americas_son | (no subject)

(no subject)

It's been an odd couple of days. Cal has kept his focus mainly on Tina, and hopefully that's helped keep the weirdness on his end at a minimum.

When she's ready to go home, though, he promises with a glance at Sherlock to come back once he's dropped her off. With any luck, Tony won't ask too many questions until then.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He knows Sherlock knows that. He takes a breath.

"Okay."

Most of him wants this not to have happened.

It's having to work a lot harder than he'd like to drown out the part of him that wishes it hadn't stopped happening.

Sherlock falls silent.

There are so many things he wishes he could say, but he doubts that any of them would be helpful.

With anyone else, Cal would say something about how he should go, and then do just that.

But this isn't anyone else, and he doesn't want to fuck up anymore than he already has.

(He can make this make sense. He just . . . he just wanted something pleasant, is all, after the day spent with Stane so much on his mind. And who better than Sherlock?

That's all it was. That's all.)

"We probably should've just gone to sleep." He means it to sound like a joke, but it falls flat.

Dryly: "I believe we concluded it was impossible."

(And then Sherlock offered him a hand up from the couch, and - no. No, what did he just decide? Put it away now.)

"We suck," Cal decides.

He laughs.

"I can't argue."

Should he tell Tina?

Would there be a point? It was only this once. (He'll only let it be this once.)

Fuck it. He'll think about it later.

"Maybe we should order some pizza or something." Eating might help, and he's not about to ask Sherlock to cook.

"If you'd rather. I prefer to cook."

...well, there's that.

Cal lets himself (makes himself?) smile a bit, wry.

"I didn't want to ask if you were so tired."

"Oh, no. By all means, if you think it would help, I am certainly not too tired to cook."

Cal nods.

"Okay. Yeah, it might help." Meals make him sleepy sometimes.

"Then I will."

This time, when he stands up, he does not offer Cal his hand.

Cal ignores that part of him that's disappointed.

It'll shut up eventually. He'll wear it out.

In the meantime, he hauls himself up off the couch and follows Sherlock downstairs.

And Sherlock ignores the part of himself that is composing an email, because it is essentially a coward, that starts with I don't want this to seem like I am making a suggestion... and ends with a link to the Wikipedia page for polyamory. Not his business. Not his place. Not appropriate. Even though, when he first saw it, he wondered why anyone had ever settled for anything else.

Someday, someone will take it upon themselves to explain to Cal that he is not, in fact, fundamentally broken when it comes to sex and romance. That person might even be Sherlock.

For now, though, Sherlock's instincts are sound. For the next little while, at least, he will be the last person in the world who should try.

"Anything in particular in mind?" Cal asks, in reference to dinner. He himself isn't picky when it comes to Sherlock's cooking.

"I have the oddest inclination to make waffles," he says thoughtfully. "May as well."

Sherlock makes his own rules. That includes rules about eating waffles for dinner at three in the morning.

"Sounds good."

Cal, former stoner that he is, sees nothing odd about waffles at three in the morning.

Actually, now that he's thinking about them, he's realizing that he really is hungry. His appetite has been the last thing on his mind for most of the day, and the one time he did bother to eat was a while ago.

"- that reminds me, I was kind of in the kitchen earlier. I didn't make a mess." Nuking some leftovers is allowable, right?

"I am sure you can be forgiven."

"I'll try not to do it again," Cal promises, in a lying sort of way.

He smiles a little as he says it, less self-conscious than his last effort.

Instead of saying the worst thing he could possibly say right now, Sherlock grins and steps into the kitchen.

Yeah, that was - never mind.

Cal was telling the truth about not making a mess.

Unless the dishes still sitting in the sink count.

The worst thing he could possibly say right now is I love you. The second-worst might be you're a liar.

"Entirely salvageable," he declares, heading straight for the sink to clean up.

"If I'd tried to wash them, you'd only have to redo them," Cal defends. Even if a defense is not technically called for.

He opens the fridge to get a drink, bypassing the soda in favor of a beer. "You want anything?"

"Not out of the refrigerator, no. The kettle and I have a prior appointment."

"I don't even know why I ask."

Cal uses the bottle opener on the fridge (custom installation and design, of course) and takes a long drink of beer.