Fic: Most of Me - 6/7
Title: Most of Me
Author: Barb
Fandom: Magnificent 7
Universe: OW (Spoiler for Wagon Train)
Word Count: approx. 20,416
Pairing: Chris/Vin (eventually)
Rating: R
Warnings: Lots o' swearing, a bit of non-con touching.
Author's notes: This is pre-pre slash. I’m assuming that you are already familiar with the characters and the episodes. If not, go read some M7 summaries or M7 fiction and then come back. I dislike working an entire back story and character definitions into the opening paragraph of a story. It usually comes off as too contrived.
No one takes a tumble like Vin did down that hill and shakes it off for long. And I hated Charlotte. Soooo . . .
And a HUGE thank you to the pre-emminent Beta in the Universe, Fara.
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Ezra shuffled the deck of cards efficiently without conscience thought as he studied their brooding leader. Chris sat apart from everyone in the smoky saloon, a silent but tangible barrier erected about himself that dissuaded anyone from joining him. The gambler turned to Josiah, his poker partner of the moment, and dealt the cards with an effortless precision.
“Our esteemed colleague seems to be struggling under a heavy burden. He has been out of sorts for several days now.”
Josiah glanced at Chris, then back to his cards, squinting in the dim light of the kerosene lanterns. “He’s worried about Vin. It’s only natural.”
Ezra shrugged, one elegant eyebrow raised. “But our young friend will be fine and Mr. Larabee continues to brood. He seems to prefer the company of his bottle to the company of our injured friend as well. I find it mildly . . . eccentric.”
“Chris is a complex man, Ezra,” Josiah responded, “and they were sparring with each other quite a bit during our sojourn with the settlers. I’m sure that whatever it is, they will work it out. I’ve never seen two men more in accord with each other than those two. They are meant to be boon companions for life, Lord willing.”
Ezra cocked his head and eyed Josiah skeptically. “I fear, dear fellow, that you have an over optimistic view of life. It has been my experience that such gifts as that which you speak of are not for the likes of men such as ourselves.”
Josiah simply smiled at the gambler. “Oh ye of little faith, my friend. There is none so blind as he who will not see. Especially something that is right in front of you, if you but hold out your hand.”
Ezra rolled his eyes at the whimsical preacher and discarded an eight and a queen.
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Buck stepped out onto the porch in front of the jail as Chris exited the saloon. He watched his old friend stride determinedly to the livery and exit a short while later with Pony in tow. The lean gunman swung himself up into the saddle and gigged the horse slightly to bring him up to the front of the jailhouse. Looking down at Buck, Chris face betrayed nothing but determination.
“I‘ll be back in a coupla days or so. If you need me, I’ll be in Purgatorio. You’re in charge.” And with that, he swung Pony around and headed out. Buck eyed his departing back curiously.
“Well, shit. What the Hell is that all about?” he murmured to himself.
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Vin’s eyes lifted slowly, waiting to test the light levels in the room before committing himself to full awareness and the possibility of stabbing pain through his eyeballs and tender head. He was therefore pleasantly surprised that the wicks had been turned down in the lamps and the soft glow that suffused the room bore no undue stress on his already overburdened brain.
A glance to his left also revealed two pieces of information. It was night, and probably very late judging by the diminished glow of the watch fires light through the windows, and Chris Larabee sat slouched in the chair next to his bed, bottle of Rye in hand.
Vin eyed the gunslinger silently as he was being eyed in return. This was the first he’d seen of his friend since he had awakened three days ago. He’d tried to ask the others when they visited about the gunslingers absence but they seemed to be as much in the dark as Vin, only stating that he’d lit out for Purgatorio. To Vin, that was never good news.
“Somethin’ up, Chris?” Vin croaked out, somewhat dismayed by the timber of his rusty voice.
