Chapter Text
Harlan isn’t a place where boys grow up to be together. They grow up to be men. Hard men, with scars on their chests and hate in their hearts. That's what Arlo tells him, a belt in his hands and disgust all over his face the first time Raylan lets on that maybe he wasn’t born that way, to be Harlan tough.
He’s eight years old, sporting welts on his backside that ache when they press against the hardwood and cold steel of his school desk. Boyd looks to be just as uncomfortable, a swelling red cut against his left cheekbone that smarts when he tries to smile.
At least there’s one thing that their daddies agree on.
A Givens and a Crowder spending time together. They’re too young to understand that it’s unbecoming, let alone unheard of, and especially now here, not deep in the bluegrass of Kentucky. Raised by a generation who’d died before they’d let anyone else know of their supposed shame.
From a young age, Raylan watches and he learns. He dodges the belt when he can, but it’s harder once his mama goes. He cries, silently but with tears streaking down his face, when they put her in the ground, just a few weeks shy of his turning thirteen. It’s the one time in his life, to that point, that he can remember Arlo seeing tears and not seething with a hand out to strike him.
There is a crowd there, gathered at the gravesite by the house, but Raylan doesn’t pay them much mind, least of all seek anyone out. But someone else does.
Boyd Crowder, his age and still soft enough to be brave, slips to Raylan’s side when they lower Frances Givens into the earth and slides his hand into Raylan’s. It’s an innocent gesture born of different means, but acceptable for the day. He squeezes Raylan’s hand, stares at him with those huge eyes and Raylan has never been more grateful for anything in his life. Arlo sees because he doesn’t miss anything, his dark eyes narrowing in something deeper than disapproval. He doesn’t react other than that in the moment, lets the service conclude and the guests depart before he explains to Raylan—thoroughly with no room for interpretation—what he thinks of it all.
Weakness, his daddy believes, can be beaten out of anyone. A dog, a horse, a young boy. And Raylan learns his daddy, the world, and the community he lives in. Learns to live in it, without his mama who could never quite protect him from Arlo, but who always tried to soften the blow by taking it herself. It takes a year of making himself as small as possible, until Arlo finally falls into Helen and is fitfully distracted from his young son and his perceived sins.
It isn’t until Raylan’s fifteen, a few months shy of sixteen, a little older and a little smarter, but just as hopeful as he was at eight years old, that he takes a chance on himself again.
English isn’t Raylan’s favorite subject—he always wants to read something other than the books they assign him—and he absolutely hates his teacher, Mrs. Albright. She’s an older lady with pepper grey hair and spectacles that she looks down her nose through whenever she sees Raylan.
“Givens,” she calls him. Never by his name. Since the first day of class and forever on. He’ll never know what did to offend her, other than being born. “Arlo’s boy.”
But there’s another boy—a new classmate—that Raylan’s never seen before, that only a week into the new year, she hates almost more.
“Gutterson!” The thunderclap of Mrs. Albright’s voice could raise the dead to speak, Raylan thinks. No need for the good Lord to do it, she could bring about the Rapture herself.
“Ma’am?” The lazy drawl belongs to a short boy sitting in the back, kicked back to let the front of his desk legs off the floor, balancing backwards towards the wall. He looks absolutely unfazed by their teachers ire.
“Set that desk back on the floor like a respectful young man,” she snaps. “Otherwise, you can plan on walking yourself down the hall.”
Defiant and unbothered, Gutterson doesn’t set the desk back down. Instead, he leans back heavier in the seat, somehow balances his center of gravity enough to keep himself from toppling over. His gaze never wavers.
“The desk is on the floor,” Gutterson is smiling. Mischief dances in his eyes. “Two legs at least. Did you mean all four? Gotta be specific.”
Raylan can’t help it. He snickers into his hand, hoping to muffle the sound. A mistake. Mrs. Albright snaps a finger at them both, face bright red.
A few minutes, backpacks in hand, find the two of them headed down the hallway together. Raylan has no intention of reporting to detention for the rest of the day—he’s more curious about this new boy.
