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selfetishizing · 1 year ago

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show me your chest on mine

loid forger/yor briar | 🔞 EXPLICIT 🔞 | 2 chapters | 9.1k words

pining, scars, mentions of war, resolved sexual tension, love confessions

An active imagination and late night contemplations.

Chapter 1 | AO3

Yor waits until she hears the click of his bedroom door before twirling in her pink pleated cocktail gown. Her skirt lifts up. Pinions sprout from her ankles. She flutters and sticks her tongue out to taste the sparkles and confetti falling from the ceiling.

What a joy life is, Yor thinks, to be able to spend time with him!

She does this very routine of spinning on calloused toes and humming happily after every date with Loid once she has convinced herself that it’s the best date she had ever been on, and that she is close to piercing Loid’s ever-distant heart (just another inch to the left!). Though Yor was certain that tonight was going to be the night that Loid throws himself at her heels and confesses his true undying love for her, she couldn’t have been more satisfied with progress. The hours she had spent braiding and then unbraiding her hair, swiping dress after dress over her bare form in front of her reflection, and stabbing emeralds and pearls through her earlobe proved to pay off.

Yor crashes onto her duvet face first, kicking her feet and giggling into her pillow as she—as silly as it sounds— reminisces thirty minutes ago:

The date was not special. She was beautiful (so Loid told her after a quick once-over) and he was fetching (so Yor did not tell him) and they had dinner. Their relationship had progressed to the point that hand-holding did not trigger her impulse to clench her fist and launch it toward a somatic site. Tonight, her palms did not sweat in his hold—a huge development on her part. She could not say the same for Loid, who would steal glances at her and only make his inferiority to her all the more obvious. It was strange. As she got better over time at receiving lovers’ touches, Loid seemed to regress, losing the poise and suaveness that she always admired about him. Loid had become very uncool. It was dangerous to their fake marriage. It was adorable. It was infuriating. So they clinked wine glasses filled with apple juice and toasted to Anya learning to sort her light clothes from dark, another finished article page, and another file delivered to a cubicle. They shared a slice of fresh cream cake: Loid fed her a strawberry and she watched him turn into one as she wiped away the juices from her lips with the back of her hand. He was so uncool. Then, they walked home. Loid refused to spare her even a glimpse. Though it was endearing and boyish at first, she had become apprehensive. Tonight was supposed to be the night he would tell her. Where did his daring go? Yor had thought it must have been a miscalculation on her part. It must have been the dress. The plait. Or simply, it could have been the fact that he had gotten rather bored of her. “Is this what it was like after dozens of dates with your wife?” whispered Yor in childish frustration. “You…don’t even want to look my way anymore.” Loid gazed at her—of course he would after a silly lament like that—stopping them in their tracks. Yor was pouting—this she knew by the way his brows knitted. He opened his mouth to speak before, to her dismay, looking away from her again. “It’s something like this,” he said, stare flitting from her eyes to her lips. She was too hot with embarrassment, with longing, to heed his breath on her cheek. “Though, usually by the third date, I wouldn't have to ask.” And he was near, so near that when she finally took notice of their proximity, he had only left the scent of his cologne in her hair when he pulled away just before they could touch. Loid cupped a hand behind his neck and apologized. “I don’t know what possessed me to do that,” he breathed. “I’m so sorry, Yor. I must be getting ahead of myself.” This time, Yor wasn’t vexed by his wayward eyes. Yor understood him. It turned out that they weren’t so different from each other; Loid was just beginning to take after her, and her, him. Yor nodded, leaving the rest to time. He had given her fodder for daydreams. The least she should do was give him grace. And they walked home, shoulders brushing every so often. Yor could have sworn she heard him exhale at each gentle thrill.

So there she had it. A near-kiss that, surely, will develop into a real kiss. The next date will seal the rest of her life—their life together.

Loid will be kind, polite. He’ll hug her first, then tuck the errant strands of hair behind her ear. Like porcelain, he’ll cup her face in those big hands that seemed to carry the weight that she was slowly beginning to grasp. Loid will look at her with all the love stored in his heart and she'll melt there in his arms just at the smallest contact with warmth. He’ll say something sweet— You’re so pretty— and she would close her eyes, inviting him to press his lips onto hers.

The moment that they touch, Yor knows, will be glorious. Fireworks will explode. Pulses will be one. His lips will tickle hers and she’ll laugh against him. He’ll try to silence her with more kisses but she’ll just keep laughing to spite sleepless nights like tonight—nights she’d toss and turn in her bed over ruminations on their undefined relationship. There will no longer be a need for he-loves-mes and he-loves-me-nots. He will gift bouquets to cultivate in glazed hand-painted vases. She’ll keep them alive for as long as they love each other— forever— make crowns out of daisies for Anya, for Loid, twining the stalks tightly like the invisible bonds that drew them under this roof.

He will kiss her again and again until all she can taste are strawberries. Kisses will run down like thick syrup down her chin. She will wipe them away, fingers staining red, and lick them clean. His kisses will be so cloyingly sweet that she will be lulled to a pleasant sleep. And Loid will watch her slumber, waiting until she wakes up to kiss her all over again and send her back to those silly things, those wondrous daydreams.

Yor waits for that night. For now, memories will have to suffice.

The pressure of Loid’s hand on her back as he led her through crowds. (Yor unzips her dress, lets it pool at her feet. She is floating on a cloud.) His scent, strong, clean, lingering on her cheek. (She unties the cream ribbon in her braid; her hair falls down her back in waves.) The bob of his throat as he unbuttoned the collar of shirt, loosened his tie. (She unclasps her bra. She is cold and hot at once.) The hum of his voice purring in her ear. (Yor hugs herself, leaning her profile over her shoulder as if Loid was behind her, coaxing her.) His breath, still hot on her mouth, moments before eclipse. (Yor makes sure that she is all there. She brushes the tips of her fingertips across the ridges of her arm muscles, down the contour of her sides. Yor doesn't mean to sigh when she traces the curves of her chest, holding them full in open palms.)

When she looks down at her body, she is awash in pink. In the veil of romance, shadowy hands map over the expanse of her torso, exploring unmarked territories and planting lilies. They give names to them— stunning, lovely —compliments he has uttered to her many times. His words tickle her ear and she gasps sharply, cupping her mouth immediately to swallow it back down into the pit of her belly.

Loid is all over her—his cologne, his fingertips burning her skin, his whispers caressing places most intimate. Yor, trembling, burrows in her bed, feverish with want .

Imagination seemed to be a formidable opponent as she writhed against herself, resisting the throes of pleasure. It was wrong—yes, she knew Loid didn't deserve to be subject to her debauched fantasies. But what was she to do with all of the love given to her by Loid? What else was there to do but sprinkle it over herself—pixie dust— to somehow summon him over her so that she would no longer have to wrestle with anticipation, with loneliness?

Yor wonders if there's a word for being close and far at the same time as she presses her thighs together, biting her knuckles to muffle her moans. She feels desire curl in her stomach so intensely that she has to lay on her side and hook a leg over a pillow, grounding her pelvis against it for purchase. Though she resigned herself to not using her hands to temper her salacious reveries, the body always finds a way to release. Her hips rock slowly at first, relenting hesitantly in her futile attempts at control. Electricity shoots from her core and strikes ripples throughout her body. She whimpers, ashamed by how desperate she had become in her pursuit of skinship—ashamed at how good it felt with just the mere thought of Loid beneath her, taking in the force of each of her thrusts and returning it tenfold. He’d make noises she had never heard before—grunts, groans, whines. Her name in long airy drawls, stretched out into song, into prayer. His urgent pleas— more!— as she fell onto him over and over again, pumping herself of all of the affection she held for him.

Loid, always so composed, so collected, crying actual tears! Crying from tension, from pain, from pleasure with every snap of Yor’s hips connecting to his own! What would it take, she wonders, for him to sob ? A whisper? A finger rubbing wedding wings and infinities on his chest? A split-kiss? Her hand caught in the silk of his hair, tugging, grasping, as she had her way with him?

Yor, in a hazy stupor, sits up and straddles her pillow, practicing on her model. She closes her eyes and listens to everything in her thrum. She waits a moment, lets her recollections of Loid suspend from the ceiling for reference, before tentatively squeezing her heartbeat.

Her phantom lover manifests. He wraps his arms lazily around her waist and pushes her flush against him. Yor gasps and he chuckles insouciantly, sneering at her credulousness. The cold flicker of his eyes tell her everything she needs to know—that she is a wicked girl. Indelicate. He is mocking her lack of restraint. Her longing. Their languishing.

“It’s something,” he whispers lowly, collapsing his open palms on the flesh of her buttocks. He grips. Hard. “Like this.”

And he takes her. Again, and again, and again.

Humiliation becomes tangible and she, lust-drunk and delirious, bounces pathetically on it. Yor throws her head back and sighs his name, an incantation and repentance in a single breath. She is liquid, has melted all over the petals of her pillowcase. He plays with her, kneads her, until all strength leaches from her, until she is but a shallow imprint and damp sheets. She is nothing.

A cry of frustration, of rapture tears from her throat as the mounting pressure reaches its precipice. To have felt the frisson of dreams, only to be left unfulfilled…

A knock at the door. “Yor?”

Bittersweet.

Chapter 2 | AO3

Twilight can’t sleep.

