OOC: For Percy
Original log: http://xmm-emma.livejournal.com/82237.html#cutid1
Date: 10/20/06
Requested by: xmm_percy
What’s come before: Emma was the one who introduced Percy to the Circle, and he turncoated to Black for idealistic reasons-mistaken ideals, but the action destroyed the friendship Emma and Percy had before. There have been tentative overtures to repairing that friendship, but it will never be what it was. At this point in time, Emma has a sort of functional telepathic dampner thanks to Magneto, Bahir told Sebastian, and Sebastian asked for it from Emma. Emma demanded Percy in exchange.
The lethargy of an approaching weekend has not made its way to the upper levels of the Frost Building. The activity is consistent, if restrained, and assisted, no doubt, by the CEO's consistent and unpredictable presence on the various floors. Fresh off the elevator from one of the days blitzes, Emma's been captured by a question from her assistant, and leans over her desk to peer at the computer screen with a puzzled frown. Clean white lines frame her shape in tailored precision.
I hate setting. I really, really hate it because I so rarely have good ideas for them. A while ago, though, when Storm-player was playing Emma during the body-swap, she posed Emma’s clothes in such awesome detail, I’ve tried to pay more attention to her clothing.
Dressing to his sense of irony, the former Black Bishop is a spectre of black; black, black, black, from his head to his toe. Shoes, slacks, shirt, jacket, long men's trench: black. Even the touch of eyeliner that emphasizes and enhances amber eyes is black. He moves at a sidle with the hands in the pockets of his coat. He catches sight of Emma and heads blithely over to lean over her assistant's desk as well, shadowing her like a distorted reflection. Thin shields hide the essence of thought; a touch of chemically-augmented self-control obscures the warp and weft of mood. His actions do not do anything to mitigate the warped sense of humor, though. He doesn't speak. Maybe he is pretending to be a mime.
I love Percy-player. I’ve said before that she is one of the few players I feel little to no shame twinking up and purpling out with. Dressing all in black to reunite with his newly restored White Queen out of a warped sense of humor? Such a twink. Warp and weft? Such a lovely turn of phrase. I love her ability to transmit an understated understanding of the situation as well. The shadowing like a distorted reflection? At one time he was that. He was her Bishop, and more importantly, her friend. They share powers that can be similar in affect. He knew her early on in her tenure at the HFC, so he knew her when she was still a shadow of former self. They have known each other intimately, and not just sexually. They were, if not still are, distorted reflections of the other, lazy parasites, outsiders brought in yet still apart, understanding of the need for mirages and illusions, unwilling to reveal the vulnerability of substance. Smoke and mirrors, seeing each other through a mirror darkly.
Forewarned of his approach, Emma doesn't turn her head at his approach; instead she walks through the day's requests for appointments, discarding and denying with capricious whim, then pushing away and turning for her office without a word to her shadow. The door is not locked behind her, however.
There is an extension of that long association with each other. No need to acknowledge each other or speak, or even exchange thoughts. She knows he’s there for a reason, and he will follow. She is also establishing her dominance by not acknowledging him, as she often does.
It closes behind him as he follows her in; he leans on it. He folds his arms over his chest and crosses his ankles. He continues not to speak, watching her movements through the heavy veil of eyelashes both long and thick.
I love him not speaking as well. It’s both comfortable and a response to her subtle play for control. Also, I just find the watching through his lashes so hot. It’s something I write as well, and when Emma does, it’s always when she’s wanting to hold back for some reason, usually when she’s being extra calculating and/or tempting.
Emma heads for the desk and drops a handful of folders atop it as she rounds the corner, already reaching for a new set. "Business or social?" she asks without looking at him. A pearl button on her jacket sleeve clicks against the wood as she stretches for a pen.
I read that pose and was surprised by my detail of the pearl button. It’s not a typical type of detail for me, but I really, really liked it. She’s still trying for dominance of the meeting by forcing the conversation, though the fact that she does force it betrays her interest in his mission. She’s almost forgotten her demand of Shaw. She didn’t really think he’d meet it. She wouldn’t have in his place. Not of a piece she trusted enough to make Bishop. The demand was simply to give him something he’d consider in exchange for the dampners. To put him off his demand.
"Business." Percy stays where he is, quite still and somber despite the apparent insolent ease of his posture. "Your price is met."
Emma looks up, freezing in place, surprise written clearly in expression and posture. She slowly pulls back and straightens, drawing together the shielding of mind and body and fusing them together into calculated satisfaction. "Indeed?" She taps the edges of the stack of paper in her hand against the desk and lays them down with exaggerated care. Glee spikes behind her smug mask. "Welcome back."
See? Surprise. But not such that she would openly display it, or her gloating. This demand was mostly an impulsive personal request. It had little to do with tacticaql considerations, though she will take full advantage of whatever she can. But simply? Percy is her’s, and she wants him back as much so that /he/ would know that fact. That Percy would realize her ownership. Her glee is very, very possessive.
Percy closes his eyes, the twitch of his smile slight and dry. "Upon your handing over the dampener, of course."
"I keep my promises," Emma returns, gaze clear and steady on him.
