YNLH: I Have Not Been Myself for zelda_zee
Recipient: zelda_zee
Title: I Have Not Been Myself
Author: norgbelulah
Characters Raylan Givens, Boyd Crowder
Pairings: Raylan Givens/Boyd Crowder
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 4,800
Spoilers: All of season 3
Warnings: none.
Disclaimer: Justified belongs to Elmore Leonard and Graham Yost.
A/N: Thanks to betas engage_protocol and thornfield_girl. I hope it's not too overflowing with angst.
Summary: He should have known Harlan would bring out the worst in him. Sometimes, when he was there, he felt like the exact same version of himself that had left twenty years ago.
Like right now, standing in Johnny's goddamn bar, hands on his hips, he feels nineteen and stupid as fuck and pissed as hell and half in love with Boyd Crowder. The only difference is the badge and gun.
"I don't want to go back there."
That's what Raylan had told Dan Grant, back in Miami. The words had come out of his mouth before he realized how petulant they sounded, how juvenile, like he was complaining to Mama that he didn't want to go to church on Sunday or to school a mere 24 hours later.
It was the truth, plain and flat. Luckily, Dan hadn't really seemed to notice. Maybe it was because most of what had been coming out of Raylan's mouth at that time had been stubborn as shit anyway and the words themselves had sounded much like all the rest. But Raylan had noticed and the difference probably should have given him more pause than it did, looking back.
He should have known Harlan would bring out the worst in him. Sometimes, when he was there, he felt like the exact same version of himself that had left twenty years ago.
Like right now, standing in Johnny's goddamn bar, hands on his hips, he feels nineteen and stupid as fuck and pissed as hell and half in love with Boyd Crowder. The only difference is the badge and gun.
Boyd smiles at him, like he's always done. It’s all the same to him.
Raylan hates Harlan. He hates it.
"I have not been myself."
That's what he'd told Boyd, sitting on the opposite side of a jail cell. He was talking about Winona, how being with her had messed with his head, like his Uncle Everett. That was bullshit, they’d both known that as he was speaking the words.
Raylan wonders now, if he'd really meant anything by it. In the moment, he'd been feeling slow and stupid, pulled off kilter by a gunshot wound and a body that was growing older than he'd like to admit. He'd been pissed he hadn't realized what Boyd was up to with that shit in the conference room. He'd been exhausted from ignoring the aches in his bones and his gut, and an old one in his chest, every time he saw Boyd in cuffs or behind bars.
Now, in times of doubt, in times of drink, he thinks it might have been twenty years since he'd truly been himself. He thinks every step he's ever taken away from Harlan has made him less of who he is, really, underneath and at his core. Most of the time, he thinks that’s a good thing. Great, even.
He hates Harlan. He hates the way it made him who he is, or who he had been, hates the way it seems to be forever trying to turn him back into that fucking boy.
"What can I do for you, Raylan?" Boyd asks.
Boyd has always been trying to do things for Raylan and always in the most self-serving way possible. His eyes are too honest. His voice holds that Harlan sincerity, dubious at best, though always heartfelt.
Raylan hates it.
“You been gone for too long.”
That’s what Boyd had told him, nearly two years ago now, standing in a rundown church and talking about fucking mud people.
Times have changed and if Raylan had ever agreed with Boyd, it had only been fleetingly, the times when he couldn’t remember how to get somewhere, or some shitkicker criminal’s kid brother’s first name. Or when he couldn’t see far enough past Boyd’s bullshit to get at what he really wanted.
"I could use a drink," Raylan says.
His thoughts are on what he'd come there for. It isn't until Boyd blinks at him, something old flashing in his eyes, that Raylan realizes he's unconsciously echoed a script from the past.
Raylan looks at Boyd and wants to take back the words. He knows Boyd can tell, and hates that too.
But Boyd smiles again and it’s a little more like the old one, the way it used to be, without any bitterness, like no time has passed. Raylan feels himself loosen, unbidden, or wanting to, before he frowns and makes himself hard again, irritation plain on his face.
"Let me get you one, Raylan," Boyd replies easily, like nothing has happened. And maybe it hadn't. "Sit down, son. If you're gonna drink, you should sit."
Raylan takes a chair, swinging it out wide to face the bar and Boyd directly. Boyd grins like he's won something and it irks Raylan. Though it’s so like him he almost laughs.
Raylan looks around the bar, really looks. He isn't casing it for weapons or drugs, he isn't thinking about an exit, though he probably should be. He’s just looking and he finds it to be a fair sight similar to the place he and Boyd had spent so much time.
He fucking hates that.
Boyd doesn’t ask what he wants to drink. He knows Raylan’s mostly a Jim Beam man. They talked about it enough when they were young, argued more like, though never as heated as they had been lately.
Boyd’s fingers brush against Raylan’s when he hands him the bourbon. Raylan feels a shiver run up his arm. He promptly blames it on the ice and the cool condensation already forming on the glass.
“To old friends,” Boyd says as he settles down on a bar stool opposite Raylan. “Unless you got something else to which you’d raise your glass?”
Raylan came here to talk about Arlo, so he shakes his head, biding his time. “No, Boyd. Not as such.”
They raise their glasses, echoing “cheers,” back to each other. They’re too far away to do it right.
Raylan looks at Boyd and looks around again at the place. Boyd is cool and casual, leaning against the bar, at ease in his domain. Raylan sees him molding this little pile of sand into his own fucking castle, sees how good he is at it, how proud he seems and thinks maybe it was Boyd who’s stayed too long. He wonders at all the things this brilliant, perceptive, driven, asshole could have done elsewhere, anywhere but here and he feels pity and something like sorrow.
He hates that feeling.
“You do know what Boyd is, right?”
Raylan had asked Ava that, sitting at the bar above which he lives now. He’d kissed her not two minutes before.
He wasn’t sure if he was disturbed or comforted by the knowledge and certainty he saw in that woman’s gaze. He doesn’t like to think now about the pang of jealousy he’d hand to tamp down on.
