Quentin & Jean-Paul, Thursday night

[xp-erverse.livejournal.com]

Quentin and Jean-Paul steal food, avoid people, and uncomfortably flirt.


The world would sooner end than Quentin thank Bowen and Keller for bringing him along to their church to help needy families on Thanksgiving. He had maintained his air of grudging compliance all day, but now he was back in the mansion and was going to take advantage of the opportunity for solitude.

Not before liberating a chocolate pecan pie from the kitchen, though.

Jean-Paul was, generally, unimpressed with American Thanksgiving. The pumpkin pie was wrong. Also, the stuffing for the turkeys. That did not, however, mean that he intended to let the opportunity for free food that he did not have to cook himself pass him by. Which was why he was heading for the elevator, a full half of one of the turkeys held in a very large container. It would last him at least two days. Probably.

Even had Quentin's telepathy lessons not been progressing well, there was no way that he could miss the mental signature of the person behind him. It brought an unbidden smirk to his lips, which he quickly hid as he turned around and nodded a greeting. "Hungry much?"

"Preparing," Jean-Paul said, unashamed and unworried. "I do not plan to leave my suite for a day. Two, possibly." Then he quirked an eyebrow and nodded toward Quentin's pie. "You also are hungry?"

"Oh this?" Quentin indicated the pie and shrugged. "Goes real well with the kahlua and Irish cream I got in my room." He glanced down at the dessert in his hand and the meal in Jean-Paul's and raised an eyebrow invitingly. "Care to share? Got my own space now, no self-proclaimed geniuses shitting up the place."

With Jean-Paul's assent, the pair made their way to the graduate suite hall. After feeding Fuckwad, Quentin retrieved the bottles, a pair of tumblers, and a couple of forks. He offered one of the bottles to Jean-Paul. "Do you like vodka, at least?"

"Oui," Jean-Paul said, seated on the floor by a window, his back to the wall as he pulled a piece of turkey off the bone. He popped it into his mouth and extended his other hand for the bottle. "But it is not so good as wine."

Quentin handed the vodka and one of the tumblers to Jean-Paul before taking a seat next to him and pouring an equal amount of Kahlua and cream into his own glass. "I know fuck all about wine. One of Quartus Quire's many lamentations for his shiftless son."

"I like Merlot," Jean-Paul said with a shrug. "But I am not so picky. And really, alcohol of any kind is appreciated." He ate another piece of turkey, then tipped his head to the side as he asked, "Your family, they like Q's very much?"

Quentin stabbed at his pie and ate a large piece before responding. "I've never tried to understand their motivations. I'm sure they'd never make sense to me. Possibly to my good fortune, they've stopped trying to understand me, too. So we're even. Cheers," he sassed, lifting his glass. "Happy Thanksgiving."

Jean-Paul hummed and popped another piece of turkey in his mouth. He opened the vodka and took a sip. "My Thanksgiving was last month. The pie here is wrong."

"I have no real love for this piece of shit country, but shading on pumpkin and pecan pies?" Quentin smirked and stabbed at his own pie again for another piece. "Them's fighting words."

Shrugging, Jean-Paul smirked. "I do not know so much about pecans, but the pumpkin is very wrong. How do we settle this dispute?"

"Well, I don't have a pumpkin to convince you, but you can start with this." Quentin scooped another piece of the pie, and leaned forward to offer it to Jean-Paul. "It's not really traditional 'cuz of the chocolate but, you know, there's chocolate, so that's an auto-upgrade."

Leaning forward, Jean-Paul took the bite of pie provided and then sat back again, chewing contemplatively. "Mm... oui, chocolate." He looked Quentin over, a head-to-toe evaluation. "Very nice."

"See? You do have some taste, after all." Quentin sat the tray down and took his drink. His smirk did not fade for one instant. "So what's a Quebecois Thanksgiving like? Meat pies and maple syrup?"

Jean-Paul snorted a laugh and shook his head. "Turkey, but mostly different spices and things. Poutine. Raymonde owns the restaurant, and so there is not so much cooking that we have to do."

"So it's just you and him? Raymonde." Quentin would not have admitted, under pain of torture, that he had Googled Jean-Paul after the first time they met, or that he had followed up after their psychic trip to Quebec. Old man taking in a younger orphan as his ward? Sounded like something out of a 1950s Congressman's nightmare. Which of course only intrigued Quentin more.

"Oui, yes," Jean-Paul said, nodding. "When I am home for Thanksgiving. Sometimes it is that I am training." He stopped at that, frowning as he reached for the turkey again. "That will not be such a problem now."

"Seemed like a decent person." Which sounded suspiciously like high praise coming from Quentin. "How'd you get into skiing if he's such a hoity-toity restaurateur? Or is it true that skiing is just a fact of life for every Canadian no matter where in that hellhole you live?"

"Owning the restaurant does not mean he cannot ski," Jean-Paul said, amused. "He introduced me to it. But it is not such a thing that all Canadians do it, oui?"

His drink gone, Quentin poured himself another. "Oui? I assumed it was part of the national curriculum. Americans learn creationism and abstinence-only sex ed, you guys get to ski."

"We have excellent sex education," Jean-Paul said, amused. "And no more skiing than everyone in California surfs."

"I bet you do. Down here, we end up having to figure out everything for ourselves. Lots of experimentation, you know." Quentin leaned back against the wall, his legs splayed apart, so he was half-sitting and half-lying down. The glass was empty again and refilled itself from the two shakingly floating bottles. "I'd like to travel there. Canadia, I mean. This time as myself."

"It is a good place to travel," Jean-Paul allowed, eyes moving from the bottle back to Quentin. There was a line about experimentation that he was pretty sure he could follow easily, but in the face of the reminder of the girl, he did not feel so much like pursuing it.

It was easy to miss the change in Jean-Paul's expression, but much harder to not recognize the shift, however slight, in the mental environment. Quentin hid his frown behind his glass as he emptied it again. "Got any recommendations for places to see?"

"Many," Jean-Paul smiled a little, reaching for the turkey again. "Montreal, of course. See it properly, not through they eyes of a girl while running away from terrible people. Banff and Lake Louise, in Alberta. Excellent skiing."

"You know, I've never actually skied before. We never really did the mountains thing. Beaches and lakes, usually."

"You are missing out," Jean-Paul said, mildly amused now. "But there are other things to do, also. Tourist things."

Quentin filled another glass and drank from it. How many was that now? He'd lost count. "I'd rather have the authentic experience," he said, turning his head to the side so he faced Jean-Paul. He raised his glass to his lips again but it was already empty. Hadn't he just filled it?

"Eat something, more pie," Jean-Paul suggested, nudging the tin closer to Quentin. "Or turkey. Also, authentic is often the best."

"I'm a vegetarian." But Quentin obliged with the pie, and scooped a small piece into his mouth, then licked his lips. "Maybe, as a native Quebecois, you could show me that authentic experience."

"Maybe," Jean-Paul said. "Maybe I will."