Unlike Percy, is the implication.
Percy lets his arms drop from their loose fold over his chest; one hangs at his side, drifting towards his hip, while the other he extends. He turns it over, palm up, and opens his eyes again. "Then your price," he says mildly, "is met. How will you spend it?"
In counterpoint, Emma folds hers across her chest and turns to hook a hip over the desk's edge. "I don't know. I hadn't really thought of it," she says with honest indifference. "Have a suggestion, my pet?" If there is the gentlest of inflection on the possessive noun, well...
As said before, she didn’t expect this, so she hadn’t thought about it. And the ‘my pet’ is deliberate, to remind him of what they both are. She his monarch, and he a turncoat Bishop, a Judas, a confidante who betrayed.
He is whatever she decides he is now, and she is testing him.
Falling silence, Percy shakes his head and only watches her.
silent.
Not silence. Falling silence makes no sense.
You make no sense.
It's true.
We are dorks.
Emma narrows her eyes and lifts a brow. Anger breeds like rabbits underneath her composure, climbing furry mounds to creep into her voice first. "I see." She lifts off the desk and drops her arms as she turns her back on him and starts to rustle through stacks of paper. "You can go then."
She was testing him, holding out a hand to see if he would take it and his silence slapped at it. She’s not going to play the game of tentative friendship. Not now, not at this point. She’s still establishing her dominance, and she’s demanding a show of subservience, subject to Monarch.
"I don't know what you expected, Emma," Percy says. He pushes away from his lean against the door, straightening; he walks across the room towards her desk, but stops before he gets there. He drops his shields, mental and physical; he drops his arms, both hanging at his sides. The smile that touches his mouth is slight and sad, like the weary wash of emotion in which his mind quietly simmers. "The prodigal returns, but he can do little enough to make good." He reaches up to his collar and tugs at the knot of his matte black tie, sliding fingertips over its surface to hold it out and up to her from its end. "Your Iscariot, darling. For all he's worth, you have him by the throat."
Emma snaps a dismissive glance over her shoulder, moving it from his face down to the tie and sneering. "And even the little enough he can do he is /loathe/ to." She kneels in front of a cabinet and pulls the door open, reaching inside to press her finger against a small scanner in the center of a safe. "Enough, Percy. I've had my fill of martyrs. I refuse to be blamed for the problems of your own making."
She demanded it, and he gave it, but he gave it a fraction too late. This is an Emma post-Sabby, post-shot because someone blamed her for their own decisions. Sabby should have turned the gun on herself if she wanted out, and Percy should go hang himself with the tie he’s offering her if he wants someone to blame for the misery of his life.
"I'm not blaming you." Percy lets his tie fall and shrugs his hands into his pockets. Self-blame is much more accurate and also easier to justify; it is just that it is also very annoying. "You could have asked him for anything. Why did you ask him for me? Was he right, that you are playing for a pair of twin telepaths?" From his tone, from the upward quirk of one eyebrow, he does not think so. "He's made Bahir his Bishop, by the way. Isn't that charming?"
The locks tumble and the door swings open. Emma inserts a file and retrieves a handful of others, rifling through them until reaching the appropriate one. She doesn't look up as she shrugs. "What use would Bahir be to me? Aside from denying him to Sebastian. Perhaps I should have asked for him instead, hmm?" She closes the safe door and stands, giving him a sideways glance. "His hold over you is greater than yours over him, isn't it? I could have had the both of you had I played my cards right."
Emma is a shrewd observer of people, and she sees more than people may think. I believe this is after the Adel/Emma scene too, so she is fully aware that no one is pleased by this exchange. No one but her pride. She’s right in that Bahir on his own merit is superfluious. She’s a telepath, Adel is a telepath-why does she need another? The only advantage to asking for Bahir would indeed to deny his service to Shaw. But for all that, Percy is even more useless tactically. At least on the surface.
"You wouldn't have got him by asking Sebastian." Percy shakes his head. The curve of his smile is bitter, and the brush of his knuckles along the line of his jaw as he hunches his shoulders traces the impact of a very, very old blow. "Shaw positively adores him. Showers him with money, with opportunity. Afraid to lose him to his brother and to me, when Bahir is the strongest bound by integrity of any of us. The only telepath he can trust. Isn't that nice?" Percy laughs, and sits down on Emma's desk; he lounges on it, a deliberate shadow of days gone by garbed all in tailored, elegant black, and tips his head to smile up at her. He is both charming and beatific.
"Then perhaps I took what I could get." There's no disguising the venom in that barb. She pushes his head aside and stacks the paperwork on the corner of the desk. "Adel would say I paid too much for you."
For all the time that’s past, Emma is still wounded, and not above making petty, cutting remarks, especially when Percy is being a dolt and purposefully misunderstanding her motives, ascribing cold and calculating motivation to her, refusing to acknowledge that she had loved him. Might still love him. That the friendship was real and true and sincere. She took his betrayal very, very personally and he’s being very Oliver atm.
