apocalypsehowcomm | A handkerchief held all my gear (OPEN LOG Catch-all April)

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A handkerchief held all my gear (OPEN LOG Catch-all April)

Who: George Milton and ???
When: Most of April
Where: In ADI, on the grounds, and Gloucester proper
Summary: George is familiarizing himself with his new environment and is never content to be in one place for too long.
Warnings: Possibly some of the eye flower weirdness if anyone wants to do a fair/festival prompt, possibly drinking to excess, will update if needed and also warn in individual thread headers.

1. Home Sweet Home?

It's weird, having such a huge space just to himself and maybe two other folks. For now it seems like it's just Nick, and well, he could have done a whole lot worse. Settling in is always a little awkward. He didn't have much of anything to put away. That took no time at all.

So now he's sitting on the sofa in the common room fiddling with the phone, not because he likes it or particularly wants to but because it has been emphasized so much as important, he'd be a fool not to keep at it. He's less outwardly or visibly frustrated working on it alone, just grunting and muttering to himself off and on as he fat fingers his typing or has trouble making one of the apps do what it's supposed to.

He doesn't know how long he has been at it. Long enough for his butt to be sore and his legs to feel like they could use a good stretching when there's a knock at the door. Immediately, he tucks the phone in his jacket pocket as he stands and crosses to it.

"Who's there?" His voice is deep and sharp enough to carry through the wood just fine.

2. The Library

The short guy sitting at the computer terminal doesn't much look like he belongs there. He's staring very intently at the monitor, his typing a painfully slow hunt and peck style. He seems to be trying to research basic history of the region, currently on one of the local government pages of helpful links.

Every now and then he awkwardly moves or clicks the mouse, often followed by a low, "Dammit," or, "No, not you. I want...you." He's so engrossed in the work that he doesn't react at first to the person who comes in behind him. It's only when he hears a definitive noise that he jumps a little and whips his head around, looking almost guilty.

"Sorry. Did you need this?" He's not completely sure he ought to be here, and it shows.

3. The Grounds

At various locations around the grounds, a short, slight man in a brimmed work hat can be spotted wandering and familiarizing himself with the area. He has a fast, no-nonsense gait, like somebody used to being on his feet, and he's never in any one place for very long. When spoken to, he touches his hat brim and gives a nod. He's fine with stopping to chat, especially if he has already met you, but even if he hasn't, he won't brush off a friendly overture.

4. The General's Store

George's voice is increasingly strident as he argues with the beleaguered cashier behind the register. "An' I'm tellin' you 50 bucks for a plain ol' fishin' pole is highway robbery. Not to mention you ain't even including tackle or bait in that. I ain't gonna stand here and let you swindle me. You been swindlin' everybody who works at ADI? That it?"

"Sir, if you'd just..."

"Don't you sir me. Do I look like a sir? Jes' admit you're doing people dirty. I'll tell you what. You put all a' that mess back on the shelf. I don't want none of it. I wouldn't take it if you paid me." Without another word, he's storming for the door.

5. A Bar at the Docks

It took long enough to find the kind of place with the vibe he was looking for, nothing too fancy, just a hole in the wall with beat up barstools and an older woman behind the bar who seems happy enough not to ask too many questions. Like everything else in this damned town, the price of the drinks is sky high. By this point he doesn't care.

He's seated belly up at the far end of the bar pounding gin like there's a run on it, and he may have found the last bottle. There's a certain fixed quality to his thousand yard stare. Hard to tell if he recognizes you or not if you approach.

6. Wildcard!

((OOC: Bring your own prompt, or feel free to use some of the fair prompts from the TDM. George would be playing any number of games there. If you have any questions or want to run something by me, you can hit me up at

velocinapper, PM, or Disco. Brackets are also fine!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Hooboy. You really ain't never done none 'a this have you?"

