PART TWO.

Although Percy's counter slows the shove toward the wall, Bahir shifts his stance and drops his hands to frame Percy's hips; he lunges forward, so that they both hit the wall hard, mid-kiss, in a move that causes him to break from it with blood slowly welling from the split once again. He touches the cut lightly with the tip of his tongue, drawing in a breath with a hiss, even as he continues conversation in a manner that is not so easy to shut up: << It isn't because I don't care for you. It isn't because I don't love you. It has everything to do with /this/. >> His thumbs bite in a hard grip at Percy's hipbones.

Percy's is a mind well-used to telepathic conversation, over the course of his life. His mental organization as a communicator ordinarily facilitates this. Right now, though, distraction hums in the pulse of blood, in the mingling of lust and rage that has set his senses all afire and threatens to snap his narrow grasp on his control. The force of their impact with the wall is not all that leaves him breathless. He chases Bahir's mouth, blowing cooler breath over the sting of saliva and blood to play at the sensitivity of bruised and split lips. << This. >> The hard scrape of his knuckles down from Bahir's shoulder, over his chest, ends with the hook of his fingers down the front of his pants, nimble fingers questing for heat and skin.

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Uh.

I don't actually have a lot to say about this pair of poses besides that I think that we are pretty hot.

Sometimes I get self-conscious when I am writing stuff like ... this ... for a variety of reasons. I am pretty comfortable with Bahir's player after ... uh, you know, the last three, four years or so, but sometimes -- intimidatingly sexier than me. I think this is the point when we were playing where I stopped to cackle and clap my hands and go 'Gosh.' I like when people are slammed into walls with the force of momentum, OK?

I liked the 'senses afire' thing even though it is maybe not the most creative phrasing ever. It really seemed to fit.

The telepathic version of the audible, "--ngh," comes in a scattered loss of focus, with tight-beamed words lost to a broad, diffuse tide of lust. Pulse a rapid flutter at his throat, he works to swallow and catch breath enough to regather himself to speak. He clings to the last shreds of anger, wrapping his words in them to fling them at Percy with sharp edges made a weapon to strike at pride: "This," he says, biting Percy's lower lip, nosing along his jaw with breath hot as he seeks his ear. "Yes, this. That. All of it. I'd rather have you than anyone -- but you can't give me what I want. All that /practice/," he says, word hissing off with a snap of teeth as his jaw sets. "All those people you've fucked." He falters then, flustered and a little sheepish as he loses momentum and finishes in a rushed mumble: "AndIcan'tgetwhatIwantfromyou."

"You can't, can you?" Pride and shame together make a fine cocktail, the ambiguity between striking fresh fire to the coals of Percy's anger. Twisting his fingers into Bahir's hair, Percy pulls back at his head, angling his own to bite down hard on Bahir's earlobe. "This," he whispers over the sharper throb of pain. The scrape of nails down below is light, a long slide of touch that, at the end, becomes a fuller grasp.

Seriously, hot. I may get repetitive here, but man.

This, the other issue between them that led Bahir to want to stray: the sexual issue, one that was for Percy difficult to grasp. Bahir doesn't just want to have sex, he wants to fuck, with all the fierceness of the fricative that that implies. Percy's sexual past is all tied up with shame, and the sting to his pride works well to keep him fired. Not shame to do with sex so much as all the ... you know, date-rape. If you want to be technical about it, I think Percy began as as much a victim as anyone he was fucking, but whether rapist or victim, that shame is pretty indelibly twisted up inside. He's had therapy for this, but the thing is -- and more on this later -- Percy's relationship with his sexuality is tied up with his relationship with his mutation, and his relationship with his mutation is highly complex and sometimes full of hate.

