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In the next room Billy and Goody are talking quietly. Not loud enough for Vasquez to make out the conversation, but enough that he can feel a pang of jealousy ricochet in his rib cage.
Immediately guilt follows.
He is happy that Goodnight is finally conscious after three days of worry and misery. And a dispassionate Billy that made even Red uncomfortable.
But still, Goody woke up. And has been awake for the past three days. Even Horne has woken up once or twice.
Vasquez looks over at the unnaturally still body next to him. He wants to swear and curse and plead with all the saints his mother taught him. But he knows none of that will do him any good.
And it would only get Sam to kick him out of the sickroom. Again.
So he settles for taking another inventory of Faraday. Joshua, the other man would remind him if he was awake.
He shakes off that train of though and takes in his lover’s features. The pale skin that burns in the blistering desert sun nearly matches the white of the sheets. Sweat forces ginger bangs to lay unusually flat.
Vasquez forces his gaze lower. And still flinches at the sight of the bare chest wrapped in gauze and bandages. That still show a few specks of pink indicating the bandages need to be changed again.
“Chingado tu madre-“ Vasquez begins to mutter under his breath but that only brings up the memory of watching Joshua take a bullet to his gut. Already a mortal wound to anyone else.
He reaches out for Joshua’s hand and squeezes it as tightly as he can. But that only brings a twinge to his bicep as his own wound makes itself known.
“You need rest.” Red says from behind him. He probably was sent by Chisolm. They get more results out of him if they change up who talks to him.
But not tonight. Tonight marks a week since Joshua was blown up by Bogue’s IED.
“Billy shouldn’t even be out of bed, yet you and Chisolm do not mother hen him.” Vasquez bites out, but he still doesn’t turn. His gaze is solely on the red circle permanently inked onto Joshua’s finger.
“Sam’s getting the pair of them to go to sleep now.” Vasquez can’t see it but it sounds as if Red’s wrinkled his nose. “In separate beds.”
Vasquez huffs a laugh, and wishes Faraday, Joshua, would open his eyes so they could share the joy of mocking the youngest member of their team.
“You aren’t doing anything for him by just sitting there.” Red tries again moments later, but it isn’t unkind, and for that Vasquez is grateful.
“And I’m not going to be able to sleep if I leave. So let me stay and I will sleep.” Vasquez says and with this he does turn to give the young ranger a reassuring smile that he knows doesn’t reach his eyes.
Red looks just as haggard as Vasquez feels. He’s in the same uniform up the as when he was last in the room. And there are bags under his eyes that indicate how little sleep he is getting.
But the young man just nods in understanding. “Sam will check in on you in a bit.” And that’s as much of an admission just how rattled their team leader is as Red will give.
With that, Red leaves and Vasquez turns back around to his charge.
“Wake up, guero.” He pleads quietly as he brings up the hand still in his grasp and presses a desperate kiss to the palm.
Next door, Billy and Goodnight are quiet, but Vasquez wonders if it’s just a ruse so that Sam won’t babysit them. If he knows them as well as anyone can know each other in their line of work, he bets his mother’s medallion on the two being in the same bed the next time their Captain checks in on them.
Surprisingly, the captain isnt the next on to come chide Vasquez.
“We’ll get you as soon as he wakes, if you just get some rest.” Vasquez turns to tell Emma he can’t get rest while Faraday is like this. That doesn’t she get it? She was worse than he was while Bogue had Matthew. But when he meets her steely gaze, the protest dies on his lips.
“Not to sleep.” There are still deep bags under her green eyes, even with Matthew back relatively unharmed. “Just, get some food. Stretch your legs, I’ll watch over him.” She smiles sadly.
Vasquez takes in her appearance. Her usually immaculate bun is in disarray and her clothes are disorderly as if she just got out of bed after sleeping in them. “Did Matthew want you to check in on me or Joshua?” He asks, and a smile almost graces his lips when Emma has the decency to look ashamed.
“Both.” At least she’s honest. “He’s going insane with the base doctors not letting him help until he’s cleared for duty. And even then, you guys are his unit so they won’t really let him do anything.” Emma doesn’t have to tell him how frustrated Matthew is. Vasquez knows.
“I won’t- I can’t leave him alone.” Vasquez asserts firmly, Joshua’s hand still in his firm grasp, but his gaze still mostly on his best friend.
