abrightboy | No One's Born Broken

"He wants me to be like him," Malcolm said miserably. He looked up at Raylan. "I couldn't cut a man with a scalpel to save his life from a haematoma, but when I was going to stab my father?" His face crumpled a little. "My hand didn't shake. Not even a little bit." He glanced towards the window. "He saw it," he added at a whisper.

Raylan looked down, face unreadable aside from the pinch of his brow before he shifted his weight, one hand coming up to lift a finger in gesture as he pulled back a fraction.

"Just because you can stab the man that tried to kill you when you were young and continues to try and bend you, doesn't mean anything. If anyone has needed a stabbin', it is that man right there. Son's violence against his father is almost a tradition," he said, head pulling back a little with the statement.

"And what about letting their mother go to prison for them?" he countered. "That seems... decidedly less noble."

He took a steadying breath and then let himself out of Raylan's grasp to turn to the window and stare at the man in the bed.

"She said she needs to do it. For all the things she didn't protect me from."

Raylan couldn't do much more than take a breath at that. It was a sticky situation. He didn't fight Malcolm's drawing away, but he followed to stare with him, one hand coming up to find its place mindlessly on his own hip. He could understand why Jessica felt that way, why she'd choose to go down this path. Raylan would like to talk her out of it for Malcolm's sake but it would only put him in the hot seat.

He had to agree with Jessica.

"You were both working under duress. No court in the state gonna hold it against you. You let me talk to Gil, we'll figure out what's what." Between the two of them, there had to be something. A way to swing it, a way to prove the killer's responsibility. He looked over at Malcolm. "You gone in there yet?"

He shook his head, shifting closer to Raylan.

"No. No. I don't see the point."

Getting out of Raylan's arms had been a bad idea. He found the crook of his shoulder to burrow back into.

"You know what the killer said to me when JT took him away? He said 'I did you a favour, Malcolm; your father's dead'. Is that true? I don't even know how I feel about it." He put his hand on his own stomach. "Everything is knots and nausea."

There was one, in Raylan's opinion but Malcolm was allowed his own choices. He could question it later if he felt like it. He didn't miss the shift closer to him or the unsubtle sink of Malcolm back into his shoulder, wrapping an arm around his shoulders again.

"About doin' you a favor? Maybe. But I've also shot my daddy once or twice. Without duress. Might not be the best one to be askin' about it." He took a deep breath. "It's gonna be fine."

Arlo was to stubborn to die, until the ripe old age he got too; was Martin the same way? The fight of a heart did a lot in times like these and he didn't know what kind of fighting spirit the fine pressed Martin Whitly had.

"But he's not dead yet. My advice, don't put him in a box til he's ready to be there." He rubbed Malcolm's shoulder back and forth. "Where's Ainsley in all this?"

"She was here. She left with my mother. Before he told her to kill Dr Whitly, the killer called Ainsley on live TV. Tried to drag her and Mother through the mud. Demanded my mother bring him a million dollars or he'd kill someone. She brought it where he asked, even though Gil and I told her not to. She wanted to save the hostage. The killer killed him anyway."

Raylan's jaw flexed. Of course Jessica would do as she was asked, despite advice. These good heartfelt people were going to get themselves killed.

"Always lookin' for attention," he muttered of the killer, unimpressed by the antics he'd all too happily missed.

"How long have you been here?" Since it happened, he assumed, but he had no idea how long it had been since The Incident. "Eaten? Slept?" All valid questions when it came to the welfare of Malcolm Bright.

He frowned faintly and lifted his arm to look at his watch.

"Oh." He'd had no idea what time it was. Nearly 5am. "About...10 hours, since they brought him in here."

Of course he hadn't slept or eaten. At this point, everyone probably assumed he'd gone home for the night.

"I did kind of wonder why it'd been so long since anyone had been here." He looked up at Raylan. "I have to take my meds."

He nodded. "Let's get you home. They'll take care of him and I'm sure if anything changes, they'll call." He was sure that Gil and the team had told him to go home, but Malcolm was a notoriously bad listener when he was in the thick of it. Raylan was pretty confident he could manage to get it done.

He looked over. "Do you have something to eat at your apartment or are we gonna have to steal Jello off the breakfast trays on our way out?"

Malcolm heard the question about food sort of passively, his attention currently focused on Raylan's face once it had wandered there.

