abrightboy | No One's Born Broken

It was late by anyone standards, but still, Raylan was at his desk in the Lexington Marshal's office, doing the dirtiest work he'd come across. Paperwork. Of course, he'd sat down originally to have a video call with Winona and Willa, though Willa was only half a year old and wouldn't remember, and once it had ended, he got stuck in cleaning up all the shit he'd left for himself over the week.

Last thing he wanted was to hear Art bitching about it in the morning.

On the desk, his phone vibrated, screen coming to life with Malcolm's name. His brow pinched faintly before he picked it up.

"Malcolm, hey. Wasn't expecting to hear from you tonight." But he was glad to be wrong and there was a soft lift in his voice for it.

"Raylan..."

He took a breath. That had come out shaky. He'd start again.

He looked through the window, then turned his back on it, looking at the dull tile of the hospital hallway floor instead.

"Hi." Muted but better. "Um. Something happened." He glanced around. "I..." He took another careful breath. "I stabbed Dr Whitly," he finally said, like a dam bursting. "It wasn't... it wasn't.... my mother was being blackmailed by a killer and I couldn't let her do it but she still told them she did it and she won't let me tell them the truth," he gushed in a ramble barely above a whisper, "and he's not dead. I wasn't trying to kill him. But he could die. He's in the hospital in a coma and everyone feels bad for me and they shouldn't because I put him here."

Oh. Something was wrong. He could tell just by the way Malcolm said his name and it made him sit up in his chair, forearm finding the desk to lean on as he gave Malcolm time to talk. The more he did, the deeper Raylan's brow pinched.

"Shit. Is she in custody? What about the killer?" He was trying to not overload Malcolm with questions, but he was already up and moving, slipping his hat on his head as he turned off his computer and grabbed his jacket.

"I can be up there in two hours."

"She's being questioned. She hasn't been charged. I caught the killer. I let her say it was her so I could get him when he came here because he killed the last hostage even though she did what he said and I knew he would kill this one too, once he got what he wanted. He said he would know if she did it. There was only one way he could know. At the hospital. And we arrested him. But now she won't let me tell them it was me."

Raylan's calm assertion that he could be there in two hours halted Malcolm's manic rambling.

"Y-you're coming?"

Thank god, but also... wasn't this upending... whatever he was in the middle of doing in Kentucky?

"I'm still at the hospital. I can... I can text you which one so you can tell the cab driver."

Because, honestly, the prospect of seeing Raylan's face felt like a life preserver.

"Jesus," Raylan muttered under his breath as he trotted down the stairs, opting for that over the elevator that would cut off the call. "Never do things by half up there, do you. And of course I am - between the cops, your mother, and whatever other psychopath that might be watching all of ya and with Gill busy, I assume, you probably shouldn't be alone."

For more than one reason.

It was a little upending, but Raylan could put things on hold for a day, even if it meant he didn't get any sleep. He could sleep when he was dead, which at this rate, might not be too far along, if his face was any indication.

Another childish fight, another half loss and his pretty visage was cut at the eyebrow and a slightly colored bruise and cut on his lip. He hoped that Malcolm would be too otherwise distracted to really notice, or argue the bullshit 'I fell in the shower' story Raylan kept in his back pocket for lame excuses.

"Do that." Malcolm would no doubt hear the car door open and close behind Raylan as he slipped into his car. "And Martin? He stable?"

Despite Raylan's Daddy issues, he understood that Malcolm actually loved his father, in some way some part and he wasn't going to disparage that.

"I've been trying to be alone. Everyone wants to talk about it, but... all my friends are the police. I can't tell them what happened in that room. I can't risk contradicting what my mother's telling them. I can't explain that Dr Whitly told me how to do it..."

He took a breath. Answer the question, Malcolm.

"Dr Whitly is in critical condition, but considered stable. For now. He's been stabbed in the heart with a ceramic ice pick."

"So you've called your US Marshal boyfriend," he pointed out with only a fraction of amusement - Malcolm wasn't in the laughing or teasing mood, he could tell.

"I'm sorry, in his heart? How is he not already dead?"