Bahir loses the spoken in addition to the telepathic this time, reduced to simpler noises: a gasp sucked past the light bite of white teeth against his lips, a noise that breaks in his throat somewhere between groan and moan but definitely a kind of --oan before rising higher in a whine. Lust scatters the last of rage, arousal pulled through the same heartbeat that throbs with pain; pheromones spill into the air, heady with adrenalin and endorphins. Words flutter at Percy's mind -- not in crisply defined forms that sound out in an even mental voice, but in the primitive concepts and forms behind the words, behind all language, the archetypal meanings at the base of each concepts. << This. Yes. Please. >>

Percy still has language, and even still has the edge of rage, fired and fueled and flavored with lust: it burns in him low and continual, and fuels the snarl of his voice, rasped in Bahir's ear. "You're going to come so hard you'll fucking see /stars/." He pulls Bahir's head back again, kisses him with fierceness, dealing more fresh pain in the tug of teeth. The path his hand tracks is one of extreme familiarity. He alternates speeds with no discernable pattern, drawing out heat with dizzying inconsistency and one or two hard driven spikes of chemical assistance.

A note here. In addition to finding this whole sequence hot! I thought Percy's dialogue here was pretty hilarious and I laughed over it, and then Bahir pointed out to me that it is actually a riff on a line of dialogue from a piece of fanfiction in Yuletide. It is Vorkosigan fandom and slash and it is about Byerly and Ivan and it is pretty hilarious and awesome, and apparently I thought this line of dialogue was so awesome that I internalized it and warped it to my own purposes. Here is a link to the fic in question: http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/24/thelong.html I don't read fanfiction that often anymore, but this fic I keep stored to reread occasionally when I am in the right mood for fangirlish flail and there's just not enough real Byerly Vorrutyer and Ivan Vorpatril in the world of fiction.

Right. Where was I. Oh yes! More with the hotness, and also the vocabulary of sound. Percy gets very assertive here, maybe even to the point where if I had a PB I would look for an icon of him covered in leaves. It is all about making Bahir respond. If what Bahir wants is better sex, and he is claiming that Percy can't give it to him, well, by golly, Percy will put a stop to that in a hurry. Percy also gets a real charge out of making Bahir respond like this. It is hot. The point where he is robbed of words and can only communicate in vague concepts because he is so wound up in the physical? Yeah. Percy is a very word-oriented person, and this is essentially what he thinks of in terms of 'take breath away'.

Percy's response, which is the best line of sex dialogue ever by the way, BEST EVER, is basically still a reply to 'I can't get what I want from you.' This whole hand job is basically Percy going OH YEAH?

Also, I wrote the whole thing without using any actual penis words. I don't know why. I didn't even realize that I had done it until afterwards. I am not afraid of penis words. COCK COCK COCK SHAFT PENIS DICK COCK. (Cock is still my favorite sex word. I don't have a female genitalia word I like. They are all gross in a variety of ways. This is sexist like our language is sexist. And dick is a stupid word! Stupid!)

There are probably cameras in this hall, all things considered: secret training facility for the Inner Circle, owned and operated by the former Black Rook, with all kinds of weaponry, legal and illegal both, stashed away in back rooms. Hopefully, someone enjoys the show. Bahir is a squirmy armful -- handful? -- as Percy denies easy release in variation, wriggling against him. Hunger in each kiss, he clings to a stubborn silence broken only by harsh, uneven breath. He will not whimper or whine, encourage or plead! He will squirm!

A note on exhibitionism.

