javier doesn’t fall fast.
he slides. slow. inevitable. like gravity pretending it isn’t doing its job.
she shows up as most things do in the gang: quietly, almost by accident. someone brings her along, someone vouches for her. just another mouth at first. too clean, too soft-looking for the road, but her hands learn quick. she listens. she stays.
she’s younger, yes—but not a child. old enough to know fear, young enough to still believe people mean what they say. that’s what gets him.
she’s american, blonde hair catching the sun too easily, green eyes that don’t flinch when men stare too long. she dresses plainly, skirts worn but cared for, always smelling faintly of clean soap and something floral she hoards like it’s gold. feminine in a world that eats femininity alive.
and javier notices. of course he does.
how he falls
(quietly, shamefully)
it starts with watching.
she laughs at sean’s jokes even when they’re stupid. she listens to karen talk, really listens, nodding like every word matters. she thanks him when he hands her coffee, always thanks him, like it’s an old habit she can’t kill.
he tells himself it’s nothing. he’s seen women before. loved them, even. lost them. buried pictures in his coat pockets and pretended he didn’t know why his chest hurt when he drank.
but then one night—
he’s playing. just idly, fingers moving on muscle memory, a song from home slipping out uninvited. and he realizes she’s sitting nearby, mending a shirt, head tilted toward the sound like it’s something warm.
she doesn’t clap when he finishes.
she just says, soft, almost reverent,
“that sounded like it missed somewhere.”
and something in him quietly breaks its own rules.
what javier does for her
(because he can't say it)
he’s not open. not verbally. god no.
javier shows love like a man who expects it to be taken away.
gifts.
not expensive. not obvious. things only she’d notice.
a silk ribbon, red and gold, bought in town with money he didn’t tell anyone about. a small carved comb he traded two days’ rations for. once, a tiny bottle of perfume—cheap, but carefully chosen because it smelled like the flowers she liked picking near camphe leaves them where she’ll find them. on her bedroll. tied to her saddle.
never says a word.
protection. javier becomes present.
suddenly he’s always volunteering to ride with her. always nearby when things go tense. his hand rests closer to his gun when men look at her too long in towns. no explanation. just instinct.
music.
yes. absolutely.
music is the closest he gets to confession.he plays songs meant for her without naming her. old mexican ballads about devotion and loss, love that waits and love that dies young. sometimes english songs, broken and accented, learned just because she hummed them once while washing clothes.if she ever asks who the song is for, he shrugs.
“no one,” he lies.
and then never plays it again in front of her.
oh and how he feels about her being younger.
it bothers him. deeply.
javier watches her like someone might take advantage of her innocence, and then hates himself when he realizes he’s thinking of himself too. he keeps a careful distance. never touching her unless she asks. never letting his voice soften too much.
there’s guilt there. colonial guilt, age guilt, world-weariness guilt. he’s lived too much, seen too much. what right does he have to want someone who still believes the future is negotiable?
and yet.
when she’s tired, he gives her his jacket.
when she’s scared, he sits beside her through the night, back to a tree, rifle across his knees.
when she cries—rare, private—he doesn’t speak. he just exists with her in the quiet, because he knows words sometimes make wounds worse.
the gang noticing (because of course they do)
arthur notices first. says nothing. just watches javier watch her. files it away under doomed things men do to themselves.
charles approves quietly. javier is gentler around her. more grounded. that matters.
sean tases him relentlessly. “never thought i’d see escuella go all saintly.” javier threatens him with violence. sean keeps smiling.
hosea sees it for what it is and worries. talks to javier once. carefully. reminds him the world they live in doesn’t forgive tenderness.
the girls
they pull her in immediately.
karen teaches her how to shoot better.
tilly watches over her like a sister.
mary-beth notices how javier’s songs change when she’s nearby.
they tease her gently, not cruelly. ask if she’s noticed how javier looks at her like she’s already gone and he’s learning to live with it.
is he willing to give everything?
yes. and that’s the tragedy.
javier would:
leave jobs early to keep her safe, take blame meant for her, bleed quietly if it meant she didn’t have to.
but he would not ask her to stay if staying meant becoming like him.
that’s the cruelest love he knows how to give.
do they end up together?
i’ll give you the version that fits him best.
they almost do.
there’s a night. tension stretched thin. too much blood lately. too much fear. she sits beside him, too close, hands brushing. the unspoken becomes unbearable.
she asks him—soft, brave—
“do you feel it too?”
and javier, heart breaking clean down the middle, answers honestly.
“i do. that’s the problem.”
he kisses her once. slow. reverent. like a goodbye disguised as a beginning. then he pulls away first.
if they part, it’s quiet. respectful. painful. they carry each other like a scar they don’t show.
or, and this is the alternate ending I'll whisper;
if the world were kinder,
javier leaves with her before everything burns. not to be clean. not to be safe. but to be chosen by someone who sees him beyond the outlaw, the accent, the sorrow.
he plays for her still.
but softer now.
happier songs.
and for the first time in his life, he believes maybe love isn’t always a thing you lose.
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