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

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

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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Between Raylan and Doc it would be stiff competition to see which one of them could get the most number of self-styled 'bad boys' shitting their pants running for the hills - and without so much as even uttering one word. No doubt the girls would get sick of the old men and their protective streaks, but one day he hopes they'll come to understand just how much they mean to them, and forgive their bark being much louder than their bite.

"I never said anything about your drinking," the old cowboy points out, turning his hands up towards the ceiling and giving Raylan one of those 'I 'unno what you're talking about, son' shrugs. He hasn't yet had to hold up Raylan's hair and rub his back while he's bent over the toilet throwing his supper up, but he would be surprised if he had to one day. They're too seasoned drinkers to put each other through that kind of mess.

Doc is rather appreciative of Raylan backing down from what could have been an ugly fight this time around, nonetheless. He honestly wouldn't have minded the Marshal riding shotgun, but sticking around to childproof the place a little more is probably a better use of their time than them both bickering in the front seats.

"You can drop 'em off while I get started on cleanup," he offers as a sort of compromise. Raylan doesn't drink much when the baby girls are around and Doc... well. He tries to cut back as much as Raylan does, to varying degrees of success. The tiny double trouble tag team is almost as hard work as Wynonna and Winona, and he can't help winding down the night with a drink in hand and a cigarillo between his fingers to reward himself for a hard fought day won.

"You're probably more popular with them anyway, playing that shark song that drives me up the wall." He would not claim to be a man of refined taste, but the shark 'song' does not music make, and it's banned from defiling that sacred space inside Charlene.

A long standing tradition shouldn't be ignored, not after all the rules they'd bent, social and mortal alike. Raylan was looking forwards to it; to sort the riffraff out from those budding young souls that might be worth taking the chance on letting them have a little room to move. He was also very glad that that was many many years away. Raylan wasn't done enjoying this young, innocent phase, when they were too busy getting dirty and learning what not to touch and where not to go.

"Mmhmm." He'd just ignore Henry just talking about him drinking the place dry. It was true that Henry hadn't ever had to help Raylan out of a drunk spot, but that was because Raylan was a full grown man who knew how to handle his liquor, as they both did.

Washtowel tossed to the side, Raylan leaned on the counter, one hand propping on his hip as he bobbed his head in agreement. "Sounds good. And I only play that song to distract them from leavin' here. We only play it a couple of times." The things he did for their children. The things they both did for them.

"When do you plan on leavin'?" If Henry was planning on sprinting out right now, he wanted a kiss, goddamnit.

There was no shame in that now, in wanting to show his affection, his care in such a way. There was no one here to judge them or chastise them or tell them that men didn't kiss men goodbye, even if that's what they did with the ladies.

"A couple of times is a couple of times too many," he protests gruffly. Why can't the girls like proper music? Why can't Raylan introduce the girls to some proper music? Henry still has years to go to catch up with the modern catalogue of offerings and sift through the hot garbage from the hidden gems. Raylan surely has no such excuse.

"Soon. Fifteen minutes. Just a quick round, tidying up." He won't keep the girls waiting. It's not that he doesn't trust Raylan to childproof the place, but four eyes are better than two - he always misses an empty bottle or a box of 9mms that Raylan picks up on, and sometimes vice versa - and that'll leave him with a few minutes to freshen up in the bathroom and get dressed. It won't be nearly long enough for a kiss to become something more... involved, but they can at least take their time with it.

"There anything you need me dropping off or picking up along the way?" he asks as he moves to get up and wipe the table down. This whole place is going to be in a mess once the girls start charging in and running on through like two hurricanes in a little shoebox. Right now it's almost looking as pristine as it's going to be for the next couple of days.

Oh, he had and would continue to try to get them into something, anything with more sense than that damned song, but some music was magic for taming the wild beasts that were toddlers. Along with a bribe or two to help ease his way to control over his radio again. Those he didn't tell anyone about, if he could help it. It was going to bite him in the ass eventually, especially as the girl's vocabulary expanded out.

Nodding a little with a half cocked smile that he couldn't quite get rid of, Raylan shook his head at the question.

"Nah, I made sure I brought home some supplies last night-" The whiskey, the weird 'healthy' rice crisp things that Willa liked and Alice still hadn't decided on, and some fresh fruit. The Cheerios stayed stocked though, Raylan liked it for late night snacks or a hasty breakfast. "But you might stop for a bottle of juice, that's the only thing I forgot."

