Logs:Kaushalya

Kaushalya
cn: dicks r out in this one, some pretentious mindsex happened, more references to csa / rape / abuse
Dramatis Personae Charles, Lucien
In Absentia Matt, Elie, Erik, Hive, Jax	2024-01-25 "{It does, of course, require a certain amount of give before you can take.}" (set many hours after charles' lesson.)
Location <NYC> Luci's Apartment - Le Bonne Entente - Astoria - Queens
Nestled just below the belfry and above the gardeners' workshop and storage rooms, this penthouse apartment is accessible only at the proprietor sufferance via a special panel in the elevator and a locked utility stairway. The whole of it is psi-shielded, and equipped with a largely unused power suppression grid as well. Spanning one and a half levels, this space could be mistaken for an extension of the conservatory below, with plentiful bookshelves and greenery spilling from every nook, but even a cursory examination will reveal the personal touches that went into its design, softening the neoclassical aesthetic of the building at large with paradoxically fastidious whimsy. The elevator shaft bridging the full level and the loft is, save for the doors, encased in the coral reef of an immense cylindrical aquarium that houses a thriving tropical community. The sitting room immediately adjoining this is bright and airy, open to the empty half of the story above, with a plush circular sectional couch, a low tea table, a sideboard and a bar, its walls covered with lush trellises where not taken up with recessed bookshelves. Opposite the oceanic entryway on the western wall, tall french doors lead to a crescent balcony with views of the waterfront and city beyond as well as the restaurant terrace and garden far below. To either side of the doors, floor to ceiling waterfall windows feed twin pools connected under a thick glass floor panel, an indoor pond lined with smooth river stones and stocked with hardy freshwater fish. On the other end of the apartment, tucked under the loft and behind the elevator shaft, is a large kitchen bracketed by a well stocked pantry on one end and a breakfast nook on the other, its culinary conveniences--even the the refrigerator and ovens--hidden behind opaque glass panels that light up at a touch with lists of their contents. An elegant floating stairway spirals up around the elevator cum aquarium, its balusters and those of the loft's railing above twined with well-trained philodendrons. The long wall of the loft showcases a variety of bows from historical and modern, humble to ornate. A no-nonsense workshop at one end of this gallery stores the less picturesque archery paraphernalia as well as a wide range of tools, striking a quaint contrast with the cozier if no less utilitarian study at the other end. Open offset doorways at either end lead to a capacious bedroom with a king sized bed, its walls graced with myriad orchids and other epiphytes in Greek sconces. The generously sized bathroom is tiled in mosaic scenes from classical mythology and has an entire corner dedicated to the antique clawfoot tub. The walk-in closet is similarly generous, with specialized storage for every imaginable accessory, and a hidden staircase leading to the belfry above and the exit below. The tea has long since gone cold, likewise the scones, but the bright blazing heat of Charles's psionic presence is only now fading to a warm soft glow, still absent his usually meticulous shielding. He's lying on his side, propped up by a pile of cushions and the back of the couch -- a position to which his body will strenuously object later. It's well worth enduring for the view it affords him of the beautiful wreck he's made of the young man beside him. Lucien lost all coherence hours ago but, impressively, did not stop pleading until about halfway through Charles's (scrupulously unscientific) bid to discover how long he could orgasm continuously with his refractory period suppressed. The answer, as it turns out, was "as long as Charles wanted", though it might have been "until he passed out from hypoglycemia" if Charles had wanted that. Presumably Charles did not want that, given he stops short -- if only barely -- of actually rendering Lucien unconscious, easing off his admittedly unpolished neurochemical manipulation. He's still trailing fingertips over Lucien's skin, though, radiating satisfaction as he watches the remarkable mind he'd ravaged stitch itself back together. When he senses enough volition there to chance deliberate communication, he conveys a biokinetic sense of not Lucien's metabolism shifting to conserve resources, but his own doing the same. Lucien is still shivering beneath Charles's touch, and though this is no doubt in large part because of the thrills of pleasure and desire the contact still brings -- it's probably also no small part hypoglycemia. Despite this he's somewhat emphatically answering the question of whether he'd have let Charles continue to take until he had no more to give, because even before he's regained any real coherence his mind is fluttering in soft hungry supplication after that retreating psionic presence, wordless but quite clear in the sense it relays of opening, of submission, of invitation at once playful and pleading. This pulls back, albeit reluctantly, once understanding is beginning to filter into the deliciously exhausted wreckage of his mind. For a stark and panic-stricken instant his breath catches, his mind desperately