Logs:Choices

Choices
cn: Discussions/plans for suicide.
Dramatis Personae Dawson, Lucien, Flèche
In Absentia DJ, Hive	2024-11-03 "Dying really just isn't what it used to be."
Location <NYC> Le Carrefour, Le Bonne Entente - Astoria, Queens
Above the bustle of the clerestory restaurant, tucked at the base of the bell tower, this indoor garden and library is out of the way and easily overlooked, sure to become a favored "hidden gem" of travel guides. Low bookshelves full of mythology, fairy tales, and folklore ring the central elevator shaft and the stairway spiraling around it like an easily navigable labyrinth. Beyond these are plants in a variety of tastefully whimsical containers, each with its own engraved plaque giving the common name, the scientific name, and their significance to various traditional stories and practices. The walls have been done away with so that the room extends beyond the doric columns into a surreal rooftop garden enclosed with glass stretching between the tower's massive buttresses. The arrangement of plantlife becomes less formal as one moves out into the four arms of the conservatory, visible containers giving way to beds and terraces and eventually landscapes carefully cultivated to look wild. There is plentiful seating scattered along the paths and just off of them, from proper benches to picturesque logs to surprisingly comfortable boulders. By day, myriad butterflies dance amongst the enchanted vegetation, and likewise moths by night. A shallow stream weaves throughout, feeding ponds that host plants of their own alongside fish, frogs, and turtles. Wandering the outer edges of the conservatory, one could almost feel lost in a mystical forest but for the stunning views of the cityscape beyond the glass. Night is quiet, at the crossroads. Quiet, at least, in terms of bustle -- at this very late hour it's largely the realm of the night-blooming flowers, the moths emerging from their tiny fairyhouses to pollinate them. There is music playing, very soft violin strains, Méditation from Thaïs undulating dreamlike through the greenery. Flèche is down here too, padding softpawed through the winding paths as she sniffs after the hop-PLUNK trail of a frog making its way back to the pond. And if the mutt is here, no doubt her human is not far off, though Lucien is currently drawing even less attention to himself than the dog or the flitting moths. He's tucked far in the back, cross-legged beneath a rowan tree in simple sea-green linen wrap pants and a plain grey tee. On a nearby table his laptop has gone into hibernation, his phone is silently blinking endless new messages at him, his writing tablet has shut its screen off, pen still resting atop the white epaper surface. Where Lucien is sitting, though, it is quiet, work doggedly ignored as a very very glittery skull-shaped sugar lump slowly dissolves in the steaming cup of tea in front of him. He is watching it, hands loose-folded under his chin, forefinger and thumb slowly turning at a small and brilliant smooth black opal held lightly there. The stone's multicolored flecks glint bold in the dim nighttime light. Lucien turns it again, breathes in. Turns it again, breathes out. His eyes are half-closed, watching the sugar dissolve and the steam rise. There's a rapid flutterblur, another quiet presence in the quiet garden. This one is stopping to bestow long and fond scritches on the dog, then -- another flutter, and he's over near Lucien. Freshly clean-shaven, green-trimmed grey polo, crisp pressed khakis, the complex myoelectric arm at his side painted in the vivid lace-like white-tipped feathering of a Victoria crowned pigeon crest. "Hey, I --" is as far as he gets, then takes in the scene. The set-aside work, the tea, the quiet; a deep flush rises to his cheeks. "Oh, sorry," is much much softer. He sits abruptly in an empty chair at Lucien's table. Stands again -- sits again. Hitches like he's going to stand again, but thankfully now Flèche has caught him up, and instead he leans over to scratch behind her floppy-tipped ear. Lucien's eyes flutter a little wider; in some trick of the light, there is a moment when they look positively luminous as he looks up at his visitor. Then his lashes lower, head bowing, and the moment passes. He turns slowly at the smooth stone again. Takes another deep breath. "{Have you come with some trouble?}" There's no censure in his expression, but his voice is very soft. The other man flinches, like Lucien's gentleness is reproach in itself. He shakes his head. Stiff. Darts a quick glance to Luci. Then back to the dog. "No, I just --" After Lucien's soft words he's cringing, pressing an ear to his shoulder until the violin strains have washed away the harsh violation of sound. He tries again -- quieter. Slower, if only by dint of determined pauses between his choppy whispered words."{I'm. Sorry. It -- can wait.}" "{Can it? Quite a good number of people have ventured up here in the witching hour in search of some information or some favor but you --}" Lucien lifts his head, drops his hand. He's leaning languidly back now, one arm behind him and the other, still absently toying at the stone, draped against his knee. "{Actually, I don't believe you've been through these doors ever. You usually have more interest in your other half's work, he's quite proud of this, you know.