Malcolm laughed lightly and largely at himself.

"I'm excited because this scenario never occurred to me. Someone got into a career in embalming because they really love giving dead people some semblance of life, because they find it easier to be close to dead people than living people. And have gotten to the point of killing to achieve it." His eyes widened again as he realized something. "Oh! I bet they can't work in the field for some reason. Maybe they lost their licence for, um, lavishing a corpse with too much attention. And now they can only be near dead bodies if they make them."

He paused, his eyes finding Raylan's face. "Wow, you probably don't want to talk about weird murderers right now, right?"

Right now when he had to leave so soon. Too soon. But Raylan had been right before; they had to do the work. He couldn't stay.

Malcolm's hand slid back from around Raylan's ribs to slide up and then down his chest, straightening the line of his buttons with a little tug, his expression sobering.

"My father is still alive. The longer he survives, the better chance that he'll survive... He hasn't regained consciousness, though."