Bahir and Percy appear to be willing to have sex just about anywhere. They are not overly concerned about /cameras/ -- the idea of being caught on camera is more or less irrelevant to their lives, largely because so much of what both of them do is consistently caught on camera. (There are exceptions to this, but.) Percy has no secrets to hide from the people who will see this video (except a few highly personal ones). His sexuality hasn't been a secret in years. Really. There is a thrill to, not being seen, but the risk of getting caught in the act, which has led them to sexual escapades in all sorts of places. Obviously, it is an /unspoken/ thing. I don't think that they have ever talked about it. (I think that at one point they /didn't/ have sex in a restaurant bathroom because it would have been unhygienic, but that is as close as I can recall them coming to actualy /talking/ about this.) Much of their sex life is not discussed so much as embarked upon, which I think actually has been part of the problem and has resulted in their not getting nearly as kinky as they could. I think that the appeal of the risk is more an enticement for Bahir than it is for Percy, though -- I think Percy just has no physical shame in his own body. (What other people do that he can scent is sometimes gross, but his /own/ body...!) Pigwit told Sabby a story of Percival stark naked on stage in the middle of the night belting out Cabaret under a spotlight, and this is reckless abandon as regards propriety has not entirely left him. He has vaguely contemplated turning up at the Hallowe'en ball naked except for, possibly, some paint, but he thinks it might piss people off and also be impossible to out-outrageous next year. Hallowe'en is traditionally the Black Court's holiday, so I suspect this Hallowe'en will be a little bit weird.

Percy drives him harder, higher. Fanning the flames with breath and heat, blazing invisibly high and absurdly hot -- stoking them with kiss and bite as he pushes him to the verge and keeps him there. Percy's arousal a low, banked fire, fed on the burn of need in the air, Bahir's hunger and squirm and wriggle, the feel of him in his hand. With a slow smile against Bahir's lips, a little feral and wild around the edges in the low-lashed glitter of his eyes, he says, "Say my name."

This is an assertion of control. It is also a demand for recognition. He is making Bahir respond, but he is also making Bahir respond to him specifically. This is what you are getting FROM ME bitch. I thought it was pretty hot. I am not entirely sure if I successfully put the hotness that was in my head into action in the pose that I wrote. It is an okay pose. I was going for more than okay. It is pretty rare that I have a mental image, and I did, and sometimes when I have mental images I get excited and lose some of my ability to actually share them. Sad but true.

Dusky skin hot with the flush of blood, slick with the sheen of sweat, Bahir writhes against Percy. His lips form the first syllable of his name, a shape which puffs into the breath of a short laugh, hardly given voice. Eyes winch shut, head tipped up to bare the column of his throat as he swallows back a groan. Limiting it to a harshly grunted snort, Bahir catches his breath, gulping overheated air. His head drops, eyes opening black in held gaze as he strikes forward in the seal of a kiss. His lips move over Percy's, tracing the shape of his name: twice without voice, once in a whisper, and then again in somewhat whiny demand, syllables hissing. "Percy. Please. Percy." At least he knows who he is!

There is only a heartbeat's pause longer before Percy pulls him over the edge, the renewed fluidity of his touch augmented by the strength of his power: time for a breath to hiss past the slight curve of his lips, and that's all.

Bahir just maybe sees stars. A strangled whimper shatters into a breathless cry, falling past parted lips. His head tips back, dark lashes fluttering over his eyes. Weakened stance failing due to suddenly rubbery legs, he clutches Percy's neck with one hand, the other braced against the wall. After a little while, he breathes again, at which point he seeks Percy's lips again in a kiss. He rubs up against him like a happily wanton cat, flushed with well-being.

This is just hot. Okay? Seriously. Damn. It is hard to make a name like Percy sexy, you know? And yet.

Also, I have said it before, but I love playing with Bahir's player. Picking up on what we've done before and riffing on it. YAY.

Bahir is often catlike in many ways. This is part of the reason why Percy gave him a cat. Actually most of the reason Percy gave him a cat is that Percy is a dork and I thought it was hilaaaarious. Honestly it is a little bit stupid to give people pets. What if they aren't in a position to handle a pet! Anyone who gives ME a pet gets a smack in the face, largely because there are so many freaking animals in my house. Also, BAHRAINI CAT.

Stance wide, Percy's weight is settled enough to bear the slackness, especially with that helpful wall just there. Tangling the fingers of his free hand in Bahir's hair, he gives him a little pinch below at the inside of his thigh, the breath of a dry laugh caught and abandoned in the extended tangling of a slower kiss. All in all, he is a bit self-satisfied, really. If the close press of their bodies makes little secret of the slow burn of his own lust, still unslaked.

