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villagelogs2021-06-05 08:09 pm
villagemod) wrote in villagelogs2021-06-05 08:09 pm
063-064 » no matter how much / part ii (group A)
WHO: Group A members only.
WHERE: Mathias Township proper
WHEN: Days 063-064
WHAT: Matthias becomes a little larger and a little smaller at the same time.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here!
RECOMMENDED ♫ DEADLY AVENGER "Raiju"
CONDITIONS UPDATE
OOC NOTES
navigation | faq | locations | report updates
WHERE: Mathias Township proper
WHEN: Days 063-064
WHAT: Matthias becomes a little larger and a little smaller at the same time.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here!
RECOMMENDED ♫ DEADLY AVENGER "Raiju"
DAY 063-064
NO MATTER HOW MUCH“No matter how much suffering you went through,
you never wanted to let go of those memories.”
— Haruki Murakami
At first, in the calm following the storm, nothing seems amiss. When the residents awake, it is to another glorious morning dawning in the unsettling paradise that is Mathias Township. Indeed, it does seem rather glorious that morning, for there is sunshine in a blue sky that has been cleared of any remnant of the angry storm clouds from the day before. But before long, residents will start to notice signs of something being not quite right.
It should be a familiar sensation to most by now.
It begins as just a feeling, a strange hint of something in the air, a nagging voice at the back of the mind. They can't quite put their finger on it but there is something. Something wrong, something that shouldn't be — which is quite a statement in a town where everything shouldn't be. But then the pieces will begin to come together.
A person has gone who ought to be there. This in itself is not a strange occurrence, for many have vanished and then returned, or not. This time, though, it is one person, and then two and three... A dozen people or more have gone, with no trace of their whereabouts to be found.
No resident is alone, thankfully. There are others who also remain: friends, acquaintances, strangers. Others who are just as trapped in this nightmarish place.
As the hours stretch on and residents begin to venture beyond their self-claimed shelters and move about the town, they will find that their fellow captives are not the only things that have vanished. The Chasm is gone as well, the crack in the earth that once stretched across and cut off the western part of town. There is not even the smallest mark to show where it had once been; it has gone so completely that some might wonder if they had merely imagined it.
ABOUT THE NEW LOCATIONS
POPPY COTTAGE This bed and breakfast has a sense of casual elegance with the elusive quality of being both sophisticated and comfortable at the same time. Aside from being covered in dust and grime, of course.
PENHEW HOUSE Perhaps familiar to some in Mathias, this grand house is different from any of the others the residents have entered. It looks... new. Fresh. Clean. The usual thick layers of dust and grime that would be caked onto every visible surface are nowhere in sight; this absence may be a relief for some and unsettling to others. There are certainly other unsettling things to be found in this location.
THE OLD CHURCH Barely more than ruins, the property is marked by a crumbled stone outline that has no roof and only partial walls, nothing left inside besides a broken cobblestone floor.
BANEBERRY HALL From the outside, Baneberry Hall seems like your average rich person's house, but one would be mistaken to assume anything of the sort. Even the baneberries that cover the back lawn leading to the forest treeline are deceptive, for they appear harmless but are fatal to any human foolish enough to eat them.
The building is decaying from within. The rooms have begun to rot, from the parlors and libraries still done up in grand and expensive style to the bedrooms that have locks on the doors and bars on the windows. There are restraints in some of those bedrooms, while others are bereft of sharp objects. In the hall closets, there are identical sets of white pajamas of all sizes, and the offices have locked cabinets (that may be picked) full of a rainbow of sedatives (that will not replenish). The names on doors and in logbook lists are all smudged beyond legibility, and all paperwork has been water-damaged and weathered, leaving no indication of who may have been kept in those bedrooms or why. But within each room, there is an item that may be familiar to one of the residents now wandering its halls. As caked in dust and grime as anything else, each item is placed as if it belongs there, as if it might have been there for years. But it couldn't have been... could it?ABOUT THE ITEMS FROM HOME
Within the unsettling walls of Baneberry Hall, residents may find OBJECTS that are uncomfortably familiar to them. Each item has one singular memory attached to it that, when touched in any way, will be experienced first hand, as if the person receiving it had lived it themselves. This person will endure all of the associated emotions and psychological reactions to the memory that the memory's owner experienced.— Items may only be found within Baneberry Hall. These items from home are not all in one room or a specific location but instead are scattered throughout the bedrooms. (Only the items on this list are available to this group.)
