ArchivedLogs:The Good

The Good
Dramatis Personae Nox, Matt
In Absentia	2014-07-12 Part of Prometheus.
Location Prometheus Facility
Let it not be said that Prometheus cannot learn from past experience. In this case, in this facility, they have learned that certain benefits allowed to the well-behaved make for more of the well-behaved. And so, the solarium. It is here that the organization's psychiatrists and psychologists ply their trade among the "residents". It is also here that "enrichment activities" are offered to those who have been cooperative and aided the organization's interests. If one is interested in art, they will be provided supplies. If one wishes to talk to a seemingly sympathetic ear, one will appear. And if one wants to simply sit in a comfortably cushioned chair, looking out through the glass wall at a sweeping vista of rolling foothills and leafy trees while bathed in rich golden sunlight... This is the place to be. For some, that sunshine may well be /prescribed/. This is why when free time comes, so too does Nox. She is still shy of sunshine, for all that her skin is normal skin and no longer blanches under its light. But for free time, for the promised hour in which she can sit with Matt and read, or speak quietly, or simply sit in companionable silence, she will come to where the walls are glass and the sky is /right there/. And maybe in the past weeks, maybe a month, she has been slightly less shy of daylight things, a shift that coincided with her being assigned to a new psychiatrist. But that would be a subtle change, someone would have to be paying attention to notice it. Far more noticeable upon her arrival in the solarium is the color of her hair. Once black, and trimmed into a long pixie cut after growing back from being shaved away, now it has been bleached and dyed a burnished gold. She has her head down and her fingers toy with the bright ends of her bands as she navigates the chairs, the tables, the wheelchairs of other residents to find where Matt is tucked away. Matt's favourite corner armchair does a good job of soaking up more than its share of sunlight, warm and bright over by the glass. He is tucked comfortably into it, today, legs pulled up beneath him and though there's a book in his hands -- Mark Lawrence's /Prince of Thorns/ -- his eyes are just focused outward towards the hills and trees outside. He's filled out, in the past months, plain green scrubs now sitting much /better/ on a frame healthy with actual muscle to it, his own hair just a soft dark fuzz that doesn't /quite/ hide the tracery of scars against his skull. His thumb taps slowly against the pages of his book, a smile curling across his face as Nox draws nearer, faintly reflected in the windows he is staring out. "That's new." His hand lifts, fingers gesturing towards his own hair a moment before he turns to look at Nox properly. "It's -- softer, somehow." "It's different," she says, in the tone of a person not entirely certain they like the effect. But Nox has a smile for Matt, at least, as she drops the book she'd been carrying--James Clavell's "Shogun"--onto the seat of the adjacent armchair. Not until she's pushed said chair a few feet over so its arm butts up against the arm of /his/ chair does she sweep the book out of the way to sit. Like Matt, she curls her legs and tucks her feet beneath them. And like him, once settled, she pays no attention to her reading material. Instead she leans towards the arm, her arms folded on top of it and her chin making a pillow of them. Sideways, she gazes at the young man. Her expression slips into something a little more /solemn/. But in spite of that, her next remark is approving. "You're looking better. Stronger every day." "Different." Matt echoes this slow as if turning it over. His cheek drops to rest on one loosely curled fist, elbow propped on the arm of his chair. "I guess that's how things go, around here. Do you like the black better?" His smile dims faintly at the next observation, though his head tips in an acknowledging nod. "Feel stronger. I'd take it back, if I could." He pushes out a slow breath, eyes briefly lowering to his book without actually /seeing/ much of it. He looks back up to Nox a moment later, one eye mooshed into a squint as his knuckles press up against his cheek. "Why the change?" Talk of taking it back causes Nox to press her lips together, thinning them. A harsh expression, drawing less endearing lines on her face than Matt's mooshiness. "I wouldn't. It makes me happy to see you healthier." No matter the price? She has to accept that too, if she wouldn't change it--and that knowledge drops her eyes away from his. They cut towards the glass, the forests outside. The tip of her tongue pushes at her lips to wet them. "I look like someone else but that's the idea." Then, like dropping pebbles in a pool, she says quickly, "I'm being transferred, Matt. To Atlanta, Dr. Leone said." Matt just shakes his head, in answer to this, his other eye briefly closing to join the squinted-up on. The