burning down, Justified, PG-13
Jun. 5th, 2011 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phantismaFandom: Justified
Title: burning down
Characters: Raylan, Art
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2367
Summary: Raylan was on an assignment that has gone very wrong...and he's hurt, alone and wandering through desert.
A/Ns & Warnings: I was going to blame![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
havenward for this, but it's likely my fault. She just facilitated by leaving me prompts on my comment fic prompt post. Vague violence warning...as in, his memory of the violence is vague...
Raylan. Givens.
He repeats the words. Holds on to them. They mean something. He knows they do.
They are written on his arm. He thinks maybe they're his name. It feels like a name, it feels familiar.
He stops, squints up at the harsh sky, the glare of the sun directly overhead.
He needs water and shelter, but he has no idea where he is or why or where he is going...he just remembers walking...a long way. He's been walking for hours, or it feels like hours, over sometimes rocky ground, sometimes sand.
There are more words on his skin, written hastily in red, words he must be meant to remember, all bleeding out on his skin, painting him in some code he doesn't understand.
He wonders, for a moment, as he stops and squints up into the sun, if it's the heat that's got him out of sorts...if he's gone mad in the desert sun, his memory fried, his skin burning. Heat can do that…he thinks he knows that.
He's running, except for how he's walking, stumbling really, away from something...or someone. He's hurt, but he couldn't tell really how badly. He hurts all over, but knows if he stops it will only hurt worse.
But, he can't continue, not in this heat. He needs shade, shelter of some kind. Needs to rest, try to remember what the hell if going on.
He finds a pile of rocks and circles them, looking for any bit of shade and when he finds it, he makes himself as small as he can to make use of it, breathing hard as he tries to sort himself out.
For starters, he's only got one boot, no memory of where the other is, only that the foot that's bare is burned and hurting, blistered now with marks on the sole that look like...well, he isn't rightly sure, but they're long and black burns now full of sand.
His hat is gone, and he isn't sure how he knows he had a hat, only that he can feel it's gone. His face is sore, his lip bloody and swollen. There are marks on his wrists like...handcuffs...he has a vague memory of handcuffs and....it slips away and he's left to finish his inventory of broken and bloody.
His shirt sticks to him, too small to be his own and judging from the way the salt of his sweat burns his back, it isn't just sweat making the cotton stick. He pulls it up, hands rubbing over the dark bruising over his ribs. Here too he can see a straight line of black, as though he's been hit with something more than fists.
His right hand throbs and he squints at it, at two fingers all twisted and black and blue. He figures there's more, but there's no point in knowing when it ain't gonna be helpful in the long run.
Wherever he's been, he took a beating and now he's limping through the desert with no idea who he is or where he's running to or from...or why.
He clings to the shade, dozing in the late afternoon heat, knowing if he sits too long it will make starting again that much harder. His body stiffens as the air cools, the sun setting.
Some sound wakes him, pulls him back to the moment and sets him on edge. He listens to the night, breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, tensed up and ready to flee.
Nothing comes crawling out of the dark though and he calms. He pulls off his one boot and the sock under it, putting the sock on his burned foot after brushing away what he can of the sand. He stuffs his left foot back into his boot, but when he tries to stand, he can only groan and put his hands on the rocky ground to keep his face from hitting.
"Startin' out crawling ain't no way to run." He doesn't know where the words are from, but they rattle around his brain and make him laugh, and he pushes himself up slowly, stretches.
Any way he moves it's going to hurt, but he can't stay here. The temperatures are dropping and he needs to move, find help…and hope that what he finds isn't the same thing he's crawling away from.
He doesn't really see the signs of civilization, he's too far inside the motion...just keep moving...one foot, then the next...limping slowly across ground that's gotten increasingly more stable…and it isn't until he hears the voice that he knows something has changed.
He looks up, licks dry lips with a dry tongue.
"You okay, son?"
He blinks and squints as if the words will make more sense that way. "Son?" His voice is broken glass and sand. The old man is blurry and he shakes his head, trying to clear the fuzz from it.
"You don't look so good."
He nods, but the motion is too much change and he sort of topples over, his vision gone to red...blood, though he doesn't really remember the source and he holds out a hand to the man...his mouth moving as he asks for water...at least that's what he thinks he's asking for...water for the blood that stains his hands, the broken scrape of his throat...water for the blackness that pulls him under.
He's aware that he isn't alone as he comes awake, but pain lances through him when he tries to roll onto his back.
"Easy, son, easy."
