When Malcolm's head lolled forwards, Gil caught it. The cheeks under his fingertips felt clammy and he swallowed the panic threatening to engulf his chest. This was going to end well, it had to.
"G-Gil? What's..going on?" The words were murmured and could hardly be heard.
Gil swallowed, pushing Malcolm back against the wall, gently, stroking a sweaty strand of hair away from the younger man's pale forehead.
"You fell, City Boy. You fell. "
Malcolm squinted at him from eyes half shut, hands limp in his lap.
"Tha' doesn't sound fun.", he slurred, a little louder than before.
"No. It doesn't.", Gil answered, shifting his weight on his knees.
"Gil...I'll be fine."
A short moment of silence settled over them, the traffic nearby the only sound.
Gil forced his throat to work, but he felt a vague sense of certainty.
"Yes, you will, Malcolm."
✿ send me a character & i will answer with a tiny whumpy snippet (add squicks + be safe)✿
Fandom: Prodigal Son (2019) | Malcolm Bright & others (here: Gil Arroyo)
General tags: (Emotional) Hurt/Comfort, Angst, (Angst with Humor)
Prompts/Warnings for this drabble: curse (no. 17 from this post) / open + ambiguous ending, panic
“Gil, I swear to you! I know it sounds crazy, but…but she did something to me!”
Malcom’s eyes were wide, shiny and bloodshot, pupils blown.
Gil swallowed and pushed the younger man back, wiped away a sweaty strand of hair.
“Please don’t talk that way, you don’t sound ‘crazy’ at all, Bright.” He made sure to put the quotation marks into his voice. “She didn’t put a curse on you.”
He pulled the bedcover back up to Malcolm’s chin, his eyes flicking to his ears for a second. No blood.
“You took a hit. She didn’t-“
“No, Gil. Gil, you have to listen to me.”, Malcolm babbled, trying to kick the covers back again, already fighting to sit back up.
“Sh-she made me vomit blood Gil, there were hives, all over me, y-you weren’t there, but she did. She did, Gil!” Malcolm sounded terrified, voice getting louder with every word. Gil’s attempts to gently press the younger man back down proved pointless.
Malcolm grabbed Gil by his shoulders, suddenly pausing – he looked straight ahead, glancing just behind Gil, whose neck hair stood up immediately.
He suppressed the urge to turn his head. It was the concussion, and Malcolm being scared out of his mind, being awake while trapped in a feverish nightmare.
“She’s…Gil…she’s here.”, Malcolm whispered.
Gil slid his hands up Malcolm’s shoulders and put them on Malcolm’s cheeks.
“Please, kid. It’s alright.”, he said in a soft voice. “Hey, please. Look at me.”
Malcolm’s eyes wandered over to him, meeting his gaze for a moment before jumping back to something behind Gil. Good enough.
“Curses aren’t real.” Gil said gently, trying to catch Malcolm’s eyes again, blocking his view.
Malcolm’s eyes widened.
“I beg to differ.”, a voice behind Gil cackled.
“Told you.”, Malcolm whispered and closed his eyes.
Fandom: Prodigal Son (2019) | Malcolm Bright and others (here: JT)
General tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Angst with Humor
Prompts/Warnings for this drabble: nightmare & graveyard / none
His lungs burned as his throat threatened to constrict. The muffled bomp bomp bomp of his feet hitting the uneven ground only barely came through the swooshing sound in his ears, his hands flailing through the cold air while he desperately tried to not lose his footing.
“You better run, little Malcolm!”, it yelled behind him, sounding conspicuously like a mixture of his dad and John. Acid made itself noticeable in his throat and his racing heart jumped.
He dodged a tombstone that suddenly protruded from the ground in front of him, stumbling and almost falling. Shitshitshit.
He had to get away. He was not going to die on a neglected graveyard of all things. He-
Just as he passed another tombstone, he felt hot breath on his neck. A shout escaped his lips, fear gripping every fiber of his being, the -
“NO!”
“Holy shit. Bright, you scared the hell outta me! You alright?!”
Breathing heavily he blinked, stared at JT who sat on the other table. At the station. Where they were, currently. Where he had fallen asleep.
He blinked again, grabbing the paper stuck to his cheek and rumpling it.
Fandom: Prodigal Son (2019)
Prompt Square: Trying Not To Cry
Tags: Nightmares, Hospitalized, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Malcolm Bright Gets A Hug, Catharsis, Worried Gil Arroyo
Characters: Malcolm Bright, Gil Arroyo
Ficlet (Gen) - WC: 462 - Story on Ao3 - Kudos/Comments welcome :)
It felt like fire was coursing through his bloodstream. And there was nothing he could do against it.
