tampered | Oh, every day I start so great...

Entry tags:

Oh, every day I start so great...

When; January 7
Rating; PG-13 because... angst? And probably discussions of disturbing stuff.
Characters; Michael Ginsberg, Tosh Sato
Summary; Ginsberg isn't having the greatest time of anything... and when that happens, he has this weird tendency of running into Tosh.
Log; There are good days and there are bad days, but right now, he's slowly becoming convinced that the bad days outnumber the good ones by such a big margin as to just be unfair. It's not the fact that they're stuck in the City, although of course that doesn't help matters, it's the fact that he can't turn off his brain, can't quiet down the millions of incessant little voices in it, telling him things he doesn't want to hear and doesn't want to think about.

When it gets this bad, the only thing he knows how to do is wander. Back home, feeling like this had always been a reason to spend the night at the office, pounding away at the typewriter keys, channeling all of that frustration into advertisements that, 90% of the time, would never become anything at all. The other 10% were worth something, and that made the work worthwhile. That made the frustration worthwhile. That quieted things down a little.

But here there's nothing to advertise for, and while he could write ads for products he'd been working on back home, there's no tangible reward, no team to pitch them to, nothing meaningful about them. They'd just be another stupid distraction.

So he wanders. He has no idea where he's going, and he's not watching where he's going, either. Which is very likely why, when he finds himself sitting underneath a tree in Xanadu, knees pulled up to his chest, ignoring the cold ground despite the fact that it's January and he's not dressed for the weather, he probably couldn't tell someone where he was even if they asked him.

It's there that Tosh will find him.

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"Yeah, okay, another time."

That sounds like something she might not want to get into, anyway. It's understandable. Nobody's ever tried to kill him (well, not that he remembers, not in the same way, probably, and that's better not dwelt on, either) but he can't imagine it's pleasant.

"Okay, maybe not at home, maybe he's the one you're in love with at home and that's just the way it's going to be, because like I said, who the hell can change how they feel? I mean, I believe that there're people that can, but they're obviously a lot stronger-willed than I am, because I've never been able to alter my feelings. I just have to feel them. But maybe here you'll meet someone. It's possible, right?"

Someday when she feels like Ginsberg is more comfortable with the bizarre things her stories from home would encompass, she'll tell him. It'll be nice to have somebody to share those stories with.

She laughs a little at his question about meeting someone in the City, although it's amusement at her own expense. "Yeah, that's probably pretty likely. Is it a good idea, though? I mean, I don't want to be here forever. I want to go home. I've already made the mistake of being in love with someone I knew I'd have to leave behind. Wouldn't it just be foolish to do it again?"

"Yeah, maybe. Yeah, probably. I don't intend to meet anyone here. I mean, not that I meet anyone anywhere anyway, but especially not here. But maybe it could just be a casual thing. You know, not like someone you fall in love with, just someone you have some fun with. I hear people do that. I've heard rumors about people having fun, but so far, I haven't been able to corroborate those rumors with any of my own evidence."

He laughs a little, too, because apparently the both of them have similar feelings about meeting someone around here. And both of them want to go home; he wonders if she wants to go home as desperately as he does. Maybe. He's overwhelmed with the desire to leave, sometimes. It threatens to take over every aspect of his life, that constant, aching longing.

"I don't think I'd mind something casual. Though I'm not sure I'd be any good at finding someone to be casual with. Maybe someone ought to start a dating service here, or something."

She bumps his shoulder a little bit, a friendly gesture of solidarity in the 'not great at romance' department. The bit about not having first-hand experience with having fun doesn't escape her, though, and she frowns a little.

"I've had a bit of fun, here and there. Maybe you need to spend more time with fun people. Or with me. Not that I'm fun people, but I know a place or two to hang out that aren't completely dire."

"I bet there'd be a lot of people who'd take someone up on a dating service. I might. Except I've sworn off of blind dates entirely. Never again."

At least, not blind dates set up by his father. It hadn't been as disasterous as it could have been (he had a propensity for picturing the worst case scenario,) but it certainly hadn't gone well.

"I think you're fun people. I've got no reason to think you're not. We could hang out somewhere. Do something fun. I've heard it's great."

But these thoughts about romance, these thoughts about dating, these thoughts about being around other people and not feeling terrified and anxious, they have him feeling all twisted up again, like he can't quite think right, like he can't quite breathe. He'd bump her shoulder back, but he's too busy scrunching himself up again, shaking his head.

"In my time, you can actually look up a profile of a person -- what they like to do, their favorite books or music, what they're looking for in other people -- before you even talk to them. So you don't even have to do a real blind date. Sort of like getting to know about a person on the network, by watching them."

