abrightboy | No One's Born Broken

He took a breath and addressed the question first.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I feel... untethered." He shifted his gaze from his fingers working conditioner through Raylan's hair to Raylan's face. "I'm glad you're here. Thank you for coming," he said wholeheartedly.

He took a breath, his eyes wandering back to his work.

"What did you and my mother talk about?" he asked curiously.

"I couldn't leave you up here to deal with it alone. We'll take it easy. If Gil doesn't give you work and you don't want to go back to the hospital, we can come back here and watch TV or do something useless and distracting til I have to go."

He hated that he couldn't stay longer, but even taking just this day was something he was going to get shit over. Shit he planned on keeping away from Malcolm - he didn't need him taking on guilt for Raylan's decisions.

"Oh you know, the weather, politics, and you." He smiled softly. Only two of those answers were a joke. "I think she wanted to take the opportunity to make sure I'm with you and interrupting her grand plans for you for a respectable reason. She also fussed at me for waking you up from your nightmares but its out of concern. Even if she has to yell at me through a door to get her point across."

But the way his smile pulled, breaking into a half grin at that suggested he found it endearing that she'd abandon her manners to chase after making a protective point about her son.

He frowned faintly at 'a respectable reason'. Did 'love' count? But the next part made him nod concession.

"Nobody's ever done it before. I know what the... science says. I'm a psychologist. Of course I studied my own conditions. Outside interference can manifest as further... obstacles or attackers in the dream. But." He took a breath. "As someone who's suffered them for over half my life.... dealing with four monsters and waking up alone is not better than dealing with five monsters and waking up in your arms."

"As long as that remains the case, I'd rather wake you up then listen to you scream and be helpless about it." That was worse, by far. "And I think your mother would too, if she wasn't so scared of making things worse on accident."

He'd harped on her lack of immediate affection enough; she did try and that was better than some parents, Arlo, specifically.

"I also think she'll leave you alone about Eve now." He didn't like using so many 'I thinks', he'd rather know, but he couldn't know on this one. He didn't know how committed Jessica might be to that end, despite her son's happiness.

He was still relieved to hear it and smiled a little, looking up at him. "Oh good. Was she perhaps given the impression that the space beside me wasn't going to be vacated any time soon?"

"I hope so because it's not," he promised with a spread of his smile as he drew Malcolm in against him so he could both hiss him softly and, following that, sliding the soap up his back and into circles.

"I plan on stayin' there til you kick me out." Raylan already knew that at some point, he was going to ask Malcolm to marry him, but that was something he was keeping in his back pocket for when they managed to fulfill their first promise to each other. One thing at a time.

"Apparently, I'm hard to get rid of," he ended, grinning impishly.

Malcolm grinned up at him as the kiss broke.

"Thank god," he murmured happily, sliding is fingers down the sides of Raylan's face and flattening his palms down over his shoulders and chest. "Let it set," he instructed, leaning in to steal another kiss. He turned his head to survey the bottles on the shelf without moving away from Raylan at all, considering them before choosing one and plucking it from the group.

"I want this one," he said, holding it for Raylan to put in his hair once he was done with the soap, his other hand still splayed on his chest.

Raylan hummed at the slide of Malcolm's hands, finishing what soaping he could with his reach and setting the bar aside, just in time to take the offered shampoo bottle. He pulled back enough to squirt some into his hand, huffing a breath at the sputter of air that came with it.

"Shampooing and getting shampooed is easily the most intimate thing I've ever done." He loved it. The shampoo was rubbed between his hands and quickly carded through Malcolm's hair before it could go anywhere, hazel gaze more focused on Malcolm's face than the task that he did easily.

"Ruined me for showers by myself," he teased with a wink.

Malcolm grinned, clearly very pleased to hear that.

"Another reason you'll have to keep me around. I'm on a roll," he joked, leaning into Raylan's touch.

"Mm, whatever I can," Raylan promised, pushing Malcolm back a little to rinse out the healthy suds his fingers had swirled into life. The ache to get to Miami sprung up again, but he pushed it back down into its corner. He was lucky to get these stolen moments of pure utter happiness, even if naked in the shower with a younger man had ever been on his radar.

Tim would be proud.

"There a matching conditioner for this or do you mix and match?"

Malcolm's eyes widened slightly and he made a little "Oh!" as he looked at the shelf and picked out a bottle.

"I think this one today," he said, handing it to Raylan. "It's cheerful."

"Cheerful? How is a smell cheerful?" he asked, face full of laughter as he squirted a healthy dollop into his hands and pulled Malcolm out of the spray, working the thicker stuff into Malcolm's hair before turning around so the spray was against his back.

