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L | Pride Room | strider

It wasn’t surprising that Orpheus didn’t know the flags. L still thought there was a chance they were from the same world, just different times. In which case, one one had decided to make flags in Orpheus’ time, yet. He wandered in front of them for a long moment, and stopped near one, hand reaching to touch it. It felt...like every other flag, he expected, except probably not as sturdy.
He hummed a response, nodding. “It’s not like that in my world,” he said thoughtfully. “They might be expensive still, however. Not a fortune, but this many...it would probably be a significant amount.”
He looked at the flag he’d stopped near. Then glanced at Orpheus.
“They might be interested,” he replied, thoughtful. “I don’t know. They’d know what they meant, probably.”
He shifted again. He wasn’t used to talking about this. Not much, anyway. Most people were good about it, and the rest didn’t know how to contact him.

L | Pride Room | strider

L hesitated, but even if he’d wanted to pretend they didn’t mean anything, he couldn’t have anymore. He already said they meant something, and it would be very clear that he was lying if tried it now. He also felt a sort of revulsion towards the idea of lying to Orpheus...it was like lying to Watari. Which, admittedly, he’d tried to do many times in the past, but not since he was fourteen and tired of being immediately discovered. He’d gotten incredibly good at lying in the meantime, though. How Watari always knew was a complete mystery to this day.
The point was, he didn’t want to lie. And he couldn’t quite picture Orpheus reacting badly...no, he couldn’t picture that at all. Besides, there was telling him whaf the flags meant, and then there was telling him why he’d instinctively gravitated towards the blue, pink, white, pink, blue one.
“Yes, they mean something,” he said simply, glancing at the fabric between his fingers. “Not dangerous. Some of them...relate to who a person is romantically attracted to. Or, more specifically, the gender of who they’re attracted to. Different people are romantically attracted to different genders.”
He considered giving himself as an example, but since he’d never fallen in love, it felt like a poor one.

L | Pride Room | strider

L blinked. He hadn’t been completely sure what to expect, but...Orpheus seemed already aware. Which shouldn’t really have surprised him, and still managed to.
“Yes,” he agreed, voice still slightly puzzled, as if he was trying to find the catch, “I mean...I can’t exactly relate to that very well. I’ve never even had a crush.”
He glanced at the flag again, and let go of it. Then he turned and looked at the cookies in the middle of the room, eyes narrowing slightly. If he’d thought explaining LGBT people would be difficult, how could he begin to cover homophobia? One made sense. The other did not.
“Some people don’t see it that way,” he said finally, glancing at Orpheus again. “A significant amount of them, actually. An unfortunate amount of older people, who often get the last word...except for me, obviously, I’m not old and people have no choice but to listen to me because I’m nearly always right. Which is neither here nor there.”
He took a step towards the table and stopped. This was harder to do when he was aware he was not doing what the House had mostly intended for him to do. Not yet.

L | Pride Room | strider

L blinked again, tilting his head in a slightly birdlike way at that as he watched Orpheus. He was trying to decide whether he had a current crush that made him speak that way, or whether it was merely last crushes. Of course, it wasn’t any of his business really, and he wasn’t going to pry, but he could wonder, couldn’t he?
He had a good memory, at times. Other times, he had a terrible memory, like when it came to time and himself. He could remember every detail of a case from three years ago and he still didn’t know when his birthday was.
He was discovering a third category of things he could remember: friend facts and general friend information. Since Orpheus was his best friend, he thought it made sense that this category had been unlocked by him.
The post was that he could remember who Orpheus had been speaking of when he’d started blushing a couple of blinks ago.
His curiosity about Eurydice increased.
“That is one way to put it,” he confirmed, bringing his thoughts back to the room. “There are people who don’t think the other kinds exist at all. There are people who think they exist, but they’re wrong, somehow. Those are the most troublesome...they fight the hardest to stop it.”
He shook his head slightly. Ironic, that those people would not want him to settle down with someone who could get pregnant. His existence was a problem. He had been a problem for most of his life, and he didn’t mind continuing to be one.

