quinientos | for peacemakers

It might be a joke and it might be sarcastic, but that passes by his drunken mind as he peers blearily at Faraday, leaning forward and falling over himself, managing to prevent his face from slamming into the dust with the heel of his boot pressed firmly in. "You are," he agrees, too passionately. "No one would ever put up with me the way you do, because you, you're just as bad as I am," he says, letting his fingers flicker between the two of them.

He reaches for his cup to take another long sip, but then remembers it's empty. Making a whiny noise, he settles it behind him and lifts up his hat to run his fingers through his hair, scratching at the back of his head, like he's trying to remember something he'd meant to say, but then forgot.

Right, they're talking about their company. "Sometimes," he says, and at least on this bordering state of drunkenness, his English starts to slip. "Me gusta estar contigo demasiado. Se supone que no quiero esas cosas, sobre todo porque me matarías por ello, he rambles, waving his hand in lazy circles. Shoulders sloping forward, he has to remind himself to sit up straight, fumbling through his things so that he can find some of the day-old bread from yesterday, fingers fumbling to split it apart to offer the other half to Faraday.

Guilt spikes through him again as Vasquez continues on. (Briefly, Faraday wonders if he’s ever like this when he’s drunk, though there’s little chance of this ever serving as a wake-up call for him.) The man is drunk, and he’s clearly spouting off information to which Faraday shouldn’t be privy; then again, that was without a doubt the kindest thing Vasquez has ever said to him, for all that it sounded like some sort of backhanded compliment and self-deprecation wrapped up in one, and he tucks the information away for later.

He watches as Vasquez sways, as he stumbles over his words, all with a faint sort of amusement on his face. When Vasquez continues on in his native tongue, Faraday’s nose wrinkles.

“I got no idea what you just said,” he tells the other man cheerfully, though Faraday grants that’s probably for the best. The outlaw’s already shared far more than he intended to share. Faraday watches, chin propped up by his palm and cup of whiskey balanced on his knee, as Vasquez rummages through his rations and produces the bread. Faraday holds up his free hand, refusing the offer. “You eat it. Maybe it’ll sop up all that liquor you got in your gut.”

"Good, I'm very drunk," he tells Faraday seriously, as if this is something that he can't tell for himself with his own two eyes. He keeps the bread for himself, staring at it for a long moment like he's trying to puzzle it out, before chewing at it using both hands, stuffing his cheeks like a chipmunk before swallowing it back, trying to bypass the dizzy feeling swarming him, making him think and want stupid things. Then again, he wants them when he's sober, he's just better at hiding them.

"I got too drunk," he says, which is as close to apology as Faraday is going to get. Unfortunately, he's still a little too hazy to know what's a thought and what's out loud, which is why as he sprawls next to the fire, pushing another log onto it, what slips out isn't meant to, but does anyway. "Would've been better if I wasn't so jealous, it's like a wet cat, like you say," he says with a gesture to him, continuing to gnaw on the bread.

Narrowing his eyes, he sits up a little sharply when he tracks back over his words, thinking no, no, no, and startled into silence. No, he wouldn't have noticed. It's Faraday, he has no eye for that sort of thing, he hasn't been suspicious. It's fine, it will be fine, he tells himself.

“I’m certainly seein’ that,” Faraday replies with a laugh – which is his way of accepting the bare apology – and he watches Vasquez with undisguised amusement. The sun is well and truly gone, by now, and the fire sheds the both of them in a warm glow. The heat of the day still lingers in the dirt, in the rocks, but nightfall brings with it a bare, cool breeze.

Vasquez continues on – because of course he does; too much time at the bottle makes them both chatty bastards – and Faraday’s eyebrows rise when Vasquez mentions being jealous. It quickly turns into a frown, and he wonders what the hell would Vasquez have to be jealous of. Years and years sitting at card tables means that Faraday’s a fair hand at reading people, at observing their body language. The way Vasquez tenses, the way he jolts up like he’s been struck by lightning, tells Faraday that the man realizes he’s shared more than he meant to. Faraday studies him by the orange cast of the fire, trying to puzzle out what Vasquez could possibly mean.

Faraday can spot these things, sure, but actually interpreting things is an entirely different matter.

For a few seconds, Faraday chews over the words, confused. It could easily be explained away as the ramblings of a drunkard, but Vasquez has been in one hell of a state since Faraday returned. Curiosity makes him want to get to the core of things.

