if_inconvenient | (no subject)

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Right. Cal is due to arrive any minute now. Tony is downstairs in his workshop, playing with his cars. Sherlock puts away his violin and descends to the ground floor, pondering the choice of living rooms.

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"For what?"

Cal switches his gaze back to the ceiling.

"It's a fucked up thing to have to worry about," he says. "Even if - probably nothing will happen."

Something else Cal knows a few things about.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," Cal says quietly.

He takes a slow, measured breath. Thinking. Thinking.

Who tried to have Tony killed? Are they going to strike again? When? Tony will be vulnerable at university, without Sherlock, without Jarvis. But of course, an assassin would not think that way. Surely it must seem much easier to take him out now, in a small town in southern California whose death rate is already abnormally high.

Cal looks over again after a moment.

"The pot really does help," he says. He's pretty sure he'd lose his mind without it.

Sherlock rubs his forehead.

"I appear to have chosen analysis of that assassination attempt as my favoured distraction," he says wryly. "I don't doubt that your way is saner."

Cal laughs a little.

"The world really fucking hates your brother, doesn't it?"

He chuckles.

"So it would appear."

"Maybe I should send the pot to him instead."

Cal is a giver.

"He prefers to get drunk, but I am sure he will appreciate the sentiment."

"That works, too," Cal says. He's not opposed to getting drunk himself, upon occasion. "A lot harder on your bladder, though."

"I have never heard him complain of it."

"Maybe he doesn't mind," Cal theorizes. "Or - maybe he's never tried pot and he doesn't know better."

Now that would be a tragedy.

"Oh, he has," Sherlock reports. "Twice. He thinks I don't know about the second time." (It's so adorable when Tony believes he got away with something.) "Come to think of it, he may be trying to run a clean house so as not to tempt me into more dangerous vices. Sweet of him."

"Yeah, we wouldn't want you getting any ideas," Cal says, then laughs as something else occurs to him.

"Shit, I hope I'm not a bad influence."

Everyone knows pot is a gateway drug.

Even when you, uh, repeatedly decline to use it.

"I think I am the one who is a bad influence on you. I taught you about vampires, after all."

"That's true," Cal says. "Mother would really love that."

There is a reason why Cal has completely failed to tell her that he knows anything beyond what he figured out on that eventful night.

"I am afraid it is uncharitable of me, but I cannot condone the way she seems so intent on maintaining your ignorance."

Cal shrugs.

"The less me and Dad know, the easier we are to manage."

It's a state of affairs he's always lived with. Life runs smoother if he doesn't fight it.

(He hates not fighting it, among other things. The pot helps with that, too.)

He snorts. "Good heavens. Well, if you ever want to know something you aren't supposed to learn, you may depend on me to find it out for you."

Cal smiles.

"I think she'd hate that even more than the getting me shot at."

She'd certainly put more effort into actively preventing the friendship.

"She can hate it all she likes; I won't abandon you on her account."

Cal, too stoned to be aware of how happy he suddenly looks, says,

"No, you like breaking in too much."

"It is quite a lot of fun," he agrees.

(Hopefully Cal will also be too stoned to notice him d'awwing inside.)