Every six months or so I say to myself, "I should work on my fic about Fenris getting Rhyssa Hawke out of the Fade", because is there a keener pleasure than working on a fic that is so precisely calibrated to destroy your own emotional equilibrium -- and I finally dug out the draft and. Hm.
On a rain-greyed spring morning you return, with all due ceremony, to Skyhold.
Nothing about the place welcomes you. Oh, there are guards calling out to your party from their posts on the ramparts, and a growing crowd just beyond the gate, but your eyes pass over these things like water down a hill. What you see are the sodden banners twisting dully in the wind, the mist lying wool-thick on either side of the bridge. You hear mud sucking at the wheels of the carriage, smell distant fires, horses, tanning leather, snow.
Worst of all, you hear birds overhead, croaking on their way in and out of the spymaster’s tower. The sound of their wings fills you with sick loathing — you can’t help imagining, as they fly past, how easily their feathers could be torn out. How quickly their wings can be broken.
You look down, at the still figure cradled in your lap. If you listen closely, focusing past the calls from the ramparts and the building whisper of those past the gate, you can hear her breathing.
She weighs so little, as if her bones were hollow and the spaces between held nothing but air. As if all things vital and living within her had been bled away, through a wound no one had yet seen.
What thought could be more troubling than this, to you, who once claimed you would know her anywhere, at any moment? The body you hold is a stranger’s and you don’t know, do you, whose eyes will meet yours when she finally wakes up.
She moves, as she sometimes does. A shudder running through her body, scalp to shin, over and over. This time, a sound escapes her, something soft and formless, and you want so badly to believe she might yet form words — but the sound dies, and in a few moments you barely believe you heard it at all.
“All right there?” calls someone, loud enough to cut through all other noises. “How’s our Champion doing?”
A Kirkwall accent. You bare your teeth before you can stop yourself. How dare you ask, you snarl. What right do you have to ask? Your reeking hole of a city nearly ate her alive. You burned down her house. You killed her mother. And you dare to ask?
Find a little kindness for them, serah. Kirkwall might boast some of the worst cruelties in Thedas — and you are fit to judge such things, aren’t you? — but nothing happened there that hasn’t happened somewhere else.
Don’t forget: you were one of those cruelties, to her, once.
She makes another sound, but you lose it as the crowd begins to shout. Can we see her? Did she really kill all the rest of the Grey Wardens? Where has she been? Come on, Champion, come out and give us a song!
You think of running. It wouldn’t be hard; you could make the confusion at the gate your ally, and turn the horses leading your carriage back down the bridge. Back into the world, out of whatever story the Inquisition will concoct, out to where there is air and clean water and sunlight, instead of this endless winter that keeps spreading down the mountain.
Ahead of you is only Skyhold. Hulked ancient stone, cold halls, high ceilings vanishing into darkness. There can be no rest there, no real peace. Why are you bringing her here? Why are you letting them?
A knock at the carriage door startles you into realizing you’re still snarling. Quickly you arrange your features into something less alarming, just in time for the door to crack open and Varric’s exhausted face to peer in.
“Sit tight,” he says, without quite meeting your eyes. So you assume; you’re not trying to meet his. “Soldiers’ll clear out the crowd, then we’ll head straight for the stables. From there, it’s a short walk to…”
You feel him looking at her. His fear and grief are stains on the air — and what right does he have to either of those? He has what he wanted. Another story to chain her to paper and ink, to hand her over to the world’s prying eyes.
“Fenris,” says Varric. “Is she…”
You reach out and close the carriage door. Silence resumes. Hawke keeps breathing, a rasp in the back of her throat. In and out, in and out.
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"What?" Tim turns on his heels. A man can't fold a towel in this house without someone saying something borderline insane.
"Either that or you are?" Raylan comes out of the guest bathroom holding up a white stick with a little pink plus sign in the middle.
"Well, I haven't been exactly fertile since my hysterectomy." Tim drops the towel in the basket.
"There's only one other option, right?"
Tim widens his eyes. "A miracle?"
"Jesus Christ!"
Tim gasps. "The biggest miracle!"
"Not. Now," Raylan stalks upstairs. "Willa Jean Givens!"
Well, shit. This laundry is never getting folded.
21. “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you wanna stop and feel the rain?”
They've made it a mile from the car when Tim goes still.
"Seriously?" Raylan looks back. "We’re in the middle of a goddamn thunderstorm and you wanna stop and feel the rain?"
"You ever been in the desert?"
"As little as humanly possible."
"Same," Tim says with a snort. "But I'm guessin' I spent more time."
