Logs:Horror

Horror
cn: discussion of child sexual abuse
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Matt, Steve
In Absentia Elie	2022-05-30 "Do you -- have much experience? Dealing with people like that?"
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. Supper was a somewhat casual affair tonight, grilled cheese and canned tomato soup in the living room over a game of chess with the soundtrack to Mary Poppins Returns playing softly in the background. Steve is tucked into the corner of the couch contemplating his next move with deeply furrowed brows -- the situation is not looking good for him. He's wearing a yellow t-shirt with a skeletal T. rex dancing above the word "FOSSIL" spelled out in bones and soft faded blue jeans, his shield still done up in Friend Bear fashion. "It's still disorienting, after all this time, but I feel like maybe we were finally on the same page." Matt is draped languidly on the arm of his chair, his chin propped up in the palm of one hand. He's in a white tee with "Welcome! Everything is fine." across the chest in green letters and dark blue jean shorts. "That sounds--complicated, I suppose, but an improvement, no?" He tips his head to one side and offers Steve a small, rueful smile. "I do hope some closure comes of it, for you both--whatever that may look like." Matt can no doubt feel Lucien even before his keys rattle in the lock. His usual tightly regimented neurochemistry is somewhat of a shambles, a present, fuzzy and disorganized, though what presence of mind he does have is being exerted to rather viciously tamp his emotional landscape down flat and uniform. He takes a little bit longer to open the door than he properly ought, and longer, too, to lock it behind himself and shed his shoes. He's just peeling off his grey suit jacket as he makes his way to the living room, dropping down heavily to sit on the floor by Matt's chair; his head rests up against his brother's knee, eyes fixing on the game in progress. Steve turns at the first hint of movement outside, but when this does not immediately resolve into an open door he looks back at the game and moves a knight decisively. "Hey," he offers when Lucien finally does make it inside and over to the couch. "Are you -- is something the matter?" As soon as Matt can reach Lucien he's slipping into the other man's powers, tidying where he can and easing the strain. When his brother settles beside him, he drops a hand to rub the back of his neck. "Welcome home." He makes his next move with hardly another look at the board. "Have you eaten, darling?" "Oh gods --" Lucien's eyes are opening wider at Matt's question. "{I'm so sorry}, I entirely forgot dinner." He's narrowing his eyes critically at Steve -- then tipping his head back to turn that look up to Matt instead. "{Did you feed him? Please tell me you fed him.}" He's making no move to get up, just relaxing against the base of Matt's armchair as his fuzzy mind grows just a little more clarity beneath his brother's ministrations. "You," he tells Steve, "ought to be worrying about your game, it is looking rather dire." "We had grilled cheese sandwiches," Steve says without looking up from the board, perhaps realizing his error on the last turn. "I had a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches, but there's still a couple in the kitchen we can heat up." He purses his lips and commits one of his rooks to the fray. "Petty sure this game is already a lost cause. Just can't see which way I'm going down." Matt kneads his brother's shoulder idly. "{Fancy grilled cheese, less fancy tomato soup. We might need bread sooner than projected, but you should have some.}" He allows a twitch of a smile as he springs his trap. "Check. It's salvageable, though." To Lucien again, "Did I miss some news? Or is it just--business as usual at the Club?" Lucien subsides, slightly mollified at the reassurance that their guest has eaten. His attention turns back to Steve's doomed game -- until Matt asks about the Club. Something in his mind tightens hard. "It --" This is as much as he gets out. His mouth closes; he swallows hard, though this does little to unstick the words from his throat. There's a frantic rearrangement going on in his mind, a desperate scrabbling for speech that refuses to come. With it comes a familiar drowning wave of shame, heavy and stifling at this failure of language. His eyes fix very steadily on the board. Steve frowns at Matt's knight, then his king, and reluctantly moves the latter out of harm's way. He looks over at Lucien, the furrow in his brow now deep with concern. "Did -- did someone do something to you?" His left hand clenches briefly into a fist that he then deliberately relaxes as he looks over at Matt as if for assistance or explanation. "You're not hurt, are you?" Matt's expression does not change, though his power coils tighter and his hand clamps down firmer. "Take your time, darling," he says, his gentle tone belying his worry and the protective anger that lies in wait beneath it. "We're in no hurry, we can do one question at a time. So first, as he says--did someone hurt you?" Lucien's eyes dart to Steve's hand, and for a flicker of an instant that clenched fist eases something in him, too. It doesn't last, soon swamped under the continued shame that is spiking into something approaching panic. Once again he opens his mouth -- once again nothing coherent comes out, only a frustrated and strangled noise. He starts to reach for Matt's hand but arrests the motion with a ferocity that borders on painful, instead clenching his own hands tight into fists and setting them very deliberately in his lap. His head shakes at the questions, at first hesitant but then more firmly. Game quite forgotten, Steve has swung his attention fully around to Lucien. "Hey. We're here. You're safe. Breathe." This is decidedly Steve's Care Bear voice, but as calm and confident as he sounds he keeps glance uncertainly at Matt. "Do you ah, want some tea?" Matt looks perfectly serene, and even to Lucien's senses he's largely matter-of-fact, the sharpest of his concerns receding at the shake of his brother's head. "I've still got some tea--silver thermos on the kitchen counter," he tells Steve equably while his powers sink down deep into Lucien's and braces him against the onslaught of his own chaotic emotions. Once their guest has stepped out of the room he murmurs softly, "{You needn't speak. He won't think any less of you. I won't think any less of you.