THE OG AU

[conning]

[summary tk]

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[conning]

As though in answer, there's a knock on the door. It opens without whoever it is waiting for approval to enter. They're dressed like an EMT and accompanied by Diana. She studies Neal worriedly.

"How's he doing?"

The EMT doesn't bother repeating the question, just goes to work taking Neal's temperature, swabbing the inside of his mouth, and prepping his arm to take a blood sample. Neal himself has lapsed into blissful silence.

Peter studies Neal's face, lips pressed into a tight line. "He's out of it at best. Not making a lot of sense. Talking about..."

He trails off and shakes his head, forcing irony into his tone. "Well, he's shared some romantic stories that I really didn't need taking up visual space in my brain."

"Where's Malcolm?" Neal looks around, brightens when he sees Malcolm, and then jerks and recoils from the EMT as they try to jab him in the arm with a needle. "Ow?"

"Hold him still," the woman says implacably. "And someone get him some mineral water. He needs to a steady intake of fluids. I'll get an IV going too."

[abrightboy]

"He just drank a glass," Malcolm tells them, slightly more subdued. He picks up Neal's glass and goes back to the kitchen to refill it, bringing it back but standing back while they hook him up.

"I have reason to believe we're dealing with a cocktail of drugs," Malcolm tells them. "And whatever could prove fatal is what we want to focus on counteracting."

[conning]

Peter holds Neal still as the needle goes in. Neal turns his face away from it, face scrunched up in almost childish discomfort. The EMT is brisk and efficient, listening to Malcolm as she takes the samples she needs and sets up the IV.

She gets to her feet, kisses Diana on the temple, and lifts the case she has her samples in. "I'll get these to my friend at the NYU Emergency Department, she knows people in their bio labs too. We'll get you a result. Leaving a couple of saline bags behind too."

"Thank you," Peter says firmly. "Really. Thank you."

Neal stares at the IV drip, lips parted slightly, wonder in his expression. "I can feel it."

The EMT makes an ironic noise. "I'll bet, buddy."

Then she's gone.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm gives Neal the water.

"Drink," he says before crossing his arms and starting to pace.

[conning]

Neal obeys, tracking Malcolm as he walks. He stops mid-glass. “Are you mad at me?”

Diana left with the EMT. Peter has his eyes on Malcolm too. “What is it?”

[abrightboy]

"I'm not mad at you. I'm afraid for you," Malcolm tells him. He presses his lips together, then looks at Peter. "My father's first four victims were killed after he injected them with his own proprietary cocktail of drugs. His cocktail put the victims into paralysis. They could feel everything happening to them and they couldn't move. This drug will have an effect that appeals to a sadist. We'll see what it is soon enough, but it's not going to be six hours of euphoria and a hangover, Peter. Your people, they understand the urgency, right?"

[conning]

Peter rubs his lips with one hand, his own worries shining through the motion. “Diana does, so the rest of them will whether they want to or not.”

Neal finishes the water and sways to his feet, making his way toward Malcolm. Peter has to follow, IV bag held high.

Neal reaches for Malcolm, savoring the feeling of his fingertips tracing over Malcolm’s skin. He’s tracking the conversation, barely. It’s just hard for him to care past the floating in his head. “It’ll be okay.”

“Who was on the phone?” The question is aimed at Malcolm, but his attention is on Neal.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm can’t make himself agree with Neal’s lie nor tell him the horrible truth, so he says nothing.

He looks at Peter instead.

“My psychopath likes to call my friends sometimes. I called and asked him questions about a hypothetical drug. He was testing a theory as to why.”

[conning]

Peter grimaces. It makes sense. “I don’t want to know how he got Neal’s number. I’m just glad you got to it first.”

Neal takes Malcolm’s hand lightly and tugs him toward the couch. He moves in for a small kiss. “I want to sit with you.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm lets himself be led by Neal, even as he pulls his phone out of his pocket and dials.

“Edrisa, hi, it’s me. Yeah. Listen: how fast can you get a tox screen on a blood sample? Yeah? What about compiling an antidote to the substances found? Okay. I’m texting you an address. Bring a med kit so you can draw blood,” he tells her. “We’re dealing with an unknown toxin and a short window.”

[conning]

Peter follows again, still holding up the IV bag, but once Neal and Malcolm are sitting he rigs up a spare easel to keep it elevated. Neal snuggles up to Malcolm, playing with his hair absently, rambling to Peter about how wonderful Malcolm is and how little people recognize it. The words start to run together a little, both in Neal’s head and on his tongue. When Edrisa knocks about twenty minutes later, Neal barely qualifies as conscious. He’s curled into a little ball against Malcolm, utterly blissed out and oblivious to his surroundings, shivering with pleasure every time something touches him or moves against his skin.

He blinks slowly. “Headache,” he mumbles, as Peter goes to open the door. If Malcolm moves, Neal will give another little groan as oversensitive nerves send a fresh wash of positive stimulation through him.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm doesn’t move. He’s afraid to move. He sits almost too still, like a person does when a butterfly lands on them and they don’t want it to fly away.

“Is that Dr Tanaka? Send her over and get Neal another glass of water,” he requests to Peter.

