Assorted Mag7 Ficlets
So, a while back 
farad gave me several Mag7 prompts. I have finally managed to finish them all. And do one for my beloved
mendax. \o/ Huzzah! Unbetaed, for the most part.
Vin, sitting on a rock outside the Vinnebago, cleaning his guns at sunrise
Over the years, Vin's had plenty of time to appreciate the freedom of his Winnebago. When you travel with your home on your back, there ain't never a place where you'll feel homesick, his Pa used to say, and back when Vin's more nomadic and erratic lifestyle led to not wanting anything like a permanent address, or a space entirely out of his control, he'd completely agreed with his Pa's words. Now, of course, he has a life, a family, outside of the aluminum walls of his '76 Brave, and the old girl is more of a hobby than a house. And he loves his team, his misfit family. He does. It's just, sometimes he has a hankering for the old days, when he answered only to himself, and didn't have to worry about things like Federal warrants. He misses driving to nowhere in particular, and seeing all the things that folks up in planes normally miss; he misses the little Mom and Pop shops, and the tourist traps, and the constant reminders of how vast and wonderful this country is.
What he doesn't miss, however, is running out of gas in the middle of the fucking Bonneville Salt Flats.
The fact that this is the third time this has happened to him doesn't make him feel any better about the situation, but it does mean he knows where the nearest gas station is, and he just barely manages to coax the old girl into the small lot in the middle of nowhere. It's a five-fifteen, and the station is dark and abandoned looking, but Vin reckons that someone will show up sometime. In the meantime, the sky is lightening, and he reckons his guns need some cleaning.
+
Buck and Josiah, children
"Woman, you get off that horse this instant!"
Josiah puts down his book at the sound of Buck's voice and looks out door of the church, to where Buck stands in the middle of Main Street, arms outspread, and glaring bloody murder at Katie Stokes. He's a brave man for doing so, Josiah thinks, for all that Kate's his wife in every eye but that of the lord and the law - specially now that Kate's growing belly has forced her to trade in her six shooter for a Winchester rifle.
"Buck Wilmington, I know you ain't telling me what to do."
"Damn straight I am! You can't go riding out in your condition!" Buck's glare softens, as does his voice, and he approaches Kate slowly, like he's trying to run down a skittish horse. "Now come on, darlin', we talked about this."
"And I told you, I'd be hunting down those murdering bastards."
"Damn it Kate! That's my baby in there!" Buck shouts, all out of patience. He throws his hat to the ground and the movement makes Kate's horse start and sidle crab-wise away from him. Kate calms the big black with a quiet "hush now" and a firm hand on the reins, then glares down at Buck.
"And it's my body. Now you gonna move or do I have to run you down?"
"She'll do it, Buck," Vin says as he rides up. "You know she will."
"And you!" Buck rounds on Vin. "Don't you be encouraging this! You ain't got no call to ask a man's pregnant wife to be your wingman on a bounty hunt!"
Vin shrugs and manages to convey in that simple movement that he is both smug and not at all ashamed of himself. "She's a damn fine shot, Buck. 'Sides, all y'all look down right ugly in a dress."
"I know that! Still ain't no reason to-" Buck begins and then jumps out of the way with a yelp as Kate canters past him. Vin rides past a second later, tipping his hat to Buck as he passes by.
"Kate! KATE!" Buck shouts, though he knows it'll do no good. He sighs and picks up his hat - trampled flat, now, and dustier than Josiah's hymnals - and walks up the steps of the church.
"Thought you said children were a blessing, Josiah," he grumbles as he beats his hat against his leg.
"They are." Josiah follows the fast disappearing forms of Kate and Vin until their brown coats become one with the brown earth. "Ain't never said what kind."
+
Nathan and Buck, children
Nathan turns to him during one of the innumerable stops they have to make so Olivia can take a piss - girl's got a bladder the size of a dried corn kernel, he swears - and says, "You don't like kids much."
Buck glances at him and then back to where Olivia's disappeared into the bushes. "I like kids just fine. Just so longs as they keeps their distance, anyways."
"Uh huh." Nathan is smirking, just a little, and he looks from the bushes to where Terry stands. "You know you ain't never gonna get a woman like that to like twice at you without you making nice with her kid."
