InsaneJournal

Who: Rob Loxley and NPC Mala Roberts
What: Rob's last stop.
Where: Las Vegas PD.
When: About two weeks after this, and a week or so after this, because things work faster in RP-land. And yes, those are both on GJ.
Status/Rating: Complete narrative/R for Rob's mouth.
Notes: Once again, sorry this sucks.



The cellblock was cold. There were only a few cells here, empty but for some guy in the orange jumpsuit of the Las Vegas Correctional System smoking on the rickety cot. Probably waiting on his lawyer. Down the hall, last cell on the left, the guard had said. And there she was. She looked as she always looked--beautiful, tense, and as if she belonged there. Mala always looked like she belonged wherever she was.

He was a lot shakier than he would have liked. The corners of her lips quirked when he slid past the bars, and he knew the concern was on his face. But what else was there to do? "Mala, what the hell happened? Jesus fuck. Jesus."

"I do not know how much help he will be, malchik." She had always called him that. Malchik, my little man. It fit, her being six years his senior, but still. "They have called you about Misha--about Mikey, da?"

"Yeah." He scrubbed his hands through his hair, and found himself sitting on the little stiff pallet in her bunk. Mala, composed and severe, stood smoking idly against the cell bars. It was easy to see how she kept managing to pull in men. "Is there anything I can do? I mean..." he lowered his voice, practiced and smooth, and barely perceptible to anyone listening for it, "I know people. You know I do. Can pull some strings, or somethin'..."

Mala laughed, that short guttural sound he'd been so familiar with, like an axe sticking in wood. Ha. "And you would have me stay here, where Sasha's idiot men would tear me to shreds?"

"You been here, what? Twelve years?"

"My life is here, yes," she said, taking a long drag.

"And your kid." Jesus. A kid. His fucking kid.

Mala nodded. It was a moment before she spoke again. "And my son. Da." It sounded different when she said it. Proud, loving, resigned. Sad.

They sat silently for a minute or two. The cigarette burned slowly in her hand, the sound of paper smouldering just audible around the dull roar in Robin's ears. It was rare he was this helpless. His own inadequacy seemed to come at him from all sides. Family being torn apart. A friend and contact deported. Her son--who the fuck knew what would happen to him?

It was a long while before Mala spoke again. The strength in her voice faded, a resigned hollowness creeping in to take its place. Her face became longer, older, lines and shadows he hadn't seen when he entered slowly taking shape.

"I do not want him to live with some family he does not know," she said quietly. "With some woman who will want him to call her mother, some man he cannot feel safe with." Another pause. She flicked ash from her cigarette. "You were always very good at making people feel safe, malchik."

He did not protest. Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew she was going to ask him. The feds had said it was with Rob or the social worker that Mikey was going to go when Rob had arrived; Mala, unsurprisingly, was not a fan of the government. And she was proud. Her boy would not go with anyone she hadn't asked first. And so she'd asked.

She exhaled smoke through her nose, examined the cigarette in her fingers as if something were wrong with it. Her face wrinkled into itself, eyes squinting at the burning tobacco and paper. Mala never cried. "You should go and get your son," she said quietly.

"Yeah," Rob said after a moment. "Yeah."

He stood, hesitated, and curled a hand around Mala's neck to kiss her gently on the forehead. She shuddered, and though her arms stiffened and her brow creased under his lips, she did not move. When Rob left, hands in his pockets, she was still leaning against the bars, cigarette burning down to the filter, her face turned from him. He saw her take another drag, and then the guard locked the door behind him.