#one last rb here i think 🤔🤔 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

writefightandflightclub · 3 years ago

Text

All out of smokes: Javier Peña x fem!reader

A story about coping mechanisms, and the things we hold on to when we can’t let go.

Summary: their denial can only last as long as the pack of cigarettes.

Author’s note:

I had a strong vision for this one, and I have no idea if I pulled it off. 😬

The POV follows the cigarette. (I really wanted to try something new and push myself!) 🤔

This is my first time (properly) writing Javi. 🤯

It’s a slow burn story, so not a lot “happens”. Think of it as chain smoking a whole pack with your fave DEA agent. 😁

This took a long time, so I will extra appreciate any RBs, comments, and feedback. TIA 🧡

I’m not 100% happy with this and know it could be improved, but if I don’t post it now I never will, so here goes. If it tanks, so be it. Sometimes we gotta take a risk + be vulnerable. 😅

Warnings: smoking (lots); alcohol; law / drug enforcement; blood / death mentions (off camera but harked back to); canon typical mentions of violence; canon typical mentions of sex work; unhealthy coping mechanisms; mild sexual themes / innuendos etc.; please correct me if any of my time period / location / character references are bullshit – I did my best but it’s possible I fucked up.

Word count: 7k(ish)

Rating: MATURE. (No smut.)

GIF: @barnesdjarin Moodboard: me Tagging: @pedrostories

We find them nestled at a corner table for two in the dingy yet characterful bar.

The bar is quite obviously positioned as a local date stop – a fact the man and woman have neglected to notice, even as their own table is cast adrift in a sea of dreamy-eyed couples. The man – whose liquid brown eyes are settled unerringly on the woman in a manner far from romantic - is not paying sufficient attention to his surroundings to clock it.

He’s usually paying very close attention – to everything; but not tonight.

The woman in question is -a little too deliberately- preoccupied with the drained glass of guaro atop her palm, idly tinkling the ice cubes and watching the pattern of their rotation intently. Her nostrils flare as the faint whiff of anise filters up to her with the motion.

The scent usually calms her; but not tonight.

Together, they are sharp angles and knitted brows. Jaded looks and tense limbs. They are concealed weapons and scuffed leather jackets and shirts with fresh sweat stains amidst a sea of carefully chosen dresses and smart shirts. They are barricades in a sea of falling walls. They are silence in a cacophony of amiable chatter.

Suffice to say, the pair’s presence is at starks odds with the ambience.

This is not a date.

This is not a couple in love, nor is this a pair about to embark on it.

No. These two don’t even look like they’re in the market to fuck. Hell, right now, they don’t even look friendly.

So, a casual observer may wonder, in fact, what they are doing here at all. Regardless though of how they got here, here they are, and both of them are too stubborn to back out now.

“You shouldn’t come in tomorrow,” the man states abruptly as he concludes his study of the woman, his body settled back into the sling of his wooden chair, his arms folded behind his head, taking up space.

There’s something there. Something, tying them together. A reason they are here. Something familiar and habitual even in the way they insist on remaining strangers.

The woman sighs and discards her emptied glass on the table, and suddenly the man is leaning in, pushing his own half-filled glass towards her with the back of his hand as if it’s a peace offering. Ironic, perhaps, given their daily lives are filled with nothing of the sort.

The woman scowls at him even as she accepts the drink, swilling the whiskey around her mouth and screwing her face up as it boils down her throat, smoky and peaty and unpleasant.

“You should take a day. I’ll cover for you.” His voice is deep and and rich - the flavour of cask-strength whiskey, and the gravelly sound amidst the sickly, lilting hubbub of her environs is rough enough to pervade her stupor, scraping her and making her raw. She reacts only with her eyes, lifting her gaze without moving her head until she fixes a half-moon stare on him, irises the shape of sliced limes beneath her lashes and every bit as bitter, pith readied on her tongue.

She fixes her study on the man, lifting her chin and titling her shoulders squarely toward him. And, as she does so, she dismisses the haunted expression from her face with an authority her ghosts appear to obey, and lands a steely gaze on her living counterpart instead.

“A day to make everything alright? Is that about to cut it, Peña?”

He appears unphased, his deep brown eyes sparkling gently, like ice cubes awash in a glass of decanted rich dark spirit.

Another sigh. Another grimace. The woman’s eyes narrow, and her denim-clad knee begins an incessant, restless bounce beneath the table, sending faint tremors into its surface; glasses clinking as they vibrate closer to one another, the upheaval drawing them together.

Trauma drawing them together.

Ah.