Not that he sleeps most nights. If ever there's a moment left to himself, his mind will almost always run strange equations and probabilities. He visualizes these numbers as candidates moving across a politicized landscape, and Twilight would close his eyes and lay in his bed, plotting every possible outcome and how it would affect his workload, and how his workload would cut into the time reserved for his girls.

(The pawns’ movements were unpredictable. He could never get a checkmate.)

Sometimes, ghosts will visit him: it will be his mother, a woman whose face he can no longer remember. Some nights, she’ll assume the appearance of a woman he’d seen matching that description: a tailor, a baker, or a stranger he had passed on the street. It will be a comrade from the war: a boy in a uniform two times his size, rattling on knobby knees. It will be lives he has taken: suits with bullets square in the forehead, aristocrats wan from sleight-of-hand poisonings, and boys from the other side of the border—boys distinguished by the colors of their uniforms, the make of their guns.

Twilight takes them all in stride. He welcomes them into these penitent walls, lets them stand around his bed, hanging their featureless faces over him as he wracked his brain for names, voices.

(They never come. They never leave.)

Tonight, however, he was visited by a peony pink vision of Yor. She stands at the foot of his bed, hands politely folded in front of her skirt. The plait of her hair rested neatly on her right shoulder, ribbon star-bright under the faint glow of the waxing moon. He blinks, once, twice. Yor is still there.

Her expression is unchanging. Bordeaux eyes twinkle like jewels. Night glistens on the pout of peach lips; Twilight blushes at the fleeting impulse that takes him. He refrains from indecency by imagining a smile there instead of his open mouth.

Outside, a magnolia branch raps on his window, on the cage of his thumping heart. Wind pushes past the jambs; white petals flutter like feathers from an angel and draw toward Yor in some ceremonial homecoming. They sway as they descend to his toes. Yor is still.

Somehow, the sight of her unsettled him more than the past. Yor, whom he was beginning to learn—every quirk and every wrinkle—was unreadable to him now. Why had it been her, he wondered, that haunted him? She was in the other room, beating, being; specters, on the other hand, were not of this world.

It does not take him long to process the absurdity in his mind. Twilight theorizes that with dusk came a certain death—the shedding of an old self for rebirth the following morning. In front of him is Yor before the midnight threshold, just as he left her.

Twilight has the inclination to call out to her, beckon her to bed next to him so that she may rest, release back into the ether. Instead, he turns on his side, screwing his eyes shut as he remembers their walk home together, side-by-side.

He should have kissed her.

Twilight wonders about the other characters he had played in the past before—shy research assistants, cocky old-money heirs, steely accountants—and wonders if muscle and mind remembered those discarded identities at that pivotal moment of contact.

Loid Forger was confident, suave. And Yor tonight was dazzling, willing, waiting.

Loid should have kissed her.

Twilight, pushing his pillow over his face, groans. It would have made sense. They'd gone out together so many times, held her hand in his own. He danced with her, let his fingers trail down the curve of her spine. He had let his touch there remain; he relished in knowing that Yor never thought anything of it—that it would be a moment thought to have been lost to time. But Twilight knew that quiet strokes were his to keep even long after this mission was complete.

Maybe he’s beginning to understand himself. There was selfishness in distance; as much as he pushed it down, there was hope that he'd be able to emerge as himself to Yor and Anya. No longer would he have to dote, to care under false pretenses. Yor would kiss him, learn to love him as him—whoever that is. Not Loid, nor that boy before the first bombing. Twilight isn't so sure himself.

What he is sure of, however, is the burn of his ears, the thump-thump, thump-thump of his heart whenever she’s near. And for quite some time, he had known this: by the way he hides into himself when she gazes at him, smiles; by the way he stutters when she tilts her head and calls out a name he refuses to claim; the way he aches in bed at night just at the mere thought of her… Every facet of his being, those hidden and on display…

He was in love with Yor Briar.

It was a love so strong that he became ill with miserable desire. Though they had spent all evening together, he was tender from missing her. Morning is too long a wait. The irrational urge to leave his bed and whisk away dreams to have her under his palms, warm and requiting unlike the afterimage before him, swept over him like a spring storm.

Twilight mutters to himself. What was he going to do? Knock on her door? Wake her up? What would be his excuse then—“Hi, sorry about earlier. I forgot to kiss you, but I remembered just now as I laid in bed thinking about you. Shall we?” Knowing Yor, she would believe every word, failing to pick up the motives underneath seemingly innocuous invitation. He wanted more than a kiss. He wanted to consume her, wholly, fully, have her always be a part of him—body and soul.

So intense was his desire that he became feverish from longing. He curls pathetically on his side and groans, pressing his damp forehead into the heels of his palms. The central nervous system worked in strange ways. It couldn’t distinguish embarrassment or fear from excitement. From the top of the head to the toes, one’s entire body flushed from a self-induced affliction caused by memories and confused feelings. It’d cause perspiration, arrhythmia, a closing throat struggling for air. Something close to death.

Twilight could have wept from the sensations—pleasantly warm and bitterly frigid—attacking him. Briefly, he wonders why the body worked against itself in such instances. What made nature so averse to love? What made him so averse to it?

Somehow, he gets out of bed, walks to his bedroom door. His hand is on the knob, and just before he passes through, he looks back at the vision of Yor. She faces him. A smile encourages him to go on.

He turns his wrist, steps out. The apartment, bathed in azure, looks entirely foreign to him. The fractals of light from the window splintered onto the walls as if beamed through a prism, prophesying near-futures in imagery Twilight—learned and cunning as he was—could not make out. What happens from this point forward will decide the rest of their lives under this roof. This he knows by the way he, like a man possessed, draws to Yor’s bedroom door.

A home in metamorphosis: this was the decisive act that will fracture the chrysalis—the decisive act that would conceive an entirely new man. Like the morning soon approaching, crossing over into Yor’s bedroom would shed yesterday’s Twilight, leaving it to hang on a coat rack to be destroyed along with the shifting scenery of the apartment.

Holding his breath, he primes a knuckle to knock on her door.

The rustling of sheets, then a sob.

Twilight steps back, cowardice pushing him back against a wall. He closes his eyes, sucking in hair through grit teeth as he reconsiders his foolish attempts to satiate his yearning.

You're far gone, Twilight muses. Not of this world. Up in the galaxy between two undiscovered moons amidst abandoned orbiters. You’re stranded. Alone. Maybe you were the ghost this entire time.

Far gone. Stranded. Alone. It doesn't matter. Right now, Twilight is so close. Yor is so close. Behind that door, she is there, awake, stirring, and…

Another sob.

“Yor?”

Before he could understand the weight of rapping on her door, the name sizzling hot on his tongue, everything stops. He stands motionless, shocked he had been so brazen. Twilight tells himself that this was for the mission for the thousandth time—that the fate of the world hinged on whether or not Yor would let him in. If he could not get his affairs settled tonight, how was he going to face Yor come morning? How was he going to face her, he naively wonders, for the rest of their lives?

So he waits, though she may have begun to feign sleep. He knew it would have been more cruel to walk away and leave her to weep into the night. This time, he’ll be there for her, even if a barrier is between them.

Yor is light on her feet. He hears the drum of her soles against the wood, faint as droplets falling from eaves right after a sunshower. Twilight remembers about her pastel gown from this evening; he imagines a fairytale ballerina behind that door practicing all five positions, stepping gracefully to and fro as she contemplated facing another unremarkable suitor.

Twilight smiles despite himself, hiding it away with a hand in the event that his fabled lover presents herself to him. Quiet as Yor was, there was no mistaking the creaking of the floor beneath her weight as she paced nervously around her room. She was just as bashful as he was. It was reassuring, endearing, considering how much she— how much he—had changed over these past few months.

Yor, whom he had always thought good-natured and gracious, pouted at him tonight. Pouted over a make-believe ex-wife. Pouted over his unfocused gaze—that it looked everywhere but her. Jealousy is a dazzling color on Yor—this, Twilight realized after seeing the way her cheeks puffed and rounded, her lips pursed and puckered—ripe for the picking.

Yor’s beauty was unquestionable. Her cuteness, however, could fell a man—wring him of all thought and color and feeling until he was all out and empty; reduce him to heartbeats when he’s by himself at night, ill with visions of her darling visage.

Maybe it was just a matter of reframing. Twilight had thought that if he gave himself to Yor, he would be lost completely. What he failed to realize was that there was the real chance of reciprocity in honesty.

“Loid.” She peers through the tiny slit of her door, hand curved over its edge to indicate that she will not close it on him. “Hi.”

“Sorry. Were you asleep?”

Yor pauses a moment, deciding whether or not she should tell the truth. She shakes her head.

Honesty.

“Did you need something?”

“No, I—” Honesty! “I couldn't sleep either.”

Choosing honesty gets you nowhere, it seems, as Yor only receded further back into her quarters until only half of her face peeked from a narrow space. Did his response from their date make her more conscious? Was she terrified too—of love and its rejections? Its possible requitals?

“I was thinking about what I said tonight,” says Twilight, taking a chance. There are tremors in his throat. He persists. Despite, despite, despite. “I was thinking about you.”

The door opens slightly—an assent to a more subliminal plea. Yor rests her cheek against the edge of the frame, frantically looking for the right words to say. She settles with, “Wait here,” and scuttles back into her room, door gently clicking behind her.

