the_cupbearer | psl for Raylan: post-shootout

Raylan ran on full adrenaline in these kind of moments, eyes sharp and focused and burning with a quiet rage at the sight of Ganymede held at gun point. He moved quickly, shooting two guys before getting Ganymede save behind him and dealing with the third. All that mattered after the guys were dead was that there was no one else hiding in the wings, followed swiftly by him pulling out his phone as he comes back to check that Ganymede was okay.

After that, it was phone calls and cops and the EMTs. It was statements and waving off his own EMT check as he makes his way over to the lean man.

"Hey. They treatin' you right over here?"

The EMT gives Raylan a wry look but keeps working.

Ganymede was right, there was a concerned earful coming, but not in front of God and everyone. That was a 'when they were driving home' kinda conversation.

"Oh, I've been better," Ganymede manages with a grimace at another swipe of antiseptic, muscles down his side twitching. "I'm trying to avoid stitches, though."

The EMT gave Ganymede a look he understood all too well: one that meant his desired outcome was not likely. The graze was deep enough to be consistently bleeding, though he was in no danger of bleeding out or losing more than he had already. "Might be a little slow at work in the next couple days. No hard shaking for me." He worked at a bar, one that did coffee and things in the morning and afternoons as well as mixed drinks and the more popular beer in the evenings. "Ow, fuck, that stings," he hisses when the EMT pulled gently on the edge of the wound.

"You alright?" Not just physically, but he had needed to shoot several people who were now dead.

"I'm fine." Like a kick of the leg when a Doctor hit that specific muscle, the response was automatic and well practiced. If Raylan were capable of expressing how not fine he was, he might, but only in private. No one else would know about the nightmares of watching men die in horrible ways that haunted him some nights, the ones that got him up and out of bed and back to work so he didn't have to think about it.

"No haulin' shit up from the basement either. They can get someone else to do it or I'll come by and do it myself." Don't put it past him. "You think you'll be goin' to the hospital?"

The EMT looks back up at Ganymede expectantly. They couldn't make him do anything he didn't want to do, but the EMT knew what should happen.

Ganymede gave Raylan a look for the immediate answer, quiet and easy to miss if you didn't know it was there, but Raylan had seen it enough. They'd be talking about that later, most certainly. He sighed when the EMT looked back up at him, and though he was well aware he wouldn't die from the raw wound along his ribs...he didn't relish the idea of leaving it untreated for as long as it would take to heal.

"Can I get a ride home if I do?" he asked. It wouldn't take long; he'd gotten stitches before, many, many times. If he thought his needlework was decent he'd have done it himself. "I feel fairly confident that if I've got the stitches to show for this, I won't be barbacking. Coffee service it is for me, it seems."

An hour later, with his side properly sewn closed and covered with a pristine bandage, Ganymede leaned into Raylan with a soft hum, tucking the prescription into his pocket. "Talk to me, honey." It went unspoken that whatever Raylan said wouldn't leave the car; Ganymede understood that he was intensely personal and bottled up his responses to most emotions.

"Course you can," he promises, eventually following behind the ambulance and waiting in the waiting room until Ganymede was released to him and securely next to him, where Raylan ferries him out carefully to the car. He had done nothing put replay the situation in his head over and over as he'd waited for Ganymede to be released, looking for any aspect where he could have done something differently, where he should have seen this coming or should have known - but the agonizing was for Ganymede being hurt instead of the men Raylan had killed.

"Talk to ya about what?" The ask comes gently as he turns over the engine and starts pulling them out of the hospital parking lot. "I figured you would want me to save my speeches on how to not get into that situation until at least tomorrow. After you've gotten some rest, but if you want me to dig in now.."

There was a playful undertone to the trailing off of his sentence, giving Ganymede all the time in the world to stop him.

"You know I do," Ganymede chuckled, taking the time for interruption and shaking his head gently. "Dig into me all you want, Raylan. And once you've done that, we can talk about the rest of what happened today." Like the fact that his friend-sometime-lover shot two people and is human, and emotions will result. Emotions Raylan historically does not deal well with. Ganymede, however, is, and he has all the patience in the world for it.

He reached over and brushed his fingertips over Raylan's wrist, trailing up his forearm affectionately and intending it to support his friend with no pressure exerted. He knew the impulse to bottle everything up, he'd done it before himself and it never really ended well. "You know I'll be fine--got all my shots and everything, and it doesn't hurt that much." The bullet graze hurt, there was no erasing that just yet, but it was hardly debilitating.

Not that he wouldn't tease about it being agonizing and rendering him helpless if it made Raylan laugh.

"I hope I at least get a kiss out of it after the lecture."

The wrist closest to Ganymede was relinquished to settle on his leg as the Marshal drove, smirking at the start of Ganymede's first statement, but it fell a little at the promise that he expected to hear something about Raylan's shooting. It wasn't something he generally talked about with anyone except his whiskey bottle.

Ganymede's voice was always soothing though and Raylan let his ears indulge, smiling again at the soft tease and glancing over.

"More than if you're well behaved for it." He takes and lets a deep breath out of his nose. "You wanna tell me how you found yourself cut and held hostage? We know they weren't tryin' to rob the bar, all four hundred and somethin' that was left in the til. So what were they after?"

Ganymede knew exactly how well the prospect of talking about the shooting was likely to go, but he was implacable in the face of that falling smile. He twisted their hands, fingers slotting in between each other as Ganymede's thumb trailed gently over Raylan's knuckles. Each ridge and valley of bone and skin was familiar, and the motion soothed him gently, providing more comfort than any of the efforts the EMTs had gone to.

"You know I can behave if I have incentives," he murmured, teasing just a little. They'd teased around the concept before, once or twice; he trusted Raylan to remember. Though at the following questions Ganymede merely shook his head. "One of the girls--one of the new hires, I don't know her very well. She'd been tangled up with some boy, a real idiot by the looks of him, and apparently it ended badly. I didn't know how badly, but she requested a shift change, presumably to get away from him. His friends took issue with that, it appears."

He sighed it out, pushing his free hand over his hair away from his face. "I hope you can understand why I wasn't going to hand anyone else into that."

Oh, Raylan remembers, faint smile pulling again with a bounce of his eyebrows and a glance over at the seemingly younger man. As much as he might be happy to take that easy road out, he had a feeling that Ganymede wouldn't let him escape the topic so easily. Part of him saw it for what it was, someone who cared for him, trying to help him vent something that absolutely was getting pent up as it always was. The other parts wondered if Raylan would be able to accomplish that seemingly simple, secretly complex task.

He's silent for a long moment, humming a note with a faint nod at G's explanation.

"We need to get you up to speed on how to disarm someone when you're that close. The options that are available, the ways you can.. stop this kind of thing from happenin' in the future, the next time you decide to be a stand up gentleman."

Of which Ganymede was, an absolute gentleman that Raylan struggled to imagine being violent, which meant everyone else would struggle too. He would feel better if Ganymede was able to defend himself. When he had to.

