Warning: This one contains additional qualities of M.
Chapter 6
His jacket is heavy in her lap.
Her head throbs as she traces the jagged edges of the bullet hole with her index finger. Just a few more inches, she thinks. Just a few more inches and that would have been that. Then what?
He pulls his shirt onto one shoulder, watching her. Still, after all this time, she doesn't want him to see her cry.
What then?
"It'll be all right," he says. "A little needle and thread and I'll be back to normal."
He pulls the other sleeve on and holds the front panels together, like she hasn't seen his chest before. Like the image of it isn't one of the primary sources of sexual frustration in her life.
She stands up. "Yeah," she says.
She offers him the coat, but he doesn't take it. Instead, he touches the hand that's holding it, sort of caresses it. When her lip quivers and a tear rolls down her face, he pulls her to him.
It's such a different hug from before, from the night she was certain Cady was dead. She'd been so sure she didn't have it in her to be there for him. Now, after everything, she doesn't doubt.
Their whole bodies are in on this one. The skin and the soft hair of his chest are warm against her bare cheek, his thighs firm against hers, and his strong, calloused hand on the back of her head, stroking.
She drops his jacket on the chair and slides the freed hand up to his shoulder, turning and tucking into him, creating their own little human alcove. There's no thinking involved. This is all there is. It's all down to the next move, and then the next, because she's here, and so is he.
She stands on her toes and she kisses him, differently, her hand on his cheek, fingers in the wavy hair at the back of his neck. His head doesn't jerk back, not even in delayed reaction. He moves towards her, and they meld, lips and dewy skin and tongues and air and gaspy words: Vic and I know and Walt and I know and Holy shit.
I know.
I know.
I know.
Voices in the hall, not too close, tug at them, warn them. He reaches over and closes the door with the softest click, and he eases her up against it. His hips thrust into her.
Sorry.
I'm not.
Me neither.
He's hard. She runs her palm over the ridge in his jeans. It's a deliberate act, no room for misinterpretation. They're nose to nose, in each other's eyes, breathing hard. He squeezes her ass.
Not here.
He kisses her neck, sucks a little, but not enough to leave a mark she hopes, though she doesn't care. Not really.
Where?
He cups her breast. Her nose and her fingers are in his thick hair. He runs his slick, hot tongue over the swell at the top, and she moans.
Anywhere. Her hips respond. Anywhere.
It's not suspicious that they leave together. They have to. She came with him, her driving while he held her clean T-shirt against the wound, gritting his teeth. Plus, they work together. A little more questionable is him carrying his jacket in front of his crotch, and the red, patchy flush of arousal around her chest and neck, and his plumped lips and messy hair, and the whisker burn around her mouth. But it's probably not all that obvious.
They're almost to the double doors when Weston intercepts them.
"Just a moment, Sheriff," he says as he gestures for one of the intake nurses behind the glass to come.
Vic keeps her eyes on the white linoleum.
"Deputies Connally and Ferguson brought the truck by," Weston says.
The nurse hands Vic the keys.
"Thanks," she says.
"Deputy Connally's outside Gilbert's room," Weston says to Walt. "He needs to talk to you."
Walt looks at her.
And here it is so soon, over just like that. Maybe she's being dramatic, but what's the difference?
She gives him the shadow of a shrug and the slight head tilt that no one else would even notice, but he does, and he knows what it means. He takes a deep breath and rubs his chin.
The sun is setting orange and pink across the rolling brown fields to the west as she drives home. She can smell him, feel his lips and his hands on her.
It's for the best, she realizes. They wouldn't have stopped, and there's too much blood from too many sources on her hands and her sleeves and a little on her face somehow, and some on his jacket in two different places and more on his shirt and his hands, not to mention the other problems with it.
She takes a shower then she gets in bed. She hasn't slept in two days, and for a while she does, but then she's awake again. The headache has subsided and been replaced by a GIF of the body bag landing next to her on the cold cement cellar floor followed by another one of the drive up the dirt road into the property, the last hundred yards when she understood with the worst heartache she'd ever known what she'd find there.
Over and over and over and over.
But she didn't find it. She found him, bleeding and stunned and holding his arm, while Gilbert writhed in the dirt with his offspring and cronies huddled around him, holding rags to the wound and praising his courage, and reassuring him of their allegiance and of the long, warped family future they expected him to be a part of. They didn't go after Walt. They can be relied on to follow the Frontier code of honor.
It's close to midnight when she surrenders.
She never heard the phone, but there's a message from him from two hours earlier: clearing his throat, just checking to make sure she's okay, wondering if she needs anything, clearing his throat again, heading home to take a shower, thinking about her, call any time, whatever she wants.
When she pulls into the yard, the living room light is on, but the porch light isn't. There's no movement behind the curtains.
As the seconds tick past, a frothy panic builds in her until, for whatever reason, she changes her mind. She's turning the truck around to go when the porch light comes on. Then the door opens, and he's propping the screen with his foot, looking out at her there in the truck in the clear, moonless dark.
She's afraid the sight of her here like this is triggering some realization in him about propriety and integrity. He comes down the front steps—there are steps now—in his socks again, and his jeans, which are sagging kind of low in the front without the belt.
She doesn't do anything. She just sits there and lets it unfold.
He walks around the front of the truck, through the headlights. He's wearing a blue sweatshirt she's never seen before.
He opens the door and says, "Vic?"
She turns to face him with the engine still running.
"What is it?" he says, his hands on her thighs like it's nothing.
He reaches across her lap and turns the key, then he takes her face in his hands and he kisses her with the least amount of restraint she's experienced from him so far.
She shakes her head, and for a long, long time, they look at each other, have the wordless conversation they need to have about what she understands now that she didn't understand yesterday.
"Vic," he says.
"I just," she says.
"What?"
She puts her hands on top of his, but they don't stay there very long because he lifts her up. For a second she fears she'll be too heavy for him, fears he thinks she weighs less than she really does, but he seems to be managing, so she wraps her legs tight around his waist. He closes the door and holds her up against it, kissing her again out there in the cool summer air under a spray of stars.
He carries her up the steps and into the house, and he closes the door with his foot.
He knows what she's there for. She's relieved he doesn't pretend not to.
He carries her straight into the bedroom where the bed is turned down and the sheets are rumpled on one side, and he sets her down.
She pulls her sweatshirt off over her head. He pulls his off then he lies down and pulls her down next to him, and they're kissing again, chests together, no barrier between them anymore.
He touches her everywhere: her bare arms and her back, and her stomach, and he squeezes her ass, both cheeks, and grinds into her and she grinds back. He unclasps her bra and unbuttons and unzips her jeans. He isn't awkward about it like she would have expected. He's smooth.
She unbuttons his jeans and slips her hand inside and wraps her fingers around him. He pulses in her hand. He groans and grabs her wrist, and she eases off.
Wait for me.
I've been waiting.
From there, it's all fingers and lips and hot breath and tongues and tugging and sliding until every item of clothing is off and on the floor. Not once does he go back to that thing he does, that looking in her eyes as though he's got something to say.
For the first time since she's known him, he doesn't seem to have anything to say that he isn't already saying.
Then he's inside her, just like that, stretching and so hard. And finally, they're both moving in the same direction.
Afterwards, he holds her. With a gentle touch she wouldn't have thought he'd be capable of, he explores her body, and he kisses her, and he smiles a lot.
Later, after they've gone through it all again, slower, they fall together into a dreamy sleep. At some point, he stirs and she stirs. He gets up, and he covers her with the comforter.
"Don't go anywhere," he whispers.
"Where would I go?"