I Still Put Faith In Us
Chapter 1: The Panic In Me

My first attempt at El Dorado fic, not to mention slashing Miguel and Tulio. R/R, and I will love you. ^_^ Part 1 of 2.


The jungles of the New World were as diverse as creatures of the ocean. Every leaf, flower, and berry, every bird and snake, even the very richness of the earth was like a paradise fit for a king-or maybe just fit for a pair of gods, a girl, and a horse as they cut a trail, leaving their mark on something so remarkable, Miguel almost felt guilty about disturbing it.
Tulio had other ideas.
"Damnit, it's hot out here. How long before we get to a spring?"
Chel grinned, wrapping her arms around him playfully. "We don't know."
"Oh, just *great*."
"It's just too bad we can't keep each other *cold*..."
The dark-haired man grumbled something, shrugging her off with a briefly apologetic look. "I'm just not in the mood today. It feels like we've been wandering in circles for days. How can you two-"
"Three," Miguel piped up to insist. "Altivo gets very offended if he's not included."
Tulio sighed, rolling his eyes. "How can you *three* live like this, anyway? No plan, no goal, no idea of what's going to happen next...
Miguel turned around briefly from guiding ("helping", he insisted) the horse, his own eyes as bright as a child playing pirates. "But that's the *fun* of it! We can build a boat and go back to Spain any day, but this, *this* is adventure."
He took a breath of the jungle air, and Tulio hid a smile beneath a furrowed brow. "You can call it fun, Miguel, but I'll call it heat stroke."
"But can't you see that we'd have more adventures out here than we'd ever have cooped up in some town?"
His friend allowed himself the pleasure of a faint smile. "I can see that you're going to hit that branch if you don't look out."
Miguel whirled around in time to receive a low-hanging branch full in the face. Taken off-guard, he fell back into Tulio's arms, his partner and Chel having managed to duck just in time.
He looked annoyed for a moment, and then he broke out into laughter. Tulio and Chel soon joined him, and it seemed as though even Altivo was chuckling. Even when they reached water, Tulio's thirst was forgotten, and he was eager to return Chel's embraces.
Long after the laughter settled, the girl's mind was dancing with thought. Miguel had stayed in the darker Spaniard's arms for just a moment too long.

The heat, while forgotten, had exhausted Tulio, and he dozed off quicker than Chel and Miguel that night. The remaining two kept their eyes open, their hearts light, as they watched the stars from their places on the ground.
The blonde eyed his sleeping friend with a smile, maybe even lingering for an instant. "He always looks so tense and worried. But I know he's having fun...because when he sleeps, he smiles."
Yes, Chel thought, but for who, Miguel? And do either of you know it? And how can I stop it.?...
"Miguel..." she said after a moment, trying to keep all traces from her voice that might suggest what she was trying to know. "You've known him for ages, haven't you?"
"Since I can remember. We grew up together. Sometimes, we can finish each other's sentences, we can tell what the other is thinking." He laughed, gazing at his best friend's sleeping form. "It's crazy. I don't know what I thought I was going to do without him, alone in El Dorado. Alone anywhere..." He trailed off, realizing he was babbling.
"So it's...always just been you two?" She had that voice that said she wanted something, the voice that even Miguel had come to recognize before long, but he misread its nature.
"Don't worry, there's never really been other women. Once and a while, sure, but they were always flings, whichever one of us they were with. Tulio's...never had anyone like you before," Miguel said, his voice softening.
The gods bless his good intentions, she thought, the information having only bothered her more. Along the many trails they had marked, there had only been Miguel. Tulio had needed nobody else.
"'He tried to describe you, once," the youthful blonde was continuing. "Said that you were 'like music that doesn't need any words.' I don't think I've ever seen him get so poetic. You do for him what nobody else-" He frowned, gazing skyward for a moment, then letting his eyes linger on the sleeping Tulio. "Chel, take good care of him. Make sure he laughs as much as he should. I don't need very much, but I like it best when we're all happy together."
She should have just promised. Gone to sleep. Forgotten. But she met his eyes, and suddenly, her plans were twisted-as they often were, when riding with the Spanish pair-into something completely different. "How can I do that, Miguel, if you're the only one who can really make him smile?"
He stared at her for a moment, silent, his eyes seeming nervous and unsure.
He chuckled briefly, turning his gaze away. "I should go to bed. G'night, Chel."
"Don't worry. I won't tell him."
Miguel froze, quickly glancing at Tulio's sleeping form. His eyes stayed on the other man for a moment, as if wondering what Chel meant, how to respond. Then, he turned back to her, and nodded. "Thank you."

Long after they were sleeping, she stayed awake, thinking. Thinking of the look in Miguel's eyes, the glances the two men exchanged, the way things had seemed so *right* when the pair were embracing, even when her only thought had been to break them apart. The way they had laughed together at that moment brought something to completion, and she couldn't deny what those things were.
I don't need very much, he had said, but I like it best when we're all happy together.
She was a wordless song, maybe, but Miguel was a ray of sunlight on Tulio's face, a refreshing drink of water after a wild gallop on horseback, every color of the jungle lit in just the right arrangement. One did all the worrying, the other all the smiling. How could a brief tumble be worth the destruction of that?
She would keep her word, of course. She would say nothing. But she wouldn't let it rest until Tulio realized the same things Miguel had that night. Like her ebon-haired lover, Chel was no philosopher, no poet, but she could lighten up enough to know this much: an adventure and romance should go hand in hand, love should be made with a laugh, and nothing could come between two people who only needed each other.
With a glimmer of matchmaking mirth in her eyes, she began to make her plans.

-to be continued-