ArchivedLogs:This

This
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Nox
In Absentia	2013-06-29 '
Location <MOR> - Below New York
Buried beneath the bustle and noise of New York's busy streets, the world underneath the city is a quieter place. Quieter, but far from deserted. Occasional ladders, often rusting, ascend to the city above and are evidence that at /one/ point these tunnels had been in use, or had been planned for it; perhaps by way of maintenance, or access to subways or sewers. These stretches have been abandoned by civic infrastructure for some time now, though, but occasional scraps of evidence -- discarded food wrappers, piles of tatty blankets or moldering old mattresses, sometimes voices carrying echoes through the dank concrete -- give evidence that /someone/ still uses these tunnels. The rumbling of subway trains sounds frequently through the walls, many of the train routes accessible through various doors and openings. Even casually dressed, Lucien does not really look like he /belongs/ in the subway. Jeans, t-shirt, boots, yes, and probably among the older and more faded of those too. But the jeans are still tailored, the clothes still carry that undefinable polish that suggests he -- probably spent more money than is sensible on jeans and a t-shirt. 'Sensible' may not be a word that figures very /highly/ on his current decisionmaking, though, because he /is/ here, trailing his way through a dim-dank tunnel branching off from an abandoned subway tunnel somewhere below -- perhaps Greenwich. Perhaps SoHo. He has a bag with him, a large black messenger bag slung over his shoulder, and in his other hand there is a lantern, though it is currently switched off. He keeps a hand against the wall, slow steps moving more by feel than by sight -- it's an aimless sort of walk anyway. It's not like he has any idea where he is /going/. But he is going there all the same. The further he goes, the easier it is to imagine becoming lost down here. After a time, it's dark enough that the lack of light has a weight that seems to press in on the eyeballs and make the body want to open the eyes wider, and wider, and wider... And then something brushes Lucien's face. Soft and feather-light, it could be a moth wing, a passing insect. Or, given how he's suddenly seized in what feel like arms, it could so be Nox. That grabbing is followed by a yank that /lifts/ and then he's being pulled into a separate tunnel, one that opened up above his head, while she hisses, "Oh no...no no no, not that way, that way is Hounds, oh Lucien, Lucien is it you? It is you, no, you must not go that way." Through the contact they share, the way she's wrapped herself around him to carry--buoying both bag and lantern along as well, in the event that he's dropped them--he will be treated to fear, anxiety, guilt, and a small silver thread of...hope? It's twisted with doubt too; is this real? She doesn't know, she's simply reacting. And when he's finally deposited on a damp, sandy stretch of ground in a space that feels larger than what he's been taken from, the shadows withdraw entirely. But she's still there. The shadows /thrum/ with her presence. "Is it you?" The lantern is dropped, in a sudden tense startlement, though the bag stays draped across Lucien's shoulders. He might have been looking for Nox but even so there's a reflexive tensing at the sudden unseen contact, an even more reflexive sudden-sharp sting of pain that lances out from the contact. It fades immediately after, replaced by a very familiar soothing wash of cool. Lucien lifts his hand, curling it tightly against the strap of his bag when he is set down. "Who else would I be?" eventually sounds, quiet in the darkness. The pain barely registers as a blip, down here. She's too large for it, too spread out. The same can be said for the soothing...though Nox forces herself into something like calm once she's had a moment, and he's begun to gather himself. "A dream," she suggests softly. "A...hallucination. I was only just speaking about you, I think. To someone. And now here you are." This time, she takes care to make noise as she comes closer. A scuff against the ground, a brush of hand against sleeve before that same hand lifts to his cheek. "Ohh, you came. My Lucien." "I would not discount it entirely," Lucien murmurs, not particularly encouragingly, "there are times lately I feel like the entire last while has been one long stretch of dreaming." His head turns, pressing into the touch of hand, though this time there is no sensation to accompany it past the warm feel of his