xp_logs | Kevin & Jean-Paul | Wednesday afternoon

Jean-Paul finds Kevin on the dock of the empty boathouse and ends up recruited to fight fires by proxy.

The summer had finally cooled off enough that it was still warm, even bordering on hot, but hanging out in his usual layers of shirts outside didn't make Kevin want to jump head first into the lake. He'd been playing it safe in what had been in rather sedated daily life since getting his ribs broken so he hadn't been outside much. If you couldn't guarantee you wouldn't pitch over at any moment it wasn't really safe to go outside without a shirt. At least not when you were Kevin. Now he was largely off the medication but he didn't want to risk it. So he sat at the end of the dock at the abandoned boathouse with his long sleeved hooded tee shirt on over his tank top and soaked in whatever sun he could.

Despite the sun, being mostly healed and pretty much entirely coherent again, Kevin was frowning. The piece of paper in his hand was an e-mail from Red X, a call for members to go up to Canada to help with the fires there. "Me and fires aren't a great idea," he muttered, staring down at his hand. It wasn't bandaged anymore but it was weaker from disuse.

Jean-Paul landed on the dock near Kevin and headed toward him. He settled next to the younger man and offered him the drink he'd bought while in the city. "It is a tea with lemonade in. And sweetener. Why are you frowning?"

"Why's there's tea in my lemonade," Kevin asked as he took the cup. His frown shifted and pointed at the cup. "Or why's there lemonade in my tea? Ah'm confused." He handed over the piece of paper to Jean-Paul and took an exploratory sip of the drink.

"The man at the shop, he said this was a very good drink." Jean-Paul took the piece of paper and read the note there, then looked back at Kevin. "I did not know you were part of Red-X."

"Yeah, started the leadership training last summer when Ah was in California but then Yvette got hurt real bad during somethin' we were doin' in Eastern Europe. Ah ended up staying here instead of going back to the west coast home for wayward mutants after enough people campaigned and restarted the trainin' last September and took the long route. Got certified back in March. It's one of the places Ah usually disappear to at least once a week. Red X, ELPIS and school. Ah don't gotta go every week anymore but Ah was volunteering at their place in the city once a week on a day when Ah was there for ELPIS already."

Kevin took another sip of the drink, trying to decide if he liked it or not. "Pretty much if they call Ah'll go, but Ah don't think Ah can this time 'cause of my ribs and Ah'm still on some pain medication. Plus the skin graft isn't fully healed."

"The fires, they are bad this year..." Jean-Paul trailed off, taking a sip of his own drink as he handed the paper back. "You are making a funny face."

"Ah'm not sure Ah like it." But he kept taking experimental sips every now and again anyway. Kevin would either decide he liked it or that he didn't but until then he wasn't giving up. It was a matter of dignity or honor or some other virtue he probably didn't actually have. "And yeah, the fires are bad. Ah'd go if Ah could. You wanna go for me? You're all speedy and it's your country anyway."

Taking his shoes and socks off, Jean-Paul dangled his feet over the side of the dock and shrugged. "Are you being serious or joking? Would they let someone who is not part of Red-X go with them?"

"They might." Kevin wasn't sure if he'd been serious about Jean-Paul going in his place, but if he was willing to go... A speedster could be a lot of help if people were trapped in that fire. "They know me real well. If Ah asked they might let you. If you really wanted to."

"It would be nice, I think, to do this..." He hadn't had a lot to do for Vanessa lately, since he was still waiting on his work visa, and he was thinking that helping with the fires would maybe quiet some of the guilt that had slowly begun to niggle at him.

"Really?" Jean-Paul wasn't exactly the go out and save the world type. He wasn't even really much of a joiner. In fact, the older man's sense of solitary introvert seemed to keep pace with Kevin's pretty well most days so the fact that he wanted to do this came as a surprise to the younger man. "Ah'll talk to 'em then and see if they wanna take you along to help."

