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usmsgutterson · 9 months ago

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Achilles Heel - Givenson

oooookay!! This is the second chapter of this work. If you missed the first chapter, this chapter probably won't make sense, and if you'd prefer to read it on ao3 here's the link!

fic type - this is, once again, like if hurt/comfort and fluff had a weird child of neutrality

warnings - just like the last chapter--alcoholism and it's adverse effects are discussed (heart attack is mentioned a lot in this one and once is used for a dark humour-y kind of joke, the root cause for it is revealed and specified a bit more, and the seizure is mentioned at least once) tims time in the military is discussed a little, PTSD manifests as an anxiety attack and a bit like a flashback at the same time. Tims childhood trauma is discussed so physical abuse, as well as mental and verbal abuse are mentioned. There are a few mentions of guns in correlation to said trauma and a lot of talk about booze in the general sense.

“Well,” Rachel says as she enters Tims apartment a week later, having gotten in using the spare key he’d surrendered to her seven weeks beforehand. “That explains the kitten formula in your truck.”

He’s lounging on his couch wearing an old pair of cargo pants and a shirt that he’d gotten when he first joined infantry two and a half decades back—it's one with the military logo on it as well as his unit number from those days. It's one of the only things he got from his military days apart from the PTSD and it's only something he wears when there's just about nothing else, but it's laundry day in the Gutterson manor so he's decided to give himself a pass.

“Found her in the engine of my truck,” Tim says. “After my last appointment with Alexander. Any new leads?”

“WIth the Boyd case? Nah,” she says, objecting to sit on the floor in the space between Tims couch and his coffee table because Tim has sprawled out over his couch and has the kitten on his chest. “Figured I’d get Raylan’n we’d come and bug you for a while, try to get inside Boyds head a little bit.”

“There in lies the reason you left the door unlocked,” Tim nods, having noticed she left it unlocked after she came in. “Are Dunlop, Stevens and Marino invited to this meetin’ of ours?”

“They don’t know Boyd as well as we do,” Rachel shrugs. “What’s the furballs name?”

“Her name is Roulette,” Tim answers. “Found her in the engine of my truck so I figured it would be funny if I named her after a transformer, and she was almost named Megatron, so I feel like I could’ve done worse.”

Roulette is a cat of five weeks old who’s got a calico pattern of primarily orange and black with some white on her chin, stomach, and paws. She meows at pretty much all hours of the day and has given Tim’s heart a few jumpstarts since he’d found her in the engine of his truck, as well as having costed him nearly $600 in vet bills across four appointments.

“You could’ve,” Rachel shrugs again. “She’s cute, for what it’s worth.”

“Yeah, and she keeps me off the booze,” he says. “You told Raylan the full story yet?”

“No,” she says. “Figured I’d leave that to you. Has he stopped trying to get details?”

“Mostly,” Tim shrugs, rapidly opening and closing his fist in lieu of enrichment for Roulette so that he doesn’t have to think about Raylan more than he already has been.

“You gonna tell him anything, ever?”

“The way I see it, he doesn’t know right now and he can go on blissful in his ignorance. If I tell him, he’ll just get mad nobody told him when it happened. Act like he woulda been on a plane down here with the drop of that stupid fuckin’ stetson had you or anyone else called.”

“You don’t think he woulda meant it, had he said it?”

“Not really, no,” it kind of hurts to admit, but it’s the truth. Tim doubts that Raylan would’ve been at his bedside had Rachel called him, doesn’t even think he’d pick up the damn phone had Rachel gone against Tims wish and called him anyway. “I think that he’d say he would’ve, but I also think that if I looked him in the eye when he spoke, I’d see that he wouldn’t mean it.”

“You’re only sayin’ that because of that weird little affair you two had goin’ on on and off while he was around,” Rachel says. “I notice things, Tim, and it was damn near impossible not to notice that.”

Tim smiles, his chest slightly aching. “Careful, Rachel,” he says cautiously. “Don’t need my heart givin’ out at the reminder of that whole mess.” He says it with a clear intent in his head—get Rachel the fuck away from talking about their relationship, even if it means they talk about The Incident again,

“Don’t make jokes like that,” Rachel says. She grabs one of the stupid decorative magazines Tim keeps on his coffee table for appearances sake and thwacks him over the head with it before she sets it back down and Tim finds himself celebrating it silently. Talking about the attack and the seizure is, for some reason, better than talking about Raylan. “Your heart attack wasn’t funny, neither was seein’ you in the middle of a damn seizure covered in your own fuckin’ vomit. I know you like a bit of dark humour, but—you gotta understand my perspective. You lived, sure, but when I walked into that bathroom, I thought you were gonna die on me. I can’t have that.”

“I know,” he says, letting his voice take on a gentle tone as Roulette the kitten bites his finger. It’s a tone reserved for Rachel and Roulette alike, something that Raylan Givens has never heard a day in his life. “I’m sorry.”

Waking up from the heart attack was scary enough—he couldn’t remember much about before he’d passed out apart from the drinking and the chest pain he’d thought nothing of, figuring it was a harmless side effect of the booze. Then he turned his head to the right and saw Rachel and guilt opened it’s gnarly mouth and damn near swallowed him whole.

He doesn’t think about it much—can't unless he wants to go down a spiral that'll induce a second heart attack—but Rachels perspective of the events of that night were chronicalized so that Tim could try and jog his memory and try as he might, seven weeks gone from the day he woke up in the hospital and he has yet to forget the words she wrote on that piece of paper.

He remembers the way her hand shook as she wrote in the notepad, remembers the steeled, determined expression on her face, completely and totally determined not to show weakness despite it all.

“It was terrifying,” Rachel says. “Don’t you ever put me through that again.”

Roulette the cat curls up on his chest and starts purring up a storm, and Tim reaches out, gives Rachels shoulder a squeeze.

“You and I have spent the last eleven years since Raylan left saying that the only way we’d ever leave Kentucky was if we were transferred out by force, or we were shufflin’ out the same way we’d shuffle off’a this mortal coil, in a body bag,” Rachel says. “You promised me that once, that you’d stop being reckless.”

“I didn’t keep that promise,” Tim says. “I know. I’m an ass at my best, Rachel. You know that.”

“I like that about you, usually,” Rachel shrugs. “I can’t shake it, though. Every time I walk in here I get scared I’m gonna see you in the bathtub again, vomit all over your chin and your heart having gave out. I’m sorry to be a burdensome chief and friend, but I can’t deal with that alone anymore.”

“You’re not burdensome,” Tim says. “Do you—would it—you need me to tell Raylan, for your sake, don’t you?”

Rachel smiles. “If you wanna tell him, you can.”

“If he wants to tell me what?” Rachel and Tim both flinch at the sound of his voice, and the sound of the door closing behind him wakes up Roulette, who protests the sleep disruption by getting on her feet and meowing as loud as her little lungs will let her.

Tim sits up. Raylan sits across from Rachel, his gorgeous brown eyes piercing Tims in a way that makes the ache in his chest intensify.

Tim looks at Rachel silently. Please don’t make me tell him.

Rachel looks back at Tim. I don't think you have another option.

Tim takes a deep breath in, tries to will himself into some version of less irritated.

“You need to do a better job of making your presence known when you’re entering someones goddamn home,” Tim says, tone a bit angrier than he means for it to be. “You--it’s not—you are not allowed to freak out. No yelling, no glaring—if I see your nostrils flare or one hand gesture while you talk at me, you are picking your ass up off my floor and getting the fuck out of my apartment.”

Roulette settles in Tims lap. Tim takes a breath in, and Raylan nods.

“Must be serious,” Raylan says. “You have a deal.”

“Seven weeks ago I had a heart attack,” Tim says. He watches Raylans face contort in shock, then disbelief, then anger all the space of thirty total seconds. “Rachels the one that found me, and if it weren’t for her, I’d probably be dead.”

“And--what--” Raylans lips form an angry line and he directs the anger at Rachel first. “He had a heart attack and—seven weeks! Seven weeks and neither of you called?”

Tim immediately takes the defense. “Hey! Don’t do that,” he says. “Don’t. If you’re gonna be angry at anyone, be angry at me. Rachel isn’t the one at fault here, and neither of us called because we didn’t see the point. You have a life in Miami, Raylan, forgive me for not calling because you have a kid and a job and a thousand different reasons as to why you wouldn’t’ve been able to drop everything and visit a coworker you haven’t worked with in more than a decade.” By the time Tim finishes, he’s out of breath but he decides it’s worth it.

He can see that his words touch a nerve, too. “You know that’s bullshit,” Raylan says. “I would’ve come running the minute Rachel asked, or the minute you did. You had a heart attack, Tim. That’s not just anything. You could’ve died.”

“He didn’t,” Rachel says. “Calm your ass down, Raylan. I need you to focus on Boyd right now—he could be headin’ this way and we need at least an outline of a game plan to take to Mariano, Stevens and Dunlop in the morning. You know him best, so you’re at least in charge of ideas.”

Raylan turns his glare to Tim. "I want details about this, the second you get a chance," he says. "You don't get to tell me you had a heart attack like it's as simple as asking me about the damn weather."

Tims lips form a line. He bites the inside corner of his mouth in silent protest and hates how every single emotion Raylan feels or has ever felt is displayed in his eyes. As he gives a begrudging, mildly aggressive, singular nod, he sees care that goes back a decade and anguish lingering somewhere in Raylans eyes and almost hates him for still caring after so long.

