Chapter Text
The world moved in slow motion as Carter shifted to point the gun at Dani’s head.
“No, don’t!” The exclamation slipped from his mouth before he’d even processed what he was going to do. That part didn’t take him long, though. He snatched the paralytic-filled syringe from its place on the floor, pressing it to his wrist.
It was working. Carter turned back to him. “You want to live up to The Surgeon?” Malcolm began breathlessly, hardly feeling the syringe poking at his arm through the buzzing in his veins. “You want to be the perfect student?”
Carter’s eyes widened. “No, that’s for Blair!”
“Shooting her doesn’t cut it! You need to finish the quartet.”
“You don’t deserve it…”
“That’s the thing, Carter, I do!” He was smiling. Why was he smiling? Dani. He was smiling because Carter’s attention wasn’t on Dani anymore. That’s why.
…Right?
“I do deserve The Surgeon’s pain.” He hesitated. “...Because I’m his son.”
Dani was still there.
He glanced to her, his smile dropping; fear, apology, something else. He wasn’t sure. Her brows furrowed, just for a second, and he looked away. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle the disgust he knew he’d find in her eyes.
The son of a serial killer. The identity he had been running from since he was a child. The curse that had haunted him all these years. How stupid of him, to think he could escape it now. His father had practically burned that eerie smile onto the back of his eyelids.
The sensation of the needle on his skin jolted him back to reality as his hand began to shake. He opened his mouth to speak again, but the words caught in his throat. He swallowed to clear them — She knows. She already heard you. No turning back now — and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before continuing.
“My real name is Malcolm Whitly. I… I changed it because I wanted to get away from him.” The face of an eleven-year-old boy scowled at him. He blinked. The boy was gone. “See, I always thought I was afraid of my father and everything he taught me. But, really, I was afraid of me. ”
He looked to Dani again, but her expression was blurred through– tears? When had he started crying?
“So I betrayed him. I became a profiler and hunted down people like him. So… now’s your chance, Carter.”
He was smiling again, he realized.
“Now’s your chance to kill me, his prodigal son.”
Distantly, he heard someone call out to him. He ignored it.
“I’m willing to let go.” He almost laughed at his own words. What would Gabrielle think of him now?
Carter lowered his gun.
This is it.
He felt his body trembling. Was this fear or relief?
Carter reached for the syringe.
Malcolm smiled wider.
He breathed.
BANG
There was a yelp as a gunshot sent Carter backwards, tearing the syringe from Malcolm’s grip as he fell. It took him a moment to realize the yelp had come from his own mouth.
Gil. Of course Gil had come to save the day.
As if a switch had flipped, exhaustion flooded through Malcolm, forcing him to his knees. The world shifted around him. He closed his eyes, panting.
A familiar muffled voice asked him something, hands easing his fall, and he reopened them to see Dani. She was crouched in front of him, one hand reaching toward his face to force him to look at her.
“You okay?” she was asking. Her voice sounded like it came from a distant phone call.
He didn’t respond except by shifting away from her hand. It was too much. He didn’t deserve it.
“You weren’t going to let him do that, right?” She paused. “…Right?”
Was he? Tiredly, he shook his head. “Of course not. That’d be crazy.”
Dani stared incredulously, then stood, leaving him to catch his breath.
He’d been so close… just one more moment and he’d have been gone.
But they caught the killer. Dani was safe. Malcolm was safe.
So why did he feel almost… disappointed?
His thoughts were interrupted by Gil’s hand on his shoulder. “Kid? Bright?”
Sluggishly, he looked up at him. It felt as though he was looking through fogged-up glass.
“Are you hurt?” Gil asked.
“Mmnh… No,” he mumbled. Gil gave him a skeptical glare.
“Right,” he said slowly. “You’d better let the medics check you out.”
“What?” Malcolm started, the fog in his mind clearing. He scratched at his shoulder anxiously. “No, I- Gil, I’m fine. I’m not hurt.”
The glare didn’t let up.
He sighed and forced a smile onto his face. “Really. I’m fine. I’m just tired.”
Gil’s eyes softened. He held out a hand, and Malcolm took it, letting his mentor pull him to his feet. “Okay,” Gil sighed. “Go home. Get some sleep.”
“Can’t make any promises,” Malcolm said, adding a sheepish smirk for good measure. He pointedly ignored the way his eyes stung.
“I mean it. At least three hours, or no more cases for two weeks.”
He feigned a gasp. “Two weeks?!”
Gil only smiled, patting him on the back as he walked away.
Once he was out of sight, Malcolm let his smile drop. By the time he noticed his feet moving, the flashing lights and voices were already behind him. He blinked, and he was standing in front of his apartment door, key trembling in his hand.
The moment he got past the door, he felt the weight of the night crash over him. They knew now. They all knew. He wondered how they’d react. Would Gil defend him? Or would he finally realize Malcolm wasn’t worth the trouble? Why had Dani still rushed over to him?
He squeezed his eyes shut once more, unintentionally slamming the door. His father smiled at him. He gasped, eyes flying open.
Suddenly, it was too much. Everything. It was all swirling around him like a hurricane. His skin felt too tight. He tried to take a deep breath. His lungs forced the air out as quickly as it had come. Clumsily, he unbuttoned his shirt and threw it off, wincing as it caught on his shoulder, the red stain spreading on the white fabric–
Wait.
Red?
Oh. He was bleeding.
He must have re-opened the scabs he’d made last night when he’d scratched at them.
The sting of the air hitting his open wounds made him gasp, and… he could breathe again. He let out a sob.
Oh, my boy… what would the detectives think? His father’s voice echoed in his brain. Can’t blame this one on me, can you? No, this was all you.
Get out of my head, Malcolm thought. He raised his hand to his shoulder and scratched. Hard.
You couldn’t finish the job, could you? You were so close. Maybe you’d have finally gotten that rest that always eludes you. You’d leave them all just to escape yourself.
Dani’s face flashed in his mind. “You weren’t going to let him do that, right?”
He scratched again, harder.
“Right?”
You and I aren’t so different, Malcolm. I’m a part of you, son. You can’t-
He scratched until he couldn’t hear over the pain.
The apartment fell silent. He sobbed again. He kept scratching.
All he could hear was his own heartbeat and a slow, steady drip, drip, drip. His shoulder burned. Warmth flowed down his arm and onto the floor.
Oh, he thought again, feeling the tears on his face grow cold. I should clean that up.
He lowered his hand. Some of the blood covering it was already dark and flaking off. How long had he been standing there? He shook his head in an attempt to clear it—and promptly regretted doing so as the world began to spin once more. He blinked.
He stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the sink. Absently, he stared as red lines flowed into the drain. The insistent burning sensation faded into the background. Everything else did, too.
He watched himself bandage his shoulder and felt the world sway around him as his legs carried him to his bed. His hands felt numb as they fastened the restraints around his wrists.
“It doesn’t matter what they’d think,” he heard himself mumble to no one as his eyes slipped shut. “No one… no one needs to know.”
He’d clean the floor in the morning. Sleep first. Three hours. That’s all he needed.