Fic: Take Care of You 4/5 Part 2 | Justified | Boyd/Raylan
Justified. Boyd/Raylan.
AU. Sequel to Set Fire to this House and Tear Down These Walls.
~15,000 words. Explicit. Chapter 4/5. Chapter One is here.
Short disclaimer: All characters and scenarios belong to Elmore Leonard and Graham Yost and NOT ME.
Part 1 of Chapter 4 is here.
They were clean and lying in bed, tangled up on top of the sheets because that’s how they wanted to be, when Raylan drew his hand up and into Boyd’s hair. Boyd leaned into it and sighed heavily, his breath rushing across Raylan’s chest.
Boyd reached for Raylan’s other, unoccupied hand and threaded his fingers through Raylan’s. He looked up, without turning his head too far from Raylan’s attentions and said, “Did I ever tell you how I feel about your hands, baby? These hands,” he began without waiting for Raylan to answer, “are...well, look at them.”
“I feel like I look at them a lot, Boyd. They’re my hands.”
Boyd traced his index finger and thumb along the knuckles of a few of Raylan’s fingers, light as a feather. “Words escape me,” he said softly.
“Words... escape you?” Raylan pulled Boyd up closer and felt his lips form a smile against Raylan’s skin.
“I like them. They’re beautiful.”
Raylan knew that Boyd was always freer with his compliments when he was under the influence of something, drink or sex or both. So he smiled and said, "Okay Boyd."
"You think just cause I'm buzzed I don't mean it, or that it somehow ain't just as true," Boyd accused. He didn't look put out, just sort of amused as he traced his fingers across Raylan's skin. "Never knew how to take a compliment," he muttered and smiled indulgently.
Raylan rolled his eyes and replied jokingly, "You want me to tell you how beautiful you are, Boyd? That what this is about?"
"No," Boyd huffed. "Never said it before, so you better not start now just 'cause you think I'm fishin' for compliments."
Raylan tilted his head and saw that Boyd's expression had sobered. He thought about seeing Winona after so long that day and remembered how for a long time after they'd met, even into the time when he'd been pretending he wasn't in love with Boyd, he'd thought of her as the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen on two legs. But that didn't mean he had no aesthetic appreciation for the boy in his arms.
He smiled softly and said, "You already know I like your hair, darlin'." He drew a hand up and into it. Boyd twisted his head like he wanted to pull away. His eyes were dark and his expression wasn't really a warning, but there was something wary there, as if he wasn't sure he wanted Raylan to continue. He already said he didn't have to, but Raylan felt like it was something he needed to do now, since he was thinking about it.
He thought about years ago, back when he and Boyd had just started working at the mine, when they'd only just found how much they liked each other, how well they went together. He thought about the thing about Boyd's hair and how he'd loved it, that one part of Boyd, since before he had memory of loving it.
Raylan closed his fingers in Boyd's hair, in an insistent way he wouldn’t normally. Boyd took the cue and stilled, relaxing back into Raylan's chest.
“You remember that house party we crashed in the fall, the one with the--”
“Garden gnomes,” Boyd finished, the hint of a laugh in his voice. “Bowman threw ‘em on the grill. Sure.”
“You know, that was the first time I ever saw you drunk. Like, really drunk.”
“Yeah? I guess it woulda been,” Boyd shrugged as he spoke. He stretched languidly, taking his forehead off Raylan’s chest and letting his chin rest there instead, so they could look at each other. He idly traced tiny circles across Raylan’s collar bone and pec, close to his nipple. His smile stretched and shrank mercurially as he scrutinized Raylan. “What about it?”
It was the first party they’d gone to together, as friends. Boyd had got sort of an invitation through Bowman, the football star, and Johnny trailed along with them as well--though Raylan had never been especially warm towards him.
“I’d never seen you let loose like that before,” Raylan said. “We’d been hanging out together for weeks by that time.”
When Raylan thought about it later, trying to puzzle out what had been special about that night, he’d realized the guest list for that gathering had been entirely made up of people who either didn’t give a shit about Boyd, knew him and were part of his circle, or loved him like family.
Raylan had always secretly thought of Boyd, especially back then, as somewhat of a posturer. He would put on a damn good show for an audience, if he thought they needed one, and that night, he was in top form. He smiled at everybody, talking bigger and louder than anybody at a party full of self-important football players. He scuffled with Bowman and talked good natured-shit about the kid’s friends, though something in his eyes didn’t allow any of them to dish it back out at him. He was bigger than life that night, more vibrant, more real. Raylan felt his eyes grow wide just watching him.
They’d come drunk, or buzzed anyway, from after-shift drinks at the puddle, and Boyd had wasted no time in ransacking the liquor cabinet of the house they’d virtually crashed. He passed everything around to people, smiling like Santa Claus, but kept a lion’s share for himself, and to split with Raylan.
“You an’ me, boy,“ he’d said with a wink. “Gotta keep the good stuff to ourselves.”
“Raylan, I remember that night pretty well.” Boyd’s voice in the present was hesitant, like he wasn’t quite sure where Raylan was going with this.
Raylan drew his hand up and down Boyd’s arm. “Tell me what you remember,” he said into Boyd’s ear.
“We danced with some girls,” Boyd said, like he was ticking off a list, “despite the fact that they were playing that pop with a twang shit Bowman’s friends liked so much. Then smoked out on the back porch.” He looked up at Raylan then and grinned, saying, “But I know you only ever pretended to. Takin’ it in and blowin’ it out so fast. No wonder you never got the habit.” Raylan raised his hands in a you-got-me gesture, but Boyd pulled them back down to him. “Then we danced again. But you hung back against the wall right away. And you watched me.”
Raylan smiled softly, remembering.
“You looked so good,” he said, and Boyd drew in a breath. “I’d never noticed before.”
There was something outlandishly sensual in the way that Boyd moved that night, something Raylan noticed for the first time as he watched him flit between those girls, looking them all in the eye like he knew their secrets, like he knew just what they wanted. He touched them fleetingly, never lingering, and they swayed around him, little spirals of long hair and too-tight clothes.
Though it would have been easy for Boyd to have any of them, he never did, and not at any of the other parties they ever went to either. His eyes just kept drawing back to Raylan and Raylan was never able--even years later-- to shake the perception he’d unearthed that night. He always saw that same ease of movement, that certainty of action and undeniable coolness.
“You were the sexiest damn thing I’d ever seen in my entire life, Boyd,” Raylan told him “Let me tell you what else.”
Boyd’s eyes got big, but he didn’t do anything but nod, his mouth parted in a wordlessly rapt expression.
It wasn’t until much later that Boyd came back to Raylan from the dance floor, sliding a hand along the wall, grabbing onto furniture like that was how everyone walked, not just the ridiculously drunk. He had an empty glass in his hand and eyes only for Raylan.
“Boyd,” Raylan said with a smirk.
The expression fell gracelessly off his face when Boyd leaned in close, breath strong with whiskey and said, “Hey, Raylan.”
Raylan had to back off, taking a deliberate and large step away. He’d noticed Boyd earlier, everyone had noticed Boyd, but he’d never been turned on by anything so masculine in his entire life.
Boyd tilted his head, a familiar action made more pronounced by all the booze, and said quietly, “What’s wrong?” There was real concern in his features, more than he would have shown sober. Raylan’s throat constricted.
Raylan forced himself to smile, and deliberately set a hand on Boyd’s shoulder, pushing him back to stand upright and away from Raylan’s space. Boyd just seemed happy Raylan was touching him. “Nothing’s wrong,” he answered. “You’re drunk, Boyd.”
Boyd laughed, leaning back against the wall next to Raylan. “Ain’ no way that’s wrong,” he said good-naturedly. Raylan laughed too and bunched his hand into a fist, pumping it like that was gonna stop him from thinking about how he might want to touch Boyd again, for no damn reason at all.
It was then that the garden gnomes ended up on the grill, and everyone went outside to watch them melt down and burn, charring up a pile of chunky plastic and making the yard stink to high heaven of chemicals and ash.
Near the end of the show, Raylan saw an empty beer in Boyd’s hand and looked around, wondering who’d given it to him and when. He’d been watching, knowing Boyd really couldn’t take too much more.
Boyd was swaying on his feet, and Raylan stepped forward to grasp his arm, gentle but insistent. Boyd twisted in his grasp, but smiled as soon as he realized who was holding him. "Hey," he said.
