Logs:Many Times, Many Ways

Many Times, Many Ways
Dramatis Personae DJ, Matt, Sera
In Absentia	Christmas "I was kind of expecting Christmas to just be... Well. Not this."
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. It's a damp and rainy Christmas, but at least the rain has washed away the disgusting gray slush clinging to the curbsides. The Tessiers haven't gone all-out on their Christmas decorating, but there's more than just the perfunctory tree and stockings here. A holly wreath graces the front door, and evergreen garlands--twined with tasteful white fairy lines, punctuated with golden bells and red velvet ribbons--have been strung up along the walls of the common areas. The holiday playlist has been carefully curated and is low on overplayed earworms without leaving out beloved classics altogether, evened out with some non-Christmasy but nevertheless seasonal picks like "Winter Is" from Ryan Black's new album. Supper was long and sumptuous and the revelers are recovering in preparation for an equally luxurious dessert, a crackling fire in the living room inviting leisure. Matt has been helping to clean up after the meal, or at least had tried until gently but competently edged out. Though the long ordeal of his illness and treatment still shows in his too-thin frame, he's moving more confidently all the time. He does not look so very well today, though that might be a function of the bright red sweater he wears (dotted with white snowflakes and centering three rows of white text reading "FAB YULE OUS") making him look paler than he actually is. He comes into the living room with a mug of eggnog cradled against his chest and goes to turn the log in the fireplace before sinking down into his armchair. DJ is sitting on the floor by the coffee table, not looking particularly festive in thick dark corduroys and a ribbed cream sweater. He's leaning up against the side of a small black and white goat (more festive than he is in a bright red bell-collar and elaborately tied ribbon bow around her neck.) The doe is currently inquisitively nosing over his shoulder in an attempt to lip at a playing card in his hand, a picture of a turkey vulture on its face. The rest of the Wingspan box is open on the table, though he's currently just riffling through some of the cards with a wide-eyed interest. "You can't have this," he murmurs quiet to the goat, and, when she transfers her idle chewing toward his empty sleeve, reaches over to tug that out of her mouth too. "-- you can't have that either." He glances up with a small smile when Matt returns, lowering his stack of cards to his lap. "The illustrations on these are beautiful." Sera had fled upstairs for a while after the meal, but now descends the stairs tentatively, clutching a new hardbound book entitled A Universe of Wishes in fanciful script over an illustrated congeries of vaguely mystical looking items -- a skull, a sword, a key, a crown, all orbiting a full moon. Her outfit, too, is brand new: a gray raglan shirt with green sleeves, sturdy medium blue denim overalls, and dark blue socks decorated with snowmen. She pokes her head into the dining room, then drifts into the living room and drops down to sit cross-legged by the hearth, her back to the fire and her bright green eyes fixed with undisguised curiosity on the game DJ is examining. "They look like the pictures from those field guides," she says, though her gaze is straying to the nest and the pastel egg game pieces. She's slightly hesitant but nonetheless hopeful when she asks, "Do you want to play it? The table's almost clear..." Matt mirrors DJ's smile, the fierce if fleeting sorrow behind it easy to miss but harder to keep from Sera's senses. He cups his mug with both hands and huddles around it. "They got professional...avian illustrators?" His thin brows crinkle momentarily. "Bird artists -- for that authentic Audubon flavor, but it is really just an impeccably designed game all around, from crunch to fluff." Another ripple of pain passes through him, and he deliberately slows his breathing, eyes darting to Sera and offering her a slightly apologetic wince. "I'm certainly game if you are, whether or not any of the others might be tempted." DJ sets the cards back in the box, turning just a little so that he can rub at the goat's nubbly head. "Well, they did a good job." The smile he gives Sera when she arrives is brighter, a genuine warmth dispelling some of the previous exhaustion he'd been feeling. "Oh -- yeah, I'd like that. Maybe when Lucien's back, if he -- I don't actually know if he's into games." His brows knit, here, something twisting quick and uncomfortable inside him. "Thank you," he adds, quieter. "I was kind of expecting Christmas to just be..." His head shakes. "Well. Not this." Sera's attempts to keep her power drawn in close meet with mixed success at best, and the others can intermittently feel her anxiety, her sadness, and her reluctant excitement. This last flares significantly less reluctant at DJ's assent, though admittedly she's not trying very hard to disguise her pleasure at the prospect, and it's difficult not to get excited with her, even