Gwynplaine
- Ingenious Pilot -
A king made me a clown! A queen made me a Peer! But first, God made me a man!
Posts: 238
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Post by Gwynplaine on Feb 11, 2009 18:39:10 GMT -5
Gwynplaine was used to being stared at, but somehow, it never become comfortable. Even if, as he knew, this man meant no ill will. At least he was sympathetic, which was not everyone's reaction. He pulled the scarf back up, tucking it neatly. There was no sense in disturbing him for longer than necessary, and if Erin Harper was going to make a fuss about it, it was best to know now.
He shrugged as his face was covered. "I don't know," he confessed, for he knew he was not a philosopher. "But I suspect it's a nervous reaction. It is the most common one, at any rate." But the next question, the expression, caught him off guard. And as the man had asked, he felt it impolite to decline. Especially with such an enthusiastic offer. "I... if you would like to show me, certainly."
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Post by Erin Harper on Feb 11, 2009 22:13:30 GMT -5
Erin's eyebrows shot way up. Laughing, even as a nervous reaction, had never occurred to him. He was instantly disdainful of anyone who would respond that way, not because of any particular fondness for Gwynplaine, whom he'd only just met, but because after the intial spurt of horror and revulsion Erin himself only felt a mild fascination.
"How idiotic," he said dryly, before his gaze intensified, eyes locked on Gwynplaine's grey ones. "Reeeeally?" he asked, delighted despite himself that Gwynplaine had agreed. The urge to change was almost unbearable now, making his fingers flex restlessly, his skin crawling. It was because he was thinking on it, he'd stopped tuning it out, the little voice that always, always, always wanted things to be like this. He was like an addict who'd seen the way to his next fix, and now he tilted his head to the side, a bright grin spreading across his face. Now, of course, he had the excuse, and this was the perfect place to change, this was the circus. He could do whatever he wanted here. He could stay in form every. Waking. Hour-
He laughed a little, still smiling, as the most delicious pain sent a shock through his body, muscles sliding and expanding beneath skin like snakes in a bag, shoulders broadening, his cheekbones drifting up and his fingernails shooting out like brittle and raggedly useless talons. Wisps of hair fell below his eyes, which were now very round and almost completely black, the pupil having explanded to fill almost the whole eye and ringed where the whites had bled out into gold. The main attraction, of course, were the wings, which had unfolded from little knobs on his back and grown into two extremely large, brown-and-white mottled wings, banded here and there with tan and gold.
Best of all, for Erin, there came the sudden sharp rush of clarity, like everything had sharpened into amazing focus. His mind was teeming, running too fast, and stretching his wings out was an incredibly pleasurable sensation, every feather standing up straight in its shaft for a moment and trembling with the tension like for a little bird fluffing its wings.
Erin sighed, sweet and long. He began to bite off his overlong fingernails, one by one, and watching Gwynplaine as he did it. For a minute, he'd forgotten who this was, and finding someone so close to him right after transforming made him antsy; then he remembered, and smiled around his fingers. No, he'd lied to himself, the best thing, the very best thing, was that while ordinarily Erin would care very much about keeping this hidden from everyone else, having to work for the circus in order to dispay himself at all, like this, right now, Erin didn't care if the whole damn world knew what he was.
"The biiiirdman," he purred, his speech not particularly inhibited in any way by his form change, maybe a little deeper, and then fell silent again. The only sound was the intent little cracks of him paring off the brittle nails.
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Gwynplaine
- Ingenious Pilot -
A king made me a clown! A queen made me a Peer! But first, God made me a man!
Posts: 238
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Post by Gwynplaine on Feb 12, 2009 0:02:53 GMT -5
To say that this was not what Gwynplaine had been expecting would be an understatement. His eyes grew round and wide, his mouth falling open behind his scarf, as he watched the transformation. It was horrific and magical and unbelievable; he could not credit his own senses.
But he could not dream the details; the beauty of the plumage, the gold of the eyes, the snap of fingernails as the man bit them off. He'd been wrong, dreadfully wrong, and he owed Erin harper an apology. He was frightened, a little, by the change, as anyone would be, but he could not be horrified. For an instant, when he hadn't understood, yes. But now... he felt only awe.
