Malcolm was beyond grateful when Dani suggested that they go to bed earlier than normal. The events of the day, and more so the evening, had exhausted her both mentally and physically. He could barely look her in the eyes once they'd gotten off the living room floor. The thought of what he had allowed to happen, what he hadn't been strong enough to resist, was physically excruciating. The ache behind his sternum took his breath away.
That was nothing compared to the post-high symptoms he started experiencing. It had advanced past being merely physical; now it was affecting his emotions, his mood, his ability to focus on something for more than a few seconds at a time.
It was nothing short of a miracle that he was even able to fall asleep. However, that rest wasn't peaceful; the same slideshow of images played on repeat in his dreams. This time the events of the last twenty-four hours had been added to the shuffle.
Less than two hours after he drifted off, Malcolm woke with a jolt. The pain in his stomach was so intense that it took everything he had not to cry out and wake Dani. Instead, he balled up into the fetal position, praying it would pass. Five absolutely miserable minutes later, none of it had subsided in the least. He reached for his phone on the nightstand, and had almost dialed 9-1-1, when he realized that he couldn't. A doctor would know the cause almost instantly and he would be back in jail before the withdrawal had time to fully set in. So, he lay back down, his arms wrapped around his knees, silent tears falling sideways across his face.
Fifteen minutes. That's how long it took for the agony to finally end. Every single second of it, Malcolm was certain he was going to pass out from the pain. By the time it could stretch out again, he was covered in sweat. His head was throbbing and the tremors in his hands had taken full possession of his arms now as well. Malcolm ran his hands through his damp hair. His torso spasmed again, doubling him over, once more. Luckily it only lasted for a minute, but the pain was still unbearable.
I can't do this, he thought, slowly sitting up.
He leaned over and opened the drawer of his nightstand, quietly fishing out the syringe he had hidden in the back. He held it with both trembling hands, fearful he'd drop it and wake Dani. Then he turned and looked at her, asleep next to him.
What would she think of you right now? his psyche asked.
Before he had the time to consider his answer, Malcolm's stomach lurched. He rushed to the bathroom as soundlessly as he could, knelt before the toilet, and heaved violently. When what little contents he had in his stomach had successfully exited, he didn't even have the strength to stand. Instead, Malcolm laid down where he was, allowing the tile floor to cool his burning face.
Time passed, although how much he didn't know. Another bout of nausea hit, and he begrudgingly pulled himself up and over the edge of the porcelain bowl, before heaving again. As he finished, he realized there was something in his left hand: the syringe. He'd completely forgotten he was holding it the entire time.
His psyche taunted him, Just a little. To take the edge off. It'll help you get some sleep.
No.
Not even half, a fourth. That'd be enough to get rid of the abdominal pain.
Malcolm eyed the syringe for a few seconds, before shaking his head.
I said no.
You're never going to be able to hide the withdrawal without a little hair of the dog.
Go away.
You think Dani won't put two and two together? She's a recovering addict for Christ's sake.
He looked up at the ceiling, searching as though help might come from above.
Leave me alone.
What do you think she'll do once she's figured out what you've done?
Stop it.
The drugs. The deception. The primal fuck on the floor, while you were high out of your goddamn mind.
Enough.
She'll leave you. And never look back. You'll lose the single greatest thing that's ever happened to you.
"I said ENOUGH!"
Malcolm's eyes flew to the door of the bathroom. Surely he'd woken Dani with his outburst. He stuffed the syringe in the pocket of his shorts and pulled himself up, so he was at least standing when she entered.
A minute passed. Then another. He slowly walked to the door and cracked it. She was still lying in the same position, unfazed. The back of his throat stung, as he watched her sleep from afar. Suddenly, he left the cracked door, and marched back over to the toilet. He pulled the protective cap off of the needle and aimed it at the water in the bowl.
His hand shook, as he willed himself to find the strength to do what needed to be done.
He wanted to. God did he want to.
After three minutes of staring at his hand, Malcolm recapped the needle, and exited the bathroom. He tiptoed to his nightstand and returned the offending item to its hiding place. Then, he laid down next to Dani. He watched her chest rise and fall in slumber, tears once again falling down his face. She was the gift he didn't deserve. The thing that mattered most in this world.
He took a stuttered breath, biting his lips to keep from sobbing, as terror washed over him.
Soon, she wouldn't be what mattered most to him anymore. The poison would take precedence over everything else. It wouldn't be a conscious decision; it would just happen.
And he would lose her forever.
The next morning, after finally managing a couple hours sleep, Malcolm's phone, buzzing on the nightstand, woke him. Dani was already up and getting ready for work.
