Fic: Take Care of You 2/5 Part 1 | Justified | Boyd/Raylan
Justified. Boyd/Raylan.
AU. Sequel to Set Fire to this House and Tear Down These Walls.
~11,000 words. Explicit. Chapter 2/5. Chapter One is here.
Short disclaimer: All characters and scenarios belong to Elmore Leonard and Graham Yost and NOT ME.
Summary: Raylan and Boyd kept a secret for five years. Even in Harlan, secrets want to be told, and neither Boyd nor Raylan have any idea of the repercussions their private life will wreak on themselves and their home. Bullets will fly, families will be torn apart, and Raylan and Boyd will remember that it's much easier to come into Harlan than it is to get out alive.
In Chapter Two, Boyd and Raylan must deal with the interest of their neighbors and coworkers as news of their relationship spreads through Harlan.
Thanks to betas rillalicious and thornfield_girl, without which this chapter and all of the others would not nearly have been so awesome.
Take Care of You
Chapter 2: Close Those Shutters Up Against the Wind, Part 1
Raylan didn’t like the house when it was empty.
It creaked with age and groaned against the wind blowing through the holler. The walls, even covered with fresh paint, still reeked in places of the Marlboros Arlo would smoke, and sunny days would bring the scent of his mother’s perfume out of the wood in the master bedroom.
The innards of the house were no different than they used to be, despite all of Boyd’s attentions. It was those sounds and smells that made up its core, that last a lifetime, unchanged, and when he was alone there they reminded Raylan of his childhood so much more than at any other time.
Raylan was pacing around the kitchen in abrupt starts and stops in the low light of a Sunday afternoon, thinking on how much he hated being in the house by himself and trying to ignore the way the old stove was clicking--three little strikes of some kind of loose bolt as the heat rushed through the baseboard. He felt restless, and filled with some sort of unexplainable nervous energy.
Boyd should have been home by now from the mine and they were planning to grill out on the back porch later that night. Helen said she might be over. They hadn’t visited in a while.
He hated being in the damn house by himself.
Despite how long the two of them had been living there--and it was coming up on six months now--Raylan still hadn’t been able to get used to it.
He knew the ins and outs of living there, knew everything Boyd did on how to make things work these days, where to find everything. But often, and not just when Boyd wasn’t around, he could still see the landscape out those windows, and be unable to shake off the memories of years gone by, when he would stare out them in the night or the cold and wish he could get far away, and fast.
Raylan was about to get up for a beer from the kitchen table, where he’d been attempting to go over some work documents, when his phone rang, an insistent buzz that more often than not came along with some trouble.
The number was Boyd’s and Raylan felt something uneasy curl up in his stomach.
“Boyd,” he said cautiously.
“Raylan, hey,” Boyd’s voice came over the line with a strange hesitance. “Listen, um...”
“What’s wrong?”
There was a pause, a long one, Raylan thought, as he counted it by the loud, nervous beating of his heart. “I don’t even know what happened, I--” Boyd cut himself off and seemed to decide just to get whatever it was right out. “Raylan, I am very, very drunk. I need you to come get me, because I surely cannot drive right now, and...”
“Boyd, you only been off shift for like an hour. Wh- Nevermind, where are you?”
Raylan fished his keys out of the bowl on the table and started scrawling a note to Helen before Boyd answered, “Audrey’s. Raylan, I’m sorry, I--”
“Shut up. I’m comin’”
Raylan sped to that puddle in record time and blew inside like a devil on a hot wind. Boyd was hunched over the bar, a drained glass of ice in front of him, sweating out the remainder of its life all over the rough wooden bar top. There was a little guy sitting next to him, it looked like they’d been talking before Raylan walked in, but now the whole place was silent.
Boyd looked up from his glass, and as soon as he saw Raylan a big, wide smile spread across his face. There was a vagueness to his eyes. They were lacking that sharp, bright spark they usually held, even when he was very, very drunk.
“Hey,” Raylan said before Boyd could speak. “Let’s go.” There was something off about this whole thing, and by something, he was really thinking everything.
Boyd’s smile seemed to only get bigger and everyone in the puddle was so fucking quiet, Raylan’s stomach was churning and his hand itched to go to his sidearm. “You sure you don’t wanna stick around? Have one with me, Raylan?”
Three men in the back, still in mining coveralls, just like Boyd, started smirking and Raylan lost it.
He strode over to the bar and grabbed Boyd by his arm, pulling him roughly off the stool and behind him. Boyd’s feet were far too unsteady and he almost fell, but Raylan slid an arm around him and held on until he got himself right.
“Shit,” Boyd muttered, like he always did when he’d had too much. “Raylan...” he began, but trailed off like he was completely lost.
Raylan pulled a hand up to Boyd’s cheek and stared right into his eyes. They were dilated wide open in a way that was not normal and Raylan suddenly knew for certain what was going on here.
“You came here right after shift, didn’t you?” he asked Boyd quietly. “Why?”
Boyd’s brow furrowed and Raylan’s jaw clenched as he answered, “I can’t remember. Raylan, I’m-- maybe we should just go?”
“Yeah, in just a minute.” Raylan turned to the bartender, pushing Boyd directly behind him and planting a hand firmly on his weapon. “Tell me, how many drinks has this man had?”
The bartender raised his hands, his face going white. “Listen man, I got--”
“Just give me a number, asshole.”
“Two.”
“Mmhmm.” Raylan flicked his eyes over to the little guy, let his gaze wander over every man inside that bar, putting names to some, memorizing the faces of others. Boyd was leaning against his back now and Raylan’s hand tightened on his arm. “What’s your name, son?” he asked the little guy. “I don’t think I know you.”
He couldn’t have been much older than eighteen, had a big old square head set on top of a skinny neck and some interesting tattoos, along with a croc-tooth collar and the sleeves cut off of his ratty t-shirt. “D-dewey Crowe,” he said. His voice had a lower twang, not from Harlan. Raylan hadn’t thought so.
“You were talking to my friend, here?”
The stupid fuck just could not keep that smirk off his face. “Y-you mean your boyfriend?”
Raylan smiled, slow and angry. Dewey Crowe visibly shrank from it and he looked as though he shat his pants when Raylan drew his weapon up fast just a second later.
Usually, Raylan did not pull his sidearm unless he had intent to shoot. But he felt it in his bones that these dickheads wouldn’t listen to him unless they were staring down a barrel.
“Yeah, my boyfriend, Boyd fucking Crowder,” Raylan ground through his teeth. “You were talking to him, Dewey. What about?”
Dewey Crowe seemed to be struck dumb, his hands were high in the air. Boyd leaned harder into Raylan, pressing his lips to the back of his neck, and wrapping his free hand slowly around Raylan’s waist. He pulled at him and slurred, breath hot against Raylan’s skin, “C’mon Raylan, quit wavin’ that thing around. Let’s just go, a’right, baby?”
“Yeah,” Raylan assured him. “Just one other thing.” He glared at each and every body in that room and said, “You like to think I ain’t from here, don’t you? To pretend that we just fuckin’ blew in from out of town? I know you, assholes. The ones I don’t know, he does. You wanted a show, you fucking got one. But I’m telling you right now, if you come near us again, any one of you, I’ll throw in jail for harassment. And, you know Boyd, it won’t go so easy with him. He’ll put you in the fucking ground and he won’t tell me where he buried you. You just try it.”
He walked backwards out of the place, pushing Boyd out behind him and slinging an arm around his waist again when he stumbled.
They earned a look from some guy pulling up in a beat up old truck. Boyd was being fairly handsy as they shuffled their way down the wooden steps from the puddle, but Raylan just glared at the guy, not giving a damn at all, and he stayed in the cab until they passed by.
“Where’s your truck, Boyd?”
Boyd had his head turned toward Raylan’s neck His right arm was slung over Raylan’s shoulder and his left was pulling at Raylan’s belt loops, fumbling ridiculously for Raylan’s belt.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled, near Raylan’s ear.
“You left it at the mine?” Raylan tried again.
He leaned Boyd against the hood of the car, on the passenger side, as soon as they reached it and pulled Boyd’s face up, trying to get him to meet his eyes. Boyd moved to press himself closer, but Raylan held him back.
