villagelogs | 026 》sweet troubled man are you giving or taking?

“I had wine delivered to a surveillance van once. I would’ve had fun with you too.”

Neal wouldn’t just leave Raylan the room. He tilted his head, clearly curious. “What keeps you in Kentucky?”

Raylan snorted. "I can hear the jokes about a charcuterie board and country club now." Oh the friendly shit Neal would have gotten for his contrasting tastes alone.

His face curled at the question, largely amusement but in part to hide the way even being stuck there was a seed in his craw.

"Boyd Crowder." The name came with a little lift of his chin, halfmoon eyes sliding back over to look at Neal. "Known best for robbin' banks and blowin' shit up. He ran back into Harlan's hills and even the US Marshal's service can't find it's way around out there. Hard to do when most roads ain't on the map. Harder when the people livin' there won't talk to outsiders." The smile curled, eyebrows lifting in amusement. "I was called the Hillbilly Whisperer once." Clever.

"But once we get him good enough to put him away, I can leave again. Least til Arlo dies."

"Country clubs have never really been my speed. Good for gossip, though. Picking marks." A pause. "Okay, maybe they are my speed. And I put together one hell of a charcuterie board."

He gets shit as it is being the white collar unit's resident peacock. In Lexington? Neal can't help grinning at the thought.

He notices the way Raylan's posture changes when he says Boyd Crowder's name. "It's personal, between the two of you."

He'll ask about who Arlo is in a minute.

Raylan's eyebrows lifted at the denial, face breaking into a more earnest and easy wearing grin in return before he went back to his coffee cup, finally draining the last of what he'd been drinking. Shrugging a little, Raylan leaned forward to set his cup on the coffee table in front of them before sitting back, his furthest arm going safely onto the back of empty couch as he settled back in.

The question made him huff again, chin downtucking before lifting with a grin as he looked over sidelong. No point in hiding it. "We sorta grew up together. His daddy and mine ran most of the illegal avenues outta Harlan from drugs to women to cattle and cars. We ain't anywhere near brothers, if that's what you're thinkin' but.." His voice changed a little as he continued, a softer, more fondly reminiscent tone. "We dug coal together. Saved my life once, Boyd did. Shame that I'm gonna haveta renege on that note of debt."

One might think that a normal person would say that with some reservation, but Raylan had none. That's how it was gonna go, he was sure of it.

"But he made his choices. I made mine. Coulda just as easy gone his way, I suppose, had my Aunt Helen not helped me get out, to go to college. It's almost ironic that he's the reason I got drug back after so long."

Grew up together. Damn. But history aside, it didn't seem like Raylan would hesitate to bring Boyd down when the time came. Neal didn't know if he would be able to do it, in Raylan's position.

Neal ducked his head, smiling a little. "Your Aunt Helen, my Aunt Ellen." There was a certain irony in the fact that Raylan's aunt pushed him one way and Ellen, accidentally, pushed Neal the other. The smile faded. "I never actually went to college. Thought about it a few times, but never went."

Edited 2021-01-17 02:01 (UTC)

Raylan was the only person that was going to be able to bring Boyd Crowder in. As hard as the staties might try, Boyd had a flair about him that only Raylan was really suited for coming after. Suited for meeting, toe to toe.

"Aunt Ellen," he echoed, childishly amused at the accidental rhythm of influences. He'd come back around to ask details about that in a minute, but the flow of conversation demanded some shelving. "Why not?" A beat passed. "Lack of money or lack of interest?"

Neal had to consider the question. He'd never really thought about it. Yeah, after a while with how much he had to move to stay ahead of the law it wasn't an option, but before that....

Before, he'd planned on getting a degree in forensic psychology. Joining the police academy in St. Louis as soon as he was eligible at twenty-one. Working his way up. Protecting people. Neal snorts softly.

Turned out he didn't need a degree to understand the criminal mind.

"I had... a pretty clear idea of who I wanted to be, growing up." He shrugged one shoulder. "Then I grew up and found out I couldn't be that person. The plans I made up until then didn't apply."

He almost left it at that.

"You spend long enough believing in something, and it gets taken away? It's hard to figure out who you are without it. I drifted. I figured out a new me. And the new me didn't need college to get what he wanted."