[conning]

Peter does as he’s told. He’s almost frantic with worry himself at this point. Edrisa rushes to Malcolm and Neal, taking in Neal’s current state with a mix of curiosity and near-panic at the prospect of his alive-ness and grim focus at the possibility of him becoming less so.

Neal keeps up a continuous shivering as Peter helps him drink the water, barely seeming to notice as Edrisa takes blood. His own disconnect, weirdly, puts her more at ease. She starts working on the tox screen right at the kitchen table, glancing their way over and over again.

“Well I can tell you for free that part of what your poisoner is trying to do is overload his sensory system. If he hasn’t already, he’s going to start getting confused between pleasure and pain soon. There’s only so much input the body can handle before it starts trying to make things stop, and… wow. Not sure on dosages yet but I’m coming up with traces of LSD, ecstasy, some meth, and more than a little heroin. That is one hell of a speedball. No wonder he’s checked out.”

[abrightboy]

“But it’s not an overdose, though, is it? I guarantee this substance is meant to kill. What else is in it?” Malcolm asks, still carefully, unnaturally still.

[conning]

“No, not an overdose. All that crap in him, if it was an overdose he’d already be dead.”

Edrisa is focused now, her tone a little absent as she answers Malcolm. “Those ones always come up fast on a tox panel, working my way through some of the less common now.”

Neal turns his face against Malcolm’s arm. The shivering hasn’t stopped, and he can’t get his tongue to cooperate with words. Peter hovers, holding the empty glass, glancing at the mostly-drained IV bag.

“Gonna change that,” he says of it, and goes to do it.

Neal moans lightly, biting at the cloth of Malcolm’s shoulder. “Want to kiss you,” he says, his heartbeat hard and fast enough to make talking difficult. “Want to take you to bed and…”

He stops. Aware on some level that there are people present.

Edrisa hisses under her breath. “I’m getting indications of strychnine, Botox, and very mild arsenic. There’s got to be some damage from those already that he’s just not feeling.”

[abrightboy]

“What do we do about them?” he asks, his voice so even and controlled, it’s too calm. “How do we halt the progression?”

[conning]

“I can pull something together, but it’s going to make him very sick.”

She’s nervous again now, even as she focuses on narrowing down proportions of each substance in Neal’s samples. “Like… cure will not be worse than disease in that he will probably live, but it’s very risky and he should really be in a hospital.”

[abrightboy]

“Too risky. Edrisa, you’re the smartest person I know; please help me,” he says, his steady tone only wavering at the last. “Will ‘sick’ be less painful than the effect of the drugs?”

[conning]

Neal groans, though there’s a different tone to it this time.

Edrisa casts them a panicked glance, then Peter, then clears her throat and licks her lips. “I can do it. It’ll be better. He’ll hallucinate, I guarantee that, and it might last a while even after he’s back on his feet but his organs probably won’t shut down which is a much better thing than the alternative. Of doing that.”

[abrightboy]

“Do it,” he whispers, his rigid posture now with more of the tension of someone who has a hornet on him and is trying not to get stung. “Do it now.”

[conning]

“Okay. Okay. I can do it.”

Neal’s phone starts ringing in Malcolm’s pocket as Neal moans again, then makes a choked little noise. “Don’t feel well,” he tries to say. He’s not sure how clear the words are.

[abrightboy]

“I know,” Malcolm tells him. “But it really is going to be okay.”

He takes the phone very carefully from his pocket and rejects the call.

[conning]

Edrisa injects her solution into Neal’s IV just as he starts to feel the first real twinges of pain. Just as his muscles start to twitch and clench irregularly with the influence of the pure poisons. The mix of feel-good chemicals and pain is wildly disorienting, but soon enough the second IV bag has run down and the pain has started to ebb somewhat. He’s still sweating, still confused, but the occasional agonized cries have stopped, reduced to the occasional pained mumble.

He’s lying on the couch, eyes unfocused and glassy with fever, but still resting on Malcolm’s face. “I’m dead,” Neal says with calm conviction, “and you’re an angel. You know exactly how to look to get me to come with you. I’m not going. I need to go. Back. To the Malcolm-Malcolm.”

The stretched-taffy words take a little sorting out to make sense.

Edrisa is at the kitchen table chugging wine.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm has spent the time holding him when he needed it, and not touching him when his skin felt like fire, bringing cold cloths to stretch across his forehead or dab at his face instead, until it ebbs and he just sits in a dining chair dragged over to the couch.

Edrisa is welcome to any bottle of wine she wants. He hopes she took one worth thousands of dollars.

“Oh, come now. You’re not dead. Would Malcolm-Malcolm give you up that easily?” he counters softly.

[conning]

Peter hovers worriedly behind the couch, but Neal hasn’t noticed him yet. It’s hard to keep more than one piece of the world in focus at a time. A muscular spasm makes him whimper, but as intense as the pain is, he doesn’t totally lose track before it trails away into echoes again. (Is that his phone buzzing? He has no idea where it is. But he’s pretty sure it’s been going off for a while.)

He has to think through Malcolm’s words. “No,” he finally says, and gives a long, relieved exhale. He tries to lift a hand to reach for Malcolm himself, but god he’s tired, and his muscles feel like over-stretched pasta.