Work Text:
Keep shooting, guerito!
Faraday startles awake from the nightmare, the echoing sound of gunshots evaporating like smoke. When he opens his eyes, the dust isn’t being kicked up into clouds that block your vision and there’s not a gun in sight. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he lets an arm flop to the empty other half of his bed, staring blearily at his alarm clock. He’s got another twenty minutes before it goes off, but he’s awake now.
He sits up, digging his feet into his plush carpet as he tries to orient his brain. It’s not the first time he’s dreamt like that, but he’d always written the dreams off as a consequence of his enjoyment of old school Western flicks. It might have been strange that Vasquez had also been there, shouting at him, but hearing Vasquez’s voice in his dreams dropping half-insult, half-endearments isn’t new, either.
Truth is, ever since he met Alejandro Vasquez, he’s been dreaming about the man in one way or another. Usually, the dreams don’t feel so viscerally real like this one, but Faraday could assemble a catalogue of all the featured roles Vasquez has played in his head. Absently, Faraday notices that he’s pressing a hand to his stomach as if to stem some ghostly pain, but when he lifts his t-shirt, he’s just fine.
“Stop drinking with Vasquez,” he mutters to himself, “that’ll fix you right up.”
Then he’ll stop dreaming about drunkenly stumbling off a horse and seeing a man hotter than the fires of mortal sin waiting for him, all while Faraday does nothing more than try to keep his balance while insulting him. He’ll stop dreaming about the breeze dying on a hot night outside a saloon, an offer that sounds too sweet to ignore and the sound of rejection coming from his own lips.
“Maybe in some other life,” he says in those dreams, to a man with his hat tipped low, chewing on a long piece of grass.
“You trying to die, tomorrow?”
“Not trying, but a man’s luck has to run out sometime.”
Faraday shakes his head from the memory of dreams that shouldn’t linger so much, scrubbing his palm over his face as he drags himself to the bathroom to get ready for work. He stares at his reflection in the mirror for a while, squinting past the laugh lines and the mess of a beard on his face before he starts the process of tidying himself up. He checks his gut again, but there’s nothing there except maybe a little too much stomach. That’s what skipping the gym and adding extra days at the bar will do, but what’s he supposed to do when Vasquez invites him out?
He’s not sure he’s ever said no to that man, not since Vasquez rolled in and joined his covert ops team. There’s something about him that makes Faraday feel like he’s come alive, adrenaline pulsing through him every time he gets near him. That energy only triples when they step into a bar together.
Before Vasquez, it’s not like Faraday ever had trouble finding someone to spend the night with him. His bar tricks are decent, but when you get someone drunk enough to see double, they don’t much care if they can see the cards in his hand when he does the trick. After Vasquez, there are less tricks for the sake of getting someone to spend the night with him and more of them done to impress the man.
Lucky for him, Vasquez is easy to please when you get a few drinks in him. Unluckily, it just leaves Faraday as infatuated as ever with a man that he doesn’t know how to actually seduce in any way other than for a one night stand when he wants a whole lot more. His smiles are brightest, his personal space is non-existent, and Faraday’s name on Vasquez’s lips is so sweet and honeyed that he doesn’t know why he keeps saying yes.
Except he does, because maybe one of these times, he’ll figure out what to say to ask Vasquez to stay the night, the week, the year, forever.
Faraday tries to leave those maudlin thoughts behind him along with his dream, dressing in a pair of dark brown trousers, a pair of sturdy boots, and a comfortable linen henley, his shoulder holster dangling off his fingers along with his car keys and sunglasses.
Faraday’s almost out the door when he hears his phone ringing, still in the bedroom, and has to double back to get it, dropping half his shit in the process. Bending down hurts his head, which definitely confirms for him that maybe his weird dreams are because he was up too late last night with one beer too many. “Go for Faraday,” he says, cradling the phone into his shoulder as he collects his shit and manages to get out the door successfully, this time.
“Get your ass down here.”
“Good morning, light of my life,” Faraday croons, pouring the charm on as soon as he hears Vasquez’s voice, so full of warmth and honey and abject bitterness. At least Faraday’s not the only one feeling the drinks last night. “Where’s my ass belong now?”
He knows he’s accomplished his goal of irritating Vasquez when there’s low Spanish muttering on the other end, though Faraday catches something about a lap that he’s not sure he gets as he lowers his sunglasses and grabs his helmet from the motorcycle, straddling it while waiting for Vasquez to tell him what’s so urgent. “Sam has a briefing, Emma caught new intel,” Vasquez says. “Also, venti black, two sugars.”
Faraday opens his mouth to protest that he’s not Vasquez’s damn coffee delivery service, but the other man’s already hung up.
“Goddamn chingado,” Faraday bitches all the way to the local coffee shop where he bites out an order for Vasquez and gets himself a double espresso shot that’s gone before he even leaves the store, wishing that day-drinking before your job was something a little more socially accepted. Settling the drink in one of the special little compartments he’s put on his bike (something that he created as a result of Vasquez, one more thing in a long list of how Faraday’s adjusted his life for that man), he heads to the office.
It looks like everyone’s been pulled in on this gig, from the look of the crowd heading for the meeting room. Vasquez is already there, staring at Faraday as he tries to look nonchalant, checking his nails. Per usual, Faraday’s distracted by that man for longer than is appropriate, but lucky for him, there’s something else strange today.
“What the hell happened to you?” Faraday demands of Billy, who’s hobbling in after him on an air-cast. He’d seen Billy not twenty-four hours ago, and he’d been fine then. Billy looks mad as hell, like he doesn’t want to talk about it, but there’s a look on Goodnight’s face that says that his long-time partner (in both professional and personal matters) doesn’t feel the same way.
“Truth is going to come out at some point, darling,” Goodnight points out.
Billy huffs and maneuvers his way around on a pair of crutches faster than Faraday moves in general, some days. Faraday leans forward to set Vasquez’s coffee in front of him, forcing himself not to react in the slightest when Vasquez squeezes his forearm in thanks. Faraday keeps looking between Billy and Goodnight for whoever is planning to give an explanation as he settles in the spinning chair next to Vasquez.
“He fell out of bed,” Goodnight finally says.
“You two using bunk beds or something?” Vasquez asks, arching his brow. “How high above you was he fucking you when he fell?”
Faraday snorts into his glass of water, as charmed as ever by Vasquez’s filthy humor, but even he has to admit that the circumstances sound a bit strange. Billy’s one of their wetwork guys, so to imagine him being so clumsy that he’d fallen off a bed is a little bit of a stretch.
“Goody had a bad dream, things went wrong when I woke him up from it,” Billy says in a chilling way that shuts Vasquez up.
Hell, it looks like Vasquez went and looked right at a damn ghost by the way he goes pale. Normally, he’d just keep on ribbing the more dangerous half of the Robicheaux-Rocks marriage, but he shuts up, leaving Faraday wondering what’s so damn meaningful about those words. They all have bad dreams, he’d been in the middle of one last night, but you don’t see him wringing the sympathy out of that one.
He opens his mouth to put his foot in it, but luckily Sam and Emma wander in to stop that, Red and Jack on their heels. Everyone settles in and Faraday keeps sneaking curious glances at Vasquez to figure out why he’d let Rocks off the hook so easy, but soon Sam is standing up to present, drawing their attention in that magnetic way he has.