He spends the rest of the walk to the bus stop explaining about all the splashing and the grabbing of the fish, how sometimes you get slime all over you and how sometimes it's easy as pie to get them off the hook and into the bucket. That's not counting where you choose to sit, and if the ground's damp or not. God forbid you hook yourself a snake.

It's conversational and friendly like, not like he minds it or is talking down to him at all. If anything, he finds himself feeling a little sorry he's never had this chance before today. He just hopes the fish will be biting.

When the bus pulls up, he takes the lead, letting his pass get scanned and looking for a seat that won't have them poking people with the fishing gear or making a nuisance of themselves. It's nice to get off his feet, and with the window open and his hat in his lap, there's a cool breeze through plastered waves. "Looks like a good day for this."

Malcolm would have assumed that something involving water and animals that live in it could be wet, but not dirty. Slime? There might be slime?

He makes a slight face at the slime, but he otherwise takes it all in stride. He looks a little bit pleased at the prospect of catching a snake. This might be more of an adventure than he pictured.

"When you say we're putting the fish in a bucket... what... do we do with them after that? They can't live in a bucket, right? There wouldn't be much air in that volume of water."

"Gonna clean 'em and eat 'em," he says, matter-of-fact. "The bucket keeps 'em alive while you're catching enough for supper. Don't want 'em going off."

He glances at him and away from the window, that thing he'd said about his father liking hunting coming back around for a visit. "I'll be cleaning them. An' if you wanna come over tonight for a fish fry, well, you jes' come on then. Nick won't make no fuss. He don't eat none, anyway. Or if you wanna take your share home with you to cook yesself, then you do that."

“I like fish,” he says quickly. “I’d like to come over for fish,” he adds in what feels like a more reasonable tone. “What apartment are you in?”

He has some understanding of what ‘cleaning’ a fish entails. He doesn’t know whether he can do it. He is interested in watching George do it.

"Alright then. We got us a plan if the fish are cooperatin'. I'm in A3. It's jes' me and Nick." Maybe he'll test his luck with the phone and see if he can tell Nick to expect company later, assuming they're lucky.

"Who they got you rooming with?" He has met a few people now. It's always good to know who's who and who's where.

“I’m in B1 with Meredith Idlewild and Tim Drake. But my boyfriend lives in A. He’s in A4. His name’s Neal,” Malcolm tells him. “You’re neighbours!”

Boyfriend? George's eyebrows lift. He stares at him for several long moments. It's not like he doesn't know certain men prefer the company of other men, not like it has never come up in the bunkhouses from time to time, and back in the '20's there were lots of articles in the papers about the Pansy Craze.

He has never seen anyone admit to it openly, and after the recent crackdowns, he didn't think he ever would. "Yeah?"

He's not sure what else to say, uncomfortable and a little red faced. He lifts a hand to ruffle at the hair at the back of his head.

Malcolm watches his reaction, assessing, grip tightening on the equipment he’s holding slightly.

“I said something wrong,” he surmises.

He lets out a long sigh, staring down at his hands in his lap. In his head, he has clarity enough. It's one more thing in a whole cascade of them, the girl with all the hotdogs in her journal, the way people so casually show so much skin, the general appalling lack of manners all over the place, which really says something, he thinks, given who he is and that no one would ever accuse him of being refined. The prices of everything. The smell of the air. The dependence on technology.

That's not touching the weirder stuff he has tried not to think about too much that he has already had a couple of encounters with.

"It ain't you," he says with a quick side glance.

The worst part of all of it is that he's reminding himself of the old timers always complaining about the talkies and the cars, the way everybody's always in a hurry these days, the degeneration of society and morals. He'd always found himself rolling his eyes at the men and women wanting to traipse on back to the days of horse and buggies and whatever else they were always on about. You're a young old man, he thinks.

"It's...kinda you." It doesn't sit well with him to lie outright. "I ain't... I ain't used to people being open about that kind 'a thing. It ain't nothin' we ever talked about." He wasn't threatened by it like some guys seemed to be. It didn't make him mad or rile him up. It was just something he didn't want to think about.

