tinstar | Malcolm x Raylan: Cowboy Surprise

Raylan nodded behind his bite, loading another one on. "Seems like that's a better question for her, seeing how as it's her house but I'll be fine."

He didn't know how he'd be - probably awkward and a little too polite but he'd burn that bridge when he gets to it.

"And on my best behavior." Well, as best as he could manage that, considering what happened last time.

Malcolm hadn't seen anything at all wrong with his behaviour the last time. If you didn't assert your opinion around Jessica Whitly, she'd plough it under and that'd be it.

"Not too 'best', I hope," Malcolm said, with another little bite of rice. "It's good for her to hear opinions that aren't... her own."

His phone buzzed on the countertop. Text message. He picked it up and looked at it.

"Speak of the devil," he said wryly, showing Raylan the screen. "She is inviting us to dinner tonight at the house. Is tonight too soon or would you like to get it over with?" He set the phone down next to his bowl. "Bearing in mind that she won't be as bad at home as she was at the gala. Nobody for her bizarre offspring to embarrass her in front of. No society people to ruffle her feathers."

Raylan lifted and shrugged his eyebrows over his smile with a bob of his head as he took another bite. There was always wiggle room. He leaned over slightly to look at the screen.

"That didn't take long, did it." He wasn't surprised. "No use putting it off. Everyone's more comfortable in their homes, for the most part. It'll be interesting to see you three in the family home." Malcolm knew how telling that was. Raylan was just glad Malcolm never had to meet Arlo.

"I'll wear a nice shirt, but my hat's coming." So were his cowboy boots; they weren't getting him outta his comfort zone this trip.

"All your shirts are nice," Malcolm countered. Okay, maybe they just looked nice on his lanky firm body, but that counted, Malcolm felt. He would never object to the hat.

"I'd ask how you know Ainsley will be there, but of course she will." He looked over. "If you're wondering how being at the house will impact the amount of bickering, I expect that will stay the same," he added with a wry smile.

"Somehow I doubt plaid is gonna get the same raving reviews." Raylan took another bite while Malcolm spoke, lips curling around the edges.

"Your mother didn't invite you, she invited us which means she knows I'm here." Ainsley told her, but Raylan expected that and the tilt of his smile suggested he didn't mind. "So long as no one is throwing vases or anything, your bickering is Sunday dinner." Comparatively speaking.

He was still bringing his gun.

"A vase was broken during my father's arrest, but I feel that - since my mother didn't throw it at him - she showed remarkable restraint."

He looked over at Raylan, watching his face for a moment. He had a question that made him nervous to ask. After a second, he pushed through it.

"It's... " He gestured towards the front door. "Are you... "

Sort of.

He took a breath.

"Are you sure you're okay with this? Because you didn't seem completely okay with this when you... got here." He pressed his lips together, his brow creasing slightly. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable. If it's just us in this room... I'm happy with that, too."

"More than most would have," he granted with a 'that's for sure' kind of tone. The weight of gaze drew Raylan's back over, fork hanging in his fingertips as his gut told him that something was coming.

By the time Malcolm was halfway through his first question, Raylan was looking down at the counter and setting his fork there to adjust it's position in useless idleness before going back to propping his elbow on the table.

"What I'm not okay with is accidently outing things to people when I'm not ready." Which he took the blame for. He should have cleared the room. "That doesn't change the fact that it happened. I'd rather get them dealt with then add the guilt of hiding from it to that. I'm more worried about them tellin' other people than knowin' themselves." He finally looked over at Malcolm.

"This? ... It is what it is." Don't ask him to define that. "You've got a family that cares enough to be nosy. It's only right to be honest with them." Even if Raylan wasn't going to be honest with the rest of the world. Not yet. Not for.. He didn't know how long.

"Comfortable and Okay are two different things. And plenty in life is uncomfortable." He was pragmatic about it, if nothing else.

Malcolm swallowed heavily and nodded, picking up his fork only to fidget it between his fingers.

"My mother called Gil," he confessed quietly. "But Gil doesn't gossip," he added quickly, looking at Raylan suddenly.

He couldn't stop his hand from coming to pinch at the top of his brow for a second, fingers spreading back out in gesture as he spoke. "And you're sure she would have mentioned this?"

