tinstar | Slingin' from the hip, never the heart.

His expression doesn't change as Collins comes in close, though he mulls over the general idea of cracking his head into the other man's. Real shame that it wasn't smart - 1) if he was going to do that, it had to be for something valuable, a chance, a plan, because if it failed, Collins wasn't going to lean in again. 2) With having recently gone down, he didn't want to try and go all cross eyed and look like a pussy.

"My daddy didn't add in a lotta 'never expected to be in my universe' in his punches. And what can I say, I've had a long day." One that's clearly about to stay getting longer.

"Surprised you've got balls enough to pull somethin' like this here. Don't you know what kinda trouble you can get in for threatenin' a Federal Officer?" The question is asked with a faint curl of his lips and a lift of his eyebrows. "This ain't bum fuck nowhere, Space Avenue, Collins. This is the real world."

Collins grinned at everything Givens had to say. He even laughed merrily at the end.

"Ah, you think I don't know how to clean up my messes? How do ya think I went uncontested for so long in tha, as you call it, real world?" He leaned in a little closer, whispering into Raylan's ear. "If I wanted you ta disappear, bull, you would never be found."

He leaned back so that Raylan could see his expression as it shifted, full of dangerous delight. "I guarantee that."

It wasn't the 1930's anymore, but Raylan didn't need to rub that in just now. Collins wouldn't be as successful in a more modern world, not with cameras and GPS tracking and the like - something Raylan looked forward to educating him on. When Raylan moved around here, he moved with the backing of a variable army of bodies and badges. But in its own time.

"That don' stop a whole agency for lookin' or investigative technology bein' what it is. Yet here I am, tied up." His head tilts a little, eyes steady on Collins.

"Which suggests to me that there must be somethin' I can do for you? Or your just lookin' for a friend in this new wide world." There was a bit of singsongyness to the way the last bit out; he doubted that was anywhere near likely the case.

"And no one the wiser," he pointed out with a literal point of his finger at Givens.

It was true that Collins was still learning about the various new gadgets and technology of the modern world. He did his reading while on the Barge with access to all that wondrous library's knowledge, but it was one thing to read about it and another to experience it first hand. There were some concepts that were easy to understand and others that were a littler harder for him to grasp just yet. He would get there. He wasn't the sort to be lazy about learning despite the obstacles of his less modern time and way of thinking.

All that aside, he had to grin at Raylan for his guessing. "Cute. Still tha same as I remember, ya are. Full of spit and fire. Not so different from me." He said the last sentence low yet emphasized.

"Give 'em time," he remarks coolly. But with Collins answer and the grin that came with it, he wasn't sure that a rescue would be needed. This was not 'I'm gonna carve you up' energy, though Raylan knew well enough how comfortable that feeling lived in Collins' chest, and that was something.

Did Collins just call him cute, or was the guess cute? By default, Raylan tilts towards the guess itself being cute. 'Not so different from me' makes Raylan huff a breath, lips curling a little more around the edges.

"I'm not much of a changer, myself - set in my ways an' all- though I think I could come up with a number of ways in which we aren't even on the same side of the planet." That didn't stop the short list of ways they were alike.

"But I'm more interested-" as though he weren't currently tied to a chair, "-as to what you're doin' here. I don't mean New York either, I mean here here. 2016 New York. In my hotel room. You musta graduated from the Barge to travel, unless there's some bullshit interdimensional Thing that got you here.."

Edited 2024-03-03 14:04 (UTC)

"Time isn't usually somethin' ya want wastin' when yer tied down," he countered easily. His fingers twitched like they wanted to pull out a knife and play with it. He was sorely tempted to do just that.

He held off if only because Givens continued to prove to be entertaining. Tied down, as he said, and yet still talking with all the confidence of a bull in the greenest of pastures. He couldn't help but be drawn to this man. He liked that smooth playing.

"Surprised?" he said with a playful expression. "Wouldn't you know it, I might have done somethin' like that after all. Got meself a free pass off that fuckin' boat. Choosin' where ta go, that was tha harder decision, you know."

