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Chapter Text

Boyd: Dear Heavenly Father, I'm not gonna pretend to understand. You told me what you wanted done, and that's what we did. How could you let it end like this? All these men trusted me to lead them on the path of righteousness for your name's sake. All these men came to you because they believed in me. And now they're dead. I'm gonna need a sign. I'm gonna need to know that their sacrifice meant something to you.

Boyd: Maybe I've just been talking to myself this whole time.

-Bulletville

The woods are quiet.

A day ago he would have found that a comfort. Felt welcomed by loving embrace of the county that gave him life—even its critters and creatures becoming accustomed to his presence. Today it offers no peace at all. It is the deafening silence of absence—the kind that grates on a man's nerves and gives rise to all manner of philosophical nonsense. If a tree falls with nary'ne to hear it, does it still make a sound? If all humanity ceases to believe, will our Father cease to exist?

Because he ain't making much of a case for hisself of late.

But when Boyd's eyes come down from offering his jaded prayers to the heavens, she awaits him.

He tries to fit her into a box with the Mary of his hails—Mother or Magdalene. Not the messenger he’d expect from his Lord but a powerful statement if it is indeed she who has been sent to him in his hour of need.

But she flutters like moth wings.

Her eyes are black and do not catch the light of his lantern—there is no shine, only matte.

Like coal.

And the virgin would never be naked, of course. The whore neither for that matter. A breast uncovered perhaps in the Italian tradition but the only tradition he senses ahead of him feels older than Christ—older than bones.

Her hair is hard to discern from the darkness behind her. Belly as round as her cheeks are hollow and breasts barely breasts at all. Her mouth glistens in ways her eyes do not.

He has been staring. Closes his eyes and counts to ten.

She awaits him still.

Is closer, perhaps.

"You, my lady, are no sign from the good Lord." And he knows she ain't but he aches to be wrong. Doesn't mean to cling so tight to his modern faith, not when she's standing right before his eyes, but cling he does.

What lord is there? Certainly none good. Look closer, boy. You have known me so much longer.

A memory knocks.

"How many times I gotta tell you to call me Frances, boy?" She says it smiling, the thicker makeup—only on one side of her face—creasing. She pats his arm with a hand that seems more bone than flesh. Wrist disappearing into long sleeves whilst he wears only shorts.

Boyd blushes as only a boy on the cusp of early puberty can and looks to his momma to give him leave.

"Go on now, we got a world to put to rights and your head don’t need any more grand ideas 'bout wandering off."

He springs away as she begins recounting the story of his latest sojourn: when Bo had left him in the woods to find his own damn way home and Boyd hadn’t felt the need to hurry.

His daddy had used the belt for that one, his momma standing by—one hand outstretched like she meant to stop to it.

That statue of her lives in his head still. The helping hand that ever reaches and never arrives.

The woman—the figment—has the same delicate frame Frances Givens had on that occasion, though not when he saw her last. It'd usually precipitated a disappearance from his momma’s visitor schedule and that particular time in the garden was the last he’d seen the two of them together.

Frances was a little fuller by the funeral. Her makeup even but for the tears cutting a line through its powder. Raylan’s jaw had been a billboard even then, her unwelcome hands on his hunched shoulders whilst Boyd’s mother returned to the earth. As ungrateful then as he is now.

But it ain't a woman’s smile that spreads the figment’s full lips wide to reveal a mouth more full of teeth than his own. They are darker too. Messier. He wishes he could see her better and abruptly realizes that perhaps it's best he can’t.

You were gone so long, she says and her voice is Frances and his momma and his fifth grade teacher and every girl he’s ever tried to fall in love with, or even just summon a little lust for—anything but indifference would have been welcome. But Frances Givens is the last woman he remembers getting hard for till the first time he saw Ava after Bowman died.

Her lips are losing their gloss now.

He nods to himself: The blood is drying.

Of course he is the kind of man to notice such things—his daddy always said there was something off about him. He feels the creeping sensation of being seen. Perceived. She is watching him still.

"I was only away from these parts but a couple years," he says hesitantly, not wanting to disrespect her. "Been back here a long time." His voice is too quiet for the space between them but some part of him knows it could have stayed inside his head and still been heard.

Not so. Not all.

And it is no one’s voice he hears this time. It is a flicker of the lantern. A hushing of the breeze. A half heard melody in the chirping of insects.

But hear it he does. Feels it too—vibrating in his marrow.

You gouged a path into the heart of me, it sings with the night itself. Ripped power from me in darkness, only to let it slip away in the light. You thought he was all you needed. You thought him better. Even abandoned you cling to him still.

The lantern gutters and spits. The wind hisses.

"I didn’t know," he whispers, the ground swaying beneath him—he plunges down into another memory, another time.

The shuddering of the walls, the pull of the earth, Raylan stumbling along and the swell of power in Boyd's chest. His blood sings with it. And his need for those supports to last just a little longer seems to balloon from him. Like he could shore them up by his will alone.

The struts hold, each folding behind them as they pass, till they stumble—coughing and laughing—into the light. Dust billows at their backs.

He takes Raylan's soot-blackened face in his hands—what a pair of Cheshire cats they are now. 'We made it! We survived!' their faces say. He plants a kiss on Raylan's mouth at the ecstasy of being alive. Just a peck. Nothing any of the men here would question in such circumstances as these.

They stare at each other as the crew swarms them. Raylan's eyes all black and white.

It's just a moment. Not even a second.

The crew outside had swept them up, firm hands squeezing their shoulders and clapping them on the back. Hooting and cheering so loud it could bring the whole thing down again.

They'd got blackout drunk on other men's money that night.

Raylan had been gone the next day.

It was only slightly earlier than expected but that the point. Boyd was meant to be the one to drive him up to Lexington. He'd have got the number for Raylan's college dorm and even if he could never have brung himself to call it he might have swung by for a visit.

You washed the dust of me from your skin and thought you had washed it from your soul. You tried to be small. To hide among many. But I found you again. Brought you back.

