Logs:Situationship

Situationship
cn: ablist language, discussion of parental abuse, sibling favoritism, mentions of child sexual abuse
Dramatis Personae Fury, Lucien
In Absentia	2024-01-29 "At least I managed to start on the right foot with one of your folk."
Location <NYC> Fury's Apartment - Hell's Kitchen
An easy walk from Times Square, this is a two-bedroom penthouse apartment in a carefully restored historic building, its southern exposure affording an excellent view and letting in as much natural light as the season allows. It's sparsely decorated -- a scattering of framed historical photographs of the city on the pale gray walls -- but comfortably appointed in chic monochrome. The kitchen is definitely the focus of this residence, its black marble and steel kept scrupulously clean and well-provisioned. The master bedroom is capacious, with a queen sized bed and its own bath to boot, but to the observant eye it shows few signs of regular use. The smaller bedroom is set up as an office with a twin bed and entirely too much advanced computer equipment, its door usually kept closed when there are visitors. Fury actually has to open the door for his guest this time, and it's clearly not a comfortable experience for him. He's wearing a black button-down and black slacks under a black apron that looks at a glance absolutely indistinguishable from the one at his safehouse. "Welcome, Mister Tessier." He starts to step back and make space for the other man to actually enter, but hesitates for an instant, as if he might have changed his mind. But with a snap of his fingers he manages to make it look mostly like he just remembered something. "'Bout that time, too. Go on and make yourself comfortable. I'll pour us some drinks just soon as I get that pie out the oven." He's still maybe a little slow getting out of Lucien's way, but seems on more even footing once he's back at his cooking. The pot of beans simmering on the stove and the pie he takes from the oven fill the apartment with a mix of savory smells touched with maple syrup and spices. "Don't you worry about no contamination, now, this kitchen been scrubbed within a inch of its life." There's the faintest glimmer of amusement in Lucien's eyes when Fury answers the door. He's waiting outside in a gray sharkskin suit that hangs loose on his startlingly diminished frame, a lavender herringbone shirt with understated amethyst cufflinks, a paisley tie in peacock jeweltones that accentuate his already vivid green eyes, and black monk shoes embossed with floral scroll Perhaps it's out of respect for Fury's brief discomfort that Lucien waits a few extra beats outside, his eyes fixed steadily on Fury until the man steps back. Or perhaps it's, "Hell's Kitchen, mmm?" -- that's the greeting Fury gets, at least, aggressively mild. He is following Fury into the apartment, though, eyes ticking thoughtfully around the place before he fetches up against the counter. His expression is relaxing -- it's not quite a smile but there's a warmth to it all the same. "I was not worrying." Fury shucks his (all black) oven mitts and goes to stir the maple beans, dedicating more attention to it than is probably strictly speaking necessary. "I live a dangerous life. Maybe not like your Mister Black, but I got to take precautions in my own way." He is, as promised, going to pour them drinks. The Scotch is also indistinguishable from what he usually offers at his safehouse, though at least the heavy lowball glass he hands Lucien is of a different design. The brush of contact is loud with a pounding underslept headache and a lot of emotional stress too complicated for Lucien to pick out in any greater resolution. "Figured I'd make it up to you with that there tourtière and...well, the beans is just my usual with maple syrup 'steada brown sugar." His eyes tick over Lucien, his expression betraying nothing. "You probably gon' need that dessert, too, once we get there." "I will endeavour to save some room," Lucien promises Fury solemnly, "though with how good that tourtière already smells I make no promises that I will be successful." He accepts the glass with a small dip of his head in thanks, and takes a slow swallow. "I am in no rush to get there, though. I am content enough that we have gotten --" He pauses, rolling the glass slowly in one hand. His gaze lifts to Fury, studying the other man thoughtfully before drifting off the matter of dinner to muse instead: "-- actually, I admit I am not quite sure where here is." Fury chuffs a soft puff of laughter behind the glass he'd just raised to his lips. "Clinton," he offers helpfully as he tips his head toward the black leather couches. "Where'd you reckon dessert gon be?" He drops into the plush armchair and the stutter of his hand when he lifts it to head tells of correcting from some gesture he finds unacceptable -- rubbing his temple, perhaps -- to