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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"She's avoiding it all," Raylan muttered with a faint pinch of his brow, off hand coming up around Malcolm more properly. He knew a thing or two about parents with substance abuse problems and Arlo was largely to blame for his own. Not that it was at that level yet.

Maybe someday, maybe once they were married, Malcolm would trust Raylan enough to help take his mother out of the equation.

"Things'll be different in Miami. She won't be able to throw her weight around as much." Raylan already knew that he and Jessica would be having several Important conversations over their interactions and as much as Raylan would like her to like him, he could more than handle it if she didn't. She couldn't do any more damage than Arlo had already done.

"You'll get that full independence back."

He pressed his cheek against Raylan's shoulder.

"Except better than last time." He tilted his head and looked up at his face. "Because you'll be there."

He smiled warmly and pressed a kiss onto Malcolm's forehead.

"Yes I will. In the meantime, we've still got plenty of today to enjoy - I'd hate to see it pass by with us frettin' about the future." He glanced at the TV. "It's not too late to get lost in the ocean again. At least until I get hungry. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

He smiled happily, reaching across Raylan to pick up the remote control and turn the sound back on before settling back in against him.

"What do you want to eat when you get hungry?" he asked, watching sea creatures move through crags in the rocks on the ocean floor.

"Is it terrible I want sushi? I don't even like it that much." But something about watching the ocean struck the urge in his lizard brain, even as he sipped at his spiked coffee. "Something with fish. Too bad we're too far north for good catfish."

"Catfish? Is that good? I do like some fish. I can do some of the lighter sushi. I've never had catfish. There's a good sushi place not far from here that delivers," Malcolm rambled.

"If it's done right," Raylan confirmed with a bob of his head. "Plenty easy to do it wrong though." He looked down. "You do sushi? Well hell. Sounds like we've got our lunch plan. Next time you're down, I'll take you to a good fish place. You can try it out."

And if he didn't like it or didn't think it'd stay down, Raylan was more than happy to take the proverbial bullet and finish up Malcolm's serving.

The narrator went on.

"I think I woulda liked to do a job like this, if I hadn't gotten into Law enforcement." If his entire life had been different, but sometimes it was fun to ruminate on what could have been.

Malcolm considered the screen.

"Oceanography or making documentary films?" he asked after a moment.

He could see Raylan doing either well. He was curious, thorough and asked good questions. Traits that would serve a scientist or a scholar.

"Oceanography or Marine Biology," he clarified. "I think that's why I like the beach so much. The ocean is.. something." Something powerful. Something more than them.

"I can't wait to get back to starin' at it."

"Yeah, I want to make sure we have a view from the livingroom and the bedroom," Malcolm mused.

Raylan snorted and tilted his head to only partially improve his view of Malcolm's face. "You're just determined to spoil me, ain't ya." The grin that split his face made clear that he didn't mind it.

"There's gotta be some health benefit to being by the sea."

"Is wanting to live with you in your dream house spoiling you or spoiling me?" he teased, matching Raylan's grin.

At the next remark, he perked up, sitting up to look at him.

"Actually there are a lot. There's more oxygen in sea air and that gives you energy and improves sleep. Also they say that coastal living reduces anxiety and depression, at least partly because of the calming qualities of the motion and sound of the ocean. And ocean water contains a lot minerals, plus salt is antiseptic and it can help heal injuries."

"My dream house?" Raylan chuckled. "Let's agree on spoilin' each other." That was the much better option, in his opinion.

The way Malcolm perked up and started into his intelligent ramble made Raylan grin, legs shifting a little bit with the hopefully brief reprieve of weight, and his eyebrows lifting as Malcolm finished. "Is it, now. All the more reason to get us on one. How do you get your hands on all these weird studies?"

Malcolm opened his mouth, then closed it, then shrugged expansively.

"I don't really know. I read a lot."

He snuggled back up against Raylan. "I tend to remember things that I read."

"Think I can absorb some of that through osmosis?" he asked, shifting his arm back around Malcolm's waist. "What are you gonna do with me for an extra day?" he continued as the screen switched over to a commercial.

Malcolm perked up again, grasping the front of Raylan's shirt as he lifted his head to look at him.

"Do you still want to go to the library?" Malcolm asked.

Raylan grinned. "Sounds great. As I understand it, it's large enough to take a few hours to get through anyway before I ruin all your mother's plans by being at her dinner that I am sure she wanted you alone at."

He did not mind putting a few bumps in Jessica's plans at all; she was too used to her way so the surprise was probably good for her.

Malcolm grinned. "Yeah? This might actually be fun. She seems to think I like you too much." Based on her interactions with them earlier that morning, at any rate. "And she doesn't even know how much I really, really do."

He shifted to look up at Raylan. "Incidentally, 'osmosis' is the transfer of water through a barrier. Any other substance is 'diffusion'." He settled his head against Raylan's shoulder again. "But people use it that way all the time."

That made him lift his eyebrows and scoff out a laugh as he glanced to the side, and if he'd been wearing his hat, he would have pushed it back a few inches. He didn't understand Jessica Whitly. He could understand the logical motivations for the person she'd become but how those stuck were largely going to always be beyond him.

"I'm more than happy to make her aware."

She was probably going to have kittens when she found out Raylan's plans for the both of them.

"Eh, you got my point, right? That's all that matters."

They finished the documentary and Raylan stretched underneath him, glancing at his watch. "I could do with a stretch of my legs and lunch, what'dya say?"

"We'd have to get dressed, but we could walk down to the sushi place and then come back here," Malcolm offered. "Or I can order in, if you want to do yoga in your underwear instead," he added, looking up with an obvious preference.

"Mm," he hummed, smile curling unabashedly around the corners. "I like option two, but only if we might take a walk afterwards."

He was bad at staying inside all day, okay?

"Might even get me past one position this time."

Malcolm laughed, turning to vault over the back of the couch to get yoga mats from the closet.

"No complicated arm stands this time," Malcolm told him. He turned and grinned with two rolled up mats in his arm. "So no excuses!"

He rolled out the mats where he had them the last time and gestured for Raylan to join him.

"This is basic stuff. If you get all the way through it, we can discuss both a walk and... other... cardio activities."

"After we eat," Raylan clarified with a finger as he padded over, grin broad from Malcolm's almost manic excitement to make him suffer through exercising.

Don't think he didn't see that hook there. He was already on it.

"I think your definition of 'basic stuff' and mine might vary a little," he said as he stripped off his shirt and knelt down with a grunt onto the mat. "It's easy for you because your built up for it. Which I like, by the way."

"I'm built up from it," Malcolm countered, getting down on his knees on his own mat.

"We're going to start the same way," he told Raylan. "Downward dog," he clarified, leaning forward to set his hands on the mat. "Ass in the air, I believe you called it."

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