She huffs out a held breath in frustration and reaches -as if it is a compulsion- to fish the carton of smokes from her jacket pocket. She looks perturbed as she does so, perhaps by the tell-tale tremor in her hand. It is borne of residual adrenaline, no doubt, and yet it risks vindicating the man by revealing that, indeed; she shouldn’t. Shouldn’t come in tomorrow.

By the time the cigarette finds its way between her fingers, her eyes are haunted all over again, by things she would clearly rather forget.

A drink would usually be enough to forget; but not tonight.

***

You always did think better with a cigarette in your hand, ever since you picked-up the habit. The distraction - the familiar, somatic nature of it, offers you a certain ability to ground yourself.

And now, as soon as you pinch the smoke in between your fingertips, throwing the carton into the centre of the table, you realise.

You realise why Javi drove you here, to this bar. Why he swerved left instead of the usual right to your shared apartment block.

Javier Peña wants something.

Why else would he do you a favour?

That he does – want, that is- is not unusual, per se. The man is forever working an angle, after all. Forever chasing his wants. You therefore can’t help but wonder what purpose his offer – that he’ll cover for you - is intended to serve. Can’t help but wonder what ploy his favour is precursor to this time.

Yes, you are all too familiar with Javi’s favours. In fact, you’re keeping a thorough scoresheet, and you’re certainly not about to go into debt just because you’re… rattled.

Sometimes, it’s a little thing, sure - he wants to bum a cigarette, or wants to beg forgiveness for the carnal noises filtering through the thin walls from his apartment to yours, often keeping you awake through his most amorous nights. Sometimes, it’s a big thing - the man seeking the kind of favour that could shake a whole damn nation if shit happened to go sideways.

You huff out a small chuckle. It is rather bizarre, you muse, that no matter the scale of the favour, the upshot is usually the same; Javi’s favours, whether big or small, typically involve you conveniently “forgetting” something you heard, and -more often than not- satisfying his nicotine craving into the bargain.

Speaking of nicotine: you bring the cigarette to your lips, that unfortunate tremor still present in your hand as you do so.

Well - there was a lot of blood.

Your eyes dart around the interior of the bar as a cold sweat shivers up your neck and a gulp simultaneously trails down it. You try and fail to swallow your heart, attempting to push it from your mouth and back into the cavity of your chest where it belongs, along with those gratifying lungfuls of smoke.

You’re spooked. You’re fucking spooked and you’re annoyed at yourself for it. This tremble is an all too visible display of weakness; one that you are loathe for Javi to be privy to. Equally, though, it is evidence you know this practised agent will not miss, as the man coolly watches you fumble the cigarette to your lips, your thumb raking over the rough metal wheel of your cheap-ass plastic lighter.

Christ. Why does he choose this moment to pay me some fucking attention?

“You could use my tub if you’d like,” he says idly -even as you’ve half-forgotten what he’s prattling about already.

His brown eyes are glinting and lit, even in the dark ambience of this bar, the air hazy - all rosy reddened light and seedy smoke swirls. The background croon of boleros over the speakers sucks you deep into their sorrow like you are drowning. “Have a soak while I’m on base?”

You scoff. A sad chuck of smoke through your teeth.

What the shit is this? Sympathy? You fumble for any other goddamn motive for Javi’s sudden interest in your personal hygiene and you come-up empty handed. Fuck. You think you’d even rather have him hit on you than this.

He looks at you from beneath his lashes, his expression unreadable. Neutral, even. “Your apartment just has that shitty little shower - right?”

“Would you cut the small talk, Peña,” you complain, with the cigarette now bobbing between your lips. “It doesn’t suit you.” Your tone is as harsh as bitters, but, you suppose, Javi is like a fine whiskey, and is therefore capable of mixing well with someone who cultivates a disagreeable edge. That doesn’t mean he’s going to roll over though. His own flavour is plenty full-bodied. He knows how to handle you.

He grunts. “I bet you’d love to finally shut me up, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. Shut up,” you request. “That would be perfect.” Meanwhile, the skin under your collar suddenly spikes hotter than you might care to admit as you contemplate a few ways of how you might shut him up.

When your smoke finally catches after a few urgent scuffs of the lighter with your thumb and you suck that tiny, ashen sun to life, you take a long, deep drag, your eyes poring over Javi, your mouth forming a plush “o” as smoke bellows out of you.

It’s not lost on you that Javi fails to hold your gaze right then - the man looking briefly down at his lap and away from your steely stare. You’ve come to learn this much about him, over your months with the DEA so far - Javi is fearless in the face of danger, and he’s hardly shy; but occasionally, you catch him shrinking back from you.