— Ownership and possession of the item are important elements to this event. While the item is in possession of someone who is not its owner, it will continue to infect all who touch it with the memory that belonged to its owner. The item will also, before long, begin to make the possessor ill, both physically and emotionally uncomfortable and upset. This only occurs until the item is reunited with its owner, or until it is no longer in someone else's possession. (For example, if Person A finds Person B's teddy bear and carries it with them, they will continue to experience the bear's associated memory until they no longer have it in their possession, whether this means they have left it somewhere or it has been returned to Person B.)
— Recipients of memories will retain those memories even after the event has ended.
— When the owner of an item finds their item or has it returned to them, they will also experience the memory once themselves, having it returned to them as if they had just lived those moments again. The memory is only replayed once in their minds and then the memory effect of the object is gone. After this point, the item can be held by the owner or any others without consequence.
— If a person removes an item from its room in Baneberry Hall but does not remove the item from the property entirely, the item will be mysteriously returned to its original location when no one is looking. This is so that people do not have to keep close track of where items are going in the possible changing of hands, so the original owners can still easily locate the item without having to plan in great detail. Once an item is removed from the property, it will not return to its original location even if it is discarded by the possessor before reaching its original owner. Instances such as this should be planned among all involved parties, including the owner of the item.
— Once an item is removed from the property, please comment below so that information may be updated. Items that are not removed by the end of the event may reappear at a later time, so accurate records are essential.
— Before an item's memory is viewed by someone other than the owner, permission must be granted or requested for that memory to be viewed by another character. Because the experience is an uncomfortable one for the other characters, the viewing of memories not their own should ideally be kept to a small number.
— THE WEATHER conditions remain fairly typical for early fall: warm days and cool nights. It feels almost like spring arriving except that there fewer red and orange leaves on the ground and more of them oddly returning to the trees and slowly fading to green. It's like watching one of those nature documentaries that have a timelapse of the seasons, only it's going in reverse.
— THE FOG has new boundaries.— Residents may now wander the southern stretch of the forest surrounding Mathias Township — it is possible to leave the paths but potentially unwise to do so.
— The fog has also retreated from the western section of town entirely.
— Access to the northern section of the forest is still blocked beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline; this section of fog will urge residents to stay huddled within the town proper by inducing a physical reaction of panic and fear.
— DISAPPEARANCES AND DEATHS continue! Yennefer, Number Five, and Tony Stark have vanished and Ellie is still missing, though this may be difficult to tell with half the town also seemingly having vanished. Will Graham's body may be found within the ruins of the Old Church; he appears to have been frightened to death. (If someone decides to take care of the body, please report it below. For in-game reasons, this does not need to be coordinated across groups.)
— ALCOHOL supplies have run dry, save for any dregs that have been squirreled away by individual residents. Moonshine can still be acquired by those in desperate need.
— NEW MAP Thanks so much to Scy for yet another amazing new map of Mathias!
— UPDATES Don't forget to report updates as they come up! Changes to locations (like toppling a few bookshelves in the library), big plots you have coming up that will affect the game (parties, major property destruction, etc), or exciting discoveries that may tie into the game's mythology (even the things provided by the mod) are very helpful to have in one place so relevant page updates can be made. IC events are also helpful to know about in advance so they can be included in the log write-ups.
— MOD STATUS For those who don't know, I run a summer program that is set to start in just 2 weeks. We've only recently been given the green light to go ahead in person, so it's a scramble to get everything pulled together in time. My non-RP life is going to be busy and chaotic for the next while and I am thus asking for your forgiveness and understanding as things continue to be slow, as I cannot guarantee timely mod responses beyond weekends, and even that is not guaranteed.
— NEXT LOG Because of the aforementioned real-life chaos, the next log will be more relaxed and free form with everyone coming back together again and having a few chill days. It would be very much appreciated if some of the more intense investigations could be saved to take place in future logs, as the new locations that are opening up in this log will remain open in the next few at least and there will be plenty of time to explore all their mysteries.
— ITEMS FROM HOME The items from home remaining in Baneberry Hall will not be available past this log, at least not in this form, so if you would like to play with these elements, you should not sleep on this opportunity. More things may show up in the future but, for now, this is the main event.
— DW NOTIFS Back at the beginning of the year, the issue of missing email notifs was discussed in a code push plurk by Mark of the DW admin team. For those who missed it, the gist is that the issue with missing notifs is not going to be fixed anytime soon. The issue is so sporadic that the dev team has concluded the only way to possibly fix it is to redo the notification system entirely. This issue does not extend to DW's internal inbox, so short of checking every thread you're involved in, the DW inbox is the best way to make sure you're not missing things.
