young Cal Chandler / "The Fix" (AU) / Bar

[mm_catslash]

There's a seventeen year old boy in a chair near the fire, curled up as best as a tall frame he still hasn't quite finished growing into will allow. He has a Coke, in one of the old-fashioned glass bottles, and he's running his fingers idly over the shape of the glass as he watches the fish swim through the flames

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[for_a_chance]

Cam would, normally, not go anywhere near the fireplace.

However, Cal...got things. And though she'd really not rather admit it, she's lonely, and that was kinda...nice.

Still, the Hispanic girl is hovering, torn between fire of fear and the wanting of company.

[isaysimplewords]

Cal has something out a sixth sense for being watched.

That, and Cam is just inside his peripheral vision. He looks up from the fire and smiles a little.

"Hi."

[for_a_chance]

Her solution for not being obvious in either direction of interest is, apparently, to study the floor.

Still, she lifts up her hand and waves.

"Hello."

[isaysimplewords]

Cal tilts his head a little.

"You okay?"

Cam doesn't really strike him as the tentative, avoidant type. Not that he could put quite those words to it, but he notices it all the same.

[for_a_chance]

"I, uh. Don't like fire." She gestures.

[isaysimplewords]

"Oh." Cal glances over at the fireplace, then shrugs and gets up. He doesn't really care where he sits (even if it's safe and cozy there), and crazy as the fish are, they're really only interesting for so long.

So he goes over to where Cam is, saying,

"How've you been?"

(The not asking why about the fire? Not tact. Instinct.)

[for_a_chance]

She is all kinds of grateful for the moving away, even to the point of making them walk to another table.

"...Bueno. Fine." Oddly enough, 'fine' here really does translate as 'fine'. "You?"

[isaysimplewords]

"Better," Cal says. It's been a few days, for him, and he's starting to calm down. He still doesn't want to go home, still doesn't want to think, but the underlying sense of panic just under the surface, waiting to be tapped into, is mostly past.

[for_a_chance]

"'Course. Shooting things always helps."

Except when it doesn't, but she's ignoring that.

[isaysimplewords]

Cal grins.

"That definitely helped," he says. He's thought about asking Bar for one of his own to practice with, but he's not sure she'd go for that. Providing ammo is one thing, but a whole gun is something else altogether.

[for_a_chance]

She grins back, entirely without meaning to.

[isaysimplewords]

Which makes her look about six hundred percent happier than she did ten seconds ago, which helps to augment Cal's own brightening mood.

"So how long's it been?" he asks.

[for_a_chance]

"A-" She thinks. "A month?"

From the way she is glancing at him, she's more checking the word than the time period.

[isaysimplewords]

"Four weeks?" he asks with a nod. "Yeah. It's been a few days here. Still Bound." Still okay with it.

[for_a_chance]

"And Medellin's still loco, so it's...the same."

[isaysimplewords]

"Maybe you should hang out here for a while," Cal suggests. "It'll still be the same when you go back."

Which is weird to think about now that he's been Bound for a little while. It's different when it's only hours that have passed, but days?

Well. At least he won't have to worry about forgetting what he and Dad were talking about when he left.

Not that he's going back.