Raylan sighs heavily into his mug of hot black coffee, the only good thing of the day, as he stares out the window of the Sherriff's office at one Small Town, freshly blanketed in snow. It wasn't the snow that he was sighing at or the fact that he'd been sent out on loan to the Canadian Government again, not directly. The Canadian's paid just as well as the Americans and he had his reputation to think of but that didn't make the idea of spending more of his time in a small town, with small townie bullshit, any better. To make matters worse, this small town had a slight problem with demons. That fact did something for Purgatory that was a hard bar to pass - becoming worst small town Raylan Givens has had to suffer in.
What he understood of his case so far: He was taking over an Active Area for a Deputy Marshal that had - according to the file - been sent to Hell in front of the consultant Wynonna Earp, if he'd read that correctly. And that she was still badged up and on the case. Yeah, he blinked a few good times at her last name and then laughed his ass off at the irony of it all, getting sent off to follow after the bloodline of a personal inspiration. A romanticized ideal that he never really had to question. It felt insane, but he was dealing with it in private.
"And how late you think she's gonna be again?" It was only 2 pm and Raylan was already debating pouring a shot of whiskey into his shit coffee. "I'd rather not have to find my way out to her place in this snow if I can help it. Didn't even bring snow boots."
Sheriff Randy Nedley pushes back in his chair, comfortably lacing his fingers over his belly as he considers the rangy man currently staring out the window. "Well, that was your second mistake."
Jury's still out on the first one, but he'd put Vegas odds on it being that the guy actually came here to begin with. Their little team is still rocking in the wake left by Dolls' death. Nicole is drawn and pale and focused, Waverly still bursts into tears at inopportune moments, and Wynonna...
Well, nobody needs their first day on a new job to include a furious, heartsick Wynonna Earp. Nedley glances at the clock, which is ticking slowly towards quarter past, and muses on whether she's late because she hasn't woken up yet from the previous night's bender or because she's been up and hunting since dawn. Even chance, he thinks.
The Earps' old blue and white Ford has a particular growl, a particular creak to the door he'd recognize if he were dead. Through long practice (and more than a little immersion therapy), he doesn't move when he hears worn-down boots stomping down the hall, right before Wynonna shoves open his door in a sway of fringe and long waving hair. Her glance tracks from him, blandly sipping coffee at his desk, to Givens, and her mouth thins into a hard line. "Nope."
She lifts a hand in denial and heads back into the hall in the same motion. "Get rid of him, Randy."
He'd put bets on him coming here being his first mistake too, but at least one of these two can actually be corrected. He just needed to have a few more weeks of frozen toes before he considers succumbing to Canada's cold. It was a matter of pride.. and style. At least his calf length wool jacket was more than useful.
He might not know that the growl he's listening to is the Earp's truck specifically yet, but it was loud, it was out front and it sounded too much like home for his comfort. He only turns around expectantly when he hears the footsteps, and watches Wynonna spot him, process him, and reject his everything inside a few heartbeats.
"Not one for hospitality, is she."
The Sheriff goes to open his mouth, to answer either Raylan or Wynonna, but Raylan lifts a hand and shakes his head as he heads for the door, stopping only to set his coffee on the desk Randy was sitting in front of.
"Let me take a shot at it." He could see the relief and amusement on the Sheriff's face. Clearly, Randy knew that it wasn't going to go as well as Raylan hoped, no matter what he did. In truth, he did too but that wasn't going to stop him from trying. You miss all the shots you don't take and he did understand that this was a sensitive situation. Raylan walks out into the hall after her and calls a "Ms. Earp?" as his long legs start covering distance. A too reasonable tone, polite, but one underlaced with twenty years of assumed authority. She was free to ignore it.
That didn't mean she'd escape it. He fully intended to follow after her until she stopped or she drove away, and even that wouldn't deter him.
The sound of bootheels on linoleum, annoyingly, is going the wrong direction, and she's wheeling around to confront him by the time his Ms Earp? hits the air. "What part of nope was I unclear about?"
She's never been good at standing her ground when she could be pushing in, and she comes back down the hall at a faster clip than when she left, blue-grey eyes snapping, the line of her jaw tight. "You need to pack up and get out. The last thing we need is some Black Badge dick showing up thinking he can call the shots. Been there, done that, got the off-brand knock-off t-shirt."
