Chapter Text
All the folks left, with only Tim and Raylan in the bar. Tim went upstairs to crash on the shitty couch was the story. It was always the story, now that they were best friends and finally not being dickheads. Work friends. Work threats, as Art called them. Powder keg and a lit match that was ready to be flung together. Those two guys. Good cop, bitch cop.
Instead, Tim dragged Raylan to the bed, the first aid kit in hand and straddled him to properly patch him up and scold him.
“You need to be careful,” Tim said. “You can’t be getting into so much trouble like this. How else is your baby girl gonna have her dad?”
“Dads. Plural,” Raylan corrected. “You know, two dads, not one. We’re a package deal.”
More fuel to the fire.
“All the more reason. Please be careful.”
The admonishing was constant, but the sentiment was there. It was getting more dangerous. Raylan was becoming more risky. More reckless. He did not know what to do. Trouble followed him. He was trouble.
But Tim meant it.
“I will,” Raylan tried to reassure. Because he knew Tim was right.
Tim pressed down on the other edge of the third butterfly bandage.
“There. All nice and done.”
“Thanks, sweetheart.”
“Anything for your dumb ass,” Tim said. He kissed his knuckles, still bruised from the fight. His lips were warm against Raylan’s cooling skin from the earlier ice pack.
He rolled off of Raylan to up to put away the first aid kit in the bedside table.
“And they say chilvary is dead...” Raylan said, though he did not mean it. The ridiculousness came from the fact that they were only falling for each other. Faster, at a scarier pace that they never anticipated. The sex was amazing. The chemistry was good. The laughs, the smiles, the silence. The casual handholding in the car when they were working.
He ended up more wrung out in the best way and exhausted than he ever did with any other partner. He felt calm. He felt hope. He felt so much fear.
He loved this man so much and it terrified him.
“That’s what you said all the other times,” Tim said. “Yet…”
Yet Rayland could not ignore his smile. Or how Tim curled into him closer. Nor how much his soul felt steady when Tim was at his side.
“Yet here we are.”
Raylan sighed. He reached up and stroked Tim’s hair. He closed his eyes and relished in the soft warmth that was Tim’s presence. Soft yellow light. He kissed his temple.
“Yet here we are,” Tim repeated. “You’re good, baby?”
“I’ll be fine,” Raylan said. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Mm.”
The migraines and headaches flared, but it was simmering down at least. Especially because of the fight.
“You ever feel like we’re an affair?” Tim suddenly asked.
Raylan blinked.
“An affair? Now what kind of man am I to make you think I would have an affair?”
“Lindsey,” Tim remarked. No one would ever let him live it down.
“That does not count.”
Tim laughed. “I meant affair as in secrecy. How…hidden this all this. For obvious reasons.”
“Two queer men in Kentucky, yes. A bisexual man and a gay man. Both in the federal government. But…yeah. To the office, we are, probably.”
“To Rachel?”
“I think she has an idea.”
“To Art?”
Raylan shuddered. “We would never hear the end of it. Think there’s a betting pool on us?”
“Maybe. I ain’t in on it, I’ll tell you that,” Tim said. “I would bet on it.”
“Give me a share?”
“No.”
“You know it is gonna be. Shit is never gonna change, not while in Lexington. Not in the hundred mile radius near Harlan.”
Tim was silent.
“What if we left?”
“Left?”
“Here, once this is all over. Could be…however long we want,” Tim said.
“Left together?”
“Left to...another city in the area. Be near the baby. But... away. From here. Just a thought,” Tim said it in the nonchalant way that he said when the thought was just a thought. Not a significant thing. When it absolutely was a mere thought that meant nothing else, absolutely zero.
Raylan would have lied if he did not have that thought himself. Every time there was a guy in a bar he had to wander away from, because towns were small, yet gossip was the currency. Ghosts of it all. Fights, grudges, personal connections to all of this mess. Webs of lies. Webs of baggage.
Maybe distance would help.
Even if it was just a little bit.
“I like that thought.”
“Can we do it?”
“If you want to.”
“I do. My question is if you want to?”
How new. To feel so ready for someone to think of a life together.
“Yeah,” Raylan said slowly.
There was silence for a moment.
“Yeah,” Tim mocked his drawl. But he was smiling. Smiling.
Raylan shifted over, his leg gently nudging Tim’s thigh as he did.
“Yeah,” Raylan leaned in and kissed him. He kept kissing. Tim’s hand went up into his hair and gripped it. Led his kiss. He kissed down his neck, his jaw. And he did not stop. “I’ll follow you wherever you go.”
“Me too.”
Tim unbuttoned his shirt.
Raylan knew this routine.
Six in the morning.
He let Tim sleep those few minutes as the coffee was brewing in their tiny pot. Lord knew that Tim needed the sleep and the coffee to wake him up.
Tim finally stirred awake at six o’ seven in the morning. He winced against the light beginning to stream through the window.
His hair was a mess. Raylan was so drawn to mess it up more.
Instead, Raylan leaned close and kissed him.
“Hey,” he said gently.
“Hey.” Tim let out a yawn. He did not want to get out of bed. “Shit, today’s my turn.”
“It’s alright, I made some for the road.”
A cup in the morning to wake up. Then the billion others that followed afterward.
“Good,” Tim whispered. “I’ll need it.” He sat up and stretched awake. The sheets slipping down as he did. His fleece blanket that he used for himself, specifically, was bunched up between the quilt anyway.
“Get the good coffee.”
“You know I will,” Tim said. “I’ll see you later.”
And the routine continued.
Raylan began arriving to work early – both because Tim was making him a better man and because he grew tired of Art’s bitching. Mostly because he was getting better a little. Kind of. He had his moments that swung between down and up.
He tried to ignore that thought. Swing. Swung. Mood swings. Manic. Depressive.
Raylan tried to ignore the bipolar diagnosis that ran in his family.
He tried to ignore how much of it applied to him.
The door opened and there came Tim. Impeccable as ever, that violet pressed shirt that Raylan knew belonged to him. The shirt that covered up the little bites and bruises that Raylan left on him from the previous night.
“Raylan,” Tim greeted, placing the coffee cup on his desk.
“Tim,” Raylan returned.
No one was around so early that morning. So, Tim snuck in a slight brush as he let go of his coffee, as Raylan reached out to hold it. Millisecond touch, barely there if you blinked. Yet this would be enough for the hour. Enough to hold out, until they could find another way. To get through the day alive and take separate cars back home and end up in Raylan’s bed together.
No one was at the office yet. So, Tim’s touch lingered further. The same knuckle that he had kissed last night, at the comment that chivalry was dead.
Tim smiled his sweet little smile and let go of the cup. Somehow, the cup felt warmer than it did earlier. He walked away to drop off another manila folder on the respective desks.
No one was at the office yet.
Chivalry ain’t shit.
So, Raylan snuck in that one final look at Tim’s ass before the day began.