Gil was, at least, the kind of man that seemed like he'd have the good taste to not ask, poke or pry - Raylan could just ignore it there.

Raylan sighed and nodded. That was what it was too, he supposed.

"She called to check up on you. I'm sure she wouldn't have explicitly said why, but he's not dumb. Why else would she ask him that?"

He picked at his rice and looked up.

"I'm sorry. That we couldn't... choose the pace."

"Still leaves a little room for ambiguity," he granted. He could work with that. No one was certain til they were certain. Raylan slid off his barstool and padded over to get into the fridge and pull out one of the beers to pop it open and take a pull from it.

"My fault," he assured as he came back around to slide into his seat, not touching the rest of his meal. "Shoulda been more careful.. But it was gonna happen sooner or later, with your family." He wasn't running from that, not now that he didn't have a choice.

"I'm sorry I'm not..." Whatever he should have been to be okay with this. "That this isn't easier."

Malcolm got up and stepped behind him, wrapping his arms around Raylan's waist, setting his cheek between Raylan's shoulderblades.

"I don't want you to have to be careful in my house," he murmured. "But I don't need 'easy'. I just... don't want to get into a position where you feel like... it's not worth it. Where you regret it and you want out because everyone keeps peeking in."

Raylan turned his head as he was suddenly encircled and smiled softly as he slid one hand over said arms. The smile faded to a ghost of what it was at the words coming up from behind him and Raylan lowered his chin a little. It was a reasonable fear and a point he'd chewed over at the beginning of all this, the night after he'd kissed Malcolm for the first time.

"It scares the shit outta me," he confessed. "This. You. Being here. There's this.. little voice in the back of my head telling me I'm some.. faggot. That people knowin' is only going to earn me a beating somewhere down the line. I know it's because of where I come from.. But that doesn't shut it up."

"I know," he admitted. "I've... known that. That's why I didn't want to... to pressure you in any way. But I'm worried that that's not enough, because not all the pressures come from inside and... " He turned his head to press his forehead to Raylan's back, squeezing his eyes shut, taking a deep breath. "That's why I handled it so badly... earlier. I'm really... I'm crazy about you and I'm afraid this is too fragile to survive." A beat and then his voice was quieter as he admitted "I thought you were going to leave."

He was hoping that was why Malcolm was treating him like a china doll, metaphorically speaking, and he was grateful for it. He wasn't sure this would have happened any other way. But that didn't matter - Raylan didn't like living in what if's. There was too many paths to fall down and waste your energies on.

But his heart jumped into his throat a little as Malcolm continued, echoing something else rattling around in the back of his mind and the last statement had him gently pulling Malcolm's arms loose enough for him to turn around with a, "Hey." Raylan collected Malcolm's face, one leg hooking around his to keep him from trying to wander or back away.

"Scared shitless doesn't mean I'm runnin' away." And he wasn't going to let Malcolm do it either, if he could help it - though Malcolm's running and his were subtly different. "If I was gonna run, I wouldn't have flown up here to see you."

Well.. that's not entirely true - if it had been anyone other than Ainsley..

Raylan forewent another point for now, in favor of pulling Malcolm in for a chaste but firm kiss.

"Crazy about me, hmm? Who'd wanna leave that?" Instead of space to answer, he'd kiss him again, sliding one arm around his waist and giving Malcolm little choice in where it was put. Down or around Raylan, but not much else.

He could imagine lots of people would want to leave that, if it came with the rest of the package, but Raylan was good with the rest of the package. Better than anyone ever had been.

The kisses, the gentle words, the warmth of his hands... Malcolm just leaned into and savoured that kiss for a moment, then slid an arm around his ribs and the other around his neck. When the kiss broke, he tilted his forehead against Raylan's. He felt better about going to his mother's with some assurance that Raylan probably wouldn't fly straight back to Kentucky the moment he got out the door.

He lifted the hand from around his ribs to brush his fingertips along Raylan's cheek.

"Okay," he murmured, brushing his nose against Raylan's nose.