Ganymede listens, to his credit, and only lets out a very faint sigh when Raylan tells him that about disarming someone. If it were any other day, any day where he hadn't been treated for the last two and a half hours like he was some kind of stupid boy who'd gotten himself hurt by being foolish, he'd have swallowed the comment that tumbled out of his mouth without further thought. Any other day and he'd have kept the illusion intact of him being utterly normal, albeit youthful-looking.

But today was not any other day. Maybe it was a mark of how comfortable he felt around Raylan, given how he knew the other man was about his work; there would be every attempt given to de-escalate, but once violence was the only good option left, it would be the last one. It was a attitude Ganymede happened to share, though his fuse was significantly longer than most people's, and he knew that about himself. Largely it was part and parcel of what he'd been made and the long intervening years of his life.

"If it had been only me I'd have killed him and been done with it." But it hadn't been only him, and Ganymede was if nothing else aware enough that he was not a gun guy. He hadn't wanted anyone else to be hurt through his misadventure or miscalculation, especially someone for whom the wound would be much more of a problem.

Edited 2024-08-14 18:13 (UTC)

"There's still things that can be done," Raylan replies softly, glancing over from the road. "That's all I'm sayin'."

God he couldn't wait to get a drink.

"How would you have done it? Killed him, if it were just you."

"It only takes sixty-six pounds of torque to disrupt the spinal cord," he says equally gently, through he doesn't look back over at Raylan just yet. "He might have gotten a shot off before I could either stab him or break his neck. But it's unlikely I'd have died."

Extremely unlikely he'd have stayed dead either way. "I told you once I don't favor guns, and I was truthful. But it doesn't mean I am incapable of violence." He knew very well Raylan struggled to see him as anyone who could do harm, and Ganymede can't fault his friend that. But he is very, very tired of having to maintain that illusion at all costs.

"Are we going to your place, or mine?" he asks finally, after a moment of quiet between them.

Raylan didn't struggle at all in seeing Ganymede as someone who could be violent, only that he hadn't seen it yet and there was always the question of where the Line was. And how bad it might be if someone crossed it. That was the real nugget of golden truth, for any man.

"Mine." Safer there. Ganymede could go to his apartment tomorrow if he felt comfortable doing so, but for at least 24 hours, Raylan wanted him somewhere secure. He had questions about was G had just said, 'unlikely I'd have died', but it was a conversation that could wait until they were behind closed doors and comfortable. With a whiskey and the bulk of the terrible day behind them.

It didn't take him long to get to his hotel room, the one he'd chosen to stay in for the past two years, and get them inside, locking the door behind them and taking off his gun to toss on the dresser with a sigh.

"You want a drink?"

"God, yes," Ganymede sighed, shoving a hand over his hair as he relaxed the moment the door was shut. "Though I'll tell you for nothing, I have better booze at my place. For next time."

He sat down heavily on the end corner of the bed, face twitching when the motion pulled at his stitches uncomfortably, making him rub his hand over the bullet track. It sucked, and it would hurt, but he could feel the skin and muscle slowly beginning to knit back together. "But before that...come here for a minute. Please?"

"I know you do." Of course he did. He gave more of a damn about it than Raylan did. All Raylan needed was a bottle of Jim Beam and it was the only thing he ever stocked. If he stocked more, if he stocked better - he might have to look at if he's an alcoholic and no one wants to do that.

His hat is deposited on top of his gun and he doesn't hesitate in angling his stride over to stand in front of his lover. A hand comes up to cup his face.

"I'm glad you're okay," he says with a deep, serious sincerity. "I heard you'd gotten shot and all I saw was red."

"I didn't intend to get shot at all." He hadn't been overextending himself trying to be a hero; he'd just been trying to defuse a situation that was already bad, and rapidly moving to worse. And when Raylan had shown up...it had been impossible not to feel relief wash over him like a heavy blanket.

Ganymede closed his eyes when that hand came up to mold along his jaw, and all the tension abruptly left him, leaning heavily into Raylan's chest, cheek pressed to the soft fabric of his shirt. His hair was still plaited back in the long, thick braid he habitually wore it in, trailing down his spine though he tugged it over his shoulder, absently pulling on the end as he took several measured breaths, deep enough to feel his ribs expand. "I saw you when you came in and he aimed at you, and I was scared. I didn't--and don't--want you hurt because of me."

Free hand slipping naturally around G's shoulders as Raylan embraces him, thumb rubbing back and forth across where it could in what comfort he could give. He knew that his appearance sometimes brought relief, but it did little in the aftermath of things, when the adrenaline finally fades.

"It won't be the last gun pointed at me, darlin'. My draw just has to be better. And it is. I've done this high noon shit more than once." It's what he would be doing his whole life, riding that line between life and death, fate held in a breath and a heart beat.

"I do it so you don't have to. " He does it so no one else has to. So single mothers and abused souls who don't have it in them don't have to do it. "They're just men who chose poorly. Ain't worth half a thought, they chose their paths."

Raylan's presence brough more relief than he knew, at least for Ganymede; he'd been there, he'd stayed until the end--hell, they were here together in Raylan's apartment. Motel room. Whatever. It was nicer than some places Ganymede had lived, and he was willing to take the company however he got it, as long as it was his lover. "I know it won't be," he murmured, the fingers of his free hand curling absently around one belt loop of the man's trousers, pressing as if the gentle tug would bring Raylan closer than he already was.

"I wouldn't want you to be anything but who you already are," Ganymede said quietly, purposefully not moving the hand across his back and shoulders, lifting his head as one hand traced its thumb across mcross Raylan's lip, feeling the swell of muscle and heat of skin under him. "Just... Kiss me, and shut me up for a little while.'

It's hard to truly believe that statement, that he doesn't want Raylan to be anything than what he already is - a few near death experiences would probably change that sooner or later, as it always did. But that was down the road and right now, Ganymede had asked for something simple. Easy to do and sinking into something that doesn't require any thought about what they've been through was Raylan's weakness.

So he does as he is asked, bending down to kiss the seemingly younger man and move their weight back onto the bed. Yes, he would kiss. Kiss and worship Gaynmede down to the bone if he was allowed, long fingers already getting impatient with the fabric that kept him from G's soft skin so selfishly. It didn't matter that Gaynmede was hurt or it did matter, but it wasn't going to stop them. Raylan understood that too. A little pain was a good reminder, a good motivator and sometimes the silver-lining on the high that was their own arousal.

His lover splayed him out so easily on the bed, hemmed in by his much lankier partner; Raylan had him beat in reach, he knew that, though they were the same height, and not much different in weight. But he wasn't pinned, not restrained as much as kept in close where every part of the other was in easy reach, and Ganymede could feather his hands out over the sweep of Raylan's ribs and waist, tugging his shirttails free from his belt, tripping over the maddening and suddenly-arcane buttons holding it closed. He wanted to touch skin, and feel the warmth of his lover pressed tightly to him. He loved the way Raylan's chest felt against his back, one arm heavy on his waist when they slept together, and his breath fluttering against his shoulder and neck.

Ganymede opened his thighs to pull his lover in closer still, short nails gently scratching at the small of Raylan's back, lips still pressed together. "God, you're beautiful," he breathed, the tip of his nose brushing his lover's cheek. "And you're mine."

