Deputy U.S. Marshal Tim Gutterson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
comfortablyerect) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
singillatim2026-02-23 08:11 pm
comfortablyerect) wrote in singillatim2026-02-23 08:11 pm
Entry tags:
your body's aching, every bone is breaking
Character Name: Tim Gutterson (Big Tim)
Who: Tim and You! (OTA + closed starter)
What: Paying respects, dealing with Fog Things (may add more later!)
When: Mostly early February
Where: The farm house, milton outskirts, around milton, community hall
Content Warnings: Mentions of character death, dead animals (no descriptors), food scarcity with The Fog(tm), the required self-harm for dealing with the fog. Will update as needed.
It’s not like he hasn’t known that the Darkwalker can do some serious damage. Physical, mental, emotional, getting to them through nightmares and curses and insane weather. Some of it he’s only heard about, some of it he’s experienced himself in the almost year he’s been here. Death has always been a very real threat, and he lost plenty of people he loved to it long before this.
Somehow, Chloe’s death has him reeling. He didn’t expect it. In Afghanistan, he always expected it. It was always right around the corner. It is here, too, but the circumstances – she should’ve been safe in the farmhouse. She was one of the toughest of them. In the stories they swapped– he knows she had to have fought tooth and nail.
They didn’t know each other incredibly well or particularly long, but he saw her as a brother in arms. Now he won’t see her at all, and he’s feeling a particular way about it. Angry, of course, but also oddly helpless. That’s never been his experience with death. The anger has always fueled a need for retribution, given him a sense of stubborn patience to see it through. Right now, he feels like there isn’t any point. If it can get to Chloe, it can get to any of them. If she couldn’t win against it, none of the rest of them can either.
He’s at the farm house. Not on the property proper, but at the edge of it. Last time he was here was when he was helping her pull boards from her windows after the hail storm. It feels appropriate to pay some form of respect.
"All gave some, some gave all,” Tim says. “‘Til Valhalla.”
Tim never hated fog so much in his life.
Just the presence of it puts him on a particular edge. Last time it conjured a memory and triggered a full blown PTSD episode that took months to fully come back from. He’s not sure that he would’ve if he didn’t have someone here to keep him sane. He’s not very keen on repeating the experience, and he’s almost relieved at first when he realizes that’s not what the fog is doing.
Until he realizes what it is doing.
The traps have been scarce lately. Maybe this is why. Tim finds a rabbit rotting in one of them that was empty just the morning before. It’s not long after that he discovers the fog’s effects extends to all living things by way of coughing up a bit of blood. Rather than trying to make it home, he barricades himself in a (hopefully) empty house. Which doesn’t do much, but the rune he recalls from the dream does, Tim not hesitating to cut open his forearm for the blood to draw it on the door.
He draws it on the back of his hand, too, leaving his glove off to keep it from smudging. He doesn’t run as hot as he used to, the lightbringer power feeling fizzled inside him, but he doesn’t mind the way it numbs his fingers. It’s the hand that adopted the injury of Raylan’s to heal him, which has been aching and stinging more and more lately.
He stops by the community hall on his way home, trying to take stock of what food they have in storage. There’s still some meat from the moose hunt, but not a lot. He paints the rune on the ice chests and pantry doors. They’re going to be eating scarcely for a while.
[ ooc: Feel free to find Tim checking traps, at the community hall, or around town in between! The house he barricades himself in doesn’t even have to be empty tbh. ]
A little bit of it is left over from physically pulling him from the mines just a couple of months ago, but most of it is this feeling of helplessness he can’t seem to shake. The truth is, he’s terrified. Terrified that every time they part ways for the day, it’ll be the last time they see each other. That the next time he sees Raylan, his body will be distorted and disfigured the way they say Chloe’s was. That they won’t make it home together to live out the future he’s longing for.
He makes each kiss last as long as he can. He tries to keep himself busy throughout the day, but he always spends it feeling like something inevitable and horrible is going to happen. A lingering sense of dread that he didn’t even get in Afghanistan and Iraq. The only thing he feels certain of for some reason is that it’s almost over. He just doesn’t know how it’s going to end.
Tim’s sitting at one end of the couch because it means he can see the front door. There’s a glass of bourbon on the coffee table – since the Holiday Boar’s visit, he’s fallen somewhere between drinking like he used to and still trying to ration, which essentially amounts to a glass a night, occasionally two. The end is nigh, or whatever. It doesn’t feel imperative to make it last a year.
