[TST] musings of the random stranger
A little idea that went into my head while I was reading other fics. A strange sort of drabble/fic-thing, and instead of important characters this focuses on the not-so-important characters as they see these important characters with their own eyes.
Title : musings of the random stranger
Fandom : theskytides
Rating : PG-13 for some language and hints of angst
Characters/Pairing : Hijikata Toshirou + random strangers
Warning : Angst things abound! Aside from that, nothing much.
Notes : Inspired by this fic! In case you didn't know yes, I am very much on the Good Omens bandwagon now.
musings of the random stranger.
2242 words oneshot.
the landlord.
There’s never a whole lot of people so willing to take up residence in the dusty, dingy old apartments that reside right near the docks, and the lack of tenants is a constant cause of concern for old Gerald Rafters because he needs that rent for his meals, and with people coming and going all so often how is he ever going to have that money he needs, because all he gets is one month’s worth of rent and down payment which he’ll eventually need to return one way or another since its only a matter of counting how many days they can put up with the noise and shouting and never-fading smell of whatever it is that the ships give out before they give up, take their money back and move on.
In fact, if Gerald has to be honest with himself, the one reason why he isn’t penniless yet is because of that officer who decided to take up residence here a few years back. It is a bit strange really, why an officer of the navy decided to choose here of all places to stay in, but after spending about forty or so years managing this place and seeing the many types of humans and occasional demi-human who come and go from here, he knows better than to ask. Still, even then, there was always something about the man-well, officer-that he could never put his finger on too well. It’s always bothered him, and for the life of him he can never figure it out; as much as he is interested to know though, Gerald also knows he’d rather not put himself in some form of danger from sniffing out the strangeness of this strange tenant.
‘Tenant’ was kind of putting it lightly too, now that he thought about it; even if he does know that being in the navy meant that one needed to spend his time on a ship more often than not, surely he shouldn’t be not around that all often. He knows the ship that the officer’s working on-there’s no way to not recognize the Victoria II in its complete glory, especially when he sees it every morning on his strolls through the docks while the ship is there. Gerald’s always considered himself a bit of a ship lover, but even he had to be impressed at the grand impression that Ivona’s finest ship and the air the vessel carries around her. It’s nothing short of grand-royal-like, something close but not exactly like the frills and fanciness that those Erealian vessels have on them, bless their souls. He has to wonder at times how they manage to move with all those ornaments all over the hull.
As grand and wonderful and amazing as the Victoria II is however, Gerald can’t help but wonder just how much of that is on the surface every time he sees the young officer whenever he comes around to foot the rent. He never cut the bill once, never underpaid or anything-despite the ruffian-like look he has the officer hasn’t caused the slightest bit of trouble at all unlike the loonies who’re living at the corner. Gerald has to wonder why he still bothered to house them still after all the trouble they caused around Lunasa three years ago. That had been the most damnable thing he ever needed to fix up, and even six month’s worth of advance rent wasn’t enough to patch up the damage they caused. Loonies aside though, seeing the young officer always makes him trouble in ways that he really shouldn’t be-he hardly knows the man as it is, but seeing the way he carries himself is more than enough for him to want to hold his hand, maybe give him a cup of coffee (he did seem like the type who lived by caffine) and tell him that everything was going to turn out alright.
After having lived for so long and having seen all the kinds of people and beings who flit in and out of his small office, Gerald has never seen anybody else who carries himself with so much pain in his eyes. He sees them whenever the officer comes around, and all he can think is of how flat and dead they looked, so lacking of life when he has a feeling they should be bright and brimming with it instead. Despite not knowing the young man, just seeing them makes his heart wrench painfully-he remembers seeing eyes like those before; they had been on his son, just the night before he decided that bankruptcy was something he couldn’t live by and shortly proceeded to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. It’s the kind of sadness that nobody could take away, because it was the sadness that one inflicted upon himself and would never go away until he wanted it to.
