sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Worried/Sick 1: Symptoms Manifest & Reaction

"Think I'll keep pretending it means handsome," he mutters, making a face. Though there's nothing serious there. Not right now when he's finding out a lot more that has nothing to do with that name, and he's got a very sick Vasquez to worry about. How any of it is meant can wait until he's better.

Not aware of that stare as he gets water for him, coming back to settle beside the bed. Frowning at that request, not sure what to think of it in so many ways as he begins to undo the buttons to get the fabric from his body.

"You're going to get chilled, you know." He hopes, praying the fever breaks soon.

"Guapo," he says, and it's not the first time he's said it about Faraday, but it is the first time he's said it anywhere near his face. Because he is handsome. He slides in closer when Faraday starts to take off the shirt, his head fevered and so hot, but as his headache pounds, he also doesn't want to lose a single moment of this.

Because he's being undressed by Faraday and he's not even dreaming. It's a miracle is what it is. He presses a hand on top of Faraday's and keeps stripping it off. "You'll find me a blanket to warm me, I think," he insists.

"Damn right I am," he murmurs, assuming he's said the right word and it means what he think it does. He doesn't know better and not like he can trust Vasquez to be making sense right now.

"I will, and you'll rest. Do you understand me? Don't make me call in one of them doctors talking on that weird wrist thing to come and help you." In this he and Bobo have shared the same thoughts, that doctors aren't to be trusted. So it was a mean threat, but one he means if that's what it takes.

Once the shirt is off, he pushes it like a child trying to escape a trap, growing more heated and flushed for the work, but he finishes, the scar on his arm showing in stark contrast to the rest of him, grasping for the blanket.

"I'll rest if you stay," he negotiates, because he's so stupid scared that he's going to close his eyes and Faraday will be gone. It's why he doesn't go to him, though he does end up watching him sleep, if only for a moment.

"Hey hey. I got it," He says, grabbing at the shirt to move it and toss it away for now. Moving to reach for the blanket to bring it up to his waist at least. "I'll stay, but I need you to rest," he murmurs.

His gaze though is on that wound, reaching out and lightly running his fingers over it. He shouldn't touch, not when he's in this state if nothing else, but he can't help himself as he lightly traces his fingers over the puckered edges.

"I can't... I mean..." It's reality to the thing Vasquez says, and he can't ignore this.

Vasquez glances to where Faraday is touching him, stomach bottoming out for the reminder of what caused that wound and what that machine had done to Billy and Goodnight, to Faraday. It's easier to focus on the first two, though, tugging the blanket high to his chest. "It took out the church steeple," he murmurs, voice heavy and filled with grief.

"Goodnight first, then Billy," he recollects, from what he heard from Teddy and the town. "By then, Horne was already gone," he mumbles. "Teddy, injured. The Gatling, it got me, but I was lucky, or I would have been dead on the church floor."

Not just himself dead. Goodnight. Billy. Dying together, and yet Billy having to die knowing he'd lost Goodnight. His mouth works, swallowing against the bile that rising in the back of his throat just thinking on it.

"Just you and the Indian and..." And just saying it is hard. "How? Tell me what happened." Not about all of them. About him. What happened to him.

Even as his fingers linger on Vasquez's skin, tangible proof of the things he's being told. It's surreal and would be easy to dismiss except for that scar. Healed, puckered, and obviously from one thing.

Edited 2018-11-25 01:49 (UTC)

"And Sam Chisolm, all riding out of town, away from Emma and Teddy," he confirms, the misery in his voice a heavy thing. After all, how can it be anything else, when it's his survival, but at such a high cost. He and Faraday, there had been something there, hadn't there?

Or maybe this is just the fever talking and he's making it all up, but he swears there had been something. "The Gatling was going to destroy everything and the children were in danger. You were already shot, by McCann. I put him down, but you wanted to save the children. You rode," he says, remembering watching and cheering him on, heart sinking in his gut.

"Goodnight and Billy gave you cover until they aimed for them. It gave you enough time to get close, but you were shot. Lucky, though, you had a stick of dynamite and a light. Boom," he says, hollowly. "I went to the field to find you, but I just found Jack clear of the explosion and you...what was left..."