His eyes open. The room around him is simple, plain, but for the old wallpaper that tells a story he's too tired and hurting too much to read. There's an old man sitting in the chair in the corner, rising to reach out to touch him.
He holds up a hand, pausing when he sees two of his fingers splinted and taped.
"You took quite a punishing," the man says. "Doc's been by, looked you over."
He squints at the man, wants to sit up so the view isn't skewed to the side, but decides laying down is easier. "What's the damage?"
The man snorts and shakes his head. "Well, aside from the broken fingers? Two broken ribs, sprained ankle, second and third degree burns on your foot, twelve stitches in your back, one in your lip, four over your right eye, and one nasty concussion."
Which explains the overall feeling of shit.
"You gotta name?" the old man asks, sitting back.
"Raylan." he offers, holding out the arm with the word written on it. He narrows his eyes at the rest, trying to remember why he'd scribbled a set of numbers and words that at the moment still seem random.
"You know, the sayin' is 'the writing's on the wall', ain't meant to be on your arms, son."
He manages a smile before the tight pull of his stitched up lip twinges. "Something to remember." Raylan says. It's his writing, he's sure of it now, though he still doesn't remember the how or the why for it.
"How's it that you forget your own name?"
He sighs, rubs his face with the hand not held together with splints and bandaging tape. "Not sure. My whole head's a mess."
The old man snorts. "Not surprising with the way it's cracked open, and the heat didn't do you no good neither." He lurches up out of the chair. "Doc left you something for the pain, I'll get you some water."
It comes back in fragments and bits. There's a dream that chases him up out of his sleep, uncertain and unreal. Men with guns. A girl's face.
He pulls himself up, even though it hurts, and sits on the side of the bed. He had come looking for something…someone…but he can't quite put a finger on the what or who.
The bandages around his burnt foot cushion it, let him stand. He shuffles slowly to the door. The old man had said the bathroom was across the hall. Cal. He nods to himself. The old man's name was Cal.
He gets across the hall and into the bathroom, relieves himself and flushes before turning to the sink. The reflection in the mirror shouldn't be surprising, but somehow it is. His right eye is blackened, the stitches above it look angry and the swelling in his lip is pretty spectacular.
He stares at himself in a mirror, remembers getting hit. The blow was vicious, sent him reeling. There was gravel under his hands…but it slips away.
Somehow he knows he's taken a beating before, he feels it...this is not unfamiliar, but this...this goes well beyond a bar brawl gone bad.
He remembers restraints, hand cuffs maybe, and questions. Pain as they, whoever they were, wrenched his boot off and hit his foot, poked it with needles.
It was the crowbar though that he remembers most. Heated red-hot and glowing as they brought it to him. He remembers screaming until the pain mercifully made him pass out.
He washes his hands and turns himself back toward the bedroom. He thinks maybe if he tries hard enough he could remember, but the harder he tries the more his head hurts.
Cal is waiting for him with a tray when he gets into the room, a bowl of soup and a glass of tea. "Ain't much, but it's something."
He offers a smile of thanks. There's a pill on the tray too. He's not sure he wants it though. He hurts, no lie, but he can't think if he's asleep and the last one made him sleep.
"Thank you. I appreciate the hospitality."
"Well, I couldn't rightly leave you layin' on the street. Wouldn't be neighborly, and my poor dead wife would haunt me into my grave I did that."
Raylan laughs as he sits on the bed. "Well, we can't have that."
"Damn straight. She was a horrible woman." Cal says, headed for the door. "You eat up and get some rest. Doc said he'd be by to check on ya."
The motel was abandoned, the only car in the lot was his own and there was no sign of life anywhere. He double checked the information he was given, and got back into the car. He drove around the back of the motel and parked, checking his gun before getting out of the car.
He heard the truck, sneaking around one of the buildings to peer out into the parking lot. There were men with guns unloading out the back of the truck and a woman standing near the front. "Spread out. She's here somewhere."
He pulled the pen from his back pocket, scribbled down the number of men, the license plate number of the truck…all on his arm because he had no paper. He eased back as the men come, ducked into an unlocked storage room. He could hear them when they found his car. This was only going to end badly.
He isn't sure, once he's awake, if it was memory or dream or some combination of both, but he wakes with more idea of what happened than he's had in a while.
It's been three nights since Cal found him, and each day he wakes remembering a little something more. The doctor had mused that maybe he'd been drugged on top of the torture and desert heat, and maybe that's why his memory is so mussed.
