Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Prologue

Faraday’s seen some pretty shoddy work in his time, but if the half a dozen gentlemen who are currently fanning out around his table in the bar are trying to be anything resembling subtle he’s afraid they’re failing by a wide margin. He goes so far as to catch the eye of the one he determines to be in charge and gives the man a deliberate wink, causing his new friend to grimace and flush red.

Once the hired goons, and Faraday’s positive that’s what they are, have sequestered him off from the rest of the bar to their apparent satisfaction, they collectively turn their backs on him, seemingly waiting for something else. He wonders idly if he should be concerned, chances were good most people who found themselves in a situation such as this would be at least a mite perturbed, but Faraday’s mainly intrigued.

Some time passes, about fifteen or twenty minutes if Faraday is anyone to judge, and he whiles it away by playing with the deck of cards he’d tucked away in his coat pocket prior to heading out for a night on the town. Eventually, the head of goon squad starts to shift, his attention now focusing on a sharply dressed man who’s just entered the bar, and Faraday perks up at this obvious sign that something interesting might finally be about to happen.

The new arrival makes his way further into the bar, and a couple of men peel out of various spots to flank him. Faraday suspects they’re more hired help, with the other fellow being the key player in whatever’s going on.

Unsurprisingly, the man makes his way over to Faraday’s table, sliding through two of the men watching him with the barest hint of a nod in their direction. He comes to a stop right in front of Faraday’s table and draws back the seat directly across from him.

“Mr. Faraday,” the man says - he has an accent Faraday can’t quite place and a tone he doesn’t much care for. “Do you mind if I sit?”

Faraday snorts, he hates it when men like this try and pretend like nothing hinky is going on. “Given that you’ve got me surrounded by your men, I don’t imagine it matters if I mind or not.”

The man smiles at him, nodding his head in recognition of the hit. “Your point is well made, Mr. Faraday, but that’s no excuse for poor manners, don’t you think?”

Faraday doesn’t care much about manners one way or another, so he shrugs. “Don’t matter to me none.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the man says. He pulls the chair back even further and finally settles into it. “Mr. Faraday, my name is Bartholomew Bogue, and I find myself in need of the assistance of someone like you.”

Faraday supposes he should be grateful he’s facing a job pitch as opposed to some other sort of shakedown, but mostly he just feels annoyed that this is how a potential employer has chosen to approach him. The ones who like to make an obvious show of strength before anything else always tend to be the most annoying.

What he says though is, “I’m listenin’.”

Bogue nods and reaches into his jacket, eventually drawing out a large manila envelope from which he then proceeds to remove a number of photos. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of me or not, but I deal heavily in the real estate industry.”

Faraday shrugs. “I can’t say that’s a field I’m heavily involved in.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Bogue admits. “Some people think it’s something of a dying industry, and maybe it is, but I intend to see it through while I can. Unfortunately, I’ve run into some problems as of late.”

He places the photos face up on the table, and Faraday lets out a low whistle. Dead men stare up at him from the pictures, each and every one of them looking like they’ve been mauled by wild animals, large wild animals.

Bogue meets Faraday’s gaze when he looks up. “As you can see, I’ve got something of a wolf problem.”

“What makes you think it’s wolves?” Faraday asks, stalling for time. “I’ve always heard that a wolf won’t attack a human without reason.”

“Please, Mr. Faraday,” Bogue says tiredly. “Can we drop these silly pretenses?” He narrows his eyes and taps one of the photos pointedly. “You and I both know I’m not here to talk to you about normal wolves. I’ve got a problem, Mr. Faraday, and it’s one you can help with.”

The word neither of them is saying lies heavily between them. “I don’t hunt ‘em without reason,” Faraday says finally. “Most of their kind live perfectly respectful lives and never harm anybody. There’s plnty of other things that go bump in the night for me to waste my time on.”

Bogue taps one of the photos again, this time much more forcefully. “Does this look harmless to you, Mr. Faraday? These are from a previous project of mine, a town out west by the name of Rose Creek. I lost almost a dozen men out there before I pulled back. I tried leaving it alone and setting up shop elsewhere, working on a new project, but the damn things have followed me and I’m worried they’re going to start attacking my people again.”

Faraday chews thoughtfully on his bottom lip for a moment before replying. “Well, the thing of it is, Mr. Bogue, when I hear a story like this, what I wonder is what you’ve done to set an entire pack off.” He meets Bogue’s offended stare head on, refusing to back down. “Werefolk don’t attack like this for no reason, my friend. What’d you do to them?”

Bogue stares back at him for a few seconds, but then the moment passes and he huffs out a sigh. “Very well,” he says, and Faraday thinks he might be just the slightest bit impressed with Faraday calling him out. “My previous work was potentially going to turn Rose Creek into a ghost town, albeit one where the people losing their homes were to be fully compensated for the land they’d be giving up, but those animals had other ideas. They attacked, and they won.”

He rubs at the bridge of his nose. “I had thought that would be the end of it. They got to keep their territory, and I went and found work elsewhere. Unfortunately, they seem to have taken the whole affair personally. I’m at risk of losing men again, Mr. Faraday, and I’m not willing to sit around and let this end up like another Rose Creek. I’ve got the manpower to fight these things, but not the skill. That’s where you come in. Your reputation precedes you.”

Faraday had already figured that part out, not that it was surprising. Once a person got it into their head that werewolves were real and there was a situation where they needed dealing with, his name usually the first in the hunting community that cropped up, a fact he could thank his late mother for.

Bogue leans forward in his seat, his voice insistent. “Look, Mr. Faraday, you don’t have to like me and you don’t have to like the job, but the fact of the matter is that I’m a victim here. I’ve as much right as anybody to my work so long as it’s legal, which it is, and these animals are destroying both it and my people. I know you don’t kill the things without reason, that was why I came looking for you in the first place. I want this done right.”

Faraday rolls his eyes. “Flattery isn’t necessary, Mr. Bogue. I’ve worked for plenty of men I didn’t much care for in the past. Tell me why I should add you to the list.”

Now Bogue sighs. “Look, what about this - you come down and see what I’m dealing with. If, after assessing the situation, you think there’s truth to what I’m saying, then you clear these damn things out. If not, you walk away and I go back to fighting a losing battle on my own. Either way, I’ll pay you well, which I think we both know you could use.”

Faraday’s quiet for several moments. The fact that he’s damn good at it aside, he doesn’t particularly enjoy hunting weres, always feeling like he’s walking a fine line between right and wrong when he does so since, unlike so many other creatures he’s come across in the past, they’re entirely sentient. Still, he’s done plenty of things he’s not proud of in order to make a living, and if Bogue’s telling the truth and this particular pack really is out killing folks, even folks like him, then it was hardly like anyone else would be good for the job. At least Faraday’d have the decency to kill them quickly.

“Alright,” he says finally, “I’ll come down and take a look, but I hope you know that when you say you’re going to pay me well, you mean damned well.”

Bogue doesn’t bother trying to hide it as he rolls his eyes. “I assure you, Mr. Faraday, of this I have no doubt.”

*****

Vasquez is napping in a patch of dying sunlight in the backyard when he’s rudely awakened by the sound of snarling coming not far from him. Snuffling irritably, he cocks his head to the side and tries to suss out what the noise is and who’s making it. A pained yelp followed by a lower growl sound out from off to his left and that’s enough to answer both of his questions.

Rolling over on his stomach, he gets his paws beneath him and pushes up off the ground, shaking dust and grass from his coat as he goes. He trots over in the direction of the noise, and isn’t at all surprised when Red and Teddy soon come into view, both of them also in wolf shape and Red with Teddy pinned under him as the younger were snaps futilely up at his face.

He’s just about to announce his presence, preferably with a sharp growl stemming from his annoyance at having his sleep interrupted, when the back door of the farmhouse slams open and Emma stomps outside. The look on her face is more than enough to make Vasquez shrink back due to not wanting to get caught in the sudden line of fire.

“Would you two cut that shit out?” She barks, and Vasquez bets if he were closer he’d be able to see she’s showing more teeth than is normal for a human woman. “I swear it’s getting so neither of you can go five minutes without being at each other’s throats again.”

She was right about that. They’ve all been on edge since they’d been forced to abandon Rose Creek, and it’s leading to more instances of infighting among the pack. Red and Teddy may be the worst culprits, but they were hardly the only ones. Even Goodnight and Billy had been snapping at each other this morning, and that was virtually unheard of.

As he watches from his position, Emma shoos Red and Teddy away, telling them that if they had to fight they could at least have the decency to do it somewhere far enough away that she could still hear herself think. The two of them slink off soon after, Teddy with his tail between his legs and Red with his head up like he’s trying to pretend he’s above the whole thing but clearly just as chastised as his companion.

“Honestly,” Emma grouses once they’re out of sight. “How much longer do you think they’re going to be like this?” She asks.

Surprised, he hadn’t realized she’s spotted him; Vasquez rises up out of his crouch and shifts back to human. “About as long as it takes for them to feel safe again,” he says once he has a mouth capable of forming the words.

She huffs. “So never then, hmm?”

Their flight from Rose Creek had not been enjoyable, but if luck was with them they’d finally managed to run far enough to put the past behind them where it should be. Still, it would likely take considerable time before anyone felt completely safe, and, until then, tensions would run high. Vasquez opens his mouth to say all of this, but thinks better of it. Why should he tell Emma things she already knows? He shrugs instead.

“That’s what I thought,” Emma mutters. Rubbing her temples like she’s trying to ward off a headache, she turns to make her way back inside, her wedding ring glinting briefly when the shift in position brings her hand into the sunlight.

Vasquez considers returning to what he’d been doing, but Red and Teddy are still loose in the yard and it’s probably only a matter of time before they start fighting again. That’s no way to try and enjoy a nap, so he sighs and pads into the house as well, snagging a pair of jeans off the deck railing and pulling them on as he goes.

Jack’s in the kitchen with Emma as he comes inside, and it takes Vasquez a second of watching his hands before he realizes he’s whittling of all things. Their oldest packmate was a strange one to be sure, but Vasquez supposed he was welcome to pass the time away however he chose.

“Evenin’,” Jack murmurs upon spotting him his hands never ceasing their movements as he shapes the wood into who knows what.

Vasquez dips his head in greeting, but doesn’t say anything. Crossing the room he hauls open the door of the fridge and peers inside to see if he can find something he feels like eating. It’s getting late, certainly late enough for a bite of supper, but none of the food sitting on the shelves looks particularly appetizing to him. He closes the door with a sigh and turns back to look at Jack.

For his part, the older were just gazes calmly back at him. “You look troubled, Vasquez. Is something wrong?”

Vasquez snorts. Jack doesn’t usually go in for asking stupid questions, but it seemed like tonight might be an exception.

With the possible exception of Sam, Jack’s the only one of them who’s accepted their new lot in life with anything approaching serenity. Red and Teddy are constantly at each other’s throats as they try and take their frustrations out on each other, and Emma now lives her life with a barely contained ball of rage lurking deep within her, perpetually on the verge of spilling over. Meanwhile, Goodnight is always on edge and waiting for the other shoe to drop, and Billy is no better since as long as Goodnight is uncomfortable then so is he.

And as for Vasquez, perhaps troubled wasn’t quite the right word to describe him. No, he thinks, it’s more accurate to say he’s restless and irritated by turns.

“What isn’t wrong?” He asks finally. “We’re none of us too content with our lot in life right now, wouldn’t you say?”

“I wouldn’t say that, actually,” Jack replies. “Oh, it’s taking some time for everyone to adjust sure enough, but we are adjusting.”

Vasquez snorts. “We fight all the time. Not with people on the outside, but with each other. How is that a sign of adjusting?”

Now Jack gives him a pitying look. “Oh, son,” he says with a sad shake of his head. “Sometimes I forget how you were on your own before Sam tracked you down.”

Vasquez bristles at that, his ire automatically rising, and he opens his mouth to give the older man a piece of his mind.

“Don’t,” Jack says, raising his hand and cutting off the words before any of them can escape. “We both know you’ll just wind up saying something you regret. Better to just keep yourself quiet if that’s how it’s going to be.”

Growling, Vasquez spends a moment considering if he does want to start a fight or not, but in the end he thinks better of it. He could probably take Jack, but in the end what would be the point? And it was true; he’d no doubt regret it once his temper wasn’t flaring quite so hotly.

His mouth remaining firmly shut, Vasquez gives Jack a curt nod and leaves the kitchen while he’s still in the right mindframe to do so. He wishes like anything he could shake the subtle feeling of wrongness that’s been hovering over his head since they’d been forced to resettle so far away from Rose Creek.

“Something got your back up there, Vasquez?” A quiet voice asks, and Vasquez freezes, realizing only now that his meandering path out of the kitchen has for some reason lead him to the living room instead of upstairs and into his own space like he’d originally planned.

He glances over at where Sam is sitting curled up in one of the overstuffed armchairs and takes a deep breath that he then lets out slowly. He needs to calm down. It doesn’t matter how he does it, but it needs to happen.

“I’m fine,” he says, belatedly answering Sam’s question. He’s not fine, and no doubt they can both tell this, but if he doesn’t say something Sam will only keep pushing.

“You don’t look fine,” Sam says, indicating that he’s apparently going to keep pushing regardless of what Vasquez tells him. “In fact, I’d go so far as to say you’re looking somewhat wild around the eyes. What’s wrong?”

“What isn’t wrong?” Vasquez asks tightly. He hadn’t meant to say that, doesn’t know why really he’d let it out, but let it out he had and now they’re going to have to deal with it. “I feel … eh, I don’t even have the words to describe it. I just know I’m going to go out of my mind if I don’t do something about it.”

He pauses for a second, before nodding his head decisively. “I’m going out.”

Sam’s eyes narrow at this. “Now, Vasquez,” he starts, “far be it from me to tell you what can and can’t do, but we do not need to be bringing trouble to our doorstep, you hear me?”

“What makes you think I would do something like that?” Vasquez demands.

“The look on your face right now for starters,” Sam replies. He gives Vasquez a long look. “I can’t say it’s making me overly comfortable.”

“Yes, well, I can’t say that I care.” Vasquez tells him. He hasn’t spent much time in the nearby town, not even when they’ve been here for months already, but he’s been there enough and right now he has the feeling that if he doesn’t get a change of scenery immediately, he’s going to do something unfortunate. Sam can dislike the idea all he wants, he’s going. There’s a bar he’s been too once or twice already, maybe he can hide himself in there for a while and see if doing so will help.

His mind made up, he ignores Sam’s exasperated scowling and heads off in search of his keys.

*****

If Vasquez was hoping to feel better when he arrived at the bar, he winds up being sorely mistaken. The noise and the smells emanating from inside the building – which aren’t even that bad based on normal standards – are almost enough to keep him on the street, or worse drive him back to where he’d left his car.

The image of being surrounded by a press of bodies, none of whom he knew and who would be close enough for their scents to potentially rattle him, sits poorly with him, and it’s only the thought of having to return to the crushing atmosphere of the farmhouse, with its near constant tensions and the inability to stay out of each other’s personal space, that finally gets his feet moving.

As much as he likes being part of a pack again, likes the sense of closeness and the feeling of having people watching his back, right now he’s in desperate need of some space. If he spends one more second trapped under the weight of Sam’s overprotective stare or Emma’s righteous fury, he’s going to lose his mind.

Part of him wonders if it’s got something to do with how long he was on his before Sam had found him, if the constant, crushing lack of a family – which he’d been forced by necessity to adapt to, something none of his kind handle well – had warped him in some way. He doesn’t remember ever feeling overwhelmed by the presence of his first pack, but then he’d never felt like they hadn’t fit together, like there was a missing piece keeping him from being totally settled with his lot in life.

Maybe it was instead the lingering after effects of the events in Rose Creek, combined with the knowledge that Bart Bogue remained out there somewhere, and how there was no guarantee he wouldn’t come for them again. Or maybe it was something else. Vasquez didn’t know, and he wasn’t about to find out now.

Shaking his head to clear it, he pushes his maudlin thoughts away, telling himself sternly that he’s not allowed to dwell on such things tonight. After all, he’s left the house and come into town for the express purpose of getting out of this funk, and that wasn’t going to happen if he dragged his issues with him.

The bar isn’t much too look at, and it’s cramped and loud in a way that sets Vasquez’s teeth on edge, leaving him spoiling for a fight. He knows Sam won’t appreciate it if that ends up being how he passes his time, knows that on top of Sam’s inevitable disappointment he’ll be forced to endure Emma’s unimpressed glare and Jack’s soft scolding, maybe even Goodnight’s worry, but he figures tonight is going to have to be fight or fuck where distractions are concerned and a quick sweep of the room doesn’t reveal anyone who looks like they might interest him for the latter.

On the other hand, walking into a bar and simply starting to throw punches isn’t likely to make him feel any better right off the hop either. It’s best he at least get something alcoholic in his system first, even if it won’t have near the effect on him that it will on the other patrons.

He stalks – there’s really no other word for it – up to the bar and catches the eye of the woman behind it. She’s attractive in a rough looking way, with hair dyed a vibrant, firey red in some places and pitch black in others, but all she does is give him a coolly disinterested glance and ask him what he wants.

Grinning his most wolfish grin at her, Vasquez tips an imaginary hat and requests the strongest drink she has.

She blinks once, still managing to look unimpressed. “Pretty sure I’ve got a thing of whiskey somewhere that could blister your insides.”

That sounds like exactly what he wants and he tells her so, adding calmly, “Just bring me the bottle.”

She frowns then, the first time she’s shown anything resembling an emotion since her arrival, but then shakes her head, making an obvious decision not to ask. “It’s your funeral.”

