Infinity Smashed: Say Goodnight, Gracie
Dec. 16th, 2020 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeSay Goodnight, Gracie
Series: Infinity Smashed
Word Count: 2200
Summary: Bob and Grey share a miserable holiday party and a secret.
Notes: Freebie. Drinking and Christmas and post-9/11 jingoism, but nothing much intense.
Up until Thanksgiving, I hadn’t paid Grey enough attention to bother with the gaydar. Now though, I started getting a feeling, no matter how I told myself that government beef was for looking, not touching. The shaved arms, the Barbarian Barbara shirt… maybe I wasn’t the only one flagging rainbows amidst the navy blue.
The problem was, I couldn’t ask… or tell. Even ignoring PIN policy, Grey was about the only person in Ops I felt safe comboying for; I couldn’t risk that, not while I was stuck here waiting for the 9/11 dust to settle. My more subtle attempt at verbal hanky code bounced off—Grey showed no reaction to my reference to Barbarian Barbara’s (infamously queer) fanzines or fandom. But was that because Grey was straight, or because Grey was terminally square?
It was just as well that I legitimately wanted to learn StanG. It gave me a respectable, platonic excuse to meet up with Grey three times a week after shift, if only in the break room to study. Grey loaned me a tattered old pocket dictionary, ran off a copy of the syllabic alphabet table, wrote me down a cheat-sheet of peripherals, and even relaxed a little. Maybe work felt like safe territory.
I’d learned two languages already… but as a child, not an adult in my late forties. StanG was unrelated to either, and SGSL was altogether new (alien) terrain for me. I was lousy at it, and adding insult to injury, stolid, silent Grey signed like poetry in motion. It wasn’t fair.
“Do you prefer sign to talking?” I asked once. “You look like you do.”
Grey paused, but signed, “Yes.”
“And here I thought you were just asocial.”
“That too.” Then, in voice: “Words are a lot. Too much. Can’t keep up.” Sign again, an open-mouthed pull as though trying to draw out words—“speech” in SGSL but “over word-budget” in Grey. I saw that one a lot.
Every once in a while, I got a similar flicker of personality, but most of the time, I just got lessons. Every time we finished, Grey would give me a ride home, I’d offer dinner or Barbarian Barbara watches, and every time: “no, thank you.” There was no way to push without looking like I was making a pass, so I didn’t. At least spending so much time studying StanG helped our coworkers think that I was becoming a good little worker bee, rather than just biding my time.
Things went along like this for a month or so, until one day we set up only for Williamson to harry us out. Apparently being forced to work here wasn’t bad enough; we had to perform our devotion in our off-hours too by ducking in to the office Christmas—ahem, “winter holiday” party.
“This is bullshit,” I grumbled. “I don’t even celebrate this damn holiday!” Or get it off.
“Me neither,” Grey said.
I blinked. “You don’t?”
Grey said nothing, just kept packing up with obvious reluctance.
“I… just assumed you were Christian.”
Still nothing.
“If I might ask, what…?”
“Nothing.” Grey gave me a cold stare. “I’m nothing.”
I could take a hint. “Has this been mandatory before?”
Bitterly: “No.”
“How long do we have to put up with it before we bolt?”
Grey could tell when I wasn’t joking. “Fifteen minutes. I’ll drive you home. No one will argue with me.”
“You’re the best, boss.” Even I could handle fifteen minutes, especially if Grey was suffering with me.
There was nothing like government-mandated holiday cheer at a place you hated for a day you didn’t care about. They hosted it in the conference room with the chairs pushed to the walls and glittery plastic snowflakes taped over the management fad slogans on the blackboard. The conference table had been draped in a plastic red-and-green tablecloth and covered in cheap chips, a limp salad platter, and brightly colored punch. Cloying carols played through the speakers.
Grey grabbed some punch and went to go lurk in a corner. With a sigh and a glance at my watch, I took a low-fat sugar-free cookie shaped like a snowman.
