Travis walked into the Red Pony on his second night back in Durant, flush with cash from a few wins on the circuit and ready to celebrate his triumphant return. He stopped just inside the saloon doors to scan the crowd. For a fraction of a second he felt a smile pull at his lips, his heart rising up into his throat like a puppet on strings. Then one second ticked over to another and those same strings snapped. With his puppet heart plummeting down into his gut, he turned around and walked right out again.

The image of Vic standing at the other end of the bar smiling up at Walt Longmire — practically glowing — burned behind his eyes like a cattle brand as he strode back to his car.

A mostly full case of beer sat on the passenger seat, its cans glinting in the red light of the Pony's sign. Travis gave his door a good slam once he was inside and popped one open. He might've had a couple already (okay, maybe three or four) but it wasn't like he was drunk. One more wouldn't hurt, he reasoned, and it would take the edge off. He'd just sit here and drink his beer, settle himself for a while.

Walt fucking Longmire, he thought acidly after the first swallow. He'd known Vic was hung up on the guy, figured it was a pretty safe bet that Walt was hung up on her too, so it wasn't exactly out of the blue. That didn't mean Travis had to like it. He wasn't jealous or pining or some bullshit like that; he was over her, completely. But getting blindsided by the sight of the woman he'd planned to marry and raise a kid with hanging all over her new boyfriend had been the furthest thing from his mind tonight. All he'd been thinking of was having himself a whiskey or two (since his mom didn't like him to keep the hard stuff in the house), maybe shoot the shit with some cowboys, pick up a girl. It was the jolt of surprise that had knocked him out of the saddle, that was all. He'd be up and back on the horse in no time.

One beer became two as Travis sorted it out in his mind. The Pony was busy but it was that time of night when everybody had gotten where they wanted to go and was staying put for now. Nobody came or went as he sat there and it all started to feel kind of peaceful, just him and the stars and the breeze blowing through the rolled down window.

Somewhere in there he must've passed out for a while because he woke up cotton-mouthed and desperate to take a leak.

Getting out of the car, his foot slipped a little on the gravel. He had to brace himself against the door for a second when he stood all the way up. The stars had gone sort of blurry above him, but the trees ringing the edge of the parking lot were reassuringly solid. One of the great things about Wyoming, Travis reflected happily, was the handy abundance of nature available when a guy needed it. He stepped behind the lucky candidate, only tripping slightly over its roots, then proceeded to unbuckle his belt and unbutton his fly. The ground seemed to be swaying gently underneath him for some reason.

He let out a long sigh of relief as his bladder emptied, woozily contemplating how weird it was that sometimes taking a piss could feel almost as good as coming. That made him think about how long it'd been since he'd gotten laid (too long) and he decided to do something about that particular issue very soon. First, though, he'd just stand here with one hand keeping him steady against this nice tree for a few more minutes.

The breeze curled itself around him, licking at the sweat on the back of his neck. It carried with it the sound of voices, a woman's laughter, and as they came closer he tensed in recognition.

Vic.

Something painful happened in his gut. Peering around the trunk of his new friend, Travis felt his stomach sink when he saw her headed in his direction, Walt by her side.

"Shit," he whispered as he frantically stuffed himself back into his pants and buttoned his fly.

In his single-minded trek from car to copse, he hadn't been paying much attention to his surroundings. Now he saw Walt's Bronco was parked right at the edge of the lot, catty-corner from where he stood, maybe twenty feet away. It was near enough for him to make out the golden star stenciled on the passenger door, even in the low light. Travis stared at it balefully, feeling as though his predicament was all somehow its fault.

Then Vic laughed again, closer than before, and his eyes automatically tracked back to her. Standing in the Red Pony, he'd been too dazzled by her face to see anything more. Now he noticed she was wearing something short, a dress or maybe a skirt, showing off the pale length of her legs. It rose and fell a little with every step she took, sliding teasingly up and down her thighs. The memory of those thighs and how perfect they'd felt wrapped around him when he'd been balls-deep inside her made his dick twitch.

Right on the heels of that memory came the thought that Walt fucking Longmire would know what they felt like a whole lot better than Travis himself did. It brought the sour taste of bile into his mouth.

The fact that the first time he'd met Vic Moretti she'd drawn a gun on him had done nothing to detract from how hot she was. In fact, that element of potential violence kind of added to it. Armed and dangerous or not, she was undeniably sexy, and he wouldn't have been ashamed to admit back then that she had a starring role in one or two of his favorite fantasies. When he'd heard that her husband was out of the picture and she was available, he hadn't seen any reason not to try his luck.

The truth of it was, though, that she'd never been available. Not really. He just hadn't wanted to face up to it.

