tinstar | Malcolm x Raylan: Cowboy Surprise

"Maybe not. But I like to think of myself as perceptive." The edges of his smile curled a little, briefly. "Mighta seen something under that heavy coat." He brushed his thumb over Malcolm's hand.

"You look better in this one."

"It feels better, too."

It felt better to have people around he could trust. His problems with trust had only been exacerbated in the FBI. But he trusted Gil. He was learning to trust his mother. He trusted Dani and JT and Edrisa, because Gil trusted them.

He trusted Raylan.

He smiled faintly. "Gil told me I shouldn't join the FBI, but I wanted to hunt serial killers and that's their jurisdiction, largely."

"More people need to know about the Marshal's service. I think you would have made a good one." For what that was worth. "But you're still doing what you wanted to. And you're good at it."

His smile pulled. "Do you ever listen to Gil?"

He laughed self-deprecatingly.

"God, have you been talking to Gil?" he joked. "Of course I listen to Gil." A beat. "As much as I listen to anyone," he allowed. "But Gil practically raised me. I feel like we have an understanding."

He considered what Raylan said before that.

"I think I thought the Marshal's service was all chasing fugitives - which sounded fun, too, don't get me wrong - but my focus was really narrow back then. I mean, Gil was prepared to take me on, but I wanted to stretch and I thought I had something unique to offer and even regular old homicides didn't interest me much in the arrogance of youth." He shrugged. "I'm glad I did it. I learned a lot. About myself, if nothing else. But I'm also glad I'm here where I am now."

"Not yet.." he replied, letting the drift off of his statement fill in all it needed to. Raylan was sure that, given enough time, he and Gil would end up in a room together and since Malcolm was their common band, no doubt he'd come up.

"We don't get the same kinda press as the FBI. Chasing fugitives isn't the same as murders, I'll grant you that, but we have fun. Maybe not as much fun as the NYPD, apparently. I'm glad you're where you're at too."

Raylan leaned in and kissed him, hoping to banish the haunt of what once was from Malcolm's face.

"Even if that means I have to be uncomfortable for a little bit. I'll get used to things."

Malcolm returned the kiss with a contented hum, his hand drifting from Raylan's knee to his chest, his fingers fidgeting at the strap of his undershirt as the kiss broke.

"I kind of like being freelance. I think... in Miami, I'll do the same thing. Just work as a consultant to any law enforcement agency that needs a profiler for a weird or difficult case. It works better for my headspace, too. Gives me some... room."

He was almost hesitant to mention Miami, in case the whole notion evaporated, but it was Raylan that proposed the idea last time and he'd been thinking about it ever since.

Raylan smiled at the mention of Miami, replacing his hooking heel with a hand around Malcolm's waist as he enjoyed the idle fidgeting at his shirt.

"There's plenty of work down there to get into and you come with recommendations." From both the NYPD and the Marshal's Service. "Plenty of beach to make it worth it too. Might wanna learn some Spanish though. Useful language to have. Not that I do," he said with a scoff of amusement.

"We can Hurricane Season up here." They'd gone back and forth over that in their hypothetical, but Raylan was willing to concede the point, here. He was trying not to get his hopes up, but this sure sounded like a plan. He wanted it to sound like a plan, and that was the problem.

"I can speak some Spanish. Not perfect but... there's time to brush up," he admitted. He smiled. "We should get a house on the beach," he said. "Right on the beach, so we can see the ocean."

"Oh yeah?" He hadn't known. "They'll knock off any remaining dust and add a few words, I promise." He could feel the stupid half smile on his face.

"That's a good idea. That's half of why I wanna go there, if I'm honest. Drink beer on a beach, dip my toes into chaotic waters and the like.." The country came with him no matter what he did; Raylan could only manage it.

It felt, suddenly, like his mouth was full of words he didn't dare say and he resisted the urge to fully run away from it.

"So. What should we do til it's time to get all dressed up for your mother?"

"Washington Square Park is only about a ten minute walk away," Malcolm told him, leaning in to press a kiss to his mouth. "Want to get some fresh air?" He smiled. "If you don't want to go out, we can throw a few axes," he offered, with a gesture over his shoulder.

Raylan hummed and followed to kiss him again before answering. "I like the sound of a walk. Better that I don't work up a sweat before tryin' to look passable," he huffed, sliding off the barstool and padding towards the dresser.

Fresh Air was good; it let Raylan find center again and frankly, the emotional load of being here and dealing with the Whitly family and their idea of 'normal' called for some centering. Raylan got dressed in short order; 'sleep' pants traded for jeans, plain button down pulled over the undershirt and his blazer and duster for the walk itself.

Once he was ready, he clipped his weapon in at his hip, kept his badge in his back pocket and got his hat. Didn't matter that he was on vacation - too much happened for him to leave his gun at home.

Malcolm traded the sweatpants for jeans, but kept the t-shirt and pulled on a jacket and casual black shoes, then led the way out of the apartment and onto the crowded New York sidewalk. He didn't try to do anything so obvious as hold Raylan's hand, but he stayed near enough to him that their arms would occasionally brush as they walked.

"How was the trip up?" he asked. "Did you drive?"

The jeans surprised Raylan but he didn't say anything and simply appreciated the attempt at casual. He assumed it was for his sake, anyway - Jeans was not something Raylan expected Malcolm to have beyond trying to blend into the hills.

Raylan was grateful for the ease that Malcolm allowed and walked alongside him, easy with the closeness.

