Chapter Text
The thing about going to bed with Raylan is that once there, it’s really hard to get out of it.
Or maybe Tim’s just gone for too long without sex, and this is all new and it’s hot and Raylan’s really good at it. That’s definitely part of it. And every time Tim feels a little weird about Crowder downstairs doing...whatever he’s doing, Raylan pins him down and talks to him about how many times him and Crowder fucked while Tim was sick (“you were asleep in front of the television, what were we supposed to do?”) and how much Boyd would like hearing about all of this and how Tim was really good deep-throating cock.
It’s hard to get worked up about that when you’re so busy...getting worked up.
At one point Tim does get up --- to go get water, or juice, or some kind of fluid-replenishing beverage -- and finds Crowder doing a crossword puzzle at the counter. Tim’s wearing Raylan’s sweatpants and no shirt, and if he’s had a stranger moment in his life, he can’t think of what it could be. He turns six shades of red at Crowder’s appraising, frank stare and then goes to hide behind the fridge when Crowder yells out, “Nice job, Raylan, but I can still see some skin you ain’t bitten yet.”
“I need some fucking coffee first,” Raylan hollers from down the hall. “Gutterson, bring me some coffee.”
“I don’t think this is normal,” Tim tells the orange juice, which is mostly gone. Damn it. He eyes the peppermint creamer and then sighs, pulls it out of the fridge. “Shhh,” he says to Boyd, who just grins at him and goes back to his crossword without a word.
Before he takes the coffee back -- and why the hell is he even doing this? -- to the bedroom, Tim clears his throat and tries to come up with a way to ask Boyd what he wants to ask.
Boyd looks up and his eyes run down Tim, from his messy hair to his swollen mouth, the burn on his face because Raylan’s lazy and needs to shave, the bites and the suspicious streaks on his stomach that could be blood or something else or both. When he meets Tim’s eyes again, his own are brilliant like emeralds, like the day Tim first noticed they were green.
“I don’t mind,” Boyd says, softly. “Trust me, Timothy, if I didn’t want you beneath him you wouldn’t be there.” It sounds like he’s purring and it’s weirdly hot and goddamn it, no, Tim is not this much of a sex fiend, is he?
“Did you need a break?” Tim asks, trying for wry humor. “Because I can see how you might need a break.”
Boyd’s smile is all devilish charm. “Maybe he did,” he says, and slides off the barstool. “Call me if you need to tag out.”
Tim can hear him laughing on his way downstairs.
He stands there, in the kitchen, holding the mug of coffee for a few minutes until Raylan yells at him to get in there or he’s going to take a nap. Tim shakes his head and pads back into the bedroom, where Raylan’s hands are on him the second he puts the coffee mug down on the dresser.
The coffee is cold by the time Raylan gets up to drink it. Tim watches him pour it down the sink -- which, why the fuck did he make it in the first place? -- and fill it up with water from the faucet. He proceeds to drink it down in thirsty gulps, mug after mug of it, water running down his chest and into the waistband of his unbuttoned, unzipped jeans.
Fuck, that’s not fair.
He and Raylan take a shower, and Tim gets on his knees and sucks him off, the tile hard and uncomfortable and he doesn’t care at all. When they get out of the shower, Raylan pushes him, naked and still wet, up against the wall in the bedroom. Then he gets on his knees, and while Tim stares down at him, already at a loss for breath, Raylan grins up at him with that cocky, self-assured smile of his and laughs.
“Figured you probably earned it,” he says, and then slides his mouth over Tim’s cock. And it’s better than watching, alone and cold and ashamed on the couch. That’s for damn sure.
It’s also when his reprieve ends, and when the images he’s kept at bay coming rushing back with a vengeance -- and they skip over the usual suspects until he’s staring at Raylan and moaning and seeing a gun in Raylan’s mouth, his sniper rifle, and Raylan’s sucking it with the same look he has on his face right now, cocky and unafraid like he always is. And it doesn’t matter that Tim’s threatening to pull the trigger because Raylan doesn’t stop.
The fantasy blends into reality, so much so that when Tim comes he feels his fingers twitch like they’re pulling an imaginary trigger -- and it sharpens everything to a nearly unbearable degree and he’s loud with it, louder than he’s been so far with Raylan and maybe ever. The noise he makes is either one of pleasure or fear, he can’t tell which.
He’s not sure he wants to, either.
* * *
The roads are supposed to be cleared in two days.
One the one hand, Tim will be glad to get home because he’d really, really like to stop wearing the same few pairs of clothes -- he is so looking forward to wearing a completely different Army sweatshirt, it’s not even funny. And he really needs to figure out how he’s supposed to account for the nearly two weeks he’s been gone from the office. Does he take overtime? Sick time? Vacation?
