A/N: *gasp* What's this? A Vin story? From Alex? Hey, it happens sometimes. Don't worry, though, you know I can't write a story without involving Ezra somehow... ;)
Thank you to my fantabulous new beta Aislinn Graves. You guys should see our crazy emails on the side...she's a naughty girl when it comes to the M7 boys (especially Ez...) and I'm right there with her! Lol. Love ya, Ais! She's the best - go read and review her stuff, too. That's an order!
"Oh no. No, no, no, no," the sharpshooter whispered. He wanted nothing more than to pull up his rifle and slip down from his position on the roof, but there was a gun battle still waging on the streets of Four Corners. One of his friends was down, but the other five needed his skills if they had any hope of reaching their fallen brother. He looked down his scope again, searching for any target to take his anger out on. It was his fault, his bullet that had ripped through a member of his makeshift family. He knew he would never be able to forgive himself if…
The prone form on the ground moved. Tanner let out a breath as his friend dragged himself into the building behind him and proceeded to again add his firepower to the struggle going on outside. Within a few minutes the sounds of gunfire finally ceased, bringing an end to the fight and to the ten unlucky individuals who had decided the Four Corners' bank would make an easy target. Vin took only a second to make certain Nathan was on the move before he turned and abandoned his perch as quickly as possible.
As he rounded the corner of the building, his heart dropped in his chest when he saw the healer and preacher carrying a limp form between them.
"Ah, shit," he cursed, then ran to keep pace with them as they made their way to the clinic. "How bad?" he asked.
Nathan shook his head. "Don't know. Bullet went in high enough in his shoulder where it should've been okay if it went straight through, but it didn't have enough speed left. Must've ricocheted inside somewhere. Said he couldn't breathe and passed out."
Vin fell back, distraught, and Chris stepped up beside him. "Wasn't your fault," he said, laying a hand on the sharpshooter's shoulder.
Tanner shrugged it off angrily. "I shot him, Chris. How the hell could it not be my fault?"
He stormed off towards the livery and Chris was torn for a moment on whether to go after him or see to his injured man. In the end, he decided that the physical injury was more important than the emotional one at the moment and made his way up the stairs to the clinic. He saw Buck and JD stepping behind to follow, but redirected their anxious energy to getting the bodies moved off the streets. Neither protested, knowing there wouldn't be much for them to do for their friend but get in the way, anyway.
"Nathan?" Chris asked as he shut the clinic door behind him.
The healer, with Josiah's help, had Ezra rolled up on his right side and was inspecting the Southerner's back along the ribcage. The frown on his face was unsettling.
"I don't know if I can reach the bullet," Nathan said with a worried look. Chris just stared at him, waiting for an explanation until he continued. "Shot came down at an angle, went straight through that other guy and only had enough force left once it hit Ez to bounce the bullet off his shoulder blade. Knocked it down between his ribs, I think, but I can't be sure. It's still tucked up under that shoulder bone where I won't be able to see it, not to mention see if there's any damage done to his lung."
Chris pressed his lips together and ran a hand through his hair. If they lost Ezra, they would surely lose Vin…if they already hadn't. "Do what you can," he said, and at the start of Nathan's protest he finished with, "He'll be dead if you don't try. At least give him a chance."
The healer shared a look with Josiah, then curtly nodded. "I'll need some help. Gonna be workin' completely blind, here."
"Whatever you need, brother," Josiah answered with soft encouragement in his voice.
Nathan jumped into action, giving orders to preacher and gunslinger, alike. Both listened without hesitation – there was no room for posturing in the healer's house. A life was at stake, the life of one of their own, and they would do whatever it took to save him.
~~~~~~~~~~7777777~~~~~~~~~~
Vin rode out into the desert with no real sense of direction. He kept playing the scene in his head over and over again:
He had just taken down another of the robbers when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. One of the men had started running up the boardwalk fast, gun drawn and aimed at…
Oh god, Chris!
The gunslinger was covered from the front, but his back was exposed to the man about to take his life. Without even thinking, Vin had shifted his aim and fired at the gunman, forgetting about the fact that Ezra had taken cover just inside the saddle shop. He hadn't even seen the gambler step out from the doorway, hadn't known the conman would have had the situation under control without the sharpshooter's assistance, didn't realize what had happened until he watched not one, but two bodies hit the ground immediately following the shot from his rifle.