"I know," Buck says, and he does. Oh he does, and a few years ago Olivia wouldn't have been a problem at all. A few years ago, it never would've crossed Nathan's mind that Buck might not like kids.
Of course, a few years ago, Sarah had been alive.
And a few years ago, he wouldn't have looked at every child and felt the aching gap of Adam's smile.
+
Nathan and Ezra, humid afternoons
Nathan notices Ezra's stiffness right away, though he doubts anybody else does. Ezra's too good of an actor to let fall any hint of weakness.
But Nathan is intimately familiar with Ezra's body; with all of his friends' bodies; seen them all in sickness and health and everything in between and he knows the difference between what Josiah looks like when he's slouched in his saddle because he's just tired and what he looks like slouched in his saddle because his old bones just don't take to long days of hard riding like they used to and all his joints are screaming like the devil hisself. Besides, he's too good a healer to miss the pain in Ezra's eyes, the way he holds himself perfectly straight and doesn't reach casually across to grab the bottle of whiskey he's clearly longing for.
Nathan thinks he knows the problem, too, and so he slaps Ezra on the back - a little harder than need be, perhaps - and watches as Ezra stills even further, face going carefully blank, breath hitching just a little.
"You come on up to my clinic, hear?" he tells Ezra, quietly, but in the tone he uses on Josiah when he's drunk and ornery and in need of some stitching. Works just as well on Ezra as it does on Josiah, too, because Ezra nods stiffly and excuses himself from the table.
In the clinic, he helps Ezra take off his coat and shirt - slowly, of course, and with more gentleness than he showed earlier - exposing the red and angry skin bit by bit.
"You're a damned fool," he says. "What were you thinkin', spending all that time in the sun without yo' shirt?"
"I did not realize it would be quite this bad," Ezra replies stiffly. "I am well aware of my own limits, Mister Jackson, and have always taken great pains to preserve the integrity of my skin."
"Damned fool," Nathan says again, and he spreads the cool salve across Ezra's sunburned skin. He feels Ezra shudder at his touch, and the movement sparks an anger in him he didn't know he had. And he don't know its cause, 'cept for the fact that it reminds him too much of 'Bama. Makes him think 'bout other times he's used this salve on other backs and other wounds - wounds deeper than those caused by exposing ivory skin to the hot, dry sun.
"This ain't the South," he snaps at Ezra. "Heat's all different here."
"Indeed. I had not noticed this fact," Ezra says, voice as dry as the desert air. "I thank you for your most…astute observation."
Nathan snorts, and the scent of sage and dust and sun-baked wood push back the humid ghosts of long dead afternoons.
+
Chris and Josiah, reading
It's not like they planned it out in advance - just one of them things that happens, as natural as the sunrise. Sunday afternoons, he and Josiah sit out on the porch of the church and read, quiet like. No talking, no preaching - just them and the books and some coffee. A little break from the madness that usually plagues this town. Takes him a mite longer to read a book through than Josiah, but there ain't no shame in that. Never did like reading much as a young'un, though he appreciates it now. Something soothing 'bout the way the paper feels, the regularity of the words before him. And it's nice to know that there's a truth to these words, unlike the ones Mary prints in her paper.
He turns the page and takes a sip of his coffee - cold, but not too cold, warmed as it's been by the sun.
"Hey Josiah, Chris." JD stops to lean on banister of the church's steps, wrapping his arms around the big end post and rocking idly from one foot to the other. "You guys reading?"
"Yup," Chris says. He turns another page.
"Anything good?"
"Well, now, that's a good question," Josiah says as he puts his book down. "See, some might consider this book," and he taps the hefty tome in question, "blasphemous for it seems to discredit the almighty power of the divine, for it suggests that we are not formed by God's direct purpose, but rather through the chaos of the world. 'How much of the acclimatization of species to any peculiar climate is due to mere habit, and how much to the natural selection of varieties having different innate constitutions, and how much to both means combined'? And yet, did not God create the land around us that led to this acclimatization? Is it not by his hand that the coyote has adapted to live in both the desert and the plains, while the Great Auk is now no more?"
"Uh huh," JD said. "Chris?"
"Man's got a whale to kill." Chris turns another page. "My money's on the whale."
