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[abrightboy]

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[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?”

[conning]

“I guess wardens come back automatically, but inmate revivals have to be requested by a warden.” He leans against the wall as they make it to the hallway, shuffling along with its support, trying not to think about the fact that there’s blood in his shoe and that he’s leaving streaks on the floor. Is the lightheadedness physical or mental? He’s not sure.

“If… if I’m just going to keep bleeding out, or something, If I’m going to just keep getting injuries…” He lets the thought hang.

[abrightboy]

“You’re not going to; we’re going to figure this out. Who have you been talking to?” Malcolm asks.

[conning]

"Maggie was the one who brought it up," he says, not registering what the issue might be. He's breathing heavier even by the time they get to the stairs. Neal gives them a despairing look.

[abrightboy]

"Brought up what? Dealing with hard things by being dead?"

He shifts and puts Neal over his shoulder in a fireman carry, grunting only faintly as he starts up the stairs.

[conning]

Neal makes a slight noise of surprise and protest as Malcolm lifts him, more protest at the indignity than the necessity. His ears are ringing again.

"You're really strong," he says, still surprised. "She didn't mean it like that, just that... This flood is... taking away people's option to choose what they want to share. If they want to share. That it could be easier for people to wait it out instead of having to choose between stacking deaths up or baring their souls."

He has to enunciate carefully. His dizziness is building into a kind of fatigued nausea, the which isn't helped by Malcolm's rhythm on the stairs. "You're really strong."