— ACTIVITY CHECK Beginning with June's AC (posted at the start of July), all tags that consist of only dialogue will count as 0.5 comments, not just those that occur in an inbox thread. This applies to both AC and AP totals.
no subject
Raylan would find himself standing outside the dirty tent of The Last Chance Salvation church, listening to Ava Crowder, threatening Ellen May. Raylan already had his Glock pulled (you leave the quick draw bullshit to Raylan Givens) its weight may feel different to Raylan's mind. The older marshal was almost exclusively a pistol man, where as the young sniper was a rifle man. A pistol feels small, effortlessly light and you have to compensate for that with a grip that is slightly different than Raylan is used too. Nothing anyone else would notice, but gun hands like them would be aware.
He'll hear a deep, cigarette wrecked masculine voice from within the tent. Colton Rhodes memory supplies and with the name comes the memory of the day before. Raylan trying to get Drew Thompson out of Harlan in one piece, but Raylan will experience flashes of Tim's day. Running decoy with Art and Nelson ('and stay off the goddamn radio') so glad their radios hadn't tripped the IED trap they'd driven into.
The tense back and forth with Colton, knowing the fellow veteran had set the trap, working out how to get the entire team out safe (goddamn doesn't anyone smoke anymore??) It's only important to the here and now because you've been cooking in a nice broth of an episode since yesterday and now things are about to really pile on.
Sounds like Colton is talking to Boyd, not much of a conversation but it's clear; Boyd's asked Colton to finish what Ava started. You have no back up. No Rachel on the far side, no Raylan, no Art ... probably best that Nelson isn't here. From a completely logical perspective, you know you can put Colton down, there is no fear of a hostage situation.
But emotionally you wish it could be someone else.
It goes against the grain, against the training, against the now hardwired instincts in the soul, to pull your weapon on another veteran. Hell, you tried to help Colton, tried to reach out to him, wanted to help him, wanted to get him off the drugs, to put that good mind back to use as something other than Boyd Crowder's lackey. This man is to you as Boyd Crowder is to Raylan.
'We dug coal together.'
'We were in the shit together.'
But there is no one else coming and Ellen May is going to die if you don't act. So you play your mental ace in the hole. The memory of Mark, sprawled out on the sofa half-naked with blood and brain matter tangled in his hair, eyes fixed with wide confusion. An expression Mark wore so much of the time; he was the epitome of deer in headlights. Should never have been in the shit, never had the gut for it but had always tried his best. There are memories of a lot of laughter, a lot of friendly warmth, yes a few secretive handjobs and blowjobs (all of which stopped after Mark's injury and drug addiction). Mark had been the epitome of friends with benefits. A good friend, someone you dropped everything to go help support when he called, but not a relationship/lover.
Colton had murdered Mark. You know it, have known it for days.
"Stop. Right where you are." Raylan leads with his gun, stepping through the tent. "Drop the weapon. Move away. Move away." These words are to Ava, Ellen May, and Cassie. Get the fuck out of my line of fire. Stepping effortlessly in a side step, pulling Ava past and out of the line of fire as Colton curses.
"God Damn. I just cannot catch a break." He's laughing, it's an ugly sort of laugh but at the same time you know in your gut he has no intention of trying to fire on the civilians. This is going to be strictly between you and him.
"Drop it on the ground." Please Colton, drop the weapon on the ground.
"Maybe in a minute." He reaches into his pocket. The 'Don't' out of your mouth is reflexive, but he's already brushing you off. "Relax." It's just a pack of cigarettes. He pushes one out and takes it in his lips.
Raylan will feel himself ... crumple. A deep sign that drops the shoulder as the weight of realization lands across them. Suicide by cop. It is already playing out in your head. Colton is going to force the issue with a half assed lift of his gun and you are going to have to shoot him. You feel old. So damn old. Older than Raylan, older than Art.
"Gonna quit tomorrow," Colton says as he lights the cigarette.
"What do you think your doing," please don't make me do this.
"I'm smoking."
"Did you kill my friend?"
