The Talented Mr. Tanner

ONE

I'm living two lives, I'm high and I'm low To my eyes I push and I pull Jekyll or Hyde you'll never be sure Sometimes light as a bird, doesn't seem right I am a gun and I am loaded I'm taking you down

-- Hednoize, "Loaded Gun"

A crawling, deep bass rhythm rattled the paper-thin walls, soothing and moody, from somewhere else in the building. A police siren wailed, distant in the night, and a cool breeze gusted through a crack in the window.

Vin leaned back into the pillows piled up at the head of the bed, propped an elbow on his knee, and examined the collection of papers strewn over the bedspread before him. Xeroxed newspaper articles from as far back as 1982. Almost every article had "suicide" in its title: FORT WORTH SUICIDE. . . CORONER'S FINAL REPORT: SUICIDE. . . SUICIDE VICTIM'S FAMILY APPEALS TO KEEP INVESTIGATION OPEN. . .

The suicide vic had been one Robert Spikes, a twenty-three year old MP found dead in an alleyway behind a dive favored by the recruits at Worth. Shot in the side of the head by his own hand. There were no direct witnesses; only the two men, who found the body after hearing the gunshot go off, had given statements. Apparently various factors had made the investigation difficult. It was raining that night, for one, and the coroner was slow to come to any conclusion.

Other bits of articles, photos, and old file sheets he'd acquired from various public records were tacked to the nicotine-stained walls of the shoebox room he rented at fifty a week in the Purgatorio slums. Electric blue from a shorted neon bar light across the street, flashed through the horizontal blinds. Shadows dipped deep into the corners of the room and the wrinkles in the gray bedspread where it showed through the scatter of papers. Near the foot of the bed, Vin's laptop computer decided it was tired of being ignored and went to sleep.

Mingled in with the articles were photos taken more recently of two men: one a tall, lean blond, the other an even taller brunette with a thick mustache. In some photos they were separate. In others they were together, whether coming out of the Federal Building downtown or just strolling in the streets.

And then there were the most /together/ photos of all.

Vin had taken them from fifty yards away with a hooded zoom lens. The two men were in a patch of forest well outside the city limits. Clothes were tossed randomly to the ground, a blanket spread and rumpled in the grass beneath the shade of a tree. Long, slender bodies were entangled, one lush mouth pressed to the other.

Vin remembered that day as perfection: clear sky, bright sun, Aspen leaves vibrant. A pair of horses, unsaddled and staked out in the open under a separate patch of shade, minded their own damned business and munched on grass and shrub. The dog on the property, a German shepherd named Jerry Jeff, hadn't uttered a peep at the trespasser and his camera, since Vin had ensured that Jerry Jeff would be off somewhere else happily wolfing down a twelve ounce T-bone.

Picking up one of the photos that focused on the couple, Vin tilted his head and smiled to himself. How he had ached to be in that clearing, on that blanket, with them. The blond's tight ass was in the air so that his spine dipped down gracefully into the small of his back and then rose up again to run between his protruding shoulder blades as he supported himself over the body of his lover. The brunette had one knee bent, creating a cradle with his thigh so that the man above him could lean to the side without rolling completely off of him.

Sighing deeply, Vin undulated his hips beneath him and lowered his free hand to unfasten his jeans. His fingers snaked beneath the fabric and through coarse pubic hair to meet the warm fleshy shaft of his hardening cock. Didn't take much, these days. He cupped his hand around it gently, fingertips finding the underside of his balls, his hand spread wide across the whole package as he pulled in and up, pumping just so. Moaning at the delicious zing of sexual tension it sent through his middle, he took a deep breath and let it out in a long, drawn-out hiss.

"Mmmmm, like lickin' butter off a knife," he whispered as he maneuvered himself to lie back more deeply into the pillows, hips thrusting out to give him more access to the rising ache in his groin. He stretched out over the crinkling papers and photos, trying not to jostle the bed too much, and closed his eyes. He sighed softly and continued to feel himself, just enough to keep his nerves humming, and it wasn't long before he was fast asleep.

-7-7-7-

Handshakes were going around the office that morning as Frank Corcoran stopped by for one final goodbye. Chris Larabee had already sent J.D. down to the Dunkin' Donuts for an assorted box of chocolate-iced and cream-filled sweets that were now arranged along the outer edge of Ezra's desk.

Corcoran had been on Team 7 only a few short weeks -- on loan from the FBI until a permanent man could be signed -- but he would be missed. Chris hadn't allowed for any gaps during the switch out. He had the file for the new recruit in one hand, a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee in the other, as he watched Corcoran make the rounds from J.D.'s desk, where he had to pry the kid away from his focus on the computer, to Buck, who was now shaking the man's hand with gusto.

"It ain't gonna be the same without ya, Frank," Buck drawled. His mustache lifted at the sides, playing up the warmth of his smile. "I know those D.C. stiffs can't be ready to have ya back."

"Not now that we've thorough corrupted you," Ezra put in.

Frank chuckled. "Try to stay out of trouble. All of you."

"But trouble is our nomen specificum," Ezra said defensively. "What ever would we do without it?"

"Die of boredom," Josiah replied from where he sat propped back in the chair behind his desk.

Nathan stood settled back against the corner of the profiler's desk, one hand extended and wide open to shake Corcoran's as the man came by.

"Nathan."

"Take care, Captain." Nathan pumped the other's hand up and down and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Good luck."

"Good luck keeping this motley crew from getting themselves killed."

Chris snorted at that and sipped his coffee. He sat the cup down and boosted away from the desk, tucking a pencil behind his ear. "Frank, you be good."

"You too, and don't let this one push you around too much." Corcoran intentionally pointed at Buck, who put up his dukes and mocked starting a boxing match.

Chris smiled and shook his hand, and Corcoran headed out the door with one last wave behind him. The departing figure was replaced by an arriving one coming through the doorway. Chris perked up when he saw Vin Tanner enter, clad in casual dress slacks with an oxford shirt and tie. Tanner had the last of his transfer papers in one hand and a blazer jacket clutched in the other. Chris knew the dress routine with most of the officers and agents in the building: suit and tie -- but not too fancy -- on the first day, jeans and tie on the second, then jeans and tee from the third on. That was just the way of it -- Ezra excluded -- and he expected Tanner would be no different after working a day here.

Five other sets of eyes angled upward to instantly scrutinize the newcomer.

Tanner was, as his file indicated, in the five-foot-ten range, and fit. His hair was longer than most agents tended to keep theirs, but Chris had no problem with it. He'd seen the man's mug shot in his file, and admitted to himself right away that photos did Vin Tanner no justice in the least. The young man's jaw line was exquisitely chiseled, his complexion bore an even tan, and he seemed completely approachable and boyish in general. The blue eyes gleaming at Chris were warm and full of determination, and yet Chris knew Tanner to have several classified kill shots to his name. That naturally innocent look of his was completely overruled by such a record.

Chris had taken the recommendation from Director Travis, who had located Tanner through some other acquaintance. The man checked out, and Chris had spoken to him a few times on the phone, so he had no doubt Tanner would hit the ground running. In all, he was incredibly comfortable in the new man's presence.

"Hello," Chris said huskily as he approached and offered his hand. "Chris Larabee."

"Good to put a face with the voice. Vin Tanner." He looked around, giving casual nods of greeting to the others.

Chris gestured to each in turn as he quickly listed their names and a few of their specialties. "This is Buck Wilmington and that, over there, is Nathan Jackson -- they're our explosives experts. Josiah Sanchez, our camp counselor. . ."

"Oh, that's cute," the big man replied dryly as if /cute/ had not previously existed in his vocabulary.

"The one hidden back there in the corner is John Dunne, but you can call him J.D."

The kid gave a two-fingered salute and returned his attention to the computer.

"And this," Chris turned toward the closer desk that was laid out with the donut buffet, "is Ezra Standish."

"And what do they do?"

"J.D.'s our electronics and surveillance man, Ezra's our con artist."

"He means undercover liaison," Ezra corrected with no small amount of irritation in his tone. It never ceased to get to them all that Chris could deliver such introductions without so much as cracking a smirk.

"Ah," Vin grinned and angled his head, his interest in the array of sweets piqued. "May I?" Before anyone could reply, he tossed the blazer over his other arm and reached into one of the boxes, drew out a cream-filled crueller, and bit into it with vigor, nearly shooting white fluff out the opposite end.

Ezra winced in his chair as if to avoid any squirts from the messy, braided pastry. "Oh, well, I see you don't mind helping yourself, Mr. Tanner. Do enjoy."

"I 'ill," came muffled through half-chewed bread and cream. Vin smiled with his eyes, cheeks packed like those of a rabid chipmunk. He chewed and swallowed.

Ezra watched the action only to find himself focused on a smear of the cream filling lingering on Vin's lips. In a second, the new man on the team licked the cream away, leaving his bottom lip gleaming. Ezra stared at those lips for far longer than he should have, then blinked and returned his attention to his desk.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, Mr. Tanner, I've got some paper work to finish. I'm sure you've got a thorough briefing with Mr. Larabee ahead of you, and then we will all play the association game later."

"Sure. Good to meet you, Ezra." Vin smiled and shoved the pastry into his mouth since he was running out of hands. He reached across the desk and the boxes of donuts.

Ezra reached up to shake Vin's hand but now kept his attention aimed downwards and on the pen in his other hand. "Likewise." He grimaced to find sticky glaze smeared in his palm and immediately went for a stash of wet hand wipes in his desk drawer. "Mr. Dunne?"

"Huh?"

"You deposited this assortment of saccharine victuals on my desk. Would you please remove it?"

Vin grinned to himself, enjoying the banter.

"Come on, Tanner, let's get you settled in," Chris called over his shoulder as he headed for his office.

"Hey, you get done in there, we'll have a beer after work," Buck offered.

Vin nodded to that, gave them all a last friendly glance and then turned on his heel to follow Larabee, finishing his breakfast as he went.

TWO

Vin was in the office for roughly an hour with Chris that morning, before they stepped out and he was introduced to his desk and a stack of files for all of the current cases the team was investigating. He got acquainted with the information, asked questions where necessary, and watched his associates work.

He watched. . . and he watched. . .

By the end of the day he knew that in the few weeks that Team 7 had been together, they had become tight very quickly. He knew that Josiah, the profiler, was on some spiritual quest of sorts, and that Nathan was an EMT on the side, and renewed his license regularly. He knew that Buck was a parrot head, owning every Jimmy Buffet album in existence -- some in the original vinyl. He knew that J.D. was a video game junkie and couldn't wait to get his hands on the next installment of Devil May Cry. He knew that Ezra's undercover work had earned him more than a few visits from IA.

And, utmost, he knew that Chris almost always left his office door open, even if just by a few inches, so that he could hear his men conversing in the outer room.

The next day a time was set to meet on the firing range, where Vin's skills were put to the test. When he nailed the human-shaped target dead center at a hundred yards, eyebrows went up. When he nailed it in the head, there were a few murmurs of "whoa," and "day-am", and when on Chris' command he got it right in the shoulder for a disarming shot, that earned him some claps.

A week later, Vin knew that Josiah had been engaged to a woman named Emma Dubounet, who had broken his heart a long time ago. He knew that Nathan was dating some young woman named Rain. He knew that J.D. routinely downloaded access codes to various government systems nationwide, and that the kid and Buck shared a loft apartment. He knew that Buck had every woman working in the building practically eating out of his hand and that Chris didn't seem to appreciate that fact in the least.

And he watched. . .

Occasionally he felt Ezra's eyes on him from across the way, and he would feign not noticing. Sometimes he played along by stretching in his chair, groaning to himself as his spine would pop nicely and his arms would reach skyward with feline grace. Other times he gave Ezra a completely different show by propping his boots up on the corner of the desk and just grinning knowingly at the other agent. It made Ezra squirm, which Vin loved.

On breaks, he got into video gaming online with J.D. and had the kid royally pissed at him over Quake. What could he say? He was just good with guns, even virtual ones. After hours, he would meet some of them at the Saloon, or back on the firing range. He stayed in the office a few late nights going over cases, debating with the team over cartons of Chinese takeout or stacks of pizza boxes.

As time passed, he got to know more new details on each of them, while presenting them only with what he cared to indulge about himself. He had worked carefully, dipping a toe into the proverbial waters first, then a foot, and finally he'd waded all the way in. Before he knew it, Vin Tanner was a fully-fledged member of the Team 7 family.

And that was just the way he wanted it.

-7-7-7-

Chris thrust his hips forward, plunging deeper inside his lover, sweat building between his thighs and the heat of their two bodies pressing together, then separating, then coming back together again. For each time Chris drew back, pulling his cock out just to the head, Buck pulled forward. Then they would push together again, working the rhythm harder, faster. Buck's long, narrow torso bowed and undulated, on all fours, Chris' hands clutching his hips firmly. Briefly Chris released one hip and reached out his hand, suddenly compelled to trace a finger down the strong, swaying spine before him.

He was answered by a moan that dropped into a gasp as Buck flexed his buttocks and drew Chris on harder. A fat bead of sweat coursed down Chris' temple to his cheekbone, then all the way to his jaw line where it trailed with ticklish tingles down his neck to his collar bone. Moaning his own pleasure, Chris took a breath and lost it as that last sharp zing of nerves and fevered blood hit him.

"Ah, God!"

Chris shivered, his body stiffening, and tossed his head back as he came. Buck gasped, tensed into stillness as his lover finished, and his rib cage expanded and contracted, breath heaving in raspy gusts. Then all at once, he came on the sheets below him, more vocal with his completion, until his voice died into a long shivering hiss.

They remained in position for a moment longer, letting the last tingles and surges finish, before Chris slid out. Buck eased down onto the bed, stretching out his legs, and pulled the pillow toward him, hugging it as he laid on his belly and watched Chris towel off his crotch before settling down. Silence gradually descended as their breaths and lingering shivers leveled out. Somewhere out in the night, a whippoorwill called, and Jerry Jeff let out a startled but soft "Whoof" not far away from the window, but otherwise the ranch lay silent and peaceful beyond the bedroom walls.

"Shuddup, mutt," Chris grunted at the shepherd and began to drift off. He was almost asleep when Buck decided to start up with the pillow talk.

"Team's still coming along nicely. We're almost up to our first quarter anniversary, and no body's gotten killed yet."

"Mmmhmmm." Chris faced his lover, but his eyes were closed, the sheet draped over one jutting hipbone as he lay on his side.

"You really happy with this project?"

"Huh?"

"Are you happy with it?" Buck stared up into the dark at natural wood rafters barely defined by the filtered moonlight creeping through the blinds.

"Go to sleep, Buck."

"I just want to know. I mean, we've both already had a long stint in this outfit, but leave it to the old man to pick you as a team lead."

Chris' eyes snapped open. "Not this again."

"What?" Buck asked defensively.

"You know what I'm talking about." Now wide awake with irritation, Chris sat up and propped back into the pillow, looking down at the other's smooth face and the mustache blended into one long shadow. "How long I choose to work is up to me, Buck. I'm not ready to retire."

"No-no, of course not, you're still young." Buck cocked him a sideways look and grinned, teeth flashing in the dark. "I just want to know how long you're going to do penance."

"Penance!" Chris stiffened and glared. "I'm not doing penance."

"Then what is it?" Buck sat up, his eyes black and intense through the shadows. They stared at each other evenly for seconds that felt like an eternity. Then Buck slouched. "I'm sorry, I. . ." He threw his legs over the side of the bed and propped on his knees while he spoke over his shoulder. "We had talked about really getting this ranch off the ground, getting some more studs in, and I never can imagine that happening anymore."

Chris swallowed heavily and reached out, his touch sparking ripples in Buck's taut back muscles. "It will happen. Maybe not tomorrow, and maybe not in another year. But it will happen." Then he added, "As I recall, you couldn't wait to sign on the team, too."