“Talk to me a second,” he said and tried to smile. “You think you left it there, at the mine? They drag you out here in one of theirs?”
It may not have been a literal dragging, not like Boyd would have let them jump him. But given enough friendly, passive aggressive pressure, Boyd probably would have gone, just to avoid a confrontation. He probably thought he could get out of there after one, and be home without having to even tell Raylan about it.
Boyd looked around, as if trying to figure out where he was, rather than how he’d got there. “I can’t remember. Maybe. Why are you asking? Your car’s here, right?” His brow was furrowed, his eyes confused.
Raylan finally relented, letting him slump forward and pressing a kiss to Boyd’s temple. “Yeah, it is,” he agreed.
He heard the slow, soft exhale that always accompanied Boyd’s biggest, sweetest grins, and had to jump away when his hand pressed down at his crotch. “Shit,” Raylan swore, “Knock that off, Boyd.” He was laughing as Raylan pushed him inside the car.
A few of the miners were standing outside the door or the puddle, beers in hand, watching them. Raylan scowled, strode around the front of the Town Car, and drove out of there as fast as he could.
“We’ll get your truck later. Tomorrow,” he said, unable to keep the anger from his voice.
Raylan glanced over and saw that Boyd had his knees tucked up under his chin. He’d washed his face after coming up from the black, but his hands, his knuckles at least, were still covered in caked-on coal dust, as were his coveralls.
Boyd looked at Raylan with wide eyes, dark from whatever those assholes had slipped him, and his mouth was open like he wanted to say something.
“What?” Raylan said, wincing at the bite of his tone and jutting his jaw in frustration.
Boyd blinked at him then got this utterly unfamiliar look of dejection on his face as he asked, “You mad at me?”
Raylan’s stomach dropped and he pressed too hard on the brake, sending them both jerking forwards and then back, as he switched back to the gas to turn them around the curves of the winding state road they were on.
Usually, under normal circumstances, even abnormal ones, Boyd would know exactly when Raylan was mad, who with, why, and whether or not it was complete bullshit.
He took a deep breath, and looked over at Boyd, trying to catch his eye, make sure he was paying attention, and still keep half an eye on the road. “Listen to me,” he said, in as patient a tone as he could muster at the moment. “Boyd, I ain’t mad. Not at you. We’ll just... talk about it more tomorrow, okay?” He glanced over again and insisted at Boyd’s unsure expression, “I swear, I ain’t mad at you.”
“Okay,” he said and sort of tilted his head back and around idly. It was real weird seeing Boyd act so loose, his eyes looking bigger than usual, his expression changing by the minute. His frown and furrowed brow of moments before were gone like they had never been and he was smiling like someone just told him a dirty joke.
He started talking. Not a lot. He’d just break the silence every minute or so with an odd observation, or some information Raylan had never heard before, about things when Raylan was gone or when Boyd was down in the mine. They were little things, like who was looking at him the wrong way, or who‘d said something borderline offensive just within earshot. He knew Boyd dealt with this kind of stuff, a lot more than Raylan had to, and kept his mouth shut about it.
There wasn’t anything either of them could do, so Raylan didn’t say much. Just a grunt or an “Oh yeah?” every so often and Boyd kept on talking, smile coming and going, fingers tracing funny little patterns in coal dust on the window at his side. Raylan wasn’t going to say anything about any of it, and he hoped Boyd wouldn’t remember.
“I got a letter from Daddy,” Boyd said with a half-smile, looking out the window. They were about three minutes out from the house, but Raylan nearly swerved off the familiar road when he heard that.
“Excuse me?”
“Letter from the big man,” Boyd said, looking at him now, head tilted back again like he couldn’t hold it up. “Told me to fix it. Like I said he would.”
“You said we had ‘til he got out. That he was gonna talk to you.” Raylan was not going to argue about how Boyd had hid it from him, not right now anyway.
Boyd smiled like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard and replied, “Rumor mill’s workin’ overtime, Raylan. We’re big news. Can’t ignore news like us. Can’t say it ain’t true if everybody knows. If people see.”
Neither of them thought it would be like this. Hell, they hadn’t expected anything like what had happened today, what was currently running its course through Boyd’s bloodstream. Him and Boyd, they’d done something no one in Harlan had expected, least of all from the men in their families. It was a testament to how shaken some people were by the revelation of their relationship that hardly anyone was minding their own business about it.
“Shit,” Raylan spat just as they came up the hill to the house. Helen was sitting on the porch.
Boyd just laughed.
“What happened to him?” Helen asked with more curiosity than concern in her voice as Raylan pulled him from the car.
Boyd’s legs could barely support him, even with Raylan’s help, and he was still laughing as they started making their way up to the house. “Fuckin’ assholes from the mine. Slipped something into his drink at the puddle.”
Helen came down the walk and met them, pulling Boyd’s other arm over her own shoulder. “No shit? Are you kidding me, Raylan?”
“You think I would about this?”
Her mouth twisted up and she asked, “What was he even doing there?”
“Hey, Helen,” Boyd said and lolled his head at her, smiling. Raylan gave her a look that hopefully said, don’t ask.
They were half carrying him now and they’d reached the steps up to the porch when Helen responded. “Hey, honey,” she said and smiled, reaching up to run fingers through the hair on the back of his head. Boyd leaned into the touch, eyes closing up like a barn cat for a rare hand.
“What happened to you?” Helen asked as if Raylan hadn’t just said.
Boyd opened his eyes and grinned at her, leaning back into Raylan and almost toppling them both. “Raylan and I went for a drive.”
“Did you now?” She answered, grasping his arm in an attempt to keep him steady. “How was that?”
“Real nice. I thought he was mad, but he said he wasn’t. Then we talked for a long time.”
“You talked, you mean,” Raylan muttered and Helen barked out a laugh.
They finally came through the door, Helen holding it open and Raylan sort of pushing them both inside. “What’d you talk about, darlin’?” Helen asked before Raylan could shoot her a quelling look.
The living room was still all torn up from Boyd’s latest renovation. They weaved in and out of the various tools and materials Boyd had left strewn about the room, and over to the far wall, so Boyd could at least grab onto the bare studs as they made their way to the kitchen.
Raylan badly wanted some kind of alcohol, brown, cold, and in a glass. He wasn’t going to be particular today.
Boyd answered Helen’s question after a long pause. Raylan had been hoping he’d forgotten or hadn’t heard her ask. He was walking now mostly by himself, leaning hard against the wall, with Raylan’s hand on the small of his back. Helen walked next to them keeping an eye out for shit on the floor where Boyd might stumble. “Just the boys at the mine, a little. And Daddy,” Boyd said.
Something sharp, an edge away from fear, entered Helen’s expression. “What about Bo?”
Before Raylan could get anything out this time, Boyd answered fast, stopping and turning to Helen so abruptly that they all halted right at the edge of the kitchen, just a few feet away from where the table was on the far side of the fridge, stove, and counters. He said, “Sent me a letter. Daddy did. He’s mad ‘cause Raylan an’ I ain’t supposed to love each other. But I don’t think I’m gonna stop, just ‘cause it’s what Bo wants. I don’t think Raylan will either, do you?”
The look on Helen’s face was quite a sight, caught somewhere between a hopeless smile and real concern for Boyd’s state. She glanced at Raylan, probably because it seemed as though Boyd had completely forgotten he was there, despite the fact that he still had his hand pressed firmly to his back. She looked back at Boyd and said, “No, I don’t think he will.”
Boyd took two steps further along the wall, and sort of slid down it and to the floor, smiling all the way. Raylan let him go, and leaned himself up against the doorway.
“Oh,” Boyd said a moment later, almost in passing, “and he wants me to come visit him.”
Helen’s hand was the only thing that stopped Raylan from whirling on Boyd, from reaching down and shaking him, asking why he’d kept all that from him, and for how long. She took a breath and shook her head. “Leave it for now. Don’t argue with him in this state,” she murmured quietly. “You gonna take him to a hospital?”
Raylan sighed. “Wouldn’t want me to. He ain’t full-time at the mine, Helen, and he can’t get on my insurance.”