"You know what it's like to be in the shit." Oh but do you ever. Right now you're feeling the sick prickle of an adrenaline rush that comes only out in that damn dessert. Hyper Focused awareness of the surrounding area, combined with the gut twisting anticipation of the smell of blood. The crash of mortars, the pop pop pop of rifles the unnatural breeze of the concussive force of bombs going off all around, bullets whizzing by so close you can feel the heat of them. Even the cigarette smoke is almost overpowering, the heat from the dessert rising up between your boots and sweat now pouring down your spine. The never ending push of adrenaline, so powerful that your body aches from the fight/flight chemicals pouring into muscles, lungs and heart. "Go back there enough times, and bad things happen."
Yes. Yes they do. And you wake up on your bathroom floor with a toilet full of puke an empty bottle of whiskey and enough empty beer cans to take down a fraternity.
"So, you did kill him?"
Colton looks at you and his expression is almost soft and understanding. He knows. He knows that you know that he knows. He's going to push you to make this shoot, he knows you know this and he knows that in front of witnesses he needs to make it clear that this is a good shoot.
"Collateral damage." It's what you need but it is a punch to the chest. Mark was a good person. A dumpster fire after the war but he had been trying to turn it around. He wasn't 'collateral damage.' Though ... in a way he was and that is another punch to the chest. "I'm sorry about what happened to your friend Mark," there is irony in the fact that Colton is the first person to say that to you. Not Art, Rachel, Raylan. No one from the office, just this man who is looking at you with an understanding that only comes from being in the shit together. "But I think most of him died somewhere in Kandahar."
He's not wrong. But that's not the point.
"Only part I'm concerned about is the one that died here. Last time I'm telling you. Put your weapon on the ground."
Colton looks over at Ellen May, Cassie and Ava but there is a gentle smile on his face. He's not going to involve them. He could. He could force this into a full on firefight and a bloodbath. You have no backup out here. If Colton wanted to live there are a lot of plays in the playbook he could break out. More so than you yourself are equipped with.
He lifts the cigarette and takes a deep drag off it. Holds it for the simple pleasure, then exhales and speaks his final words. "I guess I'll quit today."
He brings his arm up laughably slow. There is no genuine intention behind it, he already knows he can't beat you on the trigger, but this was his choice and how it is going to be; you fire two shots, center mass. Colton drops onto a pew, dead before you reach him to clear his weapon away from his limp hand. You do a quick frisk, habit and training more than expectation but in Colton's upper pocket you find his sunglasses. The sunglasses he was always wearing. You take them. Not as a trophy for having killed him, but out of respect for a fallen, fellow soldier. No one should be forgotten, not Mark and not Colton Rhodes.
no subject
He knew those hills, those hollers, even if he couldn't pin down where this one was without more context. Some of the names were new ones but the familiarity of a good study, one of Tim's better skills, gave him the context he needed. They were established. He also knew what it was like to stand in Tim's shoes. To hold the power over someone's life, to chose to wield it, to do their job in the face of everything else.
He didn't feel badly for Tim because of that. No, it was the loss of the friend, of the companion on the other side. The brotherhood of it all. On both counts. Where was I? Raylan couldn't think of a reason that Tim would be out in the country, his country, doing this kind of work.
The scope was worked gently in his fist, a repetitive gesture he didn't really notice he was doing as he continued to walk around the house. Why go back just yet? He could hold onto it.
Or so he thought.
We're standing outside the dirty tent of The Last Chance Salvation church, listening to Ava Crowder, threatening Ellen May.
The start of the memory again makes Raylan pause and frown, to be aware of the overlay, the struggle to not fall into the power of the memory playing too loud in his mental ears. Like someone was yelling at him from the inside. Tim should have this. Before anyone else picked it up. Before more of the sniper was revealed to people than he might want.
The memory of Mark, sprawled out on the sofa half-naked with blood and brain matter tangled in his hair, eyes fixed with wide confusion. An expression Mark wore so much of the time; he was the epitome of deer in headlights.
Raylan's stomach had always been strong but it didn't stop the clench of the sight of the blood, the dumb, innocently shocked look of a man who never saw it coming. He had to get moving, despite the heavy woodenness to his feet, a bodily plea for him to just stop for a damned minute. He couldn't -
"Did you kill my friend?"
"You know what it's like to be in the shit."
His head was going to burst - it felt overly full. Overly demanded, right now. He stumbled his way towards the front door and realized that the walk home was going to be a long and terribly unpleasant one. Maybe - Maybe Tim was out investigating, he told himself, an attempt at a distraction that didn't work.
Two shots, center mass. Just like they'd been taught.
