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Raylan’s words stuck in Boyd’s head. They swam past as he looked for different words to charm and deceive and cajole. Words to get him half the heroin business in Kentucky. Even as he got it, Raylan's words asked him what that business did other than get in the way of the thing he actually wanted.
He could feel the distance between him and his crew growing. He didn’t know what was going on with Colt, just had the sense of missing something. Johnny seemed good, something he knew he should be worrying about. Ava was the worst. She had pulled back just as he did. Guilt and panic seemed a moment from her face at all times as she puttered about, looking for distraction.
He tried to think of the words that usually danced easily off his tongue to justify all the things they did. He knew Ava needed to hear more of them, but they just wouldn’t come, not with the conviction and confidence that would make her believe them. Instead he gave planer platitudes. Things would improve, guilt would fade, money would fix their struggles.
The ring in a box in the ceiling might fix their problems, but every time he tried to come up with the words of a proposal speech he could only think of that stupid hat and the smile that was always under it.
By the time Boyd was arrested for the second time in a week, she well and truly wanted out. Boyd hadn’t seen the deputy before, but he knew the process of being arrested well. The new addition that perhaps he should have expected, was Raylan stepping into his bar while he was being pushed out of his office.
Ava let show some of her anger to him in her greeting, but Boyd had none to give. He acquiesced to the continuing of their game, opening with his usual smirk and a question. “Raylan Givens, if you were coming down here anyway, why have Shelby drag me in again?”
“I didn’t have him drag you in the first time,” Raylan admitted. His shoulders were somber and his voice was missing some light. “What’s going on?”
Boyd let the deputy answer the question as he watched Raylan. He was off kilter, and as much as Boyd might have liked to, he couldn’t take credit for that. Raylan’s eyes held their same deadly fire, but the flame seemed sharper and closer to the surface than usual.
Raylan played cool and confused as he questioned the deputy, but Boyd saw the focus in his eyes and his hand setting itself perfectly on his holster. Raylan was telling the truth about seeing Shelby though, which meant once again Boyd’s plans had come around to bite him in the ass and again he had to hope Raylan would save him.
The failure rose bitter in his mouth, just one more mistake in his meandering path to criminal success. He didn’t want to need Raylan. Their opposition and rivalry worked if they were equal opposites, but not if Boyd had to come crawling back constantly.
Boyd inched his way away from the hit man, getting to the edge of his grip, where there was no risk of a marksman like Raylan hitting him.
Raylan and the hitman kept smiling as they talked themselves closer to drawing. “If you don’t move I’m going to shoot you,” the hitman said, finally ending any false niceties.
Raylan drew first, and fired. The hitman barely got his gun raised as Raylan put five bullets in him. Ava and Boyd gave matching yelps and jolted away, Boyd hating his feet for carrying him next to Raylan.
“Jesus I hope I got that right,” Raylan muttered and stepped over to the body. He kicked the gun away, a habit that was unneeded with the clearly dead hitman, and then looked through his pockets.
“I don’t suppose you could pass along any keys you might find in there?"
Raylan just grunted as he turned out one empty pocket and moved onto the next where he found a phone.
“Now, I’m sure you enjoy me being handcuffed, Raylan, but it hardly feels fair to just leave me like this,” Boyd said, playing his usual part.
“Boyd,” Raylan growled. “I might have just killed a cop for you, so can you please for once in your life, shut up.” Raylan didn’t even turn around to say it, which bit into Boyd, drawing out the frustrated rage of helplessness.
“I’m sure you could shut me up if you wanted to,” Boyd said with plenty of innuendo just to piss Raylan off.
“Is now really the time, Boyd?” Ava snapped and moved forward to grab the bundle of keys from the hitman’s belt.
Raylan didn’t stop her. Instead he stood up and got out his own phone. She started trying keys on the cuffs. Boyd could feel her frustration, fear and anger at his back. The frustration and anger grew with each key that didn’t work.
“Hey Shelby,” Raylan said into his phone. “Did you send a deputy to arrest Boyd?”
