Malcolm takes the phone away from his ear and looks at Murdoch.
“I have to go. I’ll discuss your case with Neal and then we’ll call you. Don’t leave town,” he says calmly, but then bolts out of the cafe and down the street towards Neal’s apartment. With the phone back at his ear, he breathlessly asks “How long since the injection?”
“Thirty minutes or so. She said I wouldn’t start feeling it for about eight to twelve hours, and she gave me a pair of adrenaline shots to use when I did. She said she could keep it from becoming debilitating for about twenty-four hours.”
“And then what did she suggest you’re supposed to do?” Malcolm asks, bursting through June’s front door and running up the stairs. He tosses his phone on the table before Neal can answer. “Adrenaline suggests she gave you some sort of nervous system depressant. Eight to twelve hours? Okay. We have to get the anklet back on you. Sit down.”
Neal doesn’t sit down. Instead he goes to Malcolm, pulling him into a hug that’s as much for his own comfort as anything else. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to let her stab me, I just couldn’t let her get to Mozzie.”
"The window is a decoder. Kind of. One of the panes, when you hold it up to the pages of the original codex, it reveals shapes. She's got Mozzie copying them over. I have to figure out what it's pointing to. Where it is."
“Okay. We have two things we have to do. We have to get you medical treatment without giving away why you need it and then we have to dovetail this into Murdoch’s interpol investigation.”
He takes the anklet off his own leg and carefully snaps it onto Neal’s.
“You were at the coffee shop and then you suddenly ran home. You’re going to call Peter now and tell him someone randomly attacked you with a needle outside the coffee shop and we need a blood workup to determine what you were injected with and how to treat it. Discreetly, because we don’t know who targeted you or why. Then we contact Murdoch, who is willing to request your transfer to interpol for this investigation. We tell him Rachel Turner contacted you after the needle attack and that she wants you to decode this window thing she has and that she doesn’t know we halted the progression of the poison her stooge gave you, which means we’re on a short deadline with her. Got it?” he asks.
Neal nods, though it takes him a moment to actually process what Malcolm just said. He takes a deep breath, pulling himself into the present by sheer force of will.
“All right. Okay. Wait— Murdoch wants me for Interpol?”
“He wants to catch Rachel Turner. I convinced him you’re a potential asset to the investigation and not already neck deep. That she was courting you as Rebecca, but not that we have yet found out any more than that. And I talked him into ruling out FBI involvement.” He stands up. “That all of this will culminate in an Interpol arrest that you assisted undercover and not something you did rogue to save Peter will help your position in gaining your freedom instead of hurting it.”
He hears Malcolm and half-absorbs what's said, noting the things he needs more context for as he pulls out his phone. "I'm going to call Peter and then I need you to catch me up on exactly what you and Detective Murdoch talked about."
Neal hits Peter's number, pauses, and kisses Malcolm like he might not have that many more chances. It’s impulsive and scared and desperate—of course it is—but it also sends a rush of lust and giddiness through him that feels entirely inappropriate to the situation.
He’s a little flushed when he draws back.
Okay, a lot flushed, and his skin is abnormally warm, and his pupils are a little dilated, but he’s not really cognizant of any of the above.
From his phone, Peter’s voice says, “Hello? Neal?”
Malcolm gasps faintly at the intensity of the kiss, and it takes him a moment to catch the voice through the line, then he points at it almost frantically.
Neal lifts the phone to his ear, an odd tingling starting through his fingertips. Every active point of contact. It’s small, but distracting. “Hey, Peter, I…”
The tingle is almost like a reverberation against itself. Neal takes in a deep breath to focus but even the slide of air into his lungs feels…
“Wow,” he mumbles absently. “—What? No, I’m fine. I mean no, I’m not fine, I’m… I got ambushed coming out of my coffee shop, injected with something.”
He feels like he’s breathing faster. But also like the world is slowing down. Neal locks onto Malcolm, the now-all-over tingling distracting him. “It was Rebecca. No, it does make sense, I promise.”
He would like to kiss Malcolm again though, so he’s gonna try and do that.
He closes his eyes, which weirdly makes every part of him feel acutely sensitive, like his entire body is trying to make up for the momentary loss of sight. A deep inhale, and with it comes a distracting wash of euphoria that makes him half forget what he’s doing.
“What?” He sounds giddy even to his own ears. “Wh—oh. No, no I didn’t mean she… I’m not sure what I meant. Listen, someone attacked me, we need a blood sample, I don’t know why they did it or what they did it. What they used. All I know is that I feel amazing.”
