Interviews and examinations
To: "S. Shaw"
From: "William T. Linden"
Subject: Re: P. Talhurst
I don't know. We tossed around a few ideas, but I think it would be best if you talked to him yourself. You're the boss.
2/15/2006
Logfile from Shaw of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So, that's the sales team," Bill Linden concludes on their walk from the cubicle farm back into the hallways where actual offices live. His paces have a slouch to them, suiting the end-of-business-day hour and the hangdog weariness in his bland face and deep voice. "They're good people. I'm sure you'd fit in fine, if that was what you're looking for."
"Could do." Percy, crisp-suited in charcoal with a pace measured to match Bill's, nods over a slight smile. "I've got some experience in that area." Cheery edge shades to dry as they walk, gold-lit glance sliding to flick over his face. "Sales, more than fitting in, but you know."
Linden frowns at the carpet ahead of them. "If you aren't interested," he tries, quietly, with the prickle of uncertainty in his pheromones.
"Well." Percy starts to seek out the pockets of his jacket to slouch into them; instead he straightens it with a pull of either hand. "I sort of headed the international sales division at Geotal, you know, because what else is an aeronautics company going to do with a linguist on staff? -- But I can't say as it ever suited. Not really."
"My office is around the corner. --No? Well." Linden ambles more pensively, giving a farewell nod to a passing co-worker, one of the last out for the night, at least in this section of the busy building's busy floor. A sudden slight smile lights his face, if not his faded blue eyes. "They do say that eighty percent of jobs aren't advertised. They're either internal networking or made up on the spot. Maybe we should talk about what kind of job you do want. I don't think the boss would mind."
Percy tilts his head slightly to one side, brightening perceptibly. "Oliver was never all that good at juggling that sort of thing," he says, voice shading dry again as his eyes drop. They lift again as he says, "That'd be nice."
Linden's smile widens a polite touch at the fraternal sally, and then he steps forward to open his door and usher Percy into a smallish, Spartan, but clean and well-appointed office. Desk. Chairs. Bookcase. A droopy ficus by the lone window. "I don't have anything to offer you as far as drink and food go," he says pedantically, shutting the door again, "but there's a nice Polish place down the block that delivers. If you have dinner plans, though . . ."
"No, no plans," Percy assures, running a hand through his hair as he meanders in the general direction of one of the chairs. "Polish, huh? I don't know that I've ever actually eaten Polish food."
"Pierogies?" Linden volunteers on his way around the desk to the phone. "I'm from Wisconsin. Plenty of hearty European food. Something simple and filling," he decides and dials.
"Oh. Then possibly out of a box," Percy says, brow creasing thoughtfully as he sits. The backs of his fingers brush ruefully down his cheek, complement to mouth's slight curve. He slouches in the chair with habitual ease. "I've eaten most things that come out of boxes."
Linden finishes the order (rolls, something with meat, something vegetable-ish) and sits at his chair. Then frowns, gets up again, and sits in the other chair, the one next to Percy's, pulled out at an angle so they're facing each other better. "I'm not your boss," he says with muted, self-deprecating amusement by way of explanation. "We're on the same side. Literally."
Percy's grin crooks slowly over at him; he blinks. He nods once. "Okay," he says. He sits a little straighter in the chair and lifts a hand, turning it over to show an open palm. "So now we scheme out a job?"
Linden's eyes drop to the hand, rise back to the face. "If you want." He folds /his/ hands over his middle, elbows hooked on the chair's armrests. "We haven't spoken before. I thought we could talk about . . . whatever you want. Or need. Bishop."
The manicured hand withdraws to meet its mate in a loose clasp over Percy's stomach, imperfect mirror to Linden's as he leans back in his chair. "All right," he says. "Travis Reed and I never worked all that closely together, to be frank."
"I don't expect you and I to work closely," Linden says immediately. "Unless you do get hired here, which is a different situation. But in the Circle?" He shrugs. "We have different duties. I just thought you might want to speak with someone who's known him for a while."
Percy tilts his head slightly to one side. "We're hardly strangers," he says, on a slow blink. One of his hands lifts, thumbnail tracing the curve of his lower lip as it slides half a smile. "But -- if there's advice you have to offer, I'd imagine I'd be foolish not to hear it."
