Thin skin
I should not have to rely on chemical manipulation to be able to think clearly.
I should not have to expect a pawn to act like a friend, and feel disappointed when he doesn't.
I should not have to spend half my morning Googling gout treatments, either, for that matter. Grey has much to answer for, and Wyngarde? Oh, precious little poppet, flamboyant darling of the White Court, broken Bishop boy: if I get my hands on definite proof that you did send her over the edge . . .
If I get proof that Emma did, after all her protestations, all my promises, all our prattle about partnership - and she went ahead and destroyed Jean Grey's sanity and pinned it on me?
God help you in that case, woman, because the Devil sure won't. He'll have your skin for a rug to cushion his bruised feet, thank you very much, you traitorous bitch. Can't expect a leopard to change her spots, can I? Never trust her. Never trust any of them. Never.
And there I go again.
Back to work. No more thinking. No more feeling. No more.
1/25/2006
Logfile from Shaw of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The doorman at the Hellfire Clubhouse is having a bad day. First, it was the arrival of the /wrong flowers/ for the charity dinner tonight. For what cause? He cares not, only that he had a ten-minute argument with the delivery men, who kept waving the invoice in his face even though it /clearly/ said the wrong order (why would Ms. Frost and Mr. Shaw want forty-two arrangements of peonies?). Next, some of the young punks, sons and nephews of stately /proper/ old club members, tried to talk their way inside with substandard arm-leeches most definitely not on the approved list, and don't think that their fathers and uncles won't be hearing about it at the earliest opportunity. (And, anyway, why did they want to come in, in such a herd? Did they think there were perhaps /orgy rooms/ in the basement they could use? What nonsense!) And now he is dealing with regrettably grubby and loud workmen tramping to and from the repairs going on in the upstairs hallway. Why, one of them even /winked/ after he nearly knocked out the stained-glass windows flanking the doors with the ladder over the shoulders of him and his distinctly /thief/-looking partner. Honestly. It's enough to make an honest, humble servant sit inside the door at his desk, mop his forehead with an honest, humble handkerchief, and hope that the rest of the day improves /significantly/.
Hands delving deep into the pockets of his long black overcoat, wind-tousled but looking relatively sedate, even for him, Mr. Talhurst the younger trundles up to the door to encroach upon a moment's peace with the cuffs of his navy jeans dragging over expensively-shod feet. It's grey-hued daylight that drains him of color; it reflects a pale gleam from the gold hoops in his ears as he looks up, checking over the building from the front with upswept brows.
The doors fly open to release a horde of workmen intent on lunch, trailed by the doorman and his aggrieved expression. He catches at one door, closes it, and pauses with his hand on the other door's handle for a study of young Mr. Talhurst. "May I help you?"
Percy's gaze is drawn down, away from his study of the building; cloud-leeched day washes mellow amber to pale gold. He blinks bland surprise at the inquiry. He cants a significant look after the workmen, and when it returns to the doorman his glance gleams quiet amusement beneath a cocked eyebrow. "Rough /day/, old man?" he asks instead of answering, light tenor's notes brushed Londoner but not immediately brisking Oxford-brittle.
"It's fine, thank you," comes the stiff and proper response, and the smaller, rounder, older man gives him the once-over. The tally must come up in Percy's favor, for he asks now, "Are you here to see someone, sir?"
Tenor drops and richens to darkle, amused, "Mr. Shaw is expecting me, I believe."
The doorman gapes for a precious, still second and then flies into action, hustling Percy inside without ever quite touching him (but his mood and words, and his anxious pheromones, are quite enough). "Mr. Talhurst, isn't it? Oh, yes, yes, he's been expecting you! Please, come in and check in at the -- well, no, I don't suppose security needs to worry about /you/, do they? It's all right, Tim, I'm sure he's clean, he's one of Mr. Shaw's friends. Can you call ahead? Thank you! And here is Mr. Amatenzo to see you upstairs -- have you met?" Mr. Amatenzo, a stocky and sober young man in Black Pawn's garb, blinks calmly and just waits.
Blinking sedate in the face of the flurry of activity, Percy breathes the relative warmth of the foyer in deeply and exhales a wry, quiet, "... thanks." His own calm holds quite steady, as unnatural as it is natural. He nods to Mr. Amatenzo, his hands still shoved into deep, diffident pockets, and clears his throat. "Perhaps once, twice. Third time's," he stops and crooks a slight smile instead, starting towards the stairs even as he says, "Shall we?"