“Why would you be jealous?” he asks slowly. His own eyes narrow as he continues watching the other man. He pauses again before asking, “Is it ‘cause I can go into town, and you can’t?”

Not that many of the places they visit to resupply are much to look at.

"Yes," Vasquez lies, through his teeth, and if he were sober, he might even have done it well. He'd spent a long time as an outlaw thieving and hiding and lying, to the point that he got very good at it, but he's been softened up now by being around so many other people. He knows that he's in no state to lie the way he used to, so when he lies now, he worries it's not very convincing. "Yes," he keeps going, because he's already committed to this rabbit hole.

"It's because I can't. You can, that's, it's that," he says, like if he seizes on that hard enough, it's going to help his case instead of making it worse. He tears off another bite of bread with his teeth, chewing and swallowing while not taking his eyes off Faraday, hoping that he's buying this.

Breathing out like he's managed to get away with it, he leans back to let his hat topple off and fall onto his pack, digging through to put away the bottle and drag out a jacket he'd yanked off one of the many dead men in Rose Creek before they'd left. He yanks it over his shoulders as he slumps down, aware that he's sulking like a child, all because he's an idiot who drank too much because...

Ugh, he can barely even think it when he's sober, but drunk, he knows why. He'd missed Faraday's company. He'd been jealous of another woman's hands and lips and smell all over him, like he's some pathetic touch-starved child. Burying his nose in the jacket, he wishes that all of that weren't true, but it is.

Faraday watches Vasquez’s denial with that same fond amusement, and when he seems to curl in on himself, moping, Faraday barks out a laugh.

“That’s a goddamn lie,” Faraday announces around an incredulous grin, though he hardly knows why Vasquez feels the need to lie in the first place.

The bastard is nearly drunk off his ass, Faraday recognizes that much, but the tantrum he’s throwing is almost endearing. It’s also peculiar and unexpected, to be sure, and if it lasts too much longer “endearing” may transform into “irritating,” but for now Faraday continues to watch him with a warm, crooked smile. He doesn’t expect Vasquez will be much help in helping to unravel this mystery, so Faraday continues to think aloud.

“Not ‘cause of my going into town, then,” he says thoughtfully. His jaw moves slightly to one side as he considers Vasquez, who continues to hide in his jacket like some moody tortoise. Faraday tugs at the jacket’s sleeve – not with enough force to dislodge it, but certainly enough to be a nuisance.

“C’mon on out of there, Vas,” Faraday says. “If you’re gonna make me guess at this, the least you can do is actually answer me when I’m talkin’ to you.”

Vasquez groans as Faraday tugs at the sleeve of his coat and coaxes him out. He pushes it off of himself, but he's still making faces that are more than clear with his hat set aside, not crossing his arms petulantly, but feeling like he's fairly close. "I told you it was going into town," he feels compelled to stubbornly cling onto, even though he's a piss poor liar when he's drunk and even he didn't believe himself when he'd said the words.

He drags the jacket off of him and stretches out one leg beside the fire, heart beating hard for the fear that Faraday might actually latch onto the truth. He's still holding out hope that's not going to happen, but he's getting too curious.

Best to distract him, then. "Drink some more," he encourages, because if he can get Faraday drunk enough, then maybe he'll stop caring about Vasquez's big mouth and confessing that he's jealous of someone else getting their hands all over Faraday, not to mention sucking up his time.

When Vasquez tries to keep up the pretense, Faraday snorts out another laugh and cheerfully says, “That’s complete and utter bullshit, and we both know it.”

After all, the two of them are stubborn, contrary creatures. If not being able to wander into and out of towns had been the real source of whatever’s aggravating Vasquez as it is, Faraday expects Vasquez would have denied it for much longer. As it stands, Vasquez agreed far too quickly – a sure sign that the easy agreement was a cover for the genuine truth. At the very least, he managed to coax Vasquez out of his self-imposed shell, and Faraday flashes him a crooked grin.

At Vasquez’s suggestion, Faraday brushes him off with a wave of his hand. “Stop tryin’ to distract me, you surly bastard,” and despite the words, his voice is good-natured. Faraday freely admits he has a terrible habit of sticking his nose where it’s not wanted, but it’s only gotten him into trouble a few dozen times.

(“Only.”)

