A/N: Surprise! And welcome to yet another episode of my favorite repository of theoretical physics and the land of mindfucks: the Multiverse Café!
This is set towards the end of the chapter "Diamond Dust" in Bodyslam.
Many, many thanks to FreyaOdin for the very liberal use of one of her characters as well as a thorough beta read of this crossover oneshot to make sure I did some justice to her creation.
See note at the bottom of the story for more info with spoilers.
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It's been too long since he's come here.
He's not sure how long; time doesn't have the same meaning as it does back home so it may have been weeks or it may have been months since he's last walked these scuffed checkerboard floors and bellied up to the counter. But he's here now and there's a certain comfort and familiarity in that, isn't there?
"What do you have in a red wine?" he asks Kirstie as she leans against the other side of the counter to take his order. He's pretty sure this is a different one than the last time, one he doesn't think he's met before; this Kirstie has a bearing about her, a posture, a way she angles her head that makes him feel more than a little intimidated.
"Does it look like we have a fucking wine cellar?" she drones. "I've got one red wine. It's generic. It'll do the job but it ain't fancy. Take it or leave it. "
Well that was mildly offensive, but not really. "I'll take it. Quiet night, huh?"
"So far," she agrees, producing a bottle of white-label RED WINE from under the counter and sloshing a hefty pour into a wine glass. "Hopefully my shift will be over before a horde of you fuckers swarm the place. Especially you. My version of you is enough to deal with on his own and it's like herding fucking emotional cats when there are multiples."
He has a deep and profound appreciation for the way the sheer Kirstieness of every Kirstie he's met in some fashion so far seems to transcend both space and time. It's kind of amazing. "Let me know if you need a hand. I'm pretty good at directing traffic."
She departs with a derisive snort as a few other iterations of him and his friends drift into the café. Offhand he doesn't recognize any of them. He's seen quite the parade during past visits, from younger and older versions to some that appear largely indistinguishable from his reality and all the way to fantastical variants involving pregnancy, space travel, a cop, and once there was an entire motherfucking pirate situation that he never was quite able to mentally reconcile.
"Hey," a newcomer says, stepping up to the counter.
Mitch looks over and does a double-take at yet another unfamiliar version of himself. "Damn," he mutters.
"What?"
"I apparently need to work out more," Mitch replies, not bothering to hide the fact he's staring. This new Mitch is in athletic shorts and a tank top looking for all intents and purposes like he just walked out of the gym - he may well have because who the fuck knows how this place works - and not only because of the clothes he's wearing. He's not...he's not huge but he's definitely a lot more muscular than any other Mitch he's ever seen, all rounded shoulders and visible biceps and a broader chest than he'd thought possible for their body type. Mitches tend to be anything from willowy to lean, and while he's met the occasional extra-muscular Scott he's not sure what to make of a him that looks like he could bench press any of the Scotts currently in the room.
