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

Those years will be coming up to him before he even realises they have passed him by. Though, to be fair, it is still too early to say which path is the right one to follow. The end has to come first in order to determine whether it will have all been worth it in the end.

"Wyatt Earp wanted to be a farmer. He could not abide the violence, the bloodshed. But it was not to be." And John Henry Holliday wanted to be a dentist. That was not to be, either. He is here now, smoking on a porch a hundred and sixty something years later. And Wyatt is long dead and gone. Doc never blamed him or felt resentful for having to do his dirty work when he couldn't stomach it, for cleaning up after his messes all those times he shot, got cold feet, and ran away. He would always be a dear friend, and Doc doesn't feel the need to dig all that ancient history up now.

"The OK Corral damned us all." Doc closes his eyes and lets his cigarette hand hang loosely by his side, flicking ashes off with a few swipes of his thumb.

"Knowing what I know now, what happened to his children and his children's children, if I could take it all back, I--... hell I would have kept my practice open, bought him that damn farm myself, sent him there." So, yeah. If he can save one marshal several lifetimes of agony, he will. And if he can't, then at least he's tried his damnedest best.

"That's somethin' the stories left out, apparently." Raylan couldn't imagine being a farmer. It worked for the age that Doc came from but.. Not him. He knew what a farming life was and that kind of peace and solitude would drive him a different kind of insane. Nevermind that farmers were poor and worked much harder to break even. He wanted to lift himself out of the hollars, not settle into one.

"It made you legends," he argued gently before moving on, knowing full well Doc would argue such a title.

"What happened to his children's children? His sin carry over onto 'em?" Raylan had feelings about the Sins of the father being passed on, but that was something he knew was a luxury of his time and only a half held one at that. Can't be fully out from under it when you've accidently kept family feuds up.

He would say that there is no value in being a legend. Especially not with the prices they have paid, unable to break free from this cycle of harm. He might not be unhinged the same way 'The Surgeon' is but the only difference between himself and Malcolm's father are the narratives that managed to make him out to be a celebrated killer.

"They come of age. They get hunted like animals. They die. Those who hunt them become more despicable, more of a monstrosity, ever more cruel and vile. And then the next generation comes of age." Doc doesn't go into the details. He does not expect Raylan to understand even if he might believe whatever Doc tells him about the legend of the Earp curse. It is a terrible legacy to leave behind, any way you look at it.

"I am not certain that we are cut out to be farmers, you and I." Raising chickens somewhere no one can find you has a certain sort of undeniable charm. But it is not their calling.

"Sounds like humanity, if you don't mind my sayin' so. No bloodline is.. granted the right of purity or.. goodness. That comes down to the people that raise those people. Can't imagine that havin' that name caused any flowers to sprout out of anyone's steps, but.."

He lacked a lot of context, coming at this as he came at all Family lines. They were bullshit and yet, he still clung to his name and its power in the Harlan hollar. He didn't run drugs, or scams like Arlo, he wasn't a preacher or a teacher, he wasn't hill folk, but he still had the name. The trouble that Arlo had set up to come for it.

Then again, there were no devils or men who were trapped in wells for over a hundred years.

"On that last point though, you are right. My options were really get out, get into law just to stick a seed in Arlo's craw or join him and start my life of petty crime. If it wasn't for my Aunt Helen, I'd likely be dead or in jail.. That in mind, I think this is the better option. Least I know I ain't him."

"She has inherited some sins," he agrees. And he will pass his own sins on, if he is not careful. It was not something that had weighed on his mind before. But lately he has been contemplating what legacy is, what it means, the unexpected lasting impact that mistakes made a hundred and fifty years ago has had today.

"You did not merely 'get into law' to defy your father's legacy," Doc insists. He understands well, how the weight of a last name is all the more heavier when everyone knows it in a small town, when it is tainted by deeds you did not personally commit. But to reduce such a life decision to merely an act of defiance, like a petulant child - it is simply not true in his eyes.

"What Arlo does is Arlo's business. You are a good man, Raylan. You did not suddenly discover this when they stuck a star to your chest and gave you a gun. If you had other ideas, if you were a different man, you would be using that authority differently."

