Chapter Text
They’d both known it was only a matter of time.
They would mention it sometimes, just in passing, though always by accident, and in conversation about other things.
When Boyd talked about having Billy Ray from the night crew’s cousin out to the house to look at the rotted out beams in the living room ceiling, Raylan didn’t lift his eyes from the coffee pot as he said, “Probably best to do it when I’m not here.”
Boyd thought about disagreeing for a moment, but then let it slide, realizing he didn’t want to grapple with the consequences of someone discovering, then passing along the well-kept secret of their situation in Raylan’s house. So he grunted his assent and kept on cooking the bacon.
He never did ask Billy Ray to talk to his cousin.
Another time, Raylan told him in between the sheets, just as Boyd was coming down from an excellent piece of head, “Rachel’s coming ‘round for a property seizure thing out in Corbin tomorrow,”.
“Yeah?” he asked, hardly thinking about it, as he straddled Raylan, sliding down to let him take his turn.
“Told her not to talk about you,” he replied quietly.
Boyd stopped for just a second, just a beat and a half of his still fast-pumping heart, and looked up at Raylan. There was a nervous knowledge there, one that Boyd shared. This couldn’t go on as long as they wanted it to.
But still, he just said, “Okay,” and swallowed Raylan’s cock.
Boyd had been the one who said he didn’t want to lie. It was true, he didn’t. But he had no qualms about obscuring the truth, or having others keep their mouths shut, or even lie for him. He was just as scared as Raylan about what would happen if people knew, though he pretended not to be for Raylan’s sake.
It was sort of funny, when he thought about it later, that when the secrets did all come out, there hadn’t really been a choice to make, for either of them.
Raylan had been in his job for about four months, going and coming back and forth between Harlan a lot more than either of them had suspected he would. It was a good thing, but hard. It wasn’t easy for Raylan to come back after so long, toting a badge and gun and coming down on old friends and acquaintances--people who knew his daddy or Helen, or Boyd, even--for just doing as they’d always done.
Art had dubbed him jokingly, the “hillbilly whisperer,” a name that Boyd had only found out about because of a rare trip up to Lexington. By the look on Raylan’s face, Boyd knew he couldn’t give any shit to him about it until after they left the office.
While maybe only Art used that particular name for it, Raylan’s role as point person when it came to Harlan and its surrounding areas was no joke. It seemed like every law enforcement agency with half a problem down their way would call Raylan up for help. He knew how to talk to his people and it showed in the reports, traveling fast through the grapevine.
It had been slow going news that Raylan was back in town until he started working so much more in Harlan. But soon enough, people started asking Boyd, down in the grocer or up around Johnny’s when he stopped by, “Ain’t you still livin’ in the Givens’ house? You hear that boy Raylan is a cop of some kind?”
And Boyd would answer politely, yes, he was still living there. And yes, Raylan was a Deputy U.S. Marshal, just started working out of Lexington.
“Don’t he want his house back, him comin’ down here all the time?” they would ask.
Raylan stopped by sometimes and stayed the night, there was plenty of room in the house, Boyd would answer. And they always left it mostly at that. Sometimes one of the seedier men at the bar would ask what Boyd thought of a Givens with a badge and Boyd would smile, unable to help it, and say Raylan was his own man, it didn’t matter what he thought.
They kept to themselves, much like they had when Raylan was just coming home every few months. They never went out together, not necessarily because they were afraid of people seeing them and finding out, but mostly because they liked to stay in, they liked to talk and eat and fuck all weekend, before Raylan had to ride himself back up to Lexington.
It was a Tuesday morning that Raylan called Boyd while he was at work and left a message on his cell phone--a new thing the Marshal had insisted on--that he would be in Harlan that afternoon, stay the night then go back to the office on Wednesday. He asked Boyd if he wanted anything from the fancy food store near Raylan’s motel.
Boyd had been working third shift from the night before, and when he got off, he called Raylan back before crashing to bed, leaving a detailed half-conscious message about what kind of breakfast foods he was craving.
Boyd slept deep until noon-time, made himself a sandwich for lunch, and read in the kitchen with the radio on for the rest of the afternoon.
He thought about working on the living room, feeling bad about leaving it bare for so long, waiting on a contractor he didn’t really intend to call.
He also couldn’t discount the fact that, with Raylan in and out all the time, his concentration on and in the house had narrowed mostly to wherever Raylan was and whatever Raylan wanted to do. Raylan never wanted to work on the house, and didn’t seem to care if it ever got fixed, so they spent most of their time in the kitchen, on the back porch, or in their bed.
It was later than he’d thought it would be when he finally heard Raylan’s car door slam and when he didn’t come in right away, Boyd closed his book and went to meet him.
“Baby, did you bring home that bacon I left you the message about?” Boyd called as he came towards the door, wondering what was taking Raylan so long to come up from the car. “I thought I’d cook us breakfast for d--”
He broke off as he stepped out onto the porch, and the screen door slammed behind him, causing Ava to wince from where she stood behind Boyd’s man.
The first time Boyd ever laid eyes on Ava, the woman who would marry his brother, she was maybe ten or so, singing in the same row as Bowman in the elementary school choir. The first time Boyd really looked at Ava, she’d just turned sixteen and she was turning everybody’s eye.
