tinstar | Slingin' from the hip, never the heart.

It’s silent, and empty, and for a moment that’s all it is. Then a board upstairs in what was Raylan’s room gives a soft little squeak from overhead.

Athena curses it, knowing someone is downstairs the same way she always knows when a foreign entity has entered her space. Experience. Training. It’s not one of the new residents, she’s confident of that. The spell she set on them will last at least a day, longer for the weaker-willed ones. And they're too quiet. Too careful.

So who? Her handlers? They can’t possibly have gotten here so fast.

Athena takes a deep breath and starts humming softly to herself, her focus on making a sound in the kitchen. A soft movement. A sign of habitation. Something to get this foreign body in a more favorable position. Distracted, so she can start to ease her way down the steps, still humming quieter and quieter as she moves.

She does the same thing she did with the previous residents, reaching out with her Gift to tease the loosest threads of mental energy into her grip, get an idea of who she's dealing with. They have a gun, that's what registers first. The predator readiness, the hand on the familiar grip of the weapon. She's not singing strongly enough or putting enough force behind things to garner much more than that, but she doesn't need to yet.

Athena told Raylan once, a long time ago, that it was hard to impose a spell on an unwilling, living creature. She's learned since then how much easier it can be if they don't know you're trying. Note by note, she endeavors to thread calm into the veins of the person below her. The sense that they're coming home, that this is their house, that there's no reason to be on edge. Calm, relaxation, sleepiness. Reasons to take their hand off the gun.

Edited 2023-07-02 18:34 (UTC)

His stalking pauses at the creak, eyes sweeping up to the ceiling. Someone was upstairs. That's where he starts heading, ears almost aching with how it felt like he was stretching them. He didn't hear the humming but there was a clatter and a shuffle in the kitchen that sounded more like someone trying to go out the back door.

That's where he heads, but once he hits the linoleum and sees it empty, he takes a deep breath and hooks his thumb over the butt of it anyway as he looks around. They had only been here for about a year and a half, Athena and him, but he had hoped, had thought, that they were good days. He didn't know if he was relieved that Athena wasn't here or if he should be prepared for when she showed up. He could be completely wrong - it was only a year and a half. A drop in the very large bucket of time that was Life.

Maybe he should have started in Detroit. Maybe he was sentimental and stupid. Something itched in the back of his head - hadn't he been doing something? Did he check the upstairs yet?

Edited 2023-07-04 00:02 (UTC)

She feels the spark of competition in his psyche, but she’s already made it to the bottom of the stairs and has a clear shot of him in the kitchen. She has one gun in hand, one holstered, both stolen.

The guy in the kitchen is wearing a cowboy hat.

There’s no way. No way. How could he have known? Had her handlers called him, warned him, told him to check?

It can’t be him.

“Hands up,” Athena says, her voice calm and cold and undoubtably familiar. It hasn’t gotten less feminine or more intimidating since the last time they spoke.

“Weapon on the floor, hands up, as soon as I see they’re empty I want them laced together against the back of your head. Capiche? I’m going to turn on the light provided you’re about to do as I say.”

Raylan looks over his shoulder in the dark. How had he not heard her coming down? There was no question it was Athena - he'd know her voice anywhere. With a long, tense pause, he decides to let this play out on her terms and lifts his hands slowly, letting the faint backlight of the windows and the moon expose the move as his fingers stay relaxed, loose.

They get laced behind his head as he turns the rest of the way around to face her. Speaking was out of the question, it would give him away in a heartbeat and he wanted to see the surprise on her face. Or at least, he hoped it would be surprise. Seven years was a long time for a person. So much could happen and Athena had already been through a lot.

There was no telling how this was going to go, really.

His silence makes her uneasy. She fumbles for the light switch, remembering where it is from instinct more than clear recollection.

The overheads snap on.

Athena’s eyes go very, very wide.

The muzzle of her weapon doesn’t dip. She doesn’t throw herself at him in a hug. Beyond the change in the way she looks at him—horror replacing the scowl—she doesn’t seem to react at all.

