06 / 29 / 09 - Bahir, Percy
Into the relative quiet of the glossy lobby, Percy slides on his socks out of the elevator, carrying a glass of pale yellow lemonade that tinkles with ice. In the cool, air conditioned lobby, the cool drink is not as thoughtful as it might have been if he were bringing it outside, into the ninety degree evening that closes a hundred degree day. Especially since he sips at it absently as he goes. Scuffing along the shiny floor, he ambles over toward the post of the agent on duty, tinkling.
There is a desk for whoever gets stuck with guard duty: a shiny, sturdy desk. It is all gleam and glass, and Bahir's bare feet crossed on top of it will doubtless leave smudges. His laptop is near at hand, but he is ignoring it in favor of recent publications in his field. Telepathy unshielded -- the better to guard you with, my dears -- he identifies Percy in his approach and looks up only when he comes close. He gives him a quick smile, and tips a questioning brow at the lemonade.
There is about three quarters of a glass of lemonade left by the time Percy arrives at the shiny desk. He puts the glass down on top of the desk beside the cross of Bahir's feet, even though the desk would probably do better if the glass had a coaster, and perches on the edge of it, half-sitting and half-leaning with one foot planted on the floor. "Hello!" he says. The buzz of energy that winds through Percy's mindscape suggests typically obnoxious cheer, and the possible application of his terrible sense of humor to ... something, although lemonade in itself is not funny. "There's no liquor in it."
"Well, then you failed." But Bahir picks up the glass regardless and takes a sip. Since Percy has already had one quarter of the glass, we will assume that it is not so bad that he chokes to a sour-faced halt. "Bored, are you?"
The lemonade is probably not the best lemonade ever stirred, but not the worst either. Only partial lemon failure. "I did fail, a bit." This admitted with the shadow of a smile on his lips, Percy cranes his neck so as to take a peek at biochemistry publications that he would probably find inscrutable even if they were not at this somewhat awkward vantage. "I wonder what has given you that idea," he adds, humor glinting in his gaze.
Bahir turns the page so that Percy an read the words rightside-up. It is fairly inscrutable stuff. "The fact that you are here, in your socks, bringing me most of a glass of lemonade was a hint. Did you make it from lemons, from powder, or from concentrate?"
"From lemons," Percy says promptly, scanning a sentence or two before tipping his gaze back to Bahir's face again. "I think some seeds got in the pitcher, but I don't /think/ any of them ended up in the glass. Don't choke." He sucks on the tips of his fingers, as though testing them for any missed exploded fruit remnants. "I spent minutes and minutes wiping all the sticky up off the counter." Which means there is probably still some mess waiting to be cleaned up when he goes back upstairs.
"Ah. Good." Had it been anything else, Bahir would have sufficient cause to doubt Percy's affection for him. He takes another sip, sucking the lemonade past ice cubes, and licks his lips as he lowers the glass. "Yeah, it isn't bad. Could use more sugar." But the amount of sugar that Bahir puts in his drinks probably invalidates his opinion. The prospect of mess causes him to wrinkle his nose. "Great. If Duha's licked it up and refuses to settle down when I get up there, I'm blaming you."
Snapping his fingers, Percy says, "Damn, I knew I forgot something!" This is a joke. They are not just drinking lemon juice. He rests his palm on the sleek surface of the desk, shifting in his lean to lend more of a draping attitude to his perch on the desk. He tips his head, frowning at Bahir in mild puzzlement. "/Would/ she lick it up? Lemon? That's hardly made of meat or ... milk or ... catnip, or things cats eat."
"Little cat brains." Slandering the poor thing, Bahir wiggles his fingers. His expression perfectly serene and voice entirely even, he adds, "I'm sure you've licked a great many things which you don't eat, so."
Crooked grin immediate, Percy lifts his free hand in a gesture of admission. "I /do/ lick a lot of things I don't eat," he says happily, and thunks his socked heel against the front of the desk. "Although I hope you aren't implying anything about the size of my brain."
Bahir turns one hand out in a 'You said it, not me,' sort of gesture as he lifts the glass with his other hand to take another drink. Good thing it isn't poisoned and Percy isn't the ENEMY.
GOOD THING. "See if I bring /you/ lemonade again," Percy says with a sniff, continuing to kick at the front of the desk in a rhythmic sort of pattern. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Mouth twitching at one corner, he appends, "Asshole."
