Wilford Warfstache (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cottoncandypink) wrote2018-04-01 12:06 pm
cottoncandypink) wrote2018-04-01 12:06 pm
Is it some kind of sex thing?
The first thing Wilford did as soon as he’d made his bet with Brooke was stop by the Bar to exchange some currency. He wasn’t sure how quickly he’d need it, but the sooner he had it, the better. Which was all fine and dandy, because the next day, he was high-tailing it out of the nighbourhood and toward any main road as fast as he could without actually running.
The point was not to be seen, but to simply observe. And right away, he knew he stood out, because it was fucking freezing, and he was wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt like a goddamn lunatic. He hadn’t really thought about that when he packed for this trip, either. He’d kind of just grabbed whatever was on the top of the clean laundry pile, which was much of the same. Luckily, the fashion didn’t seem too far off what he was used to, which made hatching a plan to go ignored relatively easy. He just had to find the right sort of neighbourhood to make it happen.
One on the main road, he was able to flag down a cab. If he concentrated very, very hard, he could straighten his jaw out just enough to even out his words as he spoke. It hurt like hell to do, but he could keep up the act long enough to tell a story about stolen luggage and needing to find a good place to do some cheap, emergency shopping. After an over-priced 20 minutes, he was dropped outside a charity shop. The right jeans, a few old t-shirts with things called My Little Pony and Sesame Street, a couple of flannel shirts and tweed blazers. His shoes were wrong. Brown leather loafers were what he needed, and there was no shortage of them in his size. He paid at the counter, and with his best smile, asked if he could possibly use one of the changing rooms, since it was ever so cold out. The girl at the register said she really shouldn’t, but led him back anyway. It was an uncomfortable affair, but he changed quickly and stuffed his own clothes, as well as the extras into his backpack before leaving. On his way out, he caught his reflection in the window, and realised he still wasn’t done. In a rare moment, he wished he’d been better at keeping up salon appointments.
After about a half hour of searching the area, with the help of a super friendly chap with no front teeth inside a convenience store, Wilford found one nearby. More money, and twenty minutes later, his hair had been cut, shaved, and styled in various manners to perfectly suit the American hipster douche tourist he was supposed to be this week. His glasses were wrong, but he hadn’t brought his contacts with him. Hopefully nobody would notice. Finally settled into the role, the next task was simple: get the hell out of town before he was spotted by someone who might recognise him despite his costume.
One more cab ride took him to a train station. London seemed like the safest bet. He’d been there a few times on his own world, so he’d have something to compare it to. The next train was in about ten minutes, and would get him where he was going before 9pm. It was perfect. He bought the ticket, smiled at the clerk, and rushed to find his platform. Once he was on the train and they were moving, Wilford dug his iPad out of his bag, curious to see if it would connect to this world’s wifi, and was pleasantly surprised when it did. That was going to make the two-hour trip so much less tedious. The first thing he did was found a national news site to get a better feel for what he was dealing with. Something called Facebook was in trouble, Russia was so ubiquitous across the entire site that Wilford had begun to tune it out already, some space station was falling to Earth — Wilford paused at that headline, since it was the only thing he’d read so far that didn’t seem completely foreign to him. The story turned out to be far less exciting than he’d expected it to be. It was so not exciting, they’d apparently been expecting it to happen for a while. How dull.
Two hours made for a long train ride, but it wasn’t enough to get through as much of the news as he wanted to. But by the time he got off the train, he was starving. The news could wait. He tucked his iPad back into his bag and headed off into the city to see what he could find out about the place. At this time of night, there were still a few places open, though far less than he was used to back home, and at a much smaller selection. Plenty of fast food, but Wilford wanted something real. He found himself a pub that still had its lights on and headed inside. It wasn’t like the ones they showed in movies, with dark yellow lighting and decor that looked like it had survived the Blitz. It was bright and as modern as it could possibly be, given the building itself had likely survived the Blitz. He took a seat near one of the back walls and took a little bit of time to observe the entire place. Nothing seemed different so far. Except for the noise. This world was already very quiet. Not supernaturally quiet, but quiet enough to be unnerving. Traffic was a constant din. Nobody shouted or screamed. There was no erratic pattern of air traffic overhead, or fits and bursts of chaos on the streets. There was an endless, unbroken cadence, like the first bar of a song being played over and over and over again, seeming to build up to something that never came. And once Wilford had noticed it, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. It made him tense, like he was waiting for the inevitable. But the inevitable never seemed to come.
