#*ficbyme

The Van Gogh was beautiful. It was a shame they’d have to cut it from the frame, yet Teresa knew better than most that no beauty survived long in this world without collecting a few scars. So while it was a shame, it wasn't enough to stop her. Indeed, it’d be one of the only decisions she’d been forced to make lately that she wouldn’t lose any sleep over tonight.

Losing Kostya wasn’t an option. The pain of lost beauty was nothing compared to the pain of lost power.

They gathered in the hotel lobby, using the private concert by a semi-famous jazz pianist as cover for some recon. Kelly Anne gamely chatted up the hotel owner while Pote stifled a yawn and nursed his beer. James leaned casually against the bar, seemingly entranced by the music. It was only because she knew him so well that she could see the relaxed demeanor hid a man at work, busy formulating a plan. He hadn’t said much about his time away, but it was hard to believe any of it had involved art heists.

She felt a frisson of worry about putting him in unfamiliar, possibly dangerous territory but she knew better than to underestimate him. It was a lesson she’d learned the first day they’d met.

She followed his gaze to the piano, wondering what he was studying there. Teresa had never thought herself a jazz fan before moving to New Orleans, but it had become the soundtrack of her triumphs and heartaches over the past year. She found herself drawn to the melancholy of it, the soaring heights of a trombone, the plaintive pleas of a piano. Rising, falling, rising again. Even now, each soulful note plucked at her heartstrings with the simple strike of a key.

The song was beautiful, perhaps James was merely getting lost for a moment in the music. He’d said she’d changed and she had, but she wasn’t the only one. When he’d left, there’d been sharp edges, edges that should have been honed to lethal blades by his work with Devon and yet the James who had returned had a softness she was unprepared for. A sort of fragile vulnerability that made her want to shelter it from the wind like a flickering candle flame, to nurture and feed it until it was strong enough to warm her too. Her throat ached at the knowledge of how easily it could be snuffed out.

She’d almost done it herself this past week. It’d hurt to see the light in his eyes dim when he looked at her but that had been what she wanted, hadn't it? This distance between them. If it wasn’t easy, it was necessary. She’d rather let the sun set between them than watch the light in his eyes permanently go out because of her.

Emotional attachments equaled vulnerability. Romantic attachments could get you killed. She had needed someone once and his loss had nearly destroyed her. She felt in her bones she wouldn't be able to survive losing James. If she let him into her heart, his death would take that vital organ with him. For as much as she thought about the future these days, there was a part of her relentlessly certain in the knowledge that they’d never get there. Not in one piece.

That didn’t stop her from wanting to reach out to him though—for comfort, maybe, or reassurance.  Perhaps it was the thought he no longer understood her that hurt the most, that made her want to seek communion with him skin to skin if not soul to soul. But that wouldn’t be fair to him, to push him away then pull him close just because she desperately needed someone—him—to tell her it’d be okay. That it was all worth it. She suspected his silence these last few days was answer enough.

It was for the best. The higher the climb, the longer the fall. She couldn’t afford weakness and neither could he. If he was no longer able to be as ruthless, then she would have to be ruthless enough for the both of them.

The song ended and she turned back to James to find that he wasn’t studying the room anymore. He was studying her, his expression inscrutable.

His gaze, like the silence between them, was heavy with unsaid words, words that might never be spoken at all but most certainly not here in public. Best to get back to business.

“You have a plan?” she asked, grateful that her voice remained steady.

He nodded.

“Walk me through it,” she murmured, eyes drawn back to the painting in question.

“Dance with me.”

Her attention snapped back to his face at his surprise counter offer. She’d expected a cool recitation of information—sight lines, security cameras, escape routes—not a softly uttered invitation to be close to him, to touch him for the first time since that night in New York.

“James,” she began, not sure if she meant it as the prelude to a warning or an apology.

A flash of emotion was quickly smoothed away by his normal mask of professionalism. “Relax,” he said, pushing off the bar. “I just need a reason to be in the northwest quadrant of the room.”

She shot him a questioning look and the corner of his mouth ticked up in muted amusement. “The dance floor,” he clarified, holding out a hand.

Right. Of course. The plan. Just business, just how she wanted it. She ignored Kelly Anne’s double take and took James’ hand, letting him lead her to the far side of the small dance floor.

