His ring. He'd panicked when he saw Kurt's and hurried to check see that his own was around his neck. Which it was. Thankfully. Foolish as he was to have forgotten it when he woke, Logan was then as astonished as he was relieved to know it still worked here. Wherever here is. Surrounded by miles and miles of cold Atlantic water. Or something like it.
Of course, it couldn't be that easy to find the rest of his would-be family. Whatever Kurt wasn't telling him about what this place has done with Wes said more than words could have. Still, he's determined to fill in the gaps Kurt's injured heart wouldn't.
There's an awful lot of crew on this ship. Many of which are downright sticklers about keeping passengers well within their station. But the promise of a few rounds of poker with the more wealthy patrons belongings, and a fist to jaw both go a long way towards loosening their regulations.
It's not until he reaches Cafe Parisien that the ring seems to hum with some scarcely measurable energy. While he doesn't have any money that he knows of he orders a coffee anyway and pulls out a chair across from a man of familiar looking stature. "Seat taken?" He asks. More interested to see the way the other man looks at him than making himself known too quickly.
Even aboard a ship as vast as the Titanic, there are few places to be that allow a man a modicum of privacy. To those unused to or unaware of such luxury accommodations, a First Class stateroom might seem utterly cavernous. To Walter, these past few days aboard the ship have made it feel too much like a prison, with its cookie-cutter decor and only his mind and his books to entertain him. Everywhere else around the ship has proven strange and inhospitable in its own ways. Walter finds that he can't seem to go anywhere without catching the eyes of other passengers. Some look at him with bald contempt while others stare with confusion, as if they've just experienced the passing of a ghost. Maybe it's the sea air gone to everyone's heads, or the feeling that slowly sets in that there's nowhere else for a man to go or to be. They're all they have here for as long as this ship takes to find its port, and many must be quite unfamiliar with such a tangible feeling of being stuck.
Walter's own ring glints on his finger as he turns pages in his book. He found it at the bottom of his luggage and has assumed it was sneaked in by a family member. The compass etching meant to guide him on his voyage and then there beyond as he reaches the unfamiliar lands he's bound for. It's a gesture that comforts him and excites him at once, and so he keeps the little token close to his heart. He'd swear he could feel the warm energy emanating from it like a cocoon of safety. He reaches for his coffee without looking up from the page, but the movement of the chair disrupts his reading.
The man who stands before him doesn't look to belong to this space. At first Walter confuses him for a part of the crew, but even the pantrymen work better when on their shift. "Yes," he replies, though his expression stays confused. "I don't think you and I have business, sir."
"You're right," he sighs. "I wouldn't call it business. S'far as I know, no money s'ever exchanged hands. Just a lot of promises."
Somethings about who the man is clearly haven't changed between Dearington and here. When Logan speaks out loud it's more for his own sake. As if thinking through the things he'd like to say for the things he knows how to make clear with his hands.
Rather than opting for any of that he makes an effort to repeat himself instead. Seat taken? He signs the words as he sits just in time for the server to place his coffee in front of him. Between the waiters timing and Logan's stubbornnessWes gets little chance to refuse his presence. at least not without making a bit of a scene. Something Logan is happy to let him do of course, though it's unlikely to disturb him from his cup of coffee.
He brings the stout and sturdy mug to his lips and almost immediately decides it's better than whatever they're serving in the lower dining hall.
"You don't recognize me either, eh?" he knows the answer but still he takes a moment with raised eyebrows to examine Wes once more. "S'ok. I'd be a hypocrite to hold that against you."
"Yes. I said yes, didn't I?" Walter's voice arcs a shade louder when the man's query demands repeat. It's not the presence of the man that brings the tension from his open chest, but the sight of those hands drawing their intent so willfully. This makes for the second time that someone aboard has seen fit to assume some knowledge about him Walter doesn't think they should possess, and to treat it in a manner that befits no one.