Chris eyed his friend warily, looking for evidence that the man in front of him was still the man he had known just a few days before. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, really. Vin looked the same, despite the white linen bandage around his head and the rather pallid shade to his skin. He took another swig of the cheap Rye before offering it to Vin with a careless shrug.
The tracker’s eyebrow crept toward his hairline but he shifted himself carefully upward until he was reclining at a decent angle for drinking. Taking the bottle in a slightly shaky hand, he knocked back a slug of the fiery liquid, feeling the burn of it all the way to his stomach. He grimaced before turning carefully back to his enigmatic friend.
“That’s a better pain killer than the horse piss that Nathan was feeding me.” he said, eyes crinkling slightly in amusement. Chris only nodded, eyes on the wall next to Vin. The tracker frowned. “Everything all right? Everyone OK?”
“Everyone is fine, Vin. Except for you.” Chris answered uncomfortably. Why was he so ill at ease? He was acting like Vin was going to jump out of the bed and bite him. All he was doing was making the situation worse with his recalcitrant behavior. He force a smile, still not able to meet Vin’s eyes. “Just don’t like to see you layed up. Ain’t used to seeing you hurt, I guess.”
Vin nodded uncertainly. Chris was keeping something from him, he could tell. “Yeah, still cain’t believe it, although it sure feels like I been scalped sure enough.” He reached a hand toward the bandage swathing his head but dropped it back to the bed before touching it. “Gimme another sip of your rot gut?”
Chris obliged and watched surreptitiously as Vin’s lips wrapped around the bottle neck, then hastily averted his gaze in a panic. The room felt suddenly warmer and he shifted uncomfortably. When he looked back up, Vin had him pinned with a steely blue gaze.
“Out with it, Chris.” he ground out. “Somethin’s stuck in your craw so you might as well spit it out afore it chokes you.”
Chris tensed, turning his head away. Damn it, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide his misgiving from this man, of all people. For the first time he cursed the complete empathy that sometimes seemed to lay between them.
“What’s the last thing you remember before wakin’ up here?” he questioned quietly. Vin frowned, thinking back.
“I . . . I remember leavin’ the wagon train.” he murmered hesitantly. “Riding. We stopped for the night . . . um . . .” Vin’s eyebrows crinkled in frustration, then rose in indignation. “Nathan made me take off my shirt in front of Mary!” His face tinged slightly pink at the memory and Chris grinned a small, genuine smile for the first time since this had all started. He watched as Vin struggled to retrieve another memory before finally sighing and shaking his head slowly.
“That’s it. Can’t remember anything after that.” Vin turned to face Chris squarely. “Why? What’d I do?”
Chris held up a hand. “Nothin’, unless you consider fainting dead away in my arms normal.”
Vin growled low. “I didn’t ‘faint’. Maybe I passed out but I didn’t faint. Ya make it sound like I swooned away like some silly girl.”
Chris grinned again. “Well, it sure as Hell looked like you were swoonin’ to me.” he teased. For a moment, everything felt back to normal between them, until the memory of Vin passing out in his arms after he had chased Vin’s would be rapist off flashed through his head. His grin faltered. Vin caught the change on his friends face and frowned.
“Chris,” he said in a low voice, “just get it over with. Somethin’ must a happened ‘cause it’s written all over your face.”
Chris looked away, studying the shifting shadows thrown by the lamps for a moment. Taking another swig of the Rye, he turned back to Vin and faced him squarely. “I found you in an alley fighting off some big cowboy from a passing drive. I sent him packin’ just before you took your nose dive.” He paused, uncertain on how to proceed. Vin furrowed his brows in confusion.
“So? I was fightin’ with some idjit. Why’s that got you all tied up in knots? Ain’t the first time I’ve brawled with some mouthy cowboy.”
Chris grimaced. “It wasn’t a fight he was wanting with you, Vin.” Just the memory of that moment, that bastard’s hands on Vin, shot such a brief and intense homicidal fury through Chris that it could still shake him all these days later. His emotions toward that event disturbed him almost as much as what it had revealed to him about Vin. He was afraid to pick them apart. Shoving the roiling thoughts back down, he turned to Vin, who had gone silent.
