06 / 23 / 11 - Cleo, Jean-Paul, Terry
=XF= Cafeteria - First Floor - Titan Enterprises
This isn't a large cafeteria by any means, but it's fully functional, with a variety of food options and seating for fifty or so souls. Along the walls and in the center of the black-and-white tiled room, chairs surround tables, making them easily configurable for just about any size group. The back wall is taken up by the traditional cafeteria line, where a small selection of food is prepared varyingly every day. A chalkboard near the front of the line lists the day's entree, pasta, vegetables, and soups, while an open refrigerator display at the end offers pre-made sandwiches, salads, and drinks to compliment the soda fountain. Although the pickings are a bit slim - especially when it comes to desserts - the two women who cook for the employees of Titan Enterprises know their stuff, and it is without fail delicious.
It is breakfast time. Huzzah! Cleo's tray is laden with fruit salad and eggs and bacon and general breakfast deliciousness, and she's found a spot at a table with a few chairs left. (Because obviously there are NO OTHER CHAIRS OPEN anywhere else in the room. That's how this works.) She is dressed in dark denim shorts and a butter-yellow t-shirt. One leg is curled up under her as she eats.
We really should desc this place as a one table, family-style eatatorium. Terry breezes in, through the line, slowing just long enough to snag up a banana and a glass of OJ. "Hi," she says brightly as she finds one of those few chairs left and dumps herself into it.
That's a good idea. Redesc it and see if anyone notices. "That's not much of a breakfast," Jean-Paul judges as he passes by Terry on his way to the line. He will be back next round.
"He's right," Cleo agrees with a bit of feigned apology to the skew of her expression. "That's one piece of fruit."
"Sure it is," Terry counters them both, though she still looks less than enthused as she peels the banana. Though her breathing has slowed, the traces of an early morning run are still evident in the flush of face and sweat-darkened ring of her hairline.
Jean-Paul returns with a monster omelette, bacon, and granola-ey yogurt and fruit. He dangles a piece of bacon in front of Terry before taking a seat next to her.
"If it's a breakfast," Cleo says, stabbing a bit of melon with her fork, "then it's a really sad breakfast. It wants company."
Terry pinches the bacon between thumb and forefinger, and flashes Jean-Paul a smile before stuffing the end in her mouth. "Like this?" she mumbles around it, grabbing for the glass of orange juice and pulling it close.
"Yeah. Better." Settling with a straight-backed, square-shouldered ease, Jean-Paul picks up his fork to start on his omelette before it can get cold and sad.
"Agreed," Cleo says. Her foot swings idly as she chews on her fruit which apparently is only superior to Terry's fruit because she has more of it.
It's about to get much superior by virtue of not being mashed up. Terry sticks the banana into the glass and picks up a fork (yes, she grabbed that too, shut up) to mash the fruit into the juice while she slowly pulls the bacon strip in, bite by bite.
"/Terry/," Jean-Paul says with his fork partway to his lips and stilled in horror.
"What." Cleo leans forward, vaguely fascinated.
Terry looks up, the bacon still dangling out like a strange lizard tongue. "What what?" she asks around it.
"Ugh." Jean-Paul glances up, away from Terry and her horror, and goes back to eating his omelette.
"You're mashing your banana into your orange juice," Cleo tells her. In case she didn't figure that out.
"Aye," Terry replies, sucking in the last of the bacon and finishing that portion of the horror before continuing (thank goodness). "It's just a smoothie without the milk."
"Uh huh." Jean-Paul watches Terry out of the corner of his eye. "With a fork."
"It's more like you dropped a banana in your juice," Cleo says.
"The fork comes out." Terry sticks her tongue (the real one) out at Jean-Paul and glances across the table at Cleo while she rattles the fork against the side of the glass, mashing banana as she goes.
"The fork comes out," Jean-Paul repeats under his breath. "Ladies and gentlemen--" Well, ladies. "--you trust the fate of the free world into /those/ hands."
"You know," Cleo says, sounding helpful more than discouraging, "I bet they have a blender back in the kitchen somewhere."
