Logs:Dry

Dry
Dramatis Personae Anahita, Lucien, Ryan
In Absentia Damien, Jax, Matt	2024-07-14 "Trust me, I am an expert in water." (followed by getting high.)
Location <NYC> Rooftop Pool - Le Bonne Entente - Astoria - Queens
This luxurious pool deck occupies the center of L'Entente's cross-shaped rooftop, precisely where the bell tower stood before the renovation. The main pool itself is round, its stairs forming concentric rings that give it a pleasing visual sense of depth. Smaller circular pools extend out past the corners of the cross, with submerged bench seating and breathtaking views of the city over curved vanishing edges. On the eastern side of the pool is an elegant long bar in a colonnaded neoclassical pavilion, serving up drinks and gourmet small plates from the restaurant below. Luxurious chaises longues ring the central pool on all sides for sunning, reading, and people watching (in either direction), with tables for both standing and sitting arranged in a larger circle around these. On the western side of the pool, past the chairs and the tables, a sculpture garden with original statuary on classical mythological connects, in warm weather, to the eastern edge of the Carrefour conservatory nestled at the base of the bell tower. It's late -- the pool is definitely closed for the night, but probably its emptiness is a large part of the appeal, right now. Ryan isn't swimming, but maybe he's been giving the prospect Serious Consideration. He's in swim shorts -- eggshell and mid-length and decorated with a bright red floral motif -- and a tight red tank. His wheelchair stands beside the far pool he's chosen, bag and towel on its seat. He's tucked himself in the bench seat -- there's some fruity drink half-drunk by the poolside that he's currently ignoring, just resting his chin on an arm at the poolside, eyes fixed out towards the glittering lights of Manhattan in the distance. Lucien doesn't look like he's dressed for any sort of lounging in the water. He's in neatly tailored jeans, a mint green short-sleeved button-down and tan loafers, no towel or other Pool Accoutrements in sight. He does have a refill of Ryan's drink, little though it's yet quite needed; he's giving the first one a mildly disapproving look as he sets the second beside it. "Hardly like you to linger so long over one drink." Anahita probably also isn't dressed for swimming, though it's harder to tell when she is liberally swathed in a wrap dress when she emerges from the sculpture garden to head to Ryan. She does hesitate when Lucien approaches him, but resumes her path shortly. "I am glad to have found you both." Her actual intonation is quite even, but in it there's a duet of weariness and worry. "I'm making my rounds," she explains in an off-handed way, her anxiety unexpressive but persistent. Ryan turns, the water rippling quietly up around to splash at the toe of Luci's shoe as he pulls himself nearer. He's rolling his head to the side, squinting up from this vantage point at Lucien and then down at the drinks, a slight buzzy unfocus in his eyes. "Tell me you made this for me personal," he's saying, and the rich warmth of his voice is made richer still by the heady trill of euphoria that shivers out and over and through the others. He picks up the glass Lucien just brought, and in his quiet hum as he takes a sip there's another flutter, appreciative. He offers the glass up, up -- his hold on it is not too steady but he's generally wobbling it in Anahita's direction in offer. "Rounds of what? Try this it'll ease all your worries." Or maybe that's just the continuing heady empathic touch. "I made this for you personal," Lucien replies, neutral and deadpan. "Seetha says you've been asking for it almost exclusively. I did make a slight adjustment to the recipe she gave me, but it seems to meet your approval all the same." He dips his head politely to Anahita, and his voice is still very neutral when he remarks: "It is later by far than your workday ought ever ask of you." "Rounds of checking on everyone else who cannot or will not sleep." Anahita perches herself on the ledge of of the pool and accepts the glass, taking only a small sip before handing it carefully back. "Thank you. That is quite good, but my worries are hardy. They have weathered many substances." Whatever it says about Lucien's mixology or Ryan's esteem of it, she sounds at once more and less worried. Her eyes shift past Ryan as if to estimate the depth of the pool, which she probably knows already. "I am no longer working." After a small pause she admits, her fluster well buried beneath long-polished calm, "I was. I understand it is a common peril of being salaried. I have never been, before." "Checking on --" Ryan doesn't really seem to follow. He blinks, squeezes his eyes shut, looks around himself again before