026 》sweet troubled man are you giving or taking?

[thering]

characters: Malcolm, Neal, Negan, Raylan, Doc
location: 1306 Phillips Dr
date/time: day 26 morning
content: the reset Playstation button was pressed
warnings: tbd

After the strangeness of the past two nights they were likely fully expecting to awaken in the same strange, different, not-so-new anymore places they found themselves in in the past two days.

Instead everything seems to have reset, again. The three permanent residents and two guests are back in 1306, exactly where they had been two nights ago. Malcolm was in his own room, Neal was in Doc's and Negan in Raylan's master bedroom. The two displaced cowboys are downstairs sharing one too-small couch, a night of drinking culminating in fighting over couch space and who gets to be the bigger spoon.

The fire in the fireplace had gone out and their Winter 2020 Collection of bespoke lanterns have vanished, but nothing else seems to be awry.

Comments

[abrightboy]

Malcolm is surprised by the contact. It draws his eyes to Neal's face.

"Sleep? No. No, it wasn't safe. For them. I made restraints from bungee cords here," he explains, tilting his head towards the ceiling. "I have to sleep in restraints or I walk." A beat. "Walk. Run. ...Fight. It's... not safe."

[conning]

God. It's hard for Neal to imagine living that way. Not finding some kind of peace when he closes his eyes.

Though, granted, he's not sure he'll be finding any peace here any time soon. "How did you guys manage when the power went out?"

[abrightboy]

"Fire. Yennifer made sure it stayed lit. Something... kept making it go out."

He watched Neal for a moment.

"Did you guys stick together or... try to stay out of each others' way?"

[conning]

Neal lets go of Malcolm's arm, laughing faintly. "Little bit of both? Some of us were more helpful than others."

He taps his cup against the counter. "A woman named Daisy, we took care of each other. A man named Eliot did some cooking for everyone. Guy named Sherlock who kept losing it at thin air, like that served a purpose."

Another soft exhale. "Elijah was there. The vampire."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm was going to mention something about sometimes losing it at thin air himself and not always being able to help it but 'Elijah the vampire was there' made his eyes widen slightly.

"That's... unsettling. Did he say anything to you?"

[conning]

"I said some things to him." Yeah, he started that particular conversation. Neal shakes his head. "He said he wasn't himself when what happened... happened. Apologized."

Neal lifts one shoulder in a kind of shrug. "Didn't go after anyone while we were there."

[abrightboy]

"What did you say to him?" Malcolm asked with interest. "And what did he mean, he 'wasn't himself'? Was he under some sort of... influence?"

[conning]

Neal clears his throat. "I told him I was glad he looked like shit."

He turns his cup in little increments on the countertop. "I guess you could say that. He said didn't have full control of himself. That 'something happened' to him, and that he doesn't ordinarily drink from people without consent."

[abrightboy]

"I.... I mean, consent is better than not consent but. What happens if nobody consents?" Malcolm asked.

[conning]

"He said he had someone volunteer to help him."

Neal has his suspicions as to who it is. He's still not sure whether he should step in or not. He knows Peter would do something. He's not sure if Peter would step up as a volunteer himself. Neal knows he doesn't want to. Being bitten hurt. It made him feel small, helpless, violated. He's not sure willingness to go through it again would make those feelings go away. Besides, it's not like he owes Elijah. He doesn't even know Elijah. But there are others here the vampire could go after, and that, Neal cares about.

"Putting all of that on one person isn't a long term solution."

It's a step forward, admitting that they might need one. Neal still knows they're going to get home. They're going to get out of here, all of them. But it's starting to look like a matter of weeks instead of days.

[abrightboy]

"Maybe not. Maybe others will volunteer. But if it comes to him... forcing it.... Raylan and Doc won't stand for that," Malcolm told him. "He might have to be... isolated from everyone else, maybe."

[conning]

"So he can starve?" The thought makes Neal sick, but so does the idea of the town playing ring-around-the-blood-bank. He sets his coffee down and leans forward, digging his hands into his hair. He finds himself breathing the way he had in the Gull, in-two-three, hold, slow exhale.

He hasn't felt this way since after the explosion that killed Kate. This wrung out, this overwhelmed. And he keeps showing it. It's so much worse than the moments where he would lose control in the white collar offices after Kate died, those brief stints of shaking hands and anxiety that swept through him and forced out anything but the memory of heat against his skin. He should be able to perform better than this. He should be better than this.

"At least this place gave us options."

[abrightboy]

"It didn't give me options," Malcolm said soberly. His medication was - arguably - at least as important as food to his ability to function. "Aren't vampires technically already dead?"

[conning]

That's right. This place screwed Malcolm at least as much as it has Elijah. Neal closes his eyes.

"I guess. Hard to remember that when you're talking to one."

Quietly, he says, "I forgot. For a second. About..." He crosses his arms on the countertop, forces one more long, steady breath. Neal makes himself look at Malcolm, blue eyes meeting blue. "You have to be one of the strongest people I've ever met. I wouldn't be able to handle it. I'm barely handling it now."

It's a wrench to admit it, but Malcolm knows already that he's lying about being fine. There's no way to pretend when he's on the verge of falling apart already.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm reaches out, hesitates, then puts his hand over Neal's again and gave it a squeeze before withdrawing it.

He knew exactly how hard that was to admit. He knew what the 'I'm fine' defence mechanism was for and how bad things had to be to let it fall, even when everyone knew you were lying.

