Logs:Ten Moments, Ten Years

Ten Moments, Ten Years
cn: depictions of child abuse, homelessness, referenced transactional sex by a minor, drug use, homophobic slur, terminal illness (cancer)
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Matt
In Absentia	a long decade "{I don't have to imagine.}" (a duet: contralto, treble, & soprano here)
Location together, and not
march 2006 "He shoots..." the announcer cries, ecstatic, "...he scores! What a brilliant wrist shot, right in the..." "You little faggot!" Paul roars as he storms into the living room, heedless of the goal that's just bumped the Habs into the lead on their TV screen. It's not always easy to tell what he's raging about, even when he is sober, but he makes a beeline for Matt and hauls the skinny teenager bodily off of the couch. "Think you're sneaky? If you weren't her firstborn you'd be out on the street." Matt was already pale but goes even paler when Paul seizes him. "I didn't do anything, Sir, I swear!" His green eyes blink up, huge and guileless, at the man towering over him. The baby cries upstairs and Paul's eyes narrow in irritation, stray drunkenly toward the stairs and the child scurrying up as quietly as she can manage. Only now does Matt start struggling, though in vain against the man's iron grip. "Unhand me, you--brute!" Lucien might have a few more muscles than Matt, but next to the full-grown man he's still a lanky scrap of a thing, considerably shorter and considerably weaker than his mother's current boyfriend. This doesn't stop him where he's just risen from the couch to trail after Paul, catching at the hand the man lifts toward his brother. Undoubtedly his grip alone wouldn't be enough to halt the swing -- but it does halt, Paul's eyes widening first in disbelief and then pain as Lucien's fingers tighten around his wrist. Lucien's hand is shaking as the man goes slack, arm falling from Matt as he thuds unceremoniously to the ground. His eyes skate toward the stairs, his lips slightly parted. His mouth works soundlessly, a moment, grasping at words that don't come until he's turned back toward his brother. "{He'll take it out on everyone if he wakes up and sees us. I don't want anything to happen to them.}" may 2007 "{How much have we got to work with?}" Matt sweeps a fall of dark hair--newly grown back out, still dull and oddly soft like an infant's--out of his eyes. "{She would love to have a new dress for the summer, but...}" He hooks his arm through Lucien's and leans heavily on him as they walk. "{I am sorry, Luci. I keep thinking, soon I will be well enough to get a job, soon.}" His slender brows furrow. "{Or at least well enough to appeal to gentleman callers.}" Lucien stops outside a store's front window, peering past his own ragged reflection to a the neatly arrayed display of tap and pointe and jazz shoes inside. "{She's got a recital coming up, too --}" There's a tense edge in his voice. He straightens slightly at Matt's side, chin just a bit set as it he lifts it slightly higher. "{All you gotta do in bed right now is sleep. I can --}" For a very brief instant his defiance falters, head bowing. Only an instant. He looks back to the window, nods to himself. "{be more appealing.}" april 2008 "-- really appreciate your understanding. He's honestly hopeless about travel details when my mom's not around, I don't know what I'd do if --" Lucien is wide-eyed, here, a slightly frazzled tumble to his words that's only a little out of sync with his neatly put-together outfit. Around him the foyer of the hotel is grand and elegant, the line of people behind him at the concierge just tipping on the verge of impatient irritation. "Oh, it's not a worry, we hadn't even turned over the room yet. We'll just extend his stay." The clerk is only too happy to turn the key over, wave Lucien along and the next customer up to the desk. He's dragging a small suitcase along behind him -- at a closer inspection, a lot more worn and beaten than his carefully selected clothing -- as he slips around to a back door. Opens it with a lift of brows, a waggle of the keycard that he's holding up like a prize. Matt has been loitering behind the hotel, chatting up a porter on break in a haze of cigarette smoke. He's dressed not nearly so sharp as his brother, yet manages to look rakish rather than slovenly. "I'll see you around, Jimmy!" he chimes pleasantly as he comes to the door, slips inside with a fey smile written on his face and his own suitcase wheeling behind him. "{My haul is not so impressive,}" he admits, mirroring Lucien's gesture with a crumpled half-pack of Newports, "{but you'll want to take advantage of the balcony, no?}" june 2009 "{What time did we tell them?