Curse traced on Percy's mouth in response to the pinch, Bahir smiles into their kiss. He draws away, hip nudging the tell-tale bulge of Percy's erection as his hand falls from his neck to begin fiddling with the buttons of his shirt. "I suppose you expect me to do something about that," he teases, obnoxiously even in post-orgasmic state.

I have spoken before in the course of this commentary about how Percy likes certain flavors of Bahir's obnoxiousness. It is lucky for them both that he does, I imagine. But while Bahir is being smug, Percy is being smug, too. He may not have gotten laid yet, but he sure feels like he has won. Percy proves that he can give it good, so he wins. Bahir comes so hard he maybe sees stars, so he wins, too! Everybody wins! Except Sal. She doesn't win. Poor Sal.

Well, I guess she might win a /little/, in that she gets some security tape porn to watch. Uhhh.

I actually think this is not the first time that Bahir has said that in a similar context. And I think on the previous occasion, he ALSO ended up jerking Percy off in a shower. COINCIDENCE?!

The contrast between now and the fight they were having before is pretty remarkable. Imagine the difference an orgasm makes! I think that the turn of Percy's mood was a little slower; at this point, I think that his cranky had cooled, but he hadn't quite followed Bahir through the transition yet. He had been pretty pissed before. He certainly feels he's /won/, and it's not as though he would have wanted to hold onto the bad mood with Bahir all rubbing up against him and draping all :), but coming down from that much tension is something of a shift, and it does take him a minute! The dryness as it evaporates is a little reserved. I don't know that I expressed this that well, but Bahir is very helpful about warming him up anyway!

Lashes falling low over the glint in his eyes, Percy's mouth twitches at one corner, reflecting about half a smile. "/Do/ you suppose?" he returns lightly. "--Shit," he adds, with a groan's edge buried in the word. "I'm really not going to come in my brother's pants."

Yeah, somehow /that/ is the point at which he goes 'Uh no.' Funnily enough, I've seen Bahir borrow Adel's leather pants to go dancing in, and I could speculate--!

Horror marginally sobers Bahir as he glances down. He bites his lower lip, but that does nothing to stop the break of a grin. He is not so sheepish as his tone pretends to: "Already a little ruined," he singsongs. "Locker room? Your pl--. Oh." Wait. Right. That was stupid! He grimaces an apology, kiss light at the corner of Percy's mouth.

Percy laughs outright, nosing along Bahir's cheek to tongue lightly at his ear. "The showers," he says, low and dark with the barest edge of play. "Clean us both up, and Harper won't even smell it in the morning."

Bahir is totally an insensitive jerk! Percy thinks that's hilarious, and it dissolves any bad mood that might remain. This is possibly a sign that he is /weird/, although I think that his weird reactions to things that could possibly be upsetting or insulting is one of the reasons why they got along well at the beginning of their relationship, and it is not a characteristic of his that has entirely evaporated.

I like nosing. I think it is cute regardless of which of them is doing it. I possibly am strange.

Incidentally, SPEAKING of insensitive jerks, in my head while we were playing this scene Percy wanted to suggest, instead of the showers, that they go and have sex on Sal Harper's desk with the full knowledge that she would smell them all over it when she came in in the morning. I thought that while that would be funny it would be a little too horrible of him considering what he did to Sal earlier in the scene and nudged him until he was essentially saying the opposite. It's not just that it would be rude. COME ON have some class, Percy, be a GRACIOUS winner and not an asshole. As sometimes happen when I nudge, he still regrets not making the suggestion JUST A LITTLE BIT. It is not like I was twisting him so much, he could have gone either way, but IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FUNNIER TO BE BAD.

