Archive of Our Own

Donned in a two-piece pajama set and a robe that altogether costs upwards of $120, Malcolm watches with a thudding heart as an unassuming officer enters the mansion. Underneath his jacket is a service weapon that Malcolm doesn't know much about, just that guns are bad, guns mean violence, guns mean that someone is going to die.

But someone is going to die regardless.

So he walks up to the officer while his father picks up a tea spoon in the other room and stares up at the officer.

The officer smiles down at him.

"You should draw your gun."

The smile falters.

"My father," Malcolm tells him. "He's going to kill you."

For the first time in Malcolm's life, he sees a gun, in all glory and details, up close. It's easier to focus on that than the way his father stares through his eyes, his mind, his soul.

The officer from the beginning is pushed to the side, much like Malcolm, when other policemen arrive, but he sticks close to him the whole time. Eventually, he tucks his gun back where it came from and reaches into his pocket, withdrawing a hard candy instead.

Mother says that they'll rot Malcolm's teeth, especially since he only has a few baby teeth left and he's going to have his adult ones for the rest of his life, but Malcolm also knows it would be rude to refuse it.

Slowly, mechanically, Malcolm unwraps it and puts it in his mouth as he sits on the bottom step of the staircase. The saliva under his tongue turns syrupy and sweet, and the officer stays by his side the entire time, settling down on the step behind him.

Long after the candy has dissolved, the people in Malcolm's house begin to filter out. The policemen all leave, first two by two, then one by one, and then a trickle out the door. Mother has taken Ainsley upstairs to get her settled back into bed, and the living room is nearly empty once more.

The officer next to him doesn't make any move to leave, and Malcolm turns to him, the bottom of his robe catching unfinished fibers of the stairs. "What's going to happen, now?"

When the policeman looks at him, his face is carefully morphed into something neutral. "I don't know yet, kid. But I do know that you're gonna be okay."

Whatever flavor the candy was has since disappeared from Malcolm's mouth, replaced with something stale and gross.

He doesn't think he's going to be okay.

Jackie keeps looking at Malcolm like she knows what's going on in his head, like she knows what he's thinking about, like she knows what his plan is. She frowns every time Malcolm meets her eyes so eventually Malcolm stops looking up at her altogether. When his gaze drifts toward the master bedroom, the place where Gil's gun safe is located—vacant, at the moment, the man in question has an evening shift and won't be home until long into the night—Malcolm snaps his head back to his feet.

"Malcolm." Jackie's voice floats over him as if it were on a different plane of existence.

He hears the word seconds later, belatedly reacting. "Huh?"

She pushes the plate with a plain scone closer to him. "Eat it while it's still warm."

Flaky and buttery, thick granules of sugar on top of the pastry mock him. It's both dense and light at the same time, smell wafting through the air and steam billowing out of the top like how it might in a cartoon. It's the picture perfect design of a delicacy, but Malcolm's gut cramps uncomfortably, rather than with hunger, when he trains his gaze back on it. "I'm not hungry."

"Do you want something else?"

"No, thank you," he murmurs back, the politeness drilled into his skull despite everything. In his mother's eyes, a father being a serial killer was no reason to not learn manners and how to act in high society.

Even though Jackie's already eaten, she sits at the table with him. "Is there anything I can tempt you with?"

"I'm just not feeling very well," Malcolm replies. It's hardly even a lie.

Reaching out with the back of her hand, Jackie feels Malcolm's forehead.

The touch feels like a lifeline, and it takes nearly all of Malcolm's effort to not lean into it and soak up the few square inches of skin-on-skin contact. Of course, with all of his brain power going towards not looking absolutely pathetic at someone showing affection to him, his eyes wander back toward the hallway that leads to the bedroom.

As observant as her husband, Jackie notices, interpreting it for something that it's not. "Do you want to lie down?"

"Sure," Malcolm replies, not because he actually wants to, but because he thinks he might go crazy trying to keep up this act for any longer. Crazier than he already is, that is.

Malcolm settles under the covers but doesn't close his eyes. Doesn't try to sleep, because he knows it'll be useless at best and filled with night terrors at worst. He doesn't want to thank the Arroyos for letting him spend fall break at their home by keeping them awake with echoing, haunting screams. A few days of relative sleep deprivation is more than manageable when it comes to keeping the peace.

Keeping his eyes open comes with the added bonus of Malcolm not seeing visions of a service weapon in his own hands, rising slowly, moving from neutral, to higher up, to resting against his temple.

Or maybe it doesn't matter if his eyes are closed or not, because the vision is bright in the back of his skull.

It scares him.

Malcolm's not stupid.

It frightens him that the thought doesn't bother him like he knows it should. Animals, life itself, has evolved to survive. Only the best of the best, the organisms that are able to survive despite everything, are able to make it to maturity and reproduce offspring who share the same skill and bravery. It is inherent in animals to fight to survive, and the comfort of modern life that people enjoy hasn't diminished that.

Malcolm is a statistical outlier.

Malcolm wants to chance fate, he wants to stand out in the freezing rain wearing nothing but his pajamas, he wants to jump into the Hudson with weights tied to his ankles, he wants to step in the lanes of a busy highway at rush hour, he wants to lay on the floor until he ceases to exist, he wants to wait until Gil comes home and sneak into his room and take his gun and press it against his skull.

He wants all of it so badly that he hasn't even realized that he's begun to cry until Jackie's sat on the bed beside him, holding him, stroking his hair like he's a little kid who doesn't know how to handle what the world has thrown at him. Sometimes, Malcolm thinks he's still that same little boy.

Jackie's murmuring something into his hair, inaudible over the turmoil in his head and the unfortunately vocal sobs that rack Malcolm's frame, but it's comforting nonetheless.

He doesn't want to feel like this, doesn't want to be like this, doesn't want anything to do with this world, but Malcolm wasn't given a choice. He's here and he has to stay here because that's what life is about and that's what's expected of him but mostly because Jackie is holding him like she actually cares and actually loves him and for a fleeting moment, Malcolm understands everything: the love, the fear, the hurt, the love again.

Tangled up in blankets, Malcolm reaches for Jackie's wrist, shaking, slender fingers holding tight.