Wake up. Wakeupwakeupwakeup.
He fought against invisible restraints that were holding his mind captive, an invisible chain around his chest and neck threatening to choke him. He was blind, (un-)known monsters lurking in the dark.
He couldn’t wake up, he couldn’t wake –
-a scream made its way out of his throat and he threw his body forward, sudden and driven by panic.
“Bright! Kid, it’s okay! You’re okay!”
Gil’s face was in his eyeline immediately, expression worried but determined. His hands were on Malcolm’s shoulders, gripping them hard enough to ground him, but not painfully.
He gulped and sucked in a shuddering breath, then again, feeling the invisible chain loosen, the pressure in his mind dissolving. Gil’s eyes were fixed on him, but Malcolm dropped his gaze. Suddenly he wasn’t able to meet the other man’s eyes, while his lips started to tremble.
The grip on his shoulders strengthened.
“Kid, you’re-. It’s gonna.”, a beat, then a sigh. “Only two more nights. Then you’re free to go. The Doc said-“
“I don’t care. I-. I know. But thanks.”, Malcolm mumbled, blinking fast.
He felt his face heating up for no reason. He just-.
He was tired, of having to fight his way out of nightmares. Tired of his hurting legs, the monsters in the dark. Of keeping Gil from sleep that he most definitely deserved.
Again. Time and time again.
He pressed his lips harder together, grinding his molars. Then he swallowed convulsively, feeling his heart speed up.
“Hey, hey, kid, none of that. Look at me.”, he heard Gil, tone hushed but sincere, strong. Malcolm didn’t want to look up. But he loosened the fists he had formed unknowingly, blinked hard and willed the tears away that were threatening to fall, without success.
“Gil, I-“, he started, not knowing what he wanted to say and the words just barely making it past the lump in his throat.
“I’ve got you, Malcolm.”, Gil said, and suddenly Malcolm was pressed against Gil’s chest, angle slightly awkward and the other man coming from the side of the bed. Malcolm closed his eyes instantly, tears now falling without him being able to avert it.
“None of that.”, Gil repeated. “I know what you’re thinking, and you have to stop that, please. And you have to let it out, too. What you’re feeling. No need to quash it, not at all.” He felt Gil swallow. “Not healthy, City Boy.”, was added, softer, while Gil pressed Malcolm harder against his chest.
Malcolm nodded slightly, eyes still closed and cheeks now a little wet.
“None of that.”, he mumbled, half-heartedly agreeing, and lifted his hands to return the hug.
Fandom: Prodigal Son (2019) | Malcolm Bright & others (here: unknown Baddie, Gil Arroyo)
General tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst, (Angst with Humor)
Prompts/Warnings for this drabble: “stop messing with the lights, it’s not funny.” from this post, Whumptober2021 No. 7 with helpnessness & blindness / “blindness”, panic, horrorish
He was so, so tired.
The cold water felt amazing on his hands and he sighed while closing his eyes, effectively avoiding his own exhausted reflection staring back at him in the mirror of the station bathroom.
A noise made him open his eyes again – discovering that it was pitch black around him.
He froze, stomach contracting.
“Stop messing with the lights, it’s not funny.”, he hissed. Doug from the property unit had been doing pranks all week. He turned his head, blinking. It was really, really dark in here now.
He looked in the general direction of the entrance, but there wasn’t even light coming from under the door.
Goosebumps wandered over his arms and he swallowed. Something wasn’t right. Were they under attack? It could be, with them trying to solve a three-times serial killer right now.
He tried to listen for voices in the hallway, just then realizing that he had turned off the water without noticing.
A short wave of panic seized him, and he instinctively closed his eyes.
Nothing changed though and it made him dizzy. So he tore his eyes open again instantly.
“I thought this would be funnier. Or more exciting, at least.”
Malcolm jumped, flinging around with raised fists, back pressed into the sink. The voice was rasping, echoing through the bathroom like a loud whisper.
“Stop it!”
He blinked, desperately trying to see something, anything, in the dark. But to no avail. Dizziness came over him again and for a horrible moment he felt so utterly helpless and in danger that he felt like throwing up.
Help. Anybody.
His hands were trembling before him, gaze unseeing.
Was that the glossy white of eyeballs over there?
His eyes flickered to the right.
Was there a scratchy noise?
“Please…”, he whispered, almost whimpering. He couldn’t-
- the door was thrown open and Malcolm jumped, a shout escaping him. Light flooded into the bathroom, chasing the darkness away.
