Logs:In Tone

In Tone
Dramatis Personae Matt, Ryan, Horus
In Absentia	2023-04-29 "This is lovely... because you're lovely."
Location <???> Definitely not the city
Probably, Ryan drove out here; somewhere near enough here, probably even passed up the chance to drive emptier roads in the fast (flashy) (recognizable, vanity plate and all) car he loves so much. Probably, one hopes, he is not driving back. Dressed for comfort over flair right now, faded denim overalls that are definitely Jax's, soft grey tee with WRATH printed on the front in rainbow text, green and gray sweatshirt (stolen, too, though considerably more recently), he's looking a far cry from his magazine covers and instagram shots. He's been lying for some time now with his head pillowed against Matt's chest, not quite in silence -- harmonizing with the breeze and leafrustle of forest spread far and wide around them, the burble of creek flowing just past, the soft intermittent stirring of animals through the woods, there's music. Quiet, just on the edge of awareness, it sounds distant but feels present, thrumming in Ryan's chest and Matt's as well and rippling -- -- is it in time with the breeze? The burbling of the water? The rise and fall of Matt's chest? From time to time the feeling warps and changes, here a pleasant warmth and here a dizzy kind of disequilibrium, here giddy and here soft again, calm. Right now it's buzzing, a tingling all across the skin and just mildly dissociative, just in time with a brightly metallic dragonfly hovering into view. Ryan is staring at it, wide-eyed and transfixed. Somewhere, very far away and very near, one dissonant chord sounds under the otherwise gentle music. At a distance -- but not, actually, that far of a distance -- sits a young man who looks kind of aggressively ordinary by nature rather than by choice. Sandy brown hair, very light smattering of freckles across his nose, Extremely Forgettable plain features, dressed just as forgettably in straight legged jeans, brown suede boots, grey waffle-weave tee, brown canvas jacket. Close observation might pick up the lines of holster under the jacket, although that, too, has been seated to not catch much attention at first. He's perched on a large rock at creekside, not evidently paying particular attention to Ryan, although there's something in his posture that isn't as relaxed as the peaceful setting might encourage. What he is noticeably paying attention to is a very large -- bird? Is that a bird? The bird is sitting next to a tablet set on the rock, holding a tablet in an unnervingly large and powerful beak and taptaptapping at the screen. Tap. Tap. Tap. Decisive. Bird faces do not lend themselves well to facial expressions, so the fluff of chest feathers and upward tilt of chin, small cock of head, stare, certainly seems to carry with it more than a bit of challenge. The man looks down at the tablet. Looks at the bird. Down at the tablet. Blinks -- looks, brief, over to Ryan and Matt. Blinks again, and then -- just -- looks somewhat resigned as Not Really A Bird takes off in a very resolute flap of powerful wings. Matt has not moved in some time, his breathing slow and steady, his arm curled loose and warm around Ryan's shoulders. His sky blue tee shirt reads MAGNETO WAS RIGHT in bold magenta, with a purple print of Magneto's iconic helmet, his jeans are well-worn and just beginning to fray at the seams, his hiking boots long since kicked off. He turns his head smoothly if slowly to the dragonfly when it draws near. His pleased hum is its own off-color music. "Oh, that's lovely," he murmurs, not for the first time that day. Likewise, "This is lovely." Ryan can't see his smile, but it's written plainly in the warm solace of his voice, and somehow in its quiet longing, too. "Why I ever think to question your wisdom on drugs, I truly do not know. It must be a kind of madness. Feel free to gloat when I'm sober." "I -- don't. Gloat," Ryan gloats, "'cuz I got your brother to..." This thought trails off, though. The dragonfly is still hovering, as dragonflies do -- up and then down, up and then down, and Ryan is watching it, the warping swell of the music following along with his unsteady eyes until the insect chooses to disappear off over the water and away. He huffs -- first a sharp exhale and then, after a breath, a slower and easier one. "... gonna run out of room for more madness, man." Matt stiffens, almost imperceptibly, for a fraction of a second. Then it's passed and he relaxes very deliberately, smoothing his hand gently down Ryan's arm. Perhaps it's meant to be conciliatory, but it's hard to tell by his silence. "Consider me duly humbled." He doesn't feel very humble, but in his pleasant dreamy haze there's not a lot in the way of arrogance, either. "Scratch that madness right off the list." He lifts his free hand to mime striking something through with and index finger. But then, quickly and thoroughly sidetracked, he just stares, flexing each finger slowly in time to the music. "I'd rather not spill crazy everywhere if I can avoid it but sometimes..." His hand makes one elegant turn in the air and then drops to the soft grass beside him like a bird shot on the wing, but he doesn't sound particularly distressed or even resigned at his own conclusion. "So it goes. I'm sorry. For when I've spilled it on you." "Shhhhh," might almost sound at first like Ryan is hushing Matt, until it dissolves instead into a laugh, until Ryan remembers that it was supposed to be a word and finishes in, "--ssssshit, shoulda told me some..." His head tips back to watch Matt's hand turn in the air. "... hours ago. You didn't want to spill crazy." For just a moment the music is