The fleeting moment is all it takes for all of Malcolm's thoughts to come tumbling out of his mouth without reprieve or a single breath in between.

He knows how this will end.

Malcolm knows that it will involve a call to Gil, to Gabrielle, to his mother. And then a drive through the city to the peds psych ward, to faux-cheery walls painted mint-green and doors without handles that lock on the outside. It will end with his mother sending Ainsley somewhere else so she can get drunk and high and both together in peace without having to worry about raising a child. It will end with Ainsley crying and her face turning red and blotchy because she's always been an ugly crier when the tears are genuine. It will end with another prescription bottle and the hopes that this time, this one, will fix whatever's wrong with Malcolm on the inside where nothing else is able to reach.

The only thing that will not end how Malcolm wants it to is Malcolm himself.

But maybe that's the animal inside of him, clawing its way to survival when every other part of him pushes back.

Anita Seymour, a woman with sharp angles on her face and an even sharper voice, drops her laptop down on the table across from Malcolm and it makes him jump.

Snapping in front of him, she bites, "Hey," in the way that someone might after trying to get someone's attention for the third time in as many seconds. "I asked you a question."

He pulls his nose out of his textbook. "Sorry," Malcolm murmurs back.

"You've got a hell of an environmental awareness thing going on. You're gonna get shot in the field if they actually let you graduate."

"Our brains only have a certain capacity to take in stimuli. If I were in a dangerous situation, I would be attuned to my environment far more than when I'm trying to study," Malcolm replies, hoping that he's managing to meet her metaphorical punch to metaphorical punch.

"I'm sorry, did I ask? Did you even hear what I said?"

Malcolm glares.

"I was wondering if it was weird for you to sit in lectures about your own dad. I mean, what does it say about a student in the Academy if they share the same DNA with the picture perfect definition of a psychopathic killer on page one of the handbook?"

If she's trying to threaten Malcolm, Seymour's going to have to either try harder or get better material, because Malcolm's been hearing different verses of this same song since he was twelve. "Do you know why psychology is such a growing field? It's because even after discovering the genes—stuff that's supposedly hardwired into our very being—that indicate psychopathy, the vast majority of individuals don't grow up to be killers. Nearly all are normal members of society and are as entirely unrecognizable and uninteresting as the next layperson. Killers aren't born, they're made," Malcolm finishes, staring daggers at her.

Slamming his textbook closed, seeing as how he's clearly not going to be able to get any work done in this environment, Malcolm stands and adds, "And if you were actually paying attention, you'd know that Martin Whitly is a narcissistic sociopath, not a psychopath."

As he stands, Seymour scoffs. "Takes one to know one, right, Whitly?"

"It's Bright."

"You can't escape who you actually are." Seymour grabs his arm, lithe frame betraying an impressive amount of strength, preventing Malcolm from making a run from it. "One of these days, someone is going to realize how much of a fucking mistake it was to let you loose in the world, let alone be a part of the FBI. It's only a matter of time until you snap and kill someone, Whitly, and everyone here knows it." Finally, she lets him go. "And I, for one, am counting the minutes. Just a word of advice? We're all going to be weapon certified next week, and I don't think anyone wants a killer who has a gun in the dorms with them."

Malcolm's heart beats fast.

"I'm not saying you should leave. I'm just saying that if you were to have an unfortunate accident, we'd celebrate our first take down of a killer."

"There's only one psychopath in this conversation," Malcolm snaps, "And it's not me."

In the end, Malcolm gets what's coming to him in the showers the evening after his cohort becomes gun certified.

Humiliation is sadism 101, and when it comes to his peers wanting to make Malcolm's life miserable, he's had plenty of on-hands experience. Naïvely, he had thought that it would end after leaving the boarding school, as if only teenagers were capable of bullying and adults were far too mature.

Clearly not, when a hand grips his bicep, pulling Malcolm harshly from the shower that he had barely turned off. He considers himself lucky that he managed to wrap his towel around his hips before his other arm is harshly jerked behind him and his face is pressed disgustingly onto the wall.

When Seymour's mocking voice echoes around the tiled room, he isn't surprised. "We're all waiting for you to snap, Whitly. It's only a matter of time since some idiots decided that giving you a gun was a good idea."

Grunting when his right arm is folded uncomfortably against the small of his back, Malcolm bites back, "If I was what you claimed I am, do you really think I would need a gun?" The response isn't exactly helping his case, but clearly Seymour is past any rational thought.

"Don't play coy with me."

"What's the plan here, Anita?" he asks back, opting for her first name in a poor attempt to make a connection with her. "Kill me in a dormitory co-ed bathroom at the Academy? You're surrounded by people who've made a living off of catching killers. The only way this ends for you is in prison."

She scoffs back. "Don't try to talk me down."

At the same time, a second, quieter voice mutters, "Jesus, Bright."

Unsurprisingly, being pushed up against tile with his back toward the rest of the room means he doesn't exactly have a good handle on the rest of the room, but now that she's made herself clear, he can place the voice as another student in their cohort: Brianna Clayton. Other than the occasional glance during lectures, Malcolm's barely interacted with her.

"The way that this ends is me being given a goddamn award. I'd be taking down the next generation of Whitly killers."

"You'd be murdering an innocent man in the bathroom."

"Your façade doesn't fool me. You may have bought and bribed your way into the Academy, but I can see who you really are."

Bought and bribed? Malcolm had to fight tooth and nail to prove that he deserved a spot in here, that he wasn't everything that his father wanted him to be.

The thought is stopped in its tracks when cool metal presses against the back of his skull, hair still dripping from the shower. Slowly, almost gently, it moves from the top of his head down to his nape, and then starts up again, like some sick version of a caress.

Malcolm's jaw clenches, tendons fighting against the bounds of his skin around his chin.

Seymour leans in close, lips a hair away from the shell of his ear. "I'd be doing the world a favor," she whispers, reminding him of the same threat, as if Malcolm could've possibly forgotten.

He's well-enough versed in martial arts, could probably manage to take her down without getting shot, but with Clayton in the room, he's not willing to chance it. It's probably all a part of Seymour's plan: drag someone else so she has a witness to corroborate whatever lie she's going to spin if she ends up getting found out about bringing a gun into the bathroom, an added bonus of keeping Malcolm in check by making the fight functionally two against one.

