cactusy | IC contact for lastvoyages

"I'm... what?" she asks, feeling very much like she's missed something.

"Passionate and big-hearted?" Eiffel echoes wryly.

And he certainly looks a lot less tense about the whole situation; he's even lowered his 'weapon', and starts tying his hair up again. "Just 'cos you're not going around screaming from the rooftops like the boys' locker room line-up are, doesn't mean you're not feeling it, Aunt Sam. Just means the rest of us aren't prepared when it's your turn to start on a nice gourmet foot."

Neal rubs his face tiredly. "I swear to god I have been trying to do this as delicately as I know how, but Sameen, that your brain doesn't tell you what your body already knows doesn't mean the feelings aren't there. You can be one of the least objective people I know. Everything you do is emotionally driven, everything. You assume objectivity because you can't identify what you're feeling and assume bias in the rest of us when some of us can. The reality of it is you can't tell if you're being objective because you've never learned to separate how you feel from what you feel."

He sighs. The faintest, most aggravated, loving smile flutters across his face. "You told me Malcolm hurt you--crossed several lines. You made that very clear. You said he does it to others. And there are times that he does. But pretty much everyone else I know who's had struggles with Malcolm has been able to talk through them with him and move on."

He walks slowly over to sit down on the couch next to her. "He hurt you somehow, I'm not going to make you share. But you're so dead set fixed on the idea that you're objective simply because your emotional experience is different than the..." he gestures at himself "...louder ones among us--you haven't given yourself any time or grace to figure out where that hurt comes from and how it can actually be resolved."

He tentatively, experimentally puts a hand on her arm. "And you didn't fail Will. What happened has nothing to do with how closely you were watching him and everything to do with this boat being packed to the bow with unstable personalities under pressure."

Oh god, this is exhausting. It's exhausting to realize how wrongly Neal is reading her, how wrongly Neal has maybe been always reading her, and she doesn't even know how to begin to unpack and untangle this, not when any misstep could send him flying back into a fury. It's like death by a thousand cuts, she thinks: anger followed by sympathy based on false pretenses followed, presumably, by disgust when the unstable sands underneath his conclusions shift away.

Just the anger would have been better. Anger and a quick, decisive cut-off was better than a slow deterioration will be. But she'll try to explain, because what the hell else can she do.

"You're wrong about... basically all of that," she says tiredly, with no real expectation that she's going to be believed, at least not yet. "Malcolm didn't hurt me. I know Malcolm thinks I hate him, and maybe he even told you that I was making my decisions about Will because I have an unresolved grudge against him and want to hurt him, but I don't. How I feel about Malcolm is complex, but it isn't confusing, and isn't the basis for my wardening of Will. How I feel about you is confusing."

Completely wrecked over Neal Caffrey, and she's not even a little bit aware of it says her sign. Shaw sees the lights blink on out of the corner of her eye, but she ignores them.

"I don't want to hurt you, and I know how easily it is to do that when Malcolm comes up. I should have redirected when we talked about this before."

"Those were two separate but related statements. He doesn't think you hate him. He thinks you're indifferent to him, which for him in some ways hurts more. What he is, is afraid of having his access to someone he loves revoked because their connection is deemed too risky or complicated for the current situation. The same way some might look at your relationship with Root in different circumstances."

He glances at her sign, he can't help himself. A pause, as a blank and startled look crosses his face. "Come here."

Neal gives her arm a gentle tug, trying to make her sit up so he can give her a proper hug.

Edited 2023-10-13 14:49 (UTC)

Shaw chuckles on an exhale; it's a crackly, worn-out sound.

"Indifferent is the last thing I am towards Malcolm Bright."

But she lets him pull her: not exactly actively participating in the sitting-up process, but not bothered by his efforts in the least.

He sighs, hugging her tight, a bear-hug embrace that doesn't leave room between them for doubt of how he feels. "You're an idiot."

Oh boy, a bear hug is a lot. Even as zoned out as she is, Shaw has to resist the urge to wiggle - but she does, because Neal is important and he is worth enduring uncomfortable things.