Twilight can hear the swish of clothes sliding against the floor. He smiles, tickled by the thought of Yor haphazardly kicking her gown underneath her bed to tidy up for an unexpected guest. She's so kind, ponders Twilight, to think of him as someone worth neatening for. Someone of some importance to her.

Twilight coughs behind a fist, erasing the elation from his expression as Yor approaches the door again. It clicks open and she steps to the side, gesturing for him to go in.

Twilight can see her fully now: the long black wave of her hair untwined from its bow. Strands stick to the pearl of her face like tendrils of a flower, swirling spirals down to her neck, her shoulders. She looks feathered, blurred softly by starlight. Ethereal. Yor had always been charming but to have caught her in the liminal space just before morning, in this so by so room made familiar, made dear now that he has passed through it, he realized there was divinity in woman. Forward as it may be, selfish as he has become, Twilight thinks that he could gaze at her forever: Yor in her nightgown, undone by day, stripped of pretenses and dazed by the intimacy of two pulses in her secret hideout…

How cute.

Postcards from her brother flipped to their written side taped on the wall alongside Anya frescos. Family portraits in gilded frames: Briar, Forger, Briar-Forger. Jewelry and other knicknacks he had gifted her displayed proudly on her desk, her nightstand. White lace curtains swaying fitfully with the wind from an open window, each panel of fabric dancing and entwining each other like two shy lovers. Yor sitting down on the floral covers of her bed, a hand folded atop the other.

“Make yourself comfortable,” she whispers, light as a breeze. She preoccupies herself by folding and unfolding a crocheted throw, unsure if she’d like it laid over her lap or on her pillows. He opts for distance, sitting on the red chair at her bedside, recouping his lost courage. She looks at him from beneath hooded eyelids, demure, girlish, sighing whenever their stares meet. “It’s funny. We’ve lived together all this time, and yet this is the first time you’ve really been inside my room.”

Twilight manages a chuckle, twiddling his thumbs as he takes in Yor’s quaint dwelling. The warmth of it all overtakes him and he feels tender with faint nostalgia for something he can’t quite name or remember. “It is, isn’t it?”

It doesn’t take long for vulnerability. Yor tilts her head, warming up to his comforting tone. “Is it everything you thought it’d be?”

He hums. “It’s very you.”

“Very me.” She smiles. “Hm. What’s that like?”

“Well,” breathes Twilight, “it’s inviting. I feel like I’ve known this place my whole life in some distant past, some other life. As soon as I walked in, it was like—whoosh! ” He mimics a wave with his hand. “I’ve definitely been here before. Sat in this very chair. Had this exact conversation.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Yor titters, pivoting her body in his direction. “A man like yourself must have been in countless girls’ rooms. Mine is no different.”

Intrigued and somewhat flattered by her observations, he, unabashedly, urges her on. “What makes you say that?”

“You’re always sure of yourself and never leave anything unfinished. That’s what they call persistent, right? A trait among public enemy number one for girl parents.” She taps on her lip with a finger, seriously contemplating his question. Yor is so lovely. “And you’re handsome and pleasant to be around. There’s no doubt that you are popular with women. So surely you've seen a lot of rooms and decor… Among other things.”

Among other things. The phrase hangs in the air, watching them with big beady yellow eyes. Yor avoids its stare, but Twilight acknowledges it, makes its acquaintance. The implication is not lost on him. Yor is no fool—a man at her door at this hour can only mean one thing. Courteously as he tries to play it, Twilight— Yor— knows he is, at the root, a debauched man. The lives he has led flow away from his body like a river’s downstream current until he is nothing but his rudimentary person—a creature starved of heat, of friction.

“Persistent, handsome, and popular,” Twilight drones. A corner of his lip tugs up. He cannot stop himself. “You make me sound like some mindless flirt. Is that how you see me?”

“Of course not!” She shakes her head with such vigor that Twilight has no choice but to believe her. “I haven't the capacity to tell you even the half of it, Loid. Frankly, I think it’d be too embarrassing. But since you're here, I think you ought to know I haven't had a good night’s rest because of you.”

“Me?”

Light catches in the reflection of Yor’s eyes. She is set ablaze. Twilight, caught in her flame, can only hook a finger on the neck of his shirt, pull it forward, and throw his head back as he lets the evening air cool his sweat-sticky skin.

“Yes,” whispers Yor, lips stained with the sanguine juice of some forbidden fruit. Twilight nearly moans. “You.”

“Shall I leave?” he asks. Twilight is at the brim and he knows with one word, one gesture from Yor, he will implode, spatter himself over discarded clothing and silken sheets. Twilight will let her devour him until he is nothing but the frame of his pathetic vessel.

Tense with affliction, Yor allows a beat of silence to decide her fate. Then, scripture pours from her mouth—“Stay”—and their future is forged, there, in the room Twilight knows his love will be made known. The apartment rearranges itself like a rune morphing ancient ruins into a palace, and Twilight gropes through the opaque dreamy mist that has clouded over his body, the maze that has manifested in the space between him and his lover. Somehow, he is beside Yor on the sanctity of her bed. He is home.

Twilight stays. More than stays. He lingers, leaves trails of himself with the pads of his fingers along the soft descent of her jaw. They trail south, down the slope of her neck to her clavicles. He plays with the brown ribbon on her collar, wrapping it around his hand as he tugs it off. Her tiny breaths puff hot on his hands; Twilight steels himself to move more slowly, delicately.

Conscious of her blooming complexion, Yor moves to hide her face with a hand. It is quickly seized by Twilight. He guides it to her chest and intertwines their fingers from the back of her hand. He gently presses their held hands against her heartbeat, eliciting a sharp sigh from his dear darling wife. Twilight cannot help himself. He untwines from her and flits his fingers at the hem of her nightgown's skirt, hiking it up to her upper thigh. The drum of his touch on her knee is enough to make her tremble.

“You tell me I'm persistent, but I’ve been avoiding you all this time. When I look at you, I become painfully aware of myself. I want to be perfect for you, but in truth, I’m awful.” Twilight leans his face close to hers, lips brushing the shell of her ear. I love you, he wants to confess. So simple is the phrase, succinct, raw, and yet he cannot bring himself so vulnerable. Everything comes out carnally, all wrong: “I want you so bad that I can’t think straight. That I can’t breathe.”

With the firm precision of a ceramist, she molds her palm over the hand on her knee, sliding it up the strong sculpt of her leg and curving it toward the inside of her thigh. She applies light pressure, allowing Twilight’s imprint to cast on her body, marking herself as his.

“Show me,” she rasps with a dash of daring. Her eyes flutter shut, gentle as the bat of a hummingbird's wing. She knights her champion.

Mesmerized by her command, Twilight kisses her sweet. Kisses her again, and again, and again, confessing with every push and pull of their lips.

He sups the nectar from her split swollen lips like a man left to meander a landscape desolate of life—parched. Silvery syrup runs down their chins; he catches it with the flat of his tongue, licking the contour of her neck to her collarbones. Yor quivers, stifling a moan. He yanks the sleeve of her nightgown down to plant wet kisses along the round of her bare shoulder.

“Loid,” Yor sighs, turning that miserable name into something warm. Beloved. She tilts her head in his direction, the dark cape of her hair enveloping him, pressing him closer to her. He cups her face, admiring bitten lips and half-lidded rubies.

“I’d like to see you,” Twilight pants, mouth open on the column of her throat. “May I?”

Her eyes drop, brows furrowing as she scrutinizes the shape of her existence. Twilight immediately perceives the nervous habit that unknowingly presents itself to him. In lieu of reassuring words, he kisses her on the cheek. Her lips lift, a crescent indenting where his lips had been. His admiration and affections have been sealed in wax, ripped apart, conveyed, accepted. Yor reaches out, weaves through the close-crop of his blond hair, and guides him toward her. She plants a kiss of her own square on his forehead, returning the gesture tenfold. Twilight feels a blush rise to his cheeks.

“I like you a lot, so it’s alright, I think. It’s okay,” she tells him, brushing the hair away from his face. “I trust you.”

Yor catches sparkles from his feathered wisps in a fist and sprinkles it over herself as if it’d transform her into someone else—a lady with soft edges and milk-smooth skin that flushes pink under the lightest of touches. A lady worth standing at Twilight’s side.

Holding her breath, she pulls the top of her nightgown down past her arms. She tightly screws her eyes shut as she moves it over the mound of her chest down to her waist, refusing to see herself jut so obscenely before him. The sleeves of her nightgown fall on her bed defeatedly, lifeless arms spread out like a wraith at the mercy of Twilight’s judgment.

Yor is a woman sculpted from clay rather than marble—this, Twilight concludes as he appreciates the jagged and raised skin scored over the expanse of her bust. Rather than subtractions, she is a composite of additions—of stories untold, of trials conquered, of countless disciplined hours. Scars never lie. As he runs his fingers over the white-marred skin stitched over the hard ripples of her abdomen, he knows hers is a shared tale of survival and of loss. Harsh light casts over her, carving dark shadows over the frayed canvas of her body. The effigy of Yor is so hauntingly, so achingly honest; it is in that moment Twilight decides that she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

He peels his shirt off in one fluid motion. Twilight looms over her, allowing her to take in the breadth of his kneeling contrapposto. His is a series of wounds cleaned and sealed with bottles of whiskey and lighter flame, stitched closed from the loose threading of a uniform. He is attrition embodied, War’s perfect soldier. Wonder, fear, and attraction swirl in her blown eyes as she reaches out to touch him. Before she can lose heart, he leans down until her nails graze his chest. Twilight shakily exhales as Yor tentatively travels forgotten paths on his flesh under her fingertips, exploring the country she was told to despise.

