Ganesh (itsticking) wrote in we_float, @ 2010-06-24 19:50:00 |
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Current music: | "Lullaby for the New World Order" : Matthew Good Band |
"How will we get ourselves out of it?"
Who: Del Ethier and Ganesh Surendar
When: Wednesday, June 24, afternoon-evening
Where: A hardware store, then back to the Anhalt.
What: Del and Ganesh run into problems and prejudice at the hardware store, then end up talking for a while back at home. PART TWO OF TWO.
Status: Closed; complete
Del gave a warmer grin than was necessary for the situation and shrugged his shoulders to loosen them up. "You know, I bet she'll email you," he remarked, changing the subject.
"I hope not," Ganesh said seriously, unbuckling his seat belt. "That would mean she needed help." He paused, then laughed. "Not that I wouldn't help her but I hope she doesn't need it." He stepped out of the car and shut the door, stretching his arms lazily up to the sky.
"Maybe, maybe not. I didn't see a ring on any of her fingers. And not only did you stand up for her, you're pretty fucking adorable," Del commented as he stretched his body out of the car. "She seemed to like madcap crazy."
"Crazy was all you," he grinned, trying to brush off the adorable comment. "She'll email to get your number maybe." Ganesh started up the curb, pausing to say, "Bet that adorableness I've got will keep Maxxie from killing us?"
"Ha - I'm like ten years younger than her. Besides, it's hard to be in a relationship with me," he replied jovially, punctuating with a door slam. Del followed Ganesh up the curb, then the stairs. "I bet she'll help you forget what's her name with the clown luvver."
"Why's it hard?" Ganesh said with a shrug. "And Shada, it was Shada." That was followed by a scrunch of his nose.
"You know that thing you do, where you lie in bed and stare into each other's eyes? Or that saying that the eyes are the window to the soul? Or the 'look me in the eye and say blah blah blah'? It's a connection thing people are just used to. I can't really make it anymore." Del said it matter of factly as he checked the mailbox and found only junk mail. "It's why I wear the glasses. You know, but you don't know, you know?"
He stopped, looking back at Del.
Ganesh thought of his mother and the way that she looked when she spoke, two mouths moving, sometimes in unison and sometimes apart- of how she'd always managed to kiss him on the forehead and nose when he was sick. Of the strange creaking of his father's skin, the way that the bark-like texture would crack and tremble when he sat or picked up a book. How, when he'd been afraid of storms and branches cracking at the window, his father had sat by his bed in the dark and told him that the noise was nothing to be afraid of, that it was only the trees.
And he thought of eyes then- theirs and those of others, some that lied, some that hurt, and Ganesh focused on Del's mouth for a moment, then his nose, and finally his glasses. He wondered what had happened the first time someone else had looked into Del's eyes.
It was one of those things that you didn't ask, he knew that, but he desperately wanted to.
"I don't know if the eyes are the only windows to the soul," he shrugged again, casually, stepping into the hallway, his gaze diverted. "After all, you've got a pretty big mouth."
Seeing out of the back of your head meant that you always saw what you weren't supposed to. The look on Ganesh's face was so easy to read - he couldn't remember if people were always just so easy to read or if it was some secret jealousy that made him pay so studious attention to looks - there was reminiscence and then curiosity. The former was not as easy to trace as the latter was.
"Yeah, I guess. Big fan of expression in all sorts," Del turned to face Ganesh and leaned on the door as he twisted the knob. "Can I ask you kind of a weird question? Cause you mention your parents, and you told me before they were jokers. What sort were they?"
"Mum was the sort who never cared that she was a joker. She'd just walk right into anywhere and hold her head high," Ganesh smiled fondly. "Dad was quieter about it- he didn't like to make a show of things ever- she loved drama and he wanted nothing more than to sit at home with a book. But it was hard for him to move. It was Mum who did most of the counter work in the shop."
His face was wistful as his shoulder pressed into the wall. "I've got pictures, if you want to see them."
Del snorted fondly. "That sounds like the difference between Brenn and me. Drama and Solitude. But sure. I'd like that." Del used that big mouth of his to grin widely in encouragement.
Ganesh looked slightly startled as he asked, "Do you mind a mess?"
"Nope," he said simply, fingertip going to the bridge of his glasses to push them up tightly against the bridge of his nose. "Not a neat freak."
"Alright then. Let's be off." Ganesh's room was down the hall, sandwiched in between his server room and Zadkiel's space- which, if you asked Ganesh, wasn't actually much of a room at all.