Linden answers, "I don't. Advice is your job." He smiles a little, though, taking any sting out of the flat words. His chemical markers have flatlined, too: calm and peace and bland and nothing but plain healthy middle-aged man. "I do the dirty work."
Percy chuckles softly, lashes dipping over the wry light in amber eyes. "Heavens forfend a Knight offer advice or a Bishop get his hands dirty." Those hands flatten together in a prayer's clasp, the edge of which -- the delicate nails of his forefingers -- he taps lightly against his lips. Mild, he notes, "It's been a bit rough, lately."
"For who?"
Dark brows lift. "To whom /doesn't/ that apply?"
Linden grimaces, acknowledging the point. "I've been all right," he says while his pheromones lie. "You?"
Percy's mouth quirks. He inclines his head. "Been worse," he says.
"We could leave."
Percy blinks at him. "Haven't you just ordered in food?"
Linden looks patiently back, waiting for the Black Bishop to smarten up.
False ingenuousness played to a false note, Percy lowers long lashes over his eyes and smiles slightly as he shakes his head. "Not even on the table," he says.
Cool eyes pity him, then Linden shrugs. "Nothing is forever," he philosophizes. "He'll die, or we'll die, or things will change. If it's been rough, it'll get better. It always does."
"And in the meantime, I'll do whatever's needed. Whatever I can. Beyond that," and Percy lets the thought trail into nothing with a turn of his wrist, smile edged sardonic. A breath's hesitation. Then: "How do you think he's doing?"
The Black Knight says without hesitation, "Poorly."
The Black Bishop sighs and tips his glance at his own hand, supported by the prop of his elbow against the armrest. "Yeah."
"Last night," Linden starts. Stops. Looks aside.
Percy lifts his glance, querent's tilt to his head. "Last night?"
Linden's jaw squares. "This is," he says in a low, low voice, "between us, Percy."
Percy nods once. His voice drops to a matched hush. "Of course."
Linden shifts uncomfortably in the chair, but doesn't get up. Doesn't look up from his interlocked hands, either. "I don't know--" Startover: "I might not be suited for this position. After all. But I don't want to go out with a bullet in my head, either. I'm sure you understand." Crooked, sardonic smile, the first real rush of emotion through his expression.
Percy's fingers lace together in his lap; his thumbs tap to a quiet joining and still. "Yes, I do certainly understand /that/," he says, humor's brush delicate over the mild-voiced understatement.
Silence, filled with low tension and hectic pheromones. Linden shifts again in the chair. "He's asked me to do things," he finally says like a defeat. "I don't know if I can keep doing them."
Silence. Amber's fastened on Linden, gaze intent over the interlocked fingers beneath his chin. Percy moistens his lips. He swallows. Finally, he asks, "What sorts of things?"
"Last ni--" The phone chirps, interrupting Linden and, in fact, making him jump. "The food. Just a minute." He picks up the receiver with thin, dry, steady fingers. "Send them up, Jim. Thanks. --Last night. Last night . . . there was a woman."
Percy jerks at the sound of the phone as well, and then he resettles in the chair; his gaze flickers, but returns to Linden, and does not leave again. "A woman," he repeats.
Linden closes his eyes. His voice anneals into remote precision: a computer's unfeeling recitation, not a man's uncomfortable memory. "Female, 35.4 years old, olive skin with birthmarks on left cheek and shoulder, black hair in a feathered style -- stretchmarks on breasts, stomach, and thighs suggested more than one live childbirth, but no indication, recent or old, of children in the room -- smoked pot, probably locally cut, not very high-grade, and Marlboros, though not recently--" He opens his eyes onto very human misery. "I could go on. I can always go on."
Long lashers lower over dawning, dreading, realization. Mouth hidden behind the curve of his hand, the Bishop goes very still. Frozen as an image in stone, he watches the Knight with no sound to escape him but that of his breath. Finally: "Oh." Words form; words scatter; words form again as he blinks. Soft as cotton, he says, "I imagine you could."
