villagelogs | Watch that your match doesn't hit that bridge

Entry tags:

Watch that your match doesn't hit that bridge

characters: Raylan, Doc and Malcolm
location: 1306 and then, the Chasm
date/time:Afternoon of day 20
content: Bridge building and possibly bad ideas

If there was one thing that Raylan had that didn't get enough love, it was redneck ingenuity. Ever since he'd seen the chasm and what lay beyond, Raylan was plagued by the best part of humanity, curiosity. People had yelled across the crack, thrown things, god knows what else, but Raylan failed to see a single attempt to cross it. He was sure he wasn't the first to have the idea - not with as many smart people around, but he had the goods to act on it. The wood that he'd collected with Max and with Doc separately, hadn't been a small amount of boards, some of which came with their own nails. A little destruction of a framed wall or two gave up little chunks of 2x4 that he figured would work well for support and several hours in the garage with Malcolm had produced a 'bridge' that was about 14 feet long. He wasn't sure it was long enough but they could see.

"Okay, set your end up on that bucket," he instructed Malcolm with a nod at the reinforced wood that they'd nailed together, lifting his own onto his carefully placed bucket. Malcolm had been a big help, making things move more quickly than he could have alone and he'd well put the man to work holding and hammering. "We just gotta see how much it bends under weight."

He hadn't really laid out what the glorified gangplank was for but that didn't matter, right? Didn't matter that he was going to cross the chasm into unknown territory.

"How much do you clock in at?" he asked Malcolm with a jut of his chin. "We can start with you then go onto me. I figure I got at least a good twenty pounds on ya." No, he really didn't.

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He can't really hear Raylan from standing quite a ways behind him, but he thinks he heard Raylan saying one of them will be crossing it.

"Why are any of us going to the other side?" That wasn't the plan, was it? "No, we should try and get our new friend to come to our side." They don't know what's on the other side. Doc is pretty sure the fissure is not meant to be crossed, after what had happened to Five. It's far too dangerous for them to be attempting it.

Malcolm was going to ask how they’d decide who went, but Doc made a good point.

He looked back at Doc. “Lure him over here?” He looked at Raylan. “Can we do that? Can we do that?”

"What? Bring him -" Raylan turned around, shifting the weight to his other shoulder so he could walk backwards. The road was straight enough to make it a possibility in the first place so he wasn't worried about veering.

"Lure him with what? Our handsome faces? Good conversation? If that's the thing that's runnin' this place, we don't have anything to offer it except what, ourselves? Hell no."

Sacrificial lambs were NOT in the agenda.

"I thought you had some idea to bring him over here!" It's hard not to sound annoyed when he's forced to raise his voice just a little to be heard from the distance.

"We can't go over there. You saw what happened to Mister Five. I can't be cutting into anyone with a butter knife to screw plates to hold broken ribs together."

“Wait, what happened to Five? How is one of us going over there not a sacrificial lamb? How do we even decide who goes?” Malcolm ramble questioned.

"Broken ribs - I thought you said he was drunk!"

This felt comically stupid, them having this argument while they were moving an equally comically large plank, like they were out of some old slapstick cartoon.

"Let's get this where it's goin' first, then we can talk," he dismissed with a gesture. Their questions would hold. They were all too sharp to forget them.

"No! That was- that was- just code for broken ribs! I told you to tell that to Mister Klaus so he wouldn't worry about Mister Five's encounter with the damn spectre on the other side!" Doc gesticulates almost wildly enough to be dropping the plank, but he quickly puts both hands on it to hold it steady. They're at least not far from the chasm so they can make it there and drop it into the growing pile of snow, and then they can stand around and argue why this was a supremely stupid idea to have come here without a plan.

"Nobody's going over there! Not even you Malcolm Bright so don't you start, son."

“I wasn’t starting anything,” Malcolm said, flexing his shoulder after they got the makeshift bridge on the ground. “I just think that if someone has to go, I’m the most expendable of the three of us. You’re both... useful to everyone’s survival.”

And ‘beloved’, as Dean had pointed out. Not least by Malcolm Bright.

“I’m borderline a liability. Logically.”

Having turned around to watch where he was going, Raylan opted to keep his mouth closed til they had unloaded the bridge from their shoulders. It wasn't all that heavy but he was glad to not be holding it anymore and promptly turned back around to face his companions.

"Alright," he started with gesturing index finger at Malcolm. "You're not goin' anywhere. And neither are you," he continued, moving that finger towards Doc. "I'm goin' over because no matter what happened to Five, I'd bet money he didn't do it by any natural, mechanical means. There's no bringin' him over to this side without someone goin' over to talk to the damned thing."

"What is this expendable talk? I'm convinced after today that if I stuck that otter...outer...ostoscope inside Raylan's ear I wouldn't be able to see his damn brain." Nevermind that that's not how that tool works.

"And what're you gonna do, Raylan? Walk on over there and flash your badge? Ask it nicely to come over and join us for dinner? After some other folks been unnaturally, unmechanically trying to go over, throwing things at it? I thought you had a plan to get it to come over here!"

