multiversallogs | sometimes i get nervous when i see an open door

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sometimes i get nervous when i see an open door

Who: Gaius Baltar and You!
What: He's taking it well.
Where: Either in Mog Hill or not very far from it.
When: Coardi morning. Or, you know, whenever.
Notes: I'd like to get him around about so if this first set up is tagged into, shout at me if you'd like to do things and I can set up a thread!
Warnings: Crying, mainly.

The appeal of an open sky had long since lost its shine after the first few months on solid ground.

But this is different. A functional city, new faces that glance by him without recognition. Animals, economy, the simple sight of a carriage wheel trundling over wet cobblestone. The weather is warm and dry. Standing on the curb a stone's throw from the edge of the Valhalla Inn is Gaius Baltar, who -- while not the most poetic of human beings -- is in awe. Awe in the traditional sense, the kind that is on the verge of teary-eyed terror. It hadn't even occurred to him to do anything with his CiD than check it -- its content was, of course, a lie, and he'd spent the next few hours of his imprisonment in the green tiled room simply curled up in crustaceous defensiveness in the corner and waiting to see what the Cylons would do next.

He has some things in his hand. A cardboard box with some sort of branding is held loosely at his side, and the infamous brochure clutched in his other fist, significantly crumpled. Both of these things are ignored after having been obsessed over prior to now as he regards the street without any idea of what to do.

But he starts walking.

And eventually sits down when he's put a little distance between where he began and now without any real clear idea of where he is, just that there was an empty bench and now it is his. The brochure is folded with slightly trembling fingers and pocketed in the inner of his jacket, before he sets the box in his lap, opens it, and extracts one dark coloured cigarette. Gaius, dressed as he is in his slightly unwashed business suit, his glasses sitting low on his nose and hair in worried, greasy tangles, realises he doesn't have a lighter on him.

"Oh gods," is pure, exasperated despair, landing his face in his hands.

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Raylan's on patrol - plainclothes, though he has a small badge - and slows as he passes the man on the park bench. They get the new arrivals a lot in Mog Hill, and he has a bit of the look. Even if he's not new, he's clearly not quite well.

"Excuse me, sir. You okay?" he asks, polite and with the small hint of holler twang he never quite scrubbed out of his accent. He'd be very easy to underestimate, but he's dealt with enough desperate men in his life that very little this one could do would take him by surprise.

"No."

This word comes out emphatic and damp sounding, muffled as it is with hands. With the reluctance of someone who does not necessarily want to deal with anything around him, Gaius raises his head again, sweeping aside hair and taking off his glasses. He does not look especially healthy -- no one was, on New Caprica, not even he, but it's difficult to split that apart from his current state of upset. He's still managed to keep cigarette in hand, for all the good that is.

But-- he peers up at Raylan, somewhat baleful. "You wouldn't happen to have a lighter," sounds mock-composed, an even tone hastily pasted over the cracks otherwise present in voice and demeanour.

He doesn't, but he fishes in his pocket and pulls out a small box of matches. Raylan ends up collecting things he feels might be useful, and these qualified. He hands them over, considering Gaius' affect. The man doesn't seem tot be on drugs, or drunk, which is already a step up for messy men sitting on benches as a whole.

"New arrival?" he guesses, but it's an educated guess.

It is not unlikely that the fact that Gaius is not drunk or on drugs is contributing towards being upset; for now, he will settle for this, taking the match box with only slightly unsteady hands, igniting a flame, nursing it at the end of the cigarette. It tastes of home, in a sort of harsh and unforgiving way, but this isn't why it's a comfort -- the chemical reaction of nicotine sponging into his system is all he is after. Perhaps later, when the gravity of the situation settles properly, he will consider it his lingering link to home.

The question is mentally circled, Gaius offering back the box of matches without thanks. His mouth curls into the sneer he only develops when genuine in his disgust, but it's not necessarily directed at Raylan.

"It sounds nice, almost, when you put it like that. Um--" A waver, a hard blink. The saline sheen to his eyes is not actually squeezing out tears, thankfully, just lingering. "Yes, sorry."

"Well, I think it's clear you got the gravity of the situation without my pointing it out to you." Raylan pockets the matches. "You need anything? Don't have a way out, but short of that."

"Is it just like this?"

