(no subject)
LJ Entry: http://xmm-percy.livejournal.com/191236.html#cutid1
Originally Posted:August 19th, 2009
Commentary Written: September 30th, 2009
Requested by: xmm-kelsey
Notes: Warning: navels inside.
I have to admit, I never expected that I would be writing a commentary about Percy ever again. I mean … basically, he’s done, right?
Putting him down was hard for me. His story was about finished, and it had a lot in it. I don’t know if his baggage was as weighty as Bahir’s - and I know that he was more ICly comfortable in the faction than Bahir was, anyway - but there was plenty of it. More often than not, he was living in the past. His personal growth was all done. He went from a shallow, frightened, fripperous creature who built walls out of glitter and gloss to a … mature, confident, even wise adult. If you know, an obnoxious one, who retains a certain tendency to wall himself off from the vast majority of people, at least one capable of creating and maintaining those rare social connections ... He was at peace with himself, with his mutation, with the ghosts of his dead parents as much as he ever will be, with his living family, with his career prospects. He went from reams of meaningless sex wound up in control issues and mutation issues and rape and … eventually … arrived at a committed and loving relationship with his boyfriend. I mean, no, life isn’t perfect, and The Last Unicorn says there are no happy endings, because nothing ends, but …
I have been playing Percy Talhurst in some form or another for a very long time. He was a character of mine in two iterations at two games before XMM, and I’ve been playing him on XMM since … uh, August of 2005. He has been comfortable, like a very broken in shoe. I think he may be the longest I have played a character - certainly the longest and most consistently I have ever played a character. But it was time to admit that he was done. I didn’t realize how difficult it had gotten, how constrained I was and how little room I had left in his story, really, until I started playing Tom and Jane and really understood, you know, how stagnant he had become. They were both so much easier, even Tom with his endless prickle and Jane with her wild new set of intimacy issues to explore. It was time to be done.
I had some thinking to do about which Percy/Kelsey log I was going to write this commentary about, but eventually I decided that it would have to be the good-bye, and that I would just be kidding myself if I tried to start off with one of the others. Percy and Kelsey were not a relationship that had that much time to grow, but they were off to a kickin’ start, and fresh, good starts were pretty rare for Percy. It was the first time in a long time that Percy formed any kind of attachment outside his narrow circle. He said he was self-contained. I said he was full of shit. But when your life is wreathed in secrets and lies and you have come to personally value honesty and trust, it is difficult to reach out and shake hands with a new person that you know you are only going to have to lie to. I don’t know how much Percy envied Bahir his connection with Natalie - I know he did at the beginning, when his loss of Sabitha was still grating so harshly against his heart in a lot of unfair comparisons - but I know I envied it /for/ him because God, was it a pain in the ass where the only people I could get Percy to be emotionally honest with outside his relationship with Bahir were like … his brother. And sometimes Emma, if he was /drunk/, since they spend so much time not actually saying what they mean whenever they talk.
It was sometimes … lonely, being Percy. Especially during the big collapse of their relationship the first time, and then after he left Bahir, and drifted in bland subdual for months while an asteroid threatened to destroy the world and he just did his job and … did his job … and shot down all offers of friendship or sexual attention that were aimed in his direction.
I wrote a scenelet about this once a long time ago, wherein Percy went to Sabitha’s empty grave and told her all about everything and poured her an amaretto sour. I share it here because as long as I am being incredibly self-indulgent I might as well. http://xmm-percy.livejournal.com/144984.html#cutid1
Of course, Percy and Bahir did get back together, and the Circle kind of broke into bits a few months after that, but that’s just sort of the way … the cookie …
So - anyway - what I was talking about. It is rare for Percy to connect with someone as well as he connected with Kelsey, and he will miss that. He is sorry to leave it behind. What he has with her … it is the shadow of what he had with Sabby, once upon a time. Not a replacement, never a replacement, but an echo. Turning away from that is difficult. He left Sabby once. The results, in the long run, he has to live with, because she’s gone.
A light humming permeates the apartment as Kelsey wanders about it, hair damp with a recent shower. A fluffy robe is slipped on in the meantime, towel gently wringing water out of wet curls as she putters around the kitchen getting herself a glass of water.
The ratatat that comes at her door is, perhaps, a little more subdued than prior ratatats have been. It doesn't come in any particularly amusing pattern.
THE FIRST CLUE THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG: No shave and haircut. Percy started using shave and a haircut on Kelsey’s door as a conscious choice on his part to echo an old pattern. Shave and a haircut was Sabitha’s. It was one of the many dorky things they had. I think part of his not using it tonight is acknowledgment, to himself as anything else, that he is leaving Kelsey, that she isn’t Sabby, and that he can’t have Sabby again. Amazing all that subtext in one subdued knock, right?
Ohno! Where is the amusing pattern? "Come in!" Kelsey calls, in lieu of opening the door for her visitor, as she pours water on top of newly retrieved ice in her glass. The other hand rubs the towel over her hair in an idle manner.
There is a brief pause, and then the doorknob turns and the door slides open to admit Percy. He knocks it shut afterwards with the lean of his hip, dressed in casually in a snug, and rather ancient, black t-shirt and navy jeans over dark sneakers. His @wearing ALMOST matches. Almost. He greets, "Kelsey," from just inside the threshhold, thumbs tucked loosely into the empty beltloops of his jeans.
Ha ha, my meta is a dork. Here is the @wearing in question:
Time has worn the soft cotton of the black T-shirt Percy is wearing, and shaped it close to his frame with many years of wear. Faded block letters catch the light across his chest, bearing the legend: STAGE MANAGER. His jeans are navy and closely fitted, molded to the shape of his leg, down to where they brush the pale flash of his bare ankles. To complete this picture of comfort, he has neglected to wear shoes.
The shirt has history. It is a relic of his days at Oxford. It is faded, it is snug. He wears it as a comfort shirt, and because he is kind of a sap. It was, in fact, the shirt he wore the first time he and Bahir kissed. Yes, I swear to God. When his apartment building exploded because the Friends of Humanity stole one of Stark Industries’ missiles and blew it up, I made the decision that this shirt would be the otherwise undescribed black T-shirt he managed to salvage. A few other items of his that were personal, he saved. Sabitha’s letter. Bahir’s scarf. A few small things.
