OPEN | Network or Action | I was a tourist with no story lost in this purgatory

[respinto]

NETWORK

I know I haven't really hopped on here since I got here a couple of days ago but...hi, I'm Cam. I'm going to go get a drink and this is my open invitation for someone or someones to join me, because drinking alone is really, really sad and I really don't wanna be that guy. Don't make me be that guy, okay?

ACTION

Admittedly, Cam can't really complain about the digs here. It's actually a really nice apartment. It's like someone took the loft he and Sophie were sharing in Manhattan and upgraded it into something more spacious and less roach-infested. He likes that part of this whole deal. The part he's not so into is that she's not here, as far as he can tell, and he's lost his door. He looks for it for a couple of hours every day, but the promise that time sort of stops on the "other side" makes him feel less guilty for not really going all out while he's looking. He's not keen on the idea of leaving Soph alone in New York, that's for damn sure, but if time isn't moving forward with out him; if that's really true — and rumor has it, it is — then maybe the fact that he hasn't found his door back yet is a sign that he should take a minute and regroup; enjoy his life for what it is for a second instead of treating every day like a full time job that never really pays and gives no time off.

He loves his sister and he doesn't feel like she's a job all the time, but...well. He's done everything for her since he was eight years old. This feels like a chance to just...take a breather and he deserves one, doesn't he?

So he drops a line on the network and then he heads out. Maybe he'll meet someone; maybe he'll end up drinking alone, but either way...it's getting him out of the apartment for a minute because he's not entirely sure he can resist that golden sphere if he doesn't and something tells him he ought to wait on that until he can find out what's actually in there without having to open it to find out for himself. It's a random magical place that dragged him out of his real life and then closed the door behind him and hid it. He thinks it's fair not to entirely trust the gifts he gets while he's here.

Cam makes his way to the nearest bar and settles on a stool, his feet touching the floor with no problem even when he's sitting because he's so goddamned tall, and he orders himself a beer before pulling out his PDA to check the network again. Why not? He hasn't had a beer in a while. It's hard to enjoy a drink when you're on big brother duty twenty-four seven.

Comments

[respinto]

Okay, so he's really, really in character. That's cool. Maybe, Cam thinks, they can get a beer sometime when he's being himself because so far, this guy seems pretty all right. ...he's new. He'll learn.

"You can just call me Cam, bro, it's cool," he offers. But that latter statement when it actually processes has Cam tilting his head a little with slight confusion. "What do you mean?" Give him a minute. He'll get there.

Cam raises his own glass with a grin. "No doubt, here's to that," he laughs before taking a drink of his own and setting it down again. "Have you been here for a while or...? I'm pretty new. I've only been here a couple of days, myself. So far, I dig it. I miss my sister, but...once I find my door, I can go back whenever I want, right? I mean, that's how it goes, or no?"

[epeiste]

Bro? What's a bro? He has at least familiarized himself with the modern day usage of the word 'cool', which has nothing to do with the temperature of anything. He's only learned this because of it's overuse by almost everyone from a time far removed from his own. Cool means good, right? It's a positive thing. Porthos likes positivity, so long as it doesn't border on naivete.

"My leathers. The uniform of a soldier." One fist bumps against the pauldron at his shoulder. "I understand that your manner of dress is easier to get in and out of as well as more comfortable. But I've trouble gettin' meself to try it except very rarely. Looks just fine on you. On me... well," Porthos reaches out to pinch the thin cloth of Cam's sleeve between his fingers. "So thin it's like wearin' nothin', yeah?" And it certainly has no chance to stop a blade from piercing your skin.

"Even the more genteel sort in my time wear layers and layers." Silks and cotton, but so many layers.

"A couple months perhaps." Porthos nods. There had been some time in there where he'd gone home to fight a war for a few years and then come back. But he's only been in Itinere a handful of months. "It's... peaceful for the most part. I keep waitin' for the other side to the coin."