On the other hand, shower sex involves being slick and wet and hot and naked, whereas desk sex involves being somewhat uncomfortable and doesn't generally involve complete levels of nudity so wouldn't have solved the issue of his currently wearing Oliver's clothing. Really, I was right and he was wrong.

"Showers." Repeating Percy's words with a determined firmness, Bahir wastes another moment in a long kiss as he reaches to take Percy's hands and lace their fingers together. With a sweet, slow languorousness, he lingers, prolonging the moment -- only to break it quite suddenly and begin to pull Percy down the hall. Showers!

The shower curtains in the co-ed shower would be insufficient privacy considering what Percy and Bahir get up to during their shower. Happily, no one else is around at the moment! In the pleasant haze of the immediate aftermath, Percy turns off the shower and towels himself with haphazard inattention. Heat and steam and sweat and sex have drained stresses and tension from his body, and it is with a smug flavor of languor that he drapes his arms around Bahir's middle in a loose embrace from behind.

The sex that we did on camera was important to characterization and their relationship, but the sex afterwards -- while I am sure it was very nice -- would probably have been overkill. Also it was late! And so, we fast forward.

Wet hair tied back from his face, Bahir wears a towel as manliest of skirts. He leans back against Percy, right arm lifting to circle behind in half-embrace. He ruffles the short strands of hair at the nape of Percy's neck, and turns his head to press a kiss to cheek and temple. Wordless affection expresses itself in the language of both body and mind; telepathy brushes a caress over Percy's thoughts, tinging the affection with happy fatigue following the release of all the evening's many tensions. He hums a happy, sighing sort of sound.

Percy closes his eyes in a slow blink, resting his chin lightly against Bahir's shoulder and drawing in a long, slow breath of the scents and not-scents of his skin. "Hmmm," he agrees, as long lashes lift over his eyes again. The loose clasp of his arms tightens in a marginal squeeze.

The release of tension and the quiet warmth of the aftermath -- afterglow? aftermath? -- is nice. I really like the image of them like this. I would say that some of the most relaxed and contented that they have ever been in the course of their relationship has come with poses like this one. The first time I can think of was actually in Bahir's kitchen, kitchens being the other mainstay of Percy/Bahir. The naked (as now!) is not required but it is a nice bonus. The towel skirt made me laugh, partly because I had thought about putting Percy in a towel skirt and then discarded the idea for whatever reason. And then Bahir was in a towel skirt! Manlee!

Arm falling, Bahir twists in Percy's embrace to face him. He studies his features a moment, and then pulls away with his hand dropping to lace their fingers together. He draws him over toward benches near lockers, and there sits with a tug to indicate Percy ought to do likewise. His expression is moderately sober, but brightened by the split-lip smile. The harsh light highlights a variety of other bruises and contusions. That which is usually covered by clothing shows far more bruises than the rest, but Bahir seems perfectly happy that way. Weirdo. "Uhm. I wanted to -- uh, thank you. I guess. For -- you know."

Brushing his thumb along the curve of Bahir's palm as he sits beside him, Percy frowns slightly, glancing down at the plant of his feet on the locker room floor. His towel is a loose drape over one shoulder, the rest of his nudity unbroken. His fair skin bears little sign of bruising, although he might get one or two from that wall, you never know! "You're welcome, I suppose." He exhales in part of a voiceless laugh, shaking his head slightly as he looks back up at Bahir's face. "Pretty intense," he says after a moment more.

He probably DID get some bruising from that wall. But that is the sort of well-earned bruising that is a worthy price for what came with it!

Intense is right -- in the fight/sex that they had in the Hellfire gym that immediately led to their getting back together, Bahir accused Percy of lacking sufficient passion, and Percy didn't /really/ understand what he meant. I made the analogy to the song from My Fair Lady "Show Me" -- link here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWtjLCvNelg -- wherein Eliza basically explodes at Freddie because he is all talktalktalk and no action, and it's basically that. While Percy still hates that analogize him to Freddie Einsford-Hill, it is pretty appropriate to the issue! Anyway, Percy understood what he meant about words versus action, uhm, or at least understood it /eventually/ ... but as to its being a sexual issue between them, where there was something specifically wrong with the sex part of their relationship that was what was leading Bahir to want to go elsewhere, that he didn't ... get.