Usually, when that happens, you understand why. Can read his hand before he’s played it; but not tonight. Tonight, you’re off your game. You don’t quite know what he wants. What he hopes to gain from this exchange.

So, instead of wondering, you ignore him, ripping your eyes away to gaze out of the window, and you continue to lose yourself in your habits and your vices - the only coping strategy you have left. Your eyes close in relief as you puff on your smoke, the spot of orange like a tiny sun behind clouds as the smoke eddies between you, tendrils of ghost grey winding around your bodies.

The shroud of smoke gives a grey pallor to Javi’s lightly-lined brown skin, and it makes him look as haunted as you feel. Despite the differences between you, it’s not a leap to guess that you share many of the same ghosts. And, this time, when your eyes inevitably meet his again, it is your turn to tear your gaze away – to retreat from the recognition you find dwelling there.

You consider it then – how much he knows of your pain. You wonder how many nights he’s had like this. Feeling… rattled.

Did he curl himself into the bathtub, trying to wash away horrors that permeated deeper than the water could? Did it help? Is that why he wishes the same for you? Did it fail? Is that why he pities you?

Take a day, huh, Peña?

Is a day all it takes? A day, to try to forget things you’ll never get over given a lifetime?

As you ponder this, meanwhile, Javi sits there quietly. He sits there until -it looks like- his tongue burns in his mouth from staying silent. Eventually, his jaw saws to the side, causing his lower lip to jut forward. Still, you don’t feel much remorse for the fact he’s put out, if you’re honest. Being rude to a colleague is hardly the worst thing you’ve done today, is it? Why pretend?

So, instead, you remain stony faced and sour. As if you hadn’t just been working this case together for months. As if he hadn’t been by your side for the bust. As if he hadn’t picked you up off the floor and held you while your chest wracked with gentle sobs. Hadn’t drawn you to one side and had Carrillo’s men vacate the room so that you didn’t have to show that weakness to anyone else but him.

As though he hadn’t dragged you to a bar you don’t even want to be in rather than leaving you to your vices alone.

So, this time, when his gaze trails softly over the shiner of a bruise developing on your cheekbone, with the empathy of someone who you know has felt exactly what you’re feeling, you soften.

You soften, almost all the way, and so naturally you lash out to compensate. “Had a good look, huh? Christ, Peña. Can I help you with something?”

Javi shuffles aggravatedly and kicks back into the sling of his chair, folding his arms behind his head once more. His brown eyes look you up and down without giving anything much away as he fumbles for a cigarette – which he hopes is nestled behind his ear - and comes up lacking.

“A smoke would be fucking A.”

That’s it then? That’s all? He dragged you here to smoke and chat shit?

Plausible, almost. But it doesn’t quite check out. See, to Javi, words are tools. Mechanisms he can use to get what he needs out of people, and he uses them precisely. He has lots of mechanisms for that. His charm, his smarts, and his looks too.

You’ve seen the agent in action often enough to know this; if he’s charming you, he’s undoubtedly either angling to fuck you or fuck you over, and you might not even know which is coming. You trust him - near enough. It’s true that Javi is a man of his word, in many ways. About as moral as it gets – at least, as moral as it gets after a slew of compromises and concessions. After any number of bad things good men end up having to do.

You can count on his word, for sure though. It’s just his words, plural, that you have to watch out for - and you are on guard.

Contemplating this, you take another drawn-out drag on your smoke, just to spite him. Revelling deliberately in your silence.

Javi is silent too, simply flexing his arms agitatedly behind his head. His red shirt is riding up over his stomach and you feign disinterest in the slow inch and reveal of his skin, of a subtle display of dark brown hair peeking above his belted jeans. However - you note reluctantly- that your heart is very much back in your chest rather than your throat, pounding away against your rib cage as he stretches out in front of you.

Javi looks you up and down again, as if mulling over what on earth to do with you. You half expect him to throw in the towel now and drive you home rightaway. Decide you’re not worth the hassle. That would be less cruel than his pity, at least. His pity, you want least of all.

Picking up on your agitation - your bouncing leg and the flare of your nostrils, the quickened succession of breaths as you puff on your cigarette, Javi dips his chin and raises his eyebrows at you until they meet his brown mop of hair, swept asymmetrically over his forehead. The ends of odd strands are still clinging to his skin, plastered down and damp with sweat.

Looking at him like that sends your blood fleeting through your veins like a series of darts, your pulse sudden and sharp and intrusive even in your own body.

It’s no good.

You’re still far too fresh from the kill. The adrenalin still turning to vapour on your bodies.

The crash will inevitably come later; but you’re not there yet, and there’s a hell of a way to go.