Those pale green eyes don't seem to know where to land. The focus he gives to the stranger's mouth is a point of intensity, but every new movement of his hands distracts Walter. It's like a buzzing pest he can't swat from the air. The mere sight of the words put onto the man's fingers tugs at a part of him so deeply and naturally rooted that it seems reflex, even if it only serves to complicate the message. By the time the man finishes he feels like a child's doll pitched overboard and bobbing in the current of the vast and unforgiving sea. Walter closes his book and folds his hands atop the cover. Slender fingers twist and grip at one another as he seems to seek to make himself the perfect picture of stillness.
"Are you a relative of the Braidwood family?" he ventures. The name feels like a distant memory, a tug from an unclear past. Walter imagines the lot of them displaced by the new tide of deaf education. Bitter, perhaps, of the successes of him and others like him.
"Did you?" he asks. The picture innocence. "Sounded like a question t'me." Wherever the misunderstanding or Wes' defensiveness comes from Logan shrugs it off like a spent cigarette.
Skilled at watching without watching, he takes his time in settling himself. Unbuttoning the only button that holds together his jacket and stretching his legs out underneath the table to cross them at the ankles. Without much effort he makes himself look distinctly like a man of his station. A worker at rest and uninterested in whatever strife inhabits the man sitting across from him. Of which there is distinctly something. He can smell it on Wes just as soon as see it in his posture. He just doesn't know the source of that discomfort yet.
"Braidwood?" He cocks an eyebrow. "Don't know the name." And takes a sip.
"I'm Logan. James Logan." He waits a long beat just to study Wes' face for a glimpse of something remembered. Or catch the scent of something concocted. "Work for the Hudson family. You know any of them? Own a good bit of Rupert's Land."
"I said yes." Like an unreliable dial on a speaker, Walter's voice dips so quiet it scarcely disturbs the briney air that separates them. For a passing moment, he looks taken by his own discomfort, less sure-footed in a conversation that calls into question his own clarity with such surprising ease. Walter's fingernails nip half-moons into the skin on the backs of his hands, and he buries his clasped palms beneath the table as if taken by the force of habit.
He can't say why a posture so open and relaxed seems so distinctly threatening. Only that it disrespects every modicum of social convention on which Walter's life has been poised. This man makes no apologies about taking up space he's not entitled to, before a man who has rebuffed him twice now. He exudes security and self-assurance that has either been won at a heavy price, or defies anyone's need to give it to him out of their own good graces. Walter finds himself staring more at the man's posture than his mouth, and the name slips past him.
"Okay. Rupert's... yes of course. I'm sorry, you think that I should recognize you? What's the nature of your work for the Hudsons?"
He watches the knuckles of Wes' hands go white until the man seems to notice where his eyes are, but still Logan's trying to place exactly where the man's only faintly veiled upset is coming from. His clothes? His forwardness? Or something else that makes Wes so unsure about him. He hopes the latter. That there's something behind the younger man's expensive suit trying to shake him out of whatever's got a hold on him.
"Well, we've met. So that'd be the polite thing," he says with something of a lazy smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. It's about as close as he imagines he's going to get to telling Wes how he really knows him. If the man doesn't smell like a word of a lie, Logan can't imagine what good it'll be to tell him they've spent the better part of a year keeping each other alive and warming one another's bed in some Sisyphean dream land. It'll either be too much for his head or just too much for polite company to abide. In his own experience things only shake loose in their own time. But prolonged exposure to the once familiar truth helps. As long as it comes in servings small enough to swallow.
"My work?" He shrugs, "you wouldn't to hear it. Respectable gent like you."
"Polite? Of course." An inkling of discomfort wells in Walter's stomach, but he lets loose of his aching hands and straightens his posture like the remark has reminded him he's being seen and judged. It seems beyond comprehension that the polite thing for him to do would be to spare any amount of regard for a man whose face holds no familiarity for him. One who's been so bold as to disrupt his morning and bat at him like a cat playing with a ball of twine. Nevertheless, the sinking feeling that this man holds the kind of importance he should know about makes him careful of himself. A regarded worker of the Hudsons is not the kind of man he imagines he should be on the wrong side of. Walter can almost imagine the verbal lashing he'd endure for making someone like that an enemy.
