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

The sky was blue, water made things wet, coffee was better black, and Raylan Givens was up at ungodly hours of the night. It was a wholesale refusal (or inability) to keep to sane hours. He preferred to drink alone just as often as he did at a bar, but tonight was a night in as he poured over some casefiles. Bars were for when he wanted to forget. 'Home', as much as the motel room could be one, was for work.

"Tim."

Caller ID was a marvelous thing. Tim normally didn't call him at night, unless they were out after someone. He wasn't aware of anything that they were doing that would call for that. So while his tone was the same easy going and largely unflappable, some flags were up.

"What's up?" He was fully expecting to hear some nonplussed grisly detail of something Raylan must have forgotten. It didn't matter that he'd been nursing some Jim Beam for nearly two hours, he was well under his limit to drive, so he could work if needed.

"Raylan." Tim looked up at the sky, a little rueful about his next words. "I need a favor."

The night around him was relatively quiet, with the exception of the muffled country music leaking through the windows. Somebody opened the door nearby. A whooping holler escaped from inside before the door swung shut again. It was all very familiar and inviting; he spent as much time drinking home alone with a book as he did in the bar. It all depended on his mood, and his mood tonight was a tad bit self-destructive. So here he was, a bit too drunk and calling on Raylan to save his ass.

It'd be fine. Raylan wasn't the worse person to owe a favor to.

"Bartender took my keys," he said by way of explanation.

His eyebrows raise slightly as he flips the case file closed - favors weren't ever easily asked for, and it was usually Raylan asking for one from Tim instead of the other way around. So he figures Tim is owed a few. The muffled sounds of a honkytonk bar in the background behind the simple statement told Raylan all he needed to know, even before Tim admits to being grounded by the bartender.

Those were sounds Raylan had been listening to his whole life and at this time of night, it almost always meant the bartender had done the less fun aspect of their job. It wouldn't be the first time Raylan helped someone home and it wouldn't be the last, but he knew Tim's habits. Knew the man drank just as much as he did. Could guess at the whys as well, though he wouldn't out of respect. That was Tim's business and Tim's choice to share his whys if he wanted to.

"And you forgot your flying broom at home, huh. Where are you at?" Raylan was already out the door and sliding into the driver seat of his well abused town car that seemed to have a permanent haze of Harlan dust imbedded into it. He knew Lexington as well as he knew Harlan; he'd find whatever watering hole Tim had chosen.

"Not 50 miles outside'a city limits, I hope."

"I don't think air traffic control would like me very much right now, either." Tim's voice was steady, but there was a distinct slur to his vowels he couldn't quite get rid of if he tried. It was a comfortable kind of drunk that left him feeling warm, maybe not quite as guarded as he typically would. Maybe there was a reason he called Raylan instead of anyone else.

The implications of that were not one he cared to think about right now, and easy enough to swish away with other drunken thoughts.

He glanced at the bar behind him. It was in Lexington, tucked away just on the outskirts. Not quite hidden, but out of the way and left alone. The only place that wasn't as far as Louisville to go to for certain proclivities that amounted to a whole lot of male patrons. He could meet Raylan down the street, but he didn't care to walk and he found that actually, he didn't care at all what Raylan knew or thought. He cared a whole lot less about a lot of things when he was this pleasantly drunk.

"Just outside," he assured, and gave Raylan an address.

There wasn't a lot of opportunity to see what Tim was like when he was actually and properly drunk, but there was no mistaking the lazy curve of vowels or the way some sounds dragged out a little too long. Not that Raylan thought there was any shame in that - cause and effect. You drink, you get drunk, and then you don't speak so good until you've sobered up. They were all guilty of it, especially those of them that worked in the office.

"Alright, I'm on my way." He didn't give an ETA, even though he knew it was going to be only about fifteen minutes and ten minutes later, Raylan was pulling into the dive bar's parking lot a spot down from Tim's truck. It was a place he hadn't been before, but there wasn't so much as a blink at the few other people that were milling around outside, dangerously close.

Sliding out, Raylan drapes his arm on the roof of the town car, Stetson solidly on his head with that same easy going, crooked pull of his lips that most people were accustomed to seeing on his face.

"Tied one too many on, huh? Just promise me any puking that needs to happen happens outside the car."

Did he think Tim would vomit? Not really, the man held his liquor well but it was a warning that Raylan stuck by. That smell never really comes out.

It probably wasn't long before Raylan pulled up, but drunk minutes were not like regular minutes, and he wasn't particularly paying attention to the time. A few songs played inside before the town car showed, so he could make a guess. Long enough that the man whose shirt he won found him and started chatting him up.

Eyes were on the town car when it parked, and then on its stupidly attractive driver. Tim realized, maybe a moment too late, that Raylan Givens looked like bait here.

