sixpoundspressure | open post

[Once the last gunshots ring out, it takes Vasquez a long moment to figure out what comes next. Staunching the blood that's coming from the Gatling's graze on his arm, he knows he ought to get it tended to. He could help with the bodies, see if Goodnight survived the fall or if Billy is still fine. He could even put out the fires and tend to some of the children.

He doesn't do any of that, though.

Instead, Vasquez can feel himself drifting out to the smoke of the open field, where he can still smell the bitter taste in the air, sticking to his tongue. It's like his feet are outside of his control, that he's going in the direction of a place where he knows he's not going to find anything, but he has to see it with his own two eyes. After the week that they've had, he shouldn't give a shit about Faraday, but maybe (not maybe, he already knows it's not maybe), he's come to appreciate the other man. It's hard to find like minds in the West and so what if he's a bit stupid, a bit crass? He's also probably dead, so Vasquez should go see the body and make his peace so he can leave and go back to hiding.

Not that he wants to, that life had been a misery he's been trying to avoid, but he can't, not really.

Nudging at some of Bogue's men with his boot, he makes his way through the pocked, apocalyptic landscape. He knows he's not going to like seeing Faraday torn to pieces, but at least it will give him a sense of closure, sticking a pin in the thoughts of could have been and the might be that his head and his heart had started to cook up, in desperately lonely moments.

It's these thoughts he's so caught up in that he almost misses the sound. Out here, with only corpses, sounds should be a terrifying thing, but Vasquez snaps to alert, heading in that direction instantly. What he finds is probably the only miracle that he's ever seen in his life and he goes from despondently planning his escape from town to something far more frantic and hopeful as he kicks at the earth, pivoting to get some speed while ripping off his bandanna.]

Faraday? Are you alive?

[It looks like he's still moving, still breathing, despite the fact that he looks like he's seen better days, but he's still with the living. Pressing the bandanna to the first bleed he sees, he shouts back to town as loud as he can, trying to get anyone's attention to bring them a flat surface so they can get him back to someone who can do something about this.]

[ Faraday ain't a man who ever thought, after leaving his old life behind, that there was anything in the cards for him save a trot alongside the Devil Himself on his way to Hell when his time was done. He weren't the most righteous man before taking up alongside outlaws and bounty hunters and such, but it was better at the least. He thought maybe, maybe he might see one of his ladies again, but ---apparently such things weren't meant to be.

He thought he would surely be dead, but he ain't. And if he is then this is definitely Hell for all the pain he's in. He certainly ain't enough of a magic man to manage this sort of thing, but here he is, blue sky overhead, gunpowder and smoke clogging the air along with blood. Maybe he actually is still alive.

Oh, but then he's pretty sure he just heard Vasquez's voice, and that wrings a whole lot of complicated feelings out of his busted chest that he doesn't care to think too long or hard on. So, he's rethinking the fiery pit option of all this. Head turned, he wheezes into the dirt as the other man comes into his blurred vision, and half-shouts in pain at the pressure ---somewhere.

He tries to get some words out, what they are he isn't sure, but all he manages is a horribly raspy noise and his lips moving. Somebody in town must have heard the call, though, cause they are already on their way out with horses and a canvas to pull any wounded in easier. ]

[Vasquez should've left town by now. He knows that there's every chance that this skirmish with Bogue's boys will bring the kind of law down on his head that will put him in awful danger, but every time he thinks to go, there's something that needs doing. He has to carry Faraday on the stretcher back to the doctors. He needs to be an extra set of hands when they work to stitch him back together.

He needs to hold him down, sometimes, when instructed, and he prays and prays, even though he's sure no one is listening to him.]

Shut up, would you?

[He hisses it at least once, maybe twice, no more than three times, but it's said again and again every time Faraday seems to put energy to speaking or rasping, instead of just lying there. Better, why not do the honourable thing and pass out?

At some point, Vasquez is fighting every instinct in his own body to pass out. Though the nurses and the doctors insist he leave, he stubbornly sits in the corner when they're not in need of him, smoking through four cigarettes steadily, and only relaxing when they see fit to leave the room and leave Faraday in a bed.

He should leave. He should go. Every instinct in him is telling him that it's not smart to stay.

Then again, when has he ever listened to reason when Faraday was near? Why start now?]

Guero, you're the luckiest pendejo I've ever met, you know this?

Edited 2018-04-19 01:59 (UTC)

[ There isn't a lot he remembers outside of pain for a long time. Even after the most intense bouts of it, there's still that numbing, dull ache of it all through him. The laudanum leaves his head fuzzy, and the rest of him still with that ache.

He mutters, mumbles, and sometimes half-shouts for Ethel and Maria. Mostly Ethel.