Eventually, the barrel settles firmly on the back of Malcolm's head, perfectly parallel to the floor, the end digging into his scalp.

If Malcolm were kneeling, it'd be the picture-perfect definition of an execution.

"Not so bright anymore, huh?" she asks, words dripping with bitterness and snark.

Swallowing, Malcolm stays stock-still. He's imagined this very scenario throughout the many years of his life, though the finger on the trigger had always looked like his own, not anyone else's. The barrel of the gun is sharper, rougher than what he had believed it'd be, and it's usually pointed at the side of his head, under his chin, in his mouth, but it's otherwise fulfilled an old dream of his.

But no one other than himself was supposed to do the job.

Slowly, incrementally, Malcolm straightens his shoulders. He knows he can make it out of this situation, but he has to pick his next words carefully. At least, he thinks so, until a tinny click echoes through the room.

"Anita," Clayton hisses, anxiety evident, "You said it wasn't loaded. What the hell are you doing?"

So Clayton's not exactly an agreeable party. He can work with that.

"We're just having some fun."

Or maybe not, seeing as how there's literally a loaded weapon pressed directly against his skull, ready to send brain matter into thousands of chunks with CSF splattered on the tile. Some non-functional, fucked up, part of Malcolm's brain idly notes that at the very least, a gruesome death is easy to clean in a bathroom. It's the same reason why people—classically women, according to statistics—kill themselves in the bathtub.

A hand grips his hair, jerking Malcolm's head up. "Aren't we, Whitly?"

He's abruptly brought back to the present.

He hears footsteps, no doubt Clayton's, slowly approach. "Anita. You made your point. Let's go."

An angry huff sends warm breath on the back of Malcolm's neck, causing him to shiver. "When'd you become such a goddamn pussy?"

Clayton's mouth closes hard enough for the click of her teeth to be audible.

Finally pulling the gun from his skull, Seymour harshly turns Malcolm around and shoves him until his back is pressed against the wall, towel just barely holding over his hips. "You're fucking lucky," she snaps, left hand pressed to his shoulder to keep him immobile while the other still holds the gun.

Malcolm's eyes flick behind her, confirming the presence of the other woman in the room. There's a belated relief that comes with the knowledge that it's only Clayton and there's no other onlooking parties, but one witness is enough.

"If it were just us two, you'd already be dead," Seymour bites, eying the weapon for emphasis that she really doesn't need.

When Malcolm looks back at her, he sees dark eyes, dilated far more than what stark bathroom lights should warrant. Her breaths are heavy, which he now recognizes as the frequent huffs of air against his back. If Malcolm could reach out and take her pulse, he'd sure it'd be high.

Leaning close, Seymour gives him a devilish grin.

It all clicks.

Seymour is genuinely a sadist. Aroused, either sexually or psychotically, he doesn't know—and doesn't care to know, if he's being honest with himself—from the power trip that she's procured with Malcolm, holding a loaded weapon over a naked man barely covered with a towel. For all that the Academy prides themselves at taking the best of the best, they clearly missed the mark with her and allowed a power-hungry sadist into the fray.

The thought is violently ripped from his mind when Seymour changes her grip on the weapon and slams the butt of it into his right temple.

Most of his thoughts are ripped from his mind, actually.

There's a wave of panic, a wave of calm, and then another one of panic when Malcolm opens eyes that he didn't realize were closed, a figure in the other side of the bathroom slowly becoming resolved.

Martin Whitly, still in his early forties and donned in a lovely cable knit sweater, lounges against the row of sinks. "This is quite the pickle you've found yourself in, Malcolm."

He flinches, skin growing cold against the wet tile floor.

A voice, distinctly feminine, void of the bite that Seymour's has, compounds his confusion. "I'm sorry. I didn't think she would actually- fuck. I just- here."

A towel is pressed against Malcolm's skull and he hisses, skirting away from the pain. Almost gently, a hand guides his own to hold pressure.

"You can't tell anyone I was here." The voice, now placed as Clayton's, begs.

If she adds anything else, it's lost to the rush of water in Malcolm's ears, ended only by the darkness that falls like a veil over his eyes.

Decades of being tortured by his peers results in Malcolm knowing exactly how to handle the aftermath. Namely, not doing anything at all.

There's no such thing as a grown-up making things better, even less so now that Malcolm and said peers are well into their twenties at minimum, and nothing good ever comes from complaining. Some people are terrorized for their very being, and that's just how it goes.

He gets four neat stitches on his temple, a clean lie about slipping in the bathroom and clipping his head on the side of one of the towel racks, and after denying any symptoms that could be indicative of a concussion, he's free to go with no report filed. Malcolm's half sure that Seymour's going to jump at the chance to tell their classmates about her adventures with her newly minted service weapon, but even she's not stupid enough to think that the rumors won't make their way up to someone higher up. Clayton's too scared for her own future security to say anything, and after two days have passed and nothing comes of the fact that a fellow student at the Academy held Malcolm at gunpoint in the bathroom for no other reason than getting a sadistic rush from it, he figures that he can begin to push it to the back of his mind and forget about it.

Really, it comes as a surprise when Malcolm is unceremoniously pulled from breakfast one morning for a meeting he wasn't prepared for. At the Academy, there's always a chance that it's an impromptu test, but he finds that unlikely when the room he's brought to is one of their superior's offices.

Dr. Shandra Mejia, a PsyD who's taught some of Malcolm's favorite profiling classes, closes a dark blue folder when Malcolm steps into her office. The aid accompanying him closes the door without being told to, and before Malcolm can truly take in the room, Dr. Mejia motions for him to sit.

She's nearly a full foot shorter than Malcolm and probably a good thirty pounds lighter, but there's no question about who's in charge. "Mr. Bright."

"Dr. Mejia," he greets back, hoping that any subconscious microexpressions don't give anything away.

"I'm sure you understand how much of an honor it is to have been accepted to the FBI Academy, and that very few ever have the pleasure of enjoying."

So this is how his career ends. Before it even begins.