“We caught ourselves a lead on Bogue,” Sam says, waving a piece of paper in his hands.
Faraday works hard not to roll his eyes. The damn Bogeyman, back from the proverbial dead. Faraday’s been at the agency for nearly five years, now, ever since Chisholm offered him a way out of his gambling debts, and for some reason, that one name couldn’t be escaped. It’s not like Bogue’s a very nice man, but some variety would be nice.
“Did he step on a crack?” Faraday mutters under his breath.
“Far bit worse,” Sam replies, never getting as riled up as he ought to be when Faraday pushes like he does.
“We’ve got intel that he’s running forced labor on some of his land, people making weapons that he’s shipping out to the highest bidder,” Emma cuts in. For all that Sam’s been determined to get Bogue, it’s nothing on Emma Cullen, whose middle name ought to be righteousness, for all that she’s been after Bogue. “He just bought himself a luxury hotel and handed it over to a second in command. We intercepted an invitation and know, now, that in five days time, there’ll be an auction on the penthouse floor of the Rose Hotel to ship those weapons to the highest bidder. We have a reservation for the honeymoon suite opposite the penthouse where we’ll run an observe and report mission so we can go in sharp when the time comes.”
Faraday’s already chuckling, shaking his head as he glances down the table to where Goodnight and Billy are sitting. Anytime they’ve needed someone posing as a couple on a mission, they rely on the easiest choice. Those two don’t even have to fake it and Faraday envies them, just a little, for that easy dynamic between them. Whistling, he gives them a jealous look. “Few days of five-star treatment and getting paid to do it? Lucky bastards.”
The whole room is silent, but it takes Faraday a few seconds to catch up.
“Goody and Billy were the first choices,” Sam admits, “but seeing as Billy isn’t fit to do anything more than type reports until that leg of his heals, we’re going to need you to take his place.” He’s staring right at Faraday as he says it, but that doesn’t make any sense.
“I mean, Goodnight and I get along like a house on fire,” Faraday starts, trying to figure out an excuse that doesn’t actually come right out and admit that he’s scared of Billy’s retribution, but it's not working so well. “I just think…”
“You’re going in with Vasquez as newlyweds,” Emma cuts him off, before Faraday can dig himself an even deeper hole. “Teddy’s already doing the back-end work to get your cover set up.”
“Wait, I don’t think I heard right,” Faraday says, numb with the paralyzing sensation of him getting something he wants.
Glancing to his side, he notices that Vasquez is sitting a little straighter, glaring at Emma. “Can we talk, Emma?” Vasquez asks sharply.
“The decision’s made,” she says curtly. “Things need to be pushed along when they’re not moving on their own,” she adds, like she’s been hiding old inane proverbs in her pants for situations like this. “Go see Teddy,” she says. “Billy, Goody, you’re in mission control with us running this. Horne, you’ll be on backup with Red.”
Faraday feels like he’s being stared at, which might be paranoia talking except for the fact that he can actually sense everyone’s eyes on him as he rises from his chair, wondering why he’s panicking so damn much about a plum assignment with a man that features almost daily in his dreams and fantasies.
Well, maybe that’s the problem.
It’s easy enough to want someone when it’s a perfect fantasy that you control, but this could spell disaster if Vasquez figures out that Faraday’s not suited for the real thing. His flailing panic means that Vasquez manages to get ahead of him, which usually gives Faraday an excuse to stare at Vasquez’s ass in his jeans, but right now he’s still stuck on the part where Emma wants them to play at newlyweds. The one relief in all this is that at least it seems like Vasquez also hadn’t been in on the joke.
“Vas!” Faraday calls after him, jogging a little to catch up. “Hey, can we talk about…?”
“Teddy,” Vasquez cuts him off as they arrive at Teddy’s cubicle, ignoring Faraday completely. “Emma says you need to see us?”
Teddy spins in his chair, glancing between the two of them with an amused smile as he holds out two wallets, one to Vasquez and the other to Faraday. “It’s your lucky day,” Teddy tells them. “Mr. and Mr. Smith, congratulations on your recent marriage. The pictures, they were beautiful,” he says, hand over his heart. From over Teddy’s shoulder, Faraday can see a fake Facebook account with some very convincing photos that look an awful lot like they got taken at Emma’s last backyard barbeque.
The truly scary thing is that he’s not actually sure if those are photoshopped or if that’s just the part of the evening when Vasquez and Faraday had managed to finish off a small keg between the two of them and promptly forgot what personal space meant. Faraday is still convinced that if it hadn’t been for his debt to help Emma clean up after, he might have ended up necking with Vasquez in the hot tub.
Might have beens and never weres aren’t what he’s focusing on right now, Faraday reminds himself.
“There’s membership cards, ID, emergency phone numbers and information on escape routes in there, if you need them,” Teddy advises, handing over earbuds followed by two non-descript wedding bands, one to each man. “Usual procedure goes for guns,” he says. “I’m working on the online profiles. Would you say you two are more a cat or a dog household?”
“Dog,” Vasquez and Faraday say at once, though it’s Faraday who goes on to say. “I’ve already got Jack,” of his Labrador that already spends most of his free time with Vasquez. “Don’t complicate things.”
Teddy waves them off and Vasquez is off like a stubborn shot, striding away like he’s attempting to pull gold in speed-walking or something.
“Hey!” Faraday snaps at him, making a few people turn in place to stare at him. He yanks at Vasquez’s sweater, tugging him towards a private meeting room. Once he’s got Vasquez inside, he lets loose. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? I just want to talk!” He doesn’t give Vasquez a chance to escape, locking the door behind him and guarding it protectively.
Vasquez settles near the table, leaning against it and crossing his arms over his chest, playing with the wedding band that Teddy had given to him. He hasn’t put it on, yet, just keeps squeezing it in the palm of his hand.
Faraday’s been running his over his knuckles like it’s a coin trick, trying not to get paranoid about the fact that Vasquez seems to be avoiding his gaze since the meeting. He pats down his pockets, trying to dig out a cigarette – deciding there and then that he’ll deal with Sam’s consequences if he gets caught.
“Not very smart, smoking,” Vasquez warns, and it’s like a punch to his gut.
Faraday actually falters a step, losing his balance because he’s heard that before, he knows it. It’s like he’s hearing it again on top of Vasquez’s comment, in stereo. His instinct is to throw something at Vasquez, but instead, he shoves the cigarette back in his pocket and glares at Vasquez as he leans that tall, handsome body of his against the table. The glare isn’t returned, seeing as Vasquez is staring back at him with nothing but concern. Faraday is swaying, trying to keep vertical, but things don’t look so good at the moment.
“Cabrón,” Vasquez says, pushing himself off the table with a hop and a kick, bearing in on Faraday.
It’s like a sudden migraine crashes into his head, worse than any hangover he’s ever experienced. Vasquez is sliding his fingers through Faraday’s hair, clearly forgetting all that silent treatment bullshit, so score one for Faraday.
He just wishes that it didn’t feel like his head is literally splitting open. He means that ‘literally’, too, because it’s like everything in front of him is hazy. He feels sick, tasting cigarette ash and dust and blood on his lips, trying to get a hold on himself.