He opens his eyes again, and the additional stimulation is borderline overwhelming. He fixes on Malcolm, enjoying the sensation of breathing so much he almost misses what Peter says. “Wh—yeah, I don’t probably think I should go anywhere, probably. Malcolm was going to come over, I’ll see if he can keep me company until you get here. Yeah, I will. I do. Okay.”
He hangs up, stares at the phone a moment, then looks back at Malcolm. “I don’t know what she put in that thing but I…”
Another rush of giddiness, this one accompanied by a full-bodied euphoria that makes his eyelids flutter shut and makes him sway. It’s like a prolonged orgasm without the mess. “Oh,” he says faintly.
Neal feels Malcolm’s words. It’s like they travel through the air to impact gently against his chest, each one a delicious little surge of pleasure just because it’s Malcolm’s voice. The actual content of them almost doesn’t matter.
Still, he sits, sucking in a deep breath at the feeling of Malcolm’s warm hand against his warmer forehead. It’s the most bizarre sensation, that bit of pressure sending little ripples through him from top to toe. He feels almost deliriously good.
“Don’t know how she expects me to work like this,” Neal mumbles, makes an abortively amused little sound, then gasps again as another wash of whiteout ecstasy rolls through him.
“Kiss me?” He’s breathless as he says it. “Please kiss me.”
She couldn’t possibly expect him to work like this, but the injection was meant for Mozzie. She must understand its effects. If she wants whatever the window leads to, she stop the effects of the drug if she could. He has a bad feeling about this.
He holds a finger up for Neal to wait.
“Dr Whitly.”
“My boy!” he exclaims. “This is an unexpected delight.”
“If someone has been told that they’ll feel the effects of a drug in 8-12 hours, but that two shots of adrenaline could keep them going for up to 48 hours, what do you think that substance could be?”
“An interesting hypothetical; are we talking about a case?” Martin asks.
“Yes,” Malcolm tells him; it’s not really a lie.
“Who gave them the timeline and the adrenaline?”
“The person that injected them. It happened about 40 minutes ago.”
“Interesting. Are they experiencing any symptoms now?”
“Sounds like a combination of drugs,” Martin muses. “Sometimes, when you cut a long acting paralytic with a fast acting cocktail of party drugs you, uh, make the agony of the body shutting down one organ at a time all the more heightened and torturous.”
“The killer is a known sadist.”
“If you know who the killer is, why are you following the drugs?”
“I’m not; I want to know how to counteract them,” Malcolm snaps.
“Well, you need to know the exact composition you’re dealing with, son. You can’t just go shooting this poor idiot full of even more random substances.”
Malcolm’s response is a growl of frustration and he hangs up the phone just as Peter walks in.
“He’s delirious and disoriented,” Malcolm tells him urgently, not waiting for pleasantries. “We need someone who can come here and take blood samples, then a rush analysis to find an antidote. We can’t take him to a hospital. I’ve seen this sort of attack before. This method is employed by sadists and predatory psychopaths; whoever it is will want to see him suffer and we don’t know how they intend to watch their victims but the mostly likely bet is they have eyes on the hospitals.”
That rapturous pleasure isn’t going anywhere this time. If anything it’s building, almost torturously, filling up every inch of his body and mind. It’s hard to think through it. His ears are ringing, or they feel like they are. He’s swamped in it, pupils blown, mouth open slightly as he drags air into lungs that feel starved for attention.
When it starts to ebb, it’s just enough for him to clue back into his surroundings. He’s still neck-deep in a transcendent, languid feeling that makes the whole world feel coated in honey. He reaches out to touch Malcolm’s face and has the strangest conviction that he’s moving his hand through liquid gold.
“Wow,” he slurs. “I almost feel bad I didn’t let Mozzie have this.”
He lets his eyes close in a long blink, adrift in this honey-world, before he sighs contentedly and studies Malcolm’s face. “I love you. I hope you know that. Anything I’d do for Peter, I’d do for you. Everything I did for him, I’d do for you.”
This place is nice. This soul-deep calm. It’s like every crack and crevice in his psyche is getting dripped full of a healing molasses. Like nothing that hurts will ever penetrate this sanctuary again.
Breathe in—and get hit by another tidal flow of pleasure. Slow, implacable, inescapable. Neal’s vision goes slightly unfocused. His words slur a little more. “I might do worse for you,” he admits contentedly.
Peter looks at Malcolm, then at Neal, quickly going to the latter. He noticed what Neal said, sure—but he doesn’t particularly care right now. Not with Malcolm’s current demeanor. “I know a couple of back-room medical centers who owe me favors,” he says, brushing Neal’s hair out of his face. “He was just jumped? Someone just attacked him?”
Even as he asks the questions, Peter is already pulling out his phone. Neal smiles at him absently. His pupils are huge, his attention half on invisible things. The intense physical pleasure is building up again. He closes his eyes and shivers, then groans softly. He reaches toward Malcolm again.