Seeing those eyes makes him wonder about the man’s past, makes him want to ask just what caused the young officer to live everyday as if it was his last, and then he sees the rough lines on the youngster’s palms and the calloused hands and remembers the various injuries he’s seen before, and decides perhaps its better not to ask. As far as he’s concerned, the officer’s got a lot more to take care of at the moment, and it’s not his place to pry.
the barkeep.
It’s always been a habit of his, remembering the faces of the people who come here often, because its always nice to establish customer relations and know a few friendly customers who would help you if a particularly brutal human/demi-human decided to mean business. It was always nice to have allies like that, Nicholas agreed to himself privately as he polishes his many mugs of beer for business later. He’s been in this business for the last decade or so, and it was the best decision in his life to set up a bar here near the docks because god knew how many sailors liked to come down here from their ships for a quick binge and a rowdy good time.
Somehow it always seems to be a rule of some sort that every establishment needs to have some sort of anti-social bloke who would never part take in the activities and prefer to be by his lonesome, and Nicholas’s own establishment wasn’t spared from that as well. He would have hoped that it would be an exception-and it seemed to be for a few years, to be honest-but that all changed one day when the man-an officer of the navy, Nicholas quickly saw from the uniform-stepped into the place and immediately plopped down onto one of the seats at the corner.
“Give me your strongest,” was all that he had said, the Solarian accent quite hard to miss. Nicholas had to try not to wince at it, really-one can never help but feel bad about Solare, considering the terrible state it was now these days. Things about demons and cold-blooded murders and blood-carved streets, what was Reial coming to these days really. Nicholas didn’t say any of that of course, and simply passed the man his alcohol. Poor bloke looked like he needed it anyway, what with the lousy expression he seemed to have on his face. The chap did need to try and smile more; that constant frown was never going to do anybody good.
But as the months and years passed, it seemed as if that scowl was never going to disappear-on the contrary, it seemed as if it was just more determined to etch itself into the man’s expression, keeping it there for some reason or another. That could be one of the reasons why none of the others ever so much dared as to go near him, although one of the local seamen once told him something about an infamous reputation on the Victoria II of all places and something called 'seppuku', whatever that was. Nicholas could never really understand those strange fancy terms.
Still, he knows better than to try and pry answers out of somebody who looks like he’d rather smash your head against the nearest hard surface (and at rare times, somebody who looks more like he’s about to cry but doesn’t know just who to cry to), and simply continues to serve him his gin and rum and whatever else he felt like drinking at the moment-they never talk more than the usual orders and the returning ‘yes, sir’ and ‘here you go, sir’, but Nicholas hopes that its enough. Sure they’re never going to go past this stage, but he figures that being able to make him say something is better than having him never say something at all. Last thing he needs is a mute guy patronizing his place for the last couple of years.
the gravekeeper.
Gravekeeping is never going to be the best job in the continent, but Arnold supposes if it’s anybody, then it’s him who has to do the ruddy night shift. The dark doesn’t really scare him these days, not since he’s passed through a hell load of other things like running around the bloodied lands of Ishval with a notepad and pencil in hand and seeing all those men, women and children being killed without so much as a reason. He’d quit journalism after that, and swore off anything else related to the Ivonian army; those men were a lot of bastards, they were. Dogs of the military, and all that; how one ever decided to be in there after something like that was well beyond him. Then again, not a lot of people really knew the horrors of such a bloody massacre.
He’ll be right up and admit that he loathes those damned military dogs with a passion, and all those tears they shed at the graves are nothing but ones of crocodiles. They’re just assholes finding a right reason to put a few bullet holes through their enemies and say it was all for ‘justice’ and all that bullock. Arnold’s heard enough of them back during journaling to actually believe something as crappy as that now these days.
