#colonel carrillo

Medellín stayed oblivious to the fire that had already been ignited, but your Major was already at the helm, putting out small sections, delaying the inevitable engulfing of the city. The country. All you asked was for it to not devour him whole. 

You shut the door behind you. His officers didn’t need to know more than they already did. When your shadow hit his papers as he took down notes, he finally noticed and looked up with a weary smile. 

He took his headset off, look down at his wristwatch and asked, “What are you doing here?” 

“What would a woman be doing at a police base at this hour?” 

He tilted his head up in a questioning motion, an eyebrow raised as he awaited your explanation.

“I’m here to make a complaint.” 

He put his cigarette out and leaned back on his chair, his eyes trailing down your body like he’d never seen you before. Like he hadn’t snuck a hand under that very red skirt at the breakfast table and began your day with his fingers. “Sí, Señora.” 

“Have you no shame? Looking at a married woman like that?” 

You caught his lip curving upward so slightly you wouldn’t have caught him smile if it weren’t for his dimple. Pulling the corners of his lips down to conceal it, he cleared his throat, a mask of professionalism taking over as he gave in to your game. “Apologies.” Bringing his pen to paper, he said, “I can take your complaint.” 

“My husband is missing.” 

He raised an eyebrow, an amused smile peeking out in the dark before hiding away in the shadows of his act. “Señora… This is not a regular police station. We’re a specialized anti narcotics unit. I can only take the complaint if you believe your husband is somehow involved.” 

“Oh he’s involved alright,” you said, crossing the line to the back of the desk where he sat. His gaze trailed up your body, caressed your neck and slipped behind you, no doubt checking if the door was shut. Cautious. Despite knowing you always shut the door if you came to him so late at night. 

He placed a hand on the back of your leg and stroked up and down before settling under your skirt, behind your knee. You stumbled slightly as he pulled you close but he reached out with his other hand and stabilized you by your hip. The hand behind your knee stayed, tracing shapes with his thumb. 

“When did you last see him?” 

“In the morning.” 

“This morning? Have you called his office? It could be a busy day. It’s too early to report him as missing.” He said, pulling you closer until you had no space. 

“Well, I miss him,” you said as you climbed into his lap, making his lips curve up and his dimples make an appearance in a full smile rare to the four walls around him. 

He held you in place with a hand on your ass and you leaned close, taking his collar between your fingers. The silver pistols crossed at the barrels shone under his desklight. One of the few shiny things about his job. “There’s no point calling him anyway. His job keeps him on the move. He’s never in one place. Doesn’t come home for dinner. Doesn’t take me out dancing. Skirts his marital duties.”

“He performed his duties within the last twenty four hours, I’m sure,” he said, recalling how he fingered you at the breakfast table. 

“It wasn’t sufficient.” 

“That wasn’t your complaint. You said he skirts his marital duties. Now you admit that he performed them and you simply found it insufficient. Can you expect me to believe a word you say?” 

“Major…Carrillo,” you said, running a finger over the golden yellow embroidery on his name on his chest. Used it as an excuse to grope his chest, broad and strong beneath you. “Will you accept if your men had hair a millimeter longer than permissible? If they clocked in a minute late? I expect perfection.”

“Perfect woman like you…you have every reason to expect perfection.”

“Help me then.”

“Your grievances don’t fall under our jurisdiction. There is no law against a man insufficiently performing his martial duties. Barely any way to prove it. As you very well know.” 

“So I took this trip to the base for nothing?”

“You know the law, Señora…”

“Do you need the law to tell you you should help a woman in need?”

“A woman in need,” he said, slipping a hand between your legs and separating them. “How could I say no?” His hand crept up, free to explore your bare skin as you’d ditched your pantyhose in the hopes that he was in his office. 

“What does your husband look like?” 

“Quite handsome.” 

He pinches your thigh, making you yelp. “Am I supposed to grab every handsome man on the street for you? Be serious.” 

