(no subject)
There is a flurry audible through the door before the Rook makes his entrance, a blurry back and forth rumble of masculine and feminine sound. There is stillness for almost a full minute, as Percy stands before the door as though it is some sort of portal, organizing his thoughts and steeling himself for the step through it. Then he opens it, goes inside, and closes it quietly behind him.
He looks around Sabitha's accomodations with a muted air of consideration, standing in the dark charcoal of his neat suit with the gleam of gold turtles caught in either ear-lobe. His scent is dry and warm, amber and sandalwood and musk, breathing close to his skin. His intake of breath is long and slow, his exhalation a soft sigh.
Sabitha turns away from the window at the first sound of movement outside of her door, and by the time Percy steps through it, she's standing at the end of her bed with arms folded defensively across her chest and wariness emanating from every inch of her. There is no longer that split-second of relief or anticipation at a familiar face. Instead, there is merely dread and tension. She stares at Percy, green eyes hard and hair left loose in a dark cloud around her face.
"Sabitha," Percy says. He shrugs into a slight backward lean with his hands tucked into the pockets of his lightweight suit jacket. At first it is hard to look at her, but as he studies her face and stance, his gaze lingers on this detail or that that is subtly different, subtly off, or this other that is subtly perfect and right, and as he can't decide which is more unsettling, his gaze does not skip away again so quickly.
"Percy." Sabitha's mind is openly hostile, and the dip of her gaze that skims his form with wary judgement seeks any signs of a hypodermic syringe. She remains stiff and still at the foot of her bed as her eyes lift to return to his, challenge in her gaze.
There is no syringe to find, although this may or may not be reassuring; the White Rook needs to syringe to administer sedation. For the moment, however, Sabitha's physical chemistry remains her own -- broadcast, perhaps, but not afflicted by outside influence. He walks to the foot of her bed on short, even paces. He looks into her face as he moves, seeking any cue to what she will do. His gaze is contemplative, rather than either challenging, or defensive. Not, at least, the eyes of an enemy.
There is a slight flinch backward as Percy moves forward, but Sabby swiftly banishes it and lowers her arms to swing freely at her side while she straightens. Drawing herself up does little good on a 5'3" frame, but it does make her feel better. She says nothing."
As she straightens, Percy considers for a moment. Then he turns, and angles to sit down on the edge of her bed, where he leans forward with his elbows set into his thighs. Running his tongue along his teeth, he is slow to start speaking, pondering his beginnings.
Finally, Sabby steps back and angles a confused, uncertain gaze down at him. Her voice is tight and suspicious as she asks, "Are you here to unsettle me?"
"Nope," Percy says. He lifts a finger and rubs it along his nose. "I could calm you, if you liked, but I figured you'd rather have your responses as they are."
"Don't you fucking /dare/," Sabby spits suddenly, turning on her heel to pace across the room and away from Percy.
"You'll note that I haven't," Percy says, letting his hands fall back to his lap, where they lace loosely together as he watches her move.
"I think you'll have to forgive me if I'm not feeling particularly trusting of your altruistic motives anymore," Sabby replies, coming to a halt somewhere near the desk in her room. She turns to study Percy once more, with the safety of distance between them, and folds her arms over her chest again. She lapses into nervous, suspicious silence.
Percy smiles slightly and glances away from her, turning his gaze over the far wall of the room. "No?"
Sabitha remains still and silent, expression and posture both guarded.
"I'd spend your potential allies carefully, Sabby," Percy says, though he's careful enough not to use the /real/ nickname. "You have few enough under this roof."
Sabitha remains still and silent, expression and posture both guarded. *re*
"I'd spend your potential allies carefully, Sabby," Percy says, though he's careful enough not to use the /real/ nickname. "You have few enough under this roof."
Sabitha is abruptly exhausted, and it shows in the waft of chemical markers and the sudden slump of her shoulders. She presses her eyes briefly closed and thinks wistfully, and not for the first time, of a world gone insane that is at least people by those she can trust. "What do you want, Percy?" she asks tiredly.
"There are some things I need to know," Percy says quietly. He tips his head slightly to one side, looking up at her from his perch on the edge of her bed. "Can you tell me how you came to be here?"
Sabitha opens her eyes to stare hard at Percy for a long moment. There is a moment's irritable counting of the days that it has taken someone to ask her that question, and for the space of several seconds, a strong temptation to withhold answers out of pure spite. In the end, she settles for something in the middle and exhales slowly. "Do you believe I'm me, then?"
"I don't know yet," Percy says, "what I believe." He turns a hand out, opening it away from his lap. "But you certainly believe yourself to be, and that is good enough for now. You know the life we lead, Sabby."
Sabitha pushes away from the desk abruptly in another stir of restless motion. "You know they /drugged/ me?" she asks, voice gone tight with distress. Mental recollections sweep past pawns forcing her to the floor and recall other times, other places. Other drugs.
"Worse things have been done to suspected assassins," Percy says, tapping his thumbs together as he shifts a little backwards on his perch. "But for what it's worth, I'm sorry that they did."
