abrightboy | No One's Born Broken

Raylan looked down, jaw flexing slightly. Damnit. He was hoping that Gil was Jessica's flavor of not asking questions, but the cop in him clearly overroad that. It was a good thing, over all, but not the most comfortable thing for Raylan Givens.

Hazel eyes came back up to meet Gil's, unwilling to take such a cowardly, unbelievable lie as his excuse. No, they weren't pretending that.

"You've got his manipulation on record and a body in the morgue already; what more do you need to establish an M.O?" Raylan lifted his fingers, index and thumb finding each other as his palm turned half to the side. He was demanding nothing, commanding nothing, just an easy guy having a conversation.

"Jessica and I came to an understandin' this morning after I drew down on her." Just in case Gil wanted to go and check up on that himself, later. "I'm here to help protect him. From himself and the things around him, best I can."

"I haven't told Malcolm or Jessica this, but the DA is suggesting that Jessica may have used the very public spectacle of the blackmailer to carry out a grudge against her ex without consequences. Nobody witnessed his last set of instructions. Not even Malcolm." Gil leaned back and paused as the waitress set their food in front of them. "Of course, there's another theory floating that maybe Jessica couldn't do it and maybe it was Malcolm that put the ice pick in Martin's heart," Gil said, his eyes on Raylan's face. "But I'm not willing to entertain that sort of speculation with a confession on the table."

"You shouldn't, they'd both lie for each other and fight over it," Raylan said, face betraying nothing aside from a soft gratefulness as he thanked the waitress for their food. "But you know them both better than I do."

He wasn't going to get pinned down in some emotional corner. "But considering what you do know, it means what they say isn't reliable. They're both compromised, like any other suspect. Hell, if you didn't tell me that someone saw it, who's to say Martin Whitly didn't stab himself to spare his family from having to? He's certainly capable of it.

"He loves himself too much," Gil said, picking up his sandwich. "And Jessica would lie to protect Malcolm, but not Martin. So either Jessica really did do it, or Malcolm did. So far nobody is disputing that it was Jessica, but Malcolm did call for backup in the middle of the night," he pointed out, taking a bite.

"Knowing that someone might die because of it at the time? Changing statements makes her less reliable to a jury and Malcolm is emotional fragile - him reaching out to a trusted LEO came only be in his favor. Who stabs their father and then calls the Marshal Services?"

Raylan picked up half of his sandwich and took a bite, as carefree as ever. He knew that was what sold things and he'd stick with it.

"I've already told him that Jessica and her money will have good lawyers. I don't think he believes me."

"I don't doubt for a second that he believes you," Gil told him. "You have to understand something about Malcolm: he doesn't let people in. That he even called you tells me a lot and, frankly, I don't want to know what he told you. Of course he wants to take the blame; he'll never let anyone suffer a burden he can take from them. He feels like he failed all the people his father killed before he called the police, instead of recognizing that he saved all the people he would have killed after. He wants to save everyone. He'll never feel like he's protected enough lives to be free of the Surgeon's sins and the only person that can free Malcolm Bright's conscience is Malcolm Bright. But he literally cannot stop. Jessica will be fine if she stops pretending this is nothing and gets a highpowered rich person lawyer. Malcolm, on the other hand, needs to just stay out of the way. A case is the best place for him right now."

Raylan eyed Gil. Some of this he knew, some of it he didn't. But Gil himself was basking in a clearer definition - he was one of the good ones you didn't clue into what the hell was going on because then he'd have to report it, whereas Raylan was willing to overlook his oaths if he had to. The world needed cops like Gil. They also needed assholes like Raylan and he knew it.

"And no one here is arguing that." Just to underline it with a reassuring lift of his eyebrows. Everyone here really did move a mile a minute. "What are you lookin' for here Gil? Is this a.. briefing on him?" Because if Gil was offering pointers, Raylan would take every single one.

"I'm concerned about both of them too." So he understood the impulse to protect them both as best Gil could.

"It's just a conversation between two people with concerns," Gil said. "Malcolm doesn't come with a manual, though, so maybe a briefing wouldn't hurt." He washed down another bite of his sandwich with his coffee. "Like you said, I've been looking out for that kid a long time." He considered Raylan a moment. "He's not as fragile as he seems. He has a mile of resolve underneath the brittle exterior."

Busying himself with another bite, Raylan leaned back and let Gil go on while he chewed. The last statement got something of a soft huff and knowing nod of his head. Malcolm wasn't as fragile as Jessica made him out to be.

"I've noticed. You can tell a lot about a man when he's got a knife to his neck." Raylan wasn't sure if Gil knew about that, but he'd no doubt heard about Quarles untimely demise. "First case he came down to Kentucky on, he went through half the building, the FBI before us, and drove the case like a madman, despite being painfully unfamiliar with the area and people. He's good at his job and making his points clear, on either side of it. Tough to argue with." In a good way, in the end.

Gil huffed a laugh. "Did you know that if you actually win the argument, you'll turn around ten minutes later and he'll be doing whatever it is he was going to do anyway?" he asked.

"Doesn't that mean you didn't really win anything?" Raylan countered, face full of amusement as he pulled his own coffee closer for a drink. "I try to avoid tellin' him what to do.. Unless we're in Kentucky. He found a way to wait in the car with no argument, eventually. I wouldn't suggest the same up here."

"It exactly means you didn't win anything. Arguing with him is a lot of work and it doesn't even achieve anything. You have to pick your battles real carefully."

He paused when Raylan said he found a way to get Bright to wait in the car and just looked at him a moment.

"How did you do it?" he pressed.

Raylan chuckled at Gil's enthused confirmation. It made him think of the argument they'd had the night before, that Raylan had soundly lost, bruises and all.