"I'll give ya that." Thunder cracks followed by a streak of lightning. He thinks Tim might have some kind of reaction, but the man's face is tilted up to the sky. Raylan's never seen his face without a worry line or two.
Raylan gets out of Kentucky by being a helluva shot with a camera, not a gun.
Tim's just trying to figure out what any of this life thing means.
This one is for crooked smiles and crooked teeth and the honesty they represent.
Note: For a Moth with good ideas who lets me burn them all down so we can enjoy the light.
AO3 Link:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Raylan had two choices when coming back to Kentucky after the divorce, rent a proper studio space or somewhere decent to live. That's how he found himself in a shitty hotel room on the outskirts of Lexington. He'd really considered going back to Harlan, but when Aunt Helen told him she wished he'd stayed gone, he figured it wasn't the best option for home base.
He could have stayed in Miami, but some part of him had set on moving up here with Winona and it seemed like he had to follow through with something he planned in the last six months. Not everything can fall through.
The shadows are better in Kentucky that's what he tells himself as he carefully disassembles his camera to clean it. It was a ritual not unlike a hunting rifle when he was a boy. This was for peace though not to avoid a smack upside the head. Those shadows were worse, but that was a long time ago. He changed. Life changed.
Miami was boring anyway. You've seen one swimsuit and palm tree heavy sunset, you've seen them all. Sometimes you saw under the swimsuit, but damned if that didn't get boring too after a while. Sun-kissed women with long blonde hair and women who rolled their 'r's so hard you felt it down your spine, he'd run through that for the first few years without Winona. Not to say he hadn't dallied with men as well, but maybe they were a touch too young for the grey in his hair. Everyone in Miami wanted to be young and vibrating with life. Raylan wanted to sit his ass down for a minute.
Kentucky had front porches instead of verandas and lanais. Many-times-repaired railings would hold up your boots after a long workday underground in the mines. You could stretch your legs all the way out and enjoy what little light still showed itself to the world. He wanted to catch that light, to wrap it up to carry with him. Maybe that's why he picked up that secondhand Minolta when he'd wandered through town useless after the mine collapse.
Nearly dying in the dark under a wave of dusty, sharp-edged earth made him desperate to ball up that soft light in his hands. Arlo was damn near to kicking him out of the house by that point and Aunt Helen sent him into town to not be underfoot. The pawn shop window promised guns and gold. His mind might have been turned toward the guns when he walked in, but the leather brown case had called to him. The top was tooled with patterns not unlike an old saddle. He'd popped the latch and there she was. He'd lifted the camera out and looked it over. The owner said there was a book in the case with instructions, if Raylan was curious, not that there was anything in this town that warranted more than one of those Kodak cameras you used once and left at the pharmacy to develop. Raylan had set his mind on it already when the neat little "F.G." scratched on the bottom of the camera caught his eye. F. G. like Frances Givens, like Mama. It wasn't hers, of course. Life ain't some fairytale bullshit, but it still felt like a sign.
He paid the last scrap of money he had in his pocket and turned over a belt buckle too. Worth every bit of it. He had a purpose again. Made his first round of cash shooting pictures of the men he'd dug coal with. Hell, his picture of Boyd Crowder still got trotted out on the local news whenever that particular criminal mastermind had a run-in with the law. The Harlan County judge once complained it was prejudicial because Boyd looked so decent in the photo. Arlo seemed to get a kick out of that, one not aimed for Raylan's head, even.
That was a long time ago. Life changed, he reminded himself once again.
Time to get on the phone and see about running an ad for a model. The folks you get from the paper are always a touch different from the people who look on the internet. He wants someone with, and he internally gags around saying it, an "old soul". You can't exactly say "desperately seeking young man with haunted eyes", but you're more likely to find one with good old-fashioned ink than those pixel things.
Raylan's seen about ten or eleven guys sit across the table and make their case to get paid in this fluorescent hell of a diner. No one should look good here. That's the point. It makes you ignore the pretty and look for a story. So far, it's been a pretty boring story. There are the "anything for a dollar" types, "thinks this is definitely about more than photos" entrepreneurs, and the "for my portfolio" guys. It's standard fare really. Nothing rings the old bell. One kid, a nice standard-issue farm boy, had a good jaw and solid shoulders, but he was an open book. Raylan wasn't getting anything out of him that wasn't already on display.
"Hey, you the photo guy?"
Raylan looks up and sees a disheveled kid in a wife-beater and red flannel that if you called it slouchy, you'd be doing it a favor. Not the neat job interview, casting call look. He looks like he rolled out of bed. To be more exact, he looks like he rolled out of bed and when he stepped around the bottles, no, cans that came with him, he grabbed someone else's shirt.