Sometimes Travis wished he could go back a year and tell himself to give it up, save himself the trouble; that she wasn't worth all the shit she'd put him through. Sometimes he hated her for making a fool out of him, for getting herself shot and taking away the one chance at a family he'd ever had. But then there were other times when he thought about never knowing what it was like to kiss her, to touch her, to hear that baby's heartbeat. And he knew that even if he had the chance to change things he wouldn't take it. Whether that made him more or less of a fool than he'd been before was anybody's guess.

In the parking lot of the Red Pony, he watched her tugging on Walt's hand playfully as they walked around to the passenger side of the Bronco. There was nothing between them and Travis now but empty space and he found himself holding his breath. This close he could make out the pale arrow of skin where Vic's dark dress (he was almost sure it was a dress) dipped low in front. Her arms were bare and her hair was down and she looked all lit up, white and gold, against the black night. He couldn't take his eyes off her.

She moved closer to Walt and said something that didn't travel across the distance. The way she'd cocked her head to one side and was biting her bottom lip around a grin somehow made her look seductive and sweet at the same time. While sweet wasn't a word Travis had ever associated with Vic before, seeing how it softened her now was mesmerizing. He was so caught up in just watching her that at first he didn't spot where things were headed. Before he could put it all together, Walt had pushed her up against the side of the truck, she was fisting her hands in the front of his shirt, and her muffled laughter broke off abruptly into something that sounded suspiciously like a moan.

They were kissing.

Oh, fuck.

Travis looked away, feeling sick.

Muted sounds drifted to him from inside the Red Pony like the background score for a scene in a movie. But this wasn't a movie he wanted to be a part of, let alone be forced to watch. He had to get away; he just couldn't figure out how to do it. Walt and Vic were too close not to notice him suddenly strolling out from behind the trees; besides, he didn't want her to think he was stalking her or something. In the daylight he would've been able to circle around through the trees and come out somewhere farther down where the building would block him from their view, but it was dark and yeah, okay, he wasn't exactly sober. There was a pretty slim chance that he could get more than a few feet without making some noise or falling flat on his face.

The only thing worse than letting them know he'd been watching by walking out into plain sight would be having them find out he'd been watching by getting caught trying and failing to sneak away. Which meant he was trapped here behind this stupid tree until they were done.

Travis stared out at the empty field and the empty highway to his left, at the way they bled and disappeared into the darkness around them, and wished he could do the same: just dissolve into the night. He tried to keep his eyes locked onto the emptiness, but looking at nothing was surprisingly hard and it wasn't long before he started to feel dizzy. His eyes swung back into a neutral position and left him focused straight ahead. He meant to close them then, he really did, but the message didn't seem to make it to his eyelids. They stayed stubbornly open. What else could he do but look?

Some trick of the light reflecting off the Bronco's white surface gave him a clear view of Vic's face. Even from this distance he could see how deep and wet they were kissing. The fact that she was with another man didn't really register for Travis. He could only watch in helpless fascination.

Her hands were gripping Walt's face. At least one of Walt's hands began sliding up her thigh to disappear under the hem of her dress. A moment later she tore her mouth away from his, gasping and arching. With her head thrown back and her throat bared like an invitation, she let out a low moan so raw Travis felt his dick start to harden in response.

He wouldn't have figured Walt Longmire for an outdoors, semi-public kind of guy, but then again he knew all about the stupid things Vic Moretti could make a man do. Like throw away a couple grand trying to impress her, or move house just to be near her.

Like fall in love with her.

Walt was mouthing at her throat as though he was trying to devour it. She was riding his hand, the long muscles of her thighs working hard, and gripping on tight to his shoulders. Travis didn't even care that it was some other guy who had his fingers in her pussy. She was so fucking gorgeous that the air around him felt like it was burning. Watching her was better than any porn he'd ever seen. He had to press down on the front of his jeans to relieve some of the ache in his cock.

It felt like no time had passed at all when she let out a soft, shivery sounding "Oh, fuck" and then froze for a drawn out moment, her mouth open. Walt lifted his head and they looked at each other for what seemed like an eternity before Vic's eyes fluttered closed and she slumped forward, panting like she'd run a marathon.

They stayed that way for a while. There might have been some conversation but Travis couldn't hear it over his own strangled breathing and the pounding of his heart. He was so hard and he wanted her so bad he couldn't think. He watched them finally separate with a surge of relief that it was over, that he could get away from this truly fucked up situation. But instead of getting in the truck and leaving, Vic pushed against Walt's chest until he backed up a couple of steps.

Then she reached up under her dress and pulled her panties down with a little shimmy, and Travis almost came in his pants.

She stepped out of them, then dangled them from one crooked finger with a tiny, sexy smile. He took in the way Walt's jaw clenched and his right hand curled into a fist, and had a brief flash of male solidarity. First touching her like that and hearing—feeling—her come, now this. The guy had to be ready to pound nails.

