Scientist is confirmed, with emphasis, even if the exact field is still up for debate. Finch idly wonders: a general chemistry student? Physicists and astronomers and that ilk tend to not study the brain, in his experience, too interested in the cosmos for the minor details of grey matter to, erm, matter. Mathematician? Not an engineer, he doesn't think.
He lifts his corner awkwardly-- injury aside, Sherlock has several inches of height on him, and longer limbs as well--
--and almost drops the blanket, at that off-hand statement, the out-of-nowhere pinpoint targeting of a fact about him that shouldn't be knowable.
He stares. Sherlock Holmes no doubt finds it validating, when people do that; when they react to his effortless knowledge display with shock and bemusement and demands to know what the trick is. But Finch stares with a certain gobsmackedness that verges on hostility: his pupils dilate a bit, his breathing shallows out.
When one goes through life with a careful screen of anonymity, invisibility around one's actions and person... it's deeply disconcerting to stumble into someone who saunters past one's maintained illusions with such reckless, nonchalant confidence.
The blanket is sliding from his nerveless fingers; Finch grips tightly before it can. His mind races. He forces out a steadying exhale: it's disconcerting, but it's immaterial. Wherever they are now, whatever this surreal place is, it doesn't seem to be some sort of government operation, and the CIA and FBI are not lurking behind the coarse blanket he's gripping.
This young man is not a spook ready to finish the job a car bomb failed to do. Surely.
"That's rather a personal question, don't you think?" he says flatly, after he's convinced himself his voice will be level when he speaks. Finch presses his mouth together and swings his end of the blanket up and over.
no subject
He lifts his corner awkwardly-- injury aside, Sherlock has several inches of height on him, and longer limbs as well--
--and almost drops the blanket, at that off-hand statement, the out-of-nowhere pinpoint targeting of a fact about him that shouldn't be knowable.
He stares. Sherlock Holmes no doubt finds it validating, when people do that; when they react to his effortless knowledge display with shock and bemusement and demands to know what the trick is. But Finch stares with a certain gobsmackedness that verges on hostility: his pupils dilate a bit, his breathing shallows out.
When one goes through life with a careful screen of anonymity, invisibility around one's actions and person... it's deeply disconcerting to stumble into someone who saunters past one's maintained illusions with such reckless, nonchalant confidence.
The blanket is sliding from his nerveless fingers; Finch grips tightly before it can. His mind races. He forces out a steadying exhale: it's disconcerting, but it's immaterial. Wherever they are now, whatever this surreal place is, it doesn't seem to be some sort of government operation, and the CIA and FBI are not lurking behind the coarse blanket he's gripping.
This young man is not a spook ready to finish the job a car bomb failed to do. Surely.
"That's rather a personal question, don't you think?" he says flatly, after he's convinced himself his voice will be level when he speaks. Finch presses his mouth together and swings his end of the blanket up and over.