ironmonger | (no subject)

"Tony likes it when you are happy. I like it when Tony is happy."

"So what does it take to make you happy?"

Aside from the obvious conclusion presented in that string of logic, of course.

"What a question. Why do you care?" he asks, lightly, curious rather than accusing.

"Idle curiosity."

Curiosity, anyway. Nothing idle about it.

"Liar," he says, with no little affection. "Your curiosity is never idle."

He shrugs again, settling back against the back of the couch, incidentally a little closer to Obadiah. (Genuinely incidental. He is taking no particular care either way.)

"I am happy when Tony is happy. I am happy when something captures my attention. Which," he adds, "is part of why I like pain. It is very compelling that way."

Obadiah listens, taking it in and fitting into what he already knows about Sherlock.

"It does make itself hard to ignore," he agrees.

"I don't ignore it. I simply don't let it upset me. I have never been able to explain this to Tony in a way he understood, so I doubt I'll have much better luck with you."

"Yes," Obadiah says dryly, "Tony and I are so similar in so many ways." Particularly when it comes to their understanding of people and how they work.

"He is at least also something of a masochist, and you, I suspect, are not."

"Not in the way you're thinking."

Obadiah finishes off his drink.

...He raises his eyebrows.

"I did let Howard live about fourteen years longer than I should have," he points out. "Then I developed a liking for his son. I don't think even Tony could blame either of those things on sentimentality."

His tone is very matter-of-fact, very I'm just saying. It's just an observation.

"Tony could."

. . . Obadiah laughs.

"You're right, he probably could."

"And that is among the many reasons why I love him."

Which is both a perfect explanation for the fondness in his voice and a decent way to slide past this subject before he lets any recent conclusions slip.

"I should think he's an idiot," Obadiah remarks. "But I don't."

Which is to say he understands Sherlock's thinking there.

(Howard has much to do with why Obadiah is attracted to Tony. He has very little to do with why Obadiah likes him.)

"He is innocent. The two things are not quite the same."

Sherlock draws his knees up to his chest, wraps his arms around them, and leans quite companionably on Obadiah's shoulder.

(As long as I live, he is a part of me. But things are very different now. This is not an effort at violent self-destruction. He remembers, feels the echo of that pain, and... does not let it upset him.)

Obadiah slips his arm comfortably around Sherlock, saying,

"They usually have the same symptoms."

"And yet he can be very sharp, in his own way. Witness how he managed to get us into this position."

Obadiah laughs.

"Very clever," he says. "Just in case we didn't manage it on our own. What did he think we were going to end up doing, playing chess?"

"Quite possibly. I wouldn't mind a game, come to that."

Yeah, he saw that one coming.

"Shame I left my chess set at home."

"I've been playing verbally since I could speak, but I suppose since you were not raised by a computer program you have had no reason to acquire that particular largely useless skill."

"It's not one I've spent much time on cultivating," he agrees.

Agreeably: "Perhaps later, then."