Chapter Text
"Cary, honey," Matthew says, "are we really talking about this?"
Cary Emerson shrugs. "Why not? We used to have people in, sometimes. How would this be so different?"
They're lying in bed, and this conversation - not quite argument - had started while cleaning up after dinner. It had begun as a joke, then briefly detoured into the realm of foreplay, before becoming a debate.
"Hmm, well let's see. First, there's the fact that it's not like Harlan has some kind of vibrant gay scene. They are literally the only ones we know. I'm not so sure I want to risk things getting weird, no matter how damn sexy they are."
"They are really sexy though, huh?"
Matthew rolls his eyes. "And second, sometimes I wonder if they even are, like, gay at all. Sometimes I think they're a couple of really fucking weird straight dudes who are just completely obsessed with each other." He laughs, and continues, "Neither of them has ever been with another guy, you said Raylan told you that. Or, I'm sorry, 'the Sheriff,' I know how you get off on that."
Cary grins. "A Sheriff and an outlaw. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid."
Matthew snorts and says, "Yes, quite an outlaw. Chickens and moonshine. If he were in a Western, his nickname would be the Appalachian Grandma."
Cary shrugs in acknowledgement, but says, "You remember him from before Ava died. Before Raylan came back. And you've heard the stories from before all that, what he used to be into. He's killed people. Jesus, they've both killed people, Raylan probably even more than Boyd."
Matthew is staring at him. "You really like that, don't you, you sick fuck?" He rolls over on top of Cary, trapping his arms at his side. Matthew is taller, with a larger frame, broad shoulders.
Matthew pulls off Cary's glasses and sets them gently on the nightstand. His face, which Cary has always found impossibly handsome, goes a little blurry, just enough to soften the lines and make him look 24 again, like when they'd met.
"Want to know a secret?" Matthew asks.
"Of course," Cary says, smiling softly up at him.
"I like it too," he says, and kisses him, brushing his dark blonde hair back from his face. "So, what would you want to do, like, specifically?"
"Specifically? Well... I mean, really, it would be fun enough just to watch them."
Matthew raises his eyebrows skeptically. "You liar. Come on. I'm not asking what you'd settle for, I'm asking what you want."
Cary laughs and says, "I'd like to see your dick in Boyd Crowder's mouth. How's that?" He reaches down and takes Matthew in his hand. "Seems like that's okay with you."
Matthew grunts and says, "What else?"
"I'd love to see how the Sheriff reacts to that. You think he'd get jealous?"
Matthew grins and replies, "I don't know. Are you hoping he'll pull his gun on me?" He strokes the side of Cary's face and hitches into him. "Or on you?" he asks, winking.
That gets a reaction, and Cary doesn't try to hide it, but he doesn't answer. Instead, he says, "I don't know about the Sheriff, but judging from the way Boyd was all over you that day, after the thing with those Elk Creek guys, I'd say he's into more than just the one guy."
"He was on E, Cary," Matthew says. "He'd have been into anything. One time I was on that and I made out with two different girls in one night."
"Ew, shut up, I don't want to hear about that," he laughs.
"Oh, sure," Matthew says, grinning evilly, "you get turned on by it when it's those two hillbillies and their southern belle wives, but god forbid you picture me kissing a couple of freaky club girls."
"Seriously, stop. You're gonna put me off my game."
"I'm just saying," Matthew says.
Cary rolls him over suddenly and pushes him back with a hand on his chest. "Well, just don't," he says, sliding down and taking his length into his mouth all at once, effectively shutting him up, aside from some appreciative moans and hisses and gasps.
It actually did bother him, just a little, to hear about that, which he is aware doesn't make any sense. He loves the idea of it with regards to other guys, but he really wants no part of it with his own boyfriend. Maybe that makes him an asshole, could be, especially since it was just a one-time, drug-induced thing.
After they've both had their turn, they lay beside each other, and Cary curls into Matthew. "I'm sorry I got weirded out, that was dumb."
"Were you really? I thought you were joking." He props himself up on an elbow and looks at him. "It was just that one time. Think of it as my college lesbian phase."
