tinstar | Malcolm x Raylan: Cowboy Surprise

Malcolm x Raylan: Cowboy Surprise

Art was suspicious right off the bat when Raylan took a week off with the express note that his phone would be Out Of Order til the next Monday, but the Chief Marshal wasn't going to look gift horses in the mouth. Not when it suggested he'd have a few days of peace, until Raylan caved to turning his phone back on again. Still, he watched the younger Marshal walk out of the office and promised himself to check into the state of Harlan within 3 days to make sure that the place wasn't on fire. The smoke would reach him before he called, he was sure.

But Art didn't have much to worry about - Raylan had no plans on staying in the state for his vacation, beyond one day spent closing up Arlo's and securing it the best way he could before getting on a plane to New York City. He wanted to surprise Malcolm - it'd been near two months since they'd last seen each other and frankly, Raylan was tired of missing him. They'd called and texted, stayed in a fairly consistent, if odd houred, touch but it wasn't the same.

Once he landed, Raylan rented a car and navigated his way towards Malcolm's apartment, stopping to grab a bouquet of flowers. It was.. Extra, but Raylan didn't want to show up empty handed, just in case. Thirty minutes later, Malcolm's door buzzer was being hit, like Raylan was here to deliver something. Well, he was, but that was half the fun.

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"For now, yes. Unless Art gets tired of me beforehand and lets me transfer back out of Kentucky. I'm only there for a set of specific people. Once we get them where they belong-" Firmly in jail, "-I can look at goin' back to Miami."

He wondered how far Ainsley dug, but knew better than to give her more fodder or poke that particular curious bear.

She nodded. "You left Miami under a bit of a cloud, though, didn't you?"

Malcolm's head snapped up. "You did not."

She gave him a wide-eyed innocent look. "I was just curious about who this mystery man was."

Jessica looked between them and then looked at Ainsley. "What sort of a cloud?"

"He shot a gangster in a quickdraw contest in a restaurant like it was the Old West," she revealed with a grin.

Jessica raised her eyebrows and looked at him. "Is that true?"

Malcolm scrubbed a hand over his face.

Raylan wasn't surprised, and he scoffed a breath, eyebrows lifting in amusement as he glanced at his plate briefly. Tommy Banks had been quite a sticker on his file and reputation; it made sense that that was the first story she found. Or the most prominent one, anyway.

He focused on Jessica first, with a reassuring tone and lift of his expression. "A Miami mafia gun thug pulled on a Federal officer and lost. He'd overstayed his welcome willingly." The fact that he'd given him 24 hours to get out of town wasn't something he was going to mention either.

Raylan's eyes shifted over to Ainsley then and while she was already pretty cute, the question brought a bit of seriousness to her brightness that Raylan knew she'd be able to use like a knife, once she got it mastered and perfected. "It was pretty widely covered there; I'm not surprised you found out about it. The Miami Herald has a half decent piece on it. I was cleared for being in the right, by the way, by the AUSA, 9 months later." Since he was sure the Herald didn't do a follow up on that.

Edited (Spacing) 2020-05-21 15:46 (UTC)

"Well, who wouldn't approve of shooting a badguy," Ainsley said brightly.

One of the staff brought out three salads and a bowl of soup, setting the salads in front of Ainsley, Jessica and Raylan and the soup in front of Malcolm. His place was only set with a soup spoon, as opposed to the full complement of utensils at the other place settings.

He didn't pick up the spoon right away.

"How is your human trafficking charity going, mother?" Malcolm said, changing the subject himself this time.

She waved her hand as she picked up her salad fork.

"It's going well. Eve is a very organized and committed young woman." And Jessica had made no secret that she was the sort of woman she thought Malcolm should have been interested in. "She makes sure my money makes a tangible difference to vulnerable people."

"The AUSA," he remarked dryly with a bob of his eyebrows as he collected his glass for a shallow pull of scotch. So much for no murder talk at the table. He'd hoped the mention of the tour would have been all of it.