Which probably sounds way creepier and stalkerish than she thinks it does. But then again, Tosh also has no qualms about invading a person's privacy when she needs to something about them.

She wasn't expecting their talk about hanging out with people, having fun, going on blind dates, to make him fold back in on himself that way again, and she wonders what nerve she's inadvertently struck. Putting her arm over his shoulders, she watches him worriedly.

"Is there...somebody here that you've got feelings for?" Maybe that's the problem?

"That's... interesting. I'm not sure I'd want people to look up things about me. I mean, what would I even include in a profile of myself? Boring ad guy who thinks he's more interesting than he is, probably. That'd be number one on the list."

Shit, is there someone here he's got feelings for? No, and that's part of the problem. Maybe that would help him figure out the confused thoughts that go through his head, the questions, the constant uncertainty. He sighs. He tries to avoid collapsing too heavily into her arms because being comforted like this feels nice, but he can't just rely on that. He has to get through this, get the words out somehow. She'd done it, hadn't she? She'd talked about her romantic problems. Now it's his turn.

"Awhile back," he says, "My father asked me whether I was... I mean, he asked me whether maybe I wasn't interested in women. Because I don't really date. Because I get set up on these blind dates that go nowhere, or because I ask someone on a date and say something stupid and ruin all of it. Because I've never had sex."

That confession isn't even difficult. He'd blurted it out on a first date with someone before, after all, and she'd been a lot less outwardly comforting than Tosh. He hurries on with his explanation, his words running together more and more, till he's practically not pausing between them.

"And I am interested in women. I mean, that's not the issue. I like them. I'm attracted to them. I think about them, I look at dirty pictures of them--" Again, no shame in admitting that one. "--That's all fine. But I'm not... it's not... it's not just women. I don't think."

Oh. Now she gets it, and yeah, That's probably a much bigger problem for someone from Ginsberg's era. Things are a lot more enlightened in the twenty-first century. Hell, things are even more enlightened around Torchwood than that.

"The funny thing about liking men and women both, is that you start out feeling like you're doing something you aren't supposed to. Something you maybe ought to be ashamed about. But once you get past that, you realize that it actually makes dating a whole lot easier."

She still has her arm around his shoulders, and she squeezes them again. "I dated a woman once. She was an awful lot of fun, and I think I did fall in love a little bit. My male boss and one of my male coworkers are a couple. I saw my female coworker snog a girl once. So I guess I'm trying to say that you shouldn't feel bad, or weird, or think it's just you."

"Doesn't it just... mean there's more people out there to reject you?"

He's not an optimist, by nature. And while he's eternally grateful that Tosh hadn't freaked out by that confession -- somehow, that one had been far harder than the first one, perhaps because he feels like he can't help the first one, can't help where he comes from or what might have happened when he was a child, and he feels that he can change this, somehow, if only he tries hard enough -- he's still not convinced that it's really okay. It'll take a lot more than some kind words, though they are, of course, appreciated.

That she has personal anecdotes to relate, however, makes things a bit easier. "So you're... I mean, you like guys and girls too? You seem so... okay with it. Like it's not some kind of problem. Not that I think it's a problem if people're... you know. It's fine. I see people around here that're homosexual and it's okay. I just don't... I'm not sure how to, uh..."

Yeah, this has him all twisted up in knots.

"I suppose so. But I can't help liking the better odds."

Being open-minded about other people's sexuality and being ready to accept your own are two very different things, and Tosh knows that. She went through it herself, and it wasn't as simple as just saying 'there's nothing wrong with it'. At least she had the advantage of living in a more open time.

"I think I'm more interested in guys as a general rule, but I'm open to being interested in girls too. And I suppose when you're around other people who aren't in the least bothered, and work for someone who will literally flirt with anything...it just starts to seem silly to worry about it. I mean, it's hard enough to find happiness as it is, you know? Why tell yourself you can't have it when you do find it, just because it doesn't come in the shape you were expecting?"

"Because... I can't have it. I mean, maybe here I could, but we're not going to stay here forever."

They can't. It's impossible. He refuses to accept the very idea of it. He has to get back home eventually, or he'll go crazy. Crazier. He shakes his head even thinking about being stuck here, tries to put the thought far from his mind.

"And I mean, it's easy enough if I go back home and I meet a nice girl and I settle down like my dad wants me to -- and I finally get away from living with him -- but what if I... don't. I mean, what if the alternative happens? I can't do that. It's not an option."

"Why not?"

Yes, Tosh does understand that it's not as open a time as the one she lives in. But she also knows that people do manage it, so what she wants to hear is Ginsberg's reasons for believing that he can't.

