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The fireworks display had been going for almost five minutes before Raylan noticed anything was wrong. They were far enough away, weren’t so loud, as to put much of a halt on the conversations going on across the deck, but some folks had stopped to watch and ooh and aah appreciatively. The kids camped out on blankets in the yard squealed and shrieked with delight at each new burst.
Tim’s eyes were fixed unseeingly at the distant point where they were being launched, like he was reaffirming that each loud noise came with an accompanying and appropriate visual. Nevertheless, Raylan could see the muscles in his shoulders tense with each echoing crack, and he held his bottle of beer so tightly his knuckles were white. He was sitting on his other hand, and Raylan suspected it was to stop a continually recurring impulse to reach back for the holster that wasn’t even there tonight.
Raylan straightened from where he leaned against the deck railing and wove his way through the assortment of family and friends and colleagues at the Mullens’ July Fourth barbecue until he found Art dumping a new bag of ice into one of the coolers. “Raylan!” His boss was never that pleased to see him, he must have been working up a nice buzz. “You behaving yourself, making good choices?”
“Hardly ever,” he assured him drily. “Hey, lemme ask you something.” Art’s expression turned immediately wary. He nodded back over his shoulder towards the long table where Tim was sitting, his terse face visible in profile. “Tim come to these shindigs before?”
“Sure, why?”
“Don’t think he’s doin’ so well, Chief.”
Art’s brow furrowed as he watched Tim’s fixed stare. “Well… shit.”
“Fireworks never bothered him before?”
He thought back a minute and shrugged helplessly, but another voice drew Raylan’s attention behind him to where Leslie had approached quietly, nursing a beer. “He brought an mp3 player last year. Sat on the front porch in the dark, alone with some music, until they were done.”
Maybe he forgot it. Regardless, the current strategy didn’t appear to be panning out too well. “Anyone in the basement?”
“Think a few of the older boys went down to play some video games.” Raylan had a pretty good idea what sorts of games the pre-teen sons of a bunch of law enforcement officers would be playing, and doubted they would bring anything good to the situation. Leslie apparently concurred. “I’ll go kick ‘em out, send ‘em up for some fresh air and dessert.”
He nodded his thanks and then made his way slowly over to the table. Tim didn’t seem to register his appearance when he pulled out a chair and sat down, fixated as he was on the distant display. When he leaned in and murmured a quiet, “Tim?” though, the younger marshal’s hand jerked involuntarily from where it was tucked under his thigh. Raylan reached for his wrist and pressed it gently back against his leg, halting the instinctive drawing motion. “Leslie said you brought music last year.”
“Died,” Tim returned stiffly. “Think my charger’s busted.”
It was on the tip of Raylan’s tongue to ask why he hadn’t left upon realizing that, but watching Tim’s muscles tense at another rapid burst of fireworks exploding suggested that driving was probably not a great idea. Plus, actually finding somewhere free of the sounds of raucous Kentucky celebrations was probably a tall order for several hours, city ordinances be damned.
“Come inside.”
“Want me to start looking for IEDs under the couch?” Tim snarked back.
“Just try it out. I got us a room.”
Tim finally shifted his gaze, brows cocked coolly. “Raylan Givens, I am not that kind of boy.” But he stood and allowed Raylan to lead him through the back patio door, one hand still gripping the beer and the other shoved harshly in the pocket of his jeans.
They passed Leslie in the kitchen, herding a grumbling trio of kids outside. “Boys,” she nodded and smiled at Tim and Raylan, slipping something into Raylan’s hand as they walked by. Tim didn’t comment, or was too distracted to notice.
Raylan headed towards the garage, and then opened the last door before he got there, gesturing Tim down the dimly-lit stairs of the basement ahead of him. “Your bunker awaits.”
Tim snorted softly and headed down. “What does it say that this never even occurred?”
“At a guess, only that you’ve never had a basement.” Tim raised his bottle in silent acknowledge as Raylan followed, pulling the door closed and locking it. The distant sounds were almost completely muffled. “This one, however…” he grinned as Tim stared, slack-jawed. “Is very quiet, very dark if that’s what you prefer, has a huge-ass TV, and comes stocked with its own beer.”
“So this is what happened to that abandoned Mexico vacation,” Tim mused, already scanning the shelves of DVDs and games. “Money better spent, you ask me.”
