picfor1000 | Work for Idle Hands (Justified)

Title: Work for Idle Hands
Author:

tja_rama
Fandom: Justified
Spoilers: vague spoilers up to 2x01
Summary: Winona/Raylan, pg; When it's over, boy, is it ever. Winona tries (fails) to move on.

When it's over, boy, is it ever. Stupid enough to throw around ultimatums, she sits at the kitchen table and cries big, fat, ugly tears, listening to the cars roll past in the street. She thinks about the way people are, never saying what they want to say, never meaning what they really mean – she thinks about Raylan in the doorway, him and that hat of his, and the way he closed the door, gentle, gentle, knowing it would be the last time.

There's whisky on the table, and tumblers in the cupboard, but she’s never been one to stand on ceremony. The seal clicks open under her hand, and she drinks from the bottle, wincing at the burn as she swallows. It's done, she thinks, remembering the sound of her husband's feet across the gravel to his car; the way the engine chugged to a start; the way she stopped herself from going after him. It's done now.

She falls asleep at the table, and wakes at first light, ready to clean the house, and start over.

It's easier than she had reckoned, this moving on business. She wakes, she dresses, she goes to work. In the evenings she stops at the store to pick up essentials, and calls her mother whilst dinner's on. Raylan's a thousand miles away, and it's not all that different to before. She's still in the house, on her own. He's still somewhere she isn't.

She boxes up the last of his clothes, readying to send them to his parents in Harlan, along with her wedding ring, and his baseball mitt. This last she handles with care, the leather worn with use, its laces loose, and the webbing dry. She cleans it before she packs it, taking the oil out from the cupboard under the stairs, and working it into the leather in small circles, the way Raylan used to when they first married.

She used to like to watch him work, taking his time tightening the strings, and nursing the leather. In later years he'd put the mitt aside and worked on his gun instead, ejecting the magazine, checking the chamber, then removing the slide, before taking up each of the parts and working with intent. He had nimble fingers for a man so big. He worked quietly, asking her about her day, his movements swift and sure across the metal. This back when he used to come home at night; back when he used to talk.

Soon enough that stopped, and he got this look his face, like he was about to say a thing and then put it aside instead. Some days she'd want to shake him just to hear the secrets he kept rattling around in his gut. How was your day? she'd ask, as he puttered around the house, shoes off, keys on the mantle. It was what it was, he'd say; I'm gon' take a shower, before traipsing up the stairs with heavy feet.

Course, she thinks, now she doesn't have to worry about things unsaid. She wraps the mitt in the oil-musty duster, and puts it in the box, along with his shoes, and his plaid shirts. Decides to leave them under the stairs for now, maybe mail them down to Miami when she's got more time.

Two months later she pulls the box out and sighs. God damn you, Raylan, she mutters under her breath, dragging the box up to rest on her hip, dust all over her skirt. She slides the divorce papers in on top, and then seals the box. She passes it to her lawyer, along with the other two, and then wipes her hands of the lot. She wonders briefly if she should feel more relieved, then makes her mind up to call the realtor in Lexington first thing in the morning, and put the house up for sale.

It's time, she thinks, listening to her own footsteps echoing in the hall. It's time to put this to bed.

When she sees him again, it's not how she thought it would be. She'd thought she'd care less to see him, but she feels something else under the irritation. He's greying a little around the edges, but he looks the same. His hands are wide, still, and she laughs at the thought – as if they wouldn't be. He's standing on her back porch in the middle of the night, and for a moment she thinks no time has passed at all; he didn't go, and she didn't cry herself to sleep, and he's there, waiting for her. Except Gary's in the house, scared out of his mind, and Raylan's laughing at him, just enough to make her mad - just enough to make her smile on the inside.

It doesn't take long for her body to remember. It's only been a couple years since she saw him last, but it doesn't seem like anything at all. She makes the mistake of remembering the good in him, though she tries, goddamn, she tries to remember the bad. She tries to remember the silence that used to make her ache. She tries to remember her house, her heartbeat resounding in its empty rooms, but can only think of him sat in the kitchen, rag in hand, his gun in pieces on the table.

Later on, it's all she wants - the weight of his body, the press of his fingers; the great height of him. She spends an evening on the couch, the TV on but ignored, and Gary in the study, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows. She feels hot, and uncomfortable, her skin pulled tight around a body she no longer recognises.

She grabs her coat, and her keys. Tells her husband she'll be back; doesn't tell him when.

What do you want, Winona? Raylan asks weeks later, reclined outside his room, as tired as she's ever seen him.

This, she thinks; just this, and nothing else. Not a body in between.