Chapter Text
Some things truly never change.
But the west, the west surely has. No longer a land uninterrupted by bureaucracy and government, where rules and morality are strictly a matter of personal opinion. In order to live in society, you must abide by what has been ascribed as wrong or right.
In this respect, Javier has surely changed. Once a revolutionary, he now works under the government he once fought tooth and nail to overthrow. Some may call that a betrayal of the self, others simply a means by which we survive in a world we have little means of changing. Javier chooses not to call it anything, and not to think about it. It’s easier that way.
The one thing that has remained for Javier Escuella is vanity. Not the kind that kept him well dressed and religiously groomed in his past, but the kind that drove an obsession with his outwardly projected image. The kind of man that people saw him as, and what pieces of himself he chopped up and reconfigured in order to conform to his constructed persona. This was never clearer to you than it was on the ride to the fort in El Presidio.
“C’mon mi amor, I’m not that scary, am I?” Everything about the way he was perched on his horse portrayed relaxation, a casual banter, a question that was more your problem than his. But you knew better. “Have I really changed so much that you can no longer stomach speaking to me?” Would be an accurate translation. It was less of an inquiry, and more of a pleading. A desperate hope for second chances that he wouldn’t even know what to do with. Javier has played this persona for so long, even he no longer knows what true intentions he is hiding. But you do.
As nostalgic memories tug bitterly at your heartstrings and whisper sweet promises of their reprise. You have to remind yourself that tempting as it is to fall back into your old ways, that Javier has done nothing to deserve a chance. He hasn’t shown any remorse for the miserable and tragic past where he played a key role. For all you know he is the same rotten man who interrogated you in paranoia and fear at Beaver Hollow, who cast cold and ambivalent glances to your anxious fits of upset, who used you for stress relief when he didn’t love you but knew you were too afraid of losing him to refuse.
It is those memories that drive you back to a harsh, unyielding reality. One in which you can no longer afford to pretend.
“You shouldn’t call me something I’m not. Besides, I ain’t got anything to say to you.”
To the Javier who speaks playfully and without thought, these words are more than sobering. Your disdain is painfully clear, and he cannot lie to himself when he searches for the reason behind it. It is easy to deny responsibility, to convince yourself of your own innocence and blame someone else, when you are not face to face, or rather side by side, with the person who must be at fault in your place. It was easy to accuse you of desertion and hysteria when he couldn’t see the lines carved into your face by years of pained expressions, the struggle plain in your clenched eyes and torqued lips as his mere presence forces your recollection.
It is the Javier that loved you, and will love you until his dying breath, that cannot bear to blame you for your own inconsolable heartache and despair.