skin. "Micah," he says, "he came. He said some of the tunnels --" He quiets, a moment. "He said he visited. You." "Yes. Yes, it was Micah. He...the food. They came and Mr. Holland was angry, so Micah came back." It's a thought spoken aloud, in the gentle and wondering tone one uses when surprised to have remembered a thing. Nox's fingers use his head-tilt to continue to explore the lines and planes of his face, each touch a caress. Then she's shaped herself to step in close, to slide her arms around him. "Oh, Lucien. I thought. You could have been hurt. Killed." "Many people are angry," though Lucien's tone makes this sort of bland, sort of uninvested himself. "Could have been -- down here, or up there?" There is a hesitation before he lifts his arm, curling it tentatively around her. "And you? Will you stay. Forever. Down here?" Just as hesitantly, Nox lowers her forehead to his shoulder. Strands of her hair--or perhaps just the surrounding shadows--continue to brush against his face, his hair. Reassuring her that he is indeed here. "Here. You are...you are more safe, above. Where you can pass." The other questions receive their due in silence at first, before she makes a sound like a sigh. "No. Not forever. I know...a young man died. Because he was like me. I will go above." "There is not very much safe. Here or there." Lucien lapses into quiet, his hold on Nox still somewhat ginger. "Go above and --?" There is a slightly wry note creeping into his voice when he continues: "Hopefully, have somewhat a better plan than last time." "I want to turn myself in," Nox whispers, "but everyone says this is an even worse plan than killing a man." She pauses, and then begins to disengage from him. One arm at a time, hands reluctant to leave him. But once they do, she adds, "Would you...prefer to have the light on? It will not hurt me. Here." "I do not believe it would do any good," Lucien agrees, kind of regretfully. "I imagine they would happily flay you, and the mutant community would lash back. And -- continue this seesaw we have been on." His hand trails against her arm as she disengages, still no feel to it past the softness of his skin. "I do not believe what you need is jail. I do not believe what the /world/ needs is you in jail. It is certainly what they want." There's a silence, in the dark, and after a pause he hums a quiet negation. "I can stand the dark." And another pause, before: "What is it that /you/ want?" "There is no right answer. But there is what is /right/." It may have made more sense in her mind, if she bothered to think at all before speaking. Nox hesitates again before saying, "I have...there is a...an armchair. Behind you. If you would like to sit, Lucien. I want...I want time with you. You. To be...normal. A person. To take back what they did to me, what I did, and be with you." "And what, then, is right?" There's a tiny huff of breath to accompany this thought, a soft scoffing chuffed out through Lucien's nose. He takes a slow sliding step back, leg feeling around for the armchair, stooping to find its seat with his hand before taking it. "-- And what is normal? I think I have ceased believing in it. You are a person, for sure, what they did to you or what you did or no. But normalcy --" He hesitates again. "-- is, perhaps, at best an illusion." The chair is there, as she promised. Posh, considering their surroundings--it feels like microfiber, overstuffed, welcoming as he sinks into it. It supports him as if made for him. But then, they would both know that it was. "Normal is..." Nox pauses. Her voice is coming from beside him now, and a little behind. "Do you remember. When we first met Ms. Basil together. What she did to me? That is...what I could have been? You held my hand. Every day I repeat that memory to myself. So I do not forget. To be like that, with you. In front of others. That is what I want." Her sigh lifts him this time. "I am sorry. To have done all of this." Lucien sinks down into the fabricated seat, hand resting along one arm; his fingers trace slowly along the nox!fabric in absent idle petting. "Normal, though. Is an average, yes? An average of you. An average of society. Maybe what you want is to /change/ your normal. Which --" His words stop a moment. "Can be done. Perhaps with more help and support then the none at all you have been living with." The wry smile on his face is reflected in his voice. "I do not believe in apologies. Just actions. What you did -- that man deserved a slower end than you gave him. Just, perhaps, a more /discreet/ one. There are places for anger. Just -- tempered with sanity." The petting sees the fabric of her being--her normal?