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]

"Well I like that statement. And that toll," he said, face curling as he leaned forward, kissing Malcolm as his fingers reached for and snagged the waiting already filled glass. he hummed as he pulled back, eyes keeping contact as he took a shallow sip, teeth bearing for a half second as he swallowed.

"I'm not ready to go to bed yet." Bed meant ending the night. He couldn't delay the inevitable, but he could enjoy the now. However they did so.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiled softly.

"I'm an insomniac and my anxiety is high right now. I'm not going to sleep any time soon," he replied.

He reached up and slid his hand up Raylan's neck and back down, his fingers hooking the inside of his collar so his fingers could fidget there.

[tinstar]

"Good. Then we can curl up or something on the bed. Unless you wanna start dramatic readings to pass the time," he said, curling a smile at him in no small part due to his fidgeting fingers. His own hand's thumb took to brushing back and forth over the shirt fabric that kept them from roaming too hungrily.

[abrightboy]

"Oh, if I do a reading, I think you'll find 'dramatic' is the only kind I'm capable of," he teased, letting the arm wrapped around Raylan go to grab his own glass of liquid calm. The other trailed down to find Raylan's hand as he moved towards the bed. Curling up there sounded nice. Warm. Comfortable. Safe.

Once he was curled against Raylan's side, his glass held perched on his own knee, which rested on Raylan's leg, he looked up at him.

"What's once place you've always wanted to go, but never have?" he asked curiously.

[tinstar]

"Mm, well I know that'd bring some life to a few studies and novels I've scanned," he teased back as he let himself be led up onto the bed where he propped himself up against the headboard, arm draped around Malcolm's shoulders as they settled.

"I've been talkin' about Costa Rica for about ten years now.. Wouldn't mind to see it. Or the Caribbean. Hopefully without floods of tourists." He looked over at him. "You?"

He wanted to know why but he didn't want to dissuade wherever Malcolm was going with this.

[abrightboy]

"I think we could avoid floods of tourists by either going somewhere more exclusive or by choosing the right time of year," he mused. He looked up again at the question, then studied his glass on its perch as he answered.

"You know how my mother keeps going on about how I spent my 'tropical vacation' in my room instead of going to the beach? I just.... they made me go. I didn't want to. And nobody exactly volunteered to come with me. I was just... packed off onto a plane like so much freight to be... somehow magically repaired by not being in New York. I wanted to just... stay home for the two weeks. Read my books. Try to... manage my wellness with my yoga mat and my bird and my own space. So getting there and rejecting everything it offered in favour of doing what I could have done in my own apartment in New York was just... kind of making the point, I guess. So I suppose my dream vacation is going on vacation by choice and spending it with someone I'd enjoy spending the time with. I'm not sure there's a particular place I'd favour. It's more... that I would favour a set of circumstances that do not involve being forced into exile because people did not enjoy where my head was at."

He looked up at Raylan.

"Weddings have honeymoons, right? Just. Something to consider..." His eyes flickered back down to his glass.

[tinstar]

Raylan's smile quirked, eyes squinting slightly, softly. Was that what Malcolm had been thinking about? It made his heart swell, if he were honest. It was almost like Malcolm was as excited to tie the knot as Raylan was. Like he really wanted to get married.

"Maybe, after a little time on a beach of your own free will, you'll be able to form an opinion that isn't so tainted. And we'll take a nice long honeymoon. Maybe go see more than once place so we don't get bored. We can do whatever you want, darlin'. That's the point of bein' grown, right?"

Making your own decisions, on your own merit.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm shifted a little so he could see Raylan better.

"I saw on TV one time that there are these private islands you can rent in the Caribbean and South Pacific.... everywhere warm, basically. Where you stay in a villa or something on the beach and you can get excursions to the tourist areas but then they bring you back to your island afterwards. So you can do the tourist stuff and then get away from the crowds."

[tinstar]

Raylan gave him a flash of a confused look that left his brow pinched.

"We're not renting an island.." Were they? "You hav- You know what, never mind," he said, gesturing a little with his glass as he shook his head. "I don't wanna know. But if you're goin' to those lengths, we might as well get married out there."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm considered that. "You think?" He considered it some more. "I thought it would be nice to do it at our house in Miami. On the beach. By the pool. Keep it small and intimate."

[tinstar]

"That's where I was thinkin' too. Place we can go and look at that isn't just pictures in an album..." Malcolm had to be joking about the island.

"What kind of ring do you want? We haven't even talked about that yet."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm was not joking even a little bit about the island. But Raylan would find out eventually.

Malcolm's eyebrows shot up. "I haven't even thought about that yet. Is... that something with options?" he asked. When he said he hadn't thought about it, he really meant 'ever, in his whole life'. Were everyone's wedding rings not the same?