“You’re new here?” He asks the obvious because it’s easiest.
New kid stares at him with those unnerving blue eyes. There’s an intensity in them that is out of place, not warranted by the hallways. But it’s one that Raylan recognizes. It’s the same way he might look at himself in the mirror, at home.
“Yeah,” the kid replies. His drawl is thick and very much not-from-around-here. He doesn’t offer anymore and Raylan can feel it coming off him, suspicion. He thinks this kid isn’t any more willing to report to detention than he is, but if one of them goes and the other doesn’t, they’re a witness and an accomplice. Better to be a co-conspirator.
“Well,” Raylan says in a conspiratorial tone. He can see the other boy’s attention on him. He doesn’t seem to miss much. “You ever been to Piney Creek? Hot today, sure would beat the hell outta whatever Mr. Hollins has planned for us and the other miscreants.”
Tim—Raylan learns his name is Tim—is technically a year his junior but whip smart enough to be in the same grade, at least in English. Raylan isn’t sure how that works but Tim doesn’t seem to think much of it, shrugs it off when Raylan asks how he’s younger but still in the same class.
“S’not a big deal,” he says, skipping a flat rock across the creek bed. He flicks the stone with precision, makes it all the way across, something that took Raylan a whole summer to master the first time he tried. “I just like to read, that’s all.” He turns to grin at Raylan then, big and full of teeth. “Hand writing is shit though.”
Raylan snorts. “No wonder you’re on Albright’s list. She hates mine too.”
Tim isn’t looking at him, not exactly, but Raylan knows he has his attention. He’s turning a rock over and over in his hand, feeling out the cracks and edges of it, the smoothness. Something about Tim is sharp as a tack, the edges ready to cut and bleed at the first sign of trouble. But the longer they sit together against the grass and watch the sun shine off the water, the more he softens. Raylan wants to unspool him and he doesn’t know why.
He likes Tim, likes the way he’s guarded but no bullshit, rebellious but not stupid. Tim has a quip for everything, delivers jokes with a wit so dry that it startles Raylan into genuine laughter more than once. He catches the other boy with a grin the second time it punches the air out of his lungs and realizes that Tim is teasing the sounds out of him on purpose, enjoying his reaction. It’s nice.
They spend the rest of the afternoon by the water, skipping rocks and picking at each other, learning more. Raylan is careful not to say too much about himself, but it’s different talking to Tim. Tim isn’t from Harlan, he doesn’t have an uncle in the drug running business or a cousin who was shot by someone Raylan knows or is related to. What Tim does have—he learns because once he gets the other boy talking, Tim doesn’t bullshit him—is a daddy who is meaner than shit, a hateful old drunk that seems to hate his son as much as Arlo does Raylan.
“One day,” Tim says, quietly like maybe Raylan isn’t listening. Raylan isn’t even sure if he’s talking to him or the river. It’s getting late, the sun sinking lower against the hills. “One day, I’ll be too big for him to take. And I’ll be able to give it back.”
And Raylan wonders if that’s even possible, if there’s a size he can grow or a shape he can take that could minimize Arlo, Harlan, everything he grew up surrounded by. Wonders if it’s going to become him one day, growing like cudzoo over a healthy tree.
The same year that Tim arrives in town and into Raylan’s life is the same year that Boyd starts to recede from it. It should feel like punishment. Boyd is destined to run his daddy’s empire, and Bo is wasting no time in his schooling. The days when Boyd and Raylan cross paths in the hall are few and far between now. It isn’t allowed, missing that many days from school, but Bo Crowder is Bo Crowder and he does what he pleases. No one asks why.
Except Tim.
He openly—loudly—talks about anyone and everyone’s bullshit. He won’t keep his damn mouth shut, no matter how much Raylan tries to quiet him. He shit talks the tallest and biggest boys in their grade, never mind his shorter-than-advantage stance or the fact that he’s 110lbs soaking wet. Raylan hasn’t yet grown into his lanky legs, still scrawny as a yearling colt, but at least he has height on some of the others. Tim doesn’t have anything.
