the definition in terms of psychology anyway. "Antisocial personality disorder has something to do with bein' violent and violatin' people's boundaries and hurtin' animals and a bunch of other stuff. You're not a big enough dick either."

It was Jean-Paul's turn to frown. "I do not like speaking to people," he said, then amended his statement. "Most people. I do not like being around them. And so I am literally anti social. You quibble over the words. But do you understand my meaning?"

"Mostly my therapist quibbles. He's a bad influence on me. You should go tell the FBI that he's making me harder to communicate with or something and that he's a bad influence." Finally, a small smile appeared on the Southerner's face. "Yeah, Ah get your meaning. Ah got it the first time, though."

"Good," Jean-Paul said, smiling again. "I did not know another way to say it in English." He nudged Kevin's leg again, toes wriggling a little. "I do not think me saying these things would make the FBI listen very much. I am not such a reliable person for them, I think."

"More reliable than me." He shrugged a little. "Maybe if the whole no mutation thing sticks Ah can get them and the court to decide Ah'm allowed to roam 'round free. That'd be cool." It'd also be a significant change from the past two and a half years.

"Oui, maybe," Jean-Paul said, propping his heel on Kevin's knee and crossing his legs at the ankle as he made himself comfortable. "If you could go anywhere right this moment, where would you go?"

"Alaska," he answered without a moment's hesitation. "One of the parts where there's almost no people. It don't get dark there this time of year, just sorta like how it is here right after the sun goes down before the sky gets black. No people, just trees and all. It'd be a nice change for a little while, just not forever." Kevin's head tilted a little and he finally relaxed back into the couch. "Where would you go?"

Jean-Paul didn't answer immediately, eyes drifting to the side as he considered the question. "Je ne sais pas," he said, not exactly frowning at the admission. "I have nowhere else to go, you see?" He'd been to many of the places people usually said they wanted to go - Paris, Rome, Moscow, Sydney. These places held no wonder for him. He'd been skiing in the Alps, he'd flown through crystal clear skies over Alberta, he'd mucked his way through more obscure towns than he cared to think about. He had no real desire to go anywhere, even if his powers hadn't been troubling him, even if he hadn't had to worry about the messy state of his memories, even if there was nothing tying him to this place.

"You like Alaska because it does not get so dark at night now - why?" Jean-Paul was merely curious, though the change of subject hadn't been particularly elegant. It would have to do.

A small shrug answered at first while Kevin thought about it. He wasn't sure why he liked that idea, honestly. It was just something different from what he was used to. It was something new. Eventually he came up with something to say. "Ah like the idea of it bein' all quiet like it always is at night, but there still bein' light out. Like everyone left and you're all alone instead of them just bein' asleep. Ah like that sorta...stillness. But Ah like day better'n night."

Tucking his toes beneath Kevin's thigh, Jean-Paul considered that before saying, "I like the nights better. Birds do not fly at night and so... it is like the whole of the sky is mine." He smiled, then. "When there is no one else from the mansion in the sky, of course. It can be difficult to avoid them, if I do not pay attention." He tipped his head to the side so he could rest his temple against the cushions there, then said, "Also, I like the quiet."

He wasn't really sure that the conversation was helping, necessarily, since it had nothing to do with what Kevin had come here to tell him, but... maybe that was helpful in its own way. Jean-Paul wouldn't worry about it unless something felt wrong.

"So you like the night but it ain't got to do with the dark." Kevin seemed to consider this for a few long moments and then nodded. "Alright, then you can come to Alaska with me." Kevin nudged Jean-Paul's leg aside a little and crawled his way up the other man a bit until he could half lay down atop him.

"May I? Merci," Jean-Paul said, laughing softly as Kevin settled against him. He was careful, still, as he crooked one knee and tucked an arm around the Southerner to keep skin from skin since the younger man was worried about those grey areas. And he understood why, so he wasn't going to push. He'd give his word, if he needed to. He just didn't feel it was necessary. "I will fly and you will be artistic and we will enjoy the not-quite-night, oui?"

