Title: Justifying the Gay Part I
Series: Justified
Author: Darkprism & liralen
Genre: Romance/Humor
Rating: Mature
Pairing: Raylan Givens & Tim Gutterson
Word Count: ~5,200
Warnings/Notes: Language, drunkenness, poor humor, not-so-poor humor, hand job, nakedness, oral
Spoilers: None
Summary: Tim hauls Raylan's drunk ass home after Winona leaves Raylan in a bar.

A/N:
...and now for something completely different than my usual fare! liralen and I ADORE the show Justified, and I am madly in love with Raylan. Liralen loves Tim. OBVIOUSLY we had to do something with these feelings.

Thus, a new fanfiction series was born!

We plan on making this into a few parts, though each will be able to stand on its own two booted feet. The stories will take place mostly in Season Two, though we are taking every liberty with... shall we say, alternate endings? *GRINS*

Hope you enjoy, gang. Much love & tall hats!



Raylan snorted when the car stopped, and he sat up, rubbing his cheek. The car door had left a dent in his face and stiffened his jaw. The humid blanket of night air rushed at him when the door swung open.

"C'mon, Marshal."

Now, Raylan knew that voice, and he adjusted his hat's brim to blink up at fellow US Marshal sharpshootin' military sonofabitchin' Tim Gutterson. "Tim?" Raylan asked. "The hell you..." He broke off, the fragmented memories of the night rushing at him like a pissed-off bull driving a tractor while intoxicated.

He'd been at the juke joint with Winona way the hell out beyond the Lexington city limits. They'd gone to see... that band... whateverthefuck its name was. She'd said she didn't want anybody to see them, Raylan had made a reasonable argument as to why that was dumber than shit, but she'd seen Tim at the bar and demanded the keys. Raylan remembered getting up. He'd walked her out. And then they'd fought again. That part was a little blurry, all high-pitched yelling and Raylan resisting the temptation to shake a woman until her underwire loosened up its stranglehold on her better sense. She'd left in his fucking car, and he'd stood there spitting dirt and boiling over with rage. Shooting something or someone would have been satisfying, but it'd mean more paperwork, and Raylan was swimming in that as it was.

Right, so he'd gone back inside and proceeded to hit the Jack until his brain cells were floating. And Tim had been there, too, and Tim had found Raylan at the bar. There'd been something peculiar about Tim's night not ending the way he'd planned, either, and Tim guessed he'd better get Raylan back to the shitthole hotel Raylan called home, and then... Well, then there'd been the car door and the sore jaw. And now there was Tim's rather insistent hands dragging Raylan from the truck.

"Nevermind," Raylan mumbled, sorting out left boot, right boot, drag, stumble, and lean. "I think I got the facts square."

"Hope they're straighter'n your line there," Tim said. "Glad you're not walkin' for a state trooper." There was alcohol on Tim's breath too, and when he got under Raylan's arm to get him up the stairs, he wobbled one step. "Hell, he might think you were proposing somethin' indecent."

Raylan leaned heavily on the chipped wooden support beam of the tiny deck in front of his humble shithole. "Well now, Shooter, I should probably tell you 'bout this fantasy I've got 'bout makin' out with a hot buck on the hood 'a the Crown Vic." Tim got the door open, and Raylan shoved aside Tim's arm once or twice before Tim talked Raylan into taking the help by catching Raylan before he took a nosedive over the threshold.

Tim grunted and hauled and manhandled Raylan to the neatly-made bed. "Now, sit."

"Yessir." Raylan fell over. His hat came off and everything.

"Close enough." Tim studied Raylan, and Raylan reminded himself never to play Tim in poker. "Yeah," Tim said. "Think you owe me at least that. How does that go? You layin' back on the windshield or bent over somethin'?" Tim sauntered over to the medicine cabinet and got a tumbler of water and a couple of aspirin.

"Now hang on," Raylan protested, one arm gesticulating in Tim's general direction. "Why I always got to be the one layin' back or bendin'? Where's the fuckin' equality?" Raylan tried to wave away the water when Tim returned, but Raylan could tell Tim was going to get all fussy about it.

