xp_logs | [Paul, Shinobi] "... you volunteer to help someone kill some people. Happens."

"Happens? You get that fixed yet, or you still working on it?"

Paul wandered in the general direction of Shinobi's suite, checking on his PDA to confirm the number. His memory was still full of holes stuffed with grey wool. When he got there, he knocked and leaned on the doorframe. He was still tired. It was getting easier to admit, being tired. He was getting used to it.

A muffled "It's open!" sounded from inside, and sure enough, the door was unlocked, though the common area between the two bedrooms was person-less. In his room, Shinobi eyed his closet with a baleful eye as he finished buttoning up his dress shirt. Figured that the only tie he had ready to wear was the one from Jake. "My wardrobe is conspiring against me," he called after a moment. "It makes me sad."

Paul closed the door behind him and wandered in toward the voice. "Well, let me look at you." He came to the door of Shinobi's bedroom and paused. "I'm sure you're fine." Himself, he was wearing a casual summer suit he'd grabbed in Paris last year. It was cut well enough to hide the weight he'd lost, at least to the casual eye.

"I am tie-less," Shinobi replied mournfully as he stepped away from the closet, and into view of the doorway. He wore most of a suit, anyway - the red dress shirt and black slacks were there, and the jacket was waiting patiently on the foot of the bed. But he was, indeed, tie-less. "The only one I've got is.. yellow. And smiling. And scary."

"How did that happen?" Paul looked him over from head to toe. "You shouldn't be tieless. I have a couple that could do. Conservative or not?"

"It was a gift," Shinobi chuckled, glancing down at himself self-consciously. "Oh, either way. You have more experience with looking respectable, I suspect."

"Conservative," Paul decided. "That smile of yours will balance it out. I'll be right back." With that, he was back out into the hall, thanking the patron deities of moving that they'd simply moved his dresser over all at once so he could still find what he was looking for.

Shinobi made a thoughtful noise as he watched Paul go, curiously leaning towards the mirror on his dresser. He eyed it skeptically for a moment, flashed a smile, then shrugged to himself and turned to fetch his jacket.

"Here." Paul returned with a tie in hand - charcoal silk with threads of black and red and silver through it. He stopped in front of Shinobi and held the tie up to the shirt to make sure the reds were right, and they were. "You do know how to tie one of these, don't you?" he asked, only partly facetious.

Shinobi gave the tie an appraising look, and he certainly seemed to approve, nodding in response to the question. "Thank you. And I can do a double-windsor." He paused, and slowly began to look a bit sheepish. "...or I could, as of several months ago. I haven't had occasion to in.. a while."

"What do they teach you in school these days?" Paul asked, draping the tie around Shinobi's neck and then flipping up his collar. "Half-windsor for this kind of silk, I think. Just so it doesn't get too bulky against that summer-weight shirt." He balanced out the two ends and then neatly tied it for Shinobi. "There." Himself, he was dressed all in sky grey with hints of blue lurking in the tie and shirt.

"Alas, there were no 'how not to be a fashion don't' classes, that I was aware of," Shinobi pouted, head tilted back somewhat to try and make the tie easier for Paul to deal with. "Ta. I need to get back in practice. I'm a mess, I swear." He made a face and reached up to neatly fold his collar back down. "Let's see. Your shiny car, or my shiny car?"

"Your shiny car, as much as it galls me," Paul said sourly. "Not that your shiny car isn't delightful. I'm just irritated at being as much a narcoleptic as Nate these days."

"You'll be back to your old self in no time," Shinobi offered reassuringly, giving Paul a pat on the arm before turning to hunt for his keys. Aha. There. Mine. "We have everything?"

"PDA so I remember my own name," Paul said with a sigh. "My keys, wallet, cheque book, cellphone, possible guest-list, and sunglasses. Am I forgetting anything?"

Shinobi squinted in thought as he scooped up his keys, casting a quick look down at himself. "If you're forgetting, so am I," he finally replied, shrugging and waving towards the door. "After you?"

"Thank you." Paul waited for him in the hall and then they headed to the garage together. "It's a good thing the agent remembered that we wanted to rent a place. It went out of my head all together. She's offered a catering service as well, but I wonder if we want to simply hire Lorna a crew of slaves for the night. Apparently the house has quite the kitchen. Perhaps we should offer? I don't want her to work when she should be dancing, but chefs are horribly tempermental about being overlooked."

"We can definitely offer," Shinobi replied thoughtfully. "She'll likely enjoy the opportunity to stuff Alex in a suit.. maybe offer her a compromise. Let her work up the menu and recipes for hired kitchen-mooks to worry about, while she focuses on dancing? Something like that."

