RP Log ~ Percival
Keeping a consistent routine helped the week fly by for Percival, and also settled things back to normal, more or less. There was one thing he wanted to do, though, and after mulling it over on patrol, decided it was the right time. When he was off-duty, he shed his armor and headed downstairs via elevator, all the way down to the second dungeon where Kidd's office lay.
A few stray papers were sprinkled down the hall, most only a few scraps and pieces. Closer to his jail cell, the mess increased in magnitude, but it was really within the cell itself where the pile of strewn papers and files crafted a makeshift carpet of sorts. In the corner Kidd sat hunched with his back facing the entrance, apparently pouring over a file cabinet. His hat laid off to the side on the floor.
Percival blinked at the literal paper trail, coming around the corner in curiosity. Whatever he might have expected to find, this wasn't it. He cleared his throat politely before speaking as he approached the cell. "Er, Kidd? Are you buried in there somewhere?"
"Do you have an appointment? I'm not taking appointments right now. You'll have to come back later."
"Ah...no." Percival stepped closer, just inside the shadow of the cell. "It's me, Percival. I came down to see if you were all right...I haven't seen you at all this week."
"If you're worried about me eating, I'm fine." Without turning around, Kidd gestured to the other corner where a crumpled, half-eaten bag of tomato-basil croutons was discarded.
"Er..." Percival scratched the back of his neck briefly. "...I wasn't, actually, but now that you point that out to me..." He sighed sadly. "Though I suppose that sort of answers my question. You're not all right."
"I'm fine," Kidd grunted, then tossed an empty manila folder over his shoulder. "Don't you have suave and knightly things to do? Snooping is my business; I make a living off it."
Percival heaved another sigh, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. "No, my quota of knightliness has been filled for today. I'm out of armor, therefore, available to bother anyone I feel like bothering. That includes young men whose usual pals seem to have left him alone when he needs them the most."
Kidd scoffed, thinking of Eugene briefly before tossing another folder out. "So does this make you my pal now?"
"Perhaps not." Percival glanced at the mess on the floor, wondering what, exactly, Kidd was doing to pass the time. "But I've never had a squire to impart my wisdom to, so right now it's simply gathering dust."
After a moment, Kidd stood up,the pile of papers falling off his lap as he dusted himself off before looking over at Percival. Perhaps if he'd been a few years older there would be a shadow of stubble across his face, but instead his knees seemed to jut out more than usual, the scrawniness of his legs emphasized by his shorts. "So you figure you might as well find someone to pass those kinds of things along to, am I right?"
"Actually, I thought I would simply try to be a friend." Percival looked him over, his brow furrowing briefly in sympathy. "But if the other explanation makes more sense, we'll go with it. I'm not partial."
The detective unceremoniously plopped himself into his swiveling chair, then ran a hand through his hair. "Are you looking for a profile? As you can see,
I'm revamping my whole collection for updating."
"Ah...is that what this mess is about?" Percival shook his head, folding his arms over his chest. "Not particularly. So long as you haven't added anything peculiar to mine since the war, I suppose."
"I only have been subtracting, not adding," Kidd laughed bitterly.
Percival stood rubbing his chin for a moment. He didn't know exactly how to go about gaining Kidd's trust, in this. It was only through talking to
Melville about it that he'd even come to realize his own grief, how dare he try to bond with those more deeply affected. "I suppose, staying busy...helps," he said lamely, realizing it might have been the wrong thing only after it was out of his mouth.
"No one really needs a detective now that the greatest case in ages has just been solved, so I have to make my own work basically." Kidd looked over Percival with a critical but weary eye--what was he looking for? A free inquiry? Or maybe it was darker--maybe he was just looking down on Kidd; after all, Kidd was never very modest, and now that he was down, it was all too easy to look.
The knight raised an eyebrow at that. "Greatest case? I doubt that...I should rather think that distinction belongs to Budehuc itself, and the way it keeps bringing people from different times. But then, perhaps no one really wants to know." He grew thoughtful, looking away. "Because if we knew, we could stop it...and we would lose the chance to meet new friends..."
"That's not a mystery. That's a blessing. The difference between mysteries and blessings is that one needs to be solved, and the other should never be questioned."
"True enough." Percival smiled, then. "I didn't know you were such a believer in the unknown. I would have expected you to be...well, nothing but the facts."
Kidd took off his bow tie, smoothing the fabric between his fingers idly. "I hate the unknown, the magical--pseudo-science and the fantastic and magical have no place in crime solving. Even the literary master Van Dines ays so."
Percival stepped closer and perched himself on the slightest uncluttered edge of the desk. "And yet you speak as easily of blessing as a cleric of the Goddess would. You're an interesting contradiction, Kidd."
"You're missing the loophole, Percival." A familiar glint flickered in his eye. "Blessings aren't mysteries, therefore they don't need to be solved, so the rules of mystery solving don't apply. It's pretty straightforward."
"I see." Percival smirked just a little. "Would curses work the same way, then? Or is that one of those things people simply to say to excuse their own terrible luck." As he had, often, he could have added, but didn't.
