Neal takes a step back, struck in a spot he wasn't expecting, a place he doesn't recognize as a wound Rebecca opened and Peter salted with insistence that she really loved him. "What? No, Malcolm, I'm... He's not-- I know what he is, all right? I... He's what I am right now."
He looks down at himself again, smeared with blood, and gives a convulsive little shudder. "And he's been this so much longer. He--"
Neal closes his eyes, squeezes them shut, tries to put his thoughts in order.
"He just preyed on you all week. You didn't answer my messages. You didn't tell me where you were. You didn't think about George and who was looking after him one single time. And you think that was fine? What else do you think? After all that mind control, he has some kind of affection for you beyond how a connoisseur feels about a really good steak?" Malcolm presses.
“It’s not okay, I know it’s not okay, but the rest of— I don’t—I don’t know.” It’s desperate and angry and he bares his fangs at Malcolm without meaning to.
“I thought Rebecca loved me and she used me from day one, and when I finally realized she didn’t, everyone around me said she did. I don’t know how he feels. I don’t know how she felt, I don’t know how Peter feels, I don’t know how I feel. You’re the only person I’m even half sure about at this point.”
“She didn’t love you, Neal. You loved her and your friends were trying to cushion the blow of betrayal. I do know, okay? I’ve been there,” Malcolm tells him. “Better to let the truth go, then cling to a lie, I find.” He levels his gaze at Neal. “And I only know Peter from parts of a file, but from what you’ve said about him, it sounds like he genuinely cares about you but he’s just… bad at being a dad and at being a friend, but not from a lack of care. If you choose to go back there after you graduate, maybe you and he can reckon with all the ways he hurt you just for being, but for now I have to warn you that anyone who mind controls you into a stupor for days? Is not your friend, Neal. It’s fake. It’s jumping over the side right here on the ship. You’ll only graduate and find the life you want if you stop numbing and do the work. There aren’t any shortcuts.”
Had they been trying to cushion the blow? It felt like they were trying to punish him for falling for it.
“He has the ability, he can control minds, but that’s not what kept me there.” It’s semantics at this point, but important semantics to Neal. “I couldn’t leave, but it was… blood loss and disorientation, not some kind of active command. I just don’t want you to think…”
He’s not sure what he doesn’t want Malcolm to think. Neal presses a hand to his stomach, knots of anxiety that he’s typically accustomed to making him feel sick again. “I’m trying. I’m honestly trying.”
“He kept you there, but it’s fine because he was only eating you? Neal, how do you know he wasn’t still using his power on you? You were, as you say, disoriented.”
“I didn’t say it was fine, I said it wasn’t mind control.” He snaps that a little more sharply than he wants to and takes a breath. “I know because I think that’s how he. Got me to come to his room. It felt different. Very different.”
“I don’t know.” He hates those words, he hates them, and he’s never said them so much in his life. All he wants is to have his cat curl up on his lap but he can’t without the possible impulse of eating him. George, as though sending the thought, starts up a croaky little meow of protest where he’s locked in the bathroom.
“I’m not trying to defend him, I’m just trying to… get it straight what he did. You win,” Neal says tiredly. “All right? You win.”
Malcolm doesn’t look pleased, and Neal finds his throat squeezed with a mix of anxiety and emotional exhaustion over the questions. And he doesn’t have an answer, so he asks one of his own.
“I was never going to leave for that reason,” Malcolm tells him. “So no. And if you think Lestat did nothing wrong to you, that’s up to you. It’s your blood and it’s your life. There’s more of this in the fridge,” he says, picking up an empty bag and putting it in the trash. “You can stay here tonight or you can go back to your place, but I recommend leaving George here either way.”
He flinches internally at what feels like dismissal, but Malcolm has at least given him the words to explain himself, whether he meant to or not. “I don’t think what he did is okay, but I understand it. I know it wasn’t right, but I get why for him it was… necessary.”
It wasn’t dismissal; it was concession. Malcolm isn’t his father or his boss. More his coach. If Neal was so dead set on arguing that he was fine with how All That went down, who’s Malcolm to declare otherwise?
But he does like understanding things. His perspective on this is skewed, though. He does understand predators and why they prey. And then he puts them in prison for it.
“If he doesn’t get off on hurting people, why was it necessary for him to victimize a human emotionally and physically when they give out his food for free in the infirmary?” Malcolm asks.