+
Ezra and JD, fathers
Ezra cuts the deck one handed - a trick he's done a thousand times - and begins to deal the cards. They flash out across the green baize like a flock of some strange breed of bird scattering to the four corners of the world.
"Well, gentlemen?" he asks. "Stud or Draw?"
"Why we gotta play poker at all?" Vin grumbles. "Too many damn rules - why don't we play Faro instead?"
"Faro, Mister Tanner, is a game for the masses. Poker is the game of kings."
"Thought that was horse racing," Josiah says. He picks up his cards and looks at them contemplatively. "Or is that chess?" He looks up at the table and grins his off-kilter grin. "Or perhaps it's beheading."
"Faro's a cheater's game," Buck says, but mildly. He looks over at Chris and begins to laugh at a sudden memory. "Remember that time up in Grenville? When Joe Hart's box broke and it turned out he was using a deck with five Queens?"
Chris grins, a little. "Yup. As I recollect, that was also the time you lost all our money betting on that crooked table."
"Well now," Buck begins, and the two of them are off, bickering at each other like old women. Ezra sighs and collects the cards back. He shuffles them again, then begins to cut the ace of spades in and out of the deck; he pulls it out with a flourish each time, and makes the card flicker between the fingers of his left hand before cutting it back in. JD watches him intensely, then leans back in his chair and shakes his head.
"Your Pa teach you how to do that?" he asks.
"My father?" Ezra says glibly. "Which one?"
JD's brow furrows in confusion and Ezra sighs.
"No," he says seriously. "I never knew the man from whose seed I sprang. Mother's third husband was a jeweler, I believe, and her fourth was a politician - and a greater con man I have never seen. And then, of course there were assorted 'Uncles' who came and went."
"Uncles?" JD says. "I didn't know you had relatives Ezra. They all back East?"
Ezra stops playing with the cards and stares at JD. Surely the boy couldn't…
"JD, surely your mother had gentlemen suitors? Perhaps one who stayed the night a time or two?"
"Well, there was Mister Roosevelt. But we lived in his house, so I don't think it counts." JD takes another sip of milk. "Anyway, Ma said I was the only gentleman she needed. 'Sides, she said it was only right to respect my Pa's memory - he was a war hero, you know."
Ezra manages to stifle a laugh, though there really is nothing terribly funny about JD's naivety. "Well what a coincidence," he says. "So was mine."
+
Chris, his 'harem' of six men
"This," Ezra said, "is the stupidest idea I have ever heard."
"Stupider than that time Vin and JD decided to -" Nathan began, but Ezra cut him off with a glare.
"Yes," he said. "This is stupider than any thing Vin and JD have ever thought up. Including that time they decided to play GPS hide-and-seek."
"Look," Vin said, words muffled by the cloth of the burka he was wearing, "that was an entirely sound training scenario."
"You played GPS hide-and-seek," Ezra said. "On the top of a mountain. In sub-zero temperatures."
"Oh just put the damn burka on," Vin snapped back. "Ain't like it's the first time you've worn women's clothes."
"It's not the fact that these are women's garments that I object to," Ezra said. "It's the fact that the six of us must wear them while Chris gets to pass himself off as our quote-unquote husband."
"And?" Josiah said.
"And? And?! How many blond-haired and blue-eyed Afghanis have you seen?"
+
Josiah and Vin, bullets
In general, Vin Tanner is a cautious man. He's deliberate. He thinks things through. He don't act on impulse, and he don't jump feet first into a fire or a gunfight - well, most times he don't, anyway. Sure, he's put his foot in a few hornets' nests in his time, but who ain't? And anyway, at least he's always had the commonsense to run like the dickens after doing so.
So why, he asks himself as he listens to Josiah babble excitedly at him, ain't I doin' just that?
It's a rhetorical question, a'course. He knows damn well why he let himself be talked into being Josiah's latest guinea pig, why he's standing out here decked out in so much boiled leather that he can barely move, and sweatin' more than just standing 'round in the hot desert sun warranted. It's lust, pure and simple, that's drivin' him to ruin - or if not ruin, then surely some sort of damned painful accident. Lust, and he ain't ever been one for the Good Book, but he reckons he understands now why that's a sin, and he resolves that if he gets outta this alive, he ain't never gonna be tempted again.