“Reasonably tall. About 5 foot 9. Muscular. Hairy arms,” you said, giving his arm a squeeze before caressing it. It’d been so long since he held you in one of those arms as he fucked into you. The situation was so dire you got jealous seeing him put some thug on chokehold when you drove by a scene. 

“Can’t even wrap both my hands around his biceps,” you said, giving it a squeeze. You traveled from his arm up his neck, stopping right under his hairline, mapping with your thumb the mole you knew was there. “He has a mole right there. I always kissed it. When he was home at least. Short cropped hair, but when he’s too busy to get it cut, it curls here in the front.” 

As it did now. You curled his hair between your fingers and he tugged it away, entwined them with his. Eyes that’d seen things too horrific to bring home gazed at you with such tenderness, you couldn’t believe any of the stories he’d told you about himself. How many men took their last breaths under his gaze? How many yet would know when his eyes found them that they'd already kissed their families goodbye for the final time. 

Horacio brought your fingers to his lips. Each kiss he pressed to your fingers unlaced the heartstrings taut from the ache of missing him. 

Lowering yourself, you kissed him behind his ear. When you returned, the tip of your nose tracing your journey back to facing him, he was stiff as the steel nerved man everyone knew him to be. Only you could detect a softness about it, in the relaxation of his facial muscles, in the warmth in his eyes that betrayed his heart. 

Thick fingers carded through your hair, his thumb resting on your cheek as he held your face. When his lips met yours, it wasn’t the quick kiss goodbye before the two of you rushed off to work accompanied by a love you so routine there was never time to feel it seep into your bones. None of the searing hot passion of kisses that splayed your soul apart as he consumed you whole. It was light, every soft press of his lips a whispered apology for the late nights and broken promises. A reminder both to himself and to you that this would always be there to fall back on when either of you stumbled in the darkness of the world. Chaste as the very first but alluding to more as he traveled down your neck. 

The hand on your thigh moved, pushing your skirt up to your waist and moving your leg to rest on the table. You kicked your shoe off and it clattered onto the floor, announcing the beginning of a satisfying night. When he returned, it was to your cunt, wet and yearning with the memory of his last touch. 

He twitches under you, the evidence of his desire soothing a body afflicted by neglect. 

You palmed him in your hand, thick and ready for you, eliciting a shuddered breath. “Horacio… I need you.” 

“Patience, my love…” 

He unbuttoned your jacket and you complied as he took it off. Hoisting you up the table, he draped your jacket carefully on the back of his chair, something stirring deep in your belly at the sight of your clothing in his space. Soft, bright, and out of place in the dark, impersonal space. He took your ankle in hand, circling his thumb around it before taking your other shoe off. Bending to pick its partner, he set it aside on the floor together.

A disappointed sigh left you as he walked away, across the bullpen and to a corner with a sink. How considerate of your health… He washed his hands under the water, thorough as a priest purifying his hands before undertaking anything holy. He wouldn’t touch you with hands that maimed and tortured, held guns that created widows and orphans who would have to go on without the embrace of the evil men he took off the streets. A futile act, you once reminded him. No cleaning would separate his sins from yours and if he was condemned to hell, so was the body that loved him despite it. For it. In the early days, he wouldn’t even visit you in uniform. But as he climbed the ranks and work came home, he relented, allowing home to come to work. 

Your purse which you’d discarded by his desk went up on the visitor’s chair. He unzipped it, retrieved a condom and placed it on his desk, the right angle of the packet aligning with the corner of his. 

“I’m back on the pill,” you informed him, laughing at his boyish grin. He took the, between this fingers and tossed it expertly at the bin, his aim perfect. You rolled your eyes. Show off. But you wouldn’t call him out on it. It was a lot like the little things he did when courting you, a newly minted Sub-Lieutenant, all smiles and wearing his righteous heart on his uniform sleeve for you.

