[network] @309_W1C_2DZ; video; evening 293 [open]

[howdull]

[The video feed clicks on to the sight of an unfamiliar face sporting a patchy and thin moustache. This face belongs to a boy in his late teens, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, with blond hair and blue eyes. He's wearing, rather incongruously, a Belstaff coat that's much too long for him.

He grins into the camera.

He's been locked up for so long, trapped in a straight jacket, and he plans to make the most of it while Sherlock is the one locked up inside his own mind. He rolls his shoulders luxuriously, getting used to the odd new body.]

Daddy's home, boys and girls, I hope you've not been naughty.

[His grin widens, showing slightly crooked but very white teeth.]

Comments

[action]

[warriorscribe]

[He may change him anyway - one doesn't seek insight into another person also prone to accepting new insights without running that risk. Enoch is old and set in his ways, but opening up to other people in ways he hasn't isn't trapped beneath an immovable pillar of his identity.

He has to examine it, now. The one place he won't hunt for insights without prompting is within himself. Examining himself in too much depth is how he falls into his own despair and pulls every escape route down with him. But with guidance...

So he closes his eyes, speaking low as he sorts through his thoughts on everything Beckett has said, finding refuge in his friend's presence. He is safe here, with him.]

No, not you- I owe you so much, Beckett, and would offer whatever you asked, but this- this is a much older thing. It feels like I'm betraying...myself? Everyone else? It feels selfish, no matter how much I'm told, or how much I know, it isn't. Or the latter, it could be, I hadn't really-... For so long, my pain simply couldn't be helped. I came to accept I would hurt, I think.

[action]

[bookofnope]

[It's still bizarre to Beckett, the idea of himself as offering anyone guidance, for all the times he'd played the cryptic adviser setting young folk on their paths back in his time. He'd been a seeker, and a solitary one, loyal to and sharing wisdom with so very few of his Kindred. But now Enoch, Angel and Rhys, Brian, and others... but now he is a historian, and it consistently means more than he'd realized when he first claimed that identity. And the more he realizes, the more there is to claim. The more purpose returns to him, and hope with it.

So he is perfectly ready to pick up the thread that Enoch pulls on.] So everyone could be helped, except you. Learned helplessness. A very human thing. [And to Enoch, he knows, such humanity is a comfort. One of the ways in which they are so different, and yet share a strange understanding.]

Nothing that can change in a day, even with my sagely advice... but you are not alone anymore, at least in immortality and its implications. You... [he hesitates, because he does not know if he can make an offer he'd honestly not been the best at carrying through in the past, but he wants to try. They've been through a thing or two since the torture chamber.] I hope you can learn to be at least a little bit selfish with me. Goodness knows I'm a great expert on the matter of selfishness. Trust me with... at least some of that pain.

[action]

[warriorscribe]

[He can't help but suck in a breath through his teeth, a painful wince at the thought that it may have been part of why he was chosen to hold the scalpel rather than receive it, that he had accepted some form of helplessness already.

But the pain dulls to a more pleasant kind of ache, something full rather than empty, as Beckett's words recall the conversation that brought him back to himself when it was all over. He'd said just that, after all...]

...I am not alone. I didn't even know how alone I was, until you.

[He opens his eyes and looks up at Beckett. This time, his smile is not mere reassurance.]

I'd- I don't know how to begin. But I'd like that, if it wouldn't burden you.

[action]

[bookofnope]

It'll only work if you can be sure you aren't burdening me. [He points that out almost in a deadpan, more a sober acknowledgement of how difficult such a change can be - which he knows from experience, though his is, he reflects, very different from Enoch. However much he'd always, always resented relying on anyone but himself... he has always had someone, from the moment he'd awoken to anything like pain and need. Always, Anatole. And he knows well that no matter how long he lives, he is not going to be Anatole's match.

But just as much, he knows that he can't let that dissuade him, not from anything. That is what his oldest friend's legacy means.]

Mm, that... didn't come out quite right. What I mean is that I'd not have made the offer if I didn't think I could follow through. I'm not afraid of burdens. It's - I believe the expression is "he's not heavy, he's my brother."

[action]

[warriorscribe]

[The smile broadens into a hesitant laugh, self-deprecating but...with a touch of hope.]

A rule for myself to others, but never for others to me. I...I trust you, more than anyone here. I'll do my best.