"She can do anything she pleases. I'll speak to her when the venue is settled." Paul waited for Shinobi to unlock the passenger door before sliding into the seat. "My general tack with the chefs is to smile and nod and stay out of the way. They have pointy things and access to my food as well. I try and behave."

"That sounds about right," Shinobi mused, waiting for Paul to get into the car before he helpfully closed the door, then rounded to the driver's side for himself. "I should probably refrain from driving far too fast in my excitement, shouldn't I?"

"Don't you dare," Paul said darkly, settling his sunglasses on his nose. He tilted them down enough to look at Shinobi over the tops of the frames. "Refrain, that is. Mon dieu, I haven't gotten above sixty miles an hour in over a week, by any means. Nathan drives like a grandmother. I'm going insane not being able to /move/ like I usually do."

"Well, we can't have that," Shinobi chuckled, waggling his eyebrows cheerfully as he tugged on his seatbelt. "My baby doesn't move like you can, but we'll try and help tide you over. We'll be at this place before you know it."

"My hero," Paul said. He relaxed into the seat with a happy sigh and stretched his legs out. "At this point, we could get lost and I wouldn't care... as long as we're doing it fast."

***
The Jaguar rolled to a lazily-satisfied stop in front of the mansion, its driver wearing a matching lazily-satisfied grin. "I think I may be spoiling my car," Shinobi mused, looking sidelong at Paul. "I let Dom drive her when she's in the area."

"Letting Dom drive is always a good idea," Paul said, then shot Shinobi a wicked grin before busying himself with getting out of the car. "Ah, there's the agent."

The agent, a plump, buxom woman in her mid-forties, sailed towards them across the lawn. Her enthusiastic pink silk dress swirled around her like a confection as she approached. "Gentlemen, right on time," she exclaimed delightedly. "I'm Louise."

Aha. Time to put on the charm, then. Sliding out of the car, Shinobi flashed a smile towards the agent as he closed the door behind himself, quickly pocketing the keys so he could offer a hand. "Shinobi," he replied warmly, perfectly content to stick to first names. "Pleasure to meet you, Louise."

"Delighted to meet you, dear," Louise burbled happily. "And you'd be Jean-Paul." She greeted Paul in turn. "Lorne sends you his best, by the way. So good to meet you both. Now, the owners are putting this place up on the market but they're happy to rent it out for parties, as it gets more people through it. I've got all the standard sawdust for you to look through." She handed Paul a folder. "How do you want to do this?"

Paul shook the woman's warm, bejewelled hand, smiling at her bubbliness. "What do you think, Shinobi? Want to prowl it on our own first?"

"Don't mind me, dear," Louise said to Shinobi. "If you two want to run on, you go ahead."

"I suppose we could manage it without getting too terribly lost," Shinobi replied thoughtfully, trying (and failing) not to grin too widely. He didn't mind bubbly moods at all, especially when they were ocntagious.

"I've already opened it all up," Louise said, beckoning for them to follow her. "Don't forget to take a look at all the gardens, there are three of them. The third floor will remain closed off, but the second floor is open, including the library and the smoking lounge. I don't know what people do with all this room," she said as she opened the front door. "But I'm sure the two of you know well enough. I'll be in the study here at the front if you need me."

"Thank you kindly. Paul gave her a charming smile before he stepped into the house. His footsteps rang off the marble floor of the foyer and he paused in the sunlight coming in from the skylight nearly four stories above. "Where to first?" he asked, turning to Shinobi.

Oh, but he did like the echo of footsteps. "Bugger if I know," Shinobi chuckled, looking to Paul with a lopsided grin as he followed him inside. "Not something I've done before, you know. Quite content following your lead, if you've any ideas."

"Let's look at the important things first, the main room where we'll be holding the party. Then the kitchen and other facilities; we'll have to decide what we want to have open and what we don't," he mused. "And what we'll do about the bar and all." He tucked the folder under one arm and gesturing for Shinobi to join him. "If we can't find the ballroom from the front door sober and awake, then we're in the wrong house for a party."

"There could be signs," Shinobi suggested innocently as he dutifully moved to join Paul, gesturing grandly with both hands. "Large signs, with helpful arrows, and blinky lights."