"Yeah." Buck leaned back slightly into the touch, which became a light massage. "What was I thinking?"

"Come back to bed," Chris coaxed, though his tone wasn't quite right. It was laced with vinegar, and gruff, too much like an order.

Buck cursed himself for killing the mood. "I'm sorry," he repeated, hesitant to lie back down. He stood up, naked from head to toe, the silvery half-light caressing his long body, contouring around the rise of a cheek bone, the curve of a shoulder, and down along a slender thigh. "I'm gonna have a drink."

Chris glared at the departing figure. Moonlight played briefly over the two gorgeous ass cheeks, as Buck disappeared through the bedroom door into the darkness of the hallway.

"Yeah, well get me one too while you're at it!" Chris barked after him.

-7-7-7-

The Saloon was comfortably packed that night, the majority of the patrons ganged up at the end of the bar to watch a Broncos pre-season game on the wide screen television. That left the other side of the room virtually empty, and Team 7's favored table free. Ezra had just arrived, ordering a whiskey sours as he made his way along the bar, and approached the table to find Josiah already midway through a pint of lager and observing as Nathan and Vin huddled in discussion over their own slowly draining mugs.

The dimly-lit room reeked with an amalgamation of smells from cigarette smoke and whiskey to buttered popcorn and fried foods, and a recent release of a country-rock single blared from a speaker that hung above the table.

Ezra was just coming in on a fragment of the discussion and immediately recognized it. He'd heard something similar in the office when it was just himself, Vin, and Nathan holding down the fort, and it seemed to have cropped up from Vin's curiosity about Nathan's further work as the team's liaison with the coroner's office.

"No, I mean, if you've got a vic that suffered a head injury prior to being burned, what do you look for?" Vin asked.

Nathan shrugged. "Maybe retinal detachment, sometimes damage to the brain from jostling." He took a swig of his beer and sat back. "Maybe bleeding inside the skull if there isn't an open wound."

"You can still find evidence of that if the body's burned?"

Nathan tossed his head in a loose yes-no gesture. "Well, if you have enough body to work with, yeah, there are signs."

Ezra frowned, wondering why in hell these two found head injuries so fascinating and wondering why Vin had ever brought it up to begin with. Josiah wasn't helping. The profiler was just as fascinated by information that expanded his knowledge in any area. Clearing his throat, Ezra caught their attention as he stepped up to a vacant chair and tossed his jacket over the back. "Gentlemen. Still discussing the macabre?"

"Nah, just comparing notes from Vin's Ranger medic training." Nathan straightened in his chair and scooted it in closer to the table, giving Ezra more room. At the same moment, a waitress arrived from the bar with a tray bearing Ezra's drink.

Ezra thanked her with a tip and settled down. "And that corresponds with incendiary forensics how?" He tried to pick up where they'd left off, but no one answered him.

The others took glances at what they could see of the television far across the room then returned all attention to the huddle.

"Buck and Chris not joining us?" Vin asked, glancing through the haze toward the entrance.

Something about the gesture seemed. . . anxious. . .

Ezra noticed how the sharpshooter stiffened slightly and he could have sworn that Vin sounded disappointed. "Chris had a meeting with Travis, and I think Buck remained to lend moral support. And you know J.D. He'll go where Buck goes if he senses tribulation on the rise."

"Damn," Nathan said with a /that's-too-bad/ tone.

"So, here we are," Ezra said, moving on. "Almost up to our first three months."

"Two for me," Vin reminded him with a gentle frown.

"Doesn't make you any less a team player," Josiah said graciously. "Your input on the Dawson case has been invaluable."

"We'll have to celebrate," Ezra added.

"Like we're doin' now?" Vin asked.

"We do do a lot of celebrating, don't we," Josiah mused along, took a big gulp of his beer, and then changed subject out of distraction. "That's a nice medicine bag you have on there, Vin. Where'd you get that?"

Ezra squinted through the low light to focus on the object in question and saw the little leather pouch hanging from a cord around Vin's neck and down the front of his tee, which was layered over with a flannel shirt. He was just as curious. "Oh, that is nice," he remarked, noting the fine beadwork rimming the little sack. "I didn't know you were interested in Native American paraphernalia."

Vin shrugged and cocked another one of his vague smiles that somehow put Ezra on edge. "Yeah, actually one of the men in my unit was Kiowa."

He didn't know why, but there was just something about Vin Tanner that left Ezra uneasy. Admittedly, the man was gorgeous -- blue eyes like chips of mica and lapis set in a face that didn't really show that wide a range of emotions. Ezra had seen him smile and smirk, frown and grimace, but there wasn't much in between. Vin got along great with everyone, and worked his ass off, but he hadn't shared very much of himself other than that he stayed down in Purgatorio, a place Ezra wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole; he liked donuts with cream filling, and pizza with anchovies; he could hit a target dead center at one-hundred yards, and according to Vin's record that was nothing.

Ezra looked over to see Josiah perking up. Now the talented Mr. Tanner had the team profiler thoroughly charmed.

"Kiowa?" Josiah asked. "I bet you learned some interesting things from him."

Vin nodded. "Yep, he was a pretty cool guy."

They all listened as the team's sharpshooter elaborated. After a while, Ezra ordered another drink and said nothing more. He watched Vin's eyes catch sparks of light from a neon beer sign hanging over the bar, and he watched Vin's lips move, caressing them with his vision. Something about Vin might be strange, yes. Something too perfect, too easy-going. He just couldn't put his finger on it.

But that didn't stop Ezra from wanting to get in the man's pants.

-7-7-7-

"Hello, Peso. What'cha want?" Vin asked as he tossed his jacket onto the back of his room's one chair. He turned on his laptop, which he always left sitting on the bed -- his /home office/.

While the machine booted up, he went back to the jacket, fished into one of the pockets, and came out with a half eaten Baby Ruth bar, the excess wrapper neatly folded back over the chocolate and peanut stump. With a crackling of plastic, he peeled the whole candy bar free and took it over to the window, where the big rat sat out on the ledge sniffing the evening air. That flickering light across the street still hadn't been fixed, and it flashed grimily over the rodent's glossy black fur.

"There you go." Vin situated the Baby Ruth in front of the rat. He watched its fine, wispy whiskers, silhouetted against the light, twitch as it sniffed the chocolate and quickly dug in. Vin's eyes narrowed with humor. . . ah, the little pleasures. . . as the rat picked up the entire candy bar and took off along the ledge with it. Looked like the little critter was carrying a big turd in its mouth.

Vin yawned and stretched, and went into the little stall that posed as a bathroom.

Pulling the shirt from his back, he stared at his reflection in an old mirror, blotched from behind the glass where the silver foil had cracked off. In the chilly bluish light of the fluorescent overhead, he examined the contours of his shoulders, chiseled and hardened by his years in the Rangers, and the six-pack abs that went with it as well, all now maintained by routine gym trips. He leaned forward, viewing the red webs forming around the edges of his eyes, and grimaced.

He certainly couldn't say this job was boring or that he didn't log enough hours. That actually worked to his benefit. In just two short months, he had learned how to read the others, and he was learning bit-by-bit how to /become/ for each of them what he needed to be. They were easy to manipulate, really. They needed to trust. . . wanted to trust. . . and they trusted him. His only problem was Ezra Standish, but he'd find a way around that, too. Time would present him with all the answers he needed, if he was patient enough.

He splashed some water on his face, enjoying the refreshing icy sting, and ran it through his hair, sweeping the waves back from his face before he grabbed the towel from over the shower bar and swabbed off.

With a flick of the towel he returned it to the bar and took a deep breath, held it, then let it out along with all of the day's tensions.

Back in the bedroom he started for the bed when movement caught his attention over by the window. He looked to find Peso had stashed away the Baby Ruth somewhere and was back for another hand out, sniffing the air inside the room, his little pointed head just barely off the ledge and nudging bit by bit across the windowsill. One tiny hand-like paw took a step forward.

Immediately Vin shifted gears, face reddening with irritation as he gritted his teeth and moved with lightning speed. His hand came up to the top of the window and pulled down, slamming the panel shut on the sill with a solid BANG! The rat had little time to jerk its head back out of the way, scraping its nose on the descending frame, and let out a distressed screech at the racket.

"My territory, you little freeloader," Vin said through gritted teeth, pointing at the floor inside the room. Then he stabbed a finger toward the ledge. "Your territory. Get it?" He calmed as he watched Peso sit up in a fat wad of fur, paw at a sore nose, and then waddle away disappointed. After a moment, Vin dismissed the whole matter and settled down on the bed, stretched out his legs, and propped back against the pillows, pulling the now booted laptop onto his thighs.

"Now," he said and waggled his fingers over the keys, to loosen them up, "let's get to work."

THREE

Vin kept notice of Larabee circulating in and out of his office all morning, his eyes drifting up from the file he was studying to the door that always remained cracked. He was tired after too many beers and a long night of brainstorming on his personal mission, and now pushed down his third cup of black coffee. The brew was so strong from having been baking in the pot, that his Styrofoam cup smelled more like an ashtray. When J.D.'s young and too cheerful voice interrupted his thoughts, the others nearly had to peel him off the ceiling.

"Jezzuz, J.D.," he griped and sat up straight, dropping his pen and smearing ink on the note pad he'd been jotting on.

"Oh, sorry, Vin," the kid said more meekly. He stood, heavy backpack over one shoulder, at the end of the desk.

Ezra, engaged in a discussion with Josiah over the psychology of one of their suspects, glanced at the two younger agents as if they had just detonated a bomb.

"No problem," Vin said, massaging a temple. "What's up, J.D.?"

"Oh, just wanted to tell you that game you sent me was great."

"Game?"

"Yeah, that Teletubby shooting gallery."

Vin arched a brow and looked stiffly at the kid. "What are you talking about?"

"You sent me an email," J.D. said, his lighter air dissolving away when his thank you didn't receive the response he'd obviously expected.

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you. . . did. . ." Young brown eyes widened in absolute horror as some realization set in. "Didn't you?"

Vin frowned. "You got an email from me?"

"Yeah. . ." Then suddenly J.D. sprang for his desk, tossed his pack up onto the surface next to the main computer and pulled out his laptop. "Shit," he hissed, "shit-shit-shit."

"Language, Mr. Dunne," Ezra said as he and Josiah took an interest in the hushed outburst.

"Vin, if you didn't send me an email, your computer did. . . you may have a virus that sent out as an attachment."

"What!" Vin straightened in his chair. "Oh, shit," he added to the stream of curses and gritted his teeth.

"Oh, this is amusing," Ezra commented deadpan. "Not."

"Did you get any attachments?" J.D. asked as he hurried to boot up the little machine and examine it.

"Well, yeah, I got the Teletubby shoot out but I didn't send it," Vin replied.

"A Teletubby virus?" Ezra interjected, coming around from behind Josiah's desk. "Someone really has a morbid sense of humor." He angled a strangely solid gaze at Vin, who shook his head.

"I didn't think anything about it," Vin said anxiously. "Yeah, I opened it and played it, but I didn't realize. . ."

"Fuck!" the kid suddenly shouted. "Oh, my God!" His computer had hardly finished booting before a fuzzy and annoying giggle issued from the machine's speakers. The screen came alive not with a desktop and files, but a plethora of bouncing Teletubbies. J.D. went livid as Tinky-Winky, Laa-Laa, Dipsy, and Po danced across his screen. "OH. MY. GOD!" He paced, frantic.

"Please, make it stop," Josiah exclaimed with sympathy.

"Ah, man," Vin sighed. "Means my machine probably has this, too?" He slouched and ran fingers through his hair. "Damn."

J.D. continued to pace, rubbed nervously at his mouth, and then settled down to clatter his fingers over the keyboard, attempting to stop the hideous giggling that taunted him over and over again. "It's okay, I can figure this out," he said more to himself than the others. "This is nothing."

"I hope so." Ezra went to hover, watching in morbid fascination as J.D. finally got the Teletubby screen barrage to stop and give him his normal desktop back. The giggling, however, persisted until J.D. was forced to shut the speakers off completely.

Vin watched too, arms crossed defensively across his middle. "J.D., I'm sorry. Really."

Too intent on the urgent task of cleaning out his system, J.D. ignored him. A moment later, none other than Buck Wilmington came through the door, a cup of Starbuck's in hand, and a briefcase in the other. The inviting smell of caf mocha curled around him.

"Mornin' everyone." He started over to his desk, lanky limbs moving with such casual ease that Vin couldn't help but watch.

"Buck. . ." J.D. whimpered, "Vin gave me a virus."

Vin winced.

"Well, you two shouldn't play in strange places together," Buck chirped and grinned before he realized how serious J.D. was. The grin died away with the groans and moans of disgust from his coworkers.

Too late; the bad humor had killed any possibility of a good mood in the office for the rest of the afternoon. Buck cleared his throat, apologized, and got to work. Everyone left J.D. to his suffering. He was eventually forced to clear a spot on his file cabinet and set up the laptop there to run an anti-virus program. He got on with work, but was clearly distracted by the mishap.

Vin didn't think twice about it. He went back to work, occasionally checking on the kid's progress just because, technically speaking, it /should/ concern him.

By late afternoon, Nathan and Josiah left to go down to the shooting range and work off some tension. Ezra appeared to be consumed by a file concerning one of his street contacts, and Buck disappeared into Chris' office, which remained cracked. Vin stood, stretched, and strolled over to the empty coffee maker situated on an older, spare desk near the door. He could hear Buck and Chris speaking softly but clearly.

"Coffee, anyone?" he asked.

Ezra looked up and shook his head. "This late in the afternoon?"

"Why not?" Vin tossed the kid a look. "J.D.?"

"Yeah," he called back from behind the cover of the desktop monitor he worked on. "I'll have some. I'm stayin' in. Be here all night cleaning up this mess." He shifted in his chair, and Vin could see him looking over his shoulder at the laptop still running pesticide on the cabinet.

Vin turned back to Mr. Coffee and pulled out the basket to put in a fresh paper filter, pausing to tilt an ear ever so slightly toward the door to the inner office.

"Sure you're not coming over tonight?" Chris was asking with minor disappointment in his tone.

"Nah," Buck replied. "Not tonight. I just think we. . ."

There was a long pause, a gust of tension, and Vin spooned coffee grinds into the basket.

"Look, we'll plan something for the long weekend, okay?" Buck finished.

Upon mention of a long weekend, Vin remembered that Labor Day was coming up.

"Yeah," Chris replied. "Okay."

Vin glimpsed the team leader's figure through the crack, and saw a shadow ghost across the frosted glass.

"That coffee almost ready, Mr. Tanner?" Ezra asked rather snappishly.

Vin turned and looked at him, not at all happy with that tone. "Why, Ezra, you want some now?"

"Yes, I do believe I will have a cup after all."

Vin clicked the machine on to perk and sauntered back to his desk, hiding the glare that flashed across his face from the interruption. Didn't matter, though, he told himself. He'd found out everything he needed to know.

-7-7-7-

He'd been watching the townhouse any chance he got -- when he wasn't required to be in the office, or if he happened to be on that side of town. For that matter he'd been watching all of the others' homes -- just as he had Larabee's ranch -- thoroughly scoping each abode, and taking mental note on every detail of its owner's activity. He had parked his Jeep around the block and taken a stroll in the crisp late afternoon air, mindful of any neighbors noticing, and was now on about his third round.

Ezra was out right now; Vin knew because he'd rung the doorbell earlier. There was no way to tell just by looking at the place because the team's best undercover agent kept his Jag in the garage, which was closed at all times except when opening for Ezra to drive in or out. So that meant Vin had to watch and make sure he /saw/ Ezra leave. . . or just ring the doorbell like mad until he was certain no one was home.

