Logs:Unfurgettable

Unfurgettable
Dramatis Personae DJ, Kitty, Lucien, Matt, Steve
In Absentia	2021-01-07 "Aren't you all still having a coup?"
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 cold and blustery night outside but in here it's snug and warm, plenty of mulled cider or spiced rum or tea going round together with liberal small flaky apple tarts, garlic-rosemary palmiers, chicken dumplings. Lucien, comfortably dressed in a light brown long-sleeve henley and neatly tailored dark blue jeans, is just returning from the kitchen to the (very recently re-organized) living room with freshly steamed plate of the latter together with small ramekins of sauce; he sets the dumplings down on the table, quietly but sternly looking from Steve's face to the others' to the television before dropping to a perch on the arm of the couch. "I could only hear the noises of distress. Did you get any good pictures?" Matt has not stirred from where he'd slumped exhausted into his armchair earlier, but his eyes are bright and engaged. He's wearing a seafoam green tee shirt with a gigantic white whale on the chest and ancient, comfortable blue jeans, his phone in hand. His head of newly regrown hair, too short to muss as yet, looks dully and oddly soft. He quirks an eyebrow and a smile at his brother's question. "I got a lot of pictures," he ventures, "and trust you to pick out the best. It was hard to choose, with his face doing so very many things." "His face is much better than this movie." DJ is sitting cross-legged on the floor in jeans and a lined flannel shirt, sipping at his mug of hot cider. "-- low bar, I guess. Are a lot of people really following this? Aren't you all still having a coup?" “We can follow the coup and Captain America experiencing this film at the same time,” Kitty declares with confidence. She is curled into the corner of the couch opposite Lucien, her own phone within reach and unlocked beside her. Kitty is not quite dressed up for the occasion, but it’s clear to those that know her tastes that she put a little more effort than usual into her outfit tonight. She's dressed in a dark blue wing-collared blouse layered under a soft grey wool cardigan, her gold Magen David pendant resting on the exposed collarbone. Her hair is down, dark brown curls and new bangs framing her face, a touch of eyeliner remaining in the corners of her eyes from an aborted attempt at makeup. “We’re always having something. A coup, impeding world war, pandemic." She shrugs, reaching for her rum. "I would be following this if I was at home, for sure." Steve glances up at Lucien when he returns, his expression a study in bemused torment. He's dressed in a green, purple, and white plaid flannel shirt, the top button undone, crisp indigo blue jeans, and white socks with gray and white toe- and heel-caps. He blushes faintly at Kitty's last prediction, but his smile is flattered moreso than embarrassed. "We've been having a coup since November," he confirms. "On any given day thousands of folks will drop everything to watch me eat a taco or walk a dog, but I think right now -- maybe quite a few more looking for a break from waiting on Congress to start actually start governing." "On the contrary," Lucien corrects mildly, leaning forward to pick his own rum back up and tip it lightly in DJ's direction, "you, too, are now having a coup. I am so very sorry. We aren't even having the good grace to make it a competent one." He takes his phone out as he sips, scrolling through Google photos and picking a particularly horrified-looking picture to crop and caption for Twitter's benefit. His hand tilts the phone slightly toward Kitty as he works. "But it has been rather a constant stream of something for a time now. People deserve a break from the screaming. Not Steve, of course." The twitch of his lips is veeery small, his eyes onle briefly glancing toward the gyrating onscreen. "But other people." Matt picks up his tea and takes a sip, hiding his smile half behind it after. "Mmm. There are some who would say we've been having a coup since well before that, though all the while the boundaries of what is lawfully awful versus not has been eroding away." He studies Steve thoughtfully. "You've heard us talk about the stage version of this plenty--you must have know it wasn't going to be good even if you hadn't been specifically warned, no?" This reminder does put a kind of wide-eyed horror on DJ's face that the redux of the movie has as yet mostly failed to impart. "Oh, no. I am, aren't I. There is no part of it that feels -- real. Not the weird Nazi furries, not the -- pro... plague? Protesters? Not..." He grimaces down at his drink, shaking his head slowly and tightening his grip on his mug. His tension eases slow as he takes a sip of cider, eyes tracking instead to Steve. Then the screen. Then Steve again. Eventually he just huffs one small laugh. "...If he didn't scream at the cockroach-skin-peeling song I don't know if screaming's going to happen." Kitty