"Beautiful," he whispered. If his scarf slipped now, his smile would have been genuine.
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Post by Erin Harper on Feb 12, 2009 7:35:17 GMT -5
Erin flexed his fingers, the nails now back to a managable length, his eyes roaming up towards Gwynplaine's face then back down again in disinterest. But when the other man spoke he would find himself the intent recipient of Erin's black-and-gold stare, as Erin leaned forward, head cocked to one side, hair shifting to brush his cheeks.
Beautiful. Erin's nose wrinkled, eyes widening then narrowing sporadically, mouth twitching once like he just couldn't keep his face still. Then he burst out laughing.
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Gwynplaine
- Ingenious Pilot -
A king made me a clown! A queen made me a Peer! But first, God made me a man!
Posts: 238
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Post by Gwynplaine on Feb 12, 2009 14:09:29 GMT -5
Gwynplaine's face--the part that was visible anyway--fell instantly at Erin's laugh, and he took an involuntary step back, dropping his eyes. There was a faint blush to his pale cheeks, realizing he'd said something wrong but not entirely certain what. He'd meant the wings, the strength of the man-creature even in his uncanniness. It was not the deformity Gwynplaine was afflicted with. It did not seem an affliction at all, but a sort of freedom. He was not jealous--merely aware of the difference between them.
And now he was being laughed at, despite the horror/pity the man had shown him before which was still unwanted but better managed. But he laughed anyway, because Gwynplaine was stupid, a clown even with his face covered.
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Post by Erin Harper on Feb 12, 2009 14:16:10 GMT -5
Erin glided closer to Gwynplaine, still a little bent forward, arms tucked behind his back to keep himself from touching. (Erin liked touching.) "What's wrong?" he asked lowly, the other man a riot of color and expression in his eyes, something to be studied in Erin's piercing way. "Don't you say..." His voice lowered even more, into a mocking croon. "You thought me beautiful?"
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Gwynplaine
- Ingenious Pilot -
A king made me a clown! A queen made me a Peer! But first, God made me a man!
Posts: 238
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Post by Gwynplaine on Feb 12, 2009 14:23:20 GMT -5
He felt studied. It reminded him too much of the stares of the audience, though it was different in that very few people seemed actually interested. This man did, and he was not certain that made him any more comfortable. And now he was mocking him, the tone familiar to Gwynplaine, even if the situation was not.
"Would you rather I laughed?" he asked, which might have sounded caustic except his voice was as soft as ever. "Or looked away in horror?" He was not the type to demand that he preferred not to be laughed at; he had not really learned to stand up for himself, but rather to take the blows of life as they came. He did not, perhaps, find Erin Harper so beautiful now, not with that piercing stare and loaded questions. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say his appreciation was abstract, not personal.
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Post by Erin Harper on Feb 12, 2009 14:37:27 GMT -5
Erin looked briefly thoughtful, his gaze flickering away from Gwynplaine for the first time since he'd said Erin was beautiful. "Yes," he said, brow crumpling in confusion or distress but easing a second later. "You're unexpected."
Damn, but he couldn't think like this. It was like a catch 22, because he'd never felt so alive, so intensely himself, but at the same time...he didn't think like he did without wings. Little things were so distracting to him, like the sudden snap of a poster coming off its pole in the wind making him whirl to track it. The same wind ruffling his feathers was something to luxuriate in before he realized that he was trying to think- no one had ever reacted like Gwynplaine before. Why was that so startling? Endearing, even, in a way. Erin wanted to show him that he liked that.
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Gwynplaine
- Ingenious Pilot -
A king made me a clown! A queen made me a Peer! But first, God made me a man!
Posts: 238
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Post by Gwynplaine on Feb 12, 2009 21:25:15 GMT -5
"Oh," Gwynplaine said. "I'm sorry." That wasn't exactly what he wanted to say, wasn't exactly what he felt, but he was used to apologizing for his very presence. Not verbally, exactly. He watched Erin carefully, trying not to stare, unable to look away. It wasn't that he wasn't disturbed, because he was. Harper was strange, and uncanny, and people just weren't supposed to sprout wings and... bite off their suddenly long fingernails. But he was inured to the sight of human oddity, and this was no ordinary oddity. It didn't make him sad, because Erin did not seem so. It offered a possibility.
