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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[thering]

Mid-morning frost hadn't yet turned to sludge and mud on the edge of the dirt track leading in between the trees and overgrown, more-wilderness-than-lawn encroaching insidiously into the driveway when the low growl of an old engine and the crunching of gravel under new tyres rumbles into silence in front of the old family home.

Uninvited holiday guests are rarely a treat, but when the cowboy emerges from behind a thrown-open car door, brim of an old black hat shielding his eyes from the sunlight, there appears to be a bottle with a festive red and green ribbon tied around the base of its neck intended to make the unplanned visit a little easier to swallow. If it happens to be a little early to start drinking - at least, according to proper gentlemen following proper decorum - thankfully, there happens to be none within a hundred miles of this place.

Narrowed eyes make a quick, casual study of the town car that he's pulled up right next to and all the little oddities peppered around the vicinity. It's no small miracle that a place like this can survive any manner of natural and unnatural disasters. By the time those boots chew stones and crisp bark up to the porch, two steps of floorboards creaking under his weight, half a cigarillo had been smoked away. With any luck it'll be all gone by the time the marshal answers those cold knuckles summoning him over to his front door.

"Pardon the intrusion," Doc drawls, tilting his head just enough to make eye contact. He always sounds like he's teasing, but in a good-natured, disarming and playful rather than a cruel or needling way. "But I heard on the wind that you took a bullet for Christmas. That's awful kind of you, standing there letting 'em get one in for a change. Brought you some get well whiskey."

[tinstar]

Raylan hated catching a bullet. The pain was annoying, the itch of healing skin drove him mad and not being able to draw like he normally does makes every hair on the back of his neck stiffen in warning. Art had warned him about barging in and his cover had been more lean than he thought. Honest mistake - only a flesh wound. A flesh wound that put him out of service for at least a month. Raylan bet he could get back into the field in three weeks though. Just long enough to miss the whole 'Christmas schtick' that the office and every other sane, jolly person was celebrating.

There was work that needed to be done on the house in Harlan anyway. With Arlo and Helen gone, Raylan really could use the free time to finish up or, in some cases, start a few projects, depending on the reach they demanded. But the country was still the country and his bat was kept next to the door, loaded shotgun companion with it to match the set leaned in the kitchen. He never paid any mind to the driveway facing windows but he heard the car pull up.

Anyone from the office would have called first, made sure he was still even at the house - so it wasn't them. Which left him with the most likely option - someone saw his car posted up in the driveway and ran down the road to tell someone else. The car had left. Someone had been dropped off. Someone didn't mean to leave. He was real short on ideas now, and the shotgun was collected silently on his way towards the door-

That was until he saw the hat, the familiar smoking stick. Doc hadn't been anywhere on his lists.

His door opens, the shotgun set gently to the side as he looks Doc up and down, stunned. Goddamn. He didn't look a fraction different standing in his door than Raylan had imagined.

"Yeah, figured it was about time they got one on the scoreboard." He steps back, opening the door further. The house was still decorated as it always had been, aside from the faint ghost of drywall in the air, accompanied with the smell of fresh wood and a cold fire. God it was good to see him. "Don't just stand out there, come in, have some with me and tell me how bad that cab fare was gettin' you all the way out here. How long'd it take you to get here?"

[thering]

He should be resting up, not running around the house doing errands. Especially not projects that involve heavy lifting and hard work, straining himself like that. He's out of his mind if he thinks he can get back into the fray within 3 weeks, let alone if he don't spend that 3 weeks putting his feet up and tending to his wound properly.

"Cryin' shame they didn't get one in the face," Doc teases with a sigh. He closes the door behind himself and walks in, taking a quick look around the place just to be sure that he's not interrupting anything. It's the time of year where he might be interrupting things, or so he's been told on numerous occasions. He needs to undispense with the formalities, call ahead, make an appointment, and not on certain days that are unofficially designated for family. He would have heeded said decorum too, but even with Raylan on speed dial, he struggles to work the phone.

"Looks like I got you alone," he muses as he steps in further to leave the get well whiskey on the countertop. "The fare was exorbitant, as a matter of fact. But everything's exorbitant these days. I am older than paper money, you know." Food and lodging and all manner of things used to cost a few coins. Now everything's in the hundreds, thousands, money you can't even see in a plastic card, on your phone. It's hard to keep up.

"I ain't complaining. Would've taken me weeks on a horse. And probably cost more staying at inns along the way." Of course, there would have been gambling, and women, and other entertainment along the way that might have offset some of the cost, but would have definitely significantly slowed him down.

"That said, I wouldn't mind if I could stay and help out, unless you're expecting anyone else," Doc offers. He wouldn't overstay his welcome, but if there's no one else coming, he would much rather stick around until Raylan's recovered some more. "Terrible business, being alone and out of action in a big old house, cleaning your own blood up." Even though his smile reaches his eyes, there's an unmistakeable tinge of sadness in his voice.

[tinstar]

Sitting still for his health has never his strong suit. Ask him to stake out for four days in a clown car, he would, without argument. Tell him to sit down and take it easy? Never.

Raylan smiles crookedly at the dark humor, eyebrows bobbing in a 'what are ya gonna do' kind of way as he turns and leads Henry in towards the living room where he stops to let Henry hit up the Kitchen countertop connection to free his hands. His hands prop lazily on crookedly set hips and he was full of questions, per usual. But it sounded an awful lot like Doc might mean for this to be a longer than what the formalities might call a 'sufficient' visit and time was just about the most valuable thing to him right now. He should feel worse about how pleased he was to hear that. He doesn't.

"I'm not sure we got 'inns' anymore. Just shitty motels that'll give you a rash if you're not careful. But no, there's no one else here and no one expected to show up." Not that it ever really stopped them.

"Plenty'a room, work, and blood to go around to another set of hands. Though it's terrible manners for me to be puttin' a guest to work, the sooner I get this place properly serviceable again, the sooner I can sell it for a decent price.. How is it you heard about my gettin' shot? You got some older than dirt secret on American hills and how to listen through 'em?"

[thering]

He don’t got nowhere else to be so either Raylan is in luck or he’s down and out of it, depending on how unwanted this particular guest is. Though, he’s gotta say, he don’t feel like much of a guest, much as he hasn’t set foot in and around this house or left much of his mark on anything in a hundred miles of this vicinity. Comfortable company, familiar habits, minimal small talk, more interest in rolling his sleeves up and working on shit to get done - he’s just another hired hand who happened to hire himself and invite himself over.

“Shitty motels would have done me just fine too. But nobody takes money or the exchange of a day’s work anymore. Hell, nobody even takes a man on his word anymore. This country’s really gone to shits.” Not that he’s done an honest day’s work in a long time, but. Doc wouldn’t have believed a day would come where people would rather take a hard-backed playing card over cold, hard cash. But here they are.

“I called by your office - the cumbersome, legal way, mind - and flirted with the front desk.” Shameless, indisputably, but efficient, as men in hats are wont to be. And Doc has that old world southern man your man could smell like, drawl like and shoot like quality going for him on top of the hat. Before long there was talk about not needing to send flowers and they’d heard it wasn’t so bad and OK Corral jokes and the Givens’s family home address scrawled out on a bizarre piece of yellow paper that’s inexplicably sticky only on one part of one side.

“I am no guest, and I would insist on getting my hands dirty with haste - especially if it means you would take it easy on yourself. ‘tis the holidays after all and you, good sir, are meant to be on a Holliday.” The dad jokes get better every year, without a shadow of a doubt.