#tengallon

ACCESSING  WHITE  HOUSE  SERVER      . . .       ACCESS  DENIED       :     @tengallon​    /     hour  of  need  prompts   ( accepting. )       ‣       ❝               [BRACE] - sender braces receiver under the elbow.           ❞  

of  all  the  places  in  the  world,  never  would  she  have  expected  a  campaign  stop  in  kentucky  to  turn  into  such  a  godforsaken  disaster.  the  rally  begins  enthusiastically,  but  it  ends  almost  as  promptly.  engrossed  in  speaking  points,  she  is  blissfully  unaware  of  any  imminent  danger  until  she  is  already  being  whisked  from  the  microphone.  something  about  an  unconfirmed  threat  is  uttered  into  her  ear,  and  just  as  the  crowd  is  being  urgently  evacuated,  the  presidential  hopeful  manages  to  take  a  hard  fall  to  top  off  the  evening.

     harlan howls around them. the wind picks up as the sun dips below the horizon, warning them to get a move on. warning them to get gone. 

     raylan’s staring at him like he’s trying to make sense of something. he’s looking at all the war wounds that show when the guns come out, picking the shreds of truth from the bullshit tim spews from his mouth. and tim could laugh now, but the war would laugh last. it’s what he gets, he supposes, for being under uncle sam’s thumb for so long. here was right and here was wrong and here lie the bodies that fell between them. here was right and here was wrong and here lies the body of young timothy gutterson, the boy who tim buried when he signed his first contract.

     “you think i got my morals in a twist?”  he doesn’t want raylan to answer, doesn’t need to hear it, he’s heard it a thousand times. can’t help the itch of his trigger finger. can’t help it. can’t defend himself when raylan’s watched him kill. his eyes crinkle at the corners, the intensity of his gaze obscured by his grin, by his bared teeth.

   this was the point where the evening split in half. love or death. raylan’s got his gun hand resting on the junction of his hip, the barrel of a gun pointing straight towards tim, ready to put a hole through his chest, his stomach, whatever would put him down. there’s no strategy in this. there was strategy in the way the enemy sniper would hit a corporal in the stomach to draw out more soldiers.  there was strategy in the way convoys were blown apart.  (maybe givens wasn’t gonna gain anything from shooting a fed. maybe he was gonna gain everything from shooting tim gutterson.)   

   something in tim’s blood runs cold. every time he thought he had raylan figured, the guns came out. overseas, they like to say you never see the bullet that gets you—half of him doubts that givens will pull the trigger. half of him is already spitting at those boys in afghanistan, saying that they were wrong.

@tengallon said,  “you made sure we survived.”  (hm. slayer verse.)

            “i reckon that’s my job,”  a crack in the mask,  a grin on his lips, “keepin’ your sorry ass outta trouble.”

they’re back in the barracks now,  just the two of them,  sweating bullets in the residual heat.  from under ashley’s sleeves crawl his tattoos — eternal reminders of his feats,  trophies engraved into skin.  ( * not memories — history. )  hidden on his back lies the reaper.  this is what raylan gives his thanks to.  this is what the corps gives its thanks to.  this is what puts raylan in debt to him,  and ashley doesn’t want that — too often has someone been left owing,  owing,  owing him until the debts eventually grow too great,  and must be paid for in blood.  unlike his god,  this is not what ashley demands.