(no subject)
Ran into Talhurst and the Bahir guy at the library. Who the hell goes to the library on a Friday night, much less two days before Christmas? Damn ... whatever it is this al-Razi guy is. Muslim, probably. It's too much to ask for people to stay home and out of the goddamn reading rooms?
Telepath boy apologized. Kid's a bit of a dick. Then again, so am I. Of course, I'm not a fucking mental voyeur.
I win.
The night before the night before Christmas, and somewhere in the city, Adel al-Razi is out getting a hickey. Sam's kid is nestled all snug in his bed; while visions of sweet loving dance in Mom's pretty head. In Manhattan's great library, Chris Rossi lounges -- prose over poet, mundane, earthy representative of less fantastic humanity -- with Thomas Aquinas couched in his lap. A leg over the seat's arm, overcoat flared wide across the faux leather chair, he bows his head over the writings of saints less ethereal than St. Nick.
Percy slinks among the shelves, prowling fiction with an idle eye -- and prowling fellow-prowlers, too, though his heart in it really and he's yet to give any of them so much as a second glance. A book is tucked under his arm already, a recommendation from a source he does not entirely trust, and he's slipped through to a section full of old standards -- the classics of literature, in case his selection proves unpalatable.
Jason is at a table, feet lounged on the top, flipping through some Star Wars novel called Traitor or something dour like that. Occasionally, he subvocalizes. Occasionally, he slips his eyes to the side to check out a co-ed and grin a sheepish geek grin. It's supposed to be cute or something (and if you can't win at the hot game . . . ). He's even wearing glasses for the occasion. No luck yet.
There's a book in front of Bahir, but he isn't reading it. A table away, an immigrant bends over English language books, studying for the TOEFL. The woman learns English; Bahir learns Russian, picking through her thoughts. An empty candy bar wrapper at his elbow, sweat tea neatly capped in front of him, he takes a break to stretch. He relaxes his focus, shields slipping; telepathy skims over minds nearby.
Visit Rossi's, alive with the wide-cast net of religious philosophy, knit fine and hardy through the ages by the pen of a Catholic sage. Peace drags in its web, caught for a time behind the Jesuit training. He props his black head on the backs of knuckles, gaze tugged up by the passage of strangers: a woman, a man, a -- Percy. The clean profile lifts, Roman and surprised. "Talhurst--?"
Primed to the name, Percy stops and blinks in transit, pivoting on a heel to trace the sound -- a mind jarred from idle contemplation of Pratchett and whether it's worth bothering about considering how /bloody/ many books there are into blankness and then surprised recognition. Surprise informs Oxonian tenor: "Rossi." His voice is low, because he is in a library, and some things are ingrained; he paces to meet Chris at a swift, easy step, to accomodate the constraints of volume, and adds, "Hi."
Jason's oft-there instinctual shield is disturbed out of existence by loud thoughts. << Idiot. If you're a freaking /Jedi/, you should know by now-- hey, that one's got legs. >> Sharp visual image of movement under passing skirt. Superimposed on layers and layers of shallow, flickering emotion. And the hint of a core somewhere. All casual, all flat. Nothing extreme here tonight. This minute. Jason tries to return his attention to his book.
Each mind touched but briefly, Bahir closes his eyes. He skims past Jason -- not without a slight smile, but completely without recognition; he slides over a quietly quarreling couple, next past a table of young students. Mind and gaze trip past Percy each in turn, eyes reopening. The calm of Rossi's thoughts, with his rare theme, draws him. Eyes follow, visual and telepathic recognition triggering in the same moment. He curses softly and sits forward. A moment of nervousness follows; he stands, tapping the spine of the borrowed book irritably.
The greeting is too late to retract, and a twinge of regret slips behind the mind's tranquility -- stained glass, luminous, mortal -- before Det. Rossi straightens in the chair, unhooking his leg. The book turns awkwardly in a hand, flipped shut and slipped behind the veil of his rib. De Veritate. Adam falls. "How's it going?" Cordial inconsequence. Chris winds welcome around the question, skipping his gaze across Percy and beyond: small geek in chair. Brows knit. "You taking the kid out for a wild night on the town?"
Puzzlement creases Percy's brow. He cants a glance to follow Rossi's -- and starts a little where he stands as recognition sparks. "Ah," he says. "No, I was just," a hand waves with extreme vaguery, "browsing. He's not, err, with me."
No luck, no luck. Jason shifts his weight onto one butt-cheek and tilts his head to check his watch without moving his arm. Getting late. He glances up. One blond girl (hair /obviously/ dyed. White blond) has had his back to him this entire time. Irritant. Impossible to flirt that way. Probably a snob. Thus, does Jason reach down into his backpack, retrieve a second book, identical to the first. The first is chucked at the back of the blond girl's head. Jason hastily whips the second book into place, and affects a concentrating-and-otherwise-oblivious expression.
