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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It was possible a game was being played that night that he hadn't been aware of. But before he could consider that in any depth, Raylan's lips were on his again and his hand tightened a little at the nape of Raylan's neck.

"Hm? Candles? Oh. No. Definitely not," he replied breathlessly, his other hand tracing circles on the back of Raylan's shoulder with two of his fingers. "Nothing's ever held a candle to this."

"Glad to know I'm ranking top, in candles or otherwise," he said with a curl of his lips. "Can I ask you something? I know you're not a virgin but.. you've never laid in bed with someone and just.. explored them?"

Of course, there was a difference in making out and the slow exploration that Raylan had chosen, however subtle, but this kind of lazy, pillow talk exploration felt like it went hand in hand with sex. Maybe that was just his personal experience too, once he was old enough to appreciate being aroused without immediately stickin' his dick into something for gratification.

It went hand in hand with intimacy - real intimacy - he was learning.

"I've...done it a little. Nobody had ever done it to me before now... And I've laid in bed talking to lovers before..." He smiled a little self-deprecatingly. "I think... it's a level of intimacy one maybe doesn't have the patience for the first few times and... I've only been with a couple of people...long enough." He looked at Raylan, his eyes scanning his face. "And one of them's you."

"Mm. Never too late to start. Practice makes perfect," he said, quirking a soft smile. "And unless you plan on expanding that number, I am very happy to be part of of the exclusive group." And he was; there was no lie, even fractionally, in him.

"I do not plan to expand that number," he said, sliding his hand idly from Raylan's shoulder down his arm and back up to his shoulder.

He didn't see how he could ever find anyone else both relentlessly attractive and endlessly tolerant of his issues, where he could lie on a couch with them largely clothed and feel more vulnerable and connected to them than he's ever felt naked and entwined.

"I don't want to expand that number. I want... this."

Raylan's smile spread and there was a more than a little self satisfaction in that. "I am not goin' anywhere," he promised. "Which you might come to regret, left alone, I snore terribly. Shake your shiny weapons right out of their case."

But he was grinning again, completely unserious in the warning. He was happy, and even though he knew this moment itself wasn't going to last forever, he didn't want to think about the ugliness out in the world or what it could bring to their doorstep. He was too happy with possibly having a doorstep, in such a way.

"Might have to soundproof the bedroom in Miami for other reasons too," he finished with a bounce of his eyebrows as he leaned down to busy Malcolm's mouth with his own.

He submitted completely to that busying, leaning up into that kiss, his hand finding its way back up into his hair.

"Snoring isn't a problem," he murmured when it broke. "I don't sleep much." He kissed him again. "Can't be woken when I do." And kissed him again.

"Seems like we're in luck then, huh," Raylan rumbled with a pleased tone, having met each kiss and leaving another one on Malcolm's lips before shifting down to lay his head on Malcolm's chest, sighing deeply once he'd settled.

He liked the steady drum of sound under his ear and the way breath sounded underneath him.

"Its not weird that we're talkin' like this after only two months, right?" He'd tried, goddamnit, he had.

God, how was Raylan settling in there on him like that even better than making out? One of his hands rested on Raylan's upper arm and the other nestled in his hair.

"Well, it's not really two months. I was in Kentucky two months ago. But a couple months before that, you were in New York. And we met a few months before that and I stayed at your house... so really it's been over six months."

"Since we've been knowin' each other," Raylan pointed out. "Only two months since we.. came to any kinda formalization about it.." He turned his head up, one hand coming to prop flat under his chin. "Or are we counting from my first time in New York, first kiss kinda thing?"

"Um. We did a lot more than kiss when you first came to New York," Malcolm pointed out with a grin. "I know you weren't... sure about this back then, but... you also initiated it."

"Well," Raylan chuckled with a side glance of his eyes and a bashful grin. "That still ain't dating official. It was just a good start. Unless you're saying you already made a decision, even then?" He arched his eyebrows questioningly, face curled in amusement.

He bit his bottom lip a moment, watching Raylan's face.

"I'm not sure I want to say..." he admitted. Of course he immediately relented. How could he not tell that face anything it asked? "I had... interest. Before that. So when it happened... I hoped it meant something."