A hand slashes the air between them. "My mutation," says Linden, bitterly, and then there's a knock on the door to deal with. Which he does, thanking and paying the delivery girl and thanking her again before sending her off. Good, starchy, hearty smells from the bag of boxes start filling the office. He tends to setting the food out on the desk and doesn't say anything.
Percy sits forward in the chair, weight leaned against his knees on the support of his elbows, but he does not reach for food; his appetite has gone quiescent. Quietly he asks, "What did you have to do?"
"My job." Linden offers him a plate, empty, and nothing else with it. He fills up his own and sits down again.
Percy draws slowly out of the chair, taking the plate and turning it over in his hands for a moment before he sets about putting food on it. Silence stretches; eating implement tapping against the plate's side, he returns to seat himself. Silence lengthens still further. Then he says, "I'm sorry."
Linden eats a bite of meatloaf and then a bite of potatoes, being careful not to let the juices from one get on the other. "The Knight," he says then, coldly reciting again, "is the spy and assassin. Wetwork a speciality and a requirement. I've known him since 1992. I'm the one who figured out he was a mutant and approached him with my own secret. I run this building for him: all the sales, training, and operations for the tri-state area. We have history, experience, and trust between us."
Percy sits quietly. He eats delicately: one bite, another. Chew, swallow. Then he says, "So you did your job."
"I did my job," Linden agrees. He pulls a water bottle out of the bag and offers it to the Bishop. He's not quite meeting the other man's eyes; his gaze is focused instead on the machinery of his mind. "I do a good job by any standards, mundane or Hellfire. I am telling you this not for sympathy, Percy, but to give you an idea of how rough it /has/ gotten, as you put it. If it can get to me, after all I've done for him . . ."
Percy takes the bottle one-handed, although he makes no move to open it; instead he taps its capped mouth once lightly against the line of his jaw. "Then it has gotten pretty damn rough," he says. Another bite taken; another bite swallowed. "I can but do my best."
Linden opens his bottle, sips, puts it on the desk. "You're calm," he observes. "Are you using your mutation?"
Percy blinks surprise; he blinks again. "-- Yes," he says after a moment. "I am. Would you prefer I stop?"
At that, Linden twists a full smile into a cynical bow. "If I could stop using mine, I would. No. Go ahead. No need for us to get into a dither over these games."
Percy's mouth quirks wryly. He ducks his head. "I'm somewhat more useful when not dithery, yes." He unscrews the cap to his water bottle and sips at its contents.
"You are who you are." Linden's expression smooths out, and humor glints in his eyes. "It does drive him crazy, though. Court jester, isn't it?"
Percy grimaces and takes a much longer swallow from his water bottle, as though it substitutes for absent whiskey. "Terrible habit," he says. "I'm /trying/ to quit."
Linden gives him a taste of that patient look again, adding, "Are you really?"
"Believe it or not." Percy huffs a half-laugh through his nostrils over the wry twist of his smile. "My /oldest/ habit, I think."
Linden shrugs and applies himself to his potatoes. "I don't care why you do it, or for how long. You know it doesn't work with the boss. Do with that information what you will."
Percy sets to his own food, mouth twitching to a grimace. "Yeah."
Quiet eating. Then: "But he made you Bishop for a reason."
"I'm not always the jester," Percy says quietly. He forks a mouthful of potato into his mouth and chases it with more water. "He knows that. He's seen that."
Linden's greying brows arch mute skepticism.
Percy's smile is slight. "He made me Bishop for a reason."
Plastic fork scrapes against thick paper plate. Slowly Linden shakes his head. "I believe that you aren't always the jester, Percy. You seem like a steady enough young man, despite the reputation that precedes you." A solemn look like a smile, which fades into distraction. "But whether he sees that? I don't know. I don't think he's seeing anything these days."
Percy mms quietly, gaze dropping to his plate. He shrugs. "Maybe. Maybe not." His mouth twists again. "It's been rough."
"You keep /saying/ that," Linden snaps -- snaps! -- and clenches his teeth on more.
Percy blinks. Once, twice, again. "I don't know what else I can say," he says. "It'll get better or not, like you said. I'll be the best support I can -- the best Bishop I can." He leans forward, intent, intense; he continues, "I /am/ sorry about the burden you have to bear, even if you're not asking for sympathy, and I'd help if I could. -- But as is we do our jobs; we carry our loads; and I believe it /will/ get better."
