Sanctuary fic -- Abnormal
My Sanctuary muse has returned! This is for dbalthasar, of course.
James, Helen and Nigel friendship, set not too long after the 1910 sections of King and Country.
"It's a bad business," Nigel said, looking down at the nondescript young man lying in the coffin, his hands crossed peacefully on his breast. In death, he showed only his own original form, a man in his early twenties with a plain face, hair an unremarkable shade of light brown. There was no trace of his abnormality.
James sighed. "Yes," he said.
Nigel didn't lift his eyes. "Helen's taking it hard."
"Helen's furious," James said. He felt a small prickle of anger that Nigel worried about Helen, but of course he should because she was female and he wasn't. A man knows how to deal with the suicide of a protégé. Of course Helen was taking it hard. And of course James wasn't. James Watson would never allow something like this to affect his judgment or emotions.
Nigel produced a flask and handed it to him silently. The whisky was raw, but perfectly serviceable under the circumstances.
"Did he say why?" Nigel asked quietly.
James shook his head, the whisky still burning its way down his throat. "If you mean did he leave a note, no. But he'd said often enough what it was."
"An amazing gift," Nigel said, and James thought he almost sounded envious. "A true chameleon, with the ability to look like anyone, male or female, any race or color or age. Amazing."
"Danny hated it," James said shortly. "And he hated us."
Nigel's brows rose. "Hated you?"
James turned the flask round and round in his hands. "Not me so much personally. But the whole Sanctuary. The others. Helen."
Nigel looked baffled. "Did he say why?"
James met his eyes. "He said we were a bunch of freaks."
"Said the pot to the kettle."
"Well, yes. And that's the trouble. All he ever wanted was to be normal." James handed the flask back to Nigel and put his hands in his pocket. "An amazing gift, once per century, perhaps. And the whole world in front of him, all the resources of the Sanctuary, all the things he could do and see if he could be anyone, go anywhere, choose any identity he wanted in all the wide world…."
"And all the poor sod wanted was to be normal." Nigel shook his head, looking down at the body in the casket again. "To have his little run and know his place."
"He could have done that, you know," James said abruptly. His own voice sounded harsh. "A village somewhere, a little green grocer's shop. A nice girl who'd been in service as a ladies' maid. No one would ever know. But he'd know. And that's the rub. He'd know he wasn't just like his neighbors, even if they didn't. Even if he never shifted his shape one single more time in his life. He'd know he was an Abnormal."
"And presumably the wife would know," Nigel said. "So either she'd have to be deceived or she'd have to be the sort who wouldn't mind, and the sort who wouldn't mind wouldn't want to hide away in the back of beyond." He took a drink from the flask himself. "Can't think why anyone would want that. The lengths I've gone to make certain I'd never go there again…."
James snorted softly. "You took the Source Blood, Nigel."
"I was an Abnormal first."
James glanced at him sideways. "Not technically."
"Not medically, you mean," Nigel replied. "But don't you think I was an odd duck at home and at Oxford? Did you forget that part?" He passed the flask again companionably.
"He came to me for healing," James said. His voice sounded oddly blurred. "He wanted me to heal him. To help him."
"And of course you couldn't, old fellow." Nigel shook his head. "Because he wasn't sick. Sometimes I think Nikola's got it right. Who says we're the highest civilization the world has ever known? Who says our way of doing things is the pinnacle of human progress? If we could just make everyone in the world into Englishmen -- and I mean the women too -- there'd be no more difference and strife, because we'd all be the same."
"What, like lads in school?" James grimaced. "Believe me, Nigel. The top one half of one tenth of one percent of humans on Earth are a miserable lot. We might be better off all modeling ourselves on South Sea Islanders or Muscovites."
"Or ancient vampires?" Nigel asked with the quirk of an eyebrow.
"There's a place for them," James said. His voice was hard. "I've given my life to all the differences in their myriad forms, all the strange and wonderful things that most people will never see or understand or imagine."
