Goodman Grey (monsterforhire) wrote in knowhereic, @ 2017-07-22 16:48:00 |
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Entry tags: | the dresden files: canon: goodman grey, whoniverse: canon: river song |
Who: River Song & Goodman Grey
What: A dinner date and some companionable conversation
Where: A restaurant
When: Backdated to the night before the Tropes began
Warnings | Status: Mentions of murder, death, nerdy time travel | Log - Complete
“Now, I’d have sprung for a much better place if a better place was to be found,” Grey said lightly, his tone a resonant baritone and tinted with a gentle Southern accent. It was an indication he was from or had been in the deep American South for a while. “But all things considered, I think it’s fair to postpone an off Knowhere trip until we know each other better.”
The man stood close enough to River Song to push her chair in, once she was seated, before he crossed around the table and lowered himself fluidly into his own. He moved with the casual grace of a predator at ease with his surroundings, the entirety of him relaxed and unafraid. If anything, sitting down to dinner with River Song seemed to make him happy.
At first sight Goodman Grey wasn’t much. He was a fair study of averages all around, the kind of man that could be anyone from anywhere in the world, whose features were nothing to remember or pick out of a crowd - he was medium height, a medium build, with a darker skin tone and the features that said he could originate from or fit in on almost any continent in the world. The one thing about him that wasn’t as average as the rest of him were his eyes; they were brown by all appearances and in the shape of human orbs, but their oddity was in the flecks of golden amber hues and the fact when they caught in the light, his eyes refracted like a cat’s; one moment the sheen was there and then gone the next. He wasn’t human.
“I rather enjoy this place, it has, and forgive the term, an exotic menu.” He sat back casually, folding his arms over his chest, from there he studied the woman sitting opposite of him with a patently curious expression.
River Song was an interesting woman, moreover she was interesting and unafraid of Goodman Grey. It was both unusual and alluring.
***
Very little frightened River Song, certainly not the implication that the man sitting in front of her was not entirely human. Neither was she, for that matter. In fact, the revelation had only piqued her interest in him. It was very possible that she had never before encountered anyone like Goodman Grey in her years of traveling, unbound by the confines of time and space. His offer of dinner in exchange for conversation had been impossible to refuse. And now that she was sitting across from the man with his elegant movements, his peculiar eyes, and his smooth American accent, she was rather pleased with herself over this turn of events. And with his manners, as he helped her into her seat.
Despite all outward appearances, River was not easily charmed. On the surface, her taste was exquisitely shallow: a pretty face; a bit of leverage; a dalliance to stave off boredom and a little loneliness. But she had a real eye for those rare and unexpected individuals whose wants, needs, and entire life story was not plainly written out upon their face. Whose demeanor betrayed the existence of but did not reveal the secrets that stirred behind their eyes. She kept her own dark past to herself, hidden beneath layers of impetuousness and flippancy that not many dared to or even could sweep aside.
She casually glanced around at their surroundings with a warm smile of approval. "What more can you ask of a planetary head floating at the very edge of space-time? At least there is no real chance of winding up on the menu, which I can't say for some of the fine establishments I've frequented."
***
There it was, the spark of life in her eyes and that sense of laughter that Grey had imagined existed on the edges of River’s being. It was in the casual flick of her gaze, the wry amusement of her statement. It made Grey laugh anyway regardless if it was meant to or not. He chuckled lightly and spread both hands in a ceding motion.
“It’s gauche to eat your dinner guests,” he agreed mildly. “Though, if there’s bad manners all around then who can blame one?” He was a predator through and through, the desire to take and eat and consume others always bubbled under the surface of his calm. He was a very controlled monster but entirely the sort that would keep someone on the menu because it pleased him to do so.
“You said you were an archaeologist,” Grey began a moment later. “How does that work when you cross space time? Admittedly, this is my very first time being anywhere other than earth. Being as I’m a virgin to this experience, I’d hoped it to be a slow, gentle excursion, but I was proved quite wrong.”
He leaned his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand, riveted. He wanted to know everything about her but had all the patience in the world to find out. He could sit there until Judgment Day, waiting.
***
Her eyes darted over to the unassuming maître d' manning the door of the restaurant. Although casually dressed, he was sporting the traditional bowtie that had somehow become the hallmark of restaurant waitstaff in every corner of the universe. "One restaurant in particular had a very specific protocol for disposing of the wrong end of a bad deal. I learned to be friendly with the maître d' and stick with salads." It also didn't hurt that she had a Vortex Manipulator, and on occasion, a TARDIS, on hand to aid in any necessary escape.