"You're fine, Malcolm. Don't pay me no nevermind."

Malcolm considers that carefully, then ventures to ask “Does it make you uncomfortable because it’s personal or because he’s a man?” he asks. He wants to understand what it is they don’t talk about where he’s from. But he doesn’t want to not pay him no nevermind. He felt like they were connecting. He isn’t ready to wound that by neverminding George’s thoughts or feelings. “Would it help to meet him?” he asks suddenly as it occurs to him. “He’s practically a chef. He could bring something to go with the fish. A side dish or… a sauce or something.”

"'Cause he's a man. It's prob'ly jes' another one a' those things I'm a hundred years behind, right? Jes' something else I better take in stride and keep on movin'." His voice is a little louder, strident enough a couple of people glance over in their direction.

"I don't mind meetin' him. I won't be rude or nothin'. You wanna bring him for dinner, you go right ahead." It really doesn't matter what he thinks. He has to figure out how to live in this place. Trying to force his way will only make it harder. He has enough experience in his life with the steamrolling of circumstances to know that the people who fail to adapt are the ones who don't make it.

He didn't do what he did to Lennie to turn around and spit on his memory by refusing to live with it, whatever that ultimately means. It does seem a kick in the teeth he couldn't in a million years have imagined this sort of turn. Malcolm's bad luck to be one of the straws bringing his frustration to a head.

“You’re honestly not that far behind,” Malcolm assures him quietly. “People fought hard for a long time to not have to be ashamed of who they are. Or who they love. But there are plenty of people in my time that are still uncomfortable with it. Who think it should still be illegal. Who wish people still hid it and nobody talked about it. At least you’re from a time where you were taught that was normal.” He glances over hesitantly, fiddles with the handle of his reel. He wouldn’t invite Neal to dinner. Not yet. Too much to soon. But he wouldn’t point it out, either. “Is the line clear because fish can tell it’s a trap if it’s not?” he asks, without a pause or a turn signal. “I didn’t know fish were smart like that.”

He hears him, every word, even if he's stone faced and unblinking, feeling his own stubborn resistance rising to rub it all to friction and hot denial. It's a familiar place, something he desperately needs, familiarity, a kernel of himself unadulterated, and it's on the tip of his tongue to tell him where he can stuff his understanding, and his boyfriend, too.

But then there's such an abrupt topic shift it almost spins his head, leaves him running to catch up, and he realizes it's an olive branch he doesn't really deserve. That head of steam dissipates so quickly he's left wondering what it was all about in the first place. If it's worth trying to chase it down. He can't bring himself to offer a branch of his own, because it would only take them right back to where they took (he took) that first wrong turn. It would be a slap in the face, and hasn't he done that to him enough already today?

"Ain't so much smart as canny. Cunning. They knows they's food, and that anything they think might be food could jes' as well turn around and bite 'em."

He occupies the rest of the stops and starts of the bus ride discussing the poles, the tackle, the plan of attack, what bait they'll start with, how they'll shift to casting if the right kind of fish are biting. It's as though they never hit that bump, and as far as he's concerned they didn't. It doesn't mean the gears aren't turning out of sight and out of mind.

Once they reach their stop, he gathers up what he has been carrying and nods to him. "After you. It ain't a far walk now."

Malcolm grabs his pile and clambers off the bus with it, looking around. When George draws alongside him, Malcolm follows his lead for a direction.

“Do you think all prey animals know they’re designed to be prey?”

"I dunno," he says in a way that sounds like he's chewing on it a little. That's not his final answer. "I'd guess so. If'n they didn't, they'd wind up dead and not make little babies."

It's a strange feeling, having a conversation like this with somebody who can understand him and follow, not having to repeat himself a half dozen times in half a mile or get side tracked. He feels a sting of guilt for the realization this is easier. All the way across the country, facing a gulf of miles and years, there are little moments he's finding easier than what he left behind.

"You got lotsa friends, Malcolm?" The way he is, it's easy to see how he might.