He watched the confusion on his friends face slowly give way to comprehension. Vin’s face drained of all color and a look of horror and fear crept over it. Chris was startled. In all the time he had known Vin, he had never seen stark fear in his friend. It was disconcerting. Vin was the strongest man he had ever met. This entire situation was showing him more sides to the man than Chris had ever expected, or wanted, to see. He hastened to reassure Vin.
“Nothing happened. I got there in time. You were trying to fight him, Vin, but you were pretty sick by then. He run off and you passed out.”
Vin raised a shaking hand and scrubbed it across his mouth, drained suddenly. He closed his eyes briefly, resting his head back on the pillow and trying to gather his scattered wits. The pain in his head, recently dulled to a low throb, ratcheted up a notch.
“That ain’t all, though, is it?” He stretched out a hand to the bottle of liquor and Chris obliged him, watching as Vin took a healthy swig of the fiery Rye. Chris wasn’t sure why he was doing this or why it had to be now, but it had been eating away at him and Chris was not a passive person. He liked to face things head on. He found this to be no different. A few days of rutting mindlessly with the whores in Purgatorio had done nothing to clear his head. He had come here straight upon his return, slipping in while the town slept. The gunman plunged on.
“When I was coming into the alley, he was talking to you. Saying things.” Chris watched as Vin’s face froze, a look of trepidation stealing across it. “He said you were ‘the same’ as him. He could tell.”
Vin’s previously white face suffused to red, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “What the Hell’s that supposed to mean, Larabee! You got somthin’ to say, you just spit it out ’cause I’m getting mighty tired of this dance.”
Chris knocked back another swallow of Rye, feeling a reckless irritation flooding his veins. Fuck this. Vin was right. He had been pussy footing around the subject for days now. He turned a hard glare on the younger man.
“Ok, Vin. You told me the morning we left the homesteaders that you had figured it out. What did you figure out, Vin? You got something you've been hidin' from me?”
Vin stiffened, then turned his face away, staring at the far wall as he responded in a low, dead voice.
“Get out.”
“I don’t think so. I think I got a right to know what kind of man I’ve been callin’ ‘friend’.”
“Fuck you, Chris. You ain’t gotta know nothing’. Get the fuck outta here.” Vin bit out, face still turned away. His hands were clenched into white knuckled fists, breath coming in short, angry puffs. Chris sneered at him.
“Only woman I ever seen you with was that wagon train whore and you been givin’ me funny looks these last few days. Saying things that don’t make any sense. Got something you wanna tell me, pard?” The last word was drawled out sarcastically, biting and bitter.
The knowledge that he may have acted in an inappropriate manner during the last few days horrified Vin. His heart felt like it was trying to split in two as a cold, oily fear swept through him. Chris continued, the Rye in his system adding a nasty bite to his words.
“Thought I knew you, Vin. Guess I was wrong. You hid it real well, too. I never would’ve guessed. Took a knock to the head to get your guard down. Now I’m thinkin’ that while you might’ve had my back, it’s been my backside you been wantin’ all along. That true?”
Vin’s head pounded and his vision swam but he ignored it. His life was crumbling around him and he could only think of one way to make it right.
“You ain’t gotta worry about nothin’,” he ground out, “cuz I’ll be gone by first light.”
Silence fell, Vin‘s heavy, pained breathing the only sound in the room aside from the steady ticking of the mantel clock. Chris blinked, confused, as the anger abruptly drained out of him. Vin leaving? Was that what he wanted? The problem solved, or at least removed. The gunslinger shifted uncomfortably at the thought of his life without Vin in it. Wouldn’t it be simpler? Easier? Or just more cowardly? The silence stretched uncomfortably.
