Rorschach is "Mike Caulfield" (whisper_no) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-02-22 00:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | lady, rorschach |
Who: Valerie and Rorschach Mike
What: A pretty woman wants to put up fliers in the Aubade lobby. Clearly this indicates sinister activity.
Where: Aubade Lobby
When: This afternoon
Warnings: Extreme paranoia
In this new town, Valerie set up a different life for herself. Her apartment was not designed to entertain anyone but herself (it appealed to her personal sense of warm, clean cotton style), and she didn’t find herself a job that would net her someone of importance--a temp job as a secretary, for example, or a masseuse in an affluent area. She wasn’t quite to the point where she needed support yet, and she estimated she had about three months or so to find an additional source of income, so she could afford a few short weeks for herself. In those weeks, she had instead found a gig twice a week at a club in a decent area, and they gave her a late night on Thursday for popular piano tunes and an even later night on Sunday for blues.
The music from Harlem wasn’t as popular as it had been in her day, and working people liked their Fridays as rowdy as possible, so Valerie accepted the schedule even if it made tips scarce. It wouldn’t hurt to put up a couple fliers, however, and though she didn’t bother to go down to Hamartia, she put one or two up in Bathos and clicked on expensive heels onto Aubade marble to ask permission to put it up on their bulletin board. Even rich people had bulletin boards.
It was rare for Rorschach to leave the Aubade, but lately, he was finding that he had to leave for the sole purpose of not being there. It might have made sense in some strange way, but really, it was fairly nonsensical. The apartment was massive, and yet over the last few weeks, it was starting to feel small. It was as if it had collapsed on itself, a palace that became a hovel. As he grew accustomed to all the rooms and learned how to navigate them, he found himself hating them. Familiarity bred contempt, and Rorschach was beginning to learn that you could hate an inanimate object.
The doorman gave him the strange look he always did, that look of “something isn’t quite right here.” Rorschach had learned to ignore it, put it out of his head. Most people looked at him that way anyway - nothing unusual there. His heavy boots announced his arrival in the lobby, carrying him across marble floors. As he entered, he noticed a young woman speaking with one of the doormen in the lobby, holding a stack of flyers. He hesitated, stopping dead in his tracks as he watched her. He knew the faces of nearly everyone in the building - he did this on purpose. After the disaster with the maid, he made it a point to know everyone, just in case. This woman didn’t belong here, even though she looked the part. Something was off. Something wrong. He stood just before the fireplace, not paying mind to the fact that he had literally stopped in his tracks to stare at a woman. Clearly, this was normal, though she was not.
Valerie had the wardrobe for this place, obtained during the course of her last marriage and transported in leather-wrapped trunks that would not have been amiss on the steam engines of yore. American television and Paris runways had brought back the “conservative” styles of her youth, and aside from the expensive blush-pink heels, she was modest in a lovely sun dress of layered green material that drew close to her hips but draped down over her knees. Her hair was curled, her make-up was light, and she well knew she looked fresh as a daisy.
She noticed the stare long before the doorman did, but pretended she hadn’t, only turning belatedly to glance over one shoulder and then slowly rotate into a profile. She didn’t see what the doorman saw; instead, she saw a man of average looks who was decidedly rumpled but familiar enough with Aubade to come and go without uniform or suit, which put the chances he lived there into ‘very likely.’ Valerie was too familiar and confident in her own appearance to be cowed by such a look, and she flashed Rorschach a pink smile and turned her arm to show him her flyers. “It’s just music. You’d think I was promoting the commies, or something,” she said, as if this was a great secret and the doorman wasn’t standing right there.
The fact that she so flippantly mentioned “commies” made him frown. Communism was not funny. It was liberals waving their poor values in your face, not knowing what they were talking about. It was prostitution losing its name, crime losing a face, because everything belonged to everyone and nothing had a price. It didn’t sit well with Rorschach - not one bit. And a woman that could smile so prettily while dressed up like a 1950’s Barbie Doll and drop such a venomous word was someone he had to be wary of.
“Music fine,” he replied stiffly, straightening up just slightly as he tilted his head to the side, trying to catch a better look at the flyers in her hand. “Good for soul.” He sang to God, back when he still used his voice. Though he doubted she was peddling Holy music. Still, he was being civil. His expression was largely neutral, though it was so difficult for his mask to appear truly neutral. The crooked slant of his bump nose always made him look feral, distrusting. His eyes, too light blue for his dark hair and pale skin, betrayed the fact that he was focused solely on her - that is, until a noise stole his attention for a brief second, a potential attack or problem to be assessed.
Communism was very funny, especially if you lived through the Red Scare and you realized how stupid people could be about a silly little thing like an idea. In those days you had to watch what you said and who you said it to, and Valerie had played it safe by not voting at all, and pretending to be too stupid to understand politics.
These days she appreciated that she didn’t have to pretend to be stupid, and she saw intelligence in Rorschach’s suspicious, unmistakably paranoid gaze. Valerie, who was always intrigued by a challenge, slid a bare inch and a half in Rorschach’s direction, unmistakably friendly in manner and hiding her amusement well. “Exactly. Though this music is better for wallowing in your woes, but who’s nitpicking?” Valerie’s hip shift a little over one toe and then another. Definitely not Holy music.
Even though her movement was tiny, Rorschach noted it carefully. He was hyper-aware of where people were in a space - he always ensured he knew exactly where they were in relation to him, each other, and the exits. Rather than move back, he stayed still, watching her cagily. Though the doormen didn’t pay him much mind, clearly used to his presence, it was obvious that he wasn’t the sort that belonged in the Aubade. He was rough, unfinished work carved out of granite. And though this woman looked like a fourth or fifth finished draft, he knew there was something wrong. Strangers didn’t show up for benign reasons.
