Logs:Fugue

Fugue
cn: assault in the brains, memory manipulation
Dramatis Personae Alex, Lucien, Matt, Flèche
In Absentia	2019-10-14 "I'm ever so sorry for troubling you."
Location <NYC> Washington Square Park - Greenwich Village
Behind a majestic white marble arch, a smaller cousin of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, this beautiful green space is a popular destination for the young, the hip, and the artistic. A huge circular wading fountain is the centerpiece, ringed by benches, playgrounds, dog runs, gaming tables, and lush green lawns. In fair weather, the park is almost always crowded with tourists, students, chess enthusiasts, and local families come to tire out their children and dogs. There's a chill in the air as evening settles over the city. A brisk breeze rustles the red and gold ombre leaves, sending a few down to scatter around the feet of those out enjoying the park. Lucien's steps are brisk too; he looks quintessentially fall-like in brown twill pants, slip-on boots, a paler long-sleeved henley, chore jacket unbuttoned over top. A pair of crepes -- still steaming -- are held in thick paper wrappers in one hand; his other holds a sleek black thermos. He is beelining for the dog park, though he does not enter it -- just leans up against its fence, lifting one hand to waggle the thermos indicatively before him. The dog run is crowded at this hour, and Flèche is bounding amongst her fellows with wild abandon, ears and tongue flapping, tail thrashing--she's really little more than a blur of black and tan intermittently possessed of various filthy tennis balls. Presently, a filthy tennis ball that she is delivering to Matt. Unlike his brother, Matt is not quite properly dressed for Autumn, in a white t-shirt that reads "Welcome! Everything Is Fine" in leaf green script, blue jeans, and ancient faded red canvas sneakers. He might have intended to pick up the ball before, but catching sight of Lucien out of the corner of his eye, he snags the dog's collar, instead, deftly slipping on the harness and leash that had been draped over his shoulder. "--and there he is!" this commentary is presumably meant for the small knot of other dog guardians loitering near the gate. "Do have a lovely evening, all of you and--" He adds to a middle-aged woman he had been chatting with earlier. "--chag sameach!" Emerging with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of wagging and treats, he joins Lucien outside, answering the delivery with a brilliant smile though no words. Taking one of the crepes, he draws his brother with him along the path through the bustling park. Despite the chill in the air, at least one parkgoer looks somewhat underdressed for the occasion; a loose-fitting hooded sweatshirt as the only warmth against the cold of the fading sun. The cold doesn't seem to bother him, though, as the hoodie is thrown back to pool around the nape of his neck, exposing a tessellated tattoo of feathers a keen observer may notice are impossibly moving under the skin. This, though, is potentially not as surprising as the slightly iridescent black feathers that seem to have replaced where hair should be. Sitting on a bench alongside the path, Alex has a sketchpad out in front of him with a mostly-completed drawing on it, rendered expertly in colored pencils. Two figures are clearly visible, chatting together and laughing -- Desi and Gaétan, albeit from a rather unusual upward angle. It's clearly from an earlier time, with the trees still vibrantly green and full-maned. His pencil works carefully along the edge of Gaétan's guitar, teeth working at his bottom lip. Lucien tips his head in a polite nod to the denizens of the dog park, offering Matt the thermos after his brother has taken the crepe. He trades it for the leash, a slight smile on his face as he plucks a small chunk of egg from his crepe, dropping it into Flèche's eagerly waiting maw. He nibbles far more sedately at his food, his pace slower, now, that he has no real deadline looming. He stops, stoops to pick up a brilliantly crimson maple leaf from the path near a bench. He freezes halfway back to straightening, his eyes locking on the sketchpad of the youth seated there. Nothing changes in his mild expression, but Matt's senses can readily feel the sudden whipcrack-shift of his mental processes, a rapid reorganization that leaves him braced and far more alert. He straightens the rest of the way, his eyes lifting slowly from the page to Alex. Then to his brother. Matt tucks his crepe into the crook of one elbow to take a long draught from the thermos, then switches them to start in on his food. He does not notice the subjects of Alex's drawing until the dramatic shift in Lucien's nervous system draws his attention along his brother's line of sight. Matt's own powers flare, threading into Lucien's and augmenting them enough that his cold, fierce alarm is sensible without physical contact. His carriage as he subtly veers closer to Alex seems quite casual, even if the laser focus of his attention on the artist is plain to Lucien. "Good evening, there," he chirps as he coasts to a stop before Alex, his smile bright and easy. "So sorry to bother you, but have we met?" Alex looks up at Matt, blinking several times and tilting his head to one side, and then the other, studying the older man out of each eye in turn. Lucien gets a glance as well, and apparently that does nothing to light the metaphorical lightbulb above his head. "I'm sorry," Alex says, eyebrows raising on his head. "Don't think we have. Can I help you?" he says, with a slightly fearful glance back between Lucien and Matt. Lucien takes a half-step back, wrapping Flèche's loosely-held leash once tighter around his knuckles. His eyes lower, half-shaded as he looks down at the eagerly wagging pup, straining to get closer to the young man on the bench. There's still a quiet neutrality in his expression -- sharply at odds with the cold dread and incandescent fury jostling each other for primacy in his mind. Slowly he smooths these over -- not quashing them but guiding them into carefully furrowed paths in his psyche. The coil of Matt's mind through his own is met with an instant unfurling -- he twines his own abilities back tightly through his brother's, carefully using Matt's power to boost his own. To reach out, silent and insensible, and thread