milliways_bar | (no subject)

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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'I should think it's changed a bit, yeah.'

Unless his knowledge of history has gone vastly awry. Which, to be fair, could be possible today. Everything else is upside down.

(And Jim would very much contest the notion that he's from London, but he can fight that out with Harry another day.)

'You sound a lot more Northern. Not surprising, I suppose.'

"Northumberland," he agrees. "My father is-- was-- earl. --but belike you know this." Since he knew his name and all.

(come on gethin tell him he's still famous in your day)

And Gethin nods! Hope you're happy, Harry.

'I've read it, yeah. I don't know if they still have nobility in Northumberland-' they do, '-but anyone who's read-'

Hmm.

'Well, yeah, the Percy's are a well-known family, is what I'm saying.'

Awkward! He sips his pint, and doesn't make eye contact.

"Some poet hath writ the story, this I know," he says. And though "poet" comes with a note of disdain, he's clearly not wholly displeased by that fact.

'Some poet.'

He chokes it out, then tries to reign it back in.

'Okay, yeah. Shakespeare. A bit more than 'some poet', actually.'

Harry flaps a hand dismissively. "Ay, that was the name, I think."

'You've never read him?'

Gethin loves him. There are other poets he may love more, but not too many.

Harry hesitates. "--some-- some small pieces have I read. But I am no great lover of poetry. He is, in your day, well-esteemed?"

'Um. Yeah.'

Just a bit, like.

'He's probably the famous thing about England, anywhere, ever.'

Harry looks veeery skeptical. "A poet?"

'A poet, a playwright. He used to write for the Court. Elizabeth the First loved him.'

Gethin can enthusiastically talk about Shakespeare, no problem.

'His plays are on non-stop, all 'round the world. Every language, every place. So, yeah.'

Okay but wait.

"A poet? Not-- a knight, not a king? The name of England doth, across the globe, conjure a poet?"

'Yeah!'

Gethin looks delighted about it.

...but then realises who he's talking to, and how that could be awkward.

'I mean, there are other really famous people too. Some of them really famous because of Shakespeare and his language. Henry V, for example. He's prob'ly the most - well, no, the second most famous king, partly because there's a play about him.'

Ugh, of course.

"Do not tell him that," Harry grumbles.

'How would I tell him...ohhhh, are you saying he comes here too?'

Seriously, wow. That's amazing. Amazing.

UGH. Don't look so impressed.

"He doth," Harry says. "Do but order you sack enough for ten men, and he will appear."

He suppresses the desperate need to ask if Falstaff comes too, and nods. While trying not to look so impressed, and failing miserably.

'The play says he grew out of all that,' he supplies, helpfully. 'Drinking sack, I mean.'

"So he claims, but did I not see him just days ago, as scornful as e'er he was? Tossing the crown as 'twere any trinket."

And again: UGH.

Edited 2017-03-29 00:58 (UTC)

Gethin seems to remember a pertinent fact at this point, and reins himself in again.

'Oh, right. You two aren't friends.'

Ahahaha. Ahaha. Aha.

He remembers why.

Oops?

Really, they're It's Complicated, but he's caught Harry in an anti-Hal mood.

"No," he says darkly. "But you--you do admire him as he appears in this-- poem?"

'It's a play,' he mutters, somewhat awkwardly.

'And yeah, mostly. It's got a lot of good rhetoric, and the most famous phrase from it is just like common speech, now. Anyone who knows how to read knows it's probably a lot of showboating, and the real king might have been worse, but-'

He shrugs. Such is the power of fiction, Harry.

"He speaketh well," Harry concedes grudgingly. "But you-- I take you for some scholar, to care so for poetry."

'Me? No no, not a scholar at all. Didn't even go to university.'

He would have liked to go to university.

'I run a bookshop, though. I read a lot.'

"Oh." Equally boring! "There are a great many books here. A vast library."

'Really?'

He perks up at once, his whole face lighting up.

'I'd like to see that.'

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