Eiffel's perfectly happy to keep letting his siblings have their moment, but maybe he wants in on the hug too.

He's not gonna crowd Shaw, though; but he does come over and lean on the couch, giving Shaw a quick squeeze of one shoulder and ruffling Neal's hair.

"While I hate to break up the Caballero's comeback tour, it kinda feels like we glossed over a few things." He rests his elbows on the couch as he loosely folds his arms, and turns a concerned look at Neal. "Did you seriously jump over the rails?"

Ah fuck. Neal releases Shaw carefully, sighing. "This conversation isn't actually over yet, either."

Shaw says nothing: she just shifts away when Neal releases her, then carefully adjusts so that her arm is leaning against his, and waits for an answer to Eiffel's question.

"Seeing as how Shaw's word of the day announcement says she's worried about you," he reminds Neal, with a light nod towards Shaw's lovely neon sign, "I think it's still pretty relevant."

Neal sighs. "Yes, I jumped. It was early on after I got here. When I realized I was imprisoned somewhere else, with no clear marks to hit for release, by someone who could and would keep me alive here forever until I either figured out what he wanted from me or vanished into nothingness. ...That's how I viewed it at the time. I figured it was better to become part of some other universe and at least have a life, even if it wasn't mine, than be... trapped again."

"You were trying to do the fake... breach... thing?" Shaw asks, her forehead crinkling faintly.

"I think he was going for happily ever after," Eiffel says quietly. "And didn't know there's a time limit."

"Basically." Neal looks down, then away from them both. God, he hadn't thought this clearly about Lizzie in--since the nightmare he shared with Raylan. He'd been trying not to. Neal clears his throat lightly and squares his shoulders, voice a gentle prompt. "So--why does your sign say 'Completely wrecked over Neal Caffrey, and she's not even a little bit aware of it'?"

She rolls her eyeballs up, as if trying to catch a glimpse of it, and shrugs.

"I don't have a lot of friends, and I don't have a lot of experience with close interpersonal relationships. But you seemed kind of... done with me. And that sucked."

Neal reaches sideways with the arm that isn't pressed against Shaw's, drawing her in enough that he can kiss her temple before letting go. In Farsi, he says, "I love you neither with my heart, nor with my mind. My heart might stop; my mind can forget. I love you with my soul."

He turns his head to kiss her shoulder for good measure. "Idiot."

Then again in Farsi: "We haven't even started talking about what a wonderful person Eiffel is in front of him yet."

Edited 2023-10-16 23:17 (UTC)

Eiffel takes the moment to clamber gainlessly over the back of the couch and sit behind Shaw, so she can lean on him or use his lap as a pillow when the hug gets resolved.

"Oh, aren't you guys special," he teases, but his tone is genuinely warm (and honestly a little bit impressed). "You got your cool kids secret code and everything."

As she leans back against Eiffel's legs, Shaw's lips twitch into something that's aaaaaalmost a smile.

"He's a lot smarter than he gives himself credit for. He completely tricked you today."

Neal smirks a tiny bit. "He really is. Having a third party call was a brilliant touch."

Eiffel looks between the two of them, at a complete loss with the language shift.

"Is this because I got you to come here under false pretenses?" he hazards warily.

"Nope," says Shaw - still flatter than usual, still quiet, still distant, still with a part of her wondering how long Neal's flowery I love you with my soul spiel will last if he ever realizes that she's so much less emotional than he thinks.

But all the same, she leans back a little more solidly against Eiffel.

"Nah, this is because you're really easy to tease. Better brush up on your Farsi, huh."

"We can always switch to Spanish if he does." He bumps Shaw's shoulder gently. "Khāhar koochak. Something's still wrong. Are you up for admitting what it is?"

He makes a face at them both, but when Shaw settles into him he wraps an arm around her shoulders, half-draping it across the back of the couch so she doesn't feel trapped by it, and when he finds Neal's sleeve immediately starts fiddling with it for something to do with his hand.

(He'll reserve comment on how they suck just yet. They already know that, after all.)

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