Manuel and Jean-Paul - Backdated to Wednesday

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

Manuel stops by to get information on what happened Tuesday. Jean-Paul meet Valentia. Valentia gets chocolate.



The group of emotions that had walked in the other day had thrown Manuel off as they all were elevated and otherwise, unbearingly uncomfortable to deal with. It had caught him off guard and he'd errected an emotional shield against it, choosing to maintain ignorance. It was good and well to be ignorant, however he could not ignore the emotional signatures that had burned an emotional mark in his memory when he lowered them to double check that he was not focusing on one person but many. It reached to a point in his curiosity that he was no longer able to ignore it.

Given that it was mentally exhausting to keep his shield up on a constant basis, Manuel lowered it as he made his way to one person that stood out in those emotions, though he had only a brief grasp of what Jean-Paul was feeling. In Spanish, he explained to his sister that she shouldn't touch anything that was not hers, which thankfully, was everything and that she was to be polite at all times. When they arrived at the door, her hand was firmly in his and she was semi-tucked into his side as he knocked. For a brief moment, he attempted to pull her from his side, but the struggle was difficult. The more he pulled, the harder she clung.

The knock on the door elicited a brief prickle of annoyance from the suite's occupant.

"Who is it and are you bringing me food, good books, or offering me carnal company?"

Manuel exchanged a brief look with his sister, who peaked her interest from behind his thigh. He considered opening the door, however, it was rude to do so and he was attempting to set a good example in mannerisms.

"It is Manuel," he replied. "I do not have any books, nor good company, yet food is a possibility if you have an appetite for small children." He paused and considered how horrifically disgusting that sounded.

Disgusting or not, it did at least get Jean-Paul to the door. The Quebecois had the look of someone who had not been sleeping at all well lately.

"Fee-fi-foe-fum," Jean-Paul intoned in deadpan as he took in the pair at the door. "Surely you cannot be so over being an older brother that you've decided to throw the child to the local ogre, so I suppose I had best let you in and see what it up." He ushered the pair to the couch and headed to the kitchen for drinks. "Milk will do for the girl, I assume?"

"Local ogre, Bishop, Morgan, Pick one. They are all of the same skin. Specifically the last two are determined to make my life somewhat of a living hell, if they ever get the chance." He walked in, which was somewhat of a struggle between him and Valentia as she sensed his curious speculation at the exhaustion set in the subtle creases of the frenchman's eyes. He peeled her off of him long enough to sit down before she climbed into his lap, grey plaided dress tucked under her rear and tucked her arms into themselves. Her brown eyes fixed on the taller man while Manuel set his cane aside and attempted to shift her into a better position, lest she put his leg to sleep.

"Milk will be fine. Thank you." He considered fighting with her to sit down and upright on the couch but the attempt, he knew, would be futile at best. "Should I being adequate food as bribary next time? Are the French easily swayed in that regard?"

"When next you see a Frenchman, ask him." Jean-Paul wasn't snapping, just tired. "I just needed some motivation to move from the couch." He returned to the couch with herbal tea for the adults and milk and a nanaimo bar that had been languishing in the freezer for Valentia. "I'm surprised to see you at my door, I must confess."

He thanked Jean-Paul and picked up the nanaimo bar for Valentia, who flickered her gaze down to the bar. She didn't need encouragement where chocolate was concerned and took it up, licking a finger, to which Manuel's hand closed over and corrected her on it. It was a subtle gesture but one she understood. Normally he wouldn't give her chocolate but he supposed it was a small treat she could have. The tea was most welcome once his sister was distracted enough that he would not spill on her.

"I am in a much better frame of mind now that I can shield, however, I cannot maintain a protective hand over my emotions for a long length of time. There are times I must lower them and oddly enough, I picked up quite a bit from an unusual group of people.You were one of them," he regarded the man from behind his mug and set it down safely on the table nearby.

"I have been spread thin as of late," Jean-Paul volunteered, "so I have been more...on edge than usual. I am not quite sure what you are looking for, though." It wasn't so much a matter of distrust, especially given than Manuel could now control his shields, but a desire to head off a repeat of the empath's last bout of overprotectiveness. Having his own sister around had probably not dampened Manuel's protective instincts in the least.

He tried a different route, equally careful with his words. "You have not been well," he observed. "I would have assumed by now that some third party intervention would have occurred. Perhaps you are simply working too hard and need to get out?" he asked, though it was not necessarily prying. He worked too hard himself, drowning in his work on his powers, his sister and reestablishing contacts through the hellfire club. It was not uncommon to do such a thing, for those who went through post tramatic stress to also indulge in their work.

"I am fine." Jean-Paul regarded Manuel again, then Valentia. "She looks just like you. It is uncanny. When I met my sister, I felt as if I had known her all my life, even though we had known each other for only minutes." Subtle mental links helped with such things, he supposed. "I wanted to protect her from the first."

By now, Valentia had finished the bar and went to carefully lick her fingers, which Manuel stopped again. He pulled a hankerchief from his pocket and gave it to her. "It is... difficult," he said. "Trialing of a different sort. She is impatient to communicate now and her individual demands are different from the collective emotions of the mansion." He new a subject change when he saw one and let it go, simply because he was fighting with Valentia to clean her hands before she touched anything.