Half the men in the county had been half in love with Ava at one point or another and Boyd was no different. He’d gone about showing his jealous affection in a thoroughly immature and borderline-sadistic way for about three of the seven or eight years the the couple were married. Bowman still had no idea, and Ava, she wasn’t talking to him or about it at all. He’d never gotten a chance to apologize.
He hadn’t seen her in a year at least, maybe more. They’d run into each other at the hardware store the last time, when he’d tried to reason with her and she’d told him if he touched or talked to her she would scream bloody murder.
That was years after Boyd had stopped coming around to Bowman’s, when every male member of his family had been asking him, “What is going through your head, son?” because he’d left his boys high and dry and moved into the Givens’ house. And even longer since the days he’d treated her with a degree of disrespect that entirely warranted such a reaction to his presence.
But now Raylan had brought her to him and he couldn’t protest because Raylan was Raylan and there was no way he would stand by and watch this happen to anyone.
Boyd took in the sight of Ava, looking small and sad next to his tall lawman, a purpled bruise marring the skin under her left eye and across her cheek. Raylan was working his jaw and looking like there was a ghost riding on his back, digging gnarled bones in him hard enough to hurt.
“Ava, I’m sorry,” Boyd said sincerely, wondering that his brother could have hidden such behavior for so many years. Never had he ever thought anything but mild verbal abuse was going on in that house, and Ava had often given as good as she’d got. Boyd hated now to think of everything that went on while he wasn’t there.
She looked between Raylan and Boyd, sharp eyes making the connection that no one in Harlan seemed to have done so far, though she’d had a certain amount of help just now.
Ava sniffed delicately and moved from behind Raylan, holding herself stiff and proud in the face of his hypocritical sympathy, and saying as she walked past him, “Don’t be, Boyd. What you boys do behind closed doors ain’t no business of mine.”
Boyd turned his eyes back to Raylan, who had a look on his face like maybe he wanted to apologize to Boyd, but was still too worked up to form those words.
“It’s fine,” Boyd said without thinking, as if he knew for certain it would be. “I know,” he began, then stopped, not wanting to say it out loud, that he knew why Raylan had brought her, why he wouldn't have been able to just let it go. “I know, Raylan.”
They followed her inside the house.
They didn’t get very far because Ava whirled on them in the entryway, the knowledge of just what was going on in the house probably sinking deep enough for her to become angry. “I would’ve thought you’d have better taste than him, Raylan.”
Raylan smiled in his usual self-deprecating way, until he realized how real her anger was.
He looked at Boyd, prompting him to try to head this off. “Ava,” he began.
She held up her hand. “I ain’t gonna be talking to you,” she said, keeping her eyes on Raylan. “All I’m saying is, you had best keep your boyfriend under control, Raylan Givens.”
Raylan looked to him, then back to Ava. “Did I miss something here?”
Boyd held his ground, fighting the desire to flee from the room. Ava’s smile went just a little cruel, riding an echo of the way he used to mock her, turning it back on him. “You thought I’d just forget all those things you said to me?” she asked Boyd.
“I did not,” Boyd answered, not bothering to point out that she’d said she wasn’t going to talk to him.
“What things?” Raylan asked.
“He doesn’t know?” she asked with manufactured surprise. “Well, maybe he ought to, Boyd. What do you think?”
“Maybe so, Ava. Raylan and I, we don’t keep things from each other.”
She snorted. “Really?”
Boyd made himself stay calm. “This just hasn’t happened to have come up, as of yet. You can surely tell him, if you like. At this moment, I’d probably sugar-coat it a little more than you can stomach.”
“I thought you didn’t lie?”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t break things gently.”
“Gently doesn’t really sound like you, Boyd.”
“Well, we haven’t spoken in quite a while, Ava.” Which was true, and a fact that Boyd sincerely regretted. When Boyd left the Commandos, when he moved into this house and put that shit behind him, he and Bowman had pretty much stopped talking.
Raylan was on a razor’s edge. Boyd didn’t even have to look at him to know. He hated being in the dark. “One of you, tell me what the hell it is that you’re talking about. I don’t care which, just say it.”
Boyd deferred to Ava with a slight gesture of his hands.
“You might be interested to know, Raylan, that Boyd here used to come on to me, his brother’s wife. All the time,” she looked right at him when she said this, right into Raylan’s eyes, unflinching. “In my house. In my kitchen. Outside my goddamn bathroom. Hard, Raylan, too. Mean.”
Raylan’s frown was real small and his eyes looked large in his face, which meant he was well and truly upset. He didn’t like being surprised like this. He flicked his eyes toward Boyd, and Boyd realized they were about to go down a much more dangerous road than he’d anticipated.
“Tell me.”
Ava’s lip quirked slowly and she looked right at Boyd as she walked up on Raylan. It only took two steps to put her in his space. She couldn’t produce quite the same effect as Boyd, seeing as she was a good head shorter than him.