Raylan breathed a sigh of relief at the answer. “Oh thank goodness. Well then I think I just killed our murderer. He was at the Crowder bar in a police uniform.”
Ava finally found the right key and the handcuffs clicked open. Boyd brought his hands in front of him and relaxed in his new freedom. “Thank you, Ava.”
“Of course. I’m always happy to clean up your messes.” She dropped the keys onto the corpse and then headed behind the bar to get a drink.
Raylan hung up the phone, leaving him and Boyd looking at each other. Raylan’s look was shallow and worried, nothing like his usual. Boyd didn’t know what to do in the space between them. It wasn’t like the uncertain friendly banter before their conversation in the hills, but there was no new level of understanding, as Boyd had hoped there might have been. His only consolation was that Raylan looked just as confused and uncertain.
“Would one of you just say something already?” Ava said before knocking back a second shot.
Raylan and Boyd turned to Ava and then back to each other. Boyd opted to start things, if only to avoid Raylan doing the same. “Well Raylan, as a guest in my establishment, is there anything you want to say?”
“Boyd, you have always been the more talkative one of us,” Raylan answered, some of his typical charm drifting back to his voice.
“Then perhaps you’d like to even things out a bit?”
Raylan gave a tired adjustment to his hat. “No, I don’t really. We’ve said what we’ve said and we know where we stand.”
Ava thunked her glass down onto the bar. “I don’t suppose either of you could fill me in on where you stand? Cause all I know is that Boyd’s been mopey ever since y’all went up into the hills.”
Raylan turned to Boyd with the new information. “Really, and what could you have had to mope about?”
“Well Raylan, I do recall being handcuffed to a tree for several hours,” Boyd shot back.
Raylan played offense to the remark. “Boyd, I think you were well compensated for that.” Raylan laid on slightly too much suggestion to the remark.
Ava sighed and turned to Boyd. “Ok, so he fucked you while you were handcuffed to the tree?”
Boyd and Raylan each flinched at the statement. “Jesus woman! What would make you say that!” Boyd snapped.
“Well how the hell else am I supposed to interpret what Raylan said! Especially with the way y’all are always drooling on each other!”
“Now Ava,” Raylan butted in. “While I will admit to some insinuation in my comment, I have not spilled any drool on account of Boyd.”
Boyd just raised his eyebrows and tilted his head when Raylan glanced at him, easily cracking the facade. Raylan rolled his eyes and looked away, holding some noise in his throat. He wasn’t sure if it was a growl, or a laugh, or a denial, but it most definitely would not help his situation.
Ava poured herself another drink. "So what was it that did happen up there then?"
"We just had a civil friendly chat and sorted out where we stand with each other," Raylan said.
"Yes, Raylan was very civil once I was in handcuffs."
"Ok, so where do you stand with each other then?" Ava asked.
Boyd and Raylan each turned to the other who they thought had the answer.
“Well Raylan? You are the one who walked away,” Boyd prompted.
“And you’re the one with the girlfriend and criminal empire.”
They fell silent, letting the frustration rolling off of Ava fill the room. Boyd pushed himself to speak up before Ava let loose. “Well when you walked away you seemed to leave it at us still being on opposite sides of this. And from your present lack of concern I infer that you are doing your best to stop caring about me.”
“Lack of concern?” Raylan snapped with a raised indignant hand. “I just killed a man for you! Best case scenario I saved your life, worst case I’m about to be arrested, all to keep your sorry ass out of jail for another day!” Raylan moved towards Boyd as he spoke, fingers jabbing forward for emphasis barely an inch from Boyd’s chest when he stopped talking.
“You just did your job. Any marshal with your skills would have done the same, regardless of our personal history.”
“Really, you don’t think that any other marshal might realize that their life would be a lot easier if they let the trash take out the trash?”
“I’m sure they would consider that option, just like you did.”
Hurt anger cracked across Raylan’s eyes like a whip. “No I didn’t, because if I had I probably would have left you to deal with your own mess, making my life and job a hell of a lot easier.”
