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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Raylan couldn't help the genuinely amused chuckle that Martin's accusation brought.

"You know how, in dysfunctional marriages, the one asshole who is screamin' with paranoia about their significant other cheating usually tends to be the one cheatin' themselves? Sounds to me like your plan for doin' the same thing didn't work. Course, you're in a league of your own, aren't ya," he clucked as he ambled further away from the table. "You and Jessica both."

Fuck it, why not poke that bear a little bit and see what came out.

His own training told him to get off the phone but this was a social call, not a work one, so he ignored it.

Malcolm turned in his seat to follow Raylan with his eyes, which were wide with concern and curiosity and a little bit of fear, but he didn't get up. Raylan was clearly trying to have this conversation without him... maybe for him? He had so many questions he was biting back to wait for when he hung up the call.

"Oh, you're a student of the human mind as well! I can see why you get along with my son," Martin said with what sounded like delight. "Now, I can see why you'd approach me with venom, but do tell me what my lovely wife has done to incur the same. She didn't kill anyone. And I'm pretty sure she wasn't cheating, though she did go on and on about that. Which one were you in your dysfunctional marriage, by the way?"

"Marshals tend to need to know it," he said passively. He was a good reader of people, in his estimation, though Malcolm and Martin were better disassemblers of the machine that is a mind. He could explode and tell Martin about himself and his wife like a petulant teenager. Or he could be an adult. He chose the latter.

Raylan emptied his glass and turned, ambling just as evenly back towards the kitchen. He wasn't trying to have the conversation without Malcolm, he'd have gone outside for that, but he didn't want to work Malcolm up with anything.

"Maybe if you hunt down my ex-wife's number, you can ask. Hell, I'm sure you can ask Jessica too. I'm sure she'll put a more dramatic spin on it to better suit your tastes. Better use of your limited phone time too, I'd imagine." The point was that Raylan didn't have to tell him shit he didn't want to.

"She and I don't talk as much as we used to," Martin said idly, like they'd somehow naturally grown apart. "Anyway, it's been lovely getting to know you. Put Malcolm on now. I know he's there. I would so hate for some sort of misunderstanding to come in the way of our arrangement and his mother's acquittal."

"Mmhmm. No. That's not gonna happen, even when he is here. If he wants to talk to you Martin, he'll turn his phone back on. That's not somethin' I can control or circumvent."

He wasn't going to turn into another doorway for Martin Whitly to try and bully his way through.

"Only voice you get to hear on this particular line is mine. And as I'd like to get back to my dinner, I'll say good luck gettin' a hold of Malcolm."

"It's important," Martin all but growled. "About something he asked me. Tell him it's about her and give him the choice."

"Sure, next time I get the chance. You have a good night now."

Raylan hung up the phone and dropped it on the counter top, heading straight for the scotch. Just a few more fingers.

Malcolm was still watching Raylan from his seat at the table with a sort of wide-eyed trepidation. Raylan pouring himself another generous glass of scotch was not a good sign.

"What did he want?" he asked hesitantly.

"He's got something to tell you. About her," he answered with a look from under his eyebrows. "He threatened your mother's acquittal. Pullin' out that many stops makes me think he's a little desperate. It's up to you if you call him. I don't care if he knows I was lyin' about you being on your way to New York or not."

Malcolm fidgeted in his seat.

"He's not going to tell me anything new about her," he said, but his confidence was shaky at best. "It was a ploy."

He flexed his hand, finally realizing it was reacting.

"I shouldn't call him. Giving him what he wants is like feeding a feral animal. It just keeps coming around after that."

Raylan took a healthy sip of his whiskey before he came back around towards the table, leaving his phone on the counter. He'd been a little worried that Martin would have called right back for something more.

"I wouldn't turn your phone on tonight either, in that case." Instead of returning to his seat, he went to stand next to Malcolm, free hand sliding around his neck gently. thumb brushing up and down the side. "You're in line with your agreement with him; it didn't come with any additional strings. You don't have to do anythin' you don't want to."

The idea that Raylan was controlling Malcolm was ridiculous.

Malcolm looked up at him and clenched his fist, bringing it under the table to sit on his knee, whiteknuckled. The hand on his neck was grounding and soothed him, his fidgeting became a little less agitated.

"I probably have seventy-two unheard messages," he said with a nervous laugh. He sighed. "He's probably been talking to Ainsley. If he knew I'd be here with you? Ainsley probably told him."

"Ainsley doesn't quite see him the same as you and your mother, does she." He bent over to press a kiss into Malcolm's hair before straightening and coming back around to take his seat. There was still a bit of dinner left on it and it had been good. He wanted to finish it.

"When did she start talkin' to him?"

Malcolm shook his head, though he unconsciously leaned to follow Raylan's hand as it left him.

"Intellectually, she understands what he is. But she didn't... see what I saw. And she never had any contact with him. She got it in her head about... 8 months ago... it was shortly before Christmas..." Between the first time and the second time Raylan and Malcolm had met. "She got it in her head to do an exclusive interview with him. The one Jeremy saw on TV. And that was when they started talking. I have my suspicions that she still visits him, but I don't know for sure."

