Hi Neal. Are you free? I'd like to go to the art gazebo and try art therapy again. My mother tried to get me into it at home, but it didn't work for me. I think I need more... room for expression than a bowl of fruit. Can you help me? You saw my last attempt at painting.
Thank you so much! I'll be there in ten minutes! --------
When he arrives, he lets himself right in. Neal doesn't need him to open the door for him anymore. He doesn't want to root around in the storage, though, and mess things up, so he walks around looking at any works in progress that are there.
Neal himself is staring at another half-finished version of the painting that Malcolm saw once upon a flood a year ago. It's not the same one, but the similarities are unmistakable. It's also not the same one that Neal was working on last time Malcolm saw a version of it.
He shakes himself out of the stupor at the sound of someone's approach, his smile tiny but real when Malcolm appears.
Neal flinches hard, hand going to his chest as he makes himself breathe. He tries to settle his nerves with a soft laugh.
"I... No. I haven't finished it, not yet." He rubs the back of his neck. "It didn't feel right. So it's half-done along with the other three that I already started."
He's clean-shaven again, which is--for those who know him--a step in the right direction in terms of his personal mental state. The fact that he's in painting clothes makes it hard to gauge one way or the other if he cares about the rest of his appearance just now.
"I guess? I'm not sure I have a process yet. You have to have more things finished for it to count, probably." Softly ironic. "It's not that I didn't like it, I just..."
He makes a soft noise. "I don't know, it didn't feel right."
“That does seem like it would be the most important thing in art,” Malcolm concedes. “But I’m still holding out for a Caffrey original for the bedroom wall.”
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After Golden Days; after his talk with Kiryu
PRE- OR POST-NEAL-BREAKDOWN #2348723 ?
Yes. Yes I will meet you in the art gazebo.
POST - more to talk about. Bring it right up to date :)
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When he arrives, he lets himself right in. Neal doesn't need him to open the door for him anymore. He doesn't want to root around in the storage, though, and mess things up, so he walks around looking at any works in progress that are there.
no subject
He shakes himself out of the stupor at the sound of someone's approach, his smile tiny but real when Malcolm appears.
no subject
no subject
"I... No. I haven't finished it, not yet." He rubs the back of his neck. "It didn't feel right. So it's half-done along with the other three that I already started."
He's clean-shaven again, which is--for those who know him--a step in the right direction in terms of his personal mental state. The fact that he's in painting clothes makes it hard to gauge one way or the other if he cares about the rest of his appearance just now.
no subject
no subject
He makes a soft noise. "I don't know, it didn't feel right."
no subject