Cary laughs. "Yeah, okay. You didn't eat any pussy though, did you?"
"Good lord, no. I wouldn't know where to start. You're the doctor, you'd probably be better prepared than me."
"This conversation has taken an unfortunate turn," Cary says. "I'm going to sleep before you give me nightmares."
Matthew grins. "Sounds like straight panic to me. Maybe you protest too much."
"Shut up." He turns over and closes his eyes, but it's awhile before he falls asleep. He has a lot on his mind.
The conversation only happened in the first place because they were discussing the party they have planned for the following night. The electric company had been delivering flyers for weeks in anticipation of a power turn-on. Everyone's been buzzing about it, and they're having Raylan, Boyd, Kathleen and Nancy over to celebrate. They'd invited Loretta and Chris too, but they're both working for the power company these days and will be on duty that night.
Probably nothing will happen. Raylan and Boyd are, as Matthew said, obsessed with each other. And if they were going to play, he can only assume they might want to share a woman or two rather than mess around with them. Still, it's fun to think about.
For the party, Matthew makes a punch with moonshine and dandelion wine, muddled canned peaches and ginger beer he got from some home brewer over in Berea. It's not bad, and Cary tries not to think too hard about the cocktails he used to make, back when they could stock their bar during a weekend trip to New York or Chicago. Or even Louisville, for God's sake. Matthew had tended bar at a very trendy, upscale club during college, and he loves inventing drinks.
Their guests arrive at around seven, and the power is supposed to come on at about eight. They've been instructed to unplug all appliances, which they've done. As for light switches, it's impossible to tell in rooms where there's more than one switch.
Nancy and Kathleen bring a pound cake, and Raylan and Boyd donate a bottle of bourbon they'd gotten the last time Raylan had to go up to Lexington about the Elk Creek business. Cary has wondered why Boyd always goes to Lexington with Raylan, but he can't think of a non-rude way to ask.
Dinner is sort of like tapas, if one is being generous. Good ingredients are hard to come by, but they'd gone out of their way for this, because they're turning on the juice, and it's a big fucking deal. They got some meat, and some fish, some butter, begged eggs off of Raylan and Boyd, and they'd made do. It's not a bad spread.
They have drinks and talk, dinner comes and goes, and at a bit after eight - they wait until almost quarter after, all trying to pretend they're tempering their expectations - they flick a light switch up and down. Nothing. They plug in a toaster, and nothing. So they sit back down to pound cake and more punch, and they wait.
They sit at the dining room table long after dessert has been eaten and cleared away, talking about the past, things they miss about the old days, things they don't.
They all miss the movies, as it turns out, though they don't all share the same tastes. Raylan and Cary talk about Westerns, and how they'd loved watching them on tv on Sunday afternoons, when they always seemed to be on. The washed-out, strange color of the studio films of the 1960s, with their black and white ideas, and the gritty realism of the ones from the 70s, with their anti-heroes, all of them highly romantic in their own ways, had obviously wedged themselves deeply into Raylan's self-perception long ago.
Nancy and Kathleen are drinking far more slowly than the others, even though Cary knows Nancy can put it away better than he can. They probably want to head home soon, watch the power come on in their own place, which he can understand.
Boyd and Raylan don't seem to want to go anywhere. They both seem to get slightly on edge when the conversation turns to how things might be in the future, with the power back on. He can understand that too, with the way they are.
Matthew is talking to Kathleen about horror movies, Rosemary's Baby being his all-time favorite. She says she prefers the slasher films of the 80s, which no one was expecting, and they all turn to stare at her.
"What?" she asks, defensively. "I love how you know exactly what's going to happen, and you can't stop them from fucking everything up. That's the scariest feeling of all. It's like a nightmare."
"It's like real life," Raylan says, and she nods in agreement.
Boyd says, "I never was a big movie guy as an adult. Didn't have much patience for sitting around watching the same predictable shit all the time."
"I get it," Raylan says, stretching casually, "takes a lot of focus to recruit and train violent, racist criminals. Not a lot of time left over for When Harry Met Sally." Boyd doesn't bother to respond, just shoots him a dirty look, which makes Raylan grin.