"Most people don't want to," Nigel said. "And if they did, they'd say there was nothing of worth there. Just an ugly animal that needs to be shot, or a man who needs to become a proper Englishman. When you're on top, of course it's a given that everyone in the world envies you and secretly or not so secretly aspires to be just like you." He put the flask in James' hand. "Everyone except James Watson."
"Or Nigel Griffin."
Nigel shrugged. "I was never on top, mate. It looks different down below. There are plenty who want just that, to climb a little higher, to ape the manners of their betters, to make a little more money and call the front room the parlor. To marry a little more respectably, to send their kid to a slightly better school because all the lads at St. A's are perfect and happy. And then there are the ones who say what's so wrong with me now? Why should I haspirate my haches?"
"And what are those lads to do?" James said.
"Go to Australia, mostly." Nigel shook his head. "In a hundred years Australia will be a hell of a place, I should think, when they've all found their patch there and built better than they left. I wish I'd live to see it."
"You might," James said. He looked down at the coffin. "But he won't."
"He wouldn't like it," Nigel said. "Not if it's full of the likes of me. I'm thinking of taking myself off to Australia anyhow."
"We'd miss you, Nigel." Helen stood at the back of the room, her black dress leaving her face and hair pale against the darkness, golden hair piled on top of her head.
"Helen," James said. She didn’t look like she'd been crying.
Helen squared her shoulders. "We couldn't do anything for him, James. Not anything he'd like. Perhaps someday we'll be able to. Perhaps someday we'll be able to take away gifts, to simply cut out whatever makes someone Abnormal like cutting off a sixth finger."
"When that day comes, the only Abnormals left will be the ones who choose it," James said.
"And they will hate us all the more for it," Helen said with a grim smile.
"Ah, no. I doubt that," Nigel said. "Why would they care? It's nothing to them."
Helen's smile broadened, and it was not a nice smile at all. "That's not how people are. You'd think the worst thing a young woman at Oxford would face would be grumpy old men, but they're nothing on Mrs. Luddington."
"Who's Mrs. Luddington?" Nigel asked.
"There's always a Mrs. Luddington," Helen said. "She's a very respectable woman in a very respectable village. 'These young women today! I've never spoken to a man alone except Mr. Luddington, and then not until we were engaged! All these young women, talking to men and taking classes with men and debating philosophy with men….'"
James snorted. "And we know where that leads."
"To guard your precious innocence?" Nigel said.
"Precious ignorance," Helen snapped. "The opposite of innocence is experience, and experience is horrible! There's nothing worse you can say about a woman than that she's experienced. Better to make a virtue of ignorance, a point of pride to say that you've never spoken to a man except your fiancé."
Nigel looked confused. "If you'd never talked to him alone, how would you know you wanted to marry him? I'd not be marrying some girl who'd never talked to a fellow except me. How would I know it wasn't just that I was better than nothing?" He shook his head. "Surely I'd want to know I was the best of the lot, not just the first one on the spot!"
"Ah, but Mrs. Luddington doesn't think that way," Helen said. "She's proud that she's never considered any life but her own. It's a virtue that she can't imagine why anyone would want to be entirely different. After all, everything she has is the pinnacle of human experience! There's not a thing at Oxford or anywhere else that could possibly be worth considering!"
James' shoulders twitched. "So just ignore Mrs. Luddington."
Helen's face was drawn. "That's not possible when you're a woman, James. Mrs. Luddington has power. She's the one making the rules about how women are supposed to behave and what they're allowed to do. You may be able to ignore her, but I can't. Every single day of my life I have to dress a certain way and wear my hair a certain way and not seem too familiar with you in public and not go to pubs and wear gloves and not examine male patients alone. I can't forget Mrs. Luddington for one minute." Helen closed her eyes. "And she doesn't even realize how she is hurting me each and every day of my life. And if I told her, she wouldn't care. Because she wouldn’t see anything of value in the world she'd like to deny me."
