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Motherfucker with gravel down his throat giving history lessons. EZ shakes the guy’s hand because he already refused it once at the counter, and it feels like a repeated offense will start a war, the end of the world.
The Arizonian fuck — his quasi-murderer, let’s not forget — doesn’t smile, not really, but he tilts his head back and his eyes are smug and content. Shit, EZ almost died under that pitch black look, and now his hand is in the hand that pushed a gun up under his chin and almost hit the trigger.
Well — EZ did stab him twice in exchange for his trouble. And he plunged him off a roof.
The hint of a smirk on the guy’s lip seems to suggest they’re truly even.
Constellations swinging by over their heads, Angel whispers “I don’t wanna fuck him up,” and EZ startles because that’s the closest thing to emotional truth his brother has uttered about the whole incoming-kid situation.
He’s been picking at that particular scab for days trying to peer at the wound underneath, Angel bristling up all over and swatting away his attempts with growing annoyance. Who’da known that all it took was a freezing rock at his back and the soothing ramblings of a virtual stranger.
EZ is half offended and half impressed.
Manny is little more than shadow and the occasional shiver, but when he turns around to fucking recite the Scout Oath of all things, moonlight catches on the ridiculous stud in his nose and it sends a glint of silver all over sharp cheekbones and a sunny smile.
Something flutters somewhere deep inside EZ’s chest. Gotta be the clean desert air making him dizzy, making his lungs feel funny.
Can’t help but wonder why the fuck they’re sitting so far apart when the nights out here get unforgivingly cold. The Reyes men run hot like furnaces, always have, but Manny is a sack of bones and a spoonful of blood, the hoodie he’s wearing can’t be nearly enough to keep warm.
They can’t afford hypothermia on a suicide mission, can they? Manny could fold those long legs so nicely under his body and curl up close to EZ, between his knees even — EZ closes his eyes shut and tries to think himself into sleep.
After, on the desolate way back, EZ can’t feel his fingertips. It’s the terror, he thinks, the dread of facing the club carrying the weight of the massive fuck up they’ve just performed right under God’s eyes.
Shit, Canche is gonna have a fucking field day with this.
The kid is at the front of their little party now, keeping a quick pace and marching like a trooper. Angel is glued to his side and he’s shot all caution to the wind and he’s running his mouth wild with nonsense — channeling his inner Coco with optimal results, really — out of an insane hope that he can somehow distract the boy, or even heal him, make him forget about tonight entirely.
EZ has no idea how long that monster had the kid, and he doesn’t want to know.
It’s nearly dawn and the sky above starts to feel less heavy, less threatening. They’ll be home in a few hours. Squinting at the horizon, EZ grinds his teeth and tries to think of a scenario where they don’t bite a bullet in the next few hours.
He can’t fucking find one.
He half-trips on the uneven terrain, catches himself just in time. Manny was trailing a few steps behind but now he’s at his elbow, hoodie up, eyes lost into the distance, his pretty mouth — Jesus — scrunched to the side like he, too, is deep in thought.
Angel shot first, but it was Manny’s bullet that killed el Banquero’s money man. EZ can’t help but wonder if he’s second-guessing his choice, if maybe—
“We did the right thing,” Manny says, his voice unwavering, not a bit of doubt. EZ is so far gone and so tired he doesn’t even find it weird that this guy seems to be able to read his mind so consistently. “Nothing else to do.”
“I know,” EZ says, staring at the stretch of nothing in front of them. “But it’s gonna cost us.”
They’re slowing down, leaving a good distance between them, and Angel and the kid.
Manny straightens his back, juts his chin out, proud and fierce, but he ain’t fooling EZ — he’s terrified, his eyes all watery and unfocused. He’s here, tired and hungry and treading through the desert and stinking of sweat and death, but really, in his head he’s kneeling at the feet of the Virgin begging her to spare his life, begging for the grace of going home.
But still:
“I’ll die for it,” Manny says.
And shit, he doesn’t tremble, and in the gentle dawn yawning up behind the horizon, he’s so beautiful EZ can’t tear his eyes away from his face.
EZ’s heartbeat goes haywire for a moment, blood rushing back to every cell in his body. He stops, frozen still, and Manny stops with him, tilting his head in curiosity, in confusion.
EZ takes a deep breath.
Manny gets closer. A touch of worry on his brow. His lips curled in.
In the distance, Angel and the kid dip behind a chunk of rocks.
Might as well be that EZ and Manny are the only two people left alive in the world.
The thought makes EZ light-headed enough that he picks his hand up and hooks it around the side of Manny’s neck, his thumb just brushing up under the sharp cut of Manny’s jawbone, against the grain of a barely-there hint of beard.
“Nobody else dies today,” EZ says, which is so fucking ridiculous, what is he, clairvoyant?
But at least Manny is grinning now, his eyes and face all lit up in amusement and holy shit isn’t this the type of effortless charm that’ll make men go to war with a smile on their face. EZ is flooded with warmth, and some lazy, hungry creature picks its head up in his chest.
