Sherlock is also pretty distracted on his way into Milliways, but for entirely different reasons. He notices, he maintains basic situational awareness, but it's not until he's already well past Cal's table that he spins around and double-takes.

That's not—it can't be his Cal, all the... artifacts are wrong. But...

"Excuse me," he says, "do you mind if I ask your name?"

Hello, hot young RDJ-alike.

(The onceover Cal gives him is not as subtle as he thinks it is.)

Cal grins at him.

"Cal Chandler," he says. "Boston, 2022."

"Twenty-twenty-two, that explains some things. Sherlock Holmes, Sunnydale, 2012, though I'm actually visiting New York at present. I know a Cal Chandler in my world, and you're very reminiscent."

That is - that is a lot of information to process, far more than Sherlock realizes.

The blank stare he's getting is no doubt a very familiar one.

Cal finally settles on:

"What."

"I believe the phrase is, 'fucking Milliways'."

He gestures to Cal's table. "May I sit?"

"Fucking Milliways," Cal agrees, completing the ritual.

He waves vaguely at the other chair at the table.

"Yeah, sure."

Cal hates that his phone doesn't work here - like, come on, physics-destroying bar at the end of the universe and they can't at least figure out wi-fi? - but he's found that if he sits at a table with one extra chair, he's never alone for long.

He sits.

"I confess I am having some difficulty restraining myself from asking a lot of intrusive personal questions and telling you a lot of things that you are arguably better off not knowing, if they even apply to your world, which I am not at all sure they do. Perhaps you will be better able to guide this conversation in a productive direction than I."

"Okay."

The waitrat shows up with Cal's order, which buys him a few seconds to think. He holds up his phone toward the rat, who extends their hand solemnly. Cal taps his phone gently against their palm and a contented electronic chirp comes from - somewhere.

"No internet," he says, in the tones of one who has given a minor injustice a lot of thought, "but they take ApplePay."

...he blinks. "That's a novel technology from my perspective. Probably difficult to invent ahead of time. Maybe not impossible, depending..."

Cal nudges the basket of paradoxes toward Sherlock in polite invitation, taking one himself and saying,

"Cool, let's break each others' timelines. It's an app that you hook up to your credit card or whatever you're paying with."

He dunks his paradox in the plaid sauce, swishing it around, which has no effect on the plaid pattern whatsoever.

"So, Sherlock Holmes - wait, you've figured out the whole people who are fictional on your world thing, right?"

Like, sure, Sherlock Holmes probably picked up on that, but better safe than accidentally breaking someone's brain.

Cal may have learned that the hard way. Brooke seemed basically okay when he left, but he really doesn't wanna do that again.

"The books exist in my world. I have read them. From time to time I drop a quote into ordinary conversation and wait to see if anyone notices. I named myself this. But, yes, I have also met other Sherlocks here without that history. One of them seemed to be from a film that doesn't exist in my world, and he had my face. Is that the sort of thing you mean?"

...he is going to just. Look away from the plaid sauce. If he looks away from the plaid sauce, he may be able to resist becoming entirely consumed by fascination with the nature of its being.

He named himself - ?

Well, maybe he's trans or something. It's Milliways, there are a lot of possible somethings, but at the end of the day, you gotta respect people's identities. So he doesn't ask, obviously, instead pointing his dripping paradox at Sherlock and saying,

"Exactly. I've seen those movies. I thought for a second you could be a younger one of him, but wrong century and also you're like way too polite."

"'Those movies', plural? There are sequels? I should remember to take them home and watch them. We could make a whole event of it."

He shakes his head. "I want to be offended on behalf of my... whatever relationship I can be said to have to that Sherlock... but I cannot deny that he is, in fact, very rude."

"There are two," Cal tells him. "Robert Downey Jr - that's the actor - has been making noise about a third one, but like. We'll see. There isn't exactly a ton of demand, but now that he's done with the MCU, the dude could do absolutely anything and it'd make a billion dollars."

He takes a bite of paradox and hums in satisfaction.

"Have you tried these? Do they taste the same or different to you every time? I can never decide."

"I am trying not to engage with their existence in an effort to avoid becoming hopelessly distracted, but if you insist. What is the MCU?" he asks, reaching for a paradox.

Congratulations, Sherlock! You have unlocked Side Quest: Hyperfixation. Cal lights up.

"The Marvel Cinematic Universe! Oh, man, you don't have it? It's this franchise of comic book movies that are all connected, and there are shows now too. RDJ's been there since the beginning, okay, very first movie, Iron Man, 2008, nobody thought anyone was gonna go to a movie about a superhero no one ever heard of, but it blew up 'cause RDJ killed it. Like, he is Tony Stark."

He takes a second paradox halfway through this paragraph and is earnestly multitasking the verbal information flow with analyzing the elusive flavours of the snack right up until the words 'Tony Stark' come out of Cal's mouth and he spittakes all over the table.

"Excuse me," he coughs. "It's just that," cough, reach for napkin, wipe mouth, gaze sadly at the fried paradox particles he just sprayed all over the immediate environs, "sorry again," cough, cough, wipe mouth, "Tony Stark is... a person. In my world. He is known to the public as my twin but the fact of the matter is that he cloned himself when he was twelve years old and very lonely and I am the result. I must presume that that did not happen in your 'MCU'."

. . . Cal is glad he hadn't unwrapped the straw for his bubble tea yet.

"He . . . ? Uh, yeah, no, that'd be a pretty wild - anyway, Tony Stark is an engineer, it's Bruce Banner who does the biology shit."

Which may not be the most relevant information to the topic at hand, but Cal is kind of on autopilot while his brain catches up to what the fuck Sherlock just said.

"Right, okay," he says, reorienting, "tell me everything, if you please. I should also watch all of the films but your summaries will do in the meantime and it sounds as though you are in possession of valuable context which I may not have even if I did watch it all myself."

"There are twenty-nine movies before you even get to the shows, dude, get a room here so you don't lose the next month of your life. Or I guess you could just watch the ones with Tony, but like, you lose nuance that way."

Cal surveys the table in all its besmirched glory.

"We're gonna need way more snacks."

"I can obtain a room and snacks and possibly a large number of DVDs and we can retire upstairs to continue this conversation? If that suits you."

"Yeah, sounds good."

Then, to himself,

"DVDs . . ."

Blu-Ray would be better, right? Probably? What does Cal know about physical media, he streams everything like a normal human being from 2022.

"Yeah, that's probably fine."

"Is that another future technological advance I hear echoing behind your words? Never mind, first things first. Room, snacks, media."

He gets up and heads for Bar.

"Good afternoon, madam. I would like a room, a large quantity of snacks, and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe from Cal's world in DVD format. I will happily accept your recommendation sight unseen in the matter of the snacks."

A key appears, along with a note.

Everything's upstairs. Please be mindful of your timeline, you don't want the TVA's attention.

Cal snorts. "Yeah, if that even applies to your universe cluster." Bar, he appreciates the bit of humor, but this is serious business, okay?

"What pray tell is the TVA?"