}" He's watching Flèche, her eagerly fanning tail and head resting happily on the other man's knee. "But today you fly. For no emergency?" "{He should be, this place is amazing.}" That's immediate. Fierce, defensive. But quickly qualified: "{The building is.}" Lucien's lips quirk; his soft ghost-breath of laughter would be lost most other times, but is just barely audible here. He glances down at his tea -- glittering, now, with the bright embers of the sugarskull it's consumed -- and plucks it up, gives it a gentle swirl. He's watching the other man over his cup as he sips it, eyes fixed steady and his brows hitching in silent questioning. "It's unholy," comes immediate again, "that's why he won't..." This breaks off with another deep flush. An apologetic dip of his head. "{I didn't. Fly. I just needed. To get... away.}" His eyes meet Lucien's and then pull hard and uncomfortable away. "Sorry," he mumbles again. He strokes at Flèche's fur in slow long pets. "Your rooms here. Have. Psi shielding. Right?" "In my den of sorcery and sin? That is a service we can provide, yes." There's a wry head of amusement frothing over to spill off Lucien's words, but when he lowers his cup his expression has no trace of it at all. "{Have things got so bad you need to hide? Can't you} -- de-assimilate {yourself, does he not allow you that anymore?}" "{Nonono - it's not like that. No, no he's -- he's great, he's -- that's why I.}" The other man's breath hitches. He gets out of his seat with an abrupt start, like he's reconsidering this entire ordeal -- but then, quiet, a light psionic touch (quick but apologetic for the brief intrusion) presses itself up against the calm surface of Lucien's mind, bringing with it a spill of information. Complicated psionic-neurological entanglements. Shattered-kintsugi identity. Terrifying existential-spiritual uncertainty. Fierce love and isolated despair. All in anxious disjointed jolts that, swift as it's there-gone are already bracing (still apologetic!) for the backlash he's sure will come. "We could, yeah. But I can't." There is a backlash, instinctive, prickling fiery-fierce along the deceptively smooth surface of Lucien's mind in sudden stinging bite. And subsiding, too, just as quick -- no apology from him, though his eyes have gotten just a touch wider, and in the quick instant of contact he's replaying, reviewing, recontextualizing. The rapidfluttering entrance, the fresh shave, the blushing, the apologies. His thoughts past this are opaque with the contact gone, but as he finishes his tea -- steadily, this information has not seemed to put any hurry in him -- he's studying the man opposite him with an unnerving intensity. Then rising. He plucks up his phone to swipe at it. Send a few messages before he packs up his things. He calls the dog to his side with a quiet click of tongue, to heel with a wordless gesture. The glance he gives his visitor suggests he is full expecting him to follow, as he starts for the elevator. There is a man waiting, in the elegant dress of his concierge staff, at the hotel room door Lucien leads them to, and aside from his very polite thanks Lucien doesn't speak again until they are inside. With the door securely shut and Flèche eagerly sniffing the immaculate hotel room as if she has not had so many chances in her life to explore so many just like it, only then is he turning to look over his guest again, brow hitching. "Dying really just isn't what it used to be." That's fine -- one thing about this bound-up half-life, it's given a lot of practice in waiting. And there's a dog to pet, after all. After the long silence, though, Lucien's answer comes as a surprise. It startles Dawson's eyes wider, his hand flying to his mouth to stifle his laugh. "You're one to talk." He flits inside, drops down to sit on the edge of the bed. "Not my first time, anyway." He sucks his cheeks inward, chewing brief on the inside of one. "Hope the next will be the last. I -- I thought -- maybe --" But now that he's here, looking at Lucien, his eyes drop with a guilty blush. Lucien sets his things down on a table, and sets the room key down beside Dawson. He takes a seat in an armchair, hands folding together between his knees. His expression is inscrutable. "Does your other half know?" "He -- he knows things are. Things have been. Bad. He knows we've been thinking about -- well. A lot." Dawson isn't meeting Lucien's gaze. "He doesn't know I'm here. He doesn't know I -- I mean, this is all. This is all really weird. It's hard to know anything, we're kind of -- feeling it out as --" He's picked up the room key to tap it, quiet, scratchy, against his artificial hand. "Things get so blurry sometimes, anyway. I thought if -- maybe if I just didn't. Come back. It'd be easier for them." "Easier for them." Lucien's fingers are pressing harder, nailbeds paling stark, in the divots of his knuckles. His eyes close, his breath shivering out slow, but when he opens them again his tone is casual. "Well, then. I suppose it might well be." He unclasps his hand, turns one