Logs:If
| If | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
|
2023-07-30 You never talk about her. |
| Location | |
By Saturday evening, most of the ambient just-turned-up-to-support crowd has fled, leaving behind a motley crew of reporters, the most dedicated of the volunteers still determined to see the remaining residents clean and fed, and a depressingly sizable straggle of unclaimed labrats at a bit of loose ends about what to do now and where to go. Has Lucien slept, since arriving at the Lassiter encampment four days ago? He must have, presumably; certainly he's at least disappeared into the back of his rented SUV, here and there. Perhaps he is resting, inside. Just now, though, as he re-emerges into the dwindling chaos of the encampment -- freshly changed into a blue pinpoint oxford shirt with the sleeves neatly rolled, and gray linen trousers, and cognac bit loafers -- he has his headset glowing in his ear, settling the final details of some hotel arrangements as he answers emails. He is pressing fingers lightly against his temple as the call light on his earpiece switches off, only brief before dropping his hand -- the faint flutter of fingers lightly at his side is brief, too, before he squeezes his hand into a fist and switches his phone from one hand to the other. He's leaning up against the bumper of his car, eyes flicking pensively between his phone's screen and the much-diminished crowd. Clint sidles up to lean against the opposite end of the bumper. He's in a black tee with a purple chevron across the chest, faded but rugged blue jeans, and soft brown boots. He wears thick-framed glasses and a black sling bag across his back that Lucien may recognize as one that typically houses his lightest quiver and collapsible bow. He doesn't say anything at the outset, just shoves his hands into his pockets, as his eyes search the thinning camp ceaselessly. Lucien doesn't turn to look at Clint, not yet. He's still studying the camp, tacking one final sentence on to his email before sending. For all his silence, though, there's a slight loosing of tension in the set of his shoulders, an easing where his fingers press against the side of his leg. Clint glances aside at Lucien and gives him another moment of rest before offering, conversationally, "My brother's here trying to get them internally displaced persons status. Brought along his paralegals, for more immediate help" A pause. "He's also my arrow guy, so you already have his number if you want it. You should take a break." Lucien still doesn't turn, but he does lift a hand to sign -- 'soon'. Though even as he says it his brows are starting to pinch, looking over the camp. 'Maybe, soon', he amends, after a consideration. 'Jackson has --' he starts, before becoming acutely (if laggardly) aware that this sentence is well beyond the reach of his fairly simple signing skills. His fingers give a small flutter again, and he takes a deep breath before turning and summoning up his voice. "-- he is the trustee for a rather sizable fund, intended to benefit the victims of these places. I expect the simple work of tracking them down -- even before ascertaining their needs -- will be..." Here he trails off, his lips compressing. '-- I will call -- Barney.' "Doctor Xavier has been generous." Clint observes in a vaguely off-handed way. "The school's probably attracted some attention. Their electronic security is amazing, but it's only a matter of time before someone pulls a 21 Jump Street or chats up the right alumni." He pauses for a moment and studies Lucien's hand. "Barney texts with me. He won't mind." He slides his pack around far enough to unzip a slim compartment and pull out a tablet. 'Can use this if it's easier,' he signs, holding it out. The screen is a black notepad with a drop-down AAC board. 'Write or type. Either.' "If the school wants to plan a media strategy for the future --" Lucien starts to say, and was this going somewhere or was it simply aimless lament? Either way he is trailing off, eyes fixing steadily on the tablet. For several moments he does not move, and it's only when he finally lets out a shaky puff of laughter that he even seems aware he'd been holding his breath. He takes the tablet with a small dip of his head, slipping his phone back in his pocket. For a moment he is poking -- first curious and then amused -- at the pre-entered vocabulary on the tablet -- perhaps he had not, previously, been about to finish his sentence with 'god -- god -- god -- I -- love -- arrows' and yet that is what comes out, Lucien's eyes very slightly wider with delight, before he switches to writing. 