Skelletubby

He'd been quieter all morning, after he realized he forgot his bait and would have to buy some at the last town you passed through. It wasn't out of the way, but he still acted as though something had stuck itself in his boot, stabbing with every step. You would've ridden several miles out of the way, as long as they were with him— then again, Javier's the type, too.

Whatever had crawled under his skin was gone as soon as you hit the shoreline of the lake. The stick shoved moderately far up his ass always falls out when you're around. You'd forget it was ever there, if it weren't for the opportunities you get in camp to watch him without his knowledge. Javier could certainly be short, and rather cruel, with the other men in camp.

It isn't like he tries to hide those things from you, either. When you allow yourself to be given so much credit, you think that whatever has his temper on a short leash abides for you. Javier is not so delicately-stepped as to be kind, but he mellows into something close when you're on your lonesome. Sickly romantic, but he claims that men love hard and that it's only natural he turn into this spineless thing around you. With that bullshit, you know he's merely making himself more comfortable with his own vulnerability.

Other times, you feel that the truth is more likely this: to him, being with you is as good as being alone. Both are rather flattering ideas at their hearts. At times, you wonder what you did for a man as ardent as Javier to get stuck to your hip, whether he fully likes how hard he falls to his knees or not.

Regardless, his eyes come as close to gentleness as they ever will when they fall on you. He looks drowsy, almost ill with softness, and it gives the afternoon sun fresh life as it starts to set. It's hot as it ever was, being Lemoyne, but June is always mildest and the breeze off the lake eases the stiffness of the air. You might've pleaded for another fishing spot if Javier proposed this trip in beginning of August, when it's near suffocating in these parts.

As it is, Flat Iron's a ways away from camp. You suspected there was some kind of fish Javier had a hankering for, made him choose this side of the lake. The side closer to home was as good as any, if you were asked.

You find out better as conversation fades and drifts and finally lands in the palm of nostalgia. Javier's decided, half-foolishly, to cook fish right on the rivershore. It's wide, open space this close to the water, only spotted with a free trees, far from where you've set up.

The fire you're gathering kindling to build has a good chance of getting your pseudo-camp approached, but it's nice to pretend that there are no targets on your backs for once. Yes, it's just Javier stalking off to the treeline to gather sticks for flame and skewer, and you.

You fantasize as you set a handful of brittle leaves in the makeshift firepit. Must be real fine to be heralded by your community, instead of stranded in the woods without one. People really like those strawberry farms, they like any farms; they give life. Some days the gang feels meaningful for its unification of misfits, and some nights, you think you are all still lost and unbound. There's nothing grown in the gang. It's a place to stagnate, in comfort and comradery on good days and in mild isolation on bad ones.

You temper the thought before it can choke the pleasant evening. Every place has its ups and downs. Should anyone come across your little camp, Javier's fine with a gun and good with a knife, and you can handle yourself. Pretending will be alright, for a short while, and if it's ruined— that's when the disappointment can come to stay.

It's comfortable to settle on the ground beside him, even if the open sides of the fire feel exposing. You watch him shave the bark off a stick with his knife, sharpening it to skewer chunks of the fish. Pale scars on his fingers where he's sliced into the skin doing this before shimmer in the firelight.

Javier glances back at you, now and then. Ever-pompous, he never seems surprised to see you still looking.

The fire casts most of his hands in stark shadow, even as the sky clings to its last oranges, holds tight onto them in the clouds until pink seeps through the cotton. It is all much darker once you tear yourself away to look at the flames, how they lick over the dried litter and bloom in pops, and the rest of the world fades into shadow at your peripherals. Always did like how the fire dances, jumps, rolls to and fro.

Only when you are not looking does Javier break the comfortable silence, voice strangely blurred at the edges. "It's funny, you know," he says, huffs a short, dry laugh through his nose. "The San Luis' so close, but it ain't close at all." Like most times Javier ought to sound sad, he doesn't. In fact, it borders on wistful. "Very far away place."

"Are you nervous?" You ask, turning back to him. He's a wanted man, you know, but worse: there's always the memories. Even if you will not camp here, because it's too open and too southern, the memories follow.

Javier's looking into the distance, southwest. He glances at the fire, then you, and his eyes soften that ill-way, settling down. "A little," he says. He hands you one of the sharpened sticks, looking at the day's catch with a blanker face than before, mouth straightening. "Which one do you want?"

You know him well enough to have an inkling his answer isn't about how near the border is. Not with how he moves on so quickly, happy to cut your fish into cookable chunks for you instead of answering the expectant look on your face, the narrowed eyes.