He stands and pulls on the shirt the old man had loaned him, limping down the hall and into the kitchen where Cal's cooking breakfast.
"Mind if I use your phone?" Raylan asks, gesturing at it.
"Suit yourself."
Raylan lifts the handset and breathes in, searching for the number in his messed up head. He dials hesitantly and he's still uncertain when a voice answers, but he knows that voice. "Art?" Raylan asks.
"Raylan? Where the hell are you?"
"Somewhere in New Mexico I think." He rubs at his head. Art. His boss. Right.
"You think?"
"Long story, need some help." It's a big understatement.
"Did you get the witness at least?"
"The...witness...I'm going to go with no." Art is railing at him, his voice racheting up, but Raylan's world is tilting sideways, his head throbbing, his chest tight, and he drops the phone to grab at a kitchen chair, falling into it as memory slams into him with a kick that makes it hard to breathe.
Hands and feet and guns crashing into him, and someone very angry dragging him across the parking lot of a motel in the middle of nowhere, into the back of a truck.
"Who is this?"
Raylan looks up and Cal has the phone. "Well, Marshall, your man here ain't in no shape for all that. He's hurt right bad and between the concussion and the dehydration, his head's a little mussed. No call to be yelling at the man like that."
Raylan holds out his hand for the phone and Cal hands it over. "Art…just…" he sighs. "I'm not sure what happened."
"Are you all right?"
"I'll be fine." Raylan insists. "Couple broken bones, some stitches…some memory issues." He looks down at his arm, picking out the numbers and letters he assumes is the license plate number. "I've got a plate number. 45B-79Y. They were on the truck that I got hauled into."
"Local office has been looking for you for nearly a week." Art says and Raylan sits back in the chair, looking up at Cal who is going back to his cooking. A week. That means he was with whoever grabbed him for at least three days.
"Well, they ain't found me yet." Raylan says. "Cal, where are we?" Raylan asks, looking up.
"House, New Mexico." Cal says. "A tiny blip of a town with 75 people in it, if you count Josephina's cats as people."
"You hear that?" Raylan asks.
"Yeah, I'll let the deputies in New Mexico know. I'm sending Rachel and Tim."
"I'll be here." Raylan says.
He hangs up the phone as Cal is putting food on the table. He supposes he's supposed to know who Rachel and Tim are…and maybe by the time they show up he will.
Title: burning down
Characters: Raylan, Art
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2367
Summary: Raylan was on an assignment that has gone very wrong...and he's hurt, alone and wandering through desert.
A/Ns & Warnings: I was going to blame
havenward for this, but it's likely my fault. She just facilitated by leaving me prompts on my comment fic prompt post. Vague violence warning...as in, his memory of the violence is vague...Raylan. Givens.
He repeats the words. Holds on to them. They mean something. He knows they do.
They are written on his arm. He thinks maybe they're his name. It feels like a name, it feels familiar.
He stops, squints up at the harsh sky, the glare of the sun directly overhead.
He needs water and shelter, but he has no idea where he is or why or where he is going...he just remembers walking...a long way. He's been walking for hours, or it feels like hours, over sometimes rocky ground, sometimes sand.
There are more words on his skin, written hastily in red, words he must be meant to remember, all bleeding out on his skin, painting him in some code he doesn't understand.
He wonders, for a moment, as he stops and squints up into the sun, if it's the heat that's got him out of sorts...if he's gone mad in the desert sun, his memory fried, his skin burning. Heat can do that…he thinks he knows that.
He's running, except for how he's walking, stumbling really, away from something...or someone. He's hurt, but he couldn't tell really how badly. He hurts all over, but knows if he stops it will only hurt worse.
But, he can't continue, not in this heat. He needs shade, shelter of some kind. Needs to rest, try to remember what the hell if going on.
He finds a pile of rocks and circles them, looking for any bit of shade and when he finds it, he makes himself as small as he can to make use of it, breathing hard as he tries to sort himself out.
For starters, he's only got one boot, no memory of where the other is, only that the foot that's bare is burned and hurting, blistered now with marks on the sole that look like...well, he isn't rightly sure, but they're long and black burns now full of sand.
His hat is gone, and he isn't sure how he knows he had a hat, only that he can feel it's gone. His face is sore, his lip bloody and swollen. There are marks on his wrists like...handcuffs...he has a vague memory of handcuffs and....it slips away and he's left to finish his inventory of broken and bloody.
