06 / 05 / 10 - Ilad, Jean-Paul
=XF= Main Street - Chemeketa Military Base
The winding forest road slows and straightens here, pulling to attention for the little cluster of buildings known as 'town'. The only trees here are those planted neatly in well-kept yards and green spaces. A small outdoor park area boasts several picnic tables and a basketball court, as well as a number of benches set up under the shade of tall oak trees.
Along the sidewalked street, sunlight glints off the tall, glass-fronted administration building, which bears an unavoidable sign proclaiming 'Titan Enterprises'. The other buildings are more modest on outward glance, with none of them appearing to rise above two stories. At the far end, just before the road disappears into the forest once more, a street cuts parallel to the main road. To one direction, the vast hangars and runways take up an impressive span of space. To the other, the modest residential building sits perched on a hill, the better to take advantage of the excellent views.
The heat of the day is too much to wear the jacket, so Ilad carries it, the bulk of dark leather hung over his shoulder on the hook of paired fingers as he lopes down from the porch of the residence building. Casually dressed in a grey T-shirt of printed in faded Hebrew and in black jeans, some of the customary tension is absent the lean, straight lines of his body, with a few telltales of a recent post-workout shower in the dampness that lingers in his dark hair. His stride is easy, pacing along the streetside.
Dressed in a shirt of close-cut white cotton, short-sleeved and carrying only the mark of a black starburst on his hip, Jean-Paul sits at one of the picnic tables, just barely shadowed by the shifting shade of a tree nearby. Once, perhaps he was better covered, but he has sat long enough for the shadows to move on and cast his arm and the top of his head into sunlight. The silver streaks shine pale and bright. One leg is drawn up, foot hooked in the crossed braces beneath the table, with worn, comfortable jeans folding against his hip and thigh before falling looser in a straight line down his leg. He is not-eating an apple. He rolls it in his hands, reading a book instead. He glances over at movement nearby, watching Ilad a moment before he gives him a nod.
Step slowing as his attention falls upon Jean-Paul's perch in the bright sunlight, Ilad lifts his gaze toward face with the slight inclination of his head in an answering nod. He steps off the sidewalk, padding the short distance over the springy grass to the side of the table. "Hello, Jean-Paul," he says. The flicker of his glance drops toward the book, curiosity probably inevitable. It's not about tanks, is it?
It is not about tanks. It is about a man of many, many years ago, with his life's story told on pages as confession. There is not even a gun to brighten things up. Marking his place with the slide of his thumb, Jean-Paul shifts his attention more fully. "Ilad," he greets. Gaze marking details, he eyes the jacket with a touch of curiosity and an upswept arch of his eyebrow.
"I was thinking of driving up one of those mountains," Ilad says, looking up from his snooping at Jean-Paul's reading material with the turn of his hand in a curling-fingered gesture angling knuckles toward the mountain range. "Get a little wind."
A twitch at the corner of his lips not quite making it to his eyes, Jean-Paul inclines his head. "Ah." He pauses, then says with a mild sense of irony for the inanity, "Good day for it."
"Mm," Ilad hums affirmative, amusement lighting his dark eyes with the tip of his head. "I would invite you along," he says lightly, "but I think your way leaves mine in the proverbial dust."
Thumb smoothing along the unbroken skin of his apple, Jean-Paul glances down at it and then up to Ilad again. "I'm afraid so," he agrees. "Still, it isn't so bad an imitation."
Ilad says, "I like it," but he seems in no rush to put theory to practice. "The terrain is good for it around here." Gesture a flicker of his fingers, he lets his hand fall back toward his side. "I have not indulged in a little while."
"Well, you certainly have the time for it," Jean-Paul says, words barely bladed. There is no irritation or particular anger coloring his gaze as he looks to Ilad, and his expression remains fixed mild. The edge would be easy to miss.
"Indeed." Ilad's gaze falls a moment to the table, the flickered motion of his dark eyes partly veiled by the fall of his eyelashes. He inclines his head. "As you have the time to catch up on your reading, hm?"
Lips thinning, Jean-Paul's fingers draw tight in their hold on the book. "Read and reread."
"On duty the other night," Ilad says, little more than a murmur, with shades of musing in his tone, "one of the cameras went out. Couple of kids throwing rocks. It was thrilling."
Releasing a low breath in a noise more sigh than laugh, Jean-Paul says, "If only I had been there to see it."
"Next time, perhaps." Ilad lifts a hand, turning it out. "I do not know how Swifte determines the duty roster for this. I suspect it may involve a dartboard."
"Oh?" Jean-Paul glances at Ilad, briefly following the gesture before his gaze lifts again.
Ilad expands, "Oh, well." He shifts the grip of his hand on his jacket, gathering it onto a few more fingertips in the clasp of his hand. "I am often on the gates with telepaths."
"My sympathy," Jean-Paul says, and although it is dry, there's a certain amount of genuine feeling to it. He one-ups: "I lived between two telepaths for a time."
Dark eyebrows lifting to draw together, Ilad rubs at the line of his brow with the spread of forefinger and thumb, humor tugging at his mouth. "I do not envy you such," he says. "Sounds uncomfortable."
"Mm, yes. Well. Both of them have since left," Jean-Paul says with a turn of his hand, apple cupped in his palm. "One only days before she would've been shown the door. Not a well-behaved telepath."
With the twitch of wariness rippling up his spine, Ilad shakes his head with the turn of a shoulder to shake it loose. "Ms. Fiore has displayed to me that she is deeply aggrieved by the idea that she could ever have made use of her mutation within ... possibly a three mile radius of my person," he says.
Jean-Paul hitches an eyebrow in an expression of surprise, but although his lips part, he swallows his first comment. Instead, he gives Ilad a longer look. "I've never had any trouble with her," he says, lukewarm praise with emphasis falling slight on that first syllable.
"Ah, well." Ilad shakes his head, exasperation written plain in his expression for all that his voice has fallen quiet. "It is frustrating, but of little consequence provided she remains professional. I believe Jamie is likely correct at to the source."
"What did Jamie say?" asks Jean-Paul, mild in his curiosity.
With a flicker of his fingers, Ilad answers, "Student crush. I believe he was trying to unsettle me at the time, yet."
"How unlike him, to try to unsettle someone." Smile quick and tense, Jean-Paul glances away. "Most of us here are good at professional, anyway. Have to be."
"Yes," Ilad says, the single syllable stretched somewhat as he looks after the turn of Jean-Paul's gaze; he is quiet a moment, and then clears his throat as he looks away again. "Yes, I would think we must."
"Only way to keep from killing each other," Jean-Paul says with a light, dry touch to his words.
"Such camaraderie," Ilad answers, with the bare twitch of a smile at one corner of his mouth.
Looking back, Jean-Paul answers that bare smile in kind. "How different is it from living and serving with soldiers?" he asks, something of a more genuine curiosity drawing through his expression.
"Hm," Ilad says, with a tip of his head. He steps forward, then, and folds himself down to sit backwards on the bench beside Jean-Paul, letting his jacket settle against the table. He stretches out his legs, heels tipped against the grassy earth. "In some ways, it is similar," he says. "You see the same faces each day, know that your life could be in any of these pairs of hands. But. There are ways it is very different."
Setting the apple down, Jean-Paul braces his hand on the bench and turns toward Ilad as he seats himself. His lean is slight, posture upright. "What ways?"
"We do not train as a unit, here," Ilad says. "In the IDF. Comradeship is one of the soldier's highest duties. When I was first a recruit, we trained constantly in team exercises, side by side, exhaustive grunt work, cohesion building, and on and on. To ensure that no soldier would ever abandon his brothers to die in the field." He scratches fingertips at the curve of his jaw, down towards the neat scruff over his chin, as he rolls a sidelong look at Jean-Paul with the pull of a slight smile tugging at his lips. "Some of them seem very stupid, especially when you are eighteen and know everything."
"Please, tell me that there are no trust falls." Humor muted and dry, Jean-Paul looks back to Ilad with the faded flicker of an answering smile. "That is an area we are particularly weak in, I'll admit. Is there more?"
"No," Ilad says, "no trust falls." He tips his head back, squinting a little as he looks up into the clear blue of the sky. "You become accustomed to knowing exactly what to do," he says. "You are told. There are orders for everything. When to eat, when to sleep. When to take a piss. You earn autonomy of a kind, but it is not until you have proven that you can follow orders, that you can stick to the plan." He laughs, low and soft, exhaled past his lips on a quiet rush, and arches his glance back at Jean-Paul. "Here, the only orders anyone follows are in the heat. Even then, I feel it is about fifty-fifty, hm? The freedom, I think, it could have its own value ... but it comes down to the same point of contention. If you are not trained to follow orders..."
"Fifty-fifty might be generous." Jean-Paul cants his head. "Undisciplined and divisive then, are we?"
"More or less," Ilad says, with a slow blink and an inclination of his head. "To a degree. Do you feel as though you have bonded, Jean-Paul? With this group? You are here longer than I; several months with a unit, this should be enough. And yet." He spreads his hands, and then lets them fall to his lap, resting against the dark denim over his thighs.
Jean-Paul hesitates before shaking his head. "Friendships with some. Bonding as a whole? No. And I've been here most of a year at this point." A touch of bemusement twists his features and then fades away, time marked and then brushed past. "Obviously we need more team exercises." (He doesn't mean it.)
"It would not hurt," Ilad says, with eyebrows arching. "But the trouble with such is immediate," he adds, on a breath exhaled partway between sigh and laugh. "At our own option, they are not worth so much."
"We are not soldiers," Jean-Paul says, gaze sliding across the lines of Ilad posture, marking the lingering effects of his time in the military. "We are not quite anything, I guess. Somehow, we manage."
"We are -- a new thing," Ilad says. He draws the pad of his thumb along the curve of one eyebrow, expression crimping in a partial grimace as he shakes his head. "A new creation, to fight a new kind of a battle." He shifts, limbs resettling with his backward lean against the table as he turns his gaze back toward Jean-Paul again. He subjects him to a moment's study in return, lips thoughtful.
"Theoretically." Jean-Paul lifts his hand the bench and brushes his palms together. He straightens, gaze falling absently to watch a bit of dried paint flake away. It lifts as he reaches out to pick up his book and the still-untouched apple. "For now, we wait. We read. We ride."
"For now," Ilad agrees, quietly. He unfolds himself in a fluid motion, collecting his jacket once more with the curl of his fingers into the back of its collar. "Well," he adds.
Glancing over at Ilad, Jean-Paul says, "Enjoy the wind."
"To you as well," Ilad answers with the shadow of a smile to curve his lips as he inclines his head. He turns to walk on at his easy lope up the sidewalk toward the garage.
Hard at work.