Faraday can see the way gears turn in Vasquez’s head. Faraday had framed the question as a suggestion – You should go have some fun while the getting’s good – but the instant the words had left his mouth, he had wanted to go bang his head against a wall, or to bury himself into a hole so deep the sunlight might never reach him.
(Because suddenly, he was worried that Vasquez might change his mind, might nod decisively and seek out Josiah’s company, as Faraday had proposed. The thought that Vasquez might say yes made his stomach churn for reasons he can hardly identify.)
Instead, Vasquez answers the question as Faraday had posed it to him. Often, Faraday is hardly concerned with how awkward his probing questions can be, but that was typically because he knew it wouldn’t chase him beyond the edges of town. This time, though, that bare snippet of honest, of earnestness, stuns Faraday into silence, and he stares at Vasquez from across the table.
He’s not sure he ever knew about Vasquez’s fear of responsibility, though Faraday surely relates to it – that strange, heaviness of knowing someone else depends on you, that weight of another person’s life resting on your shoulders. Faraday was certain that on the off-chance that he survived the fight in Rose Creek, he would surely shuck that yoke. But he hasn’t, because he’s still willingly sitting across from Vasquez, isn’t he?
At length, his gaze drops to his plate – still half-full with food, because the conversation has distracted him, has stolen his appetite. He frowns for a second or two before dragging his gaze up to Vasquez, and as the other man suspected, Faraday doesn’t leave it alone.
“What’s there to know?” and he asks it with obvious curiosity, head tilting a little as he watches Vasquez. “Seems to me you’ve been doin’ just fine for yourself.”
no subject
(Because suddenly, he was worried that Vasquez might change his mind, might nod decisively and seek out Josiah’s company, as Faraday had proposed. The thought that Vasquez might say yes made his stomach churn for reasons he can hardly identify.)
Instead, Vasquez answers the question as Faraday had posed it to him. Often, Faraday is hardly concerned with how awkward his probing questions can be, but that was typically because he knew it wouldn’t chase him beyond the edges of town. This time, though, that bare snippet of honest, of earnestness, stuns Faraday into silence, and he stares at Vasquez from across the table.
He’s not sure he ever knew about Vasquez’s fear of responsibility, though Faraday surely relates to it – that strange, heaviness of knowing someone else depends on you, that weight of another person’s life resting on your shoulders. Faraday was certain that on the off-chance that he survived the fight in Rose Creek, he would surely shuck that yoke. But he hasn’t, because he’s still willingly sitting across from Vasquez, isn’t he?
At length, his gaze drops to his plate – still half-full with food, because the conversation has distracted him, has stolen his appetite. He frowns for a second or two before dragging his gaze up to Vasquez, and as the other man suspected, Faraday doesn’t leave it alone.
“What’s there to know?” and he asks it with obvious curiosity, head tilting a little as he watches Vasquez. “Seems to me you’ve been doin’ just fine for yourself.”