He stares down at the bed, closing his eyes tightly. "It should have been me. I was the one with a price on my head."

Just the three of them, riding away from a town where they had gone to do the right thing for the first time in most of their lives. The right thing that led to them dying, giving their lives for a town full of people.

And he remembers the last things that he truly remembered before finding himself in the fountain. Things he hasn't talked about but realizing that now is the time.

Shifting to push himself up on the edge of the bed, moving to brace himself back against the headboard and leaning in against Vasquez. Needing the comfort as much as he thinks he might need it because right now... he's believing it. Believing it because who would make that up? Or could know the realization Faraday had come to the night before the war.

"That night, when Goodnight rode out," he says, because if he accepts all of this he didn't leave. Not in the end. "Sam came and asked us if any of us were leaving. Sam wandered down to the church then, you remember that?"

He doubts he doesn't. What did they forget about that, especially if that's how it ended.

As soon as Faraday is in the bed, he leans into the warmth of his body still clasping at the blankets and wrapping himself up in them, letting Faraday have some of them, too. He swallows his grief, glad that Faraday is speaking now, too.

"I remember," he says, because he'd been the first one to vow to Chisolm that he hadn't planned to run, even though he had every right to. "Why?" he asks, his eyes burning and his body cold, leaning hard into Faraday, thinking that he could just move his hand and let it drift lower.

Lower. And then lower...

He doesn't, though.

Sure, that's all it is. Warmth. Being there for one another. They've apparently been through so much more even than he knows, and he wants to try and help, though he's got no clue how to truly do it. This though, he could do this. Talk about it, share with him thoughts he'd never had a chance to share with others.

"I realized then, watching him walk away, that I would do whatever it took. I felt bulletproof that night, and that we could do anything, but I knew then, that whatever happened, I would get the rest of you out of that. I never had anyone before. Just me and Jack. Then I had all of you. I had you," he says, his voice soft in that admission. "And I knew then I would do what I could for you."

All of them. Vasquez. You being all and singular at the same time.

"Guess I did."

If it's true. He's still not sure. How can it be?

"I never had anyone. I thought it was easier because then I didn't have to be brave," Vasquez murmurs, on the heels of that confession of Faraday's. "I told the boy that, I told him that his father was braver than me, because I've never taken responsibility for anyone but myself."

But here's the truth, and one that he would rather keep inside. The fever is making him say it all out loud. "I wanted to, though. After Rose Creek, I wanted something more." Travelling with the six of them, or maybe just something more than only caring about himself.

He bends in half, hacking away as his body aches with it, forcing him to hunch forward as he breathes in, raggedly and hoarse things.

It's a sentiment that Joshua gets and he understands and he was there with him. Except if its all true, he never gets the chance. He gets maybe a burial, and given what a stick of dynamite can do to a man, he's not even sure he gets that.

But then Vasquez is couching and he moves to lean in to him, stroking his back. "You need to stop talking. Just rest, okay? I need you breathing, not choking," he murmurs, a lot of concern in his voice though he has no idea how to vocalize it all.

Vasquez doesn't even want to stop talking or coughing, not if it gets him Faraday stroking his back like that. He stares at him, eyes wide and shining with hope, and there's just a shred of hope and wariness there. Because, it feels so good.

And yet, there's a wariness, because what does it matter if Faraday doesn't want anything else? "I'll heal," he promises. "And you'll just go back to being dead or someone else's. You, world's greatest lover, after all. Not that I got to know."

"Well when you're healed, you can get yourself riled up. Not right now," he says, trying to sound stern, failing a bit but still trying. He can be stern, but he just doesn't want to be right now. Not with what Vasquez is dealing with emotionally and physically.

And then more words that leave him all twisted up inside, not even sure what to say. What he's expected to say. "I'm not dead. Whatever you think happened to me, or did happen to me, or whatever? I'm not dead."

Which is all that matters, right?

"And I'm no one's. Never have been," he points out. Not that he's ever tried, so maybe that's not the point.