“What the fuck are you doing here.” Her voice also gives her away, dropping into soft panic.

Her tone, in combination with the horror on his face, didn't tell him much other than she really didn't expect him to be the one standing in front of her. These were clearly brand new waters and thankfully, Raylan had always respected her and her power, and what she could do with it.

These bards, he swears.

His expression doesn't change. Serious, solemn, unafraid and confident. What the hell was she doing on that side of the line.

"You know, it's funny. I asked myself that same question when your name came across my computer screen at work." He takes an ambling couple of steps forward. "The Law thinks you're in Detroit, but after seven years, I had a hunch you might come visit home. Someone should be here to meet ya. Welcome you back.."

Athena takes a step back for every step forward he takes. When he says how he knew, how he found out, she tightens her overall grip on the weapon without tightening her finger on the trigger. Her finger isn't even on the trigger, now, seeing who it is. It's resting alongside the trigger, just the way he taught her.

"You have to leave." It's cold, but there's a sliver of desperation underneath. "You have to leave now. They'll kill you."

"Now, you know me better than that Athena. Why don't you put that gun down, and tell me what the hell is goin' on. Where's Jeff? I thought you two were gettin' back to your world, why are you back here? Why are you scared?"

He'd keep his easy pace, sure she wasn't going to shoot him but still trying to get her in arms length so he could take the pistol from her.

She keeps backing up, her focus flicking between his face and his hands. Into the living room, slowly across it. Insistently staying out of reach.

"I swear to god Raylan, I will shoot you if you don't stop walking." Her voice breaks a little, but there's iron underneath. "I'm not scared for me."

But it's been a long time since she was in this house, and other people have been there since. She trips a little on furniture that isn't part of her mental map, and her back hits the wall. The gun still stays up.

He stops for a second as her back hits that wall. It changed things oh so subtly. Athena really only had two choices now, and he didn't plan on getting shot today.

"Who are you scared for, darlin'? Because it's not me if you've got a barrel pointed in my direction with intent." He uses what he knows of the power of his voice, the soft calmness that could be a million things to those who didn't know him, and specifically him trying to understand to those that did. His next steps forward are careful and measured.

"Let me help you protect whoever you're worried about. Let me help you, Athena. That's all I've ever wanted to do." His hand comes down and grips the top of the gun and pushes it away from him as he reaches in to pull her against him with his other hand.

She resists him pressing down on the gun for a moment, but not much of one. Athena tenses as he pulls her close, the hug feeling foreign. Briefly like a threat, before the familiarity of it settles around her shoulders. Jerkily, like a puppet who hasn't been oiled in a while, she lifts her arm to wrap it around him. Then she thumbs the safety onto the gun and drops it, the loose grip turning into a desperate cling.

"Fuck," she whispers. Athena presses her face against his chest. "Fuck. Fuck."

She shifts her arms to hang on tighter, her tone staying even in spite of her body language. "Jeff was never there. I don't know how, but someone found out what I am."

The resistance, the stiffness, it didn't deter him but as Athena wraps an arm around him and seems to take it all, he's able to breathe a sigh of relief to himself. The last thing he wanted to do was fight her. He feels the gun go slack and he slides his hugging hand down to around her shoulders as she presses her face into him.

"I gotcha, it's okay," he murmurs without thinking. It wasn't okay - nothing was okay, but they had to start somewhere. He grips her back as he hears that, head dipping to almost press a kiss into her hair.

"I'm so sorry, Athena. I shoulda checked, I should have.. should have made sure." He should have done his fucking job better. But being pissed off at himself and the situation didn't help right now. There was time enough for that later.

"We need to get you somewhere safe. What happened to the folks that are livin' here?"

It's like being seventeen again. His voice, his arms around her, it's okay with such gentle firmness that she even believes it for a moment. A handful of seconds where she can pretend she's not the person the past seven years made.

