Number 10

[stungunbilly]

Still playing the game. This is number 10, and it tried to take over and turn into a real story, which couldn't be allowed. The rules, for those who care, are as follows.

1. Make up a quote.

2. Write a set of 10 blurbs, each in less than five minutes, each from a different fandom, suggested by the quote.

3. Bonus points for cliched situations.

4. Also bonus points for making it sound as if you know what you're doing.

"The man who would make love to Death finds himself entwined with corruption."

Magnificent 7 AU. Chris and Vin have never met, because Chris shot the wrong man, a man with influence and power. Now Chris is Vin’s bounty.

 

 

 

 

A shower of sparks flew into the air, whirling in a spiral pattern. Vin kicked more dirt over the fire and hunkered down to grasp the water bottle on his bedroll. There was a crackle in his spine, and a burst of pain that reminded him of the twelve hours he’d spent in the saddle today.

 

He lay down and stared into the night sky with its slowly twirling stars, reading his location and his place in the world in its precise language. Far easier to read the writing of God than the writing of men, he figured. All the words said the same, though. Vin was small, had a lot of work to do, and he was on his own. Some day, soon or late, Coyote would come for him.

 

Maybe the final day would be tomorrow. The man he was tracking had a fine skill with a pistol, could be a match for Vin’s own. And no way was Vin going to be able to sneak up on someone who could sense a body coming and shoot him without even turning around. Like the son of the fellow who had hired Vin.

 

He pictured the bounty, as he’d seen him the one time. Tall, fair-haired, well-made with broad shoulders and slim hips. Handsome, in the extreme. Their eyes had met across the room and Vin had heard a humming in his ears like the sound of the air before a storm. It had seemed as if he could smell the man, whisky breath and musky skin, the way he could scent a cougar on the trail from a hundred yards with the wind just right.

 

 The memory caused him to move restlessly, hot and aroused again at just thinking about it. Not the way to think about a quarry, he knew. Man could get himself killed, touching a trigger too slow for lust. And those burnt blue eyes were the eyes of a killer, no question. If only that was all he had seen in them.

 

They were also the eyes of a ghost.

 

Night rolled on, and Vin slept. If he tossed and turned, there was nobody to see him but a few snakes and one lone rabbit. Not far away, a man who might die in the morning listened for the hunter, and shivered with desire of his own.

 

In the distance, Coyote howled.