Vin woke to kisses ... soft, delicate, gentle kisses ... on his hair, his temple, his cheek.... He felt more than heard the steady, languid thrumming of a heart pressed close beside him.... There were legs tangled with his own and fingers tracing lazy circles over his skin.... Inside, he thought he could still feel the sensation of having been complete ... the heat and the fullness ... the dizzying movement ... in, out, with, against....

"Vin..."

The voiced sounded ethereal, almost distant, but familiar and comforting.... It was the one voice in his life, the one voice he'd dreamed of hearing.... For a moment he feared this was a dream ... a wonderful, impossible dream ... sent to remind him of an empty and worthless life.

"Vin..."

But this voice was solid ... true ... real.... This voice bid him sweet dreams at night and promised continued love each dawn. It was a dream, a dream of a new life, but, for once, it was his dream and his life, and he feared the day he would open his eyes to find it gone.

"Vin..."

"Hi..." Vin said, breathing, finally turning his head as he opened his eyes. Early morning sunlight had slipped in through the window, turning this man's hair to shimmering honey. His eyes were cast into shadow, but even so, Vin noted how brightly they shown.

Vin smiled as he slipped his hand into the fine hair, pulling the man close, until their lips met in a shy, almost hesitant, kiss.

"Mornin', Chris." He felt Chris's lips move against his own with similar words. Their kiss deepened, though it remained unhurried, as if there were no more to their lives than this moment, stretched out for eternity.

Vin lay back on the pillow, staring up at Chris. He felt Chris's fingers against his skin again, barely touching him, as if Vin were something to be revered instead of someone who simply wanted to be touched until he ached, touched until he stopped aching, and then touched again.

"Vin..."

"Hmm?"

"Tell me something?"

Vin opened his eyes again and looked at Chris. The man was serious, intent, present in a way Vin had never known any other person to be.

Vin smiled, almost laughed. "You were great. Really. A natural...."

"Thanks," Chris said, averting his eyes for a moment. Vin reached up to touch his cheek; it felt warm and Vin wondered if it was from a blush he couldn't make out in this light. "But that's not what I meant." Chris looked at him again, as if trying to find the right words. "Tell me about you."

Vin stared at Chris for a long while. He wasn't sure what Chris wanted to know, what he expected Vin to tell him. It made him uncomfortable. Besides, there wasn't anything to tell. Not really.

"Well ... I work at the ATF, and I live on this huge ranch that's owned by this incredible guy who likes to have his way with me whenever possible—"

"I know all that."

"Then why'd ya ask?"

"Tell me something I don't know."

"Ya already know the important stuff. Ya already know who I am."

"I want to know how you got to be who you are. Tell me something. Tell me...."

Vin felt Chris's hands moving over his skin again, as if following a convoluted trail on a map. Then he stopped for a moment. When Vin felt movement again, it was slight, just one fingertip, moving slowly, gently, back and forth along a small, inch-long ridge just under his collarbone.

"Tell me about this ... about this scar. How'd you get it?"

"It's not important." Vin wanted to turn away, to roll onto his side and curl up in a ball and fall back into the dream he'd been having earlier that morning, in that other life.

"It happened to you, that makes it important. Tell me. Please...."

Vin let out a long, low breath. Chris respected a person's privacy, felt his business was his own, but Chris had made it clear that privacy between strangers was different than privacy between friends, and privacy between lovers was even different still. These were Chris's feelings — his rules — and Vin had accepted them when he'd taken up with Chris, when he'd moved into the man's home, and became his partner.

"It happened in Kuwait."

Vin swallowed, and then settled deeper against the pillow. Chris was staring off into the distance, apparently trying to give Vin the space he needed to tell this in his own time, in his own way.

"I was with the Rangers then. It was about a year and a half after Desert Storm. We were doin' recon and got wind of a threat against the U.S. Embassy. We split up, pretty much workin' alone, doin' what each of us could, what we had to do."

Vin was still for a few moments, remembering back to the heat and the wind and the sand. To the grit sticking to the sweat on his face, to the smell of strange spices, to the sounds of the city and the markets and the people. And to a dimly lit room, close with incense, shielded from everything beyond its walls.

"I'd gotten in with one of the locals...." A gorgeous man with thick, dark hair and eyes like melted chocolate. "I found out he had information 'bout a group of men, arms dealers who profited from conflicts in the region. We needed the Intel. That's what I was there to secure." But the man had wanted payment for the information: American dollars, and somethin' more.

Vin had stripped himself of his clothes; he had allowed the man to bathe him with scented waters, and had then opened to him, allowing the man to take what he required in exchange for more information than Vin had hoped. In hindsight, Vin should have been more suspicious, but even now he couldn't see past what the man was willing to give him.

"I was distracted — just for a moment, but that's all it took."

Vin head had lolled back, as the man pushed deeply into him again, as his muscles tightened and his orgasm burst in a white-hot stream between them.

"I saw the flash of a knife. I moved, but not enough. He stabbed me in the shoulder. I remember the tip of the blade scrapin' against bone.... Then I just reacted; I grabbed his head and broke his neck." He was still deep inside me, still hard, as his body collapsed against me ... limp. Dead.

"I got outta there" — after wiping off the jizz and cutting a knife-sized slit in my shirt — "and headed back to base. They debriefed me and then stitched me up. The Embassy was never attacked."

Vin closed his mouth, and his eyes. There was nothing more to tell.

