if_inconvenient | (no subject)

Cal grabs his jacket, since the cigarettes and lighter are in the pocket, and follows Sherlock out.

Sherlock runs a hand through his hair.

Nervous? Couldn't be. Not him.

Cal already has his lighter in his hand as they step outside, and produces a cigarette to go with it at the kind of speed a smoker is always capable of.

The first drag, combined with the alcohol in his system, makes his head spin a little, but he doesn't care. Cigarettes haven't really been an adequate replacement for pot, but relieving the new addiction is still satisfying.

"Better?"

Cal exhales slowly.

"Yeah," he says.

"- you want one?"

"No, thank you."

All right. He came out here for a reason. Any further delay is just stalling.

He hesitates.

Cal has been dealing with Tony for hours now, a long rambling intermittent conversation that has sometimes touched on the day's events and sometimes strayed as far away as possible, and he's been stepping carefully, doing his best to gauge what's okay to talk about when. To gently guide things along, but let Tony decide what to pick up on for himself.

He hasn't quite dropped out of that mindset yet and so, after Sherlock's hesitation has gone on for a few extra seconds, he fills the silence himself, his tone mild and his gaze off somewhere ahead of them.

"I asked Jarvis a while ago if he'd been named after anyone and he said no. I haven't been able to figure out how to make that fit."

It's a starting point, if Sherlock chooses to take it. If he needs it.

"He wasn't," Sherlock agrees.

"Jarvis is older than I am."

This is probably the wrong end to grasp this story by, but Sherlock doesn't entirely believe there is a right one.

Cal has thought about that, and rejected it, more than once. Just because it's the obvious logical conclusion doesn't mean it makes any sense.

". . . Okay," he says. He flicks a bit of ash from his cigarette, what little has manages to accumulate so far, and inhales.

"Tony created Jarvis when he was eleven; he created me when he was twelve and a half. I'm a clone."

How can the truth sound so utterly impossible?

"If you've ever wondered who I was before I chose the name, the answer is quite literally no one."

Cal . . .

. . . Cal has no answer to that.

It would be a lot easier if he could believe for even a second that Sherlock would lie to him.

"The reason I have no particular attachment to Tony's parents," he continues softly, "is because I never met them. He kept me hidden. Quite well, in fact. Even Obadiah never knew I existed until after we moved to Sunnydale."

"Looks like you've figured out his sense of humour, too. Could you translate for the humans in the room?"

He'd wondered at the time, why that of all the things Stane had said about Sherlock that evening had been what set Tony off.

Still lost for words, still looking straight ahead, he nods as he slowly brings his cigarette to his mouth again. Just to show that he's listening.

As though he knows exactly what Cal is thinking, or perhaps as though he has no idea:

"He always took great delight in reminding me of what I wasn't, after that."

That, at least, gives Cal something to say.

("It's about time somebody gave that boy a helping hand. He's been so alone all his life.")

"Yeah, I'll bet," he mutters, and exhales.

He shrugs.

"And now you know."

With a hint of a smile: "Out of curiosity, what was the prevailing theory?"

"Uh."

Cal swallows, pulling his mind away from Obadiah Stane for the thousandth time today, and tries to think.

"That, uh. That y - Tony's parents favored him and pretty much ignored you. I, uh, that happens a lot."

Especially, it seems to him, in the social circles his own family occupies.

"Reasonable," he acknowledges after a moment's thought. "But I am sure you will see it fails to account for all the facts."

"Yeah, well. Like I said."

Once Cal known enough about Jarvis, he'd stopped fitting into that theory.

There are other things too, like how Sherlock clearly doesn't resent Tony the way Cal has seen in (what he thought were) similar situations, or how Tony never seemed to miss who his brother had been, but Cal had kept putting those questions aside when they came up because the answers were none of his business. And besides, in a situation that had gotten bad enough to break Sherlock completely, who can say what reactions are even normal anymore?

So it was still Jarvis who was the biggest question mark. Until now.

"There was some trouble between us over it," understatement of the century, "but that's past."

"Right."

Another mechanical drag from his cigarette.

If there is anything more to say, he can't think of it.

Cal blows out a slow stream of smoke.

He's tired, like he's been awake for days instead of just hours, and kind of drunk, and he watched someone he hates get sucked into hell, and now his best friend is a clone.

He starts to laugh.

What else can he do?

Sherlock glances sidelong at him.

And then grins.

"I'm gonna wake up any minute now, aren't I?"

He's joking. Mostly.