"Though we understand that bending tends to happen, we have strict rules for students, especially ones who double-dip into probationary agents. These rules include reporting incidents that occur between students, junior and senior, and other agents."

Malcolm nods, only because there's not much else that he can do in this situation.

"When students visit the in-house infirmary, our doctors are required to make note of it and send senior agents a copy of anything that they may find suspicious. A student who passed physical requirements with flying colors accidentally slipping," she adds air quotes for emphasis, as if it's actually needed for understanding, "in the bathroom, falls under that category."

In hindsight, a doctor letting Malcolm go free after a probable concussion without checking and pressing further should've been suspicious.

Dr. Mejia sighs. "So why don't we cut the shit before it begins, Mr. Bright. What happened?"

Malcolm blinks, not expecting the language from her.

He has two choices now, either double-down on his own clumsiness and probably get sent for a battery of tests to make sure there's nothing physiologically wrong that's causing dizzy spells, or tell the truth, most likely resulting in him, Seymour, and Clayton, all being dismissed from the Academy. "Some of the students in my cohort find it… alarming," that's one word for it, sure, "that the son of a known serial killer is interested in catching them."

"I'm not looking for a sanitized version of the tale, Mr. Bright. Tell me what happened two days ago, or you will be asked to leave this program."

It doesn't come as a surprise to Malcolm that Dr. Mejia has pulled admissions of guilt out of even the most guarded of individuals. "Anita Seymour caught me unawares in the third floor dormitory bathroom as I was getting out of the shower. She put a gun to my head, taunted me, and then left. That's all." Although it's not what he was feeling at the time, the memory makes him uncharacteristically angry.

How long is going to have to pay for the sins of his father?

"And the cut on your forehead that required four stitches to close?"

"I guess she thought the audible threats weren't sufficient and decided a physical one was necessary."

"Don't flower your words."

"She hit me with the butt of the weapon." Malcolm frowns. "I think." That part gets a little fuzzy, drifting into unreality as the rest of his story involves his father, who's currently serving four life sentences at a criminal psychiatric facility, helping him off the floor and guiding him to the infirmary.

Nothing is given away from Dr. Mejia's face. "I see. Were any other students present at this time?"

Malcolm now recognizes it as a test of his candor. Clayton must've come forward, and now Dr. Mejia wants to gauge how far Malcolm will go to tell a lie and protect a peer. "Brianna Clayton. She was there, but wasn't thrilled about it."

"Did Ms. Clayton make any move to stop Ms. Seymour?"

"No. But she didn't encourage her, either." Malcolm furrows his brow, desperate to pull out memories buried deep within his head. "I think she- after Seymour hit me, I think she wanted to help me. Tried to staunch the blood."

Nodding her understanding, Dr. Mejia slightly changes the subject. "Did you try to fight back at any point?"

"I had a loaded weapon pressed directly against my skull. If Seymour so much as twitched her finger, I would've been killed instantly."

Silently, she raises her eyebrows.

"No. I didn't physically fight back. I knew appealing to empathy wouldn't work, so I tried logic, and when that proved useless, I realized I had to just bide my time."

If Dr. Mejia realizes that Malcolm is sneaking in proof that he'd be a good profiler—which he's pretty sure she does—she doesn't comment on it. Instead, she asks, "Why did you believe that appealing to her empathy wouldn't work?"

"After she removed the gun from my head, she made me face her." Malcolm breathes steadily, recalling the event without sending himself into panic. "Her eyes were dilated, her breaths were heavy, and she kept having to pull a grin off of her face. I know applicants are screened thoroughly, but I think Seymour fell through the cracks."

"You think she's a sadist."

"I do."

"That's a hefty presumption," Dr. Mejia replies, pointedly not a disagreement. "Are you confident, Mr. Bright?"

He may not be a bona fide profiler yet, but, "Yes."

"Then I'll take that into consideration." There's almost a smile on her face.

Almost.

"I apologize for your being attacked. That is not how we aim to operate the Academy, and I hope you understand that Ms. Seymour's opinion of you does not reflect the FBI's."

Maybe not the entire Bureau, but Malcolm hardly has enough fingers to list every agent he's come in contact with that has a problem with him from pedigree alone. "If it was, I'd be surprised that I was accepted to the Academy in the first place."

This time, Dr. Mejia smiles in genuinity. "You have a bright mind, if you'll excuse the play on words. I could see you going far as a profiler, but not if you lay down and expose your stomach."

Now who's talking in flowery language? "I would've been punished if I fought back."

"I'm sure we could make an exception for self defense if a woman held a loaded gun at your head."

"Clayton would've backed Seymour as a witness."

"Are you sure?"

He thought he was, but there's something about the way that she asks the question that makes Malcolm barely able to suppress the urge to squirm in his seat. Still, he refuses to go back on his words. "I am."

With a hum that can't mean anything good, Dr. Mejia sets her hands on her desk. "I find a few things peculiar about your recountment of three nights ago, Mr. Whitly."

Malcolm frowns, straightening in his seat. As far as he's aware, he hasn't told any lie. Even he knows better than to tell anything but the truth to such a senior agent, let alone one whose in charge of his future.

"I hear you completed your weapons certification in a strong percentile of your cohort."

Though he doesn't know where the non-sequitur is going, Malcolm nods his agreement nonetheless.

"And with it so fresh in your mind, I think you'd be able to answer some questions about it, don't you?"

"Yes." He hopes that she can't identify his growing stress, but knowing Dr. Mejia, he doubts it.

"So tell me, Mr. Bright, why do we train you to not draw your weapon if you're within five feet of a possible threat?"

"The noise, the blood splatter, and, most importantly, at close range, it's possible for someone to reach for the weapon and dislodge it before it discharges."

Dr. Mejia arches a single eyebrow. "Top marks. And although I'm sure this is all review for you, you must be aware that the closer a threat is to the weapon, the chance of them being able to dislodge the weapon before discharge increases exponentially."

Ah. So that's where it's going. "Yes."

"As dramatic as it is, pressing a gun directly against an individual's body is asking for it to be torn out of the weapon holder's grasp." She smiles patiently. "So I'll ask you again, Mr. Bright, did you try to fight back at any point?"

His answer hasn't changed. "No."

