if_inconvenient | (no subject)

Today got a bit longer than Cal had thought it would. It's partly his own fault, as he had optimistically assumed that an application to a state college would be a reasonably uninvolved project.

He decided to save telling Mother that he'll be attending UC Sunnydale (what? as if they're going to turn down a Chandler) instead of Harvard for tomorrow.

He has better things to do right now.

Things like watch the front door unlock by itself?

For example.

"Hey, Jarvis."

"Hello, Cal. Sherlock is upstairs."

"Thanks."

Upstairs Cal will go.

To where Sherlock, as promised, is waiting in his workroom.

"Come in," he says from the couch. "How was your afternoon?"

"Long."

Cal drops down onto the couch.

"College applications are a pain in the ass."

He hadn't done the one for Harvard, and isn't sure that there was an application at all, since the Chandlers are a legacy family there. But this he wanted to do right. (Lucky for him that UC Sunnydale has rolling applications.)

"Not, thankfully, a subject with which I need concern myself."

Not now and very likely not ever. Unless he has an abrupt change of heart in his final year at Sunnydale High.

"Lucky you," Cal says. "I don't really want to go, but I think I've freaked Mother out enough this year."

And he has to do something with his life, and unlike some people, he's not a genius who can do whatever he wants. He doesn't want to just be the Chandler heir. Maybe something in college will help him figure it out.

"A wise assessment. UC Sunnydale, then?"

"Yep," Cal says. "She won't like it, but we can spin it as not wanting to leave her alone so soon after Dad died, which - oh, hey. Did I tell you about Grahame's new job?"

He knows he told Tina, but he'd gotten kind of sidetracked at the party and he's pretty sure he forgot to bring it up.

Sherlock raises his eyebrows.

"By all means, tell me about Grahame's new job."

"He's going to work for this law firm in LA," Cal says. "He's leaving tomorrow, actually. They contacted him with an offer not long after the funeral, and then they spent like a thousand years negotiating terms before he accepted. He announced it at my graduation party, it was like the only interesting thing that happened. So it's just gonna be Mother and me now."

Cal is not unhappy about this.

"I see. Well, good for him, I suppose. I'll have to look them up."

"Wolfram and Hart," Cal says. "I guess they're a pretty big deal in some places."

He looks up at the ceiling.

"I dunno, I'm glad for him. I mean. He didn't have anything to do with Dad gone. We all thought he was gonna hide in his study for the rest of his life. But now he's actually happy about something, it's like some kind of miracle. I've literally never seen him happy before ever. I didn't know he could be."

"In that case, I hope he stays that way."

Maybe he can check out Wolfram and Hart after he looks into James Mayer's secret international alien-related organization.

"Yeah," Cal says. "Me too."

He looks back over at Sherlock.

"Plus he'll be out of the house, so that doesn't suck."

The subtle undercurrent of unease that Cal's anxiety about his uncle ultimately settled into has never quite gone away. Maybe it never will.

"Indeed."

While he is thinking about it—

"On a largely unrelated note, Mr Mayer kept a record of Obadiah's disappearance. He denies it, of course, and won't let me have a look. Very inconsiderate of him."

- Cal pauses for a second to catch up.

"Oh. Yeah. It's just a tape, he doesn't have any other copies. Jarvis checked."

Cal had mostly forgotten about that. Once he'd established that Mr Mayer didn't want the tape going public any more than Cal did, it had stopped being important.

"Indeed. I don't expect any trouble out of him. Nevertheless."

Cal shrugs a little.

"Yeah, I could live without it, but as long as we're all on the same side, it's not a problem."

"This I will grant you. Though I am still tempted to steal it."

Cal laughs.

"Now there's a surprise," he says. "How do you know all this stuff, anyway?"

Because Cal never brought it up. As he is just realizing.

"Oh, I spoke with him. Charming fellow."

And Jarvis, of course. Always Jarvis.

"Yeah," Cal says thoughtfully. "He's really good at the fake teacher thing."

Which is to say: his classes are too boring to be memorable, and while he's friendly with his students, he doesn't make much of an impression. Cal would never have looked at him twice if he hadn't come around the corner at the right moment that day.