scrambling through -- to him the most likely reasons for the emptiness in body and mind where he still feels Charles should be. It comes in Elie's disgusted reprobation and in his terrified determination to learn how to please these men so maybe she'll finally accept him; it comes in aching exhausted determination to stay awake one more night if it means Matt gets some respite from the pain and the nightmares. Still fuzzy and spent, these thoughts are only half-collected, half-stitched, and before they can resolve into real clarity he's getting more clarity and the building panic collapses back into a deep satisfaction. "Mmm," is all he manages to say aloud, and now his hand is tracing light against Charles's with a lazy-slow curl of pleasure. In defiance of what should be phyiscally plausible, the echo of Charles's satisfaction has him half-hard again, likely as far as it will get without deliberate biokinetic assistance, now but still enough to ache in his spent body. He's -- kind of thinking of getting up. Preparing to think of getting up. While he continues to collect together enough energy and presence of mind to use his wobbly legs he's at least forming a vague inquiry in Charles's direction: the now-cold tea spread on the table put away, replaced with some food with some Actual Substance to compensate for the exertion. He's only vaguely confident there is stroganoff in his fridge, but a lot more confident that the restaurant will send them up food expediently if not. Charles draws a slow breath, lets it back out, and the swell of desire at Lucien's plaintive invitation buoys him up instead of drowning him again. Another slow breath in and slow breath out steadies him through Lucien's fleeting incipient panic, as well. The sense of Lucien melting under his hand again -- aroused again by his gratification -- is harder to meditate away. He gamely tries to stay on task, distractedly considering the query. La Vie makes a superb butternut squash tortellini, and room service would save Lucien some undignified staggering about the kitchen. He isn't really thinking about getting up, himself, nor given much thought to where his clothes have ended up. He is turning over Lucien's brief panic -- not the uncertain memories that started to attend it as such, but the abstraction of his self-effacement -- in the now somewhat amorphous psychic space between their minds. The concept glimmers and spreads like an intricate spider web stretching across the totality of Charles's acquaintance with Lucien, connecting isolated observations -- from that quiet, thoughtful young porter at the Hellfire Club who risked a job he desperately needed for Charles's access all the way down to the Lucien beside him now, wholly prepared to push his exhausted body and mind further for Charles's pleasure. But what he says, finally, is << {You know, I do need food quite badly. But I realized you needed it first, and I don't know that I'd have done anything about it just yet otherwise.} >> This he annotates simply with his own thought process hardly a minute past -- recognizing Lucien's hunger, registering his own only peripherally until he realizes he would need it...to persuade Lucien to eat. Lucien takes another moment to collect himself, though the careful restitching of his coherent thought is going faster at his inward reminders that Charles Needs Food (obviously he needs food) (how long has it been) (how could he not have noticed). He isn't one hundred percent sure as to where all his clothes have ended up but he has a much clearer notion of where his phone has got to, and very reluctantly pries himself away from Charles's side long enough to fish it out from between the couch cushions. As he orders, his other hand curls around the older man's back, and there's -- almost -- no sign of his exhaustion in the skillful fingers that unerringly find the worst strains in Charles's back to gently knead away the developing aches. Almost... but the biokinetic relief that tends the nerves is more sluggish, now, than it would have been hours ago. There's a reflexive rearranging inside Lucien's mind, and what processes are shifting is just out of reach of Charles's actual comprehension, but it's clearly enough a rebalancing, borrowing from over here to even afford the energy to soothe Charles's back, moving something else there before it can fritz wildly out of control. "Mmm," he manages again once there is food on the way, tucking himself comfortably back in against Charles, and though he's watched the spiderwebbing of these memories they clearly aren't quite connecting yet, because as he brushes a light kiss to Charles's shoulder his mind is bringing up a quiet offer -- turn over, he can do this backrub properly -- and it's oddly guileless when he says quite solemnly, "{I think you may have a bit of a problem. Didn't we start out at it's okay to have needs? That is true even if,}" this magnanimous allowance comes with a soft kiss at the side of Charles's neck, a light trace of tongue against skin, "{those needs are something other than ravishing me.