Raylan was grateful for Malcolm bringing up a subject; he was bad at it and he didn't do dinner parties.. Unless they were for work... Or In-laws. 'Eve' made him glance between them as he stabbed a bite of his salad.

"Do you know what part of the fight your money is going to?"

Jessica waved her hand at that.

"Eve takes care of those details. She's a lawyer. She puts a lot of the resources towards prosecuting companies that cover for human trafficking or who turn a blind eye to it." She leveled a gaze at Malcolm, who picked up his spoon and ate a careful bite of soup, trying not to meet her eyes. "She was here the other day, as a matter of fact, showing me a presentation they were working on to lobby the government to put laws into place that would better protect people in this situation. I'm sure she'll get them to table a bill; she's very determined."

"I'm glad it's going well," he told her mildly.

"You stopped calling her."

"She didn't take my last forty calls, mother. I'm sure she's moved on as much as I have."

Jessica glanced at Raylan. "Maybe not as much."

Malcolm shrugged and poked at his soup. "Well, she should. I recommend it."

Ainsley cleared her throat. "An anchor position is opening up at the network."

Malcolm was happy to divert his attention to her. "Really? Do you think you have a shot?"

"I've heard a few good rumours..." Ainsley said coyly.

Raylan kept his opinion of that to himself beyond a faint lift of his eyebrows in acknowledgment. He'd never looked into how charities worked and he wasn't going to start now, but it sounded.. a lot like a great opportunity to fleece the ultrarich.

The Marshal listened to the conversation, keeping his eyes on his salad, aside from a conversational glance around that without, would make him suspect. Of course it meant he met Jessica's eye and he gave her a gentle, unapologetic little smile that fell as he took another bite.

Nope, he wasn't stepping into this one. Not even about Ainsley's possible promotion - last thing he wanted to do was invited some idea that would bite him in the ass later.

"Good," Malcolm told her. "I hope you get it."

Ainsley beamed a little. "Leslie says I have the face for the desk," she told them happily. "I think she's really pushing for me with the brass."

"She produced your interview with dad, right?"

Ainsley nodded. "She says I have a lot of promise."

"The newsroom will definitely be a step up from roaming around the unsavoury corners of this city with a camera crew," Jessica noted.

"Yes, well." She gave her brother a playful look. "I'll miss being ignored by Malcolm at crime scenes, but what can you do?"

Raylan smiled as he finished the salad, trading his fork for his scotch as he watched the most functionally family he'd seen outside of TV Sitcoms. He could see where and why the bubble that existed around them did; it wasn't their fault, he didn't hold their wealth against them, but there was an expectation of perfection that made it feel.. surreal somehow. Idealistically unreal.

"You fit in on screen, for what that's worth from me. Very clear articulation." They'd mentioned before at the Gala that Malcolm had gotten Raylan to watch some TV. He might have looked into a little more on his free time.

"Thank you," Ainsley beamed at him. "I studied diction extra-curricularly."

"You said it would come in handy," Malcolm noted. He looked at Raylan. "She always wanted to do TV news. She wasn't interested in newspapers."

"Print is a dying medium," Ainsley declared.

The housekeeper showed up and took their plates, leaving Malcolm's at best half-eaten soup for him to continue working on.

"When do you find out?" Jessica asked, picking up her wine glass.

"Should be in the next couple of weeks."

Of course there's a class for that. "It paid off."

He smirked at Ainsley's assertion and didn't argue, leaning back for the housekeeper to do her thing and thanking her under his breath. He didn't really read like that anymore - most of his reading were case files, nowadays.

The housekeeper reappeared soon with three meals - roast beef, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots - and set them in front of Jessica, Raylan and Ainsley.

"Would you like anything from the roast dinner, sir?" she asked Malcolm quietly.

He looked up at her. "No, thank you. I'm fine."

She nodded and slipped away.

"She's forever trying to get Malcolm to eat," Jessica noted to Raylan. "But to no more avail than the rest of us," she sighed, picking up her cutlery.