Beneath his veneer of lightness and his measured sips of whiskey and his banal conversation about anything except what happened, you can tell Javi is just as tightly wound. And you’d venture that you’re not exactly helping.

You’re surprised he’s even stuck it out this long.

Honestl? You would have expected him to be elsewhere, fucking the residual energy out of him, like usual.

Well. Maybe he’s on to something with that.

“For real. Why are we here? What do you want, hmm?” you venture, with an uptick of your chin in his direction, your expression hardening as you provoke him further, and fuck the consequences. “You want me to fucking monologue?”

In response though, Javi shuffles in his chair, leaning forward again. His leather jacket creaks as his elbow bends, thumb lifting to skim slowly along his plush bottom lip.

His brown eyes are pooling with intensity, and you feel suddenly as if his silence might be as dangerous as his words. There is something about his silence. Something about the deep darkness of his eyes that swallows you. Something that compels you to share yourself with him, as if he is a bottomless pit for all of your secrets, and all of a sudden, you wish he would have kept talking.

You don’t share. As a rule. That’s why Javi is so dangerous to you. Like a vice. Compelling you to tip over into dissecting and sharing and divulging. Fuck, it’s almost no wonder that the man walks around the city to find people throwing secrets at his feet before he has to ask. Javi is the sort of man who can make you feel like your secrets would be safe with him.

However, Javi doesn’t keep secrets. Not really. He uses them. Uses them for leverage.

You don’t want anyone to have that much leverage over you.

Not ever again.

Especially not him.

“Come on, Javier,” you bite, losing patience. “Why the pity party, hmm? We all know you open your mouth and your wallet for precisely one reason. To get what you want out of people. So, out with it. What are you angling for from me?”

It’s harsh, but not because it’s far from the truth; rather, because it is vanishingly close to it.

Still, despite your attack, Javi leans forwards, his brows knitting together as he ponders your barbed assessment, resting his forearms on the table and watching you take another sweet drag. “There are some other things I use my mouth for, cariño, quite expertly. But that’s between me and the fine ladies of my local brothel.”

You have to give it to the man, but his comment and his lack of cruelty both catch you off-guard.

He’s a funny fucker, this one. A kind one, deep down, despite all the shit you give him. You forget that sometimes, amidst everything. Kindness feels rare here. Your own laugh feels alien out of your mouth on occasion. Sometimes, Javi is the only one who can remind you of the sound.

You’d never admit it to him, but Javi feels like safety to you sometimes. A cocoon. A sanctuary. A place to hide from all of... this. True, he’s not much of a shelter, and he’s certainly not yours exclusively, but he’s all you’ve got besides booze and smokes out here. In fact, the soothing sound of the rain outside and the double whiskey and the nicotine and him are almost enough to dull the edge – to blunt your edges. When you bring the tip of your smoke to your lips for another drag, your hand has almost entirely stopped tremoring. Almost.

Javi’s eyes burn like tiny suns as he watches you fill your lungs, with envy.

“Bumming a smoke,” he finally announces, since he’s tired of waiting for you to offer, and he flips open the carton you discarded on the table, only to find it empty. He’s growing visibly twitchy without his hit, and you’re not entirely heartless yet; so, in an act of pure selflessness, you release your vice from your lips, presenting the butt to him, pressed between your forefingers like a peace offering.

Ironic, really, given that in any other circumstance, you doubt you and Javi would be at war at all. In fact, you think, in another life, it could have been so easy.

You’re not sure what he wants, but for now, you’ll happily oblige him with a small favour.

You usually keep score of what you he owes you; but not tonight.

***

Javi pauses in surprise before accepting your offering.

He searches your eyes for any kind of play, but finds none.

Your eyes are usually as fiery and alive as the tip of your cigarette and just as addictive to him, even if you don’t realise it. But right now, they are ashen. They are obscured by a veil of smoke, and by another veil of settled ash which he doubts could be so easily ushered aside.

Obligingly, and because he needs to calm his stress levels, Javi takes a grateful drag on the cigarette as its offered, his moustache and his lips brushing the pads of your fingers as his mouth settles around the tip. You watch him with interest as he inhales a few quick puffs in succession until you nod for him to take it, and he nimbly replaces your fingers on the shaft with his own, the momentary contact of your skin on his sending a sizzle through his veins.

Javi’s eyes close in unfiltered relief as he suckles more deeply on the death stick, the smoke billowing from his hawkish nose moments later as he releases his full breath.

That’s better. A little, at least.

Sure; you both know it’s bad for you, but it’s hardly any worse than the bullets which whizz within inches of you on the daily. Besides, if you’re destined for a quick, thankless death you may as well smoke your way to a slow one.

