Logs:Listen

Listen
cn: references to chaotic opioid usage and oblique suicidal ideation
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Matt
In Absentia Charles	2023-03-27 "{Different track, same shitty album.}"
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. The vagaries of Lucien's schedule have become considerably harder to predict, since leaving the Hellfire Club's employment for His Own Business with His Own Schedule of His Own Choosing. Some time after his habitual Monday cooking-for-the-week blitz he has vanished, and stayed vanished -- it's late enough by now it might well be assumed he won't be returning tonight at all. But, some time in the small hours, the lock is clicking, quietly; just as quietly, he is slipping back inside. He sheds shoes and jacket neatly into the front hall closet, left now in purple-and-white striped button down and light blue-grey trousers as he pads in socked feet for the kitchen. The light in the kitchen is still on, and the the celadon teapot is sitting out on the counter with no tea in it, though there is a canister of hojicha lurking nearby. A sleepy Flèche appears at the top of the stairs, wagging indecisively--and with several glances back over her shoulder--before finally coming down to greet Lucien. The touch of Matt's power is just a whisper of soft fondness, and Matt himself follows at a small delay, with his own hesitation on the landing. He's wearing a soft moss green tee and even softer gray pajama pants, an ancient battered copy of Neverwhere tucked against his side. When he comes down he does so with a mechanical deliberation he'd learned to compensate for unsteadiness whether from illness or substance use or both--probably the latter right now, his eyes bleary and bloodshot. He fetches up against the island counter and regards his brother vacantly for a moment. "{How was your evening?}" he asks, as if only just remembering how to speak. Lucien has just put away the hojicha and move not very far on to peering indecisively at the shelves of the tea cabinet. He is hesitating just shy of plucking up a strawberry sencha when his brother appears, and he drops his hand back to his side as he turns to glance over at Matt. "{-- less rough than yours, it appears,}" is his answer, light but not unsympathetic. "{Would tea help? I can do the hojicha if that was your preference.}" "{At the start of every term, there are always more meetings than I was prepared to expect. So it goes.}" Matt makes his way over to the tea cabinet as well, one hand not braced but just resting, poised to brace on the counter. "{I don't know if that was my preference.}" He frowns bemused at the hojicha and shakes his head. Then winces, and shakes it slower. "{I truly don't know, but I'd like a cup with you now. That dong ding. If you're amenable.}" He doesn't pick up the canister, just leans heavily back against the counter as he adds, also light and a little absent, "{Though, I do not think tea will help.}" "{Tea will not reduce the quantity of your meetings, but it may make facing them more bearable.}" Lucien pulls out a dong ding instead, measuring the leaves into the teapot's basket and filling it with water. He glances to the oven clock as he leans up against the opposing counter, palms bracing against its edge to either side of him. "{Though I expect it is something more than your meetings weighing on you, if you are beyond the reach of the dong ding.}" "{I'm not sure it will,}" Matt hedges, not sounding too much like he's sure it won't, at least. He doesn't answer the question at once, his eyes sluggishly tracking his brother's tea prep. "Chaz called me to his office. He was very concerned, probably mainly because I was beyond the reach of his admittedly very excellent Earl Grey." He swallows. "I'm mildly shocked he didn't call you to pick me up." "Called you to his office?" Lucien's brows hitch up, his eyes just a little wider. "{Goodness, next you will tell me he gave you lunch detention.}" Despite his light tone there is a genuine concern in his gaze as he searches his brother's face. "Where were you, that the Earl Grey could not come to your aid?" Matt stares fixedly at the teapot, breathing slow and even. "Somewhere in the realm of Despair, I suppose." His brows pull tight, also slowly. "I keep going back and forth. One minute I'm confident I'm on the right track to being a well-adjusted, non-abusive lunatic. The next I'm certain I will only ever be a burden to everyone I love and should simply perish. {It was,}" he clarifies, glancing back at Lucien, "{mostly the first one, for quite some time. Now...}" His gaze drops back to the teapot, but does not focus properly. "{I don't know. I'm probably just being overly dramatic.}" Lucien's brows tick just slightly higher at well-adjusted, but with some great effort he does not say the first thing that comes to his mind, and, instead: "{In this family overly dramatic is our watchword.