His face scrunches up as he thinks about the doors. The ones that didn't open, then did, and now won't again. "Think it depeneds, with the doors. Sometimes they open, sometimes they don't. Surely if you've a sister who needs you, the door will allow you through." Porthos isn't exactly sure of that. He has an entire regiment of soldiers who need him back home, and yet... a locked door that he can't seem to barrel his way through. Trust him, he's tried.

[respinto]

It finally clicks for Cam when Porthos specifically says "in my time," and realization and shock both register on Cam's expression. "Wait, wh—you're like literally...you're literally a Musketeer? That's not, I mean, you're not...I...that's real?" he asks, gesturing to the uniform again.

It should make more sense to Cam that time travel could have a hand in this sort of thing, considering the way that they can go back to having home uninterrupted in their absence, according to the rumor mill. He just hadn't thought about it at all and now, suddenly, the possibility is jamming itself into its place in the mixed up puzzle that is Itinere.

His expression changes abruptly and he looks appropriately apologetic. "Oh, dude, I'm sorry. I...didn't...realize time travel, uh, was a thing? I just thought you were the best goddamn cosplayer I've ever seen," he explains. "I didn't mean to like...be disrespectful." Because he worries now that he had been and disrespectful behavior is absolutely one of Cam's biggest pet peeves.

For the first time though, since arrival, Cam feels a little uncomfortable about the doors. Everyone's basically implied that he can kind of come and go as he pleases. Porthos is suggesting that it may not exactly be that simple. "...and there's no rhyme or reason to it or is there a pattern of some kind to which ones will open and which ones won't…?"

[epeiste]

"Yeah. Got enough trouble bein' meself, never thought to be anyone else." Of course, Porthos has no idea what cosplay is or why anyone would think him a cosplayer. But he isn't daft enough to miss that Cam had thought him to be telling falsehoods in his introductions. Porthos prides himself on his honesty and dependability, so perhaps this perceived unfair judgement is the only thing he has to be offended about.

The idea of time travel though, he's never really thought of it in that way either. It's almost beyond his comprehension save for the reality of his current predicament here in Itinere. "Who's to say this place is from your time either? Perhaps we're both out of time and place." He offers, because he doesn't really want to be the only one disturbed by the idea of having traveled through time.

He gestures to the general space of outside. "Even with that aside, those doors leads to worlds. My world. Yours. Every person here from a different time and place."

Okay, now he's starting to really disturb himself with this vein of thinking. It's too much for a man from a seventeenth century world with no magic in it to fully wrap his mind around without some proper time to do so.

He shakes his head at Cam. "The door to me world won't open. Usually locks and doors are no problem for me." A man his size? He can usually knock doors down. On top of that he's fairly adept at picking locks. "This one won't budge. We're on the verge of another war and I can't get back. Others can easily walk through their own door. There are many who cannot."

[respinto]

That's a fair enough point and the little facial shrug Cam gives thoughtfully in response before speaking illustrates that he thinks so. "No one, I guess. We could be," he agrees. Although, arguably, Porthos appears to be a lot further out of time and place than Cam, perhaps. At least, from the looks of the average wardrobe he's seen on most of the people around here, never mind the technology, but the fact of the matter is that, yeah, they could very well both be completely displaced.

"Guess I hadn't really thought about it all that much. I haven't been here very long. Maybe I ought to stop treating it like a vacation and start actually considering looking a little harder for that door in case I do need to get going home. The sooner I find it, the harder and longer I can fight with it if it gives me trouble, I mean, right?" he asks more than says, the confidence in his tone wavering just a little more toward the end of the sentence.

His eyebrows lift. "Maybe it's the wrong door?" he wonders. "I mean, theoretically...if everybody is time and space displaced, then...that suggests multi-verse theory. I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure that means something along the lines of parallel universes or something? Essentially, there's an infinite number of you in an infinite number of universes all running parallel and all with only very slight variations from one to the next. Maybe, if that's an actual thing and not just a theory, it means that the door you've been trying is a door for a you, but not necessarily you-you...? If that makes any sense...?" He doubts that it does. It barely makes sense to him and he's the one who's just said it.

