Logs:Fancy

Fancy
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Steve	2023-09-11 "Hate to disappoint, but I thought it long past time I laid down all my 'Comrade America' cards."
Location <PRV> The Belfry - Le Bonne Entente - Astoria
Nestled just below the belfry and above the gardeners' workshop and storage rooms, this penthouse apartment is accessible only at the proprietor sufferance via a special panel in the elevator and a locked utility stairway. The whole of it is psi-shielded, and equipped with a largely unused power suppression grid as well. Spanning one and a half levels, this space could be mistaken for an extension of the conservatory below, with plentiful bookshelves and greenery spilling from every nook, but even a cursory examination will reveal the personal touches that went into its design, softening the neoclassical aesthetic of the building at large with paradoxically fastidious whimsy. The elevator shaft bridging the full level and the loft is, save for the doors, encased in the coral reef of an immense cylindrical aquarium that houses a thriving tropical community. The sitting room immediately adjoining this is bright and airy, open to the empty half of the story above, with a plush circular sectional couch, a low tea table, a sideboard and a bar, its walls covered with lush trellises where not taken up with recessed bookshelves. Opposite the oceanic entryway on the western wall, tall french doors lead to a crescent balcony with views of the waterfront and city beyond as well as the restaurant terrace and garden far below. To either side of the doors, floor to ceiling waterfall windows feed twin pools connected under a thick glass floor panel, an indoor pond lined with smooth river stones and stocked with hardy freshwater fish. On the other end of the apartment, tucked under the loft and behind the elevator shaft, is a large kitchen bracketed by a pantry on one end and a breakfast nook on the other, its culinary conveniences--even the the refrigerator and ovens--hidden behind opaque glass panels that light up at a touch with lists of their contents. An elegant floating stairway spirals up around the elevator cum aquarium, its balusters and those of the loft's railing above twined with well-trained philodendrons. The long wall of the loft showcases a variety of bows from historical and modern, humble to ornate. A no-nonsense workshop at one end of this gallery stores the less picturesque archery paraphernalia as well as a wide range of tools, striking a quaint contrast with the cozier if no less utilitarian study at the other end. Open offset doorways at either end lead to a capacious bedroom with a king sized bed, its walls graced with myriad orchids and other epiphytes in Greek sconces. The generously sized bathroom is tiled with mosaic scenes from classical mythology and has an entire corner dedicated to the antique clawfoot tub. The walk-in closet is similarly generous, with specialized storage for every imaginable accessory, and a hidden staircase leading to the belfry above and the exit below. Maybe someday Steve will step out of this elevator and not gawk at the aquarium that encases it, but today is not that day. He cranes his neck to watch a neon rainbow of a fairy wrasse pick its leisurely way across the artificial reef, orienting itself "upright" with reference to the nearest surface. The elevator doors closing behind him snaps him out of his trance and he kneels to unzip his boots before setting them on the shoe rack tucked unobtrusively under the spiral stair. He's wearing a red t-shirt with bold black text that reads, "Never Fear" in flowing script and "Brooklyn's Here!" in blackletter and crisp medium blue jeans, his shield slung lightly over one shoulder as he straightens up and wanders out into the expansive apartment. "I could make you an aquarium." Lucien doesn't seem like he's been paying much attention to the entryway; maybe he just expected Steve to be gawking. The apartment smells like an early autumn, spiced apple crumble that Lucien, casual in slimline blue jeans and a very soft heather grey v-neck tee, is just extracting from his oven. "Stock it with red, white and blue fish. I think Sam would be greatly amused." "Used to think fish were easy pets, until I met you." Steve circles the coral reef and fetches up against the end of a kitchen counter, keeping himself out of Lucien's way. "Now I'm not so sure I could take care of even one solitary goldfish in a bowl, much less a whole star-spangled aquarium, though that would probably amuse Sam." He's eyeing the freshly baked dessert with interest. "Probably best I stick to keeping animals that can yell at me if I forget their supper." Half a beat -- and just a tick too long -- later, he adds, "I think Zenobia misses her play dates." "Fish in a star-spangled aquarium would be considerably easier to keep alive than a goldfish in a bowl. Goldfish bowls are terrible habitats. Cramped, poor filtration, most of those fish are stewing in toxic water that could be easily mitigated with --" Lucien's eyes flick up to Steve briefly and then, just as quick, down to his counter. He slips the oven mitts off his hands to tuck them away and gets out a pair of pretentiously stylish plates, matte black with metallic crescent-moon accent one in silver and one in gold. His mouth compresses thin as he gets a large flattish spoon for the crumble. "I am sure Spencer could retrieve Obie, if she is feeling deprived of his bumbling." "I reckon you'd have a whole filtration system set up." Steve glances back at the elevator tank as if trying to spot the (cleverly hidden, probably) machinery that presumably keeps it clean. "I've seen you with you do chemistry on your tanks, vacuum the gravel, scrub the glass. Guess I never really thought much about what fish needed other than water. Bet you got the happiest ones outside the ocean." His smile is small but affectionate. "But you don't really do anything by halves, and for an old dog I'm not half bad at new tricks." Is that a "yes" to the fish tank? Unclear, since he's getting sidetracked now. "I'm sure he could. Been offering to blip anyone anywhere they like, which must be exhausting." He scruffs his knuckles over the back of his neck, probably thinking he's in need of a trim. "Besides, I think it's pretty clear Jax doesn't want anything to do with me, and it seems a bit underhanded talking to his kid instead." "Is it clear?" Lucien is not revealing the secrets of the aquarium -- or, more likely, trying hard not to derail into spending the next hour earnestly infodumping about all the minutiae of the aquarium. Instead he is frowning very critically -- in the general direction of the crisp, little though it's done anything to earn his reproach. "Has he said that? Have you been talking to him?" Steve also frowns at the crisp -- maybe he's trying to figure out how it offended his friend, and what to do about it. "I've been talking. He's not talking back. I'm not upset about it, he's going through hell and I'm..." His lips compress. "Maybe a little upset," he admits guiltily. "But I don't blame him. Mostly I'm worried, and it kills me I can't be there for him. Or Ryan, for that matter." He looks up at Luci, his frown faded but a more uncertain look taking its place. "How're they holding up? You've been talking to him, right?" "It is upsetting. He is going through hell. So are a good many other people who would be going through somewhat less hell upon hearing from him." Lucien is finally pulling himself back into motion, scooping two servings of apple crisp onto the plates and sliding one to Steve together with a fork. He is not himself sitting, yet; two glasses, next (retrieved from the freezer), and then the trappings of cocktail -- a slender bottle, labeled Sirop, Thé, Earl Grey on a matte black label in Lucien's elegant script; a second syrup (Lavande); a glass bottle of cream from some local farm; blended scotch; an egg; a cream whipper. "Ryan has blocked me, currently. It will pass soon enough no doubt. Jackson --" Through his brief pause here his eyes lower back to the slender steel canister in his hand. "-- has been very on top of his duties with regards to Prometheus Foundation logistics. I cannot say that I have been talking to him, though." However tempted he may be, Steve does not dig into his dessert yet, but lingers to watch the imminent alcohol alchemy. "I'll never understand what the rest of the team are going through. Even mutants who aren't Prometheans could have been if they'd run afoul the law, and it was their people in those cages." After a very brief pause he corrects to, "Your people. I haven't really known how to..." How to finish that sentence, apparently. "But I do know what it's like when a war that's been consuming your life is suddenly over." His head shakes, short and sharp. "And the world just...moves on, not learning from the horrors that came to light or caring about the people who died to put an end to it." "My people," Lucien is saying this with a vicious calm in his soft voice, "could well have been Prometheans whether or not they ran afoul of the law." One lemon is added to the alchemical ingredients; Lucien juices that first before beginning to measure ingredients into the whipper. "Is the war over? Regardless, I do expect that waking up the next morning --" There's a beat of hesitation here. He is looking quite steadily at the methodical preparation of Drink and not at Steve. "-- and every day after, may be just a little jarring." There's a very small twitch to the corner of his mouth. "He will have an easier time drinking through it than you. Or a harder one, I'm not sure how to measure." Steve bows his head. "I'm sorry." Sometimes his apologies are awkward and flustered. This one is just simple and quiet. "Not really sure if that's a philosophical question or a practical one, but maybe..." He's also watching Luci work, though his eyes are a little distant. "It's more about whether you're done fighting. I remember thinking that, sitting on a kindly stranger's couch my first day out in the wrong century. And it was you who taught me how to fight enemies I can't punch or shoot." His eyes dart briefly to the scotch, and he blows out a long breath. "I might not have survived losing my ma if I couldn't get drunk. I might not have survived losing my whole world if I could." He does glance up at Luci's face now. "But I know I wouldn't have survived either if I didn't have folks looking out for me." A rhetorical question, perhaps, but to philosophical or practical Lucien is considering, answering "Mmm. Yes." regardless. The egg is last, before he screws the lid on tight, adds a charge from a nitrogen cartridge and shakes the contraption several times. Sets it aside on the counter to wait. "Folks with an abundance of alcohol looking out for you," he adds, very seriously. "A detail not to be overlooked. Nor the fact," his tone is lightening to something like contemplation, "that you did punch and shoot them, in the end. We have video and all." Steve's eyebrows tick up at the addition of the nitrogen cartridge to Luci's arcane mixology. "Gosh, I really gotta up my looking-out-for-you game. All I ever bring you is whiskey and wine." He blinks, chuffs a quiet laugh, and looks down. "I did, at that. My career's come full-circle, except the part when I was drawing angry cartoons for a Socialist newspaper. Delivering the news, now..." Another laugh, brighter now, and when he resumes he's singing instead of speaking -- in his native accent no less: "We been hawkin' headlines but we're makin' 'em today..." "I learned quite a lot about mixing proper drinks from Jackson," Lucien admits with a small twitch of his lips. "I think he wanted to spare my liver some agonies by occasionally cutting my liquor with mixers." His head tilts slightly when Steve breaks into song, eyes flicking to his friend's shirt. "I am sure if you wanted to return to those roots, I could find you a Socialist newspaper that would be thrilled to display your work. For a time I could hardly stop by S.H.I.E.L.D. without someone thrusting their terribly kerned rag at me. I suppose in your day there were enough socialists your newspapers likely had editors." "Might ask him for some lessons." Steve's smile is only a little dim. "Though I'm glad you're sparing your own liver some agonies. Mine doesn't care much if I'm shooting whiskey or Shirley Temples, but I am mighty curious about this fancy concoction of yours." He plucks at his shirt, not very self-consciously. "Our editing was decent so long I was sober for the proof, but The Redhook Worker was hardly the pinnacle of revolutionary journalism -- and even those had pretty bad kerning. We were just neighborhood rabble-rousers with a press older than all of us combined, and decent type is expensive." Lucien shakes his head, ponderous and heavy. "There you go. Quite shattering the image I had built up in my head of a you I made up whole-cloth from a Platonic Ideal of a Socialist. I am starting to understand how some of your fans feel." He retrieves his chilled glasses, now; adds a very small measure of soda water to each before pulling the trigger on the whipper -- the drink that comes out is a creamy-pale tea shade with a thick head of foam. Once he has the second drink poured he finally claims his slice of pie, taking drink and pie both to the breakfast nook. "You all had to walk five miles in the snow uphill both ways to rouse your rabble, it seems. These days we can get a message out much farther and without a single ink-smudged finger." "Hate to disappoint, but I thought it long past time I laid down all my 'Comrade America' cards." Steve watches this last step with keen interest and claims his glass with a quiet "merci" before following his host with his own dessert and libation. "Walking uphill through the snow's a piece of cake next to typesetting, but anyway our rabble was a lot more amenable to rousing. Imagine how much we could have accomplished if we'd had you." He twitches a small smile. "Just as well not, I was kind of a jerk back then. Glad I have you now, though." "Mmm." Lucien's eyes lower, fixing on his glass. "I feel that the effort it takes to do a good rousing is somewhat proportional to the amount of weaponry the police carry. Still. Push hard enough, and --" His mouth compresses. He traces his fork lightly against the head of foam on his drink, drawing a slow path through the foam before licking it idly off the tines. "Does your hippie collective offer typesetting classes?" The very mild uptick in his voice, the slight widening of his eyes, likely scans to others as an idle curiosity though Steve can doubtless clock the sudden intense spark of excitement, here. "It sounds like such terribly tedious and fussy nonsense." Steve takes an experimental sip of his fancy concoction and licks the foam from his lips appraisingly. "This is the best whiskey sour I've ever had." Half a beat later he frowns. "Is it a whiskey sour? It's excellent, regardless." He's starting in on his apple crumble, but glances up at the change in Luci's tone with a conspiratorial smile. "We don't -- yet. There's a surprising amount of interest in it, but proof presses are dinosaurs in the digital age." The smile curves wider, and slightly crooked. "Those old Vandercooks are tough, though. Just takes some patience and persistence to track down a working fossil. Worth it for the chance to teach you how to make the news for a change." "It does contain a sort of whiskey," is Lucien's equivocal allowance, after an unreasonably long pause to consider this question. He blinks down at the drink -- up at Steve -- back down at the drink. "Oh, that is quite alright." He takes a slow bite of his crumble, washes it down with a careful sip of the creamy drink. "In my experience, dinosaurs and I get on famously."