"It must have been some time ago. I suppose you do look familiar now, yes. Of course." The lies are easily passed off in his voice, but his expression remains pinched around them. "It's good to have a friend aboard. Is coffee all you're having? I could have the rest put to my name."
It's been a long time since Logan had an outfit like this, but he's never been a stranger to the rules of etiquette. Or more specifically how to upset them. The more he prods at Wes the more that feels like all this is. Not a man scraping the edges of his mind for something he faintly remembers. Not a man dislodged from his place of stability by a face he ought to know. Just a boy in a nice suit, afraid of what someone like him might be doing to his reputation.
"Do I?" he smiles. It's the first whiff of a lie he's caught in this conversation and while it's nice to hear Wes say so, it's a hollow victory to know he's only responding to the threat of courtesy. "If you're in the giving mood, Mister Shaw. That's the name, isn't it? Shaw? What does your family do, anyhow?" He prods, eyes narrowed. Interested to see how much of this story he's been sold about himself.
"We've met, haven't we?" Walter echoes it back with an inkling of a sly smile. For a moment his nerves seemed calmed by the feeling he's gotten the upper hand, and his green eyes sparkle with the faintest bit of mischief. "I must not have made too much of an impression on you, if you've forgotten all the details." The man before him may know his name. He may have recognized enough to keep this effort of speaking on his hands. But Walter seems vindicated to know there's much they obviously haven't gotten around to sharing.
What interest he has in those details now remains a mystery, but Walter straightens his back and reaches for his coffee with a sniff. "Importation, of course," he remarks simply. He helps himself to the steadily-cooling beverage as if to say without words the statement should be enough on its own. That any finer details would surely be lost on a man who couldn't under the business side. Only the labor involved. But when he sets down his mug, Walter rolls his hand on his wrist.
"I don't know why you insist on continuing with those ridiculous gestures. I don't know how they do things in British North America, but we're more evolved here."
He knows that smile. He wears it often enough himself. It's the look that quietly tells someone you've gotten one up on the person sitting across from you. It's almost funny that he's still so much like Wes and yet, nothing like him at all. For a long quiet moment Logan weighs his options. Stabbing back at the man won't undo what he did to Kurt. Nor is it likely to break him from whatever forces have ensnared his mind in someone else's psyche. And yet, there's a nagging desire to pin him down again. If only because he knows who this man really is so much more deeply than Walter Shaw could ever imagine.
He sips his coffee again. "You didn't talk this much when we first met," he says and waits to see how the implication there lands on the other man.
"Here? On the Atlantic? Or in the cafe?" he asks trying that same grin on when he meets Walter's eyes. "Sorry? This is a problem of evolution for you? You wanna walk that by me again, son?" He sets his cup down and beckons the would-be socialite a little closer with a tick of his fingers. "Please. Enlighten me some about why this embarrasses you so much."
"I suspect that's right if you're an employ of the Hudsons, Mr. Logan." The words carry a defiance made less gentle and less insidious by the man's continual needling. Walter means to show him in the kindest way possible how little the man's impression of him means. Yet he hasn't dismissed him entirely. Though he knows any one of the café staff would come running at his first beckoning, he sets his forearms on the table and leans his weight gently onto them. "But here it seems we have another chance."
Some of that cool demeanor falters when pressed on his next point, and the distance with which Walter has held himself seems to lessen as he returns his critical stare to the southern hemisphere of the man's face. He imagines this man growling his words past frozen lips. Walter squeezes at his fingers again. His hands have been made soft by a life not requiring the kind of hard physical labor others have known, but in the pale sunlight of an otherwise barren sea sky, scars glint in the spaces between his joints. The cross-hatching of lines barked across tender flesh, gently raised now and tending to take more redness as temperatures rise and the sun wears on.
"You embarrass yourself, not me. Those gestures you make are the basest form of communication. A toddler's tantrumed pointing. Long ago the deaf were thought no more capable than rising to such, I'll grant you that. But here, we prove you differently now. I can go anywhere and speak to anyone. I'd thank you to treat me as if you know it."