}" Lucien stripped off his white gown as soon as he was properly allowed; he's pushing some foil scraps and a lighter aside beneath a stack of underwear to make room in one of the rickety drawers in this dingy motel room for him to shove the gown and mortarboard into the drawer as well. "{-- I think we even have enough to get them ice cream after.}" "{Five o' clock. We need to hurry.}" Matt, at least, doesn't need to change. He's still smartly dressed even if his presentation is less than impeccable now, his tie askew and his hair a wind-tossed mess he's trying to sort out in the bathroom mirror. "{There's enough for ice cream, but we'd best not tell Mother that.}" He gives up on his hair and collects Lucien with a light touch on the shoulder. "{Ready?}" january 2010 "{My gods, how you are meant to deliver this with a straight face I do not know.}" Matt's eyes weave over the page in front of him unsteadily, his speech low and slurred. He's shivering despite the many layers of blankets heaped on him, despite tarp set up to shield their corner of the garage from wind, despite the pallets and cardboard that insulate them from the cold concrete floor. "{Here goes.} This is the story of a story, of death and the immortality that only art can wrought, and it is mine: the boy who never grew up." His face clouds over suddenly, and he gropes about the pallet around him with frozen fingers. "{Wait...is today the 19th, or is that tomorrow?}" Lucien's own copy of the script, heavily marked up with notes, has fallen forgotten on his chest. His breathing is slow, his face a little flushed; for a moment it seems almost as though he's just fallen asleep mid-line. He does open his eyes a moment later, though, pupils small and unfocused as he vaguely-kind-of looks toward Matt. Shoves the pages off of himself to the ground and just scoots a little closer to his brother as his phone starts to chime. "{Who cares,}" he mumbles a little muzzily, "{don't need to be off book till...}" He blinks, tucks his head against Matt's side and batting at his phone irritably until its screen turns black again. "S'can wait." august 2011 Like the rest of the firetrap they've been living in, this tiny bathroom has been scrubbed as clean as is mechanically or chemically feasible, but still manages to look both dingy and washed-out in the sickly fluorescent light. Matt has been collapsed beside the toilet for some time now, his conversation rudely interrupted by yet another bout of vomiting. His pajamas hang alarmingly loose on his emaciated frame and the hand that lifts the warm, damp towel to clean off his face (again) is practically skeletal. "{My dear, this is your dream we are talking about,}" he croaks at last, raising his eyes to his brother. "{I will mend, like before. I needn't drag you down with me.}" Lucien lifts an eyebrow, his eyes flicking up to look at Matt in the mirror. "{Odd. My dreams have always included you alive in them. You would have mended quicker if --}" He cuts himself off, lips compressing and eyes briefly dipping. Over by the sink, he is very carefully running his razor in a second pass over his chin. Already in crisp slacks and undershirt, his dress shirt and jacket have been hung carefully on the rickety door. When he does look back up, it's with a wry smile as he wipes his face clean with a warm cloth. "{I don't need Juilliard. I get plenty of opportunity to hone my craft like this. Besides, if any of us are going to make it big one day, we know it's really Desi who will shine up there.}" february 2012 The realtor has been patient through Lucien's wondering inspection of the kitchen, his lengthy dawdling in the backyard; now they've been left alone, here, to poke around at their leisure. "{-- gotten quite adroit at cajoling him to spoil me, though I admit this would be a sight more lavish than most of his gifts.}" Up in the immense master bathroom, he's taken up a spot leaning against the counter between its two sinks, crisp fabric of his dress shirt rustling slightly as he folds his arms over his chest. "{But can you imagine? A tub you could actually' stretch out in?}" Luci has clearly dressed Matt today, for he actually looks for a change like the sort of man who might live in a house like this, in the heart of Greenwich Village. His expression is rapt with childlike wonder as he turns slowly in the center of the room, the glossy black tile floor reflecting his image. "{I don't have to imagine,}" he gushes, sinking down to sit on the edge of the tub in question, in which both men could easily stretch out and still leave room for more. "{Oh, Luci, this is perfect, and there's room enough for us all!