“Ava ran into town for some supplies,” Boyd says, like he has to account for every moment she isn’t near him. Something about that makes Raylan’s stomach twist up, though he wonders if it’s only the fact that Boyd has so successfully entangled Ava in every single one of his affairs.
“I’m sorry I missed her,” Raylan replies automatically and doesn’t think about whether or not that’s true. He’s looking at the floor.
“I’m sorry to learn the mother of your child ain’t as close as you might like any longer, Raylan.” Boyd’s words are soft, like he really does care if Raylan is happy.
He thinks the bourbon might be getting to him because any other time, he would have come across the table at the presumption. Instead he just blurts, “You knew she left?” and looks up at Boyd.
“Well, I’m pretty sure she ain’t livin’ with you above that bar.” Boyd’s head tilts in the way it used to, when he thought Raylan was being especially thick, instead of just thinking at the same rate as normal people. “You sleep with the bartender?”
And again, Raylan is so surprised that Boyd knows about that even, that he doesn’t get angry. He just looks away and Boyd starts laughing, and pretty soon Raylan’s laughing too.
Another drink is poured and handed to him before he even thinks to ask.
He hates that Boyd knows him so well, he really really does.
“He’s not my crew, Raylan, he’s my family.”
Raylan’s expression falls to a frown as soon as he thinks of it. Boyd in cuffs, talking so soft he could barely be heard over papers shuffling and phones ringing in the office. Arlo in just the other room, unbeknownst to all, about to confess to at least one crime he did not commit.
Boyd had looked at Raylan with that same County sincerity that might just as well be bullshit, spoken with it thick in his words. Raylan remembers Boyd’s days as some kind of hillbilly evangelist then, and thinks maybe he wasn’t lying about that connection he mentioned, that criminal thread that seems to run through every man raised up in Harlan. Every man but Raylan.
He wonders sometimes if that got beat out of him, or if it was just never there.
“What’s on your mind, Raylan?” Boyd asks, two in to Raylan’s three. He’s not sure how long they’ve been drinking, not talking.
“Arlo was arraigned today,” Raylan answers and looks Boyd right in the eye. “Didn’t see you there.”
Boyd smiles, crookedly, and says, “I was asked not to attend.”
“By him?”
“Said he’d never had nobody in court with him before. Thought it might be bad luck so close to the end of his life. I didn't have the heart to make him worry about such things.”
Raylan doesn’t try to conceal his disgust.
Boyd tilts his head again. Raylan downs his drink like it’s done something to him. He’s feeling mad now, and he’s got too much liquor in him to press it down sufficiently.
“I didn’t think you had any feeling left in you for Arlo, Raylan,” Boyd says. “I have to admit to some surprise, at your... jealousy?”
Raylan slams the glass down on the table, spitting, “Fuck you, Boyd. It wasn’t ever him I--”
He stops his words, but not fast enough, because Boyd’s eyes widen and, suddenly, they look so young, young enough to seem like he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.
He gets himself under control about as fast as Raylan does, then says, “It was my actions, not Arlo’s, that hurt you, wasn’t it?”
Raylan seethes at him. He hates this place. He hates Boyd more.
“I am so sorry, Raylan,” Boyd says, but not what for.
Raylan rises fast from the chair. His hand slips on water, pooled condensation on the table, and his glass slides away from him, crashing to the floor. The sound of it shattering echoes in Raylan’s head. He needs to get the fuck out of here.
Boyd’s hand is on his arm as he takes one stride, just one, towards the door. Their eyes meet and Raylan knows his are wild, angry, and scared. Boyd’s are calm in comparison and Raylan’s taken back to that day in the mine. All he wants is to trust in Boyd, because Boyd knows what to do better than him. He always does.
“Fuck,” Raylan hisses and tries to jerk his arm away. Boyd’s grip is tight, so Raylan pushes back, pressing the boy up against the bar hard and fast. The breath goes out of Boyd’s lungs, Raylan hears it. He remembers the day he dragged Boyd into the back room of this bar, how later he couldn’t stop thinking about it, about his fist in Boyd’s stomach, his hands pulling, pushing.
He kisses Boyd before he registers a desire to do so. He pushes up harder, like it’s a blow to the face. He uses his teeth. He’s not thinking at all, not until Boyd kisses back.
Raylan’s so hard, he doesn’t know what to do. He pulls back and Boyd looks wrecked, like he’s thinking of a thousand different ways something like this could have happened, without all the rage inside Raylan, without women and bullets and their daddies between them.
“Raylan,” Boyd tries, his eyes open wounds, his muscles tense under Raylan’s hands.
Raylan doesn’t let him. “No,” he says and puts his mouth back on Boyd’s, just to shut him up. He doesn’t want to hear it anymore, he doesn’t want Boyd’s fucking shit.
He doesn’t let Boyd push back or move up on him. He doesn’t want that either. He pushes and pushes him further into the bar, until he’s almost on top of it and Boyd’s back is raked against the hard corners of the thick wood of the bar top. Boyd’s mouth falls open against Raylan’s, slack and moaning with real pain.
Raylan pulls up immediately. “Shit,” he curses, blinking and trying to stumble away. It’s not that he’s hurt the man, hell if he hasn’t caused Boyd what constitutes a ridiculous amount of physical pain over the years. It’s the other thing, the kissing. The pleasure and the pain together. Raylan’s repulsed by it. He is.
He hates it.
Boyd’s hands come up then, before Raylan can get his feet under him enough to back away, and grasp hard at his shirt.
He smiles at Raylan. It’s sharp and sinful and his eyelids are heavy, drawn down, like he’s never been more turned on in his life. When he speaks it’s soft, but almost deadly. There’s no challenge in it, no boastful pride. It’s a weedle, a cajole, temptation itself. It’s hateful and full of desire. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asks. “To fuck me, ‘stead of me fuckin’ you? This is what you always wanted, Raylan.” When Boyd says his name like that, like it’s filthy and good all at the same time, he sways forward, lets Boyd pull him close again. “C’mon, boy,” Boyd tells him. “Do it. I want it, too.”
It’s so easy to listen to Boyd. It always has been. He knows how to present an argument, how to win one handily.
Raylan’s always hated that.
