villagelogs | 028-029 » the winds of change

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028-029 » the winds of change

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central Mathias.
WHEN: Days 028-029
WHAT: A town meeting is called.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Ikiryo"

DAY 028
SOMETHING ON THE WIND
Another day dawns in the fair town of Mathias. The sky is a blanket of light grey, tiny specks of snow lightly falling as the hours pass. It makes the town feel almost quaint, the scenery quite peaceful in its winter garb. But beneath the veneer of peace there is a pervasive dread of something approaching. Something inevitable is on the wind, something that has come before and will come again...

Throughout the day, residents will consistently experience feelings of deja vu, that sense of having done or seen or said something before that can never be fully recalled. It happens again and again, tugging at the back of their minds, the memories just frustratingly out of reach.

Residents will also notice a note pinned around town:

The note can be found on the town hall's bulletin board and the front doors of many town establishments, including the Grey Gull, the library, and the boarding house. At the bottom of the note it is specified that the meeting will take place "tomorrow, when the sun is over the town square."

NEW ARRIVALs
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake on the frozen lawn of the town hall atop a snowdrift. They had best hurry inside and get warmed up before hypothermia sets in.

DAY 029
A GATHERING OF MINDS
In the late afternoon when the sun hangs over the town square, residents will converge upon the Town Hall, where a larger meeting room has been filled with rows of chairs. After most people arrive, John Constantine stands and addresses the room... and then sits again. A grand introduction, truly.

Residents are encouraged to share their experiences and information they have gathered in the town while holding questions until the end. Rather than getting tangled in the intricacies of each person's tale, it seems better to absorb the broad strokes and try to connect the puzzle pieces to get a look at the bigger picture that is the mystery of Mathias Township.

THE INEVITABLE
As the meeting comes to an end and residents begin to converse among themselves, the feeling of something approaching and sense of deja vu begin to build, becoming almost oppressive as night falls. An hour after nightfall, residents learn the reason for these sensations that cease immediately as the earth begins to rumble. The buildings shake, furniture tumbles, and breakables crash to the floor as the earthquake sets in without warning.

The tremors last around a minute, far longer than a normal earthquake, and then the town settles again. There are no aftershocks, which many may note is quite unusual. Residents will find quite a bit of mess in their homes and other locations around town, but there is no structural damage to be found despite the intense shaking.

CONDITIONS UPDATE
— THE WEATHER is fairly typical of a northern winter. The sky is grey, the temperature hovers just below freezing during the day (colder at night), and a light snow falls during both days. Residents should bundle up when going outside and not venture too far into the dark night...

— THE FOG remains blocking the paths in the forest, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the northern section of town, beginning just before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be. Venturing into the fog is ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue with Sherlock Holmes being the latest victim of the town's unsettling whims.

OOC NOTES
— TOWN MEETING STRUCTURE The town meeting section of the log is designed for characters to share any information they would like to with the other residents in attendance. ICly, characters should "hold questions until the end" with the intent that they can get the Big Picture first and connect any dots they see. OOCly, this means players should post their character's information sharing tag in the Meeting section, but the actual conversation about whatever they share happens after the meeting proper in the Mingle section. That way, these conversations can happen however players prefer, be that one-on-one or in small or large groups.

— HOUSING Please be sure your character's housing arrangements are up to date on our list. We're missing a few people and it really helps to know where everyone is for planning. Frequent updates for wandering characters are perfectly acceptable.

— THE BULLETIN BOARD has been updated. Players should note there is a change to the wall near the board that may be of great interest to some residents.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"What statistics?" They didn't really talk about those back in the day. Just words of wisdom passed down from the previous generation that taught them how to do some basic tracking and told them to stay put if they ever got lost out in the woods, that kind of thing.

"We can go take a look, if it would put your mind at ease, but. I do not think there's a door." Doc might have a kind of persistence and resilience that has seen him live this long, but. He also has a kind of learnt helplessness after being trapped underground for so long. He had spent weeks, maybe even months, combing around for an escape route. He even tried starting to dig upwards to climb a way out with just his knife and his bare hands.

