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]

Raylan laughed again as he leaned back, judging Willa largely done with her first evening meal. In a few hours, she'd get a bottle before bed.

"As much as there is around anything in the poor south. Gotta make somethin' outta nothin'." There was respect and love in that statement, no sneering. It spoke to the hard will of the people that he grew up around.

"Don't go lookin' into the meat production though. You'll be horrifed. I won't tell ya about chitlin's."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm held up a finger. "That's made with pig intestines, isn't it?" He'd vaguely heard somewhere. "I don't eat pork," he said with a smirk, taking another little bite of chicken. He looked at Willa. "Do you think she's going to like me?" he asked, watching her face. "Some kids never learn to like their parents' new partners."

[tinstar]

Raylan bounced his eyebrows with a nod. "Yeah. Not the most appetizing of things, but that's just me." Grabbing a napkin, Raylan started mopping up the worst of Willa's mess.

"What? Of course she is. You'll have been here since.. well, now.. And you're endearing. You'll have to clinging to your leg and calling you Uncle Malcolm in no time."

[abrightboy]

He smiled brightly at Raylan at that, looking at Willa again.

"You don't think Winona will... discourage her from liking me? She is... not a fan so far."

[tinstar]

"I think that Willa will make her own decision and you will give her no reason to no like you," he assured with a look as he pulled Willa out of her chair and up into his arms as he stood up. "And if Winona wants any peace from me, she'll have to agree to not object too loudly."

He looked back at his messy little girl. "We'll figure it out though, won't we sweetheart?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiled again, mollified, as Raylan scooped Willa up. He gestured towards her. "Do you need help getting her cleaned up?"

[tinstar]

"Yeah. Will you start the tub for her? You can use your wrist to test the temp. Luke warm. That'll let me get her a clean diaper for after and strip her down."

He'd take the help, and the sense that they were doing this, all of this, Willa included, together.

[abrightboy]

"Sure!" he agreed, all but bounding into the bathroom to kneel by the tub. Since he was wearing a t-shirt, he didn't have to roll up his sleeves before leaning over to start adjusting the water flow and temperature. Once it was reasonable, he pressed the button that closed the plug and looked around for Raylan. It wouldn't take long to fill enough water for an infant.

[tinstar]

It took a little more work than Raylan was expecting, but he got Willa naked and wrapped in a blanket so she wasn't cold on the way, cooing to her as he walked into the bathroom with her shampoo in hand.

"You ready to receive the dirtiest girl in all of Lexington?" he asked as he carefully unwrapped her. "Long enough for me to pull out some towels and prep her landin' area?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm laughed as he took her from Raylan and plopped her into the bath, where she promptly smacked her hands against the surface with splashes that clearly delighted her.

"I don't know that I have the highground to talk about what she gets on her face when she routinely gets more in her mouth than I do," he joked.

[tinstar]

"I don't know that it's about what she gets in. It's manners. 'Course I suppose it's a little early to be expectin' any Yes Sirs, yes ma'am's." As he spoke, he laid out a towel and positioned a diaper and a clean onesie. "But I think there's room to grow on the neatness scale."

It'd come with coordination, he knew that, but he couldn't help but tease the baby that couldn't understand.

[abrightboy]

"Don't worry," Malcolm joked as he rubbed shampoo into her hair, "I'll teach her all the right forks to use as soon as she can hold one. People will think she's to the manner born."

[tinstar]

Raylan huffed a chuckle. "So long as she still eats fried chicken with her hands. You've got an excuse, she won't."

He let a beat pass.

"You look good with a baby in your arms, you know that?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looked up at him with pleasant surprise. "You think so?"

He looked down at Willa and then up at Raylan, smiling self-consciously. "I didn't think I'd ever get the chance," he said plainly. "I mean, I sort of hoped I'd find someone who would want to be with me for more than a few months," he admitted. "But put a baby in my hands? They're so vulnerable and I'm so... " His gaze trailed back down to her. "Messed up."

[tinstar]

"I do," he replied with a serious little nod.