smoothing over his pate. To make sure it's shaved cleanly, of course. "You been known I ain't no good at this once we get out of sports metaphor territory and yet. Here we are, wherever here is." "Goodness, we blew right through sports metaphor territory while I was still in tryouts. And now, two and a half years later, we are --" Lucien's hand turns upward, gesturing -- out, to the apartment around them. "In Clinton." This is quiet and wry as he settles down into a corner of the couch nearest Fury's armchair. "My life is changing. I have new hotels in development, new projects preparing to record, my siblings are --" Are what, he cuts himself off here without finishing this thought and instead takes another sip of his Scotch. "If anything I expect I will be considerably busier now that I am not tethered six days a week to the city. I am quite capable of making time for the things that matter, but I need to know what it is I am making time for." Fury squints his eye, which tugs unevenly on his scarred brows, making him look faintly skeptical. "I reckon that depends what sport you talmbout, but I usually bail soon as we out of bounds." He sips at his scotch, slower than is his habit. "You was never just a piece of ass, but I'mma be straight wit you. I ain't a family man. My work comes first. I got trust issues like the day is long. Ion want nobody tryna fix me or save me." He leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and rolling the glass slowly between his hands. "Now, I 'spect you done put allat together and you still here, which sure do make me feel some kinda way. And since I didn't bail and you still here..." He fixes Lucien with a searching gaze. "...then maybe this is some kinda datin'. Goin' steady?" Another lopsided scrunch of his face. "Do y'all even say that, these days? I'm too old for this Facebook relationship status bullshit." "I am not nearly old enough to be on Facebook. I have said going steady," Lucien allows, "when I was in Grease." His eyes drop to the scotch, one carefully manicured fingernail tapping slow against the side of the glass. He is smiling, now, if small, the curl of his lips faint but the warmth in his eyes bright. "I have family enough for one lifetime and will have work enough for two, if my agent has her way. I barely have the time to fix myself, let alone you. But --" His eyes flick briefly up to Fury, and then back down. "Apologies, I quite lack the sports metaphors for this situation. You once told me cautioned me against the future I might have if I did not once in a while learn to step outside my role, and perhaps I am listening. My comfort zone has historically been very role-defined, but I think you are worth stepping outside it, Director Fury." "Aw hell, you gon make me blush." If Fury is blushing, it's not showing. "Shit, at least you're used to playing more than one role at a time. I been doing International Man of Mystery ever since..." He sits up, snaps his fingers, and points at Lucien. "'Steppin' out' is what your Captain Rogers would call it." He takes a slug of whisky and shakes his head, a smile breaking through his amused mock-scowl. "'Spose I could stand to listen to myself now and again. It's been a minute since I played 'boyfriend'..." He trails off again, sitting up even straighter. "Shit. That mean we ain't doing this on the downlow no more?" "On the downlow would be stepping in, non?" Lucien takes a longer swallow of his drink and rests the glass on his knee. "I am hardly about to mention this to the next reporter to pry about my romantic proclivities, but -- perhaps -- if occasionally we had a meal somewhere other than our clandestine Other Homes, it would not go so terribly amiss?" Here his smile slips slightly askew. "You have dealt with enough horrific global catastrophes, I imagine you could probably survive dinner with my family." "See, one of the many benefits of being an International Man of Mystery?" Fury's eyebrows rise -- almost evenly, this time. "The reporters expect me to say 'no comment.'" His smile -- and it is finally a smile, without qualification -- mirrors Lucien's. "I 'preciate the vote of confidence. Some of my agents ain't never lived down how y'all outclassed them, and that was before they was subjected to the admittedly well-deserved scorn of the other Mister Tessier. I hope I won some points with him after Lassiter." He takes another sip and gestures vaguely back at the kitchen counter with his glass. "Will you look at that! We come right back around to the tourtière. I was gon' wait and see if you could tell, but it's your mother's recipe. At least I managed to start on the right foot with one of your folk." Lucien starts to look up, but his eyes stutter halfway to Fury. "It's my --" Possibly some other words were about to come here but they are preempted by the wet shattering of the glass as it falls from his grip. He's out of