milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Jim has been rather enjoying spending weeks being moody and depressed in his suite, mainly because Sherlock's up there to make sure he's not actually all that moody and depressed. Bloody boyfriends, and their way of making life better. Jim would grump about that if he weren't pleased by it.

He's only in the bar now because his favourite distraction is asleep and anyway, they need food. Jim puts in a large order and, on a whim, asks for a current newspaper from their world. Bar provides an iPad with various headlines, and he scrolls through until he hits upon the news that NASA has discovered a solar system where life might have evolved.

He forgets about the food, and pretty much everything else for a while. Eventually he wanders over to the Window, still reading, and then just sits looking out at the explosions.

(The ice cream he bought will be melting all over the Bar at some point, so if anyone wants free food he's probably not going to object, or even notice.)

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'Have you noticed him bothering you recently?'

Jim is staring out of the Window, and doesn't bother looking at him. He has ideas of what could keep Wilford away, but he's not going to waste them if there isn't an active problem going on.

'It's not exactly something that has to be worked out, my dear.'

"Well I've been in hiding, ain't I?" Vyvyan says. "Why, have you done it?"

'Have you?'

He hasn't noticed. He's been busy. Or at least, preoccupied.

'No, I haven't done anything. But there might not be a need. He's not coming after you.'

"Oh, good, cheers." Vyvyan says.

"Yeah, I have, been busy with my new job." he says. "I got promoted to shouting at people over the tannoy."

Is Vyvyan thanking him thinking he's done something after all? If so, he's charging him.

'That's not a job, darling. But well done.'

Go you.

'Also, having a job is not being in hiding, but I suppose that's not the sort of distinction your university teaches you.'

He does think Jim's done something. Something subtle and sneaky.

"Yeah it is, I work for Transport for London." Vyvyan says. "I used to be on customer services, I had to tell people to piss off, they said I was good at it so now I get to watch all the cameras and shout at people. I get paid so it is a job."

He shakes his head. "In hiding here. I could have sold tickets for a Wilford nude calendar but I decided not to rock the boat."

'...yeah, look, if you antagonise him, that's never going to make him leave you alone no matter what I do.'

He could always kill him, but it'd take a lot to make it stick, and Vyvyan never figured out what he was going to pay him with. So.

'What year are you from? Early Eighties, isn't it?'

"Reign of Thatcher." Vyvyan nods.

Jim frowns.

'Wasn't it all still British Rail back then? I remember that. They were bloody terrible.'

He hears the alternative still is, but it's not like he uses trains very often.

'Or wasn't it the Tube you were on?'

"I'm on the tube." Vyvyan says. "British Rail still exist, and they're still shit. I got my head cut off on the way to University Challenge and they threw me off the train for pulling the emergency cord."

'How the hell did you ever get on University Challenge?'

Because that's the most weird thing out of everything he just heard.

"Neil wrote in. And we won, too."

'...right.'

He thinks he might have seen that episode, actually. Meh.

'What were the questions on?'

"Usual sort of stuff. Joan of Arc. Rich people. World's stupidest bottom burp." Vyvyan says. "We beat Footlights College Oxbridge but then a big eclair fell on us."

'Yeah, usual stuff.'

But-

'You've just proved you'll eat anything, so it must have felt like Christmas.'

"Yeah! We ate our way out."

'Of course you did.'

He draws a breath in and tries to remember there's a world outside of this kind of stupid, and it's waiting upstairs for him. He can get through this.

'Well, as long as you had fun, I suppose.'

"Yeah!" Vyvyan says.

"Fancy a drink?"

'Yes, all right.'

Presumably that means Vyvyan's buying? That'll be a first.

'Vodka and line, thanks.'

Vyvyan orders that, and a baby sham. It takes him a long time to scrape together the change.

"What you reading?"

'Mm?'

He looks up from the iPad, having gone back to the article.

'NASA has discovered planets that could support life of some sort. It was announced today.'

"What, like this one?"

'Not like Millliways, no. Like Earth, or something broadly similar to it.'

The question, obviously, is how to get to them. How to design craft and machines that can get there and collect data, discover what the places are really like, see if there actually might be something there already. A human landing likely wouldn't have happened in his lifetime anyway...but still. It makes him think, just a bit.

"Bet there's tons of them." Vyvyan says. "With all the people who come here."

'...no, it's not the same thing at all.'

Though, who's to say? The universe is so vast, they don't know. But the probability of that many near-identical Earths in one universe is unlikely.