He made it all of half a block before his stomach finally had enough and rocked him to his knees, the painful burst of all the wounds on his feet reopening as he ejected bile and the bare nothing snack he'd grabbed that morning. He was going to start losing weight, at this point. The scope was held away at his hip to avoid it all; he wasn't going to drop it here for someone to find. He had to find Tim.
no subject
Tim was slowly making his way home after having spent the day inchworming his way around some of the new spots. There were more and the mind was curious but the body was done. Tim was moving slow enough to note the figure on his knees in the approved barf position. He winced in sympathy with the sounds of retching and was debating whether or not to go disturb the man's privacy when Raylan sat up and the hat came into view.
"Raylan?" The word sounded incredulous but the next was more confident and definitely concerned. "Raylan!"
Fighting to ignore all but the worst of the pain he was in, Tim moved quickly towards the older man's side, reaching for his shoulders. He did not immediately pick up on the fact that Raylan was holding something, let alone what.
"You shouldn't be out of the house," he scolded softly, glancing down towards the older marshal's feet. His initial assumption was Raylan made himself sick with pain.
no subject
"Take it," he said in a breathless plea, pushing the scope into Tim's chest. "Found it in BaneBer-" "God Damn. I just cannot catch a break." He's laughing, it's an ugly sort of laugh but at the same time you know in your gut he has no intention of trying to fire on the civilians. This is going to be strictly between us and him.
Once his hand was empty, he could take his whole weight on both hands but it only took a half second before he was starting to feel better. Oddly so and ignoring all the rest of his pains. A wild look was given over at Tim as he turned and settled on his ass a few inches away from his pile of sick.
"Where were we? Were was I? Why were you there alone?" There was no point in waiting, no point in getting them behind closed doors; it had to be asked and it had to be asked now.
no subject
"Shit!" He said quickly, reaching for the scope. The memory washed over him, the original event still fresh in his mind, yet he still drew a breath in between his teeth. Army discipline kept him from dropping the scope on the ground but it was a near thing. He set it down as Raylan's rapid fire questions came at him, and for a moment he couldn't look at the older man.
"This isn't going to make a lot of sense," he warned glancing wistfully in the direction of 1308. Looking back at Raylan, the suggestion that they head for the house first died on his tongue. He knew that look and it would be faster to do as Raylan asked, than try to out bullhead the man.
Setting his hands on his lean hips Tim's brows knitted as he stared down at the tips of his boots.
"You were technically under suspension, but Drew Thompson was kicking up flack about wanting to see Ellen May. They had some weird Daddy/daughter thing going on, I don't know. In order to get Art to let you do this, you took Rachel and I along," was there a building nearby? There was one. Good. Tim went and found himself a bit of a porch to lean his weight against.
"We weren't the only ones looking for Ellen May. Boyd and Ava were after her because she was a witness to a murder Ava committed. Three of us headed to Harlan, ended up in Nobles on a report that Ellen May was under Limehouse's protection. We go up to Nobles, and get the runaround from Limehouse," no surprise there. "Plus, he's rude to Rachel." This was an important point.
"You threaten to toss the place then we go back to the cars. You call in the staties to upend Nobles, because you said you would and you don't want it to be an idle threat, but you know we're not finding anything. You take Rachel and head back to Harlan to shake Boyd's tree a little harder, leaving me up at Nobles to sit on the place until the staties show up to the party."
Tim glanced at the scope for a moment, the reached up to rub his fingers across his eyes.
"After you left I spy Ava driving away from Nobles. The staties were breaking out the dogs so I left them to it and followed Ava. She lead me to the church. You saw the rest."
no subject
'Drew Thompson' still wasn't a name he knew, even with the context of Tim's memory still playing over in his head, the wash of it all and Raylan watched Tim walk the handful of yards away. He wasn't steady enough to get back on his feet yet, so he'd keep his ass planted right here.
"You call us on the way or after it happened?"
He'd say he was sorry Tim had to shoot the guy but.. He had to shoot the guy, it was what the situation demanded, what the safety of those women demanded, what the safety of Tim himself demanded. It was what the murder of Mark demanded.
Their responsibilities were heavy ones.
no subject
"You arrived after the staties had been there for about half an hour," he continued. "Collected Ellen May and headed back to Lexington."
no subject
"I'm sorry about your friend," he decided on, along with the attempt to pull himself upright again. He could feel the moisture in his boots; he was going to have to find a bathroom with some gauze. Probably in Baneberry.
