Prose log with Watari

[percivalthegale]

Who: Percival and Watari (iii_ninja  )
When: the morning after this event, all of which took place before Sheena's latest thing
Where: the stables
What: AFTERMATH. Lots of angst.

Percival was not at all happy to see the morning sun. He had slept horribly, if at all, tossing and turning, his mind continually replaying the incident in the tavern any time he let his concentration lapse. It didn't help that Borus snored. When morning came, Percival forced himself out of bed to begin his routine before duty, choosing to go feed and groom Midnight first. He trudged down to the stables in a dour mood, hoping that some time with his beloved gelding would cheer him.

Watari didn't know when his body decided it was time to wake up, but he seriously wished it hadn't. His head hurt like nothing else - a constant pounding that made him almost want to vomit. What made it worse was the realization he was snuggled against a great black gelding. Well, perhaps he should be glad, because he was pretty sure the gelding's warmth had kept him from getting sick in the night. More the point, why was he here anyways?

Snuggled warmly in his knit shirt and riding breeches, the same as yesterday, Percival clucked his tongue as he came into the stables and found Midnight still lying down. "Well, at least one of us obviously slept well," he sighed, unlatching the stall and grabbing for a bucket. "Come on, you troublemaker. Hup. Let's get up..." He stopped short, realizing that there was a person in the stall as well. "Hey!" he yelped.

Oh god, that hurt. That bloody hurt. As if waking up in a place he didn't have any reason to be was bad enough, that person yelling just made his head throb. He snarled and twisted, snagging the person's leg and tripping them into the hay. Instantly he was over them, pinning them.

"I'm going to say this once," he snarled, suddenly conscious of the fact his mask was down. "Be quiet or I will rip your tongue out and make you be quiet."

Percival froze in surprise as he was knocked into the hay - and then cold, creeping fear overtook his senses as he realized it was the same thing all over again. A replay of the night before. Watari was on top of him, and he couldn't get away. Too many thoughts crashed together in his head, leaving him limp, immobile, with only a tiny whimper escaping his lips.

Watari paused as he looked at the person he knocked down. Percival. Huh, then the beast he'd been up against must be his horse midnight. Strange...why was Percival so terrified? Hadn't the man been in this situation on the battlefield before? Well, whatever. Watari groaned as another stab of pain went through his head and he sat back in the hay, again becoming conscious of his disheveled appearance - yukata off his shoulders, revealing the half-shirt his mask made (showing his abs down to his belly-button), and the fact his yukata was loose so one of his legs to just past his knee was visible. Damn, he probably looked like a whore - a drunken one. Brilliant, just bloody brilliant.

Percival closed his eyes in relief as Watari sat back and set him free, but he didn't feel able to sit up yet. His stomach lurched like he was going to be sick. "W-what....what are you doing here?" he whispered, wishing his heart would stop hammering in his chest. He felt close to hyperventilating.

"I asked myself the same question," Watari growled as he massaged his temples, the head ache pounding fiercely.

Percival laid there for a minute or two, raising his hands to cover his face now that it was flushing hot instead of cold. He knew not to move too quickly, or Midnight would startle and get up and trample them both, if they weren't faster. He took a few deep breaths to try to calm himself, and then spoke quietly. "You...you don't remember...anything? Last night?"

"Remember anything about what?" Watari asked cautiously, reviewing. To be honest, all he remembered was going to the bar to meet Percival and then...then...then silver...

"Being drunk," Percival answered bitterly, slowly pushing himself up to a seat. "Obviously not, you were so far gone you passed out." He began to glare; he didn't know what was more offensive, having Watari remember or forget what he had done.

Watari stared at Percival, his mask not there so Percival saw the full weight of his shock. His golden-blue eye opened a little wider, his mouth parted as if he wished to gasp. Drunk? Drunk? He had only been drunk once in his life, way back when he was part of the Kage. You had to get drunk to see what your limits were and work around them. He learned he'd been light-weight so he'd been careful, but...He calmed his face and shifted, putting his calves beneath him so he sat on them and placing his hands forward, bowing his head till his hair brushed his fingers. "I apologize," he said with all sincerity.

