abrightboy | No One's Born Broken

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."

Raylan's eyebrows went up and, after a beat, he scoffed and slipped his hat back onto his head. He had a family to help support on the side and Raylan wasn't the type to just cross his fingers and hope he'd come into enough capital to set back for emergencies. Did he need money? Yes. Was he going to take any from Malcolm? No.

"It was a bar fight, not a shoot out." Not yet, anyway. "Nothing put in danger except my pride."

Malcolm sighed and looked out the window at the Manhattan skyscrapers going past, then looked at Raylan.

"You've been very evasive the whole time we've been talking about it and you didn't answer the question..." He held up his hand to stop any protest or defence. "And I'm not going to try to make you, but." He shrugged a shoulder and looked out the window again for a long moment, then looked at Raylan. "This separate life that's none of my business: how long does that last? Forever? Is there always going to be a room above a bar where you go because your pride won't let you spend money that you feel like you didn't earn, even though you basically have it? We're planning on moving in together. Are we not planning on joining assets?"

He had no protest or defense to offer.

"It's not none of your business, Malcolm, there's just not shit else to say about it. I moved. I found a way to keep myself busy when I'm not workin' so I don't go crazy thinkin' about where we're headed and why we're not there yet. Do I need money? Yeah, I've got a baby on the side - I'm always gonna need money. Kids are expensive."

He didn't want to let Winona or Willa down - he remembered being a 'poor' kid. He wanted better for Willa.

"Why are we havin' this conversation? Why does my bouncing on the side bother you?"

"It's not the bouncing that bothers me," he said evenly. "It's how much you didn't want to tell me about it and how much you're not doing it out of boredom. And you got beat up for it and it's not fine."

Raylan looked into his lap, right hand thumb fiddling with the horseshoe ring on his finger. He didn't know how to make this okay. If Malcolm reacted like this to a bar fight gone bad, what was he going to do the next time he got shot?

He didn't say anything.

Well, it would depend on whether he got shot doing Marshal things.

Malcolm looked at him as the silence went on.

"Will you please tell me literally anything that you're thinking right now?" he asked softly.

With a breath and his left hand coming out to gesture as he spoke, index and thumb coming together. "My issue isn't with your money, but your family's money. I don't know how much you get paid by NYPD for Consult, but I know it's less than what I make as a Marshal, end of the year. Which means that a good number of bills that you might otherwise have are getting picked up by your mother. Stop me if I'm close."

Malcolm gave him a look. "I think you'll find my trust fund is technically mine," he countered. "And most of my income is generated by interest on its principal, not from my job, so... that part is close. I guess. And?"

'Trust fund' got a little smile like it proved his point somehow and gave a nod as his hand dropped back down to spread his fingers on his thigh. "That didn't come from the thin air or a bank error. I don't like how it looks. That's your money. Your family's money. I am trying to do the same thing for mine." However fractured and separated he was from it. It was the least he could do, no matter how it might break him over it.

Malcolm watched him a little wistfully for a moment.

"You asked me to be part of your family," he reminded him matter-of-factly. But there was a sadness in his face as he said it. He'd believed it and he didn't want to think the distinction drawn now meant that it wasn't sincere, but that was a pretty clearly drawn line just then. 'Your family' and 'my family'. "But I just come bundled with something that's shameful for each situation, don't I?" he pointed out, still keeping his voice mostly even. "I understand the social climate where you live and why it means you don't want people there to know about us. But that's temporary, because we have plans that aren't there. But now you have to do a menial job that you really don't get anything out of to support your fallback heteronormative family and I'm an outsider with money that you can't share because it's dirty somehow." He raised his eyebrows slightly. "Unless you want to tell me about your longtime endless passion for bouncing in a bar and how your dream is finally coming true," he offered a little sharply.

'Your family' and 'my family'. It was stinging him.

Raylan's jaw shifted as he glanced up to the taxi driver who was trying desperately to pretend he wasn't listening to the soap opera drama unfolding in his back seat, and thumbed his finger some more as he looked over at Malcolm.

The accusation of shame he could handle. The tone, however barbed under that evenness, he could handle. But the accusation that Willa and the connection he maintained with Winona was a fallback herto-anything hurt and Raylan's lips tightened in on themselves.

He could not have been more glad for the taxi pulling up at the curb, though he was sure the driver would have happily gone around the block to let them finish their argument with audience if they'd asked. He stayed silent as he opened the door and slid out. Malcolm could pay for the cab if he wanted, though the taxi driver rolled down the passenger window expectantly.

