MM: price of fame

[isaysimplewords]

When Milliways pops up in the shelter today, Cal immediately forgoes cleaning off his shirt in favor of swapping it out for a fresh one.

He loves the shelter, but he hates when the animals puke on him.

Comments

[if_inconvenient]

Sherlock is not two steps in from the lake door when he catches sight of Cal and immediately freezes in his tracks. His face is hard to read, but 'blank shock' would not be too far off as a description.

[isaysimplewords]

(He's twenty-one years older, almost twenty-two, but his body was wiped clean of all scars and other marks about a year ago and he still looks almost brand new.

He doesn't smoke.)

Cal is entirely unselfconscious about changing his shirt right at the Bar. Cat vomit will do that to you. He moves to drop the soiled shirt on Bar, then pauses and reconsiders.

A napkin pops up: Good call.

Cal smiles, wryly self-deprecating. (Every Cal Chandler, no matter what the world or the circumstances, has that smile in his arsenal.) He rolls the shirt up carefully, concealing the vomit in the center, and then puts the shirt down.

(All his clothing is of good quality, tailored to fit, and sprinkled generously with animal hair. Most of it is from the same tawny-colored dog.)

Better, the next napkin says. It's even accompanied by a wet washcloth, which Cal uses to clean up before buttoning the new shirt. The old shirt vanishes

[if_inconvenient]

"Cal Chandler," he says very quietly.

[isaysimplewords]

Cal is not unaccustomed to being recognized by people he doesn't know; it was a fixture of life for him once, before he died, and he still enjoys the anonymity of his new world.

There are a lot of reasons why a person might recognize you in Milliways, of course, and he should probably just be glad he doesn't have to explain to yet another person that he's not Jack Harkness. But he does know that face - back home, it belonged to an actor Tina liked, one who died the night before they did and whose name Cal has never been able to recall - and that throws him off a little and makes him wonder, for the first time in months, if maybe he's finally run into someone from his old world.

"That's me."