The Idea of Need
Sarah and Adam.
I needed them both, from the second I saw them. 'Course, I saw her before I saw him, and I'm damn glad I could see more of her in Adam than me. The thought of having a miniature version of Chris Larabee running round terrifies me to this day. But whenever I think about it, the first time I saw her and that early morning in the delivery room when I saw Adam for the first time... I realize how deep that need ran.
Now that I think about it, it's sort of strange to have needs met your entire life, and more besides- I always had a fairly good home life, nice things, college, got myself into the SEALS (not many people can say that, you know)... and I end up needing this sweet, shy girl and the son we had together soon after we got married. I needed them, God. Needed them like I needed food, water, a roof over my head.
More, maybe.
Why'd you take them?
Part of me says shit, Larabee, people have their whole lives taken from them - you think the Kurds in Iraq or the Jews in Nazi Germany wanted what they got? You think people you see who survived tornadoes in Oklahoma or tidal waves in the South Pacific wanted their loved ones to die? You're not alone, Chris. Practically every other person in this world has something they've lost.
So why are you complaining about two people some... some cruel, misguided bastard son of a bitch with a hardon for revenge decided to take from you?
'Cause it wasn't Sarah or Adam's fault... it was mine...
Thirty-three years of my life were beautiful. Well, hardly idyllic I guess, but hell, a life I probably wouldn't consider exchangin'. After that night though, after the... the explosion, things went to hell.
And it's been five years of tryin' to get by, day-to-day, gettin' what I want.
Drunk, sometimes. A good lay- hell, yeah. It's good for what ails ya, but it's bitter medicine when you wake up and realize the woman - or man - in your arms isn't Sarah, that you won't come back to her at the end of the day, that you won't fall into her embrace an' feel happy for the first time in eight hours.
Then you can get drunk again, or go to group therapy sessions. The only advantages to group therapy is the lack of a hangover and that Godawful taste that 10-hour-old whiskey leaves in the back of your throat, even though my old supervisor made therapy sessions mandatory after it became clear I wasn't dealin' with Sarah and Adam's deaths as well as he thought I should have.
Never thought about what I needed, 'cause what I needed died after a car bomb went off.
But now, things are different. You can call it Fate (Buck), Fortuna (Ezra), or maybe divine intervention (Josiah), but when I think about it, I end up calling it Orin Travis and his proposal for a new ATF team, and his request that I be team leader and pick the members. So I started picking them out, and even though I didn't know it, started picking up pieces and putting them together.
Nathan, Josiah, Buck, J.D.,... hell, even Ezra. All different puzzle pieces, but they interlock to form a whole picture that draws me in. I can't help it, really- they're the best friends a guy could ever want, and I think they all feel that way about each other. Hope they feel the same way about me...
It's hard bein' respected, you know. Whenver someone says Bad-Ass Larabee's on the warpath... Shit, it does a whole lot for my image, an' in the ATF, you need all the help you can get if you want to get anywhere with the bureaucratic assholes makin' life more difficult, or the few team leaders who still think they're in the Wild West an' need to put another notch on their Winchesters. Yeah, the ability to glare a man into submission comes in handy, especially when it's time for action and not words.
Don't make a lot of friends that way. Buck - hell, he's always been a friend, however much I didn't want him to be, but you really can't tell Buck who to like and who to hate. J.D.- he's too young, too in awe of Chris Larabee the Supervising Agent to like Chris Larabee the Human Being. Ezra? 'Like' may not even be in his vocabulary, although I think he's learnin - and despite myself, I think he's not as bad as I'd like to think him. Nathan and Josiah? I respect both of them, and I know they respect me. Maybe that lends itself to mutual liking. I hope so.
I need them - they grow on ya after a while, they really do. It's nothing they do themselves - it's wrapped up in their personalities.
Guess you've noticed I've left someone out, huh?
Yup. Vin Tanner.
I need him.
And want him too, I suppose - there are times when one becomes the other, or maybe the two are so tied up in each other there's no telling the difference.
If you ever come with us on a bust, or if you accompany another team we're working with, just watch him. Watch the way he moves, a black ghost through dark shadows, silent and controlled and every bit as deadly as the rifle he carries over his shoulder. Watch the way he calms J.D. down when the kid gets overexcited and starts jumping around like the Energizer Bunny, the way those beauti-
Fuck. I can't believe I just said that.
Oh... what's beautiful? Those hands, those eyes... Beautiful the way a tiger is beautiful. There's no separating anything out, saying what, definitely, is beautiful - it's everything. The totality, as Ezra would say.
So, after the bust, come to the office and watch him pull practical jokes on everyone, trying to work off an amount of energy that could probably light Las Vegas for a week. Well, with you there, he probably wouldn't - would just sit back and say a few polite words to you, hoping you'd leave because you make him uncomfortable. The second you'd leave, he'd loosen the bolts in Josiah's chair or set up a spring-loaded trap of disappearing ink for Ezra.
I love the way his eyes shine when he pulls shit like that. I'd never say it though. Hell, I hardly dare think it.
He's a puzzle piece I can't quite fit into this picture of mine, and not for lack of trying. I can't figure out my own reasons for needing him in a way I don't need the others. Sometimes I feel like the day I figure this out, that piece will slide into place and the picture will be complete.
Except I know that life is made of glass, and this isn't so much a puzzle as it is piecing together something broken almost beyond repair. When it seems like I'm so close to placing that piece of Vin, right when it seems that everything can get put back together... I have to stop, wondering if this one piece would end up not fitting, not working... if it would shatter this glass thing I call my life all over again.
Need... that always comes closest to fucking things up. It's when you actually have to have somethin' that you're in danger. There's no problem with wanting, 'cause you can always do without it. But when you need somethin' like you need air- that's a dependency, a weakness you can't afford in a life like mine.
I got pretty good at telling myself that.
When I'm lyin' alone in bed, though, it's more difficult to listen to that ever-sensible voice that's kept me somewhat sane for the past few years. Don't know why I have a king-sized bed - seems pretty pointless when you've only got one person sleepin' in it, an' downright cruel when you think about the one person you do want sleepin' in it... and you realize that person's in an apartment in Purgatorio, thinkin' about something other than you.
As a consolation, I sometimes try to picture him there, lying underneath the covers, his brown hair spread out over the pillow, his blue eyes shining with everything I wish he'd feel for me. In my fantasies I'm a chickenshit - I can't bring myself to picture the rest of that lean, muscled body - I've seen all of him, if you get my drift, but it's always been when he's sick or injured (sometimes both) and I'm taking care of him, so the thought of how that smooth, tanned skin would feel under my hands is the farthest thing from my mind.
Shit. Just thinkin' about it makes me want to... well, you know. But I can't bring myself t' jerk off, thinkin' about him - it doesn't seem right, treatin' somethin' I need like that, like it's just there to take care of a physical itch. Right now I'm desperately in love in an idea, and... well, there you have it.
I need him, but maybe the idea of him will get me through. You can't compare it to food or water, because it's physical. Love... love is something else, it's intangible, invisible, something you can only feel and never touch. Hunger, thirst, and love are all ideas... food, water, and lovemaking are physical realizations of them.
Think I'll live with him as an idea.
An idea... yeah, best it remain that way, 'cause the idea of needing, of love... scares the hell out of me.
If you don't mind, I'll keep it that way for a while, and hope it'll be enough.
END
Companion story: The Idea of Want