“Fine,” he says. “Now--let’s do our jobs for an hour or two, why don’t we?”

Rachel reaches up, scoops Roulette out from Tims lap and tucks her into the space under her chin. “I like that idea,” she intones, looking pointedly at Raylan.

That night, they do manage to get somewhere and the following day, Tim wakes up feeling refreshed and optimistic.

Rachel does the mean thing, though. She sends him and Raylan down to Harlan to interrogate witnesses as a few have come forward with having seen Boyd down at what used to be Johnny Crowders bar, before Boyd had him killed across state lines.

The drive to Harlan starts out silent, but Tim can tell Raylan has things he wants or needs to say, so half an hour in, he breaks the silence of his own volition.

“All right,” he says, putting his hands up in mock surrender and glancing at Raylan, who’s sitting in the drivers seat. “That’s it—I'm done dealin’ with this. You say what you need to say to me while we’re in this damn car, and when we get to Harlan and have to step out, we get real civil with each other real quick because I spent a decade in the damn military. I can handle silences, Raylan, just as well as I can handle havin’ to sleep on a freezin’ mountain in Afghanistan or sitting in the scorching heat in Iraq, but I can’t handle ‘em when it’s clear you have shit to say and you expect me to listen but you ain’t sayin’ none of it.”

“Why didn’t you call?” Raylan asks.

“I didn’t think you’d come if I did,” he answers. “You say that you woulda but—it's like I said last night. You have a job, a kid, and a thousand other things keepin’ you in Miami. I didn’t think you’d come, didn’t wanna risk gettin’ my heart broken again, and didn’t wanna waste your time when I came out the other end just fine.”

“What triggered it?”

“Got home at midnight, drank my way through three entire bottles of Jack Daniels, a sixer of beer and an entire bottle of peach wine that my sister had sent along last Christmas,” he answers. “Guessin’ that was too much. My BAC was 0.38.”

Raylan glances at Tim. Tim returns the gesture and their gazes meet.

“You should’ve called,” he says. “Knowing you how I do--”

“How you used to,” Tim cuts. “Knowing me how you used to know me—what? What are you gonna say, Raylan. You best make it believable because if you know me as well as you think you do, you know I’m gonna be able to see right through it if you’re lyin’ to me. Don’t do that.”

“Knowin’ you how I used to to—the Tim that I knew woulda called in a heartbeat,” Raylan says. “That guy—he knew I’d drop everythin’ to get to him, no matter how far away I was.”

Tim leans back in his seat, looks at Raylan through a lense more skeptical than he ever thought himself capable.

“Yeah?” He asks, voice even, tone practically showing off the fact that he’s looking for a fight. “I don’t think you knew the guy I was back then, either. If you think I thought that way for longer than half a second before I came to my senses, you’re as dumb as I was goin’ into the fuckin’ military thinking it’d fix all of my issues instead of load me up with more of ‘em. I was eighteen then, Raylan. I have an excuse. What excuse do you have at 56?”

It’s a low blow, and Tim knows that. It hurting as much as it does is the intention, and the hurt is, just like all of his other emotions, clearest in Raylans eyes.

“That’s hardly fair,” Raylan says. “I would’ve--”

“You keep saying that,” Tim cuts. “You’re saying it like you’re trying to make yourself believe it. I’ve got a decade of military experience under my belt and sixteen years total with the Marshals, Raylan. I pick up on that shit. Half of the sentences you’ve spoken have begun with ‘I would’ve’ like this is some sort of hypothetical. It’s not.”

Raylan goes to defend himself, but Tim cuts him off again.

“It’s not a hypothetical. I drank myself into a heart attack, had a seizure amidst that mess, and then when I woke up in the hospital after almost dying with Rachel sitting at my bedside as the one and only person who has consistently stuck by me whether or not I wanted her to, I told her not to call,” he says. “That--that is the reality. I don’t give a damn what you think you would’ve done had I called, whether you’re telling me that you would’ve dropped everything so that you can eventually get to a point where you believe the shit you’re spewin’ or if you actually mean it. I’m done with this conversation, Raylan. I had a heart attack, I didn’t want you there, and that’s that.”

He’s lying, but at least he acknowledges that with himself.

He’d told Rachel not to call Raylan and when she could see that Tim wanted him there, she offered to do it anyway. He said no again, insisted that she go home so she didn’t have to deal with the mess he’d made of himself by drinking himself into heart failure. When she refused and pretty much put her foot down, Tim had known he had no choice. He was in bed for the following few days recovering, a big part of him yearning for Raylan more than he’d ever admit to anyone, let alone Raylan himself.

“Just--let me have this one thing,” Raylan says. “If you’d called, or if you asked Rachel to, what do you think would’ve happened?”

Tim glares at Raylan for a second but gives in nonetheless. “All right,” he says. “Fine. I’ll play your game, but we’re doing this my way. Had Rachel been the one to call you after the ambulance had carted me off, she’d’ve called you at about quarter to seven in the morning. It’s pretty much obligation to have your ringer on in our line of work, but would you have picked up the phone that early?”

“Yep,” Raylan says. Tim searches his face and finds he’s telling the truth.

“All right,” he shrugs. “Would you have, our history with or notwithstanding, called Dan to tell him you wouldn’t be able to make it to work that day and gotten on the earliest flight you could get?”

“Absolutely,” Raylan says, even nodding that time. If he’s trying to convince Tim, he’s doing too good a job at it. “Without hesitation.”

“And--would you have stayed for at least a week, if not two, had I asked?”

“Yeah,” Raylan gets this really sincere look in his eye when he meets Tims gaze again, and Tim swallows thickly. It’s shit like that that got his heart broken a decade past, and he’s not about to let anything like that go down again, especially not when Raylans only in Kentucky because of Boyd and would otherwise be content in avoiding it for the rest of his life. “You done?”

“Yeah,” he says. “All right—let's play it your way. Ask me your question again.”

“If you’d called or asked Rachel to do it, what do you think would’ve happened?”

“Well--the Raylan I knew a decade ago would probably take at least a few minutes to answer the phone especially if he were asleep and even more so if he’d taken the day off,” Tim answers. “I don’t think you woulda picked up and I think Rachel would get tired of dialin’ your number after the fourth time, which is being generous as to her patience as I know it. I think, despite the fact that I’d had a heart attack and wasn’t picked up til about quarter to seven, even if Rachel called, when you missed the call and woke up about two hours later, you’d be in my hospital room for four thirty just like she was.”

“Four-thirty ain’t bad.”

“I had a heart attack and was carried away at almost seven. Had Rachel called when the ambulance came and you failed to call her back until about nine then you didn’t get into Kentucky til 4:30, it’s still bullshit. Gate to gate, Miami to Lexington is two and a half hours. What exactly coulda been more important than flyin’ in to see me that leads you to wait about four hours to catch a plane?”

“Callin’ Dan, first off,”

“Takes fifteen, tops. Provided you don’t shower, you can do it while you get dressed.”

“Then Winona--”

“That is another fifteen minutes,” Tim says. “Half an hour if it’s your week with Willa. Adding in that time, ten to two o’clock is still three hours.”

“You’re being pedantic,” Raylan says, exasperated.

“You used to love that about me,” Tim says, and he knows it’s the truth. Raylan had said it a few times back in the day and it's because of how odd it was that the compliment had stuck with him.

“Didn’t particularly like being your partner for a year and a half, then two years later being the rebound to your rebound.”

“Our--” love affair? Relationship? Those words to describe it feel juvenile because he knows it was more but can’t find the word to describe ir, and partner doesn’t feel right, either. “--Thing had ended eight months before I even so much as thought about Mark like that. Do me a favour and either shut up or avoid making this into something it’s not.”

“I’m not--” Raylan shrugs. “I just—you shot Colt over it, Tim.”

“My motivations for shooting someone who was pointin’ a gun at me are absolutely none of your concern,” Tim rebuts. “And--it wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like, then?”

“It was—damnit, Raylan,” Tim laughs. He and Raylan began a weird friends-with-benefits type deal around the tail end of his first year in the Marshals service. That lasted all of a year and a half, give or take, and eight months later after they'd stopped, into his fourth year, Mark had called him for something unrelated to the debts he owed from his days of active addiction.

He and Mark had only really fooled around a bit but in true Tim Gutterson, unwaiveringly loyal to anyone who he thinks deserves it style, he felt something real and true. It was there, and it lingered for far longer than Tim was comfortable with, and when Tim had shown up to the scene where Mark and his dealers body were both dead, that feeling evaporated without choice but simultaneously without incident.

“How long after you shot him were you on my doorstep, just barely sober enough to make the drive over?”

“Almost eight months,” Tim grits his teeth.

“And--what you two had—the grief you felt, it was gone by then?”

“You and Mark are two different people,” Tim says. “I’ve never spent much time on grief, Raylan, so yeah.”

“Did the military teach you that?”

“Bein’ raised in southern Indiana with siblings who ain’t spent a day in their lives worth their salt and parents who are somehow worse taught me that,” Tim rebuts. “I grieved Mark once, now shut up before I shoot you and have to grieve you twice.”

Raylan, at least, does as Tim asks. He stops talking and the car stays quiet for the rest of the trip down to Harlan.

