Chris's hand was on the light switch when he heard the quiet, "Don't." He'd already known Vin was there in his bed, in the dark.
He moved his hand off the light switch and waited for Vin to let him know if he should join him, or cross the room to the easy chair. Vin's presence in his bed had already let him know that Vin wanted him close.
"I'm gonna tell you something, I ain't told nobody else."
The words were quiet, too quiet for Chris to hear if he was on the other side of the room. The bed, then. He toed his shoes off, and loosened his tie until he could pull it over his head. He tossed it on the dresser, but made no move to finish undressing. Sex wasn't what Vin needed right now.
Vin was a dark mound on the bed when Chris's eyes adjusted to the darkness. He moved to the other side of the bed and got comfortable against the headboard, and then pulled his unresisting lover into his arms. The soft cotton of his sweats was warm under Chris's hands. He'd been here long enough for the chill of clothing pulled out of the drawer to warm. He'd probably been here since he left the office. He could feel a fine tremor running through Vin. Not cold, Chris knew, and he tightened his arms around him. He kissed Vin fully on the lips, but gently, with no heat in it.
Vin returned the kiss, just as chastely and then turned in his arms to nuzzle against Chris's neck. His words were muffled, and Chris had to strain to hear them.
"That kid today, he coulda been me." Vin said. "If Kojay hadn't taken me in, it woulda." His voice was flat and certain.
Chris shook his head. "No," he said, just as certain. "That kid was lost a long time ago. I know you did a lot of things; had a lot of things done to you, that you aren't proud of; but you weren't him. You were never that."
"I was," Vin whispered. "Everything he did, 'cept kill that old lady, I did."
"Not everything," Chris said. "You never hurt another kid, like he did."
Vin touched his cheek. "Everything," he whispered and dropped his hand. He shifted until he was facing away from Chris. "I was him Chris. I put a thirteen year old boy in the hospital when I was fifteen, 'cause he looked at me wrong. I done other things - worse things. Things I'm too ashamed to tell you."
Chris digested that. Vin's juvenile records had been sealed, but he'd managed to get some information. He knew about the assault, but hadn't known the details. Vin had spent almost a year in a detention center for that. He'd been released into Kojay's custody, and he'd turned his life around. Chris knew that a lot of the things he didn't know about Vin's early life had been ugly. Just how ugly, he wasn't sure, and he wasn't sure he did want to know.
What he did know was that whatever Vin had done when he was a kid, today, he was a decent man who made Chris's life better. He touched Vin's shoulder, and then tugged at his arm, until Vin finally turned back to face him. He could see Vin's eyes huge and luminous in the pale moonlight filtering into the room through the sheers hanging on the windows.
"Whatever you did," Chris said. "is in the past. You're not the only one ashamed of things he did; and I wasn't a kid with a lot of hurt in him at the time. I was a mean, angry drunk. I hurt a lot of people, and I didn't care."
Vin's eyes closed. His lashes were dark smears against ghostly skin in the darkness. "I made a girl do something she didn't want to do." The words were bare whispers, that if Chris was sitting up instead of lying next to him, he wouldn't have heard. "She liked me. She wanted me to take her out, be her boyfriend." His words got stronger.
"I was a mean shit," Vin said. "I was fourteen at the time, and pissed at the world, 'cause I figured I'd had enough shit done to me that I had a right to treat other people like shit. I treated her like shit. I didn't force her," he said. "I wasn't a big enough asshole to do that, but I was damn close."
Chris let out a breath, he wasn't even aware he was holding.
Vin leaned up over him and clicked the small lamp on the night table. It was only 25 watts, just enough to see to get to the toilet without tripping over shoes or clothes when they didn't want to take the time to put them away. He sat up Indian fashion, facing Chris, and then he met Chris's eyes, the way Chris had known he eventually would. Chris kept one hand on his knee.
"I been ashamed of it since I grew up enough t'know it weren't OK to hurt somebody, just 'cause somebody else hurt me. She liked me and I lied to her, and told her if she'd do me, I'd go out with her. She did what I wanted and I dumped her flat. Told all the kids at school about it. She was embarrassed and she came to me crying and I laughed at her and told her that it wasn't my fault she was a slut. I hurt her a lot and I didn't care. I used my bein' hurt to make it OK to hurt her."
"You're not that kind of man," Chris pointed out. "You don't hurt people, if you can help it. Not even people who deserve it."