Bahir abandons the book and squares his shoulders, crumpling wrapper into his pocket and picking up his drink. Approaching from behind, his footsteps sound soft across the floor. He clears his throat and takes a few steps closer. "Er." He's watching Rossi, a vaguely anxious expression on his face -- then the book. His eyes skip past Jason to fix on the blonde, her mental exclamation sharp. He skitters to a stop with an odd half-step. "Huh."
Chris's attention is all for this novel example of the pick-up line. "I'll be damned," he says, amusement -- reprehensible man -- the forerunner of his mood. His gaze cuts past Jason back to Percy, and warms over an honest slash of grin. "You teach him how to pick up chicks, Talhurst? Because I got to tell you, that technique didn't work for me in the fifth grade."
Percy chokes off a laugh, shifting his weight back against one heel as brows leap ceilingwards. "Holy shit," jags through half a cackle. "He didn't learn that one from /me/. When you actually hit the girl over the head before dragging her back to the cave, she tends to bring you up on charges--" Hmm. Possibly an /unfortunate/ turn of humor in present company.
The girl, more offended and surprised than wounded, whips her head around and fixes Jason with a snarl. No suspicion in her gaze, only certainty. She chucks the book right back, at his exposed forehead. "Ow!" Jason's eyes startle up. He puts a hand over the welt. The library darkens a couple of notches. War has begun.
Arms folding over his chest, Bahir fixes a glare on Rossi's head. He takes the last feet in a long stride to pull up next to him. "Rossi," he says, tone sharp, sharper, even accusatory -- and falling away into a muffled laugh as the return volley draws his attention away. He eyes the girl with something rather like approval, but humor quickly fades as dark eyes slip-slide agitatedly back. Quieter tones, then, no longer whet by temper: "Uhm, can I talk to you?"
The black head is already lifting: to the dimming of light, both shadow-cast and not. Chris hitches in his seat, an arm hooking over the chair's back to turn that lambent gaze up -- and then par, risen with his own stretch to stand. Wariness clamps hard behind the eyes, erasing humor; shields slam shut a heartbeat later, closing on the echoes of Pax Dei. "/You/."
Amber eyes jerk to Jason, to the blonde, and back, in a flicker of nerves. Percy looses calming pheromones in a soothing swath, almost pure instinct as he paces a few steps towards the youth. "Hey. Jason." He breezes the greeting, too cheerfully, though still library-quiet. "Old buddy old pal."
A few blatted words on either side, and, then, both calm. Even Jason does it without any hitch of uncertainty about where the calm comes from. Blonde decides nerd isn't worth her time and turns away. "Hey," Jason says to Percy, pulling his mouth with faux aggression to the right (still calm).
Smile chill, Bahir murmurs a "Hello." He unfolds one arm with a subaudible rasp of cloth, hand turned out palm first: peace, untouched by empathic persuasion. Chemicals, though -- they help, and earn Percy a slightly annoyed look as well. He rushes through his words, preparations scrambled. "I, ah, wanted to apologize."
A blink splinters the detective's hard-eyed regard, match to the surprise that flits quicksilver across his shields. "Yeah?" No question about /reason/, and only the barest sign of softening, though Rossi hesitates with a glance for that hand of truce. Aquinas taps thoughtfully against a thigh, quiet accompaniment; the push of antagonism subsides, lulled by chemical coaxing. "Okay," he assents, too readily, too easily. And frowns. "Stay out of my mind. Got it?"
"They like it better," Percy advises with the solemn wisdom of age and experience, "when you don't contrive to hit them in the head." He crooks a little smile, wry warmth lingering in amber. "Girls, eh?" The desire to not be bludgeoned by projectile literature is, of course, wholly inexplicable.
"I was bored," Jason states calmly and starts packing up his lit.
"Promise," Bahir says, his sincerity entirely sapiens: direct gaze and wide eyes darkening as lashes close over them; shoulders slumping, tipping in a shrug; the rueful half curve of a non-smile. "It was rude, juvenile, and you didn't deserve it." Nervous fingers tuck back long, dark strands of hair, frittering away another meaningless gesture in their fall to his side. "I just wanted to say."
"Yeah," says Chris, bemusement moving on tip-toes behind his expression: too direct, too easy. Suspicion pokes its nose above the calm, pokes, pokes, pokes up, sniffs, grabs for purchase (--calm--) and paddles. "Not the best way to win friends. Long as you don't do it again--" Baritone trails off, riding the darker valleys of Brooklyn's accent. Bewilderment flutters at Percy's leash. "--the fuck?"