"Would be nice if they'd built a natural sort of way out. Maybe it's in one of the routes we haven't explored yet." They might get lost but. Honestly Doc is worried about Raylan losing his shit at a dead end. This place doesn't exactly exude calming energy.

"Not until we have to." Not until they were sure that Malcolm and Neal and even possibly Negan weren't coming to look for them. The idea had settled somewhere and was sitting on a knife's edge, propped up a fraction of hope that he still had left. Then they could go off to their deaths. Doc could even walk back and let the Marshal die out there alone in the dark.

All the better to spare you the trouble, my dear. Even he wasn't looking forward to resolving himself to that kind of end. He'd had other plans on how to go. This wasn't in them.

"Enough people have gone missing and enough brains have been thrown at it that over a very large number of cases, they look at success and fail rates. Tells them what paths of action are more likely to end in rescue or death. If someone's missing more than 48 hours, the chances of them being dead go up by 23 percent." He rattled of more - the rate of people likely to own a gun and get shot by it on accident, the number of people that successfully are rescued or escape from kidnapping. For a guy who didn't say much, he wasn't dumb or shy about it. Just not as loud as others.

Doc could worry about Raylan's temper as much as he wanted - there wasn't a chance in hell that Raylan could trust himself to let that can vent even the slightest without devastating consequences to his relationship with Henry. Not after that. He hated the idea that he made anyone feel the way he did when he was eight and Arlo was drunk and ranting. It had never mattered what it was. It was never really anyone's fault but Arlo's fury never cared, doubling down on his son when his wife ran into Noble's holler to let Raylan take the brunt of it.

Edited 2021-02-13 04:23 (UTC)

Well Doc wouldn't be a gambling man if he put as much stock into statistics as he probably ought to. But hey, he understands how it works in a pack of cards. He'd prefer not going too far anyway so if it makes sense for them to stick around for a while, that works out better for him.

"As long as those odds are greater than zero. I like them." He reaches over in the dark to give Raylan's forearm a reassuring squeeze. He wouldn't lie to his face and tell him everything's going to be fine. But he would at least reassure him that he's here for as long as he can be.

"If the Earth shakes again, we ought not to stay. We'd be in more trouble under a pile of bricks."

Raylan took a deep breath at the hand on his forearm, head rolling back as he closed his eyes and tried not to give into everything churning in his chest. He wasn't good at being afraid, he had tools for that and when those tools were turned bluntly moot and useless, he floundered. He'd never had to flounder the way Mathis was forcing him to.

"I don't wanna die down here, Henry," he admitted quietly, though it seemed like no matter how quiet he tried to speak, the tunnels echoed it and made it larger. Too large to pretend that he hadn't said it. "I'm supposed to catch a bullet, not die in a mine - this isn't Harlan." He hated feeling like he was back home.

It wasn't fair and if his temper couldn't break a little, this had to.

"Tell you what, son. I find a bullet 'round here, I'd save it for puttin' you down." No, this isn't as bad as getting stuck alone, after all. Even if neither of them are keeping their shit together. They don't have to talk about this after they get out - and they've both got out before; they can do so again - so they can say whatever's on their mind and have the decency to just put the lid back on everything once it's safe to.

"Used to think the same thing, y'know. Wanted to die with six holes in my chest, not. God damn tuberculosis." He's not sure it was such a good idea after all, being so insistent and stubborn trying to get his way. Didn't exactly get him anywhere good.

"We're going to die trying to get out. We will not die sitting right here and right now." So while right here and right now stretches out and lasts them a while, they should be okay.

"Well I'd thank you for that if you didn't call me son," he huffed before sighing. He wasn't offended or ruffled in any way but he was a Givens for better or worse and while he might have sorta almost adopted Art as a semi-surrogate, that was by accident. "But if you got a bullet, I got one so let's do each other a favor and not test that draw. I don't miss."

And he had no plans on going around killing his friends.

"Can't imagine that was easy to come to terms with." Nor what surely happened to Doc while he was sick, keeping him from doing everything he was used to, sapping his strength. "TB was a plague. Hell, we weren't able to really treat or cure it til the 1950's."

