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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Emcee's gaze flicks up and down, a quick flutter of eyelashes, taking him in from head to toe.

At the unusual name, he weighs the odds if Jim is still playing or not.

"Ah. So his reputation precedes you."

A mild joke to test the waters a bit?

He huffs a tiny, awkward laugh, and his face is pure yep.

'Seems like it. Mind you, I think he's in more trouble than he bargained for, wherever he is. I met his wife, and she's not very happy with him.'

This is not a joke, though Gethin sounds more amused than he did earlier, when the conversation was going on.

Emcee's eyebrows rise.

"His-- wife."

This is...new. Or it could be that someone is fucking with him.

He huffs his own awkward little chuckle and shakes his head.

"I think it's best to keep one's distance from the domestic affairs of others... Oh. Um. I'm sorry--"

Extending a hand to shake, he says, "Call me Emcee."

'You're not as surprised as I was, suddenly accused of being married with two kids.'

He shakes the hand, a flicker of recognition playing across his face. This is not the Emcee he's aware of, though the costume, makeup, name is practically identical. it's a weird kind of displacement.

'Hello, Emcee. I met a friend of yours earlier. He was talking about you.'

"That certainly ranks high on the list of surprising accusations," he says, mildly wry but not entirely unsympathetic.

As they shake hands, he notices the faint look of recognition. Is it Jim recognizing him? Has Gethin seen him before?

"Oh? How marvelous." Maahvelous. His German accent draws out the word a little. "Though I hope he made no mention of marriage or children."

'Uh. No.'

Awkward. Is it awkward? He's not sure, so looks a bit awkward just in case.

'It was Eric. He was telling me about what happened to him, and then he - well, he told me what happened to you, a bit, and-'

Well. Yeah.

Emcee's lips twitch in a ghost of a smirk at the awkwardness.

But it quickly fades when Jim/Gethin says that Eric told him what happened to him. He pales and gapes a bit before answering.

"Oh. I see."

Now it's awkward.

He didn't realize Eric would speak of him so...freely, to a stranger. Then again, Emcee's incident wasn't exactly a secret. But still.

And yet, the old Eric had encouraged him to own it.

He clears his throat.

"Well, as long as he spared you the gory details," he says with a forced but faltering smile.

...bugger, he's put his foot in it, hasn't he? it must be this cold; he can't think properly, and his body is weirdly exhausted because of it.

'God, no, nothing detailed. He just said you got shot - and who by - and that they fixed you here.'

There's a vague hand gesture.

'It was in a bigger context, y'know - he wasn't gossiping.'

"No, I didn't think Eric was the gossiping sort," Emcee says, assured. "And after all, he was involved in 'fixing' me." He shrugs and smiles faintly, and shakes his head.

"But this is such a grim topic for small talk, don't you think? Would you like some tea? I was taking this--" (he pats the thermos) "--to my room to avoid the bug that seems to be going around, but might I offer you a cup?"

This creates a bit of a dilemma for Gethin - he doesn't want to make Emcee stay down here if he wasn't planning to, but it's also rude to refuse a drink. And anyway, he seems nice! Gethin likes people, and finds them interesting - and Emceee definitely seems interesting.

'Yeah, okay, thanks. If you're alright risking the cold for a bit.'

He won't take offence if Emcee would rather not. He himself has stopped sneezing and is suffering from not much more than a runny nose, so he thinks he's probably past the contagious stage.

"Oh, I'm fine," he insists with a little wave of his hand, the faint smile still on his lips. "It won't hurt to be a little social today."

Turning to the Bar, he asks, "Two cups of hot tea for Gethin and myself, would you, bitte, darling? Danke schön."

He slides a cup and saucer toward Gethin. The tea is already however he takes it. "I assume that you have been introduced to the magic workings of this place and don't require my feeble attempts to explain how two cups of tea have materialized out of thin air."

'Oh, yeah. I've spoke to a few people, they've sorted me out with the...magic, and everything.'

He feels a bit stupid saying it, but there doesn't seem to be any other explanation at present. And the tea is delicious! Just right. He nods thanks, and sips it quietly.

'You're obviously really used to it. You must have been coming here a while.'

"Quite a while, yes," he replies, fondly and perhaps with a bit of nostalgia. "A few years now, by the Bar's reckoning. The passage of time gets funny when one goes back and forth through the door, though. For me it feels as if 1934 will never end. When and where are you from?"

'Do you age the same way, though?'

That would be weird, wouldn't it? Spend ages here and get older, but go back to the same time in your own world. He has no idea how that would work.