}" september 2013 Lucien hasn't touched his tea, where it sits cooling on the table in front of him. What poise he often has -- on stage, with a client, when charming a guest at the Club -- does not much show through in this moment. Despite his careful coiffing, the crisp elegance of his attire, the power now in his build, he's quailed somewhat in his seat, head slightly bowed and his thumb running restless and mechanical in agitated circles against the wood. "{Neither of us are disputing they are still your children. We are still your children. I only --}" Though the tension isn't quite there in his expression, Matt can feel the careful reorganizing of his mind that takes place before he forces himself to look up. "{I make more than enough to provide for them, now. It is safer here, the schools are better, it would afford you more time and space as well -- it would be for the best for all of us.}" Though the years have treated her harshly, Elie Tessier still possesses a certain fragile beauty, and a gravity of presence that cannot all be attributed solely to the power she holds over her children's imaginations. She sits across from her sons at their dining table, her vivid green eyes unreadable. "{For the best,}" she echoes flatly. "{To leave my children with -- what. A junkie? A shameless whore?}" She scoffs, gives a gracefully dismissive wave of her hand. "{It is bad enough you stole one son from me; I'll be damned if I let more of my children follow in your footsteps.}" Matt has just lifted his mug for a sip of the fragrant Jin Xuan, but stops mid-motion and lowers it again to its coaster. "{Mother,}" his voice is saccharine yet somehow menacing, his gaze sharp with malice. His power coils tight around Lucien's, steady and bolstering. "{Odd you did not call it whoring when you put us up to it for your own profit. And you are not yourself a junky, I suppose?}" He rises slowly, bracing his palms on the tabletop and glaring down at their mother. Though he is by no means a physically imposing man, she suddenly looks a lot smaller. "{If we stole each other away it was to save us from you, and may you be damned, because we will see you in court.}" november 2014 There are candles flickering at the corners of the table, a small rock held in Lucien's hands. "{-- bring healing light and energy through him,}" Lucien is saying softly, as he reaches to drop the rock into a small cauldron between them. Or try to, at least; he startles at the honk of a cab outside, instead knocking the cauldron over to spill faintly mint-scented water across the tabletop. He regards the spreading liquid for a moment before looking across the table solemnly to his brother. "{Well. I suppose that is it. If the cancer gets you now, I take full responsibility.}" Matt is barely able to hold himself upright in his seat--several pillows have been brought in to prop him up as much comfort as possible. Both of his hands raise to his lips, hiding first his gasp and then his giggle. "{The best magic happens in the unexpected,}" he replies smoothly, dropping one hand to dip his fingers into the spilled water and draw a great spiral across the half of the table that hadn't been covered already. His smile is bright and unreserved when his eyes lift back to his brother. "{But you may be sure I will blame you vociferously when I am healed and have no more excuse to slack off.}" december 2015 Matt slept in late today, but neither his cellmate nor the guards troubled him. Hardly anyone troubles him in here, really. His movements are easy and getting stronger everyday, but he's taking his time dressing in the scrubs issued to all the lab's subjects, making his bed far more meticulously than he ever did at home, singing soft and off-key while he works. "When your feet don't touch the ground, and your voice won't make a sound..." He smooths the wrinkles from the bottom sheet before layering the top sheet and the scratchy nylon blanket over it. "Here it's safe, in this place..." Tears well up in his eyes, but he breathes through them, closing his fist around the black titanium ring they'd somehow allowed him to keep. "...above the clouds..." Lucien is shaking a soft pillow into a purple pillowcase, tucking it into place and neatly arranging it against the several other pillows at the head of the bed. "When your feet touch the ground, your voice makes a sound," His voice is soft as he works, quiet baritone steady and rich as it fills the silence of the otherwise empty house. "It tells the truth, there's no use," One thumb brushes slowly against the black ring on his middle finger as he pulls the butterfly-printed comforter into place, smoothing it out precise and careful, "-- for clouds."