Happily Ever After AU - for conning

[abrightboy]

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[abrightboy]

"I dreamed about everyone I know. But you were the most... the same as you are," Malcolm explains.

[conning]

Neal blinks, a pang of worry making him say with mock-cheerfulness, “I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

He guides Malcolm toward the bathroom, trying not to linger too long on the bruises darkening his back.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at him over his shoulder, almost hitting the shower doorway with his shoulder.

"It wasn't bad. I just knew he wasn't you. In the end."

[conning]

“Somehow: not reassuring.” He sits Malcolm on the closed toilet for a moment to go and retrieve a chair that won’t get ruined being under a shower, carefully positioning it and making sure it won’t slide around when Malcolm goes to sit down. He’s being neurotic. He knows he’s being neurotic. But he can’t stand it, the thought of losing this, losing them. He comes back to Malcolm, looking him over with worry.

“Do you need help to finish undressing? I can help.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks up at him, still a little dazed, then looks down at his belt.

"Um yeah. Maybe... yeah."

[conning]

Neal helps him up again, unfastening the belt, going through the motions without comment or complaint. "Tell me about it?"

On the one hand, it's meant as a distraction. On the other, Neal is genuinely, wildly curious.

[abrightboy]

"About... the dream?" Malcolm verifies. He frowns faintly. "I should have known it was wrong but you never know when you're in a dream that it's messed up."

[conning]

That makes him even more curious. He guides Malcolm into the shower, turning the water on to a warm and gentle setting. "How did you figure it out? Who the Bowery Ripper was? Did you see him when he pushed you?"

[abrightboy]

“No. I just saw his boot prints. It was just… a bunch of clues my brain put together.” He watches Neal for a moment while he adjusts the water.

“We were married.”

[conning]

Neal looks at him, wide-eyed. "We were? I can't imagine your NYPD associates were very happy about that."

A tiny smile from Neal, though. An almost shy half-joke. "Maybe you should tell them about it. Give them a little exposure therapy, or whatever it's called."

[abrightboy]

“They were fine with it. It was normal. For my family, too. My dad wasn’t a killer. You were friends with him,” Malcolm says.

[conning]

He's wetting a washcloth to start cleaning some of the grime from Malcolm's shoulders and arms when Malcolm says that. Neal makes a strangled noise. "We were friends?"

But if his dad wasn't a killer...

Neal's mind flicks to James, his own fragile hopes and doubts. He shakes his head, wringing out the cloth and adding a little soap to start wiping Malcolm down. Gently. He's got scrapes everywhere, and where there aren't scrapes, there are bruises. "I think we won't be doing anything that married people do for a while. Not until you've had plenty of opportunity to recover."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm, with a head injury, is a little bit stupider than normal. He looks at Neal with some confusion and, when he hits a particularly tender spot, a bit of a wince.

"You mean like adopting?"

[conning]

Neal fumbles the soap in his surprise, managing to catch it, lather up the cloth a little, and place it back in its dish without letting more than brief surprise show.

"Did... in your dream, we had...?"

[abrightboy]

“We just had the interview,” Malcolm tells him, then pauses. “…That’s not what you were talking about,” he surmises.

[conning]

"I was thinking about the more immediate and physical," Neal says ironically. He takes extra care as he finishes cleaning the spot that made Malcolm wince. It's hard to tell, a little bit, what's dirt and what's bruise. "...I wouldn't... object to that, though. Adoption. At some point. I think you know that."

[abrightboy]

“Some part of my brain knows that,” Malcolm agrees. “I must have met you earlier in my ideal reality. For us to be married already.”

[conning]

"Yeah." Neal half-smiles, sponging a bit of grease away from Malcolm's neck gently. "How do you think it happened? You were at a gallery opening, maybe, and I was casing the place."

[abrightboy]

“Why are you assuming you were a thief?” Malcolm asks him. “You had your own exhibit opening in the dream.”

[conning]

That catches him by surprise. "I had an exhibit? Not a gallery? I could see having a gallery."

[abrightboy]

"No, it was definitely an exhibit of your own work," Malcolm tells him. Neal brushes another tender spot and he winces again.

[conning]

Neal grimaces in sympathy, going over the spot again more softly. "What did I paint? Or was it a different medium?"

[abrightboy]

"I don't know," Malcolm admits. "I didn't get to see it. You didn't even go to your own opening because I fell down the elevator shift."

[conning]

"Well, I'm glad that version of me has his priorities straight at least."

It's teasing, but there's a slight bite to the words as he thinks of Dani and JT.

[abrightboy]

"You were the only safe place," Malcolm tells him. "At least once I figured it out, except..." He stops short and looks at the floor of the shower.