Slingin' from the hip, never the heart. | Open Post

[tinstar]

Raylan's job took him everywhere, from Harlan to Los Angeles to Paris. The Marshals service was demanding but Raylan leaned into the work, traveling as needed to get to get his man.

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[tinstar]

"Good girl," he says with a little nod, eyes moving off Boyd only long enough to meet hers with another reassuring nod. Ava would protect her; he had no doubt about that. If he projected enough confidence, maybe it would let her borrow some.

It was tense while the women went inside, but Raylan could breathe a little easier with them more secure from the situation.

He lifts his chin as he starts.

"I've come to make sure you don't make another stupid mistake like you did last night. I know you've been cookin' up plans. You're gonna trash 'em, right now. Now you know y'all had what was comin', rollin' up to the house like that," he admonishes, head tilting a little to the side.

"Don't be a sour loser, Boyd. Let it be."

[citharede]

Boyd regards him with cold impassivity. “What is she, Raylan? How is it she can do what she did, and what else is waiting beneath that teenage veneer?”

[tinstar]

"She's somethin' we're not, that's all. A young girl tryin' to survive in a messed up world more likely to hunt her than not. I know you and your daddy never much got into pigs, but go on - ask Limehouse what happens when you push a pig into a corner and make it defend itself?"

Not that Athena was a pig, but pig could eat a man if he wasn't careful and Athena had the potential to be a Maneater.

"Science ain't caught up to her yet, that's all."

[citharede]

There’s a different kind of something starting in his eyes now. Less hostile. Somehow even more calculating.

Also, most dangerously, fascinated. “People talk, Raylan. Even some of my people, a drink or two too deep. Maybe folks won’t believe them, but they’ll be curious. Particularly if you keep that girl around.”

[tinstar]

"You let me worry about them. She's been in the county for less than 48 hours, Boyd; I'm tryin' to find her people. I don't particularly give a shit what you think about who I've got under my roof, but you go a-huntin' or set your boys to a whisper campaign about it, we're gonna find ourselves with a big damn problem."

Boyd knew how unflinching and unrelenting Raylan could be. Raylan liked to think that Boyd respected it, in his own way.

"And my badge ain't gonna be in the way." He wasn't kidding about laying down his job to get something done - he'd done it before, he'd do it again.

Don't make him do that, Boyd.

[citharede]

Boyd's smile slides in like a knife and he spreads his hands, benevolent. "All's I'm saying is, if she's here for the duration, she could do worse than being under the protection of Boyd Crowder and his people."

Inside, sitting at the kitchen table with Ava, Athena fidgets and resists the urge to run back outside. She can still hear the murmur of voices, but they're calm voices, so that's... more something than not. Even if Raylan is the master of threatening with the gentleness of a feather.

She looks at Ava. "He's okay, right? You think he's okay? Do you have a gun or... something...? We can help."

"I wouldn't, little lady." A soft voice comes from a corner before Ava can answer, and a man steps out, gun raised. It's not pointed at Athena. It's pointed at the blonde woman. Athena freezes. The stranger smiles.

"Good girl. Now, see that little stack of cloth napkins on the table? You’re going to roll one of those up and put it in your mouth. Then you’re gonna tie another one about your head to keep it there. Then I'm gonna move this gun from her to you, and we're gonna take a little walk to the front porch."

The man looks at Ava. "If you think I won't shoot this girl to keep you in line, you don't know me half so well as I thought, Ava Crowder."

He smiles at Athena. “Her, though, I wouldn’t have shot. Boyd would kill me. Up.”

Boyd is in the middle of speaking as the front door opens and Athena—gagged, hands behind her head—gets pushed out onto the porch. Whatever Boyd was going to say, he stops, raising his eyebrows.

Every other man pulls their weapons, and most of them get fixed on Raylan.

“Well,” Boyd says, tone as soft as ever. “An unexpected piece has been placed back on the board. Thank you, Carl.”

[tinstar]

Raylan was seething, a million sharp words clattering behind the vice grip of his jaw, painfully aware of where every man was standing and working out his odds of how many he could shoot before being gunned down himself.

"She can do a hellva lot better too, Boyd, now-"

That's when Carl comes out with a gun to Athena's head and Raylan's vision goes red. To hell with the odds, he pulls his gun and starts firing. First is poor Carl who doesn't get but half a sound out of warning before Raylan is blowing his head off and Boyd's next, getting shot in his other shoulder as Raylan darts forward in his crouched stride. The men on either side of the porch start firing, and Raylan pops the closest, gets shot in the arm himself and swings around to put down the offending gunmen.

"Get back inside Athena, right now, right now," he commands, one hand locked around her arm as he hauls her unceremoniously to her feet and into the door. The front door is shut and locked behind them, and Raylan strides into the kitchen, gun still raised and turning on the first face he sees. Ava.

"Who else is in the house, Ava?"

"I-I don't know Raylan, I swear it."

The look he gave her could have melted stone. "Athena, you get under that table and don't move an inch until I give you the all clear. Ava, you go with her and I swear to god, anythin' happens to this girl, I will put you right next to your daddy in that graveyard."

[citharede]

There's something warm and wet on her face, something thick that has pointy bits in it. Her ears ring with the sounds of guns going off, and she's on all fours, and then Raylan has her arm and he's dragging her inside and the door is closed, and there's a guy with a hole in his head on the other side.

Athena hasn't recovered by the time they're in the kitchen. She looks at him for a moment, uncomprehending, before her brain cycles up enough to realize what Raylan is going to do.

"No--there's too many, Raylan, I know you're good, I'm sure you could take any of them alone, but there's at least a half-dozen waiting for you and you just... just killed one of theirs."

She grabs a fistful of his shirt tight enough to make her knuckles hurt. "Don't you fucking dare go out there and get killed."

[tinstar]

Her grab at him was the only thing that stopped him from continuing to walk away and he lowers the gun for a second to settle a hand over the wrist of the hand gripping his shirt. He knew she loved him. She knew she only wanted to keep him safe and that it didn't matter what else happened.

Except not being safe was the only way to keep them both safe.

"Athena. I need you get under that table because I am comin' back and I need to know that you're in a safe spot. Ava will keep you safe." Ava would keep her safe to keep herself safe, if nothing else. "But I need you to go now and I need you to be quiet. Go," he says, pulling her hand off him. "Go."

He knew it was scary. She had to hold on until he could calm her down without keeping an eye out for the bullet coming for both of them.

[citharede]

She wants to argue. She wants to ignore his instructions. But her limbs are locked up with a feral kind of terror and then he’s out of reach and Ava is dragging Athena down under the table as shots and cries ring out outside.

It feels like it goes on forever. Forever.

The voice that calls out makes Athena’s stomach drop through the floor and into the molten center of the earth.

It’s Boyd.

“Olly olly oxenfree, Athena. I would say I’ve got something that belongs to you, but I’m pretty sure he belonged to me first.”