When he first sees the man he thinks the same too, sees the uniform and instantly has to stop himself from making a face because he’s clearly just another guy finding a valid reason to off whoever offended him, but then from the grave he’s tending (number 400, a poor kid who had died alone in the cold; nobody knew who her parents were) he sees the man moving to settle down before the grave, pulling out a bag of tidbits and opening it. A pause, and then the audible sound of a man munching of a cracker is heard.
The man says nothing, does nothing, only eating the crackers in the bag without so much as a word. By the time Arnold is at grave 420 the man is gone, leaving nothing but an empty packet of spicy crackers that he didn’t take with him. Arnold only mutters about ruddy officers and their lack of respect for the dead and picks up the bag when the wind shifts, breezing by with enough force to make the grass at the bottom of the tombstone shift so that the gravekeeper sees the words scrawled there, a messy writing almost like a child hiding a secret he refuses to tell to the world. When he sees those words now Arnold thinks about the man and his crackers and the silence that carries with his presence; a quiet presence, silent and unassuming. Under the night where no eyes ever pry except for his own (when he wants to), the man doesn’t carry the sort of bravado that the others have; Arnold’s been working long enough now here to see this, and then more.
He’s not the only visitor to that tomb, of course-there is one other, a young-looking brat who looks too young to be in the navy but is anyway, but even that kid’s not around often. It’s the man who is, silent as always and doing nothing more than to sit down, take out a bag of crackers and eat it silently, eyes staring right at the tombstone until he’s done. A few times he stays for a smoke or two, and Arnold never calls him out on it even if smoking in a graveyard was bad form, coffin nails and all that nonsensical rubbish. He’s never really believed in it anyway, and its not as if he indulges in a few vices himself from time to time. But still, in the years he’s been around here, something about this occasional ritual seems to be something utterly sacred for some reason or another-the silence that hangs feels more like a silence that bears regret and pain and something else that can never be properly named. It’s the painful sort of silence that hangs on funerals and deathbeds and other things like that, and Arnold can only wonder why that should be the case when people here are already dead.
It does occur to Arnold a couple that he’s never asked the moonlighting man (because he only ever comes at night) his name, but figures it's just better not to know. Sometimes, some things are more honestly worth not knowing.
Title : musings of the random stranger
Fandom : theskytides
Rating : PG-13 for some language and hints of angst
Characters/Pairing : Hijikata Toshirou + random strangers
Warning : Angst things abound! Aside from that, nothing much.
Notes : Inspired by this fic! In case you didn't know yes, I am very much on the Good Omens bandwagon now.
musings of the random stranger.
2242 words oneshot.
the landlord.
There’s never a whole lot of people so willing to take up residence in the dusty, dingy old apartments that reside right near the docks, and the lack of tenants is a constant cause of concern for old Gerald Rafters because he needs that rent for his meals, and with people coming and going all so often how is he ever going to have that money he needs, because all he gets is one month’s worth of rent and down payment which he’ll eventually need to return one way or another since its only a matter of counting how many days they can put up with the noise and shouting and never-fading smell of whatever it is that the ships give out before they give up, take their money back and move on.
In fact, if Gerald has to be honest with himself, the one reason why he isn’t penniless yet is because of that officer who decided to take up residence here a few years back. It is a bit strange really, why an officer of the navy decided to choose here of all places to stay in, but after spending about forty or so years managing this place and seeing the many types of humans and occasional demi-human who come and go from here, he knows better than to ask. Still, even then, there was always something about the man-well, officer-that he could never put his finger on too well. It’s always bothered him, and for the life of him he can never figure it out; as much as he is interested to know though, Gerald also knows he’d rather not put himself in some form of danger from sniffing out the strangeness of this strange tenant.
‘Tenant’ was kind of putting it lightly too, now that he thought about it; even if he does know that being in the navy meant that one needed to spend his time on a ship more often than not, surely he shouldn’t be not around that all often. He knows the ship that the officer’s working on-there’s no way to not recognize the Victoria II in its complete glory, especially when he sees it every morning on his strolls through the docks while the ship is there. Gerald’s always considered himself a bit of a ship lover, but even he had to be impressed at the grand impression that Ivona’s finest ship and the air the vessel carries around her. It’s nothing short of grand-royal-like, something close but not exactly like the frills and fanciness that those Erealian vessels have on them, bless their souls. He has to wonder at times how they manage to move with all those ornaments all over the hull.