Since he can’t tell her that nothing in her stores will be able to knock him on his ass, at least not the way he wants, he just smirks and watches as she disappears into the back room. He taps his fingers absently on the bar’s polished countertop as he waits, half-listening to the sounds of the room around him. His hearing in this shape is nothing compared to what it is when he lets the wolf out, honestly he may as well be deaf the difference is so stark, but he can still pick up the strains of various conversations and knows each time the door opens and closes as well as whether or not it admits someone or lets someone else back out into the night.

One such admittee makes a beeline for the bar the moment they’ve crosses the threshold of the doorway. The person, the man, Vasquez can tell, stomps over to the bar and takes the seat right next to him, flinging himself down on it with little grace and a sigh that suggests he’s having a poor evening of his own. Not wanting to deal with anyone until he has a drink in his hand, Vasquez studiously ignores him.

The stranger huffs, annoyed, and drums his hands on the countertop. It’s a virtual carbon copy of the move Vasquez had been making mere minutes earlier, but it’s no longer being done by him and is therefore irritating.

“She’s gone to place an order,” he snaps, assuming the man’s actions are stemming from the lack of immediate service. “I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”

His attention not yet on Vasquez, the man makes a scoffing sound as he starts to turn. “Sorry, I didn’t realize expectin’ to find a bartender in a bar was such a – hello.” Green eyes flashing, he gives Vasquez the most blatant once over he’s ever been on the receiving end of. “Never mind,” he says decisively. “Let her take all the time she needs.”

Vasquez stares at him incredulously. “You can’t be serious, guero.”

The man cocks his head at Vasquez, his bright grin never faltering. “Well, I’ve got no idea what that last word you said means, but I’m sure as hell behind the rest of it. Joshua Faraday, at your service. You got a name, handsome?”

“Vasquez,” he grits out, and if anybody ever bothers to ask he’ll cite his being taken aback by Joshua’s forwardness as his reason for handing it over.

Joshua snorts. “You got a first name, handsome?” His grin somehow ratchets up another notch. “Fair’s fair. I gave you mine.”

“Alejandro,” Vasquez replies, and then waits for Joshua to butcher it like most people do.

True to form, Joshua lets out a garbled version of the name, but then surprises Vasquez by wrinkling his nose, unimpressed with himself. “Nah, that wasn’t right, and I don’t need the look on your face to tell me so. Say it again?”

Vasquez does so, repeating his name another three times before Joshua gets it down.

“Alejandro,” he says, and this time the name rolls off his tongue exactly as it’s meant to. “Nice. I like that.” Vasquez would tell him he could care less about what Joshua likes, but he’s oddly intrigued by the man at this point and keeps the thought to himself.

“Can I buy you a drink, Alejandro?” Joshua asks then. “That is, if the bartender ever deigns to come back and grace us with her presence?”

As if she’s been summoned, the woman in question materializes in front of them and places a bottle directly in front of Vasquez. “Here,” she says. “Should I bother to get you a glass or are you just going to take it as is?”

“Glass, please,” Vasquez tells her, reaching for the bottle and cracking it open.

She stares at him, unamused and then turns to Joshua. “Is he with you?” She asks, jerking a thumb in Vasquez’s direction. “Because if he is, you’d better damn will wrestle any car keys off him by the end of the night. Otherwise I’m going to have the bouncers go for him when he tries to leave.”

The bouncers couldn’t take him even if they came at him all at once, Vasquez knows, but that’s another thought for him to keep to himself. Instead, he concentrates on pouring some whiskey into the glass that’s magically appeared in front of him.

Beside him, Joshua watches the proceedings with raised eyebrows, seemingly having forgotten his quest for a drink of his own as the bartender wanders away. “And I thought I was havin’ a rough night. You drinkin’ to forget there, big guy?”

“Aren’t most people?” Vasquez shoots back.

Joshua leans back in his seat, his hands raised in recognition of the point. “Fair enough.” Then he flashes his ever present grin again. “But, you know, if you won’t let me buy you a drink then maybe you should buy me one.”

Vasquez, his glass halfway to his lips, pauses. Joshua was certainly easy enough on the eyes. He was an inch or two shorter than Vasquez, but solid all the way around, with the build of a man who’d be strong enough to hold him down if he were human and the look of one who’d try it even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Best of all, though, was how Vasquez knew deep in his bones that half the pack would dislike him on sight.

Decision made, he rests his untouched glass on the bar and sends it spinning gently towards Joshua, who catches it easily, not spilling so much as a drop. Grinning, Vasquez takes a pull directly from the bottle and salutes him with it.

“Cheers.”

*****

“This is a terrible idea,” Vasquez mutters as his back hits the now closed door to Joshua’s hotel room.

“Yeah?” Joshua asks between heated kisses, “why’s that?” He has his hands under Vasquez’s jacket and is studiously untucking his shirt from his pants, clearly in a hurry. “You honestly gonna tell me you’ve never been picked up in a bar before?”

“First of all, I’m pretty sure it was me who did the picking up,” Vasquez growls back, “and second, I didn’t say it was a terrible idea I was going to back out of, guero. Calm down.”

“Thank fuck,” Joshua mutters. “Also, Jesus Christ, how many layers have you got on here? It’s the middle of fuckin’ summer, man.”

“Do you know you swear more when you get agitated?” Vasquez asks just to be an ass.

“No fuckin’ shit.” Joshua snaps back. “Come on; get your damned coat off. Shoes too.”

Laughing, Vasquez does as ordered, kicking free of his boots and dropping his coat on the first available chair. It’s a decent enough hotel room, not top tear but also not rundown enough he’d be afraid of catching something just by looking at furniture. He briefly wonders what’s brought Joshua to town, only to decide he doesn’t care. Joshua not being a local will make this even easier in the long run.

“You want my shirt gone too, guero?” He queries playfully.

“Do I want the shirt gone too, he asks?” Joshua says to the room at large. He gives Vasquez a narrow-eyed stare as he hauls off his own coat and kicks his shoes out of the way. “What do you fuckin’ think?”

Since Joshua’s already helped him partway along by untucking the shirt for him, Vasquez makes quick work of the item of clothing in question, hauling it off in one fluid motion and tossing it behind him with little care or concern.

“Damn,” Joshua breathes, looking delighted. “Damn damn damn! Can I?” He asks, holding up his hands, his meaning plain.

A little surprised he’d even bothered to ask, Vasquez nods slightly, and seconds later Joshua’s big, sturdy hands settle just above his hips, framing his waist. His skin is warm to the touch, but Vasquez still shivers when his fingers start tracing tiny, swirling patterns over his skin. “You like what you see?” He asks, voice rough.

“Oh, I definitely like what I see,” Joshua says appreciatively. “If I’d known you were hidin’ all this under that coat I’d have suggested we leave that bar ages before you did.”

Vasquez snorts. “You flatter me.”

“What can I say? My Ma always told me to be polite to strangers.” Without warning, he leans forward and sinks his teeth into the column of Vasquez’s throat, making him gasp.

“You always leave marks without asking, guero?” Vasquez asks, bringing one hand up and tangling it in the back of Joshua’s hair.

Joshua pulls back just far enough to smirk at him, and runs his tongue over his bottom lip in a most enticing manner. “It’s low enough your shirt will cover it,” he points out, utterly unconcerned.

“You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you?”

Joshua shrugs again. “My Ma also always told me I was a smartass.”

“Guero, stop talking about your mother, please.” Vasquez says, exasperated. “I’m not interested in a threesome.”

“We’d need a ouija board for that anyway,” Joshua says with a laugh.

Vasquez isn’t touching that one come hell or high water and decides a change of scenery is necessary. Bringing his hands up so they’re lying flat against Joshua’s chest, he pushes the man gently towards the bed. Of course, since he does it gently for him, what actually happens is Joshua hits the side of the bed and topples over; landing sprawled on his back with a startled yelp.

“Jesus,” he says, propping himself up on his elbows as Vasquez stalks after him. “Oh you are going to be fun.”

Following him down onto the bed, Vasquez crawls over until he can climb over him and settle down straddling his waist. “I can’t help but notice,” he says roughly, “that you’re somewhat overdressed.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t help but notice that … aw, fuck it, I can’t even form words just lookin’ at you, you fuckin’ Greek god.”

Vasquez leans forward so that his mouth is inches away from Joshua’s ear. “Wrong country, cabrón,” he murmurs, laughing when Joshua shudders under him. “Now come on, let me see some skin.”

“You are a highly inappropriate man, Alejandro,” Joshua says, and Vasquez decides he quite likes the way his name sounds when it’s coming out in the low register Joshua’s voice has dropped into. He also quite likes the sight before him when Joshua tugs his own shirt off and flings it off to the side, so that it lands in a crumpled heap in front of the room’s lone window.

“And you think I’m pretty,” he croons mockingly.

Joshua laughs, loud and bright, bringing his hands up to cup Vasquez’ face and drag him down into a kiss. “Like I said,” he says when they break apart. “You are going to be fun.”

Vasquez kisses him again, nipping at him playfully as he moves to slide backwards. He leaves a trail of kisses down Joshua’s sternum, biting occasionally, but mainly just leaving brief presses of his lips as he moves downward.

“You have anything in particular in mind, guero?” He asks, hovering with his hands resting on Joshua’s belt.

Joshua bucks his hips up and groans deliciously. “God. Fuck. I am not fuckin’ picky. You do whatever you fuckin’ want down there.”

“You, my friend,” Vasquez says as he undoes Joshua’s belt and makes quick work of his jeans and underwear, “like to live dangerously.”

“Life ain’t worth livin’ if you’re not willin’ to gamble every now and again,” Joshua says breathlessly, swearing when Vasquez ducks down and takes him in his mouth. “Oh, motherfuck, you do not mess around do you? Fuck.”

Vasquez’s only response is to suck him harder, hollowing out his cheeks while Joshua lets out a garbled moan and throws his head back against the pillow, panting harshly.

“Fuck,” he chants. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Oh my fuckin’ god, but I made the right choice to go out tonight.”

Vasquez will say this for Joshua, he makes for a hell of an appreciative audience. Working him with both his hands and his mouth, Vasquez brings him right to the cusp, not even minding when Joshua thrusts up unexpectedly and almost chokes him.

“Sorry, sorry,” Joshua gasps. He’s got his fingers clenched tightly in the sheets, the muscles of his arms straining as he obviously fights to keep himself together.

For his part, Vasquez has no interest in letting him do that. He’s enjoying watching Joshua come apart at the seams, which is why he just takes it and lets it happen, not pulling back until he can feel Joshua tense when he’s right on the verge of coming.

He does pull back then, spitting a little and not caring what anyone may think of that. Wrapping a hand around Joshua’s cock, he fists him slowly, more slowly than Joshua approves of if the way he whines is anything to go by, only speeding up when Joshua’s breath starts coming faster until he’s panting raggedly into the night.

“Fuck,” Joshua gasps. “I’m gonna – fuck,” and then he’s spilling all over Vasquez’s hand as he gasps for breath.

Vasquez strokes him through it, enjoying watching him work through the aftershocks, and then crawls forward along the bed until he can catch the man’s mouth with his own.

Still shaking, Joshua brings his hands up and loops them around the back of Vasquez’s neck, moving easily into the kiss and keeping it up until his breathing has steadied out and he’s able to focus again.

“Damn,” he says appreciatively. “Where have you been all my life?”

“All over, guero,” Vasquez tells him. “But for now I think you owe me a favor, no?”

“Hmm? Oh, sorry.” Much to Vasquez’s delight, Joshua’s face flushes, although he meets Vasquez’s gaze sure enough, and brings his hands down to work at the button of the jeans he’s still wearing. “You got any special requests? I’ve got condoms and lube around here somewhere if you want.” His expression shifts into a wicked grin. “I’ve got a feelin’ I’d enjoy you puttin’ me on my knees.”

Vasquez hums thoughtfully at this, and he turns the idea over in his head. Then he grins, not missing the way Joshua’s breath catches when he does so. “How do you feel about saving that for round two?”

Joshua stares up at him for a second or two before his face splits into a devilish grin. “Like I keep sayin’, you are all kinds of fun.”

*****

Faraday had half expected to wake up alone, and he’s pleasantly surprised when he cracks his eyes open the next morning and can still feel a long line of heat pressed up against his back. It matches the pleasant ache in his thighs and further signals a night well spent. Shifting ever so slightly, he cranes his neck to look back around and is greeted with the sight of Alejandro sound asleep behind him with his face mashed into a pillow and one arm flung up in front of him.

He’s quite the sight is Alejandro. Faraday thinks the argument could be made that he’s even more attractive in the bright light of day than he had been in the bar the night previous, which was no small feat, and he’s idly pondering whether or not he should try convincing the man to go for another round before he takes off when the jarring sound of an obnoxious phone ringtone shatters the quiet of the room.

Alejandro jerks awake with a start, clearly disoriented by his surroundings if the look on his face is anything to go by, and flails about for a few seconds until he manages to get his limbs under control. The phone rings out again while he’s still blinking furiously in the morning sunlight, and the man swears viciously under his breath.

“Sorry about this,” he growls, giving Faraday an apologetic shrug as he kicks the bedcovers back and ducks down towards the floor. He roots around in what Faraday eventually realizes is the pile of clothing he’d kicked off upon their arrival last night, and comes back with a cellphone clutched tightly in one hand. “The little bastards think it’s funny to mess with the sound when I’m not watching.”

Faraday has no idea who he’s talking about, but if the look on Alejandro’s face is anything to go by, whoever it is might be about to get an earful.

“What?” Alejandro barks as he thumbs the phone on and brings it to his ear. Faraday can’t help but breathe a small sigh of relief as the obnoxious ringtone finally cuts out. “I was sleeping, cabrón! What could you possibly need from me at this hour in the morning?”

Faraday has a sneaking suspicion that this conversation is about to become somewhat more personal than he’s comfortable with, so he kicks his own self free of the bedding and gets up without a word. As Alejandro continues making snide comments as whomever the unfortunate person on the other end of the line is Faraday roots around in one of his duffle bags for some clean clothes and then makes his way over to the bathroom.

He thinks about getting a quick shower while he’s in there, but that seems rude in light of the fact that he still has company – regardless of how distracted said company may or may not be at the moment. Instead, he gets dressed and cleaned up as best he can.

He’s just splashed some cold water on his face when he hears Alejandro snap something along the lines of “Well then I suggest you remind him that he’s not my fucking mother and I can do as I please”, followed by a thumping sound. Concerned, Faraday quickly swipes one of the hotel’s softer towels over his face and then steps back out into the main room.

Alejandro’s lying on his back, with both hands scrubbing tiredly at his eyes. He’s tugged his jeans on at some point while Faraday was in the bathroom and his left leg is swinging back and forth in what Faraday can only think of as a frustrated arc. Near him, the bedside table is still rattling ever so slightly, suggesting that Alejandro may have hauled off and kicked it at the conclusion of his conversation.

Faraday clears his throat awkwardly. “Uh, everythin’ alright?”

His hands still over his face, Alejandro’s entire body stiffens. “Mierda,” he mutters, the word coming out muffled. “Lo siento, guero. I forgot you were here.”

Faraday huffs a tiny laugh. “Yeah, I’d figured as much. You okay?”

Alejandro uncovers his face, resting one hand low on his stomach while he extends his other arm back behind his head and uses it to prop himself up a little. “Do you really want to know? Or is curiosity just eating away at you?”

Enjoying the sight the other man makes splayed out all over the mattress, Faraday grins down at him. “Bit of both,” he admits. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans one shoulder up against the wall of the room. “That didn’t sound like a particularly fun chat.”

Waving his free hand dismissively, Alejandro shrugs as best as he can with the position he’s reclining in. “Just family drama,” he says, “or close enough for it to count anyway.”

Faraday hasn’t had a family to have drama with since his Ma passed away almost a decade ago, and for all that Alejandro was willing to admit that was a relative he’d just been arguing with on the phone, Faraday has a sneaking suspicion he doesn’t much want to get into details. “That doesn’t sound like much fun,” he decides. “Can I interest you in a more pleasin’ alternative?”

Alejandro raises an eyebrow at him, and there’s no mistaking the salacious grin that spreads across his face. “What’s that, guero?” He asks with a laugh. “Are you thinking of offering me one more round for the road? Something to remember you by, no doubt.”

While Faraday had initially been thinking just that, he suddenly changes his mind. It’s been a long couple of weeks since he’d arrived in town, and Alejandro’s the first company he’s had who hasn’t been in some way connected to Bart Bogue and his miserable operation. Another bout of sex between them would no doubt be a fine time, but Faraday suspects they could both use a change of pace.

Settling his back more firmly against the wall he’s been leaning on, he gazes at Alejandro and steels himself for a more unusual request than he’d previously been planning on making. “Actually, I was thinkin’ that this place does a decent enough complimentary breakfast and I’m hungry. Care to join me?”

Alejandro’s eyebrows go up in surprise, and he cocks his head at Faraday, chewing absently on his bottom lip in apparent thought. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, guero?” He says finally, and Faraday doesn’t think he means it in a bad way.

For his part, Faraday shrugs and tries his best to look indifferent, like he invites his random hookups to breakfast with him the next day all the time. Never mind the fact that he’s never so much as let one stay the night if he could avoid it. “Surprise can be a good thing, don’t you think?”

Alejandro grins at him then, sharp and bright. “That it can,” he agrees. “Alright, breakfast it is, but there had better be coffee.”

Faraday snorts. “Alejandro, my friend, if there ain’t any coffee, I will personally start a riot right there in the dining room.”

