Vasquez isn't sure what state he's in, but delicate is more than a good enough description for the way he's sort of losing control of himself, his mind, his thoughts. He banishes all panic about Faraday being hurt because he's not. He's mended and healed and Vasquez is only working on him because he's in pain. Inhaling sharply, he then tries not to think about how close he is with Faraday.
"You're in pain," he snaps right back at him, as irritable as Faraday but probably not for the same reasons. Somehow in all this mess, Vasquez went and did the thing he swore he'd never do -- take responsibility for someone.
He has to bear in a little if Faraday wants him to go harder, not straddling him exactly, but looming above him as he moves his other hand there as well, massaging in slow, prodding movements, brushing his thumb in a slow gentle sweep right after when he's done before repeating the same, starting to move down the line of his outside thigh. "Okay, guapo?" he checks.
Faraday scowls on instinct when Vasquez snaps at him. He would never admit it, but it’s better that Vasquez respond with that same fire – if there had been anything approaching pity, he would have put a stop to all of this and kicked Vasquez out to tend to his wounded pride.
As it is, it’s Faraday clenches his jaw, fingers twisted so tightly into the sheets that his hand shake. He holds his breath in his lungs as the pain sharpens and fades with each pass of Vasquez’s ministrations. It’s better, he thinks, though it feels as though it’s ages before it reaches that point, and he slowly lets the breath out through his lips.
“It’s fine,” he repeats, though his voice isn’t quite as strained as it had been the last time he said those words. Exhausted, sure, but not nearly as pained. He licks his lips, props himself up on an elbow. “The hell’s that mean? ‘Guapo.’” And he repeats back the word with his usual clumsy accent. Naturally, he assumes it’s a brand new insult, and Faraday bristles at it.
"You want to know what it means?" is Vasquez's absent reply as he avoids looking at Faraday while he works on the leg, taking advantage of the task at hand to give him a good excuse to not have to look Faraday in the eye and give away any sign that he'd just called the man 'handsome'. "Learn Spanish, then you'll know what I call you," he retorts.
He can tell that it's starting to help because some of the pain has melted away from Faraday's voice. Glancing up, he can also tell that he's in a more relaxed position, which means that it's time to bring the wooden cylinder into it, digging it and rolling it over the strong muscle of his thigh, his breaths deepening and evening out as he keeps his mind on the task at hand and not the fact his hands are all over Faraday.
Talk about getting what he wants, only not at all.
"I think, maybe, that's better," he says after a long while of pushing and touching, pressing his flat palm to the bad leg and feeling the warmth, squeezing lightly and moving his thumb in a hard drag up, then down. The hard swallow sets his Adam's apple bobbing and the sound echoes in his ears. He mutters a mild curse in Spanish as he leans back and realizes that putting all that effort and force into his fingers have made his arm ache, but he can tend to that with a hot bath later, absently rubbing at it before he lets his hand drop.
"Better enough to secure food, maybe?" he suggests. "Do something so I'm not the one doing everything between us, oye," he deadpans.
Faraday grunts out a noise of frustration. He hardly knows why he asks, at this point; it's been months, and Vasquez still hasn't explained what "guero" meant. Why would he explain this brand new nickname?
His grousing is interrupted when Vasquez turns that wooden thing on his leg – something Faraday can only describe as some sort of peculiar rolling pin – and a noise of discomfort is punched out of him again. His teeth catch on his lower lip, caging in any other pained noises he might make, but as Vasquez works at it, the pain fades. It still aches, of course, but the knotted mess has eased, and moving his leg doesn't seem like such a tall order anymore.
Vasquz's swears – foreign as they are – catch Faraday's attention, and despite all his complaints about Vasquez's fussing earlier, a concern flashes in Faraday's eyes. He hisses as he sits up a little, green eyes darting to where Vasquez's hand runs over the old wound on his arm.
His own concern is enough to override the instinctive annoyance at Vasquez's verbal jab. Rather than battle back with an insult of his own, he instead asks, "You doin' alright?"
