Slipping Into The Future

Chapter 4

Lin unlocks the door to his apartment feeling drunk, even though he hasn't had a single drop of alcohol in over 48-hours. He feels like he should fix that, but he also needs to stay sober to properly deal with his time-travelling companion.

Lin shuffles inside and hits the light switch, vaguely gesturing towards his living room. "You can sit on the couch. Make yourself at home."

Hamilton slowly walks into the apartment and visibly tenses at the sight of everything. He sits as stiff as a brick while his eyes roam the apartment.

"If anything is overwhelmingly confusing for you, please do not hesitate to ask," Lin says politely before entering his kitchen. "Would you like some water?"

"Oh, yes please." Hamilton frowns as he watches Lin pour him a glass of water from his tap. "How...peculiar. Water pumps directly into your home?"

"Oh yeah," Lin chuckles nervously. "We have invented indoor plumbing at some point within the two centuries since you've been around."

"Indoor plumbing," Hamilton says slowly, testing the clearly foreign words on his tongue.

Lin walks into the living room and sits across from Hamilton on the chair. He passes Hamilton the glass of water and the man takes a large gulp. Lin silently laments that the poor guy must be thirsty as hell if he has never seen clean water before tonight. "Hey, uh, if your water is dirty, what do you drink to hydrate yourself?"

"Typically tea. Mostly alcohol." Hamilton takes another gulp. "Wine...whiskey."

"Alcohol is known to actually dehydrate people," Lin replies casually.

"You don't say?" Hamilton hums, taking another sip before placing the glass down. "How exactly does this 'indoor plumbing' work?"

Lin bites his bottom lip. "Honestly, I don't know much about it. It's always just been there in my life? The best way I could describe it is that there are metal tubes called pipes that lead to the sewers and the city's water supply. And then I can just turn on the tap and I get clean water?"

Hamilton nods. Lin wonders to himself if the man is only nodding out of politeness and is unwilling to admit that none of what he said made any sense. "Sorry, this must all be very difficult to grasp. Even for a man as smart as you. I would be very out of my element if our positions were reversed."

Hamilton smiles shyly at this before replying. "It would appear that I am rather, as you say, out of my element."

Lin feels slightly better knowing he said the right thing to ease his guest. He watches Hamilton carefully as the man examines the apartment with an almost child-like awe. Hamilton grabs the picture frame on the table beside the couch.

"This is a very small family portrait," Hamilton comments in a low voice. He looks up at Lin. "This is your family, correct?"

"Yeah, my wife and two-year-old Sebastian. They're on a trip with her family upstate this weekend." Lin pauses, watching Hamilton stare at the photo with a soft fondness. "I miss them."

"You did not go with them?" Hamilton asks, flickering his gaze back to Lin.

"I have to work," Lin replies with a tired shrug.

Hamilton nods, his lips tugging into a frown. "It seems that even though two centuries have gone by, work can still keep a man from his family... what a shame."

Lin doesn't comment on that. He furrows his brows, trying to remember details about Hamilton's life. If it is 1794 where he is from, then surely the...he already had the...

"Would you like to have a shower?" Lin asks instead of letting his thoughts run further into a territory he cannot go to. Hamilton puts the photo down and gives Lin that same confused frown that is almost burned into the poor man's features by this point.