Logs:Broken

Broken
cn: sibling abuse, violence, torture
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Matt, Flèche.
In Absentia Lily, Dawson, Elie, Gaétan	2024-03-16 "Sometimes the gods are capricious." (just after Gaétan's revelation; followed by an intervention from Elie.)
Location <PRV> Tessier Residence - Greenwich Village
Understated opulence claims this spacious and well-kept townhome, the decor throughout the whole of it of the highest quality and carefully chosen. The front door opens onto the entrance hall, a closet close at hand to receive coats and shoes -- the pale hardwood floors gleam underfoot, unsullied by tracked-in mess from outside. The living room beyond the entrance is all dark woods and pale earth tones, comfortable couches and armchairs and a thick soft rug laid down beneath. Two large and painstakingly aquascaped aquariums flank the entrance to the dining room, with several brightly coloured species of fish within. Most of the rest of the wall space, notably, is taken up with shelves -- shelves crammed with books of every subject and genre. A study branching off of the main hall is cozy, small, done in pale blues and lined with books as well around the large computer desk and smaller futon, though these rarer books are cased behind glass. Another securely locked door leads to the basement, and another to the full bathroom downstairs. The kitchen connects to the living room; in contrast, it is sleek and modern and well-appointed, stocked by someone who takes their cooking seriously. And takes their alcohol equally seriously -- to one side of the kitchen there is a fully-stocked bar. The back door to the kitchen looks out on a small well-kept garden. Another year, another successful scavenger hunt. With considerably fewer teenagers in the house now than there were hours ago, with the house cleaned up, with the dog walked, Lucien is currently relaxing. He's dressed for bed, in soft black pajama pants and ancient tee shirt with a filigreed ace of spades playing card motif, though he has not actually made it to sleep just yet. He's at his desk, headphones on and one hand very lazily tugging at the end of a rope whose other end Flèche is equally lazily mouthing at. There's a reMarkable tablet on the desk in front of him that he is absently filling up with rows and rows of calligraphy practice. It's a series of silly haiku ("perfect silky fur / disgusting drool everywhere / dog duality" reads the latest), most done in impeccably elegant curling script, though here and there stray wobbles and errant lines mark the moments that the dog has decided to tug with renewed vigor at her end of the knotted rope. Matt's power reaches well ahead of him, slithering around and into Lucien's, seemingly gentle yet inexorable. He does not, as is his usual habit, augment his brother's range--gives him no insight whatsoever for the few seconds it takes him to descend the stars and slip into the study. He's uncharacteristically come bearing neither tea nor book, dressed in the hearts suit version of Lucien's tee, his pajama pants are covered with little red hearts. He closes and locks the door behind him, then sinks down to sit on the arm of the futon. He fixes his brother with an unnervingly intense stare and waits until the headphones come off before launching right into, "{It's on me for simultaneously underestimating and overestimating you, but I have always trusted you.} More fool I." He tilts his head slightly. "But of course, it's not lying if you simply omit, is it? Or has it genuinely never occurred to you to tell me about your Prometheus machinations?" Lucien has paused Spotify and pushed the headphones back down around his neck even before the door opens, his brow slightly furrowed at the silent coil of Matt's power and head tilted as if, with the headphones off, he could listen for the feedback that he feels should be present. He turns the headphones off altogether when Matt enters, though now when he unpauses the music it is just playing quietly through the computer speakers. The dog is taking his brief distraction as a signal to tug more enthusiastically at the rope, which makes Lucien's puzzled "-- I beg your pardon?" come in time with a wobbly spin of his desk chair. He drops the rope, clamping his hand against the edge of his desk to steady the spin. "{You chose to untangle yourself from my business, as I recall. There is quite a lot I don't tell you, now.} Ought I have asked your permission before shutting them down?" Matt's expression does not change at all. "{I untangled myself because I thought you had outgrown my guidance. Perhaps that was true in terms of your competence, but your judgment...}" There is no amusement in his dry laugh. "Yes! I should have been deliriously proud and could very well have helped. But no matter how low your regard how we fought Prometheus, you should have godsdamned well told me you had someone on the inside before we threw ourselves at fucking Lassiter." This comes in a low hiss, compared to which his next words sound jarringly normal despite the bright violent gleam in his eyes. "{But come now, you'd been at this since long before I untangled myself. I'd always wondered why they went through all the trouble to take me, or indeed how they even knew I would be of use to them.}" "{I did not have her on the inside, then. We extracted her directly after learning of the childrens' whereabouts. My work would have had little benefit to your team's --}" But here Lucien is stopping, stilling; his expression has frozen in blankness though his mind is abuzz. There's a careful shifting rearrangement happening and then happening again as Matt's words sink in. It takes an effort for him to lift his eyes back to his brother, one eyebrow ticking up minutely. "I beg your pardon?" It's not puzzled this time, just soft and even. Matt sucks in a deep breath and closes his eyes. "{You got her in there, you damn well had some way of getting us more intel. You were the one who told us Dawson was at Blackburn, also. How? Well, Luci has his ways, no?