}" He reaches down to lay his fingertips against one of Lucien's tightly clenched fists, then turns his hand up in gentle invitation. "Did something bad happen at the Club?" Lucien's eyes squeeze shut, and quite despite himself a soft breath of laughter slips out of him at Steve's reassurance. It does seem to ease some of the tension in his large frame, his breathing calming as well. His hand turns over very slowly, palm pressing to Matt's; it's less the immediate tactile sensation here that brings him balance and more the slow aligning of his mental landscape to his brother's steadier one. Still, beyond a visible shudder, he has no immediate answer to this question. Steve returns in short order with the thermos and starts to hand it to Lucien before thinking better of it and just setting it on the tea table in easy reach. He sits back down, eyes still a bit wide although less so now that his friend appears to be out of any immediate danger of panicking. "Lord knows I can't just punch every problem, but if there's someone needs punching..." He trails off, and looks momentarily as though he might want to ask another question, but then shuts his mouth and waits. Matt presses his hand back against Lucien's, his breathing slow and even, his mind placidly accepting the tumult spinning down between them. He flashes Steve a bright smile when he returns with the thermos. "{Thank you, dear.} Though I fear most people he encounters in that particular line of work could do with some punching." This draws another soft laugh from Lucien. He accepts the thermos gratefully, popping its lid and taking a long, slow pull. The familiar comfort eases through him, further calming his internal chaos. His hands play lightly against the side of the thermos, and his eyes stay fixed on the chess board. "I quit," he finally says, the words soft and halting. Steve scoffs softly. "Not that surprising, I guess. It's a social club for fat cats who're too good for the regular sort of fat cat clubs." He makes a half-hearted move while waiting for Lucien to collect himself, and his eyebrows go up. "Oh! That's a weight off, then?" He sounds uncertain. Matt relaxes as Lucien does, though he spares a hand to answer Steve's move with a vicious cut to his back rank that leaves his position somewhat less salvageable. He is in fact surprised, but not terribly so, and it does not show on his face beyond a small tic of one eyebrow. "Well, good riddance to them, whether it was the straw that broke the camel's back, or the whole extra bale." Lucien takes another long pull of tea. His words still do not come easily, dredged up through a silt of pain and horror, shame and fury, a tumult that might seem at odds with his soft even voice, to anyone but Matt. "The decision was -- itself a weight." Unconsciously he's begun to rock, a slow back and forth sway that he stops the moment he notices it. "Our guests asked a lot of me, over the years, but we all have our breaking points." Steve's eyes widen. He's evidently forgotten about chess again, but this time he takes a moment to collect his thoughts and condense them into words. "They -- did they demand that you --" He glances over Lucien's clothing. Blushes fiercely. "I realize your work is also -- that you sleep with your -- some of your clients. But it's not your job there, and if someone overstepped, or the Club insisted you..." His hand flexes again, his jaw tight with anger. Matt has gone somewhat still where Lucien leans against him. His breathing is even and his brows only faintly furrowed, but Lucien can feel the spark of his rage returning. "I am sure that someone overstepped," he says mildly, "but not so sure they did it in that way. Luci is quite capable of fending off unwanted callers now." His free hand drops to squeeze at his brother's shoulder, hard. "But then, they don't all call for the same thing, and some things ought to be a breaking point, for anyone." "Oh --" Lucien's eyes flutter half-closed in time with a very small dry breath of laughter. "-- the Club has long taken for granted that I do what I can to keep our guests satisfied, but that --" He shakes his head, and leans back into the hard squeeze of Matt's hand rather than set to rocking again. "I was watching a coworker's child. Charming girl -- plays a mean hand of Uno and can tell you a million fascinating things about insects. Just through her first year of kindergarten." His shoulder is tense under Matt's hand, the hurt and rage still roiling beneath his somewhat more calm exterior. "I dearly wish it had been me they wanted in their bed." Steve blinks at Lucien, brows furrowing. His uncertain echoing of "You wish it had been --" slips fluidly to, "-- oh God. That's horrifying. They couldn't -- the kid is safe from them now, right?" But as soon as the words are out of his mouth he grits his teeth. "Ah, shit. They'll just ask someone else." Both of his hands clench into fists. "We've got to do something about them." Matt's hand clamps down on Lucien's shoulder. He's not actually surprised, but his fury is sharp and swift, sweeping ahead of fierce protectiveness. "Oh, the nerve of them." His breathing speeds up fractionally. "There's only one way to really do something about people like that." "She is with her mother, who I do not imagine will be bringing her back to the Club any time soon. But people like that, in my experience --" Lucien's