Ilad, John
At a certain point before arriving at John Allerdyce's cell, guards stop everyone entering and make them strip off all weapons and electronics, anything that produces flame. For DHS agent Isaac Cohen, they only do a visual search of the man, trusting his cover to rightfully surrender these items. The cell he's escorted to is bare, small. It's made almost completely of poured concrete, down to the bed on which lays a thin mattress to serve as padding. It's on this that the blond man lays, his arms crossed behind his head as he watches the forms shifting beyond the opaque door until it opens to allow Ilad entrance.
His coat shed, all his electronics set aside with the exception of his earpiece, his weapon vanished from its holster: Ilad steps into the small cell with a particular impassivity of expression, his suit gray-brown over a dark green collared shirt and a silvery silken tie. He stands tall and straight, his military roots written plainly into the erectness of his carriage, and casts a long, considering look over the man on the bed.
St. John Allerdyce's best color isn't orange, bright in the jumpsuit he wears. No where near as formal as Ilad's clothing. The man doesn't sit up, still stretched along his bed as he asks bluntly, "Yeah, then? What do you want?"
"I'm here to make friends," Ilad says, tone very mild. His accent is a heavy drape, weighted over the words. He doesn't move from his solid, straight stance; neither do his eyes move from the other man's features. His study is intent and focused, wholly unwavering.
"I don't want any friends myself, thanks. Can't even get a break from you Mormons in prison," John replies in bitter humor, his shoulders shrugged slightly as he watches Ilad carefully.
"Indeed?" Ilad's expression does not alter, nor do his eyes flick away; but his voice does shift and roll, expression a kind of skeptical hue of surprise. "You have shown such a remarkable facility for making friends. Even from your secure little cell."
"Have I? Not like I've got much else to entertain me here," is answered slowly, a pointed glance around the bare cell. John doesn't even have so much as a television. "What do you want, mate, really?"
Ilad seems to consider the question for a long moment's focused silence. "Tell me about Jack Bentham."
"Why should I?" John asks, finally shifting on his bed to sit up.
"Because," Ilad says, with the very slightest of smiles ghosting at the corners of his mouth, "you'd like to keep this conversation friendly."
"Or what? You can't put me into anything worse than this, sorry to say." There's a weighted look over Ilad as John rakes fingers through his hair, measuring.
"You don't think so?" Ilad asks mildly. He shifts into an easier stance, his weight settling on his heels as he tucks his hands into the unsearched pockets of his gray-brown jacket. "Tell me about the signal you're expecting through that window."
"I don't," John says, firmly, gaze narrowing slightly on Ilad but without any indication either way that the question hits home.
"I don't need anything you have to say as testimony," Ilad remarks, as though apropos of nothing much. "Nothing you tell me will ever enter the legal system one way or the other. But you are fearless, aren't you, Mr. Allerdyce."
"Was that a question?" is asked blandly, John watching Ilad with a slow carefulness.
"A supposition," Ilad says, with the barest shadow of another smile. It fades quickly. "You know much of fear. But only from the other direction." He withdraws his hand from his pocket. The silver-metallic gleam of the lighter between his fingers is unmistakable. "Does your signal involve one of these? I think that would be nicely poetic."
John's gaze catches and holds on the lighter, one of pain and desire and need. His fingers twitch and close into a firm ball as he asks, "What makes you think there's a signal?"
Ilad turns the lighter slowly between his fingertips, and then curls it into his fist, hiding it behind the shield of golden skin and knuckle and bone. "When do you expect it?" he says.
"Why should I tell you, human scum?" John practically spits, anger sliding into his mood and expression as the tease of a lighter disapears.
Ilad's eyes glint, though he does not smile again. "Tell me about the signal you're expecting, John," he says, glancing easily toward the window and then returning his glitter-bright dark eyes to Pyro's face again. He walks a few paces closer to him across the room, coming to stand looming over the bed with the promise of the lighter still locked in the close of his fist. "When do you expect it? Is it your role to do more than stand clear of the walls?"
John only meets the other man's gaze for so long before he drops back to the closed fist. Finally, he says, "Give me the lighter and I'll tell you whatever you want to know."
Ilad smiles. "Oh, yes," he says, "desire, fear. Carrot--" He opens the fist again, poking the lighter up into view again between two fingers with his thumb. Then he reaches with his other hand to tweak John's chin with his off hand. "--and stick. You know I have what you want. Consider also that I might be something to fear."