Orpheus didn’t know that L had managed to connect the dots about Eurydice, but he wouldn’t have minded if he did. His feelings for Eurydice were new. They were only just beginning to blossom, and only time would tell if they would survive the heat of getting to know her better. As it was, however, he liked her. He wanted to see her again. When she smiled, he sort of wanted to kiss her. But Orpheus was a little bit in love with everyone he met, so he didn’t know if the feeling would grow or peter out eventually. He found he hoped it was going to grow. He didn’t mention that to L; he didn’t think it was relevant.
His thoughts quickly left Eurydice as he processed the rest of what L was telling him. It was… not what he had expected. He knew that if he and L were from the same world, the only thing that separated them was time. He didn’t like the idea that society had slid so much in the years between his life and L’s.
“How can they not think other sorts exist?” Orpheus asked, brow furrowing. “Surely they know people who like people beyond those they can have children with…? Your world always seemed bigger than mine. How could someone deny the existence of something standing right in front of them?” There was a note of indignation in Orpheus’ tone. If he ahd his way, he would go talk to them, but he didn’t really have access.
“Wrong,” Orpheus echoed, looking up at L. His brow creased and he shook his head a little bit. “But… why should anybody have a say in that except for the person whose feelings are in question?”

Orpheus frowned, liking what he was hearing less and less as L went on. In Orpheus’ mind, L already had enough to deal with in his world without worrying about people not believing that the way people loved others existed. He had too much to deal with without having to face adults not trusting their children to know who they cared about. It seemed ridiculous, in Orpheus’ mind, but that was possibly because he had grown up with Hermes. Perhaps it was because he had a good role model, a man who had loved many.
“You’ve experienced it,” Orpheus murmured quietly, and it wasn’t a question. There was more than a little bit of horror in his tone as he shook his head. It was nothing short of awful, in his eyes, that L had been through something like that. At least he knew it wasn’t at the hands of Watari. L said he trusted Watari, and he said trust could be broken by lies like that. “I’m sorry,” he added after a moment, giving a small shake of his head. “Whatever happened… you deserve better. You deserve a world that won’t make those judgement calls and won’t tell those lies.” He couldn’t imagine being a child and being told that who he cared about was wrong. Indignation boiled up in his stomach, but he pushed it down. No use getting frustrated, there was nothing he could do about it here.
“Illegal?” Orpheus asked, eyes widening in shock. “That’s… that’s awful, I don’t…” he breathed out, shaking his head. None of that sentence made sense to him in the slightest. “Opposite gender…” his brow furrowed as he said it, the words tasting bad in his mouth. “Do people in your world believe that male is the opposite of female?”

“I still don’t understand,” Orpheus admitted, giving a slight shake of his head. “Why would it be illegal if nobody is hurt? In my world, there are some relationships that are illegal, but only the ones where someone is put in a dangerous position, or where they’re hurt by the other. But why would it be illegal for two people that are interested in each other to love each other?” He looked at the flags, shaking his head a little bit. “They’re a sign of triumph, then,” he murmured, looking at them in a new light. “They’re a reminder that the people who carry them are still there… that they won’t be pushed down…” a small smile slipped across his face, even as his brow furrowed. There should have been no need for a display like that, if the world was run fairly, but if there had to be a display… he was proud that it was something like this. Something bright and colorful and completely unapologetic.
“So each flag has a different meaning,” he mused softly, wondering which meant which. He was imagining the meanings somewhat incorrectly in his head, but he was looking forward to the possibility of L telling him later, if he wanted to.
The flags were all but forgotten momentarily as L moved towards the boxes. He didn’t understand the colors, though he did notice they matched up almost perfectly with the fabric that L had been touching earlier. It could have been coincidence, but Orpheus found he doubted it.
“That’s foolish,” Orpheus said, not bothering to soften the weight of the words. “I know my gods don’t rule over your world, but believing that is… well, incredibly disrespectful to them. It’s hard to believe it’s a common belief in your time.” He didn’t sound too pleased about it.

“I don’t think I like this aspect of your world very much,” Orpheus admitted with a small shake of his head. “I hope that those long-term solutions go into place. And I hope they work, so… so people feel safer about the people they care about. They deserve to feel safer. No… they deserve to feel entirely safe.” He looked up at L, wondering distantly what had happened between his time and L’s that had caused such a distinct shift in people’s opinions. It didn’t make any sense to him that things had gotten worse instead of better. He shook his head of the thought, deciding that comparing the two was just going to cause more pain than it was worth. The topic seemed to be shifting anyway, though L seemed nervous. Orpheus couldn’t quite tell why.
“There are a lot to know the meanings of,” he allowed, looking back and forth. If L didn’t know the meanings of all of them, Orpheus couldn’t help but wonder if there was anyone who did. He thought he’d like to meet that hypothetical person.
“As you said, gender is assigned at birth,” Orpheus murmured, shaking his head just a little bit at that. “It’s the same in my world. But… the gods have been known to notice when people don’t quite… fit. And in some cases, they help them out.”

