No One's Born Broken

[abrightboy]

For tinstar.



Gil came and went. Dani came and went. Ainsley came and then left with their mother, who refused to even hear him out about telling the truth. He stared through the window at the motionless man in the bed for some indeterminate amount of time, his hand clutching his phone in his pocket.

Finally he let his eyes leave the figure through the window and he took his phone out of his pocket. He stared at that for a long moment, then scrolled through his contacts until one name rolled onto the screen: Raylan Givens.

He looked through the window, then looked at the name. Then he pressed it.

Comments

[abrightboy]

"...Art was shot?"

Clearly he was recovering fine; the office lacked the tension of a team concerned for their leader.

"Then I guess one coffee's up for grabs," he noted lightly. "Is Raylan in Harlan?"

[tinstar]

"Tends to happen around here sometimes. He's okay," Tim assured, though most of his words came through teeth that didn't open much when he spoke, out of habit more than anything else. And maybe a jaw wiring or two.

Rachel spoke up to answer, refusing to be left out, as the acting Chief.

"Yes. He is. Gone to deal with a case, the Crowe Family."

Tim didn't look away from Malcolm as he interjected. "Right that thing with the kid, Kendell. I could take ya, if you want," he offered, with a faint tilt of his head. "Only take about three hours to get down to Harlan."

It was bait.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looked at Rachel as she spoke and then Tim. And then just looked at Tim for a long moment.

"Must be an interesting case, if you're willing to drive me all the way down there," he noted mildly. "And I do brake for cases." A beat. "Want me to bring Art's coffee along? You may as well have it, if you're doing the driving."

[tinstar]

"So you've said," Tim replied, slight smile stuck there on his lips. "Nah," he continued with a glance at his desk as he fished his keys out. "It's a child custody case with gator poachers shitstains. Most excitin' thing is Chelsea the big balled pitbull."

He looked over at Rachel. "Any objections, boss?"

Rachel looked between them, thinking that this lowkey suspension must be what mothers felt like when their children asked to go play. But Tim was trustworthy.. Mostly. "No. Keep me up on anything exciting though." She looked at Malcolm. "And I'll take the extra coffee. Tim's short enough."

Said the shortest woman in the office.

Tim grinned and stepped around his desk, looking at Malcolm as he walked by. "Guess we're goin' on a road trip."

[abrightboy]

"...Gator poachers in Kentucky? Are they lost?"

He took Art's coffee out of the tray and handed it to Rachel, leaving him with Raylan's coffee and his own herbal tea as he followed Tim through the building.

"Did they send Raylan because it's in Harlan?" he asked. "Or are lost alligator poachers a specialty of his?"

[tinstar]

"Just greedy, far as wel can tell.." Tim didn't bother to point out the coffee would be cold by the time they'd get out there, but he was curious how that'd go and he led them into the elevator and down to the first floor before leading them out to the parking lot.

"He knows the lay of that land and it's people better than anyone else in the office. Hell, in the whole Marshal's Service. You know Harlan isn't even close to fully mapped by GPS?"

While Raylan was comfortable in a towncar, Tim had always liked the bigger vehicles and opted for the longer, taller SUV looking black monstrosity. These Marshals didn't have a lot of need for pomp and circumstance. It unlocked adiably in front of them.

"Really, I oughta thank you for this. Been lookin' to get out of the office all day."

[abrightboy]

"He did tell me that on my first case here," Malcolm replied about the GPS.

He slid into the passenger seat, balancing the tray on his knees to put his seatbelt on, then holding onto it. He understood basic thermodynamics, but pitching the cup in the garbage seemed like a waste.

He picked up his cup to sip his tea. It smelled like cherry and jasmine.

"You're... welcome, I guess." He looked at Tim. "Slow day in Lexington?"

[tinstar]

Tim settled into his seat, sticking his coffee into the cup holder before buckling up and starting the car. He pulled them out of the lot and onto the road. "No bank robber or good shots to take so far today. And since it's closer to 2, I figure it ain't gonna happen. Besides," he continued, checking his mirrors like the responsible drive he was before glancing over at Malcolm. "I've never been one to enjoy workin' a desk."

He, like all the rest of them, took any chance he could to not be behind one.

[abrightboy]

"No, I guess that's something all of you have in common. Even Art seemed to relish field work when you were in New York," Malcolm remarked. He glanced over. "Is he really okay?"

[tinstar]

"If it wasn't for the paperwork, I don't think any of us would come back into the office." Tim nodded at the question. "Yeah. It was on and off there for a bit but he pulled through. His wife is watchin' over him at home, though she might not let him back out for a good year."

He glanced over at Malcolm, keeping an eye on the road as he judged the man beside him.

"So, in town huh? Kentucky isn't exactly the ideal vacation destination. People only usually travel through here to get to somewhere else." But Malcolm had stopped. For Coffee.