Paul laughed at Shinobi and shook his head. "I thought we were going for formal party, not a rave, here. Though, heaven knows, a good rave's good for the soul." He held up one hand in a warning gesture. "But there's no possible way I, as a responsible teacher, would ever say a thing like that. Look," he said, pleased. To the left down the main hall, double doors opened up into a great room that went up a full two stories to accomodate a set of balconies accessible from the second floor. "I could even find this drunk. I like it already."

Shinobi batted his eyelashes innocently. "So we leave out the blinky lights and use a very elegant, flow-y script on the signs.. mmh?" Curiously, he looked where Paul indicated, and cracked a pleased smile. "Oh, that is nice. Not planning on getting loaded at the party, are you?"

"No, I'm just trying to think like the lowest common denominator. I wouldn't get drunk around the students. I don't like looking hypocritical when I tell them not to be stupid." Paul dropped the folder on a chair, one of a row against the near wall, and strode out into the center of the room. "It takes skill to be stupid wisely, a skill I've honed. Other people just get in trouble."

"I'm still working on the migration from 'trouble' to 'wisely stupid'," Shinobi replied distractedly, most of his attention devoted to look around the room as he trailed along behind Paul, his hands tucked comfortably away in his pockets. "I keep backsliding once I make progress. Very depressing."

"You need training," Paul said, amused at Shinobi's curious inspection of the room. "And a better electronic rolodex. What do you think? I think we could do two hundred people in here easily enough. It's a decent number and gives us a little leeway."

"Still room for a smallish stage?" Shinobi asked curiously, glancing back towards Paul with a curious tilt of his head. "I get the feeling we'll be hurt if we don't allow Jamie's band to play for this thing.. if not hurt by him, then by Ali."

"Let me see about the electrical." Paul walked to the far end of the room and counted outlets, then paced off the length of the room before turning and pacing off the width. "Yes, room and electrical enough for a small stage there some seating here and along the walls, and the bar will be in one of the other rooms. Seating up on the balcony as well. Two hundred, comfortably. We'll want a professional band as well, no offense to Jamie and the others, but they can certainly perform. That'd be rather cute."

"I wonder if Jamie's buddy's band counts as a professional group," Shinobi murmured thoughtfully, backing further into the room and craning his neck to look up towards the balcony. "If not, Alison certainly does.. or she could make some calls, probably.."

"Should we leave the music to Alison and the food to Lorna, then?" Paul was opening one of the windows on the long wall opposite the doors and looking out. "Security is going to be an issue. I'll talk to Mr Lee about that. I don't want any fusses and someone always tries to make a fucking point at these things. We're up half a story in this room, thanks to the landscaping. Nice." He closed the window back up and locked it. "This room is pretty straight-forward. Let's go walk-about."

"Lee's briliant. I'm thinking of asking him about training Oscar as a guard dog, or at least seeing if he knows somebody who could do it proper.." Shinobi looked over his shoulder towards the window, thinking for a moment. "I think it'd be safe to leave the music and food to them, if they want the jobs," he agreed, waiting patiently for Paul before renewing his wandering.

"Now, this looks like fun." Paul pushed open a door into the music room. A grand piano sat at one end of the room and a harp stood in the corner. Chairs were arranged here and there, giving out an air of expectancy, waiting to be filled with pretty people listening to the music. "Should we leave this one open?"

Shinobi ignored the familiar itching at his fingertips as he eyed the piano, making a thoughtful noise as he glanced back the way they came. "Possibly.. depends on if someone having fun in here would interfere with the bands back in there, I think.."

"We won't want the music in there going non-stop, people need to talk," Paul noted. "I think there'll be time if someone with itchy fingers wanted to play." He wandered over to the piano and prodded a few keys lightly. "In tune."

"Oh, quit poking at it," Shinobi said mournfully, letting the side of his head rest against the doorframe. "You're making me want to come play, and we'll never see the rest of the house if you let me get started. It'd probably be a dreadfully depressing dirge, anyway."

Paul pondered the keyboard and then played a few bars of a clever little tune, standing there at the piano. "Depressing?"

"I improvise at the piano to vent," Shinobi explained, his eyes drifting towards the keys as Paul played a few bars. "Well. Except for that one song I did for Alison, and the couple of lessons I gave Miles. But, mostly, for the venting."

"Sometimes, you really ought to do what you feel like doing." Paul played a set of arpeggios and then stepped back, hands in his pockets. "Especially when you're not hurting anyone. Lesson the first."

"Lesson the first was on New Years," Shinobi replied absently, glancing between Paul and the piano for a moment before sighing in defeat and beginning to trudge his way forward. "Not my fault if I depress you and Louise, that's all I'm saying."