Instinct and good judgment. Those were the traits that he depended on to keep himself and his fellow peacekeepers alive. So what had happened to those traits this time? Was he so clouded by his strange bond with the dark-clad gunslinger that he would put all his other friends at risk? Why hadn't he remembered that Ezra was there? Why hadn't he waited just one more second before he took that shot? What made him pull the trigger at the exact moment the gambler broke cover?
"Said he couldn't breath."
Vin shook the thoughts out of his head. What did it matter, anyway? What was the point in questioning the reasons behind his actions? The fact of the matter was, one of his friends lay dying by his own hand, fighting for breath because of his carelessness. Somewhere along the line Vin Tanner, expert buffalo and bounty hunter, had lost his touch. It was just a damn shame it took an accident like this one to figure it out.
Well it wouldn't happen again. Never again.
~~~~~~~~~~7777777~~~~~~~~~~
It was dark before he realized the rashness of simply taking off in the heat of an emotional outburst. The air was becoming chilled and he realized a little too late that he hadn't packed any of his trail gear. He slowly scanned his surroundings, trying to make out any telltale shapes in the blackness, but he could see nothing that would help pinpoint his location. With a frustrated sigh he came to the realization that he, Vin Tanner, expert tracker and one who prided himself on his ability to live off the land, was completely and utterly lost.
Losing my touch in more ways than one, he thought bitterly.
With a heavy sigh, he jumped off Peso and carefully walked the horse a little further ahead, picking up small pieces of dry wood along the way. When he felt he had enough for a small fire, he set to getting it lit before removing the saddle from his horse's back, using it as his own pillow and the saddle blanket to keep his body as warm as possible during the cold desert night. If that wasn't warm enough when his little fire died out, he would simply lay Peso down on his side and press up against the large animal's back for warmth. The horse, ornery as some people liked to say he was, would lie still for his master at the man's command. He wasn't as behaved as Chaucer, of course…
Chaucer.
Vin frowned. That damned spoiled horse would be devastated if Ezra never came back to smuggle candy to him. More than devastated, he'd be downright uncontrollable. For whatever reason, the gambler was the only person that could really keep the independent animal in check. That horse was too damned smart, needed his mind worked to keep him occupied, and the only one who knew how to do that with any success was Ezra. If the quick-witted man wasn't around to keep his equally quick-witted horse in check, that fine animal would probably have to be destroyed.
And it would all be Tanner's fault.
His whole body shuddered, but it wasn't due to the chill in the night air. Every muscle tensed up with thoughts of someone taking a gun to head of the Southerner's loyal mount, thoughts of watching his own bullet take the breath from a man he had really just started getting to know and truly like, thoughts of the unconscious decision he had made to value one friend's life over another. Unable to take the overwhelming frustration and inner turmoil he felt swimming in every vein in his body, he let loose with a wild yell that echoed through the silence of the desert. The sheer volume of pain and rage in that cry warned any near predator that this man was not one to be messed with, not tonight. The only demons that would face his wrath would be his own.
~~~~~~~~~~7777777~~~~~~~~~~
He woke the next morning stiff and bleary-eyed, unable to recall when he had fallen to sleep and slightly shaken by the lingering nightmare images that had plagued his dreams. Testing his cold-sore muscles, he winced as he looked up to see the sun higher in the sky than he would have liked. It was late. He never slept in late.
Why the hell not? he shrugged. Losin' myself in every other damn way. Might as well sleep 'til I damn well please. Always worked for Ezra.
Worked.
He had used the word in the past tense. It sounded so final…
He was on his feet a second later resaddling his horse. After taking another good look at his surroundings, he was relieved to find that he had not grown so incompetent as to not be able to identify his current location in the full daylight. With that discovery, he was also irritated that he hadn't actually gone as far outside of town as he had thought, meaning at some point he had managed to wander in a circle. Still, he was closer to Eagle Bend than he was to Four Corners and decided he'd need to go stock up on supplies if he wished to continue his trek to….well, wherever the hell it was that he was going. It didn't really matter. He'd just be going back to his days of wandering the west in search of some way to clear his name-
Why does that matter now? Don't need to clear your good name when you don't got one anymore. Killed your own friend, Tanner.