It’s one of a couple of @wearings I had saved in his multidescer. This one was called ‘nostalgia’. Uhm. Yeah.
I don’t have much to say about Percy being obviously subdued right before he says goodbye. Just commenting on wardrobe choices!
She's out of the kitchen in a moment, towel dropped over her shoulders, glass of water in one hand. The smile that greets him is bright. "Hey there, sassenach," Kelsey says. "Come in, come in. Dinnae stand there like ye're about tae leave." To provide a proper example, she pads over to the nearby living area.
"Well, funny you should say that," Percy begins, auspiciously, but he falls quiet without concluding his thought on this airy note. Instead, he drifts over to the living area, and stands over the couch. He slants a look over her, absently noting the towel and robe with a vaguely acknowledging speculation that these things signify recent nudity. "I need to talk to you."
Awkward, awkward.
Percy and Kelsey flirt a lot. It is totally unserious and in no small part because this is Percy’s baseline friendly interaction. It helps that he rarely finds people physically unattractive. This is as much a side effect of his mutation as anything else. I worked it out once a long time ago, that one of the main reasons Percy leans more towards bisexual than homosexual is that his pheromones tend to respond to those of everyone around him. In other words, chances are, if someone finds him attractive, he reciprocates - his pheromonic magic tends toward a two-way street. And he’s really fucking hot. It comes up a lot. He just doesn’t necessarily pay that much attention to it. Especially since he started in with Bahir.
"Is this about your intensely passionate feelin's for me?" Kelsey wonders, drying behind one ear. The humor is short-lived, however, and she dips her head a bit apologetically, in case there are super-serious-things-not-be-joked-about to come. "Sorry." She curls up on the sofa, tucking feet underneath her and setting the glass of water on the coffee table.
"Obviously." Percy stands irresolutely for a moment, and then drops onto the sofa beside her, although he stretches his legs out to their full extension before him, heels tipped against the floor. "Actually, well," he says, letting his hands fall loosely against his thighs, "Bahir and I are going home."
His body language continues to be diffident throughout this whole opening sequence. This is a pretty new situation for Percy - I mean, when has he ever moved away from someone he called friend? Not really ever. His relationships at school were never particularly close, and he lost Sabby because she died, and as far as Emma goes, she was completely familiar with everything related to his leaving New York and was as much, if not more, distressed as he was, but there was nothing either of them could do about it. This departure, though, this is a choice he made. A choice he made about the priorities of his life; not a choice he regrets, but a choice that does mean that he has to say good-bye. I don’t think he has often had to take responsibility for his actions in this way.
The strangely new behavior from him helps her put a lid on her humor, and Kelsey watches him carefully as he finally seats himself. The news takes a brief moment to process. "Ye mean...tae New York?"
Tipping his head back against her sofa so that he can watch her with a slight arch to his eyebrows, Percy tips his head once in her direction in a nod. "To New York," he says quietly. "To much of what we left behind and a few things we never had before."
They are leaving to go back to Bahir’s research, to their beautiful apartment, to their work for Emma and the Inner Circle. But part of moving in together was about embracing their domestic future, and X-Factor has done nothing to make that any cloudier. Percy is really looking forward to just … living his life, to each of them doing the work they love, with the person they love, in the city they love. It’s funny that New York has become so much of home. I mean, Bahir still has Bahrain, and Percy’s first location love was London. But there is no place like New York for him, and not just because it is the mutant capital of the world, either. Nothing like leaving a place to make you really appreciate how much it had grown on you.
“Like a canker sore,” says Percy in my head. “Fucking New York.”
"Oh." This requires some /real/ processing, Kelsey looking down to her lap, picking at her nails in gesture clearly just to fill dead air, bottom lip chewed lightly between her teeth.
Silence rarely lasts long with Percy around, and this one is no exception, despite all the weight that it could carry. He says, "His whole life, his whole career is ahead of him out there. Brilliant and bright with promise. He would stay, yet, if I asked it. He has such deep loyalties, such depth of ... of devotion. I've seen it. Beyond-- beyond..." He trails off, reaching for the indescribable with the outward stretch of his manicured fingers before he lets his digits fall loosely to his legs again. "It doesn't matter. I don't want to ask it. I'm not needed here either. Not /really/. So we're going home."
Both the al-Razi twins have - or had - this tremendous capacity for loyalty. Percy has seen it in action beyond denial, although in contexts that he would never reveal. For Bahir, he saw it with Shaw, in this dark spiral of ever increasingly bad and crazy behavior, Bahir held to respect, to loyalty, and to duty. For Adel, he saw it with Emma, and noted it in his journal as a reflection of the same he had seen in Bahir: “I am in awe, rather, of a man who felt his Queen's hands wrap round his neck while she tried to choke the life out of him and his every thought afterwards was truly how to help her.”
Percy does not think he is a slacker on the devotion front; I mean, he’s done some pretty incredibly difficult things (and stupid things) for love of Bahir, and for the Circle. He still has a metal bolt in his leg from one of them that Magneto used to use as a convenient Percy detection device. But love isn’t a pissing contest. He wouldn’t ask it of Bahir. He has no reason to. As much as he likes his new friend and the ability to use his languages and his training in a way that matters on a daily basis … the reason he wasn’t doing the latter before was because he felt so constrained by the wishes of a dead man and by the legacy his father left him. He is pretty beyond that. Oliver will handle the company, or not; perhaps Geotal’s controlling shares will pass into another family member’s hands, perhaps they will just hire a CEO to manage the business for them on an exorbitant salary since neither of them need the money that much. It doesn’t matter anymore. He understands his father better. Moreover, he understands himself better.
He can be a linguist in New York. He always could have been. He just never did. X-Factor jarred him loose from his old patterns, but there is no reason that returning to New York is /going backward/.
"Okay." There's a hint of a smile behind the word, seeing the clear display of love, but it's almost covered by quiet sadness. "I'll miss ye," Kelsey finally says, leaning her head against the back of the couch. "Even if ye are a right wanker an' I've only known ye a couple o' months."
