Logs:Registers

Registers
Dramatis Personae Jax, Lucien, Steve	2021-12-06 "I'm with you, to the end of the line."
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 is Monday, and that means things are getting delicious in the Tessier household; there's been cooking underway a good part of the day, the freezer now well stocked for the coming week's meals. Today's food is still in process, though the smoked kabocha squash is already filling the kitchen with a sweet-smokey smell. For once Lucien is sharing his kitchen duties, and if he has been at all put out about another cook working while he does the prospect of Jax's cooking is, perhaps, enough to mollify him. He's left the greens and potatoes and tofu to the other man while he adds lemon and raspberry filling to a waiting pie crust. Or, at least, that's what he's attempting to do; a slip of the hand, a softly hissed curse, and there's lemon custard spilling all across the counter. Lucien's attempts at dessert are put briefly on hold while, flustered, he's frozen, indecisive, between cleaning up the counter and cleaning up the thick glop of lemon that's sloshed onto his henley. "You should be glad we ain't on no Master Chef," Jax chirrups brightly, dampening a towel and flitting across the counter to help wipe -- first at the shirt! -- "cuz I'd be trouncin' you my tofu's in the oven already. Your mind been a million miles away since the squash gone in, sugar." Dab, dab -- it's not perfect but at least his shirt is just looking damp now and not pornographic. Jax turns his attention to the counter next. Half his attention, anyway, a slightly-concerned eye cast to Lucien. "Gotta be somethin' big weighing on you if it's more important than pie." The front door opens and closes, and a moment later Steve appears in the kitchen doorway in a red canvas jacket, a black t-shirt that reads NEVER AGAIN in blocky yellow text, and crisp blue jeans, his shield (the star at its center changed into a snowflake) slung over one shoulder. "Hey." This as his eyes tick from Jax to Luci to the counter to the pie-in-progress. "Hope I haven't interrupted any crucial salvage operations, but whatever's cooking smells amazing." "Eugh." It's hard to say whether this sound of disgust comes at the feeling of sticky custard on his fingers or at being tended to; Lucien is eyeing both lemon filling and Jackson balefully. Still, his, "thank you," once his shirt is cleaned is quiet and sincere enough. He's inspecting the amount of custard left in the bowl and the amount that made it into the pie tin, critically and with a very slight sag of shoulders. "You are rather the expert at rescuing disastrous situations." He slides both bowl and tin toward Jackson, hesitating a faint but noticeable moment when Steve arrives but continuing all the same. "-- perhaps you could advise me on both of mine." His head dips in greeting to Steve, and he goes to wash his hands off with a visible relief. "Much easier to make more raspberry topping an' fill it out that way," is Jax's assessment. "It'll still be delicious, don't you worry -- hey, sugar." This is with an upward tip of his chin to Steve. "What other disasters you been having?" Once it looks like the present disaster is contained enough that he isn't likely to get in the way, Steve skirts the main staging areas of food prep and enscounces himself at the breakfast nook. Pale blue eyes flick to Luci again, appraising. "Disasters." He clicks his tongue softly. "Never rains but it pours." He looks at the pie filling left in the bowl. Back up at Luci. "None -- yet." Lucien is returning to the stove, to start melting down more raspberries and into compote. "But from the rumours I've been hearing, soon we all will be having some. Evidently, DHS has finally gotten its act together with regards to Registration. I've no idea when it will hit the news, but from what I am hearing, early next year it's slated to go into effect." Jax looks up, frozen mid-wipe where he's been cleaning up the counter. His already pale skin has gone a shade whiter, knuckles tight around his towel. It's a long moment before he speaks. "... 'ppreciate your faith in me, honey-honey, but I think that level of disaster's a bit above my pay grade." Steve shrugs off the harness strap for his shield and lowers it gently to lean against the leg of his chair. He blinks a few times at the answer, nonplussed. Then suddenly his eyes widen. "Oh. Oh, gosh. It's been so long, I thought maybe the new administration -- of course not, why would they?" Here he frowns, looks down at the table top in front of him. "Well. Shit." "Oh, I think Registration is a foregone conclusion, by now." There's just a touch of bitterness in Lucien's voice, here. His eyes are fixed down on his slowly cooking compote as he adds a touch of maple syrup. A bit of arrowroot. A dash of Grand Marnier. "I admit, that after that whole -- otherworldly ordeal, last year --" His lips press just a touch thinner. "Registration is bad enough in itself, but I have my concerns not just with where it starts, but where it is heading. I gather they began much the same way, you know." Jax's hands are just scrunching at his towel, now, tighter and looser, tighter and looser. "I mean," he says, slow and glum, "they're halfway there already. Ain't none of us want war, though." A beat of hesitation. "-- okay, not most of us. It wouldn't be but a hop-skip and a jump to starting to round us all up as terrorists though and after that --" His weight slumps heavy against his forearms. "S'pose this'll make it jus' that much easier for them to -- well. A whole lotta things. Gosh, y'all, I thought I was tired before but --" There's a faint