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Tim doesn't hear from Raylan for fifteen years, all told.
It's a long time. He gets promoted, and turns down the next two promotions Rachel offers him, because he doesn't want anyone ever eyeing him for a position like hers. He loses his apartment in a buyout, briefly considers settling into something more permanent, and then signs another month-to-month lease the next day.
He never quite manages to stop hooking up with tall men with sharp eyes wearing cowboy hats.
(He has reasons for his own radio silence. Valid ones. Whatever Raylan's reasons are, Tim assumes they're just as valid.)
And then, on a random Sunday, he gets a text. In Chicago for the rest of the week, it says. Pretty sure I still owe you a coffee or two.
Tim's not sure what's worse: Raylan asking him to make the trip to Chicago for coffee, or the assumption that, after all this time, Tim would still have his number saved.
(He does, of course. Seeing Raylan's name in his notifications had nearly stopped his heart.)
For a moment, he considers not responding. Leaving Raylan on read, as it were. The part of him that spent the past fifteen years pining might get some sort of sadistic satisfaction out of that – except the same part of him would end up a hell of a lot more satisfied if he didn't.
His thumb hovers over the keyboard on his phone, hesitating. Then he swipes back to his contacts and hits 'call' on the name directly above Raylan's.
"What's wrong?" Rachel asks, in lieu of a greeting, which – fair. This isn't a thing Tim does, if he can help it.
"Need a favor."
"Making bail, or hiding a body?"
Tim grins to himself. "Neither, but the day is still young."
Rachel makes a familiar, fond sound of exasperation. "Then what?"
"Time off," Tim makes himself say. He can't remember the last time he asked – he has to have a decent number of days saved up. "Through the end of the week."
"We have a system for this," Rachel says despondently, and then, before Tim can get too disappointed, she continues. "Yeah, Tim. Of course. You– is everything okay?"
Tim feels the briefest pang of guilt, but he swallows it down. Rachel would never let him live it down if she knew what he was using the time off for. "Peachy," he says instead of explaining. "I owe you one."
He pours himself a drink before he texts Raylan back, just enough to steel his nerves. When he catches himself hesitating again, he throws the drink back and thinks fuck it.
Gonna pay for my cab fare from the airport, too?
He gets a reply so quickly, it has the same timestamp. I'll pick you up. Send me the details.
And twenty minutes later, Tim's booked himself a last-minute red-eye flight to Chicago.
Raylan does meet him – on time, even – with a grin and a steaming cup of coffee that Tim takes from him quickly, grateful to have something to do with his mouth other than stare, slack-jawed. Because Raylan looks good. His jeans are tight in all the right places, and his pale grey plaid shirt is open, showing a softer heathered grey Henley beneath. But Tim's gaze lingers longest on the silver hair peeking out from under that stupid hat, on the white stubble decorating Raylan’s jaw.
It’s unfair, really.
He takes a sip of his coffee and burns his tongue. "You got old."
Raylan huffs a breath of laughter. "You don't like it?" he asks, and then he reaches up and takes his hat off, giving Tim much more than a glimpse at all that silvery hair. He runs his hand through it, and Tim is briefly, intensely jealous of Raylan’s own damn hand.
He swallows thickly. "Don't go putting words in my mouth, Raylan," he says. "Suits you. Though I'm sure you've got every eligible woman in Chicago telling you that." He pauses, smirks. “Probably a few ineligible ones, too.”
"Some of the men, too," Raylan says, and – oh.
"Yeah," Tim hears himself say. "The whole silver fox look is pretty popular right now."
"Know that for a fact, do you?"
Tim opens his mouth to respond, and then shuts it as someone jostles him from behind. His shoulders go up reflexively, lifting his backpack higher. They're still in the airport, for fuck's sake – it's not the place to have this conversation.
Even if he so desperately wants to.
"Come on," Raylan says, before Tim can stick his foot in his mouth. "Car's outside."
Raylan goes, and Tim follows, and for a moment it's so painfully familiar that his teeth ache. He wonders for a moment if Raylan is thinking the same thing, and then lingers with that thought and wonders what Raylan is thinking at all.
That was… something, back there. But Raylan’s always been Tim’s blind spot, and now he can’t tell what kind of something, exactly, it was.
Raylan leads him to a black SUV that's parked in a designated "No Parking' zone, his marshal's ID displayed in the window like a parking permit. Tim laughs under his breath, earning himself a smile that Raylan barely manages to conceal in time.
"I'll be sure to mention the curbside pickup in my review," Tim says as he slides into the passenger seat. His backpack gets stashed behind it. "Sure you don't want me to drive? I have a vague memory of you being maybe the worst passenger princess I'd ever met."