He glanced towards the living room. "I'll pull out their toys while you're gone and make sure the barn is locked up. But I'm lockin' the noise makers in the barn first. I give 'em baby shark, that's about all they're gonna get without me losing my mind," he said with a laugh.

"Sure." A bottle of juice will end up turning into a half dozen things because the girls got carried away and Doc indulges them too much (he might draw the line at Baby Shark but there's a lot of lines he doesn't draw which he probably ought to be drawing before they get as far as the earworm hellspawn of a 'song'), but he won't let them dally in the store for too long. He knows Raylan is eager to see them and he'll want to whisk them away back to the house before it starts to get dark, which seems to be creeping upon them earlier and earlier with each passing day.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do now," he says by way of farewell once twelve of his fifteen minutes are up and he's done everything he's needed to, right up to slipping into his coat and donning on his hat. He's not yet come home to a disaster but that's happened before with Wynonna, and he's not going to take any chances with his errant Marshal.

The last three minutes he will spend on the porch with his last cigarillo for what was likely going to be the rest of the day, looking out over the parked cars and the stretch of flat land around them, a smattering of interspersed trees casting long shadows towards and over the house, and then he'll be off.

That was the way it ought be and as cheesy as it was, it really did warm Raylan's heart how equally they'd accepted the girls. They weren't related, but they were still half growing up as sisters and while it wasn't a yard of little Givens, it was more than he could have ever expected. That being said, yes - Raylan got antsy when he thought they'd been gone too long, hand too eager to twitch towards his phone to make sure they were okay.

He trusted Henry. He didn't trust everyone else out there.

"And leave you out of all the fun?" Raylan teased in return. There was an impulse to go over, to touch him, to wish him a softer kind of farewell, but their ease and comfort in that waxed and waned on any given day. Raylan knew it didn't mean anything, and he couldn't help marking it regardless.

"Drive safe," he called before the door shut. He trusted Henry. He would still worry in a way he couldn't help until him and the girls were home and safe. Back behind the walls and security of their guns.

The girls were quite a handful, and while Doc's never glad to see them go, he isn't complaining about the fact that he has Wynonna to share the load with. She doesn't mind so much when Alice turns up with a couple of bruises and a scratch she's particularly proud of - actually she gets irritable when Alice shows up looking more immaculate than when she left - but it's a different story with Winona. Doc takes the tirade in his stride, letting her blow off all that steam with his head inclined staving off the itch for a smoke, but he can't help but feel like there's a lot of pent up thoughts and feelings that she should really be talking to Raylan about - in a calm and controlled manner - instead of taking it out on whichever cowboy happens to be dropping little Willa off.

He's taken a lot worse from Wynonna, but it's a relief to get back, in a way that a man who has always been on the go can't honestly say he's intimately familiar with. The car rumbles to a quiet stop in front of the house, intrusive headlights that would have flooded through the glass windows having been cut off further up the gravelled-over driveway. That cigarillo he's been craving is in his mouth before he even ascends up those three little steps onto the porch. He doesn't want Raylan coming out the house and finding him a tired and defeated heap slumped in the chair, having been chewed out and screeched at by one of the bittersweet loves of his life, so he opts to stay leaning against the wooden pillar, feet crossed at the ankles, a thin wispy trail of smoke slithering from the silhouette of hat and hip-holstered revolver and boots up towards the stars.

Ain't nothing in this world that makes anyone feel old and weary like a venomous bite from a lover scorned. Lord knows he has invoked those furies, time and time again. Maybe, in some strange way, shaking off the restlessness and settling down in a place like this would be the least 'old and weary' thing to do.

There were a lot of perks to having the Ladies to trade off duties with. Not that Raylan was complaining about the time he got to spend with the girls but even all the chaos of a gunfight could not stand up to the stamina of Alice and Willa. It might also not be a complete lie to say that Raylan was possibly avoiding seeing his ex-wife. It was clearly where she got her stamina from - He'd gotten a call from her not too long ago and she'd given him an earful and then some.

So when he sees the wash of headlights and the familiar rumble of the engine, he gives Henry a few minutes to reacclimate to the nightsky without the screams of little girls in his ears before walking out a glass of whiskey and one of his own to match. Strolling up to stand next to him, Raylan holds up one of them and considers the stars.

"Figured you might need this. Thanks for drivin' them back in, the case that caught me on your way out was a nasty one." Not that he had any jobs that ended in sunshine and rainbows. "Not too many tears I hope? I'm sure the girls were dry eyed," he teases.