his seat in the next moment, reflexively starting to reach down but pulling his hand back from the broken shards. "Oh -- oh goodness, my apologies, I --" It's slower and more cautious when he carefully nests some of the larger pieces of glass together, and perhaps his eyes are only fixed so steadily downward now to avoid this task ending in bloodshed. "I suppose I needn't warn you about her charms, then." The fluster has left his voice, just light and casual again now. "I can't wait to see how the tourtière turned out." "Let that alone, boy!" Fury's accent slips suddenly if only subtly mountain-ward, but when he speaks again he's corrected back to his…perhaps not actually his native accent, after all. "Your hands is soft as a baby's bottom, you sit on down an lemme get that." There's some sub-verbal grumbling as he goes to fetch a dustpan and paper towels -- and comes back with the whisky and another glass, too. "You ain't been eatin' enough, is what that is," he admonishes, and perhaps it's in an unconscious attempt to compensate for this complaint that he pours Lucien more than he'd had in his glass when they started. Only after his guest has been properly re-fortified does he start cleaning up the glass. "Might be a couple'a other things goin' on, too." It isn't quite a question, but there's an appraising sort of deliberation when he glances at Lucien sidelong. "Lord knows it can't be easy having your ma back from the dead, even if you got a shocking amount of practice in that area. I shouldn't've been so flippant. Lucien's eyes drop again sharply at the reprimand, but he's taken his seat again without complaint by the time Fury returns with another whisky. He takes it -- takes a bigger slug than before. "I am no longer eating a Steve Rogers caloric load each day. It has been an adjustment." He is watching the glint of the broken glass as it's swept into the dustpan. "The rest I suppose I should be well-adjusted to already. I've as much experience regaining family members as losing them." The corner of his mouth twitches up, brief and thin. "New material was rather thin last year but hopefully with the strike concluded our writers can come up with some new plots, this one is getting --" This thought finishes only with a shake of his head, and he drains half his glass. "I did not realize you two were getting acquainted." "It don't look like a healthy adjustment, but I 'spose this sorta thing is normal in show business." Fury disposes of the (broken) glass and tops off Lucien's (as-yet whole) glass again, then his own. "I oughta know better than to try'n keep pace with you." This as he salutes Lucien with his drink and gamely tries to keep up anyway. "I bumped into her at your New Year's shindig and got to talkin'. Being a suave superspy, I finagled some recipes outta her without sayin' nothing 'bout steppin' in with you. Hope she don't hold that against me, she seem like the protective sort." He shakes his head, his smile surprisingly gentle. "Fascinating woman -- I see a lotta her in your brother and you." Good luck to Fury's liver because Lucien is draining his glass entire, and promptly refilling it. His "Mmm," comes on a soft puff of laughter. "Yes, I suppose she did give us a sight more than just the eyes." He doesn't look back at Fury until after another swallow of whiskey; there's a faint tightness around his eyes that skews his expression a little more pinched than before. "She and I --" He hesitates, fingers curling a little more tightly against his glass. "We had our share of disagreements, when I was younger. Matthieu thinks time and trial may have changed her. Certainly," a little wry, "stranger things have happened in our family." Fury arches one brow and does not match Lucien's next drink. "Goddamn, you been keeping it polite for me all this time, or..." He trails off, taking in the tightness around Lucien's eyes moreso than his wording. "All y'all's strange, but the strangest part is how well you pull off seeming normal. That goes for her, too, I reckon." He turns his glass meditatively, watching the golden liquid inside cling and slide. "Well, whether she's changed or not, she's making you upset and that's reason enough to either stop talmbout her or...talmbout her more. We can ditch the pie if it's a problem. We can get food delivered here, being as it isn't a safehouse." "I will replenish your whisky, if that is a concern." Lucien is not draining this next glass, at least, though he does look fairly tempted. Instead he sets the glass down, leaning back in his seat and dragging a palm down over his cheek. "I am an actor," is his reply to seeming normal, and there's a brighter amusement in it. His expression has sorted itself back into a careful calm when he drops his hand. "Oh, we only just arrived at dating, I do not need to drag decades-old grievances into dinner --" His eyes flick to Fury and there's