Every Fanfic Ever Written

"Nathan! Nathan, he's been shot!" Chris screamed into the clinic as he dragged Vin behind him.

The healer sped down the stairs. "What? Who? How? When?"

Chris sat the tracker down in a chair and straightened up, running his fingers through his short, reddish-blonde hair. "I don't know! We were just out practicing and....and.....!"

Nathan grabbed the gunslinger by the shoulders and shook him fiercely. "Chris, stay calm! You're not helping him any if you break down now! He needs you to be strong!"

"Um, fellas?" Vin piped up from where he was sitting on the chair, one leg propped up on a divan.

Chris and Nathan were immediately kneeling beside him. "Vin? Vin, can you hear me?" Chris said anxiously as Nathan checked the tracker for a pulse, fever, and life-threatening injuries.

"Hell ya, I can hear you," Vin griped. "I just wanted to say it ain't that bad."

Chris grabbed the bounty hunter's hand. "Vin! Vin, you don't have to be strong right now! It's OK, no one's going to think the less of you if you cry." Tears burned in the gunslinger's throat.

Vin looked at him like he'd gone loco. "Cry? Chris, you shot me in the foot. If anyone's gonna be cryin' it'll be you when I punch you in the nose."

Chris threw himself at the feet of the ticked-off tracker. "Oh, Vin, Vin, forgive me! It's all my fault that you were hurt! I'm not worthy! Oh, Lord, I'm not worthy!"

Vin rolled his eyes. "Oh, God, here he goes again."

"You just lie still and don't be movin' around, ya hear?" Nathan said sternly, apparently oblivious to the entire altercation between Chris and Vin.

"Doc, all you've gotta do is patch up my foot and I'll be almost as good as new," Vin protested. "OK, so I ain't gonna be joggin' for a while, but I think I'll survive."

"DON'T TALK!" the healer commanded, with such vehemence it made Vin sit back heavily in his chair. "You'll use up the last of your strength!" Turning to the weeping, supplicating man on the floor, Nathan grabbed him by the shoulders, pulled him up to face him and shook the gunslinger bodily. "Don't you break down on me, Chris Larabee! Do ya hear me?! Don't you break down! We need you to be strong! You're the leader- you have to help the others get through this!"

Chris looked as though he were about to pull himself somewhat out of his guilt-induced stupor when suddenly the door flew open, and Buck stumbled through, carrying JD. "NATHAN! Nathan, you gotta help him! Please!" The big man set the youngest of the seven in another chair near Vin's. "He's hurt!" Tears were in the mustachioed gunslinger's eyes.

Chris' lip trembled, and he threw himself to the floor once again, this time in front of both JD and Vin. "God, it's my fault they're hurt! I can't protect them! I can't help them! I'm useless! I'm not WORTHY!"

Nathan looked to heaven. "Oh, Lord, help me through this! Help me save these brave men!"

JD looked from Buck to Nathan to Chris, face creased with disbelief. "Guys, it's not bad-"

Immediately Buck was beside him, arms wrapped around the younger man. "How many times have I told you to be careful, JD?! How many?!"

JD struggled to free himself from the bigger man's suffocating embrace. "Buck, it's a PAPER CUT! It just stings a little, that's all."

But Buck didn't pay any attention. He just kept mumbling, "Greenhorn! That's all ya are, kid. A naive, little brother-like greenhorn! Now it's paper cuts, next you'll be slitting your wrists! When will the insanity stop?"

Nathan grabbed the big man by the shoulders and shook him. "Don't you break down, Buck Wilmington! He needs you right now! He needs you to be strong! WE need you to be strong! Snap out of it!"

JD sucked in a deep breath as Buck was pulled away. "Nathan!" he gasped out. "It's just a paper cut! Look!" He held up his right hand, and the healer pounced on it.

"Bandages!" Nathan hollered to no one in particular. "I need bandages!" And he took off in a flurry of motion.

JD turned to Vin, eyes puzzled. "But it's not that bad," he said softly, which was hard to do and still be heard over the sound of the two men sobbing around them.

Vin shook his head. "I tried that too, kid. It ain't workin'." He was beginning to feel a little woozy from the blood loss in his foot.

