Summary: Vin and Lydia and Chris
Pairing: Chris/Vin, Chris/Lydia
Rating: Ohh - I hate this. So let's say, to be on the safe side, Adult NC-17, FRAO (Adults only, right?).
Warnings: Intimations of that great evil - het sex, but also intimations of slash
Beta-ed by the wonderful Sara_Merry99 and Jill, two exceptional writers who took time away from their own pursuits to help me out. Any mistakes are entirely my fault because I probably thought I knew better than they did!
Author's Note 1: Part of Weaving, another subsection - if the "knottings" are for Chris, who needs to learn to tie things together, the "frayings" are for Vin who's too tightly bound up in everything. So the "frayings" are from Vin's POV.
Author's Note 2: This is set in the time between the rescue of Mary from Wickes' and the next morning when Lydia and the other girls leave. It also directly refers to the first "Knotting" Story, The Star Knot.
Vin leaned back against the bar, hip canted to ease the dull ache. They had ridden hard from Wickestown, everyone wanting to put as much distance between the place - or Wickes, as possible.
Nathan edged in next to him, getting the bartender's attention. As he waited for his beer, Vin asked him, "She all right?"
Nathan took a sip before answering, "Bruises, rope burns, but nothing bad. Wickes didn't touch her, thank goodness. She is pretty shook up, though. Don't know what Wickes said to her, but she's feeling pretty vulnerable."
Vin nodded, his eyes on the table across the way where their other friends sat along with some of the Wickestown ladies who had started this whole mess.
"'Spect Chris'll be good for getting her settled," the healer continued as he turned to stand beside Vin. "Feels like there's a little spark there."
Vin didn't say anything. Nothing to say.
He took a sip of his whiskey.
"She doing all right?" Nathan chin pointed to the table.
Vin waited as Lydia took another long pull on her own whiskey. At least she had stopped 'shooting it', as Buck called. She smiled at something one of the others said, but her green eyes were distant, not really seeing anything around her.
"Guessing she ain't never shot no one before," he finally answered.
Nathan chuckled, the sound just audible over the growing din of the evening crowd in the place. "Hell, Vin, most people ain't. 'Til I met up with you and Chris, I didn't shoot at people either - hell, I've shot more people keeping company with you two than I did in the war!"
Vin couldn't stop his grin and he didn't even try. "Reckon we're a bad influence on y'all - well, you and JD, anyway."
"Reckon you are," Nathan agreed.
They stood in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the other patrons ebbing and flowing about them.
Eventually, Nathan commented, "Long week for them women. Getting beat up, threatened by Wickes and his men, chased, hiding out, then shooting a man - Reckon Lydia and Norah, especially could use some comforting."
Vin sipped his whiskey again, then said, "Buck, JD, Ezra, Josiah - seems they got more comfort than a body could want."
He felt Nathan's glance. "Norah and Emily and some of the others, maybe. But ain't the others Lydia keeps looking to."
As if hearing his words, Lydia looked up, catching Vin's eye.
The look was direct, the intent clear. Vin respected her for that - she didn't play games.
"Ain't me she wants," he answered, hearing her words - 'Mr. Larabee ain't as friendly as he usually is' - drift lazily through his mind.
Nathan shrugged. "Maybe not. But she ain't gonna get Chris - not tonight, maybe not ever. And she knows that."
Her eyes said that as well, a little sad even as they offered. She looked away then, her attention drawn by something Buck was saying.
Nathan turned around, ordering another beer, and Vin turned as well. His back twinged at the shifting, but he ignored it. As long as the barkeep was here, may as well take advantage of it. And he felt the need tonight - several needs. Drinking was the easier one to answer.
"'Course it'll confuse the hell outta Buck," Nathan said lightly. "He's been working awfully hard over there."
Vin laughed at that. "Almost be worth it," he agreed. "Don't usually cotton to being second choice, but it'd probably be worth it just to piss him off."
Nathan frowned, then. "I didn't mean to say you were less than Chris, Vin." He nodded as his new beer appeared, dropping several coins on the bar, then he waited while Vin did likewise. "Lydia seems pretty sure 'bout - "
"Don't matter, Nate," Vin turned back, mostly because his back was starting to cramp. "If I's Lydia, I'd rather have Chris as well." He didn't think about the words until it was too late to call them back.
