Chapter Text
It was true that Trip was far more confused when he finally came off the pain meds and was able to think clearly. Malcolm just prepared wasn’t for how confused he’d be. He’d forgotten mortal emotions could be quite powerful.
“You? Demon? Wha- huh? Like, demon from- from Hell? YOU?”
Well. Perhaps getting straight into it hadn’t been the best course of action. Malcolm folded his arms and raised one eyebrow. “Indeed. I’m a Demon. From Hell. I’ve told you all this before, you know, and you did see me regenerate in real time three days ago.”
“Yeah, but… I thought I fuckin’ hallucinated that!” Trip threw his arms up. “Phlox told me you were fine and I thought ‘oh, I must have dreamt it or something’, but no, you actually got a fucking hole blown through your face that fixed itself and you’re an actual demon with a whole shitton of powers including bringin’ yerself back to life. Holy motherfuckin’ hell.”
“Hell isn’t holy,” Malcolm snapped.
Trip didn’t hear him. The remark probably wasn’t literal, anyway. With a loud exhale, the Commander flopped down onto Malcolm’s bunk and buried his face in his hands. “An’ of all things, the one thing I remember clearly is tellin’ you the truth about my feelings.”
“You did,” Malcolm said. He considered sitting down on the bunk next to Trip, but decided against it, pulling out his desk chair.
“But – why tell me?” Trip peered out from between his fingers. “Like, if yer so powerful you could probably just wipe my mind or somethin’ right? Unless that takes my soul. In which case, don’t.”
Malcolm tilted his head. “I considered it,” he revealed truthfully, “but- no, I don’t know. I’m not used to feeling… things.” He held his hands at about chest level and moved them vaguely. “I haven’t felt like this in a long time. Possibly never.”
“Felt like what?” Trip inquired softly.
“Attachment.” Malcolm took a deep breath. “Affection. But I understand if you don’t feel the same anymore, knowing what I am.”
The engineer regarded him for a moment, before shaking his head. “That’s the weird part. I should feel scared or something, right? Like, all those tales of demons in hell torturin’ people for eternity, or possessin’ people, or whatever the hell y’all do, and maybe I am scared. But not of you.”
Malcolm crossed his arms. “You should be.”
“But I’m not,” Trip retorted. “Maybe it’s ‘cause you don’t look like what I’d imagine a demon to be, right? Yer skin ain’t red, you don’t have horns or a tail, and yer not carryin’ around a pitchfork. Unless that stick up yer ass-”
“There are a lot of stereotypes,” Malcolm cut in. “Most of them aren’t true. That aside, just because I don’t look dangerous doesn’t mean I’m not, as you well know. I did murder three aliens with my bare hands.” A smirk tugged his lips at that.
“Yeah, and ya caused hell on Jon, leavin’ him to explain all that away. Yer lucky we didn’t cause a whole ass diplomatic incident.”
The smirk vanished.
“Ah, whatever. This isn’t what I wanted to say.” Trip was absently picking at the bandages on his arm now. “What I was gonna say earlier was, despite being completely confused – seriously, the idea that demons even exist has been hard to wrap my head around – and, yeah, yer right, I’m a little terrified at what you can do… but my feeling’s haven’t changed.” He lifted his head and looked Malcolm in the eye and Malcolm hurriedly looked away. There were too many open emotions in Trip’s eyes. He would have drowned in them.
“An’… you feel for me too, huh?”
“I don’t know what I feel,” Malcolm mumbled.
The two men fell silent. Malcolm’s head was spinning. How had he gone from being one of the most feared Demons of Hell and Earth to an anxious armoury officer on board a human starship, easily defeated by his own mere emotions? Somewhere along the line, his bloodlust and passion for violence and chaos must have been lost, or at the very least diminished – and he found he didn’t miss it as much as he thought he would.
It was harder to say who was more surprised when Malcolm broke their silence. “I must say, you are taking this surprisingly well, all things considered,” he said.
