No One's Born Broken

[abrightboy]

For tinstar.



Gil came and went. Dani came and went. Ainsley came and then left with their mother, who refused to even hear him out about telling the truth. He stared through the window at the motionless man in the bed for some indeterminate amount of time, his hand clutching his phone in his pocket.

Finally he let his eyes leave the figure through the window and he took his phone out of his pocket. He stared at that for a long moment, then scrolled through his contacts until one name rolled onto the screen: Raylan Givens.

He looked through the window, then looked at the name. Then he pressed it.

Comments

[tinstar]

"I don't go lookin' for it." Most of the time. Generally, it came to him but Raylan knew the dangers of being lackadaisical and tried to stay ahead of those trying to stay ahead of him.

"Plus, I don't have to blur lines about my legality," he continued as he pulled into their parking lot and threw the car into park, killing the engine so he could look over at Malcolm properly and for more than a second.

"I know we gotta do some extreme things to solve our cases, get our guy. That doesn't mean I take risks I don't have to. They're not worth us dyin," he continued before opening his door and sliding out.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm got out of the car and walked around to the back, ready to grab his bag of groceries when the trunk popped. He lingered there, waiting for Raylan to be nearby again.

"I'm not reckless," he said. "I don't have a deathwish."

[tinstar]

"Being reckless suggests a habit," Raylan countered as he got out, popping the trunk before getting into the back seat and pulling Willa out, carseat and all before grabbing her back and slinging it over his shoulder.. "And I didn't say you had a deathwish."

Raylan grabbed up two of the backs from the back. "You're going to have to unlock the door."

[abrightboy]

"Okay."

He meandered by Raylan's side, only moving ahead of or behind him where the hallway was too narrow. He opened the door and pushed the button for the elevator. "You suggested I was taking unnecessary risks. Why do you think I did it?" he asked curiously.

[tinstar]

"Like I said. Restlessness. An inability to keep your ass at home. Which I kinda already knew," he admitted. "I just wish you'd find a way to deal with it that wasn't getting yourself into somethin' more extreme for the sake of catchin' a murderer. I trust the rest of my team to be able to catch someone, even if I'd make it quicker."

The elevator dinged and the doors open, letting Raylan step in.

"You can say it wasn't, but you also say you had to. Needed too. Compulsory."

[abrightboy]

"Because I can't stay in my head, not because I can't stay at home. I need a puzzle. I need something to think about that isn't... the scrolling cinema of horror in my brain. That was the puzzle they had that day," Malcolm explained. A beat and he admitted "And my mother hired a German ex-Olympic judo champion nurse to hover over me, so maybe in this case, it was a little bit not wanting to stay at home. But at all times, it's at least ninety percent not wanting to stay in my head. It's not a good place."

[tinstar]

"Guess I know what to get you for Christmas," he quipped back with a sidelong look. "And what? A.. ex-Olympic judo champion nurse? Why?"

He wasn't talking about MAlcolm's head either; it was a dangerous place, no matter how you came at it.

[abrightboy]

"You do?" but he didn't pursue it. But he also didn't see the jump to what that present might be. Besides, Raylan was asking about the nurse.

"Um, I guess she thought the 'army of nurturing women' my good luck brought me in my convalescence needed an enforcer."

The elevator stopped and he stepped off, waiting for Raylan to draw alongside him as they walked to their door.

"I'd been in the door for five seconds before she tried sending me to bed. I hadn't even been introduced to her yet. At least she was told to use my actual name and not 'Whitly'. I think that counts as thoughtful coming from my mother. Who then jumped in and told her I'm not good at taking instructions, which I can't really argue with, but Dani drove me home." A beat. "Not from the hospital," he clarified. "I tried to go straight to the precinct and Gil made her take me home. But she was there for the whole humiliating episode."

[tinstar]

"Cause that's worked out so well," he quipped, unable to stop himself from thinking of his mother and Aunt Helen as he drew up next to him. There was something to be said for a force of nurturing women, but it didn't seem like Malcolm had really gotten that. Not in the way Jessica had meant to.

Malcolm would have to wait til Christmas to see what kind of gift he'd inspired.

"I'm sure Dani understands. There's always a way with Parents, no matter how old we are."

Once they stopped at the door, Raylan let Malcolm unlock it and head in first, following behind and shutting the door with a gentle kick of his foot.

"This is why I worked real hard to not be around Arlo as often as possible. But having him in cuffs was worth the trouble." There was no embarrassment, not anymore. "She's gotta learn you're not a child anymore."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nodded, putting his bag down on the counter and turning to take Raylan's from him.