A heavy weight to bear when you're seeing the legacy fully formed, Raylan imagined. Were Doc an arrogant man of that type, a bragger who let it stroke his ego, there'd be a lot less sympathy to be found. But he could see the cracks in stoic face Doc wore and where the weight of it curved him a little.

Raylan looked over at the protest, eyebrows lifting a little as Doc tried to disassemble him and smiling faintly at it.

"Hard to say that when he's draggin' me and the Marshal's service into it. When his business is our business. I am a good man because I was forced along with Arlo's business my entire life. I was shootin' rats by ten, drivin' by 11 so that he and the truck could make it back to the house from Noble's Holler. Used to beat her so bad she'd run up into the black holler, take refuge.." He killed Frances too, though not directly. Not in an actionable way that Raylan could lock him up and make him suffer for. His eyes got a little darker as he thought about his mother and what she had to suffer. What she taught him while she was suffering.

"He was a powerful man. Expected me to be just like him," he continued, face pinching with incredulousness. "Just like every other family clan in those mountains. And with Arlo, you didn't have a choice about gettin' that kinda attention. You ever see tornado weather? Sky turns green, and you know somethin's up as soon as he'd walk in. Except with him, didn't matter what you said. Truth or what he wanted.." Raylan shook his head, tone as calm and unbothered as ever. "It was goin' south. No, I got into law to stop people like him. To catch criminals like him and put the trash where it belongs... And I don't know you'd find to many people who'd call me 'good'. More than likely 'Asshole'. But I'm an asshole that's generally right."

In the federal pen is where that kinda trash went. And he was good at it.

Edited 2020-12-04 19:45 (UTC)

He fell quiet while Raylan talked. It may have only been a week or so but they have fallen into quite a comfortable, intuitive pattern with each other. They are the kind of men who would not inadvertently step on each other's toes, knowing when to let the silence stretch and when who should fill it.

There are no interruptions. Only drinking. There is little else that can be done now, dredging up all this past.

"You can be both a good man and an asshole. I have known many of those too." He flashes a rueful little smile over at Raylan. The two are not mutually exclusive. He reckons they forge the best kind of assholes in the fires on those hills. In fact you have to be an asshole sometimes to do the right thing. That's just the way of the world.

When they told him he had a few months to live, he didn't want to do medicine anymore. He wanted to live life, see new places, meet all the people worth meeting before his time was up. Moved somewhere warmer - they said it'd help the cough - started gambling, sleeping around. They were too busy chasing outlaws and shootout highs to follow where the drunks went, stumbling home beating on their women and children. They could've been heroic. They chose the thrill instead. And now he looks at Raylan. Looked, at John Constantine. And man. He didn’t have time but he ended up wasting all of it anyway.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that alone, Raylan." Doc couldn't have been there for him, he was busy counting mould in the bricks in his prison, but someone should've been.

It was a pattern that Raylan appreciated. It almost made him feel at home, like he could be sittin' on Arlo's front porch with Doc, shooting the shit til the stars were high in the sky. If asked, he'd be hard pressed to pin down why he and Doc were so comfortable with each other. Doc had a soothing way about him that seemed to compliment Raylan's own southern affability.

Raylan couldn't help but scoff a smirk at the opinion. "I wish more people agreed." No, he'd been hearing all his life about how he was always 'too' something. Too quiet, too loud, too angry, too soft. Too much of whatever the other person couldn't quite handle. It didn't matter what people thought of him, in the end, but that didn't mean he didn't take on the criticism and carry it around with him.

He shook his head. "No use apologizin' for the past. Nothin' to have been done about it, with all the people that saw it goin' on. Only one that did was my Aunt Helen. Used to know when Arlo was goin' full tilt and drive up in her beat up station wagon and I'd run out and climb on in. She'd take me back to her place, turn on the TV, made sure I got somethin' to eat." He shook his head again. "She's the one saved me from that place. Saved my life from the mines.. I wasn't always alone.."

He took a deep breath and shifted his hat on his head a little. "At any rate, I know where I come from. What my blood makes me capable of. My ending up a Marshal is half and half with my endin' up as an outlaw. Mighta always been that way, regardless of Arlo, I don't know."