But she got the point across when she grabbed at Raylan’s arm, bumped her hip up against his and spoke in a low voice, “Hey Raylan, you know I can show you a better time than your Boyd. Yeah, I know he’s in th’other room right there. But I could have you right this minute. You see, I’d put my hand,” she raised her hand right up to Raylan’s cheek, and she looked right in his eyes. “This hand, right here. I’d put it over your mouth, real tight. So Boyd, he wouldn’t hear no sound come out.”
Ava looked over at Boyd again, and no one moved. Then she said, “Or I could take you out the holler road. Let my boys listen while I make you scream. They’d have their hands on their peckers, rubbing one out for every time you came. We’d have to wade through a sea of jizz to get you back inside this house. So maybe I better jus’ keep you--”
She broke off when Raylan stepped away. His eyes turned to Boyd, but Boyd couldn’t hold his gaze long and he only heard Raylan say, “shit,” stifled by his hand coming up over his mouth.
Boyd felt like he was going to be sick. His knees felt weak and his heart was pounding. He’d almost forgotten that’s how it was. He couldn’t believe how far he’d put it behind him, that those words now seemed so alien, like another person entirely. “Raylan,” he tried.
“Don’t talk to me,” Raylan snapped. His hand was up against the wall, like he needed support just as badly as Boyd did.
“Well, look at that. I caused you some marital strife.” She didn’t look sorry at all.
“We ain’t married,” Boyd croaked, though it made no sense that they could be.
“Lucky you.”
Raylan turned to her, apparently his ire was not solely reserved for Boyd. “Are you serious about leaving him?”
She didn’t answer right away, but she did say, “Yes,” in a stronger voice than Boyd was anticipating.
“Show her the guest room, then,” Raylan told Boyd without looking at him. “I gotta...” He trailed off with a vague motion of his hand. He adjusted his hat and fished his keys from his pocket on his way out the door.
Boyd stared at Ava for a long moment, until she actually began to look a little guilty, before he said, “I truly am sorry, Ava. For all of it.”
“I know,” she answered and he took her upstairs.
After Boyd showed her the room, the bathroom that she would have to share with them, unless she wanted to use the open commode in the basement, and told her she was welcome to anything in the kitchen. Ava looked at him and said, “You’re gonna go after him, right?”
“Oh, surely, Ava,” he said. “I thought I’d do as he asked first. And give him some time to think.”
Ava sat on the bed, keeping curious eyes on Boyd. “I take it you don’t fight much.”
Boyd smiled, feeling just a little strange about discussing such things with her, with anyone really. “We try to avoid it. Until now, we spent so little time together, fightin’ always seemed so counter-intuitive. Makes no sense to force a spat, spend half a day licking wounds, only to have one more night for making up.”
Ava’s smile almost reached her eyes. “Makin’ up’s more’n half the fun, Boyd.”
“You gonna be upset if you hear us doin’ just that later tonight?”
Ava looked away, and ran a nervous hand through her hair. “You know, he didn’t say nothin’ about you two. When he came to the door, and on the drive over here. I... didn’t really understand what I was walking into, you know?”
“We’re not real proficient at talkin’ about ourselves just yet, Ava.” Boyd grimaced. He took a step toward where she sat, but didn’t sit down until she invited him to.
Ava slipped off her high, red shoes and tucked her feet under her on the bed. Boyd remembered she used to curl up like that with a mug of something when he was over to watch football games with Bowman most Sundays. He remembered too that she used to pretend she wasn’t paying attention, but when something exciting happened, her eyes would be just as riveted to the screen.
It was one of a thousand little details he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about this woman, who he’d somehow pretended to love, hate, and lust after in such revolving order, he couldn’t even get them straight in his head anymore.
There was a shade of guilt in her eyes as she turned to him. “When Raylan came to my door today, I looked at him, and I... it was like he was walking right out of the past. I couldn’t help it. I just kissed him.”
Boyd blinked. “You kissed him?”
She drew a hand across her forehead. “Yeah. I did. On the mouth. There was a year or two of my life, most of what went through my head was how much I wanted to kiss Raylan Givens.”
“What did he do?” Boyd felt his lip quirking, but he forced the grin back, as Ava still looked so guilty about it.
“I think he was reeling from this,” she pointed to the dark marks across her eye and cheek. “So he didn’t do anything right away. I mean, he didn’t really kiss back or anything--”
At that, Boyd couldn’t hold it in anymore, he just busted out and kept on laughing through Ava’s helplessly embarrassed expression. “You ain’t really concerned I’m mad, are you?” Boyd asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m all turned around today. Why are you bein’ so nice?”
“I’m not the man I used to be, Ava.”
Her mouth twisted up like she was fighting a smile. “Guess not,” she said then shrugged her shoulders. “Anyway, Raylan asked after Bowman and I told him he wasn’t home. He said somethin’ about how he expected so, on account of how I greeted him. Then he asked me if I needed help leaving.”
“And you said yes,” Boyd finished. He wasn’t surprised. “Raylan can be quite persuasive. Especially...about situations like yours.”
She nodded, understanding in her eyes before she groaned and put her head in her hands. “I thought I was leaving with him, Boyd!”
He laughed again and she smacked him on the arm, a rueful grin finally emerging.
“Raylan is Raylan,” Boyd said, tilting his head. “I ain’t blamin’ you.”