He slides his hand up and around the back of Boyd’s neck, pulling their lips together again. He tastes so good. They kiss like they're starving for it and Raylan, without thought, gets his other hand down inside Boyd’s pants, wraps his fingers around Boyd’s stiff cock.
“That’s right,” Boyd says smiling to Raylan’s swollen lips. “C’mon, Raylan.”
“Shut up, Boyd,” Raylan says.
“No.”
Raylan pulls back again, his hands falling away in confusion, and Boyd is grinning like he’s won again. Boyd’s hands move up on him now, sliding up fast and strong, but gentle too, like he really doesn’t want to spook him, like Raylan is some kind of dumb animal.
Boyd starts speaking, slow and calm, and with every word he draws Raylan further into the bar, towards the back room. “If I shut up, Raylan,” he says, his eyes full of something that’s somehow encouraging. “If I stop talking, about how I know what you want, about how I’ve always known and I always will,” he tells him, then puts his lips on Raylan’s again, walking backwards.
They’re through the door now and Raylan’s hardly thinking about it, too concerned about Boyd’s hands on him, about what might happen if Boyd’s words cease. “If I stop telling you these things you don’t want to hear,” he says and seizes Raylan’s face, pulling him into a searing kiss.
Raylan’s not trying to get away anymore. He moves up on Boyd, needing to be closer like he needs air, wanting it so much he’s almost sick with it. He’s lost track of Boyd’s words. He might still be talking, but Raylan’s beyond listening.
They fall together, Boyd pulling, Raylan mostly stumbling onto the dingy old sofa in the back room. Boyd’s fly is already undone and he’s working hard at pulling out Raylan’s aching cock. Boyd’s shirt is half unbuttoned and rucked up and out of his waistband. Raylan’s hands itch to touch him, to spread his fingers across the heat of his skin. His lips want to taste more than just Boyd’s mouth.
Raylan’s thoughts are scattered now and hazy, mostly careening through years of memories, flashes of times he’s wanted Boyd and told himself no. No, that’s not what you thought. No, that smile meant something else. No, you’re not that person anymore. He groans with it and hears a whine at the back of his throat and feels Boyd smile into his skin. It’s all almost too much and he wants to pull away, save himself from it, until he banishes all that past away from him and all he’s thinking about is now and need and yes.
Boyd’s lips are at his ear, hot, and his words are heavy as he says, “If I stop, Raylan, you’ll start thinking.”
And Raylan doesn’t want to think, so he says, “Okay.”
Boyd puts a sure hand to Raylan’s cheek, thrusting him back just far enough that they can look each other in the eye. He’s pulling his jeans down, spreading his legs for him. “So, I want you to fuck me,” he says.
Raylan doesn’t know what he looks like just then, but from the way Boyd’s staring at him, it must be good, it must be what he wanted.
All Raylan can see his how dark Boyd’s eyes are, how deep and real. All he knows is that he’s pretty sure he’d take it if that’s what Boyd wanted, he’s pretty sure he’d do anything right now, if Boyd’s the one who’s asking.
He just answers, “Yeah,” in a strangely detached tone. “Okay, Boyd.” And then he starts to move. He knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, what to do. He knows, in roughly the same place, that it’s something he’s never done before, something he should be worried about doing right. But he’s not. He’s not thinking about it.
Boyd’s kissing him again as Raylan’s hands come down to Boyd’s backside. “No lube,” Boyd says breathless. “No time. Just slick me up with your spit.”
“Okay,” Raylan whispers and Boyd gives him sort of a funny look at that, but soon his eyes are closed, screwed up tight, because Raylan’s got two fingers inside his asshole and he’s pulling him apart.
Raylan loses track of time again while he spreads Boyd open, but he knows he’s ready when Boyd bucks up into his hands, straining for Raylan, pulling at his thighs and begging, “Come on, boy. I need--”
Raylan lowers his lips over Boyd’s, cutting him off, dimly smiling at his desperation. “Okay, Boyd,” he says. “Okay.”
His cock is still hard, hurting even, and he lets himself feel it keenly when he finally pushes himself up and inside Boyd, who breathes deep and moans long for him. His eyes roll back with it as he gets enough leverage between them and starts to move
“Fuck me hard, Raylan,” Boyd says, so Raylan does. He’s not sure if he says anything in response, he’s trying not to think too hard about it. Everything hazes out for a split second, or maybe it’s longer, because it’s all too good and it’s just good and it can’t be anything else because he won’t let it.
Until he hears Boyd say something again and hands come up to his face. “Raylan,” Boyd calls, like he’s said it more than once. “Where did you go?”
He’s still moving, but he’s not thinking about that either. “Nowhere,” he mumbles. He’s fine. He closes his lips around Boyd’s thumb, sucks hard.
Boyd pulls it back right away, fingers coming rough around his chin, digging into the line of his jaw. “Look at me, Raylan. What are you thinking of?”
Boyd’s eyes are frightened. Raylan can’t imagine what he might be so scared of. He shakes his head and answers. “Nothing. Can’t think. It’d be... too much. You told me not to.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Boyd insists. He sweeps a hand up to cradle the back of Raylan’s neck, sinking his fingers into Raylan’s hair, tugging to keep his attention. “I didn’t talk you around to this so you could check out, son. I won’t be fucked by a damned zombie. So,” Boyd tells him, “one thing, Raylan. Let’s think of one thing, one time. And that’s where we’ll be. What is it?”
Raylan smiles, he wraps a hand around Boyd’s cock, pumping it as he thrusts. “The mine,” he says.
Raylan gets a little satisfaction from the way Boyd’s eyes widen and his breath hitches before he can protest. “W-why? You hate the mine.”
“It’s the only place I can trust you,” Raylan says and, in the back of his mind, he hates that.
Boyd shakes his head, pulling himself up closer to Raylan, crowding in, pressing his forehead to Raylan’s cheek, his nose at the curve of his jaw. “Don’t say that, please.”
Raylan takes his hand off Boyd’s cock, sliding hip palm across Boyd’s hip, and slows himself down to a crawl. Boyd doesn’t seem to notice. All his attention is on Raylan’s face.
