The Only Thing I'll Mourn Is the Morning, My Love
Raylan watches Tim smoking out the opened hotel window. He's perched there like some sort of bird. It's so damn familiar. Not a hawk or anything predatory. That'd be an easy guess.
Ain't anything easy with Tim, if Tim has a say.
Maybe that's why he finds himself approaching Tim like a bird, like he'll fly away if Raylan moves too fast or makes the wrong sound. "Hey," Raylan chokes out. His voice sounds shredded, bruised.
"Hey." Tim's voice comes out soft and low, a voice for secrets surrounded by a whirl of smoke. "'M sorry."
"Not like you did it on purpose. 'M glad you stayed. I thought you might—"
"Should've left. I punched you in the goddamn throat, Raylan."
"Nah. You punched someone or somethin' in a nightmare. My throat jus' got in the way." Raylan eases closer. "Can't help protectin' you and yours."
Tim stubs out the cigarette on the windowsill. There's a tang in the air from fire being smothered by aluminum."If you're good, I'll go."
"Tim." Raylan lifts a hand, begging for stillness.
"I said I was sorry." Tim turns so that his face is in profile again. The bird thing scratches at Raylan's brain again. It's the color and the sound… there's something sad and blue at the edges of his mind.
"Yeah, but I didn't say I want you to go. In fact, I wish you'd come back to bed."
"Coming here was a mistake." Tim hisses as he untucks himself and his feet hit the ground. His knuckles are dark with bruising. Raylan realizes that the bedposts and walls got the worst of it. He's just the only thing that could scream.
"I don't think so, but if it is, it won't be more of one in the mornin'. Now will it? Only thing different'll be you havin' run off in the middle of the night." Raylan's edged close enough that he has a hand on Tim's shoulder. Even with a hint of a sunburn, his skin seems translucent and faded. Even the bright ring of blue fighting for space around his pupil blown big by the lack of light seems a ghost of itself. Again, there's that twinge of memory.
It'd be shitty to call a man standing alive before him a ghost, but in so many ways Tim seems too close to death to let life in.
"It's a long way to Kentucky from Miami. Needed to get an early start anyway."
Raylan lets Tim push past with a soft sigh and a memory hits him like a ton of bricks.
There's a soft, plaintive call dancing in the air.
"Would you just kill the damn thing?"Arlo spits from his shoulder. "This ain't some sissy Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom show. We're aimin' for dinner."
"I dont think it's alone," Raylan, who is barely north of ten, mumbles.
"Even better. You're puttin' it out of its misery, even you can't go cryin' over that." Arlo's thumb digs into the base of Raylan's skull. His thin, shaking arms raise the gun. Suddenly, there's the smell of sulfur and hot metal, like a cigarette on a cheap windowsill.
—Raylan doesn't know that part yet. Not until tonight.—
"Go get the damn thing, so we can get home. You'll be helpin' pluck 'em since you can't be trusted to actually finish them off."
Raylan shuffles toward the brush and scoops up the mourning dove, a sad thing with its heart bleeding out in front of him. Worse is the ruins of another bird. Arlo's shot had aimed true, but obliterated the smaller dove. Raylan had killed a creature defending something it had already lost.
"They mate for life," Raylan says as he walks back over to Arlo who gives him a quick smack to the back of the head.
"Then we saved the poor bastard from a life of bitchin'. Wish all Helen could do was coo. 'D save what little sanity I got left from dealin' with you."
Raylan shakes off the memory and the sting of tears. Tim's pulling on his jeans in a flurry of fair limbs that make Raylan stumble forward and grab him.
"You ain't gotta be alone. You ain't gotta be mournin' alone."
"Mournin'," Tim's mouth works around the shape of the word. "What do you think happened to me?"
"You lost somethin'. Maybe just your sense of peace. Somethin' you'd throw a punch for." Raylan cups Tim's face in his hands. "Please stay. I'm askin' for me. Let me be selfish and go right back in that bed with you."
"You're a dumbass."
"Been called worse that was less true."
"Can't promise I'll sleep."
"Can't swear you won't." Raylan takes a deep breath and he knows his own voice comes out low, plaintive, not quite sad. "Please."
Tim nods and makes a soft sound of agreement. It sounds like the ghost of peace.
