The wall could be a lonely place, even now that the frost and snow around the city was starting to melt away and it was just warm enough to step outside without having to bundle up entirely. Sam enjoyed the solitude. He'd come up here, the last handful of days, to sit (and occasionally pace, as he was doing now) and read poetry.
Today he was continuing his work on memorizing The Wasteland"Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak... Speak..." He always got lost around that bit. He opened the book again, to where his thumb held the page of the last passage he'd had to check. Then he snapped it shut, picking up the words again with fervor, rattling them off with the air of someone hurrying to keep up with his memory
( ... )
Damon heard Sam talking long before he came into view. When he first saw the other man, he got the sense that Jhelbor was, in fact, filled with nothing but crazy people. And quite a lot of them were British. He pulled a quick once-over on Sam and immediately decided that the man was a closet case who enjoyed listening to classical music on the radio and found corgis to be quaint.
But he'd start by playing nice.
"'Do 'You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember 'Nothing?' I remember Those are pearls that were his eyes. 'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'"
That last line was particularly ironic to Damon, but he would reserve that observation. He often wondered himself if he was alive or dead.
He'd just about buried his nose in the book as Damon started to pass by, but of course he looked up when he started to speak -- looking a little affronted at first, until he realized Damon was continuing the poem.
Worldwalker. Had to be. Unless Ianto was going around teaching Eliot to random natives.
"A bit too much, actually," he said, gesturing toward his own forehead. He thumbed the pages of the poetry book and tried to give off a friendly smile. "You must be new." Relatively.
"So they tell me," Damon replied. He wasn't sure what the whole 'a bit too much' thing meant, but he had a feeling that if he asked, he'd be treated to an unwanted, twenty minute lecture. Damon would only give him five minutes to get interesting before walking on.
"All relative. I've seen some pretty tiny worldwalkers. I think compared to them, I'm pretty old." Really, really old, actually, but there was no sense in thinking about that. "I don't suppose you're the child wrangler around here?" He had a little bit of a scholarly, school teacher look to him. A sketchy school teacher, but most of them were to varying degrees.
"Ah... no." 'Child wrangler?' What did that even mean? "My name is -- Lowry. Sam Lowry." Couldn't ever just say 'my name is Sam,' even if the usual way of introducing himself was starting to itch like an old sweater. Ah well. "I'm not really anything."
He examined the man for a moment. He seemed fairly relaxed: either he'd been here for a few weeks at least, or he was used to world-hopping. "Are you, um. Did you arrive recently?"
Damon nodded. "A few days ago...I think? Hard to keep track." He shrugged. Not like it really matter much. "What is time, anyway? Just a convention, really." Oh shit, he was going all philosopher. Well, he could blame it on the British accent. The British had a way of bringing that out of him like nobody else.
And they had a way of introduce themselves last name first. Seriously? Lowry. Sam Lowry. Why not try Bond, James Bond? Or maybe the guy didn't have James Bond where he lived. More the pity. Those movies were great when they didn't involve the moon or laser beams. Or that one where James started crying like a pansy over his dead wife. Which one was that? Didn't really matter.
"Salvatore," he said with only a slight smirk. "Damon Salvatore." He'd like his blood, shaken, not stirred please.
Sam nodded with a soft smile. "Damon. Pleasure to meet you." He offered his hand and, with the other, held up the book of poetry. "Who else do you like?" It was nice, at least, to meet someone who shared the interest.
Damon shook his hand, making sure to give it a good squeeze, as was his tendency. He stepped back quickly after that, lest Sam notice his severe lack of pulse. Somehow, however, Damon doubted this guy would notice. There was a bit of a nutter vibe coming front and center
( ... )
Sam's eyes widened in surprise. "Old fashioned indeed. I'm a cummings man myself, although I'm getting fonder of Eliot by the day."
He leaned back against the wall, looking up toward the sun. For Sam, it was early April already, and getting warm. He wondered what Damon felt.
"I didn't used to read much back in London." He refused to call it 'home.' "But here it's, uh. It's a way to stay sane." Once again, relatively speaking.
Damon's eyebrows quirked slightly. Cummings? Was that the one with horrible grammar and no grasp of punctuation? He wasn't sure, so he was perfectly happy to allow the conversation to shift elsewhere. London was something he could speak of, at the very least. He had traveled there many times and knew the country well, particularly Oxford.
"What part of London are you from?" he asked evenly.
"I lived in Northwestern Section D. Block 19." Nice little flat he'd had there, too. All the modern conveniences, and the ducts were mostly hidden in the walls. "When I left, it was the year 1992."
Damon blinked, a bit taken aback by his response. "That's a very...precise answer." There was something unsettling about it, but Damon shrugged it off. "Spent some time in Oxford when I was younger," he continued lazily. Much, much younger. "Hated it. I don't like the rain that much." He made a face.