Percy rubs at his neck with the hand that lifted for balance when she shoved him. "Adel would say a lot of things," he says, and humor's sardonic brush layers over his voice, lashes dipping over the barest, most insignificant glint of smirk to his expression. "He's young and hotheaded and his blood is green." With jealousy, see. Adel is not a Romulan. "Whereas I am old before my time. Look at this." He scratches a hand through the dark, thick waves of his hair. "There's been grey. It's really appalling." The play at play feels out of place, ringing false; he taps the heels of his shoes against her desk as he perches on it. "Whatever the price, proud Titania, your changeling babe is returned to you; how will you mold him?" The game works slightly better now: "He's not as young as he used to be."
Emma inhales sharply and looks away, and a range of tumultuous emotions roll and swell, seeping into the air via chemical combinations. "I don't like how that story ends," she says, biting the words off to prevent no more than what she intends to say from escaping. "I don't intend on molding you, Percy. What do /you/ say? Am I paying too much for you? Are you worth it?"
I have a very bad earache atm. I am really pretty miserable. /tangent
I love the antagonism between Adel and Percy, and the enjoyment that they each get out of the other’s discomfiture. Also? Percy is a dork. Romulan. Thbt.
Emma’s reaction to the Titania reference… She’s dealing with the return of one betrayer and he reminds her, however inadvertently of another. And I still haven’t figured out which was the greater betrayal-Percy’s or Warren’s. Warren was Oberon to her Titania. Shaw is Oberon to her Titiania too, but that’s another commentary.
Percy watches her with brows upswept. He leans back with his palms on her desk, and tips his head. "That depends," he says. "What were you buying?" He touches tumult with a breath of calm, deliberately unsubtle. "Did you want your jester back? I think he's dead, my dear. Your Don Quixote is only Alonso Quixano -- his madness spent, his errantry gone. What is left is me." Without pretense or shield, there is what is left: if there is compassion and weariness, ego and doubt, guilt and righteousness, resolve and wrath, wit and folly, strength and weakness -- he is built of paradox; he is only human. "Did you overpay? Maybe Your Bishop will think so." He shows his teeth in a smile. "/I/ don't know. I can't name my worth to you."
"Once upon a time..." Emma exhales and bends over the desk's edge, leaning on hands flattened against the wood and its paper strewn covering, head hanging. "I don't know, Percy. Maybe a moment's whim. ... Maybe a memory. Maybe a promise." She stops, then bitterly adds, "Maybe dirt." Reinforced calm settles like a dead weight, smothering anger and pique, and she looks up. "Do you want to be here?"
One upon a time… Fairytales all. Titania, Don Quixote, Emma’s heart. Percy’s manipulation of her emotions, reinforcing calm and control boils down her anger into tired resentment. What was she buying? She was buying her pride and past back, and is finding them dead. I forget what she was referencing when she said dirt, but there was a specific literary or canon reference.
The unspoken answer peters off into confusion. Percy lets his head roll back, his throat a pale and vulnerable curve as he sighs and looks at the ceiling. Does he want to be here? It is something like a second chance, to serve a woman he held in highest regard, truest friendship, that once he failed; it is a second chance to fail her. But the stir of resentment flickers awake; anger's sullen cousin, it stirs him to a smile, and an answer. "I am so tired of being useless, Emma," he says, lifting his head again and looking at her. "I'm tired of my main function being that of my lover's carrot. I was his Bishop, in title, in name, but do you know what his main concern in getting rid of me was? Do you know what he asked of me, when he was deciding whether to grant you your price?"
I love him baring is throat to her. Submission. Like a dog rolls over to bare his belly, he’s baring his neck to her, physically and emotionally by telling her of his frustration and uselessness.
Emma's lashes lower, shielding her eyes. "What?"
See? Lowering her lashes to hide sudden calculation. He’s offering submission again, and this time she’s listening.
"How to secure his loyalty without me." Percy bites off the words, cranky; he smiles, the expression a glassy bright gloss. << I imagine if I hadn't given him an idea, we would not be having this conversation. My one vital use! >>
"And you say he would have been better served worrying about how to secure /your/ loyalty," she murmurs, interest stirring at his thought.
Fingers flutter dismissal. "He doesn't know how to maintain anybody's loyalty," Percy says. "What he knows is how to throw money and threats." Frustration's surge, snapping at his heels: fear and respect turned to exasperation and contempt through long exposure to the Bishop's trap, the illusion of immunity; the coward's strain much weaker than once it was, the lover's ascendant, for he only has so much left to lose. "But he likes proud, angry pieces, with life and ambition to them, and people with fire in their belly don't stay docile long. Even his faithful Rook is wavering. More mine than his, I'd wager, though I'm not sure what I'd have done with her."
"No need to tell /me/ what our King likes," Emma purrs in an undertone like a cat who has unexpectedly caught herself a pregnant mouse. She straightens, rolling her spine straight, keeping her eyes downcast. She moves around the edge of the desk, one hand trailing after her across the desktop. "Percy... I need you. Sebastian is toppling, and I need to be prepared to take the reigns when he does. I need your talents. You served me once, and you weren't useless then."
