Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens felt like his head was both filled with and coated in cotton wool and when he realised Tim Gutterson had left their shared motel room, the mans bed empty and unmade, his sense of confusion doubled down.
He stumbled to the bathroom, into the shower and after a ten seconds of ice cold and ten minutes of nearly scalding hot water he was wide awake and could recall pertinent facts, like who in the hell he was, why he was in an unfamiliar motel room and stirring awake at almost nine at night.
He dried off and dressed as he got finished doing both he heard a knock at the door to the room and opened it to Tim Gutterson, uncomfortably pale and dripping with sweat. He wore joggers and a hoodie, had headphones slung around his shoulders, carrying a paper bag that smelled of burgers in one hand, and a bag of beers and bourbon in the other.
Tim walked in and crossed to the small breakfast table and laid the bags down. "Both are a quarter pounder and large fries," Tim told him.
He said nothing else, disappeared into the bathroom and Raylan heard the shower start up. He had questions, but without thinking too much about it he found he was heading for the table, reaching for a burger and digging in. The burger was pretty damn good, tender juicy meat wrapped in a semi sweet bun, piled high with fried onions and crisp lettuce. The fries were crisped to perfection and the beer, some local brew Raylan didn't recognise wasn't Raylan's favourite but it was cool and went perfectly with the meal.
When Tim emerged from the bathroom some time later, he wore his sweat pants but had draped his towel over his shoulders rather than put his soiled shirt back on, flashing his torso, slender, decently toned which wasn't a surprise for a former Ranger. He had a cursive L tattoed on his chest, a decent collection of scars, small and large that Raylan glimpsed at, then away from. He had seen them before, but they still drew his eye.
Tim crossed to an overnight bag on the end of his bed, digging around until he found a plain t-shirt to pull over his head and while he ruffled his hair with the towel to take out the worst of the water Raylan got a look at more scars on Tim's back. He spotted a cluster of bullet wounds under Tim's left shoulder blade that corresponded with a cluster of exit wounds on his front. There was what looked like a patch of burned skin on the back of his right bicep and a jagged network of angry red lines on his right hip, half concealed under the hem of his joggers.
He looked away, curious about each one but not sure it was right to ask. But he found himself looking back at the cluster of bullet wounds. He wasn't sure he understood how Tim had survived such a wound.
Tim, being Tim, being a former sniper for the Rangers, had a preternatural sense he was being watched and turned, caught Raylan staring at the family of bullet wounds. "You want to ask how they happened?" he asked in his typical level drawl, pulling a t-shirt on.
"Sorry," Raylan looked away, felt like a dick for staring.
"I don't mind," Tim took his seat at the table and unwrapped his food, broke open a beer and took a long dram.
Raylan frowned, suspicious of Tim's open attitude. Tim didn't exactly go out of his way to maintain his personal privacy but he certainly didn't share a lot about himself, ever, at any time since Raylan had met him.
"We're in my home town. My 'aloof badass' routine is blown all to shit," Tim pointed out.
"Mostly I want to know how the hell you're alive," Raylan said. He motioned to his own torso in the same location as the cluster of bullet wounds, "this…looks like it was very bad."
"It was," Tim agreed.
Raylan waited for the story but Tim had started on his burger and fries and seemed content to work on them a little while so Raylan joined him. After a while, Tim drew on his beer again. "I was on a mountain side doing shit I can't tell you about, but that involved shooting bad guys. Kid gets behind me, all of seventeen and he fires this 30 year old handgun into my back. Breaks some ribs, nicks a lung. Bled everywhere."
"Jesus," Raylan breathed. "How did you walk away from that?"
Tim shrugged, "I didn't know I was shot at first. Medics said it was probably shock."
"What happened to him? Kid who shot you?" Raylan asked.
He regretted it at once. Tim looked like he hadn't expected the question and he chewed the inside of his mouth. "I had to kill him," he said quietly.
Raylan fought not to sit in totally shocked silence. "How old were you?" he asked.
"About a week off've twenty," Tim told him.
Raylan shook his head, felt angry and a little sad at the same time. "Pretty clear cut case of self-defence," he said calmly, and Tim nodded.
"Yeah," he agreed. "Still…sucked." The final word was uttered with far more conviction and depth of meaning than you normally heard applied.
Raylan nodded. He knew what the simple expression was trying to say. Tim wasn't someone who wanted to kill people, certainly not someone who had gone to war with that specific goal. He absolutely wasn't someone who went to war to kill teenagers. His guilt about the act was obvious. His quiet process of locking it back away was more subtle, his expression closing off in small and careful ways.
They finished their food, their first beers, broke into their second each. "So, how'd you get out of it?" Raylan finally asked.
Tim blinked, remembered he hadn't finished his story. "I don't know. I'm told I dropped off comms sometime after we got the call they were retreating. They came looking for me and I'd crawled halfway down the mountain before I passed out."
"We got a badass over here," Raylan teased and Tim grinned, nodded.
"I was a little proud of that part," he admitted.
Raylan drew on his beer and glanced around the stuffy room, detective a stuffiness to the air.
"Wanna get out?" he asked.
Tim raised his eyes from the table top, looked half surprised. "You make a habit of going out drinkin' in Harlan?" he asked.
Raylan thought about it. "Kinda."
Tim laughed, but he was shaking his head no.
Raylan leant forwards, "Hear me out; we're running out of alcohol."
"We can buy more of that from a store," Tim countered.
Raylan let out a small groan. "You got to go out for a jog," he said. "You've walked all over, you've been in my house."
"Nothin' stopping you runnin'," Tim reminded him. "I can draw you a route."
Raylan sat in silence and let himself radiate sullenness. He pouted, slouched, sank down in his chair and generally made a big show of being bored.
Tim was watching the display, eyes lit with amusement. Raylan played it out a little longer before giving up and just staring directly at Tim.
"This gonna go on all night?" the younger man asked.
Raylan nodded. Tim rolled his eyes. "You can't wear the hat," He eyed Raylan's trademark Stetson that rested atop the bed Raylan had slept in.
"Deal" Raylan said. He liked his hat but this kind of clammy weather made it uncomfortable.
Tim took a deep breath and slowly nodded. "Fine. Anything at all happens, it's on you."