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Disclaimer: Hiya, how y'all doin'? Hey, what you
think of them there Wildcats? They're pretty
doggone cool, huh? Two of the best college hockey teams in the
country! We rock on high-!
*sound of being kicked in the shin*
OW! Darn it! All righty, I'll stop beating around the bush.
*pouting* They don't belong to me.
Never have. And I have NO intention WHATSOEVER of making any
kind of money off them,
so don't worry about it. They belong to Trilogy and CBS and all
the people to whom they
belong. There, you happy now? OK, I'm going to go sulk
now. *clumps off, sulking*
Rating: G
Warnings: None!
Author’s Notes: OK, this is totally the opposite end of the
spectrum from the last story I
submitted, which was "Blink of an Eye." I tell ya, that story
was pretty doggone emotionally
draining, so I'm in need of some humor. This is, however, my first
attempt at writing a witty
story, so I don't know if it will fall flat or what. Hopefully
not. In general, it's me trying to do
a composite of every M7 fanfic ever written, while giving it my own
unique flavor and texture
(OK, so I sound like Martha Stewart. Bear with me, please.
< g >). Hope you enjoy it!
Feedback appreciated! melissar@cisunix.unh.edu
PS- I dedicate this to my sister, Jen, who implored me to write
something of a humorous nature.
Here it is!
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"Nathan! Nathan, he's been shot!" Chris screamed into the clinic as he dragged Vin behind him.
The healer sped down the stairs. "What? Who? How? When?"
Chris sat the tracker down in a chair and straightened up, running his
fingers through his short,
reddish-blonde hair. "I don't know! We were just out practicing
and....and.....!"
Nathan grabbed the gunslinger by the shoulders and shook him fiercely.
"Chris, stay calm!
You're not helping him any if you break down now! He needs you
to be strong!"
"Um, fellas?" Vin piped up from where he was sitting on the chair,
one leg propped up on a
divan.
Chris and Nathan were immediately kneeling beside him. "Vin?
Vin, can you hear me?" Chris
said anxiously as Nathan checked the tracker for a pulse, fever, and
life-threatening injuries.
"Hell ya, I can hear you," Vin griped. "I just wanted to say it ain't that bad."
Chris grabbed the bounty hunter's hand. "Vin! Vin, you don't
have to be strong right now! It's
OK, no one's going to think the less of you if you cry." Tears
burned in the gunslinger's throat.
Vin looked at him like he'd gone loco. "Cry? Chris, you
shot me in the foot. If anyone's gonna
be cryin' it'll be you when I punch you in the nose."
Chris threw himself at the feet of the ticked-off tracker. "Oh,
Vin, Vin, forgive me! It's all my
fault that you were hurt! I'm not worthy! Oh, Lord, I'm not worthy!"
Vin rolled his eyes. "Oh, God, here he goes again."
"You just lie still and don't be movin' around, ya hear?" Nathan said
sternly, apparently oblivious
to the entire altercation between Chris and Vin.
"Doc, all you've gotta do is patch up my foot and I'll be almost as
good as new," Vin protested.
"OK, so I ain't gonna be joggin' for a while, but I think I'll survive."
"DON'T TALK!" the healer commanded, with such vehemence it made Vin
sit back heavily in
his chair. "You'll use up the last of your strength!" Turning
to the weeping, supplicating man on
the floor, Nathan grabbed him by the shoulders, pulled him up to face
him and shook the
gunslinger bodily. "Don't you break down on me, Chris Larabee!
Do ya hear me?! Don't you
break down! We need you to be strong! You're the leader-
you have to help the others get
through this!"
Chris looked as though he were about to pull himself somewhat out of
his guilt-induced stupor
when suddenly the door flew open, and Buck stumbled through, carrying
JD. "NATHAN!
Nathan, you gotta help him! Please!" The big man set the youngest
of the seven in another chair
near Vin's. "He's hurt!" Tears were in the mustachioed gunslinger's
eyes.
Chris' lip trembled, and he threw himself to the floor once again, this
time in front of both JD
and Vin. "God, it's my fault they're hurt! I can't protect
them! I can't help them! I'm useless!
I'm not WORTHY!"
Nathan looked to heaven. "Oh, Lord, help me through this! Help me save these brave men!"
JD looked from Buck to Nathan to Chris, face creased with disbelief. "Guys, it's not bad-"
Immediately Buck was beside him, arms wrapped around the younger man.
"How many times
have I told you to be careful, JD?! How many?!"
JD struggled to free himself from the bigger man's suffocating embrace.
"Buck, it's a PAPER
CUT! It just stings a little, that's all."
But Buck didn't pay any attention. He just kept mumbling, "Greenhorn!
That's all ya are, kid. A
naive, little brother-like greenhorn! Now it's paper cuts, next
you'll be slitting your wrists!