But Lydia's eyes were on him again, which might just explain the blush he felt creeping up his neck.
He looked away, into his glass.
"I don't envy Chris, though," Nathan moved on. "Hard choice between two women."
Vin shrugged. "Doubt I'll ever know."
Nathan chuckled. "Me neither. Probably safer, too. Women are a whole passel of different trouble. The whole thing with Wickes proves that."
Vin snorted then drank again. He could feel Lydia watching him, her gaze warm as it drifted over his body.
Over his groin.
He shifted, trying to ignore his own stirring.
"Gotta say," Nathan went on, "I ain't sure Chris is making the best choice, though. Don't know what his future plans are, but Mrs. Travis don't strike me as the kinda woman who would let herself be just a passing fancy."
Or a quick grope on a sand-rough bedroll. The liquor burned a little more this time as it went down.
Clearing his throat, Vin said, "I don't much get the sense that Chris has thought much about it. He don't seem too inclined toward letting others lead him."
"Lead him?" Nathan laughed out loud again. "Hell, Vin, I'd be willing to bet you're about the only person he even asks advice from!"
Vin cut his eyes toward his companion. "Whatcha mean?"
Nathan was still laughing as he answered, "Sending that wagon over the cliff was your idea, right? And sending Ezra in as the distraction? I don't figure either of those plans would have been heard, much less seen the light of day, if they had come from anyone else."
Vin shifted a little. "Nah, Chris just likes the idea of a good laugh, too. Nobody at risk in the first plan but me, and I knowed what I was doing. With Ez, all he had to do was start a fight then slip out. He knows how to do both - and we was there to help him if he needed it. Simple plan's always the best."
"Don't sell yourself short," Nathan smiled. "Betcha Chris wouldn't have given it a second thought if Buck suggested it, much less any of the rest of us."
Vin looked away, unintentionally finding her gaze again.
This time, he let his own wander. Lydia wasn't beautiful, but she was striking, commanding. Like Chris. Wide shrewd eyes that saw everything, solid, firm lips that teased with possibility, strong, square chin that challenged.
His eyes drifted down, cataloging one of the major differences between her and Chris; her breasts were firm and high, the exposed skin creamy and smooth. Inadvertently, he imagined familiar, slender fingers, ones that so easily wrapped around the grip of wood-handled revolvers, drawing slowly over those breasts, tickling large nipples to peaks, worrying the vein-lined flesh of the undersides.
He wondered if he kissed along her neck and over her bosom, if he would taste whiskey and saddle oil and gun polish and the smoke of those damnable cheroots.
He wondered if he licked between her thighs, up into those wet, quivering folds and against that small knot of her core, if he could taste the salty, musky essence of Chris himself. The taste he had so wanted that night, the taste he had refused because of the manner of the asking.
He wondered if all he would ever have of Chris was what he could find in her.
He met her eyes, and for an instant, they were the familiar green fire he knew.
Nathan was saying something else, something about Vin and his dangerous ideas, but Vin's attention was focused on the desperate pain in his crotch.
Unaware, he killed the last of his drink and set the glass on the bar even as he straightened and stepped away.
She rose, her hand on Buck's where it rested on her arm. He noted that she squeezed it affectionately even as she removed it from her, leaving her options open. Business, maybe, or pleasure.
She was moving around the table, past the others, towards him, and he was thinking that he had a room - didn't stay there much, but it was still his, with a bed where he could lay her back, open her wide, and draw as much of Chris out of her as his tongue could reach.
He was watching her getting close, see that Buck was watching her, looking at her, then at him, knew that the other man would have another thing to add to his list of reasons to dislike Vin, but he didn't care. Fuck Buck, he thought passingly, then thought, well, maybe if Chris had -
"Vin?"
The word, the sound coming from just behind him, permeated the stark clarity of his focus as nothing else would have. Lydia was looking past him now, all of the desire he had received multiplied and directed beyond him.
He turned, the bitter blade of disappointment enveloped in the soft flutter of transient but instant joy.
