"You know how the time flies,

Only yesterday was the time of our lives.

We were born and raised in a summer haze,

Bound by the surprise of our glory days."

Boyd hurtled toward the water, barely taking the time to strip off his clothes - shirt first, then jeans and boxers - before jumping wildly off the dock into the cool water of the lake. The muffled splash he heard beside him meant that Raylan had presumably done the same, all at considerable speed considering Boyd had gained a good minute on him by the time they had reached the lake. Breaking the surface with a splash, Boyd confirmed his theory with a quick glance toward the shore, where he saw next to his own a heap of Raylan's clothes, including the jacket his momma insisted he wear to school despite the heat. That week had reached a record-breaking high of 93 degrees - hot for May even by Harlan standards - so when Raylan had suggested a Friday night spent drinking whiskey and skinny-dipping at the lake, Boyd had eagerly agreed.

Raylan's head popped up a few feet from his own, and he grinned wildly at Boyd, running his fingers through his wet hair - getting much too long, his momma always said - and slicking it back from his face. Boyd grinned back and took off straight for the deep water under the willow trees where he and Raylan always used to dive as kids, hoping for buried treasure and lucky if they found spare change. Raylan followed him using the long, powerful strokes that came with his height, and they soon reached what Boyd had always thought of as the most beautiful part of the lake.

His head spinning a little from the potent combination of whiskey, cool water, and starlight, Boyd swam in small circles around Raylan, humming a little to himself and thinking that, while he would obviously rather have been sharing such a romantic scene with a girl, Raylan wasn't a bad second choice.

"Talking of girls," Raylan said, startling Boyd out of his reverie.

"Were we?" asked Boyd confusedly.

"Well you were," Raylan replied, smirking, "You kept muttering, 'Linda, dance with me, Linda!' and waltzing around in the water."

"I was not," maintained Boyd, afraid he had been doing something embarrassingly close to that.

"Well, maybe not," Raylan admitted, "But you might as well have been. What, my company isn't enough for you? I'm hurt, Boyd, I really am," he finished, placing a hand over his heart to feign dejection.

"You're telling me you wouldn't rather be here making time with some stacked cheerleader screaming, 'No, Raylan, don't splash me, you'll mess up my hair?'" Boyd asked pointedly.

"I seem to recall you having similar reactions to some of my previous attempts at roughhousing, Boyd" Raylan remarked wryly, "Why would I need a cheerleader?"

This earned him a splash from Boyd, and Raylan retreated before he could be hit a second time, asking laughingly as he went, "So why aren't you here with Linda then? You can't tell me she's the type to say no to anybody, even you."

Boyd pondered this for a moment - why hadn't he asked Linda to come with him to the lake? Raylan was quite right; she wouldn't have said no. And it wasn't as if he didn't see enough of Raylan between school and the mine. He certainly wouldn't have begrudged Boyd a chance to get laid.

"No sport in it," he bluffed, "Like shooting fish in a barrel. Not to mention half the senior class has shot fish in that particular barrel."

"Oh now who's the liar, Boyd?" Raylan replied, "You were too chicken to ask out a girl, so you got stuck spending your Friday night with me instead."

"All right, Raylan, let's say I was 'too chicken'?" Boyd shot back, "What's your big excuse for your lack of feminine companionship this sultry May evening? I seem to recall you being the one asking me to come along."

Raylan merely shrugged, replying, "Does every red-blooded American male have to seek out the company of a woman to enjoy himself? If I had really wanted to spend tonight with a girl, I would be, simple as that."

"I know I'm a good conversationalist, Raylan, but I'm not better than sex," Boyd deadpanned, causing Raylan to chuckle, "I'm going to call bullshit on that one. Do you know the real reason you don't have a date tonight?"

"No, Boyd, I am completely in the dark. Why don't you enlighten me?" Raylan was looking bemused as he crossed his arms over his bare chest.

"Well, since you ask, Raylan," Boyd began, paddling around the lake as grandly as if he were a prosecutor addressing a jury, "the way I figure it is this: I've been studying your track record quite closely, and my results reveal that you usually manage to get at least one date with a girl before she realizes you're "not her type." At the end of each of these I'm sure otherwise pleasant evenings, you are given a chance by the laws of courtship etiquette to make her world stop on its axis. Your suspicious lack of repeat performances proves to me that you haven't managed it once. My conclusion, with a very small margin of error, I might add, figures thus: your kissing technique is so sub-par that it simply cannot be made up for by your other, finer qualities."

