Vanessa & Jean-Paul | Tuesday Afternoon

[x-quebecois.livejournal.com]

Jean-Paul kidnaps Vanessa for nachos.


Jean-Paul was standing outside Vanessa's building, hands tucked in his pockets and his collar turned up against the chill. The warm weather seemed to have disappeared with the holiday, but he didn't mind as much as other people seemed to. And he was distracted now, anyway. He had to take Vanessa out for nachos because her ex-boyfriend had been a dick (so far as he was concerned, his status as her friend made his bias perfectly acceptable) and the Quebecois didn't think she'd done anything yesterday but work.

That just shouldn't be allowed.

So, nachos.

Vanessa came out pulling her scarf around her neck more tightly. It was gorgeous out yesterday and here they were today, temperature back in the twenties. Great. She found Jean-Paul and made a bee line for him. "Hey, love. You look positively frozen." An arm hooked through one of his and she started to head them off in some direction with the assumption that Jean-Paul would just pull her wherever they needed to go. "How're you doin'? Up to no good?"

Considering he'd only sent Kevin back to the mansion a couple hours earlier, Jean-Paul supposed he could have been up to no good. He smiled, the expression devious. "I am not up to anything at this very moment, but I thought we would see about the evening. And you?"

"I've got to be back at the office by five-thirty because I promised a woman on the phone I'd be there to meet with her about another potential adultery case. It really brings out the holiday spirit in me." She gave him a smile but it wasn't particularly filled with mirth.

Sliding his arm out of the hold Vanessa had on it, Jean-Paul looped it over her shoulders and shook his head. "After this, no more adulterers for you for at least a month, oui? I will begin to intercept your telephone calls otherwise." He steered Vanessa with him as he took a left, heading for a Mexican restaurant that had recently opened a few blocks down. He hadn't actually eaten there before, but he figured they might as well attempt to help local commerce while they were chowing down on nachos.

"I haven't even tried to cut anyone's nuts off yet this month," she told him, a bit of a whine in her voice. "You can't cut me off before my limit or I'll have to make Bishop sit around watching sometimes very freaky mutant sex. One of the guys last night? He deep throated his partner's foot by detaching his jaw or summat. Foot fetish gone wrong."

Jean-Paul made a face. "Ugh, do not tell me these things." He reached up with his free hand and tweaked Vanessa's nose, then finished, "Et non, I have decided. No more adulterers for you. Work the case of looking for missing people or property instead. There was the man looking for the stolen artwork who did not want to go to the police."

"I'll give you all the adulterers," she warned. The artwork case could be interesting, but Vanessa wasn't sure where the hell one tried to sell stolen art in the first place. She'd need to do research before she could even seriously consider taking that case. Then again, learning something new was always tempting and a case that was well out of her realm of expertise would certainly teach her things.

"I will take the adulterers," Jean-Paul agreed, steering them down a side street for a shortcut and then heading straight for a while. "Only so that you will not have them." He didn't like adulterers any more than Vanessa did, but he was far less likely to pull a knife on one of them. "I was thinking, beef and cheese for the nachos, oui? And vegetables, because tomatoes and peppers are wonderful."

Vanessa pointed a glove-covered finger at the end of Jean-Paul's nose. "No jalapeños. I do not need my tongue to get set on fire and try to run away from my mouth again. My tongue is very handy in my mouth, thank you very much."

"When you say these things," Jean-Paul said, resting his free hand over his heart even as his expression shifted into one that was so earnestly sincere it was obvious he was joking, "it makes me wish I liked intercourse of any kind with women."

She half snorted and half choked on her own saliva laughing at him. It was truly graceful. "Oh? If you liked sex with women I'd have you sequestered in my bed already. And then you may never be able to leave. Except for booty calls with the jailbait. He's pretty, I wouldn't have the heart to keep you two apart."

Jean-Paul laughed a little. "I think Kevin would object to you sequestering me, in any case. So it is for the best, I think, that I do not enjoy sex with women." Another two blocks and they were there. This part of District X hadn't undergone the recent renovations that had taken place around Jean-Paul's apartment building an the X-Factor offices. It was shabbier, dingier - but the restaurant looked clean and, after opening the door, he decided whatever they were cooking smelled delicious.

Vanessa stepped into the heat of the restaurant, grateful for the warmth. "I'm destined to be madly in love with a man who finds my girl parts disgusting," she lamented with melodramatic flair. The heat inside had her skin tingling wherever it was exposed which was nice. Her gloves got shoved into a pocket and her beanie did as well. "Jesus, it smells amazing in here. I wish I was hungrier than I am."

"Oui," Jean-Paul agreed, inhaling slowly and smiling as they were led to a table. "You are not madly in love with me, mon ami. If you were, you would not smile so when you say these things."