"Lets go over here," Raylan urged, motioning to the picnic table stuck way out in the back of the house's sprawling backyard. Boyd followed him there, quiet for a rare moment and watching Raylan with something funny in his eyes, something Raylan had never seen before.
"You musta thought I was 'bout to fall right over," Boyd told him, not quite laughing. The walk over had probably made him realize just how drunk he was. He drew a hand through his hair and sat down heavily on the bench.
"Gonna be okay?" Raylan asked quietly, settling down across from him.
Boyd nodded steadily. Raylan had always respected him for knowing his own mind, for seeing his limits, though he'd never admit them to anybody. He always knew when to cut things off, to get himself out of trouble. That was something Raylan had never quite been able to get a handle on.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Raylan turned his attention to an argument brewing between Johnny and one of the boys on the team. He wasn't quite sure what it was about, but trouble seemed to be on the way. When he turned back to Boyd, the boy was staring at him, that same funny look in his eyes.
"What?" he asked.
"You ever have your dick sucked, Raylan?" he said, serious as a heart attack. Raylan's eyes widened, but he couldn't even get a word out before Boyd went on. "’Cause some girls, they don't like to. So even when you ask 'em, they might not do it for you. Hard thing to come by, is good head. But," he was smiling now, real sweet, but sort of soft and uncertain, and he slid a hand up Raylan's arm, making the skin erupt in prickling goose flesh. "Some boys, Raylan, they like it. Some boys think about it all the time."
"Boyd," the name came stripped bare and strangled from his mouth. Raylan wasn't prepared for this, even after what he'd seen on the dance floor, what he'd discovered.
He wanted to protest, wanted to tell the boy to shut his damn mouth. He felt hot and strange, embarrassed and scared for no fucking reason. There was a sharp feeling deep in his gut that he only identified years later as desperate, unwieldy want.
But Boyd wasn't done. "Sometimes, you just want somebody's cock in your mouth," he said.
Raylan was saved then from having to speak, to respond to such an unimaginable thing, by an angry shout from near the house. The thing with Johnny had finally escalated to something worth interfering with, so Raylan stood up, saying nothing to Boyd at all, and strode across the yard.
He stared Johnny down, his long stare, the one that occasionally would unnerve a freshman pitcher. Johnny glared back, pissed and panting with it. His eyes held that Crowder glint, the look they got when their pride had been prickled, when they were itching for a fight.
"I don't care what this shit is all about," Raylan said, looking from Johnny to the other boy, a large one at that, probably played the offensive line. "Boyd needs to go home. You're gonna take him."
Johnny glared at him. "Why can't you?"
Raylan hoped he didn't pause too long before hedging the lie, "Bo don't want me anywhere near his place now that Arlo ain't in his good graces. You want Boyd, drunk as he is, to catch any of that shit? You'll start a fight bigger 'n this one."
Johnny took a breath, deep, like he needed more oxygen to think, and finally nodded. "Yeah, all right."
Raylan was left to push back on the younger boy, big as he was, and calm things down a little as Johnny went back over to Boyd, who had his head cradled in his arms now.
Raylan didn't think he was passed out or anything, just tired, just waiting for Raylan.
He sat like that sometimes outside of the changing room at the mine, waiting for Raylan to finish washing up. Raylan felt a pang of something, guilt, desire maybe, though he would have never called it that, as he watched Johnny pull Boyd up and wrap an arm across his shoulders.
He ignored it. He would keep on ignoring it for months, until it was almost too late.
“I thought I dreamed that happened,” Boyd said, still laying on his chest, in a tone full of quiet wonder, then he laughed. “Shit. What a thing to say.”
And the way he spoke then, like it wasn’t even him who’d done it, like it was some other boy, gave Raylan pause.
“Boyd, you say shit like that all the time,” he said, and didn’t really like how defensive it sounded.
Boyd shrugged. “Yeah, but, I know you’re into it. That must have been some strong shit, to get me to say something like that, without knowing.”
Raylan had never, ever thought of it that way, that Boyd had just been too drunk to censor himself. To him, that was how Boyd just was, is, or could often be. He didn’t even know anymore. “If you hadn’t said that, darlin’, I don’t know if I would have believed you when--”
But Boyd cut him off with a kiss, leaning in hard. “Let’s not tonight, Raylan,” he said and rolled away to turn off the light.
Raylan looked at him. He wasn’t as perceptive as Boyd, but he knew the subject was always changed when they got too close to what happened the night Raylan left Harlan. But he was tired too, and he didn’t particularly want to open that can of worms either, so he slid down in the bed and pulled Boyd close to him again.
He was the big spoon to Boyd’s little tonight, and for some reason, that felt more right than anything else they’d said or done that evening. He sighed and fell asleep with his forehead pressed against the jutting bone at the base of Boyd’s neck. It was smooth and solid and warm.
It felt like an anchor.
Art had given Raylan the day for bereavement, which he thought was sort of a stretch. It wasn’t much time, but it was a Friday, so he’d have the weekend to stick around and help Ava sort out her shit, if she needed.
He supposed Art had been sufficiently moved by the half-conversation he’d heard Raylan having about the whole mess to pull some strings for them. It was nice, having his boss in the corner for him on the personal shit. Raylan had never had that before and it felt strangely relieving. So, he didn’t have to drive to Lexington in the morning, which was also nice.
If he didn’t need to be, Raylan was not an early riser. So there was no real routine between the two of them in the mornings. If Raylan had to leave, he’d be up first and he’d shower and go down to cook them something. If he didn’t, Boyd would roll quietly out of bed, do his own morning ritual, and let Raylan sleep as long as he liked. Sometimes they would fuck.
But they’d done so much of that the night before, Raylan was pretty sure neither of them was quite up to it. He’d woken up early that morning, despite the fact that he had nowhere in particular to be, and stayed in bed, moving little and letting his mind race. His shoulder was aching something fierce, but not enough to make him regret all the shit they’d got up to the night before. He let it go, not wanting to disturb Boyd by getting up and searching for his bottle of pills.
Just under an hour later, he felt Boyd wake, his back still pressed up against Raylan’s chest. He voiced a few quiet groans and began to gently extricate himself from Raylan’s arms. Raylan tightened his grip in response and breathed Boyd in, blowing him out with a sigh. “I thought for sure you’d know I was awake,” he murmured to Boyd’s shoulder.
“It’s quite early, Raylan,” Boyd replied defensively. “My senses are not at their peak.”
“Excuses, excuses.” Raylan pulled at Boyd’s shoulder to turn him over.
Boyd’s eyes were still full of sleep and he yawned in Raylan’s face before he could stop himself. When Raylan pulled a face about it, he patted him on the hip, through the layers of sheet and blanket and yawned again, “My apologies.” He ran a hand through his hair as he sat up and rubbed at his eyes, groaning.
“You hungover?” Raylan asked, sitting up too.
Boyd shrugged. “Barely. Nothing a few eggs and a glass of water won’t fix.”
Raylan often envied Boyd’s ability to bounce back on a morning after. The older he got, the worse the hangovers became. It was almost enough to get him to quit drinking before bed. Though he wondered, if he did, how he’d ever get to sleep. Boyd’s jaw would start clicking like an empty lighter from the nightly blow jobs he’d have to give.
“What are you smilin’ about?” Boyd asked him, a deep frown of discomfort and confusion on his face.
Raylan huffed a laugh and rolled over and off the bed. “Nothin’” he said, retreating to the bathroom.
He had his toothbrush, loaded up with colgate, in his mouth when Boyd came in, crowding him in close around the small vanity. Boyd reached over him for his own toothbrush, casual as you please, though they were hardly ever in the bathroom together, unless someone was getting off in the shower, or being violently ill. He looked at Raylan, eyeing him up through the mirror and Raylan looked right back, raising his eyebrows as he brushed.
“I know you’re thinking about going to Little Sandy on Monday. To see my Daddy out. You do it often enough with prisoners you don’t give half as much a shit about. But I’m asking you, Raylan,” Boyd said, “don’t.”
Raylan spat out the lather and said, “I won’t.” Though the lie stuck in his gullet, hard and sharp, and he wanted to spit that out too.
“Because we’re gonna do this together, right?” There was something lurking in Boyd’s eyes, like he didn’t believe Raylan, but didn’t want to call him out either. Raylan sort of wished he would.
He looked steadily back at Boyd. “I won’t,” he said again, and damned himself twice over.
He had every intention of going out to Little Sandy on Monday morning.
Ava roused herself shortly after they began cooking breakfast and came down the stairs just as Boyd had finished up with the bacon. She greeted them with a half-hearted, “‘Mornin’” and sat down at the table.