*****

They take a couple minutes for Alejandro to throw last night’s clothes back on and duck into the bathroom for his own purposes. He somehow manages to come out looking far better than Faraday ever has in yesterday’s jeans and a rumpled shirt that had spent the night on someone else’s floor, but then, he already gave off an air of being more put together than Faraday could ever hope to be so that probably shouldn’t be too surprising.

Once Alejandro is up and dressed they make their way out of the room and down to the dining area. Truth be told, Faraday hasn’t spent much time there himself, choosing instead to forage for food elsewhere more often than not, but he hadn’t been lying when he’d said they did a decent enough breakfast. He’s enjoyed his meals the few times he’s bothered to eat there.

It’s a buffet style set up, so they each just move along the line and grab what they want. Once that’s done, Faraday looks around for a suitable place to sit, jumping a little when Alejandro nudges him in the shoulder with a food laden plate. Following the other man’s gaze, he spots a small table tucked off to the side that no one has claimed yet and nods his head in agreement.

They’re quiet when they first sit down to eat, awkward but not at the same time.

“You from around here?” Faraday asks when he’s no longer able to stand the silence.

Alejandro smirks at him from over the edge of the food piled high on his plate. Faraday had thought he had a healthy appetite, but he’s apparently got nothing on his dining companion. “Really, guero?” He asks with a laugh. “You think I’m from around here with this accent?”

In hindsight it was probably a stupid thing to ask, but Faraday just shrugs, doing his best to let the matter roll of his back without issue. “Fair enough,” he agrees. “Where’re you from then?”

“Mexico, originally,” Alejandro says. “Then all over. I’ve been something of a wanderer for a while now.”

Faraday gets the feeling that this really isn’t a topic Alejandro wants to delve into, at least not on his own behalf, and he feels further convinced of this when the man adds, “What about you? Seeing as you’re living out of a hotel room, I don’t imagine you’re a local.”

“I could be,” Faraday says just to be contrary. He grins when Alejandro rolls his eyes at him as he takes a large bite of the scrambled eggs in front of him. “But you’re right, I’m not. I’m here for work.”

Alejandro looks mildly intrigued by this. “What do you do?”

Now that is a complicated question. Luckily, Faraday’s long had a response for it prepared, even though he doesn’t get asked it all that often. “I’m an independent contractor,” he says. “I can’t actually tell you much more than that as a lot of the shit involved tends to be confidential, but it’s a lot more boring than it sounds. Basically I do the work my clients need me to do and, among other things, they pay to put me up wherever I need to be until the job is done.”

The look on Alejandro’s face shifts from intrigued to something more akin to thoughtful. “And how long are you here for?”

Faraday feels a little jolt surge through him at the question. Unless he’s reading things very wrong, that sounds an awful lot like a potential opening to see each other again. If he’s right, and that’s what it is, he figures he might just surprise himself and take Alejandro up on the offer.

“I’m not sure,” he admits after he’s taken a couple bites from one of the pancakes he has sitting in a stack on his own plate. “This particular job isn’t goin’ all that well at the moment, so I could be here for a while yet. Or I could get told to take a hike. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Chuckling, Alejandro loads another clump of eggs on his fork and stuffs them into his mouth. He chews slowly for a moment or two and then swallows. “It must be hard, living like that sometimes, not knowing where your next paycheque is coming from,” he clarifies when Faraday raises a confused eyebrow at him.

“Eh,” Faraday shrugs. “I make enough to get by and I have pretty much full control over what I do, when I do it, and where I do it. There are worse ways to make a living.”

“Now that,” Alejandro says fervently, “I will give you. There is definitely something to be said for not having to answer to anyone other than yourself.”

Thinking back to Alejandro’s mood following his little chat with whatever family member had been on the other end of the phone earlier, Faraday makes an executive decision not to pry into that comment. Instead, he searches about for a safer topic, and what comes out of his mouth is, “Uh, how’re the eggs?”

Brilliant, Joshua, he thinks as he feels his face start to flush, that’ll win him over for sure.

Alejandro smirks at him around a forkful of the eggs in question, like he knows exactly where Faraday’s train of thought is heading. “The eggs are fine,” he says, swallowing. “Though I’ve had better.”

Faraday shrugs. “Yeah, well, I said this place did a decent breakfast, but I never promised you the fuckin’ Ritz.”

“Oh, trust me,” Alejandro says as he scrapes up more eggs. “I wasn’t expecting it. However, since I wasn’t expecting anything from you aside from maybe another quick fuck, I figure you’re doing alright.”

Not for the first time, Faraday curses his mother’s Irish heritage for giving him a complexion that reveals even the slightest blush. He ducks his head in the vain attempt to preserve his dignity. “For the record, I considered offerin’ you that instead.”

Alejandro chuckles at this low and amused. “I figured,” he admits. “Although,” he adds slowly, and here his voice changes, going softer and losing some its mocking edge, “I don’t think I mind this.”

Faraday does look up at this, and he’s surprised to find Alejandro looking a little embarrassed. He’s can’t be certain, but it looks like Faraday might not be the only one here who’s looking for something different.

Unplanned, he shifts a little and bumps Alejandro’s ankle with his foot, feeling gratified when the motion earns him a small smile in return.

“Really, guero?” He asks with a laugh, although Faraday doesn’t miss the way he nudges back.

“Sure, why not?” Faraday grins and grabs for his cup of coffee. Blowing on the beverage he takes a couple sips and then focuses back on Alejandro. “What’s that mean anyway? Guero? I feel like you’ve called me it a half a dozen times now, and I don’t know if I should be insulted or not.”

“Eh,” Alejandro says with a shrug, looking unbothered. “Why don’t you look it up for yourself and find out?”

Faraday lets his grin widen. “Because then I’d be pullin’ my phone out at the breakfast table and ignorin’ my company in favor of that. Where I come from we have better manners than that.”

Alejandro laughs and leans forward, propping his elbows on the table and resting his chin in his hands, his eyes sparkling. “I highly, highly doubt that.” He says, and then adds slyly. “Guero.”

Faraday laughs as well and makes a note to look the word up as soon as Alejandro’s not looking. He jabs his fork in the other man’s direction. “Eat your breakfast, you ass.”

*****

It doesn’t take them much longer to finish eating, even in spite of how they both have healthy appetites, and Alejandro makes an annoyed sound as they stand up to leave. Confused, Faraday cocks his head at him. “Everythin’ alright?”

“My jacket,” Alejandro says. “It’s still in your room.”

“Oh, right,” Faraday acknowledges. He’d forgotten Alejandro had had one of those on him when they’d stumbled into the hotel last night. “Well that’s not a huge problem. C’mon, I’ll let you back in.”

“Gracias,” Alejandro says, dipping his head ever so slightly. He falls into step beside Faraday as he crosses the restaurant floor and heads in the direction of the elevator.

As they’re waiting for the elevator to arrive, Faraday bouncing up and down a little as he tries to work off some sudden excess energy, Alejandro’s phone dings in his pocket. Faraday turns to look at him and doesn’t miss the way he frowns down at the screen after he’s fished it out and clicked it open.

“That another relative?” Faraday asks as Alejandro begins tapping rapidly on the touchscreen, obviously agitated over something.

“I don’t have relatives,” Alejandro says absently, and then he freezes. “I mean,” he starts, looking up and meeting Faraday’s confused gaze. “It’s complicated,” he says finally. “My family is gone, so I found a new one.”

Faraday winces. He can relate to the first part of that sentence, but he hasn’t been lucky enough to build a family of his own since it’s just been him. “Sorry to hear that,” he says awkwardly, not really knowing what else to say.

Looking equally awkward, Alejandro shrugs and returns his attention to his phone. “It was a long time ago,” he says gruffly. “I’ve learned to deal with it.”

For the first time in a while, Faraday feels the urge to share some of his own history with another person. It’s ridiculous, especially since he’s known Alejandro for less than twenty four hours, with the extent of his knowledge being that the man eats like a horse, has some serious family issues, and is a terrific lay. That’s hardly enough of a foundation to start swapping deep emotional baggage over.

Stomping down heavily on the urge, Faraday remains silent until the elevator arrives and he stays that way once they’re inside it. Alejandro is still furiously typing away on his phone, and Faraday suspects disturbing him would not be a good idea.

Alejandro stops typing as Faraday keys the lock on the door and ushers him inside. He gives a small nod of thanks and moves to where his jacket is resting atop one of the room’s chairs. Once there, however, he pauses and lays his phone down on the leather fabric.

“Do you mind if I?” He jerks his head in the direction of the bathroom, his meaning plain.

“Go for it,” Faraday tells him, waving a hand lazily. “I’ve got no pressin’ need for it myself and I’m not in a hurry to kick you out.”

Alejandro flashes him a smile and disappears into the bathroom, the door snapping shut behind him.

Almost against his will, Faraday finds his gaze landing on where the man’s phone is still sitting on the desk, blinking cheerfully up at him. There’s a text message from someone named Sam lighting up the screen, but Faraday sternly tells himself not to read any further than that because it’d be rude.

He’s not sure how one might classify the way he grabs the phone and punches his own number into the contacts list, sending himself a text in the process, but he figures if Alejandro doesn’t want to hear from him again then he can just ignore him.

*****

It’s around noon by the time Vasquez makes his way back the farmhouse. Although he’d left Joshua back in his hotel room sometime around ten o’clock, he’d been in no hurry to get home and had chosen to spend over an hour wandering through the downtown area in an attempt to amuse himself. It hadn’t worked, but nor had he expected it to.

Sam’s waiting for him on the front porch when he pulls up, no doubt having heard the sound of the car long before he’d come into view of the house, and for a man who’s never had any children of his own, he looks remarkably like an unimpressed parent who’s just caught a teenager sneaking in after curfew. Unwilling to be cowed into submission, Vasquez squares his shoulders and meets the older man’s gaze head on.

“Morning,” he says as pleasantly as he can.

“Not hardly,” Sam replies with the snort. “The clock struck twelve at least seven minutes past.”

“Afternoon, then.” Vasquez tries. He doesn’t want to get in another fight with Sam if he can avoid it, but he’s willing to if the man pushes him.

Sam continues to look unimpressed, his expression only shifting slightly with the raise of an eyebrow when Vasquez gets closer. “Do you know what you smell like right now?”

This time it’s Vasquez’s turn to snort. Considering how he’s wearing last night’s clothes and hadn’t bothered to shower when he’d made use of Joshua’s bathroom, he knows exactly what he must smell like. He’s just got no desire to hide it.

“I went out and had fun,” he says simply. “Harmless fun.”

Sam sighs, scrubbing a hand over his short, dark curls as his exasperation fades and is replaced by something wearier, more tired. “Vasquez,” he starts, only to pause and visibly regroup. “Look,” he says finally, “I’m not here to tell you how to live your life. What you do is your business, and it’s not fair of me to judge.”

That’s news to Vasquez, who feels like Sam’s been doing nothing but judge him for weeks now. Though, if he’s being honest, a large part of that is no doubt stemming from the tension ramping up as they all increasingly get on each other’s nerves. Weres might be meant to live in a pack, but even they needed their space from time to time. Sam’s no more immune to that than Vasquez himself is.

Deciding to place nice, he tunes back in to Sam’s meandering diatribe – he’s a good leader is Sam Chisolm, but he can’t just get to the point of something to save his life – and puts on his most attentive face.

“I just want you to be careful,” Sam says in conclusion. “Not even for our sakes, although it’d be nice if you’d keep that in mind too, but for your own. We still don’t know what might be coming our way now and you stomping out of here and pulling a disappearing act in the middle of the night doesn’t sit well with me. Can you at least do me a favor and damn well call if you’re not coming home?”

Vasquez wants to bristle at the notion that he’s a child who needs minding, but he makes himself hold back. He’s well aware that Sam’s under the most pressure of all of them, and while that’s not going to stop him from lashing out from time to time, he supposes he can play nice when necessary.

“Fine,” he says, keeping his tone light. “But if you hear something you don’t want to when I do that, it’s not my fault.”

Sam grimaces. “I suppose I should have expected that. God but you’re an ass when you want to be.”

Vasquez gives him his most winning smile and spread his arms wide. “Don’t forget, you’re the one who dragged me into this little adventure in the first place, amigo. I was quite happy keeping my head down all by my lonesome until you came along and ruined it all.”

Sam gives him a long look. “No, you weren’t.”

No, he wasn’t, Vasquez agrees, but he’d rather chew off his own tail than admit as much. “You can prove nothing,” he says loftily.

Rolling his eyes, Sam takes a step back and gestures for Vasquez to precede him into the house. “I can prove whatever I damn well want to prove.” He claps a hand on Vasquez’s shoulder as he passes him and adds, “Also, I would head for a shower right away. I can smell the fella you spent the night with on you, and the others will be able to too.”

Vasquez has a sneaking suspicion Joshua would approve of this, as he’d certainly seemed like the type. He keeps that thought to himself, however, and merely flashes Sam a grin in response.

Once inside the house he makes a beeline for his room and the half bath attached to it. Kicking off his shoes, he starts ditching the rest of his clothing, getting suddenly startled when his phone buzzes in his pants pocket. He’s assuming the rest of the pack are home, and he doesn’t know why any of them would be texting him at this point.

He doesn’t recognize the number that flashes up on the screen, but the accompanying message manages to do away with any confusion.

If breakfast wasn’t to your satisfaction then you should consider letting me try again. Vasquez laughs in spite of himself, and chews absently on his lip while he decides if he wants to reply.

Before he’s reached a decision, a second message comes in. Or you can feel free to ignore this message. I’m well aware stealing a man’s phone, however briefly, isn’t the best way to score a date.

Vasquez laughs again, louder this time. At least you’re honest, guero, he responds.

Is that how you spell that? Joshua sends back. Explains why google couldn’t find it. Never figured there was a fucking g in it.

Leaning back against the countertop, Vasquez bites down on his lip in an attempt to keep any more laughter from coming out. Spanish can be tricky like that.

Ain’t it just, but you still haven’t answered my question. How about it, dinner tonight?

Vasquez pauses. He’s not opposed to seeing Joshua again, otherwise he wouldn’t be having this conversation, but he suspects Sam might just sit on him on principle if he tries to go anywhere else today after last night. He stares at his phone for a few seconds, and then shrugs.

Not tonight. He types out. Tomorrow, and I pick where we go.

Works for me. Just tell me where to meet you.

Vasquez figures he can take some time to ponder that, so he thumbs his phone off and rests it on the counter near the bathroom sink. Stripping free of the rest of his clothes, he twists the tap for the shower faucet and goes to stand under the spray.

*****

“Where in the hell have you brought me?” Joshua asks he climbs out of his car. Vasquez had seen him pull up in the parking lot and wandered over to meet him. As he watches, Joshua pulls of his sunglasses and peers up at the restaurant sign in concern. “This looks like a diner, Alejandro. I’ve eaten a lot of diner food in my life, man, and most of it tastes like death.”

“Then you’ve clearly been eating the wrong diner food, guero,” Vasquez informs him. “Come on.” He grabs Joshua by the elbow when the man continues to look reluctant and begins dragging him towards the entrance to Maria’s.

Joshua shakes free of his grip when they get inside, and peers around, his interest obviously caught. “Doesn’t look like much,” he says finally.

Vasquez hushes him. “If anyone hears you say that they won’t feed us, and if you make me have to find somewhere else to eat I’m going to be doing it by myself.”

Raising his hands in surrender, Joshua mimes zipping his lips shut and doesn’t say anything else.

“Beuno,” Vasquez tells him. He heads off in the direction of the back of the diner, always preferring to sit there so he can see anyone who comes in, and settles down in a corner booth. Joshua glances back and forth between the booth and the entrance, wrinkling his nose for some reason Vasquez can’t fathom, before dropping down in the seat across from him.

“You come here often?” He asks, picking up a menu and beginning to rifle through it.

“Often enough. My roommate found it a while back,” he adds, in this case referring to Billy, who’d stumbled upon the place on one of the few occasions he’d managed to convince Goodnight to leave the relative safety of the house. “I’m the one who keeps coming back though.”

“Huh,” Joshua says. “Alright then. What’s worth eating?”

“Whatever you choose,” Vasquez tells him, and means it. At this point he’s sampled plenty of what’s on the menu and what he hasn’t other members of the pack have – Red and Teddy in particular having attacked the place with gusto.

“Well, that narrows it down,” Joshua mutters. “What’re you havin’?”

“Probably just a burger and fries.”

“Hmm, makes sense seein’ as it’s hard to mess that up. I guess I’ll do the same.” He folds the menu shut with a snap and lays it down on top of the one Vasquez had never bothered to open. “This place have a liquor license?”

“It does,” Vasquez confirms, and Joshua grins at this.

“That’s a point in its favor, sure enough.” He smiles up at Maria the owner as she wanders over, pulling a pen and pad out of her apron pocket as she comes. “Evenin’, Ma’am.”

Maria turns and raises and eyebrow at Vasquez, asking ‘Where the hell did you find him?’ as obviously as if she’d said it aloud. He shoots her a grin in return and doesn’t answer.

Huffing, she flips the notepad open. “Okay, boys. What’ll it be?”

They place their orders and Maria bustles off as quickly as she’d arrived, ducking behind the main counter and heading for the kitchen out back.

“Friend of yours?” Joshua asks as he watches her go.

Vasquez shrugs. “Not really, but I’ve been here enough times for her to recognize me.” Truth be told Maria had that knack found among small restaurant owners across the globe for only needing to have a customer once before she remembered them. Most of the pack found it useful when it came to getting the food they were after, though Goodnight found it somewhat unnerving and tended to steer clear of her.

Granted, Goodnight found most things unnerving these days.

A pair of fingers snap suddenly in his face. Startled, Vasquez focuses his attention on Joshua, who gives him a look. “You went away for a second there, big guy. Am I borin’ you already?”

