Whatever the case, Rowan chooses his words carefully. “The first time we came here, Sheila kind of implied that he’s a dick.”

Mal snorts, quickly covering it up by chugging the last of his water. “Piece’a shit’s more like it.”

“Mine was the same,” Rowan confides, bolstered by the knowledge that all of their parents were terrible.

“Yours was an abusive racist homophobe?” Mal shoots back, brows flat.

Rowan’s face reddens. “Oh… uh, no. Just a regular old drunk and liar and thief. Sorry. Sucks.”

“Yeah, well…. He croaked a few years back. Rest in fuckin’ pieces.”

He knows deadbeat dads aren’t exactly a rarity, but the fact that Mal seems to share the same sentiment about his dad as Rowan does about his own is weirdly comforting.

“You ever actually tell him?”

“What, that I was willingly gettin’ gangbanged on the regular?” Mal’s eyebrows practically hit the ceiling. “Fuck no, man. Homophobe or not, that’s the kinda shit you don’t tell your parents.”

“Jesus, obviously not.” Rowan shudders at the thought, but in reality, he thinks both his parents wouldn’t bat an eye if he told them about any of his sexual exploits. “I meant that you’re gay.”

Mal sniffs and looks to the side, avoidant. But “Yeah.”

When he doesn’t add anything more to it, Rowan hedges, “Didn’t go well, I’m guessing?”

“Fuckin’ understatement….”

Again, Rowan thinks he isn’t going to keep talking on his own, but he’s not sure if this is something he should let lie, or if he should let his curiosity win out and push for more detail. But even if he doesn’t share anything else, Rowan can piece the picture together himself. Homophobic, violent dad finds out his favorite son is gay? Pretty much a recipe for some bad shit. He’s thankful that even for how shitty his own parents were in their own ways, they never made him feel ashamed of who he is.

Shockingly, Mal does continue, after a long bout of silence. “Beat the shit outta me for it. Was fuckin’… seventeen maybe? Told me before I became a man, I had to come on a fag-bashing run. Like it was a fuckin’ normal family tradition.”

“What, just pick any gay guy you see and beat him up?”

Mal pauses, taking a deep breath before continuing. “Some new family moved in, couple blocks from us. Larry somehow found out the kid was gay, or he prob’ly fuckin’ assumed he was for whatever reason. Couldn’t’a been more than, like, fourteen for fuck’s sake. Told him I wouldn’t do it, and he called me a pussy and demanded to know why.”

“Shit,” Rowan says, stunned. “A fuckin’ kid?”

“Yeah. I fuckin’… lost it. Told him he was a fuckin’ psycho and that if he wanted to bash a fag so bad, he’d have to start with me.”