"How are you this cheerful? Comin' up outta what you do every night."

He considered that for a moment.

"There was a movie I liked when I was a kid called 'The Neverending Story', and in one scene, the hero has to get through the Swamp of Sadness, but if you let the sadness overwhelm you, it'll suck you down to your death. The only way to survive was to stay above it. Inside my head there's just a constant reel of horror and tragedy, so focusing on good things... keeps me above it."

He looked up at Raylan. "There are some really good things lately."

"I told you that you deserved good things," he said, only half teasing because the words tugged at his heart in a way that made him want to push Malcolm against the wall and kiss him until they sunk together as one many armed creature again.

Despite all that, his face slipped into a soft seriousness. "Maybe, after a while, some of this will settle into your head and give you some peace to go along with it."

They were getting sappy again. Raylan's solution was to step back and tilt his head back, letting the water carry away his conditioner. If nothing else and least importantly of all, his hair was going to be fantastic after living with Malcolm for more than a week.

Malcolm ducked his head, huffing a laugh.

"It's nice to hear that from someone who's not saying it while breaking up with me," he conceded, picking up the soap to start spreading it over Raylan's chest and shoulders, then down his stomach. "I'm hoping some of the good things take up a residence eventually," he said, glancing up at Raylan's face, which was definitely one of the good things.

"I'll tell you every morning if you want," he replied with a pull of his smile as he finished rinsing out his hair, stomach tensing a little in a delightful awareness of Malcolm's hands moving across him. Once his hair was cleaned, he slid his hands over and around Malcolm's neck to watch his face carefully.

"You know that if it doesn't, that's okay too right? We can hope but my feelings won't be hurt if it doesn't." Okay, it would a little, but that was his problem to deal with and not Malcolm's. He just wanted to head off any guilt or disappointment before it came with realistic expectations.

His hands paused, splayed across Raylan's stomach as Raylan's hands directed his gaze up to his face.

Something flickered across his features, followed by a watery smile.

Raylan was saying that his getting better or being 'fixed' somehow wasn't a condition of staying with him and nobody had ever explicitly told him that before. Some part of him expected that even Raylan had a point where this going on forever would become Too Much, but he hoped they wouldn't reach it too quickly once they actually lived together. He really, really wanted that day to never come. Maybe it wouldn't.

He set the soap on the shelf and slid his arms around Raylan, pressing his cheek into Raylan's shoulder, holding him tightly.

Had no one told him that before? That was the only thing he could gather from that passing look before Malcolm was pressing himself back into his shoulder. Raylan slid one hand up into his hairline as the other wrapped around his shoulder, and he had a feeling that Malcolm had been needing a good hug like this since the barnacle like one that Raylan had been greeted with.

Note to self: Hug often.

A beat later, Raylan was whispering. "I hope you've got a big hot water tank." Because they were using it.

A choked laugh as he realized, yes, they were using all the hot water. Slowly he let go and picked up the soap again, resuming his careful tending to Raylan's body like it was the holiest site in the world and he was making an offering.

"Will you come to the precinct with me?"

He hadn't actually asked.

Raylan watched him carefully as he pulled back, hand coming around to his jaw for a moment before settling over Malcolm's shoulder. He didn't want to stop touching him yet, soaping or not.

"Yeah, if you want me to. I've got nothing planned outside of booking my ticket back to Lexington and I'm not ready to think about when I'm leavin' yet. And maybe my bein' there will help Gil go a little easier on you, not that he seems to stand too firm when you've got your mind set on something."

Something else he loved about Malcolm. No one got anywhere in life by always doing what they were told.

Malcolm couldn't help smiling fondly when Raylan mentioned Gil.

"He knows when I can't be convinced," he admitted. "But he's known me a long time."

"Doesn't mean he won't try. I know Art would." Raylan glanced down, one hand covering Malcolm's soap having one to steal it and slide it around and up his back. "And he's only known me for twenty years. Which isn't much longer than you and Gil, is it. Who'd figure you'd end up working for slash with him."

But it suited Malcolm and they all knew it. Unstable enough to avoid having a badge, brilliant enough to be in the middle of the shit anyway.

"I've worked with-slash-for him before," he said with a grin. "When I was a kid, sometimes he'd take me on stakeouts with him. Get me out of my mother's hair."

That made Raylan huff a laugh. "Really? And she let that happen? Did you help then too? 15 year old Malcolm bookin' it down the street after a robber?"

Malcolm laughed. "I almost never saw action on those stakeouts," he admitted. "But once I watched Gil chase down an extortionist. He made me promise to wait in the car. It was before I knew better than not to promise that."

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