}" Charles gives a grateful sigh at Lucien's ministrations, leaning into the relief of pain only just starting to make itself known and not trying too hard to fend off the pleasure that shivers through him in its place. He's more than a little tempted by the prospect of a "proper backrub", but given that some of the relevant areas are effectively erogenous zones even with entirely mundane touch -- which, incidentally, can make therapeutic massage a somewhat stressful experience -- he doesn't think it wise to indulge until they've both had something to eat. If he's going to make Lucien swoon, he had rather it be for satiety than hunger. That doesn't stop his head rolling back against the cushions at the soft kisses Lucien dots along his shoulder and neck. The hitch of his breath tells on the moan he's holding in, more sensible than audible as a hum in his chest, but in their current state he cannot hide the desire rallying deep in his mind and body both. His aura grows hotter again, his breath shorter, and he reels himself back with a will. "{It is a problem,}" he agrees equably, curling an arm gently around Lucien to gather him closer. "{Whether I need to ravish you quite so vigorously is open to debate, though it was immensely gratifying all the same. But we didn't start out at 'it's okay to have needs'...}" He doesn't bother rooting around for a memory to illustrate his words, but merely nudges Lucien's attention toward his own fraying biokinetic game of musical chairs. "{You have been focused all along on everyone else's needs but your own, even unto your own detriment.}" He shifts his uninsistent psionic prompting of Lucien's senses toward his metabolism, more severely hypoglycemic than Charles's -- probably something to do with shouldering a larger share of the aforementioned vigor. "{If I had not pointed out my hunger, would you have heeded your own?}" Lucien's laugh is just a small ghost of warmth against Charles's skin. His fingers leave off their kneading, hand just tracing slow and gentle at Charles's back, though the biokinetic ministrations continue. "{After supper, then.}" His flit of memory is brief but intense, a consuming somatic memory of the indescribable pleasures of Charles moving in him -- mind or body, it's blended together into an ecstasy beyond his previous comprehensions of the word. "{-- and I rather enjoyed your vigor.}" He is starting to find his muscles, now. A testing stretch of his legs, a slow roll of his shoulders, but at the question the snap of his eyes back to Charles in a sudden keen appraisal is considerably less languid. He's gone slightly more tense, and takes a moment and a slow breath for it to seep back out of his tired body. There's no laughter, now, but there is a very wry amusement in his voice; despite a distinct flutter of discomfort there's a grudging approval in his mind, too. "{Mmm, yes, we started at how to steer a conversation, didn't we?}" Charles doesn't tense, but for that moment he doesn't move, either, his presence a quiet steadying warmth beside Lucien. "{You're a fine teacher and I'm a quick study.}" His hand strokes firm and soothing down the younger man's back, but it's uncharacteristically diffident when he allows, << (and maybe it takes one to know one) >> The unspoken words dissolve into light that illuminates the depths of Charles's labyrinth, where -- -- his step-brother grips him by the lapels and slams the smaller boy up against the wall of the boathouse. "You little freak, you think you're better than us?" Cain demands, but he isn't really looking for an answer, isn't looking for anything but an outlet for his rage and pain. Charles couldn't answer anyway, drowning as he is in a flood of emotions, unable to tell which if any are his own, and he wants so very badly for Cain to like him the way -- -- Sharon Xavier liked her late husband well enough, but his loss only hurts so keenly when their son is near. Charles can feel her weeping over her tea, struggling with the wrongness of her grief and of her only child. He had always been peculiar, and he's grown outright unsettling since his father's death, as though he'd been spirited away and replaced with something vile. Charles squeezes his eyes shut. His mother may never love him again, but he could give her space to heal unburdened by the tedious -- -- words still pouring from Doctor Milton, though Charles already knows what he wants and would prefer to just get on with it. He's exhausted and has another round of revisions before the thesis defense this man could tank with but a word. It would be tricky to change his mind and he oughtn't risk a man's sanity when really, he's quite good at rendering the service he's finally being asked, however obliquely. Charles sinks gracefully to his knees and looks up -- -- into Erik's clear blue eyes, and his heart flutters with the realization he's been waiting at Charles's bedside. He never understood how much he had until he saw just how little Erik had. But Erik got his vengeance and he's still here, and maybe Charles could give him back some measure of what the war stole from him, after all. If nothing else, at least a home where they could build something together, for their people. He swallows his longing and grips the man's calloused hand as if he were holding -- -- what little is left of Hive, the shattered forest cradled in his light barely identifiable as a mind, but still reaching, still hungry. Charles hasn't done this with anyone but Erik in so long, and he has no idea if it will work but he must try, even at the risk of losing his very self. His tower dissolves into light, into Hive, and of course it's always different with another telepath, but he's never known another telepath quite like him…like the them sluggishly waking now as -- -- new paths are stitched in bright tapestries that wind like ribbons of light through what might be a swallowing void were it not filled with the quiet chorus of darting fish. Beside Lucien, Charles is still breathing slow and even, his practiced steadiness not an imposition or a plea but an offer. "{Perhaps it's not how this is meant to work, but you're allowed to want, as well -- even if you need help to decide what. To take -- and not just your fee.