Vasquez keeps his gaze away as he collects the things he's brought in, but looks over at that hiss, his expression softens against his will to find Faraday staring at him, those eyes of his as unique and distracting as ever. "It's fine," he tries to dismiss, a forced smile flashing on his lips as quickly as it's there and gone. The use of it will ache and make his fingers weaker for a little, but soon, time will make it better.
That smile tightens in his jaw as he keeps a grimace back, grateful that Faraday doesn't seem to be in as much pain now.
"You want to get out of town, si? If you feel better, we can still go," he points out, not sitting down because if he does that, he's bound to stay and let himself get distracted with cards and alcohol and cigarettes and absent touches. "We could be setting up camp by nightfall," he says. "Riding..."
Frowning, he gives Faraday a newly confused look.
"Where are we planning to go?" Because he has thoughts about anywhere resembling Texas.
Faraday hardly looks convinced by Vasquez’s weak attempt at reassurance, and his lips press into a thin line as he studies the other man. Faraday’s made his life on reading other men, and he recognizes the strained quality of Vasquez’s smile, the fine tremor in Vasquez’s hands – either from pain or from exhaustion. His expression darkens into a frown, eyes narrowed and the corners of his mouth turning downward in disapproval.
Vasquez backs away as if to make to retreat, and Faraday continues to study him. Carefully, Faraday sits up the rest of the way, swinging his legs over the edge of the mattress to sit up properly. He runs his hand over the old bullet wound on his thigh – still sore, but nowhere near the screaming, knotted mess of just moments ago. He takes a deep, steadying breath, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his other hand.
“I don’t got a destination in mind,” Faraday says. He glances up at the other man, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. “Never have.”
He tended to let chance and caprice guide him, following trails and stopping whenever his coffers needed padding or if he desired company. Now, with the reward for protecting Rose Creek lining his pockets and with Vasquez riding beside him (infuriating as the man may be), Faraday wonders if he’ll have much need of stopping into towns as he used to.
Vasquez keeps staring back, determined not to be the one to falter and be weak, not when his arm is just a bit of an ache. He'll get hot water on it, maybe have someone downstairs knead his shoulders for a while, and then he'll be fine again. No need for worry, not like the shots that Faraday's taken. Still, when he manages to sit up all the way and even gets his feet to the floor, there's no mistaking the way that his face actually brightens.
It's not a smile, really, just the way his eyes light up, the way his forehead smooths so lines no longer show. "New Mexico," he suggests. "Kansas, maybe? Nowhere north," he says, with a wrinkle of his nose as he shivers instantly to think of the cold. "Nowhere near Texas," is added after, spitting bitterness into three words with talent.
"Close enough to cities to get new alcohol, cigarettes. Well," he amends, "for you to get them," he points out, trying to ignore that press of nerves against his stomach as he thinks about the fact that even though he got a quick reprieve under Sam's protection, he's still going back out there to have men on his tail.
No cities or towns for him, not with his face on posters. It's his life, the one he has to live, even with Faraday's steady gun-hand for protection. It's a weary thought, one that has him reaching for his flask to drain it back, because now he wonders again, is he just running away from what will eventually happen?
"I thought you would have had a town in mind. Alcohol, cards, women," he lists, "isn't that how Sam found you?"
Faraday can't help the snort of laughter he lets out, tired as it is.
"Jack Horne might tell you it was fate that led Sam to me," he says, weaving his usual wry humor into his voice – the voice he uses when he's spinning a yarn at a card table, "but our paths crossed entirely by chance. I could've been in any town that day, but I just so happened to be in Amador City."
He still isn't entirely sure if it was good or bad luck that brought Sam Chisolm to Faraday's proverbial door. If they hadn't met, then Faraday wouldn't have been shot full of lead, wouldn't have nearly blown himself to kingdom come. In short, it would have saved him a great deal of agony. But on the other side of that coin, if they never met, Faraday wouldn't have thrown his lot in with these mismatched men, wouldn't have folks he would trust with his life, wouldn't have found something greater than himself worth fighting for.
