2013.04.05 - Meetings in a Tent

Boy scouts were always prepared. And Doug Ramsey, although he never did get past the Cub Scouts, was going to give it a darned good shot. 
Unfortunately for the young mutant, what had seemed like a good idea (Get the kids out camping) turned into a slight nightmare when he took it into his head to -test- how to actually assemble a tent before going to Canada and looking like an idiot in front of the kids. 
For one, trying to assemble it in his room was not going to work. Not enough room. 
For two, he couldn't use the Danger Room or the classroom.
The Cafeteria during non-food hours? Probably -perfect- if he could get it up and down in less than twenty minutes. 
It was now about two hours, and the tent was -still- not assembled. If anything, instead of a nice artifical wickiup, it now looked like a wickidown.
"ARGH!" shouts Doug, as he kicks the metal bar across the room. 
Cessily's heading past the door when she hears the clatter of metal smacking into tile and drywall. The mutant's head stretches around the door and peeks in. "Doug?" she asks. "Did something break?"
Jocelyn was actually coming in from the rear grounds when she heard something clatter in the cafeteria. Since she was going that way anyway, the tall redhead smirks a little as she slips into the kitchen. She grabs a couple sodas and brings them out. "You know Doug, I'm pretty sure kicking it isn't going to help fix it," the young woman offers casually yet calmly. She knew that putting something like this up could be a pain in the rear. She offers the drink towards Doug. "Take a few minutes to relax," she suggests. A nod is given to Cessily. "Hey Cess," she greets easily.
Jubilee, not far behind Jocelyn, blinks at the sound of someone screaming in frustration. "Wow. Did they find a way to give tests in here or something? That'd suck at least that much," she opines out loud as she steps through the door into the cafeteria. She pauses just inside to stare for a long moment at the wickidown, rather like an amazed driver might look at the aftermath of a wreck. "Dude, what /is/ that? It looks like a canvas taco, and I'm majorly sure there's no such thing!"
She glances at Cessily, then Jocelyn, offering smiles and nods since Doug's going to have to speak to answer her.
Looking sheepishly towards Cessily, the young blonde mutant apologzies. "Sorry. The only thing broken are the instrictions and my patience," he offers, moving to pick up the metal bar. The instructions are folded up, and put back. "Just trying to make sure I can get the tent up before we actually arrive on-site." 
Meeting Jocelyn's suggestion with a rueful grin, Doug shakes his head. "Nah, got to get this all out of the way before lunch hour starts." 
Quirking an eyebrow at Jubilee, since he has not actually met -that- girl, Doug wrinkles his nose. "It -was- supposed to be a wickiup. It's just... ah, crap." Struggling to get the mess of a supposed tent de-assembled, Doug jerks a metal piece one way, before managing to stuff it into the box it was supposed to come in. "It's for the camping trip next week. Though I don't think -this- one is gonna survive the trip." 
Cessily turns and her body catche sup with her head. She lingers in the doorway, until the arrival of Jubilee and Jocelyn get her to shift out of the way, into the cafeteria. "I don't think you can beat it into submission," Cessily says, humming. "Maybe I can help? I used to...uh, camp, a bunch," she says, edging in and finally putting her bookbag aside to kneel and take a look at exactly what Doug has.
"I'm not too bad with putting things together or taking them apart, whichever you'd rather do right now," Jocelyn offers. "Just so long as it isn't computerized or anything like that. Don't have much experience camping, but I've been in Shift's survival course enough to know what I'm doing at least half of the time". Which was a far cry from the past, so that helps. "Hey Jubilee," Jocelyn adds. "Got a few minutes to help with this?" she asks the mallrat. She figures that Jubilee and Doug have met, so doesn't bother with introductions. "We can always get another one for the trip if this one isn't salvagable".
"It does look pretty complicated," Jubilee replies sympathetically, frowning at Doug and his handiwork. "I don't think I can help, though. Camping is totally outside my line of experience." She's had the survival course, too, but she was pretty bad at it. If it doesn't have a sign on it, she's unlikely to identify it as anything but scenery, even if it's edible, potable, or a good way to stay out of the rain. City girl to the core.
She shrugs, hearing Jocelyn. "I could try, I guess. Maybe I could at least read the instructions out loud, or something."
She hasn't met Doug, not face to face, but she's seen his face in classes and the like. "But we haven't been introduced, so I guess I should remember my manners and do something about that, huh? I'm Jubilee," she says as she steps over, offering a smile and a hand to Doug.
