07 / 16 / 10 - Isabel, Jean-Paul
With the last plans finalized in consultation with their new friends, all hands are free to track the slant of the sun across the sky, to watch the minutes pass on their watch -- to wait, in other words. Food only makes the wait go so fast. As most gather to eat before tonight's festivities, Jean-Paul makes himself scarce. He gathers a plate of something that is probably packed with proteins and carbs and then takes it to walk a long distance from the campsite -- and a longer distance from the FBI. Maybe he hates people. His pace is leisurely, defined by human limits in the underbrush.
Isabel has long since abandoned the campsite, although she's not gone so far as to over-exert herself. She finds herself in Jean-Paul's way, standing some distance away from a tree pelting pebbles and small sticks at it with the force of telekinesis. At the sound of footsteps in the undergrowth she looks up, head turning and gaze snapping to fix on him. She watches him for a moment, then lifts a hand in a stilled wave. Hey.
"Hey," Jean-Paul echoes aloud. He glances at the tree and then takes a seat on a rocky outcrop at some distance from Isabel's target. He eats. Between bites, he asks, "Did you get dinner yet?" in a mild, easy fashion like there's nothing at all out of the ordinary about the day, about the afternoon, about the night.
Isabel turns to pick her way toward Jean-Paul as he settles in, pebbles and sticks left to fall to the ground as she does. She shakes her head, her dark braid snaking across her back with the movement. "I'm waiting for it to clear out a bit," she answers. She jerks her chin toward his plate, wondering a dry, "How is it?"
"Edible." Jean-Paul proffers his vague food. Maybe it is pasta with meat sauce: easy to prepare from jars and boxes. Maybe it is peanut butter and jelly: likewise with the carb and protein and perfectly portable. Whatever it is, it isn't gourmet, but it serves. "I didn't make it, so it's safe, anyway. Were you practicing or impatient?"
Isabel laughs briefly, quietly, and runs her hand over the tight pull of her hair. "Impatient," she answers as she stops to hover over Jean-Paul. "I don't need practice to throw things at trees."
"I don't know. Maybe you were throwing things in a very particularly tricky way," teases Jean-Paul with a tense, dry manner. He fiddles with his food, slow to eat. He picks at it. One might imagine he has little appetite.
Isabel finds a nearby tree to hitch herself into, a slanted lean as she digs her shoulder into the bark and folds her arms over her chest. "I was playing with knives a bit earlier," she admits. "But throwing them with teke isn't much better than throwing them by hand, and stabbing--" She shrugs, shoulders jerking up. "Pointless right now, anyway."
"At least you can use teke to make sure the pointy bit goes in," Jean-Paul says. He glance at the tree she was targeting, looking it over for marks indicative of being STABBED. Looking back down, he says, "I don't know what we're going to do about the FBI. I'm still not clear on Rebound's plan there."
"Not if I want it to have any force," Isabel answers with a shake of her head. There are in fact some marks of STABBATION on the tree. They're nothing to write home about. Isabel blows out a breath that turns, at the last moment, into laughter. "Our plan is to wait and wait and then pray and pray. There's a hell of a lot riding on every single shoulder."
"Numbers are a bitch." Hands lowering, Jean-Paul looks tense. Not worried, not scared -- tense, with an uneasy anticipation about what will come written on his features. "I'm fast, but I don't know about taking out all three gunnery positions, even with the birds."
"I'm good, but I don't know about getting eight shackles off and getting out of that building with four injured and exhausted prisoners," Isabel counters. Her fingers flex, then curl into a ball.
"Mm." Agreement muted, Jean-Paul glances over at Isabel. With a cant of his head, he says, "With any luck they will have bigger concerns than you guys, anyway."
"With any luck," Isabel agrees on a dry murmur. She pauses for a moment, gaze drifting beyond Jean-Paul before she draws it back to him to ask, "Are you honestly worried about the gun towers?"