"Work on /follow-through/, then," Percy advises on a cheery grin. His glance slips away from Jason to settle on Rossi and Bahir: guilt flashes sudden on a grimace. He turns to amble back, easing off the unnatural seep of calm, to dissipate into the very aether. "Sorry." His apology is almost childlike in its diffidence, in the thrust of hands for pockets. His voice is dropped lower, the set of shoulders wary, the flicker of glance checking for eaves'-droppers -- paranoid for a flimsy closet. "My aim sucks."
"Follow-" but Jason has finished picking off, and is gone.
Blink serene, Bahir glances round even as replying, attention fractured by the other man's surprise: "Nooo." The word draws out from nasal highs, rolling dry round his mouth as he seeks the source of Rossi's curse. /Surely/ it isn't him. "No, it isn't." Irritation winds fresh for Percy's apology, tone winding feline insinuation. Arms cross again. "It does. Are you always so bad?"
The pheremonal lullaby fades; natural hostility, given cause now, wakes to jostle the forefront of confusion. Chris thrusts his free hand in his jacket pocket, locking it safe behind fabric and leather. Over the straight, bracing arm, attention scythes between Bahir and Percy. "Not you," he says to the first, while unease struggles with fog. /There/. Memory. "/You/," he says to Talhurst, harsh. "I told you not to do that."
What might have started as amusement to answer insinuation shifts to sharp, defensive, on a square of his shoulders: "It's a /radius/." Percy raises a manicured finger from the safety of a pocket, drawing a circle in the air. "I can't aim it. And I /don't/ like people abusing books."
"No, not me." Surprise registers and vanishes, subsumed by sly amusement which creeps on cat paws to cover irritation. "A radius? And you were just particularly bad at math, were you?" Bahir turns his hand in the curve of his elbow, fingers rippling an idle beat. "How noble. It wasn't a very good book."
"--/Books/," Det. Rossi begins, his own irritation a jagged wound. Its bleed cuts off a moment later, expressed instead in his own book's hard-covered poke at Percy's chest. "Don't do that," he says instead, unwarily taking sides with: "Christ. I mean, I'd understand if it was Mann, or Ovid, or something worthwhile. But /Star Wars/?"
Percy neither vocalizes an 'ow' nor flinches in an overtly physical way at being poked. It is a near thing. "We're in a /library/," he points out instead with an air of wounded dignity, waving his hand at the surrounded shelves, only to bring it back round to scrub at the back of his neck, "and it was about to escalate." His glance flickers briefly, tellingly, to the lights. "It expands in a circle. I can't do anything about the math. I'm sorry, all right?"
Forgiveness in forgetfulness, Bahir lifts the fingers of his right hand a few bare inches. "Fine." Eyes dart to the side in willing distraction, Rossi's complaint lifted to flag attention from escalation. "Star Wars," he repeats, emphasis in the complete flatness of his tone. "You are not particularly discriminate in your bibliophilic heroics, either." Not complete forgiveness, then.
Chris's opinion of Percy's rationale? "Goddammit." But it is a mellow thing, shed of the immediacy of active annoyance. Habit, rather than impulse of the moment. He tucks the spine of his reading in, burying recognition of his own literacy behind a belatedly grown wall of arm and jacket sleeve. "Assholes," he dubs without heat, resigned. "What's the story? You two always travel together? Jekyll and Hyde?"
"It's the principle of the thing," Percy says testily, even though it is not, really. (Damn and blast.) "Or would be. -- Jekyll and Hyde are actually the same person," he adds absently, the slanted glance of curiosity for Rossi's book come well too late. "Bahir, I just -- trip over, places."
Head lifting, turning, Bahir half shakes his head. A smile flashes over his lips, never quite making it to dark eyes. "Ah, yes. They are, aren't they? Not Percy and I, then." Unsubtle is the suggestion between words, tongue curling bitter before moving on with false brightness. "A different literary pairing, perhaps. One rife with coincidence. Even now, my brother stalks the streets with his assistant on a quite vital mission. Funny thing, chance."
Having proven his ignorance, Chris carries his triumph into a black-ramused, "Which one of you is stalking the other? --Shit." Temper, temper. Eyes hood, going blank; the free hand splays through black hair, leaving furrows in its wake. "Something about coincidences and New York. Or maybe it's got something to do with the genes. Screw the cliche. You guys home in on each other, or something?"
"With Sam? -- Oh, hell. I forgot to give her her present this morning. Woman will have my ears--" Percy makes a face, and then cants a wry look at Rossi. "Maybe we're just both stalking /you/," he suggests brightly.
"Sam--" There's a hesitation, a minor war fought over words. "She might have a few things to say to you," Bahir says, compromising on warning with a multi-layered look. Thoughts float to the surface of his mind, tragically invisible to present company. Eyes roll, Percy's cheerful suggestion echoed with flat-toned humor: "Right. Absolutely."
