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]

“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?”

[conning]

“No. It’s just not something I tell people.” The understatement is vast enough to give him a moment’s pause. “I grew up in witness protection. That was my name. I thought it was my real name until my eighteenth birthday.”

[abrightboy]

“Oh. …Well, aren’t you supposed to not tell people that?” Malcolm points out. It wasn’t… something he did wrong, not telling people.

[conning]

“Yeah. I just left Danny Brooks behind when I found out I was born Neal Bennett. I spent the rest of my life hiding the fact that he ever existed.”

He can’t meet Malcolm’s eyes.

[abrightboy]

“Where did ‘Caffrey’ come from?” Malcolm asks curiously, studying his face very carefully.

[conning]

"It's my mother's maiden name. My dad's name is James Bennett. He's the reason we were in WITSEC. He was a police officer. Killed his CO for the Irish mob, then murdered a senator later and tried to frame my FBI handler for it."

Neal exhales. It's strange to say it. Have it out there. Nothing hidden any more.

[abrightboy]

“It sounds better than ‘Bennett’,” Malcolm tells him honestly.