Emma the woman and friend is giving way to Emma the Monarch. She’s caught the reign to hold Percy in place, and she’s subtlying bringing him in, with or without his awareness. Here is where we see the difference between Sebastian and Emma’s styles. Emma has listened and caught at the key to controlling her piece, and instead of trying to make his motivation bend to her, she is bending to appeal to him. She needs him. Times were good between them once. He was useful once. He wasn’t a traitor when he was serving her. Siren’s call.
"I will serve you however I can, my Queen," Percy says. There is trepidation: it tremors on a thin thread through the gulf between the courts. "You know my weaknesses." His smile twists rue. He gets off the desk, standing straight. "You know my strengths." He bows, with all the flourish of a courtier; he smirks, with the languor and sardonic humor of bygone days. "As you see fit, Emma."
Now Emma reaches for the tie. Now she takes it and pulls him out of his bow, drawing his face up to hers, and hers is cold and hard. "We shall be clear on one thing, though, Pawn. I've bought you because you are mine and you belong /with/ me. But you enter my service of your own free will. You have this choice here and now, and you leave this room stripped of color or white, now and forever. I give you the choice of release because I have loved you." She pulls his tie, jerking him off balance. "However, if you /ever/," and her voice grinds the word between the millstones of anger and hurt carved from his previous betrayal. "Betray me again, no amount of Black's bluffing will protect you."
Percy answers that temptation with his old courtier’s response: her wish is his command, and there is nothing for it. Even his own desires will be subsumed to her will. And Emma wants yet more. She doesn’t want him serving counter to his desires. She never wants that from any piece if she can help it. She wants his desire /consumed/ by hers.
Now she takes the noose he offered earlier, and reminds him of it, as she reminds him once again of their places even while dangling the choice between freedom and redemption.
I like my phrase there: “grinds the word between the millstones of anger and hurt carved from his previous betrayal.”
At this the first response is little more than blank; the fears attached to the connection between the Courts wink out, diminished as though to nothing by the strength of this new prospect. An end -- to all of the self-inflicted torment, the crux of Courts, of power against power, of caring whether love is a weakness or a strength; the freedom to serve no one and be nothing. When she jerks him off balance, he flails, but in distraction; he is barely registering the body that houses him. << Release, >> his mind whispers, awed to wonderment and silence. There is a moment, and he trembles, and cannot speak.
The temptation is strong; to a telepath, its pull is obvious. But to leave is another betrayal. And Percy is weary of the mantle of Iscariot. When he speaks, his voice is low, rasping harsh and full of breath. "Out of love you would grant me this boon," he says. A gift unlooked for. "Out of love, I'd ask a different one. If I may."
She’s won him back, though it was a difficult fight for Percy-player. I don’t think the Percy in her head realized that if he left the Circle, there would be an even larger barrier to the relationship with Bahir. The difference between Courts is less than that between Pieces and those on the outside.
Emma brushes gentle finger strokes down the side of his face, relaxing only once the decision is mentally made. "What is that, darling?" She releases her stranglehold on his tie.
Percy gives her a smile. It is slight, and not the pleasantest smile that has ever touched his lips. The request is this: "Bring the King's fears to pass," he says. His lashes lower over the sharpening glitter of dark-lined amber eyes. "Take his Bishop."
Oh, Percy. You gave me such a thrill there. The malice hiding in that pose spoke volumes.
Emma flattens her hand on his cheek and lifts her other hand to cradle his face between them and pull it close. She lifts up and murmurs, "Done," against his lips, sealing the bargain with a kiss. And then it /is/ done, and she's pulled back and turned away, White Queen ascendant. "I expect you to give me your aid in bringing that about as well," she says over her shoulder.
"I asked him already," Percy says. There is an odd almost laughter to his exhalation as he rocks back on his heels. "He said no. I think some subtlety is in order." He leans his hip back against her desk again, folding his hands peaceably over one of his thighs. "To Shaw, I recommended desalination plants. I am sure you know why."
Emma stops and half-turns back. "Desalination plants? In Bahrain? Is he planning on moving on that?"
"I don't know." Percy lifts his hands to spread them wide. "I know the advice I gave. He remarked on the conspicuousness of the investment; he didn't seem /especially/ enthused. But, well."
"Mmmm. Well. Perhaps we may move forward with our own plans then. I've already had engineers studying the issue. Perhaps I'll check in on them." Emma circles the desk and spins her chair toward her before dropping into it with careless grace and crossing her legs.
"Do you want me to quit my job?" Percy asks, apropos of nothing much. He leans on his palm, regarding her with his head tilted curiously.
Emma pulls one of the retrieved files toward her, but tilts her head at the question and nearly laughs. "Not if he doesn't fire you."
"Okay. Well." Percy scratches his head and makes a face. He hops down off the desk. "I should probably head back to work, then."
This is all mop up work. The climax of the scene was reached earlier, and this is just tying up loose ends.
Emma nods and flips open the cover, turning the chair's back on her newly-returned pawn. Before he exits, however, she repeats her earlier, "Welcome back, my Percy."
"Thank you," Percy says. He smiles over his shoulder and blows her a kiss on the way out. "My Queen."
Conclusion, but one I really liked, reinforcing the relationship established, Pawn to Monarch, possessed to possessor. Even Seduced and Seducer, of a sort.
