ATF Universe

Vin rolled over in bed and glanced at the clock for the third time in the last fifteen minutes. Shit. He couldn't sleep. Might as well get the hell up. Chris's last phone call had gotten him so riled he felt like he was wearing his skin inside out. He needed to get out of his damn apartment for a while. Maybe he'd go to that all night diner a few blocks away. He hadn't eaten since yesterday and the only thing in his fridge was a wilted piece of celery and some stale pretzels. Not that he was really hungry, but it was a place to go.

He dragged himself out of bed and trudged into the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, he decided he looked as crappy as he felt. Well, that was a relief. Wouldn't want anyone to miss the fact that life - and Chris Larabee - had just fucked him royally. And not in the good kind of way. Yeah. Wouldn't want that.

Vin splashed some water on his face, gave his teeth a few half hearted swipes with a toothbrush and went back into the bedroom. Grabbing a pair of jeans and an old t-shirt, he got dressed, pocketed his keys and wallet and headed towards the door. He paused for a moment by his answering machine. The red light was blinking. Chris's message. Should he listen to it? He wasn't actually sure what Chris had said on the last one. No. Fuck it. He'd heard enough tonight. There wasn't anything more for either one of them to say.

It was only a few short blocks to the diner and in just a few minutes, he was parking his jeep in the place's nearly empty lot.

"I'll just have some coffee and a piece of whatever kind of pie you got." Vin tapped his spoon lightly against the edge of the table as he gave the waitress his order. He was just a bundle of nerves. Shit. What he really needed was a good long ride. Too bad his horse was stabled out at Chris's ranch. This breaking up business sucked. Seemed like half his shit was over at Chris's place. That had started even before they'd become lovers. Back when they'd been just friends. Something they weren't ever going to be again. Breaking up more than sucked. Vin sighed heavily and slumped back against his seat, closing his eyes.

"You here alone, too?" An unfamiliar voice caused Vin to open his eyes and look up. A dark haired, dark skinned young man stood at the edge of his booth, smiling ruefully.

"Yep." Vin murmured. Alone. The word had an ugly sound to it. Funny. Before Chris, it had never sounded that way.

"You mind if I sit down?"

"Go ahead." Vin recognized a pick up attempt when he heard one, but he wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do about it.

The two men made small talk while Vin ate his pie and tried to decide if he wanted to take this guy home with him. Did he have some codoms left at his place? He couldn't remember. Didn't really matter. They could always buy some on the way back to his place. Or maybe his companion was a fucking boy scout. Always prepared.

It was the creeping feeling of loneliness that finally made up his mind. That and some perverse feeling that he was somehow evening the score with Chris. What the hell did he think he was going to do? Call Chris up and tell him he'd just fucked some strange guy whose name he couldn't even remember, so take that you bastard? Vin wondered if he'd ever be sane again as he led the young man out to his jeep.

+ + + + + + + Vin unlocked his front door and ushered his guest inside. Throwing his keys onto the nearby table, the first thing he noticed was the red light blinking on the answering machine. Shit. Why hadn't he deleted the fucking message? Still, maybe it would serve its purpose.

The sharpshooter walked over to the answering machine. "Have a seat.", he told his companion. He pushed the play button on the machine. He suddenly wanted to hear Chris's voice. Remind himself what a bastard Chris had been. Still was. Needed to justify bringing home the guy sitting on his couch whose name he'd forgotten three times already.

"Hello? Mr. Tanner? This is County General Hospital. We have a Mr. Chris Larabee here. He has a card listing you as his next of kin. I'm sorry to have to inform you that he is in serious condition following a car accident earlier this evening. We're doing everything possible for him. Hopefully we'll have more - and better - news for you in the next few hours."

Vin stood frozen, the color slowly draining from his face. Dimly he heard a beep, then the next message began. It was Chris. "Vin. I need your help." Chris's voice was hoarse with pain. Disoriented. Like the way you'd sound if you'd been hurt in a car accident.

"You ok, man?" Vin turned abruptly at the sound of the young man's voice.

"Get out. Get the fuck out!" The twin knives of guilt and anguish cutting into him gave the words a desperate edge and the young man lost no time in obeying.