As grand and wonderful and amazing as the Victoria II is however, Gerald can’t help but wonder just how much of that is on the surface every time he sees the young officer whenever he comes around to foot the rent. He never cut the bill once, never underpaid or anything-despite the ruffian-like look he has the officer hasn’t caused the slightest bit of trouble at all unlike the loonies who’re living at the corner. Gerald has to wonder why he still bothered to house them still after all the trouble they caused around Lunasa three years ago. That had been the most damnable thing he ever needed to fix up, and even six month’s worth of advance rent wasn’t enough to patch up the damage they caused. Loonies aside though, seeing the young officer always makes him trouble in ways that he really shouldn’t be-he hardly knows the man as it is, but seeing the way he carries himself is more than enough for him to want to hold his hand, maybe give him a cup of coffee (he did seem like the type who lived by caffine) and tell him that everything was going to turn out alright.
After having lived for so long and having seen all the kinds of people and beings who flit in and out of his small office, Gerald has never seen anybody else who carries himself with so much pain in his eyes. He sees them whenever the officer comes around, and all he can think is of how flat and dead they looked, so lacking of life when he has a feeling they should be bright and brimming with it instead. Despite not knowing the young man, just seeing them makes his heart wrench painfully-he remembers seeing eyes like those before; they had been on his son, just the night before he decided that bankruptcy was something he couldn’t live by and shortly proceeded to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. It’s the kind of sadness that nobody could take away, because it was the sadness that one inflicted upon himself and would never go away until he wanted it to.
Seeing those eyes makes him wonder about the man’s past, makes him want to ask just what caused the young officer to live everyday as if it was his last, and then he sees the rough lines on the youngster’s palms and the calloused hands and remembers the various injuries he’s seen before, and decides perhaps its better not to ask. As far as he’s concerned, the officer’s got a lot more to take care of at the moment, and it’s not his place to pry.
the barkeep.
It’s always been a habit of his, remembering the faces of the people who come here often, because its always nice to establish customer relations and know a few friendly customers who would help you if a particularly brutal human/demi-human decided to mean business. It was always nice to have allies like that, Nicholas agreed to himself privately as he polishes his many mugs of beer for business later. He’s been in this business for the last decade or so, and it was the best decision in his life to set up a bar here near the docks because god knew how many sailors liked to come down here from their ships for a quick binge and a rowdy good time.
Somehow it always seems to be a rule of some sort that every establishment needs to have some sort of anti-social bloke who would never part take in the activities and prefer to be by his lonesome, and Nicholas’s own establishment wasn’t spared from that as well. He would have hoped that it would be an exception-and it seemed to be for a few years, to be honest-but that all changed one day when the man-an officer of the navy, Nicholas quickly saw from the uniform-stepped into the place and immediately plopped down onto one of the seats at the corner.
“Give me your strongest,” was all that he had said, the Solarian accent quite hard to miss. Nicholas had to try not to wince at it, really-one can never help but feel bad about Solare, considering the terrible state it was now these days. Things about demons and cold-blooded murders and blood-carved streets, what was Reial coming to these days really. Nicholas didn’t say any of that of course, and simply passed the man his alcohol. Poor bloke looked like he needed it anyway, what with the lousy expression he seemed to have on his face. The chap did need to try and smile more; that constant frown was never going to do anybody good.
But as the months and years passed, it seemed as if that scowl was never going to disappear-on the contrary, it seemed as if it was just more determined to etch itself into the man’s expression, keeping it there for some reason or another. That could be one of the reasons why none of the others ever so much dared as to go near him, although one of the local seamen once told him something about an infamous reputation on the Victoria II of all places and something called 'seppuku', whatever that was. Nicholas could never really understand those strange fancy terms.