Orpheus didn’t want to make L uncomfortable. He didn’t know if there was a specific purpose to the room, but he found he was grateful that the House had decided to bring them here. He wanted to learn more about the flags. He wanted to know which ones L felt drawn to… well, mostly he wanted to know the meaning of the blue, pink, white, pink, blue one. The one L had lightly grabbed onto. He didn’t know if that was any of his business, though, especially given the fact that L’s world seemed hostile towards people who felt at home with any of these symbols. Orpheus was very, very rarely angry. He felt angry now. Angry at the world for making L afraid to say whatever he was trying to say. Angry for every person who saw one of these flags and felt heard, and seen, who could wrap themselves in it like it was a blanket that they didn’t ever have to put down. He felt, for a moment, that he could tear the world apart with his bare hands.
As far as he was concerned, there was a little bit of godhood in every person who fell in love with someone their world didn’t expect them to. In every person who looked at themselves in the mirror and felt like the way the world saw them wasn’t how they saw themselves.
“We?” Orpheus prompted softly, noting the pronoun change. There was nothing judgmental in his voice, just a soft push to tell L that he was listening, if his friend wanted to go on.

Orpheus thought the flag was pretty, but he figured its aesthetic qualities were beside the point. He didn’t understand the blue and the pink. He didn’t know there were connotations for the two colors in L’s world, he just knew that they looked somewhat nice together. It was like the sky settling over a field of pink flowers. What it looked like, however, was less important than what it meant. It meant that there was a shield, an identity to hold up and fight for. It seemed like a form of protection and a target all at once, though Orpheus wasn’t familiar enough with L’s world to know which would win out. But L seemed attached to the flag. And if L was attached to it, then Orpheus wanted to know everything about it. It was more muted than most of the flags (he liked the one that was purple and grey and black – that seemed to be more L’s style), and in a way it seemed… softer. The bright pink, yellow, blue one almost hurt his eyes, for example.
The last thing Orpheus wanted to do was to push L to talk about things he didn’t want to talk about. He didn’t want to put L in a position where he had to share things that he didn’t want to. The House had already forced them closer than they would have ended up without it, and he didn’t want to get to know L because the House had forced it upon them. He wanted to get to know L because L felt comfortable sharing that part of himself with Orpheus.
“I think that’s wonderful,” Orpheus replied softly, a smile touching his lips. Humans helping humans. But he had a strong feeling that it wasn’t exactly what L had meant. There was an identifier there, one that was stronger than humanity. An identification with the people who humanity was helping, who had found a way to be happy even without godly magic to make it that much easier. He breathed out, shaking his head just a little bit.
“Those people are missing out, then,” Orpheus murmured, his voice so soft as to be nearly inaudible. “Because how you see yourself is a part of you, and if they don’t factor that in…” he shook his head, pushing the spark of anger down. L didn’t need anger right now. He needed friendship. “I don’t see what your ‘assigned’ gender has to do with anything,” he admitted after a long moment. “If it’s not how you see yourself, then it’s nobody else’s business. And it shouldn’t change how people in your world see you. It’s not as though it changes who you are.”

Orpheus watched L carefully, not daring to interrupt as long as his friend was speaking. This… well, it was important to L, so it was important to Orpheus, too, even if the House had forced it. Even if this wasn’t the House’s choice to make. The thing was… there was no ‘coming out’ in Orpheus’ world. The expectation may be that you marry someone and have kids with them, but the stories he heard were full of people who had lifelong partners of their same gender, people who had been given the chance to transition because of the gods, people who were existing and living these experiences, because there was nothing wrong with them. It may have been more ‘out of the ordinary’ than people who identified immediately with what society saw them as and who had no issue settling down to get married and raise kids, but Orpheus had never been taught to see anything else as a problem. Perhaps because Hermes had had his own slew of male lovers over the years. Orpheus had seen pictures, had spoken with some of them.
It wasn’t helpful that the world Orpheus had grown up in was very clearly different from the one L had.
“I wish I could speak with some of these people that are inclined to disbelieve,” he admitted softly, shaking his head just a little bit. “I wish I could make them see that they’re blinding themselves to something important. That their… stubbornness will just lead to them missing out on the presence of wonderful people in their life.” Perhaps it was an idealistic thought, but it was there. Some people needed to stay out of other people’s heads. They needed to respect what the people around them felt. Orpheus figured it couldn’t be too difficult to make them see that… right?
Orpheus’ gaze caught on the way L moved the cookie. Ah. The pink and blue, same as the flag. A pink cookie moved to a blue box. He thought he was beginning to get it, though color coding children felt… odd, to him.
“If the cookies are just here for a metaphor, it’s a rather limiting one,” Orpheus murmured softly, moving just close enough to take a blue cookie out of the box and consider it for a long moment. He let his gaze drift towards the table before he pulled a napkin from behind the box and set it between the two, very carefully setting the blue cookie down on top of it. “There.”