“Then feed him. And have him drink at least two glasses of water, okay? Before he passes out.”
Raylan looked at her, then over at Boyd, whose hand had somehow traveled along the foot or so of baseboard between them, his fingers latched around Raylan’s boot. He turned back to Helen, eyebrows lifted.
She raised her eyes to the ceiling and threw up her hands. “Fine,” she said roughly and turned to the fridge. “You boys had better actually have food this time.”
“We were gonna cook out for you, remember?” Raylan replied and came around the doorway to Boyd, shaking off his hand gently, and kneeling down in front of him.
“He can’t eat no hot dogs or brats, Raylan. It’ll just come right back up,” she called back. “At least you’ve got some goddamn bread.”
Boyd was sitting in a sort of loose Indian-style up against the wall, one knee higher than the other, with his elbow propped up and his head resting on it. He looked up at Raylan and smiled real big. He reached his hands out to Raylan and Raylan took them, letting Boyd thread their fingers together and pull them down to press to the floor, so his face was up real close to Boyd’s.
“How you feelin’?” Raylan asked softly.
“Okay, I guess,” he answered. “How are you?”
Raylan chuckled and leaned his forehead down, so it rested against Boyd’s, just for a second. Helen was busy for the moment anyway. “I’m tired, Boyd,” he said. “I’m pissed.”
“Not at me,” Boyd replied, at least remembering that much. He looked up at Raylan. “Right?”
Raylan’s mouth twisted, snagged between a smile and a grimace. “Not quite. And not now, anyway.”
Boyd seemed to consider that for a second and then nodded, as though deciding it was fair. Raylan couldn’t help but laugh as he reluctantly let go of Boyd’s hands and turned his back to the wall as well, sliding down to sit next to him.
Helen was standing at the counter, a hot dog bun in her hand, looking at Raylan with a strange expression on her face. When Raylan held out his hand for the bread, she visibly shook herself and walked over to give it to him. “You want a drink?” she asked.
“God in Heaven, Helen, I am so glad you asked,” Raylan answered. He broke off a piece of the bun and nudged Boyd up a little, from where he was leaning far into Raylan’s shoulder. “Eat that,” he said.
“Why?” Boyd asked dubiously. “It ain’t got no meat in it, Raylan.”
“Helen thinks that might make you sick. You probably skipped lunch again today, so you need somethin’ in your stomach, Boyd.” Raylan knew that when he was in town, Boyd would work through lunch sometimes, so he could punch out early.
“I don’t think I skipped lunch.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know, do you?” Raylan put the bread in Boyd’s still filthy hand, figuring there was enough coal dust in his boy’s lungs, it wouldn’t hurt much to have some in his stomach too. He couldn’t imagine trying to get him hustled over to the sink and washed up, it wasn’t worth the effort. “Will you please just eat it?”
Boyd took it from him with a sigh and stuffed it in his mouth. Raylan smirked.
Helen came over and plunked a tumbler of something clear on the floor next to him. “What’d you pull that out for?” he asked as she sat down at the table opposite them and took a sip of her own ‘shine.
“To remind you of the good things that come outta this place,” she said with a spark in her eye. “Not everyone hates, Raylan. Most don’t care. Some might find it an oddity, like that woman, lives up the ridge with all those cats--”
“Thanks, Helen,” Raylan said, rolling his eyes as he handed Boyd another piece of the bun.
“What I mean is, not everyone in Harlan is a bitter old miner, or a gun thug with daddy issues.”
“So, you mean the women?” He cocked his head. “Really?”
Helen grinned like she had a secret, then replied, “Iris McCloud told me she thinks you boys look good together. And when the girl at the checkout, ah Bobby Ray Mooney’s daughter, realized what Iris meant by ‘together’ she blushed beet red and couldn’t stop giggling.”
Boyd leaned his head against Raylan’s shoulder and twisted a little, pressing his knees against Raylan’s thigh. Raylan handed him another piece of bread and just let his hand drop to cover Boyd’s knee.
“Well, I’m real glad we’re so amusing to the ladies ‘round here, Helen,” he said, not able to hide the sarcasm.
“Raylan, you just be glad we ain’t livin’ thirty years ago, fifteen even. Then, you’d have a goddamn lynch mob at this door. Women included. All I’m sayin’ is, not everyone hates you. Sure there’s the ignorant and the damned baptists, but if you leave people alone, for the most part they’ll leave you. You just have to wait it out.”
“I hate waitin’,” Raylan muttered and Helen shook her head like she used to when he wouldn’t eat his vegetables.
Boyd stirred a little, but didn’t lift his head as he added, “That check out girl used t’give you the eyes all the time, Raylan. I thought I was gonna have to set her straight soon. M’glad Helen beat me to it.”
“Shut up, Boyd,” Raylan said affectionately and moved his hand slow up and down his leg, not caring too much about the coal dust. He heard the huff of Boyd’s smile and looked down to hand him the last bit of bread.
When he turned back to Helen, she was watching him, head tilted in a considering way.
“What?” Raylan asked at the strangeness of her stare.
Helen’s smile was soft, and there was something terribly fond in her eyes as she looked at them. Raylan felt sort of weird about it. “You two,” she said. “I ain’t never seen you boys touch each other before, like you’re doin’ right now. It’s lovely.”
Raylan looked away. It was true, maybe not the lovely part, he didn’t know what Helen was talking about with that, but Boyd and Raylan rarely touched each other when they were in company. They didn’t really know how.
They’d never socialized as a couple, only really did it with Helen now, and Ava sometimes. The few occasions spouses or partners were called on for anything work related, they kept themselves stiff and not terribly public on some unspoken mutual agreement. They touched only elbows or brushed shoulders, and they always left very early.
Art had told him once after the office summer picnic to just relax, they lived in the twenty-first century for God’s sake. Raylan remembered smiling like he didn’t believe him and saying something to change the subject.
“Knowing it in how he looks at you, and talks about you, and you for him, that’s one thing,” Helen continued, pausing to take a sip of the ‘shine. “Seeing it, right here in front of me,” she smiled and it was soft again, reminding Raylan now of his mother, so he couldn’t look away, “I’m just so glad for you, Raylan. You and him. He’s a... he’s a real good boy. I’ve known that for a long time.”
“Thank you, Helen,” Boyd said, like she’d just given him a present.
“You’re welcome, honey.”
Helen left after they’d force fed Boyd three full glasses of water and Raylan assured her he could get him up the stairs on his own. She gave each of them a kiss on the cheek, and Boyd another run through his messy hair and said, “Be good, boys,” with a laughing smile.
When the door closed behind her, Boyd took the opportunity to immediately press himself up against Raylan, drawing his lips against the side of Raylan’s mouth and teasing it open with surprising ease.
Raylan let Boyd make out with him for maybe a minute, taking care to not encourage too much, and making sure they both stayed upright, until Boyd pulled them back toward the table and sat himself up on it, dragging Raylan with him.
Raylan drew his lips away from Boyd, who huffed and frowned, only a little more exaggerated than when he was sober and he didn’t get what he wanted. “What am I gonna do with you now?” Raylan murmured.
“Whatever you want, baby,” Boyd said with a smile. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
Raylan smiled softly. He knew what Boyd meant, but he looked around this house, had been looking at it for months now, marvelling at how different it was, how differently he felt about it now that Boyd had come into it, transformed almost everything about it. All because it was what Raylan wanted, even if he hadn’t known that’s what he was asking.
It was a strange power to hold over someone. To know that if he asked Boyd to do something, if he needed something and didn’t even ask, Boyd would do it, would stop at nothing.
Boyd never asked for anything, never needed anything but what Raylan had already given. First the house, and then later, his loyalty, his heart, without even knowing.
It had been a terrible thing to wake up to, the morning after he told Boyd he loved him, to realize he had for so long and not known. Decisions were easy after that, but bearing the weight of them had taken him a little time to adjust and he knew he’d scared Boyd, making him wait like that, and then shocked him, at doing everything like it was nothing at all.
He’d never forget Boyd’s face, the day he came to help Raylan move, when everything finally got laid out, and revealed to Art as well. Raylan had never seen such a surprised and pleased expression on the man’s face. Nothing surprised Boyd, he was too smart for it, except for Raylan. And that was a feeling that brought out a particular sense of accomplishment in him.
