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It was a simple job, really. Get in, steal the bonds, and get out.
But nothing ever went as simple as the original plan, did it? Not with the Van Der Linde gang. There was always a little bit of improvisation to be had. Which was exactly what you were doing right now.
Bullets firing past your ears, blood running down your leg, the target’s personal guards chasing you down the winding paths of Roanoke Ridge.
-
One day earlier.
The plan was set. Arthur, Bill and Lenny were to infiltrate the building and steal the bonds, while Micah and Charles handled the guards. You and Javier were on lookout, posted at the entrance gates.
You were all stationed just outside of Van Horn, your target being the mansion and its occupiers. Trelawny had brought intel of bonds on their way through Van Horn to Annesburg, stopping off at the mansion overnight. Roanoke wasn’t a place anyone wanted to be caught up in at night.
“It’s fucking freezing out here,” you muttered, leaning further against your horse, absorbing his body heat as much as you could. It had been hours of waiting around and checking on the mansion. No movement whatsoever since the sun began to set. Darkness was nearing and the coach was nowhere to be seen.
Javier stood beside you, rifle in hand, eyes fixated on the road to the right, where the coach should appear from. “Want my poncho?” He asked, glancing at you briefly.
You didn’t even cast him a look as you responded. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your style, Escuella. I think I’ll survive without it.” You sighed, and moved from your position, heading further down the road, hiding in the trees to watch from a different position, seeing the road winding down Roanoke Ridge to New Hanover.
The two of you had never gotten along. He didn’t like your attitude one bit. You were snarky, cold. Something you’d developed after years of running with Arthur and John. He’d try and make conversation, you’d brush it off. He’d invite you on a fishing or hunting trip, you’d decline and say you preferred to hunt alone. He couldn’t win. You never sat with the camp during his songs or meals, you were always perched somewhere else, keeping lookout. That’s what you did. That’s all you ever did.
So after a few months, he gave up. Not exactly understanding your harshness to him, he just accepted it instead. He returned your cold comments and your mean stares. Years passed and you bickered like enemies living beside one another.
You whistled out to the group as you spotted the coach. Your whistle blended with the birds, so it was undetected by the gourds watching the bonds.
Everything went smoothly, Arthur, Lenny and Bill making quick work of breaking into the bonds lock box, and you heard the guards grunting and groaning as they hit the floor from Micah and Bill’s attacks.
Through your scope, you spotted as the boys grabbed the bonds, throwing them into their satchels. Drifting your rifle along the side of the mansion, you sensed something wrong with Bill. He was arguing with Micah. More so than usual.
“What’s going on?” Javier whispered, lying beside you, hidden between the trees.
You shushed him, focusing on Bill. Their argument grew even more heated, and you caught a glimpse of lantern light behind them. You watched as they turned, cursing loudly before returning fire. Micah had scurried off during the brawl with the guards, seeking other treasures and getting himself caught in a scuff with guardsmen minding their own business.
“Shit, shit,” Javier cursed, throwing an arm over you and holding you down, protecting your head as bullets fired your way. “He can’t keep his head for one mission, puta madre!”
Arthur had ordered for, if the mission went south; which you had good money on it that it did, that you scatter. Split up and evade Van Horn at all costs, go the long way around New Hanover until it was safe to return back to camp so you were sure you weren’t followed.
They had the bonds, all they needed to do was escape without getting caught. But you wouldn’t have minded if Micah got murdered in the. Just when you thought he’d found your last nerve, he managed to hit another one.
“I think this is our cue to leave,” you said through gritted teeth, pushing yourself onto your feet and grabbing your gear. Javier was on your heels, close behind. You hiked deeper into Murfree Brood territory, constantly keeping an eye over your shoulders for lantern light.
“Our safest path is through Roanoke,” Javier said from behind you, following your path through the trees. “The guards won’t dare follow us through there this late at night.”
You halted suddenly, whipping around to face Javier. He was caught off guard, almost stumbling into you, a surprised expression on his face. “Are you crazy, Escuella? Murfree Brood hunt here at night. If it’s not the guards who get us, it’ll be them. And I’d rather take my chances with bullets rather than-”
A bullet shot through the wind, straight through your leg into the tree behind you. It caught your words in your throat and you almost crumbled to the ground under the pain firing down your leg. Javier didn’t even blink as he wrapped an arm around you, catching you before you fell. He pulled his gun from its holster at his hip, pointing it over your shoulder and firing it straight into the head of the guard who fired at you first.
It drew attention. Of course, it did. Javier pulled you away from the scene, down the winding path leading to New Hanover. His arm stayed firmly around your waist, and you tried to hold in your groans of pain as your feet collided with uneven terrain, worsening the sting of the wound.
You both heard voices, coming from the top of the hill of which you had just descended. Javier pulled you around a large oak tree, pushing your body against the bark which pulled a pained gasp from your lips. “Fucking hell, Javier. At least try to be gentler with-” His hand clamped over your mouth, his body pressed against yours as he looked past the tree trunk to the guards making their way past you, checking their surroundings as they went.
“You need to learn to shut up once in a while,” he whispered, looking back to you. His hat was tipped down his head, shielding his eyes. “I’m trying to save you and you’re still complaining.”
You looked up at him, your mouth still firmly covered, your hand wrapped around his wrist, instinct from when he shut you up. He smelled of whiskey and firewood, his scent filling your nostrils. His hand wrapped around your waist protectively, tightening as the footsteps grew closer.
Pulling his hand down, you noticed his skin never left yours. It rested around your neck. Softly, no pressure in his fingers, but the heat of his palm burned against your pulse, and he felt your heart rate jump. “Thought you would have wanted to get rid of me, Escuella,” you whispered, looking up at him.