Javi fills his lungs again. Studies you. Briefly wonders whether this excursion was a mistake. You’re both covered in sweat and blood still. He should have driven right back to your shared apartment complex, and yet, he had taken a swift left instead of right.

He had brought you here, but you both had stayed. Now, here the two of you are, looking and sounding and acting like you want to leave but, curiously, neither of you making any move to go. In Javi’s mind, that speaks volumes.

There’s something here. Something drawing you together. Whether it is something more than the trauma remains to be seen.

Even so, Javi could easily regret this whole deal. He has a nice bourbon in his apartment which would be much better company than a spiky colleague. In fact, he looks at you through the pillar of smoke – pissed off and shaken up and closed off, and his thigh muscles twitch as he considers standing, drawing this failed attempt at comfort to a close. In the next moment though, a rowdy bunch enter the bar and with the sudden bang from a flung door you flinch, your head whipping towards the noise and your eyes wet with fear and he just…. can’t. He just can’t leave you.

But, he does at least stand.

You look back at him as he does so, your eyes soft for the first time this evening as they fall on him. Your eyes tell him something. Something he recognises. That, maybe, as much as you may wish to hide your emotions behind a closed door, you maybe don’t wish to be alone when it shuts.

Usually, that’s how you might prefer to handle things - alone; but seemingly, not tonight.

You hug your arms around yourself and look up at him with a silent yet deafening plea, and, Javi is entirely sure that he’s about to suggest driving you home, but then the words out of his mouth aren’t that at all. “Can I get you another drink?”

He waits for some ire but that doesn’t come either. Instead, you nod in resignation, and he takes one more steadying drag of that cigarette before passing it back to you.

He’d usually be fucking away his own problems; but not tonight.

Tonight he will attend to yours - even if you’re not all the way happy about it.

***

The cigarette travels back to your mouth, and even as you dip your wrist to flick ash into the tray, Javi’s gaze lingers on your lips as you tip your chin up, making another “o” for your smoky exhale. This obvious attention sends another kind of tremor through you. A faint pulse you think you could recognise given a little more time and a little more whiskey.

You tick up an eyebrow, the way he’s looking at you feeling revelatory, and you search his face brazenly. Watch the tip of his tongue fleeting out over that dip in his lower lip you definitely shouldn’t know about. Shouldn’t have paid so much attention to these past months.

With no real motive, your eyes skim over Javi’s long and lean form too, over the shape his body makes in that fucking offensive pink shirt, slinky slim hips and tapered waist leading up to broad shoulders and down to long denim-clad legs.

His shirt is still damp with sweat. If you peeled it off him it would cling to his skin, you imagine. He would feel clammy beneath your touch.

There would be worse things, for sure.

Worse things than losing yourself in him. Worse things you could do.

Hell, you’ve done worse things already. Worse things today.

“Okay,” you answer. “I’ll have one more drink.”

You bounce your leg under the table, and you lean forward in your seat, unconsciously chasing him as he nods once and retreats towards the bar. The sudden distance from him makes you feel decidedly anxious – a rolling wave in the pit of your belly- and your eyes skim the bar for threats as you rub out your smoke, the tiny sun finally eclipsed.

***

When Javier returns to the table the cigarette is extinguished, and the light in the woman’s eyes has gone out too. He sets a tinkling glass of whisky down before her, and she downs it without tasting it, replacing one fire with another, shuddering as it burns down into her middle.

Javier is a little more measured than her, however, and takes a long, slow, savouring sip before setting his glass down, condensation pooling against his unmoving fingers.

He inhales a breath. He’s about to open his fucking mouth, and evidently, the woman doesn’t like that one bit.

“Fuck, Javi. Don’t talk,” she bristles, a palm raised in the air. “Just... don’t, okay? Save it for someone who gets paid to listen. I don’t want to hear it.”

Despite everything, despite her barbs, Javier can’t help but smile now. He knows the familiar weight of her blows and, by now, he knows he can take the beating. “Are you this charming with your informants, sugar?”

The woman doesn’t hear Javier poke fun, however. Instead, she is very suddenly staring down at her shirt cuff, poking out from beneath her leather jacket, eyes transfixed and nails suddenly scratching at a stubborn speck of blood there, eyes instantly as wet and glassy as his drink.

It’s not her blood.

His voice drops into his throat, and softens to a whisper. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

Wrong move, Javier.

It is a pattern by now.

When he becomes soft, she doubles-down on being hard. Triples down on it.

