He's started to measure time in how long it takes to heal wounds. His arm? Not at all long, it's a blink of an eye. The Gatling gun tore strips through muscle and flesh, but quick enough, it was back to normal. In the time it takes to do that, Faraday doesn't really do much healing at all, but it's a miracle that he's still alive. For all the prayers Vasquez gives, he doesn't know why God decided to listen to this one, saving Billy and Jack, Goodnight and Faraday.
He knows he doesn't have to sit around and fuss, but the town's people have better things to do and he doesn't want to subject anyone to Faraday's healing if they don't need to be. At first, he does it out of obligation. Truthfully, the man might be an annoying cabron, but Vasquez also likes to give as much as he gets and Faraday never flinched on that. It had been good, nice, having a guerito to tease and push at. Over the time while he healed, Vasquez started to realize that maybe, just maybe, the ill will didn't run so deep.
Maybe there was something else he's been ignoring, too, something too difficult to explain. It's the something that flickers poorly when he thinks of Faraday being dead. It's the something that twitches when he thinks of Faraday leaving town without him.
Today, though, is a day for only good things. The local doctor has said that after a long period of rest and recuperation, they're willing to allow Faraday to go his own way. Vasquez should be happy, yes? Instead, he's smoking his third cigar of the day compulsively as he sits in the chair of Faraday's healing room, not sure what he's going to do next, but also not sure that he wants to look so desperate that he's willing to throw his hat into whatever direction Faraday chooses to ride in.
"Sam, I think he says he'll take you," Vasquez comments, staring down at the burning tip of the cigar, letting his hat keep his eyes from giving too much away, "if you wanted to go with him." Vasquez had been thinking of it, but no. Sam deals with too many bounty hunters, that's a path he can't cross, not if he wants to keep his head. "Careful, though, he might blackmail you with another horse. Look how that wound up," he jokes darkly.
The road is not like Vasquez remembers. For one, it's strange to have someone to wield a pistol whenever someone decides to look too close at Vasquez and not have to watch his own back all the time. Another, he maybe has some bad habits that he's not shaking so easy. He snores at night, wakes easy, doesn't like to share food, and definitely not cigarettes. The good of being with someone outweighs the frustrating, maybe because it's Faraday. There's difficult, too.
When he wakes up on the cusp of sleep and hazily stares across his bedroll through the embers to see the pale glow of them against Faraday's slack, sleeping face, and the loneliness and ache of not touching hits him like the handle of one of his Marias. When that happens, he digs out a cigarette, reminds himself that a bullet in the chamber is better than one in his head, and if he wants this, he keeps his hands to himself.
It doesn't mean that he is perfect. Far from it. This is what he finds when he ends up sending Faraday to town, because Vasquez has eaten the last of their food a whole week earlier than they were supposed to run out. Good timing, too, because the food and cigarettes could use more, not to mention some more ...personal supplies, because maybe Vasquez doesn't like to enjoy the pain. He can't go into town, not with his face so prominent on posters, so he's sent in Faraday with coins while he tends to the small camp outside the town, shoving the last of the beans into the pot to cook them up so they can go with the last of the whiskey.
Soon, though, the beans are starting to burn and Vasquez feels a twinge of worry when Faraday still isn't there over the horizon. His things, mostly, are still all around. He won't just run, would he? No, Vasquez tells himself, no, he's being paranoid and ridiculous. Taking the food from the pot, he slops them into one of the tin cups and hunches over to eat, drinking the rest of Faraday's whiskey almost vindictively because he isn't back yet.
It's really just bad timing that Faraday is back soon after and Vasquez knows how much things are different because he actually feels just a little guilty that he'd drank the last of the whiskey straight from Faraday's flask (still clasped between his fingers, loosely dangling). "They didn't shoot you. You must have been extra charming."
If you asked Vasquez how any of this could be possible, he wouldn't know how to answer. How could his wildest fantasies have started to creep into reality? How can he have known how the feel of Faraday's lips on his are, the way his body responds to his hands curling over him. Faraday hasn't stopped being a stubborn idiot, but now Vasquez laughs a little more at his ridiculous jokes, can't stop staring at him when they sleep or rise, curls in as close to him out in the wilderness. Even when he's irritated with him, he finds it boils over sooner because there are new ways for them to stop bickering.
