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drabbles-mc · 2 years ago

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Javier Peña & GN!Reader

For Day 25 of @whumpril's 2023 Challenge: heart racing / on the run

Warnings: 18+, language, light angst?, mentions of guns etc., typical canon things

Word Count: 2.9k

A/N: How this fic ended up being almost 3k, I truly do not know. I also don't know what's happening here but it sure is...something. Idk what was going on in my brain to create this but it's out there now.

Narcos Taglist: @garbinge @winchestershiresauce @sizzlingcloudmentality @panagiasikelia @616wilsons @hauntedforsst @mirabee @buckybarneshairpullingkink @boomclapxox @nessamc @southotheborder @supersanelyromantic @padbrookcottage @mysun-n-stars @raincoffeeandfandoms @justreblogginfics @ashlingnarcos @passionatewrites @artemiseamoon @narcolini @hausofmamadas (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

You had almost made it to the stairs that went up the outside of your building when the shooting started. There was a scream lodged somewhere in your throat, not coming out, not allowing you to suck more air in. You wondered how far you could run without breathing, wondered if it was even going to matter or if someone was going to shoot you before it even became a real problem.

Your feet managed to carry you down the stairs without causing you to trip and fall face first into them. It felt like each part of your body was moving independently from the others, and your brain wasn’t keeping tabs on any of them.

The screams and the gunshots were ringing through your head, slowly traveling in one ear, across every facet of your brain, before they finally made it out the other side. It was deafening, almost enough to bring you to your knees if your body had been working as one cohesive unit rather than a marionette doll that had different people pulling on each string.

You all but flung yourself around the corner into the alley between your building and the one next to it. The thin strip of land that acted as a walkway for the locals that lived here, the dirt path that you were sure had grass covering it at one point before everyone had moved in, gave you a clear-cut escape route. If someone started coming down from the other end, you’d be fucked, but it was your only option at this point. It wasn’t as though you were going to head back towards the gunfire.

It took a few seconds longer than you cared for, but you finally got your feet and legs to start moving. A couple strides at a swift walk, but soon enough you were breaking into a run as you raced down the makeshift alley. Your heart thundered against your chest, and even though you were pumping your legs as quickly as you could, you knew that your rapid heartbeat had more to do with the fear coursing through you, the feeling that the gunshots were getting closer even though you were getting away.

The walkway hadn’t ever felt so long in all of your other trips to and from your apartment. Twice a day, almost every day, you tackled it at a leisurely pace, and you seemed to get from one end to the other in no time at all. But now, as you were doing your best to sprint for all you were worth, it felt like the end of it kept receding with each step you took, like no matter how fast you ran, you were never going to catch up.

Then, finally, you did. Like a car taking a turn just a bit too fast, you felt like you were skidding on the dirt beneath you as you swerved around the turn, trying to stay as close to the wall as possible while you did. Fingers of your one hand gripped the corner of the building, hoping that it would provide you with just enough stability so that you wouldn’t fall over.

Your eyes were cast down at the ground, trying to make sure that your feet didn’t get caught over each other in the process of your mad dash. You’d been paying so little attention to anything around you that you were caught completely off-guard when you slammed into something, someone, that sent you stumbling back a few steps.

Still unable to let out the scream that had been trying to fight it’s way out of your throat, you were almost silent as you fell backwards. The surprises didn’t stop there, though, as whoever it was that had run into you, or you ran into them, reached out and grabbed onto your arm, keeping you from completely hitting the ground.

Javi was just as surprised as you were. He was dripping sweat, gun clutched in the hand that hadn’t just saved you from smacking your head off the ground. The second you were stable and upright, he let you go. Both of you stood, like you were frozen trying to figure out what to say or do about the other.

The panic on your face, the fear in your eyes, let Javi know that you weren’t the threat that he was after. Your whole body was practically shaking. You kept looking back and forth between his face and the gun in his hand. While you knew that you were trying to run away because you didn’t want to get caught up in the middle of a mess that you weren’t a part of, the thought crossed your mind that whoever this man was could easily think that you were on the run trying to escape being brought in by him, or one of the other officers you were sure were storming your entire neighborhood at this point.

