fandomtownies | The Magpie Emporium, Thursday (9/1)

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The Magpie Emporium, Thursday (9/1)

So there were cats popping out of the ceiling at random intervals today, and it was basically the best thing ever.

Steph thought so, anyway. Saffron was absolutely beside herself with indignation. As if her daily tribulations weren't bad enough, now she was forced to share her food with these imposters, and no amount of yowling and clawing at Food Human's legs would get her to stop.

Little Bot was busy picking up after everything the ceiling cats knocked over, but true to form it didn't bother him at all.

As for Steph, if anyone needed her, odds were good that she'd be trying to get one of the ceiling cats to pop out over the cardboard beholder standee so she could get an epic selfie, especially since the beholder now had a sign over it that read:

COME ON IN, HANG YOUR HAT ON AN EYESTALK!
(Grants advantage on saves against his eyebeams.)
(No actual beholder eyebeams involved.)

[OOC: Open, though start-of-month epic SP may be likely.]

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"Good afternoon, Miss Gingrich," Watts greeted, hanging his hat on that standee as was now tradition. Hopefully she was quick with that mobile telephone camera, as as soon as he'd stepped away from it, one of the ceiling cats appeared and was attempting to bat at his hat.

[ooc: look, you can't add that sign and then *not* expect him to show up!]

Steph did take a couple of seconds to respond because yes, she did have to whip around with her phone and grab a picture of that.

"Yessssss," she declared, kicking one leg up as she fistpumped. "Amazing. Watts! What's going on?"

“Not very much at all,” he admitted. “I am still working on that list of songs for you. I should hopefully have it completed soon. But I- I just wanted to express my appreciation for, ah. What you said on the radio the other day.” Surprise, surprise, he was gravitating towards the dice again, picking up a couple and rolling them together in one hand as he spoke.

"I thought of you," Steph admitted, "while all that shit was going on. Kind of had a feeling you'd have a suitcase or two to that effect. It's absolute bullshit that anyone should ever have to go through that, and I am so, so sorry that you did."

A faint smile crossed her face as she watched him start to fiddle with the dice.

"Take your time with the songs, seriously."

The sound they made as they clacked together was pleasing!

"You did?" Watts blinked at her. "Ah. Yes. Sometimes I forget that being- when I'm from means people might- well, it's history, to you, I suppose." He scratched at his chin with the hand not holding on to the dice.

It totally was, and if you asked her, the act of rolling them around themselves was soothing too.

Steph huffed a not-entirely-mirthful laugh.

"Not as completely history as it ought to be, and a lot of people forget that, but the difference for you has to be completely mindblowing."

That too, absolutely.

"That is- putting it mildly," Watts said with a nod. "I detested hiding. Lying. And I know I don't have to, here. But- some habits are hard to break." Especially when they were the kind of habits that kept you, you know, alive.

Edited 2022-09-02 04:55 (UTC)

"The ones that you rely on, on a daily basis," Steph said quietly.

“Yes,” Watts nodded. “And Steven’s been- endlessly patient, regarding that, at least.”

"He strikes me as a good guy that way. I'm really glad to hear that."

Steph gave him a small, sympathetic smile.

"Even in Seattle, when I was with my ex we kind of reflexively stopped holding hands whenever we thought people might notice. At restaurants when the server was coming over, things like that. Just in case they tried to spit in our food, or ask us to leave. Being assholes in minor ways. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to have to worry about the kind of shit you did."

“I was out for drinks once,” Watts recalled. “With- a friend.” Perhaps someday he’d manage to actually say ‘boyfriend’; it didn’t help that it was one of those words he’d only learned about after arriving here. “Someone, a colleague, actually- well. I suppose he thought we were a touch friendlier with each other than two men ought to be. Had my friend arrested on indecency charges. Let slip to the others in the cells that night just what he’d been picked up for.” He wasn’t going to go into detail why someone would do that, assuming Steph could fill in the blanks there.

"... what the actual fuck."

Yeah, Steph had followed that implication to its logical conclusion. You could tell by the sudden stormy expression on her face and her total failure to notice the cat that had popped out of the ceiling to paw in the general direction of her head.

"I wish I could say I was surprised, but..." She sighed. "Fuck, man. I'm so sorry."

"He was released, and the charges dropped, eventually," only because Watts had gone to Brackenreid and demanded that he himself be charged as well, then, for being just as indecent as Jack Walker. "But things between us were- not the same. After that."

Steph blew out a long breath and ran a hand through her hair.

"I can't see how they could, after that. Jesus."

Watts wasn’t even sure why he was telling Steph all of this, just that it felt like once he opened his mouth it was all coming tumbling out.