Ganymede smelled like sweat and blood and gunfire, life and fear and victory over the ultimate enemy - death. They'd made it, they'd survived and Raylan was already a little drunk on Ganymede's closeness. As he always was. He breaths in the musk with a little note of appreciation for the legs around him, for the scratching of his back and hums another little note.

"All yours," he purrs, lifting only just enough to pull his shirt up over his head, leaving him dressed in the a-line undershirt that rode up his hip as he comes back down to kiss Ganymede breathless again. He wanted to make sure the man was gasping before turning the soft scrape of his lips down Ganymede's jaw and towards his ear.

"And here to make you think about nothin' other than us movin' together." The sentiment comes with a lean in of his hips, erection already well evident. "Let's get you outta that shirt."

Normally, he'd just start helping that process along, but G was hurt. They had to be careful in some spots.

"I want you all over me," Ganymede breathes gently, head tilting up and away under the scratch of Raylan's goatee, one hand skating up his lover's back and the other pulling at his shirt, trying to get it off without unbuttoning it, tugging ineffectively. "On me, inside me. Come on," he moans, voice kicking up at the end whe Raylan slides his lips up towards his earlobe. He bucks up, stronger than most everyone gives him credit for given his willowy shape, forcing his head back against the sheets.

"Please, please, please," he sighs, breath coming faster and thicker, slinging one of his knees around Raylan's hip to pull him in flush against his front, squeezing gently and showing that his own erection is already at full mast behind his jeans, the denim keeping his cock pressed to his belly. "I don't want you to be gentle, Raylan."

Raylan pulls back and helps his lover out of his shirt, fingers quickly undoing his own belt and top button before freeing Ganymede from that too. He had never had any issue not being gentle when Ganymede wanted it, but it wasn't something he easily or lightly assumed. But when given a green light, there wasn't any hesitation.

"Kick off your shoes," he says with a dark and husky rumble, toeing off his boots and kicking them to the side so he could shuck his jeans and start pulling Gaynmede's off. He only cared about the first leg, enough to get things free, enough that he could swoop in and consume Gaynmede's cock to the back of his throat. It was only half for distraction, his free hand fumbling into the nightstand to grab some lube. The blowjob would only last a few glorious skilled seconds - Raylan enjoyed giving oral sex as much as he liked receiving it - before he was popping off and moving forward, slick cock pressing into and past Ganymede's tight ring with a groan as he claims the man's mouth again.

The jeans Raylan peeled him out of like a fruit shell, turning inside-out with a throaty chuckle as he kicked off his shoes, scooting back on the bed until his lover swallowed him down and made him bow up like a taut string. "Oh--god, Raylan," he gasped, swallowing thickly, one hand barely coming up to cradle the back of his lover's head before he pulled off.

He fell back with a shuddering sigh, letting Raylan push him up, biting into those lips when they met his and groaning with a flutter of eyelashes at the feel of his cock pressing against him. "F--fuck, yes," he sighed against Raylan's mouth, curling up against him. He hitched one leg up higher with a soft hiss and a little grimace at the tug on his stitches, but nothing was going to stop him from enjoying sex with his lover, still riding high on the buzz from adrenaline after the afternoon. "Just like that, just...like that," he breathed, head flopped back on the blankets scrunched up beneath them. "Just don't stop."

Edited 2024-08-19 02:40 (UTC)

Raylan loves those sounds, breathing them in like they were fuel for his fire. He thrusts a few times, hard to bury himself swiftly in the tight hot clutch of Gaynmede's body before setting into something of a rhythm as he kisses and bites at his lover's neck.

"You feel perfect," he breathes back, pulling back so that he can hook his hands behind Gaynmede's knees and spread him wide so that Raylan can enjoy the view of him spread out and eager underneath him, his bangs falling wild in front of his eyes. Just as eager to earn more of those gasping breathless noises, Raylan fucks him steadily before slowing to bury himself in deep and hard a few times more.

"This what you want, darlin'?"

He smelled like gunpowder and bourbon and sweat and glorious sex, and Ganymede breathed in the scent of his lover as he held on tightly to Raylan's shoulders. They'd done this before, tangled up in bedsheets and half-pulled-off clothing as their bodies met over and over again with catches of breath and quick kisses. "Fucking--yes," he cried in answer to Raylan's soft-panted question, head thrown back to expose his neck, spread open like a pinned butterfly on the bed, skin already dusky and turning red where Raylan's teeth have sunk in.

This made him feel alive, feel his heart throbbing in his chest as his nerves all lit up like neon tubes from the way his lover fucked into him, buried deep enough that he could feel every twitch of Raylan's thighs. "God, Raylan, yes..." he groaned, eyelashes fanning his cheeks as he dragged in a full breath again.

His body rolls with his rhythm, the ugliness of the day fading behind the primal urge to push and please, to lose himself into the rush of heat and pleasure. Rough palms slide down Ganymede's thighs, thumb tucking under his balls to collect them for a half second before they're let go, palm moving over that hard cock and up his stomach and chest, fingers coming around to pinch one nipple.

They weren't going to stay like this - Raylan wanted his lover to ride him as he cummed, but the Marshal had the stamina of a man twenty years younger.

Ganymede pants against him as Raylan fucks into him, short nails scraping over skin as he pulls Raylan in close and loving the inexorable rhythm. It was desperate and hard and hot as hell the way they came together over and over again, and Ganymede loved the almost punishing rhythm. His partner had strength and stamina on his side, and he loved the way it felt each time the Marshal bottomed out inside him.

"Fuck... Raylan," he murmured with a jerk to his hips, heels pressed firm to the backs of Raylan's thighs to make him stay deep, muscles beginning to quiver. "'M gonna come soon," he managed breathlessly as he squeezed his own cock, tryin to force back the rising tide of orgasm. God, it felt good. He was forever held in thrall right at the end of adolescence, body responsive and shamelessly easy to arouse and tease. "Fuck, give it to me!"

He had plenty of moves when he was trapped, hips rolling like he could push himself deeper before he starts rutting again, hitting that sweet spot that made Ganymede tremble around him. It was intoxicating, this brief moment of power he was granted, and he nuzzles into his lovers neck as he keeps it up, pushing his own orgasm away. Always better to get your partner off first.

He wanted to feel Ben spill himself between them, wanted to drive him over the edge with the tender abuse, wanted to drain him of everything and in the moment, he rolls them over to put Ben on top. One hand slid up to his face, kissing him greedily as Raylan's hips push up as the other slides along his hip and grips, and when it broke, Raylan husks out "I wanna watch. I wanna watch you bring yourself to it."

The quick little flip and roll that put him sitting astride Raylan's hips made him groan, legs tight and trembling as he held himself still, fist tight on his cock even as his lips crush against his lover's. "God, Raylan," Ganymede breathed, rocking his hips down and up and grinding on Raylan's dick. He braced himself on one hand low on Raylan's belly, fingernails curling as his other hand tugged at his length. He was no stranger to touching himself, hand curled loose around his cock as he moved in a sinuous dance, pushing up and back and grinding down to make his toes curl and his muscles ripple and clench.