"Anyhow," Boyd says, "so the ones I saw that didn't seem like every other movie, those ones stuck. Like, did you ever see The 400 Blows? And shut up, Raylan," he says sharply, cutting off a snort, "what are you, 12? It ain't a porno."
"I know what it is," Raylan says, "Winona made me watch it one time." He shrugs. "It was good. Even with subtitles."
Matthew isn't even trying to disguise the way he's staring at Boyd now. He's fairly drunk and not really being too careful. Cary is sure he's picturing him watching French New Wave films by himself after his neo-Nazi cohorts leave for the day. With his shirt off, no doubt.
Boyd quirks his mouth at Raylan, maybe to apologize for making assumptions. That they seemed to have developed that kind of shorthand after only two years is kind of fascinating. Maybe it's left over from before.
"The first movie I ever saw that seemed original to me was the first Evil Dead movie," Boyd is saying. "Something about that, it was so brutal, but with this amazing sense of humor too."
"Oh," Matthew laughs, "so it had nothing to do with how sexy Bruce Campbell was back in those days."
Cary's eyes feel like they're going to pop out of his skull, and he brushes a hand across his face. He doesn't look at Raylan, but in his peripheral vision he can see the man shaking with silent laughter.
Some sort of silent communication seems to happen between Nancy and Kathleen, and Kathleen smiles pleasantly, saying, "We're pretty tired, boys. I guess we'll have to wait 'til tomorrow to see the lights come on."
Nancy's lips are pressed tight against a laugh, and she nods at them, her eyes twinkling. "Night, fellas," she forces out. She gives Boyd a kiss on his cheek - he's always been a favorite of hers - and winks at him.
Boyd frowns at her like he has no idea what she's on about, but says, "You two alright to make it home safe?"
"We ain't nearly as far gone as you four. We'll be fine. Y'all have fun now."
They leave, and Matthew is carefully avoiding his eyes. Which is good, because it's hard enough trying not to bust up just looking at Raylan and Boyd. They're either clueless, or nervous as shit, it's hard to tell. Everyone moves to the living room.
"Um, so," Cary says, "anyone feel like smoking up?" He pulls a jar and a little one-hitter out of an end table.
Raylan and Boyd look at each other, presumably having some sort of conversation with their eyes, then shrug simultaneously in an almost identical fashion. "Sure," Raylan says. "You get that from Loretta?"
"No," Cary says, "her shit's not ready yet. This is by way of Johnny Crowder." He smiles and loads up the little pipe. "What's the deal with him, anyway? Sometimes I get the feeling he's not as stupid as he looks."
"He's just smart enough for you to think that, but not smart enough to hide it all the time," Boyd says, scowling. "He has good intuition, but he sucks at analysis. Case in point, he figured it out about me and Raylan years ago."
"That doesn't take a genius," Cary mutters, then sucks in a lungful of smoke.
"For someone who grew up like we did? It kind of does. Or, no, not a genius, but someone capable of making leaps." Boyd takes the freshly loaded bowl from him and holds it up to his mouth. He says, "But even though he knew it, in his gut, he still got surprised when he actually found out. We even basically told him, and he still didn't believe it until he walked into my house and saw us naked on the damn couch." He hits the pipe while Matthew and Cary laugh, and Raylan flushes.
They pass the weed around twice, then put it down for a bit. Everyone has gone quiet, but it's a peaceful silence, stretching on comfortably, until Matthew says, "So, like, is it really true that neither of you was ever with another dude before you were with each other?"
Raylan gives him a wry half-smile and says, "I thought the doc was the one with all the burning questions."
"I just... that's so..." Matthew pauses, most likely searching for something that won't offend them, and Cary wishes him luck with that.
Boyd says, "It's so what? Fucked up? It is, ain't it? It's fucking crazy."
"Well, I mean, it's just unusual, I guess," he replies diplomatically.
Raylan is looking away, clearly uncomfortable, but Boyd says, "It ain't unusual, it's stupid.”
