Asking Filial Piety
We /are/ a family - and sometimes, the paterfamilias has to be harsh with his children. Really, Percy's no more than a child - he doesn't understand, the boy. It was all fun and games for him, and then people got hurt, and he /doesn't understand./
I suppose that in the end, I can't hurt the boy for not understanding - he needs to learn, and nothing I can do to him is going to twist the knife in his heart more than Sabitha did when she shot Emma - more than Sabitha did when she died herself. Anything I do pales before that bloody lesson.
The Black King and the Black Bishop have been on the river for perhaps fifteen minutes - a powerboat thrumming under their feet, with teak decking and a big silvered wheel behind the canopy. Shaw stands there, fingers on it, in a pair of black slacks and a red turtleneck against the wind on the East River. Loafers have an easy footing on the deck as he starts to wheel the boat, letting it turn in a lazy circle to present a panorama of the City.
Percy stands behind Shaw and just to his right, little ease to posture; the sweater he wears is russet, knit close to his lean frame, and the loose slacks over his legs are as grey as coaldust. His hands are tucked deep into his pockets, the round-shouldered slouch one that speaks more of diffidence, edged in discomfort, than anything of relaxation. His gaze skims the scenery with an air of distraction. He hasn't been talky.
Shaw, too, has been taciturn, but as the boat begins to make its slow arc he utters a bare few words: "I know this has been hard, Percy." He shakes his head. "Sabby's death, Emma in the hospital... It's hit you where it counts."
Percy slivers a smile in answer, although it is invisible; nothing of it ghosts through his quiet words, which are nearly sepulchral in their serenity. "Yes, my King. Right in the jaw."
"That was unfortunate," Shaw remarks quietly. "You shouldn't have baited me like that, Percy." His fingers tighten a little bit on the silvered wheel, and he reaches with his right hand to up the throttle, the engine suddenly roaring before he throttles it down again. "Still..." No look towards Percy. "I regret the circumstances."
"/Baited/ you." The words spit out, extremely flat.
Shaw's voice tightens. "My relationship with the White Queen is complex," he says. "She tried to have me killed." A pause. "And she, too, delights in baiting me... if she feels my hand because of it?" He shrugs. "Well, it's because she wants to, Percy - she's dancing, trying to get as close as she can, trying to provoke me. It's her own fault." A pause. "But you," he acknowledges, "never hired a man to slit my throat."
"I don't want to talk to you about the White Queen anymore," Percy says, his voice gone quiet mild. He sidles forward to stand at the King's side, a mockery of boyish ease in the upward jerk of his chin, in the way he rolls forward to bounce on his toes. "I don't want to hear about how /she/ provokes /you/. Not from the man who brought us /Jean Grey/. Let us stick to /this/ topic, hmm?" The amber eyes glimmer, his glance scything sidelong over a sharp smile. "You have struck me twice now, Shaw. On neither occasion was it justified."
"For all Jean Grey's crimes," Shaw says, his tone knife-sharp, "she never tried to kill me." A beat. "Or, Percy, do you call that justified?" The boat is turned savagely, jerking it back so that Long Island swims into view. "Or say that whatever I have done to her since has evened up the score of trying to murder me?"
"I am not talking to you about the White Queen anymore," Percy reminds him pleasantly. His tone is sweet and mild as pears. "Not unless there is some scheme of hers you would like me to circumvent, some intelligence from her you think I should know, some /business/ to discuss in relation to her."
Shaw's breath is hissed, and he cuts the throttle so that the boat glides to a stop in the middle of the East River. Slowly, he turns around, leaning against the wheel and folding his arms to stare at Percy. "Never forget," he says, "that she tried to kill me - it informs everything." A beat, and a breath. "But no more on her, Percival Talhurst. I regret the blow. It was my right -" brows raise "- but I regret it."
"It was /not/ your right," Percy answers coolly. "I am your Bishop, not your punching bag, and you will not strike me again."
Shaw's eyes are hard. "You're my piece," he says. "And you won't question my regard for Emma Frost." Knuckles crack as his hands clench momentarily into fists and then relax again.
"I am your /Bishop/," Percy snarls, "and I will question anything you say, because that is my /job/. I say the words that the King does not want to /hear/ because I can say them without fear of /reprisal/." He shows his teeth in a brief, mustelid grin. "Which includes the kind of reprisal that comes from your /fists/." He spits: "My /liege/."