Chris shifted nervously on his chair. “Vin . . .” he started, but nothing would come out. Vin was still turned away, staring morosely at the far wall, refusing to acknowledge Chris. The older man suddenly stood, feeling the need to pace.
“I . . . I didn’t mean . . . I just want to figure out what’s going on with you, that’s all. I want to understand, I guess. Maybe make some sense of it. What happened? Why’d you have to go and . . . and . . .” he trailed off uncertainly.
Vin’s head came up, his blue eyes blazing. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Chris! You think I want this? You think I just woke up one mornin’ and decided I wanted to be a Nancy boy? It ain’t a choice, Chris, it just is.”
Chris shook his head in bewilderment. “Maybe livin’ with the Indian’s . . .?” Vin sighed and looked down at his shaking hands.
“They didn’t do nothing’ to me to make me this way, Chris. I think I’ve always known, in a way, but I just didn’t want to see it. The People, they got different ways on lookin’ at it, maybe, but that don’t mean they helped me understand myself any better.” Vin looked up at Chris again, and the gunslinger was shaken at the misery in those big, blue eyes. “A lot of the People respect the choice of a man to go with another man. Some, like the Cheyenne, don't hold with it any more than the white folk. The Sioux think a winkte has special powers and the Kiowa would have accepted it easily enough but someone's got to be the squaw in the relationship and you know damn well it would have been the outsider and I sure as Hell ain't no ones squaw."
Chris was surprised that he could find amusement at the moment but the thought of the tough-as-nails, stubborn, irritating man in front of him being subservient to any man made the gunslinger lips curl up at the corners. Vin must have found some confidence in that small gesture because he continued.
"You might think it's funny, Chris, but the Two-Spirit has gotta do the woman's work and be with the maidens n' everything. It's downright embarrassin'. Tell you the truth, between the white man's ways and the different ways of the People, I'm still just as confused as ever. I’ve tried bein’ with women. It’s OK, I guess, but it don’t . . . it isn’t . . . ah Hell! I don't want to be this way but I don't know how to not be." He looked down at his hands again, falling silent again, face pinched and white. Chris pondered the situation for awhile before passing the bottle of Rye back to Vin again. The anger he had tried so hard to fan into flames before had receded to a weary resignation. This wasn’t going to go away and it wasn’t going to get fixed. He watched Vin take a large swig of the cheap liquor and wondered about the young man before him. Another stray thought chased itself across him brain.
"So . . . have you ever . . . you know. With a guy?"
Vin jerked his head up and stared incredulously at Chris. "Jesus, Chris!" His face burned. "No. No I ain't. I been tryin' too damn hard to be normal. I wanted it to be right between Charlotte 'n me so bad. Ya gotta believe that. It just wasn't. I been tryin' so hard to ignore this for so long that I thought I could make myself be what I'm supposed to be but it ain't gonna work. I know that now. I'm just gonna have to learn to live with it and if that means I gotta leave town, well . . . I guess I can learn to live with that, too." he finished in a whisper.
Silence reigned again as Vin passed the bottle back. The first faint signs of the rising sun began to present in the Eastern sky; a faint lightening of the darkness and a few stirrings of birdsong. The mantel clock ticked monotonously along.
Finally Chris sighed.
"I don't want you to leave, Vin. I've gotten too used to having you around. No one else has figured this out and I won't be lettin' on. I'll learn to get used to it, I guess. We'll just go on like this never happened.” he lied convincingly. Vin pressed a hand to his aching head and shrugged wearily.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t think right now.”
“Well don’t. We’ll just forget about this. You just . . . “ Chris trailed off.
“Just what, Chris? Pretend that everything is good between us? That I’m ‘normal’ like you?” Vin whispered, slanting his eyes up at the gunman again.
Chris swallowed uncomfortably. “Yeah. Something like that. We’ll work it out.”
Before Vin could respond, footsteps approached steadily up the stairs. Both men looked at the bottle of Rye in Chris’ hand, then at each other before turning guilty faces toward the door.
“Shit.”
