Hedge

The trouble with having a place outside of the city is that there's nowhere to go.

In the city – by which we can extend the definition to include any suburb or otherwise non-incorporated residential zone – you can always say that you have an appointment, or you have to feed the neighbor's parakeet, or that the store's closing in twenty minutes, so… gotta run.

Out here, Chris thought, seeing that goddamn Jeep that by all rights ought to have been taken out back and shot eight years ago come down his drive, there's just no where to go where a body can't expect the right to follow. Only so long you can hide out in the can. Not even the New York fucking Times is big enough to make that an indefinitely extended visit.

It had seemed smart when he and Sarah bought the place, that the barn entrance was visible from the drive. No chance of leaving a visitor waiting, that's what they thought – well, that was Sarah's view. Chris was more of the thinking that said you can't be surprised that way. Can't be ambushed. He never said that aloud, not that she hadn't already accused him of bringing the Gulf home with him, and not that she didn't know he'd been thinking that. But at that very moment, it occurred to Chris that if you can't be ambushed, sometimes it's because no one has cover. He felt like a damn moron, and wondered how he'd survived two tours. Was he living by the grace of a god he only believed in to have something to blame?

Even some shrubs would have worked. With a hedge, he could have elbow-crawled to the barn, quick-saddled Pony and then high-tailed it out to the high country through a second exit he'd just mentally added to the new floor plan for the barn, since he was already adding landscaping.

That'd be perfect, unless it was Vin Tanner he was trying to hide from, in which case it was just a stupid idea.

Chris jerked his chin up and to the left, and Vin nodded, going around to the kitchen door. He was carrying Chris's briefcase. Fuck. How pissed off do you have to be, to forget that?

Vin Tanner's definition for a necktie: leash of society.

Chris used that definition for his briefcase. A tie's just something to wear, even better to take off, but the briefcase is one of those signs that you weren't hired just for your tactical skills or brains or weapons background or even your good looks. If it was just for those, you could get a manila folder for the blueprints, and a holster and ammo belt for the goods, and what, a comb, probably. A briefcase means that you carry paper that has nothing to do with the real job and everything to do with stupid expectations from bureaucrats, whose ranks you have now joined.

But Chris had been, to answer his own question, muy pissed off when he'd left work the night before. And he wasn't ready to talk to about it.

Thick enough hedge, like bay or something, it might have worked.

If he lived in town, Chris Larabee could grab his keys and pass Vin on his way out because Home Depot had gardening experts but they only worked until 5:30 on Saturdays.

"Forgot this," Vin said, dropping that leash on the counter. Chris grunted and scrubbed the pan he'd been holding for the duration of this thought process.

Vin didn't leave, unless Chris's hearing was going, and leaving now sounded like a guy opening up a fridge, getting out a can of soda and opening it while sitting on the step stool. Since that seemed to sync up with the distorted reflection in the toaster, Chris knew his hearing wasn't something he had to worry about.

Well, good to know something's normal.

"Make yourself at home," Chris muttered.

"Can't stay," Vin said. He ran his fingers through his hair and slouched a little more against the wall.

"Appreciate you dropping it off. Where're you headed?"

"Back to town. Got shit to do. Wasn't gonna bring it by but we couldn't figure out the combination, so we thought we better treat it as important."

The combination used to be 3295. Josiah didn't say anything in particular about that, he just made an offhand remark about how anniversaries and children's birthdays were pretty common. Makes them obvious targets.

"I was gonna make it 0911," Chris said. Ezra said at least half the building was using that as a password for something networked.

"Yeah, we tried that," Vin said, and laughed when Chris gave him the finger. The laugh sounded good, sounded like it was supposed to, but Chris wasn't fooled. Shit to do didn't even cover it.

"Might have saved me a trip, you did that."

"Coulda called."

"You'd have told us the combination?"

"I'd have told you it wasn't worth the trip."

"And I'd've been tempted to quit over the phone, pard."

What the fuck?

Fuck the dishes. Chris turned around, finally looked Vin in the eyes. What he saw was about as reassuring a look as he'd ever hoped to get from a citizen of Waco.

"You planning on going into private practice, Tanner?" he asked. Vin shook his head, but didn't seem cowed. Didn't seem inclined to give up much either.

"Team Three's got an opening –"

"No."

"Shit, easiest job change in history. Don't have to move, don't have to change much except desk location. I'd have to switch with JD to make it any easier."

"Those requisition forms would eat you alive."

Vin smirked, but this still wasn't banter. With banter, Vin didn't put down his Coke with such an air of …

Jesus, was he actually serious about this?

