The Lengths That I Would Go To

[abrightboy]

The killer was moving around the country. Malcolm Bright could see the pattern, but he wasn't working for the FBI these days and they weren't exactly taking his calls. Short sighted of them, but they did fire him on suspicion of being crazy. The NYPD's jurisdiction was New York. With the killer beyond its borders, they handed it upwards and left it at that.

Let it go, Bright, had been Gil's sage advice. You can't catch every killer in America single-handedly.

Challenge accepted, some part of him retorted, though he'd only nodded mutely and forced a smile. Gil knew he hadn't simply let it go, but he wasn't going to have him followed to stop him doing anything stupid, either. He didn't have the will or the resources to keep tabs on Malcolm Bright 24/7 and Malcolm Bright knew it.

His mother, on the other hand, had extensive resources, so he simply didn't tell her he was leaving town. He did arrange for Ainsley to feed his bird, so the truth would come out eventually, but he'd be several states away by then.

He rode the bus. There was something oddly comforting about the anonymity of being in a crowd of strangers who had no interest in him whatsoever. He stared out the window and watched the country go by. When he stepped off the Greyhound in Lexington, Kentucky, he walked to a nearby hotel and checked in, then headed straight to the US Marshals office. There was no point in trying to talk to the FBI. If he was going to stop a killer from killing again, he needed someone in law enforcement to listen to him. The pattern suggested the next murder would happen in one of the rural communities around Lexington and it would be precipitated by a young woman's disappearance. He needed law enforcement with local knowledge, specifically.

He wandered into the Marshals' offices in a tidy three piece suit, charcoal grey with a burgundy tie perfectly knotted at his collar. He got a few suspicious sidelong glances but nobody asked if they could help him. He cleared his throat.

"Um, hello? I'm wondering if there's anyone here I can talk to about murder." He held up his hands. "Stopping murder, specifically, not... like... smalltalk."

Comments

[abrightboy]

"You're a mountain man?" Ainsley said delightedly. She looked at Malcolm. He gave her a warning look. She looked at Raylan again. "Do they not want electricity or do they just kill every ConEd man that goes up there to run a line?" she asked, clearly a reporter after a salacious lead at this point.

[tinstar]

"No," Raylan assured with a chuckle. "I am not. Just come from that stock is all. Capable of surviving anything. And the answer to your question is.. both. They're happy enough with the bubble that they live in and defend it viciously. Which I don't find much different from elsewhere in the world."

Expanding a world view was a kinder thing, in the end, for everyone.

"I suppose we could send a swat up, but I'm fairly certain they'd get them too. They might not have electricity but one thing Kentucky is not short on, is guns."

[abrightboy]

Ainsley's eyes got wide and sparkled.

"Do you have a gun on you right now?" she asked eagerly.

"Ains," Malcolm warned.

Jessica put her fork down. "All right, that's enough. You're bordering on unpleasantness now."

She turned her Social Face on Raylan herself. "You fit in easily enough here. You must have been somewhere other than the countryside of the deep south," she suggested.

[tinstar]

Raylan could read a room well enough that he knew answering was likely not in his interest, but still, he smirked and half winked one eye at her as he hid behind the rim of his glass. He'd gotten that question from a couple of kids and it never failed to tickle him.

He couldn't help the little scoff of a half laugh that came as he looked over at Jessica, shaking his head faintly. "I'm afraid not. Just raised well enough, despite everything. I've been abroad a few times for work, but Miami is about as metropolitan as I get. Work doesn't leave me the time for these kinds of get togethers." And it wasn't his style. He didn't need any more time here to tell him that.

"You're kind to have taken the chance to invite me. It's certainly quite the way to see the other side."

[abrightboy]

"Oh, any friend of Malcolm's," she said with a smile.

The waiter came and collected their pasta dishes, but paused at Malcolm.

"...Are you done with this, sir?"

Malcolm looked up at him. "Yeah. All done. Thanks."

The waited disappeared again.

"So you're a workaholic like my children," Jessica noted.

