TRAUMABEANS AU

[conning]

boop

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[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.

[conning]

“I don’t know,” Neal admits quietly. He looks at the cut on his shoulder, then gently shifts the t-shirt so he can see the one on his chest. “They’re not as bad or as deep as they were in my dream.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm sniffles as he starts to unbuckle his restraints.

“We have to clean them up,” he says.

He’s fumbling the buckle; his hand is shaking too much. Like when Ainsley’s boyfriend was stabbed. He’s so useless just when he needs to not be.

[conning]

Neal takes over that part, at least, gently freeing Malcolm from the restraints before he can get too frustrated. “It’s okay.”

He cards his fingers through Malcolm’s hair. “We’re okay.”

[abrightboy]

That shaking hand touches Neal’s skin above the cut. It feels like his skin always feels. He looks at the cut, then looks to meet his eyes.

“…Are you sure?”

But his breathing already sounds less ragged.

[conning]

“We’re the only thing I’m sure of right now.”

Goosebumps again as he remembers the thing leaping for his throat. “You get the first aid kit, I’ll make tea?”

[abrightboy]

“No!” Malcolm gasps instinctively, lunging to grab him before he can get away. He takes a breath. “Come to the bathroom and let me clean it up,” he says softly.

[conning]

Neal flinches in surprise, but then nods, letting Malcolm lead him there. Making sure they stay touching in one way or another until Neal himself is planted on the seat of the closed toilet and Malcolm is getting a better look at the injuries.

They’re not as long as the cuts in his dream. They’re not as deep. But they’re definitely not shallow, and someone with Edrisa’s eye—or Malcolm’s—could probably tell that they seem to have been made from the inside out.

“Are you okay?”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm is peering at the cut on Neal’s chest as he cleans it up and it takes him a second to process the question. He looks up from under his brow.

“Am I okay?”

[conning]

"Yeah?" He's disoriented enough to be unsure what he said wrong. If he did say something wrong. Neal takes Malcolm’s wrist lightly in on hand, rubbing his thumb against the inside curve of the other man’s skin. “You… I got hurt in front of you and you couldn’t tell if you were awake. Are you okay?”