if_inconvenient | (no subject)

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&cal

(no subject)

Sherlock does not want to be at school today. For once in his life he is something less than indifferent to the occasional stare and snicker, the looks of familiar contempt from those who have been around long enough to get used to him. His mood has been fluctuating wildly between rage and despair since yesterday morning. He knows his self-control is good enough to keep him from reacting to any taunts with violence, but nothing will stop him from wanting to. Which is unsettling in itself.

He has a duty, though, one that cannot be ignored. And if he is going to show up at school again, he may as well do the job properly. He is on time for every class before lunch, polite if not friendly when circumstances call for conversation, crisply dressed—in trousers, thank you; he does not think he could bear the reactions to another skirt. The only signs that anything is wrong are the dark circles under his eyes and the tension that stands in sharp contrast to his usual indolence.

At noon on the dot he is in the cafeteria waiting for Bella Swan.

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Sherlock nods.

Something in this exchange, either telling her about it or seeing her agree, seems to relax him a little.

"Is there any way to block it?" she asks. "To keep it out?"

"That I have discovered, no."

He kind of didn't sleep last night.

She had expected as much. He would already have included the information if he had it. Still, she sighs.

"Will you be all right?"

"With any luck," he says, which sounds flippant and really isn't.

She looks at him thoughtfully.

"That's a particular problem for you," she says. "And it knew."

When it didn't have convenient triggers in the form of dead people as it did for Tony, it modified its approach.

- it occurs to Bella that this, unlike the clone issue, is something she could independently verify with Tony. It isn't something that requires education and an immense IQ to comprehend, and seeing one's dead parents is the kind of thing a person is less likely to be able to lie convincingly about.

"I didn't even bloody know how bad it was until yesterday," he tells the window. "I've slept alone all my life except once or twice—" he is not getting into his complex relationship with Tony right now "—when I was younger. I knew I found the thought of doing otherwise extremely distasteful, but my reaction when this creature turned up was rather more than that."

Bella's first response is to apply logic: if Sherlock is asleep and thus cannot hear or see his surroundings, and the entity's only weapon is appearance and words, then it cannot have any effect on him while he sleeps and so there is nothing to fear.

The problem with that, however, is that if logic worked to dispel phobic reactions, then phobias wouldn't exist.

She thinks, then tries a different approach.

"It taught you something new about yourself," she says. "It's best to know about that weakness before it's exploited by something that can do you physical harm."

"Very true," he admits. "Not as comforting as I'd like, but true."

Some people might offer a hug. Hugs are nice; Bella is not averse. But she doesn't know what Sherlock thinks of them, and she does know what he thinks of logic, so instead she continues,

"And now that you know about it, you can work on it. That's the comforting part," she adds. "I find it very comforting to know that I do not have to submit helplessly to things about myself that I don't like. I haven't always been successful in eradicating them, but I can at least modify or temper them. And you have far more experience than I do in personality modification." Which, she thinks, is putting it mildly.

"Also true," he says with the first smile he has had all day.

Bella smiles back, pleased with her success.

"Thank you," he says, very earnestly.

"You're welcome," she answers sincerely.

After a pause, she asks,

"Do you think Tony would be willing to talk to me about his experience?"

"He might. I am not sure."

There would be other complications, of course. Sherlock is under no illusions about Tony's ability to keep secrets in the midst of emotional turmoil.

Then again...

"I would ask you to keep the conversation turned away from the circumstances of Obadiah's death, if you did speak with him."

"I can do that." It's a reasonable request. The subject would be particularly upsetting for Tony, especially with its relative newness (moreso than his parents, anyway), and it's not relevant to the information Bella wants.

"Thank you," he repeats.

"Upsetting him unduly would be unkind, counterproductive, and make a bad first impression."

And she doesn't want to make a bad first impression on Sherlock's -

On Sherlock's what, exactly? What is the correct term? Parent? She sets that aside as a question more appropriately asked later. Whatever the relation, Tony is important to Sherlock. That matters.

That matters to Bella.

Sherlock smiles again.

"True on all counts. I knew there was a reason I liked you."

Bella looks pleased again.

"Can you give me his number?" she asks. "I'd like to talk to him after - oops."

Her attempts to extract her cellphone from her pocket have resulted in knocking her sandwich to the floor. She sighs and leans down to pick it up.

Her appetite is still AWOL, anyway.

"Of course."

He hesitates only briefly before adding, "Do you mind if I listen?"

Bella wraps her now-inedible sandwich back up in its wrapper, considering the question. She doesn't much like the idea, but she has no intention of asking Tony anything she would want to conceal from Sherlock, and it's likely Tony would tell him if she did, anyway.

"Why?"

He hesitates again.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

"I have his phone tapped. With his knowledge and permission. I am going to have access to the conversation anyway; I would rather you knew and approved than otherwise."

She flicks him an annoyed look.

"Then you should just have told me that," she points out. "Your question implied a choice on my part, which was misleading."

Sherlock is quiet for a moment.