ArchivedLogs:The Questions Game

The Questions Game
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Nox, Matt	2013-03-06 Surprise Nox, surprise book, surprise honesty.
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. New York City is not quite under assault from the storm that assailed Chicago yesterday, and has moved onto D.C. today, but the weather is grim. The temperature has dropped, the sky is a nauseous grey and the rain comes down. It short, it is a poor day to be out. Naturally, this is the day that Nox has decided she would venture out to pay a social visit and redeem a promise made to an ailing man. If she'd opted to travel incognito, it wouldn't be an issue. Shadows don't /get/ wet. But after her last (and first) visit, when she was forced to ask for a robe from her host, she decided to wear clothes and clothes soak in moisture. The heather grey sweatsuit was in need of a wash but this was probably not the vision she wished to present when showing up on Lucien's front step--heather grey darkened to charcoal, the fabric drooping and the book she holds clutched in her hands already rippling from the water it too has soaked up. Not a promising start to the evening. Woe. In spite of whatever reservations she might have though, Nox steels herself and presses the doorbell. She'd said she would come. She'd been invited to come. So...here she is. In drippy glory. The knock is answered with silence or -- well, quiet, at least; somewhere inside there is violin music playing, upstairs, perhaps, and it carries on a few measures before trailing off into silence. Footsteps follow, quiet too, and eventually the locks slide open. Lucien looks a little puzzled, at the sight of Nox dripping on his doorstep, but that does not stop him opening the door to gesture her in quickly. "Goodness, it looks appalling out. Let me get you a -- mmm. You are quite wet." He is frowning at the rain outside, as though it has offended him. And then, "-- Oh, /goodness/, that poor book." This seems even more alarmed than he had for Nox. And it's because she's wet that Nox doesn't step inside immediately. First things first--the book is pushed at Lucien to be saved as best it can. It's "The Complete Stories" by Flannery O'Connor and would be well-used even without the effects of the downpour. "This was for Matt. I am so very sorry, it began after I had left. Do you have...lamps? Perhaps?" Anything, anything at all to rescue the book! Only then does she pause to toe out of her shoes, leaving them to just sit on the front step before she steps inside--to huddle in the corner created by wall and door, to avoid dripping as much as possible. Her expression beneath the agitated mass of her dark hair is one of consternation. Lucien takes the book, tucking it against his chest with an almost protective motion. "I have -- yes. Let me -- yes." The wet book seems to leave him rather flustered, himself, holding up one finger to Nox and slipping back into the kitchen to grab a roll of paper towels. He disappears with the Book into the study; a light switches on; he reappears shortly thereafter. Sans book. "Some of my sister's things may fit you," he is musing, even as he heads into the bathroom to pick up a large black towel and offer it to Nox. "Would you like me to dry yours?" "Thank you," sees him off on his book-rescuing mission, the whisper positively /ringing/ with gratitude. The whole purpose of visiting was to read to Matt and if the book is ruined...! Nox actually gives the poor object a look of maternal worry before it's whisked away. Then, left to her own devices, she looks down at herself and plucks at the sweatshirt. It is a loss, which means that when Lucien returns--with towel--he will find a vaguely human shadow shape /outside/ of the clothes, trying to fold them into a bundle in a way that avoids dripping as much as possible. "I would be most grateful," the shadow sighs, the clothes in its arms, "although I had hoped to do a kindness for you by coming here. Please, forgive me." "Forgive you for the weather?" Lucien's lips twitch, slightly, amusement curling through his soft voice. "I think I can find it in me to overlook that trespass." With Nox no longer in need of the towel, Lucien reaches out towards Nox to bundle /them/ in it instead; at least /he/ does not have to get dripped on in this laundry exercise. "-- Do a kindness?" This gives him pause. He looks at her, puzzled, his eyebrows raising slightly. "What -- me? Why?" "For you, for Matt. I had said I would come read to him? And now here you are, tending to me." Nox folds a sodden sleeve up into the pile and sets the bundle in the towel. Her smile is very faint in the darkness of her