"Who says we're wastin' it?"

Panicking wouldn't do anyone any good and, generally, only served to get folks dead quicker. He knew better and honestly, he'd been in much hairier situations. He just had to play this right and follow the ABC's.

"Don't suppose that means that the bloody way is behind you? That I'm not gonna hav'ta worry about you being here?" There was no world in which he would NOT worry about Collins being here, but Collins was artfully dodging his question, and he asks his own with a faint squinting one eye doubtfully.

He chuckled again at the bravado. "I like you, bull. Not a worry on yer lips, not a single tell ta give ya away. You play poker?"

It was a rhetorical question. He didn't give any time to answer immediately.

"Oh, I still like ta play a dangerous game or two. I don't think there was ever any gettin' rid of that. Do you?"

"No. But the question now is, what game?"

As much as he did like poker, of course a man like him liked poker, he doubted Collins was planning on pulling out a deck of cards and dealing them a hand. He supposes he should be worried about Collins liking him and his bravado, but he wasn't. There'd been a few men who felt a particular way about this aspect of Raylan's personality; no matter how they felt, it was something that could usually be worked. Open a door here and there, maybe.

"That depends," he said as he stood up and closed what little space was between them. He looked down at Raylan and admired the view for a moment. There was an odd cross of feelings that chewed up his insides when he looked at the lawman like this. He could start carving into that canvas, listen to the music soar as he tortured the man in front of him, paint the room bloody red. The temptation was there. It burned within him. He missed those old glorious days.

But there was also something else that curled around his gut and it was still new and raw, and bloody in its own right as John had taught him, still attempting to scratch its way out. It hurt to consider as much as it excited him, and there was a pit of apprehension just beneath it. It was not something he fully understood yet but he had been learning. He had been craving it since the damn boat shoved it into him against his will.

Maybe there were other ways to make the music soar. There was really only one way to find out and that was to try. He looked at Givens expectantly.

Raylan keep Collins gaze as he moved, not unaware of this not being the first time that Collins has been between his knees, a thought that was very quickly shoved back into it's box along with any ideas that might follow. Foolishness would get him killed, if he let it rear too much of its head. He was also aware of the spike of adrenaline in him, one that took a little playfulness off his edges as he internally twists in anticipation, unsure if Collins was gonna kiss him or punch him. There were a few paths he could consider Collins taking but he wasn't confident in a single one of them. He didn't care for that feeling.

"If you were worried about my comin' after you, you wouldn't'a done this. Are you lookin' for help then?" Help getting used to the time, the society - It was his best guess.

Collins chewed on his lip. The question hit straight to home and that bothered him. He suddenly dug into the bottom of his lip enough to cause it to bleed, then he stopped altogether. The red stayed staining his lip.

He smiled. "I confess there are some complexities to this world that I don't fully understand yet." He knocked one of his knees gently against one of Givens's. "I read as much as I could in tha library of that prison, but it ain't quite tha same, you know? You know."

Ah. There it was. Hit his mark even without a firearm in his hand. The gentle knock of their knees told Raylan a lot too - he had made an impression, some kind of difference, in the frightfully short time he had been paired with and generally around Collins. The Irishman had done all this to avoid Raylan's greeting being the discharge of his firearm in Collins direction.

"I know." He nods a little with the answer, still steadily studying Collins face, up from his perspective.

"How's about let's start with you untyin' my hands. I'll pour you a drink."

Collins's eyes flicked towards Raylan's wrists where he was tied down. The man's legs were in much the same fashion though he had left the man the dignity of his fancy boots whereas if his first priority was to torture he would have stripped them. The lawman's chest was lightly fashioned as well but not enough to chafe, just keep motion to a minimum. That was mostly out of habit.

"You have somethin' worth offerin', bull?" It may or may not have been about the drink.

"That depends," he drawls, lips curling at the edges as he tosses Collins words back at him.

