Wanda & Jean-Paul | Fashion Week Afterparty (backdated)

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Jean-Paul and Wanda attend a Fashion Week Afterparty at Gabriel's invitation. Shenanigans. Drunken shenanigans.


Wanda accepted the free drink with a smile, though she was fairly certain the young waiter had been moving too fast to see it. The Fashion Week party that she'd found herself at, thanks to Gabriel, was an interesting affair. She both felt weirdly old and yet oddly glamorous at the same time for the same reason. She shrugged and took a sip of the drink as she mingled, enjoying the weight of the dress and the chance to be dressed for something that wasn't work related.

"Bonjour," Jean-Paul said, approaching Wanda from her left with a glass of amber liquor and ice in one hand. He had a smile on his face as he leaned in and kissed her on first one cheek, then the other. The smile didn't waver as he said, "There is a model following me. Il est plus con que le Doc Mailloux! Help."

She smirked. Just the tiniest bit. But even if Jean-Paul's predicament amused her, there was still a code to follow. "Do not worry," she laughed, slipping her arm through the crook of his, "je vais vous délivrerai!" The French wasn't quite the same but it wasn't so terribly different they couldn't understand each other. A glance over her shoulder showed her a very well put together young man looking quite out put out as Wanda slowly walked them towards another part of the room.

"Merci," Jean-Paul murmured, quirking a smile despite himself. "This is not normally a problem so much, that he is so stupid, oui? But the night, it is young and there are many options. Many, many options. Your dress is very beautiful, am I interrupting your hunt?"

"You have excellent taste," Wanda beamed, enjoying the feel of the black and silver dress as it swirled around her ankles. It was a stunning strapless, full length dress that she had bought on a whim earlier in the summer. It was nice to have a chance to actually wear her impulse buy. "As for my entertainment for the evening, I do not have any set plans outside of enjoy as much of the free drinks as I can. If something interesting appears, well..."

Laughing quietly, Jean-Paul nodded. "Oui, yes. If something interesting appears." He shook his head a little, eyes skating over the crowd. It had formed clumps of people, of course, and there was music along with the alcohol and the food. "It is more quiet here than I expected."

It was crowded, though, a sea of gorgeous men and women decked out to the nines. "No one hanging from the rafters yet," she agreed, enjoying her glass of wine. "The plus side here is that if you are, as you say, on the hunt, the selection is beyond compare. You just may need to dig a little if you wish to avoid those like the model I saved you from."

"Non, I am not on the hunt, not for now." Jean-Paul wore his bespoke suit with ease, the fabric comfortable, familiar. "It is interesting, being here with designers and things. I wear sports brands, most often. And then suits when necessary. These are people I have not had to know but I can see that it would be good to know them." Raising his glass, he took a sip and then, amused, cast his eyes back toward Wanda. "I cannot help but think that things will be much more loud in an hour or so."

***

"You cursed us!" Wanda laughed, holding tightly onto Jean-Paul's shoulders as he swept her around the dance floor. The party had exploded from the packed but quiet affair into a much louder party once midnight had come and gone. She wasn't even sure if what they were dancing on was even an actual dance floor but that certainly hadn't stopped anyway. And Jean-Paul had simply smirked at her tossed challenge that they show up the others by doing actual dancing, thank you very much.

Jean-Paul was not specifically familiar with actual dancing, he certainly hadn't taken lessons or anything as ridiculous as that. It was not, however, the most complicated thing in the world, particularly when he took his cues from Wanda. She half-led, but it didn't result in anything terrible. Truly, the faux pas could be forgiven, since they were the only couple not resorting to bumping and grinding. "There are worse curses to have, are there not?" He had to raise his voice to be heard above all the noise.

"Oh, trust me, there certainly are!" Wanda banished any dark thoughts that her sentence had conjured. Tonight was a night for happier, lighter thoughts. It was a much needed break. She deftly directed them around a dense group of young men and women whose dancing appeared to be more flailing than anything else. "You are a quick study!" she said, raising her voice slightly as the music somehow managed to get louder. "But I see a spot at the bar has finally opened up - shall we take them up on the invitation for another drink?"

"Yes," Jean-Paul said, laughing a little. The sound was lost in the music, but his agreement was more than evident as he turned them toward the bar proper and maneuvered Wanda so she could sidle into the spot that had opened up. "Just - let us take this elsewhere." Gabriel wasn't the only bartender on tonight, but they were so very, very busy. "The roof?"

The roof sounded perfect. It also sounded far away from the potential of a bar so, just to be safe, Wanda ordered them both drinks and then a bottle of red wine. It never hurt to be prepared. Despite the crowd, the bartenders were on point and it didn't take terribly long before her order was placed in front of her. Carefully, she handed Jean-Paul's drink to him and scooped up her own along with the bottle of wine.

"Lead the way!" she semi-shouted, knowing he'd get it.

And so Jean-Paul did. He waved to Gabriel, who was probably the only reason their increasingly large orders of alcohol had continued to be filled so promptly, and then made a beeline for the stairwell. From the stairwell, they went up a floor and then to the elevators - better to avoid people. And then they went up to the very top floor, exited, and went back to the stairwell to take the maintenance stairs to the actual room. "Et voila," he said with a flourish, holding the door open for Wanda.

Wanda managed a sort-of half bow without falling over before she slipped past him. A few steps out into the roof and she sighed at the cool breeze. She'd been feeling overheated in the room below - too much dancing, people and drink, probably. Being on the roof was a nice change especially since it was empty with people. The covered pool at the end was probably why.

