Logs:Other
| Other | |
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| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
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2020-12-01 "{I know it's a stereotypical question to ask, but am I alive, over there?}" (set after bumping into steve. part of rift tp.) |
| 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. It's only mid afternoon, with plenty of daylight left, but the temperature outside is dropping already. The fumble of keys at the front door takes a bit longer than usual before resolving into the solid click of the lock turning, and shortly thereafter Matt's bone wheelchair floats inside. Matt himself is frowning deeply already, his power snaking out ahead of him in careful questing. His gray and green softshell jacket and blue jeans clearly inadequate for the chill, for he's shivering faintly, his cheeks too pale and his movements too slow. However slowly, he takes off his shoes and eases his thin frame out of the chair to put them away. By the time he's shedding the jacket--he wears a blue tee shirt underneath, with a cartoon figure reading under an arch of books bracketed by the words "Best time machine EVER!"--his eyes are fixed intently at a spot on the wall as though he could see through it to the study beyond. Finally he drags himself to his brother's door, pushing it slowly open, his power poised to clamp down. The person inside is -- not quite familiar, though the face he wears certainly is. The other Lucien is standing by one of the bookshelves, dressed in an impeccably tailored gray herringbone blazer over a fine green rollneck sweater, thin wale cream corduroy trousers, and black hazel loafers. One fingertip trails lightly along some of the leatherbound spines; his other hand has dropped to idly scratch at the head of the sleek black and tan mutt who is quite happily wagging at his side. The smooth clockwork ticking of his carefully groomed mind registers only a very brief flutter of change as Matt approaches. "{Here I thought it customary to knock before entering someone else's bedroom.}" His voice is soft, and he has not looked up from the books when the door has opened. "{Really, now, who raised you.}" Matt's eyebrows lift ever so slightly as he looks over the man inside. "{You are trespassing,}" he points out mildly, leaning on the inside of the door frame. His eyes are keen despite his obvious exhaustion, lingering momentarily on this not-quite-stranger's corduroys, of all things. "{Would you care for a cup of tea while you tell me what you are doing here?}" He's already turning from the room, waving his uninvited guest along with a lazy offhand gesture as he drifts into the kitchen to put the kettle on. "{Pray do not tell me you favor coffee.}" "{Coffee? Where exactly do you imagine I come from?}" Only here does Lucien look up -- his eyes fix on Matt, too, lingering there steadily until the other man moves away. He's slow to follow; it takes him a few beats before he draws away from the bookcase to trail after Matt. "{I admit you are not exactly who I hoped to have a word with.}" He fetches up against a kitchen counter, his casual lean against it somewhat offset by the hard intensity of his eyes as they track after Matt. Matt huffs a breathy laugh. "{Another world, where for all I know north might be south.}" He opens the tea cabinet, green eyes flicking to Lucien in momentary consideration before he selects a tin of fine Formosan pouchong. "{He'll not be back 'til the evening, though I suppose he might be tempted to hurry if I tell him I am making tea for his doppelgänger.}" He preps the round, glossy celadon teapot and leans back against the counter beside the range, regarding the other man steadily. "{I know it's a stereotypical question to ask, but am I alive, over there?}" "{I haven't got until evening, so some manner of haste would be welcome.}" Lucien folds his arms loose over his chest, studying Matt thoughtfully. "{You look halfway to not being alive right now. And here I thought you all got the version with the United States set to easy mode.}" "{I do not know whether he will get the message at once, nor how easy it will be for him to get away when he does. I don't suppose you would consider letting me pass along what you need to tell him?}" Matt fishes his phone out of his pocket and unlocks its screen without taking his eyes from his sort-of brother. "{If your United States has eradicated cancer, I congratulate you. It's in remission.}" His lips press into a thin, brittle smile. "{Again. But, to your earlier question: he raised me, for the most part. My Luci, that is--and I him, and we in turn raised the others...}" His serene expression falters for just a flash, his breath hitching minutely. "{...As best we could.}" "Huh. Cancer." Lucien's brow hitches, his eyes slightly wider and a light ripple coursing across the surface of his mind. Quickly recalibrating. "{Regrettably, we have not, yet, though my brother dodged that particular bullet.