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

[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.

[conning]

He laughs a little. "Yeah, it does. And I never knew him. We went into protection when I was two, and then he showed up thirty years later and lied to me for months before murdering someone and vanishing again."

[abrightboy]

“He’s still alive?” Malcolm clarifies. “You don’t know where he went?”

[conning]

"As far as I know. I have no clue where he went. I tried everything I could to find him after he left. He's as good at disappearing as I am."

The words are sour in his mouth.

[abrightboy]

"Maybe it's better not to know him," Malcolm suggests gently. "You don't have the same problem I have."

[conning]

"I only looked because I wanted to clear the person he framed." Neal brushes off the idea of a relationship like it doesn't still sting to think about it. He rubs his thumb against Malcolm's temple. "I think I got off light, when it comes to my dad."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm's eyes flutter shut for a second under that light massage of his temple, then open to meet Neal's.

"That doesn't mean you have to be okay with how it went," Malcolm tells him. "That doesn't mean you weren't hurt by it."

[conning]

"Maybe," Neal allows quietly. He doesn't want to think about his dad. He doesn't want to think about how much it hurt, still hurts, everything that happened because his father was exactly the man Neal always hoped he wasn't. "But it doesn't matter now, anyway. He's not here either."

[abrightboy]

"Just you and me here?" Malcolm suggests. "The rate people have been disappearing, that might end up being literally true," he says with a faint frown. He looks up at Neal's face. "Don't leave me."

[conning]

Neal hugs him close. "I won't," he promises softly. "I won't."