“I’ll be here, he won’t be alone.” Emma assures.
“That’s not-“
Emma raises one eyebrow in admonishment. She was practically Faraday’s sister growing up. To say she isn’t good enough to watch over the demolitions expert is rude.
“I’m going to chock it up to the fact that you’re sleep deprived and stressed. But you know better to think that I don’t know why he can’t be left alone.” She says, her voice brittle.
If Faraday wakes up alone. If no one is there... There are a lot of things, unspeakable things, they have all gone through in their line fo work. And one of those things that Faraday doesn’t talk about, but everyone on the team knows, is to never let the man wake in a medical room alone.
Something in his gaze, his posture maybe, must clue Emma into the fact that he needs to be here, to be the first one Joshua sees, just as much as Joshua needs not to wake up alone.
“OK. But you haven’t even dealt with the man himself. You’re gonna need a better défense than that.” She warns.
He hears her footsteps, and assumes she’s walking back to matthew, but then he feels a pressure on his shoulder, and he turns to see Emma’s hand giving him a reassuring squeeze before leaning down and brushing a kiss against his temple.
“Go back to your husband.” He says when he finally finds his voice again.
Emma lets out a laugh, as if it’s startled her, before leaving.
Another hour passes, during which time, the nurse has done her midnight rounds, and Billy has moved back to Goody’s bed. Sam and Jack have been having a meandering conversation in Jack’s room across the hall.
Vasquez can only hope, he’s escaped their Captain’s disappointment.
“I sent a scout and a deadly markswoman, and neither of them got you out of here?” Chisolm asks, but there’s not heat in his words. Vasquez knows better than to match his gaze.
And he should’ve known better that it wasn’t Matthew who sent Emma.
Sam sighs, then walks around the foot of the bed and sits in the chair on the other side. The older man takes his time cataloguing Faraday’s condition.
“You’ve both been in worse scrapes before.” The other man begins, and Vasquez can’t help the scoff that makes it past his lips.
Sam raises and eyebrow that puts Emma’s to shame, and Vasquez almost feels chastised. Almost.
“So talk. Before he wakes, up, before the nurse comes back and she scares you off.” Chisolm advises, and Vasquez is quelled enough to not speak.
“A bullet to the gut, and an IED?” He raises his own eyebrow even as he squeezes Faraday’s hand even harder, not noticing the grumble of pain that it causes. “Even Faraday isn’t that lucky.”
“You’d be surprised.” A raspy familiar voice mumbles, and both Chisolm and Vasquez look down to see bleary green eyes blink open and struggle to take in their surroundings.
“There you are, guero.”
“Good to see you awake, Faraday.”
“There a reason you two need to have this conversation here and now?” Faraday asks, and both Sam and Vasquez meet matching apologetic gazes before looking away.
Sam stands up and as he does so his chair makes a screeching sound that Faraday winces at. Vasquez shushes him and doesn’t even glare at Chisolm. He’s too busy cataloguing how Faraday’s shielding himself from putting any weight on his left side, and how his eyes have yet to open completely, and his breathing isn’t any easier-
“You two get some sleep.” Sam orders. “Not even going to try to tell you to do it separately.” He says, and a laugh escapes from Vasquez as their Captain admits he knows that both married couples have ignored his orders.
“Night Sam.” Faraday mumbles.
Sam closes the door behind him, and it takes all of Vasquez’s restraint not to immediately ask Joshua how he feels.
“Not now.” Joshua pleads, and it breaks Vasquez’s heart as his partner crumbles in front of him. The facade he feels the need to put on for the others disappearing when it’s just the two of them alone.
“Of course-“
Before Vasquez can ask if Joshua wants him in the bed, he’s being tugged by the hand he’s been gripping all night. He attempts to slow his fall, but he only barely manages not to fall on any of Joshua’s injuries, not that the other man seems coherent enough to mind.
Vasquez gently entwined them together, careful of the various monitoring lines, before subtly pressing for more pain killers that he knows Joshua is too stubborn to take himself.
“Bastard.” Joshua mutters sleepily, even as he curls into Vasquez so that even the two of them have a hard time deciding wher one begins and the other ends. “te-te...”
Vasquez shushes the frantic muttering. “I know, guerito, lo sé.”
Like that, Vasquez closes his eyes to sleep for the first time all week.