TRAUMABEANS AU

[conning]

boop

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[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.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods.

"Maybe we should order room service tonight," he suggests. "Are you hungry?"

[conning]

He is, he realizes. He nods. Presses his fingertips against one temple. His head feels stuffed full of fog.

Neal looks at the scribbles on the page again. “I clearly don’t draw very well in a trance.”

[abrightboy]

"Nobody does," Malcolm says. He picks up the room service menu from the bedside table. "What do you feel like having?"

[conning]

“You pick?” It’s a little more pleading than he means it to be.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm orders soups, with thick cut fresh bread on the side for Neal. He looks over, putting his hand over the receiver. “Do you want wine?”

[conning]

Neal nods almost automatically. He does--he wants to see what this place has that pairs with those soups--but also... well, it's automatic.

When Malcolm is off the phone: "Did I say anything while I was in the trance?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm shakes his head.

"No. Nothing," he confirms, perching on the edge of the bed. "You were just... really... focused. And your picture... it didn't look like scribbles while you were doing it. It looked like a town on fire."

[conning]

"It did?" Neal looks up sharply. "That... happened. It happened more than once."

[abrightboy]

"The town you were in burned down? How... did it happen more than once? Did you rebuild?" Malcolm asks.

[conning]

"It rebuilt itself. It seemed to reset, almost, like it was stuck in that moment, or right before it. We'd go to sleep and when we woke up everything was pristine again."

He sets the sketchbook aside and rubs his eyes.

[abrightboy]

“Did anyone get hurt in these fires?” Malcolm asks grimly.

[conning]

Neal nods. He can't do anything more than that for a moment.

"Lots of people did." A pause, then, very quietly, "It's one of the ways I died."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm just blinks at him for a moment.

"That's..." He has no words for what that is. He can't fathom it. The mind isn't meant to fathom it.

[conning]

“Drowning was still worse,” he says, trying for irony, but the small smile and crooked tone don’t take the memories away. Neal shakes his head and gets up, slipping his arms around Malcolm, fitting himself against the smaller man like a person hanging on to a teddy bear.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm clutches him tightly.

"I'm sorry you have to know that," he says.