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“Go home.” Rachel’s tone said don’t mess with me and Tim wasn’t about to push his luck.
He was hurting, and there was little point in denying it. The crash had messed him up some. More than Tim was ever going to admit out loud in front of anyone. There were some things you just never did. Admitting weakness in front of your team was one of them.
For the sake of form, and his dignity, Tim signed a few more documents, punched holes in them, and filed them in the appropriate files. Took them over to Rachel’s desk, dropped them in her in-tray and said “Gonna call it a night.”
Rachel would have dearly loved to call him on his shit, because Tim was one of the good guys, but because he was one of the good guys, she wasn’t going to let him down. She would maintain the fiction.
Tim gave her a nod, which was his way of appreciating her silence, and she widened her eyes. He grinned. Which was just dumb, because his smile reminded him of the monster bruise forming on his cheekbone and temple.
The cut above his eyebrow wasn’t too happy about it either.
He held on to the wince by the skin of his teeth and headed out before he could make a fool of himself in front of the whole office.
He ached all over. He just wanted to have a shower, swallow a few Tylenol and crawl into bed, preferably with a nice bourbon and a good book.
***justified***
Driving home was miserable, his shoulders ached like hell, the bruises on his side were tightening up, and he was exchanging the shower for a soak in the tub.
Dropping his keys on the kitchen table, Tim began the torturous process of peeling off his shirt as he wandered into the bathroom. Biting back a curse, he dropped the shirt on the floor and eased himself gently down onto the toilet seat to remove his jeans and boots.
Bending to put the plug in the bath, and running the water brought its own set of aches and pains, but when he had finally managed to ease himself down into the water some of his pain was beginning to wash away.
He still hurt, but in a more vague detached way. Though he spared a moment to wonder just how much it was going to hurt to get out of the bath.
He closes his eyes, because just a few minutes more won’t hurt, will let him get to the point where he can face the jolt he knows he’s going to get when he resumes the vertical.
Then he hears it. The slow footsteps, and he begins to put it together. The hat first, crown down on the couch, he hears the distinct but muffled thump, boots next, if he really listens, he’s certain he can hear the sound of a skinny black tie being pulled free of the shirt collar. By then the footsteps have stopped by the door, it opens, because heaven forbid Raylan would ever learn to knock first.
“Well, shit.”
Tim knows that those would be the first words out of Raylan’s mouth. It’s not like they haven’t fallen from his own lips a time or two. Then there’s the unexpected rustle of flexing denim, the surprisingly loud creak from Raylan’s knees, and Tim opens his eyes as a gentle hand curves around his undamaged cheek.
Raylan’s expression is his usual tight, suspicious look, but Tim’s learned to see past the apparent anger on the cowboy marshal’s face, and read the eyes. It’s all in the eyes, it always has been. Since the day Tim Gutterson looked across the car roof of the Lincoln and saw gratitude, and suspicion, in Raylan’s angry dark eyes.
It’s taken him a while to learn fluent Raylan, it’s in those beautiful wary dark eyes, and in the body language of a cowboy who’s long mastered the art of laconic. There have been some dire missteps along the way, but this thing they have between them, has been off and on, and grown over two years. Sometimes it’s been more off than on, when Raylan goes off and finds himself in some deep mire with some predatory blonde, Tim feels thoroughly pissed and wants to kick what they have and have had to the curb because it ain’t worth the strain. It’s not even as though Raylan comes crawling back, face it, Raylan’s socially dysfunctional at best. He has a veneer of charm and society manners which Tim believes he may have picked up from his mother or his aunt, no, Tim is fairly certain that Raylan’s disappearances and re-appearances in Tim’s life and in his bed are more to do with Raylan being unable to let go of the romantic cowboy hero image that he has in his head. That image has more to do with white picket fences and two point four children… topped off with a busty blonde with sultry good looks which match Raylan’s handsome, dark, exotic looks to perfection.
The only real problem, this image lives in novels, not in real life. Tim’s reading material may contain princesses and frogs, and occasionally wild animals, but at least he’s not foolish enough to believe it’s true.
So Tim lets him back in, and tries hard to avoid the snippy responses about working with an eighth grader, because that’s an image he can well do without.