continuing in bemusement, "this is -- a hotel." He takes another sip of the drink, and sinks a little lower in the water with his exhale (blissful and spilling that bliss profligately). His eyes have slipped half-closed but he cracks one open again to peek at Lucien. "You tyranting? Keeping your employees here till all hours?" "This is a hotel," Lucien echoes mildly. He doesn't stand back up -- just remains in a crouch at the poolside, arms folded across his bend knees. "Many employees must be here through the night. -- But not my groundskeeper. I do know from being a workaholic," he adds mildly, "but playing aunty to my hotel guests is assuredly not in your job description. I do not think you can fault salaried employment for that particular tendency." Anahita braces her hand on the edge of the pool. "Be fair, I play aunty to the staff." This does not sound like a protest, exactly. She tips her hand at Ryan. "But I make exceptions." Despite her boast on the hardiness of her worries, they are eroding under the second-hand high. "He doesn't make me do this," she explains. "I think I have transferred some of my Freaktown habits unawares." "Do the staff -- sleep. Sleep here." Ryan waves his hand to generally indicate the hotel at large. "No wait not sleeping. You said." He's taking another slow pull from the drink -- then switching it for the one he already had had and taking a sip of that. Then another sip of the one Lucien brought him. "Damn, y'all got some magic with this. Got the recipe from your -- the. You know." He's rolling his head back along his arm and offering Lucien the glass, now. He's looking at Anahita, though -- more or less, given the shakiness of his eyes when he tries to focus. "Hotel is like. Opposite -- not opposite but. S'as far from Freaktown as you can. Get." "As a general rule, they ought not." This is very mild. "He is -- not wrong. On our guests' end we are somewhat the opposite of a community, and many of those who stay here --" Lucien's lips press thin. "There are likely many others more deserving of your attentions." He takes the cup, with a quiet huff. "I did make this, you know. I know what it tastes like. Where is the recipe from, it's quite unique." He is taking a sip, all the same -- just a small one, and returning the glass. "I am not sure that the swimming pool is the very best place for you to be getting high. Our lifeguards will not be returning until morning. Won't you come back inside?" "You are not wrong." Anahita looks down into the water. Her brows knit in thought, for just a moment. "I do not think it is in any way same. I doubt if I could ever really stop playing aunty and I do not think it is a simple matter to decide who is deserving. But." She lifts her eyes again. Her embarrassment does not reach her words, but Ryan can still hear it, quiet and uncertain beneath her self-assurance. "I have put off looking for a new place for much too long. I do apologize." She dips her head. "And I will see to it." "From your fairy. S'why it tastes like magic." Ryan takes the glass -- and Lucien's wrist as well, tugging just a little towards himself. "You could stay." Very unsurprisingly his neurochemistry currently is largely overwhelmed with a warm (too warm, without Jax's diligent system of alarms he has definitely not been drinking enough water) and delirious pleasure; the chemical high is dwarfing but not quite eclipsing a simmering background anxiety and an ugly snarl of pain and knotted tension centered in his lower back. He's absently rubbing his cheek against Lucien's knuckles, though he's looking again at Anahita now. "And you. The water's -- so nice. And you don't have a new place yet. I don't have a new place yet. Luci doesn't have -- his old place." Probably none of this is funny but it is eliciting a sharp laugh from Ryan anyway: "We're all just. Stuck. Here." "What?" is a little too sharp, and when this catches up to Lucien: "He isn't my --" Likely Lucien was braced for this touch, in Ryan's current state more or less an inevitability, but nevertheless his eyes have gone a little wider. The other man's tug is small but it pulls him noticeably off-balance, his free hand dropping quick to brace on the wet floor and keep him from tipping into the water. He doesn't pull away, just turns his hand slightly in Ryan's grip, fingers tracing slowly against the chemical symbol tattooed on the other man's wrist as his senses flicker out invisibly to take a far more thorough stock of his state. "You haven't been drinking enough," is evident enough without his mutation at all, between Ryan's current temperature and the copious empathic flushes the audiokinetic is leaking. "And I can think of far worse places to be stuck and far worse people to be stuck with. But a hotel is not a home," is soft and almost apologetic -- to either