He finds himself grinning like an idiot more, which he tries to control every time they're on the road and he catches a glimpse of Faraday, maybe stares too long. One thing that hasn't been very ideal is the situation they have with the hard ground under their backs of the road. For safety's sake, he knows that outside of Rose Creek, this is what has to happen, but after enough time that he hasn't been able to feel like they have privacy or comfort, he snaps.
"That town we passed yesterday, I think we should go back to it," he says stubbornly, as he doesn't want to have one more night on the ground. As warm as he can get curling up for body heat, it's not enough for him, and more than that, he's craving the privacy of a door, the softness of a bed, and the chance to have time to themselves.
(What he isn't remembering is how there had been a steady presence of warrant officers in towns recently, that other than Rose Creek which is too far away, nothing is truly safe for him)
He's not thinking about any of that, though. His only thought is of what they can get up to with just a little privacy.
If anyone had ever thought that Vasquez had grown out of his cowardly ways, they'd be really fucking wrong.
He'd slipped away from Faraday in the dead of the night while he'd still been sleeping, taking the time to pen a note of apology to him, even if he couldn't figure out much more to say than the blunt reminder of why it was never going to work (not without putting it in words, though, because he can't admit this is his fault), that he's sorry, and that this is better.
He doesn't tell Faraday where he plans to go. He wants to give Faraday a fresh start, so he doesn't have to worry about an outlaw and all the trouble that one brings. In the end, he leans down to brush a kiss to Faraday's temple, tucks the note in with Faraday's flask, and walks off, his black eye not the worst bruise when his heart feels like it's been pummeled until he's exhausted. He has itchy eyes and the road is a blur for a long time, right up until he makes his decision. Rose Creek, he knows he can be safe there and in the process of rebuilding, he thinks he can find a farm to hide out on.
It will be terrible, it will be trapped, but he can go into town with security, he can make friends, he can have a life. It just isn't the life he'd wanted. Each day since he's been back, he dodges Emma's questions about where he's been. He ignores the flirting that the widows offer, and he spends his time working on the farm and trying to forget what he left behind.
Still, he dreams of Faraday every night. He wakes from fantasies with a moan on his lips, the familiar ghostly weight of Faraday's body on top of him in the dream, but not there when he wakes. He feels himself ache with it, but this is the choice he's made to stay alive and to give Faraday a shot at a real life.
Maybe, one day, he'll even feel like he did the right thing.
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He knows he doesn't have to sit around and fuss, but the town's people have better things to do and he doesn't want to subject anyone to Faraday's healing if they don't need to be. At first, he does it out of obligation. Truthfully, the man might be an annoying cabron, but Vasquez also likes to give as much as he gets and Faraday never flinched on that. It had been good, nice, having a guerito to tease and push at. Over the time while he healed, Vasquez started to realize that maybe, just maybe, the ill will didn't run so deep.
Maybe there was something else he's been ignoring, too, something too difficult to explain. It's the something that flickers poorly when he thinks of Faraday being dead. It's the something that twitches when he thinks of Faraday leaving town without him.
Today, though, is a day for only good things. The local doctor has said that after a long period of rest and recuperation, they're willing to allow Faraday to go his own way. Vasquez should be happy, yes? Instead, he's smoking his third cigar of the day compulsively as he sits in the chair of Faraday's healing room, not sure what he's going to do next, but also not sure that he wants to look so desperate that he's willing to throw his hat into whatever direction Faraday chooses to ride in.
"Sam, I think he says he'll take you," Vasquez comments, staring down at the burning tip of the cigar, letting his hat keep his eyes from giving too much away, "if you wanted to go with him." Vasquez had been thinking of it, but no. Sam deals with too many bounty hunters, that's a path he can't cross, not if he wants to keep his head. "Careful, though, he might blackmail you with another horse. Look how that wound up," he jokes darkly.