face. "I was too stubborn to turn back. So perhaps you can forgive me for stubbornness." Divested of the clothes, she lets her arms return to their side where they fade into her torso as she melds with the wall. Better that than to stroll through such an opulent space in the buff. "I should have called first but I neglected to get the number here," she explains. "Would another time be more convenient?" "I suppose I can forgive that, too," Lucien murmurs, amusement growing, "I have known a fair bit of stubbornness myself. Matt is upstairs, if you would like to see him." He nods towards the stairway. "The bedroom just at the top of the stairs. Awake, even. Which probably makes this the most convenient of times. It is," he adds, a little softer and -- admittedly still slightly puzzled, "kind of you. To come." He turns away, at this, to slip down the hall with the wet clothing. "Thank you, Mister Tessier. Lucien. It is kind of /you/." Though she doesn't clarify how. Nox has marked the directions and flows off towards the stairs, traveling against the wall. It makes her approach to Matt's room silent but thankfully she remembers herself just outside. An arm and hand separate from the wall so that the woman can knock. Calling out is more problematic--being unable to raise her voice means she has to resort to cracking the door open to allow him to see the outline of her head peeping around the side of the doorframe. "Matt? It is Nox, may I come in?" The room inside is warm, both in temperature and colour scheme; deep reds with dark mahogany furniture. King-sized bed heaped with many many blankets. There's a low table beside it with its polished wooden surface carved like a chessboard; at the moment it holds no chess pieces though a violin does rest on top, its case propped against the nightstand. Thick rug. Adjacent bathroom. Matt is nestled up against a number of pillows, with a laptop on his lap that he is paying no attention to. His head turns towards the door when it cracks open. "Oh -- oh!" His smile is quick, and bright. "Nox! Hi. Cool. Luci didn't tell me you were coming. How are you? How's everything?" Nox slips easily through the narrow gap between door and frame to travel to the bed. Once there, she floats up to take a seat on the edge of it--the blankets don't sink beneath her, but then she's diaphanous still, a haze of grey that hides her expression. Her soft voice is warm enough though. "Your brother did not know I was coming. I forgot to get the number here so I couldn't warn either of you. I brought a book. One of my books, a well-loved book, but it was caught in the rain with me and he tends to it now. How are you, Matt?" Matt's eyes widen, his hand moving to one sallow cheek in a /shocked/ expression. "Oh, no, a book was hurt? Don't worry, it's in good hands. Luci loves his library like they're all his children. What'd you bring with you?" He turns slightly, shifting against his pillows so that he can face Nox. His smile softens, though it doesn't fade. "Can't complain," he says easily. "We got a new tea. It's pretty much the most delicious thing I've ever put in my face. I mean, okay, I'll /probably/ think that up until the /next/ new tea Luci brings home but still. Any day with tea is a good day. Tea /and/ a surprise Nox. So, it's getting even better." "A surprise book," Nox corrects him, her smile laced through her tone, "once your brother has repaired the damage I caused bringing it through the rain. It is my copy of Flannery O'Connor's "The Complete Stories". One of the first books I found for myself when I arrived here. I am certain you have a copy in the library but I wanted to share something I enjoyed." Without mussing the blanket, the shadow draws her knees to her chest and likewise turns to face the young man in the pillows. "Tea and books...sometimes it truly is the small things." "Tea /and/ a surprise book /and/ a surprise Nox," Matt corrects her correction cheerfully. "And there was music, too, so, basically, I'd just need to play some chess and this day would be basically perfect. I think it's always the small things. I mean the big things are made up of small things, really. What does it for you?" She hums with amusement at his good cheer. "You are /very/ kind to include me in the tally, Matt. I don't know that I have done anything yet to deserve it. Perhaps if we were to play that game of chess," Nox says, head turning as if she were glancing at the violin-pinned chessboard. "For me...mmm, small things as well. So I think you are probably right. Shall I?" Her hand lifts from her knees to gesture towards the side table. "Where have you hidden the pieces?" "There's drawers," Matt says, sitting up a little straighter at the prospect of chess. "At the sides of the table. Two of them have slots for all the pieces. You don't answer questions much." He doesn't say this like a condemnation, just an observation, a little quieter but no less warm than the rest. "Or you do but not /really/. Like, hard to pin down. Like L--" "-- Like a shadow." This comes from outside the door, quiet and amused as Lucien slips back upstairs. "Your clothes are drying. The book as well." What he /has/ in his hands is a teacup, small and steaming, green cast-iron on a black saucer. He sets it down on the nightstand beside a bottle of water already there. Lucien reaches for the violin, returning it to its case quickly, with a slight pinkening of his ears. "-- The book will take longer, though," he continues mildly, retreating to the doorway with the instrument in hand. "Can I get you anything?" "I am out of practice in speaking about myself, it's true," Nox says, after the most brief of hesitations when Lucien arrives. She looks at him and flickers into a more solid form just to allow her smile to be seen. "So long as the book can be saved, I'm content. We were going to play chess, would you like to referee?" This is for the younger brother, a question to pass the time while she slips from the bed in order to investigate the drawers Matt pointed out. Her hands shade from black-grey to grey-black so she can begin lifting the pieces out, arranging them on the table with careful deliberation. "It's a shame," Matt says, shifting closer to the edge of the bed to watch the pieces laid out. "Or. I mean, not a /shame/ just, I mean, you're really sweet and clearly smart and --" He glances away, fingers picking at a stray piece of fuzz on his blankets. "People ask things cuz they want to get to know you. You seem like an awesome person to get to know." Lucien is looking away at this, too, his lips twitching just briefly, too quick a motion to properly resolve into either smile or frown. "I should change the dressing on your injured book. It will be fine, I am sure. Matt does not cheat." He steps back out of the door, pulling it not-quite-closed behind him. "Sometimes I wonder if perhaps it is less about me being awesome and more because people do love a mystery." Nox has enough self-awareness to sound mildly amused as she says this--she is custom-built to play the mystery, and not always prone to discouraging that perception. Once the last piece--the black queen--is set out on the board, she studies it before looking at the door Lucien is about to escape through. "But I might," she claims before lifting a hand to acknowledge his departure. Then it's back to Matt, as she slides in on the other side of the board and studies him across it. "A wager, then? For each piece you take, I will answer a question. And you, likewise." "Oh/ho/, I like this game," Matt answers, his smile returning quickly, "it seems like half cheating though. /I/ answer questions already. You should play this game with Lucien, it'd sharpen his game I bet. You're /on/, though. But for the record, you're wrong." He's shifting again a little uncomfortably, pulling his pillows along so that he can re-settle himself at the edge of the bed, in reach of the table when he leans down towards it. "I mean, people love a mystery but /I/ just like people who are nice. Thoughtful. There's not enough of that." He pulls his blankets up, smoothing them out after his shifting around, and watches the board thoughtfully. Then Nox. There is a timer to one side of the board, but he doesn't set it; just gestures towards her pieces. Nox's hands are there to help with the pillow resettlement, stretched across table and bed without disturbing the chess pieces--it's all in the wrist! Or the ability to extend one's arms. "Ah, but would he agree to the terms if he is as reticent to expose himself as I am? I would not want to offend your brother by prying. And," she says in a weightier tone of voice, "I have been told you are difficult to beat, so perhaps I simply doubt I will be asking any questions." She too studies the board before reaching out to move the pawn guarding her queen forward. It begins. "I don't know. Maybe if it came with tea. Or if you had to ask all the questions in French." Matt is lifting his cup to take a small sip as Nox moves. "I'm hard to beat," he admits, not smug or bragging but simply stating this, "Lucien's pretty good but he's still learning, I bet you could ask him all /kinds/ of things." He leans down from the bed and moves quickly, after Nox, moving forward a pawn of his own. It's clearly ingrained habit that has him reaching to hit the timer afterwards, though with the timer off this accomplishes