He looked over. "You always want to be a dentist?"

Could be that it's like talking into a kind of funhouse mirror. If you only feel comfortable mired deep in your own thoughts, keeping things to yourself, it's not really cheating if you're talking to someone you can understand on a level you don't necessarily share with a great many people.

Besides. The only thing better than keeping everything bottled up inside is having two whole bottles you can stuff more into.

"I don't think there's all much of a difference 'tween marshals and outlaws. Either you're an asshole with a badge or an asshole without one." Either way, whether you have a badge, maybe a uniform, or some kind of rulebook or creed or whatever helps you sleep at night - still an asshole. At least, he's a likeable asshole. He's got that much going for him.

At the mention of dentistry, Doc cocks an eyebrow and smiles almost fondly. This is ancient history that Raylan is digging up now. "I would not say I gave it that much thought, but I did enjoy it, however short it lasted. Everyone still calls me Doc after all." He was a bit of a learned man, of his time anyway; would have been a waste not to put that education to some use. He'd started out fairly young and he was quite good at it. It became a bit of a calling. Probably would have kept going if his health had allowed it, too. Of course, he doubts that anyone today would know his name if he did.

Half-wondering if dentistry is merely a way to distract from Arlo talk, Doc deftly turns the conversation back onto Raylan.

"Does it worry you, that you'll turn out like Arlo? Have one drink too many, someone say sommin' that sets you off and you just..." Doc purses his lips and shakes his head. "Snap?"

Keeping things bottled up was a skill of Raylan's he'd been perfecting all his life.

"There is, but it ain't in the badge. It's in the respect for life and the law. Plenty of Federals with a badge that ain't got business carryin' one, except for the power of the US Government getting in the way." Still those people eventually fucked up and were caught, booted out in disgrace. Authority was a tricky line to walk sometimes, even for the best of them.

"That's your fault for takin' up first aid and expandin' 'Doc' out to general care instead of stayin' in Dentistry. Still, quiet a job change. Quite a job start, considerin' the times." And he'd be interested to know more if-

Damnit Doc, Raylan couldn't help but think as the conversation was turned right back to where it was before. He'd bared plenty of what made him but the question asked was a focused one into what he was, verses where he came from. He looked down into his glass and the fraction of tension in his jaw were the only indications that he gave that they were getting close to nerves, but questions asked needed to be answered, lest they pop up again and again and again..

.. but it wouldn't be so bad to crack the lid on his proverbial bottle, let out a few wild tendrils of steam before capping it back up and tucking it into the back of his head again.

"I'm 43 years old, Doc, I'm grown. Already turned out like I'm gonna turn out. Only thing I share with Arlo is a name and a temper." That was completely untrue - Raylan was very much like his father; Charming, witty, stubborn and sharp minded in an undercutting and unexpected way with a temper to match. The only difference was how they led their lives. How they saw it work, functionally, practically for the people in the low valley. "Winona told me, when I came back to Kentucky that I was the angriest man she'd ever seen. Not on the surface maybe but still. I suppose I see her point, now and then."

"I was trained in a little bit of everything. No point letting that go to waste. Besides, people have been getting hurt but no one here's been asking for a filling." They probably wouldn't want one of his fillings either. They use much better equipment and techniques now, and it would be far less tedious than what he is used to.

Doc is a natural storyteller. He could regale Raylan with tales of old for days. He has something of a flair for being melodramatic, describing vividly and exaggerating a few details to spin elaborate half-truths and improvisations into wild and thrilling tales. If he liked the sound of his own voice that much, Raylan would struggle to get any moment of peace and quiet between Doc and Malcolm yapping away.

But storytime will come soon enough. Right now it is getting tidbits out of Raylan time. Though Doc can sense that he is pushing a line he does not wish to cross. He will have to tread carefully to walk them back over to safety.

"You never know. My old man came back different from the war. Everyone came back different. Sometimes it's all set in stone, 'fore you were even born. Sometimes things happen, or other people come into your life, and they change everything." He hasn't seen Raylan truly angry yet. He's not sure he wants to. He doubts it would change anything between them, but he would rather they all get along, work through their issues. No need to be putting water under the bridge if they can stay dry in the first place.