"Someone told me, when I first got here, that I ought to think of it as an opportunity to do things I couldn't back home. To take time for myself. Maybe that isn't bad advice for you, either."

"You want to know what happened to the last guy at my work who they found out was... well, anyway. They fired him. Not for being a homosexual, no, that'd be too easy, even though they'd've gotten away with firing him for that, even though it would have been better than what they did. They fired him because he wouldn't let him use him. They wanted him to sleep with a client. A man. He refused. They fired him because he wouldn't let himself be whored out. That's what people at my job do. And I don't see any reason they wouldn't do exactly the same thing to me, if they found out."

It's still just a rumor around the workplace, never corroborated, at least not fully, but he believes it. That's the kind of thing that happens. It's reasonable. It could happen to him. He's terrified of it.

"Not to mention how my father would react. I think he's determined to find me a nice girl now? Imagine how much harder he'd be trying if he thought there was a chance I'd never find a nice girl."

There's a lengthy silence while Tosh processes what she's just been told. What she'd expected was a fear of awkwardness or the loss of friends, things like that. This? Is a horrible story.

"Right. I don't blame you for wanting to avoid anything like that. But you know, experimenting a little, broadening your horizons, that doesn't mean you have to choose to live one way or another. Maybe you'll find yourself a nice girl that you really want to settle down with, and maybe you'll decide that isn't the life you want. Maybe you'll find a nice boy and run off to sail around the world with him, and not give a damn about what your father thinks. All I'm saying is, don't close the doors that life opens up for you. Even if what's on the other side seems terrifying."

"Maybe."

That's all he can say, for the moment, because he's thinking about it. Tosh makes it sound... not easy, exactly, but doable. Real. Like he could take the time he's been given here and do something with it besides running over and over all of his problems in his head, the problems that wake him up at night shaking, the problems that he can't silence in any way, at least, not any way he's found.

"People always say that. They say that taking risks is a good thing, that it builds character, that kind of pep talk shit. Not that that's what you're doing, but that's what other people do. And I guess I believe that, maybe. But it's easy to say that. It's easy to suggest it. But I'm a coward, okay? That's just what I am. That's what I'll always be. I can take intellectual risks all day. Artistic risks. But real risks? In the real world?"

"This isn't a pep talk, honest. This is just...me being the other angel on your shoulder. The one who says that maybe things can be all right, if you give them the chance."

Tosh has always had a streak of optimism that probably keeps her from giving up even on things that she should, but it's served her well. It's a shame she can't just lend a little bit of that to Ginsberg, she certainly could spare some.

"I don't know about building character or all that. Seems a bit insulting to tell someone they lack character. But I do know that sometimes the risks lead to rewards that you never imagined. That sometimes what seems frightening at first glance turns out to be amazing."

"Has it ever happened to you? Shitty, scary things turning out amazing? Because honestly, I trust you, I do, I just don't know if maybe I have really bad luck or something, because that's never happened to me. Frightening things are usually just... frightening."

Like coming to terms with who he really is, all aspects of who he really is, how he was born and where he came from and who he had feelings for and what those feelings meant and it was overwhelming and sickening and he didn't want to and couldn't deal with it and yet he had to because now he'd spilled his guts to Tosh and oh shit had that been a terrible, terrible idea?

"Yes." Her answer is immediate, without hesitation. "I've been terrified, and disgusted, and seen things that still give me nightmares sometimes. And I've had to learn to do things I never thought I was capable of, things that break my parents' hearts if they knew."

She shifts around a little so she can see his face and get him to focus on her, to see how serious she is. "But I have seen and learned the most incredible things. Things that make you realize how small you are, but also how you're a part of something so much more vast and varied than you ever imagined. Things that make you realize how small so many of our problems and quarrels really are, and how even beings that evolved light years away from one another have so many things in common. And I've had the chance to do good things, to help people, to make a difference in the world. Staying at home where it was safe and quiet would have been a lot easier, and honestly? I suspect I'd have lived a longer life. But I would have missed out on so much."

He nods, and for a moment, in direct contradiction to the seriousness on her face and in her tone, his face breaks into a smile. Maybe it's noticeable because, if people really think about it, they wouldn't remember seeing him smile all that much. It's almost childlike in its eagerness, wanting desperately to believe in the truth of what she's saying, clinging to it with both hands.

"Thank you."

Because that's what this requires. A thanks. Because it's not a pep talk. It's her, sharing her experiences, connecting to him on a human level, a level most people overlook in him entirely, and there're tears springing to his eyes now that he's not even trying to disguise. She understands. She understands. It's a miracle.

"Maybe I can try."

It's a start. Not a determined statement. Not a declaration of intent. But a cautious suggestion of trying something scary.

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Oh, every day I start so great...

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