"I hope we picked up his gun for ballistics so Mark's case gets closed properly."
no subject
"For what it's worth, bringing in Drew Thompson wiped your slate clean with the upper ups. You were in a position to write your ticket back to Miami, and with a healthy raise to boot."
no subject
He looked over. "You bothered by it? Puttin' him down."
no subject
Tim inched back to give Raylan room, looking at the scope in his hand as he considered the question.
“I did what I had to do,” he said quietly. “Hell, I did what he wanted me to do. Finished the job started in the Sandbox.” Glancing up and looking off to the side, the younger marshal’s expression was far, far away from Mathias.
“I tried to help him,” he continued quietly. “But what really sticks is the way I saw myself in him. What I am one broken shoe lace, on bottle too many away from becoming.”
Maybe Malcolm had been right to call him out for sociopath tendencies.
no subject
Raylan watched Tim's features sidelong, clocking the 1000 yard stare that put him a million miles away.
"I'm not gonna let that happen, Tim," he said quietly but firmly. "You were good to try to help him." Raylan hoped Tim wouldn't stop that. "You were right to put him down. He gave you not choice, as sad as that was. No way out for him other than that or prison.. Doubt he'd d well there without more self destruction... I don't want to see the same thing happen to you."
no subject
"I've been lucky, Raylan and I recognize it." He said moving stiffly to stand beside his partner in case Raylan needed a human crutch for a few steps. "Partly because, and I promise you this, I want to leave the shit behind. I don't want to keep going back there. I'm out. I have a job I genuinely like -save morning prisoner transports- and I want to live my life."
Colton ... Tim had to wonder if the ex MP had wanted the same. He kept escaping into drugs until the moment he had an out that hadn't involved his own gun. Tim knew he'd done what had to be done, what Colt wanted. He just mourned the waste of it all.
Peeking around to make sure they were alone, he cast a quick glance towards Raylan and smirked slightly.
"Except for all the sand, would be nice to live in Miami. Maybe get away from all the furtive hiding of a large part of who I am," unspoken was also the fragile hope of a life with Raylan and Willa. Those words didn't see the public air, not yet. They were for the private hours behind closed doors, where the bubble could be safely maintained.
no subject
The comment about Miami, the glance towards the future took Raylan a little by surprise and his lips curled fondly, crookedly. "You should come with me when I transfer out. The foods good, the community is.. less tightassed than Kentucky.. The waters nice too. Makes up for the sand. Except when tourism is high." Made the sand worth Raylan's bother, if he were being honest.
His mind drifted past the same idea as Tim had had. Would the sniper want that? Or would the freedom of Miami break him away to someone who was less of a shit heel by nature? But that was later. That was the future and assumed things they couldn't confirm.
"Would you? Consider the transfer. Even if Art is gonna give you shit about it." But he was sure Tim was aware of that oncoming fact anyway.
no subject
"Thinking maybe it's time for me to get out of tightassed communities," he loved his brothers in arms, was proud of his military service, but DADT had been a nightmare and Lexington was just more of it. "Lexington was my first posting out of Marshal Service training and working with you, Rachel and Art has been a good four years. But Art's getting closer and closer to retirement age and we both know Rachel's going higher up the ladder, somewhere not Kentucky."
He paused because he didn't mean to be sounding like Raylan and Willa were just some 'eh ain't got nothing here, guess I'll go there' decision. But at the same time he didn't want Raylan feeling beholden to the idea of having to create some sort of idyllic existence because of Tim's decision. Between the job and their hardheads? Tim wasn't imagining white picket fences and weekend barbeques.
Glancing around again, confirming it was just them, he cast a shy look towards the older marshal. "Kinda come to a point where I like my days better when you're there to fight beside, fight with, give and get shit from, work out the difficult cases beside. Pick up the goddamn coffee because you 'forgot' it was Wednesday," if either of them were steady on their feet, he would have bumped their shoulders together. "I want to share life with you, Raylan. In all its fucked up messy glory."
no subject
"Even if she is," Raylan countered, "Doesn't change the rest of the community so you're still in the same spot." It was a terrible spot to be in, no matter how well they both handled it. He knew how heavy everyone's eyes could be and Lexington was large enough that normal people might think they'd be able to slip under it all. Oh how wrong they'd be.
He knew what it was like to be in Miami already. Unmarried, unattached and with no roots worth acknowledging. It was the most free he'd been, finally out from under Arlo's shadow. It was great and if left to his own devices, he'd likely stay down there till he was at least Art's age.