There must have been something in his face that caught her notice, because her expression took on some kind of surprised wonderment. “You really do love him,” she said in a hushed voice. “I can’t even believe you like boys that way. Good Lord, what’s your family gonna say?”
Boyd sighed and stood up, suddenly becoming more uncomfortable than he’d like to admit. He looked at her and spoke sincerely, “I like Raylan, Ava. Always have. So, yeah, about the first thing you said. We’re tryin’ to figure it out, okay? And I’m pretty sure my family ain’t gonna say anything. They’re just gonna pull out their firearms and start demanding shit.”
“You tryin’ to figure out what you’re gonna do about that, too?”
“We thought maybe we had some time, but now, I’m not so sure. Bowman’s gonna be after you. He’ll probably think you went to Limehouse first.”
Ava nodded. “I did that once, about a year ago. But then, I was just tryin’ to punish him. Harlan men, they don’t like that kind of cut to their pride, especially from that holler. I went back to work on Monday, and Bowman drug me home from there.”
“I’m sorry, Ava,” Boyd didn’t know what else he could say.
She shrugged. “It’s more my fault now than it ever was. If I’d been serious about it the first few times. If I could bring myself to leave this place behind. But I can’t. I--”
Boyd sat back down swiftly and took her hand in his. “Ava, shut up.”
She blinked at him.
“This ain’t your fault at all, don’t let me catch you again saying it might be. It’s Bowman’s fault for being a selfish, power-hungry, asshole. And it’s my Daddy’s for raising him that way.”
“You turned out okay,” she said, brows furrowed.
Boyd laughed and looked away. “That... oh, that’s all Raylan.”
“You better go get him, then,” she said with a small smile.
Boyd had to think for a few minutes, driving aimlessly along steadily darkening roads, before he realized where Raylan would go.
The lights at the ballpark were turned on, shining down bright on the batting cage, when Boyd pulled up.
The boys on the team must have been away for a game because the place was deserted. Raylan’s jacket and hat were stowed in his car and he must have jimmied a lock on some equipment room or other, because he was swinging away as the balls came steadily at him.
Boyd watched him hit two grounders and a foul ball, moving gracefully through the swing, maybe only a little stiffer and slower than when they were still walking the halls of this very school. He watched, knowing full well Raylan knew he was there, before he approached. The machine shot two more balls out at Raylan and he swung at them, but missed, his eyes flicking to Boyd and away. He tossed the bat aside, disgustedly.
“I haven’t done this in a while,” Raylan admitted, speaking first, and quietly. “Something about being here, home. Makes me think about it sometimes. I remember I used to come bat late at night, to get away from Arlo.”
“I remember, too,” Boyd said. He’d pulled a sixer out of the fridge before he left and he handed one to Raylan now.
He took it with a restrained smile. “I hoped you would.”
They drank in silence for a few minutes, each leaning against a far side of the cage. There was maybe about ten feet between them.
“I didn’t think you had any illusions about what I was doing at that time, Raylan.” Boyd finally said.
“No, I don’t,” he answered. “I just never put much thought into wondering what you were actually like.”
Of course not. It was easier that way. They both knew it.
Boyd took a long pull from his beer. “It’s hard to explain. Maybe... maybe it’s like a disease, Raylan. No, like a drug. I spent so much time, puttin’ on this show for those boys. Being the leader, makin’ sure they knew who was boss. I did it in front of them, in front of Ava and Bowman. That was easy. Daddy loved that shit. He’d laugh and laugh to hear me tear those boys up, rip Bowman down. After a while, it was hard to turn off.”
Raylan raised his brows. His arms were crossed in front of him, his beer in his hand, dripping with condensation. “You weren’t like that for Arlo’s funeral. Not that night, and... not after.”
“You were the only one I could turn it off for. You gonna make me tell you why?”
Raylan dropped the beer, crossing the cage fast and fierce, and kissed him, pulling him up close and rough. His hands were charged with anger he hadn’t yet let go of, and Boyd was wound up so tight from all of it that he pushed back just as hard.
They tussled more than anything, Raylan pushing him up first against the chain link of the cage, then Boyd dragging them down to the ground, rustling up dun-tan dirt, with a measure of force they didn’t normally use.
The only sounds Boyd could hear were his own muffled grunts intermingled with Raylan’s as they scrambled at each other for purchase, fighting with fingers and tongues, blocking a jutting elbow, a braced knee.
They didn’t bother to try and divest each other of any clothing, Boyd was too turned on to think about it. He just needed to be closer. His cock was hard in his jeans as he rutted up against Raylan’s hip. He didn’t remember how he got to be the one on top.
When the sound of the road off in the distance increased in volume to the slow patrol of a security vehicle, they froze against each other.
Raylan let out a muttered, “shit,” as Boyd sighed and tried to calm himself.
“Race you home,” he said.
They were sneaking through the fence and around the cars, grinning at each other, as the guard parked on the other side of the park and got out of his truck. Raylan winked at Boyd when he slipped into the Lincoln.
They left the lights on, the pitching machine out, and the bat and the beer in the cage, ready for the team when they returned. Boyd couldn’t remember ever having driven so fast on Harlan County roads.
Raylan got up the drive before Boyd did, but only just, and he had his hat and his coat in his hand when Boyd pushed him up against the side of his car.