--rising to each touch. If she were in her cat form, she would be arching her back to meet his fingers. Instead, the couch cradles him and she extends herself a little more, to rub cheek to cheek. Wistful enjoyment is transmitted as she does, the sort that comes with knowing all too well the transitory nature of this meeting. But Nox goes still when he says what he does, at least. "...you think...?" A pause. "I thought. Perhaps you would...you said you...I did not know if you would still. Care. Now. I have made it so difficult." After another lengthy silence, she asks, "What should I do, Lucien? I do not know what to do." "Yes," Lucien does not deny the difficulty, "but many things in life are difficult. They are worthwhile, all the same." His head tips to the side, resting his cheek against the cradling chair. The question gives him pause. Long pause. "You have not been -- /well/," he eventually says, carefully. "I think you should talk to Claire. See if she knows of someone who might -- help. Find normalcy, or some semblance thereof." He's shaken again, when a thought occurs to her and it provokes humming amusement-- "You have said that to me since the beginning. Worthwhile. If I were not...unwell. Perhaps I could believe." But Nox believes enough that the cushion she's made of herself shifts, as another shape is added. Herself, or how she imagines herself, curling against his side. Her arm sneaks over his chest, her head finds a place on his shoulder. She's even taken on a nose, as it bumps against his neck as she settles. "Perhaps I will. I missed you. This. Has it been so hard? For you?" "It -- has not been easy," Lucien acknowledges, with a slight tip of head that brings his chin down more against her. His arm lifts, curls around her when he finds a Nox-shape there. His fingers find her arm, drawing a slow path up against it. "If you were not unwell," he echoes this with a small note of his own amusement, "I would be somewhat concerned. Staying, ah, 'sane' through profoundly sick circumstances might be its own brand of illness." "Then I am glad that I do not concern you. In this, at least." Too solemn. Nox's ability for amusement seems a capricious thing. When he tucks his arm around her, willingly touching her, her own arm tightens across his chest. The nest of shadows they rest on vibrate, humming in time with the surge of relief that comes through their shared contact. Relief, and a grief that would probably have her crying, if she possessed tear ducts. "I can become better," she whispers, assuring herself as much as him. "I was becoming better. Before, with you. I can do it again." With this promise made, an attempt is made to pull herself together. She can't sniff but she does turn her face into his shoulder. "I am sorry. How...how are you, Lucien? The others? Has anyone...they have been safe?" "Oh," Lucien murmurs, and in his own tone, so habituated to dryness, it is hard to tell if this is amusement or solemnity, "you concern me far more than is probably wise." His head turns down, cheek pressing to the top of her head. "You can," he agrees this with a simple quiet certainty. "It will take work. And help. But you can." His arm tightens around her, with the question. There is a return, finally, of the gentle cool soothing. He is silent a long while, but eventually answers, "The children have been safe. The violence has not touched my family." It would be easy to forget that they're cuddling in the midst of a sewer. There's an embryonic sort of peace down here, an isolation created by the darkness. The shadows they rest on give a low hum. If he's listening carefully he might hear that sound shift into an almost inaudible, "Love you." The combination of being able to say that--however sneakily--with the soothing touch, leaves Nox relaxing. The tension leaves her arm, she's able to move more easily. First order of business is rubbing her cheek against his shoulder before shifting just enough to press her lips to his throat. "Good. Oh, good. I worried too. That someone would remember seeing me. There. And come for you," she whispers around him, through that kiss. "When...when do you have to go back to them?" Lucien might hear the words, he might not; there is not, at least, any outward reply. There is a slow intensifying of the soothing feeling, but past that just quiet, his head tilting slightly at that kiss. "I have not found any trouble over it, no." In the dark, his lips compress thinly before his answer: "Have to? They live