With his pontificating concluded, Boyd hastened his speed around the lake - still grinning like Lucifer - just in case Raylan should decide to retaliate in a physical manner.

"Oh, really? You've figured all this out, have you?" responded Raylan, eyes narrowed and shoulders squared as if taking on a challenger.

"Oh yes. I'm afraid, you can't argue with science, Raylan," Boyd stated quite calmly, although his expression bore hints of apprehension.

It was then that Raylan lunged suddenly and powerfully toward him, and Boyd responded by emitting an appropriately manly screech and began swimming toward the center of the lake, a burst of hysterical laughter bubbling up in his chest.

"Oh no, you don't," Raylan said as he caught up to Boyd, grabbing him by the shoulders and spinning him around so they were face to face. He easily pinned Boyd's arms behind his back and, though Boyd struggled exceedingly - splashing them both thoroughly with water in the process - he could not escape Raylan's grasp.

"Take it back and I'll let you go," Raylan promised glibly, with the tables thoroughly turned. "Don't take it back, and I'll be forced to enact some very serious measures indeed." This time it was Raylan who was grinning like the devil and Boyd who was glaring back at him.

Mustering up as much dignity as he could considering he was wet, naked, and completely at the mercy of his friend, Boyd looked Raylan straight in the eye and asked, "And what serious measures would these be, Raylan Givens?"

Raylan's grin took on a slightly sinister quality as he raised his eyebrows, leaned forward, and whispered, "You're about thirty seconds from finding out unless you take it back. Right. Now."

Boyd had only been kidding about the kissing thing, but he wasn't about to back down from a challenge. "Do your worst," he declared defiantly.

Raylan kept smiling that infernal grin as he said, "Oh my worst is the last thing I have in store for you, Boyd Crowder. Keep in mind, you asked for it.". And with that he closed the space between them in a flash and kissed Boyd full on the mouth.

Boyd's instinctual reaction was to pull away and ask Raylan just what the hell he thought he was doing, but as Raylan still had him effectively immobilized, Boyd realized any attempts at escape would be futile. As he resigned himself to his current situation, Boyd was forced to admit that he had indeed been very wrong before: Raylan was an excellent kisser.

Boyd was fully prepared to own up to his mistake just as soon as Raylan released him, but as the seconds wore on, Raylan made it clear he had no intention of doing any such thing. If anything, he started kissing Boyd even harder, his tongue repeatedly darting in just long enough to glance tantalizingly over Boyd's, then out again just as quickly. As seconds turned into minutes, Boyd began to feel a bit light-headed again, and when his knees buckled slightly beneath him, Raylan released his arms and moved his own hands down to Boyd's waist for support. To his own surprise, Boyd used his newly freed hands not to gain his freedom, but rather to get a better grip on Raylan, twisting them in the tangled locks at the back of his friend's head and pulling him in even closer.

Even amid all this commotion, Raylan never once took his focus from the kiss, pausing only every now and again to find a better angle of attack. Boyd was now matching Raylan's passion stroke for stroke, and as he inched his leg up behind Raylan's in an attempt to be touching even more of him, he felt a very familiar stirring in his groin. He was about to pull back in embarrassment, to apologize and blame it on the whiskey and promise to never talk about it again when he realized that Raylan was as hard as he was.

Then it was Raylan who stopped the kiss and withdrew, although his face remained only a few inches from Boyd's. "Last chance," he growled huskily, in a voice so intense that Boyd would have felt scared if he wasn't preoccupied being insanely turned on.

A little voice in the back of his head penetrated the fog and reminded him that Raylan had actually said something, and was perhaps waiting for a reply, and he managed a distracted, "What?", promising himself he would listen to the words this time.

Raylan huffed a breath in and out a few times, then moved his hands up to frame the sides of Boyd's face and spoke very deliberately, "Boyd, you have exactly ten seconds to tell me to stop before I fuck you so hard you won't be able to walk tomorrow."

