Logs:Caveats

Caveats
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Lucien, Winona
In Absentia	2024-04-05 "I only have so many brothers, how widespread could the danger really be." (immediately after Winona comes asking questions.)
Location <???> Lucien's Safehouse
This is an airy one-room condo in a historic building, once an aristocrat's mansion, that has undergone multiple rounds of renovation that both preserve and add to its eccentric character. It is comfortably appointed, its modern furnishes and decorations giving a nod to Old World color without courting luxury. A small balcony overlooks charming cobblestone streets and a prettily tended park across the way. In a blink, night has given way to -- different night; outside the window it's small-hours quiet, streetlamps lighting the charming cobblestone streets below with only sparse foot traffic still drifting by. Joshua's medic kit has been dropped near the front door, and he's stopping brief and conscientious to unzip his heavy work boots and leave them by the door. His hands have returned to his pockets as he slouches his way into the apartment, lifting his chin in a dissonantly casual greeting. Lucien's hair and eyes have both shifted to a drab brown, and his bland striped tee shirt and even blander chinos are neither fashionable nor tailored. He is laying out a tea set on the table, service for three with prettily colored macarons neatly arrayed beside, so perhaps some things do not change. "My apologies," he offers in soft greeting, "I would have prepared something more, had I known there would be company tonight." With Joshua, Winona has also appeared. She takes in her surroundings, gaze lingering on the touches that mark the history of this room and building, but she snaps to attention when Lucien speaks. Her mouth opens, then closes, then opens again to speak, "Considering I thought you were dead, this already wildly exceeds my expectations." An uncertainty lingers for a few moments longer in her posture, but she decides the polite thing is to sit for the tea that her host has laid out. "Um. So. I'm not complaining, I'm so glad to see you. But I saw--" She bites her lip and shakes her head. "How can I help you?" "Was very dead." Joshua is ambling over to drop into a chair. "I alived him." This is casual, too, as though this is simply a normal and unremarkable thing to have done. He's regarding the tea with a squint that is probably not as suspicious as it looks in his jowly face. "Figured it's best to keep it on the DL until we know who might want to unalive him again." "I only have so many brothers, how widespread could the danger really be." There's a very dry sarcasm in Lucien's voice here, though he does not, in fact, seem unamused at the thought of More Fratricide. He sets one of the cups in front of Joshua, suspicion or no, and the other to Winona before he takes a seat himself. "I have no idea, really, how concerned I ought to be about -- well. It would be mildly vexing if he did it again. I admit I have been at a bit of a loss as to how to evaluate that likelihood." The sideeye that Winona gives to Joshua's statement about aliving Lucien is only momentary, because she closes her eyes and breathes out. "That does explain everything I've found out about so far. I didn't know--" She waves a hand, shakes her head, and picks up the teacup. "Considering what happened, I think any concern you might have is justified. I don't know the ins and outs of your familial relationships, but the ease by which he--" She stops her words with a sip. "I know this is likely a sensitive question, but... Had he behaved violently towards you in the past?" Joshua does not look amused at Lucien's joke. Maybe not surprising, given how unamused his face looks by default. He grimaces down into the tea as he picks it up. "The one you got seems dangerous enough already. Anyone can do a murder. Making yours just disappear --" His lips compress thinly, and his sharp exhale sends ripples across the surface of his tea. "Accidental deaths usually get autopsies even if there isn't anything suspicious about them. How the fuck he got everyone to take a look at that and -- no questions, everything's cool. That's what scares me." Lucien picks up his tea, and takes a slow and lingering sip. There is the faintest of tremors that runs through his hands, there and gone again by the time he lowers the tea again. "Our relationship has had its share of turbulences, but Matthieu has never lifted a hand to me. Not once. Even as children we did not -- fight." He pulls the cup in a little closer, cradling it against his chest and running his thumb in small circles against the warm smooth china. The corner of his mouth twitches. "My family can be quite convincing. I admit I did not expect him to have quite this facility with covering these particular tracks. It is not a thing he's had much call to do himself, before." Winona shakes her head, "Everyone just dropping it was. A surprise." She puts down the tea cup and reaches for one of the macarons. "Just, the lack of subtlety, I would have thought it would be impossible to have that heavy a hand and just--" Her eyebrows lower in thought, "Just get away with it. It seems like there must be