Opening the door, he paused for a moment. The sound of something dropping echoed into the hallway - clearly a ball- following by a rolling sound, a sequence of hinges, and then another roll. Another moment later and the light switch flickered on. He sighed.
"It's too bad you can't see any of the mechanics behind that," Ganesh said. "I was a bit shortsighted about what I wanted it to do." Kicking aside a broken hard drive, he walked over and lifted a stack of books off a chair, setting them in the corner. "Have a seat- it's there or the floor, I'm afraid." His bed was covered in boxes of parts. He pulled a couple off, glancing into each before finally walking over to the dresser in the far part of the room.
The album was the one thing that he kept free and it was apparent from the worn touchscreen that it was well used. Pressing his thumb against the screen, he flipped through folders until he found one marked "Home."
"Here," he said, settling himself on the floor next to the empty chair and offering it up to Del.
Del took the floor across from Ganesh and set the album on an empty bit of floor. Pictures were pictures but they were always better with the story behind them. He tapped to open the folder and was greeted by what he could only presume was Ganesh's parents.
"You weren't kidding about the joker thing," Del said with a chuckle as he tapped to go to the next picture. The corners of his mouth didn't drop out of the smile he'd been wearing, but it was lighter, less of a show that the prior ones. "Huh," he said softly, "I guess I'd always expected foreign countries to look... foreign. London-y, in this case." Del shook his head gently at his own stupidity and clicked to the next picture.
Ganesh laughed, leaning over to flip to another image with the brush of a finger. "There's the bridge. You can't bloody well get more London than that." It was an odd picture, his mother shouting at him with both mouths as he tried to scramble up a wall. "On second thought- perhaps you don't want to see that picture-"
He flipped past a painfully awkward image of himself at sixteen, braces and pimples, his arms wrapped around a girl whose face was covered with a thin skin, the outline of her features only barely visible. Ganesh flipped past a couple more adolescent photographs thinking to himself that Del likely had nothing remotely close. He rested finally on an image of the shop before letting go of the book, glancing at Del's face. "Have you never been to London then? Or England?"
"I've only ever been out of Washington once," he admitted after a moment. "Always wanted to, though."
"Where'd you go?"
"Los Angeles. I was auditioning for a school in New York and me and my dad took the bullet down for three days. We didn't get to see much cause the auditioning process was epic, but I did get to see the Hollywood sign. That was kinda cool," he said distractedly.
The memory always brought up mixed emotions. Del was good at moving forward like a little steam engine, but it was hard to think of the American School of Ballet and not see the life that would have been laid out before him had things not completely veered off course. He certainly would have seen London by now.
But that was the thing about speculation - it was speculation. Torn tendon in his knee and it might have been all over by 19 and then he'd be complaining at how it was absolutely better to have never loved at all. You never could tell. That was optimism for you.
Ganesh flopped down on his stomach, resting his head on his forearms. "I've never been to Los Angeles. I'd like to go, I think- it seems so bloody American." He asked, "What school was it? What was the audition like?"
Del's life seemed much more exotic than his own had been. The exotic pieces of his own puzzle were simply desperate when he looked at them, nothing to hold pride over.
He shrugged his shoulders. "American School of Ballet. So, you know, a lot of dancing. Solos and then partners work, then a choreographed number, then another solo choreo," Del said, some of the excitement draining out of his voice. His fingers skipped absently over the album, skimming to another picture. "Probably couldn't have gone anyway - fucking expensive. But it was a fun thing to try, you know? A good experience."
Those were practiced words and he ended up pausing on a picture. "Who's that?" he asked, a young girl in the picture with him.
"That's Maya, my ex-husband's daughter," Ganesh said, another fond smile crossing his lips. "She's five now- this must have been taken last year. I'm not sure how this got in here- she must have been playing with the album again." He rolled over on his back, pushing himself up until he was sitting again, his legs crossed. "You don't have to look at all of these pictures, you know. I didn't mean to trap you in here like someone's mum." He laughed.
There were things now that he was more curious about--the audition and what had actually happened. "A good experience." That statement seemed too neutral for an experience that had to have been brutal at the time. Perhaps you're projecting yourself into it, Ganesh thought. But no, that didn't seem quite accurate either.
"It's nice," Del said, leaning back and examining Ganesh behind his shades. "Everyone here seems wound up so tight. Well, not JT. But it's really nice that you're not playing it all so close to the vest."
He smiled and it was back to being a wider grin than was necessary. "So. You still see your ex-husband's kid? You start dating when she was real young?" he asked, relaxed.