Sabitha barks a laugh and stops again, eyeing Percy. "Suspected /assassin/? I walked up to the freaking door and handed over all my weapons when asked! I didn't protest when they locked me in a room, or when Bahir went through my mind. I have done /nothing/ but cooperate, and they fucking /drugged/ me."
"The last time you were in the Club," Percy answers, tipping his chin, "you torched it."
"You might /kindly/ note that not a fucking thing is so much as singed," Sabby replies tartly. "Even when one of them jabbed me in the eye."
"Sabby." Percy makes a face at her, lapsing only briefly into the juvenile. "If you were the real Sabitha, the one who died here, this would still not be a safe place for you to be."
Sabitha falls abruptly silent and studies Percy with a sudden, yearning ache that settles hard in her belly. It stretches for several long seconds before she finally answers with quiet desperation, "I don't know how I got here. I don't know where /here/ is. I don't know why it's different or why you're--" She chokes for a moment and then frowns and finishes, "Why you're alive. I came here because I thought you would help me."
"All right." Percy runs his hands down over the dark fabric that covers thighs, dropping them off his knees and letting them rest on either side of him, on the bed. "What help did you come to ask for?"
"Come /on/, Percy!" Sabby answers, crossing back to the desk with a hard rub at her face. "What would you do? Finding yourself somewhere that looks nothing like what you know, with the wrong people dead and the wrong people alive and-- I'm not supposed to be here."
"So," Percy says, raising his eyebrows at her, "what you want is to go back where you belong?"
Sabitha's hand lingers at her eyes in a pause, and then she scrubs them again and drops her hand to her side. Her expression falls into something hopeless and she swings her gaze slowly toward the glitter of New York out the window. "I don't know," she answers softly. Honestly.
"Okay." Percy speaks the paired syllables slowly, and reaches up with a hand to ruffle his fingers through his hair. "So you don't know where you came from, or what you want now that you're here, besides that it feels wrong." He frowns at the floor for a moment, and then sighs. "Why am I supposed to be dead?"
"I know where I /came/ from. I don't know where I /am/," Sabby replies swiftly before his question takes her by surprise and she falls into uneasy silence. She studies him carefully, eyes picking out differences as she composes a checklist of things that make him not /Percy/. Not her Percy. There is something strangely comforting about the task. Eventually she answers with short tenseness, "Bahir shot you." Emotions tell a fuller story - of a loss still not fully healed and a desperate wistfulness for other times.
Percy stares at her, struck dumb.
There is another moment's brief silence before she supplies further, in a very small voice, "You asked him to."
Percy gets up off the bed, and then sits down again, and looks blank, and blanker. "Bahir shot me," he says. He looks up at Sabitha, eyes squinting slightly as his brain stutters to process this information. His nostrils flare with a swift inhalation as he seeks some kind of chemical signature to give this the lie or else some other way make sense of it. "/Bahir/. Shot me?"
There is nothing but truth in Sabitha, in thought, in expression, in chemical communication. At Perct's repetition, she speaks further. "I wouldn't do it. Adel--" Her voice breaks off at that name and she lowers her head, shaking it. Discomfort fills the air.
"Why -- why would..." Percy scrubs his face with both of his hands and presses his palms to either temple. "Why would I do that?"
"You--" Sabby pauses and swallows tightly, but her gaze remains fixed desperately on the Percy in front of her. Not hers, but alive. /Living/. "You were having some trouble with your mutation," she finally answers carefully.
"Jesus Christ." Percy breaks into a sudden laugh, more breath than voice as his hands drop, curling into fists as he looks up at her. "No, don't tell me anymore. That's enough. That's enough for all my worst nightmares. But you lived through it all. When did things start -- looking different? When did you start feeling like you were in the wrong place?"
"Had been for awhile, but it got really bad," Sabby continues as Percy laughs, inconsiderate. "The stress. And sex and anger and violence--" She breaks off and blinks at him for a moment with the effort of redirecting her thoughts to something closer to the present. It takes her awhile. "I didn't start feeling-- it wasn't like it faded into /this/. It just was. I was in Tompkins Park. There's a group that grows things there, sometimes, and I was hoping to find something fresh. And then the next moment there are fucking /cars/ driving down the street, and people everywhere--"
Percy shivers, the shudder that runs down his spine having little to do with Tompkins Park or the sudden appearance of cars or people. He passes a hand over his eyes, palm skimming his forehead, and then peeks at her from beneath the curl of fingers. "Was there anyone in the park with you?"
"No," Sabby answers with firm assurance.
"All right." Percy scratches his thumbnail along the side of his face. "Who was the last person you saw before the change?"
"Bahir," Sabby replies swiftly. "He should have been shortly after me. We don't go far by ourselves." She pauses, hands curled down into the desk behind her as she leans into it, and studies Percy. There is a desperate plea in her voice when she asks, "Do you believe me?"
"Bahir again." Percy tenses a little, his spine twitching a little straighter, but when he looks up at her again, it is with solemn eyes. "It's hard not to. I just wish I knew what it meant."
"Bahir again?" Sabby wonders, brows lowered as she studies him.