Then came his fatigues, holding his rank, identity, blood clinging on to the olive green fibers perfect to conceal acts that would never wash off. Many days, you smelled it on him. That night it was absent, only the earthiness of tobacco and boozy allure of alcohol blending with the intoxicating smell of Horacio Carrillo. He hadn’t seen violence that day, but it was no indication that it was a good day. Stuck behind a desk listening to wiretaps of betrayals from his own men was often worse.

It should’ve annoyed you— watching him hang his shirt and fold his undershirt, place his watch and service weapon in his drawer and move the cassette player and papers from his desk to someone else’s. All when you were waiting for him with legs wide open. But you found yourself pressing your thighs together, the sight of your man setting things straight with military precision arousing anticipation in you for how he would take you apart. 

Stood in front of you, naked from the waist up, he unbuttoned your shirt. He picked you up off his desk with an arm around your back. You cooperated and he slid your skirt and panties off, leaving you spread on his desk, waiting as he gave your clothing the same treatment. While he folded them, you hurled your bra at him, mixing a pinch of chaos in his order. With a smile, he folded it too. 

“I wasn’t enough this morning?” He asked, gripping your jaw, firm yet caring. Your lips parted as he sought entrance, cunt gushing anew as your imagination replaced his thick probing fingers with the metal of his double barreled pistol. 

You shook your head in denial, gagging as the tips of his fingers reached the back of your throat. Core burning with need for him, you would’ve taken him anywhere. On your knees on the cold, hard floor for him to sink down to the hilt in your throat. Bent over the desk for him to ram himself into you from behind, making you scream his name loud enough for his officers to hear. 

“What do you need then?” He asked, releasing you. A string of your saliva snapped as he pulled back, draping itself from your lips to chin. Wet fingers parted your folds, entering with none of the hurry of that morning. Your hand squeezed around his shoulder, feeling the muscles move under you as he teased your pussy. 

Words insufficient and too cowardly to face him, you grabbed his cock through his pants. His fingers wouldn’t suffice, as adept as they were at curling into the most sensitive parts of you. You needed his cock to stretch you open and fill you up, claim all of you without the threat of the clock or a phone call. 

“It’s been a busy week.” Lips soft and trembling, he kissed you, every breath an apology, afraid to leave your lips lest you reject his argument. Reject him. 

He brought a hand to your lower back and hauled you to the edge of the table. A sob escaped you as he entered, his sharp nose and dark hair blurring as tears pooled in your eyes. A dull burn as stretched around him served as penance for going as long as you did without him. No penalties whatsoever for the man who left you wanting, it accepted him readily, walls wrapping around him, clinging on to every inch he gave. 

He rubbed your clit in gentle circles of his thumb, kisses traveling down your neck with the end of each sentence. “You should know. I want to be home more. Make love to you everyday. I think of you every night. So blissfully asleep without me by the time I come home.” 

“You should’ve woken me up,” you said, your hand combing through his hair, nails teasing his scalp how he liked it when he found himself pressed between your thighs. 

“You always look so peaceful without me.” 

You shook your head no, voice catching in your throat at the hurtful words. How could you be peaceful when every morning began with him lacing his boots up for battle and every night ended in a perfectly made bed void of any evidence he’d lied there before. 

“I miss you,” you managed to say through the anguish tightening around your throat. 

He echoed the words, slow and deliberate, heavy with the guilt of a man who valued actions over words. You knew with the desperation in his eyes that it wasn’t enough for him. But you would take it, if words were all you could have for then. The war had barely begun. There would be more such weeks, worse weeks of missing him, wondering if he would return. The knowledge didn’t make the hurt any duller or the reunion less sweet.

Locking your legs behind him, you pulled him flush against you, gasping as you forced the rest of his length in. It was the closest you’d been in ages and you weren’t going to let go of him.

“I’m not peaceful without you, mi amor.” 

Eyes softened, his lips parted and he nodded as he took your words in. Keeping your worries trapped in your heart was for his benefit, so he’d have one less thing to worry about. Not so he’d think his absence was desirable in any way. 