Trip looked at him. Malcolm still wasn’t looking into his eyes, instead staring past the side of his head. A smile quirked at Trip’s mouth. “Yeah, well. We’ve already encountered shapeshifting aliens, holograms you can touch, and sentient spiderwebs. Oh, and I got pregnant, don’t forget.” He gave a soft laugh.
“Those are all things not of your world,” Malcolm pointed out. “I’ve watched you humans build yourselves up and destroy yourselves over and over again since the sixteenth century. I’m a hidden part of your own history. It’s not the same as meeting aliens and exploring strange new worlds.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t,” Trip relented after a moment. “But it’s similar. And I guess that’s what’s keepin’ me from freakin’ out.”
“I could just be trying to manipulate you. You never know. I could kill you in your sleep.”
Trip winced at this but pressed on anyway. “Yeah, and we could transport down to a supposedly friendly planet and find ourselves in the middle of a war zone. We could get blown to pieces by aliens with superior technology at any moment. Space is a dangerous place; none of that discouraged me from signin’ up and headin’ on out here.”
“This is different.”
“You keep sayin’ that, but-”
“This is personal!” Malcolm grit his teeth together. “I know how mortal relationships go; what breaks them and what makes them work. You like to communicate. You’re open with each other, you empathise, share what you’re feeling. I can’t do that.” He looked away and clenched his hands into fists. An image of Vashista flitted through his mind. Their relationship had started from a mutual desire to gain power, they’d never connected in any other way that mattered; they were both Demons after all, and love was not for them.
I don’t love Trip Tucker, Malcolm thought. I can’t love him.
“Everything I do would cause destruction between us. It would erode our… friendship.” He said the word hesitantly, as if tasting it. “I can’t allow this to go any further.”
“Okay, but have you ever considered what I think? ‘cause yer soundin’ kinda selfish right now, y’know.”
Malcolm’s head shot up, grey eyes flashing. “I’m not being selfish! I’m saying this because it’s what’s best – for both of us. It keeps you out of trouble, out of danger, and away from any potential h… problems.” He’d been going to say heartbreak, but the word had caught in his throat.
Still, Trip seemed to understand what he meant. And he shook his head. “No, yer bein’ selfish because yer not even listenin’ to me. Yer not thinking that maybe I’m prepared for the stuff that could happen between us, good and bad. I’m prepared for any potential strangeness. ’cause whether yer demon or not, I…” He paused, tilted his head briefly. “Yeah, I really like ya. Maybe the demon thing is even allurin’? I always was an impulsive idiot.” He flashed a large, toothy smirk.
Malcolm blinked. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am.”
“That’s like a line from those terrible vampire romance novels!”
They went back and forth for a good few minutes, Trip becoming increasingly insistent that he understood the ramifications of what he was proposing, and Malcolm vehemently arguing on the contrary. At some point Malcom began to pace the room. I can’t love him, he kept repeating in his mind, but the words had started to falter.
Eventually, Trip stood up and grabbed the Lieutenant by the shoulders, forcing him to stop. He looked him dead in the eye. “Listen, Malcolm. I won’t pretend to understand what yer goin’ through or feelin’ here. Hell, I’m a bit rattled myself! But I’m pretty in touch with my feelings – years of experience with relationships tends to do that – and I can say for a fact that I like you. Now I’ll ask you one more time: do you feel the same?”
And just like before, Malcolm couldn’t say no. He couldn’t say yes, either, but Trip had apparently taken his silence as such. He smiled slightly. “Then, maybe we should try this. Right?”
Malcolm shrugged Trip’s hands off his arms. “I’m going to say no,” he said, and when the engineer’s face fell, “for now. You need to take some time, more time, to truly think about this.” A chance to change your mind, Malcolm did not add.
Trip pursed his lips, observed him for a second with an unreadable expression, then nodded. “A’ight. I think that’s fair.” He paused. “The reason yer so against this isn’t because of some kind of contract or anythin’ right?”
“Contract?” Malcolm stared at him.
