Vanessa & JPB | Wednesday Night

[x-quebecois.livejournal.com]

Vanessa takes Jean-Paul out to a new pub in District X, discussion ensues.


The cold in the air was freezing what moisture was left in Vanessa's hair. The walk from her place wasn't that long, but it was long enough to make her grateful for the sight of Jean-Paul already outside the bar. Without so much as a greeting, she grabbed her friend by the arm and all but dragged him through a door adorned with two signs. The first said Zeitgeist, which was the name of the bar. The second said Mutant Owned, Operated and Friendly.. The guy working the door gave her a nod and eyed Jean-Paul but said nothing. "Thank fuck." Vanessa relaxed once she met the heated air inside.

Vanessa had found Zeitgeist before the weather had gotten so unfriendly to motorcyclists because of all the bikes that had been parked out front. It wasn't a biker bar, but there wasn't a hipster or thug to be seen. It could be most easily described as mutant counterculture. The only mutant motorcycle club Vanessa had ever heard about hung out there, but so did the punks, the goths, and the rivetheads. Really, it was something of a tattooed, pierced haven in District X. Zeitgeist was the place where the freaks who just happened to also be mutants came to hang out. Many weren't even visible mutants. The owner, a biker who went by the name Dolly, was passing when she dressed conservatively but it was hard to break her away from her beloved leather even in her sixties.

Turning to Jean-Paul, Vanessa grinned. "Hi. How're you? And thank you for not sentencing me to drink all by myself at home. That's just depressing." Vanessa walked past a few pool tables and plush couches to head to the bar.

"I am well," Jean-Paul said, ordering a beer for himself once they got to the bar. "There is not so much to do without a case, but I am keeping busy." In other words, the Quebecois was bored and Vanessa would understand that. "What made you need to drink tonight, mon ami?"

Vanessa shrugged and ordered her own beer before answering. "My boyfriend's an ass. Or possibly I'm the ass and he's an innocent victim of me being irrationally female. One or the other." She uttered her thanks when their beers came and started to shuffle Jean-Paul away from the bar and toward the back, closer to where the kitchen was. She needed food. "I'm still fuzzy on how anyone ends up having a conversation when they've got a half-naked person they find sexually attractive on their bed reading dirty letters. But since I don't think like a guy I'll never know, huh?" That last part was flat and maybe a little bitter. Vanessa hated being underestimated by someone close to her.

Jean-Paul blinked and let the bitter tone slide as they made their way toward the area where they could order food - he was always in favour of food. "This is not so good," he finally commented mildly, looking over the piece of paper the served as the establishment's menu. "They have burgers." Then he blinked and quirked a smile. "Very, very large burgers..." It seemed that, being run by mutants, the cooks understood certain types of dietary needs. "I will buy you one or two and you can tell me how things have gone. I do not think you are an ass, so we will see."

"You're very potentially biased." She peered over the top edge of the paper menu Jean-Paul held and pointed to the sides. "And onion rings. I've no plans to be making out with anyone and I feel like I deserve beer battered deep fry to go with my actual beer. And burger. With cheese." Vanessa's smile beamed at him, all the more brilliant for being so white against the blueness of her lips.

Jean-Paul ordered their burgers and the sides, getting chili cheese fries for himself, and then paid for that and both their beers before quirking a brow. "Do you mind that I am so biased?" He returned her grin with one of his own and quirked his head to the side. "Come, we will sit and you will tell me things so that I can know if I must wait for others to kill him and then toast his insides."
Vanessa snorted, amused, and grabbed the little plastic triangle with the number on it the kitchen guys would use to bring their food to them. "No, I don't mind that you're biased. But it's entirely possible that somehow you won't relate to the situation the same way since you've got this terminal case of gay going on." She gave him a friendly kiss on the cheek and grinned at him again before bee lining for a table open by a window that overlooked the snowed over patio area. Once they were both seated she sipped at her beer and asked, "If you knew I was in a relationship and I told you I wanted to have an orgy with at least four women as Angelo because his mutation allows him limitless fingers, and I said this in a fairly serious tone, what conclusions would you draw?"

After considering that for a long moment, Jean-Paul shrugged. "I would think an orgy with four men would be nicer for me to see." He frowned a little, then finished with, "Also, I would think to ask if you were serious or only sounding serious. And I might tell you that, if you decided to change your mind so you were having this orgy with men, I would like to watch." Nodding to himself, the Quebecois seemed satisfied with his answer. "Porquoi? This was a discussion you and the tiny carrot man had?"

