Logs:Impostors

Impostors
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Sera	2020-12-16 "{You would have enough pain without me dragging you into mine.}"
Location <PRV> Tessier Residence - Greenwich Village
Understated opulence claims this spacious and well-kept townhome, the decor throughout the whole of it of the highest quality and carefully chosen. The front door opens onto the entrance hall, a closet close at hand to receive coats and shoes -- the pale hardwood floors gleam underfoot, unsullied by tracked-in mess from outside. The living room beyond the entrance is all dark woods and pale earth tones, comfortable couches and armchairs and a thick soft rug laid down beneath. Two large and painstakingly aquascaped aquariums flank the entrance to the dining room, with several brightly coloured species of fish within. Most of the rest of the wall space, notably, is taken up with shelves -- shelves crammed with books of every subject and genre. A study branching off of the main hall is cozy, small, done in pale blues and lined with books as well around the large computer desk and smaller futon, though these rarer books are cased behind glass. Another securely locked door leads to the basement, and another to the full bathroom downstairs. The kitchen connects to the living room; in contrast, it is sleek and modern and well-appointed, stocked by someone who takes their cooking seriously. And takes their alcohol equally seriously -- to one side of the kitchen there is a fully-stocked bar. The back door to the kitchen looks out on a small well-kept garden. It is the witching hour, and the house lies quiet beneath a fresh blanket of snow getting ever thicker. At least, it had lain quiet until just now. Sera is creeping down the stairs, running afoul creaky boards every other step despite the obvious care with which she places her bare feet. She's dressed in pale blue long sleeve pajamas featuring a smiling Elsa (ringed with ice sparkles) from Frozen, and matching pajama pants, short brown hair tousled and sticking up in several improbable directions. Reaching the bottom of the stairs she hesitates, uncertain, before padding into the kitchen on much quieter steps. Despite the hour, despite the first-floor quiet, despite the mostly-darkness, the kitchen is occupied already. Lucien doesn't make much stir where he sits tucked in the breakfast nook in hunter green angora v-neck sweater over a cream button down, camel twill trousers, hands cupped around a celadon mug and a pair of flickering pillar candles illuminating the table. The tight discipline of his mind may be the most attention-drawing thing about him, in one sense extremely quiet -- emotional landscape currently groomed into a very careful control -- and in another buzzing loud with the myriad different tidying processes his mind is currently manually running, like some artificial substitute for the sleep that will not come. His eyes do not lift from the fluttering candlelight when Sera arrives. Some quiet calibration is added to the mix, just one more hum among so much background noise. "{Would you care for some tea? I was,}" he says quietly, "{about to get another cup.}" The aimless, amorphous reach of Sera's power is palpable first as a wave of exhaustion and misery rolling ahead of her into the room. Her haphazard attempt to reel it back in does not stop it pulling at the tight weave of Lucien's mind -- nor stop it trying to marshal Sera's own mind into a more orderly state. The whisper of comfort at his offer flows out into him, too. She stares at him for a moment, her toes shifting uncomfortably on the cold floor, then abruptly transfers her gaze to the candles. "{Yes, please.}" She licks her lips, but does not move from where she'd stopped beside the island counter. "{Thank you.}" Lucien's mind tightens reflexively at the roiling touch, shoring up at places that had come out of alignment with a diligence that seems almost fussy. His fingers trace against the smooth sides of the mug as he does so, and the small circles his fingertips pattern echo the work his mind is doing, steady loops of calm that ripple out across his nerves and give him a grounding baseline from which to rebalance himself. He pushes to his feet with a dip of his head, starting to fall into habitual pattern as he collects tea accoutrements -- -- but stopping in front of the cabinet with a sudden inward collapse of several of his mental streams. It takes him a moment, hand frozen on the cabinet door, staring at the neat rows of colorfully-patterned, neatly-labeled tins, before he summons up words again. "{...do you like sencha? We have a good strawberry.}" Sera's eyes track to the movement of Lucien's fingers, bright curiosity temporarily displacing some of her profound sadness, though this only adds to the chaos of her neurological landscape as her power tries and fails and keeps trying to align their minds. She focuses hard and the frantic compulsive tugging, at least, eases off for the moment. His sudden mental block throws off this mildly impressive effort, however. The cycle starts all over. His question startles her, but only a little. "{I like sencha that doesn't taste like grass,}" she replies primly, wrinkling her nose. A bit thoughtfully, she adds, "{And I like strawberries. I'm sorry if I woke you up.}" Lucien's eyes remain fixed forward on the tea cabinet. There's a ripple that shifts across his mental landscape in vivid sensory memory, the thought of the tea summoning up its mild taste and flavor acutely. The thought of grass maps to something entirely different, green and sharp and he doesn't quite manage to suppress the small shiver that passes through him at the thought-feel of cut blades against his skin. "{I do not,}" he decides pensively, taking one of the tins off the shelf, "{think it is like grass.