Linden mutters, "Axioms don't solve problems," and stabs at his meatloaf.
"What does?" Percy sets down his water bottle and rests hands, curled into fists, over his knees. "Time and effort. Patience, determination. Right? That's what I have to offer. Do you have a better idea?"
Half-hooded blue eyes rest on his face with clinical absorption. "Yes. Don't tell him any of that. Platitudes also make him crazy. Concrete ideas; definitive suggestions. Make it real. Give him data he can use. Numbers, names, options. Got it?"
Percy raises his hands against his knees, fingers spreading wide. "Fine."
Linden shakes his head slightly. "So young," he says and smiles tiredly. "We aren't. We're cranky old men, and the world is getting away from us. From him. Definitely, from him."
Percy exhales a soft breath through his nose. He sits back, slouching into the chair's back. "Do you think?"
"Yes," says Linden. "I do. And do you know, I liked Jean? She was taking a look at my mutation. I had hopes of getting help with it. And now, I can't even mention her without getting that look of his, you know the one." He chews a stolid bite of green beans while he considers his next words. "You'll figure out what to do there. Patience and determination. I suppose so. But keep in mind that he's been through a few too many severe traumas in the last year. We don't all cope well with that."
"No," Percy says, mouth curving faint and wry. "No, I don't suppose we do." He spears a green bean on the end of his plastic fork, examines it a moment, and then eats it. "I'll keep that in mind." Eyes amused, he adds, "Thank you for the advice."
Linden's shoulders hunch, and so does his faint smile. "It's your job. Do the best you can. So, speaking of jobs: should we talk about what you do like to do? I'm all ears."
Percy clears his throat. "Yes, all right." He scuffs a hand through his hair, blinking as he reaims his line of thought. "Well," he starts on half a smile, "I'm good with languages."
"So I hear, and you might have heard that we do business internationally." Linden actually chuckles, and then he has a drink of water and sets his dinner aside to get down to real business, away from Circle's shadows and traumas both past and present, private and persistent.
[Log ends.]
From: "William T. Linden"
Subject: Re: P. Talhurst
I don't know. We tossed around a few ideas, but I think it would be best if you talked to him yourself. You're the boss.
2/15/2006
Logfile from Shaw of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So, that's the sales team," Bill Linden concludes on their walk from the cubicle farm back into the hallways where actual offices live. His paces have a slouch to them, suiting the end-of-business-day hour and the hangdog weariness in his bland face and deep voice. "They're good people. I'm sure you'd fit in fine, if that was what you're looking for."
"Could do." Percy, crisp-suited in charcoal with a pace measured to match Bill's, nods over a slight smile. "I've got some experience in that area." Cheery edge shades to dry as they walk, gold-lit glance sliding to flick over his face. "Sales, more than fitting in, but you know."
Linden frowns at the carpet ahead of them. "If you aren't interested," he tries, quietly, with the prickle of uncertainty in his pheromones.
"Well." Percy starts to seek out the pockets of his jacket to slouch into them; instead he straightens it with a pull of either hand. "I sort of headed the international sales division at Geotal, you know, because what else is an aeronautics company going to do with a linguist on staff? -- But I can't say as it ever suited. Not really."
"My office is around the corner. --No? Well." Linden ambles more pensively, giving a farewell nod to a passing co-worker, one of the last out for the night, at least in this section of the busy building's busy floor. A sudden slight smile lights his face, if not his faded blue eyes. "They do say that eighty percent of jobs aren't advertised. They're either internal networking or made up on the spot. Maybe we should talk about what kind of job you do want. I don't think the boss would mind."
Percy tilts his head slightly to one side, brightening perceptibly. "Oliver was never all that good at juggling that sort of thing," he says, voice shading dry again as his eyes drop. They lift again as he says, "That'd be nice."
Linden's smile widens a polite touch at the fraternal sally, and then he steps forward to open his door and usher Percy into a smallish, Spartan, but clean and well-appointed office. Desk. Chairs. Bookcase. A droopy ficus by the lone window. "I don't have anything to offer you as far as drink and food go," he says pedantically, shutting the door again, "but there's a nice Polish place down the block that delivers. If you have dinner plans, though . . ."