A little sharp, suddenly, paying more attention to Raylan as opposed to categorising him as just another element in the sensory overload of being here. There are knives hidden somewhere in the scattered, emotional, floppy mess that is Baltar, and there's a flash of them in his tone. His hands are steadier. "We're just-- in that room, and, then this. And me, here." He isn't making sense, but it's difficult, ordering his thoughts, which feel like they're flea-hopping around his brain. "You act like this is normal. I don't know you-- you don't know me."

Which is impossible! Everyone knows him. And he'd be more self-conscious of sounding insane if he wasn't used to it by now.

"It isn't normal. Isn't anything like normal." Raylan tilts his hat back with his thumb. "But I've been stuck here too long to spend all my time cursing the heavens." Plus there are the periodic city-wide crises. He has plenty of anger, it's just... leashed.

"I'm Deputy Sheriff Raylan Givens, formerly of Lexington, Kentucky. Earth," he adds, dryly, "2011. Maybe 2012 by now."

"I see."

There's a hollow sort of pause after that, as if Gaius were waiting for some sort of punchline, one that isn't coming. A fine ribbon of smoke continues to wind up like a ribbon from his cigarette, before it goes remembered and he takes a fresh hit from it. "Is that, erm--" No, actually, he's not going to handle that right now. He shakes his head as if to clear it. "I'm Doctor Gaius Baltar. Of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol." And there's a searching look over Raylan's expression for recognition.

Of his name, or his origins, at this point. His actual, formal, somewhat prestigious political title remains closed up behind his teeth, some sense of self-preservation forcing him not to spill that detail in case it matters.

Or worse, in case it doesn't.

Raylan nods, accepting but not recognizing either Gaius' name or "Kobol" more generally. Of course he actually isn't from Earth. Serves him right, Raylan thinks, for being a smart ass.

"Nice to meet you, Dr. Baltar, even if we both probably wish it was under other circumstances. Can I ask what you're a doctor of?"

Gods, it's been a while. Since he's been any kind of doctor at all. Gaius' expression defaults back to bleak before he offers his, you know, actual academic qualification; "Computer science." A beat. "Mainly. Among other... side... projects." He spills some ash on the ground with a neat tap to his cigarette, before he follows the sight of someone riding a horse down the street with the sort of incomprehension that comes with things only getting weirder.

Back to Raylan. "Deputy Sheriff of what?"

"Here? Mog Hill - the area we're in." Computer science is useful in Baedal to a point, though Raylan can't help thinking they could use more medical doctors, at the rate they're going.

"I was law enforcement back home, but it was. Uh. Different."

"Oh."

Well, that would explain the charitable inquiry into his well-being, especially if it's a prelude to an arrest for anti-social behaviour. It's a thing that would make Gaius self-conscious if he didn't feel like the world was about to pull away like a sheet off a table and reveal back to him the camps of New Caprica or the interior of Colonial One at any moment now and thus, unattached.

"You've no need to worry. I'll be done here once I have my bearings." The simmering resentment for everything undercuts any hope of civility and respect in his tone, but the words are right.

"I'm not particularly worried," he says, easily. "Just seemed like you might need help, is all." And in fairness, Raylan's state of suspicion is reasonably constant. "Can't say I loved accepting I'd be here long enough to need a job, but you gotta pay rent, eventually. Being trapped and being homeless sounded unappealing."

There is a sort of cynical dulling in Gaius' eyes at the prospect of seeking employment and carrying out any sort of semblance of a life here -- every second feels temporary, which honestly, is probably what's stressing him out the most. "I'll have to take that into consideration. How long did--"

He shutters in a breath, easy sarcasm breaking as he reconsiders his question, and asks; "How long did it take you? How long have you been here?"

"I arrived wounded, so I was a bit of a special case. But as for your second question... little over a year." The bitterness is constrained, but hard to miss.

As he isn't being shooed away from the bench after all, Gaius is content to remain there until he's smoked his cigarette and simmered sufficiently in his misery. The mention of a 'year' is paused over, cigarette to mouth and a bland blink seeing nothing, before Gaius takes another deep inhale and lazily releases the smoke again.

"Then I see you've gone up in the world. Thank you, ever so; but I don't need help." Apart from the light.

Debatable, but Raylan will allow "doesn't need help Raylan can provide."

He just nods and says, "Sure. Best of luck, Dr. Baltar. Some people do get home, I hear - some certainly vanish. Maybe you'll get lucky." Though whether that's staying or going probably varies. Raylan tips his hat very slightly.