He took another uneven breath. "Sitting here for a while will be okay. Later will come later."

A beat passed. "I don't particularly want to die gettin' shot, you know. But if it's gonna happen, me dyin', that's how it's gonna be, as many barrels I end up starin' down. That part stopped botherin' me when I was fifteen. And I can't say somethin' in me doesn't enjoy drawin' down on people stupid enough to take it on."

It'll be a while yet before Doc can unlearn his 'darling's and 'son's. It may be unlikely that he would be able to drop those terms completely.

"Bah. Don't tell me that, Raylan," Doc whines, giving Raylan a friendly elbow nudge. Sometimes it's better not to know that they missed out on a cure by a hundred years. He would have given anything if he could have saved his mother.

Sometimes Raylan reminds him too much of himself. It has him falling quiet, musing their mortality, the way they have lived their lives, the choices they had made.

"It's gonna happen one day. That still how you wanna go when you're eighty? And what about your- your ex and your little one?"

Raylan would take the darlin's. 'Son's was different. He didn't want to be Doc's 'son'. What he did want hadn't been given breath and would remain where it was unless some other sign was given. Far be it from Raylan to go out there and take any chances.

He huffed another half laugh and scooted a fraction closer so that their shoulders almost brushed against each other.

"Why not? It's progress. No one else has to suffer. Thought you woulda been kicking heels at that." But he could understand why not. The 'why not me' question tended to be a prevalent one.

"When I'm eighty? No, by then I'll be glad to die old and warm in my bed. But Winona is her own woman and Willa will be too, I'm sure. Once she's 18.." He sighed. "That's it. What I want, what I think won't matter anymore. She'll be off, livin' her own life."

A good thing, over all. A sad one too, from a fathers perspective.

"That still how you wanna go?"

"No, you're right. But a lot of people who didn't have to die already had, by then. Seems like a damn shame." He turns towards Raylan at the sudden shoulder bump but doesn't pass any comments. Maybe Raylan wouldn't mind if he just- turned, a bit. And rest some of his back against his shoulder. He is slightly more meaty and comfortable than the wall.

"I'm not sure about how I'm going. Dying old and warm in my bed was never in the cards for me. Best I can hope for is an honourable man who loved me enough to put me down, clean shot between the eyes." He breathes out a sigh, running his fingertip over the rim of his hat. "Or woman. I ain't fussy that way. Hell if it was an Earp girl who'd do it, that'd be even better. At least she'd only be sad for two seconds and just get the hell on with it. I ain't nothing worth loving or mourning over."

"S'the way it goes," he said, in a it is what it is kinda tone. "Can't do nothin' for those people, just save those who we can."

No, no he didn't mind the adjustment at all. It was more content, more grounding, more.. Doc. He couldn't argue that it was comforting in its own right, even if Doc's hat was it's own barrier.

"Well, hows about if I ever have a spare bullet that you need." How romantic, a murder pact. He smirked. What a strange promise to make someone else.

"But you're wrong about that last part. You're plenty worth lovin' and mournin' over, you just spent so long not knowin' any different that you accept it as the way it is. Most people wouldn't care for people like Malcolm. And I seen the way you go around takin' care of everyone else. How you think that's not gonna earn you some fond feelings."

"Not if I kill you first. Don't want you living with it." If that isn't worth loving and mourning him over for, then surely nothing else would be. Maybe this is how cowboys flirt. Sitting in the dark with their fingertips in the dirt not knowing that they are so close they are a hair's width away from practically holding hands, promising to put each other down while they still think themselves as good men.

Doc's hat will make its way mysteriously into Raylan's lap. He still smells like Malcolm's nice shampoo, despite the cigarettes' best efforts to get into all his clothes and weave into his hair.

"It's about as barren as the sky was when we first got here," Doc comments when he tips his head back and gazes upon the roof of the tunnel, bumping his head lightly against Raylan's. He lets his head roll to the side until his temple and forehead grazes against the wall. Not even a faint stream of light from the buildings above them between the cracks in the floorboards or nothing.