There’s a book open in his lap that he’s very much not reading when the front door opens. It’s probably an interesting book, but focusing on menial things has become increasingly harder to do.
“Welcome home,” he says before Raylan’s even fully in the door. Something begins to settle a bit inside him.
Who: Tim and You! (OTA + closed starter)
What: Paying respects, dealing with Fog Things (may add more later!)
When: Mostly early February
Where: The farm house, milton outskirts, around milton, community hall
Content Warnings: Mentions of character death, dead animals (no descriptors), food scarcity with The Fog(tm), the required self-harm for dealing with the fog. Will update as needed.
FARMHOUSE
It’s not like he hasn’t known that the Darkwalker can do some serious damage. Physical, mental, emotional, getting to them through nightmares and curses and insane weather. Some of it he’s only heard about, some of it he’s experienced himself in the almost year he’s been here. Death has always been a very real threat, and he lost plenty of people he loved to it long before this.
Somehow, Chloe’s death has him reeling. He didn’t expect it. In Afghanistan, he always expected it. It was always right around the corner. It is here, too, but the circumstances – she should’ve been safe in the farmhouse. She was one of the toughest of them. In the stories they swapped– he knows she had to have fought tooth and nail.
They didn’t know each other incredibly well or particularly long, but he saw her as a brother in arms. Now he won’t see her at all, and he’s feeling a particular way about it. Angry, of course, but also oddly helpless. That’s never been his experience with death. The anger has always fueled a need for retribution, given him a sense of stubborn patience to see it through. Right now, he feels like there isn’t any point. If it can get to Chloe, it can get to any of them. If she couldn’t win against it, none of the rest of them can either.
He’s at the farm house. Not on the property proper, but at the edge of it. Last time he was here was when he was helping her pull boards from her windows after the hail storm. It feels appropriate to pay some form of respect.
"All gave some, some gave all,” Tim says. “‘Til Valhalla.”
MILTON OUTSKIRTS/COMMUNITY HALL
Tim never hated fog so much in his life.
Just the presence of it puts him on a particular edge. Last time it conjured a memory and triggered a full blown PTSD episode that took months to fully come back from. He’s not sure that he would’ve if he didn’t have someone here to keep him sane. He’s not very keen on repeating the experience, and he’s almost relieved at first when he realizes that’s not what the fog is doing.
Until he realizes what it is doing.
The traps have been scarce lately. Maybe this is why. Tim finds a rabbit rotting in one of them that was empty just the morning before. It’s not long after that he discovers the fog’s effects extends to all living things by way of coughing up a bit of blood. Rather than trying to make it home, he barricades himself in a (hopefully) empty house. Which doesn’t do much, but the rune he recalls from the dream does, Tim not hesitating to cut open his forearm for the blood to draw it on the door.
He draws it on the back of his hand, too, leaving his glove off to keep it from smudging. He doesn’t run as hot as he used to, the lightbringer power feeling fizzled inside him, but he doesn’t mind the way it numbs his fingers. It’s the hand that adopted the injury of Raylan’s to heal him, which has been aching and stinging more and more lately.
He stops by the community hall on his way home, trying to take stock of what food they have in storage. There’s still some meat from the moose hunt, but not a lot. He paints the rune on the ice chests and pantry doors. They’re going to be eating scarcely for a while.
[ ooc: Feel free to find Tim checking traps, at the community hall, or around town in between! The house he barricades himself in doesn’t even have to be empty tbh. ]
CLOSED to Raylan
you know i play with all those strays prowling outside your door
It’s getting harder and harder to let Raylan out of his sight.A little bit of it is left over from physically pulling him from the mines just a couple of months ago, but most of it is this feeling of helplessness he can’t seem to shake. The truth is, he’s terrified. Terrified that every time they part ways for the day, it’ll be the last time they see each other. That the next time he sees Raylan, his body will be distorted and disfigured the way they say Chloe’s was. That they won’t make it home together to live out the future he’s longing for.
He makes each kiss last as long as he can. He tries to keep himself busy throughout the day, but he always spends it feeling like something inevitable and horrible is going to happen. A lingering sense of dread that he didn’t even get in Afghanistan and Iraq. The only thing he feels certain of for some reason is that it’s almost over. He just doesn’t know how it’s going to end.
Tim’s sitting at one end of the couch because it means he can see the front door. There’s a glass of bourbon on the coffee table – since the Holiday Boar’s visit, he’s fallen somewhere between drinking like he used to and still trying to ration, which essentially amounts to a glass a night, occasionally two. The end is nigh, or whatever. It doesn’t feel imperative to make it last a year.