"I'm eating, mother," he pointed out, gesturing to his soup with his spoon.

"Like a baby bird, yes. I suppose I should be glad it's something other than candy."

He shrugged a took a bite of the soup.

Jessica looked at Raylan. "You seem to have a healthy appetite. This doesn't bother you?"

Raylan leaned back so the food could be set down, giving another little nod of thanks before taking another sip of his scotch, glancing back at where the housekeeper vanished to as Jessica referenced her.

"Well," Raylan started, trading his glass for his cutlery. "He ate some of my fried chicken and makes a mean egg. Can't say I don't agree on how little it is but he doesn't seem to be wasting away to nothing, as far as I can tell. Two meals a day is more than I get on the job sometime," he offered with a shrug of one shoulder as he started cutting into a little of the beef.

"Better than beer and fast food."

"You ate fried chicken?" Ainsley exclaimed with no small amount of disbelief. She looked at Raylan. "How'd you get him to do that?" She paused. "Or do I want to know?" she asked with a slightly naughty glint.

"A little bit," Malcolm clarified, jumping in to derail that. "Homemade. Lighter than I was expecting."

Ainsley seemed to accept that, though she was still giving Malcolm a knowing look, which he met with a warning one. She turned her attention back to Raylan. "So you cook, too?"

"No double batter egg dredging," Raylan revealed, largely in part to help curb Ainsley's imagination. "Just brined chicken, flour and a fry." Just in case they wanted to give it a try, though it'd be nothing without the spices that Raylan had gotten into things.

"My Aunt Helen, who wouldn't let me go off to college without knowing how to feed myself, taught me a few things. Bachelorism did the rest. It doesn't have to be great, just edible. It's got nothing on this, I'll tell you that. My regards to your chef?"

Was that the appropriate way to express that? He wasn't sure, but he busied himself with another bite.

"I'll pass the compliment on to Claude," Jessica told him happily.

She was about to say something else when Malcolm - about to put his spoon in his soup bowl - suddenly skittered backwards, dropping the spoon with a clang that bounced it off the edge of the bowl onto the table and onto the floor and knocking over his chair.

His clearly terrified gaze was directed at empty space in the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" he asked cautiously.

Jessica and Ainsley looked over in mild alarm and it was Ainsley that said "Malcolm, there's nothing there."

While they were both startled by the suddenness, neither of them seemed surprised beyond that.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, bowing his head and taking a deep breath, but his hand was shaking.

As soon as Malcolm skittered up and out of his chair, Raylan was half rising, hand already slipping to the grip of his gun, glancing at the doorway and gaining a sudden unmistakable pinch of confusion.

Raylan looked at the women and waited for them to do.. well, anything. When they exchanged nothing but more confused looks, Raylan stepped over to Malcolm, turning his back to the ladies to do so and leaning in.

"You okay?" Oh yes, he had questions, but they could wait.

"He's hallucinating," Ainsley supplied helpfully. "I'm guessing you haven't spent a ton of time together if you've never seen this before," she ventured.

While she was talking, Malcolm opened his eyes and cautiously peeked over Raylan's shoulder to see the doorway. Empty. He swallowed heavily and nodded his answer to Raylan's question, pressing the heel of his shaking hand to his forehead for a moment.

"I'm fine," he managed, still anxious, but starting to calm down. "It's okay."

"I told you not to go down in the basement," Jessica noted grimly, taking a large swallow of wine while the housekeeper bustled around them, picking up Malcolm's spoon from the floor and putting a clean one on the table.

"That's not what causes it!" Malcolm directed past Raylan's arm in a rare angry outburst that Jessica met with a defiant look.

"Oh, then what causes it?" she challenged.

"A chemical imbalance in my brain!" he retorted. He looked down and took another deep breath, then looked up at Raylan's face. "I'm okay," he said more confidently. "She's gone."

"Technically, she was never there," Ainsley pointed out, still helpful.

