Happily Ever After AU - for conning

[abrightboy]

From here

Comments

[conning]

“I don’t care if you are,” Neal says gently, and presses a hand against Malcolm’s cheek. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks up at the cupboard, then looks at Neal.

"Can we still have some tea?"

He looks over at James and Peter.

"I fell, like, forty feet," he tells them apologetically.

[conning]

"I'll make it," Neal says, smiling a little. "If you'll go sit down."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at him, then looks over at Peter and James, between him and the couch, then nods hesitantly and goes all the way to the bedroom, to the chair in the corner by the half moon window and sits, pulling his feet up under him.

[conning]

That wasn't where Neal had intended for him to go, but he doesn't protest it. He's not going to push Malcolm toward something that makes him uncomfortable, even if he doesn't think that James and Peter would be physically hostile with Neal himself right there. He sets the water to heat as James finishes telling Peter about their so-far-limited conversations, stiff and wary.

Peter is about the same. He looks Neal's way. "I'm going to make a call. See what I can find out about the Flynns."

[abrightboy]

"They have a relationship with someone. Someone who put them on to James being in New York," Malcolm calls across the room. "That's who you want to find. The string-puller."

[conning]

Peter almost snaps something—probably something about how he knows how to do his job—but catches Neal’s eye and sees something there that makes him… not. He shakes his head and pulls out his phone. “I’ll have to be careful how I ask. Your FBI friend is already watching me. Trying to anyway, not very well.”

Neal makes a face. James frowns, swiping at some blood on his lip with a thumb. “Another FBI friend?”

“Malcolm’s. And she’s less friendly.”

Neal pulls the kettle off the burner as it starts to hiss and makes Malcolm his tea first, a high-end brand made to half-remembered Mathias specifications.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm pulls his knees up to wrap his arms around his legs and snorts.

“Collette? PS she’s a very sore loser,” he calls to them.

[conning]

James eyes Malcolm from across the room, something on his face that Neal doesn't like. He can't tell what it is, though. It's not scorn, exactly--or is it?

It bothers Neal that he can't pinpoint it. He shakes the thought off and takes Malcolm his tea. "How's your head feeling?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm gives him a weak smile but tries to compensate for it with a stab at humour.

"Like I fell on it from thirty or forty feet. Shouldn't it be better by now?"

He lets his knees fall to the sides so he can reach up and take the tea with both hands.

[conning]

Neal makes a sound of exasperated amusement. "Unfortunately, the body doesn't work that way."

[abrightboy]

He sips his tea.

"How annoying and inconvenient," he remarks, looking up at Neal. "I can still help," he promises.

[conning]

"Malcolm." Neal gets down on one knee, pressing both his hands around Malcolm's own. "Even if you couldn't, I--"

Something tells him not to say I wouldn't care. "Even if you couldn't, that would matter less to me than you being okay. You know that, right?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods, then winces because that hurts.

"I do know. But this is... this is important to you. Personally. And I'm not good at sitting around convalescing but I am good at solving a murder."

[conning]

“I don’t want to lose you either,” Neal says, his voice dropping enough that only the two of them can hear him. “I can’t.”

It’s selfish, but it’s true.

[abrightboy]

"You won't," Malcolm says matter of factly. "This is what I do. Better than you." He gestures over Neal's shoulder towards Peter and everything he represents. "Better than any of them. Even with a brain injury."

[conning]

He can feel his eyes welling, and he tries to blink it back. He's not comfortable crying in front of James. He's barely comfortable crying in front of Peter. Neal just nods, not trusting himself to say anything immediately.

"You okay over there?" Peter's wariness seems more over the question of whether or not Malcolm is going to have a manic episode than anything else.

[abrightboy]

“I’m deeply moved by your concern for my health,” Malcolm calls back. “But I’m sorry to report that I’ll probably live.”

He winks at Neal mischievously.

[conning]

Neal manages a laugh, a real one, and kisses Malcolm firmly.

James leaves not long after, Peter escorting him to meet Mozzie outside one of the man’s safe houses. Neal can’t hide his relief when the door closes behind the other men. He sags a little, turning to pull Malcolm close. “Thank god that’s over for now,” he murmurs. “We just have to wait and see what they turn up on the Flynns. Peter and Gil, I mean.”

James isn’t much use as far as Neal is concerned.

[abrightboy]

“We need to know why now. It’s been so long. They lost their power on their own, in the meantime. So why her? Why now?” Malcolm says, clutching Neal’s shirt as he holds on to him and fidgeting at the fabric.

[conning]

Neal clings back, his mind starting to buzz anxiously with the questions—but a thought draws him up short. “The videotape, the videotape she sent me, we haven’t watched it.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm blinks at him, then lets go of him to run over to the kitchen where he hid it.

“Throw the deadbolt,” he says, already moving into the living room to pull out the VCR he’d picked up to watch his mother’s interrogation and hook it up to the TV. “And the chain.”

[conning]

Neal does as requested without hesitation, though he stays at the door for a moment after doing it, his hands shaking. He stares at them, trying to make them stop before he turns around. Instinctively hiding weakness.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm pushes the tape into the machine, getting up and turning to look at Neal, but he does it too fast and almost loses his balance, steadying himself on the back of the couch.

“Neal, do y…” He stops, frowning faintly. “Are you okay?”

[conning]

“Yeah,” he says, sounding a little breathless. He knots both hands into fists before turning around, taking a deep breath and letting it out with a smile. “Yeah, I’m…”

He noticed Malcolm hanging onto the couch and takes a sudden, concerned step forward. “Are you?”