"You don't look 43 though..." He's technically outlived Doc. Maybe Malcolm has, too. "Still got your whole life ahead of you." Plenty of time to be righting old wrongs and committing new ones.

"Suppose Dentists count as any kinda Doctor when there ain't one around," he reasoned. All Raylan knew is that he wasn't going to be asking for any dentistry. He knew what kinda goods were used back then or, at least, that they killed or made ill half of who took 'em. No fault of the doctors, he was sure, but cleanliness had a long way to go from the time of Doc's training.

Raylan would rather have other people talking then talk himself; him talking is what led to situations like this, where he could feel more bits of him being slowly pulled out like bait on fishing line. Always Be Cool was a motto that Boyd had said often enough that it echoed around the back of Raylan's mind now and then. This was one of those times.

"I was born after Arlo came back from 'Nam. Doesn't matter how they come back. Doesn't give 'em any right." Yes, Doc was starting to skirt an emotionally dangerous line, even though his tone stayed at the same casual level.

"It's the whiskey - it's a natural preservative. You're.. what, like.. 35 when you got dropped into that well?" He looked it, for all his hundred fifty plus years. Raylan smirked and shook his head. "Nah, none of us change for the better after a point. We normal people now just get.. Older and crabbier and more assholish til we grow a cancer until we finally give up the fight and die."

Well. So far no one's died from him patching them up yet, so the decent track record's staying intact. A gunshot wound or moderate burns he could still deal with, but he's hoping it won't come to him needing to do anything too complicated. Cutting anyone open or reattaching a severed something is far beyond what he would consider himself capable of doing.

Doc isn't familiar with ''nam' but he doesn't ask. However they personally feel about war, trauma, abuse, violence, he thinks he's pushed Raylan as far as he wants to be pushing anyone tonight. He taught himself to drive and he knows to ease up on the gas, cruise for a bit, take it easy. Makes the ride a whole lot smoother.

"We best be finding ourselves some proper whiskey then. You and I got shit to be done before we turn old and crabby and die of cancer." He'd like to think that the moustache no one would recognise him without makes him look older, more distinguished, like he knows what he's talking about, but even after all this time, he's a young man at heart, buried somewhere behind all those walls.

"Mm, our livers are gonna liquify on this shit at this rate," he admitted with a soft laugh that dissolves into a sigh as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose before setting his hat a little further back on his forehead and shaking it softly. "We got plenty of time to get shit done. I might be old compared to most of the people here, all the young twenty something kids who still think that just bein' offended about a situation is enough to change it, but I still got plenty of gas left in my tank. You too," he agreed with a finger gesture over at him.

No, it was better Doc left the previous topic where it was. Raylan didn't want to get angry about it or frustrated at innocent questions from someone just trying to understand him better, not when he welcomed it all. That wouldn't have been fair, he answered as much as he asked.

"What are you doin' runnin' a bar? I mean, I figure you're not gonna run back into the life you had before, things are.. a lots different now but.." He left the questioning hanging but looked over at him as he finished.

"There are an awful lot of young folk around here," Doc agrees. Young by normal standards, that is. He is not familiar with terms or concepts like 'millennials'. It's difficult not to be protective of them, sheerly out of instinct. Especially of the young ladies, although there might be something carried over from the old days.

"I came into possession of Shorty's after the previous owners- moved on. I am familiar with the business, although all this new paperwork is a bit of a nuisance. It gave me something to do, some income, some space, away from Wynonna. And I have repurposed the basement, experimenting with some medication for a friend of hers." Not that she knows that he is helping Dolls. That particular affliction, like Doc's immortality, is not something they can treat with over-the-counter medication.

He is not certain he can explain Dolls's salamander... dragon...? Fire-breathing abilities in any succinct manner so he opts to leave it at that.

"Seems like you can't be a gambler or a gunslinger these days. I'm open to suggestions, if you have any. Apart from some back alley dentist of questionable repute."

"Suppose they'll keep us from gettin' too crusty and stuck in our ways, maybe," he said, grin breaking even as he finished. "As though we ain't anyway."

