Neal Caffrey || Log || September/October Catch-All

[conning]

Who: Neal and OTA/some for existing CR
When: September/October Catch-All (with one backdated August thing)
Where: ALL OVER ZE PLACE
Summary: SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER CATCH-ALL. Neal being bovvered by the sleep stuff and rescuing people/needing rescue, Evil Twin TDM prompts, sleepwalking after his murdered adoptive aunt, painting at Bonnie's, a couple of SOL prompts, DEATH BREAAAD both lead-up and hypersensitivity, some talk about mental health.
Warnings: HORROR STUFF.... Awful deaths, possibly drowning, murder of loved ones, gun violence, suicidal ideation, some ableism might crop up in the mental health threads. Toplevels will be labeled with likely subjects.

Prompts TBA below as they're finished! Feel free to PM me or message me at researchboner on plurk for specific prompts or with questions.

Comments

AUGUST YELLOW SUBMARINE PROMPT - CLOSED TO MALCOLM

[conning]

Neal has kept things as low-key as possible finding that crying head on the beach and narrowly escaping the puppet-zombies that followed, slashing the cords attached to the hooks embedded in the dead victims' skin. Between that and the waves, he couldn't bring himself to volunteer when Katrina brought up her mission, even after Malcolm decided to go with.

He hasn't been sleeping well. He's been avoiding the calls from the psych people at ADI. He's been trying to hide it, but there's only so much he can do to be fine when nothing is, and after Bruno disappears, he decides to tell Malcolm and call mental health services.

Which is, of course, what he's preparing himself to do when his phone starts blaring an unfamiliar sound, and he has a chance to meet Malcolm's eyes in surprise in their apartment before... they're not in the apartment any more.

Neal promptly drops his phone on the bottom of the tiny submarine. "Oh no, no no no--"

It's a mix of anger and helplessness, and he pounds against the sealed top of their little prison until the heels of his palms start to ache.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm doesn’t try to restrain him. He knows panic. He knows what it doesn’t need. He picks up Neal’s phone and when the pounding slows, he quietly, carefully, evenly says “Neal. Neal, I’m here. It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”

He’s very, very carefully moderating his own breath. There are stress responses he can’t hide; his hand is shaking, for one. But Neal doesn’t seem in much condition to pick up on them and it’s helpful to focus on someone else’s panic instead of the gnaw of his own as it threatens to crawl up his throat.

[conning]

The shaking hand is, ironically enough, what starts to calm him down. Or rather what shifts his focus from panic to Malcolm. What shifts him from freaking out in general to realizing Malcolm has reasons of his own to be freaked out. Neal lifts his hands to Malcolm's cheeks, brushing his thumbs across the other man's skin.

"Okay. Yes." Deep breaths of his own. "Yeah. We're okay. We'll be fine."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks up at him as his hands frame his face, focusing on his eyes, his expression, his breath.

"I think we're underwater," he says, his voice still carefully controlled. "So breaking right out of here is probably ill advised. We don't know how deep we are. We should figure out how to control it," he suggests, his voice only shaking a little on the last sentence.

[conning]

Neal makes a noise that sounds embarrassingly like a whimper and cringes a little at his own reaction. He nods slowly, now stroking Malcolm's cheeks with borderline neuroticism, and it takes effort to lower his hands and investigate their space.

"Do you think we're dreaming?"

[abrightboy]

“I never know the answer to that with any certainty,” Malcolm says, turning to examine the control panel.

[conning]

“Me neither any more,” Neal mutters, watching over Malcolm’s shoulder to see what he’s doing. It doesn’t take long to figure out the instructions-they’re simple, the kind of assignment ADI might give, though in very different circumstances.

Neal looks at Malcolm’s trembling hand, then takes it in one of his own. “Maybe I should steer?”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods, shifting so Neal can reach the control panel.

"I wonder where we're supposed to go."

[conning]

"Follow the coordinates," he says softly. "Just... follow the coordinates for now, I think."

He takes a few minutes to familiarize himself with the controls, switches things on--and glances toward the window as the exterior lights turn on. And then the metal door slides shut across the window, to his annoyance, but... "Sunset?"

It's an uncertain question, directed at Malcolm with the hope that he caught a glimpse of the water outside. It seemed... red.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm shakes his head faintly.

"Are there sharks in this water?" he asks in a small voice.