“Well Raylan, I’m glad you finally communicated where we stand.”
“Of course Boyd, it’s not like you’re ever honest,” Raylan said with a glare and a shift into Boyd’s space.
“And you’re not much better, are you Raylan. Your daddy taught you well.”
Raylan swung fast and wild, clipping a retreating Boyd’s chin. Boyd settled back a step and checked his lip for blood with his left hand while his right rose in a fist in case Raylan attacked again.
Raylan didn’t though. He just stood there, fist hovering at the end of its arc, eyes distant and hiding sadness.
“Did you get that out of your system?” Boyd asked. He lowered his hands to his side, confident that his lip wasn’t bleeding and that Raylan wouldn’t attack again.
Raylan drifted back to himself and nodded. He didn’t meet Boyd’s eyes though, or say anything.
Boyd inched closer, hating the worry he was feeling for Raylan, but not enough to stop himself. “You alright?”
Raylan took a long breath to harden himself and then met Boyd’s eyes. “I’m fine, Boyd. Now I’m sure you have some dastardly plot to plan, so why don’t you go do that so I can wait for Shelby in peace.”
What Raylan said was true, but Boyd felt his instinct to comfort Raylan keeping him from going. Raylan turned away, hiding his face before it could show any emotion. He removed his hat, pushed his hair back and then rubbed his face.
Boyd let the long mass of graying hair under the hat remind him of who they were and let his feet move. “I’ll see you around Raylan,” he said over his shoulders before walking back into the back room.
He settled at his desk and thought through his next steps. Raylan didn’t want his help, or him at all, so he would focus on himself, get a life with Ava. He put the sight of a hurting Raylan out of his mind as his thoughts coalesced and as he answered Nicky Augustine’s call and then set a meeting with the Clover Hill men who thought they could control him.
It was once that was done that the sight came back into his head. He had heard the ambulance and police car arrive, and the resulting commotion which had since died down. Ava hadn’t been in to see him though. That worried him. He didn’t know what she was thinking, if she was still wrapped in guilt or had moved on to anger.
Those thoughts were interrupted when his phone rang. The sight of Raylan’s name on the caller ID terrified him, but he answered before the second ring.
“Hello.” Boyd wished he didn’t sound so uncertain.
“Do you remember that party where one of the Carter boys dared you to steal something from my house?” Raylan’s voice was filled with soft pain, like Boyd had never heard it before. The only thing he could do with his worry was answer the question.
“Yes, I decided to take one of your daddy’s jars of moonshine. He saw me just before I reached the tree line and had my daddy give me a beating for it.”
“Yeah,” Raylan paused. Boyd stayed silent, hearing the words about to spill from Raylan. “But before he called Bo he called me down from my room to ask me about that skinny Crowder kid. I didn’t know you well then, so I just said you were a loner who was always reading, but he filled in everything from there, saying how you were probably a pretentious idiot and a pansy ass gay who would never come to anything.” Raylan let out a wry chuckle that Boyd couldn’t help but smile at.
“Now Raylan, I’m happy to learn more of your family life, but I am beginning to wonder why you’re bringing this up?”
“I got the call two hours ago and I’ve been racking my brain for some happy memory of me and Arlo,” Raylan was silent for a moment and Boyd could hear him taking a long drink and then setting a glass down. “And that one’s about the closest I’ve gotten so far.”
“What call?”
“The one telling me that Arlo finally died.”
The shock of the words knocked everything about Raylan’s actions into place. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be, he doesn’t deserve your sympathy.” Raylan took another drink.
“Perhaps not, but you do. As you well know I had a similarly contentious relationship with my father. You were there for the aftermath of his death and helped me, if I can do the same for you I will.”
“I punched you out in a thunderstorm.”
“Yes, and it would be my pleasure to do the same to you.” The joke got the laugh that Boyd had hoped for.
Raylan settled into a safer silence.
“What makes that moment so special other than hearing of my many charms for the first time?” Boyd asked after a moment.
