024-027 » neither reward nor punishment

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Western Mathias + ???
WHEN: Days 024-027
WHAT: The consequences of their actions.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here! The next log will be posted January 23rd.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Onryo" 怨霊

DAYS 024-025
CONSEQUENCES
“There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments —
there are consequences.”
— Robert G. Ingersoll
When the unwilling residents of Mathias Township wake on the morning of the 24th day, they will find themselves in yet another set of frustratingly unnerving circumstances. None of them are where they last remember being, and some of them have strange marks on the palms of their left hands. It's all incredibly unsettling, but truthfully they should be used to it by now. No one will remember traveling to their new location.

Residents can wake up anywhere within their new location and in any position. Curled up in a bed, sprawled on a couch, huddled beneath a coffee table, propped against a wall... Wherever they are, they will themselves to be in quite an unusual state. While they are wearing whatever clothing items they went to sleep in, plus their shoes and a coat. The newest arrivals to Mathias Township will perhaps stand out for being slightly more appropriately dressed than their new neighbors. They are all a bit damp, physically worn out, and half-frozen from their apparent walk through a blizzard.

Each of the four locations is inescapable — residents are trapped, with exterior doors and windows being shut tight and a blizzard raging outside. The locations are stocked with fresh food and water and a large pile of firewood for the fireplaces in each building. The circumstances residents will face, however, may vary wildly between locations as the forces at work in Mathias respond to the recent actions of certain individuals.


BOARDING HOUSE | GREY GULL
NEW HOUSE | MYSTERY MANSION

These residents will wake with a mark on their left hand palms, a spiraling black symbol similar to those some may have seen around town. All marks are identical and cannot be removed, but will have seemingly vanished from their skin on the morning of the 26th day.

Castiel, Daisy Johnson, Dean Winchester
Elena Gilbert, Elijah Mikaelson, Helen Magnus
Phil Coulson, Quentin Coldwater, Sherlock Holmes

DAYS 026-027
IN THE AFTERMATH
After their ordeals of the past two days, the unfortunate residents of Mathias Township will be grateful to find that they were back where they are supposed to be, a chill still clinging to their clothes in whatever place they went to sleep the night of the 23rd day. New arrivals will wake in the living room of the boarding house. None of the residents will wake with anything in their possession from the locations in which they were previously trapped, including any notes or documentation they may have made during their time there.

---

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— SNOW continues to fall heavily on Days 024-025, resulting in white out conditions from the wind that blows in gusts of over 35 mph; the temperature also drops drastically, making conditions extremely dangerous for residents. The blizzard clears on Day 26 and residents are left with a cold, calm world covered in white.

— THE FOG remains blocking the paths in the forest, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the northern section of town, beginning just before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be. Venturing into the fog is... ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue to plague the town. Kylo Ren and Thomas Richardson have vanished without a trace.

— NO NEW DEATHS have occurred in town, but there is a new "grave" in the small makeshift graveyard near the schoolhouse. Rey's corpse has been moved and covered with stones to wait for the ground to thaw enough for a proper burial.

— THE LANTERNS will be gone from the morning of Day 024. No trace of them remains.

---

OOC UPDATES

— A GIFT for everyone! As a thank you for being part of this spooky little game, every character in the game is being gifted 2 Activity Points. These may be banked over here — instead of linking to an AC post, you may put "New Year gift" in that field. Happy 2021, friends!

— NEW LAYOUTS have been installed for our communities! Huge thanks to our Eldritch Librarian Stars for putting in the time to get this place looking shiny. (You may have also noticed some new page layouts being installed — these are also our Librarian's handiwork!)

— DISCOVERIES have been collected and collated for your review. Please note that this is OOC information only, put together for the purpose of helping you as players see connections and possibilities for CR and your own character's potential avenues of exploration and investigation. (If we are missing something, please report it so we can add it to the list.)

— REMINDERS — Don't forget about the bulletin board. Please continue reporting your updates to locations, plots, and discoveries. The map of Mathias has been added to the locations page for ease of reference. Make sure your character's sanity level is kept updated. Prospective players are still joining the TDM, so it's recommended to track new top-levels so you don't miss them.