Raylan does the nice thing and lets Tim deliver the news, citing a need for coffee and telling him he’d bring one back around for Tims sake because they’ve finally gotten somewhere.

Tim knocks on Rachels door with a big, stupid smile, and when she lets him come in, her expression remains neutral.

“You get a lead?” She asks.

“We did,” Tim nods. “A few, actually. Locals at what used to Johnnys Bar but is now a veterans bar named Kingstons gave us leads that put Boyd near Louisville but comin’ in hot.”

“You said you had a few,” she says. “Please tell me you got one better than that or that someone elaborated with specifics as to Boyds current whereabouts even though the initial lead already put him in Harlan?”

Tim sits down in the chair opposite her desk, grin big and wide and stupid—he's gotten himself a victory. It’ll be something positive to bring up with Alexander, who asks him for something positive at the beginning of every single Friday session.

“Other lead puts Boyd a little more’n four hours outta Harlan,” Tim says. “Holed up in a pay-by-the-hour style motel called Charlies out in an Indiana spot called Crawford. The first lead I gave you was elaborated by someone—that lead says Boyds in Louisville but will be sniffin’ around Lexington in a couple’a days, when it becomes safer to do so, and he’ll only stay around Lexington for half a day before he heads down to Harlan, gets in touch with a few old contacts he used to have and waits it out.”

“What’s Crowder got to wait for?”

“More’n a decade gone and he still wants Raylan dead,” Tim shrugs. “Says the good patrons at Kingstons, anyway. Raylan and Ava are his biggest targets and try as he might, he apparently can’t find any leads as to Avas whereabouts. I say we put Nelson, Marino and Stevens on the Crawford lead.”

“’N you, Raylan and I go check out Louisville? I like that brain of yours even when I know it’s primary objective is avoiding Indiana in it’s entire,” Rachel laughs. “Only took two weeks’n we managed to get somewheres good. Did the Louisville lead get you anywhere else?”

“A few of his local haunts, all of which are primarily way out in the country,” Tim says. “It’s not a lot, but it’s good. More than we’ve had the last two weeks, at least.”

Rachel nods. “You’n Raylan managed not to kill each other,” she says. “That’s good too. You two have it out?”

“Yeah,” Tim nods. “We did, kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“He said his piece, I said mine,” Tim shrugs. “It’s not—we're not—it's not like it was. No hard feelings or let downs or—well—I fuckin’ hate it when you put me on the spot.”

“Yeah, you do,” Rachel nods. “But Raylan texted asking me to make sure you don’t leave til he comes back with your coffee, so I’m doin’ it for his sake. You got an appointment with Alexander tonight?”

“Eight through nine,” Tim says. “Or nine thirty, or ten, depending on how long I need to talk for. Raylans gonna come over once I’m done with it, and we’re going do the thing we would’ve done had the—thing—never happened. We’re gonna catch up for a bit, and the only Corona I’m having tonight is nonalcoholic.”

“Nonalcoholic booze and pizza from—let me guess—Antonios? You lucky, lucky bastard,” Rachel smiles.

“Yeah,” Tim nods. “How much longer do you think Raylan is going to take?”

“The VFW is like—it's closer to the office than your apartment is,” Rachel says, tone skeptical. “What is it? Does coffee still make your chest hurt?”

“Only if I drink it right after a run or right before or right after I’ve eaten,” Tim says. “Or if I drink too much. Just kind of—wantin' to get there, you know? They do have free decaf.”

Rachel laughs. “What is it, really? Don’t lie to me and tell me you miss Roulette.”

“Is a guy not allowed to miss the kitten he finds in the engine of his truck?”

“Who, Roulette?” Raylans voice comes through the room as he enters and Tim jumps.

“Damn it, Raylan!” He curses. “I had a heart attack seven weeks ago. You are not allowed to do that to me.”

“Yeah,” Rachel says. “Roulette the kitten.”

“She’s cute,” Raylan smiles. “Was always more of a dog person, but cats are the self sufficent type so I always debated gettin’ one.”

“I didn’t pick her,” Tim says. “Found her in the engine of my truck after therapy.”

Raylan sets down a drink tray and passes them out accordingly, giving Rachel hers first and then passing Tims to him.

“You said coffee makes your chest hurt—I did decaf,” Raylan says. “Dunno if it’ll make much of a difference, but I figured I’d try anyway.”

“What would—what would thirty-four year old Tim Gutterson say if he learned that forty-five year old Tim Gutterson couldn’t drink coffee without chest pain?” Rachel asks, tone teasing.

“He’d make fun of me, no doubt,” Tim shakes his head. “Probably do the smart thing’n assume it wasn’t just age and then lose his shit at me upon learnin’ I drank us into a heart attack at forty-five years old. Then again—that dumbass has still been out of the military less time than he was in it for and he has no fuckin’ clue what’s comin’.”

Raylan laughs and sits down to Tims right. Tim takes a sip of his coffee and hates how perfect it is.

“Time check?” Tim asks. Raylan glances at the clock.

“Quarter to eight,” he says. “We’ve got you for what—five more minutes, if not eight, am I right?”

“I never went to the VFW while you were kickin’ shit up here through the beginning to the middle of the twenty-fuckin'-tens, how the fuck do you know that?”

Raylan shrugs, smirking gently. “Guessed,” he says. “Not my fault I got it right.”

“Bullshit,” Tim sing-songs. “Nope. No way. Did Art call? He knows I’ve been goin’.”

“You still talk to Art?” Rachel asks. “I mean—more than once or twice very few months?”

“He calls me every other week,” Tim shrugs. “Found out I was booze free and just about demanded he be my sponsor. I think he’s discovered how boring retirement is in the last decade since his age forced him out of the service, and now he’s projecting that onto me.”

“You tell him about ‘The Incident’?” Raylan asks.

“No,” Tim answers. “With how big your goddamned mouth is, I was hopin’ you’d do it.”

“Whys he think you’re sober, then?”

“I dunno,” Tim shrugs again. “Haven’t asked and don’t intend to.”

Rachel laughs. “What’re you gonna do, if Raylan does tell him? Say Raylan assumes your accusation and insult are open season on tellin’ Art everything he knows, and then Art calls you all pissed off?”

“I’m going to be dodgin’ those calls like Avas managed to dodge the US Marshals service’ locatin’ her for the past eleven goddamned years,” Tim says. “Not for eleven years, though. Eleven days, at most.”

Rachel laughs a bit more, and Tim checks the clock before getting up in a manner that’s almost too excited.

“Ah, it would be time,” Rachel says. “You meet Raylan and I back here for seven, all right? Louisville is only an hour and some change away, but we need as much daylight as we can get if we wanna get Boyd before he does some serious damage.”

Tim smiles, nods, grips his to-go cup of coffee just a tad tighter than usual, and heads out.

He makes it to the VFW with a minute to spare, is walking through Alexanders open door for eight on the dot.

“Something positive,” Alexander says in a voice that’s almost singsonging it but not quite there.

“We got a break in the case we’ve been workin’,” Tim says, closing the door behind him before he plops down onto Alexanders couch. “Two weeks of nothin’ and finally—we got somewhere! I’m so happy right now I could just—I could pour all of the booze in my fridge out like I’ve been meaning to do for seven weeks now.”

“I really hope you’ll do that once you get home,” Alexander says. “Now for the heavy stuff. You been thinkin’ much about your time in the military in recent?”

“Not since Wednesday,” Tim smiles, tight lipped, and moves into a laying down position so he can stare at the ceiling because doing that, oddly, always helps. “Bet I’m about to start, though, aren’t I?”

Alexander gives a hearty laugh. “Monday and Wednesday we focused on your time in the infantry,” he says. “We’re not doing this structured in any particular way and you’ve had a rough few weeks and I thought we’d hit infantry first, child and teenhood trauma second, then rangers trauma last. Today is child and teenhood trauma day, likely much to your chagrin.”

Tim takes a deep breath in. A full hour spent talking about all the ways in which his father failed him? He can handle that. Totally.

“Okay,” Tim nods.

“All right,” Alexander says. “First and foremost, when did you get the idea to take the ASVAB?”

“I was—it was January of my senior year,” Tim says. “I’d grown up in an awful environment and joinin’ the military seemed like the only way out. I figured I’d take the test, join on the day I hit eighteen and then be set to go from there.”

“How bad was your life at home?”

“My father drank almost all the time,” Tim says. “Every single day, unless my grandparents came around.”

“How did your mother feel about the drinking?”

“She hated it,” Tim says it earnestly, almost hates admitting that he’d been around his family long enough to make that observation because that—by default, that means the eighteen years he’d spent under their roof were absolute shit instead of just inherently bad or difficult. “She and my old man used to get into fights over it all the time.”

“Did those fights ever become physical?”

“No--my father always told my brother and I traditional shit like ‘boys don’t cry’ and ‘don’t ever hit a woman!’,” Tim sighs. “My brother turned out to be worse about the alcohol than my father was, and I turned out gay, so my hitting a woman has become something of very little concern over the years, but that’s besides the point. My father never laid a hand on her; verbal and psychological abuse suited his needs just fine.”

“And you thought that joining the military was your golden ticket?”

“Yeah,” Tim nods. He clenches and unclenches his fists, needing something to do to distract his mind, even if that distraction is momentary. “I did. I was seventeen when I took the test, barely more than eighteen when I joined up.”

