milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Lazy Lucifer, sitting on a barstool with supper and a piratical purring kitten curled cutely on his shoulder.

Okay, quitting the awesomely awful alliteration now, alas.

Anyway. The eyepatch is flipped up, and the pirate's hat is set at a jaunty angle, not least because Shreddie keeps batting at it fascinatedly. Sam is tolerating this for now, even smiling - well, it tickles. And besides, it's kind of fun.

You live here long enough, you get used to Milliways' quirks. Most of them, anyway. Come bother the nautical Lucifer.

[Tiny tag: Pomona, Cal Chandler]

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This gets a curious glance, but Cal doesn't ask. If Ianto wants him to know, Ianto will tell him.

(And quite aside from all that, there's something pushing him away from asking. The subject of dead girlfriends is one that Cal is to be discreetly steered away from.)

The second item rates a nod of recognition, though. "Yeah, the alien thing. Sounds like something that'll get you tenderized every now and then."

"Oh, these were humans for once. They started investigating missing people and wound up walking straight into a load of cannibals."

Beat.

"No, I can't believe I said that straight-faced, either."

"Huh."

Cal looks blank. "I can. People do shit like that sometimes." Anything that involves actual humans is relatively normal in Cal's book.

Yes, cannibalism too. The narrative isn't really sure why.

"Tell me about it," says the immortal who walked through Europe in World War II.

"A family of crazy Welsh cannibals sounds more like something out of a truly awful soap opera, though."

Cal laughs, even though he probably shouldn't. "Soaps must be a little more adventurous on your world, then. Weirdest we ever got was this whole thing with a family trying to freeze the world."

What? Marijuana use does not a discriminating television viewer make.

Sam chuckles. "I don't watch much television generally, so I'm guessing here. Technology doesn't like me much - it has a habit of going boom if I'm around it for too long."

Cal looks interested. "Yeah?"

He grins. "Cinema's all right - I'm not there for long. But yeah. Magic's so much a part of me that it clashes with the technology, I suppose."

"Weird. Kind of like not being able to take pictures of vampires?" Cal pauses. "Uh, we don't have vampires. I saw a movie once. I think."

Another pause. Maybe that was mirrors. He's confused himself. He sips his coffee to cover.

A snicker. "No. You can definitely take photos of me."

He fishes in his back pocket and produces a dog-eared black-and-white photo out of his wallet, which he tosses to Cal.

"See, proof." It's faded with time, and shows someone who's clearly Sam with his arms around a pretty, unmistakably chic young woman in a beret and old-fashioned combat clothes. On the back it says in faded, elegantly-scripted French July 1942. To my Luc. Love Annette.

"Ex-girlfriend. Anyway. It's more like... chucking water on a load of live wires. That sort of reaction."

Cal studies the photo with interest. He can see how old it is, the blank paper on the back yellowed with age, yet the image of Sam looks the same as the Sam right in front of him. It's one thing to know someone is immortal, and quite another to see it demonstrated.

"Guess it's just as well I left my watch upstairs, then," he says absently.

"You were planning on annoying me any time soon?" Innocently. "It tends to happen when my emotions go off the charts a bit, that's all."

Cal looks up.

"Oh, I don't have to plan," he assures Sam, handing the photo back to him. "It just happens. It's kind of a specialty."

There have been a thousand times with Sam that he should have been annoyed but wasn't. Cal doesn't expect to keep getting lucky there.

There was also that time the first time they met, but Cal tries not to think about it. It's still embarrassing.

Sam tucks the photo back in his wallet again, putting it away.

"Pillock." He tickles him briefly.

That surprised sound Cal made was totally just a yelp, with absolutely no squeal-like properties whatsoever. He swats at Sam's hands.

"What?"

He just grins at Cal.

"Well, you are."

"What for?" Cal demands, grinning back in spite of himself. He's not sure what a pillock is, but it sounds like one of those British insults.

There may be a reason for that.

Sam sticks his tongue out. "Being you."

Warm, he shrugs the coat the bar gave him off. The red shirt underneath is a bit gaudy, but rather suits him.

Cal snorts. "Yeah, I keep telling you that, glad it's sinking in."

His tone is light and relaxed, though. Not everything is thinly-veiled angst, after all. Sometimes a joke is just a joke.

He gives him a grin, amused, ruffling his hair. "You're all right, though."

"Gee, thanks," Cal says with a chuckle.

He also swats at Sam's hand again, because hair-ruffling stops being acceptable at about age ten.

Well, in comparison... Let's not go there.

Laughing, "I'm too kind to you, I know."

"Way too kind," Cal agrees, and, okay, now there might be a shade of seriousness lurking behind the joke. He doesn't know it's there, though. "I don't know how you put up with me."

"Me neither." Sam heaves a very fake sigh. "But somehow I struggle through it."

Edited 2008-09-26 00:46 (UTC)

"Must be 'cause I'm cute," Cal says with a very ~~srs~~ serious nod.