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Raylan Givens | Day 27

[tinstar]

Kidnapping aside, the day prior was the longest time that Raylan had stayed indoors and frankly, whatever reprieve he'd needed to recover was over. Their little group was fed, well rested, mostly sane and both the house and the brewery were in decent order. Now Raylan had to turn his eyes back to the Township, tight-lipped town that she was, and see what they couldn't make of what they'd learned.

Closed to Doc

The Town Hall was the best place to look for anything, not that it had much anything of use, even with the slowly collecting knowledge that Constantine was compiling. Raylan was glad John wasn't there when they showed up - the last thing he wanted was to hear a fight today - and he hadn't arrived by the time they left empty handed. Well, not completely empty handed, they'd learned the barest scrap about the whole fire gig, but nothing actionable.

Displeased with all the roadblocks they seemed to hit, Raylan was glad for the suggestion about going out to the willow trees; it gave him something to do that wasn't go back home and drink some more. His gut was glad for it too.

"So where'd you learn about this kinda stuff anyway? Harvestin' off the land as you travel. Was it general knowledge? If so, the general population has gotten significantly stupider, even if more of us can read."

Closed to Malcolm and Will

After he and Doc got back home, Raylan hunted down Malcolm, though he tried to not apply a 'hunting' term to someone like the New Yorker, and brought up the subject of Will Graham again. Malcolm had expressed an interest that Raylan knew was both professional and intellectual, and there wasn't a lot of intellectual stimulation to go around on Malcolm's level. Raylan and Doc weren't slouches, but they weren't exactly sharp minded enough to profile in the way Malcolm and Will were. It might benefit both of them, not to mention get him a beat on what Will was like when he wasn't walking on the edge of.. Whatever that was.

"I don't know which one he's in," Raylan said as they walked up Phillips Drive, white hat back in its place on his head over the popped wool collar of his jacket. "But I figure it'll be process of elimination. Only a few glances into the windows, see if the dusts moved, if the house is even inhabitable in the first place. I'd like to come up on him easy if we can. This ain't an ambush." It was a social call. A social check up call.

Raylan had no idea how it would go, but Will could only be so many places and they had the hours to kill to check 'em all out.

Evening Wildcard

Despite the cold, Raylan found himself on the porch again at dusk to watch the sun go down, a fresh cup of coffee in his hand and not a drop of moonshine to be found in it. It wasn't where he would wish to be, if he could be anywhere, but the sunset itself was nice, and worth taking in. Maybe just as a reminder that beautiful things still existed, even here.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm was eager. He actually put his suit on under his scavenged winter coat, heading out at Raylan’s side. He pointed at a house ahead.

“Footprints going up the driveway.”

[tinstar]

"Might as well," he said with a nod as he headed that way. The tip of his nose and the tips of his ears had already gone numb, he wasn't going to get any colder than he was now and they were running out of places to look. Maybe this would be the one.

Stepping up, Raylan cupped his hand to help shield off some of the blinding white light bouncing off the snow so he could look into the front window, looking for any signs of movement or disruption in the way the place looked. Most places had been gone through, dusts disturbed by everyone else, but no one bothered to clean it up. He was looking for that too.

[this_ismydesign]

[ Will had found himself a small one and a half story farmhouse as far out of the way along Phillips Drive as he could manage. It reminded him of his little house in Wolf Trap, complete with chimney and fireplace.

The place was going to need to be cleaned and fixed up, but the windows were all intact and the fireplace had been the real seal on the deal. There was no fire burning at the moment, but Raylan would see the dark ash that suggested the fire had burned within the past twelve hours.

As for Will himself.

He was out collecting what he could in terms of firewood. He had found clothes that were not blood soaked, as well as soap and other toiletries so he no longer resembled a crime scene. He was not too proud to wear flannel and was bundled up in layers of the stuff, as well as a hearty outdoor coat. Complete with a stocking cap over his curls.

His path was such that he could see Raylan and an unknown figure a split second before they might see him. Will's expression was not particularly welcoming, but rather resigned and there was pinched quality to his already gaunt features. ]

Can I help you gentlemen?

[abrightboy]

[Malcolm's gaze shifted from Raylan to the source of the voice, his gaze assessing, running over the things Raylan had told him about the man they were looking for.]

You must be Will.

[tinstar]

[Pulling back from the window, Raylan's head swiveled towards the voice, taking in the new clothes, the arm full of wood, the beanie and the distinct lack of blood and panic. He pulled away from the door and closed the distance to about six feet with a curious tilt of his head.]