He's damn proud he manages to keep that resolve all the way up to picking up the gun. That big, shiny, sleek lookin' gun Josiah done built. That big, shiny, sleek gun, with polished brass inlays and the dark wood stock sanded so fine it's like holdin' satin. That big, shiny, sleek gun that called out to him like the Devil himself from where it lay, all oiled and ready, on Josiah's work bench deep in the gloomy belly of his workshop below the church. That big, shiny, sleek gun that's just beggin' to be lifted, stroked, cradled up snug against his shoulder…
Vin pulls the trigger, and even though he's braced, even though he knows that anythin' Josiah makes has a tendency to go boom, he still ain't even half-prepared for either the gun's recoil or the hellfire noise it makes goin' off. He's on his ass faster than a greenhorn fallin' off a buckin' bronco, and his ears are ringing like he's sittin' right under the damn town bells. His shoulder feels like he's been kicked by a mule, and for a moment he fears that the fact that he can't feel his damn hand means it's been blown clean off.
But no, there it is, right at the end of his arm where it's s'posed to be and eveythin' appears to be functional even though it's a damn strange feelin' to see his fingers wigglin' and not feel them move.
Josiah's shadow passes over him and he looks up into the crazy preacher's wild, beaming face.
"Great!" Josiah roars, passing him a bullet that's at least as long as his index finger, "now let's try firin' it live!"
+
JD and Chris, fathers
Chris heard JD's approach a good ten minutes before the young man actually rode into view. A man would have to be deafer than a post not to hear him - or rather, not to hear the squalling baby he had strapped to his back. She was only six months old, but it was damn clear that little Annie Dunne had quite a bit to say about the world, and most of it right uncomplimentary at that.
"JD," Chris said over the baby's wails, nodding an amiable greeting to the tired looking young man.
"Chris." JD dismounted carefully and slid the cradleboard off his back. He had dark circles under his eyes and a three-day beard, and Chris had to look down to make sure JD didn't see his grin.
"Here to see Nathan?"
JD shook his head mutely and jigged the baby up and down a bit; Annie hiccoughed and then began to cry again, twice as loud as before. JD stared at his wailing daughter in utter dismay, and Chris couldn't stop the laugh the welled up at the sight.
"Ain't funny!" JD snapped, though he still kept his hold gentle as could be. "She's been cryin' for a fortnight! Casey and I ain't been able to sleep a wink, and she's scared all the chickens out of laying!" He jigged the baby up and down again, and added with a touch less acerbity, but a great deal more defensiveness, "Reckoned a change of scenery might do her some good."
"Damn smart idea," Chris said, as placatingly as he could. "Here, let me hold her." When JD hesitated, he added, "Come on, kid. You look like you're 'bout ready to fall down in the street."
"Ain't a kid," JD grumbled, but he handed the crying Annie over willingly enough.
"You'll always be a kid," Chris said as he undid the cradleboard's ties and pulled Annie free from the swaddling. "Ain't that right sweetheart?"
Annie hiccoughed again, and Chris began to rock her gently in his arms, humming the same old song he'd sung to Adam when he'd been fractious and wouldn't sleep. Annie yawned, huge and toothless, and swung her tiny fists in protest at the injustice of being loved and swayed to sleep, and Chris felt himself smile again. He had loved Adam at this age. Well, he had loved Adam at every age, but there had been something special about six months, something precious and wonderful - a whole new world to explore, a whole new way to see life through his son's wide and wondering eyes.
"Think I'll ever be as good a dad as you?" JD asked, soft and low and oddly innocent. Chris looked up, startled, and then looked away, unable to face the naked adoration in JD's eyes.
"Here," he said instead, handing Annie over. "Reckon she'll sleep for a little while now."
JD nodded, and cradled his daughter gently in his arms. He stroked the wisps of dark hair on her head, and for a moment Chris had a painful flashback to the life he'd lived before - the life of wife and child and future and hope. And then it was gone and he was once more staring at JD looking down at his child as though amazed that he could have brought something so small and precious into this world.
"You're a good father," Chris said, at last, and he didn't look at JD's face, but stared resolutely down at Annie. "Calmin' a cryin' baby just takes learning and a full night's sleep. You're doin' just fine."
He touched Annie's soft hair, listened to her snuffling little breaths, and said again, softer this time and with a sideways smile at JD, "You're doin' just fine."