“Can we go to bed?” The words are like putty in his mouth, but even the hum of his own voice in his throat sends little tremors of pleasure through him. He’s pouring sweat, oblivious. “I want to lie down with you.”
“Not yet,” Malcolm tells him before answering Peter’s question. “As far as I know. It’s settling into euphoria now, but he was delirious when I got here. It was Mozzie, it was Rebecca, it was you… I’m concerned about how quickly he’s processing it. How fast can your help get here?”
Neal obeys, holding up his free hand and turning it one way, then the other, watching the light from the room move over his skin.
He blinks in surprise when he gets to the bottom of the glass, offering it back. “You’re the best,” he says. Best at what? Unclear. Best overall? Probably.
Peter is walking back over as Neal’s phone starts to buzz in his pocket. He jumps in surprise, starts to fumble it out, and drops it it instead.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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“I have to go. I’ll discuss your case with Neal and then we’ll call you. Don’t leave town,” he says calmly, but then bolts out of the cafe and down the street towards Neal’s apartment. With the phone back at his ear, he breathlessly asks “How long since the injection?”
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He’s trying to sound calmer than he feels.
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He’s already pulling his bag out of the closet.
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“I’m not mad, but we have to do something about this. Now. There’s no time.”
He crouches, working on getting the anklet off his own leg.
“Did she tell you something she wants you to do with your forty-eight hours? Has she given you a job?”
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He keeps a hand in Malcolm's hair as he works.
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He takes the anklet off his own leg and carefully snaps it onto Neal’s.
“You were at the coffee shop and then you suddenly ran home. You’re going to call Peter now and tell him someone randomly attacked you with a needle outside the coffee shop and we need a blood workup to determine what you were injected with and how to treat it. Discreetly, because we don’t know who targeted you or why. Then we contact Murdoch, who is willing to request your transfer to interpol for this investigation. We tell him Rachel Turner contacted you after the needle attack and that she wants you to decode this window thing she has and that she doesn’t know we halted the progression of the poison her stooge gave you, which means we’re on a short deadline with her. Got it?” he asks.
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“All right. Okay. Wait— Murdoch wants me for Interpol?”
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Neal hits Peter's number, pauses, and kisses Malcolm like he might not have that many more chances. It’s impulsive and scared and desperate—of course it is—but it also sends a rush of lust and giddiness through him that feels entirely inappropriate to the situation.
He’s a little flushed when he draws back.
Okay, a lot flushed, and his skin is abnormally warm, and his pupils are a little dilated, but he’s not really cognizant of any of the above.
From his phone, Peter’s voice says, “Hello? Neal?”
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Answer him.
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Right.
Neal lifts the phone to his ear, an odd tingling starting through his fingertips. Every active point of contact. It’s small, but distracting. “Hey, Peter, I…”
The tingle is almost like a reverberation against itself. Neal takes in a deep breath to focus but even the slide of air into his lungs feels…
“Wow,” he mumbles absently. “—What? No, I’m fine. I mean no, I’m not fine, I’m… I got ambushed coming out of my coffee shop, injected with something.”
He feels like he’s breathing faster. But also like the world is slowing down. Neal locks onto Malcolm, the now-all-over tingling distracting him. “It was Rebecca. No, it does make sense, I promise.”
He would like to kiss Malcolm again though, so he’s gonna try and do that.
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Neal leans in to kiss him; he looks confused and points at the phone.
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He closes his eyes, which weirdly makes every part of him feel acutely sensitive, like his entire body is trying to make up for the momentary loss of sight. A deep inhale, and with it comes a distracting wash of euphoria that makes him half forget what he’s doing.
“What?” He sounds giddy even to his own ears. “Wh—oh. No, no I didn’t mean she… I’m not sure what I meant. Listen, someone attacked me, we need a blood sample, I don’t know why they did it or what they did it. What they used. All I know is that I feel amazing.”
He opens his eyes again, and the additional stimulation is borderline overwhelming. He fixes on Malcolm, enjoying the sensation of breathing so much he almost misses what Peter says. “Wh—yeah, I don’t probably think I should go anywhere, probably. Malcolm was going to come over, I’ll see if he can keep me company until you get here. Yeah, I will. I do. Okay.”
He hangs up, stares at the phone a moment, then looks back at Malcolm. “I don’t know what she put in that thing but I…”
Another rush of giddiness, this one accompanied by a full-bodied euphoria that makes his eyelids flutter shut and makes him sway. It’s like a prolonged orgasm without the mess. “Oh,” he says faintly.
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“Dr Whitly, please. It’s his son. Yes, I’ll hold.”