What the fuck is going on? he wonders, as Vasquez slides a hand to the small of his back and protectively curls him in close, flush up against Vasquez’s body.
“Hey,” Faraday gets out, hoarsely, “What are you doing?”
“I need to sit you down,” Vasquez murmurs, his lips suddenly so close to Faraday’s.
Faraday glances down, lashes fluttering as he tries to gauge the space between them. Vasquez has a hand splayed at the small of his back, his long fingers underneath Faraday’s shirt, and the other hand is at the nape of his neck. Vasquez looks like he’s trying to pick his words, running his tongue over his lower lip steadily as he searches for them. He steps them forward and Faraday’s body obeys like it’s got a mind of its own, leaning into Vasquez’s long, lean line of body as he walks him towards one of the chairs, settling him into it with both hands sliding over Faraday’s shoulders and down his arms, sinking down to his knees in front of him once Faraday has buckled and collapsed into it.
Faraday almost damn near spreads his knees wide, but lucky for him, the splitting headache is stopping him. It’s like the world in front of him is flashing in and out. There’s Vasquez, but then he’s gone, some echo of him in a goddamn cowboy’s hat and ill-fitting shirt on him as he smokes a cigarillo and talks about tying it up.
“Oh, shit,” Faraday exhales, starting to get really worried. “I don’t mean to worry anyone, but I think I might be going insane.”
“What is it? What are you seeing?”
Faraday reaches out to rest one hand on Vasquez’s shoulder, just to steady himself, but his grip on reality is slipping, so he feels like he needs more than that. He moves his palm to cup Vasquez’s bristled cheek, thumb digging in hard as he strokes back and forth up the line of his neck.
There’s something in the back of his mind that’s blurry, just out of reach. It’s Vasquez on a hot summer night, the scent of gelignite still lingering on his fingertips and alcohol on his breath.
“Joshua,” Vasquez hauls him back from the edge of whatever mental breakdown he’d been in the middle of. “Come back to me, hey? Hey, where’d you go?” he asks, tipping his head to one side. Faraday blinks to clear his vision and comes back to himself. He buries his other hand in Vasquez’s hair, letting the soft curls twine around his fingers as he holds on for dear life, like Vasquez is his lifeline.
“You ever have one of those days? You can’t shake the dream from the night before?”
“I used to,” Vasquez agrees, inching forward on his knees until he’s worked himself in between them. His palms are on Faraday’s thighs and Faraday absently realizes that if any of their coworkers were to walk in right now, they’d definitely get the wrong idea. “Are you having bad dreams?”
Why the hell does he sound so excited about that?
Faraday curls his fingers and realizes that in his little episode, he’s lost hold on the wedding band. He sees it on the floor over Vasquez’s shoulder, gesturing to it as he gets back to his feet, feeling a little unsteady. He doesn’t topple over, though, so that’s a good sign.
“I’m fine,” Faraday insists, bending over to get the ring on his fingers. “Look, I just wanted to make sure that you’re good to do this with me. You seemed kind of strange in the meeting when Emma told you the plan.”
Vasquez is staring at him like Faraday is a puzzle he’s determined to solve. “I’m fine,” he promises, even though an hour ago, he didn’t seem that way. He holds up the ring and wiggles it, the gold catching the light, before he slides it on.
“Hey, now, I believe the world’s greatest lover ought to propose,” Faraday insists, switching right back to jokes because it’s easier to hide behind the humor than to scare himself with thoughts of what’s happening to him.
Vasquez strides over with a determined gait and plucks Faraday’s ring from him, sinking down to one knee in front of him. “In that case, marry me?” he asks with a smirk.
The thumping of Faraday’s heart is a traitor of physical proof that he’s affected, but he manages to keep a straight face as Vasquez slides the ring on his finger. “I never did think I’d end up settling with the safety choice,” he jokes.
Vasquez stands in a smooth, easy motion and claps Faraday hard enough on the back that he stumbles forward. “Guns?” Faraday asks, choosing to try and settle back into familiar routines instead of think about the possibility that he’s losing his mind.
“Guns,” Vasquez agrees, with a determined look in his eye as he walks out of the meeting room.
Faraday waits a moment longer, giving himself an extra second to calm his thoughts. He doesn’t know what the hell’s going on, but he thinks that he’s about to walk into one hell of a trap. Few days with Vasquez, the man who he’s been half in love with since the first time he saw him, all while his brain appears to be cracking from being soaked in whiskey for too many years?
Yeah, that sounds just peachy to Faraday.
He stares down at the ring on his finger for a long moment, trying not to be damn pleased with the idea lurking at the back of his mind that this wouldn’t be so bad, would it? There’s got to be room in Vasquez’s life for a drunk Irish idiot, right?
That thought lingers with him even as he loads up with all his favorite pieces, arming himself with enough firepower to take down a small town.
It’s going to be a good mission, Faraday tells himself, even if someone needs to get shot in order for that to happen.
To Faraday’s mild surprise, the first few days of the assignment go perfect as pie. He’s not saying that he’s not a good agent, but with everything that’s been going on, he expects something to go off like a powder keg. He and Vasquez manage it like professionals and with the both of them on opposite shifts for recon, they never even end up having to sleep in the same bed together for very long.
Even if they did, the damn thing is practically a football field. Faraday could do acrobatics in it and not even come into contact. Faraday takes advantage of the situation with massages and all the spa treatments in the world, much to Vasquez’s annoyance.
“You know, you could use a deep tissue massage, unless they’ve got some secret menu shit where they’ll remove the stick from your ass,” Faraday says, once his daily massage is done. Vasquez just grunts, which makes Faraday even more irritated, because that’s funny, he deserves at least a laugh. Faraday doesn’t follow that up with offering to put something up there and see if that relaxes him any, but it’s a close thing.
They’re drawing closer to deal day when the call comes in.
“Get fancy, Faraday,” Goodnight says, once they’ve made sure they’re on a secure line. “McCann has reservations at the hotel’s restaurant tonight, Teddy worked some magic and got you two a romantic meal together, two tables over,” he says. “I’d recommend you wear a waistcoat, but then, you always did ignore my good fashion advice.”
“Duly noted, Goody,” Faraday replies, barely paying attention as he watches Vasquez from where Faraday’s sitting on the edge of the bed. Vasquez raises a brow and Faraday mouths ‘dinner’ to him, which sets Vasquez to wardrobe selection, heading to the closet to pick out outfits, laying down wires and other listening information at the same time.
He’s so distracted watching Vasquez in action that he misses the fact that Goodnight hasn’t hung up yet.
“Faraday,” Goody prods.
“What?” he demands.
“Everything copacetic?”
“I don’t know what that means, Goody.”
He hears the sigh of frustration from the other end of the line, but it’s not his fault that Goodnight still keeps assuming that Faraday is smarter than he actually is. “Vasquez mentioned the day you left for the job, you were feeling out of sorts. How are you doing?”
“That man has a goddamn big mouth,” he spits out, glaring with accusation at Vasquez, who has the gall to shrug innocently as he picks out a tie to go with his outfit. Faraday makes a face and makes a ‘no’ motion when it comes to ties, because he never did like the feeling of being choked. Vasquez shrugs and puts the tie back, much to Faraday’s delight. “I’m fine, Goodnight. Spend your time fussing over your better half’s leg. How’s that doing?”