Her voice grew hard. "And that's why Danny's dead. And that's why he won't be the last. Because he can't be normal and he can't stop believing that being normal is the only life that's worth anything, and the imitation of normalcy isn't enough."
Nigel handed her the flask.
Helen stared at it, as it was decidedly unladylike.
"Hang them all," Nigel said.
James put his hands in his pockets, a rude thing to do in the presence of the dead, to be sure. "Have you ever considered what makes one animal an Abnormal and another not?"
"You mean in terms of taxonomy?" Helen asked.
"I mean why is a nubbin an Abnormal and a platypus isn't?" James asked. Then he answered his own question. "Numbers. And that's all. There are lots of platypuses down under, so it's not abnormal to be a platypus in Australia. There are thousands of them. They're a perfectly normal native animal. But if ten platypuses lived in England, they'd be Abnormals."
Nigel grinned. "So you're saying that if we had a couple of hundred of Nikola, vampires wouldn't be Abnormals?"
"Yes," James said. "Or a few thousand of anything. If fifty thousand women went to Oxford, it would be normal. We'd all think so. The actual act wouldn't change, just our perception of it. My friends, there is no such thing as an Abnormal. There are just small populations. If you have three specimens, they're Abnormals. If you have thirty thousand, they're just animals. If you have ten women doing something, they're peculiar or mad. If you have a hundred thousand doing it, they're normal. It's all in our perception."
Helen looked keen. "But there are never going to be a hundred thousand of Danny. Some talents and differences are always going to be a small minority. Most women won't choose to be doctors, even if they could be. Most women wouldn't choose to be spinsters even if they didn't have to marry. There will never be hundreds of thousands of me. Or you. Or Nikola."
"Thank God," Nigel said.
"But we can expand our definitions," James said. "We can push the boundaries. And until such time as all Abnormals are safe, we can provide a haven."
Nigel nodded. "That we can." He looked down at the young man's body. "And try to keep this from happening again." He stretched his hand to Helen.
She took it and reached for James on the other side, the three of them linked before the coffin. "Sanctuary for all."
James, Helen and Nigel friendship, set not too long after the 1910 sections of King and Country.
"It's a bad business," Nigel said, looking down at the nondescript young man lying in the coffin, his hands crossed peacefully on his breast. In death, he showed only his own original form, a man in his early twenties with a plain face, hair an unremarkable shade of light brown. There was no trace of his abnormality.
James sighed. "Yes," he said.
Nigel didn't lift his eyes. "Helen's taking it hard."
"Helen's furious," James said. He felt a small prickle of anger that Nigel worried about Helen, but of course he should because she was female and he wasn't. A man knows how to deal with the suicide of a protégé. Of course Helen was taking it hard. And of course James wasn't. James Watson would never allow something like this to affect his judgment or emotions.
Nigel produced a flask and handed it to him silently. The whisky was raw, but perfectly serviceable under the circumstances.
"Did he say why?" Nigel asked quietly.
James shook his head, the whisky still burning its way down his throat. "If you mean did he leave a note, no. But he'd said often enough what it was."
"An amazing gift," Nigel said, and James thought he almost sounded envious. "A true chameleon, with the ability to look like anyone, male or female, any race or color or age. Amazing."
"Danny hated it," James said shortly. "And he hated us."
Nigel's brows rose. "Hated you?"
James turned the flask round and round in his hands. "Not me so much personally. But the whole Sanctuary. The others. Helen."
Nigel looked baffled. "Did he say why?"
James met his eyes. "He said we were a bunch of freaks."
"Said the pot to the kettle."
"Well, yes. And that's the trouble. All he ever wanted was to be normal." James handed the flask back to Nigel and put his hands in his pocket. "An amazing gift, once per century, perhaps. And the whole world in front of him, all the resources of the Sanctuary, all the things he could do and see if he could be anyone, go anywhere, choose any identity he wanted in all the wide world…."
"And all the poor sod wanted was to be normal." Nigel shook his head, looking down at the body in the casket again. "To have his little run and know his place."