But after a few breaths Walt calmly took the little scrap of fabric, balled it up, and shoved it in his pocket. Vic let out a low, throaty laugh, then reached out and grabbed him by his belt loops and pulled him back to her. She wriggled her hand down into his pants as he leaned in and braced himself with both arms against the Bronco. Then he bent his head and started licking and sucking along her chest down to what he could reach of her tits.

Travis had a vivid flashback of how it had felt to do the exact same thing. God, she had great tits. Those low-cut shirts she always wore had seemed to promise a man the path to heaven, but he'd discovered the reality was even better. His head was spinning as the past and the present jumbled themselves together before his eyes. Without really meaning it to happen, the hand he had pressed against his jeans began to rub up and down, mimicking the motions of Vic's arm.

Her mouth was moving but he couldn't hear what she was saying. Maybe she was talking dirty, telling Walt what she wanted to do to him. Maybe she was describing how she'd get down on her knees and suck his cock if only they weren't standing in a gravel parking lot outside a bar. Travis could almost feel her hot breath against his ear, had to stifle a moan at the image of Vic with her mouth wrapped around his dick. He could feel himself leaking, his balls drawn up tight and aching, just from imagining it. How the fuck was Walt still standing there letting her do this?

Except he wasn't.

In the blink of an eye, he'd yanked her arm away and shoved at his pants. Then he was lifting her up, his hands spread over her ass, hers clutched at his shoulders, and she was wrapping her legs around him and sinking down.

The sound she made. It was like nothing Travis had ever heard from her before. It did something to his brain, shot electric down his spine, made him dizzy and desperate. His shaky hands fumbled at his fly, pushing everything aside to get at his dick. He had to; he couldn't stop. Getting caught didn't matter anymore. He stroked himself roughly, remembering it, her, imagining it all over again, ignoring the voice in the back of his mind saying his own palm felt nothing like the tight wet heat of her pussy.

He had to brace his other hand against the tree as he jerked himself off, trying not to make a sound, trying not to miss a moment of Vic getting thoroughly fucked and loving every second of it. Wishing it was him doing the fucking, pretending it so well he could almost feel it, so close to that perfect heaven of sweat and skin. Her mouth open wide, her thighs gripping him, her tits jiggling, her pussy, Christ, her pussy clenching around his cock as he pounded into her over and over and over.

The Bronco had started rocking gently with the rhythm of their fucking. She was writhing against Walt, fingers digging in so hard it had to hurt.

Travis tried to match their pace. He kept his eyes open and on her, just her. He tried to hold back, tried to wait, but she was so fucking beautiful and he was shaking, his body flashing from chills to fever and back again while sweat ran into his collar and his eyes. He was biting down on his own arm to hold back the sounds in his throat. Then she let out one short, sharp moan and he was coming, hard, harder than he had since that night, in long, hot pulses that made his knees buckle. He couldn't breathe or see or feel anything as he dropped to the dirt, only the pleasure corkscrewing through him and wringing him dry.

From somewhere far away he heard a grunt, a sigh, other sounds that floated through the ocean in his head without making sense. When he managed to open his eyes, Walt and Vic were holding each other, their foreheads pressed together, breathing hard. Her lips curved up in a smile and she rubbed her cheek against his like a cat, looking softer than Travis had ever seen her. Looking happy.

A terrible sadness bore down on him as he knelt there with come splattered all over his hand and the tree in front of him. For so long he'd wanted it to be him, thought it should've been him, but he hadn't even known what it was. Now he did; he was looking at it, and he knew with a deep certainty that he could never have given her that.

For the first time he felt ashamed, not just for what he'd done in the last few minutes, but for what he'd tried to take from her, what he'd resented her withholding, without understanding his own ignorance.

It was easy for him to look away then, to give Vic the privacy she had no idea he'd stolen. Feeling weary and empty and very drunk, Travis lay back on the grass, not caring about the lumpy tree roots digging into his spine. He wiped his sticky hand off on the ground and then against his jeans before pulling and stuffing and buttoning and buckling himself decent. He stared up through the leaves at the stars shining so bright from so far away that he'd never be able to reach them. Those stars were never meant for him.

After a while he heard a door shut, then another, then the rumble of an engine starting. Bright white headlights seared his eyes and he scrunched them closed in sudden pain. A few seconds later the engine rumble was joined by the crunch of tires on gravel and the light swung away in an arc. The rumble and crunch receded and receded until they were erased by the night, as if they'd never been.

Travis lay beneath the trees and the stars feeling loneliness trickle through his veins. It was a warm night. He was tired and he couldn't think of a good reason to go.

So he stayed.

[END]

notes: the title is from luke 9:58 because it works on at least three levels and two of them are hilarious (to me, a terrible person).