"Oh, the girls were fine," he reassures with a smile that hides all manner of sins cast over his shoulder as he reaches over to pluck the proffered glass of whiskey from Raylan's grasp, holding it down against the railing while he finishes his smoke. Doc might have been the one in tears if he had been any less thick-skinned, but thankfully he's had years of practice trying to pass trials by fire.

"This place out here's the real world we're livin' in. No one comes outta life without a few scrapes and bruises," Doc drawls. He would have told Winona as much if she'd half a mind to listen, but she just had a gatling gun to unload and he didn't bother shooting back.

"Missing them already?" he asks with a raised eyebrow and a playful little lopsided smile as he takes his last puff and flicks what's left of his cigarillo onto the wooden floorboard, swivelling the ball of his foot over it to put it out. The time is fast approaching where they won't try to crawl in between their dads when heaven's floodgates open up and it's thundering a hell of a storm outside, and when said old men can't pick them up anymore.

"You wouldn't've wanted them around while you're working a case, anyway. Some of those demons follow you all the way home." Wyatt got the same way when he was embroiled in some case he was hellbent on resolving, and it's sometimes the same with Wynonna. Doc's moved on long ago, not wanting to be stuck in a literal purgatory of chasing proverbial and literal demons around the same way the Earps seem to define their purpose in life. But he has the patience of a saint, especially when it comes to dealing with Marshals who are wont to go off on their benders.

Raylan is sure that Henry would say that even if the girls had tried to talk him into robbing a bank. There was some very sweet bias there that was hard to miss here on their little homestead but it hadn't ever been for the faint of heart. He couldn't have chosen a better person to tackle it with.

"Winona gave you an earful, huh?" He huffs a breath. "Don't worry, she called to file her complaints. It's her mother's fault really. Nothin' but a rose colored glass bell that she raised her daughters in. Pray you never meet Gloria."

He looks over sidelong, lips curled up in an amused smirk. "They've gotta go back to their mothers so that I can miss 'em," he admits. "Give me a few more hours of silence and then ask me that again. But you're right about the rest. Besides, it'd be terribly unfair to leave you here to hold our side of the pillow and fort wars all on your own against such vicious numbers."

When the girls got going, normally after a few demands to ride around on one set of shoulders or a back to ride like 'the horsies', it was more taxing than 4 day long stakeouts or those brief, violent gunfights.

"Gotta admit, at least my demons are just assholes in fancy cars who can't handle the cold. More paperwork but at least they're a little borin'."

Hey if he'd robbed a bank, Raylan would have surely heard about it. "No, no. She was alright," Doc lies easily, cracking a small smile at Raylan. He's not sure he can handle being double-teamed by Winona and-- Gloria? Was it? But he'd hate to give off the impression that he can't hold down the fort on his own. He can handle being poked full of holes at and women who try to push his buttons all the time from all directions. Most of the time he's able to take things in his stride. Unless they're Wynonna and know exactly where to get him and how hard to twist the knife.

"Bright side is, you wouldn't have to worry about them so." Which would not stop either of the cowboys from worrying about those little girls, even when the day eventually comes when they're not so little anymore. But between their mothers and their fathers, they'll be able to hold their own just fine. They'd give anyone hell before Raylan or Doc even showed up to finish the job, cauterise those wounds and clean up the mess neat and clean like they always do.

"Well if you wanna swap one day, be my guest." Although Doc's not much good with paperwork. Raylan don't make 'boring' sound like it's enough action for him although frankly, Doc prefers things the way they are. There's enough going on in their lives that they don't really need to be worrying about real demons on top of the proverbial ones.

"This asshole gon' be an all nighter or will you be crawling into bed sometime?" Doc will likely be passed out sooner than he would admit - the girls wore him down, the ladies gave him shit, it was an early morning with a pretty long drive to stretch out the day even longer, and now he's chugging whiskey like the bottle's long past its shelf life, so he's not long for the land of the wide-awake-and-living. It's just a shame they can't really properly sit down and reward each other for a job done proper on the first night, but they're long past that honeymoon phase and well into the grumpy old men stage, and they're maybe a little too at ease around each other that they leave each other comfortable hanging all the time because they're already thinking what the other didn't bother to finish saying, while everyone else is on a different wavelength and struggling to keep up.

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

we are all old men tbh

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