The voices are on the wind. And in his head. They crawl from the ground. And they come from memory.

You walked my lands so lightly I hardly felt it. You hid your head in the clouds with your sky father to ignore your wayward heart. I watched you shed skin after skin but even once it returned you didn’t claim it. Filled your hollow chest with the bleating of creatures like these, it gestures to the graves and it has claws where fingernails should be.

They should be meat to fill your belly, not teeth to tear your soul. But since you will not consume them I accept your offering. Your apology.

His daddy’s words are thick in his throat, the tips of his fingers tingle with them. 'You brought this, it’s your fault.'

I will take you into my heart. As I did his mother. And her father before her. As I will him. I will make you whole.

Boyd narrows his eyes. He thought he'd understood up to then but now something doesn't fit. And the bible in his hand is nothing but ink, paper, and leather—and it's just glue that holds it together. He has little enough faith to go around.

Parts of him float outside his body like there ain't room enough for them all inside—one stares in horror as his thoughts turn insolent. Blasphemous. But another is the floating grin of a Cheshire cat.

"Let me see if I have the right of this," he drawls. "You—the apparent personification of Harlan County—are going to…what? Give me back my missing heart? You about to grant me true love’s kiss that I might become a real boy too?"

The figment tilts its head in a manner far more bird than person.

I am not your heart, it sneers.

"Hah," he spits, "course not." That’d be too neat for a descent into madness. "Then where, oh great Harlan, am I to find my heart?"

Where it has always been.

Boyd wishes he didn’t know what that meant.

—

He opens the red door twice.

The first time, the bodies on Raylan's motel room floor are just so much more dead flesh on top of the heap he's already buried today.

The second time—

It's not his father's men lying glassy eyed with a pallor unbecoming of the living, but Raylan.

But Raylan is standing there with his hand at his hip and that must surely be the one who's real. The one who would have drawn his weapon immediately but somehow just knew he didn't need to.

And Boyd knows Raylan's still breathing 'cause he can hear Raylan's heart beating. The off-kilter beat of a backing track his body has heard his whole life.

"What in God's name, Raylan?" He asks. And then, "Dear Lord."

Did it always feel so empty to take the Lord's name in vain? There's no familiar tang of rebellion in his mouth. Not even ashes.

"I am lost, Raylan," he pleads.

And it is the truth when he opens his mouth. He means it as the truth. But when he says Raylan's name, when his eyes meet Raylan's and Raylan's heart is beating for both of them—how could he ever be lost?

Boyd wants to tell him so but he doesn't think Raylan will want to hear it.

Wants to turn himself inside out and let Raylan judge his tattered innards. He knows Raylan will see only what he lets himself see and that's every little broken thing—everything he hates about himself—staring back at him from a shattered mirror. Whether it's really there or not.

But Boyd sees then they're not alone. Arlo sits bleeding in the bathroom. And Boyd's fracture lines are nothing compared to a mirror that's more edge than glass.

Raylan: You were telling the truth, huh? This conversion.
Boyd: Was I? I don't know now, Raylan. I'm so confused.
Raylan: [huffs] Yeah.
Boyd: Do you believe in God?
Raylan: I do.
Boyd: Tell me about your God, Raylan.
Raylan: Well, you know, white hair, long beard, sits on a heavenly throne.
Boyd: I set all this in motion, didn't I?

- Bulletville

Chapter Text

Boyd: Well what's to stop me from pulling this trigger, Raylan? That it would be a sin?

Raylan: Don't get me wrong, I have no moral objective to your killing her. You understand, miss, the life you've led. But I need her. Alive.

-The Moonshine War

He'd felt relief when—standing over that girl, not knowing if he could shoot her—Raylan's voice had granted him a reprieve. She might have deprived him of one opportunity but that was the thing about being your own man—no end to the choosing.

Better that than another cage of his own making. They'd kept letting him out of prison and he'd just kept on building it in his own head.

Outlaw. Criminal. Crowder.

He waved the truck driver off and let the hospital patch him up as much as his ready cash allowed but doesn't linger. Something like home is calling him, though he ain't rightly sure where that is just now.

Harlan, he thinks. Ain't it always Harlan?

Even when Raylan wasn't there? asks another part of him.

He rubs two fingers cross his brow like he can unthink that second thought.

The bus back to Harlan takes another tight corner, the rising hillside filling his window. He's glad he remembered to sit this side at least, is still watching the green go by when—

He hisses and yanks his shirt open. Hot wax—too hot—like church candles, a poor choice for recreational activities. But by the time he's picked the sticky edges of the bandage loose without waxing his chest the sensation has passed.

He peers at himself. Rubs at it. Tugs the dressing the rest of the way off and stares some more.

The angle could be better but he sees what ain't there. Strokes his fingertips across the smooth white scar where a bullet hole used to be.

There ain't that many distinguishing features on this road to Harlan but they must be five miles from the County line. But he reckons gods don't necessarily concern themselves with the delineations of mice and men.

His head snaps round to the figure he thought he saw but it's just light and shadow and leaves.

Yes, she whispers in Frances Givens' voice again. And everything else besides.

He sets his shirt to rights and sinks into the seat—lets his eyes close.

Arlo storms by—would have sent him ass over tit were Boyd not well-practiced in avoiding such things. He's still staring after Arlo when Frances takes the empty casserole dish, the shake in her hands catching his attention. Hollow face, lipstick smudged, and a strip of yellowing purple across her jaw where the cakey makeup has been disturbed.

Boyd shoves his hands in his pockets to hide what he feels and looks at her feet. Sees the ladders in her stockings, the redness of her knees.

"My father said to thank you for the meal but we'll make do now. Don't go to any more trouble please." He tries to phrase it more politely than his daddy's version. Glances up to see she's clutching the dish to her chest. Staring past him with eyes like her son's.

Boyd makes to leave and watches his daddy's truck pull away with Arlo up front. He sighs then lifts his chin to Mrs. Givens.