You're lookin' a little better, out here in the sunlight. [A start to better, maybe but a start was better than none at all.] This is Malcolm Bright - [ he introduced with a flare of his hand towards Malcolm. No reason to have anyone on unlevel ground, after all.] - he's here to stretch his legs. I'm here to see how you're doing.

[Raylan studied Will's face as he asked more directly. Are you still hallucinating to the point of disassociation that you were before?] Got a better grip on how things are?

[this_ismydesign]

[ Blue eyes flicked towards Malcolm when he spoke. It didn't take profiling skill to put Malcolm's knowledge of his name and being here with Raylan to figure out how that came about. Add in the flare of the hand action and okay there was a connection between the two men.

Nothing showed on his face which remained reserved, but inwardly yellow caution lights were flashing. If only because it would be two against one where these two men here for mischief.

Malcolm might pick up the caution in the way Will continued to hold his distance, even with Raylan making all the right noises. Except for that question at the end, Will was simply going to ignore it. ]

Proof of life confirmed, Marshall. [ He responded before flicking his eyes back down the drive. ] You can mark your civic duty fulfilled.

[ He gave Malcolm a glance, acknowledging his presence but then began to angle towards the house. Not turning his back on either man, but also expecting them to see themselves off. ]

[abrightboy]

[Malcolm lets him turn before speaking up.]

I hear you’re a profiler. You catch serial killers with the FBI? Sounds like exciting work. [Noted as he approaches. When he draws near, he gestures to the firewood.] Need a hand with that?

[tinstar]

[Oh if only Raylan was ever herded so easily.]

No civic duty here. No government either. I'm a free agent right now. [Which.. wasn't exactly a great thing, Raylan out without a leash, but they were all stuck in what they were stuck in.] Call it neighbourly concern.

[thering]

"I've never really lived for a long time out in the country. It was more Wyatt's dream. I liked the conveniences of living in towns myself. Even though trouble tends to follow where there's saloons and beautiful women." It was strange, no one here really asked about Wyatt but back home plenty of people were more interested in his old friend. And he didn't much mind since it meant he didn't have to talk about himself as they walked towards the trees.

"But we spent a lot of time traveling together. And you learn things on the road. Contessa, too - she taught me. A few things." He gives credit where credit is due but he would rather not talk about her, so he changes the subject.

"You know they peddled actual snake oil during my time. Most people didn't know any better. You have to sift through the horseshit yourself. People aren't more stupid, they just- rely on the Amazon and the Wikipedia now. Know how to work those than fetch things themselves."

[tinstar]

"I figured most of your livin' outside was due to bein' on the move. Unless y'all went by train. Can't say that I recall how big or far trains were back in that day.. definitely not continental..." That wasn't really the point. Surviving in the frontier was. There was some fantastical romanticized idea about it all, about what one could learn out there living it 'rough', but Raylan knew better than to lean on and assume in that.

He scoffed as he glanced down at the snow they were kicking up in their steps. "Takes more than a lack of this kinda knowledge to make a people stupid. Maybe I'm just used to a particularly fantastical breed of stupid out in Kentucky. Always wondered why they call it snake oil. Still ain't figured that one out.."

He looked over. "Who's Contessa?"

[thering]

"They were still building the railroad, so we mostly travelled by horse," Doc confirms. "Running a little short on men to do the work with the war, but they got it done in the end." It was quite a sight to watch it get done, but these days it's all heavy machinery and it would only take a day what used to be able to get done in a week.

Doc would have happily explained the history of snake oil and how it all went to shits but he had a feeling that Raylan wanted to know more about Contessa than he does about snake oil. Even though Doc would much rather talk about anything or anyone other than Contessa.

"You would know her as Kate. My wife." There was no grandiose ceremony or vows exchanged or any such formalities, but spoken and unspoken promises were made, and where possible he tries to be a man of his word. "She was-... sommin'. Suppose we weren't good for each other." But they kept coming back to each other anyway. He suspects Raylan understands this.

[tinstar]

"Got it done and then some," he quips as they come up to the treeline. The railroad had changed everything and was still in heavy use today. "In Harlan, you don't need a watch, you can call the time by the 5:30 coal train...