He looked at Boyd, who’d begun listing a little, leaning his forehead to Raylan’s shoulder, pulling a little aimlessly at his shirt and sleeve. “You tired, darlin’?” he asked softly.
Boyd looked up at him, his smile growing slowly to a grin. “You ain’t never called me that before, Raylan.”
Raylan wasn’t really one for pet names, or hadn’t been anyway. He’d always felt like his relationship with Boyd, when he’d had the courage to think of it that way, didn’t fit into any set molds, where they called each other things other than their own names, and said “I love you,” once a day, like it was prayers before bed.
He’d always felt like they didn’t need that shit. But that first time, when he was moving toward making this place home again, when Boyd whispered “baby” to him as he slipped onto his lap in the front seat of his car, he’d felt it could maybe be something they liked, instead of something they needed.
Still, it had apparently taken Raylan six months and a terrifying drug-related incident to get him to reciprocate.
“Don’t get used to it,” Raylan said, before Boyd kissed him hard. And he felt a pang of regret that Boyd probably wouldn’t remember this either.
“I ain’t tired, Raylan,” Boyd whispered to Raylan’s lips, pulling his shirt from his waistband and sliding a hand up his chest.
Raylan started moving them toward the stairs, knowing they were gonna need to get up there eventually. “I figured.”
It ended up being easier to get Boyd upstairs than he’d thought. The man was on a mission to get into Raylan’s pants, and seemed to have picked up on the idea that the sooner they ascended the steps, the faster he’d get that accomplished.
Pushing and pulling each other into their bedroom was now a matter of routine, something like muscle memory. So Boyd handled it fairly well, all things considered, until they were both sprawled out on the bed, and Boyd was on top, working away at Raylan’s belt, taking a lot longer than usual with it.
“Hey, hey,” Raylan said, pushing Boyd’s hands gently off him. “Hold up, Boyd.”
“What?” He asked, drawing his knees up under him to straddle Raylan. “We’re alone now, baby. I want--”
“Maybe not tonight, okay?”
Raylan knew the look in Boyd’s eye, even with the fog of the drugs cast over it, he didn’t want to just mess around. But Raylan wasn’t certain, with that shit in Boyd’s system, if he was too desensitized to get off.
He couldn’t bear the idea of fucking him without some reciprocation of feeling, it was disturbingly close to the kind of abuse those drugs were used for, the kind of thing that very well may have happened to Boyd if he hadn’t called Raylan, if Raylan hadn't been so close by.
Boyd stared at him, his face flushed, his shoulders sagging like a slashed tire deflating.
“Let’s just go to bed,” Raylan said, even though it was early for them, and tried to smile in the face of Boyd’s wounded look.
He undressed them, and Boyd let him, not fighting at all with tangled sleeves and awkward pant legs. They got coal dust all over the floor and the bedspread, but Raylan was far from caring and Boyd didn’t seem to notice.
Boyd just kept looking at him with this sad, thoughtful expression and Raylan couldn’t bring himself to say anything because he figured it was something they could just talk about later, if Boyd happened to remember. He was tired of having to talk through the fog, to have to fight to reason with his usually so reasonable boy.
Finally they were in their boxers, and Raylan had his back turned to the chest of drawers along the wall facing their bed where Boyd sat. Raylan was laying his watch down and arranging his wallet and side arm for easy reach, when Boyd said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
“What the hell for?”
“I love you,” Boyd replied, like he meant it, like Raylan didn’t know.
“Yeah?” Raylan turned to him and frowned. He looked gloriously disheveled, but the pain in his eyes was something Raylan was unprepared for. “Boyd, what is the matter?”
“I don’t say it enough, Raylan,” he said. “Ever since you said... and then everything happened and you seemed to know, so I thought that I wouldn’t need to so much because--”
Raylan moved forward, reaching for Boyd’s cheek, smoothing a hand through his hair. “You don’t need to. I know, Boyd.”
Boyd had said those words, at least once that Raylan could clearly remember. When they’d got all Raylan’s shit inside the house, arranged the way they both wanted it, and Boyd was still smiling so big, Raylan thought his face might split open.
They’d come up the stairs just like they had tonight, just like they had so many times before. But that night it felt different and they’d screwed for hours, desperate and hungry for each other in a way they hadn’t been for a while. The second time that night that Raylan made Boyd come, he’d moaned out loud, “Goddamn, Raylan, I love you so much. Fuck,” and Raylan had laughed, because, even then, he already knew.
Raylan knew it because of the house, and he told Boyd so. “It’s here,” he said. “In every room, Boyd. And it’s in your eyes and your hands. Your smile. I see it all the damn time, darlin’. Don’t, for a second, think that I don’t.”
Raylan understood, too, that Boyd didn’t. Not really. It was whatever was running through his veins, messing with his head, that let that uncertainty in, burrowing doubt deeper than truth. If Boyd really thought he needed to say it more, he would. He’d say it every day.
But still, Raylan smiled and assured him, “You don’t have to say it. Not to me. You know that.”
He climbed up on Boyd’s lap, though it was something he rarely did, a position that Boyd seemed to prefer to take when they were together. He seized Boyd’s face in his hands and kissed him, long and open-mouthed, making big, long strokes with his tongue, letting Boyd’s move sweetly against his.
“I want to,” Boyd said, pulling him closer. “I love you.” Then he said it again, and again, and again, while Raylan kissed his way down his neck and collarbone.
It was intoxicating, hearing Boyd say that like a mantra, like a prayer, and they rocked together, moving skin against skin, flesh against flesh, making a battle of their lips and tongues. Boyd hooked Raylan’s lower lip with his teeth, then sucked it in apology. His smile was sweet and wide, his eyes crinkled when they weren’t closed against Raylan’s attentions.
He said, “I love you,” again and Raylan parroted it back to him, breathlessly searching for his cock. When Raylan’s hand slid inside Boyd’s boxers he found things a little more limp than he was expecting. “Shit,” he muttered. He’d almost forgotten, with Boyd’s hands roaming all over him, his concerns about Boyd’s ability to get it up. It was too much to hope that whatever it was would be wearing off by now.
Boyd didn’t seem to notice, he twisted around, pushing Raylan down onto the bed and climbing on top himself. “Raylan,” he said each word between kisses, between deep breaths and long exhales, “I want... fuck me, please, Raylan.”
Raylan didn’t know where this desire was coming from, because as he stroked a few more times up and down Boyd’s cock, he was barely hard. He was responding to the pressure of Raylan’s hands and lips, knowing what to do, what he wanted, without feeling it.
Raylan had been numb drunk before, even once with Boyd. All they’d been able to do was make out like teenagers before they passed out on each other. He wasn’t about to use Boyd in this situation, in no world would that ever be okay.
He made himself smile into Boyd’s kiss. “You know,” he said, looking up into Boyd’s eyes, still blown wide open. “You know what I want, Boyd?”
Boyd smiled, like all he wanted in the world was to hear what Raylan had to say. “What?”
“Will you suck me off, Boyd? Will you,” he paused and his breath hitched because Boyd was already moving down his body, trailing his lips across Raylan’s hips, pulling his underwear down roughly. “Will you put your mouth on me? Do you want to...?”
The more Raylan had asked for it, the harder he got, the more he wanted it. Boyd seemed happy to accommodate him, looking up at Raylan with a pleased twinkle in his eyes and smoothing his fingers along Raylan’s inner thighs.
“Yes,” he said, drawing Raylan’s legs apart and dipping his head to take him in, full-tilt, in one haphazard swallow.
His technique was not at its peak, to say the least, but he made up for it in enthusiasm and Raylan felt his smile stretch into a pleasurable grin. After Boyd really got going, squeezing maybe a little too tight at the base as he sucked, Raylan stopped thinking about what he was and wasn’t doing right because it was so goddamn good, he could barely think of anything at all.
Raylan figured he probably didn’t need to admit to Boyd anytime soon that he didn’t exactly remember much after he came with a booming yell and felt Boyd, come-covered and smiling, climbing back up to kiss him, sloppy and satisfied.