But he looked over to listen to Doc go to answer the question posed, head tilting a little bit at the 'away from Wynonna'. Having been married, Raylan understood the distance that people needed in an relationship but it was rare for him to think of it that way - space away from Winona.

"Runnin' a bar is honest business, ain't nothin' wrong with it. Just not.. what I imagined someone like you doin'. Then again, most of that assumption is based on stories. I suppose I oughta apologize for that but.." He shrugged a little. It was what it was.

"Bartendin' and basement Chemist ain't a bad role. Keeps you busy durin' the evenings, I suppose.. You livin' with Wynonna then? What's she do for a livin'?"

"I'm a hell of a lot older than you, so. There should be no 'old man talk' coming from you," Doc chides. But no, you might be able to teach these couple of old dogs some new tricks. They might learn them well enough, or at least adapt. But they'll always go back to playing with their favourite toys, visiting their favourite watering hole, sleeping in the same spot, and eating the same damn puppy chow they liked when they were a fraction of the age they are now.

"Stories are all I have, but. I don't think I can live that life anymore. Not without- getting arrested and drawing all sorts of wrong attention from the government." Maybe Wyatt had the right idea, settling down and living out the rest of your life in peace. Doc has the time now to be doing that. Even if Purgatory is the sort of town where nothing is ever quiet and still for very long. Trouble will come looking, even if he were to hang up his boots.

"We uh... it's uh... complicated." Doc sighs, scratching the bridge of his nose. "There's a shady as shit government organisation in our town. She's working with them. Back in the day Wyatt Earp went after the wrong sheriff. I was hoping I'd paid for that, in full, but she's... still cleaning up his mess. At least she's getting paid for it, I suppose, but. I don't trust them. At least with the marshal service, you know what you're gettin'. Them rules are simpler. Or they were, I should say." He eyes Raylan up and down and cracks him a lopsided smirk.

"Not that I am in any way implying you're the type to play by those rules. You've got trouble written all over your face."

Raylan's grin peaked in its spread at the admonishment, eyebrows bouncing up a little as he bobbed his head. What are you gonna do about it, old man. They both still had plenty of years to learn something new, to still be surprised by the world. Or themselves, though that was less likely than the rest.

"You'd have to sharpen up in different areas, that's for sure. Tech bein' what it is." Paperwork, cameras, trails. All the best ways that people like him chased people who broke the law. Regardless of the reason why they broke it.

But Raylan was interested in Wynonna, and the type of woman that would snag Doc's eye, forehead creasing as he frowned gently in faint confusion. Of course, the crack at the end broke it back into an innocent smile, Raylan blinking big dark eyes at him.

"I don't have the faintest clue what you mean by that. My file is thick based on bias and nothin' more." Complete lie. But back to Wynonna.

"But rules are meant to evolve to a situation.. Even though I work for the Federal Government, I still support not trustin' it in whole. Especially some of the agencies." like the FBI. Don't get him started. "What do you mean 'went after the wrong sheriff'?"

"Maybe they just don't like the look of your face," Doc teases. He has heard many defences before. Has himself needed to produce such defences. But different times necessitated different courses of action. It was one man's word against another's and who could outdraw whom where a bottle of your special occasion whiskey couldn't solve a disagreement. They didn't need any lawyers to prove anything. Maybe Raylan would have lived well in his time. But you can't choose where and to whom you are born.

"The Earps are... caught up in something you would find hard to believe." More so than Doc Holliday still being alive and kicking is hard to believe. Nevermind the whole getting his best friend's great great granddaughter pregnant and all. Well, he does love them hot and batshit crazy, so on that front Wynonna has got those covered at least. There are complications there - which relationship doesn't have any, really? - but he tries not to think of the two of them as anything more than... whatever the term is these days for consenting adults who enjoy sleeping and killing and watching the occasional TV program together. Maybe that term is simply a special kind of... family friend.