Raylan looked over as they came to a stop, eyebrows lifting. "The way the stories go, they've don't mention marriage. A relationship and a deep one but." He understood the pulling boomerang effect, but that wasn't the way with him and Winona. He loved her. She loved him.. until she didn't anymore. He was too blind to her and how she made him to see the abuse for what it was. The abuse was better than nothing at all.

"Course no one really needs a piece of paper and a preacher to make that happen.. Spouses can teach you a lot, sometimes.." He looked over the trees, taking the opportunity to step off the marriage talk path before it got back to him.

"Never been great at botany, but I think I can pick out a willow tree.. Guessin' those ain't changed much in a couple hundred years, right?"

[thering]

"I love dynamite." No, really. Nothing gets Doc more excited than the prospect of using dynamite. It solves all manner of problems. Except maybe his already explosive, volatile relationship with Kate. "Made for quite a spectacle, blowing a hole through a mountain."

He takes Raylan over to a tree that he's already been working on, reaching out to rub down one arm of the willow tree already stripped of its bark. The topic of their wives would come up again later that night. For now Doc is only too happy to change the subject.

"Willow trees tend to like water. They don't all droop down by the shoreline but we'll have to wait for spring to come around before I can show you the shape of the leaves. The best bark is young, off a tree or offshoot that's only a few years old." That's why Doc has left most of the main tree trunks alone. Where possible he's also just snapped off some entire sections to strip and use as firewood. No point letting it go to waste out here.

Clearly Doc has spent some time here working his way around different trees. There's even a rig that looks like a hammock where Doc might have passed out after Malcolm duty once or thrice. And right now he's finding this tour around his haunt a lot easier than the last time he had mentioned the elephant in the forest, about what he would like for both Raylan and Malcolm should he have another museum incident that doesn't turn out to be a false alarm.

[tinstar]

"You'd get along with Boyd Crowder. He was our dynamite man. Took to yellin' Fire in the hole anytime he blew up a church. Never got enough in blowin' holes in mountains."

Following over, Raylan pushed his hat up on his forehead with his thumb and looked up and down the tree. "I won't ask why, I suppose that's not necessary but.." He nodded. "I'll remember. Do you do anything to it once you've got the bark? Pre..washin' or somethin'? Malcolm said he put it into hot water."

They had plenty to talk about when the darkness fell again and the two men found themselves cloistered in the living room that night with a few bottles. Raylan knew that's when they'd get around to anything tender on their list of topics, wives, Malcolm, each other, when they're at least half a bottle in. Raylan almost welcomed it; the subtle back and forth dance of them pushing each other's lines. It wasn't the same kind of banter he got with Boyd or anyone else but it was.. just as deep, if he allowed himself to be sentimental about it.

[thering]

Alright so Doc might no longer be on speaking terms with the man upstairs but he doubts he would get along with someone who would blow up a church. The churches he knew were not only a place of worship, or marriage, or funerals, but it also housed the holy men and women who ran it, and orphaned children too. That's crossing a line.

"Well once it's old, it's dried out and brittle, grumpy and cranky as shit, like us," Doc jokes. "Most of the good stuff's gone." He pries a little bit of old bark off the main trunk to demonstrate, not enough to do any damage to the tree. "You don't wanna be drinkin' splinters." If they didn't have a choice then yeah, he'd be taking all this off too, but right now there are enough trees to hopefully last them for however much time they are spending here before they find a way out. Despite the odds, Doc is still holding out hope for that.

"I leave 'em to dry out in the moonshine brewery. You can check in on everything at the same time while you're over." And it would stop Malcolm or anyone else from just throwing them out or taking them and using them prematurely. Doc hasn't yet tried distilling or grinding them into powder or anything. This is all just acquired knowledge; he didn't bring a portable lab with him on horseback when he used to live off the land.

Once Raylan has demonstrated that he can at least use a filed down butter knife without cutting himself, they had spent enough time for a sizeable haul before the daylight was finished, and then they are back to yesterday morning's arrangement. At home, in the living room, Doc stoking the fire, Raylan on the couch.

"Scoot over," Doc grumbles before sinking into the couch with a sigh. The soap Malcolm got him makes him smell like mint and pine trees as he settles in next to Raylan. He doesn't really feel as free to talk as when they were alone on the porch, with Negan, Neal and Malcolm in the house. But that's a non-complaint since he doesn't talk anyway. He's finishing his drink and working his way to getting Raylan to talk.