"Relatively expendable," he pointed out to Doc, but then looked at Raylan. "And talking creepy people into doing things is literally what I do at work."

Raylan gave Doc a look at the dig about the status of his brain, head pulling back a little as if to say 'Really?'. Out of everything he'd heard, this seemed like the least stupid thing.

"Why not? Why can't that be the plan?" He shook his head a little more as he looked at Malcolm. "None of us are expendable and you ain't the only one with that job. With your issues, I can't trust that this place ain't gonna throw you into another hallucination." He looked between them. "Why are we arguin' about this? I'm the best option."

"You don't even know if it's 'people'!" Doc says, getting increasingly agitated and exasperated at Malcolm. At them both really. "I'm the only one here who has dealt with demons and witches and non-people." The only reason he hasn't been insistent on volunteering to cross over is because the very idea of getting to the other side when they don't know what their maybe-friend-maybe-foe is capable of is just plain stupid. It may be a one way trip over and if he doesn't make it, he's worried he will survive the fall, which he is pointing out to them.

"And what was the plan exactly, when it blows you off the same way it did Mister Five, and you break your ribs and your legs and whatever else you've got to break on your way down this crack in the ground? Do you even know how deep it goes? You ever been stuck in a dark hole in the ground? Alone? Do you even know what that'll do to you?" He's got his back partially turned to the fissure so he can gesture at it without looking at it. God damn them both for bringing up old traumas. He doesn't have hand tremors but he's got eyes that have Seen Some Shit.

Malcolm looked at Doc and into the crack and across at the shadows uneasily.

"Maybe we shouldn't do this," he conceded.

The idea of approaching the weird being on the other side filled him with a dread he couldn't explain.

He looked at Raylan, meeting his eyes. "Maybe we shouldn't do this."

"We don't know anythin' so we should just keep on not knowin' nothin'?" Raylan stepped forward, gesturing at Malcolm without looking at him in a dismissal of the idea that they abandon what they were doing.

"That pit is all of 60 feet if it's a foot and I know that because I worked and almost died in a coal mine. I know what it means to be three hundred feet under the earth for a ten hour shift." He understood where this was coming from. Doc had issues with dark places, with holes in the ground and, to be honest, Raylan did too. But he didn't think he'd end up down there and if he did, he would find a way to handle it. At least in the daylight.

"You wanna talk about downsides, I'm happy to do so but that doesn't make this a bad idea. It's better than sittin' with our thumbs up our asses, like scared trapped mice."

"We should parlay," Doc agrees, even if he shares some of Malcolm's concerns about who or what that is, what it wants. But he is of the opinion that if the people or non-people on either side of the crack in the ground can leave each other alone, in peace, that is better than marking out territory, declaring hostile intentions. Just as he only merely wished to find out more about those lantern-wielding phantoms than try and provoke them.

"If we don't extend an olive branch and it decides to take us out and the other people on our side, it's gonna be one hell of a shitshow. But it hasn't been peaceful towards those who have tried to approach, before us. We need to have a better thought out approach to this." Nothing about throwing down a plank and running across is particularly well thought out, to him.

It's Doc's turn to point, at Raylan, and he's not usually a pointer, but sometimes you live with people for 2 weeks, some of their mannerisms rub off on you.

"Raylan. Givens. You haven't been in a coal mine in a long time. It's not where marshals pass the time. You don't have the usual equipment you'd have with you. And in five weeks' time you're gon' be somebody's daddy, you're gon' be twice the man that we'll ever be, and you're gon' do a damn good job of it. So we can figure out how to communicate with that thing without putting ourselves in harm's way, but I'm not letting you do anything stupid while I'm still alive and walking God's lily white Earth."

Doc directs his glare at Malcolm in case he's got anything else stupid he wants to say, like volunteering his services and saying he's more expendable than them again.

Malcolm did not have any such intentions and the moment Raylan finished rationalizing that he should cross, Malcolm had turned wide eyes towards Doc.

Do something; stop him. But Doc was on that page without noticing his expression.

By the time he looked at Malcolm, Malcolm's eyes were full of trepidation and directed at Raylan again.

"Don't do it," he implored quietly.

Did Doc just accuse him of being old? In that feeble sort of way that suggested he once knew what he was doing but didn't anymore? He was starting to get the idea that these two cared about him or something, in ways that went a little beyond people just trying to survive together. Considering he never had that at home, it's all a little odd to think of.

"You're gonna be a daddy too, don't forget that," was the only thing he could say before looking at Malcolm and sighing roughly, turning on his heel to walk away for a few steps before walking back. He could feel the relief of being able to do something being ripped away from his fingertips word by word. It frustrated him, to say the least.

"Whose to say intent has nothin' to do with this? I ain't talked to this Five kid much, but somehow I doubt he was lookin' to pop over the other side for any kind of peace talks. He doesn't look the type." One hand stayed propped on his hip as the other gestured between them. "Do either of you have a better idea? You wanna.. figure out a way to fashion a bow and arrow, send over a love note? Maybe just wrap it around a brick and sink it through a window? We really gonna let one person's attempt decide what is and isn't a possibility here?"

