milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Mike isn't so much seated at Bar as he is slumped over her. He hates days like today. You know the kind, where what you've been putting off all week just has to be done.

The concern du jour is the lack of writing on this week's Happy Hour schedule. There's just no amount of squinting that's going to make writing magically appear on the calendar before him, and he knows it.

It's just unfair the way the universe works, you know? That procrastination can't continue indefinitly.

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"to do what for me?"

Woe is Mike.
WOE!

"Fill that out for you." Cal gestures at the sheet of paper. He usually had people.

What? He still had to sign things!

"Meh...yes and no. I mean, I have a staff...heh, staff. But like...it's really supposed to be my call. Stupid responsibilities."

Cal chuckles into his coffee mug.

"Sounds rough," he says. "D'you work here or is that for back home?"

"Here. My calculator back home looks a whole lot different."

Cal doesn't really know what that means. Calculators have never played much of a role in his existence.

"What do you do here?" he asks.

"Bodies, mostly. You know, to stand behind Bar and let her get some sleep. When she doesn't sleep I don't sleep."

Cal blinks at that last part.

"What do you mean, you don't sleep?"

Mike smiles.

"New here?"

Cal shakes his head. "Not really," he says. "Been here since August." Admittedly, there's a month of time he doesn't even remember, which is starting to seem weirder now that the initial shock of resurrection is clearing away, but still. He thinks he is officially not new.

(So, really, it's amazing how much he still doesn't know about Milliways.)

"Our August or your August? And does time go day by day for you?"

"August here," Cal clarifies. "And, uh, Bar says time's been passing at the same rate at home."

He opts not to mention the part where he was dead up until recently. He's already getting a little tired of explaining it.

"So long enough to know better, but not so long as to have seen everything before. Good place to be."

Says Mike with a grin.

"Bar and I share a mental/physical link, so what happens to her happens to me for lack of a better explanation."

"Oh." Cal absorbs this. "That sounds interesting." He doesn't really understand it, but it does sound interesting. Milliways is full of things that sound interesting.

The grin broadens.

"That's one word for it, but yeah. So! If you could like, avoid carving your name into Bar's top I'd greatly appreciate it."

Cal laughs. "Damn, there go my plans for the day."

"There are better and more entertaining ways to hurt me, is all I'm saying."

"What, like making you do paperwork?" Cal asks cheerfully.

Mike eyes him.

"That's dirty pool right there. Dirty damn pool."

"Hey, I'm not the one who put it in front of you," Cal says. Still cheerful.

"Not directly, no."

"Hey, I didn't ask to be brought here," Cal says reasonably. Entirely more reasonably than he might have said such a thing just a few days ago.

Or - well over a month ago. That's gonna take some getting used to.

"That right there makes two of us. Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?"

Oh, right, introductions.

"New York, 1997. I'm Cal Chandler," he adds, "nice to meet you."

"Sweet! Another fellow New Yorker! I'm Michaelangelo."

Says Mike offering his hand.

"But seriously, just call me Mike."