“You were the one, made it this way,” Raylan tells him, then smiles. “But don’t worry. ‘Cause if we’re in the mine, we don’t need to worry no more, Boyd.”
Boyd’s expression is bewildered, his mouth slack, his eyes wide and lost. “Why not?”
Raylan knows how he sounds. He can hear what he’s saying, but he doesn’t care. He’s made a choice and he’s near unravelled himself in the process. Boyd said pick a place to be, and it’s always easier to listen to Boyd, so Raylan’s nineteen again and he loves Boyd and he’s not scared. Not anymore.
“Because you’re here,” he says and kisses Boyd again.
Boyd only barely kisses back, moving his mouth slow on Raylan’s, drawing his hands softly through Raylan’s hair. Raylan thought Boyd didn’t want soft. He’s been balls deep in Boyd for longer than he usually cares to, so he starts to move again, but stills when Boyd says, “Raylan, you’re scaring me with this.”
Raylan shakes his head, smiles indulgently. This was Boyd’s idea, he should know. “No, I ain’t.” He puts his hand back on Boyd’s cock, trails his fingers lightly up to the head and Boyd hisses through his teeth. “You don’t got time to be scared, boy. Not here.”
Raylan bends his head to put his lips on Boyd’s nipple and sucks, then swirls his tongue around it. Boyd throws his head back and moans. Raylan’s hand is still on him and his hips buck up hard.
Now Raylan starts to move again, faster and harder, and this time he really feels it. It’s pulling everything up inside him, all the threads Boyd’s pulled apart, every string of love and hate and things he could never name. It’s drawing them down through his fingers and his toes, through his goddamn cock as the pressure builds and Boyd arches into him, choking on his name.
“Tell me something, Boyd,” Raylan says. His lips are at Boyd’s neck. He feels the boy’s pulse pounding. He wants to hear this just once more in his life.
“What?” Boyd pants desperately.
“You know,” Raylan cries, eyes rolling back. “What do I want to hear?”
There’s a long pause and Raylan despairs that Boyd has forgotten, that he never understood, until the words come, ripped and ravaged from his mouth. “You just... listen to me, Raylan. And I’ll... I’ll get us through this.”
Except it’s Raylan who keeps them steady, first when Boyd comes, surging upwards with a shout stifled by Raylan’s shoulder, then again when Raylan does, following him and rutting up hard into him, straining to be as close as he can. It washes over him, blissful and white, a different haze than the blank he’d forced on himself before Boyd called him back. Boyd’s hands are in his hair.
Then that bliss recedes and Raylan’s left just a little more hollow for it. He hates that.
Raylan slips out of Boyd, wishing he’d thought to do so while he was still feeling good about what they’d done. Boyd’s fingers curl into the sweat-soaked strands of his hair, but Raylan makes himself pull away. He leans back against the opposite arm of the sofa and looks at Boyd. He knows the man will want to talk. He’s not sure how long he’ll be able to stomach it.
Boyd’s eyes seem hooded in the dark of the room, maybe masking hurt, or anger, or something else. Raylan is too tired to try and decipher Boyd any more. He’s never really been that good at it.
“Do you ever wish you could really go back in time, Raylan?” he asks finally. His voice is soft, but not uncertain.
“No.” Raylan’s not really in a mood for speeches.
“There are a lot of different ways something like this could have happened. Ways that could have changed our futures, who we are to the world, to each other.” Boyd puts his hand on Raylan’s ankle where their legs are still somewhat tangled on the sofa. He wraps his fingers around the joint until Raylan shifts, shakes him off.
“It didn’t happen different, Boyd. It happened this way. It’s not going to change anything. Not for me.”
Boyd shakes his head at him. His hair is all mussed, flat in some places, stuck out in others. His face still holds that sated, well-fucked look and it makes Raylan want to kiss him again, badly.
“You’re the one with all the ill feelings, Raylan. I never harbored those for you,” Boyd says.
Raylan smirks. “You just put yourself firmly in a position in direct opposition to my own.” He refrains from mentioning Arlo again.
Boyd grimaces, like those decisions were beyond his control, when Raylan knows that they were not. His eyes are steady on Raylan’s and he sounds more sincere than he’s ever done when he says, “No matter what you believe, there are things that you can still trust me to do for you.”
“Like what?”
“You know,” Boyd insists, pulling his legs back like Raylan’s burned him just by proximity. He pushes himself off the sofa, pulling his jeans from the floor and thrusting his feet through the legs like they were the ones who’d doubted him.
Raylan swings his legs to the side of the sofa and plants his own feet firmly on the ground. He leans over his knees and considers Boyd. “Remind me.”
Boyd looks at him open and raw and he says, “We don’t have to be in no mine, Raylan. I’ll always pull you out. You just have to trust me enough to listen.”
Raylan’s gaze slides away from Boyd, unable to take the honesty he sees there. He believes Boyd. He does. He thinks of the day Dickie Bennett strung him up from a tree. There were a lot of other things Boyd could have done that day. It means something that he didn’t do them.
Raylan picks up his shirt from where it’s lying on the arm of his seat, though he doesn’t actually remember removing it. He puts it on slowly and does his fly and belt back up, looking down at the ground.
He realizes Boyd is waiting for a response. He raises his eyes and Boyd’s expression is carefully neutral. Raylan is glad he waited long enough for them both to put the past away.
“I know,” he says and hates that he does.
Boyd shifts on his feet, like a weight has been lifted from him. Raylan looks at him one more time and wants to touch him again, but thinks that might be too much of a goodbye. So he says as he turns to the door, “But I won’t.”
He hates that even more.
-END-
Prompt:
1. Raylan has a habit of confessing personal things to Boyd - about his past, his family, his ex-wife. He tells himself to shut the hell up whenever it happens, but he just can’t help it. The weird thing is, he’s pretty sure that Boyd’s the only one who understands him.
2. Raylan hates Harlan, but it’s so deep in his bones he’ll never be free. He feels pretty much the same way about Boyd Crowder.