His shirt sticks to him, too small to be his own and judging from the way the salt of his sweat burns his back, it isn't just sweat making the cotton stick. He pulls it up, hands rubbing over the dark bruising over his ribs. Here too he can see a straight line of black, as though he's been hit with something more than fists.
His right hand throbs and he squints at it, at two fingers all twisted and black and blue. He figures there's more, but there's no point in knowing when it ain't gonna be helpful in the long run.
Wherever he's been, he took a beating and now he's limping through the desert with no idea who he is or where he's running to or from...or why.
He clings to the shade, dozing in the late afternoon heat, knowing if he sits too long it will make starting again that much harder. His body stiffens as the air cools, the sun setting.
Some sound wakes him, pulls him back to the moment and sets him on edge. He listens to the night, breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, tensed up and ready to flee.
Nothing comes crawling out of the dark though and he calms. He pulls off his one boot and the sock under it, putting the sock on his burned foot after brushing away what he can of the sand. He stuffs his left foot back into his boot, but when he tries to stand, he can only groan and put his hands on the rocky ground to keep his face from hitting.
"Startin' out crawling ain't no way to run." He doesn't know where the words are from, but they rattle around his brain and make him laugh, and he pushes himself up slowly, stretches.
Any way he moves it's going to hurt, but he can't stay here. The temperatures are dropping and he needs to move, find help…and hope that what he finds isn't the same thing he's crawling away from.
He doesn't really see the signs of civilization, he's too far inside the motion...just keep moving...one foot, then the next...limping slowly across ground that's gotten increasingly more stable…and it isn't until he hears the voice that he knows something has changed.
He looks up, licks dry lips with a dry tongue.
"You okay, son?"
He blinks and squints as if the words will make more sense that way. "Son?" His voice is broken glass and sand. The old man is blurry and he shakes his head, trying to clear the fuzz from it.
"You don't look so good."
He nods, but the motion is too much change and he sort of topples over, his vision gone to red...blood, though he doesn't really remember the source and he holds out a hand to the man...his mouth moving as he asks for water...at least that's what he thinks he's asking for...water for the blood that stains his hands, the broken scrape of his throat...water for the blackness that pulls him under.
He's aware that he isn't alone as he comes awake, but pain lances through him when he tries to roll onto his back.
"Easy, son, easy."
His eyes open. The room around him is simple, plain, but for the old wallpaper that tells a story he's too tired and hurting too much to read. There's an old man sitting in the chair in the corner, rising to reach out to touch him.
He holds up a hand, pausing when he sees two of his fingers splinted and taped.
"You took quite a punishing," the man says. "Doc's been by, looked you over."
He squints at the man, wants to sit up so the view isn't skewed to the side, but decides laying down is easier. "What's the damage?"
The man snorts and shakes his head. "Well, aside from the broken fingers? Two broken ribs, sprained ankle, second and third degree burns on your foot, twelve stitches in your back, one in your lip, four over your right eye, and one nasty concussion."
Which explains the overall feeling of shit.
"You gotta name?" the old man asks, sitting back.
"Raylan." he offers, holding out the arm with the word written on it. He narrows his eyes at the rest, trying to remember why he'd scribbled a set of numbers and words that at the moment still seem random.
"You know, the sayin' is 'the writing's on the wall', ain't meant to be on your arms, son."
He manages a smile before the tight pull of his stitched up lip twinges. "Something to remember." Raylan says. It's his writing, he's sure of it now, though he still doesn't remember the how or the why for it.
"How's it that you forget your own name?"
He sighs, rubs his face with the hand not held together with splints and bandaging tape. "Not sure. My whole head's a mess."
The old man snorts. "Not surprising with the way it's cracked open, and the heat didn't do you no good neither." He lurches up out of the chair. "Doc left you something for the pain, I'll get you some water."
It comes back in fragments and bits. There's a dream that chases him up out of his sleep, uncertain and unreal. Men with guns. A girl's face.
He pulls himself up, even though it hurts, and sits on the side of the bed. He had come looking for something…someone…but he can't quite put a finger on the what or who.
The bandages around his burnt foot cushion it, let him stand. He shuffles slowly to the door. The old man had said the bathroom was across the hall. Cal. He nods to himself. The old man's name was Cal.
He gets across the hall and into the bathroom, relieves himself and flushes before turning to the sink. The reflection in the mirror shouldn't be surprising, but somehow it is. His right eye is blackened, the stitches above it look angry and the swelling in his lip is pretty spectacular.
He stares at himself in a mirror, remembers getting hit. The blow was vicious, sent him reeling. There was gravel under his hands…but it slips away.