"Merci," Jean-Paul said, offering Kevin a smile. "As you say, it is my country..." That wasn't really why he wanted to do this, of course, but it was as good a reason as any he could think of for the moment.

Kevin made the mental note to call over to Red X later and nodded. Then he took another sip of his drink, face twisting into an obviously unappreciative grimace. The Southerner held the cup out to Jean-Paul. "You should try this. It's kinda gross, really."

"Gross?" Jean-Paul took the drink and tasted it, then wrinkled his nose. "Oui, gross. Would you like to try mine? It is an Americana. Unsweetened." He sat it, along with the gross lemonade-tea mixture, on the dock between them.

"Nah, thanks. We need tea. Real tea. The kind we make way down in states that border the country on the bottom?" Kevin had refrained from using the phrase 'in the South,' and as such felt particularly proud of himself. "Ah ain't made tea since Ah've been up here, but it's better'n anything else when it's hot out. Or, erm, warm. Guess this only counts as warm compared to the rest of the summer."

"Oui, the rest of the summer made me wish that it was heat that did not bother me so badly rather than the cold..." Jean-Paul wiggled his toes in the lake a little, then tipped his head to the side and splashed some of the water at Kevin.

Kevin's eyes narrowed and he slid his metal-framed sunglasses back down over his eyes from where they'd sat perched atop his head. "Y'know Ah'm not that medicated anymore. " His leg dropped down from the dock where he was sitting indian style and his own bare foot dipped into the water to splash water up on Jean-Paul.

"I am only allowed to splash water at you when you are medicated?" Jean-Paul's eyebrow arched as he asked that, then he unceremoniously splashed a great deal more water at the younger man.

"Ah ain't sure there's any allowin' goin' on either way, Ah just wanted you to know what you were in for." Especially since they were sitting rather close to one another. It made it very easy for a gloved hand to reach out and shove Jean-Paul while he was still mostly leaned over.

Jean-Paul let himself hit the water, then sink a bit as he held his breath. It did feel very nice, all things considered. A moment later, though, and he shot up, out of the water, so he could pause in the air over Kevin. He made sure the worst of the drips fell on the Southerner. "Are you cool enough now?"

Kevin didn't bother to shield himself from the water. He wasn't sure dripping was the appropriate description since it sort of poured down on him at first. "Y'know. Ah don't think Ah am." He pulled his socks back onto his bare feet that had been laid atop them before. Then Kevin stood up and pulled both of his shirts off over his head. The shirts hit the ground just as his fingers started undoing his pants. "We'll see how much better my ribs really are."

The Southerner stepped out of his pants and dove off the end of the small pier clad in nothing but his gloves, his boxers and his socks. After all, that's pretty much all he needed to get out and keep the pier intact, right?

Head tilting to the side as Kevin shed his clothing, Jean-Paul watched the younger man dive into the water. He spared a thought for the skin graft, but it was likely that the antibiotics would keep it from getting infected, assuming it could get infected at all.

The water was cool, bordering on cold, and it was bliss. Kevin was always just this side of hot except in the winter. So many layers - maybe arbitrarily too many - always clinging to him and keeping in his body heat. It was nice to just jump into the lake and leave the clothes behind. There was a lot of trust being put in Jean-Paul to keep an eye out for anyone who might be coming. It wasn't the near nudity Kevin cared about, it was the safety of someone not knowing he was in there. By the time he surfaced Kevin was grinning.

"And now you are cool enough?" Jean-Paul asked, drifting down toward the water again so he could splash a bit more water at Kevin.

"Ah feel like Ah'm startin' to cool off, yeah." When more water came at him Kevin simply dipped back under the water. He came up on the other side of Jean-Paul. This probably wasn't the best idea for his sunglasses but they were still on so oh well, right? Kevin leaned backward until he floated on his back, face turned to the sky. His boxers probably didn't make the view appropriate for those under eighteen, but it was just physiology after all.

Jean-Paul cleared his throat and then said very carefully, attempting to mimic Kevin's accent, "Dang, you're pretty." Keeping a straight face while saying it was difficult, but he managed - just barely.