Terry turns her shoulder enough to look back over it toward the kitchens before giving it a shrug and shifting back. "Too much trouble," is her judgement. Jean-Paul gets a narrow-eyed sideglance, then a lip twitch.
Jean-Paul blands back at Terry. "Nice problem-solving," he teases.
Cleo finally wrinkles her nose at the mashy-mashy banana. "Less gross, though," she says.
Terry smirks at Jean-Paul, then lifts the fork out and catches a bit of drippy banana juice in her mouth. She rolls her eyes ceilingwards and considers it. "Eh."
"God, you are going to make me lose my appetite." Jean-Paul pushes his fruit (and yogurt and granola) away, but he proves himself a liar by still eating his omelette.
"How does it taste?" Cleo wonders, leaning forward.
"Like thick orange juice." Terry wrinkles her nose and pushes the glass away. She leans close to Jean-Paul and eyes his plate for more bacon.
There's lots of bacon on Jean-Paul's plate. He watches Terry warily as she leans in his direction, but he is a bit belated to think he might need to protect the pork. His hand comes up to cover the plate after quite a delay, with plenty of time for thieving.
"Sounds appetizing," Cleo lies. She eats some of her own bacon.
Terry manages to snag a piece, thus justifying his belated protection. "Events have been leaving me with less need for appetizing," she says vaguely.
"Whatever that means." Jean-Paul scowls at her bacon-thieving ways, but he moves his hand, having been too late to save it. "Hey, I've got a question for you." His glance at Terry excludes Cleo. /Rude/.
"What /does/ that mean?" Cleo asks. She does not throw a hissy, but that doesn't make Jean-Paul less /rude/.
Terry shrugs and looks unsettled (maybe the banana juice isn't sitting well?), then looks at Jean-Paul questioningly. Why are you being rude?
Jean-Paul isn't being rude!! He continues on without any awareness of any kind of courtesy fail, either, when he asks Terry, "How would you describe Jamie's different duplicates?"
Cleo cants her head and falls quiet at the question, eating her eggs instead of interrupting.
Terry blinks, then narrows her eyes thoughtfully. "Like... their existence, or their differences?"
"Differences, although now I'm curious how you'd answer the first," Jean-Paul says between bites of omelette. He glances at Cleo on the off-chance she might have insight. No?
Cleo swings her feet. No.
Terry sits back in her seat, slumped to Jean-Paul's straight back. She folds her arms in front of her and looks almost pained. Thinking is hard. "I have not had so much interaction with them lately, to be sure," she muses, continuing with, "But they have always seemed to be... hm. Independent bit's o' him. Like... You know how you think a thing, then get distracted? They have seemed like the thing you think, gone off on their own. No distraction. Just..." She flaps a hand. YOU KNOW.
"Sure," Jean-Paul says with a tip of his head. HE KNOWS. "But I was asking more, ah, the /types/ of types, if that makes sense. Recurring patterns or whatever." Glancing at Cleo, he includes her by asking, "Talked to Jamie much yet?"
"Not really," Cleo says, sounding curious about the whole thing nonetheless. "Sorry." SHE WOULD BE MORE HELPFUL IF SHE COULD.
I bet ADAM would have something to contribute. Though maybe this would have been a shorter scene. "Well, right," Terry agrees. "I suppose I was meaning the same thing, in a way. He had some that seemed to be focused on... needing, or pranking, or being cruel or kind."
"Yeah. But I'm asking what kind of focuses you've seen, not that he focuses," Jean-Paul says. "Needing? Pranking, cruelty, kindness? I've never really known him to be cruel," he says, taking exception with only one.
"Crazy," Cleo comments as the two discuss, "that a person can be, like -- lots of people."
"You have never had himself tell you he killed his entire team, and that it was your fault," Terry answers darkly, glancing away for a brief moment until Cleo's comment pulls her attention back. She nods. "Tis a difficult thing to wrap one's mind around. I am not sure even /he/ has." She looks over at Jean-Paul. "I have seen him glory in computer work, and twitch if he sat still too long. He has been Philip, and not Jamie to me." She stops and shakes her head slightly. "If I were to list off all the different sides I have seen of him, I still could not be saying with certainty which were 'patterns', and which were just him."