'I suppose at some point I should ferry Gaétan home.' A hesitation, here, his fingers curling tighter against the stylus before his neatly flowing handwriting continues: 'He has been in no rush to leave, yet.' 'I have communication priorities.' If Clint is even remotely embarrassed by his AAC usage, it does not show in the little hook of his smile. 'Long drive, with anyone. That why he stay?' His casual signing tends to be as near-monotonic as his casual speech, but there's some sympathy in here. He tilts his head. 'His bestie can take him back--' There's no formal sign for "teleport" and he doesn't bother spelling it, just innovates a quick flash of an open to closed hand on one side of his signing space, then again on the other. '--much faster. Gives you time to finish up, here.' 'I flew to Columbus. That drive is considerably less terrible. And finish up is optimistic, but I will be back on stage Tuesday regardless of who is still here.' The stylus bobs idly between Lucien's fingers through a slow moment of thought. 'His mother lives here,' he finally continues, and then leaves it at that. 'I know sometimes, UN help...' Clint tilts his hand palm-down the way most hearing would as recognize as "iffy". 'But this, we can help. If US allows.' The lift of his brows and press of his lips here betrays some skepticism. 'Your brothers--maybe good if they-two home, together? His mother...' One of his brows drops, slightly quizzical when he repeats the pronoun, and he makes the "iffy" gesture again. There's a small, thoughtful delay, Clint's eyes dropping to the elegant letters glowing on the surface of the tablet. 'I could find out more.' 'If.' Lucien signs this rather than write it, together with a faint press of lips and skeptical lift of eyebrows before returning to the tablet: 'Gods know it would be a help, though.' His head bows, the tip of the stylus lightly tapping at the screen, leaving a small speckling of dots but no words. 'Matthieu', he starts to write, then crosses this out, one neat precise strike through the letters. Tries again: 'She', but aborts this in the same way. His brows scrunch and finally, slowly, as if he is still trying to convince himself of his, he signs: 'She was dead.' 'If,' Clint echoes, 'someone leaned on the right politicians. Easier, then.' He does not look up from the tablet until Lucien switches back to signing, and evinces no particular surprise or skepticism at his statement. 'Like your brother? Or different.' His expression suggests he thinks the latter more likely. 'Maybe...' He sucks on the inside of his cheek. 'that's her mutation.' Lucien's mouth twitches slightly up at a corner, his brows lifting thoughtfully. 'If,' he signs again, though considerably less skeptical on this repetition. His mouth purses, and he shakes his head. 'Matthieu they disappeared, and told me he had died. I saw her body myself.' His expression flattens back to neutrality as he continues, pressing just a little harder than before: 'It would be just like her to manifest the power of never leaving us alone.' Clint frowns deeper as he reads. 'I have seen many strange things.' His eyes make another sweep of the camp. 'Several just in the last week. Nobody else seems worried about her exhibiting signs of life.' The slight outward tip of his hands isn't a sign, per se, and isn't quite a shrug, but it's an effective ellipses-as-in-"but". He studies his friend closely, then drops his gaze again. 'You never talk about her.' Lucien's eyes lower, his expression now schooled into a steady neutrality. 'She was dead.' he writes, this time. 'I had thought there was no more to say.' His eyes close, grip deliberately easing where it's gone far too tight around the slim stylus. 'Perhaps we will return home, and there will be no more to say.' Does he believe this? Unclear, but he is at least slightly lighter when he continues, signed: 'Been too busy. Haven't showed you new place. You will like --' His brows furrow. 'Good arrow spot.' Clint nods, just once. 'Perhaps.' His expression remains in the general range of lowkey concern when he replies, 'I always want to see new arrow spots, and I thought you had been maybe...' He frowns deeper and switches back to speaking for, "holding out on me." Then back to sign, 'But, if this is where I think it is. Maybe really will need an arrow robot.' 'Unsurprisingly,' Lucien replies, eyes just a little wider with the glimmer-edge of amusement, 'I have a hookup for that.' | |