This time, Boyd was slow and brutal, kissing Raylan’s mouth with a quiet fervor born of having to make himself wait.
Raylan only had one hand on him--God forbid that hat ever fall to the ground--so he didn’t press up so hard, letting Boyd take the lead. His free hand came up to Boyd’s neck, cradling it gently as their lips parted and they met each other’s eyes, taking it all in.
“Tell me,” Raylan said and his smile was almost flirtatious, like they were trying something out. “No, show me. Show me what you’d wanna do.”
Boyd froze in Raylan’s arms and looked at him wide-eyed. “I got a big imagination, Raylan.”
“We got all night, Boyd,” he whispered, sinking his fingers a little deeper in the thin skin at the back of Boyd’s head, through the short strands of his hair. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere. And... I wanna know.”
Maybe Raylan wasn’t even thinking about it that way, but it hit Boyd like a freight train.
Raylan didn’t care. Raylan wasn’t going to ignore it. He wanted to hear it. He wanted to know. Boyd could barely stand the idea of it. Acceptance.
“I don’t believe you know what you’re askin’ for,” he said, leaning toward breathless.
There was danger in Raylan’s eyes when he replied, “Don’t I?”
Boyd took that challenge, let it settle over his shoulders.
He glared and slid his hand down fast from Raylan’s shoulder to his wrist, gripping it savagely. He pulled him away from the car, down the walk, and up the porch steps. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the jacket and hat were still in Raylan’s other hand, so he turned and snarled, “Leave it,” while still leading them up and into the house.
Raylan dropped them without a word.
Boyd pushed Raylan up against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Raylan’s smile was small and it disappeared then reappeared, on and off, like he was trying to fight it. But Boyd didn’t give a shit. He looked at Raylan hard and said, “You’re gonna tell me if you want to stop, Raylan.”
“You think I scare that easy?
Boyd clamped his hand on Raylan’s hip, pressing hard into the wall, his fingers digging into fabric and skin. “Promise me.”
He bent his head, leaned in close to Boyd’s ear and whispered. “I promise. Now, show me. I’m tired of waiting.”
Boyd pressed his forearm up against Raylan’s neck, not hard enough to choke, but thrusting the back of his head up against the wall, turning his cheek to the smooth, white surface. “You gotta remember, Ava’s upstairs, son. So you can’t make a sound. Do you hear me?”
Raylan’s eyes were turned to their corners, and they were wide and full of something Boyd couldn’t put a name to. He nodded.
Boyd pulled him up the stairs.
Raylan asked Boyd to fuck him maybe once a year or so, sometimes longer in between. The first time, Boyd had come close to refusing.
It was one of those nights that it was obvious Raylan was hurting over something, what it was, he had never said. Not even after. But Boyd had done it, knowing Raylan wouldn’t ask unless he really meant it, and not wanting to mess up the weekend with a fight about sex.
Afterwards, Raylan had smiled at him, like nothing had ever been wrong and said, “I didn’t think it would be like that.” He’d kissed Boyd real sweet then, like he was thinking he might not leave again.
The last time was maybe a year and a half before, and Raylan had been real drunk, smiling and playful. He always wanted to try new things when they got wasted together.
That night, he’d told Boyd to just make him come with his fingers up inside, that and nothing else. It had been quite a sight to see Raylan’s swollen, red cock, straining by its lonesome against his belly, spurting a load of come up between them, with only Boyd’s hand and a few murmured words of encouragement. Boyd had used that for masturbation material for months afterwards.
But tonight, Boyd was gonna fuck Raylan without him having to ask first.
He pushed Raylan onto the bed with a slow smile, he looked the boy up and down carefully, but with gently arched brows, like he was nothing special. Raylan didn’t say anything, but the look in his eye was a little affronted, like he wanted to.
“Well, Raylan,” Boyd said softly, but with an edge to it he rarely used anymore. “We can’t have no fun if your clothes are still on, can we?”
Raylan opened his mouth to offer up some witty retort, but Boyd snaked his arm out and snatched at the buttons at the top of Raylan’s shirt, ripping it down and open, popping off a few in the process. Raylan stared at him open-mouth, stalk-still and wide-eyed until Boyd let his smile get mean and then ordered, “Finish the job.”
He stripped off his own shirt without ceremony, tossing it to the side and noting Raylan’s eyes as they were inevitably caught by the ink on his upper arm. In the dim light of the room, his pale skin reflected it, and the black of that symbol, now long abandoned, sucked it all in.
Raylan hardly seemed to notice it anymore, not when they were dressing in the morning, or hopping in and out of the shower. His eyes skimmed over it in the dark without pause when they were together and often, so did his lips.
But tonight, he stared hard at its smooth edges and hard corners and Raylan was looking at it like it was the most dangerous and beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and it wasn’t because of what it meant, it was because it was on him, part of his past, part of what they were doing.
Boyd was glad he’d only stuck around long enough to get just the one tattoo, because he didn’t think he could take any more of that shit right now.
He watched Raylan undress, leaning up against their shared dresser with his arms crossed in front of him, staring the man down like he was a piece of meat. He forced himself not to show any appreciation, though his cock was letting him know how much he liked what he was looking at.
