His eyes. Those beautiful sapphire eyes have dimmed. He sees with his hands, now. God, Vin, I miss the light you once expressed with those stained-glass windows to your soul. I miss how you always helped me to see my way with just a look.We make love in the dark now. I don't want to see him when he can't see me. He moves his hands so tenderly over my body, my face and my lips. He kisses as he's always done, with passion, with love, with desire, but the expressions are lost to both of us now. I close my eyes through most of it, needing to be with him even in his darkness...to walk through it with him.
The accident was a year ago, but I still remember seeing him on the hospital bed, his head bandaged, and his eyes. I wept then. I weep still. My tracker tracks no more. Only with me...only with his hands and his lips and his body. I am his map now and he follows every curve, every marker. He knows where every scar is, where every freckle is and he kisses each spot, forcing himself to remember. He touches my nose, my forehead, my brows and ears. He touches my face. It would be erotic if not for the reason behind those searching hands. "Love ya', Chris," he says to me every night.
He knows I mourn for him. He knows.
I don't draw anymore. I drew for him, to please him with my images of him, but no more. He asks and I lie to ease his pain. It would kill him if he knew I don't put pencil to sketchpad anymore. It would kill him to know I have no pleasure in it anymore. Because he can't see what I see when I look at him. He can't gaze into my soul anymore.
"Tell me what you drew today," he says as he rests in my arms, our naked bodies entwined.
"You, Vin. Always you."
"How? Tell me?"
"On Peso. I drew you riding Peso, no saddle, no bridle, just you on his bareback, holding his mane and laughing with the feel of the freedom against your body."
"Was I naked?" he asks and there's a grin to his voice.
"Yes, Vin. Your body, your muscles...I drew every part of you."
"I can see it, Chris."
I kiss his head, the tears falling from my eyes. "I know, baby. I know you can. You always do."
He knows my sadness. I let him feel it so that he won't be sad for himself. It's a distraction, yes, but I can't handle the depression he once felt at the beginning of this journey. He is able to focus on me instead of his own sorrow. He reaches up with his lips and with eyes that so long ago refused to even try and see again. He reaches up with gentle fingers and he finds my tears, brushing them away. "I love ya', Chris. Don't be sad anymore. I'm alive."
"I know." I lean into his mouth and kiss him. "I need to love you, Vin. I want to take your heart and hold it inside of me and show you what my heart would be like without you at my side."
"Then love me, cowboy. Hold me close. My eyes can't see, but my soul can. I can see yours, Chris. I can."
I kiss his face, forcing the tears back as much as I can. I miss the way his eyes used to dance with mirth and mischief. His smile does that for him now. His lips turn up into that devious grin of his and I can grasp onto a tiny thread of that old gaze he would show me. He waggles his eyebrows at me, though he can't see my smile when he does so. He reaches up to touch my lips and I let him find that ticklish spot on my side so I can grin and he can 'see' me. I pull him close to me and hold him and touch him and ground him as much as I can.
I miss the way he was...his life...his energy. We walk the fields, his hand in the crook of my elbow as I guide him, describing the sky, the trees and the clouds. "Help me, Vin, tell me what you see, draw these things for me with your words."
He reaches back into his mind and pulls out the descriptive words, placing them into patterns. "Yes, Vin, that's the way today looks. That's what is in the sky. The grass is just that color." We do this all the time, so he won't ever forget what he once drank in with his sight.
He'll ask me to make love to him in the fields and I always bring a blanket, knowing we always end up on the ground, loving each other in the sunshine and breezes that sweep over our bodies. I pick flowers for him and let him smell them. I describe them as best I can, but I do not have the poetic flare he does. He loves how I bring him into the land of seeing, though. He listens to my every word and forms the pictures in his mind.
He touches the flowers, the trees, the grass and the rocks. He touches and touches and feels and sniffs, but his touch is never broken from me. We constantly touch now. He needs to feel me. I need to hold him. I need his touch more than I ever thought possible. I retired from my job when it was revealed Vin would probably never regain his sight. I had no more use of anyone outside my world, but Vin. The others come to the ranch to visit and we converse and watch football. Even Vin will join us, listening intently to the play by plays. JD brings him into the fray and the cheers and hollers that come from him, make me believe he is truly seeing the teams score. No one treats him differently. He's still Vin to them. But to me he is so much more now. I sit on the floor next to him when the games are being watched and I drape my arm over the chair or couch arm and we hold hands. He'll lean over and whisper to me and I grin and smile and we kiss. The others pay us no mind. They know the touching is needed, desired...and we don't care if they see us.
Vin jokes with the others about his blindness. "Chris and I are gonna make love right now. You boys comfortable with that?"
"Hell, Junior," Buck quips. "Right in front of us?"
