ArchivedLogs:I Love You

I Love You
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Matt, Nox
In Absentia	2013-06-10 Warning: This log has all the sads.
Location <NYC> 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 not yet growing dark--curse the extended daylight of summer--but it has become overcast enough that Nox is able to travel with mild difficulty rather than extreme. Even so, it takes her hours instead of minutes to traverse parts of the city that she could have previously sped through, time that is complicated by needing to search for her people while also avoiding detection. Unsafe as it is for mutants, to be a shadow monster--to be THE shadow monster--is even more precarious. But finally a wisp of darkness crawls over the back wall into the garden, and from there beneath the kitchen door. Perhaps it's locked, perhaps not, but she bypasses security all too easily. Once inside, that same wispy shadow grows, stacking higher onto itself until she's a ghostly figure casting through the house, in search of its occupants. The house is quiet. Mostly dark, save two bedroom lights on upstairs. From behind one comes the sounds of chattering. Children. Talking. Arguing, but not in any serious manner; closer listening might discern they are quibbling over the legality of Scrabble words. Well, okay, it might well /become/ serious. The door to the master bedroom is pushed closed, too. There is less talking coming from in here. What words are spoken are short and succinct, spaced far apart. "{Dinner?}" It's Matt, sounding kind of hopeful on this. Long silence. "{Not hungry.}" Lucien. Terser. More silence. "{... tea?}" More silence. "{Not thirsty.}" "{... you know, you really shouldn't --}" is cut off by Lucien's irritable hiss of breath. Inside, Lucien is mostly undressed. Boxers. Nothing else. He is on the bed at the moment, curled up on his side with a pillow held between one crooked arm and his head. Matt is more dressed -- black v-neck t-shirt, bright pajama pants decorated with ducks; sans his usual green knit cap (lying on the nightstand) his head is pale and bald. He has a tub of some kind of salve that he is, currently, gently applying to Lucien's shoulderblade, stripey-red with thin raised welts, though they're superficial enough to seem more /irritating/ than actually serious. Since staying here, it has become a more comfortable thing for Nox to simply enter a room after a polite knock. She wouldn't hesitate. Tonight is different. Tonight she hesitates. Long enough to listen, perhaps dreading the wash of fear and guilt that will be felt once she becomes more than simply shaped shadow. It's so much easier to hesitate, when sane. Not long after that hiss, and softly enough to avoid catching the attention of the children in the adjacent room, she eases into a solid form. It too is still stripey. Grey, rather than red. There's no red to be seen--thankfully so--as she knocks gently first and then eases the door open just enough to lean her head through the gap. In the process of nodding to Matt, those welts are seen. They cause a slow blink, briefly shuttering her ink-dark eyes. "...Lucien?" Lucien is sitting up at the knock, reaching quickly for a nearby shirt -- though when it's Nox's face seen at the door rather than one of the children he hesitates. His hands lower to his lap, eyes fixing on her steadily. Matt's eyes widen, his hand moving immediately to Lucien's shoulder. He looks to Nox, then immediately away to the window. "Nox." It's quiet. Lucien finally remembers the shirt in his hands, pulling it on and scuffing his fingers immediately afterwards through his hair to re-tousle it. /Correctly/. And then he is silent. Just watching. The silence is accepted. Perhaps even preferable. With no formal invitation to enter, Nox opens the door just a little more. Enough to slide across the border between hall and bedroom before stopping again. The atmosphere--or her own tension/guilt/fear--has prompted her to cover herself with still more shadows, the dress as dark and striped as she is. She laces her fingers before her and looks down at them, rather than at the men. "There is no excuse," she whispers. Only that, to begin with. It takes time to find other words. When they come, they're softer still and spoken as her edges flicker, as wisps begins to escape from her hair and shoulders and limbs. "No one saw me coming here. No one will see me leave. I am so very sorry." Matt's fingers tighten against Lucien's shoulder, this time on top of his shirt. Given the welts that are beneath probably this should be painful, but it doesn't seem like it is; Lucien barely acknowledges the touch past a slight shift of weight up into it. "No excuse for you, or for him?" It takes him a moment longer to move to the edge of the bed, reach for jeans discarded on the floor to pull them. on. Only once dressed again does he stand, approaching Nox -- almost. A few steps. Then stopping, halfway between bed and door. "For either. There is...there