errantechoes | (no subject)

Honestly, the question took him by surprise. He was expecting Raylan to stay angry. He was expecting an argument, a fight, one that neither of them were likely to win, because neither of them ever did. That was why they always argued again when they met back up. It wasn't like it was a lot of individual arguments — it was one long one that never quite got finished. But for once, he wasn't looking for a fight. He didn't want a reason to get combative. He didn't think he had the patience for it tonight. Maybe the bites had drained him more than he originally thought.

He frowned, his eyes narrowing a little. "Why?" he asked. The answer was no, of course, and he'd tell Raylan as much. Just as soon as he heard why it was that Raylan was so concerned about it.

Most of those unending arguments they seemed to be have could be resolved if either one of them could just own up to the real reasons for the disagreements. But that would require either one of them admitting to their true emotions, and that was about as likely as squeezing blood from a stone. Or at the very least, one of them would have to be marginally less stubborn or sarcastic. Which was even more unlikely.

Raylan was still incredibly close to Tim, not exactly looming, but using every bit of his extra height to his advantage. He obviously didn't intend to back out of Tim's personal space any time soon. "It don't matter why. Did they or didn't they?!" His ire was making it difficult to resist the deputy being so very close. Because it was hard enough to remember he wouldn't be feeding just yet. This week was different.

Tim was more likely to walk into a gunfight without his vest than ever admit to Raylan what his problems really were. And, really, that was only a slight exaggeration. There were a lot of problems with sharing his feelings, and at least half of it had to do with how much worse this case could get fucked up because of them. There were other things, too, more personal things Tim never cared to touch down on, not even to himself.

He wasn't backing down. Raylan was taller and since being turned, he was faster and stronger, too, but generally speaking, Tim's self-preservation instincts tended to be lacking. As a matter of fact, Tim stepped even closer, glaring up at Raylan right back. Just being close to him made Tim's skin crawl in the most needy way, and he tried his hardest to ignore it. "Tell me why."

Raylan tilted his head slightly, not quite meeting Tim's gaze. Almost, but not quite. Like he'd look at the deputy's eyebrows, or cheeks, but no closer than that. This wasn't out of any sort of shame or hesitation, just that he knew if he did, it would break some sort of barrier inside him. It would break the wall that held back all that he shoved away and didn't want to think about. No matter which aspect came rushing out, it would have him pinning Tim against the nearest wall, and he just couldn't do that right now.

His lips pressed together tighter and he let out an audible huff through his nose. He was not at all pleased with the fact that Tim wasn't just answering. If he told, he was certain Boyd would have his hide. And if he held his tongue, there was no telling what hell would rain down upon him. "Because it's important," he said, his words pointed and direct. As if that was all that needed to be said.

Tim didn't step any closer (he couldn't, really, with how close they were already), but he did seem to lean in a bit, chin tilting upwards so he could look at Raylan more properly. He suddenly felt like he was right back at that line again, the blurry one they'd crossed last week, and all he wanted to do now was toe it. He wanted to see how much he could push before he either got shut down or what he wanted. And it was what he wanted, not what he needed. He didn't need the bite. He wanted Raylan pressing against him and touching him and biting him.

God, that was terrifying.

He wasn't bothered by Raylan's irritation. It just meant he was more likely to lose his temper, and Tim thought that maybe that was what he wanted. Or close to it, anyway. He kept his expression unimpressed, brows arching. "That's not a real answer," he accused. He wasn't even sure he cared about the why anymore (he did, just more distantly than before), not with how distracted he'd gotten by Raylan standing so close.

They weren't just at the line. They were right on top of it. Raylan could feel it, like standing at the very edge of a cliff. That the smallest move could send him tumbling into something from which he'd never return. And yet he couldn't stop his wandering gaze, dipping down toward Tim's throat. Trying to check the bite marks, he wanted to tell himself, but there was no denying that feeling in his gut. He wanted to step off that cliff.

"I need to know before I can tell you," he stressed, his tone continuing to be sharp and direct. If Tim was enthralled to another, it was likely he wouldn't even be here, but Raylan had to be certain. Besides, he couldn't just back down. That would mean stepping back from that edge.

Edited 2015-05-05 21:35 (UTC)

Tim didn't miss the way Raylan's gaze wandered, and it was only because he was so damn good at keeping his expression so stoic that he didn't smirk. It might've shown in his eyes though, just a little. He swallowed hard, purposely, just to make the muscles in his throat flex. He wanted to taunt Raylan into making the first move.