He nods consideration at George’s very reasonable answer, but his question is unexpected and draws a self-deprecating laugh.

Is he starting to regret bringing Malcolm to the sort of place where there’s no easy polite escape?

“Um. No.” He looks over sidelong. “Never have. I ask too many questions, right?” And he’s… how did his aunt put it? Right. So peculiar.

He hadn't been expecting that kind of answer. It draws out a laugh from him, too, a surprised one. "Naw," he says immediately. "Nothin' like that." Lennie was the reigning king of too many questions. Questions all day every day in a hail so thick sometimes he wondered if he'd ever see past it.

It leaves him considering his follow-up a little more carefully. "I jes' thought..." He gestures a little with the pail in his hand since neither are empty. "You got an easy way about you. Ain't met a lot a' folks like that." He shrugs like it doesn't mean anything, mostly to keep it from being awkward.

Maybe things haven't changed so much in close to a hundred years. Looks like people still find ways to dig at each other and single out the gentle if Malcom's reaction is anything to judge by.

George's assessment is correct.

Malcolm blinks at him.

"I do?" That's new. And kind of nice. "Oh." He smiles. "Well. Good." He looks at George. "You must meet a lot of people, traveling around."

"Yep." It's easy enough to answer. He's not sure why he's thinking about it now, something Lennie's aunt said a lifetime ago about how it don't cost nothing to be nice.

And then again in a somewhat harder, flatter tone, "Yep." Most of them mean, either active mean like that bastard Curley or passive mean like that other bastard Carlson with his luger and inability to leave old men alone with their old dogs. "Mostly drifters like me." Not like him then, but like him now. Alone.

He pauses to lift his head and sniff the air a little, catching wind of the body of water they're looking for. He'd rather follow that than some phone map. He nods toward a bare field just starting to come up grass after the winter. "Let's cut through that. See them sedges? That's what we're aiming to get through."

Lots of people don’t choose to be nice. Malcolm has always seen it as a thing he can choose. Not just a way to not be the Surgeon, but a way to connect with the gentle, as it were. Nobody was born broken. Anyone can choose not to break other people more. Most of them don’t.

George seems like a sweet soul that’s learned hardness the hard way.

“How do you know what a good spot is to fish?”

"Some trial and error, some luck. Experience, too. You get to know what kinda spots they like. Shelter, brush, sunken logs. Some fish is more shallow swimmers than others. You want a channel cat, you're gonna sink deep." It occurs to him he has no idea what kind of fish live in Massachusetts versus California. He supposes they'll find out.

"Weather can make a difference. They'll bite more after a rain than before." His boots crunch over the new blades of grass, squeaking in places as he grinds the ball of his foot harder here or there over the uneven ground.

He plunges straight into the tall weeds on the other side of the field without hesitation.

Malcolm looks at where George disappeared into the weeds for a second, then shrugs and plunges in after him, stopping short when he almost bumps into him, grabbing his shoulder to stop him tumbling into the river.

“You found it!”

"Yep, ain't too hard when you know what to look for." He grins and nudges him back, looking up and down the bank for a clearing. "Let's go that way. That willow down there. Bound to be a good place to set up."

He takes off, not too worried about mud or weeds, only skirting brambles since he doesn't want either himself or Malcolm getting all hung up.

Malcolm follows him happily, looking around, tripping over some roots, but not falling and he can probably thank the five years of ballet class he won't admit to for that.

"What kind of fish do you think are here? Are we looking for catfish?"

"I dunno. I never had no reason to try to find out what fish lived clear across the country from me. Guess we'll have us some fun findin' out. Way cats are, it'd surprise me if there ain't some here."

He sets a few things down near the willow and steps to the water, squatting to dip his fingers in and lightly taste it across his tongue. "Little brackish. Might be a mix a' fresh an' salt ones."

Backing up, he takes a seat. "Go on and set yourself down. I'm gonna show you how to rig a pole."

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