Sure enough, Tim sat down on the edge of the bed, looked Raylan in the eye, and said, "Same reason I gotta ask you if you're gonna take this like a man, or I gotta do somethin' stupid like sittin' on you and holdin' your nose, like a stubborn kid with alcohol poisoning?"

"Oh, well, now you're just turnin' me on." Raylan, who knew he couldn't do merely as Tim challenged for the sake of sure Southern pride, chose to haul himself up and get his gun belt off and dropped it. Tim snorted, picked the belt up off the floor, and hung it on a hook by the door, putting his own beside it.

Raylan watched Tim for a second, sort of fascinated, and then went back to work. It took a try or two, but Raylan got himself closer to his boot and struggled with the damned thing until it came off. It would have been much less confusing if there'd not been ratty jean hems and socks involved.

"Raylan... shit." Tim stuck the water glass in Raylan's reaching hand and bent to grab Raylan's other boot.

"Right sweet 'a you," Raylan commented, finding an elbow to lean on and getting the glass to his mouth. He gulped, and water sloshed every-which-where when Tim yanked on his leg. "Damn it, Tim. Drownin' me ain't part 'a the deal."

"'N what deal is that?" Tim asked, pulling off Raylan's socks.

"You know. The deal." Raylan set the glass down somewhere and started on the buttons of his soaked shirt. "Partners. Comrades. Men who help men get out of wet clothin' without givin' 'em too much shit."

Tim coughed. "Right, Partner. You want me to get that, then?"

"No, Tim, I want you to play the fuckin' violin." Raylan flailed upright to use both shaky hands to wrench at the back of his half-undone outer shirt, trying to get the cocksucker up and over his head.

"Tiniest violin in the world," Tim caroled, but strong hands grabbed Raylan's shoulders. "Hold the fuck still, will ya?" Fingers tug-pulled at Raylan's cuffs and then at the top buttons of his shirt. Raylan grunted, waiting in cottony hell, but after a quick jerk, both outer shirt and undershirt came off. Raylan sighed, sobriety edging dangerously close.

"You want me ta getcher pants too? Or is that too damned close to the Crown Vic?" Tim asked, eyebrow cocked and loaded.

"Heh, yeah." Raylan flopped onto his back, arms flung wide. "Wish it was so goddamned easy." He frowned and earnestly addressed the water-stain on the ceiling. "Why didn't the Lord make me gay? Surely He had to know women were just gonna fuck me up and over the sides 'a canyons year in and year out. I mean, wouldn't I get more done if only thing I had to worry 'bout was eatin' cock and suckin' ass?"

Tim choked. "I think ya mean suckin' cock and eatin' ass."

"Well, whatever the fuck." Raylan craned his neck to look at Tim. "Easier, am I right? Women."

"Well now, don't think I'd know if it'd be easier or not, but I gotta say if you'd kept your damned dick outta Ava it woulda kept some things from gettin' real messy."

"Well, lookit you... Mister relationship expert." Raylan's neck gave out, and he was back to staring at the ceiling.

Tim attacked Raylan's fly with the same grim expression he used to line up the rifle. Just tug, pull, yank, and then Tim jerked Raylan's pants down, leaving boxers in place. "Now what the hell is up with you and Winona?"

"If only I knew." Raylan sighed, and a thought struck him. Something from earlier that didn't quite line up. "And what the hell's up with you at a juke joint so far outta town? I pegged you as less bluegrass and more classic rock."

"Expandin' my horizons," Tim said noncommittally.

"Bullshit," Raylan said, eying Tim. "Every time I turn the radio station to anythin' that don't sound like an old man with emphysema screamin' into a microphone, you bitch. So what gives? She a hooker or Art's mother?"

Tim grinned big. "Art's mother, she loves bluegrass."

"Somethin's gotta take the edge off of the shame 'a claimin' her son." Raylan chuckled and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Naw, she said we couldn't be happy."

"Art's mother?"

"No," Raylan said, exasperated and glaring at Tim, who dragged a seat closer to the bed and fell into it. "Winona."

"Women," Tim said, putting his head back on the chair.

