Malcolm Bright (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
abrightboy) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
apocalypsehowcomm2022-01-04 01:12 pm
abrightboy) wrote in apocalypsehowcomm2022-01-04 01:12 pm
New Year, New You [OTA]
Who: Malcolm Bright and YOU
When: The first half of January.
Where: B1, ADI offices, around town.
Summary: Malcolm is aware that he has problems. Time to get rid of them for good! Because mental health works like that, right?!
Warnings: mental health struggles, vomit
There's a TV playing in the cafeteria at ADI when he goes down to get lunch after the new year. He's going to order soup; he already knows this. He's not even paying attention to the TV. He's lost in his own thoughts. But, as he waits in line, he changes his mind. Maybe he won't have soup after all. He's going to have a hamburger! And fries! Time to do like his mother says: stop all this nonsense. It's all in your head, Bright, he tells himself. That admonition is in a lot of people's voices from throughout his life.
He spends most of the afternoon in the men's room on that floor throwing up.
But Rome wasn't built in a day.
Back at B1 a few days later, he's staring at the tidy line of pill bottles on the kitchen counter. He's considering just throwing them away. He has to force himself to be normal; he can see it now.
At the coffee shop down the street, on another day, he orders his usual mocha and a big slice of chocolate cake. He'll try not to throw it up on the street but no promises. It takes time for a body to get used to new habits, is all. And if he's a little jittery, anxious, more unraveled than usual, well it's probably because he quit his meds cold turkey but he'll adapt. It's not to worry. He'll adapt.
Maybe he should stop relying on the restraints to sleep.
Maybe he should start going out to bars to meet people.
Maybe he should break curfew and crash with friends at Bonnie's.
Somebody stop him.
When: The first half of January.
Where: B1, ADI offices, around town.
Summary: Malcolm is aware that he has problems. Time to get rid of them for good! Because mental health works like that, right?!
Warnings: mental health struggles, vomit
There's a TV playing in the cafeteria at ADI when he goes down to get lunch after the new year. He's going to order soup; he already knows this. He's not even paying attention to the TV. He's lost in his own thoughts. But, as he waits in line, he changes his mind. Maybe he won't have soup after all. He's going to have a hamburger! And fries! Time to do like his mother says: stop all this nonsense. It's all in your head, Bright, he tells himself. That admonition is in a lot of people's voices from throughout his life.
He spends most of the afternoon in the men's room on that floor throwing up.
But Rome wasn't built in a day.
Back at B1 a few days later, he's staring at the tidy line of pill bottles on the kitchen counter. He's considering just throwing them away. He has to force himself to be normal; he can see it now.
At the coffee shop down the street, on another day, he orders his usual mocha and a big slice of chocolate cake. He'll try not to throw it up on the street but no promises. It takes time for a body to get used to new habits, is all. And if he's a little jittery, anxious, more unraveled than usual, well it's probably because he quit his meds cold turkey but he'll adapt. It's not to worry. He'll adapt.
Maybe he should stop relying on the restraints to sleep.
Maybe he should start going out to bars to meet people.
Maybe he should break curfew and crash with friends at Bonnie's.
Somebody stop him.
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("Crowd." That's a word to be used loosely here. There's hardly anybody in the bar, and the ones who are, clearly aren't here to watch Jeff perform, judging by the heckling.)
Malcolm's here. That's new. Does the guy even drink? Jeff doesn't think he's ever seen him have a drink before. And if he did, he'd probably do it at someplace fancy, with a nice (overpriced) cocktail menu and fewer "you'll probably catch tetanus" vibes.
The guy so obviously stands out, and Jeff's definitely not the only person to notice. A couple of creeps he recognizes from the docks are surrounding him, all fake smiles, full of that "friendly" kind of mockery. Yeah, they're... definitely gonna mug him the first chance they get.
So, he wraps the night with a little spell wrapped up in an improvised song.
"This one's called, um. Malcolm Cover Your Fucking Ears."
Is Jeff about to curse the bar with a head full of fear? You bet. Is the chorus of this song just "Stop listening, Malcolm, cover your fucking ears, Malcolm, I'm serious, Malcolm, this song's for you"? Yes. It is.
But you know what? It's actually pretty good. Fucking catchy.
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But he can see that Jeff is singing something and he does like Jeff's music and Jeff did describe the effect it had on people as 'euphoric' and a bit of euphoria isn't so bad...
He's kind of transfixed on the performance and doesn't notice the hysteria starting around him and he pulls his hands a little way away from his ears, thinking he can back up if it's too intense.
But he doesn't even remember that option a moment later when the man standing nearest to him, looking at him with what seems - to Malcolm's mind - murder in his eyes, steps closer with all six feet and three inches of his muscled, tattooed frame.
And Malcolm punches him in the throat, knocking him to the ground gasping.
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That's...
This is going... differently than anticipated.
