#* ⧣𝑈𝑁𝐼𝑉𝐸𝑅𝑆𝐸 ⸴ riggs + kieran ⸴ kiercnmurphy

[exulcnsis]

For a moment, Riggs' lips part. Is he about to throw the other male out for asking questions? Not a chance - really, he knew Kieran had followed him out in cuffs, all for defending him and the bogus search done on the bar, but did that mean that the other male had earned the truth? It wasn't really Riggs' place to tell - but he figured, if the other male had done anything, it was warrant some sort of explanation, and not a lie. "Ain't really hide the fact that I'm a Coyote," he starts, nodding towards the door of the bar that leads out front, where his bike is parked. He's never been the type to wear his leather cut while out and about, but when he was riding, it was always on his back, proclaiming him as a member of the club. Grabbing a rag from the bar, he wipes off his hands - dirty from where he's spent the last couple of hours straightening the mess the agents have made of the bar in their futile search. "Guess they took that allegiance as reason to believe I'm doin' somethin' illegal. But that ain't me." That, however, was a lie - of course he had a hand in club business, but it was truthfully enough that he'd never brought it back to the Dive, so he didn't feel that bad about lying about it. "Some people don't understand it - they think we're somethin' bad, I guess. But..." But nothing is ever black and white - something he'd told to Kieran none too long ago in another conversation.

— riggs maddow ; the dive, before opening.

"It was open." He'd heard the heavy steps beneath the man's boots long before he popped out from the back. Kieran stood with his elbows resting atop the bar as he lazily lifted his gaze in the other's direction. From what he could assume, they weren't satisfied with their own evidence to hold him, leaving Kieran to wonder why they'd even been looking towards him in the first place. "So, should I even ask what that was about? Or are you gonna toss some bullshit my way and pretend like you're still nothing but a saint? 'Cause I'll look the other way if you want." He'd followed Riggs out in a pair of cuffs, but for a reason he had no regrets over. In fact, he only wished he'd done more. @exulcnsis

[exulcnsis]

"Oh hell yeah," Riggs laughed lightly. "I was even engaged, once upon a time." He was so used to the people around him knowing - mostly because the people he talked to had lived in Lancaster for decades, - that it felt almost foreign to him, to have someone who didn't already know that about him. "Always wanted to settle down with someone, have a kid or two. Ain't never happened, but maybe one day, yeah?" The corner of his lips quirked up, smirking at the other male when he mentioned fatal flaws - did Riggs know what those flaws were? Not really - but he figured there had to be something wrong with him, if the only long term relationship he'd ever found himself in had ended because they just hadn't felt like marrying him anymore. "I don't know man - I'm not the life of the party, sometimes I get quiet and awkward. S'kinda thing some people can't get past, I guess."

Clearing his throat, Riggs did his best to pretend he knew nothing about what was actually going on in the small town - and he thought he did a pretty good job, personally. "Yeah, I guess it is," he starts, before he lifts his shoulders in a brief shrug. "But a hole's a hole, ain't it? If it's deep enough to bury a skyscraper or dearly departed pet hamster, it's still just a hole." His eyes dip down slightly. "Never believed in black and white - figured the entire world was just shades of grey. But no matter how dark or light, it's still grey, ain't it?"

Unable to help himself, Riggs let out a bark of laughter, his head shaking. "I'll give anything a try once, man. I'll be the first to admit that some of my all time favorite albums are the only fuckin' things I like from the band-" Californication from the Red Hot Chili Peppers being the most glaring example, since it was the only album from the band that had songs he liked on it. "I'll be nice if I decide you've got shit taste, promise."

"So, you're the dating type, huh?" He wasn't all that surprised, though, he didn't know the other well enough to make an assumption one way or another. As for what he preferred, the messing around type had always been his preferred method. It was easier for a man who bounced from city to city, town to town, always looking for a new story to carry him away. It made things easier when he needed to take a deeper dive too. "Nothing wrong with that. You're a hero and Mr. Perfect. Gotta say, man, I can't believe you're not locked down yet. Has me wondering what that fatal flaw of yours is." A joke, of course, but his cheshire grin stretching wide on whiskey stained lips.

