mun+muse=muse's serial killer issues

[picnics]

—and then people start to ask questions to questions I don't have appropriate answers for.

[ The jump into a seemingly one-sided conversation. A visible squint, matching clench in her voice. Her eyes are directed, focused until they flutter here and there to study. Studying for freckles, tell-signs—imperfections in the face. A difficult task to a mun.

A sharp inhale. Perhaps it's defeat on that part. ]

They are real answers, just unkind. [ An eyebrow quirk. Perhaps mun snapped back— ] People— [ Another pause. Interruption. ] People will suspect better.

[ ... ]

Better—I say 'better' because it would be that 'me' they bargain for. [ Her voice falls and rises. Discomfort then confidence. ] If they knew, I would suddenly become... interesting. Interesting people are spoken to. Interesting people have a cuppa.

[ A pause for both parties. An expectant one on her's. She finishes: ]

Then they actually become my sugars—you know exactly where I'm going with this. I don't need to point out where I'm being literal.

Comments

[designates]

[ you know that feeling when you're talking to someone who's just... not all there? like the sun's shining but there's a veil in front of your eyes, so only little bits of light poke through the cloth. when the water's muddied and the koi swimming at the top only serve to distract from the piranhas at the bottom.

it's like that with her. he's had just about enough of touching his fingers to the surface of a pond only to end up with lost fingers, but curiosity gets the better of him. ]

I don't know, sometimes tea's better unsweetened.

[picnics]

[ A sun glimmer.

An unsteady flicker. Twitch of a blink, the real is a tightly knitted face; perfectly constructed expression. The eyes continue their blink and flicker, here and there. Mentally marking his face—here and there. Tracing every hair and every imperfection. Uneven. Looking at the lips, tracing into the dry cracks. The strain as he forms words, syllable by syllable.

She has yet to study the eyes.

Her posture straightens, her tell-sign of interest. Her own idea of interest, anyways. Sugar. ]

Sort of tasteless.

[ Then a nibble at the fingertips. ]

Unsweetened tea is just dirty water.

[could_be_dangerous]

Interesting people get picked apart.

[Experience or confession, there's the question, the operative question, the question on which all else hinges and for which there are no appropriate answers, but plenty of inappropriate ones. Words suspended in spacetime, fixed to a particular point but pinned to him by happenstance, the point at which scapegrace and human intersect. Real People have plenty of things to say on the subject of what's appropriate and what isn't, what's interesting and what isn't, what's sane and what isn't, but here's Sherlock, complaining about being picked apart while dissembling someone down to their constituent pieces. Eyes and implications. Appropriate and not appropriate have nothing to do with it. Kindness certainly doesn't. Interesting people get pulled to pieces, and sometimes they should be.]

People keep interesting things in boxes and display cases and if they can get away with it they taxidermize them first; interest is not an asset.

[picnics]

[ And that might be too sudden.

It comes in a wave, a chill pressing along the spine, indentations eventually grasping at her shoulders. Stiffens then settles. Subtle. Quite subtle. Nicely subtle. But it lingers in her own eyes, swims then sits. Stiffened there. Held there. An expression many would call claim 'interested,' but it's an expression very few cup up and identify. Nameless expression petted and dubbed 'simply interested.'

Hardly the place or time to layer herself any further. It peels as she follows along, a slow peeling as her eyes pick at his lips. From the lips forming 'people' into the fluctuation in 'asset.' Peels and peels until there's something else to claim—infatuation. A very long reach into that claim, but a familiar one. ]

Is there someone out there who keeps you in a box or display case?

[ An unnatural feel to her words, structured in her head, yet seeping; drips into the conversation. New conversation, anyways. Distracted. Bothered. Eyes retracing every curve, finishes at the nose until she finds the eyes. Stays there. Sinks into them. Digs. ]

I hope not.

[could_be_dangerous]

[Interest, not being an asset, is a more complicated affair than simply interested could possibly encompass. People don't see that. People don't, in their normal lives, in their real lives, full up with all the vapidity he's supposed to treasure, with which he's supposed to identify -- and he doesn't, so freak, and it's less display cases than it is behind bars, or would be if they had their way and half an excuse.]

Flashbulbs, shutters and microphones. Sometimes if you're interesting enough they'll bring the cages to you.

[Sometimes they get it anyway. Sometimes the real people get so caught up in the idea of interesting that they can't see far enough to know not to toy with the idea. Then they get you with your back to the edge of a cliff and give you a little shove, down down down to the presses grinding away down at the bottom. Headlines in human ink. And they go on. Go off and get married, maybe.]

And they're always eager to measure and fit you.

[Put you in the ground, then go off and get married. Not important. Someone's following -- that sets off all sorts of alarm bells. Was beginning to get a bit quiet up in Sherlock's head without them. Been ages since the last proper dance. Teaching John Watson to waltz was rather too funny to get the heart beating, and offered only about half the probability of a fatal outcome. Metaphorical, besides. This is the better game.]

Never know what they'll slip in that cuppa to get the chance to try the sizing.

[The coffin has to fit.]