Whoops.

Tim fixed Raylan with a scathing look in response to his statement. No, he wasn't going to puke, because yes, he could handle his liquor. Being a functioning alcoholic was a well-practiced lifestyle. It wasn't until they were both in the car with the doors shut that Tim decided to inform Raylan of why he was this drunk.

"Won a contest." He paused. "A little more marginally than I intended."

Giving Tim a little bit of shit was Raylan's favorite pastime, tempered by the knowledge that the sniper enjoyed giving him shit in return. They had to pass the quiet downtime at work somehow, right? Raylan smirks at Tim's scathing look and lifts his eyebrows a little at the man that Tim was walking away from.

He was fully aware now of what he might have interrupted and while Tim had left the man for Raylan's town car for innocent reasons, he did not hate the implication that his 'hey too bad' expression gave. Let this rando think what he liked, it didn't bother Raylan either way.

"I hope that doesn't mean the other guy is tryin' to handle alcohol poisoning then." Someone should look into helping that person. Someone who wasn't them. The car is started and Raylan pulls them back out onto the road. There was no judgement for Tim's state or what got him into it - Raylan had done similar things over his life so he was in no high and mighty place to talk.

"You get anything for winnin'?"

This was how they operated; tit for tat, snark for snark, a favor for a favor. It was a comfortable push-and-pull they'd picked up in a fairly short amount of time. Where Tim liked working with Rachel for her level head and decisiveness, he liked working with Raylan for his wildcard nature and how it kept Tim on his toes.

He trusted very few people to watch his back the way Raylan did.

"He was still standin' when I left him," Tim said, waving a dismissive hand between them. He was pretty sure the guy puked in the bathroom for ten minutes afterwards, and was certainly unsteady on his feet outside, but that wasn't Tim's problem.

To answer Raylan's question, he tugged on the worn collar of the too-big flannel hanging off his frame. "Gonna start a collection."

That trust was a two way street and one of the many reasons that Raylan didn't have a problem getting Tim home securely. Tim Gutterson had saved his ass several times already, in ways that Raylan couldn't ever repay.

"I was wonderin' if that was yours." Yes, he had several jokes lined up about it. (Nevermind that Tim was inexplicably some kind of 'cute' with the bigness of it on him, though Raylan would be very hard pressed to say that statement out loud.) There was a half second where Raylan considered joking about the security of his own flannel, but he decides that its too suggestive, considering everything.

"You got a lotta flannel trophies then?"

Tim didn't live too far away, though everything was all of twenty minutes from itself until you really got outta town, and Raylan didn't need directions. Not that he'd ever been to Tim's apartment, but he knew the address.

"Well, it is now," Tim reminded.

Raylan knew where he lived, despite never having been over, and that was something Tim was well aware of. It'd be difficult to be partners with someone for this long without learning more about them than they actually shared. Where they lived, how they took their coffee or their bourbon-- even Tim, as private as he was, could only keep so much of himself unknown at this point.

Tim cut his gaze briefly to Raylan. It felt a little bit like a loaded question, like he couldn't answer it without revealing something about himself. The short answer was yes and the long answer was that they hadn't all been obtained through drinking contests.

Some of them were obtained off of motel room floors, usually when their owner's were cleaning up in the shower.

"I don't lose often."

"Don't I know it," he quips with a smirk as he turns them another corner.

Tim had always been private and Raylan had been respectful of the man's inclination. It went back to their lives being their own business, but that didn't stop Raylan from using his eyes. Couldn't stop him from finding out what he could when the opportunity presented. Something else they shared and Tim, unfortunately, knew too much about Raylan's personal life so he took any chance to balance that. He had Arlo to thank for that little disadvantage.

"Suppose we should be happy you didn't, don't know that I signed up for carryin' you up some stairs." He would have, if he needed to. Or just brought Tim to his motel room - they'd both slept in chairs too much in their life, what would another 8 hours be.

"Oh, you're sayin' you would've, though?" It was a quick quip, an easy tease, the back-and-forth of their rapport as comfortable as ever. Tim didn't call on people for favors, as a rule. He preferred to do what needed to be done to handle his own shit. But if he ever did need a favor (and this was the first), it'd be Raylan he called every time.

Easy to tell himself it was because Raylan owed him a few favors by now.

They'd pulled up to Tim's modest apartment building. His hand found the door handle before looking at Raylan. "You want a drink?"

How else did men say thank you in Kentucky besides sharing their bourbon? If there was a way, Tim hadn't learned it yet.

Raylan smiles that crooked, cat in the cream easy and amused smile of his, eyes half-mooning as he lets his expression do all the answering that might be needed. That was an image just for themselves. Anyway, did Tim think he'd just leave him in the car?

Of course not.