only the slightest hesitation before he finishes, lightly, "--quite yet. The pie is no problem, though. She has never cooked me a tourtière in her life." This time, the extremely lopsided arch of Fury's eyebrow is probably deliberate. "I'm wounded you even considered that, but rest assured I got whisky like the day is long, too." He does match Lucien's drink this time. "Helps with the trust issues." He lifts his glass again, then lowers it, frowning. "You sure you don't wanna talk about it? You don't need to drag your past into dinner, but you ain't gon' scare me off so easy, neither." He does drain his glass now, and refills both of theirs. "'Sides, Imma be three sheets to the wind by the time we get to dessert and I'm always looking for more grievances to drunkenly gripe about." "I don't know that there is much to talk about, it feels a bit silly to still be hung up on past transgressions all these years later." Lucien's fingers curl down briefly against his knee, and after this small beat of pause he picks the glass back up for another swallow. Though he's steady enough perhaps the copious whisky is having some effect, because his words spill a touch lighter and more glib than is his wont. "I suppose it just felt like there were things I had long since put to rest with her. With her wanting to be in the children's lives now, trying to reconcile the childhood I had with the mother she wants to be for them now -- but then," he's saying this a little like he's trying to convince himself and a little like he's already warming to this argument, "our contexts are so very dissimilar. After Matthieu I was a terrible disappointment of a child and I do not think it was easy raising someone with my challenges on so little. She hardly needs worry about where Sera's food is coming from or how to teach Gaé to be a person. I'm sure it will be different." "Ain't nobody perfect, but the way I sees it, when a parent's mistake hurt they kids they got to take responsibility." Fury sighs with a world-weariness beyond even his advanced years. "Don't matter if it wasn't really they fault, don't matter how long it's been." He hesitates here, considers his drink like he's about to knock it back, but ultimately doesn't. "See, my pa done me wrong and it fucked me up a long time. He never stepped up, and I never backed down, but in hindsight I wish to hell I'd been the bigger man and tried to reconcile anyway. Maybe I'd'a kept the rest of my family if I had done. But maybe not." He looks up at Lucien, his eyes slow to track though he's showing no other signs of inebriation. Yet. "Even if she do come 'round, it was never on you to try. Whatever challenges she had it don't excuse…" He frowns. "...what did she do? Or fail to do?" "Good, bad, or ugly, it's always complicated." Lucien's eyes have lifted back to Fury, fixing on the older man with a quiet contemplation. "Is it too late? With the rest of your family? There is little enough to be done about hindsight, but the future -- is not yet set, non?" When his eyes drop back to his glass it's with a faint flush rising to his cheeks. He doesn't quite knock the rest of his drink back, but does swallow it down in one long pull and then, after a consideration, another. "She was quite young, and she -- struggled, somewhat with my --" His other hand twitches as if about to make some gesture, but instead he presses his fingers more firmly down against his knee. "Matthieu was brilliant and precocious and charming and I was an imbecile who threw tantrums over every small thing I was asked to eat, or wear, or --" He's been feeling out his words a little more carefully, now, but here he pauses, shaking his head with a soft huff of laughter. "Apologies, when I say it aloud it sound so trivial. We were in a very different place and she could hardly afford the indulgences I make for myself, now. It just took me quite a long time after leaving home to begin to understand I was allowed any say in what happens to my body." Fury's "hah!" is not wholly humorless. "Oh, it ain't too late, but I can't see sparing the time and energy and dignity to mend those fences. I was away so long that Pa's side of things became the Gospel truth, and then he asked for me on his deathbed and I weren't there. Standing up to the man is one thing. Standing up to his memory?" He lets out the rest of the breath, making it sound like he had intended to say more but now is not. Instead, mildly, "There's just a lot less ugly in that family without me, and in my life without them. I'll take a mutant doomsday cult or a tear in the fabric of reality over my sister's preachin' any day." His eyes tick over Lucien, his expression carefully schooled to neutrality -- but not carefully enough to look like he's not schooling it. "Hell, ain't throwin' tantrums and actin' stupid what childhood's for? Gotta get it out your system somehow, and it's not like