He remembered that, vaguely. The last time he was here, in this London, with Jim. It was years ago. Almost two decades. It hadn’t bothered Wilford as much then, because they’d made their own fun, and their own noise to break the monotony. This time was different though. He was here as a silent observer. Making his own fun would only negate everything he was trying to do. He had to ignore it. Or at least throw himself so wholly into his task that he didn’t notice it.
A waitress finally came over to take his order — a beer and a burger. Something simple and familiar, and not daring enough that he’d probably wind up turning his nose at it once he realised what was in it. When it arrived, it was over-presented on some pretentious square plate with too much garnish, and the beer was warm. He unearthed his meal from a mountain of parsley, ignored the temperature of his drink, and ate slowly while he watched couples and groups of friends finishing off their nights out before the place closed. It was not unfamiliar. It was quiet and uneasy, but there was nothing that stood out either. Nothing at least, that was there. It was what wasn’t there that continued to stand out.
When he was done, he asked the waitress to point him to a hotel. What was the tipping custom like here? He had no signal on his phone, and he hadn’t noticed one way or the other what anyone else had done. Deciding in this instance to stick to what he knew, he threw down entirely too much cash onto the table before heading out to find the address he’d been given. The hotel was a little fancier than he’d expected it to be, but he was only going to be in town for a few days. He had more than enough to cover it, assuming he could convince them to take cash. It turned out anybody took cash if you flashed enough of it. He probably shouldn’t have done that, but the alternative was staying in the sort of place that dealt only with cash, and that sort of place didn’t usually have wifi or room service. He got his room info and key, and headed to the elevator for a night of serious research.
None of the sites he knew existed. Everything was different. Something called Google led him to something called Twitter when he tried to find some police scanners, so he created an account and read through the hashtag for hours while the news played all night in the background. People called the cops over everything. Someone was holding a knife, someone was shouting at the sky, someone stole someone else’s weed. It was at once the most asinine list of complaints Wilford had ever seen, and the most fascinating thing ever. He couldn’t look away. Accounts for cities all over the world parroting police activity that made no rational sense. Or rather, it did make sense, but in a way that was twisted and bent and just wrong. He couldn’t look away.
He only got up when he needed a cigarette. As he pulled the pack from his inventory, he looked around the hotel room. No ash trays. He tried the windows, but they wouldn’t open. So he grabbed his room key and headed out to the street, assuming the people here weren’t so insane that they even banned smoking outdoors. By that point, it was so late it was early. Everything had rocketed past unnervingly quiet to eerily quiet. Wilford didn’t like it. Apart from the rumble of the occasional car in the distance, the only sound was the quiet rustle of wind. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t natural. He made it the quickest smoke break he’d ever taken in his life. He wasn’t going to stand outside in the dark a second longer than he had to.
This world wasn’t a utopia by any means. During the day, Wilford left his hotel and explored the city. He was staying where the tourists stayed, which was never a representative sample, no matter where you went. He had to find the rougher, less-polished parts of town if he wanted to see what people were really like. He took too many pictures with his phone, spending too much time fiddling with filters and framing, playing the role of some tourist who had strayed a little too far from where it was safe. He listened to conversations while he stared at his phone screen. Even out here, away from the part of town they wanted to show off to everyone, the world was quiet. Not subdued, necessarily, but holding the same endless rhythm as everything else had done so far. He watched cops break up scuffles between teenagers, and people have bawling meltdowns over fender benders. Everything was the worst thing in the world to these people. They went above and beyond breakable to downright delicate. By Saturday night, he was exhausted from the constant anticipation that something would happen, which never did. He wasn’t even sure what he expected to happen, but by that point he would have taken anything just to finally break the tension. On his way back to the hotel, he stopped into another pub for dinner, more focused on getting something to eat than people watching. He was ready to go home, but it was too late by that point to head back to Holby. Being a tourist had grown boring, and this world had grown stressful and strange in a way he couldn’t quite comprehend.