“Y’know. Like, if we started datin’ would I have to give my soul to you?”
“Hell on Earth, no! It doesn’t work like that.” And even if it did, Malcolm hadn’t taken a soul in a deal for quite some time. Decades, in fact. “I told you my reasons already. I promise, there’s nothing else to it.”
Trip grinned. “Good. Because as much as I like ya, I think I like havin’ my soul a little more.”
“I’m relieved,” Malcolm deadpanned. He glanced at the chronometer, eyebrows going high when he saw it was already nearing midnight. “Oh, lord, I didn’t realise it was that late. I’m supposed to be due in the armoury tomorrow at 0600!”
“I won’t keep ya much longer,” Trip said. “I just have one question.”
“Yes?”
“Who else knows about the whole… demon thing?”
Malcolm snorted. “Doctor Phlox does. My scans were anomalous from the beginning. And now you know as well.”
“So, not even Jon…?”
“Captain Archer need not be aware he has a supernatural entity aboard his ship. Ever.” Malcolm gave a pointed look.
Trip nodded. He offered a half smile and clapped the Lieutenant lightly on his arm. “I hope ya know that I will be thinkin’ seriously about all this, but I don’t expect anythin’ to change.” Then he was gone before Malcolm could say a word.
The next few days passed rather uneventfully. Malcolm couldn’t tell if Trip was really taking it seriously like he’d promised, but he sure did ask a lot of questions.
“So is Hell real then?” the Commander abruptly inquired one day in engineering, as Malcolm was getting him to look over some torpedo upgrade specs.
“Yes, it is.”
“What’s it like?”
“A bit like Florida, actually.”
Trip’s face blanked. “What.” He said flatly.
“Thank you for your approval on these,” Malcolm said with a smirk, gesturing with the PADD. “If you don’t mind, I’ll be heading back to the armoury now.”
“Wha- hey! Malcolm! Hell can’t be like Florida, right?” Realising he’d yelled, Trip slapped a hand over his mouth and went bright red, carefully avoiding the gazes of the confused and mildly concerned engineering staff around him.
The next day he recovered and asked a new question: “How many of y’all are there?” They were in the safe isolation of Malcolm’s office this time.
“There are quite a lot of us. Most of us are benign now days, but we did wreak havoc before.” Malcolm didn’t mention that he himself had been “wreaking havoc” just recently, and that he wasn’t as benign was Trip appeared to think he was. There was still a low thrum deep within his body, a desire to take out his claws and act like he used to, but it was getting easier to ignore.
Trip was coming from a place of genuine curiosity. When his questions got too personal, he caught on immediately and either rephrased them or took them back. It was the second instance of a human learning who he was and being, well, not relaxed about it, but Trip certainly wasn’t running away screaming or trying to throw Holy Water or something.
When the engineer ran out of questions to ask, he turned to a familiar habit: flirting. It started innocently enough, nearly unnoticeable, however Trip got bolder and bolder as time went on. It had been nearly two weeks now since their talk in Malcolm’s quarters and the engineer was not ready to relent. Malcolm endured it silently at first. Soon he responded with grimaces or muttered, half-hearted complaints, as his own confusing feelings reached new heights under the constant attention of one Trip Tucker. A man who used to think of as unbearable and thick-headed – and now he was apparently in love with him.
Bloody fucking hell.
He managed to hold out for quite a while, until one horrible, Tucker-esque cheesy pick-up line ruined it all.
“Are you from hell? Because you’re hot.” An exaggerated wink and god-awful finger guns accompanied this atrocity. The blond-haired engineer was covered head to toe in engine grease, uniform stained, smudges of dirt on his cheek and a bandage still around his right arm. He looked gorgeous.
Malcolm didn’t know what he was doing. He threw the PADD he’d been holding aside, muttered an “alright, that’s it,” and surged forward.
The kiss lasted under two seconds. Malcolm was the one who pulled away, simultaneously mortified at what he’d just done, relieved that no one else had been around to witness it, and… satisfied.