Walter's pride seems to hang at the end of a frayed string. There's an anguish in watching it like the next fibre to give under it's weight could be the one that makes it topple. He's working hard to distract from that taut, thing cord but all Logan's eyes are drawn too are the is the weak point. "You mean to say you don't talk much business?" he asks. "Makes sense. It's a tricky sorta thing, ain't it?"
Before he can be accused of any particular meaning he raises his cup and mocks a small toast. "Seems it. So tell me, why are the Shaw's shipping you away to the new world on your own?" he asks.
He chuckles at Walter's words and shakes his head. What the younger man professes doesn't seem to Logan any more than he might have been granted with his own language, but his Walter's determination in believing otherwise is palpable. "Anywhere and anyone. As long as they're English," he winks.
For the moment after he speaks, the man's words hang idly in the air and Walter sits as soft and open as he's managed through this contentious conversation. And then something in his eyes spark, the meaning catches up to him, and he clenches his teeth so tightly his jaw strains in his cheeks. "Frankly, it bores me. It's his business, not mine. I have my own interests, and they're better served where I'm headed now." The words are a little louder and much more emphatic, and the darkness stays in his eyes as he leans back in his chair and catches his own breath in his throat.
He stares unblinkingly as the man goes on, feeling every ounce of the mocking he intends. The wink feels like a slap. A self-satisfied degradation of what he's risen to. What he has managed, with all the effort of his short life, to have accomplished. "Yes," he ventures through the hot blood rushing up his neck. "I suppose the nature of your work makes you transient. It must benefit a man of your position to know a little about how to talk to all different kinds of people."
"Yuh know. The more places I go the more I find words are a real small part of talkin' to people," he sighs. Logan's chin slides heavily into the palm of his hand when Wes— no, Walt seems to hurriedly close himself off. It's easy not to like this guy. It's easy to look across the table and see someone who's done something with Wes and refused to give him back. And it's easy to knock that guy down a peg or two. But sometimes, the way his voices catches a little, makes it hard to see anyone but the man he came here looking for.
His posture softens from the shoulders down and he swirls the contents of his cup around before knocking it back like he's fantasizing it's something much stiffer. "What are your interests, Walt?" he asks. Which feels like a stupid question because he knows the answer to that. Or at least he should. And if Walter should say anything different it's going to take some amount of resolution not to tell him otherwise. "What are you hopin' to find in New York harbour?" Maybe some part of whatever makes Walter restless can already be found on this ship.
If his sense of worth is largely delusion, it's one that has been built on a lifetime of praise received from those who know him best. It's easy for a man to be goaded into believing he's a success when others have shown nothing but interest in making him so. If he felt as though he'd come by it dishonestly he might hold more blame, but from as far back as he can remember his life has been arced toward this one aim. This singular thing he has pursued relentlessly, through pain and procedure, through humiliations and lashings and being set apart. It has been hard-won for the man, and for that reason, he wants to believe it holds value. Walter's life has not prepared him to be told otherwise.
"It's a trip for research and learning. To share ideas and learn new approaches to the proper education of deaf students." He scarcely needs to say how much he has played his role in that research. What practices may have been used on him, and where the idea of his own successes could have first taken root. Walter relaxes just a hair and holds his own cup of coffee between his hands. His fingers curl awkwardly around it, not as dextrous as Wrench's, but almost pained to move too much.
"Seems most people are traveling with companions. I'm nearly through my books, and I haven't found as many card games in the lounges as I'd expected."
For the most part, Logan also knows there is no arguing a person out of their faith. More than not they're just likely to double down on whatever system of belief got them to where they are today. But there's an arrogance to Walt that doesn't fee like Wes at all. It doesn't much feel like someone interested in learning either. For that, it takes nearly all of Logan's patience to remind himself that everyone wants to believe they've made the right choices. Ironically perhaps, if not for Wes, Walt's might be been an easier point of view to concede.