eyes have fixed once more on the abandoned chess board. "They strongly suggested that they were used to having this appetite indulged. I expect if left to it, they would find someone else." Steve is quiet for a moment. "What kind of monster would indulge them enough they thought to just ask the concierge? God..." He scrubs his hands over his face. Glances at his shield, all bright and friendly with its smiling crossed sunflowers. Then suddenly looks back at the brothers. "In your --" His eyes follow Lucien's gaze to the chess board, but he doesn't seem very interested in his impending defeat. "Do you -- have much experience? Dealing with people like that?" Matt gives a noncommittal hum, and though his anger is immense he keeps much of it firmly tamped down with Lucien's powers. "Oh, there are all kinds, but most of them are family members." This is light, with a dangerous edge that Steve, at least, rarely hears from him. "I suppose it depends somewhat on your definition of 'dealing'. Our mother dealt with plenty." Lucien's own rage is, for a moment, buried under a wave of shame and nausea that does not ruffle the blank calm in his expression. "A fair bit," he replies with a dissonant dismissiveness, "though not since we were -- much younger." Steve's wide-eyed stare skips back and forth between his friends. "You --" False start. A bit more hushed and controlled, "Sweet Mother of God, this happened -- to you?" His eyes flick up to the ceiling beneath the younger Tessiers' rooms. When speaks again, he's lapsed partly back into his native accent -- New York and Connacht filtering into...wherever his broadcast accent is supposed to be from -- his voice trembling with fury. "Jesus wept. I am so sorry. Then this -- for you, this was a personal kind of horror." Matt's hand squeezes harder and pulls Lucien closer, looking half like he might slide down onto the floor himself. He tries to ease his brother's discomfort, his own command of his borrowed power imperfect but sufficient to summon a touch of soothing calm. "Yes. Not them." He looks up, as well, his serene expression faltering briefly. "But yes." His wonted volubility seems to have failed him, but he's rallying. "We feel rather strongly about the matter, and Luci--had the worst of it. You can see, perhaps, why we do not often speak of Mother." "If she had laid a hand on the children I would have --" Lucien falters, breaks off, drawing in an unsteady breath. He lifts a hand, resting it over Matt's and squeezing down as well. "Horror makes it sound so dramatic. At the time it all felt so quotidian." He takes that touch of calm and expands it aggressively, an artificial numbness washing over him. "Forgive me, I've -- thrown quite a pall over your evening. It was not my intention." Steve looks -- perhaps just a fraction less horrified. Not much, though. "You were children. It never shoulda have been on you to -- know that's not supposed to happen. Probably didn't need me tellin' you that." His lips press together tightly. "Kinda evening you're having always matters to me, even if mostly you don't come right out and say. You're hurting, that matters to me. You matter to me, so. Nothin' to forgive." He clasps his hands together, then unclasps them, glancing between the brothers uncertainly again. "Youse want -- something stronger than tea?" It's not his Care Bear voice this time. "Watch the Rangers game? A hug?" Matt does not smooth over his anger so readily, but he's keeping it banked, all the same. "That is arguably part of The Horror." But he does not sound all that committed to The Horror, either. "We don't tell many people. It is, like he said, a bit of a downer. But also..." He studies Steve speculatively. "We don't want anyone to feel sorry for us. This shaped us, of course, but we are not our trauma and you don't need to break out the emotional first aid. That ship sailed a long time ago." His hand turns up in Steve's general direction, "That said, I absolutely want some vodka and a caring bearhug." Lucien hesitates, a confusing conflict of emotions briefly flickering in him before they, too, are quashed. "I think," he allows, slow and reluctant, "that it is helpful to hear, all the same. I went through -- a considerable amount of therapy as a child rather squarely aimed at drilling into me that my body was not my own and my feelings were incorrect and ought to take second place to how people wanted me to behave. I think -- even now I am still untangling..." Here he hesitates, head bowing and his fingers squeezing hard against the thermos. "Apologies," he says again, when he collects words together once more. "I think I would like --" Matt, at least, can feel the keen spike of need that tries to break free, is viciously stamped back down. "-- a drink," is all he finishes. "That's an awful thing to teach a child, and they're wrong." Steve is frowning again, shaking his head. "Don't guess that helps you cope with the unreasonable expectations on your behavior now, with the show and all." He shakes his head again as if to clear it. "Alright. Vodka. And I'll join you for some scotch." He starts to rise, but then just slides himself off the couch and onto the floor, still plenty tall enough to scoop Matt into a tight embrace without making him stand up. There's a flutter of something over Matt's features that probably only Lucien can identify as more anger. "They tell a lot of lies and do a lot of harm in the name of making autistic kids less--visibly autistic." When Steve stoops he gives a quiet laugh and finally does just lever himself out of the chair and onto the floor with the two other men. He leans into Steve and gives his brother just the smallest tug along with him. "It's more or less the standard for autistic children." Lucien tenses at the small tug, and almost begins leaning into the embrace -- but stands abruptly, disappearing into the kitchen. The quiet clink of bottles and glasses soon follows.