Clouds That Break, by Peanutbutterer, (R)

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Fandom Category: Justified
Pairing: Raylan/Winona
Fic Title: Clouds That Break
Author: peanutbutterer
Link: http://peanutbutterer.livejournal.com/93885.html#cutid1
Rating/Warning(s): R, for language
Genre: Episode tag for episode 1.12
WIP?: no

Why This Must Be Read: This has spoilers for 1.12, so be warned. I absolutely love Winona's characterization here, in tone and in thought. It just rings true to a person we've barely begun to explore on the show, but Peanutbutterer has her motivations, internal struggles and mannerisms down pat. The relationship between her and Raylan is a complicated one, and I love that. It's not a fairy tale, he isn't an easy man, and she certainly isn't a saint. But somehow it's softly romantic anyway. Definitely becoming a new interest in my shipping.

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Six years with Raylan and now six years with Gary and it really is a half dozen either way. She loves them both with her heart, but her head needs Gary and her gut wants Raylan and she's finding it impossible to reconcile the two.

It was never a fairytale romance. Not with Raylan and not with Gary. Neither one ever came anywhere close. But Raylan was bullets and storm clouds, and Gary was honest-to-god picket fences, and at least on paper the latter could be construed as adult and civil and something resembling a life.

She reminds herself of that as she sits in her car outside her house, their house, smelling of sex and Raylan and betrayal. She pushes back the tiny voice in her head that tells her it's okay not to wash it off, it's okay to embrace it for a while. It's the same voice that told her to go to the motel, and even to marry Raylan in the first place. She never got anywhere good listening to that voice.

She opens the car door and steps out into the driveway. Above her, the sky is dark but clear. She pulls the cinch more tightly at her waist and wishes like hell it would rain.