Title : I'm Bleeding Out For You

Disclaimer : Not mine, Chris Fedak and Sam Sklaver owns it

Summary: Malcolm is in pieces thanks to Eve.

Notes : written for Brumeier in comment_fic for the prompt of Prodigal Son, Malcolm Bright,

Sometimes I give myself the creeps
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me
It all keeps adding up
I think I'm cracking up
(Basket Case, Green Day, 1994)

The title is from the Imagine Dragons' song Bleeding Out

XXX

He knew once Eve left his first call or text should have been to Mother or Ains but Malcolm couldn't face them. They'd seen him shatter. He'd nearly unraveled entirely. If Eve hadn't let herself into his place at that moment he might have. Malcolm knew he could have ended up with his phone on the floor in a puddle of fear and tears. He should never have roped Ainsley into investigating Eve. God, all you had was a dumb dream about the wrong type of muffins and you go all suspicious. You've been listening to Dr. Le Deux and all her Freudian dream translations. You should have kept it to yourself. He shook his head, knowing why he hadn't. In his gut, he'd known something was wrong with Eve. Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me. But not this time. I was dead on.

Malcolm raced out of the loft, trying to run from the memory of seeing the girl in the box in Eve's file, from knowing she was Eve's sister, from the fresh memories of the hell of that night in the woods. He caught a cab but didn't call ahead until he was already at Gil's door. All the way there the only thing playing in his mind was I've slept with the sister of my father's victim! How do I live with this? Why was he torturing himself like this? He should excise all of this from his mind, as if he could. Instead his brain started overlaying Eve's face over her sister's, staring up at him from the box, from her grave, from where he stood over her with his father, knife in hand. Sometimes I give myself the creeps but I can't make it stop.

Malcolm spilled out of the cab, stumbling toward Gil's home. A light was on over the porch and the man who saved his life so many times waited there for him. Gil reached down and dragged him up onto the porch.

"God, kid, what's wrong? You look awful." Gil ushered him inside hurriedly, tossing the lock behind them.

"I think I'm cracking up," he said in a raw whispered, and Gil lost all color. Malcolm rarely admitted to not having a handle on his mental health. Gil knew these weren't just words.

"Tell me what's wrong."

Malcolm tried but words didn't come. His legs turned to the constituency of smoke. Gil wrapped an arm around him and half dragged, half walked him into the living room. Gil deposited him on the couch, displacing two cats. One of them, Jackie's beloved Maine Coon, Chewbacca, crawled onto his lap and Malcolm buried his fingers in the feline's soft, thick fur. His other hand shook so hard the muscles hurt but he couldn't stop it. He could tell Gil. Hell, he had told Dani! But he hadn't been one hundred percent sure at that point Eve had been the girl in the box's sister. Remembering Dani's look of absolute horror froze him to the core.

Gil sat next to him, tugging Malcolm against him. "Malcolm…" he trailed off as Malcolm flinched. Now that he was an adult, Gil mostly called him 'kid' or just Bright but when he really wanted Malcolm's attention, he used his name. "You know you can tell me anything. Do I need to call someone for you? I'd wake Dr. Le Deux up in a heartbeat if you need me to."

He shook his head frantically. "No, no doctors."

"Then talk to me."

"The girl in the box was Sophie Sanders," Malcolm said, keeping his eyes on Chewbacca but he felt Gil's gaze hot on his face.

"How do you know that? Did someone call Jessica?"

Malcolm took a strangled breath. "She's Eve's sister."

Gil pushed away so he could turn and look Malcolm square on. His face and question mirrored Dani's so exactly Malcolm felt the slice straight to his heart. "What?"

His lips trembled. This was even worse than telling Dani somehow, which made no sense. Gil was his father in every way that mattered. Dani could be…well, something more than a friend if he allowed himself to think about it; what could have been if he hadn't gone down the path he had with Eve. Maybe it was because Gil was the dad he'd turned to every time he was in trouble that made this harder, because he should have known better to go so far so fast with anyone. "Sophie is Eve's older sister. Eve was adopted but you know how it is with teens. No one wants them so Sophie went off on her own, came here and disappeared. She's the girl in the box."