}" For all his earnestness, he can't quite resist adding, just a bit smug, << {...or my cock.} >> Through the spill of memories Lucien is still and quiet, but there's a subtly spreading sense of comfort slipping into the physical soothing he has already been providing. Beneath this Charles can feel the meticulous work of sorting, of contextualizing, weaving this deluge of new information into a picture Charles can no longer clearly see. At Charles's last addition his eyes are going slightly wider in time with a soft puff of laughter, and as if after the last hours this thought might yet have the power to scandalize him a faint blush -- Charles can feel the very intentional biokinetic processes that summon it -- dusts his cheeks. He is getting up now, but slowly, casting around in desultory fashion for where in the mess of discarded clothing and displaced pillows his jeans might have ended up. When he does dig them out of a heap of Charles's clothing, the steel ring on its chain slips from the folds; he catches it on a palm to set it aside on the tea table. "{You were well-primed to learn,}" and it is both compliment and sorrow, the long years at Xavier's and his own sisters' successes there mingling with reflection on Charles's memories. "So often when people speak of manipulation it is such a coarse word. Such a coarse tool. {As if it is about bending people to your wants. I suppose hammering people into a shape you desire does work -- to a point. But --}" His eyes lower to where his fingers have scrunched hard into the denim, and he relaxes his grip slowly. "{-- how much more effective to understand people's true desires, and find where they can be woven into a harmony with your own?}" He's pulling his jeans on, now, with only a small wince as the fabric, well-worn though it is, chafes over too-sensitive skin. "{It does, of course, require a certain amount of give before you can take.}" Whatever uncertainty Charles still harbored about his decision to bring those memories to light is easing from him with that subtle spill of comfort, his vague doubt readily replaced by a not unself-conscious concern for the strain to Lucien's overworked nervous system, as though he weren't personally responsible for much of the overworking. "{I suppose that lends a certain irony to my eternal vigilance against the abuse of such techniques.}" His amusement is faint and rueful. "I'm not quite ready to change my Ethics of Power curriculum, but I may start a new chapter for the textbook." Yes, he literally wrote the book on the ethical use of mutant powers. "I've never thought of it as manipulation, but rather as upaya." He casually appends the Sanskrit etymology of the word along with its usage in various schools of Buddhism for Lucien's reference in case he is unfamiliar. "I'm not sure how well that framing translates when my aim is not the benefit of those I'm aiming at." He reaches down to shift one leg and then the other to hang down over the edge of the sofa before levering himself carefully upright. His gaze darts to his wedding band when Lucien finds it, and though it winds up near enough he does not reach for it, nor does his mind reach for its appearance in the memory that had tipped him into dissociation hours ago. What it does conjure is a rapid stream of recollections that connect with easy intuition when his labyrinth is folded just so. "{Mm, to a point, yes,}" he agrees somewhat abstractedly. "{And tools so forged have a way of turning on their makers. It is an unfortunately common approach among telepaths, and perhaps it is tempting for its safety.}" The distant flashes of psionic combat are not deliberate this time, his fear and pain less prominent than the sense of his own mind pulling instinctively toward his attackers, warm and welcoming even in the face of their brutality. "{I cannot say I feel sanguine about weaving the desires of men like Toure into my own.}" His lips compress. "Though in his particular case, that ship sailed long ago." Lucien is turning over upaya in his mind, first, weaving Charles's own perspective on this into his previous understanding of the concept. He's holding that entire picture up next against manipulation; against getting Charles into bed and Charles's tailored vulnerability that tumbled him headfirst into such rare self-disclosure, against a thousand daily choices of when to smile and when to speak, against Matt's cultivated warmth and against Jackson's. "Is there a difference?" It might be upaya/manipulation he's asking about, here, but his thoughts have moved on to -- self-disclosure, encouraging vulnerability from Charles, to how this is meant to work and the mutual benefit of these arrangements, to the ill-defined space where his power ends and Charles's begins (and a ghost of twining aerial roots that first connected them). His tone is very solemn, for all the good that does when Charles can feel the mirth bubbling up in his mind: "Surely by now you of all people can see past the illusion of separation."