When Boyd set the plate of bacon in front of them he said quietly to Raylan, “Yesterday, Ava and I were talkin’ about goin’ over to her house today. Get things... cleaned up. Sorted out.” He turned to her then and asked, “You up for it, honey?”
She shrugged. “Well, if somebody hadn’t let me drink a fourth of his bourbon last night, I might be a little more up to it. But, I think I’ll muddle through.”
Boyd smiled at her, maybe in apology, and said even more softly, “I’ll let you do what you want, Ava, ‘til you tell me you don’t want to no more. Not before.”
Her brows sort of collapsed in on themselves and Raylan thought in horror for a split second that she might burst into tears. But she held herself together, nodded once like she’d just been given an order and reached for a piece of bacon, taking a bite then setting it down on her plate next to the eggs Raylan had shovelled there.
“Okay, Boyd,” she said after taking a breath. Her smile was small, but it was present, and Raylan figured that was better than last night’s sea of tears.
After breakfast, they headed over to Ava’s place. Then left again immediately after realizing Ava did not have the type of cleaning products necessary to get the bloodstains off her carpet.
She’d got Bowman in the living room, on his way to the breakfast table. She said she thought about doing it that night, but couldn’t wait the day out. She’d thought about it the entire night before, gathering her courage, and knew it would run out before he got home from the mine. She didn’t say what it was that made the decision for her.
They went direct to the hardware store, all three of them, mostly because none of them wanted to stay in the house by themselves, but also because Boyd and Raylan figured they’d just rent one of those heavy duty carpet cleaners for the weekend and take it over to their place after. The irony of cleaning the carpets with death threats coming at them from Boyd’s daddy was not lost on Raylan, but as long as they were still pretending it was no big deal, he didn’t really see the harm.
Ava got some looks, mostly of surprise and sympathy from the people they walked by on the street and in the store. Boyd and Raylan got more.
They weren’t exactly used to it yet, as they weren’t seen together too often. The looks they got ranged from disgusted stares to wide-eyed curiosity to downcast eyes and suppressed smiles.
Raylan looked over at Boyd, not entirely sure how to take it. Boyd smiled at him ruefully and said in a low voice, “It’s not quite as bad as this when it’s only me.”
Raylan made a face, wishing he’d been more aware of all the shit Boyd had been going through lately. Not quite as bad still wasn’t living the way Raylan was able to in Lexington, with relative anonymity. This kind of attention seemed like what it must feel like to be a particularly infamous celebrity, without the added bonus of being too fucking rich to care.
Ava eyed them with her own suppressed smile and murmured as they got into the line at the register with their shit, “Thanks for taking all the attention off me, boys.”
“Anytime, Ava,” Boyd said with a smile, nodding at an old lady Raylan couldn’t put a name to at the moment, but who certainly did not think very highly of any of them.
It was then that Johnny Crowder came into the store, walking fast then slowing as he saw them, like he’d been rushing to get inside before they left.
“Hey, Johnny,” Boyd said, raising his brows. Boyd had told Raylan about how Johnny had helped them, or tried to, the night of the shit with Mosley. So Raylan didn’t automatically reach for his sidearm when he saw the man.
“Hey Boyd,” Johnny returned, looking between the three of them like he hadn’t really considered what he was walking into when he came into the store. “Can I... talk to you for a minute? Outside.”
Boyd looked at Raylan. He shrugged indifferently then turned to the counter. Mike was waving them up so he said over his shoulder, “Go ahead. We got this.” His shoulder was in the sling today, so Ava helped him put their shit up to be rung out and both their eyes followed Boyd out the door.
While Mike was doing whatever he needed to to get the cleaner rented to them, Ava nudged him in the side with her elbow and flicked her eyes out the window to where Boyd and Johnny were talking earnestly. “He’s keeping secrets,” she teased.
“He’s allowed to,” Raylan said flatly.
She considered him for a moment and he turned from the window to face her. “What’s he not allowed to do?” she asked.
Raylan worked his jaw. “Lie,” he answered and felt sick when he told her.
She was frowning at him now. She opened her mouth once, closed it again, then said, “Raylan...”
But Mike came back out from his office to the side of the register and Raylan shook his head. Mike checked his paperwork one more time, gave them sort of an aggravated look, then went back into the office.
“Listen,” Ava began and Raylan was about to tell her to shut up when he turned and saw her expression was real tight, like she was holding back tears again. “Don’t tell Boyd, okay? But I just need to say it. Bowman, he beat me for all sorts of reasons. I know it started when he realized he was never gettin’ outta Harlan. He took that out on me. But it got worse, recently. Not... not even physically so much, but it was all this shit he was sayin’ about Boyd. All the time. And I could only take so much of it before I let my mouth run. And he, he’d get so mad about that. He’d call me the worst things, you know, and you an’ Boyd too. He’d lay into me with that belt and ask if I’d been over to fuck you lately. He’d ask if you’d double team me or if you’d make me bind myself up so you could pretend I was your rent-boy--”
Raylan was sure Ava would have gone on if he hadn’t grabbed her hard by her elbow, squeezing until she looked up at him in surprise. “I’m sorry, Ava,” he said.
“It ain’t your fault,” she sniffed. “I just. Couldn’t take it anymore and I... couldn’t ask you to--”
“I know,” Raylan said, finally understanding. It wasn’t Bowman’s abuse of her that made her snap, it was her unwillingness to take his abuse of anyone else. She would never have allowed Boyd to expose himself to that kind of injury, not from his brother. What they’d gotten at the house had been bad enough. What they’d get from Bo, though, would probably be far worse. “Shit,” he cursed.
Ava looked at him with wide, wounded eyes. “What?”
Raylan shook his head. “Just, sometimes, Ava, I fuckin’ hate this town.”
Mike came back right at that moment, avoiding their eyes like he’d heard the whole thing. Raylan stared him down and paid without comment. He and Ava were at the door when Boyd came back in.
“Everything okay?” Raylan asked. Boyd looked shaken, sort of, or distracted. His mind was still on whatever Johnny had said.
Boyd’s lips thinned as he reached down to help them with the hulking cleaner. It was on old model and too heavy to carry one-handed for long. “For now,” he answered.
Ava frowned. She followed them, lugging the soap with her, to the truck parked outside. “What did he want?”
Boyd’s eyes did that wide, shifty thing they’d always done when it was about shit he knew Raylan didn’t want to know. “He ain’t gonna say, Ava,” Raylan said after they got the cleaner in the back, turning to help her throw the soap in too. He turned his voice low. “Because he ain’t gonna lie, okay?” He kept his eyes on Boyd, whose distant expression told him he was still thinking on what Johnny had come by for.
She frowned again and crossed her arms in front of her, looking at Raylan with a stubborn expression. “And this is how you get around, you bein’ who you are and him bein’ who he is?”
Raylan kept his face neutral, though he was not really a fan of being judged. “It is.”
“And you think that’s healthy?”
“I think neither of us are dead yet.” And as soon as he said the words, he wished he could take them back. When her eyes went wide and hurt and she tried to back away from him, he reached out fast and caught her arm. “And neither of us are in jail either, honey. That’s not what I meant.”
She looked at him for a moment like she wanted to strangle him. He let go of her arm and raised his hand in the air, about to offer another apology, but she took advantage of his lowered defences and sort of launched herself into him arms. “Jesus, Raylan,” she said to his chest as he slid the sling out of her way and tentatively wrapped her into a one-armed hug, “you’re the worst, you know that, right?”
He laughed. “Yeah. I know.”
“Hey,” Boyd called a moment later, leaning out of the cab. “Are you two alright?”
Ava pulled herself from Raylan’s arms and walked around to the passenger side of the truck cab, climbing up and shuffling in to take the bitch seat. “We’re fine,” she said, dragging a hand through her hair and out of her eyes. “Just make sure your boyfriend works on bein’ less of an asshole all the time.”
Raylan climbed in next to her just in time to hear Boyd say with a rueful smile, “I will, Ava, but you know, he hardly ever means it.”
Raylan kept his mouth shut for much of the rest of the day, mostly so he didn’t get his foot caught in it again, but also so he wouldn’t have to speak any more lies.
All through the weekend, he saw Boyd notice how quiet he was, but neither of them said anything about it. They let Ava drink another fourth or so of bourbon, then put it away the next night, and saw her back to her own place on Sunday.
When they got back to the house, and were undressing for bed in their room, Raylan asked Boyd quietly, “You think your daddy will move on you first thing?”
