Tim hadn't expected Raylan to hook their pinkies together. He knew the older marshal was still processing and coming to terms with himself and intimacy with men and beyond that they were both private people. Public displays of affection were expressed through shit talk, covering for each other's bullshit lies to the Feebs and occasionally the unspoken exchange of understanding their next move.
All this didn't stop his pinkie from wrapping around Raylan's. A firm grip but one that was loose enough that it could be a fluke of how closely they were walking along. Explained off as each need a bit of physical support from the other. But for now, it was holding hands. Companionably holding hands and shuffling along painfully, distracted by a fragile bubble of hope for a future.
"Don't know that you can assume the fitness of one environment over another," he said thoughtfully. "We see plenty of normative families where the children are treated like shit, raised running drugs, or having to be the adult of the house." Loretta McCready. "Maybe Willa gets used to a few extra locks on the doors, learns to be a little more streetwise than her classmates, doesn't get upset when I sit by the window with my rifle." They both knew any mobster or thug who showed up at the house looking to rough up Raylan's family was getting a .308 up the nose. "If at the end of the day she knows she can come to you, come to me, go to her mom, and we'll be the adults in her life with her best interests as our compass?"
He shrugged.
"Worse ways to grow up." Both of them had grown up in a house with a mother, a father and for the most part not much shit at the front door. Only behind the front door they'd been victims of domestic abuse, in Raylan's case watched his mother be a victim of his father's violence. "Willa's going to end up being the most well adjusted of the lot of us."
no subject
All this didn't stop his pinkie from wrapping around Raylan's. A firm grip but one that was loose enough that it could be a fluke of how closely they were walking along. Explained off as each need a bit of physical support from the other. But for now, it was holding hands. Companionably holding hands and shuffling along painfully, distracted by a fragile bubble of hope for a future.
"Don't know that you can assume the fitness of one environment over another," he said thoughtfully. "We see plenty of normative families where the children are treated like shit, raised running drugs, or having to be the adult of the house." Loretta McCready. "Maybe Willa gets used to a few extra locks on the doors, learns to be a little more streetwise than her classmates, doesn't get upset when I sit by the window with my rifle." They both knew any mobster or thug who showed up at the house looking to rough up Raylan's family was getting a .308 up the nose. "If at the end of the day she knows she can come to you, come to me, go to her mom, and we'll be the adults in her life with her best interests as our compass?"
He shrugged.
"Worse ways to grow up." Both of them had grown up in a house with a mother, a father and for the most part not much shit at the front door. Only behind the front door they'd been victims of domestic abuse, in Raylan's case watched his mother be a victim of his father's violence. "Willa's going to end up being the most well adjusted of the lot of us."