gives DJ a sympathetic grimace as she sips from her mug. “It still feels like a fever dream to me, sometimes, and I’ve been in this reality the whole time.” She sits up just enough to peer at the Lucien’s work, grinning as he puts together the post. “Oh, that one is gonna be meta-meme’d. Excellent.” She shifts back down, glancing at the screen herself. “There’s still Dame Judi’s monologue at the end - I didn’t lose it until that bit first time I watched.” A quick glance at Steve as she reaches for her phone. "Bet five dollars on a scream there." "It took me a while, too. Still feels like I'm living in a film myself, some days. Not...this film, granted." Steve's eyes drift back to the screen, his eyebrows climbing back up, his head tilting one way. Then the other way. Then takes a big gulp of his own cooling rum. At the mention of Jennyanydots he still does not scream, though he shudders. "Not much one for screaming, though ah...that was certainly disturbing, even by the standards of..." His lips compress. "...this." His eyes skip aside to Kitty, his smile cutting slightly askew. "I'd take you up, but it wouldn't be an honorable bet to take. I can suffer a lot in silence." Lucien accepts Kitty's compliment with a tip of head and a small, pleased hum. He lifts his phone again after, snapping quite a number of pictures in succession of this headtilt-drink combo. "I suppose we are not helping things feel less surreal. But truly with so many people stuck inside glued to their computers it seems almost a public service offering some light punctuation to the doomscrolling." His snort is very quiet, eyebrow hitching. "Can, yes. But -- for the good of the country, now -- ought you?" "They were laying the pro-plague groundwork long before this pandemic, but it certainly has gotten more dramatic, since. You should have seen the haircut riots last March." Matt seems content to let his brother take over photographing for the moment, but he does swipe out a quick reply to the last tweet. "I'll take that bet," he tells Kitty brightly. "Even if I'm sure to lose after that appeal to his heroism. Your dignity will survive, my friend." "I don't know what part of all that is odder, haircut riots or the fact that over here V... Leonid Concepcion is stopping a plague while the racists try really hard to spread it in the name of -- actually, I don't think I've quite figured that part out yet." DJ is looking with only a mild envy at Kitty's cup of rum, but he keeps hold of his spiced cider, clutching it close and taking another sip. The smile that twists at his lips is a bit wry. "Oh, nobody should have to suffer this stoically." A quick furrow of her brows at the hesitation in DJ’s declaration betrays Kitty’s curiosity, but she just shakes her head. “The plot of 2020 — and 2021, I guess — is pretty poorly written.” Her head twists to give Matt a satisfied smile and a small pump of her fist. Twists back to look at Steve with the same expression, a light teasing tone creeping into her voice. “The fate of my coffee money is fully in your hands now. Think of the coffee. Think of the people at home!” "I could do worse than bring a few smiles in the midst of existential terror," Steve agrees. "Anyway, my dignity survived the USO tour. I think it's basically immortal." His expression is briefly troubled, but it's only a brief flash before he's distracted by the anthropomorphic cats rubbing against each other on the screen. "Oh gosh," he blurts, "I keep thinking this is...meant to appeal to children, but ah..." He shakes his head and busies himself loading up his plate with dumplings for a moment's reprieve from the writhing pile of not-quite-feline bodies on screen. "Well," he sounds a little shaken when he speaks again, "for coffee and country, I will hold back no longer." "Many people have expounded with great prolixity upon the nature and meaning of Q but I do not think that reading the source material, ah, would -- enlighten you much as to their motives." Lucien sounds mildly apologetic, here; mildly apologetic, too, when he continues: "-- if it seems inscrutable, it is probably antisemitism." He sets his rum back down on a coaster so that he might better position himself and the phone both, turning it for brand new Steve-horror angles. "A true patriot. America thanks you for your service." "Leo's saved more lives than I think anyone really knows," Matt says, soft and a touch awed. "He's a remarkable man, but -- still only one man, and working against a government that could so easily work with him instead were it not more interested in profits. Or, for that matter, in appealing to the followers of Q." At Steve's reaction his eyes sparkle with mirth, and he covers his grin with one hand. "All the nonsense of the source material and all the horniess of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Evidently a winning combination for the stage, but not this ill-fated expedition into uncanny valley. But, one way or another, it is rather unfurgettable."