Oh, he's new.

The green tiled room smells a certain way, and so do the wider sprawling districts of Baedal itself; he has too much of the former without quite as much of the latter. GG can smell him, too (human) and pick out the recent route he's taken- wandering and indirect, like he's not thinking, just moving. He's alone, new, and it's dark out.

None of this is conscious; it's instinctual and instantaneous, and it's to do with a natural aptitude for seeking out prey. She has a sense for weakened quarry. She could, after all, snap his neck right now. She won't, but she could, she sees no point being squeamish about that. She won't, but someone else might.

"Hey. You. You." Who else? There's no one else here. "It's dark and you don't know where you are. Did you think this through?" she says, without any real question mark in her voice.

(Being somewhat sternly harangued by a strange, unnervingly tall French-Canadian woman all in black and white is always a reassuring experience).

Prior to GG, Gaius Baltar has otherwise made an unremarkable impression on the wider Baedal population in his rumpled suit and otherwise unimpressive human shape. The cigarette box he arrived with is held loosely at his side as his only possession save for the glasses on his face and the clothes on his back, whatever other monetary credit he's been given as a new arrival, along with his CiD, pocketed away.

He's looking at the city, is what he's doing. It has been a long time since he's strolled through one. As the evening marches swiftly on, he becomes nervous, somehow, beneath the stress of being here, uncertain of the long shadows and the fact he's not convinced he could find his way back -- he is a slight bloke, but with a large capacity to be anxious about things.

There's a sort of 'who, me?' to the hesitant, twitchy turn around GG is awarded with as his response -- but at this time of night, there's no one really around that she'd be talking to. He stops where he is, glancing up at the sky as if its duskiness is news to him, then back at her. It takes him a moment to respond, as if he has to boot up those particular faculties, distracted.

"No, as a matter of fact," he says, his accent-- to her ears-- primly uppercrust and English. "Just-- away. From the, ah. Valhalla."

"Oh."

Makes sense. GG avoids the Valhalla as much as she can; it feels wrong, and she has some bad memories associated with it. Every time she goes near it she remembers her introduction to Baedal so vividly it's almost physical. It makes her skin prickle, makes her hungry.

She sighs and moves towards him; she always moves with a purpose, a contrast to her habit of stopping and starting and um-ing and uh-ing in speech. "The good news is you're not in one of the bad parts of the city. The bad news- there aren't actually good parts. --You've just arrived, yeah?"

"Today. Apparently."

Part of him does want to go back there -- an irrational and fearful part of him that would happily retreat back into the green room, shut the door, keep it closed until the world beyond it politely stopped existing or he's magically transported back to the Colonial One and he's being debriefed about the latest union strikes. But it's not as strong as the part of him that wants nothing more to do with it so instead, here he is, the cool of the evening steeped into his clothing, cigarette smoke from earlier a staler scent still.

Gaius lets his posture straighten as she nears, edging an instinctive inch back. But she seems nice enough, like Raylan had been nice. She doesn't recognise him either, too. No one seems to. That's actually incredibly reassuring.

"Right. I see. What're the bad parts supposed to be like?"

"Carnivorous," she says cheerfully; it is the kind of cheer that should be wry and seems off because it isn't quite- she's joking, but she's joking about what is more or less the truth and it shows, wears at her in strange ways.

"You would know if you were in one, put it like that."

There's an impatient kind of narrowing of Gaius' eyes, as if to ask her if she's having him on, but it doesn't actually make it into words. In case she isn't, and goes into detail. Being cynical right now seems like a rich thing to do, all circumstances considered. He's still here, for one thing.

"Roger that, then."

He sort of turns on a heel as if to go in another direction, except he isn't sure he wasn't already headed that way anyway. A glance down another street kind of turns him in a circle until he is facing GG again. On account of just being smooth that way. "Any recommendations? You know, sight-seeing." His voice has too much waver to carry that joke well.

GG waits perfectly calmly for him to wheel back again because come on, he's probably cracked (this is Baedal) but doesn't appear to actually have a death wish.

"First things first, your CiD," she says- and now she's moved into being actually informative. "The tech you got in the arrival room. It's got a map of the city, and you can use it to get on the El Train and the Skyrail." She watches his face at that, wondering if he'll get the implications- that those habits can be tracked- but whatever, it's not her job to spoonfeed him everything. He'll learn to think like every Baedalite thinks soon enough, if he doesn't already; who can see me, what should I be doing? "Then you need a place to sleep or whatever you do- nice suit like that, I assume you don't want to take advantage of our oh so hospitable gutters?"

