dearsweetsoulful | (no subject)

Cal comes out the back door - not at top speed, exactly, but not at normal walking speed, either. The look he gives the building as he walks away from it is not upset, but decidedly perturbed.

You'd think, under the circumstances, that he'd be paying more attention when he spots the familiar figure by the lake, and maybe he is. Maybe he just figures that Sherlock is Sherlock.

Or maybe he's not.

Either way, he walks up next to Sherlock, reaching into his jacket for his own pack of smokes.

"Fucking Milliways."

"Hello, Cal," he says fondly.

And then—

"Oh, damn."

"There are like eight guys in there who - what?"

He pauses in the middle of taking out a cigarette.

"Oh, no, you first," he says, waving a hand. "Mine can wait."

"- who look like Stane," Cal finishes as he goes through the rest of the smoker's ritual. After a pause for the first drag, he adds,

"I think one of them was some kind of hippie. Long hair and everything. Weirdest fucking thing I'll see today, I bet you."

He feels pretty confident in saying that.

Sherlock flinches at Stane's name.

It's subtle, but noticeable.

. . . okay, that's also pretty weird. Cal exhales slowly, taking a closer look at Sherlock.

"Are you okay?" he says after a moment. "You look kinda pale."

"Still summer, isn't it? Before your first year at UC Sunnydale?"

That wasn't even a subtle dodge.

Seriously, is Milliways actively fucking with him today? Did it think maybe the first transformation day of his girlfriend's second month as a werewolf was a little on the quiet side and needed some excitement? This couldn't just have been his Sherlock, from his timeline, or whatever it is that's going on here?

"Yeah," he says. "Little less than a month to go."

"Right. Well."

Where the fuck does he even start.

"We appear to have a slight timelines issue. And yes, I am quite aware that I look pale. —Oh, you will be happy to know I have found an Irene."

Okay. Close but different. And the acknowledgment of his pallor -

- Cal allows himself to be distracted by Sherlock's last statement.

"Yeah?" he asks, brightening. "I knew there had to be some smart girl with taste out there somewhere. Who is she?"

"Her name is Bella. She is enchantingly thoughtful."

"Bella," Cal repeats, then nods. "I like it. Is she from here or home?"

He still isn't sure whether this is a timeline thing or a different world thing, but the word "home" could go either way.

"Home. She transferred in during my last year of high school."

He sighs.

"There's been some trouble since then, I'm afraid. Would you like to hear it?"

What Cal would like is to finish his cigarette in quiet, then maybe sneak back through Milliways without making eye contact with any of the Stane-alikes (especially not the one in the neon-light-accented cape; he set Cal's creep alarms off something fierce).

But even if this is a different world thing, it's still Sherlock, so he says,

"Okay."

"I am going to tell this backwards," Sherlock decides, "for a minimum of stress. I shot Obadiah Stane, after getting back my soul, after he had me kidnapped and turned into a vampire, after he came back from Hell. And I was only soulless for a little less than three hours so I did not have time to do any damage worth mentioning."

There is a very long silence.

"Okay," Cal repeats blankly.

"Sorry. I don't imagine there is such a thing as a good time to hear that news, but if there is, now was not it."

Cal doesn't even know where to start asking questions.

(And there is definitely some tension gathering that wasn't there a few seconds go.)

"And if you would rather not continue this conversation, I can leave."

He doesn't manage to be entirely serene about saying it.

Different world. Please, this has to be a different world. He can't - that's too much. It's too much.

"When?" he finally manages to ask.

"It would be... seven months into your future. March."

It must be. All wishful thinking aside, he doesn't believe Sherlock would go around creating time paradoxes like that.

It doesn't help as much as it should.

"Okay."

His cigarette is burning out. He hasn't taken a drag since the first one, and has completely forgotten he's holding it at all.

Sherlock's is nearly gone, and he is ignoring it in a similar fashion.

"I'm doing all right," he adds. "More or less."

Right. Right, of course that's what he was going to ask next.

"That's, that's good," he says. "Glad to hear it."