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.

[Use this post to start threads or PSL'S!]

Comments

[tinstar]

With a large stab of panic and a glance around him, he doesn't expect her to be coming from that direction. Hands spread as if to catch her, always polite to make sure you're not knocking people over, he frowns at her and the small stack of papers in her hands.

Now he had reason to be suspicious.

"What are you up to?" A hand is held out. Turn 'em over.

[greenzone]

Fuck, she thinks, emphatically. Her lips purse in annoyance and chagrin, she hesitates, and then holds out the paperwork. It's Clement Mansell's file, with the addition of his last known.

"I was just curious."

[tinstar]

Better that she gives it over than him having to grab it. He takes them and starts looking them over.

"Clement Mansell, who-"

Rachel looks up from her desk and the call she's on.

"Raylan? I got Harlan PD on the line. They're askin' for you."

Raylan glances over his shoulders, lips tight in open annoyance before he looks back at Willa. "We'll talk about this later."

Striding over, he takes the phone. "Givens." His expression gets darker, the longer he's on the phone.

"Is there a reason I'm still solvin' your problems?" A beat. "Yeah, and ain't I just fuckin' lucky for it." He sighs as he hands the phone back to Rachel, looking over at Willa.

"We're gettin' back on the road. C'mon."

[greenzone]

Saved by The Call. That's a new one. Harlan PD, Rachel had said. They're getting back on the road?

Willa trots over to him, sticking close until they're in the elevator and the doors are closed. "Harlan? We're going to Harlan?"

[tinstar]

"Unfortunately." His face suggested he was less than pleased about it.

"Apparently, someone decided to go skydiving without a parachute and someone's broken into the house. Unrelated, I'm assuming. Tim and Art will meet us down there."

Raylan leads them back out and to his car, stride unforgiving as he fidgets with the horseshoe ring on his finger, papers still caught up in the left. He doesn't say anything as he turns the engine over and pulls them out of the lot.

[greenzone]

Okay. That's... right, sure. She'll figure that one out on the way.

She has to jog to keep up with him through the building then the parking lot. The whole time she's cycling through the questions she's built up over the years, trying to decide which to start with.

"Whose house got broken into, did the guy go through the roof? Can we go to your old house while we're there? Who's Tim? Does he live down there?"

She climbs into the car, buckling up as her dad tosses the file onto the dashboard. Willa doesn't think she can reach it from here.

[tinstar]

He can't help but sigh a bit at the string of questions, thinking back on a conversation with Winona one time where he'd done the same exact thing. Maybe Winona was right, maybe he was crazy, but he was seeing parallels. He normally didn't make those outside of Kentucky.

"Technically, Arlo's house. No, he didn't go through the roof, he smeared across the street. Arlo's is my old house and Tim is another Marshal I work with. He lives here in town. You'll meet him later." Likely when Tim has to chase Raylan down because he isn't where he was supposed to be doing what he was supposed to be doing.

"It's a bit of a ride though, so get comfortable. About two hours."

Two hours where he was her captive audience.

[greenzone]

For a moment after her dad says he smeared across the street, Willa just stares, wide-eyed. He's never been half that blunt with her. It takes her about five--well, no, more like three--minutes to start bombarding him with questions again.

What did he do for fun as a kid? Where was his favorite place to go? Is it still there? Who were his friends? What were they like? Arlo is his dad, right?

[tinstar]

A good way to discourage questions like that was with some dark, stark truths and, without the benefit of experience with her, time to chew over his choices and options about how to deal with these things, he was going on his gut. Something he almost regrets as soon as Willa launches in and he does his best to field them.

Check out a lot of abandoned barns, a little grove in a nearby holler by a creeks, he supposes it's still there, though they might get shot at if they're not careful about it; he declares Willa doesn't need to know about his friends and yeah, his daddy was Arlo and that was the only thing she needed to know about him.

Raylan's jaw got a little tighter after that though, and he steers the conversation towards what she could expect to see, peppered with him gesturing out a window every time they passed cows. Finally, he turns them down a seemingly random dirt road to come to a stop in front of the two story, rundown and shabby looking house.

"Here it is," he says with a sigh, turning off the car and slipping out.