The movement was a small thing. Kevin's hand barely moved but he flipped his boyfriend off all the same. "You tryin' to do my accent is like eighty times worse than me tryin' to learn French with yours."

"You wound me," Jean-Paul said, faux hurt written all over his face, though only for a moment. Then he laughed. "You have a difficult accent and I am not so good at them, anyway."

"My accent ain't hard. You just suck at it." Even as he spoke Kevin was grinning up at the other man. In a faux hurt tone of voice Kevin added, "Besides, you're just sayin' Ah'm pretty 'cause Ah told the world you never say Ah am."

"Non, I say you are other things - do you truly want me to say that you are pretty only?" Jean-Paul glanced toward the dock, then checked the shoreline as well, before moving smoothly into a backflip and balancing on his hands. He grinned at Kevin upside down and finished, "I thought you liked when I said you were 'hot,' also."

For a moment Kevin just grinned. "Ah'm not sure 'pretty' actually applies. Girls are pretty. Flowers are pretty. Guys? Not really pretty. Unless they're the girlie gay kind. Or," his smile broadened, "sometimes European."

"People might say that your eyes, which are very, very blue, are pretty," Jean-Paul pointed out, straightening his fingers and then letting himself dive into the water.

Kevin's body rocked on the ripple of waves created when Jean-Paul dove through the surface of the water. "Who tells a guy his eyes are pretty," he asked the open air. "Girls. Girls tell guys they're pretty."

Jean-Paul swam down and touched the bottom of the lake. It wasn't very deep where they were, but it was still nice beneath the water. He came up a fair distance from Kevin, though he was still wearing all of his clothing and so the worry about accidentally touching the younger man wasn't as great - it was always better to be safe. "Pardon?"

"Ah said you ain't got no excuse 'cause you're a guy." Distance, Kevin thought, was highly overrated. Then again, he wasn't sure how Kevin-proofed Jean-Paul was at the moment. It all mattered a lot less when Kevin was actually wearing clothes.

"Men, we are very bad at giving compliments." Jean-Paul said, nodding. Then he paused and considered that before deadpanning, "You have a nice ass."

Kevin deadpanned right back, "Ah know. My ass is awesome." He waggled his eyebrows just the slightest bit, but the movement was mostly hidden behind his sunglasses. "Too bad it's off limits again, huh?"

"Oui. My life, it is so tragic," Jean-Paul returned, tone still entirely serious.

"We're just going to have to find you a stunt ass," Kevin continued. "A stand in so you can still have your fun...only with another predetermined alternate ass."

Jean-Paul flicked water in Kevin's general direction. "The stunt ass, as you say - it would not be so satisfying, I think. I am content to deal with my tragic life, merci."

"Then Ah guess you can't whine 'bout it like a little girl. You had your stunt ass option. You didn't take it. You're forever ass-less now." Kevin uprighted himself so he could tread water instead. "You're just gonna have to deal with your lot in life now."

"You are cruel," Jean-Paul said sadly, shaking his head.

"If Ah was cruel Ah'd leave you for an indestructible person who could properly appreciate my ass in all its niceness."

"Mon Dieu," Jean-Paul said, brows rising. "This is, as you say, not cruel. It would be rude."

"Yeah it would be," Kevin agreed with a frown. "Which is part of why Ah wouldn't do it."

Chuckling quietly, Jean-Paul shook his head. "It is good, then, that you are not so rude."

"Yeah, but it makes my life so tragic, don't it?" Kevin started to swim back toward the dock. Inevitably if he hung out in the lake too long someone would show up and be traumatized by how very thin and clingy the material of his boxers was when they were wet. He couldn't go and scar sixteen year old girls for life. Or worse, end up pounced by Cammie.

"Your life?" Jean-Paul said, rising out of the water again and then setting himself down on the dock. "You can still enjoy your ass, can you not?" Then he smiled again. "And I may watch."