"Might I trouble you for a glass of water whilst I wait, ma'am?"

Frances nods, a hand slipping around his shoulders to steer him inside. As he passes the bottom of the stairs, Raylan is at the top, the sun shining behind him.

She was gone in the fall. He only heard it third hand after Raylan kicked the shit out of some kid who made a crack about her proclivities.

If there'd been a funeral then, Boyd hadn't gone but he'd attended the one ten or so years back. Internment, they'd called it, as if she'd been dead the whole time and they were just moving her.

It must surely have been Helen maintaining that subterfuge—the best kept secret in all Harlan. Boyd couldn't fathom how she'd done it. Even Arlo seemed to believe Frances dead.

He'd decided long ago Helen must've convinced Arlo he'd killed her, nothing else would keep that man's mouth shut. Not when he could've been cutting his son to ribbons with the truth.

Only Boyd had seemed to know 'gone' for the euphemism it was—even before he saw her again. Only Boyd—and maybe Helen.

But he couldn't say how he'd known.

The hairs on the back of his neck rise. Maybe he'd known because Harlan had.

But if that was so, then so too, surely, had Raylan.

—

Down in the dark where the earth hums to him, he only ever thinks of Raylan but if that makes Harlan jealous, she ain't mentioned it.

And when he emerges from the mine's darkness to feel sunlight on his skin he's grateful. He directs his thanks to the light itself and tries not to attribute it to any deity in particular.

It's a strange feeling for those two sentiments to combine as his eyes adjust to the light and there—sunlight glowing behind him—is Raylan Givens.

"For a second I thought I was nineteen again."

And then he is—

"Raylan Givens. You waiting on me?"

Raylan looks the other miners over sourly and back to Boyd like it's too obvious for words.

"Well, you can keep some," Boyd says, brushes past him like the curiosity ain't tightening a noose around his neck.

He gets a couple of raised eyebrows but no comments on why he's chosen today to use the miners' showers instead of hightailing it on out in his beat-up old truck like usual.

The showers are as bad as he'd assumed, though not worse. Something grows from a crack in the plastic tray—dingy from coal dust—and the water turns itself off every 30 seconds till you crank it again. But they're warm. And over the short privacy wall he can see Raylan Givens leaning. Watching. Waiting on him.

He makes a point of being a little slow to wrap his towel when he steps out. Has to bend abruptly when Raylan's eyes go exactly where he hoped they would—hadn't factored in how he might be affected by such attention.

"I heard they got jobs going," Raylan offers as Boyd dresses slowly—careful with his angles.

Boyd raises an eyebrow, "You want to work in a mine, Raylan?"

Raylan looks away, far away, long past the wall that blocks his view.

"Can you get me in?"

They'd run in different circles back then—well, Raylan'd stood still and folk'd run around him hoping they might catch in his orbit. No end of local girls looking to hitch a ride on any train potentially headed out of Kentucky even before his height, looks and thick head of hair got factored in.

But he'd walked Raylan into the duty manager that same day and talked him up real good.

Of course he had.

Raylan had started the very next day and when the whistle went, they'd headed for the showers together before both their steps fell to faltering.

Even now Boyd can relive that rising panic—the flash of realization that standing naked side by side with Raylan Givens in communal showers would not go well for him.

He hadn't noticed Raylan having hesitations of his own—that had come with time.

So Boyd'd scrubbed up in the sink whilst Raylan showered.

The showers they got these days smell of mildew and the water doesn't get past lukewarm. But he makes Raylan wait whilst he avails himself of the facilities before they drive to Cumberland.

It doesn't take long for Boyd to recognize that though Raylan still stands closer than he needs to, he's a thousand miles away. He ain't seeing nothing but broken glass in Boyd—one minute a mirror, the next a window, but always, everything broken and hated and wrong.

And still his heartbeat thuds in Boyd's own chest like it's the only one there.

Raylan knew him so well once—could again if he wanted to.

Maybe that's why he's too afraid to look.

How is Boyd meant to reclaim his heart from a man who refuses to see?

She said she'd make him whole.

From the corner of his eye redness blooms over Raylan's shirt. Blackened flesh. The place where a heart used to be.

Boyd fingers curl around something warm and dense in his hand. Blood drips from his fingers.

He blinks it away and orders another drink. Wishes they'd gone further afield than Cumberland because now he's remembering a reclamation of his heart weren't what she'd offered. 'I will take you into my heart,' she'd said. Raylan too.

Offered? Threatened. Promised. Are those her words or his?

Raylan's mood turns sour. He picks at Boyd like he still ain't outgrown that childhood phase of pulling girls hair. And Boyd is tired down to his bones—can't keep holding up whatever walls he has been. He lets the world wash over him. Lets himself be carried out to sea.

"There's nothing to continue," he says to Raylan's departing back, "'cause you'll never believe me."

But it wasn't always so.

The first slam is the locker door closing. The second—only a fraction behind—is his back slamming against it. Two of Raylan's teammates take screening posts either side, looking out. The noisy hallway falls into hushed murmuring.

Boyd's coat and flannel are bunched up in Raylan's angry fists. His eyes roam over Raylan's blackened eye, the split lip. Raylan's breath tickles coolly at his own lips because his first reaction—on getting slammed against his locker by Raylan Givens—had been to lick them.

Their legs are interlaced—Raylan's thigh between his and vice versa. Which surely puts Raylan's cock at Boyd's hip and he should not be thinking about that given where his own is.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Boyd grunts. It sounds pretty good to his mind though it's been a while since he had to deal with school bullies.

Raylan's eyes flicker downward.

And to think he'd been concerned about his voice giving him away.

The eyes come back up to stare into Boyd's as Raylan bends his knee—presses his thigh harder between Boyd's legs.

Boyd's eyes go wide. He just hopes it'll look like fear to anyone who isn't grinding their thigh into his budding erection.

Raylan presses closer so Boyd don't entirely hear it when he says, "You snitch?"

"You tell your daddy?" Raylan snarls when Boyd don't answer the first time.