Author: Barb
Fandom: Magnificent 7
Universe: OW (Spoiler for Wagon Train)
Word Count: approx. 20,416
Pairing: Chris/Vin (eventually)
Rating: R
Warnings: Lots o' swearing, a bit of non-con touching.
Author's notes: This is pre-pre slash. I’m assuming that you are already familiar with the characters and the episodes. If not, go read some M7 summaries or M7 fiction and then come back. I dislike working an entire back story and character definitions into the opening paragraph of a story. It usually comes off as too contrived.
No one takes a tumble like Vin did down that hill and shakes it off for long. And I hated Charlotte. Soooo . . .
And a HUGE thank you to the pre-emminent Beta in the Universe, Fara.
M7M7M7M7M7M7M7M7M7M7M7M7M
Ezra shuffled the deck of cards efficiently without conscience thought as he studied their brooding leader. Chris sat apart from everyone in the smoky saloon, a silent but tangible barrier erected about himself that dissuaded anyone from joining him. The gambler turned to Josiah, his poker partner of the moment, and dealt the cards with an effortless precision.
“Our esteemed colleague seems to be struggling under a heavy burden. He has been out of sorts for several days now.”
Josiah glanced at Chris, then back to his cards, squinting in the dim light of the kerosene lanterns. “He’s worried about Vin. It’s only natural.”
Ezra shrugged, one elegant eyebrow raised. “But our young friend will be fine and Mr. Larabee continues to brood. He seems to prefer the company of his bottle to the company of our injured friend as well. I find it mildly . . . eccentric.”
“Chris is a complex man, Ezra,” Josiah responded, “and they were sparring with each other quite a bit during our sojourn with the settlers. I’m sure that whatever it is, they will work it out. I’ve never seen two men more in accord with each other than those two. They are meant to be boon companions for life, Lord willing.”
Ezra cocked his head and eyed Josiah skeptically. “I fear, dear fellow, that you have an over optimistic view of life. It has been my experience that such gifts as that which you speak of are not for the likes of men such as ourselves.”
Josiah simply smiled at the gambler. “Oh ye of little faith, my friend. There is none so blind as he who will not see. Especially something that is right in front of you, if you but hold out your hand.”
Ezra rolled his eyes at the whimsical preacher and discarded an eight and a queen.
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Buck stepped out onto the porch in front of the jail as Chris exited the saloon. He watched his old friend stride determinedly to the livery and exit a short while later with Pony in tow. The lean gunman swung himself up into the saddle and gigged the horse slightly to bring him up to the front of the jailhouse. Looking down at Buck, Chris face betrayed nothing but determination.
“I‘ll be back in a coupla days or so. If you need me, I’ll be in Purgatorio. You’re in charge.” And with that, he swung Pony around and headed out. Buck eyed his departing back curiously.
“Well, shit. What the Hell is that all about?” he murmured to himself.
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Vin’s eyes lifted slowly, waiting to test the light levels in the room before committing himself to full awareness and the possibility of stabbing pain through his eyeballs and tender head. He was therefore pleasantly surprised that the wicks had been turned down in the lamps and the soft glow that suffused the room bore no undue stress on his already overburdened brain.
A glance to his left also revealed two pieces of information. It was night, and probably very late judging by the diminished glow of the watch fires light through the windows, and Chris Larabee sat slouched in the chair next to his bed, bottle of Rye in hand.
Vin eyed the gunslinger silently as he was being eyed in return. This was the first he’d seen of his friend since he had awakened three days ago. He’d tried to ask the others when they visited about the gunslingers absence but they seemed to be as much in the dark as Vin, only stating that he’d lit out for Purgatorio. To Vin, that was never good news.
“Somethin’ up, Chris?” Vin croaked out, somewhat dismayed by the timber of his rusty voice.