“What is it? You jealous that I stopped off at the saloon? Got a couple drinks?” Solitary lifestyle that Vasquez has led, Faraday figures it’s less about freedom and more about getting to shoot the shit with a new set of faces. “Or are you jealous about me getting’ a couple games in? Or—”

Faraday cuts off, stricken by an idea like a bolt of lightning. He studies Vasquez for another second, still with that warm curl of amusement, and he ventures, “Is it ‘cause of Henrietta? ‘Cause I got the attentions of a lovely lady and you didn’t?”

Here's the trouble. Faraday has offered him the perfect out because he's not so far off the mark. It's true that he's managed to focus in on what Vasquez is feeling unsettled and jealous over, but if he's not careful, then the truth is going to come out and one of those beautiful peacemakers that Faraday holds so dear is likely to shoot parts of him clean off.

Why does Faraday have to look so charming and handsome when he's being an annoying son of a bitch? That's what Vasquez wants to know. Instead of answering right away, Vasquez keeps his face steely and sombre, though it's not hard when Faraday is inching so close to the truth.

"Yes," he says, and this is truthful and aching for it. "Yes, it was because of the saloon." Still true, still able to say it even though he's drunk and lonely and stupid. Scoffing, he shakes his head as he leans forward to dig a cigarette out of his pocket, searching for his matches. "That there were attentions to be had in the saloon, sometimes, it puts me in a mood." No lie given, no truth shown either. Vasquez nods to himself at a job well done as he strikes the match.

He observes Vasquez, eyes narrowed and unblinking – not the gaze he uses at card tables, but the gaze he uses in the seconds before a duel, watchful and wary and waiting for that twitch of movement that signals the other man means to draw. Whatever it is that Faraday reads seems to satisfy him, and Faraday sits up. He almost looks smug, having apparently driven to the heart of the matter.

“There,” he says with a crooked, self-satisfied smile. “Was that so difficult, admitting that?”

But Vasquez seems to be sinking back into the dark waters of that mood again, and Faraday leans over, poking Vasquez in the arm.

“You coulda come with me, you know,” Faraday says breezily. “Small town like that, I doubt anyone would recognize you in the slightest.” Faraday pauses, then continues on with a shit-eating grin, “And if you walk in with me, I doubt anyone would look at you twice.”

Vasquez scowls when Faraday reprimands him like that, like it's so easy for him to admit to something that wound up being a lie anyway, but he's grateful that the topic is being dropped. Lighting up his smoke properly, he lets it dangle between two fingers, blowing out smoke with derision at Faraday's suggestion. "For one, guapo, I'm much handsomer than you," he starts with a glint of mischief and amusement in his eyes.

One day, Faraday is going to meet another Spanish speaker who's willing to translate all of Vasquez's little endearments and then he will be in deep shit, but for now, he enjoys this.

"And two, if I did that, someone would end up shot," he guarantees, not sure whether it would be a warning shot to one of the girls, someone who might sell him out, or Faraday himself for being so stupidly frustrating. He takes off his hat and runs the fingers of his free hand through his hair, reclining back on one elbow. "You really think that I would be so ignored?" Hand over his heart, he clucks his tongue. "You're hurting my feelings, guero."

The nickname, whatever the hell it means, earns Vasquez a flat, irritated look. Given that Vasquez refuses to translate all of these names he throws at Faraday, Faraday has to assume they're insults. Guero, guerito, guapo, querido. One of these days, Faraday's going to track down someone who can translate all of those little barbs, and Faraday's reasonably sure when he finds out what they all mean, he's going to give Vasquez exactly what's coming to him.

But Vasquez's prediction draws a snorted laugh from Faraday, and he smirks. While Faraday still thinks they could get away with slipping into the smaller towns without that $500 bounty hounding them, he'll fully grant that the two of them tended to attract trouble in their own ways.

He glances over at the other man's teasing, and he's stricken, for a brief moment, by the thought that Vasquez looks good like that, laid out with his hair mussed, face ruddy with whiskey. It's a peculiar thought that he pushes away quickly enough, but that the idea manifested in his head is odd enough to catch him off-balance.

He recovers quickly, rolling his eyes at Vasquez's little act.

"You're not so bad," Faraday says archly, and he spreads his arms with a showman's grace. "Just pointin' out that if you were set next to me, you'd barely have a chance."

Vasquez is still drunk enough that he's swaying a little, the bread not absorbing up all of the alcohol the way he wants it to, which is why when Faraday makes his little promise, Vasquez doesn't see it as a statement, it's challenge. "Then, let's see," he says, full of stupid tonight, apparently. Face hot, body warmed with liquor and want, Vasquez is laid out and not even noticing Faraday's half-compliment.