"I don't mind talking about things," Ganesh commented. "I think the difficulty lies in knowing where to stop. Most people don't actually care as much as they'll pretend to." It was simply an observation- as nearly as he could tell, Del wasn't feigning interest. If he was, Ganesh assumed, he'd make his excuses.
"In terms of Pablo... it's not that easy." He sighed, scooting until he had a wall to lean into, knocking over a half-built figure in the process. He picked it up, fiddling with an arm joint as he spoke. "Maya... ah. That was after, or during, I guess, the end of our marriage." His eyes dropped, focusing on the wires that were coming out of the arm, fingers tugging at a red lead. "We had an open marriage because it was what we agreed on, I thought I was okay with it, he fell in love, things changed." Ganesh shrugged slightly. "I think... perhaps I never really had been okay with it but I didn't actually know that until he brought Elena home and told me she was pregnant."
He sighed. "And there were other things involved. I wasn't a saint. I didn't take advantage of the 'openness'- I was too bloody in love to want to- but I lied about who I was. That's... I've learned from that. If there's a reason that I'm honest now, it's because I wasn't then." He tilted his head, examining the robotic arm for a last moment before leaning forward to reattach it to the half-assembled frame. "Bollocks... I hate it when I break things." Biting his lip, he forced the joint back into place.
"Who did you say you were?" Del asked, knees folded in front of him like he was some camper and the album was a fire to huddle around.
"What do you mean?"
"You said you lied about who you were. Who did you say you were? Smarter? More successful? British?" Del asked with a prodding sort of humor.
"I am British!" Ganesh choked out, laughing so hard that it was a moment before he could speak again. "No, no, it was a lie of omission." He went serious again. "I never told him that my parents were jokers. It was nothing that I was ashamed of- it was just that Pablo didn't want to know. He thought that life, our life, started with us. We didn't talk about the past."
He sighed. "But when you're breaking up, suddenly... those distinctions become important. It's a bloody long story, actually."
"You want to tell it? I'll grab us a beer."
"Do you want to hear it?" This all seemed vaguely surreal, Ganesh thought. "The way I go on, you'll be here all night."
"I wouldn't ask if I didn't. I'll be back." Del hopped up gracefully and zoomed out of the room and down to the kitchen. Finally, he thought to himself, someone who was willing to be split open like a cantaloupe. He grabbed two bottles and took the stairs two at a time before Ganesh changed his mind.
He reappeared in the room and flopped back into a crosslegged position, eager as he twisted the top off of the bottle.
Ganesh took the other bottle and twisted off the top. He took a long drink before saying, "So, what do you want to hear about?" If Del was going to be curious, he figured, he might as well reward him with choice. His mouth quirked up slightly as he held a laugh back, curious himself as to what Del was going to ask.
"The bloody long story," he said definitively, figuring that was specific enough. How many bloody long stories did a person have? A lot, Del though again, but figured that any of them would be entertaining and interesting.
There were a lot of long stories, Ganesh thought.
"My parents," he began. "I was only eighteen when they died." He breathed in slowly, taking another drink. "I think that this is where it starts- I don't think I can explain the bloody thing that happened with Pablo and I unless I start there." Ganesh set the beer down and kicked off his shoes. He might as well get comfortable.
"It was August. Summer still reminds me of that day, at least, when it's a hot summer. It was hotter then that I remember it ever was. Or maybe it's just how I remember it. It was so long ago." The man picked up a screwdriver and a broken circuit board, fidgeting with it as he spoke, needing something for his hands to focus on. "My parents were closing up shop. I wasn't there, too busy at my books to help that day."
It was clear that he regretted it. "I was supposed to meet them. The camera they had- it'd broken. I kept patching it up and I was going to but Mum said it'd been left long enough. It could... wait." A small screw fell out of the board, bouncing off Ganesh's knee and onto the ground.
"It was just dark. I don't know what happened exactly- all that I've got is what they said at the trial, the police reports, knowing... how Mum and Dad were, how they always closed up." He leaned over, working at another screw. "Dad would have been counting the till, hunched over. Mum straightening up something... sweeping, maybe, or washing out Dad's coffee cup. It was always coffee with him, never tea." Ganesh brushed the parts off his lap, setting the screwdriver and board back down, clearly unfinished. He took another drink, this one longer. The beer was already half-gone.
"The details... Mum was shot twice. The teeth were gone from both..." He paused, not able to continue for a moment. "No one ever told me if it was quick, not at first. I found that out in the trial. When it happened... years later." Ganesh didn't quite know how to continue and it showed in his face, in the hands that didn't quite stop moving but didn't do anything either.
