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What happened to you?
How could you betray me?
How could you side with Dutch?
"You want a smoke?" the gruff outlaw offered to the hitman.
The latter scoffed, still unmoving from his position of his back against the cell.
John shrugged in a "suit yourself" manner.
The lighter clicked as he lit up his end, covering the tiny flame from the moisture in the humid air with a gloved hand. Letting a puff out, he observed the pitiful man below him.
"You look awful," John bluntly commented.
Javier's appearance had drastically changed since the last time he saw him 12 years ago. The Mexican had gained some weight, hair shaggy and uncut, clothes filthy with dust and dirt; something the previous Javier would never allow. His face aged and slightly wrinkly, undoubtedly boring many unforgivable stories to tell and boast around a campfire. Stubble was shown on his chin and seemed to have grown slightly with the number of days the former revolutionary had spent in this dingy cell. He wore clothes that were no longer sharp or stylish, but an outfit fit for the desert climate in his line of work.
He no longer looked like the man he once rode and robbed with. He no longer looked like the man who once sang joyous songs around a roaring campfire. The man he once knew and respected was gone.
Javier still did not face John.
"Why are you here?" he asked in a quiet voice.
A moment of silence.
"Did you come to gloat?" Javier sneered.
They both knew that that was not true.
John leaned on the nearest wall, arms crossing as he rested a foot against the damp bricks.
"C'mon," he puffed, "you know me. I ain't like that. That typa character fits more of Dutch."
Javier's eyes flickered when John mentioned their once-respected leader. Dutch van der Linde. A man he once admired and strongly connected with. A man thought to be trusted. A man to be blindly loyal to. He thought back, to all those years ago, when Pinkertons were closing in, when Dutch demanded "who was with him" and "who was betraying him". He stood alongside Dutch, Micah, and Bill who all aimed their pistols and rifles at Arthur and John. Reluctantly, he had aimed towards the sky, not knowing what was fully going on and not wanting to harm his brothers-in-arms, staring at the both of them with a befuddled expression.
Prior to this tense confrontation, Arthur and John were both trying to convince him that Dutch was in the wrong – that his decisions were becoming increasingly more reckless and flawed. Javier did not want to believe them. The same man who had rescued him all those years ago, starving in a foreign country, who taught him English, feeding and clothing him when no one else would. For Javier, it was impossible for him to believe that the person he once idealized turned out to be a false prophet, leading the damned to their demise, all while convincing them to tie blindfolds around their eyes as they willingly marched into hell.
After fleeing with Bill, his beliefs towards Dutch faltered and crumbled like a broken tower. Everything that Dutch stood for was a lie and a false hope for Javier.
Years and years after the gang fell apart, his care for his hygiene and what he looked like slowly sapped out of him like a leech. He no longer cared for his appearance when his clothes started to become bloodier and dirtier than usual. The dry climate was no place to dress up like a rich man anyway.
"Then, why are you here?" Javier repeated, his words abrasive with a hint of hesitance. His dark brown eyes flickered to John. In the dim lighting of his cell, he could see John’s eyes glimmering with something. Javier wasn’t sure what it was, but he would describe it as a dull spark.
"...I ain't entirely sure why. Just – wanted to see you, I guess."
Before they hang you. He thought quietly to himself, though he was sure Javier had also thought of the same sentence.
On his ride here, he was hesitant to visit his former friend. The capture of Escuella deeply filled him with a guilt he was sure no other man could make him feel this way. The same man who had shot at him, who cursed him and his family in bitterness and anger, who spat at him, yet John could not figure out why he had turned Javier in alive, as opposed to Williamson. Javier was special.
The bittersweet memories of the Mexican resurfaced of them drinking beer together, singing together, robbing together. Out of all the men in the camp, aside from Arthur, he shared a close bond with Javier like no one else could manage.
He reminisced about a moment when everyone had turned in for the night, it was just him and the Mexican alone. Javier was strumming his guitar gently, a soft and melodic tune began to fill the air. A genuine and joyous smile was strewn across his lips as he quietly sang the lyrics in Spanish. John, after a day of chaos, noise, and insults, welcomed the singing with relief. He went over to sit next to Javier as the calming music filled his ears. His eyes started to droop afterwards then his vision went black as he slept.
Arthur would not stop teasing John about how nestled up he was sleeping on Javier’s shoulder for weeks.
A tear began to form around John’s eye before he swiftly and subtly wiped it away. He looked down at Javier. Still refusing to look at him….
“Do you still play guitar?” he croaked, not unexpecting his voice to sound shaky. He wasn’t sure where he was going in this conversation. Maybe he could salvage something out of Javier. Though, deep in his heart, he knew it was already too late.
“No. Left it at the cave. Tried to come back for it, but it was all burnt up by the time I got there.”
There was a moment of silence between them. It hung in the air like a spider’s web, unpleasant but see-through. The occasional drip of water gathering from pipes hit the floor over and over like a broken record. Javier’s voice broke the silence.
“I never took you as an errand boy.” He states matter-of-factly.
“And I never took you as a hired hitman, working for a tyrant.” John retorted, stamping out his cigarette and fiddling with his gun belt.
Was this really the same man that rescued him from the freezing mountains all those years ago? The same man who he turned into the American government when there used to be a code between them?
“I guess we both changed for the worse, huh?”
The atmosphere was still, before it was filled by a sound John swore he would never hear again, especially now.
Javier chuckling, laughing, even.