of the others, maybe, "and you cannot put off building one indefinitely." "I suppose it is too late to warn you against accepting food or drink from the fae," Anahita muses gravely. "Though perhaps that is also rank slander." There is amusement in her voice, which might or might not be courtesy of Ryan, and fresh worry, as well. "That is true, and I have not forgotten why I came back to New York," she assures Lucien, and then Ryan, "I can stay in Freaktown interim housing for a while. For some reason my credit score is abysmal, but in the scheme of things that is a fairly minor barrier." Her terror and heartbreak and bleak amusement are all softened by the spill of Ryan's intoxication. No amount of poise can cover the flush in her cheeks, but she is gamely ignoring it. "I am usually a sight better at helping other people build homes. Usually." She eyes the water that Ryan is in, then his half-empty glass, but evidently decides against showing off. "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink. Luckily I can go and fetch some. Is there anything else you might like? Or you," she looks to Lucien, "seeing as your hand is otherwise occupied?" Lucien's hand is promptly unoccupied; Ryan is snatching his own hand back quickly, pushing clumsily away to scoot a little farther away on the bench. "Ngh." His teeth are grinding and while this is probably just the molly it comes with a jarring sting of hurt that adds a very brief dissonance to the otherwise pleasant empathic aura. "I didn't ask for water. I didn't ask for your fucking momming." He's started to try to push himself up out of the water but somewhere between the drugs and the broken spine this proves a harder task than he's probably expecting, and so he just slouches back down lower, gripping tight to the lip of the pool. "The fuck would I know about homes. The fuck would any of us know about homes." Lucien's hand presses down just a touch harder where it rests on the wet ground, his other withdrawing immediately to his knees when Ryan releases it. "Do you need a raise? Mr. Pryde's replacement is not quite as adroit as he was and I should hate to think I am not compensating any of my employees well enough to afford their own housing." His voice has not wavered at all from its gentle neutrality, but Ryan (unfortunately) can feel the rustle of irritation that prickles underneath it. "Perhaps nothing. Perhaps a little more than those who have always taken home for granted might." He presses his damp thumb and forefinger against the hollows of his eyes, and looks just slightly miffed, when he opens his eyes again, to find Ryan still in the pool in front of him. He's contemplating the water and then his own clothing very thoughtfully. "I might get my communist card revoked for saying this. But." Anahita shakes her head and heaves a dramatic sigh, which is touched with amusement and affection and resignation. "You are compensating me enough. I can afford rent. The trouble is everything else. I certainly will not refuse a raise, but I will not mislead you to get one, either." She looks away from Ryan again, down into the water. "Forgive me, it is a reflex. I do know a bit about homes. That is not at all the same as having one, or building one, or keeping one." Her voice sounds even enough to the ear, but to Ryan it is weighed down with grief and exhaustion. "And that does not make it less worthwhile to try. Or try again. But, perhaps that is easy for me to say when, at this particular moment, most of my obstacles live here." She taps her temple, and then her chest. "And here. I would wager you have a few of those, as well." Ryan is rubbing his palm against his face, staring kind of disconsolately out at the distant city lights. ""No," he's saying, firm and annoyed, "my obstacles are --" He gestures -- where? Who knows, it's not really to them, not really to anything. "Real! Real obstacles. Like he went and died and now he's not dead and we're just supposed to roll with that but I fucking missed you and Jax fucking missed you and he's been having a year-long breakdown and Matt fucking missed you and you're still fighting with him so he won't even come here and if he were here I could be having sex right now -- I mean I could anyway," this time his flailing is definitely in Lucien's direction, "but you're his brother and probably that's -- bad," he does not sound extremely convinced that it is Bad, but his brow is scrunching in deep thought all the same, "and I can't even leave this pool because of this stupid goddamn spine and neither of you," this, vehement and fluttering with an acute hurt and desire all at once, seems to be the crowning indignity in his list of Real Obstacles, "are in the pool with me! It was good and now it's --" Somewhere midsentence his thoughts seem to slightly catch up with him -- maybe not quite enough to make good sense of them but enough, at least, to realize that they are probably not the most sensical they have ever been. The silence that follows is stark and complete. Even the splishing of the pool water makes not a sound, as Ryan, slooowly, slips off the bench and sinks down below the surface. Lucien has cupped his hand across his face, fingers loose-curled and half-shading his eyes. There is a point or two in this messy spill of words where he almost starts to say something but then thinks better of this. His hand drags down the side of his face once Ryan has stopped speaking, and as the other man slips below the water Lucien is glancing sidelong to Anahita. "We," he says, very dry, "are not in the pool with him." His hand drops, and he's starting to reach for one of the glasses when he pauses, looks back down to the water. Looks to Anahita. "... we are not --" He peers a little closer at the water as if sheer dogged optimism might change what he has to do but, alas. He's shaking his head ruefully as he gets to his feet, slipping off his shoes and shimmying out of his jeans and shirt with surprising alacrity for how unhurried he otherwise seems. Is it still eerily silent as he jumps into the water? Ryan's cone of shame might hide his grumble from Anahita, but it's probably clear enough to the submerged audiokinetic he is retrieving. Anahita listens to Ryan's obstacles with a sincere intensity that does not change. Her expression does change several times, though not very identifiably so until she settles on concerned perplexity. She glances aside at Lucien, her face easing again as if his summary of the situation has somehow made everything make sense. She leans forward to look down into the water, too, though she does not sound at all optimistic. "-- in the pool..." She moves slower than Lucien, but does not bother undressing. She just toes out of her sandals and slips into the water. Is her dress a swim dress? It does not seem to impede her movement in the water. She sinks easily down to where Ryan is having his little underwater adventure, and then renders all three of them effortlessly buoyant. "We are now," she informs Ryan solemnly, as if it could possibly have escaped him. It's possible that when he first got down here Ryan did attempt to get back to the surface, but his legs are not quite as cooperative as he remembers them being so this attempt ended in short order. Which is fine, because in the muffled quiet and the warm water all those previous problems have been washed away into a deep and sensual pleasure that Lucien gets visceral echo of in this short lifeguarding stint. When they get back to the surface he's sort of lolling in against Lucien's side, arm draped around Anahita's shoulder. There's an intoxicating buzz that shivers through his murmured, amused: "-- you're wet." "Goodness, I've no idea how that could have happened." Lucien's hold on Ryan is steady as he deposits the other man back on the bench, but his breathing is shaky. "Tell me you will get out of the water, exactly what I need this summer is Ryan godsdamned Black drowned in my swimming pool." There's a dry exasperation in his voice that strongly implies that Ryan drowning in someone else's pool would be Fine By Him -- though to Ryan's senses beneath that, the feedback loop of echoed (echoed) bliss is a velvet indulgence. "And Anahita has gone well above and beyond already." "Water is a mysterious and spiritual element," Anahita points out. "And it does feel very nice." Whether due to Ryan's auditory contact high or her own mysterious spiritual connection to water, she is entirely as serene as she sounds. "Consider, however." She perches herself beside Ryan and does not look at him. "A soft blanket will feel very nice." She's warming to the idea, herself, but then concedes, "It might take two blankets. And water sounds. Trust me, I am an expert in water." "You got in the water, s'how," Ryan is very helpfully explaining, his words fairly bubbling over with delight. "Feels nice." He nuzzles against Lucien's shoulder, but after this does shift a little more upright in some wobbly effort to start removing himself from the water. "Two blankets," he is conceding. "I'm an expert in feeling nice." Lucien is extricating himself -- very reluctantly -- from Ryan. Probably with Anahita there he will not attempt to drown himself again in the short time Lucien is away, bringing the wheelchair up closer to where Ryan is now sitting. He hooks Ryan's back on the back of the chair, locks its wheels and shakes out the towel to drape over the seat and back in preparation, before returning to the pool so that he can actually help the others out. "Well. Luckily for you I am an expert in soft blankets, so between the three of us, I think we have the night well covered."