The rage in Gil's dark eyes was something Malcolm rarely saw, something that sparked a primal fear in him. Gil was the calm one, the reasonable one. He didn't get angry, not like this, not even when he should. And so many times he should have when Malcolm had taken insane risks. Seeing him furious now shook Malcolm. "And she started a relationship with you? Knowing that your father was likely her sister's killer? What is she? Another sociopath?"

"I didn't say she knew…" Malcolm shook his head. "I did this. I let her in."

Gil held up a finger. "Don't you dare, Malcolm. Don't you dare take on that burden. You did nothing wrong."

"I gave her a key to my apartment in less than two weeks," he broke in. In the back of his mind was the one disorder he didn't tell his mother or sister about, wasn't honest with anyone about except for Gil: borderline personality disorder. He knew he fit the criteria and high-risk behaviors, sexual and otherwise, were a component. He knew it. He worked his therapy and still he went for the risk every time.

"Okay, that is on you but how would you ever know that she could have been related to one of your father's victims? You're the victim here and I know you don't like that word but it fits," Gil said in a rush, cutting off any protests. "Eve had to have sought you out because she suspected that you knew about your father's victims. This world is too big for someone to come from down south and end up here and somehow be related to your father's victim only to have d it be coincidence. You didn't have to tell me that she knew ahead of time. Of course, she did. She hooked up with you on purpose. What you have to ask yourself is what kind of woman sleeps with the son of her sister's suspected killer?"

"One who wants answers. She said she never expected to feel anything for me."

"So what? That's no excuse to do this to you! We all end up in situations where we have feelings for someone we shouldn't, some attraction that you know if you act on it will blow up everything," Gil argued and for a wild moment, Malcolm wondered if Gil had been attracted to his mother while still married to Jackie. He sounded like he knew exactly how that felt. "But we know to set those attractions aside. She wanted to be with you for one reason, to manipulate you, to find out what you knew."

"That doesn't make me feel better."

"No, it's not meant to. Hell, kid, I don't know how to make you feel better." Gil put his hand on the back of Malcolm's neck and rubbed it. "I wish I could take all this pain away from you but I can't make any of this better. And you're sure her sister is the girl in the box."

He nodded. "She had a picture. I'm sure. Gil…I remember her in the station wagon. I just remembered it when I saw that photo. I remember taking the blanket off her and her being in the back. Maybe it's why I ran from Watkins. Maybe it's why I stabbed him."

"You stabbed him to save yourself. Never forget that," Gil said vehemently.

"I know," he whispered. "But I think…I'm not sure she was dead then, Gil. I still have memories of my father's hands wrapped around mine…we might have stabbed her together."

Gil's fingers stilled on the back of Malcolm's neck. "If that's real, it's still not your fault. He made you."

"You don't know that. He always said we were the same."

"I do know that because if you were the same, you would never have turned him in. You would never have warned me not to drink that tea and you would never do this job," Gil said, his voice calmer now, falling into his usual argument whenever Malcolm went down the 'I'm my father's son' road.

"She hurt me so badly, Gil." He barely got those words out. His fingers spasmed in Chewbacca's fur and the cat abandoned him with a meow. He retched, putting his shaking hand over his mouth.

"You need a trash can?" Gil stood and ran after one when Malcolm didn't answer. He set it on the coffee table but Malcolm didn't reach for it. He'd gotten his stomach under control. "Malcolm? Why don't you lie down? Your lips are turning blue. You're in shock."

When he didn't move, Gil pushed him down on the couch, sweeping his legs up on the cushions before disappearing again. He returned with an afghan Jackie had crocheted. He wrapped it around Malcolm, and then nudged his feet over so he could sit on the couch with him.

"Kid, you need to get some help."

Malcolm shook his head, pulling the afghan close to his chin. He shook all the way to his toes.

"Did you bring your pills? You need one."

"Already maxed out on benzos," he said through chattering teeth. "I take any more and you'll be taking me to the hospital for an accidental overdose that's actually accidental this time." Malcolm screwed his eyes shut, thinking on the times that the accident had been intentional as he sought peace. If he could get through this nightmare, the horror of knowing he'd been intimate with someone tied to his father, without swallowing down a bottle of pills, without antagonizing a suspect into killing him so his mother wouldn't have to face the idea that he took his own life, it would be a miracle.