"You couldn't have proved it. Or stopped it. They faked his voice. They..." She stops, bites her lip, decides to save that revelation for later. For somewhere safe, wherever the fuck that might be. "It was the government, Raylan. Whatever you could have found, they would have faked something to make it seem real."

At that question, though, she gathers herself, finally loosening her hold on him and moving to pick up her gun if he lets go. Not that she'll make him if he doesn't.

"I... sang them out. Made them think leaving for twenty-four hours or so was a really good idea. They'll be back in a day or two. You finally sold it, huh?"

He would have known. He was sure that he would have known. He should have laid eyes on Jeff himself. He'd failed her with his lack of due diligence. The lack of demand. She loosens the hug and he does too. The gun is a bit of an internal wrestle and he holds onto it for it as it all dances over the subtle edges of his features but in the end, he chooses to trust her and lets it go. Chooses to trust that she won't use it on him.

"Signed it over to relatives up the mountain to repay all of Arlo's thefts and sins." He looks around as he steps back, hand propping on his gun. "They're keepin' it up well."

He looks back to her, expression serious. God he'd missed her. Thought about if she was okay and happy and safe where ever she was. And here she is, making him ask some really hard questions.

"Tell me what's goin' on, Athena. Tell me what you're doin' here and what's next." So that he can help, so that he can keep her safe. So he can do his job.

Athena at seventeen would have looked away, or down, or curled in on herself a little at the knowledge that she's about to say a lot of things he isn't going to like. Athena at twenty-four studies Raylan's face, her brows knit and her expression going grim, and nods quietly.

"...Mind if I see if they have any coffee? You got here before I had a chance to do anything but clear the house."

It was amazing what a cup of coffee could do for someone's soul after a rough night and by virtue of her being here now, it had clearly been a rough night. He knew to trust her magic and its power, and she can't have been here long. They could stay for a cup of coffee if it meant he could decide if he was taking her to a motel or further off the map than the old Given's homestead.

Raylan turns with a step back, gesturing towards the kitchen down the path his moved body had cleared.

Edited 2023-07-20 23:26 (UTC)

She pauses as she passes him, not out of wariness, but there’s so much in her expression. Longing, anxiety, uncertainty. Under it all a little bit of fear.

I guess I got sick of being scared, she’d said once. Or something like it. He’d said some day they’d make sure she would be sick of being happy, or something like that. She remembers that conversation. Vaguely. Like a dream or something she rehearsed in a mirror.

Still, looking him in the face this close, it’s impossible not to remember the way she felt around him when she was younger, too. Safe.

Safe.

“Jesus,” her voice is teasing, but it’s lost its relentlessly perky edge. “You’re going white above your ears, old man.”

It hurt him to see all that on her face. He should have done better. He'd promised her happiness. And here she was, some 7 years older and he could still see little bits and pieces of the little girl (teenager) that he had wrapped up without question once they landed back into his reality. She was still in there somewhere, maybe hiding in a smile or a groan over the unhealthy fast food that Athena had relished in so much.

He can't help but smile a little at the comment. "At least half of these are because of you so I hope you're ready to own that." When'd she get so grown?

It gets a smile. A tiny, brief pull of a smile, a very Raylan kind of smile, but one big enough to show her dimples. "Good. I hope Willa gave you the rest."

She looks around more carefully this time as they go back to the kitchen, noting the changes, what's stayed the same. Athena has no impulse to show off her Gift, but she remembers doing that here, when she realized it came back to her. She traces her fingertips slowly across the countertop, memories drifting to the surface and making her feel strange.

But the coffee maker is the same coffee maker. And it works. And the beans are still pre-ground in an industrial sized jar. She smiles as she makes it up, another one of those brief little ghost expressions. "God, this is fucking... weird."

She looks over her shoulder at Raylan. "I didn't think they'd put out any kind of BOLO on me. They've kept things so quiet until now, they have to be planning something."

Slingin' from the hip, never the heart. | Open Post

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