When will the insanity stop?"
Nathan grabbed the big man by the shoulders and shook him. "Don't
you break down, Buck
Wilmington! He needs you right now! He needs you to be
strong! WE need you to be strong!
Snap out of it!"
JD sucked in a deep breath as Buck was pulled away. "Nathan!"
he gasped out. "It's just a paper
cut! Look!" He held up his right hand, and the
healer pounced on it.
"Bandages!" Nathan hollered to no one in particular. "I need bandages!"
And he took off in a
flurry of motion.
JD turned to Vin, eyes puzzled. "But it's not that bad," he said softly,
which was hard to do and
still be heard over the sound of the two men sobbing around them.
Vin shook his head. "I tried that too, kid. It ain't workin'."
He was beginning to feel a little
woozy from the blood loss in his foot.
Just at that moment, the door thumped open again, and Ezra stepped in,
holding his handkerchief
to a wound on his forehead. "Mr. Jackson!" he called. "I require your
medical assistance!"
Nathan came barreling back into the room, weighted down with fluffy
white bandages and pots
and jars of ointment and salves. "Ezra! God, not you too!
This town has become a blood bath!"
He stumbled to the gambler's side, dropping a good number of his healing
materials along the
way.
Ezra gingerly sat on the sofa. "Merely the result of a rather
unpleasant altercation with a surly
gentleman in the saloon. It's really not that bad-"
He was cut off as Nathan grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him
to lie down on the sofa.
"Rest, Ezra. You and I might have had our differences in the
past, but I ain't goin' to let this get
the best of you!"
Ezra looked around, saw his own bewilderment mirrored on JD's and Vin's
faces, and said, "May
I ask just what the hell you are talking about, Mr. Jackson?"
Chris looked towards the gambler with red-rimmed eyes. "I'm torn
between the desire to weep
over your sorry state and continue to beat myself into a frenzy of
guilt, or to simply turn away
out of a sense of apathy because of that time you deserted us in the
Pilot- I mean, in the
Seminole village." Tears pooled in his eyes. "But you've proven
to be such a good friend over
the intervening months, I think I'll let myself cry over you."
That said, Chris dragged himself to the center of the floor, equidistant
between the three men,
threw himself down, buried his face in the rug, and began sobbing again.
"Ezra, JD, Vin! I'm not
worthy! I'm pathetic! Oh why oh why did you join on with
me in the first place? I never asked
to be a leader! Oh, the pain, the pain!"
"Guys, we're not in mortal danger!" JD called out, trying to break the other's out of their mood.
"Not yet, at least," Vin concurred, feeling even more light-headed now
as he lost more blood
from the foot-wound.
"I ask again, what in the name of heaven and earth is wrong with everybody?"
Ezra interjected,
before being pummeled back into a resting position on the sofa by Nathan.
Just then, the door swung open to admit Josiah, the eldest member of
the seven. He glanced
around the chaotic room, and said in a deep voice that rumbled like
summer thunder,
"Sometimes a man's just gotta exorcise his demons."
There was dead silence for a moment.
"What's that supposed to mean, Josiah?" Buck asked, honestly curious.
Josiah looked puzzled. "What, you mean you don't know?"
Nathan looked at the big preacher with wide, brown eyes. "I can't
see what help it offers, given
the situation. Could you elaborate?"
Josiah's eyes looked inward, as though he were reading a book inside
himself. "Well it....It's
always worked before."
Chris gazed at him with puffy eyes. "I'm not seeing the point
just now, Josiah. Why don't you
come back when you have some piece of philosophical no-how that will
help us out, OK?"
The big man looked around the room, looking thoroughly confused.
"Um, yeah. All right. I
guess I can do that." He turned, face still perplexed, and wandered
out into the street again.
A few seconds later, the room once again deteriorated into a frenzy of guilt and misery.
"Oh, JD, JD!" Buck sobbed.
"Oh Vin, Vin!" Chris wept.
"Oh Ezra, Ezra!" Nathan moaned.
"Oh shut UP!" Vin croaked out. Silence fell and all eyes
turned on him. "We are not going to
die," he said firmly, trying to keep his eyes from unfocusing.
Nathan dropped the jar of salve he held, ready to smear a great mass
of the stuff into Ezra's head
wound, and let out a shocked gasp. "What? Are you sure?"
Vin nodded. "Positive."
Buck put his hands protectively on JD's shoulders. "How can you know, Vin?"
Chris nodded, tears still streaking his face. "Yeah, Vin. How can you know?"
The tracker forced himself to lucidity. "Easy. Lemme tell
you. Ezra there, he'll survive 'cause
he's the scoundrel of the group. Lots of emotional angst there-
will he ever be a full-fledged
member of the group? Will he ever be truly accepted? That kind
of thang." Looks were
exchanged around the room, and nods of silent agreement.