Chris eyed his friend warily, looking for evidence that the man in front of him was still the man he had known just a few days before. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, really. Vin looked the same, despite the white linen bandage around his head and the rather pallid shade to his skin. He took another swig of the cheap Rye before offering it to Vin with a careless shrug.
The tracker’s eyebrow crept toward his hairline but he shifted himself carefully upward until he was reclining at a decent angle for drinking. Taking the bottle in a slightly shaky hand, he knocked back a slug of the fiery liquid, feeling the burn of it all the way to his stomach. He grimaced before turning carefully back to his enigmatic friend.
“That’s a better pain killer than the horse piss that Nathan was feeding me.” he said, eyes crinkling slightly in amusement. Chris only nodded, eyes on the wall next to Vin. The tracker frowned. “Everything all right? Everyone OK?”
“Everyone is fine, Vin. Except for you.” Chris answered uncomfortably. Why was he so ill at ease? He was acting like Vin was going to jump out of the bed and bite him. All he was doing was making the situation worse with his recalcitrant behavior. He force a smile, still not able to meet Vin’s eyes. “Just don’t like to see you layed up. Ain’t used to seeing you hurt, I guess.”
Vin nodded uncertainly. Chris was keeping something from him, he could tell. “Yeah, still cain’t believe it, although it sure feels like I been scalped sure enough.” He reached a hand toward the bandage swathing his head but dropped it back to the bed before touching it. “Gimme another sip of your rot gut?”
Chris obliged and watched surreptitiously as Vin’s lips wrapped around the bottle neck, then hastily averted his gaze in a panic. The room felt suddenly warmer and he shifted uncomfortably. When he looked back up, Vin had him pinned with a steely blue gaze.
“Out with it, Chris.” he ground out. “Somethin’s stuck in your craw so you might as well spit it out afore it chokes you.”
Chris tensed, turning his head away. Damn it, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide his misgiving from this man, of all people. For the first time he cursed the complete empathy that sometimes seemed to lay between them.
“What’s the last thing you remember before wakin’ up here?” he questioned quietly. Vin frowned, thinking back.
“I . . . I remember leavin’ the wagon train.” he murmered hesitantly. “Riding. We stopped for the night . . . um . . .” Vin’s eyebrows crinkled in frustration, then rose in indignation. “Nathan made me take off my shirt in front of Mary!” His face tinged slightly pink at the memory and Chris grinned a small, genuine smile for the first time since this had all started. He watched as Vin struggled to retrieve another memory before finally sighing and shaking his head slowly.
“That’s it. Can’t remember anything after that.” Vin turned to face Chris squarely. “Why? What’d I do?”
Chris held up a hand. “Nothin’, unless you consider fainting dead away in my arms normal.”
Vin growled low. “I didn’t ‘faint’. Maybe I passed out but I didn’t faint. Ya make it sound like I swooned away like some silly girl.”
Chris grinned again. “Well, it sure as Hell looked like you were swoonin’ to me.” he teased. For a moment, everything felt back to normal between them, until the memory of Vin passing out in his arms after he had chased Vin’s would be rapist off flashed through his head. His grin faltered. Vin caught the change on his friends face and frowned.
“Chris,” he said in a low voice, “just get it over with. Somethin’ must a happened ‘cause it’s written all over your face.”
Chris looked away, studying the shifting shadows thrown by the lamps for a moment. Taking another swig of the Rye, he turned back to Vin and faced him squarely. “I found you in an alley fighting off some big cowboy from a passing drive. I sent him packin’ just before you took your nose dive.” He paused, uncertain on how to proceed. Vin furrowed his brows in confusion.
“So? I was fightin’ with some idjit. Why’s that got you all tied up in knots? Ain’t the first time I’ve brawled with some mouthy cowboy.”
Chris grimaced. “It wasn’t a fight he was wanting with you, Vin.” Just the memory of that moment, that bastard’s hands on Vin, shot such a brief and intense homicidal fury through Chris that it could still shake him all these days later. His emotions toward that event disturbed him almost as much as what it had revealed to him about Vin. He was afraid to pick them apart. Shoving the roiling thoughts back down, he turned to Vin, who had gone silent.