Objectively, Tim was aware that the conversation they were having was a serious one, and Raylan was wanting the answer to a serious question for a serious reason, and as a responsible, functioning adult, Tim should've been cooperating more and seeking answers himself. But that would mean backing away from the edge, and he didn't want to do that either. "Why can't you just tell me first?" he asked, matching Raylan for all his stubbornness.

That swallow, that flex. For a fleeting moment, that simple movement took up all of Raylan's focus. Lips parted he let out a soft, slow breath, his eyes tracing the vein he could see, faintly beneath the skin. It took every ounce of effort he had to hold himself back for that single moment. His entire world was that single swallow and Tim's pulse.

But those words dragged him back to the real world, and he remembered how irritated he was. Lips pressed firmly together, he lifted his chin, looking Tim in the eye. That distraction had fled completely, now he was focused. Intently. On how Tim was avoiding the question. "Just answer the damn question, Gutterson." He planted both hands on his hips. "Did they give you their blood or not."

For just a second, Tim thought he had him. Thought he had managed to entice Raylan into giving him what he wanted without having to say it. He watched quietly, almost eagerly, as Raylan's slips parted, as he stared at the muscles flexing in his neck. But then in the next second, the vampire snapped out of it, and Tim was left disappointed.

Disappointed, but not entirely deterred. Raylan was stubborn and Tim was patient. They could be out here all night if one of them didn't give in. "Why do you care?" Tim asked, and at this point, he was just being antagonizing. "Concerned about my well-bein', Givens? Don't be."

Usually, Raylan would just keep pushing until Tim gave up. Or feign indifference until he either spoke or gave up. But this wasn't something he could just let slide. Tim's insistence on not answering had Raylan paranoid. Did one of Boyd's crew have him enthralled? Was it some other clan? Anyone could be using the other deputy as a spy. Or worse.

He stepped back, giving a small shake of his head with one of those incredibly, disapporiving frowns of his. "Who said it had to be your well-bein' I'm worried about?"

Tim didn't believe him. Or maybe (and probably more accurately) he didn't want to believe him. He would've liked to believe that that was what this was about-- Raylan being concerned over Tim's well being. Wishful thinking, probably, that the whole thing meant as much to Raylan as it did to him.

He really needed to stop doing that. He'd end up getting himself hurt. Like he did in the motel that night.

Tim was ready to back down. Raylan wasn't going to give up, so he would. Just so he could get out of here faster, so he wouldn't have to see Raylan's face. "No," he said, lifting his gaze to look Raylan in the eye. "I didn't take any of their blood. Now tell me why you needed to know so damn bad."

Of course Raylan cared about Tim's well being. He was a good marshal, and at least a decent friend. And he was definitely one of the last true allies Raylan had left. One of the last things holding him to his humanity. Because without that, there'd be nothing to stop him from giving in. From ripping out Boyd's throat and handling things his own way. Because with the undead, the basic laws started to break down.

You couldn't go away for murder when the man you killed was already dead.

It was just that admitting such a thing to Tim was difficult, because he couldn't even admit it to himself. He was still a good man trying to do the right thing.

All at once he turned, snapping at Tim. "Cause if they'd given it to ya, it means you belong to them." He pointed first at Tim, then at the window as if to indicate the whole outside world. "And if I go feedin' on you," pointing at himself, "they got reason to do a whole lotta awful shit to me that you don't wanna know." And that was just the start of all of the possibilities.

Tim didn't even flinch. Not at Raylan's volume or the sharpness to his words or what he was saying. He was used to the kind of rage Raylan possessed. He was used to much worse than it, too. So he listened, unblinking and unwavering, his expression drawn into its usual blank poker face.

Once Raylan finished, Tim spoke up, his voice very calm and quiet compared to the other's. "That would've been really nice to know before all this shit started."

He was annoyed. Annoyed that the service had a vampire CI that was keeping shit from them. Important shit, too, because anything that had to do with how vampires worked, the sorts of powers and abilities they had, was fucking important. It made him wonder what else Raylan was keeping from them.

However, in light of this news, Tim was going to be more careful. He wasn't going to stop, but cut back, maybe. Be a little more cautious than he had been.

Raylan seemed to just sort of shut down for a moment. Not the blank stare sort of involuntary shut down. But a forced shut down. His lips screwed tightly together and he bowed his head, glaring intently at a spot on the floor near Tim's feet. The look he got when he knew he was going to say something he really shouldn't.