3. Boyd & Raylan getting drunk together then having dirty, hot, frantic, almost violent sex.
Title: I Have Not Been Myself
Author: norgbelulah
Characters Raylan Givens, Boyd Crowder
Pairings: Raylan Givens/Boyd Crowder
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 4,800
Spoilers: All of season 3
Warnings: none.
Disclaimer: Justified belongs to Elmore Leonard and Graham Yost.
A/N: Thanks to betas engage_protocol and thornfield_girl. I hope it's not too overflowing with angst.
Summary: He should have known Harlan would bring out the worst in him. Sometimes, when he was there, he felt like the exact same version of himself that had left twenty years ago.
Like right now, standing in Johnny's goddamn bar, hands on his hips, he feels nineteen and stupid as fuck and pissed as hell and half in love with Boyd Crowder. The only difference is the badge and gun.
"I don't want to go back there."
That's what Raylan had told Dan Grant, back in Miami. The words had come out of his mouth before he realized how petulant they sounded, how juvenile, like he was complaining to Mama that he didn't want to go to church on Sunday or to school a mere 24 hours later.
It was the truth, plain and flat. Luckily, Dan hadn't really seemed to notice. Maybe it was because most of what had been coming out of Raylan's mouth at that time had been stubborn as shit anyway and the words themselves had sounded much like all the rest. But Raylan had noticed and the difference probably should have given him more pause than it did, looking back.
He should have known Harlan would bring out the worst in him. Sometimes, when he was there, he felt like the exact same version of himself that had left twenty years ago.
Like right now, standing in Johnny's goddamn bar, hands on his hips, he feels nineteen and stupid as fuck and pissed as hell and half in love with Boyd Crowder. The only difference is the badge and gun.
Boyd smiles at him, like he's always done. It’s all the same to him.
Raylan hates Harlan. He hates it.
"I have not been myself."
That's what he'd told Boyd, sitting on the opposite side of a jail cell. He was talking about Winona, how being with her had messed with his head, like his Uncle Everett. That was bullshit, they’d both known that as he was speaking the words.
Raylan wonders now, if he'd really meant anything by it. In the moment, he'd been feeling slow and stupid, pulled off kilter by a gunshot wound and a body that was growing older than he'd like to admit. He'd been pissed he hadn't realized what Boyd was up to with that shit in the conference room. He'd been exhausted from ignoring the aches in his bones and his gut, and an old one in his chest, every time he saw Boyd in cuffs or behind bars.
Now, in times of doubt, in times of drink, he thinks it might have been twenty years since he'd truly been himself. He thinks every step he's ever taken away from Harlan has made him less of who he is, really, underneath and at his core. Most of the time, he thinks that’s a good thing. Great, even.
He hates Harlan. He hates the way it made him who he is, or who he had been, hates the way it seems to be forever trying to turn him back into that fucking boy.
"What can I do for you, Raylan?" Boyd asks.
Boyd has always been trying to do things for Raylan and always in the most self-serving way possible. His eyes are too honest. His voice holds that Harlan sincerity, dubious at best, though always heartfelt.
Raylan hates it.
“You been gone for too long.”
That’s what Boyd had told him, nearly two years ago now, standing in a rundown church and talking about fucking mud people.
Times have changed and if Raylan had ever agreed with Boyd, it had only been fleetingly, the times when he couldn’t remember how to get somewhere, or some shitkicker criminal’s kid brother’s first name. Or when he couldn’t see far enough past Boyd’s bullshit to get at what he really wanted.
"I could use a drink," Raylan says.
His thoughts are on what he'd come there for. It isn't until Boyd blinks at him, something old flashing in his eyes, that Raylan realizes he's unconsciously echoed a script from the past.
Raylan looks at Boyd and wants to take back the words. He knows Boyd can tell, and hates that too.
But Boyd smiles again and it’s a little more like the old one, the way it used to be, without any bitterness, like no time has passed. Raylan feels himself loosen, unbidden, or wanting to, before he frowns and makes himself hard again, irritation plain on his face.
"Let me get you one, Raylan," Boyd replies easily, like nothing has happened. And maybe it hadn't. "Sit down, son. If you're gonna drink, you should sit."
Raylan takes a chair, swinging it out wide to face the bar and Boyd directly. Boyd grins like he's won something and it irks Raylan. Though it’s so like him he almost laughs.
Raylan looks around the bar, really looks. He isn't casing it for weapons or drugs, he isn't thinking about an exit, though he probably should be. He’s just looking and he finds it to be a fair sight similar to the place he and Boyd had spent so much time.
He fucking hates that.
Boyd doesn’t ask what he wants to drink. He knows Raylan’s mostly a Jim Beam man. They talked about it enough when they were young, argued more like, though never as heated as they had been lately.
Boyd’s fingers brush against Raylan’s when he hands him the bourbon. Raylan feels a shiver run up his arm. He promptly blames it on the ice and the cool condensation already forming on the glass.
“To old friends,” Boyd says as he settles down on a bar stool opposite Raylan. “Unless you got something else to which you’d raise your glass?”
Raylan came here to talk about Arlo, so he shakes his head, biding his time. “No, Boyd. Not as such.”
They raise their glasses, echoing “cheers,” back to each other. They’re too far away to do it right.
Raylan looks at Boyd and looks around again at the place. Boyd is cool and casual, leaning against the bar, at ease in his domain. Raylan sees him molding this little pile of sand into his own fucking castle, sees how good he is at it, how proud he seems and thinks maybe it was Boyd who’s stayed too long. He wonders at all the things this brilliant, perceptive, driven, asshole could have done elsewhere, anywhere but here and he feels pity and something like sorrow.
He hates that feeling.
“You do know what Boyd is, right?”
Raylan had asked Ava that, sitting at the bar above which he lives now. He’d kissed her not two minutes before.
He wasn’t sure if he was disturbed or comforted by the knowledge and certainty he saw in that woman’s gaze. He doesn’t like to think now about the pang of jealousy he’d hand to tamp down on.
“Ava ran into town for some supplies,” Boyd says, like he has to account for every moment she isn’t near him. Something about that makes Raylan’s stomach twist up, though he wonders if it’s only the fact that Boyd has so successfully entangled Ava in every single one of his affairs.