He watched the confusion on his friends face slowly give way to comprehension. Vin’s face drained of all color and a look of horror and fear crept over it. Chris was startled. In all the time he had known Vin, he had never seen stark fear in his friend. It was disconcerting. Vin was the strongest man he had ever met. This entire situation was showing him more sides to the man than Chris had ever expected, or wanted, to see. He hastened to reassure Vin.
“Nothing happened. I got there in time. You were trying to fight him, Vin, but you were pretty sick by then. He run off and you passed out.”
Vin raised a shaking hand and scrubbed it across his mouth, drained suddenly. He closed his eyes briefly, resting his head back on the pillow and trying to gather his scattered wits. The pain in his head, recently dulled to a low throb, ratcheted up a notch.
“That ain’t all, though, is it?” He stretched out a hand to the bottle of liquor and Chris obliged him, watching as Vin took a healthy swig of the fiery Rye. Chris wasn’t sure why he was doing this or why it had to be now, but it had been eating away at him and Chris was not a passive person. He liked to face things head on. He found this to be no different. A few days of rutting mindlessly with the whores in Purgatorio had done nothing to clear his head. He had come here straight upon his return, slipping in while the town slept. The gunman plunged on.
“When I was coming into the alley, he was talking to you. Saying things.” Chris watched as Vin’s face froze, a look of trepidation stealing across it. “He said you were ‘the same’ as him. He could tell.”
Vin’s previously white face suffused to red, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “What the Hell’s that supposed to mean, Larabee! You got somthin’ to say, you just spit it out ’cause I’m getting mighty tired of this dance.”
Chris knocked back another swallow of Rye, feeling a reckless irritation flooding his veins. Fuck this. Vin was right. He had been pussy footing around the subject for days now. He turned a hard glare on the younger man.
“Ok, Vin. You told me the morning we left the homesteaders that you had figured it out. What did you figure out, Vin? You got something you've been hidin' from me?”
Vin stiffened, then turned his face away, staring at the far wall as he responded in a low, dead voice.
“Get out.”
“I don’t think so. I think I got a right to know what kind of man I’ve been callin’ ‘friend’.”
“Fuck you, Chris. You ain’t gotta know nothing’. Get the fuck outta here.” Vin bit out, face still turned away. His hands were clenched into white knuckled fists, breath coming in short, angry puffs. Chris sneered at him.
“Only woman I ever seen you with was that wagon train whore and you been givin’ me funny looks these last few days. Saying things that don’t make any sense. Got something you wanna tell me, pard?” The last word was drawled out sarcastically, biting and bitter.
The knowledge that he may have acted in an inappropriate manner during the last few days horrified Vin. His heart felt like it was trying to split in two as a cold, oily fear swept through him. Chris continued, the Rye in his system adding a nasty bite to his words.
“Thought I knew you, Vin. Guess I was wrong. You hid it real well, too. I never would’ve guessed. Took a knock to the head to get your guard down. Now I’m thinkin’ that while you might’ve had my back, it’s been my backside you been wantin’ all along. That true?”
Vin’s head pounded and his vision swam but he ignored it. His life was crumbling around him and he could only think of one way to make it right.
“You ain’t gotta worry about nothin’,” he ground out, “cuz I’ll be gone by first light.”
Silence fell, Vin‘s heavy, pained breathing the only sound in the room aside from the steady ticking of the mantel clock. Chris blinked, confused, as the anger abruptly drained out of him. Vin leaving? Was that what he wanted? The problem solved, or at least removed. The gunslinger shifted uncomfortably at the thought of his life without Vin in it. Wouldn’t it be simpler? Easier? Or just more cowardly? The silence stretched uncomfortably.