Slowly, reluctantly, Bahir admits, "I suppose I should really provide positive reinforcement to make you repeat the behavior, but I'm having trouble thinking of anything appropriate for the setting." That, and he's terrible with positive reinforcement.
"Ah," Percy says, catching the curve of his lower lip in the teeth of his grin as he cants his head. "/Appropriate/ for the setting? I can see how that might present you with some difficulty." He leans over to slide a hand up Bahir's leg, although it falls away as he settles back in his perch. "Got some reading done?"
Eyelashes falling low over his eyes at the glide of Percy's hand, Bahir grins up at him. "Rather," he says, answer to difficulty. He picks up the journal again, rolling it into a tight tube to slap into his palm. "Yeah, some. Insert further bitching about not being able to spend the time I'd like with this stuff here."
"At least you have these quiet, uninterrupted hours in the lobby to-- oh, wait." Percy squeezes Bahir's near ankle, thumb skimming over his heel, and then slides the rest of the way onto the desk, letting both legs fall over the side. He does not immediately say anything else, gaze cast down behind the veil of lashes. His sympathy with being forced to treat one's passion as a hobby has been expressed before; on this occasion, it is a thought only, with the touch of his hand as expressive as any repetition might be. Languages always traveled better, anyway.
Bahir turns his foot beneath Percy's hand, pressing up against the touch with a shift like a cat arching into a caress. "Oh, wait," he agrees, and then kicks at Percy's hip with his toes. "What do you think of this latest twist? Weird enough for you?"
"God." Percy jerks a little with the impact of Bahir's kick, and smacks his foot lightly before resuming his grasp. "It's hard enough keeping track of all the new names and faces without them all turning up with someone else's face on," he says, and shudders, not untheatrically, as he goes on, "Although honestly, I'm mostly glad it isn't you or me."
Bahir snorts, shaking his head once. "Yeah. I feel bad for whoever was stuck here the day of, with all those new faces all of a sudden. At least people's heads feel the same." He stretches, hands laced behind his head as he leans back to cast a glance down Percy. "No regret at a chance missed?" he teases.
"I /like/ my body," Percy says, lifting his free hand from its plant on the desk to measure down the length of his body and then turn out. "I've taken pretty good care of it, you know!" Except for all the drinking, smoking, smoking pot, mutation abuse and excessive promiscuity, that is. "You don't get genetics like these out of a crackerjack box."
"I like it, too," Bahir reassures with a laugh stifled in his voice. He taps his toe against Percy's thigh like the reassuring pat of a hand. "I can't think of any improvements I'd request, anyway. I even like the gray."
"I like yours, too," Percy flirts, dorkily, with quite a cheerful leer to his expression as he sways toward him on the plant of his palm against the surface of the desk. His grin flashes, eyes bright and laughing gold, before he snorts and goes on, with some disgust, "Anyway, with my luck I'd end up in a /lady/." Arching his eyebrows, he lifts his hand away from Bahir's leg to make a flat, cutting gesture through the air. "As much fun as drag can be, how about let's /not/ try that one. I have no buggering clue what sex would be like without my mutation, either."
"Everyone else seems to manage without your mutation, so I'm sure it is possible, if boring." Dry, Bahir just wrinkles his nose at the prospect of a pretty princess Percy. Too weird. "Being stuck in a woman's body sounds like a horror story."
"Yes, it does," Percy says, gravely. He scruffs fingertips through the dark waves of his hair, teasing out silver glints, and then drops his hand back to Bahir's leg again, stroking down towards his foot and then up again. "All in all I'm pretty glad I won't have to find out. Although," he adds after a slight delay, "it's kind of funny that that one woman I like ended up in a Japanese chick."
Bahir looks a little blank. Then: "--oh, is this about your Daddy issues?" He grins all bright-like.
"Yes," Percy says, glower dark to the spark of Bahir's brightness, "although /really/ it's about the number of Japanese chicks I've fucked."
Bahir tips his head to the side and taps his jaw. "Well, if you want to," he says, all graciously allowing, "I wouldn't mind. I understand maintaining your excellence in a field." Of Japanese-chick-fucking.
"That's very considerate of you," Percy says solemnly. He draws his thumbnail along the curve of his lower lip, eyeing Bahir as with contemplation.