"You say them in front of Adel al-Razi?" Shaw asks, eyes flaring. "In front of Tyanna Fisk? In front of pawns Black and White?" A pause. "You crossed a line, Percy," he says. "You were under a lot of stress - it has been a difficult time - but /you crossed a line/." He takes a deep breath. "And even still," he says, "I regret the blow. The blows, if you which to bring up ancient history."
Percy refuses to budge. "We both crossed lines."
Shaw's voice is hard: "And I regret crossing mine."
"Fine." Percy straightens. With an upward jerk of his chin, his mouth thins into a grim line. He folds his arms over his chest. "If that is what passes for your apology, you shall have this for mine. I regret my timing. I may have been in shock."
The Black King's response is positively spit out: "Accepted." A beat, and then he closes his eyes and sucks in a breath. "There are beers in the cooler at the back of the boat, Percy," he says quietly. "Grab a couple?"
Percy shrugs and sidles off as directed. His gaze follows the progress of his feet over the teak as he goes.
Shaw sighs slightly, shifting as he leans against the wheel. His voice is quieter when the question finally comes. "What am I supposed to do with you, Percy?" he asks. "Melcross was your friend. Emma was your lover - I can extend a lot of leeway, but..."
Percy retrieves a beer. After a second's hesitation he retrieves a second one and pads back toward the front of the boat. He doesn't say anything. He just offers Shaw one of the beers.
Shaw accepts the beer - Corona, and then reaches to pop off the cap on a beer opener attached to the console of the boat. There is a pause as he tips the long neck back and drinks, and then he settles it in his hand comfortably, watching his bishop and waiting for an answer.
"Emma Frost," Percy says aloud, "is my longest-held friend, the first woman I ever loved and the first soul I ever betrayed." He doesn't move to open his beer; he seems more inclined to just play around with the bottle between his hands. He looks out over the East River like a man not seeing anything. "Sabitha Melcross is the first friend to whom I showed no mask. She loved me because she thought I had an infinite capacity to /care/." There is something deeply bitter, something echoingly hollow, about the way he falls upon that last word.
"If," Shaw says a little distantly, "you don't want me to talk to you about Emma, please don't talk to me, either." A pause. "My history with her... well." A pause. "Perhaps we should let the White Queen lie." His smile is unreadable. "It's been a difficult few weeks," he agrees. "I'm willing to give you a lot of leeway. Is it your advice - Bishop - that I should forgive? Forget?"
"It is my advice, my King, that you should let me be a damned human being," Percy answers, looking blank, "and give me some time."
Shaw takes a long drink from his beer and stares out over the river. "No one knows about you betraying me," he says. "About the business with the driver and Dylan Melcross. Still..." No eyes on Percy, and his voice has a distant echo. "It's your advice that I should leave my piece some time? Some room?"
Percy stares at him, gone very still. His expression is a blank wash of shock. In a strangled voice he manages, after a moment, when he remembers how to speak: "Let him be human, Shaw."
"Let him," Shaw murmurs very softly, watching the way the wind curls tiny whitecaps on the water, "be human." A pause. "Please don't inquire any more into Dylan Melcross or his fate. Word will get around, but... Ignore it." Another slow sip of beer. "And were someone to have known what happened - or were it to happen again - I couldn't ignore what that piece did, Percy. You know that as well as I." He takes a careful breath. "So much," he says, "is about appearances, about examples... But there is no one here to see either." Slowly, the Black King turns to look at Percy. "Let him be human," he repeats, and then he smiles. "Drink your beer."
The Black Bishop looks back at Shaw for a stretching moment. He looks down at the bottle in his hands. He looks at it for a moment longer. Then he leans in to open it, listening to the hiss as the cap pops off, and lifts it for a long swallow. He doesn't even make a face.
Shaw smiles a little bit. "We're a family, Percy - absolutely dysfunctional, occaisonally incestuous..." A chuckle. "Our 'mother' certainly seems to be fond of her children - but..." He takes a drink of beer. "We are a family, and as a family we've suffered two tragedies. There's no reason," he says, "to add a third."
His voice low and dark with some distant cousin to humor, Percy says: "I appreciate that."
"You should." Shaw's tone is an equally distant cousin of 'pleasant'. "You should thank Bahir," he says. "If he hadn't intervened - if he hadn't come to me - we might have had that third tragedy, if not today than some day soon." He turns back to the wheel. "You are valued," he says, reaching for the throttle, beginning to ramp the boat up. "And I don't want that."
