What Babe?

Alex hadn’t been especially surprised to find that Artemis’s partner was a skutter, for two reasons. The first being that… Artemis seemed like the kind of person who’d marry a skutter.
The second being that – in some ways - he understood. After a particularly steamy night on Zecklamon 7, Solvay had gone through a period of wondering if he was robosexual, himself.

As they hurried along, Solvay found himself keeping stride with Jay and his scientist ‘bride’. He slid his eyes Art-ward.
“Uh… I thought you just found the virus, while stoned, with Kong” he mumbled. Artie nodded.
“… But you’re in fact very ‘puter proficient, am I wrong?”
“Uh…”
“Hmm. Mmm.”
Alex wondered if there was more to Artie than met the eye - he scanned the wild-looking man’s wobbly spaghetti legs – and there was rather a lot of that already.
“Tell us more if you can, mysterious man…”
Artie chuckled. “Well, I must say Lanky Locks…” (At the nickname, Alex self-consciously tucked one side of his hair behind an ear, hoping it didn’t look too lank or greasy, and pleased to have his hat – could you sweat in AR?)
“… You were paying even less attention in the refectory meeting than I’d realised.”
“Didn’t know all your skills” a shrug “I blame the pills…” he replied, deep in thought, not consciously realising what he was saying.

Jay shot him a warning glare, as if to say What did I tell you, Solvay?
Alex double-took. “Holy cow” he humphed, taking exception “I’m not high now.”
It was true, bar some virtual-alcohol (which he’d mainly raged around the room during his Dragon’s Breath attack) he was currently completely substance free. He wondered what effect this was having on his body in the real world.
He didn’t want to think about it.

He didn’t particularly want to think about the other thing which was nagging at him, either. He’d kissed a boy, and he’d liked i-it.
Confusing day. Oh Gods, am I gay? He sighed. Kissing a guy must have still been on his mind, after the time in… Desertland… whatever it was called. Twalexworld. The ‘angels’ must’ve picked up on it.

Weird game to play. Seriously, though, am I gay?

Alex’s brother was gay, and he found it as normal as anything. But he hadn’t ever thought of himself as being gay. Oh, sure, he’d tried a few things in his time… If previously alcohol and drug-fuelled memory served correctly… He seemed to remember a few of his clients were into watching two guys messing around…
But he’d never actively thought off his own back. “Oh… I know… I think I’d like to go and snog a guy now.”

In fact, an arrogant little aspect of Solvay’s psyche kinda liked to think of himself as being an uber-heterosexual. So it was quite a clashing and disrupting thought to discover that he might find other guys attractive. It was a difficult thing for him to consider. How would it affect his image? Solvay snorted to himself… As if he had an ‘image’ to uphold with the other Dwarfers. They probably didn’t care if he shagged women, robots, men, sheep or watermelons. Or all five at once.
He found himself smirking at the thought.
Well, okay, his self-image, then.

He berated himself for the thought. Why would it, should it, affect how he felt about himself? Perhaps he was more backwards-thinking than he realised. And not only in the chivalrous cowboy way in which he was sometimes a little old fashioned.
C’mon, get it together, it was three million years in the future. Anything went, right?

Hoping no-one else was looking, he did a little experiment. He dropped back to subtly examine the guys, from behind, to see if he found them attractive.
Jamie got that thing where you feel someone looking at you, and turned to see Alex apparently attempting to check out his green velvet clad butt. “What!?”
Alex coughed in a rather shifty over the top manner. “Oh uh, well, you see…”
Jamie raised an eyebrow at the verbal stumbling. “M’yes?”
“… Thought I saw a bee…” the jester finished quickly and began talking nonsense to Plisken, so Jamie would stop questioning him and looking at him. He could feel his cheeks beginning to glow.
He hated that in certain embarrassing situations he sometimes had a tendency to colour. It made him feel like a little kid or something. Not very macho, perhaps. But then, to be fair, he was currently wearing tights and checking out other guy’s butts.
“Funny old game, Mr P” He turned to better look at Plisken, who was again adjusting his bosom. That just confused Alex further.
“Just sorting meself out, lad.” He muttered.
“… Oh… I see.” Alex rasped, finishing the rhyme, and certain he didn’t find Plisken attractive, but also certain that he was rather fond of boobs.

He heard Jade chuckling further up front, well that was a good thing. Then he realised she was calling to him. “Alex,” she enquired “… were you checking out Jamie’s bottom?” Eastlick had obviously said something. Buh. Still, least it’d cheered her up.
“Pfft no, don’t be silly.” Solvay realised he may’ve rhymed himself into a worrying corner, but thankfully managed to come up with “… is anyone else chilly?”

He pulled an aghast expression as he noticed that Plisken was indeed chilly.
“Pardon me… Gotta flee.”

