dearsweetsoulful | (no subject)

"You're quite right," he says, softer than he intended. "I could put them all to shame."

Cal takes out another cigarette, just for something to do.

"Good thing you're not on their side, then."

Wryly: "Indeed."

Cal lights his cigarette and holds it in one hand, fiddling with his lighter in the other.

"What kind of spell did they use for the, uh - for that?"

He remembers a note in Sherlock's database, something about a spell to re-ensoul vampires, but with some kind of ridiculous clause and a really rare ingredient. Unstable to the point of uselessness, said the accompanying comment. Or something like that.

Sherlock would want something more reliable for himself.

"Not the bloody useless one in Jarvis's archives. We found something less tenuous. Not suitable for mass production, however—it has to be cast by someone who saw the recipient draw their first breath."

Cal nods. He'll have to bring it up back home. Just in -

- it would be a good addition to the database.

"I'm glad it worked out," he says.

"As am I."

"Sherlock'll be interested in trying to find it back home."

That only feels a little weird to say. You can only talk your way awkwardly around the doubles thing in Milliways so many times before it starts getting old.

"I'd be much obliged if you would tell him. It is considerably more appealing to contemplate than any of the alternatives."

"I definitely will," Cal says. "But we're not -"

He pauses.

"I'll kill Stane myself if I have to."

"Oh, let Sherlock do it. Tony will forgive him faster."

Also, no offense, Cal, but you would make a terrible assassin.

"Well, obviously I wouldn't tell Tony."

Give him some credit.

"I would. To mitigate the bad penny scenario."

"That would make it a lot harder to come up with a convincing fake," Cal points out.

"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."