OOC: Intersecting commentary
LJ Entry: Intersecting
Date: 2/24/2006
Players: Percy & Rossi
xmm_Percy is one of those fantastic RPers and players who I love to read, like a lot OOCly, and yet never get to play with. It's an odd thing, considering -- and yet, there you go. We do not have RP chemistry yet, which might be related to the fact we rarely play together, or, uh, might explain why we rarely play together. (Apropos, I envy the ability of people like xmm_sabby and xmm_shaw, who seem to be able to create chemistry at the drop of a hat, with pretty much anything.) At any rate, for a rarity, here we are: a scene together. I was ridiculously pleased with the opportunity, and really enjoyed it, even though I vaguely recall poor Percy's player had to work really hard at it. I DO NOT CARE.
The two of them have some painful background together, due to their shared friend, Sabitha Melcross. Here's how it all goes down. Emma and Jason get Percy in trouble. Rossi picks up Percy, who gets Jason in trouble. Rossi picking up Percy gets him in trouble with Sabby, who promptly gets Rossi in trouble with Emma. Sabby runs to Percy, who goes to Emma, and now Rossi is really really in trouble. Emma and Percy screw Rossi, and not in the literal way -- boo! -- and now Rossi and Percy and Sabby and Jason and Emma are not in trouble. Except Percy has guilt, Rossi has a strange sense of obligation, and if you're really interested in all this, go read the Windex Commentary.
More recent history between them is once again through a third party, this time embodied by Leah Canto, deceased. Percy slept with Leah around New Year's. When talking to Sabby later, he unexpectedly discovered that Leah was in a relationship with Chris when she died, perhaps even when she slept with Percy. That's nice. He has now screwed Chris over in every possible way save the literal. All that's left is to shoot his dog.
Afternoon shades into evening, time's passage unmourned and in fact unremarked by the lean figure comfortably installed in the reading area. Percy has not moved in awhile; the curve of his spine conforms lazily to the shape of the couch's corner, legs crossed ankle-at-knee in black jeans worn to a cozy cling from many wearings and washed to dull coal. His sweater is rich crimson over the grey-on-white pinstripes of his collared shirt; his eyes scan the pages of his new-used hardbound novel through his reading glasses, manicured fingers sliding delicate over age-scented paper. His charcoal coat, next to him on the couch, bears signs of tabby hair, despite the animal having been several times forcibly removed from its length.
Quiet thunder grumbles underfoot. A bookcase rolls on its sliding rails, building an opening where French Literature dominated but a half-second before. A long, blue-clad arm pushes the gap wide, building a bridge for a tiny woman to duck under, and hard on her heels, the man himself emerges, coat bundled over his fist, the sling-trapped left arm cradling a book. Proud and vivid face, tarnish-bright eyes, the hawk's beak of nose and secretive, sensual mouth: Chris Rossi prowls into the small lounge, a nod for the parting woman and attention for the empty chair. One leg hooks, faded denim rasping against the seat's padded arm; the other stretches long, claiming territory under the low-voiced rasp of a curse.
Percy's player complains that he is not good at sets, and yet somehow fails to prove this apparent inadequacy. Percy does a great job of laying out his physical hotness: the clothing, the pose, the physical environment, even the mood. Like xmm_magneto, he has a great sense for clothing and the description of it. He's got mad style.
I am suffering from same-itis of late, where all the words and images that I use are recycled garbage from earlier garbage. It is fantastically annoying. I have, in short, run out of words. The best thing to do in this sort of situation is to put away the computer for a little while and read some books, restock the vocabulary, clean the palette, and so forth. I will do so shortly. (Commentary first.) While I do do a lot of physical posing, I am not good at it. You get physicality without context, or cohesion, or -- most tragically of all -- attraction. I'm not entirely sure that I was ever able to pose hot like Percy does. Regardless, two voiceless poses, each of them sets in their own way. I arbitrary put the bookcases on sliding rails. Something I'm still trying to work on is the concept of 'less is more.' I am fantastically verbose; there are images and extra words in my poses that really don't need to be there. Simple elegance seems to elude me. I continue to work on it. There are some fresher images there that I like in my pose: the 'tarnish-bright eyes,' the 'secretive, sensual mouth.' Tarnish is an obvious reference; Rossi is hardly a knight in shining armor. Shades of grey, and flakes of rust. Also, it has occurred to me that Chris really does live with a lot of secrets, most of them other people's -- and yet, he's also incredibly open with his thoughts and emotions, to the point of sheer suicide where Magneto's involved (as a for instance). Somewhere in there he must have the capacity to make himself unreadable as needed, even if it's just to protect others.
Rossi's left arm is in a sling. Magneto had Mystique shoot him. See above re: suicidal honesty. Or at least, catastrophic rudeness.
Percy glances up at the sound, set to pass idle attention over the newcomer and return to his reading. Instead, amber catches on Chris's face, snags there; Percy blinks. "Oh," he says, and then, somewhat inanely, "hello."
The book being worried out of its makeshift halter jerks, catching on an errant thumb; the dark head lifts, distracted away. "Oh," the other man says back, startled into an echo. And then, more abrupt: "You."
I like this little exchange, in which Percy's words are mirrored back to him. I don't think either of them are particularly pleased to see the other. They are not friends. They have mutual friends in common -- well, a mutual friend in common -- but both are old enough and mature enough to realize that the friend of my friend is not really obligated to be my friend. Anyway, there's too much strangeness between them now, even if half of it is a mystery to Chris, that whatever might eventually build up between them -- well. It wouldn't be the normal kind of friendship, ever. If ever.
Each man is an unwelcome reminder to the other of what has passed. Percy's discomfort is probably the worse. Chris has no shame in what he did to Percy; it was his job, and he had reason, and even if he was wrong, well. He was justified in the course of doing it. His real discomfort with Percy is that he broke the man, and even if it wasn't a complete break -- still. He knew what to do to take him the rest of the way (probably) and already had it mapped out in his head. He saw the guy in extremis, vulnerable and exposed. It's not so much shame at having done it as it is embarrassment for Percy.
It's worse that there's no warning for either of them to steel themselves for the shock. It's one thing if they met in Sabby's apartment. At least there, there's a chance that one will run into the other. But the bookstore is neutral territory. There's no reason to expect Chris or Percy to pop in, so neither of them are prepared.
The awakening jangle of nerves fuels the flick of Percy's glance away and around the room, not centering on anything in particular. His head tips into some fragment of a nod as his eyes slide back. He clears his throat. "Er, yes," he says. "Me."
Across the small lounge, the supple bow of mouth curves, pressing shadow into olive-bronze skin. The stretch begun and then interrupted takes up the remainder of its motion, shaping the lean body to the armchair's generous contours. "Relax," Chris invites. "I'm not going to eat you, Talhurst. You want me to leave?"
Chris says one thing and does another, settling himself physically while suggesting departure vocally. He would leave, mind, if Percy asked it. However. He's been shot again, he's got a book, he's tired, it's his day off, and dammit, he'd rather just stay. Percy's body language immediately conveys unease and discomfort: not looking at Chris directly, hesitation in his speech. (Percy's player, mind you, does an absolutely fantastic job of communicating this. Absolutely fantastic.) As the alpha dog, Rossi both commands and confronts ("Relax. I'm not going to eat you, Talhurst.") with a little exasperation, and then turns around and gives the weaker man a semblance of control over his environment. "You want me to leave?" It's a little unfair; in all courtesy, Percy can't ask him to go -- it's a public place, and the man's got manners -- and Chris counts on that, not only in his body language but also in the phrasing of the question.
Still, offering someone the opportunity to control their environment is something of a mean trick; it gives the other person the illusion of power, and lets them increase their comfort level, at least a little bit. Thinking about it, this is probably one of those behaviors that have become ingrained in Chris after years of interrogations. Start out letting their target feel comfortable and in control, then slowly take it away until they have nothing left and end up clinging desperately to the person who's appropriated power. Namely, the cop.
Percy slouches back into the couch, shoulders' slump pulling him lower, and his lashes slant low over mellow amber, wry and rueful. Ease invoked, ease manageable enough; thumb tucking into the pages of his book to mark his place as he lets its covers close, he says, "Don't be foolish. I was a bit surprised, is all. Haven't run into you," dark brows pull down into the perplexity of memory, Percy sorting through the vagueries of linear time to come up with, "oh, that -- thing, whatever the hell it was." His left hand rises, fingers' flutter vague. "At Sabby's. I think."
"Lazzaro, you, that kid -- yeah, I remember." A black boot roves into the shadow under the coffee table's low-slung barrier, physicality expanding like the slow wash of pheromonal message: fatigue, ill-health, and an off-kilter wrongness that slips in and out of scent like a nibbling, gnawing worm. The free hand digs again after its book, and this time proves victorious; Siddhartha slips onto a thigh and off again, diving for hasty cover between the leg and the chair. "Didn't figure on seeing him again so soon. You two friends, now?"
Percy poses his thumbs a lot. I am tickled by it, because the thumb? is a very underappreciated digit. It really is. Think how hard it would be to type if you couldn't use it. Nospacesandthatwouldjustsuckasskthx. Not to mention all the food you wouldn't be able to pick up. Or fruit. Or, say, spoons. At any rate, Percy recovers quickly and well. It's hard to say whether it's for real or not, since Percy's specialty is the social mask; the 'last time' that he refers to is this occasion, when Rossi and Bahir got into it, a little.
I belatedly feed Percy's mutation, another thing that I'm not so good at. Mutations are a constant hardship to me, (plain old vanilla human! help!) and I have to remind myself to give them something to work with, even if they're not planning on using it all that much. I tend to go overboard once I remember. I suffer from a penchant for excess, in most cases. This time I think I actually managed fairly well, tying in the pheromones with the stretch of physical presence. It makes sense that the two would tie in together, and that they wouldn't be obvious until he'd settled enough in one place for the chemical signals to build and spill. Right. I planned it that way. Totally.
Rossi's got a rot at the heart of him, which is why the worm image. I'm not entirely sure if it's something that would be picked up through pheromones, but hell. Science still isn't sure how they work, so I made up my own. He's battling serious depression, and doing a fairly decent job of it, but under all that is the decision and desire to kill, sublimated and suppressed until the time is right. All that poison has to go somewhere, right? And so it goes out this way, right up Percy's nose.
Not, mind, that Percy can do much with it. It's not anger or fear or lust or any of the standard messages. And anyway, Percy has pretty much promised he will never use his mutation on Rossi. (I'd be interested in seeing a situation where Rossi would ask for it. Hm. There's a thought.) Nonetheless, it gives Percy a read on what's happening with Rossi, which is -- the man reads off. Not sick, precisely. Just ... off.
Here's an idle question. What happens when Percy gets a blocked up nose or a sinus infection? Can he read pheromones anymore?