with their mother. I do not really -- ever have to." Though he follows this with a reluctant: "-- I do have work, though. Later tonight." Nox pauses--then sinks back against his shoulder. "Ah," she breathes. "Yes. You..." Another pause. "Why would you never have to? They are your family. They need you." Perhaps it's his efforts to maintain the mood that make this such a serene remark. He's squeezed again. "Perhaps I could...show you around. Here. Below. Before you have to leave. It is not so fine as your home but..." "No. What they need --" Lucien exhales a slow breath, words trailing off into nothingness. His eyes close, though to him there is hardly much difference between this and staying open. His grip tightens around Nox, and then releases. "I would very much like to see your home," he agrees. A good hostess would begin the tour immediately after a guest's acceptance. Nox, however, pauses. Again. Maybe her mind has wandered. Certainly, she seems invested in dawdling--the arm that had crossed his chest lifts, her hand adjusting his hair, sweeping it gently to the side of his brow. "What do they need?" she asks finally. He should know by now that, no matter how scattered the shadow lady is, when he leaves an opening like that one... A muscle twitches, at the side of his brow, a brief flex in his temple as his jaw tightens. Then slackens. "A world I cannot give them," he answers, a little tighter, a little more clipped. His fingers have tensed, against the armrest of Noxchair, the muscles in his arm standing in harder definition, too. That flex of muscle brings her fingers to it, cool velvet whispering over his temple, down to his jaw. "Lucien?" The worst sort of question--open-ended, without direction. Nox tenses beneath him but only to offer support, to offer something to hold onto without giving away. "You...you could try? If I can be...not this. They love you. I have seen it. Felt it." Lucien's fingers clench tighter, when Nox tenses, gripping down hard where they rest. "Yes," comes eventually and with this word a sudden release of the tension in his muscles, not particularly /relaxed/ but not clenched hard either. "They love me." He stands sudden, too, stooping to feel in the dark for his satchel and sling it back onto his shoulder. "We should go. I should like to see where you live before it is too late." Nox remains steady throughout that tension. She gives only enough to encourage more--and so when he finally gives way, and then moves to stand, she's surprised by it. For a moment he's left to stand in pitch darkness, seemingly along. Then there's a scrape of metal against stone, and the handle of the lantern is pressed into his hand. Whether he turns it on or not, she tucks her arm through his to offer guidance forward. "We are close, here. And. When you have to go back. If you have to go back. This way." "I'll try to remember." Lucien's tone sounds almost amused -- almost, though it's a little too dry. His fingers curl tightly against the lantern handle, his other arm lifting to touch fingers to her shoulder when her arm curls through his. "I have to go back. But I can return." "Yes. Of course. You are...but there will be other visits. And I will be better, then." For this, Nox will play the quiet optimist. "I will try to be whole. Here...if you step up, we will be in the tunnel. The one...where I found your sister. After. She was very brave. Beyond there will be...there is an abandoned station. And beyond that, my home. Here, careful..." Her duties as tourguide are taken seriously--extra steps are made of her own material, lifting his foot to the proper place. "Better, then. Just like that." Optimist is never a part Lucien has played very /well/. "There will be time. For being better. There will be many other visits." His lantern bumps quietly up against his leg as he steps up into the tunnel. Finally now, with a murmured apology he pushes his lantern /almost/ all the way closed and turns it on, the pitch-dark perhaps finally getting to him. "She often is. When she needs to be." Nox withdraws while he fiddles with the light. A simple precaution, given that the sliver of illumination cast by the lantern isn't enough to hurt--and is just enough to cast silver edges against the contents of the tunnel. Which are...sparse, truth be told. The ceiling is /just/ above his head, and curved walls slope down to a floor which has been tramped down with wet sand. If he cares to look, he might see the marks of different footprints in that sand. Not all look human...or ratty. Something in between. Then Nox is at his elbow