up, extended across the gap towards the bed. "Flèche still needs her last nightly walk so we'd best get on with it, if this is a tricky surgery she'll be waiting a while, mm?" Dawson goes very still. His breathing stops, his muscles tense. He stretches a hand out -- the mechanical one, then, flustered, pulls it back with a hasty apology. His other hand reaches out in its place, and hovers shy of actually clasping Lucien's. He's looking at the other man's outstretched hand for a moment, his mouth moving silently before he drops his to rest lightly against it. There is a very expected snarl of unpleasant chaos inside him -- exhaustion, screaming ache in overtaxed muscles that he is evidently ignoring but his nerves are Very Much Not, a stab of headache spiking all through one side of his temple, a jittery energy that feels like it might explode right out of him. Past that, some of the confusing tangle of his neurology is very familiar, the strange interwoven lines where one mind meets another. Some of it is -- less so, but oddly, like those very same lines but offset, running at a slightly different angle at a slightly different speed. Along one of those patterned pathways, the chaotic activity of dreaming -- across the other, currently, bright flashes of guilt and terror and longing. "Sorry." He swallows. "I, um. I should have called first. Or. Or something, I just. Sorry." "Goodness, yes, and wouldn't that have been a tremendously productive phone call? Hello, this isn't actually DJ, it's his dead clone from this world. No, I promise it's not the mania talking. Can I stop by so you can kill me? I'm sure I would have said yes, certainly, two a.m. is fine, I'll have some herbal tea on." Whatever Lucien might or might not be feeling out within Dawson isn't easily sensible. What is is the gentle curl of Lucien's fingers around his hand, the soft soothing calm that whispers cool from his touch. "You've spent half your time since getting here apologizing. I admit I have my own biases here, but I have a difficult time acceding to this sort of request made -- what." There's something just a little pinched in his eyes as they drop here, a little tighter in his voice. "Because it might be convenient for other people to make yourself so small you simply vanish? Do you want to die, Dawson?" Dawson grins, quick-sheepish and crooked, at this conjectured phone call. "Yeah, okay --" His teeth drag against his lip, his fingers squeezing tighter when Lucien's do, that small touch answered with a wistful ache. "Sorry, I --" was coming out reflexive in answer to how much time he's spent apologizing, but he doesn't have enough time to get self-conscious (or apologize) for this. His breath pulls in sharp -- not at the question but at his name, stab of grief shattering through him so hard and sudden it takes even him by surprise. His hand jerks back as he stifles a sudden hitch of a sob -- just as quickly he's clearly regretting pulling away, but just curls briefly inward, his palm pressed hard to his face. His face is flushed when he sits up but he's not (determinedly not!) crying, breathing slow and deep and careful in an attempt to keep it this way. "Sor --" He catches this one, swallows. "This is stupid. I -- don't know. I don't even know if I'm him. Just some weird construct with his memories who thinks he's --" His hand balls up tight short nails digging hard against his palm. "I think hardly anyone really wants to die," he says, finally. "I think people want life to be better, and -- when you realize it can't be you have a choice, right?" Lucien's brow is furrowing, and he's pulling in a breath -- to argue, to philosophize -- but he doesn't. He presses his hands hard together, frowning down at his fingertips, and then moves over to sit on the bed beside Dawson. His hands are still clasped, his head bowed. "I can give you that choice," he allows, low, after a considerable silence. "I wish that I had more to give you." "I'm sure even without the heads up you could scrounge up some herbal tea." Dawson's quicksilver grin returns, fades. He bumps his shoulder lightly against Luci's, but then quiets. "... there's one thing," he starts, "but it's kind of -- dumb, I don't know if..." His fingers trace against the back of his more colorful artificial hand. Lucien turns his head to the side, his brows lifting. "I would not snitch if you wanted something stronger than herbal tea, right now." Dawson laughs, his head shaking firmly. "It's not like that. Nothing like --" Here, though, he's flushing fierce dark red again. "It's just -- I know it's more your brother's thing, and -- and it's late, and -- but do you. Know where we could get a -- copy of Wingspan?" Now it's Lucien's turn, hand fluttering to touch fingertips to his lips as if he might attempt to quell some startle -- no sound is arising, though, green eyes just fixed wide and silent on Dawson. He drops his hand at length, fingers touching lightly to the back of the other man's knuckles with a swell of grief and quiet, fierce affection. "I'm going to walk Flèche. It will be a good opportunity to prepare myself mentally," he says with a small twitch of smile, "for the terrible trouncing I am about to get."