Chapter 15 #2
And yet as he made to turn away, when Percival strode forward and bent his head intently toward Roy, Roy neither recoiled nor froze.
He leaned in, tilting his head back and baring his throat.
Percival closed his fingers around Roy’s neck, his eyes darting between the wall, slick with its invisible coating, and Roy.
Roy hooked his foot around Percival’s leg and pulled.
Percival lurched forward, his hand still around Roy’s throat, pinning Roy to the wall behind him.
The greasy, sap-like substance coated his hair and drenched the back of his coat and trousers.
For a long while, in a deep silence, Roy hung his head and squeezed his eyes shut in discomfort at the alien, unsettling consistency of the sludge, his jaw clenched so tight that it felt permanently locked in place.
He was about to scratch his arms to distract himself from his distress, but then he looked at Percival, and while Roy’s unease did not fade away, it was at least temporarily forgotten.
Percival watched him with incendiary fervor.
Roy met that searing look with a half-hearted glower.
It was a light blow—he was drawing in Percival’s breath with each of his own—but Roy refused to lay down his only weapon: denial.
Roy swallowed, his heart tremoring, a sheen of sweat gathering on his forehead.
At some point, he thought his vision was swaying.
But it was the candlelight, distorting the outlines of Percival’s face.
Percival stood uncannily still. Two droplets of sweat coalesced upon his left temple, then streaked down his cheek and splashed onto the gravel.
They both started at the small sound, and as they jolted forward out of instinct, their lips brushed.
Percival tightened his grip, just a fraction, but Roy strengthened his resolve.
Yes, your resolve, he chastised himself. Your resolve not to kiss the bastard right on the mouth.
But if this was a battle, then it would be executed as such: meeting a jab with a punch, a punch with a bloody wound.
Percival brought the candle closer to his own face, exposing the blush staining his fair complexion. The shadowed hollows above his clavicle peeked through the collar of his tunic, the laces half-done. Blond dots of day-old stubble were speckled across his jaw and the lower half of his cheeks.
The scent of musk and pine filled Roy’s nostrils, overwhelming him with a baser need from which he had to tear his gaze.
He was about to do exactly that when a voice entered his mind.
Oh, please, you’ve been slavering for my attention since you caught me in that reading room.
That was the look in your eyes, wasn’t it?
“That’s quite enough,” Roy said, even while he was curling his fingers around Percival’s trim waist. “Let me go, you bastard.”
Percival grinned. “What pretty names you have for me, darling.”
“Stop calling me that,” Roy spat, grasping Percival’s waist. “Let me go.”
Percival frowned. “Oh, I don’t think I deserve that.”
“You deserve nothing, you—” Roy stopped himself, the word sitting on the tip of his tongue.
“Say it, love,” Percival whispered, his voice echoing through the tunnels. “Say it with every bit of hatred in your soul.”
Roy wanted to. No, he wanted silence. He wanted to freeze himself in this moment to avoid moving forward and accepting what Percival was.
Instead, his pulse racing, Roy observed the man who occupied the better half of his thoughts, whose beauty and spite had ensnared Roy like forbidden sorcery, binding him in its cold clasp.
Even when he looked away, the impact Percival had on him was undeniable, and that was why Roy despised himself when he said the words, an inevitable untangling of his tongue.
“You’re a distraction,” Roy hissed. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
Percival recoiled, a barely perceptible, surprised hurt shuddering across his face, but he covered it with a grin, a ferocious hunger in his eyes. He ran his hand slowly from Roy’s neck and up to his jaw, the sides of his fingers hot against Roy’s parted lips. “There you are.”
Roy shot his hand up and grasped Percival’s. “You make me want to intimidate you, to see fear on your face, to—”
“Look at you, Dawnseve,” Percival said with a smile, his warm breath on Roy’s cheeks.
“You’re shaking. I know what you’re feeling, darling.
I know what it’s like to succumb to desire.
That might be just what you need. To stop lying to yourself.