Even in his head, he hissed out his last name with contempt. Yes, that was what he had done to his proud momma's namesake. He had already dragged it through the dirt by allowing it to get tarnished with false accusations, then did as good as turn those accusations into facts the second he pulled that trigger. He had gunned down an innocent man, a peacekeeper, a friend. He was guilty of the crime, didn't matter who the victim actually was. Maybe he should just go back to Tuscosa and turn himself in…
Eagle Bend. That had to come first. He wouldn't get far in any direction without traveling gear. Beyond that, he would decide what to do with himself concerning his bounty. Either way, he figured with his newly floundering attempts in every skill set that had kept him alive thus far, he would most likely be joining Ez in the afterlife before long, anyway.
He wondered briefly if Ezra would even bother to meet him at the Pearly Gates.
Don't be stupid, Tanner. You're goin' to Hell for what you done.
He also couldn't help but wonder if he might not meet the gambler there, too. If that were the case, the conman would probably choose Tanner's method of eternal torture personally for sending him prematurely into the fires…
The thought shook him. Ezra had had a real devious mind when he had the incentive to use it.
There it was again – openly referring to the conman in the past tense.
Vin shut off his thoughts and focused on where he was directing his horse.
~~~~~~~~~~7777777~~~~~~~~~~
It was late afternoon by the time the tracker rode into town. He kept Peso moving at a slow pace towards the mercantile and slid off the saddle with a depressed, ungraceful landing, barely taking the time to wrap the reigns once around the tie-pole. Just before he was about to step into the shop, a young boy came running up to him.
"Hey mister! Mister!" he shouted.
Tanner looked up and waited.
"Geez, mister, I was hollerin' for ya way down the street. Didn't ya hear me?" the boy huffed out, catching his breath.
"Sorry, kid, guess I wasn't payin' attention," Vin said sadly, offering a small apologetic shrug.
"No kiddin'," the boy grinned, then fished a piece of paper out of his pocket. He almost handed it to the ex-bounty hunter, then snatched it back at the last minute. "Almost forgot to ask!" he exclaimed. "Supposed to ask ya what your horse's name is, first. That was the orders: if you see a man with buckskins ride into town, ask for his horse's name. He gets it right, he gets the message."
What the hell?
Not really in the mood to play games, but his curiosity peaked just the same, Tanner decided to humor the boy. "Peso. Horse's name is Peso."
The kid nodded once sharply then handed the message over and waited. Vin looked at the telegraph, trying to register the words written there. It wasn't that he couldn't read them – he had been practicing with Mary's and Ezra's help. He just couldn't grasp what he was actually seeing. He looked down at the boy who was still fidgeting before him.
"Am I readin' this right?" he asked, not embarrassed in the slightest to ask the kid for help. The boy worked for the telegraph office, after all, and would be used to catering to the masses of illiterate men and women that passed through.
Without hesitation, the young man reached for the paper again and read it out loud. "He's alive. Stop. Won't settle down. Stop. Keeps askin' for ya. Stop. Get your," the boy looked up and Tanner nodded for him to continue. He cleared his throat. "Um…get your ass home now. Stop."
He ain't dead.
His mind reeled. He hadn't killed his friend, after all. No, no, he had just injured him then selfishly taken off, leaving him for dead. That was just as bad…
"Um, mister? You want me to send somethin' back?"
The question snapped Vin out of his melancholy. Now was not the time to be feeling sorry for himself. Ezra was alive, and he was asking for him. He would go back and face whatever blame and anger and insult the Southerner would throw at him. After that, after he took his deserved punishment, he would leave Four Corners behind. They would find no further use for him there with his talents gone.
He tossed the kid a coin. "Tell 'em I'm headin' back now."
With that, he mounted back up and took off at a reckless pace back towards the town he had been calling home.
~~~~~~~~~~7777777~~~~~~~~~~
"Ezra, dammit, you need to lie still," Nathan scolded again, gently pressing the injured man back down onto the bed.
"I need to…I need to talk to Vin," Ezra fought to spit out between shallow breaths.
