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The Magnificent Seven Cats AU: One Day Out West
by Pirate Turner
His green eyes blinked slowly open and then shut tightly against the harsh rays of the sun. Excited female voices reached his pointed ears, and his furry lips curled up into a devious grin. Even feeling as though he was half dead, he could still make the women flock to him. He waited a moment as he heard them moving about, then opened his eyes with a knowing gleam. His mouth opened in surprise as he saw them fleeing the teepee.
Buck stilled. What the Hell was he doing in a teepee? He sat up swiftly, and the world rolled around him. He groaned, pressing a hand to his forehead. At least he wasn't tied down. What had happened? How had he come to be here, in the hands of the enemy?!
Memories flashed through his aching mind. He remembered the terrible fight that had shattered his union with Chris soon after they had lost Sarah. He saw again the pain that had writhed in his emerald eyes and heard once more the fury of his hated words. He recalled, with shame causing his tail to curl around his rear end, how he had left him, screaming words he'd never meant, all in the blinding ache and fury of painful loss.
He mourned again the loss of their partnership even as he remembered how he'd caught wind that Larabee had been in the same little Hellhole he'd wandered into and then finally, fatefully, followed him out to the desert. He'd known what he'd been about and known that he somehow had to stop him, even though he'd always said before that when Chris put his mind to something, there was no stopping him. He felt the stinging blows of the sandstorm throughout his furry body and had just raised a hand to his eye that ached worse than any physical pain he'd felt before -- nothing could hurt worse than Chris ripping his heart out and stampeding over it with his guilt trip -- when a gray hulk of a cat entered the teepee.
Lowering his hand, Buck reopened his eyes and focused his gaze on the stranger. He vaguely remembered seeing him before passing out and, shame flattening his ears and further curling his tail, recalled how he had begged him, begged him for the sake of saving the life of the one man he still cared about. Although, he corrected the thought with a self-depreciating smirk, he had also begged for his own hide to be delivered. The stranger clearly had done so, but why had he brought him here, of all Goddess-forsaken places?!
"Good afternoon," the stranger spoke as he knelt to put himself on the same level as his rescuee. "It has been two suns -- " the tip of his bushy, gray tail flicked as he corrected himself, " -- days since we found you. Tell me, brother, when you feel well enough to do so," he made a gesture to his left, "what were you doing out there in the desert?"
Another tomcat approached him from the left. The black was shorter than the gray with a thinner coat and no visible white whereas the first stranger's green eyes were strangely ringed with white. The black offered Buck a canteen. He had not realized just how thirsty he was nor how dry and aching his throat until he saw the offered water. He enthusiastically grasped the canteen, nearly snatching it from his host's hands, and held it to his lips. He drank long and deep, his mind whirling with questions even as the water cooled. It cooled but could not soothe, and sooner than he would have liked, Buck lowered it from his blistered mouth.
"Where . . . " He paused, surprise widening his green eyes. His mouth hurt terribly, and his voice had come out like a choked squeak. He struggled again to speak, and the words slowly came. "Where . . . is . . . Chris?"
They looked at him blankly at first, and then the gray nodded in understanding. He looked to the black, and his partner sighed. The gray echoed the sigh, his ears laying back against his head, his tail curling around one booted foot, and his green eyes glimmering with disappointment. "I am afraid your friend is preparing to leave at this very moment."
"LEAVE?!" Buck wanted to scream the question, but it left his aching mouth as barely more than a squeak. This time, his word was not even audible to the catmen's preternatural hearing, but his response came through loud and clear in the fierce shock that filled his green eyes.
The black tom sighed again and nodded, his own ears also laid back against his head. "I tried to stop him, to reason with him, but he would not listen to me."
Buck snorted. Chris Larabee didn't listen to anybody, now that Sarah was gone! He threw off his blanket and ran with the black calling directions to him.
Left alone in the teepee, the black looked to his partner with deep concern shining in his green eyes. The gray stretched as he stood, then placed a comforting hand on his best friend's shoulder. "We have done all we can, Nathan. The Lady only helps those who are willing to help themselves or, if they can not, then are willing to let Her in." His tail twitched, and he frowned.