"Er, which kid?" Percy squints at Rossi over the tops of his reading glasses. Black loafer hits the floor with a thump, feet sliding wide apart across the carpet. His book slides along the denim length of thigh, tucking against the chair's side; its cover Nabokovian, its title hidden by the flat of his hand. "Wait. I think Jason had left by the time you -- or had he? I don't remember." He grimaces faintly for the unreliability of memory and shakes his head. "Bahir and I are friends, anyway. Yes."
The available hand gestures, pulled away from the hunt after the book. "Bahir. That's his name. al ... al-Ragu. Shit. That's not right." Chris's chin lifts, face blanking after the chase of memory; light pools at his throat and the beat of pulse under skin, bared by the unbuttoned collar of dark, pin-striped blue. "al-Razi. That's it. Friends, now? Go figure it. He and Melcross get along better, then?"
Reading glasses! Meanwhile, I make an attempt at maintaining clothing in my poses. (al-Ragu. Hah. I make a funny.) Chris doesn't expect that Bahir and Sabby would get along well, necessarily. He's just aware of the difficulties of being friends with people when your other friends absolutely hate them. Not that it's impossible, but with the closeness of Percy and Sabby's living situations, not to mention their ... er, other closeness, well. He has no idea that Percy and Sabby have slept together. Confronted with the information, though, the character advises me that he wouldn't be particularly startled, beyond the constant flicker of surprise that Percy swings for both teams.
There was something about this scene that was challenging my physical posing. Not in the sense that it was difficult; more that my mind felt challenged, uh, which is the same thing except different. It wasn't so much that I felt like keeping up, as it was that I had beautiful Percy-poses to respond to, so I felt inspired. And fell flat on my face sometimes, but that's how it goes.
I make a note here that I have recently become fascinated by pulses. This is due to my real life work, which currently has me working on the charting of vitals during medical exams.
"Er." Percy scrubs at the side of his face with the palm of his hand, dislodging glasses with the knock of fingertips; he removes them to fiddle idly with their arms. "Not so much. There's this whole balancing act where I try and keep them both from being in my apartment at once." He breathes rue into part of a laugh, neither voiced nor fully formed. His brows bob, wry, as he appends, "Good times."
"Like two cats in a bag?" suggests Rossi, amusement gathering the Brooklyn accent into easy, raw-silked bunches. His own eyebrows arc, pushing towards the burnished order of hair. "Shades of high school. How's that go, 'the friend of my friend is my enemy?' You got some guts, being friends with a teep. Especially one who likes to--" Fingers flicker, eloquently mute, gesturing towards his own head before brushing towards Percy's.
Such a clear image there, of Percy fiddling with the arms of his glasses. Also of the sound he makes, which isn't quite a laugh but isn't quite not a laugh. I love the entire construction of his pose.
Meanwhile, mine isn't so awful either. Chris talks about high school drama like he's familiar with it, but he really isn't. He flew through high school like an arrow, on track and focused -- a lot on girls, it's true, but after all the guy was planning on entering seminary and, uh, he filled out well and turned out pretty hot and dammit, he's only human -- and emotional pyrotechnics weren't really a big part of his experiences there. That is to say, other people's emotional pyrotechnics. There was a lot of girlfriend drama, it's true; he had a couple he actually dated, without any of the heart-burning mad love that high schoolers seem to go into. It was mostly one-sided, directed at him rather than from him. The certainty of knowing that he'd eventually become a priest protected him from that kind of emotional vulnerability to, I suspect, a maddening degree. He heard a great deal of crying, and "You don't love me!" wailing, which gave him some honest guilt, if never enough to give up women altogether. Because, c'mon. Women. He was a teenager. Sex was fun. He did learn a great deal about his own attractiveness, and, unfortunately, how to manipulate other people's feelings. He was also more an observer than a participant in the normal kinds of high school drama: backstabbing, jealousy, cliques, ganging up against this party or that, betrayals, spite, envy, all the fun stuff. The younger Chris was honestly, frankly, pure -- in the social sense. Untouched and untouchable. He was a nice, sweet, fun guy you could trust with your secrets and would give you good advice if you wanted it.
Check me out, with the tangents. So, er, back to the pose. Rossi has a hard time understanding how someone would choose to become friends with a telepath. His own initial friendliness (such as it was) with Jean is long in the past, and he has a hard time recollecting exactly why he ever thought it would be a good idea. See the Windex commentary for more on that. It is, in his opinion, very brave of Percy. Which is Rossi parlance for 'fantastically stupid.'
"I think I missed a lot of that in high school," Percy muses, accent strengthening in its British channels as he elaborates: "Boarding school, you know. No girls." It eases back toward Connecticut as he pulls his glasses case out of the inside pocket of the coat beside him to put the reading glasses aside and free his hands, saying, "He doesn't do that anymore, really. He's even been teaching me to shield, a bit." His smile twitches. "As much as any of us non-teeps can learn."
Rue thins Chris's mouth, slanting it towards something darker. "Yeah, well. Jean Grey was giving me one-on-one time last year on that. Fat lot of good it does if one decides to go tromping through your head. Suppose having your own pet teep works better than a tin foil helmet, anyway." Aggression creeps into the quiet chemical signal, prickle-prickle-prickling towards something bloodier before it fades, quashed by the twitch of grin. "Useful guy."
I picked up rue from Percy's earlier pose and skipped it back at him here, by accident. Sticky words. Sometimes you just can't call them, and my buffer always reels by too fast for me to remember which words came up in my mind without prompting, and which ones just stuck in my head from someone else's pose. An all-boys school has a different kind of drama than a coed one, but it's true that girls sort of jack up the testosterone -- and estrogen isn't exactly an emotional stabilizer either. Rossi's one year in seminary had a completely different feel as a result, and that all-boys club has a kind of nostalgia for him, a sense of belonging and comfort that he's only been able to find in the NYPD, that other all-boys club. (Well. There are some women, but the ones he knows are just guys with ovaries.)
Chris dislikes the reminder of telepathic training, and the obvious vulnerability that makes it impossible for him to defend against a determined assault of that type. Thus the aggression, which is a bleedthrough of the entire windex incident. Of all the people around, Percy is one of the few who would be able to pinpoint exactly what triggered that in this conversation.
Percy's eyes drop as he flips his leather glasses case shut, its button snapping shut under the pressure of his thumb. "Useful, I suppose," he says mildly once the glasses are put away; his gaze lifts again. "He did mention your own defenses were particularly effective."
"Yeah," says Chris in mellow, flat acknowledgment. Green meets amber as the raptor face closes; something ugly and uncertain moves behind it. In its sling, the injured hand flexes. "It was an experiment. I showed him a crime scene."
This is a reference back to this log, which took place before Bahir grew a conscience and decided to stop poking around in people's minds just for the fun of it. Chris's lessons with Jean bore fruit in this one, rather spectacular instance; abruptly aware of telepathic manipulation, he pulled one of the most gory cases out of his memory and threw it out into the aether to see who'd flinch. For all his ascetic leanings (he has some. Don't laugh!) Chris is ultimately a sensualist: his memory is like surround sound, with all the attendant other senses that come into play. He remembers things acutely: scent, sound, hearing, taste, feel, emotion. This is part of why the prospect of windexing was so horrific to him; it was, quite literally, self-destruction. As a result, though, his memories of crime scenes can be quite powerful as a repellant, and poor Bahir got the full treatment.
Chris has a little bit of regret about that. He doesn't willingly let people into that part of his life, if they're not already blue and in the know. It's ugly, and it's dark, and demonstrates the worst that humanity is capable of. On the other hand -- man was marching around in his mind, willy-nilly. He's in two minds about it. There's a part of him that feels regret and a little guilt about it, even knowing that feeling these things is stupid. There's the other part of him, that feels perfectly justified.
"I believe," Percy says with a certain delicacy, "that the experiment was a success." His gaze slips down to the sling for a moment before it climbs back up to Chris's face again. "He'll not forget that in a hurry."
Rossi's head drops and his gaze drops with it, lowering the cynical mask enough for regret to show, however fleeting. "Yeah," he says again, and bares it in the deep baritone as well, wry and wise. "He probably won't. You run into him again, tell him I'm sorry about that one. Guy shouldn't have been running through my brain--" The words trail off, colliding into the unspoken one. But.
...but given the opportunity to apologize without having to do it in person, he'll take it. In person, he'd remember more clearly just why he did it. His dislike of telepaths is acute and immediate; it'd be unlikely he'd overcome that hostility and suspicion enough to concede to his better self, as it were. Given a proxy, he'll take advantage of it. Sorry you had to see that, Bahir. (Don't do it again.) He's met Bahir a couple of times, and barring the whole telepath thing, hasn't found him half bad. He can appreciate a proper asshole, being one himself. The lack of complete and utter bullshit makes the younger man rather commendable, in a way that Chris approves of. In that preference, Rossi's being a little simplistic. He equates a certain type of rudeness with honesty, which is not quite correct. A man can be rude and still be lying through his teeth; incivility is as much a mask and defensive cover as social courtesy. For whatever reason, it's a kind of mask that Chris prefers, from time to time.
"I'll pass that on," Percy says, his head canting slightly to one side. His mouth twists into a lopsided smile. "He's really not a bad sort, as they go. Asshole," he says, the word fond and coupled with an amused dip of dark lashes, "but forthright. And he's learned to respect people's privacy. Though," he flips fingers up as he ducks his head, wry amusement laid over his voice in a darkening cloak, "I'm biased."
"Sleeping with him?"
The obvious question. Rossi knows enough gay men (or has come across them in the course of his work) to expect a certain kind of destructive promiscuity from those that aren't committed to some sort of relationship. The gay scene has quieted down a little since its raucous heyday, but there're still those young men who are wild on hormones, meeting up with other young men who are wild on hormones. It is a stereotype, but it's one that has been reinforced by Rossi's own encounters -- not sexual! -- with the community.
And before anyone says something, not for a second since they first met has it occured to Rossi that Percy might be straight. In fact, I think Sabby first talked about him as a gay man. Every girl needs her gay best friend, or something along those lines.
Percy laughs and scuffs a hand through his hair. "Noo," he says, the negative slow and stretched, "but not for lack of trying."
Brilliant eyes glitter under the falcon's hood of eyelids, black lashes fanning long and dark. "They teach you that in boarding school?" Chris asks, dryly amused.
"What," Percy asks, cocking his head. "Gay sex?"
The free hand gestures again, inviting response without supplying interpretation.
The question is broad, and actually refers to a lot of things. How to look pretty? How to flirt? To like guys instead of girls? Seduction? He doesn't bother to clarify, because it's one of those things that Percy can pick any sort of meaning out of and interpret as he sees fit. Like a lot of those kinds of questions, you can sometimes learn a lot about which meaning the answerer picks out and decides to answer.
Percy scratches at the back of his head, ruffling the dark waves of his hair. "I could tell you stories, if you wanted," he says, mouth solemn. "They called me Hummer."