As he continued to mind his own business, the man next to him refused to do the same. Wilford could feel him staring disgustedly. He ignored the man, too tired to even start.
“The fuck have you done to your face?” the man asked finally, his words slurred from one too many drinks.
“Pal, I am not in the mood,” Wilford said, not even looking up from the fish on his plate.
“Shit, I heard Americans had all lost their minds, but I didn’t think it was that bad.” The guy stood up and got a little too close to Wilford. Intentionally, no doubt. Wilford continued to ignore him and ate his dinner.
“Hey, don’t be rude. I’m talking to you.” He nudged Wilford in a way that wasn’t even trying to be friendly.
“Good for you.” He wasn’t going to do this. There was a time and a place, and this wasn’t it. He was not going to get himself arrested on some pansy-ass world that treated throwing a punch like a felony.
“Is it some kind of sex thing?” the guy asked. “How queer do you gotta be to announce it to the whole world like that?”
Ah, there it was. The unveiled disgust that meant something was finally going to happen. Wilford continued to ignore it, going on with his meal as if he’d never even heard it. But he could see the man too close beside him. He could see him moving, slow and telegraphing his every intent. Whether it was a knife or a fist that was coming toward him, Wilford neither knew nor cared. This man was drunk; he was not. He was bigger and faster, and before the irritating prick could lay a hand on him, Wilford was on his feet and grabbing the fucker to shove his face into the bartop. He could hear the clank of dropped keys falling to the floor, which meant he’d have been in for a bad night if he were anybody else.
“I told you, fucko. I’m not in the mood.” He gave the guy’s face a nice little shove into the bar, and looked up at the stunned bartender who didn’t seem to know what to do. As soon as he let go of the other guy, Wilford pulled out his wallet, dropped some cash next to his plate, and walked out the door. He wasted no time in getting out of there, just in case the cops were called, or the other guy were kicked out. He wasn’t actually sure, at that moment, which one would be worse. He walked until he could hail a cab, and headed back to the hotel.
The point was not to be seen, but to simply observe. And right away, he knew he stood out, because it was fucking freezing, and he was wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt like a goddamn lunatic. He hadn’t really thought about that when he packed for this trip, either. He’d kind of just grabbed whatever was on the top of the clean laundry pile, which was much of the same. Luckily, the fashion didn’t seem too far off what he was used to, which made hatching a plan to go ignored relatively easy. He just had to find the right sort of neighbourhood to make it happen.
One on the main road, he was able to flag down a cab. If he concentrated very, very hard, he could straighten his jaw out just enough to even out his words as he spoke. It hurt like hell to do, but he could keep up the act long enough to tell a story about stolen luggage and needing to find a good place to do some cheap, emergency shopping. After an over-priced 20 minutes, he was dropped outside a charity shop. The right jeans, a few old t-shirts with things called My Little Pony and Sesame Street, a couple of flannel shirts and tweed blazers. His shoes were wrong. Brown leather loafers were what he needed, and there was no shortage of them in his size. He paid at the counter, and with his best smile, asked if he could possibly use one of the changing rooms, since it was ever so cold out. The girl at the register said she really shouldn’t, but led him back anyway. It was an uncomfortable affair, but he changed quickly and stuffed his own clothes, as well as the extras into his backpack before leaving. On his way out, he caught his reflection in the window, and realised he still wasn’t done. In a rare moment, he wished he’d been better at keeping up salon appointments.
After about a half hour of searching the area, with the help of a super friendly chap with no front teeth inside a convenience store, Wilford found one nearby. More money, and twenty minutes later, his hair had been cut, shaved, and styled in various manners to perfectly suit the American hipster douche tourist he was supposed to be this week. His glasses were wrong, but he hadn’t brought his contacts with him. Hopefully nobody would notice. Finally settled into the role, the next task was simple: get the hell out of town before he was spotted by someone who might recognise him despite his costume.
