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[abrightboy]

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[conning]

Neal watches the closed door for a moment, his thoughts coming and going to a background of static fuzz that won’t quite let him focus on any of them.

He pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head.

[retisense]

"Okay."

That's all she says, because she doesn't believe a word Malcolm is saying, but again...not bringing it up right now. She gives him a little wave as he heads out and then turns to Neal.

"What the hell is going on?"

[conning]

He sits up properly, giving her a genuinely baffled look.

“What?”

[retisense]

"With you and Malcolm! And don't look so confused."

[conning]

He looks toward the door again, then back at her, the confusion not gone. He’s got too much of a headache to try and hide it.

“We… nothing, he saw me come into the apartment complex and… walked me up here.”

[retisense]

The man is an idiot, even cutting slack for the probable hangover.

"Sorry, I mean in general. This 'will they, won't they' thing is not nearly as funny in real life as it is in TV shows."

[conning]

That gets genuine surprise.

Because Neal is an idiot. Usually about things like this in particular.

“There is no will they won’t they,” he says, quietly, and takes a sip of tea. This time he does wince as it scalds his tongue.

[retisense]

"Oh, really? Because both of you have shown blatant interest in each other in my direct vicinity, but for some reason no one is talking about it."

She puts a hand on her hip and huffs out a breath, then takes a sip of tea.

[conning]

For all that he’s thirty-seven, Neal is very capable of looking like a third grader who just got caught cheating on a test.

He opens his mouth, searches for words that are true enough to still be safe, closes his mouth again. Focuses on his tea.

“I don’t have a good romantic track record.”

cw: survival cannibalism

[retisense]

"And? I literally ate my boyfriend and I'd still say yes to a cute girl if she asked me out."

[conning]

His focus snaps to her in surprise. It’s not like he didn’t know that particular fact, but hearing her put it that way is still startling.

He slowly looks at the closed door again, like he can see Malcolm through it if he stares long enough. For a moment he considers thinking of an infuriating enough lie to make her let it go, but drops that thought almost as soon as he has it. She deserves better from him at this point.

He drags in a deep breath, looking down at the table. “I don’t trust myself.”

A pause, and he adds, “That romantic track record includes more than one dead significant other. I didn’t kill them, maybe, but I am the reason they died.”

[retisense]

"Okay, that's a little more valid." she says, then punctuates it with a sip of her tea. She's not big on using her history as a bargaining point, but she does it when she has to.

Taking another sip of her tea, she lets the heat soak through the porcelain and into her palms again, just thinking for a few moments.

"But shouldn't that be a choice he decides to make, himself? Like, where you tell him what your history is and he decides if you're worth putting his life on the line for? Because in case you haven't noticed, we're all putting our lives on the line all the time here."

[conning]

“Yes,” Neal says softly. “Maybe it is a choice he should make himself. But I don’t know if I could take it if we tried and then something happened.”

[retisense]

At that, her face softens a little and she offers him a slight smile, "I get that. Believe me."

After a few moments, she sips her tea again, glancing away, "I can't tell you how to live your life, Neal. But things don't have to go that way."

[conning]

They don't have to for other people, maybe. He studies the mug between his hands, trying to figure out a way to explain the bone-deep belief that he'll get anyone he gets close to hurt. It's not as true here--not as concretely true. There's no revenge-driven gang of thieves out to make him wish he'd never made a friend. But in a way the ADI's warning to stay away from the locals has been a blessing.

"Thank you," he says, and he means it, even if she didn't change his mind.

[retisense]

There's something about the way he says it that really reads as resignation, and she's getting the feeling that none of what she just said sank in at all.

"You're really not buying this, are you?"

[conning]

He makes a noise that’s vaguely laugh-like. “I used to be a lot harder to read.”

[retisense]

"I find that pretty hard to believe."

Maybe he did, but right now it seems pretty obvious what's going on in his head. Or at least it seems to. But it doesn't do any good if he won't talk.

"What's going on? Talk to me."

[conning]

He gives her a long, studying look, his expression slowly shifting from wariness to resignation. She told him the truth with far less prompting.

"A year ago I faked my own death to get a clean break from my life. It wasn't because I wanted one. It was because if I didn't, everyone I cared about was going to pay for knowing me."

[retisense]

For a long few moments, she's quiet, just processing that revelation. Parsing out in her brain what it means, what that would feel like to have to do that, to be invisible like that because of a faked death, invisible and alone, leaving everyone behind.

It must have been awful to deal with.

"That sucks. And I can see how that would've really fucked up your ability to be vulnerable with people."

[conning]

Neal makes an ironic little noise, taking a sip of his tea. "I was never very good at it in the first place."

[retisense]

"I get that. Because, I mean, same."

A little shrug, and she continues, her voice patient, "But if you've found someone you want to be vulnerable with, who makes it easy, why say no?"

[conning]

For a second, there's something fragile in the way he looks at her. Something he started burying when he was eighteen years old and ran away from home, something he tried to scoop cement over every time he betrayed someone who mattered. Every time someone who mattered betrayed him.

He's scared. He's terrified, and now that he knows it's there, it's somehow worse. He's scared of being open, he's scared of what knowing him will do to Malcolm. Sarah is the only one who ever made it out of a relationship with him unscathed.

Neal looks away.

"I want to say yes," he admits, very quietly.

[retisense]

"I think that's normal. Anyone would. But it's scary, right?"

She understands that. She understands it because of her own history, because she's also someone who always had a hard time being vulnerable. Because she had a boyfriend for a long time and never really opened up to him, and he deserved better than her, but he's dead now. Dead and gone. And he sacrificed himself so she could live, just like her mother.

"Are you really gonna live in fear?"

[conning]

He wants to be able to answer that question definitively. Of course the right answer is obvious. The right answer is almost always obvious.

Neal starts to say something. Once, and then again, and then again. Not sure what, sure it won't be true.

Finally, he lands on, "I don't want to."