Del winced behind his glasses, the only sign of it was his wrinkled nose. "They took their teeth? What for?" Del asked, nursing his beer between his hands rather than drinking it.
"They didn't take her teeth- the bullet-" Ganesh squared his shoulders and said, as evenly as he could manage, which was barely, "Bullets. Shattered her teeth."
"Oh. Oh."
Del frowned. "If there was a trial though, they caught the guy, yeah?" he asked tentatively.
"Both of them." Ganesh took another drink, eying what was left in the bottle afterwards. "It wasn't for years. Not until Pablo and I had begun to go sour."
Del offered him his 3/4 full bottle silently.
Ganesh shook his head. It wasn't a good idea to drink any longer- the night would just go downhill. "I thought it was a hate crime before the trial. I... wanted it to be. Does that make any bloody sense? I went for years thinking that it was but it wasn't. It was two joker kids who wanted the money."
"Sixty-three euros," he said bleakly. "That's what their lives were worth. It was a slow day."
"That's not what their lives were worth," Del responded seriously.
"No, I know that." Ganesh shook his head. "Of course." He stretched his legs out, then said, "I told you, a long story."
"And you haven't even gotten to the Pablo part yet. It's amazing I'm still paying attention," he joked gently. Del drank some more of his beer since Ganesh turned his down. "So what does that have to do with him?"
"Well." Oh, this was another long story. Ganesh thought that perhaps it was best to abridge it. "When Pablo and I hooked up, it wasn't meant to go anywhere." He grinned, though it was sharp. "Pablo doesn't like to be tied down. He was a journalist- you might have read his piece on the Sino-Russian nuclear conflict or..." He thought about it. "Addiction in the IT Crowd. The one about the plague coming to the streets of Harlem- he got a few awards for that one." That was selling it short. Pablo had acted as if he'd been crowned at the time.
Del looked, at the very least, politely confused. "No. No, I can't say that I've heard of him. I'm more of a entertainment section guy. There was a plague in Harlem? Like, the actual plague?"
"It was some biotech thing, actually. A corporation was testing medical research on the neighborhood." Ganesh smiled. "I wouldn't know, either, except that we were married. I didn't bloody know who he was when I asked him out. I just liked his laugh."
"So you asked him out and you married him. Later, obviously, with some romance in between," Del amended.
"It wasn't actually that romantic," he said. "He was having some back problems and he wanted to be on my insurance." He shrugged. "Pablo wasn't the romantic type and I'm bloody bad at it." Ganesh grinned. "Which you, no doubt, remember, having read all about it."
Del raised an eyebrow, then let it pass. "So you married a guy so he could see a doctor. But you fell in love with him even though he... wasn't... in love with... you?" Del worked out aloud. It was impossible to tell whether he found the subject distasteful (he didn't) or if he was having trouble following (he was), but he set the beer on a flat surface behind him and leaned forward in scrutiny. "But he fell in love with this woman who had the kid."
"I'm compressing a relationship into six sentences," Ganesh sighed. "You try it." Wrinkling his face up, he said, "I think he loved me- at least I thought he did in the beginning. It was all exciting at first- but then we got into the business of just living. I was boring to someone who spent half his bloody life jetting from one country to the next. I like to travel but I didn't want to live on a plane."
Now Del was starting to get antsy. He stretched his legs out in front of him and tried to refocus on Ganesh in front of him and not the weird, lego-looking tray he'd put his beer on or the thing that looked like a ferris wheel. Or any of the myriad of things in the bedroom.
"Okay," he said, eyebrows knitting behind the rims of his shades as he focused before him. "Got it. Initial attraction leads to spontaneous marriage of convenience which reveals a tragic difference in lifestyle."
"That's it, exactly." He noticed Del's stretching legs. "See, that's a bit boring after all. Do you want another beer or have you had enough for the night?"
"I'm not finished with my other one. But what's this got to do with your parents? And the lie you told about them? He bailed on you because your parents were jokers? But... fell in love with that woman first?" Del tried to work out, locking his fingers together and flexing his sandaled feet.
"Elena, that's her name." Ganesh frowned, then added, "She's nice actually. I gave them a toaster when they got married. Made it myself."
Realizing that he was being even more random than usual, he continued on. "I never told him who they were or anything about them. He began spending all of his time with Elena because... the trial started. And I didn't say a word." He crossed his legs again, having trouble with remaining still. "Pablo was fun. He didn't listen, he talked. And that was fun too but it made it hard to be around him then."