Operating entirely on instinct at this point, Boyd responded by wrapping his fingers around Raylan's cock, eliciting a groan from the other man, who dug his fingernails into Boyd's back. Taking this as a yes, Raylan deftly spun Boyd around, and wrapped one arm tightly around his waist, half-kissing, half-biting the side of his neck, while Boyd let his head loll back and rest on Raylan's shoulder. He yanked Raylan's head back and kissed him hungrily, all the while feeling Raylan's erection pressing against him from behind.

Not breaking the kiss, Raylan reached down and gently ran his little finger around the rim of Boyd's asshole, causing him to pull away and cry out in surprise. "Try to relax," murmured Raylan, "It'll be easier that way.

Boyd nodded slowly and leaned back against Raylan once more, hand clutching the side of his neck, as Raylan carefully inserted one of his fingers. This time he was prepared for the shock, but a sudden and unexpected jolt of sensation hit him out of nowhere, and he inhaled sharply. As Raylan inserted two more fingers and spread him even further apart, he found himself whispering, "Yes, yes" over and over again, with increasing volume and urgency.

By the time Raylan murmured, "Ready?" his voice rough with exertion and desire, Boyd was close to screaming out from need, and, after quickly nodding his assent, he let go completely as Raylan slipped into him, the water acting as a natural lubricant. Raylan began to move his cock in and out, slowly at first, and then with increasing speed as Boyd clung to him desperately, nerve endings he didn't know he possessed sending continuous waves of pleasure and pain throughout his body. They went on like that for what seemed like forever, their bodies moving in perfect union back and forth, hurtling toward the crest of a wave of sensation. When Raylan finally came inside of him, Boyd immediately followed, letting go of the tension that had been building almost unbearably inside of him.

Afterwards, still trying to catch his breath, Boyd rested his head in the crook of Raylan's neck and interlaced the fingers of his right hand with the one Raylan still had wrapped around his waist. In return, Raylan smoothed Boyd's hair, damp with lake water and sweat, away from his forehead and gently placed his cheek there. Boyd could have stayed like that for the rest of the night, the two of them tangled up in each other, inhaling and exhaling in tandem, basking in the afterglow and the rugged beauty of the scene surrounding them.

Eventually, Boyd felt Raylan slide out from behind him, running his hand lazily across Boyd's lower back as he went. "We should get some rest," he mumbled sleepily, and motioned towards the shore where they had deposited their clothes. Boyd murmured in agreement, and they both plunged once more into the water, swimming side by side until they had reached the shallows and collapsed exhausted onto the bank. Boyd would have been content to remain there, but Raylan was already up, grabbing their clothes and heading for the woods, smiling goofily over his shoulder at Boyd as he did so. He found himself grinning back as he loped after Raylan, grabbing his hand as he caught up to run beside him.

Raylan tumbled down on the first empty patch of ground they saw that was deep enough into the woods to make discovery unlikely and, eyes flashing impishly, pulled Boyd swiftly down next to him. Boyd laughed and snuggled down next to Raylan, looping an arm lightly around his waist and resting his head on his chest. Raylan responded by grabbing his jacket and draping it over both of them, putting his arm around Boyd and drawing him in even closer.

"Should we talk about this?" Boyd asked hesitantly after a few minutes, not wanting to ruin the perfection of the moment or dispel the glow that was still surrounding them.

"Do you want to talk about this?" asked Raylan, not stirring an inch from his position.

"Not particularly," admitted Boyd, a little scared to look at Raylan.

"Good, me neither," replied Raylan, to Boyd's great relief, and he nestled in once more against him.

They lay there like that for awhile, until the silence was broken once more, this time by Raylan: "Do you think...tonight was a mistake?"

This time Boyd did move his head, tilting it upwards to look into Raylan's eyes, searching for some clue as to which answer he wanted to hear. Not finding any help there, he replied simply, "No," before getting up the courage to ask in turn, "Do you?"

Raylan sighed and said, "Nope, can't say I do. It's hard for me to regret something that makes me feel this good."

Boyd smiled and moved to kiss him lightly on the lips before settling back down for the final time. He was still a bit confused as to how precisely they'd gotten here and what it all meant, but as Raylan said, he was feeling too good to question anything. He closed his eyes and let out a contented sigh, and, as he settled in for the night, he felt Raylan do the same. Boyd didn't know what problems would come with the sunrise, but, falling asleep next to Raylan under the stars, he didn't care; tonight things were perfect, and for now, that was more than enough.