"Mmhm," Raylan agreed, finding the glass magically on the nightstand and sipping at the last dregs of water. "Now tell me, seriously, my trouble-seekin' dick aside, how is it I never hear you wailin' 'bout a lady workin' over your balls?"

"'Cause they don't?" Tim asked, and sat up reluctantly. "Was with a blonde at the juke joint, but plans changed, and I said fuck'em, and you needed the ride home, anyway." Tim sounded tired.

A surge of sympathy rose up in Raylan's churning guts. Raylan liked Tim. Man was a dead shot, fucking fantastic to have at your back, took orders and made decisions with equal skill and sense, and he could make Raylan crack smiles on true the-shitter-be-full days. Raylan didn't know much about the guy, other than Tim was younger than Raylan, had seen shit that might make Raylan's nuts clench, and Tim hid everything behind his steady trigger finger. Raylan understood some of that. He kept a lot under his own hat.

"Seems kind of a lonely. Sorry way to spend an evenin'," Raylan said quietly.

"Yup." Tim shrugged. "Hell, I got to spend quality time with you, Marshal, that's somethin'." Pale blue eyes the color of a gun barrel met Raylan's over a shit-eating grin. "'Sides, your earlier rant 'bout how it's gotta be easier bein' gay made me damned grateful the good Lord made me what I am."

Raylan smirked through a chuckle. "And what's that? A monk?"

Tim shook his head, still smiling like he was waiting for Raylan to get the punch line. "Nah. Gay."

Raylan's jaw and stomach dropped for just the briefest of seconds until he could clear his throat and set the empty glass down with an award-winning frown. "Do what, now? Gay?"

"Yeah. Was at the juke joint with one 'a my old Army buddies. We were servin' together in Afghanistan and quiet as church mice, what with 'don't ask don't tell', but he's kinda gone on from there." Tim leaned back in the chair again, eyes turned up to chat up the water stain instead of Raylan's face. "Told me he found a goddamned husband up in New York, and I thought he was visitin' me, lookin' for a good time."

Raylan positively fumbled over the words "serving" and "church" and "husband." Not to mention "gay." He cleared the pond of frogs out of his throat again. "So he, ah, wasn't, then? Lookin' for a... a good time? With you?"

"Nope."

"Well, now, that's a damn shame." Raylan hoped that was the polite thing to say. He wasn't too sure what the hell he'd done to get this piece of gossip truth out of Tim's own mouth, and he liked Tim too much to disrespect the trust outright, but he was getting lost on Fairy Lane in his head, trying to imagine Tim...

"You know I always wondered," Raylan began, and he almost did the smart thing and shut up, but Tim's eyebrows were back up, and Tim didn't seem to be bracing for fire. "How is it you fellas figure out who's doin' the dirty work?" Raylan gestured with his hands, making a loose spherical shape that he pretended to rotate. "I mean, do ya arm wrestle? Draw straws? Pile drive each other to the rug? What?"

"All the above," Tim said dryly, and then brought himself up straighter in the seat. "Sometimes you just know, other times, well, it gets tricky. Hell, even findin' someone receptive at all's tricky, but once the flag's up, the rest's details 'less someone's picky."

"Flag? Like the fuckin' mailbox? Please stuff here? Shee-it." Raylan had to laugh else he'd start thinking a little too hard about that reference earlier involving the hood of a certain car.

"Yup." Tim cocked his head. "There's some signs, but followin' 'em anywhere outside 'a Lexington is like beggin' to get punched in the mouth."

"Well, yeah," Raylan blurted, feeling the whiskey getting its last hurrah before it left on the train out of Hangoverville. "You're liable to get good 'n shot if you slide right up 'gainst the wrong guy. I mean, I ain't never been hit on by anythin' with a dick that I know of, but I gotta think I'd be... dunno. Flattered, I guess. But one 'a them picky ones, right?"

"Well, you wouldn't shoot me, would you?" Tim asked, all earnest-like.