"Maybe I was hoping you'd turn me in," he teased back wearily. He paused long enough that Raylan could probably only tell he was still there if he could hear him breathing. "When I was in college, I was talking to him about... how serial killers are very particular about the way that they kill. That sounds macabre, but it was for school. Anyway. I mentioned a case I read about where a sheriff's deputy was stabbed in the heart with a pencil and survived and Dr Whitly told me how it was done." He took a deep breath. "The only way to save the hostage was to stab him in the heart. He reminded me of that story. He told me how to do it. But when he told me the story back then, he said there was no room for error. That it's like threading the eye of a needle and... I don't know if I... did that."

He had to know that Raylan wouldn't. He was a shitty Marshal but a good lawman and frankly, if Martin Whitly had to take a knife to save an innocent person, truly had to, then it was for a greater good.

"Ninty eight percent of the conversations you seem to have with the man is macabre." But it was clear why. It was their normal. "Well," he started, bobbing his head thoughtfully. "He's not dead yet, right? That's promising. If he's already through surgery, that's the worst of it."

Maybe they'd all get lucky and he'd get an infection and stop being a pain in the Family's ass.

"Hold tight, darlin'. I'm on my way."

Hold tight, darlin'.

Malcolm nodded, even though Raylan couldn't see it. "Travel safely," he said quietly, then, as the call ended, found a nearby chair and sunk into it, still staring at - or rather through - the blank screen of his phone.

When Raylan wanted to haul ass, the man was more than capable of it and he got himself to the Lexington airport in record time. Thankfully, Lexington did redeye flights up to New York and after buying a ticket, he was on a plane and in the air.

It was only once he was up there that he realized he'd left the extra travel bag he carried in the trunk, in the trunk. Well, if he could avoid getting shot, shot at, or getting dirty, he could probably get away with it.

Two and a half hours later, Raylan was finally out of JFK and in cab, texting Malcolm that he'd be at the hospital in about 15. Raylan wasn't sure if Malcolm had left yet, changed his mind about waiting or hunkered down. Either way, Raylan and his hat were stepping off the elevator onto the correct floor, immediately looking for the Nurse's station.

He wasn't uncomfortable as a visitor here - he'd come because of Arlo enough times, so he knew the drill.

When he saw Raylan's text, he felt like he could almost breathe again. He got up and paced back to Dr Whitly's window, watching the hallway. He paced a circle in front of Dr Whitly's window, eyes still on the hallway. When he saw the familiar hat moving in the familiar way, he felt like he could burst into tears. Instead, he headed straight for it and wrapped his arms around Raylan without even thinking to look around first, his usual caution in public out the window in his distressed, racing mind.

Raylan barely got the chance to even look at Malcolm, only a sense that someone was coming being his warning to turn and look in the first place, before he was being hugged. He slipped an arm around Malcolm's shoulders, squeezing him in a tight brief hug as his off hand came down to gently disentangle them so they could move more easily.

"Let's get outta the way, c'mon," he urged softly. The arm was left around Malcolm's shoulder, hand slipping up to rest at the base of his neck as he let the smaller man guide them out of the busiest part of the hallway and down to Martin's window. Before they got to the door the preceded the window, Raylan pulled Malcolm to the side so they could talk against the wall and before he said anything, drew him back into a hug.

"Long day huh?"

Out of the way. Yes. They were in the way. He glanced around vaguely and let Raylan steer him, even as he led the way towards Martin's room. The hand at his neck was comforting, even if he didn't really recognize that it was at least partly because Gil moved him around that way when he needed to be moved.

He nodded numbly at the question, letting most of his weight slump against Raylan.

"What if she goes to jail? She didn't do anything."

It was an easy way to keep Malcolm under hand and still move freely, especially through hallways with traffic that didn't have the decency to be empty of racks. Despite the fact that Raylan had never seen Gil move Malcolm in such a way, it made functional sense. Maybe there was something to that that smarter people would spot.

For now, Raylan was focused on steadily taking Malcolm's weight. "She won't. Money like hers, his legacy of manipulation and mental abuse; a good lawyer will get her out of it. They haven't charged her yet, right? Means they haven't decided if they will or not."

Of course the LEO in him made him want to question Jessica, to question Gil and the rest of the team and get the full story, but none of those people were here at the moment and Malcolm was.

"He wanted you to stab him?" It was a beat later, but Raylan was running what Malcolm had told him over the phone in his head again.

"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?"

No One's Born Broken

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