Personal days?
Tim’s standing on the back porch, drinking a cup of coffee and watching as the sun slips further down below the mountains. The snow is still there, and it sure doesn’t look to him like it’s clearing up but he supposes he’ll have to trust the experts.
Raylan is suddenly behind him, kissing at his neck. Tim is so startled he nearly drops his coffee. He’s not sure why it surprises him that Raylan’s so...handsy, because it shouldn’t. Raylan’s always been one to invade personal space and not think anything of it.
“If you get another fever, Gutterson, that’s gonna be real inconvenient.” Raylan’s voice is a rough growl, his hands settling at Tim’s hips.
“You’re maybe a sex addict, Givens,” Tim tells him, looking over his shoulder. “They have classes for that.”
“I don’t need to go to class.” Raylan bites his ear. “M’already good at it.”
Tim rolls his eyes skyward. “Okay, then you’re a narcissist. They’ve probably got classes for that, too.”
Raylan’s mouth is very warm in the coolness of the late afternoon, moving slowly on his neck. “How many narcissists does it take to change a lightbulb?”
“Raylan,” Tim groans, and there’s a little more to that than just exasperation -- Raylan’s pushing against him, suggestive and his hands are moving beneath Tim’s sweatshirt, seeking skin. “I’m guessing it’s one?”
“Yup. One to hold it still while the world revolves around him.” Raylan laughs at his own joke, his breath against Tim’s ear making him shiver.
“That was awful.”
“Boyd told me that one.”
“Do not blame your terrible puns on me, Raylan,” Boyd drawls, walking out to join them. Tim can’t help the way he tenses and tries to slightly edge away from Raylan. When a guy’s making out with you and his boyfriend shows up, it just seems like the polite thing to do.
Raylan, being Raylan, just follows him and keeps doing terrible things to his neck. “Hey, we should use that hot tub,” Raylan says, moving back enough to give Tim a slight bit of room. “It was on the list of amenities, damn it.”
“I didn’t even know there was one.” Tim looks over and sees the hot tub, or what he assumes is a hot tub beneath the pile of snow. “I’m not sure it’s worth clearing the snow off of it. And hey, three guys in a hot tub?” Tim eyes it dubiously, unsure what he thinks about that. “That seems kinda...weird.”
“Yes, we’d hate anyone to get the wrong idea.” Raylan hits him lightly on the side of the head. “Well, now that you said that I want to do it even more.”
“Crowder, I’m starting to have some small bit of sympathy for you.”
“Appreciate that, Timothy.” Boyd turns so that he’s leaning with his back to the railing. He grins at Raylan, sudden and bright. “You realize you owe me a damn good present when it’s my birthday, Raylan, don’t you?”
Raylan moves away and over to Boyd, leans in and traps him there with his hands on the railing. He doesn’t touch Boyd nearly as much, but Tim realizes in that moment that Raylan overwhelms the other man in a completely different way. “You think so, huh.”
Boyd just sips his coffee. He looks amused.
“I’ll take you to Florida,” Raylan tells him.
“There’ll probably be a hurricane,” Boyd drawls, making Tim laugh.
“That would sure blow,” Raylan offers, then scowls when neither of them laugh. “You don’t get to laugh at Boyd’s jokes and not mine, Tim. That ain’t how it works, I’m the one you’re sleeping with.”
For some reason that makes Tim look very interestedly at his mug of coffee. It’s from someplace called the Mysterious Mansion. He wonders what this place could be called. Coitus Cabin? Bi-Curious Cabin? Tim hurriedly takes a sip to keep himself from saying that out loud. He’ll keep his bad jokes to himself, thank you very much.
Raylan goes back inside, but not before he ruffles Tim’s hair and says, “You’ve had enough of a break, cowboy.” Then he looks at Boyd with some unreadable expression, and they have a creepy moment of conversation where neither of them says anything. Boyd nods, and Raylan shrugs.
“Sorry to eavesdrop on your conversation,” Tim says. “I can go in the other room if you want to cryptically gesture in private.”
“Nope. But you can go in the other room and suck me off,” Raylan tells him, then yanks him in and kisses him until Tim can’t remember the sarcastic thing he was going to say in response.
“Does he say that stuff a lot?” Tim asks Boyd, rubbing absently at his mouth. “And does he just not shave to be a dick?”
Boyd smiles his devil’s smile at Tim, all charm. “He has a tendency to be a little focused, maybe you’ve noticed.”
Tim snorts and finishes his coffee, but he doesn’t go inside just yet. “How come this doesn’t bother you?”
