tfln overflow

[betteralready]

 

Comments

[betteralready]

He didn't know this was a mission that needed to be accomplished, but, well.

Mission accomplished.

I couldn't agree more, Mr. Bush.

[midship]

[A quick brain is good for figures. A keen attention to the most salient facts in a short amount of time is a highly useful skill he's highly inclined to believe has been serving him well in the service.

A piece of the problem here, of course, is the entirely tone-deaf way messages can be read. There's no actual little lift at the end of Archie's voice like the start of a laugh; no clear tilt of William's head to draw attention to the hint of wry tone. There's simply words for his eyes to focus on under their own power.

He does need to be more flexible. More than that, he needs to be quicker on his feet. Instincts have gotten him this far, but they're hardly the body of skills a person ought to rely on solely. Roaring commands from the hip is going to backfire someday. Making a plan on the fly because he hadn't let himself think through other options in advance is a sense of rigidity dug somewhere deep in his gut.

It takes a bit of tapping absently at the screen before he can wrangle himself back into proper attention. It takes another few seconds to remember that his frustration had originally been with an entirely different tone of conversation.

Welp. Who even knows what's happening anymore in the entire world.]

Your concern is noted and appreciated, but I'm not sure it's something so easily solved in the abstract.

[bettingman]

[One of the facts about Horatio Hornblower of which Bush is acutely aware not just as his brother-in-arms, but his friend, is that he often needs things spelled out. It's not born from a lack of awareness, certainly, or a lack of intelligence — the man has both in abundance — but something that runs far deeper, something nestled deep in Horatio's ego.

It's an unwillingness to believe certain things about himself, and the high opinions those around him hold of him and his abilities. It may not be a conscious thing. He takes praise well enough, but doubt lingers in the aftermath. Bush has seen it.

And it's quite strange, he thinks, how Horatio can manage barking orders and silently questioning himself in the same breath.

Bush isn't qualified to make such assessments, though. He could be way off the mark; he could be reading far too deeply into his friend's psyche, which he knows he shouldn't do anyway lest he come up with something too accurate, something he'd rather not know as a certainty. Still, he can't help but read into Horatio's reply and think he may be missing the point of this.

...not that Bush himself is sure what the point is, exactly, but he's almost positive it's not what Horatio's reading into it.

So:] Maybe specificity will help.





[Get specific, Archie.]

1/i have no idea brace yourselves and pray to jesus

[betteralready]

Well.

[betteralready]

Well.

[betteralready]

...Well. He has been asked by his superior officer.

In that case, let me try to make this very clear for you, Horatio:

this is not the end i would just like to register that i hate this

[betteralready]

I would like to be pounded like the cliffside by the ocean.

[betteralready]

I would like to hoist your mainsails.

[betteralready]

Perhaps you would be interested in sounding my bottom.

okay this is second to last

[betteralready]

Simply: I would like to engage in coitus. Preferably with both of you.

[betteralready]

A beat for them to process, and then:

Clear enough, Will? Horatio?

Surely, surely even Horatio can imagine the wicked little grin.

1/3

[bettingman]

[A mistake has been made, and it was not the mistake of engaging in this conversation at all.

The mistake was attempting to walk between decks while reading Archie's messages — if only to keep the thing from beeping so aggressively — and, for some reason, not expecting... that.

So Bush stumbles right down a short flight of stairs.]

[bettingman]

[BUT HE STILL HAS HIS PHONE, clutched tight in one hand.]

[bettingman]

I don't think you could get much more clear.

[Coming to you live from the floor, it's This Guy.]

1/3

[midship]

[That first ping, oddly, has more of its own tone to it. He can feel himself being tugged away from his own thoughts, like the nip of a pup's teeth setting a younger whelp in line.

And then, well.

How is a person supposed to think about anything at all but--]

2/3

[midship]

[--what was that noise now.]

3/3

[midship]

[...probably nothing. People fell on ships from time to time. No yelling or moaning in pain had followed. Best to just turn back to the phone.

Which is, admittedly, now incredibly crystal clear.]

Infinitely clear, Archie.

[betteralready]

Very good.

Another mission he can count as accomplished, then.

[bettingman]

[...that's it?

That's it, from the both of them?

Bush stares at his phone like he suddenly doesn't understand what it is or how it works or what the symbols on it mean or what the English language even is. Archie's response rings with a sense of finality, of the conversation being finished now that they've all reached this strange, mutual understanding.

He has no clue what to say. Should he say anything? Should he —

He should get up, for starters.

— that done, he looks at his phone again, at the past two messages, and briefly thinks he ought to seek the two of them out. Continue this in person, maybe. It's an important discussion, after all, vital to their... sense of camaraderie, or... something.

Bush looks at the messages again, then types:] For what it's worth, I don't think that would count as a "properly poor decision."

[Just.

Putting that out there.

For reference, and also to let them both know that while he has learned a great deal during the course of this conversation, he is no closer to figuring out how to become a bad example.]

mwahahaha 1/at least 2

[betteralready]

No, William?

2/3 jk

[betteralready]

You DID say poor decisions require some sort of context.

(Yes, men, you should probably be afraid of where this is going.)

3/5 why this archie

[betteralready]

Say, for example, if such decisions were to be made in the lieutenant's quarters....

4/5

[betteralready]

Where I currently am at. Alone.

5/5

[betteralready]

HINT HINT, GENTLEMEN.

....;)

[midship]

[U G H new text get out of here he's trying to linger back further up in the chain. Stop making him scroll to the bottom.

Except that it does give him pause to ponder.

The academic exercise of being teased (fondly, affectionately, in a way that pricks pleasantly under his ribs) by friends (confusing, terrifying, cherished) is one thing. The absent consideration of... well. The chance to dream fondly in brief hours of sleep about the content of several pieces of this conversation certainly makes it worthwhile.

But.

This is the beginning of properly poor decisions, spelled out with (infuriating non-ghost smileys!!) more than sufficient clarity to be properly understood.]

Archie.

[

Wait, that solves nothing.]

William, honestly.

[Yes. Good. Compellingly argued. They'll see reason now.]