milliways_bar | (no subject)

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cal chandler

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The door opens and Camille (shorts, t-shirt, bare feet) walks in.

She takes a long look.

She walks out.

--

The door opens and Camille (orange sleeveless dress, sensible-yet-stylish sandals) walks in.

She takes a long look.

She walks out.

--

The door opens and Camille (cargo pants, loose unbuttoned shirt over singlet, runners) walks in.

She takes a long look. This time, she catches sight of the Window.

And freezes.

tiny!tag: cal chandler, camille montes, charlie monroe

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Charlie's sitting in one of the scoop chairs by the fire, watching the fish and working on wrapping a box (and keeping Count out of it).

"You know the door will keep bringing you back, right?"

The window is red and orange and yellow - all the colours of fire - but it is green and violet and pink, and it's enough that Camille can drag her eyes away to look at him.

"I've noticed."

"So you just wanted to keep changing outfits?" He questioned, picking the cat up and setting him on the couch--he was insistent to be in the box he was trying to close.

"It's been a week since...this place first appeared."

"You mean since the first time you opened the door five minutes ago?"

Beat.

"For me, yes. What...do you mean five minutes?"

He chuckled.

"I mean it's been about five minutes since you opened the door wearing shorts and a tee shirt. I've been sitting here watching you, and thinking the bar might install a revolving door."

She shifts her head slightly to the side, and if your mind went into that direction, you could think it almost flirtatious.

"The second time was a revolving door."

Her accent is Spanish, more Latin than Castilian, but anything else is impossible to say.

Edited 2008-12-21 02:01 (UTC)

Charlie's mind doesn't go into that direction; it lives there. Permanently.

"Not from this side, but alright." He smiled at her. "You look a little worried."

"I...the window startled me." Quick smile - worried, uncertain, but still lovely.

Charlie looked over his shoulder, at the Window. "Oh, it does that. Turns all sorts of funky colors."

He smiled at Camille and scooted over--much to the dismay of the kitten--to give her room to sit. "You can join me if you'd like. Get a drink, maybe."

Camille's weight shifts from one foot to another and back.

"I'm working." Her voice lilts upwards, making it a slight question.

"So am I." She doesn't know he's only slightly lying.

Only slightly. He smiled, once he finished the box and made sure there was no fur in it. "Come on. You can sit down and have a drink, time doesn't pass out there, while you're in here."

Ah-hah.

"Maybe you could tell me where I am first?"

Still with the charm, still with the slight flirting - with a suggestion, a tease, that there could be more.

Charlie hears the charm and the flirt. And recognizes it, but doesn't respond quite enough to make it a flirt of his own. "Milliways Bar."

Pause.

He takes a breath, remembering exactly how 'omgwtf?' his first moment in here was. "It's the bar at the end of the universe, in a nutshell. Don't worry, you won't die or anything in here. But you might want to take a look and see if the door you came in is still there." He nods to the wall of them behind her, and resumes petting the cat that's pushing against his hands. Count's been following him around today.

see if the door-

Her head nearly whips around, but...

But the door is there, so the look she gives Charlie is more questioning than anything else.

Cal doesn't often see people walk into Milliways and immediately leave.

And he's definitely never seen them do it twice in a row.

So he's still watching when the woman comes in the third time. He doesn't have to follow her gaze to know what's caught her eye. He gets up and makes his way over to her. The Window affects everyone differently, he's noticed, but it tends to freak most people out the first time.

"Hi," he says. "You new here?" It's part greeting, part distraction. In case she needs it.

Her eyes - a perfectly lovely green, if a tad startling against her brown skin - are wide when she flicks them over to him. She needs the distraction.

"Yes."

Her eyes remind him of someone, strongly enough that Cal takes a quick second look just to make sure he doesn't know her. Maybe he does. Maybe she's from his - from home.

"I'm Cal Chandler," he says. "You're in Milliways. In spite of your best efforts," he adds. His tone is deliberately light, making himself sound casual: Nothing to worry about here. This is all okay and normal. Nothing to be anxious about.

"Stubborness can be a flaw." Low voice, husky voice, with a Latin American accent. "But I don't...quite understand."