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pitching camp - weeks later
When he wakes up on the cusp of sleep and hazily stares across his bedroll through the embers to see the pale glow of them against Faraday's slack, sleeping face, and the loneliness and ache of not touching hits him like the handle of one of his Marias. When that happens, he digs out a cigarette, reminds himself that a bullet in the chamber is better than one in his head, and if he wants this, he keeps his hands to himself.
It doesn't mean that he is perfect. Far from it. This is what he finds when he ends up sending Faraday to town, because Vasquez has eaten the last of their food a whole week earlier than they were supposed to run out. Good timing, too, because the food and cigarettes could use more, not to mention some more ...personal supplies, because maybe Vasquez doesn't like to enjoy the pain. He can't go into town, not with his face so prominent on posters, so he's sent in Faraday with coins while he tends to the small camp outside the town, shoving the last of the beans into the pot to cook them up so they can go with the last of the whiskey.
Soon, though, the beans are starting to burn and Vasquez feels a twinge of worry when Faraday still isn't there over the horizon. His things, mostly, are still all around. He won't just run, would he? No, Vasquez tells himself, no, he's being paranoid and ridiculous. Taking the food from the pot, he slops them into one of the tin cups and hunches over to eat, drinking the rest of Faraday's whiskey almost vindictively because he isn't back yet.
It's really just bad timing that Faraday is back soon after and Vasquez knows how much things are different because he actually feels just a little guilty that he'd drank the last of the whiskey straight from Faraday's flask (still clasped between his fingers, loosely dangling). "They didn't shoot you. You must have been extra charming."
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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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god i'm the worst, i'm so sorry i keep taking so long
it's all good! I only got back from vacay mid-last week too!
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Catching Trouble
He finds himself grinning like an idiot more, which he tries to control every time they're on the road and he catches a glimpse of Faraday, maybe stares too long. One thing that hasn't been very ideal is the situation they have with the hard ground under their backs of the road. For safety's sake, he knows that outside of Rose Creek, this is what has to happen, but after enough time that he hasn't been able to feel like they have privacy or comfort, he snaps.
"That town we passed yesterday, I think we should go back to it," he says stubbornly, as he doesn't want to have one more night on the ground. As warm as he can get curling up for body heat, it's not enough for him, and more than that, he's craving the privacy of a door, the softness of a bed, and the chance to have time to themselves.
(What he isn't remembering is how there had been a steady presence of warrant officers in towns recently, that other than Rose Creek which is too far away, nothing is truly safe for him)
He's not thinking about any of that, though. His only thought is of what they can get up to with just a little privacy.
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i'm so sorry for the delay! work kicked my ass
totally understand! I'm in similar places :( hence morning or night tag rounds
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rose creek - two weeks' ride
He'd slipped away from Faraday in the dead of the night while he'd still been sleeping, taking the time to pen a note of apology to him, even if he couldn't figure out much more to say than the blunt reminder of why it was never going to work (not without putting it in words, though, because he can't admit this is his fault), that he's sorry, and that this is better.
He doesn't tell Faraday where he plans to go. He wants to give Faraday a fresh start, so he doesn't have to worry about an outlaw and all the trouble that one brings. In the end, he leans down to brush a kiss to Faraday's temple, tucks the note in with Faraday's flask, and walks off, his black eye not the worst bruise when his heart feels like it's been pummeled until he's exhausted. He has itchy eyes and the road is a blur for a long time, right up until he makes his decision. Rose Creek, he knows he can be safe there and in the process of rebuilding, he thinks he can find a farm to hide out on.
It will be terrible, it will be trapped, but he can go into town with security, he can make friends, he can have a life. It just isn't the life he'd wanted. Each day since he's been back, he dodges Emma's questions about where he's been. He ignores the flirting that the widows offer, and he spends his time working on the farm and trying to forget what he left behind.
Still, he dreams of Faraday every night. He wakes from fantasies with a moan on his lips, the familiar ghostly weight of Faraday's body on top of him in the dream, but not there when he wakes. He feels himself ache with it, but this is the choice he's made to stay alive and to give Faraday a shot at a real life.
Maybe, one day, he'll even feel like he did the right thing.
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