I have been chewing on some Justified fic for quite a while now, and now that it's Christmas, and ain't that a special occasion, I had a sudden surge of inspiration and I am trying with all I have to finish this story before Christmas is over. I thought it would be easier... somehow it's not moving at the right pace...

But, as I said. I try. Now. About the story.

It takes place, as will be mentioned an exhausting amount of times throughout the chapters, on Christmas Eve, and that's about everything that makes it a Christmas story. It'll be mostly Boyd, cause that's just how I do it, and Raylan, too, cause I love both of 'em, and they're a great team. This first chapter is written from Daniel Duris' POV, an OC I introduced in my last Justified fic, "Some Kind of Strange", and I'd recommend reading that first, cause I think otherwise you'd be lost, or bored, probably both. Or you can forgo the first chapter altogether and start with the second chapter which I'll post as soon as I can and which is a) from Raylan's POV and b) that's where the actual plot starts.

Rating's T, as a precaution. Also, English is not my native language, I do my best. If you got constructive criticism for me, I'll be glad to hear it.

Also, I do not own Justified, and am not making any money with this.

That being said, enjoy!

The Key to Every Door

It was the 24th of December, and Daniel Duris was quite excited, mainly because it would be the first Christmas Eve in six years for him that he would not spend alone. Or in a prison cell.

When Boyd Crowder had recruited him – it couldn't be described any different, since that was exactly what it was – he'd introduced Daniel to his cousin Johnny, a grumpy guy in a wheelchair, his associate Jimmy, a guy about Daniel's age who seemed nice enough, if not a little stupid, and his beautiful girlfriend, Ava. Seeing her made Daniel's mouth dry and his palms sweat. He'd never been good with girls.

Johnny was the only one who eyed him with any suspicion. With his grayed hair and narrowed eyes he looked just like that Marshal with the Stetson. Ava greeted him with an open smile and some kind words, and the nice chat and drink in the bar turned into dinner at Ava's house, where Daniel had the best homemade dinner in six years. Granted, it was the only one, too, but that just made it even more special for him. He stopped looking at Boyd Crowder like the man was a criminal mastermind, which he probably was, and started looking at him like a… good man. Like a friend. Because that's how Boyd talked to Daniel: Like they were friends, equals.

Most of the people Daniel had talked to since he'd been released from prison had only talked down to him. In prison it had been everyone. Daniel had started to feel that if there was a pecking order in life, he had to be at the bottom of it. He'd grown used to the feeling, then, fueled by the fact that his family hated him for the one sole mistake he had ever made in his whole life, and at some point he'd stopped caring. And now Boyd Crowder came along and practically told him, if not in words, then in actions, that this was not true, that Daniel did not have to place himself at the bottom of any order he felt there might be.

After Ava had poured some bourbon into him, Daniel started to loosen up a little, talked a little more, and when Boyd made the suggestion about borrowing him "The Handmaid's Tale" again, he told Boyd that he'd already read it, and they started a discussion about what was good about it and what was not, and the other occupants at the table consisting of Johnny and Ava stopped talking and just listened, not only to Boyd, who sounded like he was born to make people listen to him, but to Daniel, as well, as if what he said actually mattered some.

And that, Daniel knew for certain, had never been the case before, not even with his own family, not even when he hadn't been to prison yet, when he'd just been a small, shy, straight-A student.

At about 1 o'clock in the morning, Johnny had said goodnight an hour before, Daniel said it was time to go home. He was pleasantly buzzed, and tired, and not too keen on getting in his old Sedan for the two-and-a-half-hour drive back to Oliver Springs, especially now that it got colder at night and the heater in his car had long since stopped functioning. He'd be freezing his ass off, he just knew it, but that there might be the possibility to avoid getting into any vehicle tonight entirely, it never crossed his mind.

"Where do you live?" Ava asked him from across the table, sipping at her bourbon.

"Oliver Springs."

She furrowed her lovely brow. "Never heard of it. Where is that?"

"Tennessee" Boyd answered. "About 30 miles from Knoxville, I think."

"Is it far?"

"Bout two and a half hours from here, ain't that right?" Boyd looked straight at Daniel, as if he'd just asked a question that he seriously needed an answer to. Daniel knew already that Boyd liked to do that, asking obvious questions and prompting Daniel to talk.

"S'about right" he said and shrugged his shoulders.

"Two and a half hours?" Ava sounded offended and Daniel looked at her, worried now and seriously confused.

"Yeah. What?"

"Honey, you ain't drivin' that long a way in the middle of the night now. You're drunk, and tired, and we got a spare room. I can get you two blankets and a pillow."

"No, no, that's so not necessary, I can just drive…"

But Ava was having none of it. Daniel looked to Boyd for help and saw the familiar toothy grin pointed at him. Something clicked.

"Well… alright, I guess." He yawned and covered his mouth with one hand.

"So you're livin' in Tennessee?" Ava smiled, now that she got what she wanted.

