Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is just for fun.
Rating: T. Proceed at your own risk.
Summary: Stringed together snapshots. Some things change, others stay the same. Tim/Raylan slash.
Authors's note: This follows my previous story 'Falling'.
It smells like barbeque and wet dog. Raylan uses his shirt to cover his nose and mouth, nauseous and teary eyed. He steps through a charcoaled pile of rubble that must have been a chair once. It smudges his boots with soot, and these are his good goddamn boots too, but he finds what he's looking for. It's nothing but a twisted lump now, coal black and crispy. He wonders if he'll feel the presence of it on his head, like a phantom pain in an amputated limb, smoothes his dusty hair back and thinks it doesn't really feel like anything.
Faulty fucking wiring and the random stupidity of life, that's what this is supposed to be. Well, that's bullshit. Someone did this, he knows it the same way he knows you don't win the lottery and people don't change. It's a tickling sense of certainty down his spinal cord.
He's not sure why he ends up at Tim's place instead of some motel. He reckons there's something about losing all your worldly possessions that makes you not wanna be alone. He can hear the thump of angry music from the parking lot outside the house and has to knock a good long while before Tim slams the door open, hair all mussed and messy, obviously annoyed. Raylan almost forgets why he came here in the first place.
"My place burnt down," he says. It sounds more pitiful than he intends it to.
"You okay?"
"I lost my hat."
"Holy shit, Raylan, that's like the source of all your powers. How are you gonna fight crime now?"
"Shut up and let me in. You got any good bourbon?"
"No."
"You got any bourbon?"
"No."
Turns out all he's got is two thirds of a bottle of Vodka. Raylan suspects he's been on a weekend binge and is refusing to stock back up 'cause he's feeling guilty about it.
It's a shitty house. Raylan's pondering this from his sprawl on the couch. It's creaky and always springing a brand new leak somewhere, the roof's terrible, the plumbing's crap, the paint is peeling off the walls. Tim's never not fixing something. He could probably afford a pretty decent apartment for the same price he got this dump. He voices that last thought after a sip of Vodka, passes the bottle on to Tim who is sitting cross legged on the floor, fiddling with his Glock. He doesn't answer so Raylan nudges him, none too gently, with his toes peeking out from a hole in his sock, says, "Hey, let me look at that."
"I ain't handing you a gun when you're drunk."
"From half a bottle of this? What do you take me for, huh?"
Cheap ass European stuff tastes like Crowder hooch back in the eighties only without the kick. Now, Crowder hooch would have gotten him good and drunk... Tim doesn't hand him the gun. He takes a gulp from the bottle, coughs and says, "You can sleep on the couch if you want."
Raylan wrinkles his nose. "Tim, we've fucked on your bed. Like… quite a few times. Why can't I ever just sleep on it?"
"Do you not remember last time?"
He flinches a little at that and realizes he's not been here since last time. He remembers it all right, he can still taste it, and he hasn't been able to stop sneaking glances at the marks he left on Tim's wrist. They're barely even there anymore, just a couple of slightly pink dents shaped like his teeth.
"I didn't say I wanted to fuck you, I just wanna sleep."
"Then sleep on the goddamn couch."
"It's lumpy. And too short."
"Floor's okay too. I'll get you a couple of pillows."
"Tim…"
"What?"
Irritation and feigned ignorance, it's all in the rigid line of his jaw and the set of his eyebrows. Raylan expects to get angry, but all he feels is warm. The beginnings of a startling fondness scorching his eyelids 'til he sees red. He takes another sip to cool it down some.
"Is it 'cause I snore?"
"Oh for fuck's sake… fine! Sleep in the bed, I don't care."
He stalks off, probably indulging in one of his paranoid routines, checking all the doors and windows. Raylan is digging around for toothpaste and ends up staring at the orange pill bottles in the bathroom cabinet. Tim shows up behind him like a ghost, it's uncanny how he can do that. He picks up the toothpaste and hands it to Raylan, slams the cabinet door shut and crowds past him to take a piss.
"I almost never take any of it."