The comment about the year was interesting. "So people arrive here from different years. That's what Bonnie said. Explains a lot of her inexplicable pop culture references. Also explains some of the seriously bad hair going around here."
"There's also a distinct lack of proper barbers." Well, whadda y'know. An actual joke, sort of. Sam shrugged. "People come here from different years, different versions of the same world, or different worlds entirely." But it didn't really matter in the end. They were all just here now.
"You don't seem too broken up about this." It wasn't a judgment call, not really. If Damon actually was calm and collected about being forcibly moved between dimensions, then hey, Bob's your uncle. But if Sam was misreading something, he wanted to make sure.
Damon shrugged. Given how he had been feeling back home, he wasn't terribly broken up to be removed from the whole situation. Bonnie was the only painful reminder left of Katherine and Elena and that whole disaster. And she had only been peripheral, as far as he was concerned. It was good to get away from it all, really. And Rowan did present some advantages. For one thing, a severe lack of vampire hunters. Not to mention the fact that with only Bonnie and himself making up the vampire community, he had decided seniority.
What the hell would he want to go back for?
Well, he mused, there were cars and night clubs and thongs to go back for. He'd miss those. And cruise ships, chicken wings, basic cable and the special channels, Bruce Springstein, personal massagers, pizza delivery boys, Stefan, and Bob Barker's Beauties.
Not that he needed any of those things. Especially Stefan.
"It's not so bad," he replied. "Now, I can get credit for inventing the electric razor."
"Well, best of luck on being this world's Edison," Sam said with a casual salute. "For the meantime, at least there's running water." That seemed like the cue for a change of topic, so: "Where, um. Where did you come from, Damon?"
Damon's lips quirked slightly into a small smirk. He could certainly appreciate the good, healthy dose of sarcasm. Little did this nutter know that Damon could, in fact, live long enough to see electricity and then some in the future of Rowan.
"Florence," he answered after only a moment's hesitation. "But I've lived in the States long enough to lose the accent."
Today he was continuing his work on memorizing The Wasteland"Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak... Speak..." He always got lost around that bit. He opened the book again, to where his thumb held the page of the last passage he'd had to check. Then he snapped it shut, picking up the words again with fervor, rattling them off with the air of someone hurrying to keep up with his memory ( ... )
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But he'd start by playing nice.
"'Do
'You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
'Nothing?'
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'"
That last line was particularly ironic to Damon, but he would reserve that observation. He often wondered himself if he was alive or dead.
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Worldwalker. Had to be. Unless Ianto was going around teaching Eliot to random natives.
"A bit too much, actually," he said, gesturing toward his own forehead. He thumbed the pages of the poetry book and tried to give off a friendly smile. "You must be new." Relatively.
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"All relative. I've seen some pretty tiny worldwalkers. I think compared to them, I'm pretty old." Really, really old, actually, but there was no sense in thinking about that. "I don't suppose you're the child wrangler around here?" He had a little bit of a scholarly, school teacher look to him. A sketchy school teacher, but most of them were to varying degrees.
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He examined the man for a moment. He seemed fairly relaxed: either he'd been here for a few weeks at least, or he was used to world-hopping. "Are you, um. Did you arrive recently?"
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And they had a way of introduce themselves last name first. Seriously? Lowry. Sam Lowry. Why not try Bond, James Bond? Or maybe the guy didn't have James Bond where he lived. More the pity. Those movies were great when they didn't involve the moon or laser beams. Or that one where James started crying like a pansy over his dead wife. Which one was that? Didn't really matter.
"Salvatore," he said with only a slight smirk. "Damon Salvatore." He'd like his blood, shaken, not stirred please.
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He leaned back against the wall, looking up toward the sun. For Sam, it was early April already, and getting warm. He wondered what Damon felt.
"I didn't used to read much back in London." He refused to call it 'home.' "But here it's, uh. It's a way to stay sane." Once again, relatively speaking.
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"What part of London are you from?" he asked evenly.
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The comment about the year was interesting. "So people arrive here from different years. That's what Bonnie said. Explains a lot of her inexplicable pop culture references. Also explains some of the seriously bad hair going around here."
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"You don't seem too broken up about this." It wasn't a judgment call, not really. If Damon actually was calm and collected about being forcibly moved between dimensions, then hey, Bob's your uncle. But if Sam was misreading something, he wanted to make sure.
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What the hell would he want to go back for?
Well, he mused, there were cars and night clubs and thongs to go back for. He'd miss those. And cruise ships, chicken wings, basic cable and the special channels, Bruce Springstein, personal massagers, pizza delivery boys, Stefan, and Bob Barker's Beauties.
Not that he needed any of those things. Especially Stefan.
"It's not so bad," he replied. "Now, I can get credit for inventing the electric razor."
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"Florence," he answered after only a moment's hesitation. "But I've lived in the States long enough to lose the accent."
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