Malcolm's not sure if Dr. Mejia expected him to come up with a different excuse this time or for his reaction to change, but she appears to be satisfied with his response. "Then before you leave, I'd like to encourage you to put your own life higher up on whatever list of priorities you've made in your head."

It's surprisingly, alarmingly, similar to the start of a conversation that he might have had with Gabrielle before he tried to leave it all in his past and apply to the Academy. Unlike Gabrielle, Dr. Mejia merely states facts rather than aid Malcolm through them. After all, she knows the machinations of the brain, not how to fix them.

Malcolm presses his lips together. "Noted."

"And for reference, Mr. Bright, it's expected that you make a report of any violence between students, regardless of whether or not said violence includes yourself. We'll chalk it up to your head injury this time, but I'm afraid we won't be able to use the same excuse twice."

"I understand."

"Excellent." Dr. Mejia clasps her hands together before standing from her chair to walk Malcolm out of her office. "I fought for your acceptance into the Academy, Mr. Bright. Don't make me disappointed."

The drive from the impromptu—and the last of for this case—crime scene is silent in the rental car. Malcolm's supervisory agent, Marshall Hutchinson, clenches his fingers around the wheel, which is the only indication that he too is frustrated with the outcome of the case.

Actually, frustration doesn't begin to cover it.

Hopelessness, disappointment, anger, and another plethora of negative emotions might get closer to what passes silently through the car.

The unsub is dead, overall unnecessary, something that they could've avoided had the cards been played better. Worse, though, is that an innocent woman joined him seconds before. A mother of three, sister of two, wife of one.

Dead.

And she'd done absolutely nothing to deserve anything close to the fate that she ended up with.

Had Malcolm been faster, worked harder, been better, she might still be alive. She might've, at the very least, been spared some pain at the end of her life.

None of that matters though, because she's dead, and that's that.

Back at the hotel, Agent Hutchinson fishes out a keycard for the door adjacent to Malcolm's own. He's a man of few words, but before Malcolm can walk past, he holds his hand out, preventing any further movement. "Bright."

Malcolm forces himself to meet his eyes. "Sir."

"I remember losing my first, too. Everyone does, and if anyone tells you otherwise, they're lying."

He nods back.

Although his hand on the doorknob, Hutchinson continues, "Losing someone on a case doesn't ever get easier. The day it does is the day that you hand in your badge. Clear?"

"Crystal."

"You keep that feeling and you let it keep pushing you to do better. You're a hell of a profiler, Bright. Don't let today dissuade you. Use it and turn it into something better."

"I will."

"Good. Tomorrow, seven AM, sharp."

The words in between the lines spell out 'six-thirty'. "Seven AM," he confirms, continuing to his own door when Hutchinson moves his hand.

Malcolm drops the keycard on the tiny desk inside of the hotel room, but otherwise doesn't move. He doesn't turn on the light, instead navigating to the comically small bathroom through the flood lights streaming through the window, sourced from the strip mall on the opposite side of the road from the hotel.

Ducking down, Malcolm splashes water on his face and sighs deeply, gripping the edge of the counter.

A woman is dead, and while it may not be the direct result of Malcolm, he's still at fault.

An innocent person is dead, and Malcolm's sure Hutchinson is right: it will never get easier.

He joined the FBI to try and create some good in the world, a poor attempt to off-set all of the damage that his father had done, to put the Whitly bloodline—because that's what he is, regardless of what's on his ID—back on a positive track, but all he's managed to do is create more harm. It might be who he is if he peels back all of the layers on the outside.

Just another Whitly who's inherently made to hurt.

When Malcolm lets go of the counter, blood rushes back into white knuckles, a prickly feeling accompanying his fingers reoxygenating. Ignoring the figure in the mirror, Malcolm turns on his heel to exit back into the main room, body barely connected to his brain.

The holster on his hip is dislodged when Malcolm sits on the bed, comforter still rumpled from the previous day's sleepless night. Back when Malcolm didn't have blood on his hands.

Removing the holster provides an opportunity. A way out.

Penance, for allowing a woman to die.

Hutchinson says the feeling never goes away. It will never get better. At best, Malcolm's career with the FBI will have only resulted in one innocent death.

At best.

Realistically, this is the first of many, and there's only one real way out.

The weapon isn't heavy in his hand. It's easy to pick up, easy to hold, easy to bring to the height of his head.

Tomorrow morning, at six-thirty, Hutchinson would wonder where Malcolm is, waiting until seven before knocking down his door. Either that, or, more likely, he would hear the gunshot separated by only a wall, and be the first to discover the body of Malcolm Bright, nee Whitly.

He should do it in the bathroom.

Easier for the crime scene technicians, easier for the hotel cleaning crew, easier for everyone after he inevitably causes a stack of paperwork.

Malcolm makes it as far as standing before he remembers he should be alarmed with this train of thought. He should be downright terrified. He should be reacting in every way differently than he is right now, but he's not.

But he plays along anyway, mechanically emptying the weapon, stashing the clip in a bag in the back of the closet that's meant for the complementary clothes iron and puts his suitcase in front of the closet door after he closes it. He puts the weapon itself, now blank and relatively safe, under the sink in the bathroom, stashed in a place that he'd have to get on his hands and knees and crane his back to reach.

He does it without any input from his brain, instead just going through the motions as one does.

When he sits back on the bed, Malcolm's brain catches up, and he sobs between hyperventilated breaths for nearly thirty minutes, eventually growing dizzy from the lack of air and sudden dehydration.

Following the promise he made Gil when he was sixteen years old, he calls the landline to the Arroyo's house, counting heartbeats in between empty rings. When its picked up, Malcolm doesn't wait for a greeting on the other side. "It's Malcolm."

"Hey, kid." Gil sounds tired. Happy to hear from him, maybe, but tired, first and foremost, and the location of the sun makes Malcolm wince.

"Sorry. I- it's late. I should-"

"Don't hang up."

A beat passes. "Okay."

And another. "How's life treatin' you out there?"

"How's Jackie?" Malcolm asks, blatantly ignoring Gil's question. With any luck, the man in question will be too tired to press.

"She's alright. Holding steady."

