Malcolm - One bed (Patreon)

Authors Note: At an undisclosed time in Mal and MC's relationship.

The rain was coming down in droves by the time we got inside. It was a small shack beneath the Eternal Staircase.  Apparently you could rent them out for a few buttons and a promise.  We should have trudged home that night, but the streets were flooded once more. An ever growing problem now that the mouskin had closed off the drains so they could build their own necropolis down below.

Malcolm lit a storm lantern, brightening the room with dull orange light. It reminded me of Milo. The way the Distillery he lived in used to be. When I watched Malcolm shake his head I wondered if he felt the same.  Thinking of the man that was lost to us now.

Pushing the hair away from his eyes, Malcolm turned to me.  “You need to get out of those clothes,” he said.  We were both soaked through. The storm had hit much harder than we expected. A torrential downpour that ended up turning into tipping buckets from the lanterns and filling the streets with an ankle deep flood of water without even a moment's thought.  Getting home was going to be hard. Getting somewhere safe was far more important.

“We have no clothes,” I told him.  We had been at dinner across the market.  The only thing we had was the clothes on our back. Malcolm had to mangle his shirt to even pay for the room. If you could call it that.

He looked around, his eyes wandering in search of something.  There was a large armoire next to the only window in the room. It was cracked down the middle as if someone had tried to split it in two.  When he opened it, there were several piles of sheets and a few blankets.

Malcolm looked over his shoulder. “Toga party?” he asked with a raised brow.

I snorted a little, shivering as my body temperature began to drop.  “You joining?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

We both turned our backs to each other as we stripped out of our wet clothes and wrapped ourselves in soft gray sheets.  When I peeked back at him, I saw the sheet wrapped around his waist, giving me a full view of his muscled back. There was a scar that ran along his spine that I hadn’t seen before. Another one that wrapped around to his front.

Bent down, he began loading the wood available into the small potbelly stove.  It smelled musty and damp in the room, the wood not fully dry.

“You dressed?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He brushed his hands off on the sheet, standing to full height and turning to me.  The scars on his chest were prominent in the soft light of the room. I had seen them a dozen times before by now, but I could never get over how jagged they looked. It had not been an easy surgery.  He had once told me that it was a rather back alley one. Something that happened when he was young and naive and didn’t know how to safely become who he was to the outside world.

We both stood on opposite sides of the room, listening to the rain thunder outside.  The room was minimalistic.  There was nothing in it other than a small pile of wood. A kettle for tea. And a singular bed.

Malcolm’s eyes seemed to rest on the bed at the same time. “I can take the floor,” he told me.

I frowned. “No. Malcolm, that’s ridiculous. Besides, it's freezing.  We both should have the bed.”

The bed was no bigger than a twin mattress and looked threadbarn. I was seriously considering that we both should take the floor. Afraid of the diseases we would wake up with if we did curl up on the bed.

“Are you ready for that?” Malcolm asked.

“For sharing a bed?” Things between Malcolm and I were different. There was a comfort between us that I hadn’t felt with others. Maybe because I knew him the longest. Maybe because he would talk to me when I had no voice to respond. I felt seen with Malcolm. Safe. But that’s where it had stopped, thus far. We hadn’t talked about the subject of us. If there even might be an us. When it came to those small moments, we brushed by them. I couldn’t tell if we were avoiding them or if the time was just not upon us yet.

“Malcolm,” I continued. “We can share a bed. It’s not a marriage proposal.”

“Yeah,” he said with a small smile.

He turned from me then, picking up a few more logs and tossing them onto the fire.  He then went around the room, securing the window. The door. Stepping on the floor boards as if they were loose enough to allow someone entrance. I watched him do it all with a very curious eye.

After his third pass around the room, he finally looked at me.

“Are you nervous?” I asked. I didn’t think I had ever seen Malcolm nervous. I didn’t even know what that looked like.

“About what?”

“You tell me,” I said softly. I was sitting on the edge of the bed now. He had yet to even step towards me.

“Are you cold?” He was changing the subject. It hit me then that he did that often. Malcolm was someone who wished to speak about comfort and boundaries. About respect. But when it came to him, he deflected.

“It’s warming up,” I answered.

He walked towards the armoire, grabbing the few quilts that were there.  He spread them across the bed, motioning for me to get under the blankets. I pulled the sheet that was wrapped around me a little, feeling it get trapped beneath me as I scooted over to allow room for him.

“I think I’m going to stay up a bit,” Malcolm said. “Make some tea.”

“Mal,” I said softly. “There is nothing in the room. What are you even going to do?”

“You would be surprised at how often I just sit and do nothing,” he told me with a small smirk.

“You could sit and do nothing on this very mediocre bed,” I suggested to him.

He laughed a little. “Just get some sleep, Lamplight. I’ll be along eventually.”

And there it was. The bed was the problem. Sharing it with me was the problem.  “Malcolm, do you not want to share a bed with me?”

Malcolm stopped, his eyes settling on mine.  I could see the war within his eyes. There was something more here. With measured steps, he walked towards me, sitting down on the edge of the bed.  The action was brought about only to prove to himself that he could even do it. I didn’t hear him suck in a breath but I could see it in the way his back expanded.

“I’m being weird,” he said after a moment.

“A little,” I said. “I’m just curious as to why.”

He gave a small, self deprecating laugh. “Because I haven’t shared a bed with someone for over a decade. Granted, I was dead for that time…” he trailed off.

“Was Milo the last person you shared a bed with?”

“A couch,” he said. “But that’s not actually what I was thinking about.  It’s more… sharing a bed has always meant more to me. It’s been intimate.”

“Why?”

“Because it was the only thing in my control for most of my life.” Shifting, he turned, bringing his legs up on the bed, leaning back against the headboard.  His sheet was low on his waist, the curve of his hipbone sharp against his tanned skin.  “I couldn’t control my home life. I couldn’t control my job. I couldn’t control how people saw me. Talked to me. I couldn’t even control my relationship.  But I could control who I invited to my bed. Who I felt was safe enough to share that with.  And now I’m becoming very aware that it has maybe become a bit of a mechanism to keep people out.”

“That’s very self aware of you.”

He snorted. “Right? Great at that, huh?”

I curled up on my side, staring at him, resting my own head on my arm. “We don’t have to sleep in the same bed,” I assured him.

“That’s the thing, Lamplight. I know three people in this world really well. You are one of them. This shouldn’t be a big deal for me.”

“But maybe it is because it feels like a step into a different direction for us.”

“We spend a lot of time together,” he pointed out.

“During the day. Not at night. Not when we sleep. Not when we’re vulnerable.”

Malcolm closed his eyes, trying to relax his body.  I watched as he stretched out his feet, flexing his toes, trying to unclench the fists that he had curled at his side.

“Well, you’ve found it,” he laughed a little. “We both knew I had to be weird about something.”

“I don’t think it’s weird,” I told him. “I think that you’ve had a lot of things you’ve gone through. And it’s going to manifest in certain ways. And this is just one of them.”

It took a minute, but Malcolm slid down to lay on his side, staring at me. We shared the same pillow, our breath mingling between us.  Reaching out, he rested his hand on my cheek, his thumb swiping against my jaw.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“You’re welcome. Now, sleep. I don’t think you do it.”

“I don’t,” he laughed a little. I saw the moment his face relaxed. The way the deep circles seemed to smudge under his eyes. He looked exhausted. The way he held himself was suddenly slipping away and he looked two seconds from sleep.

“Goodnight, Lamplight,” he murmured.

Turning my head, I pressed my lips into the curve of his palm. “Goodnight, my Gatekeeper.”