“Considering he was trying to keep me from falling off the bed, I owe him plenty,” Goodnight says. “Bad dreams.”
“Those are going around, huh?” Faraday says, feeling like he’s missing a connecting thread.
Goodnight huffs a laugh over the line. “Yeah, they tend to happen for men like us.” He sounds fondly amused, like he’s humoring Faraday somehow. “Your reservations are for seven. McCann will be there at eight, get a bug under his table, stay for the meal, enjoy dessert on the agency. I hear the tiramisu is delectable.”
Watching Vasquez strip out of his t-shirt to try on shirts, Faraday thinks that nothing could even be half as delectable as that man in front of him, but he gives a quiet noise of agreement before hanging up. He relays the information to Vasquez, sprawling out on the bed seeing as they’ve got hours before there’s some real work to do.
“Hey,” Vasquez says, throwing clothes onto Faraday, which means that his outfit for the night has been picked out already. Great. “Don’t sleep too long,” he warns, fussing with his own things, sitting on the edge of the bed to polish some very shiny looking boots with pointed heels that look like they belong on a Milan runway and not in the middle of some hotel in this dusty city.
Faraday grunts his agreement, already feeling himself drifting off.
His dreams pull him towards a familiar moment, like the dream is magnetic north and Faraday’s the needle of the compass, tugged forwards. It’s that night on the second floor of the saloon again, the stars high in the sky. The echo of hooves lingers at the back of his mind and he feels, strangely, abandoned and worried and terrified and giddy, all at once.
There’s a man there, again, with his hat low over his face. The grass between his lips is being chewed, sure and steady, and he’s holding onto his belt buckle with both hands, swaying a little from the drink, just like Faraday has been. There’s a lasso on the man’s belt that sends a thrill through Faraday’s drunken mind, but as he clomps his way up the stairs, he already knows this isn’t going to go well.
“Everyone still here?” the man asks, his voice sounding just like Vasquez.
“You mean Billy?”
Vasquez (or whoever this man who sounds like him is) grunts his agreement.
“Yeah, Billy’s still down there, drinking his sorrows away,” Faraday agrees, and he can tell that he’s sorry for the poor sucker. It’s a cautionary tale of why you shouldn’t let yourself get too reliant on someone and maybe that’s why the remainder of this conversation plays out as badly as it does in every single dream.
The man starts to speak, the offer he gives Faraday genuine and even hopeful, but Faraday says what he always does:
“Maybe in some other life.”
Then, just like all the other dreams, he wakes with the rattled sensation of an explosion ringing in his ears. There’s that same ghostly pain in his gut and Faraday startles awake, shouting about fire and pain and blood, forgetting that he’s not alone until he feels Vasquez’s hands on him, shaking his shoulders.
“Hey, breathe, okay? Breathe for me,” Vasquez coaxes, pinning Faraday to the bed as he flails desperately, trying to suck in oxygen. These damn dreams keep getting worse, but the last few days he’s been able to avoid them until goddamn Goodnight’s filling his head with the prospect of bad dreams. Then, the first chance one gets, it snakes its way back into his head. “Quédate conmigo, cariño, no vayas,” he pleads, stroking his thumb up and down Faraday’s shoulder.
“Speak English, you goddamn Texican,” Faraday grumbles, though he’s not entirely sure where those irritated words come from. He’s not that pissed at Vasquez, but it doesn’t even seem to annoy the other man. He just chuckles under his breath and pats Faraday on the cheek.
“There you are,” he greets him with a smirk. Faraday focuses his vision and notices that Vasquez’s hair is still slightly wet, his skin smells like that incredible lilac scrub they’ve been stocked with, and he’s got his ankle holster strapped on, but is wearing nothing more than boxers and a t-shirt.
Faraday rubs a hand over his face as he collapses back onto the bed, wondering if he needs to see someone about these damn recurring dreams and what they mean. Maybe he shouldn’t be looking for deeper meaning, though. If the man in his dream is supposed to represent Vasquez and Faraday keeps turning him down in the dream, shouldn’t he just fix that in his waking hours?
That’s the simple part. The part he doesn’t know what to do with is why he always feels that same pain in his gut when he wakes, always hears explosions.
“Come on,” Vasquez says, patting Faraday twice on his thigh. “I know I’m naturally handsome, guero, but you, you need the time to get ready,” he says with a knowing look, smirking all the while.
“Lies,” Faraday sleepily accuses. “Guero means handsome, right? Debonair?” It’s like the dream hasn’t exactly cleared, yet, and he’s sleepwalking through this, saying the first thing that pops into his head.
Vasquez is giving him a strange look, but he’s still smiling. It’s just the furrow in his brow that Faraday doesn’t rightly understand. “Something like that,” is his reply.
Faraday stumbles towards the bathroom, feeling drunk, like whatever his dream-self had been imbibing has spilled over to his waking hours. Cold water splashed over his face seems to do a bit of the trick, managing to clear his head. The shower he takes is icy, not just for the fact that he’s trying to wrap his head around what’s going on, but because the door’s open and he’s caught sight of Vasquez getting dressed in a suit that looks like he’s been poured into it.
By the time he’s out, Vasquez is leaning against the doorframe with his shoulder, all lean lines and clean-shaven. It doesn’t look right, honestly, but damn if he doesn’t look good.
“You’re staring,” Vasquez accuses, playing with his cufflinks as he ducks his head down, as if he needs to hide that smile of his, spinning the ring on his finger as he avoids Faraday’s gaze.
“I got something nice to look at,” Faraday replies, adjusting his towel a little higher, covering up the Jack of Hearts tattoo that sprawls over his hip. “You saying I should stop?”
Vasquez looks him over, his gaze a slow rake that makes Faraday feel like he needs to hop back into that cold shower, but he lifts his chin with the arrogant jut of a man who knows exactly how good he looks at this very moment. Faraday makes a little spinning motion with his fingers and Vasquez smirks as he shrugs, like he hadn’t been deciding which part of Faraday to get his mouth on, first. Vasquez turns around and proves that the back looks just as good as the front.
“How about we talk about those things you’re thinking later,” Faraday promises, feeling like he’s starting to inch closer to that trouble he’s been meaning to avoid since they started this mission.
“Promises,” Vasquez says, sounding a little bitter, but he turns around and heads back to the suite to leave Faraday to dress. “Which of the guns do you want?”
“Leave Maria out on the bed,” Faraday replies absently, not really thinking about it.
There’s a long, awkward silence as Faraday gets half dressed, his shirt unbuttoned, but his pants on. It’s when he’s sliding his shoulder holster on that he realizes what he’s said. It’s like he went to auto-pilot and let his brain speak for him, but he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Vasquez, now there’s a man who likes to give names to his weapons, but Faraday’s got names for his pets and maybe his dick, but guns? He’s never been that guy before.
Besides, Maria is Vasquez’s favorite name when it comes to firearms, he wouldn’t dare encroach on that kind of territory. Wandering out to the main room, he sees Vasquez staring at him hopefully from the bed. Faraday stares at him, looking his fill, and for a real moment, he pretends that they really are newlyweds.