You tried to get the words out, tried to tell him that you just wanted to get away so that you would be safe enough, alive enough, to make it back to your apartment later to see if any damage had been done to it. You just wanted to make it through this. You couldn’t manage to say any of that to him.

“You should go,” he finally cut through the silence. It’d only been a couple seconds, but given the circumstances, it may as well have been an eternity.

You nodded, trying to get your legs to work once more, but you couldn’t. It was like you’d stopped for just a few seconds too long, and now your feet were rooted into the ground. Your breathing became erratic, heart pounding hard enough to make you wonder if it was going to burst inside your chest.

“Go!” he snapped, voice harsher this time.

The reality hit you that you were wasting his time as well as your own. You were just trying to get away. This man, whoever he was, was actually trying to get to the fight. Your goal and his couldn’t have been more opposite. Despite the differences, your freezing up was making it so that neither of you could achieve your own personal endgames.

“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath as he stepped so that he was standing right next to you.

You thought that he was just going to keep going, brush past you so that he could get to wherever he needed to go. His shoulder bumped against yours for a moment and you thought that that was going to be the end of it, the first and hopefully last time you ever saw him. Then you felt his hand pressing into your back, fingertips pushing harshly right between your shoulder blades. He pushed, not hard enough to topple you over, but enough to get your feet moving one in front of the other.

“You need to keep running,” he said, the slight strain of his voice giving away how out of breath he still was.

He was right, of course. All of the reasons you’d taken off in the first place were still very much in play. You nodded, trying to keep up the momentum that he’d given you with his push, but it felt like you were trying to drag your feet through wet cement as you moved.

You didn’t bother to turn and look over your shoulder. Whether he was still there or not wasn’t going to do you any good. All you had to worry about was pushing forward. So you tried, one heavy footstep in front of the other you waited for your pace to pick up the same way that it had before.

All of the sprinting had apparently been knocked out of you when you collided with the man who had been a few seconds from having a gun pointed in your face. Still, though, you managed to start going a little faster. You carried yourself down the path that ran along the backs of the other buildings on your street. You didn’t know when you were going to stop, where you would be when you finally decided that you’d gone far enough. Wherever it was, you hadn’t gotten there yet.

Finally, you couldn’t hear the gunshots anymore. You didn’t know if it was because you’d gone that far, or because the shooting had finally stopped. The answer to that didn’t really matter. All that mattered, was that you finally felt like you could give your legs a rest.

You’d passed by one building after another that looked a lot like yours, each of them with a little pathway between them just like the one beside the building that you lived in. Some were partially blocked off, people leaving things behind, and creating barriers where there didn’t use to be any. You managed to stop at the end of one that had just that kind of makeshift blockade.

After what felt like too long, you let your feet slow back down to a walk on purpose, you stepped into the alleyway, slumping back against the wall of the building behind you. There was something comforting about the fact that someone was only going to be coming from one direction, if they were going to show up at all. You had to figure that by this point, everyone was either inside, or long gone. It must’ve been safe now. Or, at least, as safe as it was ever going to be.

You didn’t know how long you sat there. It couldn’t have been too long, you reasoned. It wasn’t long enough for the usual noises of the neighborhood to pick back up. As you brought yourself back up to your feet, you could feel the lingering tremble of exertion in your legs. Taking a deep breath, you started the task of putting one foot in front of the other once more.

When you reached the end of the alley, the question became whether you should just head back home, see what damage was or wasn’t caused to your place, or if you should just continue on your way and head to town. That’d been your original plan for the afternoon when you had stepped out your front door anyhow—run to town to grab some groceries, maybe takeout so you wouldn’t have to cook dinner for yourself. However you hadn’t expected the run part of running to town to be quiet so literal at first.

Taking a deep breath, you turned and started to head towards town. There was no point in going back to your place empty-handed after all of this. Maybe the extra time out and about would rid your body of the last of its shakes that were still clinging to you.

You had your bag of groceries slung over your shoulder as you waited in line to place your dinner order to take home. There was still a slight tremble in your hands, but no one else would notice it if they didn’t know to look for it. At this point you were thinking it was just as much from hunger as it was from everything else.

It was interesting, almost comforting in a way, to see everyone going about their business like it was a completely normal day. For most of these people, it probably was. Chaos and gunfire off in the distance wasn’t a city-wide disturbance anymore. If it was far enough away, no one allowed it to interrupt their routines. You’d been the same way—up until today trouble had never knocked quite so literally at your front door.