Boyd turns so he’s standing the same way as Tim, leaning against the railing and looking out at the mountain. “How come it don’t bother you?”
Tim shrugs. “I figure if it bothered you it wouldn’t have happened. So if you don’t care, why should I?” That’s maybe not the entire truth, but it’s close enough.
“All right.” Boyd is relaxed, practically draped over the railing. “And I didn’t say I didn’t care, did I?”
“Do you?”
Boyd’s eyes meet his for a minute. They’re like mirrors, but the kind you can’t see behind. The kind you see in interrogation rooms, where you know there’s something else behind them but you don’t know what that might be. “Of course I care, Timothy. I think what you are asking me is why I ain’t jealous.”
“Sure, I guess that’s good enough.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that you can’t escape your true nature. Oh, you can try, that’s true enough -- you can run off to the shores and sunlight of Miami, or you can hide away in the darkness of the mines, but it don’t matter. Sooner or later, it’s gonna find you.” Boyd’s quiet for a moment, staring out at the sweeping mountain vista. “I figured that seein’ as how I ain’t fightin’ mine, I couldn’t rightly expect anyone else to fight theirs, could I?”
“So you’re saying...Raylan’s true nature is that he’s an easy slut?”
Boyd gives a surprised, sharp bark of laughter that is possibly the most genuine reaction Tim’s ever seen from the man. “Most assuredly, but it’s more that Raylan lives in a land where I am most assuredly a stranger, and by a code I don’t really understand.”
“The law?” Tim asks wryly. “Kidding.” Well, he’s mostly kidding.
Boyd cuts his eyes over at him, that same Cheshire smile that says nothing playing at the corners of his mouth. “In my world, Timothy, it ain’t quite so easy. There are men with badges who’ve put more of their own in the ground than half of Harlan’s criminal population combined.”
“Well, to be honest, Boyd, some of them just aren’t very good with guns. So it’s probably not for lack of trying.”
Boyd grin is full of teeth. “That’s a true fact. But Raylan, he lives like the world is black and white and there ain’t nothin’ in between. Raylan is a man of his convictions, and they ain’t likely to ever change.”
“I’m not sure I get why this means it’s okay he’s sleeping with me.”
“Do you understand what kind of...now I hesitate to use this word because it makes me feel a little queasy, myself, but seein’ as how we are apparently havin’ a heart-to-heart I suppose I have no other choice. Do you understand what kind of feelings Raylan must carry for yours truly in order to overlook that code he’s etched into his very soul, the one that says I am a thing to be hunted, locked up or put down? The one that made him raise his gun and put a bullet in my heart -- or as close to it as the fates fancied to allow? Because I surely do not suspect those feelings are ones easily swayed, Mr. Gutterson -- do you?”
Tim stares at him, narrow-eyed and still, thinking about what he just said. “You’re saying that if Raylan wants you despite the fact you’re...you...that it doesn’t matter who else he sleeps with? What if he gets that intense about someone else?”
Boyd’s gaze is sharp, penetrating. “You think that man is gonna run out of intensity any time soon?” Boyd rolls his eyes. “I am content with what I have. And I don’t know that I am prepared to have all of Raylan Givens’ intensity and attention focused squarely on me, because maybe you noticed but he and I don’t have the most complimentary of careers.”
Tim’s eyebrows go up at that. “You’re saying it’s good if he’s distracted so you can run your hillbilly criminal empire?”
“That would indeed be what I am sayin’, Timothy.”
“Huh.” Tim blinks, shaking his head and he smiles, a little ruefully. “You know, I didn’t really expect you to admit that quite so easy, Boyd.”
“It ain’t the only reason, but you and I both know there’s truth to it, so why lie?”
Because I think you lie to people just to see if you can make them believe you. Tim can definitely see how Boyd manages to persuade other people to do what he wants. He’s as good a speaker as Tim’s ever heard, and there’s a natural quality to it that is dangerously convincing.
“You know, you’re pretty good at making people think you’re a man of your convictions, too.” Tim’s eyes fall briefly on Boyd’s shoulder, where that abhorrent tattoo is inked in his skin.
“I’m a much better liar than Raylan is.” Boyd says, unapologetic.
“There are children who are better liars than Raylan,” Tim says flatly. The sun is fading, taking the warmth with it and causing him to shiver. “And if you’re so good at lying, why the hell should I believe anything you just said?”
“Because you want to.” Boyd’s answer is soft-spoken, but it feels like he just walked over and punched Tim in the gut on his way back inside the house.
Tim watches him go, realizing for the first time just how dangerous Boyd Crowder really is.