ataraxion | CASE 006; TEXT

Don't encourage him.

i would so hate to take your job from you.

Still really not my idea, here.

i never insinuated it was.

your intelligence is intact enough, and though your level of sentiment remains questionable, you wouldn't engage.

"Enough". From anyone else, I'd be insulted.

from anyone else, certainly, but considering your alleged intimacy with my other... me, as it were, you'll take it as the compliment it was meant to be.

"Alleged". I like that word.

All right, you're him. Say I want to nip any and all noble impulses in the bud. Walk me through it.

yes. i've noticed.

what's clear at this point is that you've become his newest case. don't worry. that's far beyond the compliment i've paid you. for whatever reason it is, he's caught your attention and you're holding it, and on a ship that has found itself to be, despite all odds, so desperately and devastatingly boring, dangerously so, the effects of which i have been more than encumbered with

[ Strangely, the text ends abruptly there, and doesn't finish until a moment or so later, on an entirely differently sentence. ]

you must be a very remarkable man. you've got quite the competition to contend with.

And again, I'm flattered.

[ he'll do sherlock the courtesy of not addressing the middle section. ]

Don't worry, I don't assume I stack higher than the J's. Either of them-- for different reasons of course.

really? you might consider, at present. remarkable how much of john i've been seeing.

[ Sherlock's John. Were Holmes talking to Neal in person, he'd be steepling his fingers. Curious. ]

it's an underestimation, even for you. not when you know the effect a good case has on someone.

I'm interesting. New. And shameless.

[ long pause here before anything else is typed, as neal struggles to decide how to get his point across.

(there are things at play here neither sherlock knows-- the look on mozzie's face when neal chose peter over their grand plans, the look on peter's when he found out neal betrayed him. loyalty has always been important to neal, but lately the stinging pain of a lack thereof has become more personal, intimate.

he wasn't above encouraging sherlock's attentions; he's loyal, not a saint. but the trouble with a closed circuit like the ship is there's no running from the consequences of your actions.)

finally, he sighs and attempts the same kind of blunt, brutal honesty holmes himself brings to bear. ]

If there were a gun and he had to point and shoot at one of us, it would be me. I'm sure he'd feel bad about it-- I'm good at that.
But regardless, John would be his choice.

Which is the way it should go.

Edited (fucking html how does it work) 2012-05-23 18:19 (UTC)

Usual disclaimer applies: I have a reputation to protect, I'd rather that stay between us.

[ It's a very cool and uncharacteristically blunt way of wording it, likely what Neal wants in order to get the point across to him. It's not really easily imaginable to Holmes, for someone who can think of no person who might rival the attention he pays to Watson. Save for Ms. Adler. Or James Moriarty himself, he's loathe to add, but one has showed up here already, has he not? And pattern does suggest - ]

[ But James Moriarty is not his concern at time being. Neal Caffrey is. And for an equally long moment, Holmes doesn't reply, perhaps layering this logic onto himself and seeing if it can click in a way that he might understand what sort of relationship it is that Sherlock and Neal are living through here. It doesn't, and he suspects that may be some shortcoming of his own rather than what Neal has to say. ]

[ He does so hate a hypothetical. ]

well, then we shall have to hope such a choice never does grace his doorstep, as it were. for your sake.

still, it's quite an elaborate show. for merely interesting, new, and shameless.

That and I just hate guns. Brute force is inelegant-- any monkey with a rock can smash things.

[ he'll admit certain darker, hidden parts of his psyche to holmeses-- one from a need for connection, the other genuine respect and not an insignificant bit of admiration.

but his past, the skill his long avowed distaste for violence covers up; those aren't up for grabs, and regardless it's an indiscreet man who flashes his trump card so early in the game. ]

If you think he did this for my benefit, I'm going to have to call two Sherlocks stupid today.

[ 'solely for my benefit' might be better phrasing, but the implications otherwise make neal twitch. ]

oh, doubtlessly so. a necessity in such a world, naturally, but inelegant regardless.

[ It's no mystery to Holmes why Neal IS interesting to Sherlock, he'll fully admit and the idea seats itself with ease on his mind. The man is a strange sort of anomaly, given his - alleged - field of work. A kind of elegant fixture in an otherwise inelegant side of the chess board, as it were. ]

[ He plays his cards close to the chest. It's enough to make anyone interested, but particularly Sherlock who made it his absolute business to know everyone's cards before they even did, sometimes. Neal is undoubtedly interesting. It's just the matter of how interesting he is to Sherlock that throws him for a bit of a loop. ]

i'm curious, then, which reasoning is it you best hypothesize he's done so under?

I'd argue it isn't, but then again I've also had an uncomfortable number of guns pointed at my face over the years.

[ the gentleman thief of yesterday is the man neal modeled himself after-- a man who never really existed off the silver screen, not really, but that's never ever stopped neal before. ]

He's not on the list. You think his ego appreciates that?

precisely. best not to let the romanticism get you in that one particular area. one will always find excellent reasoning to painstakingly rethink that decision.

[ He's definitely a strange sort of - alleged - conman. Were Holmes to make a rudimentary assessment based off of a set number of hand-plucked features, he would have found Neal something far less detrimental. A poet, an artist, things which very likely still are but are not all. But his reads on the man remain anything but sinister. ]

i know how his ego appreciates this. irregardless, you don't see any other posts offering their services just yet.

CASE 006; TEXT

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text ; locked gtfo otherlock

text ; locked from noodlelock yeah it's girls' night

text ; locked from skinnylock get out with your lady size jeans

text ; locked from benelock, no true gingers accepted

text ; locked from the noodley one, only rockhard abs allowed [ 1 / 2 ]

text ; locked from coatguy

text ; locked from jewfro mccumberbatch

text ; locked from okay i will never beat that, i concede the euphemism battle and bow down

text ; locked from yes good plants a flag in this victory today

text ; locked no un-victorian sherlocks in the clubhouse

text ; locked only fedoras here