Percy's only answer for that is a retreat into silence. Leaning his weight back on one heel, he shuts up and drinks his beer.
I suppose that in the end, I can't hurt the boy for not understanding - he needs to learn, and nothing I can do to him is going to twist the knife in his heart more than Sabitha did when she shot Emma - more than Sabitha did when she died herself. Anything I do pales before that bloody lesson.
The Black King and the Black Bishop have been on the river for perhaps fifteen minutes - a powerboat thrumming under their feet, with teak decking and a big silvered wheel behind the canopy. Shaw stands there, fingers on it, in a pair of black slacks and a red turtleneck against the wind on the East River. Loafers have an easy footing on the deck as he starts to wheel the boat, letting it turn in a lazy circle to present a panorama of the City.
Percy stands behind Shaw and just to his right, little ease to posture; the sweater he wears is russet, knit close to his lean frame, and the loose slacks over his legs are as grey as coaldust. His hands are tucked deep into his pockets, the round-shouldered slouch one that speaks more of diffidence, edged in discomfort, than anything of relaxation. His gaze skims the scenery with an air of distraction. He hasn't been talky.
Shaw, too, has been taciturn, but as the boat begins to make its slow arc he utters a bare few words: "I know this has been hard, Percy." He shakes his head. "Sabby's death, Emma in the hospital... It's hit you where it counts."
Percy slivers a smile in answer, although it is invisible; nothing of it ghosts through his quiet words, which are nearly sepulchral in their serenity. "Yes, my King. Right in the jaw."
"That was unfortunate," Shaw remarks quietly. "You shouldn't have baited me like that, Percy." His fingers tighten a little bit on the silvered wheel, and he reaches with his right hand to up the throttle, the engine suddenly roaring before he throttles it down again. "Still..." No look towards Percy. "I regret the circumstances."
"/Baited/ you." The words spit out, extremely flat.
Shaw's voice tightens. "My relationship with the White Queen is complex," he says. "She tried to have me killed." A pause. "And she, too, delights in baiting me... if she feels my hand because of it?" He shrugs. "Well, it's because she wants to, Percy - she's dancing, trying to get as close as she can, trying to provoke me. It's her own fault." A pause. "But you," he acknowledges, "never hired a man to slit my throat."
"I don't want to talk to you about the White Queen anymore," Percy says, his voice gone quiet mild. He sidles forward to stand at the King's side, a mockery of boyish ease in the upward jerk of his chin, in the way he rolls forward to bounce on his toes. "I don't want to hear about how /she/ provokes /you/. Not from the man who brought us /Jean Grey/. Let us stick to /this/ topic, hmm?" The amber eyes glimmer, his glance scything sidelong over a sharp smile. "You have struck me twice now, Shaw. On neither occasion was it justified."
"For all Jean Grey's crimes," Shaw says, his tone knife-sharp, "she never tried to kill me." A beat. "Or, Percy, do you call that justified?" The boat is turned savagely, jerking it back so that Long Island swims into view. "Or say that whatever I have done to her since has evened up the score of trying to murder me?"
"I am not talking to you about the White Queen anymore," Percy reminds him pleasantly. His tone is sweet and mild as pears. "Not unless there is some scheme of hers you would like me to circumvent, some intelligence from her you think I should know, some /business/ to discuss in relation to her."
Shaw's breath is hissed, and he cuts the throttle so that the boat glides to a stop in the middle of the East River. Slowly, he turns around, leaning against the wheel and folding his arms to stare at Percy. "Never forget," he says, "that she tried to kill me - it informs everything." A beat, and a breath. "But no more on her, Percival Talhurst. I regret the blow. It was my right -" brows raise "- but I regret it."
"It was /not/ your right," Percy answers coolly. "I am your Bishop, not your punching bag, and you will not strike me again."
Shaw's eyes are hard. "You're my piece," he says. "And you won't question my regard for Emma Frost." Knuckles crack as his hands clench momentarily into fists and then relax again.
"I am your /Bishop/," Percy snarls, "and I will question anything you say, because that is my /job/. I say the words that the King does not want to /hear/ because I can say them without fear of /reprisal/." He shows his teeth in a brief, mustelid grin. "Which includes the kind of reprisal that comes from your /fists/." He spits: "My /liege/."