Jean-Paul snorts a wordless agreement that echoes Terry's doubt as to whether Madrox has wrapped his brain around his own weirdness. "Welcome to X-Factor," he says to Cleo. "Yeah. That's the problem I have. I mean -- Phillip is a little easier, because he'll identify himself like that. That's why I'm asking people, I guess. I can't tell."
Cleo's brows hitch upwards. "When did /that/ happen?" she asks Terry.
Terry grimaces slightly and shrugs. "I cannot meself. I don't even know if it matters. How much is him, how much is independent..." She makes a gesture, then looks over to Cleo. "While back. His team was out while we were on lockdown. He said it was a way o' testing us."
"Mm. I would've said it didn't matter, but since -- Boston, I guess some of his duplicates have been pulling away a little more. I don't know. There is no constant but change with Jamie, sometimes," says Jean-Paul, but his exasperation is a little too-soft, too-warm in his eyes. He reaches for his bacon.
Cleo watches the turn and shift of Jean-Paul's expression curiously, but doesn't ask any embarrassing questions. "Is it all him?" she asks. "Or, I mean -- how independent is independent?"
"That's the question," Terry says, scrunching up one side of her face and giving her head another shake, though her eyes slide to a stop in the corner of her eye, watching Jean-Paul. "He came to us from Boston. Perhaps going back there..." She trails off, though the speculation is open and inviting.
Jean-Paul shakes his head, but he doesn't elaborate on what he said to Terry. Instead, he glances at Cleo and says, "Good question."
"Huh," Cleo says to the two non-answers before she lifts some bacon to munch.
Quiet reigns, everyone gets wet. Terry sits still for a little bit, then rises and pushes her chair back. "I need to shower," she says, grabbing her glass and fork with one hand and laying her other on Jean-Paul's shoulder in brief contact. COOTIES. She goes.
Oh God bad-smoothie cooties. "Yeah, you do," Jean-Paul shoots after Terry and then goes back to eating peacefully. BYE TERRY.
"I think he's calling you smelly," Cleo calls after Terry in turn before shaking her head disapprovingly at Jean-Paul.
"What? She stole my bacon," Jean-Paul says as defense to the shake of Cleo's head.
"Fair enough," Cleo says, switching sides freely and easily back to Jean-Paul's. Clearly he's right. "So this whole Jamie thing," she says as she spears some more melon. "Are you just trying to -- figure him out or whatever? I haven't really talked much to him."
He's SO right. Jean-Paul, having finished the protein part of his meal with eggs and bacon, doubles back to pick up his spoon and return to yogurt. "Not exactly. I mean, kind of. His birthday's coming up and I think I might get him -- them -- a few presents."
"/Oh/." Cleo nods as she follows along. "So that's why you're asking about, like -- types. Or whatever."
"Yeah. It will either be great or it will be terrible." Jean-Paul shrugs. w/e
Cleo laughs lightly. "Well," she says. "It's the thought that counts?"
"Mm. I'll tell him that if all else fails," Jean-Paul says, smile faint.
"Well, /really/, people shouldn't complain about getting presents," Cleo says firmly.
"I'll tell him that, too," Jean-Paul says with a wider smile.
"And if I bump into him," Cleo adds, "I'll make extensive mental notes."
"Just don't tell him." Jean-Paul glances at Cleo /somewhat/ seriously. "It's a surprise."
"Right," Cleo says readily. She lifts a hand to tip an imaginary hat. "Under the hat. I get it."
"Thanks." Jean-Paul lapses quiet and eyes Cleo sort of sidelong. Does she look trustworthy??
All wide-eyed and innocent, Cleo certainly looks like -- the /appearance/ of trustworthiness.
Good enough. Jean-Paul goes back to eating.
"So do you still go skiing and stuff?" Cleo asks. "I've only been a couple times. I fell down a lot."
Oh she is still talking. Jean-Paul digs out a blueberry from beneath the yogurt, drags up some granola to go with it, and then says, "Not as much as I'd like to. I do go, but--."