"Of course not." Paul threw himself down on the cushioned windowseat of a deep bay window overlooking a lush maze-garden, sprawling gracefully there. "You've been hanging around the kids too much. Everything's the fault of the person they think has offended. God forbid they should have any ownership of their own emotions. Play the damn music, if that's what you need to do." He looked over at Shinobi from under lowered lashes. "Would it make you feel better if I asked? Is that what you'd like?"

"I don't know what I'd like," Shinobi sighed as he dropped down to sit at the piano, making a bit of a face as he eyed the keys. "Part of the problem, I think, really. Mmh."

"That's a bitch." Paul leaned on the wall, watching Shinobi. "I rarely buy it when people say they don't know what they want. They may want what they can't have, or they may want something they don't have words for, but they still know what they want. There's a difference. Some of them say that when they can't make things match up; what they want and who they are, what they want and what they're supposed to want. Maybe some people are afraid of getting it, or not getting it, or what it says about them. We're driven by what we need and by what we want. I can't believe that people just don't know."

Shinobi made a thoughtful noise, and eyed the keys a moment longer before giving up and reaching out to tentatively try a few bars. It was a strange piano, he didn't know it yet. Must get acquainted first. "Ideally, I'd like to be comfortable in my own skin," he said slowly. "Trust myself again, get it back from some key people, and all that. I'd like to live in the here and now, rather than the past, and eventually have a nice wedding somewhere.." He tilted his head in thought. "..Japan, maybe. I need to go visit mum soon, I'm already late."

"So you do know what you want," Paul said. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "Why say you don't?"

"Not an ideal world," Shinobi replied simply. "If it were an ideal world, Sarah would live life instead of mourning it."

"Doesn't mean you don't know what you want, though. Doesn't mean you shouldn't say it." Paul shrugged, then winced at the way his shoulderblades ground against the wall behind him. "It's not an ideal world. Are you waiting on it changing its mind? Or on her changing hers?"

"I try not to get my hopes up," Shinobi said, fingers pausing on the keys as he considered them, now that he had a better feel for the piano. "Last time I did, I woke up in Boston, alone, and the next time I saw Sarah, she was dead." It was his turn to shrug, and he began to play. It was somber, but probably not as depressing as it could be. "Waiting for Sarah or the world to change their respective minds would leave one waiting for a very long time."

"She is what she is, so is the world. What are you going to do about it?" Paul watched a pair of sparrows fussing out in the hedge-rows.

"That's what I don't know." Shinobi frowned down at the keys.

"That's a long way from not knowing what you want." Damnit, he was tired of being tired. Paul wasn't even very comfortable and he was feeling a little drifty. He sat forward, pushing his hair back. "Then again, I think you probably know your options. You're just going to fret about it until someone chooses for you or you figure out which one's going to damn you less."

"I'm not fretting, I'm weighing," Shinobi replied, his voice distant, detached - it made his accent heavier. "And it isn't my damning I'm worried about, its hers. I already know I'm hell-bound."

"What doesn't she know?" Paul got up and wandered over to the piano; that would keep him awake. He sat down beside Shinobi on the bench, pushing him over a little with his hip as he did so. "And how the hell are you going to /make/ her know it if she doesn't want to see?"

Shinobi scootched over to make room without complaint. "Forcing her to do or see things doesn't work. Asking doesn't, either, if it isn't something she wants to hear. And I'm probably being a little harsh right there, since I'm vaguely unhappy about giving her a chance to murder some people and get herself killedin the process, and all it got me was ditched in Boston and in deep shit with Scott."

"Doesn't sound harsh to me." Paul picked out something that sounded like a Ray Charles tune with his left hand; long, thin fingers moving slowly over the keys. "Vaguely unhappy? You want to try that one again?"

"I may have considered the word 'betrayed' once or twice," Shinobi admitted dully, dropping his hand into his lap to let Paul play.

"Considered." Paul's right hand picked up the melody. He knew this one off by heart, Crazy After All These Years. "You want to try that one again, too? Somehow I'm thinking that a man who wants to be one of Charles Xavier's X-Men would have a little stronger feelings about being used as an accessory to murder."

"I volunteered for the job," Shinobi pointed out, suddenly finding the wall across the room extremely interesting. "I didn't have a very good moral or ethical upbringing, and when you pair that with the kind of love that gives you tunnel vision, you volunteer to help someone kill some people. Happens."

"Happens?" Paul wondered, watching his fingers on the keys. "You get that fixed yet, or you still working on it?"

