Cal smiles. She's pretty, in a not-his-type-but-he-still-has-eyes kind of way.
"Sure," he says, "have a seat." He starts gathering together the papers and various other scholastic props that he's managed to spread all over his table.
Ava does not trust people anymore, in even a vague capacity.
If there's one thing she's learned from Cold Oak, it's just how small a push you need to do something really dreadful.
Nevertheless, she comes to his table and sits-- easy, a little nervous, a little confused. She doesn't look like somebody used to watching her back and summoning demons.
"Hi, Cal," she says, eyes widening as she glances back and forth. Yeah, she saw that window. "Um ... Milliways means what, exactly? Because right now it seems like it might be 'I've just totally lost my mind.'"
Cal's the son of a politician. His mother and uncle managed his father's career, and so Cal grew up among people who put on false faces for a living. He prides himself on being able to spot fakery, and as a general rule he has reason to be proud.
The thing is, though, none of the people he's spent his life watching had to learn their techniques in a five-month crash course in staying alive. Cal knows one or two people here in Milliways who might see through Ava, but he himself hasn't got a chance.
So he says easily,
"It's the restaurant at the end of the universe. The Window's on a twenty-four hour loop - don't worry, it can't get inside. We're safe in here." From what's outside the Window, at any rate, but he's found that it's best to parcel the information out in bits. The bits by themselves sound crazy enough to most people without getting all lumped together.
Safe in here, she muses. There's a couple of words you don't hear every day.
This is a good placeholder thought while the rest of her brain works on: restaurant at the end of the universe.
"... How did I get here?" Ava fakes many things, but the bafflement in this question is not one of them. Azazel normally shows up within instants of any weird location-switching going down, and now he's nowhere to be seen or felt.
"It just sort of shows up," Cal explains. Or possibly non-explains. "Nobody really knows how. Once you find it, it can pretty much be behind any door, at any time. You get people from all different worlds and times here, too. I'm from 1979." He offers this last as an unexpected fact because it usually is; Cal finds that most Milliways denizens are from after his time, or well before it.
It just sort of shows up. Nobody really knows how.
(We all just showed up here and none of us knows how--)
"Okay," Ava says distantly, frowning as if working on a difficult math problem in her head, or remembering somebody's birthday.
Different worlds and times.
"You're from 1979?" she says. This is the most concrete, and in that sense the most helpful thing it feels like she's heard. "Do you drive a DeLorean?"
It's possible Cal has run into this reference in Milliways before, but if he has, it didn't stick with him.
"No," he says, "I've never heard of one." He says it in that politely confused way where you don't really know what the other person just said, but figure it'll all make sense in a minute.
"Yeah, I get that a lot," he says. "I do know about some future stuff, though. A lot of people are from the next century." He's guessing Ava is, partly from her clothes - to someone from the tail end of the seventies, all early 2000s fashion looks pretty much alike - and partly because the odds are just in favor of it.
He taps the pile of papers in front of him, the top one covered with messy scribbles of numbers and symbols, and says,
"I can't wait for laptops."
He wouldn't turn down a graphing calculator right now, either, if he'd ever heard of them.
So far, Cal has gotten lucky and managed to avoid greeting anyone who's been Bound on their very first visit. The way she phrases her question makes him hope that he hasn't broken that streak.
Though on the other hand, that would be preferable to her having died without knowing it.
"Can you still see the door you came in through?" he asks, a shade cautiously.
When Cal glances over, of course, he sees his own Door, but it's still the right direction, so he nods.
"Yeah," he says. "Sometimes it disappears for a while, it's called being Bound. I was for a few months when I was seventeen." And stayed a month or two more after his Door reappeared. "That's kind of on the long side for people getting Bound, though. And there's rooms you can rent and a lot of stuff you can do, it's not just a restaurant here. It's not as bad as it probably sounds."
Most people act like being Bound is the worst possible thing that can happen, but for Cal it was a sanity saver. His seventeenth year would have been a lot harder without it.
(It also means that he's technically twenty-one, but he rarely bothers trying to explain this to anyone.)
Getting kidnapped to a strange location with supernatural properties doesn't really compute as a bad for her anymore.
"No, no," she agrees, in a tone of continued bafflement but simultaneous politeness, "it doesn't sound bad! Um. But what if you show up here without your wallet?"