again, sliding in between ribs and arm to position herself beside him. Her own arm spans his back and her black eyes don't exactly shine as they look up at him, but they transmit a certain warm depth. "She was, that night. I carried her through here. And there." She points ahead and up to an open access hatch; the twisted metal rungs of a ladder have long since rotted away, making a climb impossible. Water drips, in the distance. Lucien hesitates a moment, once the light gives its meagre illumination, taking a while to look around the tunnel. His hand reaches up to brush his knuckles against the ceiling, the sliver of light shifting as he moves. His head turns, where she indicates, looking up towards the hatch. But then away. "She could easily have died down here, if you had not found her." It carries little weight of emotion to it, bland and simple. He quiets, head tilting to just listen for a moment to the dark. "You guide a lot of people, down here." "Maybe not." But that's only a weak reflex for optimism--the likelihood of Desi dying down here was great indeed. Even Nox can't /really/ argue about it. Then she falls quiet too, it being a comfortable state. Her attention is on the man beside her, watching him take in the details of the place she calls home. The weight of the earth above them, the cool pressure of the air around. Him. She's fingering his shirt, suffering a moment of marvel that Lucien is here and needing the reminder that he's real. "Fewer, now. But yes. It is...I...can be everywhere. Almost. If I go thin enough. It is easier for me to see. To know where. The tunnels, they are...mine. In a way. Me." "It is," Lucien agrees mildly, "often easier to cover more ground the thinner you spread yourself." His hand drops back to his side with another wobble of light, dim in the heavy dark. "Yours," is also quiet agreement, but less so: "-- You? Who were you before them? Who are you when you leave?" "But useful. It is how I found the boys. Mr. Holland's children." While the light moves, Nox slides closer to the wall. She waits until it's finished dancing--then adds a shadow-dance of her own, gesturing to the curving concrete to indicate he should look. There, in a dark puppet show, is a small woman shape fleeing from...something. An institutional building, it looms like a skyscraper. "Before," she explains. "Audrey ran from them." As for leaving, this is more difficult to answer. In the end, Nox shakes her head. She simply doesn't know. "Who are you? Here, Lucien. Away." Lucien does look, watching the silhouettes against the wall with a very slight furrowing of his brow. "I had never before seen you," he comments at length, when the second question receives no answer, "save for outside the tunnels. Who is it, then, that I knew?" Her question earns a smile, small and thin and flitting quickly across his face. "Me? In the dark or out of it, I am the same." "Oh," Nox says, so very softly, and, "Oh," again. "I...am. Different. Here, yes. Above...I try to be...I thought...I tried to...I am sorry, Lucien." In the dim light, the figure she's adopted--the Nox he's familiar with, body and face--grows briefly stronger. An answer, perhaps? But then it melts and she's before him, taking on the shape of a dog-sized spider with scorpion tail. If he blinks, it's enough to miss the next transformation into something like a manta ray, with wings that curl into shadow. Another blink, and she's a mantis. Another, a broad-shouldered golem taller even than he is. And then finally, just a bank of darkness, filling the tunnel before him. It's voice sound beside his ear though, in a low whisper. "You could not see all of me. Outside." Lucien watches -- he watches steady and he watches careful and he watches with that faint crease growing. It smoothes out when Nox shifts into just darkness, his head lowering to watch the very faintly shivering shaft of light against the floor from his lantern. "And here," he wants to know softly, "do I see all of you? Does anybody?" The shadows sit in silence, motionless--until he asks what he does. Then they seem to contract, growing denser. Growing closer to the ground. "I...no one. Has seen more of me. Than you," Nox says faintly. "I am sorry." In answer to this comes just more silence, for a stretch. Lucien's gaze shifts, tracking the coalescing darkness. He exhales slowly, his eyes slipping closed. Then open again, with a slight straightening of his posture. "Sorry," he echoes this word with a trace of puzzlement. "You needn't --" His head shakes. He drops his hand to rest against his bag. "We