On to Part 2.
AU. Sequel to Set Fire to this House and Tear Down These Walls.
~11,000 words. Explicit. Chapter 2/5. Chapter One is here.
Short disclaimer: All characters and scenarios belong to Elmore Leonard and Graham Yost and NOT ME.
Summary: Raylan and Boyd kept a secret for five years. Even in Harlan, secrets want to be told, and neither Boyd nor Raylan have any idea of the repercussions their private life will wreak on themselves and their home. Bullets will fly, families will be torn apart, and Raylan and Boyd will remember that it's much easier to come into Harlan than it is to get out alive.
In Chapter Two, Boyd and Raylan must deal with the interest of their neighbors and coworkers as news of their relationship spreads through Harlan.
Thanks to betas rillalicious and thornfield_girl, without which this chapter and all of the others would not nearly have been so awesome.
Take Care of You
Chapter 2: Close Those Shutters Up Against the Wind, Part 1
Raylan didn’t like the house when it was empty.
It creaked with age and groaned against the wind blowing through the holler. The walls, even covered with fresh paint, still reeked in places of the Marlboros Arlo would smoke, and sunny days would bring the scent of his mother’s perfume out of the wood in the master bedroom.
The innards of the house were no different than they used to be, despite all of Boyd’s attentions. It was those sounds and smells that made up its core, that last a lifetime, unchanged, and when he was alone there they reminded Raylan of his childhood so much more than at any other time.
Raylan was pacing around the kitchen in abrupt starts and stops in the low light of a Sunday afternoon, thinking on how much he hated being in the house by himself and trying to ignore the way the old stove was clicking--three little strikes of some kind of loose bolt as the heat rushed through the baseboard. He felt restless, and filled with some sort of unexplainable nervous energy.
Boyd should have been home by now from the mine and they were planning to grill out on the back porch later that night. Helen said she might be over. They hadn’t visited in a while.
He hated being in the damn house by himself.
Despite how long the two of them had been living there--and it was coming up on six months now--Raylan still hadn’t been able to get used to it.
He knew the ins and outs of living there, knew everything Boyd did on how to make things work these days, where to find everything. But often, and not just when Boyd wasn’t around, he could still see the landscape out those windows, and be unable to shake off the memories of years gone by, when he would stare out them in the night or the cold and wish he could get far away, and fast.
Raylan was about to get up for a beer from the kitchen table, where he’d been attempting to go over some work documents, when his phone rang, an insistent buzz that more often than not came along with some trouble.
The number was Boyd’s and Raylan felt something uneasy curl up in his stomach.
“Boyd,” he said cautiously.
“Raylan, hey,” Boyd’s voice came over the line with a strange hesitance. “Listen, um...”
“What’s wrong?”
There was a pause, a long one, Raylan thought, as he counted it by the loud, nervous beating of his heart. “I don’t even know what happened, I--” Boyd cut himself off and seemed to decide just to get whatever it was right out. “Raylan, I am very, very drunk. I need you to come get me, because I surely cannot drive right now, and...”
“Boyd, you only been off shift for like an hour. Wh- Nevermind, where are you?”
Raylan fished his keys out of the bowl on the table and started scrawling a note to Helen before Boyd answered, “Audrey’s. Raylan, I’m sorry, I--”
“Shut up. I’m comin’”
Raylan sped to that puddle in record time and blew inside like a devil on a hot wind. Boyd was hunched over the bar, a drained glass of ice in front of him, sweating out the remainder of its life all over the rough wooden bar top. There was a little guy sitting next to him, it looked like they’d been talking before Raylan walked in, but now the whole place was silent.
Boyd looked up from his glass, and as soon as he saw Raylan a big, wide smile spread across his face. There was a vagueness to his eyes. They were lacking that sharp, bright spark they usually held, even when he was very, very drunk.
“Hey,” Raylan said before Boyd could speak. “Let’s go.” There was something off about this whole thing, and by something, he was really thinking everything.
Boyd’s smile seemed to only get bigger and everyone in the puddle was so fucking quiet, Raylan’s stomach was churning and his hand itched to go to his sidearm. “You sure you don’t wanna stick around? Have one with me, Raylan?”
Three men in the back, still in mining coveralls, just like Boyd, started smirking and Raylan lost it.
He strode over to the bar and grabbed Boyd by his arm, pulling him roughly off the stool and behind him. Boyd’s feet were far too unsteady and he almost fell, but Raylan slid an arm around him and held on until he got himself right.
“Shit,” Boyd muttered, like he always did when he’d had too much. “Raylan...” he began, but trailed off like he was completely lost.
Raylan pulled a hand up to Boyd’s cheek and stared right into his eyes. They were dilated wide open in a way that was not normal and Raylan suddenly knew for certain what was going on here.
“You came here right after shift, didn’t you?” he asked Boyd quietly. “Why?”
Boyd’s brow furrowed and Raylan’s jaw clenched as he answered, “I can’t remember. Raylan, I’m-- maybe we should just go?”
“Yeah, in just a minute.” Raylan turned to the bartender, pushing Boyd directly behind him and planting a hand firmly on his weapon. “Tell me, how many drinks has this man had?”
The bartender raised his hands, his face going white. “Listen man, I got--”
“Just give me a number, asshole.”
“Two.”
“Mmhmm.” Raylan flicked his eyes over to the little guy, let his gaze wander over every man inside that bar, putting names to some, memorizing the faces of others. Boyd was leaning against his back now and Raylan’s hand tightened on his arm. “What’s your name, son?” he asked the little guy. “I don’t think I know you.”
He couldn’t have been much older than eighteen, had a big old square head set on top of a skinny neck and some interesting tattoos, along with a croc-tooth collar and the sleeves cut off of his ratty t-shirt. “D-dewey Crowe,” he said. His voice had a lower twang, not from Harlan. Raylan hadn’t thought so.
“You were talking to my friend, here?”
The stupid fuck just could not keep that smirk off his face. “Y-you mean your boyfriend?”
Raylan smiled, slow and angry. Dewey Crowe visibly shrank from it and he looked as though he shat his pants when Raylan drew his weapon up fast just a second later.
Usually, Raylan did not pull his sidearm unless he had intent to shoot. But he felt it in his bones that these dickheads wouldn’t listen to him unless they were staring down a barrel.
“Yeah, my boyfriend, Boyd fucking Crowder,” Raylan ground through his teeth. “You were talking to him, Dewey. What about?”
Dewey Crowe seemed to be struck dumb, his hands were high in the air. Boyd leaned harder into Raylan, pressing his lips to the back of his neck, and wrapping his free hand slowly around Raylan’s waist. He pulled at him and slurred, breath hot against Raylan’s skin, “C’mon Raylan, quit wavin’ that thing around. Let’s just go, a’right, baby?”
“Yeah,” Raylan assured him. “Just one other thing.” He glared at each and every body in that room and said, “You like to think I ain’t from here, don’t you? To pretend that we just fuckin’ blew in from out of town? I know you, assholes. The ones I don’t know, he does. You wanted a show, you fucking got one. But I’m telling you right now, if you come near us again, any one of you, I’ll throw in jail for harassment. And, you know Boyd, it won’t go so easy with him. He’ll put you in the fucking ground and he won’t tell me where he buried you. You just try it.”
He walked backwards out of the place, pushing Boyd out behind him and slinging an arm around his waist again when he stumbled.
They earned a look from some guy pulling up in a beat up old truck. Boyd was being fairly handsy as they shuffled their way down the wooden steps from the puddle, but Raylan just glared at the guy, not giving a damn at all, and he stayed in the cab until they passed by.
“Where’s your truck, Boyd?”
Boyd had his head turned toward Raylan’s neck His right arm was slung over Raylan’s shoulder and his left was pulling at Raylan’s belt loops, fumbling ridiculously for Raylan’s belt.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled, near Raylan’s ear.
“You left it at the mine?” Raylan tried again.
He leaned Boyd against the hood of the car, on the passenger side, as soon as they reached it and pulled Boyd’s face up, trying to get him to meet his eyes. Boyd moved to press himself closer, but Raylan held him back.
