Destinations
Notes - special thanks to my awesome betas, Estee and VinTanner2.
Vin watched as Chris eased off his horse, still slow and careful - too soon, he thought again, Chris wasn't healed enough to be here on his own.But Chris had chaffed at the attention in town, chaffed at the worry and concern of others, chaffed with the embarrassment of what had happened.
Vin hadn't offered his opinion, on Chris' health or anything else.
"Let me get that," Buck said, moving up beside Chris to help him with the saddle bags. "Vin, you mind turning out Pony and Don?"
Vin walked over, taking the offered reins, but he stilled as Chris said quietly, "You staying, Buck?"
Buck smiled his easy smile. "Told you we weren't leaving you alone, not completely, and not yet. Figure I'll stay tonight, see how you make it, then leave tomorrow morning. At least get you settled in."
Chris was silent, so Vin turned and started walking toward the corral, the three horses in tow.
"You staying, too, Vin?" Chris asked, a little louder.
Vin slowed but didn't stop. "Up to you," he said over his shoulder. But he didn't look at Chris, didn't want to see whatever he was thinking. He'd seen too much since that night at Ella's when Chris had shut him out.
Chris shifted, his feet grinding on the dirt behind Vin. "Turn out your horse, too," he said, but the order held a certain insecurity in it.
"Well, hell," Buck laughed, "if you prefer Vin's company, I can find right softer company back in town. How about I head on back, unless you're expecting trouble, of course."
Vin stopped at that, turning slightly to see how Chris reacted. For his part, he wasn't certain it was the best plan; things between him and Chris were still tense - more tense than Buck knew, Vin suspected.
But when Buck's eyes caught his, there was a knowing look in them that made Vin sigh. Buck didn't know, but he had an idea of it, and he was trying, in his way, to help out.
Damn him.
Chris snorted, not looking at Vin. "Reckon there ain't much need of two of you wasting your time. You go on back, Buck. Vin and I will manage."
Buck was still looking at Vin and he lifted his eyebrows in question.
"Reckon so," Vin agreed.
By the time he had the horses turned out, Buck had Chris settled on the porch, sitting in one of the chairs from inside. He was hurting, Vin could tell, his face lined deep. But his eyes opened as Vin approached and some of the lines eased a little.
"Buck's lighting a fire to heat some water," he said, "make some of that willow bark tea Nathan uses."
"Bad?" Vin asked, stopping with one foot on the low step onto the porch.
"Hurts some," Chris said, and the admission surprised Vin. Chris didn't usually let on to his pain. "Thanks for staying."
Vin looked away, uncomfortable. "Reckon I should go hunting, see if I can scare up something for dinner."
"Mrs. Potter sent a few things," Chris said, "but I wouldn't mind a rabbit or some fish."
Vin nodded. "Back soon," he said, walking away.
By the time he got back to the cabin, Buck was antsy to be on his way. Vin waved him off when he offered to help clean the rabbits, telling him to head on. Chris was still on the porch, but he was drowsing, the tea curbing the pain.
Vin had the rabbits on the stove in a pan, some potatoes roasting as well, by the time Chris was awake and moving. Chris staggered around 'til he got his balance, then made his way slowly to the outhouse, taking care of matters. Vin kept an eye on him, nodding when he came back.
They sat on the porch in silence, but it wasn't the comfortable sort they'd had before Ella. Couldn't be, Vin knew, until they cleared the air. Until Chris cleared the air. Vin had already apologized for missing the shot that morning at Ella's ranch, distracted by Chris laying on the ground at his feet, bleeding.
He'd be damned before he'd apologize for finding out about Ella and her double-dealings, for trying to warn Chris. Trying to protect him.
For loving him too much to let him do something stupid.
After a while, Vin got up to check the cooking food. When he came out, he carried the bottle of whiskey Chris kept in the kitchen. He didn't bother with glasses, just opening it and taking a drink before holding out the bottle to Chris.
Chris took it, nodded his head in thanks. They shared it for a few minutes, until Chris sighed. "Don't rightly know where to start, so how about I just say I'm sorry and we let it go?"
Despite himself, Vin grinned. "Reckon I know that. Question is, what are you sorry for?"
Chris waved a hand in the air, the one that wasn't affixed to the injured shoulder. It also happened to be the one holding the whiskey bottle, the amber liquid sloshing in the bottle. "Everything. From the day I let Buck bring me back to town right up to - well, now, I guess. Would just as soon wipe out these last several weeks, forget they ever happened. Well, except the part where I found out that she was the one who . . . "
The words drifted off, and Vin looked over, not surprised to see the glower in Chris' eyes. This was the part that they all worried about, the fury and frustration Chris was feeling, finding out that Ella had killed his wife and child. Finding it out after he had been in her bed.