Date: 10/20/06
Requested by: xmm_percy
What’s come before: Emma was the one who introduced Percy to the Circle, and he turncoated to Black for idealistic reasons-mistaken ideals, but the action destroyed the friendship Emma and Percy had before. There have been tentative overtures to repairing that friendship, but it will never be what it was. At this point in time, Emma has a sort of functional telepathic dampner thanks to Magneto, Bahir told Sebastian, and Sebastian asked for it from Emma. Emma demanded Percy in exchange.
The lethargy of an approaching weekend has not made its way to the upper levels of the Frost Building. The activity is consistent, if restrained, and assisted, no doubt, by the CEO's consistent and unpredictable presence on the various floors. Fresh off the elevator from one of the days blitzes, Emma's been captured by a question from her assistant, and leans over her desk to peer at the computer screen with a puzzled frown. Clean white lines frame her shape in tailored precision.
I hate setting. I really, really hate it because I so rarely have good ideas for them. A while ago, though, when Storm-player was playing Emma during the body-swap, she posed Emma’s clothes in such awesome detail, I’ve tried to pay more attention to her clothing.
Dressing to his sense of irony, the former Black Bishop is a spectre of black; black, black, black, from his head to his toe. Shoes, slacks, shirt, jacket, long men's trench: black. Even the touch of eyeliner that emphasizes and enhances amber eyes is black. He moves at a sidle with the hands in the pockets of his coat. He catches sight of Emma and heads blithely over to lean over her assistant's desk as well, shadowing her like a distorted reflection. Thin shields hide the essence of thought; a touch of chemically-augmented self-control obscures the warp and weft of mood. His actions do not do anything to mitigate the warped sense of humor, though. He doesn't speak. Maybe he is pretending to be a mime.
I love Percy-player. I’ve said before that she is one of the few players I feel little to no shame twinking up and purpling out with. Dressing all in black to reunite with his newly restored White Queen out of a warped sense of humor? Such a twink. Warp and weft? Such a lovely turn of phrase. I love her ability to transmit an understated understanding of the situation as well. The shadowing like a distorted reflection? At one time he was that. He was her Bishop, and more importantly, her friend. They share powers that can be similar in affect. He knew her early on in her tenure at the HFC, so he knew her when she was still a shadow of former self. They have known each other intimately, and not just sexually. They were, if not still are, distorted reflections of the other, lazy parasites, outsiders brought in yet still apart, understanding of the need for mirages and illusions, unwilling to reveal the vulnerability of substance. Smoke and mirrors, seeing each other through a mirror darkly.
Forewarned of his approach, Emma doesn't turn her head at his approach; instead she walks through the day's requests for appointments, discarding and denying with capricious whim, then pushing away and turning for her office without a word to her shadow. The door is not locked behind her, however.
There is an extension of that long association with each other. No need to acknowledge each other or speak, or even exchange thoughts. She knows he’s there for a reason, and he will follow. She is also establishing her dominance by not acknowledging him, as she often does.
It closes behind him as he follows her in; he leans on it. He folds his arms over his chest and crosses his ankles. He continues not to speak, watching her movements through the heavy veil of eyelashes both long and thick.
I love him not speaking as well. It’s both comfortable and a response to her subtle play for control. Also, I just find the watching through his lashes so hot. It’s something I write as well, and when Emma does, it’s always when she’s wanting to hold back for some reason, usually when she’s being extra calculating and/or tempting.
Emma heads for the desk and drops a handful of folders atop it as she rounds the corner, already reaching for a new set. "Business or social?" she asks without looking at him. A pearl button on her jacket sleeve clicks against the wood as she stretches for a pen.
I read that pose and was surprised by my detail of the pearl button. It’s not a typical type of detail for me, but I really, really liked it. She’s still trying for dominance of the meeting by forcing the conversation, though the fact that she does force it betrays her interest in his mission. She’s almost forgotten her demand of Shaw. She didn’t really think he’d meet it. She wouldn’t have in his place. Not of a piece she trusted enough to make Bishop. The demand was simply to give him something he’d consider in exchange for the dampners. To put him off his demand.
"Business." Percy stays where he is, quite still and somber despite the apparent insolent ease of his posture. "Your price is met."
Emma looks up, freezing in place, surprise written clearly in expression and posture. She slowly pulls back and straightens, drawing together the shielding of mind and body and fusing them together into calculated satisfaction. "Indeed?" She taps the edges of the stack of paper in her hand against the desk and lays them down with exaggerated care. Glee spikes behind her smug mask. "Welcome back."
See? Surprise. But not such that she would openly display it, or her gloating. This demand was mostly an impulsive personal request. It had little to do with tacticaql considerations, though she will take full advantage of whatever she can. But simply? Percy is her’s, and she wants him back as much so that /he/ would know that fact. That Percy would realize her ownership. Her glee is very, very possessive.
Percy closes his eyes, the twitch of his smile slight and dry. "Upon your handing over the dampener, of course."
"I keep my promises," Emma returns, gaze clear and steady on him.
Unlike Percy, is the implication.