"That's right," she replied, "Though the field of archeology in the 52nd century is practiced a bit different than in say, the 21st." She took a guess at a century that might be more familiar to him. "My methods are a bit unorthodox..." She shrugged her shoulders and waived her hand dismissively. She had once referred to archaeologists as thieves with patience, and that was about the truth of it. Granted, her brand of thievery required expert research, a certain amount of gall, and of course, time travel.
"Time travel is seldom slow, or gentle even. And that is to say nothing of one's actual mode of transport. There's usually a certain amount of mess involved, no matter whether you are traveling for business or for pleasure. Or neither, as the case may be for this place. The force that brought us here was like nothing I have experienced." Her hand went instinctively up to her hair. "I usually travel in a style that's much more... elegant."
She returned her hand to her lap and settled back into her chair. "And what of your own work? I suspect you are no stranger to the unorthodox."
***
“Salads,” Grey said. “At least it's the smart choice. I much prefer my food still kicking, but I suppose in that scenario I'd want to be reasonably assured of what I was eating. And most assuredly to not be on the menu.” He laughed again and paused, just long enough to both listen as River explained and to order a bottle of what passed for wine in space. Saying nothing, Grey considered the woman for a moment and then inclined his head respectfully while he poured them both a glass with a smooth motion.
“So you're the space faring version of Indiana Jones?” He asked. “That's about what I know of archaeology. I haven't had occasion to be either professor or cultural resource management. Surprisingly, they don't get into things that often require my services.”
Grey paused again, his eyes tracking River's hand to her hair then flicking back down to her eyes, peering at her curiously. He lacked many of those basic motions humans used, the small tics and eccentric individuality that made them, them: he didn't know how to blend in among people in the same way normal people did, outside of simply looking ordinary. But being unseen wasn't the same as being one of them.
Curious.
He continued to study River before he shrugged smoothly; that he could make look almost natural.
“I work by contract, by reference usually. I'm… what's the word? A covert operative, a mercenary, which in itself is not all that exciting, but my particular talents lend themselves to much more than typical armed thug. Whatever my client needs, I can either provide it or obtain it with the right information.”
He collected people for that reason. A little blood sample, and voila a double is born, memories and all.
“I come recommended. Of course, accepting the fact there are some… four of us in the world capable of doing the things I can do.”
***
River raised an eyebrow at the reference to still-kicking meals. She preferred her meat on the rare side, but not still breathing. "Better salads than finding out later you were digesting an old friend." Fortunately, she was not speaking from experience.
She smiled at the comparison to Indiana Jones. "Sure, if we're throwing out pop culture references. Though without the Nazis." She took a sip of the wine, and a memory crept into her thoughts. "No, strike that. There were Nazis, but just the one time. Though they fared about as well as Dr Jones's. I was having a bit of a day." She tilted her head to the side slightly. "Fictional and the future practice of archeology aside, in truth, I quite like the more traditional, Earthbound version of the discipline. There's something to be said for the old ways. I spent some time in the 1920s doing a bit of writing and some field work in Mesopotamia."
As she spoke, River could almost feel the intensity with which Grey watched her. Instead of making her uncomfortable, it made her curious. She was reminded of the way she had been stared at by the the Quoqeht the first time she had visited their planet. It seemed River was not the only inquisitive person seated at the table.
On the contrary, the words covert operative and mercenary sounded exciting to River. She knew the type of course, but felt that this particular one was holding back. "Whatever your client needs," she repeated back to him. "And what is it that they usually require? What kind of work demands people with such rare gifts?" He had mentioned a shapeshifting ability to her once, and also implied he was immune, or nearly so, to death.
***
Grey paused, tipping his head slightly while he considered that. “52nd century archaeologist writing in the 1920s. I have no idea about how time travel works, but how are you are not entirely insane? Where do you originate?” he asked. “At what point in time. Do you have an origin?” He supposed that was the central question; who was she and how had she come about being a time traveler? A space time traveler at that.
Grey was old, but he’d not lived nearly long enough to experience that. Though, supposing good fortune in the coming millennia it would likely change. Humans were making strange scientific advancements.
