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

[tinstar]

"Still think I need to work on breathing?" he teased. Batting might look simple, but it was physically demanding and that came with a need to control one's breath.

[abrightboy]

"In baseball? No, you've got it down. In yoga? We'll see how you do with a sun salute," he teased.

He lined himself up for the next ball and hit it with a loud crack, sending it towards the ground and then skittering the rest of the way to the end of the cage.

[tinstar]

Raylan chuckled. "If it were anyone else, that statement might scare me." He nodded at the pitching machine. "You're already doing better than a little bit ago. Hitting the ball inside the foul lines totally counts. Though I'm afraid you might be sweating a little bit," he teased gently with a gesture towards Malcolm's back.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm laughed brightly.

"I don't know how that could be a surprise. You make me sweat every time you visit," he teased, stepping back and holding out the bat to Raylan.

[tinstar]

Raylan hummed behind a suggestive bounce of his eyebrows before laughing and stepping forward to collect the bat. "Not enough for my liking, not yet," he teased back, letting his off hand slide around Malcolm's waist as he moved past him.

"You're pretty when you sweat," Raylan supplied, just in case Malcolm didn't know, as he stepped up to the plate and twirled the bat up into position. "And I-" Crack - It would have been a two baser, at least. "- am definitely going to need a beer after this."

He hit the next three in quick succession before stepping back, shoulders rolling as he twirled the bat again. "I know it's terrible, but considering everything, I feel a little less bad about telling you but-" Raylan looked over his shoulder at Malcolm. "I like using a bat a little too much."

He wasn't talking about baseball anymore. He was talking about the way it cracked against Dickie Bennett's knee after he got kicked in the face, or the way it connects with a body. It was deeply satisfying to his inner fury. Somehow, he didn't worry about Malcolm judging him.

[abrightboy]

"To defend yourself? Well, it's more... feral than a gun. More satisfying to the animal part of the brain where our survival instinct lives," Malcolm explained matter-of-factly. "Does that worry you?"

[tinstar]

He winced and bobbed his head back and forth, ignoring the few balls that went past him during all of it.

"Only when it's quiet. Sometimes when it's not. There's just.." There's just some people that didn't speak any other language other than violence. "I worry about all the things I've done. The men I've killed, the compromises I've made," Raylan rolled his shoulders in something of a shrug as his eyes found the ground.

"I didn't hate pulling the trigger sometimes either."

[abrightboy]

"Sometimes people deserve what they get," Malcolm allowed simply. "When you didn't hate pulling the trigger.... was it because those people hurt people?"

[tinstar]

Raylan shrugged and looked away for a long moment before looking back to Malcolm.

"It stopped them from hurting others." But he still killed them. "You already know how people like to draw down on me... But what if they didn't draw? Would I still have killed them?" Without the draw first, Raylan had no justification. "My ass is only saved by the fact that they've all been justified."

[abrightboy]

"That's not a statistical anomaly, Raylan. The fact that one hundred percent of the people you've killed have presented a clear and present danger is significant. You've come up against a lot of bad people. You've had many chances to shoot criminals who didn't draw on you and you never have. And even so, you're still thinking about it. Do you know how many sociopaths think about whether they had to use lethal force or not? Zero of them."

[tinstar]

He hummed and turned back, bat coming back up. "Yeah." Logically, it made sense but it wasn't enough to override the guilt in his lizard brain because he was capable of murdering without being drawn on. He'd gotten so close so many times and that closeness was its own danger. How easily he'd slipped into being a ghost of Arlo before.

Raylan cracked another ball into outfield. "That's what I keep telling myself." He hit another one, and poorly, before wincing and rolling his shoulders again. "A waste of balls but I think my shoulders are callin' it." He kind of hated that he had to say it out loud but his cautions for Malcolm about tearing a shoulder was one he took seriously. He used those, rather frequently.

"You wanna bat off the rest?"

[abrightboy]

"It's good that you think about it. As long as you do, you're still good."

He looked at the machine. "No, I think I'm going to be sore as it is," he admitted. "Want to get lunch? Then we can head down to Times Square."

[tinstar]

Nodding, Raylan hit the emergency stop button provided on their side and set the bat against the cage before he held out a hand towards Malcolm for his helmet which still got a wild grin from Raylan.

"They'll clean up." He collected his hat and his jacket, slipping them back on before leading Malcolm out. "I'll let you choose lunch, you know what's around. And for a guy who doesn't really eat, you've got great food taste." For Raylan, anyway.

[abrightboy]

He huffed a laugh, smoothing his hair back from where the helmet left it decidedly ruffled.

"Well, I listen to people talk about food. But there's this sports bar down the street that is apparently packed with memorabilia and has really good chicken wings? JT raves about it."

[tinstar]

Raylan winced with a bob of his head. "Never much cared for sports bars myself. If I'm going to watch a game, it'll be at home. They're always loud and full of rowdy drunks." He'd never been much one for chicken wings either, he didn't like how much work it took to get a disassifying amount of meat off it.

"JT seems like the sports bar type. He married?"

[abrightboy]

"Yes. His wife's name is Tally. I met her once," he explained as they headed out of the building. "She was really nice. There's a restaurant I like about halfway to Times Square. We could take the subway."

[tinstar]

Raylan nodded. JT was probably a fan of sports bars to get away from her now and then.

"Never ridden the subway, let's do that. Never really done public transit. Hell, even taxis a just a little weird sometimes. I did have to hang off a side of a bus in Nicaragua though. If that counts." Whether or not he was getting to shoot someone didn't really matter, right?

[abrightboy]

"When were you in Nicaragua?" Malcolm asked with great interest as they stepped outside, leading Raylan down the block towards the subway.

[tinstar]

"Few years back. With Tommy Bucks, actually. The dude I shot in Miami. We were chasing down a rival gunrunner and Tommy was technically our C.I. Pretty place, if you can overlook the crowds in the marketplaces. Wouldn't wanna go back - it still a little wild for my tastes. TNT tends to do that."

[abrightboy]

Oh.

"Where would you want to go, if you were traveling?" Malcolm asked curiously. He was interested in what sort of places interested Raylan.

[tinstar]

"Always wanted to see Cuba," he offered with a glance over. "Rio de Janeiro - I wanna see the big Christ statue one day. Wouldn't mind actually seeing Paris either."

He had places. "What about you? As I hear you've some great aversion to a good sunny beach," he teased softly.

[abrightboy]

"It's not an aversion to beaches," he said with a laugh. "I happen to have heard some very appealing things about a beach recently," he teased back. "I have an aversion to being forced on other people's idea of a vacation by literally everyone I know to some place in the middle of the South Pacific surrounded by strangers and palm trees and impersonal hotel decor when I'd rather stay home in my apartment surrounded by things I've carefully curated to help me feel calm," he pointed out emphatically. "It was only relaxing at all because I filled my entire suitcase with books and I tipped well enough that the room service lady took it upon herself to make me lemon jello."

[tinstar]

Raylan laughed softly as his hands found his pockets. "You would talk some sweet lady into makin' you jello. I'll admit, it is my idea of a vacation. But books can come onto the beach, there's no rule against it. Am I gonna have to enjoy the ocean alone?"

[abrightboy]

He huffed a self-deprecating smile and glanced down.

"Definitely not. If our spot on the beach has you in it, then there will be a carefully curated collection of at least one thing that makes me feel calm there," he admitted, glancing at Raylan sidelong. "I might even go in the water."

[tinstar]

Raylan looked over at him, grin slipping onto his face. "Please tell me you know how to swim."