tinstar | Malcolm x Raylan: Cowboy Surprise

"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.

"I guess, in a way, it doesn't matter. That you stick to what you think is right... that's one of the things I admire about you. But they're also the people you spend the most time with and if they don't care about you... It says something. Though I suppose what it probably says is that you keep them at arm's length so you don't get attached to anything there." He glanced at him again. "You don't want anything to weaken your resolve in not getting trapped there."

Raylan couldn't stop the spread of the amused tilt of his face's everything. The thing was, he felt like he'd been on his own since he was a kid, even with Aunt Helen's help. He didn't need people to care about him. Wanted them to, sure, in a few rare instances, but overall, Raylan was content with what little he got to get him by.

"I haven't needed someone to care about me in a long time." He took care of himself. And even when he did need people to care about him, they fell into selfishness, leaving him in the same position.

"They've all got shit to deal with too. Tim's got PTSD, Art's got grandkids, Rachel's got her family and all that. And I wouldn't say they don't care.. We get on pretty well, no one lets anyone else get shot.." That clearly counted, in Raylan's books.

Oh, this went way back. To running from Arlo's beatings and hiding anywhere Arlo wouldn't either think or dare to look.

But Malcolm was pretty sure not letting each other get shot was part of their actual job.

"I have PTSD and I care about you." He looked over with a wry smile. "Though I'm pretty glad Tim doesn't care about you in the same way I do."

It was their actual job, but much like in the mines, there was an unspoken comradery and trust that was set in. They cared where it mattered. Raylan smiled back, face ducking under the brim of his hat which did him no good, considering Malcolm was next to him.

"Me too. It'd make the office environment more than a little awkward." But he got what Malcolm was saying, loud and clear. "And I think your PTSD is the only reason you can care without losing your mind with worry." If they were being honest. "Civilians.. aren't used to what the reality of the job is. Even if they read it on paper every day. That's what happened with Winona.. She couldn't take worrying about if I'd come home at the end of the day, forever."

Raylan looked over at Malcolm. "Much as I might have talked about it, I think we both knew I wasn't going back to teaching at Glynco."

Edited 2020-05-16 15:56 (UTC)

"I worry about you," Malcolm said plainly. "But I also understand who you are and what this career means to you. For a lot of us, law enforcement isn't a job; it's a vocation. You need to right wrongs. It's sewn into the fabric of you."

That was a good way of putting it. Vocation. He'd have to remember that for next time he got into an argument about it. But he nodded, silently grateful for Malcolm's innate understanding. He'd have to see how it stood up against the test of the day to day grind.

"See, you know me plenty well." He smiled over at him. "So what's at this park, anything special?"

He pointed ahead of them. "See that big arch up there?" he asked, his whole demeanour clearly pleased by Raylan's comment on how well he understood him. "That's the northern entrance to the park and it was built in honour of George Washington's inauguration. There's a big fountain in front of it that's known for buskers and street performers." He pushed his hair out of his face. He'd forgotten to put product in it before they'd headed out and it was being blown around a bit by the gentle breeze. "But they say, originally, this square was used for public executions," he added a little too enthusiastically.

It was harder than Raylan thought, wanting to touch Malcolm in some small innocent way and being completely unwilling, unable to do so. He knew it wouldn't matter here; no one cared except for him but word had already started to travel and if he couldn't handle 3 other people knowing about it..

He listened attentively, glancing between the arch and Malcolm as he gestures only to smile at him. At the sweep of his normally tidied hair, at the infectious rise of enthusiasm, at the way Raylan could feel it tugging him upward like Malcolm was going to float away with him attached at the ankle or something. The last bit made Raylan scoff a laugh and grin with the slightest shake of his head.

"Of course it was. Do they have a plaque for that or is that something taught in schools here?" He meant elementary, middle and high school - Universities would, of course, end up teaching stuff like that.

Malcolm laughed. "I didn't learn that at school; I'm just... a bit of a history buff." With a bent towards the macabre. "We're getting close to the fountain; I can hear the water." He looked at Raylan. "This is the second most famous park in New York, after Central Park, obviously, but that's further uptown. We'll drive up that way maybe tomorrow," he suggested. "Lots to see up that way."

Malcolm was the one leading them and Raylan followed him easily, glancing off towards where he heard the babble of water coming from.

"Sounds a little weird, with all cars. Outta place." But nice, in its own way. "I imagine New York has a lotta history to lift with.. When was the arch built?"

"1889," he rambled off easily. "On the centennial of Washington's inauguration. They modeled it after the Arc de Triomphe, in Paris." He looked at Raylan. "They found an old grave when they were digging the eastern foot," he added helpfully. "They're always finding old graves when they dig in the ground in this park, headstones and all, so at least they're easy to identify and reinter."

Raylan lifted his eyebrows in appropriate surprise. "Never was much good at history and dates like that. And I imagine they are. Big population, the years and health of then being what it was.. Is it because you grew up here that interest you so much, or is it just a general love of the knowledge and this is a good place to start?"

Could also be because so much happened in New York, even when she was younger and went by a different name.

"I guess that's how it started. I mean, we'd go somewhere and I'd see something that interested me... like the arch, for example. Why do we have a big arch in the middle of a modern city? And then I'd have to learn everything about it. I was just... like that." He paused a beat and looked at Raylan. "I mean, I guess I still am," he admitted. Just like he tried to learn everything he could about a murder. About how people think. About Raylan. Whenever something caught his attention, his thirst for knowledge about it was insatiable.

"I have a pretty good memory," he noted fidgeting slightly. "That probably helps." A further beat. "And I didn't really have friends so, you know. There was a lot of time for reading."

"George Washington, apparently," he replied coyly with a pull of his smile, nodding with a knowing kind of expression as Malcolm looked at him.

"Good that you got your practice in, considering your career choice. The memory helps." Raylan's smile pulled. "I hear good things about the public library here too. Think we can fit that on the agenda? I don't know where things are situated out here but I'd like to see the building, at least."

Malcolm's eyes widened with excitement.

"You want to go to the library? I love the library!" he enthused, perhaps a little too loudly. He glanced around and dialled it back. "We can definitely go there; I'd love to show you that."

Raylan laughed softly at the reaction, lifting his eyebrows a little bit and quelling another urge to pull Malcolm in and kiss him breathless again. "Thought that might get a reaction," he said, grinning as they came up to the arch. With as big as it was Raylan had to adjust his hat to keep it on as he looked up at the ceiling of the inner arch.

"Always blows my mind, people building big shit like this the hard way. It is impressive," he continued with another little nod.

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