He’s Joshua Smith and that incredible man in front of him vowed to spend his life together with a pain in the ass.
“What?” Faraday asks, softly, hoping they can blow past the whole awkward bit where Faraday’s too tired to make sense.
Vasquez doesn’t say anything, but when he holds up Faraday’s favorite Glock and says, “Maria,” he sounds heartsick and hoarse. Faraday’s not sure why it makes so much damn sense, but it does, and he accepts that gun and its twin to slide into the shoulder holster. “Maybe when we are done with dinner tonight, we can talk,” he suggests.
Faraday’s mouth is dry, but he nods. He’s been meaning to get them to this point, but every time he thinks it might happen, he panics and does something that keeps the wedge between them from allowing anything to happen. The trouble with potentially getting what you want is that when you’re pretty sure you’re bound to fuck it up, it throws a wrench in the whole damn business.
On the other hand, Vasquez won’t sit around waiting forever. Honestly, Faraday is surprised it’s been this long, seeing as he’s never been without his fair share of admirers. He never seems to acknowledge them, even going so far as to turn down invitations so he can spend more time with Faraday.
He knows that if they talk about this, the chances are high that he’ll get what he wants.
Lord, protect him from getting exactly what he wants.
He bends down to snap his knife to his ankle, adjusting the cuff of his pants to hide it before he straightens up, striding towards Vasquez to reach up and unbutton one of his buttons so that there’s three gone, instead of just the two, patting his chest like he’s just done him a favor by having superior fashion sense. Between the two of them, they’re armed to the teeth and ready to take down a village.
“Ready for our first dinner together as newlyweds?” Faraday asks, genuinely eager to actually be getting to do some work together instead of staring through a scope and listening to their equipment in between massages.
Vasquez flashes him a grin as he reaches over to link his arm with Faraday’s, sliding the room key card into his front pocket along with his wallet and some of the button cams and pin mics, waiting until they’re in the hallway to brush an affectionate kiss to Faraday’s cheek as they amble along towards the elevator.
“You know,” Vasquez hums as the elevator climbs to their floor. “If this were my ideal honeymoon, we would have done this the very first night. I would take you to a nice steakhouse, somewhere we could have cigars after and smoke while we drink.”
Faraday stares at him for a long while, because they’re in public and that means they’re using their covers, but that all sounds very real to him. “Honeymoon’s not over just yet, babe, we can still make time.”
“I hope so,” Vasquez agrees, but he looks worried.
Faraday waits until they’re in the elevator to crowd Vasquez into the corner, giving off the impression that they’re necking (at least to the camera’s eye). “Hey,” he says, quietly, “you look like you’re worried. It’s just recon, but we get a decent meal out of it.”
“I know, I know,” Vasquez mumbles. “It’s just…McCann…”
“Why are you worried about that low-ranking piece of trash?” Faraday demands.
Vasquez opens his mouth to answer, but the soft ding of the elevator announcing the ground floor seems to distract him enough that he doesn’t say anything, giving Faraday a gentle nudge out into the lobby towards the restaurant. Faraday slings his arm around Vasquez’s waist and holds him snug, staring up at him like he’s the man who hung the moon.
The waiter shows them to their table and Faraday opens his menu wide as he inspects the empty tables beside them, glancing around the restaurant to mark the camera angles, the other dinner-goers, and what they’ll need to get a good clear line of audio to their earbuds. Faraday takes off his wedding ring, playing with it absently before he gives it a good flick towards the table McCann has booked for the evening.
“Oops,” he deadpans. “Look at your klutz husband, baby. Can you get that for me?” he asks. “You know how I like to watch you on your knees,” he adds with a leer.
Vasquez looks like he wants to flip Faraday the finger, but instead, takes his napkin and puts it on the table. “I’ll get it, dear,” he says, the poison clear in his words, but then he ends up crawling on hands and knees towards the ring, patting around as he makes a show of looking for it.
Faraday leans back in his chair to enjoy the show, biting his lip and offering helpful directions. The nice old lady beside him tips her head to one side, clearly enjoying her view, as Vasquez searches for the ring, bugging the table and chairs at the same time.
“What a nice ass your husband has,” she compliments him.
“I’m a very lucky man,” Faraday replies, sounding very proud of himself. Vasquez is mussed up when he gets back in his chair with his hair falling from its controlled state and the knees of his pants all roughed up. Faraday holds out his hand expectantly for the ring, enjoying the way Vasquez shoves it back in his palm.
“Next time, you go,” Vasquez mutters.
“That’s fair, and you know I’m all about equality,” Faraday agrees, opening their menus so that they can settle in until McCann turns up for dinner with one of his buddies. He lets Vasquez order them wine seeing as he’s got the finer tastes when it comes to that, but it’s Faraday who picks the food.
They’re on their first course when McCann comes in and Faraday’s a good spy, true, but it doesn’t take any talent to see the way Vasquez stiffens up like a ghost just passed through him. Faraday reaches across the table, taking Vasquez’s hand into his own. Under the guise of the fake marriage, he could probably do more, but right now, he just needs to calm Vasquez down from whatever the hell is going on.
“You always get real riled every time this guy comes up,” Faraday says quietly. “What’s going on?”
Vasquez shakes his head, staying quiet so that they can listen in on the conversation happening a few tables over. For a while, McCann and the crony talk about some women they’ve been seeing (women they’ve bought, Faraday can intuit) and the food in front of them, but eventually after a few beers, they seem to slip and forget that they’re in public. That, and Faraday and Vasquez both have earpieces in that help them with the subtler points of conversation.
“It’s ready?” the man with McCann is asking.
“Yeah, it’s ready. Boss says we act like everything’s normal, then press the trigger once they’re all in the room.”
“The buyer already sent the funds?”
“Yup, guns are already on their way. Two days’ time, we’ll be clear of this pile of rubble,” McCann guarantees, chuckling to himself as he raises his hand for the bill. “We’re working on the final stages, but it’s just about in place. Boss doesn’t want any more competition, says we’re flattening the market and he figures he can get a decent insurance settlement out of this.”
Faraday starts to feel that cloudy sensation again, like he had in that empty meeting room. It’s like panic and the strangest pit in his stomach trying to swallow him whole. Not now, he tells himself, willing the nightmares and panic to stay at bay.
“Come on, morning’s still far,” McCann’s friend says after they pay the bill and leave the restaurant. “We’ve got work to do. You coming?”
Once, Faraday got shot in the line of duty. He’d been wearing Kevlar at the time and he’d been punched backwards with the force of it. That’s what he feels right now. It’s like someone’s taken him by the shoulders and shoved him into concrete. That overwhelming haze descends on him and the entire restaurant fades away except for Vasquez.
Only, it’s not Vasquez as he is sitting across from him in modern wear, calling his name worriedly, reaching out for him like he’s about to pass out.
It’s Vasquez, his outlaw, standing on the second floor of the saloon and leaning against the wall with his hat low, a piece of grass between his teeth, and hope lingering in his eyes. The battle of Rose Creek will end one way or another tomorrow, but they’ve got food and liquor in their bellies, the TNT is ready to go, and the villagers are as ready as they’re going to get.