He’d joined the week after he’d graduated, four days after his birthday. He could operate a gun and knew the precise mechanisms and tools required for cleaning one before he could legally drink in the very USA that he spent a decade serving.

“How did your family feel about it?”

“I left my childhood home the night before I was due in Georgia for basic,” Tim answers. “I’d told my mother—she was scared shitless but she knew there was nothing that’d stop me. My father tried by attempting to barricade me into my bedroom from the outside in, but I just climbed out the window. Neither of them liked it, but they had different reasons.”

“What are those reasons?”

“My mother didn’t want me to go because the idea of me dyin' scared her shitless,” Tim laughs. “She didn’t wanna lose me to the military, and no matter how much I reassured her, nothing did the trick.”

He sits up, slides his hands down his face and plants his elbows on his knees.

“My father hated it because it meant he couldn’t control me anymore, and he didn’t realize that until he saw what little of my life I cared to bring along tucked into a suitcase, the rest of it sold or donated.”

“Did you ever see your dad again after you left?”

“He died before I got back from Basic,” Tim shrugs, leans back, tries to force himself to relax even though nothing does the trick. “I wasn’t even there for the funeral.”

“Do you wish you had been?”

“Not even a little,” Tim admits, laughing a bit, fighting the anxiety that’s creeping up on him just like it always does when he talks about his childhood or his parents, or those last very tepid few days before he joined the military. “My mother played the grieving widow and my siblings and I grieved in our own ways—Keith took to the very menial amount of booze that my father had left behind, I went to the shooting range everyday until my anger subsided and Lisa poured herself into her degree. My mother inherited the house, I inherited a few of the guns he’d wave around to scare us as kids, my brother claimed his booze collection and my sister claimed the law school textbooks he kept in his study.”

“All right,” Alexander smiles. “Seems like we’re getting somewhere and we’ve barely been here fifteen minutes! Nice.”

Tim knows it’s a ploy to get him to relax—he can feel the tension in his shoulders, the way that his teeth are clenched and his jaw is set.

“Yeah,” Tim nods. “I don’t wanna lose momentum and I’d rather just get this out in the open so I don’t have to think about it—so—next thing.”

“Tell me more about your families structure,” Alexander says. “As a start.”

“Lisas the oldest—she's five years older than I am so she’d be fifty by now, if not close to it,” Tim says. “She sends booze at Christmas in a bid to win me over so I give her the house but we don’t talk so I can’t really remember her birthday anymore. Keith is forty-seven.”

“Do you and Keith talk?”

“He calls me once every few months,” Tim shrugs. “I should really stop pickin’ up the phone, but—he's my brother, you know?”

“It can be hard to let go of family ties,” Alexander nods. “How did your siblings feel about you bein’ in the military?”

“Keith thought it was cool. He joked a few times that I’d be the only one in our family to ever make it out of Indiana. He was right and sometimes I hate him for it a little bit, you know?” Tim says. “If Lisa felt anything, she didn’t show it—the opposite of love is indifference, and sometimes I think that's all she's ever felt."

Alexander laughs a little. Tim, absently, finds that he'd rather shrivel up and die than divulge more of his childhood or teenage years, but he does it anyway for his own sake.

Alexander asks him more about his family, and Tim tells him everything he wants to know, dissociating his way through the process because of how mentally draining it gets.

He talks about his first ever time seeing a gun—he was seven, his father was pissed, and he was threatening to kill everyone in the kitchen a la murder suicide—and then the first time he ever watched his father get so angry over something he felt the need to scream—he'd been nine, it was because a candle his mother had lit had been left to burn til the wick was put out by being submerged under the wax—and then went on further to talk about the explosive reactions his father had to every academic failing during his middle and high school years, the way that his father used to smile when Tim would flinch and how by the time he was seventeen, he stopped flinching and learned that just staring straight ahead was the best option because eventually, his father would get bored of his torments and either go locate his mother or go to his study.

When he’s done, it’s 9:30 and he’s drank the coffee Raylan had gotten him in it’s entire. He leaves the VFW with a certain kind of weight in his chest, the kind he’d’ve drank away if he could still drink without fearing one sip would send his heart into overdrive.

Fourteen hours later, they have a lead at last. Raylan and Tim are cooperating with each other and despite the fact that Raylan, ever one to enjoy the front passengers seat, has been booted to the middle back seat of Tims truck, things are going decently.

After spending a good three or so hours in Louisville, they have a concrete lead that will place Boyd in or around Harlan come nightfall. He’ll be at Kingstons bar and Rachel has decided to have Tim and Raylan there while she waits posted with Dunlop, Stevens and Marino just down the road from Avas old place, just in case Boyd swings by on the off chance the lead was wrong.

What used to be known as Johnny Crowders bar among the locals is now Kingstons, a spot not too unlike the VFW: only vets and their guests are permitted entry.

He and Raylan linger at a table near the back, Tim nursing a nonalcoholic modelo—which, having drank the alcoholic version of the same, he will never understand Rachels preference for Modelo over Corona or just about any other beer on the market—and Raylan is drinking a bourbon.

They’re in a spot just hidden enough to not be visible from the door but visible if you take a seat at the bar and decide to look around a little bit. Raylan isn’t wearing his hat, thankfully, and Tim is dressed as nondescript as he can be, wearing a pair of black jeans, the same green carhartt he’d decided to wear upon going back to the VFW for therapy, and a black leather jacket because it’s fuckin’ mid-October in Kentucky and therefore, cold.

He’s deep in thought like he always is whenever he’s surrounded by people who’ve had experiences similar to his own, and Raylan is quick to pick up on that.

“Relax,” Raylan says, his voice gentle. “I can see the cogs turning in your fried veteran brain.”

“My brain’s not fried, my heart is,” Tim rebuts. “And--there are no cogs to turn anyway. I’m fine.”

“Are you?” He’s thinking about his time in the rangers after hearing a few guys his age talk about their time only a table or two away, so he’s not, but he’s not going to tell Raylan that.

“Yes,” Tim says, albeit a little forcefully. “I’m good. You don’t need to worry about me—I'm asking you not to worry about me.”

In truth, his mind is on his second tour in Afghanistan and his second-last tour with the military as a whole. He’s somewhere between the glint of the scope on his rifle and laughing with Mark on base, feeling his shoulder touch Marks as he finally eases up enough to be capable of sleeping through the night.

Raylan shrugs. “You seem jumpy,” he says. Tim picks up the Modelo, takes a sip and fights his grimace. He’s going to finish it no matter how much he dislikes the damn thing—it costed him too much not to drink it entire.

“I’m not,” Tim denies. He has half a mind to tell Raylan the truth but he doesn’t. Raylans not a vet, he wouldn’t understand, he works in law enforcement. but he’s always lived a civilian lifestyle--or at least these are the excuses Tim uses to justify it. Raylan has spent his entire life a civilian, never gone a decade without it like Tim had done willingly when he thought the military was his only way out of a crappy home and a crappy city in Indiana.

“Okay,” Raylan says. “Just--talk. You look to me like you’re three seconds away from wanderin’ off on me entirely and I would really rather not have that happen. We’re going to talk about The Incident.”

“I thought we were done with that,” Tim realises that Raylans doing this because he can sense that something is off, and even as his mind runs through active zones of combat from his days working infantry, he’s grateful for it.

“I told Art,” Raylan confesses, the words whispered and the guilt evident in his tone.

“Well,” Tim laughs, grips the Modelo like his life depends on it as he tries to remember what Alexander had told him to do when his trauma was manifesting in the form of brutal flashbacks and anxiety. "I’ll be avoiding his calls for the next several days.”

“Are you havin’ a panic attack?” Raylan asks, voice calm and even. “It looks to me like you’re havin’ a panic attack.”

He takes a deep breath in, his mind somehow trapped in three separate places all at once.

“I dunno,” Tim says. He takes another sip of the Modelo, tries to calm his mind again, only to find it doesn’t work. He takes in another deep breath, and then he feels the rough but still sort of soft skin of Raylans palm against the top of his left hand, and that—it just—fuck.

It snaps him right back to reality, works better than any deep breathing ever has, and he snaps his hand away despite wanting that contact. Raylan, he decides, does not get to touch him like that. Not given their history coupled with the fact that he'd never have come back to Kentucky if not for a case or the fact that it'd been Rachel who'd asked him back around.

“Okay,” Raylan says. “I told Art about the heart attack.”

“How’d he react?”

“He was angry you hadn’t told him,” Raylan says. “He said he’d mention it eventually, but only if you didn’t first and he got sick of waitin’. He was shocked Rachel didn’t call either, but that doesn’t surprise me at all. I suspect she ran the necessary channels by you, and you vetoed everyone except her and maybe Dunlops presence in the—what, three, four days you spent in the hospital recoverin’?”

Tim takes his lip between his teeth, the sound of Marks laughter and the smell of gunpowder fading just to a point where they’re tolerable.

“Just Rachel,” he says. “No Dunlop. Just her.”

“You two have been workin’ together since—well, forever,” Raylan snorts. “And neither of you have transferred out?”

“Contrary to what you believe, Kentucky is not a universally hated state,” Tim laughs. “I’ve lived here for sixteen years and I like it just as much as I did my first week. Rachel and I have had a running joke since before you came around—only way either of us is leavin’ Kentucky is if we’re transferred out and forced, or if we go at the same time we shuffle off this side of the ground.”