knowing it is only the draw of her power at work. "Oh, I think he'd like this --" she starts, then breaks off, her dismay sharp and sudden but not wholly displacing her joy. She meets Matt's glance, a little helplessly. "Sorry. I'm glad you came, though," she tells DJ earnestly, a distant sigh of loneliness beneath her gratitude. "What would you have..." She bites her lip, then re-routes to, "Where are you even staying right now?" Matt does not resist being drawn along with Sera's excitement, but though bright and sincere his smile hitches for just an instant, a complicated swirl of grief and solace and sheer, blinding fury rushing through him and into Sera. But when their eyes meet, his power power curls around hers and gently eases the process struggling to align her biochemistry with those around her, quieting the roar of information without shutting it off entirely. "He likes some games," he replies abstractly, his eyes lingering on the open Wingspan box, "I do think he might rather like this one." His gaze flicks up to DJ, then down to the goat. "We hoped we might offer some normalcy, or at least some warmth," he says softly, the tenderness of his words and tone not at all matching the complex snarl in his mind--half-formed impulses bound and guided with a cold, decisive will. "I cannot imagine these last few days have been easy for you." "I'm glad, too," DJ assures Sera as he sits up, collecting the game box together and glancing toward the dining room. "Probably don't have to tell you how nice it is spending time with -- a friend." He doesn't move to the larger table yet. Just dips his head with a small wince, a quiet exhale; his answer of "Nowhere, really," sounds a little distant, another twinge of discomfort fluttering through his borrowed excitement. He looks down at the goat, a flush of pink in his cheeks. "I guess I should change that with Ophelia here now. She only likes the cold in small doses." The smile he gives Matt after this is just a little crooked. "Well," the quiet amusement in his voice is not, at all, present in his mental landscape, "I'm not at war, so there's that." Sera nods, curling around her book in perhaps unconscious imitation of Matt's posture around his cup. "I mean, it's not like I've been..." Her power fluctuates wildly against Matt's as a wave of guilt hits her hard, echoing only mild and distant to the two men. "It's lovely here and everything, but -- yeah." She licks her lips, her solace and startled pride only barely sensible to the others. "A friend." Her head tilts, her eyes widening at DJ. "Are you just --" Her brows furrow with concern that spills out from her despite Matt's mediating influence. "-- but it's been so cold!" "I don't think it's at all amiss that you should feel lonely--either of you, no matter what other circumstances." Matt's eyes go wider, too, his hand lifting to his lips before he deliberately drops it again. "I appreciate, to the extent I can, that it is not a simple matter," his voice is gentle and calm, though the roil of emotions beneath it is racked with misery, "but our offer of a place to stay is still open--for you and for Ophelia. I am sure that Luci can help you find a place of your own in short order, but equally sure that will be easier to accomplish after the holidays." He lowers his gaze and lifts his mug without sipping from it. "We can afford you as much privacy as you prefer, in the meantime. The basement is a separate unit all its own." "I'm pretty good at taking care of myself. I just -- didn't want to be a bother." There's a brief moment of inner conflict before DJ accedes, "-- I should take you up on that, though. Phee won't like getting rained on." He returns to scratching the goat idly, eyes tracking back to Sera. "What have you been doing? I mean -- what will you do? Are you -- going to do school now that there isn't..." Reflexively, he glances toward the windows, some habitual vigilance there that he has to press back down. "You can do that here, right?" "I think it'd be great if you stayed here," Sera chirps, then adds, abashed, "but I wouldn't bug you or anything..." She studies Matt, thoughtful, though whatever she's feeling now is quiet enough through the adjustment to her powers that its pull is hard to sense. "I -- haven't been going to school, yet. But I'd like to..." Her ambivalence at that is easy enough to sense. "I think maybe Xavier's will still be easier, just...I don't know." Her homesickness comes so abrupt and overwhelming that her breath catches, even if its impact on the others is dulled. She stares fixedly at Ophelia. "Can I pet her? I know she'll try to eat my hand, I don't mind." "Certainly Xavier's is far from perfect, and knowing it as I do I cannot wholeheartedly recommend it but..." Matt's shrug is faintly fatalistic. "...at the least you won't get in official trouble for your power misfiring." His friendly-neutral expression speaks nothing of the nightmarishly complex machine of his compassion beneath it. "We weren't using the space, anyway," he assures DJ. "We can discuss it further with Luci, of course--" And here he manages a small smile, "--over a game of Wingspan, perhaps."