"Yeah, I'm the photo guy. Photographer." Raylan stands, sweeping off his ever-present cowboy hat, and offers out his hand. "Raylan Givens."
The kid shakes it and rolls his eyes. Blue eyes deep-set enough for shadows to give him that tortured look in the right light. "I know. I looked you up on the Internet. I ain't out here to get murdered at a knock-off Waffle House."
Raylan waits. The kid blinks at him.
"And your name is?" Raylan ventures with a twirl of his hand.
"Gutterson. Tim Gutterson." It's the kid's turn to wait as Raylan gets set back down and gestures for him to do the same.
"So this like a sex thing … or … ?"
Raylan furrows his eyebrows and gives the kid, Tim, a good squint. "No, this ain't a sex thing. Not in the way that you're implyin'?"
"So it is a sex thing, only I got the wrong read on what type?" Kid seems nonplussed as he picks up a slightly sticky menu. Raylan pauses for a moment.
"Would it be a 'no' if it was a sex thing?"
"Depends on the details."
"Well, it's your lucky day, I'm only lookin' to take photos. Would you be comfortable with nudity, actual or implied? Suggestive poses? I'm lookin' for someone willin' to work to achieve what I'm goin' for."
Tim laughs and mouths "goin' for".
"You don't show my face, Mister, and I'll do most anything for your dirty pictures."
"Photos," Raylan corrects him. "I'm not shootin' material for a porno mag."
"Nah. I know. Internet remember. You're an artiste." Tim adjusts the collar of his flannel. As he does Raylan catches a flash of beaded-metal chain. "Your own picture's old though. You ain't got grey in your hair and no beard. What's that from ten or twelve years ago?"
"It serves its purpose. If it ain't broke, don't fix it?" Raylan pushes his hair back from his forehead.
"So you dish it out, but can't take it?"
"All I do is take it. That's what you do with photos, Tim, you take them."
Tim grins without showing his top teeth. Raylan instantly wants to see if he can get the whole show there. Something feral is hiding behind that top lip.
"That why old people out in the middle of nowhere think they steal your soul? Cameras?" Tim asks as he runs his finger down a list of pancakes.
"You go out to nowhere much?"
"Not since I came back from Afghanistan. Not as much nowhere here. People always want it to be somewhere as soon as they find it." Tim taps the menu and waves over the waitress.
"Afghanistan? I take it you weren't sightseein'?"
Tim avoids the question and orders breakfast even though it's after noon.
"I'll take whatever your thing on the menu with the silliest name is. Maybe this 'rootin' tootin' bacon… whatever." The girl nods and scribbles it down, that and his order of black coffee. Poor thing is all of sixteen and probably that many weeks pregnant on top of it. The way she's smiling at Tim, she's hoping he's an out.
Poor kid. With the halo of the cheap neon signs and lingering humidity in the air, she looks like the Madonna of the International House of Despair.
"So?"
Raylan looks back at Tim. "Hmm?"
"All I gotta do is let you take some pictures of me, without my face, for a few hundred dollars and that's it?"
"Photos. If you're interested, I think you'll work out fine. You'll have to sign a waiver about ownership of the photos and—"
"But I get my money whether you like the pictures or not?"
"You are bein' paid for your time, not necessarily the photos. If I hire you, Tim."
"If, Raylan?"
Raylan nods. Tim lets out a little hum then looks back over his shoulder at the waitress. "Where do I need to be and when?"
"You just hired yourself?"
"Should prolly pay me for that too." The waitress gently sits down the platter of grease and gravy Tim ordered. "Thank you," Tim says sincerely. She smiles and slips off with a promise of free refills.
"She's sweet on you."
"'Cause I'm not a dick. It happens. You wanna text me that address and time? Just that though. Don't eat up my minutes." Tim looks down at his plate and digs in with an institutional manner that would read as prison if he hadn't mentioned Afghanistan. Hell, it still might. They've got prisons there too.
"How long have you been back stateside? See any action?"
"Thought your job was lookin' not askin'?" Tim takes a swig of coffee and relents. "Several months. Workin' on next steps. Not a lot of call for my skill set around here so can't be too picky." Tim mimes looking down a scope and firing at Raylan. "You ain't gotta sit here while I eat. Anyone else shows and I'll tell 'em job's taken."
"You're so helpful," Raylan deadpans. "Phone? I'll text my number with the info for tomorrow."
Tim digs around in his jeans' pockets and tosses Raylan a green, translucent brick phone. Raylan appreciates his BlackBerry about halfway through typing every single letter in. He finally hears a 'ping' from his own jacket pocket.