On his second round, Vin had noticed the USPS truck parking on the curb of the cul-de-sac up the street from Ezra's house, so he watched as the mail man got out with his bag to trek the circling streets.

Hmmm, mail was running exceptionally late today. . .

Vin tracked the man carefully until he had almost reached the turn off the sidewalk that led up to Ezra's door. Then he adjusted his leather jacket, shoved his hands casually in his pockets, and walked toward the young man, just barely beating him to the turn into the small, pristine yard.

Vin gave a nod of a greeting as he started to pass the postal worker, when he stopped and backed up a step. His timing was impeccable. "Hey, you got mail for Ezra Standish?"

The young man eyed him and glanced toward the house. "Yes, Sir."

Vin held out an open hand, gesturing casually along the walk toward the door and its mail drop. "I can just take it up to him, he's expecting me."

"Uh. . . okay."

Vin took the small clutch of mail held together by a rubber band, including what looked like it might be a box of newly ordered checks, and trotted up the path to the door. He whistled "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" as he went, keeping aware of the postman's steps continuing on behind him. He was just reaching the door when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man's figure move toward the next door down, drop a few letters into the slot, and then hurry on down the sidewalk. Vin rang the doorbell, just to make his presence look good, and stood rocking casually forward and back on his heels while he discreetly thumbed through the mail and muttered under his breath.

"Junk. . . junk. . . junk. . . International Male?" He arched one brow. The gay man's Victoria's Secret. "Mr. Standish, I'm shocked." He slid the envelopes and catalogue through the slot, followed by the box of checks, and continued to flip through the last items. "Junk. . . bill. . . junk. . . hello?" He singled out a nondescript envelope and tilted his head. His free hand slid the rest of the mail through the slot.

It was the return address with Zurich on it that particularly had his attention.

"Gotta love the perks," he husked under his breath and turned to go.

-7-7-7-

Buck had been settled back sipping a bottle of Dos Equis and watching CNN, tired from the day's chaos and wondering if J.D. would ever make it home. Poor kid. He'd been so damned stressed over that virus and had preferred to stay at the office to take care of it. There were too many distractions apt to occur at home. Sinking back deeper into the soft corduroy-upholstered couch, Buck relaxed the hand holding the beer on his hip and sighed deeply; even with the television on, the loft felt lonely. But then Wolf Blitzer wasn't exactly the best company.

He didn't know why he was so tired lately. Maybe it was that Team 7 was taking off so fast. Maybe it was the years catching up with him. Maybe he was just worrying about Chris too much. The man had always been a hard worker; of that there was no question, but it seemed to be Larabee's means of blanking out certain issues he needed to face. That had always been Chris' way, and it had intensified over the years, from their time in the SEALS on. Were he able to erase the events that he knew marred Chris' memory, Buck would. He would shift the darker shadows of the distant past around, tear them open a bit so some light could shine through. He would bring back Sarah and Adam to soothe the more recent woes.

All that guilt they both felt. . . him and Chris. . .

Chris had known he was gay when he married Sarah. He'd long been struggling with the emotions involved and, after deciding that nothing good ever came of them, he just buried them. He had admitted as much to Buck, who attempted to discourage the marriage to no avail. Buck had liked Sarah, and didn't want to see anyone involved get hurt, so he had just watched -- to his eternal shame -- waiting for a train wreck to happen. He'd seen Chris' happiness at becoming a father, and that was, for a time, all that mattered, because it threw a veil over everything else. Then eventually that train wreck came in the form of a car bomb meant for Chris. Ironically, it had taken everything from him but his life. It had taken away his shelter.

Buck tried to stop thinking about it. Maybe it was easier to pull a Chris and just try to turn it all off. But, no, he thought, you couldn't turn off the past. It was bound to keep nipping you in the ass until you gave it attention.

He listened to the run down of the daily news and absently flipped channels. Looked at the phone and thought about calling the ranch just to see how things were going. Somewhere outside the loft walls, a car horn blared, reminding him that life went on.

So did the sudden knock on the door.

Buck left the TV on and sat his beer down on the kitchen counter as he traipsed toward the main hall, hardwood floors creaking under his bare feet. He reached the door, peered down through the peephole and found two familiar blue eyes staring back. "Vin?" Just as he called the name, the aroma of melted cheese and bread answered him, and his stomach churned with hunger he hadn't noticed before. He opened the door, and found his visitor leaning casually in the doorframe, a huge pizza box balanced in the flat of one hand.

"Hey, Buck. I was in the area, went by that pizza place up the street you kept bragging about, and then remembered I was in your neighborhood." He tilted his head, looking around the taller man in a manner that refrained from being rude as he asked, "J.D. about? I thought I could make a peace offering."

Buck grinned. The pizza box was almost bigger than Vin. "Nah, the kid's still in the office." And then he looked down past the box to Vin's other hand hanging at his side, gripping a paper bag that was wrapped around a distinct bottle shape. "So, um, is that a peace offering, too?"

Vin brought the bag up and tilted it toward Buck. "A little Novocain to calm the nerves?"

Buck licked his lips and chuckled as he took the package and peeled the bag down from the neck of the whiskey bottle. He broke the paper seal as he twisted the cap open and sniffed at the sharp aroma of peat and smoke. The smell alone went straight to his brain and promised a better night. "You're a saint," he husked as he stepped aside to let the other man in.

"Well then, dinner is served," Vin said. "Just save some for J.D." He showed himself into the kitchen nook and situated the pizza box on the counter.

"Sure." Buck fished around for some plates and brought them to the counter. He opened up the box. "Bless ya, Vin, ya didn't put the little fishies on it." After serving up two thick, cheese-oozing slices, and getting Vin a beer, he gave a gesture toward the couch. "Come on over. We always eat in the living room."

They munched in companionable silence, each returning to the counter whenever he was ready for another slice. When they were finished, Buck switched the channel to ESPN to review the day's sport highlights and Vin got up to trot into the kitchen.

"Where do ya keep the glasses?"

"Middle cabinet," Buck called back.

There was a soft clamor of doors opening and closing and glass tinkling before Vin returned with two stout tumblers and the whiskey bottle. He poured the drinks and set the bottle on the floor next to the couch within easy reach.

"To Team 7," he said.

Buck nodded. "To Team 7." Despite his misgivings about why Chris had accepted the position as team lead, he still loved his coworkers, had grown to care about them immensely in the short amount of time they'd all been together. It occurred to him then that he really didn't know a great deal about Vin Tanner, other than that working with the man was a pleasure, and he loved watching Vin's shooting skills at work. "You know, Vin, I don't think we've ever had a proper sit down like this."

"We haven't." Vin sipped his drink and propped back on the couch, sinking deeper into the cushions. "Well, not just you and me, but there's the Saloon."

"That ain't a proper sit down," Buck said. "That's just a place to drink." He scratched his head and savored another taste of the whiskey. "So, I hear you came to us from the US Marshals."

"Oh, uh. . ." Vin tossed back the last of his drink, gave a satisfied, "Ahhhhh," and a deep breath as the glass came to rest in his lap. "Yeah, though, I wasn't with them very long before Travis recruited me. I didn't even know the man, but he'd been following my record."

Buck nodded. "That old man /is/ in the know about people, I shit you not." He went on about the department, the cases they handled, getting the team started with Frank Corcoran on loan. It didn't really occur to him that Vin had bent over, retrieved the bottle, and refreshed his glass from half-empty to full again. For that matter, he didn't notice his glass refilling like clockwork every time he drained it half way.

The television's audio became little more than a soft blur of news voices and crowds cheering, as reviews of the latest games continued to flash by, ignored now as mere background noise.

It wasn't long before they were both giggling like idiots and talking about the chaotic incidences in the office, like when they caught Nathan trying to hide behind his desk to floss his teeth after lunch. Everyone had chipped in to fill up the black man's desk with bottles of Listerine, tooth brushes, paste tubes, and more floss cartridges, so that the next day he came in to be greeted by not his desk but a virtual dentist's office. Two weeks ago, Ezra had accidentally broken the atomizer on the Polo bottle he kept in his desk for freshening up. The nozzle's suction spewed the cologne everywhere, completely emptying the bottle so that every man went home drenched in musky sweetness. Once Josiah started humming the Steve Miller Band's most famous misquoted song and a chorus of "BIG OLE JET AIRLINER. . . DON'T CARRY ME TOO FAR AWAY!" erupted in the whole outer office, with J.D. playing drums on the top of his monitor, until Chris poked his head out of his own office and bellowed at everyone to shut the hell up. When all was quiet, they swore they heard a repressed chuckle issue from behind the frosted glass.

"Oh, God, and then that Teletubby thing today," Buck began, trying to shake off the laughter.

"Buck," Vin suddenly whined, voice rising just enough, "Vin gave me a virus."

Buck coughed, preventing amber liquid from spluttering across the couch. "Can you believe that boy! I mean, it's not funny about that virus, but. . ."

"No, not funny at all."

"Which reminds me, you get your own computer taken care of?"

Shrugging, Vin shook his head. "Nah. I mean, yeah, it may be infected, but I'll check into it later. I really don't use it that much. It's not on, so it can't send anymore emails like that."

"Okay." Buck found himself easing down further against the armrest, his shoulder about to give out from under him. "Do that again."

"What?" Vin blinked at him.

"That impression of J.D.," Buck said, his eyes watering. "That was perfect." So perfect it made his skin crawl. Anyone could whine and repeat what the kid said, but the voice Vin had just used was completely, and utterly John Dunne's.

Vin chuckled and cocked his head. "Thanks, but that was nothing." He cleared his throat, stiffened up a little, and in a scolding and deep, near-baritone voice said, "Ezra, is money all you ever think about?"

Buck startled at the white version of Nathan sitting in front of him. "That's spooky, Tanner, you know that?" But it was also amusing, and he couldn't help but beg for another one. "How about Chris? Try doing Chris."

"Heh, you sure?"

Nodding, Buck watched and waited. He heard whiskey pour and looked down to see his glass full again and he sipped it. The stuff had already loosened up every muscle in his body and rendered him languorous and lightheaded. His voice had gone raspy from juxtaposing laughter with drinks of the fiery brew.

Vin stared evenly back at him for a long moment, and Buck frowned. He'd expected an impression by now, but the blue eyes bored into him as if reading his soul.

"Buck," Vin said suddenly, voice husky, pulled more from the throat than his normal, casual tone, "I have a meeting with Travis in thirty; I need your reports on the Randolph case ready to go in ten."

Shivers shot up Buck's sides, and his groin immediately itched to hear the voice of his lover coming out of another person. "That s. . . uh. . . shit, that's amazing," he said under his breath. He lifted the glass and tossed back the rest of the whiskey, finally reaching his limit. He had to ease the empty glass over the side of the couch and steady it on the floor before his arm went totally limp.

"So, what's up with you and Chris?" Vin asked. Clearly he was handling his whiskey much better.

"We go back a long way," Buck said, blinking sluggishly. "We made it through SEAL training together."

"Whoa, how long ago was that?"

"Almost. . . damn. . . nineteen years?" He closed his eyes, fatigue and drink stealing over him too fast. "There was this thing that happened. . ."

"Yeah?" Vin eased over, looking down at him, and Buck forced his eyes open, looking up into the handsome, young face.

Buck's eyes widened as he caught himself. Flashes of rainfall and dark night taunted his inner vision when he blinked. A gunshot, distant but clear, sliced through his memory. "Nothin', never mind."

"Look, I can see you're tired, Buck. How 'bout I let myself out? If the kid gets home, he can find the pizza on his own."

"Nah, it's okay."

They stared at each other for a long silent moment. The sounds from the streets below filtered through to them: a police siren, tires hushing on tarmac, someone shouting for a taxi. Frowning uneasily, Buck realized how tempted he was to reach up and touch Vin's face. Just touch it. . . feel that sharp cheek bone with his palm, trace that square jaw line with a fingertip. That was all he wanted, all he needed right now. Just to touch someone. He couldn't believe how entirely comforted he felt by the other man's presence.

"Are you sure?" Chris' raspy voice said from above him as hands came running up along his front, stroking the soft flannel of his shirt.

"Stop that," Buck said weakly, wincing back as the touch tickled, and he couldn't quite register any more why he was hearing Chris yet looking at Vin. Certainly the voice and the face were both nice, but in his drunken confusion, he couldn't decide which of them was really there.

"Why didn't you come out to the ranch tonight?"

"I's just tired, is all," he slurred back. "Just tired and. . ."

"Close your eyes."

Buck did as ordered, a faint smile playing along his lips as he felt those skilled hands pull up his shirt and venture underneath to find and stroke his nipples. It felt so damned good, and so familiar. Chris had always known how to touch him.

Yeah, Chris. . . he didn't know when, or how, but Chris had shown up at the loft. Content and luxuriating in his high, Buck sighed and just went with the flow.

The fingers found his fly and fumbled it open, freeing his cock, which was already pulsing to life, standing at attention. The cool air above hit the delicate skin for seconds before a hot, wet mouth descended down the shaft.

Buck murmured and reached out quivering fingers to find the other man's head bowed over him. He stroked at silky longish hair, imagining what Chris' blond locks must look like in that tousle. He pushed his hips up slightly, fucking that wonderful mouth, growing harder by the second. He heard a succulent slurp as tongue and tooth played gently up his member and then the mouth withdrew, and the hands struggled to pull his jeans all the way down from his hips.

"Look at you," Chris whispered. "So much better than I imagined."

There came the hush and slide of clothes being discarded. Hitting the hardwood floor with a soft thud followed by a louder /clunk/ that might have been a belt buckle. Buck started to open his eyes, barely glimpsing the figure hunched like a hungry tiger near his thigh.

"Close your eyes," Chris repeated, voice sandpaper raspy, gentle and yet commanding.

Buck did what he was told and allowed his jeans to be tugged off along with his briefs. A warm body parted his legs and nestled down between them, that perfect mouth going to work on his cock again. He heard muffled moans, felt them vibrated down his shaft, and answered with a few with moans of his own. One hand clutched the edge of the couch cushion beneath him and held on with an aching, trembling grip.

"You taste so good," Chris whispered. "I just knew you would taste so good."

It sounded almost like the very first time. Smiling to himself, Buck began to heave for breath as fingers worked up between his ass cheeks, smearing wetness as they found his opening and massaged the ring of muscle lightly. Then the hands drew back and crept up his body again. He brought his own hands up to join them, his calloused fingertips finding the cords, veins, and knuckles that defined eager digits at work as his shirt was pulled up again. His lover ruthlessly pushed the fabric up over his head, forcing his arms to follow as the garment slipped above his neck and chin, and then the collar caught just under his nose, snagging in soft mustache hair. The upper half of his face covered, and his mouth exposed, he felt damp, satiny lips come down and consume him, an anxious tongue invading his mouth.

The very tip of his cock brushed against an exposed belly hovering just above him. He opened his eyes, but couldn't see through the blindfold the shirt created over his head. His arms remained pinned as well. Briefly, a sense of panic set in, like an insect imprisoned in a spider's cocoon. He had to suck breath through the shirt to his nose, causing him to stiffen when it didn't feel like enough. Couch springs creaked beneath him. Cushions rustled. The breath he'd drawn staggered back out through his mouth and up into the one sealed over his like a gag. The kiss released with the lingering suction of wet skin. Then he heard the familiar voice beside his ear, on the other side of the tight fabric.

"Shhhhhh, it's okay."

The mouth went back to working his, and a hand reached down and cupped his balls, all so distracting. The lack of air added to his giddiness, and that wasn't so bad after all. His eyes drifted closed again, lashes brushing the enclosure of shirt. One finger slipped into his ass crevice again and worked in a tiny circle, moving inward, relaxing the aperture of muscles as it delved deeper, knuckle-by-knuckle. It drew out enough to join with a second digit, working the same relaxing circle, teasing him into release, until any lingering rigidity was gone. Both fingers hooked slightly upward inside him and found his zone. With a sharp hiss through his teeth, Buck pulled his hips up and surfed downward, instinctively attempting to pull in more of that wonderful touch.