"If you think this town, it is safe for me, then tomorrow, you take me into town," he says, a thrill bolting through him at even that possibility. "I will show you how charming I can be," he guarantees. "Querido," he mock-croons, stupid and idiotic and latching stubbornly onto a challenge, "I'm going to make such a fool of you when I prove that I could have twice your chances if I really wanted."

Faraday watches Vasquez flop around like a half-dead fish out of water, and he can't help but be entertained by the sight, snorting out a laugh. Vasquez is absolutely throwing a wager his way, and Faraday's always had a nasty habit of taking most bets that come away, assuming they're interesting enough.

"Only fool right now is you, amigo," Faraday says, voice warm and amused in spite of the insult. "Way you're goin' on now, you're gonna get yourself shot in the head, even without that bounty on your neck."

He reaches over, plucking up Vasquez's hat and dropping it on the other man's face.

"Sleep off that liquor," he instructs the other man. He adds with a faint edge of exasperation, "And quit callin' me those names if you're not gonna tell me what they mean. You're gettin' on my last nerve."

"You could always ask someone," Vasquez stupidly says behind the hat, batting it off with a clumsy push of his fingers, nearly faceplanting in the dirt as a result, but he manages to get his feet back under himself (or his back) in time to glower petulantly at Faraday, now that his hair is even more of a mess. Still, as he drags up his jacket like a blanket, he thinks that maybe sleep isn't the worst idea in the world.

"How do you know chingato, but not querido." He's mumbling to himself, now, because deep down, he doesn't really want Faraday to know about this. Then he won't get to say it anymore. Other worse things, like being shot, but also the lack of subtle flirting. Even as he lays down to curl up against the dying heat of the fire, he's mumbling, mostly in Spanish, eyes heavy with drink. "Can't believe you've tricked me into this," he mumbles, where 'this' is a boyish stirring of interest and excitement the way he hasn't felt since his first lonely days on a ranch so far away from other people.

His soft, hushed mumblings fade as he falls asleep, but every once in a while, his body gives little kicks like he's still awake. Worse, he hasn't stopped speaking out loud. The sounds and mumbles are soft, barely heard things, but he's always vocal when he's been drinking. What's unfortunate is that he's also stupid. Writhing, he curls up against the jacket into a ball, inhaling sharply and nosing at the fringes.

Clearly, from his lips, there's a soft exhalation of a name. It's not loud, not even full, but very clearly someone's that's sitting right with him, said with clear fondness and an undercurrent of want, just the beginnings of, "Fara..." before it trails off into silence, Vasquez then muttering, "Stop dancing with bullets," grumpily. Silence, then, but soon enough, there's a sound that can't be mistaken. If he were awake, he might have stormed away to save the embarrassment. As it is, sleeping means he can only lie there awash in his dreams and let his clear moan of want echo in their little campsite, hips arching forward and making it very clear that he's dreaming of something in particular.

Vasquez drifts away to sleep, and Faraday huffs out a laugh. The ornery bastard always was good at slipping away into sleep, and it seems the drink only helped to grease that particular transition.

Faraday watches him for a moment or two, a strange, warm curl of fondness twisting in his chest, before he takes his own advice and turns in for the evening. (They apparently have a big day tomorrow, considering Faraday will be turning up the charm, drawing attention away from Vasquez – both to keep anyone from recognizing the man from the wanted posters and to win their stupid little wager.)

Later in the evening, with the fire burning low and the sky dark above them, Faraday slowly wakes. He's always been something of a light sleeper – it's one of the many facets that have gone into keeping him alive all these years. He's not sure what it is that wakes him, and in the dim light, he looks to where the horses are hitched. If there were danger, Jack would be on high alert, would have his ears swiveled forward, tail lashing sharply. Instead, Jack seems relaxed, and he watches Faraday with large, lazy eyes.

Not danger, then. No approaching bandits or wild animals, at least, and Faraday rubs sleep from his eyes, sitting up. He hears it, then, Vasquez's sleepy voice, shaping his name, and Faraday snorts out a laugh at himself, feeling silly for having been woken up by Vasquez's nighttime murmurings. Faraday shuffles down a little, preparing to get back to sleep, except—

The sound Vasquez makes this time makes Faraday's gaze snap to him, and the quiet rasp of dirt as Vasquez's body moves makes Faraday sit up a little straighter. This is... new. This is odd, and for as often as Faraday touts his ability to adapt, this has him at a bit of a loss.