Raylan says, “I never felt like I was missing anything, really. Sometimes I’d wonder, but it ain’t like... I mean, if I thought about it at all, it wasn't nothing I couldn't shrug off. It never felt like anything big, or uh, real, until I was back here with Boyd."
Matthew looks at Raylan like that's the cutest thing he's ever heard, which Cary can't really fault him for. It is cute, and sweet, though not necessarily the healthiest thing he's ever heard.
Matthew says, “Raylan, didn’t you live in Miami for awhile? And you never...”
Raylan’s shoulders go up, and he says, “I mostly concentrated on work down there. My head was kinda wrecked from my divorce, anyway.”
Cary and Matthew glance at each other, and Cary says, “That sounds like the perfect opportunity to ditch the bitch, and make the switch!” He does some sort of awkward snapping thing in front of his face, which he knows looks perfectly ridiculous, and the other three burst out laughing. He’s never been able to pull that shit off. “Seriously, though,” he says, “if you were going to, that seems like the time and the place.”
“Well, I didn’t,” Raylan says, then smirks. “But I’ll keep it in mind in case I’m ever single again.”
“Too bad you’re so fuckin’ old now,” Boyd says. “I can just see you, creepin’ in the clubs, trying to pick up twenty year old Cuban boys.”
Raylan makes a face and picks up the weed again. He’s loading up the bowl as he says, “Well, if you feel like you missed out and you’re so goddamn curious, I ain’t gonna stop you.” He lights up and kills the whole bowl in one go, then gets to loading it up again to pass.
Boyd takes it from him with a huff, and says, “Stop me? I’d love to see you try.”
Raylan looks at him, apparently highly irritated, but unsurprised. "I just said, I’m not going to," he points out. "Why, would you like me to? You want me to be jealous or some stupid shit like that?”
“Well, hell, Raylan,” Boyd replies, glowering at him. “You could at least offer a token resistance. Like, just pretend like it bothers you even a little bit.”
Cary and Matthew have both been watching this conversation raptly, occasionally making eye contact and exchanging amused faces. Boyd passes the bowl to Matthew, and Matthew says, “So, are you? Curious?”
Boyd stares at him, his eyes a little glazed from the weed, and says, “I might be.”
Matthew says, “Well, it’s not like Harlan has a club scene or anything.”
Raylan rolls his eyes at that and looks at Cary. “If they’re gonna act like junior high kids at a dance all night, maybe we should find a way to entertain ourselves. What you you think, doc?”
Cary blinks at Raylan a few times, finding himself slow in processing things in general, at the moment, and he wants to make sure he’s understanding him properly. Then he grins and takes Raylan’s outstretched hand, letting him pull him down over him as he leans against the arm of the sofa.
Raylan's body is warm and feels very solid, very strong. Cary tries to stop thinking about what might be going on at the other end of the sofa, and concentrate on this absurd fantasy underneath him. He can feel the ridge of Raylan's cock against his thigh, and when he drags his leg up against it, Raylan gives a shudder and yanks him closer, kissing him for the first time.
Raylan is a good kisser, possessing that rare combination of responsiveness and assertiveness, and Cary knows he should be giving him his undivided attention. It's Raylan Givens. His fifteen year old self would want to smack the shit out of him for craning his neck around to see what Matthew and Boyd are up to, but that is what he does.
Boyd is sitting on Matthew's lap, unbuttoning his own shirt while Matthew works at his belt. Just as Boyd's shirt slips from his shoulders, revealing that awful tattoo, Raylan slides his hand between Cary's legs. He groans, and turns back to face Raylan, leaning into him again and kissing him.
He listens to the other two while Raylan reaches into his pants, rubbing him on the outside of his shorts, and can't help looking back once more. Boyd is a talker, apparently, and Cary hears him say, "Your boy like to watch? We should show him something, then."
Raylan heard it too, it seems, because he smiles into their kiss and sits up a little straighter. "Is that what you want to do? Go on, then. You can watch."
