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Alejandro looked at the DVD in his hands with an adrenaline-filled curiosity. “Mal's greatest hits, huh?” …His eyes sparked with anticipation, the feeling that he held a forbidden truth in his hands made him feel so… powerful. He took the disc and carefully put it in the DVD player, prepared to see anything.
He didn't quite know what he was expecting, but what he saw only fascinated him; every tiny thing this apparent alter of Mike had done. Every single one of his appearances in camera. How he destroyed everyone's most precious possessions, how he sabotaged the challenges, how he rigged the elimination votes against Cameron… Alejandro was ready to bring everyone in that damn camp to that room and show them the disc, but the last piece of footage forced him to discard the thought.
The video showed Mal running into the confectionary and slamming the door shut. His breathing was off; heavily so. He was laughing hysterically, a laughter that almost felt forced; and was only interrupted by his occasional gasps for air. Alejandro was overall confused, but he also felt a very slight hint of concern. Whatever was going on with him, didn't look good.
“Hahaha…” he forced a laugh, quite energyless. His attempts to speak were constantly interrupted by his breathing, as if he were having an asthma attack. “There's no… nowhere that I won't be filmed… by his stupid cameras… hahaha…” He mumbled, staring at the camera of the confectionary with contracted pupils only ever seen in a cat. He wasn't crying, not with tears, but he looked like he wanted to. He was smiling, yet his smile reflected everything but happiness. “At least here… the only witnesses are the… fucking… cameras…”
Mal stopped looking at the camera and instead turned around to stare at the wooden wall. His breathing… or laughter? only worsened, growing with almost palpable anxiety. He eventually started screaming for air, as if he were fighting his own lungs for control —any control at all.
His fingers dug through the fabric of his shirt on one hand, while the other slapped his own face in an attempt to force himself to snap out of it. His balance was just as unstable, eventually one of the punches made him trip and almost fall, but he was stopped by the wall he crashed onto. The cramped space of the confectionary definitely wasn't helping him calm down.
Alejandro couldn't help but stare at the TV with zero clue of what was happening, eyebrows furrowed with a mix of confusion and worry. “HAHAHAHA! IT'S HILARIOUS!” yelled Mal all of the sudden, his breaths seemed to accommodate his words this time. “BEING SOOO~ FUCKED UP! BEING THE MALEVOLENT ONE!” the pace of his gasping only ever seemed to get faster. “SHOULD I BE LOCKED UP AGAIN? WOULD THAT MAKE UP FOR IT? COME ON, OLD MAN! SHOULD I FUCKING KILL MYSELF FOR YOU TO BE SATISF-?” his rant was suddenly interrupted by a dry cough. He looked like he was choking with his own gasps, smile still in place but oh, so much more wavy. He supported himself onto the walls, a couple of raw tears finally coming out thanks to the way he was gagging.
The scene was quite longer than that, like half an hour of incomprehensible cries and words mixed together. Alejandro was too shocked to pause it or go away, but his trance stopped once the tape was over. Once the only thing left was static, and the DVD coming out of the player as it was programmed to do, was that he blinked out of his hypnosis.
Alejandro, not very reactive, just took the disc and hid it away in his pocket. Had he just presenced a panic attack? A psychotic episode? Whatever it was, he couldn't let Chris air that to the world. One of Mal's specific rants was just about how he had nowhere to freak out without being filmed. …He shouldn't have seen that, but now that he did… Something needed to be done. Anything.
After watching that DVD, he immediately left the spa hotel to try and find Mal. Before that horror movie of a video, he was planning on showing the DVD to everybody else, but now his goal was way clearer.
Mal —or well, ‘Mike’— was hanging out with Zoey as always. Alejandro could already tell that wasn't Mike, he had noticed the eyebags that usually only appeared with Mal in charge. He got closer, trying not to seem too fake this time. He just wanted a one-on-one with him.
“Hey, Zoey, hey …Mike.”
Said Alejandro, forcing himself to call him that. He didn't want to come off as aggressive, there was no way in hell he would accept a one-on-one if he called him out. Still, he didn't want to come off as his usual handsome jerk persona either, because this time he wasn't there to manipulate.