Percy lets his arms drop from their loose fold over his chest; one hangs at his side, drifting towards his hip, while the other he extends. He turns it over, palm up, and opens his eyes again. "Then your price," he says mildly, "is met. How will you spend it?"
In counterpoint, Emma folds hers across her chest and turns to hook a hip over the desk's edge. "I don't know. I hadn't really thought of it," she says with honest indifference. "Have a suggestion, my pet?" If there is the gentlest of inflection on the possessive noun, well...
As said before, she didn’t expect this, so she hadn’t thought about it. And the ‘my pet’ is deliberate, to remind him of what they both are. She his monarch, and he a turncoat Bishop, a Judas, a confidante who betrayed.
He is whatever she decides he is now, and she is testing him.
Falling silence, Percy shakes his head and only watches her.
silent.
Not silence. Falling silence makes no sense.
You make no sense.
It's true.
We are dorks.
Emma narrows her eyes and lifts a brow. Anger breeds like rabbits underneath her composure, climbing furry mounds to creep into her voice first. "I see." She lifts off the desk and drops her arms as she turns her back on him and starts to rustle through stacks of paper. "You can go then."
She was testing him, holding out a hand to see if he would take it and his silence slapped at it. She’s not going to play the game of tentative friendship. Not now, not at this point. She’s still establishing her dominance, and she’s demanding a show of subservience, subject to Monarch.
"I don't know what you expected, Emma," Percy says. He pushes away from his lean against the door, straightening; he walks across the room towards her desk, but stops before he gets there. He drops his shields, mental and physical; he drops his arms, both hanging at his sides. The smile that touches his mouth is slight and sad, like the weary wash of emotion in which his mind quietly simmers. "The prodigal returns, but he can do little enough to make good." He reaches up to his collar and tugs at the knot of his matte black tie, sliding fingertips over its surface to hold it out and up to her from its end. "Your Iscariot, darling. For all he's worth, you have him by the throat."
Emma snaps a dismissive glance over her shoulder, moving it from his face down to the tie and sneering. "And even the little enough he can do he is /loathe/ to." She kneels in front of a cabinet and pulls the door open, reaching inside to press her finger against a small scanner in the center of a safe. "Enough, Percy. I've had my fill of martyrs. I refuse to be blamed for the problems of your own making."
She demanded it, and he gave it, but he gave it a fraction too late. This is an Emma post-Sabby, post-shot because someone blamed her for their own decisions. Sabby should have turned the gun on herself if she wanted out, and Percy should go hang himself with the tie he’s offering her if he wants someone to blame for the misery of his life.
"I'm not blaming you." Percy lets his tie fall and shrugs his hands into his pockets. Self-blame is much more accurate and also easier to justify; it is just that it is also very annoying. "You could have asked him for anything. Why did you ask him for me? Was he right, that you are playing for a pair of twin telepaths?" From his tone, from the upward quirk of one eyebrow, he does not think so. "He's made Bahir his Bishop, by the way. Isn't that charming?"
The locks tumble and the door swings open. Emma inserts a file and retrieves a handful of others, rifling through them until reaching the appropriate one. She doesn't look up as she shrugs. "What use would Bahir be to me? Aside from denying him to Sebastian. Perhaps I should have asked for him instead, hmm?" She closes the safe door and stands, giving him a sideways glance. "His hold over you is greater than yours over him, isn't it? I could have had the both of you had I played my cards right."
Emma is a shrewd observer of people, and she sees more than people may think. I believe this is after the Adel/Emma scene too, so she is fully aware that no one is pleased by this exchange. No one but her pride. She’s right in that Bahir on his own merit is superfluious. She’s a telepath, Adel is a telepath-why does she need another? The only advantage to asking for Bahir would indeed to deny his service to Shaw. But for all that, Percy is even more useless tactically. At least on the surface.
"You wouldn't have got him by asking Sebastian." Percy shakes his head. The curve of his smile is bitter, and the brush of his knuckles along the line of his jaw as he hunches his shoulders traces the impact of a very, very old blow. "Shaw positively adores him. Showers him with money, with opportunity. Afraid to lose him to his brother and to me, when Bahir is the strongest bound by integrity of any of us. The only telepath he can trust. Isn't that nice?" Percy laughs, and sits down on Emma's desk; he lounges on it, a deliberate shadow of days gone by garbed all in tailored, elegant black, and tips his head to smile up at her. He is both charming and beatific.
"Then perhaps I took what I could get." There's no disguising the venom in that barb. She pushes his head aside and stacks the paperwork on the corner of the desk. "Adel would say I paid too much for you."
For all the time that’s past, Emma is still wounded, and not above making petty, cutting remarks, especially when Percy is being a dolt and purposefully misunderstanding her motives, ascribing cold and calculating motivation to her, refusing to acknowledge that she had loved him. Might still love him. That the friendship was real and true and sincere. She took his betrayal very, very personally and he’s being very Oliver atm.