He smiled a slow, lazy smile at her question.
“Not the good sort as it goes. Though, I don’t care who is paying or what for; if the job is worth my time and my skills, I take it.” He paused there and frowned. He’d offered a chance at dinner and honest conversation; it wasn’t every day that someone wanted to know what he did for a living. Most people maintained a healthy dose of fear of Goodman Grey and kept it professional and without curiosity.
But this? Well, Grey wanted to share with her. He couldn’t say why he felt that way though.
“I told you, Miss River, I can do anything. The last job before I came here to Knowhere required me to open a door. It was secured through a biometric security system linked to a Harvey Morrison who operated as a financial judiciary. I took his eyes and I opened the door as requested.” He smiled again. “I didn’t physically take his eyes out of his head, by any means, though I suppose it would have worked just as well, except for the hassle of having to preserve them long enough.”
He raised his strange golden colored eyes to her own and then they just… shimmered. All of Grey seemed to blur and then the unassuming man simply changed. In place of him appeared a 57 year old caucasian male with short hair and nervous eyes. He squinted at River then looked around, blinking because he didn’t have his glasses on, which made him pat the pockets of his suit coat in search of them. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he said to himself. “Excuse me, young lady? Who are you?” He finally met River’s eyes then looked away again, checking his surroundings.
He shook himself and then Grey murmured, “Sorry, Harvey here doesn’t like being here.” He rubbed his temple and then a moment later resumed his own appearance so that he was just Grey again. He didn’t think River was the kind of woman that would readily panic at the display.
***
River narrowed her eyes. "You assume I'm not," she replied playfully. "You recall that I said there's a certain amount of mess involved in time travel? I am the product of such a mess. I don't originate from any one place." She paused to consider her words. No one had ever really asked her that question before, and she was unsure of how to answer it coherently.
"My parents were from 21st-century England, though my birth occurred just about as far away from that time and place as one can get. My childhood, such as it can be called, was primarily spent at the end of the 20th century, and I pursued my studies in the 52nd." She took a breath and attempted to gauge Grey's reaction. It occurred to her that she had never really been so open about herself with a stranger, and yet, she had never really encountered one who seemed so interested in knowing such things about her. "It does sound a little bit insane, I suppose."
She watched him closely as he spoke. He may have expected his story to sound strange to her ears, but in all honesty, it greatly resembled some of her own work. Save for his shifting ability, of course. "You, Goodman Grey, sound like an extraordinary friend to have. If we had met sooner, I do believe I would have inquired after your services. Though, to be fair, I would likely have finagled on your payment. A sorry habit of my younger self." She shrugged with a smile that indicated she wasn't the least bit ashamed.
And then his face changed. And not just his face, but his entire being. Although River knew that she had sat down to sup with a shapeshifter, she was still started to witness it so unexpectedly. Her initial shock passed quickly, however she was unsure whether or not to interact with the nervous man before her. Before she had a chance to respond to his query, Grey had reappeared. She stared at him for a moment, half expecting him to change again, the wonder of the experience plainly written on her face. "Harvey, was it? The man whose eyes you took?" It seemed to her that he had taken more than just his eyes.
***
Grey being Grey again paused to take a drink from a clear glass, his eyes tracking back to River’s face to gauge her reaction while he considered all that she’d said and his own approach to answering. She was just as strange as he, which he appreciated; she appeared to take his revelations in stride and she hadn’t gotten up and run away at his demonstration either. Good, he would have been disappointed otherwise.
But then, she was accustomed to a level of strange, wasn’t she? Grey’s slow smile reappeared on his face and he tipped his head a slight fraction.
“I don’t take kindly to cheats. I’ve got to pay my Rent after all,” he laughed as he said it, but he was dead serious. Getting on the bad side of men like Grey never ended well. And just think, she could time travel, but Grey was an immortal. Imagine an unexpected meeting several centuries later. The thought amused the man but he said nothing more of the subject.
“That was Harvey, yes; I needed his irises and a code he didn’t keep a physical record of,” Grey reached up and touched a finger to his temple to indicate he needed something else. “I could be you with about as much effort,” He said evenly, not anymore ashamed to state the fact than she had been to admit she was a cheater. “For the easy parts of any job I can use a mere description and a picture, a brief biography even; which is why whatever you have given me about yourself is enough. The hard parts require more.” Harvey hadn’t been meant to die, but when he had Grey had been required to double him for a day; he’d shifted deep enough to run Morrison Judiciary Services as Harvey while the man’s real corpse had sat and rot in an abandoned building some distance away.