At the best of times, the PIN probably threw depressing parties, but add in the September 11th churn and it was tense. Everyone was laughing too loud and smiling too big, pretending they weren’t watching each other like rival hyenas circling a carcass. People were dividing down the line of the old horses who’d been around before the disaster and the new guys sweeping in from the restructuring, which put my August-hired ass in an awkward position.
Grey didn’t even make it the full fifteen minutes, disappeared while I was in the restroom. I wished I’d done the same, because when I came back, Randall and Hernandez (who’d clearly done some pre-drinking) started making noble declarations about terrorists, the sanctity of America, and the war on Christmas.
I tried to edge out, but that proved a bad idea; it got Randall’s attention.
“Hey. Hey, Doshi!”
Shit.
“What’s your problem, Doshi? Are we bothering you?”
I tried to keep smiling. “Come on, Randall…”
Now he was starting to come over. Weedy or not, he was still taller than I was, and everyone else was looking away with uncomfortable smiles, so I was relieved when Specialist Larkin came to my rescue. She acted like she’d been looking all over for me and whisked me off.
“Hey! Hey!” Randall protested, but now he sounded whiny, not threatening. “Come on, Larkin!”
“Cool off, Randall,” she said over her shoulder. “Drink some water.”
“Thank you,” I said, once we were safely out of the room. “I’m going to go find Grey; I want my ride home.”
“Good idea. I’ll keep things from blowing up here, at least till you get back, but then I’m leaving too; someone’s spiked the punch and I think it’s going to get ugly. Let me know if you need me for a substitute ride.”
A couple of the second shifters were in the break room, looking resentful, but no Grey. No luck in the bathrooms either.
In hindsight, it was obvious. Where else would a workaholic like Grey hide but the office? Not at the desk, though—on the floor, sitting against the wall. If I hadn’t heard humming, I never would’ve realized.
I tried the door, found it unlocked, and came in. “I don’t know that song.”
“Romberg,” Grey replied from the corner.
The name meant nothing to me.
“Supposed to be a tenor part,” Grey continued in an over-enunciated voice without looking up.
“I see you got into the punch,” I said, noting the plastic cup on the chair.
Grey just made a face.
I sipped from the cup, almost lost my nose hair, and hastily put it back. “Wow, this is vile. How much have you had?”
Solemnly: “too much.”
“No kidding.” I shut the door and sat against it, making myself as comfortable as I could on the cheap carpet. Forms were stacked on the floor between us, and when I picked one up, I discovered it was a case report from yesterday. “Are you doing paperwork? What a boy scout!”
Grey plucked the paper out of my hand and replaced it on the stack, carefully aligning the corners. “Not a boy scout. What’re you doing here?”
“Looking for you and avoiding Randall and Hernandez.”
Grey frowned. “Hassling you?”
“They’re feeling patriotic, let’s put it that way. Larkin bailed me out, but I think I’ve had enough of Orwell’s Christmas. You want to get out of here?”
Clearly yes, but Grey grimaced. “Can’t drive like this.”
I held out my hand. “I’m sober. Or we can call a cab; I wrote down their number the last time I forgot my keys here.”
After a brief search, Grey dropped the car keys into my hand.
“Wow,” I said. “You do hate these parties.”
Grey made a vague gesture as though tracing radiation static through the air; if it was SGSL, I didn’t know it. “Too loud. Too much.” With a sigh, slumping against the wall: “Not good with people. Treat me wrong.”
“Do I treat you wrong?”
Silence. Then, “you’re not afraid of me.”
I blinked. “People aren’t scared of you, Grey.”
That got me a skeptical look.
“Okay, some of them are,” I admitted, “but most of them, I think they just don’t know what to say to you. You’re not exactly Mr. Approachable.”
Grey winced. “No Mr. Not a Mr.”
“Specialist Approachable,” I revised, and that passed muster.
I should’ve caught on then, but I didn’t. As it was, we got up to go. Grey was a little clumsy and over-coordinated, but could still walk well enough unassisted. My disappointment gave me an idea.