his awareness through Alex's in a meticulous assessment of the feathered youth's biological processes. "Huh! Are you sure?" Matt still sounds cheerful and pleasant, if ever so slightly perplexed. "It must have been some NYU event, no?" His powers slip around Alex in tandem with his brother's, delicately feeling out the shape of this particular mutation. "Well, it's not so very important. Only I thought for certain I recognized you. Perhaps it is your art style?" He indicates the sketch book casually, eyebrows upraised in neutral curiosity. "NYU?" Alex asks, shaking his head. "I think you have me mixed up with someone else. And while I like to think my art is distinctive enough to merit remembrance on its own...." he says, with a forced little laugh. Still, he obediently turns the sketchbook around for the other men's examination. While his voice is quite casual, it belies the panicked flutter of thought inside him. <<See? See? You put the hood down, see what happens? It attracts predators. Now you're going to get the shit kicked out of you. Just fucking great, Alex.>> In time with the chastising chittering, a well-practiced iron fist of control is clamping down on the fight or flight instinct, seizing the impulse to scatter and take to the skies. "It is," when Lucien speaks his voice is gentle and barely above a whisper as he reaches to pluck the sketchbook from the artist's grip lightly, study it thoughtfully, "very distinctive." He is no telepath; though Alex's thoughts are opaque to him the shifts in biochemistry are not. Where Alex's self-control clamps down on the instinct to run, the invisible hold of Lucien's powers tightens further -- arresting all impulse or even ability to move, to transform, to flee. The fear is pushed back under an artificial blanket of calm, almost soporific in its intensity. The other quiet workings of his power are longer lasting but less immediately noticeable -- a careful but thorough disruption in the realms of the young Morlock's brain that form memories, keeping the past quarter-hour or so and the ongoing interaction as well from imprinting themselves in his stored experiences. "I do apologize," Matt sounds genuinely, if only mildly, embarrassed. "I meet so many people hereabouts, you see." He darts a glance at Lucien when he speaks, not disapproving, though there's a faint concern beneath it that he immediately sets aside. He waits until he feels the memory intercept slip into place before continuing. "Tell me, though. What's your interest in these particular subjects?" He studies the drawing in his brother's hands. The insidious reach of his powers sinks deeper, though he hardly needs to do anything more than bolster Lucien's. "It's an interesting perspective." Relaxing back against the bench, Alex gives Matt a puzzled look, head tilting to the side in a slow slide of movement. The young man shrugs his shoulders once, a casual gesture of dismissal. "They gave me some bread, didn't chase me off. Nice people. But I draw lots of people?" There's a plaintive note of confusion in his voice, glancing between the two men. Lucien takes another bite of his crepe, tugging his dog a little closer to heel. He falls back into silence as Alex speaks, though his mind is now working overtime. Tracing delicate mental fingers along the pathways of memory that light up when Alex recalls the subjects of his drawing, pinging curiously at those connections to keep them more active. Wrapping them up in an oddly gentle cocoon of quiet power. "Oh?" There is, perhaps surprisingly, no derision in Matt's voice here. "That sounds like a rather low bar for 'nice', but I'm glad to hear it all the same." For all the friendly chatter, much of his attention is focused on sharpening and strengthening his brother's biokinesis as it works. "Have you run into them, since?" His eyes take in the green backdrop in the drawing. "This must have been a while back." "A lot of people just yell, or try and kick me. As if I'm a pigeon." Alex's eyes roll at the very suggestion. "I don't think so? I haven't really been looking. I remember what they looked like; don't need them to finish the drawing." He glances between the two men, voice getting a bit defensive. "Hey, if you're looking for them or something, I can't help you. I just saw them in the park last Easter." "What an improbably peculiar coincidence." Again Lucien's voice is very quiet as he folds the sketchpad closed. His expression is dispassionate, and the internal fury that had spiked in him is quieting down, only a cool appraisal in its wake. The abrupt tightening clench of his power is as silent as its exploration had been. No jarring pain or fanfare -- at most perhaps a brief disoriented fog as he grabs, yanks hard at the connections that had been lighting up, tears them all down to useless tatters. The memories that had been forefront in Alex's mind crumble with it -- as well, most likely, as some indeterminate handful of others pulled along in the wake of the destruction. Lucien's grip doesn't ease up as he takes another bite of his crepe, turns back to his brother with a casual turn of the hand to gesture back towards home. Matt tilts his head ever so slightly to one side. His "Mmm" is noncommittal, his expression neutral and contemplative. "Well, I do hope you have a lovely day, and I'm ever so sorry for troubling you." His smile here is tepid and brief, and with a polite nod of his head he's falling into step beside Lucien, drinking deep from the thermos. Even so, his powers remain latched onto Alex's until he's finally out of range. "Right. No problem, I guess." Though Alex says the words, it doesn't seem like it was quiiiite no problem. "Hey, uh, you still have my sketchbook." He calls after the two men. His eyes widen slightly, though he doesn't move from his position on the bench. "What the— hey! Stop! Come back here! Give me back my—-" As quickly as he started shouting, Alex stops, stretches, and looks around him. A brief look of confusion shows on his face, but he quickly shakes it off and lifts his pencil to continue sketching. On air. The confusion returns, deeper, and he looks from side to side on the bench, then stands and searches through the grass underneath it. Coming up empty, the young man runs a hand through his hair and collapses back down onto the bench, a deep frown written into the lines of his face.