Raylan noted the glance around, dark eyes sidelong on Tim as he waited for whatever else was coming. What came was not at all what he expected and his head tilted with a crook of a smile that was glanced down at the ground before he brushed their hands together. He knew he was riding a lot of lines, a lot of 'What if's and eggs in delicate baskets, but the promise that he wasn't going to go home and back into a bottle of bitter misery that was worked out by too much Marshalling, too many side jobs and a few more disappointments to boot.
"Shame we didn't wait to do this indoors." His smile pulled but went sweet. "I'm not gonna lie and say I ain't glad to hear it. There's a few theories bouncin' around about if we'll remember this all and no one can really say but.." He met Tim's eye without hesitation. "I'd like that to be a reality. Least I know you wouldn't leave me for gettin' shot at or bein' out on stake outs." Or he hoped anyway, as a baseline at the very least.
"I'd like to see what kinda go we could make of it, if you were interested in that kinda thing." Which, considering all of what Tim had just said, made him 98% sure the man was amicable to it. "Wouldn't that piss Winona right off," he suddenly realized, laughing the laugh that only slightly bitter and hurt divorced men manage.
"She'd have kittens."
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"Think I'll work from the position that we'll remember," he said softly. "If I'm going to focus my limited supply of positive thinking on something, I'll focus it there." Because the turn of his head and the look in dark blue eyes echoed the sentiment; that he'd also like to make a go of it.
"Not doing the job right if you don't get shot at once in awhile," he pointed out. "I reserve the right to fuss when you get hit, and then tease your ass while you're recuperating. Don't leave the pee bottle in the car after a stakeout and we'll be fine." Tim paused and then chuckled softly at the mental image of Winona's reaction. There was more than a hint of malicious glee in the curl of his lips as he initiated the 'accidental' brush of their hands.
"There were nights," he began softly. "Usually after she'd yanked your heart around, when I imagined the ways to show you how you deserved to be loved. To make sure she understood that her weakness was not a fault in you but in her."
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Things had changed. Maybe it shouldn't have, but a lot of things had happened here that shouldn't have. Him being housed in so close with someone so soft and someone else so rough, trapped and panicking with Doc in the tunnels, dying off the porch after clawing off his nails to try and get back in to them, like a little boy screaming for the only safe space he had.
He didn't regret any of it. Not a single moment that it lent him, in the end. Maybe that made him terrible. Maybe that made him a greedy manipulator, to ask for them to accept such odd rules. He didn't know and right now in the moment, he didn't care.
Tim's claim to fussing cemented and the unspoken agreement to not leave piss bottles in the car a general kind of etiquette, Raylan hooked that wayward pinkie with his own, unwilling to let it be just that. If anyone came up, they were walking closely enough to excuse it.
"I don't know that sometimes I don't totally disagree with her," he admitted. "Normal people aren't equip to have mobsters and thugs show up and the door multiple times, making them live their lives afraid of the doorbell or strangers. And when you're talkin' about raisin' someone in that?" His face twisted a little, the questioning look turned towards Tim; no sense in that, right?
"Even before Willa.. More nights than not, I wasn't comin' in til 3 am and I was leavin' again at 8. That's no life for someone." Someone that wasn't them was unspoken; Tim had worked similar hours.
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All this didn't stop his pinkie from wrapping around Raylan's. A firm grip but one that was loose enough that it could be a fluke of how closely they were walking along. Explained off as each need a bit of physical support from the other. But for now, it was holding hands. Companionably holding hands and shuffling along painfully, distracted by a fragile bubble of hope for a future.
"Don't know that you can assume the fitness of one environment over another," he said thoughtfully. "We see plenty of normative families where the children are treated like shit, raised running drugs, or having to be the adult of the house." Loretta McCready. "Maybe Willa gets used to a few extra locks on the doors, learns to be a little more streetwise than her classmates, doesn't get upset when I sit by the window with my rifle." They both knew any mobster or thug who showed up at the house looking to rough up Raylan's family was getting a .308 up the nose. "If at the end of the day she knows she can come to you, come to me, go to her mom, and we'll be the adults in her life with her best interests as our compass?"
He shrugged.
"Worse ways to grow up." Both of them had grown up in a house with a mother, a father and for the most part not much shit at the front door. Only behind the front door they'd been victims of domestic abuse, in Raylan's case watched his mother be a victim of his father's violence. "Willa's going to end up being the most well adjusted of the lot of us."