"Still working on it. I'm better than I was. I feel bad about helping her kill murderers, so that's something, I guess." Shinobi shrugged dully. "It's hard to move on with your life when the most important person in it refuses to."

"Good to hear that it's improving." Paul tossed his hair back so he could look sideways at Shinobi while he kept playing. "I'm not really heartless," he said dryly. "I just don't have anything to say that you don't already know or don't need to figure out for yourself first. I know what I'd do, but I'm a hell of a lot older than you and a hell of a lot more self-centered."

"Oh, tell me what you'd do anyway," Shinobi replied with a strained chuckle, looking down and rubbing at his face with both hands. "Chances are I'm contemplating it already."

"I'd move on." Paul slowed the tune and changed it to Dylan, Dirge. "I'm not going to give you some psychobabble about how it'll make things better for her, because maybe it will and maybe it won't. The question is are you going to be a man you can live with and a man who can live with her at once? If it's no, for the love of God, pick the first, Shinobi."

"I'm being a man I can live with whatever happens," Shinobi replied with a faint shake of his head. "Tried the other route. Didn't much care for it."

"It's hard," Paul said simply, relenting at last. "It always is. I'm sorry." He stared at his fingers for a few more bars and shifted a little so that his shoulder bumped Shinobi's gently, then he cast Shinobi a sideways glance to see how he was.

"Nothing for you to be apologizing for," Shinobi replied quietly, just managing not to jump out of his skin at the light bump against his shoulder. Tense, anyone? He squeezed his eyes closed, and raked a hand back through his hair. Calm, damnit.

"I'm not apologizing. I'm sorry it's hard." He let the music die and put his near hand on Shinobi's shoulder lightly, in case the touch wasn't welcome. "I'm sorry for you, I'm sorry for me."

Shinobi simply nodded in response, making no protests about the hand. After a moment, though, something registered, and he looked up with a vaguely puzzled tilt of his head. "What do you mean, sorry for you?"

"Everybody's got their stories," Paul said quietly, noncomittally. "Mine are all old news." He rubbed the tight ridge of Shinobi's shoulderblade with his thumb, almost absently, soothing.

"Mine's several months old," Shinobi observed, watching Paul with that same puzzled tilt of his head, barely even aware of the rubbing thumb.

"Barely nascent," Paul said dryly. "Besides, you don't want to know that it's still going to really sting fifteen years from now, do you?"

Shinobi smiled wryly, arching an eyebrow. "I already figured that part out," he shrugged. "I'm a smart kid, once in a while."

"I noticed that," Paul said. Smiling back, he mirrored the wry twist of the mouth. "Not just another pretty face."

"Good of you to notice," Shinobi chuckled, reaching up to pat the hand at his shoulder. "Always reassuring to hear."

"Any time. You know, to make up for grinding any of your remaining illusions underfoot." Paul stood and offered Shinobi his hand to help him up. "Come on, let's see if there's a lift to the upper floors like the preview sheets say. We can put the VIP section up there if there is. I'm hoping Charles will come."

"Going to leave me wondering about your story after I was all forthcoming and woe-is-me?" Shinobi asked, giving the piano a light, parting pat before he accepted the hand and got to his feet. "Oh, I'm sure Charles will come. He's.. he's Charles."

"Forthcoming and woe-is-me is for the young," Paul said dryly, walking them to the door. "Summary? I was nineteen, almost twenty, he was a liberationist with Metis eyes and a handful of scars, and in the end I didn't have the stomach for it. That's all you get, though, at least for now."

"That's fair," Shinobi replied after a moment, content to be walked. "We could always go north before any further forthcomingness ensues. I won't be legal to drink here 'til October of 2005, but if we took a short drive.."

"When you get things worked out with your girl, one way or the other, let me know," Paul told him. "We'll go for a ride and see where we end up."

Shinobi nodded, casting a brief look down at his shoes. "I'll talk to her tomorrow," he said slowly. "It's waited too long as it is."

"Whenever," Paul said mildly, putting an arm around Shinobi's shoulders and guiding him down the hall. "Canada will be there whenever you're done. So will I."

Paul and Shinobi are off to look at the rental property for the formal party they're throwing. Shinobi gets a little morose in the music room and ends up obliquely discussing his relationship with Sarah. At the end, he resolves to talk to her and he and Paul agree that after the fact, they'll go for a drive to wherever Shinobi's of legal drinking age and sit down and maybe Paul will be a little more forthcoming about the part of his past that lets him empathize with what Shinobi's going through.

Current Mood: discontent
Current Music: Toccata and Fugue (J.S. Bach, 1685 - 1750)