Nothing but gall.
“Hey Crowder,” he hollers after Bowman, knowing the other boy can hear him and yet completely undaunted by the presence of the football star on the field. “Why don’t you get your ass up and actually block someone for Christsake.”
Raylan snorts into his Pepsi, sneaking a handful of popcorn out of the bag in Tim’s hand. He’s pressed up against Tim on the bleacher among his other classmates, his jacket pulled tight around him. The late fall wind is cuttingly cold and he wishes he had something more substantial to shield him from it. He briefly wonders where Boyd may be today, sometimes he and Bo both show up to see Bowman play, but he hasn’t seen hide or hair of either of the other Crowders today.
He checks his wristwatch for the time. Arlo doesn’t expect him home and doesn’t look for him—unless the school calls for skipping or an absence, he doesn’t bother with Raylan at all—but Helen probably will. She tries to be the things that his mama was, that Arlo isn’t. Raylan loves her for it, even if it’s not enough. It’ll never be, with his mama gone.
He’d brought Tim over to the house once or twice when he knew Arlo wasn’t in town and Helen had taken a shine to him right away, saw an underfed, skinny boy and immediately stuffed him full of turkey sandwiches and potato salad. It was the first time Raylan had ever seen Tim taken aback, without a single smart thing to say.
He nudges Tim as Bowman plows over another lineman. “I think he heard you.”
“He better have,” Tim says over a mouthful of popcorn, unrepentant. “That was the point of yelling.”
Raylan wonders how long this’ll go on before Bowman really snaps and manages to catch Tim somewhere no one can see, where he can well and truly beat the shit out of him. Tim has been hounding him for months, especially after the day Bowman targeted a freshman—little Donnie Williams—in the hallway before the first bell and tried to intimidate the kid. Tim has just happened to be there, trudging his way past them, and went to step in between them before Boyd had noticed them all and stepped in, Raylan at his side. They’ve been at each other ever since, mainly because Tim enjoys it and Bowman hates him, but Raylan thinks it’s probably going to reach a boiling point before long and blow sky high. He’s not looking forward to it.
To make matters worse, Tim likes trying to flirt with Ava, Bowman’s girl and the Harlan sweetheart. Try being the operative word, because somewhere in the last four months Tim has become his undisputed best friend and Raylan knows him. Tim isn’t interested in Ava—isn’t interested in girls at all as far as Raylan can tell, though they don’t talk about it—but Bowman is too dense to see that. Ava treats Tim with kid gloves, tolerant like you would a small child when he slides up to her and grins, offering her a honey bun or such with a flourish. But Raylan knows it really have nothing to do with her, it’s just to rile Bowman.
The wind picks up again and Tim shivers, tucks his blue patterned flannel closer. The warmer day has given way to cool temperatures since the sun set and even Raylan, in his layers, is a little chilly. Tim doesn’t have an inch of body fat to spare, he might actually freeze.
“Why didn’t you bring a jacket?” he asks, plucking another kernel and tossing it in the air to catch it in his mouth and grins without turning his head when he’s successful.
Tim shoves at him playfully. “Show off.” He lobs one at Raylan just to see the other boy make a face. “Don’t have one.”
Raylan frowns. “What happened to that green one?” It was an old jacket, distinguished mainly by the tattered hem and the way the cuffs had hung way below Tim’s fingertips, even rolled back twice. Ill-fitting through it may have been, it would have at least been better than the t-shirt and flannel he’s sporting now.
“Gone,” Tim says and doesn’t elaborate. He goes right back to yelling at the players, both their team and the one they’re playing, indiscriminately while Raylan mulls it over in his mind. He can read between the lines and Tim doesn’t just lose things or misplace them. He doesn’t have enough in the world to give it away and isn’t careless enough to leave it behind. If it’s gone, Tim’s old man took it. Out of spite, hate or just plain meanness. It doesn't matter to Robert Gutterson.