Raylan coughed. "Eh... ah... I mean... well." Raylan was more than a little lost in the damned weeds, here, and nothing for it but to hack his way out. "No. I know you. And you wouldn't..." Raylan's lips flapped in the breeze. "Hit on me..." Raylan narrowed his field of vision on Tim's guileless baby blues. "Would you?"

"Well now." Tim leaned closer, and Raylan tipped away. "Fine figure of a man like you?"

Suddenly aware of just how little he was wearing and who it was, precisely, who'd helped him out of his shirt and shoes, Raylan jerked his chin to one side and eyed Tim askance with a grunt. "Now you're fuckin' with me."

"Can't say as I'd mind," Tim said, voice pitching lower. "'N you kin be as picky as you want."

"Is this where we arm wrestle?" Raylan asked, trying to keep it light, trying to find humor, but this ship had a hole in its bottom wider than the Grand Canyon and was sinking fast.

"I'd rather do this." Tim rose from his chair, quick like a bunny. His head tilted, his eyes were glued on Raylan's lips, but when his knee hit the bed next to Raylan's, Raylan threw up an arm across Tim's chest and leaned away in a retreat.

"Tim," Raylan said calmly. His heart was pounding, adrenaline was making him dizzy, and too many things were whacking his senses with baseballs bats. Tim smelled like beer, desperation, and cologne. Tim's body was so goddamned close. It loomed over Raylan's, frozen in mid-crawl. Raylan was not turned on. He was fucking confused. Crazily and maybe stupidly, Raylan thought about how not two days ago, Tim had put a bullet in a man who'd threatened to kill a baby. Raylan had come back to this very room -- to this very bed, in fact -- and found Winona.

Tim didn't have anybody to go home to. Or to tell about his day. Or share anything, really. Not that Raylan was sold on the benefits of fucking sharing, but a man needed a little something here or there or he'd go more batshit than he could handle. But Raylan being this kind of something for Tim seemed nigh on impossible, no matter how good Tim was in a fix. It was crazy. Out of this galaxy kind of nuts.

Right?

"Tim, what are we doin', here?" Raylan asked, quiet and peaceful and non-threatening. Some addle-minded idiot might have even described his tone as tender.

Tim seemed lost for a second, took a deep breath, and sat back down on the chair by the bed, the devil-may-care smile back on his face. "Maybe jus' takin' the joke a little too far? Sorry, it's been..." Tim shook his head and looked away. "Nah. Hell. A fist to the jaw's half the fun, huh?"

"I ain't never really mixed bar brawls and bedrooms, but there are certainly days when I see the appeal." Raylan licked his lips. His brain was too much mush to make heads or tails of this, and the screaming match with Winona was coming back to him on instant replay. "What were you..." Raylan dug his heels into his eye sockets, growled, and focused on his friend, again. "You weren't anglin' to hit me just then, though, were you?"

"Yeah, yeah I was," Tim sounded just as frayed as Raylan felt, and he gave a helpless laugh. "Thought... dunno what I thought..." Tim shook his head, and got up. Raylan was on his feet immediately, though he swayed.

"Don't worry about it," Tim said with a careless wave. "Won't happen again. Have a good night, Raylan."

"Now hang the fuck on," Raylan called, and he grabbed the front of Tim's shirt. He had no idea why, and he looked at his hand and dismissed the information for the moment. "I know a man who's gonna throw a punch. And that ain't what you were doin'. You were..." Raylan swallowed, and he got another handful of Tim's lapels, yanking Tim closer by an inch. "I ain't gonna shoot you for bein'... An' I ain't gonna hit you for tryin' to... to... No matter how much you may wanna get hurt, it ain't gonna go down like... Look, it wouldn't go like that."

Blue eyes looked into Raylan's. "How would it go, then?"

Raylan was at one of those rare moments in life when he had no fucking clue what the right thing to do was. At all. He was breathing a little too quick, his palms were damp, and he was angry about something, though all be damned if he knew what or why. He made a frustrated sound, spun them, and tossed Tim onto the bed. The mattress bounced with the force and with Tim's weight. Raylan wanted to ask his own palm what the hell it was doing on Tim's chest, shoving Tim down flat, but there wasn't any time. Raylan held himself over Tim's form on one shaking arm, expecting Tim to fight at just any goddamned minute, now.