He has his hands full with the reality of a full-grown cowboy with a terrifying number of issues that make Tim, with PTSD and alcohol issues, feel the more stable and balanced of the two.
Except now it’s all going to hell in a handcart because Art’s transferred Raylan, kicked him out of Kentucky like dumping an unwanted dog on the freeway, and they’re running out of time.
Tim feels those strong, calloused but undeniably gentle fingers on his face, gazes into the dark eyes which hold a mixture of sorrow, and anger… and yes, suspicion.
“Rachel said…”
Tim almost rolls his eyes, remembers his headache and responds quietly instead. “I’m sure she did.”
“You should be in hospital.” There’s something in Raylan’s voice, unsteady, his country accent thicker and suddenly Tim is getting it, this is not about his bruises. Well not directly anyway.
He gives Raylan the look. “Gonna give me a hand.”
That’s one thing that Art has really never understood. Beneath all the shootings, and the trouble, and messes that Raylan either creates or gets caught up in, Raylan is a gentle soul who cares for the people who deserve it. It is entirely instinctive in him to protect those he loves.
It’s taken Tim a while, but he’s discovered that Raylan loves him. Of course it’s in a weird, half-assed, and totally Raylan way. Which is to say, totally fucked up.
From time to time, Raylan messes up. Not because he’s bad, or corrupt, but because he knows no other way. He’s been on his own, in a real sense, since he ran from Kentucky at nineteen. Like the Dukes of Hazzard song goes, Raylan Givens had been making his way, the only way he knows how. Art, with his stable family past didn’t really get that.
Raylan doesn’t actually know how to ask for help when it counts.
Tim forgives him for his messes, even if only in his head. It would never do to let Raylan know officially that he’s forgiven. Besides, Tim ain’t no saint himself, and messing with Raylan Givens is something that Tim Gutterson loves to do.
Raylan studies Tim’s injuries for a moment, and though it’s unsaid, Tim knows that Raylan is figuring out a way to lift Tim that causes least stress and pain. For that Tim is thankful, but silent.
Honestly, Tim wouldn’t really know how to express the gratitude, without sounding like a complete sap, and Raylan would dismiss it in some awkward way because he doesn’t know how to receive it, and they would both blunder through and come out the other side confused.
Raylan wasn’t the only one with a depressingly sucky childhood.
For all that Raylan is lean-built and willowy, he’s very strong. His start in adult life was in the mines, and Tim does have a sneaking admiration for Raylan’s physical toughness. Raylan leans in, puts his hands under Tim’s left elbow and around his right side, at Tim’s nod he lifts.
Tim wobbles a little at the headrush from being lifted like that, but he steadies himself, and with Raylan’s hand firmly grasping his elbow (way too much trouble to shrug it off) he steps out of the bath, into the big bath sheet that Raylan has waiting for him.
***justified***
It’s only when Tim is dried, dressed in sleep pants and a wife beater (it’s a hot night), and situated in the bed with pillows propping him up, that he realizes Raylan’s visit is less curiosity or accident, and more a full service trip with Chicken Noodle soup, fresh orange juice and ice packs for his bruises. Tim’s pretty sure that Raylan’s dreamed up something for his wrenched muscles too.
It’s only when Raylan removes the dinner tray from Tim’s lap that Tim figures it out (his head hurts, his whole being is caught up with how much everything aches and pulls, forgive him for being a little slow on the uptake). Raylan’s in sleep pants and a wife beater, he’s washed up and cleaned up his mess in the kitchen, he slips into bed next to Tim, very carefully he eases himself mostly behind Tim, who rolls a little onto his undamaged side into Raylan's arms. He’s surrounded by Raylan, cocooned in the warmth of Raylan’s body, he rests his weary head against Raylan’s shoulder, like one of the princesses in his latest book, he feels as though he’s come home.
Soothed by the warmth of Raylan's body, worn out by a long shitty day, and his accumulated injuries Tim falls slowly into sleep. The last thing he’s certain of feeling is Raylan’s very soft, sweet kiss to Tim’s forehead.
His last thought, how could he bear to give this up.