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

[tinstar]

"At least there's that escape route."

Raylan nodded. "We'll get there, I just.." He gestured uselessly. "Need a few minutes." To calm down. To let go of some extra energy, to get the seed of irritation out of his caw.

"What was going on with you and your sister?"

[abrightboy]

He didn't mind walking at all. It was how he passed nights he couldn't sleep.

At the question, he let his head fall back with a very long-suffering sigh.

"My mother clearly drew some conclusions from the scene she sashayed into this morning and told her them."

[tinstar]

He fidgeted with the ring on his finger, letting the long strides carry his attention more than the question he was circling around.

"Your mother's got some fine ideas.." He wasn't sure this was one of them. "I'm sure they'd change that when they realize I'm a 41 year old divorcee." With a kid. Raylan couldn't bring himself to bring the baby into the picture, there was too much on his plate.

[abrightboy]

"I'm not sure it would," Malcolm told him. "At this point, they'd probably be happy if I dated a man-alligator hybrid that crawled out of the sewer if I wasn't alone for five minutes. They seem to think I can't manage relationships."

Not that there was no reason for them to think that.

"I'm sure there was a time when my mother had high hopes that I'd find a society wife and have well-adjusted heirs to the family legacy that she could show off pictures of at the country club, but this is about as good as I get and hallucinations and incessant night terrors don't mix with society wives."

[tinstar]

Raylan gave him a brief sympathetic pull of a smile. "Trust me, marriage isn't all it's cut out to be."

He let the silence settle between them before he spoke up again. "Winona and I used to fight all the time about what I had to do and how much the job took me away. The fact that I couldn't take a desk job, and the affair she had with her realtor because of me is the reason she divorced me after 6 years.. She married the realtor..

I don't think anyone is well adjusted, if I'm honest."

[abrightboy]

"'Because of you' is a bit harsh," said the king of blaming himself for things other people did. "She chose to sleep with the realtor because she couldn't deal with the marriage anymore. Did you get that job after you two got together?" Malcolm asked.

[tinstar]

He shook his head. "I was a Mashal when I met her. She knew the job came with me. But I had promised to take the instructors job at Glynco. More than once. But something always came up.." His fingers rubbed together as they walked, obvious a little anxious in talking about it without a drink in his hand.

"It was a choice on my part. Things left undone that need doing. Just as much my fault as hers. She wanted me to chose her. I could have chosen her." But he hadn't.

"My point being that I'm.. married to my badge." And not gay. That was the underlying message and one that Raylan was struggling to keep squarely in his front vision. "And Kentucky until Boyd is dealt with and behind bars."

[abrightboy]

"Ah." That did put things in perspective. "Well. They do say it takes two to tango," he conceded. "I'm not the best person to talk to about long term relationships. I've never had one."

[tinstar]

"How long has your longest short one been?"

[abrightboy]

He looked over. He was, honestly, a little embarrassed by it.

"Three and a half months."

With a woman, but they hadn't all been women.

"But everyone has a limit to how many times they can take being woken up by a screaming maniac, no matter what they say at the start."

[tinstar]

Raylan nodded, curling his lips faintly. He wasn't ready to ask about anything as complicated as gender; the return questions would be easily answered and still leave a disquiet in him.

"I imagine that plenty have thought they could.. fix you somehow." Just like Ava and Winona and the bartender he'd stayed with for a while had. "Seems to be a problem with taking us for how and what we are.."

"I think I'm about ready for that scotch," he admitted.

[abrightboy]

"Not 'plenty'," Malcolm said. "Two. ...Maybe three of them. Nobody else got close enough to find out what a unique fixer-upper opportunity I am."

He stepped into the street and put a hand up. A taxi pulled over and Malcolm opened the door for Raylan before sliding in next to him.

[tinstar]

"Makes you sound like Arlo's house.. Except you've got curb appeal." Raylan slid into the taxi and let Malcolm rattle off his address.

"Your mother shouldn't chide you in front of strangers," he said, admitting to another piece of irritation as his right hand thumb pushed his finger around some more. "I don't think she acknowledges who or what you and I stop out there.."

It was good work and her mental security was, in part, due to their efforts and many other people like them.

[abrightboy]

"There are a lot of things my mother shouldn't do," he admitted. "And if I could only stop one of them, it'd be the 10am tumbler of gin. I'm used to the chiding and it won't take years off her life."

He glanced out the window and then looked at Raylan. "She doesn't dislike cops. She appreciates what they do. She just..." He took a deep breath and gave a sort of helpless shake of his head. "She thinks it's beneath me as a job."

[tinstar]

"But you're good at it," Raylan replied, eyes lighting up with a little fire in them. "And that lookin' down her nose at people. I understand that her money and lifestyle entitle her to her opinion, but its opinions like that that keep us country folk away from places like this."

His fingers rubbed together some more as he looked at Malcolm. "What do you say to her opinion of your profession?"