Leaving Plisken shrugging, he sped along to walk next to Jacky instead. He looked down at the goggle-fond scientist. Did he find him attractive?
“What you staring at?” The lad asked him.
Well… If he did find him attractive, he’d never notice it behind that kind of attitude. Huh.
“Nuthin’, y’moody muffin’.”
“You can talk you miserable old git.”
Alex coughed. That was bold… Old!? Ah that’s right, Jacky was practically a foetus. That was a good point, actually, it might be a bit pervy if he did fancy him. He squinted. Lucky he didn’t then. Mind you, he had tried to seduce his similarly-aged girlfriend when nearly falling back into his old ways. Whoops. We-ell, it’s not like she wasn’t legal...
Hey, and she was a girl. There you go… Of course he wasn’t gay. He liked girls.

Perhaps you’re bisexual Tregard’s voice gently mused, invading his head. Or pansexual.
“Pansexual? Don’t you dare…” Solvay grumped aloud “Ain’t attracted to kitchen-ware.”
He jabbed the wall irritably with his jester-stick. “And what have I said? Stay the smeg out my head.”
Just trying to assist the lesser-endowed. Tregard sighed dramatically, as if assisting poor travellers was such a tiring, but necessary chore, and he was so kindly for doing so.
Alex was angry at being referred to as ‘lesser endowed’. “What the fuck, man?” He grumpily and self-protectively ‘adjusted himself’ “Explain that, if you can.”
Not that. I was talking brain cells, child.
Alex didn’t know which tease/suggestion to be more annoyed about, actually yes he did. But they were all irritating, and in the end he decided he was just generally pissed off that Tregard was inside his head and clearly trying to wind him up.
“Look I don’t care what you say, just fricken’ go away.”
Jaxx coughed politely. “Alex, dude, you do realise you’re having half a real weird conversation aloud, right?”

Too tired to rhyme for the time being, Alex just shrugged. Why couldn’t Tregard have removed his stupid need-to-rhyme, as well as his powers?

Hmm. Jaxx. He tried running his eyes over the big guy's muscular form. After a moment’s consideration he decided that he didn’t think he found it attractive. He didn't feel the urge to 'do things' with him.
Anyway, he probably shouldn’t look him over, it was possibly even more pervy than examining Jacky, as while Jaxx appeared twenty-something, he was actually only officially ‘born’ (relatively) recently. Possibly a bit dodgy, then.

The thought of relatively recently ‘born’ twenty-somethings made him think of Cass. He wondered what she was up to, if she was safe, if she was happy. If she was thinking about them at all.
If she was thinking about him, she was probably thinking what a loser he was, sure, but at least she’d be thinking about him. He wished he’d managed to keep her on board somehow.

“You know” he could hear Jay up front. “Katrina was probably just humouring you…”
Artemis laughed, good naturedly. “Well, it was a wonderful excuse to get to speak to the missus at any rate.”
‘… The Missus’. Despite the confusing thoughts swirling in his mind, Alex chuckled. He liked that.

The smile was wiped off his face as the “am I gay” thoughts returned – it wasn’t those which had erased the smile though, it was a particular memory which was jabbing at him that caused the concern. He was remembering the very uncomfortable shower he’d taken with Seymour. It was doubly confusing as they’d both had glowing erections at the time. His own causing an embarrassing tent in combination with his hospital gown.
But… It had most definitely not been a sexy shower. Had it? No…
He did a little squicking dance of disgust as he recalled it.

“Uh, Eve babe..?”
“Yes Jaxx?”
“I think the Alex dude has gone a bit peculiar…”

“THE CHAMBER OF BORIDIUM!” Jay yelled, reading an ornate door-plate, and making everyone jump. “Think this could be the right door, this time.”
“Good work, lad.” Plisken pushed through the others to go and inspect it, somehow managing to retain his air of cool, even in a dress.
“Let’s open it!” Artie was understandably excited.

In fact – Alex looked around at everyones flushed faces – they all seemed quite excited. Still, it was a nice feeling and he wasn’t gonna complain. It was suddenly like they were Rugrats on an adventure.

As Jay was still holding Artie in his arms, Alex and Jamie cautiously (though for some reason both breathlessly excitedly) opened the door. This time it didn’t open on its own, but needed quite some convincing.

As it finally shifted, they saw that the room inside was like the upside-down room in Labyrinth http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr0po1J5LA1qlem2bo1_500.jpg.
"The Escher room" Tregard's disembodied voice announced.

Staircases went this way and that. They were in the floor, in the walls, in the ceiling, as were archways and doors. When you lost awareness of the position of the original door, it was extremely disorientating. Which way was 'up', which way was 'down'...
But, in order to traverse the room, they were indeed going to have to lose track of where the original door was.

The excited feeling fizzled down to confusion as the rest of the Dwarfers stepped nervously into the room and the door sealed up behind them.

“You must traverse this splendid antechamber, in order to enter the Chamber of Boridium proper.” Tregard informed them. He was sitting upside-down on a staircase which hung above them, apparently from the ‘ceiling’.

“Which are Lefts, and which are Rights?” Solvay muttered in wonder. Then, remembering the film this room seemed to be taken from, he thought of Jareth the Goblin King, and added “At least I’m wearing tights…”

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<TAG Everyone/Anyone. So… We need to get across this very confusing room in order to enter the actual Chamber of Boridium itself…>