"When he told me that he was leaving to be with Elena, that she was pregnant, that I wasn't home, I snapped." He looked embarrassed. "It might be a bit hard to believe but I've got a bit of a temper sometimes. Any road, I told him then. It didn't go well."
"Ohhhhh," Del said, suddenly enlightened. "Why didn't you tell him about that? I mean - when shit like that goes down... why wouldn't you? I mean..."
Del paused. He thought about Brenn and Preeti and wondered suddenly if that was just the way of relationships. The hiding of things.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I think... in all the stories he did, there were never any jokers. I don't know why that mattered but it did."
Del sat quietly for a moment.
"He was an asshole," he finally said, decidedly, as he picked his beer back up. "You're better off without him. Whole fucking life is crashing down around you and his response is to fuck someone else? I don't care what you say, you probably weren't all that sly about it. How could you be? Trial of your parent's murder! Come on!"
"Probably not," Ganesh commented, "Keeping quiet doesn't come natural." He grinned but the grin was faint, not quite real. "It doesn't do any good to be angry about it now. I'm just trying not to make the same mistake so it's better, I think, to be honest about it with the people here."
He laughed. "It's not bloody easy to introduce in conversation. Perhaps I need a tattoo for my forehead." There was the other side of the problem that he wondered if Del had considered--not many people wanted to deal with the genetic wildcard that having two joker parents presented. It had been easier to date Pablo in that regard. Ganesh had never considered the possibility that the question might come up.
"I don't know - I got it out of you pretty easily," Del said with expectant eyebrows as he took another sip of his beer. "But I understand, man. Truly." He toasted that sentiment and drank again.
"You asked. I'll answer just about anything," he leaned back, toasting Del in return and tasting the dregs of the bottle before he set it down. "That is the thing about being here. We're all outsiders, even if not everyone recognizes it."
"I guess you're right." Del finished his bottle as well and started spinning the empty glass in the palm of his hand. "First dude you ever dated?" he asked, testing the theory.
"Bloke named Ned when I was... oh, seventeen. It was after I broke up with my first girlfriend." Ganesh tilted his head. "Why?" He debated over turning the question on Del but decided to see where he was going first. His eyes fixed on the bottle, strangely mesmerized by its motion.
"Because you said you'd answer any question I asked. First time you broke the law?" This was suddenly a whole lot more interesting and Del folded his legs back up and leaned forward enough to put his elbows on the carpet.
"I..." Ganesh looked startled. "Drunk driving. Eighteen."
"Person you miss most in England?"
"I don't know. I don't have anyone there. Mum and Dad's family cut ties." He took a breath, laughing slightly now. "Were you a Truth or Dare champion as a child?"
"You don't talk to anyone there - not even people you went to school with?" That seemed weird.
"That's not quite the same." Ganesh thought about it, then said, "I still talk to a few friends but I don't miss them. To miss someone, they have to have left." No. That wasn't quite right either. There was someone, after all- he just didn't want to talk about it. With a sigh, he said finally, "Butcher. Nigel Butcher. I worked with him at Songci."
"Another break in your heart?" Del prompted, now wishing he did have another beer.
"Didn't get the chance," Ganesh said, then added. "My turn. What
really happened at that audition?"
He waited, eyes focused on Del's mouth.
Del looked slightly taken aback. "Dancing. Like I said, not much time for anything else. Met some cool people and I did pretty well."
"It was a good experience." There was that unenthusiastic word again.
"That sounds like something your parents would say, not you," Ganesh countered. "It doesn't bloody describe anything."
Del didn't say anything for a few moments as he tried to work out what Ganesh wanted him to say. He didn't think going into the audition process was what he wad aiming for.
And then it clicked.
"Oh. Well, the whole thing's kinda bittersweet. I got in, but two weeks after the audition I went into the hospital and didn't come out for a long time. It was a really good experience. It just sucks remembering it sometimes."
"What did you go into the hospital for?" Ganesh asked, scooting a little closer to Del. He kept his eyes focused on the other man's face, watching the lines in his forehead. There was more than one way to read a reaction- eyes were just easier.
Del stretched his arms behind him to prop his upper body up.
"I used to get these migraines. Started when I was eleven, and they got really bad when I was fifteen and my glasses -- not these," Del pointed to his sunglasses, "I used to wear real ones that were very thick -- I couldn't keep a prescription for more than a couple of months at that point. So, things were getting progressively worse and I tried to work through it best I could... but you can't outrun your DNA, you know?"
