08 / 11 / 09 - Bahir, Percy
=SC= Santa Cruz Mountains - California
The Santa Cruz Mountains have a little bit of something for everyone, ranging from cool, moist coasts to warm, dry chaparral. This section of the range is dominated by forest and the Lexington Reservoir that shimmers in the distance. The occasional low whistle of cars on the nearby interstate pierces the natural quiet.
Lit by starlight and by the silvery gleam of the gibbous moon, the night is clear and warm, still in the balmy seventies with the sun long sunk. The air is pure and fresh, all soft earth and fresh green where, nearby, the trees that form a straggly green carpet along the mountainside rustle in the breeze. Here, in a grassy clearing off a winding mountain road, there is the general illusion that civilization is miles away and that there is nothing here but pure night and nature.
And Percy and Bahir, with a blanket to protect themselves from the damp of dewstruck ground. The gentle wind and the rustle of plants are the only noises, occasionally punctuated by the distant tu-who! of an owl. It's totally owl country out here.
Percy also makes noises, spreading the blanket over the grass and then wiping imaginary dust from his jeans as he straightens. He says, "I hope there aren't mosquitoes."
"You are doubtless too bitter-tasting for mosquitoes, anyway." Bahir straightens the nearest corner of the blanket with his foot, pulling it relatively flat. He toes out of his shoes at the edge and then steps on, folding down into a cross-legged seat, because he is limber and young, not old and decrepit like Percy. "All old and spiteful."
"Perhaps I am just concerned," Percy says, following Bahir's example and toeing out of his own shoes. He stands on one leg, peeling off one sock, and then repeats the process with the other foot. His balance is noteworthy -- he doesn't even flap about like a spastic stork in the process. With feet newly naked, he tucks his socks inside his shoes and then kneels down on the blanket. "For how appetizing a morsel /you/ make."
Bahir grins, scooting over toward Percy. He leans back, braced by his arms. "I can't argue with that. In that case, I understand and appreciate your concern, but as much as I seem to be to your taste, I've never found mosquitoes to be quite as bad."
Percy hums a low, evidently skeptical note in his throat as he slants his gaze across Bahir at his side. He shifts, leaning back on his own elbows so that he can unfold and extend his legs to their full extension, crossing them at his bare ankles in a slide and scrape of denim. "I suppose there's no accounting for taste."
Bahir shifts his near hand, lifting it to slide it between Percy's arm and his side. "That's what I keep saying." He looks up, scanning the sky. "Which direction is the right one?" he asks.
Percy rolls onto his own side, knees falling toward Bahir's legs as he props his head on his palm. He lifts his right arm and points into the starlit sky. "The clear skies this summer have been really something," he says, rolling a look up his own pale arm in his short-sleeved dark T-shirt. Then he drops his hand to fall lightly atop Bahir's between them. "The weather here ... It's not even muggy. Although we've had hardly any thunder and lightning."
"It's nice," Bahir says, with a distinct 'but' in the lingering drag of his voice. It's niiiice...!
"Yeah," Percy agrees quietly. He brushes his fingertips lightly up the inside of Bahir's arm before letting his hand fall away, and tipping his gaze toward the sky, his other hand curling into the hair behind his ear. "Going home this weekend..."
Bahir shifts lower, moving like Percy to his elbows rather than brace on his hands. Then he sinks to lie flat, looking up at the night sky. "We had to drive even longer to get skies like this. But -- fuck. The food. The /food/. --and the lab," he adds. Because he does have priorities. The skip of his thoughts is not entirely impossible to track: "Tom's doing well. He's smart. Knows how to use his mutation, and not get used by it."
The slow smile that pulls at Percy's lips is slight and a little skewed. He draws a long breath through his nose, and his exhalation is wistful. "Kelsey's mutation is bloody ridiculous," he says. He lets his gaze fall on Bahir's features with the turn of his head on his palm, beneath the half-veil of his long lashes.
"You are so jealous," Bahir says, grinning up at Percy, fond. "I know you guys are friends, but you have got to be completely jealous. That would be like -- I don't know. I can't even think of a proper comparison."
"Like I said." Percy closes his eyes, expression scrunching slightly with the crinkle of his nose. "Bloody ridiculous. My life's work, you know, surpassed in seconds -- God is really a son of a bitch."