"Why not?"
"Hey, stay away from my toothbrush!"
"Should've thought about that before you decided not to keep a spare one, Timmy."
It's awkward, lying in bed together just waiting to fall asleep. The room's dark, the air cool, the sheets smell like mint shampoo.
Tim sighs and curls up on his side. "Don't… poke at me or anything, alright?"
"Alright."
"I'm sorry 'bout your hat."
"S'just a hat."
They bicker over breakfast, disguised as their usual easygoing back and forth but it's laced with something bitter and the coffee's too strong, like tar, Raylan has to fight the impulse to chew it. They don't speak for the rest of the day.
By lunch he's pretty sure he's found a somewhat solid lead on who might have torched the bar, so he heads out with a vague plan to poke a couple of hornets' nests just to see what kind of shit comes buzzing out into daylight. He runs into Nelson, who extends his sincere condolences for the hat, by the elevators. Raylan pats his shoulder awkwardly and smiles, 'cause what the hell is he supposed to say, really?
George Bird is sleeping in a rocking chair on his front porch when Raylan finds him. A perfect hillbilly cliché. He can feel his mouth twist into an ugly sneer, forces it down with the sour taste in his mouth and smears a polite smile in its place. "Mr. Bird?"
He peers back, spits and snorts and takes a sip of whatever it is he's got in his coffee cup, it smells like prune juice.
"Who's askin'?"
Since he's not technically here on official business, he goes with, "Name's Raylan. I'm looking for your son, Edward."
"Ain't seen him."
"I just gotta talk to him, he's not in any trouble."
"He was a good kid, Eddie, 'til he got them seizures, all 'cause of that shit he was smoking."
"So, you know where he's at now?"
Bird glances over at Raylan's Town Car, parked down the road, then at his newly polished boots.
"If I did I sure as hell ain't tellin' you."
There's a monster of a headache building up behind his eye sockets. He takes enough painkillers to knock out a migraine when he gets back to the car, then spends a couple of hours digging around the rest of the trailer park for people willing to talk, settled into a comfortable fuzz. As it turns out, Eddie's gone down to Harlan to work for Crowder. It figures all roads lead back home.
Rachel takes him out for dinner after work, all inconspicuous and easy going until they're halfway into dessert and she says, "Are you wearing one of Tim's shirts?"
"Yeah… little tight around the shoulders."
"Raylan…"
"Most of my clothes were ruined in the fire."
"And so you're living together now?"
"No. Absolutely not."
"Raylan…"
"It's temporary! I just need a place to stay 'til I find something new."
She tilts her head in a way that means he's full of shit, which isn't fair, because it's not like he set fire to his own goddamn place. It's not like he's staying with Tim just 'cause he misses their occasional recreational fucking.
"I'm sorry you lost your hat."
"Why does everyone keep saying that?"
He uses Tim's shampoo when he gets back to the house. The smell triggers some kind of Pavlovian response and makes him hard. He ignores it. He can't find a clean towel anywhere obvious but he figures it's warm enough he'll air-dry, strolls out into the bedroom and flops down on the bed, just 'cause he can, and then Tim's there, standing in the doorway. It'll never stop being creepy, how silent he can be. Raylan leans up on his elbows a bit, thinking he's gonna get yelled at like a kid for getting the sheets wet. Tim just stares at him, then one corner of his mouth quirks upwards, just a tiny little bit but it lights his eyes up like rocket flares.
"I like you so much better when you're naked."
He says it all husky, accent-heavy drawl and half smirk, something skittish underneath though, something like apprehension. Raylan's not sure if he should be worried or annoyed. Mostly he's just turned on.
So he saunters up close, belly tight, still dripping wet and crowds Tim up against the wall, slides a hand into his hair and studies his dubious expression, but whatever doubt was in his eyes disappears as they slip shut. He makes Raylan come right there against the wall, all over his hands and his army t-shirt while he holds his breath and bites into his own lip until it breaks. Raylan kisses him where it's split open, licks it real careful and wonders, through the haze of his own brutal pulse, if Tim's always gonna taste like blood now.
