abrightboy | No One's Born Broken

"I'm not saying I slipped a hundred dollars into his hand, but I will say that the previous tenants are already gone and there's no reason to make us wait until the first of the month," he noted lightly.

He led the way up to the building, shaking the landlord's hand. He introduced Raylan without any indication of their relationship and the landlord unlocked the front door and led them into the elevator. It was an eleven storey building and the apartment they were going to was one of only four on the top floor. The landlord let them into the apartment and then informed Malcolm he'd be in the lobby if they needed anything else. He closed the door and left them alone.

Malcolm held his arms out to gesture to it. "Open plan kitchen and living room," he pointed out. "And this whole wall is windows," he said with an expansive gesture. But they angle up, so it's hard to see in them unless you're... I don't know. In a helicopter or something." He walked to the side of the apartment opposite the kitchen and pushed open a door. "The bedroom is in here. It's pretty sizeable. Room for a little sitting area in the corner. Skylight." He pointed up. "We have to put the bed under that," he suggested. He led him to the next door. "Bathroom. Could use a little work; I'm not wild about the colours. But it'll do. But look at this," he continued, leading Raylan to the far end of the wall of windows. There was a door. Malcolm opened it and led him out onto a small roof terrace. He hadn't told him about that part until they got there, because he wanted it to be a surprise. He turned and looked at Raylan's face. "I know you like sitting outside in the evening. We could make it nice. Get some patio furniture," he said, gesturing to where it could go. "We could even build a little herb garden right here," he said, indicating some space along the wall." He looked at Raylan again, finally falling silent for comment.

Of course. Raylan could only chuckle as he followed, shaking the landlords hand with a pleasant 'How do you do'. Keeping up the tail of their little train, Raylan looked around as they got up and into the elevator, and stepped off with a little lift of his eyebrows. The eleventh story, huh? He'd never lived above floor 2.

Hazel eyes followed the Landlord back to the door before it closed behind them and Raylan let Malcolm take him on the tour, letting him observe the security risks of the place. He didn't say much as they went but his face talked a lot.

He liked the wall of angled windows, but only after Malcolm pointed out said angle. The size of the bedroom was nice, and the skylight got a crooked smile. Well, no one was going to be repelling in, were they? Bathrooms were bathrooms, though this one was a mile and half better than the one he had in his motel room, for all it's functionality.

But the terrace. "You didn't mention a terrace," Raylan said, shifting his hat a little as he looked out over the view it gave them before looking over at Malcolm with a closed lipped but utterly pleased and surprised smile. "It's a good view. Might even be able to see some stars."

He turned to look back inside, mentally envisioning what them being here would look like.

"You like it." He took a deep breath. "I can't say I don't." Though the terrace very clearly sold it. "How much is this gonna run us a month?"

Malcolm pressed his lips together. The rent was fine by him, but he was concerned Raylan would think it was too much.

"Fifteen hundred dollars," he confessed. "But that includes utilities," he added quickly. "And all this. And it's very private." Even the terrace was private; it didn't face any other balconies or, because of the building's shape, share a wall with any of the other top floor apartment terraces. "Anyone who wants to peek in on us would have to work hard at it." He gesturing back towards the apartment itself. "And it's very defensible."

By the time Malcolm got to the last 'and', Raylan was already shaking a hand out, fingers splayed back and forth as he smiled.

"Malcolm, it's fine. I like the place. And we can handle the rent. Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't bump it up to sixteen and a half." One hand reached out for Malcolm, if he wanted it, to draw him in.

"The price is good. Call the landlord. Tell him we'll take it."

Malcolm took the hand gladly, happily drawn in.

"We can work on it a bit at a time, but I'll get basic furniture in during the day and we can come back here when you finish work tomorrow," he rambled some more. "Sit on our new terrace and relax," he suggested with big, bright eyes.

Raylan's smile was warm as he slid his off hand around his waist. "Dare I ask what you classify as basic furniture? Patio sittin' space and a bed aside."

He smiled as Raylan slid an arm around him, letting his hand rest on Raylan's chest, lightly grasping his lapel. His favourite thing, being held by Raylan.

"A sofa.... television.... maybe a little dining table over by the windows? The kitchen needs dishes and cutlery and some sort of... cookware? I mean, if I'm going to be here while you're working and I'm not, I should probably learn how to do some basic cooking, right? Beyond eggs, I mean. I'll have time. Oh! A clock, probably. Nightstands... Bookshelves...."

That worked out because holding Malcolm was easily one of the top three things in his life he got to do right now. Followed closely by loving him and holding his daughter.