But what he did to Bahir in the hallway, and the emotion and physicality that was perforce wound up in that, was indeed pretty intense. As far as the measure of passion, he recognizes that it was pretty unusual in terms of the sex that they have had. When they first started having sex, a combination of the honeymoonish newness in their relationship and absolutely insane levels of unresolved sexual tension between them made for a pretty intense experience, and there were a couple of other times throughout the course of their sexual history that I think they were pretty -- for lack of a better word -- /hot/. But for the most part, without some other tension or some other influence riling them up, it was fairly relaxed, mellow. Comfortable. Sure, very pleasant, especially before things started taking turns for the /worse/ between them, but not exactly fireworks to the degree of, like, this.

It is a little bit weird to be having this conversation in, like, the locker room. Isn't that weird? I mean, both Bahir and Percy have sporting backgrounds -- Bahir swimming, Percy fencing -- so it's not like locker rooms are foreign territory to either of them even without the advent of self-defense training etc., but ... locker room. Weird.

Smile slight and sharp, Bahir says, "I like intense." His eyebrows arch, mildness of the challenge in his teasing tone betrayed by uncertain tension around his eyes: "Too much for you?"

For answer, Percy leans in to bite him, teeth scraping lightly over his shoulder. "No," he says, breath warm against his skin. With the barest twitch of a smile as he looks up at him, he adds, "But if it's what you've been looking for, I can see why you were so frustrated."

Bahir smiles a little like a dork, with a hesitation to the curve of his lips and aversion to his gaze. "Well." He turns their hands, releasing Percy's to hold it between his with fingers spread in comparison. "I meant what I said. I'd rather have you. Always, you. But I was never good at saying what I wanted. And you, after all, are not the mind-reader." That would be him. Duh. "Do you think--." His fingers curl over Percy's hand. "Do you think you can, you know. Be more -- not all the time, I mean, it's just that sometimes, er. And."

"I think I can," Percy says, with quiet certainty as he turns his hand, squeezing Bahir's. "I mean. Yes. It's not the easiest thing for me to do, obviously but." He exhales in a partial snort, and rubs at an eye with one thumb, catching his lower lip in the teeth of a smile. "For you, if it's what you want, I can do it." His eyes gleam with humor as he lifts them to catch Bahir's gaze. "You would think as obnoxious as you can be it wouldn't be /that/ hard to be pissed off at you."

Bahir is cute. And trying to talk about stuff! Even though it is difficult and awkward.

In his relationship with Bahir, Percy was new to a lot -- but Bahir was new to pretty much everything. Percy took a lot of delight in seeing the parts that aren't new to him be new to Bahir. There are ways in which shyness, awkwardness and other virgin behaviors are cute (especially when you are obnoxious, besotted, and obnoxiously besotted). Finding dorkiness to be attractive is probably a symptom of some kind. There are also ways in which they are problematic; like, not being able to talk about what you want can make getting what you want kind of frustrating.

The reason that for Percy, intensity defaults to anger ... it's not just that he is teasing Bahir for being a brat (although yes he is certainly doing that). It is also because that is the hardest for him. The most difficult, because the one he is the most afraid of. That's also why it is the one that he is tackling head on with Beckah in the aftermath of this scene and the decision he makes in it -- /because/ it is the one he most fears, it is the one he most needs to master. If he reaches a point where he no longer needs to feel guarded, where he no longer has that constant niggling worry about overloading, where what he feels doesn't need to be balanced against a counterweight of what might happen if he goes too far ... he knows that he will be a different person than he is now. He isn't sure what that person will be like exactly. Actually, I am not sure either -- and whether he can do it or not is something that I'm going to have to see through his development. But the attempt is ... big, as far as personal growth goes. Bigger than any change he has made in ... well, a while. When he was friends with Sabitha and there were difficulties between them over his tendency to deaden his emotions, and when he was first starting out with Bahir and becoming acquainted with this idea of trust and emotional honesty /in/ his relationship with Sabitha, he started to avoid dampening himself, he started to allow more from himself. But at some point, he did reach the point of approximating normalcy, and keeping on some level conscious track of his power expenditure and the possibility of a loop while still acting mostly like a human being. The place he was always the most stunted emotionally, though, the most likely to retreat into old patterns and cowardice -- was in the region of his temper.