Welcome to 'team shut up and do what he says, she'd told Waverly, back at the beginning, and it hits all over again like a fist landing abruptly in her gut. Black Badge got Dolls killed. They can fuck themselves sideways with all their supernatural totems; they can be demon chow, for all she cares. She glares up at the man, tall and lanky and annoyingly mild.
She sure had some fire in her soul, something Raylan could appreciate on a base level, momentarily grateful for his upbringing and experience with strong, opinionated women. He was as friendly neutral as he could be, knowing all the while he was only going to piss her off more by virtue of his answer. It was better than being indifferent and wiser than matching her level of self-assertion.
"We need to talk," he says with a slight smile of politeness once she finishes, continuing with a gesture of his long fingers. "And it ain't gotta be here, and it ain't gotta be now, but we need to talk either way. I'm afraid I can't promise to not follow you - and I think you know why."
He had to be clear about Dolls, about where Black Badge stood with a death of one of its men and where they all stood against the fight on Demons and dark atrocities making its way into their world to wreck havoc on innocent people.
"Our fight ain't done here, Ms Earp. I think you know that better than anyone."
A few more steps is all it takes, and she's inches from him now, glaring up into his face, so angry that it never crosses her mind that he might see more than her anger, that he might see the heartbreak that's fueling it, desperate and desolate. She's not even thirty yet, but any youth in her eyes is dark and wounded and flashing with pain. "Let me tell you what I know, Marshal. I know this fight isn't over. And I know it's my fight, not yours."
She stares up at him, furious as a summer storm. "I didn't ask for Black Badge to send you. I don't want anything from them, and I don't want anything from you. I think you should get the hell out of here before you become the next costly mistake for them."
But even as she rages at him, she knows: there's no getting rid of him. If he goes, another one will come. Black Badge doesn't give a shit about Purgatory, or Dolls, or her, but the'll keep coming anyway.
Women were usually angry about something specific. Men tended to just be Angry, to be cruel, to take out their feelings on the world around them like cowards and boys, but women always had a reason. It was something he'd learned before he joined Black Badge but even still, it applied. So it wasn't hard to see the heartbreak behind that fury. Nor was it hard to see how very much Wynonna needed a hug.
He hoped she had someone that might give her what she needed. But Raylan Givens had seen a lotta people angry, a lotta women furious in their righteousness and correctness about the way the would should be, to let her lash against him with all the edge her voice could muster.
He could shoulder that.
"I know what I signed up for." The statement was short and firm, not unkind but in no way bending to the winds of her anger as he met her gaze with only slightly wider eyes; the unmovable mountain. There was no part about it that he didn't mean. Death was always going to come to them. One way or the other.
"And so did Dolls. This is our fight. Not just yours and not just Black Badges. It ain't about either of us; it's about them. Everyone else who doesn't know this shit exists, everyone else who's got a bit of peace we're never gonna know."
It was ugly and might be taken as a jabbing statement, the kind of verbal slap that someone might use to calm down someone who was freaking out - hell, he wouldn't be surprised if he got hit for it, she looked like the type - but it was the softest hard truth they had on hand. He softens himself a little, edges rounding over to something that most people would find more reassuring.
"It's a fight none of us should be takin' on alone if we hope to stay on top of it."
She pales at the hard words, the tendons standing out in her neck for a moment before she narrows her eyes at him once again, her lips thinning. "You really think Black Badge gives a shit about the fight? About anyone? About you?"
She can't help it; the memories come unbidden. Dolls, smiling at her from the hillside above the Homestead. Dolls, curled at her back in her bed, promising she isn't alone. Dolls, lying still and cold on the frozen earth. "Demons didn't kill Dolls. Black Badge did. And they'll kill you, too, if they fucking feel like it."
The worst part of this all is that— he's right. And Dolls might have said the same thing, once upon a time, before he looked at her at that party, something soft and undefinable in his eyes, and said screw 'em, I need you. She misses him like she'd miss her ribs, or her lungs. Everything feels wrong, everything hurts, everything is so much harder without him.
Which is why this new Marshal, Givens, isn't wrong. She can't do this alone. She can't do it without Black Badge. She already knows that when she turns around again, he'll be coming right along with her to the office. All she can think is that it's a damn good thing Nicole buried Dolls' mug with him; she couldn't stand to see someone else drinking out of it.
