if_inconvenient | (no subject)

"You said something about - dinge?"

What? If something is dingy, it's because it has dinge on it, right?

"I did, yes. Joking aside, however, I have never been here before."

Ah. Yes.

Of course.

"Really?" Cal asks. "You guys lived in New York and you never went to the city?"

Weird. Not impossible, but weird.

"Indeed we did, and indeed I didn't."

Cal files that away as yet another piece of information about Sherlock's past that doesn't quite fit.

"Well, check it out a little while you're there. I've never really gotten to much, but I hear there's a lot going on."

"I believe the effect may be attributed to the fact that when I lived in New York I was not Sherlock Holmes."

- which, as far as Cal can remember, is the most direct Sherlock has been with him on that subject. He is, again, taken aback.

(He really, really should have brought his cigarettes with him.)

". . . Yeah, I kinda figured that," he says carefully.

He chuckles.

"I'll save that story for another time, I think. Perhaps when I return to California."

"Okay," Cal says, self-consciously agreeable. "Whenever you feel like it's fine by me."

"Oh, it's not that bad," he says brightly.

Except that it is. It was. Just because he can look back on it and laugh now...

Well.

"Okay." He's saying that a lot during this conversation, isn't he? But this time, at least, what else is he going to say? Considering that whatever it was made you decide to be someone else completely, I'm not sure I believe that?

"Well. Whenever."

Sherlock laughs.

Today is just his day for inappropriate humour, isn't it.

There is a pause in which Cal gropes for something to say.

"So Mother's talking about running to fill Dad's seat in the Senate for the rest of his term," he what he comes up with.

It's horrendously awkward as far as subject changes go, but it's something. And he'd planned on mentioning it to Sherlock, anyway.

"That should be interesting."

"I think she'll get it," Cal says. "I mean, she qualifies legally, and so soon after - I mean, even if they do it by appointment instead of election, I don't think they'd dare pick anyone else. Public sympathy's too high right now."

"Of course," he murmurs. "A sound analysis."

Cal shifts in his chair, switching his phone to his other ear.

"It's getting her foot in the door," he says. His tone is just a little too matter-of-fact. "She says she's got a way better chance now than when they got married. As a woman, I mean."

"Heaven help America when she pulls it off."

"If she ends up in the White House," Cal says, "I'm moving to fucking Australia."

. . . then he glances toward the door, just in case his mother somehow heard that. Things in the house may be different now, but there are still lines it's best not to cross.

"While I would be tempted to join you, I think I might stay here instead. Keep her honest, if such a thing is possible."

"Yeah?" Cal says. "Before or after you make pigs fly?"

This is the most comfortable the conversation has been so far, pulled away from uneasy subjects; Cal finds himself relaxing into his chair and smiling.

"Flying pigs is easy. All it requires is a catapult."

"By themselves." Cal is going to have to start making his hyperboles more detailed at this rate.

"I assure you catapulted pigs are quite solitary. I could do this all day, you know."

Cal considers this.

"You suck," he decides.

"Not if you catapult them in groups," he adds a few seconds later.