If he hadn't met Sam, he wouldn't have met any of the others. And a part of him thinks ending up as stitched together as an old rag doll was worth it for that alone.
He peers at Vasquez again, thinking over the other man's suggestions. Decent enough ones, he supposes; he's none too fond of the cold, either, which was only bound to get worse as the months go by. As he's thinking it over, though, he asks carefully, "What's wrong with Texas?"
Faraday's more of an idiot than Vasquez thought, if he's asking that question. Glaring at him, he shakes his head and leans down to pick up Faraday's hat, shoving it at his chest and staying there to reply. "You think I want to go back to the state that took my family's land? My home? Where they had to put an army together just to try and take back what was taken when the border crossed?" He exhales his derision and shakes his head. "You're not that stupid," he insists.
"I would shoot someone in the face and then you'd leave," he says, adding the gun belt to where he's pressing the hat, fingers still lingering as he starts to look at the room and see what's left to take so they won't come back here.
What he also doesn't say is that as much as he figures that one day, Faraday will seek out a separate path, Vasquez wants to delay that day as much as he can. Maybe his loneliness has fucked with his mind more than he knows, or maybe he's just finally letting himself acknowledge the fact he doesn't hate the man.
Faraday catches the hat on instinct, glaring up at Vasquez. Truth is, he doesn’t know too much about the war that sparked up in Mexico, considering it sparked up when he was still swaddled in blankets, and the possible animosity hadn’t occurred to him. (Maybe he is that stupid.
Not that he would ever admit as much.)
Vasquez thrusts his gun belt at him next, and Faraday dutifully catches that, as well, his glare turning into a flat, unimpressed look.
“What do I care if you shoot someone?” he asks. God knows they’ve both shot plenty of folks before, and Faraday imagines they’re about even as far as how many men they’ve gunned down. (Actually, Faraday believes he edged a bit ahead of Vasquez after the battle of Rose Creek – taking out the Gatling gun meant he took down over a half-dozen men in one go. But as much as he refuses to admit it, thinking too long or too hard about that ride out, one that he had imagined to be his last, makes something cold and writhing clench in his gut.)
After all, Faraday is hardly shy about violence.
“So long as it ain’t me,” he says. Their fingers brush as he tugs his hat from Vasquez’s hand, putting it on. “And so long as it ain’t someone who didn’t already have it comin’.”
Vasquez feels the prickle of his skin raising to goosebumps from the touch, dragging his palm down the side of his pants as he eases it back to force himself back to normal, finding his own things and buckling in the gun belt as he ties the lasso to it, handing Faraday his cards and flask, all the possessions he's been watching going back to him. The thrill of actually leaving is keeping his mood light, now, ignoring all the potentially disastrous things that could (and will) probably happen.
"You know I don't kill people who don't deserve it," he promises, crossing his heart and kissing his fingers with a smirking promise, settling his hat on his head. They still haven't picked where to go, but they're going. "If you annoy me too much, it won't be the guns," he says, patting the lasso with a serious look on his face, because it's as much of a promise as he'll give.
"Guero, you're making me waste daylight," he complains, as if they haven't had to change paths so they could get him back to standing. The spark of mischief is in his eyes and the curve of his lips as he buttons his vest up the whole way. "Come on. Go get the food and I will get the ammo. If you're late, then I get to decide where we go. Mexico," he says cheerfully.
He takes the deck of cards and the flask; the latter gets tucked away into a pocket, but the cards he treats with a little more care. He runs a thumb over the short edge, the paper riffling with a satisfying snap, and he squares up the deck before that, too, gets tucked into another pocket in his fest.
At Vasquez's promise and his gesture to the lasso, Faraday finds himself barking out a laugh, startled by the audacity of the threat. "Let me tell you now," he says, without any real intention to threaten, "if you try to tie me up like a wild bull, I might shoot you."