"Yes, sir," says James Amatenzo, but as soon as they're out of earshot of the doorman (back at his desk, back mopping his face), he drops easily into being just grinning, cocky Jacko. "He's new. Newish. Sorry about that. Did you call? We would've known and tried to head you off at the pass, right. The mister's been wanting you pretty bad since the other night."
"I didn't think to call," Percy admits, shrugging a little into his step; his smile is slight, answering Jacko's ease, but at least it lingers. England has receded from his voice, audible in a tidal wash over Connecticut's shores. "I just checked my email and showed up. There wasn't a lot of intervening time for, you know, foresight."
Jacko snorts a laugh and leads him up the staircase, ahead by a companionable step at a time. "Yeah. Figures, huh? Well, don't worry 'bout it. You're not in trouble or anything. You woulda known /that/ for sure by now." His merry brown eyes shoot rolling conspiracy over his shoulder, but there's something in the set of the wide mouth, or the set of his jaw, maybe, that suggests just why Mr. Shaw has chosen this young man to stand guard at his door. Which is where they quickly end up, with Jacko turning a polite shoulder to the draped and scaffolded repair work down the hall. "Here ya go, then. Hope you have a nice talk or whatever. I'll stick around to take you back down, huh?"
Percy nods once to Jacko, a wry quirk to his mouth as he answers, "Thanks." Then he straightens, loose-limbed posture pulled into something a little more professional, a little more controlled; not half of a second bleeds away before he lifts a fist to knock softly.
A quiet lock falls in the door, and the door opens, and Shaw holds it open for a steady minute. He's in a navy turtleneck and loose grey trousers, barefoot, and his hair rakes back from and around a face of healing lacerations and bruises. The corner of his mouth twitches, then he says, turning away, "Come in. Shut the door. We need to talk."
Percy's reaction is muted all the way to silence: brows uplift, eyes widen. He steps inside and draws the door slowly, quietly closed behind him, eyes lowered to the knob round which slim fingers tightly curl; then he turns back to drift a few paces further in. "All right."
"Sit down, if you like." Shaw flicks his hand at the guest chairs in front of his desk (computer's on, but purring in sleep). He drags around one of them, pulls it back towards the uncurtained windows, and sprawls in it with a wince and a fresh wave of pained pheromones layered over the strata (stuffy, thick, furry) already in the room. "So, how are you? Intact?"
Percy hesitates with a hand light atop the chair's back before he folds himself into it. "I'm fine," he says, watching Shaw with a sharpened gaze. "Things have been -- quiet, on my end." He moistens his lips and swallows. "What happened here?"
Shaw answers succinctly, "The Black Queen," and there's that mouth-twitch again. The clouds in his eyes blame it on something other than amusement. "You saw the hallway? The hole in the wall? I was her wrecking ball."
Chemical control slips a notch. Percy reacts. He jerks back in his chair, head snapping up, and blinks. "/Shit/."
A tilt of the head brushes dulled dark hair forward over Shaw's cut cheek. "Yes," he answers on a low breath, studying the floor between them. (His naked, bruise-splotched feet. Not so beautiful feet, now, if ever they were.) "She's gone insane. Unstable." Chemicals spike angrily back to his pawn. "She accused me of -- no, I'm telling it out of order. Sorry. The past few days haven't been the best of my life."
Percy hunches his shoulders, drawing his arms inwards. "That's understandable," he points out, voice as dry as his mouth as he regathers. "She's gone -- unstable," he echoes, tilting his head slightly to one side; one part prompting.
Shaw nods and slouches his shoulders into the chair back. His voice stays low, like his pheromonal output: pain, anxiety, grey despair. "Someone did something to her. She'd been complaining of her shields being on the fritz. Her powers fluctuating -- she threw Emma into the wall up here, too, I can show you the security-camera tape." Quickly his eyes dip up to Percy's. "She's fine, by the way, as far as I know. Emma is. I saw her yesterday. Anyway: Jean. She thinks /I/ did it, whatever it was, with Jason Wyngarde. I'm guessing our boy-wonder Bishop pushed one illusion too far on her, and she . . . snapped." A soft snort. "On me. And the wall. Then she left. She's out of the Circle. We won't have her back. You pawns -- well, you saw my orders in the email."
