Jean-Phillipe and Marie-Ange (Backdated)

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Marie-Ange stops by Jean-Phillipe's suite after everyone gets back from Genosha with takeout. A lot of it. Jean-Phillipe has an interesting objet d'art.


"How much food did you -order-, cousin?" Jean-Phillipe asked as he set bags down on the table in the common area of his and Laurie's suite. Marie-Ange had arrived carrying a truly startling number of bags for their belated watching of Eurovision. Once he had set down the bags she had passed him, he picked up one of the bottles of wine he had stocked for the occasion, and went searching through drawers for his corkscrew.

"Chinese, Greek and Thai, for pick-up, and I stopped at Bistro Petit, because I had a stop in Brooklyn to make." Marie-Ange was already unpacking one bag full of little cartons as she answered. "I was thinking also perhaps pizza, but my phone battery died before I could call them, so you will have to call yourself if you want pizza." She looked over the edge of the bag and frowned. "Perhaps you should call. You are still too skinny." It had been a few days and it was only now that she could not see the hollows of his cheekbones.

"I am not the only one, cousin." She had come out of the Genoshan Citadel looking...rather gaunt, at least by her standards. He doubted the Genoshans had been very interested in treating their prisoners well. "Perhaps we shall see how far this takes us, and we can always call for pizza or invade the kitchen if we require more." Having finally found the corkscrew, he passed it and the bottle to Marie-Ange while he went in search of plates and glasses.

"Two weeks eating very little for me is not nearly as dangerous as it is for you." And while she knew that he had access to food some of the time, his metabolism was such that she had not been surprised, even if she had been alarmed, to see how much muscle mass he had lost. "Although neither of us is as gaunt as Jubilee was, so to that, I think we are as they might say, safe." She expertly opened the bottle, and set both the bottle and cork down to continue opening containers of food. "It was by choice on my part. Never go to jail, it was all mushy peas and wet bread."

Jean-Phillipe shuddered theatrically. "The refugees in the countryside did their best, but they could not entirely handle so many of us." He shrugged. "Being on the run from the government does not exactly lend itself to a life of affluence." But she was correct, his heavy usage of his powers had depleted his body's stores. He felt like all he had been doing since returning from Genosha was eating.

"And yet you think we should wait on the pizza?" Marie-Ange asked. "I think the first thing I did when I arrived home was order pizza. Which is perhaps blasphemy but it was easier than trying to remember how to drive with a blinding headache." She popped open a container of shrimp rolls and set them onto one of the plates. "It seems the first thing you did was ... hang your wanted poster? You had it framed?"

Jean-Phillipe nearly preened himself as he smirked, clearly pleased with himself. "I did. It adds a certain something as a conversation piece, non?" It was his way of spitting metaphorically in the stump of the previous Genoshan regime the way he had physically to Thomas Moreau. "I am thinking of using it for picking up dates." He put up his hands and gestured as if he were talking to someone in Silver or one of the other clubs he enjoyed. "Did you know that I was labeled a mutant terrorist by a rogue government? Would you like to come back to my place and see the poster? I had it framed." He broke out of the impression and raised an eyebrow at his cousin. "What do you think?"

"I think whoever framed it should find a new job as anything not a framer." Marie-Ange moved to inspect the poster, and for a moment her face was right up next to the glass of the frame. "You will want to ask for acid-free matting, this paper is not going to last otherwise." She frowned, tapped the cheap frame and then shrugged at it. "Otherwise, quite nice. I am sure no one will believe you, but it is a cute decoration to the room."

"Well, seeing as I am a student and not a professional framer, I shall keep that in mind, cousin." He took the frame down and leaned it against the wall. When Marie-Ange quirked an eyebrow at him, he shrugged. "I have been keeping it in my room. It seemed better not to present Laurie with such an obvious reminder of things. But I wanted to see if you would notice it."

"You are going to let me re-frame it so that it lasts, yes?" Marie-Ange said, the question as much an offer as an insinuation that if he did not, she might be annoyed. "Here, see, if you got a larger frame, and a black border, it would not be so much black space, and it would not overwhelm the you are not even listening to me, are you?" She asked, a genuine smile on her face.

"Yes, cousin, I will let you re-frame it," Jean-Phillipe replied, an equally genuine smile on his face. It was actually kind of amusing when Marie-Ange just bulled her way through a situation. Well, so long as it wasn't one he disagreed with her on. He began scooping shrimp rolls onto his plate, and then just started popping every second or third one directly in his mouth. He -was- quite hungry, he had to admit. Even though he'd eaten a truly astounding quantity of food since his return.

"One for you, one for me, two for you, one for me, three for you?" Marie-Ange watched the unequal distribution of food with amusement. "They taste better with peanut sauce. I made sure to get extra." Not that it seemed like he cared, because the rolls were disappearing quickly.

Jean-Phillipe grunted indelicately around a mouthful of food. After he swallowed, he shrugged. "You are the one who said I was too skinny." Still, he poured out a healthy dollop of peanut sauce onto his plate and began dipping rolls in it. "I am glad that you returned safely," he said in a more serious tone. "I...worried." The admission was not easy for him to make.

"I was worried, for several days, but then it became clear that I had nothing to worry about." Marie-Ange explained. "And if you take all the peanut sauce I will be cross at you." She plucked the container away and added some to her plate, and set it down with extreme care. The hug came out of nowhere - one moment she was placing the lid back on the container, the next, hugging her cousin tightly enough to make him go 'oof' and stagger back a step. "You are not permitted to make me worry ever again, even if it was temporary."

Jean-Phillipe was taken by surprise by the hug. This was not something he expected from his cousin - they did not really show emotion to that extent around each other. It was awkward, but not unpleasant. He hugged her back gingerly, then cocked his head. "Clear you had nothing to worry about?" He was sure she had some logic behind that, she always did, but he did not quite follow it without an explanation.

"Ah, they interrogated us, and I suggested twice that I had a relative in country and there was no response. If they had you, or you had been dead, they would have used it against me." Marie-Ange broke the hug, as awkwardly as it had started, and cocked her head to look at Jean-Phillipe, and then his wanted poster. "However, it may be my fault that the poster says you are a member of the Brotherhood. I told them quite clearly they had the wrong Colbert for that."

Jean-Phillipe shrugged, a twinkle in his eye. "Reframe the poster, and if it succeeds in getting me laid, we shall call it even."