"That's not stubbornness," Cal says with a smile. "That's just normal. No one understands this place the first time. Milliways is a - well, the restaurant at the end of the universe. Which is what that window is, but don't worry, that's all outside. It can't touch us."

"At all?"

Cal shakes his head. "If it was dangerous, it wouldn't be there. It would be blocked or something. This place kinda - keeps an eye out for the people it brings in."

Slowly,

"Even though it brings us here against our will?"

Cal's expression turns very quietly dark for just a moment. Then it brightens back up, completely friendly and relaxed.

"No one dragged you in," he points out. "You could have just kept walking away. I'm sure it would have taken the hint eventually."

He wonders, briefly, if there are people who refuse Milliways until it slips away from them for good.

"It hadn't in a week."

"Well, for you," Cal says. "Here it all happened in, like - five minutes, maybe? Time is different here. It should stop on your world altogether while you're here, so you won't miss anything. That's how it works for most people, anyway."

Her eyes narrow at that.

"Time runs...differently."

"Yep," Cal says. "My first visit was six months before I - came back, but only a couple days had passed here. That kinda stuff happens all the time. It makes sense as long as you don't think about it too hard."

This could be said about Milliways in general, really.

She files this away to think about later; she is a professional, after all.

"...anything else I shouldn't think about too hard?" She asks, tone hovering around being amused and sarcastic. It dips towards 'amused'.

Slightly.

Where does Cal even start?

"I'll introduce you to the Bar," he says. "Your first drink's free. After that you can set up a tab. Or whatever."

Well, he hasn't had to worry about it yet.

He leads the woman over to the Bar and taps the surface lightly. "Hey, she finally came in," he says with a slight laugh. "This is the Bar," he tells the woman. "She's sentient. And female. I don't know why."

A cocktail napkin pops up saying, Welcome, Camille!

That is her name on the napkin.

She didn't tell Cal Chandler her name.

"Hello, Bar," she manages at last.

Another napkin. This one says, Would you like a drink?

A napkin cannot have a tone of voice, or a facial expression, but this one manages to come across as understandingly sympathetic anyway.

"I...I'm working. Another time."

Beat.

"Thank you, though," and she says it with a smile.

Practice makes perfect.

"You can stay till it's out of your system," Cal says. "I mean, for future reference."

Just in case her world isn't one of the ones where time stands still. His didn't seem to be.

"Anyway, uh. There are rules. Pretty simple. No violence, no outside business, no sex downstairs. There are rooms you can rent. And apparently a brothel," he adds, with a slight hint of bemusement. He keeps forgetting about the brothel.

"Of course there is a brothel."

Cal laughs.

"I don't know, I've never been there. I'm sure it's a nice place, though. Milliways treats everyone well, including its employees," he says, remembering Hermione's concern for the waitrats.

"Always the mark of a good establishment," she replies, purely on automatic now. "I...I really do not mean to be rude, but I do have to get back to work...is there anything else I really should know?"

The door is there out of the corner of her eye - she wants to make sure it stays there and not vanish, like something out of a child's story.

"Uh - your door's still there, right?"

He hopes it is. After the stuff before about being brought in against her will, finding herself Bound would probably not go over so well.

For that matter, if she's dead and doesn't realize it yet - well. He'll help with that. He'll try.

"Yes."

"Okay, good," Cal says. "Sometimes, Milliways - keeps people for a while. It's called being Bound. I'm - I'm Bound. So I don't have a door. You can see yours there, but I can't see anything." His voice is almost, almost completely steady as he explains this. "And sometimes people come here after they die, kind of like an afterlife. They don't have doors either."

"I. Shall keep this in mind."

Cal pulls his attention back entirely to Camille and gives her a smile.

"I know. It's a lot to take in at once. Believe it or not, though, you'll get used to it. It's easier than you'd think."

"Perhaps. Thank you, though, Cal Chandler, but I should be going now."

Cal nods. "All right. You're welcome, Camille. It was nice meeting you. I hope to see you around."

She smiles at him - warm, lovely - and she certainly doesn't run to the front door.

She does, however, more deceptively fast.

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