Shaking his head to clear out the unwanted thoughts, Vasquez flashes him a tight smile. “Not yet, guero, but we’ll see how things go, yes?”

“That,” Joshua says pointedly, “sounds like a challenge.”

Vasquez shrugs. “You intrigued me enough to convince me to come out here tonight. Do with that what you will.”

Joshua narrows his eyes and gives Vasquez a searching look. “So I’m intriguin’, am I? Y’know, I had a thought when I first saw you the other night that you were lookin’ for something new to do. Guess I was right.”

Vasquez isn’t sure at first if he likes that Joshua was able to read that off him, but then he thinks it over and decides he doesn’t much care. If he’s being honest, he thinks he’d gotten the same vibe off Joshua, which means they’re in the same boat – with both of them wanting to try something new and probably not sure how to do it.

“Alright,” he says then, leaning forward and resting his hands on the table. “Here’s what I know about you. You have a job you can’t discuss, a tendency to pick up strange men in bars and then feed them breakfast the next morning, and you think stealing someone’s phone is a good way to make contact after a one-night stand.” And your mother’s dead, he doesn’t add, remembering Joshua’s crack about needing a ouija board to speak with her.

“I can’t say it’s very much to go on.”

Joshua snorts. “Like you’re any better.” He mirrors Vasquez’s position and holds up a corresponding finger for each point he makes. “You have a not-family that you’re clearly fond of even if they annoy you, you have at least one roommate, you let strange men pick you up in bars and feed you breakfast the next morning, and for some reason you don’t head for the hills when someone uses less than appropriate means to get a hold of you.”

He starts to fold his fingers down again and then stops. “Wait, I forgot. You also go by your last name because you don’t like how people never bother to learn to say the first one properly.”

Vasquez eyes him thoughtfully. “You’re more perceptive than you look. Most people don’t pick up on that last one.”

“Most people didn’t see your face when I mangled it in the bar the other night.” Joshua replies. He looks down at the fingers of his left hand, all of which are still splayed out after he’d used them to illustrate his collection of facts. “Looks like I’m five points to your three. Care to even the score?”

“Hmm,” drumming his fingers on the edge of the table, Vasquez considers the offer. “And you’ll tell me anything I want to know?”

“I mean, within reason.” Joshua finally folds his fingers down and rests his hand in his lap. “I ain’t about to spill my whole life story if that’s what you’re after.”

“Who is?” Vasquez wonders. Then he shakes his head. “Fine. Uh, you have any family of your own?”

He almost kicks himself for letting that one slip out, but if Joshua’s bothered by the question he does a fantastic job of hiding it. “None,” he says easily. “Only child and raised by a single mother who passed away a few years back.”

Vasquez winces. That was definitely not the best question to have asked. “I’m sorry.”

Joshua waves away his apology with an airy hand. “Don’t be, I’ve made my peace with it. Didn’t have much choice in the matter, anyway.”

“Well … no.” Vasquez says, unsure of the best way to respond. He searches for something less likely to be fraught with emotion, but all he can come up with is, “Last time you were on a date?”

Joshua snickers. “I think, given the way we are crashin’ and burnin’ so far, that it’s safe to say neither of us has done this in a while. Or are you gonna deny it?”

Vasquez grins, and suddenly the atmosphere between them is much more relaxed. “No, guero, I’m not going to do that. It’s been a long time for me too.”

*****

Their food arrives soon after that, bringing with it another topic to focus on.

“Holy shit,” Joshua says after he takes his first bite. “I owe you an apology, this ain’t half bad.”

“Told you so,” Vasquez says as soon as he’s chewed and swallowed the food in his mouth. “It’s the same for anything on the menu. All of it’s worth eating.”

“I’ll be sure to come back some day after work.” Joshua decides, taking another bite.

His comment reminds Vasquez that Joshua’s presence in the town is only temporary, and that at some point, probably sooner rather than later, he’ll be gone again. Unlike the first time he’d had that realization, however, it doesn’t sit so well with him.

“S’matter,” Joshua asks around the burger he still hasn’t put down. “You’re makin’ that frowny face from earlier again.”

“Just admiring your table manners,” Vasquez claims, rather than admit what he’d actually been thinking about.

Instead of looking suitably chastised, Joshua sticks his tongue out at him, laughing when Vasquez rolls his eyes.

“You are a child,” Vasquez grumbles.

“I’m just young at heart,” Joshua counters.

“Translation: a child.”

Joshua laughs, unperturbed, and swipes at a dash of ketchup he’s managed to smear across his chin. “Because you’re so much more mature than me.”

“I’ve yet to see any evidence to the contrary,” Vasquez says primly.

“Uh huh. Hey,” Joshua suddenly gestures at him with his half-eaten burger. “What do you do for a livin’? You never said.”

“Farmhand,” Vasquez says flatly, and then immediately takes a large bite of his own meal so he doesn’t have to say anything further.

Joshua blinks. “Seriously?” He blinks again when Vasquez nods. “Huh. I would not have guessed that one in a million years. So, what, you wrestle barnyard animals for a living or somethin’?”

Vasquez has a sudden, horrifying mental image of most of his packmates set loose on a farm with food animals roaming around it and has to fight back a shudder. “No,” he says firmly. “It’s a produce farm. Just field work mostly.”

“Nope, still can’t picture it,” Joshua decides. “But, hey, props to you if it’s what you use to get by.”

Since he can’t clarify just who it is who’s using the farm to get by, Vasquez chooses instead to salute him with his beer in lieu of saying anything.

They polish off their respective meals not long after that, each of them taking care of their own bills, and that’s when things get awkward again. Vasquez already knows he wants to see Joshua again, just like he’s all but certain Joshua wants the same thing, what he doesn’t know is how to say that, or what he’s supposed to do now.

“This is ridiculous, isn’t it?” Joshua says after they spent longer than is reasonable eyeing each other in the parking lot. “How do you feel about movies?”

“Movies?” Vasquez repeats.

“Yeah, you know, it’s like an extra long tv show where the whole story is usually shrunk down into one viewin’.” Joshua snickers at Vasquez’s expression because he’s apparently under the delusion that he’s funny. “Come on, you left that one wide open.”

Vasquez sniffs at him and he gets his giggles under control. “Fine, fine, you’re such a spoilsport. But, really, how do you feel about hittin’ up a theatre and takin’ in a movie?”

“Tonight?” Vasquez asks, stalling for time.

“Nah,” Joshua decides. “I’m workin’ off a list of comin’ of age datin’ movies here, and it’s only so long. I’ve got to stretch things out. Plus, I’ve got to work tomorrow night and then one after. How about Saturday?”

Vasquez chews on his bottom lip as he considers this. It’s not that he has a problem with movies, those he likes just fine. Theatres, on the other hand, are a different story. The surround sound system tends to bother his ears no matter what shape he’s in and leave him with a headache.

However, Joshua’s still looking at him expectantly, and Vasquez finds that whatever it is that’s been drawing him to the man is still there and is still pushing him to keep coming back. “I could do Saturday, but you’d better feed me.”

“I’ll get you the biggest bucket of popcorn I can find,” Joshua promises, and then he surprises Vasquez by leaning forward and stealing the quickest kiss in the history of mankind.

“Popcorn isn’t real food,” Vasquez grumbles, reaching out and hauling Joshua in again, “and get back here and do that properly.”

Joshua laughs, but does as he’s told.

*****

Faraday’s still kicking himself when he pulls up in the parking lot of his hotel.

“A movie, Joshua? Seriously?” He says as he pulls the key out of the ignition and moves to climb out of the car. “You somehow manage to get the attention of the hottest man on the planet, and you offer to take him to a movie? What is this, fuckin’ grade school?” He’s positive that wherever his Ma may be right now, she’s laughing at him.

Grumbling he wanders into the hotel and gives the two night staff members who’ve gotten stuck manning the desk an aborted wave. One of them nods his head back in greeting, but the other doesn’t even look up from her computer screen.

“Honestly,” he says, continuing to talk to himself when he’s retained the relative privacy of the elevator. “There’s got to be somethin’ better in this town I could convince him to try.” Never mind the fact that he’s here on business, and only temporarily at that. He likes Alejandro and intends to keep seeing him for as long as the other man will let him.

Stepping out of the elevator on the appropriate floor, he heads towards his own room and freezes. The door is slightly ajar, with light from inside shining through the crack. Even though he doubts anyone would open the door and turn a light on for him while trying to hide their presence, Faraday still crouches down and pulls the lone gun he has on him out of his ankle holster. Mission accomplished, he straightens up and quietly nudges the door open.

“Jesus fuck, McCann. What the hell are you doin’ here?” Glaring at Bogue’s head of security and all round unpleasant human being, Faraday stuffs the gun into the waistband of his jeans and moves the rest of the way into the room. “I don’t remember extendin’ you an invitation.”

“I don’t need an invitation to come get an update from you, Faraday.” McCann growls from where he’s sitting in the room’s most comfortable armchair.

Faraday sighs and manfully resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. As much as he hates McCann – and lord does he hate him – he’s wary enough of Bart Bogue to be careful of what he lets show around him and his men. Which is why he keeps his tone as civil as possible when he opens his mouth and says, “I’ve told you before, I’ve done everything I can to find these so-called wolves of yours, and I’ve had no luck. Until they show their faces, we’re stuck.”

McCann scowls. “That’s not good enough. The boss is paying you for results, not so that you can sit around on your ass all day. I don’t care how many pretty traps you’ve set up over at the development.”

Shrugging, Faraday pulls off his coat and drops it on the desk, doing his best to look unconcerned. “If Bogue doesn’t like the way I work, he’s welcome to fire me. Otherwise I aim to see this job through.”

“You don’t tell the boss what do,” McCann snaps.

Faraday rolls his eyes. “I’m aware of that, thanks. Now,” he adds pointedly, gesturing towards the door, “I’ve had quite an enjoyable evenin’, but your presence is startin’ to negate that. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

McCann raises an eyebrow. “What’d you do, go out and find yourself a hooker?”

“Why am I not surprised that’s where your mind went?” Faraday asks, rolling his eyes again. He wishes he could say he was surprised, but nothing McCann’s said or done during their acquaintance has indicated he’s not a shit human being. Unfortunately for Faraday, he happens to be a shit human being he’s stuck working with for the foreseeable future.

Now it’s McCann’s turn to shrug, as he gives Faraday the kind of smarmy grin he’d like to punch of his face. “What can I say? I call ‘em like I see ‘em.”

“Uh huh,” Faraday says, not bothering to hide how unimpressed he is. “You think whatever makes you happy, I guess, but kindly do it away from me.” He studiously doesn’t mention anything to do with Alejandro, determined to keep that much to himself.

McCann snorts, unimpressed, but at least has the common decency to push himself up out of Faraday’s chair. “Get some results, Faraday. If not, there’s going to be trouble.”

His back is to Faraday when he says this, so Faraday doesn’t even try not to roll his eyes. He waits until McCann’s out of the room, and then crosses to the door and locks it behind him. Then he turns around and surveys what possessions he has in the room. He doesn’t think he’s imagining that one of his bags has been rifled through.

“Fuckin’ idiot,” he mutters. He’s not surprised Bogue’s sent someone to check up on him, but if the man honestly thinks Faraday would keep anything important lying around in a room paid for by an employer whom he doesn’t entirely trust, he is sorely mistaken. Faraday’s got a storage locker rented halfway across town that has all his essential gear tied up in it.

Grumbling, he starts going through the motions of winding down for the night. He’s got no intention of doing any work tonight  - he hadn’t been kidding when he said there wasn’t much he could do until the wolves showed their faces, and he’s already scheduled to do some stuff over at Bogue’s main base of operations tomorrow. As such, he sees no reason not to take it easy now.

His phone buzzes from where he’s left it on the nightstand as he’s hauling on a pair of shorts to sleep in. Surprised, he picks it up and finds that Alejandro’s texting him.

Got home just in time to walk in on a domestic spat over how much cyan pepper is too much cyan pepper. Why.

Faraday laughs and wonders what the hell he’s supposed to do with this. The correct answer is “any”. He sends back.

:((( very sad, guero. You hurt me.

Not my fault you’ve got shitty taste buds.

Starting to regret telling you to feed me on Saturday.

What? One thing of popcorn not enough for you? Okay, I’ll make it two.

Ugh.

*****

“What’cha doing?”

Startled, Vasquez comes very close to stabbing himself in the eye with the comb he’s just been about to run through his hair. Whirling around, he gives serious thought to tossing the nearest heavy object at Teddy’s head, and only resists because he doesn’t want another lecture from Sam about how they all need to get along.

“What’re you doing in my room, brat?” He growls through clenched teeth. “Shouldn’t you be off fighting with Red over something?”

“He’s asleep in the living room,” Teddy says, sounding bored.

“And you’re being respectful of that?” Vasquez asks dubiously.

Teddy shrugs. “Only because Emma’s in there too.”

“Ah.” Clarification received, Vasquez cocks his head and watches in annoyance as Teddy wanders all the way into his room and sits down on the edge of his bed. “Can I assume you’ve decided to come bother me since you can’t get to Red?”

Teddy shrugs again, looking every inch the disaffected teenager he occasionally pretends to be. “You can if you want.”

“What do you want?” Vasquez asks, exasperated. He checks the clock on his phone, relieved to see he has plenty of time to spare, but at the same time unwilling to humour whatever game Teddy’s currently playing. “I can’t imagine you need something from me.”

“I just wanna know what you’re doing,” Teddy says, bouncing a little on the bed. “You look like you’re going somewhere.”

“That would be because I am.” Vasquez says, turning back to the mirror. He thinks he looks fine, but what does he know?

“Where’re you going?”

“Out?”

“Can I come?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Who’re you going with?”

“No one you know.”

Teddy whines at this. “Come onnn, who?”

Vasquez huffs. “No one you know, alright?”

“That still doesn’t tell me who.”

“Ugh,” Vasquez rolls his eyes towards the ceiling and says a quiet prayer for patience. “I’m going out with a friend. Can we just leave it at that?”

He focuses his eyes back on Teddy, just in time to see the young were wrinkle his nose in confusion. “You don’t have friends.”

Thanks, Teddy.

Vasquez briefly considers killing the runt and burying his body in the backyard, but he calculates the odds of Sam letting him getting away with this as being lower than he’s comfortable with. Maybe he can get away with a little maiming instead? He could probably blame any bite marks on Red.

Figuring he’s as ready as he’s going to get, he grabs his coat up off the bed where it’s been laying scant inches away from Teddy’s still bouncing form and shrugs it on. “You are not staying in here while I’m gone,” he says as he adjusts the collar.

Sighing, Teddy drags his body into a standing position, pouting at Vasquez as he goes. “How come you get to go out and I don’t?”

“Because I’m twice your age,” Vasquez says, ushering him out and closing the door behind them both.

“So, what? Because you’re old you get to have fun? Who made that rule?”

“I am not old, niño,” Vasquez snaps, even though most conversations with Teddy tend to leave him feeling exactly that.

Teddy makes a disbelieving noise, but Vasquez ignores him in favor of making his way down the stairs so that he can grab his boots and get the hell out of here.

He’s just got the second boot on when Sam materializes seemingly out of nowhere, his Strong Paternal Figure expression firmly in place.

Vasquez cuts him off at the pass. “Yes, I am going out. Yes, I am going out with the same person as before. No, I do not know if I’ll be home tonight. Yes, I will let someone know if I decide not to come home. Have I covered everything?”

Sam gives him a pointed look. “This person you keep seeing, he’s not a were.”

“Really?” Vasquez asks, widening his eyes and pitching his voice dramatically. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Just be careful,” Sam says with a sigh. “Not everyone is well equipped to deal with us.”

“I’m planning to sleep with him, Sam, not marry him.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “And on that note, please go away.”

Vasquez grins, gives him a mocking salute, and does as he’s told.

*****

If Vasquez had thought Joshua was kidding with all his jokes about supplying popcorn he is sadly mistaken. When he arrives at the theatre the man in question gives him a teasing grin and a bag of the stuff roughly the side of his own head.

“You do realize this isn’t even real food, don’t you?” Vasquez says as he accepts the bag in question.

Joshua’s grin widens slightly. “I’ve seen you eat, big guy. You ain’t exactly lackin’ an appetite. I’d bet solid money you can finish that off without my help.”

Which was true, werewolves as a whole had hearty appetites thanks to the energy shifting back and forth took out of them. However, that didn’t mean he had an affinity to what essentially amounted to butter covered cardboard and he says as much.

Thankfully Joshua’s not offended at all. “That just means there’s more for me then.”

Vasquez snorts. “I’m starting to think that was your plan all along.”

“I’ll never tell. Come on, it’s this way.” Gesturing with his newly reclaimed snack, Joshua indicates that Vasquez should follow him and leads him towards the theatre proper, flashing a set of ticket stubs at a bored looking teenager as he goes.

Vasquez frowns. “We could have split the cost, guero,” he says, annoyed at himself for not having suggested it sooner.

Joshua waves his free hand airily. “I ain’t worried.” He turns and gives Vasquez a smirk over his shoulder. “I figure you can find some way to make it up to me.”

Vasquez just gazes back at him unperturbed. “You, guero,” he says firmly, “are the kind of boy mothers warn about.”

“And don’t you forget it, sweetheart,” Joshua replies with a wink.

*****

The movie is … well it’s a movie, one with a lot of explosions and car chases and the like. Vasquez has nothing against any of those things normally, but as he’d feared when he’d first agreed to this the noise quickly sets a headache rising thanks to the heavy beats stemming from the surround sound. He shifts in his seat, trying to get as comfortable as he can, and wonders if there’s anything he can do to muffle the noise.