He was obliged when he felt the thick head of a fully erect cock align with his opening, replacing the fingers, and with the initial penetration, whiskey and sex transported him completely elsewhere.

FOUR

Ezra was rather alarmed by the staggering silence that consumed the outer office Friday morning. The only sound, that of J.D.'s fingers clattering over his keyboard, bore an eerie, echoing effect that made Ezra's teeth clench.

Buck had hardly been at his desk, and when he was, he avoided eye contact with anyone. He had seemed reluctant to want enter the main office for a meeting with Chris, and when he did, it was with all the countenance of a dog with its tail tucked firmly between its legs.

Meanwhile, J.D. had determined that there was no irreparable damage to his laptop, but he continued to work with it, attempting to access exactly what kind of virus had attacked his system. When he offered to have a look at Vin's computer if he would bring it into the office, the sharpshooter quietly declined. This seemed strange to Ezra; shouldn't Vin /want/ to take advantage of J.D.'s expertise on having his computer system purged?

Josiah sipped his coffee -- and that too was another air shattering noise -- and worked on a crossword puzzle in the few minutes he had left before the official workday began.

Nathan wasn't in yet.

When it became just unbearable enough, Ezra spoke up dryly. "Someone tell a joke, or something."

Four sets of eyes looked at him, but no one said a thing.

After a moment, Vin stood up with a file in his hand and strolled toward Chris' office, where he rapped his knuckles on the frosted glass. Ezra's eyes tracked the figure, admiring his slender, V-shaped posture from his shoulders down to his waist. The sharpshooter sported a red flannel shirt tucked into Levis that sat low on his hips regardless of a belt. Ezra couldn't help but stare at something /else/ while Vin's back was to him, but when he tore his vision away, he happened to look over and notice Buck propped on his arms over his paperwork. The team's explosive expert chewed absently on the end of his pen as he stared vacantly -- no, Ezra realized. . . more like distressed -- toward Vin Tanner.

"Come in," Chris' voice called from the other side of the glass, and as Vin opened the door all the way and stepped inside, Ezra glimpsed the team leader propping back in his chair as he hung up the phone.

"I need a word for physically fit," Josiah said, eyes still angled on his crossword.

"Callipygian," Ezra replied nonchalant. No one got it, but he didn't expect so much.

J.D.'s fingers clacked wildly over the keys. Paused. He stared at the screen in thought and then put the machine to sleep by folding down the lid before he set it aside on the file cabinet and focused on the desktop computer.

"Too many letters," Josiah said after a moment.

Ezra rolled his eyes, tapped his fingers on the edge of his desk and got up to pour himself another cup of coffee. When he turned, he once more noticed Buck's eyes on the office door. Vin's and Chris' voices made exchanges within regarding test results on the path of a projectile found in one of the team's colder investigations. It sounded as if Mr. Tanner had a new theory in the matter.

The day might have started sluggish, but it didn't last. Not in /this/ office, Ezra mused as each man found his work niche, and a bundle of leads suddenly sent the phones ringing off the hook. During a break, Chris announced that on Monday -- Labor Day -- he would be hosting a cookout at his ranch in the late afternoon, and expected everyone to be there. When noon rolled around, Ezra prepared to go meet one of his contacts and bribe the man with lunch. He was just coming out of the elevator into the parking deck when Vin came bounding out of the adjacent stairwell and trotted on up beside him.

"Hey, Ez, where you going?"

Ezra shrugged and straightened the collar on his blazer. "To meet one of my informants, Mr. Tanner." He blinked to try to escape the blue gaze that appeared to read him right where he stood.

"Oh, well." Vin shrugged and nodded at the same time. "I thought I'd catch up with you. It's just too tense in there."

"I'll say." Ezra considered the clash of Vin's clothing with his own, but what did he care. They were part of the same team, the same family. "O'Charley's?"

Vin smiled, and it was pretty damned irresistible. Ezra forgot about his contact. Thirty minutes later they were seated in the dimly lit restaurant and accosted by the scrumptious scents of grilled onions and steaks coming from the kitchen. Vin ordered a beer and sat back, while Ezra worked with various amounts of Sweet 'n Low to get his iced tea just right.

"So, what's on your mind, Mr. Tanner? You say it's too tense in the office. I agree. What is your assessment of the situation?" He squeezed two thick lemon slices into the tea and wiped his hands with a napkin.

"Chris and Buck," Vin stated outright.

Taken aback, Ezra stared at his lunch companion intently, wondering why those two had so suddenly come up. "And what makes you say that?"

"Well, they are together, right? I mean, is it any wonder some stress should--" He sipped his beer, then wiped away a thin rim of foam from his upper lip. "--slip into business hours?"

Ezra continued to stare as the food came: a chicken Caesar salad for himself and Texas cheese fries for Vin, who dug in immediately and swept his first fry through a vat of ranch dressing as if there was nothing to discuss in the least.

"Mr. Tanner, what are you inferring?" Ezra feigned ignorance, his salad untouched.

Mouth full, Vin blinked at him and chewed, sipped his beer to wash it down and said in a more hushed tone. "Don't you know?" His eyes narrowed almost wickedly.

Ezra blinked and tilted his head forward, a gesture that said: "Enlighten me."

"You mean to tell me you never wanted a piece of that action?" Vin asked.

"Mr. Tanner!"

Vin held up a hand for him to wait a moment and dug another fry, gooed-up with cheddar, through the dressing. He sipped his beer right behind it. "Now, the way I see it, they've had each other for an utterly all-embracing -- forgive the pun -- length of time. At least twenty years, perhaps more."

Ezra barely remembered to close his mouth. Was that a southern accent, soft and drawling, creeping into Vin's voice?

"So, I figure, with a little persuasive nudging, one could encourage Mr. Larabee and Mr. Wilmington to enter into a m nage trios."

My God, Ezra thought. This was like having a conversation with himself. Not what was being said but /how/ it was being presented. He started to speak, knowing right off that his voice was going to shake, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "All right, Mr. Tanner, I admit, I am attracted to other men." He refused to use so mundane a word as /gay/ at the moment. "Is that what you wanted to hear? You wanted me to admit it?"

Vin stared back evenly and licked his lips -- and damned if Ezra couldn't help but notice the gleaming tip of that teasing tongue as it slid over the bottom lip. Damn it all, what was it about those lips? "I perceive you to be a gambling man, Mr. Standish. So what do you say? Care to make a wager?"

Holy fuck, Ezra thought. "You're mad," he said vacantly. "Absolutely mad."

Vin grinned, an admission if ever there was one.

"Mr. Tanner, as far as I'm concerned, and from what I've observed, Mr. Larabee and Mr. Wilmington are quite loyal to each other. They were friends before Mr. Larabee's wife died, and now they have somehow managed to drift completely together once and for all, so for them I am glad."

"Again, I ask, care to make a wager?" Vin ate another fry and pointed at Ezra's salad. "Are you going to eat that or let it sit and putrefy?"

Ezra once more gaped. This time, he was sure he'd heard himself speaking, but it was Vin Tanner's lips moving.

"See, I have an idea," Vin continued. "I just thought I would probe your level of interest."

"And I have an idea, too," Ezra retorted, deciding he'd just about had enough of this. "I propose to report your behavior, Mr. Tanner--"

"I think that's enough of the formalities, don't you? Call me Vin."

"I-I-I see th-that you don't believe me," Ezra stammered. "Well, trust that I w-will report you. . . Vin." Damn the man. Ezra worked his tongue about in his mouth as if that would untie it.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

He sounded so sure of himself. . . so certain. . . Ezra swallowed down the hard lump forming in his throat as all eloquence went out the proverbial window. "Look, what ever your game is, I--"

"Oh, you're going to love it, Ezra," Vin said smoothly. "You're /really/ going to love it." He took up his glass, drained it in three loud and thirsty gulps, and set it back down with a thud on the table top. "Better eat your salad, it'll get cold," he said as he stood up and reached long across the table to pat Ezra on the shoulder. Then he winked, that dastardly smug and sugary-sweet grin still on his face. "See you at the Labor Day cookout," he added nonchalant and turned to trot off.

Speechless, Ezra sat back in his chair, gaze dropping to the floor as he tried to fathom the exchange. "What. . ." he asked himself after a moment. "What just happened there?"

-7-7-7-

Peso was scratching on the glass from outside the widow, his fuzzy outline silhouetted against the streetlights, but Vin hadn't fed him any more candy bars in days. The flickering bar light, still on the fritz, persisted to flash against the walls inside the little room. Half-empty, open cartons of Chinese food sat on the dresser, permeating the air with the aroma of Mongolian beef and onions, probably the reason Peso stuck around.

Vin lay on his belly, a pillow under his upper half, as he propped up to work on his laptop. He'd used up most of J.D.'s access codes, those downloaded from the kid's computer when he thought he was playing a harmless game. The worm had been at work the whole time, sending its creator a means to hundreds of back doors. It took some sorting at first, to find the ones that were of any use. Given a reason, he could put them all to use, but he only needed one or two, specific ones.

And there they were.

Vin gave a happy whoop as the files he'd long sought indexed on his screen.

. . . scratch. . . scratch. . . scratch. . .

"Stop it."

He read on, picking over file after file, covering the finer details on the 1982 Fort Worth suicide. The coroner's full report did, indeed, contradict the closing of the case. And over seeing the case was. . .

"Lookie-lookie," Vin rasped.

. . . scratch. . . scratch. . .

"Peso, you little fucker, if you don't stop it. . ." Vin bent one leg up behind him, reached around and tugged his sock off. He knotted up the cotton tube and continued to scan the documents. First he read mentally, then he began to move his lips as the information struck him, until he was whispering sharply in his excitement. "Retinal detachment indicates head trauma possibly inflicted previous. . . liquid paraffin on hand incomplete. . ." He looked over a diagram of a hand with notes drawn around the junction of the thumb and forefinger.

. . . scratch. . .

Suddenly Vin sat back and flung the sock at the window. It hit the pane with a dull /thunk/ and surprised Peso, who bounced up as if his tiny feet were spring loaded. The fuzz ball came back down almost missing the ledge, but he managed to snag his claws in the concrete and pull himself back up. Vin paid him no more attention as he gave a bounce of his own and bounded off of the bed to go over and dig into the cartons and finish off his meal, celebrating his find.

Damn, he needed a good beer to go with this.

"Looks like I've found a few good men," he breathed, and then he snickered because he knew he had the wrong slogan, but that didn't matter in the least.

FIVE

Chris was patting out hamburgers in the kitchen. The window over the counter looked out on the back porch where the grill would be fired up in another couple hours when the gang arrived. He was planning ahead as much as possible, guessing most of his men would probably wolf down two burgers at the least, and Rain, who was coming with Nathan, might want only one, but just in case, he mashed together an extra. Further along the counter, a mini television murmured the sounds of the Broncos game, to which he paid minimal attention.

He felt like he needed this day. Just a day of /normal/.

So far his weekend had been slow, dragging along. Buck had been incommunicative for three days and it was starting to grate, so Chris had sought distraction easily enough. He had reviewed some files he'd sneaked out of the office, cleaned his guns, and held target practice out in the meadow behind the house. The horses, corralled and fed, had watched him try to shoot soda cans off of a tree stump and cocked their ears back as if to relay to him that they were not impressed.

Sighing over his current task, Chris thought he'd just wait it out. Let Buck come to him and talk about whatever the problem was. Perhaps they could unwind together this evening.

Outside, clouds rolled over the little valley, blocking the sun, splashing the porch and yard with patches of light that went dim then brightened again, a sign of approaching rain. The cookout could easily be moved indoors if it arrived, but Chris hoped for a clear afternoon.

Rain, rain, go away. . .

Chris finished molding the last of the burgers, added it to the plate, and covered the lot over with aluminum foil to go back into the refrigerator for now. He was just finishing washing his hands when he glanced up through the window and saw Jerry Jeff take off through the yard.

The German shepherd gave one loud and happy, "WOOF!" and galloped out of sight, at the same moment Chris heard a car horn from the front of the house. Wiping his hands off with a towel, he wandered from the kitchen into the main hall and down to the front door. Out in the carport, Vin Tanner's Jeep sat idling for a moment before the driver killed the engine and got out.

"Hey, Chris," he called as he reached back into the cab and retrieved a grocery bag full of potato chips, and a carton of beer.

"Vin," Chris called back, squinting as sunlight suddenly dashed his vision. "You sure are early."

"Well," Vin rationalized as he came up the walk, "I was giving myself time to get lost coming out here, and. . . OOF!"

Jerry Jeff's big wet nose collided with Vin's crotch. The sharpshooter backed up, threw up his hands, bag and beer carton dangling awkwardly from his grasp, and chuckled nervously.

"Whoa, down boy."

"Hang on." Chris shook his head and sauntered forward only to stop, realizing that the stupid mutt had not continued to bark. He watched Vin set down his burden and kneel to pat the dog's broad head. Jerry Jeff slipped in a quick face wash, sloppy pink tongue slapping Vin upside the jaw.

"Ugh. . ." Vin spat and laughed.

"That's what you get," Chris said. "Funny, he likes you."

"Why is that funny?"

"He hasn't met you before. That dog doesn't like anyone he hasn't met, and he /really/ doesn't like anyone who's never fed his sorry ass at least once."

Vin stood, a strange and quirky smile on his face. He adjusted the bags back into one hand, while the other hand continued to reach down and pat the dog firmly on the rump. "What's his name."

"Jerry Jeff," Chris said. "Buck's idea. After--"

"Jerry Jeff Walker."

Chris' face unclenched and his brows shot up. "Yeah," he said in amazement. "Not many people catch that."

"Oh, I like all sorts of music," Vin replied, "including Country."

"Huh," Chris exclaimed more to himself, yet again impressed with some aspect of Vin's character. He opened the door and gestured Vin inside, but reached down and snagged Jerry Jeff by the collar before he could tail his new buddy. "No you don't." He closed the door behind him, leaving Jerry Jeff whining behind the screen, and followed Vin. "Down the hall, to your right."

Vin found his way along, taking glances into the rooms connected by the central hall. The hardwood floors creaked and the sounds of the television bled through. "What's the score?" Vin asked when he saw the little TV.

"Fourteen and eight." Chris wandered over and turned the volume down. "Don t know why I bother with pre-season." He offered to take the items from Vin's hands and put the beer in the fridge. "Want one now?"

"Sure," Vin said and accepted a bottle.

Chris took one for himself, twisted open the cap and took a swig. "Looks like we'll have rain later."

"Maybe." Vin tossed his head toward the window. "So, care to give me the grand tour?"

Chris obliged him, and soon they were walking out by the barn, listening to a variety of insects buzzing in the tall grasses that began at the edge of the yard. A cool breeze carried down from the mountains, bearing the scent of early fall. It felt, at times, like there was no world beyond those mountains, and Chris felt that way right now. The peaceful isolation of his little spot cushioned his nerves. He listened to Vin talk a little about the many foster homes he'd been in before he was old enough to join the Army. That certainly couldn't have been easy, Chris thought, feeling a twinge of sympathy for the younger man. Chris, in turn, talked about how long he'd worked with Orin Travis, even as far back as his days in the SEALS. They walked the course of the fence that lined the meadow, and came around the back side of the barn and in through a secondary door.

The place smelled of warm hay and horse dung, the hard packed ground scattered with odd grains of feed and hay that had been spilt. There were six stalls, but only three were occupied. Chris introduced Vin to the horses and shared a few of his aspirations as a ranch owner. Then he talked about the ATF and what he hoped to accomplish as team leader and how one set of aspirations unfortunately put off another, but that he felt the ranch would truly work one day. Vin listened, quiet and congenial.