"I love the way you talk," he murmured, riding his lover and feeling the flush creep up his neck and chest the closer Ganymede gets to orgasm. He can feel the ache in his side from the gunshot, but it's not enough, not nearly enough to keep him from coming; it only adds to the dizzying height of sensation he's climbing up, pushing towards the delightful, intense peak. "I want you to come with me," he breathed, staring with dark eyes at Raylan's face as if to memorize the shape of his lover's mouth as he forms those words. "Come in me."

Edited 2024-09-03 18:45 (UTC)

He was consumed all over again, the sight of Ben on top of him always drives him wild. As it always had - Ben knew he was a beautiful man, they both did, and his orgasm was very nearly art.

Raylan's heavy panting was just as loud as his lovers and the sound of flesh slapping into flesh was as intoxicating as the rest. Ganymede would know by now how prone to supplication Raylan got when they were this far deep; he could ask the Marshal for the moon and he'd try, somehow, someway. So he bucks, spreading his knees a little to gain the leverage he needed to thrust himself upwards in a more meaningful manner. The lift and tilt of his chin for his efforts came with a dark heavy lidded expression that somehow asked all on its own 'You like that?'.

"Gonna make you feel nothin' but me for the rest of the night," he breaths promisingly.

The renewed vigor from Raylan spreading his knees and pushing up got a choked-out cry from Ganymede's throat as he curled up, trembling and tight all over; Raylan had impeccable aim in everything, they were both familiar with that, and it carried over to the bedroom as well. Ganymede shoved himself back as a fine sheen of sweat beaded out over his shoulders while they fucked, lost in the sounds echoing off the walls and the feeling of Raylan underneath him, between his thighs, hot and strong.

"Yes, yes, yes," he hisses, bucking into his hand and sucking in a breath as orgasm washed over him, almost surprising him as it swamped his senses. Ganymede fell into the weightless thrill that came with orgasm, feeling like he was cradled on clouds as his cock throbbed and his hips jerked. "Fuck, Raylan--please," Ganymede rasped out, eyes closed as he threw his head back. He couldn't quite fininsh what he was asking for, though his lover knew it very well already: don't stop, keep going, keep fucking him so blissfully.

Raylan sucks in a breath with that sound, with the feeling of the trembling flesh on and around him and the high of knowing that he's the one causing it, and pushes harder to follow after him. It was always his goal to get Ben, or any of his lovers over the years, off before he took his selfish pleasure but once getting what he wanted, he could go full, hard and hungry tilt.

His fingers dig into Ganymede's hips, pushing him down in time with his thrusts. The heavy pants turned into soft grunts before one big suck of breath as the building tightness in the low of his spine explodes into white hot orgasm, body arching up as he shudders and unloads. His cock twitches with it, throbbing as Raylan tries to catch his breath as the world fades back in from the edges.

His hands shift to slide up and around Ben, wrapping around him, staying inside him, holding him close. He knew too well that the rush of wanting to feel alive was often followed by the low of being exhausted from a day's abuse, and they'd both had a hellva day. He was happy to just lay for a minute, breathing and basking as his body thrums in afterglow.

If he'd ever been asked, Ganymede would have readily answered that the thing he loved hearing most was Raylan's voice panting and making those soft grunts that signalled all too clearly how close his lover was to orgasm. The rasp of heavy breathing and the way he shudders are intoxicating to witness, and Ganymede shuddered in his grasp as they both rode out the last aftershocks from the other that left them utterly spent. Or at least him utterly spent, and the melodic ache from his side was turning into a faintly maddening itch.

He slid gently and comfortably into Raylan's embrace, feeling no need to interrupt the moment with too many words when he nuzzled himself into place, fingertips brushing back the marshal's soft hair, feeling the short ends prickle at his nape. He just hummed and tucked himself in against his lover, tossing back the braid he hadn't bothered to undo yet and stretching the fraction of an inch to kiss Raylan. "You're amazing," he whispered softly.

This was one of Raylan's favorite things. The settled feeling of relaxed heavy limbs on and around him, a warm breath into his neck as his heartbeat drums in his ears. His cock has gone half soft, enough for him to slide out of Ben with a shift of his hips and meet that kiss with a deep, back of the throated hum of contentment.

"I think that distinct honor is yours," he husks, voice rough. The way he saw it, Ganymede was the hero for taking it and taking it as roughly as he did. "Survivin' the whole day and then also that-" His lips curl at the edges - he's teasing a little, always happy to inject levity. A hand comes up to brush back a loose hair from Ben's face, Raylan's eyes warm and openly loving looking over the man's sharp, handsome features.

"I'd tell you to stay outta trouble, but I got a feelin' that ain't gonna mean much especially since you're already here with me." The levity faulters a little, smile falling into something a little more somber.

"Terrible things woulda come, had this gone a different way you know."

"At least part of what I've survived today was better than most other things combined," Ganymede answered, closing one eye to let Raylan brush the stray hair from his face. His was extraordinarily long for anyone, but especially for a man, brushing his waist when it was left loose--that was rare, especially if he'd been at work, and he didn't particularly do well idle. "There's some trouble I'd rather be in myself than subject anyone else to."

He could take it: he'd taken an awful lot in his long life, not that anyone else knew that...but the idea still stood. He reached up slowly, gently tracing his fingertips over the edges of Raylan's lips, eyes dark and depthlessly quiet, but awake and alert.

"If things had gone a different way meaning if I had been shot somewhere else," he supplied. Somewhere fatal. The addendum hung in the air between them unspoken, though they both heard it, Ganymede knew. "I'm sturdier than I seem, Raylan. I promise."

"You said that before," he murmurs about the trouble Ben would rather take on himself. Raylan hadn't forgotten but no matter how many times it's told to him, that doesn't ease the deep seated worry and fear that something would happen to the man.

Of course, Ben was right about what Raylan meant, what he was driving at without saying the words and Raylan hums a note of acknowledgement.

"Sturdy don't stop a well aimed bullet, darlin', you know that. Luckier than you seem, now that I could take without blinkin' an eye. Lucky enough to have not caught that bullet in your heart or head."

Ganymede smiles gently at that, and...honestly he might have let it be, he could have let Raylan believe whatever he wanted about how sturdy Ganymede was. But there was something there that gave him the smallest glimmer of hope that he might understand. That this man, who likely had very little grasp on Homeric hymns and epic poetry and mythologies from half a world away and several dozen lifetimes ago, wouldn't think he was insane for what was going to happen.

If, of course, he told him.

"Do you trust me, Raylan?" he asked quietly, not accusatory in the slightest. It was an honest question. "Enough to tell you something I...really don't tell anyone else?" He'd done this before, had this exact conversation with an incredibly wide variance in outcome, but each time was new, and worrying, and each time gave him that faintly gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach. "I don't want you to think I'm crazy."

Raylan shifts, rolling them a little so they're both mostly on their side with Ben's weight leaned into him so they could be a little more comfortable. He frown oh so softly, a mere tightening between his brow, a faint downturn of his lips as he glances over Ben's features.

"'Course I trust you. I don't think you got into this situation on purpose-"

He had no way of understanding what Ben was driving at though and a clever brain always tries to project out and be ready.

