You can have my girl, but don't touch my hat [OPEN]

[toooldforlosing]

Who: Raylan Givens AND YOU
What: Out and about! Let me know where you're running into him.
Where: Mog Hill, mainly, and the environs.
When: All day Coardi
Notes: Despite his inner rage, he'll be friendly and polite enough to new (and old) acquaintances. Feel free to assume he's doing any of the things mentioned below, but if you want him for other plots, just hit me by PM or on plurk (prettiestwhistles)
Warnings: None for now

Raylan is angry. There are some who might argue Baedal has nothing to do with that, but it's different here than it was at home. He's a prisoner, even if his prison is city-sized. Even if he's free to run every morning (like he does) and go to the bar every night (...which he usually does too, though more for eavesdropping and brooding than to get properly drunk). Working for the sheriff feels like collusion, but at least Norrington hasn't asked him to do anything he can't do, so far.

The militia's broadcast had turned his stomach, but he doesn't know whose brain to put a bullet into for that. A criminal, even a band of criminals... you can fight that, he thinks. A corrupt government that rules by martial law - that's something else again.

So he gets up, goes for a run, works his beat, goes shopping for goddamn groceries, spends his evenings in bars, and bites down on how much this place rubs him wrong.

He thinks he'd best not get questioned by the militia again, because he doesn't know if he'll be able to keep his mouth shut. But even those who don't know him well might be able to identify a man with an itchy trigger finger.

Comments

[gotbottle]

"I know he's better off," Rachel says quietly, still smiling, very faintly. "I'm just sorry you had to worry. That you're down a friend in a place where you kinda need them a little more."

[toooldforlosing]

He shrugs. "I get by. As long as he's actually home, it's just as well."

[gotbottle]

She nods, solemn, gazing down into her glass for a moment before raising it to her lips again. And then she grins, faint and rueful.

"I don't know about you but I could use a different conversation topic."

[toooldforlosing]

He laughs quietly. "Yeah, probably good. You wanna get out of here?" He asks on a whim, but they could use some motion.

[gotbottle]

She nods. "Some air and a walk might do us good, yeah."

Rachel polishes off her drink. "I'm ready when you are."

[toooldforlosing]

He stands and offers his arm, only half joking.

[gotbottle]

She blinks up at him a few times, surprised, trying to figure out if he's teasing or not. But she stands, and curls a hand around and just above his elbow. "Thank you."

[toooldforlosing]

"Used to scare people, in Miami," he says, mildly, as they head out. "Used to think I was hiding something, all these manners."

Arguably he was, given that he shot a main point-blank and then had to leave Miami.

[gotbottle]

She laughs quietly, patting his arm with her free hand and then letting that one rest on his arm, too. (She's pretty sure that's what they did when she saw people do this on TV, she's never actually held a man's offered arm before, gosh.)

"Being subversive--even if it was like, on accident--through good manners. I like that."

[toooldforlosing]

"I dunno, I just grew up with ma'am and sir. Miami's full of retired New Yorkers." Not exclusively, Raylan.

[gotbottle]

"Oh, I know all about New Yorkers. I lived in New York for almost a year before I wound up here. Didn't seem like the place was real big on manners a lot of the time. If people even had time for you at all. I didn't like it there, not as much as I'd hoped I would."

[toooldforlosing]

"Were you looking for anything particular, or was it just the theory that everyone goes to New York at some point?" Not everyone where he was from, but he knew the theory.

[gotbottle]

"I took a job out there, thinking it would be better."

She pauses. It's kind of a long pause, the sort that happen when people are trying to weigh just how much to say. "...I'd kind of made a mess of things back home. I had a really bad breakup, and it was with someone I worked with. I just... I don't know. Ran, I guess. Felt like I just needed to get away. But the job wasn't really that much better, and I didn't know anyone in New York. It was kind of an impulsive move that didn't really work out for me. But, hey." She smiles, shrugging. "Live and learn, right?"

[toooldforlosing]

"Yeah. Well. You get back, you can pick someplace new." He shrugs. "Or go back someplace old, if it suits better. That why you make mistakes when you're young, I guess." This is, of course, presuming you don't keep making them, Raylan.

[gotbottle]

"Yeah. I was already giving a lot of thought to going back home to California. This place just got to me first."

She looks up at him. "So you worked in Miami? What was that like?"

[toooldforlosing]

"Uh. Hot? I don't know. Lots of fugitives head that way if they've got contacts in Cuba, so we never lacked for anything to do." He supposed it would have been a better time if his marriage hadn't been falling apart.

[gotbottle]

"Yeah, but there's being kept busy, and actually enjoying what you do. Did you, when you were working there?" It doesn't sound like it, to her. But maybe that's just her lingering dissatisfaction with her move coloring her perception.

[toooldforlosing]

"It was a good job," he says, after considering for a moment. A better job than Lexington, in many ways. Going back to Kentucky had been both a demotion and a punishment. In truth, workaholic that he tends to be, Miami had been great in some ways. It had just been a strange time.

"I don't know. I've never been anything but a marshal, before here. I didn't really ever think about being anything else."

[gotbottle]

"I thought about law enforcement, once. Like, as a career." She laughs, softly. "For all of like, five minutes, when I was fifteen or sixteen. I realized I wasn't exactly cut out for it so I'd have to come up with another way to work towards helping people, and protecting them. Making sure they get heard, that bad things don't, like. Have a place to hide. I think that's why I was going to get into being a reporter, I just... let a lot of other things get in my way, I guess."

[toooldforlosing]

"Yeah well, that's life for you." Never quite turns out the way you think.

He walks in quiet for a bit. Then again, Raylan gives the air of silence as a default state; he just hasn't, evidently, thought of anything more to say for the time being. It's not awkward, he just lapses into not talking.

[gotbottle]

There's still a bit of an urge to keep talking, to fill the silence--she probably would have, earlier on in their friendship, when he was more of an unknown quantity and she was more nervous about everything. She's bad about that, talking a lot to try to cover her anxiety.

But here, she doesn't, comfortable enough to understand the silence isn't an awkward one, that he simply doesn't have anything to say at the moment. Rachel lets it go, content to walk at his side, her hands still around his arm. They go a couple blocks before she speaks again.

"Thank you. This is nice, it was a good idea."

[toooldforlosing]

He smiles over at her. "I thought we could both use something nice," he allows. "You wanna head anywhere particular?"

[gotbottle]

She shakes her head, letting her gaze drift back to the street ahead of them. "I don't have any particular destination in mind, no, but thank you for asking. I'm just glad for the good company."

[toooldforlosing]

"I always feel a little guilty, when I like anything here," he says, after a moment. "Like they're getting to me, somehow."

[gotbottle]

Rachel is quiet for a long moment, too, before holding his arm a little tighter, and--though it's so brief, so light a touch, it's arguable if it really happened--brushing her cheek against his jacket, on his upper arm.

"I think I know the feeling. Like, when I first got here, especially, I was totally determined to hate everything, ever. Because I felt that if I liked something it meant I was giving in. That they were winning. But you can't hate everything forever. Just because you don't fight every single little thing doesn't mean you gave up."