Sure, small towns made trouble inevitable, but the last Kieran checked, monthly murder wasn't a normal part of that. Petty crimes made sense, but Lancaster was full of surprises much bigger than that. "Hole seems pretty deep here." Surely Riggs had heard the drunken whispers at the bar. Even Kieran had been privy to some of those conversations that weren't meant for his ear. He once again scanned over the man before him, this time noting the look of contemplation. As for what the other could have been thinking about, that was for him to figure out.

"Doesn't make you boring at all. I respect that. You shouldn't ever confine yourself to a single genre of music. I'll see what comes in and I'll hold some stuff that I think you might like. If you don't, then break it to me easy." He struggled to communicate more often than not, but through writing and music, he could say more than his voice could ever spew aloud.

[exulcnsis]

"You'd think," Riggs laughed lightly, head shaking just a touch as a faint hum fell from his lips. "Never been the type to take the chance, I guess. Plus, it'd get weird if I started datin' one of them." And for as fleeting as his romances had been since his relationship with his ex-fiancé, there was always a part of him that hoped he'd end up settling down. Getting some sort of happily ever after, even if he wasn't totally convinced it was in the cards for someone like himself. "I don't sleep around all that much - I like the romance of it all, I guess. Makes datin' families... messy."

Clearing his throat, a faint crease formed between his eyebrows as he tried to think about what he was doing, what he was going to say - and after a moment, he spoke up. "It's a small town - everyone gets into shit. Never really changes, no matter where you are. Just depends how deep the hole is," he says finally. Was what was going on in Lancaster something that ran deeper than that? Yes, but he wasn't going to admit to that - because, as far as he was concerned, it wasn't something Kieran needed to worry about.

Licking his lips quickly and bringing his drink up, he took a sip before a chuckle escaped him. "I don't know, man. I'm big on Bon Jovi and Jimmy Buffett. Other than that, I ain't really someone who thinks about music much. Just kinda throw it on, you know? It happens around me - I guess I'm a bit borin' like that."

He was impressed, though not surprised. Handsome was one of the many words he'd use to describe the male before him. "Isn't it only a problem if they find out?" And the last time he checked, siblings weren't all too quick to kiss and tell, but Lancaster was small and as Kieran had already figured out, news traveled fast. As soon as one person caught a whisper of something, it would spread like a wildfire until it either died out or was proven entirely incorrect. Even then, it didn't stop people from trying to make their own version of the truth.

The journalist watched with camouflaged intent, his dark hazel hues trained on the man before him. Was Riggs as gentle as the legend claimed? Was all that helping of those around him penance for anything terrible he might have, or could have done in life? "Has it always been like that here? People getting into shit?"

According to Mia, it was as much of a surprise to her people as it was to the locals who weren't involved. People like him. Or so she thought. While others wanted to flee from the madness, he wanted to dive in head first. Not even her warnings were grand enough to make him look the other way. This was a job. Jobs got messy and he had the scars to prove that.

"Depends on the pay. Throw me a decent number and I'll have that backroom looking like a showroom of booze." He wasn't all that organized, but the excuse was the best he could give over the truth of where he'd really been. Tucked away in his apartment doing a deep dive on everyone he could. "I had a couple of good finds. Is there anything you'd be looking for?"

[exulcnsis]

An easy grin settled over his lips, shoulders lifting in half of a shrug as a faint hum escaped him. "Well, I think I earned myself a few brownie points with her, but it was nothin'. Ain't doin' it for the glory - plus, I slept with her brother a few years back, and sometimes things get messy when you've been with two people in the same family." Though Lancaster was a small town, and he was sure he'd probably slept with people and then slept with their cousins at another point down the road without realizing. But if he knew about the relation, he tended to try to avoid it - like all difficult situations that didn't involve the club, Riggs wasn't interested.

Hand rubbing the back of his neck roughly, fingers threaded through the long strands of hair there, the cleared his throat. He didn't like quiet, not because of his own preferences - he'd fuck off to a mountain cabin never to be seen again without much of a second thought if the opportunity arose, but the people around him? They didn't like quiet - and he knew that. And when they went stir crazy, there was a large part of him that worried about them, stressed about if they were okay or not, and that wasn't good for his own sanity. "Yeah, heard there was a big fuckin' mess. But as far as I'm concerned, if you get yourself involved in shit, you gotta be prepared to sleep in it."