To stop feeding your fears and give in. You need to open that heart of yours. ”
“Stop talking in riddles or I’ll—”
Percival leaned forward, and with no room to move his head, Roy could not retreat. Their noses brushed as Percival angled his head forward, his forehead pressing against Roy’s. “Just what will you do, darling? I doubt you wish to wake the dead.”
“I’d take that chance if it meant you would join them.”
Percival chuckled. “Believe me, you’re the last person I’d consider capable of murder, especially my own.”
“I’d wager that I’m not the first person to threaten you with murder, though.”
“An interesting method of flirting, to be sure.”
Roy snorted, ignoring the heat pooling through his stomach. “Don’t be ridiculous. I have a long list of priorities and nowhere on it have I planned to flirt with anyone, much less you. Now, get your face away from me—why are you smiling?”
“Well, either my eyes are deceiving me,” Percival said, “or yours have been on my lips for a rather long time.” He placed a finger on Roy’s mouth. “Regardless, I think I’m growing quite fond of your plans to murder me. In a crypt, no less; have you no respect for the dead?”
Roy wrapped his fingers around Percival’s, which was still against Roy’s lips, and drew his hand down. “Don’t do this here, Percival. Anywhere but here.”
Percival exhaled softly through his nostrils, his smile fading. “I said this place was going to hurt me, not that I would commemorate the dead.”
“These are your people. Our people.”
“And they died for what they believed in, I know, but maybe they weren’t as brave as the legends claim.
They could have lied as much as you do,” Percival murmured, his voice heavy with that familiar but nameless sorrow.
He took a small step back. “I can admit who I am, Roy. That’s the difference between us.
The competition has come to a close, and still, you won’t confront the truth. ”
Roy dragged his fingers through the slick snarls of his hair. “I know who I am.”
“There’s that lie again; the denial. No, darling, you know who, and what, this world has made you become, what they’ve shaped you into,” Percival retorted. “But that’s not you. If you live in ignorance long enough, you grow accustomed to their lies. And those lies will soon be your own.”
“That’s preposterous.”
But Roy could not help the surge of memories that rushed through his mind: Matron Dimestra, her steely gaze like a blade; the grapple for power shifting between two evils; the identity and belonging that had been absent throughout his gray-toned, half-lived life.
He’d been searching through the dark with nobody to guide the way, and now there stood somebody before him who was offering him a choice to light his path, and still, Roy couldn’t do it.
“And there might come a time when you try to gain control of your future,” Percival said. “But there’s no hope for those who refuse to make a stand.”
“This is me making a stand.” Roy gestured around him. “I am doing what’s right for my country.”
“But not for yourself,” Percival exclaimed, true anger contorting his features. He seemed another person entirely, not even a shadow of the man whose lips had brushed Roy’s. “You haven’t changed since you entered this fucking building, Roy. All you do is weep and wait for an angel to rescue you.”
“What in the name of the Scribes are you saying? I don’t need to be saved or protected or coddled.”
Percival gave a rough, dry laugh. “No, you just need to be told exactly what to do and how. And you know damn well I’m not speaking about the Old Ones or the war; I’m talking about you.”
Roy held back the urge to shatter Percival’s clenched jaw. Maybe that would disperse the puzzling emotions he felt toward Percival, all in one fell swoop. “You’re a manipulative ass.”
“And you’re a liar. You’re a fucking liar.”
“You don’t want to save humanity,” Roy said, scowling. “You don’t care for anyone but yourself. Whatever happens in this world, whatever happens to us, you just want to ensure it benefits you.”
“Thank the Above,” Percival said, clasping a hand over his heart.
“He understands! How thoughtful of you, darling. Truly thoughtful.” Roy scanned Percival from head to foot, and Percival snapped, “Ah, the predatory assessment. Before you murder me, Roy, should I swoon, or would you prefer I put up a fight?”
Roy seized the candle from Percival’s hands, set his jaw, and walked away.