Art circles him all morning, keeps a steady route between his office and the coffee counter, not so subtly peering over at the files Raylan's put on his desk to make it look like he's working a case. He's actually hunting for clues on Edward Bird, the kid dropped off the grid a couple of months back. Raylan's got a pretty damn good idea where he's at though and smirks at the thought of putting a boot up Boyd's ass. He smells freshly brewed coffee and looks up to see his boss looming above him.
"Raylan, what are you doing?"
"What?"
"I thought the fire department proved the fire was caused by the wiring."
"How do you know about that?"
Art studies him from over the brim of his glasses, forehead wrinkled up, it makes Raylan think of a bulldog.
"Just… indulge me, okay, Art? I won't do anything out of line."
"I'm sorry… did you just ask me to indulge you? Or was that supposed to be a joke?"
"It can be a joke if you want."
"You think this fits into the epic western that is your life?"
"I think of it more as a comedy."
"Don't see anyone laughing, Raylan."
He's plans out his speech for Boyd in the car between the courthouse and Tim's place and it's a thing of beauty, smooth but hostile and just subtle enough he'll get the point across that he knows about Eddie. He's just gonna take a shower and change his boots but he gets intercepted in the hallway and finds himself with an armful of scraping tools and brushes. "It's this… or you start paying rent," Tim says, and it's that smile, easy and honest, exposing a line of slightly crooked teeth. It knocks Raylan off his feet. He figures Boyd'll still be in Harlan next week.
It's miserable work, scraping old paint from the porch, sweaty and dusty. He sneezes, wipes his face with the back of his arm and looks over at Tim, ready to start up as annoying a shitstorm of complaints as he can manage, but he gets caught up in the slim line of his back, the slight swell of wiry muscle just visible through the arms of his worn-thin t-shirt. Tim's eyes are hidden by the shade of his ballcap but he catches Raylan staring anyway and bites down a smirk, smug little bastard.
"You just don't know how pretty you are, Timmy."
"You were going to Harlan today?"
"Smooth change of subject. And yes, as it is I do happen to have some business in Harlan."
"You ever ride a horse?"
"What?"
"Did you ever ride a…"
"Uh… yeah I heard you the first time."
"Alright, then… did you?"
"No."
"So you're not, in fact, a cowboy?"
"This is what it's gonna be like, huh? Us sittin' around bullshitting each other all day long?"
"Pretty much the way I see it play out, yes."
Raylan snorts, he grabs Tim's beer and chugs the last of it, it earns him a glare.
"Oh, were you gonna drink that?"
Raylan's never been much for worrying but this shit unsettles him. Enough that he's pretty sure he won't fall back to sleep tonight.
Tim is a statue, scouting the backyard from behind the curtain, only visible in the shadows 'cause he's taken his shirt off and the thin layer of sweat makes him glow in the dark. Raylan stays in bed, clears his throat pointedly, he never tries to touch him when he's like this 'cause he ain't stupid.
"If you want a hug or a screw or something, I'm here for you."
Tim just keeps staring out the window, so eerily still Raylan can't see him breathe. Fucking unnerving.
He makes the coffee tar black in the morning, the way Tim wants it. He winces at the smell and kills the taste with milk. Tim's looking at him funny, steam from his cup catches the sunlight from the kitchen window, blurring the contours of his face, he's smiling.
"What? I can't do something nice?"
"Well, you kinda caught me off guard, Raylan. I thought I had you all figured out…"
He's sitting at his desk with paint still stuck under his fingernails, smack in the middle of a shitload of paperwork, staring at Tim's mouth, thinking real hard about how bad he wants to kiss him. He runs a hand through is hair, misses his hat for a few seconds 'cause it was goddamned good for obscuring his face. Then, paranoid suddenly, he glances over at Rachel who's got an expression like she knows exactly what he's thinking. Shit. Art's closing in on his desk with a stack of folders, obviously aware that Rachel knows what's going on in Raylan's head and that always pisses him off. He's gonna end up on prison transport duty again, he can feel it like the weather changing, like a tingle in his bones.
