Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, or anything, to Justified. If I did, Tim would never do anything but lay in bed and be naked. I do own Melissa, she is my creation. Song credits: Melissa, The Allman Brothers Band.
This whole thing came out of a Girl's Night In, too much junk food, and Justified. We all talked about Tim deserving someone sweet, decent, and hot, so he could show Raylan how to have an actual relationship. The idea stuck, and I ended up writing my first fanfiction.
WARNING: I get mildly graphic with sex.
A huge thank you to the friends who have read and edited, and for putting up with me and my Justified obsession. And a bigger thank you to the hubs, my real life Tim, for patiently answering my questions and serving as my technical adviser, while deployed half a world away. War has nothing on true love, I'll see you on the far side of this deployment.
She hated going to the Marshal's office at the court house. It wasn't the hustle and bustle of the office, it wasn't the parade of suspects, some less than savory, some downright scary. It wasn't the coffee so bad it awful they had. It had absolutely nothing to do with how absolutely slow it took nearly every marshal in that office to get reports to her.
Well, that was part of it. The slower they were with reports, the more she had to call and pester and annoy, the more irritated she would get, and the sharper the Texan twang would get, until she sounded like a drunk redneck from someplace with less than 10 buildings. And then, when she was good and mad, worked into a fit over it, she would storm to the courthouse, stomp around in the elevator, provided it was empty, and glower at whichever poor soul owed her a report on an arrest, until it was handed to her.
Normally, by the time she was virtually red hot with frustration, he would grin at her, hand her whatever report she was after, and offer her, with this adorable yet infuriating grin, candy, chocolate, whatever was sitting on his desk. A couple times she had found the candy tucked in between the reports she had gotten, if they came from him. She hated it because she liked it, because she liked the offerings of candy served with some sass, because she liked that hungry look coming from him, it sent electric shocks down her spine. She hated going to the Marshal's office because of the way he looked at her, studied her, stripped her down to her panties, and then out of them, every time she set foot in the office, and she hated that when he did it, she got all flushed, couldn't talk, and couldn't form the words to sass him.
Every time she flipped open a report, preparing to pull what she needed from it into her own files, and found candy from him tucked inside the report, she would turn the most glorious shades of crimson. It was common knowledge in the offices of Child and Adult Protective Services, that Melissa St. Germain was nursing a large crush on Deputy Marshal Tim Gutterson. It was equally common knowledge in the marshal's office that Tim thought Melissa was cute, loved to irritate her, and loved to make her laugh. He seemed to do both in equal measure.
They had done this dance over and over for weeks that had then stretched into months. There were days when she believed with everything in her, would have swore it on a stack of Bibles that Tim was holding back on reports on purpose. Just to rile her off, see her stomp around, and then offer her chocolate with that irritating grin on his face. That grin that she wanted to kiss, the one that made her want to curl up in his lap, and tug his shirt off, and just shut him up.
Despite her want, he never made an overt move towards her. He flirted, in his own way, he stared at her until she turned shades of red she did not think were possible, laughed at her when she stomped in frustration, and quickly found out her favorite candy bar. It seemed there was a never ending supply in them in some drawer in his desk, she was offered one at least once every time she was there. But things ended there, much to her frustration, a little flirting that some days confused her, some days frustrated her, almost always made her tingly, and things always came to a stop there.
It was infuriating. Every time she stood in that damned office, she had a recurring fantasy, of waltzing over to his desk, taking the phone from him, hanging up, and leaning over his desk until she was nose to nose with the man. And staring into his dark blue gaze, the one that shifted between gray and blue seeming with his mood, she would tell him that he was the most infuriating man on the face of the planet, in the history of the world. Somewhere in the fantasy, he would tell her she was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen, and he would kiss her, and after that, she would finally get to see what he looked like with his shirt off. Each time she found herself going to the courthouse, needing an arrest report, she would resolve to carry out that fantasy, at least the first part, to go nose to nose with the marshal, and tell him that he was pissing her off, that he had gotten under her skin, and that she liked it. It never happened, he made her mad, got her the report she needed, and she found herself in the elevator, headed back downstairs, opening a candy bar, and sighing with want and frustration. She has no idea how he felt about her, if the flirtation was nothing more than that to him, or if there was something more.
There was more. Tim had seen her one day, after Raylan shot someone, after he shot someone, after Art had yelled on the phone so loudly that his ears still ached, half an hour later. She was standing in front of Rachel's desk, going over an arrest report, getting Rachel's take on the situation. Someone, he could not remember who, had flipped open the blinds, letting light in. He knew a couple of things in that moment, as Melissa stood in the sunlight; her hair had red streaks in it, and the shirt she was wearing was see through. His sharp vision, used by the Army and now the Marshals, had caught the faint hint of a lacy bra strap, the outline of a slim back, and a tummy with just a small curve to it, and just had he had strained to see more, she had turned, stepping out of the sunlight, she was facing him when she lifted her lashes from the files in her arms.
It was uncharacteristic of Tim to trip, or misstep, and years of training did not fail him now, he had not missed a step. But he had completely missed what Raylan was saying. Melissa had the brightest blue eyes he had ever seen, they seemed brighter against her pale skin, pale skin that had freckles. Just enough to reveal her time in the sun on the weekends, but they were there.
The next time he had seen her, standing in the office, tapping one foot, he had realized why she was there. If reports were not filed on a regular basis, she would get impatient and come get them. A fatal flaw in Melissa had finally been revealed, she was a perfectionist. He would see her more, if his reports were late. Of course, she would be furious with him, her small frame fairly vibrating with anger, but it seemed to fade when he offered her something to eat, a peace offering that melted her. She turned the most interesting shade of red when he flirted with her, or when she caught him looking at her; so he did more of both. When she would come in the office, he would stop what he was doing; fold his arms over his chest, lean against the back of his chair, and just stare at her.
He liked looking at her, her small frame had curves where they should be, she was short but decidedly feminine; he wanted to count the freckles that were scattered across her nose and cheeks, he wanted to stare in her eyes, to place what color they were perfectly. He wanted to find out what color those eyes matched. He really liked looking at her when she would look back, when her cheeks would color with a hot blush, turning dark pink, and she would get fidgety, curling the ends of her long hair around her fingers, or raking it back impatiently. And when she peeked over at him again, through the heavy layers of hair nearly the color of chocolate, that hid her face, and that she would hide behind, those moments were when he wanted her the most.
The weeks ticked by, and although his want was obvious to everyone who saw him, both offices would be in an uproar for days when they would see each other, still he hadn't made a move towards her. His past, the past he avoided as much as he could, kept him from her. A girl like that would want nothing to do with the man he was, the man he had been. They continued to do the dance, back and forth, Tim provoking her to get a reaction out of her, soothing her with candy, sassing at her, and then finding she had slipped away, once more, to go back to her job. As patient as he was, even his training in the Army was starting to fail him, and he was ever closing to grabbing her, dragging her out of the office, and then finding out just exactly how she felt about him.