He comes around again, it's only to make out what he's saying at the end of it. His voice is raspy when he tries to talk at first, and he licks at his lips before trying again. ]

S'what I said.

You're lucky you have lungs to say anything.

[After all, given that Vasquez is fairly sure at least some kind of fragment had to have pierced through Faraday's chest, this is all a miracle that he's survived. Never mind that he's been sitting here praying, all the while through Faraday's cries for Ethel, never mind the desperation he's been feeling.

Those are things he doesn't need to think about now.

He sets aside the Peacemakers of Faraday's that he's been cleaning and tending to, making sure that they're in clean shape in order to be ready when he's fine. Right now? Not fine. Leaning over Faraday to press his good hand to his shoulder just in case he thinks of moving, he looms over him with a critical look in his eye.]

You back in the land of the living? Or you want to go drift and see your Ethel again?

One-eyed Jacks. [ He remembers saying it, tossing the dynamite, and huffs a breathless laugh, groaning after. His eyes must have closed cause he opens them at feeling the hand at his shoulder. He sees how rough the other guy is, his one arm in a sling, and his brows knit together. ]

No thanks to that face of yours to scare me back in the arms of death. [ He pales, though, eyes widening slightly at the mention of Ethel. It's a name he reserves only for his guns these days, and that look in the other man's eyes makes him figure it ain't the ladies he keeps at his hips that he's talking about. ] She ain't---she ain't no place I'm ever gonna see her again.

[ He settles as much as he can, pain making him restless, and tries to take a look around the room. ] This what winning looks like?

It looks like shit.

[Vasquez raises a brow when his face is insulted, which is complete bullshit, because he's the handsomest man not lying in a bed that he knows around here, but that's not something he plans to say out loud. Faraday's ego is already too large, no reason to give him more fuel for that fire.]

Don't lie, you're alive, but you would've come back for a face this handsome.

[Him, though? Definitely still a big ego, but maybe he could use a little more charm. He does settle back into the chair, grimacing when he has to adjust his arm, not touching the guns now that Faraday is looking around for them, not talking about an Ethel that's definitely not the Peacemaker.]

You're a hero. You saved the children, I'm fairly sure they're waiting outside the door so they can thank you, but not yet. You still have healing to do.

[And as far as Vasquez is concerned, he's the gatekeeper. No one is getting in this room unless he says so. That also means, unfortunately, that he's not going out of it.]

[ It may be complete bull, but Faraday ain't about to say that out loud, either. He ain't taking it back no how. He laughs, sort of, but it's a mistake, and he ends up groaning and huffing a breath out in pain instead. ]

Think you've got some funny ideas about handsome.

[ He looks around, seeing the way Vasquez adjusts his arm and his guns sitting over near a chair. He doesn't ask for them, and the thought of their names leave his mouth dry that has nothing to do with being laid up for days on end. ]

Ain't no hero. [ Just cause a man does something that some might construe as such doesn't make him something he surely ain't. ]

Sounds awfully protective. Didn't figure you for the sort that liked to gamble.

[ Lewd is apparently the way to go. ]

[The instant Faraday starts to cough and huff, he leans forward, the frantic worry lurking in his eyes, but not making it to his lips with any words. Just because he's changed his mind about Faraday in the last week and change doesn't mean that the other man needs to know how much he's come around.]

You're the one who thinks guero means handsome. If anyone has funny anything, it's you.

[Of course, Vasquez had to start ruining it, calling him guerito in the middle of the fight, as if his brain had run away from him, making a mess it had hoped it never had to clean up.]

Maybe it's just easier than dealing with all the townsfolk alone. They start to get on your nerves, eventually.

[Not to mention, he doesn't think he's ready to leave, his eyes still settled on Faraday with every breath he takes when he sleeps. Vasquez is still half-convinced that the next breath will be the last and then he'll be on his horse out of town, giving away Jack, trying to understand the grief and heartbreak he can still barely comprehend.]

[ Faraday's face scrunches up with pain from the coughing fit, but also what he says about that word. He groans, and drops his head back to the pillow again once the fit is over. ]

You're the one went and said it was something like that. How'm I supposed to know?

[ He laughs softly at that, unable to stop himself at the mention of the townsfolk. ]

Small towns like this'll do that. Why our house---[ He catches himself but already started. He'd nearly gone and mentioned her. Damn it. ] --why you pick the house on the edge of town. Less bother out thataways.

[It's one of those words that's best left to Faraday's imagination, because guero is one thing, but guerito is another, and he has to be relieved that none of the doctors or townsfolk had been around when Vasquez had muttered his prayers and started to slip into querido and on one desperate occasion when things had looked terrible, nene.]