"Yeah, that's kinda the thought." It was strange, the way it felt normal to make up pretend getaways. What was more strange was that Kevin got the distinct impression if he told Jean-Paul tomorrow he had a ticket to Alaska and wanted the other man to meet him there, then there'd be no resistance. Where Jay would go on about his job, Jean-Paul would ask when to meet him there. The confidence Kevin had in that surprised him.

The Southerner shifted so his arm could wrap more comfortably across the older man's waist. He was careful of his hood but he was also noticeably more relaxed than when he'd shown up. "We should do that one day...if the DA would let me."

"I think they could be persuaded," Jean-Paul said, eyes half-closing. It was good that Kevin seemed less worried now than he'd been earlier - at least physically, anyway. He wasn't holding himself apart any longer. "I think that you would like Canada."

Kevin's head shifted until his chin perched on Jean-Paul's chest and he could meet the other man's gaze, or what there was of it. "Y'know Alaska's part of the US, right? Not Canada. Ah need FBI permission to leave the country. And the DA's."

Jean-Paul poked Kevin's side. "Oui, I know this. I said only that I thought you would like it. Not that we should go there. Though we should, if you are able." He quirked a smile. "And I believe you would like it. It is not so different, but the flavour..." He didn't miss Canada, as such. He supposed he missed the way things had been before he'd known everything he knew now.

"Hot and spicy? Mild and flavorful? Bold? Bland?" Kevin's smile spread with each question until he was grinning. "What part of Canada? Quebec?" He assumed Jean-Paul would want to show him the areas he spent the most time in, but given his childhood maybe he'd rather bring Kevin to places with fewer bad memories. Maybe places without memories attached at all.

"Montréal, of course," Jean-Paul said, not even having to think about that. "But other places, also. Laval, maybe. Maybe not, though. Somewhere farther north. With snow. No cities, I think. You should see the mountains in the moonlight. It would be nice." He paused, then let a quicksilver grin spread over his lips before saying, "You will have to find the flavour for yourself. It does not work for me to tell you."

A mischevous quirk of lips answered that look. "So it wants me to taste it myself? Ah'm okay with that, Ah think." Kevin inched up Jean-Paul's body a bit. "Where d'you think Ah should start the taste testing when Ah get there?"

Jean-Paul knew that look. He knew that tone. "Sample each city to find the one you like the best. Every city feels different, does it not? New York from your Atlanta, oui? There are national parks that I like more. The quiet, as I said before." Fingertips walking up Kevin's side, Jean-Paul smiled, letting it linger this time. "You should begin in Montréal, though. I think you have a taste for it already."

"That ain't what Ah meant 'bout where Ah start," Kevin said, the words a quieting murmur. The Southerner crept further upward still. "There's a lot to Montreal and not all of it will give me it's 'flavor,' right?" He gave Jean-Paul an expectant look and finally stopped his movement up the other man's body when his lips hovered over Jean-Paul's. "So where in Montreal should Ah start to find it's...unique flavor?"

"With the food, non?" Jean-Paul said, his voice serious even as he tipped his head backward just a bit so he could better see Kevin from this new, up-close and personal view.

Kevin shook his head in disagreement. "Nah, that's literal flavor. That ain't what Ah'm after. Ah look for other kinds of flavor." His head bowed, taking advantage of the stretch in the older man's neck from his head tilting. "Ah'm looking for more a pulse." Then his lips pressed to the pulse in Jean-Paul's throat, laying a kiss there.

"Mm..." That was nice. Jean-Paul closed his eyes and smiled. "Oui, I see." Then, purposefully misunderstanding, he murmured, "There are clubs. They have the pulsing music."

"Don't like clubs," Kevin reminded him, lips brushing against skin. Then, more quietly, he said, "Or sharing." His lips worked their way around Jean-Paul's throat until they came to the scab still in place from where he'd marked the other man. His tongue traced from each individual tooth mark to the next very lightly until it had made the full circuit.