"Then let's go in, get you checked out."

Another of Gil's cats, a sleek all black female jumped up on him, inspecting him. Malcolm wrapped an arm around the feline before Gil could shoo her away. "Where, Gil? Bellevue? That'll be fun for you, trying to explain to your bosses how I'm good to work even though I just got out of a psych hold."

"There's the resort upstate," Gil reminded him gently. "They'll take good care of you."

They had in the past and it wouldn't show up as mental health hold because that's what wealth and privilege got you. Malcolm scowled. "No, please, Gil. I don't need to be locked away for a rest. I need to face this."

"Let me call Dr. Le Deux."

"All I need is…I just need to be here with you tonight. Like when I was little and scared and you made things better."

Gil shook his head, his eyes glistening. A couple tears slipped free. "I can't make this better."

"I know. No one can. I just have to get through it."

Gil reached out and scratched Annabel Lee's head. Jackie had loved Poe and that was just one of the many things Malcolm had loved about her. "Eve has cut you so deeply, this is going to take you time to heal. No lying to me about being okay."

"I'm not okay. I shouldn't be alone tonight."

Gil's jaw tightened. "And you won't be."

"I have to help her find where Sophie's body is," Malcolm murmured, feeling a bit warmer now under Jackie's afghan with Annabel sitting on him.

"Oh, kid, do you think that is a good idea? Leave that…."

"I can't. I have to deal with this, Gil. Whatever Eve's motives, no matter what she's done to me and my heart, she's wounded too. She deserves to have her sister's remains."

Gil held up his hands. "Not arguing that but remember you have a real team now. Let us help. It might not do well to dig too deep into how she died. You don't need to feel even more guilty about that night. There'll be nothing much left but bones by now. The bracelet tells us she was one of your father's kills or him and Watkins since the latter had the bracelet."

"Watkins didn't do it. He was still killing remotely then," Malcolm argued out of reflex. "You don't want them to know I might have been there."

"You were a child and not responsible. I haven't mentioned this to your mother because I doubt she'll hear me, but you know as well as I do, your father is already incarcerated for life. He has no option to be cured and released. The D.A. is unlikely to waste the money to add another life term to his sentence."

"And unlikely to pull him out of Claremont for some super max somewhere because his lawyer will argue that if he was insane for the first twenty-three, he isn't going to be suddenly sane for the last one." Malcolm hadn't told his mother that either because he wanted to know who the girl was and her money might be able to do that for them. Instead, Eve found them on her own, wormed into his life, into his bed, into his heart and burst him into pieces. If he was broken before, it was nothing compared to how shattered he felt now. Again, he paid for his father's crimes.

Gil patted Malcolm's arm. "Exactly. Let us help you find the body and you know you can call on any of us if you need help, not just me. Any one of us would help hold you up."

Malcolm closed his eyes. He couldn't dump this on JT because he was too happy and worried over his impending fatherhood. Edrisa would listen for certain but she had a warped vision of him, unable to see the bad bits, at least at the moment. Dani would be there but he'd feel like an ass crying on her shoulder over another woman but she would hold him and let him do it. She'd already offered. "I know. Gil, can I have some tea?"

"I'll put it on."

He gave Malcolm's arm another pat before going to put the kettle on. Malcolm tucked up tighter with the afghan. This was going to hurt for so long. When Gil returned, Malcolm would cry on his shoulder and while he wouldn't feel better, not really, it was a step forward. It would probably be ten steps back when he next saw Eve but he had a plan on how to proceed. Gil wouldn't approve so for now he wouldn't say anything to him. He'd simply let Gil take care of him. Support might not be as good as getting actual psychiatric help but it was better than nothing. Knowing he had someone in his corner was enough for now. In that moment, his soul stopped bleeding out. Malcolm stroked Annabel Lee's fur and she purred for him. He left that beautiful vibration envelope him as the tears came. He wasn't all right but he was where he needed to be.