Swallowing a moment, Percy reaches out to take one of her hands in his. He winds their fingers together into a warm clasp of his skin against hers, and tips his head to brush his lips and breath against the back of her hand. "I'm not sorry we didn't meet before, because there's no guarantee I would have given you a second thought," he says, smile pulling at his lips with a hint of an edge to the humor gleaming in his amber eyes. "But I am sorry to leave a nascent friendship of such tender growth. I make so very few, you know."
This is the most honest he ever is with her, I think. Word and deed. I am impressed that he is willing to let his guard down enough to do that. I am impressed with how much he has grown from the days when every touch was a huge deal and a calculation as to whether he was safe doing it. I am impressed with how much more comfortable he is in himself, in his interactions.
He probably wouldn’t have given her a second thought, really. I mean, the languages thing would have always drawn him, but if he didn’t know about it? SOME XAVIERITE. WHATEVER. He is so prejudiced against Xavier’s.
"Not mean enough tae catch your fancy?" Kelsey wonders, the humor an obvious front for the grief underneath. A soft smile widens as he brings her hand to his lips, the glittering on her eyelashes suggesting the threat of tears. "Maybe ye just need tae try a wee bit harder," she suggests, a mother sending her child off to their first day at school. Worried that he won't make friends. The hand in his squeezes.
"Well, yes, exactly." Percy turns his hand in hers, drawing his thumb along the curve of her palm. His mouth twists, reflecting a partial grimace. "But I don't expect to lose contact, madam. And if you are ever in New York, you can use our spare bedroom. We may even allow you to use the hot tub."
I love their fucking apartment. I love that they are running off to live bitchily ever after in this big glorious penthouse. PERCY IS NOT KIDDING ABOUT THE HOT TUB.
Kelsey scoots closer, stuffing toes comfortably between the warmth of his thighs and the sofa. "Ye'll be the first one I'll call if I'm headin' that way," she promises, setting her chin on her knees and brushing away a stray tear. IGNORE THAT. "An' I'll call all the time tae make sure ye get your proper dose of optimism."
"Oh," Percy says with a strangled laugh in his throat. "Good." He rubs his thumb and forefinger over the bridge of his nose. "I'll look forward to that."
"Hey. Ye'll need it in New York." The smile grows easier as she watches him, affection rich in her expression. "What'll /ye/ do there?"
His smile flashes, breath ghosting past his teeth in voiceless humor. He says, "Well, I'm surrounded by people with doctorates."
"Aye." Something like concern grows on her face. "But what'll /ye/ do?"
"So I'm going back to school to get one of my own," Percy says, cocking an eyebrow at her. "It's been awhile but I think I'll get the hang of it again. It will be a bit strange not sucking off anybody in the campus bathrooms--"
Percy was so rotten at school. I bet he will be a pain in the ass as a student, too. I don’t know what his doctoral thesis is going to be on, probably a comparative study with sociolinguistic elements from his master’s, but whatever it is, I bet Bahir will be very glad that their apartment is big enough where he can have the kitchen and Percy can have the library room.
But although Bahir is the impetus for their leaving, it is not only Bahir’s bright future that Percy sees on the eastern horizon. It is Bahir’s, and his own, and the blend of the two.
"Oh!" Her sudden comprehension is bright and very approving. "Maybe Bahir will visit ye on campus," Kelsey says, grin crooked. "Ye can pretend he's your student. Verra naughty." She curls up against him, hair damp on his shoulder when she sets her chin there. "So linguistics, I presume?"
"I used to visit him on campus." Percy brushes his knuckles thoughtfully along the line of his jaw, the twitch of his smile turning his mouth up at the corners. He ruffles his fingertips through her hair, then, instead, and tugs at his shirt with his other hand. "Actually I have some quite fond memories of doing that."
Skanky ones, even.
I do like how readily physical Percy is able to be with Kelsey. He did not always have that. In fact, he did not always have it with Sabitha. Bahir taught him a lot about physical communication, about being open enough to touch. Percy had a lot of issues with touch as an emotional component. His father was cold and reserved and sometimes downright mean. Everyone else in his family is ENGLISH. But physical affection, physical communication, is a powerful thing that he has really learned how to be comfortable with. I am glad. Because it is better.
"That's settled, then. He clearly must come and sex ye up during lunch." This is settled with a bright finality as Kelsey raises a hand to ruffle his hair in a distinctly unsexy way. "Well, at least Andrew'll be happy. He was less than enthused tae be goin' out with ye two."
"I'll tell him you said so," Percy says with perfect frankness. He bats at Kelsey's hand. "Yes, well. You have my permission to make him do something else as an adequate substitute for the experience. Maybe you can make him walk naked over hot coals. It's not /exactly/ comparable but it might be fun to watch."
Personally, I think Percy’s rumpled hair is ALWAYS sexy. But you know. Uh.
I think Percy’s joke is hilarious and apropos. Poor Andrew. That double date would have been so disastrous. Kelsey may be possessed of the opinion that Andrew could hold his own, but uh. I am pretty sure that between Bahir and Percy, they would have eaten him alive. Even if they weren’t trying to be that rotten. They are at their best and worst when they are out together with other people and their relationship is on display, as it were. Because they are both arrogant, bitchy men, and worse, they are both really, really smug about each other.
AND HOW NOT. I ASK YOU.
TOO LATE. His hair is already ruffled. Take that, perfectly designed appearance. "Ye assume I'm as horribly sadistic as ye are."
He's actually pretty casual at the moment. Percy crinkles his nose at her and manufactures an appalled tone. "You think I'm a /sadist/?"
Kelsey holds up a thumb and forefinger, offering an infinitesimal distance between them. "Just a touch. Sometimes. About some things."
Percy closes his eyes with a very slow smile. "Only to /other/ people's boyfriends," he says.
"How generous of ye. Restrictin' your sadism so much." Kelsey slips an arm around his waist, giving him an affectionate squeeze.
"Well, I might have overstated that restriction," Percy admits lowly, brows pulling down over his closed eyes. "A wee bit."
"I dinnae judge," she assures him, voice colored with sincerity.
Opening his eyes again, Percy slants a sidelong look at her, and says, gravely, "Thank you."
Kelsey hugs tighter, head resting on his shoulder as she lives in comfortable, blissful ignorance. "I would totally have shagged ye back in your slut days. No cheatin' needed on your part."