It had been a long, stressful, difficult surgery to remove the bullet from the gambler's ribcage, with the healer having to dig around blindly up under the man's shoulder blade until he felt metal strike metal. The tongs had to be torqued slightly to get the proper angle needed to grip the small foreign object, and Nathan knew he couldn't help but bruise the bones he pressed against even more than they already were. It was through sheer luck (though Josiah and Chris told him it was skill) that he hadn't cracked any of them further in the process. He knew there'd be at least a chip taken out of the inside of the shoulder blade where the bullet had impacted, and some of the ribs would have suffered damage on its path down to its final resting place, but Nathan couldn't do much for those injuries. The only thing he could hope for was that any loose bone fragments wouldn't migrate to cause tears in vital areas. Instead, he focused on what he could do – get the bullet out as cleanly as he possibly could without inflicting further damage to the lung, which he was sure by this point had not been punctured. Despite Ezra's continued difficulties to breath normally (a side effect common to cracked ribs, anyway, and made much worse by the bruising on his lung), there hadn't been any blood coming up. There would be, Nathan knew, as the body tried to expel the excess fluid build-up caused by the bruising, but he would have a difficult time determining if that was in fact where the blood was originating from if Ezra didn't calm down. With all his current struggling, he risked not only busting his stitches, but breaking clean one of the cracked ribs. He could just as easily puncture his own lung with the sharp edge of bone and forfeit the life Nathan had worked so hard to save. Not to mention the fact that the active state he was forcing his body to endure would not be able to keep up with the lack of oxygen he was suffering from. There was a distinctly unhealthy bluish tinge to the Southerner's lips and fingertips that the healer could do nothing about. The man needed to settle down and try to take slower, more even breaths, or he risked passing out from oxygen deprivation.
"Ezra, knock it off," came a sudden barked, but quiet order from the door.
The gambler immediately stilled as Larabee made his way across the room. "I need…need to tell…" he gasped, searching Chris with pleading eyes.
The gunslinger placed a soothing hand on the Southerner's forehead. "He's coming." He held up the telegraph note so Ezra could see it. "Get some rest. I'll send him in as soon as he gets here."
"Promise," Ezra demanded in a weak voice. "It's…important."
"I promise, Ezra, as soon as he rides in."
Standish evaluated the gunslinger's words for a second before slowly nodding his head. Finally, much to Nathan's relief, he allowed his eyes to slip shut and fell almost instantly into an exhausted sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~7777777~~~~~~~~~~
Buck was the first to spot Tanner as he made his rapid entrance into town.
"Hey, where you been, boy?" he asked as Peso pulled up short in front of him.
"Out," the sharpshooter answered bluntly as he hopped off his horse, followed quickly by, "How is he?"
"Nate said he'd probably be okay if he'd stay still. Been gettin' himself all worked into a tissy askin' about ya."
"Shit," Vin cursed angrily at himself. What kind of coward runs out on an injured friend? Not only had he managed to shoot the little devil, but he probably got him hurt even worse by not being here when he should've been. Could he possibly have messed up the situation even more?
A hand clamped down on his shoulder and the tracker locked eyes with Buck, expecting to either defend the fact that it was his fault (as he had done with Chris), or prepare himself to take the harsh accusations and berating words he deserved. Instead, the mustached man offered up a small smile.
"He's waitin' for ya, pard," was all he said, then grabbed Peso's reigns and led the tired horse off to the livery.
Vin looked up at the clinic to see the man in black staring down at him. With a slight tilt of his head, Chris motioned for him to come up. The tracker took a deep breath and ascended the stairs, pausing beside Larabee. "Chris, I'm-"
"Save it for later," the gunslinger interrupted, no harshness evident in his tone.
Vin nodded and stepped inside the clinic, and almost bolted when he saw with his own eyes the pain he had caused one of his brothers. Ezra was laying on his right side, his left arm taped up across the bandages winding around his shoulder and ribcage, eyes squeezed shut as Nathan gently coached him through some breathing exercises. He looked pale, almost blue, and the strained look on the healer's face was a testament to how badly injured the Southerner actually was.
The sharpshooter cleared his throat and Nathan waved him over without looking away from his patient. "Don't excite him," he warned, "just got him quiet."
Ezra cracked his eyes open as Vin made his way to the head of the bed. Tanner sucked in a breath and held it, waiting for whatever tongue lashing the conman had the strength to give. What he got instead, what he didn't expect, was a very relieved smile.