Cary is a little embarrassed, and he feels torn. Raylan kisses him again, thrusting fingers into his hair. "Don't worry about it, I don't care. Just..." He slides out from under him and kneels down on the floor, tugging at the waistband of Cary's underwear. He lifts up and helps him slide it down, and Raylan puts his mouth on him just as he turns his head to stare straight into the eyes of Boyd Crowder.
Boyd smiles at him, then closes his eyes briefly and lets out a hard little exhalation as Matthew pulls up on him, his mouth working at Boyd's chest. When he opens them again, he glances down at Raylan, whose head is between Cary's legs.
"Bet you thought he'd be shit at that," Boyd says, raising his eyes again.
Cary had, sort of, expected him to be less accomplished than he is. He thought he'd probably be boring, at least, but no. "He's really good," he says to Boyd, who grins at him.
Matthew lifts his head and takes Boyd by the jaw, turning his head forward and pulling him down to kiss his mouth. When it breaks, he murmurs to his lips, "We should all go in the bedroom. More comfortable in there. And we can..." He trails off as Boyd leans forward and starts doing something to his ear, but Cary knows what he wants. He wants to touch Raylan too, no surprise there.
Cary threads his fingers into Raylan's hair and gently tugs upwards. Raylan pulls off smoothly and smiles up at him. Jesus. No wonder Boyd had been hung up on him for twenty years.
"Come on," he says, "let's move it to the bed."
Raylan stands up and offers a hand to pull him up from the couch. He takes it, only realizing once he's standing up, how stoned he is, still. He feels dizzy for a moment, and steadies himself on Raylan's arm.
"Alright, there, doc?"
"Fine, Sheriff," Cary says, giggling. Ugh, I sound like a fourteen year old girl. He feels suddenly self-conscious, but Raylan just grins at him, so he shakes it off.
They follow Matthew and Boyd into the bedroom, and Cary brings the small battery-operated lamp they'd been using in the living room. It’s a little awkward, the change of scenery, and they don’t really look at each other while they all strip off the rest of their clothes.
Cary has always been happy enough with his own body. In his late 30s now, he’s slim and fit, with a smallish build and not a great deal of body hair. Matthew has a great body, tall and lanky, and looks as good, or better even, now as he did the day they met. Even still, when Raylan takes his clothes off, Cary has a brief, sudden urge to just put his back on and walk out. No one should look that good, certainly not someone even older than himself. It’s intimidating as hell, but he fights his way past it, and takes a long look at Boyd instead.
Boyd has a more wiry build, with nice shoulders and muscular arms, but very slim. The arms, of course, while well-built, are sort of tainted by the Nazi ink on them. He wonders how Raylan can look at that every day, if it calls up the bad times they’d had when Raylan first came back to Kentucky. Maybe he likes that, though, in some strange way. Maybe they both do.
Boyd sees him looking and raises his eyebrows at him in what looks like a challenge. “Something you want, Emerson?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Cary says, very high and feeling reckless, “I want to watch you suck my man’s dick. That work for you?”
Boyd snorts, dismissing whatever slight edge of hostility might have come through. “I was planning on it. Long as you take good care of Raylan, that works just fine for me.”
“Thanks, darlin’,” Raylan says, stretching himself out on the king-sized bed.
“I swear to God,” Matthew says, “are you guys hustling us somehow? How are you... the way you are? Who the fuck are you?”
“Man, don’t worry about it,” Boyd says. “It took us a long time to get here, just like it does everyone, we just took a different path. Or two different paths. You want to know about all that, maybe you can ask later. That ain’t what we’re doing right now.”
Raylan reaches up from where he’s lying and catches Boyd’s wrist, pulling him down for a kiss. Cary watches them, and it is actually beautiful, they way they are, even if it’s strange, and if it is a little codependent, it’s also mutually beneficial. Anyway, it’s none of his business how they deal with their relationship.
Boyd straightens up and walks over to Matthew, sort of pushing him towards the bed until he sits. Boyd climbs on top of him and pushes him back until he’s lying next to Raylan, then locks eyes with Cary, still standing beside the bed, as he crawls down Matthews body, trailing his mouth down the body so familiar and loved to Cary, but brand new to Boyd. The feeling, as always, is halfway between excitement and fear, desire and a slight tang of sadness that he can’t quite put his finger on, but which he loves for the way it feels when he gets him back all to himself again.
