milliways_bar | (no subject)

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It's late, but Behrooz is sitting alone outside, looking out at the dark lake. He knows this probably isn't a good idea, but he didn't feel like staying inside tonight.

He'd been reading some sheet music the Bar had given him earlier, but now it's on the ground, held down by a small rock.

Feel free to bother.

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"Well, some guy had a litter of them that needed to be adopted, and this one sort of attached himself to me, so..." He shrugs.

"That's why there are a lot of kittens around here, anyway. I don't know about other pets."

Zeke nudges Behrooz and mews, hoping to be petted.

Behrooz obliges, carefully petting its head.

"I've only seen a few," he says, his eyes on the kitten. Pause. "We used to have cats."

Well, it'd be appropriate to say if Behrooz were... anyone else.

The idea of Navi and Dina doing anything so normal as taking care of a cat strikes him as a bit odd, but he doesn't comment on it.

"When you lived in...Turkey?" He thinks he remembers that being where Behrooz was originally from.

"Yeah," he says kind of absently. "My mom liked them."

He tries to sound distant, so as not to touch on just how uncomfortable this topic really is.

The back of his his hand flattens the kitten's fur.

Zeke wriggles a bit under Behrooz's hand.

Lee arches an eyebrow. The only way he'd expect someone like Dina to like cats is fried and garnished with parsley.

"Do you?"

He seems to forget that, unfortunately, terrorists are people.

"A little," he says quietly. "They're nice to have around sometimes."

Come on. This is Castle we're talking about here.

"Yeah, they are," he says absently. As if to punctuate this, Zeke licks Behrooz's hand.

So is this broadening his perspective? A little? Maybe? ... so that's a no?

Behrooz's flattens the fur on the kitten's head.

"I didn't really miss them when we moved," he says honestly.

He shrugs. "Well, there's a difference between thinking they're nice to have around and really being attached to them. You're not a pet person?"

He shakes his head as his fingers brush against the kitten's fur.

"I don't think so." He also preferred his life in California to that in Turkey. But that's more complicated.

"Neither's my boyfriend. He can't stand the kitten." He shrugs. "Some people aren't."

Zeke crawls up into Behrooz's lap and makes himself at home.

He folds his arms and looks out over the lake for a while. He's never been outside the Bar at night before.

"All things considered...you been okay lately?"

Behrooz may not want a pet himself, but he doesn't mind those belonging to others, and continues to pet the kitten.

At the question, he noticeably hesitates, but says "Yeah. I've been... fine."

He knows better than to pry.

"That's good."

A pause.

"You?" he asks, looking back at the lake.

He shrugs. "Better than usual, I guess. I'll be leaving relatively soon."

Another pause. To Behrooz, a dead person 'leaving' means leaving like his mother left.

"Leaving?" he asks quietly.

He pauses too, and realizes what Behrooz must be thinking.

"Not...not like that." God, he doesn't even want to think about that.

"Temporarily. A vacation to someone else's world. I'm...not ready to leave for good."

"Yeah." What? Thinking that? He wasn't thinking that. Nah.

"Who's... world?" he asks after a moment.

Castle makes a serious effort not to think about that, because it freaks the hell out of him.

"My boyfriend's. He's been wanting to go back, and wanted me to see it...and I can't exactly take him back to LA with me, so y'know." He shrugs listlessly. "It'll be fun."

"I mean," he pauses again. "What... kind of place is it?"

"It's..." He tries to think how to explain. "It's called Theah. It's like...an alternate Earth, but a few hundred years behind us--it's 1668 there--and all the countries have different names, even though the languages are exactly the same as on Earth. It's kind of surreal."

Behrooz nods a little. After a moment, he says, "That'll be... interesting."

"Interesting and probably dangerous. I mean, if I don't blend in enough with the locals, they might try to attack me." He looks almost excited at the prospect.

"Anyway..." He glances back towards the bar. "I should probably be packing, actually. I better get going."

"Right." Behrooz looks back toward the lake, and lifts the kitten out of his lap and places it back on the grass.

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