All modesty, Percy replies with a blithe, "I bet."
Yeah I’m pretty sure Percy can smell that. Kelsey does not really pose pheromonic meta much, but neither do a lot of other people; I tend to assume a lot rather than demand adjustments to every pose. Er. I can’t think of a time I’ve been horribly wrong when it has been embarrassing, so I think it mostly worked out, and now I don’t have to worry about it anymore.
Also? He's really vain.
And, in some natural progression in her head from slut to husband-in-all-but-name, Kelsey tells him, "It's good ye're doin' this for 'im. Not askin' him tae stay."
"It's not just for him," Percy says. He shifts in place, almost if not quite squirming in a minor fidget, and studies his fingernails. They are quite neat. "I never thought going back to school was a real, true option. I let my world be closed to a lot of possibilities, because of ... oh, a lot of things. I accepted constraints I built for myself out of ... possibly imaginary expectations. This ... this, perhaps it shook me loose." The broad sweep of his gesture indicates the breadth and length of Chemekata Base. "Broke the life I was living apart. Well," he adds, on a long intake of breath, "I'm taking the pieces back, now, and maybe making something of them. Something really mine."
YEAH THEY ARE PRACTICALLY MARRIED.
One of the things that is great about Kelsey/Percy is that Percy had someone to talk to about his emotional life, his relationship with Bahir, and such things, someone OTHER THAN OLIVER. It is frustrating when your character does not share things with anybody and the only person you can go to to deal with things is your own NPC. I enjoy writing scenelets with Percy and Oliver, but at some point, I can’t just play out everything by myself, you know? We’re not playing this game for public masturbation. With another PC, there can be an actual give and take. Percy talks to Kelsey about Andrew. Admittedly he is kind of a jerk about him a lot - although I think he does try to balance being supportive and helpful to Kelsey about her issues with relationships /with/ his low opinion of the boyfriend in particular, and it doesn’t always WORK but at least he tries, right?
I like what he says there. It is for Bahir, and about Bahir, but not whole and entire. Part of the thing that is really his is their relationship, but part of it is also the fact that he will not be a confined to the corporate world anymore, that he will not be living out William Talhurst’s legacy in such a concrete and immobile way. I think that if I was going to scenelet this and really finish off the whole Geotal arc, Percy would go visit Oliver at Geotal after hours and pick up the ashtray from the desk in the office that William used to sit at. That ashtray hasn’t moved since William died. It would be nicely symbolic, and Percy would smile a little, toss it in the air and catch it, and then walk out with it.
Kelsey leans back a touch, giving him room to properly fidget and express himself. When he finally finishes, there's a faint smile on her lips that might almost be described as proud. "I'm happy for ye."
Looking a trifle awkward, Percy scratches his thumbnail along the side of his nose. He says, "Well," and breathes out in a snort. "Right."
The smile spreads with his awkwardness, and Kelsey touches a finger to his nose. "Ye're really out o' practice with the friendship thing."
Yeah, kinda. His major friendships have been Emma, Sabitha, and, well, Bahir and Oliver. Bahir … nuff said. Oliver is his brother and stuck with him. Although their lines of communication are pretty awesome right now, and they are better friends than they have ever been - still. Oliver is stuck with him. There’s very little of the pressures of potential rejection. Their relationship is fraternal and loving and bantery and obnoxious. I love it. But it’s not exactly the same as being friends.
And … while he did believe Sabitha when she said she was happy for him, when she was glad that he had found something that made him happy, she died so soon after that, and so much of the last few months of their relationship were so … well, difficult. Their friendship never completely recovered from his going to Black and lying to her about it. And the struggle of juggling Sabitha and Bahir was not easy on any of the three of them. There was plenty of hurt to go around. It was a hard time.
And Emma just doesn’t say things like that. You know. They don’t come out and say what their feelings are. That would be … cheating. Or something.
"I like to think I do it right where it counts," Percy tells her loftily, and scrunches his nose. Less loftily.
I like to think he does, too. He’s not a perfect friend by any means - or a perfect boyfriend - but … he does okay. He has learned to do okay.
"I think ye do, too," Kelsey agrees, dropping her hands obligingly. "Except maybe with the whole friend's-boyfriends part." But the easy grin on her face doesn't suggest any serious malice. At the moment.
"If my friends had better /taste/," sneers Percy, true to type.
"If ye tried to /know/ the boyfriends before making judgments," Kelsey counters in classic Kelsey fashion.
I like that exchange a lot. She’s going to keep poking at him for not liking Andrew, he’s going to keep insisting she has bad taste. And on and on.
"Please," comes the dismissive reply. "As though my snap judgments are ever incorrect." He scratches behind his ear. Then, sitting up as though preparing to stand, Percy says, "I do wish you luck with him, Kelsey. With him and with everything. And I will miss you."
Kelsey hugs tight for a moment, as if unprepared for him to leave. But then she loosens her arms, sitting up straighter in anticipation of his departure. "Thanks, sassenach. It means a lot comin' from ye."
"And well it should," Percy murmurs. He draws away from her and rises, drawing another long breath through his nose. "We'll still be around for a few days more, you know. But."
"Careful gettin' through the door. Dinnae want ye tae scratch my paint with your ego." Kelsey grins, standing up after him, her hands slipping into fuzzy pockets. "Aye. I get it."
"Your paint will surely recover." Percy tips an imaginary hat to her, and then turns on his heel to move for the door on steps that drag, a little. "Good night for now, my dear."
"I'll bill ye." Kelsey brushes a damp lock of hair behind one ear, stepping close to the door as he heads for it. "Aye. I'll see ye around." For now.
Reaching the door, Percy tips a crooked smile over his shoulder, but he doesn't say anything else; he sketches a little bow, and then opens the door and slips out of it. As exits go, he supposes it will do.
LOOK YOU GUYS. SOMETIMES, I CAN SORT OF CLOSE. The close really works for me. Mostly just the last line. As exits go, he supposes it will do. It hits just the right note for me, in my head. Percy’s sense of the theatrical does not always comport with real life. He is fairly resigned to this. In this case … it will do.
Well. Anyway. I guess that’s it.