For a few, long moments, Faraday sits there uncertainly, chewing on the inside of his cheek. At length, he heaves out a sigh and reaches out, grasping Vasquez by the shoulder.

"Hey, you noisy bastard," because it's easier to frame this as annoyance to save both of them some face. "Wake up."

Vasquez has been in the middle of steamy, hazy dreams that usually happen when he's drunk. He's also usually smarter than to drink so much when Faraday is around, because he knows what happens when his defenses start to lower. Those things he buries start to rise up and when they do, it's bad. His snoring gives way to speaking, to sounds, to names, and it's all the liquor's fault.

He comes awake at the grab of his shoulder, hand immediately reaching for his gun. He's halfway to grabbing it when he realizes that Faraday is the one shaking him away. Cheeks reddening, he's grateful he's mostly face down, because he definitely has a very pressing morning problem happening right now. He drags his jacket over his torso, trying to subtly push it lower, blearily peering at Faraday with one open eye, feeling the hangover start to settle behind his eyes.

"What?" he demands, grumpy at having been woken up, especially now that the haze of that very nice dream about clever fingers and wicked tongues has evaporated and he's back to reality.

Faraday, in the meanwhile, can feel color creeping up his own neck. He isn't the type to embarrass easily by any means, but this situation is distinctly—

Well. It's distinctly peculiar, and Faraday can certainly say he's never faced as unique a problem as this.

"You were makin' enough noise to rouse the dead," he grumbles, gaze darting away to the campfire – now little more than a few dying flames and embers. For a man who typically always had some quip at the ready, Faraday finds it difficult to collect his thoughts or to find something particularly witty to say.

Vasquez is still bleary with sleep, rubbing his eyes and staring at Faraday for a long moment, but as he slowly starts to wake up, he's also beginning to see that something is clearly wrong. The colour in his neck, the way he won't make eye contact, and his general quiet means that something is wrong.

Dread begins to sink in his heart because he has a bad feeling he knows why. "Was I talking in my sleep?" he asks, his heart pounding louder in his ears, making it hard to hear anything but the pulsing of his panic. He knows what he'd been dreaming (and is glad that his panic had stemmed any flagging interest in other parts of his body), but if he'd been making the sounds and noises he thinks he might have been...

His gun is too far, but he sits up slowly, not sure if he's going to need to run or fight, but he's on high alert. "Faraday, I..." He can't say he didn't mean to. He can't say that he doesn't want it, not without being caught in a lie. "I didn't mean you to hear anything," he settles on, because there is the truth.

Faraday fidgets a little, wishing he had a deck of cards in his hand as an outlet for the nervous energy bubbling beneath the surface of his skin – just something to do with his hands instead of clenching them into fists.

This is wholly awkward. Faraday isn’t in the habit of feeling wrong-footed, except this current situation certainly has him floundering. When Vasquez sits up, Faraday’s gaze unconsciously darts to him, and when he sees the growing mortification on the other man’s face, turning his entire frame rigid, Faraday winces, straightening up a little.

He licks his lips, fixes his expression into a well-practiced blank mask – the mask he wears at card tables, when stakes are high, and he’s trying to bluff his way through with a gutshot straight. (The same mask he wore while he knelt in the grass in front of the Gatling gun, bluffing his way through lighting a stick of dynamite with a half-dozen gutshots spilling fresh blood into the dirt.)

“There was nothing to hear,” he lies with an easy shrug. “You were spoutin’ off some shit Mexican. Didn’t understand a word.”

(Faraday’s usual go-to solution for problems that feel too big? Running from them. Or lying about them.

Today’s solution is apparently the latter.)

Vasquez isn't sure that he believes him. For one, it's very likely that he might have been moaning on in Spanish, but Faraday's name is still his name, which doesn't change between languages. "Spanish," is his absentminded retort, carrying a little (but not a lot) of heat in it, because he's still not entirely sure what's happening between his grogginess and his unsureness about whether or not Faraday is telling the truth.

"You're sure that I..." he shuts himself up after a moment, because if Faraday is going to give him an out like this, he should take it. Besides, isn't this just more clear of a point that he needs to keep it to himself? This is not the sort of thing that will be well-taken, is clear, and even though he can feel the disappointment sinking in his chest, he's made his peace with it.

