Malcolm x Raylan: Cowboy Surprise

[tinstar]

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.

Comments

[abrightboy]

Malcolm's expression brightened.

"You still have it in your wallet?" he said, not even attempting to hide how much that buoyed him. It was unabashedly a souvenir of his time with Malcolm and he still kept it close to him.

[tinstar]

Raylan hummed and reached behind him to tug his wallet out of his pocket, flipping it open and thumbing out an overly worn affirmation card. The stiffness of it had long been worked out, the intricate border starting to fade around the edges, but it was there.

"Not always a place to throw axes.." The card sufficed in the quiet moments when he was drunk and alone. A reminder of a Bright spot in his life.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm understood something when Raylan took out that card: Raylan didn't just miss Malcolm when they were apart in a nebulous sort of way. Raylan missed Malcolm in the aching, unremitting way that Malcolm missed him.

He leaned up and pressed an earnest, ardent kiss to his mouth, lingering there, in his breath, when it broke.

"Maybe we should make a more...concrete plan to see each other more often," he murmured.

[tinstar]

He missed him like there was a hole in his day that gnawed at him so as to not be forgotten or drank away, despite more than a few nights where Raylan had tried. He tried to find a way to.. not fall down this hole, to not fall into a romance he had no chance of gauging the success of.

Raylan let a little rough noise at the sudden and passionate kiss, curling forward a fraction under Malcolm's attention.

"What do you suggest?"

[abrightboy]

"My work isn't regular. When I finish a case, there's always at least a couple or three days of space between. Gil doesn't call me all the time. He's afraid of overloading me."

He drew away just a tiny bit more, just enough to see his face.

"I can come to Lexington when I'm not on a case. If you're at work, I can wait. We can salvage a few hours whenever you get done."

[tinstar]

"Okay." He wasn't going to fight it or argue; he had no reason to and he agreed. He wanted more of Malcolm. More time with him, no matter what they were doing. He'd figure out whatever hurdles he had to in Kentucky.

"I can't say that I'll be able to carve out extra time or that cases won't run long and that'll..." He took a deep breath, eyes moving back and forth as he watched Malcolm. "I can't protect you from everything in Kentucky. I need to know you understand what you coming down between cases means. I can't control everything down there, and I don't want you gettin' caught up in some side line shitkicker nonsense."

[abrightboy]

He held up a hand, keeping the other around Raylan. "I'll bring books; I'll stay at the hotel. I'm not coming to sightsee. If there's anything else you think I should do to not make problems for you, just say the word."

[tinstar]

Raylan eyed him carefully. "No worry or frettin' over getting asked to stay at home? Where you're safe?"

Because Malcolm had been anxious about that before and Raylan couldn't bring him along on the majority of his work - mainly because it happened late at night on backwoods roads that needed a sharper sense of self preservation than Malcolm had. It wasn't a slight against the man but Raylan was a realist.

[abrightboy]

"I learned my lesson," Malcolm said soberly. "Square peg, round hole. Got it. I just want to see you. I won't interfere in your work. I won't go to Harlan. I won't talk to anyone."

[tinstar]

Raylan considered it, eyes locked on Malcolm's face. This was a choice too, a risk, a massive one. Once Malcolm started coming down - People noticed people that were there more often than not and when someone's never been there, they stick out all the more.

He didn't want to trap Malcolm in his bullshit either. It sounded like Malcolm was going into WITSEC to be with him and that laid on it's own layer of guilt.

Swallowing thickly, Raylan nodded, knowing that if it didn't go well, he could kiss a great many things goodbye, including his reputation and any softpower he had. Not his job, maybe, but there was also Winona to contend with and he wasn't looking forward to that conversation at all.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm was watching his face carefully and he saw things play out there, not all of which he had the context to guess at.

"You don't like something about this. You're deeply unsettled by it. What is it? Why are you agreeing?" He paused. "I wore out my welcome in Kentucky," he hazarded. "Just my presence there is a problem, but you don't want to tell me not to come."

[tinstar]

"I'm agreein' because I want to see you," he impressed with a faint lift of his eyebrows. "And your presence is-- Not a problem." Go ahead Raylan, lie some more.

"I just don't want you stuck in some crappy motel away from all this... Everything that you're used to, like you're hiding out from the whole state." He took a deep breath, looking down for a long moment before looking back up.

"Why don't I find a place to rent in Lexington, on the other side of town. We can stay there, give you some privacy and Lexington's finest attempt at New York hipster coffee?"

[abrightboy]

He did want to see Malcolm, but Malcolm never doubted that.