Twilight watches her with vague interest, mindful of the places her fingers stay and when she chooses to avert her eyes. With a swipe, Yor unseams him, and the memories he thought he had long discarded inundate him. She arrives first at the small nick on his upper bicep—the front doorstep of his childhood home. It was summer, and he was happy. School was out for break and he had excitedly run home to ask his mother permission to play with the other musketeers. A thorn from of the rosebush just outside of his front door caught in his sleeve, and blood spread through the white of his shirt like pigmented watercolor. He stayed home that afternoon. His mother cleaned his arm and sewed a garden onto the tear of his shirt.

Yor follows the long spiked pink scar carved at his right side down to his navel. He was sixteen then, newly enlisted in the army. He was fighting with a boy from the Ostanian infantry in the forest. They were all mud, sweat, gasps, and gunpowder as their bodies writhed and wriggled against each other in a desperate fight of undefined loathing. He remembers how easily the boy’s blade had sliced him as if he was nothing more than a whetstone for sharpening, and how he had thought about death as he caked clay onto his open gash. One of the greatest acts of love, Twilight came to realize, was mercy as the other boy limped away from his expiring body.

Love and loathing. Two boys were buried in the forest.

“I haven’t made some terrible mistake, have I?” she laments, voice nearly breaking as he lays her down on the mattress, head supported by his open hand.

Silver tears spill and pool at her clavicles. And maybe he understands. She is twenty-eight and she will never be soft. She is still grieving the woman she should have been just as Rowan is sixteen—will be sixteen forever—and Twilight grieves a childhood so short-lived.

Flawed as they are, as they embrace, chest against chest, twin flames, Twilight feels as though he has found the missing pieces of himself in the woman splayed before him. Wrapped in the warmth of her arms, Twilight deliriously believes that the war must have been some grand and twisted conspiracy for them to meet under this roof. The intimacy of an embrace frightens him, but he cannot bring himself to part from her. Not now. Not ever.

“We fit too well,” their lips meet, long, sweet, languid, “for it to be a mistake.”

She mewls behind a hand as he gropes her other breast, relishing how her plushness spills between the spaces of his fingers. His hand rolls, fingers pinch as he sculpts her into the image of bliss. Twilight catches a bud in his mouth, hardening with the heat of his yearning. He releases her with a gentle pop, a shimmery string connecting his lips to her bosom.

“Where does it ache when you think of me? Here?” he asks in a low voice, licking a fat stripe along the side of her breast. His knee nudges against her core and she squirms beneath him. “Or here?” Yor’s breath hitches as she instinctively grinds down to rub herself against his leg, impatient and eager. The arch of her back against the bedsheets. The erratic roll of her lifted hips. Yor works herself on him with a fervor he had never known her to possess. Beads of sweat collect at her brow as she unrhythmically ruts on him for delicious friction. Twilight laughs quietly; he cannot contain the delight the sudden realization brings him. “Oh. You've done this by yourself before.”

Yor blooms all the way down to the swell of her chest. She stutters as she thinks of something just as intelligent to say as Twilight smiles stupidly at her—dimples and all—flattered and pleased with himself. The words are weak, fragmented, meek, “I’ll pass away if you continue to tease me,” and she covers her face with her arms in humiliation. The smoke is practically steaming from her ears. It only encourages Twilight.

“You’re adorable,” he coaxes, taking hold of her wrists in a hand and pinning it over her head. Yor pouts, twisting beneath him as if she were completely powerless against him. Of course, she isn’t. It would be easy to break free from his hold. Twilight is much too familiar with the impact of her palm applied across his face, the high kick of her heel aimed at his chin. The danger of eliciting such a reaction from Yor entices him, and so Twilight, true to Yor's hasty description of him, persists.

The fuzzy daze swathing her casts some lulling spell, and she relaxes as he superimposes himself over her. His desire nudges on her thigh, extracting a hum from Yor.

“Where do you want me?” Twilight asks, words caressing the shell of her ear. As soon as he releases her, she wraps her arms around him, pulling him down flush against her, chest to chest, cheek to cheek. Profile tucked along the length of her neck, Twilight deeply breathes her in, mapping the trajectory of her day. Vanilla shampoo. Patchouli perfume. The musk of their tryst.

“Anywhere. Everywhere." She ogles him pensively; she is all lust and, audaciously enough, love as she submits to obscurity and anticipation. He slides down the plane of her body, nose parting her down the middle as if he were slicing her open, peeling away her skin to expose some celestial being beneath the layers of warmth. Twilight stops at her stomach and kisses the mole near her navel. Tickled, Yor giggles, abs tightening beneath him. “Well, maybe not there.” An intense heat rushes southward; Twilight remembers patience and counts to fifty before moving between her thighs.

Dear God, Twilight thinks to himself as he tugs the skirt of her nightgown down. They move in tandem, she raises her hips up and Twilight slips it off, letting it flump onto the floor. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. The satin of her panties were pearlescent under starlight, designed with a tiny ribbon at the top, made transparent by prurience. Something about the juxtaposition of her virginal image and the licentiousness streaked over her longing is almost enough to make Twilight come right there.

“Look at me,” he tells Yor, breath hot on her core. Lazily, she lowers her gaze, bedroom eyes scorching the sweep of his face. He does not break their stare. “Watch.”

Countless times he has looked at her face, memorized every mole and wrinkle, but tonight, it is as if something finally clicked. Chaste as she may have seemed under moonlit halation, Twilight knew by the way she gasped as he licked her clothed heat that Yor was not so different from him. How many nights has she throbbed with loneliness when he was just a few steps away? How long has she muffled his name into the abyss of her bedroom, only for it to echo back and mock her?

Yor cries his name out, cadence stuttering as he thickly laves his tongue over her slit over the translucent film of her panties. Frustratedly, Yor grips a fistful of his hair, urging him to do more. Twilight only chuckles at her impatience, shooting vibrations to every nerve ending in her body.

Twilight kisses her nether lips before pushing the fabric to the side, sticking to her like a second skin. A snapdragon in oils: pinks, reds, and purples smeared over the pale of her night-dyed complexion.

“Please” whispers Yor. “I won’t last any longer.”

Instead of obeying his wife’s urgency, he parts her with a finger, letting her sweet slick coat his finger. He locks eyes with her as he sucks down to his knuckle, messily dragging it out of his mouth to show her just how good she tasted. Pushing her thighs up to bend her knees over his shoulder, he burrows his face into her heat, devouring lips ajar. His tongue circles around the nub of her core, flicking, teasing. Yor is reactive as ever; she shivers beneath him, toes curling as he dips one, two fingers between her petals until she clenches around him. Shyly, she rocks her hips against his hand and open jaw, attempting to finish herself on his face and fingers until she sees bright white.

“Loid, I think I—”

“No.” Twilight stops abruptly, opting to lick up the soddenness along her inner thighs and soaked fingers instead of allowing Yor to reach the precipice of her bliss. “Not yet.”

Yor is not pleased; she retaliates to his absence childishly by tossing her pillow aside, cherry lips pouting. Now that she had experienced the pleasure of his mouth on her, for him to part at that crucial moment connoted a sort of loneliness, self-loathing Yor no longer wanted to identify with. Twilight will let her finish, she decides as she hooks a leg around his waist, whether he likes it or not.

It happens quickly. A whirl, floating sheets, and Yor straddling him. So many times he has been in this very position: there, pinned under the weight of the opposition, wine-drunk proprietresses, nepotistic heirs. And each time, he was able to maneuver the situation in his favor using tried-and-true tricks methods learned from the battlefield. Weak spots and shifting force. Flirtations and fake tears. Yet, under Yor, he felt himself enter a sort of inertness. He can only gawk as Yor shifts on top of his pelvis, her arousal staining the gray of his sweatpants.

“Can you handle it?” he asks—challenges. It was an audacious question. Try as he might to continue his seductive drawl, there was no denying the trembling of his words—fleeting as the flowers he’d seen drift into his bedroom. He looks at her from the shutter of his lashes, and he reminds himself that it is okay to be nervous, to not know the next steps. Yor may have been right about him laying in many girls’ bedrooms, but the crucial difference was that there was truthfulness here. He wanted this, and in allowing himself that want, he could feel the rush of those vehemently raw emotions—anxiety, rapture, adoration—coalesce in his hollow body, letting it translate without script in the pads of his fingers. With shaking hands, he cherishes her, holds her waist and embosses her onto his flesh.

Yor dips down to claim his lips, drawn and cloying, pulling back as if she had just broken through the glass surface of a pond. Her mouth is glossy with herself, and Twilight, embarrassed by his attempts to be as titillating as possible to her, wipes her bottom lip with a thumb. The weight of her cheek leans into his palm, ink hair descending like the darkest dusk.