"Hello?" the profiler croaked, groggily. His throat was raw from the night before and his entire body ached.
"Malcolm, it's Chris."
Chris Michaels, his probation officer, was a generally nice guy. Given Bright's situation, he had basically left him alone, provided he followed the guidelines the judge had set for him. They had a set schedule of check-ins once every two weeks. For him to be calling out of the blue was abnormal. "Sorry to wake you," he added.
Bright didn't bother trying to politely deny the fact. "It's no problem."
"Listen, I'll be quick. I need you to stop by the precinct this morning. There's a couple things we need to discuss."
Malcolm furrowed his eyebrows, "I can't step foot inside the precinct. That's violating my probation."
He laughed, "Why can't all of my clients be like you? I'm your P.O. I've asked you to come. That's official permission."
"Okay. I can be there in a half hour."
"Sounds good. See you soon."
Dani exited the bathroom, toothbrush in hand, "Who wants you at the precinct?"
As soon as he saw her, the stabbing pain beneath his sternum returned. Malcolm took a second to try and breathe before he answered her, "Chris. He said there are a couple things we need to discuss."
"Sounds ominous," Dani joked, "What did you do?"
His head whipped in her direction, "What?"
"I'm kidding. Deep breath, Mr. Paranoia. There's all sorts of paperwork they have to do early into the probation release process. He's probably just streamlining everything since your case is so easy."
Malcolm's hands were trembling under the covers, "Yeah."
The thought of having to walk into the precinct in his condition was terrifying. After the night he'd had, there was no telling what symptoms might appear out of thin air. There's no way he would be able to hide it if those abdominal pains reared their ugly head again. Everything about this had him on edge. That and the withdrawal.
He and Dani walked to the precinct together, something they actually hadn't ever done before. Prior to going under at Diablo, they weren't a couple. Since then, they hadn't been back to work at the same time. It was nice, normal. At one point, Dani reached out and grabbed his pinky with hers. Malcolm looked over at her and smiled.
For a split second, he forgot. He forgot about Joslynn Bennet. He forgot the voice in the back of his mind that constantly reminded him about the syringe in his nightstand. For a split second, he was genuinely happy.
Then, he remembered. As he watched Dani's face light up, her lips scrunching as she tried to keep from smiling back, guilt engulfed him like a dense fog. It pressed down on his chest, choked off his breath in his throat. Eventually it would strangle him.
When they reached the precinct, Chris was waiting in the entryway. Dani waved goodbye and headed down the hall to the Major Crimes Unit, Malcolm desperate to follow her. He watched her for a moment as she walked away, before turning back to his P.O.
Chris smiled warmly at him, "Follow me."
Malcolm obliged, assuming they were headed to an area of offices he'd never been to before. When they stopped in front of the restroom, his blood ran cold. Chris motioned toward the door.
Fuck.
"What's going on?" the profiler asked, fully aware of what the answer was going to be.
The officer held up a small plastic container, "Drug test. Part of the probation and all."
Malcolm's pulse was so loud in his ears, that he barely heard any of the reply. He simply held out his hand for the container. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. He couldn't even tell if his hands were shaking. The two men walked into the restroom, and Malcolm provided the sample. Officer Michaels filled out the labels and attached them to the container properly.
"You okay, Bright?" he asked, as he put the sample in a plastic bag.
"Sorry?" Malcolm's mind was chaos, a thousand different scenarios bouncing around simultaneously.
"I said 'you okay'? You seem a little on edge. Nervous."
The profiler knew to control his tells when replying to that particular baited statement. "I'm not nervous," he lied.
The officer smiled again, looking down at the bag in his hand, "Well, we both know you should be."
Malcolm's heart stopped. "What did you say?"
The two men stared at each other for a moment. Chris's knowing glare, shifted in an instant to a warm charismatic grin. He turned and opened the door faux-politely, "Enjoy the rest of your day, Mr. Bright."
Malcolm exited the bathroom in complete shock. He was practically catatonic, as his legs, on auto-pilot, took him back home. It wasn't until he walked through his apartment door, that the trance broke.
Chris knew.
Malcolm walked to the wet bar and poured himself a substantial amount of whiskey. After taking a large drink, he flopped backward onto his couch. He stared at the empty fireplace.
My. P.O. is in Joslynn's pocket.
His head fell back against the top of the couch, just as it had last night. The guilt, the fear, the rage at everything that had happened in the past three days, all hit him at once. Malcolm finished off the whiskey in one giant gulp and stared at the empty tumblr for a few seconds, before throwing it into the fireplace. The cocktail of emotions, the constant craving, the withdrawal symptoms all exited in one frustrated yell. Afterward his head returned to the back of the couch. The shaking in his hands was only exacerbated by the anger. Nausea returned in full force. Whether that was from the rage, the withdrawal, or the fact that he had basically chugged a very full glass of whiskey, he didn't know.