exactly nothing. "If you heard I was difficult to beat then this seems like even more of a disadvantage to propose. Why would -- wait, I haven't taken any pieces yet." He blushes, sipping at his tea again instead." "{My French is poor, it has been too many years,}" Nox laments in a school girl's accent, speaking too slow to make the proper poetry of the language. In English she adds, "That one will be free. It has recently come to my attention that it might not be a bad thing to be...more known. If I hide myself away forever, it is..." But here, words in /any/ language fail her so she simply ends the sentence with a lift of her shoulders and a smile. Her hand reaches out and shifts another pawn. The timer isn't even looked at afterwards, marking her as a true hobbyist of the game, not a competitor who will give Matt a run for his money. "One suspects that he has his own reasons for being guarded." "{It could get better again. With practice.}" Matt watches Nox, rather than the board, as she moves. He's slower, this time, quirking a slight smile. "I think everyone has their reasons for things. But it's good. I mean. For people to know you. A good thing for /us/ because I enjoy your company but a good thing for --" He shrugs a shoulder. "I mean, when we were out on the streets it was like. Really important not to just disappear. But I guess there's a balance between being known and not just opening yourself up to whoever." Leaning forward again, he moves a pawn, too. If practice is recommended, then practice she will. Nox stirs with her version of taking a breath, mustering the necessary concentration. "{Then I will try. It is hard. Embarrassing. In front of a native speaker,}" she intones slowly. Her eyes remain lowered to the board--why squander /all/ of that concentration on just conversation?--but she looks up at him again after she taps a knight out to do battle. "The streets." Care is taken to make this not a question, though she switches back to the French a moment later to repeat, "{The streets. It does not show.}" "{Don't be embarassed,}" Matt says warmly, speaking just a little more slowly than usual. "{Or, well, that's hard to help, but, I'm not going to laugh at you, if that helps.}" Pawn edges forward another space. "{No, I guess not usually. It shows sometimes. Not in ways a lot of people would understand. I feel like you might, though.}" It's not /technically/ a question if it's phrased as a statement, right? His eyebrows are lifting questioningly but the sentence ended with a period. "{Did you learn French in school?}" "{Yes.}" Though she'll teasingly leave him to wonder which question or not-a-question she's answering, displaying a rare deeper smile that exposes teeth that are as dark as the rest of her--proving why Nox tends more towards close-lipped smiles. When she remembers herself, she does press her lips together but the corners of her mouth remain turned up. "{It does show in some ways. You do not look down your noses at people who come to your door in soiled clothing,}" she clarifies. After a glance at the bar, she slides a pawn in diagonally to take the one he's just moved. "{I had a tutor. After school. What is your favorite book?}" Matt smiles, at the ambiguous answer, a little amused. "{I don't look down my nose at much. I'm not tall enough to. Lucien's better built for it.}" He sips at his tea again, longer and slower. "/Neverwhere/," he admits with a slight blush. "Neil Gaiman. {My poor copy is beat all to hell. What are your small things? That make your days better?}" He's asking this while he leans down, sliiiiding a bishop across through the space Nox's pawn recently vacated, to snag her knight and set it to one side of the board. Nox lifts her fingers to her lips as she studies the board, marking where the bishop came from and where it's gone before giving a sigh that is more expression than sound. "Ah, careless," she chides herself, still in good humor. "And that is...a very fine book, if somewhat whimsical in its portrayal of the world subterranean." She is /very/ amused by this, both her person and the shadows picked out against the wall humming with it. Then it's back to French, in which slow and careful pronunciation does much to steal the cues of humor from her tone. "{Music. Live music, not in the studio fashion that you hear these days every where. Voices in harmony. Quiet places. Water. Books. Silent moments with a person you can trust. There are so many,}" she murmurs as she makes her next move. "{Whimsical. Yes. I think I just identified with -- falling between the cracks. I kind of wanted more magic in my subway tunnels. and rooftops. Though I guess,}" Matt says, still smiling as he watches the shadows against the wall, "{there's magic enough in its way.