He glances around, as if anyone else is going to hear them. Only one there is Bobo and he's probably definitely not listening. "Never knew you wanted to know, and who knows if that title even holds with men," he hisses, making a face, so confused about all of this. "Sides, you killed him." If all of this isn't just the haze of fever, but it's sounding an awful lot like the things Wanda told him about. "So what's that say?"

He's not, but he could leave Vasquez and then it would all be over, because even if he went home too, he knows there wouldn't be anything waiting for him. He grimaces, wishing that the truth didn't hurt so much, though maybe that's the sickness.

"You never had a man?" he asks, eyes wide and almost innocent as he gapes at Faraday. "And I am a very good lover. You could ask Bobo or Cael if you wanted to know," he rambles, knowing he shouldn't be tossing out names like this so easily, but he's not thinking. "I could be so good to you, querido," he admits, breathing out those words.

"This is the talk to be having now?" Mostly because he never wants to have this talk. Not ever. Not when it says so much about him that he never wants to talk about in public.

"But I'm... I don't want to know what your boyfriends say about you," he says, tones bitter, pained, fighting the urge to get up, to run. Wanting to not be there, not having this talk. Not like that.

"I spent a lot of time in saloons and inns. Not like I had to find other company than what I had." Girls working the bars liked a man with money and a good smile. Because that is a better focus than those last words, wanting to imagine just how good Vasquez could be to him. Did it matter when he thought he was dead?

"So you had Marias and Ethels," he grumbles, sinking down into the bed and away from Faraday, trying not to let the jealousy consume him, but it does. Honestly, it does, because he's not very happy with this idea of Faraday with other women, but now he's gone and put it in his head.

It's very stupid of him, but he's a stupid man and even stupider when he's sick.

"What..." He shifts, staring at Vasquez where he's collapsed on the bed. "Are you... Are you jealous?"

Because he's seen it, but not on a man and not directed at him but he's seen it.

"You've been in my life longer than any woman that ever shared my bed. Are you kidding me?"

He makes a face, still half-turned away from Faraday because so what if he's jealous. When he'd been drunk, he could laugh about this all he wanted and talk about his own experiences, but now that he's sick and aching and feverish, he can't do anything but make faces about these women.

"How am I supposed to know this?" he gripes. "You talk about being the world's greatest lover, how am I to know you don't have some little chica waiting for you?"

"Then ask but you're really going to... You moved me into the house of the man you're sleeping with," he points out, sounding more stunned than he does upset. "You just told me to ask them about your lovemaking skills and..."

And his head is kind of spinning, though he doesn't think this is about being sick. It's about not even illness, it's confusion and emotions and not even knowing what to say.

"I am the world's greatest lover..." Yet to be proven, thank you. "And do I seem the type to have a wife? Someone waiting on me? I run the moment they think they can tie me down."

"I think any man can have a wife eventually," he opines, even though whether that remains to be seen about whether it'll be a good match is out there. He's aching and tired, his body feeling like it's swaying and he hacks again, curling up on his body.

"You run out into fields, you run to danger," he complains, rubbing his face in his pillow, but the next sentences are just strings of incomprehensible Spanish, sweating and wanting to fall asleep again, not wanting to talk about this anymore.

"I saved your goddamn life," he mutters, moving to untangle the blanket from beneath Vasquez. "And I had hoped to save Goodnight and Billy too," he adds, finding knowing he hadn't hurts more than he thought it would.

"And if I could give you your life, then good," he says, the words still soft, trying to get Vasquez to lay back so he could cover him up. "I'm going to check on what's his name, see if he's gone running out the door naked or something," he says, reaching up to brush curls from Vasquez's brow.

"Go to sleep, okay?"

Vasquez leans into the touch, eyes wide and almost pleading with how much they want that touch to continue. He got his life, but what did it matter when he was alone and an outlaw? He doesn't want that life. He wants this one, where they can have something together, but he doesn't know how to say it.

"Sleep," he agrees, eyes already falling shut. "Don't go too far."

"I'll be right back," he vows, not moving away right away, just watching him to make sure he's settled. Then, once he is, he heads off to check on Bobo before coming back and sitting close to watch him.

[MINGLE] Worried/Sick 1: Symptoms Manifest & Reaction

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