abrightboy | Happily Ever After AU

abrightboy

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From:

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.

From:

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.”

From:

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.

From:

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.

From:

abrightboy

Almost dazed, Malcolm looks at Neal, then at Dani, then at the skull.

Neal snaps ‘ambulance’ and he frowns faintly and holds up the skull.

“I know who the killer is,” he declares, his voice rough. He looks at Neal. “When’s the last time I talked to you?”

From:

conning

"I don't care!" Neal squawks, realizes how that sounds, and adds, "About who the killer is. Not right now. We talked before you went to see your sister this afternoon. You said you'd meet me at my place at eight."

He digs into his pockets to pull out his phone and call 911 himself, since neither Dani nor JT seem inclined to do it.

From:

abrightboy

"I'm okay," Malcolm tells Neal, still dazed in a way that probably isn't comforting.

"Good, because I care who the killer is," JT remarks.

Malcolm gestures to the stairs. "Fourth floor. The Swans."

"Tell me you know something that you didn't dream," Dani says with a lift of an eyebrow.

From:

conning

"No you're not!" He rounds on JT. "He's not okay!"

The person on the emergency line picks up and Neal all but shouts their location into the receiver, reining himself in enough to apologize to the dispatcher and add that Malcolm is conscious but not clear-headed and Neal doesn't know if he was unconscious or not.

From:

abrightboy

When Neal says he doesn’t know whether Malcolm was unconscious, Malcolm interjects “Oh, I definitely was unconscious. I almost didn’t wake up in time. We have to go to the fourth floor,” he tells them. “And we have to walk because I kind of broke the elevator,” he explains, moving unsteadily towards the stairs.

From:

conning

Neal moves forward, wrapping an arm around Malcolm's waist, his other hand still holding his phone to his ear. "He says he did lose consciousness. Yeah."

To Malcolm, he says, "You're not going up anywhere, you're sitting down on a damn bench until the ambulance gets here. You have blood everywhere. What happened?"

From:

abrightboy

Malcolm looks up at him oddly.

“I got pushed down the elevator shaft. By the Bowry Ripper,” he adds with a little inappropriate excitement. “Real serial killer deep cut. He always killed with found objects. Compasses. Elevator shafts. Was never caught, but he’s been right here the whole time. The whole time. Which is why we have to go up, okay? Up.” He gestures towards the ceiling with the skull.

From:

conning

Neal makes a noise that could be considered the cousin of a scream, if a scream stayed almost entirely in the throat. He wants to tell Malcolm to let Dani and JT bring the guy in. He wants to crack Dani and JT’s heads together and ask what the hell is wrong with them that they aren’t protesting this.

“Fine.” The word is strangled. Fine. Fine! But Malcolm is not walking. Neal picks him up. Carefully, gently, but quick enough to quash protests. “I’m not letting you have a fit of vertigo and fall down the stairs or something.”

From:

abrightboy

"Well, um. Okay," Malcolm concedes, since he has no choice. "But we can't make a habit of this when I'm at work. It'll undermine me as a serious investigator."

He clutches the skull close to Neal's shoulder until they get to the fourth floor. Once back on his feet, he lets Dani and JT knock, stepping from between them when Greta asks what this is about.

Malcolm holds out the skull to her father.

"I think this belongs to you."

From:

conning

Neal catches Dani and JT’s uncertainty. Almost snarls at their quiet commentary. Then the old man is getting to his feet and shock rolls through the cops at his back and Neal says, quietly enough for them to hear as they pass to arrest the guy, “It’s almost like Malcolm is good at this or something. Who could have guessed.”

From:

abrightboy

Malcolm grins at Neal in triumph. Their uncertainty doesn't faze him; it's normal.

"We can go home now," he says happily.

From:

conning

“Oh hell no,” Neal says.

JT gives an annoyed little grunt as he secures the cuffs around the Bowery Ripper’s wrists. “The art thief isn’t wrong. We need to get statements about what happened.”

“Hell no,” Neal snaps, his words underscored this time by the approaching city sound of an ambulance in the distance.

From:

abrightboy

Malcolm looks from Neal to JT and back, then holds the skull out to JT.

"The rest of the skeleton is in the bottom of the elevator shaft," he says.

From:

conning

A wary relief blossoms in Neal’s chest.

“I don’t have to argue you into coming to the hospital?”

From:

abrightboy

"No. That sounds exhausting and it won't change anything," Malcolm points out, his energy clearly flagging. There's dirt on his face and he can feel the blood crusting on his collar and in his hair. "Can you help me downstairs? I don't want to go to the ambulance on a stretcher."

From:

conning

He gathers Malcolm up again, his frustration at the whole situation snuffed out under concern. “I’m going to be with you the whole time. I won’t let them give you anything that would keep you under.”

He carries Malcolm sideways through the front door of the apartment, eying Dani and JT with aristocratic distaste. “If either of your ‘friends’ feel like making sure you’re okay, they can call my cell.”

From:

abrightboy

"We're still gonna need his statement for the case file," JT points out. "That's your contract. You... know you're not a cop, right?"

Dani rolls her eyes. "Just come to the precinct in the morning," she tells him.

Malcolm lets his head rest on Neal's shoulder. He's flagging, now that the case is closed, and it's safe because he knows Neal won't let them keep him.....

From:

conning

Neal glares at Dani and JT. “We’re staying home tomorrow. He’s hurt. You want a statement, come and get one.”

He doesn’t give them a chance to answer, bring Malcolm downstairs in time for the paramedics to sweep into the lobby. He gets in the ambulance with them, stays all but glued to Malcolm’s side through the scans and tests and endless waiting in between. It’s not until almost dawn before they’re released, and Neal decides Malcolm’s apartment is the better bet for now. Fewer stairs to carry Malcolm up.

From:

abrightboy

"I'm okay," Malcolm tells him, though his legs still feel kind of jelly-like when Neal puts him down. "They let me out. It's just a moderate brain trauma. It has 'moderate' right in the name," he points out, only slurring a tiny bit.

From:

conning

"Moderate, which is more severe than mild." He beelines for Malcolm's freezer, grabbing an ancient bag of frozen peas and wrapping them in a hand towel. He very gingerly rests it against the knot on Malcolm's head. "If you sit on the floor of the shower, do you think you'll be okay upright long enough for me to clean you up?"