Trip just stared at him dumbly.
“You win.” More staring. Malcolm huffed. “For fuck’s sake. Let’s give this a shot. Right?”
“Oh. Oh. I knew that. Sorry, I j’st… oh, god. Fuck! Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that, I-”
“Trip.” Malcolm reached two fingers up and held them against the engineer’s lips. “Shut up.”
“Why dontcha make me?” Trip sing-songed.
So Malcolm did.
As it turned out, contrary to his statement made two weeks earlier, Malcolm actually had very little idea how human relationships worked, despite being around humans for so long even before his posting on Enterprise. Why would he? He never truly studied that part of them. He’d been far more focussed on making their lives miserable.
Trip was fortunately very patient with him. He told him what was expected; what wasn’t. He told him how humans worked on an emotional level Malcolm never dove into when messing with mortal minds. In turn, Malcolm told him what to expect from a Demon.
“What about cuddles?” Trip asked. He had his elbows on his knees, chin resting on his fisted hands. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, Malcolm beside him. There was a look of adoration in the engineer’s eye. “D’you cuddle?”
“Absolutely not!” Malcolm exclaimed. “Demons do not cuddle. If you wish, I will sleep with you, but I will not cuddle.” Trip’s eyes went wide, and Malcolm realised how his words could be construed. “Actually sleep,” he ground out. “Not in the terms of human slang for… sex.”
At that, Trip threw his head back and laughed. “I swear ya got even more awkward since we got together!”
Malcolm narrowed his eyes. “You can’t expect me to understand the nuances that come so naturally to humans. Anyway, you said you knew what you were getting into.”
“I did,” Trip said. “Maybe I was wrong. But I’m happy to learn; more than.”
The brief dip in mood Malcolm felt at the word wrong went back up at the next part of Trip’s sentence, and soared higher. He leaned over and kissed the engineer, tenderly, taking his time and sinking into it fully when Trip responded in kind.
They pulled apart. Trip was grinning madly. “Damn. Are demons normally this gentle?”
Malcolm’s mind flashed to Vashista, even though it was highly inappropriate at the time. He thought of clashing teeth and desperation, of pain and roughness and forceful hands. “No,” he decided, his voice soft. “We aren’t.”
Trip was silent. Then, “Well, I guess I consider myself honoured, Malcolm. Ya mind if we do that again? I really liked it.”
They kept their relationship a secret from everyone. It hadn’t gone beyond a few stolen kisses and that was all Malcolm really expected, even if he didn’t say as much to Trip who seemed to think the exact opposite.
“There’s nothin’ wrong with it!” the engineer exclaimed one day. “Rostov and Kelly’re goin’ out, last I heard, and I’m pretty sure I caught Duraid and Marcel kissin’ in the hallway yesterday. Of course, they tore apart when they saw me comin’.”
“It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it.” Malcolm was surprised to hear about Duriad but chose not to comment on it. “They’re all of equal rank. We’re not.”
“Oh, so yer pullin’ that card?”
“Yes! Besides, this is… this is new. Neither of us know where this is going to go. And I think sometimes you forget I’m not human, Trip.”
Trip shrugged. “You tend to hide it so well, yeah, sometimes it flies from my mind. And no, yer right, I don’t know where it’s goin’. But I’ve always been a head-first kind of guy.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Malcolm muttered sarcastically.
Trip grinned and shook his head. “Well, can I at least tell Jon?”
“The Captain? Why on earth would you want to do that?”
“He’s my friend, Malcolm. I tell him everythin’. Except the demon thing, of course. I kept that promise.”
“Well, I forbid you from telling him about this!” Malcolm’s voice rose, his sharp teeth flashed, clenched together, and he felt the heat of anger burn inside of him. He hissed. His vision turned red.