“Come inside,” Vasquez is saying to him, his fingers sliding over his belt and tapping a soft pattern there, “The moon is still high, morning is far, and there’s room in my bed, even for drunken Irish cowboys.” He nudges his hat up with his thumb and gives Faraday a heart-stopping lewd grin that tells him exactly what he wants to do to him. “You coming?”
Hell, if Faraday doesn’t want it, but if tomorrow is going to happen the way he thinks it will, then he’s not going to invite that kind of pain on either of them. It takes every ounce of his courage to dredge the words up, but he does. “Maybe in some other life,” he says, only a few feet away from Vasquez.
“You trying to die, tomorrow?” Vasquez asks, warily.
The truth is harder than that, though. “Not trying, but a man’s luck has to run out sometime.”
Then, just like that, it’s like the yarn is unravelling. He remembers Sam Chisholm recruiting him, that goddamn horse-buying leprechaun, the Babington brothers, the blood, the pain, meeting Vasquez in that hazy drunken blur, their band of misfits, the gunshot, McCann, and the explosion. He remembers that last moment, but the one thing that eludes him is what he’d been thinking in that moment.
Everything else, though? It’s all there. There’s a whole other lifetime in his rearview mirror and Faraday sees it for the life that it is, not just a pile of nightmares haunting him through the night.
He comes back to the present, reeling and feeling like he’s hyperventilating. Vasquez is kneeling at his side as Faraday sucks in deep pulls of oxygen. “Holy shit,” he says, actually shaking with the revelation. “Holy shit, Vasquez, holy shit, that was real, that was all real. You son of a bitch,” he accuses, dragging his fingers through Vasquez’s hair and over his clothes. Sam, Goodnight, Emma, Billy, all of them, they’ve all met before.
“You remember?” Vasquez asks, his eyes big and hopeful, and damn if Faraday doesn’t understand all those looks he’s been giving him for so long. There’s a promise Faraday made that he intends to keep, because he just realized they’re in that other life and he’s got a lot to make up for.
In lieu of answering, Faraday is out of his chair instantly, leaving too much money for their meal as he drags Vasquez out of the restaurant. Faraday’s head is a goddamn mess, but the only thing he knows is that he’s got a whole lifetime of regret piled up that he’s trying to work through and he needs to start making it right by getting Vasquez out of his pants. He slams him right into a wall, mouth hot on Vasquez’s neck.
“I remember,” Faraday confirms, remembering every flood of want that pushed through him every time he stared too long at Vasquez and his fingers or his mouth, remembers how much the other man had irritated him, how he’d grown so damn affectionate of those barbs and how, that night before the battle, he’d wanted nothing more than to indulge in this.
There’s no battle looming on the horizon and he’s got two lifetimes of wanting Vasquez piled up, now, so Faraday aims to get what he wants.
Shame that Vasquez isn’t on the same page. “Wait,” Vasquez is protesting, grabbing Faraday’s wrists and trying to drag them out from where Faraday is trying to do God’s work in giving the man he wants (and loves) a damn hand job.
“What?” Faraday snaps, sharply raising his elbows up to get Vasquez’s hands off him. “I’m trying to give you a hand job, can you show a little more appreciation?” He’s not sure why he feels so damn angry, but he just wants to give Vasquez a little pleasure before they get on with things.
Vasquez looks like he’s dying to give in, but of course he’s always been the more responsible one of the both of them, in both lives.
“Josh,” Vasquez murmurs, “Joshua,” he adds, as if he’s making a plea to all the lives in his head. “You heard them, there’s going to be a bomb upstairs.”
Faraday hates this mission because Vasquez is right and they need to go prevent a bunch of oblivious scumbags from getting blown up, taking innocent lives with them in the process.
“Fine,” he says, “but after, I’m taking you up on that offer of yours. Moon’s high, morning’s far, all of it,” he says, and to his credit, he does stop trying to get his hands in Vasquez’s pants, but they’re not getting on that elevator before Faraday gets a chance to pin Vasquez to the wall, big hands splayed against his hips to hold him in place, bearing in on him aggressively to use nothing more than his mouth to force Vasquez to tip his head back and let Faraday kiss him, his hands sliding up from Vasquez’s hips to rumple his shirt and untuck it, dragging his fingers up Vasquez’s abs, his chest, enjoying the cut of the muscles on the back down.
It takes some convincing from his own common sense not to keep sliding his hands down, but he nearly makes Vasquez’s lip bleed with the sharp bite he gives as he backs off, admiring the prickling red beard burn that he’s given Vasquez.
“More of that to come,” Faraday guarantees, his piece already in hand. “Come on, let’s go fuck some shit up.”
Vasquez sighs a sarcastic, “Eloquent as always, Goodnight would be proud,” but given the way he's staring at Faraday like he wants to devour him whole. Between that and the very clear evidence of Vasquez’s arousal from the bulge in his pants, Faraday knows that he’s got his man. Belatedly, he realizes that all of this has been on the comms, which is a big bucket of cold water that helps shove the immediate desire out the window.
He gestures to his ear as they ride the elevator. “So uh, Monday’s going to be awkward at the office, isn’t it?”
Vasquez chuckles as he leans his back against the wall, readying both pistols and leaning there with that hot as hell smirk as he gets himself ready for the charge. “We’ve been through worse,” is his casual reply. “Everyone already knew what I wanted to do to you.”
“Yeah, well, what about me? I didn’t exactly go around announcing my plans for you.” Though, Faraday did have lengthy and involved plans, he will admit to that.
“You’re not subtle, guero,” Vasquez informs him apologetically. “They knew.”
“I’m a goddamn spy, I am too subtle,” he hisses, even as the elevator doors open and Faraday leads them down the penthouse hallway, signalling for Vasquez to follow after him. He activates the line on the comms back to HQ. “Sam, there’s a bomb here somewhere,” Faraday gives the mission report once he’s gotten over the fact that he might have revealed a whole lot of incriminating details and crazy-sounding shit over the lines. “Vas and I are going in, they could take out the whole building if we don’t.”
“Send backup,” Vasquez adds, ever the responsible one.
Faraday takes one side of the suite’s doors, Vasquez on the other.
“It’s not exactly Rose Creek, is it?” Faraday says, aware that he’s being wistful over a battle that ended with him getting blown up.
“Back to back, you and I,” Vasquez insists. He looks pretty damn excited to be doing this, which, Faraday gets. It’s not like they’re peaceful pacifists in this life, but it’s not like being in the West. There’s a limit on how many people you can shoot before people start getting tetchy. “You can kick the door down,” he offers.
“Vas, you always did know exactly what a man wants,” Faraday replies, like it’s the sweetest wedding present he’s ever been given. Stepping back, he kicks the door down with his boot, picking off two of Bogue’s boys who are watching the door with bullets to their shoulder to knock them down, but not out. “Guns down, McCann, before I shoot your dick off!”
“I knew you assholes looked familiar,” McCann snaps, reaching for his gun while two of his men work on a bomb. “Come on, get this going,” he snaps, using the gun to hustle them along as Faraday kicks over a heavy oak table to give himself and Vasquez some cover, diving behind it. Faraday hears the men tell McCann that if they arm it, it’s going to take out everyone. “Then arm the damn thing and we’ll get out of here. It’ll be worth it to take out Chisholm’s boys.”
Vasquez leans his shoulder against Faraday’s as he checks his ammo, staying well below their cover. “Ready?”