"There ya go. All the details. I'll bring the paperwork tomorrow. Wear somethin' comfortable. Look like you. Don't dress up or play someone you think people want to see."
Tim's eyes flick down to his unbuttoned cuffs and wrinkly flannel. "I can manage that. You bringin' food? Do I need a sack lunch?"
"Leave your Spider-Man lunch box at home, I'll pack a picnic." Raylan is starting to like the pushy kid. He's also starting to want to shove his face down in that plate of gravy of his. "Just be on time."
"If you're not early, you're late."
"Yeah, kid. Let's go with that."
The lower windows, tall rectangular sheets of settling glass, are covered in newspapers old enough that they've gone past faded and turned the yellow of highway ditch flowers. The tiny little blips of curled edges cause scatter shot flecks of light across the floor. The majority of the light tumbles down from the smaller, uncovered windows as wide, but nowhere near the heights of their paired panes. Raylan can raise a hand and just touch the center of the top pane. He impulsively jumps and bats his hand against the dust covering one of the smaller panes. His ring makes an audible clink as he leaves behind a handprint.
"Not bad," he mumbles to himself as he rubs his hand against his denim work shirt. He takes out the smaller of his cameras and takes a few quick shots of tricks of light and interesting curves of wood to turn his mind's eye to instinctively finding an image and not overthinking proportions and angles. You don't sight in a gun with a live target, why should a camera be any different?
There's a knock at the door of the old shop Raylan's set up as a makeshift studio for the day. It's loud, but hesitant.
"'S open!" he calls over his shoulder. If it's anyone else hopefully they'll peek in, apologize, and flee. If it's the kid, he seemed more than bold enough to come in and make himself at home.
"Are you gonna murder me?" The voice is this side of annoyed. "'Cause I drove all the way out here and I won't make it easy."
"If I was gonna murder you, I'd find somewhere with worse lighting. Cops wouldn't be able to get anything from the crime scene photos. Here?" Raylan turns around and clicks the shutter of his camera. "The light would give everything away."
"I think the fingerprints would do it," Tim retorts as he drags a finger across a long-abandoned table.
"Stay like that." Raylan moves closer and captures Tim's long-fingered hand surrounded in a mote of dust and reflected glare escaping from the uncovered surface. "You've got good hands."
"Pivoting back to thinkin' this is a sex thing."
"Paperwork is over by my equipment if you wanna read through it. Not a mention of dick or balls."
"So just mouth stuff?" Tim mutters as he slouches toward the table stacked with equipment. He flips through the papers on top and signs seemingly without a care in the world.
Raylan looks Tim up and down. He's of an average height, a hand shorter than Raylan himself, and solid in the way of someone who spent all their time treating their body as a tool. The edges have lost their sharpness though. There's the swell of a small belly and a litheness to the arms that seems new. Muscle tone retained, but some bulk lost. Most likely, the kid got back stateside and let himself exist with less constraint. The greasy breakfast helped prove that. He's pretty though in his features and in that way all people in their twenties are. He has near brown hair, fair skin dotted with the occasional brown fleck, and a good straight nose that most people would find enviable. His mouth is almost too pink and in a perpetual pout. His resting expression, for the little Raylan's seen, is a bored ennui. The creases and lines, from what seem to be concern and not age, tie the whole young and bitter look together.
"What? I got shit on my face?"
"I'm lookin' at you. I paid to look at you," Raylan explains. "I'm not gonna waste my time or money."
"You paid to take pictures of me." Tim wanders over and backs against an old butcher block table. He pushes himself up to sit on the table. He looks over at Raylan through his eyelids.
"Hold that." Raylan frames the curve of Tim's neck in his viewfinder and snaps a photo. Shift. Step. Another.
"I thought there'd be those big lights and the backward umbrella things," Tim says offhandedly as Raylan eyes his Adam's apple.
"Why?" Raylan lowers the camera and raises an eyebrow.
"We got America's Next Top Model on base."
"Sorry, I'm not on UPN's level. But I also ain't gonna make you get an ugly ass bob or shave off your eyebrows." Raylan answers the raised eyebrow with a tired, "My ex-wife was a fan." He gestures loosely at Tim's chest. "Wanna try a few without your shirt? The contrast with your clavicle… your collarbone looks good."
Tim pulls his shirt over his head and Raylan catches a shot in the process. "I know what a clavicle is. I've broken it before."
"It healed nice."
When Tim's head pops out of his shirt collar he's smirking. "Ya think? Compliments to my old man and Hoosier Healthwise."
"That doesn't sound like a fun story."
Tim leans back on his elbows. "No? Don't wanna hear about how I fell out of a tree we didn't even have? Quite the trick."
