TRAUMABEANS AU

[conning]

boop

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[conning]

“They didn’t,” he murmurs. “They couldn’t.”

[abrightboy]

“But they also didn’t believe you,” she clarifies.

“They didn’t read Sherlock Holmes,” Malcolm supplies.

She gives him a small smirk.

“But that happening to you isn’t what brought you here today,” she tells him.

[conning]

"I mean, it's... part of it." Instinctively, reactively, he reaches up to touch his shirt over the bandage. "It's just--it hasn't gone away. Since I got back. The things I saw there, at first I thought I was hallucinating. That I was crazy. But there are things... Things have happened."

He looks helplessly at Malcolm.

[abrightboy]

"Last night, while he was dreaming about being there, I woke up. He was bleeding from a cut on torso. And then I saw one form on his shoulder right in front of my eyes. He dreamed he was in that place being torn apart by monsters and it hurt him here for real," Malcolm tells her. "Who do you even go to with a problem like that?"

Gabrielle raises an eyebrow. She looks at Neal.

"Do you sleep in Malcolm's bed?"

"This isn't like the time with Eve," he interjects, " I was awake."

She levels a look at him.

"Are you sure?"

He isn't sure and it's all over his face.

[conning]

“It wasn’t him,” Neal says, his own voice sharp. “If you’re going to assume that this can’t be real just because of what he’s been through…”

He trails off, unsure what exactly he was going to say. “It wasn’t him. He was awake. It’s not the first time something strange had happened. We were upstate, and I was drawing, and the drawing changed. We both saw it.”

[abrightboy]

“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you,” Gabrielle says firmly. “But being familiar with his pathology, I have to eliminate the logical reasons before I can endorse the supernatural ones.”

“Look,” Malcolm says a little desperately, because he’s afraid Neal will walk out. Possibly without him. “We know this sounds crazy, but it’s true. Is it possible for physical wounds to manifest psychosomatically?”

She takes a breath. “I’ve never heard of it, but I can look into it,” she tells them.

[conning]

“What does that mean?” He hates not knowing things. Feeling stupid. It’s a wrench to even ask Gabrielle. He wouldn’t mind if it was Malcolm. “Psychosomatic.”

[abrightboy]

“The mind can be so powerful that it affects the body. But this would be an extreme example. Still… people have manifested illnesses… pregnancy symptoms…” Malcolm explains.

“Yes, but don’t get ahead of the diagnosis, Malcolm,” Gabrielle tells him. “Have any other incidents like the drawing happened?”

[conning]

“I went into a kind of… trance, I guess, another time when I was drawing. Malcolm was there. He saw what happened.”

He’s calmed a little, at least. Enough that it’s clear he’s not going to get up and leave immediately.

[abrightboy]

Gabrielle looks at him. Malcolm half shrugs a nod.

"What did you draw while in the trance?" she asks Neal.

[conning]

Neal realizes then that if he says what was there after the fact—scribbles—she might just chalk it up to Malcolm seeing things.

This was a mistake.

“…Mathias burning,” he says quietly. “And it moved. It moved and changed while I was drawing it.”

[abrightboy]

“Changed into what?” Gabrielle asks while making notes.

Malcolm looks at him and nods encouragement, like he can see his faith waning.

[conning]

“It showed the fire starting, consuming the town, and when I came out of it it was just… scribbles.”

He shivers, looking down, his apprehension back, unsure what else to say. There’s so much he hasn’t. Malcolm trusts Gabrielle. Why is it so much harder for Neal to? He’s been building toward this, in one way or another, almost since he and Malcolm met. Okay maybe it’s not that long ago, but… Neal shivers.

“I would see things sometimes. I do still sometimes. Less lately. But I still feel like some of the monsters I saw there are watching me.”

[abrightboy]

“Do you actually see them,” Gabrielle asks, “or is it more just a feeling of dread?”

[conning]

“Sometimes. More before. Lately it’s been in drawings and dreams, and sometimes I swear they’re there but I can’t see them. Like they’re hiding, but they want me to know they’re present.”

He scrubs a hand through his hair. “Sometimes it is just a bad feeling, just me feeling like something’s going to happen. Other times… it’s more than that.”

[abrightboy]

“Describe what you mean by ‘more than that’,” Gabrielle urges.

[conning]

It takes him a few long, silent seconds to put his thoughts in order and decide how much of them to share.

In the end he goes for honesty, hanging on to Malcolm’s hand. “It’s like sitting in a dark room you know well, knowing there’s someone in there with you. Not knowing who, or what they’re going to do. But knowing someone is there, without a doubt.”

[abrightboy]

“Is that what this other place felt like?” Gabrielle asks.

[conning]

Neal gives her a confused frown. “No. It felt like life.”

[abrightboy]

“You weren’t in a heightened fear state? You described some horrific experiences,” Gabrielle clarified.

[conning]

“Well. Yeah. Of course. But…” Neal has the air of a student who feels like he should be answering an exam question differently. He goes quiet, unsure what intellectual trap Gabrielle is trying to spring.

[abrightboy]

“What you’re describing is a sort of flashback,” she supplies. “It’s a common symptom of PTSD, but it doesn’t explain your injuries, just that… dread.” She sets her pen down and looks at Malcolm. “That might be enough for one day,” she suggests. “He’s not ready to go deeper.”

[conning]

“He’s sitting right here,” Neal says, somehow affronted by the fact that she’s the one bowing out.

[abrightboy]

“You’re holding back,” Gabrielle tells him matter-of-factly. “Coming here was Malcolm’s idea, was it not?”

[conning]

“He suggested it first,” Neal says, feeling Gabrielle’s bluntness like a strange kind of slap, a rejection. Like he hasn’t measured up to the required level of brokenness to get help.