"I could be emotionally masochistic," she argued. "The pain of not having you could just make me want you more. You don't understand it because you're not a woman, but the torture of having you so near by not mine...it's intoxicating, mi amor."

Making a face, Jean-Paul shook his head and turned the menu so Vanessa could see all the nacho toppings at their disposal. "I am glad I am not a woman. You are all very strange. They tell me it is the hormones, but I do not know that I believe this."

"It's the breasts," she told him with a nod. "They throw off the brain chemistry significantly and make us all nuts." Scanning over the possibilities, her finger hovered around the word "cheese." "We need lots of cheese. And ground beef. Black beans? Am I the only one of us that likes those? Oh and salsa!"

"I like black beans," Jean-Paul volunteered. "Also, I feel like the breasts, they would unbalance me. It is good I do not have to worry about them. No hot peppers, you said. Tomatoes, though. Banana peppers? They are not spicy."

"I don't mind spicy, I just don't like jalapeño type spicy," Vanessa clarified. "I'm good with banana peppers. No sour cream. That always seems really out of place on nachos to me. I think...I think I'm good with toppings. I want to still be able to taste the nacho under it all, after all."

"Oui, I think we are good so far as the toppings are concerned." Which was convenient, since their waiter showed up a moment later with two waters. They ordered and then Jean-Paul sat back and, fingertips tapping lightly on the table, asked, "You are well, mon ami?" She wasn't the type of person to talk about her feelings or any of that, and the Quebecois could respect it - she observed his boundaries, after all, and only prodded him when he truly needed it. He could offer her the same thing now.

She sincerely sounded like she didn't know why he was asking her that when she replied. "Yeah, I'm fine. No one's tried to kill me lately which always makes it a good day and no one's tried to kill any of my people in over a week which bumps it up a few notches as well. Plus, I had a Wanda in my bed Sunday night. There's not much that can knock my day down a few pegs aside from attempts on my life or my people's lives."

"After what happened on Friday," Jean-Paul clarified. "You are well after that?"

Her eyes narrowed and she replied in a calm, even tone. "He cried. He gave me what he was going to give me for Valentine's Day, got all 'oh it's all my fault' even when I took the blame and he cried. I feel like I bashed a cute little puppy's head against a wall a half dozen or so times for fun, but otherwise I'm fine, yeah. I miss him but I got used to that so it's basically business as usual except for the guilt of hurting him because I made a grown man, ex-soldier cry because I broke up with him when he's in love with me. So, if we could not remind me about how I totally mutilated a helpless, cute, fuzzy thing that'd be aces, thanks." Clearly she hadn't wanted to talk about it.

Jean-Paul nodded his acceptance of her answer and then said, "Kevin has a... not platonic... thing with Laura. Our Laura." He gestured between them, then reached for his water and took a sip, eyes drifting to the side a bit.

Vanessa's eyebrows shot up. "Wait, he's booty calling you and her? Are you...okay with that?" His whole arrangement with Kevin confused her a little but she couldn't imagine many people would be cool with this new development.

"I like Laura," Jean-Paul said, frowning a little. "And if this is what he needs, then for now, I do not mind. It is..." He made another face, then shrugged and said, "It is the friendship that I do not want to lose, oui? If he did not booty call me, as you say, this would be alright, only so long as we were still friends. It has never been about the sex for us, this is obvious."

"Laura's a good kid," Vanessa agreed, thinking about what he'd said. "The way you talk it sounds like...like she's a fling. Like Laura's this thing he needs right now but he'll come back to you. I mean, assuming you maintain the friendship, what if he doesn't come back to you more-than-friends ways? Is that gonna be cool with you?"

"Oui," Jean-Paul said, nodding. "If I were to find someone else, also..." He shrugged. "I am free to pursue others. It is only that I do not want to. Work is busy and with my various therapies... I do not have the time for now."

"As long as you're sure you're cool with it then," she shrugged. "What's his thing with Laura mean for you two? No more booty calls? Just friends?" She had a feeling it wasn't that simple when a guy went and fucking branded you. Especially when you had asked him to. Nothing was simple then.

"Nothing has changed," Jean-Paul said, still tapping a quiet rhythm on the table with his fingertips. "For now, at least, nothing is different. I think, if things between them become more serious, it would mean just friends."

Vanessa nodded. She wasn't really sure what to say about that. He had said he was okay with things becoming platonic between himself and Kevin, but Vanessa wasn't sure if she believed it or not. She wondered if he was okay with it in theory but in practice he wouldn't be. What if in practice it started to break his heart? And then she'd have nothing to do but sit around and watch and try to just be there. But really, other people didn't mend broken hearts for you. Time did. Or maybe the person who broke it did. Friends just tempered the pain a little. "Well, I guess we'll see how it goes, aye?"

Thankfully, then their food showed up.