The glance that pads at Talhurst is skeptical, at best: sardonic at worst. Across the tight weave of shields, black mirth hiccups across an enigmatic word. "Like hell," Chris says aloud, nudging his book toward the gape of his coat pocket. Subtlety, betimes. "Low-key, you aren't. --You either, pretty boy," he adds towards Bahir, refreshingly free of animosity.
Percy's look at Bahir is puzzled. "Might she? -- I'm a bit high profile for stalking, I suppose. Too noisy." He mouths 'pretty boy,' though gives no voice to the repetition, awash in amused skepticism of his own.
Pretty boy? Bahir's lips thin over the subvocalization. Coffee-dark eyes narrow with flashing irritation, his gaze dropping to nudged book. "You aren't intending to sneak out with that Aquinas, are you?" he says, generous with animosity in Rossi's unfortunate dearth of fellow-feeling.
Chris opens his mouth, vexation scratching white-clawed and sharp against the unspoken retort. Then he closes it. "None of your business," the baritone states, Brooklyn's accent wading heavy-legged and stiff. "Already checked it out, anyway. Easier to carry it this way." Defensive, he plants the book more firmly in his pocket, defying discovery with a hunched shoulder and arm.
"I'm sure the good detective is relatively unlikely to steal from the public library," notes Percy in a wry murmur. Curiosity flickers for Aquinas and for Rossi, but unlike some he has no ready way to pry.
A shallow smile marks petty victory, chased with a sudden flicker of unease; pheromones aborning, entirely out of place in their chemical heat. "The good detective--" Clever comments fail and Bahir exhales sharp frustration. "Interesting interests: Mann, Ovid, Aquinas."
A muscle leaps in Rossi's jaw, urgent against the tight scythe of bone beneath the skin. The slash of mouth, the column of throat, the squared set of shoulders and hackles, rising-- "I read sometimes," he says, peeling animosity from his reply to /look/ it, instead. "It happens. I trip, I fall, I land on a book...."
A twitch of a frown marks the unexpected pheromonal information; realization flickers it away a second later. Amber slants from one to the other. Percy ponders flight. "We're in a /library/," he notes, dry mockery aimed at neither particularly. "Books lurk round every corner."
Chris twitches a glance at Percy, his own signature corrugated with unease. "I'm clumsy."
Bahir matches animosity with a smile. "How awful for you." Irritation lingers, anger layering secondary heat; both build. "How observant of you, Percy." Indecision wavers, touching light across his features. "I should leave." He glances at each in turn, glare moderated. To Rossi, uncertain: "Uhm, sorry again." And Percy, surety in light sarcasm: "Sometime we should try to do this on purpose."
"Sometime," agrees Percy in utter blandness, blinking solemnity at Bahir. He raises one hand, part wave, part salute, and then drops it back towards his pocket. "Good night, Bahir."
"Yeah, I heard you the first time." Ungracious acknowledgment. Chris coasts hostility to its mate in Bahir, head canting at the other man with mind and gaze like glass: impermeable, lucent, circumscribed at last. "Apology accepted. You're kind of a dickhead. Stay out of trouble."
Retreat ignominious, Bahir scatters with a last, false-breezy "Ta." (And a glare, special for Rossi. Always a glare.)
Wryness turns to Rossi in the quirk of Percy's mouth. He chuffs a snort. "Well. I suppose I'll let you get back to it." 'It' is left to interpretation: clumsiness, Aquinas-- "I was really just saying hello."
"Prick," Chris determines, lobbing the word with a quixotic satisfaction after the departed Bahir. The leaf-bright gaze skips back, framed with fading antagonism. "Not you. Him. Apologies," he muses quietly, meditatively. "That takes some balls, considering. -- Heading out, myself. Library's closing."
"Considering," Percy concurs. His smile is slight and shadowed. "Yeah. Apologized to me too, the other night. Bahir's all right." Subtle emphasis on the proper noun, and the smile twitches to acknowledging smirk as he adds: "Bitch, but all right. -- I've got a book to check out before they boot me." He waves the slim volume, rescued from his pocket, vaguely. "So long."
You show me yours, and I'll -- not. Aquinas safely veiled in blue collar hijab, Det. Rossi touches a hand to his brow in a passing salute, grin a parting hook to darken eyes and deepen voice. "Later, Talhurst. You stay out of trouble, too. Happy holidays," he adds -- seasonal charity, tagged on as an afterthought -- and off he goes, God's truth in a pocket and the NYPD's halo on his crown. 'Tis the night before Hanukkah, and somewhere in New York, Bahir's peace of mind's upset. And Adel's getting some pork....
[Log ends]
Rossi goes to the library, and is unhappily discovered to be literate by Bahir and Percy. Also, Bahir is bitchy at Rossi, but Chris doesn't care because sticks and stones may break his bones, but snippy telepaths can't hurt him. Unless they go into his mind. Which would suck.