"I've camped before. I just... well... never tried a tent -this- big or complicated," Doug says, rubbing his head as he eyes the box containing the mishmash that was supposed to be a wickiup. "I'll try it again after lunch. Don't want Professor X to be booming about how I'm supposed to make room for the others. Though he's probably laughing his head off at this mess..." 
Scratching his chin for a moment, Doug blinks, wipes his hands quickly, and then reaches to shake hands with Jubilee. "Nice to meet you too, Jubilee. Doug Ramsey. Sorry if I'm interrupting your lunch time. So you're all ready for next week?" 
Cessily pick sup one of the tent poles and flips it around. "I don't think the PRofessor's that mean," Cessily suggests to Doug. "You haven't met Jubilee yet? You're missing out, she's a firecracker," she says, delivering the pun utterly deadpan. "If it's not too cold we can always sleep outside in our sleeping bags.
Jocelyn smiles at Cessily's joke as she picks up another one of the poles and starts unscrewing it from the one it's attached to. "So, why not set this up outside instead of the cafeteria?" Jocelyn asks Doug. "Instead of in the cafeteria. Weather is reasonably warm out there," the teenager points out. Of course, her definition of warm might not suit everybody present. "And yeah, that's always an option too," she agrees with Cessily.
"S'okay, totally. I'm not that hungry," Jubilee replies, shaking Doug's hand with a surprisingly strong grip. "I'm not sure if /ready/ is the word, but I guess I'm going whether I'm ready or not."
She playfully sticks her tongue out at Cessily, hearing that pun. "Cut it out, Cess. It's not like I go around making puns about /your/ powers, ya know!"
"He's not, but I bet you anything he's quietly laughing in his office," Doug bemoans.
Quirking his eyebrow at Jocelyn, the young blonde reaches out and prods the taller girl's muscular shoulder. "You're the one with the energy powers, you can keep yourself warm just -fine-. The rest of us can't." 
Glancing back at Cessily, then Jubilee, Doug quirks an eyebrow, before growing pensive. "Wait, I think I read your file. You're... uh... Jubilation Lee, right? With fireworks? Heh. At least your powers are more flashy than mine. Linguistics," he says by way of explanation. "Any kind of language."
"/Are/ there puns to make about my powers?" Cessily asks. She takes one pole and attaches it to a joiner with a click, then eyes it and then turns and undoes it. "That's wrong," she mutters. "But you're not like a pyrokinetic, right?" she asks Jubilee, "Just the light show? Like Dazzler!" she suggests with a laugh.
"They're plasma-based," Jocelyn says. "Mix of plasma and magnetic energy". She'd seen them often enough, and done some practice with her. "They have some oomph behind them, but they're definitely a lot flashier than any of my energy bursts or beams. Sometimes I get a solid color, but that's about it". The woman sets the tent poles in the box and starts working on another tent pole. "I've never actually tried using my powers like that. I just don't get cold easily," Jocelyn offers to Doug with a shrug. Huh. She should try that sometime. It might work, or it might fail.
"Lots. Mercury, quicksilver, silver in body and name... I'm actually a little too overwhelmed to say any," Jubilee replies teasingly, leaning down to give Cessily a hug. The mention of setting things on fire brings a touch of uncomfortableness to her expression. "I've never really tried... plasma's hot stuff, though." She picks up the instructions and tries to make heads or tails of them. "Any brain surgeons in the house?"
Quirking an eyebrow at Cessily and Jubilee's easy body language, the young mutant smiles a bit at the way they communicate wordlessly. Don't mind him, it's a beautiful thing to see. Well, in a purely platonic way, of course. 
"I'm not a brain surgeon, admittedly. Just ask me to translate something, and I'm all set," Doug notes at what Jubilee says, before glancing up towards Cessily. "We -could- get you flowers from ... uh, is FTD the one with the Mercury symbol?" 
"Isn't Professor McCoy a surgeon? Or a doctor, or something?" she asks. She stretches out an arm to grab another tent pole and give that a try, and in the process she looks at Jubes. "Mercury's already dangerously close to being a supervillain's name, so thanks," she says. "Plasma and magnets. Sounds like a sci-fi movie," Cessily observes. "Buying me flowers, Doug?" she says with a bemused smile.
Jocelyn sets the set of poles in the box and starts to work on yet another set. "Don't think I've met him," Jocelyn says to Cessily. The woman does notice Doug eyeballing the two girls and 'casually' bumps into him as she's grabbing that set of poles to disassemble. There's no malice behind the bump though. "Oops, sorry Doug," the woman says easily as she keeps working on the poles. "Well, if we're all going camping, why buy you flowers when he could pick you some right from the campsite? They'd be perfectly fresh," the teen points out. "Far sweeter gesture than store-bought flowers". There's a grin on her face as she makes the comment to Cessily.