Boyd shakes his head.

Raylan's iron grip eases. He nods, steps off. Swings his fist to punch Boyd—oh-so-softly—in the gut before he walks away.

Boyd doubles over like it hit as hard as it looked. Stays that way till he's gone soft himself.

He hadn't even known what there was to tell his daddy until later: Arlo had taken something from Bo and Raylan had taken it from Arlo and flashed it round the locker room.

Bowman had served that up first chance he got.

So since Arlo had taken a beating from Bo, Raylan got one from Arlo, and it had very nearly been Boyd's turn.

He'd have made Bowman pay for that in ways far more subtle than any one of those men could fathom. Not so much a cycle of violence as a chain.

His Cumberland bartender pours him another every time he asks and Boyd doesn't much keep track of how many that is. He's just glad when he stops feeling ghostly fingers stroking up his back. When finally the call comes for last orders he stands from his stool and would have fallen straight down if he hadn't caught the bar with his face first.

He drags himself up and staggers into fresher air where Raylan Givens is waiting on him once more. Or he's hallucinating again.

"Thought you might need a ride," Raylan says.

"On account o' you drivin' me out here an' abandonin' me?" He ain't sure he got all those words in the right order. And even if Raylan answers he doesn't hear it—the thud, thud, thud of a heartbeat filling his ears. Blood drips. He blinks.

"Where you stayin', Boyd?"

Boyd laughs, he thinks. Or tries to. Hopefully says something smooth like, "I am between living situations of late but a man can manage just fine in a vehicle of a reasonable size."

When he blinks again Raylan's face is real close. Boyd's breath catches—

Raylan leans back holding the seat-belt. Clips it in.

He's in Raylan's town car.

"Safety first," Boyd whispers like a prayer.

"Christ, Boyd, you high?"

"If only," he mutters. "Some former lov—friend of mine brought me here straight from work. Di'n't think to feed me," he drawls.

"I ain't your damn mother." Raylan snaps before he mumbles under his breath. Boyd doesn't know if he heard it right or it's wishful thinking but he thinks it went something like, "And we weren't what I'd call 'lovers' then, Boyd."

It's the 'then' he really likes. It implies a time other than 'then' might yet come to pass.

A bag of peanuts lands in his lap.

"Can you open those or I gotta do that too? I don't want to be picking up peanuts for the rest of the year."

Boyd rips the bag open—peanuts cascade onto his lap but only a few tumble to the floor. He looks guiltily across at Raylan who rolls his eyes but his mood seems to be lightening the further they drive—they're headed away from Harlan.

Boyd eats his peanuts in big handfuls then hangs his head out the window to feel the breeze on his skin. Lets his mind wander.

Boyd drives them back to his trailer. Opens the door tentatively not knowing what sort of state he might find Bart in, or the trailer itself for that matter.

"I'm sure I've seen worse." Raylan hovers impatiently.

It ain't too bad and wherever Bart is he ain't here so he gives Raylan the tour. Doesn't take more than twenty seconds but Raylan gazes around the place like it's heaven.

"Better than home," he says. Watches Raylan's slow and certain nod. "I got some 'shine stashed out back. Hard to keep anything around long with..." He doesn't say Bart but he's sure Raylan gets the idea.

"Sure," Raylan nods again.

When Boyd comes back with the jar Raylan is settled precariously on one arm of the only armchair.

"Come balance this thing out before it goes." He has his arms outstretched, grins at Boyd like they're kids.

Boyd feels the joy tug him over, he doesn't stop to grab glasses. Sits on the opposite arm so its feet clunk level. He unscrews the lid and offers Raylan first swig. Watches how Raylan holds it in his mouth before he swallows. How his lips turn pinched at the kick.

"That the Sorenson 'shine?" Raylan asks.

Boyd is impressed and says so.

Raylan smirks. "Only one Arlo banned outright so I've had it more than a few times."

That gets them onto the topic of daddies though it ain't where they stay. Talk turns to sports and books and television.

And the more times the liquor passes back and forth between them, the more their fingers seem to brush and their knees bump together. Till they slip down to sit squashed between the chair's arms—folded into one another and talking about girls.

They'd been kids. Nineteen and no idea.

At least it hadn't taken them too long to figure out they had more than just bad parenting in common. Other times they'd just sat and read in silence till Bartholomew came home to ruin the peace.

By the time Raylan pulls up outside his motel Boyd thinks he might be able to read a whole sentence again.

Raylan still has to unclip the seat-belt for him—motor skills suffering from vast quantities of whiskey. And he allows himself to be helped the short distance to the door—there's a step or two after all and he wouldn't want to fall.

"But this is your room," he says when Raylan pulls him inside and deposits him onto the bed.

"Were you expecting one of your own? Am I supposed to shell out for that?"

Raylan stands over him, hands on hips. Boyd ain't sure if he's being looked at or through. Sits on the same corner of the bed he had that night and stares up at Raylan with the pounding in his ears.

His eyes flicker to the bathroom just to be sure Arlo ain't there this time.

"He was gonna trade me," Raylan says glancing that same way.

Boyd moves a hand to rub at his face. It passes through molasses to get there.

His brain comes into focus to find his eyes are on Raylan's belt buckle. Have been he doesn't know how long. But Raylan is still standing there with his hands on his hips, no star at his belt, his gun already put away somewhere when Boyd wasn't paying attention.

And now Raylan's hand rises in slow motion to remove his hat. He sets it down on the dresser.

"I gotta piss," Boyd says, one painfully slow word at a time. The slope of the room tips him into the bathroom. It's sit or fall and he leaves the door unlocked—ain't much privacy pissing in a 2-bed single-wide neither—if Raylan has to kick the door in he'll never let it go.

He splashes water on his face and resolutely does not look at himself in the mirror.

He's still leaning over the sink when Raylan pushes the door open and comes to stand almost directly behind him. Now he'll look in the mirror—at Raylan.

Raylan has stripped down to his white vest.