"Yeah."

"Were you born there, too?"

"Uhuh."

"You got family down there?"

"Not really."

"What d'you mean, not really?" Boyd sounded curious, and wide awake. "Either you got some, or you don't."

"Well, my family do live there, but they don't see me as family no more, so…"

"Why, what happened?" Ava asked, sounding upset.

"Oh, prison happened, baby, I can tell you that much" Boyd sighed.

Daniel looked at his lap. "Yeah. Didn't want nothin' to do with me when I got my release three years early, the lot of 'em. Disowned me, the whole deal."

"Disowned you?" Ava asked. "What did they do that for?"

"Don't know. They never told me. Just got a letter, two months into my sentence, 'n that was that."

"You got any friends in Oliver Springs, Daniel?" Boyd asked, and Daniel heard that tone in his voice again, like Boyd was asking this question because he wanted the conversation to have a certain outcome.

"Nah. Ain't so good at makin' friends. Suck at keeping 'em, too."

"So… what is it that's holdin' you there, then?" Boyd looked at him quite pointedly. To someone else that question might have seemed offensive, but Daniel Duris took it for what it was. He thought hard about it, like he did with everything Boyd said.

"Well… I've lived there all my life… I got a home there…"

"May I correct you, son; you got a residence there. You ain't got no home where your people live and turn their backs on you the minute you do somethin' wrong. That ain't the definition of home."

"Okay then. I don't got a home there. What're you tellin' me?"

"Come to Kentucky is what I'm tellin' you, son! Time for a fresh start, don't you think?" Boyd grinned at him again. "Also, if we be seein' you around here more often, and I do hope that we'll do, you can't always make that long a drive back and forth. No offense, but your car don' look like it's up to that task."

It wasn't, Daniel knew from experience. "But, it might take a while, I… I have to look for a place to live here first-"

"Well, you could always stay with us" Ava intercepted.

Boyd looked at her like she'd just given him a present. "Thank you, Ava, for makin' that kind suggestion" he said slowly, pretending that it had been her idea all along while Ava and Daniel could see right through him.

"No", Daniel said. "I can't do – I don't want to force myself – I mean, you barely know-"

"Daniel" Boyd interrupted his stammering. "Yes, you can do that. You ain't forcing nothin' on us, it was Ava, made the suggestion, and, in my opinion, I think we know you just enough to know that this is a very good idea."

"Take it, Danny" Ava said. It was what his momma had always called him, she couldn't know, but it made him flinch and love her at the same time. "It's alright to say yes, you know. We ain't gonna disown you if you make a mistake. That's not how it goes, not with us."

"You can have a home here" Boyd added. And so the deal was sealed.

That was two months ago, and Daniel had not actively looked for a place to live yet, although he'd sworn that this arrangement was just temporary. He'd just moved into the spare room, slept wrapped up in blankets and a spare pillow on the spare mattress until he got the bed linen from his old apartment in Tennessee, along with some other things, mostly books. Boyd and Jimmy had accompanied him, and Daniel felt, for the first time in a long time, not alone. About a week later they made the drive to Springs again, with Boyd's pickup and another one, and transported all the furniture that Daniel wanted to keep to Harlan to deposit it in some storage room that Boyd was able to rent for next to nothing.

That same day, they followed him when he went to talk to his landlord to give up the apartment. Daniel didn't have to quit his job, his boss did that all by himself when Daniel didn't show up the second day in a row. Now there really was nothing left that would have kept him in this town.

Daniel thought about telling his parents he was moving to Kentucky, but he didn't.

And today was Christmas Eve. It was 9 am, and he listened politely as Ava chatted away about what she was going to cook them for dinner and that she could hardly wait to see Boyd's face when he opened his present.

Thinking of Boyd, Daniel wondered why he hadn't gotten up yet – usually Boyd was an early riser, always the first to get up, to take a shower, to make some coffee, strong enough to wake the dead. But today he'd slept in. Not that it was a particularly nice day so far, Daniel thought as he looked out of the window at the steel-gray sky and the rain that was lightly beating against the windowpane. The sun hadn't completely ascended the hills yet, so it was still dark outside. Daniel could hear the wind blow. But Ava had lit a couple of candles, and it was warm in the kitchen, and the sound of the rain against the glass of the windows was soothing, as was the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the air that mingled with the spicy scent of the small fir tree Boyd had brought in yesterday. Ava had decorated it and charmed Daniel into giving her a hand. The whole scene was so ridiculously homey that for a moment, Daniel wanted to pinch himself.

This was a good thing. Good things didn't happen to Daniel Duris. Or at least that's what he'd thought for 28 years. Maybe, Daniel thought to himself and smiled a small smile while he sipped the coffee that Ava had made, maybe I've thought that all wrong.

Him and Ava looked up when they heard someone descending the stairs. A minute later Boyd entered the kitchen, looking crumpled from being in bed too long, his hair looking even wilder than usual, and greeted them with a long, loud, drawn-out yawn.

