Logs:Good Advice

Good Advice
CN: mention of chaotic drug use and non-fatal overdose
Dramatis Personae Jax, Matt	2021-07-21 "Got a new show on and everything? Maybe you heard?"
Location <PRV> 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. The heat is oppressive outside today, but in here the air conditioned house it is pleasant and cool--or, at least, it's pleasant and by most standards. Even with the blood of the frozen North in his veins, even in blue jeans with with a gray Aperture Labs hoodie zipped up (a blue "test subject" figure emerging from said zipper, presumably a portal seen sidelong) Matt is shivering as he scrubs the kitchen counter. There are entirely more bottles of cleaning sprays out than is probably necessary for this operation, which looks as though it has been ongoing for a while in slowly escalating chaos. Their impressive sound system blasts original cast recording of Lost!, loud but not quite loud enough to drown out Matt's voice belting out the Faun's lament in time to Lucien's--one tuneless, one melodious, both ragged with emotion. "But how could I know? Though I knew that she was gone, that my love should doom another, that the pain goes on and on? How could I know!" There's a jingle of keys in the lock, a tromp of many feet at the door, a cavalcade of teenagers returning to the house -- and one lingering definitely-not-a-teenager drifting considerably quieter in their wake. Jax is brightly dressed in rainbow tie-dyed shortalls, wildly patterned mismatched socks, a black tee with purple text that reads 'be nice to sex workers :)' on the chest, a cheerful emoji adorning his eyepatch; he still has Ryan's car keys dangling from one finger, idly swinging the keys to jingle against his palm as he fetches up against the kitchen doorway. He does not raise an eyebrow as he watches Matt's Overly Intense Cleaning Operation, but the smiley face in the middle of his eyepatch does, shifting smoothly from 🌞 to 🤨 . Matt pauses briefly when the others enter, hand still pressing the damp rag to the counter, eyes still fixed on his work. It's only when Jax appears that he straightens up. Though his face is pale and his eyes shadowed he sounds reasonably normal, considering how much he must raise his voice to be heard over the music. "Thank you so much for seeing to them and I'm terribly sorry for--needing you to see to them." He pats himself down, then plucks up his phone from the island counter where it had been abandoned beside a celadon mug, full of tea long since gone cold. The music lowers to a more reasonable ambient volume. "I had meant to have a feast ready by way of apology, but--well, the house didn't burn down, at least." He casts a rueful glance at the stove top grates soaking in the sink. "We ought to order something, no? Will you take some lemonade? Coffee?" He still has not let go of the rag. "Oh, s'cool, we done feasted plenty." Jax's eye flicks quickly down to the phone on the counter, then back up to Matt. "You know, listening to an old cast album's fine and all but I heard tell that man sounds just phenomenal in person. Got a new show on and everything? Maybe you heard?" Matt draws himself up and almost manages to smile, but instead just lapses into a taut stillness. Then he rallies again, though he does not really regain the frenetic animation. "I had meant to go," he replies, his voice soft and startlingly even. "I wanted so badly to go. I laid out my clothes and everything." A touch less evenly, "But instead, I've hurt him again." Jax's fingers close around the keys in his palm with a quiet rattling. He settles more heavily into the doorframe, one foot resting socked toes over the other and bouncing with a restless agitation. "Yeah, kinda badly, I expect. I mean, he was as charmin' as ever afterwards but --" His teeth drag heavily against his lower lip, voice softer when he speaks again. "What happened, sugar?" Matt just nods. "Of course he was. His charms have never been in doubt, either." He turns away from Jax as if he means to leave it at that and return to scrubbing the counter, but he just leans on it. "I OD'd. Last month. Inevitably, that shook him. He hasn't really been speaking to me since." He presses the knuckles of his (non-rag-holding) hand to his mouth; breathes in and out slow; lowers his hand. "Yesterday I was furious with him. Gods, I was just incensed, and I knew that was wrong. If I'd gone--I don't know if I could have kept it in, and that." The pause is longer, this time. "That would have hurt him badly, too." "You --" Jax begins. "Um -- oh. I --" Stops, his eye fluttering open a little wider and his toes curling down against the floor. "Wait, he weren't -- mad at you over..." His brows knit together slowly, fingers clenching and unclenching around the bunch of keys in his hand. "An' -- you were mad at him for -- not talkin' to you, then? Or -- what?" "No, I don't think it was that." Matt frowns down at the counter, then turns that frown back toward his friend, uncertain. "Or at least not wholly that? But I think he really got angry when I persuaded him to go back down to DC, afterwards. Maybe he thought I was pushing him away? I wanted nothing of the sort, I was just trying to do right by him for once." His shoulders curl inward. "Then he just avoided me wholesale. So yes, I was mad he--abandoned me." There's an unspoken "but" in the breath he takes at the sentence's end. "I think. I was also mad he's just...seemed fine, without me. I ought to have been happy for him." "Oh," Jax says again, weight shifting awkwardly once more. His teeth click against a lip ring, wiggling at it slowly as he fiddles with the keys between thumb and index finger. The emoji fades from his eyepatch gradually. Gradually returns, this time: 😕. "I mean, feelings is real complicated, I'onno that there's much point in ought feel -- but. Would you really rather he..." He trails off, hand lifting to scuff his palm across the top of his head. "He'd probably be doing better if y'all weren't fighting." "I want two contradictory things. I was happy to see how he'd thrived while I was in the lab, I really was. But." His free hand turns up as he leans back wearily. "I hated the idea he was better off without me, even though the evidence seemed pretty clear." His speech grows clipped. "So then, a career opportunity sends him away, and that's conveniently when I cave and start shooting up, after all this time. How manipulative is that? I could not bear sabotaging him, not again." He crumples against the counter behind him. "Maybe that's not how he saw it. I want to make amends, but I haven't the faintest clue how. I was already half convinced he wouldn't even want me there and I can hardly just show up with some flowers and a 'sorry I'm late.'" "I know y'all always been like this," Jax is holding up a hand, two fingers crossed together, "but he's coming up on thirty soon, honey-honey, I think it's inevitable that he -- s'gonna be makin' his own kinda life and it don't have to get in the way of your whole Catholic Twins vibe. 'least not if you don't get in the way of it." He drops his hands, clipping his keys to a belt loop as he pulls away from the doorframe now to finally move further into the kitchen, fetching up against the counter beside Matt. "I think you kinda have to show up with some flowers and a sorry I was a jerk. Where else do you think you're gonna start from? Just keep ignoring this till he gets back to New York? Feel like that'd make it worse." Matt's jaw sets hard, his hand clenching even harder around the cleaning rag. "I know that." This comes out a touch sharp, but then, soft and conciliatory, "I know, and I thought that's what I was doing! But I kind of did it by...telling him what to do. Again." He's quiet for a moment, eyes unfocused and tracking minutely across the kitchen floor. "I wasn't going to. Ignore this. But you're right, godsdamnit all. I suck at apologizing." He does not sound petulant or defensive, just deeply weary...until he's quite abruptly vehement. "Ostie de tabernak de--why do you give such good advice?" He blows out a long, harsh breath, almost a hiss. "It's making me queasy." At this Jax pushes away from the counter with a crinkle of his nose, going to the refrigerator to open it and rummage inside. "Oh gosh. I mean I've had many folks tell me I make 'em come over all nauseous for one reason or other but I feel like with you s'got less to do with me an' more to do with withdrawal. You want to sit down a spell?" He's extracted a bottle of ginger ale from the fridge, inverting it gently before offering it to Matt. "M'sure the kitchen can wait."