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[abrightboy]

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[abrightboy]

“He wants to use me, too,” Malcolm tells him. “What did she want you for?”

[conning]

"She was looking for the Hope Diamond's lost twin," he admits. "Well. We were, I guess. A man named Mosconi hid it, once upon a time, and left clues to its whereabouts in case of his death. Which happened, predictably enough."

A pause, then, "How are you feeling?"

[abrightboy]

“A bit better. Did you love her?” Malcolm asks.

[conning]

The question takes him aback. He doesn't know what to say, though his first instinct is denial. He's not sure why, but it is.

"I don't know." He doesn't want to have loved her. He doesn't want to be in love with her, still.

[abrightboy]

“Yes you do,” Malcolm tells him, gesturing to the wound. “Your heart is broken.”

[conning]

“That’s just where she shot me.” Except he can’t even believe himself. “…Everyone kept saying at the end that she really loved me. That she really must be in love, that she wanted to stay, to be the alias she made for me. But if that’s true she wouldn’t have taken the shot.”

[abrightboy]

“Why not? That’s exactly what some people do. If there was no way to stay with you, why should she let anyone else have you? But that’s not what I asked,” he points out. “I didn’t ask how she felt about you.”

[conning]

“You must be feeling better,” he says, trying for a joke. He swallows. “Think you can manage some more water?”

[abrightboy]

“You always deflect. Redirect. Does that usually work because you’re pretty and charming?” Malcolm asks curiously, easing himself back down onto his back, but still watching Neal’s face.

[conning]

“Yes,” he says, tired and tense and not wanting to fight the inevitable weight of Malcolm’s persistence. “Water?”

[abrightboy]

He settles his head back on the floor and waves off the offer.

"I'm good," he says. Obviously. Laying on the floor is normal.

"I thought you said talking about it helps. Am I doing it wrong?"

[conning]

Malcolm, you so often confuse him. “Which part?”

[abrightboy]

"Asking you about it. You came here to talk about it and you don't want to. Did I ask it wrong?" Malcolm asks.

[conning]

"Oh." He did, didn't he. "I came more to let you talk. If you wanted to."

It's mostly true. He looks down at his own injury briefly. "And I thought I knew what mine was already."

[abrightboy]

"A broken heart. They're hard to talk about," Malcolm acknowledges. "Tell me about a friend that doesn't use you."

[conning]

Neal pauses. Considers it. "June. My landlady."

He smiles a little, but it fades. "I wonder if she knows I died. She must, right? Or maybe not, since I'm here."

[abrightboy]

“If you’re dead there, wouldn’t someone tell her?” Malcolm asks.

[conning]

"Yeah. Not sure how it works, being here, if time keeps moving without me or..." It's too much to think about, honestly. "I met June my first day back in New York City, after I started working for the FBI. She was dropping some of her late husband's clothes off at a thrift store and I was trying to find anything I could tolerate wearing."

He smiles a little at that. "They were nice clothes. Really nice clothes, Sy Devore originals. We started talking--she and her husband had played cards with Sy Devore and the Rat Pack. She liked me. Took me in."

[abrightboy]

“So ‘landlady’ isn’t a wholly accurate description of who she is to you,” Malcolm surmises.

[conning]

He makes a softly amused noise. “No. Not really. She’s… family.”

There’s a sting starting at his ankle, a prick at the word family that starts hurting worse moment by moment. Neal shifts in his seat on the floor and hisses in pain and surprise, unfolding his legs from under him all at once in a scramble.

There’s blood on the cuff of his pant leg.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm frowns faintly at the commotion, tilting his head, trying to see.

“…What’s going on? What happened?”

[conning]

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.” He tugs the end of his pant leg up and rolls his sock down, wincing as the dampened cloth peels away from skin. The bleed underneath is dark, fast, but small, he thinks. He can’t tell where it’s coming from. His whole ankle is chafed through to the dermis, all of it bloody, but there’s too much blood for it to just be from that.

“What the fuck,” Neal whispers, horrified. “That wasn’t there this morning.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm peels himself off the floor, moving into the kitchen to grab what is doubtless and expensive linen tea towel with no regard for it, lurching around the island to tie it tightly around the whole ankle to stem the blood, but he can see it’s already soaking fast.

“Infirmary. Now,” he orders, already preparing to take most of Neal’s weight as he turns him towards the door with more firm sternness than Neal’s ever heard from him.

[conning]

With that kind of tone, Neal doesn’t debate him. He half-hops, half-walks toward the door, putting as little weight on his affected leg as possible, acutely conscious of the pain and the increasing weight of blood seeping into the towel.

“If I die,” he says, and falters at the words. “If I die, maybe don’t bring me back until this is over.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks up at him in confusion and alarm.

“What? What are you talking about?”