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

[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.

"Thanks," Cal says.

Next is a cup of coffee, hot and black (this Cal takes it with sugar only), before he even has to ask. Cal smiles and thanks the Bar again, picking up the mug, then turns to find a table.

. . . hello, random and weirdly familiar kid staring at him. He looks like - right. Huh.

Cal smiles politely. (The smile isn't as plastic as it would have been just two years ago, but the lengthy former career in politics is on full display nonetheless.)

"Hi."

[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."

[if_inconvenient]

Still softly, almost more to himself than to Cal: "Not yet forty but not far off. Quit smoking more than a year ago, or did you never start? I can't tell. What in God's name happened to you?"

[isaysimplewords]

Or maybe not. Okay, some people get really invested in the lives of celebrities, but those people all sort of have the same look in their eyes. This kid doesn't have that look. This kid knows him.

Or a version of him.

"Nanogenes," he says, even though he knows that explains nothing to most people, then, "I, uh. I think this is a doubles thing."

He sounds just a little disappointed.

[if_inconvenient]

"Of course it bloody is."

He's been staring at Cal's face for some time now, but this is the first time he has met Cal's eyes.

"Sorry," he says, a little shortly but nevertheless genuine. "Sherlock Holmes. On the other side of my door you are eighteen years old and my best friend."

[isaysimplewords]

. . . every once in a while Cal is reminded of the fact that no matter how used to Milliways he thinks he is, it will never stop being able to surprise him.

"Oh," he says after a few seconds. "That was gonna be my first guess, yeah."

Seriously, what?

[if_inconvenient]

He laughs.

"Merciful heavens, you are just the same."

[isaysimplewords]

The last time he saw that face, of course, it wasn't on Tina's television but here in Milliways, and it did in fact belong to a Sherlock Holmes.

A Holmes who was twice the age of this one, and definitely wearing the clothes of his time period. This young Holmes is wearing modern clothes. Which makes sense because he's friends with a young Cal, apparently, even though Cal was eighteen in the fucking seventies and really liked bellbottoms -

- Cal stops, because he can feel the Milliways headache start to come on, and his rule has long been that when that happens, he gives up and lets it go. Because: Milliways.

"Am I," he says, a little blankly, giving his mind an extra second or two to catch up.

[if_inconvenient]

"Perfectly." He flashes a grin. "And how is it that you recognize me? Since it is obviously not as Holmes to your Watson."

[isaysimplewords]

"There was another Holmes," Cal explains. Partially. He finds the actor thing to be a little dicey - it skews too close to the hey, you're fictional on my world conversation for his taste.

He had that one once. That was more than enough.

So instead he says,

"- I would be a terrible Watson."

[if_inconvenient]

"You keep saying that," he says fondly. "And yet."

[isaysimplewords]

There's something about that tone that reminds Cal of Sam Linnfer, and how he tends to respond when Cal puts himself down. He smiles to himself and sips his coffee. (It's raktajino, a Klingon brew. It doesn't look any different from Earth coffee, but the aroma is more potent.)

"You want a coffee or something?" If they're going to talk, they may as well do it comfortably.

[if_inconvenient]

"That would be lovely. What are you drinking? I don't recognize that variety."

[isaysimplewords]

Cal looks into his mug.

"Raktajino. It's Klingon coffee. Decaf."

He still feels slightly ridiculous telling people he drinks Klingon coffee, even though a lot of them don't actually get the Star Trek connection.

[if_inconvenient]

Snort. "No wonder I didn't recognize it. I do so love this place's little surprises." He approaches Bar and rests a hand on her surface. "Raktajino, then, if you please."

In the moment before it appears, he turns to Cal with another of his studying looks.