Work Text
Off the Deep End
To no one’s surprise, it was Raylan who went off the deep end first. The amount of times he had been accused of being dirty it was easy to believe that it had only been a matter of time. Maybe if the decision hadn’t been made to remove him from the field after his last shooting, maybe if the threat to take his badge hadn’t been made, then maybe—just maybe—he would have stayed. But it wasn’t. And so Raylan quit on the spot and returned to Harlan’s hills.The fact that Tim followed shortly after caught them off guard, but wasn’t entirely unexpected. He was a powder keg after all, and he wouldn’t be the first to switch sides. Some said it was the PTSD, others that it was Raylan’s bad influence. Whatever the reason, the marshals in the Lexington office were nonetheless caught off guard when they found Tim’s desk empty and a resignation note on the chief’s door, but the couldn’t say they were surprised. They weren’t entirely surprised either when, after a few quiet weeks, reports came that Tim had been spotted once more down in Harlan.What was surprising was the day Rachel announced she was quitting, left her badge and gun on Art’s desk, and walked out of the courthouse without looking back. It had been a year since Raylan and Tim had left and not once had Rachel ever seemed to consider leaving. She was too smart for that, they believed. She was in line for Art’s position, after all, and she was a good marshal with the potential to be one of the best. But only two days later she walked the Harlan streets as if they belonged to her and her alone.And those left held their breath for what might happen next.It started with a whisper, a rumor, of a change down in Harlan. Criminals were disappearing. The lucky ones reappeared a few days later and several states away. Most weren’t lucky; they simply turned up dead. A few were found tied up outside police stations, confessions pinned to their shirts and pleas to be arrested before “they came back” on their lips. But no matter how much they were questioned, none of those lucky few ever revealed who exactly “they” were.But everyone knew. When the first one turned up dead with a bullet through the head, the Givens’ place was the first stop. But they were each other’s alibi and just knowing isn’t cause for arrest, as they very well knew. The marshals needed undeniable proof, and that was one thing they would never get. And so the ex-marshals walked free, and the bad people of Harlan continued to disappear.And then Boyd Crowder was paraded through marshal’s office in handcuffs. Caught in the act of murder with the gun in his hand and victim still bleeding out at his feet. He’d muttered a quiet “Damn it, Raylan” when the cuffs went on, but no amount of questioning could make him talk. Even when given the choice between a life sentence and a deal that would let him go free, Boyd remained uncharacteristically silent.Harlan grew quiet after that. Oh, sure, the occasional drug dealer or murderer was still found dead, but the trips between Harlan and Lexington grew rarer and rarer. The Givens place grew quiet as well, the three ex-marshals seeming to simply vanish into thin air.But every so often the rumors would return, whispered through the office amongst those who still remembered. A cowboy squaring off with a suspected drug dealer. An impossible shot from a rooftop. A man put in his place with quick violence. There was never any confirmation, no evidence, but everyone knew.And they turned their heads.