are...parts of me that..." Nox is slowly wringing her hands together, until finally the agitation and strength of those movements causes both to blend together. It takes concentration to draw them apart, to rebuild each separate fingers, each palm, each wrist. It takes time and focus that she seems shy of awarding to Lucien. But when he draws closer, so too is her gaze drawn up. It's inevitable. She looks at him as if she were drowning. "I did not think, I only acted. When I saw him. When I saw him /free/, speaking of...of /children/...while mine...he made /mine/ fight. Would have /killed/ them. And I could not...I could not stop myself. Lucien. I would have killed the other as well but...but there were people screaming, I did such horrible things. And they...others are hurting. Because of it. Your family will hurt because of it. I have to go. Please. Matt." With difficulty, Nox turns her gaze towards the man still on the bed. "Please. Tell him." Lucien draws closer, when Nox's gaze lifts. Nearer to her, nearer to the door. His hand lifts -- it's slow but not /hesitant/, a deliberate shift of motion to bring his hand to her shoulder. The feel of him is familiar, soft-cool-soothing, but from him there is only silence. One slow breath in. One slow breath out. Matt has been looking towards the window again. His eyes shift back to Nox. Worried. Pained. "{... There's always a choice.}" His voice is barely a whisper, not much louder than the shadow-woman's. "{There will be war.}" "War has been started long ago." It's only the sound of Matt's voice that prompts Lucien to find his own. Soft, and carefully measured, as a finger traces against one of Nox's paler grey stripes. "All our families will hurt for this." His other hand shifts past Nox, to open the door a little wider, look out into the hall to where the children's voices com from the other bedroom. His eyes fix out there, for a moment, and then lower. "{I love you.}" This is soft, as well, but just as deliberate. "{You need to go.}" When his palm warms her shoulder, the soft and cool and soothing layers over a stew of the worst of human emotion. With her difficult to maintain solidity, that turmoil is a muted one--and easily dampened with his powers--but it lurks beneath. Ready to spring up again. After. When she's stepped away...though for now, Nox lifts her hand to curl it over his. The other finds his lips with just her fingertips, as if she could catch the sweeter of the words that fall from them. "Choice...no. I love you. I love you, Lucien. I love you." Rushed, ragged and almost lost when she sways towards him, Nox corrects herself at the last moment. The opened door is taken for a sign and she steels herself to lose him, and this, when she steps away from his touch. "And I am sorry. I will always be sorry." Lucien exhales a slow breath when Nox's hand rests over his, warm against the fingertips she touches to his lips. His hand turns upward, curling fingers around hers tightly. For a moment, the rush of soothing continues stronger. "{Will the tunnels be safe?}" Matt finally asks, shifting to the edge of the bed but not standing. "{You can't --}" "{... come back here,}" Lucien finishes this sentence, something leaden-heavy in his words. He lets her hand go, jaw clenched as he swallows once, hard. "{But I can. Go down. Find you.}" "No. We have to...we are closing them. As many...entrances and exits as we safely can." It grows easier to speak, while that soothing lingers. Nox lifts her eyes again and as she talks, she does nothing but look at the man before her, even while she addresses Matt. "It will take only one tip from the people...those who held me. Before. The laboratories. They will recognize my work. There are already monsters in the tunnels. Giant insects, and Hounds, and soon the police. It will not be safe for you, Lucien. Your family..." Those words cause her to briefly close her eyes. She turns in a way that leaves her facing the door to the children's room. For a moment, she traces the same fingers she'd used to touch Lucien's lips over her own. "Tell them good-bye for me? Keep them safe? I am sorry I brought this down on us," she murmurs before stepping back into the hallway. Lucien accepts this answer with a slight tip of his head, dropping in a nod but then staying there heavily. "{Keep yours safe,}" he says, quietly. The soothing continues until Nox turns, steps back; it vanishes all at once when his hand slips away from hers. Softer: "{... keep /yourself/ safe.}" But then he steps back, too. His arms curl around his chest, his eyes shifting from Nox to the children's door. And then down to the floor, lips thinning, a creep of tension setting into his jaw. He turns aside, slow as he moves back to sit down again stiffly on the edge of the bed. Within three steps she's already fading from sight. The shadows that crowd around the hallway might linger on for a moment longer, darker than they should be. But then they too dwindle until only natural darkness is left.