Raylan could handle all of the package. He wanted to handle it, though if pressed, he wouldn't be able to say why. Love was weird like that. Leaving his forehead propped against Malcolm's, Raylan watched him breathe out some of his stress and smiled softly at the agreement.

"We'll figure out whatever bumps come, I promise. Your mother doesn't scare me that much." Raylan brushed his thumb against the back of Malcolm's neck and pulled back, leaning one elbow on the counter as he grabbed his beer with the other.

"Plus, I can't pass up the chance to see your house. Or the tunnels. You've got me all interested now."

Malcolm smiled as he pulled back to lean against the counter, letting his hands trail down Raylan's shoulders as he moved.

"And the box," he said ominously. "It's still in the basement."

"You guys kept that?" he asked, expression turning to one of confusion. "I would have burnt that in a city park two days after he got arrested."

He shrugged a shoulder, tracing a pattern on Raylan's knee with his finger.

"Nobody believed me, that there was a girl in that box. I didn't want to destroy evidence. I'm pretty sure my mother was humouring me at first and then she probably forgot about it. ...But it's still there."

Raylan's expression would convey the complex but deep disapproval he couldn't help but feel.

"Why didn't your mother move afterwards; why stay there?" He liked the fingers on his knees and hadn't yet relented the hook of his heel behind Malcolm's leg. "When did you leave for Harvard?"

How many years had Malcolm stayed in the house with a ghost under its floorboards?

"It's her family home," he said. "For generations. She wasn't going to surrender it to Martin Whitly and his crimes. I think she felt like he took enough." He considered it for a moment. "I think she felt like she didn't want to give him what was hers. And... maybe she still felt oddly safe there. That house is a fortress. The entire press corps would camp outside the front door and we couldn't even hear them from the back rooms. My father was arrested in 1998. I left for Harvard in 2006, but I was still here a lot. I felt bad leaving my mother and sister alone. And I was still visiting my father then. In 2009 I was accepted to Quantico. Then I stopped coming back."

Something else that they had in common. He wasn't going to mention it.

"Makes sense." Logically. He hadn't paired down into that idea; as a divorcee himself, his stance and situation was a little different. He didn't have anything when he came into the marriage and he didn't leave anything with it.

"And you should have. Family is important." Despite his own failed one. "Why'd you stop coming back? What was it about Quantico that changed things?" He couldn't say why he fell onto this

Malcolm looked from his knee to his face.

"Things were a bit complicated for me, getting into the FBI. My qualifications were through the roof; I was always good at school," he noted with a dismissive wave of his free hand for academia. "But they do extensive background checks. I'd changed my name, but my father isn't just a criminal; he's a spectacularly famous psycho-killer and basically they considered turning me down cold, but I convinced them to give me a chance. The caveat was that I couldn't have any contact with him whatsoever. I mean, I still talked to my mother and my sister all the time, just...on the phone. I stayed away from New York. What would they construe as 'any contact whatsoever'? And don't think they didn't check. My file was a mile thick. They checked on a regular basis. But that was at high levels. Day to day, the people I worked with didn't know and I tried to keep it that way, but..." Another little shrug. "I trusted the wrong person with my..." He smiled a thin, dry smile. "Little secrets. My father, my meds... She told everyone. It went downhill from there, once everyone knew. My immediate superiors started looking for ways to get me out of there."

He dropped his gaze again to the invisible pattern he was still forming on Raylan's knee.

"So then I came back here. To them." A heavy pause. "And to him, I guess."

Raylan listened quietly, watching Malcolm's face and it's subtle changes. It'd hurt him, that betrayal. He could understand why it hurt so much, both in the aspect of the job and otherwise, and its eventual end.

"We all return home. Sooner or later, for one reason or another." That was a big ask from the FBI, but a reasonable one, from a particular standpoint. Uncle Sam wasn't the most understanding of institutions.

"And better that it happened then than messing up the later years of your life." Everything is harder, then. Raylan reached out and put his hand over Malcolm's as he sat up a little to bring him back into better range.

"You could be doin' a lot worse," he pointed out softly, hopefully reassuringly. After all, if Malcolm hadn't done what he'd done, would they be there together? Raylan didn't really have Faith or believe in God in a structured way, but sometimes things happen for a reason.

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