should continue. I will soon be out of time." "I am. You knew me. Know me. But." The darkness pulses out, just once: she is more. And none of it /looks/ human. Nox might have dwelled more on that but his prompt gathers her up. After a brief, disoriented hesitation, she rebuilds herself--the woman again, walking beside with head down, a hand extended out into the shadows to force the thickest of them back before Lucien passes through them. Her other hand rests atop the back as well, rather than twine through his fingers. Linking them without actual contact. Ahead, the passageway opens into an immense space. All of that open air can be felt long before it's seen, pressure changing in the air, a cooler rush over the skin. Some intrepid individual has been down here with a can of spray paint and inscribed "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" against the concrete just beside the opening. Within are the ruins of an old subway station, immense and grand in a way that architecture was grand, when it was built. Broken and decayed, as all things neglected in the city become. "His lair," Nox whispers. Lucien's hand turns over, fingers curling up -- pressing against Nox's but not through them. He is very quiet, as they walk, and from him there is little to feel; fingers slightly clammy in the sewer dank but nothing further relayed by way of emotion either genuine or constructed. His lantern lifts, at the changing rush of air, narrow beam of light not managing to slice far ahead into the gloom past where Nox lightens the shadows. He stops a moment, when they arrive at the entry to the space. He raises his lantern higher, eyes narrowed to peer ahead. "I think perhaps we should let the world know," he murmurs, after a time, "the blood god is gone. He is no longer demanding sacrifices. I think they failed to get the memo." From Nox, there are fragmented emotions. They flit through her awareness--and his--like guppies. A moment of sorrow, of anger, of distraction. Confusion, when he speaks. Grief, when she looks over the room. "Not gone," she sighs. "Not here, but not gone. There is always...and I have the..." Maybe those sentences are finished in her mind. Aloud, they go unfinished. Her head turns, eyes seeking out his profile. "I did not...help. Your sister. The twins. Those people. Just to...just to make you love me." "Always --?" Lucien prompts this unfinished sentence with a questioning lift of eyebrows. The expression crumples into a laugh, a soft expulsion of breath startled out of him. His hand curls tighter, fingers sliding through hers and squeezing her hand gently. "I am cursed with something of an /excess/ of ego," he says lightly, "but not quite enough so to think I could take the credit for all of that." The amusement is short-lived. His hand releases hers, turns back over beneath it to press down against the bag. "/Good/ is not exactly what I tend to inspire in people." "There is always. Someone new. To take over. I have...he had vials. From the labs. I took them, I hid them. Terrible vials. There is madness inside." It is an effort to say these things, these /secrets/, but for him Nox will make the effort. Her fingers spasm between his as she speaks, then curl tightly into his hand, clinging to him. Until he lets her go. Then she curls her hands to her chest, cupped together, while studying Lucien's face. It takes her a moment to find the words but when they come, they're thoughtful. "You have been too long at being what others want from you. Where are you in your head, Lucien? Why are...there...it feels like only part of you is here." "From the labs. -- Madness inside?" Lucien's eyebrows lift. "Why do you hide them? /Keep/ them? Do you /need/ more madness in your life? Destroy them." His eyes shift away, looking around the gloomy expanse of subway. "What more of me do you imagine there is?" he wonders, quieter and slightly distant in tone. "Crushing them releases it. Burning them releases it. So I have buried them away," Nox murmurs. "They...make us stronger. But in no controllable way. I would destroy them if I could." He is considered while he himself looks around. When she's looked her fill, she slips her hand over his shoulder. "The more that asked if he could listen too, while I read to Matt. Who sang for me because it made me happy. Who...let me feel what you felt. When I touched you. You. You said...you love me." "Burn them somewhere far from people," Lucien says, his lips twitching upwards slightly, "this sounds like an abysmally terrible idea. Clearly none of your people watch many movies. There