So a long day dodging paperwork turns into an even longer day of driving. Raylan gets back to the house after midnight and falls asleep before he's even got his pants off. It's not long before he's halfway back to consciousness again though, confused as to why, until he sees Tim.
He's panting, clawing at his sweat soaked shirt to wriggle out of it. It's pitiful to watch. Raylan blinks, still muddled with sleep. "Hey…" He tries "are you… uh…"
Tim keeps quiet. He collapses back down and hides his face in his hands, he's shaking so bad the bed rattles with it. Raylan is tired, his throat is full of gravel, it actually hurts to speak.
"I ever tell you 'bout my second cousin Jonah?"
There's no reply.
"Second or… maybe third cousin on my mama's side. He wasn't too bright, good looking kid though. Anyway, there was a rumor going around that Mad Magnus kept a stash of money in his basement freezer. Mad Magnus, he was a Vietnam vet, came back a vegan with his hair grown out talking shit about pacifism and anti-gun laws. Kids used to vandalize the hell out of his house but he never did anything about it. So Jonah goes to sneak into his basement one night and Bowman Crowder follows him there, probably 'cause he was a meddling little fuck. He hides in the bushes and sees Magnus chase Jonah out into the yard, jump in his tractor and pin him with the forklift, right up against the barn wall, blood spurting all over the place. Bowman was always full of shit, but no one ever saw my cousin again and all the kids started calling the pond out behind Magnus's potato patch Jonah's pit. Who knows… he probably just ran off to California or something, right? Got some acting job or became a porn star. No one ever fucked around with Mad Magnus's property again though."
Raylan sneaks a look over at Tim, curled up into a ball now, but not twitching so bad anymore. He wants to touch him but he presses a thumb into his left eye instead. Tim's voice is paper thin, barely there.
"That's a shit story."
"Yeah."
"You ever shot someone who was unarmed?"
"No."
Tim falls back asleep eventually. Raylan looks at the crosshairs tattoo on his arm, at his eyes flickering restlessly beneath his eyelids and thinks that for all his years in the Marshals Service, all the kills he's got… he doesn't know shit.
He leans over, real careful, and kisses Tim's forehead. So soft it's almost like nothing.
He puts the trip down to Harlan off for a little while, 'cause Tim's got dark circles under his eyes and a haunted pitch in his tone and he's stocked back up on whiskey, the cheap kind, so it's obviously not for the taste. Raylan is bothered. He's bothered 'cause he can't figure out if this is a temporary mood swing or if Tim's always been walking around with this jagged, raw edge, and he's just failed to notice. He gives it about a day and a half and then he decides that long term observations can go to hell. It isn't getting him anywhere and it's sure as shit's never been his method of choice anyway. He pushes buttons.
"Leave it alone, Raylan."
"I'm so fucking sick of leaving it alone, Tim."
"I'm not… You can't fix me, alright? You sure as hell can't fuck my problems away and you can't just… just lounge around here and say shit like that whenever you feel like it!"
"Oh yeah? Why?"
"I don't need your fucking help! I don't want it, I never asked for it so just… get out."
"Tim…"
"I said… get out."
The tension is suffocating, Raylan ignores it, stands his ground. The sound of the crash hits him before he sees Tim move. A wrench hurled through the window, a new break to mend and a furious "GET THE FUCK OUT!"
Raylan's got a mad, infamous temper, but it's silent, a fake smile and a steady finger on the trigger. Not this time though, he feels it growing like a living creature, rage, bursting out of him, like blood from a cut vein.
"Fuck you, Tim! Fuck you and your sad fucking house! I'm here, I'm here when you wake up screaming and when you stalk around like some ghost and I… Have you ever thought that maybe this ain't all about you, huh? That maybe I need something from you to know how to goddamn cope with this shit?"
"Raylan… shut up."
"No. You think watching you hurt like this is what… easy for me? Funny? You think I'm fucking entertained? I bleed for you, you goddamn selfish bastard! And you don't give a shit 'cause you can't see outside your own miserable head, can you? "
"Please just go…"
"No."