"Yeah, this is the start of the discussion. And he asked if I was serious, at which point all I said was that Angelo could have limitless fingers and possibly other similar such appendages from other areas like arms or legs or what have you. That was when he assumed I was serious." She took a pull from her beer. "I probably shouldn't hold his reaction to the ambush against him, but I am. I'm an evil, vindictive female and I am exploiting that fact right now."

"Ah," Jean-Paul said, hiding behind his glass as he took a long pull from it. Then he put the situation in terms he might better be able to relate to - his relationship with Kevin. If the Southerner had come to him and wanted to do this thing, would he have been alright with it? Jean-Paul wasn't particularly good at sharing ever, but definitely not when it involved someone being his significant other. "I take it the carrot man, he did not like it so much, this thought of you being with other people? He reacted badly?"

"Mm..." she shook her head in the middle of a swig. "The opposite, actually. He said he would support me if it's what I wanted and that he wasn't comfortable with it but he had no reason to say no other than that he liked me too much to share. When I asked why he would agree if he didn't want to share me he said, more or less, that I would do it anyway if I wanted to and he thought it was better to begrudgingly allow it." Her voice held that note of bitterness in it again at the end and Vanessa took another pull from her beer bottle.

"Begrudgingly allow it?" Jean-Paul felt another, more serious frown pulling the corners of his lips downward now. "I do not think I understand his logic." If it had been Kevin making the request, Jean-Paul would simply have said he did not want to share. Obviously there were some other issues going on if your partner seriously wanted to have an orgy without you. "You were not serious, were you?" Jean-Paul was well aware of how mischievous Vanessa could be.

An eyebrow arched and Vanessa gave him a very pointed look. "Do you really think I was serious?" She was fairly certain Jean-Paul knew her better than that, but on the other hand there was over a year of friendship - and not talking - that he didn't really remember much of. "Have I ever struck you as the polygamy poster girl?"

"I did not think you were, but it is best to be sure, oui?" Jean-Paul shrugged and took another long swallow from his beer. "I do not know what to tell you about your boyfriend, but I do not think you are wrong to be upset with him. It seems... that he is trying to make you happy." And Lex had told Jean-Paul that was really all he wanted to do for Vanessa, so the Quebecois couldn't fault him for that. "I think... it is only that he does not quite know what will do this, you see?"

"I think backbones are sexy." She went silent as someone came by and deposited their food on the table and took away the plastic triangle with the number printed on it. Vanessa nabbed an onion ring and bit into it before saying anything. "This is going to sound wrong, but I don't want someone who just wants to make me happy. I want someone who stands up for what makes them happy, too. And without me having to issue further inquiry into the matter. What is so wrong with telling your girlfriend you don't want her to fuck other women while wearing some guy who can have limitless fingers and other phallic type appendages because she's yours and you don't like to share? Jesus, and the thing is that he says I'd do what I want anyway so obviously he totally doesn't understand me if he thinks he had to agree because I'd just go ahead anyway." Now she was getting frustrated again so she tore off another bit of onion ring.

Jean-Paul ate a massive portion of chili cheese fries all at once and chewed, not bothering with being horribly polite about it for the moment. Then he licked his fingers and shrugged again. "I do not know, mon ami. Do you want me to toast his insides? Or step on them? I am fast enough, he might not miss them at first." Then he picked up another fry, the cheese still stuck to the massive pile of other fries and chili, and considered how it might look like insides before taking another bite.

"No." She sighed. "Mostly I want to hit him but that probably wouldn't do me any good. Which is why I hit the punching bag instead. And then the speed bag. And then went swimming. Lex is bad for my stress level." She then downed the rest of her beer in one go and set about trying to bite into her cheeseburger, which she was willing to bet was about as big as her head. "You should never eat anything bigger than your head," she muttered.

Picking his own cheeseburger up, Jean-Paul paused to appreciate the bacon on top and how it complimented everything else he'd ordered on it, and then said, "I will finish for you what you do not eat." Then he took a bite and sank back against his chair with a quiet groan as he chewed. That was good. That was really good.

"It's like having my very own garbage disposal," Vanessa mused. "Only without all the gurgling and crunching noise." She had to squish the burger down to flatten it enough, but she managed to get the whole of its height into her mouth when she bit into it. Her own moan of happiness joined Jean-Paul's groan of appreciation. Damn that was good. She didn't say another word as she ate.