“Talk to me a second,” he said and tried to smile. “You think you left it there, at the mine? They drag you out here in one of theirs?”
It may not have been a literal dragging, not like Boyd would have let them jump him. But given enough friendly, passive aggressive pressure, Boyd probably would have gone, just to avoid a confrontation. He probably thought he could get out of there after one, and be home without having to even tell Raylan about it.
Boyd looked around, as if trying to figure out where he was, rather than how he’d got there. “I can’t remember. Maybe. Why are you asking? Your car’s here, right?” His brow was furrowed, his eyes confused.
Raylan finally relented, letting him slump forward and pressing a kiss to Boyd’s temple. “Yeah, it is,” he agreed.
He heard the slow, soft exhale that always accompanied Boyd’s biggest, sweetest grins, and had to jump away when his hand pressed down at his crotch. “Shit,” Raylan swore, “Knock that off, Boyd.” He was laughing as Raylan pushed him inside the car.
A few of the miners were standing outside the door or the puddle, beers in hand, watching them. Raylan scowled, strode around the front of the Town Car, and drove out of there as fast as he could.
“We’ll get your truck later. Tomorrow,” he said, unable to keep the anger from his voice.
Raylan glanced over and saw that Boyd had his knees tucked up under his chin. He’d washed his face after coming up from the black, but his hands, his knuckles at least, were still covered in caked-on coal dust, as were his coveralls.
Boyd looked at Raylan with wide eyes, dark from whatever those assholes had slipped him, and his mouth was open like he wanted to say something.
“What?” Raylan said, wincing at the bite of his tone and jutting his jaw in frustration.
Boyd blinked at him then got this utterly unfamiliar look of dejection on his face as he asked, “You mad at me?”
Raylan’s stomach dropped and he pressed too hard on the brake, sending them both jerking forwards and then back, as he switched back to the gas to turn them around the curves of the winding state road they were on.
Usually, under normal circumstances, even abnormal ones, Boyd would know exactly when Raylan was mad, who with, why, and whether or not it was complete bullshit.
He took a deep breath, and looked over at Boyd, trying to catch his eye, make sure he was paying attention, and still keep half an eye on the road. “Listen to me,” he said, in as patient a tone as he could muster at the moment. “Boyd, I ain’t mad. Not at you. We’ll just... talk about it more tomorrow, okay?” He glanced over again and insisted at Boyd’s unsure expression, “I swear, I ain’t mad at you.”
“Okay,” he said and sort of tilted his head back and around idly. It was real weird seeing Boyd act so loose, his eyes looking bigger than usual, his expression changing by the minute. His frown and furrowed brow of moments before were gone like they had never been and he was smiling like someone just told him a dirty joke.
He started talking. Not a lot. He’d just break the silence every minute or so with an odd observation, or some information Raylan had never heard before, about things when Raylan was gone or when Boyd was down in the mine. They were little things, like who was looking at him the wrong way, or who‘d said something borderline offensive just within earshot. He knew Boyd dealt with this kind of stuff, a lot more than Raylan had to, and kept his mouth shut about it.
There wasn’t anything either of them could do, so Raylan didn’t say much. Just a grunt or an “Oh yeah?” every so often and Boyd kept on talking, smile coming and going, fingers tracing funny little patterns in coal dust on the window at his side. Raylan wasn’t going to say anything about any of it, and he hoped Boyd wouldn’t remember.
“I got a letter from Daddy,” Boyd said with a half-smile, looking out the window. They were about three minutes out from the house, but Raylan nearly swerved off the familiar road when he heard that.
“Excuse me?”
“Letter from the big man,” Boyd said, looking at him now, head tilted back again like he couldn’t hold it up. “Told me to fix it. Like I said he would.”
“You said we had ‘til he got out. That he was gonna talk to you.” Raylan was not going to argue about how Boyd had hid it from him, not right now anyway.
Boyd smiled like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard and replied, “Rumor mill’s workin’ overtime, Raylan. We’re big news. Can’t ignore news like us. Can’t say it ain’t true if everybody knows. If people see.”
Neither of them thought it would be like this. Hell, they hadn’t expected anything like what had happened today, what was currently running its course through Boyd’s bloodstream. Him and Boyd, they’d done something no one in Harlan had expected, least of all from the men in their families. It was a testament to how shaken some people were by the revelation of their relationship that hardly anyone was minding their own business about it.
“Shit,” Raylan spat just as they came up the hill to the house. Helen was sitting on the porch.
Boyd just laughed.
“What happened to him?” Helen asked with more curiosity than concern in her voice as Raylan pulled him from the car.
Boyd’s legs could barely support him, even with Raylan’s help, and he was still laughing as they started making their way up to the house. “Fuckin’ assholes from the mine. Slipped something into his drink at the puddle.”
Helen came down the walk and met them, pulling Boyd’s other arm over her own shoulder. “No shit? Are you kidding me, Raylan?”
“You think I would about this?”
Her mouth twisted up and she asked, “What was he even doing there?”
“Hey, Helen,” Boyd said and lolled his head at her, smiling. Raylan gave her a look that hopefully said, don’t ask.
They were half carrying him now and they’d reached the steps up to the porch when Helen responded. “Hey, honey,” she said and smiled, reaching up to run fingers through the hair on the back of his head. Boyd leaned into the touch, eyes closing up like a barn cat for a rare hand.
“What happened to you?” Helen asked as if Raylan hadn’t just said.
Boyd opened his eyes and grinned at her, leaning back into Raylan and almost toppling them both. “Raylan and I went for a drive.”
“Did you now?” She answered, grasping his arm in an attempt to keep him steady. “How was that?”
“Real nice. I thought he was mad, but he said he wasn’t. Then we talked for a long time.”
“You talked, you mean,” Raylan muttered and Helen barked out a laugh.
They finally came through the door, Helen holding it open and Raylan sort of pushing them both inside. “What’d you talk about, darlin’?” Helen asked before Raylan could shoot her a quelling look.
The living room was still all torn up from Boyd’s latest renovation. They weaved in and out of the various tools and materials Boyd had left strewn about the room, and over to the far wall, so Boyd could at least grab onto the bare studs as they made their way to the kitchen.
Raylan badly wanted some kind of alcohol, brown, cold, and in a glass. He wasn’t going to be particular today.
Boyd answered Helen’s question after a long pause. Raylan had been hoping he’d forgotten or hadn’t heard her ask. He was walking now mostly by himself, leaning hard against the wall, with Raylan’s hand on the small of his back. Helen walked next to them keeping an eye out for shit on the floor where Boyd might stumble. “Just the boys at the mine, a little. And Daddy,” Boyd said.
Something sharp, an edge away from fear, entered Helen’s expression. “What about Bo?”
Before Raylan could get anything out this time, Boyd answered fast, stopping and turning to Helen so abruptly that they all halted right at the edge of the kitchen, just a few feet away from where the table was on the far side of the fridge, stove, and counters. He said, “Sent me a letter. Daddy did. He’s mad ‘cause Raylan an’ I ain’t supposed to love each other. But I don’t think I’m gonna stop, just ‘cause it’s what Bo wants. I don’t think Raylan will either, do you?”
The look on Helen’s face was quite a sight, caught somewhere between a hopeless smile and real concern for Boyd’s state. She glanced at Raylan, probably because it seemed as though Boyd had completely forgotten he was there, despite the fact that he still had his hand pressed firmly to his back. She looked back at Boyd and said, “No, I don’t think he will.”
Boyd took two steps further along the wall, and sort of slid down it and to the floor, smiling all the way. Raylan let him go, and leaned himself up against the doorway.
“Oh,” Boyd said a moment later, almost in passing, “and he wants me to come visit him.”
Helen’s hand was the only thing that stopped Raylan from whirling on Boyd, from reaching down and shaking him, asking why he’d kept all that from him, and for how long. She took a breath and shook her head. “Leave it for now. Don’t argue with him in this state,” she murmured quietly. “You gonna take him to a hospital?”
Raylan sighed. “Wouldn’t want me to. He ain’t full-time at the mine, Helen, and he can’t get on my insurance.”
“Then feed him. And have him drink at least two glasses of water, okay? Before he passes out.”