“Always,” Faraday promises, leaning in to steal a kiss even as he lines up his gun to take a blind shot at the muscle that comes rushing in the door, rising over the cover at the exact same time as Vasquez to fire at McCann and his remaining four gunmen, trying to avoid the additional two working on the bomb. Vasquez picks one of them off, but they’re still gravely outnumbered.
The bigger problem is that damn bomb, Faraday knows, which means that their sole mission here is getting it disarmed.
“Give up Bogue, McCann!” Vasquez shouts. “It doesn’t have to end like this!”
“Already has once,” McCann shouts back.
Faraday leans to the side of the cover and takes down one of the grunts with a shot straight through his calf, ducking back under the cover in time to see Vasquez take his turn, his shot blowing three fingers clean off the shooter’s hand. Faraday whistles, impressed, because that’s more of a turn-on than it ought to be.
“How many you got left, McCann?” Faraday can’t help touting his own horn, even as Vasquez swats at him to shut up. He’s muttering about pushing their luck and how he’s an idiot, but then, it’s not like Faraday ever learned his lessons. By his count, McCann is down to four men including himself, but two of them are working on the device. “On three?” he murmurs to Vasquez. “I got right, you got left?”
Vasquez nods his affirmation, eyes roving over Faraday. “Be careful,” he insists. “I don’t know if we get another lifetime after this one.”
“Sweetheart, I’m made of careful,” Faraday lies brazenly. To get to the bomb, they have to clear their cover and Faraday knows that with the numbers dwindling like they are, this is the time to do it.
With a deep breath, Faraday prepares himself for the charge. He’s on his feet and striding across the room quickly, pressing the weight of his boot down against one of the fallen men’s wrists to pluck his gun away all the while providing shooting cover with Vasquez doing the same as they approach, taking advantage of the direct onslaught to get rid of the remaining man that McCann’s got at his side. Now, there’s just one man in between them, some techs, and the bomb.
Faraday should know better than to get cocky, though, because while he’s watched a whole row of men miss a line of targets in another life, he also knows that all it takes is one lucky shot.
“Son of a fucking bitch,” McCann hisses and while Vasquez is taking cover to refill, Faraday is still on the draw, but where he’d thought he had one bullet left turns out to be a mistake. He’s empty and McCann’s not, recognition flashing in the man’s eyes as he pulls the trigger. At this distance, he’s not going to miss.
One lucky shot, that’s all it takes.
Not again, is all he thinks, hand covering the bullet wound in his side. Faraday falls to his knees and feels like he’s reliving history. McCann looks so damn pleased with himself that he hasn’t stopped to think about Vasquez with a full clip and murder on his mind.
“Vete a la verga culero,,” he snaps, firing one shot that takes out McCann at the kneecaps, the pain enough to make McCann drop his gun from pain.
Faraday has fallen to his knees, overwhelmed with his own pain, but there are two tech idiots running away from a very scarily beeping bomb, which means that he’s still got work to do.
He can hear Vasquez, still going nuts, but at least he’s not shooting McCann into a coffin (even as much as Faraday wouldn’t mind seeing that again). He’s pummelling him to a damn pulp, though, fists going wild as he straddles McCann and beats him until he’s black and blue.
“Hey!” Faraday shouts. “As much as I’m turned on by the display, I need help over here,” he says, grimacing and wishing he’d put on his tac-vest, but then, usually people don’t need that kind of protection for recon. Besides, it wouldn’t have gone with his outfit at all.
Vasquez looks like he’s more than a little determined to keep beating on McCann until his face is permanently messed up, but he hauls out a pair of zip-ties from his pocket and attaches McCann to the radiator before hustling to Faraday’s side. His attention is on Faraday and not the bomb, sliding his shirt up worriedly to check on the bleeding.
“Hey! Hey,” Faraday coaxes, trying to get Vasquez to focus. “So far, so good, okay? If we don’t get this bomb turned off, then history is going to end up repeating itself in one hell of a messy way.” Vasquez doesn’t seem to be able to focus on anything but the fact that Faraday is still bleeding and as much as Faraday doesn’t want to think about it too hard, it is a worrying wound. He’s losing more blood than he likes, which means that the bomb has to be their priority before he passes out. “Vas, please, I need you to focus, you paid more attention to this shit than I ever did,” he points out.
It’s true and Vasquez knows it. Faraday had spent the time with Goodnight and Sam to learn about this, but Vasquez had come along to keep Faraday company and had taken an innate interest in the subject. It’s like Vasquez doesn’t think he can half-ass anything, which is as annoying as it is attractive.
There’s a wire that needs to be cut, Faraday knows, but for the life of him, he can’t remember which. Distantly, he feels like he can see Vasquez dig out his knife from its holster to strip the wires, working as the timer count down, but his vision is starting to go dark.
It’s the blood loss, he thinks to himself.
“I got it, I have it!” Vasquez announces, the relief in his voice so damn good to hear. Faraday presses a hand to his side and wonders how bad the odds had to be for him to go out this way, twice. He feels himself slumping over to the ground and in his darkening vision, the last thing he sees is Vasquez through the dark pinpricks.
“No, no, no, you can’t do this to me, not again…”
Faraday reaches out to grab hold of Vasquez’s hand, slowly exhaling. “Should have…” The rest of his words are lost as the blood loss gets to be too much and he slumps over, unconscious, mind drifting between this life and the last as they work to bridge together once and for all.
He remembers the last thought of his previous life, now.
Faraday remembers the explosion and the pain, how he felt like his body was probably in pieces, but he still remembers that last, lingering thought. Should have said yes, had circled around his mind like a bad penny rolling around the drain. Maybe in another lifetime… Then, it had all gone black.
Even with the other memories floating back, that moment had been white noise to him, no matter how much he’d tried to reach for it. Maybe almost reliving history had brought it back to him, but the good news is that unless heaven has started to stock up on cheap disinfectant, he’s managed to survive this time.
Faraday hears the scrape of a chair on linoleum and turns his head to see Vasquez leaning over him, blocking out the harshest of the fluorescent light’s glare. His side hurts like it does when he wakes up from his dreams, but about a hundred times worse.
Grimacing, he stares down and this time, there’s a bandage wrapped around his torso.
“Aw, fuck me,” Faraday whines, feeling like he’s got cotton padding in his mouth (probably the drugs). “Did he get me again?”
Vasquez looks like he’s trying real hard not to laugh at Faraday, but he wants to tell Vasquez that it’s okay, because he’s not likely to remember that he did, anyway, if these drugs are anything to go by. “He did,” he says, taking Faraday’s hand into his own. “I didn’t even get to put his corpse in a coffin this time,” he complains, like that’s what he’d been waiting for all his life. “Instead, I let Sam take him away in handcuffs.”
“The bomb?” Faraday struggles to recall what had happened before he’d passed out from the blood loss. He still remembers the panic, worried that history was going to repeat itself again, but this time it’d claim Vasquez, too.
“We’re not in heaven, sweetheart,” Vasquez guarantees. “I got it disabled before I got you to the hospital. Red and Horne made sure it wasn’t going to hurt anyone.”
