Logs:Of Freedom and Festivals (Or, Through the Cracks)

Of Freedom and Festivals (Or, Through the Cracks)
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Ryan, Nanami, Gaétan, Spencer, Wendy, Anahita, Joshua, Avi, Alma, Matt, NPC-Elie, Kavalam, Harm, Roscoe, Nevaeh, Jax, Dawson, Mirror
In Absentia	2023-12-31 "If you fighting to change the world, it takes a world'a support."
Location the closing of the year
23 november. chez tessier. In the other rooms, there's still the gentle burble and flow of companionable conversation, lubricated by friendship and delicious food and a generous helping of alcohol. Snatches of laughter or song, paeans (sincere, humourous, both at once) to Other Things We Are Thankful For, requests for more wine; from the adjacent rooms it all reaches here clearly enough. Even so Lucien doesn't bother to project his quiet voice when the door opens, speaking soft over running water and clinking china as gets a jumpstart on the many dishes. "It's quite private in my room, if you need a break." The pause after this is small -- more due to Lucien's uncertain hesitation over where the gravy boat should go than any ruffling of his calm voice. "You aren't required to be the life of every party." "Huh?" The slow but steady roll of the wheelchair as Ryan pushes through the swinging door is less telltale than weaving steps might have been, but the faintly flushed-warm aura that ripples out with his voice is its own clear signal. He glances back over his shoulder briefly, then sharply away as the door swings closed to block the view of Steve's colorful shield where it's leaned up against the couch. "Tch," comes with a wave of his hand, but the air has warped recognizably around them now, sound unnaturally muffled from the rest of the gathering and their voices carrying no farther than the kitchen island he's rolled up alongside. "When I ain't doing crazy I'm actually pretty good at cheering a room." This particular crowd sounds cheerful enough right now, though the slight tilt of Ryan's head to listen to the nearby voices pulls heavier at his shoulders. He glances towards the bar but does not move towards it; instead he's reaching up for the counter to pull himself, heavily and a little painfully, to his feet, gesturing for Luci to git. "Y'wanna pick 'em a new bottle of wine? I can save the rest of the dishes." --- 1 december. nanami's apartment. There's not much to this place, barely any furniture in the cramped studio. Possibly that pile of stuffed animals and blankets in a corner has been serving for a bed. The paper bags that hold the recycling are overflowing with empty bottles, and probably they don't serve all that well for meals. Gaétan is giving a nearly-emptied bottle of coconut Kōloa a long and considering look. Ultimately, though, he just nudges it out of the way so that he can hoist himself up to sit on the counter alongside a wrapped but unlabeled package (he doesn't look at the present in its watery-toned wrapping paper, but the deliberate way his eyes avoid it is pointed all in itself.) "-- mom's still helping me figure out what my schedule's going to look like between new classes and new job, but, once it starts..." Here he trails off; his eyes flick to the rum only for a second before looking back across the tiny apartment with a questioning lift of brows. "Damn, she got time to figure my life out, too?" Sans makeup, hair growing unevenly out of its usual razor-sharp sleekness, in Xavier's tee and soft pajama pants; maybe this question would land with the facetiousness she intended if Nanami had a fraction more of her usual selfie-ready polish. At least the Xavier's tee has been cropped into a less "gym-day" cut. She's propped against the wall, bare toes scrunching at the wooden floor and her hands twisting at the neck of a second bottle (also Kōloa, this one coffee) that she's holding tightly before her. She does look over towards the present -- briefly, guiltily, then takes a gulp of the rum and thumps her head back against the wall. "Shoots, yeah," is not quite the enthusiastic acceptance of her Dream Job that it might once have been, but she does rummage up a small smile after this. "You do this, guess you gone need someone backstage who understand you." --- 7 december. evolve cafe, kitchen. The first of eight crazy nights is well underway, a larger-than-expected turnout raucously gambling away their chocolate currency and packing away their deep-fried festival foods. Spence has been (literally) blipping in and out of the party proper to keep said stream of foods flowing, and is now carefully lifting a fresh