mugumugu asked:

Curnow parks the cruiser and leans over to get something from the front passenger seat. Daud watches him through the living room window, wondering if he should be going for a gun, if it’s even worth going for a gun, he has no desire to kill someone again, not so soon after he’s retired.

Curnow awkwardly negotiates his way out of the cruiser and then kicks the door closed with his boot. He’s got his hat tucked under one arm, and in his other hand is a…

Daud blinks. Is that a pie?

He tucks the pistol back behind the bookcase and goes out to the porch. Curnow’s halfway up the gravel walk, and when he sees Daud he grins brightly. He’s on the lanky side, Curnow is, with features a bit too sharp for true handsomeness, but his smile lights up his face in a way Daud finds deeply worrying.

“Howdy,” Curnow says.

Who even says that, good god.

From this ficlet here

HAHAHAHA I love that you picked this story, and this part of it in particular. I wanted Geoff to have a reason to drop by, because, well, it’s a small town, people talk, Daud paid for the ranch in cash…and Geoff’s the town sheriff. He’s got to make sure everything’s on the up and up.

But it would be rude to just, you know, show up, not to mention that it would put Daud on the defensive if there was something going on. Geoff may not be the most politically savvy person in the world, but he’s not stupid; he can play the cheerful, bumbling town sheriff when he needs to.

(He doesn’t know that Daud’s caught on to the act after less than five minutes of conversation. Daud doesn’t know that Callista baked the pie because Geoff asked her to, specifically so he could be all, “howdy doodly, neighborino!” at the mildly suspicious new guy. They keep up this charade for months.)

Other random things about this scene:

• Daud has weapons stashed all over the house in this AU. Visitors and his newly hired ranch hands find them in the weirdest places.
• The pie is an apple pie — it’s Callista’s favorite, and since her uncle was insisting she make one just to give the damn thing away right off the bat, she decided to make two.
• She didn’t share the second one with Geoff. (“That, dear uncle, is for making me give away the fruits of my labor to someone I’ve never even met.”)
• Daud, on the other hand, shared his. (Geoff “accidentally” runs into Daud at the supermarket and politely inquires about the pie. Daud tells him it’s excellent, and then awkwardly mentions that he did save him a slice like he said he would…? “A slice” turns out to be half the pie, which they split between them while sitting on the porch and drinking coffee liberally spiked with whiskey. Daud wants to know if it’s okay for Geoff to be drinking on the job; Geoff just grins and says he’s off the clock, laughs when Daud looks rather pointedly at his hat. “I like my hat,” is all he says. They finish the pie and the whiskey both)
• I’m sorry, I just really love the idea of Geoff saying, “howdy” without any irony whatsoever. HOWDY.