He idly goes into an old story you've heard before, but you don't tell him. You like to listen to his voice, and it's more than likely Javier has a reason for telling it again. He will add something new to it, you think, or will say that last time, he misremembered the part where...

Often, he misremembers. This one took place almost ten years ago, after all— but with how he works around talking about people, rather than what happened to them, you sometimes think he doesn't remember in the first place.

He's crafty that way.

You temper that thought, too, and wait for it to come together as you roast the skewer over the campfire. It's getting dark, now, and the light begins to make a real difference across the ground. Bumpy, bald spots of dirt showing through sparse grass-hair. It clusters up into bushes nearer the tree line. The trees are sparse, too, so it's nothing but a continuation. Towards the water, the cattails mirror the trees, though you'd plucked some of them for the fire. Warm, deep green, nice and lively.

Javier doesn't add anything new, in the end. It's good to listen to him talk regardless, the warm scrape of his voice as it drones evenly and yet too long, turns raspy at the tails. The jagged scar along his throat must cut into something inside it; seems like his voice tires out sooner than most people's.

You think again of how his mind was in another place when you asked him about his nerves. What's nagging at him? Javier's story-telling is only this monotone when his expressiveness is turned all inward or when he's annoyed. If you annoyed him in the slightest, there wouldn't be that warm hand occasionally feeling out your back, making sure you were there.

It cinches over your shoulder, now, his touch firming up once he trails off. He's got to be coming at you somehow, eyes or ears or skin, or — so he's told you — it feels like starving. You would never be so egotistical as to make such a thing up without him putting the awful idea in your head. It comes back every time he touches you for no reason but being connected, which is awful, really, because it makes you feel important. Some of your own starvation stirs, an ache that's only soothed when you lean into his side and feel the thin, solid warmth of his body against you.

Javier turns, and so do you. Nearly meeting in the middle, noses an inch apart. "You cold?" He asks.

"No."

"Ah." He can never let anything rest easily, so he trades his skewer between his hands to stretch an arm around you, slow and purposeful. "I know what you really want."

Back to the food your attention goes. "Learn that from one of Mary-Beth's books?" You ask, rotating your skewer.

"No," Javier says. His hair brushes your temple, a cheeky lean-in. "She learned it from me."

Pointedly, you ignore him. It's not much time at all until his stare searing your cheek, those dark eyes, and you feel a warm flush spreading over your face. Javier begs for attention like a goddamn dog yearning for table scraps, at times. Never any time but when you're alone, because if anyone else saw him act this way — even in jest — he'd be camp laughing stock for a year. Probably longer, knowing how those men turn into boys so easily.

Very likely, it has something to do with the fact that no one would ever believe you if you told them he's this way, either. Most of camp would be hard-pressed to believe Javier's capable of genuinely liking another human being. Most of camp is men, though; the girls all say you're lucky. They mean it, too.

"Mi vida," Javier says. It's the most pathetic voice you've ever heard, and soft, low. Laughing or blushing would only give him the satisfaction he craves, so you bite your tongue and twist the skewer when it's ready. "Oh, c'mon." You glance at him, and it must be cold, because Javier's frown cracks into a smile briefly. "Don't be cruel. You haunt me."

"Good grief," you scoff, leaning away. The air seems colder without him there, is turning into something enjoyably mild for the evening. "You're terrible."

Javier cackles, shifts to press himself right back into your side. His hair brushes your cheek as if he wants to lay his head on your shoulder, but he doesn't, settles for leaning against you. His hand is on your lower back, then, moving across it side-to-side. Feels nice, sturdy.

"You do haunt me," he says again, no ounce of smile left in his voice. Never has he been a convincing conman. Too honest. "Every waking minute."

You know he's simply meandering his way into smooth-talking, and yet you swoon as easily as always. Curious at first, looking to his hand where he's over-cooking his own dinner and barely paying attention to it. The shadows draw deep in the hollow of his curled fingers, the dark hair on his forearm leading up to the rolled gray sleeve of his button-up.

"S'alright, though," Javier continues. If you weren't so enthralled by someone thinking such sweet things about you, you might've learned by now to tune him out when he goes on these tangents. As it is, your breath follows where his hands trails up your spine. The skin of your arm prickles under his watch. "I hate bein' without you."

Up your gaze crawls to his shoulder. Sky's dark, but the rising moon and low sun shake hands across the water of the lake, reflecting light into the air. The other shore seems very far away. Most things do, when Javier pours a little of his heart into your palm. His own must bleed profusely beneath the rich blue of his vest.

