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taxonomites2010-12-04 09:26 pm
smecker.livejournal.com) wrote in taxonomites2010-12-04 09:26 pm
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[Location: Central, near but not at Taxon Mall]
Paul Smecker was wandering around the city, not exactly lost but nowhere near found, either. That sort of blank, overloaded expression common to newcomers flitted across his face at times, although more often one saw frustration. He was mostly looking at his tablet as he walked and trying to figure out the map function, with some goal of orienting himself in the city.
He looked scruffy, the product of not shaving in the two days since he'd arrived, and he looked unhappy about that. In addition, he was still wearing the clothes he'd arrived in-- the shirt, in particular, had a large but now dried bloodstain on the chest. He was also less than pleased about that.
The goal, inasmuch as he had one, was to find a place where he could get a new goddamn shirt, and a razor. (He hasn't figured out hatches yet.) So he was looking for the Mall. And getting goddamn lost.
He looked scruffy, the product of not shaving in the two days since he'd arrived, and he looked unhappy about that. In addition, he was still wearing the clothes he'd arrived in-- the shirt, in particular, had a large but now dried bloodstain on the chest. He was also less than pleased about that.
The goal, inasmuch as he had one, was to find a place where he could get a new goddamn shirt, and a razor. (He hasn't figured out hatches yet.) So he was looking for the Mall. And getting goddamn lost.
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"Vampires," Glitch repeated and, since he had trousers on again, opened the door to peer at Paul curiously. "No one...wow, your welcome wagon did a real shoddy job, I'm sorry."
(Consider yourself judged, Cain,.)
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Instinct was to say very cute bullshit, now go get me a goddamn cup of coffee but Paul recollected this was not exactly a case of a junior agent having him on like it was April Fool's.
He opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, then rubbed at the bridge of his nose. So distraught was he he didn't even spare a glance for the work of his clothier's hands.
"Vam-pie-ers," he echoed dully, and pushed off from the wall of the dressing room, with some vague idea of finding a seat. There was no bench immediately present, so Paul promptly sat his ass down on the carpet.
"Alright," he said faintly, and gestured with one hand for Mister Glitch to carry on dressing.
He was thinking it would have been nice to know that one, yes. Offffficer Cain hadn't seen fit to say that one. Jesus Christ.
"...perhaps they didn't want to cause a full-on nervous breakdown. Fuck."
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No, he had to remember that folks were from all sorts of different universes and times and not everybody knew about superheroes and not everybody flew through space and not everybody had vampires. (He wondered if anybody from another O.Z. would ever appear, and what their witches would be like.)
"Sorry," he mumbled. "That's...probably it, or they didn't know. A-a-after a while you just get used to things here and-- I'm sorry."
Sincere apology is sincere.
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He closed his eyes. He started reaching for his cigarettes, then remembered they were in a store.
Then remembered the store was run by the Soy Brigade, who wouldn't do shit if he did smoke other than probably ask, oh so politely, that he desist.
Paul dug out his pilfered pack and lit one up. "Are those fitting, Mr. Glitch?" he asked more loudly than necessary, needing something to think on that wasn't HEY, VAMPIRES.
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After a life in the O.Z. and over a year in Taxon he was fairly sure his concept of "normal" was utterly unreliable as far as the universe was concerned.
Still, deep in the core of his being he was a politician, a diplomat, one trained almost from birth to follow conversational cues and avoid ruffling apple carts (or something like that). Paul obviously didn't want to dealw ith the vampire thing yet, so Glitch would try and provide distraction.
"Yes, I think it's very sharp," he replied, held his arms out, and turned on his toes for inspection. "You've got a good eye, Mister...um--" how do I shot remembering surnames that aren't C-A-I-N? "...Paul."
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He took a drag and exhaled smoke at a festive holiday display of sweaters before eying Glitch.