“Wallow unnecessary,” he said with a slight snort. “Time wasted.” People that soaked in their misery were useless. Action was what mattered, action and dedication. If you let your mind dwell in one place for too long, it consumed you. He had made these mistakes before, learned from them. If there was a whole type of music dedicated to encouraging people to while their time away, then the world was shittier than even he had previously thought. His eyes narrowed slightly as she moved just a bit, subtle motions that didn’t seem to serve a purpose. He tensed just slightly, as if preparing for an attack.
Valerie recognized imminent signs of retaliation, and she hadn't gotten along this long by ignoring them. She didn't think the man would actually hurt her--indeed she couldn't have felt more safe standing next to the undisturbed doorman--but that didn't mean that paranoia wouldn't come to the fore without warning. Still smiling, obviously amused by Rorschach's readiness to defend himself from little ole her, Valerie stopped her assault without retreating.
"Sometimes it is good to sit and wallow. It forces one to acknowledge realities," Valerie said, losing her bright tone and subsiding into a soothing, throaty one, a more natural tone for her and not at all affected.
The change in her tone wasn’t lost on him. Rorschach turned his head just slightly, looking almost like a bizarre species of bird. He wasn’t yet sure if this was a mask, or if her prior voice had been the mask. His track record with understanding what was a mask and what was a face was quite poor, always mixing the two together. For him, there was no distinction. But he was fast learning that for others, there were chasms between them.
“Reality acknowledged in due time,” he said firmly, voice as decisive as his expression would suggest. “Wallowing change nothing.” It seemed that all people did now was wallow. Fret. “Act change everything.” The brisk, gruff staccato of his voice was something that, were he better with masks, he’d have remedied by now. But it was as integral to him as his own organs - he couldn’t change it now.
Valerie laughed. The deep ripple of it was pleasant, and one of those things that Valerie had going for her. That, along with her features, balanced out her lack of impressive figure, in her opinion. It wasn't like she was possessed of great curves. Men really got distracted by curves. Valerie made do with what she had. "Some people never acknowledge realities," Valerie teased. "The reality is that wallowing helps, and you should try it some time before you get too caught up in what you think is happening." She knew very well this was playing shamelessly on the poor man's paranoia, whatever it might be. "And act incorrectly." Beaming, she held out a flyer to him.
The laugh set him on edge. Rorschach distrusted laughter, though he was slowly becoming used to it thanks to all the people that seemed to laugh around him. Still, he was never in on the joke, never part of the chuckle. He rarely seemed to understand why it was that people laughed, and often interpreted it as a conspiracy against him. Hesitating, he watched her with a critical eye. “Wallow more, caught up more,” he said slowly. What she was saying made no sense. It was backwards. She was a backwards sunshine women. His gaze fell to the flyer, eyes narrow as he took it. His fingers were careful, as if the slip of paper might be lined with poisonous barbs. “Music not fix,” he snorted, clearly in a contrary mood.
The flyer read the name of the bar, specified blues night, and didn’t read Valerie’s name at all (she had no starshine). Valerie felt she hid that particular hurt very well. It wasn’t like she could really expect excessive appreciation this late in life. “Not always. If It can’t fix, well, it can’t hurt.” This, of course, had no logic whatsoever. She swept her remaining flyers toward his chest in a light shooing motion, indicating that he keep it. “You should try it. At least listen, and try not to wallow.”
His brow wrinkled at her statement, as if he were disbelieving. “Could hurt,” he grunted, just to be contrary. You couldn’t say something couldn’t hurt. It was ridiculous. As she waved the flyers at him, he recoiled, clutching his flyer to his chest as if it had suddenly turned into gold. “Said wallow good. Music help wallow.” He paused, squinting at her. “Changing.”
“I promise that my music won’t hurt,” she said, reassuringly, and not as if he was a small child (she made the effort). She tried not to laugh as he pulled away, and succeeded inasmuch as only a dimpled smile made it onto her features. “I’m Valerie Anna, Mr...?” she raised her eyebrows inquiringly.
Were they talking about music or communism? It all seemed to smash on top of one another, sin and filth blending into one smoothie of unholy terror. He looked at her suspiciously, noting the smile, and let out a small grunt. He didn’t dignify the reassurance with an actual response - it didn’t need one. As she asked after his name, he paused. He had to remember that he was Mike Caulfield right now, that he had to wear that mask seamlessly. “Caulfield,” he said, skipping only the tiniest of beats. “Mike.”
“Mr. Caulfield.” She smiled as if he had not paused, as if he had given her the name with the utmost good will, perhaps even with a friendly smile of his own. Valerie tended to gloss over negativity as if it was not there, or not touch her if she chose it to be so. “So happy to meet you. Maybe I’ll see you at one of the shows.” She dipped a pert little chin at the flyer and handed the doorman one before he could think to refuse. “They’re every week.” She turned on one of the heels, expert and balanced, without even a trace of uncertainty about how to distribute her weight over the additional height. “Bye now.”
She was far too composed to be real. Something was going on with this, something not right. He filed away the information, that these sin-shows took place every week. Perhaps going to one could yield information, a new lead on some crime they had yet to discover. His gaze flitted from the flyer to her face, expression set in stone. “Will do,” he finally said, carefully folding the flyer. “Until later.” He didn’t bother with a proper goodbye - that was enough for him. With the flyer folded and tucked into his pocket, he stalked across the rest of the Aubade lobby, headed for the stairs. Though his skin was crawling, he took this as a good sign. It was something to do, work to be done. Both of those prospects were encouraging.