Title: Bad Habits - A Magnificent 7 / ATF story by LOTRFaith
He placed the cigarette to his lips and slowly inhaled the toxic smoke… A slight pause as the smoke was sucked to his lungs and then a slow exhale…
It was only an inhale that lit up the cigarette end brightly against the darkness that made Ezra pause as he hurried from the sliding doors leading to the hospital and straight into the blackened alley.
"Vin? Thank God." Ezra hurried over, knowing instinctively that it was the sharpshooter hiding in the ally. He stopped next to the man, blinking as the forlorn figure released a cloud of smoke that disappeared into the moonlit night.
"I didn't realize you smoked." Ezra remarked off handedly.
Vin gave the undercover agent a crooked smile as he dropped the cigarette and toed it into ashes. "It's a bad habit I've never fully let go." He replied with a shrug. In his mind there were much worse things he could do to let go of a little stress.
"Ah." Ezra for once was strangely very unvocal. "I see."
Vin shrugged once again and reached a hand inside his pocket to draw out the rest of the pack and pulled out another cigarette. Wordlessly he offered one to his companion.
Ezra shook his head in refusal, but watched at the young Texan placed the unlit cigarette between his lips and shoved the pack back into his shirt pocket. Drawing out his Zippo, Vin then lit the end and inhaled.
"When I was in the Army." Vin stated conversationally. "I was introduced to these cigarettes, my first one I was throwing up cause of the buzz. I held out for a few months and after I went in with the Rangers it was one of the things that wasn't allowed." He waved his hand, the cigarette butt lighting up. "Cigarettes are a habit, foreign people can smell American tobacco, it could give away a position and it could get you killed." Vin took another inhale. "After I got out and became a bounty hunter I found it was one thing that helped relax me. Got up to 4 packs a week…"
Vin fell silent as he inhaled once again.
"I was hunting a man by the name of Andrew Elliot. He was on the run from 5 states and not a lot to loose. What I didn't know was the Andrew Elliot learned how to roll a fine cigarette…" Vin looked down at the cigarette in his hand. "Did you know that there are five lethal poisons in cigarettes?" Vin continued, inhaling yet again. "Most people don't know that there are over 4000 chemical compounds used when a cigarette is lit." Vin gave a crooked smile and flicked his cigarette to clean off the ash at the end. "Arsenic, Cadmium, Benzene, Formaldehyde and Polonium-210 are part of the ingredients, not many people know that butAndrew Elliot knew it and he was able to make arsenic into a white, odorless and tasteless powder. Not too difficult being that he had a Masters degree in Chemistry."
Vin gave a wry grin to the still silent man before dropping the cigarette into the dirt and toed out the burning end. "Arsenic is a nasty poison." He said quietly. "And for a while some of the drug companies tried to keep the case shut cause not many of the companies want it known that they use poison for their cigarettes."
"Turns out that Andrew Elliot would sell the cigarettes to underage teens. The teens were calling it the new 'coke' on the streets because of the buzz it gave them. What they didn't know was that their lightheadedness was actually neurological issues from the arsnic poisioning. After teens started dropping like flies, Andrew Elliot would leave the state. Several hundred dollars more to his name."
"I found Andrew Elliot only because I smoked so much. He caught on to my habit and sold me a pack." Vin revealed.
Ezra looked startled at the information.
"I had it tested and a couple days later I bought another pack. Only I was wearing a wire… Had enough evidence to pull him in. Five states worth of rewards too." Vin sounded oddly sad. "Turns out that in the two days it took me to get back to Andrew Elliot, he had sold over a hundred packs to unsuspecting people."
Vin sighed, his shoulders sagging. "I went cold turkey after that."
Ezra wordlessly gestured to the pack still making its presence known by the buldge in Vin's shirt pocket.
Vin gave a half laugh as he drew the pack back out and pulling out two cigaretts he lit them and placed them back in the pack and tossed it to the ground. The heat from the burning cigarettes quickly caught the package on fire and a few moments later there was nothing left but ashes.
"Bad habits die hard." Vin said simply, with a self depracating smile.
"Stress is something that can be taken care of in other ways." Ezra replied, suddenly understanding exactly why Vin was standing in the quiet back ally. "Josiah works at his decrepit building he sees at a church. Nathan has Rain. Buck and JD go to all sorts of sports events. I myself relax with a good glass of wine and a Grisham novel."
"And Chris?" Vin asked sardonically, his eyes turning to the white hospital where his boss and newly aquired friend lay with tubes coming from pretty much every area of his body and fighting for every breath with each beat of his heart.
"Chris has his horses." Ezra replied. "And he has us as well." He studied the younger man. It had been only a few months since the Texan had joined the ATF and Team 7 and he could see that that usually calm collected sharpshooter was frazzled. "Joining a team can be very stressful." Ezra smiled. "There are questions if one fits into the team, what the other team members think… And especially one who is used to being on his own, a team is something new and compeltely different." Ezra leaned against the brick wall. "Having to deal with someone who trusts in you inexplicable especially when you are used to only trusting in yourself?"
Vin let out a sigh. He could only too clearly remember the bullets slamming into Chris' body. All four had been in the center mass.
"Chris trusted you to do your job." Ezra comforted. "But there was no way of knowing exactly how the bust would end up. No one knows that Vin."
Vin let out a sigh, letting himself lean a bit heavier against the cold unyielding wall. "This would be why I work better alone." He muttered. "No one to watch over."
Ezra nodded. "But at the same time isn't it nice to finally have someone to watch over you?" He asked gently.
Vin looked up startled at the question. He opened his mouth to give off a quick reply but one look at the Southern changed his mind. in the few short months that Vin had been with the ATF, he had found that he and Ezra were actually a lot a like.
"Trust is a fragile thing Vin." Ezra continued. "It's not easily given or easily received, but in a single moment it can be broken into a thousand pieces and never given again. I know it is hard to trust us, but give us a chance." Ezra pleaded, his usual aloofness was gone and had been replaced with a genuine concern and knowledge.
Vin turned soulful blue eyes upon the smaller man, eyes that showed a world of hurt and confusion. Too many times had he trusted and too many times he had been let down. The first time he had trusted that he remembered was his mama. She had promised that she would never leave him. She died a mere four weeks later.
At each foster home Vin was promised by his caseworker that they would find a home for the orphaned boy… Vin had trusted his caseworkers… But as time went on he realized that his trust had been failed yet again.
He had been taught only to trust himself through the harsh years of his young life, and here was a man before him begging for his trust. Begging for his trust for the rest of his teamates.
Josiah, Nathan, JD, Buck, Chris and Ezra.
They trusted each other with their lives. It was a daunting thought for Vin who had been forced to live on his own, take care of only himself and trust only himself.
Vin chewed on his lower lip. Every bone in his body was screaming at him to get away from this place… To leave his newly made friends and teamates and flee as far and as fast as possible.
But there was something in Ezra's eyes that held that thought in check. There was something in Ezra's voice and held the body still even though Vin yearned to flee.
"Give us a chance." Ezra pleaded again.
Vin clenched his fists, not really believing that he was going to stay… But at the same time he knew that he would stay.
Vin swallowed, closed his eyes and gave a short nod.
He would stay.
"We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy" – Walter Anderson
The END