TRAUMABEANS AU

[conning]

boop

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[conning]

Neal follows him, pulling on a button-up and slacks and leaving it at that. It hurts to move his shoulder too much, and he's getting paranoid. "Okay. All right. I just thought..."

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I don't know what I thought. I don't know what I'm thinking."

[abrightboy]

“We don’t know what’s happening,” Malcolm says, pulling on a sweater and jeans, “and there’s no one to ask. I can’t abandon you because they might hurt my feelings.”

[conning]

Neal catches Malcolm around the waist with one arm as he locks the door behind them downstairs.

"Thank you," he says softly. "I don't. I don't want to be there alone."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at him.

“You’ll never, ever be alone,” he says like it’s obvious.

[conning]

Neal kisses him.

The cab ride over to the emergency room, he keeps thinking he sees things keeping pace with the vehicle. Shadows that are a little darker than their surroundings. But every time he looks, there's nothing there. It's hard to get out of the car when they pull up to the curb, even though he doesn't think there's anything present. He doesn't want to get ambushed. Get tricked. He hangs on to Malcolm's hand for dear life as they head inside.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm walks with him up to the counter.

"My friend was attacked. He didn't see who it was." It's dark out. "Some maniac with a knife. He has two cuts."

[conning]

The nurse looks at them in surprise and concern, takes in the way they're dressed--well--and then turns her attention to Neal. "Where are the injuries?"

He turns to show the faint start of a scarlet line on his shoulder, staining white of his button up. Not the best choice of wear, probably, but hopefully some peroxide and bleach will sort it out. The nurse notices the bulk of the bandage underneath and gets up, leading them back to a waiting area behind a curtain. "A resident will be with you shortly."

As soon as she’s gone, Neal murmurs to Malcolm, “Did you see anything on the way here? Any… shadows, or. Anything?”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at him.

“…What do you mean?” Of course there were shadows. It’s dark out. There are street lights and lights in buildings and car headlights. There are a million things in New York to cast a shadow.

[conning]

Neal takes Malcolm’s hands in his own, looking at them instead of Malcolm’s face. “Anything strange, that shouldn’t have been there.”

[abrightboy]

“I was paying attention to your seeping wounds; I wasn’t looking. Was there something I should have seen?” Malcolm asks.

[conning]

“I don’t know,” he mumbles finally. “I don’t know if I was imagining it or if there was something there.”

He drags in a breath and looks up. “Can we go talk to your therapist? Not… right now, obviously, but… soon.”

[abrightboy]

“Of course we can. I’ll set something up for tomorrow, okay?” Malcolm tells him.

[conning]

He leans forward to kiss Malcolm, resting their foreheads together. “Yeah. Perfect. Thank you.”

The resident pushes the curtain back, a no-nonsense young woman with large glasses and a slight smile when she sees the two of them being close. It gentles a little as she looks Neal over. “The nurse said you were attacked? Have you spoken to the police?”

[abrightboy]

“And tell them what?” Malcolm huffs like the affluent New Yorker he sort of is. “It was like a shadow jumped out of the alley, attacked and melted back into the dark.”

[conning]

She shrugs, accepting the statement. “I have to report it, so they’ll probably call you later. So you’re aware.”

Neal rubs his eyes. “That’s fine.”

“Show me the injuries?”

Neal undresses gingerly, and the doctor peels back the bandage on his chest first, eyes widening a little when she sees the cut. Recent as it is, it already looks infected.

“When did you say this happened?”

Neal isn’t looking at the cut. He’s looking anywhere else. “Less than an hour ago.”

[abrightboy]

"Near my apartment," Malcolm supplies. He frowns faintly. "Why does it look like that?"

It hadn't looked like that when he dressed the wounds.

[conning]

“I don’t know. There might have been something on the knife?” The latter is more to herself than either of them, but she doesn’t sound convinced. “I’d like to take a tissue sample before I stitch these up, but we’re going to send you home with some antibiotics regardless.”

Neal looks at her, then at Malcolm, then down at his chest and the angry red mark. Goosebumps prickle over his scalp.

[abrightboy]

"Good idea," Malcolm tells her evenly, "Thank you."

He watches her work carefully.

"The edges are very clean, though. Like the blade was very sharp."

[conning]

She makes a soft noise of agreement as she gets her samples and neatly stitches the first cut, leaving space for it to drain before she bandages it and addresses the cut on Neal’s shoulder. “They’re very clean in terms of the actual cuts themselves. Like… weirdly, unnaturally clean. You were attacked?”

There’s a note of doubt in her voice, and she looks at Neal with a quiet calculation in her eyes. Neal doesn’t really register the risk involved in her suspicions. At least not the risk for his being kept in the hospital.

“Yes,” he says, regardless, because it’s true.

[abrightboy]

“The assailant just… swiped at him, like… he was in a frenzy. Then he took off. It happened so fast,” Malcolm chimes in. “We both do consulting for law enforcement,” he tells her. “Maybe it’s related to a case,” he suggests like he just thought of it.

[conning]

She glances at Malcolm, then nods slowly, seeming to accept that. She finishes tending to the second cut, while Neal keeps his face averted and eyes scrunched up from the sting of it.

When she steps back, he relaxes his grip on Malcolm's hand a little.

"Okay. Well, there's not much we can do beyond antibiotics and getting that tissue tested to make sure we're giving you the right ones." She hesitates, then seems to think better of whatever she was going to say. "I'll have a nurse come by with the paperwork and discharge documents soon."

[abrightboy]

“The infection came on too fast,” Malcolm tells Neal after she leaves. “The edges of the cut are perfect; the implement was razor sharp.”

[conning]

"Except it wasn't done by something... normal." He shrugs into his shirt again, wincing slightly at the twinge of his shoulder. Neal pauses before buttoning it up, looking at the bandage fixed tidily on his chest. "It wasn't done by something that should have been able to hurt me at all."

[abrightboy]

"Which we can't tell them, or they'll have you on the psych unit before you can say 'parasomnia'," Malcolm points out. "We have to figure that part out ourselves."

[conning]

He closes his eyes, nodding as he finishes buttoning up the shirt by feel. “What should we tell your therapist?”