Slowly, he lifted his head, lips still a thin, pale line. He still needed a moment, forcing out a hard breath through his nose.

"Cause if even half this shit got out, do you know what the hell kinda mess you'd have to deal with?" He took a slow step back toward Tim. "You want every nut job out there claimin' 'vampires made me do it' and not bein' able to disprove it?"

Unlike Raylan, Tim wasn't a very angry person. He didn't have much of a temper, and was more likely to become exasperated or vaguely annoyed than angry. What little temper he did have didn't flare up very often, or very big.

But irritation flickered inside of him at Raylan's words, the quiet flames of anger making him clench his jaw.

"That was somethin' that we needed to know," he said, and his tone snapped more than usual. 'We' being the marshal's service, not the general population. If they were going to take down Boyd, they needed to know everything. They needed to be aware of everything. If they were going to do this, they couldn't have a blind spot.

"I needed to know that." Because being fed on was dangerous enough as it was, let alone when he wasn't aware of all the risks.

Raylan just continued to stare at Tim, lips returning to that hard-set line. His chin jutted out as he once again reigned in a very unkind set of words that had no place in polite society. He rolled his shoulders, trying to settle himself so he could speak again.

"When you showed up for the first day of basic trainin', did ya have all the skills you got now?" He tilted his head as he said it. "Did you have all the knowledge and information that you've got now? Cause that's what it's like, Gutterson. I didn't wake up one night and with all the answers. I'm learnin' it as they see fit to tell me." Or as he sees fit to beat it out of people. But that was a matter of perspective. "So how 'bout you dial it back just a bit?"

Tim took a slow, deep breath and unclenched his jaw, staring at a spot on the wall just over Raylan's shoulder. Look. This was him dialing it back. It was official: he liked Raylan better when he was alive. Somehow, he was less annoying then.

After a moment, he directed his gaze back to Raylan, any irritation completely erased from his face. Not because he wasn't irritated, but because he had a really great poker face.

"Is there anything else you're not tellin' me?" he asked. Just to be sure. Also since that was the entire reason they were meeting up in the first place. So Raylan could pass along information. Which definitely included shit about how vampires worked.

There was plenty that Raylan wasn't saying. Like how hungry he was getting. How this argument wasn't helping at all. How every single beat of Tim's heart was driving him mad. How he couldn't stop thinking of what it felt like when they'd been pressed against each other in bed...

But it was more that he was refusing to admit to any of that to himself, than not wanting to tell Tim. There might have been a detail or two he'd not told about Boyd or vampires in general. But right now, sorting out what he'd told from what he hadn't was getting rather difficult. Thought in general was breaking down. This conversation just needed to be done. He needed to be somewhere less open.

"I could ask you the same thing," he said, a sharp edge to his tone, his gaze dipping to those marks on Tim's neck. Then something shifted in him. A door closing. A resignation. "I'll send a formal report." He moved to step around Tim so he could leave.

Tim put a hand on Raylan's chest to stop him, to keep him from walking past. He knew very well that if Raylan didn't want to be stopped or pushed back, he was more than capable of of continuing on his way, physically speaking. He could easily overpower Tim, despite Tim's extensive military training.

The thought was way more erotic and arousing than it should've been, but most things were for Tim.

Raylan's chest remained still under his palm, Tim noted. There was no heartbeat, no breathing, and he didn't think that will ever stop being eerie to him, no matter how many vampires he encountered. But he didn't pull his hand away. He glanced up at Raylan.

"This how it's always gonna be?" he asked. "Somethin' happens that you don't like so you pitch a fit about it? How's that been workin' for you?"

Edited (fucking tense changes) 2015-12-28 04:38 (UTC)

Raylan's gaze dropped to the hand on his chest, then shot up to Tim's face, eyebrows raised. He'd halted at the touch, but he was very clearly not pleased with Tim's forwardness. It was a challenge. Intentionally pushing Raylan. Or that's how he saw it. Something in there about Tim feeling powerless and needing to assert himself. Raylan didn't feel much in the mood to analyze the hows and whys of it, he just knew it irritated him.

There was another thing that he hadn't told the marshals about. Something major that he'd known from the start. It was one thing to have a vampire's blood in one's system. They were painfully loyal if the vampire willed it so, among other rather irritating aspects. It turned unwitting humans into very useful spies. But what he'd never mentioned before was the ability to compel people, which more or less worked the opposite way. It was far easier for a vampire to work his will on someone he'd fed from.

