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[abrightboy]

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[conning]

"Well. It's not permanent, right? This." He gestures at his own head, trying to come across as cavalier. "It hasn't been for other people."

Dismissive of his own emotional needs? Neal Caffrey? Never.

[abrightboy]

“So….” Malcolm reasons, “you just want to wait it out?” He pauses. “You’ve been staying here quite a bit. With me. Probably you… want to… put a pin in that until after, right?”

He assumes.

[conning]

He hesitates.

What are his options here?

Stay with Malcolm, who sees him too clearly. Stay in the medical unit, where screaming people are being brought in to forget themselves. Stay in “his” apartment, with more strangers who might know more than he’s comfortable saying again.

“I might remember faster if I stay.”

He sounds as certain as he feels.

A pause, then something else registers. “Not that you have to play babysitter if you don’t… I can stay at my place.”

[abrightboy]

"No," he says quickly. "I want you to stay. Of course I want you to stay, I l..." His voice trails off and he looks at his teacup on the coffee table instead of at Neal. "I would like it if you stay. You can have the couch if you want."

[conning]

Neal's eyes go wide. A yawning pit opens up in Neal's stomach and he tries not to jump off the couch and bolt for the door.

That aborted l-word was not like. The cadence, the weight of it, no--a different vowel was to follow.

"Do you know what happened to Keller?" His voice is soft. "Did I tell you? He's dead. I got him killed. Before him, Rebecca, and before Rebecca, a woman named Kate. Only one person I've ever loved hasn't died or gotten hurt because of it, and that's because she left."

Which leaves out the nuances of it, but the nuances don't matter right now.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at him, a little despair in his eyes he can’t quite hide. He has never been good at that.

“I know. If you don’t start to remember the past few months are you going to leave?”

[conning]

I know, Malcolm says. Like it's nothing. Like that blood-soaked track record doesn't even factor in.

That look in Malcolm's eyes is heartbreaking, but it also scares Neal so, so badly. He can't do this. He can't be allowed to do this, to care this much, even if he doesn't remember the feelings. He won't be able to take it if he gets someone else hurt.

Except if he leaves, he's clearly going to hurt Malcolm more deeply than he ever wanted the power to wound anyone again.

"What could I possibly have done to make the risk worth it to you?"

He doesn't mean to ask the question, really. But there it is.

[abrightboy]

“…What risk?” Malcolm asks. “Oh. You don’t know about my life. It’s… there are riskier things in my life than you,” he promises.

[conning]

“I…” Neal keeps staring, baffled, though there’s the phantom feeling of a blade sinking into his neck—how does he know that’s what it is?—and he jerks his hands up to touch his throat. Heart pounding. Confusion clear.

Neal squeezes his eyes shut. Forces himself to focus, to ignore the feeling that makes him positive he’s about to go careening over some mental deep end.

He clears his throat before focusing on Malcolm again. “If you mean all the… the…”

A gesture that vaguely conveys supernatural. “If you mean all of that, it seems like that’s baseline around here.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm presses his lips together.

“Not that. I mean, it is. But.” He waves it off. “It doesn’t matter.” He swallows. “I’m sorry.”

[conning]

Focus, Caffrey.

Focus.

If you can’t be objective, be mercenary.

“No,” he says softly, “no, it does matter.”

That’s not a lie. He lets his hands rest in his lap, instinct making him want to hold Malcolm’s hand, but he practically recoils from his own mental impulse. How can he care about someone he doesn’t remember this much? Is that what it is, this anxiety, this brutal mix of longing and terror?

Use it, his survivor-self hisses. Use the feeling, if you can’t avoid having it.

“Tell me?” It’s very tentative.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm opens his mouth, then closes it, his brow creasing.

“I’m afraid to tell you like this. You already want to leave.” Malcolm can see his face, the urge behind his features to bolt. “If you know about me, you’ll leave for sure,” he says quietly. “That’s what happens. I don’t know what kind of magic formula made it not happen with you.” But he couldn’t be that lucky twice.

[conning]

That cuts through him in a way Neal doesn’t expect. And it’s not guilt that does it, though there’s some tangled up in it. It’s understanding. Painful, perfect understanding.

