Duplicity Inbox

[werekitty]

Leave a message.

Text ~ Audio ~ Video ~ Images

Comments

[theperfectamount]

"Everything? Everything about it. And-- the fact I still don't fully understand what happened. Maybe I never will." Malcolm frowned and wrapped his arms around himself, clutching at the edges. Feeling weak like this in front of someone else... it sucked. The reminder of how powerless he'd been. Fundamentally, he knew it wasn't his fault either, and if he were the one in Nathaniel's position, he would have insisted the same to someone else who went through it. That sometimes bad situations happened to people who didn't deserve it; sometimes you're rendered powerless to stop what's happening around you and it isn't a sign of weakness.

But he still couldn't stop that... disconnect, when it came to himself. He couldn't stop his stomach from twisting at the thought of anyone in his life finding out, knowing how weak he'd been, right there and in the aftermath still unrelented. This went beyond anything he'd ever sustained prior to coming here, and the way it continued to tear at him even months later only compounded the feeling. He should have been able to get over it. There were people in the city whose entire lives had been little more than bloodshed, for Christ's sake.

He breathed out slowly. An attempt to get a grip on himself. "I was..." He couldn't even say the word when he was talking to Charles. "...paralyzed." Even saying it felt inadequate. "The whole time, during... I thought he did it to me. I thought he'd done something to me to make it easier to..." Malcolm averted his gaze.

"I couldn't move, couldn't even blink, or shout, or-- anything. I don't even think I was breathing. Yet every one of my senses worked perfectly. I was fully aware of everything. It was, literally, the worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. And that's even compared to the pain itself. Which certainly ranks up there, too."

[werekitty]

"He might have been," Nathaniel said. "Some vampires can. But the human mind protects itself, too. When it senses a predator and knows it's going to be prey. People always say fight or flight, but there's a third option."

Nathaniel was a predator, but he'd never hunted anything but small animals in the forest. And nothing about him but the leopard screamed 'danger'. And yet he knew if he shifted and stalked someone, they'd feel a similar kind of terror, regardless of his intent. And Charles's intent had been harm.

"You try to make yourself less threatening. To hide away from the thing you know is going to hurt you. But that also means not moving, so anything that might bring attention to yourself - the slightest of movement, a sound, even the possibility of exchanging a glance - it all just stops. Until either you stop being afraid or the danger is over. And then, if it's the second, it happens all over again the next time. But in between is the shame that you couldn't do anything. That you were weak. Pathetic."

His hand moved down to cup Malcolm's cheek. "It's not weakness. It's just human. He was objectively stronger and more powerful than you were and he had your life in your hands. If it wasn't him and it was just your reaction to the situation, you didn't do the weak thing. You did the smart thing."

Or so his therapist said. He was still trying to get himself to believe it.

[theperfectamount]

"No." Malcolm shook his head back and forth, and immediately hopped to his feet. Not to push away Nathaniel, but because he could no longer sit still. The very reminder of being frozen like that made him want to jump right out of his skin. "No, no." He moseyed around to the space between the living room furniture and kitchen island, and proceeded to pace back and forth across it while he spoke.

"No, you don't understand. This wasn't your standard, 'oh, I was paralyzed by fear' or anything like that. I mean, yes, that makes sense too! Evolutionary drives to protect ourselves, the mind-body connection, our instinctive reactions. I know all that. This was... no. This was something else. And it happened before he entered the room. It wasn't a reaction to the situation at all." He paused to take a breath. "That's what I had trouble wrapping my brain around for a while. I still don't know what caused it. But I felt... everything. Everything! Inside and out. I don't know if he knew that or if he thought I was already a goner or--" Another sharp breath.

"He definitely couldn't think at that point. It was very... predator-prey, like you said. The guy had claws, for God's sake. The whole scene was like something out of a slasher film." Malcolm punctuated that with another dry laugh. No, it wasn't funny. It definitely wasn't funny at the time. But sometimes you just have to make light of something so you don't collapse into a screaming, flailing mess.

[werekitty]

There was something about the way that Malcolm was describing it that was ringing some bells for Nathaniel. He'd been through a lot in the city and a lot of it was just plain strange. But there was something about that reaction that he recognized. Something he'd been through himself only a few months before. But it was only a suspicion. After all, it also sounded like something that the vampires back home could have done. And he'd never really delved into the differences between Charles and the vampires he'd known. Not like he had with some.

"I have an idea. But I'm not sure. Was this around Halloween? October?"

Something a lot like it had happened to him, too. "Maybe after you were at the cemetery?" Because he'd been compelled to go there. Not usually his ideal place to have sex. And maybe the one didn't have anything to do with the other, but the date would probably be the thing to make up his mind. He hadn't felt anything like that before or since in this city.

[theperfectamount]

"Huh?" Malcolm paused for a moment, face scrunching up as he thought over this. The initial timing didn't merit any digging in, because yes, it was October, and that wasn't something he'd forgotten. A week after he and Margo threw that absolute banger of a Halloween party at his old house. The cemetery had been involved too... also with Margo.

Ugh. The reminder caused a little pang of sadness to prickle in his chest, which he very quickly chose to ignore.

"Well... yeah. Yeah." He nodded as he mentally traced back over that week, as best he could without getting into the flashbacks too deeply. God, that was still without a doubt the strangest and worst week of his life. "Yeah, I did go to the cemetery, as a matter of fact. I was there the day before."

The implications, though unintentional, were left to hang in the air. He hadn't yet grasped how fucking in the graveyard was the common element, and so he didn't catch how merely establishing his presence before the run-in with Charles just may have incriminated him a bit.

[werekitty]

"Okay." Nathaniel let out a soft breath and his tone was gentle. "Something similar happened with me. Not the attack part, but I was pulled into the cemetery. It kind of felt like the pull I have to shift during the full moon, but it was a pull to a place instead of the shift. And I had sex with someone there. And then a day or so later, I kind of just dropped. Couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Nothing. Until someone had sex with me."

He put a hand on Malcolm's shoulder carefully. Given how he'd been acting, he wasn't sure how Malcolm would take it. He'd believe Nathaniel - at least Nathaniel hoped so - but it was a lot to take in, especially since it seemed that Malcolm had been blaming himself for the entire thing.

"It had to be something to do with the city. You know how it gets." Weird, even by Nathaniel's standards. Not unwelcome most of the time, but in Malcolm's case, very much unwelcome and upsetting.

"It wasn't your fault. I don't know how it happened, but it wasn't anything you did or didn't do."

[theperfectamount]

Malcolm stiffened when he was touched, but like before, it wasn't because of Nathaniel or the fact he touched him. It was purely coincidental, because he'd just processed the information Nathaniel relayed, and the gears in his brain turned and clicked, and--

Charles didn't have sex with him, per se, but he did get off on what happened. In a very literal way.

Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.

Fuck this city.

It didn't change a single feeling toward the situation that occurred--as mixed up and weird as the melting pot of confusion and vulnerability and a little dark corner of his mind that processed at least some of it as something else. Something he delighted in tossing back in Charles's face to draw attention away from anything that could paint him as some kind of victim in his eyes. Something to give him back his own power. Not that it actually worked for either of those reasons.

Malcolm swallowed thickly and drew his gaze back toward the other young man at his side. "I-I know. I know it wasn't. It just means I have something real to blame now." Closure? If only it were that simple.