"Used to be I always knew where I was going. We'd lie on the side of a dirt road and Wyatt made sure I knew every single star in the sky. Didn't need no angry Siri lady recalculatin' and hollerin' all the time. I 'on't know where all the stars went anymore. Hell I 'on't know anything anymore."

"Guess we'll have to see, huh?" He'd lived with putting enough people down that he was sure he'd find a way if he had to. More drinking, if nothing else, to burn out whatever guilt and morality he might have left around it. He'd never put down a friend but sadly, he knew he'd be able to do it if he had to and he was skilled enough to be fairly sure he'd win in a draw down between them.

He couldn't help but consider it all as Doc's hat settles in his lap, the mixing scents of the shampoo they all use wafting up at him. It was better than then damp of the tunnel, even if it made him want to sink into both the scent and the man it came with. Turning his head a little, mindful to not bury his nose into Doc's hair like a fucking weirdo, he hummed a quiet note of acknowledgment.

"That's the way it is out in Harlan, stars aside. No technology knows how to get around or where it's at. They can't send cars up there and they're too scared to send people.." Hill folk and the stories that came with them and all. "There bein' no stars here freaks me out. Wasn't no dirt road and I can't name 'em but I used to lay out in a field and stare at 'em. Think about the astronauts.." He took another deep breath before turning his head back towards Doc's. "Nobody knows nothin' here. About the only place where it might be half okay to be that way." It was okay to not know, so long as he had the intestinal fortitude to keep trying, despite that. "Ya know, a little shift here and you wouldn't have to have my shoulder in between your back."

It just seemed like it might be better for both of them if Doc.. just sat between Raylan's legs and leaned against him. Save them both from most discomforts, the cold of the stone being one of them.

"The what?" Doc had missed the space race. Moon landing. JFK. These are topics that don't come up in conversation in Purgatory.

He straightens up a bit to give Raylan some space and a few seconds to adjust, and while he can't really see shit down here even though he has had plenty of time to get used to seeing in the dark, he waits for the sound of the shuffling to stop before he carefully lowers his back again. His hat ends up in his own lap and he is happy to fiddle with it while he makes himself comfortable, one leg bent with a forearm on his knee and the other leg outstretched like they based novels and shows after his poses.

"Nothing really changes whether you're in Harlan, Purgatory, Mathias, if it's 1879 or 1979 or who the hell knows what the numbers are," Doc concludes with a wistful sigh, plucking between his fingers and thumb a few invisible thoughts off of the brim of his hat. "The only time you can be comfortable with somebody is if you've had so much to drink you don't give a shit. Or if you're alone in the dark." Like they had been, in the master bedroom.

When Doc lifted, Raylan reached out to pat his hip directing Doc to shift at least 90 degrees to his left so that the wall could support their weight. Raylan turning would have been awkward and primed them for laying down; a step that Raylan was sure Doc wasn't aiming for. Once Doc had settled his weight back, Raylan tried to keep his hands out of his way, one propped over his bent knee and only aware that it was the same knee that Doc had lifted and bent. His other tucked safely away in the coat pocket, for now.

Look, that novel based pose was comfortable, for as much fun as everyone makes of it. And with a little spread of his legs, plenty of room for one more cowboy to fit in against him.

"Can I tell you somethin'," Raylan asked, head back against the stone wall so as to not whisper lustly in Doc's ear. "Normally I'm only comfortable when I'm alone. Most of the time. And when I'm not, I drink til I figure out how to be.. Ain't that the way of the world? Not just for us but for everyone. Everyone's got a face they're puttin' on for someone else. I suppose there's always the exception to the rule but.."

He had never found himself to be that kind of exception.

"Well. That may be true." Lord knows Doc is a man of many faces, himself. There is only so much assistance and advice and support he can dispense and he's been running on empty for days now. Sometimes he needs to be alone, to recharge, reflect. Even if it tends to lead to an unpleasant, uncontrollable sort of spiral. Most people probably spiral out of control when they drink. Doc drinks so that he doesn't spiral. Sometimes he wonders if Raylan isn't the same way.