We will see where he goes now!

Bahir shoves at Percy's leg, scowling at him without real offense. "You don't have to be pissed. That's not a necessary part -- I hope." The scowl fades, lapsing into a fainter frown as he holds Percy's gaze. "You say it isn't easy, but I don't want you to ... I don't know, to /pretend/. We talked about that before. About how the honesty was so important. And that is. I don't want you /faking/ it, but I like--." He breaks off, hands falling loose to his lap and opening, palms-up. "It's what you said, the intensity. I like knowing that I can make you feel so strongly, so sharply. I like that passion in you, that fire." He leans forward, smile slight and almost shy as he brushes a kiss on Percy's jaw toward his mouth. "It's hot. But if it isn't real, I don't want it."

"I wasn't faking /tonight/," Percy says with a low laugh roughing his voice towards a growl. He tips his head, pressing a kiss to the corner of Bahir's mouth. "It isn't as simple as pretense or ... or not. When I was still young and new at this, I lost control. Not just with sex. With everything. I felt everything strongly. Everything was magnified, reflected back off whatever everyone else in my vicinity -- it was like a drug, like a rush, and inevitably, like a drug--!" He wiggles his fingers. "I trained myself not to. But I was never jealous. No one was ever /mine/ the way you are. I never learned to stopper that. But it's ... it's a learned behavior."

This is true, and as honest as I think he has ever been about why this is difficult for him. The jealousy thing was new to him in terms of, not the rage because he knows what that feels like, but its onset; its triggering mechanism, so to speak. Percy recognizes what Bahir is saying about making him feel strongly, because it is akin to the pleasure he takes in deriving powerful reactions from Bahir. But there is not any question in his mind as to whether it's real. It is not as simple, for Percy, for emotion to be real or not real. Perhaps it is artificial if he creates it out of nothing and gives it to himself -- but is it real if it sparks off something, and then bounces off something else, and comes back to him and he rides it higher, and reacts more strongly, and onward and so forth and so on? It certainly /feels/ real. Is what he feels less real if he leashes his mutation partway up the spiral? Is it more real if he lets himself lose control and go berserk? Should all sex he has with Bahir leave him unconscious and pheromonically hung over? That would obviously be extreme. But where do you draw the line? What Percy recognizes from this conversation is that he draws the line too soon out of fear: fear out of what happens if he doesn't. And that fear is essentially crippling him. It is damaging his relationship with Bahir but more than that; it is rendering him a victim of his mutation all over again, in a whole new way. Where most mutants learn to control their mutations, Percy hasn't. Percy's mutation essentially took over his life a long time ago. Everyone's powers shape them to a degree, but Percy's go far beyond what most people's powers do to their lives, for the simple reason that they affect him at the core of his being, his interactions with other people and his relatonship with his own feelings.