“Why couldn’t you have killed me?” he stared at the ground with a melancholic smile, “I’d rather be shot with dignity than be hanged like a common thief.”
John hesitated with his answer. “I didn’t – I couldn’t kill you, Javi,” the nickname slipped out of his mouth before he could think about it. “Before Beaver Hollow, before Saint Denis, you’ve always been good to me. You saved me from freezing to death. I guess I…wanted to return the favor,” John’s tone was uncertain, as if debating if he really did want to return Javier’s kindness, or if it was just a lame excuse to hide his complicated feelings towards the other man.
“By delaying me my own execution?! Oh, how grateful I should be to you, John Marston!” Javier suddenly turned and gripped the iron bars with enraged fists. His tone was venomous and his eyes spoke with grief and hatred to the outlaw.
John was taken aback at the sudden jump from Javier’s quiet and despondent demeanor, to a now scowful and grimacing posture. He really did not want his last moments with Javier to be filled with anger and resentment. Goddamnit, all he was trying to do was at the very least reconcile or even comfort Javier before his sentencing. And John couldn’t even do that.
Javier was staring daggers at him. It was still a shock to John, he still couldn’t believe that the man standing behind the jail cell was the same man who he had promised to save him if the situation ever proposed itself.
The Mexican slumped down to his knees as his arms slacked, still clutching to the bars. John hesitated, before joining him by kneeling down to Javier’s level. He was eye level with shaggy black hair, hair that he once rummaged his fingers through. For a fleeting moment, he almost reached out a gloved hand to selfishly relish in that moment again. He jerked his hand back when he heard Javier speak.
“Following Dutch was a mistake. Maybe I should have gone with you and Arthur. Maybe I wouldn’t be sitting in this cell awaiting my hanging. Maybe, I could’ve been something with you,” Javier looks up at him wistfully, pleading towards John, desperately wanting the man on the other side of the bars to free him. Unfortunately, both outlaws knew that only one of them would be walking out.
Then, John hears a phrase he thought he would not hear being uttered from Javier’s mouth, as nothing more than a slight whisper,
“I’m sorry.”
The scot’s eyes widened. Of all the crazy fiascos and lucky shootouts he had been through since arriving at Mexico, this was what shocked him. Javier apologizing to him. It deeply filled him with confusion, regret, and what can only be described as sorrow, as he tried to navigate what to say next.
“I’m sorry, too. For all this. I mean it.” John pauses. “If there was another way, I’d do it. In a heartbeat. Even if it means we’ll probably never cross paths again.”
Javier scoffs. “You’re still the same man, John Marston,” a slight grin managed to curve on his chapped lips. “If I die, I’d rather be killed by you than anyone else, mijo.”
Suddenly, Javier grabbed John’s shirt collar and kissed him. It was a bittersweet, passionate kiss shared awkwardly between the cell’s bars. John let out a surprised noise before closing his eyes and snaking a gloved hand between the space between grids to cup Javier’s cheek. John made a quiet sound of pleasure as Javier dug his tongue deeper into his, clearly not wanting the other man to forget this moment. In the far distance somewhere, John swears he could hear a bell tolling, chiming back and forth ominously.
They both separate from each other, not before Javier traced a hand over John’s long-faded scars from that fatal wolf attack twelve years ago.
How John clung to his sides for safety and comfort. How relieved he was to find him in the middle of a life-threatening blizzard. How they had once promised to save each other in a moment’s notice.
“Scar still looks pretty,” Javier mumbles endearingly. Part of him kissed John out of impulse and genuine remorse, while the other part wanted to tug at his heart strings to open that damn jail cell door for him already.
John already knew that Escuella was playing with his emotions, but that didn’t stop him from sharing a final act of intimacy one last time. Tears almost welled up in his eyes before he composed himself. He really was hopeless.
Gunshots could be heard in the distance, signaling that it was time. John looked up, before being pulled down slightly by an arm.
“Don’t leave me, John – please. Don’t let them hang me.” He grabbed John’s hand, intertwining his scarred fingers with the outlaw’s gloved ones. His palm felt warm against the leather. At the moment, John was glad he was wearing gloves, because if he had to feel Javier’s bare hand against his, he was sure it would’ve been the last thing needed to free him. But he didn’t.
A desperate and pleading look had befallen on dark brown eyes. Eyes he would always get mesmerized and lost in. Eyes that once shone in a campfire’s light. Against his reflection.
John scrunches up his face, unseen from Javier’s perspective. Eyebrows furrowed, nose wrinkling, he puts on a straight face before facing the man he once held high in regards,
“I’m sorry Javier. I truly am.”
He gently tugs the other man’s fingers off him, leaving him in the darkness as echoed sobs followed him on the way out.
—-------------------------------------------
“Javier Escuella! Do you repent?” The hangman shouted over the angry crowd. Looking before the hostile mob really puts one’s actions and the consequences above anything else that had happened to him in the past few days.
How many families has he hurt for working under Allende? Was working for Allende really helping his country or for himself? He already knew the answer to both questions. The man he used to be in 1899 would be disgusted staring at his future self. A once fiery revolutionary now a hired mercenary for a corrupt tyrant. For a moment, he could’ve sworn he saw a familiar face in the crowd, before tearing his eyes away from the area.
With a heavy sigh, he quietly muttered, “Espero que en otra vida hubiéramos podido ser felices juntos,” before shutting his eyes.
“May God in His almighty wisdom have mercy on your soul.” The hangman pulled the lever, and the platform Javier was standing on dropped, followed through with a sickening crack.