A hand settles on his lower back. Something between his legs lurches but ain't yet ready for life.

"You want to shower?" Raylan rasps, clears his throat. "I imagine they got better showers at the mine these days but…"

He watches Raylan's eyes leave the mirror to trail down Boyd's back and he'd swear he can feel every place they touch. He pushes up against the basin's edge and if he sways back a little to bump Raylan, well, that's just an accident.

And Raylan staying stock still sooner than step out of the way, well, that's surely just him taking care Boyd doesn't fall.

He twists away from the sink to take off his boots. Bends straight over for effect and regrets it when his liquor threatens to make a resurgence. But then Raylan's hands are on his hips—steadying again—and regret is another country. One the US Army ain't ever set foot in.

Tugging his foot free knocks him back into Raylan again. Those fingers on his hips flex and Raylan audibly sucks in air.

Boyd smiles and repeats the process with the other boot. Wobbles his way to upright and pulls his shirt and vest off together. Gets his pants loose. Raylan helps ease them down past his hips, thumbs skating over the curve of Boyd's ass.

They both sound remarkably out of breath for two people standing still.

Boyd tips his head back and leans with it. Can feel the heart against his back—aflutter and aflame.

Raylan's fingers slip forward, fitting themselves into the dip of Boyd's abdominal muscles like they were designed for that very purpose.

Boyd floats in the absence of time.

"Boyd," Raylan growls. "Shower."

The hands are back on his hips, thrusting him away so he staggers a little, almost trips over his discarded boots. Raylan catches him and releases. Reaches past to turn the shower on. He lets the water stream over his fingers till he seems satisfied and puts a hand on the small of Boyd's back to push him forward, more gently this time.

Boyd allows it. Allows Raylan whatsoever he wants. He stands with the water streaming into his face, his eyes screwed shut.

The hands on his hip startle his mouth to open and he splutters at the water that fills it. Steps back so the stream ain't directly into his airway.

Steps back into Raylan.

Raylan's hands on his hips.

Raylan's feet tucking around and between his own.

Raylan's hard cock resting against his ass.

Boyd plants his hand against the wall to keep from falling. He doesn't mean to arch his back. Doesn't mean to tilt his ass so Raylan's cock sinks a little into his crease. Doesn't mean to let that moan sneak out as it does.

So maybe he should give Raylan the benefit of the doubt that he doesn't mean for his hand to slip around front. Doesn't mean to nestle Boyd's cock between finger and thumb. Doesn't mean to sink his teeth into Boyd's shoulder—but at least that does muffle the groan.

Boyd winces. The teeth pull back—Raylan's mouth by his ear as he says, "Fuck, Boyd. What are we doing here?"

Seems like growth to Boyd—recognizing the questionable choice they're making before they've made it. Or, at least, during. Were a time he and Raylan wouldn't even have noticed a bad idea as it bit them on the ass on its way out.

The water runs over Boyd's back and funnels into the gap between his cheeks where Raylan's cock nestles. Raylan's feet shuffle closer till Boyd can feel curls tickling.

Raylan reaches past him and clicks a bottle open. Boyd is tugged out of the water so Raylan can lather them both up—he closes his eyes and lets himself be washed and rinsed.

Opens them again as Raylan's fingers slide between his cheeks.

Boyd puts his hand against the wall as a fingertip pushes past his rim. He breathes deep, tries to relax. He wants Raylan to know he's welcome there—even if no one else ever has been.

The half step backward ain't intentional. The way he pushes himself against Raylan's finger. Feels the resistance before Raylan's finger knuckle squeezes through. Gasps as Raylan pulls it back a little before he drives it all the way in—the water might be wet but it ain't slick.

Raylan begins to work his hand in a circular sort of motion—stretching. Boyd leans his weight against the wall and lets Raylan work his hole without saying a word—doesn't want to spook him now.

Boyd's dick finally begins to stir—whiskey washing away as the warm water runs cold. The fingers withdraw and Boyd's head jerks a little, trying to see out the corner of his eye—

Raylan's hand lands on the wall next to his. Boyd looks at the two fingers still pressed together whilst the rest splay. Bites his lip. He feels Raylan's dick poke towards his hole. He reaches back with the hand not occupied by balance and pulls his cheek aside. Sucks his teeth, wincing, as Raylan presses against him, far thicker than two fingers.

"Raylan," he croaks, "You got something better than water?"

The pressure relents and Raylan steps away. Boyd holds his breath. Feels the prayer building in his chest that Raylan won't change his mind now.

He ain't sure where exactly he intends to send that prayer and doesn't like how Frances Givens steps into his minds eye.

Chapter Text

"Mrs Givens," he nods and her eyes go wide—wild—roaming the motel lot like she's looking for someone else. Boyd holds up a placating hand. "Coincidence. Just passing through. I just got back." He indicates the army issue bag.

She settles back into herself before his eyes. He feels the familiar presence of home bubble up around him like it's come to take some of the weight even over here in Virginia. He thinks she might feel it too.

"Boyd," she says politely. "You're looking…well."

He looks down at himself—his jeans hang looser than before he left but his shirt pulls tight and his teeth are bright and shiny. The tan probably doesn't hurt though it doesn't extend much past his neck and forearms.

He offers her a haphazard smile and her blush floods him with heat. He shoves a hand in his pocket like he did as a kid, the other holding his bag on his shoulder. He doesn't have the same lack of control as he did then but he'd been real little last time he saw Frances Givens. Those early days were as soft and hesitant as they were confusing. Ain't much soft about him now.

"You staying long?" She asks, setting a cigarette between her painted lips. He steps close to light it for her.

—

He gets his fingers in her cunt up against the ice machine, that lipstick smudged as much across his face as hers. He doesn't know better than thrusting a couple of fingers into her but she moans like he's doing something right so he keeps going till someone yells from down the hall. They stumble along to his room giggling like school kids whilst he tries to get the key in the lock.