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth where there are
comments
farad gave me several Mag7 prompts. I have finally managed to finish them all. And do one for my beloved
mendax. \o/ Huzzah! Unbetaed, for the most part.
Vin, sitting on a rock outside the Vinnebago, cleaning his guns at sunrise
Over the years, Vin's had plenty of time to appreciate the freedom of his Winnebago. When you travel with your home on your back, there ain't never a place where you'll feel homesick, his Pa used to say, and back when Vin's more nomadic and erratic lifestyle led to not wanting anything like a permanent address, or a space entirely out of his control, he'd completely agreed with his Pa's words. Now, of course, he has a life, a family, outside of the aluminum walls of his '76 Brave, and the old girl is more of a hobby than a house. And he loves his team, his misfit family. He does. It's just, sometimes he has a hankering for the old days, when he answered only to himself, and didn't have to worry about things like Federal warrants. He misses driving to nowhere in particular, and seeing all the things that folks up in planes normally miss; he misses the little Mom and Pop shops, and the tourist traps, and the constant reminders of how vast and wonderful this country is.
What he doesn't miss, however, is running out of gas in the middle of the fucking Bonneville Salt Flats.
The fact that this is the third time this has happened to him doesn't make him feel any better about the situation, but it does mean he knows where the nearest gas station is, and he just barely manages to coax the old girl into the small lot in the middle of nowhere. It's a five-fifteen, and the station is dark and abandoned looking, but Vin reckons that someone will show up sometime. In the meantime, the sky is lightening, and he reckons his guns need some cleaning.
+
Buck and Josiah, children
"Woman, you get off that horse this instant!"
Josiah puts down his book at the sound of Buck's voice and looks out door of the church, to where Buck stands in the middle of Main Street, arms outspread, and glaring bloody murder at Katie Stokes. He's a brave man for doing so, Josiah thinks, for all that Kate's his wife in every eye but that of the lord and the law - specially now that Kate's growing belly has forced her to trade in her six shooter for a Winchester rifle.
"Buck Wilmington, I know you ain't telling me what to do."
"Damn straight I am! You can't go riding out in your condition!" Buck's glare softens, as does his voice, and he approaches Kate slowly, like he's trying to run down a skittish horse. "Now come on, darlin', we talked about this."
"And I told you, I'd be hunting down those murdering bastards."
"Damn it Kate! That's my baby in there!" Buck shouts, all out of patience. He throws his hat to the ground and the movement makes Kate's horse start and sidle crab-wise away from him. Kate calms the big black with a quiet "hush now" and a firm hand on the reins, then glares down at Buck.
"And it's my body. Now you gonna move or do I have to run you down?"
"She'll do it, Buck," Vin says as he rides up. "You know she will."
"And you!" Buck rounds on Vin. "Don't you be encouraging this! You ain't got no call to ask a man's pregnant wife to be your wingman on a bounty hunt!"
Vin shrugs and manages to convey in that simple movement that he is both smug and not at all ashamed of himself. "She's a damn fine shot, Buck. 'Sides, all y'all look down right ugly in a dress."
"I know that! Still ain't no reason to-" Buck begins and then jumps out of the way with a yelp as Kate canters past him. Vin rides past a second later, tipping his hat to Buck as he passes by.
"Kate! KATE!" Buck shouts, though he knows it'll do no good. He sighs and picks up his hat - trampled flat, now, and dustier than Josiah's hymnals - and walks up the steps of the church.
"Thought you said children were a blessing, Josiah," he grumbles as he beats his hat against his leg.
"They are." Josiah follows the fast disappearing forms of Kate and Vin until their brown coats become one with the brown earth. "Ain't never said what kind."
+
Nathan and Buck, children
Nathan turns to him during one of the innumerable stops they have to make so Olivia can take a piss - girl's got a bladder the size of a dried corn kernel, he swears - and says, "You don't like kids much."
Buck glances at him and then back to where Olivia's disappeared into the bushes. "I like kids just fine. Just so longs as they keeps their distance, anyways."
"Uh huh." Nathan is smirking, just a little, and he looks from the bushes to where Terry stands. "You know you ain't never gonna get a woman like that to like twice at you without you making nice with her kid."
