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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"Busy," Raylan echoed with a curl of his features that softened into a quietly interested expression as he came back over, setting Malcolm's refreshed cup down from where he'd gotten it and settling in the corner of the couch.

"C'mere," he said, lifting his arm and gesturing Malcolm to come curl up next to him as they talked. He didn't know where they were going to start their conversation; that was a lot to process without a sip of coffee in him but touch was an automatic need, for both of them.

Malcolm set the file aside and went to him eagerly, curling into that spot next to him where he could set his head on Raylan's shoulder and rest a hand on his chest, fidgeting with the fabric of his shirt.

"It's interesting that your killer targeted the women in his office first. They were all single. I think it probably started with him overhearing conversations about parties they went to or dates they went on. I would almost guarantee that the first woman he killed rejected his advance. Once he got a taste for passing judgement on sinners, he turned to sex workers and addicts. If you want to get ahead of him, I'd stake out brothels and drug dealers in the rural areas where he's been hiding."

His thoughts on the files were easy to organize. Unlike his thoughts on the meeting that preempted what was supposed to be their perfect day and the emotional mess of a case that followed it.

Arm settling over Malcolm's shoulders, Raylan pressed a kiss into his hair before Malcolm started speaking.

"That easy huh? Open and closed case?" he asked, tone curling a little with the bare passing smile. "Is that all of your notes?"

If this is where Malcolm wanted to start, Raylan would give him a few minutes to settle before pushing into harder subjects.

"Maybe. He's mission-oriented, so he's not going to stop killing. But if he went up to someone in a bar and said 'excuse me, where can I find a reliable brothel and maybe some recreational drugs?', do you know where they'd send him? Because you probably want to start there," he advised. "The kill itself isn't ritualized. It's fast and dirty, so he burns through victims pretty quickly."

"By my watch, we've got at least an hour and a half before the task team assembles. I'll be sure to let them know."

Not that he didn't appreciate the notes on his file that he surely didn't invite Malcolm to be looking at, but he wasn't going to linger on it.

"What'd you get outta your father getting bi-weekly visits? I hope he's not sayin' he'll press charges." But he wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened anyway. Martin was a worm.

Malcolm tilted his head a little to look up at him.

"He'll make a statement to the police that matches ours: that the real killer coerced my mother into stabbing him by threatening the life of a nurse he used to work with." A beat. "In exchange for 'quality time' he wants to spend with me. 'Like in the old days'," he said quietly. "Otherwise he'll deny our account and she could go to prison."

"Asshole," Raylan lamented with a tightening of his lips. "Opportunistic too." Which only made it worse.

"So you agreed." He bobbed his head. "Can't say I'm happy he gets more of you, but understand doin' what you have to to keep her outta jail.. If you ever need me to go with you while I'm up there.."

He would, in a heartbeat, but he wouldn't promise to not punch Martin again, in just as opportunistic a manner. This family got under his skin, in the best and worst of ways, depending on who was being talked about.

"Once his statement is given to the police, he won't have the leverage to enforce it," Malcolm said. "But that means he'll play the wounded man card to hold it off for as long as possible, because he knows that perfectly well."

He took a breath. "I'll try not to let him in my head. But if you're there when I'm going... of course you're welcome." He looked up again. "I'm not sure he should know about us, though. I kind of try to let him know as little about my life as possible but he... gets things out of me anyway. And then he uses them."

Raylan nodded. That followed type. Arlo had tried that a few times but it never lasted; Martin was much more dedicated to his masks than Arlo had been about anything aside from petty crime in his life.

"That's gonna be up to you. I can see why you don't want him to know. I also see why it might be a little useless to try to hide it from him for too long. He's a bad dancer when its not going his way," he continued, looking down at him. Malcolm could use that. Probably had used that. Raylan felt a little silly when talking about Martin, even when it was just expressing his opinion. Malcolm knew it all anyway.

"That mighta been why I punched him last time." He wouldn't say 'fought' - that wasn't fair. But he'd happily take the crazy fucker on without handcuffs and teach him a lesson, that was for sure. "I'll try to not do that again."

Malcolm smiled faintly, his fingers stilling for a second.

"You don't have to put, like, a whole lot of effort into it," he said, glancing up at him from under his brow.

A beat and the fidgeting started again at the front of Raylan's shirt.

"I saw him last night. In my head. When I was unconscious."

That made Raylan smile a little. Good, because he really didn't want to put a whole lot of effort treating Martin like he was worth a good goddamn.

But the mention of being unconcious got a deep pull of his features as he shifted a little to see Malcolm's face fractionally better.

"Unconscious..." Oh yes, please do elaborate, because Raylan was sure that Malcolm would have said sleeping if that's what he was doing. "What happened last night? Why were you unconscious?"

"I hit the back of my head on a concrete floor." He lifted his head and looked at Raylan. "Oh, right. The case. After the meeting with my dad, Gil called and brought me to this smash and grab high end theft at an auction house. Twenty million dollars worth of watches. Which... their methodology was fascinating - they used motorcycles to get in and out fast - but he brought me there because a woman was executed at point blank range in the midst of the theft." He nodded at Raylan. "Which didn't fit their quick in and out MO."