After a while, he felt Chris begin to press kisses into his hair as he pulled Vin a little closer.

"I'm gonna take a shower," Vin said, sitting up. It wasn't an invitation, but he feared Chris had taken it as one when he sat up behind him. Vin felt Chris's arms come around him, his hands moving down from Vin's shoulders, down his arms, and then over Vin's hands where they rested. Vin felt kisses in his hair again, on the back of his neck.

"Tell me something," he heard Chris whisper and this time his gut twisted. Hadn't the man heard enough? Hadn't he put Vin through enough all ready?

Vin felt Chris running his hand back and forth over his right arm, over the jagged scar a few inches above his wrist. "Tell me about this one...."

Vin swallowed, but then leaned back against Chris. Chris ran his hands down Vin's arms again, placed them over his hands and threaded their fingers together. Vin could feel Chris's breath against his ear, could feel his heartbeat strong and steady against his back.

"Happened two years ago. Not long after I joined the team. It was after work ... the sun was still strong, so I guess it was July, maybe, or August...." Vin paused, thinking back to that day.

"Ya musta been in DC, at some seminar or somethin'. For some reason, Buck had a football in his truck and we all went to the park downtown for a game. Don't remember how we picked teams, but I remember who was on 'em: Josiah, Ezra, and JD against me, Buck, and Nathan. We were laughin' our fool heads off, but still carefully keepin' score; Ezra had, of course, made a bet before we started — losin' team had to buy the winnin' team dinner.

"The score was tied when I went out for a pass Nathan threw, but JD got passed Buck, who'd been runnin' interference. I caught the ball and kept goin'. It was touch football, but I reckon the kid forgot; he grabbed me around the waist and we both went down, slidin' across the grass. I think it was a sprinkler or a rock or somethin' — don't remember now — but it ripped right across my arm. Nathan looked it over, wanted me to go to the hospital for some stitches, but I hate gettin' stitches, so I convinced him to just bandage it up; told him I'd go if it didn't stop bleedin'."

Vin was smiling now, he hadn't thought about that day in a long time. He'd had a lot of fun. It was the first thing they'd done as a group that hadn't involved drinking at the saloon or sitting around watching some game on TV.

"So, did you win?"

"Hell yeah! Ya shoulda been there. We made 'em buy us the biggest steaks in town."

Vin snuggled back against Chris, pulling his arms closer about himself.

Chris was kissing his hair again, nuzzling against his neck, nibbling at his ear. "Vin, will you do something for me?"

"Don't ya ever get tired of my blowjobs?" Vin asked, only half teasing.

"Not that," Chris said softly, but with a seriousness that made Vin's stomach tense again. Maybe he'd go have that shower after all, just put this morning behind them....

"Vin ... I want you ... I want you to...."

Vin was about to pull away, but something in Chris's tone made him stop and wait for him to finish whatever it was he was trying to say.

"Vin, I want you inside me."

Chris never used the word 'fuck' — Vin had noticed that. It was always a different word, a ... nicer word, like what was between them was more than that — more than fucking — better than fucking. And Vin realized that it was true. Chris had never fucked him, not really, not like all the others had. And now Chris was asking the same from him. For the first time, Chris was saying he was ready, ready to have Vin push into him, make him feel all the things that he'd been making Vin feel all these months.

Vin stood up off the bed and turned around. He looked down at Chris, stared at him, hard. He studied his face, the lines around his mouth that were most visible in the mornings, which pointed up towards his eyes. And he looked in those eyes, wondering why today, why now ... what had changed that Chris was suddenly ready to take this step? They'd never talked about it, never discussed why or when. Vin just sensed that it wasn't something Chris wanted or was even all that curious about. But now....

"Vin..."

Chris reached out and Vin took his hand as he moved forward to kneel between Chris's out-stretched legs. Vin slid his hands up Chris's arms, to his shoulders, to his neck, and then to his hair. They never broke eye contact and Vin was finally convinced that, while Chris might be nervous about this (as much as he might be trying to hide the fact), he did indeed want it.

"I don't wanna hurt ya..." Vin said, sure that he would, sure that no matter how easy he took things it would hurt for Chris.

"Doubt it's something I can't handle. Besides, I wanna know what it feels like for you ... wanna know what I've been doing to you all this time. I don't hurt you, do I?"

Well, yeah, he did — sometimes — but Vin knew it was never intentional. "No, not really ... not anything I can't handle," he added the last with a smile. "Don't exactly hurt, not once ya get used to it, once ya know what to expect and how to deal with it."

"Then you'll help me through it, help me deal with it?"

Vin nodded as he brought his face level with Chris's. He touched their lips together and watched as Chris closed his eyes. Then Vin leaned in, deepening the kiss as he moved forward, gently pressing himself against Chris, easing him down onto the mattress....

~ fade ~

Series Index

May 2003

Please do NOT repost this story anywhere outside of the Blackraptor Fiction Website.

Thanks to my beta reader for chatting with me, which greatly helped me refine and appreciate this story.

Characters from "The Magnificent Seven" were used without permission and this story in no way signifies support of, or affiliation with, The Mirisch Group, MGM, Trilogy Entertainment, or CBS Worldwide, Inc. The M7-ATF universe was created by Mog, and extra thanks go to her for allowing other people to play within it. The story itself and any non-Magnificent Seven characters belong to the author. This story will not be sold for any reason.