Raylan was about to give him the most pliable of 'C'mon's with a cute bob of his head, but there was no need with the forthcoming answer and he kept his eyebrows arched in amused curiosity. The more Malcolm said, the broader his grin was.

"An interest," he echoed. "That wouldn't happen to be the first time I was on top of you, was it? Out of.. Simple curiosity." It was not simple curiosity.

He laughed gently. "I think I wasn't really conscious through most of that. But later that night you drove me back to Lexington to get my medication." He watched his face for a second. "It was quiet in the car and it seemed like... not a good time to talk, so I did a lot of thinking instead. And some of that thinking was about you and how you didn't have to do that for me. It wasn't convenient. And it was going to put us behind the next morning."

It was only the end part he'd been talking about but he didn't need to say it. His head tilted a little, eyes crinkling in curiosity as he listened, lips simmered back down to an easy, pleased pull.

"Worth it to know the guy I was working with on the level. We still solved the case, saved the victim. Didn't cost us anything, got you what you need." His brow pinched a little in a flex. "That really the start of it? That's kinda sweet."

"You made the least convenient choice to look out for someone you barely knew. And that was after you found out all the things about me that usually make people back away slowly. How could I not feel anything?" Malcolm countered. A beat. "Plus you're great looking. I mean. That didn't hurt."

Raylan lifted himself back up into his elbows with a hum and a cock of his eyebrows so he could kiss Malcolm again. How could he not kiss him after hearing all that? Not the good looking part; Raylan had been informed enough times that he knew he wasn't particularly an ugly man.

When it broke, he stayed hung over him, face close, eyes warm and half-lidded. "Sometimes I make good choices, despite my record."

Malcolm smiled at that. 'Good choices'; he meant him. He was pretty sure he'd never been anyone's good choice before.

"So... the tackling," he noted, going back a bit. "It started something, huh?"

Good, no arguments about his record or how good a choice Malcolm was - he liked that. The question had him giving Malcolm a playfully coy look and kissing him again before pulling back. "I don't know what you're talkin' about. I've tackled plenty of guys before without noticing how they looked and felt under me, ain't nothin' to it."

He flashed a grin, him and his thoroughly mussed hair before he lifted a finger and his eyebrows at Malcolm. "You stay there. I need something to drink and I bet you do too."

Walking around to prop his ass on the arm of the couch, Raylan pulled off his boots and socks before padding into the kitchen to wash his hands. "You're not going to hire someone to clean in Miami, are you?"

He hoped not.

Malcolm grinned at Raylan's protests, then propped himself up on his elbows as the taller man departed so he could watch him move around. He toed off his own shoes and kicked them over the side of the couch, but otherwise did as he was told, remaining rumpled and undone where he was.

"It hadn't occurred to me," he replied to the question. "Not if you don't want it. I don't need it. I just can't get my mother to stop."

"With a house as big as she's got and her being by herself, I can see why she needs the help." To say nothing of the sheer class level that went into it - that was a lot of House. "Never been quite comfortable with the idea of housekeepers for myself though."

As he spoke, he grabbed a glass and poured Malcolm some mineral water before snagging his abandoned tumbler of scotch to pad back towards the couch.

"If you can do without, I'd rather not. Nothing in a house I can't clean and hadn't before."

"Nothing in a house we can't clean," he amended, taking the glass when it was handed to him, reaching for Raylan with his free hand as soon as he was close enough.

Raylan bobbed his eyebrows with a pleased curl of his smile as he handed over the glass and sat down on the edge of the couch next to Malcolm, bending down to kiss him again.

"Good. I make a terrible maid." He took a long sip of his scotch and set it down on the coffee table nearby so he could focus his attention back on Malcolm with a soft tilt of his features. "I like this teamwork thing."

He had plenty on his plate already, with Winona and Willa, both of which he promise he'd help in whatever way - this felt like he could still have his own kinda life and not get spread too thin.

Maybe he'd make a terrible maid, but he'd probably look hilarious in the outfit.

Malcolm ran his fingers along the seam of Raylan's jeans at his thigh, while he took a sip of water.

"In it together," he reminded him. "Even... dirty toilets."

He looked up at Raylan's face. "If it wasn't profoundly dangerous for me to fall asleep like that," he said, gesturing to where Raylan had been laying on top of him, "I could have stayed there all night."

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SOFT FACES

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