Matthew groans when Boyd swallows him down, and Cary takes himself in hand, pumping slowly as he watches.
“Hey,” Raylan says, “I can do that for you, you want.” Cary looks down at him.
“Oh,” he replies, “yeah. I sort of forgot.” He smiles a little sheepishly.
“You got pretty fucked up, huh?” Raylan says.
“Guess so.”
“Well, come here, then, Jesus,” Raylan says, so he does. He’d been feeling set apart from everyone, like he was watching a scene instead of being in one. Raylan pulls him down and rolls him over on his back, kissing him, but still letting him look over when he wants to.
It feels good, fantastic really, having Raylan’s weight on him, keeping him in the middle of things, on the inside with everyone else. He feels like he drifts away sometimes, especially when he gets high, and he wouldn’t have expected Raylan to notice, or to try to take care of him in that way. Maybe he should have; they are friends, after all.
Raylan moves himself into place and takes their cocks together in his long- fingered hand, stroking slowly. He turns to watch Matthew and Boyd for a bit too, they both do, as his fist moves over both of them.
Matthew's eyes are closed and his head is thrown back as Boyd sucks him. He looks like he might be close, and Cary reaches over to brush the side of his face. Matthew opens his eyes at his touch and turns to smile at him. He stares into Cary's eyes until his face goes slack with pleasure. He grabs at Boyd's hair, thrusting up from the bed and lets out a long groan as he comes.
Boyd sits up, wiping the corner of his mouth and looking a little dazed, like he's still pretty high himself. He kneels, straddling Matthew's chest, grabs a handful of his hair with one hand and jerks himself off with the other.
Cary comes just as Boyd does, not explosively like Boyd - Cary watches his come streak across Matthew's jaw and lips, and it's so fucking hot - but sweetly, almost slowly, under Raylan's strong hand.
When Boyd gets up, Matthew moves to wipe his face, but Cary grabs his hand. Raylan sees him do that and he grins, then gets up off of him, moves over to the middle between Matthew and Cary. He props himself up on an elbow, leans over and starts licking and kissing Boyd's come off his mouth. Cary strokes his back, and Matthew reaches for him. It only takes a few pumps before he's grasping at Matthew's hip, biting his lip as he shudders through his release.
Matthew goes to the other room for a couple washcloths. Boyd gets up from where he'd been sitting at the end of the bed, and slides in next to Raylan. Matthew comes back and hands out cloths, then lies down close to Cary and wraps him up in his arms. He mouths the word, "Okay?" to him, and Cary just smiles, laying his head down on his shoulder.
Raylan is tracing lazy patterns on Boyd's chest, and then his fingers stray over to the swastika tattoo, his thumb swiping across it as if he might rub it away. It doesn't look like a conscious thing, more like he does it all the time. His eyes are blinking slowly, sleepily, but they open when Matthew's voice breaks the reverie.
"Hey, I just want to say that you guys are fucking awesome. That was hot as hell, and I know I said you were weird, but-"
"Actually," Boyd cuts in, "I ain't sure you said that part out loud, man." Raylan chuckles, real low, and burrows himself deeper into Boyd's side.
"Oh," Matthew says, laughing and blushing a little, "yeah, well, you are pretty weird, though. But like, really cool. And what I said, about how you are, whatever your deal is, I'm totally on board with it. It works."
Cary laughs and says, "Honey, you always start sounding like a Valley girl when you get high. What is that about?"
"What the hell is a Valley girl, you geezer?"
Raylan is laughing again, half-muffled by Boyd's arm. "Is this how you always are? Or are we just a bad influence?"
"When we start doing that out in public, you can start worrying about your bad example," Cary replies.
He reaches across Matthew's chest and pats Raylan on the arm. He's not even thinking about the gesture, but he's feeling warm towards him at the moment. Raylan had been so unexpectedly conscientious about him when they were fooling around, and he feels suddenly very lucky to have come back to Harlan. This was not anywhere close to what he'd pictured when he'd first talked Matthew into coming here.