At the question, Raylan lifted his eyebrows a little before he shook his head and glanced down to pick up his sandwich again. "I didn't - He did. You ever been down South? Even if you haven't, I'm sure you can imagine how open minded and welcoming my people are to.. well dressed, probing Northerners." Also known as Not at all. "So when one comes in and starts telling the local outlaw that I've known since I was a teenager, exactly about himself in not so subtle words, in the middle of gun country... What still gets me about it is that I was helpin' out the local constable in getting the business to sign some bullshit papers."

It was supposed to have been easy. It very much was not.

"That many guns comin' out at once and the way Boyd was lookin' at him was enough to convince him to maybe Not do that down there anymore. Well. As much as he can help it."

"Staying in the car is possibly the only way he can help it," Gil conceded. "He could never go with you and not speak. Things come into his great big brain and fly straight out his great big mouth, god love him."

"God, ain't that the truth," he commiserated before taking another bite of his sandwich. When it cleared enough for him to continue, one finger holding time before he did, Raylan added, "But at least there's no doubting what he thinks about somethin'. Not having to dig is a refreshing change of pace."

"No, that's true," Gil said. "I've never once had a meeting where I had to say 'Bright, speak up. We haven't heard from you yet!'," he joked. He sobered slightly, wiping off his fingers on his napkin to pick up his coffee. "It's a bit of a relief, honestly. As long as he's talking, you know he's okay." He wrapped both hands around his mug. "After his dad's trial, he stopped talking for about... two months. It wasn't until his mother found the therapist that he.... still actually sees, that we got him back."

That made Raylan frown a little, an expression just as subtle as the rest of them. "Makes sense that he would shut down but two months isn't exactly a small chunk of change.." This one he also didn't know. It was something to look out for if shit really hit the fan. Context helped.

"Let's hope he's not given another reason to shut down." It certainly wouldn't be because of Raylan, that was for sure. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to him when he's out with me, on a case or otherwise. Just to be clear. He's already been through enough shit and even when his head drops him into a case, well.. Protecting him from shit he starts kinda comes with hanging out and workin' with him, I suppose."

"He's not afraid to tell anyone that they're a piece of shit when they're a piece of shit, that's for sure. And your bar full of criminals wouldn't be the first that didn't like it. But he never starts anything out of malice. He's usually set off by someone bring treated badly. Especially if it's someone vulnerable. But.... with Bright.... he has a lot more ways to deal with things than he did when he was eleven. I just hope they keep working, because he will not stay away from things that set off his trauma just to protect himself from them. Protecting himself is almost always his last priority. That's why the rest of us have to quietly do it."

"That time, it was raw curiosity about the way things work down there, socially speaking. Specifically in regards to myself and Harlan County. But I've seen his protective natures. How he is with kids that he finds in those situations. You're very prominent in how he does it too," Raylan said as he watched Gil's face.

"You've done good."

Gil was pleased by that, but not happy. He looked down into his coffee cup.

"Jessica had trouble coping after Martin's arrest. Her whole world falling in, society piranhas, trying to raise traumatized children with the press banging down her door at all hours of the day and night. And Malcolm was so bright and brave and curious at just the slightest encouragement. Everything he saw, he wanted to know more. It seemed... wrong to just let him fall through the cracks after he saved all those lives. Including mine."

"I get that," Raylan said quietly with a nod. "I got this girl, down in Kentucky. Her daddy used to be a harmless pot farmer, drawin' disability and growing and sellin' on the side to help make ends meet. He was killed by another family for growin' without permission and took the girl into their care, hopin' to raise her as their own. She went with it for a while, thought they were tellin' her the truth about her Daddy bein' downstate doin' work for the family, until she found out they poisoned him, dropped him down a mine shaft and covered in lye.

She ended up levelin' a pistol at the head of the family, not that it did her much other than force her to realize that's not how dealin' with grief works. She's.." Raylan blew out a breath and huffed a brief smirk. "Still slingin' dope and playin' boys older than her like fiddles. But she's gonna be a hellva a lady if she can get on the right track."

It wasn't quite the same; Malcolm was inarguable good and Loretta was a product of Harlan, but they were kids and still young. Still able to avoid the worst mistakes that some of the rest of the adults around them had done a few times over.

"And if she called, I'd drop everything and fly out to her too."

Gil huffed a laugh and took a sip of coffee.

"I don't know if it makes me feel better or worse that you've got more than one of these on your hands," he admitted with a wry smile.

He considered Raylan for a moment. "I'm not going to assume Malcolm is going to stay in New York," he said candidly. "He already left once; he hasn't really been back that long. It's probably for the best, him being away from Martin. Just... make sure he has something to do, okay? He can't... spend too much time inside his own head."

There was no use pretending otherwise or hedging any bets. Raylan, as much as his brain wanted to scream caution, was sure in his gut that they would actually make it out of their respective situations to Miami. This couldn't end the same way it had before..

Raylan nodded softly. "We've uh.. been making plans for Miami. Between the Marshal's service and the MDPD-" Miami-Dade Police, for those keeping track at home. "- He'll be able to find the same kind of work. I don't think he'll ever really do anything else and be as satisfied as he is here..

You're gonna have to come visit, once we get settle. Maybe bring Jessica down to prove that we can get him on a beach, eventually."

Gil chuckled.

"Told you about his 'vacation', huh? God, his mother was mortified. She hoped he was joking. I was pretty sure he wasn't. He didn't want to go in the first place."

"Never heard of someone so mortified that they didn't hit a pool before," Raylan replied with a pull of his smile. "I've also got a daughter that I've got joint custody of. Between us and his work, I think we can keep him busy. And if not, maye we send him back up to help you with something. There always seems to be something terrible happening up here, but Miami's just as bad. Still, not bad to have back up plans."

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