Author's Note: Hey all and Merry Christmas, or cheers for whichever holiday you and your family are celebrating over the winter solstice. This is a Christmas story, no holds barred, just for the fun of it. Enjoy. I don't own any part of Justified or EL or F/X and make no money from these silly stories. They are simply shareware for public ridiculousness and a good way to get through the short daylight hours, though as of tomorrow, the days are getting longer again - at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere.
Don't drink and drive.
A Harlan Holiday – Chapter One
"Tim," Raylan snarled, exasperated, "stop fidgeting. You're rocking the whole car. How many coffees have you had now? Three large? Next time I have to sit with you on a stake-out, I'm bringing Valium or some kind of alcohol. Maybe even rubbing alcohol. We could probably buy some at the corner store across the street and then we could say it's part of our first-aid kit if Art finds it." Raylan finished his rant and crossed his arms, exuding annoyance.
"What's crawled down your shorts?" Tim drawled slowly but stopped moving his leg, employed some sniper training and sat perfectly still, focused, nearly meditating.
A half hour later Raylan jerked his head over, "Dammit, Tim, is this part of your Ranger training – covert annoyance? Stop it!"
"Stop what? I'm not doing anything?" Tim complained.
"Exactly. It's unnatural and distracting. Just act…normal."
Tim huffed his disbelief. "I think you're the one who should cut back on the coffee. What the fuck's your problem?"
"You're my problem."
"Man, you need a vacation."
And there it was in four words or less – you need a vacation – and he was getting one whether he liked it or not. Raylan tamped down his frustration, aware there was no malice in Tim's choice of words, no evil intent when he poked that particularly fresh burn. It's just that Art had said the same thing yesterday, "Raylan, you need a vacation." Only with Art it was an order, not an opinion. He'd blocked the way out of his office, adamant, until Raylan had agreed to something, anything, somewhere, anywhere, brochures lined up on the desk, pick a card, any card, and now Raylan was booked on a one week all-inclusive trip to the Yucatan Peninsula, the perfect place, according to the Chief, to forget about the disaster that was his relationship with Winona and the disaster that was Arlo's current state of affairs and especially to forget about the disaster area that was Harlan.
Art's motives were selfish and he had felt a twang of guilt, swiftly smothered, while Raylan dialed and booked his flight. Art had booked himself a few days off over Christmas, leaving a skeleton crew of Tim and two other deputies to hold the fort and he didn't want Raylan, the tinder box, anywhere near Harlan during that time. What Art wanted was to relax on his days off – no late night phone calls, no lawyers, no Feds, no bodies. Raylan, on the other hand, felt that the vacation was going to be a worse disaster than anything he could possibly stir up in Harlan or in any of his relationships and said so, but Art had just dismissed him with a smile, holding the door open, a cheerful Merry Christmas his parting shot. Mexico was a long way from Kentucky.
Raylan recalled the whole scene, still seething. He tried to ignore Tim, not to take his mood out on him. He thought irritably about beaches, detesting already the ridiculous umbrella that wouldn't keep the sun off a cancerous mole stuck stupidly in a sickly-sweet drink that couldn't begin to put a dent in a Kentucky Marshal's constitution. Did he even own a pair of shorts? "Shit," he expelled angrily.
Tim rolled his head over, growled through his teeth, "Now what? Is my breathing bothering you?"
Raylan tossed his hat in the back seat and pulled his jacket more firmly around himself in the cold car. What the hell, he decided. He was vaguely certain that Tim probably deserved to get the sharp end of his bad temper, had it coming for something past, present or future. He started poking around, looking for a distraction from thoughts of lounge chairs and palapas. "I can't figure out why you let Rachel talk you into doing this stakeout. She was on the sheet for it, not you. Do you ever say no to her? What's she holding on you?"
Tim's leg started jumping again but the question didn't appear to offend him any. "I don't mind helping her out."