He straightens himself out, fastening his gun belt to his hips, straightening out his shirt and vest, adjusting the hat on his head. The time between now and the first second he stepped foot in Rose Creek has certainly changed him, and he wears the differences on his person. A new set of clothes, a mess of scars (some more pronounced than others) mottling his skin, and slightly altered temperament set him apart from the Faraday that first arrived.
Taking a breath, he pushes himself to stand, one hand resting on the nightstand to brace himself. He gives his bad leg an experimental stretch, and while it still aches, it's nowhere near the persistent keening that had redirected them earlier.
"We're not goin' to Mexico," he retorts without looking up from his stretching. "You're bad enough as it is. Lord only knows what I'd do in a place where I couldn't understand a single word folks were sayin' at me."
Vasquez tips his head casually to the side, letting it hang there as he watches Faraday stretching, his line of sight giving him a look at the line of his hip and the gun belt slung over it. It's distracting in all the worst ways and he gives himself a mental slap on the wrist for letting himself be so shallow, but can he help it? It's a pretty thing. Smirking to himself for the brazen mistake, he snorts at Faraday's reply. "Or," he says, amused, "you could do something surprising and actually learn Spanish. It would make you a far more attractive person," Vasquez deadpans.
He bends to collect the last of his things, feeling strangely sad that he's going to be seeing the last of this room, all at the same time as wishing he could burn it down with a match so they never have to see it again. It's been a home, of sorts, not because of the place, but because it's where he and Faraday have been able to build on something that just might end up being an actual genuine friendship.
"Then if you don't want to end up surrounded by Mexicans, then you shouldn't stray, guero. Don't forget to pick up some of the biscuits I like so much," he reminds him. "And the jerky. Some of the, how you say it, the taffy too. Yes?" He gives Faraday an expectant look, that the man should know how vastly his appetite stretches.
With one last squeeze to Faraday's shoulder, Vasquez is ready to let his eager heart get the best of him, thinking of the road ahead.
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"You're in pain," he snaps right back at him, as irritable as Faraday but probably not for the same reasons. Somehow in all this mess, Vasquez went and did the thing he swore he'd never do -- take responsibility for someone.
He has to bear in a little if Faraday wants him to go harder, not straddling him exactly, but looming above him as he moves his other hand there as well, massaging in slow, prodding movements, brushing his thumb in a slow gentle sweep right after when he's done before repeating the same, starting to move down the line of his outside thigh. "Okay, guapo?" he checks.
no subject
As it is, it’s Faraday clenches his jaw, fingers twisted so tightly into the sheets that his hand shake. He holds his breath in his lungs as the pain sharpens and fades with each pass of Vasquez’s ministrations. It’s better, he thinks, though it feels as though it’s ages before it reaches that point, and he slowly lets the breath out through his lips.
“It’s fine,” he repeats, though his voice isn’t quite as strained as it had been the last time he said those words. Exhausted, sure, but not nearly as pained. He licks his lips, props himself up on an elbow. “The hell’s that mean? ‘Guapo.’” And he repeats back the word with his usual clumsy accent. Naturally, he assumes it’s a brand new insult, and Faraday bristles at it.
no subject
He can tell that it's starting to help because some of the pain has melted away from Faraday's voice. Glancing up, he can also tell that he's in a more relaxed position, which means that it's time to bring the wooden cylinder into it, digging it and rolling it over the strong muscle of his thigh, his breaths deepening and evening out as he keeps his mind on the task at hand and not the fact his hands are all over Faraday.
Talk about getting what he wants, only not at all.
"I think, maybe, that's better," he says after a long while of pushing and touching, pressing his flat palm to the bad leg and feeling the warmth, squeezing lightly and moving his thumb in a hard drag up, then down. The hard swallow sets his Adam's apple bobbing and the sound echoes in his ears. He mutters a mild curse in Spanish as he leans back and realizes that putting all that effort and force into his fingers have made his arm ache, but he can tend to that with a hot bath later, absently rubbing at it before he lets his hand drop.