}" He hums quietly, thoughtful, looking at Nox and then down at the board. "{Your small things and Luci's have a lot of overlap,}" he notes softly, and then, leaning over to capture a pawn with a pawn, "{-- How do you find people you can trust?}" That earns a lengthy silence. Perhaps not a /comfortable/ one, either. But Nox suggested the game and so after a moment, she's left smiling again--albeit somewhat crookedly at having been caught. Twice. Instead of answering immediately, she tells him, "{There is more magic in the tunnels than people think but not so much as Gaiman has imagined. But shh, you must not tell anyone I have told you that.}" His capture of the pawn brings retaliation, a bishop slid into position to threaten his defenses. Only then does she tackle the answer she owes. "{How does anyone? If I realize I would bleed for them, I know I trust them. And that is something that usually takes time. And luck. But mostly time.}" "{I'm good at keeping secrets,}" Matt says, though this time the pull of his smile is a little crooked as well. His lips pull to the side at the movement of the bishop, and he moves a knight to threaten it. "{Mostly time,} he agrees, quieter, "{though sometimes that's hard to come by.}" His next sip of tea is slow and long. "{Trust is the hardest thing to find,}" Nox says as if she's agreeing with him, "{harder than love or hope or even peace. You can find all of those in small ways. But trust...}" Her lips purse as she surveys the board. If she leaves her bishop, it's lost. But the chance to take another of his pawns is there. She takes it, leaving the bishop to its fate. "{Is there anything you want that you don't have, except for time? If you could snap your fingers and have anything at all.}" "{It's true. I find the others in spades and still struggle with trust.}" Matt admits this quietly, and then lapses into silence. His smile fades at the question, and he sets his empty teacup down on the saucer, for a long while just looking down. Eying his hands. Eying the chessboard. He lifts his eyes to Nox last, thoughtfully. '{I feel like time /should/ weigh on me the heaviest, but --}" He shrugs, and takes her bishop. "{A pawn for a bishop is not a good trade in your position,}" he says, almost apologetically. "{I want my family safe and happy. I don't know the magic for that. And I definitely don't have the time.}" This doesn't sound sad, particularly, just matter-of-fact. "{What did you want to be when you grew up?}," he quickly amends with a smile to, "{What /do/ you want to be?}" "{Not a good trade but I wanted to ask. And you gave a good answer. Perhaps there is magic for that, Matt.} Nox's hand passes through the pieces on the board so she can gently touch her fingertips to the back of his hand. Also apologetic, and offering scant comfort given the weight of both the question and the answer. She withdraws after that to focus on the new threat. It's time to bring her queen into play. "{I wanted to be President,}" she says to the first. For the second there is a moment when she seems to be stealing a page from his book--looking down, looking /through/ the board without seeing it--before she settles again for honesty. "{I want most to be a mother. To make a family of flesh and blood. But I think that is beyond me now.}" "It's a magical world," Matt says solemnly, "Calvin and Hobbes told me so." His hand turns up and over, smiling slightly at the brief touch. The smile compresses into a thoughtful look, and he eyes the board for a quiet moment. "{Beyond you because of your life circumstance, or because your body won't? Adoption makes for strong families, too.} He considers the queen with a frown, and elects for the moment to ignore it in favour of sending his knight to capture a pawn. Nox mourns the pawn not at all but only because it allows her to direct the queen into a threat position. Another of his pawns, gone, and his bishop now pressed. Solemn honesty is all too quickly replaced with a smile. "{They would know best. And my body won't. But I have an adopted family and I love them. It was only what came first to mind, thinking of what I want to be. Do I owe you another answer?}" she asks. "{For mine, I will ask...what do you want to be? Then or now?}" "{I think you answered my question. It was what you wanted to be.}" Matt studies the board, considering the bishop thoughtfully. "{I wanted to be a teacher,}" he admits, with a slight blush. "{Math, probably. Maybe high school. Maybe middle school. Now --}" He hesitates, a long moment. He moves a knight to protect the bishop. "{Now I just want to be at peace,}" he says, softly. "{You would be a good teacher. You put people at ease. You make people want to listen.