'It's 1985 for me. I live in London, have done for years.'

The accent remains resolutely Welsh, obviously.

Emcee snorts a little chuckle. "Age? Personally I try not to dwell on it. As far as I'm concerned, if I don't think about it, it doesn't happen."

In addition to his uncertainty about how old he is, he's almost been excused from visibly aging by his elfin features.

"Oh, I adore London," he gushes, his eyes brightening. "I visited once, in the Twenties, on a whirlwind holiday with a few wealthy boyfriends. The time we had was utterly smashing, galavanting about from one seedy nightclub to the next. Then after I started coming here, a friend of mine took me to his London in the early 2000s. Dinner and dancing at the Ritz and everything!" He sighs, rolling his eyes. "Oh, listen to me, prattling on about my past adventures and I'm not even drunk."

But the prattling is nice! Gethin visibly relaxes, and is grinning as Emcee speaks. His enthusiasm is infectious!

'Yeah, it's...it's a nice place. A lot of fun.'

The smile fades a little though, and he sips his tea to hide it. By the time he lowers it, he's rallied.

'There's a lot of seedy nightclubs, I'll give it that. Soho's fun, if boyfriends are your thing.'

Emcee lifts his cup to his lips.

"I'm from Berlin, darling -- everything is my thing," he murmurs wryly before taking a sip.

"So. What do you do in London?"

'Berlin sounds like fun. Or it was; dunno about now.'

He sets his cup down.

'I run a gay bookshop? It's sort of a meeting place for the community. Groups get together and organise themselves, give talks, poets give readings, that sort of thing.'

Something flickers across Emcee's face. Something sad, dark, rueful, exhausted.

"Mm. Berlin was indeed fun while it lasted. History as you know it may play out as it will, but-- knowing what happens means I can deviate from the plot."

He huffs a short sigh and bolsters himself with a small smile.

"Oh, now that sounds lovely. You know what we used to call that? My flat. Except the purpose was more carnal than literary, but still!" He grins. "In all seriousness, darling, I do like the idea of it. I mean I think it's such--a necessity, don't you agree? To provide a space for like-minded people. Is it a very popular place?"

Gethin smiles a bit.

'I live above it, so my flat's a bit like that as well. Used to be, anyway. Not that it was ever that carnal, but-'

Well, it had his moments.

'It's the only gay bookshop in the U.K, so I s'pose so? A lot of it's mail order to the rest of the country, 'cos they can't get stuff anywhere else. We have to import most of it from America. But yeah, if you mean day to day, we get a fair few people in.'

Fair bit of vandalism and bricks through the window as well, but that appears to be life.

"Ah, now you're just making me homesick," he says with a half-smile, half-moue. "I used to live right above the Kit Kat Klub where I was Master of Ceremonies. What grand times."

He tips his head with curiosity next, a slight furrow between his brows.

"The only gay bookshop? Are things not-- well, you know, open and free in 1985? When I visited my friend's London, and Berlin as well, such establishments were rather plentiful and in plain sight in the future."

So he is that Emcee. He looks a bit different, but...wow. Gethin blinks, but the question prompts a frown.

'Well, we've got our own clubs and pubs, but it's not-'

He cuts off, trying to find the right way to say it. It's kind of a big subject to deliver in summary.

'-not exactly equal, or accepted fully. Being gay, I mean. The shop gets vandalised about once a month, there's,' his face tightens a little, '-a lot of violence, if you live openly. A lot of stigma, because of AIDS.'

A slight shrug.

'It's better than it used to be - it's not illegal in the UK anymore - but there's a long way to go.'

"Oh."

It's not much more than a quiet exhalation.

But there's also a lot of unspoken understanding in it, because he's experienced all of that as well. And Jay had told him about AIDS. It was enough to make him take advantage of Guppy's free condoms.

"You know, I don't think I have ever met anyone from the 1980s. Certainly no one like you. Or me. And while I know that I will never see equality and acceptance in my own lifetime, you may yet achieve it in yours. Just keep surviving."

Gethin was not expecting that. Not the comment on equality and acceptance - it's what they're all aiming for, even if it seems like a distant dream - but the thing about surviving. He blinks, taken aback; his face crumbles just a touch, and he looks down.

'Yeah.'

Yeah.

Emcee impulsively reaches out to touch Gethin's jaw, just a quick sweep of fingertips warmed by the teacup.

"Life is beautiful, darling," he tells him, smiling faintly. "And it is worth it."