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[conning]

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[abrightboy]

"Trauma," Malcolm assures him. He gestures around. "Do... do you want to get a cup of coffee? I mean. If you're free now."

[conning]

“Yeah. Yeah, sure, one second.”

He goes up to tell the woman that he’s heading out and she orders him to come back tomorrow at the same time, when she’s had a chance to get proper Christmas lights. He agrees, polite and faking amusement.

When he hits the sidewalk again, he gestures forward, inviting Malcolm to walk with him. “Should we try somewhere new or go to the usual?”

[abrightboy]

"The, um. Usual. Usual. It's on the way back to ADI, which is probably why it's so usual, right?" He sticks his hands in his pockets. "They use real chocolate. In the drinks." He looks at Neal and then ahead. "I like that."

[conning]

Neal feels a little flutter of affection that’s promptly overshadowed by whatever is following them. Following him, since Malcolm doesn’t seem to have noticed it.

He stops for a moment to look back, then keeps walking, trying to pick up the thread of the conversation again. “One of their baristas was talking about going to an actual workshop on latte art. They take their coffee seriously.”

He’s distracted though. He knows he sounds distracted, too. Why does he think he should be allowed anywhere near someone like Malcolm? At least with Meredith, there’s the underlying threat. With Kugrash there’s a sense of shared grudging fondness. How can Malcolm look at Neal that way? He wouldn’t, not if he knew half the person Neal really is.

He pauses again to glance back.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm stops this time and looks too, but there’s nothing there.

He looks at Neal.

“What’s going on? What’s back there?”

[conning]

Neal shakes his head. Doesn’t answer at once. Stares hard down the street behind them while instinct screams that some of those shadows are too dark to be empty.

Except whatever is watching him, strangling him with truth, feels like it’s behind him again. He looks sharply in the other direction, sees nothing, and tries to keep his breathing even. Trauma, he thinks giddily. But it’s not only the terror of being physically hurt again. It’s the fact that whatever is out there knows him, knows the heart of him, and it knows he’s not good enough.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm stops, reaches out, puts a careful, gentle hand on Neal’s arm.

“Tell me,” he says softly. “Let me help.”

[conning]

Neal looks at Malcolm’s hand, then at Malcolm’s earnest blue eyes, and practically chokes on his own shame and self-disgust.

“I’m not half the person you seem to think I am,” he says, and he’s not sure where the statement came from. But he knows it’s true.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks back in genuine confusion and a flash of ‘oh shit, I’ve been made’, but manages “…What do you mean?”

[conning]

Something is going to tell Malcolm if Neal doesn’t do it himself. Something, someone. It’ll explain to this good man exactly the kind of person Neal has been hiding. The pressure of that thought, the absolute certainty of it, makes it a little hard to breathe.

Neal closes his eyes, reaching up to run a hand through his hair, oblivious now to the little peek of color under his cuff that gives away the fact that he’s wearing Malcolm’s bracelet.

“I destroyed evidence,” he whispers. “I had access to one of the FBI’s storage rooms for cases pending review and I destroyed evidence so a forger, a killer, could get out of prison. I did it so a federal prosecutor he had in his pocket would authenticate a false confession recording to stop a murder indictment.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm’s expression creases a little, but his confusion doesn’t abate.

“A murder indictment? Why… why would you want to get a murder indictment thrown out?”

[conning]

Neal closes his eyes, talking even though he wants to stop, talking even though everything in him screams to shut up. Talking, because whatever is out there, watching, doesn’t think what he’s said is enough.

“He didn’t do it. But there was no way he’d be found innocent. It was his gun. His prints were on it. He had gunshot residue on his hands and was found standing over the body. So I got a friend’s help to fake a recorded confession from my father.”

[abrightboy]

“…Who was the real killer? Do you know?” Malcolm asks, watching Neal’s face carefully.

[conning]

Neal can’t look Malcolm in the face. He keeps his eyes shut. “My dad. We were trying to clear his name when he shot a senator. It turned out there wasn’t anything to clear.”

[abrightboy]

“So… you were trying to clear an innocent man by framing the real killer?” Malcolm clarifies. He pauses, considering what he’s seen on Neal’s face. “Why are you ashamed of that?”

[conning]

“I stole to do it,” he mumbles. “I stole to get Hagen to buy the prosecutor, and he recorded me making the theft. I had to either keep doing what he wanted or the fact that Peter was cleared on false evidence would come out. He’d lose everything. I stole, I lied, and I got a man killed, and I would do it all again.”

[abrightboy]

“Got a man killed? What man? How?” Malcolm presses.

[conning]

No. No, no, no. He grits his teeth a moment, trying to hold the answer in, but it’s like he can’t actually stop himself now that he’s started.

“My handler,” Neal says, quieter than ever. Like maybe if he makes things harder to hear Malcom won’t know what he’s saying. “He saw me meet with Hagen, and he died for it.”

[abrightboy]

“…Did you kill him?” Malcolm asks.

[conning]

He finally opens his eyes, face and voice almost desperate as he looks at Malcolm.

"I might as well have!"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm stays calm in the face of Neal’s assertion.

“Why, did you order someone to kill him?”

[conning]

"You don't understand," Neal insists, the pressure of that invisible judge getting him to bow his head. He digs his hands into his hair, the cuffs of his shirt pulled back a little more obviously this time. "You don't get it. I knew who killed him. I knew why. I didn't say anything, I just stood there knowing while the FBI tried to figure it out around me."

He closes his eyes again. "My consultation work wasn't voluntary. It wasn't even paid. It was part of a conditional release. I didn't quit, I ran. I haven't been back to New York because I can't go back."

[abrightboy]

“You were caught, doing some sort of thieving and you cut a d…” His analytical voice trails off and he tilts his head as Neal’s wrist catches his eye.

“You kept it.”

[conning]

Neal drops his hands to his sides, looking at Malcolm in near-panicked confusion. Whatever is there is still watching him. It's still judging him, still silently demanding that he get Malcolm to understand the kind of person he is.

"What?"

[abrightboy]

"Your friendship bracelet," Malcolm says, gesturing to his hand. "You kept it."