“...Hey, Alejandro?” He greeted back, an eyebrow raised confusedly at the sudden appearance.
“Would you two mind if I grabbed Mike to speak with him… eh, alone?” His request was instantly met with faces of doubt and rejection. “It’s something important, and it's not about the game. I just need to tell him something, it will be only a minute.”
He tried to sound as sincere as possible, and he was, but it had been so long since his mouth had last savoured honesty that it was hard. Mal looked at Zoey and gave her an empty kiss in the cheek. “Don't worry, I won't let him try anything weird. Be right back, sweetie.” He said as he got up and walked to Alejandro, ready to go somewhere… well, as private as possible.
They went really far into the woods, something that was already ringing alarms in Mal's head. When Alejandro considered they were alone enough, he sighed and turned around to face Mal. “First of all, you can drop the act, Mal. Second... I saw your little… episode in the confectionery.” He explained straight to the point without even a trace of hesitation. Mal's mask fell off his face almost instantly, his pupils contracting with shock, similarly to that video of him.
“How…?” He mumbled, his voice not quite as deep as in the videos, but still way deeper than Mike's usual voice.
“...I was watching Chris’s recordings in secret, I was… trying to erase an embarrassing moment of mine before it aired.” He lied, this was not time for their little rivalry. “Soo… well, I saw a DVD called ‘Mal’s Greatest Hits’, it intrigued me… and half of it was your… well, thing you had in the confectionary.”
An awkward silence followed. Mal's mind raced with questions, most of them were only triggering him. He sighed, moved his hair back to cover his eye and looked at the man in front of him. “Why are you telling me this?” Was the first thing he asked. He was expecting blackmail, and he was ready to do whatever he could to stop that thing from going public. Hell, he'd rather give up the million dollars willingly, than get anyone else to see him like that. ...to see 'Mike' like that.
“...Uh. To be honest I was gonna show the DVD to everyone else to expose you, but the last bit made me… change my mind I guess.” Alejandro took the disc out of his pocket awkwardly and handed it to him. “I guess I won't be winning this season but… Man, this just seemed too serious to be a jerk about it.” Mal stood in place, petrified, looking at the disc being offered to him. His hand reached out slowly and grabbed the disc, still in shock. He looked at Alejandro with a face of both gratitude and annoyance.
“...Tsk. You don't need to pity me, Al.” He mumbled, grabbing the disc tightly —breaking it in the process from the sheer strength— and looking down with a forced smile. His eyebrows furrowed down, but he didn't seem angry. At least not at the man in fron of him.
“I’m not… well, I can't say I didn't feel bad for you.” Alejandro corrected himself, an embarrassed smile trying to aliviate the heavy air. “...But seriously. I have standards. …And Chris really crossed a line there. I care enough for this game to do all the stuff I did back in World Tour, but… I do not care enough to leave something like this at Chris’s grasp.”
Silence overtook the scene once again, and seeing as Mal wasn't planning to reply, Alejandro took the opportunity to speak again.
“...You can still turn everyone against me and boot me out. ...I don't care anymore, I’m not gonna sabotage you if that means showing everyone… that.” Mal still did not respond, at least not right away. But after a while, a reaction came out of him; a chuckle. It started off small but it gradually became some sort of tired laughter.
“Out of all the peole here, I didn't expect you of all people to turn out such a loser, Al.” he was clearly trying to get on his nerves with that nickname, but seeing as he wasn't reacting, not even with a slight frown, he stopped. Man. Was it really that serious to him? He had never taken his own panic attacks seriously, neither had his parents.
“...Fine. Whatever. I'm not grateful for your ‘good deed’ or anything. Don't expect God to let you in just for this…” His grumpy façade was slowly fading, every word felt somehow softer than the last. “...But I won't kick you out. Not yet… Don't you dare consider this a thanks, nor an alliance… but you're safe for now.”
Next thing, he was already walking back to the camp, putting his hair up along with his little Mike act. Alejandro was left there standing for a while. He was a little conflicted, still wondering if he had done the right thing. …Something told him he kinda had.