americas_son | (no subject)

"I'm okay."

It's mostly true. Dragging up all the shit with Stane has left him feeling unsettled and restless, but he'll manage. It hasn't been bad enough to make him wish that he could go out and get some pot, anyway. At least, not any more than he usually does when things are stressful.

"Thank you," he murmurs. "For telling him."

Cal shrugs a little with one shoulder.

"Had to be done," he says. "I was - I didn't really love having to lie to him all the time like that, anyway."

"Nor did I."

"When Stane visited last time, I was just lying the whole time. I wasn't there to make sure Tony got breakfast, I didn't just want to hang out, Connolly wasn't just trailing me because Peter'd decided to be paranoid for some reason."

Cal sighs.

"And I know I'm good, but it was depressing how easy it was. I thought I'd have to try harder, you know? To convince him."

"He wanted to believe," Sherlock says quietly.

"That we were better friends than we were?"

He knows that's not it, or at least not entirely it, and he knows it was a series of lies told for all the right reasons. If he had it to do over again, he'd do it all the same, without any guilt.

But that aspect of the lies had been . . . uncomfortable.

"That you wouldn't lie to him. That nothing was wrong."

Another sigh.

"That too."

A brief pause, then,

"You're the only one I'd never lie to and that's only because I'd never get away with it."

And even then, sometimes he forgets and tries anyway, if only with small things.

"But no more lying to Tony about important shit anymore."

He smiles slightly.

"Agreed."

"You think this'll change things?"

Vampire things, he means.

"I think that if and when Obadiah Stane shows his face again, Tony will support whatever measures we take. Not gladly, but he will."

That's a yes.

"Good."

Cal considers.

"Now I won't have to visit him to poison his whiskey."

He can do it right here! Much more convenient.

"Yes, that is among the many advantages of this arrangement."

Cal makes a face.

"Yeah, 'cause I was really trying not to think about that."

—ah. Yes.

"And now," he says, smiling wryly, "there is no very good reason why I cannot be the assassin if it comes to that."

"True."

(Cal may not be entirely aware of that fact that he looks just a little regretful when he says that.)

"Or you could poison him. If you prefer."

Cal blinks.

"We could draw straws," he suggests, then shrugs. "Nah, you've got more right to it. It would just be so easy. I could act like I felt all sorry for him because he'd been in hell and that's so awful and no one deserves that. He'd eat it right the fuck up. I mean, I could've used that either way, but."

It would be more fun if he knew he wouldn't have to follow it with any kind of seduction act.

"I suppose it would be both convenient and appropriate if I could arrange an accident. If he manages to make a public return. Otherwise, the violent solution is, I think, the simplest."

Cal nods along a little as Sherlock talks.

"Either way, it's not like anyone would notice."

Sunnydale is a good place for arranging someone's death.

He snorts.

"I could disguise it as a vampire attack."

. . . Cal laughs, for the first time in a while.

Sherlock grins.

"God, I almost feel sorry for him."

Except that he doesn't.