“He asked for my opinion on something, and even listened to it… sort of. You’re supposed to be able to talk to your father about that sort of stuff right? The kids at school, and the classmate you have a crush on. And I’ll admit that him hating you was the push I needed to start actually talking to you.”
“Well for that I will be forever grateful.”
Raylan hummed his agreement. “How about you, where do you find your happy memories of the late Mr. Crowder?”
Boyd thought a moment before answering honestly. “When he’d take us hunting in Bulletville. Once I had learned how to like it and to be good at it, he’d give me a look whenever I shot something, and pat my back as we walked to it. It was the one time he was proud of me and I wasn’t scared of his hands.”
“Sounds nice.”
“What about your baseball games? Arlo always seemed to be at those. He must have been proud of you,” Boyd asked.
Raylan huffed out a mixed sigh and chuckle. “Helen used to drag him with her to those. He’d always grumble about how terrible the games were, or some play I messed up. Eventually he figured out how to be out of the house whenever she was leaving, lord knows what sort of crimes got committed just so he could avoid spending time with his son.”
Raylan paused for a moment and Boyd knew he was reaching up to wipe away tears before they could even form. “I can’t say I remember seeing you at many of my games.”
“Well I didn’t want to be obvious about it, but you have always looked good in uniform.”
Raylan laughed again, and Boyd couldn’t help the warmth that swept through him. It was such a natural thing to provide comfort to Raylan. It didn’t matter what their jobs were, or that they both had a gun within reach, they were just two people connected by history and love.
“You did too, at least when you weren’t too covered in coal to see. I’m almost sorry I never got to see your army uniform.”
“I’m sure I have it somewhere, if you ever want to see it.”
“Don’t do that,” Raylan muttered, voice falling back into sadness.
“Do what?”
“Act like we’re just two old pals who can see each other whenever they want, like we don’t both know that odds are one of us will shoot the other before too long.”
“I’m not gonna shoot you, Raylan.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Boyd,” Raylan growled.
“In all likelihood there will come a time where I should shoot you, but that’s not a trigger I can pull. To kill you would be to lose all this history, and forever be the man who killed
Raylan Givens and the only one who knows why that hurts.”
Raylan was silent except for a noise half started from his throat, the beginning of a sob, or a laugh, or an accusation. Boyd had no idea which. “Please tell me you believe me,” Boyd begged.
Raylan’s voice returned. “I believe you Boyd.”
They were silent as Boyd breathed in the relief.
“You’re the only person left who knows where I started from,” Raylan said. “I want to say that I couldn’t shoot you either, but I just know that someday that situation's gonna come, and I’m gonna do it, because Arlo’s voice tells me to, but I don’t know if it’s gonna be his rage pushing me on or if I’ll pull the trigger just to spite him for caring about you more than me.” Raylan’s voice cracked and wavered as he spoke, barely finishing. He took another, longer drink and Boyd heard a bottle being set down.
“Where are you Rayan?”
“In my apartment above a god damn bar filled with people half our age. Why?”
“You shouldn’t be alone tonight.” Boyd stood up. He couldn’t stop himself.
“Uh, huh, what are you gonna do about that? You don't even know where I live.”
Boyd pulled a piece of paper with an address from a desk drawer. “Yes I do. A Mr. Quarles mentioned it before going there to kill you.”
“Ahh, good of you to keep a hold of that.”
“Of course, Raylan. Now you sit tight and don’t do anything stupid until I get there.”
Raylan sighed, and Boyd could hear the instinct to tell Boyd no, fighting with the desperation of grief. “Alright, I’ll just freshen up a bit for you,” Raylan joked with honest sarcasm.
Boyd laughed to hide the thrill of the words and then hung up. He headed out to the bar, where Ava was cleaning, drinking and serving a solitary customer. “I’m heading out, don’t wait up for me,” Boyd said.
“All right then,” Ava grumbled. Boyd heard the annoyance and growing resentment, but didn’t bother slowing down to deal with it.