You held him in your hands and pressed your forehead to his. Eyes closed, he rocked into you slowly, savoring every second he had you wrapped around him. It was almost painful, craving the fullness of having him buried in you while resenting the growing emptiness of his withdrawal, your walls clenching tight to keep him all in yet desperate for the maddening friction of his cock in your wet heat.

You wanted to see his eyes, but it felt wrong to disturb his peace. Horacio wasn’t too vocal, as quiet in bed as he was anywhere else. But he always matched what you gave. This time you matched him in his silence.

The skin by his eyes crinkled, his breath heavy as he savored you, he was a vision of how much he loved you. You combed your fingers through his hair and he let out a shaky breath, warming your skin. 

“I miss you. Everyday. Every night,” you said, pressing sweet kisses to his face. “I miss this. Miss having dinner together. Waking up in your arms.” 

His next kiss was more desperate and he drank in your moans. Sustained himself with your confessions to power himself through another tough week. Every swipe of his tongue is a plea for forgiveness, understanding. He wouldn’t vow to do better, you knew that. It wasn’t like him to make promises he couldn’t keep. Not to you, not to the mothers who sent their boys to serve under his command. A broken promise was a sin worse than neglect in his books. 

Hands grabbed you all over, reclaiming every inch of skin that languished in their cold bed, desperate for the burn of his skin against it. Ass, thighs, breasts, hips— like he needed everything but was undecided on where he’d rather be. He finally landed on your hip and your breast, his grip so strong that it shouldn’t be considered gentle. In the unhurried thrusts, in brown eyes gazing with an intensity that could burn, you found a longing that made the objective sin of taking you at his desk something more pure. 

He angled your hip downward, his fingers digging deep and painfully into your hip and making his cock hit a magical place in you that you couldn’t make sense if the guttural cry that left you was from pain or pleasure. You fell back on his desk, your head hanging off the edge, grateful that he cleared it off for this.

His tip grazed against the soft spot over and over, reliably extracting a broken cry with each thrust. Your eyes bored into the flag behind his desk, the bright colors blending together in the tears he drew from his passion. Legs shaking around his wide frame, arms sprawled out and head dangling off his desk, you surrender yourself completely to his care. 

Yielding yourself comes with a reward, the colors of the flag turning black as you became nothing but the waves of pleasure he drove into you. You lay limp, the only sign of life your fluttering walls and shaking thighs and the choked whimpers he forced out of you each time he bottomed out.

Walls fluttering around his cock, he pulls you up and secured you to the solid mass of his chest. So close to him is when you heard him, his grunts and praises, sweet words whispered into your ears. He pressed his lips to the side of your neck, his breath, hot and labored, licking your skin. A few more pumps of his cock and he filled you up, his warm release leaking out of you as he stayed buried in you. 

“Shit… Might not need my husband after all. The local police are sooo helpful.” 

He laughs a real laugh, free and unburdened, before pressing a kiss to your temple. “Mmm… We may never find him,” he said, letting you slink down his desk. Spinning you around, he grabbed a handful of your ass before giving it a playful smack that made you giggle. As he collected your neatly folded clothes from the shelf nearby, an idea brightened your face in a grin. When he turned back around, you were in nothing but your shoes, the height letting you bend over his desk tantalizingly. You knew he’d seen you when you heard a soft gasp. 

“I’m not in my twenties anymore, darling,” he said, fingers plunging deep, pushing his cum back inside you. 

“Am I still not sufficient?” He asked, pumping his fingers inside you and you shook your head. 

“Greedy woman,” he said sweetly, bringing his fingers up between your lips to feed you his cum. You moaned around his fingers, shuddering at the desecration of his workplace. The guards who were stationed outside, who patrolled the base in the dark of the night…they might have heard you. The boys who came by to get orders and signatures for whom you made coffee because their leader was kind and you were nothing if not a supportive wife…they might’ve heard their boss fuck dirty little noises out of you they never knew a man could draw from a woman. 