“He ended up marrying a woman. She was pregnant and needed a father for her child, he needed a way to- escape scrutiny.” And he’d understood it on some level, that need to protect oneself, but god had it hurt.

Steph wasn't sure either, but she'd been that queer kid the other queer people could talk to ever since she came out, long before she was the queer DJ on the only radio station in the middle of nowhere. She was used to it.

"Not an unusual arrangement, even now," she said, sympathetic and genuine. "Understandable, even, on some levels. Still fucking blows, though, watching someone pick living a lie over you."

“It very nearly destroyed me,” Watts admitted, hand clenching into a fist around the dice, focusing on the feel of them pressing in to the skin of his palm.

"I'm really sorry, man," Steph said, feeling like nothing she could say would be adequate enough, because really, what the hell could you say to make up for something as awful as that? "That is an entire world of bullshit and I hate that anyone anywhere ever has to go through it. But... at least here you finally get some breathing room from all that?"

"Breathing room," he echoed. "And- someone I l- " why he couldn't say it about Steven when he had no problem saying it to him, he didn't know, just that his tongue tripped over itself on the word. "Someone I care deeply for, who as I said has been exceedingly patient as I try to find my way here."

"If he wasn't, I'd have to have some words with him," Steph said lightly, though she meant it.

...not that she thought any words-having was likely to happen.

"You're literally still learning to be okay with the idea that you're okay, after a lifetime of everything and everyone telling you that you aren't," she went on in that intense and sincere tone she took on whenever she felt strongly enough about something serious. "Anyone who didn't understand that you need time to work through all of that? That you literally need to re-learn a whole bunch of habits and shit? I'd be telling you to dump his ass. Luckily, I don't think that's a concern."

"That is... essentially what he keeps reminding me, when I begin to get frustrated with myself," Watts admitted, a fond smile lighting his face. "So no, no words will be necessary, I promise."

"I didn't think so," Steph said, grinning at him. "But hey, if it helps any to also hear it from someone who isn't quite as biased in your favor? I'm absolutely down to throw you a reminder or two every now and then, too."

"I am- exceedingly lucky, I think, to have found a friend like you, Miss Gingrich," Watts admitted.

"Oh, I mean --" Steph waved a hand, her grin a little crooked and somewhat abashed now. "Trying to be supportive is the least I can do, seriously."

"Perhaps," Watts told her. "But you have been kind to me since the day we met, and I am- not an easy person to get along with."

Steph grinned wryly. "I think that just means you're my kind of people. I seem to have a talent for collecting those."

Haven Springs had taught her how to be kinder to people from the start, she realized suddenly. Not just Gabe, though he'd been a huge part of it, but Ryan, Charlotte, Eleanor... hell, Jed too, even if it had been mostly a performance on his part.

"I try, anyway."

"Perhaps if I'd a friend like you back home, someone who understood, I might never have-" he broke off, shaking his head.

"Might never have..." Steph tilted her head slightly, curious but not about to push for the rest of that statement.

“Attempted to- cure myself. Of- indecency. Deviancy,” Watts admitted.

"Fuck."

Steph knew, on an intellectual level, that it made sense (in a shitty way) that Watts would say something like that. Hell, as it was she already knew several people who'd tried. Actually hearing it still sucked in a kick-to-the-gut kind of way.

Which was why she sounded slightly heartbroken when she asked, "What happened?"

“There was a doctor who boasted a near-perfect success rate with hypnosis. I had- someone I trusted- put me through the process. But I woke and- it was the same. Nothing had changed,” Watts shook his head.

"You were trying to fix something that was never broken in the first place. Of course nothing happened," Steph said, but she was a little bit relieved; she'd been braced to hear something much worse. "I'm guessing that wasn't exactly a relief at the time, though."

"I was heartbroken," Watts confirmed. "Not because someone had fallen out of love with me. But because he wasn't allowed to love me. I felt like- I just wanted it all to go away." And so then he'd done his best to dismiss the idea of love at all, which had worked about equally as well.

"Yeah," Steph said softly. "Like... what even was the point, if all that was going to happen was that the world was going to use it to hurt you again aind again."

"Precisely," Watts nodded. "It was too much."

And then Jack had taken him back and things had been all right, for a little while, until they fell apart in a completely different way...

"And now you're here." Steph put a little bit of her GM voice into it, because sometimes you just needed to feel like you were part of a story where something good got to happen for once. "Somewhere you can be safe, tend to your wounds and have help doing it, and finally have some time to let them heal."

She had a whole zombie video game metaphor for these situations but she was pretty sure it would be lost on him.

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The Magpie Emporium, Thursday (9/1)

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