“Do me a favor?”
Grey looked up—well, down.
“Act like you’re drunker than you are. You’re my ticket past Randall and Hernandez.”
I held out an arm, and after a hesitant moment, Grey took it, trying to touch me as little as possible. Ah well, I’d take what I could get.
We had to go past the conference room to leave—and anyway, I wanted Larkin to know I’d found Grey and wouldn’t need a ride. I waved… and caught Randall’s eye in the process. With the doggedness of the drunk, he picked up right where he’d left off.
“Hey, Doshi!” he said. “We’re not done!”
“Yes, we are,” I retorted. “Do you mind? I have to go pour Grey into bed.”
That just made him and Hernandez think they needed to ask permission.
“Grey,” Hernandez made as though to grab my other arm, “we need to talk to Doshi. Let us borrow him for a second.”
“No,” Grey said.
“But—”
“No.”
“Come on—”
Grey went into laser-beam stare mode. With an edge: “No.”
There was a tense moment, but apparently Randall and Hernandez weren’t so stupid drunk as to pick a fight with Specialist Ironass. They exchanged glances, shrugged, and disavowed me like cats.
I sent Grey a grateful look. In my best George Burns, I said, “say goodnight, Grey.”
The reference must’ve come through. “Goodnight, Gracie.”
That’s when I caught on.
It was just as well that Grey was too sloshed to notice or talk beyond giving me directions; it gave me time to think and put it all together.
By the time I got to Grey’s apartment complex (big, ugly, beige), I had thought of a dozen things I could say, and a million reasons not to say them. My wheels were starting to spin.
Unaware of any of it, Grey saved me with a, “thank you,” and even a hint of a smile.
That knocked me out of it. “The iron melts! Careful, they won’t be scared of you anymore.”
A stranger could see that smile now. “Goodnight, Bob.”
I handed over the keys and took the plunge. “You know, I’m bi.”
Grey froze. Looked up.
“My sister’s youngest, they’re a they. Been giving me transgender liberation speeches all year.” If I was wrong about this, Randall and Hernandez would be the least of my worries. “I just wanted to tell you, since I’m trying to be friends with you, and I’m lousy at hiding it.”
Grey stared at me hard. Silence. Shit. I’d fucked myself.
But then… “Seen Disasters in Dykeland?”
“With my niecephew sometimes.” It was one of those cloyingly earnest, self-consciously PC things, more their style than mine. “Why?”
“I’m like Bea.” The stone butch transdyke with biceps to die for. “I like Grace. You can call me that. But not at work.”
“No, no, of course not.” This part, I did remember from the lectures. “She?”
“Yes,” she said. Then, hesitantly, “you?”
“Just he. I’ve never been good at it, though… anyway, I’m going to call myself a cab, get myself home.” Die of relief. “Have a good night, Grace. Happy Nondescript Winter Holiday.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, turned to dial, but Grey waved a little to get my attention.
“Company?” she asked. “While you wait.”
I blinked. “Sure, if you’re offering.”
I called the cab. When I finished, I perched on the trunk of Grey’s car to wait; she joined me.
“Niecephew?” she asked.
I had photos in my wallet, along with their siblings. Grey looked them over with me, let me blather and gush, didn’t seem to notice that I was babbling. She seemed to be thinking something over, looking at me like she was wondering where I’d come from. Her eyes were hazel; I’d never noticed before. When the cab pulled up and I got up to go, she waved again.
“Barbarian Barbara has a movie.”
“I heard.” It’d been the talk of my old forum friends. “I’ve heard it’s big dumb cheese, just my style.”
“Still showing at Autumnville Theater.”
“The one with the murals and the velvet Elvis museum?” She hadn’t struck me as the kind of person who’d go there.
But she nodded. “Want to go? Now?”
I blinked, grinned. “You’re inviting me to a social occasion? We don’t know the show times!”
She shrugged. “Velvet Elvises are nice.”
I cracked up laughing. “Sure, Grace. I’m yours.”
