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[conning]

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

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[conning]

Neal winces, glad Malcolm can’t see his face. He wants to assure the man that Reid isn’t like that, isn’t like that at all, but now is hardly the time. Malcolm’s been emotionally stripped naked and whipped more than enough.

“Eiffel is wrong,” Neal says bluntly. “What he said, how he said it, he’s wrong. Entirely.”

A pause, and he realizes he left out one very important apology. He bites his lip for a second. “I’m sorry I said Will shouldn’t be there. If I’d known Lestat wasn’t coming I wouldn’t have been so insistent, but I also didn’t… it didn’t make sense to me.”

[abrightboy]

"I didn't think Will needed to be there," Malcolm tells him. "I didn't think Steve or Hancock needed to be there, either. It muddied the water as to what we were there for."

He's quiet for a second.

"Eiffel was embarrassing but I'm not sure he was wrong. It was nothing I haven't been accused of before."

[conning]

"Just because more than one person says it, that doesn't make it true." He runs a hand through his hair. "He didn't do me any favors, drawing attention to how I was feeling. You knew to leave it be. So you don't express yourself in a way most people find easy to deal with--that doesn't make you a robot or heartless."

He half-laughs, trying for a joke. "If he'd left well enough alone I might not have thrown up twice afterward."

[abrightboy]

“Do you need some peppermint tea?” Malcolm asks. He sinks onto his couch with his device. “Or. I don’t know. I might have some alkaseltzer.”

[conning]

“I’d go for both, to be honest.”

And he wants to lay eyes on Malcolm and make sure he’s both physically okay and emotionally doesn’t hate Neal for… infractions he hasn’t recognized yet. “You finished reading the folder?”

That’s a nerve-wracking question on its own.

[abrightboy]

“I never even opened it.” Neal probably recognizes the background sounds of making tea. “I promised.”

[conning]

Wait. What.

“What?”

[abrightboy]

“I told you I wouldn’t read it until you trusted me with the information. When you gave me the file, you said it was a gesture of wanting to trust me, so I held on to it, but you didn’t trust me, so I locked it up with other papers in my office. Um. The one in my cabin, not the counselling office. After what you said, I don’t think I should even be doing that, so I dropped it off,” Malcolm explains.

[conning]

Neal drifts over to sit on his couch, because he needs something under him to bear him up under the surprise. George immediately climbs onto his lap.

He pets the cat absently, trying to think of something to say, trying to get his head around the gift that Malcolm’s given him. Wondering if Malcolm even knows how much it means.

“I don’t care what anyone else says. You… You are the best person I could have been given.”

[abrightboy]

“What you said in the meeting… is that true? About the terror? And I mean specifically is it literally true?” Malcolm asks.

[conning]

Neal exhales heavily. “Yes. And before you start feeling guilty, being followed or watched or verbally jabbed at is only as intimidating as it is because people like Trevor burn down the chapel and can skate on a shrug and an ‘oops.’ I didn’t… I didn’t want to have to be on Lestat’s side. I really didn’t. You—you got hurt. You could have died if things went differently.”

He chews on his lip for a moment. “I thought you’d have people who pointed that out.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm shrugs. "Like who?" He waves a hand. "It doesn't really matter," he admits. "The thing is? Reign of terror isn't what I signed up for. It's kind of the opposite. But. Do you realize that permanently paired inmates... only your Warden can request stuff be given to you or taken or done to you. I went to the meeting because it was decent of Reid to ask anyone's opinion. Ultimately none of the other Wardens in that room can have the Admiral do anything about, to or against Lestat. Of course, I stupidly also thought that him asking meant he genuinely wanted to discuss it, but you two had already hatched your one on one counseling plan, right? You talked about it before that; he'd already decided before any of us showed up.'

[conning]

"It does matter. It absolutely matters."

Neal eases George off his lap as he listens to Malcolm, a little knot of tension that seems to travel from the base of his neck to the pit of his stomach slowly loosening. "I didn't. Know that. I had no idea."

He hoists himself to his feet. "We talked about it briefly, but he really did want a chance to discuss things with everyone. To make sure there weren't factors he didn't know about, to try and build bridges. He would have gotten there himself, I just said it first. If you really think people wouldn't have listened if it had come from him... I'm kind of glad I did. It doesn't have to be one thing or the other. Both motives can be true. Can I come to your place? ...Is Will there?"

[abrightboy]

"He's not here." There's a pause. "He wasn't, though. Interested in discussing it. He shut down actual discussion. You noticed that, right?"

[conning]

"...I might have been too focused on not being sick and also not having a panic attack when I realized I was the only inmate in the room. Can I come over?"

Malcolm has never once entered his space uninvited, and now more than ever he wants to return the favor.

[abrightboy]

"Yeah. Of course. I'll leave the door unlocked. ...Are you staying on the line or hanging up?" Malcolm asks.

[conning]

"I'll stay on the line. Unless you want me to hang up?"

There's definitely residual anxiety in his voice, even as he puts George in his harness.

[abrightboy]

"No, I just wanted to know if I was supposed to stop talking," Malcolm tells him. "When are these meetings with Lestat supposed to take place? I suppose we have to deal with Reid being the 'supervision' whether we like it or not."

[conning]

"I don't know. I have no idea if they've talked about it yet." He sets George down, the cat content to trot ahead of him at this point on the leash as they move into the hall and toward the stairs. "If It's all right with you, I'd like to come with you. To yours. Sit with you? Make sure Lestat can see I'm not okay with what happened."

[abrightboy]

"Because you want Lestat to see or because you realized after the meeting that nobody was in my corner and now you feel bad about it?" Malcolm clarifies.

[conning]

“I do feel bad about it, but that’s not why.” The uncertainty in his voice cranks up a little bit, the tone of someone who thought they did one thing but is pretty sure they’re about to get in trouble for something else. “I want him to know that even though I wanted him to be safe that doesn’t… change that he hurt you. I don’t know how that will go, it seems like loyalty for him has always been drawn in black and white, but… He needs to figure out the grays. And if he’s mad at me for being protective of you too, that’s not… not really my problem.”

[abrightboy]

"You don't have to risk your friendship to prove anything to me, Neal. I mean. You're welcome to come, but it's done. You know Reid loves to talk about how much restraint Lestat showed in only giving me a potentially fatal wound, like that was a favour. But if it was that, then it wasn't a favour for me. That was for you. That was his acknowledgement of your feelings if it was restraint."

He pours hot water into a teapot instead of a thermos, since Neal is on the way over.

"I'm fine."

[conning]

“Malcolm, if he’s not okay with me being upset even when he shows the restraint of ‘only’ hurting someone I care about a little, our friendship isn’t strong enough to stand anyway. You’re not fine and you don’t have to be.”

[abrightboy]

He looks up as the door opens and puts down his device, turning to take teacups down from the cupboard.

"I'm going to stick it out until you and Will graduate," Malcolm tells him. "I don't want you to end up with someone worse. At least you know what to expect from me."

[conning]

That was not what he expected to hear walking in the door. That black-hole-in-the-stomach jolts back into being and Neal stops dead.

"Wait, what?"