"We seem to be the only ones brave enough to face the chill," she laughed, heading towards a set of chairs and a table not yet put away for the fall. "Comes from being European and Canadian apparently."

"Oui, yes," Jean-Paul said, flopping onto the lounger next to Wanda. He'd long sense undone his tie, leaving it hanging loose around his neck, but now he unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt as well. "This," he said, voice very serious, "Is very bad for my..." He paused, visibly searching for the correct word. He gave up a moment later and switched to French. "Regime. This is very bad for it. Drinking and eating all of the carbohydrates and things." The pronouncement didn't stop him from reaching for the bottle she'd brought with them.

She smirked at his actions as she took a sip of her own drink. "Mutant metabolism," she responded primly. "If we are to be hunted and hated by the world, at least most of us get to eat and drink whatever we want." Actually, untrue and Wanda routinely lost track of the number of gym hours she logged but it sounded good. "Any reason you still have a regime?"

"Eh," Jean-Paul said, shrugging. "It is what I am... accustomed to. Easy. And maybe I hope to ski again, but this is not a thing that can happen."

"I'm sorry," Wanda said, turning the stem of her glass in her fingers so that her drink swirled. "It is never easy when the thing we want to do becomes the thing we cannot do. But times change, do they not? Maybe in a few years ..." Wanda gave him a lopsided smile. They both knew the likelihood of that happening. "But until then, what is it that you do? Besides hang around gorgeous people such as myself while drinking horrendously expensive drinks?"

Smirking a bit despite himself, Jean-Paul said, "I have sex with gorgeous people, but not like you. Like Gabriel. And I have a contract with Adrienne's company for modeling." He rolled his eyes at that, though. "Neck down."

"Terrible shame about that." Wanda smirked in return. "About the modeling, darling, about the modeling. So life is not so bad, then." She kicked off her shoes and stretched out her legs, enjoying the feel of the dress. "Or if it is, we try to make the best of it. I should not be philosophizing with this much drink in me."

"No, this is the very perfect time to philosophize," Jean-Paul disagreed. "It is very good." Then, apropos of nothing, he asked, "There are many people who fly, oui? At the mansion?"

"Hmm?" The question caught her off guard and she gave a half shrug. "I suppose so, though certainly not all of us. Why?"

"I can," Jean-Paul said, taking a drink directly from the bottle. "But also, I cannot. I am very bad at it."

Wanda winced. "That sounds like a dreadful combination. But! You are in luck as the mansion is the perfect place for a not particularly good flyer." She finished off her drink and held her glass out to him with a look that clearly said 'share'. "At least you'll be less destructive than I was when I was very bad at my powers. Do you, er, bounce well, at least? Are there other things you can do with your powers?"

Tipping the bottle toward Wanda's glass, Jean-Paul took a moment to focus because he was not wasting their alcohol by spilling it. Then his brain caught up with her question and he blinked. "Bounce? I do not bounce." Then he reconsidered. "When I am conscious, I do not bounce. You would like to see?"

"Oh by all means, bounce - I mean, fly away!"

There was a voice in the back of his head telling him that this was likely not wise, but it was overridden by the massive amount of alcohol he had, thus far, imbibed. So Jean-Paul took another sip from the bottle, and pushed himself up off the lounge chair. He paused to concentrate for a moment, then... nothing happened. Frowning, he said, "One moment," and tried to concentrate again. Nothing happened and his frown intensified. So he concentrated even harder and shot straight up in the air.

Startled out of a near doze at the sudden, and forceful, display, Wanda shrieked and toppled sideways out of her chair. Only training saved her from dropping most of her drink and she laid on her side, a hand holding her drink above the ground, and stared up at the night sky. And a sort of visible Jean-Paul.

Wanda blinked and then started to laugh. She tried to speak but couldn't for the giggles.

An indignant squawk came from up above, Jean-Paul visibly attempting to steady himself and failing monumentally. He plummeted back toward the roof, flipping head over feet once. Things looked dire for a moment, but he came to an abrupt stop six inches above the tile, only a foot or so away from where Wanda lay. And then he fell the rest of those six inches, letting out a quiet, "Oof."

Sacrilegious cursing followed, of course, but it was only a moment before Jean-Paul was reaching for the bottle of alcohol again. He paused, the mouth of the bottle an inch from his lips, and asked, still in French, "Why are you on the ground? I did not leave you on the ground."

"I thought I might be more comfortable down here," she said, primly, not about to tell him that he startled her and she'd fallen over with less grace than Wanda prided herself on having. It took a second to sit up thanks to a combination of gravity, trying not to spill her drink and the fact that her dress apparently turned into a pile of massive floof when the wearer was prone. "So," she said, switching back to English and still giggling, Just a little. "That was ... something."

"That is silly," Jean-Paul said, attempting to help her sit up without spilling anything from her glass or the bottle or - where had his glass gone? He'd had one when they came out, hadn't he? "The floor is never comfortable. Obvious... it is obvious that you have had too much to drink. The only thing to help is... more drink. I think. Or less. But no more flying."

She was giggling uncontrollably now, mostly into his arm as they struggled to pull her up to at least a sitting position. "Not the dress! Do not stand on the dress!" Wanda kicked her feet and somehow managed to only clear the material without accidentally kicking Jean-Paul. It was probably a minor miracle. When he let go, she wobbled slightly but remained mostly upright. "And I have it on good authority, sir, that I never have too much to drink. My authority, of course."

Jean-Paul nodded solemnly. "Your authority, it is very good. We should both have more drink, then. Oui? Oui." With that, he refilled his glass and dumped the tail end of the bottle into Wanda's.

Wanda very carefully knocked her glass against his. "Oui!"