Happily Ever After AU - for conning

[abrightboy]

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[conning]

Neal grips Malcolm’s elbows lightly, trying to force the man’s attention back to him. “I’m not following.”

[abrightboy]

"Greta Swan was wearing work boots in the elevator. Before I fell down the elevator shaft, I saw boot prints in some paint. Boot prints like that," he says, pointing to the bloody footprints on Wendel's notes. "When we were here before, Wendel was telling me about the Bowry Ripper. The Bowry Ripper was known for using whatever was handy as a weapon. Like the architect's compass. Like the typewriter... Like the elevator shaft..." He pauses. "But Greta is too young to..." His eyes go wide. "Her dad!"

[conning]

"Okay. Her dad." Neal is clearly not following, but he doesn't try to make Malcolm slow down. "Now what?"

[abrightboy]

“We have to go talk to him,” he explains, striding towards the elevator. “He’s…”

As Neal stops with Malcolm at the elevators, the elder Swan steps out of the shadows, putting a knife to Neal’s throat. Malcolm sees him a fraction too late.

“No!”

[conning]

Neal freezes, automatically putting his hands up a little. As though that will make a difference in this situation.

“Mr Swan, I presume,” he says, quippy but clearly afraid.

[abrightboy]

“The Bowry Ripper,” Malcolm says. “They never found him. Until now.”

“Sorry, Detective, but I can’t let my daughter find out what I am,” he says.

“Detective. I am a detective. And I carry a gun….” He pulls it out and aims past Neal’s head at Swan’s, but it’s Neal’s eyes his own find.

[conning]

Neal's expression is openly terrified. Terrified for himself, sure, but there's also a clear desire on his face for this not to end violently. He blinks quickly, forcing back tears, then manages to mumble, "How will this keep her from finding out?"

[abrightboy]

"When everybody who knows it was me is dead?" Swan points out. "Sorry, kid." He angles the knife to start to cut when Malcolm raises the gun and shoots him in the head over Neal's shoulder, causing him to tumble down the elevator shaft. He rushes over and looks down, then looks at Neal.

"I solved the case. Why am I still here?"

[conning]

Neal stares at Malcolm, wide-eyed and shellshocked, clearly mystified by the question. "What?"

He looks down the elevator shaft, then quickly back at Malcolm, too quickly for him to have seen anything at the bottom. "Did... is he..."

[abrightboy]

"He was going to kill you," Malcolm says.

Martin comes up behind him, clapping Malcolm on the shoulder.

"Well done! That's my boy!" he chortles.

[conning]

"Yes, but..."

Neal looks at Martin, then at Malcolm, then at the elevator shaft, then steps forward to pull Malcolm into his arms. Hugging to comfort himself. He presses his face against Malcolm's shoulder.

"Thanks," he whispers.

[abrightboy]

“I can’t let anything happen to you,” Malcolm whispers and, dream or not, he knows that to be true.

He squeezes his eyes shut. Lights. The groan of metal cables. He jolts, clutching Neal’s jacket as his eyes snap open.

He lifts his head and looks at Neal.

“But I have to wake up or I’m going to die.”

“Son, I think your head injury is worse than they thought. Maybe we should take you to th…”

“I don’t need the hospital!” Malcolm snaps loudly.

Martin puts up his hands amicably. “Well, then. Little family celebration at our house. Neal, you’ll come, I hope…”

[conning]

“Malcolm,” Neal starts, pleading, then his eyes widen. “The interview. It’s in a half an hour.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at a loss for a moment.

“What… what interview?”

[conning]

If it was Neal—the real Neal, the Neal racing toward the Canmere in June’s borrowed car—he would have kissed Malcolm into distraction and murmured that he didn’t need to worry about it. He would take Malcolm to the hospital without promising they were going somewhere else, and then convinced him to get looked at when they got there.

But it’s not.

He strokes Malcolm’s cheeks with his thumbs. “The adoption interview. You solved your case just in time.”