"The house I woke up in," Doc starts, swallowing his moonshine and holding his glass on his knee, tipping his head back and turning to look at Raylan. "It had all this- blue. Has all that started yet, over at Winona's place? The- the paint job and the cot and the- those socks you can wear on two fingers."

[tinstar]

Oh, Doc would find many MANY other things to disagree with Boyd on - blowin' up churches was the just the start to Boyd's list of sins, but when it came to explosives, he'd find a very intelligent and enthusiastic Fireman friend.

Raylan scoffed at the joke but nodded. "So it's gotta be dried. Thought that might be the case - nothing comes from a field that's smoked without being dried, tea's gotta be the same way.." He couldn't argue cranky or grumpy, in the slightest, but the image it all invoked was amusing enough. Either way, it was an important note. No doubt Issues could arise out of wet plant product.

Once spring came, there was going to have to be some willow hunting though - the tree Doc was having him practice on didn't look like it had much left in it. Unsurprisingly, Raylan was just as good with a knife as he was with a gun. Not that he thought he'd be putting that to work with a sharpened butter knife.

That evening, back home, Raylan was more than happy to let Doc busy his hands with the fire, silently taking in the odd quiet of the coming night in comfort, and he smirked at the command, doing just that to make more room for him. He couldn't help but notice the smell - they all smelled the same now, after they showered, but it still smelt great in its subtle way, however ruined by the waft of sharp moonshine under his nose as he took a drink.

The question posed was about as far out into left field as Raylan could have ever guess and he looked over with a slight lift of his eyebrows and another huff of breath at the talk of baby socks. Out of all the things to chose to talk about..

"Winona doesn't have a place - she was in the middle of sellin' her house from her last marriage before she.." He inhaled as he chose his words, eyes kept down on his cup inconsequentially. "Decided to go stay with her sister for a few weeks. They're probably settin' up a place and knowin' them, it looks.. perfect." There was a little sadness that he couldn't quite help in his voice. "She's the first of the two to have a baby despite Gayle bein' older, so I imagine Gayle is whippin' up all sorts of stuff."

Day 27 - later in the evening

[abrightboy]

After helping Neal with his poached apples, Malcolm pulled his new sweater on over his t-shirt, but didn't bother with his coat. He'd seen Raylan head out the door with his coffee cup earlier. He hadn't seen him come back in.

The man did like a porch.

Malcolm made fresh coffee, poured a mug full, then made a cup of herbal tea for himself. Coffee in the evening was a bad idea for him. He took them out to the porch, hoping Raylan was still there and hadn't wandered off into town or something. The sun was going down. Wanting to sit with him was the least of his concerns if that was the case.

But Raylan was there, as Malcolm stepped outside.

He offered the fresh cup wordlessly.

[tinstar]

The smell of apples wafting through the house brought a particular familial kind of vibe to House 1306, one that left Raylan feeling oddly warm and sentimental. It was part of why he'd gotten his cup of coffee and gone outside - a reset in the quiet evening where he might be able to straighten out some of the threads balling up in his mind. The coffee hadn't survived for more than a half hour and he hadn't bothered to get more.

He thought the cup sitting in the accumulated snow on the railing didn't look too bad. Almost.. artsy.

Raylan was pulled out of his thoughts at the sound of the door opening and looked up to find Malcolm. Giving him a little smile and a faint nod of greeting, he reached out for said coffee offering.

"Thanks. My cup ran out.. a while ago. How's the uh.. the apples goin'?"

[abrightboy]

"All done."

Malcolm leaned his hip on the post supporting the railing so he could face Raylan, wrapping both hands around his cup to keep them warm.

"How are you? I... haven't seen much of you since this morning."

Which was pretty normal and Malcolm had spent a swath of the day with Doc, walking around town.

"Did you get a few hours in after I... left the room?"

I wrote this before I started cooking and didn't finish it til now lol

[tinstar]

Distance. Considering what they'd done yesterday, maybe that was a good thing. Or, maybe it was indicative of the space that Malcolm might have wanted. Any other time, Malcolm sat next to him. He shifted his cup a little into his palm and took a sip, eyes kept on Malcolm's face til the questions.