He blinked, and Trip was looking at him with a scowl on his face, but there was pain in his eyes too. Malcolm sighed. “I’m sorry.” The words were difficult, but he forced them out. “I didn’t mean… that wasn’t how I…” A rare moment: Malcolm was rendered speechless. All he could focus on was the pain in Trip’s gaze. Pain that he caused. This is why I didn’t want this to happen, he thought. Any moment now Trip would say the same, say this was a mistake, and walk out the door.
But he didn’t.
“’s okay, Malcolm. I won’t tell him if yer not comfortable.”
“Let’s just figure things out first,” Malcolm said hurriedly. “I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”
“I know. I understand.” Trip nodded and let a smile spread across his lips, but Malcolm didn’t miss the tightness behind it. “See? We’re communicatin’. That’s a good thing for a relationship. Lets us disagree without causin’ any damage.”
Malcolm only gave a terse nod and no reply. Just how long, he thought, until he slipped and really did cause damage?
The tension was brief, gone as soon as Trip and Archer came back from an away mission gone wrong and the chief engineer had nearly been cooked to death.
“Was hotter than hell,” Trip quipped, lying on the bio-bed, stripped to his underwear, icepacks underneath his neck and armpits. “Well, maybe not. You’d know, wouldn’t you?”
Thankfully, no one was within earshot. Malcolm managed a lopsided smile and laid a hand on Trip’s arm. The skin was red. “Was it hotter than Florida?”
Trip narrowed his eyes. “Oh, don’t you dare-”
“Because if so, then it probably was close to Hell’s level.”
“Bastard.” Trip theatrically rolled his eyes.
Sickbay doors slid open, and Captain Archer stepped into the room, looking similarly red and exhausted but not as extreme. Malcolm snapped to attention immediately. Archer shot him a weary smile, then approached Trip’s bedside. “How are you feeling, Commander?”
“Still cooked but doin’ better.” The engineer made a thumbs up. “Havin’ you an’ Malcolm here helps. And these ice things.”
Archer looked at Malcolm with a quirked eyebrow, the smile turning into more of a smirk. “I’m glad to hear it. Try to get some rest.” He placed a hand on Trip’s arm just as Malcolm did. Trip nodded, dutifully closing his eyes.
The captain moved his gaze onto Malcolm. “You and Trip have become close, haven’t you?” he said.
Malcolm was nonplussed. “Yes, sir.”
Archer’s eyes twinkled and he put a hand on Malcolm’s shoulder, squeezing it. He was an awfully tactile man. “I’m glad. That you’re starting to find friends on Enterprise, Mr Reed. That you’ve become more comfortable here.”
Oh. So that’s what this was about. Malcolm relaxed a bit. “Er, yes, sir,” he repeated.
“We’ll be at Risa in a couple of days. You’ve put your name into your pool, yes?”
At Trip’s insistence. “I have.”
“Excellent!” Now Archer’s expression was vaguely mischievous. “I hope you’re going to be one of the lucky ones, Mr Reed.” With one last look at the sleeping engineer, Archer turned and walked out of sickbay. Malcolm narrowed his eyes at the captain’s back.
It turned out, and he only learned this because of Hoshi’s exceptional hearing and Travis’s tendency to gossip, that Archer had fixed the pool, tilting it in the favour of certain crewmembers.
There was something about Risa that had Malcolm on edge. Well, more specifically, something on Risa. He just couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
It had started as a faint tinge in the back of his mind when they entered orbit. As Malcolm was packing his things, the tinge turned stronger, seeping into the back of his neck as a familiar feeling of wrongness, different from what he’d experienced with the sham of a Vulcan monastery. By the time they were in the shuttlepod on the way down to the surface it had blossomed into his chest and he was finding it hard to focus on anything else.
Something was here. And that something shouldn’t be.
“And you, Malcolm? What are you gonna do on your days off?”
Malcolm shook himself out of his thoughts to find the occupants of the shuttlepod staring at him. Damn, he’d missed the entire conversation. At least he’d heard the question.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Go to a bar, maybe. Watch the sun set.” What did one do on shore leave anyway?
