Logs:Madness
| Madness | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-12-30 "You hear the news? 'Bout your mother?" |
| Location
<NYC> Belfry - Le Bonne Entente - Astoria - Queens | |
Atop the imposing bell tower, this space is partially open to the air for the sake of acoustics. The wildlife displaced by renovations have been returning by slow, cautious degrees, like the family of ravens that have taken up residence amongst the architectural ornamentation and the bats roosting in the cavernous space overhead. The old cathedral's bells have been restored and reinstalled there, and though--luckily for the bats' eardrums--they are not currently in use, they do add excellent ambience for the select few with both access and cause to come up here. Clearly someone does, for more than just routine cleaning and maintenance. A row of archery targets are bolted to hard points in the floor. Opposite these, a bench has been installed a moderately safe distance from the edge, framed by the columns and the arch. If admiring the view from the comfort of the bench isn't enough, a fixed ladder meant for accessing the bells also provides a way out to the tower's roof and a much more expansive and perilous vista. It's grown very late, by now. It probably should be cold, this high up, and indeed with the wind it's a good deal colder than on the ground, but it's certainly very far from what a midnight December chill ought to be. The new moon is giving no particular illumination, but there are several soft lights offering a gentle glow. Lucien's phone gives a harsher one, blue and cold where he is tucked in a corner of a bench. There's a bow propped up on the seat beside him -- not one of his that Fury has seen before; this one seems more elegant than practical, a somewhat ethereal-looking thing wrapped in fine threads of some silk whose color is difficult to quite place. The quiver leaning against the arm of the bench is of a silk to match; the arrows inside are a mix of fine woods and fletched with a wide variety of feathers, not all easily identifiable. Beside it, Lucien himself is looking only slightly more prosaic, in an emerald button-up shirt in a soft peached fabric, its upturned cuffs linked with what looks like a single hematite sphere bisected by the fine fabric, black slacks of the same make, loose enough to allow a comfortable range of motion, and soft grey suede boots. The silk scarf draped (aesthetically, rather than for any warmth) around his shoulders does bear a strong resemblance to the silk wrapped around his bow, though, and despite its extremely gauzy-light texture is clinging to him rather than blowing in the wind. He's been very engrossed in replying to a string of emails; whatever their contents it has put a certain tightness around his mouth and eyes that is not much alleviated by the latest glass of Scotch he is drinking. There have been several targets set up -- judging by the holes punched in them already it's been a very erratic night for archery, a number of bullseyes but an equal number of very wide-wild shots. One single arrow remains even farther afield, impaled overhead in a crossbeam. There the's the thud of heavy boots behind the door of the access stairwell, which shortly opens to disgorge one tired irate Director of SHIELD. Fury is dressed in his black duster, black dress shirt, black slacks, black combat boots, and, of course, a black eyepatch. So this is where you and Barton cozy up to hatch your plans against me." It does not help his deadpan tone that he is breathing a little heavily -- there were a lot of stairs between the storage area and here. "Like you crazy motherfuckers ain't got enough shooting ranges." He pulls open the flap of his duster as he approaches Lucien. "Well, I come to shoot, too." "Please. Do not be ridiculous." Lucien has not looked up from his phone as Fury arrives. "We cozy up to hatch our plans against you one floor down, where there is proper psi-shielding. Here is where we come to celebrate when they go off successfully. There is an elevator, you know." As Fury approaches he is offering up his Scotch and moving his bow off of the bench. "I was teaching Jackson. The depth perception is an issue but I believe he found it quite cathartic all the same. What," only now is he closing his email and glancing up. "What is in your sights, tonight?" Fury scoffs. "I don't like them fright elevators. I especially don't like em where I haven't had the chance to check them out and I wasn't in the mood." His ill humor seems to ebb with a little the offer of Scotch. The brush of his skin is a tumult of annoyance, worry, frustration, anger, disappointment, intrigue, all underlaid by the fraying exhaustion of a hectic day, by the pain in his shoulders and jaw and back, his shoulders and knees throbbing anticipation of a change in weather. "You mother. You hear the news? 'Bout your mother?" He reluctantly eases himself down to sit on the bench. "That hearing wasn't even five minutes, they didn't hear shit." "Mmm. I suppose it will not reassure you to remind you that my security here is quite competent." Having turned the glass of Scotch over to Fury, Lucien is picking up the entire decanter at the mention of his mother. He takes a large slug, his voice a little tighter than its usual. "I heard. She has a remarkable facility for weaseling out of consequences." "Your security'll answer to your your dastardly plans," Fury points out without vitriol. "'Sides, they probably busy. I understand there's been an uptick in violence hereabout over the last week, and I'm starting to think that might be connected..." He clenches his jaw tight,tosses back a swallow of whisky. "Well, turns out it ain't just cuz she's got a silver tongue. You know what the Inner Circle is." This is not a question. I steady tryna infiltrate them without no success, one of my agents found some travel patterns, some her personal investments before Toure bit it." He stands up again, pacing restlessly. "That's got to be how she was granted bail at all. She's the queen of that rotten little chess club and she got that judge in her pocket." "I could hardly have worked at Hellfire all those years and not heard the rumours," Lucien is acknowledging with a small tip of his head. His brows are pulling in just a smidge, a faint wrinkle troubling his forehead as he takes another gulp of the alcohol. "Pardon, you are telling me that my mother has been --" He cuts this question short with another swallow of his drink. "-- they are not just rumours, then." "Not a rumor," Fury confirms, grimly. "If she ain't the leader she sure is someone pretty high up. But it makes sense, don't it? That's how she