Raylan looks over at him and smiles, then turns over, pulling Boyd's arm around him from behind. Cary turns out the little lamp, and suddenly there's one of those moments that feel like magic, that make you think, for a second, that you control the universe, because at the same time the lamp goes out, the overhead light flickers. It goes on dimly, the light fluttering over them, then goes out again. They all hold their breath, and then the light comes on strong.
Cary laughs like he's out of breath - he feels like it, like his heart is in his throat and blocking out the air. He grins like an idiot and sits up in bed. He feels wide awake, even though seconds before he'd been falling asleep. Everyone else looks the same.
He jumps out of bed and throws on some sweatpants. He wants to put on a CD, or charge his iPod, or plug in his fucking laptop.
"What should we do?" he asks, feeling paralyzed by options. It's been so long since he's had this many.
"Well," Raylan says, "it might not last that long."
"I don't care about that. What do you want to do?"
All three of them are sitting up now, and everyone looks very excited. They also look apprehensive, if not outright scared. It doesn't take that long to adapt to a new reality, and they've long since adapted to the loss of electricity. If it's back, that's another adaptation they'll have to make.
"You got any DVDs?" Boyd asks.
"Sure," Cary says. "They're in boxes in the crawl space. I'll get them, we can watch something. That's a great idea."
The idea of watching DVDs is surreal at this point. Almost as surreal as not being able to watch them had been, for a long time. Cary retrieves the ladder from the basement and climbs up into the space under the roof. He hands two dusty crates down to Matthew, who is waiting underneath.
Cary knows the lights could go out at any time, but he's holding out hope. He really wants to watch a damn movie. It's been forever.
They all dig through the boxes, with their mix of classic films and cringe-worthy guilty pleasures (Boyd pulls out the copy of Mommy Dearest and holds it up with a smirk and no comment), until Raylan finds a limited edition release of Evil Dead with the rubbery Book of the Dead cover and nudges Boyd with his elbow.
Boyd gets a huge grin on his face and looks at Matthew, who says, "No fucking way. I am far too high, still, to watch a dude who looks like me get attacked by corpses in a cabin in the middle of hillbilly country."
They end up agreeing on Pulp Fiction, which somehow Boyd has never seen, piling back into bed like children at a sleepover.
Cary finds that it hardly takes any time at all for this to seem normal - to be watching a video, that is, not being in bed with Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder; it's hard to imagine taking that for granted - and he lets himself get lost in the familiar rhythms of the film.
He remembers seeing it on a date when it came out, one of his first dates with his first boyfriend, during college. It had been, as Boyd might say, not like everything else. It borrowed from a hundred other things, but it was unique. Of course, not for long, because everyone tried to copy it, but at the time he'd been captivated by it.
Raylan falls asleep during the scene at the restaurant where Travolta dances with Uma Thurman, and Matthew nods off, somehow, during the epic fight scene in the pawn shop basement. Boyd stays wide awake, though, into it. Cary watches him watching it for a minute, then looks back at the screen.
When it's over, Cary gets up to switch it off, and Boyd is leaning back against the headboard, looking at him. He says, "I never saw this because I was sure it couldn't live up to expectations. Too many people liked it, so I thought it must be overrated. But sometimes, something just happens, or is created, at just the right time to get everyone's attention. Every once in awhile, something can be really good, and really popular at the same time. I think that's amazing."
Cary smiles at him. "You're something different, Crowder, you know that? You're like the Spanish Inquisition."
Boyd laughs softly. "Because no one expects me. That's true. Why do you think I was such a successful outlaw?"
Cary walks over and gives him a very brief kiss on his mouth. "I meant to do that earlier."
"Maybe I'll get you next time," Boyd says, yawning and sliding down and pulling the blanket up over himself. "Night."
"Uh, yeah. Night." Cary curls himself into Matthew, who stirs briefly and shifts over, and goes to sleep knowing he's going to wake up to a different world.