"Yes, one of the benefits of being a raging nancy. Compensation from the universe. Here, have social stigma and institutionalized homophobia, but it's not all bad, you get blowjobs and fashion sense," Paul said completely conversationally, while looking the other man over from head to foot. Mostly looking at just the clothes.
"Not bad," he admitted, and got to his feet. "Not bad."
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"I don't understand," he admitted, frowning. He really wanted to know what under the suns blowjobs and fashion sense had to do with each other, but his manners mercifully stepped in. "Sorry, I I don't know if it's some Otherside thingy but...institutionalized what?"
File destroying Glitch's big rainbow-colored the universe is a magical gay utopia bubble under 'revenge for the vampires thing'.
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To be fair, he'd likely had the same look on his face when Cain was going on about witches and pure evil.
To be fair again, he hadn't been talking about blowjobs with Cain. More the pity. Would have been fun to see if the man's almost-albino complexion took a blush.
Anyway.
"Mmm," Paul murmured. "Hold still--"
He jammed the cigarette into his mouth to free up his hands and put the gold necktie around Glitch's pale throat, tucking it beneath the collar and brusquely tying it. Of course he could have handed Glitch the tie to do himself, but that wouldn't have been as fun. Besides, tying neckties on other men was a skill it had taken him some time to perfect, no reason to let it go rusty.
"There." Said with some satisfaction. Paul leaned back, took a drag, and said, "Institutionalized homophobia. 'Homo', the same, but in this compound word short-hand for 'homosexuals', 'phobia', fear of. I'm going to go out on a limb here and hazard a guess that ..... 'Oh Zee' has a charmingly PC, magnificently twee acceptance of all of those who identify as catamites, sodomites, fudgepackers, queens, etc., to say nothing of the butch and femme ladies of the other end of the spectrum?"
(Paul Smecker: Probably not helping since 1956.)
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And some knowledge, one couldn't go wrong with learning stuff. No matter how silly, backward, ridiculous, and contrary to everything he understood about human behavior it was.
As for an answer to Paul's question (well, what he could understand of it given the context), he searched his tattered memory for the tale all Ozian children learned by route, and recited it:
"At the beginning of the present age, Queen Ozma, who was once a boy named Tip, became friends with Dorothy Gale of Kansas. Over time, the love that grew between them was such that they could no longer bear to be apart, and Dorothy came to live in Oz forever as a princess. She and Ozma unified the kingdoms into the Outer Zone, and thus was the royal line of the House of Gale founded. The O.Z. is ruled by the Gales to this day, presently by Queen..." And that's where the political history lesson ends because Glitch can't remember his
former boss'girlfriend's mother's name."Well, she has lavender eyes. A-anyway, it might be a little twee but that's...basically the premise my civilization was built on." Pause. "And I'm sorry that folks in your world are afraid of something so silly."
That's not actually a judgey statement, he really IS sorry.
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"Founding ruler of your world is a tranny, okay. Yeah, I'm guessing homophobia isn't a problem for you guys."
The sorry... This was something he was supposed to laugh off, dismiss with a snarkily amused comment, say another litany of inappropriate terms for his own amusement even if the guy he was talking to didn't know what half of them meant--
Paul looked away. "Yeah," he said after a few seconds. "Me too. You know how to tie a tie, Mr. Glitch?"
This asked while holding up the others. Change of subject, what.
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Really he was pretty much expecting more unseemly gibberish from Paul, so the quiet agreement made for a nice change. He smiled, faint and vacant, before shaking his head again.
"I can do a cravat or an ascot on a good day, but... not a tie, no."
Welcome to the long uphill battle towards sartorial "normalcy".
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Paul begins to carefully demonstrate the fine art of tying of neckties, Windsor knots and other sorts.
It's inane, to be standing in an alien science-fiction city as an abductee showing a near-complete stranger who has his skull zipped up and comes from a land of witches and Tin Men how to tie a necktie. It's a ridiculously pathetic grab at normalcy, at denial of the current reality.
But Paul takes it.
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