"Mm... oui," Jean-Paul said, bracing his hands on Kevin's hips for a moment. "Je me souviens." I remember. Of course he did. It was rather difficult to forget. He let his eyes close all the way and took a slow breath - he didn't know why he needed it, but he did.

Kevin had no idea what that meant, but he was thinking this was maybe one of those times when it wasn't entirely necessary anyway. A single bare hand stretched out behind Jean-Paul and found the book on the table there. Kevin laid his hand atop it and waited, mouth still moving so lightly over the older man's neck. Nothing ever came from the contact with the book. He waited for the pull in his abdomen, he waited for the way things felt like they went weaker beneath this touch, but it didn't come. For that reason when Kevin's mouth opened to bite very lightly into Jean-Paul's neck, teeth creating a ring that overlapped the scabbed one, his other hand slipped under the other man's shirt. Skin slipped over skin and that sensation alone sent a tingling feeling down Kevin's spine. Yet he kept his other hand firmly atop the paperback.

"Mm..." The noise that escaped Jean-Paul was low, quiet, and very rough. His fingers curled in the hem of Kevin's shirt even as his stomach muscles flexed beneath the unexpected skin-on-skin contact. He didn't know what made him do it, but his head fell forward and to the side to give Kevin more room.

He wasn't one to allow himself indulgence where risk to another was involved normally. He told himself that the hand on the book was his precaution. He told himself if he felt that tug which had become so familiar that he would direct his mutation toward the book until he broke contact between them. It was better to replace a book than lose Jean-Paul. It was the absence of reaction from his mutation that saw his hand moving further upward under the other man's shirt. It was the absence of reaction from his mutation that saw him trailing his nose up along all that stretched out muscle until Kevin's mouth found another spot on Jean-Paul's neck it liked as well.

Jean-Paul had let himself get used to not touching Kevin's skin. Technically, he wasn't doing the touching here. Kevin was. And that kept wrecking havoc on his concentration. "Kevin..." He couldn't think of anything to say that the younger man would understand, so he focused on the dull throb where the Southerner had originally bitten him.

"Hm..?" The answer came as vibration against skin before he pulled his mouth away from the other man's neck and leaned back to look at him. He'd stop if the Quebecois wanted him to, though he'd never asked Kevin to before. The hand under Jean-Paul's shirt drifted back down over the older man's stomach, stopping when only fingertips touched skin just above the waistband of his trousers.

Keeping his hands where they were, the material bunched so Kevin couldn't shift farther away, Jean-Paul took a slow breath to clear his head. Then he leaned forward and kissed the younger man properly. "Do not stop," he muttered, forcing the English out for clarity's sake alone.

Kevin nodded and let his hand drift back under Jean-Paul's shirt. It was such a small, silly thing to most people probably. The stomach and chest weren't exactly parental advisory bits of the body, but the point was much more the touch itself than where it happened. The point was the way all that smooth skin felt under the rough and calloused fingers that moved over it. All that metalworking without gloves had left Kevin's hands rough the way a laborer's might have been, something almost no one knew about him.

Smiling, Jean-Paul loosened his hold a bit then slid one hand free of the fabric entirely. He didn't push the boundaries even though he wanted to. Instead, he hooked two fingers through Kevin's belt-loop and tugged him in closer.

The tugging caused a small smile and Kevin leaned in to whisper something against Jean-Paul's lips. It was something he'd taught himself and done so that his pronunciation was flawless though the words came slowly from his lips, clearly unfamiliar to them. "Je te veux." I want you. Then Kevin kissed him.

Jean-Paul didn't really know what he'd expected, but those words hadn't really been it. There were many things he could say in response, but none of them would have adequately conveyed his reaction. Something very knee-jerk, a gut-deep desire to unequivocally give Kevin permission to take whatever he wanted. So much for the grey areas.