"Better enough to secure food, maybe?" he suggests. "Do something so I'm not the one doing everything between us, oye," he deadpans.
no subject
His grousing is interrupted when Vasquez turns that wooden thing on his leg – something Faraday can only describe as some sort of peculiar rolling pin – and a noise of discomfort is punched out of him again. His teeth catch on his lower lip, caging in any other pained noises he might make, but as Vasquez works at it, the pain fades. It still aches, of course, but the knotted mess has eased, and moving his leg doesn't seem like such a tall order anymore.
Vasquz's swears – foreign as they are – catch Faraday's attention, and despite all his complaints about Vasquez's fussing earlier, a concern flashes in Faraday's eyes. He hisses as he sits up a little, green eyes darting to where Vasquez's hand runs over the old wound on his arm.
His own concern is enough to override the instinctive annoyance at Vasquez's verbal jab. Rather than battle back with an insult of his own, he instead asks, "You doin' alright?"
no subject
That smile tightens in his jaw as he keeps a grimace back, grateful that Faraday doesn't seem to be in as much pain now.
"You want to get out of town, si? If you feel better, we can still go," he points out, not sitting down because if he does that, he's bound to stay and let himself get distracted with cards and alcohol and cigarettes and absent touches. "We could be setting up camp by nightfall," he says. "Riding..."
Frowning, he gives Faraday a newly confused look.
"Where are we planning to go?" Because he has thoughts about anywhere resembling Texas.
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Vasquez backs away as if to make to retreat, and Faraday continues to study him. Carefully, Faraday sits up the rest of the way, swinging his legs over the edge of the mattress to sit up properly. He runs his hand over the old bullet wound on his thigh – still sore, but nowhere near the screaming, knotted mess of just moments ago. He takes a deep, steadying breath, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his other hand.
“I don’t got a destination in mind,” Faraday says. He glances up at the other man, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. “Never have.”
He tended to let chance and caprice guide him, following trails and stopping whenever his coffers needed padding or if he desired company. Now, with the reward for protecting Rose Creek lining his pockets and with Vasquez riding beside him (infuriating as the man may be), Faraday wonders if he’ll have much need of stopping into towns as he used to.
“You got any ideas?”
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It's not a smile, really, just the way his eyes light up, the way his forehead smooths so lines no longer show. "New Mexico," he suggests. "Kansas, maybe? Nowhere north," he says, with a wrinkle of his nose as he shivers instantly to think of the cold. "Nowhere near Texas," is added after, spitting bitterness into three words with talent.
"Close enough to cities to get new alcohol, cigarettes. Well," he amends, "for you to get them," he points out, trying to ignore that press of nerves against his stomach as he thinks about the fact that even though he got a quick reprieve under Sam's protection, he's still going back out there to have men on his tail.
No cities or towns for him, not with his face on posters. It's his life, the one he has to live, even with Faraday's steady gun-hand for protection. It's a weary thought, one that has him reaching for his flask to drain it back, because now he wonders again, is he just running away from what will eventually happen?
"I thought you would have had a town in mind. Alcohol, cards, women," he lists, "isn't that how Sam found you?"
no subject
"Jack Horne might tell you it was fate that led Sam to me," he says, weaving his usual wry humor into his voice – the voice he uses when he's spinning a yarn at a card table, "but our paths crossed entirely by chance. I could've been in any town that day, but I just so happened to be in Amador City."
He still isn't entirely sure if it was good or bad luck that brought Sam Chisolm to Faraday's proverbial door. If they hadn't met, then Faraday wouldn't have been shot full of lead, wouldn't have nearly blown himself to kingdom come. In short, it would have saved him a great deal of agony. But on the other side of that coin, if they never met, Faraday wouldn't have thrown his lot in with these mismatched men, wouldn't have folks he would trust with his life, wouldn't have found something greater than himself worth fighting for.
If he hadn't met Sam, he wouldn't have met any of the others. And a part of him thinks ending up as stitched together as an old rag doll was worth it for that alone.
