026 》sweet troubled man are you giving or taking?

[thering]

characters: Malcolm, Neal, Negan, Raylan, Doc
location: 1306 Phillips Dr
date/time: day 26 morning
content: the reset Playstation button was pressed
warnings: tbd

After the strangeness of the past two nights they were likely fully expecting to awaken in the same strange, different, not-so-new anymore places they found themselves in in the past two days.

Instead everything seems to have reset, again. The three permanent residents and two guests are back in 1306, exactly where they had been two nights ago. Malcolm was in his own room, Neal was in Doc's and Negan in Raylan's master bedroom. The two displaced cowboys are downstairs sharing one too-small couch, a night of drinking culminating in fighting over couch space and who gets to be the bigger spoon.

The fire in the fireplace had gone out and their Winter 2020 Collection of bespoke lanterns have vanished, but nothing else seems to be awry.

Comments

[tinstar]

His head bobbed, eyes casting back down to his lap at the mention of death. "I'm sorry to hear it." He wasn't going to ask for the details on that; they weren't drinking and it was still too early to start.

"But you're still young. What are you, thirty four? Plenty of time. Be it stealin' art or gettin' chased by pretty women for it." He assumed women because.. well, because of where he came from. Neal was a handsome man - no doubt a lotta people were after that.

[conning]

"Maybe." He smiled softly. "I hope so. I... I'd like to have kids. Settle down."

Neal made an amused noise. "Peter probably wouldn't believe me if he heard me say that."

[tinstar]

Raylan smiled crookedly. "I never wanted kids before a couple of months ago. Wanted to get married, sure, but.. passin' the Givens name onto someone wasn't somethin' I was interested in."

He glanced over. "Why not? He think you travel too much? A playboy?"

[conning]

Neal shrugged, returning the smile. "Both?"

He studied the back of one hand. "It's not the name, so much. Caffrey isn't even the name I was born with. It's not the one I grew up with. I've had dozens of aliases."

A fact that he's always had very mixed feelings about. A fact that makes him feel a little lost in his own skin, sometimes. "I don't know. The idea of being part of something like that. Getting to love someone that much and figuring out ways to show it. Getting to see someone's life take shape in front of you, getting to help them find who they want to be in it. Helping them... learn to be them. It's not so much about legacy, for me. It's getting to see the best part of the future right in front of you."

[tinstar]

Arlo cared more about legacy than Raylan did. Likely part of the reason Raylan railed against it when he was young. But his name still meant something, no matter how much he tried to think otherwise.

"Fact that you think that way about it means you're gonna be a good one, when the chance comes." Raylan wished he could be so.. positive about it all, but he was just as concerned with all the ways he was going to fuck up. Whether Winona would let him be a real part of the child's life or not.

"I don't know that I see the best part of the future in anything, but then again, the kids I see are half grown and ain't raised right." Maybe he was just too jaded. Too bitter to the harsh realities of the possibilities of life. How easy it was to have a hard time.

[conning]

Neal sat back on the couch. "If the chance comes."

He smiled, the expression sad without being bitter. "People aren't exactly lining up to be with a felon who can't go more than two miles from his apartment without government approval. Once my sentence is up, maybe, or if I get the commutation."

He looked sidelong at Raylan, the sadness still there. "You care, though. About those kids. Sometimes that's enough to make a difference."

[tinstar]

Raylan huffed a laugh. "Are you kiddin' me? That's a constrained babysitter waitin' to happen. Sounds like the start of some comedy romance, actually." Not that he watched stuff like that but he'd had a wife, he'd been asked to sit through some things he might not have chosen himself.

But his smile fell into something a little more pained. "Kids never ask for the situations that they've been stuck in. Raised in. I can't blame 'em; it's not their fault. The system generally ain't kind so if I can keep 'em out of it for a little longer with a few pointed words or a few things to let slide. Not every crime is worth draggin' 'em in, ruinin' their life." He glanced over and let his smile spread a little. "I know too much about what that's like. So you don't have to worry about me.. shamin' you or having any opinions about where you come from, or how you were raised. That ain't your fault either."

[conning]

Neal snorted. "Maybe."

When Raylan went on, though, Neal sobered. "My mom did her best," he said, quiet. "I know she--"

He stopped. Somehow, even with Raylan knowing as much as he did, Neal couldn't bring himself to really talk about his mother. He shrugged. "She loved me."

[tinstar]

"I'm sure she did." They were now in terrtory that Raylan couldn't handle and he patting Neal on the knee before pushing up to a stand. He wasn't going to open any doors in that hallway. "Most do. She got you to the full grown stage," he continued, ambling away towards the windows.

"That's the hard part."

[conning]

Neal relaxed abruptly, laughing to himself.

Mom-talk. Now he knows the way to end a conversation with Raylan if he gets uncomfortable, and honestly, he is entirely fine with that.

"I should probably try to actually eat some of the breakfast you made."

[tinstar]

Could Raylan be herded conversationally? Sometimes. Especially if you knew what he wouldn't talk about. There were plenty of social rules he held himself to as well.

"You should. There's plenty of pancakes, Negan helped by cooking the eggs. No meat this morning, but that's because I think if I eat any more bacon this month it's gonna be comin' out of my pores. I plan on goin' up to the Gull later today and getting some different things, fill out our pantry a little bit. Now that I don't have any breakfast places to get a chicken biscuit at."

Oh yeah. Model of health here.

[conning]

"Maybe I'll go with you. If you don't mind the company. I need to take a look around the kitchen and see what we need, since I'm staying."

Yeah, Neal wasn't going to let them subsist on bacon and eggs.

"Might be able to figure out a chicken biscuit."

[tinstar]

Raylan shrugged and bobbed his head. "After last night, I'll let you run the kitchen as often as you want." It was an easy in for Neal to go on foodstuff runs and he would happily eat more of that fancy dinner spread, whatever Neal put on it. Just because Raylan couldn't cook like that didn't mean he didn't deeply appreciate good food.

"But a chicken biscuit isn't hard. I can handle the chicken if you can handle the biscuit, but it's not as great as the South™ makes it out to be. Didn't think it'd be your style either." If that was what was going to rub off, Raylan thought Neal should reroll or something. Pick up a hat.