Just at that moment, the door thumped open again, and Ezra stepped in, holding his handkerchief to a wound on his forehead. "Mr. Jackson!" he called. "I require your medical assistance!"

Nathan came barreling back into the room, weighted down with fluffy white bandages and pots and jars of ointment and salves. "Ezra! God, not you too! This town has become a blood bath!" He stumbled to the gambler's side, dropping a good number of his healing materials along the way.

Ezra gingerly sat on the sofa. "Merely the result of a rather unpleasant altercation with a surly gentleman in the saloon. It's really not that bad-"

He was cut off as Nathan grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to lie down on the sofa. "Rest, Ezra. You and I might have had our differences in the past, but I ain't goin' to let this get the best of you!"

Ezra looked around, saw his own bewilderment mirrored on JD's and Vin's faces, and said, "May I ask just what the hell you are talking about, Mr. Jackson?"

Chris looked towards the gambler with red-rimmed eyes. "I'm torn between the desire to weep over your sorry state and continue to beat myself into a frenzy of guilt, or to simply turn away out of a sense of apathy because of that time you deserted us in the Pilot- I mean, in the Seminole village." Tears pooled in his eyes. "But you've proven to be such a good friend over the intervening months, I think I'll let myself cry over you." That said, Chris dragged himself to the center of the floor, equidistant between the three men, threw himself down, buried his face in the rug, and began sobbing again. "Ezra, JD, Vin! I'm not worthy! I'm pathetic! Oh why oh why did you join on with me in the first place? I never asked to be a leader! Oh, the pain, the pain!"

"Guys, we're not in mortal danger!" JD called out, trying to break the other's out of their mood.

"Not yet, at least," Vin concurred, feeling even more light-headed now as he lost more blood from the foot-wound.

"I ask again, what in the name of heaven and earth is wrong with everybody?" Ezra interjected, before being pummeled back into a resting position on the sofa by Nathan.

Just then, the door swung open to admit Josiah, the eldest member of the seven. He glanced around the chaotic room, and said in a deep voice that rumbled like summer thunder, "Sometimes a man's just gotta exorcise his demons."

There was dead silence for a moment.

"What's that supposed to mean, Josiah?" Buck asked, honestly curious.

Josiah looked puzzled. "What, you mean you don't know?"

Nathan looked at the big preacher with wide, brown eyes. "I can't see what help it offers, given the situation. Could you elaborate?"

Josiah's eyes looked inward, as though he were reading a book inside himself. "Well it....It's always worked before."

Chris gazed at him with puffy eyes. "I'm not seeing the point just now, Josiah. Why don't you come back when you have some piece of philosophical no-how that will help us out, OK?"

The big man looked around the room, looking thoroughly confused. "Um, yeah. All right. I guess I can do that." He turned, face still perplexed, and wandered out into the street again.

A few seconds later, the room once again deteriorated into a frenzy of guilt and misery.

"Oh, JD, JD!" Buck sobbed.

"Oh Vin, Vin!" Chris wept.

"Oh Ezra, Ezra!" Nathan moaned.

"Oh shut UP!" Vin croaked out. Silence fell and all eyes turned on him. "We are not going to die," he said firmly, trying to keep his eyes from unfocusing.

Nathan dropped the jar of salve he held, ready to smear a great mass of the stuff into Ezra's head wound, and let out a shocked gasp. "What? Are you sure?"

Vin nodded. "Positive."

Buck put his hands protectively on JD's shoulders. "How can you know, Vin?"

Chris nodded, tears still streaking his face. "Yeah, Vin. How can you know?"

The tracker forced himself to lucidity. "Easy. Lemme tell you. Ezra there, he'll survive 'cause he's the scoundrel of the group. Lots of emotional angst there- will he ever be a full-fledged member of the group? Will he ever be truly accepted? That kind of thang." Looks were exchanged around the room, and nods of silent agreement.

Vin took a deep breath and tried to stay concious despite the blood loss. "JD'll make it cause he's the kid. The fragile innocence of the seven. Kill off the fragile innocence, and we all turn into nothin' but a lot of surly old gunslingers who have nothin' better to do than gallop around on our horses, drinkin' whiskey and gettin' into trouble."