Once it would have been a simple thing to step into his arms, but as the first few notes of the next song began, she hesitated. He might not recognize the tune, but after being a bar owner in New Orleans for over a year, she sure did.

They’re writing songs of love, but not for me. A lucky star’s above, but not for me.

If he noticed any significance, he hid it well, guiding one of her hands to his shoulder and holding the other against his chest. His other hand found her waist and turned her smoothly in the direction he needed to surveil.

She didn’t speak, letting him work in silence. She tried to concentrate on the people around them, the sound of the piano, the lights of the city beyond the windows, anything but the warmth of his body, not under the usual leather jacket, but the expensive fabric of his suit, his scent of new cologne and old cigarettes as foreign as it was familiar.

After a moment, he pulled her closer, leaning down to murmur near her ear. “We’ll do a smoke bomb, smash and grab. Extract the painting, ditch the van. Travel by motorcycle to the drop-off.”

“We?” Teresa asked, a little breathless. Some not small part of her wished she could watch him in action, especially in the kind of situation when no one was shooting back at them.

“Me,” James corrected. “You’ll be at the rendezvous point with Pote. I’ll use a two-man team—”

“One of the men?” Teresa asked. She trusted the crew that had accompanied her to Berlin to handle security but wasn’t sure who she’d recommend for a job that required the finesse of art theft.

“I know a guy nearby,” James told her and she let out a breath of laughter. Of course he did.

“You know everyone.” She turned to smile up at him but was taken aback by the seriousness of his expression.

“Not everyone.”

His words, or maybe the weight behind them, had her wondering if he was thinking of her.

She had done her best to hide her inner turmoil over the events of the last week. Suppressing her guilt and remorse over turning in Marcel. Hiding any misgivings she had about ordering the hit on the crooked cop with defensiveness or dismissal. She was la Jefa, it would do no good for anyone to see her doubts. So she'd put on strong front but hadn’t realized until now how much she’d depended on James seeing through it.  He always had before.

“You think we made a mistake,” she ventured, allowing space for his answer to clarify what was specifically bothering him the most. Perhaps it was vindictive of her to use “we” but distance or not they were still in this together.

James looked away. “It’s over now.”

“That’s not an answer,” she pressed.

He frowned, hesitating. “I did. I don’t know. You were right, the feds were ready to raid us. Bringing in Gamble would have been their next step.”

It was almost shameful, the intensity of the relief that washed over her at his words. But by James' grim expression, it seemed he grew even more troubled by the admission. 

“But?”

He glanced at her, eyes bleak. “His wife was home. She found him while I was still there.”

Teresa’s heart dropped in her chest. She knew from the news reports that there’d only been one victim that night but looking into James’ eyes she saw that it haunted him. The future that might have been. He’d have killed the wife too if she’d caught him. He’d have killed her for them.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, letting her hand find the tender skin of his neck and the staccato rhythm of his heart beat. “I’m sorry. But…”

His eyes briefly fluttered shut. “I know.”

If she couldn’t help herself from holding onto him a little tighter, it seemed he welcomed her momentary lapse. His hand sliding to the small of her back to draw her nearer until they were touching the entire lengths of their bodies, their only attempt at dancing a slight swaying from side to side.

“I just want to keep you safe,” he said, resting his cheek against her temple. She felt the old familiar panic at the implied even from yourself, but this wasn’t like Phoenix. He wasn’t trying to make decisions for her.  

Couldn’t he see that she wished the same safety for him? That everything she did was in pursuit of this shared goal?

“I didn’t think I’d be back here,” he continued, slowing their sway until he was just holding her. “And now...hope is a dangerous thing. It draws your attention to the horizon instead of keeping it on the danger right in front of you.”

She wondered if he was feeling it too: the walls closing in from every angle, the same echoing dread that haunted her midnight hours.  The ever narrowing window of daylight to that future someday.

But as the final notes of the song were played, even as the distance between them didn’t seem as vast anymore, even if for a moment she entertained the idea of not letting go, of leading him back up to the suite to finish repairing with their bodies what she’d bruised with her words, she knew that if they had any hope at all of that other life, they had work to do now.

James, as always, understood that better than anyone. He released her and smiled, eyes once again lit from within.