"No, no, nothing like that," Ganymede chuckles, shaking his head as he rolls with Raylan to settle down, chin perched on his lover's shoulder. "I just...want you to understand why it seems like I'm not worried about being shot." Partly, he'll admit, it's because he's truly not worried, but the reason for that is something concrete.

He rubbed the pad of his thumb gently over the faintest of creases between Raylan's brows, smoothing the skin as if it would soothe the concern as well. "It's very hard to seriously injure me. And that's not bravado speaking when I say that, it's...experience. I'm much older than I look."

It was a strange but deep kind of comfort, that soft touch on his brow that was working so hard to smooth out his worry and misunderstanding. It did it's job too, easing out some of the obvious consternation in his features but did nothing for the concern that stayed in his dark brown eyes.

"What's that mean?"

He could only come up with 'luck' but luck only held out so long. Luck wasn't experience - Experience was something different. It meant getting shot a few times along the way too.

"Which part?" he asked with a crooked little smile, calm as ever. He was stil laying against Raylan, legs tangled in the sheets even as he moved his head to press his lips to the curve of his lover's shoulder. "The age...well. It sounds a bit ridiculous out loud. But this winter I will be sixty-seven hundred and thirty-eight. Maybe thirty-nine, I'm not entirely sure with calendar changes."

The rest of it was a slightly different story. "I have been shot before, yes. Close enough to the heart."

Raylan shifts, moving up onto his elbow as he processes that, as he stares into his lovers face trying to see those years somewhere. They weren't hidden away in any lines, weren't peaking out with any greys, didn't reflect in anything other than the wisdom that time left in a pair of eyes.

"I-" He knew it was stupid to say but he wasn't always as sharp as he was behind a barrel. "I don't understand, how's that possible?"

Ganymede sits back on his heels and lets him shift up, though he doesn't try to box his partner in any. He just lets Raylan look and sighs gently when he asks how any of that came to be possible.

"The...simple answer," --because none of them were easy answers, he knows that intimately and he stumbles through how to explain what he is every time he has to do this-- "Is that a very long time ago, I got someone's attention, and he decided he liked me enough that he wanted to keep me. Forever. So he gave himself the gift of my never aging. I haven't since I wasn't nineteen."

Raylan doesn't pull away aside from that small shift, not wanting to create space between them but he also won't stop Ben if wants to pull away. He didn't.

"I-" No, he still didn't quite understand. "Who?"

Nineteen? Part of him felt a little dirty somehow - he was a 43 year old man. He knew Ben was young - no. Presented as young but Raylan somehow both felt like a cradle robber and a robbed cradle himself. It didn't matter. Not really, not once they were outside legality and he knew that Ben's ID claimed older than 19.

Ganymede doesn't back up any further, and he's still sitting close to Raylan; he doesn't want buffer space for this, because he knows pretty well that Raylan is not the type to be physically violent at someone who hasn't earned it, or out of lack of imaginative options.

"His name was Zeus. Still is." He was still around, though greatly diminished. "I feel like I should tell you nineteen was a great deal more adult then than it is now. I wasn't a little boy, even then." And yes, he could pass for mid-twenties fairly easily, if he dressed and spoke and moved the right way; that was easy enough and he'd been doing it for years now. "I suppose it goes without saying that my birth name is not Benjamin Prince."

To be fair, 19 wasn't a child as it was, just young, just lacking experience. And 6,7000 years old was more experience than regular people could process inside a heartbeat. But there was no path for Raylan to get mad about it - things were what they were. Zeus at least, Raylan knew. Zeus was a whore, even in modern tellings.

The realization that Benjamin Prince wasn't his name felt like a betrayal more than anything else, if only because part of Raylan's heart was starting to sink into this relationship. Trust was being built with every successful day that neither of them got hurt in one way or another. And inside a heartbeat, in a flash, he wondered if he knew 'Ben' at all.

But it was a small hurt in a long list of hurts Raylan has had over his life, and one he knew he could deal with.

"I think I'm gonna need that drink now." It's sighed with wide eyes as he pushes himself all the way up and pads over to their makeshift bar to pour himself a drink. Halfway through he looks over his shoulder at his lover again.

"Zeus? Like, The Zeus?"

"Yes," Ganymede said with a soft exhale, not quite a sigh. "That Zeus."

He watched Raylan move and go to the bottle to pour himself a drink, acutely aware of what hadn't been said yet--and might not ever be said. But he'd begun the conversation, and even if it went badly he was going to finish it. "I know it sounds ridiculous. But it is the truth."

The first drink poured is downed before he's pouring out two more and carrying them back over towards the bed so he can sit down, one glass handed out to Ben.

"I believe you, darlin'. You got no reason to lie to me about this, far as I can tell. I just.. I don't quite understand how it's possible is all. Let's-- let's just start this simple. If Benjamin isn't your name, what is, and what do you want me to call you?"

He takes the drink, rearranging to unfold his legs a bit as he sips at it. Alcohol really does nothing to him at this point, and he rarely pretends otherwise unless he's trying to get himself shitfaced--which is, thankfully, rare. "My legal name is still Benjamin. And it's been what everyone's called me for the last fifteen or twenty years. The name I was born with is...well, the language we spoke is dead, but the closest thing to it is Γανυμήδης. In English it's Ganymede, but very few people know that."

Ganymede shrugs gently as if he were trying to rearrange an ill-fittign shirt, though he's still comfortably naked where he sits. "You can call me anything you like, Raylan. I can be just Ben, like I have been."

"It ain't about what I like. I think names are important. They mean somethin' to people."

It was about respect, it was about calling him by what he wanted to be called by, without any masks or lies or cover ups to keep his life the way it was going.

"What do you want?"

"They do," he admits, nodding. "And names are important. My given name, Ganymede, means roughly 'rejoicing in virility', which I would love to not have to explain all the time," he says with a gentle laugh at himself. "The names I choose for myself do tell a story as well--Benjamin meaning son of the right hand, or favored son; Prince meaning, well...prince. And I was. Youngest son of the king," Ganymede said quietly, drinking more bourbon. He does still miss his family, however much times, and the family dynamics, were different then.

"What I told you before is still true. I had two older brothers, and both are dead. And my hometown was destroyed in a war. Just the Trojan War." He reached out for Raylan's hand, fingertips gentle on the back of his hand. "I want you to call me Ben. What you have been calling me. I am Benjamin Prince as much as I am Ganymede son of Tros, as much as I was Bellamy Martel, or Sebastian Maddox. Or any other names I've had."

There was no hesitation in the way Raylan's hand turns over to spread his fingers and capture Ben's, entwining them together with a soft squeeze. He was stunned, brow softly furrowed and mind stuck on 'The Trojan War'. He didn't even know how long ago that was, without looking it up.

"So you're Greek?" The words were out of his mouth before he could help it and he felt immediately stupid for it. It didn't matter what Ben was, even if Raylan was asking out a curiosity about the man himself.

"Alright so you're - Immortal? What happens if you do catch a bullet in an unlucky place? I know you bleed, I can see the damage but-" How did that translate out?