Chris shifted nervously on his chair. “Vin . . .” he started, but nothing would come out. Vin was still turned away, staring morosely at the far wall, refusing to acknowledge Chris. The older man suddenly stood, feeling the need to pace.
“I . . . I didn’t mean . . . I just want to figure out what’s going on with you, that’s all. I want to understand, I guess. Maybe make some sense of it. What happened? Why’d you have to go and . . . and . . .” he trailed off uncertainly.
Vin’s head came up, his blue eyes blazing. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Chris! You think I want this? You think I just woke up one mornin’ and decided I wanted to be a Nancy boy? It ain’t a choice, Chris, it just is.”
Chris shook his head in bewilderment. “Maybe livin’ with the Indian’s . . .?” Vin sighed and looked down at his shaking hands.
“They didn’t do nothing’ to me to make me this way, Chris. I think I’ve always known, in a way, but I just didn’t want to see it. The People, they got different ways on lookin’ at it, maybe, but that don’t mean they helped me understand myself any better.” Vin looked up at Chris again, and the gunslinger was shaken at the misery in those big, blue eyes. “A lot of the People respect the choice of a man to go with another man. Some, like the Cheyenne, don't hold with it any more than the white folk. The Sioux think a winkte has special powers and the Kiowa would have accepted it easily enough but someone's got to be the squaw in the relationship and you know damn well it would have been the outsider and I sure as Hell ain't no ones squaw."
Chris was surprised that he could find amusement at the moment but the thought of the tough-as-nails, stubborn, irritating man in front of him being subservient to any man made the gunslinger lips curl up at the corners. Vin must have found some confidence in that small gesture because he continued.
"You might think it's funny, Chris, but the Two-Spirit has gotta do the woman's work and be with the maidens n' everything. It's downright embarrassin'. Tell you the truth, between the white man's ways and the different ways of the People, I'm still just as confused as ever. I’ve tried bein’ with women. It’s OK, I guess, but it don’t . . . it isn’t . . . ah Hell! I don't want to be this way but I don't know how to not be." He looked down at his hands again, falling silent again, face pinched and white. Chris pondered the situation for awhile before passing the bottle of Rye back to Vin again. The anger he had tried so hard to fan into flames before had receded to a weary resignation. This wasn’t going to go away and it wasn’t going to get fixed. He watched Vin take a large swig of the cheap liquor and wondered about the young man before him. Another stray thought chased itself across him brain.
"So . . . have you ever . . . you know. With a guy?"
Vin jerked his head up and stared incredulously at Chris. "Jesus, Chris!" His face burned. "No. No I ain't. I been tryin' too damn hard to be normal. I wanted it to be right between Charlotte 'n me so bad. Ya gotta believe that. It just wasn't. I been tryin' so hard to ignore this for so long that I thought I could make myself be what I'm supposed to be but it ain't gonna work. I know that now. I'm just gonna have to learn to live with it and if that means I gotta leave town, well . . . I guess I can learn to live with that, too." he finished in a whisper.
Silence reigned again as Vin passed the bottle back. The first faint signs of the rising sun began to present in the Eastern sky; a faint lightening of the darkness and a few stirrings of birdsong. The mantel clock ticked monotonously along.
Finally Chris sighed.
"I don't want you to leave, Vin. I've gotten too used to having you around. No one else has figured this out and I won't be lettin' on. I'll learn to get used to it, I guess. We'll just go on like this never happened.” he lied convincingly. Vin pressed a hand to his aching head and shrugged wearily.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t think right now.”
“Well don’t. We’ll just forget about this. You just . . . “ Chris trailed off.
“Just what, Chris? Pretend that everything is good between us? That I’m ‘normal’ like you?” Vin whispered, slanting his eyes up at the gunman again.
Chris swallowed uncomfortably. “Yeah. Something like that. We’ll work it out.”
Before Vin could respond, footsteps approached steadily up the stairs. Both men looked at the bottle of Rye in Chris’ hand, then at each other before turning guilty faces toward the door.
“Shit.”