"I know," Buck says, and he does. Oh he does, and a few years ago Olivia wouldn't have been a problem at all. A few years ago, it never would've crossed Nathan's mind that Buck might not like kids.
Of course, a few years ago, Sarah had been alive.
And a few years ago, he wouldn't have looked at every child and felt the aching gap of Adam's smile.
+
Nathan and Ezra, humid afternoons
Nathan notices Ezra's stiffness right away, though he doubts anybody else does. Ezra's too good of an actor to let fall any hint of weakness.
But Nathan is intimately familiar with Ezra's body; with all of his friends' bodies; seen them all in sickness and health and everything in between and he knows the difference between what Josiah looks like when he's slouched in his saddle because he's just tired and what he looks like slouched in his saddle because his old bones just don't take to long days of hard riding like they used to and all his joints are screaming like the devil hisself. Besides, he's too good a healer to miss the pain in Ezra's eyes, the way he holds himself perfectly straight and doesn't reach casually across to grab the bottle of whiskey he's clearly longing for.
Nathan thinks he knows the problem, too, and so he slaps Ezra on the back - a little harder than need be, perhaps - and watches as Ezra stills even further, face going carefully blank, breath hitching just a little.
"You come on up to my clinic, hear?" he tells Ezra, quietly, but in the tone he uses on Josiah when he's drunk and ornery and in need of some stitching. Works just as well on Ezra as it does on Josiah, too, because Ezra nods stiffly and excuses himself from the table.
In the clinic, he helps Ezra take off his coat and shirt - slowly, of course, and with more gentleness than he showed earlier - exposing the red and angry skin bit by bit.
"You're a damned fool," he says. "What were you thinkin', spending all that time in the sun without yo' shirt?"
"I did not realize it would be quite this bad," Ezra replies stiffly. "I am well aware of my own limits, Mister Jackson, and have always taken great pains to preserve the integrity of my skin."
"Damned fool," Nathan says again, and he spreads the cool salve across Ezra's sunburned skin. He feels Ezra shudder at his touch, and the movement sparks an anger in him he didn't know he had. And he don't know its cause, 'cept for the fact that it reminds him too much of 'Bama. Makes him think 'bout other times he's used this salve on other backs and other wounds - wounds deeper than those caused by exposing ivory skin to the hot, dry sun.
"This ain't the South," he snaps at Ezra. "Heat's all different here."
"Indeed. I had not noticed this fact," Ezra says, voice as dry as the desert air. "I thank you for your most…astute observation."
Nathan snorts, and the scent of sage and dust and sun-baked wood push back the humid ghosts of long dead afternoons.
+
Chris and Josiah, reading
It's not like they planned it out in advance - just one of them things that happens, as natural as the sunrise. Sunday afternoons, he and Josiah sit out on the porch of the church and read, quiet like. No talking, no preaching - just them and the books and some coffee. A little break from the madness that usually plagues this town. Takes him a mite longer to read a book through than Josiah, but there ain't no shame in that. Never did like reading much as a young'un, though he appreciates it now. Something soothing 'bout the way the paper feels, the regularity of the words before him. And it's nice to know that there's a truth to these words, unlike the ones Mary prints in her paper.
He turns the page and takes a sip of his coffee - cold, but not too cold, warmed as it's been by the sun.
"Hey Josiah, Chris." JD stops to lean on banister of the church's steps, wrapping his arms around the big end post and rocking idly from one foot to the other. "You guys reading?"
"Yup," Chris says. He turns another page.
"Anything good?"
"Well, now, that's a good question," Josiah says as he puts his book down. "See, some might consider this book," and he taps the hefty tome in question, "blasphemous for it seems to discredit the almighty power of the divine, for it suggests that we are not formed by God's direct purpose, but rather through the chaos of the world. 'How much of the acclimatization of species to any peculiar climate is due to mere habit, and how much to the natural selection of varieties having different innate constitutions, and how much to both means combined'? And yet, did not God create the land around us that led to this acclimatization? Is it not by his hand that the coyote has adapted to live in both the desert and the plains, while the Great Auk is now no more?"
"Uh huh," JD said. "Chris?"
"Man's got a whale to kill." Chris turns another page. "My money's on the whale."
+
Ezra and JD, fathers
Ezra cuts the deck one handed - a trick he's done a thousand times - and begins to deal the cards. They flash out across the green baize like a flock of some strange breed of bird scattering to the four corners of the world.