We don't have a house.

[It's blunt, firm, but it's giving Faraday a warning that Vasquez doesn't plan to let that slip of the tongue go.]

Who did you have a house with, on the border of town?

[It's phrased and said in such a way that he knows there are only two options and he wants Faraday to tell Vasquez which of the two that it is.]

[ One of these days he'll get the real meaning of the word out of him, but he ain't got the fight in him for it here and now. Especially not with the fact that he's more ready to crawl back to death than answer the question he just got asked. His jaw sets stubbornly, but eventually he breaks his own silence. ]

My wife, Ethel. She's dead and gone years now.

[ He finds himself looking back down at the scratchy quilt on him, and picks at a stray thread. He may as we dredge up the rest. ] Maria, too.

Edited 2018-07-18 02:23 (UTC)

[Well, that's not what he expected. Neither is the other one, but trust Vasquez to walk right into an awkward valley of unexpected grief. He's never had anyone, no wives, no family past what he ran away from.]

How many wives are you hiding in this past of yours? When I said I had three Marias, I mostly meant the guns.

[Because there had been women, too, but they were whores that he'd paid with as much as he could. Even before his bounty, he'd always been an outlaw and a thief and bad news. It didn't really do well to seduce the town daughters.

There's a tenderness to his words, though, for all his joking. He reaches forward, with that good hand, squeezes Faraday's shoulder gently.]

I'm sorry, guerito. It's not fair when you have something, to lose it like that. I think now I understand why you were calling for her, but...maybe I'm too selfish to let you go join her yet.

[ Nobody expects that sort of thing out of the gambling drunk with a penchant for card tricks and fast on the draw. It's old grief anyways. Nothing but a familiar ache now and then. A bottle of something strong when it's more.

He snorts: ] Only ever had but the one. Kind of man you take me for?

[ Joshua isn't sure what to do with the unexpected display of sympathy, and the hand on his shoulder. He doesn't try to shrug it off though. ]

Maria was---cause I wasn't a stronger man or a better husband. In the end it didn't mean much, failed both in ways that can't be undone. Joining her ain't a thing I got to look forward to. [ His jaw is set when he says it. He reaches up, surprising himself, and pats at the hand on his shoulder. ] Apparently I ain't goin' anywhere anyways, so don't fuss so much, yeah?

[Vasquez doesn't say it out loud, but he thinks that Faraday is the kind of man with too much charm for his britches, who could probably ensnare at least three wives, if he wanted them. He's the kind of man who managed to grab Vasquez's attention in less than a week and move him from wanting to kill him to only sort of wanting to choke him until it's unpleasant.

Still, a dead wife? Not what he expected, not at all.]

I can fuss as much as I want because you can barely move, so you have to put up with it.

[The smart play would be for Vasquez to move on, now. Faraday is awake, he's fine, Vasquez should get out of there. Except, there's a few places of land that he thinks might be nice and Faraday's comment about a place on the outskirts of town...

Well, it sounds nice, even if Faraday isn't liable to stay with him. He strokes his fingers gently against Faraday's shoulder before letting go.]

Is that why you were so ready to charge the dynamite? To join your Ethel?

[ Faraday wasn't ever the sort to utilize that charm much. He had his two ladies and that was enough for him, until they were dead and gone that is. He only utilized it to distract at cards, or buy a little distraction in other forms, but it never meant all that much. It didn't feel the same.

He grunts at the mention of fussing as he isn't really able to do much, it's true. He misses the contact as soon as it's gone and he hasn't felt that funny twist in his stomach in ---too long. ]

Told you. Ain't liable to be seeing her again. Don't deserve to. Ain't nobody's fault but my own. [ He sighs a little. ] I did it---cause I know what happens when you don't make the first move. Or the last, I guess.

Couldn't let that happen here. Figured the bullet wound had me done in anyways.

[At the grunt, Vasquez misinterprets this for pain of some kind. The doctor had warned that Faraday wouldn't be in a good place, so Vasquez had asked for some tips and been given instructions of where he could touch and not hurt. That's why he drifts to Faraday's bad leg to move lower than the wounds, gently squeezing and pushing at the muscles to try and ease what he thinks to be a cramp.

Or maybe he just didn't want to stop touching and he's looking for excuses.]

I think after what happened, what you did, you earned yourself more credit than you think. I think you'll see her again.

[First moves, though, that's something Vasquez isn't sure he knows enough about. After all, that means you have interest, and it means you're brave enough to show it. He's chickenshit and he knows it. Besides, what's the point in showing interest?

Faraday's barely alive and thinking about other things, so he can only fuss quietly.]

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