He wraps his arms around his middle and glances around the space. "Is there a button to open the... shades?" Or whatever the nautical term is for metal window covers.

[conning]

"Actually, shark populations have been moving north with the rising water temperatures for years. There's something like fifteen to twenty species regularly sighted in the Northeastern United States, and the increase in seal population..." He trails off, catching himself. Neal holds one hand out in the tiny space, brushing against Malcolm, inviting him to tuck himself close. "Come here. I can follow the map on the console for the coordinates. The topography is there. I should be able to navigate even if I can't get the shutters open."

He sounds more confident than he feels.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm lets himself be drawn closer, even as he looks around for a button, as requested.

His point was that it's blood. There's blood in the water. If they're lucky, it was a shark finishing its prey. If they're unlucky... it could be any number of things that bleed. And any number of things that draw blood.

He notices a switch and flips it. The blinds slide up. He nudges closer to Neal.

[conning]

The redness is so deep. Neal’s skin prickles with that particular unsettled feeling that comes with the unfightable and strange. There are shadows out there, but he can’t tell if they move because the sub is moving now—slowly, carefully, as he pilots them—or because there’s something out there in the dark. Both maybe, who knows. Neal shivers, the dampness in the air not helping his internal chill.

He clears his throat. “So I made an assessment appointment.”

Might as well fill the silence with something.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at him.

"You did? For when?" he asks.

[conning]

“Theoretically next month, if we’re not in the throes of a maritime adventure still.”

A shadow in the dark moves toward them then sharply away, and something past that, something huge—no, it’s his imagination. Neal shivers. “I think if we have to eat our own limbs we should start at the bottom. I need to maintain my fine motor skills.”

[abrightboy]

“You’re more useful than I am. You have my permission to kill and eat me if it comes to that,” Malcolm deadpans back, but his fingers tighten in the fabric of Neal’s shirt. “Can we go up?”

[conning]

“I’m not killing you,” Neal says, tone firm and immediate. “Even in a joke. We’re in this together. All of this.”

Nightmares, kidnappings, impossible missions and all.

He bites his lip, trying to guide the sub upward. It rises some. Enough that they would be able to get over obstacles. But it won’t go all the way to the surface. The light in the water doesn’t change enough for Neal to figure out if they’re even close to it. “That’s as far as it’ll go.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm draws a shaky breath and pushes it out slowly through his mouth, rocking faintly from foot to foot.

“So we should just. Go straight where they’re sending us?”

[conning]

Neal takes a moment to pull his hands off the controls, a part of him still acutely aware of the readings, tracking them out of the corner of his eye for anything that looks like a warning or something going wrong.

He touches Malcolm’s cheek, combs his fingers through the man’s hair. “Probably for the best. See what there is to see, find out what resources we can find.”

He starts breathing in the count that Malcolm taught him months ago now, meeting the other man’s very blue eyes and silently encouraging him to mimic the pattern.

[abrightboy]

Without even consciously realizing it, that's what Malcolm does, calming a bit. He stops rocking.

"You think they sent us here to see something? Like. The ADI did?"

[conning]

“I would hope ADI would do better by us than this.” He eyes their surroundings a moment, forcing himself not to dwell for Malcolm’s sake. He goes back to the controls and starts them on their way, grateful that the maps and coordinates are at least easy to read. The creaking isn’t reassuring. The occasional ping from the hull. And he’d swear there are things moving out there, just beyond the sub lights.

After a few seconds, he can’t take the machinery noises and quiet. “It’ll be a year next month,” he says. “For me. I got here almost a year ago. What about you?”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm shifts his weight, watching out the window.

"I haven't really... been paying much attention to that." He considers it. "Fourteen months. It'll be fourteen months. I was here for two months before... you arrived."

Of course he remembers when that was, the first time he saw Robin Hood in a coffee shop.

[conning]

"We should do something." He has no idea what. Neal reaches out to touch Malcolm's face, reassure himself, but something flashes past the window outside and Neal throws the sub's controls back hard in the other direction to avoid smashing into it.

Something breaks. The engine hums. They start to pick up speed in no particular direction.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm is just leaning into that touch but then Neal is moving and they're jolting and he reaches out to grab the wall for purchase, looking at Neal with panic in his eyes.

"What's happening?"

[conning]

“I think I messed up,” Neal whispers.

The hull tremors slightly and something flashes past outside again. And then slams against the side of the sub.