Boyd shook his head. “I really can’t say. I would think he’d have to get himself together a little bit first. Get his money dug up, a place to bunk down. He gets into anything real dirty, he can’t go back to the house, or work out of Johnny’s. That’s too easy to track. He might have a plan already, though. He’s like that. I just haven’t the faintest what it would be.” He licked his lips and looked up at Raylan from where he’d sunk down to sit on the edge of the bed. “I know you can’t stay here. Art needs you back in.”
Raylan ran a hand through his hair. He scraped at the back of his neck, digging his nails in as he lied, “He wants me early tomorrow. Gotta leave before sun-up.” He paused, then offered, “You could come down to Lexington, just ‘til--”
“I ain’t gonna run away, Raylan,” Boyd said, his eyes hard. “We’d never be safe. I’d go after him myself if I thought it wouldn’t land me in prison, just to get it fucking over with.”
“I know,” Raylan sighed and dragged his hands over his eyes.
“What does Art need you for so early on a Monday?” They both knew Art had been a lot more lax lately regarding when Raylan showed up for work, if he’d been in Harlan the night before.
“Prisoner transport,” Raylan said, turning to the dresser to lay out his sidearm and badge. He couldn’t look at Boyd.
But Boyd came up behind him, so softly, he wasn’t prepared. Boyd’s hands soothed his tense muscles, lingering over the each tiny gash in his shoulder, that was still hurting him too many days later. Boyd’s chin came to rest at the crook of his neck, on the right side, the uninjured one. “Raylan,” he said. “You’d tell me. Wouldn’t you?” He didn’t say what. He knew he didn’t have to.
Raylan raised his eyes and looked at him, at them, caught in the mirror they’d hung together in that room, after the break-in had shattered pretty much everything. They were both bare chested and the wounds healing too slow on Raylan’s shoulder looked just as dark as the swastika that still stood out stark on Boyd’s. The room was lit only by the bedside lamp and Raylan’s eyes seemed hooded in shadows, while Boyd’s were bright and honest.
“I would,” he answered and did not say that he just couldn’t.
Raylan really had no actual role in the release of Bo Crowder. He didn’t want one anyway, because he’d be on record as having been present, and he really didn’t want Art to get to throw that back in his face someday.
He’d foregone the sling that morning because he didn’t want to appear any kind of weak in front of Bo, but he’d taken half a pill for the pain because damn if it didn’t still ache. He’d kissed Boyd, still half asleep, on the mouth and said “I love you,” rushing out the door before his boy could wake up enough to wonder why he’d left that way.
He had his hands in his back pockets as he leaned up against the clean white wall of the outer courtyard, in front of the big iron doors, but inside the gate he’d waited for Boyd behind the last time he’d come up to LIttle Sandy. It was a beautiful morning.
Bo looked very much like he had the last time Raylan had seen him, though a lot grayer and a bit wider around the waist. He was wearing a hulking winter coat and the kind of heavy work boots that were imprinted in Raylan’s mind as the off-hours uniform of a Harlan miner.
Raylan knew, despite the Crowder clan’s ubiquity as a crime family in Harlan for going on a century, they were all deeply entrenched in the mine. They all worked their way up, getting to know the system, the men that worked there. The mine had always been the recruiting grounds for men like Bo Crowder, so men like Bo Crowder lived and breathed the mine and sent their sons to work inside it, even if it was the last thing those boys wanted.
As Bo approached him, Raylan pulled his jacket aside, sliding his hand to rest on his sidearm, slung low across his hip. He knew Bo’s boys were just outside that gate, waiting for him to make his way out, but right now, it was just the two of them. And that was just what Raylan wanted.
“Marshal Givens,” Bo said in a way that could be taken as either friendly or unfriendly. He carried himself in a way that was remarkably, though not terribly surprisingly, similar to Boyd, with a cool aloofness that was both unassuming and subtly threatening. Raylan felt his heart beat faster, but he put on his friendly lawman smile.
“Mornin’ Mr. Crowder,” he greeted cordially. He pushed off from the wall and took just two steps forward, putting himself just next to Bo as he came abreast of him.
“It’s a mighty fine one, isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” Raylan returned and tipped his hat forward, like he was really thinking about it.
It was then that Bo stopped walking, and Raylan halted as well, keeping his hand on his sidearm, his other with the thumb snagged through his belt loop like it was just a comfortable way to stand. He looked Bo in the eye when the big man asked, “You wanna tell me just what you think you’re gonna accomplish here, Marshal?”
Raylan let his smile grow wider, then fall innocently. “I was just makin’ sure everything went okay with your release, Bo. I mean, what happened with Hunter Mosley, I really do feel was a colossal failure on the part of the justice system. Even though I wasn’t anywhere near this town at the time of your incarceration, because of the history between our families, I think of it as my duty to make sure we, the Federal Government, I mean, don’t leave you with any... ruffled feathers. So to speak.”
“You weren’t anywhere near Harlan, huh?” Bo asked slowly.
Raylan smirked. “From a strictly professional standpoint, I wasn’t.”
Bo Crowder’s eyes were hard and full of a barely restrained fury that made Raylan’s muscles tense up, as if waiting for a blow. His voice was low and threatening when he said, “You’re not gonna scare me with this shit, son. You’re not gonna mess with my head, no matter how tough you think you are.”
Raylan tilted his head, shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure I know what you mean, Bo.”
Certainly, Raylan did know, but that wasn’t what this was about. Raylan liked to take the measure of a man, if he had the opportunity. He liked the men he dealt with, at least in this kind of capacity, to have some sort of line on him first too, so everyone knew what they were walking into. This wouldn’t have been necessary if Boyd had let him come in to Little Sandy the last time. But, of course, he knew why Boyd hadn't wanted that.
“It’s just that I hadn’t seen you in so long,” he said, after a long pause between them.
Bo’s eyes widened, just a fraction at that, then he laughed, loud and harsh. “You know, Givens,” he said, wiping just once at his eyes, like Raylan was the funniest thing he’d seen or heard in a good while, “I never pegged you for it. I don’t think your daddy ever knew either, for all he tried to beat everything else out of you. You know why?”
Raylan just raised his eyebrows.
“You got balls, son,” Bo said, then turned and walked away. Raylan didn’t follow.
The prison parking lot was down a long walk from the gate, across the road the looped the stark white buildings and wound out onto the state highway. Raylan, with his government plates and his Marshal’s badge, got prime parking right at the top of the lot, next to the road.
It was a good thing that day, because tensing up his shoulders for Bo had put an awful ache back into his wound. He pawed at it through his shirt as he walked back, rolling the joint, trying to free it up, loosen things a little. It wasn’t working and it was putting a pain in his head, and one in his jaw too, from clenching it in discomfort.
He’d seen, at a distance, Bo climb into a van that had been waiting for him on the road at the end of the drive. He’d waited a few minutes to start his own walk down, taking it slow so he could think.
He felt like his thoughts should be racing, but they were slow with worry and not a little bit of fear. Bo Crowder was still every bit as terrifying as he’d been when Raylan was a kid, when Arlo was still taking work from the Crowders, and when he was a teenager as well, looking on as Boyd made his way back and forth from that house on the days Raylan would pick him up or drop him off from the mine.
He didn’t know what they were going to do, because he didn’t know what Bo was going to do. That was the real scary part.
He’d just got to the car, fighting a real headache now, maybe more from stress than anything, and was fishing his keys out of his pocket when he heard the squeal of tires right behind him and the door of a van sliding open hard.
Raylan tried to turn, he had his hand on the grip of his sidearm, fast as ever, but someone was there already and caught his left arm by the shoulder, squeezing hard enough to make him see stars and his legs collapse right out from under him. It was the blow to the head that made him drop his weapon.
“Shit,” he heard himself say after another pair of knuckles bore down on his face and they threw him into the van. He thought of Boyd as the door slid closed again.
It wasn’t too dark inside, but there was blood in Raylan’s eyes and he was laid out on his back on the floor. The only face he could see was Bo Crowder’s smiling down on him. The man had Raylan’s hat and gun held loosely, like carnival prizes, in his hands.
“I was gonna hold off on this for a little while, boy. I really was,” Bo said. “But then you went and dropped yourself in my lap. Let me ask you, what would you have done?”
Raylan didn’t answer, was barely paying attention. He sucked all the blood off his teeth and rolled over onto his stomach so he could spit it at Bo’s feet.
Then he said the only thing that had been running through his mind since Bo’s boys shut the door behind him, “Boyd’s gonna kill you, asshole.”