wallopping a kid for snubbing his greens gon' make him like 'em better." He takes one long pull to two of Lucien's, then gestures at him with the glass. "You ask me? Your brother's the strange one if he wasn't gettin' up to all that." "Mmm," Lucien considers this before telling Fury, quite solemnly: "You ought be careful, though. Rifts in space-time have a way of turning into family drama before you know it." His eyes drop sharp from Fury's carefully neutral expression back to his empty glass. The Carefully Schooled Neutrality in his expression is, at least, par for the course. "Vegetables I enjoyed well enough, it took me an oddly long time to come around to sweets. -- I think there is little point in arbitrating which of us is the strange one, my whole family is peculiar." He is starting to relax now, at least, some subtle tension in his shoulders easing and an easy amusement in his voice. "I ought thank her, really, I would hardly have much of a career on stage if I'd not been well adjusted to all manner of sensory difficulty." Almost an afterthought and no less glib: "-- not much of one off stage, either, without so much practice at getting men to spoil me." "Well, I'm sure he can't help how he's built, but that flavor of strange is too sweet for my taste." Fury refills Lucien's glass, managing to look only a little unsure whether this is wise. "I can't help it, neither. My bullshit detector is real hair trigger, and that much charm just sets off warning bells even when it's completely sincere." He hesitates visibly, then evidently thinks better of refilling his own glass which he's lifting again even as he sets the bottle aside. "'Sensory difficulty', all y'all Millennials sure do love --" The glass slips from his hand to shatter on the floor, but he barely even flinches at the crash. "-- 'scuse me, she did what?" "In all fairness, quite a lot of things set off your warning bells." Lucien is at least sipping this next drink a little more slowly. He does flinch at the crash, eyes widening and shoulders tightening, though only brief. "Oh, goodness, perhaps we ought start on the food before we finish this round." The amusement hasn't left his voice when he rises to retrieve the dustpan and more paper towels, now. His answer comes dissonantly casual: "I'm sure she didn't have costuming in mind but at the time we hardly had my cashmere budget." Fury actually sputters, briefly. "-- the fuck you mean cashmere?" As the shock starts to subside he studies Lucien, long and searching while the younger man sweeps up the wreckage of another unpleasant surprise. "You ain't pulling my leg." It is, at least, not a question. "She was gettin' men to -- spoil you. When you was a kid." "I --" Lucien is beginning, perhaps, to offer some sort of explanation about the quip, but his mouth closes again tight. He's slow in cleaning up the mess, but by the time he finishes he seems no more confident of regaining his conversational footing and not too much more certain where precisely he lost it. The levity has bled out of his tone finally, cautious now like he isn't quite sure this is the right answer: "Money was always very tight." "Jesus H Christ, you cannot be letting this woman --" Fury runs a hand over his head. "Aight look, that's not the kinda disagreement where you just call it water under the bridge and move on. There ain't no statute of limitations on selling your own child. She oughta be --" He actively bites back whatever he was about to say. "Your siblings --" Pauses, corrects to, "-- your brother know about this? Your friends she been schmoozing with?" Lucien has gone just a little paler, but his expression is otherwise inscrutable. He goes to get rid of the glass, and has not fetched another when he returns. "I spend very little time reminiscing about the past with my friends." His hands have folded in his lap, and he chuffs out a short dry breath of laughter. "As I said it is hardly dinner conversation. Twenty minutes in and I'm already making rather a hash of this dating business. This was entirely out of left field and I should never have left the realm of metaphor, apologies." Fury scrubs a hand down the right side of his face, and however he looks like he might want to make further comment on the Reminiscing Lucien has just done, he holds his peace. "You ain't made a hash," he says, kind of vaguely. "I done drunk too much too fast is what this is. Usually, I can keep up with you." He shakes his head and squints his eye shut, and looks slightly more clear-headed when he blinks it open again. "Look, I ain't dated in almost as long as you been alive, period. I think it's pretty impressive we even got out the realm of hypothetical. I reckon we should get to the actual dinner, it's had a minute to cool." He glances toward the kitchen, mouth skewing slightly to one side in consideration. "I might could use a hand with that tourtière."