“It’s okay,” Tim says because he knows Raylan is looking at him. It shows all over your face, man. “Ray, I’m alright.” He knocks their shoulders together. The wind cuts across his face, blows back his hair. His eyes are ice blue. Tim shrugs and Raylan wonders who exactly he’s trying to convince, Raylan or himself. “Ain’t even that cold.”
That winter is mild, for Kentucky, but it still snows twice and Raylan watches Tim shiver through one, two months before he’s had enough. They’re walking home together, Raylan to the house he hates and Tim to the trailer that barely has any heat, and he’s sick to death of watching his best friend shake every day because his father doesn’t give a shit about his only son. It’s likely he traded his jacket for drugs or booze or both, or maybe just took it for himself. Tim never says.
He wonders if Tim’s mama was any better, if she was complacent or just as hateful, wonders why she was with the man in the first place. But that isn’t fair, because it just makes him think of his own mama and how she didn’t deserve the hand she was dealt either. Raylan doesn’t think any less of her of what they had to endure. Sometimes he wonders if he should.
The week they come back from winter break—an extended period that Raylan couldn’t help but hate—he finds Tim down by the batting cages, watching some of the guys practice. He wonders if Tim was looking for him there, but he’d been doing some catch-up work in another class, so he had to sit out of the beginning of practice today. More days than not, Tim sits by the field on the bleachers, tucked into one of his paperbacks until Raylan is done and they can walk home together.
It's a temperate day, but the overcast sky today only makes the fifty three degrees feel worse. Tim looks marginally warmer than usual because he’s stolen one of Raylan’s baseball hoodies, pulled over his usual flannel, and is practically buried in it. The cuffs are hanging down over his wrists so just the tips of his fingers are visible, flipping the pages over.
Practice is just winding down, enough time left that Raylan can get a few rounds in to justify coming out here at all, so he doesn’t break his stride towards the cage, right past Tim. He only stops at the other boy to shrug his jacket off. It’s a heavy coat, almost like an old aviator style, with a thick, warm, fleece collar. It’s too snug on Raylan now, well-worn in all the right places but too tight in the shoulders. The RG marked along the tag is faded but still legible from all the repeated motion of pulling it on and off again through the years.
Tim looks up from his book as Raylan’s shadow approaches, the corner of his face ticking up in a smile. Before he can say a word—protest or scoff—Raylan slips out of sleeves and drapes the coat, still warm from his own body heat, over Tim’s shoulders. Tim’s eyes widen but he doesn’t protest, instinctively grabbing for the garment and the warmth it provides.
“Keep it,” Raylan tells him over his shoulder. He turns his head halfway without stopping so Tim can see the small smile on his face, satisfied with himself. “It’s too small for me anyway,” because he knows that Tim needs a reason. I need one isn’t enough, so Raylan’s got the excuse lined up for him already.
The spring semester melts into April and their school makes it to the semi-finals of the state playoffs.
Raylan loves baseball. Loves the smell of the field, the feel of the bat in his hand, the burn in his palm when the ball hits his glove. On the field, he has the ability to change his fate and it gives him purpose. The stands are pretty full, but even with the crowd that has nothing better to do on Thursday night, Raylan can still pick Tim out among the throng. He’s sitting in his usual spot during their warm-ups and like every time Tim is there, it sends a furl of warmth through his chest. It’s not something he’s ever had before, someone in the stands just there to watch him play. His parents never had the time—or in Arlo’s case, the care—to come and it never bothered him too badly. Hard to miss something you’ve never had.
But Tim being there is special because Raylan has never once asked and Tim doesn’t even particularly like baseball. But he likes to watch Raylan play, or so he says. Raylan thinks he’s probably just avoiding home, but either way it works. The sun is out in full force today, drenching the field in heat, and when Raylan picks his friend out in the crowd, he finds what’s become of one of his caps. It’s sitting on Tim’s head, his longer bangs pushed back over his ears, hiding the blue of his eyes. He’s got a stick of gum in his mouth and is chewing steadily, ignoring just about everyone else around him.