"I'm disappointed that she hasn't... been nicer about you. I'm not going to change my mind. This..." He gestured between them as he set those bags on the counter. "This is a fact."

[tinstar]

"Eh, I get it," he sighed with a resigned tone as he handed off the bag and set Willa down before rolling his shoulder. "After all, I'm swoopin' in out of apparently no where to steal her little boy from her," he said, coming up to slip his arms around Malcolm and pull him against him. Unpacking the bags could wait, he had a boyfriend to kiss.

"She's just takin' her time accepting it."

[abrightboy]

He loved the way Raylan always gathered him up when the door closed and his hands were free, just to be close. He slid his arms up around Raylan's neck with a grin.

"I wouldn't call Kentucky 'nowhere'," he teased. "Plus I'm pretty sure I'm the one that swooped." He pushed himself up on his toes to steal a kiss. "Right into your office on a sunny morning."

[tinstar]

He couldn't help it; the oppression of not touching Malcolm out in the wide world had it's side effects. It didn't help that there'd been a little tension in their conversation; Raylan liked to obliviate it whenever he was given an opportunity.

"Mm," he hummed as his face followed the breaking kiss, "I don't know if it was sunny or if that was just you," he said, stealing another kiss before gently breaking away to go free Willa who was grunting with purpose nearby.

"Once we're in Miami-" Once a ring was on Malcolm's finger, "-She'll calm down, I'm sure. Maybe she'll even calm down enough to be invited over to a bbq there," he continued with a smirk and a glance over at Malcolm before he set Willa down on the carpet for some free roaming time.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm leaned over the counter, watching Raylan pick up the baby and set her free. Something about the conversation was lingering in his mind, too.

"Raylan... you know you can tell me how you feel about something and I'll still love you, right? Even if we don't agree?" He hesitated, watching him. "I want to know how you feel about things. It matters. I want to know what you think. Just... in general. I'm not trying to pry anything in particular out of you. I just feel like... you worry about how voicing your thoughts will impact us."

[tinstar]

As Raylan stood back up, he took off his hat and moved it around in his hands as he ambled towards the coat rack that would hold it. Malcolm was closer to the mark than Raylan would like but if anyone could be excused in being there, it was Malcolm. He didn't hesitate to make eye contact naturally as he came back around to Malcolm's side of the counter and started getting into the bags.

He didn't know how to respond. Malcolm had neatly hit a few pins on the head with a clinical kind of bluntness that Raylan was used to bearing its own painful barbs. Except he didn't hear or feel any, and there was no reason for him to get defensive. Still, that wall was a hard one to bring down.

"Growin' up with Arlo.. Talking too loud could get you beat. Not talking loud enough could get you beat. A look was enough to set him off regardless of whether he'd been drinkin' or not. I learned to keep my mouth shut." And he knew Malcolm was miles upon miles away from Arlo, he didn't expect Malcolm to snap and beat him, but it was the only explanation he had.

He didn't want to lose Malcolm because he had an opinion that started a fight or an argument, all because Raylan had to open his mouth and be an asshole.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nodded. "I understand," he said simply. "That's called 'conditioning'." He leaned over and pressed a kiss to Raylan's cheekbone, resting a hand lightly on his arm where it wouldn't stop the busy work of his hands, and he kept it there. "It's well documented that children who witness spousal abuse of one of their parents suffer the same psychological effects as those who are abused themselves. And you had to deal with both." He considered Raylan's face while he let that hang there for a moment. "And I'm not sure your last marriage wasn't without... an element of that atmosphere, too? That was how you'd experienced 'love' all your life; how could you be expected to think it could look any other way? Compared to Arlo, only getting a little emotionally stepped on would seem downright pleasant."

[tinstar]

The kiss was unexpected but Raylan took it with a faint tilt into the passing warmth. He had a hard time separating pity and compassion and sympathy when it came to himself, and while he knew that Malcolm was more than in the last two categories than the first, Raylan couldn't help his own self defense.

"I'm not lookin' for pity," he clarified, trying to make it a softer statement, but his jaw and it's subtle tightness showed just how strange this kind of reassurance was. Somehow, he'd long settled on the bullshit of his childhood homelife, but Winona and his failed marriage had.. skipped that step of understanding.

"My last marriage?" he questioned lightly, pulling a soft smirk as he stepped away to pull the trash can over and lean against the counter with it between his feet as he started shucking the corn. "It didn't start that way. I know how it looks." Disapproving, by and large.

"I didn't talk to her after I signed the papers. Didn't ask why until years later. When she decided, we fought for hours before I left. Didn't look back til I ended up back here." That was all to say - talking still wasn't his strongest skill, even with the people he loved.