“It’s been long, Horacio… You can’t just have me on your desk and think you’ve repaid your debts.” 

“Oh, there’s debt now?” He asked, slipping his fingers back in and curling them in the right spot. You gripped the edge of his desk, too sensitive from your session to handle his penetrating fingers. You leaned back against him, his solid chest holding you steady as he repaid his debts. 

“Mmm…”

He brought you closer and closer, his expert fingers coaxing little pleasures out of you. You tensed, sensing a weak conclusion to the short build up and right as you did, he condemned you to emptiness, withdrawing his fingers and wiping them on your ass before delivering a slap. 

“Horacio!” You complained, turning around to see a smug smile. 

“What? I didn’t want to be insufficient.” 

He grabbed your panties and helped you put them on before following up with your bra. “Is your ego bruised, Major?” 

He scoffed as he dressed you the rest of the way, the act more intimate than his disrobing you. “You called me insufficient.” 

“I need more than 5 minutes of your fingers at the breakfast table.” 

You watched him get dressed, enjoying the sight you often didn’t get to see in the early morning hurry preparing for your workday. “I mean, if you’re complaining I can go find someone else.” 

“Like hell you will,” he said, pressing a kiss to your lips when he returned to your side. You straightened out his badge and pins though there was no one to see their neatness. They weren’t even askew but you liked touching the pieces of metal he wore proudly, liked that this uniformed man was yours even in uniform, toiling away at hours stolen from what was meant to be your time together. 

“Home?” You asked, hoping the tilt of your head and the sweetness of your voice would be enough to get you a night nuzzled into his warmth. 

“¿Sí?” Yes?

Not a word. At least for a few seconds, you just kept your eyes closed and considered saying something. 

“... I shouldn’t have called.”

“What?”

“I shouldn’t-This is so ridiculous…” The embarrassed giggle that left your mouth made your cheeks burn. You heard him squirm in his chair for a moment, probably leaning back – probably trying to sneak a noise from you at your hesitance. “You’re probably working.”

“I am.”

“Sorry.”

“You know there’s no need for that,” Carrillo said in a low, tired voice. “I was thinking about you.”

You bit your lip at that – kept your face hidden in your blanket, the bluntness of his words not preventing you from reacting to it. 

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. I can see that you’ve been distracted recently… People in my position do that, they pay attention.” 

It should be true – or you should believe it was true. Since everything, from his ‘confession’ to the guys and whatever the fuck turned what you two just started, Carrillo wasn’t the worst at keeping things cool for the sake of a good job. He was enamored by it, entranced with the idea of being the guy he always worked to be. 

So of course he would pay attention, whatever the reason he had for such a thing. 

“Does it have anything to do with you calling me now?” 

You nodded before murmuring a single ‘yes’. Carrillo hummed. 

“I’m in need of some help with those reports anyway. Would you mind coming over?” Always preventing the drama and the unwillingness of a scene, given phones could be confiscated or supervised in some way, you took his distrust as a plus point and smiled.

“I could.” 

And you did. Flip flops and all, you left the apartment building and drove calmly through the streets, managing to get there as quietly as you could, as if any commotion would put that good feeling of anticipation away. You passed the guards, then the elevator and the other corridors, just to see the light coming from his desk. By the window of his door, it was possible to notice his hunched figure and sharp profile while eyeing the scattered papers all over. 

When you opened the said door, when he raised his eyes to look at you, no one said a word or did anything. He was tired, you could see, but attentive by your presence. That made you sigh in relief. And you knew it was wrong when you made sure that the few people in the building saw you coming there – when they probably noticed where you were entering, closing and locking that door in silence. 

The curtains were closed when you got there. You just assumed he was taking a few steps ahead to keep it private. 

You should be conscious about it being wrong, but when you kept your palm touching the door, back turned to him as you made sure it was protectively closed, you’d hear him coming with careful steps, just so he could stay nearby your body, as if reading your mind and understanding your needs. 