Somewhere along the line, too slow for the change to be noticeable, that had begun to be good news. Gone are the 'doing well,' 'having a good day,' let alone a 'looking better.' Now the best that they can hope for is anything other than a sharp decline. "Did I wake her up?"

"Still a heavy sleeper. That much hasn't changed."

"Good. I- yeah. That's good."

"You want me to wake her?"

"No!" Malcolm winces at his volume, quickly lowering his voice. "No, that's okay. It's not- let her rest."

Gil gives an unconvinced hum, but at least for the time being, follows his words. "Are you doin' okay, kid?"

"Rough case." An understatement.

"Shit." And he thinks Gil knows it, too.

"Yeah. Is it-" God, he sounds like he's all of thirteen again, looking up at Gil with wide eyes like he has all of the answers that the world could offer, infinite wisdom to boot. Swallowing back a broken breath, Malcolm asks, "Is it true that it never gets easier?"

Silence fills both sides of the line, labored and growing longer with every passing second. Slowly, almost unnoticeable between the quiet one moment and speaking the next, Gil says, "I don't know how to answer that. It's yes and no and everything in between, but I don't think that's going to be much help to you."

Despite the backward answer that has hypocrisy within itself, it does in fact help. The next breath comes a little easier, though Malcolm couldn't definitively say why that's the case.

"I guess that doesn't even make sense, huh?" With a small self-deprecating snort, Gil continues, "You'll have to excuse the ramblings of a tired old man."

Malcolm shakes his head even though he knows Gil can't see it. "No, it makes sense. In a way, I guess."

"In a way, yeah." Gil echoes back, voice muted like how Malcolm feels. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." Maybe, but if he does, Malcolm knows he's going to say more than what he wants to, and the last thing Gil needs right now is more on his plate. If Malcolm were a better person, he wouldn't have even called at this hour. "I just wanted to- I don't know."

Gil waits a few moments, but when Malcolm doesn't add anything, he replies, "You can always call me. You know that, right?"

"Yeah. Of course."

"Good."

Malcolm refrains from saying yet another 'yeah.'

"I'll have Jackie call tomorrow."

"You don't need to- that's okay."

"You know she wants to talk to you, right?"

Malcolm could hardly think of a worse person to talk to when a terminal illness is reaching its bitter end. "I'll be on a plane for nearly all of tomorrow." Three hours, maximum.

"The day after, then."

At the very least, Malcolm's aware of when he's been beat. "The day after," he acquiesces.

'Days after' had at some point become finite. Who the first person will be to miss out on it, him or Jackie, he doesn't know.

Malcolm knows better than to raise his voice in front of a line of senior FBI agents. Really, he does.

It's just that a man is dead who didn't need to be dead and instead of anyone finding fault in it, the locals are celebrating. Once it's been decided that a certain person deserves to die, it's a slippery slope until the smallest infractions becomes a reason to be shot down and apparently, Malcolm's the only one who seems to understand that.

He thought, naively, as it turns out, that senior agents would've shared the same realization as Malcolm.

He thought wrong.

And now that Dr. Mejia, perhaps the only member in the entire Bureau who was willing to bat for Malcolm since day one, has retired, there's no one to back him when he attempts to explain why the hell he's so frustrated with the locals. It doesn't help that he hasn't had a real meal in weeks and his new taser burn itches with a growing ferocity, compounding to make his irritability skyrocket.

Really, it's an inevitability when Malcolm is told he is to resign quietly or be forced out in a public spectacle that will result in him never having a job anywhere in the government ever again. He snaps one last time simply because he can, finding a frightening amount of twisted joy when a few agents' faces pale in the realization that they'd let a man in the midst of his mania hold onto a service weapon.

If Malcolm feels relief finally having an excuse to take his gun away from his person with a permanence that was impossible as an FBI agent, he figures it's no one's business.

On the couch in Gil's office, Malcolm shifts for the third time in just as many minutes, a poor attempt to get comfortable when the look Gil is sending him won't ever let him achieve such. He realizes that the silence is purposeful, the shuffling of papers with an occasional glance to Malcolm an interrogation tactic that both of them know the other is aware of. It's also, incidentally, a tactic that Gabrielle will use on Malcolm when she wants to get him to admit something on his own.

Malcolm sighs, switching the order that his legs are crossed over one another. He supposes he'll play the game. "So-"

"Bright," Gil instantly interrupts, catching Malcolm off guard. Maybe he doesn't have as good of a handle on the situation that he thought he did.

Making a show to clasp his hands together, Malcolm uncrosses his legs and plants both feet firmly on the floor. "All I was going to say is that I think that it went well. A copycat was taken down, no new victims were added to the fray, and I was able to escape my mother without her trying to set me up with a rich bachelorette from the suburbs."

Gil stares at him for a good two seconds before sighing deeply and loudly, looking about two seconds away from dropping his forehead on his desk and just leaving it there.

"Okay, so there might have been a few things that went pear-shaped. But overall-"

"Bright. Just stop."

Malcolm snaps his mouth closed. Contrary to popular belief, he has some self-preservation instinct left in the back of his mind.

"Look, kid," and this isn't going to end well, if the change from 'Bright' to 'kid' is any indication, "I'm thrilled that you're back in the city. Don't get me wrong."

"I'm sensing a 'but,'"

Gil gives him a pointed look. "And you're a talented profiler, there's no doubt about it. However, what happened today cannot happen again."

"Right. Yeah, of course." Malcolm chews on the inside of his cheek for a fraction of a moment. "Quick question, though, what exactly about today does that refer to? Because the way I see it, we saved an innocent woman and took down a killer."

Gil's growing frustration is clearly illustrated on his face. "Did you conveniently forget the part where you stared down the barrel of a gun and then threatened to kill yourself, or do you really think I was going to let that slide?"

Wincing, Malcolm once again shifts his position on the couch. He genuinely didn't anticipate Gil bringing that up as blatantly as he just did. "That's a- I mean, really, that's a gross over-exaggeration about what happened upstairs at the party."

"You're really going to go with that?"

"What?"

"You'd rather double down and try to tell me that Powell's initial report was a lie than admit the truth?"