Good-bye, old boy. We had some good times. We really did.
Originally Posted:August 19th, 2009
Commentary Written: September 30th, 2009
Requested by: xmm-kelsey
Notes: Warning: navels inside.
I have to admit, I never expected that I would be writing a commentary about Percy ever again. I mean … basically, he’s done, right?
Putting him down was hard for me. His story was about finished, and it had a lot in it. I don’t know if his baggage was as weighty as Bahir’s - and I know that he was more ICly comfortable in the faction than Bahir was, anyway - but there was plenty of it. More often than not, he was living in the past. His personal growth was all done. He went from a shallow, frightened, fripperous creature who built walls out of glitter and gloss to a … mature, confident, even wise adult. If you know, an obnoxious one, who retains a certain tendency to wall himself off from the vast majority of people, at least one capable of creating and maintaining those rare social connections ... He was at peace with himself, with his mutation, with the ghosts of his dead parents as much as he ever will be, with his living family, with his career prospects. He went from reams of meaningless sex wound up in control issues and mutation issues and rape and … eventually … arrived at a committed and loving relationship with his boyfriend. I mean, no, life isn’t perfect, and The Last Unicorn says there are no happy endings, because nothing ends, but …
I have been playing Percy Talhurst in some form or another for a very long time. He was a character of mine in two iterations at two games before XMM, and I’ve been playing him on XMM since … uh, August of 2005. He has been comfortable, like a very broken in shoe. I think he may be the longest I have played a character - certainly the longest and most consistently I have ever played a character. But it was time to admit that he was done. I didn’t realize how difficult it had gotten, how constrained I was and how little room I had left in his story, really, until I started playing Tom and Jane and really understood, you know, how stagnant he had become. They were both so much easier, even Tom with his endless prickle and Jane with her wild new set of intimacy issues to explore. It was time to be done.
I had some thinking to do about which Percy/Kelsey log I was going to write this commentary about, but eventually I decided that it would have to be the good-bye, and that I would just be kidding myself if I tried to start off with one of the others. Percy and Kelsey were not a relationship that had that much time to grow, but they were off to a kickin’ start, and fresh, good starts were pretty rare for Percy. It was the first time in a long time that Percy formed any kind of attachment outside his narrow circle. He said he was self-contained. I said he was full of shit. But when your life is wreathed in secrets and lies and you have come to personally value honesty and trust, it is difficult to reach out and shake hands with a new person that you know you are only going to have to lie to. I don’t know how much Percy envied Bahir his connection with Natalie - I know he did at the beginning, when his loss of Sabitha was still grating so harshly against his heart in a lot of unfair comparisons - but I know I envied it /for/ him because God, was it a pain in the ass where the only people I could get Percy to be emotionally honest with outside his relationship with Bahir were like … his brother. And sometimes Emma, if he was /drunk/, since they spend so much time not actually saying what they mean whenever they talk.
It was sometimes … lonely, being Percy. Especially during the big collapse of their relationship the first time, and then after he left Bahir, and drifted in bland subdual for months while an asteroid threatened to destroy the world and he just did his job and … did his job … and shot down all offers of friendship or sexual attention that were aimed in his direction.
I wrote a scenelet about this once a long time ago, wherein Percy went to Sabitha’s empty grave and told her all about everything and poured her an amaretto sour. I share it here because as long as I am being incredibly self-indulgent I might as well. http://xmm-percy.livejournal.com/144984.html#cutid1
Of course, Percy and Bahir did get back together, and the Circle kind of broke into bits a few months after that, but that’s just sort of the way … the cookie …
So - anyway - what I was talking about. It is rare for Percy to connect with someone as well as he connected with Kelsey, and he will miss that. He is sorry to leave it behind. What he has with her … it is the shadow of what he had with Sabby, once upon a time. Not a replacement, never a replacement, but an echo. Turning away from that is difficult. He left Sabby once. The results, in the long run, he has to live with, because she’s gone.
A light humming permeates the apartment as Kelsey wanders about it, hair damp with a recent shower. A fluffy robe is slipped on in the meantime, towel gently wringing water out of wet curls as she putters around the kitchen getting herself a glass of water.
The ratatat that comes at her door is, perhaps, a little more subdued than prior ratatats have been. It doesn't come in any particularly amusing pattern.
THE FIRST CLUE THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG: No shave and haircut. Percy started using shave and a haircut on Kelsey’s door as a conscious choice on his part to echo an old pattern. Shave and a haircut was Sabitha’s. It was one of the many dorky things they had. I think part of his not using it tonight is acknowledgment, to himself as anything else, that he is leaving Kelsey, that she isn’t Sabby, and that he can’t have Sabby again. Amazing all that subtext in one subdued knock, right?
Ohno! Where is the amusing pattern? "Come in!" Kelsey calls, in lieu of opening the door for her visitor, as she pours water on top of newly retrieved ice in her glass. The other hand rubs the towel over her hair in an idle manner.
There is a brief pause, and then the doorknob turns and the door slides open to admit Percy. He knocks it shut afterwards with the lean of his hip, dressed in casually in a snug, and rather ancient, black t-shirt and navy jeans over dark sneakers. His @wearing ALMOST matches. Almost. He greets, "Kelsey," from just inside the threshhold, thumbs tucked loosely into the empty beltloops of his jeans.
Ha ha, my meta is a dork. Here is the @wearing in question:
Time has worn the soft cotton of the black T-shirt Percy is wearing, and shaped it close to his frame with many years of wear. Faded block letters catch the light across his chest, bearing the legend: STAGE MANAGER. His jeans are navy and closely fitted, molded to the shape of his leg, down to where they brush the pale flash of his bare ankles. To complete this picture of comfort, he has neglected to wear shoes.
The shirt has history. It is a relic of his days at Oxford. It is faded, it is snug. He wears it as a comfort shirt, and because he is kind of a sap. It was, in fact, the shirt he wore the first time he and Bahir kissed. Yes, I swear to God. When his apartment building exploded because the Friends of Humanity stole one of Stark Industries’ missiles and blew it up, I made the decision that this shirt would be the otherwise undescribed black T-shirt he managed to salvage. A few other items of his that were personal, he saved. Sabitha’s letter. Bahir’s scarf. A few small things.
