Kevin & JPB | Tuesday Night

[x-quebecois.livejournal.com]

Kevin and Jean-Paul play some pool and talk a bit. JPB tells Kevin it's been two and a half weeks since he had a nightmare-induced concussive blast.


Kevin was terrible at pool, he really was. He was good at the angles but the shots just didn’t work. They’d come for dinner in this somewhat ramshackle hole in the wall in District X for burgers and fries and had found the pool tables in the back. Kevin crouched down and eyed the pool table. “It’s bumpy or leanin’ or somethin’,” he complained, unwilling to actually take the blame for how bad he was at this.

Grinning, Jean-Paul used his pool stick to lean against. “Non, mon ami, you are just not so good, I think.” He’d had a bit of a run earlier where he’d pocketed three balls in a row. He hadn’t had that kind of luck again, but it was one of his better turns at pool in recent history. Reaching over, he picked up the beer he’d ordered with dinner and took a sip. It wasn’t amazing, but it was called Tommyknocker Ornery Amber and he pretty much just wanted to drink it for the novelty of it.

Kevin frowned and wrinkled his nose a bit. “Ah’ve got awesome spacial awareness.” Which was true. He sucked at geometry in terms of actual math but was great at angles because of the nature of his art. The song playing over the speakers wound down and Kevin’s eyes moved up to the ceiling as he paid attention to the beat of the song that was starting. It was familiar and he was pretty sure he actually liked the song but he couldn’t remember what it was offhand. He stood up and pointed at Jean-Paul. “Also, you cheat.”

“I cheat?” Jean-Paul’s expression morphed into one of utmost offense. “I do no such thing. Also, how would I? I cannot use the power of my mind to make the balls go in the pockets. I have no mind powers!”

I’ve often tried to hold the sea, the sun, the fields, the tide, played over the speakers and one corner of Kevin’s mouth quirked upward. “Mmhm, you totally cheat.” Kevin wandered toward Jean-Paul, setting his pool cue on the table as he moved. Two fingers hooked into the older man’s belt just behind the buckle and Kevin pulled the other man toward him. “‘Cause you’re distracting.”

Quirking a brow, Jean-Paul looked down at the fingers hooking over his belt buckle, then back up at Kevin and quirked a very small smile. “I could put a bag over my head, if this would help you with your pool playing.” He let the younger man tug him closer, taking a slow step forward every time Kevin pulled. “But I think this is not cheating. I think this is that you are very easily distracted.”

The slower tempo of the chorus had just started when Kevin had gotten Jean-Paul all the way to him. The Southerner’s other hand came to rest very lightly on Jean-Paul’s hip as his own hips swayed with the music. Smiling, he quietly sang, “Our love is like angels,” before trailing off and then kissing Jean-Paul when the tempo picked back up.

Jean-Paul smiled, tipping his head to the side so he could properly return the kiss, and kept one hand on his pool stick while he slid his forearm up to rest on Kevin’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure why he was being kissed, but he liked what the Southerner had said before the kissing started and he wasn’t going to quibble about it.

As they kissed Kevin’s hips kept up the same swaying beat, the hand on the other man’s hip moving Jean-Paul’s with his so the pair of men were dancing all the while. And likely without the Quebecois quite realizing it. The tempo he kept only matched up with the slow part of the song, but Kevin didn’t care. When the kiss broke the slower part of the song was back momentarily. “Our love is no other,” Kevin sang along quietly and just smiled.

Still smiling back, Jean-Paul nodded, finally realizing that Kevin was singing the lyrics to the song. “Oui,” he murmured, reaching over with his free hand to tweak the edge of Kevin’s hood. “Oui, this is so.”

Kevin’s eyes tracked the hand going to his hood, then returned to Jean-Paul’s face. His gaze very noticeably shifted between the Quebecois’ lips and his eyes. “Seemed like a fitting song to appropriate,” Kevin told him with a thoughtful tone.

“I like it,” Jean-Paul said, nodding. He leaned in again, catching Kevin’s lips, then pulled back and tipped his head to the side a little. “Did you know,” he said, tone light, “I have not had a nightmare in two and a half weeks?” And before that last one, he hadn’t had one in two weeks. The medication really did seem to be working, which the Quebecois was grateful for.

An eyebrow quirked upward and Kevin leaned back a bit as if he needed to get distance to gauge if Jean-Paul was joking or something. “Really? That’s, wow, that’s awesome. Does that mean you haven’t exploded anything or whatever either?” As the song came to a close Kevin’s swaying slowed and then stopped. Without putting any actual distance between their bodies, Kevin shifted them around until he could perch on the edge of their pool table.

“Mm... oui,” Jean-Paul said, nodding. “The blasts, they come with the nightmares. I have not had one in as long as I have not had a nightmare.” He stopped paying attention to the music once the song was over, knowing he’d try to find out what it was later because now it was something he’d want to listen to properly. Setting his pool stick against the side of the table, he half-grinned.

Now the other eyebrow was up to join the first. No blasts. No nightmares. Kevin had very focused thoughts on that topic which he was trying to ignore. “Is ‘congratulations’ the wrong thing to say here?” He inspected Jean-Paul for a moment. The other man looked...rested. Kevin had processed the change mentally before, but he hadn’t given much thought to it. It had been a gradual thing but when he pulled a mental before-and-after he could see the differences. “You look good. No more half-dead and overtired look, sexy as it is on you.”

Snorting a soft laugh, Jean-Paul shook his head. “I will take the congratulations. Et merci. I am feeling better, I think. It is not something I am so used to. It is... new.” He let both arms rest over Kevin’s shoulders, fingers loose, forearms rather than elbows braced, and pretended a solemn tone as he said, “But if I must go back to half-dead and overtired to be sexy, I suppose I will. For you only, though.”

