Fandom(s): It’s Prodigal Son. I think because I didn’t want to subject Matt to mind control, and also, Malcolm Bright lives in my dang head rent free.
The calm is disconcerting, but there’s nothing else Malcolm can do about it. He’s told to relax, so he relaxes. He’s told to forget the person speaking to him, so he does. He’s told to go visit his father, and his mind fixes on that thought. It’s all he knows, all he is, that simple task. He is going to see his father. And when he gets there, he’s told, he will take out his gun and fire.
Feels nice, feels normal, what with the voices in his head all quiet. No past, a certain future. Malcolm wonders how long this’ll last on the car ride. He wonders what will happen when the effect wears off, if the events will come screaming back to him, the emotions. What he would be feeling, if he could feel, seems like a question not worth asking, so he doesn’t bother with it, even though there’s a dull scream near his brainstem to wake up, snap out of it, call Dani, call Gil, call Mom, call Ainsley. Outside, he’s a picture of calm – relax, Malcolm – but inside, he’s screaming, and the louder he gets the further away he feels.
He’s a picture of bliss as he’s taken into the psychiatric hospital. He dismisses the guard at his father’s room, as instructed, and enters. He steps out of the sight of the security camera.
Martin smiles and greets him, but the words die on his tongue. His expression falls.
“Something’s wrong,” he says.
Malcolm shakes his head calmly, his smile easy, his expression open. He holds out his hands like a magician about to perform a trick. “Nothing’s wrong.”
Martin steps away from his desk, away from the line between them instead of towards it. “No, something’s different. You don’t look like yourself, Malcolm.”
“Everything is fine,” Malcolm says with a smile.
Then he reaches under his coat and pulls out his gun.
Martin jumps. It should be the last thing he ever does, but he’s still moving as Malcolm stares down the barrel.
Head or chest, he doesn’t know. He wasn’t told. “Kill Martin Whitly,” is all he knows, it’s all he is, but there are questions, now. That scream, so dim during the car ride, it’s gathering strength. Malcolm pulls the trigger slightly, trying to drown out the doubt, but while the scream subsides, the question comes back.
“Head or chest.”
“What?” Martin demands.
“Head or chest.”
“Are you asking where you should shoot me?”
“I’m not asking you anything,” Malcolm says.
His hand is shaking. He slaps his other hand onto the handle of the gun, trying to steady himself, but the shake worsens, bouncing a frenetic sign of the cross on Martin.
“Malcolm, put the gun down,” Martin says.
Malcolm tries to say, “No.” He tries to shake his head. He tries to do anything, but there’s a huge disconnect between his body and his brain. He can feel his heart thumping away calmly and his thoughts are quiet, perfectly relaxed. His hands are shaking, but his mind is clear. There is no past or present. There is a steady tick of a metronome, and his eyes were getting heavy, and he was screaming but he was silent, passive, listening, following.
His voice is casual, calm. “Am I supposed to shoot you in the head or in the chest?”
“You’re not supposed to shoot me anywhere,” Martin tells him.
“Now that’s not true,” Malcolm replies. He squeezes a little tighter on the trigger, allowing his hand to trace a straight line from Martin’s heart to Martin’s head. Any shot along the trajectory will do. “I’m supposed to kill you.”
“No, no, Malcolm – hey,” Martin has his hands raised but outstretched, “Let’s talk about that for a second. You know that doesn’t sound like you. And when you came in the room, you didn’t look like you either.”
“I’m fine.”
But he says it louder than he intends, and his finger loosens on the trigger as he struggles to put that scream back by his brainstem. He feels his face twisting, that calm interrupted. The voice coming back telling him to relax. The voice he’s supposed to follow telling him to shoot. Stop talking and shoot.
“Who told you to kill me?”
“STOP,” Malcolm says, as much to Martin as to himself. He relaxes, smile tugging even more tightly across his face. A tear creeps down his cheek. Malcolm laughs to compensate, calm, perfectly calm. “Stop. Don’t move. Don’t say another word.”
“Alright,” Martin says, holding his hands up by his sides.
“Don’t.”
“I won’t. You’re in control here, Malcolm.”
“Yeah, I am.” The smile flips on and off his face like a switch. “Am I?” Malcolm swallows, that calm washing through him. The scream fading back into the depths of his killer’s imagination. He has his instructions, and they are who he is, what he’s doing. “I am.” He put the smile back on his face and decides on chest. He’ll shoot Martin in the chest.
But he hasn’t pulled the trigger still. Martin shrinks in his sightline and asks, “Are you?”
“Yeah,” Malcolm says, forcing himself to nod. His arm bounces up and down and he can’t get it to keep still. His next shot will hit Martin in the leg, then the shoulder, then his feet. “You’re gonna die. I’m gonna kill you. I am! It’s what I…am here…to do.”
“You’re choosing to do this.”
“Yes! God, I am! I’m going to shoot you!”
“Right now?” Martin asks.
“Yes! Right…right now. I’m…” His smile breaks, shatters. He has tears coming out of both eyes now. His arms fall, the gun trembling in his hands. He wishes his hands would open, that his weapon would hit the floor. He wants the choice taken out of his hands.
“You don’t want to shoot me.”
“Don’t tell me what I want!” He doesn’t want to relax, and he doesn’t want to forget. He doesn’t want people in his head, telling him what to do.
Martin’s voice immediately softens. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to tell you what you want. I was just…saying what I think you want. Based on you not shooting me. Let’s be honest, Malcolm: if you wanted to shoot me, you would have done it a long time ago.”
“I don’t…” the gun keeps going back to Martin. Malcolm can’t help it. But the logic wears the other commands thin, makes it hard for his heart to stay so calm or his thoughts to stay so quiet.
“You don’t want to shoot me,” Martin says.
Malcolm’s jaw quivers under that stupid smile that he can’t get off his face. He thinks he feels his heart hammering in his chest. His hands are cold and slick and clammy around the gun, which fixes right on Martin’s heart. “Dad,” he says.
“You’re in control here,” Martin tells him. “Malcolm, you hear me? You’re the one in control. And you’re not going to shoot-“
Malcolm pulls the trigger. His hand tremor knocks the bullet off course. It flies past Martin’s head instead of through it, exploding as it hits the wall.
Alarms start blaring. Guards pound against the door. Malcolm’s heart is in his throat, a scream pounding in his skull; he throws the gun against the floor, hard, and back away from it, just as the guards and orderlies pour into the room.
Malcolm stares at Martin sadly, his mind still not his own. His body not much his own either.
Martin smiles at him. The colour in his cheeks is the only sign that he’s flustered. “See! I told you you didn’t want to shoot me.”