[epeiste]

"S'the same door we came through. That strange device you've been given can lead you to your door. And I hope yours will open for you. Mine did once. Then I came back here years later and now it won't." There's no rhyme or reason as to when and if the doors will open, Porthos has figured that much out.

Porthos sips at his ale. Thinking of Aramis's point of view on the matter. It's a point of view he's still trying to sway himself over to. "Me friend Aramis says we should make the best of our time here for it's peacefulness and the bounty it offers." He lifts his drink to Cam as if in toast. There is ale, after all. Porthos likes ale. And wine. Basically anything that can get him drunk.

[respinto]

That brings a small frown to Cam's face and the idea of it makes him uneasy. He'd been fine with hanging out here if it meant he could go back and check on his sister now and again but if there's no guarantee that he can, well. Now he's nervous about it.

"Your friend Aramis has the same idea I do, except now I'm not so sure..." he replies honestly. "But, I'll drink to that anyway, man," he agrees, lifting his own drink to mirror Porthos's movement. Cam's not a big drinking, but he likes to put a few back now and again. It never hurts to have a good excuse to do so.

[epeiste]

Porthos might not always excel at reading other people, but he's keen enough to realize that his honesty has made Cam uncomfortable, which was not his intent. There is power in knowledge, is there not? And if he were in the dark on something, Porthos would hope that someone would tell him the truth.

"Hey." A large, heavy hand claps down on Cam's shoulder then squeezes gently. "Don't know hardly any of 'em, but it seems there's decent people here. Plenty of food and clean water and spirits to drink. Where I'm from most people just drink spirits for the filth in the water." They're only just learning about sterilization, after all. "Never knew it could be so clear."

But he digresses. Porthos pulls his hand away from Cam's shoulder and takes a healthy pull of his ale. "If you want to go check your door now, we can."

[respinto]

This place is just a lot to take in and Cam's realizing more and more that he's not sure there's ever going to be a point where he reaches the okay, I get it now, and this is what it is conclusion. He's sincerely concerned that he's going to continue learning new things about this place — good, bad, and happy mediums — until the time when he actually gets out again. He's not really an adventurer. He likes to know where he is, where he's going, and what's going to happen when he gets there, so this whole experience is sort of turning his world upside down and he's learning to regain his balance as such, but he'd prefer it if there was a point where he's learned everything and there's nothing new to tackle.

He gives the other man a small smile at the gesture and reaches a hand up to pat the other man's hand on his shoulder twice before Cam's hand falls back into his lap. "I guess we both have a lot to learn and lots of people to meet, then, huh?" he asks, "maybe it makes it easier having someone around that you already know, though? I mean, I'd feel better if my sister was here." Mostly because Sophie is the only person Cam actually cares about that much. He genuinely does care about people in general, but Sophie is the only person he'd do anything for, without even blinking an eye.

His eyebrows lift at the suggestion. "I...lost my door," he say slowly, wrinkling his nose a little and frowning, "is the thing."

[epeiste]

Well, that thought is chilling. So far, Porthos has still at least had a door to go pound his shoulder against to try to barrel his way back home, to no avail. To not even have that... that would be difficult. He suddenly has a very strong desire to go check his own door, just to make sure it still stands, even if it's locked and impenetrable.

"Sorry to hear that, mate." Porthos says, brow furrowed as he takes another healthy drink of his brew. "Wish I had better news, a way to help."

[respinto]

He probably wouldn't have if he'd been paying attention to where it was when he left it but he hadn't. And, being so new to the area, nothing looks familiar enough to him yet to make his way back. It could be right in front of him and he'd probably never know it. The fact that it's his own fault is probably the most frustrating part. ...no, actually, it's absolutely the most frustrating part.

"I'll find it, eventually," he says with a confidence he hasn't actually earned in the context. "I just need to look harder. Admittedly, I've kind of been enjoying the little respite, but I don't know how long I'll enjoy it before I start missing home. And my sister."