"He could have done that, you know," James said abruptly. His own voice sounded harsh. "A village somewhere, a little green grocer's shop. A nice girl who'd been in service as a ladies' maid. No one would ever know. But he'd know. And that's the rub. He'd know he wasn't just like his neighbors, even if they didn't. Even if he never shifted his shape one single more time in his life. He'd know he was an Abnormal."
"And presumably the wife would know," Nigel said. "So either she'd have to be deceived or she'd have to be the sort who wouldn't mind, and the sort who wouldn't mind wouldn't want to hide away in the back of beyond." He took a drink from the flask himself. "Can't think why anyone would want that. The lengths I've gone to make certain I'd never go there again…."
James snorted softly. "You took the Source Blood, Nigel."
"I was an Abnormal first."
James glanced at him sideways. "Not technically."
"Not medically, you mean," Nigel replied. "But don't you think I was an odd duck at home and at Oxford? Did you forget that part?" He passed the flask again companionably.
"He came to me for healing," James said. His voice sounded oddly blurred. "He wanted me to heal him. To help him."
"And of course you couldn't, old fellow." Nigel shook his head. "Because he wasn't sick. Sometimes I think Nikola's got it right. Who says we're the highest civilization the world has ever known? Who says our way of doing things is the pinnacle of human progress? If we could just make everyone in the world into Englishmen -- and I mean the women too -- there'd be no more difference and strife, because we'd all be the same."
"What, like lads in school?" James grimaced. "Believe me, Nigel. The top one half of one tenth of one percent of humans on Earth are a miserable lot. We might be better off all modeling ourselves on South Sea Islanders or Muscovites."
"Or ancient vampires?" Nigel asked with the quirk of an eyebrow.
"There's a place for them," James said. His voice was hard. "I've given my life to all the differences in their myriad forms, all the strange and wonderful things that most people will never see or understand or imagine."
"Most people don't want to," Nigel said. "And if they did, they'd say there was nothing of worth there. Just an ugly animal that needs to be shot, or a man who needs to become a proper Englishman. When you're on top, of course it's a given that everyone in the world envies you and secretly or not so secretly aspires to be just like you." He put the flask in James' hand. "Everyone except James Watson."
"Or Nigel Griffin."
Nigel shrugged. "I was never on top, mate. It looks different down below. There are plenty who want just that, to climb a little higher, to ape the manners of their betters, to make a little more money and call the front room the parlor. To marry a little more respectably, to send their kid to a slightly better school because all the lads at St. A's are perfect and happy. And then there are the ones who say what's so wrong with me now? Why should I haspirate my haches?"
"And what are those lads to do?" James said.
"Go to Australia, mostly." Nigel shook his head. "In a hundred years Australia will be a hell of a place, I should think, when they've all found their patch there and built better than they left. I wish I'd live to see it."
"You might," James said. He looked down at the coffin. "But he won't."
"He wouldn't like it," Nigel said. "Not if it's full of the likes of me. I'm thinking of taking myself off to Australia anyhow."
"We'd miss you, Nigel." Helen stood at the back of the room, her black dress leaving her face and hair pale against the darkness, golden hair piled on top of her head.
"Helen," James said. She didn’t look like she'd been crying.
Helen squared her shoulders. "We couldn't do anything for him, James. Not anything he'd like. Perhaps someday we'll be able to. Perhaps someday we'll be able to take away gifts, to simply cut out whatever makes someone Abnormal like cutting off a sixth finger."
"When that day comes, the only Abnormals left will be the ones who choose it," James said.
"And they will hate us all the more for it," Helen said with a grim smile.
"Ah, no. I doubt that," Nigel said. "Why would they care? It's nothing to them."
Helen's smile broadened, and it was not a nice smile at all. "That's not how people are. You'd think the worst thing a young woman at Oxford would face would be grumpy old men, but they're nothing on Mrs. Luddington."