Then fall in and she pushes his head down whilst the door is still open. Says his name over and over though the way she's dropping the 'd' makes it sound like she's calling him 'Boy'. She tugs his head where she wants it. Tells him how fast and how hard. Begs for his fingers and tells him to add another.

She pushes the door shut as she comes and then he turns her around—or maybe it's her doing that too. He shoves his cock into her soaking wet cunt before he can lose his edge—it's the first he's made it all the way into.

Now ain't the time to consider why he couldn't get it hard enough to fuck any of those girls his own age but he sure can get it up to fuck Raylan's momma.

She tells him harder. Pull her hips. Pull her hair.

He does. Hears the squelch of every thrust. He seconds away from spilling but can't quite get there. Rides the edge of it and let's her tell him how she wants it till he loses his rhythm. Slips out. His dick is soaked with her and the sudden chill of the air is startling in contrast.

She hitches her dress up higher, tucks it under her arms and uses her freed hands to spread her ass.

"Put it there," she tells him and he does. Lord help him he does. Slides in easy with her pussy juice greasing the shaft.

He's barely thrust twice before he's spilling. It doesn't stop him pumping a few more strokes. He watches his come leaking from around his dick till she's moving and pushing him to step back.

She goes to her knees and slurps him into her mouth. Stares up at what must surely be a look of shock on his face.

It sort of hurts, but it ain't unbearable so he grits his teeth and takes it. And when she's licked and suckled his soft cock clean her head gets to bobbing in earnest.

He doesn't notice when the pain stops but he sees when her lips get stretched—his cock is swollen back to full mast. She pulls off with a popping sound.

"Perks of youth," she smiles hungrily as she climbs to her feet.

She directs him to lie on the bed and mounts him with her pussy before she pulls her dress over her head. Puts his hands on her low hung tits. Barely a handful. The skin is loose and soft—it's not unpleasant.

She rides him till his stomach growls with hunger.

"Come on, boy. Fill me up, then momma can get you something to eat."

She squeezes her cunt, the sensation engulfing his whole cock. It ain't the same as having that ring moving up and down. Not bad by any means but there's so much sensation his brain don't know what to do with it all.

Then she's leaning back, slicks a finger with her own juices and his come—pushes it into his ass. He jerks up, spurts his load right into her almost on the spot.

"That's it, that's my good boy."

She arches and shakes over him as she cries her approval to the sky—to the nicotine-stained ceiling. The curls beneath his cock are soaked and glistening with his come and hers. She squeezes as she moans her finish but his cock is already almost soft. It slips from her, flops down.

He feels alarm flooding him as she shuffles her knees up, rocking either side of him until she's in front of his face.

"Eat up now, boy, go on."

He thinks of the figure in the woods with its swollen belly and Frances Givens' tits. Shudders.

She'd been gone when he woke but his face had been crusted with the memory of her, his cock and its general vicinity too. He'd showered till the water ran cold then too. Scrubbing himself and thinking of his momma's funeral. Of Raylan's shoulders hunched beneath his mother's touch. He'd thought him so ungrateful.

Chapter Text

He always knew Helen had a hand in her leaving. Thought she'd driven her away for Frances' own good. And at twenty-two—even scrubbing her touch from his skin—he didn't have the mind to put that together any differently.

Years later he'd thought Helen had wanted Arlo for herself. Had driven her sister away so she could claim him.

Now with his hair dripping water down his back he follows Raylan into the bedroom and understands—he thinks—why Raylan accepted the lie his momma was dead when he must surely have known the truth. Just as Boyd had. Just as Harlan had.

He feels the ghosting of fingers across his back. Winces at the dig of a claw that ain't ghost-like in the slightest. His hand flies up, swipes at the pain—comes away wet. But then he's standing here dripping, fresh from the shower so of course it does. His mind is playing tricks.

Raylan has opened a drawer and is lazily stroking his cock, bottle in hand. He jerks his head towards the bed and Boyd goes obligingly to his hands and knees, thankful Raylan ain't gone rabbit just yet even if his own head doesn't feel screwed on quite right. He shuffles back till his knees find the edge, lets his calves and feet stick out into the air.

"How the hell you cut yourself between there and here, Boyd?" Raylan grouses.

Boyd flinches. "Is it bad?"

A cold blob of gel lands in his crease. Boyd shivers before Raylan scoops it up and shoves two fingers unceremoniously inside him. Circles a little, Boyd feeling the stretch in his rim. He drops from his hands to his elbows and braces back.

"Not so bad I'm gonna stop." Raylan saying what his hands have already made obvious.

His fingers withdraw and Boyd holds his breath at the feel of Raylan's cock slipping against his hole. It finds purchase, punches past his resistance and sinks in—he cries out, winces at the sudden stretch, the fullness.

Been years since he's had so much as a finger up there but it burns just as good as he remembers.

The single-wide's second bedroom is barely big enough for one person, never mind two but Raylan had wanted to see it so Boyd had obliged.

They sit side by side on Boyd's skinny mattress, the sleeping bag he'd picked up at an army surplus a little wider than the narrow cot.

"I got it," Raylan says, staring at the wall ahead same as Boyd. "Full ride."

"I heard." Boyd tries to sound pleased for him. Fails.

No one had ever pushed him toward something that might pay for a college education. He'd follow in his daddy's footsteps anyhow, they said.

He can tell Raylan is peering at him now but he doesn't look back. He doesn't look in an even more definitive sort of way when he feels the hand on his thigh. Stares straight ahead even as Raylan gets both hands onto Boyd's waistband. Even as he leans back a little so Raylan can pop the button. Keeps carefully watching the wall as Raylan's fingers close around his cock to pull it free.

He almost looks when Raylan's hand goes away. Pictures a cartoon bead of sweat rolling down his forehead as he tries to stay absolutely still, eyes front.

Because if he's imagining this he doesn't want to ruin it.

And then Raylan is reaching for Boyd's hand, pulling it over till he feels Raylan's hard-on beneath his fingers. He curls them around it, pumps down and up.