"Way I see it? I came here alone, and I'm leaving alone. Might as well not do the in between bit alone either, y'know. I never much liked sleeping alone. If all they want's a face, I can do that. Wear a face long enough, you can end up forgetting what your real one looks like anyway. Then you'd just have to rely on the people you've wronged and who have wronged you in return to remind you how much of a heartless bastard you really are." Doc doesn't tend to bring those people to bed, so he can more easily pretend it doesn't bother him that way.

"You can tell me you're not comfortable now. But I 'on't give a shit," he says with a chuckle. He just got Doc into this position. He'll have to shove him off if he wants Doc to get off.

Raylan was exactly the same way. His drinking, his habits, his keep busy or isolated attitude went a long way to tamping down what of the real him had survived life. If there weren't the moonshine and something to do, Raylan shudders to think of what he'd become. Someone, he was sure, would argue that it was freeing. He didn't exactly agree.

Raylan let his head dip forward. "I'm plenty comfortable," he said, far too aware of where his voice would cast along Doc's ear. There was a unique comfort to having Doc and his weight right against his chest, that pine shampoo curling up into his nose. Saved Doc's back and his chest the freezing, if he wanted to be pragmatic about it. Despite that or maybe because of it, Raylan continued, right where he was.

"No point in sufferin' while we're here, any more than we already are?" He huffed another half laugh of a breath. "I've been sleepin' alone too long to mind but mindin' and likin' it are two different things. I don't want a face but.. there seems to be plenty room in my bed if you ever decide you want a body next to you. No strings or expectations attached." Shit, they didn't even have to talk - Doc could walk in and find a wordless embrace waiting for him. It wasn't a far cry from that one tease that was still bouncing around in his head from when they first moved in together.

It wasn't nothing but two grown men being there for each other, right? In a more basic needs way then Raylan was used to, but he'd never been starved out of life the way Mathis had; he could more than understand both their bending to this. Just for now.

"Not to prod but I gotta argue heartless. You're a lot of things, sure. Heartless ain't one of them. Doesn't mean you have to be a bleedin' heart, you're not that for sure. Hard ass maybe, even though I ain't ever had a feel."

Hm. Maybe too comfortable. Not that Doc minds. Too comfortable is better down here than being scared shitless by something that two grown ass men should be able to handle. They can shoulder everything else this town has thrown at them and somehow try to keep a house of people afloat throughout the shitstorms they have been through, but a hole in the floor is too much for them to handle. It's a sorry state of affairs.

"Ain't never met a Marshal with no strings or expectations attached," he muses quietly. He finds Raylan's hand hanging a few inches away from his knee in the dark and drags it down to the top of his thigh, dangerously close to his crotch before nudging it to his hip, following the curve around towards his rump. He wouldn't be sitting around with Raylan talking - that's all they're doing, really - if he was alone in the dark with Raylan in his bed. Although he is mindful of not wanting to upset anything he's got going on with Malcolm. Doc is not enough of a strings or expectations kind of guy to get entangled between two fellows who are all strings and expectations.

"Is it hard enough for you?" he asks with another chuckle that sounds almost ominous, the way it echoes around in the chamber. "If I have to get up I would be giving you a lot more than a feel." Doc lets his head roll to one side, exposing more of the side of his neck to that warmth radiating off Raylan's chest. "Not sure you could afford me, on government wages..."

That was the risk taken when trapped down in a hole in the dead of winter, it seemed. Comfort. What a terrible thing to endure while they were surrounded by such damp, inhospitable horrors. Well. At least no one topside had to know that they were so easily undone by a bad ladder and a trap door.

"Maybe just a few," he admitted as Doc's fingers found his. He hadn't expected the touch on his hand, or the pull but he was honestly surprised by the boldness of the guidance and his head ducked down a little with an uneseen smile as he let Doc do as he would.

The roll of his head was felt and mapped out in Raylan's head as he chuckled at the question, squeezing Doc's ass and letting his hand run a few inches up the back of his thigh before coming back down and around Doc's hips to settle a hand across the furthest one as Raylan took a chance and bent down to press a not so chaste kiss against Doc's neck.

"I think I can handle whatever you dish out, cowboy."