So he looked Tim dead in the eye. His pupils dilated slightly, red slowly creeping in from the corners of his eyes. Not unlike when he started to lose control when angry or hungry. Then he simply said, "Sit down," and gestured toward a chair. He needed Tim to know how dangerous all of this was. Why freely associating with vampires in such an intimate way had Raylan on edge.

Of course, Raylan's answer to that was to pitch a fit about it. Go figure.

Tim's eyes flickered briefly in surprise as Raylan suddenly looked him straight in the eye, though he didn't let it show anywhere else on his face. Sit down Raylan said, gestured, and suddenly, that command was the only thing in his head. Like everything else short circuited and that was all he had left to do.

So he did it. He backed off and took a seat where Raylan indicated. And for a moment that was all he did, was sit there, watching Raylan. Then all at once, the wires reconnected and he realized what he was doing. Sitting down, because Raylan said so. Sitting down, even though he didn't want to be. It didn't make a whole lot of sense, but it was more than enough to fray all of Tim's nerves.

"What the fuck, Raylan?"

He didn't stand up, but he was looking up at Raylan, jaw clenched and glaring.

It wasn't a skill Raylan was very good at. He got the job done, but he lacked subtly. Like trying to kill someone with a sledgehammer. It was kind of hard to miss. Where his will overtook the other's, it was noticeable. But when someone like Boyd did such a thing, people so very rarely knew they'd been altered. They acted as though it were their idea all along. Or automatically blurred the edges of a hole in their memory. It was a scalpel sharp blade. People wouldn't know anything had happened until they saw the blood on their hands.

Raylan just looked pointedly at Tim as he reached for the door. But he didn't open it yet. "I told you it's dangerous, what you've been doin'. Now you know why." As if to punctuate his words, he yanked the door open.

Tim stood up, to meet Raylan at the door, to slam it shut again and put himself between it and the vampire. He hadn't been happy when this meeting started, and he'd only grown more and more annoyed the longer it went on. Probably, he should've just let Raylan go. They both needed to cool down. The longer they argued, the more agitated they would get, and that wasn't bound to lead to anything good. It never did. But Tim was having trouble letting it go.

All he wanted to do before was get this over with. Now all he wanted to do was fight. Funny how Raylan brought that out in him.

He pressed his back against the door, already knowing that if Raylan wanted to move him, he could. But he looked up at the other anyway, jaw tight. "You didn't think that was somethin' you should've told us?"

What he really meant was 'something you should've told me,' but it was easier to pretend it was just about the marshal's service, and not himself.

Raylan flashed a look at Tim. Time was it would have been simple anger and irritation. But now the whites of his eyes flashed dark red for a moment, before fading back to normal. The flare of rage that he quelled before it could manifest. That urge to lash out that he'd always felt, but almost always pushed back down. Only these days it seemed harder to resist that urge.

He took a slow, controlled breath. He couldn't outright say why he didn't provide such information before. Because Boyd kept so much from him. He'd only recently learned that blood makes it easier. He wanted to know everything before he shared it, so no one was running off half cocked and getting themselves killed in the process.

"Well it ain't like I can just ring you up in the middle of the day and say, 'Hey Tim, I just found out something I shoulda known from the start' when I'm in the middle of a goddamn vampire nest, now is it." There was no hiding the tension in his voice now. But that had more to do with other things. Because now he was angry. And these days, angry usually meant hungry as well, because he was trying to be a good little CI and not feeding on Boyd's usual stock. "And now's the time you get outta my way, unless you want somethin' we'll both regret happenin."

Tim had seen Raylan angry before. They might not have worked together for very long before the other got turned, but it was sort of hard to miss. Raylan seemed to be angry frequently, as if where Tim had endless patience, the ex-deputy had none. But this was a different kind of anger. It was the kind of tight-jawed, tense-armed rage Tim used to see in his daddy. Only Raylan had the mind to push it back instead of act on it.

But it let Tim know that he was treading on very thin ice.

"I believe it was about two minutes ago I asked you if there was anything else you weren't tellin' me," Tim said, and he was quiet and calm in all the ways Raylan wasn't. "I guess I could be wrong, but I reckoned that somethin' like that might be covered by that question."

They were close again. Closer than they should've been. Tim could still see the dark red rage in Raylan's eyes, even now that it was faded, and that should've been enough to tell him to back the fuck off. But Tim never was very good at self-preservation. Instead, he was quite skilled in the art of self-destruction. So he tilted his chin up, and looked Raylan in the eyes as he said, softly, "I can't decide if that sounds more like a threat or a promise."