dearsweetsoulful | (no subject)

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&cal

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There's a pale young man out back of Milliways, leaning against a tree by the lake with a cigarette and a contemplative expression.

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"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."

"I'll talk to Sherlock tonight," Cal decides. "The moon'll be up soon, Tina'll be busy."

There will be plenty of time to talk.

"—Ah."

Cal blinks at him.

"What?"

"I was wondering who the werewolf was, but it seemed impolite to ask. I'm sorry."

That does not make Cal look any less blank.

...Sherlock is not quite sure which part of this he needs to explain.

"- What?"

Cal is still catching up.

He settles on, "It's how I knew you were not quite the same."

"Because I - oh."

It finally clicks. He's gotten used to thinking of the enhanced sense of smell in context of werewolves; he'd kind of forgotten it applies to vampires, too.

"Right." Pause.

"She's not - ?"

"In my world? No. Entirely human."

Cal absorbs this, silent for a long moment. His hand twitches like he's going to go for another cigarette, but he doesn't.

"What, did she let me drive her home or something? It's only the second month."

"Perhaps the werewolf who bit her in your world never existed in mine. I am not quite," he confesses, very dryly, "perceptive enough to tell, given the evidence available."

"It was totally by chance," Cal says. "She missed her stop on the bus that night and had to double back. There are a lot more ways it couldn't have happened than ways it did."

There's an edge of frustration to his voice. The whole thing had been so preventable.

"Yes, well."

Sherlock has composed and subsequently memorized a litany of all the things he personally could have done differently to prevent being turned into a vampire, starting a week prior with the most obvious solution of them all. He does not allow himself to start reciting it.

"I find it is generally not productive to consider how things might have chanced to turned out differently, although in this case I suppose it is unavoidable."

"Yeah."

Cal sighs.

"I try not to, I know it's a good way to drive myself crazy and I don't want Tina thinking I blame her or anything, but sometimes I just -"

He does blame her, a little, and himself for not pushing harder when she'd said no to having someone pick her up from work because it would look weird, or ducked the issue of finding a job with daytime hours. But what was he supposed to do, not respect her choices? Was she supposed to let him do her thinking for her? The fact that not treating her like shit had led to this is a pretty fucked up life lesson.

He huffs out a little laugh.

"I guess this explains why your Cal hasn't gone crazy. I was wondering how he could survive all that."

"It does seem like a little much, all together," Sherlock agrees. "But I like to think you'd manage somehow or other."

"I wouldn't have a lot of choice, would I?"

For a moment, Cal looks desperately tired. Sometimes he misses being able to hide in a cloud of pot smoke until a problem went away, was solved by someone else, or stopped being important.

"Whatever, I won't have to worry about it." He's got information now that will allow him to make sure of it if things happen the same way in his world.