He nodded as his gaze caught Chris', feeling nothing in that second but the pleasure of the other man's presence.
"Everything here all right?" Chris asked, looking from Vin to Lydia, then back.
Before Vin could answer, Lydia was close, reaching out to Chris, sliding into the shelter of his outstretched arm.
Vin ached with sudden loss.
"Thought you had other priorities," Lydia murmured, her voice low and husky. Her arms wound around Chris' waist, as close to him as the gunbelt he wore.
Chris smiled down at her. "You shouldn't have come today, you should've stayed here with your girls, like Vin told ya." There was no heat in his words though, not even when he said Vin's name.
"You glad I didn't listen?" she asked, her smile blinding.
"Yeah," Chris arched his neck, lowering his head, his lips brushing over her forehead intimately, easily. "Reckon I am. Saved my life and Mary's. Owe ya."
He didn't want to hear this, didn't want to see the easy way Chris touched her, gave himself to her. Didn't want to think about this triangle and how much he wasn't a part of it.
Then they were really kissing, lips touching, tongues tasting, warm and wet and playful but not. He turned, fumbling his way back to the bar. A whiskey appeared before him, coins already on the bar, and chocolate-brown fingers pressed the glass into his hands with quiet words of sympathy.
"Sorry, my friend. Maybe one of the others?"
Vin shook his head, letting the alcohol burn away the emptiness.
Then a warm hand on his shoulder, that voice in his ear again. "Vin?"
He sighed, wishing for more whiskey even as he moved again. He looked past Chris, not wanting to see her hanging on him, not wanting to see what he wouldn't have.
But Chris stood alone, facing Vin, a question on his tired face. It wasn't the one that left his mouth. "You and Lydia - did I . . . . "
Vin was shaking his head. Chris would know it was a lie, but the words had to be spoken, the wound cleaned to heal.
"Vin?" The hand on his shoulder tightened, and despite himself, he met Chris' gaze.
They stared until Vin muttered, "I wasn't her first choice, just the one who was here." He shrugged, tried to grin and sort of made it. "Good timing."
Chris still studied him and Vin fought not to show anything else.
Quietly, so much so that Vin wasn't certain he had actually hear it, Chris said, "If you want her, I'll. . . . share."
Vin blinked. He wasn't sure what Chris meant, wasn't sure what he was being offered.
Understanding, Chris whispered, "Come to my room, now."
Vin couldn't breathe. It was . . . it was everything. So much more than what he had thought to get from Lydia, so much more than he thought he would ever have with Chris -
"I get her first, though. Hell - better yet, wait about an hour, then come up. I'll be done by then."
His fingers bruised as they clutched one last time before leaving his shoulder. He felt something brush against his cheek, then Chris was walking away, waving to Buck who was laughing, magnanimous now that he had lost to Chris.
Vin stood, staring at the doors as they waved on their hinges. Slowly, the reality of the saloon began to assert itself on his consciousness. Eventually, he felt someone tapping on his arm and then Nathan was pulling at him, frowning.
"People gonna talk," the healer said with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Come on."
Vin allowed himself to be drawn back to the bar yet again. This time he managed to find his own coins, paying for himself and for Nathan.
After they had settled and the barkeep was off to another part of the bar, Nathan asked, "You gonna go?"
Vin looked down at the bar, shaking his head. "Like I said before, she ain't interested in me - and now he's here, she really don't want me."
It was true - true enough, anyway. What she had offered before had been out of her own need. She had no need of him now.
But more to the truth of it, he had no need of her. While she would have more of what he had wanted from her to start with, it wasn't the way he wanted it. Second hand. Second choice - no, he knew, not even that. No choice. Cheap. He sighed.
"Ain't many men who'd be so polite," Nathan said.
"Chris ain't most men," Vin said, wondering why he gave a damn.
Nathan drained his beer and pushed up. "Meant you," he clarified, touching Vin lightly on the hard muscle of his upper arm. "Hope you don't regret it later, when them women are gone."
Vin half-smiled. "Can't regret what ya ain't done."
Nathan nodded, walking away to say good night to the others.
Vin watched him, and them, wondering when he'd become such a good liar.---fin---