[tinstar]

"Mm," he hummed back, face curling in a show of utmost civility as he half cheers and took another draft of his scotch, eyes betraying the spice that Jessica was starting to stir in him. His patience was short to begin with in the best of times, despite the carefree cadence and tone he used, and the older woman was starting to grate at what he had left of it.

"If you mean I'm as dedicated to protecting and serving by getting dangerous and deranged murders, mafias and off the street as your children, than yes, I am," he replied, but this time when he turned to look at her, there was a little less humor and a hint more steel. He didn't want to do this, not here, not in front of Malcolm, but she would do well to be a little less careless with such broad terms. He'd lost a marriage to the job and despite his choices, he was still a little sore about it.

"When duty calls is part of the saying, after all. I hear you've also been one to help those who are unable to help themselves - how many years of Charity work do you have under your belt now?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm sat up a little straighter when the tension in Raylan's shoulders changed. He recognized that a line had been crossed, even if he didn't know what the line was.

Jessica also seemed to recognize that she was suddenly not doing well. She took a deep breath and considered the question. "At least thirty-five years now. I started working with some of these foundations before Malcolm was born," she answered politely.

Malcolm reached out and put a hand on the back of Raylan's arm.

Steady, now.

And maybe he could get them out of here early.

[tinstar]

"That's quite a while to spend in such an endeavour. I understand you're part of this one as well." All he needed was a little less everything, to be honest, and with the subtle shift in Jessica, he could just as subtly relax like nothing had happened and go back to almost sounding proudly approving of her efforts spent. "What keeps you in it? Instead of.." He glanced off into a brief thousand yard stare with a slight shake of his head as he tried to muster an idea of what, possibly, could captivate a woman like Jessica's attention and time. "Philosophy or art. Corporate business maybe. I could see you running as a CEO."

While Raylan was otherwise ignoring the cautionary hand on his arm, he was oh so sharply aware of it and did his best to ignore the injection of adrenaline he could just as easily blame on Malcolm's mother. He'd already gathered what they assumed; it was hard not to, but it riled a whole new and dark corner for him.

He was doing his best.

[abrightboy]

She laughed lightly. "A CEO?" She waved a hand at him modestly. "Flatterer. But I suppose it's something that was always mine."

Most of what she'd built her identity around before and during her marriage was denied her after its sudden end.

The waiter reappeared with the next course: a beef tenderloin medallion.

"You win some and lose some," Malcolm noted gamely, pushing it away and signalling the waiter for another glass of scotch.

[tinstar]

"Well it seems you do it very well," he assured, not prying any further.

As the food came and Malcolm declined, Raylan smirked. "Now that, I will take, if you're not going to." What could he say, he liked a good steak.

[abrightboy]

"Oh, you know I'm not going to," Malcolm said, sliding it over. "Be my guest."

"I thought he was your guest," Ainsley said innocently. It was his turn to kick her under the table, which only made her grin at him.

[tinstar]

Raylan grinned, guessing at what was happening under the table, as he cut into his steak. He'd collect Malcolm once he was done with his.

"His couch is very uncomfortable to sleep on," Raylan said, levity creasing his face again as he maintained enough grace to not glance at Malcolm. "But his scotch makes up for it." The mention of something more innocent than sleeping places allowed him to do just that, glancing at Malcolm with a curl of his smile behind a chew.

[abrightboy]

"You did say you'd never met a couch you couldn't sleep on; I took that as a challenge," Malcolm said.

Jessica watched the dynamic as she cut her meat, but it did nothing to prove or disprove her theories, so she refrained from glancing at Ainsley.

[tinstar]

It earned him a chuckle as Raylan cut another bite.

"I slept, didn't I? For a few hours, anyway." But he didn't know how open they were with Malcolm's issues, so he opted to not mention why he was woken up. Now that he knew the game, he was treading just as carefully. They were colleagues.. Or so he kept repeating to himself as he kept his knee where it was. There was still an urge to touch him back, to reciprocate that he was trying to keep well kept in the back of his mind.

"His floor does not have the same problem," he assured the ladies before occupying his mouth again.