“For fuck’s sake, Javi. What are we gonna talk about, huh?” the woman hisses, loud enough for the patrons at the table over the way to turn and look. “About what happened today? About what I did? How none of this is making a damned bit of difference?” Her voice is cracking like shocked ice, creaking under the weight of her own vitriol.

She is turbulent and spiralling, as though he swirls her in a glass atop his palm – excites her as he remains still. Indeed, the man swallows and licks his lips, stoic in the face of the woman’s impassioned questioning. He does not respond, but instead, he fiddles a fresh cigarette from his shirt pocket, somehow bartered, evidently, on his short trip between the table and the bar and back again. “Alright,” he soothes, his voice a low, slow rumble. “Catch me shutting up.”

And, as good as his word, the man remains quiet as he places the cigarette between his lips, the round barrel of it perfectly settled in the dip in his lower lip and his eyes never leaving her. His hands primed for… something, as if he might need to catch her somehow, even as she folds her arms and beds down more adamantly into her chair with a concessionary huff.

Javier remains wordless, and he lights his cigarette and sucks to stoke the embers with quick, frenzied puffs - followed by one long, sizzling drag.

Then, returning the favour, he flips his hand and offers the filter-end to the woman.

She scowls.

***

As you dip forward to take a hit, thanking your lucky stars that your colleague can charm the last smoke out of any poor bastard’s packet, he calls you out – that silence, as ever, short-lived. “You only open your mouth to smoke and cuss me out, or have your lips got other uses too?”

You watch his lips curl into a tentative smile.

Evidently he’s given up on whatever he was attempting before, and has reverted to his natural state. Flirtatious. Snarky. Javi usually is - flirty with you - but without any true intent behind it. Besides, you’re hardly the type to blow hot air up his ass, so it’s not as though he’d have gotten very far with you, even if he’d wanted to. However, there’s seemingly a little more behind it tonight. There’s enough intention, at least, that a heat sears into the centre of you. Enough for you to have the passing thought that Javi is the kind of guy you’d pick-up in a bar and fuck all night long, all being normal.

But - you remind yourself – things aren’t normal. Here, things are pretty exceptional.

This place makes exceptional the fucking rule.

Maybe that shouldn’t stop you though. Maybe the fact that things are blowing up in your face – that they’re totally fucked - is the perfect reason to let off a little steam.

Javi even says himself that you work too hard - and that’s coming from the man who never stops.

Still, it’s not as though Javi can be relied upon for objective assessments of work/life boundaries now, is it? He most definitely brings his work home with him. After all, you kinda have to when you fuck informants for your job; unlike paperwork, that’s an assignment which is much less easily completed in the office.

I bet he’s copulated on someone’s desk though. All those late nights and a rotation of pretty, fawning typists? No doubt about it at all.

“I don’t want to talk, Javi. I don’t want to talk and I don’t want to flirt. I just want to smoke.”

There are still ghosts surrounding you, reaching for you with cold hands.

The cigarette becomes near lifeless in your hands, burning down to a long pillar of ash, but still, Javi stays.

***

You relinquish the smoke before it burns down to a butt, and Javi takes an absent-minded puff, smoke curling around his hawkish nose and sculpted face.

He wants to make you talk, but more than that, he wants to make you forget. He could, he thinks, even if only for a moment, if he let his ill-advised instincts take over. There are ways he could take your mind off of things – all tongue and wet slide and spilling salt.

As he counts the ways he could cleanse your mind of any thought but him, his hands feel primed again, as if readying to touch you, and he is more than grateful that he has a smoke to keep his hands busy in other ways instead.

He knows not to go there with you. He knows, somehow, that you’re not a one time deal. That if he got a taste he’d want to chain smoke you- would come out of it addicted. Javi’s pretty sure he doesn’t need any more vices to add to his collection. So, he pushes those kinda thoughts aside – the kind that he’d have to pray about on Sundays, and focusses on what you really need to help you forget. On the ways that aren’t for his benefit too, because contrary to what you seem to think he doesn’t always want something from you. Sometimes he only wants to give.

He wants to give you peace of mind. He would, if only he could.

He wants to tell you it wasn’t your fault. That shit happens. That you didn’t make any mistakes – but that would only be half true, and Javi refuses to patronise you. And so, he wants to tell you that you made a call, and that it wasn’t right - but it was the right one out of the hand you were dealt today.

The best of a shitty situation.

He wants to tell you that he understands… but Javi doesn’t exactly talk about his feelings either. He simply fucks them deeper, into dark places. Shit – he likes to feel like he has some control over something. A man would lose it here, without that.

Most of all though, Javi wants to forget too.

Wants to forget that look on your face when your hands were bathed in red.

There was so much blood.

