milliways_bar | (no subject)

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As he suspected he would, Jim caught Sherlock's - heh, Rory's - stupid bloody cold. He went to bed angry, frustrated, and sick to the back teeth of this entire bloody bar.

He wakes up with a Welsh accent, a body that feels weirdly exhausted, and a whooooole lot of surprise at finding himself in a bedroom that is not wallpapered in Laura Ashley, cluttered with years' worth of books and theatre junk. Gethin has never set foot in a room so opulent, and so incomprehensible to him. He spends a good hour looking at the clothes, the books, the...frankly pornographic, yet extremely beautiful...photography on the wall of the library (the centrepiece of which involves his own face, and the blurred figure of a much taller man in the background. He doesn't look at it for long.) Everything is very, very weird.

In short, Gethin Roberts does not have a bloody clue what's going on. But at least there are clothes he recognises - comfortably 80s in style - and if the cold he's got means he can't go searching Jonathan out, at least there appears to be a...bar, downstairs?

What. The Actual. Hell.

[OOC: getting in under the wire! Open until the end of March. :)]

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"Do sit down nevertheless," the gentleman says, sounding both somewhat embarrassed and amused, presumably at his gaffe. "I must have you confused; you sound nothing like Jim. Would you like some breakfast, seeing that I invited you already? It would be so rude of me to send you away, just because you're not him."

Pause.

"Who are you, then? I am Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Tea or coffee?"

'I'm -'

He'd been in the process of taking a seat, because it would be awkward to refuse at this point. But the name gives him pause.

'Sorry, you're - who?'

Edited 2017-03-28 14:49 (UTC)

"Dr. Hannibal Lecter," the gentleman says, gesturing towards the chair again. "Do you think I should be a fictional monster, like, say, Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes stories?"

'- - don't know.'

He just wasn't expecting anyone to be called that. He doesn't assume he's the actual Hannibal Lecter. But he sits down anyway because, awkward.

'I'm Gethin. And I think Lecter was more of a monster than Moriarty. Depending on how you measure that stuff.'

He makes an apologetic gesture.

'Sorry, books are my - - I run a bookshop. Not that sort of book, though.'

"Tea or coffee?" Dr. Lecter says. "And what sort of books? I do love books."

'Uh. Tea, thanks.'

He scratches through his hair, looking down.

'It's a gay bookshop.'

Not that he's embarrassed about it - and he refuses to look ashamed - but you never know what sort of reaction you're going to get.

Dr. Lecter pours him tea.

"What city, and what year?" he asks. "More porn, or more politics?"

Better than most reactions, then! He looks up, a touch relieved and annoyed at himself for feeling so. He shouldn't have to feel relieved at not being hated.

'London, 1985. And no, not porn.'

Not that sort of bookshop.

'Lifestyle, fiction, gay writers and poets, that kind of thing. People come and give readings, it's kind of a...meeting place for the community, I s'pose you could say.'

He's quietly proud of being part of it, and it probably shows a bit in his tone.

'I didn't start it up, but it's doing okay. The only place like it in the country.'

"There is absolutely a place for porn in any civilisation," Dr. Lecter says. "You should have a corner for well-written porn, as you're living before the advent of the internet. And that must be 'Gay's The Word', around the corner from the British museum? One of the dirtiest limericks I ever saw in my life, I read in the public washroom by the tube station that serves both of them."

'Oh, you know it?'

That's nice! He looks cheerful at that.

'Yeah, that's the one. And I'm not saying there's not erotica, but I wouldn't call that porn.'

He has nothing against porn, quite the opposite. He and Jonathan have more than a few magazines lying about the bedroom. But he's ever-so-slightly resentful of the implication that anything gay has to involve porn. That kind of prejudice is something the community fights every day.

"Yes, I know it," Dr. Lecter says. "And where do you draw the line between erotica and porn? The personal is political, and that is still true even in my time."

'Of course it is.'

He sips his tea, his shoulders hunched in a slightly defensive way.

'There's a big difference between a porn mag and Emile Zola.'

He would have thought that was obvious.

"Yes," Dr. Lecter says. "I wasn't talking about the obvious outliers, but the contested middle ground. Where would you put, say, Victorian porn? Like, say, the novel 'Teleny' ascribed to Oscar Wilde and his circle?"

'Teleny isn't porn. It's literature. A magazine full of naked men, produced solely for the titillation of other men is porn.'

He sets his cup down, unsure as to how exactly they got on to this.

'And there's nothing wrong with it at all. I like it, my boyfriend likes it. It's just not the focus of my bookshop.'

"Early photographic pornography from France -- porn or art?" Dr. Lecter asks. "Shunga -- porn or art?"

He seems to like the subject.

'I think what was considered pornographic when it was first produced, is more likely to be called art now. Mainly because we're less likely to get turned on by it.'

He doesn't mind the topic, it's just weird to be the first thing to discuss with someone you just met. It doesn't occur to him that might be why Hannibal is pursuing the subject in the first place.

'I'd call both of those things art. Your mileage may vary, I suppose.'

"Absolutely art," Hannibal says. "What about Tom of Finland drawings?"

There's a small smile at that.

'Skirts the line between the two, possibly. My boyfriend likes his stuff. I'm on the fence, but-'

A shrug. It's not his idea of art, but it's not exactly porn either.

"Then I guess we found the line," Dr. Lecter says. "By my time, his work is considered quite iconic."

Gethin gives a tiny shrug.

'It's just my personal preference. I'm not an authority on what constitutes art.'

He picks his drink up again, vaguely unsettled though he's not sure why.

'Are you? Is that what you do? but you said you're a doctor, so-'

"I am," Dr. Lecter says. "Art is merely one of my favourite pastimes."

'You probably know more about it than I do.'

He's just trying to live his life. He's no great scholar.

'What sort of doctor are you?'

"Psychiatrist," Dr. Lecter says. "But I do enjoy -- well, almost anything."

'Oh.'

Maybe this is the cause of the discomfort. He doesn't really enjoy being looked at too closely.

''Almost anything' is quite a broad spectrum. Isn't there anything you like best?'

"My friend Will," Dr. Lecter says, "followed by cooking. Well, probably cooking with Will."

He smiles, and winks at Gethin.