Telepath boy apologized. Kid's a bit of a dick. Then again, so am I. Of course, I'm not a fucking mental voyeur.
I win.
The night before the night before Christmas, and somewhere in the city, Adel al-Razi is out getting a hickey. Sam's kid is nestled all snug in his bed; while visions of sweet loving dance in Mom's pretty head. In Manhattan's great library, Chris Rossi lounges -- prose over poet, mundane, earthy representative of less fantastic humanity -- with Thomas Aquinas couched in his lap. A leg over the seat's arm, overcoat flared wide across the faux leather chair, he bows his head over the writings of saints less ethereal than St. Nick.
Percy slinks among the shelves, prowling fiction with an idle eye -- and prowling fellow-prowlers, too, though his heart in it really and he's yet to give any of them so much as a second glance. A book is tucked under his arm already, a recommendation from a source he does not entirely trust, and he's slipped through to a section full of old standards -- the classics of literature, in case his selection proves unpalatable.
Jason is at a table, feet lounged on the top, flipping through some Star Wars novel called Traitor or something dour like that. Occasionally, he subvocalizes. Occasionally, he slips his eyes to the side to check out a co-ed and grin a sheepish geek grin. It's supposed to be cute or something (and if you can't win at the hot game . . . ). He's even wearing glasses for the occasion. No luck yet.
There's a book in front of Bahir, but he isn't reading it. A table away, an immigrant bends over English language books, studying for the TOEFL. The woman learns English; Bahir learns Russian, picking through her thoughts. An empty candy bar wrapper at his elbow, sweat tea neatly capped in front of him, he takes a break to stretch. He relaxes his focus, shields slipping; telepathy skims over minds nearby.
Visit Rossi's, alive with the wide-cast net of religious philosophy, knit fine and hardy through the ages by the pen of a Catholic sage. Peace drags in its web, caught for a time behind the Jesuit training. He props his black head on the backs of knuckles, gaze tugged up by the passage of strangers: a woman, a man, a -- Percy. The clean profile lifts, Roman and surprised. "Talhurst--?"
Primed to the name, Percy stops and blinks in transit, pivoting on a heel to trace the sound -- a mind jarred from idle contemplation of Pratchett and whether it's worth bothering about considering how /bloody/ many books there are into blankness and then surprised recognition. Surprise informs Oxonian tenor: "Rossi." His voice is low, because he is in a library, and some things are ingrained; he paces to meet Chris at a swift, easy step, to accomodate the constraints of volume, and adds, "Hi."
Jason's oft-there instinctual shield is disturbed out of existence by loud thoughts. << Idiot. If you're a freaking /Jedi/, you should know by now-- hey, that one's got legs. >> Sharp visual image of movement under passing skirt. Superimposed on layers and layers of shallow, flickering emotion. And the hint of a core somewhere. All casual, all flat. Nothing extreme here tonight. This minute. Jason tries to return his attention to his book.
Each mind touched but briefly, Bahir closes his eyes. He skims past Jason -- not without a slight smile, but completely without recognition; he slides over a quietly quarreling couple, next past a table of young students. Mind and gaze trip past Percy each in turn, eyes reopening. The calm of Rossi's thoughts, with his rare theme, draws him. Eyes follow, visual and telepathic recognition triggering in the same moment. He curses softly and sits forward. A moment of nervousness follows; he stands, tapping the spine of the borrowed book irritably.
The greeting is too late to retract, and a twinge of regret slips behind the mind's tranquility -- stained glass, luminous, mortal -- before Det. Rossi straightens in the chair, unhooking his leg. The book turns awkwardly in a hand, flipped shut and slipped behind the veil of his rib. De Veritate. Adam falls. "How's it going?" Cordial inconsequence. Chris winds welcome around the question, skipping his gaze across Percy and beyond: small geek in chair. Brows knit. "You taking the kid out for a wild night on the town?"
Puzzlement creases Percy's brow. He cants a glance to follow Rossi's -- and starts a little where he stands as recognition sparks. "Ah," he says. "No, I was just," a hand waves with extreme vaguery, "browsing. He's not, err, with me."
No luck, no luck. Jason shifts his weight onto one butt-cheek and tilts his head to check his watch without moving his arm. Getting late. He glances up. One blond girl (hair /obviously/ dyed. White blond) has had his back to him this entire time. Irritant. Impossible to flirt that way. Probably a snob. Thus, does Jason reach down into his backpack, retrieve a second book, identical to the first. The first is chucked at the back of the blond girl's head. Jason hastily whips the second book into place, and affects a concentrating-and-otherwise-oblivious expression.