}" He looks at the clock again, then at the teapot, then pulls himself away from the counter to fetch a pair of cups. "Not that it is my decision, but I would really rather you did not perish. Or linger forever in the fog staring into Despair's mirrors. {It is a bit out of season for you to be having the being-a-burden-to-everyone crisis,}" there is quite abruptly a touch of anxiety in his musing, "{I have not been so very busy that I missed a check-up, have I?}" "No." Matt is uncharacteristically blasé on the topic of checkups. "It's--gods, it's so circular." He looks up at the ceiling, suddenly tense and agitated where he'd been dejected and listless before. "This isn't the 'I'm useless because cancer' circle, though I'm sure I'll make that orbit in its due time. This is 'I'm abusive because crazy'. {Different track, same shitty album. I don't know how to tease out all the fucked up ways my brain relies on you, and...}" His teeth grind together hard, then relax when he goes back to deliberate breaths. He's very quiet when he continues, "I haven't wanted to ask for your help because I've a terror of hurting you again. But one of the ways I'd hurt you to begin with was not asking you for help until it was too late." "If you have been abusing me lately I certainly have not noticed." Lucien's brows are starting to pinch. He picks up one of the teacups, holding it out to Matt. "{Is this you asking for help, then? I know I have -- not been around, so much, since L'Entente.}" Matt accepts the tea and just holds it to his chest as though, against all reason, he needs it for warmth. "I know you're busy, I know L'Entente is important to you, and I'm so amazed by what you've accomplished there. Self-hatred aside, I also hate to make more demands on your time, now especially." He blinks rapidly, breathing faster again. "{But. Yeah. This is me asking for help.}" Lucien just nods, slow and small. He settles back against the counter once more, plucking up his cup to cradle it carefully in both hands. "You are my brother. I think some portion of my time has been earmarked for you since birth." He does not yet drink, though he does hold the tea high, letting the steam waft up where he can breathe it in slow. "{Will you tell me what help, or ought I to guess?}" In someone else this might sound like a mockery, but Lucien, here, just sounds quite serious. Matt gives a short bark of a laugh, bright and amused even though he is quite literally blinking back tears. "Gods, I think you'd dedicated more time and energy to me by age 18 than most would consider reasonable for an entire lifetime of siblinghood." Then, looking down into his tea, "We're not most people, though. I was wrong to think forcing us into moulds we didn't fit would somehow make things better." He actually is shivering now. "{I will tell you, when I know. When I don't, your guess will probably be better than mine. Right now--câlisse, it's the middle of the crisse de night and classes start in the morning esti de tabarnak!}" "We are not most people," Lucien agrees simply. He's pulling away from the counter and setting his tea aside to instead put a light hand to Matt's elbow, shepherding the elder toward the stairs. "{When you know, I will listen.}" "{I do know.}" Matt doesn't resist the shepherding, but he's very slow to move. "{I just don't know if it can be helped.}" To Lucien's senses now he's not only stoned but mildly buzzed, quite dehydrated (he had been considerably more drunk at some earlier point) and profoundly exhausted. The substances have dulled the sharp edges but not removed the familiar clawing need for a substance that isn't there. "Obviously the jonsing can be helped just...not right this moment probably. Hence the swearing." He clenches his jaw tight. "But getting high won't help because the problem is I miss you, and I despair of ever earning back your trust, and I fear I'm being selfish or controlling or manipulative for even wanting it back." Lucien listens to this quietly, a brief frown fleetingly contemplating darkening his expression but then hastening off. The prickly edges of craving smooth themselves away, washed off beneath a swell of more pleasant comfort. "Not right this moment," is a very gentle reproach, "you have such little faith. Come, now, it is the middle of the night, and classes to start in the morning." "{I'm sorry.}" It's not necessarily clear what Matt's apologizing for here. Tension eases from him palpably, if not completely, with Lucien's skillful adjustment. He breathes out slowly as if that tension were a breath he'd been holding. "I do need to have more faith in you, but this isn't a lack of faith. I only worry you're going to exhaust yourself..." He scrubs a hand over his eyes and huffs a much sharper breath. "Ben tabarnak, this is also a lack of faith, no?" He goes more easily, now, leaning on his brother with a very, very soft, "{Thank you, darling.}"