"Compromising photos, maybe?" He tried to catch Tim's expression.
"She wanted to spend the time with Nick. School got let out last Friday. I owe her, but I'd've done it for her anyway." He offered Raylan a fake grin. "She asks nicely."
"You always owe her. She must have something bad on you. She catch you streaming chick flicks? I already know you like The Bodyguard."
Tim chuckled good-naturedly, "Watched and liked are two different things. There wasn't a multiplex theater on the base."
Raylan kept at it. "I always had you pegged as an action movie guy, Black Hawk Down and the like."
Tim's chuckling dried out into a sigh. "That movie depresses the hell out me. I can't watch it."
"Well, I guess it's not movies then since you're showing no shame for your lack of taste. She catch you drinking wine spritzers maybe? Not cleaning your rifle? Cheating on your girl? Come on, Tim, what does she have on you?"
Tim shrugged and rolled his shoulders, drew one leg up then the other, cracking the joints in his knees. "Nothing," he finally answered, full slow Kentucky roll out.
Raylan snorted, not buying it, said under his breath, "Bullshit," and winced at how much he sounded like Arlo. "You're always taking the holiday shifts for her. Buddy, you must have one huge debt owing."
Tim stretched as straight as he could in the confines of the front seat of the Lincoln then rolled his head toward Raylan again, his smile sincere this time but unreadable, mouth shut tight. And Raylan gave up, lacking the patience today to try to draw Tim out when he couldn't get so much as a one-word answer from him.
But Raylan was stubborn, too, and one day he'd get to the bottom of the Rachel/Tim mystery. He suspected she'd covered for him, something serious. He'd gotten close once, working his charm on a tipsy Rachel at the office Christmas party last year. She'd let slip that Tim had trouble adjusting his first few months out of the military but then she'd sobered up immediately, clearly regretting even that one cryptic sentence, wagged her finger under Raylan's nose and left him high and dry for details. The two of them, Rachel and Tim, had an unusual friendship, an understanding that defied their disparate personalities, and Raylan respected that. He had some odd relationships himself that he liked to keep private and close. He would never pry – unless maybe he could get Rachel drunk again. Tim was Fort Knox.
Tim sat up suddenly, slapped the dash in a haphazard rhythm, a release of energy, and announced, "I'm going for coffee. You want anything?"
Raylan turned in his seat to get a better view of his stake-out companion, fixed him with an incredulous glare. "What were we just talking about? You're not serious?"
"Sure, whatever. You want anything?" he repeated.
Raylan hesitated, but four hours in a cold car could wear a man down. "Yeah, the usual."
Before Tim could finish flashing the victory grin and open the door, the sky fell in, all of it, a freight train of sound and force, shattering the front windshield and crushing the hood of the Lincoln. Both men were lifted bodily out of their seats with the impact. Raylan stared shocked at the spray of blood and glass and then looked instinctively over at Tim to see if he were injured. Tim's instincts were working too, his sidearm drawn and pointed out the front window at the threat, a mass of meat and blood and bones pulverized on the front of the car.
Raylan did a quick visual check, assuring himself that Tim was alright then quipped, nervous sarcasm, "Go on, then. Shoot it." He waved at the slab of beef. "Quick, before it gets away."
Tim wet his lips, twitched, tempted to put a round in just to make sure, then he turned, eyes wide, to Raylan. "What the fuck?" He slowed his breathing. "Did we hit something?"
"How could we hit something? We're not moving."
They decided at the same time to get out of the car and investigate. Tim's door was jammed shut, the car frame twisted with the impact. Raylan walked around the back, avoiding the mess, grabbed the handle and pulled. A few coordinated pushes and yanks and the two men managed to get it open. A small crowd had started to gather and Raylan waved them back authoritatively, waving his badge, and pulled out his phone to call for help. Tim didn't move, stood staring at the bits until Raylan joined him again.
"What is it?" he asked, hoping Tim had gawked long enough to figure it out.