Percy is silent, listening, processing information. His hands clasp in his lap and tighten; his head tilts the other way. Eventually, softly, eyes suspicion-dark as he meets Shaw's gaze, he asks: "You and Jason? She thought /you/ and Jason?" His smile is slight and does not touch his eyes. "How peculiar -- /you/ don't have a history of using Jason to fuck with people."
"Another Alyssa Carter situation, you mean?" Shaw asks, and his voice skirls into indignant, incredulous cracking. He sits up, sits forward, puts his elbows on his knees, and rests his forehead against clasped hands. His shoulders shake for a moment. Then: "Oh, God. She /told/ me she wasn't doing anything to Jean, and I believed her. This is why I don't /trust/ people, goddammit!"
"Well, of /course/ she wasn't doing anything to Jean," Percy says, voice light. "She has Jason to take responsibility for her." He leans back in his chair, watching Shaw with eyes glitter-bright. "He's /good/ at that."
Shaw murmurs, "If she lied to me . . ." He raises his head enough to rest pursed lips against his thumbs; his eyes are sparkling wet onyx, couched in angry dark bruises. "I won't leap to conclusions the way she did," he says frankly, "but I'll keep that possibility in mind. She did accuse me of it: working with him and with my 'ice queen' to fuck with her. Could be she was thinking of the Carter situation, too, who knows? She was--" his eyes briefly close, and the lines of his face tighten "--out of her mind. But we'll see. We'll see."
Percy runs the fingers of one hand briefly through his hair. "God, that kid," he mutters under his breath, his mouth's twist a grimace; and then he raises amber, mellowing again as posture eases, back to Shaw's face. "We'll see," he agrees. "Jean, insane." Two delicate, clean fingernails tap lightly against Percy's temple as he slouches in the chair. "I can't think that wouldn't appeal to her. -- But we'll see." He snorts a soft and bitter laugh. "Let's not leap to conclusions," he agrees, eyes dropping behind a black-lashed veil.
Shaw chokes a hollow laugh. "No, indeed, let's not. Last thing I need is to confront Emma and be wrong and have /her/--" His head turns sharply away; he sits back, grips his knees. He's shaking again.
Percy's fingers curl tight over his knees. 'That would be bad' lacks a certain something. He licks his lips as he cocks his head. "D'you want me to, uh--?"
"Now," Shaw says very quietly and very clearly, "is not the time to hit on me, Percival."
Percy chokes back a laugh, strangling the sound in his throat. "That was /not/," he intones with some scraped-together fake dignity, "what I meant. My mutation, Sebastian. It's not just a sex aid."
The fingers spatulate around his knees slacken. Then tighten. "I know it isn't," Shaw says, blinking away tears on a deep breath. "I apologize. I'm completely on edge. Over it. Your mutation -- yes. Yes." He tries a better, softer laugh. "That's why I wanted to see you. If you can just /numb/ me, so I can /think/ again . . ."
"Numb," Percy informs Shaw with the very height of blandness, "is one of my specialties." His glands pair action with the words, releasing chemicals in a calming swath.
Shaw's nostrils automatically flare for smell that isn't there, but the pheromones do sink in anyway. Slowly his tense shivering subsides. He sits up more normally; his face relaxes, and he wipes his eyes with the edge of one pensive hand. "Thank you. If I could keep you by me 24/7 until things settle down -- I'm joking." A quiet look. "Probably. I've thought of asking you if you wanted to serve in my personal guard."
Percy's mouth crooks. "I'm afraid I do not cut a terribly impressive figure," he points out with a certain languor to the way he leans back in the chair again, thumbs tapping lightly together in his lap. "But I'm at your side like that," he snaps his fingers, "when you need me, anyway." Something sardonic sneaks into his slight smile.
Shaw stays sober. Stays studying. "Are you?"
Percy turns his hands over, splaying empty fingers with a breathed snort. "Even if I weren't Pawn -- it's quite frankly /not/ like I have anything better to do."
"Is that self-pity? Maybe you should use your mutation on yourself."
Percy raises his eyebrows. He shrugs. "Sorry."
Slight headshake. "Don't be. I'm not snapping at you, just . . ." Shaw shrugs and picks at a seam of his slacks, outside his right knee. "I value you for who you are, Percy. You've helped me today. You've helped me in the past, and maybe you'll help me in the future. I don't think that has much to do with your employment status. Do you?"
Percy blinks once and then grins, a sudden flash warmed by unvoiced laughter. "Oh. No. Hell, no."