Vin slowly sank to his knees, hammering his fists against the wood floor over and over. He didn't notice his knuckles beginning to bruise and swell and finally bleed. Not that he would have cared if he had noticed. There wasn't any pain worse than knowing you might lose someone you love. Except maybe knowing that the last memory they'll have of you is one where you ignore their plea for help and leave them to die alone on some dark, deserted road.

Vin's strength finally gave out and he rolled over to stare at the ceiling, ignoring the persistent ringing of the phone. Goddamned thing never brought any news worth hearin'. Reaching out, he grasped the cord and pulled hard. The ringing stopped. Good. He went back to staring blankly at the ceiling. What would he do if Chris died? How could he even go down to the hospital after all the shit between them? Vin had never wanted to die before - not even when he'd seen Chris and Rory together. But he wanted to now. Because how the hell could he live with himself if Chris died? It would be hard enough to look in a mirror even if Chris survived.

Yeah. He'd been out worryin' about whether he had enough condoms while his best friend and lover lay bleedin' his life away. Cause ya know, Vin had to punish him. He'd wanted Chris to suffer just like Chris had wanted him to suffer. Just call it the carousel from hell. No gettin' off this ride. Maybe if he laid here long enough and prayed hard enough, it would all go away. Or he'd die of starvation. He didn't care which.

+ + + + + + +

"Dammit!" Buck Wilmington cursed as he listened to Vin's phone ring and ring and ring. Where the hell was the sharpshooter at three o'clock in the morning?

"Ezra?" Buck turned to the southerner.

"I shall go fetch Mr. Tanner, wherever he is." Ezra murmured, already reaching into his pocket for his keys. Giving the other men a nod, he quickly left the waiting room. He'd try Vin's place first. He had a feeling that's where he'd find the sharpshooter. He just hoped Vin, at least, was in one piece.

"You couldn't get hold of Vin?" JD asked Buck, his skin appearing almost ghostly under the harsh flourescent lighting of the hospital waiting room.

"No. He and Chris have been actin' damn peculiar lately. I don't know what the hell is goin' on and I don't much care. Chris is hurt bad and Vin needs to get his ass down here. End of story."

"I thought Chris was supposed to be in Maui." JD hated it when his friends started acting weird. Cause they always seemed to wind up here every time one of them did. In the hospital. JD hated hospitals.

"I think that's part of what Buck meant when he said Chris and Vin have been acting strange, JD." Josiah looked up from the Bible he was clutching tightly in one hand. He wasn't reading it, really. He was just holding it - the worn leather had a comforting feel to it. And what else was there in times like these? He'd never found anything better, despite all his searching.

"I guess. I still don't know why he didn't tell us he changed his mind about going, though. And why did he even have to take that stupid leave of absence in the first place, anyway?" JD replied angrily. If Chris had been at work with them, where he belonged, this would never have happened. JD just knew it. It didn't matter that the accident had happened at one o'clock in the morning when Chris wouldn't have been at work, anyway. JD just knew it wouldn't have happened.

Buck knew how the kid felt. Shit. He'd thought the same damn thing. Wondered why Chris had felt it necessary to cut all ties with his former life once again. Not that Buck would have let him get away with it this time. Nope. Chris wasn't going anywhere. Except home and the office. In that order. End of story.

+ + + + + + +

"Vin? Jesus, Vin. I saw your jeep parked outside, so I know you're in there. You're not going to start this shit again, are you?" Rory Selkirk was getting just a tad irked. Pulling out his keyring, he sorted through it, looking for the key to Vin's apartment. He was not going to play this game again.

"May I assume you are a friend of Mr. Tanner's, since you seem to be somewhat anxious to see him?" The smooth southern drawl coming from behind him made Rory jump slightly. He turned and found himself staring at a brown haired, green eyed man whose jeans looked as if they had been ironed and whose shirt was still crisp and unwrinkled even at three o'clock in the damn morning. Although, calling them green eyes doesn't really do them justice. More like emerald, maybe. Rory dismissed this errant thought. The stranger was a looker, but for once he had more important things to worry about. Like whether Vin had slit his fucking wrists or something. He should never have left Vin alone, dammit.

"Something like that. Who are you?" Vin had kept his life very private. Always had. Unless you were there with him when it happened, you never knew what the hell was going on.

"Ezra Standish. And you are?" The words were polite, the tone was not.

"Rory Selkirk. And now that we've been introduced, let's open the damn door, shall we? I've got a very bad feeling."