“Bright? Why is it da-what are you doing? You alright?”
Gil.
The older man stood in the doorway, throwing him a wide-eyed glance.
Malcolm, eyes blinking from the sudden onslaught of light – how long had he been in the dark?– met his gaze.
“I…don’t know.”
He frowned, felt his lips tremble. He was so tired.
“Bright?”, Gil said, starting to move.
“I-“
His mind blanked.
“It’s okay, kid.”, Gil said, and pulled him into a hug.
“All the shadowed glimpses, scattered fingerprints align”
(Theocracy - The Master Storyteller)
~~~
For @amonthofwhump, March Madness challenge - bracket 2.
(you can also find this on Ao3)
Prompts: nightmare, choking | Ficlet | word count: 443 | rated teen
Fandom: Prodigal Son (Malcolm Bright, Gil Arroyo) | Gen
Warnings: see prompts, mentions of a knife wound, general topic of trauma
Thanks, @the-one-and-only-valkyrie for beta reading!
The invisible force of wrong and fear came to him through the darkness after all, entirely expected but still cruelly in the sense of the fact that there was nothing he could do about it.
The dark cloud swept over him like a wave made out of sticky oil, burying his subconscious in its grave, a bed he succumbed to eventually after a certain period of time, as much as he loathed and dreaded it.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he heard himself starting to whimper.
We’re the same, my boy.
Most of the time, the disembodied voice in his mind during the nightly hours of half-existing sounded like his father.
No one can hear you scream out here.
Sometimes, it sounded like John Watkins, angry but hushed voice echoing through a room underground that Malcolm was not in anymore, having recovered from the knife wound if not from the additional trauma.
It was a hell of a camping trip.
His subconscious scrambled to get away from the voices, whimpering turning into whining, his hands struggling against the bed shackles that were supposed to save him from further injuries, teeth biting the mouthguard hard, neck muscles straining. He threw his head around, wanting to escape the unmistaken feeling of doom and obliteration coming closer.
Its been too long, Malcolm.
“Hnng. No!”
An invisible weight suddenly settled on his chest, and on his throat, outgoawaywakeup filling his thoughts and his very being. He could feel his mouth falling open in a desperate attempt to suck in more air, the guard toppling out – but the cloud still surrounded him, sticky darkness holding him prisoner in his own mind.
The darkness had hands, fingers touching his mind, contaminating, poisoning him.
We’re the same.
The back of his head was pressing against the mattress under him, his lungs trying desperately to breath.
You’re going to die, Malcolm.
And you will be reborn as me.
He heard a yell, muffled and far away and close to his ears at the same time, and he distantly felt a light pain chasing through his wrists.
“Hey. Hey, kid. Calm down.”
Gil’s voice broke through the cloud of darkness like the sun in the sky did. He snapped back to awareness with another yell, blinking and snapping his mouth shut, his body becoming limp.
“It’s okay, Bright. I’m here.”
He stared at the ceiling, gulping and sucking in air – the invisible weight gone, leaving only a trace of dread and strain behind. A hand appeared on his shoulder, was gone a second later and reappeared on his forehead. Malcolm closed his eyes, concentrating on Gil’s cool fingers.
General tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Angst with Humor
Prompts/Warnings for this drabble: Man in a Mask / cultish themes, open ending
„You have to be careful not to fall, Malcolm the Bright.”, the faceless Man in the Mask said.
Malcolm threw him a glance, sweat running down his temples. He wasn’t ready.
He had been told the ritual wasn’t going to start until tomorrow.
He looked at the narrow bridge going over an ocean of spikes. Nausea climbed up his throat. He swallowed, while the Man in the Mask, still faceless and voice still unpleasant to Malcolm’s ears, put a hand on his shoulder.
>> The object hitting him in the temple came out of nowhere, and pain exploded on the right half of his face.<<
Written for the prompt word “explode”.
You can also find this on Ao3.
Tags: angst, head injury, hurt/comfort | drabble | word count: 100 | rated teen
Fandom: Prodigal Son (Malcolm Bright, Gil Arroyo) | gen
The object hitting him in the temple came out of nowhere, and pain exploded on the right half of his face. With a hiss he couldn't hold back he tumbled sideways and crashed to the ground.
He heard a startled shout but was too busy blinking and trying to right his vision, hand going to his temple and coming away bloody.
"Bright! Bright, you okay?"
Gil appeared before him, crouching, hands gripping his shoulders.
"I... I-"
Fingers cupped his cheek, carefully, making him tilt his head a bit.
"It's gonna be okay, kid."
Malcolm huffed, swallowed.
