Logs:Thirty

Thirty
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Matt
In Absentia	2021-02-13 "I have no expectations, but what I want is--harder to say."
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 early still for a Saturday, but clearly Lucien has been up for some time. There's neat round layers of what will one day be a layer cake cooling on wire racks on the counter, Flèche is panting exhausted from a run on the kitchen floor, Lucien is freshly showered and dressed in jeans and thick black socks and a soft grey-green henley where he stands dicing potatoes at the counter -- or, well, he probably had been dicing potatoes. There are potatoes on the cutting board in front of him, garlic and onions already chopped, but he's paused in his chopping to direct a steady look toward one segment of the holo-projected display of his computer on the counter beside him. His expression is fairly neutral, but there's a roiling agitation churning in the tangle of his mind. Matt's power has been coiling out lazily at intervals through his slow awakening and subsequent ablutions to check on Sera and, once he has returned, Lucien. The shower upstairs shut off only a few minutes ago, and he descends the stairs now, slow, a new hardbound copy of Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell tucked in the hand that isn't gripping the railing with long-ingrained care. He wears a red t-shirt with a graphic of an old-fashioned library checkout card that reads "Last checked out on:" above a list of stamped dates, old, soft blue jeans, and white athletic socks with gray toecaps. His hair is damp--and neat, at least for the moment--and he looks unbothered by the goosebumps on his bare arms. Drifting into the kitchen, his eyes light at the layers of cake, though he goes directly to greet Flèche, kneeling to scratch behind her ears. "Work? Or is someone wrong on the Internet?" He looks up at his brother. "I suppose there's some overlap." "-- Goodness. You are still alive?" Lucien's mind snaps itself back into a carefully tidied order as Matt arrives. The tumult seems merely displaced onto his expression, though, neutrality wrinkling itself into a pinched frown. "Many people are wrong. This one was upsetting." An elegant arch of Matt's eyebrow answers Lucien's obviously rhetorical question. "Ought I not to be?" His power threads deeper into his brother's, eases whatever tidying he chooses to do and letting him reach at least as far as Matt if he wished. "Oh, darling. What have they said that upset you?" There's a quiet, carefully managed aggression beneath this. He straightens back up and sets his book down on the counter, his eyes keen and steady on Lucien as he presses back the urge to go over and just read the display himself. Lucien's eyes drop sharply back to his task; he returns to chopping the potatoes with a steady precision. "Nothing, it was -- an article about the proper duties of butlers and concierges. This man has a very low opinion on the quality of service found in America." His sniff is exaggerated, his voice shifting to an affectedly disdainful impeccable Received Pronunciation, "-- the shoes are never polished. No one knows how to tie a tie, and the slouching! They're a lot more laid-back and they don’t know the etiquette." In his own softer tones again: "Man works at Buckinghman Palace and thinks that makes him the last word on etiquette." He scrapes his potatoes into a bowl, reaches for another one to halve it. "I've been given the very clear impression that life for queer men ends at thirty. And yet here you are --" He tips the blade of his knife out in Matt's direction before he returns to his chopping. "Relatively hale, even." Matt leans back against the counter, both eyebrows rising as his brother recounts the offending Internet opinion. "What nonsense! Your posture and dress are alike impeccable as a rule, and you aren't even the only one I can name who so qualifies--though granted the others do not work in the industry, as it were." He sniffs, indignant and slouching quite luxuriantly himself. "Don't let some jumped up palace butler put you down. He wouldn't last five minutes in your place." At Lucien's explanation his smile returns, small. "Mmm, I have been well cared-for. But, perhaps it is too early to say, no? I have only been thirty for a paltry few hours." He pauses a beat, cycling through a rapid snarl of emotions that settle somewhere in the vicinity of anticipation and disquiet. "Though I do have a date tonight--with Maya." Lucien just hums quiet and reserved at Matt's reassurance, but his frown has melted away and the staccato-sharp slice of his knife eased off into a less ferocious rhythm. "Well. I hope your disintegration waits until after brunch because I've already sunk some effort into this." The rhythm of his knife hitches, brief, before resuming, at the last announcement. The neat calibration of Lucien's mental space has started to splinter back into several disorganized streams from which he eventually plucks a careful: "Again?" His mind threads back through Matt's, turning that disquiet over with a cautious detachment. "Her dog is very charming." "I wouldn't dream of leaving your delicious handiwork unappreciated," Matt's reassurance is at once rote and wholly sincere, the anticipation beneath it uncomplicated by anything save hunger and affection. "Well. Everyone else would appreciate it, but it is not any of their birthdays." He evidently anticipated the dysregulation of his brother's mind at this, and readily aids his disentangling without rushing it. "Ouais." The disquiet in his mind swells, still not quite anxiety, but a sort of distant, wary fatalism. "She is very charming, herself," he allows. "But this is just fun--it is her birthday, tomorrow--and I'll make that clear, lest I lead her on. I doubt she'd start developing any serious expectations before we've talked about--well, work, at the very least." His