The car was thrown into park, engine killed and keys pulled out of habit, dark eyes sliding over to his partner at the question. Raylan always wanted a drink, but Tim was drunk and inviting him into his space. If he said yes, would Tim kinda hate him for it in the morning when he realizes he's given Raylan a glimpse into something he keeps so close to the chest?

But if Raylan were a cat, he would have already burned through his 9 lives for his curiosity and now was no different.

"Yeah, I could handle one." The smile stays playing on his lips as he moves out of the car and follows Tim towards his door.

"What'd'ya keep in stock?"

Would Tim regret this in the morning? Maybe. But if he was going to regret anything, it was going to be having Raylan pick him up at the not-so-stealthy gay bar instead of a couple of blocks down the road. And since that was already said and done, he didn't have much more to lose.

"Jim Beam and Modelos." Tim handled the stairs easily, only the slightest sway in his step, and the door was unlocked with the practiced ease of someone who'd done it many times before.

The apartment itself was, unsurprisingly, very neat. There was no mess, no clutter, and very little unnecessary décor. There was a bookshelf with a variety of books on it, all some genre of fantasy, and a small stack of Guns&Ammo catalogues on the coffee table. There were no decorations or knick-knacks, and the only true personal item on view was a single framed photo by the couch of Tim in dress blues, standing next to an older blonde woman.

Tim's keys were tipped back into his jacket pocket as he wandered into the kitchen. He flipped on lights as he went, glancing back at Raylan to ask what he preferred without saying anything at all.

Raylan didn't think Tim was drunk enough to not walk successfully, but he stayed prepared to have to catch the smaller man in the case of a misstep. He was deeply curious to see how Tim lived, to see the inside of his apartment - almost like it was fair game because of how much of how he lived Tim had seen in return.

He wasn't particularly surprised by the sparten-esk living space, hat coming off to find a home on the first flat safe surface he finds, and he catches Tim's eye with a faint lift of his head.

"Jim Beam, please. Modelos should be saved for afternoons or a porch." What could he say, he loved a porch.

"Nice place." Hellva lot nicer than the one room Raylan had been living in for nearly a year and a half.

Tim busied himself with pulling glasses and a bottle out of a cabinet. He knew how Raylan took his bourbon, and he poured drinks for the both of them. Did Tim need more to drink? No, probably not. But he was at his apartment now, so the repercussions of getting absolutely shit-faced were few and far between.

Whatever helped him sleep without dreaming, honestly.

He handed one glass off to Raylan before dropping himself onto one end of the couch. Other than the rest of the couch beside him, there was an armchair across the coffee table for sitting. Raylan could take his pick.

"Sure beats some cliff side perch in Kandahar." He cut an amused glance to Raylan. "Or a motel."

The glass is taken with a faint nod of his head, eyes dancing around the room again before settling back on the sniper, scoffing softly.

"Hey, least my motel room is sand free," he replies good naturedly as he ambles over to sit on the other end of Tim's couch with him. "That's gotta count for somethin'. Barely even have any shootin's too. My room would be the four seasons in Kandahar."

For all that really did for the argument. Raylan wanted to ask if Tim was okay, if there was something weighing on him that drove him to the bottle so hard tonight, but it was openly against their rules to go at something like that so directly. That was generally Art's job.

Talking to Tim when he was this drunk was a lot like navigating a minefield. It was hard to tell which sentence would trigger the thought that would get him talking. One wrong step and Tim would be spilling his guts about something he'd normally keep private.

But that would be his own damn fault, not Raylan's.

"Oh, come on, now." He stretched an arm across the back of the couch, leaving his fingers inches from Raylan's shoulder. "The shootin's the fun part."

It was ironic, the thing he was best at also being the thing to cause so many nightmares.

Talking to Tim when he was sober was also like navigating a minefield sometimes but that was just part of the package that he'd come to accept. Tim held a lotta stories, a lotta weighty personal secrets so when any hint of something came out, it wasn't something to be taken as frivolous.

He doesn't glance at the outstretched fingers but he feels them there, like hot little rods of dangerous possibility.

"Shootin's always the fun part." Especially when they knew they were after someone who really deserved a bullet. It was satisfying to Raylan in a way he did not want to explore too deeply.

"But then it turns into us talkin' about effort verses reward." He grins crookedly. "I think our job is better balanced."

It was probably a mistake, calling Raylan up for a ride. It was probably a bigger mistake, inviting him up for a drink. They were almost certainly just the first two steps to more catastrophic mistakes, if his level of intoxication was anything to go by. And it was only this drunk that he was prone to making such mistakes.

You'd think maybe it'd give him reason to quit drinking. But he had far more reasons not to quit than to quit.