“Yo’ mouth is signin’ checks yo’ ass can’t cash, cowboy,” Manny says, and again he must be tuned to the same wavelength as EZ because his eyes are glued to EZ’s lips and it’s not something that can be misinterpreted now and — well, it’s not helping.
“Watch me,” EZ counters, grinning back with a nerve he didn’t know he had up until a minute ago.
Manny chuckles, breathless and shaking his head in disbelief, but his hand flies up to give EZ’s hip a quick squeeze and that’s the best promise he’s ever received. I’m here, it says, we’re doing this. Long live the Mexica.
“A’ight,” EZ mumbles, tearing himself away from this tiny nook in time and space where his head felt blissfully weightless.
Manny gives him that lopsided smile that is safe and means trouble at the same time, and then off they go, close together, shoulders and elbows bumping into one another’s the rest of the way back.
They get to live another day. It’s… the kind of good news that EZ isn’t quite equipped to deal with anymore. He sits in his trailer, a beer sweating in his hand, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself because he was so fucking sure he’d be dead by now.
Instead, Canche bitched and moaned but by the end of it he didn’t dare piss Alvarez off too much, so he just bowed his head and went to deal with the storm. If they’re lucky, el Banquero will put a round or two in his back.
EZ does feel the tiniest sting of regret at the thought, but Mother Mary help him, Canche said it fair and square that he’s going to wipe him off the face of the earth at the first chance he gets. Hoping the fucker dies first is just a matter of self-preservation.
A knock at the door.
Not even the time to take a breath and the door swings open, Manny’s head poking through. Dumb, lopsided sunny smile plastered on his handsome face.
“Shiiiiit, they put you in time-out in here?” Manny says, climbing into the trailer and looking around with his eyes comically wide. “Nice of ‘em to let you have beer, I guess.”
How come every fucking sentence coming out of his mouth has that musical lilt to it? Can’t he just — well. Speak. Like a normal person. Not making all those interesting little thcks and tiny faces around his syllables. Jesus.
“Welcome to my crib,” EZ says, not even bothering to tune down the bite.
Manny is already halfway to the fridge but he stops dead in his tracks, turns around.
“Wait. Fo’ real?”
EZ shrugs. He keeps his eyes trained straight ahead. A rock. Tries to fight back the blush that wants to climb up his cheeks for some reason. “Grab me one, too.”
Manny makes a sound that’s half a whistle and half a sigh. The fridge opens, multiple bottles click against one another, the fridge door is closed again. A beer cap is unscrewed, then a second one.
EZ puts down his empty bottle and reaches out for the fresh one, looking up at Manny because it would be so fucking rude not to.
Manny is looking at him with soft eyes, the tip of his tongue poking out between his lips like he’s pondering some sort of mystical shit or something.
EZ would very much like to be able to bristle and get offended. Instead, he just feels very interestingly shy under that look.
He feels like a complete fucking idiot, sitting on his uncomfortable fucking half couch surrounded by the miserable fucking bare walls of the depressing fucking trailer he lives in.
Except Manny doesn’t seem to be judging him.
“You still doin’ time in here, huh?” he says instead, tapping the wet neck of the bottle against his temple, that half-smirk hanging from his very pretty lips, and EZ is not surprised in the least that Manny gets it.
Instead, EZ breathes out and manages to put together half a smile.
“Better this than the real thing,” he says. Manny laughs, and kicks at EZ’s ankle and then drops down on the unforgiving couch next to him, squeezed between EZ and the countertop.
“Cheers,” he says, tilting his bottle just so, and EZ meets it with his own, and then they both take a nice big gulp and enjoy the silence for a minute.
EZ opens his mouth to tease I thought Canche sent you running back to Yuma, or maybe to ask have you ever been to prison?, but instead he hears himself says, “That thing makes you look like a fucking moron, you know.”
Because Manny’s nose stud has been catching light from the sunset right at the corner of EZ’s peripheral vision and it’s very annoying, okay?
Manny looks at him with this incredulous expression, which quickly turns downright mischievous.
“Aw, man, you wound me,” he says, doing the thing with his eyes where they flit down to EZ’s mouth and then up and then back down again. “I thought it made me look cute.”
“Yeah, as if,” EZ says, except it comes out way too strangled to be anything but insincere.
Manny laughs again, fucking sun-like asshole he is, and he licks his lips and takes another sip of beer and his entire left side is pressed flush against EZ anyway.
EZ lifts his arm and puts it around the backrest, just casually drapes it around Manny’s shoulders. Manny tips his head back against it, eyes beautifully hooded. The tip of his tongue pokes out again, just lightly touches his bottom lip before Manny sucks it in a little and bites on it.
EZ brushes the back of his fingers along the curve of Manny’s ear and doesn’t even try and hide a triumphant grin when Manny shivers and arches into it like a cat, no, a fucking jaguar, eyes fluttering close.
“You gonna do something or…?” Manny whispers, his voice a stretch of dirt road baked under the midday sun.
EZ is counting primes in his head to keep himself from going insane with want.
“Or,” he manages to say anyway. “I think or, yeah,” and then Manny is laughing and throwing himself at EZ, mouths colliding and hands finding hips and knees squeezing thighs and yeah, alright, EZ is not going to sit back on this one.