"Trojan," Ganymede corrected softly, shaking his head a little though he squeezed Raylan's hand back with no small amount of relief. That his partner was confused or concerned or both he didn't mind; that he wasn't rapidly heading towards the belief that Ganymede was insane was what mattered. "Losing side of the war. I'd be...sort of halfway between Turkish and Greek, if I had to try and put a name to it." But he doesn't really consider himself any modern ethnicity or nationality, to be fair. He predates most countries anyway.

"That's where the slightly more complicated parts come in. I am immortal, yes, in that I won't age or die of natural cause. It...properly, I would be a demigod, though I don't really think of myself that way. But I can be injured--and temporarily, I can be killed. It's happened before even if only temporarily." Several times--many times, if he cared to count them all, but he doesn't. "But it doesn't stay. I always come back again, like waking up after you fall asleep too suddenly. I've never stayed dead more than about half an hour, at my best estimate."

Edited 2024-10-27 00:14 (UTC)

Raylan had always assumed the Trojan's were Greek, but that was likely obvious from the kneejerk question. He was open to re-education, even if this wasn't something he could possibly ever imagine without help understanding. Neither was he going to be testing what Ben was telling him and it will probably take him seeing it happen over the next few days for the reality of it to set in.

"A half hour? Shit. You're not Lazarus from the Bible too, are ya?"

It was an attempt at a joke - if they could even huff a little bit of a laugh, they were okay, right? Or had Ben heard that before, a million times over thousands of years.

"I'm not, that I can say easily. Though I have met some of those," he adds--people from the Bible, he means, though he doesn't elaborate much. "It's caused me some problems before. Waking up in a pine box and a shallow grave after being hanged doesn't do you any favors with anyone much."

Ganymede shifts back over to lean in against Raylan with a soft smile and a gentle laugh. "Back then there really wasn't a 'Greece' like we think of it now, it wasn't just one country. There were a dozen or more cities, each their own place, and their own people. But no, I wasn't Greek at all--people used to use that as an insult to men who like anal sex, 'being greek'. Because there was, and still is, a lot of social stigma attached to men who like being on the bottom." He's not angry, and he's certainly not insulted, because he knows Raylan didn't mean the question like that.

"I know it's hard to wrap your head around."

Raylan was quiet for a long few moments. It was a lot. A little overwhelming if he was honest and he was struggling, despite him trying his best. It was hard to articulate, only because there was such a vast age of references that lay between them. Vast age of understanding and experience between them.

The tidbit about 'being greek' being some insult about gay men made Raylan pull a disgusted face and shake his head. "No, god, I- I've never heard it bein' like that; that's not what I meant at all. It's not an opinion that I'm vocal about outside for obvious reasons, but anyone willin' to take a dick, to deal with primal men like that - winner in my book."

He believed it, yes, but there was a hint of 'telling yourself something a million times over to make it true' underneath the way he says it all.

"And it is. A lot to wrap my head around. Thank you for tellin' me, even if I'm gonna need to chew this in installments." If that was okay. He was a simple man and there was nothing simple about this situation.

Ganymede had to chuckle at the face Raylan made at that, shaking his head. "No, no. I didn't think you meant it like that. I just thought...you should know. I didn't think you'd think less of me for it anyway," he murmurs--not only because he's been in that position with Raylan himself, but also because the marshal just doesn't seem the type to spew vitriol over something as trivial as sex preferences. "You're allowed to be confused about it all. I am, and I've lived it."

And sometimes, his life barely made sense to him, much less anyone else. "And you're allowed to not want to know any more, either. If this is just too much, and too weird...you can blame it on today being a mess, and forget about it by morning." Ganymede wouldn't begrudge him that. He'd normally have brought this up much more tactfully and not just come out with it all at once, and in bed to boot, but the circumstances had presented a rare opportunity. Still, he fidgeted, pulling the braid of his hair over his shoulder to tug on it gently, a gesture Raylan had most likely seen him do before when he wanted reassurace, but wouldn't ask for it. Not in so many words.

"Do you still want me to stay here tonight?"

He was glad the ignorant faux pax was forgiven - he really would keep it in mind going forwards, but Ben was right - it wasn't Raylan's style. He liked to take dick as much as he liked to give it, though that wasn't something he was comfortable admitting out in the wide world like Ben was. He was also reassured by Ben's permission to be confused. The last thing that Raylan wanted to do was insult him.

"I want to know more. I wanna know you. And of course I still want you to stay tonight." He brings their laced hands up to kiss Ben's knuckles before unwinding their fingers to wrap an arm around the man as he discards his glass and pulls Ben back down onto the bed with him so he could wrap him up in his arms.

"Nothin's changed with me. I want you to know that. This all doesn't change how I feel about you or how much I enjoy spendin' time with you. That's all that matters. That we're enjoyin' each other."

The kiss to his hand, and the following pull to envelop him into Raylan's arms, made Ganymede all but melt into place again, only too happy to settle against someone who wanted him there, and didn't think he was crazy for having said all of what he'd just said. It was a lot--more than a lot if he was entirely and bluntly truthful with himself--and hearing Raylan say he wanted to know more was as uplifting to him as any love declaration would have been.

Possibly more than that, really. It was hard to get to know all the layers and nooks and hidden pockets of Ganymede's personality, the things he'd hidden away for so long to get by that didn't serve him making his way in the world anymore. "I enjoy your company more than you know," Ganymede murmured, settling down and in close against Raylan in the safe, protected hold of his arms. He brushed gentle kisses over his lover's collarbones and neck and chest, everywhere he could put his lips. "You make me feel worth the attention. The way you hold me and touch me...nobody has taken me at my word when I tell them I don't want gentle. Not in a long time."

He wasn't seeing Ben for anything other than who he was - now they just had literally thousands of years to add onto that day by day exploration. It was as simple as that. Neither did Raylan take Ben's outpour of vulnerable honesty for granted.

.. But on some things, Raylan's control was poor.

"Maybe they think it's elder abuse." He pulls back a fraction so he can smile down into Ben's face. The smile is soft and warm, but after he's sure Ben knows he's joking, it all slips towards something more serious.

"I trust you to know what you want. What you can handle. I'm not scared of hurtin' you. Not like I am with women. I trust that you can make smart decisions, even if maybe some'a my questions didn't suggest that. Just lookin' for what holes we can plug if we put our heads together.. And I suppose that's all moot now, but don't think that I'm gonna worry a fraction less now. Hurt is still hurt."

Ganymede gave a soft, inelegant little snort of laughter at the joke, but it put him at ease to know Raylan could tease him about it. It would be okay, the marshal could handle his extraordinary age, even if it would have to come in fits and starts and not all at once. Ganymede could deal with that all too easily. Even if his smile dimmed a little at the explanation, it didn't disappear, just softened.

"It doesn't have to be moot that you worry. It does still hurt if I get cut or break a bone." Or get shot, but he doesn't say that. The bandage still taped to his ribs says it plenty loud. "I still worry for you too. I know you're going to have guns pointed at you, and I know your draw has to be faster than everyone else. And I know it is," he murmured, fingertips tracing nonsensical patterns over his lover's skin just to feel. "But killing does something to a person. Even those of us that don't regret what we have to do at times."