“I’m sorry I missed her,” Raylan replies automatically and doesn’t think about whether or not that’s true. He’s looking at the floor.
“I’m sorry to learn the mother of your child ain’t as close as you might like any longer, Raylan.” Boyd’s words are soft, like he really does care if Raylan is happy.
He thinks the bourbon might be getting to him because any other time, he would have come across the table at the presumption. Instead he just blurts, “You knew she left?” and looks up at Boyd.
“Well, I’m pretty sure she ain’t livin’ with you above that bar.” Boyd’s head tilts in the way it used to, when he thought Raylan was being especially thick, instead of just thinking at the same rate as normal people. “You sleep with the bartender?”
And again, Raylan is so surprised that Boyd knows about that even, that he doesn’t get angry. He just looks away and Boyd starts laughing, and pretty soon Raylan’s laughing too.
Another drink is poured and handed to him before he even thinks to ask.
He hates that Boyd knows him so well, he really really does.
“He’s not my crew, Raylan, he’s my family.”
Raylan’s expression falls to a frown as soon as he thinks of it. Boyd in cuffs, talking so soft he could barely be heard over papers shuffling and phones ringing in the office. Arlo in just the other room, unbeknownst to all, about to confess to at least one crime he did not commit.
Boyd had looked at Raylan with that same County sincerity that might just as well be bullshit, spoken with it thick in his words. Raylan remembers Boyd’s days as some kind of hillbilly evangelist then, and thinks maybe he wasn’t lying about that connection he mentioned, that criminal thread that seems to run through every man raised up in Harlan. Every man but Raylan.
He wonders sometimes if that got beat out of him, or if it was just never there.
“What’s on your mind, Raylan?” Boyd asks, two in to Raylan’s three. He’s not sure how long they’ve been drinking, not talking.
“Arlo was arraigned today,” Raylan answers and looks Boyd right in the eye. “Didn’t see you there.”
Boyd smiles, crookedly, and says, “I was asked not to attend.”
“By him?”
“Said he’d never had nobody in court with him before. Thought it might be bad luck so close to the end of his life. I didn't have the heart to make him worry about such things.”
Raylan doesn’t try to conceal his disgust.
Boyd tilts his head again. Raylan downs his drink like it’s done something to him. He’s feeling mad now, and he’s got too much liquor in him to press it down sufficiently.
“I didn’t think you had any feeling left in you for Arlo, Raylan,” Boyd says. “I have to admit to some surprise, at your... jealousy?”
Raylan slams the glass down on the table, spitting, “Fuck you, Boyd. It wasn’t ever him I--”
He stops his words, but not fast enough, because Boyd’s eyes widen and, suddenly, they look so young, young enough to seem like he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.
He gets himself under control about as fast as Raylan does, then says, “It was my actions, not Arlo’s, that hurt you, wasn’t it?”
Raylan seethes at him. He hates this place. He hates Boyd more.
“I am so sorry, Raylan,” Boyd says, but not what for.
Raylan rises fast from the chair. His hand slips on water, pooled condensation on the table, and his glass slides away from him, crashing to the floor. The sound of it shattering echoes in Raylan’s head. He needs to get the fuck out of here.
Boyd’s hand is on his arm as he takes one stride, just one, towards the door. Their eyes meet and Raylan knows his are wild, angry, and scared. Boyd’s are calm in comparison and Raylan’s taken back to that day in the mine. All he wants is to trust in Boyd, because Boyd knows what to do better than him. He always does.
“Fuck,” Raylan hisses and tries to jerk his arm away. Boyd’s grip is tight, so Raylan pushes back, pressing the boy up against the bar hard and fast. The breath goes out of Boyd’s lungs, Raylan hears it. He remembers the day he dragged Boyd into the back room of this bar, how later he couldn’t stop thinking about it, about his fist in Boyd’s stomach, his hands pulling, pushing.
He kisses Boyd before he registers a desire to do so. He pushes up harder, like it’s a blow to the face. He uses his teeth. He’s not thinking at all, not until Boyd kisses back.
Raylan’s so hard, he doesn’t know what to do. He pulls back and Boyd looks wrecked, like he’s thinking of a thousand different ways something like this could have happened, without all the rage inside Raylan, without women and bullets and their daddies between them.
“Raylan,” Boyd tries, his eyes open wounds, his muscles tense under Raylan’s hands.
Raylan doesn’t let him. “No,” he says and puts his mouth back on Boyd’s, just to shut him up. He doesn’t want to hear it anymore, he doesn’t want Boyd’s fucking shit.
He doesn’t let Boyd push back or move up on him. He doesn’t want that either. He pushes and pushes him further into the bar, until he’s almost on top of it and Boyd’s back is raked against the hard corners of the thick wood of the bar top. Boyd’s mouth falls open against Raylan’s, slack and moaning with real pain.
Raylan pulls up immediately. “Shit,” he curses, blinking and trying to stumble away. It’s not that he’s hurt the man, hell if he hasn’t caused Boyd what constitutes a ridiculous amount of physical pain over the years. It’s the other thing, the kissing. The pleasure and the pain together. Raylan’s repulsed by it. He is.
He hates it.
Boyd’s hands come up then, before Raylan can get his feet under him enough to back away, and grasp hard at his shirt.
He smiles at Raylan. It’s sharp and sinful and his eyelids are heavy, drawn down, like he’s never been more turned on in his life. When he speaks it’s soft, but almost deadly. There’s no challenge in it, no boastful pride. It’s a weedle, a cajole, temptation itself. It’s hateful and full of desire. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asks. “To fuck me, ‘stead of me fuckin’ you? This is what you always wanted, Raylan.” When Boyd says his name like that, like it’s filthy and good all at the same time, he sways forward, lets Boyd pull him close again. “C’mon, boy,” Boyd tells him. “Do it. I want it, too.”
It’s so easy to listen to Boyd. It always has been. He knows how to present an argument, how to win one handily.
Raylan’s always hated that.