"Easy enough when you're just followin' orders." And Tim liked following orders, having the weight of making decisions off his shoulders. Falling in line, no questions asked. Unless the orders were coming from Raylan.

"Not that you'd know anything about that." He wiggled his fingers at Raylan for emphasis, and this time the tips of them brushed against the other man's shoulder.

"If I did, your day wouldn't be half as interesting," he says cheekily, grin steady and edging that shit eating 'I'm about to have a lotta fun' that was broken out now and then. Tim was a pain in his ass sometimes, but the good he did far far outweighs the sometimes pot shots he took at Raylan. Raylan was sure he deserved it and it was a small price to pay.

He shifts, a pull of his jacket the excuse but when he settles back, Tim's fingers only have to come down a fraction to be on his shoulder. The whiskey made him brave, but whiskey also made him dumb in a way that served most of his needs and even more of his impulses. You'd think he'd learn but he'd fucked around plenty and not found a single thing out.

"'Sides, I get the job done-" Even if it wasn't assigned to him or he'd been told specifically to not. The grin had slips to a careful eyed wondering over the easy slant of his closed lips. "-And that's the important thing. Better to ask forgiveness than permission."

That much was true. Raylan did make things more fun. To Tim, there was a distinct before and after in the marshal's office. Before Raylan got there, and after Raylan got there. Before, the most entertainment Tim could find most days was picking on Nelson. After? Well, it was safe to say that Raylan kept him on his toes.

Besides, Raylan was much better eye candy. Long legs, strong jaw, that charming crooked smirk. Tim got a lot less paperwork done sitting at the desk next to him than he used to.

And now, with the bourbon buzzing through his veins, his gaze flicks over Raylan openly, only half-hiding it behind the rim of his glass as he takes another drink. He definitely doesn't need anymore. The fingers now resting steadily on Raylan's shoulder say as much. Idly, he traces his middle finger along the jacket seam.

"I'm not complainin'. But I don't reckon I've ever seen you actually do the ask forgiveness part."

The touch was like a jolt of electricity through Raylan's veins, the best and worst of himself warring with each other as he gauges Tim. Those lazy half lidded eyes that struck Raylan the same way all blue eyes did, the equally lazy confidence that Tim carried on him like easy armor. They were alike in a lotta ways. Except Tim wore himself more easily than Raylan did, in reality. Yeah, Raylan put on a good show but Gutterson was more.. disciplined.

Must be all that training.

He was about to do something stupid, he could feel it. And yet, he couldn't stop it. He shifts again, taking one last drink of his whiskey before setting it on the coffee table and turning a little as he settles back, closer than he was before.

"Most people find themselves okay with what I've done, once it's all said and done. Only had a few complaints anyway."

Would Tim freak out? Hit him? Shove him away, kick him out and then ignore him at work for the terrible assumption. The more he thought about it, the more the whiskey loudly proclaimed that it didn't matter.

"'Sides, I don't find myself needin' it either way. Helps if I don't regret my actions."

Tim certainly wasn't being very disciplined at the moment. Not when Raylan was sitting right by him on his couch and it was the time of night that bad decisions were made, and the alcohol was making him feel warm and loose and like repercussions weren't real.

What was the worst that could happen? It wasn't like either of them were going to say anything to anyone about it. Maybe they'd have to adjust to looking each other in the eye again under the bright fluorescent lights of the marshal's office, but whatever liquor laden trouble they got up to tonight was between them.

Though Raylan's track record with keeping his illicit affairs a secret wasn't that great. Maybe the fact that Tim was very good at hiding his would balance it out.

He's getting a little ahead of himself, but the way Raylan settles back a little bit closer than before doesn't go unnoticed. Tim knocks back what's left in his glass and sets it aside, his gaze never leaving Raylan. The glint in his eye looks like it offers a challenge.

"Not a single one, huh?"

His fingers slide up Raylan's shoulder, still tracing the seam of his jacket. They continue up until they run out of fabric, and he's grazing the skin of Raylan's neck with his fingertips. It feels like sparks and fire.

The real trouble with Raylan Givens, evidenced time and again, was his brain's inability to work when he was in a certain state. It was why he'd had as much fun as he'd had in his life and it was a flaw he'd made only a scant amount of progress in correcting. The challenge in Tim's eye, everything the the double layers of their conversation held, was something the deep in him couldn't help but answer.

"Not a single one," he reiterates huskily.

A confident hand moves up Tim's jaw and around to his neck, pulling the man into a firm and commanding kind of kiss. A hundred fantasies stirred in his mind about what would happen next, but he was a man that worked on feeling and went with it. To hell with what trouble it might get them in - they could keep their mouths shut.

No one had to know anything outside of a closed door.

Edited 2025-03-17 00:43 (UTC)

It's great!!

ur too kind ;;

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