As it is, it's not really Walt's choices that rub him wrong. What people choose to believe in out of desire or necessity have never meant a great deal to Logan. What he finds himself coming up against instead, no matter the people or the era, is such conviction to those beliefs that it eclipses empathy. That outsiders like himself. Like Kurt are no longer his allies.
Travelling without companions, he thinks. "Better that than the wrong kind of company I guess," Logan mutters. It's no longer a thing honed to a fine point, sharp enough to make someone bleed. Just a tired man scraping up the only crumbs of amusement he can find in the absurdity of this.
His brow raises lightly. Hopefully. "You like cards, Wally? What's your game?"
He sees the shape of the man's lips just before the downward arc of his chin pitches James' mouth out of view. Walter's response is a swift readjustment of his own posture. He slumps and tilts his head, seeking an understanding of that grumbled response that may not be for his benefit. "I'm sorry, I didn't..." he starts, then pauses as the air in his lungs runs out. Walter blinks as some realization seems to strike. He imagines the man proving his point, and the smug smile that he'll no doubt wear to be told so easily. Rather than finish the request for repeat, Walter folds his lips behind his teeth and sits back in his chair.
"Pharo, Trade and Barter, Euchre, Whist..." He can see he has the man's attention now. For all the ways he's tried to escape it thus far, Walter finds himself drawn back to the curious expression and the little bit of hope that the man might find a different sort of amusement than that of a cat batting a mouse between its paws before the kill. "I like to learn the new ones." The residential children always had the most interesting variants, and games of cards especially have always had a way of defying the need for conventional conversation. In Walter's life, they have been a way of being with people on even footing without feeling washed over by something he can't keep up with.
If Walt won't ask, Logan won't give. It feels like some steps backward from where he was with Wes. But if that's where they have to be for now, so be it.
A nod. "I'll always take up a little poker over anything else," he says. "But I can be talked into euchre or gin if I'm feeling lucky." He nudges the mug away from him with something more of an honest smile this time. Mischievous but not cruel. "I bet they play for some real stacks in the first class parlour, eh?" Of course, he knows how the upper class work. They may well be all considered gentlemen's games if the parlor isn't off limits to women and children.
"But I bet we manage to have more fun downstairs," he teases.
"Poker? I'm not as familiar, I'm afraid. No one to teach me." Walter admits with something like a sly smile. For a moment the man doesn't look as uncomfortable in his own skin. He doesn't seem to be holding anything back, or putting on the kinds of airs meant to assure himself and his present company that he has value, that he isn't misplaced to be sat in this area they currently occupy, or wearing the suit that his family name has largely granted him.
For that moment he's comfortable enough, even, to laugh at the thought of the rambunctious inhabitants of the Third Class sleepers, kept deep under the belly of the ship, and what they must get up to in their own spare time. "I suspect you might be right about that, Mr. Logan. It must be something to see."
"I picked it up in New Orleans. Bring a little coin or some valuables to buy into the game. You'll pick it up fast when you got something at stake." Behind his mischievous smile, Logan wonders what kind of effects Walter Shaw prizes and possess. Surely, some of Wes' things came along with him. Did this place simply change their meaning to the man across the table or has it actually stripped him of his valuables too?
His cup empty and his belly full of disappointment Logan pushes his chair back as if to take his leave. Invitation extended, he can only hope that a little time and exposure will inspire a moment of recognition. Or else perhaps a cold dip in the Atlantic.
"It's quite a crowd of misfits down there, Wally." He raps the table with his knuckles as he stands up. "I'm sure you'll fit right in."
"Bring?" As their conversation flows to topics of more interest for the tall man, it becomes easier to see the methods he employs to mitigate the conversation. Habits that pass him by perhaps without full recognition. The repeating of a critical word becomes more apparent. It is a way to keep him on track and to allow his compatriot to drag him back if he senses him straying. But this time Walter's expression shines with the same kind of delight he receives in kind. Perhaps not for the same reason, but the invitation is worth his consideration. It is a clandestine thing that he thinks he should know better than to accept, but something about this man -- James Logan, as it were -- begs his interest. Walter is all too glad to follow the thread of his own curiosity past the pit of loneliness he's felt since coming aboard. Since longer, even, than that.