something deeper in play. Who all knows that you are alive?" Her eyes turn towards Joshua as she takes a bite, to direct the question more broadly. "You're slick, but nobody's that convicting." Joshua finally takes a tentative sip of the tea. It takes him a momentary evaluation of his sip before he takes a second. "-- not without hella money or hella mind control. And I know Xavier's doesn't pay that good." He lifts one shoulder in answer to Winona's question. "Steve Rogers and his sidekick. Scott Summers out at the school. You're the first I've told since them." He frowns a moment, and adds, "... haven't told Mirror but they usually know everything." "Sam Wilson is a good deal more than Captain America's sidekick." Lucien is frowning more deeply at this than he has been at any of the discussion of murder. "A private investigator named Murphy Law. He was not hired to find me," he clarifies swiftly, "we are just friends and he can be like a dog with a bone when he thinks something amiss. I have told nobody else, yet. I thought perhaps if I could figure out what they did to so easily get away with it, I could work out what precautions to take upon my return. So far, though, my increasingly knotted conspiracy board has yielded me a plethora of new questions and little by way of answer." He takes another slow sip of tea. His shoulders have gotten minutely more tense, his eyes lowered as he rotates the cup slow between his fingers. "It would be comforting to think mind control." This is softer, and a touch rueful. "Until recently, I could not have imagined that Matthieu..." His eyes close as he trails off, giving his head a small shake. "Murphy... Law?" repeats Winona, an eyebrow quirking up at the name. "I guess I have that much in common with him, I don't like to leave threads hanging." She looks down into the teacup on the table. "Finding you alive is unexpected, but I'm glad." With a quick click of her tongue, she continues, "Too much work to do to be lazing around in a coffin. Is there anyone else who has been acting unusual lately? If it is not mind control, it could be something else. There are toxins and diseases that increase aggressivity, impact cognition... undoubtedly abilities that do the same." Joshua's brows also hike up at this name, together with a small amused huff. He takes a longer gulp of his tea, his eyes drifting over to a window to look out at the night beyond. "Don't know much about your family. Thought the one thing I knew pretty solid was that you and here were --" He holds up a hand, first two fingers crossed tight. "Your mom did get herself some pretty cushy Prometheus perks. Feel like y--" He grimaces, eyes tightening as he glances to Winona and clumsily amends, "-- your brother'd have noticed, though. He's usually the first person I'd go to if I need help with a slippery power." "He is as curmudgeonly as befits the name." Lucien's assurance here comes with a small pleased crinkle of his eyes, as if he would expect no less of his friends. His eyes widen just a little when he looks to Winona, and there's something immediately more at ease in his expression when she mentions work, despite his immediate grousing. "I have been trying to keep up with things but there is only so much I can do while abroad and decease. I am a bit worried that if I am dead too long I will return to find L'Entente sold off to become condos." He sets his tea down, pinching lightly at the bridge of his nose. "It is rare, but powers have eluded him before. I admit I feel a bit like everyone has been acting unusual." His hand turns up in a small shrug. "But that is likely just my ego. I have never fancied myself important, but suppose I imagined my loss would be a touch more disruptive to my family, at the least. At least so far as I can tell from a remove, everyone is moving on quite smoothly. Perhaps --" He traces his finger very slow around the rim of his saucer. His next words come slower, just a little more stilted than his usual. "Until Joshua mentioned that you -- had concerns, I was. Beginning to think perhaps there was no mystery. That I was just misremembering. Exaggerating the -- events of that night." "You should consider making your will complicated enough that it'll spend at least a year in probate, so that you have time to get your affairs in order while you are dead in the future," offers Winona. The slight twitch of a frown on her lips makes it unclear whether that advice is entirely sincere. She cups her chin in her hand. "If I use my ability on someone, as long as I keep it active, they tend to be unable to activate any powers of their own." Her eyes shift over towards Joshua, "Or maybe like a cordyceps? A kind of infection that plants itself in the victim's mind, affecting their behaviour to benefit the organism. Or--" She shakes her head, "I may just be thinking with my horror buff mind. But in any case." She points her knuckle towards Lucien, "There is a mystery. You are important. I saw what happened, and while things might seem like they are moving on smoothly now... it's like an earthquake under the ocean." She picks up her teacup again, but makes no move to take another sip, only watching the still surface of the liquid. "A great wave is coming."