"You say them in front of Adel al-Razi?" Shaw asks, eyes flaring. "In front of Tyanna Fisk? In front of pawns Black and White?" A pause. "You crossed a line, Percy," he says. "You were under a lot of stress - it has been a difficult time - but /you crossed a line/." He takes a deep breath. "And even still," he says, "I regret the blow. The blows, if you which to bring up ancient history."
Percy refuses to budge. "We both crossed lines."
Shaw's voice is hard: "And I regret crossing mine."
"Fine." Percy straightens. With an upward jerk of his chin, his mouth thins into a grim line. He folds his arms over his chest. "If that is what passes for your apology, you shall have this for mine. I regret my timing. I may have been in shock."
The Black King's response is positively spit out: "Accepted." A beat, and then he closes his eyes and sucks in a breath. "There are beers in the cooler at the back of the boat, Percy," he says quietly. "Grab a couple?"
Percy shrugs and sidles off as directed. His gaze follows the progress of his feet over the teak as he goes.
Shaw sighs slightly, shifting as he leans against the wheel. His voice is quieter when the question finally comes. "What am I supposed to do with you, Percy?" he asks. "Melcross was your friend. Emma was your lover - I can extend a lot of leeway, but..."
Percy retrieves a beer. After a second's hesitation he retrieves a second one and pads back toward the front of the boat. He doesn't say anything. He just offers Shaw one of the beers.
Shaw accepts the beer - Corona, and then reaches to pop off the cap on a beer opener attached to the console of the boat. There is a pause as he tips the long neck back and drinks, and then he settles it in his hand comfortably, watching his bishop and waiting for an answer.
"Emma Frost," Percy says aloud, "is my longest-held friend, the first woman I ever loved and the first soul I ever betrayed." He doesn't move to open his beer; he seems more inclined to just play around with the bottle between his hands. He looks out over the East River like a man not seeing anything. "Sabitha Melcross is the first friend to whom I showed no mask. She loved me because she thought I had an infinite capacity to /care/." There is something deeply bitter, something echoingly hollow, about the way he falls upon that last word.
"If," Shaw says a little distantly, "you don't want me to talk to you about Emma, please don't talk to me, either." A pause. "My history with her... well." A pause. "Perhaps we should let the White Queen lie." His smile is unreadable. "It's been a difficult few weeks," he agrees. "I'm willing to give you a lot of leeway. Is it your advice - Bishop - that I should forgive? Forget?"
"It is my advice, my King, that you should let me be a damned human being," Percy answers, looking blank, "and give me some time."
Shaw takes a long drink from his beer and stares out over the river. "No one knows about you betraying me," he says. "About the business with the driver and Dylan Melcross. Still..." No eyes on Percy, and his voice has a distant echo. "It's your advice that I should leave my piece some time? Some room?"
Percy stares at him, gone very still. His expression is a blank wash of shock. In a strangled voice he manages, after a moment, when he remembers how to speak: "Let him be human, Shaw."
"Let him," Shaw murmurs very softly, watching the way the wind curls tiny whitecaps on the water, "be human." A pause. "Please don't inquire any more into Dylan Melcross or his fate. Word will get around, but... Ignore it." Another slow sip of beer. "And were someone to have known what happened - or were it to happen again - I couldn't ignore what that piece did, Percy. You know that as well as I." He takes a careful breath. "So much," he says, "is about appearances, about examples... But there is no one here to see either." Slowly, the Black King turns to look at Percy. "Let him be human," he repeats, and then he smiles. "Drink your beer."
The Black Bishop looks back at Shaw for a stretching moment. He looks down at the bottle in his hands. He looks at it for a moment longer. Then he leans in to open it, listening to the hiss as the cap pops off, and lifts it for a long swallow. He doesn't even make a face.
Shaw smiles a little bit. "We're a family, Percy - absolutely dysfunctional, occaisonally incestuous..." A chuckle. "Our 'mother' certainly seems to be fond of her children - but..." He takes a drink of beer. "We are a family, and as a family we've suffered two tragedies. There's no reason," he says, "to add a third."
His voice low and dark with some distant cousin to humor, Percy says: "I appreciate that."
"You should." Shaw's tone is an equally distant cousin of 'pleasant'. "You should thank Bahir," he says. "If he hadn't intervened - if he hadn't come to me - we might have had that third tragedy, if not today than some day soon." He turns back to the wheel. "You are valued," he says, reaching for the throttle, beginning to ramp the boat up. "And I don't want that."
Percy's only answer for that is a retreat into silence. Leaning his weight back on one heel, he shuts up and drinks his beer.