got so big so fast, where her seemingly endless funding from, why permits and ordinance just fall into her lap." He throws up his empty hand. "You know I suspected you for years, and it weren't just on account of your job. Ionno who it was before she got out Prometheus -- and honestly the more I look into that the less sense it makes -- but at least for the last few months, it's been her." His lips compress. "She had Rasheed Toure killed. I knew I couldn't trust that bitch." "It all seemed a bit far-fetched -- but then, if this past year has taught me anything it is to be worlds more expansive in my notion of the plausible." Lucien sets the decanter back on the table in front of him. His hand shifts to the side, resting on the arm of the bench; where his fingers hang over the edge he is trailing a fingertip lightly against an iridescent green-blue feather fletching one of his arrows. "You did trust her, though. About me." This doesn't sound like an argument, and whatever hurt this fact held months ago has bled away from Lucien's affect -- his voice is just something of an idle musing, here. "-- you are quite certain of this? If even a fraction of what I have heard of them is true, that is a good deal of power she is wielding." Fury's face twists at first into what was likely going to be an objection but he subsides, and after another moment still ends up saying, "I didn't trust her, exactly. I knew she was lying about something, but everybody lies, and..." He frowns deep. Drinks even deeper. "Just didn't seem all that important in the bigger scheme of things, what with two of her kids missing. She got a certain way of putting folks at ease, and that should've set off alarms in my head." He shakes his head, scoffs. "Ain't nothing in this world for sure, but it was Barton who put it together. She needs to go away, for a long time, and I'm sure we can dig up something else on her. And tell your goddamn brother to leave off." "I thought I was making some headway with Matthieu." There's no disappointment in Lucien's voice, but his shoulders have tightened. His thumb brushes very slow and very gentle along the edge of the feather. "-- between the lot of us I am sure we could dig up quite a bit, but --" His eyes track quickly to Fury here, and then away. He picks up the decanter and takes another swallow. He leans forward after this to refill Fury's cup, and sinks back in the bench. He turns the elegant decanter one way and then another, watching small shimmers of pale light shift wan against his leg. "-- I do tend to imagine there are always alarms setting off in your head." "Well, maybe you can tell him she's the goddamn -- Red Queen or whatever." Fury's grousing is gradually settling hack toward the kind of comfortable complaining he always does. "Though based on the charging documents, I'd half a suspicion he ratted her out." He sinks down beside Lucien, bracing his elbows on his thighs. "Not always. It goes quiet when I'm just drunk enough. When you're -- when we're fucking." He swallows, and chases it with a big gulp of whisky. "And when I'm around her." Lucien lightly clinks his decanter against Fury's glass in answer to this. "She does have a certain way of putting people at ease." His tone is pensive. He's silent for a time after, twirling one of his arrows slowly in the quiver and giving a long contemplation to his bottle. "-- an unfortunate juxtaposition," he finally decides, very mildly. "Please tell me you have not gotten drunk and slept with my mother." A small pause, and an equally mild: "Matthieu recently did much the same with my father and that was already more entanglement than I was prepared for." Despite his complaining, he is subtly adjusting his posture, leg shifting to just lightly bump up against Fury's. "Well. If ever you do need a break from the madness," his eyes are just a little wider, his tone just a little more earnest, "-- you know I always have plenty of alcohol." "He what?" Fury's outrage is comfortable and rote and possibly not even all that surprised. "I been known he a ho, but damn. You want to get back at him, you can always tell Mister Black." His next sip is slow, his next sidelong glance opaque. "It weren't the same, with your ma. I was just tryna comfort her, seeing how distraught she was with her kids missing and all." He says this in an excessively reasonable tone that suggests he does not think Lucien will be quite as reasonable about it. "Now, if I'd known at the time she was a criminal mastermind, I'd've taken full advantage of her distress." He heaves a small sigh at his own unhelpful hindsight. "You gotta tell me more about this deadbeat of yours sometime." His eyes track to the decanter in Lucien's hand, then linger long Lucien himself through his next long swallow of whisky. He sets his glass aside very deliberately. "Mister Tessier, you are your own special brand of madness." Lucien, mid-swallow of Scotch, spluttercoughs on his next drink. He is still clearing his throat, blinking slightly watery eyes at Fury. "Director Fury!" has a tone of almost comical scandal. "I did not genuinely think you -- did you really -- did she really --" This wanes by the time he is done dabbing at his eyes and takes a few slow breaths. His fingers are curling tight against the decanter, and he takes a proper drink before he sets it aside. He rests his hand on Fury's knee, palm-upward. "I am starting to feel like my whole life is its own special brand of madness." "Like I said, she got a certain way." Fury does not look embarrassed or ashamed, but the fact he is not vociferously objecting to Lucien's reaction or even performatively irritated by it probably says something. "Maybe she seduced me in some Machiavellian bid to get me on her side, I got no idea and hopefully I never will. But if it weren't for her, I mighta never got over myself. About us." He looks down at Luciens' hand and hesitates a long moment before covering it with his own. The touch of his skin, warm and calloused, comes with a crushing torrent of desire and affection and fear, impossible to untangle and nearly drowning out his ever-present pain and weariness. His other hand lifts, also kind of hesitantly, to Lucien's jaw, rough fingertips turning the younger man to face him fully. "You feel like taking a break from that?" Lucien's touch comes with an immediate and reflexive soothing, the aches and weariness slipping quietly away. His eyes have lowered, fixing on Fury's calloused hand as his own (neatly manicured) curls up around it. He does not say anything, now, but the tumbling rush of euphoria that rushes in a dizzying flood through Fury's senses probably speaks loudly enough on its own. | |