"Well, gentlemen?" he asks. "Stud or Draw?"
"Why we gotta play poker at all?" Vin grumbles. "Too many damn rules - why don't we play Faro instead?"
"Faro, Mister Tanner, is a game for the masses. Poker is the game of kings."
"Thought that was horse racing," Josiah says. He picks up his cards and looks at them contemplatively. "Or is that chess?" He looks up at the table and grins his off-kilter grin. "Or perhaps it's beheading."
"Faro's a cheater's game," Buck says, but mildly. He looks over at Chris and begins to laugh at a sudden memory. "Remember that time up in Grenville? When Joe Hart's box broke and it turned out he was using a deck with five Queens?"
Chris grins, a little. "Yup. As I recollect, that was also the time you lost all our money betting on that crooked table."
"Well now," Buck begins, and the two of them are off, bickering at each other like old women. Ezra sighs and collects the cards back. He shuffles them again, then begins to cut the ace of spades in and out of the deck; he pulls it out with a flourish each time, and makes the card flicker between the fingers of his left hand before cutting it back in. JD watches him intensely, then leans back in his chair and shakes his head.
"Your Pa teach you how to do that?" he asks.
"My father?" Ezra says glibly. "Which one?"
JD's brow furrows in confusion and Ezra sighs.
"No," he says seriously. "I never knew the man from whose seed I sprang. Mother's third husband was a jeweler, I believe, and her fourth was a politician - and a greater con man I have never seen. And then, of course there were assorted 'Uncles' who came and went."
"Uncles?" JD says. "I didn't know you had relatives Ezra. They all back East?"
Ezra stops playing with the cards and stares at JD. Surely the boy couldn't…
"JD, surely your mother had gentlemen suitors? Perhaps one who stayed the night a time or two?"
"Well, there was Mister Roosevelt. But we lived in his house, so I don't think it counts." JD takes another sip of milk. "Anyway, Ma said I was the only gentleman she needed. 'Sides, she said it was only right to respect my Pa's memory - he was a war hero, you know."
Ezra manages to stifle a laugh, though there really is nothing terribly funny about JD's naivety. "Well what a coincidence," he says. "So was mine."
+
Chris, his 'harem' of six men
"This," Ezra said, "is the stupidest idea I have ever heard."
"Stupider than that time Vin and JD decided to -" Nathan began, but Ezra cut him off with a glare.
"Yes," he said. "This is stupider than any thing Vin and JD have ever thought up. Including that time they decided to play GPS hide-and-seek."
"Look," Vin said, words muffled by the cloth of the burka he was wearing, "that was an entirely sound training scenario."
"You played GPS hide-and-seek," Ezra said. "On the top of a mountain. In sub-zero temperatures."
"Oh just put the damn burka on," Vin snapped back. "Ain't like it's the first time you've worn women's clothes."
"It's not the fact that these are women's garments that I object to," Ezra said. "It's the fact that the six of us must wear them while Chris gets to pass himself off as our quote-unquote husband."
"And?" Josiah said.
"And? And?! How many blond-haired and blue-eyed Afghanis have you seen?"
+
Josiah and Vin, bullets
In general, Vin Tanner is a cautious man. He's deliberate. He thinks things through. He don't act on impulse, and he don't jump feet first into a fire or a gunfight - well, most times he don't, anyway. Sure, he's put his foot in a few hornets' nests in his time, but who ain't? And anyway, at least he's always had the commonsense to run like the dickens after doing so.
So why, he asks himself as he listens to Josiah babble excitedly at him, ain't I doin' just that?
It's a rhetorical question, a'course. He knows damn well why he let himself be talked into being Josiah's latest guinea pig, why he's standing out here decked out in so much boiled leather that he can barely move, and sweatin' more than just standing 'round in the hot desert sun warranted. It's lust, pure and simple, that's drivin' him to ruin - or if not ruin, then surely some sort of damned painful accident. Lust, and he ain't ever been one for the Good Book, but he reckons he understands now why that's a sin, and he resolves that if he gets outta this alive, he ain't never gonna be tempted again.