AU. Sequel to Set Fire to this House and Tear Down These Walls.
~15,000 words. Explicit. Chapter 4/5. Chapter One is here.
Short disclaimer: All characters and scenarios belong to Elmore Leonard and Graham Yost and NOT ME.
Part 1 of Chapter 4 is here.
They were clean and lying in bed, tangled up on top of the sheets because that’s how they wanted to be, when Raylan drew his hand up and into Boyd’s hair. Boyd leaned into it and sighed heavily, his breath rushing across Raylan’s chest.
Boyd reached for Raylan’s other, unoccupied hand and threaded his fingers through Raylan’s. He looked up, without turning his head too far from Raylan’s attentions and said, “Did I ever tell you how I feel about your hands, baby? These hands,” he began without waiting for Raylan to answer, “are...well, look at them.”
“I feel like I look at them a lot, Boyd. They’re my hands.”
Boyd traced his index finger and thumb along the knuckles of a few of Raylan’s fingers, light as a feather. “Words escape me,” he said softly.
“Words... escape you?” Raylan pulled Boyd up closer and felt his lips form a smile against Raylan’s skin.
“I like them. They’re beautiful.”
Raylan knew that Boyd was always freer with his compliments when he was under the influence of something, drink or sex or both. So he smiled and said, "Okay Boyd."
"You think just cause I'm buzzed I don't mean it, or that it somehow ain't just as true," Boyd accused. He didn't look put out, just sort of amused as he traced his fingers across Raylan's skin. "Never knew how to take a compliment," he muttered and smiled indulgently.
Raylan rolled his eyes and replied jokingly, "You want me to tell you how beautiful you are, Boyd? That what this is about?"
"No," Boyd huffed. "Never said it before, so you better not start now just 'cause you think I'm fishin' for compliments."
Raylan tilted his head and saw that Boyd's expression had sobered. He thought about seeing Winona after so long that day and remembered how for a long time after they'd met, even into the time when he'd been pretending he wasn't in love with Boyd, he'd thought of her as the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen on two legs. But that didn't mean he had no aesthetic appreciation for the boy in his arms.
He smiled softly and said, "You already know I like your hair, darlin'." He drew a hand up and into it. Boyd twisted his head like he wanted to pull away. His eyes were dark and his expression wasn't really a warning, but there was something wary there, as if he wasn't sure he wanted Raylan to continue. He already said he didn't have to, but Raylan felt like it was something he needed to do now, since he was thinking about it.
He thought about years ago, back when he and Boyd had just started working at the mine, when they'd only just found how much they liked each other, how well they went together. He thought about the thing about Boyd's hair and how he'd loved it, that one part of Boyd, since before he had memory of loving it.
Raylan closed his fingers in Boyd's hair, in an insistent way he wouldn’t normally. Boyd took the cue and stilled, relaxing back into Raylan's chest.
“You remember that house party we crashed in the fall, the one with the--”
“Garden gnomes,” Boyd finished, the hint of a laugh in his voice. “Bowman threw ‘em on the grill. Sure.”
“You know, that was the first time I ever saw you drunk. Like, really drunk.”
“Yeah? I guess it woulda been,” Boyd shrugged as he spoke. He stretched languidly, taking his forehead off Raylan’s chest and letting his chin rest there instead, so they could look at each other. He idly traced tiny circles across Raylan’s collar bone and pec, close to his nipple. His smile stretched and shrank mercurially as he scrutinized Raylan. “What about it?”
It was the first party they’d gone to together, as friends. Boyd had got sort of an invitation through Bowman, the football star, and Johnny trailed along with them as well--though Raylan had never been especially warm towards him.
“I’d never seen you let loose like that before,” Raylan said. “We’d been hanging out together for weeks by that time.”
When Raylan thought about it later, trying to puzzle out what had been special about that night, he’d realized the guest list for that gathering had been entirely made up of people who either didn’t give a shit about Boyd, knew him and were part of his circle, or loved him like family.
Raylan had always secretly thought of Boyd, especially back then, as somewhat of a posturer. He would put on a damn good show for an audience, if he thought they needed one, and that night, he was in top form. He smiled at everybody, talking bigger and louder than anybody at a party full of self-important football players. He scuffled with Bowman and talked good natured-shit about the kid’s friends, though something in his eyes didn’t allow any of them to dish it back out at him. He was bigger than life that night, more vibrant, more real. Raylan felt his eyes grow wide just watching him.
They’d come drunk, or buzzed anyway, from after-shift drinks at the puddle, and Boyd had wasted no time in ransacking the liquor cabinet of the house they’d virtually crashed. He passed everything around to people, smiling like Santa Claus, but kept a lion’s share for himself, and to split with Raylan.
“You an’ me, boy,“ he’d said with a wink. “Gotta keep the good stuff to ourselves.”
“Raylan, I remember that night pretty well.” Boyd’s voice in the present was hesitant, like he wasn’t quite sure where Raylan was going with this.
Raylan drew his hand up and down Boyd’s arm. “Tell me what you remember,” he said into Boyd’s ear.
“We danced with some girls,” Boyd said, like he was ticking off a list, “despite the fact that they were playing that pop with a twang shit Bowman’s friends liked so much. Then smoked out on the back porch.” He looked up at Raylan then and grinned, saying, “But I know you only ever pretended to. Takin’ it in and blowin’ it out so fast. No wonder you never got the habit.” Raylan raised his hands in a you-got-me gesture, but Boyd pulled them back down to him. “Then we danced again. But you hung back against the wall right away. And you watched me.”
Raylan smiled softly, remembering.
“You looked so good,” he said, and Boyd drew in a breath. “I’d never noticed before.”
There was something outlandishly sensual in the way that Boyd moved that night, something Raylan noticed for the first time as he watched him flit between those girls, looking them all in the eye like he knew their secrets, like he knew just what they wanted. He touched them fleetingly, never lingering, and they swayed around him, little spirals of long hair and too-tight clothes.
Though it would have been easy for Boyd to have any of them, he never did, and not at any of the other parties they ever went to either. His eyes just kept drawing back to Raylan and Raylan was never able--even years later-- to shake the perception he’d unearthed that night. He always saw that same ease of movement, that certainty of action and undeniable coolness.
“You were the sexiest damn thing I’d ever seen in my entire life, Boyd,” Raylan told him “Let me tell you what else.”
Boyd’s eyes got big, but he didn’t do anything but nod, his mouth parted in a wordlessly rapt expression.
It wasn’t until much later that Boyd came back to Raylan from the dance floor, sliding a hand along the wall, grabbing onto furniture like that was how everyone walked, not just the ridiculously drunk. He had an empty glass in his hand and eyes only for Raylan.
“Boyd,” Raylan said with a smirk.
The expression fell gracelessly off his face when Boyd leaned in close, breath strong with whiskey and said, “Hey, Raylan.”
Raylan had to back off, taking a deliberate and large step away. He’d noticed Boyd earlier, everyone had noticed Boyd, but he’d never been turned on by anything so masculine in his entire life.
Boyd tilted his head, a familiar action made more pronounced by all the booze, and said quietly, “What’s wrong?” There was real concern in his features, more than he would have shown sober. Raylan’s throat constricted.
Raylan forced himself to smile, and deliberately set a hand on Boyd’s shoulder, pushing him back to stand upright and away from Raylan’s space. Boyd just seemed happy Raylan was touching him. “Nothing’s wrong,” he answered. “You’re drunk, Boyd.”
Boyd laughed, leaning back against the wall next to Raylan. “Ain’ no way that’s wrong,” he said good-naturedly. Raylan laughed too and bunched his hand into a fist, pumping it like that was gonna stop him from thinking about how he might want to touch Boyd again, for no damn reason at all.
It was then that the garden gnomes ended up on the grill, and everyone went outside to watch them melt down and burn, charring up a pile of chunky plastic and making the yard stink to high heaven of chemicals and ash.
Near the end of the show, Raylan saw an empty beer in Boyd’s hand and looked around, wondering who’d given it to him and when. He’d been watching, knowing Boyd really couldn’t take too much more.
Boyd was swaying on his feet, and Raylan stepped forward to grasp his arm, gentle but insistent. Boyd twisted in his grasp, but smiled as soon as he realized who was holding him. "Hey," he said.
"Lets go over here," Raylan urged, motioning to the picnic table stuck way out in the back of the house's sprawling backyard. Boyd followed him there, quiet for a rare moment and watching Raylan with something funny in his eyes, something Raylan had never seen before.