Joshua doesn’t seem to notice anything’s amiss, seemingly content to munch happily on his snack, occasionally nudging Vasquez with his shoulder when something he particularly approves of happens on screen.

Trying to block out the noise works about as well as Vasquez expects it to, which is to say it doesn’t work at all. Eventually one particularly violent set of explosions goes off onscreen, and Vasquez doesn’t quite manage to bite back a pained sound as the noise sets his temples throbbing. He brings his hands up – although to do what he doesn’t know – and is surprised to say the least when Joshua’s fingers get there first.

“You okay?” He asks. Vasquez has no idea how he’d managed to hear anything over the film, but hear it he did and now he’s frowning at Vasquez in concern and carding large fingers through his hair.

“Headache,” Vasquez grits out, seeing no point in lying. “Just came out of nowhere.”

Joshua makes a sympathetic sound and stuffs the remainder of his popcorn behind him in his seat. “Shit, that sucks. Do you need to get out of here?”

Vasquez has every intention of saying no and suffering through until the end, but the movie love interest chooses this moment to let out a particularly harrowing shriek that has him clenching his teeth as it reverberates around the inside of his skull.

“Oh, yeah,” Joshua decides, “you need to get out of here.”

“It’s fine,” Vasquez tries to say – he has a sneaking suspicion he’s never going to hear the end of it if he lets the night end this way – but Joshua ignores him in favour of scooping up both their coats and heading for the exit. In the end Vasquez has no choice but to follow him since both his wallet and his keys are in his coat pockets.

“You forgot your popcorn,” he grumbles as they make their way down the hall.

“No,” Joshua disagrees. “Forgettin’ would imply I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Vasquez is considering a smartass response of his own, only they emerge out into the theatre proper at this exact moment and the harsh fluorescent lighting sends a stab of agony right through his brain. “Fuck,” he swears, clutching his head and using all his available willpower not to double over in pain.

“Fuck indeed,” Joshua says beside him. He comes around and peers up at Vasquez in concern. “You’ve got a full blown migraine don’t you?”

“Not yet,” Vasquez mumbles, his teeth still clenched. He knows from experience this can still get worse.

“Then you’re about to,” Joshua corrects himself. He hooks and arm through Vasquez’s, surprisingly gentle, and starts towing him towards the exit. “Come on, you need drugs and to get your head down.”

Vasquez can’t argue with that. Unfortunately, he’s got a longer than he’d like drive ahead of him before he can get to either of those things. When he says as much to Joshua, the other man scoffs. “You ain’t drivin’ right now. Chances are good you’d wrap your car around a tree or a lamppost or somethin’, and then where would be? I’d be out a perfectly good lay for no reason.”

“Your concern is touching, guero,” Vasquez says as dryly as he can. He tugs at Joshua’s arm. “And my car is the other way.”

Joshua tugs back more insistently. “But my place is this way.” He flushes a little when Vasquez turns a pair of raised eyebrows on him, but manages to look resolute as he juts his chin out stubbornly. “Jokes aside, you shouldn’t drive like this. You can come back with me and sleep it off a little, or, if you really want to go home, we can take my car and I’ll drive you.”

There’s no way Vasquez is letting that second option happen – Sam might just kill Joshua out of deemed necessity and then Vasquez on principle – so he graciously, or at least graciously for him, allows himself to be hauled along for the short walk it takes them to reach Joshua’s hotel. “You’re being ridiculous,” he grumbles while they wait for the elevator to arrive.

Joshua snorts lowly. “I’d be more willin’ to agree with you if you hadn’t had your eyes closed since we’ve been standin’ here. Also, you’re about as pale as I am right now, so I reckon it’s safe to say you feel like crap.”

Vasquez is saved from having to reply by the soft ding of the elevator, and when even that small chime is enough to make him wince he supposes Joshua has a point.

“You get these often?” Joshua asks as he hustles Vasquez inside his room.

“No.” Vasquez says truthfully. He was normally much better at avoiding things he knew would set one off, after all.

“Right, well, sit down and I’ll see if I can find you some Advil. I know I’ve got some around here somewhere.”

It was probably too late, and he’s need a suspicious amount of pills before they’d have any effect on him, but Vasquez lets him do what he wants, choosing to sit with his head in his hands instead, rubbing at his temples while Joshua rummages through a series of bags he’s apparently never bothered to unpack.

“Got ‘em,” Joshua says a few minutes later, and two while pill capsules appear in Vasquez’s line of vision as he holds one large hand out to him.

Vasquez takes them without a word, swallowing them down dry as easy as you please. Joshua lets out a scolding sound and shakes something else at him. “Jesus, you animal. I brought water too, y’know.”

“Too late.” Vasquez replies with a shrug.

“Obviously,” Joshua grouses, but he moves to press the glass into Vasquez’s hand. “Drink it anyway, it might help. Sometimes headaches are caused by dehydration.”

And sometimes they were caused by a series of obscenely loud noises that he should have known better to avoid, Vasquez doesn’t say. He takes the water and sips it slowly, twitching a little under Joshua’s watchful eye. “I’m not going to keel over and die on you, guero.”

“You say that now,” Joshua replies archly. He sits down on the bed and continues watching Vasquez like he thinks he might do something interesting, like faint. “So, I hope you realize this means I have to try again, right? Because you keep winning?”

“Que? What?” Vasquez mumbles. His head hurts too much to follow whatever Joshua’s saying. “Who’s winning what?”

“Never mind. We’ll talk about it when you’re functional again,” Joshua says, and Vasquez is grateful for that. He’s not up to following whatever logic Joshua is working with right now.

“I think,” he says slowly, “that I might take you up on your offer to lay down.”

“Finish the water and you can,” Joshua says, before adding, “and if you’re real nice I’ll blow you.”

Vasquez pauses with his drink halfway to his mouth. “What?”

Joshua snickers and waggles his eyebrows. “One of the best cures for a headache is an orgasm. Honest to God.”

Vasquez stares at him for several long moments. “I hate you,” he says finally.

Joshua shrugs, completely unrepentant.

When Vasquez wakes up several hours later it’s because his phone is going off on the bedside table near his head. He’d thankfully had the foresight to set it to vibrate before going to the movies, meaning he’s the only one it’s woken up so far, and when he grabs it he sees it’s Emma calling him. It seems Sam has gotten fed up and decided to bring in the big guns.

Rolling his eyes at the screen, Vasquez hits the decline button, cutting off the call mid-buzz. Then, before it can start up again, he sends her a quick text saying he’s staying where he is, thank you very much. In return, Emma’s response is brief and not fit for polite company.

Snorting, he puts the phone back on the table and takes stock of his surroundings. He knows from having glanced at the clock that it’s just after three in the morning, which explains why Emma had been looking for him, and he can tell Joshua’s sacked out next to him, snoring faintly.

Vasquez supposes he could head home if he really wanted to – his head is fine now and there’s no reason he shouldn’t drive – but Joshua’s a warm, comfortable weight behind him, and he feels pleasantly drowsy in a way that makes him not want to move. Settling back down among the bedcovers he reaches up to trail the fingers of one hand lightly along Joshua’s cheek and decides he’s not moving until he has to.

*****

Alejandro’s sound asleep when Faraday blinks awake in the early morning sunlight. Even better, the tight frown and pinched look around his eyes from the night before have vanished. Hopefully that means he’s slept off the worst of the headache after it’d hit him out of nowhere.

Propping himself up on one elbow, Faraday rests his chin on the palm of his hand and gazes down at the other man as his chest slowly rises and falls with each breath he takes. He could get used to this, he realizes, waking up day in and day out next to someone whose company he genuinely enjoys.

Frowning, he shakes his head and moves to cut that thought off at the pass. He’s barely known Alejandro for a week, and the odds of their having a real future together are slim to none. It’s one thing for him to keep seeing the man before things get serious, but it’s entirely another to fall into the trap of thinking he can create something long-lasting here.

Eventually, Alejandro’s eyes flutter open, and he gives Faraday a confused look. “You know watching someone sleep isn’t normal, don’t you?” He asks around a yawn.

Faraday huffs out a laugh. “I thought about wakin’ you, but I figured you wouldn’t appreciate it if you still had that headache. Don’t think I’ve ever seen someone get hit that hard by one before.”

Alejandro gives him a wan smile. “I guess I’m just lucky that way. Don’t worry, though, it’s long gone. I woke up around three for a little while, and I was already fine by then.”

“Gotcha,” Faraday says. He tilts his head down and brushes a kiss on Alejandro’s bare shoulder. “Glad to hear you’re feelin’ better.”

Alejandro stretches, the motion causing his entire body to flex enticingly, and then he shifts up so that he can snag Faraday’s mouth in a kiss. He needs to brush his teeth, but Faraday figures the same could probably be said of him so he decides to ignore this in favour of deepening the kiss and licking his way into Alejandro’s mouth, feeling pleased when this elicits a groan from the other man.

“You know,” Alejandro murmurs when Faraday pulls back, “I seem to remember you offering to put your mouth to better use last night.”

There’s a wicked gleam in his eye, and Faraday throws his head back as he laughs. “Fuckin’ minx,” he says fondly, and then it’s Alejandro’s turn to laugh as a wild cackle is startled out of him.

“Oh, dios mio, can’t say I’ve ever heard that one before.”

Faraday shrugs, still chuckling. “What can I say? I like to keep things interestin’.”

Alejandro grins up at him. “And you’re very good at it,” he agrees, “but what about my question? Are you a man of your word, guero?” He punctuates his question with a languid kick that knocks the bedcovers askew and reminds Faraday that both of them had gone to sleep in nothing but their underwear last night.

“I am definitely,” Faraday says slowly, “a man of my word.” Humming to himself he shuffles over until he can prop himself up with either of his arms bracketing Alejandro’s body and moves to straddle the other man’s waist. “The question is, is my mouth all you want?”

Alejandro makes a show of thinking about this, and then he shrugs as best he can with Faraday’s considerable bulk pinning him down. “I could do with some breakfast.”

Faraday pinches him in the side, but all this earns him is another round of hooting laughter. “Fucker,” Faraday says, even though he’s laughing too. “But, alright, fine. We’ll get you some food. I’ll even shell out and take you to Maria’s since I know how you feel about the stuff they have here.”

Now Alejandro rolls his eyes. “There is nothing wrong with the food here, though I will not say no if you’re giving me a better option. First, however,” he trails off and bucks his hips up to make his desire clear.

Faraday grins. “Anythin’ for you, sweetheart.”

*****

Vasquez is working his way through a stack of Maria’s homemade pancakes when a memory from the night before sparks in his brain. “Guero?” He asks after he’s swallowed the latest forkful of his breakfast.

“Hm?” Joshua asks, voice muffled. He’s seated directly across from Vasquez and is going to town on a similarly large batch of pancakes.

“What did you mean when you said I keep winning last night?” Vasquez hadn’t understood the point then, and even with his head on straight again he doesn’t understand it now.

“Oh, that.” Joshua says. He swipes at a dash of syrup that’s currently adorning his bottom lip, licking it off his thumb once he’s gotten it. “You’ve been out-datin’ me, and I can’t have that.”

“I’ve been what?” Vasquez asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Out-datin’ me,” Joshua repeats, following the words with a solemn nod that Vasquez doesn’t believe for a second. “Think about it,” he adds, leaning forward. He rests his elbows on the table, just barely avoiding having one land right in the middle of his breakfast, and holds up a finger for emphasis. “The night we met, it was you who bought the booze and suggested we go back to my place. I offered breakfast the next mornin’, but you didn’t find it all that satisfactory.”

Vasquez rolls his eyes. “Would you stop saying that? Breakfast was fine.”

“I’m not done yet and interrupting is rude,” Joshua says primly. He waggles his finger again. “After the less than satisfactory breakfast, you took me here, and obviously that was a success or we wouldn’t have come back. But when I took you out yesterday, you wound up with a migraine bad enough I’m surprised you didn’t puke.” He folds his fingers down and shakes a mocking fist at Vasquez. “As such, you’re winning.”

“And you have a problem with this?” Vasquez asks. Part of him can’t believe what he’s hearing, but the rest of him is endeared in spite of himself.

“Duh,” Joshua replies succinctly. “I need to up my game.”

“I feel like I should be concerned.” Vasquez decides. He doesn’t think he’s ever had someone try and turn dating into a competition before. “What if your work suffers because you’re too busy trying to woo me?”

Joshua snorts, totally unconcerned. “One of the best things about my job is how nine times out of ten I can make my own hours. Trust me, I can make this work.”

Vasquez almost asks him what about when his job here ends. After all, there didn’t seem to be much point in expending as much energy as Joshua seemed to be describing into building a relationship that was just going to reach an abrupt end. He doesn’t, however, because he needs a distraction in his life right now, and he can’t think of a better one than Joshua.

Hence why what he says is, “Alright, guero. Let’s find out what you’ve got.”

Joshua grins at him. “I’m goin’ to date you so hard,” he laughs. “I am gonna find every clichéd mess I can think of that this town has to offer, and I’m gonna drag you to all of ‘em.”

“I can hardly wait,” Vasquez deadpans.

*****

He’s more than halfway home the first time his phone buzzes in his pocket. He doesn’t bother to check it since he’s driving and doesn’t have a death with, but when it goes off several more times before he reaches his destination; he gets concerned enough that he almost pulls over to check and make sure it’s not an emergency. He doesn’t, figuring the only emergency would be at home and he’s on his way there now anyway, but it’s a near thing.

It turns out he shouldn’t have worried. When he pulls his phone out while he’s still sitting in the car in the driveway, he finds a slew of texts from Joshua, who’s apparently been having too much fun concocting ridiculous ideas since Vasquez had left him behind at his hotel.

I’m making a list of every romcom cliché I can think of. brace yourself

That’s the first text he’s got, and the rest are exactly what Joshua had threatened them to be – a list of every terrible romantic cliché in the book – each one worse than the last.

What’re ur thoughts on picnics?I vote yes, says one.

Google says the nearest beach is 2 towns over. not to far to walk along it, says another.

“Madre di Dios, the man is insane,” says Vasquez. He replies with a text declaring as much as he climbs out of the car and starts heading for the house. “What have I gotten myself into?”

“Talking to yourself, Vasquez?” Emma’s voice asks. He’d missed her in his walk up to the door because she’s crouched down tending to one of the flowerbeds she’d insisted on putting in when they’d first settled into the house. Vasquez has always figured they were her way of forcing a bit of normalcy back into their lives. In hindsight, it’s probably a little more sensible than what he’s currently doing.

This point is further driven home when Joshua’s latest text comes in and says only, laser tag!

Absolutely not. Vasquez shoots back. Anything that put weapons into both their hands, no matter how harmless, was only asking for trouble.

Emma makes a coughing sound, reminding Vasquez that he hasn’t responded to her yet.

“Sorry,” he says, turning to her. “What was it you asked?”

“Never mind,” she tells him, and when he looks at her more closely he sees that she’s smiling.

Vasquez is instantly suspicious of that smile. It’s not that he doesn’t want to see it – he cares about Emma, and she hasn’t smiled enough since losing Matthew – he just doesn’t want it to be at his expense. “What?” He asks again.

“Nothing,” she repeats. “Did you have fun with your boy last night?”

“He’s not my boy,” Vasquez grunts, even as his phone buzzes yet again – this time with the words mini-golf blazing across the screen.

That’s even worse, guero. He sends back.

Still settled in among her flower beds, Emma makes a thoughtful sound. “He’s awful chatty for someone who isn’t your boy,” she points out reasonably.

“He’s chatty in general,” Vasquez replies, which was true. Joshua had a mouth that went a mile a minute, and the ability to keep up a steady stream of words no matter what was going on at the time.

Theres GLOW IN THE DARK MINI GOLF did you no that? Wheere a white t shirt and i’ll die happy. Apparently Joshua’s spelling skills corresponded directly to how ridiculous he was being at any given moment.

You will die period if you try and get me to do that, Vasquez sends back, and then he ignores the series of sad emoticons Joshua responds with.

He shoves his phone into his pocket where it can do no harm, and focuses on Emma, who gives him a smug grin. “He’s ridiculous,” he says.

“Most men are in my experience,” she shoots back, snickering when he turns his best wounded expression on her. “Don’t even go there, Vas. Tell me about your new friend. Does he have a name?”

“Joshua,” Vasquez tells her, knowing full well that if he doesn’t give her that much she’ll make him regret it, possibly with her teeth if she can catch him at a point when they’re both shifted.

“And where did you meet him?” Vasquez gives her a look, and she snickers. “Okay, I’d already figured he started out as a one night stand. Thanks for confirming it. What made you see him again?”

“He asked,” Vasquez says, shrugging.

“And that was enough?” She asks. When he nods, she gives him another thoughtful look. “Interesting.”

“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.” Vasquez tells her, quick to cut whatever thought process she’s having off at the pass. “Joshua’s just … easy. There’s no baggage with him. I don’t have to worry about any of the past history getting dragged up where he’s concerned.”

“Well, there’s certainly something to be said for that,” Emma agrees. She stands then, brushing dirt off her knees and reclaiming her gardening tools from the ground. “But there’s always inevitably baggage with the likes of us if someone sticks around long enough.”

“He’s not from around here,” Vasquez says then. “He’s here on some kind of work term and then he’ll be moving on again.”

Emma frowns at this. She opens her mouth to reply, but then bites back on whatever she was thinking and instead just shakes her head.

“What?” Vasquez asks, and if it comes out harsher than intended he doesn’t think he can be blamed for that.

“Nothing,” she says. “Just … be careful. If you get too attached, you’re going to have decide if you want to introduce him to the pack.”