He stands as the other ma does, a force of habit he seems to realize is misplaced a moment too late. Walter takes his seat back almost sheepishly, but nods. Clear confirmation, perhaps, that he hasn't fully understood the accusation lobbed his way, or the intent it was no doubt shaped from. "I'll be there."
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After all that I've been to you
Of course, it couldn't be that easy to find the rest of his would-be family. Whatever Kurt wasn't telling him about what this place has done with Wes said more than words could have. Still, he's determined to fill in the gaps Kurt's injured heart wouldn't.
There's an awful lot of crew on this ship. Many of which are downright sticklers about keeping passengers well within their station. But the promise of a few rounds of poker with the more wealthy patrons belongings, and a fist to jaw both go a long way towards loosening their regulations.
It's not until he reaches Cafe Parisien that the ring seems to hum with some scarcely measurable energy. While he doesn't have any money that he knows of he orders a coffee anyway and pulls out a chair across from a man of familiar looking stature. "Seat taken?" He asks. More interested to see the way the other man looks at him than making himself known too quickly.
no subject
Walter's own ring glints on his finger as he turns pages in his book. He found it at the bottom of his luggage and has assumed it was sneaked in by a family member. The compass etching meant to guide him on his voyage and then there beyond as he reaches the unfamiliar lands he's bound for. It's a gesture that comforts him and excites him at once, and so he keeps the little token close to his heart. He'd swear he could feel the warm energy emanating from it like a cocoon of safety. He reaches for his coffee without looking up from the page, but the movement of the chair disrupts his reading.
The man who stands before him doesn't look to belong to this space. At first Walter confuses him for a part of the crew, but even the pantrymen work better when on their shift. "Yes," he replies, though his expression stays confused. "I don't think you and I have business, sir."
no subject
Somethings about who the man is clearly haven't changed between Dearington and here. When Logan speaks out loud it's more for his own sake. As if thinking through the things he'd like to say for the things he knows how to make clear with his hands.
Rather than opting for any of that he makes an effort to repeat himself instead. Seat taken? He signs the words as he sits just in time for the server to place his coffee in front of him. Between the waiters timing and Logan's stubbornnessWes gets little chance to refuse his presence. at least not without making a bit of a scene. Something Logan is happy to let him do of course, though it's unlikely to disturb him from his cup of coffee.
He brings the stout and sturdy mug to his lips and almost immediately decides it's better than whatever they're serving in the lower dining hall.
"You don't recognize me either, eh?" he knows the answer but still he takes a moment with raised eyebrows to examine Wes once more. "S'ok. I'd be a hypocrite to hold that against you."
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Those pale green eyes don't seem to know where to land. The focus he gives to the stranger's mouth is a point of intensity, but every new movement of his hands distracts Walter. It's like a buzzing pest he can't swat from the air. The mere sight of the words put onto the man's fingers tugs at a part of him so deeply and naturally rooted that it seems reflex, even if it only serves to complicate the message. By the time the man finishes he feels like a child's doll pitched overboard and bobbing in the current of the vast and unforgiving sea. Walter closes his book and folds his hands atop the cover. Slender fingers twist and grip at one another as he seems to seek to make himself the perfect picture of stillness.
"Are you a relative of the Braidwood family?" he ventures. The name feels like a distant memory, a tug from an unclear past. Walter imagines the lot of them displaced by the new tide of deaf education. Bitter, perhaps, of the successes of him and others like him.
no subject
Skilled at watching without watching, he takes his time in settling himself. Unbuttoning the only button that holds together his jacket and stretching his legs out underneath the table to cross them at the ankles. Without much effort he makes himself look distinctly like a man of his station. A worker at rest and uninterested in whatever strife inhabits the man sitting across from him. Of which there is distinctly something. He can smell it on Wes just as soon as see it in his posture. He just doesn't know the source of that discomfort yet.