"It'll always be you." It bleeds a little extra today, then, if he's talking like this, doesn't sound like he's playing around anymore. Calloused fingers run over the side of your neck, your ear, and trace like its worth tracing.

You're looking him in the eye, trying to appear amused when Javier looks close to melting. Flustering him is always rewarding, and so you weather it, ignoring how well he looks with the warm glow on his warm skin and the dark definition along his features.

"Are you done, sweetheart?" You ask, voice too-warm and too-fond. It's clear you don't want him to be, sounds more like a goad for him to continue.

Javier's tongue slips between his teeth, half a smile on his face, and he turns away as if you've hurt his feelings. For a moment, you're afraid you have, even if he usually likes playing this way and his hand stays where it is on the crook of your neck. Then, he's nodding and trying again, apparently, to get out what he wants to say.

"Marry me."

Night-birds sing, or maybe your ears are only ringing. It comes out before you can stop it: "What?"

"Marry me," Javier repeats.

Eyes a little wide, a little wild; he looks half-scared to say it, almost like he's not meaning to but can't form any other words. It's not a question. His eyes are searching your face more openly, more anxiously then they usually do when he does this, drops a desire at your feet and sees how far you kick it.

Everything is unchanged, save for the burning in your chest and in your eyes and your stomach and your hands, which you pay no mind because you can only focus on him. Everything's in the same place it was a moment ago — should be, anyways, beyond the edges of Javier's sweet, half-terrified face is quite blurry — but you have the distinct feeling that something nonmaterial has shifted, has dragged most of your senses with it and left you askew.

Javier cracks when you don't respond, because he's not sure if he will get what he wants. "Will you?"

The smell of burning fish fills the air. He doesn't look away, but whatever sheepishness was beginning to seep into his expression takes over entirely as he reels his skewer back in and away from the flames.

You glance at the charred chunks of fish and laugh, a sharp bark of it, feel your hand clenched tight around the stick in it as you take your own food off the fire for risk of doing the same thing. His own is half-snuffed and timid as you've ever heard it, but Javier laughs, too, part of it stuck in his throat like bile.

"Of course," you answer. He shines, crooked teeth split in a handsome grin. "You damn fool."

"Hey," Javier drawls, drifts too far into the usual bickering you do and pulls himself out quickly. With a start, he drops his skewer to the ground. It's past eating, anyways. "I got you a ring. Shit, I should've—" He feels in the pocket of his jeans, sighs. His hand falls from your neck to your hip, squeezing. "I wanted to do it the right way, but I got ahead'a myself."

The right way. Like you give an ounce of a shit, but you know it matters to him and that he's sorry. You're still half-way through realizing your hand's been asked for, let alone far enough into acceptance to start wondering what a wedding will look like. On the road like you are, can you even have one? Certainly, you couldn't have one the right way.

"You can ask again," you suggest. He'd sounded so... disappointed with himself.

Javier pauses the search of his pockets to huff. "Just about died the first time, 'n' you want me to do it twice?" He laughs when you smack his chest.

"You're bein' dramatic," you accuse, though you're not entirely sure it's true.

"Shit, no, I'm not," he insists, turns his cheek to you and raises his jaw. The muscles stretches strong along his neck. "Feel my pulse. Racin' like a rabbit's."

"You just want me to touch you."

Javier grins. When you go to turn away, he reaches into the inside pocket of his vest, snickering. "Hey, wait." You do; he takes his hand from your hip, brushing the dirt off on the side of his jeans. It leaves a tan stain on them, same as it left a tan stain on your hip. He wasn't thinking straight. "I found it."

It was awkward and disjointed. Nowhere near as smooth as his words, which only ever get so silky because he practices them a thousand times inside his head, sanding off the rough edges, polishing. Yet, you're as withered when he takes your hand, hesitating a moment too long with the ring ahead of your finger. It looks the right size, though you don't know how he would've measured that, and— where did he get the ring? Money's impossible, and you're sure a jeweller would be locked up tight enough to take at least two men. You would've known about that job, too, if only because Mary-Beth or Tilly would've teased you about why he was robbing a jeweller without you.

You're answered when Javier slips it past your first knuckle and it catches on the second one. The band is gold, thin, glints mockingly.

Any confidence pools out of him and onto the ground below. "Don't tell me it's too small," he mutters, and you wince when he tries to push it past, disbelieving.