One more cab ride took him to a train station. London seemed like the safest bet. He’d been there a few times on his own world, so he’d have something to compare it to. The next train was in about ten minutes, and would get him where he was going before 9pm. It was perfect. He bought the ticket, smiled at the clerk, and rushed to find his platform. Once he was on the train and they were moving, Wilford dug his iPad out of his bag, curious to see if it would connect to this world’s wifi, and was pleasantly surprised when it did. That was going to make the two-hour trip so much less tedious. The first thing he did was found a national news site to get a better feel for what he was dealing with. Something called Facebook was in trouble, Russia was so ubiquitous across the entire site that Wilford had begun to tune it out already, some space station was falling to Earth — Wilford paused at that headline, since it was the only thing he’d read so far that didn’t seem completely foreign to him. The story turned out to be far less exciting than he’d expected it to be. It was so not exciting, they’d apparently been expecting it to happen for a while. How dull.
Two hours made for a long train ride, but it wasn’t enough to get through as much of the news as he wanted to. But by the time he got off the train, he was starving. The news could wait. He tucked his iPad back into his bag and headed off into the city to see what he could find out about the place. At this time of night, there were still a few places open, though far less than he was used to back home, and at a much smaller selection. Plenty of fast food, but Wilford wanted something real. He found himself a pub that still had its lights on and headed inside. It wasn’t like the ones they showed in movies, with dark yellow lighting and decor that looked like it had survived the Blitz. It was bright and as modern as it could possibly be, given the building itself had likely survived the Blitz. He took a seat near one of the back walls and took a little bit of time to observe the entire place. Nothing seemed different so far. Except for the noise. This world was already very quiet. Not supernaturally quiet, but quiet enough to be unnerving. Traffic was a constant din. Nobody shouted or screamed. There was no erratic pattern of air traffic overhead, or fits and bursts of chaos on the streets. There was an endless, unbroken cadence, like the first bar of a song being played over and over and over again, seeming to build up to something that never came. And once Wilford had noticed it, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. It made him tense, like he was waiting for the inevitable. But the inevitable never seemed to come.
He remembered that, vaguely. The last time he was here, in this London, with Jim. It was years ago. Almost two decades. It hadn’t bothered Wilford as much then, because they’d made their own fun, and their own noise to break the monotony. This time was different though. He was here as a silent observer. Making his own fun would only negate everything he was trying to do. He had to ignore it. Or at least throw himself so wholly into his task that he didn’t notice it.
A waitress finally came over to take his order — a beer and a burger. Something simple and familiar, and not daring enough that he’d probably wind up turning his nose at it once he realised what was in it. When it arrived, it was over-presented on some pretentious square plate with too much garnish, and the beer was warm. He unearthed his meal from a mountain of parsley, ignored the temperature of his drink, and ate slowly while he watched couples and groups of friends finishing off their nights out before the place closed. It was not unfamiliar. It was quiet and uneasy, but there was nothing that stood out either. Nothing at least, that was there. It was what wasn’t there that continued to stand out.
When he was done, he asked the waitress to point him to a hotel. What was the tipping custom like here? He had no signal on his phone, and he hadn’t noticed one way or the other what anyone else had done. Deciding in this instance to stick to what he knew, he threw down entirely too much cash onto the table before heading out to find the address he’d been given. The hotel was a little fancier than he’d expected it to be, but he was only going to be in town for a few days. He had more than enough to cover it, assuming he could convince them to take cash. It turned out anybody took cash if you flashed enough of it. He probably shouldn’t have done that, but the alternative was staying in the sort of place that dealt only with cash, and that sort of place didn’t usually have wifi or room service. He got his room info and key, and headed to the elevator for a night of serious research.