"Done that. My old man couldn't quite keep it straight whether it was the front or back yard. One of them busted up my wrist. Missed a year of baseball." Raylan reaches out, pausing for permission, before pushing Tim all the way back. "You play any sports?"
"Other than runnin' away? Nah. Cost money and time." Tim twists his neck and arches his back. Raylan smiles. The kid knows how to manipulate every cord of his muscle and sinew. Someone might not have taken photos before, but they've had a real good look at him.
"You're a natural at this. Tyra would be proud."
"She does like a slutty little blonde." Tim beams.
Raylan laughs, but takes note of one tooth slightly askew in that bright smile. There it is, the reason Tim had controlled his smile in the diner. "I like your smile. Too bad about that no-face rule of yours."
Tim gives Raylan a wide toothy grin. It's feral and young. Raylan remembers that feeling. That rush of being clever and handsome in the eyes of someone watching your every move.
"I'll make up for it?" Tim reaches down and pops the button on his jeans. He lifts his ass and lets the pants slide down and hang around his booted feet. "Thighs gotta be worth somethin'."
Raylan steps back and squats down to get a series of photos of the jeans dangling off the well-maintained, but time-battered pair of combat boots. "They're good, but …. What about one just for me. It goes no further than my dark room."
"Honest?"
"As a heart attack."
Tim sits up to stare him down and Raylan sees the calculations whirring behind that creased brow. "Cost you more."
"I'm good for it."
Tim crosses his arms over his chest and suddenly takes a shy turn. Raylan smiles. "Sit right there. Relax a little?"
"Yeah, you relax while half naked and on display," Tim pokes. It's almost cute how Mr. Drop-Trou is embarrassed of someone taking a picture of his smile.
Raylan goes to grab the old Minolta. This one was for him. "You never had to sight anything in for a good shot before?"
"When I did it the other person wasn't self-conscious."
"No?"
"They were mostly dead or near to it before they could care," Tim says dryly before putting on a beaming unnatural smile. Raylan shakes his head and pokes Tim's shoulder.
"You can tell me scary Afghanistan stories when you're back to bein' a hussy. Right now I want to see your real face." Raylan reaches out and tilts Tim's chin down. "I'm payin' extra. Remember?"
That does it. The kid's face breaks into a lopsided smile that shows his teeth and a surprisingly sweet squint to those tired eyes. Raylan's shutter flutters again and again.
"You done yet?" Tim asks looking down at his lap.
"Are you askin' to go back to bein' uncouth and churlish? Not like it when someone sees you?"
"I was a sniper. In Afghanistan," Tim explains as he lays back down. "I've spent most of my life since right after I turned twenty hidin' for my own good."
"Maybe longer?"
"Don't go tryin' to psychoanalyze me. Just take your dirty pictures."
"Photos."
"Take your inappropriate photos." Tim reaches down to tug his jeans up.
"Hold it. Stay there." Raylan takes photo after photo of the curve of Tim's spine and the long line his arm. "I heard that snipers make up stories about the people they're watchin'. It makes watchin' for days easier. That true?"
Tim licks his lips. "Not anymore. Guys got so they couldn't pull the trigger when they liked the guy they invented. Why?"
"We do the same thing, photographers, but only for short bursts of time. It don't really matter if we like the guy or not though."
Tim hops off the table and zips his jeans. "You ever like a guy so much you couldn't shoot?"
"Have you?"
Tim looks away and grabs for his shirt. "Why don't you give me half what I was gonna get and we call it done?"
Raylan reaches out and rests a hand on Tim's bare shoulder. "I think I like you enough, I don't want to share more. You put men in a grave, I put 'em on a page, but there's the moment before … "
"This a moment?"
"You gonna buy me a drink after I pay you?"
"No."
Raylan catches the left side of his bottom lip between his teeth and nods. He came on too strong. He thought he could get away with it. Tim played it so tough that—
"You're gonna buy me one."
"What?" Raylan looks over at Tim. Their eyes meet and Raylan hesitates before stepping forward until his nose is along side Tim's as he cups suddenly rosy cheeks. "I'm buyin'?"
"Yeah, you're buyin'. I might be payin' for it though." Tim closes the gap between them with a rough kiss. He digs his fingers into Raylan's shoulders. Raylan tries to pull back, but finds himself held in place. Tim's stronger than he looks. A better kisser too.
"Well, shit."
"Yeah."
"You, you good to drive about a half mile down the road back towards town? There's a bar down that way that'll serve us if we keep respectable."
Tim smiles and grabs his shirt. "Respectable? Meanin' I don't stick my tongue in your ear while anyone's watchin'?"