batch of sfinj from the oil, setting it aside to cool. "At this rate we're never gonna move back to Ridgewood." He may not be Ashkie, but he can kvetch with the best of them. "I don't know how they decide this stuff, but I kinda wish they'd picked Ryan instead. It wouldn't change the security crap much, but at least he's used to being in the spotlight and not just like. Being the spotlight." He frowns, and the almost imperceptible hitch in the shift of his weight tells an aborted impulse to teleport across the counter. Determined to underline his progress in self-control, he makes grabby hands at the next tray of donuts instead, pale and unimpressive pre-frying. "Maybe I should go get him, if he hasn't shown up by the time these are done." Wendy is just stretching out another ball of dough and dropping it onto the tray, with a touch more care and concentration than might be necessary. "Jax never wanted his celebrity," her prim musing sidesteps the question of how TIME might decide, "in a lot of ways that makes his impact more powerful." Her hands are very tacky from the gooey batter and she almost lifts the tray -- then stops and wipes her hands on a damp paper towel, clean enough that the tray doesn't have much stray stickiness on it when she hands it to Spencer. "I'm sorry. That's not a lot of consolation if consolation if you have to move again, or if..." Her lips press together, and she draws another tray from the stack, peels another small goo-ball from her huge bowl of batter. The smile she offers Spencer after this is soft, something almost apologetic in it. "Maybe you should. I'm sure he needs a little more light, too." --- 15 december. freaktown. Anahita hasn't been lying in wait, exactly, but she has busied herself with chores that keep her near the sitting room from which one of Freaktown's newest residents is now emerging. She murmurs something to him as they pass, then slips into the room with an apologetic dip of her head. "Thank you for checking back in with him. I won't keep you long, but..." She darts an appraising glance at the daylight waning through the bay window behind Joshua. "We just got another in this week." The hesitation is brief, barely notable. "Out of Skinner. She had an awful time of getting here and we are doing our best by her, but I think she could really use your team's help." She considers Joshua thoughtfully. "She answers to Cherry, though I am not sure her labmates would know her by that name. She has not been the most forthcoming, but I made a preliminary list of resources she might need." There is suddenly a neatly folded slip of paper in her hands, and she closes the distance to Joshua without too insistently offering it out. "I know you are stretched thin, but she is in a bad way and staying here with so many of us is bringing it all back. We have seen others like this and fear she may not stay long or have anywhere else safe to turn." Her fingers tighten on the note, though not hard enough to crumple its perfect, sharp creases before loosening again in a kind of entreaty. "So many of us have fallen through the cracks already." There's a small twitch at the corner of Joshua's eye at Skinner, his expression otherwise unmoved. He finishes zipping up his medic pack silently. His eyes flick briefly, too, toward the rapidly dwindling afternoon, and then he just nods and takes the slip of paper. As he skims the list his heavy brows pinch -- further, further. His shoulders have sagged by the time he turns on his phone and swiping morosely through the contact list. Doesn't call anyone, though, just tucks the list and phone both back into a pocket. He doesn't actually swear, but his low grunt of "preliminary" comes out sounding like a curse all the same. "Hope you know some magicians." He exhales sharp and heavy through his nose as he stands. His nod towards the door is an invitation for Anahita to lead the way. "...She's here, though. S'a soft landing compared to all the ones we're never gonna meet." --- 21 december. avi's apartment, harlem. Avi's slice of cake is gone, but he's still hopefully mashing his fork against the crumbs scattered over his plate to try and consolidate Just One More Bite. "-- ain't nothing like I pictured back in those days," he's saying with a heavy sigh and wistful expression, as if the Innocent Young Avi of past memory was three decades past and not just three years. "Figured, God bless you with a gift like this --" Perhaps the real tell of how heavy those three years weigh is that no flutter of ice comes with this gesture, just a kind of glum wave of his fork towards himself. It