Instead, Tim reached up and yanked at Raylan's bare shoulder, and Raylan went sprawling onto Tim. The wind rushed out of his lungs, and he had a second to flash-fire compare all the differences between being on top of a woman and a man, but he got distracted by his and Tim's lips practically touching. Tim flashed a grin and pressed a quick kiss to Raylan's gaping mouth.

"Nn." Raylan could not get his breathing under his control. He got a forearm next to Tim's head, leaning on it, and he tried to ignore how every inch of his bare skin felt Tim's heat through Tim's clothing. "En-enjoying this, now, are you?" Raylan drew closer, and he tried another kiss on for size. Lips turned out to be fairly uniform in their making, though the faint hint of stubble reminded Raylan of Aunt Helen's forced have-a-good-day-at-school affection before waxing day at the salon.

"I am," Tim said against Raylan's lips, and the smile reached his eyes. "'Specially you kissin' me, though you kinda taste 'a whiskey. The smooth smoky kind."

Raylan laughed softly, despite himself. "You taste like beer," he said. "The trouble-makin' kind." Raylan had never been terribly good at bedroom banter, but he liked Tim's throaty noise. He liked Tim's mouth opening to his and Tim's tongue against his better, though. Kissing Tim probably shouldn't be something Raylan thought of as easy and simple, but it was, and that was all right, really.

They went on like that for a spell, the lipwork deepening and consuming Raylan's brain, and then Tim's hands started roaming along bare skin. Started out okay, warm palms against arms and shoulders, down bare back, and up the sides of Raylan's thighs. None of that raised any warning bells in Raylan's head at all; it felt damned nice, actually.

When Tim started making low sounds into the kisses, though, and his hands started getting awfully close to Raylan's boxers, Raylan paused, panting with saliva slicks linking their mouths. Tim's eyes were glazed, a flush colored his cheeks, and Raylan had never, ever thought of a man as 'pretty,' but here and now, Tim was.

"Mmph," Raylan grunted, almost a groan but not quite. He licked Tim's lower lip, sucked at it, and thought it was really strange how it just wasn't bothering him that Tim was a guy. "Go on, 'n," Raylan whispered when he caught Tim hesitating. Raylan wasn't sure what the hell he was allowing, but it was amazing how fucking little it mattered when they were joined in increasingly desperate kisses.

Tim's hand slid under Rayland's waistband, cupping Raylan's ass cheek, the squeeze coupled with another one of those soul-eating kisses. The other hand simply cupped Raylan's package through the front of the loose boxers, and the pressure Tim applied was startling in its familiarity. Sort of like Tim'd done this once or twice before, and yeah, Raylan had slept his way through Harlan High and, more recently, a good portion of Miami, but this touch was still damned new.

"S-shit," Raylan breathed, gasping through his nose. His cock had been thinking about getting hard since the shove that put Tim onto the bed. With Tim's hand encouraging it, Raylan's dick decided it was time to get in the game. "Nn... yeah..." Raylan let up from Tim's mouth and went for Tim's neck, scraping teeth and applying pressure but taking care not to mark up the landscape.

"Nnngh..." The gritty groan was way lower than any sound any girl had ever made, and the power in the body arching under Raylan's was unmistakably male, as was the growing line under Tim's jeans and against Raylan's thigh. "Yeah... like that."

Raylan kept at Tim's neck, kept pressing into Tim's palm, and at some point it occurred to Raylan that returned favors were the essence of polite. He reached down, fumbling blind, and all he felt was cloth, belt, and Tim's keys in a pocket. "Goddammit," Raylan muttered, pushing himself up and diving for Tim's buckle and fly. "The fuck you still in clothes for?"