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Still, he sits, sucking in a deep breath at the feeling of Malcolm’s warm hand against his warmer forehead. It’s the most bizarre sensation, that bit of pressure sending little ripples through him from top to toe. He feels almost deliriously good.
“Don’t know how she expects me to work like this,” Neal mumbles, makes an abortively amused little sound, then gasps again as another wash of whiteout ecstasy rolls through him.
“Kiss me?” He’s breathless as he says it. “Please kiss me.”
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He holds a finger up for Neal to wait.
“Dr Whitly.”
“My boy!” he exclaims. “This is an unexpected delight.”
“If someone has been told that they’ll feel the effects of a drug in 8-12 hours, but that two shots of adrenaline could keep them going for up to 48 hours, what do you think that substance could be?”
“An interesting hypothetical; are we talking about a case?” Martin asks.
“Yes,” Malcolm tells him; it’s not really a lie.
“Who gave them the timeline and the adrenaline?”
“The person that injected them. It happened about 40 minutes ago.”
“Interesting. Are they experiencing any symptoms now?”
Malcolm watches Neal. “Euphoria. Flop sweat. Brain fog. Hypersensitivity.”
“Sounds like a combination of drugs,” Martin muses. “Sometimes, when you cut a long acting paralytic with a fast acting cocktail of party drugs you, uh, make the agony of the body shutting down one organ at a time all the more heightened and torturous.”
“The killer is a known sadist.”
“If you know who the killer is, why are you following the drugs?”
“I’m not; I want to know how to counteract them,” Malcolm snaps.
“Well, you need to know the exact composition you’re dealing with, son. You can’t just go shooting this poor idiot full of even more random substances.”
Malcolm’s response is a growl of frustration and he hangs up the phone just as Peter walks in.
“He’s delirious and disoriented,” Malcolm tells him urgently, not waiting for pleasantries. “We need someone who can come here and take blood samples, then a rush analysis to find an antidote. We can’t take him to a hospital. I’ve seen this sort of attack before. This method is employed by sadists and predatory psychopaths; whoever it is will want to see him suffer and we don’t know how they intend to watch their victims but the mostly likely bet is they have eyes on the hospitals.”
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When it starts to ebb, it’s just enough for him to clue back into his surroundings. He’s still neck-deep in a transcendent, languid feeling that makes the whole world feel coated in honey. He reaches out to touch Malcolm’s face and has the strangest conviction that he’s moving his hand through liquid gold.
“Wow,” he slurs. “I almost feel bad I didn’t let Mozzie have this.”
He lets his eyes close in a long blink, adrift in this honey-world, before he sighs contentedly and studies Malcolm’s face. “I love you. I hope you know that. Anything I’d do for Peter, I’d do for you. Everything I did for him, I’d do for you.”
This place is nice. This soul-deep calm. It’s like every crack and crevice in his psyche is getting dripped full of a healing molasses. Like nothing that hurts will ever penetrate this sanctuary again.
Breathe in—and get hit by another tidal flow of pleasure. Slow, implacable, inescapable. Neal’s vision goes slightly unfocused. His words slur a little more. “I might do worse for you,” he admits contentedly.
Peter looks at Malcolm, then at Neal, quickly going to the latter. He noticed what Neal said, sure—but he doesn’t particularly care right now. Not with Malcolm’s current demeanor. “I know a couple of back-room medical centers who owe me favors,” he says, brushing Neal’s hair out of his face. “He was just jumped? Someone just attacked him?”
Even as he asks the questions, Peter is already pulling out his phone. Neal smiles at him absently. His pupils are huge, his attention half on invisible things. The intense physical pleasure is building up again. He closes his eyes and shivers, then groans softly. He reaches toward Malcolm again.
“Can we go to bed?” The words are like putty in his mouth, but even the hum of his own voice in his throat sends little tremors of pleasure through him. He’s pouring sweat, oblivious. “I want to lie down with you.”
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When Peter is occupied, Neal tugs at Malcolm’s shirt, a kid wanting attention.
“You’re so smart,” he says, tone still peaceful. “Do people tell you how smart you are, because they should.”
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He feels Neal’s forehead again, then goes to the kitchen, fills a glass with mineral water from the fridge, and brings it to him.
“Drink this,” he urges softly.
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He blinks in surprise when he gets to the bottom of the glass, offering it back. “You’re the best,” he says. Best at what? Unclear. Best overall? Probably.
Peter is walking back over as Neal’s phone starts to buzz in his pocket. He jumps in surprise, starts to fumble it out, and drops it it instead.
The display says unknown number.
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“This is Bright,” he says, moving away from Neal and Peter.
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It is, of course, Rebecca. “He must be feeling pretty good about now.”
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