The misery isn't outweighing the anger in her voice, but it's there, swelling behind every word, filling her eyes and flushing in her cheeks. "Did you even know him? Do you have the foggiest fucking idea of whose boots you're trying to fill?"
Some questions didn't need answers. There was nothing to gain from rising to the bait, to telling her why it didn't matter if Black Badge gave a damn or not. No answer he could give would really answer he thought she had. Why didn't they care about Dolls? Why didn't someone, anyone? She was looking for and had, apparently found who she wanted to place that blame with.
But so long as she allowed for any delineation between him as a man and the badge he wore, Raylan was confident he could find a way around those ugly truths of her life, towards something that served their goal more definitively. Her grief was good, in its own way - she'd fight like hell because of it.
His dark eyes stay steady on hers and lets the words ring around them for a long moment before he answers, calm and sure and back to that reassuring tone.
"No. Cause I know the file I got ain't a fraction of the man it belongs to. Maybe that's somethin' else you can help me fix when we got some down time. But I got a lead on a lost little girl with a whole bunch of dead cows across the families land and I could use your knowledge of the area. Of it's problems, hot spots, people that ain't from around here."
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Traded Tin for blessed steel, out on loan and here with zeal; Canadian edition
What he understood of his case so far: He was taking over an Active Area for a Deputy Marshal that had - according to the file - been sent to Hell in front of the consultant Wynonna Earp, if he'd read that correctly. And that she was still badged up and on the case. Yeah, he blinked a few good times at her last name and then laughed his ass off at the irony of it all, getting sent off to follow after the bloodline of a personal inspiration. A romanticized ideal that he never really had to question. It felt insane, but he was dealing with it in private.
"And how late you think she's gonna be again?" It was only 2 pm and Raylan was already debating pouring a shot of whiskey into his shit coffee. "I'd rather not have to find my way out to her place in this snow if I can help it. Didn't even bring snow boots."
no subject
Jury's still out on the first one, but he'd put Vegas odds on it being that the guy actually came here to begin with. Their little team is still rocking in the wake left by Dolls' death. Nicole is drawn and pale and focused, Waverly still bursts into tears at inopportune moments, and Wynonna...
Well, nobody needs their first day on a new job to include a furious, heartsick Wynonna Earp. Nedley glances at the clock, which is ticking slowly towards quarter past, and muses on whether she's late because she hasn't woken up yet from the previous night's bender or because she's been up and hunting since dawn. Even chance, he thinks.
The Earps' old blue and white Ford has a particular growl, a particular creak to the door he'd recognize if he were dead. Through long practice (and more than a little immersion therapy), he doesn't move when he hears worn-down boots stomping down the hall, right before Wynonna shoves open his door in a sway of fringe and long waving hair. Her glance tracks from him, blandly sipping coffee at his desk, to Givens, and her mouth thins into a hard line. "Nope."
She lifts a hand in denial and heads back into the hall in the same motion. "Get rid of him, Randy."
no subject
He might not know that the growl he's listening to is the Earp's truck specifically yet, but it was loud, it was out front and it sounded too much like home for his comfort. He only turns around expectantly when he hears the footsteps, and watches Wynonna spot him, process him, and reject his everything inside a few heartbeats.
"Not one for hospitality, is she."
The Sheriff goes to open his mouth, to answer either Raylan or Wynonna, but Raylan lifts a hand and shakes his head as he heads for the door, stopping only to set his coffee on the desk Randy was sitting in front of.
"Let me take a shot at it." He could see the relief and amusement on the Sheriff's face. Clearly, Randy knew that it wasn't going to go as well as Raylan hoped, no matter what he did. In truth, he did too but that wasn't going to stop him from trying. You miss all the shots you don't take and he did understand that this was a sensitive situation. Raylan walks out into the hall after her and calls a "Ms. Earp?" as his long legs start covering distance. A too reasonable tone, polite, but one underlaced with twenty years of assumed authority. She was free to ignore it.
That didn't mean she'd escape it. He fully intended to follow after her until she stopped or she drove away, and even that wouldn't deter him.
no subject
She's never been good at standing her ground when she could be pushing in, and she comes back down the hall at a faster clip than when she left, blue-grey eyes snapping, the line of her jaw tight. "You need to pack up and get out. The last thing we need is some Black Badge dick showing up thinking he can call the shots. Been there, done that, got the off-brand knock-off t-shirt."
