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

[abrightboy]

“I hope you never are,” Malcolm tells him plainly, still holding on. “Do… do you want to leave until I can get it out of here?” He would take it down to ADI, so not far. “I wouldn’t need more than an hour.”

[conning]

Neal doesn't say anything right away. Just holds on. Breathes Malcolm in. The comfort, the solidity, the fact that he can be vulnerable without risk.

"All this time and I've never actually hurt anyone here," he mumbles.

Deep breath. He eases back a little to look Malcolm in the face. "Can you--do you need help, though? I mean, I know you're strong, but it's still... heavy. I imagine."

[abrightboy]

“I’ve disposed of a body before,” Malcolm tells him, like that’s not a weird thing to do that might make someone think less of a person. “It’s okay.” It’s not okay in that he still isn’t fine with what he did, but… it’s okay in that he knows what to do. “I can do it.” He’s at least certain of that.

[conning]

"We should tell someone though, shouldn't we? We should tell them about this."

When he hears dispose of a body it makes it sound clandestine. In a little while it'll click with him what it means that Malcolm has done as much, but not yet.

[abrightboy]

"I'm going to take it to ADI," Malcolm says. "It might not be the only one. If it can look like you, can they look like anyone?"

He urges Neal towards the door while still clinging to him, now that he doesn't feel like he might not walk back in it again if he goes.

"You could walk down to the coffee shop. Get me a hot chocolate?"

[conning]

"I can do that." He's still a little bit in shock. "I can do that. I'll get you a hot chocolate and come right back."

[abrightboy]

“Take your time,” Malcolm tells him. “It’ll be okay. It was… a monster. It hurt me on purpose, remember? Tried to break us up.”

[conning]

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, I know. I do. But it didn’t feel like a monster when I stabbed it. It felt like a person.”

He bites his lip, takes a deep breath, tries to shake it off. “Hot chocolate, I’ll get you a hot chocolate.”

Neal kisses Malcolm. “I’ll be back.”

[abrightboy]

The kiss breaks and Neal turns to go and Malcolm grabs his sleeve.

"Neal! ...They wanted it to feel like a person, but... even if it was one, you were just protecting us. You were protecting us from a killer. I'm sorry I didn't do it sooner. I just. I tried to give it a chance."

[conning]

“I’m glad you did give it a chance,” Neal says softly. “You don’t have to apologize for trying to figure out another way. I’m the one who made things worse, trying to grab your knife.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm shakes his head.

"No. You did what you had to do. We both did. That doesn't make it nice. But." He throws his arms around Neal's neck. "Don't punish yourself for it," he murmurs against his collarbone.

[conning]

Neal presses his face against Malcolm’s hair and breathes in, trying to center himself again. He doesn’t look at the body. “I won’t.”

He’ll try not to.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm lets go just enough to turn him around and usher him out of the apartment.

“Hot chocolate.”

By the time he returns, there’s no evidence that anything happened in the apartment. Malcolm is on the livingroom couch with a book he’s looking through more than at, turning eagerly when he hears the door open.

[conning]

It's unsettling, everything being so normal. Neal walks in with his own drink and Malcolm's, balanced in a carrier, and his focus drifts to the spot where they fought. He forces himself to look away and go to Malcolm, sitting down next to him and kissing him as soon as he's close enough.

[abrightboy]

It probably should be unsettling; Malcolm knew what he was doing because he’d done it before.

“I missed you,” he says as the kiss breaks.

[conning]

Neal smiles at that. He likes being missed, even if he wasn’t gone that long.

“Are you… how are you? Are you okay?”

He tucks Malcolm’s hot chocolate into his hands.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm takes it and leans over to set it on the coffee table.

“I’m fine. That… thing wasn’t the first straw man turned in, apparently. I don’t know why they haven’t alerted us about it.”

[conning]

Neal shudders. “You’d think. But I guess they want to minimize the possibility of people from off-world who look like others here getting attacked? Maybe?”

His instinct toward mistrust is unconvinced, even after almost a year.

[abrightboy]

"I don't know. Maybe. But. I wish I'd known before. Before I let him touch me. Before I ate the food. Before he made me not trust you for a couple of hours. I didn't... want to know that I could be made not to trust you." A beat. "Though I guess only by you, which... I suppose is true of anyone."

[conning]

Neal nods, his expression drifting into something bleak and distant for a moment before he orients on Malcolm again.

"I never want to do anything that makes you distrust me."

Malcolm is the only person who ever has without reserve.

[abrightboy]

“Well, that was a straw man, so you never have.” He pauses and watches Neal’s face a moment. “And now I know you never will.”

[conning]

Neal’s smile is small and fragile and painfully real. “God I love you.”

His breath catches a little at the fact that he’s said it so bluntly.

[abrightboy]

“That’s how I know,” Malcolm says with an almost shy smile. “Plus you let me sit in your lap while I was puking.”

[conning]

He takes a deep, unsteady breath. “Do you want to know about Danny Brooks?”

Neal doesn’t want Malcolm to think he’s willfully hiding something. Not after this.

[abrightboy]

“Only if it’s something you want me to know,” Malcolm tells him. “Are you worried it will change how I feel?”