Malcolm handed some money up to the front seat before sliding out of Raylan's door, lingering on the curb next to him, watching him a moment like he wanted to say something before walking up to the door and unlocking it instead, letting them in off the street.

He didn't look pleased with himself at all as he opened the inner door, shrugging out of his coat and scarf to hang them on the hooks there. He turned and looked at Raylan as he heard the door shut.

"That was out of line. I'm sorry," he said in a soft, chastened tone, despite no chiding having happened. He was more than capable of chiding himself. He lashed out because he'd been operating under some sort of misapprehension and he couldn't put that on Raylan. "I've been on edge. There's no..." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "There's no excuse. I don't have any business telling you what to do," he admitted. "And I understand why you didn't want to tell me. And then when you did, I didn't exactly create a safe space for you to tell me things in the future and... that's not what I want," he added, waving off the notion with both hands. "For you to feel like you can't tell me things."

If Malcolm had attempted to continue this on the street, Raylan would have directed them upstairs anyway, so it was better that Malcolm chose that route, cowboy in tow. The door shut and Raylan took off his jacket and hung it on the rack, following with his hat before pulling the jellos out of his pockets.

"But you believe the things you said," he stated with assumption as he walked past Malcolm towards the kitchen where the jellos were set on the counter. "I am sorry that I'm not out there flyin' some Gay fuckin' Pride flag and screaming about us from the rooftops, but that is my daughter. Who I decide to go to bed with or make a life with doesn't change what I feel my responsibilities are. Unless you're going to adopt her, I still have to worry about what she might see comin' to her when I finally catch the wrong bullet. She's not a fallback." The statement came with tap of his index finger on the counter before he was turning around and getting a glass from the cabinet to match the scotch he suddenly desperately needed.

He lifted his hands helplessly and let them fall.

"I meant what I said but... that isn't what I meant. I wasn't talking about Willa, either, except for that you said you wanted me to be part of that and I thought you meant..." He stopped himself and shook his head and looked at the floor. It didn't matter. "It's obvious you still have feelings for Winona. I don't read people on purpose but... I do it. And you don't even need actual skills to see that." His eyes wandered the floor from where he stood, still just a few steps from the door, to the kitchen island, to inside the kitchen where Raylan was pouring scotch. "And she lives in Miami. Which is good, because you'll be able to see your daughter, and I think you should, as much as possible. But... you'll also see her. And maybe she'll feel differently by then. And maybe that would be easier for you than the sideways glances and crude pejoratives and snide knowing glances you'll get by being with me in public."

The two fingers were downed in one go and he poured another two before capping the scotch and putting it away. Instead of answering, Raylan strode back over and reached for Malcolm, one hand sliding around his neck as the other one wrapped around his waist to tightly hold them together. It didn't matter that his lip started drumming again in soft pain. When it broke, Raylan pulled back only just enough to put Malcolm into focus in his vision.

"I don't need to put back anything for you. You're covered. I don't need to put back anything for me. I'm fine. Everything I'm putting back, it's for her. Winona can take care of herself and yes, I still love her. I always will. But the fifth time will not be the charm and I am tired of her leaving me. I am happy with you. In a way I wasn't with her over six plus years. More time in Miami isn't going to change that. It's not going to make me love you less or make me want this less. I'm.. I'm working on my part."

Malcolm breathed out for possibly the first time since they'd closed the door when Raylan's arm went around him.

As he processed all that, the first conclusion he drew was that Winona was crazy. She had multiple chances to have Raylan's utter devotion in her life and she threw it away?

Crazy.

He frowned faintly, one hand gripping Raylan's arm and the other holding a fistful of his shirt just below his shoulderblade.

"But...she'll be taken care of. The best schools, any college she wants. I don't have kids, except for whatever role you let me play in her life. She can have it all when I'm gone. Who am I going to give it to?"

"Darlin', I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money and if that's what you want to do for her, I'm not going to stop that either. I wasn't lying when I said I wanted you in her life, that I needed help, and monetarily is not what I meant, but that does not mean that I am against the idea."

Raylan searched Malcolm's face with a heavy sigh and a pinch of frustration at himself in his features. What if all this fell apart? Where would Willa be if Raylan's trusted source wasn't there anymore?

"I just.. I gotta have a back up plan." He'd blame his job if he thought about it. "Something I know can't be taken away from me."

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