Nathan covered his partner's hand with his own; their fingers entwined as they gazed at the flap to the teepee where they had last seen their mustached friend. "Something tells me that they are not of the latter, Josiah."
Buck ran as though his own life depended on it. His heart hammered against his ribcage, the sound of its frantic beating filling his ears as they swiveled all about in desperate search of any sound of Chris' voice lest he have moved since last the black tomcat had seen him. He passed screeching women, all of whom he had neither time nor interest in, and felt the eyes of his natural enemies boring holes into him. He ignored them all as he ran.
Buck found Chris saddling his horse and took no time to contemplate how their horses had be found and rescued but instead flew in between him and the horse, hissing loudly. The horse bucked but did not kick out. He had long ago grown accustomed to their fights; his bucking was merely his way of showing his disapproval.
Chris glared at Buck. "Get out of my way," he ground out.
"No."
"Move," he growled.
"No," Buck hissed in return, his tail now standing straight up. "I'm not moving, Chris," he said, having to fight against his pain to pronounce each word. "I'm not going anywhere except with you, and ain't either one of us ready to head back out there yet."
"Don't talk for me, Buck, or think you know my mind. You lost that right long time ago."
"I do know your mind, Larabee!" Buck snarled. "I know exactly what your stupid hide is thinking! You wanna go out there and get your butt killed if you don't manage to kill Sarah's killer first!"
"Leave her name out of your mouth!"
"She wasn't your lover, Chris!" Buck exclaimed, tears filling his eyes. "She was just your wife! I was your lover!" The entire village seemed to still at those words, but for once, Buck didn't care. He didn't care who knew the truth of his sexuality or his relationship with his best friend. He didn't give a damn what anybody thought. He only cared about stopping Chris from making what would be a fatal mistake.
Chris paused, staring at him in shock. A long moment drew between them with the men who had once been so close glaring at each other in determined fury. They stood like that, glowering directly into each other's eyes, for minutes, hours . . . It could have even been days. They lost all track of time as memories and unspoken snarls swirled around them, the air so thick with tension and unspoken emotions it could have been cut with a knife. And then, long after, when he'd thought he had no tears left to cry, a single tear slipped from Chris' eye, rolled down his furry cheek, and splashed to the ground that suddenly felt so far below. "She loved me, Buck. I loved her, not like that, but . . . but . . . I . . . I let her down . . . "
"Oh, Chris." Buck moved toward him, opening his arms wide. "Don't you see? You didn't let her down. You were everything you could have been for her."
"Everything but what she needed at the end."
"You didn't kill her."
"I might as well have."
"But you didn't. You -- " That was when Buck made the mistake of trying to touch Chris. Larabee swung, his fist slamming into Buck's jaw and sending him staggering back.
"Don't. Ever. Touch. Me. Again. She'd still be alive if it wasn't for you, for us!" As Buck struggled to recover, Chris swiftly finished saddling his horse, but as he grasped his reins, Buck's voice came again from just behind him.
"I'm sorry, Chris." His doubled fists slammed into the back of the ebony tom's head, and Chris saw black even more he fell to the ground. Buck stood over him with tears shimmering in his eyes. "I ain't letting ya go, baby. I can't."
He picked him up and carried him back through the village. He ignored the curious looks he drew and found the strangers who had undoubtedly orchestrated their rescue waiting for him at the teepee. The gray tomcat silently opened the flap. Buck walked in, laid Chris down on to the cot, and settled in to wait. Chris was determined to give up his life and would fight like the Hellcat he was to win what he thought he wanted, but Buck was just as determined to keep him alive.
Outside the tent, Josiah and Nathan stood, hand in hand, their eyes drawn to the sky and the setting sun. They lowered their heads in deep respect, their tails furled, and Josiah spoke in his deep, rumbling voice. "Thanks be to Our Lady." Bast was a Goddess of many things but, most of all, of love, and he now felt assured that She would see the troubled duo through their trying time and into a better and brighter future. He wondered what the future would hold for the quarreling ex-lovers, never dreaming that he and his own partner would come to play a much larger role in both their lives than he would have ever expected.
The End