Many, many hours later while she waited in a safe location as he once again risked life and limb and freedom at her request, Teresa tried not to give too much credence to the sickening feeling in her stomach that the danger he’d mentioned earlier, the danger right in front of him that threatened their much dreamed about future…

....might end up being her.

(note: I originally wrote this as part of a longer story about James’ journey to reunite with Teresa, so for the purpose of this drabble, morphine is making him forget he’s already seen her...cool? cool. thanks for reading!)

♛

James rarely sleeps deeply enough to dream. What starts as a coping mechanism in his childhood only gets cemented further by the military. Now no matter how tired he becomes, he can never quite turn off that last light in the back of his head. It’s for the best, probably. The things he’s seen—the shit he’s done. Who knows what nightmare would crawl out of the well of his subconscious if given half the chance.

The rare times he does dream, he’s usually able to wake himself up within a matter of seconds. It’s automatic now, like he’s rewired a shortcut in his brain. By the time he opens his eyes the dream is nothing more than a faint memory skipping across the surface of his mind without ever dropping an anchor.

The big, bad assassin and his built-in night light. He’d laugh if he didn’t count it as yet another valuable weapon in his arsenal.  It’s not like he doesn’t know this concession by his personal demons is only a layaway plan. Whatever he doesn’t pay for now will come due at least ten times over later.

Still, when he opens his eyes to see morning light filtered through breeze-stirred curtains, he doesn’t catch on right away. It’s not the sunshine that tips him off or the softness of the bed. It’s not the light breeze wafting through the open window, or even the dip of the mattress behind him.

It’s a sense of peace he hasn’t known in nearly a year. It’s the sound of her hushed voice, whispering his name.

“Don’t hide from me,” she says. “I know you’re awake.”

His heart leaps then plummets at the smile he hears in her words, sweet joy chased by sick panic. It’s not just the nightmares he’s been avoiding in his sleep. 

Dreaming of Teresa is an indulgence he can no longer afford.

When he left with Devon, he knew he’d need more than just physical distance between her and his new life, from what he’d have to do there and who he might have to become to do it. He couldn’t risk it warping his feelings for her.  He couldn’t let it twist his memories or cloud his purpose.

So in the last moments of his freedom, as Devon drove him away into the night, he allowed himself to hold close all that she meant to him: her innate goodness, her fierce bravery, how her eyes warmed whenever she smiled.

And then he built a room around those memories—built the wall brick by brick in his mind until they were shut away. He didn’t need a key. He didn’t even build a door. It was the only way of protecting both those memories and himself.

Leaving her meant leaving her behind.

One look at her now will undo all of his careful compartmentalization. One look at her, no matter if she’s real or imagined, will destroy those walls to dust.  He can’t get off mission, he has to stay on task, he has to—he can’t remember what exactly.  But it feels important, deathly so.

He closes his eyes and waits for the awareness of the dream to catapult him to consciousness but something is wrong. His mind refuses to obey the command.

Error: shortcut not found.

And with every passing second it’s harder to remember why it’s so important for him to resist, his urgency to awaken quickly replaced by an urgency of a different kind.  He can’t stop the hum in the back of his throat at the touch of her fingers brushing across his abdomen or how his body automatically angles itself toward the warmth of hers, inexorable like the tide.

She laughs and the sound of her joy hooks beneath his ribcage, turning him toward her.  They never had enough time.  Little things like lying in bed together, easing into the day with lazy touches and hushed sighs turned into something valuable, something to hold on to, something that’s supposed to be in a lockbox behind a fucking brick wall.

“Hmm, it’s like that is it?” she asks, voice like warm honey sending an anticipatory flare of heat up his spine. “Let’s see if I can’t wake you up.”

The drag of her hair across his chest is all the warning he needs before her lips find his and what’s left of his resistance falls away like tumblers in a lock.  There are no more walls left between them now. No air. Just heat, hands and skin so soft he can barely manage not to bruise it in his desperate need to get her even closer.

An alarm bell rings in some distant corner of his mind, but one hand has already buried itself in her hair, angling her head for better access to her mouth.  The other has slipped beneath her sleep worn shirt, fingers brushing up her ribs to the soft, warm weight of her breast.