She can stop if you want. "Mm." Cleo suddenly straightens up a bit. "Do you ever go /water/-skiing?" she asks him. "It's awesome."
"No. I have, but it was a pretty inferior experience," Jean-Paul dismisses her awesome fun.
Cleo frowns. "I dunno," she says. "I'm pretty sure it was totally badass."
Jean-Paul leans back and considers Cleo. "I'm pretty sure you were wrong."
"I'm pretty sure /you/ were wrong."
Jean-Paul gives Cleo a /look/. "How old are you, anyway? 19? 20?"
Cleo scowls and wiggles in her seat a little. "Twenty-three."
"Twenty-one?" Jean-Paul asks.
"/Twenty-three/."
"Twenty-one," Jean-Paul settles on. "A friend of mine is turning twenty-one on Saturday. What was you favorite 'I turned twenty-one, yes I'm over the 'I can drink now' jokes' present?" That is a lot of quotes.
"Water-skiing," Cleo answers.
"Christ." Despite himself, Jean-Paul smiles. "I'll take Tom water-skiing, then."
Cleo grins, though not despite herself. "But seriously, I always think that activities have been my best presents. /Maybe/ I didn't actually go water-skiing for my twenty-first birthday, but it would have been fun. That's me, though." She suddenly stops and smiles slowly. "You should take Tom /diving/," she says, just a bit mischievous.
"/Diving/?" Jean-Paul repeats with emphasis.
"He totally liked when we went diving!" Cleo insists with stifled laughter.
Jean-Paul regards Cleo in a moment's long, skeptical silence.
"We were swapping mutation displays," Cleo says, as if that totally explains everything.
"Diving?" Jean-Paul asks.
"We were at the pool," Cleo says.
Jean-Paul glances up in a prayer for patience.
"He showed me telepathy stuff so then I said I show him teleporting stuff and he said okay," Cleo says, entirely convinced of the rightness of her actions. "I told him to hold his breath."
"And then?" Jean-Paul asks with a slow-inching arch of his eyebrows.
"And then we went diving," Cleo says.
"I think I'm not taking him diving for his birthday," Jean-Paul says and finishes the last of his breakfast.
"He thought it was funny once he came up for air," Cleo says, which is perhaps not /entirely/ accurate.
"I bet he did." Jean-Paul totally believes her.
"That's why he went '/FUCK/.'" Obviously.
Jean-Paul bites back a crack of laughter. "I bet that is /exactly/ why."
"But then he maybe kind've sort've smiled," Cleo continues. "So I think that, deep down, he wanted to go surprise diving."
"I'm surprised he didn't murder you," Jean-Paul says, more or less entirely truthful.
Cleo cracks a laugh. "Is he that uptight?" she wonders wryly.
"Not really. But you teleported him into cold water. /I'd/ murder you -- but I'm uptight," Jean-Paul adds.
"I teleported him /above/ cold water," Cleo corrects.
"That would make a difference to me," Jean-Paul says, thoughtful. "But not to most people, who are subject to gravity's whims."
"Oooh," Cleo says, clearly catching onto a thought she hasn't had yet. "How good are your reflexes?"
Jean-Paul snorts and leans back with his milk. "Better than yours."
Cleo narrows her eyes. "Oh yeah?"
"Yes." Jean-Paul flicks a loose nugget of granola at her.
Cleo dodges with LIGHTNING SPEED. J/k she kind of swats at it and still get hit on the forehead. Okay she is not Jean-Paul.
"Yeah. Better," Jean-Paul says.
Cleo frowns and throws a piece of melon at Jean-Paul's face.
Jean-Paul catches it with a delicate pinch of his fingers. The snappy speed of his movements are more than human. He did not lie. He offers it to Cleo, unsquished.
"Show-off," Cleo says, even as she takes the melon back and pops it into her mouth.
"Yeah." Jean-Paul collects his tray and stands. "Try that on me, though, and I'm taking you in with me."
"Oh, I totally went diving with Tom," Cleo says cheerfully. "I'm not /that/ mean."
"I am." Jean-Paul and his tray leave. Good breakfast bb.
BYE BB.
Breakfast with the LADIES.