None of the sites he knew existed. Everything was different. Something called Google led him to something called Twitter when he tried to find some police scanners, so he created an account and read through the hashtag for hours while the news played all night in the background. People called the cops over everything. Someone was holding a knife, someone was shouting at the sky, someone stole someone else’s weed. It was at once the most asinine list of complaints Wilford had ever seen, and the most fascinating thing ever. He couldn’t look away. Accounts for cities all over the world parroting police activity that made no rational sense. Or rather, it did make sense, but in a way that was twisted and bent and just wrong. He couldn’t look away.
He only got up when he needed a cigarette. As he pulled the pack from his inventory, he looked around the hotel room. No ash trays. He tried the windows, but they wouldn’t open. So he grabbed his room key and headed out to the street, assuming the people here weren’t so insane that they even banned smoking outdoors. By that point, it was so late it was early. Everything had rocketed past unnervingly quiet to eerily quiet. Wilford didn’t like it. Apart from the rumble of the occasional car in the distance, the only sound was the quiet rustle of wind. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t natural. He made it the quickest smoke break he’d ever taken in his life. He wasn’t going to stand outside in the dark a second longer than he had to.
This world wasn’t a utopia by any means. During the day, Wilford left his hotel and explored the city. He was staying where the tourists stayed, which was never a representative sample, no matter where you went. He had to find the rougher, less-polished parts of town if he wanted to see what people were really like. He took too many pictures with his phone, spending too much time fiddling with filters and framing, playing the role of some tourist who had strayed a little too far from where it was safe. He listened to conversations while he stared at his phone screen. Even out here, away from the part of town they wanted to show off to everyone, the world was quiet. Not subdued, necessarily, but holding the same endless rhythm as everything else had done so far. He watched cops break up scuffles between teenagers, and people have bawling meltdowns over fender benders. Everything was the worst thing in the world to these people. They went above and beyond breakable to downright delicate. By Saturday night, he was exhausted from the constant anticipation that something would happen, which never did. He wasn’t even sure what he expected to happen, but by that point he would have taken anything just to finally break the tension. On his way back to the hotel, he stopped into another pub for dinner, more focused on getting something to eat than people watching. He was ready to go home, but it was too late by that point to head back to Holby. Being a tourist had grown boring, and this world had grown stressful and strange in a way he couldn’t quite comprehend.
As he continued to mind his own business, the man next to him refused to do the same. Wilford could feel him staring disgustedly. He ignored the man, too tired to even start.
“The fuck have you done to your face?” the man asked finally, his words slurred from one too many drinks.
“Pal, I am not in the mood,” Wilford said, not even looking up from the fish on his plate.
“Shit, I heard Americans had all lost their minds, but I didn’t think it was that bad.” The guy stood up and got a little too close to Wilford. Intentionally, no doubt. Wilford continued to ignore him and ate his dinner.
“Hey, don’t be rude. I’m talking to you.” He nudged Wilford in a way that wasn’t even trying to be friendly.
“Good for you.” He wasn’t going to do this. There was a time and a place, and this wasn’t it. He was not going to get himself arrested on some pansy-ass world that treated throwing a punch like a felony.
“Is it some kind of sex thing?” the guy asked. “How queer do you gotta be to announce it to the whole world like that?”
Ah, there it was. The unveiled disgust that meant something was finally going to happen. Wilford continued to ignore it, going on with his meal as if he’d never even heard it. But he could see the man too close beside him. He could see him moving, slow and telegraphing his every intent. Whether it was a knife or a fist that was coming toward him, Wilford neither knew nor cared. This man was drunk; he was not. He was bigger and faster, and before the irritating prick could lay a hand on him, Wilford was on his feet and grabbing the fucker to shove his face into the bartop. He could hear the clank of dropped keys falling to the floor, which meant he’d have been in for a bad night if he were anybody else.
“I told you, fucko. I’m not in the mood.” He gave the guy’s face a nice little shove into the bar, and looked up at the stunned bartender who didn’t seem to know what to do. As soon as he let go of the other guy, Wilford pulled out his wallet, dropped some cash next to his plate, and walked out the door. He wasted no time in getting out of there, just in case the cops were called, or the other guy were kicked out. He wasn’t actually sure, at that moment, which one would be worse. He walked until he could hail a cab, and headed back to the hotel.