“That’s not the part I’m talking about.” Though it does give him pause to consider it, and that’s clear. He hadn’t thought about that part at all, as caught up as he was in the rest. “The part I’m talking about is… being that scared of being alone. Thinking the only option is to keep someone so they can’t decide they don’t want to come back.”
Quickly he adds, “I’m not saying it’s okay either, Malcolm, I’m just saying… I get it.”
Malcolm nods. “I get it too,” he says simply. “I knew a necrophiliac that killed people for that reason.” He shrugs. “Is that better or worse?” he genuinely asks. He holds a finger up. “Bear in mind she was a professional embalmer, so they looked very lifelike.”
Neal squints in that particular way that is a clear indicator of “ew” without saying it.
Then he tries to think past the gut reaction. “I guess if you’re human and not a vampire it’s on par. Ish.”
The “ew” won’t let him leave off the ish. “The difference is that we’re not in a place where his only option is punishment. We’re somewhere he can learn to be better.”
“At what point did I mention punishment? He’s here to learn to be better. And that’s his Warden’s problem. I don’t care about him, Neal, I care about you. I’ve been in a weird codependent relationship with a predator. He. Doesn’t. Love. You. He may even think he does, but if he can rationalize mind controlling you into his room to get you there, then he’s not capable of it. Maybe he’ll change. Good for him, if he manages it. But you do not need the endless pain of waiting for it. There’s nothing there but heartache and getting used again, over and over and over. You had my file. You know that I know.”
“I know how enticing it is, to believe in that love. But it’s not love,” Malcolm says quietly. “So when you go talk to him, keep that in mind. He doesn’t have to be lying for that to be a fact. People like that don’t know what love is.”
"I know he doesn't love me," Neal says softly. "We barely know each other, mind reading or no mind reading. But liking me might have been an option."
He shakes his head, preempting Malcolm's arguments about it. "But I don't think he knows how to do that without trying to own someone."
A pause, then, "Will you come with me when I talk to him? It's not that I don't trust myself--" A pause, because he doesn't. "--it's that I want your opinion. And I want you to get to talk to him too."
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He reaches up and touches one of his fangs. The sharpness of it slices his finger and he winces. “I want this even less.”
Neal watches in morbid fascination as his finger heals. Then looks at Malcolm. "He's lonely, Malcolm. And he doesn't... know what to do about it."
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He looks down at himself again, smeared with blood, and gives a convulsive little shudder. "And he's been this so much longer. He--"
Neal closes his eyes, squeezes them shut, tries to put his thoughts in order.
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“I thought Rebecca loved me and she used me from day one, and when I finally realized she didn’t, everyone around me said she did. I don’t know how he feels. I don’t know how she felt, I don’t know how Peter feels, I don’t know how I feel. You’re the only person I’m even half sure about at this point.”
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“He has the ability, he can control minds, but that’s not what kept me there.” It’s semantics at this point, but important semantics to Neal. “I couldn’t leave, but it was… blood loss and disorientation, not some kind of active command. I just don’t want you to think…”
He’s not sure what he doesn’t want Malcolm to think. Neal presses a hand to his stomach, knots of anxiety that he’s typically accustomed to making him feel sick again. “I’m trying. I’m honestly trying.”
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“I’m not trying to defend him, I’m just trying to… get it straight what he did. You win,” Neal says tiredly. “All right? You win.”
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“I win? What do you think I was trying to win, exactly?”
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“Are you going to leave if I screw up again?”
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But he does like understanding things. His perspective on this is skewed, though. He does understand predators and why they prey. And then he puts them in prison for it.
“If he doesn’t get off on hurting people, why was it necessary for him to victimize a human emotionally and physically when they give out his food for free in the infirmary?” Malcolm asks.
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Quickly he adds, “I’m not saying it’s okay either, Malcolm, I’m just saying… I get it.”
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Then he tries to think past the gut reaction. “I guess if you’re human and not a vampire it’s on par. Ish.”
The “ew” won’t let him leave off the ish. “The difference is that we’re not in a place where his only option is punishment. We’re somewhere he can learn to be better.”
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"Oh."
Yeah that's what he's got, give him a moment to mentally catch up with the idea that Malcolm's concerns haven't been centered on Lestat at all.
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He shakes his head, preempting Malcolm's arguments about it. "But I don't think he knows how to do that without trying to own someone."
A pause, then, "Will you come with me when I talk to him? It's not that I don't trust myself--" A pause, because he doesn't. "--it's that I want your opinion. And I want you to get to talk to him too."
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