scatters the crumbs he'd diligently collected back onto his plate and he begins the process of mashing them to the tines again. "-- you don't just sit on that, but now..." A small shrug fills the gap here. He chases away his fit of blues with a quick smile, almost as bright as That Younger Avi might have been. "You way the hell more badass than I even thought, though." Alma studies her cousin's expression. "Ain't no shame if you want to sit on it." The wave of her fork is a little more restrained than Avi's and sends no crumbs flying. The crumbs scattering across his plate, though, curve uncannily back into a little pile for him. "Ain't nothing wrong if you wanna let it go, neither." She cuts another neat morsel from her cake slice with the edge of her fork. "I wish I'd done a little less telling you to be careful and a lot more talking to you 'bout what that means." She shakes her head. "But being a hero's about caring for and looking after people, whatever gifts you use. I been a badass since 'back in the day', but guess what, Your Majesty?" She mirrors his smile with a slight uplift of eyebrows. "So have you." --- 22 december. dining room, chez tessier. Matt probably expected to be the first person home today, but regardless he certainly did not expect to find Elie there, by herself no less. "{You can not just turn up like this. How did you even get in?}" He's following her back into the dining room from the kitchen, where she poured him a cup of milky black tea from a sauce pan that he refused to take but somehow also did not question. She sets the cup down on the dining table now with an indulgent sigh. He picks it right back up to shove a coaster beneath it, never taking his eyes from her. "{I do appreciate what you've done for Gae. But we've seen your act before, and I'm not falling for all it again.}" His jaw works, but in all his rage there's a certain hesitance in his switch to English, "I will not fall for it again, and you know perfectly well why." "Darling," Elie coos, her cheerful mien crumbling aesthetically into despondency, "but this is no act! Whatever is there for you to fall for?" She steps into his space and lifts a hand to his cheek. "{I know they hurt you, my sweet angel, I know only too well. Let me help you to mend.}" Matt starts to lean into her touch, then abruptly stiffens, flinching away and out of her reach, his eyes wide. "No." The word comes out from behind clenched teeth. "No, and I'll thank you to get the fuck out of our home." He points emphatically at the front door, refusing to even look at her until she concedes and picks her dejected way thence to slip out into the gray December day. His shoulders slump once the door has closed behind her, and his gaze drops to the tea she left on the table beside him. Bizarrely, it's only at this long a delay that Flèche deigns to greet Matt, half-surfacing from under the kitchen table to press herself reassuringly against his leg. No doubt it's been the dog that accounts for the feeling of being watched that lingers after Elie's departure, right? Though, probably it's not Flèche who is remarking drily: "Very method, she is, yah?" Kavalam's own mostly-empty cup of tea is on a coaster near Matt's. There's a number of gifts piled tidily beside him; he's clearly raided Lucien's collection of beautiful high-quality wrapping accouterments, though there's a great disparity in the quality of the work. This box here with perfect sharp edging and no visible tape, a sprig of twined-together rosemary and pepperberry elegantly accenting the ribbon; another box beside it has paper somewhat bulky at the sides where it was cut too large and folded too clumsily, its bow tied messily. At the moment Kavalam is delicately undoing one of the messier jobs, a woven basket with an eclectic assortment of items ranging from a plumeria oil diffuser to a bag of hurricane popcorn. His eyes are fixed down as he works on refolding the mistletoe-embossed gift wrap to a more exacting neatness. The narrowing of his eyes and clench of his jaw may not have much to do with the task at hand. "Trying to look after you, look after all your friends. Deadly clever of you to see through it or she might manipulatively give some support." --- 25 december. rec room, xavier's school. "I'm pretty sure all the Lassiter kids got one, and even the telepaths don't know who they're from!" Harm's eyes haven't gotten any less wide in the course of describing the latest Xavier's mystery. The glittery iridescent ribbon and bow they're wearing on their head probably isn't making this situation any less surreal. "I bet the