}" Nox is looking at the board when she speaks but when he gives that final answer, she looks up to study his expression. The game is ignored, then. Her hand slips across the board again to settle over his. There's no weight to the touch--lest she risk knocking pieces over--but the gesture is offered in comfort, and silence. Matt's hand turns upwards, his head sinking down against his pillows. His expression is composed, really, quietly thoughtful as he studies Nox right back. For a while there's a stretch of silence. Eventually he breaks it. With a crooked smile. A squeeze towards, if not of, amorphous hand. "{Sorry}," he says, apologetically, "{but I think I'm gonna mate you in five. You could be the President /and/ a mother, but the world would need to grow a bit. I got hope, though. It's one thing I'm not short on.}" For this, Nox needs English. "You have nothing to apologize for, Matt. Except perhaps for crushing my aspirations to be a grand master in the chess world." And, as it's clear the game is lost, she withdraws her hand long enough to tip the king over to signal her defeat. Then she moves to take a seat beside him on the bed. This time, when she moves to gather his hand in hers, she's able to clasp his fingers with her own and offer a proper squeeze. "Hope and heart, both. Would you like to rest, Matt, or will you have five more answers from me?" "Oh, you'd have taken a couple of mine in the meanwhile. Probably a knight or rook and a pawn," Matt decides, after a long look at the board. "Maybe all three of those. So I'd owe as well." He glances up, though, at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Lucien is returning, the book cradled beneath an arm. The pages are still wavy, but no longer sticking together with damp. "I brought your book," he says, quietly. "{You should answer my questions, Luci,}" Matt suggests, with a quick bright smile. "{I owe Nox some.}" "{And I am paying your debts for you?}" Lucien sounds amused. "{What do you mean, questions? How did this come about?}" "Ah, so...three for me and two for you? I think perhaps you are letting the lady win," Nox says with a hum before her head also turns when footsteps are heard. Lucien's arrival is met with a darker variant of Matt's smile; the book's condition deepens it--but she doesn't release Matt's hand to reach for it. Later, maybe. "Thank you. It's precious to me, I was worried it would be ruined..." She trails off to listen to the exchange of French between the brothers, far more fluid than her own grasp of the language. Some might be lost but the gist is taken, leaving her to hum in amusement and attempt her book-proper language skills again. "{A wager between us. A question and answer for each piece taken, Matt or you may ask two and I may ask you three. What do you want to be when you grow up, Mister Tessier?}" Lucien opens his mouth to reply. "{You have to answer honestly,}" Matt says quickly. Lucien shuts it again, tipping his gaze downwards. He glances towards the chess board. "{Like half this city, I wanted to be an actor,}" he says, quietly. "{Are you happy, in life?}" Nox is able to resist the urge to voice her sort of laughter again, to hear the elder brother correct the younger. She hides her amusement with a brief (and grateful) squeeze of Matt's hand. "{I...think? What is the word for think something of someone?} The word for suspect, in English. {I think of you that you are a good actor,}" she says when she has her voice under control, smile tipped up towards Lucien. It wavers only slightly when she has to frame her own answer. "{No. But happy people do not do well, here.}" After glancing between the two, and considering again, she murmurs, "{What has made you smile today?}" "{Suspect,}" Matt volunteers, "{And he's amazing. You should hear him sing.}" This draws a blush out of Lucien, faint but there in the tips of his ears, lips twitching faintly. He leans back against the door, as Matt squeezes Nox's hand back for her answer. The question, though, earns an answer of: "{You,}" that comes almost immediately, twinned from both brothers. This time, Lucien's expression resolves into an /actual/ smile, amused. Matt blushes, now. "{Happy people can do well in this city,}" he assures her, his own smile warm, "{You just gotta find the right people to be happy /with/.}" "{What would you need, to be happy?}" Lucien's next question is soft, too. He's studying Nox thoughtfully. "I would like to hear him sing," Nox says to Matt and then, "I would," to Lucien. "I know so many songs but my voice is horrible. Fit only for the dark places where no one can hear me." And then? Then it is /her/ turn to go a different color--first a diffuse grey that makes her near invisible, before she remembers herself and returns to that not quite solid form that protects modesty but betrays a deeper hue in her cheeks. During that blip of intangibility, her hand escapes from Matt's. The question does not help. "I...am not sure? In this moment, to be here. For life, for always? I don't know, it's been..." A very long time, but she doesn't voice that because it is far too solemn for the smiles on display in here. But she has the advantage. One more question to ask and though it takes her a moment to compose herself before her eyes lift to Lucien's, when she does her smile is as warm. "May I hear you sing? Lucien." Lucien's head tilts, slightly, to one side, his gaze still steady on Nox as she trails off. By the time she smiles, he isn't, any more, just thoughtful at her question. There is a long silence, his hand lifting to rub at his face. Eventually he steps further into the room, gently setting the book down on the table amidst the scattered remaining chess pieces. He is quiet, when he begins singing -- "Corner of the Sky", from /Pippin/ -- but even quiet it's easy enough to hear that his baritone is rich and well trained. Matt's hand falls to rest downwards again, now, by Nox's intangible one, and his eyes close with a small smile on his lips. Wider, when Lucien's voice grows stronger, more confident. Nox looks somewhat uncertain of the reception the request might bring. When it actually works, the blurred edges around her quiver with what can only be a sigh of relief. While the song remains quiet, she simply watches and listens both. But when Lucien finds his stride, there's a moment spent with eyes closed too, blocking out all but his voice--and when it meets whatever standard she might keep, they open again so she can watch, listen /and/ allow her lips to move with the words. To move, let it be noted, without sound. She was not lying about her lack of singing ability, and it has nothing to do with being trapped in whispers. Her eyes are shining. Matt is mouthing the words along, too. Silently, too; whether he has singing ability or not is indeterminate. Lucien's song continues, rich and powerful by the time he is belting out the ending; afterwards, he rubs his hand again against his face. "{Sorry,}" is back to soft once more, his eyes meeting Nox's shining ones. "{It has been some time since I did that for any audience outside my siblings. Were you going to read? It should be safe now.}" In terms of book health. "No," Nox breathes in the silence after the song fades. And again, "{No}," in his mother tongue, out of respect for both the man and the performance he just gave. "{That was beautiful. Thank you. You see? I am happy in this moment.}" For just a moment, she closes her eyes again--as if reliving the music--and when they open again, her smile is as bright as shadow allows. "{If Matt would like for me to? And he can tolerate a story told in whispers. Though perhaps not Flannery O'Connor tonight. If you have your copy of "Neverwhere", Matt...?}" This time, Lucien's smile is softer, for the answer she gives. Not bright but warm and genuine. "Good," is all he says, quietly, and Matt, "{I'd love it.}" Lucien slips across the room -- there is a bookshelf here, too, it seems few places in this house are /devoid/ of books, though this one is less meticulously organized than the shelves downstairs. The books on it are a good deal more well-worn. He runs a finger along the spines, stopping to pull out one battered old dog-eared paperback copy of /Neverwhere/. He holds it out towards Nox, and it's almost hesitant his question: "{Do you mind if I stay?}" "{Please, stay.}" Nox takes the book after saying this, and flees the resulting sweep of color by briefly disappearing--causing the small volume to drop with a whumph onto the coverlet. She recovers almost immediately and retrieves it, obscuring the lapse by moving in the interim, from the edge near the table to further down. Before she carefully opens the cover and turns to the first page, she gestures the younger of the pair to sit beside Matt. When she begins to read, it is in a murmur better suited to bedtime stories or lullabies--all that she has to offer, unfortunately. "The night before he went to London, Richard Mayhew was not enjoying himself..." Lucien settles himself beside his older brother, who promptly shifts both to allow Lucien space and to use him as a pillow. They're both listening, though. Quiet, as befits the quiet murmur. It's possible that Matt will not last long before sleep. But, regardless, both he and Lucien are at least smiling.