Bahir abandons the book and squares his shoulders, crumpling wrapper into his pocket and picking up his drink. Approaching from behind, his footsteps sound soft across the floor. He clears his throat and takes a few steps closer. "Er." He's watching Rossi, a vaguely anxious expression on his face -- then the book. His eyes skip past Jason to fix on the blonde, her mental exclamation sharp. He skitters to a stop with an odd half-step. "Huh."
Chris's attention is all for this novel example of the pick-up line. "I'll be damned," he says, amusement -- reprehensible man -- the forerunner of his mood. His gaze cuts past Jason back to Percy, and warms over an honest slash of grin. "You teach him how to pick up chicks, Talhurst? Because I got to tell you, that technique didn't work for me in the fifth grade."
Percy chokes off a laugh, shifting his weight back against one heel as brows leap ceilingwards. "Holy shit," jags through half a cackle. "He didn't learn that one from /me/. When you actually hit the girl over the head before dragging her back to the cave, she tends to bring you up on charges--" Hmm. Possibly an /unfortunate/ turn of humor in present company.
The girl, more offended and surprised than wounded, whips her head around and fixes Jason with a snarl. No suspicion in her gaze, only certainty. She chucks the book right back, at his exposed forehead. "Ow!" Jason's eyes startle up. He puts a hand over the welt. The library darkens a couple of notches. War has begun.
Arms folding over his chest, Bahir fixes a glare on Rossi's head. He takes the last feet in a long stride to pull up next to him. "Rossi," he says, tone sharp, sharper, even accusatory -- and falling away into a muffled laugh as the return volley draws his attention away. He eyes the girl with something rather like approval, but humor quickly fades as dark eyes slip-slide agitatedly back. Quieter tones, then, no longer whet by temper: "Uhm, can I talk to you?"
The black head is already lifting: to the dimming of light, both shadow-cast and not. Chris hitches in his seat, an arm hooking over the chair's back to turn that lambent gaze up -- and then par, risen with his own stretch to stand. Wariness clamps hard behind the eyes, erasing humor; shields slam shut a heartbeat later, closing on the echoes of Pax Dei. "/You/."
Amber eyes jerk to Jason, to the blonde, and back, in a flicker of nerves. Percy looses calming pheromones in a soothing swath, almost pure instinct as he paces a few steps towards the youth. "Hey. Jason." He breezes the greeting, too cheerfully, though still library-quiet. "Old buddy old pal."
A few blatted words on either side, and, then, both calm. Even Jason does it without any hitch of uncertainty about where the calm comes from. Blonde decides nerd isn't worth her time and turns away. "Hey," Jason says to Percy, pulling his mouth with faux aggression to the right (still calm).
Smile chill, Bahir murmurs a "Hello." He unfolds one arm with a subaudible rasp of cloth, hand turned out palm first: peace, untouched by empathic persuasion. Chemicals, though -- they help, and earn Percy a slightly annoyed look as well. He rushes through his words, preparations scrambled. "I, ah, wanted to apologize."
A blink splinters the detective's hard-eyed regard, match to the surprise that flits quicksilver across his shields. "Yeah?" No question about /reason/, and only the barest sign of softening, though Rossi hesitates with a glance for that hand of truce. Aquinas taps thoughtfully against a thigh, quiet accompaniment; the push of antagonism subsides, lulled by chemical coaxing. "Okay," he assents, too readily, too easily. And frowns. "Stay out of my mind. Got it?"
"They like it better," Percy advises with the solemn wisdom of age and experience, "when you don't contrive to hit them in the head." He crooks a little smile, wry warmth lingering in amber. "Girls, eh?" The desire to not be bludgeoned by projectile literature is, of course, wholly inexplicable.
"I was bored," Jason states calmly and starts packing up his lit.
"Promise," Bahir says, his sincerity entirely sapiens: direct gaze and wide eyes darkening as lashes close over them; shoulders slumping, tipping in a shrug; the rueful half curve of a non-smile. "It was rude, juvenile, and you didn't deserve it." Nervous fingers tuck back long, dark strands of hair, frittering away another meaningless gesture in their fall to his side. "I just wanted to say."
"Yeah," says Chris, bemusement moving on tip-toes behind his expression: too direct, too easy. Suspicion pokes its nose above the calm, pokes, pokes, pokes up, sniffs, grabs for purchase (--calm--) and paddles. "Not the best way to win friends. Long as you don't do it again--" Baritone trails off, riding the darker valleys of Brooklyn's accent. Bewilderment flutters at Percy's leash. "--the fuck?"
"Work on /follow-through/, then," Percy advises on a cheery grin. His glance slips away from Jason to settle on Rossi and Bahir: guilt flashes sudden on a grimace. He turns to amble back, easing off the unnatural seep of calm, to dissipate into the very aether. "Sorry." His apology is almost childlike in its diffidence, in the thrust of hands for pockets. His voice is dropped lower, the set of shoulders wary, the flicker of glance checking for eaves'-droppers -- paranoid for a flimsy closet. "My aim sucks."