Tim opens his mouth like he's about to say something, expression caged and cracking apart like the paint on his walls, and Raylan is ready for it – whatever it is – he's not moving an inch. But his resolve is worth fuck all because Tim snaps his mouth shut, shoves him aside and leaves. Just like that. He can hear the front door creak and then the angry sound of the engine on Tim's car as he drives off.
His lungs hurt.
He stalks around the house for a good long while and ends up in the bathroom, ripping through the pill bottles like they're a riddle he can solve, but he can't, he doesn't even know what they're for. He shuts the cabined door and is faced with his own image in the mirror. He barely even recognizes it. Breathe, he thinks. Just fucking breathe.
Harlan has been put off for far too long. It's raining, the gray dawn-light is sneaking across the floor and he's barefoot, rummaging through a basket of laundry, tossing Tim's shit all across the room because Tim left and didn't come back all night and won't pick up his phone.
He's so caught up in his thoughts he actually jumps at the sound of footsteps.
"Hey."
It's listless, sleepy. He smells like rain and locker room, cheap shower gel, a hint of moldy basement. Raylan looks at him, down at his hands and yeah, swollen knuckles and scraped elbows, all the tell tale signs of a man that's been kicking the shit out of a punching bag.
"Did you sleep at the gym?"
"I'd never sleep at the gym."
"So you slept in the car?"
Tim doesn't answer. He shuffles into the room and starts picking up the clothes Raylan's flung all over the floor. "I uh… I'm sorry." He says. "That I didn't… call or anything."
"You know what really fucking pisses me off? These are the only goddamn pair of socks I've got left and they're goddamn shitty. Full of goddamn holes."
Tim rubs his face with both hands and sighs, but he still moves in close, slips his arms loosely around Raylan's waist and presses his dry lips to a ticklish spot just below his eye.
"You can use my socks." He says it all hushed, hot breath flooding Raylan's skin, and he loses his train of thought for a minute, can't keep a hold on the anger and it floats away from him. He touches the scrapes on Tim's elbows.
"It ain't about the socks…"
"I know."
He can feel the light prickle of Tim's eyelashes on his cheek, about two day's worth of stubble under his fingertips. Another scorching, arid kiss and then he pulls away. Raylan's plan for the day starts to seep back out through the haze.
"I was… I'm on my way out. I've got some loose ends…"
"Yeah, Raylan, you always do. I'll come with you."
"You don't have to do that. It's my shit, I'll deal with it."
Tim just looks at him squarely, his expression flat now, eyebrows slightly hitched. He grabs a jacket from the laundry, his keys and a gun from the dresser, says, "I'm driving."
"Are you sure?"
She sounds baffled, on the move, plastic slippers swishing across the shiny hospital floor. "I mean... he's been here for going on four months now and no one's come looking. I've been calling him Joe. Has a less ominous ring to it than John Doe, don't you think?"
The kid looks dead in spite of the rhythmic rising and falling of his narrow chest. Raylan follows the tube from the drip bag into a dry, bone thin arm with a badly made bald eagle tattoo on the inside of the elbow. He wants to break something. The wall, the window, the image of Boyd's smug fucking face.
He bites his lip.
Tim clears his throat. "Yes, ma'am. This is Edward Bird. Has he been awake at all?"
"Oh no. This boy isn't waking back up, Marshal. It's the machine that keeps him breathing, it's too sad, really."
"Alright, well… we'll get you the contact information for his father."
Raylan snorts softly. Thinks about George Bird and the stink of prunes. "His dad knows," he says. "I'm pretty sure he's known all along."
He's sitting by the RV, staring at his own gravestone. The crickets are so loud he can barely hear himself think. Tim joins him, Beretta stuffed down the back of his pants, all casual. He leans against the wall.
"It's creepy."
"It's a punch line. No matter how far I run I'll end up right back where I started."
Tim doesn't answer so he keeps talking, not liking the lack of words between them.
