Logs:Unpleasant Awakening
| Unpleasant Awakening | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-10-06 "This is obviously insane, but. I thought you knew." (after saying bye to DJ.) |
| Location
<NYC> North Shore Esplanade Waterfront Park - Staten Island | |
Per the name, this is a narrow strip of parkland hugging the north shore of Staten Island, perfect for a leisurely stroll. Matt is more or less alone in this stretch of the park, and he is not strolling. He's slumped aesthetically against the column of a pier along which more decent visitors might stroll, at a more decent hour. His shirt and vest and slacks are only lightly rumpled, but his carriage and countenance make him look significantly less put together. The shoulder of vodka in a brown paper bag probably isn't helping his presentation, either. There's a sleek Stark electric convertible pulling up alongside the strip. Ryan is not looking particularly flashy in the driver's seat, soft pale blue tee with a Captain America shield logo and a black kilt with pleats interspersed with purple, pink and blue paneling. His crutches are propped up in the back, leaning up between the two front seats where he can easily reach them, but he isn't picking them up and isn't getting himself out of the car -- just rolling the window down and then propping his chin on his hand so he can eye Matt. "Gonna have to ditch that, hon." Matt pushes off of the pillar, takes another swig from his bottle, and drops it into a trash can on his slightly uneven way to the curb. He sinks heavily into the passenger seat, his murmured "thank you" numb and distant, but distantly solaced. He's silent for a moment, and there is a little more focus and presence in his voice when he speaks again, though not very much else. "You talked to Hive?" Ryan's eyes flick to his rearview, to his side mirror, but though his hand rests on his adaptive pedal controls he is not yet moving the vehicle. "I talked to Hive." Matt nods, and it seems to take a great effort for him to lift his eyes from the dashboard. "I don't know how much he told you, or what if anything I ought to add, but for what it's worth he's a more reliable narrator than I am." He closes his eyes tight, and his voice is tight too, now -- with confusion and anger and despair, but no shame. "This is obviously insane, but. I thought you knew." "I didn't --" Ryan's hand clenches tight on the knob of his control shift. He tips his head back against the headrest, his eyes wide and bright. "You told me. You told me. I just didn't -- fuck. I don't know what I thought. I didn't think that, fuck! You were upset, you were -- Leo said he killed Flicker. Shane said he killed Ian. People blame themselves all the time for shit they didn't -- I just --" He quiets, a sudden and complete blanket of silence that pulls in tight around him and then eases off with his slow exhale. "What happened." "I was terribly upset, which is also insane, but you couldn't have read my -- " Matt frowns into the middle distance. "Chaz could. He did -- well, Mother's mind, but she was there also -- and he apologized profusely for it. Maybe I'm not..." His fear sounds distant and unmoored but no less intense. "I don't trust my mind anymore, I can't. I thought that Luci had betrayed us to Prometheus, which he hadn't. He did know about Lily Allred -- ah, but that's neither here nor there." He runs both hands through his already unruly hair. "Even if all of it had been true, I can't fathom why I would kill him over it, but I did. Mother told me to kill him, and at the time it seemed --" His voice has gone flat and strange, the emotions that have been roiling in him not gone but pressed brutally down. "I know from psychosis, but it ought not to have taken six months and a brain damage-inducing dose of consensus reality for me to recognize what I did was heinous and nonsensical and just godsdamned stupid." "Lily went there -- at huge risk -- to bring them down, that's a huge leap from thinking he'd have sold you to the labs in the first place." Ryan turns his head, now, eyes slightly narrowed. "What do you mean, Chaz?" "It wasn't just about Lily -- " Matt shakes his head sharply, cutting himself off before the incipient frustration in his voice goes anywhere. "I thought I knew more than I really did. It was still a big leap, and if it weren't that would have justified nothing. That's not even touching how I got it so twisted about Luci and Mother." The rage in this spikes sharp, then eases back down as he refocuses himself to Ryan's question, brows furrowing. "Professor Xavier came to the house the next day. I was barely functional, but I remember he did his..." He presses two fingers to his temple in imitation of the venerable telepath. "Mother had a long talk with him, after which he seemed satisfied nothing was amiss. At the