We both got in the cab.
Series: Infinity Smashed
Word Count: 2200
Summary: Bob and Grey share a miserable holiday party and a secret.
Notes: Freebie. Drinking and Christmas and post-9/11 jingoism, but nothing much intense.
Up until Thanksgiving, I hadn’t paid Grey enough attention to bother with the gaydar. Now though, I started getting a feeling, no matter how I told myself that government beef was for looking, not touching. The shaved arms, the Barbarian Barbara shirt… maybe I wasn’t the only one flagging rainbows amidst the navy blue.
The problem was, I couldn’t ask… or tell. Even ignoring PIN policy, Grey was about the only person in Ops I felt safe comboying for; I couldn’t risk that, not while I was stuck here waiting for the 9/11 dust to settle. My more subtle attempt at verbal hanky code bounced off—Grey showed no reaction to my reference to Barbarian Barbara’s (infamously queer) fanzines or fandom. But was that because Grey was straight, or because Grey was terminally square?
It was just as well that I legitimately wanted to learn StanG. It gave me a respectable, platonic excuse to meet up with Grey three times a week after shift, if only in the break room to study. Grey loaned me a tattered old pocket dictionary, ran off a copy of the syllabic alphabet table, wrote me down a cheat-sheet of peripherals, and even relaxed a little. Maybe work felt like safe territory.
I’d learned two languages already… but as a child, not an adult in my late forties. StanG was unrelated to either, and SGSL was altogether new (alien) terrain for me. I was lousy at it, and adding insult to injury, stolid, silent Grey signed like poetry in motion. It wasn’t fair.
“Do you prefer sign to talking?” I asked once. “You look like you do.”
Grey paused, but signed, “Yes.”
“And here I thought you were just asocial.”
“That too.” Then, in voice: “Words are a lot. Too much. Can’t keep up.” Sign again, an open-mouthed pull as though trying to draw out words—“speech” in SGSL but “over word-budget” in Grey. I saw that one a lot.
Every once in a while, I got a similar flicker of personality, but most of the time, I just got lessons. Every time we finished, Grey would give me a ride home, I’d offer dinner or Barbarian Barbara watches, and every time: “no, thank you.” There was no way to push without looking like I was making a pass, so I didn’t. At least spending so much time studying StanG helped our coworkers think that I was becoming a good little worker bee, rather than just biding my time.
Things went along like this for a month or so, until one day we set up only for Williamson to harry us out. Apparently being forced to work here wasn’t bad enough; we had to perform our devotion in our off-hours too by ducking in to the office Christmas—ahem, “winter holiday” party.
“This is bullshit,” I grumbled. “I don’t even celebrate this damn holiday!” Or get it off.
“Me neither,” Grey said.
I blinked. “You don’t?”
Grey said nothing, just kept packing up with obvious reluctance.
“I… just assumed you were Christian.”
Still nothing.
“If I might ask, what…?”
“Nothing.” Grey gave me a cold stare. “I’m nothing.”
I could take a hint. “Has this been mandatory before?”
Bitterly: “No.”
“How long do we have to put up with it before we bolt?”
Grey could tell when I wasn’t joking. “Fifteen minutes. I’ll drive you home. No one will argue with me.”
“You’re the best, boss.” Even I could handle fifteen minutes, especially if Grey was suffering with me.
There was nothing like government-mandated holiday cheer at a place you hated for a day you didn’t care about. They hosted it in the conference room with the chairs pushed to the walls and glittery plastic snowflakes taped over the management fad slogans on the blackboard. The conference table had been draped in a plastic red-and-green tablecloth and covered in cheap chips, a limp salad platter, and brightly colored punch. Cloying carols played through the speakers.
Grey grabbed some punch and went to go lurk in a corner. With a sigh and a glance at my watch, I took a low-fat sugar-free cookie shaped like a snowman.
