milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

rose/thorn

(no subject)

Rose didn't mean for it to happen. She just wanted to come in and sit down for a few minutes, fresh off a long day at work. But the couch was so comfy and with all the rest her body hasn't been getting, she couldn't help but fall asleep.

She doesn't know how long it's been now, though she feels much better. She lifts her head from the armrest of the couch and looks around, hoping to catch a waitrat to order a coke.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Ah. The sleeper, she awakens." It's not that Poirot was watching her. But to some degree he was watching over her, simply because a stranger sleeping in a public place could be at risk (something he recalls from long ago in his days as a gendarme). "I would advise against sleeping here, but many do not heed such advice."

She smiles sheepishly. "I couldn't help it. I was so tired. But I'll remember for next time."

"Do you have a room here?" A basic question to ask, of course.

"Oh, no. I have my apartment back home," she explains. "I wasn't planning on falling asleep here."

"It was a long day at home, then. I remember such days." He even remembers falling asleep at his desk as he grew older.

"Yes. I just finished a shift at work." And she never gets enough sleep.

"Pray tell, mademoiselle, what do you do?" He hopes this does not feel like an interrogation. He simply wishes for some conversation on a slow day in the afterlife.

Not at all!

"I work is a costume shop. We rent and sell, and we get to dress up, too. It's fun sometimes, but today wasn't busy at all so it kind of dragged."

"Ah the costumes! That must be most interesting! I have known many who have attended the balls in very elaborate dress, often as groups." And occasionally, as part of failed alibis for their deeds.

She nods. "We're big with the Renaissance crowd and Goth balls." She had to get used to that on the job. She never knew people like that before.

"Goth?" He imagines people dressed like invaders of Europe c. 800. He wonders if his new friend from 1000 has heard about this. "I know more of people who dress as figures from the theater, or recent history. Or wear their old uniforms as if they can beat those swords into the implements of the field." He never quite learned the word "plowshare."

"They still do, but we also sell a lot of movie costumes, and superhero costumes." Living in Metropolis and all that.

"Superhero...the fancy dress men from the comic books I saw during the war." The American GIs loved such things for some reason. "Or is your world one where they are real?" After a while in the Bar, such things seem less preposterous.

"They're real. I've never actually seen any of them, I just read about them in the news." It's best to make that clear.

"Such strangeness in the worlds. And these superheroes, they fight crime?" Either that or apparently they punch Hitler in the face. Not that he disapproves of either.

"Yeah-- uh, yes, they do." For some reason she feels like she should be on her good manners with him.

"Are they effective? Do the police support them?" Really, if the latter is not the case, little else matters. (His career as a detective was entirely dependent on police support.)

"They do a good job. I'm not really sure how it works with the police, but I've seen a picture of the Chief shaking Superman's hand, so it must be okay."

Superman? He seems to think that was the name of one of the characters in the comic books. But it does also seem a rather obvious name. If you don't object to Nietzsche.

"If the Chief has endorsed him, then I would say he can be trusted to help. Unless American police are more willing than the ones in London."

"I don't know about that." In fact, she doesn't know anything about London, let alone its police. "But yeah, everyone loves Superman."

"And what crimes does he address?" A man in a silly costume, he would think, is not likely to be effective against very much. Criminals are not idiots to be taken in by garish clothes.

She has to think for a minute. "Well, all of them, I guess. He catches bank robbers and I'm sure he's caught a murderer or two. Even small stuff if, like, a lady gets her purse stolen."

"Ah. And does he serve as a detective as well?" The nub of the question to Poirot.

She shakes her head. "No, that's Batman, but he lives in Gotham."

"I do not know these cities, but I do not really know America." Which is probably the easiest thing to understand.

"This Batman...what does his name mean? That he is a bat?"

"He dresses like one. We sell a lot of his costumes, too." She says this as if it's perfectly normal.

"That does not sound like the way to be a detective," he says with just a hint of annoyance.

"He's a little scary." Which, may be the point, but Rose doesn't like it.

"So he intimates people into confessing? No, that is not how to do it at all." He tries not to be upset. It's not this young woman's fault, after all.

"I don't really know? The police like him. They even have a signal to call for him and everything." So he must be doing some good.

"A signal. Not just a phone. How...flamboyant." He doesn't know what to make of that. Some worlds are so odd.

"I realize that I did not introduce myself yet. I am Hercule Poirot."

"He's a little like that, too." Batman is a true mystery.

That's... quite a name. She has to wrap her head around it for a moment, then she smiles. "I'm Rose Forrest. It's nice to meet you."

"I thought that the rose, it grows on a bush?" He smiles. "I apologize. I fear you have heard that many times."

"Not really? I used to go by my full name, Rhosyn, so I haven't been Rose for very long. But maybe I'll hear it some more now?" She smiles again.

"It is a pretty name, but sometimes what we are called is not what we wish to be called," he says sagely.

She nods. "Rose also sounds more grown up."

"You are young yet. So there is time to be grown up." He was over 80 when he died. Everyone looks young to him now.

"Oh, I have to be grown up now," she says earnestly. "I have to pay my rent and do good at my job and buy groceries and all that stuff."

He smiles. "That is always such a change, to be on your own, your parents not there to rely on, no one to do things for you. I remember that from so long ago. Before the turn of the century. A young gendarme on his own."

"Yeah, it's hard being all by myself, but I have to do it." She doesn't want to jeopardize her release. "You did okay?"

"I did very well. I worked my way up through the police, became a detective, and found my way to London, where I had many opportunities." A much abbreviated telling of his life.

"My dad was a policeman." She sounds rather proud about that. "Where are you from originally?"

"I was born in a town outside Brussels more years ago than I care to recount.

"It must have been difficult to have a father in the police," he says thoughtfully. Such fathers are often quite absent.

"I don't remember it being difficult. He was great." She smiles a little wistfully.

"I am glad." Glad her father was able to do what he never did, settle down and have a family. Glad she got something special from him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only