There were.. minimal strings with Malcolm but no one asked and he wouldn't tell. The selective attachment of strings left room for other possibilities. Like this one. Something he'd wanted since.. he wasn't sure when. Somewhere along the way, their drinking sessions had become for something more than just drinking and talking. Raylan wasn't sure when, exactly, the idea had set in but it didn't matter. It was there and had been for at least a week and a half.

"Government pays fairly decent now and the perks aren't bad," he joked huskily. "Might even pay for a few bottles on top. Not that anyone's got enough for what you're worth."

Usually there's copious amounts of alcohol involved when one thing leads to another. They can rely on a natural sort of flow when they're not mired in self-consciousness and doubts about who's doing what where or clumsiness, awkwardness, stuttering uncertainty. Bumbling around in the dark helps alleviate that somewhat, but the inhibitions and the fear of the darkness swallowing up a desire to touch, hold, pull, kiss, feel are still there.

With both legs outstretched and an arm slung low around his waist, he reclines a bit to the side, elbow grazing the wall as one hand plants itself firmly on the ground, life mimicking art of two entwined lovers carved in moving marble. His hat slides off and ends up a few inches away in the dark on the floor as he breathes out an approving sigh, free hand sliding into the short, soft tufts of Raylan's hair on the back of his head. His grip is tight enough to feel the hurting in yesterday's grown out roots, more salt than pepper these days but who has the heart to point that out to him?, callouses scraping against scalp an unspoken warning that this is playing with fire, with someone who plays rough, and that he shouldn't stop because they're only just skirting the surface.

Henry hisses, panting lightly as he turns, bumping cheeks before temporarily abandoning the effort to engage in those lips, deciding that this kind of attention is nice to indulge in for a while. One leg shifts, bending at the knee, heel digging in, undecided between straightening up and taking control or just kicking out uselessly until he can't hold them both up any longer. If he could grab onto Raylan's hip with his other hand he would, but he's fairly certain they would both slide down onto the ground then if he even started to try. So he's stuck, almost down on one elbow while his other hand loosens its grip from Raylan's hair, fingertips combing down to run over the nape of his neck.

He's too afraid to say anything that might ruin the moment, so there is only the sound of them kicking around and seams stretching beneath taut muscles, rubbing fabric against fabric, skin against skin between hot and heavy breaths in the dark.

Smiling at the slowly melting man that he'd suddenly gained, Raylan's left hand shifted to help keep Henry's weight from falling too far to one side and his head ducked in encouragement to fingers running through his hair, stealing one or two more lazy, soft lipped kisses while he could. He inhaled sharply through his teeth at the grip, nose pressing against Henry's neck, but the off hand that fists tightly into Henry's shirt and turns up enough to tug some his shirts from his waistband was telling enough.

Between them? No, it wouldn't be a soft, easy go - that was for people less tormented and compressed by themselves and what they want. What they feel they wouldn't get or don't deserve. Raylan welcomed it, the rough abandon that he found just as intoxicating as the shine they so freely drank. He knew what to do with fire.

His left knee lifted as Henry turned and a half growled note of his own approval slipped out as the water testing bump of their cheeks turned into a proper kiss. There was no hesitation, none of the awkward self doubt that Henry had seen in the garage in Raylan right now. He had gotten too many sounds, too many signals that this was okay and didn't hold back in the invasive and hungry kiss. Underneath all the smoke and moonshine, he could still taste Henry himself, mingling into something uniquely Holliday. As Henry's hand loosens, his free hand let go of his shirt, opting instead to slide up and around Henry's neck.

Even when the kiss broke, Raylan didn't say anything, running his hand down Henry's neck to fist into the collar of his shirts as he leaned in again. A little too much enthusiasm was all it took to tip their precariously balanced weight backwards, the shuffle of denim and heavy breaths echoing around them as they found their way to shouldering in the dirt and Raylan wasted no time in rolling his weight over, one hand sliding up Henry's hip and over his belt to pull him close against him in the way he needed them to be.

They'd hardly needed words so far, passing bad evenings with nothing more than a grunt and a few short sentences. Who said they had to start now?