"Why did you show me, then?"
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Post by Erin Harper on Feb 12, 2009 23:00:33 GMT -5
Erin gave him an utterly blank look before his eyebrows slanted dubiously. He somehow managed to convey, merely by the wrinkle in his brow and the long stare he gave Gwynplaine, that that had been possibly the stupidest question Erin had ever heard.
"You showed me first. Besides," A little purr- Erin was pleased at himself for the thought, or maybe amused at Gwynplaine for not knowing it, "I like those." Erin was not capable now of caring whether or not he disturbed Gwynplaine, although only a few seconds earlier he'd wanted to do something...not nice, perhaps, but pleasurable, something right or something obvious to show Gwynplaine that he liked being thought beautiful, strange and hilarious as it was. He thought himself very fierce, which was almost the same as beautiful.
Another step forward, and he was nearly on top of Gwynplaine; Erin spread the fingers of both hands over the scarf covering Gywnplaine's mouth with a jerky sort of stop-action swiftness, not pulling it off, only touching. Erin could very lightly feel the strange contour of the scar with one hand, and the smoother press of Gwynplaine's lips with the other; he was as curious as a child as he tilted his head, eyes focused on the hidden world underneath the other man's nose. It might have looked like caring intimacy to someone who didn't know what was under the scarf, like Erin was cupping his face. It was warmer than the earlier scientific interest, warmer somehow because of his obvious curiousity; although Gwynplaine might be uncomfortable because of Erin's proximity, it wouldn't also be because he felt like an insect under a microscope.
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Gwynplaine
- Ingenious Pilot -
A king made me a clown! A queen made me a Peer! But first, God made me a man!
Posts: 238
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Post by Gwynplaine on Feb 13, 2009 23:28:48 GMT -5
"But if you expected something unpleasant, I should think you'd avoid it," he said, because he couldn't comprehend liking the attention, but anything else he might have was cut off by Erin's approach and unexpected touch. He did not back away this time, but his eyes widened. No one had wanted to touch him before, or at least, he'd never been handled in this way. And it startled him, enough that he might have started away if he hadn't also seen something unusual in Erin's manner. Or maybe it was just his strange eyes. He couldn't read laughter or hatred in them. Maybe that was enough.
He stilled under Erin's hands, though his eyes remained wide and his breathing came a little faster at the unaccustomed contact.
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Post by Erin Harper on Feb 13, 2009 23:34:09 GMT -5
Gwynplaine didn't do anything, didn't say anything, and Erin's fingers pressed a little harder. Then he began to peel away the scarf slowly, so slowly, like he was giving Gwynplaine time to back away; in reality, it was like a magic trick, and he wanted to see if it was still there. Tada!, mutilation.
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Gwynplaine
- Ingenious Pilot -
A king made me a clown! A queen made me a Peer! But first, God made me a man!
Posts: 238
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Post by Gwynplaine on Feb 13, 2009 23:46:54 GMT -5
At the sensation of the cloth parting from his face, however, Gwynplaine did start, blinking at last and moving away on instinct. It was the sort of reaction you might expect from a boy who had been hit, and while Gwynplaine was a grown man in some ways he had not really grown up. His scarf had been snatched away on more than one occasion. It was the one thing, really, he had power over. And he guarded it.
"No," he said finally, his voice a little strangled as well as muffled. "Not... not here." Not in public, and not at another's choice.
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Post by Erin Harper on Feb 14, 2009 19:15:14 GMT -5
Erin's fingers remained in mid-air, flexing, curling into his palm. "Why?" he demanded, sullen now. "You just did."
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Gwynplaine
- Ingenious Pilot -
A king made me a clown! A queen made me a Peer! But first, God made me a man!
Posts: 238
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Post by Gwynplaine on Feb 15, 2009 21:24:04 GMT -5
Gwynplaine's long fingers played along the edge of the scarf. He could not rightly explain his reaction.
"I did," he agreed. "I prefer to be asked." He felt exposed here, in the middle of everything, and confused by Erin's apparent lack of care. But the man had been decent so far, and after a moment, his eyes hooded, he pulled the cloth away again.
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