He slides his hand up and around the back of Boyd’s neck, pulling their lips together again. He tastes so good. They kiss like they're starving for it and Raylan, without thought, gets his other hand down inside Boyd’s pants, wraps his fingers around Boyd’s stiff cock.
“That’s right,” Boyd says smiling to Raylan’s swollen lips. “C’mon, Raylan.”
“Shut up, Boyd,” Raylan says.
“No.”
Raylan pulls back again, his hands falling away in confusion, and Boyd is grinning like he’s won again. Boyd’s hands move up on him now, sliding up fast and strong, but gentle too, like he really doesn’t want to spook him, like Raylan is some kind of dumb animal.
Boyd starts speaking, slow and calm, and with every word he draws Raylan further into the bar, towards the back room. “If I shut up, Raylan,” he says, his eyes full of something that’s somehow encouraging. “If I stop talking, about how I know what you want, about how I’ve always known and I always will,” he tells him, then puts his lips on Raylan’s again, walking backwards.
They’re through the door now and Raylan’s hardly thinking about it, too concerned about Boyd’s hands on him, about what might happen if Boyd’s words cease. “If I stop telling you these things you don’t want to hear,” he says and seizes Raylan’s face, pulling him into a searing kiss.
Raylan’s not trying to get away anymore. He moves up on Boyd, needing to be closer like he needs air, wanting it so much he’s almost sick with it. He’s lost track of Boyd’s words. He might still be talking, but Raylan’s beyond listening.
They fall together, Boyd pulling, Raylan mostly stumbling onto the dingy old sofa in the back room. Boyd’s fly is already undone and he’s working hard at pulling out Raylan’s aching cock. Boyd’s shirt is half unbuttoned and rucked up and out of his waistband. Raylan’s hands itch to touch him, to spread his fingers across the heat of his skin. His lips want to taste more than just Boyd’s mouth.
Raylan’s thoughts are scattered now and hazy, mostly careening through years of memories, flashes of times he’s wanted Boyd and told himself no. No, that’s not what you thought. No, that smile meant something else. No, you’re not that person anymore. He groans with it and hears a whine at the back of his throat and feels Boyd smile into his skin. It’s all almost too much and he wants to pull away, save himself from it, until he banishes all that past away from him and all he’s thinking about is now and need and yes.
Boyd’s lips are at his ear, hot, and his words are heavy as he says, “If I stop, Raylan, you’ll start thinking.”
And Raylan doesn’t want to think, so he says, “Okay.”
Boyd puts a sure hand to Raylan’s cheek, thrusting him back just far enough that they can look each other in the eye. He’s pulling his jeans down, spreading his legs for him. “So, I want you to fuck me,” he says.
Raylan doesn’t know what he looks like just then, but from the way Boyd’s staring at him, it must be good, it must be what he wanted.
All Raylan can see his how dark Boyd’s eyes are, how deep and real. All he knows is that he’s pretty sure he’d take it if that’s what Boyd wanted, he’s pretty sure he’d do anything right now, if Boyd’s the one who’s asking.
He just answers, “Yeah,” in a strangely detached tone. “Okay, Boyd.” And then he starts to move. He knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, what to do. He knows, in roughly the same place, that it’s something he’s never done before, something he should be worried about doing right. But he’s not. He’s not thinking about it.
Boyd’s kissing him again as Raylan’s hands come down to Boyd’s backside. “No lube,” Boyd says breathless. “No time. Just slick me up with your spit.”
“Okay,” Raylan whispers and Boyd gives him sort of a funny look at that, but soon his eyes are closed, screwed up tight, because Raylan’s got two fingers inside his asshole and he’s pulling him apart.
Raylan loses track of time again while he spreads Boyd open, but he knows he’s ready when Boyd bucks up into his hands, straining for Raylan, pulling at his thighs and begging, “Come on, boy. I need--”
Raylan lowers his lips over Boyd’s, cutting him off, dimly smiling at his desperation. “Okay, Boyd,” he says. “Okay.”
His cock is still hard, hurting even, and he lets himself feel it keenly when he finally pushes himself up and inside Boyd, who breathes deep and moans long for him. His eyes roll back with it as he gets enough leverage between them and starts to move
“Fuck me hard, Raylan,” Boyd says, so Raylan does. He’s not sure if he says anything in response, he’s trying not to think too hard about it. Everything hazes out for a split second, or maybe it’s longer, because it’s all too good and it’s just good and it can’t be anything else because he won’t let it.
Until he hears Boyd say something again and hands come up to his face. “Raylan,” Boyd calls, like he’s said it more than once. “Where did you go?”
He’s still moving, but he’s not thinking about that either. “Nowhere,” he mumbles. He’s fine. He closes his lips around Boyd’s thumb, sucks hard.
Boyd pulls it back right away, fingers coming rough around his chin, digging into the line of his jaw. “Look at me, Raylan. What are you thinking of?”
Boyd’s eyes are frightened. Raylan can’t imagine what he might be so scared of. He shakes his head and answers. “Nothing. Can’t think. It’d be... too much. You told me not to.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Boyd insists. He sweeps a hand up to cradle the back of Raylan’s neck, sinking his fingers into Raylan’s hair, tugging to keep his attention. “I didn’t talk you around to this so you could check out, son. I won’t be fucked by a damned zombie. So,” Boyd tells him, “one thing, Raylan. Let’s think of one thing, one time. And that’s where we’ll be. What is it?”
Raylan smiles, he wraps a hand around Boyd’s cock, pumping it as he thrusts. “The mine,” he says.
Raylan gets a little satisfaction from the way Boyd’s eyes widen and his breath hitches before he can protest. “W-why? You hate the mine.”
“It’s the only place I can trust you,” Raylan says and, in the back of his mind, he hates that.
Boyd shakes his head, pulling himself up closer to Raylan, crowding in, pressing his forehead to Raylan’s cheek, his nose at the curve of his jaw. “Don’t say that, please.”
Raylan takes his hand off Boyd’s cock, sliding hip palm across Boyd’s hip, and slows himself down to a crawl. Boyd doesn’t seem to notice. All his attention is on Raylan’s face.