At the best of times, the PIN probably threw depressing parties, but add in the September 11th churn and it was tense. Everyone was laughing too loud and smiling too big, pretending they weren’t watching each other like rival hyenas circling a carcass. People were dividing down the line of the old horses who’d been around before the disaster and the new guys sweeping in from the restructuring, which put my August-hired ass in an awkward position.
Grey didn’t even make it the full fifteen minutes, disappeared while I was in the restroom. I wished I’d done the same, because when I came back, Randall and Hernandez (who’d clearly done some pre-drinking) started making noble declarations about terrorists, the sanctity of America, and the war on Christmas.
I tried to edge out, but that proved a bad idea; it got Randall’s attention.
“Hey. Hey, Doshi!”
Shit.
“What’s your problem, Doshi? Are we bothering you?”
I tried to keep smiling. “Come on, Randall…”
Now he was starting to come over. Weedy or not, he was still taller than I was, and everyone else was looking away with uncomfortable smiles, so I was relieved when Specialist Larkin came to my rescue. She acted like she’d been looking all over for me and whisked me off.
“Hey! Hey!” Randall protested, but now he sounded whiny, not threatening. “Come on, Larkin!”
“Cool off, Randall,” she said over her shoulder. “Drink some water.”
“Thank you,” I said, once we were safely out of the room. “I’m going to go find Grey; I want my ride home.”
“Good idea. I’ll keep things from blowing up here, at least till you get back, but then I’m leaving too; someone’s spiked the punch and I think it’s going to get ugly. Let me know if you need me for a substitute ride.”
A couple of the second shifters were in the break room, looking resentful, but no Grey. No luck in the bathrooms either.
In hindsight, it was obvious. Where else would a workaholic like Grey hide but the office? Not at the desk, though—on the floor, sitting against the wall. If I hadn’t heard humming, I never would’ve realized.
I tried the door, found it unlocked, and came in. “I don’t know that song.”
“Romberg,” Grey replied from the corner.
The name meant nothing to me.
“Supposed to be a tenor part,” Grey continued in an over-enunciated voice without looking up.
“I see you got into the punch,” I said, noting the plastic cup on the chair.
Grey just made a face.
I sipped from the cup, almost lost my nose hair, and hastily put it back. “Wow, this is vile. How much have you had?”
Solemnly: “too much.”
“No kidding.” I shut the door and sat against it, making myself as comfortable as I could on the cheap carpet. Forms were stacked on the floor between us, and when I picked one up, I discovered it was a case report from yesterday. “Are you doing paperwork? What a boy scout!”
Grey plucked the paper out of my hand and replaced it on the stack, carefully aligning the corners. “Not a boy scout. What’re you doing here?”
“Looking for you and avoiding Randall and Hernandez.”
Grey frowned. “Hassling you?”
“They’re feeling patriotic, let’s put it that way. Larkin bailed me out, but I think I’ve had enough of Orwell’s Christmas. You want to get out of here?”
Clearly yes, but Grey grimaced. “Can’t drive like this.”
I held out my hand. “I’m sober. Or we can call a cab; I wrote down their number the last time I forgot my keys here.”
After a brief search, Grey dropped the car keys into my hand.
“Wow,” I said. “You do hate these parties.”
Grey made a vague gesture as though tracing radiation static through the air; if it was SGSL, I didn’t know it. “Too loud. Too much.” With a sigh, slumping against the wall: “Not good with people. Treat me wrong.”
“Do I treat you wrong?”
Silence. Then, “you’re not afraid of me.”
I blinked. “People aren’t scared of you, Grey.”
That got me a skeptical look.
“Okay, some of them are,” I admitted, “but most of them, I think they just don’t know what to say to you. You’re not exactly Mr. Approachable.”
Grey winced. “No Mr. Not a Mr.”
“Specialist Approachable,” I revised, and that passed muster.
I should’ve caught on then, but I didn’t. As it was, we got up to go. Grey was a little clumsy and over-coordinated, but could still walk well enough unassisted. My disappointment gave me an idea.
“Do me a favor?”
Grey looked up—well, down.
