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]

"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?"

[tinstar]

Tim grinned unevenly. "We solve 'em together. It's all about who we get and who we're goin' after. Then whoever called dibs gets point. Like a score sheet of who got the biggest baddest dude. Pretty sure Art's got us all beat on account of his old Mob chases. You could get on the board - considerin' the kinds of people you've already helped catch."

Yes, Tim had done a little side homework the day that Malcolm walked in and talked them into a case.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm studied him for a second.

"Working at the FBI was kind of like that. Competitive like that. It can create camaraderie or destroy it. I'm glad it's working for you guys." He considered Tim further. "What do you know about who I've caught?" he asked curiously. It could have been a defensive question, but his tone didn't convey that.

[tinstar]

"None of the crimes you deal with are what anyone else would call regular. I wouldn't say you've got a tendency for Family type crimes, but you seem to get a lot of Family Adjacent ones to go with the rest of your mix of Serial Killer. Not more than one or two 'traditional' cases that I could find."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looked at him.

"That you could find," he echoed. "So you looked." He paused. "They don't call me for traditional cases." That slanted the ratio. "When did you look? When I was here the first time?"

And what else did he find? There wasn't a lot that connected Malcolm Bright to Malcolm Whitly, but what little there was, was accessible to federal law enforcement.

[tinstar]

Tim wasn't ashamed or anything other than plain faced when he looked over at Malcolm.

"No offence to your Lieutenant Arroyo, but if you don't come with a badge, we gotta double check your authority. NYPD Adjacent is nice and all but it doesn't move a lot on paper." And despite their avoidance of paperwork, Tim wasn't getting caught with his pants down.

"Hope you don't mind," he continued as his eyes drifted back to the road. It sounded like it didn't much matter if Malcolm did mind; it was already done.

[abrightboy]

"I don't mind," Malcolm told him.

But he was sure he'd been right when he told Raylan nobody would hire him if Gil didn't. They wouldn't take recommendations. They'd do their homework like Tim.

"Find anything else interesting?"