It’s one of a couple of @wearings I had saved in his multidescer. This one was called ‘nostalgia’. Uhm. Yeah.
I don’t have much to say about Percy being obviously subdued right before he says goodbye. Just commenting on wardrobe choices!
She's out of the kitchen in a moment, towel dropped over her shoulders, glass of water in one hand. The smile that greets him is bright. "Hey there, sassenach," Kelsey says. "Come in, come in. Dinnae stand there like ye're about tae leave." To provide a proper example, she pads over to the nearby living area.
"Well, funny you should say that," Percy begins, auspiciously, but he falls quiet without concluding his thought on this airy note. Instead, he drifts over to the living area, and stands over the couch. He slants a look over her, absently noting the towel and robe with a vaguely acknowledging speculation that these things signify recent nudity. "I need to talk to you."
Awkward, awkward.
Percy and Kelsey flirt a lot. It is totally unserious and in no small part because this is Percy’s baseline friendly interaction. It helps that he rarely finds people physically unattractive. This is as much a side effect of his mutation as anything else. I worked it out once a long time ago, that one of the main reasons Percy leans more towards bisexual than homosexual is that his pheromones tend to respond to those of everyone around him. In other words, chances are, if someone finds him attractive, he reciprocates - his pheromonic magic tends toward a two-way street. And he’s really fucking hot. It comes up a lot. He just doesn’t necessarily pay that much attention to it. Especially since he started in with Bahir.
"Is this about your intensely passionate feelin's for me?" Kelsey wonders, drying behind one ear. The humor is short-lived, however, and she dips her head a bit apologetically, in case there are super-serious-things-not-be-joked-about to come. "Sorry." She curls up on the sofa, tucking feet underneath her and setting the glass of water on the coffee table.
"Obviously." Percy stands irresolutely for a moment, and then drops onto the sofa beside her, although he stretches his legs out to their full extension before him, heels tipped against the floor. "Actually, well," he says, letting his hands fall loosely against his thighs, "Bahir and I are going home."
His body language continues to be diffident throughout this whole opening sequence. This is a pretty new situation for Percy - I mean, when has he ever moved away from someone he called friend? Not really ever. His relationships at school were never particularly close, and he lost Sabby because she died, and as far as Emma goes, she was completely familiar with everything related to his leaving New York and was as much, if not more, distressed as he was, but there was nothing either of them could do about it. This departure, though, this is a choice he made. A choice he made about the priorities of his life; not a choice he regrets, but a choice that does mean that he has to say good-bye. I don’t think he has often had to take responsibility for his actions in this way.
The strangely new behavior from him helps her put a lid on her humor, and Kelsey watches him carefully as he finally seats himself. The news takes a brief moment to process. "Ye mean...tae New York?"
Tipping his head back against her sofa so that he can watch her with a slight arch to his eyebrows, Percy tips his head once in her direction in a nod. "To New York," he says quietly. "To much of what we left behind and a few things we never had before."
They are leaving to go back to Bahir’s research, to their beautiful apartment, to their work for Emma and the Inner Circle. But part of moving in together was about embracing their domestic future, and X-Factor has done nothing to make that any cloudier. Percy is really looking forward to just … living his life, to each of them doing the work they love, with the person they love, in the city they love. It’s funny that New York has become so much of home. I mean, Bahir still has Bahrain, and Percy’s first location love was London. But there is no place like New York for him, and not just because it is the mutant capital of the world, either. Nothing like leaving a place to make you really appreciate how much it had grown on you.
“Like a canker sore,” says Percy in my head. “Fucking New York.”
"Oh." This requires some /real/ processing, Kelsey looking down to her lap, picking at her nails in gesture clearly just to fill dead air, bottom lip chewed lightly between her teeth.
Silence rarely lasts long with Percy around, and this one is no exception, despite all the weight that it could carry. He says, "His whole life, his whole career is ahead of him out there. Brilliant and bright with promise. He would stay, yet, if I asked it. He has such deep loyalties, such depth of ... of devotion. I've seen it. Beyond-- beyond..." He trails off, reaching for the indescribable with the outward stretch of his manicured fingers before he lets his digits fall loosely to his legs again. "It doesn't matter. I don't want to ask it. I'm not needed here either. Not /really/. So we're going home."
Both the al-Razi twins have - or had - this tremendous capacity for loyalty. Percy has seen it in action beyond denial, although in contexts that he would never reveal. For Bahir, he saw it with Shaw, in this dark spiral of ever increasingly bad and crazy behavior, Bahir held to respect, to loyalty, and to duty. For Adel, he saw it with Emma, and noted it in his journal as a reflection of the same he had seen in Bahir: “I am in awe, rather, of a man who felt his Queen's hands wrap round his neck while she tried to choke the life out of him and his every thought afterwards was truly how to help her.”
Percy does not think he is a slacker on the devotion front; I mean, he’s done some pretty incredibly difficult things (and stupid things) for love of Bahir, and for the Circle. He still has a metal bolt in his leg from one of them that Magneto used to use as a convenient Percy detection device. But love isn’t a pissing contest. He wouldn’t ask it of Bahir. He has no reason to. As much as he likes his new friend and the ability to use his languages and his training in a way that matters on a daily basis … the reason he wasn’t doing the latter before was because he felt so constrained by the wishes of a dead man and by the legacy his father left him. He is pretty beyond that. Oliver will handle the company, or not; perhaps Geotal’s controlling shares will pass into another family member’s hands, perhaps they will just hire a CEO to manage the business for them on an exorbitant salary since neither of them need the money that much. It doesn’t matter anymore. He understands his father better. Moreover, he understands himself better.
He can be a linguist in New York. He always could have been. He just never did. X-Factor jarred him loose from his old patterns, but there is no reason that returning to New York is /going backward/.
"Okay." There's a hint of a smile behind the word, seeing the clear display of love, but it's almost covered by quiet sadness. "I'll miss ye," Kelsey finally says, leaning her head against the back of the couch. "Even if ye are a right wanker an' I've only known ye a couple o' months."