Mormon kids think it was literally Santa taking pity on us for getting tortured or something. But I think Santa could have just delivered yours to Boston." They adjust the screen of their laptop so that the camera can take in the large box in their lap, wrapped in marbled green paper and a red and gold ribbon with cinnamon sticks coiled in glittery metallic twine tucked into it. "It's pretty light," they say, hefting the box, "and makes like...crinkling noises? Oh right! Yours is the only one with a note. The rest just have our names." They slide a small card out from under the cinnamon-accented bow. "This might be the weirdest part, honestly, and also a pretty serious strike against the 'Santa' theory. It says..." They drop their voice slightly, reading out slow and clear: "TY for finding me the door. This doesn't make up for leaving you behind but hopefully sending the professional heroes did." They lower the card. "It's signed 'K'. Like, just the letter K." They frown like they've thought of something, then just shakes their head, the bow bobbing with the motion. "Does this make any sense to you?" In the narrow window of the video call -- he's holding his phone portrait style, not landscape -- Roscoe also has a bow stuck on his head, though his is a plasticky green loopy thing he definitely peeled off a gift this morning. The adhesive is no longer sticky -- it wobbles precariously when he leans excitedly closer, then pulls back -- "I don't know why I did that, I can't x-ray a video call," he says sheepishly. "What's the note say?" For a few moments Roscoe listens very intently; the video almost seems frozen before his eyes open very wide. There is a quick blur of motion as he jostles the phone before the video resolves again on his thrilled face, the gift bow now askew in his hair. "Oh! Oh!" he says with relief. "I know, I know, it was Kavalam, it's from Kavalam! I haven't even --" Roscoe's excitement is melting fast into disoriented, guilty horror. "I haven't even thought about him since -- since the raid? The riot? Did we -- do you remember if we..." his voice, already getting smaller, trails off entirely as he stares at his phone screen. After a moment he turns his head away from his phone, covering his nose and mouth with one hand; the gift bow finally tumbles out of his hair down his shoulder. "Shoot," he says, muffled but still audible on Harm's end. "I didn't get him anything." --- 27 december. conservatory. xavier's school. Nevaeh doesn't look as though she wandered into this corner of the conservatory by accident, nor does she seem surprised to find it occupied by the somewhat elusive Person of the Year. She just sits down on the other side of the bench with her hands folded in her lap. "You were my brother's inspiration, you know. I'm not trying to blame you for what happened, I just wish he'd gotten to meet you." She braces her hands on the edge of the bench and looks down at her shoes, bumping them gently together. "I mean, he would have been over the moon. You were like our age when you started doing those raids. When I had the vision about Spence and Gae, we thought with you locked up we had to kinda...carry the torch?" She licks her lips and steals a sidelong glance at Jax. "But we did it all wrong, and it cost a lot more than just Brendan's life, and I'm sorry. We should have known better. I should have known better." Jax hasn't actually looked up until Nevaeh sits down, but there's a slight ripple around him as she approaches. It's subtle and almost easy to overlook where his pallor and wintertime haggard smoothes over into something less blanched, like some kind of real-life instagram filter designed for closeted vampires. "Oh --" His attention shifts as she sits, moving away from his half-eaten lunch and his phone screen, but the reflexive smile that's started to touch his face fades into a more pensive look as she speaks. "I am so sorry about your brother. I wish I coulda met him, too." Has a bird snuck in here away from the cold? It wouldn't be the first time, though the bright flash of yellow underwing that flits through the greenery at the edge of vision isn't accompanied by any flutter of feathers. "I think I lost track'a all the mistakes I done made over the years an' even here from the future, I can't speak sure on which parts I shoulda changed. Gets easy to drown in it, you fix too much on all the should. Think the thing I'm tryin' to take away is, if you fighting to change the world, it takes a world'a support." --- 29 december. freaktown." Friday has never been the standard night for Game Night, but those who