Kevin & Jean-Paul | Wednesday morning

[x-wither.livejournal.com]

Jean-Paul and Kevin wake up together without guilt about it for the first time and Jean-Paul very carefully avoids inciting panic when he finds his hood as slipped during the night. They talk about it after breakfast.

The night had been amazingly uneventful. Jean-Paul hadn't stayed up for hours after Kevin had fallen asleep, no one was on the couch and they both slept through the night like normal people. Kevin was curled up next to the Quebecois, an arm around his waist and his face pressed into the side of the older man's neck. Kevin hadn't realized that the hood Jean-Paul had pulled up over his head as one of the usual precautions had slipped during the night. Skin pressed against skin, but there was no pulling low in Kevin's stomach to let him know that flesh was being decayed away. Because it wasn't. It was just warm and slightly scratchy where stubble laid against his face. Stirring a little in his sleep, Kevin shifted enough to press another kiss into the side of the other man's neck, then nuzzled back in and settled.

Jean-Paul woke slowly, staying motionless because there was someone else in bed. Once upon a time, that wouldn't have struck him as odd. Now, though, it was abnormal. It was out of the ordinary.

Blinking slowly, he supressed a yawn and tried let the memories from the night before filter to the top of his conciousness.

Kevin. He'd brought Kevin home last night. Tipping his head to the side, he looked down at the Southerner and felt a jolt of something like panic. Their skin was touching. And not just a little of it. Reaching up, he closed his eyes and ran his fingertips over his jaw and cheek to check to see if he was missing anything important before shifting slowly to the side and quickly raising his hood again. He didn't want to make Kevin panic.

The shifting caught Kevin's attention enough that the hood was barely back in place before he was scooting over to reclaim his position. It was a little like a cat following a string being dragged over the floor. Where Jean-Paul went Kevin followed and soon his face was nuzzled back into the side of the other man's neck again, this time with the thin, inorganic cloth acting as a barrier between them. The arm around Jean-Paul's waist tightened its hold for a moment, an unconscious warning that the other man would not be slipping away so easily.

Remembering that Kevin's powers had been acting strangely for a while, Jean-Paul let out a quiet sigh and tightened his arm around Kevin's shoulders. Too close. That had been too close. And too much of a mistake. What would it have done to the younger to have woken up to a mostly decayed Quebecois? "Mon Dieu," he muttered, then looked down at what he could see of the Southerner and said, "Wake up, mon aime."

A whine replied to the words and Kevin's shook his head. "Dunwanna," he mumbled into the other man's neck. "Comfy." Kevin wasn't normally that hard to wake, but he liked being able to have a no-stress night with Jean-Paul. They'd never gotten to have one of those before and Kevin found the prospect of repeat occurrences dangerously seductive.

Smiling despite himself and the adrenaline still zinging through his veins, Jean-Paul peered at what he could see of Kevin's face and ran his fingertips along the younger man's side. "But breakfast..." And a discussion about how Kevin really, really needed o talk to one of the doctors about his powers.

"Bumfy," Kevin returned, the two words melding into one. He whined again and while his face buried further into the side of the other man's neck Kevin did start to slid away a little. The movement wasn't enough to to really get him off of Jean-Paul, but it held the intention of it.

It took Jean-Paul a moment to parse Kevin's reply, but once he thought he'd gotten it figured out, he slid to the side a little to help his cause. "Oui, and I am comfortable, also. But I am hungry..."

Another whining groan. Kevin rolled over onto his back, more or less flopping onto the mattress. "You suck," he complained after a few moments and started trying to open his eyes. He was left blinking at the light in the room. An arm promptly got thrown over his eyes to shield them. "So much."

"Oui," Jean-Paul agreed. "But not right this moment. Later, I think." He grinned, reaching over to pat Kevin's stomach even as he sat up and pulled himself out of bed.

Eventually Kevin pried himself out of bed, or rather sort of rolling himself off the edge and got up so he didn't faceplant on the floor, and found his way over to the kitchen. He moved Jean-Paul out of the way, insisting the Quebecois was turning the omelets into a scramble and therefore 'doin' it wrong.' Omelets, bacon and toast made getting out of bed better, though Kevin wasn't really sure about this whole breakfast being greater than bed thing. There was a flaw in the argument somehow.

Picking up his last piece of bacon on an otherwise emptied plate, Kevin bit one end of it off. "Aren't you takin' off some time today for a work thing or somethin' you said? That mean Ah should mobilize so you can pack or whatever instead of distractin' you?

"Not until this afternoon," Jean-Paul said, finishing his last bite of toast. "Vanessa, she is driving, so I will meet her there." He took up their plates and laid them in the sink, then propped his hip against the counter and tipped his head to the side. "You do not need to mobilise." Then, completely out of left field, he asked, "Your powers, how are they?"

"What d'you mean 'how are they'? Ah don't, like, have conversations with my mutation or whatever. It's, y'know, full of decay and stuff. Probably sorta angry or depressed that stuff doesn't visit it much and whatever."

"I mean, they are still acting oddly? As they were when you tried to be rid of my suit for me."