}" His fingers curl fractionally tighter against the crook of his arm, and he studies Matt's expression, his own leveling back into a careful neutrality. "{You raised them? What happened to our -- your mother, then?}" "{I congratulate him, then.}" The subtle tension in Matt's voice, still superficially placid, may or may not be perceptible to this particular Lucien. "{I certainly cannot recommend it, in any event.}" His eyes dart to the kettle as the water inside begins to roil audibly. "{She died a few years ago, but she was not much of a mother before that. She forced us to--}" His shoulders tighten fractionally, though his breathing comes slow and even. Perhaps a little too even. "{--improvise. I take it yours did better?} Admittedly, ours set the bar so low you'd have to dig under it." "Oh, ours? Alive. Thriving. She always is." Lucien's voice is light, casual; the quiet tightening in his mind in counterpoint, a soft and subtle thing. "{And us in turn, I suppose.}" He pulls away from the counter, slow, hand dropping to trail fingers lightly over the smooth cool stone. "{Whether by careful nurturing or series of misadventures, we seem to have ended up --}" His lips thin. Brief. "{On our feet. Odd, isn't it. I imagine your journey looked so much different, to end up in so much the same place.}" He's looking down to Flèche with an amused smile, soon gone. Almost offhand: "How are the children, then? In your care?" "{It is odd. I have often wondered..}" There's a fleeting tug at the corner of Matt's lips--not exactly a smile, and not exactly a grimace. "{Ironically, her abuse taught me I must fight to do better than she, however alike we were. Without that...I like to think Luci might have saved me anyway, but--I know myself too well to really believe it.}" He clicks off the burner, not looking at Lucien now. "They were," he replies mechanically, staring at the bar for a moment before tearing his eyes away and going to fill the teapot instead. "Sera is dead. Gae is missing. Neither because of her or us, if you're inclined to take my word which, at a guess, I'd say you're not." "{Abuse?}" Lucien pauses at the edge of the counter, fingers pressing down harder to it and his eyes flicking back sharp to Matt. He pulls in a very small breath, tips his head down toward the floor. "My gods. Tell me you at least managed to keep Desi alive to adulthood. She is quite resourceful." "{From the banal to the sordid.}" Matt returns the kettle to the range and sags back against the counter, watching the faint curl of steam rise from the spout of the teapot. "{I don't think you want to know, but we kept the worst of it from the kids, at least, and I--I would sooner die than do as she did to us.}" His voice is soft, at the end, yet vehement. The nod that follows is slow. "She's about to graduate from Tisch, but--she went into dance, so make of that what you will." He finally looks back up at Lucien, his gaze steady and unreadable. "{I am sure that you must have an important errand, and I can guess you've plenty of cause to doubt me, if your Matthieu shares my faults.}" He glances down at his phone and swipes across its screen rapidly. "Even so--please let me help, if help we can." He taps the send button finally and tucks the phone away.
"{Oh, I'm sure I've no idea your faults, tempting though it may be to extrapolate from my experiences.}" There's a piercing cast to Lucien's assessing gaze, a critical overtone to his voice, that very much suggests he's making some assumptions despite this. He glances, quick, to the phone, then back up to Matt. Again a faint quiet tick of recalibration across his tightly controlled mental chemistry, before: "I came to offer you my help, actually. I know where your brother is." Matt arches one eyebrow just a touch higher than the other. "{I thought it might be hard not to--extrapolate. It is hard to know how to think about this at all.}" He checks his phone and swipes out his reply even as he returns to the teapot.
He places the phone on the counter, decants the pouchong, and has fortuitously just set the teapot back down when this last revelation comes. His eyes snap up to Lucien, wide and suddenly a lot less steady. The rest of him, too--he braces both trembling hands on the edge of the counter to keep himself upright. "{Where--how--is he hurt?}"
Lucien's eyes tick down over Matt, studying the shift of his posture with little discernible change to his expression. He drifts nearer the other man's counter, claiming one of the freshly decanted teacups and continuing on toward a back window to peer out at the garden. "{Some of the world's most preeminent physicists are working on the how and I expect even they couldn't quite tell you, yet.}" He tips his head down toward the cup in his hands, drawing a slow breath of the upward curling steam. "{In one of Stark's cages by now, I expect. There were a whole group of them trying to cross back here.}" All the blood has drained from Matt's face--and he'd been pale enough as it was. "Oh gods..." He lifts a hand to his lips, tea quite forgotten, tantalizing though its light, buttery fragrance may be. His other hand drops to tap at his phone again, quick jerky motions.