"You musta thought I was 'bout to fall right over," Boyd told him, not quite laughing. The walk over had probably made him realize just how drunk he was. He drew a hand through his hair and sat down heavily on the bench.
"Gonna be okay?" Raylan asked quietly, settling down across from him.
Boyd nodded steadily. Raylan had always respected him for knowing his own mind, for seeing his limits, though he'd never admit them to anybody. He always knew when to cut things off, to get himself out of trouble. That was something Raylan had never quite been able to get a handle on.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Raylan turned his attention to an argument brewing between Johnny and one of the boys on the team. He wasn't quite sure what it was about, but trouble seemed to be on the way. When he turned back to Boyd, the boy was staring at him, that same funny look in his eyes.
"What?" he asked.
"You ever have your dick sucked, Raylan?" he said, serious as a heart attack. Raylan's eyes widened, but he couldn't even get a word out before Boyd went on. "’Cause some girls, they don't like to. So even when you ask 'em, they might not do it for you. Hard thing to come by, is good head. But," he was smiling now, real sweet, but sort of soft and uncertain, and he slid a hand up Raylan's arm, making the skin erupt in prickling goose flesh. "Some boys, Raylan, they like it. Some boys think about it all the time."
"Boyd," the name came stripped bare and strangled from his mouth. Raylan wasn't prepared for this, even after what he'd seen on the dance floor, what he'd discovered.
He wanted to protest, wanted to tell the boy to shut his damn mouth. He felt hot and strange, embarrassed and scared for no fucking reason. There was a sharp feeling deep in his gut that he only identified years later as desperate, unwieldy want.
But Boyd wasn't done. "Sometimes, you just want somebody's cock in your mouth," he said.
Raylan was saved then from having to speak, to respond to such an unimaginable thing, by an angry shout from near the house. The thing with Johnny had finally escalated to something worth interfering with, so Raylan stood up, saying nothing to Boyd at all, and strode across the yard.
He stared Johnny down, his long stare, the one that occasionally would unnerve a freshman pitcher. Johnny glared back, pissed and panting with it. His eyes held that Crowder glint, the look they got when their pride had been prickled, when they were itching for a fight.
"I don't care what this shit is all about," Raylan said, looking from Johnny to the other boy, a large one at that, probably played the offensive line. "Boyd needs to go home. You're gonna take him."
Johnny glared at him. "Why can't you?"
Raylan hoped he didn't pause too long before hedging the lie, "Bo don't want me anywhere near his place now that Arlo ain't in his good graces. You want Boyd, drunk as he is, to catch any of that shit? You'll start a fight bigger 'n this one."
Johnny took a breath, deep, like he needed more oxygen to think, and finally nodded. "Yeah, all right."
Raylan was left to push back on the younger boy, big as he was, and calm things down a little as Johnny went back over to Boyd, who had his head cradled in his arms now.
Raylan didn't think he was passed out or anything, just tired, just waiting for Raylan.
He sat like that sometimes outside of the changing room at the mine, waiting for Raylan to finish washing up. Raylan felt a pang of something, guilt, desire maybe, though he would have never called it that, as he watched Johnny pull Boyd up and wrap an arm across his shoulders.
He ignored it. He would keep on ignoring it for months, until it was almost too late.
“I thought I dreamed that happened,” Boyd said, still laying on his chest, in a tone full of quiet wonder, then he laughed. “Shit. What a thing to say.”
And the way he spoke then, like it wasn’t even him who’d done it, like it was some other boy, gave Raylan pause.
“Boyd, you say shit like that all the time,” he said, and didn’t really like how defensive it sounded.
Boyd shrugged. “Yeah, but, I know you’re into it. That must have been some strong shit, to get me to say something like that, without knowing.”
Raylan had never, ever thought of it that way, that Boyd had just been too drunk to censor himself. To him, that was how Boyd just was, is, or could often be. He didn’t even know anymore. “If you hadn’t said that, darlin’, I don’t know if I would have believed you when--”
But Boyd cut him off with a kiss, leaning in hard. “Let’s not tonight, Raylan,” he said and rolled away to turn off the light.
Raylan looked at him. He wasn’t as perceptive as Boyd, but he knew the subject was always changed when they got too close to what happened the night Raylan left Harlan. But he was tired too, and he didn’t particularly want to open that can of worms either, so he slid down in the bed and pulled Boyd close to him again.
He was the big spoon to Boyd’s little tonight, and for some reason, that felt more right than anything else they’d said or done that evening. He sighed and fell asleep with his forehead pressed against the jutting bone at the base of Boyd’s neck. It was smooth and solid and warm.
It felt like an anchor.
Art had given Raylan the day for bereavement, which he thought was sort of a stretch. It wasn’t much time, but it was a Friday, so he’d have the weekend to stick around and help Ava sort out her shit, if she needed.
He supposed Art had been sufficiently moved by the half-conversation he’d heard Raylan having about the whole mess to pull some strings for them. It was nice, having his boss in the corner for him on the personal shit. Raylan had never had that before and it felt strangely relieving. So, he didn’t have to drive to Lexington in the morning, which was also nice.
If he didn’t need to be, Raylan was not an early riser. So there was no real routine between the two of them in the mornings. If Raylan had to leave, he’d be up first and he’d shower and go down to cook them something. If he didn’t, Boyd would roll quietly out of bed, do his own morning ritual, and let Raylan sleep as long as he liked. Sometimes they would fuck.
But they’d done so much of that the night before, Raylan was pretty sure neither of them was quite up to it. He’d woken up early that morning, despite the fact that he had nowhere in particular to be, and stayed in bed, moving little and letting his mind race. His shoulder was aching something fierce, but not enough to make him regret all the shit they’d got up to the night before. He let it go, not wanting to disturb Boyd by getting up and searching for his bottle of pills.
Just under an hour later, he felt Boyd wake, his back still pressed up against Raylan’s chest. He voiced a few quiet groans and began to gently extricate himself from Raylan’s arms. Raylan tightened his grip in response and breathed Boyd in, blowing him out with a sigh. “I thought for sure you’d know I was awake,” he murmured to Boyd’s shoulder.
“It’s quite early, Raylan,” Boyd replied defensively. “My senses are not at their peak.”
“Excuses, excuses.” Raylan pulled at Boyd’s shoulder to turn him over.
Boyd’s eyes were still full of sleep and he yawned in Raylan’s face before he could stop himself. When Raylan pulled a face about it, he patted him on the hip, through the layers of sheet and blanket and yawned again, “My apologies.” He ran a hand through his hair as he sat up and rubbed at his eyes, groaning.
“You hungover?” Raylan asked, sitting up too.
Boyd shrugged. “Barely. Nothing a few eggs and a glass of water won’t fix.”
Raylan often envied Boyd’s ability to bounce back on a morning after. The older he got, the worse the hangovers became. It was almost enough to get him to quit drinking before bed. Though he wondered, if he did, how he’d ever get to sleep. Boyd’s jaw would start clicking like an empty lighter from the nightly blow jobs he’d have to give.
“What are you smilin’ about?” Boyd asked him, a deep frown of discomfort and confusion on his face.
Raylan huffed a laugh and rolled over and off the bed. “Nothin’” he said, retreating to the bathroom.
He had his toothbrush, loaded up with colgate, in his mouth when Boyd came in, crowding him in close around the small vanity. Boyd reached over him for his own toothbrush, casual as you please, though they were hardly ever in the bathroom together, unless someone was getting off in the shower, or being violently ill. He looked at Raylan, eyeing him up through the mirror and Raylan looked right back, raising his eyebrows as he brushed.
“I know you’re thinking about going to Little Sandy on Monday. To see my Daddy out. You do it often enough with prisoners you don’t give half as much a shit about. But I’m asking you, Raylan,” Boyd said, “don’t.”
Raylan spat out the lather and said, “I won’t.” Though the lie stuck in his gullet, hard and sharp, and he wanted to spit that out too.
“Because we’re gonna do this together, right?” There was something lurking in Boyd’s eyes, like he didn’t believe Raylan, but didn’t want to call him out either. Raylan sort of wished he would.
He looked steadily back at Boyd. “I won’t,” he said again, and damned himself twice over.
He had every intention of going out to Little Sandy on Monday morning.
Ava roused herself shortly after they began cooking breakfast and came down the stairs just as Boyd had finished up with the bacon. She greeted them with a half-hearted, “‘Mornin’” and sat down at the table.