"Vin," the gambler breathed out, flashing his gold tooth.
The sight of that shimmer in his smile, the familiar twinkle in his eye nearly broke the dam of tears that the sharpshooter had been keeping in check. Yes, Standish was hurt, weak, and fighting for a decent breath, but he was fighting. He wasn't dead, and for some reason, he wasn't angry. Why the hell wasn't he angry?
"God, Ezra, I'm so sorry," he stumbled out. "I shouldn't have taken that shot, should've been payin' attention, I don't why I didn't-"
Again, his apology was cut off, this time by a shake of the head and a hand reaching up to grip his sleeve. Ezra latched onto the fringed coat above Tanner's elbow and attempted to pull himself up higher. With a curse, Nathan shot his hands out to support the gambler's head and back as he hoisted himself up, simultaneously drawing the tracker down. When Tanner's ear was close to Ezra's mouth, he whispered something that brought a look of surprise to the tracker's face.
"You're kiddin' me," he said.
Ezra let go his grip and allowed Nathan to lower him slowly back to the pillows. He spread his grin even wider and shook his head. "Timing's…as…impeccable…as always…Mr. Tanner," he managed to say. He closed his eyes, then opened them again to see the tracker still standing there. "Go. Look," he ordered.
Nathan looked at Vin inquisitively, but the sharpshooter just shook his head and walked away. He had to go see the proof for himself, the sign that he hadn't lost his touch after all. Ezra said it would be there, and not that he didn't take the gambler at his word, but he needed to touch it, to burn it into his mind through physical contact. He strode down the stairs quickly, aware of the fact that Chris silently trailed behind, unobtrusive but supportive, and probably a little curious about what it was Ezra so badly needed to discuss with him. Barely preventing himself from breaking into a jog, Tanner stepped up to the doorframe of the saddle shop. There, clear as day (how did I miss this?), was a ragged hole in the frame and a bullet still embedded deep inside. He reached out and ran his fingers along the splintered wood, gauging the height of the shot with a practiced eye.
"Damn," Chris breathed from behind him, "would've taken his head off."
Tanner nodded slowly and allowed the pieces to fall into place. This shot had come from the same direction the outlaw had been running towards, the same direction as the man in front of Chris who was keeping the gunslinger tied down. Whereas Vin had thought the shooter aiming at his best friend's back was being reckless, running down the boardwalk with no cover, the man had actually been moving under the protective fire of one of his comrades. Apparently both had been unaware of the sharpshooter's position on the roof, but they had probably known about Ezra's hiding place. It would've been a good plan: flush out the gambler from the building, the shooter in the front would take him out while the shooter running in from behind would take out Larabee. If Vin had hesitated for that second just yesterday he had been wishing for, he would have definitely lost one friend and most likely would've lost Chris, as well.
"Impeccable timing," he laughed, shaking his head. "Still got it. Still got all of it."
Chris scrutinized his friend for a second. "This mean you're stickin' around for a while longer?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Reckon it does," Tanner grinned. He turned back in the direction of the clinic. "Sonuvabitch, he knew exactly what I needed."
Larabee's face drew down into a frown. "Well that ain't good," he said seriously.
Vin looked at his friend in confusion. "How do ya mean?"
"Since when's Ezra ever done one of us a favor for free?" Chris asked.
The words began to sink in. Ezra. Holed up in the clinic for probably the next two weeks. He'd be irritable, looking for something to do, some way to keep his mind sharp. Like that damn horse. As soon as he was up to it, he'd be running the boys like they were his personal maids, only this time, he'd have one target in particular – a one Vincent Tanner. Ezra had done Tanner a personal favor knowing that it was the sharpshooter's bullet that had confined him to bed rest. Yes, it had saved his life, but it had also nearly killed him, and he knew Tanner knew that. He would milk that for all it was worth…
"Ah hell," Vin cursed, and Chris laughed.
"Didn't think he'd actually let you get off easy, did you?" the gunslinger asked, throwing a friendly arm around the tracker's shoulder.
Tanner's shoulders slumped as he found himself being guided back towards the clinic, but inside, he smiled. He wouldn't mind that much. After all, being a short-term slave for a friend in need was a much better alternative to putting one in the ground. Besides, if the conman pushed it too far, he had a few aces up his own sleeve he could always throw down…
The End!