ArchivedLogs:Simple

Simple
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Micah
In Absentia	26 April 2014 What can be done to fix Micah's situation... (Part of the Perfectus TP.)
Location <NYC> 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. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, bananaphone. Also it is Lucien's number. On the bananaphone. Or cellphone. Micah is in his van making up for lost work-time with this whole Perfectus adventure. His sewing machine is running a stitch to fasten a metal stay into a blindingly hot pink neoprene wrist splint. It takes a moment for him to get the machine into a not-eating-fabric-or-tangling-thread place and answer the phone. "Lucien, hi!" his voice sounds quite pleased to see the other man's number. "Apologies, I been neglectful of everybody lately. Been too long since we talked." "Since the eleventh," Lucien replies immediately; in contrast to Micah's quite-pleased tone, Lucien just sounds mild and calm. "I suppose you have had good reason for the neglect. Your husband tells me things haven't much calmed in the interim." "No, I was mostly...still stayin' away from people as much as possible while m'brain was full of psycho doctor. Which it still /is/, just. The Professor's got 'im where he can't access me right now. An' they only got /him/ 'cause the school was attacked. Then there's...Dusk an' Hive are both in the hospital. An' m'kids are...not in a good place. An' Passover..." Micah's head shakes, perhaps a soft sound through the line. "Ain't no good reason t'stay out of touch with people, though. I love you an' I apologise for it." He is quiet for a moment. "Guess I ain't been in the best place, either." "So I had heard. Your husband contacted me," Lucien informs Micah straightforwardly, "to arrange a time to meet with you. About your brain not being in a good place. About /you/ not being in a good place. He believes I may be able to provide some assistance. At the least, that the possibility should be examined." "Okay. What's good for you? I'm sure I can work m'schedule 'round that. I mean...up 'til Wednesday, anyhow. There's another...operation happenin'. That Jax wanted to set up Wednesday." Micah is surprisingly casual about everything up until the part about Wednesday. "An' where would you prefer t'meet?" "My home is fine. I am free today until four," Lucien answers immediately; after this there is a pause, presumably for him to check his schedule. "-- Or tomorrow morning before eleven. Monday between noon and three. Not until considerably after Wednesday, after that." "I gotta finish this splint I'm workin' on just now, but that won't take but fifteen or twenty minutes. An' I gotta let Jax know what's up. But I should be able t'head right over there soon as that's done?" There's a sound of scissors snipping into thick material from Micah's side of the line. "Delightful. I'll add you to my calendar, then. See you shortly, Micah." On Lucien's end there is only the quiet sound of fingers clicking against keyboard. “Sure, thanks. Be there quick as I can manage,” Micah replies, adding, “It'll be nice t'see you,” before disconnecting. Just shy of two hours later, there is a knock at Lucien's door. Micah is on the doorstep, dressed a bit warmly for the weather in a blue and green plaid button-down over a white sleeveless undershirt, charcoal grey gloves covering his hands, faded bluejeans over his legs, and sneakers on his feet. His auburn hair is spiky-mussed where it sticks out from under his olive newsboy cap and an army-green messenger bag hands at his hip. He is fidgeting with the gloves as he waits, gripping each in turn to tug it on tighter. The door is opened promptly. Lucien is in contrast dressed light and springlike; pale jeans as well, but just a light short-sleeved pale-green henley. There's a chocolatey baking smell in the house, and Mahler playing from the sound system wired throughout as Lucien gestures Micah inside. "Good afternoon." His eyes slip down to the gloves, a very faint twitch-tug pulling his lips upward as he glances past Micah to the day outside. "I cannot say I miss those days," he murmurs, with quiet almost-amusement. Micah steps in with a greeting smile, one side-step taken to get him out of the doorway so that he can toe off his shoes and tuck them away. "Hi, honey. Thanks for havin' me. Yeah, it's... Bein' all covered up all the time. An' it ain't always enough t'keep things from happenin' accidentally sometimes, still." He moves closer to give Lucien a hug unless the other man looks like he would rather avoid this. "How've you been?" "Better than you, I imagine." Lucien locks the door behind Micah as the other man toes his shoes off. He returns the