[abrightboy]

"I'm glad you're not looking for pity, because I'm not offering it," Malcolm said plainly. "I know exactly how much it helps: not at all." Let the poor, frail Whitly boy explain it. "But I have a good feeling about your next marriage, whenever and whoever you choose for that..." he teased lightly.

His expression sobered at the story about Winona.

"You're allowed to be hurt by someone rejecting you and I'm sure it was rosier at the beginning than at the end, but... she wanted you to be someone you never had been. She still wants that. She loved part of you and never accepted the rest. I need you to understand the difference here, because I love you. All this complicated mess of human being," he explained, making a gesture to encompass Raylan. "I'm not saying you have to tell me everything. This isn't some kind of ultimatum. I just want you to understand the difference so you feel like you can tell me anything. You don't need to bite your tongue. I'll love you just as much when you're annoyed or sarcastic or stubborn as I do when you're happy or sweet or excited."

He didn't think Arlo was the only factor here and he needed to clearly draw the comparison.

[tinstar]

Raylan nodded a little to his reassurance as he settled into his supper prepping, hand busying task. The mention of his next marriage made him smile sidelong before it slipped away under the rest of their conversation. But the further Malcolm got into his statement, Raylan's hands stilled, one staying around the corn cob that was idly propped stem end on his leg. The open admission that Raylan was, in fact, a complicated mess brought the soft curl of a smile back for a passing second.

"You haven't seen me in full asshole mode," he half teased, eyes equally half mooned by the slight amusement that curled around his features before he nodded with a more somber expression.

"I don't wanna say somethin' stupid and get you thinkin' that I feel or think somethin' that I don't. When people don't mind what they're sayin', hurtful stuff falls out. There's stuff I don't agree with that's been done to you, and stuff that you do that I don't particularly care for. Puttin' murderers above your own life and well bein', for instance. But I can't just tell you to deal with bein' strapped into an apartment and I got no better answer to offer."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiled down at the counter, then looked up at Raylan.

"Well, you are not alone in those dislikes so maybe I should give them more thought," he conceded. He reached up to set his hand along Raylan's jaw and pressed a tender kiss to his mouth. "Though, technically, it's murder victims that I put above my own life and well being. But point taken."

That was enough peeling of psyches for one day. He didn't want to be pushy, he just wanted to be clear that his love was in no way conditional on Raylan's mood or opinions and he did not need to keep his mouth shut.

He gestured to the corn. "What are you doing here? Show me what to do."

[tinstar]

His free hand moved around Malcolm's waist, pulling him against his side as he was kissed.

"I think you'd make a lotta people worry a little less," he admitted softly. Malcolm's affection had that effect on him. At the mention of the corn, Raylan quirked a grin. "They don't teach corn shuckin' up in New York?"

He jerked his head towards the bag where the other two ears were. "Grab one." Once his arms were empty, he held up his half shucked cob. "We're pulling the husk and silk."

Instead of detailing, Raylan opted to just show Malcolm, by jerking the second of three sides down before following with the third and breaking it all off at the root.

"You wanna learn how to grill too? It's really not that hard."

[abrightboy]

"I would love that," Malcolm said, pulling the husk off the corn. He gestured to the top. "The silk is hard to get off," he noted, peeling off the last bunch one or two at a time. "If I learn how to grill, I can make you something to eat when you come home late," he mused happily.

[tinstar]

"You don't have to worry about it bein' perfect. You get better at gettin' more of it the more you do." He looked up from under his eyebrows at Malcolm, face still curled in a smile.

"You could. Though you don't ever haveta. I can manage to feed myself if I have to. Normally I don't eat that late anyway, unless I was too busy to get lunch. Which happens more than I'd like. You can also make all the grilled chicken that your tiny stomach could desire."

Raylan looked at his watch. "We've got an hour or two before we need to start the grill, unless you're hungry now."

[abrightboy]

"I'm never hungry," Malcolm said with casual matter-of-factness. "But that's the thing. I don't mean at, like, two in the morning, but... seven or eight o'clock? Throw something on there? Have a drink on the terrace while it cooks? Seems like a nice night. I don't enjoy consuming food but I do like having dinner with you. Sharing a meal is one of the oldest bonding rituals in human history."

[tinstar]

"Gotta offer," he replied with a curl of his smile. "You don't have to be hungry for it to enjoy cooking it. And I like it too." Eating alone was efficient but a little sad, overall.

"I'm gonna get a beer. Would you like anythin'? I could do with some of your music while I cook too. Since we're opening horizons and all."