Shaw smiles with his eyes, tired under low, long lashes. "All right, then. So shut up about that shit before I get really angry. And--" he shifts a little colder, towards firmer Black King ground "--don't involve yourself with Emma and Wyngarde. At all. You are a pawn; it isn't your place to decide who's at fault for what in this mess. Understood?"
"Understood." Percy straightens in the seat, raising his head as he moistens his lips. "No leaping to conclusions, no assigning blame, no otherwise doing anything incredibly stupid. Right?"
"Right," agrees Shaw. "Do you remember why you turned your coat?"
"It's not the sort of thing I'm likely to forget," Percy says, slipping softly somber.
Shaw is pure, purring, rough-ripped velvet: "As I recall, you had the misguided notion of saving a White Pawn from being sacrificed by his monarch. That won't be happening again, will it?"
Percy looks at Shaw steadily for a long and silent moment before he speaks: a flat and toneless word. "No."
Holding the gaze, Shaw slowly nods his acceptance. "Good. It was a /good/ notion, and it saved the Inner Circle, but it /was/ misguided, as it now appears." He breaks the contact to give the outer door a restless look, and his fingers pick harder at the seam. "Jason Wyngarde keeps getting into these fixes. Alyssa Carter, Joelle Parker and me, now Jean Grey -- this is a /pattern/, Percy. Whether someone like Emma is running him or not, he's powerful enough to buck that rein if he wanted to. Apparently he doesn't. Apparently he doesn't want to be saved." His baritone hardens near to a rumbled bass. "So let him rot for his sins. It's up to his Queen to save him, not a Black Pawn and not a Black King, either."
Percy ducks his head, nodding acknowledgment. He's quiet again, gaze fastened on his manicure. "I know."
The restlessness shifts Shaw in his chair: an elbow on the curved wooden arm, a tentative stretch of his knee. He says, bluntly, "I'm not trying to put a leash on you. You're an adult; you're your own man. But look what she did to me. After what he did to /her/. She had no compunction against throwing me around her room. And she went into my mind and moved things around. Did something." His jaw makes a fist. "I want to protect you. I couldn't do a damn thing about myself, but you . . ."
"I'll be careful." Percy looks up, brows lifting. "I'm not sticking my neck out for him again," he says, mouth curving rue for the necessity of the assurance. "And I'm sure as /hell/ staying out of Jean Grey's way."
"Good. That's all I can ask." Shaw slumps back and lets the weariness have its rolling way with him, through expression to body to weak pheromones. "Remind me again why I have this fucking job."
Percy cocks his head. Dry as sere, he offers, "Masochism?"
Hurt flashes through quick black eyes that Shaw then turns away, toward the computer. "No," he bites off. "But thanks for trying. I think I'll see if I can get some work done. Finish catching up on email, make some calls . . . Is there anything else I can tell you? Do for you?"
"You have it. You earned it. Took it. Made it yours," Percy says, his hands interlacing neatly in his lap as he leans forward onto his knees, following Shaw's turn with intent eyes. "You don't need me to tell you that."
Shaw's shoulders line broad, hunched tension. "Thank you," he repeats and keeps not looking at his pawn. "If there's nothing else, then, have a good day. Jacko will show you out. Keep in touch if you hear or see anything worth knowing, as usual."
Percy sits, for a moment, very still. Then he unfolds from the chair and stands, pressing his palm against the top of its back as he leans behind it. "Is there anything else I can do?"
More of the cold, rough dark velvet as Shaw climbs to his feet, too: "No, that'll be all." He grimaces around the words, the resumption of weight on his bad leg, but follows his focus around his desk without pause. He sits down there, his hand pulling back his hair from new focus on the computer monitor. His other hand reaches for the mouse. His face is a mask with the eyes cut out. "Good day, Percy."
Percy scrubs at the back of his neck with the palm of his hand, having released the chair's back, and nods once. "Good day," he answers. The words hang a moment with his hesitation; then he turns on his heel and paces to the door.
Shaw lets him go, already engrossed in email, and it's a subdued and sympathetic Jacko Amatenzo who guides his fellow pawn back to the foyer and to the door. "Flu's a terrible thing, huh? Well, he'll get better soon enough. 'Least there wasn't any shouting or throwing things! Some people get mean when they're sick. Don't know if the mister is one of 'em, but you look all right, don't you? Survived! See you 'round, Mr. Talhurst. Don't be a stranger, huh?"