It's cold. When Raylan's fist is in his crumpled shirt and it gets pulled high enough to expose an indecent couple of inches of midriff, Henry protests with an involuntary gasp and shudder, and a slight arch of his back away from wall and floor. For someone who is all hard edges and stone walls behind stone walls behind stone walls, he's a soft kisser, yearning with a kind of hunger he tries not to stoke as he teases with a playful, gentle, testing bite, tugging on Raylan's lower lip. A bit of mutually-acquired intuition, being in a kind of sync that they are not on with anyone else in town has them knowing whether they're tipping their heads to the left or the right, where their hands can and should roam in the dark, whether to floor the gas pedal and power on through or take things nice and slow.

Right now it's with a certain kind of urgency that has him hitting the ground with a thud and a low groan. The cold and damp radiating off the floor seeping into his back has him lifting and rolling his hips, shifting a leg to nudge against the outside of Raylan's knee while his hand strokes a line down the familiar feel of contoured tweed, finding a curve of a butt to grab while they snap their hips together and grind eagerly. He seems desperate for the touch, the warmth, anything he can grasp onto and pull in close to stave away the loneliness and the fear. A dull thud of the back of his head hitting the floor rattles all the unspoken worries out of his head and a furtive exploring in the dark morphs into an almost affectionate nuzzle as he bumps his nose against Raylan's cheek, kissing and nipping at his jawline.

In the end he is too claustrophobic, too afraid and jumpy at all the distant little noises in the dark to really want to tend to the growing discomfort in his already tight pants. Their priorities are scattered on the floor, ready to hitch a ride and weasel their way back into prominence. But holding tightly onto Raylan until the fabric of the coat creaks between his fingers while his other hand roams beneath the layers to finds warm skin and a flesh-covered tailbone serves as the best distraction he's got.

They probably should have done this in the house. They... probably will do this in the house. At some point. When it's... almost, just as dark, and nobody is looking.

Raylan knew it was the cold that made Henry gasp and roll into the turning fall of their weight, but it sent what was left of his forward thinking mind tumbling into something much warmer than the cold, sharp air around them. They should have done this in the house. They weren't set up to do anything more than what they were where they were, but the nipping at his lips only made him hungrier for more and smile into the skillful parry of their kiss. Where that would actually end them in the next few hours, he didn't know. Nor did he care right now, about much of anything.

Grunting into the kiss roughly at the roll of Henry's hips, he took advantage of the position and slid his hand up Henry's shirt to let his fingers slide and play over his side, humming a note at the hot, soft skin that greeted them. Somewhere, many years ago, Raylan had lost what shame he had left - the hurdle that he had needed to jump, was in the middle of trying to jump, had very very little to do with it, so nothing in him questioned the hotblooded need that deeply echoed his own.

For all the sheer pleasure he got out of touching Henry, the cold fingers up under his own shirt made him inhale sharply, head tilting and breaking their latest kiss with a chuckle that bled into a soft sigh. There was a passing idea of saying something - anything - but it was overridden by the urge to let Henry kiss up his jaw as he lowered his head to nose his way into the warm pocket of his neck, place several lazy kisses there, the last of which came with a soft nip of teeth against skin. It was testing as mush as Henry had been and he trailed his lips up to Henry's ear.

"I've been wantin' to do that for a week and a half now," he admitted, secure in the fact that there was no one else down here to hear the crack in his otherwise fairly stable wall of repressed emotions. But if he couldn't say it while they were tangled together and halfway to dry humping like desperate teenagers, when could he?

"Only a week and a half?" retorts the incredulous voice in the dark, sounding too amused to be as slighted as the words themselves would have suggested. "I'm losing my touch." He should have had the Marshal hook, line and sinker from day one, long before there were revelations about the kind of man he was or the kind of man people assumed he was.

Losing his touch is not something Raylan can complain about right now. Henry is all touch. But before they can get too intimate - a territory that comes with its own reservations and fears - a little taste test with teeth in the side of his neck doesn't go unnoticed. A left hand grips Raylan's shoulder while the right goes for the opposing hip. In under three seconds Henry has got one of their legs entangled with each other, and then he's rolling on top and taking over faster than they can say each other's names.