For a split second, the dark face clears; the mask shears completely away, baring surprise and quicksilver hilarity. Chris laughs. "I'll be damned. --No, Christ. Don't tell me stories. I'd rather not know. Jesus. /Hummer/. Doesn't exactly leave much to the imagination."
A very rare laugh from Rossi. He's taken by surprise -- and after all, it is such an terrible and fantastic nickname, if I do say so myself. Considering it was my alt, Ryan Bach, who came up with the name for the poor chap ... well. I am entitled to take a little pride in it.
Mild homophobia aside, Rossi is capable of engaging in equal humor regarding homosexuality, though there's always a niggling little sense of superiority and separation in the back of his mind. He can make jokes because he is straight, and unthreatened in his masculinity. Really. (Shut up.) If he knew that Percy had seen him at his most vulnerable, that he'd been threatened with the possibility of rape by Talhurst, if he knew any detail of that night in the hotel, it's likely that he would do things to Percy that, uh, probably wouldn't be healthy for Percy in any way, shape or form.
Aside, for some reason I really really love Percy's pose there.
Percy grins in a bright flash, lashes' sweep smug and slow as he lounges against the couch's back. "Well, /no/," he drawls, mirth-dark. His thumbnail brushes along the curve of his lower lip. "We were none of us all that terribly subtle."
"College," remembers Chris, nostalgia and the remnants of that laugh still softening the harsh face. He ventures to stretch longer, chary of pain; the healthy hand gropes after the sling, guarding it from bumps and rough use. "Then again, I'm not exactly a role model of subtlety /now/. My nickname wasn't exactly imaginative either, back then."
Poor Chris. He really is ridiculously beat up. About the only good thing about this particular injury is that Ellen heals him, so for once he doesn't end up with a scar. He's getting too old to heal without scars, and his body is criss-crossed by them, most of them received at Magneto's hands. THANKS A LOT, TINHEAD. Poor, battered Rossi.
Chris is capable of subtlety; a lot of this forthright in-your-faceness is part of that. People don't look for something more if they think they're getting exactly what they see, and despite his almost aggressive openness, he's relatively hard to read when he chooses to be. Claiming a lack of subtlety is by way of being a rattlesnake's shake, a warning. You have been alerted. Proceed to believe him at your own peril.
"Dare I ask?" Amber gleams, dark brows lifting inquiry as he shifts, elbow against the couch's armrest and the first finger and thumb of his left hand framing support for his face. "When I got to university, there started to be girls. And cunning linguist jokes."
Rossi fists his temple, his upper arm planing along the chair's padded rest, humor still alight in the strong, stark face. "Bishop," he confesses. "Could've been worse. Nowadays, the squad room calls me 'Ricochet,' or 'Kitten' -- never fuck up in front of the NYPD, Talhurst. They got long memories and crappy senses of humor. --That why you went into languages? Didn't know you swung both ways."
It's a throwaway revelation, and OOCly I laughed myself sick. Of course he was called Bishop in college. What else would they call him? In a frat, and surrounded by guys with broad, direct senses of humor and a certain level of testosterone-induced stupidity. Not to mention his own, we regret to say, open-armed generosity when it came to gratifying certain physical urges. (A life of celibacy? That's next year. Today, we party.) His frat brothers found it excrutiatingly funny that he would choose to become a priest, with all it entailed, even while recognizing that he was (at the time) eminently suited and destined for it. They predicted he would go far, and after making some cheerful jokes at his expense, related to confession and church-going and so forth, they dubbed him Bishop.
Which, many years later, he tells the ex-White Bishop, now Black Bishop, in a quiet little bookstore. It should surprise nobody that he eventually ended up his frat's Chaplain, in charge of rituals. Greek organizations are so silly.
I can't remember for sure if Rossi did know that Percy swung both ways, but it doesn't matter. So easy to forget that little detail, and ultimately so irrelevant. (Huh, Rossi thinks. I wonder if he and Sabby. Wonder if that's why she--? The thought derailed there, since he wasn't exactly sure what "why" he was speculating about. The mind is an irritating thing. Poor Rossi. It gets away from him in his old age.
Percy goes quite still for a fraction of a second, breath held and lower lip caught in his teeth. "Bishop," he says. His voice trembles. He clears his throat. "Huh. -- I went into languages because I like words. The jokes were a side benefit. Or possibly," he frowns slightly, "a drawback." It blends easily to a wry smile as he rubs at one eyelid with a forefinger. "But yeah," he says, "I'm a fucking pendulum."
The other man grins lazily at Percy from his deep-hollowed seat, untangling his hand long enough to level its blade out, back up. "Priest," he says, and turns the hand over to bare its callused palm to Heaven. "Cop. -- Straight both ways, but you want to talk about pendulums ... and if that's a dick joke, I'm not getting it. Usually I get all of them."
I just pause here to note that Percy's player laughed himself sick offline. I'm cool. "fucking pendulum" has all sorts of, uh, variable readings there, doesn't it? Meanwhile, the character reacts to the revelation of this bizarre coincidence remarkably well. (Did he want to burst into hysterical laughter? Wouldn't blame him. There's a whole level of irony to their past, now.) Obviously, Percy means sexual pendulum: swings both ways. For some reason, in Rossi's mind it is utterly non-sexual.
He takes it even more asexual by taking swing to his own professional choices: cop / priest. Both have the confessional quality to them; both have their own takes on sin.
My head hurts. I should stop commentarying. But I'm not going to, because otherwise I'll never finish this.
"I'm sure I could turn it into a dick joke /somehow/," Percy says with a contemplative frown, brushing his knuckles along his brow, "but I was just going for, uh, swing."
"Figured," Chris says briefly. "Just checking." And then warms in a flash of brief masculine camaraderie, wholly arbitrary. "You got your swing. Gay guys hate your type."
See? Chris knows the alternative community! It always amuses him that bisexuals are looked down on by gays and lesbians. He finds it a telling remark on humanity in general: everyone needs to look down on someone else. You can be the most marginalized group in society, and you'll still find someone you can scorn. He personally doesn't have any more problems with bisexuals than he does with homosexuals; that is to say, he has the same level of phobia about them as he does for their more monophilistic brethren. Given the choice, he'll side with the bisexual against the homosexual, simply because the latter is the underdog.
Either (if male) touches him at his peril.
Percy rolls his eyes, snorting resignation. "Often," he says. "Yes. It doesn't generally bother them so much when I'm /naked/. But everyone hates a fence-sitter -- I think it's all bullshit. Fuck who you want to fuck, isn't that the point of coming out in the first place?" He waves a hand.
Over the prop of his hand, settling into the cradle of the fingers' L, Chris lowers his gaze again, shuttering his gaze behind the parchment thin shadow of his eyelids. "Yeah," he says mildly. Black flares up; green eyes steady on Percy, unreadable. "Melcross told you about Leah." Not a question.
This seems like an odd segue, and yet it isn’t. Percy lays out the ridiculousness of the gay against bisexual position, but it’s the last statement, “Fuck who you want to fuck,” that brings to the forefront of Rossi’s mind what has actually been there since he first recognized Percy and sat down. Leah. Percy and Leah. Somewhere it bothers him still that Leah slept with the other man, though it didn’t really bother him so much when Leah was alive. She already had Rossi in her bed; why did she need Percy? What did Percy have that Chris couldn’t provide? Trust, perhaps - but Percy was practically a stranger to Leah. Despite that, she trusted him more than Chris.
For good reason, his mind says. After all, he wasn’t even able to keep her safe.
It nags him now, a bit. He needs some kind of closure, without being able to get it with her because she’s not available except in his dreams. (And those are going so damn well.) He debated bringing up Leah between them, but it occurs to him that Percy probably knows about his relationship with her, and yet … he’s not bringing up the fact that he slept with her. Tact? Embarrassment? Is he afraid that he was helping Leah cheat on him? Rossi is not the type not to comment on the elephant if it’s in the room with him, especially if it’s staring at him.
Percy shifts, straightening; his hand drops away from his face, arm falling along the the armrest of the couch. "She told me," he confirms, wary.
"And she told you we were dating."
The gap between sleeping with Percy and starting to date Chris was pretty slim for Leah; it’s quite possible that Percy thought they overlapped. Wise Percy, not volunteering more than he must - but then again, he’s in a dangerous situation here, isn’t he? It’s possible he screwed Rossi more than he ever thought possible.
Chris can talk about Leah, see? He’s dealing with it. Honest.
"She -- did mention," Percy says slowly. His fingers lace together in loose shield over the spread of his knees. "Yes."
The corner of Rossi's mouth fishhooks; the lean face lifts, the hollow press of bones like molded ivory under the skin. "She told me she slept with you," he says. "Before we got together."
If he were really feeling evil, Rossi could’ve left out that clarification: ‘before we got together.’ However, he doesn’t actually have any ulterior motives here beyond putting this thing to bed (hah!) or at least getting it out there. Once it’s aired, at least it’s out there and can scab over and heal. Bones, skull, mortality, yada. I’ve mentioned before how for some reason I find bones really sexy. It’s possible I’m morbid, a little.
"Uhm." Percy scrubs at the back of his neck with the palm of his hand. "Yes. That, uh -- that did happen."
The smile slashes harsher, baritone gentling like the first stroke of the flaying knife. "Was it good for you, too? --No." His voice changes abruptly; the injured hand jerks, prompting a flinch of pain. "Don't answer that. Sorry. I'm an asshole."
Poor Percy. He deals, again, spectacularly well. How is one supposed to react when a man whose girlfriend has just had her brains blown out on a highly publicized tape tells you that he knows you slept with her? Possibly with an “Uhm.” That seems appropriate. And denial is a little late. Can’t say she was crazy and imagining it. That probably wouldn’t come across well.
I suppose he could’ve run, but that would’ve been a little undignified.
It’s late for Rossi to be jealous. Why should he be jealous at this point, anyway? But this is part of his peculiar grieving process, such as it is. He’s jealous of time that he’s lost with her, and knowing that there’s a part of her that he was never able to have, trust that he was never able to earn. And, oh, it is not a good side of him. Not an emotion he’s overly familiar with; he hasn’t really been in love that often. Beth, then Leah - and both of them he’s been possessive and jealous of, because these were people in his life who really mattered. People who really matter get killed or leave.
I kind of like this entire part of the conversation, because it’s about as close as Rossi has come to opening up about Leah. It shows a little of his conflict and pain. I’ve been thinking about why he’s letting it show here, and I suspect it’s because Percy’s a disinterested party, while at the same time having that common acquaintanceship with her. It’s a tenuous connection to the dead woman, but it’s all he has left.
Percy tips his head slightly to one side, looking at him. His palms curve over his knees as he slowly leans back against the couch again, moistening his lips before he swallows. "I'm sorry," he says. "About what happened, not about -- that. Though I'll apologize for that too, if you like. I mean. We were in a bar. It wasn't like." A grin's brief bite snaps self-mockery across Percy's mouth. "I'll stop talking now."