Grey leaned back in his chair.
“I’m that good,” he said lightly, and laughed again. “Besides, it’s fun. Why else do the work we do? Why do you do anything, Miss River?”
***
"What can be said for the follies of youth," River replied dismissively. She had gotten on the wrong side of dangerous men and women before, but had always gotten out of it with fast talk and a bit of double cross, and sometimes just by the skin of her teeth. But that's what made it enjoyable. What was life without a spot of danger?
She was hesitant for a moment upon the realization that there may have been a motive behind his questions. He said he only needed a brief biography and she had given him one. Though, what he could make of the vague information she had revealed was unclear. "I'm not sure I have anything that you'd need." She recalled the way in which Grey had completely transformed into the other man--memory, personality, and all. She wondered what he would make of the things swimming around in her mind. "Or even that you'd want," she added.
While Grey had leaned back in his chair, River moved forward slightly. "Are they all with you, then? The people you've become?" She wondered what it must have been like. For herself, she had the memories of all three of her regenerations with her in her mind, though sometimes the earlier ones felt like they happened to someone else. Sometimes she wishes they had.
"Why indeed," she replied to his first query with a slanted grin. Perhaps it was the result of her unseemly upbringing. Or maybe due to the unusual circumstances of her birth, it would always have been her nature. But she could not sit still. Even when forced to remain on a planet by choice or circumstance, she was never free of the urge to run, toward a challenge, toward danger, toward mischief, whatever. This had manifest itself in a myriad of ways--particularly when she was younger--and had often involved local law enforcement. Why do you do anything, he had asked her. "Why not?" was her reply. Why not do anything and everything? At least once.
***
"Nothing," Grey said lightly. "I don't want you for your body." He drawled, that lazy smile making its way casually across his features again. She was a very fascinating person; if Grey wanted her in any capacity other than the one he was currently pursuing there was a myriad of ways he could accomplish it. Or try, anyway. He'd figured the Doctor to be either entirely insane or a being who monsters like Grey shouldn't taunt. But still. In River's words, what was life without a little sport?
"With me? No, not how you may be imagining it. I don't keep them on the surface, but I can recall them in a heartbeat. I feel doing otherwise would be an excellent way to be insane or to lose myself inside them. You shift deep enough and it's harder to come back." He tapped his fingers on the table in a slow pattern. "People are more difficult," he noted patiently. "Inhuman beings are much less complicated." He was, after all, a shapeshifter which did not confine him to a human species. He could be anything in any world, now, with as much access as he had to others on this floating celestial.
Grey chuckled again and leaned forward to meet River's eyes. "You are singularly the most interesting woman I have met on this adventure, Miss River." He liked that slanted grin of hers, the playful edge in her personality, the adventure in her whims. It was all quite unusual for him, as a man who grew close to no one and felt no particular things for anyone. He wasn't human, human emotion or the capacity to feel were not within his understanding. He didn't know what to make of himself or her. He just knew that he liked it.
***
There was that smile again. River had to admit, there was an unmistakable allure to it. She was reminded of a particular species of plant on Stratus V, with a beautiful appearance and a pleasing smell, begging to be plucked and enjoyed, but was poisonous to the touch. In nature, there was often danger in beauty. "Words that every woman wants to hear," River replied. While her face turned up into a smile that matched Grey's, her tone did not indicate whether or not her comment was meant to be taken as sarcasm.
She pondered his words for a moment. "With that kind of power, you'd have to be a pretty strong person--I mean to say, you'd have to possess a certain amount of restraint. I imagine it'd be all too easy to just become someone else." She was sure the temptation would be far too great for her to manage.
"You flatter me," River found herself saying. There were very few people in the entire universe who knew who she truly was, who knew where she came from, what she had been conditioned to do, and how hard she had worked her way back from that. The Doctor had much to do with this, of course, and he was the one who knew her best. And yet, sometimes she found herself having to pull back. Like if she didn't, she might repel him in some way. Looking at the man staring so intensely at her from across the table, she wondered what he would make of her past. Given the things he had told her about himself, she thought he might understand, that he might not judge her for what she had done, or the impulses she wanted to indulge but didn't. "I fear I'm not quite as interesting as you think I am."