"Couldn't be?" Raylan echoed. There weren't a lot of things people like them couldn't be. Unless Neal had made a choice somewhere along the way; unless couldn't meant wouldn't. Raylan had made his own choice, a choice not to be the person that was being demanded of him, after all.

"Not everything needs collage. Some are better off without it.. What did you want to be? What did you wanna study?" Not who - that was a lie of an idea that shifted a little more every year, every decade. But what someone put their mind to was important, telling even. It still shaped them, no matter how far down the path one got.

Neal shrugged again, making a softly amused noise. "Doesn't matter. I ended up teaching myself everything I could want to know."

He shot Raylan a sidelong smile. "Art, history, how to forge a two-hundred carat Burmese pigeon blood ruby. Practical things. What'd you study?"

Edited (what are tenses) 2021-01-17 22:42 (UTC)

Ah. Must have stepped over a line he didn't know was there. Fair enough - the roots of a soul are buried in the starts, anyway. Raylan smiled slightly in return, eyebrows lifting faintly to sell the look.

"I've got a bachelors in Criminology and Law Enforcement. Only what I needed to get the job. 'Course, I never thought I'd be anythin' when I grew up. An astronaut when I was seven maybe, but.. I knew what was comin' to me. I gotta ask - how do you forge a two-hundred carat Burmese pigeon blood ruby to pass inspection?"

"You need an oven that reaches two thousand degrees celsius, welding equipment, aluminum oxide and chromium oxide powders, and a big hammer. And the hope that no one has a microscope on hand to check the crystal growth lines."

He sat back against the couch, his little smile still there. "I prefer falsifying Degas or hotwiring high-security elevators, personally, but you sweat less when doing those things."

Edited 2021-01-17 23:10 (UTC)

Raylan couldn't help but laugh at how quickly that information was recalled. It meant Neal had done it several times and was, at least, passably good at it. More than passably, if what Raylan had heard of his record would tell.

"I don't mind sweatin' but only because I'm hard pressed to find somethin' uptop that makes you sweat as hard as coal mining does. No air circulation in the deep and all... How'd you learn how to do somethin' as complex as all that?"

The thought of Mozzie made Neal homesick. "Apprenticeship. More or less."

He paused, thinking it over. "And getting to know experts. People love talking about what they love, and there are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons to make synthetic gemstones. Everything I learned about how to spot a counterfeit, I learned from a gemologist who made synthetics for a legal living. You want to learn how to fake a Degas, get to know someone whose spent their life studying his works. You want to learn your way around elevator security systems, well. In that case I got a job installing them. I found the best and studied everything I could under them."

He huffed a laugh. "I learned by doing. And after a certain point, I started taking the small jobs I knew well and scaling up. ...What about you? Why law?"

"Smart," he acknowledged easily. People who could jump jobs that way, excel in them regardless was a basis of intelligence that Raylan respected, to a point. "No better way, really. The old guys know all the tricks of the trade, the workable shortcuts.. The things that make it really good. Skill." It didn't matter that they were talking about things that lead to theft; Raylan could appreciate it nonetheless.

He'd done the same thing with Marshaling, even if it didn't seem that way. Art was a good example. He'd found something worth looking up to and aspired until he was there. It was less a passion, more a calling. A curse.

"Why law? It wasn't mining. It had good pay.. It pissed Arlo off.. Left home when I was 19 with the money my Aunt Helen gave me for it all - cash, in a suitcase that'd been buried for a good ten years. All I knew is that I didn't wanna be him. That I couldn't be him, however shallow that lie was. One moral conviction away, that's as far as that line is, at that age. So I became the thing he hated." Moreso after taking that path, Raylan knew how deep a betrayal it was to Arlo's idea of what Should Be. He kept his eyes in his lap. "Outta spite. Just so happens that startin' shootin' when you're ten and havin' a daddy known for duckin' the law is the perfect education for it."

Arlo. A daddy known for ducking the law. That answered that unasked question.