more present, its rush more heady before it fades into the background once more. "Leave No Trace-ass motherfucker." He lapses back into silence, or what passes for it with the perpetual background theme music, his hand flopping to the side to -- not really hold Matt's so much as just lie there atop it. "Doesn't work that way. We all -- spill our shit. Hell I'm a better damn sponge than -- most." Matt's laughter is more immediately identifiable as such, abrupt and unexpectedly relieved. "Ah, but this is fun crazy, no?" The mirth has mostly gone from his voice by the time he speaks again. "Mm, you're not just a simple sponge, though. And you're not just what people need you to be. Not even your...Favorite." He closes his hand around Ryan's. "Sometimes I think you forget how amazing you are in your own right." His smile returns, and there's something in his voice that's hard to place--something bright and brittle and strange churning behind his words, more in tune with Ryan's music somehow than Matt's famously awful pitch should allow. "Sometimes I'm not sure you ever believed it at all." "Simple, mais j'mais!" The deeply exaggerated air of wounded pride here sounds -- probably exactly at the same level of indignant that it would if Ryan were sober, honestly. "Been playing the long game. Master manipulator. Support -- love -- drugs -- caring. Trick you into telling me your crazy. I'm crazy but after a few albums." He pats Matt's hand, confiding very seriously, "need fresh material." There's been a lighter trill looping itself through the music here that grows tighter now -- not quite upset but certainly unbalanced. "Fuck." His eyes lift back to the trees as he snorts. "They still your Favorite while you fucking hate them?" "Some master manipulator I am, falling for that." Matt tsks. Then tsks twice more, pleased by the way it punctuates the symphony. "Luckily for your Art, I enjoy amusing you, and I'm a veritable font of crazy." Probably, in a different time and place, he would have said this with some mixture of irony, self-deprecation, and existential dread. Here and now, it's--not devoid of fear, but just a faint flutter of it amidst his affection and the more arcane emotional processes twined with it. "I think 'favor' is pretty euphemistic even when you like them. More of a fixation, isn't it? Or like..." He trails off, perhaps sensing the unsteadiness of his emotional landscape--or Ryan's, for that matter--and draws a slow breath before continuing, gentler. "...like a touchstone for making sense of everyone else in the world. But 'favorite person' is easier to work into a sentence than 'person to whom I am attached with singular intensity that can swing wildly from adoration to animosity.'" "Animoosity, where you come from." Ryan's eyes close, and now the music fades almost to nothing. "Yeah. Bit of a mouthful." He pulls himself upright -- semi-upright, almost-upright, finally just rolling to settle for Close Enough, propped with his palms on the grass behind him where he can watch the creek winding by. "Shit. I wait for him to help make sense of the world..." The music doesn't return but the sudden twitch that convulses through Ryan's arms feels like something has startled him, anyway, some sudden noise only he can hear. "Oh!" When he flops back in the grass, tips his head to the side, his smile is brighter. "That's your problem. Why do singular intensity. Be intense about --" He gestures, wide, expansive, to the trees around them. The creek. The very nonchalant guard a bit away. "-- everything. He does, no?" Matt guffaws, but does not otherwise move where he's sprawled on the forest floor. "We're so alike some ways, no? But others." This is contemplative, edged in curiosity, but no hint as to who "we" are, in this case. "I meant the attachment specifically, but intensity generally is also a bit..." He rolls very slowly onto his side to face Ryan. "I want it, crave it, maybe even need it. But most of the time I have to work so hard to feel anything deeply. When it does happen it's overwhleming and I can't control it." He swallows the sudden dull surge of fear, and the odd ironic mirth that follows only emerges as a breathy laugh. "It's just--exhausting. Drugs help, though." A beat, a twitch of a smile, and a kind of abstract longing. "It doesn't hurt that drugs are also super fun." The slow hffing noise Ryan makes through his nose could be acknowledgment or maybe here in the warmth and the haze his breaths are just kind of getting heavier that way. His answer takes a while to come, at least, and when it does it's with a rush, exhilarating just in his words though the music has still not returned. "People pretend that's fucking weird but concerts don't sell out just for the music. People work to feel..." He trails off here again. Closes his eyes. Eventually, though, does roll his head to the side again, squinting one eye back open to peer in Matt's direction. "Gonna keep that shit in a back pocket for future albums. Drugs Are Also Super Fun." Matt shivers at the rush, smiles faintly. "Mm. Maybe not so very weird after all." He's uncertain, but unbothered by that uncertainty. "Feel free to demand better material than 'drugs are fun' when I'm sober." There's amusement here, touched with wounded pride and wound through with that strange bright not-music. Or, wait, it is music--arguably, Matt humming "In Tone" so outrageously off-key it's hard to identify. It fades out soon enough, and for a moment he seems like he might have drifted off, but then, very softly: "It's not just the drugs, you know. This is lovely..." again, but with an addition he'd held back every time he's blurted it before, "because you're lovely."