Percy rubs at his neck with the hand that lifted for balance when she shoved him. "Adel would say a lot of things," he says, and humor's sardonic brush layers over his voice, lashes dipping over the barest, most insignificant glint of smirk to his expression. "He's young and hotheaded and his blood is green." With jealousy, see. Adel is not a Romulan. "Whereas I am old before my time. Look at this." He scratches a hand through the dark, thick waves of his hair. "There's been grey. It's really appalling." The play at play feels out of place, ringing false; he taps the heels of his shoes against her desk as he perches on it. "Whatever the price, proud Titania, your changeling babe is returned to you; how will you mold him?" The game works slightly better now: "He's not as young as he used to be."
Emma inhales sharply and looks away, and a range of tumultuous emotions roll and swell, seeping into the air via chemical combinations. "I don't like how that story ends," she says, biting the words off to prevent no more than what she intends to say from escaping. "I don't intend on molding you, Percy. What do /you/ say? Am I paying too much for you? Are you worth it?"
I have a very bad earache atm. I am really pretty miserable. /tangent
I love the antagonism between Adel and Percy, and the enjoyment that they each get out of the other’s discomfiture. Also? Percy is a dork. Romulan. Thbt.
Emma’s reaction to the Titania reference… She’s dealing with the return of one betrayer and he reminds her, however inadvertently of another. And I still haven’t figured out which was the greater betrayal-Percy’s or Warren’s. Warren was Oberon to her Titania. Shaw is Oberon to her Titiania too, but that’s another commentary.
Percy watches her with brows upswept. He leans back with his palms on her desk, and tips his head. "That depends," he says. "What were you buying?" He touches tumult with a breath of calm, deliberately unsubtle. "Did you want your jester back? I think he's dead, my dear. Your Don Quixote is only Alonso Quixano -- his madness spent, his errantry gone. What is left is me." Without pretense or shield, there is what is left: if there is compassion and weariness, ego and doubt, guilt and righteousness, resolve and wrath, wit and folly, strength and weakness -- he is built of paradox; he is only human. "Did you overpay? Maybe Your Bishop will think so." He shows his teeth in a smile. "/I/ don't know. I can't name my worth to you."
"Once upon a time..." Emma exhales and bends over the desk's edge, leaning on hands flattened against the wood and its paper strewn covering, head hanging. "I don't know, Percy. Maybe a moment's whim. ... Maybe a memory. Maybe a promise." She stops, then bitterly adds, "Maybe dirt." Reinforced calm settles like a dead weight, smothering anger and pique, and she looks up. "Do you want to be here?"
One upon a time… Fairytales all. Titania, Don Quixote, Emma’s heart. Percy’s manipulation of her emotions, reinforcing calm and control boils down her anger into tired resentment. What was she buying? She was buying her pride and past back, and is finding them dead. I forget what she was referencing when she said dirt, but there was a specific literary or canon reference.
The unspoken answer peters off into confusion. Percy lets his head roll back, his throat a pale and vulnerable curve as he sighs and looks at the ceiling. Does he want to be here? It is something like a second chance, to serve a woman he held in highest regard, truest friendship, that once he failed; it is a second chance to fail her. But the stir of resentment flickers awake; anger's sullen cousin, it stirs him to a smile, and an answer. "I am so tired of being useless, Emma," he says, lifting his head again and looking at her. "I'm tired of my main function being that of my lover's carrot. I was his Bishop, in title, in name, but do you know what his main concern in getting rid of me was? Do you know what he asked of me, when he was deciding whether to grant you your price?"
I love him baring is throat to her. Submission. Like a dog rolls over to bare his belly, he’s baring his neck to her, physically and emotionally by telling her of his frustration and uselessness.
Emma's lashes lower, shielding her eyes. "What?"
See? Lowering her lashes to hide sudden calculation. He’s offering submission again, and this time she’s listening.
"How to secure his loyalty without me." Percy bites off the words, cranky; he smiles, the expression a glassy bright gloss. << I imagine if I hadn't given him an idea, we would not be having this conversation. My one vital use! >>
"And you say he would have been better served worrying about how to secure /your/ loyalty," she murmurs, interest stirring at his thought.
Fingers flutter dismissal. "He doesn't know how to maintain anybody's loyalty," Percy says. "What he knows is how to throw money and threats." Frustration's surge, snapping at his heels: fear and respect turned to exasperation and contempt through long exposure to the Bishop's trap, the illusion of immunity; the coward's strain much weaker than once it was, the lover's ascendant, for he only has so much left to lose. "But he likes proud, angry pieces, with life and ambition to them, and people with fire in their belly don't stay docile long. Even his faithful Rook is wavering. More mine than his, I'd wager, though I'm not sure what I'd have done with her."
"No need to tell /me/ what our King likes," Emma purrs in an undertone like a cat who has unexpectedly caught herself a pregnant mouse. She straightens, rolling her spine straight, keeping her eyes downcast. She moves around the edge of the desk, one hand trailing after her across the desktop. "Percy... I need you. Sebastian is toppling, and I need to be prepared to take the reigns when he does. I need your talents. You served me once, and you weren't useless then."
