Charlie pulled the record out of its sleeve and examined it for a moment before placing it onto the player and gently lowering the needle onto the vinyl. The unmistakable sound of Albert King’s electric blues filled the shop and Charlie found a smile creeping onto his lips. He’d listened to vinyl a few times before but he’d never had access to the sheer volume of music that there was in Atlantis. Working at Spin In and Out, he’d suddenly found himself with the best selection he’d ever come across at his fingertips and, especially on rainy days like that day was turning out to be, plenty of time to listen.
He’d always had an eclectic taste in music - his horizons were much wider than the gangster rap Adam had been so fond of - but he’d found himself listening to more and more blues lately: the likes of King, Muddy Waters and Ma Rainey. It seemed to fit with his mood. He supposed listening to old, dead, black people singing depressing songs was a better coping mechanism than shooting up ever was.
Sinking back down into the tall chair behind the cash register, he picked up his phone and began scrolling through the network to pass the time until someone decided the shop looked like a good place to shelter from the rain and he’d have to do his part as the dutiful clerk.
Violet tugged on the hood of her jacket, though it didn’t do much to protect her face from the rain. Normally she would have used her own force field to shield from the rain, but Violet didn’t see a point. It wasn’t a heavy storm by any means and a little rain never hurt anyone. Violet had a few errands to run today and if the storm increased, then perhaps she’d reconsider.
Her first stop was Spin In and Out. It’s true that she could get a lot of the music she was looking for online, listen to it on the Internet, but there was something much more fun about actually having a physical copy. As she walked into the store, she smiled as she took the hood off and tried to gently dry herself off as to not get anything around her too wet. Violet turned her head to the one working and smiled again. “Hi.” She greeted. “I was wondering if you might have the soundtrack to Doctor Who’s The Five Doctors episode.”
Charlie glanced up when he heard the shop door open then close then quickly scrambled to his feet when he saw who’d walked in. It was Violet. Charlie had met her a couple of times when they’d been out at the same time with friends and each meeting had confirmed what he’d guessed about her when she’d first popped up on the network: she was super fucking cute. Even now he could feel his mouth drying up as he tried to work out what to say to her. There was just one problem with her being super cute and that was the fact that it wasn’t just Charlie who thought so. He knew for a fact that Steve was very much of the same opinion and, moreover, knew her from when she’d been here before.
“Hey,” he replied, pushing the thought from his mind and trying a smile as he tucked his phone into his back pocket.
“I’ll, er, look it up for you,” he said, nudging the keyboard of futuristic cash register to bring the database to life.
“How’s it going?” he asked as he began typing the title into the search function.
“Thank you,” Violet replied. It didn’t take very long because she had met him a few times before. When Violet was able to get a good look at his face, she was able to recall his name. “It’s Charlie, right?” Violet remembered that Charlie had arrived after Violet had left, and she knew he’d become friends with Steve. They weren’t particularly close, but she had been getting to know him.
Charlie nodded and murmured to the affirmative with a small smile.
“I’m doing well. It’s been hell trying to catch up, even though I’ve only been gone for two months. I’m supposed to be starting college in the fall, but I’ve been behind on my school work and training. What about you?” She asked. “What do you think of Atlantis, you’ve been here for about as long as I’ve been gone, right?”
Charlie knew exactly what it felt like to fall out of the loop. Every time he’d been shipped off to a different rehab facility, his whole life had been put on hold while he battled with his own personal demons. Back in LA, however, life had gone on without him, leaving him behind, until he was hardly even relevant to it any more. Adam had been the only one of his friends who’d bothered to stay in touch and now even he was gone. It was one of the reasons he’d decided to stay in Atlantis. There wasn’t anything left for him at home.
“What do I think?” he repeated with a huff of dry laughter. “Sure, it’s fine, I guess, when it’s not trying to kill me,” he told her with a hint of his characteristic dark humor. He didn’t want to linger on the subject so he added, quickly, “I’m actually trying to catch up with school too. I should be in college now but I never got my GED. I thought this was as good a time as any to get my shit together.”
Violet laughed. “Atlantis does tend to do that every now and then, unfortunately. It’s the sort of thing my brother and I were pretty used to back home. There’s always an evil mad genius wanting to take over the world.” Violet explained. She waved her hand as if it wasn’t a big deal. “I’d say you get used to it after a while, but this place certainly knows how to keep people on their toes.” Her eyes narrowed for a second. “Like forcing people to return home when they didn’t want to.”