[abrightboy]

Martin smiles broadly. "Good, good. Then you two come by afterwards; let us know how it went," he purrs.

Malcolm nods numbly at him, then looks at Neal.

"Solved it just in time," he echoes.

[conning]

“You always do.”

Neal kisses him again, and then they’re walking through the Whitlys’ front door and letting Sunshine off his leash to rush over to Jessica, barking enthusiastically, as Neal holds up a sheaf of documents. He wraps an arm around Malcolm’s waist, glowing with the kind of happiness that doesn’t happen often in a lifetime.

“You’re going to have to to make a Christmas list for an actual human child next year, Jess.”

[abrightboy]

Jessica clasps her hands together in delight. “You did it!” she exclaims, throwing her arms around them both.

“We did it,” Malcolm murmurs dully into her hair.

He should be happy, like everyone else. This should bring him joy.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the basement door swing slowly open. Nobody else seems to notice. He glances around at the party dishes and grabs one.

“Time for a refill,” he explains with a forced smile. He makes his way downstairs.

The box is looming there. He walks hesitantly towards it.

[conning]

When Malcolm pauses a few steps from the bottom of the stairs, Neal calls out softly.

“Malcolm?”

He descends just behind the other man, somehow there when seconds ago he wasn’t. He rests a hand against the small of Malcolm’s back. “Do you want to go home? We can go home. It’s been an exhausting day for you.”

Martin leans against the corner of his desk, sipping from a mug of cocoa. “Are you going to tell him or shall I?”

Neal doesn’t seem to notice his presence.

[abrightboy]

“Tell him that he’s a personification of a part of my subconscious that wants things you made sure I can never have? Or that you’re the malevolent voice in my head?”

He starts walking towards the box with more determination.

[conning]

“Malcolm, what…?” Neal’s tone is confused, hurt, worried. He takes a step after Malcolm as the world trembles around them a little.

Martin sighs. “Now that’s hardly fair. I’m not malevolent. And he doesn’t have to be just a personification.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm ignores Martin. He looks at Neal sadly.

“The real Neal would believe me,” he says simply. He turns and kneels in front of the box, reaching for the clasp.

[conning]

“What about our daughter?”

Neal doesn’t follow Malcolm, but there’s a heartbroken plea to his tone that all but demands attention. Martin stands at Neal’s shoulder, eyebrows raised, taking a long and silent sip of his drink.

“Malcolm… you know how much I want this. You’ve noticed the way I watch families in the park. You’ve heard me talk about June’s grandkids.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks over his shoulder.

“Wanting to give you that life doesn’t make it real. Trying to be something else doesn’t make it real.”

“You don’t have to open the box this time,” Martin says. “If you can’t stay for your family, stay for Neal.”

“Neal’s waiting for me. And he loves me just the way I am: a detective that needs to find the truth, no matter how painful.”

He throws the lid open and, at the bottom of an elevator shaft, opens his eyes. They widen almost immediately; the car is descending. Is that… a femur? He grabs it and sticks it in the mechanism. The elevator halts with a grinding of metal. He glances around and sees the skull.

“Thanks for the help,” he tells it, picking it up and climbing out of the elevator shaft to the ground floor. He staggers into the lobby as Dani, JT and Neal walk in.

[conning]

Neal’s ears start to ring when he sees Malcolm stumble into the lobby, panic like a high whine in the back of his head as the rest of him moves into action. He strides across the lobby, taking in Malcolm’s beat-up state, the grime, the blood soaking his shirt collar.

“Ambulance,” he says, though it’s a strangled whisper of a word. He lifts his hands when he gets close to Malcolm, fingertips hovering over the other man’s injuries, his face, that high whine getting louder. He half-turns to glare at JT and Dani, the latter of whom stares at the thing in Malcolm’s hand.

“Is that a human skull?”

“Ambulance!” Neal repeats, the word now a sharp demand.