Raylan shakes out a rigor. "Gonna need you to never do that regardless."
Tim laughs. "What if I don't want to be respectable? What if I want you to fuck me? Seein' how much you like lookin' at me… " Tim trails off. Raylan kisses him again, because his mouth is oh so pretty and dirty in turn.
"That can wait until after the drink," Raylan suggests as he leans back enough for Tim to tug his shirt on properly.
"Let me pack up my stuff."
Tim straightens his clothes and walks over. He begins following Raylan's lead. Raylan's impressed by how quick he is at finding the right home for each item and following Raylan's own quirks to storing supplies and using lens cloths as buffers. Then Raylan realizes, it's like cleaning a gun for Tim too. Only Tim wasn't hunting squirrel and rabbits.
"You got all this stuff, but you really only used that one camera," Tim says idly as he clicks a box closed.
"I'm a serial monogamist," Raylan answers with a grin. "I can't help myself. No matter what shiny new thing comes along, I'm devoted to the one who fits me best."
"Still willin' to try out shiny and new though?"
Raylan catches Tim's cheek in his hand. "You know, I wouldn't have said yes until today. Funny, huh?"
"A laugh riot." Tim rolls his eyes, but leans into the warmth of Raylan's hand.
"I'll get this in the trunk." Raylan pulls a folded envelope from his back pocket and offers it out to Tim. "You go ahead down the road and find us a dark corner."
Tim takes the envelope and flicks it open. He smiles at the contents."See you in a few?"
"In a wink and a nod." Raylan loads his arms up and watches Tim walk off. He's not entirely sure the young man will be at the bar now that he's got his money, but hope springs eternal.
Raylan walks into the bar and curses the small double doors that require you push both open at once. It's all a bit much with the hat. He'll freely admit that. What he might keep to himself is how his heart flips when he catches sight of the head of mussed hair over a shirt still fitting like it was tugged on roughly.
Raylan leans on the bar and requests a bottle and two glasses. The bartender starts to say something, but stops just as quick when the money hits the bar.
"Anybody sittin' here?" he asks Tim when he's laden down with drink and cups. Tim kicks out the chair across from him and waves a broad hand at it.
"I thought I was buying?" Tim nods at the beers making condensation on the table. Raylan sits down and slides Tim a glass.
"Consider this a tip. I'm gonna get a few good prints off that session. Think I might even hire you for another if you're willin'."
"That good?" Tim downs the beer closest to him without preamble before pulling the other in front of him.
"Damn good. If you're still wanderin' around in a year, call me up and we'll get you a real portfolio. Face alone could keep you in work, but your hands … " Raylan trails off as Tim's fingers flex against the second beer bottle.
"Not lookin' to be anybody's poster boy." Tim takes a long slow drink. Raylan can't take his eyes off the bobbing line of his throat. "Didn't work out the first time."
"Nah, but that was some other man's war. This would be for you."
"I wanna be useful, but not used." Tim tosses back the beer and drops it flat an inch above the table so that it wobbles for a moment before settling.
"You think I was usin' you?" Raylan pours them both a drink. The soft bloop of the liquid settling is the only sound for a long moment.
"Nah. Not in any way that'd make me think less of you. You seemed to want to look at me." Tim tips the glass up to his lips. "You wanna look at me? Me personally?"
Raylan smiles into his own glass. "I reckon I do. There were about a dozen guys before you, but you were the one who told me to look at you with that little act of yours."
"Wasn't an act."
"More the better." Raylan chances a brush of his fingertips along the back of Tim's hand. "I could stand with some more honesty. I'm always huntin' it with a camera, because it won't show itself to me in life."
Tim swallows hard and helps himself to another glassful. "I don't like lyin', but damn is it easier to do than admit who you are to some people."
"Lyin' by omission. No one asks, you ain't gotta tell?"
"Somethin' like that. So you gonna take me back to your swanky artist loft and rock my world?"
Raylan barks out a laugh and regrets the attention it draws immediately. "Sorry. 'M sorry. It's just… I live in a hotel, nah, a motel. Kinda place that's clean, but…"
"The color of corn on the cob?" Tim offers.
"Yeah. Exactly. Linoleum in the bathroom is older than you."
"You could stay where you took pictures."
"Photos. I can't do that. That's work, I can't mix the two." Raylan pauses with the glass halfway to his mouth. "This ain't normal."
"Nothin' about me is normal," Tim assures him. "We shouldn't've come here."
"No?" Raylan fights the small frown tugging at his lips.
"Should've gone straight to bed." Tim grabs the bottle and caps it as he stands. "Lead the way."
They tumble through the door of the hotel, no, motel room. Tim's half naked before the door is even shut. Raylan feels alive. His lips are pressing to points that only his camera had touched. His tongue is even more appreciative than his camera.
"Fuck, honey. Le-let me get the door. Don't mind sharin' you in pictures, but I want the real thing for myself."
Tim goes lax and smiles. "Photos, not pictures."
Raylan grabs a handful of Tim's ass and uses the momentum of the act to slam his back against the door so it closes. Tim reaches up and latches the lock while Raylan kisses the tickle of a laugh up and out of his throat.
"Fuck, Raylan," Tim flippantly knocks off Raylan's hat and tugs at the pearl snaps of his shirt until they audibly snap, crackle, and pop. He looks down between them. "You ever consider self-portraits?"
Raylan laughs and falls back on the bed. "You want one for your personal use?"
"Nah. I got a good memory." Tim's on Raylan's belt and his button fly jeans before he can even formulate a response.
"God damn, honey!" Raylan lifts his ass as Tim tugs down his jeans and shorts. Tim dips his head and tastes Raylan's cock that's already at attention.
"You want mouth or hole?" Tim asks like that's the most natural question.
"Fuck,Tim, I want you," Raylan says as he shoulders out of his shirt and raises a hand to point. "There's lube and condoms in that film case. There, the metal thing. Yeah. That."
"Right. But you don't mix work and personal?" Tim looks amused as he waves the length of condoms at Raylan.
"Fuck you, come here."
"Manners." Tim tears the foil with his teeth and unrolls the condom down Raylan's dick. "Have to keep things kosher."
"You are very much using that word wrong." Raylan holds out his hand for the lube. "You mind if I wanna look at you?"
"Damn, is lookin' all you do?" Tim teases, but he loses his boots and jeans and stretches out beside Raylan.
"No, I'm gonna kiss you first. You and that crooked tooth in that crooked grin. Fuck." Raylan grabs Tim's thigh and pulls it over his own hip. He awkwardly slicks his fingers before gently pressing against Tim's ass.
"Don't gotta be gentle back there. I can take it."
"You want it to hurt a lil'?" Raylan asks as his tongue pushes past Tim's lips and his finger pushes forward too. Tim moans his enthusiastic assent as his fingers dig into Raylan's shoulders. "And if I want to be gentle? If I want to be sweet?"
Tim bites Raylan's bottom lip and arches his back. "I gave you what you wanted."
"And I paid you." Raylan presses another knuckle deep as Tim groans.
"You'll get yours. Believe me."
"That better be the honesty we talked about." Raylan kisses Tim's neck as he squirms on first one finger, then another. The scissoring to spread him gains Raylan that crooked tooth he's fond of buried into his shoulder. He brushes against Tim's prostate just to feel that bite mark turn to a bruise. Tim whimpers at the sudden absence of Raylan's fingers.
"On your back?"
"That a question?" Tim asks. His voice is rough and from the back of his throat. Raylan rolls him into place himself.
"Not really." He presses against Tim's opening. He's about to search the blankets for the lube until he catches the slightest shake of Tim's head. "You did ask."
Raylan works his hips until he can bottom out, the whole time Tim spits threats and swears.
"You sound so good. So. Fuckin'. Good. Tim." Every word is punctuated with a thrust. Tim's cock has slicked the space between. Raylan thinks he might just earn a hands free show if he can keep up his pace.
"Raylan, Raylan," Tim mumbles as he reaches for Raylan's face. Nails catch and scrape on Raylan's neck as Tim bends them into a kiss and fills the space between them with his hot release.
"Oh. Oh,fuck… oh fuck, fuck!"
They lay in a mess panting when Raylan collapses beside Tim. "I do like it."
"What's 'at?" Tim chokes out.
"Lookin' at you."
Tim hides his face.
A few years later, Raylan is wandering around a gallery. He hates these things, but it's part of the gig. People want to see the artist trotted out for their entertainment. It makes the work more valuable if you've talked to the idiot who held the camera.
"Thanks," he says as he snatches a glass of wine from a passing waiter. He's suddenly caught by a figure on a bench staring up at a photo of what he knows is Tim's chest contorted into something akin to a landscape. The little trail of beads from his dog tags make a river if you squint. Raylan makes his way over to play the game of lying about something so honest for the sake of money.
"Interested?"
"I'm not much for art, but we heard someone we're lookin' for might stop by."
"We?"
"US Marshals Service," Tim says as he looks up at Raylan. He tilts his hip to show his star. "There aren't any faces."
"Those were only for me. I as good as promised the model."
"Bet he appreciates that."
"I'd like to think so," Raylan says softly. Tim smiles up at him politely with a mouth of perfectly straight teeth. "I really do."