Welcome to 'team shut up and do what he says, she'd told Waverly, back at the beginning, and it hits all over again like a fist landing abruptly in her gut. Black Badge got Dolls killed. They can fuck themselves sideways with all their supernatural totems; they can be demon chow, for all she cares. She glares up at the man, tall and lanky and annoyingly mild.
"Don't follow me."
no subject
"We need to talk," he says with a slight smile of politeness once she finishes, continuing with a gesture of his long fingers. "And it ain't gotta be here, and it ain't gotta be now, but we need to talk either way. I'm afraid I can't promise to not follow you - and I think you know why."
He had to be clear about Dolls, about where Black Badge stood with a death of one of its men and where they all stood against the fight on Demons and dark atrocities making its way into their world to wreck havoc on innocent people.
"Our fight ain't done here, Ms Earp. I think you know that better than anyone."
no subject
A few more steps is all it takes, and she's inches from him now, glaring up into his face, so angry that it never crosses her mind that he might see more than her anger, that he might see the heartbreak that's fueling it, desperate and desolate. She's not even thirty yet, but any youth in her eyes is dark and wounded and flashing with pain. "Let me tell you what I know, Marshal. I know this fight isn't over. And I know it's my fight, not yours."
She stares up at him, furious as a summer storm. "I didn't ask for Black Badge to send you. I don't want anything from them, and I don't want anything from you. I think you should get the hell out of here before you become the next costly mistake for them."
But even as she rages at him, she knows: there's no getting rid of him. If he goes, another one will come. Black Badge doesn't give a shit about Purgatory, or Dolls, or her, but the'll keep coming anyway.
no subject
He hoped she had someone that might give her what she needed. But Raylan Givens had seen a lotta people angry, a lotta women furious in their righteousness and correctness about the way the would should be, to let her lash against him with all the edge her voice could muster.
He could shoulder that.
"I know what I signed up for." The statement was short and firm, not unkind but in no way bending to the winds of her anger as he met her gaze with only slightly wider eyes; the unmovable mountain. There was no part about it that he didn't mean. Death was always going to come to them. One way or the other.
"And so did Dolls. This is our fight. Not just yours and not just Black Badges. It ain't about either of us; it's about them. Everyone else who doesn't know this shit exists, everyone else who's got a bit of peace we're never gonna know."
It was ugly and might be taken as a jabbing statement, the kind of verbal slap that someone might use to calm down someone who was freaking out - hell, he wouldn't be surprised if he got hit for it, she looked like the type - but it was the softest hard truth they had on hand. He softens himself a little, edges rounding over to something that most people would find more reassuring.
"It's a fight none of us should be takin' on alone if we hope to stay on top of it."
no subject
She can't help it; the memories come unbidden. Dolls, smiling at her from the hillside above the Homestead. Dolls, curled at her back in her bed, promising she isn't alone. Dolls, lying still and cold on the frozen earth. "Demons didn't kill Dolls. Black Badge did. And they'll kill you, too, if they fucking feel like it."
The worst part of this all is that— he's right. And Dolls might have said the same thing, once upon a time, before he looked at her at that party, something soft and undefinable in his eyes, and said screw 'em, I need you. She misses him like she'd miss her ribs, or her lungs. Everything feels wrong, everything hurts, everything is so much harder without him.
Which is why this new Marshal, Givens, isn't wrong. She can't do this alone. She can't do it without Black Badge. She already knows that when she turns around again, he'll be coming right along with her to the office. All she can think is that it's a damn good thing Nicole buried Dolls' mug with him; she couldn't stand to see someone else drinking out of it.
The misery isn't outweighing the anger in her voice, but it's there, swelling behind every word, filling her eyes and flushing in her cheeks. "Did you even know him? Do you have the foggiest fucking idea of whose boots you're trying to fill?"
no subject
But so long as she allowed for any delineation between him as a man and the badge he wore, Raylan was confident he could find a way around those ugly truths of her life, towards something that served their goal more definitively. Her grief was good, in its own way - she'd fight like hell because of it.
His dark eyes stay steady on hers and lets the words ring around them for a long moment before he answers, calm and sure and back to that reassuring tone.
"No. Cause I know the file I got ain't a fraction of the man it belongs to. Maybe that's somethin' else you can help me fix when we got some down time. But I got a lead on a lost little girl with a whole bunch of dead cows across the families land and I could use your knowledge of the area. Of it's problems, hot spots, people that ain't from around here."