Raylan laughs in turn, and Tim sighs. It, really, doesn’t feel like Boyd’s gonna come in. Maybe the lead they had had fed them bullshit?

“Where abouts did you grow up, anyhow?” Raylan asks.

“Indiana,” Tim shrugs. “Small town about ninety miles outside of Corydon. Smaller than Corydon, too.”

“How much smaller?”

“Corydon has more than three thousand people,” Tim says. “My town has barely enough to breakeven with 1000, and that’s on a good day.”

Raylan snorts, and of course, their conversation somewhat slows. Raylan gets up to piss and Tim heads out to smoke the last cigarette in his pack, sticks close to his truck in the process. He idly checks his phone, sees that Rachels found nothing while waiting at Avas. He reports back that he and Raylan have yet to hit the jackpot, finishes his smoke down to the last puff and puts it out with his foot.

Instead of going back in, searching for a trashcan, he objects to put the empty cigarette carton back in his truck. He stores it in the center console, figuring he’ll just throw it out once he’s home and the only person who can judge him for smoking at all is himself.

As soon as he closes the door of his truck, he’s knocked out cold.

#justified #raylan givens #rachel brooks #tim gutterson #raylan givens x tim gutterson #givenson #justified fx

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usmsgutterson · 8 months ago

Text

Achilles Heel - Givenson

one, two, three

Read Achilles Heel on AO3

okay!! this fic has lived in my stupid little worm brain for like, three weeks now, and here we are! This is the last chapter in the miniseries and mostly serves as the epilogue because I am simultaneously a lover of angst and a sucker for a happy or happyish ending.

Warnings - tim is in heart attack recovery so the heart attack is still biiiiiig time a focus here!! There's a few mentions of seizures (tim is mentioned to have had two more en route to the hospital) and a few mentions of cigarettes, a few mentions of tims time in the military, and even though I did edit this twice, if I missed anything, feel free to let me know!!

When Tim wakes up, the first thing he registers is the sound of his own heart beating through a monitor, the sound regular enough to be of little concern. The second thing he registers is the fact that his eyes are still closed and how heavy they feel, and the third?

The third thing he feels is Raylans hand clutching his own, his mouth close to Tims fingers.

“I need you to wake up,” Raylan says, his voice quiet. “Been a week, Tim. You need to be okay. I need you to be okay.”

“’M fine,” Tim rasps, exasperated. “My eyes are just heavy.”

It takes him a few seconds, but he does manage to open them. When he looks to his left, he sees Raylan looking at him with a smile. His eyes are glossed over but if Tim asks, he knows Raylan well enough to know he'll deny it, so he doesn't say a word.

“Boyd,” Tim starts, his tone anxious as bits and pieces of the two weeks spent in Boyds captivity start to flood his brain. “Is he--”

“Awaitin’ trial,” Raylan says. “Reardons the judge and Boyd did the surprising thing—waived his right to a jury. Vasquez tells me that Reardon is favoring the death sentence in Boyds case. He's bein' questioned further today, I think? Rachel mentioned wantin' me there, but I figured I'd be of better company here and can't stand to look much at the bastard anyway. Had I seen him in the office, I'd've killed him, no questions.”

“Oh,” Tim says. “I--”

“It’s fine,” Raylan responds, squeezing Tims hand. “You don’t need to talk. I have a lotta shit to say, actually.”

Tim nods.

“First and foremost, when Stevens and I had caught up with him, he admitted to all of it—everything,” Raylan start. “In order, too. First to stalkin’ you and the ones you love, then to abductin’ you outside’a Kingstons, then to two weeks of torture and finally, to triggerin' your second heart attack with intent to murder. Smiled and stared at me when he said that last one, though, and I just—I saw red. I wanted t' tackle him to the ground and punch the life outta him for it, but Stevens kept me from that. I wanted Boyd dead and almost killed him, but one thing kept me from actually doin' it."

“What?”

“Rachel and Dunlop had called, said that you were in an ambulance havin’ your third total seizure but your second in the space of fifteen minutes. Stevens told me to arrest Boyd so that we could bring him in and I could visit you once you were done with surgery, and that brought me back around,” Raylan says. “I hated it—the idea of losing you. I couldn’t risk that. Not again.”

“I’m right here,” Tim says. “You didn’t lose me.”

“No, but I did when I left for Miami,” Raylan says, tone sorrowful.

“You had a kid and Winona wanted to try again,” Tim shrugs. “I--I’d do the same if I were in similar circumstances. I don’t fault you for that, even though things were shit when you left.”

“Well--let me make my point,” Raylan snarks. He kisses the back of Tims hand and Tim grins softly, letting the gesture mean it’s full weight instead of pushing it away. “I talked to Rachel, and then I talked to Dan, and then I sat here every single day for a week straight waitin’ for you to wake up, and I thought.”

“About what?”

“About what Boyd called you when I asked him why he’d taken you, of everyone in my life for whom I would willingly step in front of a gun,” Raylan laughs a bit. “I told him he coulda taken Art, or Rachel or—shit, even Dunlop. I asked 'im why he’d chosen you if it wasn’t just a decision made for the sake of convenience.”

“You’d step in front of a gun for Dunlop?” Tim laughs a little. “And I thought you decidin’ to sleep with me was the worst decision you’d ever made. Guess I was wrong, then.”

“Not Dunlop,” Raylan presses his forehead against Tims hand. “And--not like I can anyway, not anymore. He quit as soon as Stevens’n I brought Boyd in, but you--stop keepin' me from makin' my point, dammnit.”

“Sorry,” Tim squeezes Raylans hand, shifts a bit as he finds his position mildly uncomfortable. His mouth is dry and he misses Rachel more than he’ll ever admit, but he’s okay otherwise. “You thought about what Boyd called me when you asked why it was me he’d abducted.”

“He called you my Achilles heel,” Raylan says, his voice just barely above a whisper. “I denied it at first—eleven years gone from when I left and there’s no way you qualify as much when we hadn’t spoken for all that time prior to when I first got down here. I told Rachel about it, told her I disagreed, and she laughed in my fuckin' face.”

Tim grins gently. “Yeah, she would.”

“Then I called Dan and talked to him, then I called Art,” Raylan says. “Dan told me there was space at the office if I wanted to stow you away in my suitcase, and Art pretty much did what Rachel did. Called me an oblivious idiot prior to, at least, and told me he’d be in Lexington this week if I wanted to chat. I came here, I grabbed your hand and I prayed to a God I haven’t had real cause to believe in since before my daddy hit me for the first time, and then I got to thinkin’ and I just couldn’t stop it.”

Tim takes a deep breath in, swallows thickly and reaches for the water that’s sitting on the table tucked to his right. He grabs the bottle and sits up, takes a sip while he waits for Raylan to continue.

Raylans watching him, he realizes, and when Tim meets his gaze, he continues.

“I realized Boyd was right,” he says. “Kills me a little to admit that, but—while you were gone, I was relentlessly pissed off. Even the smallest thing ticked me off into a rage. I screamed at Dunlop, for fucks sakes.”

Tim laughs, takes another sip of his water before he closes the lid and puts it in his lap, too tired to reach for the table for the time being.

“What are you sayin’?”

“I’m saying—shit, you really are gonna make me say it?”

“Yeah,” Tim nods. “I’m tired, Raylan. Real tired. Don’t make me ask twice, please.”

“Well--you had a massive heart attack, two seizures, and landed here, so I guess I’ll do the nice thing,” Raylan shrugs. “What I’m sayin’ iis that you are my Achilles heel and unfortunately, I love you more for it every fuckin’ day.”

Tim looks at Raylan, really looks at him, and sees that he means the words he says. The feeling it generates within him is bone deep, so deeply seated within him that when it roars back to life, it doesn’t come as anything close to a surprise.

“What are we gonna do about that, then?”

“Well--knowing whether or not the feeling is mutual seems a decent place to start,” Raylan laughs. “But that’s just my opinion, you don’t need to take that seriously.”

“Raylan Givens, you idiotic bastard,” Tim laughs. “It’s--it’s reciprocated. I reciprocate it so much that my chest has hurt when I’ve thought about you almost every single day for the last eleven years, and—of fucking course we’d have this moment while I’m in a damn hospital bed.”

Raylan laughs. “Okay--that’s good,” he says. “I’m gonna call Dan, I think. Do him a disservice by takin’ two months off so I can help you recover. Rachels already booked you in.”

“I was back at the office within the week last--”

“Your last heart attack was mild,” Raylan cuts. “This one was massive, and I’ll be damned if I let you do that. You’re takin’ two months.”

Tims lips form a line and he presses his head against the pillow. “Fine,” he grumbles. “I’m going to take a nap now.”

“I’ll be here when you wake up,” Raylan laughs. “Likely reeling after Dans finished up yellin’ my ear off.”

Tim huffs, closes his eyes and squeezes Raylans hand, dimly registering that he wants Raylan closer than he is right at that moment but also registering that he’s unwilling to have Raylan as close as he wants while he’s sat up in a damn hospital bed.

A few hours later, when he wakes, he finds Raylan has kept his word and is still sitting to his left.

