americas_son | (no subject)

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"Yeah, I hate to break it to you." Cal gives him a dry look.

"- So what are you going to do once you're done here?"

"Go home. Kill Obadiah—it's turning into something of a hobby. If everything goes according to plan, I'll get my soul back and go home to be thoroughly domesticated by my very own Cal. Dreadful thought, isn't it?"

He doesn't, on the whole, seem to dread it very much.

Cal, on the other hand, looks disgusted.

"What do you want with a soul?"

"I don't now, particularly. I did beforehand. And it's more than worth it for the chance to finish the job."

Cal is not entirely convinced.

"There must be some way to get out of it," he says.

"To be perfectly honest with you, I don't care as much as I probably should. It seems to me I'll have just as much fun with my soul as I do without it, and a hell of an easier time convincing everyone I know not to kill me on sight."

"Yeah, 'cause they'd totally have a chance," Cal says dismissively. "Well, I think it sucks. You are way better without a soul."

He grins.

"Want to bet on that?"

"What, that you're better without a soul? I already know."

Cal, for once, isn't rising to the bait.

"I'll look you up when I've mine back and you won't even be able to tell the difference."

Cal takes a hard turn, spinning the steering wheel more sharply than necessary.

"I doubt it," he says flatly.

" - You know what, don't."

Thoughtfully: "No?"

"No." Cal's voice is still flat. His eyes are fixed on the road and his expression is blank in a way it hasn't been since before the change. "I'd rather just think about it like you died. Less depressing."

"All right."

"Good," Cal says. "Because basically it's the same difference."

Sherlock refrains from arguing the point.

"I don't care if you think so or not," Cal says, when the silence has gone long enough to make it obvious what Sherlock isn't saying. "You can't tell. You're too close. I can see the differences. You're not the same person any more than I'm the same as I was before."

"I know precisely what the differences are between myself and that charming fellow back at the house," he murmurs. "I do remember being someone not unlike him."

"So," Cal says. "Same difference. You-with-a-soul is not going to be you, and I don't feel like watching him try."

There's a brief pause before he adds,

"That would just be embarrassing for everyone."

"You know," he remarks, "you're such fun sometimes I find myself making the unforgivable mistake of forgetting you haven't known me since May. I can be whoever the hell I feel like, with a soul or without it. Me—Tony—my better half—Howard fucking Stark if the mood takes me. It's all of a piece."

"Yeah?" Cal says. "Is you-with-a-soul gonna wanna come back and kill dinner with me sometime?"

"In a city this size, having seen the things I've seen, I am quite sure that with minimal effort he could find someone he would not be ashamed of killing. Though you've no idea how it tempts me to lie and say of course he wouldn't."

"Right."

Sorry, Sherlock, Cal's not buying what you're trying to sell.

"And now we have come full circle," he says with bitter irony; "I am contemplating not killing anyone to spite you."