Isn't that who - or what - he was, really? The friendly, always helpful neighbor on the outside, but on the inside, he was only all too familiar with the way a bone felt as it crunched beneath his fist, or knew the exact force it took to hit a limb hard enough to audibly hear the snap of the bone. To be such a charmer, he knew a lot about the things that had to be done when it came down to it - the dark, dirty things people didn't talk about in polite company, and he never threw a punch he didn't think he could take right back.

"Yeah? Maybe I need one of you around here - swear the stock room is a mess whenever I take a night off," he joked lightly, giving the other man a playful roll of his eyes. "Got anything good in the bins over there?"

"Superhero shit never stops, huh? I wouldn't know. I'm not on that level yet." After weaseling his way into the truth about the town of Lancaster, he felt more like the villain. He'd swooped in to play the hero type, only to take everything that Mia had told him and turn it into a timeline of sorts. The unfolding story wasn't all that much of a surprise, but it was the moving pieces within that piqued his devilish interest.

Was it luck? Fate? He wasn't sure he believed in either. Whatever it was that seemed to put the other in the right place, right time, must have been looking out for him. "If that counts? Of course it counts. Maybe not for as many points as a kitten, but I bet it won you some brownie points with the mom? Or dad?" It was still more of a good deed than he'd done.

An elbow fell down atop the bar, his journalist soul all too curious for his own good. "I guess quiet is good though, right? I heard something went down a few weeks ago. It caused a real big mess for some people." He knew it was payback, but it was the need for payback that he wanted to figure out. Carefully, he studied the other's reaction, hoping to catch even the slightest response from what he'd said. "Work took over for a bit. Big inventory came in and being the star employee I am," he hummed, a beat passing between his words. Technically, he was the only employee at the record shop, but that wasn't what kept him holed up at his place. "Figured I'd help the owner out and make sure everything was sorted. Pretty sure I know every record in that store now."

[exulcnsis]

"Oh, you know me. A heroes' work is never done, and all of that," Riggs grinned, the expression lopsided and lazy on his face as his hand extended out in a vague gesture around him. "No kittens, though. I did climb a tree to get my neighbor's son's kite out of it, if that counts?" It's what his life was, in between the bar and his work for the club - good deeds, fit in whenever the need for them arose, because what good was he if he wasn't helping people out? Helping was what he was made for, what he'd always been made for. There was a part of him, perhaps, that hoped all this good karma he was building up would help turn whatever war was brewing in the Wild Coyotes' favor - though he wasn't so sure how much he believed in fate, it was better than nothing.

Fingertips tapping lightly at the bar top, his shoulders raise in half a shrug, a brief laugh fell from his lips. "I'm workin', technically, but we're quiet tonight. I can have a drink as long as I keep it at one." He reaches back to grab two glasses before he sets about pouring their drinks, a faint hum escaping as he did. "I've been worse, I guess - been better, but I've definitely been much worse. You? What made you decide to take a break from the bottle? Sucked not seein' you around."

— riggs maddow ; the dive.

Bad shit was happening and while the image wasn't crystal clear, he now had a better understanding of what was unfolding in Lancaster. It should have scared him into hiding, should have kept him tucked away in his apartment in hopes of more information falling into his lap, but he wasn't the type. Truth was, he liked the rush of danger, the thrill behind the potential for whatever awaited him in the shadows of the town. If Mia was in deep, then who else was? And what were these people willing to do in order to preserve what they deemed as their home? "Help any old ladies across the street recently? Or you know, rescue kittens from trees or whatever hero type shit you do to bide your time?" He believed that Riggs was as standup as he made himself out to be, but no one was perfect and he wondered what secrets the other had buried beneath the surface. "You on the clock right now, or can you have a drink? It's on me." A joke, of course. How could he cover the tab of someone who owned the place? "How's it been? Figured I'd lay off the bottle for a bit, but fear not, I'm back." @exulcnsis