"I've been tryin' to keep busy. Doc went out with me this mornin' and taught me about your willow bark. Learned a few things, which is always nice when it ain't about how wrong I am about the view of the word, my reality and time. Restocked the firewood. Cleaned next door." He was kind of tired of getting told 'You ever think you just don't know what your reality is made up of?'

He didn't get any of that here.

Eyes coming back to Malcolm, his lips curled a little bit. "A few hours, yeah. Not a terribly uncomfortable bed, especially when it's prewarmed." Nevermind that Raylan curled up and soaked in the warmth and scent and comfort of it all. He wanted to ask Malcolm if he was okay, like somehow a kiss could.. destroy something and it could.. He couldn't bring himself to open that door at this exact moment.

"Doc'll be takin' you tonight but if y'all need me.. I'll probably be awake for about five minutes... When you're not screamin' my name, I can usually slip back under for a few hours more..." His lips curled a little. "How are you?"

Overall but also.. since yesterday.

[OOC note for future readings: Raylan ended up telling Doc later that Raylan would take the night.]

[abrightboy]

Malcolm didn’t want the distance, he just wanted to be able to see his face. He wanted to be able to see how it looked at him now, after that thing he was sorry for.

It was warmer than he was expecting. It warmed him.

When Raylan cheekily mentioned him screaming his name, Malcolm looked mock-affronted. “I didn’t do that last night!” Then he realized he wasn’t sure. “...Did I?”

He smiled down at the floor when Raylan asked how he was, his grip tightening a little on his mug.

“I’m hanging in there.” He looked at Raylan. “I’m...” He had no idea how to finish that sentence in words he could say outloud to Raylan. He just stopped, like he’d shorted out for a moment, then realized he was staring at the other man’s face and said “I’m baffled at how someone else could be a bigger expert on what your reality is like. I think you’d know what you experience,” he said matter-of-factly before looking into his tea again. “Or what you... feel.”

[tinstar]

The mock-affort had Raylan grinning and chuckling under his breath, eyebrows lifting a little with the mirth of his reply. This was good, this ease. It meant they could exist together without Malcolm going all.. Well. Proving it was a mistake. "You didn't," he assured.

His chin lifted a little as Malcolm stopped, concerned that maybe Something was Happening that he wasn't aware of.. because it couldn't possibly be that other thing. But the answer he got didn't seem like it quite fit. He wouldn't push, but that was only because he didn't want to open something he wasn't ready for.

"They mean well. Mean it to be some kinda comfort. They want to pad the sharpness of my ignorance to it. Like I should take it as.." He pulled a face and shook his head, taking a sip of his coffee. "Faith somehow. Very religion-esq. I do 'em the favor of not comparin' it to X-files. Aliens. Monsters.. Not too far off, if you really think about it. Both OtherWordly."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looked at him.

"As someone whose perception of reality is sometimes skewed, it's no comfort to tell someone their perception of reality might be skewed. And I think whoever is telling you that wouldn't like it either," he said simply.

His eyes lingered on Raylan for a moment and then dipped back to his cup.

"Do you..." He paused. If he asked, was that going to make it slip through his fingers? His jaw flexed for a moment and then he looked at Raylan again. "Do you regret... what happened yesterday?" He made himself ask. In the aftermath of Neal's immediate regret for doing the same thing, he needed to know if Raylan's 'sorry' meant he had regretted it too.

He wouldn't blame him if he did, but. It was more difficult on his heart with Raylan. He'd wanted to kiss Raylan for a while. He'd been sure it would never happen but... when it did? He wasn't sure what to do with it. He didn't know what it meant.

[tinstar]

He was right. It wasn't any comfort. There was no place in his existence where he told people who were supposed to be his equal on the innocent side of the law that they were rude unless he was pushed, so he'd always tolerated it. There wasn't any other way for him to cope and come out on top except for to take the quiet route.

Raylan's eyes had drifted out to the thousand yard stare beyond the porch but snapped back to Malcolm at his question.

"Should I? You didn't say no.. It was.." He inhaled, eyes moving back out into the darkness that had settled too quickly on the horizon before settling down in his cup. "New. A first."

Not the first time he'd kissed someone, obviously, but Raylan trusted that Malcolm was smart enough to figure it out.

"I don't," he reiterated. "Regret it," he clarified, gaze coming back up to Malcolm's too blue eyes. "I don't often do things I regret."

He was, if nothing else, a purposeful man.