Nothing quite made Kevin smile so smugly as that last comment. "Technically. But it ain't the same. Then again...if you're watching..." Kevin let the sentence trail off and end there. They both knew if Jean-Paul was watching it made everything different. Better. Closer. Somehow it wasn't so much like his own hand touching his skin any more.

As Kevin began to rise out of the water, pulling himself up rung by rung on the ladder, he had to stop and readjust himself. Sometimes his mental images were a little too vivid. His memories of moments too fresh. It could get highly distracting and right now that was very obvious. Kevin had done all he could to not traumatize the teen girl sect that might be wandering nearby. They'd just have to deal with anything else they saw and recognized.

Jean-Paul smirked at the pause, both in Kevin's words and his ascent from the water. He waited until the younger man was mostly on the dock, then tossed him his clothing for modesty's sake. "Oui, this is what I thought."

Kevin wasn't entirely on the dock, though. His shirt managing to hit him in the face made him slip and his shin connected with the edge of the dock. There was no familiar tug from his mutation going to work so he assumed some piece of clothing managed to be between his skin and the wood by chance. "Can't you wait until Ah got both feet on the dock before you go throwin' stuff at me?" Kevin took a few paces away from the edge and pulled his shirt off his head so he could figure out where his pants went.

"If I could have, would I not have?" Jean-Paul asked, pulling his own wet clothing away from his skin long enough to wring the hem of his shirt out a bit. He gave up on that a moment later, though, and just pulled the whole thing off so he could wring it out properly, then pulled it back on.

His shirt quickly went to to cover his crotch and Kevin looked around. "See, living where there are minors? Overrated. Really, really overrated. " He found his pants easily enough, but they weren't near the ladder. They hadn't made it that far. That left Kevin frowning, glancing between his leg and the edge of the wood where he must have hit it. His sock didn't come up that high. It was sort of amazing it was even still on with it being soaking wet and all.

"Oui, overrated," Jean-Paul said, tipping his head to the side at Kevin's look of confusion. "What is wrong?"

"Uh...Ah dunno. Ah thought," he trailed off and moved closer to the edge where his leg had hit. There was no mark. "Ah hit my leg against the wood when my shirt hit me. Figured somethin' got between but my pants didn't make it over there. Maybe my sleeve was hangin' lower than Ah thought?"

"The sleeve was bundled with the rest of the shirt, aime," Jean-Paul said, stepping closer to Kevin so he could peer over the edge at the ladder, too. "I saw - I did not want to send the whole thing falling into the water, oui? And so I was careful where I threw it."

"And you hit me instead. Good plan there." Kevin was still staring at the unmarred wood frowning. "Ah don't get it then. Skin on anything pretty much always causes the same reaction. Maybe it was the water? Sebum gets washed off just like anything else, Ah guess. Maybe there just wasn't enough for a reaction that quick." But he filed it away for later when he was dry and hadn't been in any sort of water for a while.

"Mm... oui," Jean-Paul said, nodding slowly. He remembered what Jared had said on the journals, though, about being able to feel with his fingers when he hadn't been able to before. He wasn't going to bring that up for now, of course, but it seemed strange that Cammie could still taste things and Jared was feeling through his force field... and now Kevin wasn't immediately decaying organic material. "Are you hungry?"

"Am Ah usually not hungry?" Kevin's eyes finally turned from the plank of wood to Jean-Paul. "Ah guess you're gonna tell me Ah need to put on pants now." He refrained from frowning further. Clothes were also overrated. Granted, Kevin didn't typically wander around mostly or even partially naked in public. Putting dry clothes on over wet skin wasn't very appealing, though.

"Non, I will not tell you this. I am biased, though. Obviously." Jean-Paul quirked a small smile even as he leaned down to pick up his socks and shoes. "I am comfortable with you as you are."

Kevin grinned. He threw his shirts over one shoulder and his pants over the other before bending down to grab his shoes. "Onward!" He'd mostly dry out on the way. Or his boxers would anyway.