is exactly zero chance this will not come back to cause problems. But," His eyes lift away from her, searching the walls. Lingering on the words painted by the entrance. "Perhaps some part of everyone seeks madness. Sanity seems a heavy burden." His tone is very dry. His shoulder tenses under Nox's hand, and then, slowly, relaxes again. "I did say that," he says, softer. "And meant it." Nox firms her grip on his shoulder, as if she could press feelings from him; it goes as well as trying to press blood from a stone. Her mouth opens, a false breath held for her answer--and there she pauses. Her gaze slides by him. Through her fingers, he's treated to a glimpse of confusion, the lighter burden of lack of sanity he's just mentioned. "...the man who said that, is he here now?" Lucien's answer comes quiet and even, soft but without a hesitation: "Do you need him to be?" Her confusion grows...and then disappears as Nox's hand retreats. It brushes briefly--uselessly--over her own face before lowering in a haze to her side. "Yes? I...thought..." A pause. "If...if you want him to be? I...am...unsure. Of what. To do." And so she looks to the distant vaulted ceiling, invisible to the naked eye. "Shall I return you home? Lucien?" "Where would that be?" Lucien's words are very quiet. He is looking away -- off into the darkness, it is not entirely clear /what/ he is looking towards in the gloom. After a pause, though, he sets his lantern down on the floor, lifting his freed hand to turn to Nox, curl an arm almost tentatively around her waist. "Nox --" This is quiet, too. His other hand lifts to brush the backs of his fingers gently against her cheek, slowly uncurling them to cup her face in his palm. "Not here," Nox whispers in the space between his looking away and his turning back to her. The sentiment is too soft for resignation. Despair, perhaps. Her edges have frayed and remain so even in the first few seconds after his arm has slipped around her--like hugging a cloud, touching the wind. Then she snaps into cohesion again and tilts her head into his hand, rubbing hard. Her eyes are closed, her brow knitted painfully. "I am sorry. Sorry. You should not have to be here. Should not have to protect my feelings. I would take it all back if I could. I am so very sorry, Lucien. I can take you home. I will stay away, as I promised. You should have better." "I do not have to be here," Lucien points out, softly and with a firmer press of his hand to her face once she is solid again. "I am here because I wanted to be. I am here because I --" His words cut off into a faint catch of breath. "There is no better," he whispers, and with this he leans forward; his lips touch very light to Nox's face. Cheek. Temple. Forehead. Kisses ghosting light as smoke against her. Nox has no tears to shed. Instead she shivers with the need for them, humming against him and turning her face towards those kisses. "I want you to be here," she murmurs. Her arms lift and her hands flatten against his back, her fingers curl against his shirt to gather small fistfuls of fabric. "I am better. With you. I love you, Lucien. I want to love you. I do not know /how/." Lucien's arm curls around Nox tighter. His lips press more firmly; just beneath her eye, to the corner of her mouth, to the line of her jaw. "I do not know, either," he admits, soft again, "but we can learn." His next kiss touches to her lips, soft and gentle. That subaudible humming takes on a different tenor, timed to the shift in kisses. There's a note of wanting to be found there and all too easily echoed to someone capable of empathy. Her relief is stronger though, in this moment. "Yes. Yes. Together." And so Nox tilts her head, just so. Her lips brush his with that movement, then press more firmly--closed, still, but determined/claiming/wanting. As she kisses him, she whispers, "I will be what you need, Lucien. I promise. What do you need from me?" "This," is Lucien's reflexive answer, in between another kiss and then another, gentle-soft still; the word is breathed out so softly it can be more /felt/ than heard, a barely-audible whisper that ghosts against Nox's lips. He holds her close, following the kisses with another before his forehead just rests against hers. "-- I need you to be well," he answers more audibly. One of her hands curls over his shoulder, from behind. The other feathers over his cheek, his ear. Her fingers muss his hair then reorder it while each kiss finds its place. His whisper must be heard because all around him, in the shadows pressing close, equally gentle exclamations