[Log ends.]
I should not have to expect a pawn to act like a friend, and feel disappointed when he doesn't.
I should not have to spend half my morning Googling gout treatments, either, for that matter. Grey has much to answer for, and Wyngarde? Oh, precious little poppet, flamboyant darling of the White Court, broken Bishop boy: if I get my hands on definite proof that you did send her over the edge . . .
If I get proof that Emma did, after all her protestations, all my promises, all our prattle about partnership - and she went ahead and destroyed Jean Grey's sanity and pinned it on me?
God help you in that case, woman, because the Devil sure won't. He'll have your skin for a rug to cushion his bruised feet, thank you very much, you traitorous bitch. Can't expect a leopard to change her spots, can I? Never trust her. Never trust any of them. Never.
And there I go again.
Back to work. No more thinking. No more feeling. No more.
1/25/2006
Logfile from Shaw of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The doorman at the Hellfire Clubhouse is having a bad day. First, it was the arrival of the /wrong flowers/ for the charity dinner tonight. For what cause? He cares not, only that he had a ten-minute argument with the delivery men, who kept waving the invoice in his face even though it /clearly/ said the wrong order (why would Ms. Frost and Mr. Shaw want forty-two arrangements of peonies?). Next, some of the young punks, sons and nephews of stately /proper/ old club members, tried to talk their way inside with substandard arm-leeches most definitely not on the approved list, and don't think that their fathers and uncles won't be hearing about it at the earliest opportunity. (And, anyway, why did they want to come in, in such a herd? Did they think there were perhaps /orgy rooms/ in the basement they could use? What nonsense!) And now he is dealing with regrettably grubby and loud workmen tramping to and from the repairs going on in the upstairs hallway. Why, one of them even /winked/ after he nearly knocked out the stained-glass windows flanking the doors with the ladder over the shoulders of him and his distinctly /thief/-looking partner. Honestly. It's enough to make an honest, humble servant sit inside the door at his desk, mop his forehead with an honest, humble handkerchief, and hope that the rest of the day improves /significantly/.
Hands delving deep into the pockets of his long black overcoat, wind-tousled but looking relatively sedate, even for him, Mr. Talhurst the younger trundles up to the door to encroach upon a moment's peace with the cuffs of his navy jeans dragging over expensively-shod feet. It's grey-hued daylight that drains him of color; it reflects a pale gleam from the gold hoops in his ears as he looks up, checking over the building from the front with upswept brows.
The doors fly open to release a horde of workmen intent on lunch, trailed by the doorman and his aggrieved expression. He catches at one door, closes it, and pauses with his hand on the other door's handle for a study of young Mr. Talhurst. "May I help you?"
Percy's gaze is drawn down, away from his study of the building; cloud-leeched day washes mellow amber to pale gold. He blinks bland surprise at the inquiry. He cants a significant look after the workmen, and when it returns to the doorman his glance gleams quiet amusement beneath a cocked eyebrow. "Rough /day/, old man?" he asks instead of answering, light tenor's notes brushed Londoner but not immediately brisking Oxford-brittle.
"It's fine, thank you," comes the stiff and proper response, and the smaller, rounder, older man gives him the once-over. The tally must come up in Percy's favor, for he asks now, "Are you here to see someone, sir?"
Tenor drops and richens to darkle, amused, "Mr. Shaw is expecting me, I believe."
The doorman gapes for a precious, still second and then flies into action, hustling Percy inside without ever quite touching him (but his mood and words, and his anxious pheromones, are quite enough). "Mr. Talhurst, isn't it? Oh, yes, yes, he's been expecting you! Please, come in and check in at the -- well, no, I don't suppose security needs to worry about /you/, do they? It's all right, Tim, I'm sure he's clean, he's one of Mr. Shaw's friends. Can you call ahead? Thank you! And here is Mr. Amatenzo to see you upstairs -- have you met?" Mr. Amatenzo, a stocky and sober young man in Black Pawn's garb, blinks calmly and just waits.
Blinking sedate in the face of the flurry of activity, Percy breathes the relative warmth of the foyer in deeply and exhales a wry, quiet, "... thanks." His own calm holds quite steady, as unnatural as it is natural. He nods to Mr. Amatenzo, his hands still shoved into deep, diffident pockets, and clears his throat. "Perhaps once, twice. Third time's," he stops and crooks a slight smile instead, starting towards the stairs even as he says, "Shall we?"