Vasquez has a sudden vision of Joshua sitting down to a meal at the farmhouse, and doesn’t find the image nearly as off-putting as he perhaps should. He shakes his head. It’s best not to let his mind go there.

*****

“I’ve thought of somewhere I want to take you.” Alejandro says when Faraday picks up the phone. “I think we can safely say it’s my turn to pick something, since you’ve been choosing what we do for weeks now, and for the record I’m still mad about the mini-golf incident.”

“Yeah?” Faraday asks. He’s only half listening since he’s got a stack of printouts outlining various parts of Bogue’s operation laid out in front of him on the bed. Wedging the phone between his shoulder and his ear, he picks up two nearly identical photos, holding them side by side to compare them. “What’s that?”

“There’s a, Christ, I don’t know what you would call it. A fair, I suppose, that happens a little ways outside of the city in the evenings. More of a market really. All kinds of stalls with different homemade things, food mainly.”

That makes Faraday pause. “Why does it always come back to food with you?” He asks with a laugh.

“Because I like food.” Comes the arch reply. “There’s nothing wrong with a healthy appetite, guero.”

“There is when you’re a total snob about it,” Faraday tells him, rolling his eyes even though Alejandro can’t see him.

“Enjoying meals that don’t come out of a paper bag does not make me a snob, Joshua; it just makes me someone less likely to get scurvy.”

“I have never had scurvy in my life, thank you very much,” Faraday informs him. “There is nothing wrong with my eatin’ habits.”

“Please,” Alejandro scoffs on the other end of the line. “You eat like those brothers in that show, the one where they live in their car and go around shooting demons in the face.”

It takes Faraday a second to place what show he means, and when he does he can’t help but throw his head back in laughter due to the irony, dropping his papers and making a mess of them as he does so. “Oh my fuckin’ god,” he crows when he’s got himself back under control. “You did not just say that to me.”

“If the pie fits,” Alejandro replies, and Faraday can tell he’s smiling.

“You are the worst,” Faraday says, still chuckling.

“So you say. What do you think though? Want to come with me?” He sounds like he thinks Faraday might have the nerve to tell him no, which just goes to show that even the smartest of people can be oblivious at times.

“Sure,” Faraday says. “When?”

“I’m free tonight, but I vaguely recall you telling me you had to work. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that.”

Faraday looks down at the mess in front of him. “Alejandro,” he says slowly, “take this however you please, but I would kill for somethin’ to get in the way of that right now.”

Alejandro makes a sympathetic noise. “You’re still having trouble with the job?”

“I’m at my fuckin’ wits end,” Faraday agrees. “Truth be told I think this particular operation is goin’ to turn out to be a bust.” Not that he cared really; he didn’t like Bogue and wasn’t interested in seeing the slimy jackass happy about anything. As far as he’s concerned, the only downside to this op going tits up would be how he’d no longer have an excuse to remain in the city.

Shaking his head, he sternly tells himself to cross that bridge when he comes to it and sets about cleaning up all the papers he’s got strewn about everywhere.

“Where and when should I meet you?”

A few hours later he finds himself being dragged past stall after food laden stall as Alejandro weaves his way through the crowd, obviously in search of something in particular. “I thought you said you were goin’ to feed me,” he says, just to be contrary.

Alejandro tightens his grip on Faraday’s wrist just a tad, before loosening it again and continuing on his way. “I am going to feed you,” he says firmly. “The best ribs in this entire damned country are around here somewhere, so close I can smell them.”

For his part Faraday can’t smell anything of the sort, and he highly doubts Alejandro can either. Regardless, however, he is a fan of ribs, and if the ones Alejandro’s trying to track down are as good as he claims, this entire trip will be worth it. “I hope you realize I skipped lunch for this,” he says as he lets himself be hauled along.

Alejandro pauses just long enough to turn around and give him a judgmental look before moving on again. “Skipping meals is not healthy,” he says over his shoulder.

Safely out of the line of sight, Faraday rolls his eyes.

Finally, Alejandro comes to a stop in front of a stall being manned by a woman with dark hair pulled up in a messy bun and a tired expression on her face. If Faraday had to guess, he’d say she’s been manning her booth all by her lonesome for a while now. Based on the sheer number of people milling about, he does not envy her that one bit.

The woman looks up as they draw closer, and a flicker of recognition passes over her features when she spots Alejandro. “I don’t know if I have enough food left to satisfy you, Vasquez,” she says with a laugh.

Faraday spares a moment to wonder just how often Alejandro comes out here that he’s on speaking terms with one of the vendors. He doesn’t think he’s ever stayed in one place long enough for that to happen to him, yet this isn’t the first time he’s seen Alejandro manage it. The man seems to make friends wherever he goes, so long as there’s food involved anyway.

At the sound of Alejandro’s voice, he focuses back in on the conversation.

“Bethhh,” Alejandro whines, low and pleading. “Don’t say things like that to me, senorita.”

“It’s senora,” Beth says with a roll of his eyes. “I’m older than you, you reprobate, and married.”

“Prove it. I do not believe you.” Alejandro tells her, his eyes sparkling.

Beth rolls her eyes again, clearly used to whatever antics Alejandro is pulling right now. “I’m not proving anything. I assume you’re after a rib dish? Is it the same for your friend here?” At Alejandro’s nod, she gives them both a knowing smile. “Two plates coming up.”

It’s the work of a moment for Beth to load a set of paper plates with a batch of steaming, sauce covered ribs each, and Alejandro reaches for them eagerly, dropping the necessary amount of cash on the table as he goes. Beth snorts out a laugh as she watches Alejandro juggle the food she’s just handed him, and quirks an eyebrow at Faraday. “Aren’t you going to help him?”

“Not a chance,” Faraday says seriously. “He’s a man on his mission, and I’m not doin’ anythin’ unless he tells me to. I’m half afraid I might lose a finger if I get in his way.”

“I only bite when asked, Joshua,” Alejandro says primly. “And if you want anything to eat tonight, I suggest you be nice to me.”

Faraday shares what he means to be a commiserating look with Beth, but she just laughs and waves them on their way. “How is it,” Faraday says as they get moving again, “that you’ve managed to befriend every purveyor of food in this damn city?”

“It’s a combination of good looks, charm, and a healthy appetite,” Alejandro replies. He offers Faraday one of the plates. “Here, try this. It’s good, I promise.”

“It’s ribs,” Faraday says, accepting the plate without complaint. “There’s no such thing as bad ribs, only less good ribs.”

“Well, these are not those kind of ribs. Eat.”

While he might not have quite the appetite Alejandro possesses, Faraday’s no slouch in the eating department himself, so he does as he’s told, digging into the meal in his hands, not minding at all about the sauce covering his fingers once the first bite of meat hits his taste buds. “Oh fuckin’ hell,” he mumbles around the food in his mouth, as flavour explodes on his tongue. “Alright, now I want to know how you’ve managed to befriend all the best purveyors of food in this city.”

Alejandro grins over at him, flicking his tongue out to catch a bit of sauce from his own ribs that’s now adorning the corner of his mouth. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“I take back what I said about you bein’ a food snob,” Faraday says, tearing a strip off another rib with his teeth, and fighting the urge to moan at the taste. If they weren’t in public, he’s not sure he’d have succeeded. “I mean, you are a food snob, but I’m reapin’ the benefits, so I can’t complain.”

“You complain about everything,” Alejandro says, but there’s no heat in his tone and he punctuates the line by bumping Faraday with his hip.

“Oy!” Faraday yelps. “Alejandro, if you make me drop this food, so help me god, I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

“So scared, guero,” Alejandro says, sounding nothing of the sort.

In response, Faraday hunches protectively around his food and gives the other man his best stink eye. “You stay back, now, you hear me?”

“You mean you’re not going to share?” Alejandro asks, unleashing a set of puppy dog eyes that are clearly meant to make Faraday take pity on him.

Faraday snorts, having none of it. “You’ve got your own,” he says around another mouthful, though he doesn’t miss the way Alejandro’s out-eating him at a rate of roughly two to one, his own food disappearing quicker than Faraday would have thought possible.

“Oh, for hell’s sake,” he mutters as he watches Alejandro finish off the last of his meal, going so far as to lick the last dredges of sauce off his long fingers. Against his better judgment, Faraday holds out his own plate with a sigh. “Just leave me some, will you? Otherwise I’m never lettin’ you hear the end of it.”

Alejandro laughs, but instead of taking the offer as Faraday’s expecting, he moves over so that he can loop his left arm through Faraday’s right one and rub their shoulders together. “I don’t need your food, Joshua. Keep it for yourself.”

“Fine, but don’t come whinin’ to me later if you’re still hungry,” Faraday says as he deliberately turns his attention back to the plate in his hands. His heart has started beating faster in the face of Alejandro’s little public display of affection, but the sensation isn’t enough to make him shrug free of Alejandro’s grip.

Clearly oblivious to the path Faraday’s thoughts are now winding down, Alejandro reaches out and swipes his thumb over Faraday’s chin. “Sauce,” he says when Faraday makes a questioning noise, and rather than wiping it off on one of the napkins Beth had given him with their meal, he sucks the digit into his mouth, once again licking the sauce away with every indication of enjoyment.

“You’re disgustin’,” Faraday tells him; ruining his point when the words come out sounding more breathless than he’d meant them to.

Alejandro, damn the bastard, doesn’t miss this. Grinning that oh so wicked grin of his, he props his chin on Faraday’s shoulder, not caring in the slightest that they’re making their way through a crowd of people. “You know,” he says thoughtfully, “I’ve just thought of something else I want from you tonight. Walk faster.”

Faraday meets his suddenly heated gaze and shudders.

*****

Faraday feels his breath catch in his throat as he takes in the sight before him. Alejandro looks like some kind of masterpiece, like an artist’s depiction of sin on earth as he lies back and waits for Faraday to move. “Fuck,” Faraday groans, his words slipping out into the night without his permission, his tone reverent. “Fuck, but you are beautiful, sweetheart. I’ve never seen anythin’ like you.”

Alejandro smirks up at him and strokes himself lazily, the move causing Faraday’s mouth to go dry. “Gracias, Joshua, but isn’t there something you’d rather be doing? Me, perhaps?”

Faraday can’t help but grin at that. It looks like, just because Alejandro is changing the game a bit tonight, they’re still playing by something resembling the same rules. “I’m savourin’ the moment,” he says glibly.

Alejandro tips his head back, his chin jutting out with a hint of a challenge, and bucks his hips up once. “That’s nice,” he purrs, “but wouldn’t you rather savour something else?”

As it happens, Faraday would. However, he can’t help but feel like they’re on the cusp of something important tonight, and whatever that may be, he doesn’t want to ruin it. Alejandro may be looking at him like he’s ripe for the taking, but Faraday needs to play this right.

He shuffles forward until he can settle his body down between Alejandro’s spread legs, bringing one hand up to stroke over the man’s hip, while he uses the other to prop himself up so that he can peer down and meet his companion’s dark, heavy gaze. “You sure you want this, sweetheart?” He asks. Alejandro’s never given any indication he’s wanted Faraday to fuck him before, always seeming content to take Faraday instead, and Faraday doesn’t know why he’s asking for it tonight.

Yet, Alejandro just gives him a smile and the barest hint of a shrug. “Si. Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t, guero,” he points out reasonably. Then he brings his hands up and curls them all big and possessive around the back of Faraday’s neck and drags him down for a kiss.

Faraday melts into it, content to let Alejandro takes the lead even though he’s ostensibly the one on top this time around. He opens his mouth willingly, lips parting so that Alejandro can lick his way inside and tangle their tongues together.

“I want you in me,” Alejandro murmurs when he’s pulled back enough to talk. “I want to feel you. I don’t care how clichéd that sounds.”

Faraday can’t stop the groan that slips out at his words. “Fuck,” he says, and if it comes out as something akin to a whine at least he’s fairly sure Alejandro won’t tell. “That’s – fuck, yeah. Of course, anythin’ you want, darlin’.”

Alejandro chuckles, raking his hands up so that his fingers rifle through Faraday’s hair, catching on curls that are suddenly beaded with perspiration. “You say that, guerito, but I don’t see you moving.”

“You got a problem with me takin’ my time?” Faraday asks.

“That depends on how much time you’re going to take,” Alejandro says with a laugh. He drops his hands down and curls them under the back of his head, looking up at Faraday expectantly.

“Well, I reckon we’ve got all night,” Faraday points out. “What do you think?”

Alejandro wrinkles his nose and moves his hands again. “Wrong answer, guero. If you’re going to take that long I’ll handle things myself.”

Faraday considers that for the briefest of seconds, and then shifts so that he can pin both of Alejandro’s wrists to the mattress with his own hands. “I’m thinking I’ll pass on that option if it’s all the same to you.”

“Then move,” Alejandro says, and there’s a hint of a bite to his voice that wasn’t there before. It seems like he’s getting tired of Faraday’s stalling.

Faraday doesn’t think Alejandro’s annoyed, not genuinely anyway, but he’s willing to admit that riling him up too much likely isn’t a good idea. Therefore, he decides it’s time to stop playing. “Alright, alright,” he says soothingly. “Calm down.”

Before Alejandro can get a chance to reply, Faraday dives in for one more kiss, and then moves to slide down the bed after he’s done. He thinks about trying for a show of finesse, then decides to hell with it since they’re neither of them men who care about such things, and sucks Alejandro into his mouth, enjoying the surprised gasp this earns him.

Faraday’s had his mouth on Alejandro more times than he can count at this point, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of the way the man sounds every time, all deep and breathy and like he’s never enjoyed anything more than having his dick sucked. Pleased by the way those noises are starting up again, Faraday flicks his tongue over the head before pulling off slowly.

“I’m gonna need …” he starts, motioning his hand towards the bedside table and the condoms and lube he knows are stored in the drawer there. The objects in question bounce off his forehead, indicating that Alejandro’s way ahead of him at this point. “… thanks.” He hears rather than sees Alejandro snicker, and gives the bastard a sharp smack on the hip in admonishment.

“Not nice, guero,” Alejandro grits out, nudging at Faraday’s head with a knee.

Instead of answering verbally, Faraday pops open the cap of the lube bottle and begins liberally coating his fingers until they’re slick enough for his purposes. He starts slow, pressing in with just the tip of one finger, grinning when Alejandro lets out a gratifying hiss. “You okay, sweetheart?”

“Si,” Alejandro says, but he shifts awkwardly, making Faraday pause.

“You sure about that?”

“Si,” Alejandro says more insistently. “It’s just cold.”

Faraday runs a hand soothingly over his hip. “You sure about that?”

Alejandro snorts. “Joshua, it’s been a while, but not that long. Keep going. Muévete.” He punctuates the last word with a deliberate roll of his hips, and Faraday does as he’s told, pushing forward until the first finger is all the way in, basking in the satisfying gasps his actions pull out of Alejandro.

“Más.” Alejandro grits out after  a few moments of this, grinding his body down shamelessly. “Quiero más.”

“What?” Faraday blinks. He’s picked up a bit of Spanish since they’d started this whatever-it-is between them, but whatever Alejandro’s just said is beyond him.

“More,” Alejandro hisses.

Faraday lets out a thoughtful noise, but does as he’s told, slowly working in a second finger next to the first, using its added weight to spread Alejandro open as he goes. He splays the fingers out slightly, hooking and curling them until Alejandro lets out a ragged gasp and arches upwards, telling Faraday he’s found what he’s looking for.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he says, placing his free hand on Alejandro’s stomach and pressing down just enough to stop his movements. “I’ve got you.”

Alejandro lets out a string of Spanish that sounds decidedly uncomplimentary, but stills like Faraday intends him to.

“Good boy,” Faraday says, giving him a gentle pat on his flank.

Alejandro’s eyes flash, and he bares his teeth in a feral snarl. “One, do not call me that. Two, hurry up.” He emphasises his demand with a twist of his hips that’s enough to dislodge Faraday’s free hand from it’s current resting spot.

“Pushy pushy,” Faraday grumbles, but he slips a third finger in anyway, moving more carefully now as the stretch is more intense. “That better?”

“Mm, si,” Alejandro hums. His eyes slip shut and he rocks his hips down on the bed in short, sharp motions, trying to take Faraday’s fingers in deeper.

Faraday grins, and leans forward so that he can swipe his tongue along the length of Alejandro’s shaft as he keeps up the motions of his fingers.

Alejandro lets out a low, gutteral moan, throwing his head back and fisting his fingers in the sheets in obvious enjoyment. “Unh, Joshua,” he groans, and Faraday figures he could live to be a hundred and not hear anything that sounds so sweet to his ears.

“That’s me,” he agrees easily. “You ready for somethin’ different?” He punctuates this question with a twist of his fingers that sends Alejandro keening.

“Obviamente,” Alejandro hisses when he gets his voice back under control – for a given value of control that is, his words having gone high and tight, the strain clear in his tone. “Ahora, por favor.”

Faraday’s not sure of the exact translation this time, but the look Alejandro gives him is more than enough to make his meaning plain. “Okay,” Faraday says, his mouth going dry. “Yeah, okay. Just let me …” He pulls his fingers free, murmuring soothingly when Alejandro lets out a wordless noise of protest and fumbles for the condom he knows is nearby somewhere.

He finds it after what feels like a small eternity and then spends a second small eternity getting it on, not missing the way Alejandro laughs at him. “I don’t see you helpin’,” he grumbles.

Alejandro opens his mouth, no doubt to say something snide, Faraday can tell by the look on his face, but all the comes out is a ragged moan when Faraday lines himself up and slowly sinks inside him. 

“Uhhh,” Alejandro groans, long and drawn out, and Faraday echoes the sentiment.