"Braidwood?" He cocks an eyebrow. "Don't know the name." And takes a sip.
"I'm Logan. James Logan." He waits a long beat just to study Wes' face for a glimpse of something remembered. Or catch the scent of something concocted. "Work for the Hudson family. You know any of them? Own a good bit of Rupert's Land."
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He can't say why a posture so open and relaxed seems so distinctly threatening. Only that it disrespects every modicum of social convention on which Walter's life has been poised. This man makes no apologies about taking up space he's not entitled to, before a man who has rebuffed him twice now. He exudes security and self-assurance that has either been won at a heavy price, or defies anyone's need to give it to him out of their own good graces. Walter finds himself staring more at the man's posture than his mouth, and the name slips past him.
"Okay. Rupert's... yes of course. I'm sorry, you think that I should recognize you? What's the nature of your work for the Hudsons?"
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"Well, we've met. So that'd be the polite thing," he says with something of a lazy smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. It's about as close as he imagines he's going to get to telling Wes how he really knows him. If the man doesn't smell like a word of a lie, Logan can't imagine what good it'll be to tell him they've spent the better part of a year keeping each other alive and warming one another's bed in some Sisyphean dream land. It'll either be too much for his head or just too much for polite company to abide. In his own experience things only shake loose in their own time. But prolonged exposure to the once familiar truth helps. As long as it comes in servings small enough to swallow.
"My work?" He shrugs, "you wouldn't to hear it. Respectable gent like you."
no subject
"It must have been some time ago. I suppose you do look familiar now, yes. Of course." The lies are easily passed off in his voice, but his expression remains pinched around them. "It's good to have a friend aboard. Is coffee all you're having? I could have the rest put to my name."
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"Do I?" he smiles. It's the first whiff of a lie he's caught in this conversation and while it's nice to hear Wes say so, it's a hollow victory to know he's only responding to the threat of courtesy. "If you're in the giving mood, Mister Shaw. That's the name, isn't it? Shaw? What does your family do, anyhow?" He prods, eyes narrowed. Interested to see how much of this story he's been sold about himself.
cw: ableism
What interest he has in those details now remains a mystery, but Walter straightens his back and reaches for his coffee with a sniff. "Importation, of course," he remarks simply. He helps himself to the steadily-cooling beverage as if to say without words the statement should be enough on its own. That any finer details would surely be lost on a man who couldn't under the business side. Only the labor involved. But when he sets down his mug, Walter rolls his hand on his wrist.
"I don't know why you insist on continuing with those ridiculous gestures. I don't know how they do things in British North America, but we're more evolved here."
cw: ableism
He sips his coffee again. "You didn't talk this much when we first met," he says and waits to see how the implication there lands on the other man.
"Here? On the Atlantic? Or in the cafe?" he asks trying that same grin on when he meets Walter's eyes. "Sorry? This is a problem of evolution for you? You wanna walk that by me again, son?" He sets his cup down and beckons the would-be socialite a little closer with a tick of his fingers. "Please. Enlighten me some about why this embarrasses you so much."
cw: ableism, abuse
Some of that cool demeanor falters when pressed on his next point, and the distance with which Walter has held himself seems to lessen as he returns his critical stare to the southern hemisphere of the man's face. He imagines this man growling his words past frozen lips. Walter squeezes at his fingers again. His hands have been made soft by a life not requiring the kind of hard physical labor others have known, but in the pale sunlight of an otherwise barren sea sky, scars glint in the spaces between his joints. The cross-hatching of lines barked across tender flesh, gently raised now and tending to take more redness as temperatures rise and the sun wears on.
"You embarrass yourself, not me. Those gestures you make are the basest form of communication. A toddler's tantrumed pointing. Long ago the deaf were thought no more capable than rising to such, I'll grant you that. But here, we prove you differently now. I can go anywhere and speak to anyone. I'd thank you to treat me as if you know it."
cw: ableism
Before he can be accused of any particular meaning he raises his cup and mocks a small toast. "Seems it. So tell me, why are the Shaw's shipping you away to the new world on your own?" he asks.