“You call Dan yet?” He hears, registering immediately that the voice is Arts. “Please tell me he threw a fit and please tell me you saved your laughter til the phone call got done with.”

“I did,” Raylan says. Tim looks at him through half open, exhausted eyes, sees a smile on his face. “He didn’t throw a fit—I explained it before he could throw one and while it stings, he says they’ve gotten used to the office without me.”

“I imagine it’s rather peaceful without you around,” Art laughs, and Raylan just happens to look over to see Tim watching him.

“Hey, sleepy,” he greets. “How ya doin’?”

“Been better,” Tim shrugs. “Also been worse, though, so I’m fine. Are they dopin' me up with pain meds?"

Raylan nods once, and Tim sighs. He can feel it--he's loopy, overtired, and just drowsy enough to be completely honest while completely unprompted in his honesty.

He turns to Rachel, who’s standing to his right. “I feel like I should’ve called Raylan after the first one,” he says. It prompts a laugh from Rachel and Tim mentally celebrates the small victory.

“No shit,” she says. “You’ve gotta stop scarin’ me like that, Tim. My heart can’t take it a third time.”

“Neither can his, I suspect,” Art rebuts. Tim takes a minute to look him up and down from where he stands beside Rachel, and he is pleasantly surprised at just how good retirement still looks on the likes of Art Mullen. He’s sixty-seven now, has been retired for a decade and his skin is still tan as it was last they saw each other. His smile is still the same kind of bright that only comes with freedom from working in law enforcement and his eyes are still very kind. “I mean—a third heart attack will put him in the grave, won’t it?”

“Yeah, which is why he’s retirin’ soon as he hits the damn 20 year mark,” Raylan snips. “Four more years and he’s home free.”

“I never agreed to that,” Tim says. “I’ll be retirin’ when I’m 57 and not a damn minute sooner.”

He turns to look at Raylan and sees his mouth form a line. “I can get behind that, if you transfer to Miami,"

"You're too fuckin' protective," Tim grumbles. "And too fuckin' stubborn. I had a damn heart attack, but just because it's my second ain't gonna mean I take kindly to bein' coddled. I'm a forty-five year old man, for fucks sake."

Raylan smiles. He mouths an apology as Rachel follows on the coattails of Tims words, and Tim doesn't respond.

“I also ain’t approvin’ that request,” Rachel says. “No way. You wanna keep an eye on him like he’s some damsel in distress, you transfer back down here. I’m keepin’ him til he either quits, retires, or dies in the damn field.”

Tim moves his eyes to the ceiling as he seeks out Raylans hand, flexing his fingers as he searches. The idea of being around Raylan and Rachels bickering has never bothered him much--he usually mediates when they're at work because damn it if they aren't so damn alike that they clash, but he has zero interest in mediating while he's sat up in the recovery unit. He decides to stare at the ceiling while he waits for them to quit it.

“I didn’t miss it, either,” Tim feels Art gently push his shoulder. “Their bickering. That was the best part about Raylan bein’ gone before I retired.”

Raylans hand finds Tims and Tim is quick to interlace their fingers. “We aren’t bickering,” Raylan says. “I’d request the transfer if I thought Dan’d approve it.”

“I’ll retire on my forty-nineth birthday if y’all just shut the fuck up,” Tim says, exasperated. “Or--partially retire, or some shit, or work less—just stop. Please, in the name of Christ, quit the fuckin’ bickering.”

Tim feels Raylans lips against the back of his hand in lieu of an actual apology, and Rachel gives his shoulder a sisterly squeeze.

“Sorry,” she says. “I talked to one of the nurses—you'll be discharged five days out, then you get to go home to Roulette and keep your ass there for the next two months. Once you come back, you’re gonna do desk duty for at least the first two weeks after, mkay? I don’t need you havin’ a third heart attack because your heart wasn’t ready for you to be in the field.”

Tim hates the idea of desk duty, hates the idea of two months off with only Raylan and Roulette the cat to keep him company, but he puts up with it because it’s better that he recover fully than go back to work when he’s not ready and risk further screwing up his heart.

“Fine,” he says. “That--that’s fine. I can live with that.”

He can, if just barely. He turns his gaze from the ceiling over to Art and Rachel, searches their faces and finds that the epicentre of their concern exists in their eyes, just like it does for Raylan.

“I’ll come and visit a few times,” Art says. “I’m down here for the next couple weeks before I head back to South Carolina--our trip has extended for reasons that aren't just related to you, I swear it-- and eight hours a day with Raylan drove the best of us crazy. I don’t even wanna think about how awful twenty four would be.”

“Eight of them will be spent asleep,” Raylan rebuts.

“More like ten,” Tim corrects. “I’m--ugh. I’m fuckin’ exhausted.”

Rachel smiles gently. “You tryin’ to kick us out and be nice about it?”

“No,” Tim says nonchalantly because he does want them there—Rachel and Raylan make it easier to sleep, and Arts presence is just kind of weirdly comforting. “I’d actually prefer it if you didn’t go anywhere, I’m just noting that I’m tired.”

He looks to Raylan, blinks tiredly. “Yeah,” he grumbles. “I really should’ve called the first time.”

Raylan smiles, eyes crinkling just so at the corners to tell Tim that it’s genuine. “Well, we all make mistakes,” he says. “Art--there’s a coffee machine just outside if you’re also gettin’ tired? I know I could use a cup.”

“I’m gonna go with him,” Rachel says. “Make sure he doesn’t get lost or anythin’.”

Rachel and Art head out, and Tims shoulders relax just slightly.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” Raylan asks. “Like--how worried do I need to be?”

“Not at all,” Tim says. “I’m just tired, ‘n I hate hospitals, and I was so fuckin’ stupid about this stuff last time around—I just—the idea of fuckin’ up my heart for a third time is scarin’ me well past my damn limit.”

“Well then don’t,” Raylan says, laughing at himself a little. “I mean—don't push your heart past its limit. Stop smoking cigarettes, we’ve already covered the no-booze thing extensively. Start eating healthy and keep going for your runs in the morning. Rachel and I are too scared to lose you to let you go off track and I know you’ve scared Art at least close to shitless so he’ll help while he’s in Kentucky, and it’ll be fine. Plus, you only have five more days in here, then you’re home free. Roulette keeps falling asleep on your sweatshirts, by the way—it was real cute at first. Now it’s just real depressin'.”

Tim smiles, soft and gentle and so not like himself. “I miss her.”

“She misses you,” Raylan says. “She’s close to nine weeks old now and she still meows just as loud as she did when you brought her home, I suspect. Loves to sleep on your clothes and splayed out on the arm of the couch. I’ve been lookin’ after her in your absence—she's kept me calm.”

Tims smile somehow only gets softer. He watches Raylan take the center of his top lip between his teeth.

“Are you doin' okay?” Tim asks because he wants to focus on someone elses well being instead of his own for a few minutes.

“I thought I lost you there, for a sec,” Raylan confesses. “I was scared, and I’m just thinkin’--I’m glad I didn’t lose you, ‘s all.”

“Okay,” Tim says. “I’m--I--” he closes his eyes to illustrate the point he’s too tired to speak into existence, and when he hears Raylans snort he thinks he could die happily if he were to die right then.

“Yeah,” Raylan whispers. “Sleep, Tim. You look like you need it.”

He wants to open his eyes, to scoff and call Raylan an asshole, but he refrains, chooses to sleep instead.

Five days later, he’s discharged from the hospital and Raylan takes him home. He spends a lot of his first day being followed around by Roulette like she’s scared he’ll leave again, but when he moves from bed to kitchen to couch and inevitably sits to relax somewhere along that line, she curls up on his lap or in his chest and her purring is as loud as a freight train.

She keeps him calm, usually. Her purring is just barely less than enough to lull him into sleep, but the sound of Raylans breathing in quiet moments usually finishes the job.

The first day is spent sleeping, mostly, unless he’s hungry or has to take a piss—when either of those things occur he slips out of bed while Raylan tells him to take it easy and Roulette abandons her post tucked up against Tims side in favor of sticking to his right, her side pressed against his ankle as one step for him is a good two or three for her.

He grabs something quick—rips a little carton of yoghurt off of the pack he’s had in his fridge since before Boyd had abducted him, rips a banana off the stem and then peels and eats it, or even just grabs a granola bar to tide him over til either the next meal or when he inevitably gets hungry again.

When he’s not eating, he’s in bed with Raylan. Normally he curls in on himself just a little, tucks himself under Raylans chin and takes a deep breath to breathe him in before he’s finally able to settle. Sometimes, he doesn’t even sleep, just closes his eyes and slows his breathing down and tries to fight the anxiety that seems to linger relentlessly, never going away or fading no matter what Tim does.

Eventually, somewhere between nine o’clock on the first day home and midnight on the second, Raylans hands find Tims hair and start carding through it in a bid to get him to relax.

“You’ve been on edge all fuckin’ day,” Raylan says when Tim starts to retreat. “Relax for a second, Tim. It ain’t gonna kill ya.”

“All this time off might,” Tim rebuts. “I know I agreed to it, but—the off time is just more time to be anxious about my heart randomly giving out. I figured I wouldn’t make it to sixty, but fuck, facing that reality is a little scary.”

He stops retreating from the touch once it fully registers, and after a second it actually starts serving it’s purpose—it relaxes him bit by bit, starting in the slightest release of tension from his shoulders.