Chris appreciated that.

As they headed back to the house, Chris checked his watch. Three thirty. They still had a good hour before the others started arriving. "Look, I've got to get a shower. You're welcome to lay out on the porch or crash inside with the rest of the game on the big TV."

Vin nodded. "Either sounds great." He was soon settled down with his beer in front of the new flat screen Chris had installed in the den, and Chris left him there to go down the hall into the master bedroom.

Moments later, Chris stood naked under a torrent of steaming water. He'd cleaned the horses' stalls earlier today, and he could feel the grime of long-dried sweat breaking loose from his body. As the dirty water swirled down the drain, he relaxed, pondering all that had been said, and then thought about Buck, whose recent silence had him confused.

Not long ago Buck had tried to bust his balls that he was working too hard. Well, /busting his balls/ might not be the right description for it; not now, in hindsight. Buck was more subtle than that, but Chris knew where he was coming from. Buck knew that work, for Chris, was a means to focus on something other than his own shabby past -- the past Buck shared with him -- which had been grim long before he married Sarah. It was Buck's opinion that by doing so they were giving up their future, but Chris didn't see it that way. He couldn't bring Buck to understand that this was just the way of it. He /had/ to work, period. It wasn't about atonement for past sins, nor penance as Buck had put it. It was just what he /needed/ to do, and Buck obviously needed it, too, or he wouldn't have joined the team when Chris had asked him to.

Ah, well. They had worked out differences before; he didn't see why they should stop now. Chris put it out of his mind as he soaped up, steam enshrouding him and fogging up the sliding door of the shower stall. He washed his hair and had just gotten shampoo in his eyes when a familiar voice called to him from right there in the bathroom, speaking up loud enough to be heard over the hiss of the water.

"Chris."

Chris sputtered to get soap from around his mouth before he answered back. "Buck?"

"Yeah." A pause. "I didn't know Vin was here. I came out to talk, but. . ."

"I'll be right out." Chris turned his face straight into the stream to rinse his stinging eyes and make sure all suds were cleared away before he tried to open them. The sound of the door sliding open, and a cool rush of air from the outer bathroom, halted him. He cocked an ear just out of the flow enough to target the sound of feet easing into the tub with him. The door hushed shut again, and he felt hands spread across his back.

Chris smiled to himself. It seemed the mountain had finally moved. His eyes still stung, but he couldn't help the sense of relief to have Buck touching him again. He leaned back slightly, his own hands working hurriedly to get his vision cleared so he could turn around and kiss his lover.

"I missed you," Buck husked next to his ear and nipped at the lobe. Something was amiss about that little nip, but Chris couldn t figure it out. "I'm sorry." The hands prodded at his back muscles and slid around his waist, carefully, as if he were made of glass.

"We'll talk," Chris said, careful to keep his tone calm, and then he groaned as the hands reached completely around him, one going down to cup his balls, the other sliding up to caress a soft nipple. The shock of nerves springing to life after three days abstinence provoked a moan out of Chris. He tensed up, spine stiffening as if a rod had shot up in it, and then gradually relaxed. He leaned back gently, noticing how tight this embrace was. Buck's long, lanky arms usually allowed for more room. Blinking his eyes open, and rubbing away the last drops of water, Chris angled his head out of the stream and reached behind him, finding a pair of slender hips pressing closer to his own. For a second he felt the head of a hardening cock brush against one buttock. Buck wasn't hunching, or bending his knees -- Chris could tell -- but these hips were too low.

That was when it really struck him. . . that the body behind him was too short, and while slender and well toned, it was also slightly broader. Furthermore, he realized what the little nip to his ear had been missing: the soft brush of a mustache.

Chris pulled away from the inviting touch and spun around to face Vin, who stood fully naked, hair damp and large blue eyes staring expectantly.

"I'm sorry," Vin said softly, stepping back and dropping his hands away. "I'm really sorry, I. . ."

"What the hell are you doing?" Chris glared in utter confusion. "I thought you were Buck."

Vin looked down at the water swirling around their feet and took a deep breath, his squared shoulders rising and falling. Then his hand began to drift back up, a fingertip gently tracing the contour of Chris' forearm. "You want Buck," he stated and stepped in closer again. "I can be Buck."

"Vin. . ." Chris tried not to notice the other man's tremendous erection. He reached up to stop both hands as they came in to caress his chest. "I don't understand." He gripped the strong, corded wrists and held them before him, barely managing to keep the other man out of his space.

Vin blinked slowly, mechanically. He tilted his head, exposing an inviting length of neck, and then he smiled, and a strange thing happened as his smile tilted just right at the corners that Chris could see Buck in that smile. His eyes glittered mischievously, and his brows knitted with a gentle expression of pleading. "I can be anything you want me to be, pard," he said.

And, God, it was Buck's voice. . . his drawl. . . It was smoky, honey-golden, and completely masculine.

Startled, Chris took a breath, felt his head swim with the realization that Vin Tanner had a serious problem that he wasn't about to acknowledge on his own. "You're not Buck, Vin," he said, and his shock gradually slackened off into anger that he had to clench down on if he was to figure this shit out.

Undeterred, Vin leaned in to kiss him. Soft lips grazed his own, and Chris tried to push back only, only to find out how strong Tanner was when he twisted his wrists free and his hands were suddenly gripping the sides of Chris' neck. Vin pulled him closer, pushing back all the way, before their lips locked and Chris felt a tongue force its way into his mouth.

Damn-to-hell! Water splashed off of his shoulders as Chris struggled, disturbed as he felt his body respond. The kiss went right to his dick, causing the defiant organ to jump with a fresh rush of hot blood. There was no denying that Vin was gorgeous, his sculpted body extremely desirable, but Chris couldn't do /this/. Getting a grip on Vin's shoulders, he forced the other man back, breaking the kiss and looking away.

"No!" he growled and didn't dare look into those tantalizing eyes again. His mind grasped for the right words and attempted to put them in some semblance of order. "Vin, I don't know what I did to make you assume this could be." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to lead you on if that's what I did."

Vin's hands were at his side again, and while Chris still held him back, all indications that he might lunge in for another kiss were gone. "You didn't lead me on," he said calmly. "I just saw something I wanted and went after it."

Slowly, Chris gazed back up and found his admirer looking on as if nothing had happened.

"Like you said," Vin continued. "We'll talk." Then he slid open the shower door and stepped out. When he closed the door again, his body became a blur of flesh tone. Then it vanished completely into the void of steam.

Chris backed into the corner of the stall, his breath hitching as he tried to make sense of what had just happened. But. . . when he'd said /We'll talk/ he had thought he was speaking to Buck. Was he going crazy to have mistaken Vin's voice for Buck's? Did Vin somehow /think/ that he was Buck?

And, damn, no time to tackle the issue now. Chris shut off the water and hastened to get out and towel off. The others would be here soon, and he would rather deal with this private matter now, but there was no time.

On that thought he stalled, heart slamming in his chest, water in his ears sloshing about. The drip from the showerhead echoed in the white-tiled room. Chris fled into the bedroom to get dressed as quickly as possible.

So much for /normal/.

-7-7-7-

He was going to tell Chris. It was the single most thought on his mind. Sometime tonight, after everyone had gone, he'd start talking.

Buck had been cringing from himself for three excruciating days, losing sleep, and finding excuses not to go out to the ranch. God, he wished he had that night, last Thursday. If he'd gone to the ranch then, it wouldn't have happened. The hardest part would be explaining how he'd gotten so drunk that somehow he'd absorbed the belief that it was Chris fucking him and not Vin Tanner. Even now he wasn't sure, because it was Chris' voice still lodged in his memory, whispering to him as he was stroked, teased, and penetrated. It was when he had woken next to Vin at two in the morning, that he'd realized something had gone dreadfully wrong.

What was worse, he felt like he couldn't blame Vin.

Or could he?

Well, he could have stopped drinking, for one. He could have told Vin to go. Hell, he could have specifically told Vin that he and Chris were together and to piss off, so now he couldn't help but wonder if he hadn't led the younger man on.

Buck sat back in one of the reclining porch chairs as he watched Chris at the grill flipping burgers. The air of late afternoon crept in crisp and clean, curling with the aroma of char-grilled meats and the smoky mesquite chips Chris had tossed over the coals. Jerry Jeff sat on his haunches, ears up, pointed black nose aimed at the grill, patiently awaiting his share. Sitting in a chair near the porch railing, Vin rested a beer on his knee and chatted with Josiah, who was at the table rolling buttered ears of corn up in aluminum foil. Chris seemed tuned out, but the scene was still one of casual friendship at work.

Everything seemed so perfect on the surface, Buck thought. Everything /was/ perfect on the surface. But then. . . he had noticed that Chris had not been talkative earlier, and still refrained from discussion even now. Buck had to wonder if his lover knew /something/ had happened. No doubt Buck's own behavior had sent out signals. Did Chris know something? Had Vin already talked? These last thoughts sent a painful twinge through Buck's body, knotting up his stomach so that the delicious scents turned rank to him. Vin was already here when Buck had arrived, and now Chris had gone quiet, leaving Vin and Josiah the chatty ones. Nathan, Rain, and J.D. were off at the barn admiring the horses, and occasionally one of their voices could be heard speaking up or laughing. Where Ezra had gotten off to, Buck had no idea.

The table was set up with burger buns, cold slaw, baked beans, and condiments. On the horizon, dark clouds threatened to roll in around the mountains and gather closer. The odd speck of rain had spotted the deck as smaller groups of clouds blew over, but they did not prove any immediate threat to the afternoon's activities.

"Here you go, Chris." Josiah's voice cut through Buck's introspective brood and he looked up to see the team profiler carrying a plate full of foil-wrapped corn over to the grill to help Chris load them on. Beef patties sizzled and the charcoals hissed as grease dripped through the grate. Jerry Jeff gave a minute squeak of a whine mingled in with a desperate pant and inched forward expectantly.

Buck's gaze drifted again to Vin, who was now looking back at him with an expression close to smugness. Buck frowned, only to have Vin wink at him, a gesture that stirred his nerves further, and -- goddamnit -- his groin. He felt his cheeks heat up, no doubt gone completely rosy and giving away his discomfort. Well, he would just have to be straight with Tanner too. Whatever the sharpshooter was thinking about that one-nighter, Buck would have to put a damper on it as soon as possible. . . after he dealt with Chris.

"Buck, I need some tongs," Chris called as he arranged the corn, careful not to hold his hands too close over the heat. A sudden gust of wind rustled his hair.

"Sure." Buck hauled himself up out of the chair and went inside, straight into the kitchen to rifle through the drawers. He had just come up with the tongs when he heard someone muttering out in the hallway, a distinct drawl of an accent. Ezra? He wandered from the kitchen toward the front of the house, one ear cocked forward.

"It's not me," the southerner's voice came in a hushed tone. "It's not me. . . It's him. . . It's got to be /him/."

Buck's brows knitted as he realized Ezra was talking to himself.

"It's madness. . ."

Buck eased just around the corner to find the figure leaning against the wall near the doorway to the bathroom. "Hey, Ezra, what'cha talkin' about?" The sudden query, chirped with a falsely cheerful voice, almost plastered the other man to the ceiling.

"Ah, God! Mr. Wilmington, I didn't hear you there." Ezra's hands flattened against the wall as if he needed to brace himself or else collapse onto his ass. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to abandon the festivities."

"What were ya talkin' about?"

"Nothin'," he all but squeaked.

Buck narrowed his eyes and absently clacked the tongs together in his hand, reminding himself that he was in the house on an errand. "Nothin'? You, Ezra?" He'd never known the southerner to cut his words short like that.

Ezra clapped a hand over his heart as if to tame the rapidly beating organ. "If you'll excuse me, I was just looking for the loo."

"Uh huh." Buck pointed just past him. "It's right in there."

"Why, so it is." Ezra shot a vague glance at Buck, his green eyes appearing unfocused and yet concerned.

"Ez, are you on something?" Buck asked in jest.

"Ha." Ezra started for the bathroom door. "I take it we are about to eat?"

"Yup." Buck left him to do his business and, clapping the tongs together absently with a /clack-clack-clack/ rhythm, strolled back out to the porch to hand them to the chef.

Chris turned the corn, let it roast some more, and finally declared the veggies and meats ready. Ezra emerged from the house and was the first to take a seat in front of the feast. The others came back from their walk out by the barn, lightening the mood with jokes and J.D. telling the story of the now infamous Teletubby virus all over again.

"Thing is," he commented as he settled down at the table, "I can't figure out exactly what that virus did. It didn't clean out my system like a Trojan horse, didn't seem to be a problem when I first opened it."

"What exactly was it?" Nathan asked as he spooned baked beans onto his paper plate.

Vin answered that from his end of the table where he was slathering mayo onto his hamburger bun. "It was a shooting gallery. Shoot the Teletubbies." That got a lot of snickers, even from Buck who had missed the initial fiasco that day before he walked into the office.

Rain laughed, her smile warming more than a few hearts. "You guys, that is sick." Then she tried to take a bite of her burger and failed as she couldn't stop giggling. "Too bad it was a virus, I'd like to play that."

Nathan frowned and put her on the spot. "You have something to tell me, honey?"

While more chuckles went around, and discussion about work, Buck sat back, his food hardly touched, and stared at Vin more intently.

How interesting that the virus had come through Vin's computer and then to J.D.'s. He knew they exchanged emails about video games. And how convenient for Vin that the virus had kept J.D. at the office that night. Buck wondered if he was just being paranoid; it didn't help that when he steered his attention toward Chris, he found him looking more grim than ever, sandy brows furrowed and sunken over the bridge of his nose. It wasn't a glare aimed specifically at Buck, but it was certainly a most unhappy look.

Oh, God, Buck thought for sure this time, Vin must have told him. A distant rumble of thunder answered the thought, and that had to be a bad sign.

The others were oblivious, still laughing and eating. When they laughed too loud, Jerry Jeff barked until he was eventually chastised by Chris and shooed off to the barn. They voiced their wishes that the weather hold out just a little longer. Ezra, despite his minor episode earlier -- which still had Buck perplexed -- was joining in, covering up whatever troubled him with good spirits.

Vin, the cat that swallowed the fucking canary, played along. Buck watched the man laugh, talk, drink, eat, and then suddenly an idea hit him that maybe he could prepare Chris for the odd explanation as to how Tanner had gotten him drunk and seduced him.

"Any of ya'll ever heard one of Vin's impressions?" he spoke up.

"My God," Ezra drawled humorlessly, "the dead have awakened."

Buck huffed at that; he knew he hadn't been the best of company of late. He looked around. Josiah appeared expectant, Nathan and Rain confused, and. . . Chris and Ezra were pale as ghosts. Vin stared evenly at him as if to warn him not to go any further. "No, I mean it, Vin does great impressions of people, don't ya, Vin?"

Vin glanced around the table at all eyes on him, and Buck inwardly beamed that he had his seducer trapped. "Nah, not really. Not that good."

"Aw, come on," Buck persisted. "You did J.D. once, when he whined about that computer virus."

"I did not whine," J.D. protested.

Buck shushed him with a look more vicious than he intended it to be. "Come on, Vin, give us Nathan. Ya were real good imitating Nathan."

The black man stared, expectant and yet obviously discomforted. "You been makin' impressions of /me/, Vin?"

"Or Chris," Buck pressed on. "Damn, you do a fine impression of Chris." He tossed a glance at the team leader to find him gaping. At least he had all of their attention on Vin now. Chris particularly looked angered, which further convinced Buck the man knew of his infidelity.

Vin took a deep breath, glanced around again, opened his mouth.

And then the sky broke open.