"It's not, I won't worry a fraction less than I do now, which is a considerable amount." Of course he would still worry. This didn't change that.

But he takes and lets a breath out of his nose as Ganymede got around to what the man had asked for earlier. What Raylan had promised him earlier. Normally, Raylan didn't talk about work, because it always resulted in more worry. Worry that had eaten Winona alive from the inside. Worry that he couldn't curtail no matter how much reassurance he tried to give. Ben's touch helped soothe some of the bubbling anxiety that he would cause the same kind of pain to the now older man.

"Sometimes I don't like that it's the only thing I'm good at. But then I end up savin' some one from somethin' terrible, even if it doesn't change anything for them; not really. But at least they're alive enough to hit their next struggle. I've-" He stops and tightens his lips a little as he thinks about how to say it.

"I know what it is I'm doin' and over the years, it bothers me less. Lives don't weigh the same as they used to, if it's just some criminal cockroach. I don't know what that says about it."

"Maybe...I like you worrying about me," Ganymede murmured gently, shifting over to lay on top of Raylan, stretched out with his chin resting on the man's chest, watching and listening to what he said--and how he said it. It told volumes that Raylan wouldn't say what bothered him lest it bring consequence for someone else. "Oh, I don't think it's the only thing you're good at by a long shot. You're a smart man, Raylan Givens, no one can deny that. And the world is always going to need people like you--no matter how much it tries not to."

Ganymede has seen that over the years and centuries, and it's pointless to ignore the necessity of having men who are willing to kill when necessary. Ganymede himself has killed, and he doesn't regret it. The lives he took were forfeit to him for a reason. "I think it says that you've learned people have to want to be saved. You're ahead of most of us in that respect, honestly." He'd been guilty of falling into that trap himself, of trying to dig someone else out of a hole they were in, at the expense of his own well-being. Ganymede tilted his head and laid a gentle, thoughtful kiss over Raylan's heart. "What are you worried about it saying?"

Edited 2024-11-11 17:56 (UTC)

"Then you're all set, ain't you," Raylan rumbles back with good humor as he shifts with Ben's roll, letting the man move him as he wanted, hands sliding up to settle on Ben's thighs before moving up to drift along his back instead as he peers down into the youthful face.

Ben's praise held a lot of weight but it battled against a lifetime of self-shaping and situational renforcements that had long dug into the back of Raylan's mind and taken route. And he'd tried, over that lifetime, to dedicate himself to other things but chasing men down, killing those that deserved it, was always where he ended up.

How many bodies saved equaled out those taken, in the end?

"That it says I've gotten callus about it. That I might shoot my gun, end a life, for less than a good reason.. That I ain't any better than the people I'm puttin' down and end up bein' my daddy's son more than I already am."

He trusted Ganymede, despite the secret the now 'older' man had kept. He'd never been hurt here, never been mocked, and being able to answer honestly was a reward worth having.

"We're both safe, and here together," Ganymede says softly. "It could be worse." Raylan could have thought he was crazy, that his story and his age were unbelievable. It was a constant worry for him, really. He listened to his lover when he talked about becoming callous with the violence necessary for his job, and feathered his fingertips over Raylan's skin, soft and gentle.

"I don't think you're callous, love. Not even close," he murmurs. "If you were, you wouldn't have cared why someone got themselves killed today. You wouldn't have offered to teach me how to get myself out of that position safely, and you've done both." Ganymede kept his movement slow and easy as they spoke, tracing looping patterns over the swell and curve of the body underneath his. "I don't know your father, but I don't think you're much like him, the way you talk. But I know it worries you--what has he done that makes you dislike him?"

"It could always be worse," he murmurs back. His brain was far too willing to list out the reasons why, but he wasn't going to let that spill out of his mouth and ruin the mood. Ben's touch was both calming and soothing and left Raylan more inclined to lay here in the ease of their afterglow.

He liked the way 'love' sounded coming off those lips though. It warmed some deep part of him.

"If only we could talk other people into feelin' that way." The people that controlled the investigations into him, that controlled the babysitters that he was sometimes saddled with, the suspicious, however correct it was to come from suspicious men.

Ben's question was an innocent one, but that didn't stop the sting of being forced to look back on it any less.

"I could spend a year and a half detailin' out what Arlo Givens have done and it still wouldn't touch the true list of his sins. One day I'll tell you, but not tonight. All you need to know is that Arlo Givens isn't anythin' better than an abusive con man, lookin' for an angle to make a buck, no matter who he fucks over in the process. But I'm angry like him. Rash, like him. Capable of terrible things. Of bein' a terrible person, if I chose to be."

"If you chose to be," Ganymede repeated gently. "But you don't. Everyone on this earth is capable of terrible things, Raylan, you now that as much as I do. But it takes intent to do it." He fully believed that, as much as he fully believed the man he was laying on naked and already injured was not, in any stretch of the imagination, one of those people inclined to actually be terrible.

"I know you think I'm a terrible idealist saying all this. But I don't think you'd make the choice." He'd bet an awful lot of money, and other things, on that decision, and Ganymede stood by it. "Look at me, love."

He waited until Raylan looked at him, and stretched out to kiss him, lips soft and disguising the nip from his teeth on Raylan's bottom lip. "I like you holding me like this."

"Except when I do," he replies quietly, darkly. He wasn't as good as everyone seemed to think he was, though that didn't diminish how hard he tried to stay on the better path. It wasn't something he talked about, wasn't something he lingered on too long, but it was there none the less.

He comforted both of them by keeping his thumb moving along Ben's back, gaze lost out on the smooth curve of the man's shoulder, trying to not be haunted by his myriad of choices. When he's asked to look, he does without hesitation and without hiding any of the Everything that might be shining in them.

He hums softly as he kisses him back, huffing a little groan of amusement as his hands spread across Ben.

"That works out pretty well, considerin' I like holdin' you like this. It's.. peaceful here with you. A break from.. Everythin' out there." He made Raylan forget, for a few moments, the ugliness that lay outside the doors.

"Mmm, there you and I differ. Not all violence, not even all retribution, is the mark of evil," Ganymede murmurs softly in response. But he'll let the point lie, conceding to keep Raylan from digging into himself too deeply.

He dipped his head to press his lips to his lover's skin, gentle and slow as he enjoyed the feel of those hands. "I try to keep things peaceful. Not only because it helps you," he teased. "Talk to me, honey. Seems like something's bothering you."

Raylan shakes his head a little bit. "It's not evil. Sometimes its necessary. That don't make everythin' right."

It was more nuanced than good or evil. Good men murdered just like bad men, whatever their reasoning was. It was the difference between murderer and.. not. An argument that forever was inside his head, quieted most of the time only to be clamorous and insistent when that box was opened.

"Nah," he says softly, after a long second. "I'll be fine. All I want is somethin' to eat, another drink, and to curl up next to you. Everythin' looks better in the mornin', in my opinion."

"You want me to pick up dinner?" Ganymede asked instead, a soft and crooked smile playing around his mouth. He'd let the conversation lie there for a while, though he wanted so badly to reassure Raylan--he didn't know Arlo, and from the hints he'd gotten didn't particularly want to go searching for him, either--but it was clear whatever gulf divided him and his father, it would never be enough.

