TRAUMABEANS AU

[conning]

boop

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[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at him.

“You are coming with,” he says, tapping his ear. “Remember? They might know who you are. We can’t afford that.”

[conning]

Neal bites his lip, but nods. There's not a lot more to say after that. Gil says he's going to put a couple of people on Malcolm's apartment, Peter reminds Neal quietly to check in. Meeting times and places are set for the next day. Then they're gone, and it's Malcolm, Neal, and Ellen again.

Neal pours them all fresh drinks in the form of tea and adds a little scotch to his chamomile. "If you're tired, Ellen, you can turn in. I can show you where the upstairs room is. It's... quieter, up there, a little bit, but regardless, um..."

He looks at Malcolm, unsure what else to say. Ellen knows about the night terrors in an abstract way. Neal isn't sure how she'll react to the direct reality of them.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm bites his lip.

“Just. If you hear screaming…… don’t come down.”

[conning]

Ellen cracks a joke about cop training kicking in, and Neal can tell it’s not totally facetious. But he settles her upstairs, makes sure she has toiletries and a set of his pajamas, and makes a note to himself to get her some clothes tomorrow.

When he and Malcolm have settled into bed, Neal can’t help feeling a creeping sense of something in the dark. Catastrophe lurking. Threats unaddressed.

“Are you going to wear body armor when you go with Gil?”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm blinks surprise at him in the dark.

"No, what for?" he asks.

[conning]

"In case something happens." A pause that's not really long enough for Malcom to answer. Neal exhales softly. "I don't know. I'm being paranoid."

[abrightboy]

“Well… it’s only paranoia if mobsters aren’t likely to shoot you in the chest,” Malcolm points out. He lifts his hand towards Neal with a jingle. “Give me a kiss and get some sleep.”

[conning]

He smiles at that. Obliges with a small, almost chaste kiss. One that’s all the more precious to him because he’s not trying to start something physical with it. Then he snuggles close to Malcolm and closes his eyes.

Neal falls asleep fast. It’s like something is waiting for him, and maybe it is. Dreams of nothing in particular quickly turn to dreams of Mathias, of a 1306 with no exits and a dozen void-creatures like the one that ripped him in half, these much smaller, pursuing him through the house in an on-and -off game of chase. He whimpers in his sleep, the noise unintentional, curling in on himself as one of the things lunges close enough to leap up past his knees and open up a shallow gash on his chest before vanishing. It doesn’t laugh when it draws blood, but he can feel the amusement.

In the real world, the waking world, a clean, tidy cut on Neal’s chest starts to bleed onto the sheets. It’s only about half the size of the one in his dream in both length and depth, if that. But it’s there.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm, not trapped in a parasomnia, stirs slowly awake at the low level commotion. When he reaches for Neal, a restrained hand feels damp. He draws it back in confusion, staring at it in the street lamp light from the window.

“It’s blood.”

Oh. Oh, he thinks as he continues to stare at it. He’s asleep. He must be asleep.

[conning]

Neal’s shivering gives way to another small cry of pain as he’s attacked again trying to run, trying to break a window, trying to get out. This time the injury is on his shoulder, and it flicks open in Malcolm’s sight like an inch and a half of Neal’s skin has simply been unzipped.

[abrightboy]

Oh. Well. It’s definitely a night terror. That’s sort of a relief, even if he still can’t really breathe, for some reason.

He squeezes his eyes closed.

“It’s not real… it’s not real…”

[conning]

In the dream, one of them goes for Neal’s throat.

He wakes up with a gasp before it connects, struggling out from under the sheets on instinct so he he can move freely.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm’s eyes snap open when he hears Neal gasp, but he’s still asleep, he realizes, as Neal’s wounds seep through his t-shirt.

He stares.

[conning]

Neal looks at Malcolm, then his shoulder, then down at the spot of red on his chest. He reaches up to touch his throat, unease prickling through him. "What happened? Did I scratch myself?"

He doesn't think for a second that Malcolm did it.

He doesn't want to think that it came from inside his own head.

[abrightboy]

“No, it just… happened on it’s own.” He holds up his hands with a jangle. “It’s okay. It’s just a dream.”

[conning]

Neal blinks, confused. "It is?"

He hesitates, then pulls his shirt off slowly, examining the cut on his chest and shoulder. He presses down on the latter and winces a little, lifting his fingers away smeared red. "It doesn't feel like a dream."

But what was it Malcolm had said before, about trauma making dreams feel real?

[abrightboy]

"...Isn't it?" Malcolm's expression creases. He looks absolutely distraught for a moment. "I don't know how to tell," he pleads. He looks at the cut, then grabs Neal's shirt, pressing it to his chest urgently.

[conning]

Neal lifts his hands to Malcolm's cheeks, stroking his skin with his thumbs, oblivious to the little smudge of blood he leaves there. "It's okay. It's all right."

Neal is increasingly sure he's awake. He leans forward to kiss Malcolm firmly, trying to be reassuring in the only way he really knows how. He remembers the bathroom when he started to have a breakdown after talking to Kramer, and takes one of Malcolm's hands between both of his. "Does this feel real?"

[abrightboy]

“…Yes,” he concedes. “But. …How… ……Did I cut you?” he asks desperately.

[conning]

Neal looks down at the little trail of blood congealing on his chest. "No."

He looks up again. "I... was dreaming."

Goosebumps prickle over his scalp. "I was dreaming about Mathias, about something attacking me."

[abrightboy]

“Dreaming can’t cut you!” Malcolm says, lifting each wrist to examine the restraints while holding the shirt on the wound with the other hand. “Is there something sharp on one of the buckles? Do you need stitches? We have to go to the hospital what are we going to tell them they’ll think I attacked you did I attack you? It happened to me before I attacked someone with a knife in my sleep. Neal if I did this, you have to tell me for real, okay?”

[conning]

"You didn't, it wasn't you, I promise. I don't need the hospital, I'm okay, I promise." He makes Malcolm look at him, turning his face with one hand. His clean one. "It's okay. I'm okay."

Except he's got a haunted look on his face that's far from okay. "Did... you see anything cut me? Were you asleep?"

[abrightboy]

“I don’t know,” Malcolm chokes. A shaky hand points at the shoulder wound. “I saw that one just appear but I don’t know if I was awake; I don’t know.”

He tears his eyes from the wound to Neal’s face.

“What did you see?” he asks shakily.

[conning]

"I think you were awake," Neal murmurs. He shivers. "I was dreaming about being trapped inside 1306. Things were chasing me, toying with me, a couple of them attacked."

He dabs his tongue against his lips. "One cut my chest open. One cut open my shoulder. There was one going for my throat when I woke up."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm’s expression creases again.

“What would have happened if you hadn’t woken up?” he asks, but his voice is tight; he feels like he has no air.