"Mornin' to you, too, sunshine" Ava said laughing. "Are you okay? You haven't slept that long in… well, ever."

"Didn' sleep well" Boyd murmured.

"Yeah, I noticed. You been tossin' and turnin' the whole night."

"Sorry, baby." He kissed her on the top of her head on the way to the coffee machine. Daniel noticed he took his coffee black, with a spoonful of sugar and nothing else. Boyd sat on the chair next to Ava heavily and sighed.

"You excited yet?" Ava padded his leg through the pajama bottoms he was wearing.

"Excited?" Boyd looked at her blearily. "Baby, what the hell would I be excited about?"

"It's Christmas Eve, Boyd! It's gonna be beautiful. Johnny's comin' over, and I'm gonna spend the whole afternoon cooking – I'mma try out a new recipe today, something I read in a magazine, and have you seen the tree? Danny helped me decorate it."

"Uhuh" Boyd murmured, swallowing half of his coffee in one go.

Ava furrowed her brow. "You really sure you are okay?"

"I just didn' sleep well, nothin' to worry about, I promise." He smiled at her, and she smiled back, and Daniel, who was good at observing things, knew that these two people loved each other with all their hearts. It was beautiful, and he'd never experienced something like it himself. He hoped he would one day.

The morning progressed, the sun slowly peeked over the hills and it became lighter outside, though the rain did not abate. Boyd chatted with Ava and Daniel and seemed more and more alert. Everything seemed fine, until Boyd said he would go take a shower and made to stand up – suddenly his face turned white, and Daniel stood up and reached out to him, saying his name worriedly. Ava turned from the stove and rushed over to where Boyd was faltering.

"Baby? Boyd, are you okay? What is it?"

Boyd closed his eyes and shook his head. "I'mma… need to go… outside" he said. They watched him slowly walk to the door, heard him walk out into the stronger rain, and when they heard him throw up, Ava ran after him.

Daniel slowly followed her lead, and he stopped on the porch and looked on as Boyd stood at the foot of the stairs, holding onto the railing for dear life while he lost the two cups of coffee he'd consumed onto Ava's front yard, and Ava stood next to him, her face distorted with worry while she tenderly stroked his back. The two of them were getting soaked in rain, but Boyd didn't notice and Ava didn't care.

When there was nothing left for Boyd to throw up, he carefully sat himself on the wet steps and let out a shuddering sigh. Ava crouched down in front of him and lifted a hand to cup his cheek.

"Baby, what is it? What's goin' on? You sick?"

"I don' know… feel better now, though." Boyd shrugged his shoulders. "I'm still exhausted, but I'm okay now, I think."

"You should come inside, then. You're soakin' wet – if you ain't sick now, you might be later if you don't warm yourself up. It's freezing!"

"Actually, I'm hot as hell right now."

Ava touched Boyd's forehead with her palm to check for a fever, and Daniel didn't fault her on it – it was really cold outside. A few degrees lower, he thought, and they might have snow on Christmas Eve, and Boyd was sitting there in nothing but a wifebeater that was already completely soaked through and pajama bottoms that weren't far behind, and he was complaining about heat?

"You don't seem to have a fever… but I don't care, you're comin' in right now, Boyd, come on. Take a shower, eat something, and you'll feel better. Okay?"

Boyd wiped a hand across his face and blinked through the rain. "Okay" he said and slowly lifted himself. This time he didn't falter, although he had a steel grip on the railing when he climbed up the stairs to the porch. Ava stayed next to him the whole time, a save hand on his shoulder.

Inside, she told him to sit on one of the kitchen chairs and got a towel. Daniel lurked at the edge of the room and watched concernedly as Boyd struggled to peel the wet wifebeater off of his body. Daniel gazed at the swastika on Boyd's upper arm. It wasn't the first time he'd seen it, but he remembered what he'd thought when he did – it was just so huge, and dark and imposing, although its meaning probably had something to do with that. Daniel wanted to ask Boyd if it bothered him sometimes to carry that thing around with him, but he'd been too shy before, and now that Boyd seemed to feel ill it was obviously not the right time for this conversation.

Ava came back with a towel and told him to dry his hair and then go take a shower. "And put somethin' on your stomach, will you?" she said and kissed his forehead before looking at him softly. "You'll feel better."

"Alright, Ava." Boyd had a way of saying her name like it was a praise. It always made Daniel smile when he heard it.

That was the first chapter. As I said, the actual plot starts in chapter 2. There was a little Boyd whump in it, I couldn't help myself, and there's just not enough of it in this world. Also, this is my first multi-chaptered Justified fic, and if anyone's inclined to review, I certainly won't complain.

The title is a line from "Rocky Mountain High" by John Denver. I do listen to John Denver sometimes, but Justified made me discover a side of myself that actually enjoys listening to country music every now and then :)