TRAUMABEANS AU

[conning]

boop

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[conning]

"Nothing yet. There's a PO Box he left me where I can send him messages, but he's... well, he was an undercover for a long time. He stays as far off the grid as is possible."

Neal bites his lip. "How do you know he even checks it any more?"

She smiles sadly. "I don't. I'm just hoping he does."

[abrightboy]

“Where’s the PO Box located?” Malcolm asks curiously.

[conning]

“Georgia, near the border with Florida and Alabama.”

“Which means he’s probably living in one of the latter states.” Neal’s observation is distracted.

[abrightboy]

“Should we look for him?” Malcolm asks. “Will having the evidence make you safer?”

[conning]

“No,” Neal and Ellen say almost at the same time. She gives him an amused look.

“Not yet.” Ellen is the one who speaks first. “I don’t want to risk scaring him into deep hiding by putting pressure on him. If we don’t hear anything, then we can look for him.”

Neal nods, agreeing silently. He’d run, if he were Sam and someone started looking for him right now. Right after being contacted by an old friend.

“It won’t make me safer in the short term,” Ellen adds, “but in the long run? Yes.”

[abrightboy]

“Do you need somewhere to stay?” Malcolm asks. “In the meantime? If there is someone in a position to know where your assigned location is in the government… until we figure this out, it’s not safe for you to stay where they put you.”

[conning]

Ellen goes quiet, and Neal realizes for the first time that she’s scared. Which, for him, is terrifying. Even as a 35 year old trauma survivor, Ellen is still his measure of calm. The child in him still uses her moods as a marker of stability.

It’s a little harder to breathe than it was a minute ago.

“Stay with us,” he says, quietly pleading. “Or if not… with us, then somewhere Mozzie or Malcolm can set up. It’s going to be more secure than staying here.”

[abrightboy]

"We'll take you to my apartment," Malcolm tells her immediately. "We can protect you."

[conning]

“I don’t think the marshals would appreciate my disappearing.” She’s hesitant though. Undecided.

Neal shifts urgently in his chair so he’s facing her and reaches out to take one of her hands in both of his. “You said I never ask for things. I’m asking you to come with us to where it’s safe.”

It doesn’t occur to him that he’s manipulating her. It’s not like that’s his actual intent.

[abrightboy]

“They might not like it,” Malcolm allows, “but they don’t know they’re compromised. They can’t keep you safe. Not now. Not until the person at the top is taken down.”

[conning]

Ellen nods slowly, then more decisively. “All right.”

She squeezes Neal’s hand. “Though I have to tell you, it’s going to be… unnerving, not having a couple of suits close by.”

A tiny smile. “Federal suits.”

[abrightboy]

“I was a federal suit,” Malcolm tells her helpfully. “For a while.”

[conning]

“He still wore better cuts,” Neal says confidentially. “Much better.”

Ellen laughs—but the noise is aborted, cut off by the soft zipping sound of a silenced handgun firing two bullets into the front door lock and splintering the surrounding wood. Neal bolts to his feet in surprise. There’s no mistaking that sound, not when you’ve heard it and the bullets were aimed at you.

[abrightboy]

“Take her out the back,” Malcolm tells him. “I’ll draw them away. Meet you at mine.”

He turns towards a hallway the opposite direction of the back door. “Go,” he tells them.

[conning]

Neal can’t breathe. “I’m not leaving you.”

It’s not an option. Full stop. He looks at Ellen. “Go out the back, use your standard evac pattern. Call the marshals. You have Peter’s address?”

Ellen nods, kisses Neal’s cheek, and starts for the back door.

[abrightboy]

“Neal, no,” Malcolm hisses. He can hear them pushing on the door, trying to break it open where they’ve splintered the frame. “I went on a camping trip with two serial killers when I was ten. And I stabbed one of them. I’ll be fine.” He grabs Neal’s arm and shoves him towards Ellen. “Go with her.”

[conning]

“There’s no guarantees,” Neal says softly. He catches Malcolm’s hand at the tail end of that shove, as the other man starts to pull away.

He’s wide-eyed, terrified, but he’s not leaving.

Ellen hesitates a moment longer, then decides the best thing she can do for this conversation is remove herself from it, with a last, “Neal, please come with me.”

She leaves, quietly, and as much as Neal wants to listen to his Aunt Ellen, the prospect of abandoning Malcolm is too much to take.

[abrightboy]

“Go with her,” Malcolm tells him again. “Make sure her phone is off and don’t let her call anyone yet. We don’t know who’s tracking her. The only people we can trust with her right now is us. So take her to my apartment. On foot. And I’ll meet you there. Go. Go now.” He gives Neal a gentle kiss. “There’s no time to argue. Go.”

[conning]

Neal’s eyes burn, blur, and start to overflow at the kiss. It’s what decides him, though.

He goes, catching up to Ellen with ease and putting a gentle hand on her arm after he signals her with a soft whistle. “Phone. We need to dump it, preferably on someone going the opposite direction from us.”

He’s not taking chances.

He’s barely gone, though, when the front door finally busts inward and the attacker shoves his way inside, firing two bullets blindly in front of him. Big, blonde, sharp-eyed in the way that says killing is a business transaction and a strategic one at that.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm clamours out of the dining room, intentionally making noise as he goes, like a person in a panic. He goes into the back bedroom, slams the door shut and pulls a chest of drawers in front of the door.

[conning]

The man on the other side puts a bullet through the door and chest of drawers, a close enough shot to leave a hole through the loose cloth of one of Malcolm’s sleeves.

Without a word, whoever it is throws himself against the door, pushing hard, trying to force his way in.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm isn’t fazed by the bullet; he rarely is when he’s high on a mission and a plan.

He licks his lips, watching the dresser just start to budge, then he turns and opens the window, vaulting himself out of it and running further into the yard, not in the direction Neal would have led Ellen. He pushes open a gate and runs into the road and heads down the street. He leaves the gate swinging open behind him: another clue in the wrong direction.

[conning]

The man doesn't see him, or rather doesn't catch up.

Malcolm will probably hear him swearing.

Neal paces Malcolm's apartment with a half-finished drink, staring into the middle distance. Ellen is sitting on the couch watching him, worry on her face. Whether it's for him or for Malcolm, he's not sure, and he doesn't want to ask.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm bursts into the apartment shortly after, face flush with exertion and adrenaline. He grins at Neal.

“I think he was disappointed.”

He’s already forgotten about the bullet hole in his jacket sleeve.

[conning]

Neal drops his glass. He means to put it on the counter as he passes, but he misses and doesn't stop. Just bundles Malcolm up in a hug of desperate relief.