Bahir leans up and over to press a kiss on Percy's cheek, but despite the reassurance of the gesture, from his voice it is clear he laughs at him. With him. /With/ him. "She can't be everywhere at once, and she can't speak them all at once -- I mean, unless she is around you. She's just a very skilled copy cat. You're the original."
Lifting his gaze again to catch Bahir's, Percy gives him a look of amused aggravation. "Yes, well. Languages without people who speak them are only valuable in a pretty limited set of circumstances," he says. He reaches to brush his knuckles lightly along the shape of Bahir's cheekbone. "Really my genius is somewhat superfluous."
Bahir ruffles Percy's hair. "I disagree. Translating recordings, printed materials -- there's plenty." SO THERE.
"Mmm." Percy sounds less than convinced, drawing his thumb along Bahir's lower lip with eyes thoughtful in the dark. Then he settles back and tips his glance back up toward the clear and starry sky. "I suppose. As far as most of what this place requires, though ... Kelsey is more than sufficient, I'd think."
"Mm." Bahir watches Percy's face, more interesting than stars. "What would you do, if you were back in New York?"
"I've been thinking about that, a little," Percy admits, although he doesn't immediately draw his eyes away from the constellations and their uncommon brightness in the mountain air. He looks contemplative, pale and relatively youthful by flattering moonlight, where only a scattered few stray threads of silver reflect amidst the dark waves of his hair. "I think I would go back to school again. I suspect Emma could use the support as well, although..." He smiles, with a slight shake of his head. "--she seems to have significantly muted her agenda..."
Bahir tucks his shoulder against Percy's, warm through the intervening layers of fabric. "Oh, dear." His voice is soft and dry, deadpan imperfect. "You were so terribly behaved while a student. What guarantees of good behavior would I have?" He drops the teasing to adopt a more thoughtful tone, saying, "Don't you dare tell her, but I do miss her. I miss -- I miss everything about it. Perhaps her agenda is not muted. Perhaps it is /subtle/." Because Emma? Queen of subtle.
Percy tips his head to brush a warm kiss to Bahir's jaw, lips curving in a smile against his skin. "What guarantees would you like?" he asks, a low laugh purling in his soft voice. He closes his eyes in a slow blink, lashes fanning dark over fair skin, and he exhales a low sigh past his nose. "Subtle," he says. "Lonely, that's what she said, isn't it?"
Bahir is quiet, looking up at the sky with a faint melancholy coloring general contentment in the pheromonal fog. "Startling to hear from her," he finally admits. "But to have everything she worked on for so long taken away, all of us sent an entire country away, the rest scattered -- not surprising. As important as what we do here is, I still think that what we did there was more important, in the long term. Anyone can do this. Tom. Kelsey."
"She has lost so much," Percy murmurs. "In so little time." He falls quiet for a long moment, swallowing hard against a peculiar twist of heart, and lifts his gaze back toward the sky. Maybe he sees a falling star up there.
Bahir glances back over at Percy and then turns on his side, sliding a hand across Percy's chest. "Would you miss this, if we left it?"
"Maybe," Percy says, tipping his gaze back towards Bahir. "Some of it. But..." He pauses, lower lip caught in his teeth. "You're right, though. We're not /needed/ here. Not in the same way."
"The people," Bahir says, acknowledging Percy's hesitation. "Some of them -- quite a lot. Maybe we should talk about it."
"I do miss it," Percy says, answering the point in X-Factor's favor with the point for leaving for home and the Inner Circle. "Maybe not /all/ of it," he adds, with a twitch of rueful humor for a past that not even rose-colored glasses can completely hue in mellow pinks. "But I do miss it." Then he grins abruptly, and turns a brighter gaze on Bahir's face. "And I am still aggravated that we had to leave our gorgeous apartment."
Bahir looks annoyed, not at Percy, but at the circumstances of their big move. "All that time to find a fucking amazing place, and then we were barely there -- what, a month? Fuck. They better be treating it gently." He leans back, hand slipping off Percy's chest, and he picks up his hand, instead. "I guess--." And so they talk about it. A lot. And there are shooting stars, too. THE END.
Perseids with Percy.