A twist of shame made Neal look away. He'd never known James Bennett to resent him. He'd only ever wanted to be like him, the version of him that Neal's mother lied to him about. These people kept having echoes of his own story, and it made him want to tell them more than he should. The more they knew, the less likely they would be to trust him, and the more ammunition they would have to hurt him. It was just the way these things worked. If Raylan knew he'd wanted to be a cop, of all things. That his father had been a crooked one.

Malcolm knowing about his dad was one person too many already.

"I...." He puts on a smile, one of his best. "I started hustling pool when I was nine, so I guess you could say I was on the wrong track from the beginning."

Edited 2021-01-18 04:13 (UTC)

Even with his eyes down, Raylan could sense the turn away. That tended only to come from shame. A shame he understood. That wasn't to say he wanted to get into storytelling but Neal would tell what he wanted to tell to who he wanted to tell it to. Or he would dance. Raylan couldn't fault him for that. Too many people saw too many things and not everyone had learned to deal with their past so offhandedly. Despite it not being offhand at all. It got him the distance he needed.

"We should play pool some time. Once we find a table. Arlo taught me all sorts of crap that would get someone decent bits of time." How to burn off cattle brands. How to get past roadblocks, how to hide shit in walls, how to - No. He should stop there. "You're uh.. stayin' in a house of guys who have sorta shitty dads. You don't gotta talk about it but... Far as places to land go, you're not gonna find blame for what you did when you were nine."

He shifted uncomfortably and pushed to his feet, snagging his mug off the coffeetable. "I need another cup of coffee, you want another cup of coffee?"

He offered up his cup in spite of there still being some coffee in it. Nothing wrong with a refresher. Raylan going to get the coffee gave him a chance to think, at least. A little distance from the conversation.

"I'd like that. I'm good." At the playing pool part, obviously. He studied his hands, keeping his tone casual. "But it's not about what I did when I was nine, is it? It's about what I did when I was twenty, and twenty-five, and twenty-seven, and the years in-between."

It's about what he's only just learning not to do. His smile hasn't wavered. He's had a lot of practice. "You went law, Malcolm went law. I didn't. That's the difference."

Raylan grabbed it and turned, just as readily happy for the space as he stepped into the kitchen. Fishing the spare bottle of moonshine from under the sink, he poured a good two fingers into his mug before corking it and sticking it away, covering it and Neal's cup in what was left from the pot.

"Mm," he sounded noncommittally as he stepped back into the living room. "So what. I went into law to be everything Arlo is not. Malcolm, I think, went into it to save people, honestly and earnestly... Boyd coulda gone towards law," he continued as he handed Neal his cup, opting to stay on his feet and move over to the fire that needed a good poking. "His daddy and mine ran the county. Ran the drugs, ran the women. Boyd and I, we were supposed to take over. Keep the 'Legends' goin'. Course, the only legend they left was a trail of convictions and bodies." He glanced over.

"Boyd, point in fact, did not go for the law." He looked back at the fire, setting his cup on the mantle place before grabbing a hunk of wood and squatting down, poking around and tossing it in. "And I'm gonna put him in jail or in the ground for it. Eventually. Too many bodies for Boyd to be able to come back to any redemption." His jaw flexed a little and he took out the feelings on the wood, stirring the heat up til it caught flame again.

"Lemme ask you somethin', no judgement." He stood and recollected his cup, turning to look at Neal. "Why do you rob these people? I'm sure it's partly for the money, that's the way of men in the world but.. You're smart. Adaptable. Why that? What's it get you?"

Neal blinked.

He hadn't heard that question since the first time Peter met Mozzie. He hadn't answered then. Mozzie had, for both of them, and Neal had let him with only mild discouragement. He opened his mouth to crib Mozzie's answer and found he couldn't make the words come.

After a moment, he looked down. "It's the money. We never starved, but when you're in WITSEC you're not exactly encouraged to take high-profile positions, and my mom...."

His mom had been too much of a mess to hold down a job for longer than a few months at a time. "It's the money."

The money and all it brought with it. To some degree it's what Mozzie told Peter, too--being able to come and go, to live whatever life he wanted in whatever way he wanted. To answer to no one but himself.

But what had the past year shown him, if not that he wanted people to answer to? He wanted people who would notice if he was late. Who would care if he disappeared. He didn't just want to live. He wanted to share it.