Yor kisses his thumb, slips it in her mouth to show him other ways she’d like him. His heart nearly bursts at this facet of Yor. The paragon he had built of her had shattered completely in the hall of his mind, pieces repurposed to something mutable and equally beautiful. He thinks it’s something akin to those clichés—those loves-at-first-sights and meet-cutes. Twilight is falling for her all over again, and naively he thinks it will be like this for the rest of his life.

“Yor." The tone is undecipherable. He isn’t quite sure why her name had slipped from him in the first place. Maybe he was scared that she would no longer answer. To his relief, she responds in earnest, toying with the waistband of his sweats. She shoots him a look and he nods a little too ardently for his liking. Yor scoots back, allowing him to pull himself free from the constraints of his clothes.

His length, stiff with desire, points upward. To Yor, it must have looked so red and angry and intimidating by the way she blushed and averted her gaze.

“Hey,” Twilight coos, patting her leg affectionately. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I want this,” she says with the stark determination of a sergeant. How solemn. Twilight clears the chuckle that threatens to escape his throat. “I’ve just—Not with anyone. I never thought I’d get this far. I’ve had ideas about how I’d like you, and you’re here now, and that— ” her gaze drops to his groin, “that is very real. Immensely real. So real that I’m questioning whether or not I’m here with you. Are you a dream? Must I wake up now?”

It’s hopeless. He is laughing heartily now, fully-bellied and deep, as he listens to his dearest Yor babble about his hardness. “I’m real. Can’t you see what you do to me?”

“I don’t want to disappoint you, is all.”

He holds her face in his hands, gently squishing her cheeks until her lips puckered. “I happen to find you to be the kindest, most beautiful and endearing spirit I’ve ever had the fortune of knowing. I don’t think anything you’d do would disappoint me.”

“If I fell asleep at this moment? What then? You’d be devastated.”

“I’d tuck you in. Kiss you goodnight. I’d watch your sleeping face until sunrise,” he drones, fingers gliding through her disheveled tresses. He brings a lock to his lips and wishes for good health and good fortune.

“And if I hurt you?”

“I probably deserve it.” His hand is on the plush of her hip, grounding her lower half on his. Yor is oblivious to his plight. She sways, her heat brushing against his as she thought of another impossible scenario. He sucks in a breath, resisting the urge to take her right there. “Yor,” he begged, trying to distract Yor from her misguided train of thought.

“What if I’m actually the worst person you know? Like mean? Evil? A murderer… Or something like that.” Unknowingly, as she adjusts her seat on his lap, her folds perfectly hug the base of his length, eliciting a sharp curse from Twilight.

“Fuck,” he whimpers, throwing his head back. She rubs on him hot, so hot that he is lightheaded and sees stars stipple in the black cape of her hair. He grips his cock in his hand and positions it so that it is enmeshed between the stick of her panties and her viscid slit.

Sex hangs thickly in the air, and Twilight, intoxicated by it, can only watch as Yor drinks in the feeling of the vehement throb of his length sliding against her. She treats it like a battle; there is nothing gentle in the way she grinds on him. The song she sings is harsh and succinct as she clamps her thighs tight around him, considerate of the fast pace she had set up for herself. Yor is fluid; every part of her body moves in ripples and waves. With every action, a reaction: a roll of her hip translates to a jiggling chest, to Twilight, mewling kittenishly, reaching to fondle her. It whets her appetite, lights a blue flame that engulfs their coupling in a single heretic pyre.

“Yeah. Just like that,” he hisses, just barely controlling his volume. Close. So pathetically, delectably close from this alone. Twilight stutters weakly at her mercy as she undoes him bit by bit.

Curiously, she strokes his cock with a finger through the cloth of her panties, causing Twilight to jerk his hips upward. Yor palms the base and presses it firmly along her slit. Her eyes roll back and her lips part in a wordless cry. Her body goes slack for a moment, creating an opening for Twilight to gain leverage over the situation. He fucks himself between her hand and her wet folds, thrusting ungracefully, erotically. Every sinful, rhythmic cant of Yor’s hips is met, and the world crashes down around him.

“I’m close,” says Yor, riding him through her peak. They piece the negative space: she plasters herself in the outline of his body for purchase as he grips her hips tight, sure to leave a bruised afterimage in the morning.

“I love you,” he breathes, capturing a moonbeam in her hair. The words penetrate her skin, her flesh, her bones and she is full. She is complete. So enraptured is Yor that she kisses him delicately on his cheek, imbuing new life into Twilight. He reaches for that faraway image—a billowy tableau of a girl in wedding white prancing along a meadow blooming with peonies and chrysanthemums. Twilight gazes at Yor with glassy eyes; he wonders if it’s alright for him to imagine such lovely things. She smiles warmly. He bows his head at the altar of her heart, and he weeps.

──────────⊹⊱❀⊰⊹──────────

The day starts without him.

Twilight wakes to skittering and an indented pillow at his side. Laughter rings throughout the apartment, crescendoing and decrescendoing as Anya chases Bond down the hall. Blearily, he watches as Yor walks into her bedroom with a towel around her neck. She is glowing, floating.

Should have woken up earlier, Twilight muses. He blushes when his motive surfaces. He pretends to be slumbering, pulling the covers to his nose when vignettes of the night before trickle into his sleep-laden body.

Yor had already caught him. She sits at his side and caresses his cheek with a cool finger. “Good morning.”

“Woke up late,” he mutters timidly, refusing to look at the magenta peeking from the neckline of her shirt.

She laughs. “Yeah. But that’s okay. I’ve got Anya all packed and ready to go.”

“Were you waiting for me?”

Yor shakes her head. “I’ve got things under control. It looked like you needed the rest anyway.”

Twilight tilts his head and she’s there, cuddling his side, head slotted in his shoulder, watching their unspoken feelings come alive. He lets out a contented breath. With that one exhale, he expels a rush of colors that splash into his monochrome world. Everything is dyed a pastel orange. Yor’s skin blushes candy apples as she waits patiently. Waits for an answer, a disaster. Waits for him to say the word, make a move.

“I think I’ll call in sick today. Replenish my energy,” says Twilight. He hugs her head close, cheek nuzzling her forehead. “You know, you’ve kinda got a fever running.”

Yor smacks a hand on her face. “Do I?”

“We should both stay home. Take care of each other.”

"But I feel fine.” She is so clueless. Twilight wants to kiss her sore.

His head is spinning glittery gold, unraveling and twining their bodies together. Her bedroom is made into their own slice of paradise. Bluebirds are chirping. Church bells are ringing. Samba hearts are pulsating. Their shadows are dancing on the walls. They’re laying in their makeshift linen reeds, woven together, embracing.

Should he snap a picture? Stick-and-poke it onto his bicep under arrow hearts? Stitch it into the breast of his shirt where it can never get lost?

Cute. Too immature for the feelings Yor is making him feel.

Pretty. Too naive for the way Yor slowly beams and flushes when the message finally registers.

"Hey. Marry me?" he asks, kissing the top of her head.

"Silly. We're already married!"

"I'll marry you a hundred more times. Honeymoons every morning. Doesn't that sound nice?"

"Or maybe we could share a room."

It’s her mirth, the crinkles of his eye and the rose flush of her cheeks. Her arms that always hold him— that never let go. It’s her big heart. her smile, her laughter, her kindness, her off-beat humor, her love for life. Love for others. Love for him.

What a joy it is to live alongside her.

#my writing #twiyor #loidyor #sxf #spy x family #sxf fic #smut #sorry for the influx of Fic posts #putting them in one place with nice little layouts :)#linebreak created by evansyhelp #header is “in the mirror” by auguste toulmouche

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sunlitblue · 8 months ago

Text

Need You (More Than Want You)

this is about 6.5k words, and focuses on secretary!reader x javier peña. there are flashbacks, so pay attention to the dates and headers! the reader-character is not named but is referred to using she/her pronouns. title is from the song "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell. line breaks from evansyhelp!

contains (lots of) swearing, making out, and possible future chapters will contain smut so tentatively 18+. pls rb if u enjoy so other people can read it too (✿◠‿◠)

You're not usually an angry person, but whoever is knocking at your door at seven in the fucking morning on a Saturday deserves nothing less than death. You wrench the door open, ready to let loose all the Spanish curse words you've been learning, but you are rendered speechless, because in your doorway, there he stands. It's been weeks since you've seen him, even longer since you've actually spoken, and last you heard he was being shipped back to D.C. to hand in his gun and badge, and yet. And yet, Javier Peña is standing at your door, at seven AM, panting like he's just a run a marathon.

"Hi," he says, pushing his way into your apartment like he has any right to be there. His eyes are wild and strangely desperate, in a way you've only seen once before.

You've spent so many sleepless nights rehearsing what you might say to him if you ever saw him again. Some nights, you yell until you're hoarse. Other nights, you crumple into his arms and cry like a child while he holds you. Now he is front of you, and you can't manage anything other than a weak, "Hey."

"You look good," he says, even though he hasn't made eye contact since he walked in.

He looks good too, dressed in a suit with a fucking tie and everything. He looks more official than you've seen him before, but you won't give him the satisfaction of saying that. He probably already knows, the cocky asshole.

"Thanks," you reply, voice tight. And then, the question he's been expecting, "What are you doing here, Javier?"

He looks at the ceiling and takes a deep breath. Inhalen y exhalen, like his mother taught him once upon a time.

"I need you," he says, and he winces when you balk. "I mean, I need you to come work for me, work with me, in Bogota. You're the only person I trust."

