[open] channeling angels in a new age, now.

[priorly]

Who: Prior Walter (priorly) & you??
What: Catch all logs for October!
When: October!
Where: various
Warning(s): language, likely mention of terminal illness (AIDS). Adult themes?
Notes: Please PM me if you'd like a starter, or feel free to wildcard me anytime.

Comments

[priorly]

No doubt twirling your mustache all the time.

[vorrutyer]

Why do you think I grew one in the first place?

[priorly]

To fit in somewhere terribly nefarious, of course. [Silly small talk. Prior traces a finger across Byerly's lip, stretching and curling in against him again like an oversized cat.] Where I'm from it would be... somewhat last decade. People still sport them, though. The pretty eyes my imagination built you from could well have sat alongside a handlebar.

[vorrutyer]

[ Byerly gently seizes Prior's fingertip between his teeth, gives a little tug, and then releases it. ]

Perhaps so, yes. Where I'm from, beards and moustaches are only just beginning to come into fashion. Thanks to my cousin Dono, you know. He burst upon the social scene with that beard of his, handsome as the day is long, making ladies swoon, and everyone decided they wanted to imitate him.

[priorly]

[Prior doesn't nothing to hide that little shiver.]

Of course thanks to your cousin. I'd be disappointed if it were even once removed. Does he look like you?

[vorrutyer]

Rather ironically, he looked more like me back when he was a woman. Now that he's a man, he's all broad and muscly. Quite ruins the resemblance.

[ Byerly grins, very slightly, in hopeful anticipation of Prior's surprise over that revelation. ]

[priorly]

[He shouldn't be disappointed. Prior stays precisely where he is for - oh, a few seconds - as this new piece of information percolates down. Then almost without moving at all he's somehow lightly pinning Byerly to the bed, peering down into his face like he can read it.]

When he was a woman? Well, you've been remarkably slow in sharing that little quirk in our evolutionary development. Does that make you the caterpillar or the butterfly?

[A curl of his lips before he adds-]

If it's a path they chose themselves, I do hope you'll tell me they opted for the tentacle.

[vorrutyer]

[ Byerly, laughing up at Prior - ]

Just a regular cock, sadly. I've seen it myself. I did say to him he ought to have gone for something a little spicier and more exciting, as long as he was spending the money on the Betan surgery, but no, he opted for the tragically conventional.

[priorly]

Hm, surgery. [As expected but Prior offers a haughty little sniff anyway.] Then this is your final form? Not disappointing as such but those eyelashes are a terrible waste. Though.... perhaps wasting some other parts would be worse. I've always favored more superficial transformation, myself.

[vorrutyer]

Oh, is that so? Donning a gown for the evening? [ He cocks an eyebrow speculatively, then - grinning - shakes his head. ] No, no, Dono's case was a special situation. Strapped on a cock for the purpose of a political coup. Dear fellow - I mourn the loss of my cousin Donna - her company, and saucy commentary upon the eligibility of some of the Vor fellows, is sorely missed - but Count Dono is a true joy in my life.

[priorly]

[Byerly, this can hardly be a surprise. But no gowns here to don, alas.]

How far into the future will we have to go, I wonder, before politics is no longer full of cocks. But why can't the count comment on eligible men as easily as the countess? Please tell me men's souls aren't really located between their thighs.

[vorrutyer]

Hah. No. At least not to my knowledge. But dear Dono did not want to...hmm...throw anything into doubt with regards to his virility. His right to the Countship hinged not only on the cock but also the ability to convince others of the reality of that cock. So while Donna was so enchantingly flexible with her preferences, Dono has become quite cruelly heterosexual.

[priorly]

[Sigh] Straight people spoil all the good stories. For a moment it all sounded so progressive. [Byerly's freed from scrutiny: it was a good story, either way.] Though anyone who believes men who fuck men can't be virile has clearly never checked out a midtown gym on leg day.

