TRAUMABEANS AU

[conning]

boop

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[conning]

"Something," he whispers. He looks toward the larger pad of paper again, sitting on the easel nearby.

[abrightboy]

“I don’t know what range of things a ‘something’ covers in this context,” Malcolm tells him patiently. “Do you mean like the shadow in the other drawing?”

[conning]

"I don't know," Neal says, still a whisper, but strangled with emotion this time. "What if it twists the image, or makes me see things, or can get to you through it somehow?"

[abrightboy]

"Then we'll deal with it," Malcolm says matter-of-factly. "Do you want to let it run your life by scaring you away from the things you love the most?" he asks. "Because I'm personally willing to take the chance and to fight it if we have to."

[conning]

"You don't understand," Neal says, somewhere between frustrated and desperate, and that's when it truly clicks for the first time. Malcolm doesn't understand. He really doesn't understand what that place was, what it was capable of. What it might still be able to do to them both.

He lets out a long, slow exhale and presses his face into his hands for a moment. He can feel his fingers shivering against his brow and forehead and he clamps down on the surge of frustration that hits him. "We can't fight it."

The words come out, and he rebels against them. "There's got to be a way to stop him, or... banish him, or exorcise him, or something. There's always a way. But I don't want to risk losing you."

[abrightboy]

He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand, because he wasn’t there and because - like a man of reason and science in the year 2020 - he doesn’t default to the supernatural as an explanation. He doesn’t understand because he’s not Neal’s Malcolm, that went through all that with him.

But he recognizes frustration.

“What do you think it can do to me, exactly?” Malcolm asks.

[conning]

"I don't know," Neal whispers. "That's the part that terrifies me the most. I have no idea what it could do. Get inside your head and drive you crazy, hurt you physically, I..."

He reaches out, resting his hands on Malcolm's waist. "He, you, in that place, you were so scared of it making you really crazy. Without your medications, with the things we saw and the ways it made it impossible to tell if it was real. I just."

Deep breath. "I don't know what it could do, if it's... real, in this world too."

[abrightboy]

“Okay. Well.” Malcolm shrugs expansively. “Do you want to draw a landscape or something instead?”

[conning]

Neal actually flinches. His hold on Malcolm's waist loosens. He's not sure what he expected, what he wanted, or why that question hurts as much as it does.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm’s brow creases. When Neal’s grip on him loosens, his grip on Neal instinctively tightens.

“I said the wrong thing,” he surmises, but he isn’t sure why. He’s hunting for techniques to ease into it. A landscape wouldn’t have any people in it to get ‘got’. Neal could see if the shadow intruded or not. “You don’t have to try that or anything else. I was just spitballing ideas.”

[conning]

"Oh," Neal says, surprised. "I..."

He looks down, forcing an ironic smile. "I thought... I don't know what I thought. That you were saying you didn't think I could do it, or. Something. Writing it off."

He shakes his head. "Sorry. I should know better."

[abrightboy]

"I probably... said it wrong," Malcolm admits. "I just thought an empty tableau wouldn't have any people for it to 'get', but you could see if it showed up. But. You're right. I don't understand. I don't know how it works."

[conning]

"No," Neal protests softly. "You didn't. I misunderstood, that's all."

He kisses Malcolm, a mix of apology and comfort for them both. "I don't know how it works either, really."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm melts against him a little at the kiss.

"Do you want to try drawing something with no people in it, as an experiment?" He pushes the curtains back a bit more. "Something out there, not the room. Because if we see it... somewhere out there, we can work on a defence, right?"

[conning]

Neal nods slowly. "Yeah. That... I'm not sure why, but that makes sense to me."

A breathy little laugh. He looks out at the mountains, and they're beautiful--stunning--but he doesn't feel about them the same way he feels about a crowded New York street. "Is it weird that this view doesn't seem as alive to me as Central Park?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm laughs.

"I don't think so. Technically there's a lot more life in Central Park. People and horses and ice cream carts and a zoo...."

He moves to sit out of the way of the view.

"Maybe you'll get lucky here and spot a deer or a bird or something, but." He shrugs.

[conning]

Neal half-smiles, then settles, parking himself in the other chair again, where he can see out the window. He studies the horizon, looks for something to hold his interest, and decides that's not the place to start. The place to start is with shapes. Just... draw what's there, and see where his focus goes.

So he does that instead. At first he's very aware of Malcolm's presence, the comfort of it, the reassuring solidity. Then he starts to drift. He doesn't notice. The way the pencil starts to flick off lines that aren't part of the landscape. The way his posture goes slack and his eyes go unfocused.

He's not drawing the mountains.

He's drawing a beach, seen from offshore. A New England town in flames.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm sees the image taking shape, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to break the spell. He doesn’t even notice he’s practically holding his breath.

[conning]

There's something off in the way Neal stares into nothingness while he works. Like someone who's looked at a thing for so long that it's lost meaning, or who's seeing something that isn't--shouldn't--be there.

There's something even more off about the way the drawing seems to move under his pencil, lines following the stroke of the lead, growing beyond what he draws.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm frowns faintly, takes a step towards him, then stops. He's not sure he should interfere. Won't it help them to know as much as they can about what they're dealing with?

[conning]

Neal's strokes get broader. The flames on the page stretch upward in black and white, tiny figures on the town's streets smudged out. Neal still doesn't look like he's seeing what he's drawing. But he's breathing harder.

Abruptly, he looks up, meeting Malcolm's concerned gaze. Even odds as to whether his sclera really are black all the way through or if it's a trick of the mind, Malcolm's or the Shadow Man's. Neal lifts the pencil away from the paper and makes to jam the length of it through his left eye.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at him, tilting his head, as he looks up, but when he turns the pencil on himself, Malcolm lunges at him and pushes it away from his eye before jerking it out of his hand.

"Neal!"

[conning]

Neal blinks back into reality, staring at Malcolm and his panic with confusion. He feels groggy. Like he's dozed off sitting up.

When he looks down at his notebook, it's not a picture of Mathias--it's the mountains, or at least an impression of them, practically obscured by senseless scribbling.

"Did... I fall asleep?" He sounds as muzzy and confused as he feels.

[abrightboy]

"Sort of," Malcolm says. "More like a trance." He studies Neal's face, brushing his cheek with his thumb. "This thing that you were talking about... did you ever see it possess a person?"

[conning]

"I don't think so," he murmurs. God, he's tired. Tired enough that he hasn't put together how drained he is and why Malcolm would ask something like that.