He twisted his bottom lip between his teeth, head tilting in quiet thoughtfulness. "Two weeks after my audition I went into the hospital and just stayed there 'till I flipped my card. It sucked. It sucked a lot."
Just by the tone of his voice it was easy to tell that that was an understatement. Del pushed himself completely upright and sighed wearily. "It was a weird time."
"Did you feel you were going to turn?" Ganesh's voice was just barely above a whisper. "What happened to put you in the hospital then? Was it something specific?"
"Well, it was obvious something was going to happen. My mother's a Deuce, my father was an Ace and Belinda ended up a Black Queen - that's a lot of genetics to outrun. And shit was happening to Cole and Brenn so... it was only a matter of time, really."
His head tilted the other way as he tried to remember what had happened that had been the final straw for his parents to finally check him in, but things had been such a flurry of all consuming pain that it was hard to attach anything else as real to that time period.
"I don't really remember," he finally added. "What happened in particular, I mean, to put me there. It stopped being periodic one day and turned into one, long, migraine that just... hurt. A lot. And in waves. And any light - even moonlight felt like fire on top of it. I don't even remember going to the hospital or really... or really even being there. Sorry." Del shrugged apologetically.
"Don't apologize for that," the other man answered, still quiet. "I just wanted to know." His gaze was wandering, up to Del's glasses, and he asked, "Can I see? Do you always have-" Ganesh gestured to the shades. "Those on?"
He wondered what it would be like, if it felt like glasses to any other person or if it was worse somehow.
Surprise was in the eyes, so while his face didn't change much, he certainly felt it. "Usually. I mean. Well."
Del bit his lip again. Then he stood up and hopped over the various debris and detritus to go over to the window. He closed the curtains and made a non-committal sound at the level of light that still came through.
He met Ganesh's face again and his cheeks pinked up. "That's not out of vanity. I'm a little sensitive to light in um. In a weird way."
"If it was out of vanity," Ganesh teased, "You would've left the curtains open." Was Del blushing? He couldn't tell. Curiously, he took a step forward, saying, "It makes it a bit bloody difficult to see though." He tried to step forward and stumbled over a small flywheel, yelping as his heel stomped down.
"Oh- just stay there. I'll come to you. Maybe turn on your mon-- no, that's a bad idea," Del cut himself off. TV and monitor light tended to make him look angular on top of hollow. He looked at the window and then pulled back on the curtains a bit. Maybe if he was just not in the direct line of light...
He went and sat on the bed, towards the head of it to keep from the cut of light. "It's a weird dilation that happens in light. It doesn't hurt -- hell, I don't even notice it."
Del pulled off his sunglasses unceremoniously and, indeed, the hollows of his eyes looked to expand with the influx of light. The first thing that was noticeable was the complete absence of any shadow, any outline of anything in them - they were absolutely pitch dark. The second thing was that there didn't seem to be a trace of eyelid or eyelash, just darkness that suddenly became skin. Lastly, a conflicting impression that though you couldn't see any depth in side of them, that was because there was possibly no bottom.
He folded the earpieces of the glasses down and set them on his lap.
"Nothing to really write home about," he said as he faced Ganesh.
"At home, you'd be ordinary," Ganesh answered thoughtlessly.
But the look on his face admitted to the fact that he didn't think what he was looking at was ordinary at all. His dark eyes were fascinated as he looked into the hollows of Del's face, blinking slowly as he examined the depth and shadow of the place where his eyes should have been.
They don't end, was the first impression as he tried to formulate his own thoughts for what he was seeing. The light disappeared where it touched and it was familiar to him for some reason that he couldn't quite place. He leaned in a little further, then realized what it was, muttering it out loud, "Dark stars." He realized that he'd spoken and amended, "Sorry," stepping back to where he'd been and forcing himself to blink.
It was weird to have someone so close, examining him. It's been years since he'd been to a doctor and that had been the last person to have been so... keenly observant. He blinked, which was interesting in and of itself. Eyelids and eyelashes all reappeared, perfectly proportional to his face, and just as quickly were gone again as the darkness re-expanded.
"Dark stars?" Del inquired skeptically.
"Ignore that," Ganesh said. "Just geeking out." He sat back with a grin that was more like a little feline, moving just slightly back and forth to see if the view changed. It was like nothing he'd ever seen before- truly like the dark stars once imagined by early astronomers, he thought. Black holes, they were called now, but Ganesh had always loved the earlier term more.
There were no eyebrows to knit or confusion to reflect in his eyes.