Raylan gets into the driver's seat and starts the car. "That," he says, without looking over at Tim, "might've had more to do with how your hands looked on the steering wheel than anything else."
"Jesus," Tim says on an inhale, and he sees the way the muscle in Raylan's jaw ticks ever so slightly. That, he supposes, tells him what kind of something this is. "You're serious."
"Problem?"
"With the fact that you apparently spent a few years fantasizing about my hands?" Tim asks dryly. "No. Might've been nice to know, though. Would've worried a bit less about accidentally outing myself to you."
Something in Raylan's shoulders relaxes, and his grip on the steering wheel goes a little less white-knuckled. It occurs to Tim, then, that Raylan might've been worried about this, too. That Raylan might not have known that Tim was a sure thing – that, maybe, Tim was a blind spot for him, too.
"How long did you say you were in town for?"
Raylan grins, slow and sweet, and Tim gets that same helpless surge of attraction he felt the first time he saw it. "End of the week. Why?"
Tim slouches in his seat, letting his knees fall open, one hand dangling almost carelessly between his thighs. He hears Raylan's sharp little inhale, and bites his lip to hide his smile. "I might've been optimistic about what 'coffee' really meant," he drawls. "I didn't book myself a hotel room."
"Optimistic, huh?"
"Raylan," Tim says evenly. "Drive."
They don't, contrary to Tim’s expectations, fall all over each other the moment they're alone.
Instead, Raylan shuts the door to the hotel room, and then he turns to face Tim, one hand reaching out to lay against his waist almost hesitantly. And Tim, in turn, who's accustomed to a first touch being a hand on his shoulder, sending him to his knees, or rough fingers scrabbling at his belt – Tim shudders, his heart climbing up into his throat.
"Oh," Raylan says in quiet wonder, like he's surprised, like Tim jumping on a flight less than 12 hours after getting a text didn't show Tim's hand entirely.
Then Raylan kisses him, and Tim stops thinking about much else.
Tim knows, immediately, that he's not the first man Raylan has kissed. He also realizes, just as quickly, why every woman in Kentucky who so much as got a taste of him became obsessed. Raylan kisses like it's the main event – slow, drugging kisses that set Tim's brain to buzzing and leave him leaning into Raylan's frame, searching out more contact.
“Been wanting to do that for a long time," Raylan says against his mouth, and Tim has to bite his own tongue to stop himself from making an embarrassing noise.
"Thought it was my hands you were fantasizing about."
Raylan cocks an eyebrow, and then he reaches down, taking one of Tim's hands in his own. He kisses Tim's palm, and Tim has just enough time to remember that Raylan had always been shameless before he feels the man's mouth close around his thumb.
Tim makes a punched-out little sound, arousal curling hot and tight low in his abdomen. Raylan's tongue drags over the pad of his thumb, and then he hollows his cheeks, and Tim's knees go entirely liquid.
“Fuck,” he croaks.
Raylan hums, and Tim pointedly does not think about how that would feel if Raylan's lips were wrapped around something else. He's painfully hard, dizzy with it, and he wants in a way he hasn't wanted in a long time. It's not impatience, though – he's just eager.
(Desperate, his mind provides, entirely unhelpfully.)
When Raylan pulls back, he snags Tim by the belt loops and tugs him forward. Raylan goes sprawling back against the bed, and Tim ends up more or less on top of him, with Raylan looking entirely too smug as he lays back against the pillows.
Because he wants to watch, Tim realizes. Because Raylan liked the sight of his hands around the steering wheel, and now he wants to enjoy the sight of Tim above him.
He opens his mouth to say something – maybe to add 'pillow princess' to Raylan's list of titles – but Raylan beats him to it. Warm, strong hands settle on his hips, and then Raylan says, "Come back to Miami with me."
Tim's mouth snaps shut with an audible sound.
For a moment, they just look at each other – Raylan with quiet expectation, and Tim with... well. He's not sure what.
"Good to know you're still you," Tim says after a moment. "Hell of a thing to ask a guy on a first date, Raylan."
Raylan holds his gaze, steady. "Call me optimistic."
Tim groans, and then leans down, kissing the smug little smile off his face. "Asshole," he grumbles, nipping at Raylan’s lower lip and enjoying the way Raylan jerks underneath him. Then: "Someday I'm gonna figure out how to tell you no."
Raylan's fingers pause in their idle creeping towards the button of Tim's jeans. "Yeah?"
"Someday," Tim repeats, stressing the word. He reaches down, nudging Raylan’s hand the rest of the way. "Not today."