(no subject)

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma was presented with a box of colored pencils with her lunch, so she decided that clearly this is a sign that she should take the afternoon off and make colored drawing of the firefish. She's at a table, carefully shading what she assumes was a male and female pair (she's calling it that, if someone can prove otherwise she'd love to see it) into her notebook.

Comments

[runningred]

Jay comes over quietly, hands in his pockets and looking kinda sheepish. "Hey Jem. Can we... talk?" He looks possibly more awkward than Jemma's ever seen him.

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma blinks up at him, and starts putting her pencils away.

"Certainly, Jay. What's on your mind?"

[runningred]

He gestures to the seat opposite her, waiting for permission to sit.

"I know I'm... I have issues. I... feel like I've done something to upset you lately and I want to apologies, and make it up to you if I can."

[protect_and_survey]

She straightens, gesturing that he should sit down before folding her hands in front of her.

Mostly so she can't fidget.

"Jay," The way she holds herself is professional, trained. "First, it isn't anything about you, personally. I am not frightened of you, or disgusted by you, which is something I've heard as a concern before."

[runningred]

He nods, clearly listening and glad she's not scared of him.

[protect_and_survey]

"However, I suspect there are some misconceptions about what it is I do, and what I am capable of. I have had the feeling of late that I am perceived as someone who needs protecting, both from immediate physical threats and the potential of said threats." She explains, her boarding-school drawl becoming a bit more pronounced while she takes the time to make sure she's being concise, clear, and calm. "While I will freely admit that I am not, by any means, a warrior... I do take offence to the notion that I am defenseless and one of the world's true innocents."

[runningred]

Jay nods and doesn't answer at once, giving himself time to digest and censor his answer. "I... don't know what you do. I... can infer a bit, from things you've said and I have a sense of what your role is but... I honestly know nothing about the intentions of the organisation you work for."

[protect_and_survey]

"No. Not what my job is - what I can do, and have the capability to handle." She corrects, firmly. "Jay, I mixed two separate painkillers on the fly for you with different physical effects. This isn't, actually, something commonly taught in biochem doctorates. You know I have a goal of being allowed to do field research - mostly with toxic snakes. The sorts that probably formed the base of some of those toxins you tried to warn me off of the other night."

[runningred]

Again, he starts, checks himself and thinks through his answer with care. "You have amazing skills, Jemma. Like no-one I've ever met."

"I understand your interest and respect that greatly. I didn't..." He swallows thickly, trying to keep his tone steady. "I didn't warn you off to scare you, or because I don't trust you with them. I warned you off them because they scare me." There's a rawness there, an openness very few people have seen from him. "I have been... tortured, with all three of those toxins. I've have... felt, first hand, what they can do in the hands of the wrong people. And even in the hands of someone I trust, someone I lov-" He cuts himself off, his voice shaking again. He closes his eyes, counting himself back to calm.

"Jem, it isn't that I don't respect your skills, or think that you're weak. You're a genius and so far out of my league. It's that I'm scared. Terrified>/i>. And I'm sorry I projected that onto you."

[protect_and_survey]

"Jay... why do you think I dislike even the idea of telepaths?" Jemma asks in return. "Also, can we just agree to remove the whole 'out of your league' thing out of the argument because it's inherently false and thus irrelevant."

[runningred]

He nods, intently. "I'm sorry I exposed you to that."

He starts to protest but cuts himself off again. He swore he'd let her say her piece. "If you say so."

[protect_and_survey]

"No, Jay. I'm not..." She has to pause and re-settle her temper - she's too used to arguing with Fitz, where they've gotten used to each other talking over and on top of and through each other until some sort of mutual agreement is reached. "That's not the question at hand. Telepaths terrify me because of what they could potentially get out of my head. Jay, I've made toxins just as nasty as those you've been subjected to. There's others I haven't made, but have confirmed as possible, or created their antidotes. Can you see that... well, when you say monsters make those sorts of things... that's me, Jay. That's me, in that box. I figure out how to counter the toxins that are out there, and figure out what the next generation will be. And before you decide that somehow your world has more evil, or more creative evil... please don't."

[runningred]

He looks away, silence for a long moment. Crane was an obsessed psychiatrist, Ivy a tortured botanical biochemist. At one time or another, both of them could have been as likeable and well meaning as Jemma. And he's not sure if that scares him even more.