[abrightboy]

"I don't usually dignify it with more than an eye-roll. She doesn't actively try to stop me. But if you want to get down to the psychology of it..." He turned a self-deprecating smile to Raylan, "And I know how you love psychology," he teased. He took a breath. "She survived my father too. And right when she found out that her husband was a monster, she was frozen out by her so-called friends and her family, left alone with her liquor cabinet and two kids, one of whom was left weird and damaged and she blames herself for that. All the looking down her nose and bossing people around is her way of trying to stay in control of her life somehow." He held up a hand. "I'm not saying it's good choices, but it is what it is. She means well. She tries."

[tinstar]

Raylan managed a tight little pull of his lips. "I'm startin' too," he quipped before Malcolm went on, face settling back into seriousness.

"She cares about you both. That much is clear." A beat passed. "I don't take that kind of direction well. She was lucky to get me there at all and that's only because of you." If he hadn't known Malcolm the way he did, Jessica would have been sorely disappointed.

"Tim would have a hayday with me in this suit."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiled softly.

"I think you look nice," he said simply. Possibly not as nice as he looked in a worn pair of jeans...

He shook that thought off as the taxi pulled up in front of his building and he handed the driver some money.

As they got out, Malcolm fished his keys out of his pocket.

[tinstar]

Raylan smiled back as money exchanged hands and he slipped out of the car after Malcolm. Once Malcolm unlocked the door and led the way up the stairs, he locked the door behind them and followed. When they got to the top landing, Raylan grabbed Malcolm's elbow to stop him as he stepped up onto the landing with him.

"Look, about tonight.." Hazel eyes moved back and forth between Malcolm's. What the hell was he thinking? What the hell else was he going to say? The hand on Malcolm's arm had been a bad idea; it was a gateway touch. Something that he'd done to countless other men without the same shot of adrenaline to his veins. Or the sudden swell of scotch and tension. The only hint of what was coming was the briefest glance down at Malcolm's lips before he was pushing forward, roughly stealing a kiss as he pushed him against the door with a hungry, almost drunk weight.

[abrightboy]

Whatever some part of Malcolm may have wanted, that wasn't what he was expecting, but however slightly startling it was, it was also...amazing. Only the briefest beat passed before he leaned in, returning the kiss, one hand curling around Raylan's lapel while the other splayed on the door by his hip to steady him.

[tinstar]

In that brief moment, Raylan was almost sure that he'd made a stupid choice, that Malcolm would shove him off and send him to apologizing and gathering his things to find a hotel elsewhere. But instead, Malcolm was leaning into him and encouraging the impossible. His hand found Malcolm's jaw, keeping him close as Raylan enjoyed the taste of scotch and him in an indulgent moment.

He broke it a moment later with a roll of their foreheads, a little breathless for his own bravery, eyes closed for a moment.

"Sorry," he muttered, already feeling foolish for his lapse in judgement but not letting Malcolm go just yet. "I didn't mean-"

[abrightboy]

He frowned faintly. It hadn't felt like something someone ought to apologize for... oh.

He huffed a faint self-deprecating laugh, releasing his grip on Raylan's lapel and running a hand down his chest to smooth it out, but not making any other attempt to move away. He wouldn't describe himself as 'touch-starved', but he certainly was that and he wasn't rushing to get away from a moment that looked about to end anyway.

"Regret already," he said with forced lightness. "Might be a new record."

[tinstar]

It did to Raylan. What business did he have doing that? What world was he in where he had? He couldn't answer either of those questions and as stupid as it was, he didn't move beyond sliding his hands down Malcolm's arms.

"No," he replied with a bit of husky roughness in his voice. "Not regret. Just whiskey. And impolite assumptions," he tried to assure, mind still circling around how the kiss felt. "I've never kissed a guy before," he admitted between them. It felt better saying it there, like that, then some hardline stance that he was already wavering on in the street that would sound sharper and worse.

[abrightboy]

He did notice that, while that was something to unpack, Raylan hadn't stepped out of his space, either.

And he didn't know where to start.

"...Impolite?" A beat. "I'm... not sure what to make of that. I..." He gestured with his finger between them. "I wasn't protesting." He considered Raylan's face for a moment. The fact that this was the first time it had been this close was a little distracting. "You've just never done it or you've never wanted to? Are you worried about what that means?" He tilted his head slightly, his eyes still searching for something in his features. "It's normal. Wanting to, sometimes. And worrying about what it means. They're both normal."

[tinstar]

Raylan couldn't help but smile softly at Malcolm's confusion. "No you were not." Quite nicely, as a matter of fact. But he still shouldn't be going around kissing people he works with and as Malcolm comes around to another corner of the nook of that problem, Raylan's smile faded.

It might have been normal for everyone else, Raylan wasn't one to have an opinion on it - what people did behind their own doors is their own business - but when it came to himself, adapting the same kind of idea was more than difficult.

"Either. Both." All of it. Raylan let his eyes wander Malcolm's face a little before coming back to his eyes. "It's not normal for me." Or where he came from. "You're not normal for me." He swallowed thickly. "And I still don't regret it."

Whatever that meant in the end.