Swallowing a moment, Percy reaches out to take one of her hands in his. He winds their fingers together into a warm clasp of his skin against hers, and tips his head to brush his lips and breath against the back of her hand. "I'm not sorry we didn't meet before, because there's no guarantee I would have given you a second thought," he says, smile pulling at his lips with a hint of an edge to the humor gleaming in his amber eyes. "But I am sorry to leave a nascent friendship of such tender growth. I make so very few, you know."
This is the most honest he ever is with her, I think. Word and deed. I am impressed that he is willing to let his guard down enough to do that. I am impressed with how much he has grown from the days when every touch was a huge deal and a calculation as to whether he was safe doing it. I am impressed with how much more comfortable he is in himself, in his interactions.
He probably wouldn’t have given her a second thought, really. I mean, the languages thing would have always drawn him, but if he didn’t know about it? SOME XAVIERITE. WHATEVER. He is so prejudiced against Xavier’s.
"Not mean enough tae catch your fancy?" Kelsey wonders, the humor an obvious front for the grief underneath. A soft smile widens as he brings her hand to his lips, the glittering on her eyelashes suggesting the threat of tears. "Maybe ye just need tae try a wee bit harder," she suggests, a mother sending her child off to their first day at school. Worried that he won't make friends. The hand in his squeezes.
"Well, yes, exactly." Percy turns his hand in hers, drawing his thumb along the curve of her palm. His mouth twists, reflecting a partial grimace. "But I don't expect to lose contact, madam. And if you are ever in New York, you can use our spare bedroom. We may even allow you to use the hot tub."
I love their fucking apartment. I love that they are running off to live bitchily ever after in this big glorious penthouse. PERCY IS NOT KIDDING ABOUT THE HOT TUB.
Kelsey scoots closer, stuffing toes comfortably between the warmth of his thighs and the sofa. "Ye'll be the first one I'll call if I'm headin' that way," she promises, setting her chin on her knees and brushing away a stray tear. IGNORE THAT. "An' I'll call all the time tae make sure ye get your proper dose of optimism."
"Oh," Percy says with a strangled laugh in his throat. "Good." He rubs his thumb and forefinger over the bridge of his nose. "I'll look forward to that."
"Hey. Ye'll need it in New York." The smile grows easier as she watches him, affection rich in her expression. "What'll /ye/ do there?"
His smile flashes, breath ghosting past his teeth in voiceless humor. He says, "Well, I'm surrounded by people with doctorates."
"Aye." Something like concern grows on her face. "But what'll /ye/ do?"
"So I'm going back to school to get one of my own," Percy says, cocking an eyebrow at her. "It's been awhile but I think I'll get the hang of it again. It will be a bit strange not sucking off anybody in the campus bathrooms--"
Percy was so rotten at school. I bet he will be a pain in the ass as a student, too. I don’t know what his doctoral thesis is going to be on, probably a comparative study with sociolinguistic elements from his master’s, but whatever it is, I bet Bahir will be very glad that their apartment is big enough where he can have the kitchen and Percy can have the library room.
But although Bahir is the impetus for their leaving, it is not only Bahir’s bright future that Percy sees on the eastern horizon. It is Bahir’s, and his own, and the blend of the two.
"Oh!" Her sudden comprehension is bright and very approving. "Maybe Bahir will visit ye on campus," Kelsey says, grin crooked. "Ye can pretend he's your student. Verra naughty." She curls up against him, hair damp on his shoulder when she sets her chin there. "So linguistics, I presume?"
"I used to visit him on campus." Percy brushes his knuckles thoughtfully along the line of his jaw, the twitch of his smile turning his mouth up at the corners. He ruffles his fingertips through her hair, then, instead, and tugs at his shirt with his other hand. "Actually I have some quite fond memories of doing that."
Skanky ones, even.
I do like how readily physical Percy is able to be with Kelsey. He did not always have that. In fact, he did not always have it with Sabitha. Bahir taught him a lot about physical communication, about being open enough to touch. Percy had a lot of issues with touch as an emotional component. His father was cold and reserved and sometimes downright mean. Everyone else in his family is ENGLISH. But physical affection, physical communication, is a powerful thing that he has really learned how to be comfortable with. I am glad. Because it is better.
"That's settled, then. He clearly must come and sex ye up during lunch." This is settled with a bright finality as Kelsey raises a hand to ruffle his hair in a distinctly unsexy way. "Well, at least Andrew'll be happy. He was less than enthused tae be goin' out with ye two."
"I'll tell him you said so," Percy says with perfect frankness. He bats at Kelsey's hand. "Yes, well. You have my permission to make him do something else as an adequate substitute for the experience. Maybe you can make him walk naked over hot coals. It's not /exactly/ comparable but it might be fun to watch."
Personally, I think Percy’s rumpled hair is ALWAYS sexy. But you know. Uh.
I think Percy’s joke is hilarious and apropos. Poor Andrew. That double date would have been so disastrous. Kelsey may be possessed of the opinion that Andrew could hold his own, but uh. I am pretty sure that between Bahir and Percy, they would have eaten him alive. Even if they weren’t trying to be that rotten. They are at their best and worst when they are out together with other people and their relationship is on display, as it were. Because they are both arrogant, bitchy men, and worse, they are both really, really smug about each other.
AND HOW NOT. I ASK YOU.
TOO LATE. His hair is already ruffled. Take that, perfectly designed appearance. "Ye assume I'm as horribly sadistic as ye are."
He's actually pretty casual at the moment. Percy crinkles his nose at her and manufactures an appalled tone. "You think I'm a /sadist/?"
Kelsey holds up a thumb and forefinger, offering an infinitesimal distance between them. "Just a touch. Sometimes. About some things."
Percy closes his eyes with a very slow smile. "Only to /other/ people's boyfriends," he says.
"How generous of ye. Restrictin' your sadism so much." Kelsey slips an arm around his waist, giving him an affectionate squeeze.
"Well, I might have overstated that restriction," Percy admits lowly, brows pulling down over his closed eyes. "A wee bit."
"I dinnae judge," she assures him, voice colored with sincerity.
Opening his eyes again, Percy slants a sidelong look at her, and says, gravely, "Thank you."
Kelsey hugs tighter, head resting on his shoulder as she lives in comfortable, blissful ignorance. "I would totally have shagged ye back in your slut days. No cheatin' needed on your part."