"...What happened to you?" he asked with a crease of consternation in his brow. Raylan had been there for at least ten minutes and he hadn't even noticed.

It wasn't like Raylan had forgotten about them, but he also sort of had in the wave of questions and worry, and he scoffed a little as he glanced down, idly thumbing the healing split in his lip.

"I fell in a shower. Couple of times." Losing fist fights he should have won wasn't cool, in more ways than one, so he didn't see the need to share the details right out of the gate. "It's fine."

Malcolm's frown deepened a little.

"Sorry, who do you think you're lying to?" he asked simply.

There was no helping the half scoff of amusement or the way Raylan tongued his teeth before he looked over, eyes squinted into half moons of hazel. He was caught in it, there was no point in trying to push that as the real reason. Not when it was the first excuse of every battered housewife.

"I got into a fight with someone I shouldn't have," he explains, casual as ever. "Hell, I deserved it. It's still fine." That part hadn't been a lie.

Malcolm looked at him dubiously. "What does that mean? What happened?" he pressed.

"I'll tell you if you let me take you home," he bartered reasonably, gesturing towards the empty hall behind them. "Unless you're going to demand one of the nurses look at me for no reason."

"I wouldn't go that far; if you had an orbital bone fracture or something, you'd look way worse than that," he pointed out, starting to walk with a last glance at the window, but otherwise keeping a wary eye on Raylan and the bruises he didn't want to talk about.

His eyebrows bobbed. "Good to know."

As they passed a nurse, Raylan paused and touched her shoulder, quietly mentioning something about someone in one of the rooms looking like they might need some help. The nurse frowned faintly but abandoned the breakfast tray to go and look. After quickly snagging a few of the jello cups, Raylan used the length of his stride to move them onto the elevator.

"Don't suppose you're speaking from experience." He hoped not; he hoped this was some little detail that Malcolm picked up due to Martin.

"I have not experienced an orbital bone fracture, no. But I've seen them. Once in the domestic violence victim of a murderer we were arresting, once in a suspect who resisted arrest and got his face slammed into a lamp post by one of the uniformed officers and once after a hockey game, where the player had been hit in the face with the puck." He looked at Raylan. "They look like they feel horrific. There are a lot of nerve endings in the face, so I imagine it feels a lot like breaking a bone in your hand."

Or, you know, shattering it with a hammer.

"They sound horrific." No thank you. His off hand had found his hip again as he watched the elevator tick them down to the first floor.

"Well, my face hasn't had a lot of meetings with lampposts or otherwise. I usually deal in fists and pistol grips. And stupid bar fights."

"...You got in a bar fight?" he clarified with a slight squint. "Over what?"

He generally found Raylan to be very cool-headed. It felt like it would take some provocation to get him brawling in a bar. Or some substantial amount of alcohol, perhaps.

Raylan sighed. He wasn't gonna get outta this, clearly.

"Over drunk assholes who won't shut up. I moved out of the motel; I'm living above a collage bar now til we get a place of our own. I bounce for 'em when I'm not working. Sometimes people take offense."

The elevator dinged as they arrived on floor one and Raylan led them out onto the street, hailing a taxi down easily. When it pulled up, he opened the door and gestured for Malcolm to go first. Just in case he decided to try and change his mind.

"What? Wait..." He got into the car when Raylan sent him. He looked at Raylan once he was seated beside him. "What do you... you're working as a bouncer?" Malcolm echoed with a confused frown. "Why? You already work as many hours as I do. When do you sleep?"

Being largely incapable of sleep made Malcolm more aware of how precious and important it was, not less.

After telling the driver where they were headed, Raylan sat back and pulled his hat off to finger it's brim in his lap as he talked, gaze unashamedly coming to meet Malcolm's.

"Between the hours of 2am to 7 or so." It really wasn't that big of a deal to him. "Cuts down on the rent note and gives me something to do after hours when I'm not on a case. Plus I drink beer for free."

Malcolm looked down into his lap for a long moment, then looked at Raylan almost sidelong.

"Raylan, please don't take this the wrong way but... do you need money? Because none of what you just said is actually a reason to do it. Features and benefits, sure. But. Your real job takes a lot of brain power and a lot of body power and if you aren't doing it because you're stuck for the money, you're just wasting resources and putting yourself in danger as a Marshal for no reason."

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