"Scientist for sure," Jubilee replies to Cessily. "But I don't know if he could puzzle /this/ out. No wonder you couldn't get it together, Doug." She sets the thing down and begins looking over the components she can see. "This is no 3D puzzle, that's for sure. This makes those look easy!"
Being reminded to not 'eavesdrop' at the hidden body language that people used unconsciously, Doug glances at Jocelyn, and mouths a 'oh yeah' and a nod, before reaching out to hold on to the bars. "Flowers for you? I'm sure if you wanted, we could... wait, you mean -me- specifically? Ahhh..." Turning red, Doug stammers. "It wouldn't be appropriate, I mean, for..." Turning quickly to grasp the bar, Doug hurries to agree with Jubilee. "You know, these -are- pretty difficult. And you know what? Jocelyn's right. We need to find a better place to take these..." 
Cessily has no idea what's really going on, and so winds up shooting Jocelyn a somewhat confused, eye-raised look. "No, see," she says to Jubilee, "That one goes here," she says, pointing to another angle bracket to attach the beam. Cessly laughs aloud. "You are /way/ too easy, Doug."
Jocelyn gives a casual nod to Cessily. She'll explain later. However, she does laugh at Doug's stammering. "It's okay, Doug. Cessily and I were just teasing you a bit. No harm, no foul," the woman says, reaching out to pat the guy on the shoulder reassuringly. "We're going to be camping together this weekend, so you're going to have to adjust to our humor," she points out as she sets the tent poles in the box.
"The instructions on these things aren't written in any known language, Jubilee. I usually just look at the picture and go from there," Jocelyn adds with a grin. "Trying to follow the instructions is a waste of time on these things. Sort of like IKEA furniture".
Stifling giggles at Doug's sudden stammering, the California girl gives him a smile. "Joce is right. But we'll try to go easy on you, right girls?" she says, looking conspiratorially at the two redheads. Then her eyes go back to the instructions.
For about two seconds before Jocelyn speaks up. "Even the /picture/ needs translation," Jubilee replies, holding it out. Indeed, it's overdrawn to the point that nothing is really identifiable.
"I figured that," Doug grins briefly, although his body language shifts just enough to indicate a slow backing away from Jocelyn and Cessily and avoiding -that- topic of what they might do to him. 
"Trust me on this," Doug replies, without even looking at the instructions. "The pictures and the words are -not- the problem with the instructions. The -logistics of it is. C'mon, let's get these outside. You take one end, I'll take the other." 
And then the camp box is picked up completely, leaving Doug blinking, and stammering. "Uh... thank you, Jocelyn," the young man says, manhood completely deflated for a second. 
Cessily says, "Sure, fine," Cessily says to Jubilee, making a big deal of giving in, when in fact she's totally fine letting Doug off the hook. "No, no, it's simple," the silver mopher says as she stands back up. "Right, Joce, now e mate that with this...." she gestures."
Jocelyn grabs the camp box and shrugs a little bit. "Okay, we can take it outside," the woman suggests. It wasn't that heavy, really. She lets the topic of teasing Doug fall to the wayside for now. She wasn't going to do anything too terrible to the guy anyway. She still needed to figure out at what point he got truely annoyed or bothered by the teasing. A nod is given to Cessily. "When we get outside?" Jocelyn suggests to the other woman. Since she was hauling the box now.
Jubilee giggles again, patting Doug's shoulder. "Let's just follow them as pathetically as we can," she suggests, her smile managing to be winsome, wry, self-deprecating, and sympathetic all at once. "We can get confused just as easily outside as inside."
"Yes, we might as well let the big strong girls do the work," Doug says lightheartedly as he returns the smile, in a totally 'I know -exactly- what you're saying with that smile' way. 
Following the tall Amazon and the quicksilvered girl towards the outdoors, Doug comments to Jubilee, "So how long have you been here? I left as a student a few years ago, just came back to keep an eye on those girls up ahead..." 
Cessily says, "Because we really need watching!" Cessily calls out, as she helps Jocelyn guide the bulky tent frame thing out the door."
"Years of push-ups, Doug," Jocelyn comments to the man. Of course, the tone she says that in might indicate something in Doug's future, though Jocelyn hasn't gone around advertising that little fact. She can be discrete. "Besides, we all have our gifts. I've got strength. You've got brains. Jubilee is clever. Cessily has a witty and sharp tongue," the teen points out as she's guided through out the door. She does take a moment to glance at Cessily, however, and grin at that.