He pins Raylan down with a kind of strength he usually keeps in check, experienced enough rolling around in dirt and sheets and carpet to know how hard and how far he should push that powdery line in the sand. Hands on wrists and knees on knees, he leaves a bruise to remember their little tryst by on Raylan's hip, well hidden and easily excused as a careless collision against doorknob or countertop or... anything hard, really.

He releases one of Raylan's arm and slides his hand over a hard Adam's apple, tipping the good lawman's head back with one thumb, countering a furtive nibble with his own threat of teeth sinking into Raylan's upper lip. If they're going to bring this home with them then it should be abundantly clear that he's not cut from the same romantic cloth as either of the New Yorkers.

The too hard and too fast and too overwhelming approach is soothed by a calculated tapping on the brakes, with his fingers curling under Raylan's jaw, a deceptively apologetic soft kiss and an even softer groan.

If he's honest, and stops chasing that addictive heady rush that they're not discouraging for a few seconds, Raylan tastes like misery. Much as he enjoys it himself, he can imagine that for others it might be a bit of an acquired taste.

Before Raylan's lust addled brain could come up with any suitable reply, his world was being spun and the not so gentle knock of his head against the floor followed by the surprisingly strong pinning of his arms had him grunting softly, hips pushing up for more despite the clench of Henry's knees. He couldn't tell if it was the heat they'd build up ebbing away that made him shiver or if it was the sudden, swift callused hand on his neck, tipping his head back like a show horse, earning Henry a throaty, hitched half moaned sound that was muted by the kiss. Raylan had been in a lot of beds with a lot of different women, and now exactly one man, but it had never come with such rough play.

No, nothing like the New Yorkers.

Sliding his free hand up Henry's thigh, Raylan got bold and let his hand wander between them, fingers finding the hard length that felt like it had almost put its own bruise into the soft skin of his hip and stroking firmly down and back up before sliding away around Henry's waist as the almost wrestling turned soft again. More and more, Henry seemed like a storm that had finally let out some of the rain furiously onto very dry crops, the intensity ebbing and raging unpredictably.

It probably spoke to how desperate he was to find it intoxicating. The relinquishment of control for half a second to someone he could trust to not kick him around for it.

Edited 2021-02-19 01:54 (UTC)

It's easier to be bolder in the dark, when they don't have to be under each other's scrutiny, where every touch could be misattributed to them not being able to see where they're putting their hands, what they're touching. Excuses they can't capitalise on once they're back in the house - not that they would need to anymore, probably. Once that first move had been made it would be easier to go again (and again, and again).

Much as he would like to have the problem in his pants tended to, especially with Raylan offering like he knows exactly what to do with his hand, Henry ends up rolling to the side with some reluctance, thighs rubbing in a futile effort to alleviate the discomfort while he cups Raylan's cheek to give him a parting kiss. His hand trails over Raylan's shoulder, down the length of his arm and falls away as he shifts in close enough to bump his forehead against his own coat, smelling and feeling like a Henry-Raylan blend while it's hanging off Raylan's shoulders.

Since they can't relocate to fuck this energy out, he's left panting shallowly, nuzzling, swallowing, licking his upper lip. Maybe they'll need a safeword before they start throwing each other around, choking each other or beating each other up. If Henry had been the firm but gentle, kindly man that 1306 knows him to be, he would not have survived his time or his world. There is something there, beneath the charm, clawing and rippling beneath the surface of his skin, a caged beast waiting to unleash some pent up frustrations, but he doesn't trust himself or this increasingly fragile Thing he has with Raylan to let it all out.

"I can't, now, or here," he admits between laboured breaths, even though he seems like he very much can when he holds Raylan's hip and bumps crotches, grinds like a slow dance at the wrong angle, holding him close keeping him there while he brushes his lips against Raylan's temple. "I want to, more than anything." He hopes Raylan knows that without needing that soft kiss on each closed eye and on the tip of his nose to reassure him. "I am sorry. I'm too-" too scared, down here, and of himself, what he is if he's not a gentleman. "-...preoccupied."

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cw:child abuse

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