He puts his hand on top of yours and its cold from the glass, his grasp like a ghost, and so, you whip your arm away from his, eyes sunken and sinking further like hollow graves.

No more.

Enough. Enough of this.

“Come on,” Javi says, tapping your arm with the back of his hand, prematurely stubbing out his cigarette with a pinch of his fingers, staining his tips ashy, and pocketing the half-length for later as he stands. “We’re getting out of here.”

***

“Come on where?” the woman asks, even as she’s already in motion, already moving towards his side.

“For a drive.”

“I’ve had too many whiskeys,” she says, shaking her head and massaging her temples with the pads of her forefingers.

“Yeah, I know,” Javier says, bumping his shoulder against hers amiably. “You drank most of mine.” Then, he scoops up the keys up from the table. “I’ll be good to drive. Come on, let’s go,” Javier says with finality, and, pressing his hand to the space in-between her shoulder blades he guides her on ahead of him.

This is still not a date. That much is obvious.

But the way Javier’s arm loops around her protectively, and the way his eyes do a careful sweep of the bar and its exterior to check no harm is about to befall her, hints at the fact there is something here.

These two may not be in the market to fuck, and they may not even be friendly, but there is something keeping them together. The sad thing is, whatever is bringing them together might just be the very same thing which is keeping them far apart.

All the same, Javier’s hand stays at the woman’s back until she is safely slotted into the passenger side of the car, rain from the heavens beating down onto them and quickening their journey to the parked vehicle.

Once inside, Javi leans across and fishes a crumpled, flattened packet of cigarettes from the glovebox, just one stick remaining inside and all bent out of shape. He smooths it and fiddles it in-between his lips, unlit, before he hastens the car away from its spot, trundling around the narrow streets – a clear direction in mind.

The woman, meanwhile, folds her arms and tips her face towards the window, watching the city streets slip by.

She doesn’t think to ask where they are going, and so Javier does not think to say.

Therefore, the drive passes in silence, and when Javier reaches the place he has in mind, he pulls up and parks.

He has driven them up in elevation, and now they sit above the city, looking down on it, with hazy, bedraggled views for miles. This far from the cacophony and bustle, and amidst the soothing churn of rain against the dirt ground, for once, the city even looks peaceful.

For once, the woman’s face even has a look of peace too as she looks over it.

Javier seemingly discounts the views, in favour of looking at his passenger.

As he looks longer, his throat bobs around a hard swallow, and without the need for steering any longer, his hands twitch restlessly on the wheel. And so, as if it is more than habit, he fishes the lighter from his pocket and scuffs the cigarette bobbing between his lips to life.

***

“I know you like the rain,” Jav says, winding the window down to let the curtain of smoke escape, watching it be sucked out into the cool night as rain drums soporifically all around.

When he looks back at you, he can’t help but smile, as he observes that you look pissed off all over again.

Figures.

You don’t like anyone knowing anything about you. Not even your predilection for a downpour; but, Javi’s good - a little too good - at getting secrets out of people, after all. It’s what he does. True, that the details of your idiosyncrasies, classified as they are, can’t bring governments to their knees; but sometimes they could sink him, he thinks.

He expects you to bite back at him for daring to know you, but your fire is all burned out. You are settled ash now.

And, therefore, you finally give a little.

“It makes me feel safe,” you say, folding your arms and looking straight ahead, out through the windscreen and across the expanse of flickering city lights below you, visible through the mire of rain. “Everyone rushes to get inside,” you say softly, and as much as Javi likes your bite – fuck, he is altogether captivated by your softness. You laugh sadly and shake your head. “You know. It’s my favourite time to walk around the city? Because I think, how can anything bad be happening now? Doesn’t everyone just want to get inside and stay dry? Who would kill someone while it’s raining.” It breaks Javi’s heart that your voice cracks in two then.

It breaks his heart that it’s bullshit. That when it’s raining, the violence doesn’t stop. That the blood will simply be washed away a little faster. That the bad things will happen a little more undercover.

Javi had wanted to talk. He’d wanted to make you talk, but now that he faces the very real possibility of conversation, he very suddenly has nothing to say.

Nothing seems like it will be enough.

Greeted by his silence once again you loll your head, rolling it on the seat headrest until you look Javi in the eyes, your own lighting like a struck match as your faces turn toward each other.

It is all he can do to keep breathing as you look at him like that. To nod and to take a deep, desperate drag of the cigarette, a flutter of ash drifting down on to his jeans.

Your gaze drops with it, to his thigh, where his right palm rests atop the taut blue denim. Where his hands are primed and ready. To catch you, if you need it. To touch you, if you want it.

