Adrienne & Jean-Paul | Late Sunday Night

[x-quebecois.livejournal.com]

Adrienne and Jean-Paul run into one another, drink some hot chocolate, and decide to keep one another company during the late hours of the night.


Jean-Paul felt tired still. Not as bone-weary as he'd been when he first set his feet down in front of the mansion, but still ragged around the edges. It was from sustained lack of sleep - months of tossing and turning, the creeping return of his nightmares, and one particularly memorable experience with a concussive blast in Gladsaxe. Now, being back at the mansion, so much was the same, but so much was different. Memories echoed through his mind as though through empty hallways and the worry he'd been shouldering since he finally got access to a computer in Horsens wasn't helping matters.

Which was why he found himself wandering downstairs to the main kitchen as the hands on the clock in his borrowed suite ticked round and round, growing closer and closer to midnight. He hadn't bothered to buy himself any food, just taken precise advantage of everything in the common kitchen when he felt like he needed to refuel. Now, though... now he wanted something that might actually help to lull him to sleep. So he planned to make a cup of hot chocolate, then head back upstairs.

The problem with being as tired as he was now? Jean-Paul had come out on the other side having tapped some previously unknown reserve within himself and making himself rest now as a battle he regularly lost.

On her way back from a late swim due to an excess of energy and the desire to clear her head before bed after a long evening of grading papers, Adrienne encountered Jean-Paul as he was headed into the kitchen and gave him a finger wave. "Midnight snack?" she inquired genially, following him in and sitting on the counter. She had far too much energy for that time of night. Should have done another fifty laps, she thought to herself ruefully.

"Of a sort, oui," Jean-Paul said, nodding. He took a pan down from the rack over the stove and set it on the cold burner, then turned to get the milk from the refrigerator. "I am not sleeping so well, and I thought maybe some hot chocolate would help. Or perhaps I had hoped to find some turkey. I am always drowsy after eating turkey. And you? Why are you up so late? And damp, I see." Reaching across the counter, he flicked the end of a lock of Adrienne's hair.

"I went for a swim," Adrienne answered, grinning at the hair flick. "This switch from math to history is affecting me a lot more than I thought it would... I actually have to read and grade papers now, and I'm not used to that. So I went for a swim to clear my head. Sorry to hear you're not sleeping well. Marie-Ange mentioned to me that eggs also have that thing that makes you sleepy, you know. In case those are easier to come by than turkey."

Jean-Paul pointed a spoon at Adrienne and offered her a tired smile. "This is a good thought. I will remember it for later. For now, warm milk and chocolate. Would you like some also?" He'd already gotten two mugs down, so there was enough milk going into the pan as the burner slowly heated for two.

"Sure, thanks," Adrienne muttered with a shrug. "So why aren't you sleeping well? Because Vee's still in a coma? Or is there something else? And feel free to tell me to mind my own goddamned business, by the way," she added with a smirk.

Shrugging, Jean-Paul stirred the chocolate mix into the milk as it warmed, switching from a spoon to a whisk eventually. "I have not slept well in... some time. A long time, I think. Since two years ago, oui? The nightmares... they come, they go. There is medication to help, but I cannot take it forever. And with the stresses of the nightmares with Vanessa's condition... with the fact that I was not here, I could not help her. I did not even know... it makes sleeping... difficult, oui?" He'd said it all quietly, the truth of his words, his guilt and his anger at so many things was hidden, carefully hidden, but Adrienne knew him well enough to be able to pick up on the undercurrents running beneath his words.

"I wasn't here either... not at the start of it, anyway," Adrienne replied in the same quiet tone. "I was having nightmares about when Garrison and the others were kidnapped- I still do, and then these precognitive scenes about what might have happened if I'd let the Black Court get to Garrison or my friends. And then there's the fear I have that when Vanessa wakes up, she's going to treat me the same way Garrison did, and that I won't be able to cope with going through that again. So yeah, sleeping's difficult," she said with a smile. She wasn't trying to belittle his issues by telling him her own, but rather to show him that he wasn't alone in the battles he fought, that she could relate, on some small level at least. "All we can do is our best, though, right? You're here now. That's what's important."

"Oui," Jean-Paul said, nodding as he continued to stir the milk. It was creamy now, steaming, and nearly ready to be poured into the mugs he'd set out for them. "Oui, oui, this is true." Cutting the burner off, the Quebecois picked up the pan and carefully tipped it over first one mug, then the other, until they were both full. Then he pushed one toward Adrienne. "I am thankful, I think, that my nightmares... there is nothing... nothing precognitive in them, yes? I see the things I have done, the things I might have done, the things I wanted to do... I see the lies, sometimes, that Shrine wished me to believe I had lived. Those are bad, I think. Bad, but I can live through them. I do not see the things that might happen. This is a blessing."

"There, y'see?" Adrienne said with a smile, saluting Jean-Paul with her mug. "Count your blessings. Or something like that. So you're not... feeling any better, then? After... how long has it been now? That blows."

"Count them where you find them, for they are few and far between?" Jean-Paul quirked a rueful smile as he picked up his mug to take a sip of hot chocolate. "Oui, I see that. And... better, this is a relative term. I am better than I was last year, but I am not what I was before the incident. I do not mind that so much. I wish only... that the nightmares would stop. The concussive blasts are still possible, though I have had only one in the last six months."

Adrienne sipped at her drink thoughtfully. "Well, that's good at least. No more concussive blasts. And nightmares... I think most of us have those." Maybe that was a criteria for being at the mansion- it was a place for people having problems to receive help, after all. "So you're not alone in that regard. Hey, I'm sure Vanessa's going to have some doozies when she wakes up. Hopefully she won't have concussive blasts though," she added with a wry smile.

Jean-Paul quirked a smile. "Oui, I would not wish the concussive blasts on others. They are too... unpredictable." It was far too easy to hurt someone you cared for with them - at least as they were operating where he was concerned. He had no control. "I cannot even begin to think of the nightmares Vanessa might have. People... they are not talking so much about what was done to her, but I imagine it must be awful, given that silence."

"That's what I figured, too," Adrienne murmured. "Probably not something one bounces back from very easily. Still, I guess that's what people like us are here for, right?" she asked rhetorically, putting on a smile as she swung her legs against the counter.

"Mm..." Jean-Paul nodded agreement before swallowing another mouthful of hot chocolate. "It made things easier for me, I think, when I returned to the mansion."

"Me too," Adrienne answered, and grinned to show him that she wasn't serious about her own problems being that big a deal. "And hey, you're back at the mansion again, so that may mean that things will get even easier? Isn't that the way that works?"

"I am... not so sure that is how it works, mon ami," Jean-Paul said, shaking his head ruefully. "But we will be here, if she needs us, oui? This is my thought, at least."

"Of course we will. We're not going anywhere, after all. I can't leave now that I've spent all this time grading these history papers," she grinned. With a loud sigh, she slid down from the counter. "Wanna go watch some Spartacus, or are you gonna try to sleep?"

"Mm..." Jean-Paul eyed the pan, whisk, and spoon he'd used, then their mugs, and finished off his hot chocolate. "I think I will wash these things and then watch Spartacus with you. I meant to sleep, but I am not feeling tired enough yet. Also, attractive men wearing very little or nothing - how could I refuse?"

"Well, lemme give you a hand, then. And we'll both be watching attractive men wearing very little or nothing even sooner, oui?"

Smiling, Jean-Paul nodded. "Oui."