An instant deluge poured down, flooding their plates, sopping hamburger buns. This was certainly unexpected; usually there were a few warning drops first. It set off a commotion of shouting to get the food inside as quickly as possible. Everyone grabbed something -- plates, condiment jars, baked beans, beer bottles, and tried to get around the table with out tripping over each other or dropping their loads.

Lightning flickered, followed by a loud crack of thunder telling them that the storm was here and now, right over head. Laughter went around at how wet everyone got, their shirts stuck to their backs and chests. Her cotton shirt firmly cemented around her small breasts and revealing her bra, Rain bolted down the hallway into the bathroom and didn't come out until she was given a dry tee shirt, which swallowed her small frame.

Everybody now comfy again, they attempted once more to eat. J.D., Nathan, and Rain commandeered the kitchen table, while the others stood around with what they'd salvaged of their plates. Despite everything, the meal was good, and Buck had to admit, the downpour had cooled his head a bit. He continued to ponder how to tell Chris about Vin. It didn't help that both of them still sported soggy wet shirts that accentuated every chest muscle and tight abdomens. The party began to break up just before dark, and everyone wanted to get on home.

The storm persisted, though the worst of the thunder and lightning were more distant. However, a second storm held an approach pattern behind the first, and those departing hoped to beat it home. Buck got J.D. to hitch a ride with Josiah, and soon Nathan and Rain were gone. Ezra headed out next, when his Jag had free space to back up out of the drive, and finally Vin smiled at his hosts and headed out.

Buck stood in the front doorway and listened as the Jeep cranked up. Dirty glow from the outside light post fell through the water-dotted screen. At last, alone to talk, Buck turned and looked down the hallway. Chris was leaning against the wall near the kitchen doorway, waiting. Buck opened his mouth and felt little more than a whisper escape him.

"Chris. . ."

"Buck, we need to talk."

"I know, it's about--"

"Vin."

Buck swallowed a hard lump as it rose up in his throat. It was quickly replaced by a fresh one, cutting off his voice. His mind raced to put the right words together.

Lightning flashed, brighter, closer, followed by a clap of thunder that shook the house. Buck started to walk down the hall to join Chris, when the other man pushed away from the wall and focused past Buck and on the screen door. Chris' brows sank into that unbecoming -- almost scary, Buck thought -- glare.

"What?" Buck asked and turned, tracking the path of Chris' gaze back to the screen door.

On the front step stood a very wet, irritated-looking Vin Tanner. The dull outer light gleamed along the thick locks of hair matted to his forehead, and droplets shimmered on his lashes as he stared in at them.

"Guys, uh. . ." he said so innocently Buck wanted to strangle him. "I think I picked up a nail. I have a flat tire."

SIX

Ezra was almost to the end of the ranch drive when it occurred to him that Vin's headlights were not following him as they should be. At the turn onto the main highway, he parked and waited for the Jeep to appear around the last bend in the road. For five minutes he was serenaded by an influx of rain on the windshield, and mesmerized by the wipers shushing across the glass. A single SUV passed by on the highway, but from behind him came no sign of Mr. Tanner's vehicle.

He's up to something, Ezra thought. A distant flash of lightning answered him, brilliant and eerie against the landscape before the darkness that followed.

He'd been tangling with the meeting at O'Charley's all weekend, wondering if Vin had just been messing with him, or if the man was serious and really was trying to wedge in on Chris and Buck's relationship. Ezra wished he could describe what he'd witnessed to Josiah, but somehow he didn't expect the profiler to believe him.

In the presence of the entire team, Vin seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be an ordinary guy who just happened to be a sharpshooter. He was friendly -- loveable even -- and incredibly laid back. But the behavior he'd displayed at O'Charley's was completely different. When he'd started talking about Chris and Buck as he had, that had come as a surprise. When he then started speaking with a southern drawl and such perfect tone and pitch that Ezra could have sworn he was listening to a recording of himself, that had been something completely baffling.

Surely he was just playing around, Ezra had later thought. So he had decided to ride it out, wait until the Labor Day gathering and see if anything else happened. Vin then acted no different from in the office, but that also brought Ezra to start questioning himself and whether he'd actually seen the behavior he /thought/ he'd seen at O'Charley's.

Ezra stiffened in his seat, backtracking through the day and recalling how Buck had challenged Vin to do his impersonations in front of everyone. It sounded like a game, but Buck had been so challenging about it. So, Ezra thought, Buck had witnessed one of Vin's little shows, too, and from the way he was pushing for a new performance, he had to be testing Vin.

"That's it," Ezra said under his breath and put the car in gear. He rolled out into the main road, watching carefully for other headlights, and veered around. The Larabee driveway was no place to be handling a Jag so fast, slinging mud everywhere and bouncing roughly over every little dip and bump, windshield wipers on full throttle. Ezra could easily run smack into Vin, in his Jeep, coming out the narrow drive like a bat out of hell, but no matter. He had some questions to ask Buck, and maybe he'd finally be able to put his own mind at ease.

-7-7-7-

They were obviously stuck with him at the moment, Chris realized, gritting his teeth as Vin Tanner stepped inside the door, his clothes dripping on the hardwood. Impatiently Chris stalked straight into the kitchen, pulled a huge Maglite from under the sink and went out into the pouring rain to examine the tire. Buck and Vin followed, not saying a word as they were double drenched. Damned if the tire wasn't flatter than a fritter and worse, the spare was already in use. Shit. It was hard to believe that Vin, who seemed like one of the most reliable people Chris had ever met, would not have replaced his spare. Chris was back inside the house first, trying to figure out where he might have an extra tire for a 1984 Jeep Wrangler. . . as if he actually kept one around.

He only wanted to talk with Buck, who, it appeared, was grinding his teeth. Chris had seen that otherwise soft jaw line set like that. Time to make an executive decision. "All right," he started to request some privacy, "Vin, if you don't mind--"

Before he finished, intense white lightning blinked, highlighting everything and everyone with an instant of silvery glow, followed immediately by a clap of thunder, then plunged them all into darkness. The drones and clicks of electric clocks and other appliances shutting down house-wide could be heard up and down the extensive hall.

"Shit!" Buck's voice bellowed in the dark.

Chris sighed and prayed for patience. He started to wait for his eyes to adjust, and then remembered that he was holding a flashlight in his hands. He turned it back on and shined it at the other two men. Buck was starting to pace, Vin just stood about looking like a wet pup.

"I can't believe this--" Buck went off like a firecracker. He spouted curses slurred together into a language all its own, not unlike Yosemite Sam throwing a tantrum.

"All right, the back up generator's in the basement, but I have to go crank it up." Chris focused the beam on Vin. "Vin, you stay up here. There are some candles in a bin under the kitchen sink; you can set a few of those up just in case. Then you go in the den and stay put."

"Chris, what's up with the attitude?"

"I mean it. Stay put." After the incident in the shower, and Buck's exclamation at dinner that Vin was good at impressions, Chris felt overly wary. Vin had confused him and forced him into an awkward situation.

Vin opened his mouth again.

"Buck," Chris growled. "Buck!" The other man spun on him, eyes enraged. "Basement, now!"

Buck silenced and moved ahead of him.

"Chris," Vin interrupted, his tone one of reason, "let me help you with the generator."

"Find the candles, then stay put." Chris turned and gave Buck a gentle shove from behind. Then he called back over his shoulder to Vin, "I mean it, stay put. Don't touch anything, and don't even breathe in my house, do you hear me, Tanner." And the last was clearly a statement, not a question.

Chris Larabee was at the end of his rope.

-7-7-7-

Ezra pulled up to a completely dark house, finding even the outside light for the carport extinguished. The rain came in a steady rhythm, making vertical streaks of white in the Jag's headlights. A sense of both dread and curiosity went through him when he saw that Vin's Jeep had gone nowhere. It was still parked on the end of the carport where its owner had left room for the other guests to park. Ezra left the Jag running and followed the path of the lights up to the front door. For the second time that evening, the rain matted his hunter-green silk shirt to his body. Lightning flashed, giving the mountains around the valley the appearance of giant molars.

Into the mouth of madness, Ezra thought.

He tensed and pushed in the screen door. "Chris?" he called into the hallway. "Buck?" A vague flicker of light up ahead defined the floor and walls. He remembered that Vin was also here, and felt his mouth go dry as he wondered what he should expect, coming back here like this. Had Vin won his bet with himself and had Buck and Chris to himself? It was a ludicrous thought, one that had Ezra scoffing at himself as he crept toward the light.

"Hello?" He found the den and located the light source to be a series of votive candles placed in glasses around the room, casting warm light over the leather sofa, coffee table, and hearth. Ezra wandered into the center of the room and stood still, trying to listen past the patter of rain on the roof. He thought he heard a clamor from somewhere else in the house, a rumble that seemed to come up from the floorboards, and he heard muffled voices coming up through the floor before he realized that they must be in the basement. If that were the case, he'd go to the stairwell and call down there to make his presence known.

Turning to go, he stopped to reach for one of the votives, to take with him, when a board in the floor creaked nearby, and he startled to see a figure move toward him. Before he knew it, Vin had grabbed his arm, jerked him forward, and swept him around off balance so that he hit the doorframe, barely managing to turn and angle his head so that he didn't bust his nose. Instead, his shoulder and chest hit the barrier. His assailant pulled his arm up behind him, locking it in place and keeping the wrist twisted painfully. From behind him, Vin's voice whispered in his ear.

"Hello, Ezra. Was wondering when you'd get back here."

"Vin," he said, wincing. The molding around the frame ground uncomfortably into his collarbone. He could feel the other man's body pressed against his, warm and strong. "I thought I'd check on your end of our wager."

"You never made that wager with me," Vin said.

"Oh." Ezra tried hopelessly to play along. "Guess I thought the stakes were too high." He grunted his discomfort, and quickly Vin let him go. He knew better than to try anything after tasting Tanner's arresting technique just now. Shaking out his arm, he turned carefully around, his back against the frame now, and looked into smoky blue eyes. "What's going on?" he asked with an edge of caution.

"Buck and Chris are in the basement trying to get the backup generator going," Vin said, "but I have a feeling they'll be a while." He tilted his head wistfully.

"What is it you want with them?"

"I. . . just want /them/." Vin's breath gusted over Ezra's cheek. He remained /so/ close, keeping Ezra cornered like a cat hemming in a mouse.

It didn't make a lot of sense, Ezra thought, for Vin to go through all of this -- pretending to be someone else; manipulating those around him to be part of, as he had put it once, a m nage trios. Ezra tried a direct approach, knowing it would probably get him nowhere. "You need help, Vin." He kept as gentle a tone as he thought was required, but weighed in some firmness to make it clear he wasn't about to fall into the delusions Vin had proven quite capable of casting. "You need serious psychiatric help."

"I know what I need," Vin whispered. He stared at Ezra's lips, his breath deepening, growing heavier little by little.

"Why did you tell me about your game?" Ezra whispered, and felt a tingle in one nipple. Startled, he stiffened and looked down to see that Vin was casually brushing a knuckle over it, feeling it through the thin, fabric of the silk shirt. The wet fabric molded neatly around the tight little bud.

"Come on, Ezra," Vin replied. "I know you can't con a con, so I never even tried with you."

"Con?" Ezra said, blinking. The candlelight danced around the contours of Vin's face, reflected in his eyes. It was terribly distracting, but Ezra blinked and focused again. "I work undercover some times. That hardly constitutes me as a conman, despite Mr. Larabee's description of my position."

"You still pretend to be someone you aren't." Vin leaned closer, his body pressing harder against Ezra's as he now pinched the nipple. Nerves sparked to life all the way down through Ezra's middle. "We're alike, you and I." Vin continued to caress, tease and pinch the little knob of flesh, until Ezra broke a sweat.

The man was ill. It was the only thought that kept Ezra from giving in right then. . . from angling his head forward and sealing his mouth over that other one. Vin had rattled him before, but now. . . He so wanted this man. He had wanted him from the first day Vin had pranced into the office and crammed his mouth full of cream pastry. But it wasn't right, and feeling a bite of sadness, he said more firmly, "Vin, you need help. You can't just go around insinuating yourself into people's lives like this. Buck and Chris. . . they've been together for years--"

He stopped talking simply because Vin didn't seem to be listening to him. The other man reached behind him casually and withdrew a folded piece of paper from his back pocket.

"What's that?" Ezra veered away from his lecture.

Vin unfolded the paper. It was crinkled from having gotten damp and then dry in his pocket. "You know, I checked on that. This letter was sent to you bearing only your name and address for mailing purposes, but there is a series of numbers on it with a return address for Zurich. The numbers are a bank account, and a routing code."

"You. . . You went through my mail?" Ezra asked incredulously and started to reach for the letter.

"So, Ezra, what are you doing with a Swiss bank account?" Vin stepped back, just out of range. Ezra felt his heartbeat slam in his chest. Found out by a sociopath. He could almost laugh at the irony. Almost. "You had no business--"

"No," Vin said, "but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time." He folded and pocketed the letter. "Is this why you have IA all over your hide like stink on shit?"

Almost too shocked to move, Ezra swallowed, eyes burning with his growing anger. "It's not a pay off," he declared. "I did not open that account and deposit a payoff, if that is what you're inferring."

"Oh, not at all." Vin rolled his eyes. "I d say, from this evidence, that you're looking at what. . . ten years, maybe twenty? You'll be a hit with the Ca on City men's club."

"Stop it," Ezra hissed, wary that Chris or Buck might hear this, but for the most part, he could still make out their voices muffled through the floor. He lowered his own voice and dared a step away from the wall. "Look, I mean it. It wasn't a payoff."

"It was a bonus check from the department that was worth depositing in Zurich?" Vin offered in mock helpfulness.

Ezra sighed, rubbed at his eyes, and shook his head. No point in being angry. He was busted, and while Vin might be a certifiable loony, the man obviously wasn't stupid. "You remember that case in the news eight months ago when it was determined someone hired an assassin to terminate Alan Baker?"

"Georgia Senator," Vin said and nodded.

"I was /in/, all right," Ezra pressed on with his confession. "I managed to trace a ring of arms sales that took me right to the suspect's hotel room. Only the man was /dead/. Can you believe the fortune? He had a heart attack in his bathroom getting ready to do his job. A Remington 700 was stashed between the mattresses, and an attach case of money was in the closet."

"Mmmm, a Remington 700," Vin mused more to himself, "sexy." Then he got back on track. "How much?"

Looking away, Ezra recalled the strange, almost arousing, thrill he'd felt when he'd found the money. Blood money or not, the department still had no idea who might have funded the operation, though various individuals in the mob were considered. The department also didn't know that the hired hit man had already been paid.

"So, let me guess. You reported the weapon, but not the money."

Frozen in place, Ezra nodded.

"How much?" Vin repeated.

"One-million."

That provoked a snide chuckle from Vin.

Ezra copped to the fact that he was the one who should be reported. His face heated as he considered how much it would take to keep Vin from talking. Then Ezra made a realization. Vin must have had that letter already, when they had that meeting at O'Charley's, so he had gone in knowing he was speaking with a fellow reprobate. "What do you want?" Ezra asked. "You want half? All of it?"

Taking a deep breath, and casually pacing, Vin shook his head. "Nah, I don't want your money, Ezra. I'm not that greedy." He stopped pacing, his head angling back toward his subject, eyes narrowing, their blue turned black by the low light. "I want a home," he said simply enough.

Ezra blinked, pondering that before it hit him. "You want to move in with me?"

Nodding, Vin moved toward him, the fa ade of deviousness cast aside as he suddenly became the man Ezra had originally thought he knew. "You've got a really nice house." His voice reached a deep, raspy low, so similar to Chris' that Ezra almost lost his composure again. So curious that Vin didn't even seem to notice he was doing it. Maybe, Ezra thought, he couldn't help it. Maybe he assimilated the characteristics of others so easily that they sometimes slipped free without him realizing it.