It is currently doubling as a welcome distraction from the math homework that's kicking Cal's ass.
"Hi," he says, leaning back in his chair to look at the new girl. "You look lost."
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Ava makes the tactical decision to appear somewhat helpless (but not too panicked: this guy isn't) without a single flicker in her expression.
After all, she's done it before.
"Uhhh ... a little bit." What is going on, anyway? Ava makes her mouth smile sheepishly. "What-- um? Help a girl out?"
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"Sure," he says, "have a seat." He starts gathering together the papers and various other scholastic props that he's managed to spread all over his table.
"I'm Cal," he says, "and this is Milliways."
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If there's one thing she's learned from Cold Oak, it's just how small a push you need to do something really dreadful.
Nevertheless, she comes to his table and sits-- easy, a little nervous, a little confused. She doesn't look like somebody used to watching her back and summoning demons.
"Hi, Cal," she says, eyes widening as she glances back and forth. Yeah, she saw that window. "Um ... Milliways means what, exactly? Because right now it seems like it might be 'I've just totally lost my mind.'"
Maybe she'll have to kill him, too.
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The thing is, though, none of the people he's spent his life watching had to learn their techniques in a five-month crash course in staying alive. Cal knows one or two people here in Milliways who might see through Ava, but he himself hasn't got a chance.
So he says easily,
"It's the restaurant at the end of the universe. The Window's on a twenty-four hour loop - don't worry, it can't get inside. We're safe in here." From what's outside the Window, at any rate, but he's found that it's best to parcel the information out in bits. The bits by themselves sound crazy enough to most people without getting all lumped together.
Reply
This is a good placeholder thought while the rest of her brain works on: restaurant at the end of the universe.
"... How did I get here?" Ava fakes many things, but the bafflement in this question is not one of them. Azazel normally shows up within instants of any weird location-switching going down, and now he's nowhere to be seen or felt.
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(We all just showed up here and none of us knows how--)
"Okay," Ava says distantly, frowning as if working on a difficult math problem in her head, or remembering somebody's birthday.
Different worlds and times.
"You're from 1979?" she says. This is the most concrete, and in that sense the most helpful thing it feels like she's heard. "Do you drive a DeLorean?"
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"No," he says, "I've never heard of one." He says it in that politely confused way where you don't really know what the other person just said, but figure it'll all make sense in a minute.
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Screw murdered fiances and demonic battle royales; this is officially the weirdest thing that has ever happened to her.
"If you're from 1979, you ... wouldn't."
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"Yeah, I get that a lot," he says. "I do know about some future stuff, though. A lot of people are from the next century." He's guessing Ava is, partly from her clothes - to someone from the tail end of the seventies, all early 2000s fashion looks pretty much alike - and partly because the odds are just in favor of it.
He taps the pile of papers in front of him, the top one covered with messy scribbles of numbers and symbols, and says,
"I can't wait for laptops."
He wouldn't turn down a graphing calculator right now, either, if he'd ever heard of them.
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"Laptops are pretty handy," Ava agrees, nodding because Cal is nodding and because for him, this is apparently some shade of a perfectly normal day.
A beat.
"How do I get home from here?"
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Though on the other hand, that would be preferable to her having died without knowing it.
"Can you still see the door you came in through?" he asks, a shade cautiously.
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She's turning her head as she says this, and does in fact catch sight of a door. She pauses mid-word, and points.
"That one?"
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"Yeah," he says. "Sometimes it disappears for a while, it's called being Bound. I was for a few months when I was seventeen." And stayed a month or two more after his Door reappeared. "That's kind of on the long side for people getting Bound, though. And there's rooms you can rent and a lot of stuff you can do, it's not just a restaurant here. It's not as bad as it probably sounds."
Most people act like being Bound is the worst possible thing that can happen, but for Cal it was a sanity saver. His seventeenth year would have been a lot harder without it.
(It also means that he's technically twenty-one, but he rarely bothers trying to explain this to anyone.)
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Getting kidnapped to a strange location with supernatural properties doesn't really compute as a bad for her anymore.
"No, no," she agrees, in a tone of continued bafflement but simultaneous politeness, "it doesn't sound bad! Um. But what if you show up here without your wallet?"
(Like she did, for instance.)
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