The Road Home

[abrightboy]

Raylan's loose ends had been tied in Kentucky and Malcolm's were as tantalizingly close as they'd ever been. He and Raylan made the trip to New York with the intent of discovering the fate of the girl in the box, so they could head down to Miami without... baggage.

They would have to start with the revelation Jessica and Ainsley had made to Malcolm right before Raylan was shot, sending Malcolm back to Kentucky: that Eve had infiltrated the Whitly family to learn more about the Surgeon's victims.

Malcolm let them into the New York loft - a space he considered theirs now, more than his, since they decided they might weather the hurricane season there after moving to Miami - smiling as Sunshine tweeted greetings. Once the door was shut behind Raylan, he opened the door of her cage. Ainsley would have fed her diligently, but nobody would have let her out to fly. Sunshine took off across the loft and Malcolm grinned, watching her go.

He looked at Raylan. "We can still bring her with us when we leave, right?"

Comments

[tinstar]

Who actually paid for the windows was their business, not Jessica's. Not right now, anyway.

"The fact that the FBI fired him might actually get him a few more opportunities. We can use that kind of fire in actual man-hunts or murder cases. It's Florida. They got some sharp guys but.." Florida, after all.

"The job's not changin' Jessica. Just the location. Beaches don't get rid of anything."

[abrightboy]

"Well. I'm going to grow tomatoes," Malcolm volunteered. "But that'll be more of a hobby."

Jessica looked at him oddly, like she was pretty sure that was a joke, but she couldn't figure out the punchline.

"Tomatoes."

"Tomatoes, herbs... maybe some peppers."

"....Why?"

[tinstar]

Raylan laughed, head ducking as he brought his fist to his lips for a second before shaking his head.

"Ya know, you really do amaze me. You've had the best food and wine and chefs, and somehow, I don't think you get or know the taste of a fresh off the vine tomato. Something you grow and tend and care for til it produces somethin'." He glanced between Malcolm and Ainsley with a gesture before looking back at her.

"We aren't gonna have a chef. We're gonna cook for ourselves, for the most part. Fresh, free products? You can't beat taste."

He was really trying to not read her the rights; they'd made progress and he was trying to not mess that up. Call it a country education.

[abrightboy]

Louisa brought the pheasant course out for Raylan, Ainsley and Jessica.

"Would you like anything from the roast, sir?" she asked Malcolm.

He shook his head. "No, thank you." He took a bite of soup.

Jessica waited for her to leave before turning her attention to Malcolm. "So is this the next level of that phase you went through, wanting to help Louisa in the kitchen all the time?"

"It's a normal life, mother. I thought you wanted me to try to live a normal life."

"Normal for us, darling. Not..." She stopped short as he gave her a sharp look. "Anyway," she said, picking up her fork. "I suppose I'll have to try these tomatoes of yours to make that call."

[tinstar]

Raylan blinked over at her, not bothering yet with his silverware.

A beat passed as he thought about it and picked his his fork and knife to start cutting into the meat.

"You might as well say it. Amazes me all the dancin' around y'all do, how you've got energy to put into anything else."

Well he tried.

[abrightboy]

Jessica leveled her eyes at him, Ainsley looking between her and Malcolm, whose face suggested in no uncertain steely gaze that she most certainly better not say 'it'.

She huffed a breath, poking at a piece of mushroom with her fork.

"I'm not suggesting your background is... lacking in some way. But it's certainly not... the same, is it? And if this is going to be a permanent arrangement, then we're going to have to figure out where in the middle we're meeting."

Malcolm's brow creased. "There's no... expenditure of effort you really need to make, Mother. You could... back off. Not interfere. Treat us like adult family members who choose how they live... and if you don't like how we live, then maybe don't come to Miami," he suggested firmly, though not unkindly.

[tinstar]

"Oh I promise you it is lacking." His 'G's were back, a purposeful measure to set aside as much of his accent as he could.

"It is not the same, no. But people like you are just people who pay other people to make life happen around you instead of living it yourself. Let me ask you something - What hobbies do you have that ain't being the head of some committee or throwing a ridiculous amount of money towards good causes you wish would happen but you can't bear to look at the gritty ugly details of? When was the last time you did something with your hands that wasn't drink or sign checks?"

It wasn't that he hadn't heard Malcolm or the room he'd wanted to leave Jessica to respond, but he wasn't going to be stopped.

"I'm not goin' anywhere. I want this to be a peaceful thing. But I have a real hard time doing that when you turn down your nose on people who cannot help their position in life. We did not ask to be poor. We work hard and try to better our position. What work, real work have you done in your life?"

[abrightboy]

Jessica didn’t interrupt him. She picked up her napkin and dabbed at her mouth before setting it on the table.