Kevin pretended to weigh the options. Sexy and half-zombified or not sexy and actually alert. Alert was so overrated. “Guess Ah could settle for mildly attractive,” he agreed in the most begrudging tone he could muster. “But, really, this is a sacrifice. And Ah don’t make it lightly ‘cause you know how Ah am ‘bout my aesthetic appreciation over here.”

Jean-Paul sighed, tugging at the back of Kevin’s hood, though not enough to actually pull it off. “Oui, and so. I will go back to being half-dead, as I said. I would not like to be aesthetically unappreciated because I am looking too well.”

A nonchalant shrug followed. “S’all ‘bout the beautiful people, y’know.” Kevin couldn’t keep a straight face anymore and ended up laughing. Really, he had nothing to follow up that last gem of a comment with.

Grinning, Jean-Paul shook his head. “And so I am not beautiful enough.” He made to take a step backward, away from Kevin and the pool table. “I will have to go, I think. Somewhere appropriately dramatic so that I may cry very artful tears. Also, for you only.”

The shift away from Kevin only saw the Southerner tugging on Jean-Paul’s belt again to draw him back in. “Somewhere dramatic, huh?” A leg hooked around Jean-Paul’s so Kevin could use it to keep the older man from attempting his escape to an appropriately dramatic somewhere. “With violin music and lots of blue light? Sounds like a good idea. Or,” Kevin leaned in until his lips just barely stopped from brushing Jean-Paul’s, “you could not.”

“And what would I do instead?” Jean-Paul asked, voice soft enough to possibly be missed over the sound of whatever new song was playing. “They have no blue light here and this... this is not the violin.”

It definitely wasn’t the violin. Kevin was half-listening now and he was pretty sure it was Disturbed, actually. “Company’s better here,” he said, something of a promise in his voice.

“The company thinks I am not beautiful enough,” Jean-Paul pointed out, tone reasonable. “This is the reason for the artful crying.”

“The company still wants you.” Kevin had to try to be loud enough to be heard. He kept forgetting and his volume would fall back to something swallowed by the music and the noise around him. “Actually, the company’s havin’ some real vivid thoughts ‘bought you and a lack of clothes and a bed.”

Working to suppress a smile, Jean-Paul tried to keep his expression serious as he asked, “Even though I am only mildly attractive?”

Kevin smirked. “It’s to be expected. Y’know, you’re gettin’ on in years so you’re gonna keep goin’ down in attractiveness.”

“If only you could have known me when I was in my prime, as they say,” Jean-Paul said, hand shifting so he could brace his palm against the side of Kevin’s neck. He used his thumb to tilt the younger man’s head back a bit and kissed him again, breaking it only to smirk right back at the Southerner. “I think, truly, that you would not have known what to do with me then.”

“Nah, you’d be too pretty for me. Ah wouldn’t’ve had a chance,” Kevin insisted. He took on a forloron expression. Kevin even leaned back so he could hang his head sadly. “You’d be busy with your legions of groupies and where would Ah be? Ah had to wait ‘til you got old and moved down to mostly attractive and slightly zombified ‘fore Ah got a shot.”

Jean-Paul shook his head, nudging Kevin’s knees apart so he could step in closer. His voice dropped when he said, “Trust me, mon aime. No one else would have had a shot, as you say.”

Kevin smirked a little as he raised his head. “‘Cause Ah’m so pretty?”

“This would have caught my attention,” Jean-Paul said, for some reason feeling the need to be honest. “But it is as you said with the song. I think, maybe, even when I was young and foolish, I would have wanted you and no other.”

The shift from playing to honesty dropped the smirk from Kevin’s face. He watched Jean-Paul, considering if that was really true or if it was only true in this moment. It was hard to imagine the Quebecois still being drawn to the Southerner if they had both been young together knowing the sort of misspent youth the other man had. A light kiss was pressed against Jean-Paul’s lips. “No other, huh?” There may have been a twinge of guilt on Kevin’s end there.

Jean-Paul kissed Kevin again instead of answering. There were too many underlying meanings with that simple question. He broke the kiss and murmured, “We should give someone else the table, I think. And go home.”

The fingers hooked onto Jean-Paul’s belt tightened. “And if we do go home...with the no nightmares...” Kevin couldn’t help but look at the other man expectantly. “That mean if Ah don’t go back to Salem that no one has to be on the couch?”

“No one has to be on the couch,” Jean-Paul agreed. It was tentative, this hope he had that he was finally getting things under control.

For the first time they could sleep together. At the same time and without fear of Kevin being flung into a wall or out a window. They had fallen asleep together back before Kevin had ended up with cracked ribs, but it was never allowed and that had always hung over them on those nights. Not tonight, though. Kevin slid off the edge of the pool table. “Alright, they can have the table then. Ah’m no good at pool anyway.”

Jean-Paul smiled, tugged at the hem of Kevin’s hoodie, and then set about collecting the balls so they could return them to the man behind the bar who would then find the next group of people who wanted to play. Heading for the door, he reached over and pulled Kevin close enough to press a kiss to the younger man’s temple through cloth, his unfinished beer completely forgotten where he’d left it earlier.

The prospect of getting to actually sleep with Jean-Paul had Kevin forgetting pretty much everything else. An arm looped around the other man’s waist once they were out on the sidewalk. When things with Laura eventually came to a point where she wanted Kevin all for herself it would be hard. Because of this right here, the way the two men fell into step with one another without having to think about it, the way they fit together, the way everything seemed to click into place between them. It would be hard to scale that back to something strictly platonic. It would be hard to give up silly, sweet moments like they’d just had. Even though Kevin knew they would remain close friends, it would be hard to give up any inch of what they had. For now he didn’t need to worry about it, but eventually he would. And what would he do then?