abrightboy | No One's Born Broken

Working on wrapping the corn in foil, Raylan watched him sidelong with a faint lift of the edges of his lips.

"Always figured you'd be in to Fish, or Mozart." Now, he'd have to pay more attention to the lyrics of stuff that Malcolm played.

"Yeah, I'll grab her. Set you two up and I can start moving the food out there too."

It was finally quiet for them, it felt like. Like this would be what their domestic life could really be like. He wanted more of it. Moving towards the living room, setting his beer down on the coffee table long enough to pick Willa up with a soft talkative "Hey sweetheart, what'cha doin'?"

He gathered his beer and kept the conversation going as he headed outside. "I hope you don't mind country."

"I don't mind Mozart, I guess, but unless you know how to dance a Saltarello, I prefer Queen," he teased, picking up the playpen to follow him. "I haven't heard much country, but my tastes are broad and if it makes me think of you, even better," he said with a grin, setting the playpen down in the space he'd vacated.

"I can do a half decent two step but I wouldn't push it much past that," he admitted with a smirk as he idly bounced Willa in his arm. "I normally just listen to what's on the radio. Concerts weren't somethin' I ever really had an interest in. Too many people. Too many drunk stupid assholes like myself too," he continued, setting Willa down into the playpen before reaching for Malcolm and a brief kiss.

"So you'll get to pop that cherry when you find someone you wanna go see live," he promised with a pat of Malcolm's hip before heading inside to get the chicken, a sheet pan and the corn.

Malcolm met the kiss with a faint hum of approval, grinning at Raylan's comment about popping his concert cherry.

"Well, if that's the case, I'll makes sure it's something more exciting than Mozart," he joked as Raylan headed in, sitting down on the couch with his glass, watching Willa explore the side of the playpen with her little fingers.

Returning with the drained chicken, the pan and a roll of paper towels under his arm, Raylan set it all down to pull out the user manual and start flipping through it. Go figure that the man that wouldn't read case files unless he had to would sink into paper that wasn't work. Still, he didn't bother with anything beyond the proper way to light it, fiddling with the knobs as he muttered to himself before the manual was folded and tucked into his back pocket.

Two minutes later, the grill was flaming up and Raylan was grinning as he turned around to look at Malcolm before coming to fetch his beer.

"It works, imagine that."

"Mm. I'd be having words with someone at that store if it didn't," he mused with a grin.

The man who did read files voraciously hadn't touched the manual.

"So do you soak the chicken before any kind of cooking?" For some reason, he'd thought it was a frying thing.

"I won't ask, so don't tell me." Raylan shuddered to think of the pricetag of fully furnishing an apartment, complete with grill, and he still hadn't come around to bother bothering himself with it.

"Any soak is better than none. Makes the chicken less dry. Better to soak it for a few hours at least but twenty or thirty minutes is good enough if that's what you gotta do. Seeps into the meat. I have to dry them off before they go on the grill. Dripping wet meat cooks unevenly. We keep this up, one day you can cook for your family and watch their jaws drop through the floor."

Malcolm laughed lightly.

"Right. Even if I cook a five star cordon bleu meal, my mother's jaw will be dropping in horror before she compares me to a line cook at a greasy spoon."

He took a sip of his drink.

"Do you have to stand over it all the time or will you be able to come sit with me?" he asked. Because if necessary, he would go stand over there with Raylan.

"Mm, well there's no accounting for taste sometimes, is there," he replied with a smile and a drink of his own as he ambled back towards the grill.

"Nah. The great thing about grilling is that half of it is just sitting and making sure nothing catches on fire. Once I get it on."

It was it's own form of work, one that always promised to be rewarding, and it only took about ten minutes of work before the sound of meat hitting the grill filled the air. After that, Raylan closed the lid, glanced at his watch, and ambled back to sit next to Malcolm, one arm going around his shoulder.

"Think you could get used to this? One or two weekends a month?"

Malcolm smiled behind his whiskey glass and looked over at Raylan.

"Every weekend for the rest of my life?" he suggested. "I think about it all the time, really, actually living with you."

"BBQ every weekend, you might get tired of it," he reasoned with a smile. "I think about it too. Probably more than I should. What are we gonna do when we run outta things to talk about?"

He had a feeling they wouldn't.

Malcolm laughed at himself.