Antagonism shivers through the aether, pheromonal signature toothed and watchful. "Did you do something to her?" Rossi asks, clear-eyed.
He almost wants Percy to say yes. He wants a reason, besides Leah’s own self-destructive tendencies, and his own failure to be someone she could trust - so untrustworthy that she could pick up a stranger in the bar and trust him, instead. He’s ashamed of wanting that rationale and excuse, but he can’t help himself. Say yes. He won’t be pissed off. He’ll be relieved. (And ashamed of being relieved.)
Give him an excuse. Give him any excuse. Give him something he can live with - something he thinks he could live with, anyway - instead of the banal, sordid, stupid reality.
Percy's head jerks up as his expression blanks, but for the narrowing of his eyes. "What are you asking?"
"Your thing," Det. Rossi says, lifting his chin. The shirt gapes; throat and jaw angle a razor-edged line. "Your power. You do something to her?"
Percy looks at him in silence for a moment. His fingers curl against his knees. His gaze is dark, fastened on the other man's face. His voice is soft as snowfall. "You're asking me if I raped your girlfriend."
Rossi looks back in silence, chemicals creeping, claiming territory. Waiting.
So selfish of him. When Percy puts it that way, he realizes that’s exactly what he’s asking. Almost what he’s hoping. Chris has his moments of ugly weakness, and this is definitely one of the ugliest. What would he do if Percy said yes, now? Nothing. Leah never knew. It didn’t hurt her. He never told her. By not telling her Percy was a mutant, he made himself complicit in her rape, if that was what it was. (He wondered at the time, and didn’t do anything or say anything. He could have. He should have! Why didn’t he?)
He regretted asking the second the words were out of his mouth, but he can’t back down from it now. Not because it’s a cruel thing to ask of Percy, but because he is incapable of stepping away from truth, once he’s started moving towards it. It doesn’t matter that it’d hurt him more than Leah to find out that Percy coerced her into wanting sex with him; at this point, it’d be a kind of punishment to himself that he even asked, to accept it without acting on it and just go on just bearing that burden.
And how odd is it that a man would ask Percy if he raped his girlfriend? I’m sure Percy has had more awkward and uncomfortable moments in his life, but this has to rank pretty high up there. It doesn’t even occur to Chris that this is one of those places you don’t go with another guy, and that it steps over the boundary of what’s socially acceptable. Percy has been a suspect, a perp, and Chris has broken him in the interrogation room. The common conventions of society don’t apply to their interactions anymore. Percy has no more boundaries, no places Chris won’t go until (or unless) Percy fights back to hold and keep them.
Percy waits a moment longer, just looking at him. He leans forward, elbows sliding to his knees to brace there. Gaze intent, he growls, "/No/, I didn't /do/ anything to her."
The pale gaze regards the other man, thoughtful and cynical, experienced intelligence measuring and speculative. A heartbeat, two -- and then the broad shoulders ease, jaw's tight knot relaxing; chemical irritation fades away, leaving in its stead the same tired, unbalanced norm. "I wondered," he says, quietly. The blade of hand curls, drawing across the closed eyes. "I didn't tell her. She enjoyed it. Who the fuck cares?"
It’s not an apology, exactly. It’s a confession. I kept your secret, even when it might have harmed my girlfriend. I chose the seal of the confessional over the well-being of the woman I loved. I am a failure as a human being.
Chris is … disappointed. And ashamed of being disappointed. And relieved, that the answer is what it was. A surreal conversation, but that’s what you get with mutants: strangeness. There is no “norm.” I like that Percy shows his teeth a little here, defending his honor. No, he’s not a rapist. NOT ANYMORE. He can attract people with his own charm and good looks.
"Indeed." Percy watches him, still narrow-eyed, for a stretching moment. Then he sits back from his forward lean, spine held straight and unslouching. "I appreciate your not telling her. I imagine she would not have been pleased to know."
Baritone chokes in a bit-off sound, halfway between a laugh and a sob, and completely mirthless at that. "That's one way of putting it," Chris says, arm dropping. Green eyes refocus on Percy, vaguely haunted, and lips twist into a smile's thin thread. "She would've gone off her rocker. --Relax, Talhurst. I believe you."
Not that this is the problem. It’s not that Chris might not believe Percy. It’s that Chris would believe Percy capable of committing rape to begin with, isn’t it? Sore spot. The same sore spot that Chris found in the interrogation room. Hold still. Let him push it.
Leah, Chris is pretty sure, would have freaked. Absolutely freaked. There would have been screaming, there would have been throwing of things, there would have been accusations - why didn’t you tell me? - and then the fear. Was she coerced? Was she manipulated into it? He imagines it in his head, and has nostalgia over the image of her yelling at him. He misses that fire. It’s been a long time since he’s felt that, or been as enraged or as agitated or as frustrated as he was when he was with her. Or as happy.
Percy starts to answer and cuts himself off, mouth closing over a sharp-fumed breath. "Thanks," he drawls. He sits back against the couch's back, arms folding over his chest. After a breath's pause, he drops his hands to his lap instead.
"You're pissed I asked," the dark voice observes, pushing up towards a question.
My commentary is getting shorter. I’m fading fast. Of course Percy’s pissed that Rossi asked, but it wouldn’t have been Chris’s first guess that this is what was wrong. Cons don’t have the right to get pissed when cops ask them about new transgressions on top of their old, and despite their new situation and Percy’s proven innocence, part of their relationship is still trapped in that interrogation room with clearly defined roles: cop and suspect.
Percy does such awesome, outstanding body language. He radiates annoyed and indignant and uncomfortable. Stiff. Offended.
"I could have done it," Percy says, words brisk and sharp. "I can always do it. I could do it right now, if I were feeling /particularly/ suicidal." His teeth flash, bared in a humorless grin. "I /don't/, Rossi."
"Don't," Chris repeats, leaning into the free arm's support, hand relaxed, fingers curling to rub against the seat's upholstery. He tilts his head, black hair clasping the sunken, fragile hollows of his temples, and regards Percy without quite seeing him. "Can't walk away from interrogation. Never really goes away, you know?"
…ah. And Chris actually comes out and admits it. That’s nice. I wrote the block above without reading the next pose set. At least he’s fair enough to acknowledge that he’s still stuck in that role with Percy. He might always be stuck in that role with Percy; he’s never really been acquainted with a perp outside of a case, especially not one that looked really good for the crime. This is uncharted territory for him, and it’s going poorly.
Percy can convince Chris this time, but the next time, who knows? The assumption might be exactly the same. It’s a sad thing that Rossi can’t look at a person without automatically wondering what he’s hiding. He can’t meet a male schoolteacher without observing how long the man touches his students, and where; he can’t look down a street without seeing where someone could break in, which people are vulnerable, which people are potential criminals, etc. Husbands and wives are murderers in waiting; children are just looking for a way to off the old man. And Percy is a rapist, not because he’s ever raped - not that Chris is aware of, anyway - but because he could, and get away with it. Nobody would ever know. Nobody would ever even suspect. Except Chris.
Jean’s right about him. His worldview is fantastically, ridiculously bleak. And yet, this is normal for him, and acceptable. It doesn’t seem wrong or harder than it would be if he were less cynical, because he grew into this gradually. By the time he became this cynical, he was already strong enough to support it.
Does part of Percy still go back to that interrogation room whenever he sees Chris?
Percy's mouth shifts, a sideways quirk as he leans, elbow against armrest with fist propped against cheek, and replies, "Guess not."
The other man refocuses. Wry amusement girds black with green. "Kinda out of my experience, anyway. Tell you what. I won't ask you if you're a rapist, if you don't sleep with Leah again."
An apology of sorts. The scene was reaching its conclusion, and both of us felt it. The air was cleared. Now it was just wrap-up. Chris attempts humor, if somewhat poorly. Macabre humor at that. Unless Percy’s got a thing for necrophilia, he’s definitely got the easier end of the deal.
"You've got yourself a deal." Percy scuffs a hand through his hair and breathes a wry breath through his fraction of a smile.
"Think I got the worse end of that one," Chris says without heat, sardonic behind black humor. The white buttons at his wrist blink at his arm's shift, reached across his body to the book forgotten between thigh and chair. "I got shit to read, and places to go before I die. What time is it?"
Chris has buttons! I am continuing to make inroads on my clothing-posing. Without excessive success, I have to admit. Still, I worked on it!
Percy glances down at his watch. He frowns. He holds it up to his ear. "I think I need a new battery."
Lips crimped, Rossi maneuvers carefully, probing into the sling to fold the sleeve away from his wrist. A sturdy metal wristwatch gleams against the skin. "Almost ten," he reports, and slides a crooked smile around his voice. "Haven't read a word. Might as well buy the damn thing."
Percy snorts and stretches out his legs where he sits, preperatory to standing. "Ten," he says. "Shit. I should get out of here, too." He picks up his coat from the couch beside him and flaps it out, brushing irritably at the remnants of cat hair.
Rossi rolls his head, stretching the tendons of his neck: warm skin against folded, rich blue. A hand folds over wood and upholstery; Chris regains his feet, struggling out of the cushions without the benefit of his other arm. "They close at midnight," he observes, catching up the thick weight of his coat to sling it over his elbow. "You got time."
Closing the scene took us a lot of time. (Look! More clothing poses!) This is a nice exchange for the two characters, just pleasant farewell between the two. It's just as though they had a normal relationship. Rossi's off for home, a long drive out of the city. He could crash at his parents' place, but he is avoiding his family somewhat; they are more of a drain on him than a support, at this point in time. Most people are. His coping mechanisms involve withdrawal from the people who have any emotional tie with him, so he can build up crumbled walls and make himself strong again. Emotional ties mean pain and suffering; even when they try to help, the people he love can suck more out of him than they give, without meaning to. He's from a large family. He knows when and where to draw his boundaries.
Percy slides an arm through its appropriate sleeve, shaking his head. "Nah, I like to be in early on the weekend." He shrugs the rest of the way into his coat and pulls to his feet, curling his book into his hip. Then he coughs into a fist and clears his throat before plunging the free hand into the pocket where it belongs. "Good talking to you."
The other man pauses, already half-turned towards departure, to regard Percy sidelong: askance in somber dignity, the black of his coat draping across his shoulder. White winks at his collar; for a moment, he looks the part of the priest, austere and honed. Then he grins. "Liar."
With the book in hand, shoulder shrugging into the other empty coat sleeve, Chris Rossi stalks away, gesturing a backhanded wave of farewell.
I liked this farewell. Chris can be charming when he wants, just flashes of grace. And meanwhile, I foreshadow. Priest.
I am tired. I end commentary now, having lost steam halfway through. I'll come back and edit to add later, when I feel up to it. Maybe.
Date: 2/24/2006
Players: Percy & Rossi
xmm_Percy is one of those fantastic RPers and players who I love to read, like a lot OOCly, and yet never get to play with. It's an odd thing, considering -- and yet, there you go. We do not have RP chemistry yet, which might be related to the fact we rarely play together, or, uh, might explain why we rarely play together. (Apropos, I envy the ability of people like xmm_sabby and xmm_shaw, who seem to be able to create chemistry at the drop of a hat, with pretty much anything.) At any rate, for a rarity, here we are: a scene together. I was ridiculously pleased with the opportunity, and really enjoyed it, even though I vaguely recall poor Percy's player had to work really hard at it. I DO NOT CARE.
The two of them have some painful background together, due to their shared friend, Sabitha Melcross. Here's how it all goes down. Emma and Jason get Percy in trouble. Rossi picks up Percy, who gets Jason in trouble. Rossi picking up Percy gets him in trouble with Sabby, who promptly gets Rossi in trouble with Emma. Sabby runs to Percy, who goes to Emma, and now Rossi is really really in trouble. Emma and Percy screw Rossi, and not in the literal way -- boo! -- and now Rossi and Percy and Sabby and Jason and Emma are not in trouble. Except Percy has guilt, Rossi has a strange sense of obligation, and if you're really interested in all this, go read the Windex Commentary.
More recent history between them is once again through a third party, this time embodied by Leah Canto, deceased. Percy slept with Leah around New Year's. When talking to Sabby later, he unexpectedly discovered that Leah was in a relationship with Chris when she died, perhaps even when she slept with Percy. That's nice. He has now screwed Chris over in every possible way save the literal. All that's left is to shoot his dog.
Afternoon shades into evening, time's passage unmourned and in fact unremarked by the lean figure comfortably installed in the reading area. Percy has not moved in awhile; the curve of his spine conforms lazily to the shape of the couch's corner, legs crossed ankle-at-knee in black jeans worn to a cozy cling from many wearings and washed to dull coal. His sweater is rich crimson over the grey-on-white pinstripes of his collared shirt; his eyes scan the pages of his new-used hardbound novel through his reading glasses, manicured fingers sliding delicate over age-scented paper. His charcoal coat, next to him on the couch, bears signs of tabby hair, despite the animal having been several times forcibly removed from its length.
Quiet thunder grumbles underfoot. A bookcase rolls on its sliding rails, building an opening where French Literature dominated but a half-second before. A long, blue-clad arm pushes the gap wide, building a bridge for a tiny woman to duck under, and hard on her heels, the man himself emerges, coat bundled over his fist, the sling-trapped left arm cradling a book. Proud and vivid face, tarnish-bright eyes, the hawk's beak of nose and secretive, sensual mouth: Chris Rossi prowls into the small lounge, a nod for the parting woman and attention for the empty chair. One leg hooks, faded denim rasping against the seat's padded arm; the other stretches long, claiming territory under the low-voiced rasp of a curse.
Percy's player complains that he is not good at sets, and yet somehow fails to prove this apparent inadequacy. Percy does a great job of laying out his physical hotness: the clothing, the pose, the physical environment, even the mood. Like xmm_magneto, he has a great sense for clothing and the description of it. He's got mad style.
I am suffering from same-itis of late, where all the words and images that I use are recycled garbage from earlier garbage. It is fantastically annoying. I have, in short, run out of words. The best thing to do in this sort of situation is to put away the computer for a little while and read some books, restock the vocabulary, clean the palette, and so forth. I will do so shortly. (Commentary first.) While I do do a lot of physical posing, I am not good at it. You get physicality without context, or cohesion, or -- most tragically of all -- attraction. I'm not entirely sure that I was ever able to pose hot like Percy does. Regardless, two voiceless poses, each of them sets in their own way. I arbitrary put the bookcases on sliding rails. Something I'm still trying to work on is the concept of 'less is more.' I am fantastically verbose; there are images and extra words in my poses that really don't need to be there. Simple elegance seems to elude me. I continue to work on it. There are some fresher images there that I like in my pose: the 'tarnish-bright eyes,' the 'secretive, sensual mouth.' Tarnish is an obvious reference; Rossi is hardly a knight in shining armor. Shades of grey, and flakes of rust. Also, it has occurred to me that Chris really does live with a lot of secrets, most of them other people's -- and yet, he's also incredibly open with his thoughts and emotions, to the point of sheer suicide where Magneto's involved (as a for instance). Somewhere in there he must have the capacity to make himself unreadable as needed, even if it's just to protect others.
Rossi's left arm is in a sling. Magneto had Mystique shoot him. See above re: suicidal honesty. Or at least, catastrophic rudeness.
Percy glances up at the sound, set to pass idle attention over the newcomer and return to his reading. Instead, amber catches on Chris's face, snags there; Percy blinks. "Oh," he says, and then, somewhat inanely, "hello."
The book being worried out of its makeshift halter jerks, catching on an errant thumb; the dark head lifts, distracted away. "Oh," the other man says back, startled into an echo. And then, more abrupt: "You."
I like this little exchange, in which Percy's words are mirrored back to him. I don't think either of them are particularly pleased to see the other. They are not friends. They have mutual friends in common -- well, a mutual friend in common -- but both are old enough and mature enough to realize that the friend of my friend is not really obligated to be my friend. Anyway, there's too much strangeness between them now, even if half of it is a mystery to Chris, that whatever might eventually build up between them -- well. It wouldn't be the normal kind of friendship, ever. If ever.
Each man is an unwelcome reminder to the other of what has passed. Percy's discomfort is probably the worse. Chris has no shame in what he did to Percy; it was his job, and he had reason, and even if he was wrong, well. He was justified in the course of doing it. His real discomfort with Percy is that he broke the man, and even if it wasn't a complete break -- still. He knew what to do to take him the rest of the way (probably) and already had it mapped out in his head. He saw the guy in extremis, vulnerable and exposed. It's not so much shame at having done it as it is embarrassment for Percy.
It's worse that there's no warning for either of them to steel themselves for the shock. It's one thing if they met in Sabby's apartment. At least there, there's a chance that one will run into the other. But the bookstore is neutral territory. There's no reason to expect Chris or Percy to pop in, so neither of them are prepared.
The awakening jangle of nerves fuels the flick of Percy's glance away and around the room, not centering on anything in particular. His head tips into some fragment of a nod as his eyes slide back. He clears his throat. "Er, yes," he says. "Me."
Across the small lounge, the supple bow of mouth curves, pressing shadow into olive-bronze skin. The stretch begun and then interrupted takes up the remainder of its motion, shaping the lean body to the armchair's generous contours. "Relax," Chris invites. "I'm not going to eat you, Talhurst. You want me to leave?"
Chris says one thing and does another, settling himself physically while suggesting departure vocally. He would leave, mind, if Percy asked it. However. He's been shot again, he's got a book, he's tired, it's his day off, and dammit, he'd rather just stay. Percy's body language immediately conveys unease and discomfort: not looking at Chris directly, hesitation in his speech. (Percy's player, mind you, does an absolutely fantastic job of communicating this. Absolutely fantastic.) As the alpha dog, Rossi both commands and confronts ("Relax. I'm not going to eat you, Talhurst.") with a little exasperation, and then turns around and gives the weaker man a semblance of control over his environment. "You want me to leave?" It's a little unfair; in all courtesy, Percy can't ask him to go -- it's a public place, and the man's got manners -- and Chris counts on that, not only in his body language but also in the phrasing of the question.
Still, offering someone the opportunity to control their environment is something of a mean trick; it gives the other person the illusion of power, and lets them increase their comfort level, at least a little bit. Thinking about it, this is probably one of those behaviors that have become ingrained in Chris after years of interrogations. Start out letting their target feel comfortable and in control, then slowly take it away until they have nothing left and end up clinging desperately to the person who's appropriated power. Namely, the cop.
Percy slouches back into the couch, shoulders' slump pulling him lower, and his lashes slant low over mellow amber, wry and rueful. Ease invoked, ease manageable enough; thumb tucking into the pages of his book to mark his place as he lets its covers close, he says, "Don't be foolish. I was a bit surprised, is all. Haven't run into you," dark brows pull down into the perplexity of memory, Percy sorting through the vagueries of linear time to come up with, "oh, that -- thing, whatever the hell it was." His left hand rises, fingers' flutter vague. "At Sabby's. I think."
"Lazzaro, you, that kid -- yeah, I remember." A black boot roves into the shadow under the coffee table's low-slung barrier, physicality expanding like the slow wash of pheromonal message: fatigue, ill-health, and an off-kilter wrongness that slips in and out of scent like a nibbling, gnawing worm. The free hand digs again after its book, and this time proves victorious; Siddhartha slips onto a thigh and off again, diving for hasty cover between the leg and the chair. "Didn't figure on seeing him again so soon. You two friends, now?"
Percy poses his thumbs a lot. I am tickled by it, because the thumb? is a very underappreciated digit. It really is. Think how hard it would be to type if you couldn't use it. Nospacesandthatwouldjustsuckasskthx. Not to mention all the food you wouldn't be able to pick up. Or fruit. Or, say, spoons. At any rate, Percy recovers quickly and well. It's hard to say whether it's for real or not, since Percy's specialty is the social mask; the 'last time' that he refers to is this occasion, when Rossi and Bahir got into it, a little.
I belatedly feed Percy's mutation, another thing that I'm not so good at. Mutations are a constant hardship to me, (plain old vanilla human! help!) and I have to remind myself to give them something to work with, even if they're not planning on using it all that much. I tend to go overboard once I remember. I suffer from a penchant for excess, in most cases. This time I think I actually managed fairly well, tying in the pheromones with the stretch of physical presence. It makes sense that the two would tie in together, and that they wouldn't be obvious until he'd settled enough in one place for the chemical signals to build and spill. Right. I planned it that way. Totally.
Rossi's got a rot at the heart of him, which is why the worm image. I'm not entirely sure if it's something that would be picked up through pheromones, but hell. Science still isn't sure how they work, so I made up my own. He's battling serious depression, and doing a fairly decent job of it, but under all that is the decision and desire to kill, sublimated and suppressed until the time is right. All that poison has to go somewhere, right? And so it goes out this way, right up Percy's nose.
Not, mind, that Percy can do much with it. It's not anger or fear or lust or any of the standard messages. And anyway, Percy has pretty much promised he will never use his mutation on Rossi. (I'd be interested in seeing a situation where Rossi would ask for it. Hm. There's a thought.) Nonetheless, it gives Percy a read on what's happening with Rossi, which is -- the man reads off. Not sick, precisely. Just ... off.
Here's an idle question. What happens when Percy gets a blocked up nose or a sinus infection? Can he read pheromones anymore?