Raylan chuckled as he leaned in and stole a silencing kiss. "So long as you won't be bored doing it." He loved that Malcolm's short list was actually 15 or more items long and while he was good too, Raylan could have lived with a bed and a chair.

"Let's go get this on paper before he has some other couple swoop in and try to steal this out from under us. Housing market is scary right now."

"If he sells it out from under us, I want my hundred dollars back," he joked, even as he moved towards the door, even though that required slipping out of Raylan's arms.

The kiss would hold him over.

Meeting the landlord in the lobby, they signed the paperwork to secure the apartments, with the landlord's blessing to move in the following day. He handed Malcolm two sets of keys, shook Raylan's hand and left, leaving them standing in the lobby.

Malcolm looked at Raylan. "It's ours," he said, holding out the keys to him.

"Thought you said you didn't do that," he teased, having known full well that Malcolm had as he followed behind.

The paper signing was short but to Raylan it seemed like it stretched on forever until it suddenly didn't anymore and Malcolm was handing over keys to their apartment. Raylan felt like he could burst and resisted the urge to sweep Malcolm up into a tight hug and kiss.

Instead, he took the keys and thumbed them over in his palm before looking up at Malcolm with an almost disbelieving smile.

"Let's get back to the hotel so you can get it on your keys." But Raylan's everything was more than obvious - he wanted to get behind a door and celebrate.

Malcolm grinned as they walked back to the car.

"There's underground parking. We have a reserved spot for your car. Secure access and it won't be visible from the street."

Once he'd settled in the passenger seat of the car, he looked over. "I'm going to buy the biggest bed they have. I bet there's a way to hook up one of my restraints halfway across, from below the headboard. So it holds me but isn't all uncomfortable underneath you."

"You mean no one will be able to frame me by putting something nasty in my trunk? Be still my heart," he said, only half sarcastic because his heart was kinda beating out of his chest. Malcolm could probably tell with the way Raylan gripped the wheel a little to tight, hands moving a little too often as his town car engine pull them ahead of the speed limit by a few miles an hour.

"Don't wait for me on any of those decisions," he said freely with a glance over. "I'm not great with 'em and your tastes are better than mine." Something else easily admitted. Raylan was a bum next to Malcolm, or it felt that way sometimes.

"We're really doin' this," he breathed out, still in a half state of shock.

Edited 2020-07-05 00:57 (UTC)

Malcolm smiled broadly at him. "You didn't doubt it, did you?" he asked, but there was no condemnation in his tone. It was light. He was in a great mood. "I was pretty bad at hiding my sheer determination to find an apartment today."

He very pointedly didn't answer that question.

"I feared for every landlord you might come across," he said with a crooked grin. "But you did achieve your goals. I'm sure they were quaking."

And he didn't sleep with one of them.

"What sold this one so much? Was it the skylight or the terrace?"

Sleep with one. Malcolm would laugh at the suggestion that he could even contemplate sleeping with someone else.

That he could even contemplate doing Raylan harm.

He looked at him in all seriousness. "I could see us in it," he admitted plainly. "I look at it and I know where to put the furniture and what we need and how it will be perfect for both of us separately and together..." He smiled a little. "But the terrace was a factor. You like to sit outside after dinner."

The mirth slipped away, replaced by a seriousness that was reflected each time his eyes strayed from the road to catch a glimpse of Malcolm's' face.

"I'd like to do some of that with you. Sitting outside after dinner. Maybe catching a sunset or some night air." He liked night air a lot. It was always more peaceful. Less.. aggressive.

"I feel a little crazy, already thinkin' of comin' home to a place that has you in it." In a good way. If it had been anyone other than an educated psychologist, Raylan wouldn't have said shit, but Malcolm got a little more of him than everyone else.

"The terrace faces west and south," he said. "Sunsets will be observed."

He looked over. "It's too good to be true, right? I felt like that the first time you said you loved me. Everything has seemed possible since then."

Raylan huffed a little half amused breath. "If this is how you feel all the time, I don't know how you do it."

There was a reason he never really did drugs.

With the way he was driving, it didn't take them any time at all to get to the hotel and he still felt more than a little wild as they made their way up to the room. As soon as they were behind a door, Raylan was more than predictable - his hat was tossed into a chair before he was reaching for Malcolm to draw him into a deeply hungry kiss. He did love Malcolm. More than he could really articulate or even believe, having thought he'd been in love before. But it had never gone this deep with Winona, even at the best of their times.