"Yeah, but we're all messed up. You're aware enough that you're super careful. You care too much to hurt her on purpose. That's more than most parents can say... She'll be better for it. For you. For me too, hopefully. I don't know. I look at her and see nothing but potential... followed by worrying about what kinda trouble she's gonna to find herself in when she's sixteen. That's normal, right?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm's face lit a little as Raylan spoke. Nobody had expressed any faith in his ability to manage. His mother suggested often that he was barely capable of taking care of a parakeet and had recently gone as far as telling him his problems were too extensive and taxing for him to hold someone's love through them.

Raylan thought his child would be better for having Malcolm in her life. That kind of faith might make his heart burst.

At his final observation, Malcolm laughed brightly. "She's not going to get in trouble when she's sixteen. Her father has a gun about his person at almost all times. If a guy braves that..." He shrugged a shoulder. "Either he's an upstanding character or a real idiot. I think we'll be able to figure out which pretty quickly."

He carefully rinsed the shampoo out of her hair.

[tinstar]

"Oh, it ain't the boys I'm worried about," he said, lifting his eyebrows at Willa. "If she takes anything after the like of Givens' women that have come before, she'll be a firecracker. My gun and badge'll be big to any boy dumb enough to come around, but daughters..." He smiled.

"Let's just say I've seen what a little girl of 11 can survive and what she can do at all of 15." They weren't to be underestimated.

At least Raylan was fair in that.

[abrightboy]

"The two of us might not be prepared to handle this. We may need to call for backup," Malcolm said with mock gravity. He lifted her out of the water and held her out towards her father to wrap a towel around her. "When she gets a little bigger."

[tinstar]

"Mm," Raylan hummed behind his grin as he shook the towel open and used it to scoop Willa from Malcolm's arms, wrapping her up so he could gently dry her nose with another passing statement. "Gonna keep us runnin', ain't you?"

God help her grammar.

"I'm sure she'll be alright," he assured. "No matter how worked up I might get about it." He nodded towards the bathtub. "We'll wait for you in the living room. I forgot her cream." Specifically, diaper cream.

Raylan grabbed up the diaper and onesie he'd thoughtfully, uselessly brought in and headed back out to the couch where he could lay her down. By the time Malcolm came out, he'd be fitting her into her pajamas.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm drained the tub and tidied up before joining them, watching Raylan dress the baby for a moment before walking over to sit on the couch on the other side of her.

"I hope we can do this again soon," he told Raylan. "I hope Winona gets over her... issue and lets her come again soon."

[tinstar]

"I can already tell she and I are gonna fight it out. But it's better if you're not there for it. But she's not gonna stop me from seein' her. She wants it too badly. Even if she doesn't want me," he said, leaning back with an arm over the back of the couch.

"We'll get to do this again. I promise. I know you've got good reasons, but.. I can handle her. It's not really about you. I know that."

[abrightboy]

He nodded, but there was a coil of dread deep within him that Winona might force a choice between Willa and Malcolm and Malcolm knew full well that Raylan couldn't choose him in that situation.

Maybe anxiety was just getting the better of him. It had been spiked since he found out he had to leave early the next morning to see his father.

But that thought had been floating unpleasantly since the confrontation with her. It wasn't about him, Raylan was right. It was about control. Specifically her ability to control Raylan.

Malcolm sat up. "Do you want me to..." he poked his finger in the direction of the bedroom, "while you get her to sleep?"

if you wanna skip to Willa's bedtime and we move from there, that's okay!

[tinstar]

Raylan shook his head. "She's got a good hour at least before that," he said, picking her up to put her onto his chest on the far side so he could make room for Malcolm, lifting an arm in invitation for him.

"C'mere. Tomorrow's still not here; maybe we can watch something before her bedtime. Just sit and be with each other for a bit. Enjoy the time we have. I wanna enjoy it before it's gone."

he doesn't really have a sense of her routine yet

[abrightboy]

He crawled over immediately, nestling into that space at his shoulder, reaching over to tickle Willa's chin.

"Is there a baseball game on?" he asked, looking up at Raylan.

[tinstar]

"We might. My hands are full, you peruse," he said, with a lift of his chin towards the remote control.

Malcolm did find one, the most recent one, though it was a re-run. Raylan didn't mind. Nor did he mind any questions that Malcolm might have during it, answering easily and softly as Willa started nodding off on his shoulder. After a few more minutes, she was heavy and oh so softly starting to snore, prompting her father to chuckle.

"I think we mighta missed that bottle window," he whispered over to Malcolm.