“You’re not gonna die at sixty,” Raylan says. “Or a minute before then. I have eleven years of time to make up with you so if you die a minute before your fifty-sixth birthday I’m going to lose my shit.”

Tim smiles gently, drapes an arm over Raylans waist. “Give me the next two months to actually think about this, but—I might ask Rachel to transfer me to Miami in the new year.”

“Funny,” Raylan laughs. “I was just thinkin’ about asking Dan to transfer me back to Kentucky.”

“You’d--you’d live here willingly?”

“For at least five or six years,” Raylan says. “Not permanently—I could never stand to live here as long as you have, and Miami is great, but I wanna be where you are.”

“Saying that to me while I’m just tired enough to only be half listening is so, so unfair,” Tim says. His shoulders relax further and the ease spreads down his back, through his legs to the balls of his feet. “We’ll discuss it tomorrow, when we’re actually fully awake. You, Raylan, are going to let me go for a run tomorrow if it kills you.”

“It’s not my death that I’m worried about,” Raylan rebuts.

Tim grumbles, settles further into the bed and closes his eyes, willing his mind to relax along with the rest of his body so that he can go to sleep.

“Running ain't gonna kill me.”

“It might.”

“I’ll--fine,” Tim sighs, presses himself closer against Raylan in spite of himself. “I’ll go for a jog, then, and I won’t touch coffee unless it’s decaf.”

Raylan sighs, content, and Tim decides to shut his mouth for the time being.

Eventually, he falls asleep. It’s the deepest sleep he’s slept in days and he’s all the more glad for it.

The first quarter of his eight weeks off is relatively uneventful—Kentucky is riding out the coattails of autumn and heading straight for winter in a manner that Tim loves more than usual that year, and Roulette just gets clingier everyday.

Art comes around a few times a week, as does Rachel, though they both tend to come around at different times of the day. Rachel usually checks in after she gets off work and then stays for a few hours, and Art is usually around from noon on the dot to four on the dot.

It’s a weird kind of nice to have Art around again—it reminds him of his first bit with the Marshals. Art had been a weird, fatherly-adjacent sort of constant in and around the office, one to scowl but not say a word otherwise when Tim would come in mildly hungover.

It’s odd to see him in a different kind of context that involves Tims shoddy little apartment and usually sitting on the couch or standing in the kitchen versus the one he’s used to in Arts post-retirement era, that being sat across from him at some restaurant with Michelin stars, drinking decent bourbon and making easy conversation.

Art is simultaneously exactly who Tim remembers and an entirely different person, but more in the way that he's a lot more relaxed than he used to be. Working as a LEO, let alone as Chief Deputy, used to have him sort of high strung, even though he was still more lax than even the most unbothered of Tims bosses while he worked in the military.

It’s only at the tail end of the second of eight weeks of off time that Tim is reminded of the fact that Art Mullen is a 67 year old man who had an upbringing entirely separate from Tims both in the general sense and also the generation.

“Were you and Raylan—like—was that--?” Art asks it within the first hour and a half of his four hour visit, and Tim just about spits out the decaf coffee he’s finally started to like on a consistent basis. “I mean, the signs were there and everythin’, but I didn’t ask at the time cause you two worked damn well together.”

“Art!” Tim laughs. “Oh my God—I know Rachel calls you the closest thing I’ve got to a dad for shits ‘n giggles, but what the fuck was that? I don’t think even my daddy woulda asked me about that like you did, and I doubt he'd've asked me about that at all if he were still kickin'.”

Arts eyes go wide, and Tim laughs into his coffee mug as he hears Raylans footsteps tredging out of the bedroom.

“Mornin’, Tim,” Raylan greets, still groggy and likely in that blissful post-cat nap headspace as he speaks.

“It’s the afternoon,” Art says in a pointed tone as Roulette, who’d been sticking with Raylan most of that day despite her usual clinginess with Tim, daringly leaps up onto the counter top to headbutt Tims arm until he gives in and scratches the spot she likes under her chin.

“Coffee?” Raylan asks.

“It’s decaf,” Tim says.

Raylan scowls but grabs a mug anyway, and starts making himself a cup.

“What were you guys talking about?” Raylan asks, one of his hands goes to Tims hip in a gesture that to Raylan is probably idle but to Tim means just a bit more than the world.

“Well, honey,” Tim laughs a bit. “Art just tried to ask me, very delicately, if we were bangin’ back in Boyds heyday.”

“We were,” Raylan says nonchalantly, and suddenly Tim is very grateful for the sheer amount of entertainment that can come from a groggy Raylan who’s woken up from a cat nap and is still not fully there yet. “Next question.”

Arts eyes go wider, somehow, and he chuckles. “You deal with this every single day?” Art asks. “Like--willingly? You know you don’t have to, right?”

“He loves me, asshole,” Raylan grumbles. Art looks at Tim again, quirks one gray eyebrow.

“And--you’re completely sure about that?”

“Unfortunately,” Tim nods, takes a sip of his coffee, applauds himself because the damn grinder Raylan had bought burnt the beans every single time without fail and the maker was old but beloved so automatically not at fault.

“Asshole,” Raylan grumbles. He accompanies the word with a kiss against Tims cheekbone, though, so Tim knows it’s halfhearted.

Tim finally gives in after Roulette does the passive aggressive thing and runs to the wall, only to sprint towards Tims forearm and put every ounce of her energy into headbutting it. He scratches the spot under her chin and when she decides she’s done and claws her way up his arm and to his shoulder, he lets her.

It used to bug him when she did that—the claws in his arms and up his shoulders generated tiny little dot-sized scabs that’d eventually turn into dot-sized scars, but he’s grown to love it as time has passed. She sits on his left shoulder, presses her tiny little head against the side of his neck and purrs herself asleep. It's a cute sight and sound, though somewhat of a nuisance in the mornings when she purrs so loud it wakes him up.

“You love me,” Tim says, narrowing his eyes in Raylans direction.

“Unfortunately,” Raylan echoes. Tim leans against the counter a little, glances at Art.

“We were,” he says nonchalantly. “Tried to keep it under wraps because we knew we wouldn’t be allowed to be partnered on cases and we worked too well together to risk that possibility. Plus—it wasn’t really serious either time.”

“Well, Raylans got a child with another woman so that much is obvious,” Art shrugs. “Is it that serious now?”

“We’re still workin’ out the majority of the details,” Tim shrugs again. “Like--livin’ arrangements and shit, but yeah.”

Art turns to look at Raylan now, and Tim follows his gaze only to see Raylan going for the freezer, grabbing for the frozen meat patties to make burgers in the oven. Tim decides he’s content with that—they have a surplus of those fuckin’ burgers because Raylan likes them that damn much, and Tim has no qualms about what he eats unless he's the one making his food.

“You hurt him,” Art says. “I mean—you do it again, and I will be livin’ out the rest of my days in a jail cell, you hear?”

“Loud’n clear,” Raylan nods. “I hear you.”

Tim smiles at Art, and Art returns the gesture.

It’s nice, Tim thinks—to have the illusion of family for even just a second.

The five weeks to follow go sort of slow in a way that Tim learns to cherish. He starts, gradually, going for runs again. They start as walks with Raylan at no earlier than 9:30 in the morning but gradually progress to jogging by himself at eight and then by the end of his seventh week off, he’s waking up at 6:30, getting dressed into a pair of sweatpants and an old military tee and is out the door and on his run by seven.

He settles back into routines of old even as the seasons continue to change and the month shifts from November into December. He spends Christmas with Raylan that season, orders the pair of them Chinese food and does the dishes while Raylan FaceTimes his daughter.

As December shifts into January and his sixth week off turns into his seventh, he and Raylan have a lot of discussions about their future—it's stuff they can’t avoid, really, not if they want to make it work like they wasted eleven years not doing.

Raylans plan had, initially, been to come back up to Kentucky, but they realized very quickly that that wouldn’t work—Raylan would be unhappy in Kentucky, for starters, and the only reason he was there at all had been for Tims sake anyway, and Dan would never approve of the transfer with them being stretched out that thin at the Miami office.

Tim had spent a lot of time considering it on his end—there was no time difference between Kentucky and Miami, and it was a fifteen hour drive versus two hours total spent in coach on alternating weekends.

In the end, the choice was clear enough, and that was what led him to walking into Rachels office, his shoulders wound up tight and his smile mostly not there.

“Hey,” he says. “I know I’m not due back at work for another week, but—we need to talk, if you’ve got a sec?”

“You’re gonna ask me for a transfer,” Rachel says accusatorily. “Where? Because I love you enough to know that if you go to Miami, it’ll be against the damn law for you and Raylan to be partnered up, which will make Raylan grumpy and then he’ll get angry and lash out, and I’d really rather save you and Dan from havin’ to deal with that. Come in and sit down, I’ve been anticipating this since fuckin’ Christmas.”

Tim laughs, does as she tells him without a second thought.

“Anywhere,” he says. “Look--I know we have our jokes about how we’re gonna leave this state, but--”

“You fell in love with somethin’ that ain’t your job for once,” Rachel cuts. “Look--I’m not mad. I know I said I wouldn’t approve a transfer when you were layin’ up in a hospital bed, but things have changed. I’ve seen how you are with him, with that stupid fuckin’ cat.”