"Yes, sir," says James Amatenzo, but as soon as they're out of earshot of the doorman (back at his desk, back mopping his face), he drops easily into being just grinning, cocky Jacko. "He's new. Newish. Sorry about that. Did you call? We would've known and tried to head you off at the pass, right. The mister's been wanting you pretty bad since the other night."
"I didn't think to call," Percy admits, shrugging a little into his step; his smile is slight, answering Jacko's ease, but at least it lingers. England has receded from his voice, audible in a tidal wash over Connecticut's shores. "I just checked my email and showed up. There wasn't a lot of intervening time for, you know, foresight."
Jacko snorts a laugh and leads him up the staircase, ahead by a companionable step at a time. "Yeah. Figures, huh? Well, don't worry 'bout it. You're not in trouble or anything. You woulda known /that/ for sure by now." His merry brown eyes shoot rolling conspiracy over his shoulder, but there's something in the set of the wide mouth, or the set of his jaw, maybe, that suggests just why Mr. Shaw has chosen this young man to stand guard at his door. Which is where they quickly end up, with Jacko turning a polite shoulder to the draped and scaffolded repair work down the hall. "Here ya go, then. Hope you have a nice talk or whatever. I'll stick around to take you back down, huh?"
Percy nods once to Jacko, a wry quirk to his mouth as he answers, "Thanks." Then he straightens, loose-limbed posture pulled into something a little more professional, a little more controlled; not half of a second bleeds away before he lifts a fist to knock softly.
A quiet lock falls in the door, and the door opens, and Shaw holds it open for a steady minute. He's in a navy turtleneck and loose grey trousers, barefoot, and his hair rakes back from and around a face of healing lacerations and bruises. The corner of his mouth twitches, then he says, turning away, "Come in. Shut the door. We need to talk."
Percy's reaction is muted all the way to silence: brows uplift, eyes widen. He steps inside and draws the door slowly, quietly closed behind him, eyes lowered to the knob round which slim fingers tightly curl; then he turns back to drift a few paces further in. "All right."
"Sit down, if you like." Shaw flicks his hand at the guest chairs in front of his desk (computer's on, but purring in sleep). He drags around one of them, pulls it back towards the uncurtained windows, and sprawls in it with a wince and a fresh wave of pained pheromones layered over the strata (stuffy, thick, furry) already in the room. "So, how are you? Intact?"
Percy hesitates with a hand light atop the chair's back before he folds himself into it. "I'm fine," he says, watching Shaw with a sharpened gaze. "Things have been -- quiet, on my end." He moistens his lips and swallows. "What happened here?"
Shaw answers succinctly, "The Black Queen," and there's that mouth-twitch again. The clouds in his eyes blame it on something other than amusement. "You saw the hallway? The hole in the wall? I was her wrecking ball."
Chemical control slips a notch. Percy reacts. He jerks back in his chair, head snapping up, and blinks. "/Shit/."
A tilt of the head brushes dulled dark hair forward over Shaw's cut cheek. "Yes," he answers on a low breath, studying the floor between them. (His naked, bruise-splotched feet. Not so beautiful feet, now, if ever they were.) "She's gone insane. Unstable." Chemicals spike angrily back to his pawn. "She accused me of -- no, I'm telling it out of order. Sorry. The past few days haven't been the best of my life."
Percy hunches his shoulders, drawing his arms inwards. "That's understandable," he points out, voice as dry as his mouth as he regathers. "She's gone -- unstable," he echoes, tilting his head slightly to one side; one part prompting.
Shaw nods and slouches his shoulders into the chair back. His voice stays low, like his pheromonal output: pain, anxiety, grey despair. "Someone did something to her. She'd been complaining of her shields being on the fritz. Her powers fluctuating -- she threw Emma into the wall up here, too, I can show you the security-camera tape." Quickly his eyes dip up to Percy's. "She's fine, by the way, as far as I know. Emma is. I saw her yesterday. Anyway: Jean. She thinks /I/ did it, whatever it was, with Jason Wyngarde. I'm guessing our boy-wonder Bishop pushed one illusion too far on her, and she . . . snapped." A soft snort. "On me. And the wall. Then she left. She's out of the Circle. We won't have her back. You pawns -- well, you saw my orders in the email."
