americas_son | Sunnydale AU: simple words

"He just makes the cool tools to take care of them. Like the guy who helps James Bond."

She doesn't know Sherlock well yet, but the thought of him in a James Bond tuxedo already strikes her as hilarious.

(She would rather laugh than fret, so the incongruous image is welcome.)

Cal smiles a little.

"Yeah. Like him."

"You've picked some good friends to get you through," she says, stroking his cheek again. "Real good friends."

Cal leans into the touch, the way he did before.

"I got pretty lucky."

He sighs a little.

"Anyway. We had to make up this whole thing about how he got sick and it put a strain on his heart and he had a heart attack when we thought he was better. We can't exactly tell the truth."

"God, no. No one would believe you, for one. It's a smart story. I know it was hard to tell, but I'm glad you used it."

She kisses his cheek and hugs him. "I'm glad you told me, too."

Cal hugs back, holding on to her a moment before letting go.

"Had to," he says. "I mean. Not telling you was basically lying."

And he doesn't want to lie to her.

She nods and then she smiles.

She gets it. He doesn't want to lie to her, and he admits it. That is... pretty incredible.

"Thanks. That's- Yeah. Thanks."

Cal smiles.

"We had to glamor a fake corpse for the funeral," he says after a moment, still smiling. "It was so fucking ridiculous, but nobody would have believed Reed Chandler not having an open-casket funeral."

"A glamor? Is that like a spell? Uh oh, are you a witch, too?"

She tries to keep her voice light, but that's a scary thought. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Tina grew up going to Pentacostal services. She goes to Baptist church now, which is not nearly as extreme, but she believes. Or rather, she clings to belief without thinking too deeply about it.

"Nah," Cal says. "We just hired one. We don't use magic very often, but sometimes you need it. Like, there's a spell for revoking an invitation to a vampire. We needed that after Dad left. Peter has someone he uses for stuff like that. There's wards and things on the property, too."

That's a huge relief. It's still kind of weird... but she can deal with that.

"Hired witches. Wild."

"I've never tried doing magic," Cal says reflectively. "I don't know if I could or not."

He's not sure exactly how that works. He's kind of assumed it's like anything else; most people can do it a little, but you have to have talent to really be good at it.

"Don't," she blurts out. "I mean... it sounds dangerous. Something you shouldn't mess with."

Cal gives her a curious look.

"Probably," he says. "So's leaving the house at night, but I still do that."

"You should probably leave all it to experts."

She's reluctant to give her opinion. She doesn't do it often.

"Magic gives me the creeps. No offense, but I think it's kind of... wrong."

. . . It has never even occurred to Cal to pass moral judgment on magic. The hardest part was getting used to the fact that it exists on their world, and that wasn't very hard. If you can accept vampires and demons, magic isn't much of a leap. It's just another tool in the arsenal.

Of course, considering the range of tools in the Chandlers' arsenal, maybe he doesn't have any right to pass any kind of moral judgment.

The look he gives her this time is blank.

This is why she doesn't give her opinion. She folds into herself, looking down at her hands in her lap.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"I just don't get it, that's all," Cal says quickly.

He shrugs.

"But whatever, my family's in politics, we do shit that's kinda wrong for a living. I'm probably not the best judge."

"Like what?"

His family might do wrong things, but she can't imagine Cal doing anything horribly wrong. He's too sweet for that.

But then again, she doesn't know him all that well. If she finds out he does wrong things (and what does that mean, exactly) what will she do? Run away? Try to change his mind? Do nothing? Not care because she likes him so much already?

"Depends," Cal says. "'Whatever it takes' is kind of our unofficial motto."

He glances at her.

"I just try not to get involved. Nothing really bad's come up since Dad."

He pauses.

"Well, I mean. I watched a guy get sucked into hell, but that was his fault, it didn't have anything to do with us."

That might just be something of a diversionary tactic.

She nods with a furrowed brow.

"But what happened with your dad... that was a lie, but it was a necessary one."

If that's the kind of wrong he means, then that's not so terrible. She knows rich people do whatever they like, but that's not the same as kidnap or murder or seriously bad stuff like that.

"And I guess as long as you didn't purposefully push anyone into- did you say hell?"

"Hell," he confirms, watching her.

"Don't go into the school basement."

It's not a joke.

"Is that why they have all the locks and 'Keep Out' signs?"

Which Stane had managed to quietly breeze right through. Maybe he did some magic of his own.

"Yep. There's this - thing on the floor down there? It looks like a, a - I don't know, some kind of seal. And he did something to it, and it sucked him right in."

If Cal doesn't sound disturbed by this, it's because he's not. The experience itself, of being close enough to hell to smell it for a second or two, was unnerving, but he doesn't lose any sleep over Stane's fate.

"And this guy- he's someone better off in hell?"

Because she gets that, too. Sometimes there are people who deserve what they get, no matter how bad it is.

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