Carrillo had that smell on him: cigarettes, whiskey, cologne. Being a man of action, he spent the day out, but from that closeness, you noticed that he got home and showered. He had that same perfume when you met at the bar, when you fucked for the first time. Horacio was warm too. Always warm. Like he just lived to keep that hot blood running through his veins because there wasn’t another purpose in his life than to keep chasing, to keep moving, to keep it running and ensuring that his emotions would be running high.

His chest brushing your back made you shiver. His fingers gently touching each of your arms made you sigh. 

You felt ashamed then, for not being able to be more presentable to him, pristine just like he was for you. 

“... You remember when we used to sneak around here?” You let it slip out of your mouth before you could stop it, but he didn’t let your self consciousness get the better of you. 

“Mm-hm,” He answered. 

“I…” You cleared your throat, then squeezed your eyes shut. “I want to feel like that again. Even for a second, I just… I just miss being someone brave.” 

With a firm grip, Carrillo turned your body so you could face him. He held you close, though, staring right into your eyes and giving all the intensity he had just so he could prove some kind of point. In other circumstances, you would hate that – hate him. 

“I can’t help you with that,” He offered. “Whatever we do from now on, it’ll be different. I’m not the same man I was at that time and my intentions will not be that simple.”   

He sensed you melting – had a grip on you when those words fell from his mouth. That was why you wanted to be brave again. Being brave, you would be able to tell him the same, to open your mind and heart to this feeling, to fully jump into it as if the world would be less complicated. But being already there, savoring the moment, swallowing the sensation of having this, having Carrillo… You could make peace with that. 

“... What changed?”

There was a hesitation in his mannerisms, one you knew would just make him go away. And you needed to hear that, you needed a proof, something he wasn’t willing to give you because of so many implications. Carrillo was Carrillo, would always be – who were you to wait for an admission you knew would just do more harm than good? 

You felt tense, felt pathetic. When you lowered your eyes and he insisted, pecking your lips once, then twice, you came to the realization that you weren’t a kid anymore, that you couldn't run to your mother’s bed after a nightmare, that crying or asking wouldn’t make your father come back. You did what you did and you played what you played; it was frustrating to not having at least one fucking thing you wanted, or to have more of the taste of doing something pleasurable. 

With Carrillo’s calloused hands holding your arms, then his eyes watching your reaction, you got it. He was also opening a wound, going to a place he wasn't comfortable with and giving you what he could be giving to someone else – probably Juliana. 

And if you still had that guilty feeling inside of you, that heavy sensation of taking someone else’s place or being that person, it all went away when he kissed you again, just like he did that night after your near death experience. He kissed you like he meant it. Each touch, movement, sigh… as if he belonged there. You could cry if you had that in you, because even if Carrillo couldn’t give that sensation back, he was willing to give you better ones. 

You kissed him back just as eagerly. Hands on the back of his neck, you gave in naturally, wanting to be as close as you could. He used the opportunity to deep kiss, pushing you enough to have free access to your backside – touching between your shoulder blades, then traveling lower to the hem of your shirt and making place there, both palms softly holding on your skin inside the fabric. You whimpered at the sensation, as if the whole thing got you overwhelmed. 

The low light made his eyes look even darker, you noticed, but it wasn’t this the main reason for his hunger observation on your body. Carrillo always looked so pretty like that, on the verge of losing control; even more stunning when that appreciation was directly to you. It was distracting, the idea of watching him with swollen lips, showing an honest reaction to something. And yeah, distracting, enough for you to not even feel his hand coming up to grip your left breast over your bra. 

“What is it?” He murmured his question, frowning a little and not taking his eyes from where he touched you. 

“Mm?”

“You’re hesitating.” 

Then Horacio looked at your face, seeing your momentary embarrassment and sighing in frustration. 

“I’m not, just… I don’t want to disappoint you with whatever I feel or do or say. It’s always a bad decision to put big expectations on me,” You said. 