Malcolm shifts his eyes toward one of the numerous awards Gil has framed on his office wall. "To be fair, she has a head injury."

"Dammit, Bright!"

"It's not as bad as it sounds!" he tries to bargain, despite knowing full well that he's already dug himself into a hole so deep it's going to take days to get out of. "I mean, yes, okay, fine, all of that happened, but it's not what it looks like."

Clearly at the end of his rope, Gil grits his teeth and stares Malcolm down. "Then what, pray tell, is it supposed to look like, Malcolm? Because the way that I see it is not two days after seeing your father, you tried to put yourself in a convenient position to die."

"He wasn't going to do it. I- Gil, you have to understand that I knew he wasn't going to risk it. Finishing the quartet had become a compulsion so strong that it had become the only-"

"It might not have been a gun, but you pointed a loaded weapon at yourself."

"I wasn't going to do it," Malcolm says, voice steady, looking directly at the other man. To his surprise, the words are mostly genuine. There was, of course, the dizzy thrill of holding his own life precariously, the adrenaline dump of knowing that he could finally just do it, but Malcolm wasn't actually going to.

Not in front of his new coworker, not as a final fuck you to a copycat of the man that hadn't been able to finish Malcolm off, either.

"I swear, Gil. I wasn't going to. I wouldn't do that to- to-" to him. Not after years of clawing his way to survival, not after Jackie, not after everything in the last twenty years.

An impromptu staring contest begins, a quick ending sprouted when Malcolm is the first to falter.

Gil barely moves from his position. "You know what the worst part is, Malcolm?"

He feels small. "What?" He is small.

"I can't even tell if you're telling the truth anymore, or if you're just trying to placate me."

The truth, that it's really a combination of both, wouldn't help anything, so Malcolm doesn't offer it up.

"I'm taking you home, and when we get to your loft, you're making an appointment with Gabrielle." Gil holds a hand up, silencing any protests before Malcolm can so much as open his mouth. "That's not something you can negotiate. You make that appointment, and you get to stay on as a consultant. No way around it."

"I'll call her first thing tomorrow."

"Tonight."

"Her office is closed."

"Then you leave her a message."

Malcolm nods his acquiescence.

"And," of course there's more, "as a consultant, you will not be issued a gun."

"Gil, I was an FBI agent." Stripped of his title when in a bout of mania, but the point still stands. "I'm weapons certified- I know how to handle one."

He gets a cold stare in response. "Non-negotiable."

Doing his best to push down the feeling of being reprimanded by a teacher, Malcolm eventually agrees to the conditions.

It's only until after he climbs into the Le Mans and looks to his left does Malcolm see the tension in Gil's shoulders. The way he grips the wheel, the glances he steals at Malcolm when he thinks he won't notice. Gil was scared.

Gil is still scared. Not of Malcolm, but for him.

It may have taken hours after holding the syringe millimeters away from his vein for Malcolm to feel guilty, but when it does, it comes full force.

The corpse of Ian Turner, a man who had just over four decades of service before an untimely demise, mocks Malcolm. He looks at it for a fraction of a second longer than strictly necessary before he takes in the rest of the scene, eyes cataloging every square inch, looking for inconsistencies that could give evidence for what really went down.

Two bodies: one on the bed, one on the couch.

Faces pinched with growing rigor mortis. But what did it look like a few hours ago?

A murder suicide, while not strictly uncommon, fits a very specific profile that doesn't align well with a Chief of Police who everyone claims was as straight as they came. Played by the books, took each case with care, directed others with humility.

Murder suicides are chock-full of guilt, regret, a lack of impulse control. None of those are traits commonly associated with someone who had worked in the force for multiple decades and was beloved by most everyone who worked under him.

"I'm not seeing that," Malcolm announces, a reply far too late to Dani's statement from nearly ten seconds ago. Absently, he knows he interrupted further conversation between her and JT as they do their best to talk through the assumption of the crime in front of them.

Turning toward him, Dani stands with her arms crossed over her chest. "Care to share with the class?" The words are teasing, but void of the bite that Malcolm is used to when it comes to peers messing with him.

"There's no defensive wounds." Emily looks old enough to have been a sex worker for years. She'd know how to fight back when a situation got dirty, but her skin is unmarred. Given her profession, it's almost more concerning to see it as such.

And that's not even counting the fact that Turner didn't just bring his badge, but wore it clipped to his belt, as if he himself was working.

Malcolm narrows his eyes. "Turner wasn't here is a client. He was here as a detective."

"I hate to burst your bubble, man, but there's really only one reason to meet a sex worker at a hotel room."

Waving off JT, Malcolm squints further at the scene in front of him. Although Turner's dead, there has to be something that he left for them. A clue to this case that clearly isn't open and shut. Malcolm swivels toward the crime scene technician, motioning to the weapon he's handling. "Are you finished with the murder weapon?"

Though he looks a little hesitant, he nods, handing it off to Malcolm. Either the techs have heard the tales of Malcolm Bright or he's simply not paid enough to care. In all likely, it's probably a combination of both.

It hadn't even been six months since Malcolm last held a gun, and the grip of a service weapon is familiar. The weight, the way that his finger settles on the trigger like an instinct, despite the fact that he rarely ever reached for his gun with an intent to shoot.

He turns back toward Turner, the rest of his team in his peripheral vision. "The suicide you're describing is the result of deep shame. Turner killed a woman in cold blood, violating everything he ever stood for." Shame wouldn't have even begun to cover it.

Raising the weapon, Malcolm mimes the supposed crime as he narrates. "He would've looked at her, there on the bed, adrenaline fading, guilt building. Must have felt this growing weight on his chest." Panic. Fear. Regret- a combination of all three to create the perfect concoction of a knee-jerk reaction that he'd never be able to take back. "Like a burden he couldn't lift. This was his only escape."

Jerking his head up, Malcolm looks from Emily's body to the trio of detectives, and then back down to it. "Suicide."

He gets a head rush from the singular word, though from either positive or negative connotation, Malcolm can't tell.

"He would've turned away." He follows suit. "Out of shame." He lifts the weapon.

It's like how he always imagined: perpendicular to the side of his skull, finger on the trigger. One single move—wrong or right, he's not sure anymore—and then no more. He would do what so many others failed.