“Roulette is not stupid,” Tim says, immediately jumping to her defense.

“She’s dumb as a box of rocks, Tim,” Rachel says. “She’s cute, and she’d die if you, specifically, went longer than maybe twelve hours without givin’ her attention, but she is damn stupid.”

“She has at least two braincells,” Tim rebuts. “They’ve just never been used—and that, Rachel Eloise Brooks, is entirely besides the point. What do you mean by that, that you’ve seen how I am with Raylan?”

“He softens you up like I’ve never seen anyone else capable,” she says. “You smile at him, and you mean it when you do it. It’s like when you smile at me except when you smile at me, it’s platonic. Whenever you smile at Raylan it’s all romance goin’ through your big, idiotic head. Swear to God, he makes you soft. Makes you comfortable with bein’ vulnerable even after eleven years no contact. I found it funny at first, if I’m honest, but now I appreciate it.”

“You notice too much,” Tim says.

“That’s probably true,” Rachel shrugs. “But the fact that I know you’ve got Raylan in your life again makes this easier—do you know the name Elliot Shephard?”

A brief image of a then 25-year-old Sergeant from his days in the infantry unit flashes across Tims mind.

“Fuck yeah I know that name,” Tim nods. “He was my boss while I worked infantry. Why do you ask?”

“He’s the Chief Deputy at the Newnan office down in Georgia, which is about a two and a half hour drive out from Miami. You cut out an hour of time if you fly down but honestly, I don’t think that’d be worth it. Lexington is father away from Harlan than Newnan is from Miami and there’s no difference in time zones.”

“Well,” Tim shrugs. “I am in my seventh week of off time and it’s January so my brain is foggy as all hell—spell it out for me, please.”

“He called and asked how well staffed we are up here in Lexington. I said we’ve got at least one to spare if you need, and he said that there’s a position he needs to fill come the end of March. Are you in?”

“You sure you can handle another two months with me?”

Rachel laughs. “I’m gonna miss the fuck outta you, Gutterson,” she says. “You best remember to call me once in a while after you’re gone, all right? I don’t got much in the way of family anymore, either, so I do expect an invite down to Georgia at Christmas.”

“You and I have spent Christmas together every fuckin’ year since you left your ex husband,” Tim laughs. “Yeah. You have an invite, and I’ll call you a few times a week.”

Rachel smiles, reaches out and gives his hand a squeeze. “I’ll tell Shephard that I’m sendin’ you down.”

Tim smiles back, tries to ignore the way that his chest aches at the thought of leaving Rachel behind even though he knows he’s going for good fuckin’ reason.

“I’m gonna miss you too, by the way,” he says. “I really do love you, y’know.”

Her smile brightens. “I know,” she says.

They sit in the silence for a while after, basking in it as they would at the end of a long, tough case. Tim cherishes the silence, cherishes who he's sitting in it with because he knows it's not the last time they'll sit in silence before he's gone off to Newnan, but it's the time that'll mean the most.

The last time that Tim goes to the VFW in Lexington, it feels kind of bittersweet. Alexander is leaving to go down to North Carolina and it’s their last session before Tim leaves for Newnan.

“You doin’ all right?” Alexander asks. It’s the end of March, Tim has packed his entire life up to that point into his truck and all he has to do yet is grab Roulette from the Lexington office, where Rachel had offered to watch her while Tim did his last appointment with Alexander, and then he can hit the road and spend the next six hours driving. He’ll be in Newnan for seven if the traffic is good, which he really hopes it is. “I know we haven’t really talked about it because it’s been so long, but you had a damn heart attack five months ago, and then another one what—a month later? How are you doin’ with that?”

That makes Tim laugh. “Good,” he says. “I mean—we’ve talked about it a bit in a few of the appointments we’ve had since my second, and I feel okay about it, I guess. I don’t think about it as obsessively as I used to, don’t think I’ll be dead by sixty anymore. I have a cat, for fucks sakes. If I die before she does, Hell hath no fury quite like mine.”

It makes Alexander laugh, and even though he knows he shouldn’t, Tim considers it a victory.

“You’n the—the guy,” Alexander says. “The Marshal, as I’ve dubbed him. What’s the what with that?”

“The what is that I’m transferrin’ to Georgia to be closer to the asshole,” Tim says nonchalantly. “He’s decided my heart is so gnarly I’m to retire once I hit twenty years with the service but I’m gonna see if I can coax him into twenty-five. We’re tryin’ to figure stuff out for the long term—I'm movin’ to be only two and a half hours out from Miami. We’re gonna make it last. I’m fuckin’ determined about that.”

“Have you guys been talking a lot about the long term?”

“It’s all we can talk about,” Tim laughs. “I dunno—Raylan retires in a bit. I retire in anywhere from four to ten years, and we’ve been talkin’ a lot about it.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Right now it’s lookin’ like he’ll retire come the end of the year, stay in Miami for the next bit til I retire. He’s got a kid he’s down there for and he’s gonna stay down there til she graduates high school in a while yet which makes me hopeful he won’t notice when I fail to retire at forty-nine and retire at fifty-four instead. Seven years out, he’s either going to come down to Georgia and join me in Newnan for the next two years til I retire or I’m gonna bite the bullet’n retire at fifty-two. We’re both winter lovers so we’re thinkin’ relocating to somewheres like Maine in the end. It’s all idyllic right now, none of it actualized, but he told me we either moved to Maine and stayed in the states or we moved to Nova Scotia way across the border because, in his words, they’re “basically the same.””

“Maine, huh? You don’t really seem like the type who’d enjoy that much snow in the winter.”

“I sure as hell won’t enjoy the blisterin’ sun all the damn time,” Tim laughs. “Plus--shovellin’ all that snow in the winter will give either Raylan or myself somethin’ to do for a season. Like I said—it's all idyllic, nothings for sure yet and I doubt it really will be til we cross the bridges we’re only talkin’ about as of now.”

“Everything works out in the end,” Alexander sighs. “That’s your philosophy for now, isn’t it?”

“Nothing worked out for eleven years,” Tim answers. “Right now, I’m in that headspace where I have to make sure it will. I dunno how long that’ll last, but I bet it’ll last for a while.”

Alexander laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “I get that—I've been there. Just try to remember that relationships are games of give and take. You’re not always going to be able to give it your everything and neither will Raylan, but that’s okay. It’s normal, even. You and Raylan will naturally find your footing in time and it’ll work out in the end, even if it doesn’t work out how you’re hoping it will.”

Tim smiles gently. “I’m doin’ everything I can to avoid screwin’ this up, I promise.”

“I know you are, Tim,” Alexander says. “Does he know a lot about your time with the military yet?”

“He knows a lot of it,” Tim shrugs. “All we’ve really had time to do in the past few months has been talk. He learned most of it while I was on leave after my second heart attack, but I’ve only been telling him when he’s been asking. He was like that when we first met—curious about my kills, the longest I’d ever stayed awake, the highest profile target I stuck a bullet into. I was closed off about it then.”

“Did you ever figure out why?”

Tim shrugs. “Something about the idea of being known that intimately scared me half to death,” he says. “And we’d known each other for all of like, a week or two when he first started asking those questions. I hadn’t even opened up that much with my boss of that time, no fuckin’ way was I gonna divulge that shit with some stranger. No matter how handsome said stranger may have been, I had standards then. Standards about who knew about what with regards to the time I served.”

“Standards are good,” Alexander says. “Whats changed?”

“Well--he’s not a stranger anymore. He has seen me naked, and his stupid, deft fuckin’ fingers have touched even the worst of the scars I’d garnered in that time.”

“You let him in.”

“I did,” Tim nods. “For the third time, mind you. Hopefully it doesn’t blow up in my face again.”

“I doubt it will, if it’s of any consolation,” Alexanders smile is bright, and meaningful, and warm. It almost kills Tim on the spot, just a little. “You’ve finally been dealt a good hand. Don’t let that go, Gutterson.”

Tim checks his watch, finds it’s quarter to one. “I promise you, Alexander, I won’t,” he says. “But I’ve gotta hit the road if I wanna make it to Newnan for seven.”

Alexander stands and Tim follows suit. Tim gears up to leave, has been mentally prepared for his exit for the past three months.

Alexander extends his hand. Tim shakes it without thinking.

“I’m real proud of you, man,” Alexander says. “You’re not as rough around the edges as you used to be.”

“That sounds like an insult.”

“It ain’t,” Alexander laughs heartily. “You’ve come a long fuckin’ way, and it’s good to see. That’s all I was sayin’.”

Tim smiles warmly, lets Alexanders hand go for a minute.

“Thank you,” he says. “For everything you’ve done these past six or so months.”

Alexander shakes his head. “Get on the road,” he says. “Get to the good part of life that awaits.”

Tim does as he’s told, heads out of the VFW with some part of the ache in his chest feeling lighter.

He climbs into his truck, stops off at the office to collect Roulette and hugs Rachel as tight as he can because they’ve both always sucked at proper goodbyes.

He gets on the road, knowing that he’s not the same guy he was sixteen years before, or the same guy he was a decade past or even so much as five years ago, but feeling glad for that.

Change, he decides, is not an inherently bad thing. Sometimes, in moments like that one, change can be for the better, and the change he’s making is decidedly so.

#tim gutterson #raylan givens #tim gutterson x raylan givens #givenson #justified #justified fx

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