He didn’t notice the looks of disbelief as he fell back into his own mind. He didn’t notice Trip come in with a save and the conversation pick back up. All he could focus on was that wrongness slowly increasing intensity the closer they got to the planet.
When they landed, Trip granted him ten minutes to drop his stuff off in the motel room before dragging him right to some hotspot bar he’d read about in the Vulcan database. For the most part, Malcolm let the unease within him fade into the background of his mind, not willing to let Trip in on the fact that he wasn’t feeling one hundred percent invested in the shore leave. Trip would just end up pestering him until Malcolm gave in.
So they ordered drinks and talked about casual, mundane things, and laughed and joked, and Malcolm forgot about the uneasiness.
Until he spotted a flash of dark hair out of the corner of his eye.
“And so then I… Malcolm?” Trip frowned and looked at his partner as Malcolm’s gaze flicked around wildly. “Somethin’ the matter?”
It was gone. If he were human, Malcolm probably would have brushed it off as just his eyes playing tricks on him, but he wasn’t human. And suddenly he knew exactly what it was. “We might want to get out of here.” He carefully placed his half-empty drink on the table and groped for Trip's sleeve.
“What? Why?” Trip followed obediently, though an expression of confusion was etched onto his features.
“I’ll explain later. Let’s just go.”
A pair of alien women stopped them as they neared the door, asking if they could provide some company, but while Trip turned red, Malcolm angrily snapped at them and shoved past. They didn’t have time for this.
The night air was pleasantly cool compared to the heat of dozens of people in the bar; the streetlamps were on. Malcolm walked quickly, dragging a protesting Trip behind him. “Aren’t ya gonna tell me what has ya so spooked?” the engineer asked.
“It’s better you don’t know,” Malcolm said.
“What? You just said you’d explain!”
“MALLOS!”
Both men stopped cold. Malcolm felt the tinge at the back of his neck turn into a sting, the air around them suddenly thick with darkness, suffocating. He heard Trip wheeze a “what the hell?” behind him.
“How did you get here?” Malcolm asked the darkness calmly. On instinct, he uncurled his claws and let go of Trip’s hand so as not to hurt him.
“Same as you, I’d imagine.” She stepped out of the shadows, a deadly smirk on her face. She’d always been rather dramatic. “These humans advanced fast, didn’t they?” A long, thin knife twirled between her fingers, the tip of it glistening. Poisoned.
“Who the hell are you?” Trip asked.
“Trip.” Malcolm did not allow Vashista to respond, did not take his eyes off her. “Go.”
“What?!”
“Get out of here, now!”
“The hell I will! Not until I find out what’s goin’ on here. Why’s she callin’ you by yer other name? D’you know her?”
Vashista laughed. She took a smooth step forward, further into the light. She looked exactly as Malcolm remembered her; except for the red burn scarred across her right eye. “How sweet; he’s become attached to you, Mallos! I’d do what your boyfriend says, mortal,” she addressed Trip. “This… isn’t going to be pretty, and as much as I’d like to kill you as well, you’re not who I’m here for.”
“No way! Malcolm, I’m not leavin’ you here with-”
“If you don’t leave right now,” Malcolm hissed, “I’ll plant the suggestion in your head myself. Fucking GO.”
Trip took an unsteady step back, then another, then, with a reluctant backwards glance, he spun on his heel and darted down the empty street, which was when Vashista flew at him.
Malcolm was on her in an instant, shoving her up against a nearby wall which only made her cackle. “I knew it! He’s not only attached to you; you’re attached to him. How far have you gone, Mallos?”
“You said it was me you were here for.” Malcolm wrapped a hand around her throat. “So why attack him?”
She shrugged. “Seemed fun.” Suddenly, she vanished beneath his fingers, and Malcolm had only a split second to twist out of the way before her knife slashed down. Blood dripped down his arm; he clamped his other hand over the wound.
“You even bleed red!” Vashista’s eyes were wild with manic amusement. “This is going to be easier than I thought. I can’t decide if I’m happy with that or not, you know. Revenge is no fun when the other is so weak.”