hug in a brief firm squeeze; it comes with a gentle brush of his cheek against Micah's. The contact doesn't come with any transfer of thoughts; Lucien's mind is, as it ever is, a quiet glassy calm, cool and placid to psionic senses. His hand drops to rest lightly at the small of Micah's back, other hand gesturing to the living room in invitation. "Can I get you something to drink?" "I'd hope so," Micah asserts with a dry chuckle. His breath catches at the light touch, eyes falling nearly-closed, responses all disproportional to the degree of contact offered by a simple brush of skin to skin. He leans slightly into the hand at his back before moving toward the living room as he is directed. "Only if you were already headed that way t'get somethin' for yourself. Otherwise I'm good." "Mmm." Lucien guides Micah into the living room, before slipping off into the kitchen, himself. He returns in just a moment, two glasses of lemonade in hand that he sets down on coasters on the table before taking a seat on the couch. "I have chocolate pound cake, as well. It consists," he says warmly, "almost entirely of butter." Micah curls into the corner of the couch as he waits for Lucien to return from the kitchen. "Thanks, honey. An'...yeah, sugar might be good for later." He pulls off his gloves, stuffing each one into a pants pocket. His fingers wiggle a little, free to the air as they too-infrequently are these days. "How did y'wanna do...?" "I will almost certainly want sugar later." Lucien's eyes track down to Micah's wiggling fingers. He folds his own hands against his knee, settling back against the couch. "That depends entirely on what question you're here to ask me, really. Your husband was nonspecific. Or, rather, specific in a variety of ways. Fixing your brain could cover a large range of ills, really." His lips press together, and he unfolds one hand to reach for Micah's; his touch comes with the same glassy calm as before, the surface of his mind tranquil against Micah's senses as his hand folds warm against the older man's. "What is it /you/ are looking to find out?" "I can get it for you when the time comes," Micah offers in advance. "It...there's a few things? If you're able t'find an' get rid of that /connection/ Sublime has t'my head, that would be an amazin' first step. I don't much fancy the idea of him bein' able t'look into all m'thoughts an' memories an' use me t'spy on folks whenever he wants, whether the Professor's got 'im on a leash right now or not." His fingers curl back around Lucien's, pulse quickening at the simple hand-holding like a middle schooler at a dance, though his muscles /relax/ more at the contact, incongruously. "The rest is prob'ly just figurin' out what can be done for now? There's a concern 'bout me rejectin' the whole transplant-graft process an' it bein' fatal. I don't know how much of that's t'do with m'head or not. An' there's also a worry 'bout the telepathic ability gettin' less controlled or evolvin' an' I don't know what t'do about that." Micah pauses, chewing at his lip before continuing. "An'...seein' what might be done. If I get the leg removed. Right now the worry's that m'brain's been rewired more like a person as was /born/ with two intact legs. That if we remove it, even with accelerated healin' t'the limb itself, I'd be goin' through months of rehab. figurin' out how t'/move/ again. An' I'd be out of work t'the degree that m'business would go under an'...we can't afford it. So. Whatever other options there might be..." He just shrugs at this last. "Get rid of the connection? Certainly. Do you have a saw?" Lucien's brows raise, his tone mild. "There is no connection in your head, Micah, I told you that already. If he has a connection, it sounds perhaps more similar to the type of -- the man you used to locate Matt. A connection to an object -- that you have. Right there." His free hand tips outward towards Micah's leg, then drops back to rest against his own lap. "Months of rehab? That sounds incredibly tedious." Lucien just gives his head a small shake at this idea, brief and dismissive. His thumb brushes gently against the back of Micah's knuckles, eyes a little distant, focused somewhere past Micah's head. "Reconfiguring your brain to how it was /before/ the addition of the new limb would circumvent that easily enough though, non? You managed just fine with one leg for twenty-seven years." He leans forward, picking up his lemonade to take a small sip. "Would you like to /learn/ some control?" "Guess that would've been too easy," Micah returns ruefully, looking a little disappointed, eyes cast down at his lap. "It's not...that I'd mind goin' through the recovery process, exactly. People have t'do it all