"On Team Three, I'd be the eye in the sky," Vin said, a real calm look in his eyes, not at all chilling, but it still gave Chris a cold feeling low in his belly.

"Lateral transfer. Straight across the board, then," Chris said, but he knew, he fucking knew what Vin was saying, but he just wanted to stay low behind the hedge and not deal with this. Stupid, because if there's one thing Vin Tanner couldn't do, it was hedge. Vin was head-on, eye-to-eye, and didn't look through his gunsight if he wasn't prepared to pull the trigger.

"It'd be a lateral if that's what I was doing on Team Seven. But I ain't doing jack here, Chris."

"That's not true –"

"Bullshit. I know it, you know it, the rest of the team sure as shit knows it. You don't want me in the crow's nest, Larabee, fine. But put someone up there permanent. As it is, you're putting people in danger, not giving them someone who can get used to them."

"It's a dangerous job, Vin, we all know it."

Bay laurel, that's what it's called. Sarah would have liked that, Chris thought, but lately that phrase didn't fill him with grief or rage or sad longing, and at that moment the only image he could see in his mind was of Sarah rolling her eyes and shaking her head, the way she did whenever he tried to bullshit her.

Vin just stared at him, like he was trying to peer through and see the real situation. There was a look of confusion about his eyes, but it wasn't real confusion, because Chris had seen that same look on the rare occasions when Vin led an interview and used some studied ignorance to get some information.

Chris could check with Ezra, but he was pretty confident he'd just found one of Vin's tells.

"Maybe I'm reading this wrong," Vin said. "Wish I wasn't. Other way was bullshit, but…"

"Tanner, you want to talk to me about something, talk. The rest of this is just so much hot air," Chris said. Some brickwork or stones at the base of the shrubs, that'd be good. It'd look landscaped and also prevent someone from getting a good view from down low.

"You got something against Ez, Chris?" Vin said.

Huh?

"I mean, he's set up to meet Andrews Monday, and you've got me in the van instead of watching his back."

"You called it yourself, Vin, you said it looked calm and easy," Chris said, but Vin was shaking his head and already working himself up.

"Don't even, cowboy, you putting this on me ain't gonna fly and you know it!" he said, voice rising all the way to loud, and he slapped the counter hard enough that Chris jumped, startled. And Vin was too good at watching and waiting for the right moment to miss this shot.

"You've been pulling me back for months, Larabee. Putting other shooters as primary, setting up meets where Ez ends up under a marquee and you can't get a crow's nest, anything you can get away with. And when you can't pull it off, you get someone shadowing me."

When Vin got quiet, it felt like all you were hearing was his finger tightening on the trigger. Chris ought to have been able to move, it wasn't like he was paralyzed. He should have been able to run, saddled Pony and lit out that back exit, but instead he stayed where he was, because – and maybe every animal Vin's killed has known this – you get to a point where you recognize that it's the hunter's turn.

"You give me one good reason why you're pulling me, Chris," Vin said, that same stillness that seemed to be genetically encoded or something, the way it was Vin and nothing else, everything chaos except for Vin and his rifle or his coffee or standing against a wall in a crowded bar without looking anything like a wallflower.

Fuck.

One good reason, Vin? I'm running low on those and it's the weekend, pard, too far away from town to go pick up some more real quick.

"If it's good enough, I'll study on it," the man was saying, dry dust in his voice. Nothing new there, except Chris had the feeling that maybe there was always something serious about the way he said it. I'll study on it, he'd say, and that meant more than it sounded, and it already sounded serious.

If Vin left, and Chris hadn't given him a reason (a good reason, he reminded himself), Vin would be on Team Three by the time Chris got into the office on Monday. He'd be in the van watching the Andrews meet, be part of the takedown, but his file would be closed and transferred to Three, with a note explaining that the op was a go before the transfer order went through.

Only so much crawling behind a hedge you can do. At some point you have to either stand and fight, or stand and run. Either way, you're a target, but a man gets too old to be crawling in the dirt. Might be why his knees suddenly felt so achy. That or the fact that he was five feet away from a man who rarely missed at fifty.

"You stay on Seven or go to Three, my reason's gonna be bad either way," Chris said. "It's not about your work, Vin, it's about me."

Vin expression didn't change. Apparently, he was waiting for more, which was too bad, since it would have sounded better to end it there.

Shit. Chris suddenly remembered why he hadn't put in the goddamn hedge, because it was a stupid thing in this day and age, when someone coming to take him out would do it at a distance, and gunplay in his drive was just a romantic ideal. A sick romantic ideal, but nevertheless.