His presence was definitely a problem, though. Was he not hiding out from the whole state?

Still, whatever the reasons for it - and he was sure they posed some sort of danger for Raylan to be so adamant (and to lie about them) - the compromise was reasonable. He nodded.

"That sounds nice," he said. "Will you let me pay half? You wouldn't be getting it if I wasn't going to be there."

[tinstar]

He nodded, relieved that Malcolm wasn't pushing to pry further, relieved to have a compromise. "Sure, if you want. Looking at maybe five or six hundred each, depending. Not much more than I'm paying for the motel. You can even decorate, if that's your thing."

It wasn't his. His hands tightened around Malcolm again, fractionally.

"I know this isn't ideal. I-.. I wish I knew how to make it ideal. But I promise to do the best I can."

[abrightboy]

"Good. I wouldn't want you to spend more than you do now. Miami is still the endgame, but... our own place... that would be a lot more comfortable. I could leave some stuff there. Clothes and things. Travel lighter," he noted. He looked at Raylan's face again. "What does 'ideal' look like?"

[tinstar]

God, he hoped so. If this fell through, Raylan would feel like the fool he was. If Ava had been a Chance and Winona had been a Chance, this definitely chalked up to one but goddamn if he didn't want it. Like a drowning man gasping for air.

"I don't know. Us going to dinner without driving 30 miles outside of town, me being able to hold your hand or walk with my arm over your shoulder. Without consequences." Part of him worried that Winona would disapprove so deeply that she might not let him have Willa. More than, if he were honest.

"You could buy a french press," he redirected. "Set us up with a nice porch or something, something we can drink it on in the mornings."

[abrightboy]

Consequences.

"So 'ideal' is... Miami," he pointed out reasonably, assuming that part of the plan was that, if they moved there together, they wouldn't have to pretend Malcolm was Raylan's roommate or something.

Well. They'd get there.

"Do you want me to come down and help find the place?" he asked. "If we find a place, I can set everything up while you're at work. Keep myself out of trouble."

[tinstar]

"Miami," Raylan confirmed with a little nod of his head. There was no avoiding Winona so looking beyond that, he only had to concern himself with the setting they were in. Raylan still wouldn't be shouting things from a mountaintop, but they could be a more honest version of themselves.

"If you want to come down and help, I wouldn't say no. God knows I'm bad at it. Someone with some taste needs to be there. Your family won't mind you leaving town?"

[abrightboy]

"You mean when we move to Miami?" He shrugged. "I've only been back here for... not even a year. I lived somewhere else before that for ten years. It'll be okay," he promised. "....Are you going to live there when I'm not in town?" he asked. Or would he keep up the pretense of being a nomad at the hotel?

[tinstar]

"No, I-- I mean Lexington; they're not going to mind you not being there on the days when you're not working?" They liked coming to check up on him, that much was obvious.

"I'll live there when you're not in town. We don't get paid nothing in the Marshal's service you know and I'm not sitting on ten dollars." Just so he was aware. "I'll tell 'em they were right or something. That I needed to rent a place that had more than two hinge doors. It ain't like I'm buying, right?"

He could spin it.

[abrightboy]

"Oh." He waved it off. "They know I'm seeing you. I don't even have to make something up." He paused. "So... you'll have a place in Lexington and I can come there any time. Like you can come here." He smiled up at him. "I like the sound of that."

[tinstar]

If Malcolm wasn't concerned, he wasn't concerned and hummed a note before leaning forwards and kissing him.

"I'll start looking in my free time once I get back." One hand found the glass of scotch. "Got any demands on your living space? Double sinks or a walk in closet?"

[abrightboy]

He laughed lightly and leaned in for another kiss. "I want a nice, big bed," he said. "And an open concept kitchen/livingroom if they have it. I just like... fewer walls. More windows."

As if he couldn't tell that from the room they were standing in.

"I'll try not to break any of them with axes if you're at work late," he teased.

[tinstar]

Raylan met the kiss with another hum, happily focusing on what Malcolm wanted to exist in comfort. He'd bend over backwards to make sure he found something suiting.

"I'm sure between the two of us, we can manage any damage you might do to the walls. I'll keep that in mind. Really into the studio vibe, aren't we?" he teased. "Just like to see everything that's going on?"

[abrightboy]

He laughed almost self-consciously in concession. Yes, he definitely was.

"I have a lot of nightmares about being trapped in a cell. I don't really like being...enclosed. If I have a choice. Even less so after..." He made a vague gesture. "The murder basement kidnapping....thing."