He's damn proud he manages to keep that resolve all the way up to picking up the gun. That big, shiny, sleek lookin' gun Josiah done built. That big, shiny, sleek gun, with polished brass inlays and the dark wood stock sanded so fine it's like holdin' satin. That big, shiny, sleek gun that called out to him like the Devil himself from where it lay, all oiled and ready, on Josiah's work bench deep in the gloomy belly of his workshop below the church. That big, shiny, sleek gun that's just beggin' to be lifted, stroked, cradled up snug against his shoulder…
Vin pulls the trigger, and even though he's braced, even though he knows that anythin' Josiah makes has a tendency to go boom, he still ain't even half-prepared for either the gun's recoil or the hellfire noise it makes goin' off. He's on his ass faster than a greenhorn fallin' off a buckin' bronco, and his ears are ringing like he's sittin' right under the damn town bells. His shoulder feels like he's been kicked by a mule, and for a moment he fears that the fact that he can't feel his damn hand means it's been blown clean off.
But no, there it is, right at the end of his arm where it's s'posed to be and eveythin' appears to be functional even though it's a damn strange feelin' to see his fingers wigglin' and not feel them move.
Josiah's shadow passes over him and he looks up into the crazy preacher's wild, beaming face.
"Great!" Josiah roars, passing him a bullet that's at least as long as his index finger, "now let's try firin' it live!"
+
JD and Chris, fathers
Chris heard JD's approach a good ten minutes before the young man actually rode into view. A man would have to be deafer than a post not to hear him - or rather, not to hear the squalling baby he had strapped to his back. She was only six months old, but it was damn clear that little Annie Dunne had quite a bit to say about the world, and most of it right uncomplimentary at that.
"JD," Chris said over the baby's wails, nodding an amiable greeting to the tired looking young man.
"Chris." JD dismounted carefully and slid the cradleboard off his back. He had dark circles under his eyes and a three-day beard, and Chris had to look down to make sure JD didn't see his grin.
"Here to see Nathan?"
JD shook his head mutely and jigged the baby up and down a bit; Annie hiccoughed and then began to cry again, twice as loud as before. JD stared at his wailing daughter in utter dismay, and Chris couldn't stop the laugh the welled up at the sight.
"Ain't funny!" JD snapped, though he still kept his hold gentle as could be. "She's been cryin' for a fortnight! Casey and I ain't been able to sleep a wink, and she's scared all the chickens out of laying!" He jigged the baby up and down again, and added with a touch less acerbity, but a great deal more defensiveness, "Reckoned a change of scenery might do her some good."
"Damn smart idea," Chris said, as placatingly as he could. "Here, let me hold her." When JD hesitated, he added, "Come on, kid. You look like you're 'bout ready to fall down in the street."
"Ain't a kid," JD grumbled, but he handed the crying Annie over willingly enough.
"You'll always be a kid," Chris said as he undid the cradleboard's ties and pulled Annie free from the swaddling. "Ain't that right sweetheart?"
Annie hiccoughed again, and Chris began to rock her gently in his arms, humming the same old song he'd sung to Adam when he'd been fractious and wouldn't sleep. Annie yawned, huge and toothless, and swung her tiny fists in protest at the injustice of being loved and swayed to sleep, and Chris felt himself smile again. He had loved Adam at this age. Well, he had loved Adam at every age, but there had been something special about six months, something precious and wonderful - a whole new world to explore, a whole new way to see life through his son's wide and wondering eyes.
"Think I'll ever be as good a dad as you?" JD asked, soft and low and oddly innocent. Chris looked up, startled, and then looked away, unable to face the naked adoration in JD's eyes.
"Here," he said instead, handing Annie over. "Reckon she'll sleep for a little while now."
JD nodded, and cradled his daughter gently in his arms. He stroked the wisps of dark hair on her head, and for a moment Chris had a painful flashback to the life he'd lived before - the life of wife and child and future and hope. And then it was gone and he was once more staring at JD looking down at his child as though amazed that he could have brought something so small and precious into this world.
"You're a good father," Chris said, at last, and he didn't look at JD's face, but stared resolutely down at Annie. "Calmin' a cryin' baby just takes learning and a full night's sleep. You're doin' just fine."
He touched Annie's soft hair, listened to her snuffling little breaths, and said again, softer this time and with a sideways smile at JD, "You're doin' just fine."
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