Raylan flopped down on the reclining leather armchair. “I think Art agreed, until the grandkids discovered it.”
“And how many times has your drunken ass crashed down here?”
“…Once or twice.”
Tim peered off to the other half of the space, where some toys were stacked up and scattered about, a kid-sized table, couple of scooters. “Is there a bathroom down here? If there’s a bathroom, I might never leave.”
“No shower.”
“After Ranger School and three deployments, I have no standards.”
“Cheers, then.” Raylan eyed the item Leslie handed him, a green iPod, earbud cords wrapped around. He held it aloft for Tim to see when he turned back around. “I think Leslie stole this from one of the kids, God only knows what’s on it. You want?”
Tim went quiet and very still a moment, looking strangely vulnerable, and then crossed back over to Raylan and accepted the device. He pulled his own dead player from his pocket and swapped out the headphones, ever practical. “Jesus,” he thumbed through the music options. “Slim pickins.” He settled on something, cringed a bit as he placed the earbuds, but the lines of his face smoothed out slightly when he closed his eyes.
Raylan had the strangest impulse to reach out for the younger man’s wrist again, see if he could feel his pulse slow and steady as he relaxed.
Tim remembered his presence, eyes shot back open. Raylan stood and turned for the stairs, sparing Tim the need to ask for solitude. “Want the lights off?” he asked, hand hovering at the switch.
“Yeah, thanks.” He hesitated. “Just give me a few minutes.”
“All the time you need,” Raylan assured him. “Leslie’ll kick anyone’s ass tries to come down here.” He flipped the switch and pitched the room into darkness.
Art was loitering at the top of the stairs when Raylan opened the door. “Should I be worried?” he asked, once Raylan had pressed it softly closed again.
“Just that Tim might try to move into your basement.” He crossed his arms and put his chin down to his chest, brow furrowed. “He diagnosed?”
“Not that I know,” Art shrugged. “Hasn’t really come up. Might just be a one-off.”
More likely Tim just knew how to handle it and effectively hide it, Raylan suspected, but he kept that thought to himself. Planting that sort of thought in their boss’s mind would do Tim no favors professionally.
Raylan suspected that he wouldn’t see Tim again the rest of that night, figured he’d sneak out of the basement at some point and head home, self-conscious of his noticeable disquiet. He was surprised, consequently, to get a text a minute after the fireworks display ended.
Come back down so I can kick your ass at Mario Kart.
After two races that mostly consisted of Tim correcting Raylan’s failed attempts at doing... well, anything (“No, that button is the gas”) (“Okay, throw the shell… now. Goddammit, Raylan, that button!”), they recruited the boys who had been kicked out earlier to give Tim someone competitive to play against until their parents came to collect them and head home.
Art came downstairs as Tim was returning the game and controllers to their rightful places, and their plans to head home themselves were abandoned in favor of the remnants of the bottle of bourbon he snagged from the bar now that the festivities had mostly wound down.
“You abandon the missus for goodbyes and cleanup?” Tim asked as he accepted a plastic cup.
“Naw,” Art poured another and handed it over to Raylan in the recliner. “Cleanup in the morning. Grill’s off, fire’s out, the rest’ll keep. Just her brother’s family left upstairs, and they’re staying.”
“Keep feeding us like this,” Raylan raised his cup in a toast, “we’re gonna be stayin’ too.”
“S’fine, but we’re out of spare rooms, so you’ll have to cuddle on the couch here.”
Tim piped in blandly, “Is it as comfortable as the couch in your office?” and Art shuddered. Tim sipped at his bourbon, looking faintly pleased with himself. “Think Raylan’s going to melt into that chair, in any case.”
For his part though, Raylan paced himself with the bourbon and cut himself off earlier than he’d have liked, had he been drinking in the bar below his place; he didn’t really have any great desire to turn his night into an approximation of a drunken slumber party with Art and Tim. He was getting ready to take his leave from the other two, who were being considerably more liberal with their drinking, when Tim sobered abruptly and murmured softly into his cup.
