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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"I chose showjumping," Ainsley told him. "On horses. I wasn't into dance like Malcolm was." She giggled. "And it was diction, not dictation!"

Malcolm studied his scotch glass very intently.

"Yes, well, neither of you kept it up," Jessica pointed out. "Except for the diction; that was money well spent."

The housekeeper returned to remove their dinner dishes.

"Just three desserts," Jessica told her. She didn't specify who wasn't having any; she didn't have to.

"Did you do sports at school?" Ainsley asked Raylan. "You look... sporty."

Raylan's smile broke into a grin at her giggle and correction before looking over at Malcolm with a curious little lift of his brows. "Chose, huh? And here I thought it was you-" He looked over at Jessica, face still curled in amusement. "-trying to keep him outta sports."

Ainsley's question fit right in and Raylan nodded. "Baseball, since I was young, all the way through to highschool. Batter, mostly."

"Sports?" Jessica exclaimed in amusement. She scoffed a laugh. "Really?"

"Thank you," Malcolm said dryly.

"Well, honestly."

"I throw axes," he insisted. "I'm a champion competitive axe thrower."

"That's not a sport, dear. It's more of a macabre hobby. Like your job."

"Tea or coffee?" Louise stopped next to him to ask. "Tea," he said, his expression tight, unconsciously fidgeting with his fingers on top of the table.

She poured him a cup, then turned to Raylan. "Would sir like tea or coffee?"

"They don't give metals for hobbies," Raylan pointed out good naturedly, glancing at Louisa with a soft shake of his head as he turned the empty up over onto the table.

"And he's got me doing it now too. As a former little league batter.. throwing axes is harder than it looks. Lot of back and shoulder muscles in use." He lifted his eyebrows.

"What would you have seen either of them in," he asked Jessica, genuinely curious.

"Well, dressage was perfect for Ainsley, I just wish she'd stuck with it longer." The dynamic of the Whitly siblings; Malcolm had to deal with Ainsley being 'perfect' in their mother's eyes and Ainsley had to deal with Malcolm getting all the attention for being damaged. "But god knows I tried to get Malcolm interested in tennis or soccer or even golf. But no. Ballet. And then axe-throwing." She looked at Malcolm. "You never lost your need to be difficult about literally everything," she sighed.

"I wonder where I get that from," he retorted dryly, taking a sip of tea.

She narrowed her eyes at him slightly, but there was something playful in it.

The housekeeper brought out the dessert, which was a chocolate mousse torte garnished with raspberries, setting them in front of Jessica, Ainsley and Raylan.

"Do you want any fruit?" she asked Malcolm quietly. He looked up at her and shook his head faintly. She nodded and slipped out of the room again.

"Anyway, I don't think their schools had baseball teams. That wasn't the sort of thing the parents would have gone for."

Raylan smirked at Jessica and Malcolm's back and forth as he poured himself the last of his two fingers for the evening (here at least, he made no claims for once he got back to Malcolm's apartment). Soccer was the most interesting sport that had been mentioned but he understood the higher classes attachment to less violent types of sports, like golf.

He lifted his eyebrows a little at the fancy slice that was slid in front of him and grabbed his fork for a quick bite of the tip.

"Up here, that doesn't surprise me. Not a lot of room for baseball diamonds or breaks for batting with all the doctors and businessmen. It's not everyone's thing."

"There's actually an amazing batting cage in a recreation complex built on old docks right here on the island and I'm going to take you there tomorrow," Malcolm informed him.

"Good Googling," Ainsley remarked mildly.

Malcolm shot her a look. "The point is, people around here do it. You just have to find those people."

"Down at the docks sounds about right," Jessica sighed.

"I'm sure it'll put the one I showed you in Lexington to shame," Raylan said with a self deprecating lift of his eyebrows. But he appreciated Malcolm's googling.

"It's only because there's so many people packed into this island that you're lucky enough to not basically be on them." Yes, that was a dig at the size of Manhattan island. "But I'll admit New York really isn't my kind of land. Not enough palm trees and beaches."

Jessica brightened up. "Good, maybe you can show my son how to enjoy a tropical vacation. He went to Tahiti recently and spent the entire time inside his room."

"That wasn't a vacation, mother, it was enforced exile."

"You went to a resort, darling. You're supposed to at least get in the pool."

"You made Gil drop me off at the airport and watch me get on the plane."

"Someone has to look after you," she pointed out.

Reading, as Raylan recalls being told, but the back and forth was funny in their mutual exasperation and he watched them with the best of intentions towards not laughing. It didn't quite work, and the corners of his mouth couldn't quite decide where they wanted to stay.

"Next time I go to Miami, I'll drag him along, see if we can't get a tan, a drink and some sand between his toes for ya. Under the full power of the US Government. And if he runs away.." Raylan gestured as he leaned back a little. "Kinda my job to track him back down."

Edited 2020-05-22 20:21 (UTC)

"See?" Jessica told him. "Law enforcement escorts seem to be the only way to make you take a vacation."

Malcolm narrowed his eyes at Raylan playfully. "I bet I could escape if I wanted to."

"Oh, no. Don't get him started," Ainsley warned. "You're asking for a working vacation of searching a swamp for him."

"I wouldn't hide in a swamp; that's disgusting." He looked at Raylan. "I had to arrest someone in a swamp once. I had to burn those clothes."

Raylan hoisted his eyebrows. "Think you could stay that way?" If nothing else, Raylan was very confident in how well he could do his job.

"I've still got a few contacts out in the swamp, he wouldn't get far," he promised with an amused look over at Ainsley.