Still, he knows better than to try and pry answers out of somebody who looks like he’d rather smash your head against the nearest hard surface (and at rare times, somebody who looks more like he’s about to cry but doesn’t know just who to cry to), and simply continues to serve him his gin and rum and whatever else he felt like drinking at the moment-they never talk more than the usual orders and the returning ‘yes, sir’ and ‘here you go, sir’, but Nicholas hopes that its enough. Sure they’re never going to go past this stage, but he figures that being able to make him say something is better than having him never say something at all. Last thing he needs is a mute guy patronizing his place for the last couple of years.
the gravekeeper.
Gravekeeping is never going to be the best job in the continent, but Arnold supposes if it’s anybody, then it’s him who has to do the ruddy night shift. The dark doesn’t really scare him these days, not since he’s passed through a hell load of other things like running around the bloodied lands of Ishval with a notepad and pencil in hand and seeing all those men, women and children being killed without so much as a reason. He’d quit journalism after that, and swore off anything else related to the Ivonian army; those men were a lot of bastards, they were. Dogs of the military, and all that; how one ever decided to be in there after something like that was well beyond him. Then again, not a lot of people really knew the horrors of such a bloody massacre.
He’ll be right up and admit that he loathes those damned military dogs with a passion, and all those tears they shed at the graves are nothing but ones of crocodiles. They’re just assholes finding a right reason to put a few bullet holes through their enemies and say it was all for ‘justice’ and all that bullock. Arnold’s heard enough of them back during journaling to actually believe something as crappy as that now these days.
When he first sees the man he thinks the same too, sees the uniform and instantly has to stop himself from making a face because he’s clearly just another guy finding a valid reason to off whoever offended him, but then from the grave he’s tending (number 400, a poor kid who had died alone in the cold; nobody knew who her parents were) he sees the man moving to settle down before the grave, pulling out a bag of tidbits and opening it. A pause, and then the audible sound of a man munching of a cracker is heard.
The man says nothing, does nothing, only eating the crackers in the bag without so much as a word. By the time Arnold is at grave 420 the man is gone, leaving nothing but an empty packet of spicy crackers that he didn’t take with him. Arnold only mutters about ruddy officers and their lack of respect for the dead and picks up the bag when the wind shifts, breezing by with enough force to make the grass at the bottom of the tombstone shift so that the gravekeeper sees the words scrawled there, a messy writing almost like a child hiding a secret he refuses to tell to the world. When he sees those words now Arnold thinks about the man and his crackers and the silence that carries with his presence; a quiet presence, silent and unassuming. Under the night where no eyes ever pry except for his own (when he wants to), the man doesn’t carry the sort of bravado that the others have; Arnold’s been working long enough now here to see this, and then more.
He’s not the only visitor to that tomb, of course-there is one other, a young-looking brat who looks too young to be in the navy but is anyway, but even that kid’s not around often. It’s the man who is, silent as always and doing nothing more than to sit down, take out a bag of crackers and eat it silently, eyes staring right at the tombstone until he’s done. A few times he stays for a smoke or two, and Arnold never calls him out on it even if smoking in a graveyard was bad form, coffin nails and all that nonsensical rubbish. He’s never really believed in it anyway, and its not as if he indulges in a few vices himself from time to time. But still, in the years he’s been around here, something about this occasional ritual seems to be something utterly sacred for some reason or another-the silence that hangs feels more like a silence that bears regret and pain and something else that can never be properly named. It’s the painful sort of silence that hangs on funerals and deathbeds and other things like that, and Arnold can only wonder why that should be the case when people here are already dead.
It does occur to Arnold a couple that he’s never asked the moonlighting man (because he only ever comes at night) his name, but figures it's just better not to know. Sometimes, some things are more honestly worth not knowing.