Faraday gives a satisfied hum, pleased that he didn’t manage to get himself blown up. He struggles to sit up a little, Vasquez helping him as they move the bed to a ninety-degree position. It allows Faraday to see that the room has been filled with flowers, balloons, stuffed animals, and random cards.
“How long was I out?”
“Thirty-six of the scariest hours I’ve ever known,” Vasquez replies. “They took you in for surgery, I spent all my time in the church, praying that in this lifetime, I deserve some compassion. Lucky for me, God seems to agree.” He slides his fingers over Faraday’s forehead, brushing absent hairs off. “Sam has a team working McCann now to get information on Bogue. They think it’s only a matter of time.”
Faraday knows how it feels to wish for compassion and mercy, seeing as now that he knows this is their second time around, he’s even more inclined to try not to fuck it up. “How come that balloon has sharpie written on it in Billy’s handwriting? And how come it says ‘took you long enough’?” he asks, squinting to try and make out the scrawled text. “Is that really there or am I that high?”
Again, that soft huff from Vasquez, which Faraday finds stupidly sexy and adorable all at once. “No, it’s there,” he confirms. “You ah, you’re a little late to the party, Josh.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I remembered a few months after I met you, years ago. The rest, they’ve known for a very long time, too.”
“Son of a bitch,” Faraday whines. “You mean that this whole time, you’ve known? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted you to remember things properly,” Vasquez says, squeezing Faraday’s hand in his. “When I understood everything, when I felt everything come into place, I knew that I wanted you back then and now. You, though, you didn’t want me then,” he admits, staring down at the pristine hospital sheets.
“Bullshit,” Faraday croaks out.
“What?”
“Of course I wanted you, you outlaw idiot,” Faraday complains, “but last night on earth? I mean, even if I didn’t know it, I could feel something was wrong deep in my bones. One night together and none after hurts a whole lot more than a rejection, doesn’t it?” He breathes out slowly, pushing all the air out. “God help me, Vasquez, the minute I sobered up after I met you, I was nearly in permanent discomfort from the state you put me in. Of course I wanted your fine Mexican ass.”
Vasquez looks surprised, but then, it’s not like they really got a chance to talk it out.
“You shot McCann twice for me,” Faraday says, instead of rehashing their miscommunications. “That’s almost romantic of you.”
“Technically, I shot him seven times for you,” Vasquez clarifies, holding up seven fingers very deliberately.
Faraday, god help him, lets out a bark of laughter as he buries his face, groaning in severe pain. “Don’t make me laugh, you asshole,” he complains, inhaling sharply as he gestures for more morphine, more drugs, more Vasquez, more anything. “Took you long enough to tie it up.”
“We have a whole lifetime now to think about that,” Vasquez promises, sliding his fingers through Faraday’s hair as he hums soft lullabies that Faraday recalls as being old, older than either of them have any right being. He watches Vasquez lean back and turn up his morphine levels, sending Faraday into a beautiful hazy cloud.
“You,” Faraday sighs happily, as Vasquez starts to get even more beautiful than ever, “are an angel and I love you. Don’t go anywhere, my warm and fuzzy and pretty angel.”
“Don’t worry,” is the last thing he hears, as he drifts off, “I’m not going anywhere and neither are you, not this time.”
THREE YEARS LATER
“This is going to be the most dangerous mission yet,” Faraday warns, unrolling the plans over the table, glancing up every now and again to make sure he’s got the full attention of Billy, Goodnight, and Emma, who are helping him run point on this mission. “We don’t have many resources, and I might even go so far as to say it’s damn near impossible,” he warns, trying to make a few notes on the plans he’s unrolled.
“You’re stealing Sam’s lines,” Billy says under his breath, leaning forward to study the papers, making a face once he sees how many of them there are, dragging the nearest towards him with two fingers. “Really? This is your plan?”
“That’s Plan C,” Faraday says defensively, laying out the rest of the plans (A through Z) and trying to sift through them to try and figure out which is the right one.
It’s been three years since all his memories came back to him, but the trouble is that all those memories keep sneaking into his daily life and making things a whole mess. On the one hand, it’s made his nightmares so much worse seeing as now he gets to dream about being blown up, but on the other hand, his card tricks and his shooting has really improved. Not to mention, at least now that he knows that it’s not insanity.
The part that makes all the nightmares worth it, though, is Vasquez. Faraday’s been given a second chance with him and a culture that doesn’t force him to hide all the things he’s feeling. It gives him someone to come home to, someone to love, and someone at his side when he wakes up from those nightmares. He’s willing to take the bad to get the good.
Goodnight seems to take pity on Faraday and leans in to pluck out Plan B, waving it around like a white flag. “This one right here is the one you want for Operation Peacock,” he says, patting it against Faraday’s chest with a hearty two pats to his torso to leave him with it. “If you’re asking for my fine and humble opinion about colors, burgundy would look real nice on him and the roses would be magnificent to match.”
The tension in Faraday’s shoulders doesn’t go anywhere despite Goodnight’s insistence, because he’s too damn worried about fucking this up.
“What if he doesn’t say yes?”
“If Sam finds out we’re wasting resources on you proposing to Vasquez, we’re all fired,” Emma sighs, ever the wet blanket, but still leans forward to read the plan on Faraday’s chest before nodding firmly. “That’s a fine plan, Faraday, just be true to yourself and you’ll do right by him. Even in this life,” she assures him, “Stop wasting time making plans and get your man.”
“That work with Matthew?” he asks, unable to help the glance sideways to where Goodnight is threading his hand through Billy’s, as if none of them are paying attention.
Sometimes, he forgets that it’s not just his second chance, that it’s for all of them. It’s Sam having his family, it’s Billy and Goodnight being openly together from the start, and Emma gets to have a real life with Matthew, grubby messy-handed kids and all.
“You know plenty well it did,” she replies. “Go get your man, Josh Faraday,” she tells him. “I’m pretty sure we don’t get a third go-around if you fuck this up, so my advice? Don’t.”
Plan B ends up working pretty damn well, if the way Vasquez kisses him in the middle of the restaurant is any indication. Of course, them getting kicked out a few minutes later because Faraday pinned Vasquez to the table and nearly started a fire when they’d knocked over the candles hadn’t been in the plans, but it made for a damn good story for the reception.
Vasquez did look damn good in a burgundy vest and a cowboy hat at the wedding. Faraday made sure to pull out all the stops to look his best and didn’t even turn up drunk on the day off, much to Vasquez’s pride. He ends up speaking from the heart when he reads his self-written vows that promise to cherish and hold through all the lifetimes, even though he’s not sure he’s gonna get another kick at the can. He’s managed to nab the man of his dreams (and nightmares, sometimes) and he doesn’t plan on letting him go.
It's a good thing that Vasquez definitely feels the same way. This time, no one is getting turned down because they’ve got plenty more time than just one last night. They’ve got a whole life together to figure things out together.
Above all, Faraday knows that he’s a lucky man. He doesn’t think it’s bound to run out, so long as he keeps Vasquez at his side and he’s got no plans at all to let him go.
“Good?” Vasquez asks when the pastor tells them that they can kiss each other.
Faraday grins back at his husband. “So far, so good,” he guarantees, much to the delight of their guests, but the only smile he cares about is Vasquez’s and that’s one he’s aiming to earn as many times as he can through their long, magnificent lives.