IC contact for lastvoyages

[cactusy]

[If I don't have an active post up, feel free to use this post to have your character call, videochat, text, or knock on Shaw's door.]

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[cactusy]

Shaw sees the fury in Neal's eyes, and she thinks suddenly of how she's warned adversaries I could kill you and not feel anything. She should warn friends too, she realizes. I could make you angry and not feel anything. There are so many circumstances where it's easy to make her temper flare, and she tries to poke at it a little here, wondering if she can make it happen and if that would make him feel better, but-- no. She is not even a little bit angry at Neal. Sorry, barâdar.

"Talking about it is definitely going to make it worse," she tells Eiffel, feeling the exhaustion settle even deeper into her bones. When someone hates me when someone hates me when someone hates me Neal Caffrey really doesn't like you. "Talking about it got us here."

[conning]

"It just makes everything awkward and awful and it doesn't get better until you talk about it--so you've talked to Malcolm, then, have you?"

His tone is light and his glance at Eiffel, when he takes it, is perfectly level and mild. Which in some ways might be more alarming than not. Neal looks back at Shaw. "I would actually say that not listening has gotten us here, but again--I'm not the one who knows everything."

[littletonoidea]

Eiffel meets Neal's perfectly aloof and level look with a furious indignation, unable to be hidden on any level. "I will, smart guy! As soon as you two unstick your goddamn craws! Because you guys are my people and we're supposed to be a goddamn team! You can't have three musketeers if Athos and Porthos are planning on killing each other!"

[cactusy]

"I'm gonna turn the gravity on," Shaw says dully, before awkwardly half-swimming down towards the switch (she's better in zero-g than she used to be, but she still floats more than she moves, and she couldn't ever be called graceful in it).

[conning]

Neal goes quiet again, bracing slightly, trying to get himself in a position where the return of gravity won't make him turn an ankle or something. He understands the appeal in a general way, but not being able to comfortably control his own body makes him too anxious for the weightlessness to be soothing.

Maybe she's turning it on to leave, maybe she's turning it on because she doesn't want her safe state of being to be damaged by this, carry this shadow, maybe she just doesn't care.

Neal knows how wildly, catastrophically untrue that last thought is, and it gets him to at least take a breath.

[littletonoidea]

And Eiffel bodily holds himself in front of the gravity switch, gripping anchors on the walls with both hands and wedging his feet into the plating for extra security. "No-one's getting the gravity until you say what's actually eating you up!! For example!"

Lead by example, right Neal?

"Neal threatened to punch me for this because he's pissed off at you, and no-one is telling me why! Do you know what it's like being threatened by Neal? It's like a kitten suddenly got horns!"

[conning]

"Don't think I count Hera being the one to get me in the room as not cheating."

It's that same mild, bland voice, and it almost kills him to stay so pointedly neutral when what he wants to be is fond.

[cactusy]

"Just kinda wanna lie on the couch," Shaw says, though without any real vehemence. Maybe someday she'll discuss with Sheehan why sometimes when things are shitty she wants empty space around her to match the empty space within her, and other times when things are shitty she wants something solid against her body, and how one time can change to the other time seemingly without rhyme or reason. Either way, she's too worn out to properly care today. She can keep floating. Whatever.

"It has to do with Malcolm," Shaw says, and then doesn't say anything more. You know what a contentious topic Malcolm can be, Eiffel; come on.

[conning]

Goddamnit, goddamnit--

"Turn off the fucking zero-g, please, Eiffel, I'm not leaving. Neither is she. Shaw doesn't want to be floating."

A furious, shaky breath. "And it doesn't have to do with Malcolm, or barely does, and that's the point."

[littletonoidea]

Eiffel just turns his impassioned glare between the pair of them briefly.

And then he unlimpets himself from the wall, and reaches out to grab Neal's arm to help him get upright so he won't hurt himself when he lands.

"Brace for impact," is the warning they both get, and he does give Shaw a few seconds to right herself properly before he does hit the switch and restore gravity properly.

[cactusy]

"Thanks," says Shaw, right before she hits the couch back-first. She wiggles around on the cushions to adjust herself, kicking one leg up over the back of the couch and sprawling the other out lengthwise.

"This is still a bad idea," she murmurs under her breath.

[conning]

Neal stumbles slightly as he lands, rights himself, and clenches his fists into white-knuckle tightness. Then he turns and walks to the other side of the room, dragging his hands through his hair.