He peers at Vasquez again, thinking over the other man's suggestions. Decent enough ones, he supposes; he's none too fond of the cold, either, which was only bound to get worse as the months go by. As he's thinking it over, though, he asks carefully, "What's wrong with Texas?"
no subject
"I would shoot someone in the face and then you'd leave," he says, adding the gun belt to where he's pressing the hat, fingers still lingering as he starts to look at the room and see what's left to take so they won't come back here.
What he also doesn't say is that as much as he figures that one day, Faraday will seek out a separate path, Vasquez wants to delay that day as much as he can. Maybe his loneliness has fucked with his mind more than he knows, or maybe he's just finally letting himself acknowledge the fact he doesn't hate the man.
no subject
Not that he would ever admit as much.)
Vasquez thrusts his gun belt at him next, and Faraday dutifully catches that, as well, his glare turning into a flat, unimpressed look.
“What do I care if you shoot someone?” he asks. God knows they’ve both shot plenty of folks before, and Faraday imagines they’re about even as far as how many men they’ve gunned down. (Actually, Faraday believes he edged a bit ahead of Vasquez after the battle of Rose Creek – taking out the Gatling gun meant he took down over a half-dozen men in one go. But as much as he refuses to admit it, thinking too long or too hard about that ride out, one that he had imagined to be his last, makes something cold and writhing clench in his gut.)
After all, Faraday is hardly shy about violence.
“So long as it ain’t me,” he says. Their fingers brush as he tugs his hat from Vasquez’s hand, putting it on. “And so long as it ain’t someone who didn’t already have it comin’.”
no subject
"You know I don't kill people who don't deserve it," he promises, crossing his heart and kissing his fingers with a smirking promise, settling his hat on his head. They still haven't picked where to go, but they're going. "If you annoy me too much, it won't be the guns," he says, patting the lasso with a serious look on his face, because it's as much of a promise as he'll give.
"Guero, you're making me waste daylight," he complains, as if they haven't had to change paths so they could get him back to standing. The spark of mischief is in his eyes and the curve of his lips as he buttons his vest up the whole way. "Come on. Go get the food and I will get the ammo. If you're late, then I get to decide where we go. Mexico," he says cheerfully.
no subject
At Vasquez's promise and his gesture to the lasso, Faraday finds himself barking out a laugh, startled by the audacity of the threat. "Let me tell you now," he says, without any real intention to threaten, "if you try to tie me up like a wild bull, I might shoot you."
He straightens himself out, fastening his gun belt to his hips, straightening out his shirt and vest, adjusting the hat on his head. The time between now and the first second he stepped foot in Rose Creek has certainly changed him, and he wears the differences on his person. A new set of clothes, a mess of scars (some more pronounced than others) mottling his skin, and slightly altered temperament set him apart from the Faraday that first arrived.
Taking a breath, he pushes himself to stand, one hand resting on the nightstand to brace himself. He gives his bad leg an experimental stretch, and while it still aches, it's nowhere near the persistent keening that had redirected them earlier.
"We're not goin' to Mexico," he retorts without looking up from his stretching. "You're bad enough as it is. Lord only knows what I'd do in a place where I couldn't understand a single word folks were sayin' at me."
no subject
He bends to collect the last of his things, feeling strangely sad that he's going to be seeing the last of this room, all at the same time as wishing he could burn it down with a match so they never have to see it again. It's been a home, of sorts, not because of the place, but because it's where he and Faraday have been able to build on something that just might end up being an actual genuine friendship.
"Then if you don't want to end up surrounded by Mexicans, then you shouldn't stray, guero. Don't forget to pick up some of the biscuits I like so much," he reminds him. "And the jerky. Some of the, how you say it, the taffy too. Yes?" He gives Faraday an expectant look, that the man should know how vastly his appetite stretches.
With one last squeeze to Faraday's shoulder, Vasquez is ready to let his eager heart get the best of him, thinking of the road ahead.