begin to rise, all of them repeating the same word: "Love." Her hand comes to rest against his cheek, as his had against hers. "For you I will be well," Nox swears softly. She daren't move, not wanting him to lift his head. So her fingers glide over his lips in lieu of a new kiss. "I will remember. I will remember me. Just...please. Do not stand apart. Please, Lucien." When Nox's fingers touch Lucien's lips he presses a light kiss to them, touching softly to her fingertips. His fingers knead gently at her back where they rest, and his eyes close. He listens to the soft exclamations around them with a small shiver running up his back; it comes for the first time with a very /faint/ trickle-echo of emotions whispering across from him, muted and soft but with a quiet sense of /want/ distinctly present before it tapers off. His head tips again, but then hesitates before continuing to press a softer kiss to her lips once more. So faint, that it might be difficult for Nox to tell the difference between his wanting and hers. When Lucien kisses her again, she curls her fingers against the angle of his jaw and lifts her chin to meet the press of lips. This time, hers part and the tip of her tongue traces the shape of his lip, learning their curve on a smaller, more sensitive scale. And the shadows continue their whispering. "This," they repeat his word back to him, and "Love," to repeat hers. That flicker of want returns when Nox's lips part, a little stronger than before. Lucien's hand slides up, curling against the back of her neck as his own mouth parts against hers. The touch of his tongue to hers is light, a small careful trace that comes with a sudden fierce and not at all careful /rush/ of something deep and hard and aching, a lot like desire but a lot like /need/. It doesn't so much taper off as /cut/ off sharply; Lucien pulls back -- just very slightly, but enough to break the contact as his hand drops and his head turns away. "{-- I am sorry,}" comes in quiet French, and in English, "-- I should." These words /do/ taper off. Lucien's eyes drift off into the darkness. She hesitates, uncertain of the next step--and is then jolted into instinct with Lucien's slip. While that rush lasts, Nox finds the way to fit her mouth to his and deepens the kiss. When it ends, her unthinking protest comes in the form of arms growing tense and demanding around him, her lips brushing against the corner of his mouth...then his cheek...and then control is back, and she rests her forehead against his jaw. "No," she whispers, properly now, instead of with proxies. "Never sorry. Never. For that, no." Quieter still, she adds, "I do not want to give you to them. None of them know. What they have." But. Reluctantly, Nox lets her arms fade away. He's released, and she stands just before him again. Drawing herself up and looking above. "I will. Take you back there. For your family." Lucien lifts a hand, knuckles pressing for a moment to his lips. And then his hand drops, curling gently back around her waist. "I will come back here," he says softly. "For you," is a firm /promise/, but, "{-- for me,}" a quieter more hesitant whisper. Also hesitant is the very light kiss he presses to her forehead; after it he is slow, reluctant, to pull back. But pull back he does. And stoop, to curl his fingers slowly around the handle of his lantern. His eyes slip closed, the breath he draws in very slow. Lets it out slow as well, and then reaches for her arm to curl fingers around it for the trip back up. "Us," Nox simplifies, eyes closed through that last kiss. When they open again, they do their best to shine--a poor best, given the stuff she's made of. But she smiles for him and answers that touch by stepping towards him--and then folding around to gather him into a dark cradle. Every word whispered after that buzzes against him, carried on the enveloping wave of fierce protectiveness and the gentler affection she's admitted to: "Safer. Faster. I have you, Lucien." Lucien shutters his lantern all the way, switching it off afterwards. There's a moment of tension and then he relaxes into the cradling, head tipping in a nod. "--Us," he allows in soft agreement, and then no more. Just quiet, gathering his things and surrendering to the enveloping shadows gathering him up. She's gentle. So very gentle. There is a sense of movement but it comes more as a rocking, as Nox must tip him slightly back or more upright, depending on the tunnel's angle. There's no telling how fast they go but she too is quiet as he's carried towards the surface--and the demands of life above.