"Flew and rented a car once I got here. It's an 11 hour drive and I wanted to get here on at a reasonable time. Told Art that I was gonna take some vacation time and actually turn off my phone." Which was a massive step for someone like him. "Figure that Kentucky can survive a few days with my expertise."

He looked over at Malcolm. "You really okay with me having shown up without callin'?"

How was that even a question? But he definitely was more confident than he'd been in the immediate aftermath of Raylan's arrival.

Malcolm grinned at him.

"Okay with it? I loved it," he exclaimed. "You have a standing invitation to my life, okay?" He snapped his fingers, realizing something. "Speaking of which, in case Gil does call me onto a case, I need to give you keys to my apartment. You can't just sit trapped in there all day if I'm working."

The way Malcolm enthused in the word love had Raylan smiling again as he watched his boots move them down the sidewalk. The mention of a key had him looking over again, eyebrows lifting.

"A key huh? Well I appreciate being let out of the stairwell. If you hadn't been home, I would have waited." For what that was worth. "Just possibly boiled to death in my car," he continued with a pull of his smile.

"I'd offer you a key to my motel room but it seems most anyone can get it when they want to. The desk is easy to bribe, apparently."

Malcolm glanced over. "Oh. Well. I have a lot of money, so that's handy," he teased with a smirk. "Are you really going to live in a motel until you can get out of your Kentucky purgatory? Is that how you remind yourself viscerally, on a daily basis, that it's not permanent?" he asked curiously.

"Learn to lie and it'll be free." That's what most people with a decent tongue did. Stupid was stupid was stupid, after all.

"I've already got one piece of property that I'm tryin' to off load," he started with levity, as though the idea of renting was beneath him somehow, even if that's exactly what he was doing at the motel. He couldn't just say 'Yes'. "Seems like taking on another one wouldn't be the most conducive to leaving for good. Plus. It's good for my savings."

Marshals didn't get paid nothing and Raylan did pretty well with his under $500 a month payment to the motel for his consistent room.

"Ya know. For that house, in Miami."

"Well. For your half," Malcolm pointed out. He wasn't about to be kept any more than Raylan would. "But it's a fair point."

As they came to the park, Malcolm led them onto one of the trails that criss-crossed it.

"Your friends at the office don't think it's weird that you live there?"

Raylan's expression winced, head bobbing back and forth. "Friends is a reach. Art and I taught together which gives me some ground, Tim and I get on real well and Rachel tolerates my bullshit," he admitted, a little gracefully sheepish look at it.

"But apparently, I make it very clear how much I don't wanna be in Kentucky. They don't ask about it." He assumed they understood..

"My half? That mean you're gonna go in 50/50? Opens up our options a lot, you know; I'm not sittin' on nothing."

"Of course I'm going 50/50; I'm going to live there," he pointed out reasonably.

He looked sidelong at Raylan.

"They all love you, you know," he said plainly. "I actually didn't meet anyone in Kentucky that doesn't love you. Your team, the village constable, that criminal in the bar..." He smiled a little. "You kind of pull people in."

"Village constable?" Raylan couldn't help but echo that one, automatically imagining the puffing up that Bob would be doing and laughing at it. He admired Bob's pride for the station but the man did make it humorous, in his own way.

"Ah," he scoffed modestly. "They love the idea of me. I blame the hat. Everyone thinks I live in some Louis L'Amour novel or something. They don't get to see the divorce paperwork or the empty bed or the whiskey bottles. The gun, the hat, the gunslinging.. I get it." But it didn't quite fit him, to his mind.

"I just wanna help. Be better than Arlo was... To... make up for the wrongs he's done, to stop more of his kind.. I know it's not like your situation but.." It was his.

"That's exactly like my situation," Malcolm said. It didn't matter what their fathers' crimes were; it had occurred to him that this had gone so well because they could understand each other on a fundamental level, even though they were as different as they were.

"Do you really feel like none of them really knows you?"

Because if he did, then it was probably true and Malcolm knew what that was like, too.

Raylan bobbed his head again, glad for the movement to keep their bodies moving, instead of caving to their more primal natures.

"Art does. Tim.. gets the drift." And they all drank too much. "But they know what I let 'em, and it's not much, beyond what their see with their own eyes. 'Love' isn't the word I'd use, with them."

But overall, he wasn't arguing Malcolm's point. "Trust me, for everyone in Harlan and my team that might love the idea of me, there's at least an equal amount of people who would love to see me six feet under. Always seems to come out about 50/50. Anyway, if they cared about where I lived, next we'd be doing... cake cuttings for a birthday at the office and wellness checks and."

He gestured the thought away with a shake of his head. "Too much trouble, if you ask me."

Things that could be classified as 'having friends' were 'too much trouble' and the psychologist in Malcolm knew what that meant; he'd been in that boat. He'd been flung into that boat. He wanted to ask 'who hurt you like that?' but he didn't. He had a feeling he was wandering into the part of the feelings weeds that Raylan had been taught not to tread.

Instead, he looked up sidelong at his profile. "Do you feel like I know you?"

Raylan looked over and answered too easily, "Of course. As much anyone knows me, I guess." Anyone here being people like 'Winona'. She'd only known him a decade or so, at this point, but Raylan felt like they'd made good progress in the 'knowing each other' department.

He'd never really thought about it.

"And you've even got a head start, with that training under your belt." Raylan wasn't a stupid man, and he was aware that Malcolm's face reading skills weren't paused or turned off just because he was the subject being analyzed.

He also felt like there was still more there to be chewed at.

"Why does it matter if they care about my livin' in a shitty motel by the week?" It wasn't a shitty question, just a curious one.

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