Orpheus couldn’t tell so much if it was his world as a whole that was different, or just the way the way he had grown up and the people he spent his time around. It was possible that the things he thought were perfectly normal were entirely unacceptable in other parts of Greece, but somehow… he doubted that. He didn’t want to believe that the place he called home was full of people who believed that people like him weren’t real. Or that he was wrong for feeling the way he did. He couldn’t imagine coming face to face with people who believed that every day of his life. It did, however, raise his opinion of L, though that was already astronomically high. If L came to his world… well, there was a lot Orpheus would want to show him. People he would want L to meet.
“I think that room might’ve been an outlier,” Orpheus admitted, awkwardly scratching at the back of his neck. “My music is usually more effective than that, but I suppose maybe some people just don’t like music very much. I… expected it to work much better than it did, in that situation.” His cheeks were pink, and he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that L wouldn’t have been exposed like he had been if Orpheus hadn’t tried to play music first. He didn’t really blame himself, but he did know that it was his action that had sparked the chain of events.
Orpheus shook the thought away, dusting some of the cookie crumbs off of his hands. He didn’t really want to fit in either box. He didn’t really want to be colored blue, either. It was a pretty color, but now that he knew what it represented… he felt much more like a purple.
“I don’t understand that,” Orpheus admitted, shaking his head. “What’s the point in color coding children and making them play a certain way? I mean… I suppose… in my world there’s a tradition that men become fighters and women are weavers and craftspeople, but even that’s not true all of the time. It seems… constricting,” he admitted, giving a slight shake of his head.
A tiny smile crossed his face as L broke the cookies in half, and he very gently took the remaining halves, pushing them together, too.

Orpheus watched L carefully, giving a tiny nod as he went on. “I would say that’s… accurate,” he admitted with a sigh. “I wanted to trust Hook even after he had hurt you, which was… not ideal. I just thought it was because I’m not used to distrusting people or believing the worst of them, but I suppose the House can influence that.” It was a relief to hear that Hook probably wasn’t quite so prone to violence all the time, but he still found he didn’t want to spend much time around him if he had a say in it. He would rather spend his blinks with L, who he trusted and liked, and knew wasn’t particularly violent unless he was acting in self-defense.
Orpheus didn’t have a lot of terms to describe his gender. It wasn’t something that he thought about that often. He knew the way he was perceived, and though some of the more gendered language annoyed him, he was more or less okay with people addressing him how they perceived him. He preferred it when people didn’t assume, and he always got a small thrill when people had to ask, but… he had a feeling his experience was much less… pressing than L’s.
“I’m glad to hear it’s getting better,” he admitted, hazel eyes lifting to meet dark. “It means that… even if it’s worse from my experience, that there’s progress going on. And there must be people pushing that progress… people who are trying their hardest and standing up against things that are unfair… I think I’d like to meet those people.” He watched L for another moment before another small smile perched on his lips. “I think I’ve already met one of those people, even if you’re fighting a much broader fight than this.”
Orpheus turned to look around, wanting to ask a little bit more about the flags when L’s voice centered his attention once again.
“Gender neutral pronouns?” Orpheus asked, brow raising a bit. “I think… there might be a difference in language, there. At least… in Greek… pronouns aren’t really gendered. Lots of other things are, but… not pronouns.”

L | Pride Room | strider

L nodded, unsurprised by the confession. “It’s difficult for me to be more paranoid than I already am, but that room managed it,” he told him. “The House can certainly influence that. There have been rooms in the past that affected people’s minds more than that.”
He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to spend any time around Hook, either. On the one hand, it was definitely dangerous. Hook knew how to hurt him now, and that made it very, very dangerous to be around him. He should want to put as much space between them as he could.
But he couldn’t control whether the House decided to put them in a room together, so he did consider what it would be like to talk to him. He’d try to figure him out. Try to understand him. As he did a criminal, or anyone else, really.
He couldn’t quite picture himself ever having this sort of conversation with him, though. He was intrigued, not trusting. And certainly not stupid.
He nodded a little. “It isn’t perfect. Far from it,” he admitted. “There are plenty of people who don’t see it that way. But it’s becoming less and less that way over time, and it’s possible that it will continue getting better.”
He wasn’t used to being optimistic...it didn’t come naturally to him at all. But he didn’t want to be pessimistic about this.
He hesitated, eyebrows raising a little as Orpheus continued. “Oh, that makes sense. Some languages are like that,” he mused. “Some gender everything, those are the real nuisance...but still. In a language that does gender pronouns, such as the one I’m speaking now, I do have that option. If it would help to know I’m not gendering you with my words.”