"I kind of meant sitting on a patio of some sort watching sunsets," he clarified. He looked over at Raylan. More than he should? He still had some doubts that it could happen.

Well. It did seem too good to be true.

He smiled at the question. "Don't worry; I've never run out of things to talk about yet," he teased self-deprecatingly. "The problem will happen if you get tired of all the talking, I think."

"I don't think we'll get tired of that, at least not any time soon," he assured with a faint lift of his eyebrows as he took a shallow pull from his beer bottle.

It did seem too good to be true. Hell, this seemed too good to be true. He didn't want to put all his eggs and hopes into one basket and have them kicked down the road by life.

Raylan couldn't help but chuckle at Malcolm's answer. "Nah. And if I need a little quiet, I'll tell ya. You talk a lot but you don't annoy the shit outta me like a lotta talkers do. You aren't just talkin' out your ass, I think it what it is. Normally, I put people who talk too much in the trunk of my car."

Malcolm smiled with a slight lift of his eyebrows and then a tilt of his head.

"I can't believe I didn't even have that experience the first time I was here," he said. "It usually takes some time for people to warm up to me."

"I try to reserve it for assholes and criminals," he half defended with a shit eating grin.

"But you proved yourself useful. If nosy." The admission was given with a fond glance over. "Smart enough to not talk out of your ass too. You might hit buttons, but you're not lyin'." And that Meant Something.

Malcolm chuckled. "You know, the not lying is usually the part that doesn't go over well," he pointed out.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Raylan's mouth.

"And that still makes my knees as weak as the first time you did it," he admitted, resting his head on Raylan's shoulder to look out at the city. "So no shortages forthcoming in that department either."

"Mm, I think a lot about that too," he said, bottle propped on his knee. "Part of me expected you to shove me off, slap me maybe, and tell me to go somewhere else." He curled a smile down at Malcolm.

"Guess I'm lucky you didn't." Considering he had a good idea of what his life would be like without this. He'd sort of scared himself with that leap, so it ran around in his head a lot more often than he would have bet on.

Then again, they hadn't exactly taken that leap slow. He still blames the whiskey, but with a tone of fond appreciation.

Malcolm shifted to look up at him, a little surprised.

"You thought I might not be interested? I thought I was being really unsubtle. Like, 'reign it in, Bright, you're going to make him run fast and far' unsubtle," he admitted.

"How's that? By bravely touching my arm to keep me from yellin' at your mother? Which was brave, by the way. Most people would just sit there and wear worry on their face. You were always a perfect gentleman, I promise," he reassured with a widening of his smile. "Or is it the whole talkin' me into stay at your place while we were there? Though, if I'm honest, I mighta smudged the truth a little to do that.."

"I thought it was my facial expressions that would give me away, actually. I thought you might figure out that I... was attracted to you. Apart from wanting to be friends. And that it would make you uncomfortable. But... smudged the truth? Tell me more. You're hard to read, you know," Malcolm told him.

"Mm any hints I mighta got were pushed under to just how you were," he admitted. "Bright." His smile spread a bit. "Maybe a little friendly, but that was.. already outside the New York norm."

There was a lotta 'HEY, IM WALKIN' HERE' going on. They couldn't all be Whitly's.

"The Marshal's Service already had a room for all of us. I didn't have to stay." He met Malcolm's eyes. "Seemed rude to say no, after having you in mine, for some reason."

"Well, I figured the others stayed somewhere," he admitted. He held Raylan's gaze. "Did it start as just a social obligation, then?" he asked.

"The social obligation was just a good excuse to get you back into my space again. We didn't talk about happy things at Arlo's and somehow I still almost enjoyed the conversation. That ain't nothin'."

Malcolm set his glass on the table and turned to lean his forehead against Raylan's temple, pressing a gentle kiss to his cheekbone, sliding his hand up to thread fingers into his hair.

"How far into your space is ideal?" he murmured.

Smiling, Raylan tilted his head into all of it before looking over sidelong while his hand settled down almost tightly around Malcolm's waist. "You're gettin' warmer," he husked as impulse took over to kiss Malcolm again with all the feeling he couldn't really articulate. When it broke, he continued.

"And it's real dangerous, bein' all in my space, especially for you.. And that chicken."

There'd never be a question of want here; Raylan's answer would always be an emphatic yes.

"I don't care how we got here. All I want is the rest of forever with you too." Not too much to ask, right?

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