06 / 17 / 10 - Jean-Paul, Silas
=XF= Empty Building - Training Facilities - Chemeketa Military Base
Though three stories tall, this building still manages to look squat and workmanlike. The walls are reinforced concrete, made to withstand damage - as the faint scorch marks along several prove - and the stairwells are narrow and filled with echoes. Though at a glance the building is a throwback to prison-like construction trends of earlier eras, its monitoring system is state-of-the-art, intercoms and cameras feeding into the control center on the top floor, in addition to any further surveillance equipment set up for the day's specific drills.
Silas knows his stuff. He's spent a large portion of the past six years keeping an eye on people. There's the technical stuff to go over first, to make sure that Jean-Paul is clear on their operation and to determine how much he has to go over and how much would just be retreading what he already knows. He's a little unsure as a teacher, maybe goes a little too fast sometimes, but for the most part, it's clear.
The part that really seems to be his element is the more psychological part of surveillance. He imparts a few tricks for watching people and determining whether they are suspicious or what motives they might have, and how to keep watch on one person as they move through a crowd. This stuff can't be demonstrated though, so it's more a chat than a real lesson. "So uh, hope that wasn't an info dump."
"Bit too late to hope for that," Jean-Paul says as he caps his pen with a slide of his thumb along the barrel to the end. He tap sit down and leans back with a roll of his shoulders in a shrug. His mild blandness suggests a dry humor beneath barely-shifting features. "But no, it wasn't that bad a dump. Good review, anyway. Thanks."
Silas rubs at his forehead and chuckles. "Still getting used to this teaching thing. I gotta learn how much is too much. I probably should have stopped ten minutes ago, huh?" He leans forward and flicks off a few pieces of equipment now that they're done with them.
"You're fine." Drawing the end of the pen down the page, Jean-Paul skims notes taken -- how /college/! -- with a quick eye. "We have worse teachers, anyway -- although we do have better ones," he adds, before Silas can take as anything like a compliment. "Not a whole lot of people here really suited to it, though."
"It's one of the many things that I'm slowly getting used to around here. Though from what people tell me, I'll establish a routine and then armageddon will happen or something." Silas closes a notebook he was using for a haphazard lesson plan. Believe it or not, only point a) and b) on his list are checked off.
"Usually does," Jean-Paul agrees, not so much cynical as pragmatic. "Just slide armageddon into your plans and your routine will work out just fine."
"Hnf. I hope it doesn't come on Tuesday. Tuesdays are no good for me." Silas' grin is wry. "So. Uh. I'm...not so good at small-talk, or getting-to-know-you talk. If I don't have a direction, I tend to babble. And I'm really trying to curb that impulse."
Glancing at Silas with a bare twist curling his lip, Jean-Paul straightens with a tip of his head and a roll of his shoulder. Fanning the pages against his palm, he says, "Believe it or not, a large portion of us here are shit at that kind of thing." As he pushes slowly to his feet, he adds, "I appreciate your curbing the impulse."
"You'd think a guy who watched people and pretended to be other people for a living would be better at turning off his mouth." Silas shrugs. "Maybe it's because I've never had this many people to talk to that actually know exactly what I am." He scratches his chin. "But. Whatever."
Snorting once, Jean-Paul says, "I think that you might've just given in to the impulse again." It isn't quite unkind, his dry tease, but most probably wouldn't exactly call it /friendly/, accusing Silas of babbling.
Silas raises his brows. "Babbling is speaking for two sentences around here? Jeez, no wonder people think I'm a motormouth." His tone is a touch dry, but not unkind. "I'll try to communicate only in grunts from now on?"
"Depends on who you ask. There is the 'can't keep quiet' camp and the 'good luck having a conversation with them' camp," Jean-Paul says as he slides his pen inside the coiled spine of his notebook. Guess which camp he's in. GUESS.
"See, that's the thing. There seems to be a lot of people around here who hardly talk at all. So I end up talking to fill the silences, otherwise we end up staring blankly at each other. And frankly, that's not a real fun way to spend my day. And then," Silas tosses up a hand, "I get a reputation for being a babbler, 'cause I end up talking for two."
"Most unfortunate." Inclining his head, Jean-Paul grants Silas a cordial farewell. Before he quite manages to leave, he says, "Alcohol does help, at times, in breaking down the division between the two camps." But he must add, "Not always, though."
Silas snorts. "I reaaally have a feeling that alcohol wouldn't help my talkative problem." He rubs the bridge of his nose and leans both elbows on the console. He scrubs at his face. "I say stupid things to people when I'm perfectly sober. What I gotta do is get the quiet people drinking and stick to ginger ale." He lifts a hand. "Later."
"Fair enough." Countering with a flag of his hand, Jean-Paul makes his way out with only a last, "Later," to echo, thus maintaining the two-camp duality of talker and non.
Lessoning.