But he just looked down at you, surprised. “What?”
“Get rid of me. Hand me off to some guards searching through half the woods for us.” Your gaze never wavered. “Would certainly save you the trouble of dealing with me back at camp.”
He just smirked, tilting his head up, his eyes turned down to look at you. “And why would I want to get rid of you? Perhaps I enjoy the trouble you cause me. Ever thought about that?” His eyebrows raised as you stood there, unable to form words. “So are you going to shut up and behave yourself while I get you out of here? Or are you going to keep talking until they figure out where we are?”
Javier waited for your response, but it never came. You just bowed your head, sealing your lips in a thin line. He took that as a sign that you’d ‘shut up and behave’.
The men eventually left, abandoning their search for you, leaving both you and Javier a window of opportunity to flee.
-
The sun poked out above the trees from the makeshift camp Javier had set up in New Hanover. You were shielded by the canopy of branches, the fire in front of you keeping you warm. But it wasn’t doing anything good for the bullet wound in your leg. You stretched out your leg, wincing at the pain shooting through your body.
“I told you not to try and fix it by yourself,” you heard Javier say as he emerged with an armful of firewood, dropping it by your bags. “Your hands will shake before you’ve finished stitching it.”
You glared up at him. “Would you suggest I just leave it? Cut my leg off?”
Javier rolled his eyes at you, kneeling in front of you, his knees on either side of your wounded leg. “I would suggest…that you should wait for me. I’ll stitch it for you.”
Pulling his knife from the holster at his ankle, he sliced the blade through the fabric of your pant leg like butter. All the way up to your hip. “Hey!” You called out. “They were new pants.”
“I’ll buy you a replacement. Now shut up.” He was always harsh with his words, but now, it was even more so. A slight pang of worry soaked his tone.
“You’re such an ass sometimes-ow!” His fingers pushed against the wound on your leg, blood pooling out to the floor. “The fuck was that for?”
He looked indifferent as he looked up at you. “Feeling for any shrapnel. You don’t have any, thankfully, or else this would have hurt a lot more than its about to.”
“I could have told you that,” you grimaced as he began cleaning the wound. Applying pressure to one end of the bullet hole only forced blood through the other side. You could see both the entry point and exit point of the wound, stretching across the left and right sides of your leg.
You were both silent as he cleaned your leg, but you gasped as he pulled out a needle. He saw a panicked flash across your face, seeing it appear as quickly as it fled. “Easy,” he soothed, patting your knee. “I’ll be quick. You won’t feel it.”
“Don’t lie to me,” you whispered, your eyes only focused on the needle.
He sighed, leaning closer, tipping your chin up to meet his softened gaze. “Okay. You will feel it. But not much. A bee sting, that’s all it feels like. But it’ll be easier if you lie down.”
“Why?”
“Your muscles tense when you sit upright. You could at least be comfortable while I stitch you up.” He helped you into a more comfortable position. Javier still straddled your shin, one of his hands pressed against your thigh while his other stitched the hole closed. You laid there, his poncho acting as your pillow as you looked up at the trees.
You ignored the sting you felt each time the needle pierced your skin. Javier wasn’t wrong, it did feel like a bee sting. What’s more important, was that you could manage that sort of pain. “Thank you,” you said quietly, but you weren’t certain he heard you at first, until the needle stopped in your skin, his actions immoveable. Lifting your head and straining your neck, you met his eye. There was a small smile on his face, the corners of his moustache turned upwards with his laugh lines driven deep into his skin. You always did like his smile. That was the one thing that never changed about him.
“It’s the least I can do,” he smiled, turning his attention back to your stitches. “It’s sort of my fault you got shot in the first place.”
“Sort of? You mean ‘entirely’?” You laughed as he playfully slapped your other leg with the back of his hand.
“Quit laughing,” he chuckled with you. “Or I’ll end up stabbing you in the wrong place.”
He finished quickly, wiping away any trace of blood before gently bandaging your leg. His soft touch lingered for a little while, his thumb gently rubbing soothing patterns into your skin. Your breath stopped in your throat as his touch rose higher. Higher up your thigh. To where your thigh met your hip. He was so fixated on it, he didn’t realise what he was doing until he felt your pulse beating at an ungodly rate at the top of your inner thigh.
His eyes flicked up to yours, where you laid, patiently. You were curious what sorts of thoughts were running through his head right now. What sort of cogs were turning in that brain of his.
You pushed yourself up onto your elbows, your face closer to his than it had ever been before. “What?” You coaxed, too curious to keep quiet now.
“Nothing,” he moved to lean back, his hands drifting down your thighs, but they never left your body before you grabbed the front of his shirt, holding him in place.
“What did I say? Don’t lie to me, Javier.” Your voice never raised above a whisper. It didn’t need to. You were so close a whisper felt like a shout.
He didn’t respond. He couldn’t speak. The close proximity had rendered him faulty in speech. So instead he closed the gap. His lips touched yours, his body melting against your touch. You didn’t expect it. All those years of bickering. All those years of cruel comments and nasty looks. Nothing prepared you for this. But you welcomed it.
Javier leaned you back, your head meeting the poncho as you felt his body settle on top of yours. Breaking away for air, you saw a softened, kinder look in his eye when he looked at you. “Is this your apology for me getting shot?” You asked, smiling against his lips as he kissed you once more.
“Is it working?” His lips moved to your neck, hovering above your skin to a point where it tickled.
“Hmm…maybe.”
“Then perhaps I’ll try a different angle,” he smirked, unbuttoning your pants, encapturing your lips in a soft kiss, his tongue slipping into your mouth. He had a lot of making up to do.