Raylan gasps. "Yeah. Like that. You do me and I'll do you," he says.

Boyd hadn't even really enjoyed it that first time. He'd stared at the door and pumped Raylan's cock in his fist and hoped and prayed and begged any deity who would listen that he wouldn't come first.

He'd wiped his come-covered fingers on the mattress. Had pressed his face into it whilst he rubbed himself raw later that night.

The second time had been better.

"Earth to Boyd, it's Harlan calling."

Boyd laughs, clenching around the couple of inches of dick in his ass. Raylan makes a sound that has Boyd feeling ready to take a whole lot more. He pushes himself back slowly and Raylan hisses like he's the one getting skewered.

Boyd drops his head to the mattress, breathes through the discomfort. Raylan thrusts the last little bit himself and Boyd yelps.

"Jesus, Raylan." It's muffled by the sheets so he lifts his head and throws his words over his shoulder, "You so used to pussy, you forgot how this works?"

"Oh quit your whining, Boyd, you're fine."

Boyd feels the tug of Raylan pulling out—he slams back in hard and Boyd has to arch just to take it.

"There you go," Raylan purrs, his fingers rubbing a circle against Boyd's back. "Like riding a biker."

Boyd drops his head low again to bite at the counterpane. There's so much cheek in Raylan's tone he's half a mind to trade places. See how Raylan takes his dick.

This had been easier at nineteen.

Boyd had been coming into his power by then but in both their minds he'd still been the quiet, nerdy kid Raylan knew from high school. And Raylan, for his part, was the oh-so-popular jock around whom the world revolved.

So in the mine, Boyd might have been firmly in charge—men twice his age paid attention to a call from Boyd Crowder and it wasn't just 'cause of who his daddy was no more.

But in the trailer, or in the back of Boyd's truck, it was still Raylan who took the lead.

Confident Raylan who rarely went to church and certainly hadn't been there for the fire and brimstone speech about sodomy. Who—when Boyd brought it up—had said what they were doing didn't count anyway. That it was only real sodomy—only gay—if there were feelings and since neither of them had those, well, least they weren't getting anybody pregnant.

'It's like with hookers,' he'd declared, 'no kissing.'

So Boyd bites down on the polyester sheets and lets Raylan plow his ass. And just like that first hand-job in the trailer he puts his mind to not spilling before Raylan does. Doesn't let his hands go between his legs, and he certainly doesn't adjust his position to make Raylan push that other button. Relaxes into Raylan's thrusts, lets his mind empty.

Raylan slows.

Boyd tenses. Waits.

Raylan pulls out.

When Boyd looks around Raylan is just standing there—staring. There's a rhythmic sound that for a second Boyd mistakes for music till he remembers and as soon as he does, the pulsing thrum of it fills his head.

He turns onto his back, has to adjust the angle a couple of times till his ass stops complaining.

"Raylan?" He says eventually, and Raylan's endless gaze snaps back to him. Meanness flashes over his face—gone so fast Boyd thinks maybe he just read it wrong.

"Shove up," Raylan growls.

He crawls up over Boyd who in turn moves further up the bed as demanded. Tilts to turn over onto his front but Raylan pins his shoulder.

"Just pull your legs up."

Raylan reaches up for a pillow, shoves it at him—Boyd tucks it beneath his hips. Hooks his hands under his knees to pull them up.

As instructed.

He's a wide-eyed nineteen year old all over again—honored that Raylan Givens is taking an interest. Clearly still drunk since that thought ain't mortifying. Or maybe he's just distracted.

Because they never did it like this. Never facing.

Raylan snaps back onto his heels and Boyd's gut twists—but Raylan only reaches for the lube. His eyes stare through Boyd as he reapplies it with absent-minded fingers to his cock, and then more purposefully to Boyd's hole.

"It's Winona's stuff," Raylan says, giving an explanation that Boyd was just fine not knowing. "Don't last."

"You fuck her like this?" Boyd blurts—now asking questions he doesn't want the answer to. No feelings, he recalls.

Raylan gets a funny sort of look on his face. And Boyd doesn't have the presence of mind to puzzle it out as Raylan's cock is filling him again, stretching him differently in this new position.

And Raylan rolls his hips in ways that send sparks fizzing through Boyd. He moans, arching involuntarily again as Raylan fucks into him. Gets to see the smirk, the devilish glint in Raylan's eye. Can't help but arch deeper as Raylan rolls again, hitting the nail on the head and making Boyd gasp.

He doesn't close his eyes though. Sees Raylan bite his lip.

He didn't know he could make Raylan bite his lip like that.

He knows he can open bottles on Raylan's jaw or put so much heat in his eyes it could trigger wildfire warnings. But the lip thing is new.

Boyd stares.

And he doesn't mean to curl forward but Raylan bottoms out so hard that it's just physics. He can't be responsible for such things. Even when he gets his elbows under him and lingers, mouth open, panting, Raylan's mouth right there too, he ain't operating with any kind of intention.

The kiss is entirely Raylan's fault.

And if he lurches up off his elbows to wrap an arm around Raylan's neck and pull him down into a deeper one, well, that's just the consequences of Raylan's actions coming home to roost.

Boyd feels those consequences railing his ass whilst his teeth tug at Raylan's bottom lip. Their mouths clash together again, Boyd experimenting with just how far his tongue can reach down Raylan's throat. His cock twitches and leaks as Raylan grinds in hard, short strokes.

Boyd can feel every thrust like a punch in the gut—his insides being rearranged to the shape of Raylan Givens' cock.

And Raylan huffs and grunts into Boyd's open mouth. Sucks at his tongue—and Boyd feels whatever little bit of control he'd gained slipping away.

His eyes close and his body tightens and then he's baring his throat while his dick jerks and spasms its load unassisted. He hears Raylan's little cry as he breaks too. As he spills in Boyd's ass with their lips pressed together though neither of them does much more than suck the air from one another.

Raylan shudders into him, slumps over him, Boyd's come sticky between them.

