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[abrightboy]

 This is Bright. Leave a message.

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[abrightboy]

[Malcolm looks right at him, meets his eyes if he’ll let him.]

I’m being your Warden; I’m getting you the help you need so you can graduate. It’s what a friend would do. The unselfish thing. I understand why you can’t trust me. Now understand why I can’t take that: I promised you I wouldn’t unless it was a gesture of trust.

[conning]

That's what this is. [His voice is soft, a little desperate.] That's what I'm trying to do. I don't know how to trust you except to do it this way.

[abrightboy]

[Malcolm looks at the file, then his face, then slowly reaches for it, taking it from him. He looks at the cover, then up at his face again, a little wary and a little confused.]

You said you don’t trust me.

[conning]

[He relaxes a little when Malcolm takes the file, the cold front replaced by a little rush of relieved heat.]

I don't trust anyone. [He smiles fractionally, glancing skyward.] The difference is I want to trust you.

[abrightboy]

[Malcolm hugs the file to his chest then.]

Okay. That's more than I've earned. [He nods and gestures towards the gazebo door.] Let me know if there's anything else you need.

[conning]

It's not more than you've earned. [His chest aches a little more at how cowed Malcolm is, guilt prowling around the edges of his hurt the way it always inevitably does.] Malcolm, I...

[He stops.] If you want--if you want, I can... coach you, maybe. On being more...

[Neal gestures at nothing in particular.] More participatory. Less prescriptive. About people. Your job, your real job, you have to be prescriptive. You take evidence, you draw conclusions, you present your findings, it's what you do. But you're not... trying to create a profile that will hold up to scrutiny from lawyers here. It's not a contest to be the most right about the people you're talking to. I can help. Maybe. I know how to get people to listen. It just takes practice. Like everything does.

[abrightboy]

[Malcolm’s expression falters slightly.]

That’s… kind of you. But I’m not really ready to put my feet back under me. I’m going to do something else for a while. Then… if I miss it… I’ll… come see you about it.

[conning]

That's--yeah, that's fine. That sounds good.

[A pause, and he starts into the Gazebo, then stops again on the threshold.] Can we still talk? No therapy. No trying to figure each other out. Just... talk.

[abrightboy]

[He knows he honestly can’t promise he won’t do it at all. It makes him hesitate for just a second.]

..I’d like that. If you want to. You… know where to find me.

[Sort of. An origami flower is still under a door that hasn’t been opened.]

Or you can call.

[conning]

[Neal notes the hesitation and shifts his weight uncomfortably.] I just meant I'm not asking you to be my therapist, that I just want to talk to you. I like talking to you.

[A faint laugh.] Recent evidence notwithstanding.

[He pauses.]

I'm... experimenting. With something. An art project.

[abrightboy]

[Malcolm isn’t sure how to handle the first confession.]

I thought you really hated me.

[It’s not an accusation; it’s a confession too. He looks at the gazebo door and then at Neal.]

Can I see it?

switching formats again? yes I am

[conning]

Neal gestures for Malcolm to follow him, nerves chewing at him as they walk inside. "I... hate everyone right now, depending on how they meet my eyes."

It's a joke, but it's also not entirely a joke. In a quiet rush: "I hated that I hadn't met you before this point in my life. It's over here."

It is the painting he was trying to start when Will found him in the gazebo, a canvas that's not starting to look like a storm-tossed sea. The focal point is a ship--a sailing ship, not the barge--cutting through the waves, at the moment just a sketch. It's pencilled into the middle of experimental smudges in purple and red.

Re: switching formats again? yes I am

[abrightboy]

“I like it,” Malcolm tells him. “It’s beautiful. Have you asked Francis to take you on his ship? Maybe it would help.” He looks at Neal quickly. “With inspiration, I mean. Not. Other things.” Mental health things that belong to his new therapist now. “We went. It’s amazing.”

[conning]

Neal inspects it, trying not to be too critical. "It's not much of anything, yet."

Beautiful or otherwise. And the more he thinks about it the more unsure he is about every choice he's made so far.

He glances over at Malcolm, lips pressed together briefly at the we went, at the lance of jealousy and loneliness it drives through him. He quickly looks away. "I'm glad."

He isn't sure he can go, not without thinking about Malcolm and Will being there and happy while he's alone looking for inspiration. "It was in the Enclosure?"

[abrightboy]

“Yeah, but it was… “ His excitement about it is visible, even through worn, tired features, but then he remembers to be careful. Careful what to say and what to convey and his expression sobers. “I liked it a lot. I’d love to go again, if you don’t mind me… being there.”

[conning]

You did this, something murmurs to him, like the worst kind of mantra. You did this you did this you did this—

It’s hard to remember his hurts were valid too, with the guilt chewing away at them.

“I wouldn’t mind.” He looks at the painting again, deciding to make something else the focal point. “I haven’t been on a ship in a long time.”

[abrightboy]

They were valid; that's why Malcolm is taking his licks.

He lights slightly, despite holding back.

"You've been on a ship before?"

[conning]

Neal smiles a little. "A couple. Once in the Mediterranean where the team I was working with made a water entry by night to a castle in Greece and used the ship as a getaway vehicle from the Ionian side, once in the East China Sea near Japan for a different job. A few other times, more recreationally."

[abrightboy]

“You’ve really been all over, huh?” He smiles weakly. “That must make it extra hard to…”

To be tethered to a few square miles. But he stops before he says that because that might be therapy territory.

“Be stuck on a ship like this. Is that why you’re painting one?”

[conning]

Guilt and longing twinge in his gut, a tangle between responsibility for this awkwardness and the wish that they could just talk. The wish that he hadn't been patient at the same time as being friend. It makes everything harder.

"It hasn't been easy," Neal says, "Here or before."

He looks at Malcolm, swallows a little knot of shame. "You're the first one to say so, though."

He clears his throat. "I'm not sure why, honestly. Because I imagined the storm, it was the ocean, and it follows that there should be a boat."

Which is a stupid reason. It's not a good one, at least.

[abrightboy]

“That makes sense,” Malcolm answers like it’s the most reasonable reason in the world, looking at it again. Then he looks at Neal. “Not one person ever noticed?” He looks at the painting again. “Maybe they’ve never had a bird.”

[conning]

Neal stares at him in soft disbelief for a moment then breathes out a little laugh.

“How can no one have fallen in love with you? What’s wrong with them?”

[abrightboy]

That gets a slightly startled look from Malcolm, but he gives a considered answer.

“I think it had less to do with what was wrong with them and more to do with what’s wrong with me, but…” He shrugs and studies the painting again.

[conning]

Neal still can't fathom it. He shakes his head.

"I know you don't think you're a good painter, but have you ever tried poetry?"

[abrightboy]

“I’ve tried reading it,” Malcolm says. A beat. “And I did draw an almost passable oil pastel dog.”