Vin shrugs. "Don't bother me none. I can't see ya'. Ya' know what they say about out of sight out of mind."
The joking causes the tension to ease amongst the others and we laugh and talk as if Vin is able to see all of us. He turns his face in the direction of the one talking, and he carries on conversations. He knows the house step by step and he doesn't need the cane to move around, just his hand stretched out. One time he poked JD in the eye as they were both turning the corner. "Ow!"
"Sorry, JD, wasn't watchin' where I was goin'!"
His attitude is truly amazing. I marvel at his strength. But the sadness can be just as strong and there are times we both can feel it. He truly has accepted this new life, even though at times the depression flows over him and his need for me to ground him becomes intense. We cry together, sometimes. Weeping on each other's shoulders. I found out what makes him feel the worst...his not being able to see my drawings anymore. He told me that and it broke my heart. I shut the studio down after that. I packed up the easel and the box of pencils and pens. I stashed the portfolio away. Vin doesn't know. He will never know. I lie to keep him happy, knowing that I once drew for pleasure because of him. If he found out I stopped because my heart for it died with his eyes, it would break his heart. I won't do that to him.
"Ya' should draw me blind," he says and I furrow a brow at him. "What?"
"Yeah, me with sunglasses, holdin' the cane. Or...how about drawin' me in bed with ya', feelin' your face, Chris. I bet y'all could do somethin' powerful with that image."
I sit up in bed and he faces me. "Got to get ya' drawin' again, cowboy. May as well start with the here and now."
I feel my throat constrict. "What...what are you talkin' about, Tanner?"
"Chris...I know." And his voice is soft, accepting. "First I didn't, ya' made it sound so believable, then ya' started driftin' on me and there'd be hesitant moments, like ya' was tryin' to figure out what was in that picture ya' didn't really draw, just so's you'd make it sound complete. I understood and I let ya' think I believed ya', but I knew, Chris. I've known fer awhile now."
I lower my head and reach out to pull him into my arms. "I can't do it, Vin. Not anymore, can't you understand that?"
"I'm still here, Chris. I can still model fer ya'. I'd like to do that again. I've missed it."
"But ya' can't see what I draw."
"Sure I can, cowboy. Ya' tell me every damn time I ask ya'. Ya' done got pretty swift with them descriptions. I can see what ya' think up in your mind, Chris. Hell, we can still read each other and we don't need our eyes to do that. Never really did. Our souls is what's talkin' to each other. That's how we really know what all's goin' on inside. If'n ya' can see that, then maybe ya'd start believin' it."
I hold him tight as his words sink into me. Suddenly I feel like a dried up sponge and his love and desire to keep me moving forward is like water, drenching me to become pliable once more.
I kiss his neck. "You'd really like to model for me again?"
"Just tell me all what you're drawin', keep me in the circle, cowboy. Tell me, so I can see it."
I cup his face in my hands and kiss him with slow and deliberate passion. "I'm getting some ideas right now."
He smiles and wraps an arm around my neck. "That's my cowboy." He kisses me and pushes me to the bed, crawling up on top of me. "Turn the light on, Chris."
Yet again, I am amazed, as Ezra would say. "How did you know, Vin?"
"Hear the hum of the 'lectricity when it's on. Haven't heard it since ya' brought me home from the hospital."
"Wanted to be equal with you, Vin. Wanted to be with you in the darkness." I rub his chest as I explain. My voice is almost a whisper.
"I know, love, but I want y'all to get a good look at what you're gonna be drawin'. Don't let my eyes scare ya', Chris. I feel your face and I can always see ya' in my memories."
I reach over and turn the light on. "Lean down to me, Vin."
He complies and my hands wash over his face, caressing his skin, his hair and his lips. "I love you, tracker."
He pulls back just a touch as if surprised. "Ya' called me 'tracker'."
"You still track me, Vin. You still track my soul."
"Ain't heard it in a long time, cowboy. Missed it."
"Why didn't you say somethin' to me?"
He shakes his head. "Reckon ya'd call me that name again...when ya' was ready."
I brush his lips slowly and he closes his eyes, opening his mouth to take my finger inside. He reaches down and cups my face with his hands. Touching me, seeing me. "Make love to me, Chris."
I pull him to my chest and hold his ear to my heart. "Till the dawn's early light, Vin."
"How long do we have 'till then?" he asks as his hand strokes my arm.
"I reckon we've got about...how does forever sound?"
He sighs and kisses my chest. "Just as long as we spend it together."
"Love you, tracker."
"Love ya', too, cowboy."
As we are lying there, letting our hearts join, I realize that in all kinds of darkness even the faintest light will help us see our way. My light was in my arms at that moment. And Vin Tanner was a torch not even blindness could extinguish. I can see my way again.
~?Fin?~
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