Jean-Paul does not immediately reply. He takes another bite or two of his really vague food. Then he says, "I can handle it; you, Gambit, and Magik can get people out."
"Awesome," Isabel returns with a snort. "Thanks for the pep talk."
"You're welcome." Lips twitching, Jean-Paul doesn't quite smile. "Wish I had better control over some aspects of my mutation. Might help. But technology will suffice where nature has failed."
"Yeah?" Isabel asks, tipping her head down at Jean-Paul with a spark of curiousity. "Like what?"
Jean-Paul glances over at Isabel and asks, with a bare downward curve of his lips flattened away, "When Jamie had my mutation, he could produce light on his own. No problem. I never had. Didn't know I could. I've had to really fight to do it just a bare handful of times since then. Can't do it reliably."
Isabel does not, perhaps, quite get the Seriousness of this matter, because her gaze on Jean-Paul is a little baffled, and she can't quite keep it out of her voice when she says, "Produce-- light?"
The baffled note draws a twitch to Jean-Paul's lips that is shaded toward a wry smile. "Yeah. Light. Didn't see Jamie do it?"
"I was avoiding Jamie Madrox as hard as I possibly could just then," Isabel answers with a tone gone so dry as to slide toward dangerous. "I've got to say, given a choice between the speed and the flying and /light/--"
"Ah. Yeah. I guess." Tiptoeing on away from those dangerous waters, Jean-Paul smiles further with the rub of his thumb down his nose. "I know. Fingertip flashlights, much less impressive. It's ... a small thing, I guess. But if I could just mange it, maybe I could keep that third group's eyesight from recovering." He shrugs. "Not today, though."
"Ah," Isabel answers as comprehension begins to dawn. She's silent for a moment, tapping her fingers against her crossed arms, and then answers, "Even if you don't. Even if they're back and blinking into vision for ten seconds, thirty. You'll have them down fast enough that it's a minimal risk. Take an extra grenade with you in case you need to blind them again before you go in to tranq, and move fast."
"Mm-hmm. Like I said, I'll have to rely on technology." Rolling his shoulders back, Jean-Paul tips a shrug. "Carry a flashlight. Take extra grenades. Use multi-charge grenades. Mutation rendered superfluous."
"Yeah, you're definitely superfluous, Jean-Paul," Isabel answers with a complete lack of sympathy. "The way we're relying on you to /fly in/ and use your superspeed to tranq six guys in a matter of seconds."
"Just part of me," Jean-Paul says, any would-be humility ruined by his following, "The rest of me: /very/ useful."
Isabel breaks into sudden laughter, the sort of light-voiced sound that bodes a darker stress underneath. She bends her head, wiggling a hand free to scrub at her eyes for a moment before she admits, "I'm the same way. I'm sitting here thinking about things that might be wrong, gun shot wounds and broken bones and bleeding arteries, and remembering how much I /don't know yet/ and how much I could /conceiveably do/ if only--"
"You're still useful," Jean-Paul promises, "even if you aren't perfect."
"Aw, shucks, Jean-Paul," Isabel responds, batting her lashes.
"You should go eat," says Jean-Paul with a jerk of his head back over his shoulder toward the campsite. "Can't have you fainting out there."
"Want some time alone to stare anxiously into the distance?" Isabel answers. Her tone is light and barely teasing, but she straightens away from the tree as she says it, arms swinging free.
"Sure. All best brooding time is solo," Jean-Paul says. He gives Isabel a tense smile, and tips his head.
"Yeah," Isabel agrees. She stands paused for a moment, looking down at Jean-Paul, and the rolls her shoulders back and straightens. Her lips part, and it looks for a moment as if she might add something else. Instead, she simply returns the smile, weak, and stirs to go. "See you in a bit."
"You too." Left on his own, Jean-Paul does not stare anxiously into the distance. He stares anxiously at his very vague food, as if in the hope that it is really edible after all. It takes him a while to finish it. Eventually, /eventually/ he returns.
No jitters here!