"About a year. It's been... interesting," Jubilee says, clasping her hands behind her head casually. "But I wouldn't trade it for anything. A home's a great thing to have." She glances aside at Doug. "You're watching them? As in instructor-like? Or view-from-back-here-like?" she teases.
"Years of pushups," Doug echoes, sighing, as the tone tells him -exactly- what he should be expecting. Well, at least his SHIELD training should get him past some of it. Unless, of course, she decided to make them one-armed pushups... 
His thoughts are interrupted by Jubilee's teasing question, and Doug blinks, filing away the 'one year' note, before he flushes a bright red. "Instructor-like. I'm... well... their field instructor. Wsa supposed to be yours too, but it sounds like you're spending time with the main team, so..." Oh yes, definitely shifting the subject. The evasion of dodging bullets seemed to have carried over to certain topics as well. 
"Be honest," Cess says to Jocelyn, "You kind of like being like you are, huh?" she asks. "All tall and intimidating. You could go as she-hulk for halloween," she suggests. Cessily gestures to get Jocelyn to put down the frame, and puts down the connecty-bits she was carrying herself. "Alright, so this...." she picks up a connector and latches it in, "Goes here...."
"Mostly," Jocelyn says as she sets the large box down. "I could do without being quite so tall. Makes clothes shopping a pain the butt. Everything else? It's me, and I'm fine with it". She stretches her arms up above her head briefly. "But it does have it's uses. Top shelves are no obstacle to me". She reaches into the box and pulls out a few more parts and starts putting them together, giving Doug a little bit of space to compose himself from the teasing.
"Riiiight." Jubilee's answering tone is just mock-knowing enough to get across that she's teasing him again. "Let's just put up the tent, Oh Brainy Leader." She giggles and moves over to help as best she can. Mostly that involves handing around parts and letting smarter people do the hard stuff.
Cute. Really cute, Jubilee. She knows it, apparently, and the returning grin that Doug gives her indicates that -he-'s aware of that.
It becomes fairly apparent that the tent setup was essentially a two-man job, hence the trouble Doug was having. With four people... well, aside from the occasional -problem- of people picking the same attachment to work on.
"Phew," Doug notes as he crawls inside the tent, and plops onto the ground. "Not a bad job. Roomy enough for five or six." 
Eyeing Jocelyn, however, Doug makes a note that -she- was definitely getting the biggest, roomiest tent. 
Cessily stepes back and smielse. "Hey, that works," she says, seemingly pleased. "I can do that too, Joce," she says, stretching an arm up and over the other student's head, just for emphasis.
"Yes, yes you can. I'll avoid flying to turn this into a contest," Jocelyn points out with a laugh as she looks over the tent. "Not too bad," the woman says as she ducks inside and promptly takes a seat on the floor. "We going with what, three tents? One for each gender and a spare?" the woman questions. She didn't know how many were going on this trip, so she figured it was a reasonable question to ask. "Also, is there anything we should be bringing?" She had a couple ideas of things she was going to bring, but asking Doug made sense, too.
Passing parts apparently speeds the job up some, too. The tent is up far faster than Jubilee would've thought possible. "Oh, wow... it's like carrying a one-room apartment on your back!" she exclaims, slipping inside. She doesn't even have to duck much. "Maybe this trip won't be so bad."
Perched comfortably inside the tent with the girls, Doug seems pretty content with the handiwork, looking up at the wickiup. "Yeah," he notes to Jocelyn. "Two plus a third one for emergencies." 
Quirking a grin at Jubilee, Doug notes, "Yeah. Perfect for someone on the run." Why no, Doug wasn't... okay yes, he -was- talking to you, Jocelyn.
After a few minutes, Doug glances about. "... you guys are totally cutting classes, are you?" 
Cessily gapes, "So no!" Cessily protests. "I have a free period. Not sure about these two," she says, pointing to Joce and Jubilee.
"Free period for me," Jocelyn responds. She doesn't cut classes. She needs to pass as many classes as possible, so cutting them just seemed like a terrible idea. Doug gets a slight glance from Jocelyn, along with a smile. "Well, when I'm on the run, this might be safer than accepting a ride from Domino," she admits with a small grin.
"Been there. Kinda wish I'd had one then," Jubilee admits. She gasps softly at the accusation. "What? Me? Never! I have study hall. Sorry Doug, gotta earn your faculty brownie points the old-fashioned way," she replies. Still, she does slip out of the tent and head back for the house. Study hall will be ending soon. And a tent suddenly appearing on the back lawn definitely isn't inconspicuous!
Category:Log