When Boyd set the plate of bacon in front of them he said quietly to Raylan, “Yesterday, Ava and I were talkin’ about goin’ over to her house today. Get things... cleaned up. Sorted out.” He turned to her then and asked, “You up for it, honey?”
She shrugged. “Well, if somebody hadn’t let me drink a fourth of his bourbon last night, I might be a little more up to it. But, I think I’ll muddle through.”
Boyd smiled at her, maybe in apology, and said even more softly, “I’ll let you do what you want, Ava, ‘til you tell me you don’t want to no more. Not before.”
Her brows sort of collapsed in on themselves and Raylan thought in horror for a split second that she might burst into tears. But she held herself together, nodded once like she’d just been given an order and reached for a piece of bacon, taking a bite then setting it down on her plate next to the eggs Raylan had shovelled there.
“Okay, Boyd,” she said after taking a breath. Her smile was small, but it was present, and Raylan figured that was better than last night’s sea of tears.
After breakfast, they headed over to Ava’s place. Then left again immediately after realizing Ava did not have the type of cleaning products necessary to get the bloodstains off her carpet.
She’d got Bowman in the living room, on his way to the breakfast table. She said she thought about doing it that night, but couldn’t wait the day out. She’d thought about it the entire night before, gathering her courage, and knew it would run out before he got home from the mine. She didn’t say what it was that made the decision for her.
They went direct to the hardware store, all three of them, mostly because none of them wanted to stay in the house by themselves, but also because Boyd and Raylan figured they’d just rent one of those heavy duty carpet cleaners for the weekend and take it over to their place after. The irony of cleaning the carpets with death threats coming at them from Boyd’s daddy was not lost on Raylan, but as long as they were still pretending it was no big deal, he didn’t really see the harm.
Ava got some looks, mostly of surprise and sympathy from the people they walked by on the street and in the store. Boyd and Raylan got more.
They weren’t exactly used to it yet, as they weren’t seen together too often. The looks they got ranged from disgusted stares to wide-eyed curiosity to downcast eyes and suppressed smiles.
Raylan looked over at Boyd, not entirely sure how to take it. Boyd smiled at him ruefully and said in a low voice, “It’s not quite as bad as this when it’s only me.”
Raylan made a face, wishing he’d been more aware of all the shit Boyd had been going through lately. Not quite as bad still wasn’t living the way Raylan was able to in Lexington, with relative anonymity. This kind of attention seemed like what it must feel like to be a particularly infamous celebrity, without the added bonus of being too fucking rich to care.
Ava eyed them with her own suppressed smile and murmured as they got into the line at the register with their shit, “Thanks for taking all the attention off me, boys.”
“Anytime, Ava,” Boyd said with a smile, nodding at an old lady Raylan couldn’t put a name to at the moment, but who certainly did not think very highly of any of them.
It was then that Johnny Crowder came into the store, walking fast then slowing as he saw them, like he’d been rushing to get inside before they left.
“Hey, Johnny,” Boyd said, raising his brows. Boyd had told Raylan about how Johnny had helped them, or tried to, the night of the shit with Mosley. So Raylan didn’t automatically reach for his sidearm when he saw the man.
“Hey Boyd,” Johnny returned, looking between the three of them like he hadn’t really considered what he was walking into when he came into the store. “Can I... talk to you for a minute? Outside.”
Boyd looked at Raylan. He shrugged indifferently then turned to the counter. Mike was waving them up so he said over his shoulder, “Go ahead. We got this.” His shoulder was in the sling today, so Ava helped him put their shit up to be rung out and both their eyes followed Boyd out the door.
While Mike was doing whatever he needed to to get the cleaner rented to them, Ava nudged him in the side with her elbow and flicked her eyes out the window to where Boyd and Johnny were talking earnestly. “He’s keeping secrets,” she teased.
“He’s allowed to,” Raylan said flatly.
She considered him for a moment and he turned from the window to face her. “What’s he not allowed to do?” she asked.
Raylan worked his jaw. “Lie,” he answered and felt sick when he told her.
She was frowning at him now. She opened her mouth once, closed it again, then said, “Raylan...”
But Mike came back out from his office to the side of the register and Raylan shook his head. Mike checked his paperwork one more time, gave them sort of an aggravated look, then went back into the office.
“Listen,” Ava began and Raylan was about to tell her to shut up when he turned and saw her expression was real tight, like she was holding back tears again. “Don’t tell Boyd, okay? But I just need to say it. Bowman, he beat me for all sorts of reasons. I know it started when he realized he was never gettin’ outta Harlan. He took that out on me. But it got worse, recently. Not... not even physically so much, but it was all this shit he was sayin’ about Boyd. All the time. And I could only take so much of it before I let my mouth run. And he, he’d get so mad about that. He’d call me the worst things, you know, and you an’ Boyd too. He’d lay into me with that belt and ask if I’d been over to fuck you lately. He’d ask if you’d double team me or if you’d make me bind myself up so you could pretend I was your rent-boy--”
Raylan was sure Ava would have gone on if he hadn’t grabbed her hard by her elbow, squeezing until she looked up at him in surprise. “I’m sorry, Ava,” he said.
“It ain’t your fault,” she sniffed. “I just. Couldn’t take it anymore and I... couldn’t ask you to--”
“I know,” Raylan said, finally understanding. It wasn’t Bowman’s abuse of her that made her snap, it was her unwillingness to take his abuse of anyone else. She would never have allowed Boyd to expose himself to that kind of injury, not from his brother. What they’d gotten at the house had been bad enough. What they’d get from Bo, though, would probably be far worse. “Shit,” he cursed.
Ava looked at him with wide, wounded eyes. “What?”
Raylan shook his head. “Just, sometimes, Ava, I fuckin’ hate this town.”
Mike came back right at that moment, avoiding their eyes like he’d heard the whole thing. Raylan stared him down and paid without comment. He and Ava were at the door when Boyd came back in.
“Everything okay?” Raylan asked. Boyd looked shaken, sort of, or distracted. His mind was still on whatever Johnny had said.
Boyd’s lips thinned as he reached down to help them with the hulking cleaner. It was on old model and too heavy to carry one-handed for long. “For now,” he answered.
Ava frowned. She followed them, lugging the soap with her, to the truck parked outside. “What did he want?”
Boyd’s eyes did that wide, shifty thing they’d always done when it was about shit he knew Raylan didn’t want to know. “He ain’t gonna say, Ava,” Raylan said after they got the cleaner in the back, turning to help her throw the soap in too. He turned his voice low. “Because he ain’t gonna lie, okay?” He kept his eyes on Boyd, whose distant expression told him he was still thinking on what Johnny had come by for.
She frowned again and crossed her arms in front of her, looking at Raylan with a stubborn expression. “And this is how you get around, you bein’ who you are and him bein’ who he is?”
Raylan kept his face neutral, though he was not really a fan of being judged. “It is.”
“And you think that’s healthy?”
“I think neither of us are dead yet.” And as soon as he said the words, he wished he could take them back. When her eyes went wide and hurt and she tried to back away from him, he reached out fast and caught her arm. “And neither of us are in jail either, honey. That’s not what I meant.”
She looked at him for a moment like she wanted to strangle him. He let go of her arm and raised his hand in the air, about to offer another apology, but she took advantage of his lowered defences and sort of launched herself into him arms. “Jesus, Raylan,” she said to his chest as he slid the sling out of her way and tentatively wrapped her into a one-armed hug, “you’re the worst, you know that, right?”
He laughed. “Yeah. I know.”
“Hey,” Boyd called a moment later, leaning out of the cab. “Are you two alright?”
Ava pulled herself from Raylan’s arms and walked around to the passenger side of the truck cab, climbing up and shuffling in to take the bitch seat. “We’re fine,” she said, dragging a hand through her hair and out of her eyes. “Just make sure your boyfriend works on bein’ less of an asshole all the time.”
Raylan climbed in next to her just in time to hear Boyd say with a rueful smile, “I will, Ava, but you know, he hardly ever means it.”
Raylan kept his mouth shut for much of the rest of the day, mostly so he didn’t get his foot caught in it again, but also so he wouldn’t have to speak any more lies.
All through the weekend, he saw Boyd notice how quiet he was, but neither of them said anything about it. They let Ava drink another fourth or so of bourbon, then put it away the next night, and saw her back to her own place on Sunday.
When they got back to the house, and were undressing for bed in their room, Raylan asked Boyd quietly, “You think your daddy will move on you first thing?”