"No, no plans," Percy assures, running a hand through his hair as he meanders in the general direction of one of the chairs. "Polish, huh? I don't know that I've ever actually eaten Polish food."
"Pierogies?" Linden volunteers on his way around the desk to the phone. "I'm from Wisconsin. Plenty of hearty European food. Something simple and filling," he decides and dials.
"Oh. Then possibly out of a box," Percy says, brow creasing thoughtfully as he sits. The backs of his fingers brush ruefully down his cheek, complement to mouth's slight curve. He slouches in the chair with habitual ease. "I've eaten most things that come out of boxes."
Linden finishes the order (rolls, something with meat, something vegetable-ish) and sits at his chair. Then frowns, gets up again, and sits in the other chair, the one next to Percy's, pulled out at an angle so they're facing each other better. "I'm not your boss," he says with muted, self-deprecating amusement by way of explanation. "We're on the same side. Literally."
Percy's grin crooks slowly over at him; he blinks. He nods once. "Okay," he says. He sits a little straighter in the chair and lifts a hand, turning it over to show an open palm. "So now we scheme out a job?"
Linden's eyes drop to the hand, rise back to the face. "If you want." He folds /his/ hands over his middle, elbows hooked on the chair's armrests. "We haven't spoken before. I thought we could talk about . . . whatever you want. Or need. Bishop."
The manicured hand withdraws to meet its mate in a loose clasp over Percy's stomach, imperfect mirror to Linden's as he leans back in his chair. "All right," he says. "Travis Reed and I never worked all that closely together, to be frank."
"I don't expect you and I to work closely," Linden says immediately. "Unless you do get hired here, which is a different situation. But in the Circle?" He shrugs. "We have different duties. I just thought you might want to speak with someone who's known him for a while."
Percy tilts his head slightly to one side. "We're hardly strangers," he says, on a slow blink. One of his hands lifts, thumbnail tracing the curve of his lower lip as it slides half a smile. "But -- if there's advice you have to offer, I'd imagine I'd be foolish not to hear it."
Linden answers, "I don't. Advice is your job." He smiles a little, though, taking any sting out of the flat words. His chemical markers have flatlined, too: calm and peace and bland and nothing but plain healthy middle-aged man. "I do the dirty work."
Percy chuckles softly, lashes dipping over the wry light in amber eyes. "Heavens forfend a Knight offer advice or a Bishop get his hands dirty." Those hands flatten together in a prayer's clasp, the edge of which -- the delicate nails of his forefingers -- he taps lightly against his lips. Mild, he notes, "It's been a bit rough, lately."
"For who?"
Dark brows lift. "To whom /doesn't/ that apply?"
Linden grimaces, acknowledging the point. "I've been all right," he says while his pheromones lie. "You?"
Percy's mouth quirks. He inclines his head. "Been worse," he says.
"We could leave."
Percy blinks at him. "Haven't you just ordered in food?"
Linden looks patiently back, waiting for the Black Bishop to smarten up.
False ingenuousness played to a false note, Percy lowers long lashes over his eyes and smiles slightly as he shakes his head. "Not even on the table," he says.
Cool eyes pity him, then Linden shrugs. "Nothing is forever," he philosophizes. "He'll die, or we'll die, or things will change. If it's been rough, it'll get better. It always does."
"And in the meantime, I'll do whatever's needed. Whatever I can. Beyond that," and Percy lets the thought trail into nothing with a turn of his wrist, smile edged sardonic. A breath's hesitation. Then: "How do you think he's doing?"
The Black Knight says without hesitation, "Poorly."
The Black Bishop sighs and tips his glance at his own hand, supported by the prop of his elbow against the armrest. "Yeah."
"Last night," Linden starts. Stops. Looks aside.
Percy lifts his glance, querent's tilt to his head. "Last night?"
Linden's jaw squares. "This is," he says in a low, low voice, "between us, Percy."
Percy nods once. His voice drops to a matched hush. "Of course."