This isn’t real.

He doesn’t fucking care.

The past year has been a brutally cold one, filled with blood-soaked ops and people he couldn’t trust.  He’s spent the last twelve months always on guard, either enacting violence, experiencing it or expecting it. To have Teresa here, tangibly safe in his arms, and so, so warm is almost more than he can take, let alone resist.

Her breath stutters against his lips and it feels like a hit of pure oxygen, like she’s reviving him from the dead.

He opens his eyes, pushing her hair back up and out of her face to take her in. She always smiled more freely in their quiet moments together, something that made him feel more powerful than any firearm ever had. Her lips curve now, soft and sweet, her eyes half lidded by pleasure and the knife that’s lodged in his heart tears a downward path, spilling all of his carefully contained emotions from the wound. His grip on her waist tightens too much to go unnoticed.

“What’s wrong?” Her eyes flicker quickly over his face, the ever present worry never too far from the surface of their lives.

He wants to reassure her, to hold onto the playfulness between them, but the ache of it makes him honest. “I miss you.”

“I’m right here,” she replies, voice barely a whisper, perhaps sensing the deadly seriousness of his words. He’s never missed anything half as much as her.  It used to scare him to think of what he’d be willing to do to have this once again. What lines he’d cross to get back to her, to this.

He no longer wonders anymore.  He knows.  The knowledge that he’d do it all over again if it kept her safe didn’t absolve his crimes.  It sure as hell didn’t silence the echo of screams in his head.

“Are you?” His voice is rough but he gentles his hand, smoothing it down her hip to lightly grip her thigh, relishing the strength he can feel beneath his fingertips. He forces a smirk, an attempt to salvage the lightheartedness, and though the slight narrowing of her eyes suggests she sees right through his façade, she concedes to his wishes with a soft smile, tossing her hair over one shoulder to lean down and nip his jawline.

“What do you miss?” she teases, biting gently at the tendon of his neck, sucking lightly at first then sharper.  “This?”

His breath catches in his throat and she hums her approval into his skin.  “Or maybe this?” she murmurs, shifting to run a flat palm down his belly, lower and lower until she’s cupping him through his boxer briefs.

He groans as she strokes him, and she smiles in delight as his hips reflexively rock up into her hand. Her eyes lock onto his, like she knows exactly what power she has over him, like she wants to see the exact moment he surrenders.  It won’t take long. It feels so fucking good that it’s only his pride that keeps him from panting.

Her eyes dance wickedly.  “Or maybe this?”

As quick as lightning, she releases him to grab at his waist, tickling in just the right spot to make him nearly levitate off the bed.

“Fuck,” he laughs, grabbing for her wrists to roll her underneath him, pinning her arms above her head. She’s breathless and beaming and so goddamned pleased with herself that he can’t take his eyes off of her.  She’s beautiful.

“This,” he murmurs, slotting himself between her legs, rolling his hips hard and slow, repeating the movement when her face goes slack with pleasure.

“This,” he breathes, as her heels dig into the back of his thighs, pressing him closer as he leans down to catch her moan with his mouth.

This, he thinks, losing himself in the hazy heat of her. This, this, this.

He senses it a split-second before it happens, like a sudden change in air pressure.  The distant urgency of his mission slamming into focus with the echo of a high powered rifle shot and the shattering glass of the window.

Fiery pain rips through his abdomen, but it's the soft cry beneath him that has him in agony.

He remembers now what was so important.  He remembers now what he was supposed to do.

“Teresa,” he chokes, slumping to the side to get himself fully between her and the window.  He's losing strength fast, barely able to prop himself up enough to assess the damage.  At first he thinks the blood covering her chest is his own, but then he sees it: the entry wound where the bullet passed through him into her.

Her eyes stare up at him in disbelief, words gurgling around the blood pooling in her throat. “James?”

He has to —

“James,” she repeats, blood trickling out the corner of her mouth, her voice growing faint.  

He has to —

“Save me.”

♛

God, he loved looking at her, always had. The soft curve of her cheek, the determined line of her jaw, the fierceness of her gaze.  His eyes had seemed to search her out instinctively from the start.  He used to dismiss it as threat assessment and maybe, in a way, it still was.