JD elbowed the tracker in the ribs. "Um, Vin, that's what y'all do anyway-"

"Shut up, kid, I'm tryin' to make a point," Vin interrupted him. He paused to consider, then continued. "That's another reason he'll live. We all need someone to take our bad moods out on, and who better to yell at for no apparent reason than the wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn?"

There were more nods of agreement, and Ezra chimed in, "Amen, brother."

JD sat back, bottom lip jutting out. "Gee thanks, Vin." The bounty hunter ignored him.

Chris spoke then. "What about you, Vin?" he asked, wiping the vestiges of his tears away.

Vin sighed. "I can't die because I'm the secondary lead."

They all gave him empty looks.

"Huh?" Buck asked.

Vin shook his head, trying to clear the spots from his vision. "I'm the secondary lead. Numero dos. The lesser figure on the totem pole. The one we all rally around when Chris is for some reason indisposed, like if he gets hisself shot or is off mopin' and bein' downright ornery or somethin'. So I have to be here to be the calm, solid, strong secondary leader."

There was silence for a moment, then Nathan spoke up. "Well, actually, I think if ya kicked, Vin, we'd all just take a vote to pick another leader."

Vin eyed him. "Really?"

There were general nods of agreement around the room.

Vin thought hard. "Well......I got the LEAN. I mean, no one else here can lean the way I do, so that's just a dead giveaway, i sn't it?"

Bright smiles lit up everyone's faces. "Yeah, yeah, and you got the hair!" Buck chimed in. Smacking JD lightly upside the head, he said, "You should take some learnin' from Vin, boy. Clean up that bird's nest on your head!"

"OW! Buck!" JD whined, rubbing the back of his head.

"And I must admit that Mr. Tanner is the only one of our company who can pull off wearing buckskin on a regular basis and make it look quite fashionable," Ezra added, sitting up slowly, still keeping a wary eye on Nathan to make sure the healer made no sharp moves in his direction.

Nathan looked one by one at all of his patients. "So, you're all gonna be all right then?"

Vin nodded. "Yeah, iffen you bind up this foot of mine afore I bleed to death all over this fancy stool."

Nathan flushed. "Oh. Right. Oops." He jumped up and began working on Vin's foot. He paused, however, and looked into the bounty hunter's face. "Do I still get to yell at y'all and tell you to stay in bed, to lie still, even though I know it ain't gonna do a lick of good?"

Vin grinned. "You betcha, Nathan."

The healer smiled, pleased, and went back to work.

Buck looked unsure. "Do I still get to pester the kid about bein' so young and inexperienced-like in the way of the West, even though he's been through enough scrapes with us that I know I can trust him in a fight, and I sincerely doubt he's gonna get his damn-fool head shot off?"

Vin nodded. "Yep. In fact, we'll help you."

JD sat back again. "Gee thanks, guys," he harumphed.

In chorus: "Shut up, kid."

Chris appeared ill at ease. "Um, do I still get to moan and pule silently to myself as I continuously blame myself for every wrong that befalls our company, drowning myself day in and day out in a neverending bottle of whiskey, as I try fruitlessly to escape the memory of the terrible deaths of my wife and son, which I will not be able to do until I learn to accept the fact that I can't protect everybody all of the time, and at which time I shall stop wearing all black and maybe try some gray now and then, perhaps a little vermillion or maybe even indigo? Is that OK?"

Vin, woozy from his foot wound, which Nathan was busily disinfecting and bandaging up, nodded. "Yep, pard. All that and much, much more."

Everyone in the room was smiling now. "Gee , I feel much better," Buck said, grinning broadly.

Chris stood up from his position on the floor and dusted himself off. "Yeah, me too. I think I'm going to go drown my everpresent, deep-seated sorrows in a bottle of rot gut." He headed for the door.

"Yeah, buddy, I think I'll join you," Buck chimed in, following his friend.

Vin sat back in his chair and let out a sigh of relief. "Thank the Lord," he muttered.

As Chris and Buck strode out the door, Josiah entered once again, brushing past the two departing men. His look of excitement was dashed as he saw them walk away. "Hey, fellas, wait!" he called after them. "Come back! I had a great metaphor between rebuilding the church and man's inhumanity to man that I think just might help this situation! Come back.....!"

The End