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[abrightboy]

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[abrightboy]

Malcolm frowns faintly in clear confusion.

“Wh… like what?” he asks. Then immediately says “No. Um. You made a comment about the state of my wardrobe?” Close? No?

[conning]

Neal isn’t sure what to do with any of this.

He picks up his tea and actually takes a drink to buy himself some time.

[abrightboy]

“I didn’t… I didn’t meet you on your first day here or anything.” Does that make a difference to whatever expectation Malcolm is failing to meet here? “You didn’t even want to go out with me for, like. Months.” Maybe he never will again. Malcolm goes quiet and looks down at his lap, flexing his hand, clenching it again, then flexing and clenching.

[conning]

"Hey." He sets the tea aside and takes Malcolm's restless hand between both of his own. This is easy, responding to this insecurity, this hesitation. He's good at making people feel good. Always has been.

"I just. Don't tend to tell people who I am the first go-around. That's all."

A pause, then he adds, "Glad I got my head out of my ass though."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm watches his face carefully. Is… this really okay?

At Neal’s explanation, he smiles a little bit, but hopefully.

“Everyone wants someone to see them. Maybe I just… wasn’t scary.”

[conning]

A little knot of guilt wads itself down in the base of his stomach, right next to the anxiety at the idea that he doesn't know Malcolm but Malcolm... sees him.

I truly don't believe that you'd do anything knowing someone would get killed because of it.

Malcolm's voice, firm and gentle, but Neal has no context to go with the sentence. He lets go of Malcolm's hand and presses his fingertips to one temple, that uneasy wonder on his face again. He looks at Malcolm, nakedly fearful this time, though it doesn't last in his expression for more than a moment. "Good at squash and axe throwing, bad at pool and bowling. I don't remember why I know that."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm’s smile broadens a little.

“I told you. I told you that about me. Are… do you remember fragments?” he asks. Is his voice too hopeful? Does that put too much pressure on him? Malcolm tries to rein it in, but he’s never been able to control his emotions well.

“Sorry. I just. Have missing time, too. From when I was a kid. But sometimes fragments of memories come back.”

[conning]

"I remember you telling me something. Or I remember your voice saying it, at least."

He feels weirdly anxious and self-conscious over admitting to what he remembers. Or half-remembers. "It's like little bits of dialogue on a black screen."

[abrightboy]

“I don’t… want to push you or make you uncomfortable,” Malcolm starts as a caveat. “So I just really want you to be honest about what… you feel and what you…. want.”

[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.