have turned up to celebrate don't seem to mind the break from tradition. To nobody's surprise the trial run of the new engine builder was a slaughter -- maybe it's to spare his friends back to back crushing defeats that once Earth has been cleaned up, the birthday boy has excused himself for a meal. Out here on the balcony, though, Dawson isn't actually eating. His plate is on his lap, but untouched, his fingers clenched tight at the arm of his chair and his head tipped back as if he might, if he's lucky, see a star in the New York City sky. Given the telepath riding shotgun in his head, probably the Lily who emerges onto the balcony could not fool her un-twin for long, anyway. There's a keenness in her eyes that looks for half a second like she's about to venture at least one sharp comment before being clocked -- but then it fades, and the borrowed face does, too. Skin darkening, the lines of their form skewing in dimensions, and finally Mirror just goes to lean up against the balcony nearby the other. << The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. >> does not feel deliberate, a musing thought rising and then batted away again. Their head turns up, too, following the line of Dawson's gaze though they aren't really looking at the lightsmogged grey sky overhead; psionic senses can easily feel the sidelong flick of their attention as they watch him out of the corner of their eyes. There's an abortive mental twitch -- the others can feel their first impulse to slip into a different skin, but it subsides. "Entire community's feeling out the way forward. At least you picked a good fucking time to have to figure yourself out." --- 31 december. le bonne entente. One of the chicest parties in a city jam-packed with chic parties is in full swing -- somewhere above, though some of the thump of music intermittently trickles down to the strange network of tunnels winding beneath the building. There are few enough who know the ins and outs of the crypt passageways, and as such it is quiet in this little nook. The space seems well-designed to have a properly atmospheric breakdown in, beautiful and macabre paintings and bone art tucked into its alcoves, soft torchlight throwing haunting shadows over the old stone floors. It was no doubt a very aesthetic breakdown some time ago when Ryan came down here, fleeing the crowds and the questions (intrusive and well-meaning both) and the everpresent danger of cameras (the only press allowed here tonight are under strict injunction about when and how they can photograph, but that doesn't stop any cellphone from becoming a potential humiliation.) The intense waves of do not perceive me that sent him hiding have ebbed away by now, though he has made no move to go collect his dutifully stationed bodyguards and head back into society. "-- track down one skittish labrat in all of goddamn Texas but if we do we will definitely have legal aid ready," he is currently dictating to his text messages. He doesn't hit send yet, briefly distracted by leaning forward from his wheelchair to study some aged graffiti scratched directly into the stone. There's a soft contralto outside that doesn't belong to Ryan's stalwart bodyguards, but their quiet replies evince no suspicion or concern toward the newcomer they're now opening the door to admit. Elie Tessier sweeps in with an atmosphere all her own, a breath of fresh air from the confident gait marked by steady click of her heels on ancient stone to the daring couture that makes no apologies for her gracefully worn age. "{Ah! There you are!}" Her voice, bright and warm, bespeaks good cheer helped along by anticipatory champagne, appreciation undimmed by anything resembling pity, and a keen, almost rapacious interest that perhaps should set off alarms but does not. Maybe it just feels familiar, like the lilting accent that carries it, calling to mind her eldest sons in startlingly disparate ways. "I thought you'd slipped away for respite from the sound and fury, but here you are looking after our people instead." She lifts one hand to her heart, fingers elegantly splayed across the cowl neck of her emerald gown in a gesture so precious it would look absurd on just about anyone else under the circumstances. "Please, let me make up for my presumption." Her hand drops to his shoulder -- surely that's not too familiar? -- her perfume an airy whiff of rose and orris touched with incense. "My connections from Lassiter may serve our people yet, and take some of this weight from you and your team." She beams an encouraging smile down at him. "{You deserve looking after, too.}"