"How drunk you lookin' to get?"

The Irishman smiled wickedly at the lawman. "I don't get drunk, boyo."

Whether it was a simple boast of stamina or a statement of fact that he had more discipline than that he left for Raylan to guess.

"Well now I find that hard to believe. Somethin' else you'll find out about this time period - the drinks are stronger and the drugs are stronger. Either that or you're not drinkin' with the right kinda people."

It was technically the end of his day, though he had been going out to get something to eat and chase down a lead, for all he talked about time, he could have some on his hands. Enough at least, to pay this whole situation the due attention it demanded.

"I promise I won't shoot ya."

"Bull, I went through the prohibition. You either got tha good shit, or ya got tha shit that was liable ta kill ya. Either way, I bet I can out drink you."

Marshal, never challenge an Irishman to a drinking contest.

He leaned down and rested one hand on Givens's thigh, making their eyes almost level. "You don't have anything left ta shoot me with. And you ain't tha only sharpshooter in tha room besides."

He pushed off and stood back to his height. "Now, stop sayin' stupid shite before I change my mind and just get rid of ya."

Collins didn't know how deep Harlan's connections with prohibition had been, or that Raylan had grown up on mountain moonshine. No, he knew exactly what prohibition had brought to dry counties. What it was still bringing to some places.

But now was clearly not the time to keep challenging the man.

"'Fraid I don't know your scale of stupid, you'll have to forgive me as I adjust." He sounded amused by it, if nothing else.

Collins eyes narrowed at the cheek of the lawman. But if there was one thing he liked about Raylan Givens it was the man's bold attitude in the face of overwhelming odds. It was highly entertaining. Luckily for Givens, Collins liked to be entertained.

"Well, I did say if I wanted you disappeared, you'd be gone." He admitted lightly. So they both knew he wasn't here to kill Raylan just yet.

He set his hand on the marshal's wrist where the ropes were tied and rubbed his thumb along the back of Raylan's hand as he stared at the other man levelly, as if he were considering his next move. He could untie the lawman, or he could have more fun.

The fact that Collins hadn't untied him yet, hadn't fallen down the path of charm that Raylan was trying to lay to better his situation, tells him that 'help' is only part of it. The rest of it is tucked behind that brush of thumb against the back of his hand. The closest Raylan thinks Collins might get to a tender touch.

His face pinches oh so slightly with curiosity flavored confusion. He couldn't do much in the way of reciprocation, trapped as he was, and since that was Collins choice, he figures that the man is wrestling with something. Something specific to Raylan. To how he felt about him.

"Do you know why you're here?" It was said with a matching soft curiosity. He wasn't trying to barb or goad with the ask. Just trying to understand.

His eyes flicked up to catch Raylan's with the question. There was a flash of annoyance behind the cold, blue-gray eyes briefly before it was replaced by a hesitant softness. The vulnerability looked strange on the Butcher face. Unpracticed.

"I didn't have anywhere else ta go."

Raylan could have scorned it, made fun, or worse, made it a joke, but he didn't do any of that. It was a lonely thing, to not have anywhere to go. To not have a place to be able to launch off from. He stayed in that soft but serious tone, a faint lift of his eyebrows coming with his words.

"Then let's start this off on a better foot. Untie me, instead of settin' yourself up for thinkin' that I agree to anythin' just because I'm strapped to a chair."

His hand gripped at Raylan's wrist briefly. It was neither soft nor hard, just a noticeable squeeze of pressure at all points of contact. Then it was gone as well as his hand from the rope.

He leaned down again this time with a faint smirk on his lips. "But I always get what I want outta men strapped to a chair, bull. One way or another."

"Gettin' what you want either way, as far as I see it. Unless you think I'm lyin'." His head tilts a little, eyes back to studying Collins features like he would find the code to crack him in them.

"Unfortunately, nothin' I can say is gonna change your point of view on that. You're gonna have to choose to trust me or we're at somethin' of an impasse here."

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