“We were based out of the airfield in Kandahar. Sent this small SOF scout group to Sangin, shitty town a hundred, hundred fifty kilometers away, to check out some weird chatter. Whether the intel was bad, or they were looking to set us up, I never found out, but…” he stared down at the cup in his hands, unseeingly. “It was a clusterfuck. A veritable snafu. Lost two guys, buddy o’mine got hurt bad and was slowin’ us down. River at our back, boxed in, tryin’ to get a helo before he bleeds out, but the fuckers have got rocket launchers and shit.” He swallowed the rest of his cup in one gulp. “S’hard to call in precise artillery in the middle of a goddamn town, you know? The world’s fucking ending and we’re just hunkered down, praying to anything and everything that the kid at the controls doesn’t move a decimal and blow us into the afterlife, too.” He paused, blinked, added dully, “I don’t know how many civilians died there, just to give the helicopter time to get in and get us out.”
In the silence that followed, Raylan and Art exchanged a look laden with uncertainty. Before either could decide upon the proper thing to do or say in response, Tim’s phone beeped and he got to his feet with an astounding speed and steadiness. “That’s my ride.”
Raylan hadn’t even noticed him texting. “I’m gonna head out, too,” he gestured up the stairs after Tim, and Art climbed much more reluctantly to his feet than Tim had. “Think maybe you’re the one gonna be sleeping down here tonight, Chief. Think you can manage those steps?”
Art shot him a dirty look and trailed after them. They exchanged a quick farewell with Leslie, sitting in the living room with her sister-in-law, and then Raylan followed Tim out on to the porch. “I’d have driven you, you know.”
“Thought you were stayin’.” A nice way of avoiding directly stating that he preferred different company for the remainder of his evening, Raylan decided.
A figure hopped out of the passenger seat of a truck sitting on the street and Tim raised a hand in greeting. “Who’s your friend?” Raylan couldn’t stop himself from asking, watching the man jog across the lawn.
Tim turned from the bottom of the porch and looked up at him, amused. “A responsible young man, dad. Want me to text you when I’m home, safe and sound?”
He kind of did, actually, but as he watched Tim walk quickly forward to intercept the approaching figure before he’d get close enough to oblige introductions, he attributed that bizarre protective instinct to the wholly unfair surprise of realizing that the reserved younger marshal had friends on hand who would pick him up from a strange address for a drunken ride without question or complaint.
They exchanged a quick word in the middle of the yard. Tim pointed down the street a ways and handed over his keys, and the other man waved to whoever was driving the truck and it pulled away. Raylan caught a glimpse of a US Army star on the back window, and supposed he should have figured. Catching sight of Raylan still watching, Tim’s buddy shot him a quick wave too and then turned to head to Tim’s truck down the street, putting a hand on Tim’s shoulder as they walked side-by-side.
It wouldn’t have been an intimate gesture, but for the fact that Raylan couldn’t recall Tim ever touching or being touched with such casual ease before. He was contained, controlled, promises of violence and sarcastic wit and inappropriate humor – not necessarily in that order, but you could never be sure which you would find yourself facing if you dared encroach upon the walls he’d so strongly erected.
Art’s voice startled Raylan and he glanced over his shoulder. “Army friend?”
“I think so. Never knew he had any local.”
“Some fuckin’ story, huh?” Raylan grimaced. “Suppose I oughta keep a better eye on him.”
“He’ll be alright.”
Art peered at him appraisingly. “Well, he has survived sitting three feet away from you all this time.” He shrugged; it was too late, he was too tired, to feign offense. “Thought the two of you might’a bonded a bit over your little Christmas coup last year.”
“It was something of an anomalous weekend.” He’d learned more about Tim in one night than he suspected Art or Rachel had in the whole time Tim had been in the office; it had not, however, translated into the foundations of a deep and meaningful friendship. “Said he prefers being mysterious. Like Batman.”
He had his reasons for it, Raylan supposed, and he added the possibility of PTSD to that list.
When he got home though, after discarding his keys, wallet, holster on the dresser, he pulled out his phone and saw he had two texts that had gone unnoticed as he drove. Both were from Tim.
Didn’t make it home after all; maybe I am that kind of a boy.
And a minute later:
But don’t worry, pops – he said he’d still respect me in the morning.
He laughed lightly to himself and collapsed on the bed, tossing his cell on the side table. And he decided that he meant what he’d told Art – Tim would be just fine. He went to sleep though before he could too deeply contemplate the sense of disappointment at the realization that, while Tim had trusted him with those few rare, personal details of his life, there would always be a certain otherness there, that lack of shared experience that drew Tim to seeking out Army friends Raylan hadn’t even known he had on the rare night that a lucky shot pierced through his fierce defenses.