"To go with my very bad news." Ezra murmured, following the tall, dark haired man inside Vin's apartment.

The sharpshooter was laying on his back near the couch, not moving. Rory and Ezra both rushed over, falling to their knees beside his still figure.

"Vin?"

"Tanner?"

The sharpshooter did not respond. He just continued to stare blankly at the ceiling. Ezra picked up one of Vin's arms. The skin was bruised and broken on his hands, around the knuckle area, but otherwise he seemed unharmed.

"Vin?" Ezra tried again. "Chris is in the hospital. He's been injured rather severely, I'm afraid."

"Chris is hurt?" Rory looked up, his brown eyes wide with shock. Then he swore viciously. "Goddammit, Tanner. Get your sorry ass up and get down to the hospital now. You heard the man. Chris is hurt."

"I know." Vin finally spoke. His voice had a distant quality to it. As if he were very far away from the apartment in Purgatorio where they were all gathered.

"You know? Then why, pray tell, are you lying there as if you were awaiting the second coming?" It took a lot to put that note of anger in Ezra Standish's voice.

"It's a long story." Rory sighed, when Vin didn't answer.

"Then Mr. Tanner can tell it on the way to the hospital."

"No." Vin spoke almost too quietly for them to hear. "I can't go to the hospital."

"Why is that?" Ezra was fast losing his patience. In just one minute he was going to drag Vin out the door by his hair if necessary. About time that mane of his served some useful purpose.

"Don't have the right. It's my turn to suffer now." Vin's words made no sense to the southerner. Perhaps he had hit his head and that's why he was lying on the floor spouting nonsense.

"Awww geez, Tanner. It would serve you right if I helped your friend drag you down there to face him." Rory shook his head. Just when he thought this whole damn mess couldn't get any worse.

"Would someone care to enlighten me as to what the hell is going on here?" Ezra asked, staring across Vin to direct his question at Rory.

"I think maybe you should go back to the hospital. I'll give you the number to my cell phone." Rory glanced briefly at the wreckage of Vin's phone. "Call as soon as there's any news. I'll stay here with Vin."

Ezra slowly got to his feet. He'd never articulated it, but he'd always thought he and the sharpshooter were friends. But apparently Vin had a life none of them knew about. One where he and the others were not wanted. It gave the southerner a strange feeling to think that. Like he'd suddenly woken up one morning and noticed his eyes were blue and not the green he'd always thought they were.

"I'll talk to you later, Vin." The words were more threat than promise.

Rory waited til the door had closed behind Ezra before he hauled Vin to his feet and threw him roughly onto the couch. "Damn you, Tanner." Rory didn't know what else to say.

"Already been done, Ror'. Already been done." Vin closed his eyes and Rory looked away, unable to watch as the silent tears continued to trace a path down the sharpshooter's face. Vin was right. He was already damned and the only person who could save him was the one who had done it. Chris Larabee. For all the good that knowledge did him. Or Vin.

+ + + + + + +

"Hey, Ez? You find Vin?"

Ezra hesitated. The truth wouldn't do any of them any good and he didn't know the truth of what the hell was going with Vin and Chris and that Rory person, anyway. "No. I did not." he replied finally. "Tracking a tracker is easier said than done, I'm afraid."

"Well, he'll just have to hear the good news later, then."

"I take it Mr. Larabee is going to make a full recovery, then?" Ezra sighed with relief. He'd had all he could take for one evening.

"Yep."

"Turned out that the concussion wasn't as serious as they thought. So now it's mostly a matter of broken bones and a whole lot of bruises." Ezra wondered if Nathan ought to sound so positively gleeful when describing someone's broken bones and painful bruises, but then he decided that, under the circumstances, gleeful was an appropriate response. He felt a bit gleeful, himself. Until he remembered that he had promised to call Vin's apartment as soon as he heard anything. Ezra was tempted to wait until morning to fulfill that onerous duty. But then who was he to judge anything? Slipping quietly away from the others, he pulled out his cell phone and made the call.

+ + + + + + +

It had to be done. If he waited much longer, Chris would be out of the hospital and then he'd have to face him. And he couldn't do that. Just like before, there was nothing either one of them could say. The reasons for it might have been different now, but the end result was the same.