John jerks away from the touch, anger showing again though he has no where to retreat in the small cell. "I don't know what the signal is," he answers, flatly.
"Tell me when you expect it," Ilad answers, mild to that flatness. "Tell me about Jack Bentham."
"What do you think of Jack Bentham?" John asks, his tone fairly dismissive as he looks up to Ilad and curving a brow.
Ilad lifts the lighter to his lips, pressing a kiss against its base. "I don't think he's your cousin, Brother John."
"No," John answers, his gaze skimming over the lighter once again as it's lifted before him. "Not my cousin or any relation. Just some puppy who wants to rebuild what Magneto started."
"Mm." Ilad is quiet for a moment, studying John's features and the slant of his gaze with an inscrutable intensity. He says, "When do you expect the signal?"
"I'm not likely to tell you if the puppy has a chance to get me out, now am I? Not unless I have a better thing guaranteed," is said slowly, John smiling only slightly.
"You're already being moved well away from this line of sight," Ilad tells John, kindly in response to his logic. "You'll never see the signal you don't think you'll recognize. When do you expect it?"
{PrisonBreak} Dante: Chol, problems back at base. Visitors. Morpheus has been shot, Northstar and Polaris are out. One hostile is out, and another is not going to be waking up. Ever.
"I'd rather be moved to a different facility. This place is hell," John replies honestly, his gaze sliding to the door and lingering at the rest of the room.
Ilad pauses at the buzz of something particularly unexpected in his ear, at his earpiece. He pauses still longer, a moment spent almost perfectly still, and then backs away a few paces from Pyro's bed. Less molesty over here, anyway. He growls a low murmur into his comm. He draws a long breath through his nose, closes his eyes, and then opens them as he glances back at John again. "Do you imagine a lesser hell at some other facility?" he asks, as though amused.
{PrisonBreak} Ilad: I will need a full briefing. For now, all speed to taking care of the wounded.
{PrisonBreak} Dante: On it.
John pushes to his feet, claiming more space in his cell as he considers Ilad's question with a low look at the other man. "I don't think there's any place that could be worse than this. I'm already here for life," he answers, only a low shot of regret through his words almost unnoticable.
"Yes," Ilad says, with the briefest flash of a tight smile. "That is what you reap, when you sow terror into the hearts of millions."
"Apparently." Slightly bitter, very dry, John looks to Ilad again, considering. "And now you want me to give up even a tiny bit of hope, for--? What?"
"Because you know all there is to know about fire, smoke, and flame," Ilad tells him, "but not nearly enough about the taste of ashes." He draws a long breath, glances up at the ceiling, and then returns a long and steady stare to the other man's eyes.
"Are you going to teach me about ashes?" John asks, though he steps away from Ilad, gaze tearing with his movements. "I think this whole place has taught me enough."
"I think it clearly has not." Ilad blinks once, slowly. "So; you would like to be moved to another prison, hm?"
"That would be nice," is said in mild agreement, though John turns back to the man with a slightly narrowed gaze.
"I see. That makes it -- the plan was to frighten your guards with a smokescreen of broken brick, scare them into moving you to another prison, where your comrades to be would assault the convoy and free you?" Ilad inclines his head to John, a hard glint waking once more in his eyes. "Thank you, John. You have been very enlightening. Is there anything else you would like to tell me before I depart?"
John's lips tighten, press together as Ilad speaks. He doesn't, the threat of departure spurring him to lunge forward across the small space of the cell. He doesn't try to fight the other man except to try to grab the lighter.
Ilad has been expecting an attack since he brought the lighter from his pocket, and his reflexes are quick. The coveted metallic object closed in his fist, Ilad turns in an easy pivot into the lunge, leading with the thwack of his arm in a clothesline strike across John's throat.
The fight is pretty anti-climatic for Ilad as the force leaves John choking for breath, his own hand wrapping in reflex around his neck. He scrambles away from the man, his gaze dark and narrowed.
Ilad shakes his head, the reproof in his expression almost gentle. He says, "Good-bye, John Allerdyce. I could almost pity you for what you have wrought yourself." Then he turns his back, pressing the indicator to summon the guards to let him out.
The guards are quick, well trained. The door opens rather quickly even as John spits, "I don't want your pity."
"I know what you want," Ilad answers, and does not give it to him; he leaves with the guards, and the unenviable Pyro is left to stew.
In which Ilad is a total dick to Pyro. GMing by Meg.