When she looked up, her expression had broken wide open, the depth of feeling on her face striking deep in his chest with a serrated blade.

“Why didn’t you trust me?” she asked, anguished, her eyes bright with emotion. “If I’d known, I could have — we could have...”

She let her voice trail off, swallowing hard, no doubt coming to the same conclusion he had all those months ago.  An outright war with the CIA was a war they could not win. 

He moved to sit up, wanting to close the distance between them but was cut short by the pain lancing through his abdomen.  She was at his side in an instant. No hesitation — just like she had been when he’d shown up shot in the loading bay. 

He watched her hands hover above his bandage, concern etched across her features, and felt a profound sense of gratitude.  Gratitude she’d come into his life.  Gratitude she let him stay in hers.

“Teresa.”

He wanted to tell her he loved her as he reached for her hand, but “You’re the only one I trust” came out instead.  

James had known this day was coming; the writing had been on the wall since that night at the winery. The night they’d unknowingly handed over their leverage to Devon on a silver fucking platter.

He hadn’t put it together yet then—that Devon was CIA. Back then, he had thought going with Devon would mean the standard cartel two-for-one retribution special: death, dismemberment and an unmarked grave. And so, whether he liked it or not, he had sat there in the car like a complete fucking asshole while Teresa squared her shoulders and walked inside to face down his demons.

He had known if anyone could get them out of it, Teresa could, but he couldn’t forgive himself for sending her in blind to bargain for his life, unaware that whatever price she paid would be far too high. After what he’d done in Texas, he wasn’t worth saving. He couldn’t let her lose everything for him.

It hadn’t felt like a risk to tip his cards to Devon, then. If his days were numbered, he could at least die knowing his mistakes were his alone.

He hadn’t counted on Teresa showing her own hand or what exactly it would reveal.

Are you willing to risk your life for this man?

Yes.

That night—the honesty, the intimacy—had felt like a stay of execution. He should have known it was just a brief reprieve.

Like any sicario, he had a lengthy list of reckonings, long past due—reckonings he’d always shrugged off before meeting Teresa.

It was only by being in her orbit that he’d begun to comprehend the gravity of his past choices, their weight growing heavier in tandem with her importance. By Phoenix, the shadow he hauled behind him had taken on the distinctive weight of a dead body. Sometimes it felt like a premonition, like he was dragging his own corpse around.

Or worse, hers.

Everything changed after that night. He couldn’t know that just as he was realizing he couldn’t lose her, she was already being torn from his grasp. They’d only gotten a few short months together; it made everything feel too important. Every touch too meaningful, every argument too painful.

Every kiss felt like the last.

It took Teresa nearly dying in Bolivia and Kelly Anne digging herself into a shallow grave for the pieces to fall into place. Devon was more than he appeared.

Teresa would hate him if she knew he hadn’t pulled the trigger. But Devon was his mistake, a mistake enough people had died for already. He couldn’t add Kelly Anne to the list. His penance would have to be enough for both of them. You couldn’t run from the CIA.

The looming inevitability hadn’t made his departure less difficult but it had made the decision easier. Walking out of her house in Phoenix—their house—had been one of the hardest things he’d done in his life. Only the knowledge that to turn around would consign them both to hell kept him moving forward.

“You’ll come with us, so you won’t be able to drag her down with you.”

And it had worked for a time. Devon was fond of updating him on Teresa’s triumphs without him: her expansion to new cities, her dating life. It didn’t bother him the way Devon hoped. Teresa’s successes meant he hadn’t done this for nothing. That this sacrifice was worth something.

But as it went on, as Teresa’s business grew and grew, he’d felt the change in Devon’s demeanor. His surrender into Devon’s custody had always been more of a stopgap than a permanent solution but he’d hoped Teresa would have more time. He should have known: someone as ambitious and clever as her would fast outgrow the box the CIA preferred her in. Eventually she would need to be convinced of different ways to be useful or risk becoming a liability to their interests.

It just so happened that thanks to that same night at the winery, Devon had first hand knowledge of just how to best convince her.

“The terms of our agreement have changed, Valdez.”

Something told James it wouldn’t be a negotiation.

“Sinaloa, Texas, Phoenix, New Orleans, Atlanta, Miami,” Devon continued and motioned for his driver to pull away from the curb. “Teresa has made some powerful enemies….and some powerful friends.”