Blank stare, and then cue response; Gaius ducks a hand into his jacket and pulls out the little device he'd sort of only fleetingly explored while locked in the room, until general panic had rendered him incapable of doing much but going fetal in the corner. Dignity. Now he looks at it and prods with a thumb for its functions as she explains them -- a map, a rail system. A glance up at her when she waits for reaction probably does not indicate that Gaius catches her meaning at all, simply listening.

That, or maybe he's used to that sort of surveillance. The light from the screen shuts down as he turns it off again, and she can probably sense, in part, his reluctant recognition that he's going to have to engage a little with this place. If he's ever going home, it won't be today.

"No. No, wouldn't make for a very good start, now would it, first evening in a real city. I do sleep," he adds, belatedly snagging onto 'whatever you do'. He's taking no assumption for granted anymore. "Theoretically, I do that on occasion."

Edited 2012-08-18 14:25 (UTC)

"Theoretically," she repeats, with a grin that is probably not appropriate for the situation. "Well. If you feel like testing that theory, there's a boarding house out in Aspic which has all the benefits of not being the Valhalla and isn't a complete shithole or likely to drain your funds too much. The woman who runs it is in the same cohort as me and not insane, and it smells alright."

GG ponders for a moment when dealing with people in the cohort became preferable to dealing with others- God knows they're not all sweetness and light. It might be the same protective instinct that led her to rip people to shreds for the sake of people she barely knew back at home, before, when the world had ended or was ending around her. Perhaps it's just that she can keep track of the people she can contact. Or maybe it's this place getting to her, marking out the same old us and them and erecting barriers in her mind, reminding her constantly to keep her head down and tread carefully.

An unpleasant thought.

He isn't sure how well he'll do tonight at it. Sleeping. Brain chemistry and medication and high stress levels and the fact that Gaius is not actually a stable person anyway will probably conspire against him, but then again, not-sleeping in the comfort of a bed is better than on the curb. Gaius listens, and nods, and stops nodding at 'smells alright' because that hadn't, you know, been a concern up until this point, but that certainly sounds more of a help than a hindrance?

"I see. Well, that all sounds-- good. Adequate, I mean, for the moment." Aspic. Aspic. Gaius reluctantly brings out his CiD again to see if he can identify such a place. As he does so; "Cohort, that's-- the, er, people who've come through recently? CeidaryBlue something something numbers."

"Ah, snap." She's not surprised to hear they're in the same cohort- she's heard, after all, that all the new arrivals get put in the same one- but then this is Baedal, and the people telling her that have been officials of Baedal and people carrying their message and it is never wise to assume. She has no idea why they would lie about that, of course. She has no idea why Baedal kidnapped her and her friends, either. She has no idea about a lot of things.

"That's us. I'm on there somewhere-- Oh. GG. GG Giordano." That's an afterthought, hasty; she's just now remembered that names are good, people like names.

(She's terrible with them; Gaius, in her mind, will probably never be Gaius but rather a collection of scents, cigarette smoke and anxiety, flickering memories of body language, represented in a way she can't put words to).

Edited 2012-08-24 15:54 (UTC)

"Oh." Names are good. Gaius brings his hand up like he might offer it to shake, but it seems a bit-- formal and out of tone with the circumstance, and he knows he's just defaulting to familiar motions, so it doesn't quite finish. Fingers curl into palm, retract back into personal space. "Nice to meet you. I'm Gaius. Or. Dr. Gaius Baltar."

He swallows, another nervous glance cast about, back to her, then back to bringing up the map on his CiD. "Then you've not been here long. By that-- by that logic."

"Couple months," she says- her vagueness gives the impression of defensiveness, an instinctive dislike of giving away too many details, as innocent as they may be. (Nothing's innocent here). "There are people in the cohort who've been here much longer- they say it's a new cohort still, so I don't know how long the other ones have been around. People have had kids, their kids have had kids- uh, not in this cohort, I mean in others, mainly, you get these second and third-gen people who've never lived anywhere but Baedal. Still. I'm not an expert in this place, I'm just, ah." She looks around, the movement of her head sharp, her grin sharp, a lot of things sharp. "Convenient." That is, she's the only one around.

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sometimes i get nervous when i see an open door

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