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Every time the sound of hooves went by the camp, Charles froze and his breath hitched. But it wasn’t Javier. Javier should have been back days ago, the job shouldn’t have taken this long.
“Let me come with you,” Charles had said as Javier had been readying Boaz to leave that night.
“I can do this alone, no problem.” Came Javier’s breezy reply.
“I know you can…” Charles replied softly, reaching for Javier’s hand and slipping his own inside, “I just… I’d feel better if I was there, too.”
Javier smirked, his light, golden eyes sparkling at Charles in the dwindling sunlight of the camp and momentarily, Charles forgot everyone else; he couldn’t hear Miss Grimshaw chivvying the girls to work, he couldn’t hear Abigail and John bickering or Reverend Swanson singing. For that moment it was just Javier and him.
It hadn’t been just them for so long: always something to do or somewhere to go. Charles hadn’t been able to so much as speak to Javier alone for weeks… And now Javier was leaving.
He wanted to lean in and kiss Javier’s soft lips, wanted to brush the raven coloured hair from his handsome face and hold him close, staying in that embrace forever. Charles would never admit that he was scared. But he was. They had just lost Sean and Charles didn’t want to see Javier enter the same fate.
Maybe Javier knew what Charles was thinking because he squeezed his hand lightly, “you worry too much… Please… I’ll be fine.”
Charles sighed, brow furrowed still. “I’ll always worry about you so long as you’re not by my side.”
A grimace of guilt tugged at the corners of Javier’s mouth. “I’ll come back to you before you know it, my love.”
He kissed Charles discreetly, though some people had guessed what sort of relationship they had they had never explicitly told anyone. Charles thought that Javier’s lips lingered a little longer than usual.
“Wait for me.”
“Of course.”
One week passed. Charles took guard duty every night, staring out at the path that led to Shady Belle unblinkingly until the trees blurred and swirled into one dark mass and every passing shadow looked like his lover.
During the day, Charles would ride into Rhodes under the pretence of getting supplies. Instead, he would check the newspaper and listen in to conversations to see if there had been talks of a Mexican outlaw being caught. But there was nothing.
Arthur patted him carefully on the shoulder one night as Charles stared into the fire until it was barely alive, long after everyone else had called it a day.
“I learned that no news is often the best kinda news.” Arthur offered Charles.
He knew Arthur was just trying to be helpful and he couldn’t help thinking that maybe Arthur was right to an extent. Charles didn’t want to see Javier’s name in the paper or hear that he’d been captured or worse, killed. But that meant nothing. If it hadn’t been the law, maybe it was O’Driscolls or even the Lemoyne Raiders in this cesspit of backwards thinking slave owners; Charles dreaded to think what would become of Javier if it had been the latter.
The world was dangerous for people like them. Arthur would never understand that.
Another week went by, each day dragging on more slowly and more painful than the last. Charles hadn’t slept, he couldn’t anymore. Six months Charles had been sharing a tent with Javier - six months of Javier lying beside him each night, where Chales could see the gentle rise and fall of his chest, hear the soft murmurs he made in his sleep, a mixture of Spanish and English: the soundtrack of Charles’s nights. Without that he couldn’t sleep. He stared at the empty bedroll and his heart felt hollow and sore.
They shared their first kiss before they moved to Blackwater in their tent; Charles remembered Javier’s fingers tanging with his hair to pull him closer as he kissed hungrily and deep, as if he’d longed for this kiss. Charles knew he, himself, had.
At Colter, Javier had found Charles in the stables, nursing his burned hand.
“I was careless,” Charles told him as Javier unwrapped the makeshift cloth bandage and tended the wound gently, he wore a worried expression on his face.
“That’s not like you.”Nothing had been normal since Blackwater, that was for sure.
“Go to bed,” Arthur said firmly. “Someone else can watch tonight. You look exhausted.”
And he was. Fifteen days since Javier had gone on the job and still no word. Charles knew that people were getting as worried as him but no one dared say anything in front of him.
Charles collapsed on his bedroll and fell into a troubled sleep where he dreamed of Javier caught by bounty hunters and hung, scared and alone.
Charles awoke to movement. It was dark in the tent but he could make out Javier’s slender figure crouched down beside him.
Charles sat bolt upright. “Javi..!”
Javier’s handsome, feline-like face came into view. He smiled weakly. “I told you I’d come back to you, mi amor.”
Charles caught his chin and studied his features; his right eye bruised, cuts littered his face and his lips had dried blood on them.
“Who did this to you?” Charles asked, an unfamiliar tinge of anger in his voice that took Javier by surprise.
Javier brought his hand up to Charles’s wrist. “No one. It was my own stupidity. I... got complacent.” Charles’s eyes burned bright but Javier spoke soothingly, “It’s fine, Charles. I’m fine.”
“Javi…” Charles repeated, his thumb tracing the nicks and cuts in his lover’s skin. Javier’s eyes flickered. “I thought… I thought I’d lost you.” Charles’s voice caught in his throat.
Javier hushed him, leaning closer and pressing his lips to Charles’s. Their mouths fit together as if they had been made to be that way. Charles wound his arms around Javier, needing to feel him. Javier’s hands slipped beneath Charles’s shirt and caressed the smooth expanse of his chest and he kissed his neck until Charles shivered and sighed.
“I missed you,” Javier breathed, “I missed you so much, my love.”
“I missed you too.” Charles whispered back, “never leave my side again.”
“I won’t. I promise.”