His legs slip down gradually and as they go his angle shifts and his hole is left empty. Well, not entirely empty—Raylan's come leaks wetly from it.

He turns his head then, tries to look at Raylan, and Raylan's lips find his, softer now. They kiss his mouth gently. He suckles on Raylan's tongue, a little more intently as Raylan pulls away.

And they lie there like that, even though Boyd's back ain't a fan and is demanding increasing amounts of his attention with its complaints. But if this is all he gets he ain't cutting it short for a little thing like his physical discomfort.

Eventually Raylan rolls off Boyd onto his back, arms falling wide like he thinks he's God's gift to man.

We kissing now? Boyd asks in his head. Say it, he tells himself. Not like that, says another part. They tussle back and forth inside his head till he spits out, "Hookers?"

Raylan's reaction ain't instant. Boyd could probably save it if he tried. He doesn't.

"Hookers?" Raylan asks, eyebrow the most animated part of him. The man looks thoroughly fucked out.

"You said they don't kiss. Although I have since learned that ain't entirely true."

"Been to a lot of hookers since then?"

Boyd returns the eyebrow. His daddy runs—ran—just about all the hookers in Harlan.

"Right," Raylan corrects. "We said a lot of shit at nineteen that didn't exactly hold up."

They lie silent a while before Raylan continues, "You still did though. Kiss me. After the mine."

"I was high on life." Boyd stares at the ceiling. He doesn't mean to say anything more but it slips out all the same, "And you fled the county for it."

He feels Raylan's weight shift through the mattress. Feels the stare through familiarity. Eventually relents and turns his head to look back.

"Wasn't you I fled from, Boyd." Raylan stares at him. Fierce. Earnest. Boyd has trouble keeping up at first. "You'd said we ought not go down that number 3 line. It was me as wanted to. Every other feller there would have followed your word on that without question but not me, not then…I…I needed to see her."

It comes back to him then.

Raylan tugs at his sleeve, eyes wide like he's seen gold or ghosts. Boyd doesn't like to say no to Raylan less it's for a real good reason and his misgivings about shaft 3 don't feel immediate—they got time.

"Y'all go on, we'll check this out and come back." And to Raylan he says, "Just for a minute. Just so you can see there ain't nothing there."

So Boyd follows Raylan, losing sight of him only for a second at the intersection with 4 and nearly walking slap into him past the struts.

Raylan has one hand against the tunnel wall and is staring ahead. Their headlamps don't make much of a dent in that dark. It could be that way sometimes—the kind of dark the light couldn't touch—Boyd would clear the men out and they'd work another seam.

But Raylan does love to run toward the things he ought to be afeared of.

"You see her?" Raylan asks, breathless and staring like he most certainly does.

Boyd hadn't. At least, he didn't think he had. But as Raylan starts to describe now what he saw then, Boyd sure recognizes the description.

"Frances? You saw Frances?"

Raylan nods, his eyes shining, "And then I heard that crack and the rumbling and you were pulling me on out of there."

Boyd swallows.

"Felt like you were everywhere," Raylan mutters like he doesn't quite believe he's saying it. "All around me."

Boyd waits, trapped between heartbeats.

"And I could hear her calling me," Raylan breathes even softer. "Calling me back to her."

Boyd's fingers are tingling, suddenly glad to be in a Lexington motel room and not closer to home. His mind is tumbling over itself trying to fit the parts together.

"I wanted to stay with her, Boyd," Raylan says softly, somewhere between horror and reverence. "I wanted to stay in the dark with her."

"You thought your momma was dead." Boyd sees Raylan's face crease in confusion and corrects deftly, "You thought, your momma was dead and wanted you to join her?"

Raylan nods.

"You got me out, Boyd. But I could still hear her. Down in that dark. She kept on calling. And when I listened—it was like the dark was in my head." Raylan turns his face back toward the ceiling. "So I ran where I couldn't hear her. Christ, I sound like such an idiot. Believing in ghosts or some nonsense."

Boyd mirrors him, stares upward and lets his eyes focus on the imperfections of that nicotine-stained paintwork on the ceiling.

"She still calling to you, Raylan? You still hear her?"

He waits. Keeps waiting. Waits so long he feels like his stomach has hollowed itself out.

He blinks, and the second is over.

"Not so much when you're around."

—

Boyd doesn't go back to Harlan. Ain't like there's much to go back to anyway. Raylan gets some kid they went to school with to pick up what little Boyd has worth keeping.

Boyd ain't keen on how he looks at Raylan but he's no threat, not with those puppy dog eyes and that yipping mouth.

Miami is a little short on mines, but he makes floor manager in a warehouse real quick and with Raylan's Marshal takings it's a comfortable enough living.

They find a pattern.

Boyd can be good. Can lie on his back for Raylan. Let him twine their hands together as he fucks Boyd's ass slow and calls him sweetheart. Or when Raylan's in a mood, take his licks bent over the kitchen table whilst Raylan calls him filth and whore and hole.

He can be bad too. Can cuff Raylan to the bed and ride him at a gallop till Boyd paints his chest. Rim him till he begs to come.

But the days Boyd comes home with what Raylan calls his Harlan blood pumping are the days Raylan really gets what's coming to him: Boyd's hand squeezed tight around Raylan's throat whilst he puts a load of Harlan seed into that tight hole.

If he's feeling real generous—and has the self-awareness to know it—he might give Raylan the heads up. Let him at least warm himself up some.

But Boyd likes it better when he doesn't.

"That's the price, my wayward heart," Boyd said once, a finger pressed to Raylan's lips to hush his whimpering. "The price of my playing nice for you, lawman. And the price of getting outta Harlan alive. I keep you out of your darkness, and you take mine how it comes."

Raylan had spilled all over himself with Boyd's next thrust.

And if sometimes Boyd hears the whisper of a voice on the wind, or feels those ghostly hands reaching up his back, well, Boyd just prays a little harder. With his fingers. With his mouth. With his tongue, and ass, and cock.

And Raylan basks in his worship.