Raylan looked at her, then over at Boyd, whose hand had somehow traveled along the foot or so of baseboard between them, his fingers latched around Raylan’s boot. He turned back to Helen, eyebrows lifted.
She raised her eyes to the ceiling and threw up her hands. “Fine,” she said roughly and turned to the fridge. “You boys had better actually have food this time.”
“We were gonna cook out for you, remember?” Raylan replied and came around the doorway to Boyd, shaking off his hand gently, and kneeling down in front of him.
“He can’t eat no hot dogs or brats, Raylan. It’ll just come right back up,” she called back. “At least you’ve got some goddamn bread.”
Boyd was sitting in a sort of loose Indian-style up against the wall, one knee higher than the other, with his elbow propped up and his head resting on it. He looked up at Raylan and smiled real big. He reached his hands out to Raylan and Raylan took them, letting Boyd thread their fingers together and pull them down to press to the floor, so his face was up real close to Boyd’s.
“How you feelin’?” Raylan asked softly.
“Okay, I guess,” he answered. “How are you?”
Raylan chuckled and leaned his forehead down, so it rested against Boyd’s, just for a second. Helen was busy for the moment anyway. “I’m tired, Boyd,” he said. “I’m pissed.”
“Not at me,” Boyd replied, at least remembering that much. He looked up at Raylan. “Right?”
Raylan’s mouth twisted, snagged between a smile and a grimace. “Not quite. And not now, anyway.”
Boyd seemed to consider that for a second and then nodded, as though deciding it was fair. Raylan couldn’t help but laugh as he reluctantly let go of Boyd’s hands and turned his back to the wall as well, sliding down to sit next to him.
Helen was standing at the counter, a hot dog bun in her hand, looking at Raylan with a strange expression on her face. When Raylan held out his hand for the bread, she visibly shook herself and walked over to give it to him. “You want a drink?” she asked.
“God in Heaven, Helen, I am so glad you asked,” Raylan answered. He broke off a piece of the bun and nudged Boyd up a little, from where he was leaning far into Raylan’s shoulder. “Eat that,” he said.
“Why?” Boyd asked dubiously. “It ain’t got no meat in it, Raylan.”
“Helen thinks that might make you sick. You probably skipped lunch again today, so you need somethin’ in your stomach, Boyd.” Raylan knew that when he was in town, Boyd would work through lunch sometimes, so he could punch out early.
“I don’t think I skipped lunch.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know, do you?” Raylan put the bread in Boyd’s still filthy hand, figuring there was enough coal dust in his boy’s lungs, it wouldn’t hurt much to have some in his stomach too. He couldn’t imagine trying to get him hustled over to the sink and washed up, it wasn’t worth the effort. “Will you please just eat it?”
Boyd took it from him with a sigh and stuffed it in his mouth. Raylan smirked.
Helen came over and plunked a tumbler of something clear on the floor next to him. “What’d you pull that out for?” he asked as she sat down at the table opposite them and took a sip of her own ‘shine.
“To remind you of the good things that come outta this place,” she said with a spark in her eye. “Not everyone hates, Raylan. Most don’t care. Some might find it an oddity, like that woman, lives up the ridge with all those cats--”
“Thanks, Helen,” Raylan said, rolling his eyes as he handed Boyd another piece of the bun.
“What I mean is, not everyone in Harlan is a bitter old miner, or a gun thug with daddy issues.”
“So, you mean the women?” He cocked his head. “Really?”
Helen grinned like she had a secret, then replied, “Iris McCloud told me she thinks you boys look good together. And when the girl at the checkout, ah Bobby Ray Mooney’s daughter, realized what Iris meant by ‘together’ she blushed beet red and couldn’t stop giggling.”
Boyd leaned his head against Raylan’s shoulder and twisted a little, pressing his knees against Raylan’s thigh. Raylan handed him another piece of bread and just let his hand drop to cover Boyd’s knee.
“Well, I’m real glad we’re so amusing to the ladies ‘round here, Helen,” he said, not able to hide the sarcasm.
“Raylan, you just be glad we ain’t livin’ thirty years ago, fifteen even. Then, you’d have a goddamn lynch mob at this door. Women included. All I’m sayin’ is, not everyone hates you. Sure there’s the ignorant and the damned baptists, but if you leave people alone, for the most part they’ll leave you. You just have to wait it out.”
“I hate waitin’,” Raylan muttered and Helen shook her head like she used to when he wouldn’t eat his vegetables.
Boyd stirred a little, but didn’t lift his head as he added, “That check out girl used t’give you the eyes all the time, Raylan. I thought I was gonna have to set her straight soon. M’glad Helen beat me to it.”
“Shut up, Boyd,” Raylan said affectionately and moved his hand slow up and down his leg, not caring too much about the coal dust. He heard the huff of Boyd’s smile and looked down to hand him the last bit of bread.
When he turned back to Helen, she was watching him, head tilted in a considering way.
“What?” Raylan asked at the strangeness of her stare.
Helen’s smile was soft, and there was something terribly fond in her eyes as she looked at them. Raylan felt sort of weird about it. “You two,” she said. “I ain’t never seen you boys touch each other before, like you’re doin’ right now. It’s lovely.”
Raylan looked away. It was true, maybe not the lovely part, he didn’t know what Helen was talking about with that, but Boyd and Raylan rarely touched each other when they were in company. They didn’t really know how.
They’d never socialized as a couple, only really did it with Helen now, and Ava sometimes. The few occasions spouses or partners were called on for anything work related, they kept themselves stiff and not terribly public on some unspoken mutual agreement. They touched only elbows or brushed shoulders, and they always left very early.
Art had told him once after the office summer picnic to just relax, they lived in the twenty-first century for God’s sake. Raylan remembered smiling like he didn’t believe him and saying something to change the subject.
“Knowing it in how he looks at you, and talks about you, and you for him, that’s one thing,” Helen continued, pausing to take a sip of the ‘shine. “Seeing it, right here in front of me,” she smiled and it was soft again, reminding Raylan now of his mother, so he couldn’t look away, “I’m just so glad for you, Raylan. You and him. He’s a... he’s a real good boy. I’ve known that for a long time.”
“Thank you, Helen,” Boyd said, like she’d just given him a present.
“You’re welcome, honey.”
Helen left after they’d force fed Boyd three full glasses of water and Raylan assured her he could get him up the stairs on his own. She gave each of them a kiss on the cheek, and Boyd another run through his messy hair and said, “Be good, boys,” with a laughing smile.
When the door closed behind her, Boyd took the opportunity to immediately press himself up against Raylan, drawing his lips against the side of Raylan’s mouth and teasing it open with surprising ease.
Raylan let Boyd make out with him for maybe a minute, taking care to not encourage too much, and making sure they both stayed upright, until Boyd pulled them back toward the table and sat himself up on it, dragging Raylan with him.
Raylan drew his lips away from Boyd, who huffed and frowned, only a little more exaggerated than when he was sober and he didn’t get what he wanted. “What am I gonna do with you now?” Raylan murmured.
“Whatever you want, baby,” Boyd said with a smile. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
Raylan smiled softly. He knew what Boyd meant, but he looked around this house, had been looking at it for months now, marvelling at how different it was, how differently he felt about it now that Boyd had come into it, transformed almost everything about it. All because it was what Raylan wanted, even if he hadn’t known that’s what he was asking.
It was a strange power to hold over someone. To know that if he asked Boyd to do something, if he needed something and didn’t even ask, Boyd would do it, would stop at nothing.
Boyd never asked for anything, never needed anything but what Raylan had already given. First the house, and then later, his loyalty, his heart, without even knowing.
It had been a terrible thing to wake up to, the morning after he told Boyd he loved him, to realize he had for so long and not known. Decisions were easy after that, but bearing the weight of them had taken him a little time to adjust and he knew he’d scared Boyd, making him wait like that, and then shocked him, at doing everything like it was nothing at all.
He’d never forget Boyd’s face, the day he came to help Raylan move, when everything finally got laid out, and revealed to Art as well. Raylan had never seen such a surprised and pleased expression on the man’s face. Nothing surprised Boyd, he was too smart for it, except for Raylan. And that was a feeling that brought out a particular sense of accomplishment in him.