He swallows and nods. "If you want the specs on those toxins, I would give them to you. I trust you to use them safely. But I'd rather you didn't take them back to your world. If only because I don't know the organisation your work for, or their agenda."

[hot_water]

Tahno does a double-take at her drawing as he saunters past. He stops near her table, placing a hand on his hip, and offers an unsolicited opinion with a thick drawl. "I'm likin' the colors. Composition's nice, too."

[protect_and_survey]

"I'm afraid I can't take credit for the colors, the fish are naturally gorgeous." Jemma demurs, pausing to sharpen her pencil (again).

[hot_water]

Tahno gestures to her drawing with an elegant flick of his fingers. "Nah, man, that may be true, but ya 've captured 'em. You study art?"

[protect_and_survey]

"No, biology, but only as part of my more specific focus. But it's amazing how often things need to be drawn in science, truly." She explains. "Bar gave me some pencils today, and... well."

[hot_water]

Tahno hails a wait rat, which skitters off and brings him a shot of firewhiskey. He crooks his fingers and the liquid jumps out of the glass, shooting up to hover around his hand in a globular state, constantly moving.

"Biology, huh?" Tahno drawls, and floats a bit of the whiskey to his mouth. "Science of life, right? I don't know a lot about that. Tell me more?"

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma isn't ashamed to be openly staring. What? It's cool, it's a shiny shiny toy to the SHIELD scientist.

"I will trade you - I'll tell you all sorts of things about biology, or even better, biochem, since that is actually what that doctorate is in, if you tell me how you're doing that."

[hot_water]

Tahno smiles, basking in her attention. He waves his hand and splits the whiskey into three balls, which he turns to ice by flicking his fingers.

"This? This is waterbendin'," he drawls cheerfully, juggling his newly frozen balls in the air with the circular movements of one hand. "It ain't magic, before ya ask. I'm manipulating the flow of my chi, or energy, by movin' my body around. There's four types: water, earth, fire, and air. Yer turn, and then I'll tell ya more."

[protect_and_survey]

She has so many questions, but a deal's a deal. So she flips to a fresh page in her notebook and rapidly sketches out a cyclical diagram.

"This is the Krebs Cycle - otherwise known as the Citric Acid Cycle or the TCA cycle, which is how I... and most likely you, but with a place like that that info is not a given, create energy." Since they're on that topic...

[hot_water]

"Like, eatin' food for it?" Tahno asks, his eyes gleaming with interest as he peers at the diagram.

"We can bend 'cause we're extending our chi beyond ourselves," Tahno explains. He raises his hand above his head, and the balls shake until they liquefy, arching up to his hand. He moves his hands fluidly, his stance such that his hips and chest and shoulders sway while his feet stay planted. The whiskey follows his hands, flowing between them. "Waterbending in particular is all about using yer opponent's energy against 'em. Ya can change from offense to defense in a heartbeat, which is all you really have time for if yer fightin' with it. It's got lunar sympathy, which means we're useless during a lunar eclipse and, like, super powerful during the full moon."

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma is madly scribbling notes to herself, scratching ideas out half-formed when what he says contradicts them, underlining things she thinks have potential. Suddenly she wishes she had a bit of Eastern medicine under her belt.

"Food - fat, carbohydrates, and protein - can be broken down and reformed by the body into components of this cycle. For food that is eaten but not used, the glucose can then be stored..." She flips to a new page and sketches out a new series of pathways, "As fat, not that it seems to be something your body is terribly familiar with, being well formed and lean and... um. So like that." She waves at the paper, the tips of her ears turning pink.

What, she has eyes. Shut up.

[hot_water]

Tahno's gaze leaves her paper and travels ever so slowly up her form, taking in her delicate neck, beautiful hair, and adorable blush. He very deliberately--and also very gently--nudges her table with his hip.

"So excess food becomes fat if ya don't burn it off," Tahno rumbles softly, a deep, pleased sound. "And glucose is food at its most basic?"

He crooks his fingers again, freezing the firewhiskey into a cane. "You can also use waterbendin' to heal. Ya manipulate the chi in other people's bodies to speed the healin' process."

[protect_and_survey]

"Well, glucose is one of the forms of food at its most basic, the others are..." She sketches out basic building blocks, naming them as she goes, the names and forms as familiar to her as her own hands.

"What do you mean, manipulate other people's chi?"