Alejandro feels incredible, the tight, warm heat of him surrounding Faraday as he presses in inch by torturous inch, wanting to take it all in immediately, but equally unwilling to push. He gasps when he finally bottoms out, the sound torn out of him as he comes to a stop with nowhere further to go.

He watches as Alejandro brings one hand up, splaying his palm flat against Faraday’s chest, his breath coming in short, sharp pants that get cut off when he bites hard on his lower lip. Faraday frowns at the sight. “You okay, sweetheart?” He asks, tamping down on his own desperate need to move in favor of more important things.

Still biting his lip, Alejandro screws his eyes shut and nods his head before saying, “I’m fine.”

In spite of the words, there’s an edge to his voice that makes Faraday doubt him. “Why don’t we …” He starts to pull back only to have Alejandro shift the hand on his chest ot the back of his neck, the strong grip keeping him in place.

“No,” he hisses, shaking his head for emphasis. “It’s not that. I just need – fuck, just give me a moment.” He finally opens his eyes back up, and meets Faraday’s gaze. “I wasn’t lying when I said it’s been a while, but I’m fine.”

“If you’re sure,” Faraday says dubiously. Doing as requested, he stills his entire body, determined to let Alejandro have whatever he needs, whatever he wants to make this work.

He’s not sure how much times passes, though it’s probably no more than a minute or two, and then it’s Alejandro who starts moving first, rocking his hips in tiny, incremental thrusts, as if he’s testing his own limits. Faraday stays motionless through it all, more than willing to let Alejandro take what he wants and to wait and see what that is.

Alejandro’s movements speed up a little, and he brings both his hands up, resting one each on Faraday’s shoulders as his mouth curls into a grin. “Move,” he says then. “Fuck. Damnit, Joshua, move.”

Faraday doesn’t need to be told twice, although he keeps his initial movements slow, pulling out gently and then sliding back in at a pace that’s nothing short of glacial.

Alejandro makes an annoyed noise, tugging insistently at Faraday’s shoulders. He opens his mouth – probably to say something scathing, Faraday imagines – only to choke on the words when Faraday snaps his hips forward suddenly, thrusting into him in one solid push.

“You good?” Faraday asks, needing to know that was okay.

“Yes, yes fuck.” Alejandro’s hands scrabble for purchase on his back, blunt fingernails digging into the skin in a way that’s bound to leave marks in the morning. “Do it again.”

Obligingly, Faraday does as he’s told, pleasure singing throughout his own body as he rolls his hips and drives into the tight, wet heat Alejandro’s offering him. “Fuck, sweetheart,” Faraday groans out. “Oh fuckin’ christ, you feel so good. Damnit, look at you.”

“I can’t look at me, güero,” Alejandro says with a breathless laugh. “I can only look at you.”

“Smartass,” Faraday grits out, punctuating the word with a vicious snap of his hips that sends Alejandro keening.

“Cabron,” Alejandro shoots back, or tries too, the word getting managled into a groan when Faraday thrusts into him again.

“You like that, huh?” Faraday asks, enjoying Alejandro’s frantic nod in response. “Hell yeah, you do. Look at you just takin’ it for me, takin’ it so well.” Alejandro gives a full body shudder at his words, and Faraday chokes back a moan. Leaning forward, he sinks his teeth into the juncture between Alejandro’s neck and shoulder, biting down and worrying the sensitive skin while the man whines beneath him.

“So good,” Faraday murmurs, giving the spot one last flick with his tongue before he shifts to bite at Alejandro’s jaw instead. “So good for me.”

Alejandro whimpers, there’s no other word for it, and buries one hand in Faraday’s hair, using his grip to drag him in for a kiss that’s all tongue and teeth and ragged gasps.

Faraday groans into it, and at the same time slides a hand down between the press of their bodies until he can curl it around Alejandro’s length, delighting in the way the man automatically ruts up against him, another one of those delicious cries torn from his throat as Faraday works him even further into a frenzy.

“Fuck,” he chants over and over as he pulls back just enough that he can look down at Alejandro, drinking in the sight of him as he loses more and more of his control. “Fuck fuck fuck. I don’t know what I did to find you, but if there’s ever proof god exists, this is it.”

“Unh, Joshua, stop talking, Madre de dios, I have never in my life met a man who … who …” Whatever Alejandro had been trying to say, and for a man who complains about talking too much, Faraday thinks he might want to take a look in a mirror, gets cut off as Faraday starts up a pace that sends them both gasping, each of them chasing the end of goal of release and both determined to see the other beat him to the punch.

Faraday, however, who is unwilling to lose yet all too willing to play dirty, has the advantage. Adjusting his hold on Alejandro’s cock, he times the slide of his hand so that it works in perfect tandem with the roll of his hips, not backing down until Alejandro groans, digging his fingers into the rumpled disaster the bedding has become, and spills messily all over Faraday’s hand.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Faraday croons as he strokes him through it, his own needs for climax momentarily forgotten in the face of Alejandro’s writhing body. “God, look at you. You’re fuckin’ perfect, did you know that? Absolutely perfect.”

He doesn’t think Alejandro hears him, not with the way he seems to be too caught up in the pleasure Faraday’s still wringing from his body, but the words are there, hanging between them as Alejandro starts letting out choked off whimpers as Faraday’s continued touching becomes too much for oversensitive flesh.

“You need me to take care of myself?” Faraday asks as he releases his grip and shifts to brace himself with both hands flat on the mattress.

“No,” Alejandro insists, and his own hands come up to rest over Faraday’s hips, urging him on. “I want it all.”

Faraday doesn’t need to be told twice. Permission given, he bucks up into Alejandro’s body, not stopping untl he finally crests the wave he’s been chasing since the moment Alejandro had first shoved him onto the bed. “Holy shit,” he gasps out, “oh my god.”

Below him, Alejandro wraps a hand around one of his biceps, fingers tracing slow circles over heated skin. “Easy, guerito,” he says, his own voice slurring ever so slightly. “I’ve got you.”

“Lord don’t you just,” Faraday huffs out with a laugh. He lets himself sag forward until he’s lying sprawled out on top of Alejandro. “That was … fuck.”

“Si,” Alejandro agrees, and now he’s laughing too. “That was indeed ‘fuck’.”

Rolling his eyes, Faraday swats at him but doesn’t even have the energy not to miss. “Asshole,” he says fondly. He takes a few more moments to recover, and then presses a kiss to Alejandro’s cheek and steels himself to pull out of the warm clutch of the other man’s body.

“Okay?” He asks when Alejandro can’t quite hold back a hiss.

“Yes,” Alejandro assures him with a light pat on the back. “Very okay.”

“Good,” Faraday tells him. He grabs Alejandro’s hand when he goes to pull it away and brushes a swath of kisses over the knuckles. “Because I would never forgive myself if you hadn’t enjoyed that as much as I did.”

Alejandro rolls his eyes and tugs his hand free. “You are just fishing for compliments, Joshua. Do not front.”

Faraday grins. “Well,” he says glibly, “if you want to tell me I’m the best you’ve ever had, I’m certainly not goin’ to complain.”

“Yes, yes, you are a sex god,” Alejandro replies, following this line with another eye roll. “Now, do me a favor and go find something to clean up with. I am not going to sleep like this.”

Sighing, Faraday shifts to do as he’s told, though not without some pointed grumbling on his part.

“Honestly,” he mutters, not bothering to speak low enough that Alejandro can’t hear him as he heads into the bathroom on legs that feel a bit like they’re made of jelly. He ditches the used condom in the trash as he grabs for a washcloth and runs it under the tap. “You’d think I could get somethin’ of a compliment that wasn’t loaded with sarcasm, but nooo. It’s nothin’ but smartassery and rude comments from you.”

He comes back into the room, damp cloth in hand, and makes his way back to the bed. “I should file a complaint.”

Laid back against the pillows with his head rest in his hands, Alejandro shrugs. “I think you made at least one of those words up,” he points out.

“Who cares?” Faraday asks as he climbs back into bed. He gets the cloth between Alejandro’s legs, starting in on the mess there. “I’ve made up a lot of things in my time. What’s one more?”

Instead of coming back with a sarcastic comment like Faraday is expecting, Alejandro lets out a contented sigh, leaning back a little to give Faraday better access in lieu of saying anything else. Taking that as his cue, Faraday makes quick work of the rest of the mess they’ve made and then starts to get up with every intention of putting the washcloth back where he’d found it, only to be stopped by Alejandro making a grab for him.

“What …?” He starts to say.

“Leave it,” Alejandro says, cutting him off with a shake of his head. “Just throw it somewhere and stay with me.”

Pretty sure that’s an order he’ll never be able to refuse, Faraday does as he’s told.

*****

He doesn’t know how long they lie there afterwards, each of them seemingly content to curl up in the other’s arms, trading lazy kisses back and forth as they come down from the high they’d managed to bring each other to, but he knows it’s a while. Eventually, he has to pull back, unable to spend too much time like this before he gets overwhelmed, and he rolls over onto his side, facing away from Alejandro, who makes a questioning noise.

“Joshua?” He asks, looping an arm around Faraday’s waist and sounding concerned.

Faraday squeezes his hand gently in an attempt to tell him there’s nothing to worry about, but he doesn’t know how well he gets his point across. He’s not good at this, is the thing. Putting it bluntly, it’s been just him for so long that he doesn’t handle affection as well as he should anymore. Probably because he hasn’t seen too much of it in the years since his mother’s been gone.

He feels Alejandro nuzzle at his shoulder, and he gives himself a little shake as he focuses back on the present and the man lying next to him. Craning his neck, he looks back and finds Alejandro watching him with a complicated expression on his face.

“You went away, guero,” he says softly. “Want to tell me where?”

Faraday opens his mouth to refuse, only to pause before he gets the words out. The thing of it is, he does want to tell Alejandro where his head had been just now, and if that isn’t a sign that this thing between them has gotten bigger than Faraday had ever planned to let it, he doesn’t know what is.

“I was thinkin’ about my Ma,” he says, even though it’s not entirely true, but if his voice is shaking a little when he does so, Alejandro is kind enough not to say anything, choosing instead to gaze back at Faraday impassively, attentive and waiting for him to continue. “I think,” Faraday starts softly, deciding he may as well continue down along this path now that he’s set himself upon it. “I think she would’ve liked you.”

Alejandro, bless him, doesn’t make a big deal out of this. “And I’m sure I would have like her.” He says simply.

Faraday laughs at this, the action genuine for all that it comes out sounding more brittle than he’d like. Rolling over in the bed, he settles so that he’s facing Alejandro, who props himself up on his elbow and gazes fondly down at Faraday as he waits for him to speak again.

When Faraday doesn’t, when he’s unable to force another word out of a throat that’s suddenly gone tight, Alejandro says gently, “Would you tell me about her?”

Faraday blinks, not expecting the question, and takes a moment to turn it over in his head. He doesn’t talk about his mother is the thing, at least not in the sense Alejandro’s asking for. Then again, he’s never had anyone to talk to about her.

“She was … big,” he says finally, unsure of how to start properly and so just diving on in. “And loud. She swore an awful lot and laughed even more.”

Alejandro smiles at this. “So, she was you then.”

Faraday chuckles, relaxing more and more as this goes on. “Yeah. I mean, I didn’t look much like her, got my size and my coloring from her side, but the facial features all came from the sperm donor.”

Alejandro frowns at the descriptor of his father, but doesn’t comment, which is good. Pretty much the only thing Faraday knows about the man is that they resemble each other, and he’s got no desire to learn more. “I was my mother’s son,” he says flatly. “Nobody else’s.”

“You still are, Joshua.” Faraday must appear confused at this because Alejandro clarifies, “Just because she’s gone doesn’t make you any less her child.”

“I guess,” he says dubiously. He doesn’t much feel like it these days. For all his talk of working in the family business, he doesn’t think his Ma would’ve ever worked for the likes of Bart Bogue. Nor does he enjoy picturing what her response to his doing so would be.

His chin is suddenly gripped by long, callused fingers, and Faraday raises his eyebrows as Alejandro shakes him gently. “Can I help you?” He asks with a laugh.

Alejandro gives him a long look, one tinted with concern, and shakes him a second time. “You went away again. I didn’t like it.”

Faraday huffs out a laugh, even though it’s maybe not the best response to so serious a declaration, and brings a hand up to pry Alejandro’s fingers off of him. Once he’s accomplished this mission, however, he refuses to let go, and instead sets about pressing kisses to each of Alejandro’s knuckles, grinning when the other man flexes his fingers and makes a pleased noise.

“You miss her a lot, don’t you?” Alejandro asks his voice sad.

Faraday doesn’t have the words to respond to that, a simple yes isn’t sufficient, but more would seem like he was trying too hard. He settles for nodding instead, and wonders if that can somehow get across how losing his mother had abruptly left him alone in a world where he’d already felt like he didn’t belong. It takes him a moment before he can meet Alejandro’s gaze, and when he does he can’t say how relieved he is not to find pity there.

“I … it was just to the two of us,” he says finally. “No other family except a few distant relatives we hardly ever saw, and we moved around so much growin’ up that I was never in one place long enough to forge any ties.” It’s why he’s so bad at this, he doesn’t add, why he doesn’t know what he’s doing with Alejandro and if he should keep going or run now while he can still convince himself he has a chance to get away.

Alejandro twists his hand so that he’s the one holding Faraday’s and not the other way around. He brings it to his lips and drops a handful of butterfly kisses on it, the last one falling dead centre in the middle of Faraday’s palm. “That’s a difficult way to live,” he murmurs.

Faraday shrugs as best he’s able with one hand still caught in Alejandro’s grip. “I was happy enough.”

“Mm,” Alejandro hums. “What was her name?”

“Eleanor,” Faraday says after a moment’s consideration of whether or not he’s ready to release that detail. “She went by Ellie, though. Said she didn’t care if it was a silly nickname for a grown woman, it was hers and she was goin’ to be called what she wanted.”

“Definitely your mother,” Alejandro says with a laugh.

Faraday grins back at him, only to sober soon after. “She died alone,” he says quietly, part of him shocked he’d dared to go there even as the words are leaving his mouth. Alejandro’s grip on his hand tightens perceptively, but he doesn’t say anything as he waits for Faraday to continue. “I was … fuck, not sure. Not quite nineteen, I think. I’d managed to pick up a job, one of my first, half a country away and she told me to go. Insisted, I go, actually.”

He laughs then, but it’s shallow, the old pain and sense of betrayal welling up in him like they always do when he stops to think about this.

“What happened?” Alejandro asks, only to immediately backtrack when Faraday shudders. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me, of course. But I’ll listen if you want.”

Faraday takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “She was sick,” he says, and if his voice is harsh even after all these years then so be it. “She was sick and she didn’t tell me.”

His hand clenches of its own volition, but if it’s too tight, Alejandro doesn’t comment. “I always figured she didn’t want me to have to watch her die, didn’t want me to see her like that, but I’ll never know because she didn’t fuckin’ tell me.”

“Oh, mijo,” Alejandro murmurs, and there’s no denying that he sounds sad now. “Lo siento, cariño.”

“I have no idea what you just said,” Faraday mutters, deciding to focus on the innocuous rather than the constricting feeling in his chest, like there’s something wrapped around his insides and squeezing until he can’t breathe anymore.

“I said, I’m sorry,” Alejandro translates needlessly.

“Yeah, well.” Part of Faraday wishes he could have his hand back so he could use it to better brush off Alejandro’s words. The rest of him knows full well he’s not letting go until somebody makes him. “It was over ten years ago, obviously I’ve learned to adapt.”

“Ten years,” Alejandro repeats, and Faraday knows he’s not imaging the horrified note in his voice. “And you’ve been alone the whole time? How did you live?”

He sounds so scandalized Faraday’s half tempted to laugh even though there’s nothing funny about it. “I don’t know,” he says honestly, raw and open in a way he wouldn’t be with anybody else. “I just did, I suppose.”

Alejandro shakes his head. “I couldn’t do it,” he says harshly. “I was, for almost a year I was by myself and it nearly killed me. People aren’t meant to exist in a vacuum, cariño, you hear me? We’re social creatures for a reason.”

“Hey, I’m plenty social,” Faraday says, trying to play it off. “After all, was it not my open and gregarious nature that caught your attention in the first place?”

He’s expecting Alejandro to play it off, to come back at him with a joke like he always does, forever feeding off Faraday’s energy as they one up each other in quips and jabs and barbed sarcasm. Instead, Alejandro frowns. “You’re trying to change the subject. Don’t. You shouldn’t have been alone all this time. It isn’t right.”

Faraday almost, but doesn’t quite roll his eyes. Alejandro sounds so convinced he’s practically radiating fervent belief. “It is what it is. If I’m bein’ honest, I could’ve made things better for myself by findin’ a place to settle down and stayin’ there. I didn’t have to keep roaming all over hell and creation.”

Alejandro’s face does … something. For one daring moment, Faraday thinks the other man might tell him it’s time for him to think real hard about the whole settling down idea. Then the moment passes and reality reasserts itself. He knows Alejandro likes him well enough, in fact he probably cares more about Faraday than anyone has since his Ma passed, but there is a hell of a difference between “I enjoy what we get up to together enough to keep doing it” and “Stay with me forever”.

Faraday can’t imagine Alejandro’s looking for forever. Otherwise, why would he have chosen a man he knew from the get go was supposed to leave?

On the other hand, who says he’s has to leave? He’s already been considering ways to tell Bogue he’s out, and it’s not like he’s tied to any particular place. If he were to settle down, to give up the whole vagabond lifestyle, there wasn’t a reason he couldn’t do it here.