Vin had already said his goodbyes to everyone that mattered. The only one he couldn't say it to was the one who mattered most. Chris. He hadn't told anyone except Ezra his real reasons for leaving. But he figured he owed Ez that much. And he'd told Rory, of course, who already knew. And who'd told him he had shit for brains and he hoped Vin was fucking miserable wherever he went, but to call him if he needed him for anything. Good old Ror'.

When Vin had finally stumbled to a halt after explaining things to Ezra, the southerner had just looked at him for a minute before responding. "And here I thought I had cornered the market on running away from life and its messy entanglements." The disappointment in Ezra's green eyes had hurt. But not enough to make Vin change his mind.

Vin wasn't sure where he was going. He just knew he didn't want to stay. Not without Chris. Denver was the only place he'd ever really considered home, even though he'd lived all over Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. And even Japan while he was in the Army. Maybe he oughtta try something besides the Southwest. Maybe go back East. Yeah. He could just see himself in Boston or someplace like that.

With a quick shake of his head, Vin began unloading "his" drawer. The one Chris had set aside just for him. Cause it was easier than watching Vin tear apart his overnight bag to find the clean shirt that was somehow always on the bottom, no matter where it had started out originally. Or so he'd claimed.

"Spring cleaning is usually done in the Spring, Vin." Chris's quiet voice made the blood drain from his face and he froze, the t-shirt he'd just grabbed falling to the floor. How the hell had Chris snuck up on him like that? And what the hell was he doing here, anyway? He wasn't supposed to be home yet.

Maybe Vin was just hallucinating. Shit. He wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. Wasn't like he was exactly sane nowadays. He turned slowly around, not certain what he would see.

Chris Larabee stood a few feet away, leaning on a pair of crutches and watching him through shuttered green eyes that gave nothing away. No hallucination. He would never have thought to add the healing cut over Chris's right eye. Or the fading bruises on his arm. He wouldn't have thought because he wouldn't know. Because he hadn't been to see Chris even once since the night he'd caught Chris kissing Rory just down the hall from where they stood.

"Chris." He could barely say the name.

"You in a hurry?" Chris asked, his voice still neutral.

"I don't know."

"Got time for some coffee or something, maybe?"

"Jesus Christ, Chris." Vin burst out. "How can you stand there and talk about fucking coffee?"

"Because I'm tired of talking about things that hurt. I figured maybe you were, too."

"I don't know if there's anything we can say to each other that don't hurt, Chris."

"Maybe not." Chris agreed, turning his head away. "But I figured it was worth a try."

"Dammit, Chris. I don't fucking understand you. You want to know what I was doing the night you got into your accident? I was bringing some strange guy back to my apartment so I could fuck him cause I thought you deserved to suffer some more. I didn't go visit you in the hospital because I'm too damn chickenshit to look you in the eye and too damn stubborn to forgive you for doing the exact same thing I almost did." Vin's chest was heaving and he clenched his fists tightly, welcoming the pain as his still healing knuckles protested.

"I remember thinking, after Sarah and Adam were killed, that I would have done anything to have them back. I remember trying to bargain with God right afterwards. Saying that if only he'd give them back to me, that I wouldn't care about anything else. That nothing else would matter to me."

"He didn't listen to you, though. Did he? You didn't get them back." The sharpshooter's voice was bitter.

"No. I didn't get Sarah and Adam back." Chris said quietly. "But you're still alive. Still here."

"Dammit, Chris. Don't do this to me."

"Do what? Forgive you? Forgiveness isn't about the person you're forgiving, Vin. Not really. It's about yourself. And I'm tired of being angry." Chris sighed and sat down heavily on the bed.

Vin lurched over and sank to his knees in front of Chris. Heedless of the cast, he reached out blindly and wrapped his arms around Chris's legs, his face against one thigh. "I don't know if I can do it, Chris. What if we don't make it? I don't think I can go through this breaking up shit again."

"The I guess we'll just have to stay together. For better or for worse."

"But what if we can't?" Vin whispered, looking up at Chris.

"I don't know Vin. I don't know."

The two men were silent for a moment. Then Vin took a deep breath and got rather shakily to his feet. "Maybe next time you catch me cheatin', you can just shoot me?"

"I could do that." Chris nodded his head. "But only if you promise never to cheat on me."

"I could do that."

"Then I guess that's as good a start as any."

"I reckon maybe it is."

THE END

Comments to: mismiz@alltel.net