There’s a book open in his lap that he’s very much not reading when the front door opens. It’s probably an interesting book, but focusing on menial things has become increasingly harder to do.
“Welcome home,” he says before Raylan’s even fully in the door. Something begins to settle a bit inside him.
no subject
There's no way to have that without dragging someone down with his baggage. The nightmares, the paranoid, the episodes-- the drinking that's probably well on its way to becoming some kind of problem. He found out rather quickly after coming home from his last deployment that most folks simply aren't able or willing to deal with all that. And he really shouldn't expect them to.
But Raylan did. He did even after Tim gave him an out, he does every time he reaches over in the dark when Tim jolts awake in the middle of the night. He can't imagine his life at this point without Raylan taking up space in his bed and his heart. He certainly doesn't want anyone else there. This is it for him.
So when Raylan starts talking like there's a chance that it isn't, Tim frowns. He reaches up a hand, taking his partner by the chin. Not rough, but firm, making sure he has every ounce of Raylan's attention.
"You think this is me settlin' or somethin'? Like we're gonna get home and I'm gonna realize I have greater prospects than the Milton datin' pool?" His hand slides back to the back of Raylan's neck, pulling him down a bit closer. "I don't want anyone else, darlin'. Only you. Hell--"
He smiles, pushing himself up so their faces are close, not even a full foot apart.
"It was only you before either of us even got here."
no subject
No, his fear tore at his heart and stomach to even think about it. The worst thing, amid death and insanity, that could come from this place. Them not remembering. Them losing every bit of this, the connection and trust they've built and it gutted him that it was a possibility. And how could he even think about it now with Tim smiling up at him like that and pulling him down.
Hand sliding around from Tim's hair to the back of his head, Raylan flashes a grin before kissing Tim soundly. His off hand comes to settle on Tim's stomach but fists into his t-shirt as they kiss. Maybe it had been the way that Tim grabbed his chin, or the fear, or good old fashioned hot-bloodness, Raylan's fingers push Tim's shirt out of the way so they could spread over bare skin.
When the kiss ends due to that annoying need to breathe, Raylan doesn't pull away any more than he needs to, to mutter out his words.
"I want it to be me forever when we get back," he husks and, with a new spike of a totally different variety of fear for having said it out loud at all, Raylan solves the problem by kissing Tim again. He could, and aimed to, lose himself all over again in his sharp tongued sniper.
no subject
Could they even get back to this if they had to start all over? Or would they get hung up on the domestics they haven't had to face here? Their jobs, Raylan's ex-wife, the kid. After everything they've faced here in Milton, he knows those things are menial in the grand scheme of things. Easy to figure out. But if they don't even remember what they've been through here, all of those menial things become monumental.
It's the worst case scenario. At least if they die, they die together. They die having known and loved each other so wholly. There's a part of him that thinks that might be the best case scenario.
It terrifies him to think about, so he doesn't think about it. Which is exceptionally easy when Raylan's kissing him like this. The hand on his bare stomach sends a shiver right up his spine, like he's a teenager again, eager and wanting, fumbling around with a boy in the backseat of his truck. He doesn't think Raylan ever won't have this effect on him.
He's still pushing himself up with one arm, the other hand not moving from his partner's chin as they kiss. He doesn't even have time to respond when they break to breathe, the words striking his heart at nearly the same time those lips cover his again. With a hum against Raylan's mouth, and without breaking the kiss, Tim shifts to sit up, sliding into a position he's grown very familiar with -- straddling his partner's lap.
When it becomes necessary to breathe again, Tim doesn't draw back at all, instead placing kisses along the edge of Raylan's jaw, only stopping to murmur in his ear. "It's you forever, darlin'."
no subject
Forever was right now and every scrap of his being was focused on Tim.
Raylan sighs out another note as Tim peppers kisses along his jaw, face tilting a little to give Tim all the skin he wants as Raylan's hands move again. Those words in his ear made him shiver, made his blood run hotter, turning the need to touch Tim's bare skin into the same involuntary command that drove his need to breathe, and one hand finds its way back under Tim's shirt.
"You're gonna spoil me, with that kinda talk." His faint restraint only lasts half a second before he's pushing Tim's shirt up and out of the way, eager to get his mouth on Tim's neck and collarbone. There was no way he was getting out of tonight without ending up with some kind of love-mark on him, as if to cement the sentiment.