Raylan wasn’t smiling anymore, but he didn’t look pissed, nor did he look like he wasn’t enjoying himself just as much. “Looks like you’re raring to go, son,” Boyd murmured when Raylan was in the middle of stripping off his boxers. “Too bad I’m gonna get mine first.”
Raylan tilted his head, standing before Boyd with not a stitch on him, asking a question without words.
Boyd unbuckled his belt swiftly, but didn’t entirely divest himself of his jeans. He took his cock out, hard in his own hand and came up fast on Raylan, catching him by the hair. Boyd let his eyelids fall half-closed when he heard Raylan’s hiss of pain. He didn’t cry out and Boyd loved him for it.
“I’m gonna split you open, Raylan Givens,” Boyd said low and fast into Raylan’s ear, his hand twisting hard in the strands of his hair. “I’m gonna take you up the back and ride you ‘til you don’t know which way is up. I’m gonna turn you inside out and your fucking world upside down, and you’re gonna do me the courtesy of not making a goddamn sound while I do it.”
Raylan eyes were steady as they looked sidelong into Boyd’s. He wasn’t saying no, and he wasn’t scared either. He resisted the pull of Boyd’s hand on his hair for just a second, one little tug back on him, then relaxed again. Boyd took this as a yes.
He turned back fast to the dresser and grabbed a bottle of lube, stuffing it into the back pocket of his sagging jeans, then he twisted his arm around, thrusting Raylan down onto the bed. He caught himself with his hands, palms down, elbows braced, but Boyd pushed him further, pressing his face into the mattress. Raylan grunted and the noise went straight to Boyd’s cock.
Boyd climbed up behind Raylan, pushing hard at the backs of his knees so his backside rose up, and he put a hand on either side of his hips, to get them right where he wanted. He dug his fingers into the softer flesh there, hard enough to bruise, searching for bone and making Raylan hiss through his teeth.
“I know you like this shit, Raylan,” Boyd murmured, clamping down harder. “I can hear it when you suck up that air, it’s as good as words, baby. But I’m gonna ask real nice for you to remember what I said.” He leaned forward, far up on Raylan’s back, and spoke quietly again in his ear, punctuating each word with a swift tug on his hair, in short strokes that pulled his head steadily back further and further, while the weight of Boyd’s body kept his back still bent forward. “Don’t. Make. A. Sound.”
Boyd pulled off fast, keeping a hand on Raylan’s hip to stop him from reeling forward, and settled his stiff cock on the cleft of Raylan’s buttocks. He squeezed some of that lube over his fingers and thrust them up inside, two first instead of one, despite how long it had been since Raylan had done this. Boyd knew he could take it, would want it that way. He bit back a groan and Boyd grinned down at him like a fool, glad his eyes were stuck facing away.
Raylan’s hands twisted in the bedspread and his breaths echoed back up to Boyd as he worked him open, moving his fingers faster and harder than he’d ever done before. Raylan squirmed under him, the muscles in his abdomen and torso contracting, trying to suppress the sound of his pleasure, and as they did, Boyd’s cock felt every buck of his hips. The tendons in his neck stretched taut and strained down, as if bowing to the power of Boyd’s swiftly working fingers.
The idea sent Boyd reeling himself and he pushed forward without thought, forcing Raylan’s head down onto the mattress and a hiss of pain through his teeth. “Fuck,” Boyd ground out, reaching up to grasp at Raylan’s shoulder and pull him back up, then pulling his fingers out to grasp his cock and slide himself into Raylan.
It was a sensation Boyd hadn’t felt in a while, and it was something like arriving home after a long journey. He didn’t dwell too long on the thought. Instead, he listened to Raylan’s heavy breath, deep draughts of air that increased in frequency as Boyd began to move inside him. He was so tight, and so good that Boyd forgot for a moment not to be gentle with him.
But Raylan pushed back. Still wordless, he fell out of rhythm with Boyd’s thrusts until Boyd remembered himself and dug his fingers back in, forcing Raylan back into sync. He pulled back on Raylan’s shoulder and leaned forward, making his chest and Raylan’s back collide, hearing the impact of their sweat soaked skin in a sticky slap.
Raylan’s breath hitched and Boyd found himself speaking to him. “That’s right, boy. You an’ me, son. And I... I know all about you, I know how to make you come. I’m gonna fucking bathe in you, Raylan. I’m gonna...” Boyd muttered, losing track of exactly what he was saying, knowing it made not a lick of actual sense, “gonna split you fucking open.”
“Boyd,” Raylan finally broke, saying his name like a curse, bursting out of him like he couldn’t hold it any longer. Boyd was sure he was too far gone to care.
He was almost there, so, so close, going faster now, and brutal. He leaned down again and spoke low in Raylan’s ear. “Touch yourself,” he ordered, “and think about your life.”
Raylan came before he did.
When Boyd pulled out, his limbs were quivering from exertion and he nearly fell backwards off the bed, but Raylan’s hand shot out and steadied him, catching his wrist and pulling him back gently.