the time. I just can't afford t'/voluntarily/ let m'business go under an'...leave Jax t'support the both of us 'til I can find somethin' else t'do with m'self. It won't work." There's a small sound from Micah's throat at the mention of just /reconfiguring/ him. "Y'make it sound like that'd be that simple t'do, honey. Y'was havin' seizures just /lookin'/ through m'noggin' before." He lets his head sink forward to rest against their clasped hands. "Of course. I'd like...t'learn control. I'd like the power t'go away. I'd like things t'go back t'where they were. I just don't even know where t'/start/ 'cause I don't know what's reasonable t'/do/ anymore." "It /would/ be easy to do." Lucien's voice is mild, almost offhand. "I know rather intimately what your mind /looked/ like. What do you think it is I /do/ in all those sessions with Hive? It would be tedious work. Tiring, certainly. /Difficult/, no. Mostly monotonous. I would," he allows, "likely have another seizure or four if I tried it all in one sitting. Spread out over a week or two --" He shrugs a shoulder. "A /far/ simpler proposition than training your mind to control this thing. Like teaching you to flex a muscle you never even had before." His hand leaves Micah's, when Micah tips his head forward -- only to turn upwards, cup the side of the older man's face. His fingers slide gently along the other man's jaw, curling inward against it. "But it can be taught." "I don't know...he's...a telepath. I thought y'did...telepath things when he overused the whole telepath /thing/." Micah shrugs helplessly at his lack of understanding. "You really memorised m'brain enough t'undo all the...whatever. He did t'mess up...all the different parts. All the sensory an' motor an'...balance an'... Y'just /know/ all that, really?" His tone doesn't know whether to be incredulous or impressed. Mostly he just sounds frightened in the end. "We couldn't...do all that 'til after whatever surgery, I'm guessin'. If it...if we can do that. An' /weeks/. It don't bear even plannin' 'til after things settle down from the raid, then. Since that's in just a few days, an'--" His words are swallowed in another quick intake of breath at the shift in Lucien's touch. He presses into the other man's hand, an almost-feline motion. "Please, just. Anythin', I... Don't know what t'/do/ with m'self anymore. It just feels like m'/body's/ not mine an' m'/mind's/ not mine an' there's other people /in here/ an' they aren't people I /want/...here. An' the people I /do/ want, I can't..." "What do I know about telepathy? I study /people/. How they think and how they act and -- yes, how they /feel/ and how they /move/ and I know how all of that looks. How it looks to you now and how it looked to you then." Lucien pulls in another swallow of lemonade, setting the glass back down on the table. "And no. I do not just /know/ all that. I study all that. I /watch/ all that. In him and in you and in all the people I know. It has taken me a dozen years, three strokes, more seizures than I can count, and countless hours spent researching everything I could on how the nervous system works to do what I do." His fingers press up, against Micah's jaw, turning the other man's face up towards his own. His fingertips trace down against the side of Micah's neck, a very small smile curling at the corners of his mouth. "What on earth do you imagine the point of /having/ these gifts is if not exploring all they are capable of?" His fingers rest against the back of Micah's neck, brows pulling together for a quick moment. "-- Raid?" "Apologies, honey, I didn't mean t'underestimate or disparage or...it just seems so /impossible/. But if you're sure that y'can do it. I'll work out the other side of it. Whenever there's finally /time/. T'sit with a healer an' some kinda medical professional on back-up. Maybe Hank. Just...t'get this thing /off/. An' then after we could work with m'head an' then maybe this is actually /not/ impossible?" Micah's tone moves from apologetic to impressed to /daring/ to be hopeful again. Though even with all of the heavy conversation the continuing movement of fingertips over his face and neck serves to distract, a subtle nearly-purring sound taking over for all the chatter. His hand traces idly up along Lucien's wrist and arm. "The two facilities that y'found while we was workin' t'free Jax an' Dusk from terrorist jail. Jax wants t'go for one of 'em this week. Wednesday. That was the /operation/ I was talkin' about. I still hesitate t'be too explicit on the phone..." "/Wednesday/? That seems a bit -- precipitous. Does the boy have a deathwish?" Lucien exhales quickly, giving his head a small shake. "/I'm/ sure I could do it. Are you sure you /want/ me to? That seems precipitous, also. /Killing/ Sublime would stop him spying on you just as easily, you know. And teaching you control would -- in the long run, perhaps, prove more rewarding than simply --" His head shakes again. His eyes close, palm curling inward to press lightly against Micah's neck, /feeling/ the thrum of the quiet purring. "It is...both fast an' really not? They've known 'bout these places for /months/. It's just that...Jax got shot. An' then the Lofts got bombed. An' then this whole thing with Sublime. It's been hard t'find time an' resources t'do anythin' 'bout 'em. I think...also Jax might be feelin' a little helpless. With /my/ situation. An' this is somethin' he /knows/ how t'fix so. It might've spurred 'im on some. That an' we don't know how much longer Hive's gonna be able t'help. He's in the hospital, /too/. In a bad enough way we've ordered 'im a power scooter 'cause he can't get around most of the time. An' that was /before/ he was in Dusk's head when the infection took hold of /him/. I think he's afraid he won't have a team left t'go in with if he keeps waitin'." Micah's headshake at this turns quickly into a nod at the question of /wanting/ Lucien to proceed. "Luci, this whole thing is unstable. People reject the process an' /die/. The powers can go out of control or evolve. An' in the meantime, I can't /touch/...especially not Jax, it's just... /I/ got no control over what happens t'Sublime. I don't know what they're gonna /do/ with 'im an' I don't even got no good suggestions. But I don't think nobody's /killin'/ 'im no time soon." Micah's long explanation cuts off again as the touch changes once more. His head tips back permissively as Lucien's hand moves from the back of his neck, the purring continuing, breathing quickening slightly. "I just cannot imagine what prison will hold him, long." Lucien's hand stays warm against Micah's skin, his voice quiet. "Mmm. His team /has/ had a very rough few months. Perhaps a victory would do them good. -- Will Hive /be/ able to help? Without harming himself further, that is?" His lips compress thin at this thought, eyes opening again. His thumb runs up along the line of Micah's throat when the other man's head tips back. "/Especially/ not Jax? Why him especially?" "I dunno, either. S'part of why I'm so eager t'get 'im /out/ of me." Though insistent, Micah's voice is quiet as he talks now, just feeling the throb of his own pulse against Lucien's hand. "Hive insists he can help. No, I don't think he'll come out of it well. But he refuses t'get any treatment 'til we've done all the raids on facilities we know about. So if he's," his teeth dig into his lower lip, pressing there for a moment. "If he's dyin' either way. May as well be doin' somethin' that /might/ get 'im closer t'lettin' somebody help 'im." The soft purr mixes with a hint of whimper at the tracing thumb, Micah's hand petting at Lucien's arm along with it, his eyes closing fully. "It's harder, with him. Louder. Brighter. Painful. He /never/ sleeps anymore. It's been weeks. An' he just fills all up on light energy an' his /mind/ is just so...it's like it /takes over/ mine. I can't think or feel or anythin' but what's bein' /beamed/ outta him whenever I touch 'im." "Mmm." Lucien's brows crease at this, slow and thoughtful. "Never sleeps? Perhaps --" Though whatever he is going to say about this, he just shakes his head. He leans in instead, lips touching softly to the side of Micah's neck, opposite where his hand still curls. "One problem at a time." "Ever since the Lofts. He's afraid he's gonna set things on fire when he sleeps. B'lieve me, I've asked 'im t'see if you'd help. So many times. An' I /finally/ got 'im t'sleep in the Danger Room for a bit. But /that's/ where they're keepin' Sublime now." Micah's inhalation is quick, audible at the small kiss. His breath holds afterwards for a moment before releasing, fingers tightening slightly over Lucien's arm where they had been stroking almost idly before. "I can help." Lucien presses another kiss to Micah's neck, softer and longer. Then another, travelling up towards his jaw. A slow progression of light touches along the line of the older man's jaw before his mouth finally finds Micah's, touching there gentle and full. His fingers slide around to the back of Micah's neck, curling into the other man's hair. "You help," Micah agrees with a vague hint of a nod. "So much." His head turns slightly at the travelling kisses, his mouth seeking Lucien's even before the other man moves there. He returns the kiss with a pleading eagerness. His hands slide up the other man's arms, wrapping around him and pulling him close, clinging to the contact and the simple warmth of him.