Percival's cheeks flushed again as a wave of anger came over him. "I don't think that's going to be enough," he snapped in a low tone, beginning to get up and brush off his pants. "You don't even know what you did, how can you be sorry for it?"

"Well, you won't tell me," Watari said evenly, rising slower as he head pounded. "That much I can tell. So I will apologize, because whatever I did has seemed to upset you very deeply."

Percival looked away, taking a moment to pick up the grain bucket he had dropped. "Just...get out of there," he said, trying hard to control his tone, "before Midnight steps on you."

Watari was sympathetic, in his own ways. Yet, at the same time, he was harsh. He knew this, was aware of it. Very rarely was he sincere, and right now he was being very much so. To be honest he wanted to know what he had done to create such anger in Percival. In his eyes, he merely saw an angry knight, a man bottling up emotions and doubts, clouding himself and blinding himself to an awareness. For those, Watari spared no pity, and felt not a little angry that Percival denied him the right to know what transpired since he was as much a part of it as Percival apparently was.

"Whatever has you so angry, man up and face it," Watari said as he fixed his yukata. "Because whatever it is," he turned his golden-blue on Percival, "it makes you look pathetic."

Percival spun around so fast that Midnight did, in fact, startle and rise, stepping back to the rear of the stall. "Pathetic? I look pathetic?" He gestured violently at the ninja. "What about you, half-dressed and hung over, sleeping it off in my own horse's stall? What are you doing, stalking me or something? You made a fool out of me last night! You..." He clenched a fist, choking out the rest of the statement. "...assaulted me."

Watari resisted a smile. He had at least pulled out the real reason behind this. "Assaulted?" he repeated. "Certainly it doesn't seem as if I knifed you."

"Not that kind of assault," Percival hissed, turning sharply away and making a deliberate fuss out of filling the grain bucket and leaving it in Midnight's trough.

Not that kind? So....oh. Oh dear. Watari thought someone back in Kage said he'd become 'friendly' once he was drunk, but to be honest he didn't remember much of that time. It was to long ago, and frankly he was to young. So, what? He kissed him? If he'd ended up here he assumed that had to be it, since if they had gone any further they wouldn't have been in Midnight's stall. "Was I really that awful drunk?" he wondered aloud. If that was the case he'd have to watch the sake. Being drunk was obviously not a good way to be for him.

Keeping his back to Watari, Percival forced himself to tell all, no matter how ashamed it made him feel for being unable to stop it. "You sat in my lap," he explained, his voice low and shaking, "and you kissed me. And you kept kissing me no matter how many times I told you to stop. You pinned me down and forced me. I didn't know if you were going to kill me, or..." No, he couldn't say the other word that came to mind. The other fear that had kept him awake all night.

Ah, so that was what had happened. "Then I'll say it again, I'm sorry," Watari said. "To be honest, everything is a blank. I can say with utter certainty I had no idea what I was doing. So I apologize with the utmost sincerity on that point."

Percival closed the stall and latched it, and then stood for a moment with his hands braced on the door, his head down. "That doesn't make me feel much better," he admitted. "I almost wish you had killed me. It's only by some great stroke of luck that no one I know saw what happened."

Watari paused, regarding Percival. "I understand being forced making you uncomfortable, but....does the mere idea I kissed you repel you so?" Watari asked. "I had thought a Knight such as yourself a bit more openminded."

"It has nothing to do with my...my values," Percival murmured, remaining where he was with his head bowed. "It's fine for other people, but I'm not...I'm not that way. I can't be. You don't understand."

"Tch," Watari muttered. "This is one of those things were you people let yourselves be confined by the words of others." He paused. "Where I grew up, we believed that words formed the chains that bind a person. If you say you can't, you can't. If you say you can, you will. The words of the people around you and the words you say shape your reality." He pulled his mask up around his face. "So the question is really not that you can't be, but do you want to be? That's all. You as a person should come before what others define you as."