“I just need you to be with me when we are together. We're already in a rush with all this shit going on, we don't need any more rushed encounters just for the sake of it.” 

You raised your eyebrows with a small smile at his assertion. 

“Since when have you been doing slow?”

Three, some of your asshole colleagues decided to spill coffee all over your files meaning you were forced to work late to re-type them up for a briefing the following morning. Even though you had got it done, you knew you had likely missed some details, the ink far too smudge to even begin to try and understand what had previously been written. 

However, that day had only been the start of it. The start of the downwards spiral you found yourself tumbling into. 

Sure, the others had noticed there was a change about you. Yet, it wasn’t as if they knew what was causing it or how to fix it. 

Javi especially knew what you were like - you were like him after all. Spilling your guts wasn’t your natural reaction to handling things. You kept your emotions bottled up inside of you, cramming more and more in, forcing that lid to remain firmly screwed in place even as the pressure began to build. 

And if the lid did threaten to pop off? Well then, you lost yourself in him. In the love that existed between you, and the intimate knowledge you shared of one another. After all, Javi had said it himself, “who needed therapy when you had sex and good whiskey?” 

A night of passionate fucking was all it took to take the edge off… to let a little pressure escape, delaying your inevitable eruption… But that was just it; you would erupt. It was inevitable. There was no way on earth you could sustain the relentless routine of long hours spent at work, with coffee doing its best to act as a replacement for your bed. 

Hell, you could feel the toll it was taking on you both mentally and physically, from the way your hands shook slightly, to the way your chest felt too tight to breathe sometimes. Then there was the fact your clothes were starting to get baggy, whereas they’d once clung to your frame like they’d been tailored for you. 

“Here,” Javi had smiled one afternoon. You could smell the sandwich in his hand before he even set it down on the desk in front of you, accompanied by a packet of chips and a can of your favourite soda. “Grabbed that for you on our way back. Figured you’d forget lunch - again.” 

A weak smile tugged at the corner of your lips at the kind gesture. “Thanks, Javi.” 

“Anytime, hermosa.” He said it so calmly and easily that you felt your heart skip a beat as you realised how lucky you were to have someone who cared about you so deeply. It was why you made sure to tear a corner off of the sandwich and pop it in your mouth. 

The relieved nod Javi granted you told you it was the reaction he’d been waiting for, as he took a step back to let you finish eating and working in peace. 

You knew he’d be back to check you’d finished it in a matter of minutes. So, you were quick to chuck the rest of his lunch in the waste paper bin behind you, burying it further under a pile of discarded documents you’d already finished looking through. 

It was fine. You’d eat later. Maybe you’d even try and cook dinner for you and Javi… an apology for being so distant lately… 

Somehow, despite lacking the gift of prophecy, you knew deep down that that was unlikely to happen. Just as you knew it was unlikely Javi would even make it home tonight. For the last week straight, both he and Steve had been called out on some last minute, late night errands by Carillo - not that you minded all that much. 

Not having Javi’s arms to fall into meant you felt less guilty about working late yourself. About only making it back to your empty apartment long enough for a quick shower and a power nap each night. 

It was ironic to think of Carillo, though, given that your brief conversations with the Colonel in question had been the closest you’d come to finally releasing some of the hurt and the pain inside of you. 

You didn't know what it was about him, but somehow, the Colonel had an ability to draw you out. To make you open up and share things you would never otherwise dream of. 

Maybe it was his candour? You’d noticed that about him since you'd started working together; he had a blunt demeanour, saying what he thought regardless of the affect it could have on another person. 

Now, it wasn't done with malice, per say, but rather as the result of a man who had the weight of an entire army on his shoulders and an impossible task. He just didn't have the time to bullshit anyone - especially when you both lived in a city full of people all too willing to lie and cheat. 

It also came from a weird sense of respect, of seeing people as equals, deserving of the truth just as he expected the same in return. No matter how painful it may be.

Needless to say, it was one of the reasons you'd grown to respect the man - and dare you even say, like. 