breath he lets out is heavy and sharp but it doesn't come with any argument; it's likely an exchange already /had/ many times in the past months. Besides which the next news is enough to wipe it from his mind, head jerking up and his eyes opening to lock, wide, on Nox. "No." It slips out started, one gasped hitch of a word before shock gives way to something sharper. "No, they /can't/. What? When -- /why/?" Nox lifts herself enough to slip a hand free and cross the gap between them. Her fingers settle light on Matt's arm. Even the gesture is pained, his shock and her pang--though what shows in her eyes is more complicated than simple pain. "Another project. It isn't...it isn't Prometheus. This is something different. Dr. Leone has said I can help. No more labs. If you spoke with him..." But that too is an exchange run threadbare through repetition and with a sharply drawn breath--and the tucking of that extended hand against her chest--she switches tracks. "I'm not sure when I'm going. He said he wouldn't even have told me but...this is different, Matthieu." Reflex sends her winging a glance around the solarium before she leans closer again, over the arm of the chair. "Not everyone agrees with what they do. How they do it." "Help." Matt can't disguise the incredulous note to his tone, that loose fist curling in a bit tighter as his hand drops to thunk back down on his armrest. "Nox these people don't deserve your help. I don't think paying lipservice to -- to disagreeing with what they do here means a whole lot when you're still. Still /working/ with them. Still /profiting/ from -- from kidnapping and torture and. /Murder/ -- you can't. Can't seriously want --" He tips his head down, scrubbing knuckles briefly against his eyes. Quieter: "... Atlanta is really far away." Her hand hovers over that fist, hesitating, and then finally settling as if Nox isn't entirely certain he might not yank it away. "It isn't these people, Matt, and please...keep your voice down." Her own has dropped to a whisper. "This is something else entirely and yes, they know /of/ Prometheus, but they don't mean to...to do what /these people/ have done. They want to help. To encourage integration. When I said transferred, I meant entirely." Which brings up another issue, that of being moved around like property, but... She glosses over that as well. Her expression gentles. "It is far away. But he said," the mythical Doctor Leone, looming ever large in this conversation, "that he'll ask if I can write you. If they'd allow it. /He/ would allow it, if it were only up to him. Maybe they'll say yes. Maybe..." He won't be alone again. Though his hand stays clenched tight beneath hers it doesn't pull away; just presses down hard against the armrest. "Transferred," he echoes, much more quietly. "If they'll /allow/ you to write. A prison is a prison no matter --" There's a faint tinge of bitterness in Matt's tone, his eyes lifting to skip over the glass walls and the beautiful views beyond, "{-- how nice you dress it up.}" The bitter note carries into his quiet French, his shoulders sagging back. Slowly his fist turns over, fingers unclenching to wrap up against Nox's. "{Integration.}" His voice is heavier when he finally gets around to this description. "{Integration of -- what? If they're not /these/ people who are they?}" Her French has improved over the past months. She has him to thank for that, though the switch from one tongue to the other doesn't bring a smile to Nox's lips as it usually does. Her hand closes on his as if she were drowning. "{In all of this, all of this terrible, Matthieu, to see a chance for good is worth taking it. Even if it means it's still within a prison. Yes?}" All too aware of the risk of a "no", Nox wraps her other hand around their joined ones. Somewhere, probably, lenses are being turned in their direction, frames are zoomed in, microphones checked? But no one looks their way, no one approaches, which she glances around again to check. Rather than give a straight answer, however, she murmurs, "I told you how it was, when I first became...that. Her. How long it took to learn how to take a shape. To talk. To touch things. But even then it was just...it was farce. This place, this project...it's meant to help people like Audrey. People who can't pass, who want...who want with every fiber of their being to just be...people." "{For good -- for real good, always, but. /This/ -- all this is the farce. We're all people already. You've always /been/ a person. I'm not -- not /saying/ it isn't hard. That some people won't benefit from -- but you know most people, they do the whole therapy thing /without/ locking people up. And all of this --}" Matt lifts his hand, tracing fingers against the scars along his head. "{They're buying it with blood. You can't /buy/ any /good/ with that kind of currency.