They didn’t say anything for an amount of time that Boyd couldn’t really speak to. He might have dozed there, sprawled out on his stomach, as Raylan turned over on his back next to him. Raylan hadn’t let go of him and, somewhere between a few and several moments later, Boyd realized their fingers had become intertwined.
He opened his eyes and looked into Raylan’s. They were shadowed in the darkness of the room, but twinkling like stars right at Boyd. “Come on,” he said.
Raylan pulled him up by the hand, and together they got his jeans and underwear pulled down around his feet and he kicked them off on the way to the bathroom.
Boyd just sort of watched, leaning against the cool tile, as Raylan took care of everything.
He moved swiftly, pulling the towels out of the cupboard, turning on the tricky faucet, and arranging the shower curtain in the specific way it had to be so the water didn’t get all over the place, with a degree of comfort he hadn’t shown before the past few months, one that must have been slowly building the more time he spent in the house.
The realization hit Boyd, though it shouldn’t have been at all surprising, that Raylan lived here now, with him. He knew how to take care of things.
“Hey,” Raylan said, touching his cheek gently to get his attention, and looking worriedly at him. Boyd just smiled and Raylan huffed a laugh, pushing him into the shower.
Boyd was still a little unsteady on his feet, so he was glad for Raylan’s hands again when they maneuvered him under the shower’s spray and held on as he let the water run over him. He reached out and caught Raylan by the waist, careful to avoid the bruises at his hips and thighs that he could already see forming from the force of his fingers. He knew Raylan wasn’t going to complain, but he looked down at them and still felt a stab of guilt.
Raylan stepped into his arms, letting his hands fall to Boyd’s own hips, as if he knew just what he was thinking about. Boyd leaned his head forward and bent to let it rest on Raylan’s shoulder, releasing a long sigh.
They stood like that for a minute, and Boyd might have fallen asleep again right there if Raylan hadn’t said quietly, “Okay, Boyd?”
Boyd knew the question wasn’t only, are you okay? It was also, is this okay, are we okay?
He was, so much that he closed his eyes. It was, so much that he pulled Raylan closer still. And they were, so so much, so he said, “Yes, Raylan.” Then added, “but… let’s not do this again for a while, all right?”
“All right.” Raylan replied.
They were in bed, both at least partially clothed, as there was a guest in the house, when Boyd finally remembered to ask Raylan about Ava’s kiss.
“Shit,” Raylan muttered into his pillow. “I was hopin’ she wouldn’t mention that.”
Boyd laughed softly and turned to face him, sinking low into the mattress and letting his muscles relax. “And you couldn’t have at least given her a warning about us? Poor girl.”
“And say what?” Raylan asked. “Sorry you kissed me, Ava. Despite your moves being both weirdly insane and incredibly sexy, I’m already taken by your brother-in-law I don’t know that you hate.”
“I think we’re working through that,” Boyd replied with a grin, then slid his hand down Raylan’s arm. “Sexy, huh?”
Raylan looked away, fighting an embarrassed smile. “It was okay.” Then he turned back to Boyd, almost as an afterthought, leaned half over him and kissed him softly on the lips.
They pressed close to each other, not saying anything for a while, and Boyd closed his eyes, thinking of sleep. After it didn’t come immediately, despite the exhaustion he felt, he finally asked the last question that had been preying on his mind.
“What did you go over there for anyway, Raylan?” Boyd asked quietly, knowing Raylan also wasn’t asleep yet. He was’t entirely sure he wanted an answer.
Raylan settled further down under the sheets and answered with a sigh, “Your brother’s been forging signatures on government checks.”
When Boyd’s face darkened, Raylan looked at him with a look that said they both knew something like this would come up. “Art just asked me to do the preliminary investigation. Treasury will take over from here. By the time they do, Bowman’s gonna clean house. They won’t find anything.”
Boyd wasn’t sure if he should be glad of it or not and Raylan’s eyes told him the same story.
Boyd met Ava on the landing the next morning and he stepped aside to let her pass. She smiled knowingly at him and said, “You know, Boyd, I think you got some rodents in your walls or somethin’. I heard some funny thumpin’ around last night, and some creaking. You might want to get a man in here, take a look around.”
“I’ll think on that some, Ava,” he replied flatly. “Raylan’s just finishing up in the shower, by the way, so we’ll get the coffee goin’ after he comes down. Can’t run any water, or we’ll scald him.”
“These old houses,” she groused as they entered the kitchen. “Can’t get up to no fun without someone messin’ it up for you.”
Boyd laughed. “You’re funny, sweetheart. I think I’ll keep you around.”
She sat down at the table and folded her hands prettily in front of her. “Only if Raylan says it’s okay though, right?”
Boyd pulled some eggs out of the fridge and turned to wink at her. “I won’t tell you what he said about that kiss.”
She hid her eyes behind her hand, embarrassed all over again and cried, still smiling, “Boyd--” but was interrupted by the sound of a car coming up the drive.
Raylan thundered down the stairs a second later, shirtless with his glock in two hands. “Boyd,” he called, and Boyd went for the shotgun in the hall closet.
“Get in the basement, Ava, there’s no windows down there,” he told her and her eyes got real big, but not scared, just angry. “Do it,” he told her. “If he sees you from the outside, we’ll have to shoot him to stop him comin’ in. We’ll get him out of here, then we’ll take you to Limehouse.”