All modesty, Percy replies with a blithe, "I bet."
Yeah I’m pretty sure Percy can smell that. Kelsey does not really pose pheromonic meta much, but neither do a lot of other people; I tend to assume a lot rather than demand adjustments to every pose. Er. I can’t think of a time I’ve been horribly wrong when it has been embarrassing, so I think it mostly worked out, and now I don’t have to worry about it anymore.
Also? He's really vain.
And, in some natural progression in her head from slut to husband-in-all-but-name, Kelsey tells him, "It's good ye're doin' this for 'im. Not askin' him tae stay."
"It's not just for him," Percy says. He shifts in place, almost if not quite squirming in a minor fidget, and studies his fingernails. They are quite neat. "I never thought going back to school was a real, true option. I let my world be closed to a lot of possibilities, because of ... oh, a lot of things. I accepted constraints I built for myself out of ... possibly imaginary expectations. This ... this, perhaps it shook me loose." The broad sweep of his gesture indicates the breadth and length of Chemekata Base. "Broke the life I was living apart. Well," he adds, on a long intake of breath, "I'm taking the pieces back, now, and maybe making something of them. Something really mine."
YEAH THEY ARE PRACTICALLY MARRIED.
One of the things that is great about Kelsey/Percy is that Percy had someone to talk to about his emotional life, his relationship with Bahir, and such things, someone OTHER THAN OLIVER. It is frustrating when your character does not share things with anybody and the only person you can go to to deal with things is your own NPC. I enjoy writing scenelets with Percy and Oliver, but at some point, I can’t just play out everything by myself, you know? We’re not playing this game for public masturbation. With another PC, there can be an actual give and take. Percy talks to Kelsey about Andrew. Admittedly he is kind of a jerk about him a lot - although I think he does try to balance being supportive and helpful to Kelsey about her issues with relationships /with/ his low opinion of the boyfriend in particular, and it doesn’t always WORK but at least he tries, right?
I like what he says there. It is for Bahir, and about Bahir, but not whole and entire. Part of the thing that is really his is their relationship, but part of it is also the fact that he will not be a confined to the corporate world anymore, that he will not be living out William Talhurst’s legacy in such a concrete and immobile way. I think that if I was going to scenelet this and really finish off the whole Geotal arc, Percy would go visit Oliver at Geotal after hours and pick up the ashtray from the desk in the office that William used to sit at. That ashtray hasn’t moved since William died. It would be nicely symbolic, and Percy would smile a little, toss it in the air and catch it, and then walk out with it.
Kelsey leans back a touch, giving him room to properly fidget and express himself. When he finally finishes, there's a faint smile on her lips that might almost be described as proud. "I'm happy for ye."
Looking a trifle awkward, Percy scratches his thumbnail along the side of his nose. He says, "Well," and breathes out in a snort. "Right."
The smile spreads with his awkwardness, and Kelsey touches a finger to his nose. "Ye're really out o' practice with the friendship thing."
Yeah, kinda. His major friendships have been Emma, Sabitha, and, well, Bahir and Oliver. Bahir … nuff said. Oliver is his brother and stuck with him. Although their lines of communication are pretty awesome right now, and they are better friends than they have ever been - still. Oliver is stuck with him. There’s very little of the pressures of potential rejection. Their relationship is fraternal and loving and bantery and obnoxious. I love it. But it’s not exactly the same as being friends.
And … while he did believe Sabitha when she said she was happy for him, when she was glad that he had found something that made him happy, she died so soon after that, and so much of the last few months of their relationship were so … well, difficult. Their friendship never completely recovered from his going to Black and lying to her about it. And the struggle of juggling Sabitha and Bahir was not easy on any of the three of them. There was plenty of hurt to go around. It was a hard time.
And Emma just doesn’t say things like that. You know. They don’t come out and say what their feelings are. That would be … cheating. Or something.
"I like to think I do it right where it counts," Percy tells her loftily, and scrunches his nose. Less loftily.
I like to think he does, too. He’s not a perfect friend by any means - or a perfect boyfriend - but … he does okay. He has learned to do okay.
"I think ye do, too," Kelsey agrees, dropping her hands obligingly. "Except maybe with the whole friend's-boyfriends part." But the easy grin on her face doesn't suggest any serious malice. At the moment.
"If my friends had better /taste/," sneers Percy, true to type.
"If ye tried to /know/ the boyfriends before making judgments," Kelsey counters in classic Kelsey fashion.
I like that exchange a lot. She’s going to keep poking at him for not liking Andrew, he’s going to keep insisting she has bad taste. And on and on.
"Please," comes the dismissive reply. "As though my snap judgments are ever incorrect." He scratches behind his ear. Then, sitting up as though preparing to stand, Percy says, "I do wish you luck with him, Kelsey. With him and with everything. And I will miss you."
Kelsey hugs tight for a moment, as if unprepared for him to leave. But then she loosens her arms, sitting up straighter in anticipation of his departure. "Thanks, sassenach. It means a lot comin' from ye."
"And well it should," Percy murmurs. He draws away from her and rises, drawing another long breath through his nose. "We'll still be around for a few days more, you know. But."
"Careful gettin' through the door. Dinnae want ye tae scratch my paint with your ego." Kelsey grins, standing up after him, her hands slipping into fuzzy pockets. "Aye. I get it."
"Your paint will surely recover." Percy tips an imaginary hat to her, and then turns on his heel to move for the door on steps that drag, a little. "Good night for now, my dear."
"I'll bill ye." Kelsey brushes a damp lock of hair behind one ear, stepping close to the door as he heads for it. "Aye. I'll see ye around." For now.
Reaching the door, Percy tips a crooked smile over his shoulder, but he doesn't say anything else; he sketches a little bow, and then opens the door and slips out of it. As exits go, he supposes it will do.
LOOK YOU GUYS. SOMETIMES, I CAN SORT OF CLOSE. The close really works for me. Mostly just the last line. As exits go, he supposes it will do. It hits just the right note for me, in my head. Percy’s sense of the theatrical does not always comport with real life. He is fairly resigned to this. In this case … it will do.
Well. Anyway. I guess that’s it.
Good-bye, old boy. We had some good times. We really did.