It's funny, for as much fear as Jeff's been causing since his arrival (feeding, always feeding that swirling emptiness inside), he's never tried causing it outright. It's always mania, hysteria, despair, the highest highs and the lowest lows. Fear was always just a byproduct of a sudden onset of irrationality. This is the first time (ever?) that he's sang with fear as the primary intention of his magic. The way he figured: everyone would get scared, leave Malcolm alone, and they could just leave. No harm, no fuss.
Jeff never accounted for the whole... fight or flight thing. He never listened to the wise words of Yoda during the Prequel marathon: fear leads to anger, et cetera.
He also never accounted for the possibility that Malcolm knows how to fight. A big biker looking motherfucker steps the profiler, and-- it happens so fast that Jeff almost thinks he imagined it, or like, just experienced some weird time skip or something. The guy's on the ground in an instant.
The chorus of Malcolm Cover Your Fucking Ears cuts off with a very anticlimactic: "Oh."
And as the barroom blitz breaks out, Jeff's unplugging his guitar and rushing to shove it back into its case in record time. Slinging the case over his shoulder, he pushes his way out of the performance corner and heads for the exit.
"Malcolm! Dude, come on, let's go!"
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Malcolm was a nerd long before he dropped a dime on Martin Whitly.
He danced ballet after school. He got beat up a lot as a kid, both before the Surgeon's arrest and even more aggressively afterwards, when his playground nickname switched from variations on Twinkletoes to variations on Psycho. He learned how to defend himself in time, but he preferred to stop people with language and psychology. The throat punching side of him was something he developed as a last resort when cornered and was still largely used that way.
Malcolm blinks when the music stops, faintly confused, but then Jeff is ushering him towards the exit and, in fading adrenaline and disorientation, he follows.
"What's... going on?" he asks as crisp night air hits him in the face.
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God, this nerd.
"But that's nice of you. To worry. Thank you." He looks over his shoulder at the building. "Um, it's not normally my 'scene'," he admits, and the quotes around 'scene' are pretty much audible. "But I'm trying some new things. Thought I'd meet some new people. I didn't know you were playing here. They didn't put your name on the sign or anything. You need a better agent."
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(Jesus, he needs a haircut. He's needed one for, like, months now.)
"Yeah. No problem. Sorry, um, if I totally disrupted a beautiful new friendship."
He wrinkles his nose and shakes his head.
"I don't think an agent can fix things. I'm fucking cursed. That's the best gig I can get here." A beat. "Though I'm betting they won't welcome me back after I bailed." ANOTHER BEAT. "Fuck, I forgot to get paid..."
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He looks at Jeff. "How much did they owe you?"
cw homophobic slurs
He shakes his head.
"Enough of my bitching. Isn't it, uh... past the ADI curfew?"
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"For the trouble. Since you lost out on it saving me."
Malcolm isn't rich anymore - not here - but he doesn't spend a ton of the money he makes.
Jeff's question makes him look at his watch, on the inside of his wrist.
"Oh. I guess so."
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So that's another $40 for the Fender he'd been saving for. Though with the way things have been going, a nice gig guitar feels like a total waste of money on a stupid pipe dream.
"Thanks, Malcolm," he says, voice soft, trying to keep all his dumb feelings out of it as he pockets the cash.
"Well--" He slaps a hand on Malcolm's shoulder (and look at that, he's still wearing the friendship bracelet). "Hey, c'mon, you can crash at Bonnie's."
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"Sure. Sounds... like a fun new experience, right? Do I need to, like, register or something?"
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And as they walk, he looks at Malcolm curiously. "So what's up with all the... new experiences? Is it like a new year's resolution?"
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"Why would you want to be normal?"
Being Gifted and queer, 'normal' was never in the cards for Jeff. His parents always taught him to embrace that, to be proud of the things that made him different, even if it could be a pain the ass sometimes.
"Fuck normal. What's normal, anyway?"
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Jeff has no poker face. He immediately winces and looks away to hide any further reaction. Yup, it's pretty obvious he knows what Malcolm's talking about.
"Concerts are different, man. They're like--" He waves a hand. "Transcendent. Don't worry about what he did at a concert, that's not normal day-to-day stuff, you know?"
That being said:
"Sorry things haven't been, um, moving in the direction you want..."
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If he were on top of his game, he might have put two and two together a bit, but Jeff’s shenanigans and Neal’s encounter with them aren’t what he’s focused on. What Neal got up to and who he didn’t get up to it with are just another in a long list of examples of why Malcolm needs to change.
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Malcolm's smart, and interesting, and clever, and sweet, but would he believe Jeff right now?
"Yeah, but then... Who's gonna be weird and pathetic with me?"
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“Probably me still; let’s be realistic,” he admits. He looks at Jeff. “Cool guys like you don’t talk to me at home,” he confesses.
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"Cool guys like me get insecure, too, um, like... especially around guys like you. You know, guys who're smart and can, like, dance and swordfight and punch a dude out in one hit."
And, more importantly!
"And I'm not cool, I'm a total fucking dork! Ask Tim."
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