"Who's Mrs. Luddington?" Nigel asked.
"There's always a Mrs. Luddington," Helen said. "She's a very respectable woman in a very respectable village. 'These young women today! I've never spoken to a man alone except Mr. Luddington, and then not until we were engaged! All these young women, talking to men and taking classes with men and debating philosophy with men….'"
James snorted. "And we know where that leads."
"To guard your precious innocence?" Nigel said.
"Precious ignorance," Helen snapped. "The opposite of innocence is experience, and experience is horrible! There's nothing worse you can say about a woman than that she's experienced. Better to make a virtue of ignorance, a point of pride to say that you've never spoken to a man except your fiancé."
Nigel looked confused. "If you'd never talked to him alone, how would you know you wanted to marry him? I'd not be marrying some girl who'd never talked to a fellow except me. How would I know it wasn't just that I was better than nothing?" He shook his head. "Surely I'd want to know I was the best of the lot, not just the first one on the spot!"
"Ah, but Mrs. Luddington doesn't think that way," Helen said. "She's proud that she's never considered any life but her own. It's a virtue that she can't imagine why anyone would want to be entirely different. After all, everything she has is the pinnacle of human experience! There's not a thing at Oxford or anywhere else that could possibly be worth considering!"
James' shoulders twitched. "So just ignore Mrs. Luddington."
Helen's face was drawn. "That's not possible when you're a woman, James. Mrs. Luddington has power. She's the one making the rules about how women are supposed to behave and what they're allowed to do. You may be able to ignore her, but I can't. Every single day of my life I have to dress a certain way and wear my hair a certain way and not seem too familiar with you in public and not go to pubs and wear gloves and not examine male patients alone. I can't forget Mrs. Luddington for one minute." Helen closed her eyes. "And she doesn't even realize how she is hurting me each and every day of my life. And if I told her, she wouldn't care. Because she wouldn’t see anything of value in the world she'd like to deny me."
Her voice grew hard. "And that's why Danny's dead. And that's why he won't be the last. Because he can't be normal and he can't stop believing that being normal is the only life that's worth anything, and the imitation of normalcy isn't enough."
Nigel handed her the flask.
Helen stared at it, as it was decidedly unladylike.
"Hang them all," Nigel said.
James put his hands in his pockets, a rude thing to do in the presence of the dead, to be sure. "Have you ever considered what makes one animal an Abnormal and another not?"
"You mean in terms of taxonomy?" Helen asked.
"I mean why is a nubbin an Abnormal and a platypus isn't?" James asked. Then he answered his own question. "Numbers. And that's all. There are lots of platypuses down under, so it's not abnormal to be a platypus in Australia. There are thousands of them. They're a perfectly normal native animal. But if ten platypuses lived in England, they'd be Abnormals."
Nigel grinned. "So you're saying that if we had a couple of hundred of Nikola, vampires wouldn't be Abnormals?"
"Yes," James said. "Or a few thousand of anything. If fifty thousand women went to Oxford, it would be normal. We'd all think so. The actual act wouldn't change, just our perception of it. My friends, there is no such thing as an Abnormal. There are just small populations. If you have three specimens, they're Abnormals. If you have thirty thousand, they're just animals. If you have ten women doing something, they're peculiar or mad. If you have a hundred thousand doing it, they're normal. It's all in our perception."
Helen looked keen. "But there are never going to be a hundred thousand of Danny. Some talents and differences are always going to be a small minority. Most women won't choose to be doctors, even if they could be. Most women wouldn't choose to be spinsters even if they didn't have to marry. There will never be hundreds of thousands of me. Or you. Or Nikola."
"Thank God," Nigel said.
"But we can expand our definitions," James said. "We can push the boundaries. And until such time as all Abnormals are safe, we can provide a haven."
Nigel nodded. "That we can." He looked down at the young man's body. "And try to keep this from happening again." He stretched his hand to Helen.
She took it and reached for James on the other side, the three of them linked before the coffin. "Sanctuary for all."