For a few long seconds he doesn’t say anything. Then he draws in a deep breath, reaching out tentatively to gather one of Malcolm’s hands between his own. “Tell me.”

Is it selfish, wanting to make Malcolm feel better this badly? Is he being manipulative, or is this honesty, the fact that he wants to hear it? Hear it again, apparently.

Neal offers up a very tentative little smile. “I’m… I don’t want to leave the only person in the world I’m pretty sure I actually know.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm watches his face carefully.

He believes him.

He takes a breath.

“My father is an infamous serial murderer. He drugged me when I was a child so I would forget what I saw. I have complex PTSD. If you hear me scream in the night… don’t be alarmed.” A beat. “And don’t come in.”

[conning]

Oh.

Well.

That’s a lot.

Somehow, though, still not in the same league as the spiel about ADI.

What I saw. Another wave of goosebumps.

But there’s something else, too, that he wants to say, and it’s more important to him at this particular moment.

“I can’t just leave you alone if you’re screaming.”

It’s wrong on a variety of levels.

[abrightboy]

“You can. You have to. I can’t wake up when it’s happening. But I sleep in restraints, so as long as you don’t come too close, I can’t hurt you,” Malcolm points out.

[conning]

“Do we not sleep together?”

The question is out before Neal takes the half-second to determine if it’s appropriate to ask. He winces, visibly this time. “You don’t have to answer that.”

[abrightboy]

“We do,” he says anyway. “But you chose that when you knew what you were choosing,” he explains. “And when you loved me,” he adds painfully, “it made some kind of sense.” A beat. “The risk,” he clarifies.

[conning]

Another soul-deep blow. It hurts. God, it hurts, so much, and he realizes—

“I do love you.” It’s a shock, but also not a shock at all, the way it clicks. “I love you.”

Neal swallows, throat tight. “I still do.”

He knows that’s true. He wishes he could remember anything attached to the feeling.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm blinks at him, genuinely surprised. His eyes well slightly, but it’s too good to be true and he blurts out “Why? …I mean… how is that possible?”

[conning]

“I don’t know,” Neal says, confused and frightened and relieved and hating the mix. He studies Malcolm’s face, wills himself to remember something, but his mental landscape is infuriatingly blank.

I know what it feels like when I let someone I love down, he doesn’t say. It feels like this.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm isn’t sure what to say.

He wants this. He wants Neal’s love more than anything.

But it feels dishonest to take it when Neal doesn’t even know who he is or whether he’s worthy of it.

“Do y…” whatever the question was, it dies in his throat. Then frowns at himself. Then he leans forward impulsively and kisses him, though in the face of even mild resistance, he’ll immediately back off.

[conning]

It says something--something bad, really--about Neal's social education that he doesn't resist for a breath in spite of his own surprise. Maybe he saw it coming, maybe he picked up on the body language, it's possible. Either way, he accepts and then returns the kiss warmly.

And it feels right. Beyond simple physical compatibility, it feels right. Familiar.

When they break apart, Neal is a little flushed, breath catching roughly. He studies Malcolm's face, waits for something to happen, then almost immediately feels silly for the expectation. "You're good at that."

He clears his throat. Touches his thumb lightly against Malcolm's cheekbone, then hesitates, like he's not sure the gesture is welcome. Neal clears his throat again and gives a little laugh. "I have to admit, I think I was hoping for a Disney prince moment."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm bites his lip as he watches his face.

"You mean... like suddenly you'd remember everything?" he asks hesitantly.

He's glad he wasn't shoved on the floor for his effort but... he was kind of hoping that, too. Though... less magic, more... sense memory stimulating actual memory. Science.

"Someone told me once that scent memory is the sense most powerfully tied to memory. Maybe you need to... smell the wine we had when you made us dinner or... the detergent I use on my sheets...."

[conning]

Neal isn’t exactly starry-eyed, the way he’s looking at Malcolm, but there’s something inherently romantic to him in the details that Malcolm chooses. He’s not starry-eyed, quite. He is clearly (quickly) becoming infatuated.

Neal looks down, forcing himself to break eye contact long enough to think things through. “Do we have a spot? That we go? Or something I make for you a lot? Or…”