Tim sees him looking, likely because he’s looking for Raylan too, and tips the brim of the hat at him in acknowledgment. He’s smirking. That hat has been missing for some time and Raylan hasn’t seen it once, so it figures Tim has been sitting on it to pull it out for something like this. It’s a special occasion, or as close to one as they’ll get.
Raylan steps up for his second hit and somehow among the clamor, can hear Tim’s drawl behind him, pitched low but still audible.
“Hey, number twenty-five,” He doesn’t need to turn around to know that Tim’s smiling, got the ball cap pulled around backwards. “Hit a dinger for me.”
Raylan takes the first two pitches—both too high—then sends the third one over the left field fence. The victory lap around the bases is sweet, his teammates all gathered at the plate to welcome him home. But there’s a warm burst of affection, new and deep in his chest, when he rounds third and looks up at the crowd to see Tim’s grinning, standing up to his full height so he can see over the other spectators. Raylan tips two fingers to him in a salute. To everyone else, it looks innocent, a tip-of-the-cap to the crowd. They don’t need to know it’s for his best friend.
They’ve already got a sizable lead when Raylan steps up to the plate for his third at bat. He can practically feel the frustration coming off the pitcher, the local Bennett boy, and it fuels his fire. The crowd is at his back and this is his moment. The wood of the bat is familiar in his hands and the sun is warm on his back. Everything is in sync, breathing quiet and deep, the background noise fading.
He’s not prepared for the ball to come sailing for his head and the shock of it stalls him enough from getting out of the way. The last thing he registers before it slams into the side of his head and sends him to the dirt, his helmet knocked off by the force, is Dickie Bennett’s face, still on the mound and failing to hide a smirk.
It was intentional.
Before he even has his bearings back or can get his feet underneath him, something else—this time sharp—slams into the side of his head, once, twice, and then it’s gone before he can even comprehend what's happening. There’s a commotion somewhere above him, but Raylan can hardly tell what’s up and what’s down. He’s too busy trying to reorient the earth while not puking all over the infield. He loses the fight with his stomach, heaving out a mix of blue Gatorade and water, before he loses the fight with consciousness and the earth rises up to meet him again.
His coach recounts the scene to him once he rejoins the land of the living from a hospital bed. Dickie Bennett sent the pitch into Raylan’s head—so on point that it had to be intentional—then rushed the plate and drove his cleats into the side of his skull. The commotion that Raylan can vaguely recall after the fact was not just the roar of his teammates and the bleachers, but Tim, who’d taken off for the field himself. According to his coach, Tim leapt the lower fence by the dugout, and pulled Bennett off before he could send his foot into Raylan’s head a third time. Then, he flung him halfway down the home base line and when Bennett went to get up, Tim picked up Raylan’s dropped bat and drove it right into Dickie’s knee.
By all accounts, it was a hell of a thing. Raylan is almost sore to have missed it.
“Don’t know why that kid did that,” Coach Bryant says, shaking his head. Raylan wonders if he’s talking about Tim or Dickie, but figures it must be Dickie. Anyone could see why Tim did what he did. “I guess he might’ve just snapped.” Raylan doesn’t offer up that thought, or an explanation. He could give some context, the long standing blood feud behind Bennetts and Givens and how it didn’t take much to make one of them want to just about kill the other. But he doesn’t. What’s done is done, so what good would come of it anyway? His piece said, his coach pats Raylan on the shoulder carefully, wishes him well, and then takes his leave as Helen comes in. She looks exhausted.
“Hell boy,” she says, taking up the vacated place by his bed. “They really tried to turn your lights out.”
But Raylan is only thinking of one thing, right now.
“Tim,” he manages to crack out. His throat feels like cotton. Helen hands him a cup of water and watches him sip. “Where is he?” Tim should be here, with him. He can’t imagine him being anywhere else.
Helen is looking at him strangely. He wants to attribute it to concern, but it’s not that. “That boy that took a bat to Dickie Bennett’s leg?” Raylan fixes her with an unamused look. Tim isn’t just ‘that boy.’ She knows who Tim is, even if she likes to downplay how close he and Raylan have become while slipping protein bars in the younger boys backpack when he’s not looking. It’s just that she knows how Arlo feels about it and the deflection and indifference is practically a habit.