"Bright!" Gil's voice is loud in his head. Louder than his own thoughts. "Put the gun down, now!"

Realization floods and Malcolm snaps out of whatever reverie he was in, bile rising in his throat as his hand falls down, caught in the middle from Gil's own. The weapon is torn from his hand, handed off to someone blurry in Malcolm's peripheral vision while Gil grips both of his shoulders.

The hold tightens until Malcolm meets his eyes. "What the hell was that?"

"I-" Malcolm's tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. Before he can formulate a response, Gil is dragging him out of the crime scene and into the hallway of the hotel room.

They make it as far as the elevators, roped off with crime scene tape, before Gil stops both of them in their tracks. "You do not, under any circumstance, point a loaded weapon at yourself."

"I know."

"Do you, Malcolm?"

He winces. Gil's angry. It makes sense though, he probably should be. He definitely has the right to be.

Only Gil's shaking, eyes wide, not scrunched with wrath.

Gil's scared.

Malcolm reaches up, folding his fingers around Gil's forearm. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

"You cannot-"

"I know-"

"Do that. Do you understand?"

"I do," he nods back empathetically. "Gil, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to- I promise. I was just-" the words get caught in his throat. Just what? Just holding a loaded weapon up to his head because the job called for it?

One hand drops from his shoulder. "I'm taking you home."

All of the fight runs out of Malcolm's body at once. "C'mon, I didn't-"

"And you're not arguing with me on that." After a beat of deliberation, he adds an addendum, "I'm taking you to your mother's."

"That's really not-"

"I don't think you understand how much shit you're in, Bright."

He's scared, Malcolm reminds himself. Not mad. Or, at least, the anger isn't at the core of his emotions. Just what's displayed outward.

The elevator dings with a surprising amount of finality.

Malcolm grimaces as he steps inside.

If Jessica finds it odd that Gil invites himself over dinner the same day he dropped her adult son off during the brunch hour she tries to take for herself, she doesn't comment on it. It's moments like these that Malcolm is grateful for his mother's ability to stay out of things just as much as she meddles.

If drama doesn't come with social status or sticking her fingers into pies they shouldn't be in, she's fairly content to take her leave.

It's just great that for once in Malcolm's life, he'd actually prefer her being in the room. Or anyone else, save for possibly his father.

At the very least, Gil doesn't make Malcolm stew in his anxiety for any longer than he already has. "You scared the shit out of me today, kid."

Malcolm gives a long inhale, as if he were taking a drag off of an invisible cigarette. "Would it make you feel any better if I told you I scared myself?"

"What were you trying to do, there?" Gil asks back, ignoring his question.

"I was working the case. I- honestly. I know how it sounds. But I was working through the implausibility of Turner's supposed murder suicide."

"Working a case shouldn't involve such a blatant disregard for your own life." With a frown, Gil takes the time to get his next set of words in the right order. "I know you tend to play it fast and loose with your own life, but that was- that's not what happened earlier today. And I think you know that, too."

He tucks a leg underneath him on the couch. "It's not getting bad again. It's not," Malcolm reiterates, if only to push his point across a little further. "It's… residual."

"Residual," Gil flatly replies.

"From when I was younger." It's not even a lie.

Kind of.

It's definitely more truth than lie, that's for sure. "It was something I had thought of. Before."

Beside him, Gil takes a carefully measured breath in and out, and then another.

"I guess it stuck with me more than I thought." Malcolm speaks the second half of the vague explanation to his lap, avoiding any chance at making eye contact with Gil.

More measured breaths, and then, "How long?"

"How long what?"

"How long," Gil carefully asks, "Was 'before'?"

"Years." Maybe. "Long enough. I'm not in danger."

"You would've said the same thing before the crime scene this morning."

"And I would've been telling the truth then, too." Finally, Malcolm builds the courage to look at him. "I know that I messed up. It was- it was colossally stupid what I did, but that's all that it was. Something stupid. Not on purpose."

"What if Dani or JT had pulled a stunt like that? What if I had?"

Cold dread sweeps through Malcolm's frame. "Don't say that."

"That fear is a fraction of what I felt today."

"I'm sorry."

Gil shakes his head. "I don't need a sorry from you, Bright. I need an explanation."

"The explanation is that I did something stupid."

"Stupid actions don't result in a weapon against your head. Suicidal ones do."

It feels like a monster is eating Malcolm up from the inside out. "What do I have to say to convince you?" Guilt and shame, the same faux emotions of the supposed murder suicide, churns uncomfortably in his stomach, strong enough to make him feel sick.

"I don't know," Gil quietly admits. "And I think that's part of the problem. I don't think I can believe you after what I saw.""

Pressure builds at the back of Malcolm's eyes, and he wills himself to not let it go anywhere. It's been years since he cried in front of Gil. "It scared me too, Gil. I didn't- it terrified me."

"Good."

"I know."

"It should."

"I know," Malcolm reiterates. "I regret it. I know you- I know nothing I say is going to make it better, but I regret it. I hate that the thought even passed through my head, and I hate that some part of me must've indulged in it because I don't want to-" Malcolm's tongue gets twisted on the next word. It's an unfamiliar cadence. A sentence that doesn't leave his mouth with much regularity, let alone hold the truth. "I don't want to die." This time, there's no lie in it.

The realization of that fact is like a weight lifted off of Malcolm's chest. Like a eureka moment that has no right to be one. But it feels right saying it.

Just because he can, Malcolm repeats it once more. And it's just as real the second time as it was the first.

It took years, decades, for him to reach that point, but it's there in all of its glory.

And all Malcolm can do is stare in front of him, blinking at the realization of his new truth.

Gil reaches for him, cradling Malcolm's head into his chest like he used to do when Malcolm was a foot shorter and could comfortably fit in such a place, but it feels just as safe as it did some twenty-odd years ago. He sighs quietly, one hand moving to rest over Malcolm's head, smoothing his hair down.

And then, so quietly that if Gil's head wasn't inches away from Malcolm's own, he's sure he wouldn't hear it, Gil murmurs, "You're gonna be okay, kid."

Malcolm wraps his arms around Gil, holding on tight.

He thinks he might be right.