As long as he thought Chris was making an effort, Vin would stand there all day

"You go to Three, I'll be scared shitless you're gonna die, and I'm not there. You stay on Seven, I'm scared I'll see you die," Chris said, going for that eye contact that would hopefully fill in the blanks.

"Gotta go sometime, cowboy. We all take that risk, every one of – "

"Yours is the one that scares me, Vin," Chris said, and suddenly it was more true than it had been. If Chris had been asked this yesterday in the planning session, why's Tanner in the van, Chris?, he might have been honest enough to say he was scared about Vin getting shot out of his perch. But that wouldn't have been the whole truth, and the whole truth was that Chris Larabee had already buried a wife and child, he'd be damned if the only person he'd wanted since –

Shut up, Larabee. This many words inside a head, some were bound to leak out.

Best to shut the eyes up, too, he thought, and turned back around to scrub the pan. If he'd soaked it last night, it would have taken thirty seconds to clean it this morning, but Chris had ignored Sarah's housekeeping tips last night. He was going to have to start ignoring those tips more often. He was fairly certain Vin wouldn't shoot him in the back.

The silence matched the one from Friday, when Chris had called out the assignments. No one questioned it, but no one –

No one asked or commented or clarified or repeated, and no one goddamn studied on it, and no one, not even Buck, who'd been calling him on his bullshit since the Navy, no one met his eyes.

Jesus.

How long had he been doing this? Vin said months, and Chris did a quick scan of his memories to see what the others had been doing during all this, and he realized that people might have questioned it at the beginning, but at some point they'd stopped asking, and he'd never changed his mind.

"They shouldn't trust me that much," he said, only realizing that he was really saying it once the words were coming out of his mouth, coming out like so much surrender.

"Most times, no one's been put in danger. They'd rather have me, but you want to let the rookies try it out, they'll understand."

Vin was the only person who could make something sound reasonable and justified in a way that made it real clear that you were a fucking idiot who'd only escaped ambushes by the grace of a far-too patient god.

Chris drained the sink and turned around to face Vin again, standing near the door, unsure of what might come next but standing upright, eyes straight and steady because that's the only way to see what's coming. Sarah had been right, and Chris was just lucky because a hedge couldn't keep you safe, and all it'd really do is piss people off. If nothing else, he decided, he now knew what Sarah and Vin had in common that seemed to call to him, call out and invite him closer.

No more hedging.

Chris repeated that to himself, taking a deep breath, the way you do before a mission, when there's nothing left but to do it.

Didn't mean he had to look Tanner in the eye, did it?

Chris's eyes settled on the leash. He could say fuck this and just recast the op, have the theater suddenly need fumigating so Ezra couldn't be under the marquee and Vin could be on the roof of the Claremont –

No. More. Hedging.

Chris locked eyes with Vin, same as he had three years ago.

"Something's changed. I don't know how or why."

Vin tilted his head and waited.

Three years ago Vin had done the same thing, willing to believe the stranger had a better plan than he did, since the bust had gone south and the U.S. Marshals hadn't sent in the back-up he'd been promised. Heads had rolled, but Vin, applying to transfer into the ATF, didn't bring it up, and Chris didn't ask.

Of course, if Vin was waiting to hear Chris had a better plan than pulling him out of the line of fire –

Goddamnit, he's still fucking hiding. Fuck this.

"Take the transfer," he said, and turned back to the sink. The dishes were clean but it was dirty, so he started scrubbing, not wanting to get out the Ajax because that would mean moving back to reach under the sink, and he wasn't hiding anymore, but he wasn't going to be a target, either. Or, for that matter, an obstacle.

"Chris?"

"Take the fucking transfer. If I felt it would do any good, I'd make that an order."

He was never going to get the sink clean without the Ajax, so he backed up into Vin.

Damn but the man was quiet.

"Still waiting for that reason, cowboy."

Even that whisper was quiet, less sound than breath on Chris's left ear. If Chris had been wearing a wire, no one would have heard anything but his involuntary breath, deep and sudden, deep enough to go lower than his lungs, lower even than the cold pit in his belly, burning like ash-covered coal.

As a SEAL, he'd been trained to assess the possibility of escape from every situation the Navy could conceive, and a whore in Annapolis showed him and Buck a few more that the Navy hadn't covered. This situation here, this one was easy: Chris was ten inches from the sink, with plenty of room to either side, Vin close enough to share body heat but in no way touching Chris, or impeding him. Chris could run if he wanted: turn left or right and turn again, and leave, out to the dining room or outside the same door Vin had come in. He'd be in plain view for most of the escape, but Vin wasn't holding a rifle. Chris Larabee was free to go.