[tinstar]

Raylan couldn't help but laugh softly.

"You go from talkin' about renting an island, but you don't know about jewelry options?" What a delightful contradiction. "Yes," he continued. "Gold, White gold, Silver, with diamonds, without them. I'd like to go with something simple for myself; I'd hate to have to worry about losin' something out in the field."

Anything with stones worth more than his weekly pay deserved more respect than that.

[abrightboy]

He laughed at himself. "I saw the island thing on TV!" he protested. "I'm going to have to google this and get back to you." He snuggled back into Raylan's shoulder and took a sip of his drink, stretching his free hand out next to where Raylan's rested, so they were like a side by side comparison. "What if they complement each other somehow, but aren't exactly the same? That's more like us, don't you think?"

[tinstar]

"Uh-huh," Raylan said, one eye squinting in playful doubt as Malcolm continued and leaned back against him, lazily hooking Malcolm's last two fingers with his own.

"You know they don't have to be the same right? I like complementary. Maybe a darker metal with a thin band of somethin' pretty? I don't know how embellished you like your jewelry." He lifted his right hand, taking Malcolm's lightly with it as he looked at the horseshoe ring. "Though I think my normal tastes might be a little too simple."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiled. "I can work with that," he said happily, looking at Raylan's ring. "Where does that come from?" he asked. "What's the story?"

[tinstar]

"My mama, Frances, found it in a box when we moved onto the land we're on now. Apparently it was onna the few things she brought down from the hill when she came. If there was more to the story, I've forgotten it now but everytime I look at it, I think of her smilin' at me."

He glanced over. "She was no saint, but she got short end of every stick life seemed to hand her, and she still had the grace to meet it with some steel in her spine and an attitude in her chin."

Arlo was his rage and the example of what not to be, Frances was his manners and values.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiled warmly.

"I thought it might be your mother," he admitted. "You eschew a lot of outward sentiment and you eschew material excess but... you never take that off."

[tinstar]

Raylan smiled crookedly, not letting the bit of sadness he felt get anywhere past his eyes and the soft wrinkles around them.

"I never came home when she died. Or for her funeral. Knew I couldn't make it without snappin' one way or the other. It reminds me of that too. Shit we should do, no matter how hard it is."

Welcome to more of why your boyfriend is the way he is.

"Don't plan on ever takin' off the one you put on me either."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm listened to him somberly as he related the story, realizing that was a regret of his, but at his last addition his smile returned and he set his glass on the night stand so he could turn towards Raylan a bit more and press a kiss to his jaw just below his ear.

"Me either," he murmured.

[tinstar]

Raylan hummed a little note as he leaned his face into the kiss, looking over afterwards as he tightened the tangle of their fingers. He wasn't sentimental.. except when it came to his mother, and now Malcolm. Everything about him, about this was different and Raylan hadn't been sure in the beginning how it was going to all settle in him.

But there was no way to argue this.

"I kinda wanna finish my drink and steal you into the shower.." He slid his eyes over. "What d'ya think?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nuzzled his jaw with a grin.

"I am feeling very... stealable," he conceded happily. "I could probably be dragged there with minimal effort," he teased.

[tinstar]

"Mm," he hummed again, face curling in amusement as he swung his feet off the bed and toed off his boots before downing what was left in his glass so he could set it on the side table and stand up.

"Then come on," he said, holding his hand out towards Malcolm. They only had one more night together and while Raylan assumed that Malcolm would wake him up before he went, he wasn't done. He still had a million days to cram into what felt like passing seconds.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm practically jumped off the bed to take that hand, clutching it tightly.

The more he contemplated going back to New York, the more he was certain that this life with Raylan and their future in Miami was what he wanted for himself. He felt like he was remembering what 'happy' felt like as more than a rumour.

And they were losing their first night alone in their apartment to the life that brought him largely pain and suffering.

When they reached the bathroom, Malcolm stopped him before he got to the shower, tugging him close to give him a lingering kiss of appreciation.

"You could ask me to come into a pit of lava with you and I'd go, you know," he murmured.

[tinstar]

Raylan couldn't stop or help the grin that split his face as Malcolm bounded up to be at his side. No one had ever been this happy to be with him before and everytime Malcolm shined a little brighter for it, it blew him away.

Instead of starting the shower, he was derailed by Malcolm's gentle tugs and lingering kiss that he happily wrapped himself around and into.

"Good thing I'm not," he murmured back. "All I'm asking is for you to move to Florida and marry me and possibly love me forever if you can find it in ya to deal with me for that long." Before Malcolm could reply, Raylan was kissing him again. He could answer after the full power of that.