shoulders tighten, his fatalism growing that much more wary. "The rest--well, the rest is a lot, no?" Lucien sets his knife down, briefly. Picks it back up, briefly. Lays it back on the cutting board once more. "The rest." He echoes this quiet, his soft voice at odds with the sudden sharpness in his movements as he swats at his computer display, flicking it out of view. "Have you no expectations, then?" A faint crease in his brows, a much more jarring ripple jagging across his mind. "Do you want no expectations?" Matt is quiet for a moment, then goes to the range and puts the kettle on. "I have no expectations, but what I want is--harder to say." A flutter of uncertainty echoes his words. "I wasn't looking for more than fun, wasn't ready to entertain more than that. It might be nice, in the abstract, but even if she were interested and willing to work with the unusual shape of my life--of our lives, of you and the kids and the terrorism..." His lips compress, fear and longing shivering through him in a jumble. "Even then? Hardly anyone knows me as I really am, and not knowing what she's getting into--" There's almost no emotional scaffolding beneath this declaration, just a current of steady determination. "--I don't want to hurt her." "Do you think it's the children or the terrorism that would be more of a dealbreaker?" Despite himself Lucien's mouth twitches up at the corners. He presses his palms down on the edge of the counter, leaning his weight on his forearms. "{More people could know you. I am not saying it needs to be her -- or that it doesn't, but. It is hardly a foregone conclusion that you --}" His jaw tightens, a brief jump of muscle. "It might be nice in the concrete as well." "She likes kids, so I'd assume terrorism?" Matt frowns, stroking his freshly shaven chin thoughtfully. "Though, given her own experiences--I guess that could go either way, too..." He shakes away the thought. "{It would probably be better for you if more people did. But how many do you think could know me and still trust much less love me? Knowing I can't really...}" His twinge of regret is suddenly overshadowed by intense dread. "{And how could I blame anyone for fearing me when I terrify myself?}" He bows his head, shoulders hunching. Angry now, too. "It might be nice," he agrees, oddly placid despite the chaos of his emotions, "I don't think it's what I really want, though. Friends, confidants, lovers--those I do want." He looks up again. "But it's not as though my life is wanting for love or companionship or support." "It is different, though, no? What you wanted when --" Lucien's palms press down harder, and though this shouldn't hurt, exactly, against the smooth cool edges of the counter, with hands still damp and slightly gritty from handling the potatoes the texture pressing at his skin lances jangling and unbearably loud on his nerves. "Well. We had not entirely structured our lives around you seeing thirty." He leans into the distraction, focusing for a few moments on the physical irritation rather than the emotional clamor blaring beneath. It's a moment longer before he straightens, exhaling slowly. "{You talk as though you're some kind of monster. You think differently. Many people do. I do not mean to downplay the stigma but --}" His jaw tightens, eyes fixed on his half-prepped food. "{Perhaps a few more of the people who would shun you for it are worth weeding out.}" "Not so very different, in the ways that matter to me," Matt replies, soft. "You are right, and we still can--restructure it, if you wish." These words bring a cold wash of guilt and fear. "But you must know I am not here only because I was so sick for so long, or because the kids needed me--needed us both. Though it was born of awful necessity..." His eyes fix on Lucien's shoulder, and the grip of his fear eases before the warmth of his affection. "...I cherish the life we've built. I wouldn't trade it for anything." He pulls a tin of Earl Grey tea down from the cabinet and fills the basket in the celadon teapot. "{I am not a monster,}" he says, firmly, "{and I don't want anyone in my life who'd think me one because my brain works differently from theirs.}" This with a surge of fierce protectiveness, his eyes flitting up to his brother's face briefly, then dropping back down. "{Easy to say that, hard to give over so much control of how others see me, and I imagine harder still dealing with the aftermath.}" "Awful --" The echo is reflexive and very soft. Lucien's forefingers trace slow circles against the countertop. "Would you be here if I didn't --" Something twists inside him; he presses his hands flatter, his posture going very still. "{My mind hardly works typically, itself. Perhaps if I weren't so difficult, you'd have --}" He breaks off, shakes this thought away, though it takes a few beats longer for him to pull his mind back towards a greater degree of tidiness. "{If it is a subject you decide to broach with anyone, you won't be dealing with the aftermath alone.}" "Mother, Paul, the cancer," Matt lists these items off lightly, despite the roil of anger within him, "plenty of awful to go around. I don't know where I'd be if you hadn't stood up for me, hadn't cared for me when I was sick, hadn't stuck with me even at my most toxic. I can guess it'd be nowhere good, if I survived at all." The brightness of his anger is suddenly eclipsed by the near-painful intensity of his love. "{Your mind is magnificent,}" he says equably, "{and taught me that neurology is not destiny. You literally taught me how to love.}" He takes the kettle from the stove just before it starts whistling and fills the teapot. The delicate citrusy floral scent of the tea blossoms in the air. "{Maybe not Maya--at least not yet--but I will think on it.}" The corner of his mouth twitches up. "{There you go being wise again, even though I am the venerable ancient here.} Now let me help you with this prep--I have the chops, no?"