I'm fucked.
The way Malcolm saw it, there were two possible outcomes to this scenario. One, the results come back, he's arrested for breaking probation, and goes back to prison. Any prison in the city would house numerous inmates affiliated with the Niners one way or another. That or the fact that he was an ex fed, now NYPD consultant, meant he would be in a body bag by the end of the first week- if he was lucky. He'd only narrowly escaped that fate in the two days he was there the first time.
The second possible outcome was that his inevitably failing results would come back, and Chris/Josslyn would extort him, making him do god knows what in an effort to prevent outcome number one.
Either way…
"I'm fucked," he whispered.
Gil's phone call pulled Malcolm from his stupor.
"Hey. So, JT and I just got done chatting with James Bishop, the officer that was supposed to transport the ammo cartridges to the Marshals."
"'Was supposed to' sounds promising," he sighed.
"Turns out the day he was supposed to transport them, a Detective Jonathan Serratos was headed to Newark to testify in a case. He offered to make the drop a few buildings down from the courthouse. They cleared it with brass, and that's all Bishop knew of it."
"I take it we are now tracking down Detective Serratos?"
Gil chuckled, "You would be correct."
"Thanks for keeping me in the loop."
Malcolm's lack of enthusiasm and the absence of his typical fishing for information did not go unnoticed by his mentor. "What's going on?"
The profiler swallowed down the nausea that he'd been fighting for a half hour, and squeezed his trembling hand into a fist.
Everything.
"It's just all catching up to me." It wasn't exactly a lie. "And it feels like we're just spinning our wheels."
He barely got the sentence out. The pain in his abdomen came roaring back with a vengeance. Malcolm fell over onto his side on the couch, bending his body in any way he thought might ease the agony.
"I know, kid," Malcolm could just barely hear Gil's unknowing reply. "Hang in there. We're going to get Joslynn."
"Yep," was all he could manage without giving away the anguish he was experiencing.
"I'll be in touch again soon," the lieutenant promised.
"Okay."
As soon as the call disappeared from his screen, Malcolm cried out in agony. Last night was nothing compared to now. This, this would kill him. There was no way he could be hurting this badly without something horrific happening inside his torso. He was going to die right here in his living room. And Dani would find him when she came home from work.
And with that thought, his vision tunneled and everything faded to black.
When Malcolm awoke, it felt like his skull had been split in two. He was on his living room rug, the fall from the couch the apparent cause for the splitting headache. Something smelled rancid. He looked down and saw it, then wiped the side of his face - vomit. That fall to the floor probably saved his life. If he had been on the couch, on his back, he could very well have choked to death.
He sat up slowly, testing the waters. When he thought it safe, he gingerly stood, got some supplies from under the sink, and cleaned up the mess.
Malcolm's clothes, in addition to the vomit, were sticking to him everywhere. Bracing himself on any furniture he could find, he made his way to the bathroom. The warm water felt nothing short of spectacular. His muscles ached from tensing with the pain. He turned the heat up as high as he could stand, trying to soothe every part of him.
Ten minutes into the shower, it started again. He managed to turn the water off and get out of the shower before falling to his knees, one hand bracing himself on the floor and the other wrapped around his stomach for dear life.
I can't do this. Not again. It's going to kill me.
His torso on fire, and getting more light headed by the second, Malcolm crawled, dripping wet and nude, out of the bathroom to his night stand. He clumsily fished for the syringe and sat himself up against the side of his bed.
Malcolm could barely sit upright, as the torture continued, causing him to dry heave. His hands were shaking so badly he couldn't remove the cap on the needle. So, he bit down on it and pulled it off with his teeth.
Less than half. Just enough to curb the attacks.
For a split second he paused, imagining how pathetic he must look in this moment. He didn't even know what the contents of the syringe were. But, as the searing pain in his abdomen worsened, none of that mattered. He brought the point of the needle down slowly, grateful for the easy-to-spot veins in his forearm. It was eerie how his hand seemed to steady, once his body knew what it was trying to do.
The needle pierced the skin and slowly Malcolm pushed on the syringe. At the halfway point, he stopped. It took less than ten seconds for the rush to kick in. When the now-familiar sensation hit, Malcolm could tell this was the same concoction he'd been dosed with the last time. Heroin laced with a stimulant, likely cocaine. The pain in his torso vanished in an instant. The nausea subsided. The splitting ache in his head turned to pure unadulterated bliss.