“He’s down at the station,” Helen says. Raylan nearly sits bolt upright and Helen tsks at him as he sinks back down, his head spinning. “Shouldn’t do that so fast. You’re lucky your head isn’t a pulpy melon.”
“Tim?” Raylan ignores her. “He’s at the station?”
“Yes,” Helen answers. “They took him in after they hauled you off in the ambulance.” She shakes her head. “Mags is considering pressing charges.”
“Charges?” There are sirens going off inside Raylan’s brain. Like another ambulance coming to take him away. “For what?”
“Raylan, the Bennett boy has been in surgery since you got here,” Helen says. “His knee is a wreck. They don’t know how bad it is yet.”
Raylan feels like he can’t breath. “And Tim?”
Helen shrugs. “In the cooler. For now.”
His heart feels like it’s pounding out of his chest. At least Raylan has Helen. He has no idea how the fuck they’re going to begin to even pay for an ambulance —he prays the school will cover the cost—but Tim has no one. Not a damn soul in this town gives a shit about him besides Raylan. Not for lack of want, but mainly because Tim can be a surly, unfriendly sonofabitch when he wants to be.
It’s not fair, because Tim’s prickly demeanor is a protection, one that Raylan has gotten past. It’s like the stray cat that Raylan tried to tame in elementary school that lived behind the cafeteria dumpster. It hissed and clawed and fought because it was scared, it knew nothing else. But treat it with kindness, and by the end of the year it was eating tuna out of his hand.
“Helen,” he stares. He shouldn’t ask for this, but he can’t not. “You gotta get him out.”
His aunt just stares at him. “And how in the hell do you think I can do that?”
Helplessness, clawing at his chest. “I don’t-I don’t know. But, he can’t stay there.” There are tears pricking at the backs of his eyes. He might throw up again. If any of Bowman’s boys are in there and Bowman knows… “You know there’s nobody else that will.” Helen just stares at him. “You know it,” Raylan insists.
His aunt meets his gaze for a moment, searching for something there before she sighs, clapping her hands on her thighs and leaning forward, the momentum pulling her to her feet. “No promises,” she says. “I’ll see what I can do for the boy.” She sets a hand against Raylan’s head, just the barest brush of fingers.
He stares at the ceiling after she leaves, and counts the tiles until sleep takes him back under.
The sound of the door creaking open wakes him sometime later.
Tim is in the doorway, Helen is nowhere to be seen. It’s dark outside the window when it was light before, so some time must have passed, but that’s the only understanding Raylan has of it right now. Tim is staring at him, silent with those enormous eyes. He has a split lip and his clothes are filthy, covered in red dust. His right cheekbone is swollen and red. Raylan can’t speak for some reason, just motions for him to come closer.
Wordlessly, he walks forward without stopping by the chair at the bed and gently set his hands on Raylan’s shoulders, treads thin arms around the other boy and just squeezes tight. His breath is ragged, Raylan can feel it against his chest. Raylan swallows around the lump in his throat and squeezes Tim back just as hard. “I’m alright, Tim.” He feels broken up with emotion, sore in the head and in the heart. “I’m okay.”
“You looked dead.” Tim’s voice is muffled against Raylan’s hospital gown. God, but he wants out of this place. “Like all the strings just got cut when he hit you. I thought-“
“I know,” Raylan says even though he doesn’t. He’s glad he wasn’t on the other end of it. He can’t imagine what he’d have done if their positions were reversed. He brings a hand up to card through Tim’s hair. The motion settles something deep in his chest and Tim presses closer to him, settles against Raylan on the small bed. His warmth is grounding. They don’t speak again, and they don’t move. No one comes to disturb them. Raylan wonders if Helen has something to do with it. He falls asleep listening to Tim breathe, the comforting weight of someone at his side.
The game gets postponed to the next week, Raylan isn’t cleared to play. He sits on the side-line and watches his team lose—final score 5-3—leg restlessly jumping up and down and nine stitches in his head.