}" "I was /not/." This time it's Nox who forgets to keep her voice lowered. The sound of it sees her letting his hand go and folding one of hers over her mouth. Her eyes close. She might well be counting to three. Maybe ten. When her eyes open again, her fingers stray to her own scars, mostly hidden beneath the drop of her hair. "{You can't know what it was like. What they mean to do /will/ help. And it won't be bought with blood. Had something like this existed when I...when she...Audrey...}" Nox sinks back in the chair and curls around herself, knees high, arms about them. "{Doctor Leone means to open a facility. An /open/ facility. There will be therapy. Classes. Treatment. People may come and go as they please. And it will happen whether I am there or not. But for this...Matt, how could I not go? And you...if you would just /speak/ with him...}" Now it's Matt who glances around, eyes shifting away by reflex though they return to Nox once her hands lift. "{Treatment. Treatment like your treatment? Where do you think they'll get /that/ from? Why do you think that doctor of yours is even /here/ now if not -- if not --}" Here he breaks off, eyes slightly wider and his face paling. His hand reaches behind himself, fingertips pressing lightly to the small of his back -- generally slightly sore from the kind of /regular/ needle that gets poked through there. His lips press together, hand shifting back to his lap as his eyes travel back to the window and for the next stretch of silence perhaps /he/ is counting backwards. He lowers his gaze to his lap, hand fidgeting with the pages of his book once more. "Okay." Quiet, again, and kind of tired. "I'll talk to him." Nox swallows. No simple matter, that; her throat has done its best to close. In the next moment, she passes a hand over her eyes and sniffs once. When she looks up again, her expression is arranged softly. It isn't pleasure but acceptance. "I'll tell him. After this. Should I..." Another hesitation follows, a moment when her gaze dips lower. The arm of the chair saves her from seeing exactly where his hand has gone but she knows, anyway. "Would you like me to go, Matt?" she asks, as if she were speaking an apology instead. Matt draws in a shaky breath, eyes lifting back to Nox. "You'll be going," he answers with a small tight /twinge/ at the corner of one eye, "whether I want you to or not. We don't -- exactly get a lot of choice in that, here." He looks from his book to hers, both so far still unread. "{But don't,}" he asks, softer. "{Not now. Not yet.}" "{Then I won't. Not yet.}" Nox also looks at the books, his, and then hers--but it takes only a second or two before her eyes lift to his face again. This time, she sets her hand on the arm of the chair. A lure. Or maybe not. She curls her fingertips to drag them against the fabric, drawing invisible lines, once, again, a third time. There's silence for a moment while she focuses on that shifting point of contact. Then, quietly, "{In all of this bad, why is it I feel so guilty for clinging to the good?}" "{Not yet,}" Matt reiterates, his hand stretching out this time to brush fingertips against the backs of Nox's knuckles. "{My brother always thought there wasn't a whole lot of /use/ in guilt -- like don't feel bad about the past just. Don't. /Repeat/ mistakes in --}" He trails off again, fingers curling in against her hand. "{If they do let you -- write letters or contact -- can you. Can you find him, can you let him know --}" But now he stops, eyes drifting back to the trees outside. "{Maybe it's better he doesn't know,}" he changes his mind with a small tightening of shoulders. He leans over to pluck up Nox's book, settling in with his weight leaning against the arm of the chair. "{Maybe everyone should be allowed some chance to just. Cling. To the good. -- Where are you?}" In the book, he means, one finger tapping against it's cover; he's evidently decided it's his turn to read, today. That finally wins a smile from her. Nox lifts her head to share it with him. "{Guilt is nature's way of saying don't do that again. It can be useful in not repeating mistakes. I...}" But she trails off as well, to hear the request. So choppy. So /unlike/ him. And so shortly lived a smile. With Matt dismissing the idea, she takes a short breath and looks down to follow the path of book from her chair to his hands. "Chapter twenty-two. Lord Toranaga is trying to escape the castle and Blackthorne has realized it," she murmurs, sliding easily into English again. She pauses for a beat. "Hai. That's how you say yes, in Japanese." This briefest of lessons is followed by Nox folding herself within the chair again. Her head comes to rest on the arm, her face turns up towards Matt. "Domo, Matthieu. I think that means thank you." Matt's smile at this small lesson is brief, but warm. Faintly watery, perhaps; at least there's a suspicious glimmer to his eyes though it never spills over. "Domo," he echoes, perhaps a dutiful student though there's a softness to the repetition that suggests he's not just trying to ingrain it into memory. Another glance at Nox has him blinking determinedly, fingers leafing through the pages before he tears his gaze away, and beings to read.