Malcolm’s instincts took over rapidly. He slashed, kicked, punched. Blackness and redness flashed past his vision. He nearly lost himself to it, reeling himself back just in time. He couldn’t succumb. He wasn’t that person anymore. Can’t do that to Trip, he thought.
He took a hit to the head and stumbled, landing hard on his knees, and before he had time to right himself, she was on top of him, straddling him in the deserted street, the knife pressed against his throat. No longer was she smiling; there was pure rage on her face. “You took over a century of my life away,” she hissed. “Don’t you remember what we had together? We could have ruled the worlds! What happened to the times we caused chaos and fear? The pleasure it gave us?”
Malcolm didn’t offer a response. Instead, he asked: “How did you get out of Hell?”
The grin was back, twisted and cold. “I crawled my way out. Painfully. It took a lot of time, you know, but it was worth it. And now you’re going to get to experience the same thing.” The cold, poisoned metal pressed down, slashed across.
He could feel his body fighting, his powers struggling and failing to heal the Demon-inflicted wounds. His skin burned. For a brief moment, he swore he was falling.
Then someone caught him.
“Malcolm. Malcolm!” The voice was panicked, a pitch higher than normal. “Oh my god…” A hand on his arm. Something pliable and coarse pressed against his neck. “Dammit, why aren’t you healin’ yourself? You did that the last time! Fuck. Tucker to Enterprise!”
T’Pol’s voice he could hear, but he couldn’t make out the words.
“Malcolm’s been hurt. Request emergency transport. Yes, I’m goin’ with him!”
Trip. Trip! He shouldn’t be here. Vashista must still be around, she wasn’t careless, she wouldn’t leave before making sure the job was finished. He tried to open his mouth, tell Trip to leave, but an unpleasant tingle spread across his body before he could, and he fell away.
Nobody caught him this time.
A strange rustling and the sharp smell of antiseptic woke him up. Malcolm’s eyes flew open, a hand rushed to his neck to grope at the fresh bandages. Fingers caught him around the wrist.
“Hey, hey, don’t touch it.”
Malcolm focussed his vision. Trip was sitting on a chair beside the bio-bed, looking ruffled but unharmed. He smiled tightly. “Phlox says you’ll be fine in a couple days. Yer wounds are healin’, and the poison was easily filtered outta yer system. You gave me a fuckin’ scare, y’know. You got half yer head blown off just a couple months ago and were on yer feet in a minute, but when you were lyin’ in the street like that, you just…” He trailed off, swallowed.
“It’s different.” Malcolm winced at his own rough voice and forced himself to sit up straighter. He felt pathetic, lying here like this. “When it’s other Demons, it’s different. I can’t heal as fast.”
“Ah.”
“Why did you come back for me?” Malcolm asked.
Trip’s eyebrows furrowed. “Well, I wasn’t about to leave you in the hands of that crazy demon lady. Who was she anyway?”
“Someone from my past. I’d rather not talk about it.” Malcolm waved a hand dismissively. He was still confused, though. Vashista wasn’t careless; she’d attacked them out of sight from anyone else rather than jumping them in the bar. She would never have just left him there without being absolutely sure. “Trip, did you…” He cleared his throat. “Was there anyone else around? When you found me?”
The engineer frowned and shook his head. “Nah. I did manage to get the attention of a cop – or the Risan equivalent of one – though. Told him my friend was in danger. Maybe that spooked her?”
“Perhaps,” Malcolm answered vaguely, but that didn’t make sense either. Demons weren’t scared of mortal authorities. So what had caused Vashista to abandon him without checking he was truly being sent back to Hell first?
He was jerked from his thoughts by Trip leaning over and planting a chaste kiss on his forehead. “Get some rest, Mal. Oh, an’ try not to bounce back too fast, okay? Ya don’t want people gettin’ suspicious.” He shot him a playful grin.
Malcolm flopped back onto the pillow and grumbled, “Fantastic.”