"Er, which kid?" Percy squints at Rossi over the tops of his reading glasses. Black loafer hits the floor with a thump, feet sliding wide apart across the carpet. His book slides along the denim length of thigh, tucking against the chair's side; its cover Nabokovian, its title hidden by the flat of his hand. "Wait. I think Jason had left by the time you -- or had he? I don't remember." He grimaces faintly for the unreliability of memory and shakes his head. "Bahir and I are friends, anyway. Yes."
The available hand gestures, pulled away from the hunt after the book. "Bahir. That's his name. al ... al-Ragu. Shit. That's not right." Chris's chin lifts, face blanking after the chase of memory; light pools at his throat and the beat of pulse under skin, bared by the unbuttoned collar of dark, pin-striped blue. "al-Razi. That's it. Friends, now? Go figure it. He and Melcross get along better, then?"
Reading glasses! Meanwhile, I make an attempt at maintaining clothing in my poses. (al-Ragu. Hah. I make a funny.) Chris doesn't expect that Bahir and Sabby would get along well, necessarily. He's just aware of the difficulties of being friends with people when your other friends absolutely hate them. Not that it's impossible, but with the closeness of Percy and Sabby's living situations, not to mention their ... er, other closeness, well. He has no idea that Percy and Sabby have slept together. Confronted with the information, though, the character advises me that he wouldn't be particularly startled, beyond the constant flicker of surprise that Percy swings for both teams.
There was something about this scene that was challenging my physical posing. Not in the sense that it was difficult; more that my mind felt challenged, uh, which is the same thing except different. It wasn't so much that I felt like keeping up, as it was that I had beautiful Percy-poses to respond to, so I felt inspired. And fell flat on my face sometimes, but that's how it goes.
I make a note here that I have recently become fascinated by pulses. This is due to my real life work, which currently has me working on the charting of vitals during medical exams.
"Er." Percy scrubs at the side of his face with the palm of his hand, dislodging glasses with the knock of fingertips; he removes them to fiddle idly with their arms. "Not so much. There's this whole balancing act where I try and keep them both from being in my apartment at once." He breathes rue into part of a laugh, neither voiced nor fully formed. His brows bob, wry, as he appends, "Good times."
"Like two cats in a bag?" suggests Rossi, amusement gathering the Brooklyn accent into easy, raw-silked bunches. His own eyebrows arc, pushing towards the burnished order of hair. "Shades of high school. How's that go, 'the friend of my friend is my enemy?' You got some guts, being friends with a teep. Especially one who likes to--" Fingers flicker, eloquently mute, gesturing towards his own head before brushing towards Percy's.
Such a clear image there, of Percy fiddling with the arms of his glasses. Also of the sound he makes, which isn't quite a laugh but isn't quite not a laugh. I love the entire construction of his pose.
Meanwhile, mine isn't so awful either. Chris talks about high school drama like he's familiar with it, but he really isn't. He flew through high school like an arrow, on track and focused -- a lot on girls, it's true, but after all the guy was planning on entering seminary and, uh, he filled out well and turned out pretty hot and dammit, he's only human -- and emotional pyrotechnics weren't really a big part of his experiences there. That is to say, other people's emotional pyrotechnics. There was a lot of girlfriend drama, it's true; he had a couple he actually dated, without any of the heart-burning mad love that high schoolers seem to go into. It was mostly one-sided, directed at him rather than from him. The certainty of knowing that he'd eventually become a priest protected him from that kind of emotional vulnerability to, I suspect, a maddening degree. He heard a great deal of crying, and "You don't love me!" wailing, which gave him some honest guilt, if never enough to give up women altogether. Because, c'mon. Women. He was a teenager. Sex was fun. He did learn a great deal about his own attractiveness, and, unfortunately, how to manipulate other people's feelings. He was also more an observer than a participant in the normal kinds of high school drama: backstabbing, jealousy, cliques, ganging up against this party or that, betrayals, spite, envy, all the fun stuff. The younger Chris was honestly, frankly, pure -- in the social sense. Untouched and untouchable. He was a nice, sweet, fun guy you could trust with your secrets and would give you good advice if you wanted it.
Check me out, with the tangents. So, er, back to the pose. Rossi has a hard time understanding how someone would choose to become friends with a telepath. His own initial friendliness (such as it was) with Jean is long in the past, and he has a hard time recollecting exactly why he ever thought it would be a good idea. See the Windex commentary for more on that. It is, in his opinion, very brave of Percy. Which is Rossi parlance for 'fantastically stupid.'
"I think I missed a lot of that in high school," Percy muses, accent strengthening in its British channels as he elaborates: "Boarding school, you know. No girls." It eases back toward Connecticut as he pulls his glasses case out of the inside pocket of the coat beside him to put the reading glasses aside and free his hands, saying, "He doesn't do that anymore, really. He's even been teaching me to shield, a bit." His smile twitches. "As much as any of us non-teeps can learn."
Rue thins Chris's mouth, slanting it towards something darker. "Yeah, well. Jean Grey was giving me one-on-one time last year on that. Fat lot of good it does if one decides to go tromping through your head. Suppose having your own pet teep works better than a tin foil helmet, anyway." Aggression creeps into the quiet chemical signal, prickle-prickle-prickling towards something bloodier before it fades, quashed by the twitch of grin. "Useful guy."
I picked up rue from Percy's earlier pose and skipped it back at him here, by accident. Sticky words. Sometimes you just can't call them, and my buffer always reels by too fast for me to remember which words came up in my mind without prompting, and which ones just stuck in my head from someone else's pose. An all-boys school has a different kind of drama than a coed one, but it's true that girls sort of jack up the testosterone -- and estrogen isn't exactly an emotional stabilizer either. Rossi's one year in seminary had a completely different feel as a result, and that all-boys club has a kind of nostalgia for him, a sense of belonging and comfort that he's only been able to find in the NYPD, that other all-boys club. (Well. There are some women, but the ones he knows are just guys with ovaries.)
Chris dislikes the reminder of telepathic training, and the obvious vulnerability that makes it impossible for him to defend against a determined assault of that type. Thus the aggression, which is a bleedthrough of the entire windex incident. Of all the people around, Percy is one of the few who would be able to pinpoint exactly what triggered that in this conversation.
Percy's eyes drop as he flips his leather glasses case shut, its button snapping shut under the pressure of his thumb. "Useful, I suppose," he says mildly once the glasses are put away; his gaze lifts again. "He did mention your own defenses were particularly effective."
"Yeah," says Chris in mellow, flat acknowledgment. Green meets amber as the raptor face closes; something ugly and uncertain moves behind it. In its sling, the injured hand flexes. "It was an experiment. I showed him a crime scene."
This is a reference back to this log, which took place before Bahir grew a conscience and decided to stop poking around in people's minds just for the fun of it. Chris's lessons with Jean bore fruit in this one, rather spectacular instance; abruptly aware of telepathic manipulation, he pulled one of the most gory cases out of his memory and threw it out into the aether to see who'd flinch. For all his ascetic leanings (he has some. Don't laugh!) Chris is ultimately a sensualist: his memory is like surround sound, with all the attendant other senses that come into play. He remembers things acutely: scent, sound, hearing, taste, feel, emotion. This is part of why the prospect of windexing was so horrific to him; it was, quite literally, self-destruction. As a result, though, his memories of crime scenes can be quite powerful as a repellant, and poor Bahir got the full treatment.
Chris has a little bit of regret about that. He doesn't willingly let people into that part of his life, if they're not already blue and in the know. It's ugly, and it's dark, and demonstrates the worst that humanity is capable of. On the other hand -- man was marching around in his mind, willy-nilly. He's in two minds about it. There's a part of him that feels regret and a little guilt about it, even knowing that feeling these things is stupid. There's the other part of him, that feels perfectly justified.
"I believe," Percy says with a certain delicacy, "that the experiment was a success." His gaze slips down to the sling for a moment before it climbs back up to Chris's face again. "He'll not forget that in a hurry."
Rossi's head drops and his gaze drops with it, lowering the cynical mask enough for regret to show, however fleeting. "Yeah," he says again, and bares it in the deep baritone as well, wry and wise. "He probably won't. You run into him again, tell him I'm sorry about that one. Guy shouldn't have been running through my brain--" The words trail off, colliding into the unspoken one. But.
...but given the opportunity to apologize without having to do it in person, he'll take it. In person, he'd remember more clearly just why he did it. His dislike of telepaths is acute and immediate; it'd be unlikely he'd overcome that hostility and suspicion enough to concede to his better self, as it were. Given a proxy, he'll take advantage of it. Sorry you had to see that, Bahir. (Don't do it again.) He's met Bahir a couple of times, and barring the whole telepath thing, hasn't found him half bad. He can appreciate a proper asshole, being one himself. The lack of complete and utter bullshit makes the younger man rather commendable, in a way that Chris approves of. In that preference, Rossi's being a little simplistic. He equates a certain type of rudeness with honesty, which is not quite correct. A man can be rude and still be lying through his teeth; incivility is as much a mask and defensive cover as social courtesy. For whatever reason, it's a kind of mask that Chris prefers, from time to time.
"I'll pass that on," Percy says, his head canting slightly to one side. His mouth twists into a lopsided smile. "He's really not a bad sort, as they go. Asshole," he says, the word fond and coupled with an amused dip of dark lashes, "but forthright. And he's learned to respect people's privacy. Though," he flips fingers up as he ducks his head, wry amusement laid over his voice in a darkening cloak, "I'm biased."
"Sleeping with him?"
The obvious question. Rossi knows enough gay men (or has come across them in the course of his work) to expect a certain kind of destructive promiscuity from those that aren't committed to some sort of relationship. The gay scene has quieted down a little since its raucous heyday, but there're still those young men who are wild on hormones, meeting up with other young men who are wild on hormones. It is a stereotype, but it's one that has been reinforced by Rossi's own encounters -- not sexual! -- with the community.
And before anyone says something, not for a second since they first met has it occured to Rossi that Percy might be straight. In fact, I think Sabby first talked about him as a gay man. Every girl needs her gay best friend, or something along those lines.
Percy laughs and scuffs a hand through his hair. "Noo," he says, the negative slow and stretched, "but not for lack of trying."
Brilliant eyes glitter under the falcon's hood of eyelids, black lashes fanning long and dark. "They teach you that in boarding school?" Chris asks, dryly amused.
"What," Percy asks, cocking his head. "Gay sex?"
The free hand gestures again, inviting response without supplying interpretation.
The question is broad, and actually refers to a lot of things. How to look pretty? How to flirt? To like guys instead of girls? Seduction? He doesn't bother to clarify, because it's one of those things that Percy can pick any sort of meaning out of and interpret as he sees fit. Like a lot of those kinds of questions, you can sometimes learn a lot about which meaning the answerer picks out and decides to answer.
Percy scratches at the back of his head, ruffling the dark waves of his hair. "I could tell you stories, if you wanted," he says, mouth solemn. "They called me Hummer."