}" His jaw tightens again. "They steal me from the very brink of death, and a year later, after they've realized how useful I am, they do the exact same thing to Mother. Seven years later--conveniently, just after your spy turned up--they use Mother to take Gaétan in, also." He cocks his head. "Out of all the facilities in Prometheus, out of all the labs at Lassiter, our baby brother with a virtually undetectable power winds up the subject of the one researcher you sent in. Lily had no idea he was related to us, of course, nor Mother. Now..." His gaze is steady and hard. "Are you going to look me in my freakishly memorable eyes and tell me this is all happenstance?" "Sometimes the gods are capricious." Lucien is looking into Matt's eyes, his own still calm and blank. "You severely overestimate me if you imagine I could possibly have orchestrated all that. I knew very little of Prometheus until they made the flagrant miscalculation of harming my brother. {And I'd no idea she was even alive, not after --}" But here he stops short, mouth clamping firm and hands clasping together tight in his lap. "Do I?" Matt arches one brow. "You orchestrated the downfall of Prometheus." There's a kind of grudging wonder and even pride in this. "It's a sight easier to imagine you signing me over to save my life. I know people who were referred to the labs by their own doctors. It's not as if the consent forms say 'oh by the way we're going to experiment on you and you can never leave'." His voice is softening, though his expression remains hard. "I can also imagine it was only me--that they've been after our family ever since because I was useful but not useful enough. Even this business with Lily and..." He stiffens, eyes narrowing as they tick down to Lucien's hands and back up to his face. "{After what?}" "Of course I did. They hurt you," Lucien says again, mild and matter-of-fact as though he's not sure what other outcome Matt might have expected under the circumstances. "{I've no idea how they came by Mother. I didn't know she was a mutant, how could I possibly have told them? Last I saw her she was quite dead.}" He is looking down, now; to the dog still happily gnawing on her rope at his feet, to the collection of fidget toys neatly arrayed on his desk, to the computer screen now displaying the lyrics as k.d. lang quietly sings "Hallelujah", to the tablet and its elegant nonsense. The painstaking rearrangement happening in his mind has not quite managed to dredge up words by the time he looks back to Matt. He opens his mouth and closes it a few times in silence before managing, oddly even given the internal turmoil Matt can easily feel: "{I killed her, so I made rather sure of it.}" For the barest instant Matt seems frozen in place, not breathing or blinking, but his pupils dilate to very dramatic effect, vivid green irises reduced to narrow (freakish) (memorable) rings. The first sign he's lapsing out of this trance isn't visible at all: his power burrows deeper, weaving into Lucien's voluntary control of his muscles and then coiling tight, pinning him in place. Only now does he rise, a bit unsteady and trembling with what must, contextually, be fury. But Lucien cannot sense it through the death grip Matt has on his power, has not been allowed to touch the nervous system so profoundly entangled with his own. When Matt speaks his words come out rough and breathy, but not harsh. "{Killed her,}" he echoes, kind of abstractedly, his expression still hard and disdainful. "{How?}" He touches his brother's cheek, ever so gently, but through the warmth of his palm and curving fingers he pours raw, mindless, shrieking, agony. "{Did you savor it, a victory long awaited?}" There's a moment when Lucien is struggling; Matt can feel it, not here in the chair in front of him but in the oddly methodical press and tug against the biokinetic restraint. When this attempt to reassert control of his body fails his eyes just fix ahead, wider, not looking at his brother as Matt draws near. There's a distinct flutter of fear rippling through his mind, sharp and prickling where his neurochemistry winds up against Matt's. His breath catches at the touch of fingers, that fear spiking higher as if it's this light touch rather than the harsh invisible grip that connects them. Was Matt's question rhetorical? If he is expecting an answer one doesn't come -- just the strangled edge of a stricken cry that Lucien swallows back almost as soon as it's begun, leaving him uncannily silent in contrast to the screaming jangle of pain tearing through his senses. "{No,}" Matt answers his own question. "{You don't think that way. You're not like me.}" His smile is serene as his fingers trace lower, deceptively gentle for the trails of pain they leave in their wake. "{I have done you an injustice, no? Thinking you nobler because you have not broken along my lines.}" His hand closes slowly around Lucien's neck, not contending with the immobilized muscles but pressing down on the arteries. "{But you have done me an injustice, also. I'd've been so proud you for handling Mother as you needed to in my absence even while I mourned her.}" "{All of it I could have accepted. All of it, my darling, if you had but told me.}" His fingers tighten just so, cutting off the blood flow to his brother's brain. Beneath the faint sounds of Lucien's labored breathing and the dog's plaintive confused whining, k.d. lang cries "...I've seen your flag on the marble arch, our love is not a victory march..." Matt's control slips just enough for Lucien to feel his cacophony of rage and anguish and breathless delight. His grip does not ease, but he leans in close to press a soft kiss to his brother's cheek as the world fades to, "...it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah."