Logs:Double Entente

Double Entente
Dramatis Personae Jax, Steve
In Absentia Ryan, Lucien, Kadar	2024-12-22 "God knows I take up a lot of space." (The day after a surreal night.)
Location <NYC> Lunar Suite - Le Bonne Entente - Astoria - Queens
This luxurious suite spans the fourth and fifth floors at the tip of the building's north wing. Silver-veined black marble columns, arches, counters, and accents make a striking backdrop for the plush red velvet furnishings and chrome appliances. The first floor has a partially open floor plan that favors half-walls and glass where divisions are necessary. The entryway opens onto the expansive living room which meanders in one direction into the chef's kitchen and the dining room in another, rejoining beyond these in a solarium spanning both floors. On one side, a spiral stair winds up around a cylindrical glass elevator, and on the other side is a lush greenhouse with a waterfall that cascades down from the second floor. Beyond the double glass doors, a garden terrace affords an unobstructed view of the park, the river, and the Manhattan skyline beyond framed by the bridges. The second level is more conventionally laid out, beyond the glass balcony of the solarium. The sumptuous master suite offers a range of comfortable multi-purpose furniture besides the massive bed, and adjoins a rambling spa bathroom with an immense soaking tub, a claw-foot tub in its own vine-wreathed nook, a huge rainwater shower, and both dry and wet saunas. There is also an office with state-of-the-art video conferencing hardware, a reading room that could almost qualify as a library, and an entire second bedroom suite. It's been -- a morning. What kind of morning, exactly, Jax is still working out. He'd left the other current occupants of this suite to their own devices for some time, now, while he tidied up the baffling wreckage strewn throughout the rooms. Though there's plenty of delicious vegan room service available, he'd followed this up by preparing breakfast himself, pumpkin spice french toast and roasted masala potatoes, tofu scramble and strips of smoky grilled portobello. He's taken his time over his own breakfast, eating in the solarium with his greedy hopeful beagle drooling up a puddle at his feet. Eventually, though, he emerges, trudging back towards the kitchen to, maybe, begin cleaning up the few pans left from the breakfast prep. Steve's ordeal has not dampened his appetite. If anything, it probably did the opposite, and so it's not particularly surprising he's finished his four or more helpings of breakfast -- plus a quick rinse and shave -- before Jax got through just the one. He's in the kitchen now, washing up, though it does not look like he has been at it for long. He's also properly clothed again, though he's left off the jacket and dress shirt and is only wearing the (tight, per usual) white undershirt and the (also tight, not per usual) black trousers, which shimmer with a subtle gold sheen. "Hey!" he says when Jax enters and then, maybe worrying this came out a little too chipper, hesitates half a beat too long before following up with, "I got this. The pans, I mean. Really hit the spot -- the food, not the...pans." He sucks in a breath through his teeth and gives a weak chuckle through his furious blush. "Gosh. I mean to say, thank you for cooking. It was delicious." Jax is looking particularly pale and sluggish dragging himself back in, pallor accentuated by the bright rainbow color-block sweatshirt he is wearing, every bit as bright as he is not. His smile is warm, though, brows hiking up. "Well, seemed like y'all'd been burnin' a few extra calorie." He is still hugging his mostly-empty bowl to his chest as he leans up against the counter. "... you two," his head is tilting in the general direction of Ryan's room, "gonna be a Thing again or --?" "Thing..." Steve looks very briefly lost. And then immediately flushes even redder. "Oh! A Thing. He -- I --" He seems to realize he's holding onto the skillet he just rinsed off like a shield, and picks up a dish towel to dry it in a totally normal and not at all excessive way given it was not so terribly wet to begin with. "Not sure he's gotten as far as thinking about a Thing. Or, about that Thing." He scrunches his eyes shut. "He wanted to go again, which isn't. That. But also ah. Doesn't seem like the best idea." He leaves off his very thorough drying-off and steps hastily behind the island counter, though with his stature and reach he could have easily hung the skillet on the overhead pot rack there without moving at all. "I'm sorry if this makes things awkward all over again. I know Ryan was having a har -- tough. Time. When we were a Thing." "I mean -- Luci's workin' stuff out, right? Y'ain't gonna have your, uh, bounty, forever. Seems like a fine idea to me." Jax sets his plate down on the counter now, slumping in against it with his chin in his hand. His eye has focused hard on the skillet. His fingers tap lightly against his cheek. "Sugar, if I got awkward every time Ryan got high and did some ho stuff, I'd be living an unnecessarily hard life." "Yeah!" Steve's agreement comes quick and once again a bit incongruously energetic. "Yeah, Luci said the fella who did -- all this works here, and he'll be up as soon as he's free. Frankly I'm impressed he pulled it off --"He winces at the phrasing. "-- did as good a job as he did, considering he was also high as a kite." Twists the dish towel between his hands absently. Loosens his grip at once when it starts to audibly tear. "I'm glad you're not awkward. Wish I weren't so awkward." He catches himself staring at Jax and drops his gaze to the plate on the counter. "It's not just that I'm still carrying a torch for you. Though I am, and I think Ryan knows that. But I don't know how either of you feel about -- us. Not that you owe me any explanations! I just love you both a lot and I want you back in my life -- if you want me -- not like --" He pushes his fingers through his hair. "It's not that I think there's anything wrong with ah. Ho stuff. And I'm not sorry I...hoed? While I was too high to worry about..." He struggles for a moment. "Catching feelings -- or not -- and hurting him again. Or you." Jax is keeping an admirably straight face and nodding through pulled it off, though his free hand is making a slightly unsettling unconscious grasping-twisting motion here. His own cheeks are flushing, though, his gaze dropping for a moment to the counter. "I broke up with you, honey-honey. Think that kinda forfeits my right to have feelings 'bout where your --" Is his next glance a little conspicuously towards Steve's crotch, maaaaybe. His blush deepens. "-- well, where anything... s... of yours been. Think you an' Ryan gonna have to sort through his feelings your own self, though, that man kinda a trawling net for feelings of all kinds. He's good an' grown, though, he can handle a bit of -- feelings bycatch." Steve winces again -- not, apparently, at anyone's phrasing this time, though he's probably wishing his trousers were tailored in more relaxed lines -- and shifts his stance. "Don't think that's how feelings work." He sounds pretty sure, but his face looks less sure. "Not how my feelings work, anyhow. Or my ah --" He pushes his belt down just a little, presumably for his comfort, though it does not likely help much. "-- either of them. And of course I know you can handle it -- you're both --" It's possible that he can't physically flush any redder without something being medically wrong with him, considering where else his blood is going. "Feelings! Handle some feelings, whether yours or mine or -- oh gosh but this would be easier if --" He's glancing over his shoulder speculatively, little though he can see Ryan wherever he and his plethora of limbs have fetched up. "Are you and he -- well, family to be sure and partners of a sort but not...a Thing?" Alas that Jax does not have Ryan's ability to discern whether the uncertainty in his tone is perplexed, embarrassed, or hopeful, though perhaps the embarrassment can be taken as read by this point. Jax's eye is wider, his brows lifting, his mouth twitching as he once again valiantly attempts not to laugh. Solemnly: "I'm sure 'tween the two of us, we could handle a whole big double-dose'a --" A beat. "Feelings, yeah." He does laugh, though, quiet, at the question, glancing over his shoulder towards Ryan's room. "Oh, gosh. I promise you, no matter what no tabloids saying, me and Ryan ain't never been a Thing. I do hate saying just friends, though, like he's second fiddle somehow to --" He's looking back at Steve here but then very abruptly down. "He's doing some kinda it's-complicated thing now and I ain't really been in no dating place for -- well." Now he sounds apologetic. "A while." Steve laughs, too, and now that he's allowed himself seems a little more at ease, if not very much more comfortable. "I didn't assume you were a Thing, but the way he took it when I asked you out. Thought maybe he wanted to." He shakes his head. "I know that, and I didn't mean to come off like..." He starts to wring the dish towel again, stops again, and finally returns it to its proper place before he has the chance to shred it in his next fit of mortified fidgeting. "I love you both. That didn't change when we started courting, and it didn't change when we stopped. I just -- didn't know where to fit myself, and God knows I take up a lot of space." He takes a deep breath as if meaning to continue, but then he lets it back out and just crosses the kitchen, kind of carefully. Maybe he started out intending to use Jax's plate as an excuse to go to him. Maybe he started out actually intending to take Jax's plate for cleaning. Either way, by the time he gets there he just hooks an arm around Jax and pulls him into a kind of lopsided hug. "But you don't have to fit me --" He groans. "I swear I'm not doing that deliberately. I'm also not angling to ask either of you out." Jax leans into the hug, still fiercely blushing. Probably not helped, really, by the current proximity. "-- pretty sure Ryan's got a couple ideas 'bout where to fit it." is a little lilting-teasing, but he's squeezing Steve tighter. He pulls back, sagging once more against the counter. "Anyway, my life ain't exactly been --" He stops, hesitates, his head shaking uncertainly. "You ain't the only one 'round here takes up a lotta space. I'm just -- real sorry that we couldn't -- that I couldn't --" Once more, this falters. His palm presses down hard against the edge of the counter. He exhales slowly. Speaks slowly. "It'd be nice to be friends again." Steve's embrace is briefly so tight that it hurts -- very likely, judging by his wince and the quickness with which he eases up, not only to Jax. "It's okay," he murmurs. "I'm sorry, too." If there was going to be some qualification to that, it doesn't come, but if he's at a loss for words he doesn't seem significantly more awkward for it this time. His voice is a little lighter when he speaks again. "All the body horror and stress about breaking hearts aside, this is actually awful distracting, and I just can't seem to stop walking into these double enten --" He sighs and tips his head back, staring through the ceiling as if imploring God (or maybe Lucien) to save him. When he looks back at Jax the latest crop of his blush is still warm, but there's a sort of resigned ease in him now. "Look. I know you don't usually go in for ho stuff. And I know Ryan hos enough for the both of you. But I don't think he minds sharing. With a friend." A beat. His eyes scrunch. His head shakes quick. "Of course, the moment I try to do it deliberately, I can't come up with anything." "Oh, I'm sure y'think on it hard enough, somethin'll come to mind." Jax has lifted one hand to kind of half-cover his mouth. The blush hasn't faded from his cheeks, and he's skirting around Steve to finally, now, go wash up his plate. "Why, Steve Rogers, if I didn't know better I'd think you was harboring some ungentlemanly intentions, there." He does, admittedly, sound kind of flattered by the offer, as if somehow after having dated the man his attraction is still a strikingly pleasant surprise. Despite this, he's just rising up slightly onto his toes, pressing a (chaste!) kiss to the taller man's cheek. "I'm gonna head out for a bit. You're welcome to my bedroom if you need some time alone with yourselves." He's started to lift his hand -- then drop it again to his side. "It is good to see you again, honey-honey." And then, rounding up the elderly beagle, he is heading off. Steve's laughter comes more easily now. He leans back against the counter. "You were so patient talking me through all that fretting and stammering, I felt like it was a bit ungentlemanly not to offer." He manages to receive the kiss with no further fretting or stammering, though perhaps just a little bit more blushing. "Yeah, it is, and hey." He calls just as Jax is turning to go. "I'm never going to be small." To judge by the crooked pull of his smile he did not walk into this one unintentionally. "You wouldn't want me to be, anyway. But I'll work twice as hard to fit."