THE OG AU

[conning]

[summary tk]

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[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.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm reaches over and takes his hand with one hand and reaches into his pocket to take out Neal’s phone and silence it with the other.

He hopes it’s burning her ass, that he won’t let her gloat. He hopes she assumes Neal is dead or dying and that’s why he won’t answer. Part of him hopes she’ll burst in from the balcony doors or something equally dramatic and Peter will shoot her. But if she doesn’t, he might answer it when Neal is resting peacefully. Then he can decide what to offer her to bring her to Murdoch.

He looks over towards the dining room, now that he’s less tense and Neal is pulling through.

“Do you want to order in?” he asks Edrisa. He looks at Peter. “Sushi?”

[conning]

Peter stares at him, the thought of food clearly making him feel ill. Edrisa, on the contrary, bobs her head eagerly. “God, yes, that sounds great.”

Neal shivers, moans, then rolls on to his side to retch. Peter gets there with a garbage can before he can do it on the floor.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm picks up the cold cloth and wipes Neal's face.

"Can you order?" he asks Edrisa over his shoulder. "Just some plain cucumber rolls for me." He just feels like it will help Neal, somehow, if he eats something. It's a thing that usually pleases him.

There isn't much in Neal's stomach after all these excruciation hours, but catching bile in a trash can is better than mopping it up off the floor.

"There you go. Better out than in," Malcolm assures him.

[conning]

Edrisa nods hastily and busies herself with that. Neal studies Malcolm’s face fuzzily.

“Mom?” His voice is higher pitched than usual, and very confused.

[abrightboy]

"She's not here. It's Malcolm," Malcolm tells him softly. "But you're safe here. Rest."

[conning]

“Who’re you? The new nurse? I didn’t know you could be a nurse if you’re a guy.” Nonetheless, he shifts around so he can rest his head on Malcolm’s thigh. He shivers. “She might not come. It’s not her fault, she works a lot.”

[abrightboy]

"A guy can be a nurse if that's what he wants to be. Anyone can do anything if they work for it," Malcolm tells him. "Anyway, I have lots of time to wait for her. Just get comfortable. Close your eyes. I'll wake you when she gets here."

[conning]

Neal gives a convulsive little shudder, gags again, the pain made all the more confusing by his current state of mind. “Am I dying?”

“No,” Peter says quickly. He moves the garbage aside so the smell is out of the way before he crouches down. He pitches his voice soft and reassuring. “No, you’re not.”

For a second he pauses, but the curiosity is too much. “Can you tell me where you are right now?”

Neal gives him a confused look. “…School…?”

[abrightboy]

"Good job!" Malcolm says quickly. "You passed the cognitive test." He gives Peter a dirty look before turning his attention back to Neal. "You'll be okay. I know you don't feel well, but it will pass."

[conning]

“What’s happening to me?” The question is only half directed at Malcolm. It’s also spoken in simple delirium.

Edrisa inches over, watching him with anxiety. “He really does need diagnostics done to see what kind of damage that stuff did before we got him turned around.”

[abrightboy]

“He’ll get them,” Malcolm tells her. “Not today. And maybe not in New York,” he adds, looking at Peter, the man who has to make that happen.

[conning]

Peter growls in frustration. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Neal drags in a breath, trying uselessly to sit up. His voice is hoarse, but forceful. “Leave him alone. He didn’t do anything. He’s never done anything.”