Vin nodded. "That kid today, he was me. 'Cept I had Kojay to straighten my ass out, 'fore I fucked up my life permanent.”
“How?” Chris asked. He couldn’t quite reconcile the man Vin was today, with the boy who could use a girl that way.
“Chanu and I were always into it. It was mostly my fault. I was bound and determined to be right about no one giving a shit about me and no one giving me a fair shake. I picked fights with Chanu about everything.”
“Sounds like you were a handful.”
“I was,” Vin admitted. “But, Kojay didn’t give up on me. He knew about all the crap that had happened to me, and he knew that I’d do my damnedest to make ‘im give up on me so I could keep on hatin’ the world.”
“But, he never did give up on me. He gave me a horse. A mean, ornery, horse that couldn’t nobody do a damned thing with. I loved that horse more than anything in the world. And, that horse loved me. He’d bite me, push me, kick me, anything he could think of to piss me off, but I didn’t care. I figured he’d taken enough shit in his life to have a right to be mad.” Vin shook his head and smiled. “Kojay knew me and that horse was two peas in a pod. Probably why he gave ‘im to me.”
“Kojay’s a pretty smart old man,” Chris said and squeezed Vin’s knee.
“Yeah,” Vin agreed. “That’s how he got me to understand it wasn’t OK for me to hurt other people. I sucker punched Chanu one day. I stood there, glarin’ at Kojay, sure he was gonna tell me he was done with me. But, he didn’t.”
Vin looked off somewhere, seemingly lost in his thoughts, until Chris shook his leg a little.
“Sorry.” Color rose in Vin’s cheeks. “He told Chanu to get a stick. I figured he was gonna let Chanu beat me with that stick. I stood right there, with my head up, told ‘im to go ahead and beat me, I didn’t care. Wasn’t gonna be nothin’ I hadn’t had happen a dozen times anyway.”
“But that didn’t happen, did it?” Chris already knew Kojay hadn’t beaten Vin, and he was sure the old man hadn’t let Chanu beat him either.
“Nope,” Vin said. “Chanu come back with that stick, and Kojay told ‘im to go beat my horse. That got my attention. I grabbed onto that stick and screamed at him not to hurt my horse. Kojay asked me why not? I told him it wasn’t fair to punish my horse ‘cause I did something wrong.”
Vin looked down at his lap, and then met Chris’s eyes again. His voice was quiet again. “He said, “That’s right, it’s not. And, it’s not fair for you to punish Chanu because someone else did something bad to you. And then, he threw that stick as far as he could and put his arm on my shoulder and the other one around Chanu’s shoulder. I ain’t never gonna forget it, Chris. He said we were brothers. Said blood didn’t matter. All that mattered was we were brothers.”
“And, that straightened you out?” Chris asked, impressed.
“Hell, no,” Vin laughed. “It took another six months of me bein’ an ass, and Kojay teaching me lessons I didn’t really get right away, 'fore what he was tryin’ to teach me started to sink in.”
Chris laughed with him. He pulled Vin into a kiss that wasn’t nearly as chaste as the first kiss they’d shared. It took their breath away, and they were panting when they broke the kiss.
“I went back and found her,” Vin said. “After I graduated from high school, just afore I went into the army. I apologized to her. She didn’t want to talk to me at first. But, I guess she could tell I meant it when I said I was sorry for treatin’ her bad.”
“Took a lot of guts to face her,” Chris said.
Vin shook his head. “Took a lot of guts for her to hold her head up and go back to that school and face all them kids after what I done to her. Me tellin’ her I was sorry, that wasn’t nothin’. That was just somethin’ I owed her.”
Chris knew better, but he also knew that nothing he could say would convince Vin that apologizing was something he should be proud of. He shifted out from under Vin, and stood up and stripped off the dress shirt and slacks he’d worn to work, leaving his undershirt and boxers on. He lifted the covers and slid under them, and then urged Vin under them with him. He reached around Vin to snap the light off and then settled comfortably, with Vin’s head on his shoulder.
“I’m glad you told me,” he said. “But more than that, I’m glad Kojay never gave up on you.” He kissed the top of Vin’s head.
Vin stroked his cheek gently. “It just felt like I oughta tell you. Somebody should know, I know how lucky I was."
Chris pulled him down. "I know how lucky you were. And, I know how lucky I am." He kissed him.
"We're both lucky," Vin said.THE END