It is a learned behavior, he says, and that's true. It's a defense mechanism. He trained himself not to! When he first manifested, he went into a berserker rage on a tennis court at Eton, and ended up hospitalizing his opponent and essentially causing a minor riot in addition to ending up passed out and in the infirmary and then having the worst headache and the worst confusion ever. It wasn't the only time he lost control in an anger-based situation, but one of the only times. Where he took charge of his mutation's rapey tendencies after the accidental orgy he had in the locker room (also at Eton) by running around learning relatively fine control, mastering his sex drive and having sex with most of the planet that would hold still for it -- he did not take charge of the ragey tendencies. They frightened him. They hurt people, physically, and made him dangerous, not just as a sexual predator -- which to a degree as a young man he just laughed off, until he got older and the consequences of his actions started to catch up with him and his newly sprouted morality -- but as a sort of walking emotional bomb. He did not learn to control them. He learned how to tamp down on anger whenever it occurred, instead. He learned to avoid. AVOID AVOID. And therefore ended up essentially emotionally disabling himself in a lot of ways.

He can see why his levels of jealousy would be hot. He can see why the fire that his fit of possessiveness inspired would be attractive!

"Learn to unlearn." Suggestion made with faint humor, Bahir leans forward to brace his arm on the bench past Percy, shrugging up next to him. "I did. I spent years all but terrified of what I felt, and could feel. I like this way better. If you're willing to try, I'm willing to give you a chance. You, and only you. If I'm wrong, if I can get what I want in the bedroom--" Or hallway. Or locker room showers. Or back porch. Or kitchen. Or another hallway. Or a guest room. Or.... "--from you, then I don't need anyone else."

Shifting in his position on the bench to lean into and against Bahir, Percy draws another long breath, drawing the quiet strength of certainty from what he finds in their mingled scents. "I will try," he says, and his smile, as it returns, is a little crooked. "Only you have to find ways of letting me know when you're not getting what you want. I mean ... earlier in the frustration process."

So he will try. Will he ever try!

Bahir's example is a good one. Bahir more than most people can understand the lessons that Percy needs to try and teach himself. And it is good advice, living without that terror, even without the added bonus that the sex is hotter!

Bahir gives a quiet snort, his other arm slipping around Percy's waist in a loose embrace. "I know," he says, head turning as he noses at Percy's neck with lazy ambition. "Only fair." He grins as lashes fall over his eyes, fatigue making him punchy. "Could have a codeword. I say, 'Pie,' and it means you are doing something wrong."

"What if it just means that you're hungry?" Percy closes his eyes, exhaling in a low snort as he winds an arm around Bahir's waist in turn. "Or talking about math?"

"Then we are in trouble." Bahir leans against Percy in silence following that, relaxing in slow, slight measures the longer he remains in wrapped drape.

"I think that's a dumb codeword," Percy murmurs. He tips his head, nuzzling at Bahir's neck without opening his eyes. "The trouble with having sex in semi-public places is that there's a lack of convenient beds afterwards."

This is silliness. While there are ways that Percy and Bahir aren't necessarily the greatest for each other, among the ways that they ARE compatible, aside from their tendency to be absolutely horrific to restaurant waitstaff, is their shared completely retarded sense of humor. Especially when they in that sleepy stage of stupid following the release of some serious tension. They also both have very good memories for dumb things each other say at times like these -- not always, but you never know when an old joke is going to turn back up, like being invited to the prom, or buying a boat and finding someone to sail it, or that time Percy thought it would be hilarious to buy Bahir some skis for Christmas. Uhm. Right.

Bahir sniggers out of proportion to the actual humor in Percy's first statement. He nips at his shoulder and then peels away, wincing at the many twinges that wake for his attention now that he's coming down from his adrenaline high. "I was going to take the subway, but I think I'll get a cab. Do you want to--?" He tips his head, invitation trailing off.

"Yeah," Percy says. He shifts, stretching out to lace his hands together before him with the arch of his back, and then rises, moving in a slow unfolding of limbs. "Someday I will find a new apartment. Where are those pants..."

SOMEDAY, Percy will find a new apartment. Someday, he may even refloat the idea of him and Bahir finding an apartment together! For now, though, he will live in hotels, in the Hellfire Club, and occasionally crash at Bahir's place where he can have sex, cuddle, and probably be woken up by a cat.

WHOO. This commentary was quite long!