"~Wait~" he said in Spanish and turned to JP, "May we use your washroom for a moment?"

"Of course." Jean-Paul watched them go, frowning slightly. As they returned, "The field trip did not go smoothly. I've made my report to Xavier and Storm, but some of the students would like to keep things...quiet. No one wants another upheaval right now, I think."

Now seated with Valentia next to him instead of on him, he picked up the tea and took a drink from it. "That would explain why no one said anything. Students here are very determined not to talk about things when they say they do not want to talk about it. A far cry from a typical teenager. You, Callie and Penny were the only ones I was able to depict out of the various emotional signatures. I thought to wait this out, however, it feels as though it is taking time to be saken off, whatever it was that happened."

"It has only been a day." Jean-Paul glanced down at the bandage on his right hand. "I do not mind talking about it so much, understand, but I would ask for your discretion in this matter if I did."

"I do not require details. Callie is Valentia's babysitter, you see. And if she is not in the right frame of mind, it is not a good idea for me to be leaving her with my sister. Penny is a more subtle concern that I draw a protective hand over from afar. And you I draw much emotion on, throughout various parts of the day when my shields are down. Fine is a very general term I use when I am less than willing to indulge in my own problems."

Jean-Paul contemplated the matter a moment longer, then gave in. He could at least empathize with Manuel's desire to know that none of the recent madness would touch his sister.

"The field trip turned into a mass kidnapping by a man known as Arcade. No one was badly hurt, but we were all lead to believe that our companions had been killed at some point during the ordeal and that we were helpless to save them." He didn't bother to elaborate on that; he wasn't sure it was necessary to belabor the guilt and rage that would come with such events. "Callie seems to be handling it well so far. I am not sure who you mean by 'Penny', however."

"Yvette," he offered passively. "I admit, I do not follow what she does as much as I should." Setting the mug down, he watched his sister, who had taken it upon herself to move from the couch and walk around the room, looking at things. Manuel's eyes followed her, but broke for a moment if only to give a brief glance to Jean-Paul, acknowledging their conversation. "I will not pry - your business is your own - meaning everyone will know it eventually," he said drily with an air of humour.

"Almost certainly," Jean-Paul agreed. "But that is nothing new. So long as it takes the news enough time to spread that the immediacy has worn off, I think it will be fine. As for Yvette..." Jean-Paul considered. "She was with me the whole time. We were lucky, in a way...we did not have to see so much of what happened and we managed to hold our own well enough once separated from the others."

"I am glad to hear she was with someone, though I do not believe she is as frail as she once was." He frowned as his sister picked something up and sensing his disapproval, for once, she listened. Setting the book down, she moved onto something else. "Do you plan to permanently mold yourself to the couch?" he inquired.

"It seemed a good enough plan." Jean-Paul shrugged. "I'll likely spend the evening with Nathan and I have no other business at hand...or at least none that I have the energy to do anything about. You may want to keep your sister away from the rat cage. Nicodemus does nip at fingers."

"~Leave the rat. It bites,~" he translated and she recoiled her fingers, content to watch. "I am taking Valentia to see a reading with a popular author, Robert Munch, if you've heard of him. I would suggest you join us, although being around so many children saps my energy, therefore it is likely to do the same to you. It does do us well to go out and be normal on occasion. Perhaps Nathan would come?" He highly doubted it. The telepath didn't seem to be in such a great mindframe to even discuss little things, such as raising children. "Is he well?"

"Thank you for the offer, but I don't think I have the self-restraint to be out in public right now." Jean-Paul sighed. "I'll likely pass out until evening anyway." The question about Nate drew a casual shrug. "Well enough. I simply enjoy his company." Half truth. "And I feel the need to be around someone who has 'been there and done that' after this sort of unexpected adventure. I'm still more used to looking out for myself than for others."

"Self restraint? Do you feel you will lash out at kids?" This drew a casual raise of his brow. There was no reason to pursue Nathan considering he'd had enough of a glimpse to realize that something was very wrong. It could be easily said that Nathan had the responses of a man who'd had a number of concussions. Gesturing for his sister to come over, he conveyed to her that it was almost time to leave and finished off his tea, before setting it down again.

"I would have little enough patience for children or anyone else, I think. So best if I stay here and nap." Jean-Paul rose and stretched. "It is good that you stopped by, at any rate; I had not seen the little one around yet."

"I am afraid the reading is for next week, however if you change your mind, it will give me a reason not to enlist Lillian. She is very scary with children in general, but strength is what I require to keep Valentia on a leash." He did enjoy her company but preferred to subject Valentia to different people, forcing her to adapt better.

"~Valentia, come,~" he switched tongues easily and took her hand, emotionally praising her for being well behaved. For once however he noticed she did not want her milk. "Your hospitality was appreciated. Perhaps we will inflict ourselves on you again, if only for another nanaimo bar." The same way Manuel did to Nathan.