The fact that Malcolm had to burn his clothes made Raylan laugh, the push so unexpected that he wasn't able to even pretend to try and hide it. "Ah, and I know you're not joking either. Though I'm not sure you had to."

Ainsley grinned back at his amused look. He had contacts in the swamp.

Malcolm ducked his head and smiled broadly when Raylan remarked on his laundry. "I had to. I really did. There was no drycleaner in all of D.C. that could get the smell out."

Of course he wore clothes that needed drycleaned to hunt a murderer in a swamp. That was the nature of the ridiculous person Raylan had gotten himself mixed up with.

"If you ruined half as many clothes with the FBI as you do with the NYPD, I shudder to consider it," Jessica remarked.

"I probably ruined twice as many. My pursuits are largely urban now. There were a lot more... ravines and caves and out of the way abattoirs in my FBI endeavours."

"Did you just say 'abattoirs'?" Jessica asked, leveling her gaze at him.

"Yeah, my last collar was at a disused abattoir in rural Utah."

"Oh dear god."

"This is why I never talked about work, mother. You always got that face."

Jessica looked at Raylan. "Do you run around abattoirs much?" Because she was pretty sure this kind of predicament was a Malcolm thing and not a law enforcement thing.

An unconvinced 'Mmhmm' was given, eyes narrowed playfully as he sipped his scotch.

He hummed at the sudden question, eyebrows lifting with the sound before he settled again with a uneven bob of his head. "As I don't know what an abattoir is, I can't say."

"It's a slaughterhouse," Ainsley supplied.

"Ah," he sounded glancing down almost apologetically before looking back up, "In that case.." Raylan winced a little. "Wouldn't call it 'much' but I have seen the inside of one in the last 6 months."

He'd spare them the fact that he watched a man get his arm cut off while confronting Raylan - If Jessica made that face over a plant that put the meat on her plate, he'd hate to see the passing horror of his tales.

"We go anywhere we're needed so I've been around. Both a perk and burden sometimes."

"Mm, but I imagine your had sides of beef on hooks if anything, while the one Malcolm ended up in probably had rows of people hung on them," she said, clearly thinking it was an exaggeration.

"Only three people were on hooks," Malcolm assured her. "He'd put the rest in jars alr..." He took a cue from her face. "You weren't asking," he surmised.

"Pigs.. and an arm." He shrugged with his eyebrows again. "I don't see murder as often as he might, but I see plenty of it, unfortunately." And he was much less excited about it; stopping murders before they happened was his job.

"An arm." Jessica took a drink of wine. "I see why you get along with my son."

Malcolm shrugged, glancing at Raylan with the hint of a smile that got through his attempt not to smile.

"Among other reasons. You probably wouldn't be surprised at the stomach needed for jobs like ours."

Frankly, it was nice to not have to protect Malcolm from the more gruesome edges of the reality of murderers and the stupid or insane.

"But he's proved very good at his job and at least three people are still drawing breath in world for it. Greater good and all."

"According to Gil, it's a lot more than that," Jessica conceded with a sigh.

The housekeeper collected the empty dessert plates, setting a tupperware container in front of Malcolm. "The extra raspberries. In case you want something later," she said softly.

"I'd tell you to stop coddling him, but we know that's not going to happen," Jessica told her. She ducked her head in concession and left the room. "He used to help her in the kitchen," she informed Raylan. "He always wanted to know everything about everything."

"And now I can make a passable egg," he pointed out. "Those were life skills."

"He's probably got a running count." The only thing people had a running count on for Raylan was the number of bodies he'd put in the ground.

Amazingly, Raylan managed to not make a face at the way Jessica told him the tale, like he was supposed to somehow agree with Malcolm letting servants do the work or agree that some affection was coddling.

"To be honest, I'm not really seein' a problem with any of it. Then again, my daughter is only 6 months old. I haven't learned much yet."

Jessica's eyebrows went up and so did Ainsley's, but if they were checking Malcolm's reaction, he wasn't surprised.

"You have a child? That young? What happened to your... girlfriend?" Jessica asked.

It was selfishly gratifying to shock them.

"Mm, ex-wife," Raylan corrected. "And.. ex-girlfriend, I suppose, more recently." Several times over, sadly, but his love life was none of their business, outside of Malcolm. "She decided it wasn't workin' out, a few months before Willa was born."

It was the most affable way he could offer it, warm and a little self deprecating pull of his features. If one didn't know him well, it would look and sound like he was talking about nothing of importance.

"That happens to a lot of cops," Ainsley said knowingly.

"I take it your daughter lives with her, since you're.... here," Jessica noted.

"And dinner was lovely, but now we have to go," Malcolm said, getting to his feet and scooping up his tupperware of raspberries.

Jessica sighed at him, but got to her feet, stepping over to set a light peck of a kiss on his cheek, then looked past him. "It was nice to see you again, Raylan. Please stop by if you're in town again."

She hoped he was with Malcolm long enough to be in town again.

How Ainsley knew what a lot of cops loves lives were holding up was a question, but a question that would clearly have to wait as Malcolm stood up. Raylan stood up a moment later with him and nodded at Jessica after realizing he had no hat on to tip about halfway through.

"Thank you for having me, it was my pleasure." He looked over at Ainsley with a little smile and crooked his head again before stepping around all of them and following Malcolm towards the door, picking up his hat and slipping it on his head as they walked away.

"Said too much huh?" he asked softly as they hit the door.

He shook his head. "No. Just enough. It just seemed like a good place to put a pin in the third degree." He looked at Raylan as they stepped outside. "Unless you want to tell my mom more about why your wife left you and you ended up stuck with me," he said, raising an eyebrow slightly. He could see which way it'd been about to go.

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