Xaviers!

Will was in the bar, drinking. He had been going for quite a while, too, though most people usually would associate that sort of thing with beer, and not fruity drinks with umbrellas. To each their own.

He was clearly more than a little tipsy, and his concentration not as clear as it should be.

((open))

Natalie comes in, not noticing Will at first. She lets out a deep sigh and orders a drink. Then she glances over and sees Will and her face brightens, "Hi, Will."

"Mm? Oooh. Heya, Natalie. You good?" he asked, slurring his words a little.

"Doing tolerably well. You doing okay?" She raises an eyebrow when she realizes he's slurring.

"Me? I'm good. I'm always good. I'm just the goodiest-good-good friend anyone could good friendly good have."

Yeah, no.

Natalie frowns for a moment and scoots over to the seat next to him, "So if that's the case, then what's wrong?"

"Wrong? What the hell could be wrong? I'm useful. I'm a great research subject. I'm a great friend and expert on weird shit. That's great. Great great great great great."

"I think you're pretty cool," Natalie says, obviously hoping that makes things better.

"Mm. Well, thanky, thanky. Yu've got eyes that work! Two of 'em. Right there.

You ever married anyonebody?" he said, abruptly.

She looks a little surprised, "Ummm... no, I haven't." She covers by adding a lame joke, "You asking for yourself or a friend?"

"Meself. I'm the only one here, right? Most of m' friends don't even care about that sort of thing.

Me, I've done it twice," he said, holding up three fingers. He stared at his hand and blinked, shrinking one of his fingers back towards the palm of his hand. "Well, thrice. Two-and-a-halfice. Dependin' on how you count things, 1-2-and-a-3."

"Two and a half times?" She sounds a little confused. "How do you get married half a time?"

"Wasn't me. Wasn't even there. Well, I was there, just not there-there. There off to one side there.

Memories from a botched attempt at the mystic arts. I'm super-useful, again.

My life is weird."

"Well, I'd like to hear about it," she says, leaning on one of her hands as she sips at her drink.

"Mmm. You know what the really funzers part is? They're all here. But they're not all here. Not the same at all, nonono.

There's Sara -- you may've seen her. She's here with the military people, hup-hup, unis and boots. The one who treats me like I'm four. Or a puppy. A four-year-old puppy."

His face briefly grew a little furry before he shook it off.

"She's number one. And number three. Two? How're we c....she's the integers. She's the one we're countin'. Me and her, we're like...peanut butter in a pod. Or oil and water. Both of those things. 'M not sure you can really love someone unless they can also make you hate them sometimes, and passions and tempers flare. But we were good together. We still are good together. We still would be good together somethin something dimensional timeshift blah.

And there's Sam, too -- you know, I dream of spooky with the bright red hair," he sang. "She's the half. But there's three of her. She's one-point-five? Math is hard. Especially when it's people. Math shouldn't be people."

At the mention of Sam, something clicks in Natalie's head and her smile fades ever so slightly. "That sounds rough," she says, "maybe the solution is just to find new things?"

"Maybe you're right, but life isn't logical.

I was doin' alright, really, I was, and then Sara came here and dredged this all up again."

"I'm sorry," she says, reaching out to rest a hand on Will's, "This can't be easy after all the stuff you went through with the money and everything."

"Actually, the money stuff wasn't, all things considered, too bad. Gave me a bit of a chance to get away from it all, and it all worked out in the end when you came to rescue me," he smiled.

"Now, being injected with all kinds of who-knows-what and all the attempted murder, that was less fun. Less fun than this, too. So, bottom-to-top -- injected with pain, attempted murder, not being loved, being cash moneys," he said, raising his hand each time to indicate a different level of "fun".

"Well, I can't do anything about the the first two and I already helped you with that last one," she says, tucking some of her hair back behind her ear.

"You did! And I thank you again a million times over. It was nice of you to care."

"I like helping," she says, "And I even got to meet a pretty neat person in the bargain." She smiles at him.

"Well, thanky thanky. I think you're pretty neat, too! You do amazing things with com-pew-ters."

"Just that little thing I do," she says, blushing, "I just do what I can with it."

"Nonono, it's really neat. Especially from the other side. And really important with the Engines on their way. D'nt sell yourself short! We all do a thing really well, and practice makes perfect makes practice."

"The Engines?" She looks confused and then looks at what Will is drinking, "What are the Engines?"

"Super-secret-future-knowledge," Will winked. "Super-secret.

Like, facebook. But more so. On all the time, on everyone, everywhere. Know where your friends are and what they're doin; know how long the line at the local restaurant is; know that a new movie's comin' out that you like based on your favorite foods and preferred sports teams and circle of friends. Datadatadata, crunched and twisted to provide content. It's kinda amazin', if you're not a big fan of privacy."

"Sounds interesting," Natalie says, "Though I try to respect people's privacy. So what am I like in your world?"

"Um..." Will trailed off.

"You know, not everything's the same between the two worlds and all that. Like that CamCam kid. I'm pretty sure I locked him up back where I'm from," Will nodded, doing a very poor job of changing the subject.

"Well, that doesn't actually surprise me to hear that about Cam. So you're telling me other-me is a bad girl?"

"I'm, uh, not sure you do exist. Or if you do, I don't think I met you. But, to be fair, I didn't meet a lot of people. Probably more people I don't know than people I do know, mathematically speaking."

"Well, there's a certain comfort in feeling like I might be unique," she says, squeezing his hand.

Will smiled. "You're pretty special, I can tell you THAT just by lookin' atcha. And from you digging around in my brain."

Natalie blushes again, "That was fun. Under better circumstances, and with your permission, I would have been happy to continue exploring."

"Oh, yeah, whenever you feel like it. I trust ya, and it was kinda fun, too. See, I like it when people are comfortable doing things. With me. All sorts of things."

Natalie pauses for a moment, which may look in auspicious when in reality she's just screwing up her courage. "Well, we could try it out again sometime and see how comfortable we continue to get with things."

"Sounds like fun. You're fun. More people need to be fun, and then we could all have fun. Together."

"Fun is not a word I've ever heard use to describe me," she says, "I kind of like hearing it."

"Fun. Fun fun fun fun fun. Fun. Fun fun fun fun funfunfunfnnnn," Will said, talking fast enough he ended up tripping over his words. "That's what I want. Really. Back to the fun I had back when everyone knew each other and all the wrinkles were dewrinklefied."

"Well, what would you like to do now? Besides drink, I mean, I think you've probably done enough of that for the moment," she says, finishing her own drink.