As if of its own accord, his hand pushed the syringe the rest of the way down. Malcolm's head fell back against his mattress, the needle fell to the floor, and all his troubles disappeared, while the euphoria intensified.
Several hours later, Malcolm had used the mania of the high to his advantage. He organized all the case files that were strewn around the island and living room. He cleaned Sunshine's cage. Organized his vinyl collection, while blaring said records at raveian disciples.
By the time Dani came home, Malcolm almost had dinner finished. For once, he was starving, and having something to focus on helped. The fear was still there, in the back of his mind. The gravity of his uncertain future weighed heavily, but the distraction was nice. The high hadn't lasted as long this time, both a blessing and a curse - he was already building a tolerance. However, hiding tremors and a difficulty to focus was far easier than explaining why he was writhing on the kitchen floor screaming in pain.
It was cyclic, he knew that, one thing ultimately leading to the other. But, he needed more time.
"How was your day?" Dani asked, as she sat across from him.
Malcolm chose to respond by shrugging and rolling his eyes.
"That fun huh? Gil said he got in touch with you about Bishop."
"Yeah."
"What did Michaels want this morning?"
He busied himself plating dinner while he responded, fearful his eyes would betray him, "Like you said, just tying up loose ends."
Dani eyed him speculatively, "Hey."
The change in her voice, frightened Malcolm. He knew that tone: worry. If she was worried, she would start analyzing his behavior. He forced himself to look her in the eyes, to try and placate her, "Yeah?"
"Is everything okay?"
"No. Everything is the complete opposite of okay. But, that's not new information."
Dani squinted, "You're not telling me something." He held her eye contact, as she interrogated. "Did you figure something out with the case? You can't be the one to move on any leads with this, Malcolm. If you know something, you need to tell me."
"I honestly wish I was hiding a lead on this case. At least then it wouldn't feel like I'm just sitting around waiting for Joslynn to ruin my life."
Not a lie, he told himself, feeling no less guilty.
He walked around the island, plates of food in hand. Dani watched him sit hers down on the counter. As soon as Malcolm's hand released the plate, she grabbed his wrist and held it in a death grip.
"What the hell is that?"
She was glaring at the tiny dot atop one of the veins on his forearm.
"What's what?"
Her eyes slowly scanned the rest of his arm, particularly the crook of his elbow, before making their way up to his. Malcolm was grateful she didn't flip his hand over.
"Something you want to tell me?"
"What are you talking about?"
She held up the index finger of her free hand, "Don't do that."
"Don't do what?"
"Malcolm."
The two stared at each other silently.
Dani's eyes were filled with concern and fear, "What's going on? Talk to me, please."
"Nothing's going on, Dani. That's what's so frustrating."
"I'm not talking about the case. I'm talking about you."
Malcolm pulled his arm away and ran his hands through his hair, "What do you want to know? That I'm miserable? That I'm terrified for your safety every waking moment you're not in my sight? That I can't stop thinking about Joslynn and what else she plans to do to completely ruin my life?!"
By the time he finished the rant, he was yelling. He'd never yelled at her before.
She ignored that fact completely, too busy fixating on one thing, "Else?"
He looked up at her confused, "What?"
"You said 'what else she plans to do'."
For a split second a part of him was proud of her for catching his pride was short-lived. Malcolm took a step back and threw his hands up in frustration, pointing at the stacks of files covering the island, "Look around, Dani. She's got enough leverage to put me in prison for the rest of my life. She knows where we live. They've bugged my place once already. They threatened you in yours. Who knows how many copies of that video exist and how many people already have it. Can you honestly see a scenario where this ends well? Truly? Because I can't."
The rant had initially been intended to distract her from the mark on his arm. Once he started, though, the words just flew out of his mouth. The reality he hadn't yet spoken aloud. There was no way out of this.
Dani got up from the chair, closed the distance between them, and hugged Malcolm. It took a moment for him to respond to the gesture. Then, his arms wrapped tightly around her.
"We're going to figure this out," she whispered.
"Can you honestly see a scenario where this ends well? Truly? Because I can't."
Dani looked up at Malcolm. His eyes were wild. The pulse she'd covertly checked while gripping his wrist was through the roof. The mark on his arm, all the signs were there. She knew them well.
His voice cracked, as he finished the tirade. She jumped out of the chair and went to him, pulling him close to her.
"We're going to figure this out," she whispered, hoping he believed the false confidence she put forth.
After a few moments, Malcolm's grip on her loosened, and Dani pulled back slowly. As she did, she caught a glimpse of his neck. Another small dot stood out against his light complexion. Her stomach turned at the sight.
She knew what she had to do.