Somehow he knows he's taken a beating before, he feels it...this is not unfamiliar, but this...this goes well beyond a bar brawl gone bad.
He remembers restraints, hand cuffs maybe, and questions. Pain as they, whoever they were, wrenched his boot off and hit his foot, poked it with needles.
It was the crowbar though that he remembers most. Heated red-hot and glowing as they brought it to him. He remembers screaming until the pain mercifully made him pass out.
He washes his hands and turns himself back toward the bedroom. He thinks maybe if he tries hard enough he could remember, but the harder he tries the more his head hurts.
Cal is waiting for him with a tray when he gets into the room, a bowl of soup and a glass of tea. "Ain't much, but it's something."
He offers a smile of thanks. There's a pill on the tray too. He's not sure he wants it though. He hurts, no lie, but he can't think if he's asleep and the last one made him sleep.
"Thank you. I appreciate the hospitality."
"Well, I couldn't rightly leave you layin' on the street. Wouldn't be neighborly, and my poor dead wife would haunt me into my grave I did that."
Raylan laughs as he sits on the bed. "Well, we can't have that."
"Damn straight. She was a horrible woman." Cal says, headed for the door. "You eat up and get some rest. Doc said he'd be by to check on ya."
The motel was abandoned, the only car in the lot was his own and there was no sign of life anywhere. He double checked the information he was given, and got back into the car. He drove around the back of the motel and parked, checking his gun before getting out of the car.
He heard the truck, sneaking around one of the buildings to peer out into the parking lot. There were men with guns unloading out the back of the truck and a woman standing near the front. "Spread out. She's here somewhere."
He pulled the pen from his back pocket, scribbled down the number of men, the license plate number of the truck…all on his arm because he had no paper. He eased back as the men come, ducked into an unlocked storage room. He could hear them when they found his car. This was only going to end badly.
He isn't sure, once he's awake, if it was memory or dream or some combination of both, but he wakes with more idea of what happened than he's had in a while.
It's been three nights since Cal found him, and each day he wakes remembering a little something more. The doctor had mused that maybe he'd been drugged on top of the torture and desert heat, and maybe that's why his memory is so mussed.
He stands and pulls on the shirt the old man had loaned him, limping down the hall and into the kitchen where Cal's cooking breakfast.
"Mind if I use your phone?" Raylan asks, gesturing at it.
"Suit yourself."
Raylan lifts the handset and breathes in, searching for the number in his messed up head. He dials hesitantly and he's still uncertain when a voice answers, but he knows that voice. "Art?" Raylan asks.
"Raylan? Where the hell are you?"
"Somewhere in New Mexico I think." He rubs at his head. Art. His boss. Right.
"You think?"
"Long story, need some help." It's a big understatement.
"Did you get the witness at least?"
"The...witness...I'm going to go with no." Art is railing at him, his voice racheting up, but Raylan's world is tilting sideways, his head throbbing, his chest tight, and he drops the phone to grab at a kitchen chair, falling into it as memory slams into him with a kick that makes it hard to breathe.
Hands and feet and guns crashing into him, and someone very angry dragging him across the parking lot of a motel in the middle of nowhere, into the back of a truck.
"Who is this?"
Raylan looks up and Cal has the phone. "Well, Marshall, your man here ain't in no shape for all that. He's hurt right bad and between the concussion and the dehydration, his head's a little mussed. No call to be yelling at the man like that."
Raylan holds out his hand for the phone and Cal hands it over. "Art…just…" he sighs. "I'm not sure what happened."
"Are you all right?"
"I'll be fine." Raylan insists. "Couple broken bones, some stitches…some memory issues." He looks down at his arm, picking out the numbers and letters he assumes is the license plate number. "I've got a plate number. 45B-79Y. They were on the truck that I got hauled into."
"Local office has been looking for you for nearly a week." Art says and Raylan sits back in the chair, looking up at Cal who is going back to his cooking. A week. That means he was with whoever grabbed him for at least three days.
"Well, they ain't found me yet." Raylan says. "Cal, where are we?" Raylan asks, looking up.
"House, New Mexico." Cal says. "A tiny blip of a town with 75 people in it, if you count Josephina's cats as people."
"You hear that?" Raylan asks.
"Yeah, I'll let the deputies in New Mexico know. I'm sending Rachel and Tim."
"I'll be here." Raylan says.
He hangs up the phone as Cal is putting food on the table. He supposes he's supposed to know who Rachel and Tim are…and maybe by the time they show up he will.
