Logs:Involved

Involved
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Lucien, Matt	2020-11-07 "You were right about the cancer."
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. The bœuf bourguignon has been in the slow cooker all day and the house smells warm and savory and autumnal for it. The shifting oceanic strains of Johannes Brahms's Opus 77 play softly over the sound system, swelling at times to near-violence before receding for a time to soothing calm. Matt has settled himself in his armchair, from which he's been absent much of the day, though it does not now look likely he'll want to rise from it anytime soon even if the dog hadn't curled solicitously around his feet. He's freshly showered, his head bare to show the soft velvety fuzz of hair just starting to grow back in, wearing a white t-shirt with green text reading "Welcome! Everything is fine." and ancient blue jeans quite tattered at the cuffs, both hanging loose on his unhealthily thin frame. He looks sick and exhausted and pale, and perhaps should not be drinking before he's eaten, but has a glass of chilled vodka within his reach all the same. The book in his lap is a well-loved paperback copy of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, but he hasn't opened it. Only runs his fingertips slowly over the worn fore-edge. Lucien has been curled up in the corner of the couch for a short while with phone and his own glass of vodka, in cream poplin button-down and camel twill trousers. The deep frown he's been wearing has only cemented itself in place the longer he scrolls through his phone, and the intermittent crack-pops of fireworks shooting outside do not appear to be helping. The only faint crack of relief comes at the latest of Many Buzzes from his phone; he rearranges his expression into something closer to neutrality before he goes to get the front door, beating both the dog and the doorbell. On the doorstep in the darkness outside, Joshua has just been tucking his phone back into his pocket and lifting a hand toward the doorbell. He stops short when the door opens, bobbing his head in silent hello. He looks plain and neat today; grey slacks and white button-down. "Thanks." Quiet, as he slips inside and takes off his shoes. Draws in a small breath. "Hope I'm not interrupting dinner." Matt had looked up from the cover of his book, but subsides back into his seat when his brother rises to answer to door. The smile that rises to his face when their guest enters is warm if weary. "You are not interrupting--though you are certainly welcome to join us for beef bourguignon if you like." He sets the book aside on the arm of his chair. "Pray have a seat. I hope you have had a restful day, despite funeral duties, and thank you ever so much for coming by." His head dips slightly. "I know you have been even more busy than usual." "Certainly not. We have plenty to share. Plenty of alcohol, too," Lucien is glancing briefly past Joshua as another whizz-crack briefly illuminates the sky outside, "as that seems to be the mood for the day." He locks the door behind the other man, drifting back to the living room. "-- your usual schedule sets a high enough bar for busy, no?" Joshua pads after Lucien, moving to sink down into the armchair opposite Matt's. "Guess I stay busy." A small shrug of one shoulder. He eyes the glasses of vodka a little wistfully, but shakes his head. "Probably should hold off on that until I'm not --" His hands tighten against his knees, eyes flicking to Matt. Bluntly, "You were right about the cancer." Matt's eyebrows lift ever so slightly. "Oh, dear. And I do usually love being right." This with a wan smile as his power sweeps out, curling more tightly into Lucien's and feeling carefully around Joshua's current set of abilities, slipping comfortably into the familiar grooves of Eloise's healing and groping aimlessly for the other. "What puzzles me is how I did not sense it, before. Is it--some sort of biokinesis that can also affect perception?" Lucien's mouth compresses. His eyes flick to Matt. Then to his glass -- which he picks up again, taking a large swallow of vodka. Joshua exhales a quiet breath as Lucien reaches for the glass. Shakes his head again, and leans back in the chair. Whatever Gaétan's power, it is quiet just now, buried somewhere in the background memory of his body. "No. Or -- yeah. It could. Could do a lot of shit, I doubt I'm anywhere near mapping out the possibilities. It is a biokinesis, and it controls genetic makeup." Matt does not reply at once. His expression does not change at once. His eyes do lose focus for a moment, though they fix again on Joshua in but a fraction of a second. "Osie de calisse de tabernak," he breathes, finally. "So then, the first thing he figured out how to make was...lymphoma." This isn't a question. "But he could..." His face pales suddenly, his hand flying to his mouth and his eyes to Lucien. "My gods. That's--" Lucien lowers his glass to his knee. This time he doesn't look at Matt; his brows furrow, gaze turned down to the vodka before lifting to Joshua. His forefinger taps lightly against the side of the glass, and it takes a moment before he asks, quiet, "Can you unmake it?" "Don't know if he figured out very much. Lotta random gene mutations won't do anything. A lot -- cancer." Joshua tips his eyes up to the ceiling. His hands uncurl from his knee, then curl back down again. He's slow to answer, his words careful when they do come. "In theory, I think he could. Don't know how. Yet." Matt isn't getting any less pale, but he does seem to recover his powers of speech in short order. "Of course it wasn't intentional, but..." His fingers press down on the cover of Neverwhere. "He's manage to give three people the same cancer. It knows how to make a pattern, even if it's unconscious." He scrubs a hand over his face. "Well. Lucky thing I wasn't planning on getting cancer again for a while, then." His head shakes slow. "And we have a direction, now." "Can you learn? Can he learn? Is there something we can do to assist the process?" Lucien starts to lift his glass but only gets halfway before he lowers it back to his knee. His voice is soft and even as ever, but his mind is undergoing a complicated series of rearrangements in its careful control. "Can we pay you for your time, at least? This seems a bit more involved than some." Joshua looks back to Lucien with wider eyes, a startled lift of brows. "Huh." He sits forward in the chair, leaning down with his elbows propped on knees. "Has been a little --" he starts to admit, but then just nods. "Be a help if you did. Can teach Gae in the meantime. Hopefully stop spreading it, at least, while I -- learn." He lifts a hand, rubbing it at the back of his neck. "There's something else. Unrelated." Matt's power gradually loosens its hold on Lucien's as his composure returns more fully. "I'm sure that I could assist you, even if getting our schedules to line up is likely to be a bitch for a while." The corner of his mouth twitches with an abortive smile. "More or less involved, the school really ought to be paying you for this sort of thing, anyway. But thank you, it's...obviously a bit of an involved situation for us particularly." His eyes fix keen and unblinking on Joshua. His head tilts ever so slightly. "Something else? Please, do tell." "I have no sway over whether the school compensates you for the multifarious ways you help them but certainly we need not echo their oversight." Lucien does swallow down more of his vodka, now. Quirks a brow at Joshua, curious. "Steve's hand. Been fucked a long time." Joshua turns his own hands up, then drops them back to his knees. "I could fix it. Not as it is, but from a fresh wound. Just -- don't really know the man well enough to know if it bothers him. Or make that kinda offer." He gets to his feet, glancing back to Matt. "I'll leave you to your dinner. Be in touch about that schedule?" Matt's eyebrows raise up. "I think it would freak him out, but that he'd probably much rather be freaked out than leave it as it is or take his chances with gods know how many surgeries. Probably Luci is the best one to float that with him." His expression softens fractionally, enough to make it suddenly striking that he had been tensed all this time. "I'll text you."