[abrightboy]

"You slept on the floor?" Ainsley exclaimed. She narrowed her eyes playfully. "Are you sure you're not a mountain man?"

[tinstar]

"Very sure." The answer came under the tilt of one eyebrow towards Ainsley. He had a feeling that he and her were going to have a one on one at some point, where she got out all of her questions and enthusiasm for her own curiosity.

Being the kind of man that he was, Raylan made much shorter work of the meat than he had of the previous courses, like he was trying to hasten the evening along.

[abrightboy]

As Raylan finished eating the course, Malcolm was glancing around the room.

"Oh, look. A silent auction," he noted, swatting Raylan's arm lightly with the back of his hand to draw his attention. "Let's go take a look," he suggested, getting up before anyone could object.

Once they were safely away from the table, Malcolm leaned close enough to keep his voice low as they moved through the ballroom. "I am so so sorry about this. It is way more mortifying than I was expecting and I can tell you want to leave and I don't blame you even a little bit," he rambled. "I don't remember these things being like this and at the same time, I think they've always been exactly like this."

[tinstar]

Clearing his throat as Malcolm got up, he glanced at the ladies with a nod of his head and a polite 'Excuse us,' as he followed, taking his scotch glass with him. It didn't take more than three additional feet for Raylan to already feel a little better, despite the bit of tension that was still in him, like a coiled spring aimming to get ready to be released.

"A walk around the room was a good idea," he said with a bob of his head and a shallow pull from his glass before he looks over at Malcolm again. "I probably could have handled your mother a little better." The admission came with a flicker of responsibility for how quick his temper could be when rubbed the wrong way that was replaced by the edge of his still simmering soul. Raylan looked ahead again to side step a passing waiter.

"But the sooner it's over, the happier I'll be. This isn't the kind of place for me. In more ways than one." Manners and self-awareness kept him from saying more at the exact moment; there was no sense in riling himself up tighter for the rest of the evening.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nodded. He took responsibility for being selfishly pleased enough that someone whose company he enjoyed would be at the event, that he hadn't considered how much that person wouldn't enjoy it.

And how it might possibly rub off on whether said person still enjoyed his company afterwards. He was suddenly very concerned about that.

"Every family dinner we've ever had, but with an extra cast of passive aggressive rich people was probably not the way to show you a good time in New York," he allowed with a tight smile. "We probably should have gone to Times Square or something."

[tinstar]

"Or the best way for your mother and I to come to a basic level of understanding. The scotch makes up for it," he said, managing to find a grain of dry levity to it. "I can see Time Square in pictures, I'm not foolish enough to think that's all to New York. Plus, I got some walking in. A good time has been had," he assured with a faint lift of his eyebrows.

"And this is still something to see." Raylan looked up at the ceiling and around the room. "Almost kinda nice to be seeing it without chasing someone." Though not nice enough to justify him ever coming back to one of these kinds of events.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm tried not to let his relief at that be visible on his face, but he failed.

"What time are you leaving tomorrow?" he asked casually as they reached the table of auction items and he pretended to peruse it.

[tinstar]

The break of relief was enough to pull half a smile from Raylan as he stopped next to Malcolm, staying close enough for their shoulders to brush with the shifting of weight.

"Not until 10am. Art doesn't want to get stuck in the morning rush on the way out."

Well, the last was true - Art did want to miss traffic and in his age, solidly enjoyed his mornings when he could, but Raylan had designs on that last hour.

"How early do you think we can get out of this?"

[abrightboy]

"I could manufacture a text from Gil," Malcolm told him, looking up at him with a hint of a smile. "Not too soon after getting back to the table... but not too long after that either."

And yes, he was already thinking about what they could do for breakfast.

[tinstar]

"If making it halfway through the dessert course will count as us having attended, that's what I vote for," he replied into his glass. "Tipsy in public is not a look I'm going for."

Even if he could already feel the buzz of it behind the back of his eyes.

[abrightboy]

"Don't worry; I'll make sure you get home safely," Malcolm teased with a bit of a laugh. The idea of him protecting Raylan was funny to him somehow. Possibly he was also already buzzing a bit.