“No,” James interjected, flatly, as though he had a choice in whatever question Devon was about to ask.

“Intel has it that she’s got a meeting lined up with the Russians.”

That stopped James cold. The Russians were the top of the food chain. You fucked with them, you didn’t live long enough to regret it. Sinaloa looked like Disney World in comparison. But Devon’s smirk as he said “intel” was the baited hook that caught hold of James’ attention.

They had someone inside Teresa’s organization. 

“Who?” he demanded.

“It doesn’t matter. We need someone with more access. We need you.”

He bit back his automatic refusal, aware that this might be his only chance to get vital information he could use. “Access to what?”

“Teresa’s meetings with Konstantin Volkova.”

Fucking fantastic. Not just a Russian, the most powerful Russian in the North American drug trade. Ratting him out would be a guaranteed way to get them all killed.

“Forget it. I’m not a snitch.”

“We can do this with or without your voluntary assistance, James,” Devon replied, unbothered, confident in his upper hand. “Option one, you get to do what you promised to do—protect Teresa. It hasn’t been all victories this past year. Javier got himself killed. And her godson, what was his name? Tony.”

James knew he was playing right into Devon’s hands but he couldn’t stop himself. “How? Who?”

“Car bomb courtesy of a local judge, I’m told. Lacks a certain sense of sophistication but makes up for in effectiveness.”

Despite the cracked window, it felt like all the air had left the vehicle. James had never allowed himself to question his decision to leave once it was done. He didn’t make room for regrets lest they take over him completely but now he felt the stirrings of doubt or worse, guilt. He’d convinced himself he was doing her a favor, that she’d be better off without him. But would she have lost Tony if he’d been there? Or was that just foolish arrogance?

“You wouldn’t just be helping us,” Devon continued. “You’d be helping Teresa, too. Seems like she needs it. We just want Kostya.”

“And then?”

“Like I said, Teresa will be safe as long as she’s useful to us. Getting Kostya off the board would be….extremely useful to us.”

James shook his head. “You’re forgetting something. Teresa’s never going to go along with this.”

“Then don’t tell her.”

If there was anything the past few years had taught him, he knew one thing for sure. “I won’t lie to her.”

“A valiant effort, Valdez, but we both know you will,” Devon curled his lip in satisfaction as he laid down his final trump card. “She was willing to give up her life to save you once. Should we see how she feels about it now? How long do you think it would take to persuade her? How much of your blood? Because, option two, James… option two is much bloodier. Yours, hers, both. Take your pick.”

Like he said, on a silver, fucking platter.

“When do I start?”

“Good answer. We’re a few miles out from Teresa’s location. You’ll have a car and her GPS coordinates. I don’t care what you tell her, as long as you get back in. Remember, we’ll have eyes on you. You screw this up, it’s the end of the road for you both.”

James tried to use the time he had left to run the options through his head but as Devon’s town car pulled over behind a dark sedan, all he could think of was how he was minutes away from seeing Teresa again, something he thought he'd never get to do. He’d figure something out—some way to deal with the Russians, a way to get the CIA off their backs, a way to keep them all alive. He had to. But hopefully, it wasn't something he'd have to do alone. Hopefully it was something they’d do together.

“And James?” Devon called after him as he turned to open the car door. James didn’t even see the knife before it was buried in his abdomen. “Just in case either or you need the extra motivation."

James clutched his hand to his side but the blood quickly soaked his shirt.

6 “bury the dead where they’re found” ch 1 (qots) The wind is howling a mournful tune as the three riders pick their way down the desolate mountain pass.

7. “i’m rested & i’m ready (to begin)” (qots) “How’s the arm?” James demanded, the whites of his eyes flashing in stark relief against the rivulets of red dripping down his forehead.

8. “fill it up + throw it down” (qots) Now he didn’t like to brag, but George Megalos was something of a reality show connoisseur. 

9. “kiss me goodbye (don’t tell me why)” (qots) The blare of a trumpet pierces the night air like a warning as the beat of the brass band keeps time with her pounding heart.

10. “shoot the lights out” (qots) It doesn’t snow in Dallas but it doesn’t stay pretty green either—how’s that song go, again?