He looks back up at the man standing before his kitchen window. His voice is already evening out. "{If you've any means to discover where they are being held, I can muster a team in short order.}" He bows his head. "{Do you require assistance, or--anything we can provide? I know not what dangers you braved just coming to us, much less what you risk by helping us further.}" "{A team?}" Lucien tips his head, eyebrow hitching slightly. "{What sort of a team?}" Matt opens his mouth to reply, then hesitates. "{I'm not sure whether some equivalent exists--or existed--in your world and if so what you know of them, but there is a group of mutant...vigilantes, called the} X-Men." Lucien has just been about to take a sip of his tea, and perhaps it is lucky that he did not, because the laugh that follows this is abrupt and startled, a harsh burst that calms into a quizzical lift of both brows, this time, as he turns from the window to look back at Matt: "{Oh. Dear. You are serious?}" The backs of his knuckles press lightly to his lips, then lower again. "Ah -- perhaps things are very different in your world, but in mine, the X-Men will not be a help." He sips at his tea, turns back to the window. "{Even if they could get into my world. Which they could not. The gateway is quite heavily guarded. Stark himself is on the project, and the site is teeming with police robots. They would be depowered and captured the moment they crossed.}" His mouth twitches thinner. "St-- Captain Rogers. {Is he trustworthy? If we were to get the children out and managed to get them across, would they be safe on your side of the gate?}" If Lucien's laughter and dismissal greatly troubled Matt, he does not show it--hardly seems to have noticed it at all. He does, however, finally take up his own tea, circling the island counter to slump onto one of the stools. "{I trust him.}" Immediate, confident, firm. "{S.H.I.E.L.D. may want to debrief them, but Steve won't let anything happen to them.}" He takes a sip of his tea, brows furrowing deeply. "{I am sure you are very competent and well-connected, if you are anything like--like my Luci, but I beg you will leave us some recourse to attempt the rescue ourselves if you are unable.}" "{Had I any control over the actions of Stark or the Sentinels, our world might look quite different.}" Lucien lifts his cup, taking a slow sip. "{Certainly I have no control over your vigilante crew, either. If they have a death wish, the man has plenty of empty cells. I will do what I can.}" His jaw tightens in the hesitation that follows. "{You cannot help me with your wayward children. But there is -- something.}" Matt's lips compress, but he nods--once, small. His knuckles are white where he's gripping his cup tight, his other hand clamped down on the edge of the counter. His voice is calm, though, when he prompts, "{What is it?}" Lucien is quiet. His response comes slow and very soft, when it does come. His eyes are still turned outward, his grip matching his not-quite-brother's in its hard clench around the teacup. "{If we get Gaétan back to you, I want to send Sera with him.}" Though sitting now, Matt sways again, and looks very much like he would have fallen right out of his seat if he were not already holding onto the counter. "{I beg your pardon?}" he blurts, even if the follow-up makes it clear he understood. "{Does she know of this proposition? That she would be ripped from her family--her world, everyone she knows--forever?}" "{I don't expect she'll be well pleased when I broach the topic. Though, in fairness, it isn't much of a world.}" Lucien's head tips slightly downward. "{Nor much of a family. I've some -- slim -- hope that here she might at least have the opportunity for one.}" Matt does not speak for several long beats. He stares at Lucien until, suddenly catching himself at it, he averts his eyes. "{I'd known it was bad, over there, but I thought--at least you all have each other still, and a version of Mother who cares, to boot.}" His hand slowly releases the counter and curls around the tea, lifting it in both hands now to his lips. "{And we--gods, we are so very broken, and our Sera is dead.}" His voice breaks, though he blinks back his tears. "{I cannot fathom how desperate you must be to countenance this.}" "{In many ways not so desperate at all, I suppose. More fortunate by far than most. We are free, and safe -- enough -- between Matthieu's reign at the Club and my work with Stark our family will likely remain that way.}" Lucien drains the rest of his tea, turning to set the cup on the counter beside the sink. "{Your brother came to us for help, first.}" He's looking back at Matt again, steady, now, though there's a tight and uneasy churn in his mind. "{But Stark has been very keen to find some extradimensional visitors and he --}" A small tightening of his eyes, a small breath, "{-- we are nothing if not our mother's children. Sera need not be, though.}" Matt's eyes keep getting wider as Lucien speaks, and at a certain point they flick back up fix on the other man's eyes, so uncannily like his own even across the gulf of their disparate realities. "{Dear gods, you--}" He goes very, very still. Where his power had coiled loose and passive around Lucien's before it now sinks in deep, none too gently. The sensation isn't exactly painful, but probably disquieting as Lucien loses control of his own biokinesis while still wholly able to feel it at work. Then, as abruptly as it had come, the control withdraws. "{I'm sorry, you--}" He swallows hard, slouching forward to brace his elbows on the counter. "{You are Gaétan's best hope. If you can save him, and persuade Sera to cross back over with him--it hardly seems we've much choice but to accept your condition. You may be sure we'd do our best by her.}" He looks down into his tea. "{At the least we could do better by her than a Matthieu Tessier who took Mother's lessons to heart.}" Lucien's breath catches sharp at that flex of power. His hand drops to catch himself against the counter, little though anything has physically unbalanced him; it stays there after the tight coil of Matt's power withdraws. Now his eyes do lower, his breath pushed back out slow. "That bar," he replies, soft and dry, "is set so low you'd have to dig under it." | |