Your gaze was cast down to the floor, just listening to the music and the conversations happening around you as you stood in line. There was a couple in front of you talking about what they were going to get for their room in their new place, playfully debating who got decorating rights. The family sitting at the table to the side of you was talking to their kids about their days at school. It was all peaceful, lovely. Or it would’ve been if your brain wasn’t still partially latched on to the sounds of bullets whizzing too close to your head for comfort.

You tried to focus on the conversations around you again, eavesdrop for the sake of your own sanity rather than the nosiness and curiosity that normally fueled it. You were gripping tighter onto the strap to the bag that held your groceries as you tried to dial into all of it.

You’d been so focused on distracting yourself, that you missed the sound of footsteps coming up behind you. Another person waiting in line for the same thing that you were. Your jaw was clenched tight as you forced yourself to focus on the present.

“Hey,” the person behind you spoke up to get your attention.

Your head snapped up, assuming that they were saying something to you because the line had moved and you hadn’t. But things were still at a standstill. Turning to look over your shoulder, you checked to see who was talking to you. Your eyes grew wide when you saw the same man from earlier now standing behind you. He, like you, hadn’t bothered or had the time to change out of the clothes he’d been madly dashing around in before.

You turned around, facing him a little more directly. Your mouth suddenly felt dry, not having expected to see him ever again, certainly not under these circumstances. “H-hi.” It was more than you’d managed to say to him before.

Even though Javi was the one who had initiated the interaction, he didn’t know where to go from here. He felt like he’d just thrown another wrench into your day that already had gone so far off the rails. He couldn’t just insert himself back into your life like that and not provide you with any kind of follow-up, though.

He looked you up and down, like he was trying to make sure you were still in one piece. “You’re alright?”

You shrugged, giving a tiny nod. “Yea. I…yea. As I can be, I guess.”

He nodded. “Good.” There was a pause that was just long enough to make it awkward before he said, “I’m sorry.”

You didn’t know what to say to that. You hadn’t been expecting it. He didn’t really have anything to apologize for. None of the mess had been his fault, really. Still, you gave another shrug and said, “It’s okay.”

There was something about the look on his face that told you he had no better clue as to how to handle the situation than you did. You had to think that it wasn’t often he really ran into the same people twice like this, not when the circumstances were like the ones that you’d been in.

“There anything I can…?” he trailed off, but you knew where the question was going.

Despite the exhaustion that had slowly been taking over you one limb at a time, despite the utter chaos and panic of the day, the ends of your mouth lifted just the tiniest bit in an effort to smile. It didn’t quite happen, but the effort was there, and given the state of everything that was the best you could do.

“No,” your voice was soft, tired as you said it. It was a short answer, but there really wasn’t anything more to say.

The line had moved up a bit, the two of you moving with it without having realized it. Just going through the motions after a day filled with anything but. There was a lingering sense that one of you was supposed to say more, do more, but there wasn’t anything more to be said or done. And yet.

Javi’s hand dragged over his mustache, down to his chin before letting it drop back down to his side. He was about to say something else, try to pull some other question or conversation topic out of the air when another man materialized behind him, clapping him on the shoulder.

“We gotta go, Jav.”

He startled for a moment, peeling his gaze away from you and putting it onto the man who had appeared behind him. “What?”

He took his hand from Javi’s shoulder, gesturing towards the door. “Colonel called—Search Bloc got a hit. We gotta go.”

He nodded. “Right, yea.” He watched as the other man took a step back towards the door before turning back to you.

He didn’t know why he felt like he should be saying some kind of a goodbye to you, but he did—he just didn’t know how to say it. You could see him try to figure it, try to spit it out, but in the end, he just gave you a small nod before turning and heading out. You watched him go, disappearing out onto the street and meeting up with the rest of the men that were out there. They were all fast movements and aggressive gestures as they got ready to go to wherever the next pocket of chaos was erupting.

You watched, completely tuned in until the young woman behind the counter spoke loud enough to get your attention to let you know it was on you to order next. Then you were both right back to it, each of you chalking it all up to a bad day, a strange one, pocketed in the middle of everything else.

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