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"Bein' raised like shit and dogin' bullets at five is apples and oranges," he replied in disagreement with a look over. "That picture you just painted is a best case scenario."
Which was to say, yes, he could see it. But Winona.. She wasn't going to allow that. Raylan gave no mind to how he was raised or how Tim was raised beyond the lessons of How Not to Treat a fucking child, the bar was higher than that by default. Raylan's main concern was keeping his child alive long enough to get to the growing up part.
"But you're right about that last bit. If it's the last goddamned thing I do." Why yes, Raylan was more than ready to charge to the forefront of having an opinion about how his daughter should be raised and what she should be spared from. Yes, they'd make her ready, but that didn't mean he welcomed a chance for her to work those skills.
"I don't want either of them dragged into anythin'. Not more than Winona already has. Willa doesn't ever need to see the real side of the job. I'm not sayin' we lie but.. She's gotta be protected as long as we can before the world gets its fingers into her."
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Since Raylan seemed to be in a pensive mood, the younger ranger's expression became thoughtful, head tilted slightly to the side as they walked along.
"You consider stepping back from chasing fugitives?" It was a genuine question, without any hint of judgement or expectation. There were many marshaling duties that wouldn't involve the insane hours and thug life risks of pissing off fugitives. Wasn't as exciting maybe, but it also wasn't just prisoner transport or purging casefiles.
"Would stabilize your hours, reduce the frequency of you getting shot at and significantly reduce the risk to your family." He was not going to bring up the fact that Raylan wasn't getting any younger either.
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"Thought about goin' back to Glynco for Winona's sake but.." He shook his head. "Chasin' down assholes and shootin' is the one thing I'm good at." This job was the one successful thing in his life. He couldn't step back from that.
"And it wouldn't stop the people already after me. Better that I keep the badge and have a legal recourse to puttin' them in the ground and off my plate for good. It'd be like askin' you to never fire a gun again - you think we'd do well with those rules?" His head bobbed. "Maybe you would. Still young enough to change some parts of you, but I think I'm too far gone. I'm gonna be a Marshal until they kick me out or kill me."
He'd long ago made peace with that and he wasn't going to lower his level of protection power as a way to keep Willa safe. That seemed counterproductive, for all the arguments he made.
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"Those skills you're talking about, teaching the next generations of Marshals? You're going to save some lives without ever being present." Lives of Marshals and of the people those young men and women would be protecting.
"I ain't suggesting you turn in your badge, Raylan. I known damn good and well we're going to be putting that thing on top of your coffin when the time comes. And I know you got enemies. Just suggesting that there's no need for you to go gathering any more."
Tim fell quiet then, trying to imagine a life like that for himself. His pinkie curled a little tighter around Raylan's as he peeked under rugs he's thrown down over ugly mental scars when he'd gotten out of the Army.
"I'd have to do some real thinking, Handsome." The word slipped out. "But you challenge me with those words and I can't say that I kneejerk hate the idea. Think there may come a time, if I can get through all the shit in my head without self destructing, I might want to get away from the mad minute."
Teaching hadn't ever occurred to him until this conversation. But now that he'd voiced the idea, gotten a small taste, the idea didn't suck.
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The more Tim talked, the more concessions of how and what Raylan was at his core being acknowledged and voiced, the less terrible it sounded. Tim wasn't suggesting that Raylan change or turn into someone he wasn't. Just an adjustment. His own pinky tightened in response to Tim's and he looked over sidelong to read whatever he could that might come with the words.
Somehow, the idea of doing it to help get Tim out of all the running field work was less troublesome than doing it for himself or Willa. There were still the same hurdles as before but.. Well, all Raylan really needed was the right motivation.
"We'd both have to do some thinkin'. And we got time. Here and there. Maybe I take a few years, clean up my edges. Let you.. us. Figure out how we can get you through that to the other side. I might be ready for some peace then."
By age or comfort, he'd take either one. Somewhere in the back of his head, he realized that giving up field work meant that he would have to be happy at home. Have something to come home to that wasn't his own thoughts and frustrations.
"And I will think about it," he promised. "If you will."
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"It's some good thinking," he continued as they made their shared, slow way along. "Lot of good things to imagine, in among the frightening prospect of change." Thoughts like getting through the shit. Of giving up the release of the mad minute and taking more steps towards living a proper civilian life.
A life where he came home to someone, showed up at school musicals and found ways to make encouraging noises at eight year olds who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. That last thought made him smile. Not quite full teeth, but the smile that made slits out of his eyes, especially at the corners.
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