"I thought so," Bahir says, picking up his glass again to finish off his lemonade. He scoots back, swinging his feet down and then scoots forward to put the glass, now empty but for the ice, up near Percy.
Percy picks up the glass and tips it against his lips, stealing an ice cube, which he crunches down on as with relish while he sets the glass back down. He thunks both socked heels against the front of the desk. "I guess the drink I brought you is gone," he says. "I wonder if anything will ever happen on one of these shifts."
"Not on my watch." Arms folded over his chest, Bahir watches the door. This is less a statement of vigilance than laziness.
Percy chuckles, low in his throat. He climbs down off Bahir's desk to circle round behind it, dropping his hands onto his shoulders as he swings down to speak in his ear. "I could enliven it for you some," he says, "but I don't think it would be appropriate for the setting." He straightens, although does not withdraw his hands, and adds, "Unless you want me to juggle."
Arms unfolding, Bahir rests his hands over Percy's with his head tipped up. He rubs his thumb up the side of his wrist. "Thank you, but no thank you," he says, ever-polite. "Much as I appreciate the offer of juggling. You'd probably drop something and break all this glass. If you want to get your viola and start playing, case at your feet, maybe someone will throw a few pennies in."
"I think I am too clean and nice-smelling to pass as a busker," Percy says, squeezing Bahir's shoulder as he looms behind him, with only a slight smile on his lips. "Besides, what would I use a penny for? As I recall, the going rate on thoughts has gone up considerably in past years."
"That is why you get a few pennies." Bahir mimes some viola-ing. "Just keep playing until you can afford one of my high-quality, limited-edition thoughts."
"I'll go out and buy a bank to keep all my pennies in," Percy says, tousling Bahir's hair with the scuff of his fingers along his scalp. "Store them up. From my busking. Maybe I can get a paper route."
Bahir pats his hair back down in place and scowls. "Yeah, get a paper route. With the National Enquirer. You can deliver copies daily to Amadeus's door." After a second, he adds, "And it would probably be a nice break from the weirdness for him."
"Man gives birth to three-legged alien?" Percy curls his hands into loose fits, scrubbing knuckles across Bahir's shoulders and down his upper arms. "You think he would find that comforting?"
"A reassuring glimpse back into the mundane," Bahir says, lifting his hands to sketch a frame for the capslock-and-bold headline that Percy has suggested.
Percy breathes out in a low laugh and lifts one of his hands to rub at his eye with one finger. "I wonder if the Enquirer has published about brain swapping," he says in tones of wry exasperation.
Bahir taps his lips. "I don't know," he admits, "but I do remember that wonderful piece of literature by the Daily Bugle about telepathic cancer."
Percy's brow crinkles, as he settles back on his heels, and searches his memory. "I'm not sure I recall that," he admits. "Telepathic cancer?"
"Yes." Bahir looks up at Percy with a smile pulling at his lips. "Exposure to telepathy increases the risk of brain cancer. Considering all the telepaths you know, maybe you should get an MRI."
Brushing the backs of his fingers along the curve of Bahir's cheek, Percy grins down at him. "Hell," he says, "it would be worth it to die young. Would you like a copy of my MRI scan for your desk?"
"That would be nice." Bahir turns his head, pressing a quick kiss to Percy's hand, and then draws away with a stretch to pick up his reading again. "Maybe we can have it framed."
"I'll see what I can do." Percy slides his hands up Bahir's shoulders and steps back, pulling away with the quiet breath of a laugh puffing past his lips. "For now, though," he adds briskly, "I think I am going to go and maybe clean the kitchen."
Bahir glances back up and over at Percy, smirk slight. "You know, if you'd just cleaned it up without ever telling me, I might've retained an illusion that you are capable of functioning in the kitchen without making a disaster of it."
"And ruin your fun?" Percy lays two fingertips over his lips, glancing at Bahir over his shoulder with brows arched high. His eyes gleam laughing answer to Bahir's smirk. "Would I do that?"
"Yes." Bahir flips back through to find the point he left off, waving a hand at Percy. "Don't forget the glass," he says, only belatedly remembering to add, "and thank you for lemonade."
Percy circles back around to scoop up the glass, which he had indeed forgotten. He sketches a partial bow, and says, "You're welcome!" Laughter in his breath, he turns and lopes back toward the elevator. His smile lingers on his lips, and he shakes the melting ice in the glass as he goes. It doesn't really tinkle.
Percy brings Bahir lemonade.