He chuckles at Walter's words and shakes his head. What the younger man professes doesn't seem to Logan any more than he might have been granted with his own language, but his Walter's determination in believing otherwise is palpable. "Anywhere and anyone. As long as they're English," he winks.
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He stares unblinkingly as the man goes on, feeling every ounce of the mocking he intends. The wink feels like a slap. A self-satisfied degradation of what he's risen to. What he has managed, with all the effort of his short life, to have accomplished. "Yes," he ventures through the hot blood rushing up his neck. "I suppose the nature of your work makes you transient. It must benefit a man of your position to know a little about how to talk to all different kinds of people."
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His posture softens from the shoulders down and he swirls the contents of his cup around before knocking it back like he's fantasizing it's something much stiffer. "What are your interests, Walt?" he asks. Which feels like a stupid question because he knows the answer to that. Or at least he should. And if Walter should say anything different it's going to take some amount of resolution not to tell him otherwise. "What are you hopin' to find in New York harbour?" Maybe some part of whatever makes Walter restless can already be found on this ship.
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"It's a trip for research and learning. To share ideas and learn new approaches to the proper education of deaf students." He scarcely needs to say how much he has played his role in that research. What practices may have been used on him, and where the idea of his own successes could have first taken root. Walter relaxes just a hair and holds his own cup of coffee between his hands. His fingers curl awkwardly around it, not as dextrous as Wrench's, but almost pained to move too much.
"Seems most people are traveling with companions. I'm nearly through my books, and I haven't found as many card games in the lounges as I'd expected."
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As it is, it's not really Walt's choices that rub him wrong. What people choose to believe in out of desire or necessity have never meant a great deal to Logan. What he finds himself coming up against instead, no matter the people or the era, is such conviction to those beliefs that it eclipses empathy. That outsiders like himself. Like Kurt are no longer his allies.
Travelling without companions, he thinks. "Better that than the wrong kind of company I guess," Logan mutters. It's no longer a thing honed to a fine point, sharp enough to make someone bleed. Just a tired man scraping up the only crumbs of amusement he can find in the absurdity of this.
His brow raises lightly. Hopefully. "You like cards, Wally? What's your game?"
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"Pharo, Trade and Barter, Euchre, Whist..." He can see he has the man's attention now. For all the ways he's tried to escape it thus far, Walter finds himself drawn back to the curious expression and the little bit of hope that the man might find a different sort of amusement than that of a cat batting a mouse between its paws before the kill. "I like to learn the new ones." The residential children always had the most interesting variants, and games of cards especially have always had a way of defying the need for conventional conversation. In Walter's life, they have been a way of being with people on even footing without feeling washed over by something he can't keep up with.
"Do you play?"
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A nod. "I'll always take up a little poker over anything else," he says. "But I can be talked into euchre or gin if I'm feeling lucky." He nudges the mug away from him with something more of an honest smile this time. Mischievous but not cruel. "I bet they play for some real stacks in the first class parlour, eh?" Of course, he knows how the upper class work. They may well be all considered gentlemen's games if the parlor isn't off limits to women and children.
"But I bet we manage to have more fun downstairs," he teases.
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For that moment he's comfortable enough, even, to laugh at the thought of the rambunctious inhabitants of the Third Class sleepers, kept deep under the belly of the ship, and what they must get up to in their own spare time. "I suspect you might be right about that, Mr. Logan. It must be something to see."
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His cup empty and his belly full of disappointment Logan pushes his chair back as if to take his leave. Invitation extended, he can only hope that a little time and exposure will inspire a moment of recognition. Or else perhaps a cold dip in the Atlantic.
"It's quite a crowd of misfits down there, Wally." He raps the table with his knuckles as he stands up. "I'm sure you'll fit right in."
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He stands as the other ma does, a force of habit he seems to realize is misplaced a moment too late. Walter takes his seat back almost sheepishly, but nods. Clear confirmation, perhaps, that he hasn't fully understood the accusation lobbed his way, or the intent it was no doubt shaped from. "I'll be there."