"Oh...kay," Del said, then shrugged. Ganesh didn't look exceptionally unnerved, so he didn't bother putting his shades back on, instead busying his hands with turning them over and working the earpieces of them.
"That's not usually the response I get."
"Del," he sighed. "My father was a walking tree." He forced the grin into a more even smile. "Besides, it's-" Ganesh stopped himself before he could really get started, remembering that he was talking to the owner of the eyes. "How do people usually respond?"
He could imagine it, based on how his friends from school had responded when he brought them home. It had become less and less common as he became older, too worried by the way that his mother fidgeted under their stares. When she knew they were coming, she'd begun draping scarves over her forehead and that made it somehow worse- particularly when she forgot her second mouth, words coming from two places, one unseen. He'd learned to hate that school and his father's insistence for sending him away from their part of the city, to learn with "normal" people.
Ganesh knew, even then, there was no such thing.
"Death," he said nonchalantly, "which is actually pretty accurate in direct light and really, it makes for a pretty damn good costume at Halloween, which is so fucking cliche for a Joker, I know."
Del could lean against the wall sitting at the head of the bed as he was, so he did so. "But really most of the reaction is just... retraction I guess. The performance I'm in... shit, next week," Del said, surprised at how fast time had progressed, "I'm working pretty close to this chick named Angelina. And she is super cool, really, but man, we had to work it out because, as she said, it doesn't get less creepy over time but more. But you know, what can I say? She's gotta valid point."
Ganesh shook his head.
"I have trouble with that," he said. "It's like any bloody thing else- or it should be- why wouldn't anyone get used to it?" He frowned.
"My first girlfriend, she was a joker. But she was more than that. I didn't go out with her because of that or in spite of it. I liked her because she was funny and... well, I was sixteen." A slight reddening of his cheeks broke the sentence. "But hell, so much of our time was spent worrying- on her end- over whether I could love her or really like her or if we'd never make it because I was just a nat." He shrugged, then said, "It didn't work. Her parents, my parents, everyone worrying about what we looked like and not who we were."
He leaned forward again, still curious, and said, "It's not creepy but I'd love to see how they change in different types of light. It's a bit like getting to look into a black hole- the center of the galaxy itself. That was what I meant by a dark star. It's what they used to call black holes a long time ago."
Then he paused, realizing that he'd managed to unleash a torrent of words rather unprecedented in their complete lack of sophistication. Even for him.
"Any road, how are your practices going? What nights are the performances?" It was probably better, he thought, to change the subject.
"Ooooh. Huh." Del thought about that comparison and decided that it was as fair as Death was, but he liked the dark stars moniker better, he had to admit. It was more artistic.
"They're going well. I've got to be over there in like, an hour or something. I think it's like, next weekend but fuck if I can remember the time. Night probably. 8ish. I keep trying to remember to bring a flyer home and put it on the fridge - JT was asking about it - but usually I get done and I'm full of adrenaline and starving like Marvin and if a thought stays in my head for more than ten seconds, it's lucky."
He slipped his glasses back on absently. It wasn't shyness or embarrassment. The sunglasses were a trigger, just like the stage was, to go a little bigger in his gestures than he normally would to make-up for the disconnect. Without them and that reminder, he knew he slid back into small gestures and laconic mode that was more natural and more disconcerting.
"I probably shouldn't keep you," Ganesh said, glancing up at the clock. Had it been that long? It hadn't felt like it. "I didn't realize you'd practices tonight."
The motion of Del's glasses, slipping back on his nose, had changed something ever so slightly- brought him back to the practical world. The lost one of memory was being pushed back with a faint smile as he walked over to the window, his hands gently pulling at the curtain.
"It's okay. This was fun. Actually, a lot of fun," Del said with a wide, winning smile. "Thanks man."
"You're welcome. Next time, I'll try not to get us thrown out of a bloody hardware store." Laughter broke the end of the sentence.
"Yeah, we should absolutely aim higher. Next time - grocery store," Del said assuredly as he neatly hopped from empty floor space to empty floor space.
"Just not a bank." Ganesh grinned, watching Del hop as he opened the curtains and began kicking himself a path to the door to see the other man out. "I'll go back out and get the wood though. No need for you and Max to worry about it."
"Oh!" Del dug into his pocket for the slip of paper with the measurements on it and held it out for Ganesh. "You'll need this then. Thanks man - you gonna hit the Depot or still aim for something local and morally bankrupt?" Del teased.
He took the slip of paper and tucked it into his pocket. "Ohhhh, I thought I'd do the internet. Order from a sweatshop or something."