He looked at Boyd, who’d begun listing a little, leaning his forehead to Raylan’s shoulder, pulling a little aimlessly at his shirt and sleeve. “You tired, darlin’?” he asked softly.
Boyd looked up at him, his smile growing slowly to a grin. “You ain’t never called me that before, Raylan.”
Raylan wasn’t really one for pet names, or hadn’t been anyway. He’d always felt like his relationship with Boyd, when he’d had the courage to think of it that way, didn’t fit into any set molds, where they called each other things other than their own names, and said “I love you,” once a day, like it was prayers before bed.
He’d always felt like they didn’t need that shit. But that first time, when he was moving toward making this place home again, when Boyd whispered “baby” to him as he slipped onto his lap in the front seat of his car, he’d felt it could maybe be something they liked, instead of something they needed.
Still, it had apparently taken Raylan six months and a terrifying drug-related incident to get him to reciprocate.
“Don’t get used to it,” Raylan said, before Boyd kissed him hard. And he felt a pang of regret that Boyd probably wouldn’t remember this either.
“I ain’t tired, Raylan,” Boyd whispered to Raylan’s lips, pulling his shirt from his waistband and sliding a hand up his chest.
Raylan started moving them toward the stairs, knowing they were gonna need to get up there eventually. “I figured.”
It ended up being easier to get Boyd upstairs than he’d thought. The man was on a mission to get into Raylan’s pants, and seemed to have picked up on the idea that the sooner they ascended the steps, the faster he’d get that accomplished.
Pushing and pulling each other into their bedroom was now a matter of routine, something like muscle memory. So Boyd handled it fairly well, all things considered, until they were both sprawled out on the bed, and Boyd was on top, working away at Raylan’s belt, taking a lot longer than usual with it.
“Hey, hey,” Raylan said, pushing Boyd’s hands gently off him. “Hold up, Boyd.”
“What?” He asked, drawing his knees up under him to straddle Raylan. “We’re alone now, baby. I want--”
“Maybe not tonight, okay?”
Raylan knew the look in Boyd’s eye, even with the fog of the drugs cast over it, he didn’t want to just mess around. But Raylan wasn’t certain, with that shit in Boyd’s system, if he was too desensitized to get off.
He couldn’t bear the idea of fucking him without some reciprocation of feeling, it was disturbingly close to the kind of abuse those drugs were used for, the kind of thing that very well may have happened to Boyd if he hadn’t called Raylan, if Raylan hadn't been so close by.
Boyd stared at him, his face flushed, his shoulders sagging like a slashed tire deflating.
“Let’s just go to bed,” Raylan said, even though it was early for them, and tried to smile in the face of Boyd’s wounded look.
He undressed them, and Boyd let him, not fighting at all with tangled sleeves and awkward pant legs. They got coal dust all over the floor and the bedspread, but Raylan was far from caring and Boyd didn’t seem to notice.
Boyd just kept looking at him with this sad, thoughtful expression and Raylan couldn’t bring himself to say anything because he figured it was something they could just talk about later, if Boyd happened to remember. He was tired of having to talk through the fog, to have to fight to reason with his usually so reasonable boy.
Finally they were in their boxers, and Raylan had his back turned to the chest of drawers along the wall facing their bed where Boyd sat. Raylan was laying his watch down and arranging his wallet and side arm for easy reach, when Boyd said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
“What the hell for?”
“I love you,” Boyd replied, like he meant it, like Raylan didn’t know.
“Yeah?” Raylan turned to him and frowned. He looked gloriously disheveled, but the pain in his eyes was something Raylan was unprepared for. “Boyd, what is the matter?”
“I don’t say it enough, Raylan,” he said. “Ever since you said... and then everything happened and you seemed to know, so I thought that I wouldn’t need to so much because--”
Raylan moved forward, reaching for Boyd’s cheek, smoothing a hand through his hair. “You don’t need to. I know, Boyd.”
Boyd had said those words, at least once that Raylan could clearly remember. When they’d got all Raylan’s shit inside the house, arranged the way they both wanted it, and Boyd was still smiling so big, Raylan thought his face might split open.
They’d come up the stairs just like they had tonight, just like they had so many times before. But that night it felt different and they’d screwed for hours, desperate and hungry for each other in a way they hadn’t been for a while. The second time that night that Raylan made Boyd come, he’d moaned out loud, “Goddamn, Raylan, I love you so much. Fuck,” and Raylan had laughed, because, even then, he already knew.
Raylan knew it because of the house, and he told Boyd so. “It’s here,” he said. “In every room, Boyd. And it’s in your eyes and your hands. Your smile. I see it all the damn time, darlin’. Don’t, for a second, think that I don’t.”
Raylan understood, too, that Boyd didn’t. Not really. It was whatever was running through his veins, messing with his head, that let that uncertainty in, burrowing doubt deeper than truth. If Boyd really thought he needed to say it more, he would. He’d say it every day.
But still, Raylan smiled and assured him, “You don’t have to say it. Not to me. You know that.”
He climbed up on Boyd’s lap, though it was something he rarely did, a position that Boyd seemed to prefer to take when they were together. He seized Boyd’s face in his hands and kissed him, long and open-mouthed, making big, long strokes with his tongue, letting Boyd’s move sweetly against his.
“I want to,” Boyd said, pulling him closer. “I love you.” Then he said it again, and again, and again, while Raylan kissed his way down his neck and collarbone.
It was intoxicating, hearing Boyd say that like a mantra, like a prayer, and they rocked together, moving skin against skin, flesh against flesh, making a battle of their lips and tongues. Boyd hooked Raylan’s lower lip with his teeth, then sucked it in apology. His smile was sweet and wide, his eyes crinkled when they weren’t closed against Raylan’s attentions.
He said, “I love you,” again and Raylan parroted it back to him, breathlessly searching for his cock. When Raylan’s hand slid inside Boyd’s boxers he found things a little more limp than he was expecting. “Shit,” he muttered. He’d almost forgotten, with Boyd’s hands roaming all over him, his concerns about Boyd’s ability to get it up. It was too much to hope that whatever it was would be wearing off by now.
Boyd didn’t seem to notice, he twisted around, pushing Raylan down onto the bed and climbing on top himself. “Raylan,” he said each word between kisses, between deep breaths and long exhales, “I want... fuck me, please, Raylan.”
Raylan didn’t know where this desire was coming from, because as he stroked a few more times up and down Boyd’s cock, he was barely hard. He was responding to the pressure of Raylan’s hands and lips, knowing what to do, what he wanted, without feeling it.
Raylan had been numb drunk before, even once with Boyd. All they’d been able to do was make out like teenagers before they passed out on each other. He wasn’t about to use Boyd in this situation, in no world would that ever be okay.
He made himself smile into Boyd’s kiss. “You know,” he said, looking up into Boyd’s eyes, still blown wide open. “You know what I want, Boyd?”
Boyd smiled, like all he wanted in the world was to hear what Raylan had to say. “What?”
“Will you suck me off, Boyd? Will you,” he paused and his breath hitched because Boyd was already moving down his body, trailing his lips across Raylan’s hips, pulling his underwear down roughly. “Will you put your mouth on me? Do you want to...?”
The more Raylan had asked for it, the harder he got, the more he wanted it. Boyd seemed happy to accommodate him, looking up at Raylan with a pleased twinkle in his eyes and smoothing his fingers along Raylan’s inner thighs.
“Yes,” he said, drawing Raylan’s legs apart and dipping his head to take him in, full-tilt, in one haphazard swallow.
His technique was not at its peak, to say the least, but he made up for it in enthusiasm and Raylan felt his smile stretch into a pleasurable grin. After Boyd really got going, squeezing maybe a little too tight at the base as he sucked, Raylan stopped thinking about what he was and wasn’t doing right because it was so goddamn good, he could barely think of anything at all.
Raylan figured he probably didn’t need to admit to Boyd anytime soon that he didn’t exactly remember much after he came with a booming yell and felt Boyd, come-covered and smiling, climbing back up to kiss him, sloppy and satisfied.
On to Part 2.