Linden shifts uncomfortably in the chair, but doesn't get up. Doesn't look up from his interlocked hands, either. "I don't know--" Startover: "I might not be suited for this position. After all. But I don't want to go out with a bullet in my head, either. I'm sure you understand." Crooked, sardonic smile, the first real rush of emotion through his expression.
Percy's fingers lace together in his lap; his thumbs tap to a quiet joining and still. "Yes, I do certainly understand /that/," he says, humor's brush delicate over the mild-voiced understatement.
Silence, filled with low tension and hectic pheromones. Linden shifts again in the chair. "He's asked me to do things," he finally says like a defeat. "I don't know if I can keep doing them."
Silence. Amber's fastened on Linden, gaze intent over the interlocked fingers beneath his chin. Percy moistens his lips. He swallows. Finally, he asks, "What sorts of things?"
"Last ni--" The phone chirps, interrupting Linden and, in fact, making him jump. "The food. Just a minute." He picks up the receiver with thin, dry, steady fingers. "Send them up, Jim. Thanks. --Last night. Last night . . . there was a woman."
Percy jerks at the sound of the phone as well, and then he resettles in the chair; his gaze flickers, but returns to Linden, and does not leave again. "A woman," he repeats.
Linden closes his eyes. His voice anneals into remote precision: a computer's unfeeling recitation, not a man's uncomfortable memory. "Female, 35.4 years old, olive skin with birthmarks on left cheek and shoulder, black hair in a feathered style -- stretchmarks on breasts, stomach, and thighs suggested more than one live childbirth, but no indication, recent or old, of children in the room -- smoked pot, probably locally cut, not very high-grade, and Marlboros, though not recently--" He opens his eyes onto very human misery. "I could go on. I can always go on."
Long lashers lower over dawning, dreading, realization. Mouth hidden behind the curve of his hand, the Bishop goes very still. Frozen as an image in stone, he watches the Knight with no sound to escape him but that of his breath. Finally: "Oh." Words form; words scatter; words form again as he blinks. Soft as cotton, he says, "I imagine you could."
A hand slashes the air between them. "My mutation," says Linden, bitterly, and then there's a knock on the door to deal with. Which he does, thanking and paying the delivery girl and thanking her again before sending her off. Good, starchy, hearty smells from the bag of boxes start filling the office. He tends to setting the food out on the desk and doesn't say anything.
Percy sits forward in the chair, weight leaned against his knees on the support of his elbows, but he does not reach for food; his appetite has gone quiescent. Quietly he asks, "What did you have to do?"
"My job." Linden offers him a plate, empty, and nothing else with it. He fills up his own and sits down again.
Percy draws slowly out of the chair, taking the plate and turning it over in his hands for a moment before he sets about putting food on it. Silence stretches; eating implement tapping against the plate's side, he returns to seat himself. Silence lengthens still further. Then he says, "I'm sorry."
Linden eats a bite of meatloaf and then a bite of potatoes, being careful not to let the juices from one get on the other. "The Knight," he says then, coldly reciting again, "is the spy and assassin. Wetwork a speciality and a requirement. I've known him since 1992. I'm the one who figured out he was a mutant and approached him with my own secret. I run this building for him: all the sales, training, and operations for the tri-state area. We have history, experience, and trust between us."
Percy sits quietly. He eats delicately: one bite, another. Chew, swallow. Then he says, "So you did your job."
"I did my job," Linden agrees. He pulls a water bottle out of the bag and offers it to the Bishop. He's not quite meeting the other man's eyes; his gaze is focused instead on the machinery of his mind. "I do a good job by any standards, mundane or Hellfire. I am telling you this not for sympathy, Percy, but to give you an idea of how rough it /has/ gotten, as you put it. If it can get to me, after all I've done for him . . ."
Percy takes the bottle one-handed, although he makes no move to open it; instead he taps its capped mouth once lightly against the line of his jaw. "Then it has gotten pretty damn rough," he says. Another bite taken; another bite swallowed. "I can but do my best."
Linden opens his bottle, sips, puts it on the desk. "You're calm," he observes. "Are you using your mutation?"
Percy blinks surprise; he blinks again. "-- Yes," he says after a moment. "I am. Would you prefer I stop?"