Kevin shrugged. "Dunno, gotta qualify 'odd' at this point. Turned myself into a pin cushion for Doc McCoy. He took blood and swabbed in my cheek and he's got a theory, but Ah don't think there's any way to prove it definitely." He broke off a piece of bacon and set it on his plate and then pulled the gloves off one hand. When Kevin picked it up, nothing happened to the bacon. "He says my mutation's flipped a switch. Default off now. Maybe it was always default off but Ah was always so stressed that it couldn't turn off before. That's what he thinks. He says stress and the fight or flight response turns it off. So anger and anxiety and sudden bright light or loud noises or those sorts of things flips it on. But right now," he shrugged and popped the bacon into his mouth. "Guess there's no reason for me to be all negatively wired up so it's not on." Kevin wiped off his hand on a paper towel and pulled his gloves back on so he could resume eating the remaining bit of bacon strip.

Jean-Paul smiled a little at the fact that Kevin apparently had no reason to be negatively wired up and then considered not mentioning that his hood had slipped during the night. There was no reason to ruin a good morning with that information. Especially the first morning they'd basically been allowed to wake up with one another without feeling guilty.

Walking back over to Kevin, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of the younger man's head. "I am glad you saw Doctor McCoy." Jean-Paul supposed he'd just have to be more careful in the future.

"You sound like my husband," Kevin pointed out. The kiss on his head really added to that effect. Why did he now have an image of them twenty years down the line and married for fifteen of them? You are so not the brain of a twenty-one year old guy. "But, yeah, Ah was all responsible and went to see him the Monday after Ah got back from Alaska."

"Bon," Jean-Paul said, snorting softly at the husband comment. He sat back in his seat and considered Kevin for a moment, a slight frown marring his brow. If their positions had been reversed and he'd somehow not woken while having a concussive blast, he would have wanted Kevin to tell him. And in the end, he didn't like the thought of lying, not even simply by omission.


So the Quebecois shrugged a little and said, "I asked because, during the night, my hood slipped."

Brow furrowing, Kevin gave Jean-Paul a confused look. "Slipped? Like slipped how?" Panic crept into his voice and Kevin's eyes immediately darted around, searching Jean-Paul for any sign of injury around his neck, head and shoulders.

"It slipped down, off," Jean-Paul said. "But I am well, I promise. This was why I asked, though." Standing again, he walked over and sat on his heels next to Kevin's chair, showing the younger man that he was unharmed.

"So it didn't just slip, did it?" There was wariness in Kevin's voice even though Jean-Paul was obviously unharmed. He felt...hollow. Jean-Paul could have died. He could have been withered away to nothing and Kevin wouldn't have realized it until his arm hit the mattress or the ashes went up his nose on an inhale. "There was contact. So if my mutation was actin' like it used to...there'd be a chunk of you missin'." Kevin could clearly picture it in his head, a huge chunk decayed out of the side of the other man's neck as the open veins and arteries pumped blood all over him even as part of his jaw lay exposed from where the decay had eaten into that as well. Maybe that wasn't where he had been when the contact had happened during the night, but it was where he had woken so it was the image Kevin had.

A hand touched his ribs that had been cracked at the end of the summer. "Guess Ah woulda won the worst injury inflicted on someone award then, huh?"

"I am sorry," Jean-Paul said, reaching out so he could rest his hands on Kevin's knees. Then he shifted upward, hands framing the younger man's face through the fabric of his hood. "But nothing happened, mon aime. Nothing happened and we will be more careful next time, I promise." The Quebecois wondered if he should be regretting his decision to tell Kevin as much as he was - he just didn't like the look on the Southerner's face, the tone of his voice.

He had to swallow through the lump that had developed in his throat, which was hard. "If Doc McCoy's right...if he's right we don't. But if he's right...anything can set my mutation off. Anything. And in the middle of the night if something happened like a loud noise or somethin'...it's just..." He couldn't hurt Jean-Paul. He couldn't. They both knew it so Kevin didn't say it out loud. Anxiety had knotted his insides up until he barely felt like he could breathe, but he reminded himself it was okay. Everything was okay right now. "'M glad you're okay, though."

"I am, also," Jean-Paul said, thumbs shifting along Kevin's jaw for a moment. "I think I would not like to have upset you so much." After a brief pause, he asked, "Should I not have told you?"

"What? No! No, you shoulda told me. It's just...Ah keep picturin' what coulda happened and..." Kevin's gaze dropped to his lap. "Ah just...Ah don't wanna hurt you. S'all. Ah should probably be happy, though, right? 'Cause Doc McCoy was probably at least part right. You didn't get hurt, so my mutation had to be off at the time. Right?"

"Right," Jean-Paul said, nodding. "Which means, as you said, that you were not frightened or angry, oui? This is good, since you were in my bed." He quirked a small smile, ducking his head to catch Kevin's eyes. "These should be the very last things you feel when you are with me."

It was very hard for a smile to not quirk its way onto Kevin's face with Jean-Paul peering up at him like that. The spike of panic had faded and with it his heart rate was coming down as well. Anxiety slowly began to allow him to unknot inside. The process of Kevin beginning to relax was visible. "They are the last things Ah feel when Ah'm with you." Kevin closed the small distance between them and caught Jean-Paul's lips in a soft kiss.

"Bon," Jean-Paul murmured, kissing Kevin back. "And so... we should celebrate, I think. Many things. Many times." He kissed the Southerner again, then stood and offered Kevin his hand.

Kevin's gloved hand slid into Jean-Paul's and he stood. "Celebrate, huh? How're we celebratin'?"

"I will show you," Jean-Paul said, tugging Kevin toward the bedroom.