“Act like you’re drunker than you are. You’re my ticket past Randall and Hernandez.”
I held out an arm, and after a hesitant moment, Grey took it, trying to touch me as little as possible. Ah well, I’d take what I could get.
We had to go past the conference room to leave—and anyway, I wanted Larkin to know I’d found Grey and wouldn’t need a ride. I waved… and caught Randall’s eye in the process. With the doggedness of the drunk, he picked up right where he’d left off.
“Hey, Doshi!” he said. “We’re not done!”
“Yes, we are,” I retorted. “Do you mind? I have to go pour Grey into bed.”
That just made him and Hernandez think they needed to ask permission.
“Grey,” Hernandez made as though to grab my other arm, “we need to talk to Doshi. Let us borrow him for a second.”
“No,” Grey said.
“But—”
“No.”
“Come on—”
Grey went into laser-beam stare mode. With an edge: “No.”
There was a tense moment, but apparently Randall and Hernandez weren’t so stupid drunk as to pick a fight with Specialist Ironass. They exchanged glances, shrugged, and disavowed me like cats.
I sent Grey a grateful look. In my best George Burns, I said, “say goodnight, Grey.”
The reference must’ve come through. “Goodnight, Gracie.”
That’s when I caught on.
It was just as well that Grey was too sloshed to notice or talk beyond giving me directions; it gave me time to think and put it all together.
By the time I got to Grey’s apartment complex (big, ugly, beige), I had thought of a dozen things I could say, and a million reasons not to say them. My wheels were starting to spin.
Unaware of any of it, Grey saved me with a, “thank you,” and even a hint of a smile.
That knocked me out of it. “The iron melts! Careful, they won’t be scared of you anymore.”
A stranger could see that smile now. “Goodnight, Bob.”
I handed over the keys and took the plunge. “You know, I’m bi.”
Grey froze. Looked up.
“My sister’s youngest, they’re a they. Been giving me transgender liberation speeches all year.” If I was wrong about this, Randall and Hernandez would be the least of my worries. “I just wanted to tell you, since I’m trying to be friends with you, and I’m lousy at hiding it.”
Grey stared at me hard. Silence. Shit. I’d fucked myself.
But then… “Seen Disasters in Dykeland?”
“With my niecephew sometimes.” It was one of those cloyingly earnest, self-consciously PC things, more their style than mine. “Why?”
“I’m like Bea.” The stone butch transdyke with biceps to die for. “I like Grace. You can call me that. But not at work.”
“No, no, of course not.” This part, I did remember from the lectures. “She?”
“Yes,” she said. Then, hesitantly, “you?”
“Just he. I’ve never been good at it, though… anyway, I’m going to call myself a cab, get myself home.” Die of relief. “Have a good night, Grace. Happy Nondescript Winter Holiday.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, turned to dial, but Grey waved a little to get my attention.
“Company?” she asked. “While you wait.”
I blinked. “Sure, if you’re offering.”
I called the cab. When I finished, I perched on the trunk of Grey’s car to wait; she joined me.
“Niecephew?” she asked.
I had photos in my wallet, along with their siblings. Grey looked them over with me, let me blather and gush, didn’t seem to notice that I was babbling. She seemed to be thinking something over, looking at me like she was wondering where I’d come from. Her eyes were hazel; I’d never noticed before. When the cab pulled up and I got up to go, she waved again.
“Barbarian Barbara has a movie.”
“I heard.” It’d been the talk of my old forum friends. “I’ve heard it’s big dumb cheese, just my style.”
“Still showing at Autumnville Theater.”
“The one with the murals and the velvet Elvis museum?” She hadn’t struck me as the kind of person who’d go there.
But she nodded. “Want to go? Now?”
I blinked, grinned. “You’re inviting me to a social occasion? We don’t know the show times!”
She shrugged. “Velvet Elvises are nice.”
I cracked up laughing. “Sure, Grace. I’m yours.”
We both got in the cab.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-17 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-17 02:46 pm (UTC)Rogan