"When I was close to death, Wyatt rode to Purgatory, take care of the sheriff. Word is he was terrorising the town. Before he could put the sheriff down, he cursed Wyatt Earp and all his descendents. The seventy seven people that Wyatt killed would come back every time the next Earp heir turned 27, a little more feral and demonic each time. It was the sheriff's wife Constance who came after me." Doc glances over at Raylan and sighs, lowering his gaze as his jaw shifts uncomfortably. It is what they do, going around hunting resurrected unsavoury characters. There is little time to be spent on more conventional endeavours.

"She's got 27 good years with her baby, should she choose to keep it." Doc is actively choosing not to get attached to any idea of a happily ever after. There is no such thing. "And then it all goes to shits, all over again. That is if they both live that long. I... God I pray that they do, but. I do not think they will."

Edited 2020-12-28 06:07 (UTC)

"Maybe so," Raylan agrees with a curl of his features and a bob of his head. He did have the tendency to rub some people the wrong way, only made worse by his childish poking of said raw rub, just to get what he wanted. Raylan might have done well in Doc's time, but he'd rather have been born in the one he was.

Just for basic vaccinations and medicine, if he were honest.

"We're caught up in something I find hard to believe so that door's hinge has already been greased." But he hadn't asked his question idly, and watched Doc's features as he spoke, and as he got into Magics, Raylan leaned forward a little bit in his consumed interest. As Doc finished, Raylan had to chew it over, expression saying just that as he sat back in his chair, eyes casting off the porch again. Eventually they came back to Doc.

"Also means that the family line has managed to continue in.. very short busts of time. Well shit, Doc," was all he could say for another minute.

"So you get seventy seven that you gotta put down every time a new Earp hits 27? Was the.. the sheriff's wife the one that cursed you? Saved you?" Was it a little bit of both, considering that Doc was dying anyway?

"Pffuh. It's just your everyday kidnapping, possibly trafficking depending on what they're after." Nothing too strange about that, apparently. Maybe it would make things a little easier knowing what they want, why they have been put here. It's the question that many people have been asking, after all. But hey. If there isn't going to be an easy road back, maybe it's better that it's two lone wolves chewing out their cowboy hats than the people they know.

"Mm, that would be her. We did get her, in the end. Took care of her without getting myself killed in the process." They're... linked? It's complicated. And Doc isn't going to get into the details. He doesn't even know the full details of it himself.

"They haven't... hm... I mean no one's managed it yet. And I don't think it ends, after that." That would be too simple. It's perhaps worse than the fate of being trapped alone in the dark, just having to watch them all die. He has grown quite fond to the girls.

"Honestly Raylan I don't know it's going to work. I'm not just a bartender. We are violent people in a violent place doing violent things, and I know it. It just- ain't what anyone deserves." This isn't worrying about your baby's first steps or their first day of school or their first date or the first time they put their foot down on the gas pedal. This is going to be Doc and Wynonna arguing over why they should or shouldn't be putting a gun in a hand too small with a thumb too short to reach the hammer and this constant need to protect someone, not being able to let go or even let them out of their sight for half a second, always fearing the worst.

Underneath all that is what Doc doesn't want to say, about Earps, Hollidays, and Givenses, but that Raylan will understand precisely because he doesn't want to say it out loud. They are who they are because of the luck of the draw, and because they are who their violent worlds need them to be in order to survive. There are enough cold and hard people in this world, and if he can help it he doesn't want anyone else to turn out like himself. Or Wynonna. Or Raylan.

"There ain't nothin' every day about this place except you and I, if you haven't noticed." Raylan had no doubts that Doc absolutely noticed. "Traffickin'", he scoffed as his head turned back out to the porch and the scoff betrayed him into a short laugh that he tried his best to bury in emptying his cup. "Like we got anythin' worth the trouble we'll cause in the tryin' to keep us."

Raylan wasn't going to ask for the details. Even if Doc did know them, hearing them alone wasn't going to make him understand and it was a pointless path to wander down without context. It wasn't like he was suddenly gonna figure it out.

"A whole lotta live ain't what anyone deserves. No one deserves half the shit that's thrown at 'em." He sat forward to tug that moonshine bottle back out from under the table they'd stowed it away under like it was something they were keeping neat and tidy, hidden from no one but tucked away per the social rules nonetheless. "But that is a lot to deal with. I hope like hell to keep Willa away from Law enforcement, away from the people like her granddaddy, like her roots.."