He's hallucinating. Like it was nothing. Like it was the weather or a bad opinion left in the back of her mouth. Raylan couldn't believe these people. Even after so many years, he couldn't imagine not providing a more firm rock of reality for someone like Malcolm to lean on.

He slipped a hand around to pat Malcolm on his hip before turning back around, fully aware of the stony unreadable coolness in his face that lent to a tight jaw.

"Pretty sure your ex-husband caused it," Raylan shot with a low but level tone at Jessica as he sat back down and nearly emptied his glass in one go. Better that Jessica take the blunter edge of Raylan's quick temper than Ainsley.

"Well, I can't argue with that," Jessica said, pouring herself more wine.

Malcolm's illnesses were inconvenient at best and embarrassing at worst. Some were worse than others. They'd existed around them for a long time. Jessica had poured money into every kind of therapy she could find. His continued suffering was a failure for her as a mother and exasperation was easier to express than the blame she harboured for herself for not protecting him.

"You have a gun in the back of your pants, don't you?" Ainsley observed like nothing just happened, pointing at Raylan with her fork as Malcolm slipped back into his chair.

It was good that the reasons weren't aired; Raylan's everything wouldn't be able to withhold the words that spilled from him. He busied himself with pouring another two fingers as he glanced up at Ainsley before glancing back at Malcolm.

"I'm a federal officer," he replied, as though that answered everything succinctly. "I hope that's not a problem." His tone suggested that he'd be very agreeable to their agreement. "I've got my badge on me if you'd like to see that too."

"And you're right," he continued, deciding to just go ahead and dive into that pool. "Malcolm and I haven't spent whatever qualifies as a 'ton' of time together, a cumulative 15 or so days in each other's space. Text and phone calls don't allow for those kinds of things and my being who I am can understand not laying out whatever is wrong with you over calls. Tends to put people off."

He was getting sassy. "But that's something that we plan on working on, as the work allows."

Fuck it; there. What better way to steal the dance than kill the thunder with a more direct blow.

Malcolm clenched his fist against the shaking, which was just starting to subside, as they discussed guns and badges, but looked at Raylan as he went on, offering a watery smile before giving the doorway another cautious glance.

He didn't pick up the new spoon. That was all the dinner he'd be attempting that evening. His stomach was knotted with anxiety.

Ainsley, for her part, already looked approving at his gun and badge toting, but smiled outright at what he said next. She was absolutely certain that, if the monsters in Malcolm's head had been real, Raylan would've shot it. Probably right between its beady monster eyes.

Jessica considered him for a moment, then took another drink of wine.

"Anybody want to talk about literally anything else, please?" Malcolm said, clenching and unclenching his hand on top of the table next to his plate.

Jessica reached over and covered his restless hand with hers, stilling it. "I trust Gil's been keeping you busy with those cases you like so much. What gruesome horror story have you been on this week?"

"Oh. I... helped with a strangers on a train sort of arrangement. They thought they were being clever. I don't know how. The strangers on the train always get caught. I closed it the day before yesterday."

Raylan didn't know how to take Ainsley's smile and fidgeted with his glass as he watched her. He supposed he ought to pick up his fork and keep eating but he couldn't bring himself to fall into the charade of normality again.

Maybe this had been a bad idea. Raylan chewed over that as Jessica helpfully redirected the conversation.

"Strangers on a train?" he asked, unfamilar with the term.

Malcolm was beginning to perk up again at Raylan's question.

"It's an old movie where two strangers meet on a train and they both want someone murdered and they decide to commit the perfect murder by killing each other's victim. They'd have no motive to kill a stranger and the person who wanted the victim dead would have an alibi."

He looked around for Louisa, no longer too proud to ask. "Can I have a glass of water?"

She slipped away to get it.

"Anyway, something always goes wrong. In the movie, one of them got cold feet and couldn't go through with their murder."

"Huh," He grunted as Malcolm came to the end of all of it. "Interesting. So your case was.. someone not going through with their end and the murderer getting caught? Sounds like Clue."

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