Under the table he was bouncing his leg and he hadn't picked his fork back up. At least half of his food was still on his plate, small portion that it was to start with.

Raylan didn't expect to see Malcolm eating anymore tonight. Which was a shame.

He pulled a flat face as he stabbed another scallop. That meant that Ainsley was still sweet and naive enough to think that people could change, or could honestly weigh the whole 'More good than harm has been done' idea. That one was a dangerous one.

"I can't say she doesn't have a right to know who her daddy is," he reluctantly allowed with a breath before popping his bite in.

"Our mother did the best that she knew how to do, but I think we both could have used more balance. She was kept completely cut off from him and I was... allowed to immerse in him. And it's not benefiting either of us," he admitted.

He swallowed and looked down at his plate.

"I stopped talking for a couple of months after the trial," he admitted. "I just... shut down." He was on his way to a related point, but he paused, hearing his own wording and remembering Raylan's from the previous day. He looked up. "Have I told you this? I haven't told you this..." He normally had a good memory. He was sure he hadn't told him this.

Raylan shook his head softly. Gil had told him about it, but he wanted to hear it from Malcolm if he was willing to retell it. Maybe it'd have more insight then what Gil was able to glean.

"It's okay, keep goin'."

He nodded. Okay. "Well. Everything was just. So much. It was so much and I couldn't cope with it. That was when I started seeing Gabrielle, my therapist. And once she sort of... got me... mostly managing my emotions again, one thing that kept coming up was wanting to reconcile who I'd thought my father was with the monster that murdered people for fun. So I told my mother I wanted to talk to him. And she didn't want me to, but... I wouldn't drop it. So she let me see him. And he said he didn't understand why he did it, but between us, we could work it out." He watched Raylan's face for a moment. "He made me feel like I could help him and we could help each other and we could somehow still be some kind of a family and he did that on purpose, I came to realize later. He sucked me in because he wanted that control. That influence. That's what he's doing to her now, but she can't see it now any more than I could then."

Raylan nodded back as Malcolm started, reassuring him in the safety of being able to speak as freely as he wanted. Could work it out. Uh-huh. Raylan kept his face in the gentle, well schooled expression that he used when he was paying attention and reserving judgement.

"I don't suppose she'd listen if you told her either." The Whitly's being the kind of people they were. "When you realized, did you confront him or just cut off connection?"

"I didn't really understand it until I'd already cut off the connection. I told him one day that I was applying to Quantico and I would never be returning. He lost his temper. A lot of nightmares I have where I'm trapped in his cell are of that day. I bang on the door and the guard doesn't come." He looked at Raylan. "He sent me letters after that. I burned them without reading them."

Raylan bobbed his eyebrows and sat back, glass in hand. "Can't blame you there." He took a deep breath before taking another sip of his glass, eyes settled on Malcolm.

"I know you've got your reasons for sticking with him and New York but honestly darlin, I can't wait to get you away from there. Away from these people that just.. want to use you to make themselves feel better and more valid by tellin' you what you are and aren't."

"I forgot what it was like," he admitted. "Before last week, when we got this place, I forgot what it was like. Breathing."

"I think you got a few years of catchin' up on breathin' to get to." He looked over the dinner table.

"Ruined your appetite, didn't he?"

"It doesn't take that much," he said a little mournfully. He took a breath. "I'm just. Going to get it over with," he said, getting up resolutely. "And then maybe I can calm down. I won't, with this hanging over my head."

He went to the counter, where he'd discarded his turned off phone the previous evening, and picked it up, powering it back on.

There were, indeed, over fifty new messages. He ignored them and dialed Claremont, asking to be put through to Martin Whitly. He put the phone on speaker and set it on the counter, looking across the room at Raylan, clenching his fists on the counter preemptively.

"My boy!" Martin crowed happily as he answered. Malcolm winced faintly.

"Dr Whitly. I got your message. What did you want to tell me?"

"I presume you remember our arrangement. Twice every ten days."

"I still have eight days before I'm late," Malcolm replied evenly.

"Yes. Your... friend? Knew that as well. I understand you've grown quite close since I saw you both together. Though - I have to say - I sensed a spark even then..."

Malcolm cut off his gleeful rambling firmly. "You told Raylan you had information about the girl in the box that you wanted to relay to me. I'm listening."

"Malcolm, honestly. What kind of manners has your mother been letting you get away with, you just jump right to the..."

"Good-bye, Dr Whitly..."

"Wait. Okay. I just wanted you to know that this investigation into this girl you claim you saw... it's getting into very dangerous territory. Dangerous to you. Dangerous to your mother. Dangerous to your friend in Kentucky. You should leave it alone before someone gets hurt."

Raylan couldn't argue that so instead, he collected the plates, swiftly clearing Malcolm's into his own stomach before bringing them into the kitchen with a glance at Malcolm as he kicked the call on speaker and set it on the counter.

The dishes could wait. Raylan didn't want to make any unnecessary or telling noise, so he opted to walk around behind Malcolm instead, wrapping his arms loosely around his middle.

He looked at Malcolm at the warning and held his tongue, letting Malcolm drive this conversation. He shook his head slightly. Dangerous was something he was used to; the threat was nothing concerning, in his opinion.

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