"Uhn... uhf?" The breath was driven from Tim's lungs when Raylan landed on hardening goods, and Tim now looked more dazed than Raylan felt. "Didn't get the memo?" But Tim efficiently started shucking shirt, undershirt, and made some pretty damned nice noises when Raylan got busy getting the pants down. Raylan yanked at Tim's jeans, cursed when he remembered shoes, but Tim toed those off at speed. Raylan got the pants clear of Tim's feet, and Raylan went back to rip off underwear and caught socks on the way down. He didn't think twice about the maneuver until he turned and got an eyeful of a very naked, very male bedmate. Tim's cock and blond, curling pubes made Raylan dizzier than all hell, and the only thing he could think to do was strip out of his boxers. He flopped onto his side to do it, and after he'd thrown them across the room, he looked at Tim, one hand tentatively touching Tim's very naked hip.

"This'll be easy, lemme start here," Tim said.

"If you wa-aaah shit..." Raylan had no clue what he'd been about to say because Tim bent without hesitation to Raylan's cock with his mouth wide open. The wet swirling heat of tongue caressed Raylan's tip and then without much more ado, Tim took Raylan to the back of his throat and swallowed.

"Unngh..." Raylan's head went back, teeth clenching, and he ducked his chin to watch in lusty disbelief. Suction, slickness, pressure, and Tim was taking him all down again, like fucking magic. Raylan lost the battle to keep quiet on the third dive, groaning outright, and he grappled for a handhold on Tim's shoulder. It crept up to Tim's neck, squeezing, and Raylan could hear himself gasp-groaning. "Y-yeah. God. That's..." Raylan got pushed onto his back, and he went easy, willing to go just about anywhere so long as that mouth kept going at him. He watched himself disappearing between Tim's lips, saw the way Tim's cheeks hollowed, and he rocked into the sensations, the fingers of one hand sliding into Tim's hair.

Tim went at Raylan like there was no tomorrow, sucking air through his nose when he could, and wrapping one hand around Raylan's base and pumping Raylan's shaft with that same insane surety of motion. Raylan lost it, the pleasure and the strangeness and the crazy-goodness overloading Raylan's abilities to do anything other than pitch helplessly onward. Tim picked up on the hitch of Raylan's hips like a puppeteer minding his strings, and Tim met every pump with a suck.

"Nngh... I'm... oh... oh shit..." Raylan tried to get a warning through the haze when he knew the only way to go was screaming over the cliff into orgasm, and Tim glanced up at him. The edge of those deep-water eyes crinkled with a grin against the head of Raylan's rigid, wet dick, and then Tim was down on him again, swallowing Raylan all the way into his tight throat.

"Nn... mmph... oh... fuck!" Raylan called out, curling with the force. His body clenched, asshole and balls and shaft pulsing in spasms that shot his load straight into Tim, and Raylan slurred a mess of gasps, half-words, and nearly in-damned pitiful cries when Tim sucked out every drop until Raylan almost begged off.

"Holy... holy..." Raylan breathed, unwinding and still twitching with tremors when Tim let up with a final mean lick to Raylan's slit.

"Kinda like gettin' blessed for my skills with my mouth," Tim muttered and wiped dampened lips with the back of his hand. He slid onto the mattress by Raylan, lay there panting, and one hand happened to land on Raylan's. "You good?"

"Yeah," Raylan answered in post-orgasmic disbelief. He blew a long sigh and turned his head to look at Tim. "You are, too," he joked, but the chuckle died off when he saw Tim's cock. It wasn't any longer than Raylan's, thank the Maker, but it was thicker. It was also roughly hard enough to drive nails through steel. "Can I... do you want...

"You don't have to," Tim stated like he had one hand on a Bible. "It's not like I haven't dealt with unwanted wood before, but if you wanna just..." Tim snorted softly. "Hell, with you lookin' at me like that, just touchin' me might do'er."

"Oh yeah?" Raylan murmured, rolling toward Tim. Without the fog of new need upon him, Raylan definitely noticed the lack of breasts, the density of muscle, and the way Tim was just Tim, but Raylan knew he'd never see the man the same way again.

It didn't change the urge to do something to help the guy out, though. And it didn't bother Raylan that he wanted to kiss Tim and get closer, which he did. Raylan most definitely felt a distinct lack of perturbed when Tim's hand clutched at Raylan or when Tim groaned and lifted his hips while Raylan swept a palm over Tim's abs. Raylan drew back far enough to breathe some of Tim's air and watch Tim's face, and he couldn't have told anybody who asked what came over him, but instead of diving for the finish line like he knew he was sort of supposed to do or like he suspected Tim wanted him to do, Raylan cupped Tim's balls, rolled and tugged at them.

