Work Text:
"See you in a few, honey," Raylan calls as Tim heads out the door.
Honey.
It slips from his lips easy as anything. Sure, it's a common enough nicety. Half the waitresses in every diner in Kentucky will call you "honey" without a thought.
But.
Tim is honey because he's sweet, but you've gotta put in the work if you want the real thing. You want honey, you gotta work around the bees. You have to know going in that you're going to deal with a sting or two or twenty. If you're fighting off the bees, your ass is in the precarious position of going out on a limb. That metaphor is plain as day. Then, after all that, when it's yours, when you're holding it in your hands, you still have to figure out what to do with all those walls that block your way to the sweetness.
Or do you?
Most folks would try to tear down the walls or suck the sweetness out and leave a shell behind. Melt what's left into a candle. The remains are serviceable, useful, but no longer sweet. But Raylan has run roughshod through a holler with a cheap pocket knife and a childish desire for danger and sugar. He knows the best way to deal with that hard-won honeycomb is to take a big bite and love it for what it is.
Who it is?
Maybe that's what makes Tim "honey" and not "love" or "sweetheart"? (Never "darlin'". He's not a cowboy, after all. He just looks good in the get-up.) It's true, you can find the processed, prepared-for-consumption kind of honey on a helluva lot of shelves. There's even the stuff that's a half corn syrup lie.
But.
Nothing is as good as the real thing you worked for. The bee stings, splinters, and bruises… all of it is worth it for the real thing. The thing you earned by wanting it for what it is. Loving the honey because of everything that made it and every step on your way to it.
Raylan's phone rings and he snaps back to the real world.
"Hey… yeah … I can grab it for you on the way home. I'd do most anything for you, honey."
Raylan lets Tim poke fun at him and his declaration of devotion.
You don't get the honey without the stings. Especially if it's the real thing.