“You were the one, made it this way,” Raylan tells him, then smiles. “But don’t worry. ‘Cause if we’re in the mine, we don’t need to worry no more, Boyd.”
Boyd’s expression is bewildered, his mouth slack, his eyes wide and lost. “Why not?”
Raylan knows how he sounds. He can hear what he’s saying, but he doesn’t care. He’s made a choice and he’s near unravelled himself in the process. Boyd said pick a place to be, and it’s always easier to listen to Boyd, so Raylan’s nineteen again and he loves Boyd and he’s not scared. Not anymore.
“Because you’re here,” he says and kisses Boyd again.
Boyd only barely kisses back, moving his mouth slow on Raylan’s, drawing his hands softly through Raylan’s hair. Raylan thought Boyd didn’t want soft. He’s been balls deep in Boyd for longer than he usually cares to, so he starts to move again, but stills when Boyd says, “Raylan, you’re scaring me with this.”
Raylan shakes his head, smiles indulgently. This was Boyd’s idea, he should know. “No, I ain’t.” He puts his hand back on Boyd’s cock, trails his fingers lightly up to the head and Boyd hisses through his teeth. “You don’t got time to be scared, boy. Not here.”
Raylan bends his head to put his lips on Boyd’s nipple and sucks, then swirls his tongue around it. Boyd throws his head back and moans. Raylan’s hand is still on him and his hips buck up hard.
Now Raylan starts to move again, faster and harder, and this time he really feels it. It’s pulling everything up inside him, all the threads Boyd’s pulled apart, every string of love and hate and things he could never name. It’s drawing them down through his fingers and his toes, through his goddamn cock as the pressure builds and Boyd arches into him, choking on his name.
“Tell me something, Boyd,” Raylan says. His lips are at Boyd’s neck. He feels the boy’s pulse pounding. He wants to hear this just once more in his life.
“What?” Boyd pants desperately.
“You know,” Raylan cries, eyes rolling back. “What do I want to hear?”
There’s a long pause and Raylan despairs that Boyd has forgotten, that he never understood, until the words come, ripped and ravaged from his mouth. “You just... listen to me, Raylan. And I’ll... I’ll get us through this.”
Except it’s Raylan who keeps them steady, first when Boyd comes, surging upwards with a shout stifled by Raylan’s shoulder, then again when Raylan does, following him and rutting up hard into him, straining to be as close as he can. It washes over him, blissful and white, a different haze than the blank he’d forced on himself before Boyd called him back. Boyd’s hands are in his hair.
Then that bliss recedes and Raylan’s left just a little more hollow for it. He hates that.
Raylan slips out of Boyd, wishing he’d thought to do so while he was still feeling good about what they’d done. Boyd’s fingers curl into the sweat-soaked strands of his hair, but Raylan makes himself pull away. He leans back against the opposite arm of the sofa and looks at Boyd. He knows the man will want to talk. He’s not sure how long he’ll be able to stomach it.
Boyd’s eyes seem hooded in the dark of the room, maybe masking hurt, or anger, or something else. Raylan is too tired to try and decipher Boyd any more. He’s never really been that good at it.
“Do you ever wish you could really go back in time, Raylan?” he asks finally. His voice is soft, but not uncertain.
“No.” Raylan’s not really in a mood for speeches.
“There are a lot of different ways something like this could have happened. Ways that could have changed our futures, who we are to the world, to each other.” Boyd puts his hand on Raylan’s ankle where their legs are still somewhat tangled on the sofa. He wraps his fingers around the joint until Raylan shifts, shakes him off.
“It didn’t happen different, Boyd. It happened this way. It’s not going to change anything. Not for me.”
Boyd shakes his head at him. His hair is all mussed, flat in some places, stuck out in others. His face still holds that sated, well-fucked look and it makes Raylan want to kiss him again, badly.
“You’re the one with all the ill feelings, Raylan. I never harbored those for you,” Boyd says.
Raylan smirks. “You just put yourself firmly in a position in direct opposition to my own.” He refrains from mentioning Arlo again.
Boyd grimaces, like those decisions were beyond his control, when Raylan knows that they were not. His eyes are steady on Raylan’s and he sounds more sincere than he’s ever done when he says, “No matter what you believe, there are things that you can still trust me to do for you.”
“Like what?”
“You know,” Boyd insists, pulling his legs back like Raylan’s burned him just by proximity. He pushes himself off the sofa, pulling his jeans from the floor and thrusting his feet through the legs like they were the ones who’d doubted him.
Raylan swings his legs to the side of the sofa and plants his own feet firmly on the ground. He leans over his knees and considers Boyd. “Remind me.”
Boyd looks at him open and raw and he says, “We don’t have to be in no mine, Raylan. I’ll always pull you out. You just have to trust me enough to listen.”
Raylan’s gaze slides away from Boyd, unable to take the honesty he sees there. He believes Boyd. He does. He thinks of the day Dickie Bennett strung him up from a tree. There were a lot of other things Boyd could have done that day. It means something that he didn’t do them.
Raylan picks up his shirt from where it’s lying on the arm of his seat, though he doesn’t actually remember removing it. He puts it on slowly and does his fly and belt back up, looking down at the ground.
He realizes Boyd is waiting for a response. He raises his eyes and Boyd’s expression is carefully neutral. Raylan is glad he waited long enough for them both to put the past away.
“I know,” he says and hates that he does.
Boyd shifts on his feet, like a weight has been lifted from him. Raylan looks at him one more time and wants to touch him again, but thinks that might be too much of a goodbye. So he says as he turns to the door, “But I won’t.”
He hates that even more.
-END-
Prompt:
1. Raylan has a habit of confessing personal things to Boyd - about his past, his family, his ex-wife. He tells himself to shut the hell up whenever it happens, but he just can’t help it. The weird thing is, he’s pretty sure that Boyd’s the only one who understands him.
2. Raylan hates Harlan, but it’s so deep in his bones he’ll never be free. He feels pretty much the same way about Boyd Crowder.
3. Boyd & Raylan getting drunk together then having dirty, hot, frantic, almost violent sex.