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

[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."

[conning]

"It's funny. Before I joined the FBI I never would have agreed. About safety in numbers, I mean. The more people you have on a job, the bigger the risk. The bigger the take, probably, but that's the trade off." He makes a soft, amused sound. "The more you let people in, the more you have at stake."

[abrightboy]

"That's always true," Malcolm conceded. "But the bigger risk always yields the possibility for the bigger benefit." Not just in dollars. He laughed self-consciously. "Not that I'm a risk-taker in that respect. When I tell you that you can trust the cowboys, you need to know that I barely trust anyone. I've been burned a lot. And I worry about them... not wanting to deal with..." He gestured to himself. "All these problems anymore and asking me to leave. I worry about it every day."

[conning]

“When you’re a con, trust is the first thing to go. You lie, you cheat, you double-cross, and you expect it in return. Anything else, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, and you’re either looking down the barrel of a gun or taking a perp walk. It’s not personal.”

Neal shrugged almost helplessly. “It’s just what we are.”

He smiled faintly. “For what it’s worth... they don’t seem like the type to give up on a person. They’re like Peter that way.”

[abrightboy]

"They've said they won't. Give up on me." He flexed his right hand, open, closed, open, closed. "But I wonder if they really understand what they've gotten into. My bad days will be bad. And I don't know what will make them better or worse. This place creates... situations. Like the last couple of days. Isolation from support, no restraints. Still no meds. I don't think I even know what they're getting into."

[conning]

Neal couldn’t help noticing the tic. Did Malcolm know he was doing it? Neal wasn’t sure if it was a good idea or a bad one, but he reached out, wrapping one of his hands around Malcolm’s. The guy seemed to take comfort in being touched. A lot more than Neal himself, anyway.

“None of us know what we’re into. The only thing we can do is take it a day at a time.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm's gaze snapped to Neal's face when he took Malcolm's hand. Very few people would do something like that. He'd noticed the psychogenic tremor was often treated like it was a contagious physical ailment. People didn't just... touch that hand.

Malcolm didn't pull it away, either.

"One day at a time," he echoed. He nodded, taking a deep breath. "I have to go take a nap," he said. "I didn't... sleep. There. At the boarding house. Raylan said he'd sit with me."

[conning]

Neal hung on a moment more before letting go. "I should probably do the same. Didn't sleep either. It was like whenever we started to pass out the noises or the shaking would start again."

First he needed to clear up the breakfast he hadn't eaten. "Good luck? Should I be wishing you luck?"

[abrightboy]

"If you're going to attempt sleep when I am, maybe I should be wishing you luck," Malcolm told him with a laugh. "It... usually takes three or so hours for me to come up screaming, if that helps. The cowboys try to wake me up quickly at that point. Pavor nocturnus is pretty inconsolable so... results vary, depending on the night." He pressed his lips together. "Though once I wake up, even on a normal night... I don't go back to sleep. So it's... only once a night. Just. Keep in mind it's just me and not... something scary in the dark."

[conning]

"Well, there are a couple of people from the Gull I should check in with first. Maybe I'll wait until the watch has been figuratively called."

Neal drew a breath to speak, then let it go. A beat. "You can't help what happens when you sleep. They know that. I do too. Something you can't help..." He shrugged, one-shouldered. "As unpleasant as it might be, something you can't help isn't the sum total of who you are. I think it's pretty clear the cowboys know that."

He glanced down, then looked back at Malcolm's face like the little self-conscious tell didn't happen. "And besides, I heard what you were yelling the night I was here before we got taken. Even in your sleep, you were worrying about someone else."

Neal cleared his throat, picking up his fork and focusing on that instead of Malcolm. "You're a good man. Anyone can see it. ...And people who know how rare that is will go a long way to protect it."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm's face threatened to crumple for a moment, then he recovered it. He pressed his lips together and nodded, his own eyes dropping to the floor.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "Um." He looked at Neal. "There was this chasm and this..." he started, then stopped and waved it off, clearing his throat. "Anyway. I'm." He gestured towards the stairs. "But I'll see you later, right? Since you're staying?" he confirmed one more time.

[conning]

Neal nodded, still a little amazed at his own decision. He wouldn't be able to just slip away here. But it also meant he wouldn't disappear without someone noticing. That was reassuring, in its way.

"Yeah. Yeah you will." He waved Malcolm off with a little flourish of the fork. "Go sleep."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nodded.

"You're a good person, too," he said, squeezing Neal's shoulder as he passed. "Welcolme aboard."