"Trade one bit of repression for another?" Del inquired cheekily as he pulled open the door. He paused there for a moment.
"You know. I don't know how often people say this to you or whatever. But it's really cool you're here. You don't really have to be and... well. You are. I know your parents were Jokers, but still. Any time you need backup man," Del stretched out a hand, "I'm there."
"You don't have to be here either," Ganesh reminded him. But he took Del's hand anyways, squeezing it for a moment. "But thanks. You ought to be careful making that sort of offer." He grinned. "I run a lot of errands." His skin was slightly pinked, just barely noticeable under the brown.
"That's the nice thing, I guess, about having no job. I got nowhere else to be if you need that sorta thing. I'll catch you later-- Ganesh," Del said, pausing right before calling him G again. He went back into the corridor and then popped back in.
"Oh, hey - hand me those bottles. I'm going down to the kitchen anyway."
"Sure. I could have gotten them. I promise it would have happened eventually," he pointed out, amused. But he picked them up anyhow and walked over to the door, half-tripping over a pile of Robot Magazines and spiral notebooks.
Leaning against the door, Ganesh handed them over. He paused for a moment himself, then said, "Do you-" Awkward. He remembered what he'd said to Alec and decided that had been the smart thing. "Do you need anything else- I mean, for the radio?"
"For the radio? Oh! Oh. Well, everything I guess. I don't know - I mean, I still think it's a good idea but I'm still not sure if it's not a good idea for someone else. Like Tom maybe - he's pretty smart and chatty. And he'd remember to actually sit down and figure out what you needed to do it properly. But um... what have you got?" he asked, voice dipping in and out of self-consciousness.
"I'm just working on the set. That's all. Maxxie thought I should tell you that I hadn't forgot. I didn't- it's just that I've not done much like it." His head was tilted, resting against the frame of the door. "Do you think you're not chatty enough? Or smart? That's a bit dense, certainly, but you're more than able to do this."
"It's just... I'm not organized or detailed or anything. I know that I came up with the idea but I just kind of... need it done. I can't... well." Del stopped with a deep sigh. "I'm too scattered and ADD for it There's planning and figuring out what I need and I'll have to do everything about twenty times because either I'll forget something or write it down wrong or something to make it a million times more difficult than it needs to be."
"So." Del paused finally and tried not to feel the anxiety he felt, tried to push it away into some corner of himself or possibly the two black holes sitting where his brain used to be. Not that he needed it. "There are a lot of smart people here. It seems better in the long run to turn it over to them rather than just constantly run into a wall and have everyone think I'm more of an idiot than I've already proven myself to be."
Ganesh folded his arms, considering what Del had said and giving it serious thought. "You're not an idiot. Scattered, yes, but not stupid." It wasn't said sympathetically- in fact, it had the note of Ganesh's mental wanderings. "And there's being smart and there's being able to actually communicate. I don't think... that goes together in this house."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say all that out loud," the man admitted. "But why does it all have to be you? Broadcasters don't write their own shows. They're picked because they have warmth. Because they can emphasize. Because they can project and oh, a thousand other things I don't know the words for. You're used to being on stage- I couldn't do it. I'd be too..." Ganesh shrugged. "There's a right kind of courage for that and most of us haven't got it. Or else, there's others who wouldn't stick their necks out for it."
"And that's fine," Del said easily. "I'm not disagreeing with you on that point. Okay, I can talk to people. But you don't need that skill set until the end of all this - when it's all put together and we're ready to go online. Everything that's needed right now though?"
Del changed positions so he was leaning against the wall inside the room instead of standing halfway in the door frame. "I've got twelve years of report cards that would back me up and I won't lie, I didn't always pass on merit." He shrugged. "There are very few things that I'm truly good at and none of them were school."
"School reports don't matter here." He noticed the shift of Del's body and the fact that he himself had unconsciously taken another step back into the room. "But... I'm keeping you talking when you were supposed to be going. Bit selfish of me, that."
"Yes, but what I am trying to say is that--" Del paused. This conversation felt extremely familiar, nostalgic even. It had always been Cole who'd thought he sold himself short, back before he flipped his lid. Brenn just couldn't see what the help Del's problem was back then. Nowadays, the eldest of them had a bit more experience with "uncontrollable preoccupations"...
"Yeah. Yeah okay, i'll catch you later Ganesh." Del slid out of the room, a little frustrated and dejected. Ganesh didn't get it, but he would eventually- it was only a matter of time before the robotics expert would have his patience stretched beyond his tolerance and figure out that things were just out of his reach.