Percy is silent, listening, processing information. His hands clasp in his lap and tighten; his head tilts the other way. Eventually, softly, eyes suspicion-dark as he meets Shaw's gaze, he asks: "You and Jason? She thought /you/ and Jason?" His smile is slight and does not touch his eyes. "How peculiar -- /you/ don't have a history of using Jason to fuck with people."
"Another Alyssa Carter situation, you mean?" Shaw asks, and his voice skirls into indignant, incredulous cracking. He sits up, sits forward, puts his elbows on his knees, and rests his forehead against clasped hands. His shoulders shake for a moment. Then: "Oh, God. She /told/ me she wasn't doing anything to Jean, and I believed her. This is why I don't /trust/ people, goddammit!"
"Well, of /course/ she wasn't doing anything to Jean," Percy says, voice light. "She has Jason to take responsibility for her." He leans back in his chair, watching Shaw with eyes glitter-bright. "He's /good/ at that."
Shaw murmurs, "If she lied to me . . ." He raises his head enough to rest pursed lips against his thumbs; his eyes are sparkling wet onyx, couched in angry dark bruises. "I won't leap to conclusions the way she did," he says frankly, "but I'll keep that possibility in mind. She did accuse me of it: working with him and with my 'ice queen' to fuck with her. Could be she was thinking of the Carter situation, too, who knows? She was--" his eyes briefly close, and the lines of his face tighten "--out of her mind. But we'll see. We'll see."
Percy runs the fingers of one hand briefly through his hair. "God, that kid," he mutters under his breath, his mouth's twist a grimace; and then he raises amber, mellowing again as posture eases, back to Shaw's face. "We'll see," he agrees. "Jean, insane." Two delicate, clean fingernails tap lightly against Percy's temple as he slouches in the chair. "I can't think that wouldn't appeal to her. -- But we'll see." He snorts a soft and bitter laugh. "Let's not leap to conclusions," he agrees, eyes dropping behind a black-lashed veil.
Shaw chokes a hollow laugh. "No, indeed, let's not. Last thing I need is to confront Emma and be wrong and have /her/--" His head turns sharply away; he sits back, grips his knees. He's shaking again.
Percy's fingers curl tight over his knees. 'That would be bad' lacks a certain something. He licks his lips as he cocks his head. "D'you want me to, uh--?"
"Now," Shaw says very quietly and very clearly, "is not the time to hit on me, Percival."
Percy chokes back a laugh, strangling the sound in his throat. "That was /not/," he intones with some scraped-together fake dignity, "what I meant. My mutation, Sebastian. It's not just a sex aid."
The fingers spatulate around his knees slacken. Then tighten. "I know it isn't," Shaw says, blinking away tears on a deep breath. "I apologize. I'm completely on edge. Over it. Your mutation -- yes. Yes." He tries a better, softer laugh. "That's why I wanted to see you. If you can just /numb/ me, so I can /think/ again . . ."
"Numb," Percy informs Shaw with the very height of blandness, "is one of my specialties." His glands pair action with the words, releasing chemicals in a calming swath.
Shaw's nostrils automatically flare for smell that isn't there, but the pheromones do sink in anyway. Slowly his tense shivering subsides. He sits up more normally; his face relaxes, and he wipes his eyes with the edge of one pensive hand. "Thank you. If I could keep you by me 24/7 until things settle down -- I'm joking." A quiet look. "Probably. I've thought of asking you if you wanted to serve in my personal guard."
Percy's mouth crooks. "I'm afraid I do not cut a terribly impressive figure," he points out with a certain languor to the way he leans back in the chair again, thumbs tapping lightly together in his lap. "But I'm at your side like that," he snaps his fingers, "when you need me, anyway." Something sardonic sneaks into his slight smile.
Shaw stays sober. Stays studying. "Are you?"
Percy turns his hands over, splaying empty fingers with a breathed snort. "Even if I weren't Pawn -- it's quite frankly /not/ like I have anything better to do."
"Is that self-pity? Maybe you should use your mutation on yourself."
Percy raises his eyebrows. He shrugs. "Sorry."
Slight headshake. "Don't be. I'm not snapping at you, just . . ." Shaw shrugs and picks at a seam of his slacks, outside his right knee. "I value you for who you are, Percy. You've helped me today. You've helped me in the past, and maybe you'll help me in the future. I don't think that has much to do with your employment status. Do you?"
Percy blinks once and then grins, a sudden flash warmed by unvoiced laughter. "Oh. No. Hell, no."