Technically Raylan's the oldest between them. He'd have the most fragile bones. Not that Doc Don't Ask Me how Much I Weigh Holliday would be pointing that out so explicitly.

"We could go back and ask him, what he'd said, what he'd planned on doing, whether he was waving a weapon at our new friend, whether he'd even gotten a word in before it hurt him. He's out of commission for six weeks." Six weeks, Raylan. Your daughter's coming along before those bones are healing. Doc's not going to remind him of that either. He can't be sure that they will be any farther along on their way home in six weeks' time than they are now, standing around arguing as the snow threatens to bury their shins.

He would insist that his own case is different, that it's Wynonna's baby, not his, but this isn't the time and place for that kind of talk.

"All I'm saying is, we learn from someone else's mistake. We don't learn anything from two people with broken bones than having had just the one. If you want, we can lay your plank down, see if it'll reach, see if our friend blows the bridge to pieces, or starts hollerin' at us to go to hell or shootin' at us. If it crosses over, or seems to want to meet us halfway, we can interact with it then. If it just stands there tauntin' us, we don't get baited by it. That sound fair?"

Malcolm considered Doc’s suggestion, looking at the bridge, then looking across the chasm.

He looked at Doc and then Raylan, looking to see how that sat with the Marshal.

“One step at a time,” he agreed, nodding encouragingly at Raylan.

Technically, Willa was still a few months away, more like 5 months, 4 and a half if he hadn't lost count; he was bad at keeping track of it all. That was Winona's department, he was just around to go on snack runs and emotional support, when he was around at all. But that wasn't the point and he didn't need Doc to be accurate to bluntly make his point.

Raylan hated that Doc made sense, nevermind that he had asked for it. Seemed like a waste of time - Surely the kid popped over and was just swept off. His jaw worked as he inhaled, the breath squaring up his shoulders as his chin ducked, stealing a glance over at Malcolm at his agreeable nodding and shook his head.

How 'bout you go and I'll stay here with the bridge? But he knew that wouldn't get him anywhere and frankly, he would be hard pressed to get the bridge over by himself.

"And if it did? Since we got no recourse for force push or whatever the hell it is, we just waste an afternoon buildin' a bridge to chicken out because Five had a bad run of it?" He threw up a hand and stalked over to their makeshift bridge.

"Fine. We place it, see and then go talk to Five. We can fight more then." He was sure they would, way this was going.

"I 'on't wanna fight, Raylan. I just don't wanna have to go down there to pick you up and bury you if shit goes sideways." Maybe it's cowardly. Maybe it's selfish. Maybe Raylan won't be happy for the next day or three. Doc doesn't give a shit. He doesn't want to go down there, full stop. And maybe he can live with trying to help Malcolm on his own - Malcolm who will probably get worse if they have to recite some bullshit Psalms over a mound of dirt covering Raylan up - but that won't stop him from running circles around the town, pacing around the porch drinking four bottles of moonshine freezing his balls off praying to a God he doesn't believe in anymore waiting for a white hat to emerge from the horizon of snow. He doesn't want either of them to see him after four bottles of moonshine.

"What're we doin'? Holding one side and letting it fall slowly?"

Malcolm also did not want to fight with Raylan, but Doc had more sway with him. They seemed to connect with each other on a more equal level than they connected with Malcolm. So he watched them both carefully - their faces, their body language - for his cues.

“Maybe some rope would help,” he suggested. “We could lower it like a drawbridge so it doesn’t hit the other side too hard and break. And so we can retrieve it without it falling in the chasm if it’s too short.”

It wasn't cowardly or selfish; Raylan couldn't blame them for not wanting to bury another known face. Not one they'd lived and sat with and built a sense of community with. It had been hard enough to bury people they barely knew. But instead of answering it with anything, he took a deep breath, resettled his hat on his head and looked over at his companions, tone back down to the same beguiling affable calm as he normally had.

"Rope isn't a bad idea, in case my eyes off." It wasn't but being short wasn't the only way something fell in a hole. "I was thinkin' we work it across as is, lifting it up to compensate for the bend. Tallest of us up front and we should be fine, but the rope'll help if it does fall." He eyed the houses around them more than a bit aggressively, like he might be able to light them on fire with his gaze alone.

"Might find some in one of these garages. We'll need two coils."

"Alright. I'll check this house." And hopefully they won't be needing that rope to go spelunking today. He's pretty sure nothing will happen to Raylan and Malcolm's handiwork apart from getting buried in more snow, and that they've sufficiently talked Raylan out of a Supremely Stupid Idea, so he's confident enough to leave their side and peel off, see if he can find anything useful.

He might also be needing that little bit of space and distance. Though it is not necessarily the case with Malcolm, whom he is quietly thankful has taken his side this time even though he had never asked for it, and it should not involve taking sides, sometimes with Raylan they do better with silences than with talking.

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