"I wasn't handling it either. There was a day, early on, when Raylan and I woke up in the lighthouse. Kind of... kind of like the way we woke up somewhere else the other day. I'd only just met him once, right after I arrived. For about ten minutes. He was tearing copper pipe out of one of the rundown houses. I asked him some questions. I wasn't... off my meds yet. I didn't realize what I was in for. Then, a few days later... suddenly we were in the lighthouse together and you couldn't reach it from here at that time. There was no door out. We went up."

He paused, shifting his weight, starting to unconsciously wring his hands.

"There was a moment when we were climbing the stairs up and up and up and I looked over the railing and I considered just.... falling. What if I just fell? It was just a thought. Maybe. But. Raylan noticed... something. He sort of... snapped me out of it. He wouldn't let me walk on the outside after that." He frowned faintly. "I think maybe he saved my life that day."

[conning]

He thought about it, after Kate's death. The possibility of just not existing. It wasn't that he wanted to die, really. It was just that there didn't feel like a point to living. It was the same question, or a variation thereon: What if I just stopped?

This time Neal's the one who reaches out, putting his hand over Malcolm's. He doesn't draw away. "We're all getting home. And we're taking care of each other until we do it."

He draws in a breath, opens his mouth to speak. Stops. Tries again. This is hard. "You asked about my dad. Whether I'd looked for him. I have. Off and on. I thought he was dead. My mom told me he died like a hero, went out in a hail of bullets saving the day. My aunt told me the truth when I turned eighteen. That he wasn't a hero, and that he wasn't dead, as far as she knew."

It's not the whole truth, but Neal isn't remotely ready to share that.

"So... I've looked. I've tried to stop looking. But I always end up trying again."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm managed a small but genuine smile at Neal’s reassurance. He didn’t know if he believed it, but he was still buoyed by the sentiment and Neal’s earnest commitment to it.

His expression sobered as Neal continued, his eyes focused on the other man’s face.

“It’s hard to let go of that connection, even if you want to,” Malcolm acknowledged softly. “Even if he’s despicable. Even if he’s evil. Even if what he did makes you physically ill.” He pressed his lips together. “He’s still part of what you are.”

[conning]

His grip on Malcolm's hands tightens a little, unintentionally, as the man speaks. His throat feels squeezed. It's hard to breathe, but not, ironically, because Neal can't stand what Malcolm's saying.

It's because Malcolm gets it.

"I tried to explain that to Peter. My partner at the FBI. He said he didn't believe it. That I wasn't my father." Neal makes a soft sound. Not a laugh. The bastard stepchild of a laugh, maybe. "I was my father's son before I even knew who he really was."

[abrightboy]

"You don't have to be like him to want to understand who you are," Malcolm told him. "Remember how I said I visited my father regularly after his trial? It wasn't because..." He frowned. "The first time I went, I told him that everyone said he was a monster. I asked him why he did those things. He said he didn't know, but we could figure it out together." He breathed out a rueful smile. "He knew how to hook me. I wanted to understand what he was and whether... whether I had to be that too. After he got arrested, the kids at school started calling me 'psycho'. Was I? Was I going to be? I had some concerns and he milked them." He leveled his gaze at Neal again. "It's normal to want to know."

[conning]

"I don't. Know, I mean. What he did. I know he killed someone, that he was dirty, but I didn't want to hear the rest of it. Not then. I was a kid."

He was a kid, and Ellen had wanted to keep him from walking in to the police academy and immediately taking it from all sides. He clears his throat. "Lost the opportunity to find out, after that."

Again, not the whole truth, but a part of it. Neal gives Malcolm's hands a little squeeze and finally lets go. "And you're proving my point. About your own strength. Just saying."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm breathed out a laugh at himself, ducking his head as he smiled.

“I think I might just be stubborn,” he allowed. He looked at Neal again. “I wish I could help you get your answers,” he said earnestly. “I know what it’s like to want to know and just... be stymied at every turn.”

[conning]

"A friend told me once that I had too much mystery in my life." Neal's smile is both fond and ironic. "I was stupid enough to disagree at the time, but. Mozzie's almost always right in the long run."

Well.

"Almost."

[abrightboy]

"Maybe that's not a bad thing, though. Some people love a mystery," he points out lightly.

He shifted to wrap his arms around Neal's shoulders and give him a squeeze before pulling back to where he'd been standing.

"Whoever wants to stick together with us is welcome," he said, gesturing around the house. "And we look after each other. The other day, I was in the clinic looking... around..." To no avail, sadly. "Snow fell off the roof and blocked the exit and trapped me in there. The cowboys found me after... I don't know. A few hours or so. They came looking. If something happens, we'd look for you too."

[conning]

Neal lifts a hand in surprise, fingertips brushing Malcolm's arm, not shrugging out of the quick embrace or trying to fight it. Hanging on to Daisy is a lot of what got him through the past two days. That closeness, that touch. It's not normally what he does, real physical intimacy without the expectation of sex, but it's... maybe not so bad a thing. Every so often, anyway.

He tries to clear his throat around the knot forming there. "I'd like to stay." Neal hooks a smile at Malcolm. "Don't have to be a kumbaya kind of person to think the buddy system is worth a shot, I guess."

[abrightboy]

"Good," Malcolm says decisively. "Good; there's safety in numbers. And there's a lot to recommend fellowship for mental health concerns, too."