Boyd shook his head. “I really can’t say. I would think he’d have to get himself together a little bit first. Get his money dug up, a place to bunk down. He gets into anything real dirty, he can’t go back to the house, or work out of Johnny’s. That’s too easy to track. He might have a plan already, though. He’s like that. I just haven’t the faintest what it would be.” He licked his lips and looked up at Raylan from where he’d sunk down to sit on the edge of the bed. “I know you can’t stay here. Art needs you back in.”
Raylan ran a hand through his hair. He scraped at the back of his neck, digging his nails in as he lied, “He wants me early tomorrow. Gotta leave before sun-up.” He paused, then offered, “You could come down to Lexington, just ‘til--”
“I ain’t gonna run away, Raylan,” Boyd said, his eyes hard. “We’d never be safe. I’d go after him myself if I thought it wouldn’t land me in prison, just to get it fucking over with.”
“I know,” Raylan sighed and dragged his hands over his eyes.
“What does Art need you for so early on a Monday?” They both knew Art had been a lot more lax lately regarding when Raylan showed up for work, if he’d been in Harlan the night before.
“Prisoner transport,” Raylan said, turning to the dresser to lay out his sidearm and badge. He couldn’t look at Boyd.
But Boyd came up behind him, so softly, he wasn’t prepared. Boyd’s hands soothed his tense muscles, lingering over the each tiny gash in his shoulder, that was still hurting him too many days later. Boyd’s chin came to rest at the crook of his neck, on the right side, the uninjured one. “Raylan,” he said. “You’d tell me. Wouldn’t you?” He didn’t say what. He knew he didn’t have to.
Raylan raised his eyes and looked at him, at them, caught in the mirror they’d hung together in that room, after the break-in had shattered pretty much everything. They were both bare chested and the wounds healing too slow on Raylan’s shoulder looked just as dark as the swastika that still stood out stark on Boyd’s. The room was lit only by the bedside lamp and Raylan’s eyes seemed hooded in shadows, while Boyd’s were bright and honest.
“I would,” he answered and did not say that he just couldn’t.
Raylan really had no actual role in the release of Bo Crowder. He didn’t want one anyway, because he’d be on record as having been present, and he really didn’t want Art to get to throw that back in his face someday.
He’d foregone the sling that morning because he didn’t want to appear any kind of weak in front of Bo, but he’d taken half a pill for the pain because damn if it didn’t still ache. He’d kissed Boyd, still half asleep, on the mouth and said “I love you,” rushing out the door before his boy could wake up enough to wonder why he’d left that way.
He had his hands in his back pockets as he leaned up against the clean white wall of the outer courtyard, in front of the big iron doors, but inside the gate he’d waited for Boyd behind the last time he’d come up to LIttle Sandy. It was a beautiful morning.
Bo looked very much like he had the last time Raylan had seen him, though a lot grayer and a bit wider around the waist. He was wearing a hulking winter coat and the kind of heavy work boots that were imprinted in Raylan’s mind as the off-hours uniform of a Harlan miner.
Raylan knew, despite the Crowder clan’s ubiquity as a crime family in Harlan for going on a century, they were all deeply entrenched in the mine. They all worked their way up, getting to know the system, the men that worked there. The mine had always been the recruiting grounds for men like Bo Crowder, so men like Bo Crowder lived and breathed the mine and sent their sons to work inside it, even if it was the last thing those boys wanted.
As Bo approached him, Raylan pulled his jacket aside, sliding his hand to rest on his sidearm, slung low across his hip. He knew Bo’s boys were just outside that gate, waiting for him to make his way out, but right now, it was just the two of them. And that was just what Raylan wanted.
“Marshal Givens,” Bo said in a way that could be taken as either friendly or unfriendly. He carried himself in a way that was remarkably, though not terribly surprisingly, similar to Boyd, with a cool aloofness that was both unassuming and subtly threatening. Raylan felt his heart beat faster, but he put on his friendly lawman smile.
“Mornin’ Mr. Crowder,” he greeted cordially. He pushed off from the wall and took just two steps forward, putting himself just next to Bo as he came abreast of him.
“It’s a mighty fine one, isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” Raylan returned and tipped his hat forward, like he was really thinking about it.
It was then that Bo stopped walking, and Raylan halted as well, keeping his hand on his sidearm, his other with the thumb snagged through his belt loop like it was just a comfortable way to stand. He looked Bo in the eye when the big man asked, “You wanna tell me just what you think you’re gonna accomplish here, Marshal?”
Raylan let his smile grow wider, then fall innocently. “I was just makin’ sure everything went okay with your release, Bo. I mean, what happened with Hunter Mosley, I really do feel was a colossal failure on the part of the justice system. Even though I wasn’t anywhere near this town at the time of your incarceration, because of the history between our families, I think of it as my duty to make sure we, the Federal Government, I mean, don’t leave you with any... ruffled feathers. So to speak.”
“You weren’t anywhere near Harlan, huh?” Bo asked slowly.
Raylan smirked. “From a strictly professional standpoint, I wasn’t.”
Bo Crowder’s eyes were hard and full of a barely restrained fury that made Raylan’s muscles tense up, as if waiting for a blow. His voice was low and threatening when he said, “You’re not gonna scare me with this shit, son. You’re not gonna mess with my head, no matter how tough you think you are.”
Raylan tilted his head, shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure I know what you mean, Bo.”
Certainly, Raylan did know, but that wasn’t what this was about. Raylan liked to take the measure of a man, if he had the opportunity. He liked the men he dealt with, at least in this kind of capacity, to have some sort of line on him first too, so everyone knew what they were walking into. This wouldn’t have been necessary if Boyd had let him come in to Little Sandy the last time. But, of course, he knew why Boyd hadn't wanted that.
“It’s just that I hadn’t seen you in so long,” he said, after a long pause between them.
Bo’s eyes widened, just a fraction at that, then he laughed, loud and harsh. “You know, Givens,” he said, wiping just once at his eyes, like Raylan was the funniest thing he’d seen or heard in a good while, “I never pegged you for it. I don’t think your daddy ever knew either, for all he tried to beat everything else out of you. You know why?”
Raylan just raised his eyebrows.
“You got balls, son,” Bo said, then turned and walked away. Raylan didn’t follow.
The prison parking lot was down a long walk from the gate, across the road the looped the stark white buildings and wound out onto the state highway. Raylan, with his government plates and his Marshal’s badge, got prime parking right at the top of the lot, next to the road.
It was a good thing that day, because tensing up his shoulders for Bo had put an awful ache back into his wound. He pawed at it through his shirt as he walked back, rolling the joint, trying to free it up, loosen things a little. It wasn’t working and it was putting a pain in his head, and one in his jaw too, from clenching it in discomfort.
He’d seen, at a distance, Bo climb into a van that had been waiting for him on the road at the end of the drive. He’d waited a few minutes to start his own walk down, taking it slow so he could think.
He felt like his thoughts should be racing, but they were slow with worry and not a little bit of fear. Bo Crowder was still every bit as terrifying as he’d been when Raylan was a kid, when Arlo was still taking work from the Crowders, and when he was a teenager as well, looking on as Boyd made his way back and forth from that house on the days Raylan would pick him up or drop him off from the mine.
He didn’t know what they were going to do, because he didn’t know what Bo was going to do. That was the real scary part.
He’d just got to the car, fighting a real headache now, maybe more from stress than anything, and was fishing his keys out of his pocket when he heard the squeal of tires right behind him and the door of a van sliding open hard.
Raylan tried to turn, he had his hand on the grip of his sidearm, fast as ever, but someone was there already and caught his left arm by the shoulder, squeezing hard enough to make him see stars and his legs collapse right out from under him. It was the blow to the head that made him drop his weapon.
“Shit,” he heard himself say after another pair of knuckles bore down on his face and they threw him into the van. He thought of Boyd as the door slid closed again.
It wasn’t too dark inside, but there was blood in Raylan’s eyes and he was laid out on his back on the floor. The only face he could see was Bo Crowder’s smiling down on him. The man had Raylan’s hat and gun held loosely, like carnival prizes, in his hands.
“I was gonna hold off on this for a little while, boy. I really was,” Bo said. “But then you went and dropped yourself in my lap. Let me ask you, what would you have done?”
Raylan didn’t answer, was barely paying attention. He sucked all the blood off his teeth and rolled over onto his stomach so he could spit it at Bo’s feet.
Then he said the only thing that had been running through his mind since Bo’s boys shut the door behind him, “Boyd’s gonna kill you, asshole.”