You try to hold it in, to be mature, but you can't help the incredulous scoff that you let out.

"Not a fucking chance," you say.

"Just," he sighs, "just please hear me out. Please, before you say no." You don't kick him out, so he takes that as a sign to continue. "After everything that happened here, in Medellin, after everything I did, I was so sure that it was over for me. That they would take my badge and kick me out forever, but they," he hesitates, "they didn't. They want me to be the DEA attaché in Bogota, to take down Cali. You're the most competent person I know, and I can't do it without you."

He looks so earnest, so unlike that stoic man you knew before, that you almost fold. Almost.

"Congratulations on the promotion, but it's still no, Javier."

"Why?" he demands, "What did I— How can I convince you?"

He was one of the first people you met in Colombia, he was close to being your first friend, and you’ve never seen him beg like this. Not for paperwork to be filed, not for a meeting with Messina, not even for a chance with that hot secretary on the third floor.

"You said you want me because you trust me, Javier. That's why it's no. After what you did, what you were involved with, the US of fucking A rewards you for your sins with a goddamn pay raise and a new job. I can't trust them and, after you ignored me for months, Peña, like I was the one who did something wrong, I definitely can't trust you."

His eyes are pleading, verging on pathetic.

"You can," his voice is hoarse, watery. "You can trust me. It'll be different this time, it'll be good. We'll do it right, end this once and for all. I just, I need you there with me."

In spite of yourself, you believe him. Your traitorous heart flutters at that word -- need -- again, and you take your own deep breath in to stop yourself from thinking of the last time he said something similar, when his body was underneath yours and you were breathing in tandem. You exhale and observe him for a moment, his head hanging down and his eyes screwed shut, like he's ashamed of something.

You've never said it out loud, but Javier has always known you're somewhat of a kindred spirit. That was what started the arguing, the heat that had once pulsed between the two of you. Naive as it may have been, you were an idealist, just like him. You believed in justice, and you had worked to see it done. With Pablo, it had been messy, a winding, twisted path that started and ended in bloodshed. Maybe, Javier was right. Maybe you finally had a chance to do things right, to make up for all the ways you failed. Maybe you could finish this, be done with Colombia, be done with him, once and for all. You sigh out his name and he finally looks up.

"When?" Your hands are on your hips and you look grim. It's a familiar look to Javier, one of his favourites on you.

"What?" he snaps out of his observation of you.

"When?" you repeat, impatient. "When do we start?"

He beams, a smile wide and fucking dangerous, like the burning sun on a summer day in Colombia. That's how it all starts, after it has ended once already. You're screwed, you just know it.

Bogota, 1994. Months later.

"No one can get in to see him at short notice, Peña, he's a stickler for due process. I'm afraid this is out of my hands." Crosby is as grim and as unhelpful as ever.

"What do you mean 'this is out of your hands'? You're the fu— the ambassador! Surely, there's something you can do?"

Javier is exhausted. This charade of professionalism is draining. He needs a cigarette, he needs a politician who gives a fuck. Crosby sighs, and shakes his head no.

"I'm sorry, Peña. Find a different judge, or find a different way."

It's as good as a dismissal, and Javier stomps out of the ambassador's office, a storm in his eyes. He's reaching into his back pocket for his smokes, before he swears, remembering that you’re holding onto them. He’s supposed to be quitting, after all. He sighs and re-routes to your desk, just outside his office. It has been months since he begged you to join him, and you are every bit the asset he knew you’d be. The office would fall apart without you. He’d fall apart without you. Thanks to Feistl and Van Ness, the agents you’d recommended he choose for Cali, the DEA is closer than ever to bringing down Miguel. But close is not close enough if he can’t get his warrant, if he can’t do things right this time.

When you come into view, you're telling Stoddard off for something, and Javier smiles in spite of himself.

"Yes, Agent, I am well aware that I don’t outrank you. I'm just telling you that Agent Peña will take a look at your proposal after, and only after, I have vetted it and decided if it’s worth his time. He's too busy for bullshit," you say, dismissing the younger agent easily.

"What bullshit am I too busy for today?" Javi leans on your desk and gives you a thin, conspiratorial smile. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

"The young man wants a new water cooler for the office. He wrote you a proposal, Javi," you smirk back.

"Whatever I see goes through her first. You know the rules, kid," Javier addresses Stoddard, who straightens up at the attention.

"But I—" he starts to protest.

"But nothing. She’s more capable than anyone in this office, including me. It's her call."

Stoddard sighs and deposits the document on your desk, before slouching back to his.

You survey Javier for a moment.

"Meeting with Crosby didn't go well?" you probe, already holding out his pack of Camels. Javier knows better than to be surprised that you can read his mood so easily, even when he's trying to quash his disappointment down.

"Yeah, it's a no go. Looks like I won't be able to get an expedited warrant from Lopéz, and he's the only judge we know for sure won't snitch to the godfathers. We'll have to find another way," he sighs, taking the cigarettes from your hand and lighting one up.

"Wait, the judge you need is Lopéz? Emiliano Lopéz?" you have a familiar look on your face, that icy determination that first endeared Javi to you, even when he wouldn’t admit it.

"Yeah, Lopéz, the magistrate here in Bogota. His docket is full for weeks, and he’s not the type to let us cut in the line. He's honest enough that he won't work for Cali, and honest enough that he won't budge under any pressure from us. Not to mention the fact that he hates America, and all that good ol’ Uncle Sam stands for," Javi takes a deep drag of his cigarette, his mind already thinking of loopholes, of strategies, of options. Turns out that doing things right in Colombia isn't as easy as it looks. Due process often means the slow-turning wheels of justice, and that means a chance for the godfathers to evade capture once again. But he had promised you that things would be different, and he meant it.

Javier turns back to you, raises his eyebrows at your wide grin.

"I can get to Lopéz," you are already flipping through your almighty rolodex. He sighs, and says your name.

"I wasn't kidding when I told the kid that you're the best person here, but this may be beyond even your powers," he says, gently. He knows you don't like to be wrong, just like him.

You don't argue, not even to remind him that that isn't exactly what he said to Stoddard a minute ago. Instead, you ignore the flutter in your chest that his compliment brings on and pause on an entry: "Here it is! Gabriela Lopez!"

"His wife?" Javier asks, intrigued.

Your smile is shining.

"Even better. His daughter. His only daughter. Met her a few years back at some fancy government party. Her birthday is in a couple of days, and I happen to know her favourite brand of tequila. Lend me that corporate card and I'll get her to talk to dear old dad." You're smug, as you well should be.

Javier sighs again, but he's already digging for the card in his wallet.

"You sure this'll work?" he asks, holding it just out of your reach.

"You dare to doubt me? Just for that, you're paying for drinks on Friday," you snatch the card from him, already dialling the number on the office landline.

"Drinks?" he asks, trying not to be mesmerised by your pretty red nails as you twirl the phone cord in your hands.

"Drinks," you confirm. "We're going out for drinks after this works out."

Before he can reply, you're already hollering into the phone and shooing him away.

"Gabi! Hi! How's the baby doing? Still keeping you and Samuél up all night?"

He ambles back to his desk and slumps in his chair, pretending to look over a report. In reality, he's watching you through the glass door, your over-expressive face and your widening grin. He really had meant what he said to Stoddard earlier: you are the best person in the entire office, maybe in all of Colombia. You are far better than he deserves, that much he knows. More than just a capable assistant, you're the lifeblood of the DEA in Bogota: competent, organised and meticulous to a fault.

He frowns to himself as he remembers how he made fun of you, back in Medellin, for those same traits. Attractive, and more than a little intimidating, he had envied your charm and likability. Even worse, he had despised the fact that you barely gave him a second glance, rebuffing his flirtations and throwing out his shoddy paperwork in favour of Murphy's neat handwriting. He had seen you as a bastion of bureaucracy, everything that was the problem with the government and the DEA. Messina's pretty assistant, who demanded excellence and challenged him, constantly. He knows now that you are anything but a stickler for the rules. In reality, you believe in order and in systems, not unlike Martinez. You bend rules, but only when you know it is right. You make sure everything looks good on paper, because you know that good actions mean nothing in this world without the paper trail to back them up. You are good, and Javier, as much as he tries to be better these days, can never forget how he once was anything but.

He sighs and returns to his work, giving you one more longing look since he knows you aren’t paying attention. He's lost in his documents when you come bounding in, not bothering to knock.

"Good news or bad news, first?" you say, beaming as you lean your forearms on his desk. He clears his throat and is proud to say that he barely glances at your chest. Barely.

"Good news, please," he says.

"You have a meeting. His new secretary is Peruvian, and she’s doing us a huge favour, so you're going to buy her a box of alfajores and some flowers on your way in to the judicial offices at 8am, tomorrow. Get there fifteen minutes early, parking is a bitch."

Javier is on his feet and hugging you before he can really think about it. You came through, because, of course you did. You were right, he was ridiculous to doubt you, competent, capable, wonderful, you. You're laughing in delight at his over-the-top reaction.

"Wait," he says, holding on to your shoulders, "what's the bad news?"

You sigh, pouting exaggeratedly, "Gabriela's cousin's bachelorette party is on Friday, and I need to give her that fancy bottle of tequila, so we have to postpone our celebratory drinks."