***
Ugh. That appeal. He could sit and watch her move all day long, from the rise and fall of her chest to the movement of her eyes down to her uplifting smile. Damn her.
Grey considered River’s statement for a moment; in a millennia of practice he’d never gone too far that he couldn’t come back and yet.. “When I was young,” he said, “it was a lot more appealing..” To lose himself in the freedom of becoming another. But the nature of his gift was such that if he went too far he’d never come back; there would be no Grey to return to; he’d merely become a doubled version of whoever he’d shifted and the memories of whoever he’d been would disappear entirely.
It was a strange prospect.
The man tilted his head slightly, his odd eyes catching the light. They’d made a one sided deal; she’d come to dinner and Grey would talk about himself, they never promised she’d tell her secrets. Which was all fine, really, because he didn’t mind taking the time to suss them out. He simply shrugged a shoulder and frowned thoughtfully.
“I don’t think that’s true,” he admitted, “It’s all there somewhere. But you don’t have to trust me with it; god knows I wouldn’t.”
***
"Was it difficult for you as a child?" River asked. "Was it hard to understand what you were and what you were capable of?" Her own childhood--the first one, when her face had been the perfect mixture of her mother and father--had been unbearable. Not just the loneliness and the fear that closed in on her from all sides every moment of every day. But also the intrusion into her mind of thoughts that she knew were not her own, yet seemed to hold more authority than her own desires. She had nothing against which to gauge the normalcy of what she was experiencing, yet she had still felt inadequate, unnatural. She wondered if it had been in any way similar for him.
She didn't trust him. Not yet. But the potential was there. "Incentive for another dinner then, perhaps?" she proposed.
***
“You know, no one has ever asked me that question,” Grey mused. “The short answer is yes,” he said, honestly, surprising even himself for divulging that truth. And so easily, too. Going soft, Grey? He tapped his fingers on the table again, the tips blurring into the talons of a raptor, then gliding back to human. He watched this dispassionately and when he raised his eyes to hers again they had changed shape into golden colors with a dark vertical center that narrowed against the light shining into them. Eyes like a cat. A brief glimpse of the true being that lurked beneath the shape of Goodman Grey.
“It’s the instinct to kill that was the hardest part. I do enjoy it,” Grey said shamelessly, his eyes locking onto River with the sort of predatory interest that a recently fed mountain lion takes in a newborn deer - lazy and patient. “It’s fun. But learning there’s a time and place---well, for teenagers hormones are the worst parts, now add that all into the mix and it’s a regular disaster. It isn’t as if I could turn to Aunt Sally and ask her why I wanted to hurt everyone or why seeing injured people was always just a little too thrilling. If I’d asked my father--he was a real piece of work--he’d probably have killed me on the spot because I was too weak.”
He sounded amused, he looked amused as he said it. “I don’t go out of my way to murder people. As I said, there’s a place and a time with need. I’m not a psychopath, but I am what I am.” Grey leaned closer. “The difference is that I choose what I do with myself... I satisfy my needs by choice and by mode and method of my design. I refuse to be a programmed monster.”
And that was the deepest truth he had to give, laid bare.
If after that she still wanted dinner with him? Well, then he’d found a gem in truth. “I would like that,” he said quietly, oddly sincere.
***
River also watched Grey's fingers as they tapped on the table, humanoid one moment and decidedly other the next. When she looked up to meet his eyes again, they too had changed. She was impressed at the ease with which it appeared he could shift from one being to the next. She was still very much intrigued by his revelation that he could recall any of his past "shapes," and so quickly too. Most of the species of shapeshifter she had come across were limited in the number of visages they could store. She wondered how much energy was required for each transformation. When she had accepted his invitation to dinner, River had expected to receive answers to satisfy her active curiosity. She had not anticipated finding her dinner date to be so compelling. Instead of answers, she only had more questions.
"I admire your restraint," she admitted. "You seem remarkably self aware. For a monster," she said, using his own word, but without any real feeling behind it. She hardly knew him, of course, but she did not think the word accurately described the person she had met so far, revelations and all.
She smiled brightly at him then, a signal that she was done asking questions. For now anyway. She reached over to grasp her wine glass in one hand and picked up the menu in front of her with the other. "How about we finish this one first?" she asked, taking a drink of wine. "Tell me, what's good here?"