“Damn it,” she swore and slipped through the door, taking the stairs faster than Raylan did.
By the time Boyd got outside, Bowman and Raylan had already had words.
“What do you think you’re gonna do, Bowman?” Raylan was saying, his hand resting on his holster as he stood wide open to the hunting rifle aimed at his chest.
Boyd looked at his brother. Bowman didn’t really seem very different than the last time Boyd had seen him. He still had the wider-set eyes and larger nose of the Crowder clan and, with that beard he was growing, he looked even more like their cousin Johnny in the face than he ever had before.
Their mother used to tell Boyd the only thing he’d got from his daddy was that smile of his, nothing but teeth and strong feelings. Boyd liked hearing that, liked even more remembering it, because it meant if he had to look for her after she’d gone, the closest place to go would be his own face.
Bowman never had that.
He favored the Crowder side so forcefully that when their Gram had still been alive and kicking around at the cabin up near Banks holler, she’d only ever call him by the name Bo and would often hold his face in her hands and tell him it wouldn’t be long before his daddy was back from all the fighting in Korea.
Years later, Boyd wondered if all that confusion had given Bowman some sort of complex.
It probably didn’t help, all the attention that Bowman got in high school as an All-American running back. He was still built like a football player now. He was taller than both Boyd and Johnny and seemed to be gaining on the old man in the weight department, though he carried it well.
He wasn’t a man to be lightly dismissed, that was, until he opened his damn mouth.
“Imma shoot someone if I don’t see my wife out on this porch this fuckin’ minute, Raylan.”
“She ain’t here,” Raylan lied and smiled. “What are you gonna do now?”
Boyd leaned his shoulder against the porch railing, eyes on Raylan and not on his brother, fingers fiddling with the barrel of the shotgun resting against his legs. Raylan glanced at him hard, and shook his head once, minutely. No, he was saying. Don’t you draw on your brother, Boyd.
They both knew it wasn’t something you could come back from.
“Don’t think I ain’t gonna tell Daddy about this, Boyd,” Bowman spat, hands at the trigger loosening as the will to shoot left him. “Don’t think he ain’t gonna hear about you...and him.” There was disgust in Bowman’s voice, nothing Boyd hadn’t expected. “Fuckin’ fags.”
Boyd just looked at him, his face betraying nothing. He knew it was meant only as an insult. Bowman didn’t know anything, he was just tossing around infantile names, aiming to anger, to provoke. Boyd wasn’t going to dignify it with an answer. It was time to make a choice, and damn if it wasn’t always his family pushing him into doing the things he ought not to, making it no choice at all.
Bowman sputtered, eyes widening then narrowing in anger. “Ain’t you gonna deny it?”
Boyd’s brows furrowed and he thought about laughing for a moment, before deciding that might just push his brother into the kind of rage under the influence of which he’d shoot a person without thought. So he only said, “No,” shaking his head slightly and saying it like Bowman was some kind of moron.
“Y-you an’ him?” Bowman cried, motioning to Raylan, and apparently forgetting all about his wife. “Really are fucking in this house?”
Boyd glanced at Raylan, who had lowered his weapon just slightly, seeing as Bowman’s was nearly to the ground, he was so slack-jawed shocked at this new development. “Yeah, Bowman,” Raylan said, smirk spreading a crooked line across his face, “Did it just last night. I took your brother twice up the ass, then he slapped me around with his pecker for an hour and a half straight. We had the time of our goddamn lives. I swallowed so much come my belly hurts this mornin’.”
“Now...” Bowman was clearly at a loss for words. “Now... I really am gonna tell Daddy. And you’re gonna be in a mess o’ trouble from him, Boyd. You know you will.” Boyd felt mildly disgusted by the level to which the conversation had sunk.
“You go on, Bowman,” he said, turning about, lifting the gun into his hands. He didn’t aim it, just let it rest there, real comfortable. “You tell your tales to the big man. We’ll see what he can do from behind those bars.”
Bowman spat again and retreated, hate in his eyes, to his vehicle, spinning tires and revving engines down the hill.
Raylan just looked at Boyd.
“He won’t do anything,” Boyd said.
“Bowman?”
“No, Daddy,” Boyd sighed. “He’ll call ‘em rumors, ‘til he gets out. Then he’ll come see us. He’ll talk to me. Give me a chance to fix it.” Fix it, like he’d told him with the pot out of the back door of the bar, or like he’d told him with the army--though there hadn’t been anything to do at that point. Fix it, like he’d told him with the Givens house in the first place, though Bo went to jail just under a month later. “When I don’t, that’s when he’ll do something. That’s when we got to worry, Raylan.”
“He ain’t gonna get out for years,” Raylan said.
“Three,” Boyd replied.
They hadn’t known on that day, how fast the news that Bowman carried would travel or how deep a cord it would strike in Harlan County and its people. When everything did come to a head, Boyd would look on the day Raylan brought Ava home as a sort of quiet rain before an oncoming storm, or the shot that sparked a bloody war.
Boyd would be grateful that he and Raylan had been able to cultivate the relative peace they needed to come to terms with what they held between them and what they’d be willing to do to keep it.