}" He sets a kettle on, preparing the pot as the water heats. "{I was awake already. We have a visitor, and I only recently got him settled.}" Sera braces her hands on the edge of the counter in front of her and focuses again, pressing down the automatic reflex of her power. The weight of her attention is sensible to Lucien as he compares the flavors in question -- the sencha meets with pleased approval, the grass with yet another nose-wrinkle. That curiosity again. "{We have visitors often, too -- at home.}" The surge of her longing at this thought is physically painful, though she tries not to wince and tries harder to keep it in. She might as well be holding back a river with her hands. "{Sorry,}" she murmurs, small and quiet. Her curiosity is, somehow, not all gone through this. This time, Lucien does not wall his mind off -- just lets that surge flow through the channels his mind has built, expanding them without battering them down. His palms press against the counter in mirror of Sera's, weight leaned down against it. "{So I had gathered. This one is -- from your home. He will still be with us in the morning, I believe. DJ Allred.}" Somewhere in among his words he is winding this churn of longing back in to something more manageable, though even in him it still aches -- moreso when he looks back up at Sera. "{You need not apologize. It takes time.}" Sera eases in quiet relief as her power mirrors Lucien's and ramps the pain down. "{Thank you.}" She looks up, eyes widening just a tick before she breaks into a real smile -- something that's not often been seen on her since her arrival. "{DJ!}" This perhaps comes out louder than she had meant it, and with a guilty flush she continues more quietly, though her French is growing steadily less formal as she speaks. "{He's great, you will love him, I'm sure. But...}" Her frown is puzzled, and there's the beginnings of a sinking feeling in her she can't yet place. "{...why is he here?}" Lucien's hands press harder against the counter; for a moment he focuses very steadily on this (hard) (cold) sensation in some small attempt to quiet the thousand and one too-small too-large other things pressing in at his awareness (the brush of his collar against his neck; the low hum of the fridge, the rumble of the kettle as the water nears boil, a stray sharp dog fur poking through his sleeve, some wayward crumb dropped irritatingly underfoot on the floor.) The thread he plucks at in his mind takes some time to refine itself; the water reaches its boiling point before he does, and he pulls himself up from the counter to start the tea steeping before he speaks. "{That, I think, is for him to explain. He will be staying, though. Not -- with us. But in New York. This New York.}" Just the sheer length of Lucien's deliberation seems to help Sera pin down that sinking feeling -- it morphs smoothly into sympathy, into an echo of her own homesickness. By the time the answer comes she is not surprised. For all that, there's a little twinge of solace in her at the confirmation DJ will be staying. Then a bigger twinge of guilt. "{That sucks. No offense to your New York. This New York.}" She settles her elbows onto the counter in front of her and props her chin up in one palm. "{I know you don't really want me here. I wouldn't blame you if you sent me away.}" She's trying to sound matter-of-fact, but the despondent loneliness and the dull terror behind the words give her away easily. "{It does.}" There is a complicated internal shifting as Lucien pulls his focus away from the immediate tactile grounding and back to Sera -- the rest of the sensory chaff still there grating at his awareness just below the heavy mix of grief and guilt that looking at her brings. "{It would be a disrespect to try and pretend this is not painful,}" he answers slowly. He moves slowly, too, setting the mugs beside the pot and decanting the tea. "{But that does not mean we want to send you away. What I want is to give you a home here. It may -- take some work, between us, to figure out what that looks like for you.}" He's holding one of the mugs tight a few moments longer before sliding it across the counter toward her. "{You would have enough pain without me dragging you into mine.}" Sera heaves a sigh, her mouth tugging hard to one side. "{I swear I had a better grip on that back -- before.}" This time the sheer force of her frustration overshadows her grief. When Lucien says "home" the hurt comes flooding back afresh, but something in his words kindles a tiny but fierce hope in her, too. "{I don't know what makes a place home except family, and...we're not exactly family. And maybe I'll always look like an imposter.}" She straightens up and takes the tea. "{Thank you.}" Her hands around the mug look so small where his had been just a moment ago, but just holding the tea has an immediate soothing effect on her worn and weary nerves. "{May I sit with you a while? You don't have to...look at me.}" "{You will always look like my Sera,}" Lucien acknowledges softly, his eyes lowering, "{as I will always wear your brother's face.}" He curls his hands around his own mug, holding it tight as well, his eyes lowering to watch the curls of steam rise from it. "{But you are not an impostor. You are --}" He draws a slow breath, lifting the tea for a small sip. Then tipping one hand out toward the breakfast nook in quiet invitation, before he goes to reclaim his previous seat in front of the pair of candles. "{Well. I don't yet know who you are. But I would like to learn.}"