Raylan heads straight for the sink. His head is half under the water by the time Tim starts in.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you chase people for a livin'? Or is your mouth the only thing on you that runs?"
Raylan takes a long, long drink, his eyes narrowed at Tim. He's dying and Tim is laughing his ass off. "You ever considered shuttin' up?"
"You ever considered makin' me?" Tim is all teeth… and muscle that hadn't been there a few months ago under the little JC Penny's button ups and khakis.
Tim leans over the bar and opens the tap himself. The bartender is more interested in watching Raylan's ass than working. Can't blame her. There's a nice long line from heel to shoulder when Raylan leans across the pool table.
A towel smacks his shoulder when he's taking his own look."Hey, you're payin' for that."
Tim hands over a five. "Not a thief, but I'm leavin' a scathing Yelp review."
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32.“I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”
Tim is as drunk as Raylan has ever seen him. That's not good when your resting drunk is bantam rooster with a vendetta.
"You need to toss your cookies bathroom is that way." Raylan points with the trash can before placing it at Tim's feet. "Here's this if you don't think you'll make it."
"'M not sick. 'M scared."
Raylan raises an eyebrow. "Come again?"
Tim swallows down something akin to bile judging by his face. “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”
22.“I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”
When everyone's gone, Raylan leans over the partition between their desks. He pushes back his hat in a way that makes him look more farmer less cowboy.
"I know you're built like a scarecrow, but that's still glass." Tim doesn't even look up from his computer. Raylan's in his peripheral and that's more enough.
“I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”
"Have you? I didn't know you noticed anything but reflective surfaces."
"Fine. Be that way. Just, I'm not dirty."
No, Raylan, but you are dumb if you think that's why he's looking.
*pokes fingers together* military industrial complex sounds funn
The original WIP!
This has been in the folder for ages. It's a meditation on mental health and Raylan's inability to see outside of the focus of his own life.
Snippet under the cut!
Someone walking into an office like they're passing through saloon doors does eventually become irritating. The attractiveness of this person will buy them extra time, but will not fully compensate for the repeated annoyance.
“There's a guy out on the lawn complainin' about the military-industrial complex.”
Tim looks sideways at Raylan. “I got like eight of those and I'm not complainin'.”
Raylan sighs through his nose, and that particular muscle in his jaw works harder than a gravedigger in a rainstorm.
For Tim’s part, he carries on typing at what can only be described as a tragedy of a report. He owed the girl up front a cup of coffee for making these things into something other than bitching with timestamps. Raylan is still cutting his eyes at Tim, which means he hit one of the seemingly endless raw nerves that made up The Deputy U.S. Marshal Givens.
“You've been skippin' out on your appointments."
“No, I haven't.”
“That wasn't a question."
“Ah, so the little lilt there at the end was a dramatic flourish?”
Raylan's eyes bore into him in that particularly menacing way that meant, of all things, that he cared. “I'm assumin’ you don't think they're worth your time.”
“Inferring.”
“What?”
“You're inferring. They're different things.”
“I don't give a good goddamn if I'm deducin’--”
“Really working out our thesaurus here,” Tim says as he stands to drape himself over the divider between their desks. “Why don't you say what you got to say so I can give you an excuse already?”
“You need to go,” Raylan says in that matter-of-fact tone he possesses as the self-appointed arbiter of all things.
“Like right now? Because I would love to give you this report to finish.” Tim reaches back for his jacket before he gives up on the joke. “I don't like going. And I really don't want to have this conversation here,” he pauses,” or sober.” He plonks back down in his chair, which is the only way to sit in anything government-issued, up to and including a Humvee.
“I have to go out to the house in Harlan tonight.”
Tim hums a non-committal response and backspaces until the phrase “cock manglingly traumatizing” is removed from his report.
After a few hours, Raylan suddenly leaps from his desk like Gary Cooper having an adverse reaction to Adderall to either go solve or cause a problem. Tim never knows which it is until all is said and done and it comes out that the answer is “both”. It's always “both”.
Eventually, after swearing several oaths of eternal fealty to Ginny up front for finding a synonym for “ass-clenching” that his tired brain refused to produce, turbulent, he makes his way to the elevator. He weighs his options, home has beer, and whatever random documentary he can mock until he passes out, and Harlan, despite being Harlan, does offer company, tall, handsome company that is easily riled up.
“You need me to bring anything down?” he asks as soon as the phone line connects.
“Food?”
“Beer?”
“Both.” It's always both.
Tim hangs up without bothering to say goodbye. He signed himself up to play errand boy as always. That's a healthy dynamic.