time, that made perfect sense." There's more dread and confusion muddling his already chaotic emotional landscape, now, even if his tone is somewhat flat when he adds, "In retrospect, it's...concerning." "You saying..." Ryan's fingers drum restlessly against the knob they are resting on. His nostrils flare, his breathing sharper, though this is only noticeable by the faster hitches of his shoulder because his side of the car has gone fully silent once again. Eventually he rolls his window back up, his head shaking. "Yuh going back there?" Matt fixes his gaze on the dashboard again, frown not fully receding. "I'm not sure what I'm saying but he must have known. Not like you or Ja -- " This cuts off into a deep breath that tells on the attempt to contain his agitation. "Whenever I doubted I was in the right I thought..." He swallows, and tries to swallow his bitter anger, too. "I've no one to blame but myself. And I should've -- did know how terribly persuasive Mother can be, how often to our detriment and to Luci's most of all." He squeezes his eyes shut, then hastily opens them again, his dismay and disorientation almost enough to blot out the seething hatred beneath. "I had meant to. Confront her. But I'm in no state." Quiet and flat again. "Gods, this is pathetic. I don't know what to do." "Kick her out of Luci's damn house," Ryan suggests, a sharp huff in his voice. "I'unno. I can't take you back to mine. Guess I can get you another hotel room for a while. Figure this out when you're not stacking brain damage on top of your brain damage." He's starting to shift the car, now, but only a few small inches before he stops it again. His shoulders tense, his eyes fixing on the steering wheel. "...I slept with someone. You should probably. Also know that." "Yeah." Matt nods, his expression absent but his voice sharp with sudden violent loathing that just as abruptly turns to icy fear. "Yeah, that's probably -- not in Staten Island please -- is she technically a squatter?" This burst of incoherence, at least, can be blamed in part on that last slug of vodka hitting him hard. "My head feels like it's about to explode. Again." He presses the heel of his hand into his right eye. Then drops the hand so he can stare blankly at Ryan with both eyes. "What." Not anger or jealousy or even disappointment, just sheer uncomprehending bafflement that dissolves before Ryan has a chance to answer. "Who -- no wait don't tell me!" He claps a hand over his mouth as if he doesn't trust it to stay shut unassisted until he's ready to speak again. "Whatever I sound like, I pray you, try to ignore it." This might be a tall order given "it" is a confused snarl of incongruous emotions, most of which are unpleasant and none of which quite fit: "It's okay. You were already under a lot of stress and for all you knew I might never wake up." He looks like he's about to add something but bites it back, and says instead, "If you don't -- gods, I don't want to be with me either, and I'm a narcissist. Besides, you're vegan and I'm much more offal than you thought." For once it's a visible strain for him to summon his pun dog face, and he doesn't hold it for long. "Than I thought. Somehow." Ryan flinches visibly, tensing up against the sudden barrage of snarled emotions. He rakes his fingers through his hair, and it takes a slow effort for him to relax. The short dry breath he lets out does not carry much amusement. He presses his fingers at the hollows of his eyes, wiping hard at the few tears that are welling up there. "I don't really know what I want right now. I want to get you somewhere safe you can -- sleep it off. After that -- I don't know. I don't know yet. I'm sorry." Matt nods again, and is silent -- or, as near as he can get to it -- for a few long seconds. This time he successfully muffles his emphatic cacophony, or perhaps has just dissociated from it, too. "You don't have to know. I'm sure I don't know how much it took for you to come here at all, but I'm grateful you did." He reaches for Ryan, but pulls back before making contact and stares at his left hand as if he's only just noticed he had one. "I don't want to sleep this off, though. It's a gift. A painful, horrifying gift that may haunt my dreams forever, but it's already paid for and I'll not squander it." He pauses a beat. "Unless you mean this hangover, and the secondary hangover I'll have in a few hours. In which case yes, I should probably sleep that off instead of drinking more." The street is fairly empty, but Ryan is carefully checking his mirrors once more before he pulls out. There is, this time, a very small glimmer of mirth in his laugh. "Oh, cher, I definitely meant the booze, there's no way you're escaping that nutcracker haunting you to the grave. If you're lucky maybe you'll get some secondhand enlightenment." | |