For a split second, the dark face clears; the mask shears completely away, baring surprise and quicksilver hilarity. Chris laughs. "I'll be damned. --No, Christ. Don't tell me stories. I'd rather not know. Jesus. /Hummer/. Doesn't exactly leave much to the imagination."
A very rare laugh from Rossi. He's taken by surprise -- and after all, it is such an terrible and fantastic nickname, if I do say so myself. Considering it was my alt, Ryan Bach, who came up with the name for the poor chap ... well. I am entitled to take a little pride in it.
Mild homophobia aside, Rossi is capable of engaging in equal humor regarding homosexuality, though there's always a niggling little sense of superiority and separation in the back of his mind. He can make jokes because he is straight, and unthreatened in his masculinity. Really. (Shut up.) If he knew that Percy had seen him at his most vulnerable, that he'd been threatened with the possibility of rape by Talhurst, if he knew any detail of that night in the hotel, it's likely that he would do things to Percy that, uh, probably wouldn't be healthy for Percy in any way, shape or form.
Aside, for some reason I really really love Percy's pose there.
Percy grins in a bright flash, lashes' sweep smug and slow as he lounges against the couch's back. "Well, /no/," he drawls, mirth-dark. His thumbnail brushes along the curve of his lower lip. "We were none of us all that terribly subtle."
"College," remembers Chris, nostalgia and the remnants of that laugh still softening the harsh face. He ventures to stretch longer, chary of pain; the healthy hand gropes after the sling, guarding it from bumps and rough use. "Then again, I'm not exactly a role model of subtlety /now/. My nickname wasn't exactly imaginative either, back then."
Poor Chris. He really is ridiculously beat up. About the only good thing about this particular injury is that Ellen heals him, so for once he doesn't end up with a scar. He's getting too old to heal without scars, and his body is criss-crossed by them, most of them received at Magneto's hands. THANKS A LOT, TINHEAD. Poor, battered Rossi.
Chris is capable of subtlety; a lot of this forthright in-your-faceness is part of that. People don't look for something more if they think they're getting exactly what they see, and despite his almost aggressive openness, he's relatively hard to read when he chooses to be. Claiming a lack of subtlety is by way of being a rattlesnake's shake, a warning. You have been alerted. Proceed to believe him at your own peril.
"Dare I ask?" Amber gleams, dark brows lifting inquiry as he shifts, elbow against the couch's armrest and the first finger and thumb of his left hand framing support for his face. "When I got to university, there started to be girls. And cunning linguist jokes."
Rossi fists his temple, his upper arm planing along the chair's padded rest, humor still alight in the strong, stark face. "Bishop," he confesses. "Could've been worse. Nowadays, the squad room calls me 'Ricochet,' or 'Kitten' -- never fuck up in front of the NYPD, Talhurst. They got long memories and crappy senses of humor. --That why you went into languages? Didn't know you swung both ways."
It's a throwaway revelation, and OOCly I laughed myself sick. Of course he was called Bishop in college. What else would they call him? In a frat, and surrounded by guys with broad, direct senses of humor and a certain level of testosterone-induced stupidity. Not to mention his own, we regret to say, open-armed generosity when it came to gratifying certain physical urges. (A life of celibacy? That's next year. Today, we party.) His frat brothers found it excrutiatingly funny that he would choose to become a priest, with all it entailed, even while recognizing that he was (at the time) eminently suited and destined for it. They predicted he would go far, and after making some cheerful jokes at his expense, related to confession and church-going and so forth, they dubbed him Bishop.
Which, many years later, he tells the ex-White Bishop, now Black Bishop, in a quiet little bookstore. It should surprise nobody that he eventually ended up his frat's Chaplain, in charge of rituals. Greek organizations are so silly.
I can't remember for sure if Rossi did know that Percy swung both ways, but it doesn't matter. So easy to forget that little detail, and ultimately so irrelevant. (Huh, Rossi thinks. I wonder if he and Sabby. Wonder if that's why she--? The thought derailed there, since he wasn't exactly sure what "why" he was speculating about. The mind is an irritating thing. Poor Rossi. It gets away from him in his old age.
Percy goes quite still for a fraction of a second, breath held and lower lip caught in his teeth. "Bishop," he says. His voice trembles. He clears his throat. "Huh. -- I went into languages because I like words. The jokes were a side benefit. Or possibly," he frowns slightly, "a drawback." It blends easily to a wry smile as he rubs at one eyelid with a forefinger. "But yeah," he says, "I'm a fucking pendulum."
The other man grins lazily at Percy from his deep-hollowed seat, untangling his hand long enough to level its blade out, back up. "Priest," he says, and turns the hand over to bare its callused palm to Heaven. "Cop. -- Straight both ways, but you want to talk about pendulums ... and if that's a dick joke, I'm not getting it. Usually I get all of them."
I just pause here to note that Percy's player laughed himself sick offline. I'm cool. "fucking pendulum" has all sorts of, uh, variable readings there, doesn't it? Meanwhile, the character reacts to the revelation of this bizarre coincidence remarkably well. (Did he want to burst into hysterical laughter? Wouldn't blame him. There's a whole level of irony to their past, now.) Obviously, Percy means sexual pendulum: swings both ways. For some reason, in Rossi's mind it is utterly non-sexual.
He takes it even more asexual by taking swing to his own professional choices: cop / priest. Both have the confessional quality to them; both have their own takes on sin.
My head hurts. I should stop commentarying. But I'm not going to, because otherwise I'll never finish this.
"I'm sure I could turn it into a dick joke /somehow/," Percy says with a contemplative frown, brushing his knuckles along his brow, "but I was just going for, uh, swing."
"Figured," Chris says briefly. "Just checking." And then warms in a flash of brief masculine camaraderie, wholly arbitrary. "You got your swing. Gay guys hate your type."
See? Chris knows the alternative community! It always amuses him that bisexuals are looked down on by gays and lesbians. He finds it a telling remark on humanity in general: everyone needs to look down on someone else. You can be the most marginalized group in society, and you'll still find someone you can scorn. He personally doesn't have any more problems with bisexuals than he does with homosexuals; that is to say, he has the same level of phobia about them as he does for their more monophilistic brethren. Given the choice, he'll side with the bisexual against the homosexual, simply because the latter is the underdog.
Either (if male) touches him at his peril.
Percy rolls his eyes, snorting resignation. "Often," he says. "Yes. It doesn't generally bother them so much when I'm /naked/. But everyone hates a fence-sitter -- I think it's all bullshit. Fuck who you want to fuck, isn't that the point of coming out in the first place?" He waves a hand.
Over the prop of his hand, settling into the cradle of the fingers' L, Chris lowers his gaze again, shuttering his gaze behind the parchment thin shadow of his eyelids. "Yeah," he says mildly. Black flares up; green eyes steady on Percy, unreadable. "Melcross told you about Leah." Not a question.
This seems like an odd segue, and yet it isn’t. Percy lays out the ridiculousness of the gay against bisexual position, but it’s the last statement, “Fuck who you want to fuck,” that brings to the forefront of Rossi’s mind what has actually been there since he first recognized Percy and sat down. Leah. Percy and Leah. Somewhere it bothers him still that Leah slept with the other man, though it didn’t really bother him so much when Leah was alive. She already had Rossi in her bed; why did she need Percy? What did Percy have that Chris couldn’t provide? Trust, perhaps - but Percy was practically a stranger to Leah. Despite that, she trusted him more than Chris.
For good reason, his mind says. After all, he wasn’t even able to keep her safe.
It nags him now, a bit. He needs some kind of closure, without being able to get it with her because she’s not available except in his dreams. (And those are going so damn well.) He debated bringing up Leah between them, but it occurs to him that Percy probably knows about his relationship with her, and yet … he’s not bringing up the fact that he slept with her. Tact? Embarrassment? Is he afraid that he was helping Leah cheat on him? Rossi is not the type not to comment on the elephant if it’s in the room with him, especially if it’s staring at him.
Percy shifts, straightening; his hand drops away from his face, arm falling along the the armrest of the couch. "She told me," he confirms, wary.
"And she told you we were dating."
The gap between sleeping with Percy and starting to date Chris was pretty slim for Leah; it’s quite possible that Percy thought they overlapped. Wise Percy, not volunteering more than he must - but then again, he’s in a dangerous situation here, isn’t he? It’s possible he screwed Rossi more than he ever thought possible.
Chris can talk about Leah, see? He’s dealing with it. Honest.
"She -- did mention," Percy says slowly. His fingers lace together in loose shield over the spread of his knees. "Yes."
The corner of Rossi's mouth fishhooks; the lean face lifts, the hollow press of bones like molded ivory under the skin. "She told me she slept with you," he says. "Before we got together."
If he were really feeling evil, Rossi could’ve left out that clarification: ‘before we got together.’ However, he doesn’t actually have any ulterior motives here beyond putting this thing to bed (hah!) or at least getting it out there. Once it’s aired, at least it’s out there and can scab over and heal. Bones, skull, mortality, yada. I’ve mentioned before how for some reason I find bones really sexy. It’s possible I’m morbid, a little.
"Uhm." Percy scrubs at the back of his neck with the palm of his hand. "Yes. That, uh -- that did happen."
The smile slashes harsher, baritone gentling like the first stroke of the flaying knife. "Was it good for you, too? --No." His voice changes abruptly; the injured hand jerks, prompting a flinch of pain. "Don't answer that. Sorry. I'm an asshole."
Poor Percy. He deals, again, spectacularly well. How is one supposed to react when a man whose girlfriend has just had her brains blown out on a highly publicized tape tells you that he knows you slept with her? Possibly with an “Uhm.” That seems appropriate. And denial is a little late. Can’t say she was crazy and imagining it. That probably wouldn’t come across well.
I suppose he could’ve run, but that would’ve been a little undignified.
It’s late for Rossi to be jealous. Why should he be jealous at this point, anyway? But this is part of his peculiar grieving process, such as it is. He’s jealous of time that he’s lost with her, and knowing that there’s a part of her that he was never able to have, trust that he was never able to earn. And, oh, it is not a good side of him. Not an emotion he’s overly familiar with; he hasn’t really been in love that often. Beth, then Leah - and both of them he’s been possessive and jealous of, because these were people in his life who really mattered. People who really matter get killed or leave.
I kind of like this entire part of the conversation, because it’s about as close as Rossi has come to opening up about Leah. It shows a little of his conflict and pain. I’ve been thinking about why he’s letting it show here, and I suspect it’s because Percy’s a disinterested party, while at the same time having that common acquaintanceship with her. It’s a tenuous connection to the dead woman, but it’s all he has left.
Percy tips his head slightly to one side, looking at him. His palms curve over his knees as he slowly leans back against the couch again, moistening his lips before he swallows. "I'm sorry," he says. "About what happened, not about -- that. Though I'll apologize for that too, if you like. I mean. We were in a bar. It wasn't like." A grin's brief bite snaps self-mockery across Percy's mouth. "I'll stop talking now."