"Follow-" but Jason has finished picking off, and is gone.
Blink serene, Bahir glances round even as replying, attention fractured by the other man's surprise: "Nooo." The word draws out from nasal highs, rolling dry round his mouth as he seeks the source of Rossi's curse. /Surely/ it isn't him. "No, it isn't." Irritation winds fresh for Percy's apology, tone winding feline insinuation. Arms cross again. "It does. Are you always so bad?"
The pheremonal lullaby fades; natural hostility, given cause now, wakes to jostle the forefront of confusion. Chris thrusts his free hand in his jacket pocket, locking it safe behind fabric and leather. Over the straight, bracing arm, attention scythes between Bahir and Percy. "Not you," he says to the first, while unease struggles with fog. /There/. Memory. "/You/," he says to Talhurst, harsh. "I told you not to do that."
What might have started as amusement to answer insinuation shifts to sharp, defensive, on a square of his shoulders: "It's a /radius/." Percy raises a manicured finger from the safety of a pocket, drawing a circle in the air. "I can't aim it. And I /don't/ like people abusing books."
"No, not me." Surprise registers and vanishes, subsumed by sly amusement which creeps on cat paws to cover irritation. "A radius? And you were just particularly bad at math, were you?" Bahir turns his hand in the curve of his elbow, fingers rippling an idle beat. "How noble. It wasn't a very good book."
"--/Books/," Det. Rossi begins, his own irritation a jagged wound. Its bleed cuts off a moment later, expressed instead in his own book's hard-covered poke at Percy's chest. "Don't do that," he says instead, unwarily taking sides with: "Christ. I mean, I'd understand if it was Mann, or Ovid, or something worthwhile. But /Star Wars/?"
Percy neither vocalizes an 'ow' nor flinches in an overtly physical way at being poked. It is a near thing. "We're in a /library/," he points out instead with an air of wounded dignity, waving his hand at the surrounded shelves, only to bring it back round to scrub at the back of his neck, "and it was about to escalate." His glance flickers briefly, tellingly, to the lights. "It expands in a circle. I can't do anything about the math. I'm sorry, all right?"
Forgiveness in forgetfulness, Bahir lifts the fingers of his right hand a few bare inches. "Fine." Eyes dart to the side in willing distraction, Rossi's complaint lifted to flag attention from escalation. "Star Wars," he repeats, emphasis in the complete flatness of his tone. "You are not particularly discriminate in your bibliophilic heroics, either." Not complete forgiveness, then.
Chris's opinion of Percy's rationale? "Goddammit." But it is a mellow thing, shed of the immediacy of active annoyance. Habit, rather than impulse of the moment. He tucks the spine of his reading in, burying recognition of his own literacy behind a belatedly grown wall of arm and jacket sleeve. "Assholes," he dubs without heat, resigned. "What's the story? You two always travel together? Jekyll and Hyde?"
"It's the principle of the thing," Percy says testily, even though it is not, really. (Damn and blast.) "Or would be. -- Jekyll and Hyde are actually the same person," he adds absently, the slanted glance of curiosity for Rossi's book come well too late. "Bahir, I just -- trip over, places."
Head lifting, turning, Bahir half shakes his head. A smile flashes over his lips, never quite making it to dark eyes. "Ah, yes. They are, aren't they? Not Percy and I, then." Unsubtle is the suggestion between words, tongue curling bitter before moving on with false brightness. "A different literary pairing, perhaps. One rife with coincidence. Even now, my brother stalks the streets with his assistant on a quite vital mission. Funny thing, chance."
Having proven his ignorance, Chris carries his triumph into a black-ramused, "Which one of you is stalking the other? --Shit." Temper, temper. Eyes hood, going blank; the free hand splays through black hair, leaving furrows in its wake. "Something about coincidences and New York. Or maybe it's got something to do with the genes. Screw the cliche. You guys home in on each other, or something?"
"With Sam? -- Oh, hell. I forgot to give her her present this morning. Woman will have my ears--" Percy makes a face, and then cants a wry look at Rossi. "Maybe we're just both stalking /you/," he suggests brightly.
"Sam--" There's a hesitation, a minor war fought over words. "She might have a few things to say to you," Bahir says, compromising on warning with a multi-layered look. Thoughts float to the surface of his mind, tragically invisible to present company. Eyes roll, Percy's cheerful suggestion echoed with flat-toned humor: "Right. Absolutely."