Something about all of this was so sad. Ezra was thoroughly irritated with the situation; at the same time he felt an inner tremble that Vin would put that letter into the wrong hands and blow the whistle on him. He didn't know what to say; there was only acceptance, if he didn't want to do time. Vin certainly wasn't in any trouble; he couldn t be put away for doing a few impressions, and if submitted for a psychiatric exam, he would probably present himself as necessary to pass with flying colors. It was scary and exhilarating at the same time. And again, very sad. That Vin would request a home was not exactly what Ezra had expected. He knew the man lived in Purgatorio, though he had never seen Vin's living accommodations. Surely, in that area of town, they were bleak.

"Then," Ezra began, considering several possibilities, "let's talk about this." He thought of waking up to see Vin's face every morning. Vin's eyes. Vin's chest. Vin's ass. That didn't seem like such a bad thing. Did it? If he could forget that the man was not only crazy, but blackmailing him.

Vin stepped closer, and his hands rose to caress the silk shirt, fingertips prodding over Ezra's nipples again, his thumb probing the sharp lower contour along Ezra's molded pectorals. He leaned his head forward until their breath met, lips an inch apart. "I knew you wanted me." It was neither an arrogant statement, nor a plea. It was just the truth.

"From the moment you joined the team," Ezra whispered, followed by a stifled moan as new tingles raced through his body. "I just didn't expect. . ."

Vin shut him up with a kiss, forced and hard. An eager tongue plunged into Ezra's mouth, hot and wet, the tip brushing his soft palate. One of Vin's hands wandered down between his legs and cupped his balls through the fabric of his slacks. To this Ezra's breath caught and he opened his legs just a little more, giving Vin more access to work him. God, it felt so good. Perhaps part of it was that a certain level of danger lay in this. Ezra knew that he would always be aware of it, and strangely, it rendered the situation more arousing than if he had thought Vin stable.

Ezra did, at least, try to maneuver his hands over Vin's body and retrieve the letter from his back pocket, but the effort was so half hearted at this point. He failed when Vin caught his wrists and pulled them back around in front of him. Pinned against the wall, he bowed his body, his belly grinding up against Vin's, his hardening cock begging for release from its zippered enclosure.

From somewhere, Ezra acknowledged the sound of footsteps and knew that Chris and Buck must be coming back upstairs. The lights were still out, the candle glow piercing through the cracks in his eyelids as they hung at half-mast. He snapped to when Vin broke off the kiss and cocked his head back. Tanner's lips gleamed, little threads of golden light dancing along their edges.

"I hate to do this to you, Ezra, but Buck and Chris are coming."

Ezra blinked hazy eyes, his surrender to this man complete. "Yes?"

"I have some business to conduct with them that you, regrettably, are not privy to." Vin's voice, suddenly laced with a soft southern drawl, had become Ezra's.

"What?" Ezra's brows knitted as he realized Vin was playing with him again.

Right before a hand came up and clocked him behind the ear, and Ezra sank into instant darkness.

SEVEN

Chris took careful steps down into the basement, guided only by the flashlight beam bouncing before him. The wooden stairs creaked under his footfalls, and Buck's following behind him. To his right was the carpentry workshop he was still in process of designing, to the left a storage room. The entire area was pitch black, the concrete floor cool. The dry, straw-like smell of saw dust permeated the air, and as his eyes adjusted, Chris began to make out the dull outside light filtering through the series of upper horizontal windows lining the room. Lightning flashed, giving the basement a split second of definition before the darkness fell again.

Following the flashlight beam to the left, Chris wandered through the storage area past cardboard boxes full of memories and stacks of old furniture that either needed to be restored or tossed. On the far wall, behind an old wardrobe he was planning on refinishing someday, the backup generator sat.

"Okay," Chris muttered absently and knelt to look at the box. It was an old model and didn't have an emergency transfer switch or they wouldn't be in the dark now. "Here, hold this." He handed the flashlight to Buck, who stood behind him, still brooding. He located and tripped the starter switch -- covered in a layer of grime and wayward sawdust -- and nothing happened. He tried it again, waited, but still nothing. "What the hell?"

"What's up?" Buck asked gruffly and leaned over, the flashlight beam grazing Chris' vision and leaving a huge white spot imprinted on his retina.

"Goddammit, Buck." Chris snatched the light away and angled it around the machine, locating the hose line that ran up to one of the windows, through an specialized opening, and to the gas tank outside. He blinked the blotches away and focused past curtains of cobwebs only to see the problem. "Shit," he hissed. "Line's been chewed through." He could see the black hose had been gnawed almost in two.

"Fuckin' mice," Buck muttered. "Ah, that's great, that's just perfect." He turned and paced in the dark behind Chris, his boots clomping loudly. "Who lets mice chew through a gas line?"

Chris nearly growled back at the accusing tone, but instead he surrendered with a sigh. "I don't exactly use it that much," he said softly, stood, and turned around, aiming the beam at the low ceiling so that the ambient light dispersed. They were at least able to see each other evenly now, despite the consuming shadows around them. With Vin upstairs, and his eagerness to talk with Buck about what had happened, he shrugged off the matter. "There isn't much we can do about it right now."

The boards from the main floor groaned above them; Vin was moving around up there. Sounded like he was in the kitchen doing what Chris had instructed him to do. A moment later the footsteps proceeded, not too loud or clumpy, along the area that constituted the hallway, and then veered off into a quieter expanse of floor that was over the main ground; that would be the TV den.

Chris followed the sound of the steps intently, and then looked at Buck, who appeared to be doing the same. No time like the present, he figured. "There's something I have to tell you about Vin," he began, only to frown when he saw Buck shake his head. "What?"

"Vin," Buck said and closed his eyes as if he were summoning patience for himself. "Chris, I --"

"He tried to get into the shower with me this afternoon," Chris plunged ahead.

Buck caught on his breath and stood there, mouth opened, eyes blinking and widening. "He did what?" he said incredulously and took a step forward.

Shrugging absently, still a little confused by what had happened, Chris tried to explain. "He got here early, and we had a talk--"

"That little shit. About what?"

Another shrug. The flashlight beam wobbled back and forth on the ceiling, causing shadows to ghost over Buck's grim face that did nothing to make this any easier to explain. Chris steadied the light again. "Stuff. About the team, the ranch. Just. . . stuff. . . nothing intimate."

"Well, there must have been something intimate about it for him to. . ." Buck trailed off, head bowing before he got too fueled up.

Chris cocked his head, waiting, but the outburst seemed to be over before it had even started. "I went to take a shower. Thought he was just going to settle down and watch TV while he waited; the next thing I know, he's in there with me." Chris left out the part about Vin impersonating Buck. It was just too weird. "Look, nothing happened. I apologized to him if I'd led him on somehow, but I swear, Buck--"

"I let him fuck me."

Chris nearly choked on his tongue mid-sentence. "Huh--" The statement was so abrupt, so honest, the tone with which it was spoken gruff with guilt. He stared, felt the weight of each word sink on him, pouring into his belly with leaden density. It was followed by a sensation of flames coursing up the sides of his face. "You did what!"

Buck's hands flew up in defense. "I didn't mean to, Chris. It's like. . . I, um. . ." He closed his eyes tightly, took a deep breath and let it out with a sputter. "It wasn't something that I wanted. . ." Clamping his hands down at his sides, he started to pace, halted, tried to face Chris, and then obviously couldn't do it as his gaze leveled off somewhere within the vicinity of Chris' chest, but he dared not look up and make eye contact.

Chris' eyes stung as his anger tried to get the better of him. He swallowed hard. Now he was confused /and/ furious.

"Chris, I didn't want it," Buck repeated more carefully. "He came over to the loft Thursday night."

"So that was why you've been mute since Friday morning!"

"He came over to the loft, when J.D. was still in the office," Buck rushed on with his explanation. "He had a pizza and a bottle of whiskey, said it was a peace offering for the kid. We ate and talked, then we drank. . . I didn't realize I was drinking so much, and then next thing, I can't tell which way is up." His hands were up before him again, as if to fend off an attack. "Then he started doing this thing with his voice--"

"His voice. . ." Chris echoed, not exactly calming down, but not winding up tighter. The anger lingered, red in his mind, mildly numbing. His thoughts veered back to the shower incident and how he had first thought it was Buck coming in to join him, making up for days apart. "And then I turned around and saw his face," he murmured aloud.

"What?" Buck asked, but didn't wait for an answer. He was clearly desperate now, hands making frenzied gestures to demonstrate his point. "He's crazy, Chris. Absolutely out of his gourd." He twirled a finger in the air next to his head. "He was doing this thing with his voice, that sounded like you. I was so out of it, I thought it /was/ you. . ."

"His voice. . ." Chris repeated. "That's why you tried to get him to do impressions at dinner."

"Yeah?" Buck stiffened, his hands pausing to grip the air. "I was trying to get him to do that impression of you. You had to hear it. You had to know how. . . /real/. . . it sounded."

"No need," Chris said, and for a moment felt nothing but his own heartbeat, anger falling off completely, leaving him feeling almost sick. "He does an impression of you, too."

Buck's brows furrowed and wetness glittered in his eyes, but it didn't spill over into tears. His hands dropped to his sides and he drew a deep, emotionally-tired breath. "Chris, I didn't mean to hurt you. He tricked me."

"I know," Chris said hoarsely. And he /did/ know, but it didn't fix everything. If anything, it frightened the hell out of him.

"I'm so sorry."

Chris opened his mouth, and was interrupted for the umpteenth time that evening. It nearly flared up his anger again, as a voice called from upstairs, muffled through the floor but loud enough. He first thought it was Vin, and then his gator brain clicked on recognition of the southern accent that dragged out what sounded like his and Buck's names. "Ezra?" he whispered.

"Sounded like him," Buck replied.

Shaking his head in complete frustration, Chris closed his eyes and wondered when the hell he would wake up. One of his men had just fucked his lover, and then tried to fuck him; it was growing clear that said individual was certifiable. . . and now Ezra Standish had shown back up. The boards above creaked until the sound of gentle footfalls disappeared near the den area,as had Vin's. "Great," he whispered.

"We better go back up," Buck said.

They started uneasily for the stairs, Chris taking the lead again then halting, one foot on the bottom step. "What are we going to do?" he asked rustily over his shoulder. He sensed Buck easing up behind him and felt warm, humid breath slide across the back of his neck.

"I don't know." Buck's voice dropped a little more, becoming a mere crackle. "Chris, I didn't mean to let him. . ."

And Chris heard a different tone then, a minor shiver that begged for forgiveness and yet spoke of violation. He turned around, shining the light up between them again, and found Buck's face close to his, that lush, spicy-brown mustache not far from his lips. The shimmer in Buck's eyes lingered, lonesome and pitiable. Lightning flashed through the upper windows again, washing down Buck's temple and cheekbone with ghostly glow. They stared at each other a moment, waiting out the thunder that followed in a rolling boom that vibrated the foundations.

"I thought it was you," Buck insisted weakly. "I don't know how he did it."

"But why did he do it?" Chris suddenly asked, possibly the most important question. "Why did he try to get close to me the way he did? He was impersonating you," he explained further. Then he detailed the shower situation -- the sound of Buck's voice coming out of the steam, the soap in his eyes, and the hands that had wrapped around his waist. "He's tried to have both of us," he concluded. "But why?"

Buck stared back, wary and tired. It occurred to Chris then, not just from the tone he'd heard in Buck's voice, but from the hollows under his eyes, that Buck really had been losing sleep over this.

Well, enough of that.

"Come on," Chris whispered. "Lets go deal with this. I don't care if Ezra is here."

EIGHT

Vin lowered the unconscious form awkwardly onto the couch as he heard the footsteps coming back up the steps from the basement. The leather cushions groaned, and candlelight played over Ezra's still face.

The place was still, for the most part, dark, so obviously the backup generator was not working. Vin wandered out into the hallway and leaned back against the doorframe, looking down toward the far door on the right. A moment later it opened and the flashlight beam swept the floor in the hall as Chris emerged, Buck behind him. Lightning flashed, the strobe effect giving him a second to note that the basement door was closing behind Buck, and both men looked furious.

"I have news for you," Vin said casually, arms crossed and head cocked, "we're still in the dark." He actually had his night-eyes by now, with the aid of the candle glow that filtered from out of the den and kitchen.

The beam on the floor bounced as Chris came storming toward him, Buck not long in following. "Vin, we're going to have a talk," Chris declared and stopped short as if realizing something was amiss. "Where's Ezra?" he asked. "We thought we heard him come back in."

"Hmm?" Vin perked up as if it was nothing. "Oh, he did. He's taking a nap on the couch."

Chris turned his head, gazing sideways at Vin, then rolling his eyes back to get a glimpse of Buck's shadowed figure. "Excuse me?"

"Ezra will not be joining us at the moment."

Buck started to push past Chris as the full weight of the matter dawned on him. "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing serious. He'll just need some ice in a few minutes when he wakes up." Vin pushed away from the wall and blocked Buck's path into the den. "Doesn't give us much time."

Chris scowled. "You knocked him out?"

Vin didn't give a direct answer, just a nebulous shrug.

"You didn't pick up a nail, did you?" Chris went on. "You punctured your own tire to strand yourself out here."

Vin didn't respond to that either.

"I'm calling the police," Chris then declared. "Buck, watch him."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Vin warned him. Nevertheless, he stayed put, feeling Buck's cool eyes on him.

Chris went down the hall to the entrance to the main living room, that which was sparsely furnished and not used nearly as much as the den. Just around the corner stood a cherry-stained table with drawers, the phone sitting on top. Chris snatched up the handset viciously and dialed 9-1-1. While he waited for the line to ring, he stretched the cord back out into the hall to back Buck up keeping an eye on Vin.

"I mean it," Vin said, chuckling under his breath. "You really don't want to do that."

"Why not?" Buck asked.

"You want the whole department to know you two are together?" Vin asked. "The rest of the team may be cool with it, but how's it going to sound when I give my honest statement to the police about why I was here." He rolled his eyes upward as if searching the back of his brain for other reasons. It was almost funny. "Word will get out; the ATF will know. They'll start investigating you as well, digging up your deeper past. Especially when I tell them about Robert Spikes."

There, that did it. He had their instant and undivided attention.

Chris, standing with the handset pressed to his ear, straightened, and his brow knitted. Buck staggered toward Vin and reached out to grab his collar, but Vin neatly sidestepped and backed himself down the hallway closer to Chris. He threw glances back and forth to keep them both in his sight until he reached a standing point across from Chris.

"Bob Spikes, that is," he elaborated. "Military Police officer, who took his own life. Or that's what the coroner finally concluded."

"9-1-1," a female voice answered over the phone.

His arm going limp, Chris dropped the receiver away from his ear. The sides of his neck pounded as his pulse picked up.

"What?" Buck murmured as he came closer and stood in the middle of the hallway where he could focus better on Vin. "What are you talking about?"

Chris suppressed a shudder as the rain outside suddenly picked up, slamming the roof of the house, running over the eaves and splattering the drainage ditches that ran along the sides. Lightning flickered, close and white-hot, the thunder immediate, rattling windows and vibrating the floor.

It was raining like this on that night, years ago. Eighteen, was it? He tried to recall, but he'd been so much younger then, a completely different person who didn't exist now.

Lightning illuminated slick wet tarmac laced with the red glow from an EXIT sign over the door at the rear of the bar. The alleyway stank of food refuse from the dumpster nearby, as twenty-two year old Chris Larabee, sopping wet to the bone and too pissed off to feel it, slammed into the body of his challenger and both went over, rolling with their hands around each other's throats, until Chris ended up on the bottom. Straddled and weighted down by the larger form, he took a hit to the jaw that caused his head to bounce off the pavement.

"Goddammit, Larabee!" Buck Wilmington's voice bellowed from somewhere to his right. "Get out from under him!"