ripple of shadow in the air around him. Steve is still frowning. His jaw tightens hard at Jax's speculations. Or predictions. Looks back up, eyes settling on Luci. "Yeah, that -- that's what I heard, too." His eyes flick to Jax, and he swallows once. Gets up and goes to where he is not-cleaning the counter. "Hey. Let me finish that up. I know it's not what you meant, but. Might be good to sit a spell, yeah?" It's not quite his Carebear voice, but it's related. He offers a hand for the towel. Glances back at Luci. "Afraid I can't help you with the pie even if you'd want me to. "Or with the --" His brows furrow yet deeper. "Can I? Even if there's no stopping this step along that road, when I yell about something, people do tend to at least listen." "I can hardly fault you for being tired; you've been in this fight quite a long while, and it only ever seems to get harder." Lucien glances over to Steve, turns one hand upward. "I feel that is a question better left to those with more to lose. Whatever the fact of my genes, I am hardly likely to be first on the gallows when they decide to crackdown on terrorists, or dissidents, or dangerous mutants, or whatever angle they decide to come at this from." Jax still isn't cleaning the counter, and he relinquishes the towel to Steve without a fight, though he doesn't move from where he's frozen braced hard against the countertop. "Tell you the truth, I been expecting some kinda hammer to fall for ages. Alla this feels so monumental to us, s'been our whole world for so long, but -- if tomorrow they was like, hey, these people are dangerous, we decided were gonna boot them all out the country, or lock them all up, or kill them, you think there'd be an outcry? Over, what, some tiny fraction of a percent of people most nobody ever thinks about except as some kinda boogeyman?" The air around him shivers again, darker, this time. "Do you think we been making it worse? Be so easy to point to what we do as some kinda justification -- though," he's already correcting himself, "ain't like they needed to give one." Steve bows his head. "No." He takes the towel and gives Jax's shoulder a gentle squeeze with his other hand. "No, I suppose not." His eyes fix on the counter that he is scrubbing a bit harder than probably necessary for a recent and water-soluble spill. "Propagandists looking for a scapegoat will cast as wide a net around 'terrorist' as they need. If they couldn't find actual freedom fighters somehow, any activist -- no matter how meek and law-abiding -- would do." A quick sharp shake of his head as he folds the towel over to a clean side. "Those kinds of nets have a way of getting wider." "I think," Lucien replies, carefully, "that the lion's share of the battle when it comes to image is spinning it first." He tips his hand toward Steve, then returns to stirring his pot slowly. "Terrorists or heroes, you'll certainly be labeled something when someone decides it's useful to their ends to break the story. And from there --" He lets this hang as he focuses on his dessert. Jax slumps down onto one of the stools at the counter, elbows propped on the countertop now and his forehead pressed to a palm. "We shoulda been gettin' out ahead'a this long ago. Before this last raid, before Dawson, before -- nnngh. Been talkin' with Ryan 'bout how we just. Can't keep this fight up like this forever and -- obviously it's too late to put no brakes on Registration if we go public with the government's torture project but maybe we can stop it snowballin'." The heel of his hand digs in against his eye. "... maybe I can grow old with at least some of my team an' that won't be nothin'." Steve rinses the towel out, quiet. Wrings it dry, still quiet. Stiffens for just a fraction of a second, and it's hard to say whether it's in response to 'last raid' or 'Dawson'. It's only after this, leaning back against a counter out of Lucien's way, that he speaks again. "There should be an outcry no matter who exposed Prometheus, but then -- there should be an outcry about a lot of atrocities." He frowns again. "Say you do control the narrative, what's to stop the government outright denying it?" His hand sweeps in the air, an exaggerated gesture of dismissal. "You shouldn't have to prove what happened to you, just a lot of folks won't be eager to believe you even with evidence. But, your team's been doing this so long, there must be something..." "Even with all the evidence in the world, we will need the correct -- palatable -- people to sell it." Now Lucien is looking at Steve, if briefly, a critical appraisal in his gaze. His voice is softer when he adds to Jax: "You will have to prove it, though. Over and over again, most likely." "Evidence we've got piles of." Jax's nose wrinkles. His shoulders hitch in a small shrug. "Pretty sure at least some of it might be some kinda crime to let out but we got it, sure enough. What we don't got --" Both his hands turn up, spread out to the other two men. "Is good PR." He drops his hands back to the counter. "I should talk to my folks. See if people are -- willin' to come forward about this. But if they are, an' y'all are in our corner -- that'd be. Huge." "Captain America was created to make the hard sell." Steve braces his hands back against the edge of the counter he's leaning on. "Then as now, I'm willing to risk far more than dodging some rotten vegetables. But if my cachet might help shut this monstrosity down?" He straightens up and squares his shoulders, looking suddenly formidable even without the uniform and the shield. "That's worth a heck of a lot more than any number of war bonds." He nods decisively. "I'm with you, to the end of the line."