“You see, Malcolm? This is what happens when you invite the proletariat to dinner. You get into an argument about what constitutes ‘real work’.”

Malcolm blinked at her. “I’m sorry,” he said leaning towards her slightly. “Did you just call my fiancé ‘the proletariat’?” he clarified.

She stood. “It was nice to see you again,” she told Raylan politely, picking up her glass. “Feel free to stay and finish,” she told them all before sweeping out of the room with a click clack of her heels.

Ainsley snorted a laugh. “You’re the best dinner guest we’ve ever had. I can’t wait to eat at your house.” She gestured between him and Malcolm with her fork. “Did you say ‘fiancé’? Is that, like, official?”

[tinstar]

It was chaos.

Raylan let her leave before glancing between the both of them left at the table. "What the hell is a proletariat? Throwing money at a cause is not 'real work', Altruistic as hell sure, but she's giving away something she didn't even earn in the first place - that does not constitute work."

Normally, he would have been more reserved; He knew things tended to go this way when they had dinner, but Jessica had a special way under his skin, being as unflappable and nonchalant with her condescension as she was, it riled him in a different way.

"She doesn't even know where I come from 'sides Kentucky," he growled, downing his glass and pushing up to go get himself another.

Who was he talking to? Both of them. No one. Himself. He didn't know.

[abrightboy]

"Well. We both do real work, so I'm pretty sure we agree on that," Ainsley said, watching him.

Malcolm got up from the table when Raylan did, lingering near his elbow, waiting for him to finish pouring before tentatively putting a hand on his arm, looking at his face with a faint crease of concern.

"So... when are you getting married?" Ainsley asked sunnily, cutting a piece of pheasant and popping it in her mouth.

[tinstar]

Raylan took a deep breath as he set the bottle back down and glanced over at Malcolm to nod softly, jaw still tight as he took a drink from his overpoured glass. He was okay, just pissed. Frustrated. He'd apologize later.

"After we find the right house. That's where we plan on havin' it. On a beach, if possible." Raylan slipped an arm around Malcolm's waist briefly with a soft squeeze of his hand, a touch of comfort before he turned around to face Ainsley.

"You're used to dinners goin' awry, aren't you?" he asked Ainsley, finally processing her reaction to the outburst and the sunny way she'd asked the question.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm relaxed a fraction at that squeeze. Raylan didn't see him as complicit; wasn't rethinking this after all that.

Ainsley shrugged and took another bite of her pheasant. "You've met the Queen Meddler of the World," she pointed out reasonably. "You do better than most people, to be honest. Very few major family get-togethers pass in this house without someone storming out." She leaned forward impishly. "It's very rarely her." She poked her fork towards her plate. "You may as well have the pheasant. It's good and it's only going to get thrown away."

Malcolm still lingered by Raylan's elbow. Stay or go, he'd do whichever Raylan wanted and wouldn't do either until Raylan made the move.

[tinstar]

Malcolm had proven himself several times over, from his willingness to get dirty to finish a job, to not scoffing or turning his nose up at the places that Raylan came from. Malcolm didn't beat his wealth over everyone's head, despite his crisp suits. No, this idea was Jessica's.

He considered Ainsley and her comments, eyeing the plate before looking over at Malcolm. "Suppose if I said don't tell her I ate, that'd still get around, wouldn't it."

He was hungry and, after another moment returned to the table and sat down. He supposed too, that getting her to storm out was some kind of achievement, but it sure didn't feel like it.

"Suppose I oughta also apologize to you for gettin' fired up, but.." He wasn't sorry.

[abrightboy]

"She should be apologizing to you," Malcolm disagreed stonily, slipping into his own chair but not picking up his spoon. He folded his hands on his lap, squeezing the right with the left.

"For the record," Ainsley said, cutting off a bit more pheasant, "that sort of thing is the reason I don't bring guys I date home." She looked at Raylan. "The looking down her nose at what they do or where they come from."

"It's a psychological shield; something she does to protect herself from... vulnerability," Malcolm told them. "But that doesn't excuse using on us or on..." He glanced at Raylan, then looked at Ainsley, then looked at his soup. "People we care about."

[tinstar]

Raylan picked up his silverware and cut a few pieces off his pheasant. Hell would freeze over before Jessica Whitly would genuinely apologize to someone she felt was below her. He glanced up at Ainsley as he popped a bite into his mouth.

"I couldn't imagine how you could. Hard as hell to stand up to that and wanna come back," he admitted with a glance towards the door before looking over at Malcolm.

"I should have just let her take the tomatoes wins." He shook his head and stabbed another bite. He took a deep breath as he chewed and looked at Ainsley again, speaking once his mouth was clear. "But the offer to come down still stands. And you don't have to come alone if you got someone you wanna bring. Nothing else, you know neither of us are gonna take the same kinda view of it."