"Reckon it ain't something for you to worry on," Vin said after a while. "I stepped between you and what you wanted. Should have known better than that."
"No," Chris sighed, and he took another drink of whiskey. After swallowing, he said quietly, "you were looking out for me. I know you were, and I ignored it. Didn't want to hear it. Was using her to forget about Sarah and Adam and everything else that hurt me." He took another drink, longer this time, then held the bottle out to Vin. "Trying to forget about you."
The statement startled Vin, and the bottle almost slipped out of his hand as he was taking it. "What the hell does that mean?" he asked, recovering himself and the whiskey.
Chris turned and looked straight him, his face calm but his eyes sad. "Think you know what it means."
Vin stared at him, his mind moving way too slow. Eventually, Chris looked away, but he said softly, "I know we ain't talked about it - hell, we don't talk about any of it, unless it's laying together after. Even then . . . even then it's not talk."
"What are you saying?" Vin heard himself say, even though he didn't know how. His throat seemed dry as the dirt in the yard and his jaw felt like it was locked shut.
Chris shook his head and slumped lower in his chair. "Nothing. Nothing you want to hear."
Vin sat for a few seconds, then, with effort, he lifted the bottle to his lips and swallowed several times. The liquor burned as it went down, but it seemed to wake him from the shock, enough to get him going. He wasn't stupid - if he wanted to have this conversation, he couldn't back out of it now. Neither of them would ever have the balls again.
"Can't say I don't want to hear it if I ain't heard it," he said quietly, and he held the bottle out toward Chris. "Reckon I could stand to hear it, if only the one time."
Chris turned slowly to look at him. He took the bottle, drank deep, then said, "Just remember that you asked," he said, his voice low. "I . . . I got feelings for you." He paused, drank again, and when he spoke, the words were fast, as if he were afraid of them. "Feelings a man usually has for a woman. Same as the way I felt for Sarah, or so I remember." He stopped, taking another long drink, and Vin's belly burned as if the liquor was hitting him instead f Chris. Chris' voice was mere whisper when he continued. "Scares me, Vin, makes me wonder if something's broke bad inside me. When Ella showed up, I thought. . . ." He shook his head, and the words died, but Vin didn't need to hear more of them.
He pushed himself out of the chair and started back toward the door. But he stopped at Chris side long enough to touch his shoulder and say, "If you're broke, then we both are."
Things settled between them for a while, through dinner, which they ate on the porch, and afterwards, as Vin cleaned up. They didn't say much, and Vin figured that Chris was thinking just as hard as he was about what had been said, and what it meant.
When he came back out on the porch, Chris was standing, leaning on one of the posts and staring into the dusk. Vin held out his arm, offering a mug. "More tea," he said. "For the pain. Nathan sent laudanum as well, if you want."
Chris turned, looking at Vin now, his eyes soft. "Tea's fine. Don't want to sleep just yet."
Vin nodded. "I'm gonna go get the horses in, grab my bedroll." He turned toward the step, but Chris shifted, straightening.
"Ain't got no right to ask you, but I'd like for you to share the bed."
Vin hesitated. The memories came fast and hard, Chris' words about staying on with Ella, his words about Vin being out of line.
His silence when Vin had said he was leaving.
A hand settled lightly on his shoulder, curving over it familiarly. He nodded. "Be back shortly."
It was dark when he returned, and he wasn't surprised to find Chris inside the cabin, a lamp lit and Chris already stripped down to his union suit, his gun belt resting over the post at the head of the bed where Chris slept. He was sitting up on the bed, his legs under the sheet, and reading one of his books. He'd taken off the sling but his arm still curved so that it rested on his belly.
Vin closed the door behind him and dropped the board in place that braced it shut. He'd brought his bedroll back, for appearances if nothing else, but he'd had a passing thought that Chris' bed was a mite on the small side under the best of circumstances. Chris being injured was far from a 'best circumstance'.
"Everything locked up?" Chris asked, and Vin nodded, tossing his bedroll to one side, near the bed, the shrugging out of his coat.
He set about getting ready for bed, not really thinking about it until his boots were off and he was peeling back his shirt. He felt the eyes on him then and turned to meet them.
Chris swallowed, his eyes bleak. "I couldn't watch her take her clothes off," he said, his voice scratchy. "Reckon that should have been a sign, but I ignored it, just got mad at myself. All I could think of was you, watching you do it - just like you're doing it now. You ain't trying to get to me - never have. But watching you strip down is . . . I don't know how to say it, Vin, what to say. All I know is that I missed this. Missed you."