"It'll get stuck, honey," you say, curl your finger away so he'll quit. He's not earnestly trying to shove it on, he's just— in denial, probably, looks kicked. "It's okay. Did you... where'd you—?"

He sighs, twists the band between two of his fingers as he lets it drop to his lap. He keeps your hand in his, and you lace your fingers together, squeezing. That seems to cheer him up. "I stole it," he admits, not a touch of shame on him. From the blankness on his face, it seems like he expected you to have known that.

You bite back a laugh. It probably wouldn't make him feel any better, even if you're only laughing because he's predictable. "That's why it don't fit," you say.

"I know." He nods, smiling sheepishly once more. It's nothing like him to be so giddy, but he sounds it when he says: "I's just so excited."

It's sweeter than anything could've been. You suppose something material has changed with the question, because you've never seen Javier so vulnerable. It's choking the air around him, makes your gut twist up with some airy, fluttering feeling. You aren't sure where to begin with the tight affection in your chest, besides leaning in to kiss the sharp part of his cheekbone, the edge of his jaw.

Taking another good look at him, it's not all that difficult to believe he nearly did die with the nerve it took to ask you the first time. There's a sheen on his forehead, and his cheeks are pale, eyes wide yet, though they crinkle the longer you look at him.

He can beg for your attention, yes, but you like that he does. You like the thing he is whenever you're around.

"I love you," you say. There's nothing else to do about any of it.

Javier drums your interlocked hands on your leg, once, twice, like he doesn't know what to do with himself anymore. "I love you, too," he says. Eyes soft, ill-looking.

You suppose fragility is part of asking, this trial of what will you do with my heart underfoot? You bring your hand up to move his bangs from his face, and Javier leans into the touch.

"You're a sorry thing," you say. It's as fond as ever, and he looks content to hear it, closing his eyes when you lay your palm on his sharp cheek.

"Stuck with me, now," he says, even if it isn't true. He turns his face to kiss your wrist, opening his eyes. "I'll get you a chain for it. Would you wear it that way?"

He means he'll steal a necklace. You don't think it's any less flattering than a man spending hard-earned money, especially not considering that the gang's hard-earned money is also stolen. He could've gone to jail or been shot picking this ring off whomever, and he'll have the same risks getting the necklace. Frankly, you'd be impressed to watch him take a chain from a lady's neck without suspicion, but— that's probably because you're just as law-abiding as he is. All you would feel is pride, and some smug sense of satisfaction knowing your man is an excellent thief.

"It'd be easier," you reason, thumbing over his cheekbone, to his jaw where it rubs over ghosts of stubble. You let your hand slip down and rest on the ground again. "Not as much chance'a it getting lost while I'm workin'."

Javier nods. His thumb traces over your knuckles, the skin split and chapped from the chilly breezes off the Dakota at camp. "One day, you won't have to work," he says, sounds as wistful as he had before, talking of home.

"I think I'd rather die than just... relax," you admit, though he's trying to be sweet and the sentence sounds weird when you say it aloud, despite how right it tastes.

"I know you will," Javier says. "But you won't have to, is the difference."

"Who's gonna do it, then?" You ask. Servants and maids aren't anything like him, or you. What is more likely is that Javier hasn't got a clue what goes into keeping a household afloat, even one as small as two people.

"Me, o'course." Javier brings your knuckles to his mouth, brushes a kiss along them. Docile eyes find you through dark lashes. "You're my princess. Why wouldn't I?"

Well, that's sickening.

Fumbling for anything to reply with, you fall again on: "You're a sorry thing, Javier." It sounds even fonder, sounds more like another I love you than a scolding.

He kisses the back of your hand, then the back of your wrist, turns it over and presses his lips to the inside, mustache scratching the thin skin. They're dry as bone, his lips, and you don't think he's going to be calm for another week with the excess jitters rolling off him in waves. But he's trying it, has found his groove again and is pushing it to the limit of how much romantic nonsense you'll swallow without teasing him.

Javier lets your hands rest in your lap again, thumb still smoothing over yours, his eyes watching it. You watch him, then, studying the darkness of his hair and how the ring shines between his fingers, bounces light back and forth with the chain on his vest.

It's nice and quiet, for a long while. The trails off the river are empty, only distant birds mocking back-and-forth in the freshly cooling weather and the rustle of wind in leaves. Still, peaceful.

Your stomach growls, and you remember the bark that's eating into your palm, rough and cool. Shit. Brushing Javier's hand from yours, you reach over to yank on the chain dangling from his vest, grinning at how he jumps.

"Don't do that," he complains, but he's huffing a laugh alongside it.