Emma the woman and friend is giving way to Emma the Monarch. She’s caught the reign to hold Percy in place, and she’s subtlying bringing him in, with or without his awareness. Here is where we see the difference between Sebastian and Emma’s styles. Emma has listened and caught at the key to controlling her piece, and instead of trying to make his motivation bend to her, she is bending to appeal to him. She needs him. Times were good between them once. He was useful once. He wasn’t a traitor when he was serving her. Siren’s call.
"I will serve you however I can, my Queen," Percy says. There is trepidation: it tremors on a thin thread through the gulf between the courts. "You know my weaknesses." His smile twists rue. He gets off the desk, standing straight. "You know my strengths." He bows, with all the flourish of a courtier; he smirks, with the languor and sardonic humor of bygone days. "As you see fit, Emma."
Now Emma reaches for the tie. Now she takes it and pulls him out of his bow, drawing his face up to hers, and hers is cold and hard. "We shall be clear on one thing, though, Pawn. I've bought you because you are mine and you belong /with/ me. But you enter my service of your own free will. You have this choice here and now, and you leave this room stripped of color or white, now and forever. I give you the choice of release because I have loved you." She pulls his tie, jerking him off balance. "However, if you /ever/," and her voice grinds the word between the millstones of anger and hurt carved from his previous betrayal. "Betray me again, no amount of Black's bluffing will protect you."
Percy answers that temptation with his old courtier’s response: her wish is his command, and there is nothing for it. Even his own desires will be subsumed to her will. And Emma wants yet more. She doesn’t want him serving counter to his desires. She never wants that from any piece if she can help it. She wants his desire /consumed/ by hers.
Now she takes the noose he offered earlier, and reminds him of it, as she reminds him once again of their places even while dangling the choice between freedom and redemption.
I like my phrase there: “grinds the word between the millstones of anger and hurt carved from his previous betrayal.”
At this the first response is little more than blank; the fears attached to the connection between the Courts wink out, diminished as though to nothing by the strength of this new prospect. An end -- to all of the self-inflicted torment, the crux of Courts, of power against power, of caring whether love is a weakness or a strength; the freedom to serve no one and be nothing. When she jerks him off balance, he flails, but in distraction; he is barely registering the body that houses him. << Release, >> his mind whispers, awed to wonderment and silence. There is a moment, and he trembles, and cannot speak.
The temptation is strong; to a telepath, its pull is obvious. But to leave is another betrayal. And Percy is weary of the mantle of Iscariot. When he speaks, his voice is low, rasping harsh and full of breath. "Out of love you would grant me this boon," he says. A gift unlooked for. "Out of love, I'd ask a different one. If I may."
She’s won him back, though it was a difficult fight for Percy-player. I don’t think the Percy in her head realized that if he left the Circle, there would be an even larger barrier to the relationship with Bahir. The difference between Courts is less than that between Pieces and those on the outside.
Emma brushes gentle finger strokes down the side of his face, relaxing only once the decision is mentally made. "What is that, darling?" She releases her stranglehold on his tie.
Percy gives her a smile. It is slight, and not the pleasantest smile that has ever touched his lips. The request is this: "Bring the King's fears to pass," he says. His lashes lower over the sharpening glitter of dark-lined amber eyes. "Take his Bishop."
Oh, Percy. You gave me such a thrill there. The malice hiding in that pose spoke volumes.
Emma flattens her hand on his cheek and lifts her other hand to cradle his face between them and pull it close. She lifts up and murmurs, "Done," against his lips, sealing the bargain with a kiss. And then it /is/ done, and she's pulled back and turned away, White Queen ascendant. "I expect you to give me your aid in bringing that about as well," she says over her shoulder.
"I asked him already," Percy says. There is an odd almost laughter to his exhalation as he rocks back on his heels. "He said no. I think some subtlety is in order." He leans his hip back against her desk again, folding his hands peaceably over one of his thighs. "To Shaw, I recommended desalination plants. I am sure you know why."
Emma stops and half-turns back. "Desalination plants? In Bahrain? Is he planning on moving on that?"
"I don't know." Percy lifts his hands to spread them wide. "I know the advice I gave. He remarked on the conspicuousness of the investment; he didn't seem /especially/ enthused. But, well."
"Mmmm. Well. Perhaps we may move forward with our own plans then. I've already had engineers studying the issue. Perhaps I'll check in on them." Emma circles the desk and spins her chair toward her before dropping into it with careless grace and crossing her legs.
"Do you want me to quit my job?" Percy asks, apropos of nothing much. He leans on his palm, regarding her with his head tilted curiously.
Emma pulls one of the retrieved files toward her, but tilts her head at the question and nearly laughs. "Not if he doesn't fire you."
"Okay. Well." Percy scratches his head and makes a face. He hops down off the desk. "I should probably head back to work, then."
This is all mop up work. The climax of the scene was reached earlier, and this is just tying up loose ends.
Emma nods and flips open the cover, turning the chair's back on her newly-returned pawn. Before he exits, however, she repeats her earlier, "Welcome back, my Percy."
"Thank you," Percy says. He smiles over his shoulder and blows her a kiss on the way out. "My Queen."
Conclusion, but one I really liked, reinforcing the relationship established, Pawn to Monarch, possessed to possessor. Even Seduced and Seducer, of a sort.