toblameforit | (no subject)

He catches it again, though he has to reach farther this time.

Cal waits.

Expectantly.

"Why am I contributing to this?" he wonders, tossing Cal the pillow. Again.

"Because it's hilarious."

"And you're a good sport," Cal chips in brightly.

And then he - doesn't throw the pillow.

"Oh good," he says dryly, "I'm safe now."

"Well, I can't do it now," Cal explains with great seriousness. "You're expecting it."

"Sure. Lemme just let down my guard so you can catch me by surprise."

"That'd be helpful," Cal deadpans, "thanks."

He starts humming along with the Tetris theme, slightly off-key.

Cal throws the pillow.

It's mostly to save them all from the humming.

This time he experiments with bouncing it off the ceiling.

From the ceiling, it bounces neatly off Tony's head.

"Ow," he says mildly, not even looking up from his game.

"They have thick skulls in the Stark family," Obadiah confides.

Cal has about a second to be pleased with himself - it actually worked! - before Stane speaks up.

"Good thing I wasn't trying to kill him with it, then," he can't help saying, a bit dryly.

"You spend too much time around Sherry, anybody ever tell you that?"

Obadiah chuckles. At Tony's remark, of course, not Cal's.

"My mother," Cal says. "All the time."

Just because she's resigned to that friendship doesn't mean she has to like it.

"She's usually pretty sharp about who I shouldn't be spending time with" - he doesn't have to glance at Stane to get his point across there, does he? Because he doesn't - "but no one's right all the time."

"I don't blame her," he says cheerfully. "Sherry kinda sounds like a joke to most people."

"He's a joke to you, too, Tony. The only difference is, you know the punchline."

For the first time since he started playing, Tony looks up from his Tetris game.

"Would you fucking lay off him for once? He's not even here."

Cal is all too glad to take the chance to openly give Stane a little shit himself. Tony will just think he's sticking up for Sherlock.

Which - he is.

"Seriously," he says. "Do you even know how it sounds to listen to a grown man go after a seventeen-year-old?"

He doesn't actually say "pathetic," but he doesn't think he has to.

"I'm sorry," he says humbly. "That was out of line."

Tony's expression softens. "It's okay, man. It's just—I don't know what it is about him that turns you into a raging asshole."

Cal has his theories.

He doesn't share any of them.

Cal is such a helpful and generous young man.