Logs:Wrought

Wrought
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Matt	2023-06-16 "Please tell me you are not implying anything about Steve and I."
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. Is it very late? Is it very early? It's one of those things, certainly, in the smaller hours of Friday morning. The city is just starting to wake and Lucien may not have yet gotten to sleep -- at least, he certainly wasn't in his own room last night. He gotten home at some point, though, in time to start his day at his customary nonsensical hour; some time ago he slipped in to grab Flèche for her run. Now, at very predictably enough time for seven miles plus or minues a potty break or two for Flèche they are returning -- the dog straight to her water bowl and then a panting slump on the cool kitchen floor and Lucien, trailing slightly behind, to mix himself a protein shake. His grey quick-dry shirt has not quick-dried itself quite yet, still wet through with sweat, as is his hair where it sticks to his forehead. Extremely distastefully, he's mixing banana, peanut butter, yogurt, ice, oats, milk, together with two large scoops of protein powder. Whizzing it all in his Nutribullet with a grimace. Giving it a somewhat baleful glare before he decants it into a glass. Matt's descent of the stairs, quiet to begin with, is fully drowned out by the blender whizzing, so that the feather-light curl of his power into Lucien's is the first indication of his presence. He looks fresh out of bed in a moss green tee shirt with a giant snake whose coils spell out the word "dangerous" and black pajama pants, his hair sticking up a little on one side. He fetches up to slouch at the counter, chin propped in one hand, eyelids heavy. "I can make you some tea to chase that. Or have it ready when you've showered." His voice is soft with drowse, his eyes slow to track up to his brother's face. "Did you have a hot date?" Lucien's mind is a taut-wired buzzing -- more or less correctly organized as is his preference, though strained near to snapping with what must be several days of Not Sleeping just yet, exhaustion mingled with a neurochemical disarray that feels very like a drugs-hangover that he has been determinedly manually pushing aside in order to get through his morning routine. He relaxes just fractionally at Matt's mental touch -- but only leans into the bolstering for a second before his internal regulation returns to its previous frenetic tension. "It tastes fine." His objection is mild, a faint frown troubling his brow. "-- I would still like a tea, though." Despite his claim there's a definite displeasure heavy in his mind as he swallows down half the shake in one long gulp. His eyebrow hitches as he drinks it, and he is looking down at his grey and green track pants, at the sweat drying on his shirt. "Do I look like I had a hot date?" Matt shakes his head, though it isn't clear whether he's answering the question or commenting on the taste of the protein drink. His power reflexively starts teasing out Lucien's unbalanced neurochemistry, gently shepherding the appropriate processes along into easing the chaos. His body, meanwhile--perhaps also reflexively--readies the tea things and a strong yet smooth Assam. "I don't judge and I'm sure Flèche wouldn't either so long as she got her run in as well, but I meant before that. Not that it's any of my business where you spend your nights, but I was wondering." He sets the tea steeping and returns to a boneless slouch, his green eyes strange in the early light. "Whether you've been seeing someone. Stepping out. Dating." A near-infinitesimal pause and a shift in his voice to a fair imitation of Steve's Brooklyn-Connacht accent. "Pitchin' woo." Lucien's eyebrow has been inching back down but it hikes again at the shift in Matt's accent. "Please tell me you are not implying anything about Steve and I." He does not, in fact, sound remotely concerned about this possibility. He does look concerned about the rest of his smoothie, broad shoulders tightening hard as he gulps the second half down; the tension doesn't leave as he goes to wash out the glass. "It is not any of your business where I spend my nights, but I spend them at L'Entente. I thought I knew a few things about the hospitality business, but regrettably running the entire enterprise is immensurably more complicated than simply managing the clientele." Internally he is wresting himself away from Matt's reflexive ministrations -- he's exhausted enough that even the act of pulling away from the mental touch comes with a noticeable unraveling of his careful organization, delicate neuroelectric balance jarred alarmingly into a brief and oddly quieter synchrony. For a second he doesn't move, eyes slightly unfocused on the drying rack before the seizure passes back into familiar chaos. Lucien levels a searching gaze on Matt once he tucks his glass onto the drying rack over the sink. "Have you needed me home? I can make more effort to do my work from the house, if I have been falling down on tending things here." "Steve is on the short list of people I consider good enough for you, but he's very inconsiderately pitchin' woo at Jax instead." Matt does not move--at all, his stillness belying the casual posture. "I won't make excuses for how I treated your last paramour, but that was fifteen years ago. I know better now." He grips the edge of the counter, hard. "{I want you to be happy, darling. I want you to have the support you need, even if you won't accept it from me. Especially now.