Shaw smiles with his eyes, tired under low, long lashes. "All right, then. So shut up about that shit before I get really angry. And--" he shifts a little colder, towards firmer Black King ground "--don't involve yourself with Emma and Wyngarde. At all. You are a pawn; it isn't your place to decide who's at fault for what in this mess. Understood?"
"Understood." Percy straightens in the seat, raising his head as he moistens his lips. "No leaping to conclusions, no assigning blame, no otherwise doing anything incredibly stupid. Right?"
"Right," agrees Shaw. "Do you remember why you turned your coat?"
"It's not the sort of thing I'm likely to forget," Percy says, slipping softly somber.
Shaw is pure, purring, rough-ripped velvet: "As I recall, you had the misguided notion of saving a White Pawn from being sacrificed by his monarch. That won't be happening again, will it?"
Percy looks at Shaw steadily for a long and silent moment before he speaks: a flat and toneless word. "No."
Holding the gaze, Shaw slowly nods his acceptance. "Good. It was a /good/ notion, and it saved the Inner Circle, but it /was/ misguided, as it now appears." He breaks the contact to give the outer door a restless look, and his fingers pick harder at the seam. "Jason Wyngarde keeps getting into these fixes. Alyssa Carter, Joelle Parker and me, now Jean Grey -- this is a /pattern/, Percy. Whether someone like Emma is running him or not, he's powerful enough to buck that rein if he wanted to. Apparently he doesn't. Apparently he doesn't want to be saved." His baritone hardens near to a rumbled bass. "So let him rot for his sins. It's up to his Queen to save him, not a Black Pawn and not a Black King, either."
Percy ducks his head, nodding acknowledgment. He's quiet again, gaze fastened on his manicure. "I know."
The restlessness shifts Shaw in his chair: an elbow on the curved wooden arm, a tentative stretch of his knee. He says, bluntly, "I'm not trying to put a leash on you. You're an adult; you're your own man. But look what she did to me. After what he did to /her/. She had no compunction against throwing me around her room. And she went into my mind and moved things around. Did something." His jaw makes a fist. "I want to protect you. I couldn't do a damn thing about myself, but you . . ."
"I'll be careful." Percy looks up, brows lifting. "I'm not sticking my neck out for him again," he says, mouth curving rue for the necessity of the assurance. "And I'm sure as /hell/ staying out of Jean Grey's way."
"Good. That's all I can ask." Shaw slumps back and lets the weariness have its rolling way with him, through expression to body to weak pheromones. "Remind me again why I have this fucking job."
Percy cocks his head. Dry as sere, he offers, "Masochism?"
Hurt flashes through quick black eyes that Shaw then turns away, toward the computer. "No," he bites off. "But thanks for trying. I think I'll see if I can get some work done. Finish catching up on email, make some calls . . . Is there anything else I can tell you? Do for you?"
"You have it. You earned it. Took it. Made it yours," Percy says, his hands interlacing neatly in his lap as he leans forward onto his knees, following Shaw's turn with intent eyes. "You don't need me to tell you that."
Shaw's shoulders line broad, hunched tension. "Thank you," he repeats and keeps not looking at his pawn. "If there's nothing else, then, have a good day. Jacko will show you out. Keep in touch if you hear or see anything worth knowing, as usual."
Percy sits, for a moment, very still. Then he unfolds from the chair and stands, pressing his palm against the top of its back as he leans behind it. "Is there anything else I can do?"
More of the cold, rough dark velvet as Shaw climbs to his feet, too: "No, that'll be all." He grimaces around the words, the resumption of weight on his bad leg, but follows his focus around his desk without pause. He sits down there, his hand pulling back his hair from new focus on the computer monitor. His other hand reaches for the mouse. His face is a mask with the eyes cut out. "Good day, Percy."
Percy scrubs at the back of his neck with the palm of his hand, having released the chair's back, and nods once. "Good day," he answers. The words hang a moment with his hesitation; then he turns on his heel and paces to the door.
Shaw lets him go, already engrossed in email, and it's a subdued and sympathetic Jacko Amatenzo who guides his fellow pawn back to the foyer and to the door. "Flu's a terrible thing, huh? Well, he'll get better soon enough. 'Least there wasn't any shouting or throwing things! Some people get mean when they're sick. Don't know if the mister is one of 'em, but you look all right, don't you? Survived! See you 'round, Mr. Talhurst. Don't be a stranger, huh?"
[Log ends.]