[abrightboy]

"I wouldn't have thought so, but after working that case here, I guess I wanted to see more. People dismiss a lot of less than ideal vacation destinations but lying on a beach just isn't for me." He huffed a laugh. "But I've been called eccentric." He looked at Tim. "I need something to keep my brain working. Inside my head's not the best place to live. That's why I brake for cases, even on vacation. ...Especially on vacation, really." He narrowed his eyes slightly. "Are you sure nothing weird and macabre is going on right now?"

[tinstar]

No one wanted to see more of Kentucky without a reason, mainly because it wasn't really pretty enough to offset all the backassward ways of the place, but Tim wasn't going to argue that. Especially not when it was clear that yes, Malcolm Bright was in fact, 'eccentric'. Hell, maybe he was wrong.

"It's Kentucky. You dig deep enough, you might find someone cookin' meth and throwin' a body down a mine shaft. We don't normally get weird and macabre like I think you're imaginin' it. I think the last time we got that kinda case, you brought it to us." Tim glanced over again. "Thought you mighta been here for Raylan, for some reason."

What with all his impromptu trips up north.

[abrightboy]

"We did hit it off on that case," Malcolm admitted. Good times. "I'll be pleased to see him."

He looked at Tim. "Bodies down mine shafts?" he asked curiously. Was he interested or changing the subject? Maybe both.

[tinstar]

Tim hummed a short note of acknowledgement as he looked back at the road.

"Yeah. Seems to be a favorite place to drop 'em, considering how many are shut down now. Too bad that there's so many of them. Makes keepin' an eye on all of them hard." But he'd take it. This was all better than active war.

"Not much exciting about it, unless you've got a thing for weird smells."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looked over.

"Is that how they usually find them?" he asked. "When they start to smell weird?"

He was a little relieved when Tim took the subject change. He hadn't realized they would have suspicions. He didn't think his relationship with Raylan would be something they'd even consider, but their questions had seemed suspicious and now he was a captive audience in the car with Tim.

He didn't want to make trouble for Raylan.

[tinstar]

"Nah. Too far down. We get tips, or find them in the course of a case."

Since Tim wasn't the type to play the radio when he had people in the car, the only thing that filled the brief silences between their talking was the sound of tires on the road.

"You get a lot of weird and macabre up in New York, I'm guessin'?"

[abrightboy]

"Oh, you know New York. Serial killers, ritual killers, boiling bunnies. But I got a lot of weird when I worked in the FBI's D.C. field office too. All over the country weird. I was sort of their go-to guy for weird when I was there." He looked at Tim. "My last case with them was a serial killer in Utah that butchered his victims in an abattoir and pickled their bodyparts in jars."

[tinstar]

"Not for their mornin' toast, I hope," Tim said dryly with a faint lift of his eyebrows. Weird didn't bother him. Twisted didn't bother him much either - these things happened and it was their job to stop it.

"That why Raylan was up in New York recently? Helpin' you with some case?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm paused for a long moment. Probably a little too long of a moment.

"Sort of," he said quietly, fidgeting at the edge of the cardboard tray in his lap. "My father was stabbed." He glanced at Tim. "He's... a reliable friend. You probably know."

[tinstar]

One could almost assume that Malcolm had a normal, healthy relationship with his father, with the way he said that. 'Reliable friend' got another faint lift of Tim's eyebrows as he glanced over.

"When he bothers to be on time, yeah. Can't say I've ever called him for somethin' like that, myself." Might have had to do with the fact that his daddy was dead. "Didn't know that Raylan had friends like that. Callin' on him for something that isn't his gun or badge."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looked at him sidelong. "Their loss," he noted. "He's a good person."

He picked up his tea and took a sip, looking out the window.

"You guys don't... hang out outside of work at all?"

[tinstar]

"Cuts into my drinkin' hours," he said with no sense of shame or consequence. "Raylan's often off in Harlan anyway. Pretty sure it'd cut into his drinkin' hours too."

Which was, apparently, Tim's loss. It struck him as kinda funny.

"You hang out with your co-workers?"

[abrightboy]

"In New York, sometimes. Yeah. Our team's pretty close knit. Lieutenant Arroyo's been my mentor for a long time. When I was in the FBI, no. Not really. People found the Weird Murder Guy kind of weird. Go figure, right?" he said with a self-deprecating laugh.

[tinstar]

Tim smirked, teeth peeking out one side as it spread a fraction.

"No concerns about favorites on your team? That mean you guys aren't competitive or you just.. hug your feelin's out. I hear that's a thing up there."

[abrightboy]

"...Favourites? Gil handpicked all of us," he told him. "But... hugging, no. Not so much. We don't compete, though. ...We're on the same team." He canted his head as he looked at Tim. "You guys are in competition? What does that look like? Who solves the most cases? Who solves the case first? ...You don't solve them together?"