[littletonoidea]

Eiffel lands and lets Neal storm away; he just leans on the door, pulling his hairtie out so he can play with his own hair too. He really wants a cigarette.

"Okay," he sighs, all volume gone and replaced with exhaustion. "From the top. What the hell does or does not Malcolm have to do with this?"

[cactusy]

Shaw knows that she shouldn't talk, and so she doesn't: she just digs her shoulderblades down against the couch, closing her eyes.

[conning]

Neal stays facing away, hands in his hair. He closes his eyes, waits, goes ever-tenser in the ongoing silence. This is not--

For God's sake, for God's sake, he just wants her to say something, anything. Wants her to let him have the remotest clue of where they actually stand right now.

[littletonoidea]

Neither of them can see Eiffel's face, so they don't get to see how the concern flickers quickly into frustration, and then resolve. And that comes with a small, determined huff.

"Alright. I didn't wanna have to do this, but you guys leave me no choice." And he lifts both arms, and gets his hair tie in optimal snapping position. "I am the undisputed champion of hair tie snap tricks on the USS Hephaestus for the last three years running."

His eyes narrow as he looks down the sights of his arm, levelling his arm steadily between Shaw and Neal.

"The next person to say something that isn't telling me what the hell's going on is getting one right between the eyes. And if you're gonna question my aim, if I've fired five hair ties or six, ask yourself this: am I feeling lucky? Punks?"

[cactusy]

Eiffel, honey, do you have any idea how many times Shaw has been shot with actual bullets.

She opens her eyes and flicks her gaze towards him, and she should laugh, would laugh under different circumstances, would laugh if she could--

"I'm trying to minimize damage," she says, looking a little uncomfortable.

[conning]

If Eiffel is listening, carefully, closely, he might hear the softest exhalation of irritation and amusement from Neal.

Of course, then Shaw says that, and Neal turns around before he can think to stop himself. "Minimi-- What do you think I'm angry at you for, Shaw?"

[littletonoidea]

Eiffel doesn't say anything, but his arm cannon gets pointed back at Shaw with a raised eyebrow.

[cactusy]

"Saying I don't think you're objective about Bright. Saying I think you prioritize his comfort over other people's."

In short, not keeping her big mouth shut about her opinions.

[conning]

Neal closes his eyes, then lifts his fingers and pinches the bridge of his nose. He does everything in his power to ignore the way Eiffel's shootin' hand comes swinging back around to point at Neal.

"Why do you think that made me angry?"

[cactusy]

"Because you don't agree," Shaw says, her brow crinkling a little. Obviously. Why else would he be angry?

cw mention of suicidal ideation/jumping ship

[conning]

Neal lets out a barely-audible "For fuck's sake, exhaled in fresh frustration.

"Because you weren't listening to me. You ignored everything I said in opposition of that opinion, didn't even think about what I'd said as far as I could tell. Even after I told you the only reason you think I'm biased in that particular way is because you don't see the conversations I have with him, because humiliating him in public happens so fucking often here and back home that the absolute only thing it does is tell him he's a freak who can't learn how to talk to anyone."

He gestures as he speaks, small curt movements he's totally unconscious of. "What I do for Malcolm is the same thing I did for Lestat, it's the same thing I'm about to do for fucking Johann because those of us wardens not directly dealing with a crisis were so far up our own assholes we didn't even stop to remember that the most recent murder victim just had their warden fucking disappear on them!"

He takes a breath. "It's what I can't-- I can't help doing, because I know what it's like to be that person. I can't just let it happen and let people decide they might as well..." He forces himself to take another quiet breath. "If they need someone to be on their side, loudly and visibly on their side so they don't choose to jump the railing like I did before I knew you or pretty much any of my friends now--then that's what I'm going to fucking do."

He turns away again, to brace his hands against a counter or the back of the nearest chair.

[cactusy]

"That's not--"

She makes a small, frustrated sound in the back of her throat.

"I was listening. The reason I think you're biased isn't the reason you assumed I had, or the one you argued against. Wanting to take the side of whoever seems the most downtrodden is bias. I'm not saying that as a, uh, a value judgement, it's not a bad thing, but it's emotional decision-making."

She inhales, sharply and quietly.

"I do think it's because you're passionate and big-hearted. And just because it frustrates me sometimes doesn't mean I don't admire you for it. I admire you deeply for it."

[conning]

All the temper drains from him at once.

"You goddamn idiot," he says softly. "So are you."