[abrightboy]

“You didn’t owe her the tomatoes win,” Malcolm said quietly. “I shouldn’t have said anything about it to start with; I knew she wouldn’t understand.”

But he was excited. For the first time in his adult life, he was excited about his own life and what the future held. He wanted her to be happy for him, at the very least. For a moment, it felt like she got there, but then he said too much.

It was axe throwing all over again, except on a lifesize scale.

“She doesn’t have to understand to not be a dick about it,” Ainsley said reasonably. “You didn’t agree with me interviewing dad any more than she did, but you also didn’t tell me it was the same as killing people.”

Malcolm’s eyes lifted from his own wringing hands to her face sharply. He didn’t even actually say anything and she answered.

“I know. She just gets on these trips, Malcolm. Let it go. She’ll get over it.”

[tinstar]

"No, it's fine. I get the sense that not a lotta people call her out on that kinda classist bullshit and while I might not be the first, I will be the most stright-forward she's ever had the misfortune to encounter." Raylan slid his hand over and under the table's edge to wrap it around Malcolm's.

"She ain't the first to turn up her nose at me either and she certainly won't be the last." And it was a win, primitively speaking, for Raylan. He'd kept his cool while she was in the room, by and large. She'd gotten a hit with her exit but that was all.

"It's nothin'."

[abrightboy]

Some sort of tension in Malcolm's chest released at Raylan's hand covering his. He gave him a small but genuine smile, clutching Raylan's fingers to give them a squeeze..

"It's not nothing. I'm proud of you."

Standing up to her wasn't easy. She was used to steamrolling over people.

"I guess next time it's my turn to storm out," Ainsley teased. After all, the time before Jessica had been Malcolm and Raylan.

"I'll try to remember to say something upsetting," Malcolm shot back.

She stuck out her tongue and laughed.

[tinstar]

Proud of him. It felt like too long since he'd last heard something like that and his grip tightened fractionally over Malcolm's fingers. Raylan smirked at Ainsley's tease, picking up his fork to take another bite of his food. He was glad they were used to snapping back to normal like nothing had happened.

"Guess that leaves me to look suitably shocked. I'm sure we got a lotta holiday's to get through, you'll get your shot," he told Ainsley with a smile, abandoning his fork to just pick up the piece of bird and take a bite of it instead.

[abrightboy]

Many holidays. Raylan wasn't going to change his mind because of something like this.

Ainsley saw him pick the pheasant up and she put down her own fork, picking up her own pheasant and biting into it with delighted abandon.

Malcolm noted it with a smile and a raised eyebrow. "What a display of hedonism," he teased. "She's going to be glad she missed it."

Ainsley ignored him and looked at Raylan. "Are you going to make fried chicken when I come to Miami? Because I feel like the fact that Malcolm ate it means it's legendary."

[tinstar]

Malcolm wasn't his mother and she couldn't erase what Raylan knew about him.

Raylan grinned at Ainsley behind another bite, happy to have some feral company in this, a den of propriety and rules.

"What's life for but enjoying the little things," Raylan argued, clearing his bite with the held grin as he looked back at Ainsley. "First time you come out, if you want. Didn't think gettin' him to eat a piece was such a big thing, but I'm not gonna argue it. We'll do a whole proper country spread. Bit different from everythin' you've gotten here."

[abrightboy]

“And I will be looking up how to make some of those things,” Malcolm declared of the spread. One man couldn’t be expected to make a whole spread alone.

“Oh, that’ll be funny,” Ainsley pointed out with a laugh. “Food cooked by someone who doesn’t eat.”

Malcolm looked faintly ruffled. “It’s not ... funny. I cook all the time.”

Ainsley gave him a ‘really?’ look, but Malcolm gave no ground, so she turned her disbelief to Raylan for confirmation.

[tinstar]

Good, he could use the help.

Raylan lifted his eyebrows at Ainsley's question and nodded. "Breakfasts, dinners. No lunches, but that's because we're rarely together at home for it but.. He cooks. It's good. He eats more often than not too. Not any more than normal but.. good days have two meals."

They were still small bites, sometimes no more than a few, but Raylan celebrated every fraction of progress.

[abrightboy]

"Two meals. Of solid food."

"Sometimes," Malcolm said, poking at his soup.

Ainsley shook her head and looked at Raylan. "You're magical."

[tinstar]

"No," Raylan protested gently with a smile and a shake of his head. "I just don't make a big deal outta what I'm used to and press that upon him. It's not his fault and he's not gonna eat more when everyone is staring at him and counting his meals and chiding him for how he eats when he does."

Raylan looked over at Malcolm, face warmly wrinkled. "'Course I want him to eat more, but it's one step at a time. What he can handle, at a time." At Malcolm's own pace, whatever end that lead to.