Vin looked away, but he couldn't stop the smile. He unbuckled his gun belt and untied the leather thong on his thigh, then stepped close to the bed and put the weapon on the table beside the lamp. "Yeah," he said softly, turning his head to meet Chris' eyes once more. "Me too."
They stared at each other for a few seconds, then Vin unbuttoned his pants and slid them off. When he sat on the side of the bed, he could feel Chris smiling behind him.
"You sure about this?" he asked softly, keeping his back to the other man. "Ain't gonna be the same now, Chris, I can't . . . I can't go back to the way it was. I don't know if I'll be able to come back again, if you decide you gotta go off and visit Purgatorio or one of your other haunts."
Chris was silent for so long that Vin almost rose, thinking he probably oughta sleep on the bedroll. But as he started to lean forward to get up, Chris touched him. It was light, one finger, Vin thought, moving slowly down Vin's spine until it stopped just at the point where his shirt and his underpants met. "Ain't going off to anywhere for that," he said quietly. "Reckon this has taught me better, made me realize that I don't want that no more. Want you, the way we were. Probably can't be that way again, I fucked that up. But I'll take what you'll give me, Vin."
It was as good as anyone could ask, Vin knew. He turned, looking over his shoulder to the other man. "Give you a good sucking. Doubt you're up for much else."
The hand on his back rose to touch his cheek. "Give you good sucking," Chris offered, smiling. "Think I owe you that and more."
Vin could no more keep his hands off a willing Larabee than he could stop breathing. He did let Chris at him first, loving the way Chris' mouth worked him, the way Chris looked as he gave everything he had to Vin.
But after a while, he wanted more, wanted to taste Chris himself, wanted to make him lose control.
Wanted to test Chris' trust in him.
Afterwards, Chris' taste strong in his mouth, he lay with his head on Chris' thigh, Chris' fingers stroking through his hair. It was the most content he'd been in - well, since before Chris had disappeared to Purgatorio on a tear that Vin hadn't understood until Buck had brought him back, thrown over a horse. As Buck and JD had laughed about finding Chris, Buck had dropped the fact that it as an anniversary for Chris, one he hadn't shared with Vin.
That had hurt the worst, the discovery that Chris hadn't wanted to tell him why he was hurting. After that, everything else had hurt, but the surprise was gone. Even that last confrontation, Chris' words in anger, hadn't been a surprise. Hurtful, but not a surprise.
Chris tugged at a strand of his hair, and he reluctantly rose and turned so that his head was on the pillow beside Chris. The other man was looking at him, his green eyes soft with the affection they often held afterwards.
This time, though, Chris acknowledged it. "Glad you're here. Didn't like the thought of you riding out, not then, not now. Not without me."
Vin studied Chris for a few seconds, then said quietly, "When you're up to it, think there's a trip we need to make."
"Yeah?" Chris asked, reaching out to catch one of Vin's hands.
Vin let his fingers be twined with the other man's, waiting until Chris was still and looking at him to say, "One of the stage hands told me a tale this afternoon, 'bout a widow-woman who'd come a-sudden to Greeley. Seemed she had made a stir talking 'bout the death of her recent husband, Jack Avril."
The hand holding his tightened so hard that it hurt, bending his fingers wrong. He didn't show it though, preoccupied with watching Chris, watching the flare of anger in his eyes, the thinning of his lips.
"You didn't think to mention this earlier?" Chris demanded.
Vin met his gaze calmly. "You think you're up to the ride? Or you thinking to send me to fetch her back?"
As the words died out, Chris took a deep breath. The grip on Vin's fingers eased, as did the harshness in his face. "Reckon you're right," he said after a time. "Reckon we ride together. Need to wire the sheriff up there to check into it, lock her up if it's her."
"Already done," Vin answered, and he grinned a little. "We ain't letting her get away again, Chris. Nathan figures by the end of the week, you should be mended enough to try the ride. We all figured to wait a while to tell you, at least 'til we've heard back from the sheriff. Buck's gonna let me know what he says."
Chris snorted. "So you all know 'bout this? You all plotting against me?" But there was no anger in the tone.
"Seems only fair," Vin said mildly. "You thinking on leaving us, we gotta think for ourselves."
Chris' face darkened, but not in anger this time. He pulled up their joined hands so that he could kiss Vin's knuckles. "I reckon I ain't leaving, not you, anyway."
Vin relaxed then, kissing Chris' shoulder lightly. "End of the week," he said quietly. "If you're mended enough."
"I'll be mended enough," Chris said, his voice grim. But his hand was warm on Vin's. "And I'll have you and Buck to hold me up."
Vin closed his eyes, sleep tugging at him for the first time in a long while. "That you will," he agreed.