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[conning]

"It's Caffrey. Remember the value of plausible deniability. I'll get back to you."

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For Malcolm, post-gradumotion flood

[conning]

Once Neal is cleared by the infirmary, informed of the temporary nature of his change, and taken back to his cabin, he…

Well, he doesn’t do anything. He lies on the couch, mouth slightly open, fangs just visible under his upper lip. Blue eyes somehow made even bluer by Lestat’s ‘gift’ fix on a point in the middle of the ceiling, pupils huge, while he breaths shallowly, savoring each intake of air and the way it slides down his throat and into his chest.

George is snuggled up against his side, apparently unbothered by the fact that Neal is more predator than caretaker at the moment. It’s fine. For now. Neal is too high off Lestat’s blood to do much more than stare at all the colors on the spectrum he’s never been able to see before and breathe in long and slow enough to feel the way it slides in rapidly warming currents against the tissues of his lungs.

He can feel e v e r y t h i n g dude.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do for Neal, so he just… puts him on the couch of his restored loft with George and hangs around. He makes tea. He reads in an adjacent chair.

[conning]

Eventually, hunger starts to gnaw through the fascination of pure experience, and the heartbeats in the room take on a very different level of meaning. Neal stirs.

“I can’t stay with George.” It’s his first thought. He knows people get brought back. He has no idea if an animal would be, and he doesn’t want to even risk the possibility that he wouldn’t. He doesn’t want to risk losing the cat’s trust either. When he rests a hand on the animal, feels the pulse under her his fingertips, a ravenous lance of hunger jolts through him.

He gags a little in horrified response.

[abrightboy]

“Why n…” A beat, then a slightly fascinated “Do you want to eat him? The infirmary gave me blood for you.” He gets up and heads for the fridge, scooping George up on his way. He puts the kitten in the bathroom where the litter box is temporarily set up and closes the door, then gets one of the blood bags out of his otherwise largely empty refrigerator. “Do you want it in, like, a glass or… just in the bag?” He gives the bag a gentle squeeze. “…Should I warm it up first?”

[conning]

He was on the couch. Now he’s in the kitchen, blood bag in his hands. He’ll marvel at the speed later. Right now there’s an animal drive he can’t fight to deal with first.

He sinks his teeth into the bag, hissing slightly at the feel of plastic giving under fangs instead of flesh, but then the tang of it hits his tongue and he’s too focused on sating the starvation of a newborn vampire to care about much else.

[abrightboy]

Sunshine flutters about her cage squawking and Malcolm looks over at her, then looks at Neal.

"Should I be concerned about you eating me?" he asks bluntly, the man who was largely unconcerned throughout the flood. Inquiring parakeets want to know.

[conning]

Neal drops the now-empty bag, cognizant of the fact that he should pick it up, but also too distracted by:

A) How good that tasted and how much better it must taste fresh.
B) How much he can still smell/hear/see/feel.
C) The fact that he just about inhaled a bag of blood.

“Oh god,” is what he says, and jolts over to the empty sink to retch into it without actually throwing up. His body, it seems, is unwilling to give sustenance up to nausea at the moment.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks sympathetic and apologetic, but says “That’s not exactly an answer.”

[conning]

Once he’s done not throwing up, Neal rests his forehead against the edge of the sink, marveling at the coolness against his skin.

Right.

Question.

The question.

“I’m not going to eat you.” He’s not offended by the ask at least.

[abrightboy]

“What was it like?” Malcolm asks him. “When he ate you,” he clarifies with morbid fascination.

[conning]

“When he fed on me.” The correction feels important for reasons he can’t place. Neal doesn’t answer the question right away. He’s a painter, not a poet.

“Exhausting,” he says softly. “But not in a way that wasn’t worth it. The first time felt…”

He’s not sure how to put it, so he borrows words that come close.

“An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.”

It’s enough to get him going. “I’ve never felt so… close to anyone in my life. I don’t know if I ever will again. Every time was… the pleasure was debilitating, but that wasn’t the part that mattered.”

What mattered was being in Lestat’s arms, feeling so unbearably in synch with another person.

[abrightboy]

"Ah," Malcolm says at that explanation like it explained literally everything. "He preyed on your unfulfilled need for intimacy. Your longing for it." Malcolm levels his gaze at him. "You know it wasn't really intimacy, right? It was a trick."

[conning]

Neal leans away from him a little, hurt at the way Malcolm brandishes the words unfulfilled need for intimacy. "You didn't feel it."

[abrightboy]

"You think I don't know? What it's like to be lonely and different and to think for a moment that someone has finally seen you?" Malcolm says.

[conning]

Neal takes exactly the wrong thing from that statement, which isn't anything new--he feels guilty, looking down again at the sink. Another little pang of hunger hits him, and he thinks, for a second, he could show Malcolm what it was like. Prove to him what it was like. But then there's another stab of hunger and he bares his teeth, squinting through the weird pain of it.

"Is there more... in the fridge?" He can't make himself say blood.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods, watching him for a moment, letting him retrieve it before he comments further.

"You're not actually hearing me, are you?"

[conning]

He's definitely not at this particular moment, just going after the second (and then the third) bag of blood with a, uh, somewhat messy ferocity that leaves as much of it on himself and the counter and the floor as it does in his mouth.

When they're both empty, he's left staring wide-eyed at his gory hands, looking ready to be sick again. "What?"

[abrightboy]

"Did you think I told you that I understand the intensity of your loneliness because I wanted you to feel ashamed for implying otherwise?" Malcolm asks.

[conning]

Neal finally looks up, surprised out of his transfixion. "You weren't?"

Wait, no. "No, I didn't..."

Uh. He's a better liar than this. He really is.

[abrightboy]

"That's not why I say things," Malcolm informs him, not waiting for him to finish the half formed sentence as it trails off. "I say things to give you context. I know exactly how hard that would be to resist. If you insulted me at any point, it was shrugging off my analysis like I have no understanding of what you're feeling. How long was it in your head? The vampire."

[conning]

"Lestat," Neal says, still soft-voiced. "His name is Lestat."

Neal goes to wash his hands as he answers, using a paper towel to turn on the water so he won't smear blood on the handles, as though blood isn't already smeared everywhere else. Washing his hands means he still doesn't have to look at Malcolm. "I don't know. Exactly. The night I woke up from... dreaming about him is the first time I think I knew he was there. Even if I didn't know at the time."

[abrightboy]

"Do you feel like it's important for me to know its name?" Malcolm asks him.

[conning]

"His name," Neal snaps, turning on Malcolm with fangs bared this time, the sudden anger--not uncommon--feeling incandescent rather than irritating and mostly controllable.

He startles a little at his own emotions, blinking a few times and backing off.

[abrightboy]

Mmhm. He thought so. Malcolm doesn't flinch, just watches, his eyebrows going up slightly when Neal turns on him.

"Stockholm syndrome. To the max, because of the fake intimacy. You still believe it, even now that it's over."

[conning]

"He was in my head," Neal says, something of a protest against the idea that it wasn't intimate. There's a part of him that recognizes psychic invasion isn't exactly intimacy on equal footing, but that matters less.

The blood, cold from the fridge, is starting to warm a little in the air of the cabin. The smell is stronger. Neal lifts a clean hand to touch his neck in the spot where Lestat bit him and healed him and bit him again. "You don't-- The way it felt."