TRAUMABEANS AU

[conning]

boop

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[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.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm startles a little when the glass breaks, but then Neal is holding him so, so tight.

Malcolm’s fingers press into the backs of Neal’s shoulders as he clutches him back, but he sounds almost bewildered when he points out “I told you it was okay.”

[conning]

“I know,” he says softly. He kisses Malcolm’s neck, then draws back enough to kiss his face and mouth. “I know you did, I knew it would be, I believed you, I…”

He can’t breathe and he can’t figure out why.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm returns the kiss, but otherwise watches his face carefully.

“…Are you okay?” he asks softly.

[conning]

His instinct, as ever, is to say yes.

Instead he shakes his head. “No. I—”

That’s when he spots the hole in Malcolm’s sleeve. He lifts Malcolm’s arm enough to show it clearly, looking from the damage to Malcolm’s face without knowing quite what to say. “They got this close?”

[abrightboy]

“Not. Like. Physically,” Malcolm says. He frowns faintly. “You know this is what I do,” he points out.

[conning]

Neal tries to get himself to relax, tries every trick he knows, but it isn’t until he imagines Malcolm holding his hand in the precinct bathroom while they breathe together that it starts to work. That image, that memory, that helps.

He doesn’t realize it’s the first time he’s thought of this Malcolm first, for comfort. “I do know. It’s what I do too.”

More or less. Tangentially. Another deep breath. Neal strokes his cheek. “It’s not the risk, it’s that I wasn’t there to take it with you.”

[abrightboy]

“You did take it with me,” Malcolm tells him earnestly. “By trusting me. Like I trusted you. Now we’re all safe. Ellen, too.”

[conning]

It's true. That's true. Malcolm is right. Neal nods slowly, and then remembers that he dropped his glass. He half-turns to look at the mess, but Ellen is midway through cleaning it up.

"No, Ellen, you don't have to--"

"Nonsense," she says comfortably. "You were busy."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks over at her.

“…How did you find my dustpan? I don’t know where it’s kept,” he exclaims.

Rich boys.