He looks at Alejandro, who’s still watching him with a worried frown, and he wonders if maybe it’s not time for a change of pace.

It’s worth a thought anyway.

*****

If Vasquez were a more imaginative man – one like Goodnight perhaps, with all his fanciful terms and colorful descriptors – he might be better equipped to describe the feeling in the pit of his stomach when he drops down onto Emma’s bed upon his return to the farmhouse. However, since he doesn’t begin to have the right words, not in either of the languages he speaks, he merely sinks into the bedding, buries his face in the soft duvet, and keeps his mouth shut.

Emma, who’d been in the process of drawing back the curtains and opening the room’s only window when he’d first stormed inside without so much as a hello, doesn’t stop what she’s doing. It’s not until she has the window up as far as it will go, a cool breeze now beginning to drift in through it, that she turns her attention to him.

“Do I even want to know?” She asks, and Vasquez refuses to look at her because he’s afraid to see what her face might be doing.

Wriggling uncomfortably, he sighs into the bedding and considers how much of a tactical error coming in here might have been. He needs to talk to someone, there’s no question about that, and Emma’s history means she’s without a doubt the best person for the job. Unfortunately, knowing that and facing it head on are two very different things.

“Vasquez,” she says, exasperation coloring her tone. “I don’t ask for much in this life, but people showing me manners and respect happen to be among the few things I do require and you barging in here like this and hiding your head in the sand like a sulky toddler don’t constitute that in the slightest. Either tell me what’s wrong or get out.”

“I want him,” Vasquez grunts, still not looking at her.

“What?” She asks, and Vasquez wonders if the way he’s lying down prevented her from hearing her properly.

“Joshua.” He clarifies, speaking a little louder. “I want him. I want him like you had Matthew.”

“Oh,” Emma says, and he swears he hears a faint snicker from her direction as realization dawns. “Is that all?”

“Is that all?” He echoes, shooting up into a sitting position at the mere suggestion that he hasn’t just declared something momentous out in the open. “I drop what is arguably the most significant declaration of my life on you, and the only thing you can do is ask me if that is all? Emma!”

“Vasquez,” she says pityingly “Everyone in the pack has been watching this coming for weeks now. The only thing we’ve been waiting on is to see how long it’d take you to figure it out. Sam and Goody have a wager on it and everything.”

“You’re lying,” he says, hoping he’s right more than actually believing he is.

Emma crosses her arms over her chest and gives him a knowing look that does away with any hope he might have had. “I can show you the betting book if you like.”

Groaning, Vasquez covers his face with his hands and flops back onto the bed. He briefly considers cocooning himself up in all the blankets and refusing to come out ever again, but the odds of Emma letting him get away with that are slim to none. If nothing else, she’s likely to kick him out just so she can get her own room back.

“Oh, yes,” Emma says from her current vantage point. “You’ll win him over for sure with this little display.”

“Please don’t mock me right now,” he whines through his fingers. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Do you ever?” She asks, coming over to settle down beside him when he lets out another pathetic noise. “Oh, alright,” she grouses, and he feels it as she pats his side with one hand. “Calm down, Vasquez. This isn’t a bad thing.”

“Yes, it is,” he snaps, uncovering his hands so that he can look up at her with the full brunt of his glare. When all she does is look at him unsympathetically, he kicks free of the tangle of blankets he’s made and scrambles to his feet so he can begin pacing the length of the room.

“Putting aside all of the … the feelings,” he starts, stumbling over the word like it’s one that doesn’t belong in his mouth, “what exactly do you think is going to come from all of this, hmm? How the hell do I even tell him? Buenos dias, Joshua, I was wondering if I could talk to you about something. What’s that? Yes, I am interested in making this thing between us permanent, good guess, but what I really need to tell you is that I’m a werewolf. Surprise! No, don’t worry, all the times I’ve bitten you won’t make you one too.”

Scrubbing his hands through his hair, no doubt making it stand up wildly, he whirls around. “How am I supposed to get that across and have him not turn tail and run? Mierda, how am I supposed to do that and have him not try to have me committed?”

“Well,” Emma says thoughtfully, “for the second one I’m going to suggest you just shift in front of him. He might still do the whole turning and running thing, but at least he’ll believe you.”

He glares at her. “Not. Helpful.”

She sighs. “Vasquez, I don’t know what you want me to say. If you want the man, you’re going to have to tell him. I know it’s terrifying, believe me, I was scared out of my wits when I told Matthew, but you can’t bring him into your life for good with that kind of secret hanging over your head. It’ll never work.”

“I know that,” he all but roars, immediately backtracking when he realizes how poorly that had come out. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. I’m just …”

“Terrified,” Emma finishes for him, and if he ever needed proof that she’s a better person than he is, he finds it in the way she doesn’t look even the slightest bit offended by his outburst. “Don’t be ashamed, no one’s going to blame you for it.”

He hums noncommittally and slows his pacing, coming to a stop a few feet away from where Emma’s sitting on the bed with her hands folded in her lap. “I want him,” he says like he had earlier, “but I don’t know if I can have him.”

“And you won’t until you do something about it,” she tells him. “It’s not that I don’t sympathize with your plight, but that’s just fact. When are you seeing him again?”

Vasquez waves a hand airily. “Tomorrow night. He has something he wants to do, I don’t know what. He likes coming up with ridiculous plans, says it’s fun to keep me on my toes.”

“So he likes things that are different,” Emma decides. “Good. Maybe that’ll make this easier for him.”

Vasquez rolls his eyes. “I think you are reaching with that one.”

“Probably,” she acknowledges. “On the other hand, why borrow trouble if you don’t have to? We both know your Joshua is going to find out about us. I don’t see any reason to assume he’s going to take it poorly unless he actually does so.”

“You don’t?” Vasquez asks. “Because I can. I can think of seven of them in this house, nine if you count you and me, or have you forgotten what will be put at risk if he doesn’t react well? We’ve already had to flee one home, Emma. What if I make us lose a second one?”

She frowns at that, her eyes going sad as she no doubt thinks of Matthew and everything else they’ve already lost. “Do you really think he’ll take it that poorly?”

“I – ugh.” Vasquez flaps a hand wildly to try and illustrate how little surety he has about anything right now. “Does it matter? What right do I have to put us all at risk just because … because …”

“Because you’re in love?” Emma finishes for him.

“No,” he denies. “That is not at all what I was going to say. What do you know?”

“Uh huh.” Some of the sadness fades from Emma’s face as it’s replaced with amusement at his predicament. “For the record, if you can’t be honest with yourself, you’re going to have a problem being honest with Joshua.”

She stands then, and takes the few steps required to place herself right in front of him. Reaching up, she cups his cheek in a surprisingly gentle hand. “Tell him, Alejandro. We’ll deal with the fallout if it goes poorly. We always do.”

“I … alright,” he says slowly, “but if it all goes badly, I expect you to make me feel better.”

Smiling, she gives his face a firm pat. “I will buy you all the whiskey in the state,” she promises, and he decides he’s going to hold her to it.

*****

Faraday’s been forced to make a rare appearance at Bogue’s base of operations, but he’d be lying if he said his head was in the game. He strolls along the corridor that leads to Bogue’s personal office, no less than three of the man’s hired goons trailing along behind him, and he thinks very little about what he’s seeing. That’s not the wisest move on his part, but it doesn’t change the fact that every time he closes his eyes all he can see is Alejandro gazing at him softly while he talks about his mother.

He wants that for good, he now realizes. To hell with the lifestyle he’s lived up until this point, and to hell with Bart Bogue and whatever mess he’s gotten himself into in particular, Faraday’s found something he wants of a more permanent nature. The only problem is it’s going to take a rather dramatic change in career paths on this part.

Well, that and he has to convince Alejandro to take a chance on him, of course.

He takes a deep, steadying breath as he waits for one of the goon squad to key him into the room, but it’s got nothing to do with his upcoming meeting with his employer. He’s due to see Alejandro later this evening. With that in mind he figures he should start coming up with what he wants to say.

There’s a clicking sound as Bogue’s office door opens, and Faraday shakes himself back to the present. Right now he needs to give Bogue his latest there-are-no-wolves-here-as-far-as-I-can-see-how-much-longer-are-you-going-to-waste-my-time report, and then he can focus trying to make a permanent stab at things with Alejandro.

After that … well, then he’d have to see.

*****

“I can’t believe you decided breaking and entering was a good idea for a date, Joshua,” Vasquez says with a sad shake of his head.

Joshua looks up from where he’s fishing another beer out of the cooler by his feet. “Okay, one, it ain’t breakin’ and enterin’, it’s just using the patio of the hotel I’ve been living in for ages after hours, and, two, if it was breakin’ and enterin’, you’ve gone along with it the whole time, so what does that say about you?”

Vasquez laughs and reclines back on the lounge chair he’s claimed as his own. “It says I’ve been viciously led astray by you.”

“It says nothin’ of the sort,” Joshua counters. Beer successfully retrieved, he stands and makes his way over to Vasquez, bypassing the seat he’d been using for himself, and instead settling down on Vasquez’s chair, despite the fact that it’s nowhere near big enough for both of them. “Scoot over, would you?”

“We will not both fit, guero,” Vasquez tells him, and then ruins his protest by obediently shuffling over and making room for Joshua to sit down partly on the chair and partly on Vasquez himself. “And you are heavy.”

Joshua makes an annoyed noise, and then sets about rearranging them so that he’s the one underneath Vasquez instead of the other way around. “Better?” He asks as he curves a large hand over Vasquez’s hip and drags him into his lap, tangling their legs together.

“Si,” Vasquez concedes. He takes a drink from the beer he’s still holding and lets himself settle back against Joshua’s broad chest. “Though we still don’t fit.”

He feels it as Joshua rumbles out a laugh beneath him. “You are awfully hard to please sometimes, you know that?”

“I didn’t say I minded,” Vasquez protests. He wriggles a bit before huffing out a contented sigh. “This was not so bad an idea.”

“Well, I’m glad to have your approval, sweetheart.” Joshua says. Vasquez can tell he’s aiming for sarcasm, but he ruins it when he laughs and slips the fingers of his free hand under Vasquez’s shirt, tracing tiny circles over the exposed skin.

Vasquez hums a little, before adding, “Just so you know, if we get caught up here I’m claiming you abducted me.”

“And what? You developed fuckin’ Stockholm Syndrome in under an hour?” Joshua makes a scoffing sound and takes a swig of his beer. “It’ll never fly.”

“You don’t know that,” Vasquez disagrees.

Joshua laughs and rubs their cheeks together obnoxiously, the scruff of his beard catching on Vasquez’s jaw in an extremely pleasing, if distracting manner. “Joshua,” Vasquez groans, remembering that he’d come up here tonight with something important to discuss. “Guero, stop that, please.”

“Why?” Joshua asks in that impish way of his.

“Because,” he starts, only to be cut off when Joshua places his half-empty beer bottle on a convenient table and gets both his hands on Vasquez’s body. “Damnit, Joshua.”

“That’s me,” Joshua says with a laugh. He catches Vasquez’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, nudging him upwards to steal a couple kisses.

Maybe it’s because of what he’s got percolating in the back of his own mind, but Vasquez can’t help but feel like there’s a sense of urgency behind Joshua’s actions tonight. Lounging about in each other’s arms while trading kiss after kiss isn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility for them, but it isn’t common behaviour either. Especially not in a public space, no matter how deserted it may be.

“You are being distracting,” he scolds, grabbing for Joshua’s hands before the man can worm them under his shirt again.

“Distractin’?” Joshua repeats. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I need to talk to you about something,” Vasquez grits out, trying and failing to put a little distance between them. He should be standing up for this, or at least not crammed into the same chair as the man he’s about to drop the ‘So, I happen to be a werewolf and would like it if you stayed with me forever’ bomb on. Maybe he should have brought flashcards.

“It’s important,” he adds, hoping he sounds serious enough to be listened to.

He must because Joshua stops moving. “Important,” he repeats. “Okay,” and then he focuses all of his attention on Vasquez, which is somehow worse than he’d imagined it might be. “I’m listenin’, sweetheart.”

“I …” Vasquez says weakly, wondering where all his courage has abruptly decided to fuck off to.

He’s still trying to figure out what to say, and wishing desperately that he’d bothered to rehearse something, anything, when a shrill ringing noise blares out from the front pocket of Joshua’s jeans.

“Motherfucker,” Joshua swears. “Hang on, sweetheart. Just gimme a second.” He pulls his phone free, jostling Vasquez a bit in the process, and swears again when he sees whatever’s scrolling across the screen. He stuffs the still screaming phone back where he’d found it. “Yeah, no. Fuck no. Not now, Bogue, you can wait.”

Vasquez freezes, every muscle in his body locking up as his mouth goes suddenly, horrifically dry. “Bogue?” He chokes out, praying he’d either heard wrong, or that it was some sort of terrible coincidence.

Joshua freezes too, his eyes widening as he tears them away from his still buzzing pocket to stare at Vasquez’s face. “Um,” he says awkwardly. “Do me a favor and pretend you didn’t hear that, please. I’m in for a world of grief if I break confidentiality with work.”

“Work,” Vasquez says hollowly. “What kind of work?” He keeps going even though he doesn’t want to. “Why won’t you ever say what kind of work?”

Now Joshua looks shifty. He’s trying not to, but Vasquez has spent so much time in his company over the course of their relationship that it’s impossible not to tell. “It’s complicated,” he says. “And it’s not important.”

Not important, Vasquez thinks hysterically. God above, why had he waited so long to press this? “You’ve said that before. Tell me something about it. Tell me anything. Who’s Bogue?”

“No one nice,” Joshua says, which isn’t what Vasquez had been expecting even if it is true. “He’s – I work for him, at least for now. Contract work.”

“Yes, you’ve said that before.” Vasquez holds himself perfectly still and tries to make keep his voice normal. If Joshua is what he now suspects him to be then not only is he not on the enjoyable date he’d been hoping for, he’s flat out in danger. “What does it mean?”

“It means all kinds of things.” Joshua says. He frowns. “Why are you askin’ me this? I thought you had somethin’ you needed to say?”

“I did – do,” Vasquez amends. “But you distracted me. Tell me about your work.”

“I can’t,” Joshua insists, and he’s got a hunted look to him now, like a dog that’s done something it knows it shouldn’t have but is still hoping you won’t notice.

“No? Not anything? Anything at all?” Vasquez keeps pressing. He has to know. He has to be sure.

“Oh, for -.” Joshua makes an annoyed sound. Vasquez would laugh at his frustration, but there’s nothing funny about what’s happening here, not when it feels like his entire world is unravelling right in front of him.

“He’s a fuckin’ – I don’t even know what to call him. Real estate baron? Fancy criminal is more like. He is not a good man, let’s put it that way.”

“And yet you work for him.” Vasquez points out.

“Man’s gotta eat,” Joshua says with a shrug.

Of course, the question is, what is it he’s doing to be able to eat. “So you’ve worked for this man for a long time then?”

“No,” Joshua denies, and that shouldn’t help but somehow it does. “He was, aw fuck it. He had some dumbass project on the go out in California and ran into some trouble. Now he’s having the same problem here and called in an expert to deal with it.”

“And you’re the expert?” Vasquez asks, his voice having lost all highs and lows. This is worse than he’d thought. Joshua isn’t just one of Bogue’s hired goons, he’s a hunter. A goddamned, murdering hunter.

And he’s still holding Vasquez in his arms.

“Technically, but, funny thing. I’m thinking of getting out of the game.”

Vasquez blinks and sits up slowly. “What do you mean?”

Still lying stretched out on the lounge chair, Joshua gazes up at him with a hopeful look on his face. “You remember how you were scoldin’ me for never settlin’ down or tryin’ to make a home for myself? Well, I’ve been thinkin’ about that and … and, well.” He licks his lips and brushes visibly trembling fingers over Vasquez’s forearm.

Part of Vasquez wants to break out in hysterical laughter – the only thing stopping him the fact that that’s an outright dangerous reaction right now. It sounds like Joshua is about to offer him exactly what he’d been hoping for not ten minutes ago.

He’s also, as it happens, just given Vasquez the perfect way out of here.

“No.” He says firmly. “I – if you’re about to say what I think you are, the answer is no.”

“What?” Joshua’s eyes go wide, and he looks like Vasquez has just hauled off and slapped him. Good, let him feel as poleaxed as Vasquez does right now, if for a very different reason.

“I’m not,” Vasquez starts. “I can’t,” he says instead. “I have to go.”

He climbs out of Joshua’s lap, deliberately avoiding the other man’s flailing grasp.

“Wait,” Joshua says, and he sounds hurt. He sounds so, incredibly hurt, the kind of hurt where the part of Vasquez that still doesn’t believe what’s happening wants to turn around and comfort him. He doesn’t though. He can’t.

“Damnit, Alejandro, wait. Please!” Joshua’s still reaching for him, sounding desperate in a way he never has before, but Vasquez backs away nimbly, easily evading his hand. “Look, I’m sorry. I obviously read the situation wrong, but I won’t bring it up again, I promise. Just, please don’t leave.”

Vasquez shakes his head and backs towards the way they’d come in. All he has to do is hit the stairs and he’s positive Joshua won’t be able to catch him. “I have to go,” he says again. “You have to let me go.”

The slapped expression comes back to Joshua’s face. He’s on his feet now, but he looks stricken, looks wrecked, like Vasquez is somehow the one who’s done more damage here tonight than he is. He doesn’t move to follow, however, and Vasquez breathes a sigh of relief as he reaches the exit with more and more space growing between them.

He takes one last look at Joshua, standing on the patio with his shoulders slumping, and whirls around into the stairwell. It’s possible he hears Joshua says his name one last time, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to go back and find out.