She didn’t want to be a downer so she made sure to smile after a quick beat. Of course Violet missed her parents and her youngest brother, but there was no way she’d choose to go home right now, especially if Dash was still around. The idea that she left him alone, even for two months was painful. She was grateful that there were people here that looked after him and took care of him, but deep down she always felt that was her job, more than others.
Charlie lifted his eyebrows a little. What the fuck kind of world did she come from? Evil, mad geniuses? Steve had said something about her and her brother having powers so he guessed maybe that put them in the line of danger more than most. Whatever, he kind of wished he could feel so blazé about nearly dying. It would have made life a whole lot easier for him in the aftermath of the Arena.
“Hey, here it is,” he said, a small ‘ping’ drawing his attention back to the shop’s database and its search results.
“It looks like we have it on vinyl or I can send the digital copy straight to your device if that would be easier.” He looked up at her.
Her smile brightened. “Great! I had to rewatch the episode and I can’t believe I didn’t already have the music for it. Plus it helps me study. Speaking of-” Wanting to quickly add this. “If you ever need help with that, let me know, okay?”
Violet took a moment. “I think I’ll go with vinyl.” She decided. “I have a lot of digital copies of music already, it’s nice to have something you can hold now and again, right?” Thinking that he’d probably be a fan of vinyl as well.
A bashful but genuine smile spread across Charlie’s face at Violet’s offer to help him study.
“Do I come across as the type that would need help then?” he asked teasingly, wondering, even as he spoke, why he could never just say ‘thanks’ and be done with it.
Charlie nodded at her decision to go with the physical vinyl over the digital download. He understood that want to have something tangible. His life, in the last few years, had been so transient that he was enjoying having a room and belongings that were actually his.
“I’ve never seen it,” Charlie confessed, checking the database line in more detail to work out where the record might be filed in the shop’s enormous collection. “Doctor Who,” he clarified. Moving out from behind the counter, he found the library marked with the right reference and began flicking through the records, searching for the title. “Is it good?”
“No,” Violet admitted. “Not so much that you’d need it but I figured I’d offer all the same” Truth be told Violet had no idea the level of his intelligence so her offer was coming from a place of friendliness than anything else.
Violet feigned shock. She knew not everyone had seen the show and those that did, not everyone would be as into as she was. “Yeah, it’s one of my favorite shows. Time-traveling alien that can change his face. Or hers.” Knowing full well that the Doctor could regenerate into a woman. “It’s brilliant.” It was the best fake British accent, but watching enough shows on BBC helped.
Charlie smiled as he listened to her enthuse about Doctor Who, glancing back and forth between her animated face and the record library he was still deftly flicking through. She reminded him of something and it took him a moment to realise that this must be what he sounded like when anyone got him onto the subject of classic comedy. The thought only made his smile wider.
He realised that he wasn’t looking much at the records any more and he quickly glanced back down. It was lucky that he did. The sleeve in his hand was exactly the one they’d been looking for. He pulled it out of the library and offered it, title side up, to Violet.
“So all of these are Doctor Who with different faces?” he asked, nodding down at the faces on the album sleeve.
Violet nodded as she pointed to each one and named the actor. “In the show he’s called the Doctor, but yeah essentially it’s the same person but whenever he’s badly hurt he doesn’t die. Instead all of his cells regenerate and change. So every time it’s a new face and they bring in a new actor. This is from what people called Classic Who. It ran from 1963 to 1989 and the Doctor Who that’s playing now started up in 2005.”
Taking a moment to pause as she realized that she was probably talking fast or more excited than she intended. That happened a lot whenever someone started asking her about Doctor Who or Tolkien. “I always recommend it to people, though I know it’s not always for everyone. They rely on makeup and people in alien costumes a lot, which I know not everyone likes.” Violet smiled. “How much do I owe you?”
Charlie enjoyed listening to Violet. He couldn’t really say whether he’d be into the show or not but, either way, her enthusiasm was infectious.
“Maybe you could show me an episode sometime,” he suggested, trying to sound nonchalant, as he carried the record back to the cash register. He rung it up and told her the price, wrapping it up in a couple of bags to try to keep it dry in the deluge outside.
“Sure, that’d be fun.” Violet took out her wallet and handed over a couple of bills. Her eyes looked towards the window and smiled as the rain started to let up. Enough so that she wouldn’t get too wet on her way back home. “Thanks again for your help.” Once she got her change she gave him a small wave. “I’ll see you around.”