Chris was in plain clothes, his tee shirt torn where Spikes had reached up and grabbed the collar, pulling on it for leverage. Chris' only maneuver had been to just pull back, let the shirt be ruined. He already had a bloody nose, but the rain was washing it away, so he didn't see the watered-down gush of red that made rivulets around his lips as they curled back over clenched teeth.

Spikes, just off duty, was still in uniform; his round, naturally spiteful face bore an ugly grimace. One hand formed a meaty fist, the other was grasping for the top of Chris' head, stubby fingers curling into the short blond locks. Chris groped, his right hand barely blocking the next punch as it came in, his left slapping against the handle of Spikes' sidearm.

"You're nothin' but a cock-suckin' faggot!" Spikes spat. The red reflection from the sign slithered down his face, distorted by the pour of rain.

"Fuck. . . you. . ." Chris hissed, and shoved the heel of his hand up under Spikes' nose. It sent the other man arching over, his fist unclenching. And then Chris was up again, charging.

"That's it!" his one-man cheerleading squad shouted, the voice obscured by the pounding of the rain. Another flash of lightning gave Chris the briefest glimpse of Buck bouncing on his feet, hands tightly fisted, as if ready to dive into the melee at any moment.

With an, "OOHPH!" Spikes fell back, lost his footing, and both he and Chris peddled backwards into the dumpster's protruding corner.

There was a solid /CLANG!/ as they hit, and Chris bounded back, wiping water from his eyes for a clear picture of his adversary moving in on him.

But Spikes didn't get up. He sank down on his ass, his head lolling awkwardly to the side, eyes open and rolled up in his head. The corner of the dumpster held him up in a partial sit. Chris waited, but when there was no movement, he only stared until the reality of it all hit him.

"Oh, Jesus, he's dead. . ."

Chris could hear his younger voice now, an echo in his own mind, as that fight came back to him in excruciating detail. He blinked as another flash of lightning redefined his current surroundings -- the hallway, Buck and Vin standing at adjacent angles to him. He still held the phone in his hand, and could hear the tin-can voice of the dispatch woman insisting that he answer her.

"You see," Vin Tanner was saying, "I have it all pretty well figured out." He paced then, making slight gestures with his hands. "I had to manipulate the system, which wasn't easy, but it occurred to me that J.D. had access codes that might include a means of tapping the Navy's case records."

"You--" Buck interjected. "You sent the kid that computer virus on purpose."

"It was a worm, actually," Vin corrected. "It retrieved the information I needed and left behind a little prank, but in the end his system was actually uncorrupted."

Numbly, Chris reached around the corner and hung up the phone. "How?" he husked. "How do you know about Spikes?"

Vin gave him a moment more of breathing time. He stopped his pacing and turned to look straight on at Chris as something changed in his face, the candlelight and the excess from the flashlight beam contributing to the transmogrification as another personality washed over him. His brows sank, and one eye narrowed while the other widened, the natural symmetry of his face thrown askew as he suddenly said in a gruffer, alien and yet familiar voice, "Tanner, you little faggot! You cheated!"

Buck staggered back a few steps, and one hand absently reached up to touch at his face in astonishment. "Oh God," he whispered. "You knew him."

"The Spikes family was the second foster home I was in, at the age of ten," Vin explained in his own voice, the persona of Spikes cast aside. "Bob was a lot older and took after Daddy Spikes." He sighed as if amused to be recalling all of this. "They both had a penchant for being sore losers."

That sounded like Spikes, Chris thought. This was all so dizzying -- trying to stay rooted in the present, while recalling how Spikes, aged twenty-three at the time he'd known him, had accused him of cheating his way into the SEALS. "Buck and I had just passed BUD/S at our first go," he said with a distant tone. "Spikes had gone through four times and failed all of them."

Vin looked like he was going to burst out laughing. Indeed, there would be good cause to laugh. How could anyone ever think it possible to cheat going through BUD/S, the rating system for getting into SEALS training? It was about physical fitness, focus, ability to take initiative and succeed where the elements were the adversary. Not much room for cheating.

"So, tell me if I'm wrong," Vin proceeded. "You were back at Worth on your sabbatical, celebrating, about to go back to Sacramento for your full training, and Bobby got jealous." He shook his head at that, and laughed inwardly as if recalling some other event of life in the Spike's home. "He was just off duty, so he still had his firearm on him. He picked a fight with one of you. . . I'm assuming you." He paused to indicate Chris. "So you had at it. You rammed him into the wall and crushed the back of his skull. Good for you."

The last came out so positive it made Chris' skin crawl. "I. . . I don't understand. . ." he rasped and looked at Buck, who was gaping in disbelief.

Vin layered one hand over the other even though the angles were completely opposite of his description. The point was still clear. "One of you took Spikes' gun, cupped it into his hand, and fired it through his eye at the right angle to blow out the back of his head and cover up the impact wound. Smart. . . really smart. I can't figure out which of you did that."

"I did," Buck said hollowly. "I pulled the trigger." He took a step closer. "Look, Vin, if you're looking for justice for the Spikes' family--"

Vin chuckled again. "Hell no." He resumed pacing. . . slowly, each step careful, his eyes darting from one man to the other. "Mrs. Spikes. . . maybe. . . she was nice to me, but she was passive. Didn't lift a finger when the fit hit the shan."

"So, you're not working for anyone?" Chris asked.

"Just myself." Vin's smile softened, then gradually melted away. An eerie lack of emotion replaced it.

"How did you know one of us covered it up?" Buck said, stepping closer. His eyes hardened, a sense of unpredictability radiating off of him. He looked like he could either pat Vin on the head, or go for his jugular.

Chris just held on to his last, throbbing nerve as he listened.

"The coroner's report included other injuries to the brain that indicated traumas not caused by the shot." Vin stopped, tilted his head, and observed their expressions. "There was also the liquid paraffin on the hand that supposedly pulled the trigger. It formed a neat crescent over the skin connecting his thumb and forefinger, but it was too neat, didn't have a spray pattern as it should have. The only reason for that would be that the rest of the spray was on the hand of the person who was guiding Spikes' hand." He licked his lips and a strange wolfishness crept into his eyes. "The coroner wanted to keep the case open based on this evidence, but the officer in charge, one Lieutenant Commander Orin Travis, ordered it to be closed, citing suicide as the obvious COD. You were his golden boys, weren't you? Fresh back from a successful run at BUD/S."

He turned on his heel and this time, rather than pacing, he circled behind Chris, who was too stiff with agitation and fear to do anything. His hand came up, caressed Chris' shoulder, and trailed down his arm over a tense bicep. "You were, of course, the only witnesses to the event. Your claim was that you left the scene of the fight, and Spikes was alive, and then you heard the shot and went running back and found him. It was almost perfect. . . if it hadn't been for that pesky coroner. Comprende?"

"Yeah, comprende," Buck snarled. "You sure did go through a lot of trouble to dig this shit up, Vin. What's your point?"

Vin sauntered from behind Chris and over to Buck, who backed away a step but refused to give too much ground. "You know the Spikes family fought to keep the case open. I only heard about it through the grapevine." He was between them now, all smiles gone, leaving nothing but steady control. "I envied you," he admitted. "I. . ." The fa ade of stone was broken by a faint quiver in the corner of his mouth that was neither a smile nor a frown. "I wanted to /be/ both of you." He backed up, planting each foot carefully behind him, until his back was to the wall. "Over time, I wanted more."

"And what do you want now, Vin?" Chris asked, his throat feeling raw.

"I still want to be you," Vin answered nonchalant. "And you." He looked at Buck. "You did what I couldn't. I was just a puny little kid when I knew Spikes." He shrugged. "Do you know what that bastard did to me?"

Neither listener opened his mouth nor nodded.

"He used to pin me down, and he'd lean over me and spit," Vin said in a dull rasp. "He'd let a big gob of spittle roll out of his lips and dangle down over my mouth. Just when it almost touched me, he'd suck it back up. Sometimes he just let it go and. . . SPLAT."

Chris didn't know what was worse, the story, or the apathetic way Vin told it as if completely detached from his own past. He felt like he was going to stagnate where he stood if he didn't say something. At least now he had more of an understanding of what they were up against: years of emotional abuse transformed through a sociological condition. But he was no psychiatrist, and this was a terribly delicate situation. Vin needed to be evaluated, possibly committed. "Vin," he offered with an edge of caution, "let us help you." He dared a step forward as if dealing with a cornered animal, for that was how he felt despite Vin's calm and confident presentation.

"But you /have/ helped me," Vin replied, "and I am repaying you."

This set off Buck, who stamped closer, shaking his head. "What're you saying? That all of this. . . screwing me, and trying to screw Chris. . . has been your way of showing us gratitude for Spikes?"

A slow, poison-ivy smile crept across Vin's lips. "It's like this. I have plenty of material on you both. I could easily send it to poor Mrs. Spikes to help her reopen the case on her baby boy's murder."

"Vin, if you do that, you'll take us down," Chris said harshly, "but don't take the old man down, too. Travis didn't know about it. He just had faith in us, that's all. He really did believe it was a suicide."

Vin gave a derisive snort. "Forget him," he muttered, giving a dismissive hand toss at Chris. "I couldn't care less if Travis knew or not. Honestly, I /like/ that it was a suicide. Suits that slimy turd to take his own life. I don't /want/ to help Mrs. Spikes. Like I said, she was passive. You two. . . You took action." He boosted away from the wall. "I like that. I want it. I want us all to be together."

"No way," Buck retorted. "You're crazy, boy, ain't no way we're all going to be together."

"Why not?" Vin turned a sharp, soul-rending gaze upon him. "You loved it when I was inside you, Buck."

"You got me drunk," Buck said in denial.

Vin sighed patiently. "You weren't /that/ far gone." He turned toward Chris, who was now suddenly grinding his teeth. "And I loved being you. Being you for him. . . I tried to be him for you, but you wouldn't let me. We could try it again."

"It's not going to happen, Vin," Chris growled. "You're fucked up. That's all there is to it." All sympathy for the disturbed man was gradually leaching, sending him back to where he was before: nothing short of furious. Being reminded that Vin and Buck had slept together didn't help in the least. And yet. . . The thought caused images to flash behind Chris' eyes. Vin's smaller, tight body cinched up against Buck's long, lean one. He shook it off, shuddering at himself. Was his own mind betraying him? Vin had that effect, didn't he? Chris thought. He had a way of making you wonder if you were the crazy one.

Abruptly, Vin pushed past Buck and stood at full height, straight and focused. "Okay, enough chit-chat, then. Look at it this way. I could use what I have. All of the pieces I've gathered are in an envelope, in the hands of a contact. If that contact does not hear from me every two days, the envelope goes into the mail and into the hands of the Spikes family attorney." He walked to Chris, whose jaw remained set, and dared lean closer, testing how tame the lion was now. "You can try to appeal that I'm deranged, yes, but think about Mrs. Spikes. She'll take my side if the case is reopened, because I helped her. And the evidence, well, that speaks for itself. Who would a Court of Appeals believe more? Me and Mrs. Spikes? Or the two men who helped each other cover up her son's death?"

Buck opened his mouth to argue and fell short, nothing more than a low, miserable groan of a noise issuing from his throat. Chris was finally, totally, at a loss of words. There was no denying it; Vin had no conscience, no morals, but he did have all the bases covered.

"Really though," Vin repeated, "I don't want it to go that far. I just want us to be together. What harm can it do, huh?" He breathed deeply, inhaling Chris' scent as he eased in to drape his arms over the other man's shoulders with feline grace. The press of his body stirred Chris' blood, no matter how hard he tried to temper it. "You know now what we have in common. Isn't that enough?" He turned and looked over his shoulder. "Come here, Buck," he said enticingly. "Please."

Chris looked past Vin, shuddering again as Buck took a step closer and hesitated. They had made it clear to each other long ago, when they'd agreed to cover up Spikes' death, accidental though it had been, that neither of them wanted to go to prison. To that end they would do almost anything, and that included accepting Vin Tanner into their relationship.

"Please, Buck," Vin said and reached out a hand, while his other stroked tenderly at the nape of Chris' neck. "Come here, I want to see you two kiss again. I love watching you kiss."

The indication that he had watched them before set both men's nerves on fire. Slowly, stiffly, they began to do as he asked. Buck stepped up to Chris, with Vin still close and watching, and leaned forward, his lips meeting Chris' hot breath. They were both shivering from. . . what? Fear? Anger? Exhilaration? Lust? Chris closed his eyes and accepted that not knowing how all of this would turn out did have a certain nasty appeal to it. Nasty and chilling. He closed the gap and brushed his lips over Buck's, wishing he could know everything his lover was thinking right now. At least Vin wasn't trying to tear them apart. Though, he might do it yet. Chris couldn't hope to know what would happen. His tongue lapped out gently, nudged at the silken pale-pink skin.

Buck gradually began to respond. The moan that escaped him, and the heat that arose from his body, were the first indications that /maybe/ he could go along with this, too.

And then the alternating red and blue of a strobe light pierced the darkness, flashing on the walls of the hallway through the front screen door still open to the rain and the night.

"Shit," Vin hissed and turned to look in that direction. Startled, Buck and Chris leaned away from each other, and both caught glimpses of the almost feral glare in their captor's eyes. "You must have had the phone off the hook long enough for them to trace the call," he added to Chris.

Chris remembered that it was standard procedure to send a car once a number was traced, just to put any matter to rest.

"Wait right here," Vin said in a most reasonable tone. "I'll go talk to them."

Neither Chris nor Buck dared move.

-7-7-7-

Ezra climbed up out of the haze to the tune of a dull throb behind his ear. Intense flashes of light ricocheted off the ceiling around him, alternating red and blue so fast he felt dizzy even lying down. He heard voices, close but filtered via the leather cushion in which his head was deeply cradled. Bit by bit he recalled what had happened and a handsome, angular face swam before his inner vision. The ghost sensation of lips touching his came back, and then he remembered where he'd last left off.

Vin was blackmailing him.

He might have been deeply upset, except that something about the man fascinated him, as did Vin's demands, which were not for money, but simply for a place to stay. And now he remembered Vin's last words -- that he had something to speak to Buck and Chris about.

So what were those flashes on the walls? Ezra eased up into a sit, one hand gingerly clamping over the side of his head where Vin had nailed him good with a side fist. He looked around, finding the many little candle flames around him, on the coffee table and the mantle over the small hearth. Still the greater flashes came, rhythmic and blinding. These did not come from lightning, he realized. They were police strobes. Carefully he climbed to his feet, waited for the world to stop swimming, and took a step over toward the doorway. He could hear Vin speaking.

"I am so sorry for your trouble. . . All right now. . . Be careful out tonight. These storms are really somethin'."

Ezra wondered briefly if it was Vin's real voice speaking, or one he had emulated from someone else before. Like a program added to his data bank and pulled for convenient use. The lights stopped flashing, and he heard the sound of a car pulling out of the driveway. Stepping into the hall, he looked down through the darkness, making out only figures and recognizing them by size and shape. Vin was on the far end, just closing the main door, while two others stood at a nearer range: Buck nd Chris.

Why, he wondered, had the cops been here, and why were Chris and Buck just standing around? What else had happened here while he was in the great goodnight?

It was then that the power came back on. The house groaned as lights, left with their switches set to on, flared up in their fixtures. The refrigerator gave a croak of a noise, loud enough to reach the hallway, and droned to life. Overhead, the hall light flicked on, causing Buck and Chris to squint. Ezra squinted, too, and shaded his eyes as they adjusted to the abrupt change.

Vin was just turning away from the door when the light struck his face and reflected in his eyes, bringing out their blue with an almost supernatural intensity. He looked past Chris and Buck, saw Ezra, and smiled with complete and utter contentedness.

"Well," he said, "here we are. . . one big happy family."

END