[vorrutyer]

[ A fluid shrug. ]

I find that reality very rarely has the power to alter preconceived notions. Our former Prime Minister is the most hulking, growling specimen of military man you'll ever find, and he fucked my uncle all over Vorbarr Sultana before having his wife murder the fellow. And yet there's still this belief that homosexuality means effeminacy.

[priorly]

Every time you open your mouth, a whole season's worth of drama falls right out. I don't know where to start. All this blood and politics, it's positively Roman. The prime minister murdered your uncle?

[Revealed surely too bluntly to be a deep family tragedy.]

Or, no, the minister's wife. So not a lover's tiff - jealousy?

[vorrutyer]

[ Another shrug. There's a slight quirk to his lips that indicates some emotion that borders on irony - he's certainly not pleased or charmed by this bit of bloody history. But it's certainly not a trauma for him, either. And more to the point, he enjoys Prior's shock enough to far outweigh any bitterness he has at the injustice of it. ]

The official story is war. The lady is Betan - Beta is another planet, I've mentioned it, it's the one you'd adore - and we were fighting against them at the time. So: the sanctioned action of a soldier in a time of war. [ But. ] But it's quite convenient, it seems to me - a man sees his ex-lover murdered and later marries the woman who did it. And then ascends to the most remarkable political prominence. Of course, we can't know what really happened - after all, three people in that room, and one of them is dead - but one cannot help but reflect on the advantage of a rising political star cutting the throat of his embarrassing past peccadillo.

[priorly]

I see. As much as one can see through such a tangled web. My condolences for your loss. [Because that's just manners, even if it doesn't seem that Byerly's misty-eyed over recollections of being bounced upon the man's knee.] So, Beta's a haven for warrior women and twinks, while on Barrayar you're all manly and butch. I wouldn't last five minutes, would I?

[He's sympathetic, really, to Byerly's being the last man standing - at least Prior's planet represents itself well here, even if none of its people are truly his. - all the same, were his compatriots to wake at any time it seems unlikely their association would continue. Embarrassing past peccadillo or not.]

[vorrutyer]

[ By waves dismissal of the condolence. ]

I was three years old when it happened. Hardly weeping over a fellow I didn't know at all. Even if relatives do tell me I resemble him most uncannily, though I suppose that might be a comment on behaviors rather than appearance. Also, don't you despise that? The oh-you-look-just-like-this-dead-person comments? Wretched.

[ Then, with a pat on his wrist - ] And you'd find a place there. It might sound brutal, but much of that is the past. Not the present.

[priorly]

Oh, thirty-three times over. And it isn't even true - of those I've met, at least one of them looked closer to... I don't know, Nathan Lane than any genes of mine, for gods sakes.

[And then Byerly does that and Prior arches a singular eyebrow.]

Is that consolation, that pat? There, there? As one might console a maiden aunt?

[vorrutyer]

Dear Prior, I have never consoled my maiden aunt. Mostly I've ducked the cutlery she's hurled in my direction, truthfully. But is that how you think of yourself, fellow? Maidenly?

[priorly]

[Some mild spluttering.]

No, and don't you dare. [Even if he may be a cutlery hurler, himself.] I may not be butch, but if you'd like to know how many butch boys this nancy's brought home and put through the wall I'll start a list.

[vorrutyer]

Oh, please do.

[priorly]

[LOOK.

...He lets his head tip back against the pillow.]

Well I didn't catch all of their names.

[vorrutyer]

Ooh, that's a salacious start. Come on, lull me to sleep by listing off the ones you do remember. The more details the better.

[priorly]

Terrible. Do you know it's been four years since I was with anyone other than Louis? Though of course I was with him too, back then. Twenty six. An infant. And still.

[An exaggerated sigh really doesn't disguise the beginnings of a grin.]

I think some people put so much effort into reaching a certain size, they just don't have a clue what to do with it when they get there. So they go out just begging to be told.