"I run away to school, I become a goddamn lawman... I marry a woman who knows exactly what I could be, exactly what I thought I wanted to be, you know? I change everything and still… 'cause it's in me. It's my blood, I can't… It's like being stuck in a loop."
"Well… that might be true. But it wasn't some great and evil scheme of hillbilly fate that landed you here this time. It was your bullshit story 'bout the fire and you insisting on pinning it all on Crowder, which turned out to be pointless. So… really, we could be having a beer on my freshly painted porch right now instead of sitting here staring at your creepy ass gravestone."
"Wow that was deep Dr. Tim, real psychoanalytical, I feel healed of my troubles now."
"You're an asshole. But you're welcome, nonetheless."
Raylan snorts but it's weak. He feels out of breath, wispy thin. He's shapeless, aimless, and he's so tired of running, of trying so hard…
"You don't get it." He tells Tim and his dead family and the crickets, and it isn't fair, he knows it isn't.
Tim huffs, annoyed, he's all sharp angles like this but his hands are warm on Raylan's arms as he kneels down in front of him, crowds right up into his space and locks their eyes together.
"I know who you are, Raylan. You're not as hard to love as you think."
He's kinda stumped by that, all out of words all of a sudden. He pulls Tim in close, hides his hands under his shirt and his face in the crook of his neck. Tim lets him have it for a little while, not too long though, never long enough.
"C'mon, it's getting cold."
They drive back just before sunrise. Windows rolled down 'cause they're both tired as shit. They stop for gas station coffee when they hit the halfway mark. Raylan fills the car up while Tim goes shopping. He comes back chewing on a bagel.
Another half hour on the road and the silence is choking him, it's too dense and heavy. He coughs, switches the radio on, gets nothing but static, switches it back off and says, "I found an apartment."
"You did? When?"
"Yeah, uh… last week."
"What is it this time, then? A roadhouse backroom? Someone's basement?"
"Nah, just a regular one. It's kinda small. But decent enough, I guess. Rent's low."
"That's good. That's really good."
Raylan's eye twitches, he pokes at it and snatches the last piece of bagel, stuffs it in his mouth. Tim glares at him. "Oh, were you gonna eat that?"
The walls in his new apartment are neat and white, there's a bed and a kitchen table with chairs, too many windows not to feel exposed. It's soulless. Raylan dreams that he's alone under water, trapped in a mute, colorless void. When he wakes up he can't fall back to sleep. It's a couple of hours yet, before dawn. Maybe Tim'll be up.
He finds him in the backyard, barefoot, pulling up weeds from the side of the house. Raylan leans against the porch, hips tilted to catch his eye.
"Ain't it a bit late for gardnin'?"
Tim looks up at him, eyes pitch black in the dark, hair wild. It's mesmerizing, almost ethereal, on the verge of dangerous for a second or two, before his face splits into huge, wicked grin, escalating into a full on laugh which he stupidly tries to hide behind a hand, managing to smear his face with fresh mud. Raylan snorts at him. "What's so funny?" It makes Tim laugh harder.
"I'm sorry, it's just… you look ridiculous like that."
"Like what?"
"Oh like you don't know…"
"Prick."
"Poser."
"You love it."
"Come here…"
Raylan's barely even within reach when he finds himself knocked off balance, pulled down, pressed into the wet grass and held there. He thinks it's way too easy for Tim to do that and shit maybe he's getting old and then they're kissing, soft this time, nothing breaking or bleeding. Tim smoothes his clothes out of the way, fucks him slow and deliberate, their hands digging into the dirt, then there's a sliver of light on the sky and they're soaked, sated. Tim kisses the gooseflesh on his belly.
"Hey… you think your neighbors are watching? 'Cause we're putting on quite a show…"
There's a chuckle, Tim glances up at the house next door. There are no windows facing his back yard, it's an empty wall, still and quiet.
"I think they're asleep."
"Famous last words…"
"Mmm… wanna go inside?"
"Don't know… I'm starting to like the feel of freezing mud on my ass."
"How's your new bed?"
"It's kinda lumpy."
"You can sleep on the couch if you want."