"Oh... hell yeah." Tim's eyes flew open, wider than his mouth. "Raylan. God..." The kiss Tim laid on Raylan's shoulder, even while Tim's body curled and arched, was near-reverent. "Yeah."

If Raylan hadn't just gotten off, he was pretty sure that might have done him in. He stared at Tim with enough focus that his eyes burned. Something about holding someone who could blow his head off from a mile away while said someone rocked and writhed and panted over things Raylan was doing just... yeah. Raylan could get used to it.

"Mmhm..." Raylan rested his nose on Tim's cheek, sort of kissing and breathing all in one. He let go of Tim's nuts and squeezed the base of Tim's cock. A flash of himself alone appeared in his mind and was gone, but it was plenty to get the idea across. He let go, worked up spit, and licked his hand, returning it to wrap around Tim and stroke. He did it slow, balls to crown, and he grunted a little cry when he felt how much pre-come aided the slide.

"Nngghh... ooh...." Tim breathed a groan as slow as Raylan's touch, and his forehead met Raylan's shoulder, while one hand clutched at the bedsheets. "Lord in Heaven."

Raylan hummed a soft chuckle, gradually increasing the pace. "Kinda like wearin' that crown for my skills with my hands."

"Y-you... damn... well deserve... nngh... it," Tim gasped between rolls.

"Aw..." Raylan murmured, smiling and finding Tim's mouth and kissing him again. He drew away to let Tim chase oxygen and watched muscles bunch and flex with each stroke Raylan gave Tim. Raylan listened to Tim's breathing, watched the tics and tells, and he thought he got the rhythm ragged-edge right when Tim was making continual noises. Scars gleamed in the cheap light of the incandescent bulb on the nightstand against Tim's flushed skin. Tim's heels dug into the mattress, his knees were wide and balls tight. Raylan was dizzy again.

"Shit," Raylan said in a fascinated, husky voice that ran away with him. "I wanna see you come." Raylan quickened the beat and elongated the strokes to tease the swollen head.

A second later, and Raylan got his wish. Tim arched, yelled, and double-pumped into Raylan's hand before spilling in shudders and jerks. "Oh God, oh God, oh..."

Raylan got his jaw closed and shuddered. Tim getting off was the closest thing to "erotic" that Raylan had seen in a while. "Damn..." he whispered, letting Tim go and studying his soiled hand. He laid it on Tim's belly and looked down at Tim. "Damn," he said again after a quick kiss that Tim returned breathlessly.

"Yeah." Tim flung his forearm over his eyes and lay there for a minute, breathing returning to normal. "Thanks, Raylan. I..."

"You're welcome," Raylan said, cutting Tim off. Raylan got up, went to the bathroom, and washed his hands. Raylan brought the towel out with him and tossed it at Tim, and Raylan crawled back onto the bed and lay down next to the other Marshal.

"The story could go that you drove my drunk ass home, we had a few more, and you just passed out here," Raylan suggested, trying not to stare while Tim cleaned up.

"That would be near enough the truth," Tim said peacefully, rubbing down abs that couldn't have gotten like that on just fried chicken and biscuits. "And right friendly of you if I could just bivouac here on the floor. A blanket'd be fine."

Raylan got the covers down, grabbed the extra pillow on his side and whacked Tim with it. "I'm used to sharin' a bed. I snore. I talk in my sleep. No, I don't wanna hear 'bout it in the mornin'." Raylan shoved his feet under the sheets and twisted to turn out the light. He was lightheaded, felt more than a little out of his mind, but the idea of Tim sleeping on the goddamned floor after sucking his cock just didn't sit right.

"Yes, Marshal," Tim said with a smile in his voice. He curled up next to Raylan on the bed, tugging at the blankets, finally settling. Raylan didn't say another word, but he stared at the water stain on the ceiling until Tim's even breathing lulled him to sleep.

~*~