Rubbing a hand over his face, he tries not to let any of that show either, even though he thinks maybe it lingers in the eyes. "Did you wake me up and there's no breakfast?" he complains, trying to shake off the drink and the dreams and the lingering reminder of Faraday's friends in town and how they're going to see them because of a stupid challenge.

Faraday waits, shoulders tense in spite of the relaxed way he seems to lounge. He’s never run into a problem like this, not while he’s still uncertain as to the name of that what that weird, warm coil in his chest whenever Vasquez is involved. He’s not quite ready to face this, whatever this is, and more than that— well, he can’t read much into this, can he? Men had odd dreams, and just because Vasquez was having odd dreams – seemingly about Faraday – didn’t exactly mean there was anything meaningful to it.

Vasquez falters, and Faraday forces himself to maintain his gaze, tries to force down the blush still warming his neck, the tips of his ears, and he can write that off as awkwardness at catching Vasquez in the throes of that same dream. And when Vasquez changes the topic at last, Faraday relaxes by slow, incremental degrees, hands relaxing from tight fists, shoulders dropping slightly.

“I woke you up ‘cause I was tryin’ to sleep,” he cuts back, though there’s only a hint of his usual exasperation; his tone largely reads as relieved. “I’m getting’ back to bed while it’s still dark out. You’re more than welcome to see about your own breakfast.”

"I want no breakfast, I want to go back to my dreams," Vasquez says grumpily, in enough of a mood that he says that instead of just hinting around the topic. He hauls at his coat again, even though he doesn't lay down just yet, because he doesn't want to go back to sleep now that he's past paranoid about the things he might say.

"Go back to sleep, querido," Vasquez sighs, rubbing a hand over his face, aware that this is going to come to a head some day. He knows he could take a horse, pack his things, escape now, but he's too selfish to want to give up a single moment when he doesn't have to.

Lying back down, he positions himself so that he can face Faraday only a little, in such a way that he sees only a sliver of him like this. "Next time, let me sleep. If this is so you think you can win our bet, you won't," he promises. "I am going to be the one with victory."

Faraday can’t help but snort out a laugh at that, relaxing more and more when Vasquez seems disinclined to discuss what, exactly, Vasquez was dreaming. (Not that Faraday is completely clueless – it would take a complete fool to see and hear what Faraday had and not figure out where Vasquez’s dreams had wandered.) The gears in Faraday’s mind spin wildly, though, with the revelation of this particular facet, and Faraday tries to think back – have there been signs? Or was this merely an odd, one-time dream?

He settles back down, pulling his blanket around himself, and frowning up at the night sky. It’s still dark, as Faraday had pointed out earlier, but sunrise isn’t too far off, by his reckoning. He huffs out a sigh, glancing over as Vasquez continues to grouse.

The reminder of their little wager elicits a quick frown, but it’s smoothed away one of Faraday’s usual devil-may-care smirks.

“Keep tellin’ yourself that, amigo,” he says, with an obvious lilt of amusement. “Night, Vas.”

For all that he talks about going back to sleep, he stays awake and fakes it until he's sure that Faraday is out like a light. He doesn't want to risk any more moaned names, or worse, his body gravitating back to him in the middle of the night selfishly seeking heat. He sighs, aware that this is a problem for him to address, one that's been lingering since those early days of sitting at Faraday's bedside, but it always seemed easy to ignore.

Now, with jealousy hot in his head from the girl and the drinking, he's not sure he could stand it to watch it happen for real. Once he's sure Faraday is out, he starts to move around the camp again, leaning into the wager with the new intention to win.

There's no reason for him to be jealous if he can draw all the attention away from Faraday. He ducks behind some of their things and changes into a spare set of clothes, black button-down shirt (he'd stolen it on the road, after seeing how good it looked on Sam), a pair of slick calf-skin leathers, and his usual boots. He uses the dull reflective surface of one of the canteens to use some of the oil in his hair and beard, make it glossy and curly and shiny as he pushes them back.

He even takes one of the razors to his cheeks, cleans himself up a little. When they get to town, maybe he can see about washing his hands up, splashing rosewater on their face, but by the time he has breakfast out (not much more than bread and jerky), he feels like he's going to win. Passing Faraday, he gives him a light prod with the toe of his boot. "Awake, Faraday," he demands. "Breakfast so we can head into town."

for peacemakers

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i'm so sorry for the delay; feel free to ignore if this is too old

are you kidding? I literally gasped with glee when I saw this, I'd love to con't!

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