The glance that pads at Talhurst is skeptical, at best: sardonic at worst. Across the tight weave of shields, black mirth hiccups across an enigmatic word. "Like hell," Chris says aloud, nudging his book toward the gape of his coat pocket. Subtlety, betimes. "Low-key, you aren't. --You either, pretty boy," he adds towards Bahir, refreshingly free of animosity.
Percy's look at Bahir is puzzled. "Might she? -- I'm a bit high profile for stalking, I suppose. Too noisy." He mouths 'pretty boy,' though gives no voice to the repetition, awash in amused skepticism of his own.
Pretty boy? Bahir's lips thin over the subvocalization. Coffee-dark eyes narrow with flashing irritation, his gaze dropping to nudged book. "You aren't intending to sneak out with that Aquinas, are you?" he says, generous with animosity in Rossi's unfortunate dearth of fellow-feeling.
Chris opens his mouth, vexation scratching white-clawed and sharp against the unspoken retort. Then he closes it. "None of your business," the baritone states, Brooklyn's accent wading heavy-legged and stiff. "Already checked it out, anyway. Easier to carry it this way." Defensive, he plants the book more firmly in his pocket, defying discovery with a hunched shoulder and arm.
"I'm sure the good detective is relatively unlikely to steal from the public library," notes Percy in a wry murmur. Curiosity flickers for Aquinas and for Rossi, but unlike some he has no ready way to pry.
A shallow smile marks petty victory, chased with a sudden flicker of unease; pheromones aborning, entirely out of place in their chemical heat. "The good detective--" Clever comments fail and Bahir exhales sharp frustration. "Interesting interests: Mann, Ovid, Aquinas."
A muscle leaps in Rossi's jaw, urgent against the tight scythe of bone beneath the skin. The slash of mouth, the column of throat, the squared set of shoulders and hackles, rising-- "I read sometimes," he says, peeling animosity from his reply to /look/ it, instead. "It happens. I trip, I fall, I land on a book...."
A twitch of a frown marks the unexpected pheromonal information; realization flickers it away a second later. Amber slants from one to the other. Percy ponders flight. "We're in a /library/," he notes, dry mockery aimed at neither particularly. "Books lurk round every corner."
Chris twitches a glance at Percy, his own signature corrugated with unease. "I'm clumsy."
Bahir matches animosity with a smile. "How awful for you." Irritation lingers, anger layering secondary heat; both build. "How observant of you, Percy." Indecision wavers, touching light across his features. "I should leave." He glances at each in turn, glare moderated. To Rossi, uncertain: "Uhm, sorry again." And Percy, surety in light sarcasm: "Sometime we should try to do this on purpose."
"Sometime," agrees Percy in utter blandness, blinking solemnity at Bahir. He raises one hand, part wave, part salute, and then drops it back towards his pocket. "Good night, Bahir."
"Yeah, I heard you the first time." Ungracious acknowledgment. Chris coasts hostility to its mate in Bahir, head canting at the other man with mind and gaze like glass: impermeable, lucent, circumscribed at last. "Apology accepted. You're kind of a dickhead. Stay out of trouble."
Retreat ignominious, Bahir scatters with a last, false-breezy "Ta." (And a glare, special for Rossi. Always a glare.)
Wryness turns to Rossi in the quirk of Percy's mouth. He chuffs a snort. "Well. I suppose I'll let you get back to it." 'It' is left to interpretation: clumsiness, Aquinas-- "I was really just saying hello."
"Prick," Chris determines, lobbing the word with a quixotic satisfaction after the departed Bahir. The leaf-bright gaze skips back, framed with fading antagonism. "Not you. Him. Apologies," he muses quietly, meditatively. "That takes some balls, considering. -- Heading out, myself. Library's closing."
"Considering," Percy concurs. His smile is slight and shadowed. "Yeah. Apologized to me too, the other night. Bahir's all right." Subtle emphasis on the proper noun, and the smile twitches to acknowledging smirk as he adds: "Bitch, but all right. -- I've got a book to check out before they boot me." He waves the slim volume, rescued from his pocket, vaguely. "So long."
You show me yours, and I'll -- not. Aquinas safely veiled in blue collar hijab, Det. Rossi touches a hand to his brow in a passing salute, grin a parting hook to darken eyes and deepen voice. "Later, Talhurst. You stay out of trouble, too. Happy holidays," he adds -- seasonal charity, tagged on as an afterthought -- and off he goes, God's truth in a pocket and the NYPD's halo on his crown. 'Tis the night before Hanukkah, and somewhere in New York, Bahir's peace of mind's upset. And Adel's getting some pork....
[Log ends]
Rossi goes to the library, and is unhappily discovered to be literate by Bahir and Percy. Also, Bahir is bitchy at Rossi, but Chris doesn't care because sticks and stones may break his bones, but snippy telepaths can't hurt him. Unless they go into his mind. Which would suck.