Edited 2020-07-05 12:38 (UTC)

Malcolm only chuckled at Raylan's observation in the car. It was an elation that his standard chemical sedation didn't dampen and he loved it. He felt really, genuinely alive with Raylan in a way he hadn't before, except when he was solving a complicated case that nobody else had been able to crack. It didn't fade over time, it got stronger. He wanted more of it.

Once they got into the room, he leaned eagerly into the kiss. Even though he still, really, lived in New York and they still wouldn't be together all the time yet.... this still felt momentous. Like the milestone where they started their life together for real. A cocktail of emotions shot through him, straight into his abdomen, coiling there with arousal already at the hot need in Raylan's kiss that he met just as hungrily.

His hands slid up Raylan's arms and then over and down the front of his shoulders to finally work at the knot of his tie, pulling it loose, then fumbling for his buttons.

When the kiss broke, he was breathless, but as his hand bumped the badge at Raylan's belt he gasped "Did everything go okay at work? Everything's okay?"

He hadn't been forced to turn in his badge, so it hadn't gone horribly....

There was no doubt in Raylan's mind that this is where he wanted to be for the rest of his life. Malcolm had blown him over somewhere along the way and happily sucked him up into the wake of his day to day, and he could only really make sense of it when Malcolm was against him and overloading his senses. It felt right.

Raylan's hands started around Malcolm's waist, one fisting in the tucked in fabric and leading him to hastily tugging it from his pants before Malcolm's shoulders found a wall, redirecting him to peel off the jacket so he could tug Malcolm's tie free and start the same process.

"Eveyrthing's fine," he husked, peppering his answer with hastily stolen kisses. "Tim isn't gonna say anything. We got dirt on him too." No details, but it was enough to defend what Raylan was trying to protect here. "They might want you to come in for your own statement for the record."

Despite the work talk, they were both half striped before they knew it and Raylan's fingers started working on Malcolm's belt as he sank into the smaller man again. Raylan didn't deal with emotion particularly well, even when it was good emotion. He felt overrun, overtaken by it, and the only way to come back down was to bury himself in Malcolm until he was forced to come up for air.

They had dirt on him too? Cool.

Malcolm enjoyed the almost reckless abandon that Raylan threw himself into him with. It felt like enjoying the last night on Earth. Or the first. It made him feel like the centre of the universe.

"I can..." He hummed into a kiss. "I can make a statement," he confirmed, fumbling Raylan's pants open and pushing them over his hips before running his hands back up his now bare sides and around up and down the smooth expanse of his back.

Statement, right- he hummed in some sort of agreement. There was nothing in his head but being against Malcolm and hearing all those very alive sounds in his ears. He was the center of Raylan's universe at the moment and he had full plans to make Malcolm the center of it anytime he was home and could.

Raylan pulled back a fraction, only to hastily toe off his boots so he could push his jeans clear and kick them off to the side. There was no waiting in the pushing down of Malcolm's trousers, or the greedy hand that stroked him as Raylan straightened into another kiss, his own length coming to rub against Malcolm's hip as he leaned into it.

Malcolm rather liked being sandwiched between Raylan and a wall. It felt... secure. Solid.

He kicked his shoes and pants off distractedly, one hand coming up to cup Raylan's jaw while the other slid around his ribs and down to his hip. His breath hitched against Raylan's mouth when that hand closed around him, little sounds escaping with each stroke as the kisses got messier and hungrier.

The hand at Raylan's jaw slid up into his hair and Malcolm arched his body against Raylan's, his shoulderblades pressed to the wall for leverage.

Edited 2020-07-05 20:38 (UTC)

There was plenty Raylan might have wanted to do, but having Malcolm's hands on him, holding him close was too good. With a rough growl, Raylan wrapped his arms around Malcolm and lifted him off his feet, carrying him towards the bedroom, nipping little bites into their kiss as he went.

Once in there, Raylan set him down next to the desk they'd so helpfully supplied and lifted him up onto it, hands sliding around and up his back as he enjoyed them being at eye level together.

"I want you every night, in my bed, with me, where we belong," he breathed, only able to give words to his feelings in passing breathes of sanity.

Raylan, practically feral with desire - for him - was already a heady experience before he put words to it.

Malcolm wrapped his legs around him when he lifted him up, making the leverage to carry him easier. Helping. He was heavier than he looked. Once he was perched on the desk, he wrapped a leg around him again, holding him close, the hand in his hair coming to rest at the nape of his neck.

"I want that, too," he whispered.

His free hand slid up Raylan's chest and neck to his jaw and brought him in for another hungry kiss, his leg around Raylan's hip tightening its grip on him.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject