Happily Ever After AU - for conning

[abrightboy]

From here

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[abrightboy]

"Adoption..." Malcolm looks at the paperwork, looks around the apartment. "It's all wrong," he murmurs. He looks at Neal. "Like. Like I'm watching it on TV. Like it isn't mine. Like it never could be mine."

[conning]

"Honey..." Neal cups Malcolm's face gently between his hands, careful not to touch the bruising. "It is yours, I promise. You got hurt. You're confused. That's okay. I'm right here, you're right here--"

Sunshine forces himself between the two of them with a whine, and Neal glances down, smiling momentarily. "Sunshine is right here. This is yours. This is ours."

He kisses Malcolm. "It's that concussion thing your dad mentioned, the jamais vu." Another little kiss. "As many times as you need to hear it, I'll tell you, I promise you, this is yours."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks down at the dog and then looks up at Neal.

"Where's my bird?"

His bird? He looks confused. "Did I dream that?"

[conning]

"You must have..." Neal is not reassured. Familiarly, he strokes Malcolm's cheeks gently with his thumbs. "I'm going to reschedule. Accidents happen. They can't penalize us for that."

He kisses Malcolm one more time and digs in his pocket for his phone.

In the waking world, it's 7:37, and Neal looks up from his painting to realize not only the time, but also the fact that Malcolm hasn't called him. Not even a text to say how things with Ainsley went.

That seems...

Neal frowns and cleans his hands off, reaching for his own phone.

[abrightboy]

"What if they do?" he asks quietly from where he's anchored himself at the counter. "What if they do penalize us?"

His own phone rings. Claremont. His expression steels a little.

"Who is this?"

He listens and then hangs up and then says to Neal "I'll be back in a bit. Don't cancel the appointment."

[conning]

"Malcolm, wait, where are you going? Who was that?" He catches Malcolm's wrist gently, pulling him closer. "Talk to me."

[abrightboy]

"This guy says someone at Claremont wants to talk to me; that he knows the answers."

The answers to what? He doesn't even know, but he's very earnest about it for someone who doesn't even know.

[conning]

"The answers--Malcolm, please listen to yourself. What answers? To your case? You can't do anything on that front until your people find that artist the developer mentioned." He holds on a little more firmly, tone pleading. "Come on, let's clean up, have some tea, go to bed."

[abrightboy]

"But." He looks from his phone to Neal helplessly. "But I have to go talk to this guy."

[conning]

"He's at Claremont, right? He's not going anywhere. Please. Let's get some rest."

Neal folds his hand lightly over the phone, trying to draw it out of Malcolm's hand.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm is weak to Neal's care. That much is always true. He lets him take the phone. He drinks the tea he makes. He lets himself be drawn into bed.

The lights again. The sound. A feeling of urgency.

He sits bolt upright.

"I have to get out of here!" he shouts.

[conning]

Neal jolts awake next to him, as does Sunshine at the foot of the bed, the dog barking in alarm. Neal scrambles to turn on a light for a moment before he realizes there's early-morning sunlight filtering through the curtain.

"Malcolm--?" His tone is panicked, then annoyed as he shushes Sunshine and sits up properly himself, trying to get a look at Malcolm's face. "Out of where? What's wrong?"

[abrightboy]

"I have to get out of here or I'm going to die," he says earnestly, grasping the front of Neal's shirt before his features crumple into confusion and he looks around.

He blinks against the morning light, he looks at the dog, he looks at Neal, at his face, then slowly releases his grip.

"I... I don't know..." he admits.

[conning]

“It was a dream.” Neal kisses him, one part comfort and one part anxiety. “You’re okay, I promise you. You’re safe.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at him for a moment, then looks around, then looks at Neal again.

"I love you," he says with wonder, because he knows it's true. He knows that's true. So why does everything else still feel wrong?

[conning]

“And I love you,” Neal says. “So much. So, so much.”

He kisses Malcolm again. “Why don’t you call in sick? Are you allowed to call in sick?”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm considers that, then his eyes widen.

"I have to go to Claremont," he says, throwing the blankets off with sudden urgency and going to the dresser to find clothes.

[conning]

Neal scrambles out of bed after him, trying to get his attention away from the dresser and back to Neal himself. "Why? Who's at Claremont? What answers do they have?"

[abrightboy]

“I don’t know,” Malcolm admits. “I just know it’s important and I have to go. My life may depend on it!”

[conning]

“Okay. Okay. All right.” Neal doesn’t let go of Malcolm, instead drawing him into a close, firm hug. “If it’s that important than we’ll both go, okay?”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm considers that, face pressed against Neal’s shoulder for a moment before he nods.

“Okay.”

A beat and he looks at the clothes clutched in one of his hands.

“Can you find me a shirt?”

[conning]

“Yes.”

Neal kisses him, strokes Malcolm’s hair back from his face, kisses him again. “What about that blue one that I love?”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods, clutching his pants, socks and underwear in a bundle to his chest.

As soon as they were dressed, Malcolm hurries them out the door and into a cab. Walking into Claremont, he takes a breath as they're led into a maximum security cell.

A wild looking man turns around and smiles unsettlingly.

"Little Malcolm Whitly, all grown up. Son of the Surgeon."

Malcolm looks at him oddly.

"My father's a Surgeon, not the Surgeon."

"Then why did you call the police when you were a little boy and say 'my daddy is a killer'?" he mocks.

Malcolm frowns, backing up a step. "That didn't happen." But he doesn't sound certain.

[conning]

Neal slips an arm around Malcolm’s waist, staring at the wild-looking man.

“The Surgeon… the serial killer from the 90s?”

[abrightboy]

"This kid calls. I go to this house on the Upper West Side. This nice doctor opens the door, doesn't know anything about it. Gives me a cup of tea. I drink it and wake up the next day, stark raving mad!" the man tells them.

The cell door opens and Martin walks in.

"Oh, I recognize you. You're that policeman that came by the house back in the day."

Malcolm stumbles backwards in Neal's grasp. He squeezes his eyes shut, then looks around wildly.

"I'm still in there..." he murmurs.