dearsweetsoulful | (no subject)

"And yet, supposing he came back again, it would be highly inconvenient if his first words to Tony were 'Cal Chandler murdered me' and this came as a surprise."

"I don't care," Cal says flatly. "I'm sick of everyone I know getting turned into things."

He'll do what he has to. And Sherlock might hesitate over the thought of hurting Tony as badly as losing Stane for a second time would hurt him. Cal won't.

"Yes, I imagine that you are."

"And if it doesn't work, I'll stick Tony in a cage or something so nothing can get him either."

Okay, not really.

He'll just have Tony thoroughly covered by a security detail for the rest of his life.

"If you indulge your protective impulses with security personnel, he will go insane of his own accord and save you the trouble."

Cal takes a drag from his cigarette and mutters,

"I won't tell him that, either."

That would work, right? For a couple minutes?

Snort.

"At some point the lies cease to be feasible."

Cal is relaxing a little again, letting himself be drawn back into the swing of the conversation. (It really is just like talking to his Sherlock, and easy not to see the pallor in the Milliways darkness.)

"I don't see what's so unfeasible about me not killing people or - uh, knowing anything about why Tony's being followed all the time."

"And then Tony asks me, and I say—?"

"'Cal definitely never said anything about it to me because he knows better'?"

For example. It's not exactly plausible deniability, but it's a step up from trying to claim to Sherlock that he doesn't know anything.

"At the end of which conversation, either he knows it is your fault or he is convinced it is mine. Certainly if I tell him I haven't the least idea he will laugh in my face."

"Yeah, that'd be a waste of breath," Cal agrees.

". . . Well, he'd definitely believe I wouldn't kill anyone."

"Tony would believe that of a lot of people of whom it is untrue."

. . . Cal sighs.

"Yeah, no shit."

"And yet, I find I cannot regret his innocence."

"Wouldn't be the same without," Cal agrees ruefully, then pauses.

"What does yours think happened to Stane?"

"There are many things I can keep from him. That is not one of them. Even if the circumstances had not been so telling."

"Oh."

Well.

Cal draws from his cigarette.

"And it was the only way I could possibly have stopped him looking at the coroner's report."

" - yeah, I bet that was a fun read."

He didn't mean to say that out loud. It just kind of happened, as it tends to do with him whenever it's least convenient. He winces.

Sherlock snorts.

"Is he okay?"

Another reason to make sure Stane doesn't stick around for long if he comes back.

"Tony?"

He sighs.

"Well, he has yet to give himself alcohol poisoning."

"Shit."

Cal lets the cigarette drop, putting it out with similar force to the last one.

"You are not killing him, then," he says firmly, as though he were addressing his Sherlock. "It would fuck with Tony way less if it was me. And he won't get a week to do anything."