Logs:Pull

Pull
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Matt
In Absentia	2021-07-24 "I wanted my brother to give a shit how I was doing." (immediately after an awkward estrangement)
Location <DC> National Theatre - Downtown
Between a very astute advertising campaign and the rave reviews pouring in all week, the National Theatre was packed tonight. After the curtain falls, the audience spills out into the muggy summer night, chattering excitedly about #CaptainAmericanTheMusical as they go. Backstage there's plenty more to be done, but at the door to the leading man's dressing room all is quiet and still, for just a moment. Matt looks up as his brother looks down, the minute slump in his posture accentuating the difference in their heights. He waits for Lucien to speak, his head bowing at the quiet words. He opens his mouth, closes it, and finally gets out, "I'm sorry." He swallows hard and proffers the bouquet, fingers scrunching into the red satin sleeve around the stems. "More's the pity. The show was amazing, and your performance splendid." "So everyone has been telling me." Lucien's eyes stay riveted on the bouquet that he makes no move to take. "Gaétan was here. Sera was here." "I know." Matt's tone is incredibly even. "I wanted to--" He breaks off, then picks back up a bit less steadily, "I should have thought about what you wanted." Lucien's expression does not change, but there is a noticeable jolt that ripples across the surface of his mind. His mouth almost shapes a word, though nothing quite comes out. There's little enough space in the cramped dressing room but he gestures Matt inside regardless, taking the flowers and setting them carefully aside as he returns to his mirror to pluck out a fresh face wipe. "What was it you wanted?" His voice is as level as before; he's taking his seat now, wiping the edges of his face clean. Matt presses himself out of Lucien's way until he's seated, then slides back to fill the space his brother had occupied, leaning back against the door. His eyes flick around the room methodically from item to item. "I wanted opening night to be perfect. I wanted to come see you. I wanted you to..." His jaw set, this teeth grinding quietly. "...talk to me, to come home, to take care of me. And I was so angry--at you, at myself. It would have been..." He shakes his head sharply. "Maybe I was afraid, too." For a moment it seems he might not say any more, but then he adds, quieter and more hesitant, "What was it you wanted?" Lucien's flinch when Matt says he was angry is small but, in the bright-lit mirror, noticeable all the same. "{I'm sorry. I should have...}" He trails off, head tipping downward. He is taking much more time removing the last of his stage makeup than strictly necessary; in parallel to the task is a slow rebuilding of his mental scaffolding. "I wanted my brother to give a shit how I was doing." Matt looks down when Lucien flinches. "I did--" Though he hasn't raised his voice, this comes out sharp, but then he takes a breath and continues, soft and even once more. "I do. But I sure as fuck didn't act it." He starts to run his fingers through his perfectly coiffed hair but stops just in time. "I told myself it was best for you, that you wouldn't even want to see me. But it was what I thought was best, what I thought you wanted." His jaw works silently for a moment. "{I think. I do that a lot. And maybe I'm right sometimes. But the moment you pushed back I...}" He raises his eyes, seeking his brother's in the mirror. "I was a jerk." Lucien's expression is quite composed, at the sharpness in Matt's tone, but his flinch is still more noticeable all the same; the careful work he'd been doing to reconstruct his mental organization tumbles down like so many jenga blocks. He lowers his hand, fingers plucking distastefully at the edge of the clammy crumpled makeup wipe he still holds. "{I try so hard not to push back. But sometimes --}" The touch of the damp cotton on his skin sends sharp uncomfortable spikes prickling along his nerves but his repetitive plucking does not stop. "I wanted to see you. I wanted you to see me. These days I have been less and less sure you do. I --" There's a hitch, here, his words faltering and resuming only with a clear effort. "Was happier with the solitude. Than you showing up if it were only to -- to --" But here he just grimaces in frustration, head shaking. Matt's lips compress, but his expression remains largely opaque, likewise whatever his mind is doing behind it. His power extends, wrapping around and through Lucien's, starting to gather the wreckage in his mind. Then stops, starts to withdraw, stops that, too, and finally settles on just augmenting. He waits a beat for his brother to find words, then another beat, visibly fighting the urge to supply those words. When he does speak he just murmurs "Chu désolé," though it's not, perhaps, easy to discern now which part of all that he's apologizing for. "I thought that I saw you. I thought that I--" He pushes a breath out between tightly clenched teeth. "It doesn't matter what I thought. It's on me to..." He wilts back against the door. "{I'm not really sure what to do. But it has to start with listening. And hearing.} And seeing, no?" He kneels, tugging his cravat loose and offering its soft silky fabric in a exchange for the makeup wipe, which he only barely stops himself short of just taking. "So I'm glad you pushed back, even if I ought never to have made that necessary. And if you'd rather have solitude than--whatever the hell I'm doing now? I can let you be, at least until you come home. Or," he adds, uncharacteristically diffident, "do something else." There's a brief flicker of Lucien's mind through Matt's, quiet and assessing before it pulls back. "{I'm not sure, either.}" He tosses the spent cloth into the trash, exchanging it for the offered tie; there's a much greater ease that settles in his mind as he draws the smooth fabric through his fingertips. "But I suppose it starts with -- something else."