At that, Linden twists a full smile into a cynical bow. "If I could stop using mine, I would. No. Go ahead. No need for us to get into a dither over these games."
Percy's mouth quirks wryly. He ducks his head. "I'm somewhat more useful when not dithery, yes." He unscrews the cap to his water bottle and sips at its contents.
"You are who you are." Linden's expression smooths out, and humor glints in his eyes. "It does drive him crazy, though. Court jester, isn't it?"
Percy grimaces and takes a much longer swallow from his water bottle, as though it substitutes for absent whiskey. "Terrible habit," he says. "I'm /trying/ to quit."
Linden gives him a taste of that patient look again, adding, "Are you really?"
"Believe it or not." Percy huffs a half-laugh through his nostrils over the wry twist of his smile. "My /oldest/ habit, I think."
Linden shrugs and applies himself to his potatoes. "I don't care why you do it, or for how long. You know it doesn't work with the boss. Do with that information what you will."
Percy sets to his own food, mouth twitching to a grimace. "Yeah."
Quiet eating. Then: "But he made you Bishop for a reason."
"I'm not always the jester," Percy says quietly. He forks a mouthful of potato into his mouth and chases it with more water. "He knows that. He's seen that."
Linden's greying brows arch mute skepticism.
Percy's smile is slight. "He made me Bishop for a reason."
Plastic fork scrapes against thick paper plate. Slowly Linden shakes his head. "I believe that you aren't always the jester, Percy. You seem like a steady enough young man, despite the reputation that precedes you." A solemn look like a smile, which fades into distraction. "But whether he sees that? I don't know. I don't think he's seeing anything these days."
Percy mms quietly, gaze dropping to his plate. He shrugs. "Maybe. Maybe not." His mouth twists again. "It's been rough."
"You keep /saying/ that," Linden snaps -- snaps! -- and clenches his teeth on more.
Percy blinks. Once, twice, again. "I don't know what else I can say," he says. "It'll get better or not, like you said. I'll be the best support I can -- the best Bishop I can." He leans forward, intent, intense; he continues, "I /am/ sorry about the burden you have to bear, even if you're not asking for sympathy, and I'd help if I could. -- But as is we do our jobs; we carry our loads; and I believe it /will/ get better."
Linden mutters, "Axioms don't solve problems," and stabs at his meatloaf.
"What does?" Percy sets down his water bottle and rests hands, curled into fists, over his knees. "Time and effort. Patience, determination. Right? That's what I have to offer. Do you have a better idea?"
Half-hooded blue eyes rest on his face with clinical absorption. "Yes. Don't tell him any of that. Platitudes also make him crazy. Concrete ideas; definitive suggestions. Make it real. Give him data he can use. Numbers, names, options. Got it?"
Percy raises his hands against his knees, fingers spreading wide. "Fine."
Linden shakes his head slightly. "So young," he says and smiles tiredly. "We aren't. We're cranky old men, and the world is getting away from us. From him. Definitely, from him."
Percy exhales a soft breath through his nose. He sits back, slouching into the chair's back. "Do you think?"
"Yes," says Linden. "I do. And do you know, I liked Jean? She was taking a look at my mutation. I had hopes of getting help with it. And now, I can't even mention her without getting that look of his, you know the one." He chews a stolid bite of green beans while he considers his next words. "You'll figure out what to do there. Patience and determination. I suppose so. But keep in mind that he's been through a few too many severe traumas in the last year. We don't all cope well with that."
"No," Percy says, mouth curving faint and wry. "No, I don't suppose we do." He spears a green bean on the end of his plastic fork, examines it a moment, and then eats it. "I'll keep that in mind." Eyes amused, he adds, "Thank you for the advice."
Linden's shoulders hunch, and so does his faint smile. "It's your job. Do the best you can. So, speaking of jobs: should we talk about what you do like to do? I'm all ears."
Percy clears his throat. "Yes, all right." He scuffs a hand through his hair, blinking as he reaims his line of thought. "Well," he starts on half a smile, "I'm good with languages."
"So I hear, and you might have heard that we do business internationally." Linden actually chuckles, and then he has a drink of water and sets his dinner aside to get down to real business, away from Circle's shadows and traumas both past and present, private and persistent.
[Log ends.]