He popped the cork and poured a generous amount in his mug, holding the bottle out in offer to pour Doc some more too.

"Don't matter much what I'd do, so I won't bother. What I will say is that you got the skills and intestinal fortitude to figure it out. I know that kids are.. soft and innocent. Full of possibility.. Only a rare few ain't got but a single option for their path for in life. You help raise that little girl. You help teach her to be proficient. You do your best. Hope for the best.. What else can anyone do. Don't start killin' yourself over decisions you haven't even made yet."

"I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be considered 'every day', neither. Think you're on your own with that one, Marshal." Sometimes Doc does enjoy the limelight, and he likes being special. Sometimes he shies away from it. But the fact of the matter is, just because it's easy to forget he's more than a century and a half old sometimes doesn't mean that Doc is any less strange than the other people or the other things that are happening in this town. At least he is able to be an anomaly that Raylan can blend into. Surely two cowboys don't stick out more than just the one.

"Sometimes you cannot protect them from everything, hard as you may try." Sometimes you are the problem that you are trying to protect someone else from. Doc understands that too. He doesn't quite make eye contact as he holds his mug out for an unhealthy ration of moonshine. He would never risk asking if it is maybe too much or perhaps too early or say or do anything other than bring his drink in close once Raylan has finished pouring and peering into his rippling reflection before taking a drink.

"I think we're in the same boat for that. Not mattering much what we would do." Doc is actively rejecting the notion of making any plans beyond taking things one day at a time. Maybe decisions will be made that will require his input. Maybe there will be none. He is not allowing himself to get involved any more than he already has. For Doc it is not a matter of sticking his head in the sand as much as it is not wanting to meddle in something that, for better or worse, he doesn't feel is his place to interfere in. But maybe Raylan does perceive this very conscious, deliberate distancing as strange.

"Well if we can survive living on this I'm pretty sure we're set to survive this place at least," Doc jokes, lifting his glass of moonshine to gesture at what good shit he is referring to, changing the subject again to more neutral, friendly banter territory. "Whatever else is waiting for us back home, however we get there, it's a whole other problem for another day."

Raylan bobbed his head, begrudgingly. It was more than odd to be the most 'every day' of the bunch of them, part of why he'd gravitated so easily to Doc's like type habits and mannerisms. There was a comfort there, in their large group of two. It wasn't as though Raylan really forgot but it was easy to let slip from the forefront of his mind that Doc was coming on a hundred and seventy.

Pouring out, the bottle was set back down so he could get back around his own cup. He wouldn't find any argument to the idea that it was too early or too much - they had nowhere to go. Nothing to do.

"Even if you could, we shouldn't want to. Not everything. Shit shapes a person. Either way, we could never think of all the things that might happen." One day at a time kept the plate that was already heavy enough, a little lighter. He didn't understand Doc's distancing but.. he doesn't have to. Understanding wasn't going to give him any secrets or gifts that would change Doc's mind. Man had a right to make it up the way he wanted to.

Raylan huffed a chuckle. "If we can survive this, we'll survive anything. Pretty sure we're workin' on being test subjects for how to liquidate our livers. They might need a doc for us, we keep goin' at this pace for weeks more. Somehow," he mused with a look into his cup with a pull of his lips before he spoke into it as he lifted it up for a drink, "I doubt we're going to stop."

"Oh you and I have stomached worse things, I'm sure." There has been no reason to stop, so far. Doc doesn't think he would find any reason to in the coming days. He is in a better mood when he's had a glass, aboe to think more clearly than when he is cranky and grumpy, and other people who have had a glass themselves would find him more tolerable too. It's a win-win situation, as far as he's concerned.

"Suppose we are turning in after this bottle. That's about as responsible as I am willing to be." Gives them a little bit more time to finish up, but not too much that they might risk filling in the silences that fall between them with questions or suggestions that might go too far.

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tinstar - 2021-01-31 16:56 (UTC) - Expand

Sure 👍

thering - 2021-01-31 17:13 (UTC) - Expand

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

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Sure 👍