"Not a bird," Tim offered.
"Really?" Raylan shot back sarcastically. "How can you tell?"
"Can't fly. Obviously."
"Ostriches can't fly and ostriches are birds."
"Ostriches don't wear shoes." Tim pointed at a large black boot on the sidewalk. "Size eleven."
"Huh."
The two Marshals walked around to the front of the car to get a different angle and stared some more.
Tim screwed up his face and said, "Is that…?" He bent at the waist to look more closely. "Is that…?"
"Yep, that's Santa," Raylan confirmed, nodding absently.
Red coat, black belt, white beard, dead. The two of them looked up past the buildings, skyward.
"Makes you wonder – who's driving the sleigh?" Tim pondered.
The police arrived quickly, taking over the scene and Tim and Raylan stepped back out of the way to allow them room to set up a cordon. The coroner pulled in shortly afterward and stood with the Marshals for a moment, the same look of incredulity on her face when she started taking a visual inventory of the body. Then she, too, looked up to the sky in reaction.
"You're probably wondering the same thing we are," Raylan commented.
"Do reindeer wear diapers?" she suggested.
Tim flinched, picturing the payload.
Raylan took a more careful look at the coroner, searching for a resemblance to Tim, a long lost sister maybe. "No, that wasn't what we were wondering," he said slowly.
"Good question, though," Tim applauded. "Practical."
She smiled and got to work, the familiar motions prompting Raylan to remember why they were standing on this street corner in Covington. He looked across the Ohio River to the Cincinnati skyline then back to the building they had been watching all morning, hoping for their fugitive to appear.
"Shit. Tim!"
Up a ways and across the street, three men were getting into a truck, one looking back over his shoulder at the crowd gathered, curious. It was his fugitive – a hitman Raylan had been tracking now for a month, wanted in connection with a gangland murder in Memphis. They shared a stare.
"That him?" Tim asked, unfamiliar with their prey, starting on the investigation only this morning to cover for Rachel.
"That's him," Raylan confirmed already moving under the police tape and through the assembly of gawkers.
Tim followed quickly, taking the high road up and over a parked car to avoid the on-lookers then onto the street and down on one knee, sidearm out and aiming at the truck now peeling out of its parking spot.
One of the three men was left standing on the curb watching confused as his ride departed in haste without him. Raylan, already on the far sidewalk, moved quickly, running to intercept as the thug pulled a revolver, aiming, his eyes on Tim. Raylan heard three shots fired as he tackled his man to the pavement, hitting him hard and knocking the gun out onto the street. He pulled himself and the man up off the ground, cuffed him, and called to one of the local officers at the dead-Santa scene, waving him over to help out. Raylan passed over his prisoner, pocketed the dropped revolver and ran after Tim who was up again and chasing after the truck.
Tim didn't have to run far – both back tires of the truck were blown and it skidded into a parked car at the end of the block. The two men in the front were wrestling to free themselves from the airbags, inflated on impact. Tim moved cautiously to the passenger side, weapon out. He yelled a warning.
"Hands where I can see them!"
Raylan approached, fingers hovering over his holster. He did a quick check of his partner, thinking about the three gun shots and called over, "Tim? You okay?"
"No, I'm hungry."
"I counted three shots fired. Any of them hit you?" Raylan always did it unconsciously, kept track of gunshots, Marshal-style inventory check and it often came in handy.
"Not unless I shot myself," Tim answered dryly. "I fired all three."
"I see two tires blown. You miss a shot?"
"Miss?" Tim sneered. "Two in the tires, one in the tank. Watch your step. The truck's leaking fuel on the road."
Raylan nodded, satisfied. Looking down, he stepped carefully around the gasoline starting to pool in a dip then continued over to the driver's side and yanked open the door.
"Well, howdy," he greeted smiling, eyeing with amusement the man beating angrily at the airbag. "I've been looking for you. I guess Christmas has come early."
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