Chris Larabee was trapped.

"I don't have a good reason. I have a good reason why you should leave the team, but I don't have a good reason why I started looking at you different," he said, because when you're trapped by a sniper and there's no place to hide, then you need to start negotiating.

It was time to decide what was most important. Team Seven could get another sniper, but Chris was concerned now for the bottom line, which said that Vin Tanner had to be able to look Chris in the eye and know he'd made the right decision.

"And that means I oughtta leave the team?"

"It shouldn't," Chris acknowledged.

"Maybe you oughtta leave the team, Larabee."

Jesus. Was that a throwdown, Vin, or a bullet?

"Two years and I can retire on a full pension," Chris said. "I could sit at a desk, or –"

"Do that already."

"Maybe do some training."

"They do that outta headquarters. You planning on moving East?"

Vin hadn't moved. He was still on Chris's six. The man could sit in a crow's nest for over an hour without so much as twitching, so taking potshots in Chris's kitchen for five minutes? Not a problem.

Fine, Chris thought, and capitulation made his neck relax, so he stared at the floor while one part of his mind marveled at the tension leaving his shoulders.

"If you want me to resign, or transfer, Vin, I will. I'm fucking up your career, and you transferring puts the burden on you. That ain't right. I'm sorry."

Shouldn't that have made it better? God knew Sarah was always after him for that one, just account for your mistakes, she'd say.

"Still wanna hear a reason."

Goddamn stubborn son of a – "I got feelings for you," he said, but he was still staring at the floor. Maybe Vin would be able to look him in the eye, maybe not. But Chris wasn't so sure he could do that.

Well, just because he wasn't gonna hedge any more didn't mean he had to face Vin down, did it?

"Wasn't expecting it, didn't plan on it, tried to stop it. Best I could do was – nah, that's stupid. Best I could do I didn't," he said, and turned around. Now he was eye to eye and six inches away, which, eye to eye, was too close, and both of them took a step back, more natural to have some space. Chris could feel the cool tile through his jeans, and he focused on that coolness rather than what he could see on Vin's face, which was the same expression from yesterday and the day before, the same expression as three years ago, when he first –

Hold on.

"I see five exits," Vin said, which is what he'd said yesterday, but yesterday he was pointing to a map, to possible avenues of escape Andrews and his men might try, and it was four, not five.

"One is I take the transfer and stable Peso somewhere else," he went on, and if Chris hadn't been leaning on the sink, he might have fallen, because this was it, this was it and over, and Vin wasn't going to look him in the eye, not that way, and he wasn't going to look Chris in the eye as a friend, either.

"Two is that I take the transfer, leave Peso here. That gives me a reason why I'd be out so often. Three is –"

"Wait," Chris said.

"Shut up, Larabee, you've been fucking up at tactics lately, time to let someone else call the shots," Vin said, barked, really. "Three is that I stay and you transfer, because you're right, this is fucking up my career, having you pull me so goddamn often and then me transfer. If I keep Peso out here, we still got that as a reason.

"Now the fourth option is that we both stay, and you get your head out of your ass, and we shut up about this conversation. That's standard Bureau thinking, up and down the line. People only bitch about the ATF when something gets fucked up, and most of the time things are smooth, so I ain't gonna say that's a bad option. It's the safe one, that's for certain."

Chris was still back at two, and three, because there was something in them besides separated departments, and he wanted to hear more about those options. Vin, however, seemed determined to go on, and he managed to communicate this to Larabee in the regulated manner: when silence is called for, the sniper will indicate ready status by stance.

Vin moved forward, closing that distance again. He stared at Chris with the same pissed-off expression he'd been wearing pretty much since the start of this conversation, but, as usual, he had the right. The hand grabbing at the back of his head was another indication of ready status, Chris figured, though he was suddenly reminded of the rabbits Vin had shot last fall. He'd picked up the carcasses by the ears and then snapped their necks.

"Option Number Five is the same as Four, but we don't shut up, except at the office," Vin said. "Standard Bureau thinking is fine for the first four choices, but it's too constricting for this one. I need more play in the line."

Vin would bring up a fishing metaphor, when Chris had been thinking hunting. Didn't matter none: Chris was caught either way. Vin's hand pulled him forward, and Chris mirrored the gesture but skimmed that jaw with his knuckles before twining his fingers in Vin's hair.

"So what happens if someone at the office asks?" Chris asked, taking one last look at the man he'd been hiding from.

"We hedge," Vin said, and leaned in.

The End