Vin took a deep breath and tried to stay concious despite the blood
loss. "JD'll make it cause he's
the kid. The fragile innocence of the seven. Kill off the fragile
innocence, and we all turn into
nothin' but a lot of surly old gunslingers who have nothin' better
to do than gallop around on
our horses, drinkin' whiskey and gettin' into trouble."
JD elbowed the tracker in the ribs. "Um, Vin, that's what y'all do anyway-"
"Shut up, kid, I'm tryin' to make a point," Vin interrupted him.
He paused to consider, then
continued. "That's another reason he'll live. We all need someone
to take our bad moods out on,
and who better to yell at for no apparent reason than the wet-behind-the-ears
greenhorn?"
There were more nods of agreement, and Ezra chimed in, "Amen, brother."
JD sat back, bottom lip jutting out. "Gee thanks, Vin." The bounty hunter ignored him.
Chris spoke then. "What about you, Vin?" he asked, wiping the vestiges of his tears away.
Vin sighed. "I can't die because I'm the secondary lead."
They all gave him empty looks.
"Huh?" Buck asked.
Vin shook his head, trying to clear the spots from his vision.
"I'm the secondary lead. Numero
dos. The lesser figure on the totem pole. The one we all
rally around when Chris is for some
reason indisposed, like if he gets hisself shot or is off mopin' and
bein' downright ornery or
somethin'. So I have to be here to be the calm, solid, strong
secondary leader."
There was silence for a moment, then Nathan spoke up. "Well, actually,
I think if ya kicked,
Vin, we'd all just take a vote to pick another leader."
Vin eyed him. "Really?"
There were general nods of agreement around the room.
Vin thought hard. "Well......I got the LEAN. I mean, no
one else here can lean the way I do, so
that's just a dead giveaway, i sn't it?"
Bright smiles lit up everyone's faces. "Yeah, yeah, and you got
the hair!" Buck chimed in.
Smacking JD lightly upside the head, he said, "You should take some
learnin' from Vin, boy.
Clean up that bird's nest on your head!"
"OW! Buck!" JD whined, rubbing the back of his head.
"And I must admit that Mr. Tanner is the only one of our company who
can pull off wearing
buckskin on a regular basis and make it look quite fashionable," Ezra
added, sitting up slowly,
still keeping a wary eye on Nathan to make sure the healer made no
sharp moves in his direction.
Nathan looked one by one at all of his patients. "So, you're all gonna be all right then?"
Vin nodded. "Yeah, iffen you bind up this foot of mine afore I
bleed to death all over this fancy
stool."
Nathan flushed. "Oh. Right. Oops." He jumped
up and began working on Vin's foot. He
paused, however, and looked into the bounty hunter's face. "Do I still
get to yell at y'all and tell
you to stay in bed, to lie still, even though I know it ain't gonna
do a lick of good?"
Vin grinned. "You betcha, Nathan."
The healer smiled, pleased, and went back to work.
Buck looked unsure. "Do I still get to pester the kid about bein'
so young and inexperienced-like
in the way of the West, even though he's been through enough scrapes
with us that I know I can
trust him in a fight, and I sincerely doubt he's gonna get his damn-fool
head shot off?"
Vin nodded. "Yep. In fact, we'll help you."
JD sat back again. "Gee thanks, guys," he harumphed.
In chorus: "Shut up, kid."
Chris appeared ill at ease. "Um, do I still get to moan and pule
silently to myself as I
continuously blame myself for every wrong that befalls our company,
drowning myself day in
and day out in a neverending bottle of whiskey, as I try fruitlessly
to escape the memory of the
terrible deaths of my wife and son, which I will not be able to do
until I learn to accept
the fact that I can't protect everybody all of the time, and at which
time I shall stop wearing all
black and maybe try some gray now and then, perhaps a little vermillion
or maybe even indigo?
Is that OK?"
Vin, woozy from his foot wound, which Nathan was busily disinfecting
and bandaging up,
nodded. "Yep, pard. All that and much, much more."
Everyone in the room was smiling now. "Gee , I feel much better," Buck said, grinning broadly.
Chris stood up from his position on the floor and dusted himself off.
"Yeah, me too. I think I'm
going to go drown my everpresent, deep-seated sorrows in a bottle of
rot gut." He headed for the
door.
"Yeah, buddy, I think I'll join you," Buck chimed in, following his friend.
Vin sat back in his chair and let out a sigh of relief. "Thank the Lord," he muttered.
As Chris and Buck strode out the door, Josiah entered once again, brushing
past the two
departing men. His look of excitement was dashed as he saw them
walk away. "Hey, fellas,
wait!" he called after them. "Come back! I had a great metaphor
between rebuilding the church
and man's inhumanity to man that I think just might help this situation!
Come back.....!"
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THE END :)
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