Antagonism shivers through the aether, pheromonal signature toothed and watchful. "Did you do something to her?" Rossi asks, clear-eyed.
He almost wants Percy to say yes. He wants a reason, besides Leah’s own self-destructive tendencies, and his own failure to be someone she could trust - so untrustworthy that she could pick up a stranger in the bar and trust him, instead. He’s ashamed of wanting that rationale and excuse, but he can’t help himself. Say yes. He won’t be pissed off. He’ll be relieved. (And ashamed of being relieved.)
Give him an excuse. Give him any excuse. Give him something he can live with - something he thinks he could live with, anyway - instead of the banal, sordid, stupid reality.
Percy's head jerks up as his expression blanks, but for the narrowing of his eyes. "What are you asking?"
"Your thing," Det. Rossi says, lifting his chin. The shirt gapes; throat and jaw angle a razor-edged line. "Your power. You do something to her?"
Percy looks at him in silence for a moment. His fingers curl against his knees. His gaze is dark, fastened on the other man's face. His voice is soft as snowfall. "You're asking me if I raped your girlfriend."
Rossi looks back in silence, chemicals creeping, claiming territory. Waiting.
So selfish of him. When Percy puts it that way, he realizes that’s exactly what he’s asking. Almost what he’s hoping. Chris has his moments of ugly weakness, and this is definitely one of the ugliest. What would he do if Percy said yes, now? Nothing. Leah never knew. It didn’t hurt her. He never told her. By not telling her Percy was a mutant, he made himself complicit in her rape, if that was what it was. (He wondered at the time, and didn’t do anything or say anything. He could have. He should have! Why didn’t he?)
He regretted asking the second the words were out of his mouth, but he can’t back down from it now. Not because it’s a cruel thing to ask of Percy, but because he is incapable of stepping away from truth, once he’s started moving towards it. It doesn’t matter that it’d hurt him more than Leah to find out that Percy coerced her into wanting sex with him; at this point, it’d be a kind of punishment to himself that he even asked, to accept it without acting on it and just go on just bearing that burden.
And how odd is it that a man would ask Percy if he raped his girlfriend? I’m sure Percy has had more awkward and uncomfortable moments in his life, but this has to rank pretty high up there. It doesn’t even occur to Chris that this is one of those places you don’t go with another guy, and that it steps over the boundary of what’s socially acceptable. Percy has been a suspect, a perp, and Chris has broken him in the interrogation room. The common conventions of society don’t apply to their interactions anymore. Percy has no more boundaries, no places Chris won’t go until (or unless) Percy fights back to hold and keep them.
Percy waits a moment longer, just looking at him. He leans forward, elbows sliding to his knees to brace there. Gaze intent, he growls, "/No/, I didn't /do/ anything to her."
The pale gaze regards the other man, thoughtful and cynical, experienced intelligence measuring and speculative. A heartbeat, two -- and then the broad shoulders ease, jaw's tight knot relaxing; chemical irritation fades away, leaving in its stead the same tired, unbalanced norm. "I wondered," he says, quietly. The blade of hand curls, drawing across the closed eyes. "I didn't tell her. She enjoyed it. Who the fuck cares?"
It’s not an apology, exactly. It’s a confession. I kept your secret, even when it might have harmed my girlfriend. I chose the seal of the confessional over the well-being of the woman I loved. I am a failure as a human being.
Chris is … disappointed. And ashamed of being disappointed. And relieved, that the answer is what it was. A surreal conversation, but that’s what you get with mutants: strangeness. There is no “norm.” I like that Percy shows his teeth a little here, defending his honor. No, he’s not a rapist. NOT ANYMORE. He can attract people with his own charm and good looks.
"Indeed." Percy watches him, still narrow-eyed, for a stretching moment. Then he sits back from his forward lean, spine held straight and unslouching. "I appreciate your not telling her. I imagine she would not have been pleased to know."
Baritone chokes in a bit-off sound, halfway between a laugh and a sob, and completely mirthless at that. "That's one way of putting it," Chris says, arm dropping. Green eyes refocus on Percy, vaguely haunted, and lips twist into a smile's thin thread. "She would've gone off her rocker. --Relax, Talhurst. I believe you."
Not that this is the problem. It’s not that Chris might not believe Percy. It’s that Chris would believe Percy capable of committing rape to begin with, isn’t it? Sore spot. The same sore spot that Chris found in the interrogation room. Hold still. Let him push it.
Leah, Chris is pretty sure, would have freaked. Absolutely freaked. There would have been screaming, there would have been throwing of things, there would have been accusations - why didn’t you tell me? - and then the fear. Was she coerced? Was she manipulated into it? He imagines it in his head, and has nostalgia over the image of her yelling at him. He misses that fire. It’s been a long time since he’s felt that, or been as enraged or as agitated or as frustrated as he was when he was with her. Or as happy.
Percy starts to answer and cuts himself off, mouth closing over a sharp-fumed breath. "Thanks," he drawls. He sits back against the couch's back, arms folding over his chest. After a breath's pause, he drops his hands to his lap instead.
"You're pissed I asked," the dark voice observes, pushing up towards a question.
My commentary is getting shorter. I’m fading fast. Of course Percy’s pissed that Rossi asked, but it wouldn’t have been Chris’s first guess that this is what was wrong. Cons don’t have the right to get pissed when cops ask them about new transgressions on top of their old, and despite their new situation and Percy’s proven innocence, part of their relationship is still trapped in that interrogation room with clearly defined roles: cop and suspect.
Percy does such awesome, outstanding body language. He radiates annoyed and indignant and uncomfortable. Stiff. Offended.
"I could have done it," Percy says, words brisk and sharp. "I can always do it. I could do it right now, if I were feeling /particularly/ suicidal." His teeth flash, bared in a humorless grin. "I /don't/, Rossi."
"Don't," Chris repeats, leaning into the free arm's support, hand relaxed, fingers curling to rub against the seat's upholstery. He tilts his head, black hair clasping the sunken, fragile hollows of his temples, and regards Percy without quite seeing him. "Can't walk away from interrogation. Never really goes away, you know?"
…ah. And Chris actually comes out and admits it. That’s nice. I wrote the block above without reading the next pose set. At least he’s fair enough to acknowledge that he’s still stuck in that role with Percy. He might always be stuck in that role with Percy; he’s never really been acquainted with a perp outside of a case, especially not one that looked really good for the crime. This is uncharted territory for him, and it’s going poorly.
Percy can convince Chris this time, but the next time, who knows? The assumption might be exactly the same. It’s a sad thing that Rossi can’t look at a person without automatically wondering what he’s hiding. He can’t meet a male schoolteacher without observing how long the man touches his students, and where; he can’t look down a street without seeing where someone could break in, which people are vulnerable, which people are potential criminals, etc. Husbands and wives are murderers in waiting; children are just looking for a way to off the old man. And Percy is a rapist, not because he’s ever raped - not that Chris is aware of, anyway - but because he could, and get away with it. Nobody would ever know. Nobody would ever even suspect. Except Chris.
Jean’s right about him. His worldview is fantastically, ridiculously bleak. And yet, this is normal for him, and acceptable. It doesn’t seem wrong or harder than it would be if he were less cynical, because he grew into this gradually. By the time he became this cynical, he was already strong enough to support it.
Does part of Percy still go back to that interrogation room whenever he sees Chris?
Percy's mouth shifts, a sideways quirk as he leans, elbow against armrest with fist propped against cheek, and replies, "Guess not."
The other man refocuses. Wry amusement girds black with green. "Kinda out of my experience, anyway. Tell you what. I won't ask you if you're a rapist, if you don't sleep with Leah again."
An apology of sorts. The scene was reaching its conclusion, and both of us felt it. The air was cleared. Now it was just wrap-up. Chris attempts humor, if somewhat poorly. Macabre humor at that. Unless Percy’s got a thing for necrophilia, he’s definitely got the easier end of the deal.
"You've got yourself a deal." Percy scuffs a hand through his hair and breathes a wry breath through his fraction of a smile.
"Think I got the worse end of that one," Chris says without heat, sardonic behind black humor. The white buttons at his wrist blink at his arm's shift, reached across his body to the book forgotten between thigh and chair. "I got shit to read, and places to go before I die. What time is it?"
Chris has buttons! I am continuing to make inroads on my clothing-posing. Without excessive success, I have to admit. Still, I worked on it!
Percy glances down at his watch. He frowns. He holds it up to his ear. "I think I need a new battery."
Lips crimped, Rossi maneuvers carefully, probing into the sling to fold the sleeve away from his wrist. A sturdy metal wristwatch gleams against the skin. "Almost ten," he reports, and slides a crooked smile around his voice. "Haven't read a word. Might as well buy the damn thing."
Percy snorts and stretches out his legs where he sits, preperatory to standing. "Ten," he says. "Shit. I should get out of here, too." He picks up his coat from the couch beside him and flaps it out, brushing irritably at the remnants of cat hair.
Rossi rolls his head, stretching the tendons of his neck: warm skin against folded, rich blue. A hand folds over wood and upholstery; Chris regains his feet, struggling out of the cushions without the benefit of his other arm. "They close at midnight," he observes, catching up the thick weight of his coat to sling it over his elbow. "You got time."
Closing the scene took us a lot of time. (Look! More clothing poses!) This is a nice exchange for the two characters, just pleasant farewell between the two. It's just as though they had a normal relationship. Rossi's off for home, a long drive out of the city. He could crash at his parents' place, but he is avoiding his family somewhat; they are more of a drain on him than a support, at this point in time. Most people are. His coping mechanisms involve withdrawal from the people who have any emotional tie with him, so he can build up crumbled walls and make himself strong again. Emotional ties mean pain and suffering; even when they try to help, the people he love can suck more out of him than they give, without meaning to. He's from a large family. He knows when and where to draw his boundaries.
Percy slides an arm through its appropriate sleeve, shaking his head. "Nah, I like to be in early on the weekend." He shrugs the rest of the way into his coat and pulls to his feet, curling his book into his hip. Then he coughs into a fist and clears his throat before plunging the free hand into the pocket where it belongs. "Good talking to you."
The other man pauses, already half-turned towards departure, to regard Percy sidelong: askance in somber dignity, the black of his coat draping across his shoulder. White winks at his collar; for a moment, he looks the part of the priest, austere and honed. Then he grins. "Liar."
With the book in hand, shoulder shrugging into the other empty coat sleeve, Chris Rossi stalks away, gesturing a backhanded wave of farewell.
I liked this farewell. Chris can be charming when he wants, just flashes of grace. And meanwhile, I foreshadow. Priest.
I am tired. I end commentary now, having lost steam halfway through. I'll come back and edit to add later, when I feel up to it. Maybe.