Percy shakes his head slightly. "He shot me, you were with him," he says, wiggling his fingers. "Bahir again. It's funny, you never liked each other."
Sabitha startles, and surprise is clearly evident in the lift of her head and the tensing of her hands on the desk behind. "We-- oh." There is a moment in which she blinks silently, trying to process this.
"But I guess I never liked your boyfriend either, so it never-- you know." Percy makes another vague gesture and then rubs at his eye. "So," he says, pushing back into a track with some kind of forward momentum, "Bahir was the last that you saw, but you got separated and then suddenly everything was different. So you came to me -- and then to us, for help."
"My boyfriend," Sabby echoes dumply before she loses herself to a moment's delirious laughter and hefts herself up to sit on the edge of her desk. She lowers her head to her hands and scrubs hard at her face. When she lifts it, she asks carefully, "And Adel?"
"He's around," Percy says, helpfully, having watched her laugh not without concern, but with no certainty what to do about it. "He's a dick. I think you'd probably rather talk to me."
"I want to see him," Sabby insists, gaze fixed tight on Percy.
"I can't promise that. He's no Pawn for me to order. But I'll tell him you said so," Percy says, with a dip of his head, partial acquiescence, "and say 'we'll see.'"
Sabitha subsides slightly and rubs suddenly-sweaty palms against her thighs. Nerves blossom with fresh chemical indicators. "How long," she asks uncertainly. "How long have they been-- here?"
Percy gives her a slightly puzzled look. "The twins?" Since that's who they were talking about.
Sabitha nods swiftly.
Percy scratches his head. "Uhm, winter of 2006, I think."
"Ah," Sabby answers quietly, twisting her hands tight in her lap. Her brows furrow and, despite already knowing the answer, she feels the need to assure that, "We weren't close at all?"
"Uhm," Percy says. He furrows his brow. "Well. No. You used to try with Bahir, for me, but you just ... I came to the conclusion that putting you two in a room was just a terrible idea." He scruffs a hand through his hair. This is surreal.
Sabitha laughs again, although this time it's more resigned than hysterical, and she slides from the desk to cross to the window once more. Her arms wrap tightly around her middle as she settles there to stare at the busy world outside. Eventually she asks, "And what about me?"
"Well," Percy says. He looks down at the loose interweave of his fingers once his hands fall to his lap. "You tried to take us down. You wrote letters to a few people explaining -- it was too much, too selfish, too -- I don't know, everything." He tells the story with a slight disconnect, watching his fingers rather than her. "You went in thinking you'd die and you were right. You put Emma in the hospital and Travis Reed put you down. That was the end. Last July."
"Travis--" Sabby answers, clearly surprised, and she looks over her shoulder at Percy. For a long moment she simply studies him, searching for any sign of reaction. Emotion.
Percy has to be distant when he talks about this, a little dulled; it is not his mutation, but the echo of old heartache twisted in a new and baffling direction. He twists his mouth as he glances back at her.
It reads differently to Sabitha, with nothing but a few sparks to show for her mutation, and there's an unpleasant stab somewhere low in her gut as she watches him. She turns away and back to the window. "Well," she says on a half laugh, unhappy. "I wasn't very good at it, was I?"
"You were so tired, Sabitha," Percy says quietly.
"Wasn't me," Sabby says with sudden harshness.
"Apparently not." Percy rubs his nose.
Sabitha leans forward, one hand pressed flat against the glass. "You can tell them," she states tightly, "That if I were an assassin, I would have killed someone already."
"What they don't know, Sabby, is what you want," Percy says. He pushes slowly up off the bed and gives her a long, measuring look. "What your aims are. You tell me neither do you."
"No," Sabby answers abruptly. "What I told you is that I don't know if I want to go /back/. What I /want/ is to know what the hell happened, and why."
"Then it seems we have a mutual goal," Percy says, cocking an eyebrow at her. "Doesn't it."
Sabitha does not look at Percy to catch that cocked eyebrow, and she does not reply. She swallows tightly and leans forward to rest her forehead against cool, smooth glass.
"I'll take what you've said to the others," Percy says, and never mind that Emma is listening even as they speak. "Is there anything else you want?"
"I want to leave," Sabby says, and this time she straightens and turns to study Percy. "Little chance of that, I suppose?"
"I can't promise that," Percy says, shaking his head.
"Can you promise /anything/?" Sabby spits with another abrupt rise of frustration.
"I'll do what I can, Sabby. That's going to have to do."
Frustration subsides as quickly as it rose, and Sabby takes one tentative step toward Percy before she halts again. This time when she studies him, swallowing back the lump in her throat, it's the similarities she notices, and it takes effort for her to move her gaze away and shake her head and say quietly, "There's nothing else I want. But if they try to drug me again, I'll hurt someone."
"I don't think the drugs should be necessary." Percy wiggles his fingers up by his temple in a vague imitation salute, and then turns and starts to walk at a slow and steady pace to the door.
Sabitha stands stiff and straight between bed and window and watches him go.
Percy glances back at her once before he leaves, but he doesn't say anything further, and the door locks after it closes behind him.
Percy pays a visit.