Neal tried to clear the tightness from his throat. "...It's what I'm good at."

It took a moment for him to realize what he'd said. Everything he'd said. When he did realize it, he went still, watching Raylan like a rabbit in an open field who just spotted a hawk.

Edited 2021-01-19 04:36 (UTC)

WITSEC. People were only put into WITSEC for a a few general type reasons, but somehow Raylan doubted that Neal or his mother were witnesses that were looking to testify. Not with long term plans.

Raylan didn't move for a long second but he broke the stillness with a faint nod, long legs carrying him casually back over towards the corner of the couch. He'd have thought that Neal would have gotten used to talking about it, considering all the work he was doing with Law Enforcement but the look on Neal's face was plenty to tell him he was wrong.

"As you tell it Neal, you're good at whatever you put your mind to. At the risk of sounding too much like a camp counselor.. You, workin' with the FBI, fancy ankle jewlery or not - That's the first step. You good at catchin' guys for the FBI? What'd you say your solve rate was?"

Why couldn't that be top billing?

"Ninety-four percent." He can't help being proud of that number, even if it feels like a betrayal as much as a success sometimes. Less and less like a betrayal, month by month.

You have Stockholm syndrome. You're fooling yourself if you think this is who you really are.

"There's a reason I'm good at it. It's what I do."

Edited 2021-01-20 03:34 (UTC)

The edges of Raylan's casually friendly smile curled into something warmer as he sat back down on the couch. "Here's a thought for you to chew on, might not be any good, I might be as dumb as I look but.. Who's to say that all that experience ain't what was meant to set you into the job you're in now?"

His chin lifted, eyes down for a moment as he continued before coming up to meet Neal's too blue eyes again. Jesus, those eyes.

"Used to know a guy called Hot Rod Rodney Dunham. Ran weed mostly, low level kinda DEA stuff.. He was a CI for the Marshal's Service until he was old as hell. There's a path for you that runs along side the law. Seems, from what I can gather, that maybe you've.." He inhaled, eyes going back out to a thousand yard stare at the living room floor. "Been Overhandled. But," he continued as though he hadn't said such a thing, "-Like I said before, ain't nothin' to steal here. Nothin' more than food, really. And you don't seem.. addicted to it, in such a way. It'll be alright."

Overhandled. Neal tensed.

"Peter is the best supervisory agent I could ask for. He's... the best friend I could ask for. The only person who thinks I can change."

Neal couldn't help the protectiveness. The defensiveness. Everything good he has in his life, Peter gave it to him, in one way or another. It isn't Peter's fault Neal kept screwing things up.

And he'd made his choice. He chose New York. Even if Mozzie thought he was lying to himself, even if he was lying to himself... he'd chosen.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

He ran his thumb over the rim of the mug, watching Raylan sidelong. He wanted to ask what made Raylan so sure. He wanted to ask what Raylan thought would happen when they were back in the world, when there was more to steal again than food.

Instead, he said, "You're the strangest people I've ever met. You, Doc, and Malcolm."

Edited 2021-01-20 07:29 (UTC)

Peter couldn't have been the only one handling him. "Then I'm not talkin' about him," Raylan replied with an affable evenness. It wasn't an accusation or an attack on Peter, just.. someone. Neal was just as damaged as the rest of them, though how deep it went would remain to be seen. That didn't happen without reason.

Raylan huffed a breath, opting to hide behind a sip of his coffee before he answered, teeth bared slightly as he swallowed down with the bite of shine. "Better than some of the things I've been called, that's for sure," he admitted with a curling lift of eyebrow that didn't quite come with eye contact.

"I'm guessin' you've got issues.. trustin' authority. Or.. Just people, people tend to be shit, generally speaking. My sayin' otherwise probably ain't gonna change your mind either but.. all we're lookin' for here is a way to survive.. And maybe not do it totally alone."

A smile breaks across Neal’s face, and he ducks his head like that will somehow hide it. He’s not even sure why he’s smiling. After a moment, he says, “No one knows. That I grew up in WITSEC. No one. Not even Peter. I ran when I turned eighteen. Peter’s never been able to find anything about my family, because anything that there was to find is behind the Marshals’ lock and key.”

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