}" His power clamps down and stops Lucien pulling away, deftly taking over where his neurochemical management falters. He may not have his brother's finesse, but does have vast experience reeling this particular nervous system back from the brink of collapse. "Of course I need you. That doesn't mean you must neglect L'Entente or the search for the children or any of your other responsibilities for my sake, but you're falling down on tending to yourself. Someone needs to, and that's why I'm asking, even if I haven't very good cause to think..." Somewhere in the middle of this he has straightened up, his expression placid, his gaze steady, his voice level. "Are you seeing someone?" "Fifteen years, yes. Her life has recovered quite well since you ruined it," Luci is saying this rather lightly, "but it has seemed largely unwise to put the temptation before you to --" He's reached for a towel to dry his hands but here he just stops, squeezes it tight, hands wringing hard against the cloth at that sudden arresting of his own voluntary control. For a split-second something freezes up inside him, cold and panicked, but -- only a second, before he stops fighting the external control and just lets Matt take over tidying up for him. His fingers still twist, hard, at the cloth. "I --" The slightly unfocused look now has nothing to do with seizure, his eyes just fixed steadily on the floor and not on Matt. "... do not know," he admits, after a longer pause than this should have taken. The small sag to his shoulders would be easy for most other people to miss. "What if I were?" Matt lowers his eyes, and though nothing further suggests shame his words do come quieter. "{I'm sorry. What I did was wrong, and I will not do it again.}" The touch of his power is gentle but firm, bolstering and steadying Lucien's biokinesis while he works. "I can hardly fault you for lacking faith in my convictions. You know better than anyone how determined I am to be kind even when my brain wants me to be cruel, but you also know best how I fall short." He seems unbothered by the delay, but when the reply does finally come he stops short and looks back up at Lucien, eyes slightly wide. "If you were?" he echoes, contemplative, as he relaxes back into his previous languor. "I'd want to meet them, and get my friends onboard to check my insanity. I'd learn to love them, if you were serious, even if I couldn't like them. I'd teach them to care for you, because gods know you don't make that easy. I'd make sure they know and cherish you for the wonder that you are." He starts decanting the tea, the motions flowing from his hands without conscious volition, soothing and familiar. "Probably I'd make a lot of mistakes and hopefully not too many scenes along the way. {But even if my madness fights me every step of the way, you are worth it to me, and so are the people you love.}" All of this gets an even longer pause for thought than before. Lucien has wrapped the poor dishtowel firmly around his knuckles, fabric scrunching and warping as he twists. It takes a very long time before he says, slow and cautious: "I do not think you much like them." Matt has rinsed out the teapot and put it up by the time the answer comes. There's little in the way of immediate outwardly reaction, but something shivers through him, sensible though not immediately legible to his brother where their powers are twined. "Maybe that's for the best," he allows as he gently extricates the dish towel from Lucien's grasp and pats both their hands dry. "Less jarring for them, anyway, and I'm not so likely to split on them from the outset..." The furrow in his brow is faint and fleeting, gone when he returns the dish towel to its place. "I have been so afraid you were going to cut me out of your life. I should have been more afraid I was keeping you from living your own life. But it doesn't have to be either of those things." He presses one of the mugs into Lucien's hands. "{Thank you for believing in me.}" Lucien's exhale at Matt's entirely non-explosive reply is small and shaky; inwardly, a stark tension releases along with the breath. He curls his hands around the mug that Matt gives him, and lifts it for a slow sip. "{Thank you,}" he replies, quiet. A small smile softens his expression, and he pushes himself away from the counter to continue on to his room. "{For the tea.}"