isaysimplewords | Not-OOM: Sam Winchester

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Not-OOM: Sam Winchester

It's been a full couple of days for Cal; the weather is bad at home and things at Milliways have been eventful. His primary concern at the moment is Hermione, and doing what he can for her. After his visit to her cell, he'd decided that part of that involved talking to Tom Riddle. Nothing confrontational, just - sounding him out. Making sure that his initial impression of the man as being a decent kind of person, not setting off any alarms for Cal, was correct.

So he's in Milliways as he has been for a little while now, half watching for Riddle and half sunk into thought.

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The coffee here really is better than what he and Dean can usually get anywhere else.

Sam's on his way to the bar to do just than when he spots Cal.

"Hey." He grins. "Long time no see."

"Sam." Cal looks up with a smile, shaking off his thoughts.

"It's been a couple weeks or so on my end," he says, gesturing for Sam to sit if he likes. "How've you been?"

He does, frowning a little in concentration.

"Been about a month for us. I think."

Something odd flickers in his glance.

"Long month. Busy one. Could be worse, though."

Even if not by much.

Cal cocks his head slightly as he catches the flicker, his own expression turning a little more thoughtful.

"It usually can."

On Cal's old world, it usually was. Milliways, and his new world, have done a lot to put a dent in the kind of thinking that comes from that, but there's still a long way to go before it's erased. If it ever really can be.

"Yeah."

It's only a little grim, at least. Sam shakes himself out of his own thoughts and asks,

"How's Penny?"

Cal smiles, as he always does when his friends ask after his dog, but not quite as brightly as usual. Sam's preoccupation is a little more obvious than he seems to think it is.

"She's doing good," he says. "It's January at home, the weather's been pretty rough and keeping us out of the park, but she's handling it okay. We just play a little more inside instead."

And hope they don't make a ton of noise or break anything.

"Glad to hear it," Sam tells him. "Even if it sucks that the weather's been so bad."

"It can't be winter forever," Cal says. "We'll manage."

He pauses for a second, then waves down a waitrat, saying,

"I'm gonna get a refill, you want anything?"

"Coffee's good, thanks." To both the rat and Cal, he adds, "Not that scary decaf stuff you drink, though."

Cal laughs.

"That'll be the scary regular stuff for Sam, then," he tells the waitrat. "I'll stick with the decaf."

The rat chirrups an acknowledgment and scurries off.

"Need the caffeine, huh?" It's not exactly so you wanna talk about it, but it could be considered as being in the same general neighborhood, if Sam chooses to pick up on the subtext. Cal won't push the issue if he doesn't. He's had reason as of late to strongly dislike it when people push.

"I-- yeah, actually."

Sam hesitates, eyeing Cal.

"It's been... kind of wild."

Cal nods slowly.

"You kinda look it," he says.

He lets out a slow breath.

"I probably do, at that."

Beat.

"You sure you want to hear this, man?"

Oddly enough, there's a sense of real concern in the warning.

"It's-- it's kinda weird, to be honest."

. . . Cal laughs. He tries not to, but he can't help it.

"Sam," he says. "I - I've told you that I died and was brought back to life by tiny robots, right? And I moved to a world where London is attacked by aliens every Christmas. And yesterday I taught Sherlock Holmes how to use a coffeemaker. My definition of weird is . . . I don't even if it exists anymore." He takes a breath and continues, in a more sober tone,

"I've been paying attention. I know you're not just a PI."

His grin is more than a little rueful.

"Yeah, I know. Just another day at Milliways, right?" A beat. "... although the Christmas aliens thing is new."

"Anyway." He shakes his head. "I kinda figured you knew I was blowing some smoke, but the thing is -- I am a PI, sort of. We both are."

A beat.

"It's just that the things we investigate-- the things we hunt -- aren't natural."

Cal nods.

"Demons," he guesses. It's not a hard guess, considering Sam's possession. And Cal clearly remembers thinking that Sam, while of course upset about it, hadn't seemed surprised. The existence of demons on his world was nothing new to him.

(Cal thinks briefly of his own suspicions regarding exactly how many of the people he knows might just be from Sam's world, but the encounter with that odd maybe-future-and-maybe-alternate-world Castiel has kind of thrown that line of thought into confusion. He doesn't dwell on it.)

"Demons," he agrees. "And ghosts. Specters and spooks and spirits of all kinds."

A beat.

"But right now, mostly demons. Because there's a lot of them out there."

"That's unfortunate." It's mostly a filler remark, to bridge the gap to whatever Sam is going to say next, but it's also sincere. And something of an understatement.

Cal really hates demons.

"You've got no idea."

It's more than a little grim, this time.

"Anyway. So that's... what's been going on." He shakes his head, looking wry. "And you wouldn't believe how weird it still is to tell anyone about it like it's ... normal."

"Not widely known on your world?" Also not a difficult guess.

"Normal is relative here. It sounds like you've really got your hands full.

And," he adds as the waitrat arrives with their order, "like you really do need the caffeine."

"No way," he agrees. "Pretty much the only people who know about this stuff back where I come from are hunters or those who've run afoul of the things we hunt."

Sam grins, wryly, and reaches for the mug.

"Can't get enough of it."

"Sounds like aliens on my world," Cal says, picking up his own mug. "People are sorta starting to figure it out, I think, but mostly they're still in denial."

Harold Saxon's stunt with the fake Toclafane hadn't helped much, either.

"Thanks for coming clean with me."

He shrugs, a little uncomfortably.

"Probably should have a while back. Just... habit, you know?"

A beat.

"Besides, I remember you saying once you weren't all that comfortable with ghost stuff, so."

Cal doesn't like lies of omission, and Sam's had bothered him once he'd realized something else was going on. But - they're friends, but not close friends, and so it just isn't the betrayal it had felt like once, some time ago, with another Sam.

Besides which, Cal has had a lot of other things on his mind.

"Yeah, I suppose," he concedes. "We've all got habits we could stand to break."

He pauses, surprised.

"Did I? I don't know, I avoided moving to a world with magic because I didn't want to deal with demons and things, but - I saw a ghost on a friend's world once, it was pretty cool." Mostly because it was a decidedly harmless ghost.

And the avoiding a world with demons hadn't worked out quite like he'd hoped, but he prefers not to think about that.

Sam nods, but doesn't point out that this one is a habit he's more likely to keep. Still, around Milliways-- sometimes exceptions can be made.

"Yeah, you did," he says, instead. "Or -- actually it was when you were telling me about that, having seen the ghost? I kinda got the impression it wasn't something you really liked dealing with."

A beat, and a quick grin.

"So instead you went the alien route, huh? What's that like?"

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