Truthfully?

Javi always chain smokes around you. Could be the stress of the job, sure; but another part of him thinks it’s the only way he can keep his hands and his lips busy, otherwise they’d be on you. His hands would find your skin – every bit as moreish and addicting as this vice.

And finally he gives a little too.

“I honestly don’t know,” Javi begins, his voice deep and scuffed like unpolished leather, the onset of his voice causing you to turn your stare swiftly back to the horizon. “I don’t know if we’re making a fucking difference. But trying has to count for something, right?”

You hum, thoughtfully.

Maybe.

You shrug with one shoulder, without dropping your gaze from the city below. But you do suck in a sharp breath for courage and reach for Javi’s hand -where it is settled on his thigh - and you give it a squeeze. In return, Javi closes his fingers around you tightly, and the action squeezes his chest just as tightly.

Then, with a sigh – wordlessly - he passes the burning cigarette to you.

This time, you don’t scowl.

***

You hum in gratitude and fumble the cigarette from his fingers, and as soon as Javi’s hands are once again without an occupation, he fishes in his jacket for the half-stick he’d pocketed for later back at the bar.

He lights it from your own, your faces dipping together until your heat catches against his, and you each sit, smoking your tiny suns in the car side by side, like a mirror image of the lit headlights before you, which shine outward into the dull night. Together, you listen to the rain and pretend like there is no death in the city before you. That there is no blood on your hands.

It is a lie, but sometimes the truth can become too much - especially when your profession is to relentlessly seek it.

Eventually, after a succession of drawn out moments and even longer drawn out drags, you scrub the last cigarette out with a roll of your fingers into the foil tray on the dash.

Javi swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his corded neck.

“Oh oh. We’re all out of smokes,” you say as you stub the tiny fire out, looking at Javi like he’s suddenly see through. Your words feel loaded. As though the inevitability of the next most obvious vice to partake in is positively glaring.

You’re not wrong, perhaps.

Javi’s gaze becomes heavy, and drops to your lips as if suddenly burdened.

Your voice suddenly becomes heavier too. Laden with something else you crave. “Well? What are we still doing here, Peña? What is it that you want?”

Why, in the midst of all the shit is he dealing with shit from you? What does he hope to gain?

Then, Javi looks at you. Really looks at you. He drags his tongue along his lower lip, and his eyes flit all over your face, drinking you in like you’re a measure of whiskey.

But then, with a smile which only reaches his eyes, he surprises you. “Not a damn thing, sweetheart.”

Perhaps he doesn’t want to take anything from you. Perhaps he thinks you’ve given enough.

You chew on your lower lip, trying to hide your disappointment. After all - it’s a shame, if he doesn’t want anything. Because, if you’re honest? Tonight, you want something from him.

Fortunately, despite your best efforts to achieve the contrary, Javi knows you a little better than you might care to admit. You’re far from strangers. And, your partner asks you levelly: “You still keeping count of favours?”

You huff out air. “Hmm. Something like that.”

“Alright,” Javi nods, mulling things over quickly in that solid tactical head of his. Thinking how best to negotiate this one. Luckily, he has a flair for that sort of thing. He thinks you may even agree to his proposition. “Well. How about we make a deal - don’t owe each other anything? How about from now on we just take care of each other, and then call it even?”

Despite everything, you can’t help but smile.

Now there’s one hell of a peace offering. You hum softly, in apparent consideration.

“Okay, Javi,” you breathe, a soft, grateful smile finally claiming your plush lips. “Now. Would you take me the fuck home?”

And so, Javi starts up the car, and steers you back through the sleepy, rain-shined streets, yellowed lights glancing off quivering pools of water and making the whole city appear as though it is carpeted with stars.

Then, with a broad, protective hand at your back, Javi walks you to your apartment door. Gets you home safe.

You stand and face him as he languishes against the frame, all long and lean and a quick goodnight and long goodbye readied on his lips.

But for once, you opt not to shut him out.

Yes - you’d usually be alone when your door closes behind you.

But not tonight.

THE END

(Hope you enjoyed this! If you liked it and want more, I’ve written a small, self-indulgent epilogue to this. So, if you liked this story please do pester me as I could maybe be convinced to post it! For now, I wanted to leave it to the reader’s imagination what happens after that door shuts. I’d love to hear your thoughts about that and what you thought of this fic in general. Any feedback and shares will be HUGELY appreciated as this is different to what I would usually write. Thanks so much for reading!)

#javier peña x reader #narcos #Pedro Pascal #javier peña #pedro pascal character fanfiction #cw: alcohol #cw: smoking

97 notes · View notes