He's trying and failing to bite back his smile, and yours doesn't falter, even as he steps back and the space around you empties of his electricity.

"What a shame," he drawls, already pulling his fancy whiskey and two glasses out of the drawer of his desk. "Guess we'll just have to celebrate now, instead."

He pours you a glass and hands it to you, ignoring the familiar spark when your hand brushes his.

"A tu salud," he clinks it with yours, and you take a sip in tandem. The whiskey is rich and warm on your tongue. Despite it all, you can't help but miss the burn of the cheap, shitty liquor you once shared with him.

The warrant comes through, because of course it does, and the operation to arrest Miguel Rodriguez is a success. Javier does his press interviews and you stand off to the side, watching the way he commands the room when he speaks. He wishes he could tell the world how he owes this success to you, to your fucking rolodex, your support, your charm. Even now, as he is trying to be a better man, he knows he does not have the words for all you are to him. Instead, he just smiles at you as he walks away from the platform. He leads you away from the clamouring journalists into an empty hall, wraps you in a bear hug, and whispers "Thank you," over and over again into your hair. He hopes you understand everything he means, hidden below the simple words. You hug him back, tight and firm, and he thinks that maybe you do. Maybe you understand his words, his meaning, him, better than anyone ever has before.

A few days later, he is working in his office, trying not to look at you through the glass doors. You’re a vision in that red dress – your Friday dress, you call it – and he knows that if he glances up at you, he won’t be able to look away. In his periphery, he sees someone approach your desk. Probably Stoddard, he guesses. Except, you were usually pretty good at shoo-ing the kid away and this person is lingering. He looks over just in time to see you throw your head back in laughter at something Feistl – fucking Feistl – is saying. He’s talked to Feistl plenty, and Javier knows for a fact that he is not that funny.

He frowns, and strains to hear your conversation, striding across the room to fiddle with his filing cabinet, where he thinks he might hear you better. He’s just curious, he tells himself.

“–dancing? Next Friday, around eight. There’s a cute new place on Calle 83 that I’ve been meaning to try.”

“Yeah, that sounds great, though I’m not much of a dancer,” he sounds sheepish.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Maybe after a couple of drinks, I’ll even teach you how to cumbia,” you smirk at him, and now it’s Chris’s turn to laugh.

Javier is squeezing the door of his filing cabinet so tight that he thinks he might warp the metal. Feistl and… you? Dancing? Drinks? His stomach hurts a little at the thought of it, and he wishes he hadn’t been so curious, so nosy.

He huffs and goes to sit back down at his desk, tries valiantly to focus again. But he can’t stop thinking about you in that dress, about you dancing, laughing with someone who isn’t him. In the end, he needs to stay late to get through all the work that he couldn’t focus on. Though his concentration isn’t any better in the evening, because you’re working late too, and you’re so close that he feels like his body is humming. You’ve taken your heels off and you’re sitting on the little couch in his office with your feet tucked under as you survey paperwork. It’s busy work that any intern could do, but you pride yourself on quality, so you insist on triple-checking everything, even if it means staying late. It’s become a sweet little routine, which is why you get so comfortable in Javi’s office when the department clears out for the night.

He realizes that he doesn’t know your relationship status, or Feistl’s, for that matter. He had assumed you were single, as crazy as the thought is. You’re often in his office, working late and he doubts any self-respecting partner would let you stay away so frequently. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on his part. Feistl, on the other hand… Javier knows he has a kid, but not much else about the agent’s personal life. Though, Javi guesses that Chris is probably closer to your age than he is. Less of a dark past, too. Maybe you’d make a good match. He winces at the thought.

"You know Feistl has a kid, right?"

It's the first time Javi has spoken in maybe an hour. You're correcting paperwork, filing documents and trying to align meeting schedules for the next few weeks. Javier is supposed to be poring over financial documents, trying to find a witness who might testify against Miguel.

"Oh, he does? Must be hard being away all the time," you reply, indulging Javier's unusual attempt at small talk with a response.

"I just thought it's something you should know since you and him are... You know," he continues, awkward as anything.

"Me and him are... what?"

"I, uh, heard you guys talking at your desk this afternoon. You're going, um, dancing?" he continues, putting a strange emphasis on the last word.

It takes you a few seconds to catch on to his meaning.

"Javier, do you think there's something going on between me and Chris?" you ask, incredulous.

Javi's eyebrows raise and his eyes widen. It would be comical if it wasn't so stupid.

"I just— I heard you and him talking about going dancing this weekend and, you know, workplace relationships and all that and I just thought I should mention it to you, in case you don't know and now I did so... Yeah. You know." His rambling is bizarre, and out of character, and you can't do much in response except let out a shocked little laugh. He winces at his own inability to string a fucking sentence together.

"Javier. Seriously. I invited Chris to go dancing with me, and the entire office, like we do once a month, and have been doing since we started working here in Bogota. You know, the team building that I suggested we do to build morale, that I invite you to every month, and every month you say..."

"Too much work, maybe next time," he intones, finishing your sentence, still wincing.

"Yup. I'm not going out with Chris, or anyone for that matter. Not that it's any of your business," you sniff.

"Oh," he breathes a sigh of relief, "good," he says, before he can stop himself. You look at him sharply and his brown eyes look a little panicked. "I mean, good that you're not dating Chris because, I guess, dating in the workplace isn't really a good idea," he continues. The plastic pen in his hand looks about to snap.

"Huh," is all you say back, and he knows you well enough to know how dangerous the neutral expression on your face is.

"What?" he says, quickly, defensively.

"I just think it's funny that you're worried about me dating in the workplace like you didn't fuck the secretaries in three different departments back in Medellin.”

"Oh, c'mon," he says your name, "that's different."

"Oh, is it? Different? Because the rules don't apply to Javier Peña, right? So you can break hearts all over the office, and I'm getting fucking interrogated for being friends with my colleague? Is it because I'm a woman, or because I'm an assistant? Is that why it's different, jefe?" you huff, sarcastic and upset.

"You know that's not what I mean. Don't be ridiculous," he replies, and you balk at his tone. He's using the voice he uses on the younger agents, talking down to you like he has any right to do so. All too quickly, you are back in that stuffy office in Medellin, listening to him condescend and patronise you.

"You know what," you stand up quickly, dusting off your skirt, and slipping your heels back on. "Maybe I will go see if Chris wants to go out with me, or maybe I'll ask Van Ness, or anyone I want to, because I can," you march out, forgetting that it's only you and Javier left in the office at this time.

He's up and following you before he knows what he's doing, grabbing on to your arm to stop you. Your skin tingles where he's touching you, especially when he says your name in that soft, dulcet tone.

"I'm sorry, okay?" he says, when you turn around to face him. "I shouldn't have assumed, and I shouldn't have said that. You can date whoever you want, of course you can," he pauses for a second, takes a breath. "Just please don't date Feistl, he's like a short little version of Murphy. It freaks me out," he breathes out in relief when you smile at his stupid joke. He tries not to linger on how tense his chest felt at even the prospect of your ire.

In those early days in Medellin, he would have expected nothing less than your biting sarcasm, your quick, mean retorts. But everything had changed since that day he showed up at your door. Since that day he begged for you. Things had been changing before then, maybe. That night he couldn't forget, no matter how much whiskey he drank, that was the moment things shifted.

"Fine," you say, caught between a smile and a pout, "I won't date Feistl."

He still hasn't let go of your arm, and you still haven't pulled away from him. Javier isn't an idiot, he knows when a woman wants him. And he knows you're attracted to him, just like you know he's attracted to you. His hand slides up your arm to cup your face. The way his thumb strokes your cheekbone is familiar.

"Don't—" he starts to say, before shaking his head. He has no right to you, and yet. You look at him with a question in your eyes. He wants to step back, out of your space, but he can't.

"Don't date anyone," he says, all too aware that he is being possessive, that he has no right to ask anything of you.

You don't step back, or move away. Instead, you take him in. Your eyes are searching, scanning his face for something.

"Why not, Javier?"

The question is so simple. Not for the first time, he curses at his own inadequacy. He wishes he could put it all into words, wishes he could explain this need he has for you. He wishes he could explain the way the smell of your perfume sometimes lingers in his office, the way he craves it when it doesn’t. He wishes he could tell you that you are his best friend, his best asset, the best part of him. He wishes he could explain how you are part of him, how your thoughts and interests and desires have weaved their way into his heart, and now he will always comprise him-and-you. He wishes he could say that you dating someone else would mean not dating him, and that would damn near kill him.

"Because," he says.

"Because?" you prompt him for more.

He hesitates, and the air between you sparkles with possibility. The tension between you and him is familiar, but this feeling – this string between you pulling tight, like it might soon snap – is something you’ve only felt once before.

Javier’s chest is heaving at the intensity between you, and, before you know it, you are leaning up into his space. He is so close that his warm breath ghosts over your lips when he speaks.

“Because I—”

A vacuum cleaner sounds, and you both start, moving away from one another quickly. There, in the dim light of the main office is Imelda, one of your favourite cleaning ladies. She notices you both a moment later, and waves cheerfully, beckoning you over and switching the vacuum off. You glance back at Javier, but he is looking down, one hand on his hip and the other running through his hair. You paste on your smile, and walk over to Imelda.