Percival squeezed his eyes tightly shut. "No offense, but that's a load of mystical crap. I'm a knight of Zexen. We have strict codes. I've worked too hard to get where I am, I won't throw it away just because some drunk ninja came on to me." He straightened up and covered his eyes with a hand. "Please, Watari...tell no one what happened. Whether you remember it or not."

"It's rather insulting," Watari said with a little more acid than he intended, "that you believe my tongue to be so loose." He paused, letting that sink in. "And I won't tell you to believe in what I said. I've lived my life according to those rules and it's brought me hardships I will wish on no one. But at the end of the day, I can at least say I am who I want to be instead of wondering what mask I have to put on the next to please people who don't give a damn about me."

The hand over his eyes fell away, and Percival turned slowly to regard the other man. He wasn't about to admit just how true that might have been. "You don't know anything about me," he said defeatedly. "You can't tell me I'm not who I want to be, just because I got upset that you assaulted me. But I don't know anything about you either. I don't know if I should be on my guard, if this is going to happen again."

"That I promise won't happen," Watari said. "I will order my own alcohol from now on. And I will admit it is true I know nothing about you, but..." he began to walk past Percival to the exit, "It's easy...for one tired soul to recognize that of another."

Percival blinked stupidly. "Tired soul? What is that supposed to mean?"

"Perhaps...tired isn't a way to describe it," Watari shrugged. "Just think on what I said. I know I am probably the last person you want to take advice from at the moment after what I did, but I have seen to many people swallowed up by their own emotions." He paused as he looked at Percival, a sort of pity that wasn't really pity rising up. It felt like anger and pity together, made him feel as if he owed Percival something. Didn't people call this guilt? "Just once," he murmured. "I'd like to say I helped keep someone from drowning, instead of pushing them back under the waves." He was surprised at himself for even saying that. Where had that come from? Was it like Geddoe said? Was he...caring?

A shudder welled up in Percival, but he bit it back. He wanted to rail at Watari, but he was just too tired, and if he raised his voice, Kathy was likely to come running and that would just compound the problem. Yet, he couldn't stop himself from making one bitter accusation in a low voice. "I wouldn't be drowning if you hadn't pushed me under in the first place."

The ninja looked at Percival, and for a moment his golden-eye clouded in pain, a pain that went far beyond even the pounding his head. It ate at his soul, sent him back to the days when he made the decision to finally leave the Kage, when the river was dyed red...."Yes, I never did learn how to reach out and drag them back up again," he said, the pain reflecting from his eye to his voice, the barest of undercurrents, like a red, raw wound.

"I suppose I should be grateful that you're trying," Percival said shakily, "but you're correct...I really don't want to take any advice from you right now. I have always respected you, Watari, and I'll do my best to convince myself that it was the drink and not you...because I don't wish to lose respect for you. But I can't bring myself to feel anything more than that."

Watari nodded his head in acknowledgement. "Fair enough," he murmured. He reached out and touched Percival's shoulder as he moved on. "I am sorry." And then he was outside, walking back to his room to deal with his headache. But as he walked, he wondered why he felt so awful. Why had what Percival said affected him so much? Why...why was he causing so much pain? Had he not renounced the Kage so he could stop causing such meaningless pain? Or had he ever stopped? What had his five years of running been but killing for money to live - a single ninja, a single Kage? He had told Percival that the words of others and the ones you spoke shaped your reality. Before, he had said he was a ninja, a killer, and so he was. So why, when he was telling himself that wasn't a ninja anymore....why was he still ripping open wounds that he knew might never heal?

He tried not to flinch away from the hand that brushed his shoulder, but Percival couldn't stop himself from sagging defeatedly against the stall door. Nothing made sense anymore, and he wasn't sure he even wanted to think about any of it - but he didn't think it would be any easier to just forget it. Midnight finished his oats and shuffled up behind him, nosing against his master's ear with a light snort. "No, I don't have any carrots," Percival sighed at him. "What do I look like, Kathy?" But the horse reminded him that he did have chores to do, starting with grooming his steed. He went to fetch a curry comb to get started on that, eager for anything that would distract him for any length of time and keep his mind of...everything else.