"I think those fall under their own category, although I'm not quite sure what. A lot of it depends on the will of those who are cursed to actually invest emotional stock in the curse they've had bestowed upon them. But something tells me you're not here to discuss the differences between the solid world and the ethereal."
Percival shook his head. "No. I'm simply here to see if you were doing all right, and if there was anything I could say or do to help."
The bow tie in his hands suddenly became more interesting, Kidd's fingers twirling it around. "Are you okay?"
Percival watched him carefully. "More or less. I've had patrol to keep me focused all week, but I did write in my journal a bit. It...helped, I think."
"Sometimes I write to my mum. I regret not writing to her more. ... Don't put things off. Don't ever put things off," he choked for a moment.
"Is your mother as deep a well of care and doting as mine is?" Percival asked with a little chuckle. "Fussing more over whether you're wearing a scarf in the cold than going into battle against creatures bigger than you?" His dark eyes saddened at Kidd's momentary lapse. "...I try not to."
There was a long pause before Kidd buried his head in his hands. "You know something...?"
"Hmm?" Percival tilted his head curiously.
"The last thing... the very, very last thing she said to me... 'I'll never forgive you,' that was the last thing."
"Oh, dear Goddess..." Percival covered his mouth briefly. "What...did you do?"
Coughing to cover up the crack in his voice seemed like the manly thing to do. "Queen's dare. A few weeks ago. You don't think those would be the last things you do, the last time you see someone... you just don't think about that kind of stuff."
"Oh..." Well, at least it wasn't as bad as Percival was thinking. "No, that's usually the way it works. One minute you're...cracking raunchy jokes or something, and the next...they're simply gone."
Kidd shook his head, not looking up. "I didn't think I'd run out of time; just a few weeks ago I was wondering about... the stuff younger Viki warned us about, with people here who shouldn't be. I just didn't think it'd happen."
Percival slid off the desk and slowly made his way around it, just in case he might be needed. "I'm not sure I follow. What did she warn about? It might have been before I arrived here..."
"She insisted that we were wrong for having people here who belonged elsewhere, and after that I worried that maybe, maybe she would run into her present self, or maybe something from the past would take her back.
But after this... I wish that had happened instead," his voice broke. "...do you think it hurt much?"
"I...I don't know." Percival stood nearby, but refrained from doing anything else yet. "I didn't see...how it happened. I feel somewhat guilty for not being there...as if my sword could have made a damn bit of difference."
"More of a difference than a freaking magnifying glass could have."
"Come now." Percival sat against the desk again, on the nearer side to Kidd. "You knew her better than I did. She was your friend, I'm nothing next to that."
A week's worth of tears and sorrow flooded to the surface, spilling over. "Why wasn't I born a warrior? Or better yet, maybe if I had just solved this case sooner, none of it would have ever happened..."
Leaning forward, Percival set his hand on Kidd's shoulder. He didn't know what else to say, even though he didn't believe warriors or wisdom would have brought about a different outcome. All he could do was squeeze that shoulder in comfort.
The knight's hand helped steady his shoulders. "There were a million things I never did or said, now I can never, ever say them."
Percival nodded sadly. "I've lost more than one companion, in my time. It never gets any more fair. Never have been able to say farewell."
There was a choked laugh. "Maybe I should start saying hello and goodbye to everyone each day then."
Percival chuckled back, leaving his hand where it sat. "That may be a bit much. So long as the people you love know that you do...maybe that's enough."
Another pause. "Maybe this was supposed to happen after all."
He was glad to hear Kidd reach that conclusion himself. "Then, all the warriors in the world wouldn't have been enough. At least...at least she didn't simply vanish one day, leaving all of us to wonder whether she would come back or not..."
"In the frenzy of the moment, I wondered if I should seek her out... I mean, the time she came from wasn't too long ago in the past.. she's probably around right now, but she probably has her own life.... a family, maybe even grandkids by now. It's a mystery... I don't ever want to solve, but I do at the same time."
"Grandkids?" That made Percival chuckle again. "I don't think Nanami was that old."
"I'd rather never find out... it doesn't feel right. But those things I never said and the regrets I have... it's no wonder Sherlock says to stay away from girls in general," Kidd shook his head, messing his hair more.
Percival ruffled his hair and drew back, straightening up. "Sounds like this Sherlock is simply a lonely and bitter old fool. I may have my share of bad luck, but I would rather have my friends than no one at all." He smiled another sad smile. "It's better to be missed than forgotten."
"I didn't think of it that way..." Kidd rubbed his eyes. "But he definitely didn't leave his office in shambles either."
"At least that can be easily fixed." Percival looked around, privately doubting that it would be so easy in the end. "Well. I am recently off-duty and rather hungry. I don't suppose you would care to have a lazy knight buy you dinner to make up for bothering you in your cave of solitude?"
At this point, especially after breaking down, there was no other appropriate answer. "As long as maybe, down the line, you'll let me pay you back. And I promise I won't bring my notebook along for it."
"That sounds like a fair agreement to me." Percival brushed himself off - unnecessarily, though he was in the rumpled shirt and trousers from under his armor. "I daresay you'll make a much better dinner companion than Borus, for once. I swear, if he says one more thing about Lady Chris, I'm liable to punch him."