Javier watches you as you interact with the kind woman, though your Spanish is just passable, and she barely speaks English, you are communicating with such warmth and openness. He smiles, despite himself, despite what he had almost admitted to you. Imelda reaches into her purse and hands you something homemade in a packet, and waves you off so she can continue vacuuming.

Javier is leaning against his desk when you walk the short way back to him, and he doesn’t miss the way your hand nervously clenches and unclenches. He wonders if you even know that you have a tell. You give him a half-smile as you stop in front of him, more distant than you were before, but close enough that he could probably touch you with an outstretched hand.

In your hand is a packet of polvorosas, made by Imelda herself. It makes sense to him that she would give you something, you are more likable than he thinks fair. You’re kind to all staff members, regardless of their rank, and there is something about your self-effacing warmth that inspires gift-giving.

You look up at him, worrying at your lower lip and he is suddenly struck by how little he deserves you. You told him once that you thought he was a good man, but he knows that however good he is, you are a million times better.

“Sorry, you were,” you smile sheepishly, “before, you were saying something.”

He is quiet for a long moment as he regards you, and you feel naked in the warmth of deep brown eyes.

“It doesn’t matter.” He turns back to his desk, sitting and picking up a report with clinical casualness. “We should get back to work.”

He doesn’t dare glance up at you, even as you hover near his desk, where he left you standing. You stand there for a long moment, caught between shock and hurt. And then, you shake yourself out of it, mimicking his nonchalance and picking a report back up. If Javi would have looked at you, he would have seen your hand tremble.

Medellin, 1993. Before.

In the wake of Carillo's death, in that godforsaken barrack room at Carlos Holgúin, Javi is caught somewhere between grief and blinding rage, as he so often is these days. He could hardly stand it, the way loss felt new every time, no matter how many times he'd felt it. He’s angry at Carillo, for failing him, for doing such dark things in war time and leaving Javier alone to sit with it all, for not seeing it through to the end with him. He’s angry at himself, for not stopping Carillo before it went too far. He misses his mother. He hurts for Carillo's wife, for his children, for that poor kid in that goddamn alleyway. Carillo, he had always thought, was the very best of them. Uncompromising, always; going too far, sometimes. If Carillo, imposing and militaristic as he was, could not be a good man, then what chance did little Javier Peña have?

You come to see him after Messina leaves. Ever her opposite, you don't know the right things to say. You don't say much at all, just hover behind him and gesture to his steadily emptying whiskey bottle.

"You in a sharing mood, tonight, Peña?"

He passes the bottle over and watches you, eyes maybe too heavy, as you take a swig and wince at the burn of cheap liquor. You hand it back. He still hasn't said anything. He's not sure there's anything he can say.

You exhale and perch at the edge of the thin regulation mattress, leaning back on your hands as you observe him. Red-rimmed eyes, a full ashtray on the table in front of him and another cigarette, not yet lit, held between his teeth. The silence stretches between you like taffy.

"You gonna say anything, or did Messina just send you in here to stare at me?"

"Messina didn't send me here."

Javier scoffs. "Yeah, I'm sure after months of bein' a pain in my ass that you're here because you care about my wellbeing, right?"

You don't reply. You know when Javier is picking a fight, and you're not in the mood to give in to him, not after the day you've both had. After a few more beats of silence, Javi takes another swig, emptying his whiskey glass. Then he stands up, all sharp, abrupt movements, and lingers where you're seated, handing the bottle back as a kind of fucked up peace offering. You accept.

He's still watching you as you take another sip, and he complies far too easily when you pat the open space beside you and gesture for him to sit. He sighs; it sounds jagged, wrecked.

"Do you think there are any good men?"

If you're surprised by the question, you don't show it. Javier is grateful that you don't show it.

"I think," you hesitate, before carefully continuing, "I think someone's actions, their choices – that's what makes them good. Good intentions, good thoughts, they don't count for much. The good things you do, that’s what makes the difference."

Javi swallows, parsing your answer in his mind. The silence that blankets you both now is less comfortable than before, it is thick with something unsaid.

"Carrillo before he— before what happened tonight, did some things that...” he trails off. “I don't think he was always a good person. He wasn't Escobar, but he hurt people. That story about the child in Medellin, it's true. I was there and I... I let it happen. If Carrillo isn't a good man, then what does that make me?" His voice is thick and watery, weak with pain. His head is bowed, like he's praying or like he’s ashamed.

For the first time since you've met him, Javier seems human, vulnerable. No machismo, no tough mask. It pulls at your heart and tears prick at your eyes. You put the bottle down and touch his arm, feeling the muscle jump.

"Oh, Javier," you breathe out, not sure what else you can say.

He moves quickly, suddenly and you almost think he might kiss you, but he doesn't. He just crumples into your arms, and you hold him, let him pretend he's the one holding you. You stroke the hair on the back of his head as you sit and breathe with him.

"It's gonna be okay, Javi. It has to be," you whisper, voice muffled.

You don’t know how long you sit like that and pretend not to notice the wetness on shirt as he cries into your shoulder. Just as suddenly as he leaned in to you, he sniffs and pulls back, wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. His other hand is still at the small of your back, fisted in your shirt. For a moment, you both just look at each other. Months of bickering in the office hallways, of posturing and competing, pass between you in that look you share. Your throat feels dry.

Your eyes flicker down to Javier's pretty pink lips as his tongue darts out to lick them. You hope he doesn't see your slip, but his eyes have already darkened. He pulls you closer to him with the hand at your back and the other goes to your jaw. For all his fire and intensity, the way he holds you now is tender, almost delicate.

You lean closer just as he does, and he presses his forehead to yours, lips just a breath away. Your eyes flutter closed, so you miss the way his eyes dart over your face like they're searching for something, or committing this to memory. Just as the moment feels like it's lingering a little too long, he kisses you.

Javier kisses you like he needs you, not delicate but not quite vicious either. As he pulls you impossibly closer to him, you wrap your arms around his neck and scratch at the soft hair at his nape. He gasps, and moves his lips against yours with all the intensity he can muster. Somehow, the hand cradling your jaw is still tender, even as he slips his tongue between your lips and you moan at the taste of him. He pulls you into his lap and you grind against him, lost in the feeling of him all around you. His hands are everywhere, running through your hair, grasping at your thigh. The way he kisses makes you feel boundless; overwhelmed and stunned, all at once.

He pulls away, resting his head in the space between your shoulder and neck and mouthing at the skin there. He sighs, hot breath fanning against your neck. His big, warm hand slips under your shirt and runs over the clasp at the back of your bra.

"Need this so bad, querida," he whispers against your skin, and all too suddenly the feelings of the day come back to you.

"J-Javi," you breathe out.

He hums affirmatively against your skin and ruts up a little at the sound of his name. You can't swallow your gasp at his hardness under those tight denim jeans.

"Javier, I— wait. Stop."

His body goes still, fills with the tension that your touch had been soothing away. His voice when he says your name is wrecked, guilty and mournful.

"What's wrong?" he lifts his head from your shoulder, but doesn't dare look up at you.

"I just—" you start to say, cradling his face like he held yours. "I just don't think this is what you need right now, Javier."

He makes a sound, something like a frustrated grunt but dirtier, angrier. Not at you, you don't think. Angry at himself, more likely. He drops his hands to run them through his hair.

"Querida, I want—," he sighs at himself, at the words he can't put together. "I want you."

What he really means is that he knew he was attracted to you the first time he saw you, standing a little behind Messina in that godforsaken conference room, in a work-appropriate dress with sensible heels. He means that he's known he wants to do more than fuck you since that first conversation, where you refused to take his shit, rejected his flirting and put him in his fucking place. He wants to say that he likes the way you don't cower away from him, the way you demand that he deliver his best. The way you look rumpled when you work late, filing the paperwork he and Murphy pile on you unceasingly, without apology. He wants to tell you that he thinks he might be able to fall love with you, one day; in love with the sweet moments he sees when you let up on the sarcastic comments. There is so much Javi wants to tell you, but the words get stuck in his throat. He thinks it might all be too much, that he might be too much, so instead he shakes his head and lets you climb off his lap.

He thinks you're going to leave without another word, until you pause in the doorway.

"I think you're a good man, Javier. You worry about your heart; only good men do that."

He doesn't show up for Carrillo’s funeral. You don't see him again until you almost collide in the hallway at the office. You both pause for a moment, and you take him in. The bags under his eyes are darker than usual, his hair is unkempt. You open your mouth to say something, asks if he’s alright, if the whispers around the office about him and Los Pepes are true, but he's already pushed past you.

It isn't until he's boarding the plane back to Texas, away from Colombia, that he lets himself think of your words again. He wishes you were right. He wishes he was a good man. He gives himself a moment to regret the way he acted. He regrets the way he pulled away from you in the weeks after that kiss, getting Murphy to file his paperwork, avoiding the break room on the third floor that he knows you like, not even saying goodbye when he knows he might never see you again. He thought you would be able to sense it on him, the stink of his broken principles, the stench of his betrayal. He regrets everything but the kiss and, even then, he regrets how it happened. You deserve so much better than him at his most broken, him at his weakest. You deserve so much more than him. Javier Peña knows that he isn't a good man, and he refuses to wait around for you to realise it too.

#javier peña x reader #javier peña x you #javier pena x reader #javier pena x you #javier peña #javier pena fanfiction #javier pena narcos #javier peña x ofc #my writing #narcos

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