"Fit of passion by one of the robbers?" He asked, features not reassured at all by what he was hearing. Of course, there was no doubting Gil having done his best - it only took one lunch with the man to get a sense of what he was about. "How's that end up with you on the floor?"

"Turned out to be a thrill kill proxy murder, but we didn't know that until after another robbery turned up a woman matching the same general description being shot the exact same way. The insurance company sent an investigator and it turned out to be a guy I went to boarding school with. He helped us figure out the identity of the robbers, but he tried to make a deal with them on the side to recover the property. I kind of... showed up there."

Raylan's brow pinched. A guy he knew in school, where Raylan was from, was a mixed bag of meaning. There were just as many assholes as angels in High School.

"Since it ended with you knocked out, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. How did you 'kinda' show up there? And what happened to your school friend?" Deals like that tended to never go well, and Raylan didn't expect any fairy tales here, but he didn't know how heavy the shoe was until it dropped.

"It didn't end with me knocked out," Malcolm replied grimly. "Vijay was okay, though. He got beat up a little because one of the robbers made me. I showed up at the rendez vous because I figured out where Vijay would agree to meet someone like that. And I wouldn't leave. So when the robbers showed up, I introduced myself as the appraiser and I pretended to evaluate the watches so I could assess the robbers while he kept the gang leader busy. Once they realized I wasn't an appraiser, they still let Vijay go to get them their money and they kept me there. A couple of them wanted to shoot me, but the leader told them no. And then I realized that he wanted to know who the killer was too...." He looked at Raylan. "I started pushing buttons. The more I talked the more they just... were there, waiting to be pushed. The thieves drew their guns on each other and.... they all shot each other. One of them knocked me over when they fell. That's how I hit my head."

"If there isn't more after you woke up that isn't the cops coming in, then that was the end of it.." His brow furrowed some more.

"You and buttons might get married to each other before we do; they made you beat him up? How did it end? How did you make 'em shoot each other? Paranoia?"

"They beat him up," Malcolm clarified. "To make me admit I was a cop. But they still wanted paid, so they let him go. As he was leaving I reminded him about the story he told me back at school about his dad running over a Columbian druglord in his Bentley. I didn't know if it would do any good, but I wasn't sure how far out Gil was. Anyway, as I woke up, I realized they weren't all actually dead." He paused. "Actually, the hallucination of my father warned me about that. The killer was one of the two that survived. He was going to shoot me, but Vijay came back and ran him over. Then Gil and Dani arrived. But. ...I killed them, Raylan. I got in their heads and I killed them."

"Jesus," he muttered softly as Malcolm clarified and laid out the details he was looking for, and realized that he very nearly lost Malcolm and he would have had no idea. That didn't sit well at all and his arm tightened briefly around Malcolm's shoulders.

"Talk about a busy night with weird people." His face pulled a little. "Guess those hallucinations in your head are good for something." Tell him what his innate senses already were, but that wasn't the point. Sub talking to Consciousness wasn't always a bad thing, apparently.

"But they pulled their triggers, Malcolm. You didn't force 'em. Men who aren't strong enough to withstand a little needlin' probably shouldn't have a gun anyway." He wasn't joking - This was all very serious for the Marshal, all of a sudden.

Malcolm took a breath and let it out a little shakily. "I guess," he conceded. "They were violent people. I didn't... brainwash an innocent or something. But. They thought they were friends and comrades in arms five minutes before they killed each other. It's kind of... making me think."

He hadn't blinked at nearly getting killed, but possibly having a hand in killing was stressing him out.

"Trust me darlin', they weren't friends if five minutes had 'em shooting each other. You prey on insecurities that people have. It's on them how effective you are. They don't havta listen to you. They choose to. You helped Violent people find a violent end." And he could still get why that view of it was heavy.

"Are you stayin' for a few days?"

He nodded at Raylan's explanation. He was right. It was just... hard to beat Martin's voice back inside his head. Psycho. Killer.

He looked up when Raylan asked him about staying and then shifted to lay his head on Raylan's shoulder again. "I hope so. Providing nothing drags me away again." He sighed. "I don't suppose you'll get a day off again, huh? I knew when I left last time that we were losing a rare opportunity."

They still hadn't had a day to themselves in their apartment.

"But you'll let me know if you catch this guy, right?"

Raylan would be more than happy to be the shoulder angel to balance out Martin Whitly's influence if he was able. The cowboy only hummed a little and rested his lips onto Malcolm's head.

"'Course I will," he started, like that was a no brainer. "As soon as I do, I'll get to come back home. They'll probably give us a day off after that. Dependin' on how it goes." He let a beat pass. "I don't know if I'll be home tonight, or if I am, how late. I don't like leavin' you here."

"Oh... I'm... fine. There's... a lot to do...." He smiled a little. "Though I noticed you finished painting the bathroom," he observed.

"Good use of the time we were supposed to be spending together." Raylan pulled his head back a little. "Why don't you come with me. We can figure out the reason on the way, but at least you won't be here on your own."

He was sure Malcolm could survive, but he also knew that quiet and isolation wasn't the healthiest for the smaller man.

"Get you your own vest and everythin'."

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