"Food and you sounds like a good combination right now." He'd never turn down just curling up with Raylan, warm in a bed or on a couch somewhere with those long, lanky limbs wrapped around him.

"It does. Yeah, I would. Whatever you wanna eat though, I don't much care as long as its good and we don't have to get dressed for it. Let's just hope that my phone doesn't ring, huh?"

Raylan was going to do his damnedest to make sure that Ben never met the Elder Givens, not that he thought that Ben wouldn't like Arlo - Everyone who didn't know him seemed to. Until they gave Arlo opportunity to show them that they shouldn't. It wasn't just Arlo's abuse that he hid, it was how much of himself it explained once someone had the whole picture.

"I'd hate it to interrupt the shower that we're gonna need before bed." Or the sex in that shower that would absolutely come.

Ganymede chuckled as he leaned down to drop a kiss on Raylan's mouth, levering himself up to find his jeans where they'd been discarded on the floor. "If it does, can I answer it?" he teased, a lighthearted smile on his face.

"Want to ride with me? Maybe we can get up to something more fun than just blasting the radio in the drive-thru," Ganymede suggested, relaxed enough to be playful with his friend and lover.

Raylan just gives him a playful but doubting look at all that. He didn't like asking for trouble and Ben answering his phone would be opening a door he didn't really want to deal with opening.

"Hell, I thought you were gonna order in." He doesn't hesitate in getting up to head towards his own jeans, just like he didn't hesitate in meeting that kiss when it had come.

"We could go eat down by the river. Stop somewhere, get a 6 pack to enjoy with the view with our food. What kinda food are you feelin', darlin'."

"Only teasing, love," he answers, shaking his head gently. "I don't want to get you in trouble."

He smiles at the suggestion of getting beers to enjoy the murmur of the river while they eat, and rubs his thumb over Raylan's jaw with a soft look. "Anything I don't have to use utensils for is good. How about the chicken place you showed me a while back? Since I still haven't mastered frying it myself." Ganymede could and would admit to not having the easiest time in learning to fry chicken correctly--it was surprisingly difficult for someoen who'd never had the time or the equipment necessary for oil frying.

"I want to spend time with you, that's all."

He hums a note of acknowledge as he does up his jeans and belt, pulling his t-shirt on and leaving it rumpled and uneven as he hunts down his boots.

"I could teach you, you know. How to fry good chicken. Pass you down my favorite recipe," he drawls as he ambles over fully booted to slide his hands around Ben's waist and pull him in. "I know you do, darlin'. And as long as my cellphone doesn't light up for somethin', I'm all yours till mornin'." He bends and kisses Ben's neck.

"Now. How 'bout that chicken."

"You'll have to, I haven't yet learned from a recipe," Ganymede chuckles, leaning back against Raylan with his head cocked to give his lover access to his neck, winding his hands around Raylan's on his waist. "Something about the whole process just...escapes me." He had no problem admitting to the shortcomings; he'd learned to cook for himself relatively late in life, comparative to most everyone else he'd met. But most people hadn't had a palace full of servants to do that for them, too.

"If your cellphone lights up, you go," he murmurs. "It's your job, it's what you do. What you need to do." He held no grudges about what Raylan did.

"We'll sort that out," Raylan promises softly, smile spreading at how cute that was. It's just frying chicken. Cook it until it's done. But he understood - everyone learned differently and not everyone grew up in the south where, inarguably, the art of it had been perfected.

He squeezes Ben gently, nodding into the crook of his neck. "I hope that's an opinion that doesn't change."

The few times they'd talked about Winona, Raylan had been as frank as he could be. Best he figured it, she left because she couldn't handle staying up at night, worrying about if she was going to get a call that he'd been shot. Again. He didn't blame her. He wouldn't blame Ganymede either. It was a lot to shoulder.

"And thank you," he follows in a half whisper, kissing his neck again before slipping around him to get the rest of his things, ready to go.

He could handle the cooking part; it was everything that came before it that he hadn't yet mastered. Not quite, not enough for him to want to make it for Raylan and have it turn out tasting bad. He could figure it out with enough time and trial, yes, Ganymede wasn't unintelligent: it just wasn't something he'd tried to gain ease in doing for himself alone. But having a lover who liked it...that was much better motivation. Raylan usually was.

"It won't," he murmured back to the soft hope his friend voiced, holding tight until Raylan let go first. Ganymede knew he would worry about Raylan when he was working, that was simply part of life. But the marshal was smart, skilled, determined...and lucky. And he could do nothing more than trust Raylan wouldn't gamble with his own life too recklessly for something that he didn't believe in. He trusted that Raylan could do his job, and do it well.

He had evidence now too, and that certainly made the trusting easier. Ganymede could recall with a truly startling clarity the look on Raylan's face as he'd aimed and fired at the man who'd been holding him at gunpoint hours ago.

"Always," he murmured back, returning the kiss to the soft skin just below Raylan's earlobe, following him out once he'd slipped a shirt back on, carefully hiding the bandage on his ribs. The nearest place to get food wasn't far, and Ganymede decided to just watch Raylan for a moment, studying the way the man held things and marveling for a flash of a moment how those fingers could be so dexterous in so many other ways.

It would be fun, them doing it together. Ben learning how to weigh down a table with southern goods so rich as to make any man that sat at it satisfied to his core. If there was one thing Raylan was good at that wasn't shooting, it was eating. Once he was out on his own, making his own food was the only way he got that satisfaction.

He was reassured by the promise in return that Ben's feeling wouldn't change, though only time would prove the reality of that promise. He would do his best on his side to hold it up right, to hold it in a way that honored Ben properly.

His keys spin in his hand and once and once Ben was ready, he leads them out the door and to the car.

"I know this place just down the road, sells some chicken that'll blow your socks right off. My treat. We can go eat it down by the river if you'd like, get some beer, make a real meal out of it."

"Oh, then it must be good," Ganymede teases back with an impish little grin; he rarely ever wore shoes that required socks, unless they were boots for work, which he was still in now. He climbed in gamely--he hadn't taken off the bandage on his side, and after the exertions earlier he knew it wouldn't be healed over yet--but fluidly enough to fool most observers, and with every indication that although it hurt, he wasn't going to ease up in most anything he did.

"I only learned to cook relatively late, considering everyone else. My mother certainly didn't teach me--it was unlikely she knew how herself, being the Queen. And at the time I truly didn't think I needed to learn how from the kitchens," he murmured, once the car had rumbled to life. "I'm decent at a great many dishes, and better than average on a few others, but...southern cuisine has always baffled me. It did even when I first had it." Which had been long, long ago and far, far away indeed; the swampy inlets of the Carolina coast held several close memories for him.

He sighed gently, looking out the window at the twinkling lights that filtered through the night: he loved seeing cities at night, when everything that man had built gave way to the dark, and mortals hurried inside and shut themselves in where it was safe. He and Raylan, on the other hand...safety was often bypassed, either by their own decision or someone else's. It was a very large part of why he could be so circumspect on the prospect of his lover facing harm.

"It's been a long time since I've done this, you know."

psl for Raylan: post-shootout

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