Still, when he decided to loiter on the other side of your desk, late one night, you felt yourself stiffen, as if suddenly all too aware of every little gesture your body made and what it gave away.

The Colonel missed nothing.  

“You look like shit.”

Wow. Don’t beat around the bush. 

“Jeez, your wife married a charmer, Colonel,” you scoffed, dragging on your cigarette, sparing him a fleeting glance. “Speaking of, doesn’t she want you back home? Or do you prefer my company that much that you’d rather stand at my desk at 11 o’clock at night?” 

“She’s out of the city, visiting her parents,” he rebuffed, clearly not taking the bait as he dropped into the empty seat opposite. In fact, he decided to reach across and steal one of the cigarettes from the packet on your desk, lighting it for himself in a gesture that made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere for now.  

“Good for her.”

“Yes, it is. I think time away from this place is good for everyone.” 

You could feel the accusation lacing his words, as well as the heat from his continuous stare. “Then why didn’t you go with her? Not enough vacation days?” 

He scoffed, a bitter smirk twisting his lips upwards. “You’re funny; I can see why Peña likes you so much. Like calls to like, as they say, even if you try and hide it behind that smile of yours.” 

You bit back a laugh. “What can I say? I lucked out in that department and got my Mom’s smile. My sister was not so fortunate. She always had my dad’s features - meaning she looked more often than not like she was sucking on a lemon.” 

“This is the sister that died from an overdose, correct?”

“Yes.” 

“The anniversary is this week, is it not?” 

He asked it so calmly and casually that anyone would have thought he’d asked you what the weather was like outside, or what your favourite record to listen to was. 

At least his concern now made sense. It was the kind of detail he would remember, and you were honestly more surprised by the fact it had taken until now for him to bring it up. 

He’d probably been itching to ask you about it all day, aware of the date even if your two partners were not. Well, they might have been, but neither had said anything which was your preference if you were being honest. Hence your rapidly cooling demeanour towards your colleague. 

“I’m fine, if that’s what you're trying to fish about for, Colonel,” you sighed, staring back down at your desk again in an attempt to dismiss him. “You don't have to worry about me. I’m good. Thanks. So can I get back to work in peace? Or did you have some other question for me?” 

Carillo sighed, simply choosing to smoke his cigarette, letting the tension linger along with the steadily growing haze around you both. 

He didn't need to say the words aloud; his actions did all the talking for him as he reached over and helped himself to a file off of you desk. 

He didn't buy this ‘calm, cool, and collected’ act you were pedalling. Not for a second - something his stare alone gave away, even if he refused to say it. Instead, he chose to read, and work, and smoke along side you so that you would not be alone. 

He had his eyes on you... watching and waiting for the moment that your carefully constructed walls came crashing down... the only question was would they crush you in the process?

It was about a month later that the inevitable happened; that you finally hit rock bottom. 

It had just been a causal remark that did it, of all things. A casual remark that sent you tipping over the edge. 

You had just returned from lunch and hadn’t even sat back down at your desk yet when you noticed that someone was missing.  

“Yo, Steve?” you queried, quickly glancing up at the empty seat next to you. “Where did Javi go?” 

Now, you couldn't be a hundred percent certain what Steve said next but you knew he’d said something about Carillo, a lead, and a raid ... 

“What?”

“I said, Javier went with him,” Steve repeated, staring at you with growing concern. You realised he must have already repeated himself. “What? Why? What is it?” 

“Javi went too? He… he’s there? On that raid?” 

“Yes, y/n, that’s what I just said - hey! Where you going?” 

You didn’t even realise your feet had started moving, not until you heard Steve’s confusion as he yelled after you. 

But you didn't stop.

You couldn’t stop, not until you were outside - not until you were far enough from that place that you could actually stop and fucking breathe. 

When did it become so hard to breathe? 

When had the room become so small? 

Why did your mind suddenly feel the need to go to the darkest place possible? 

It was just a raid... one of hundreds Javi had gone on since arriving here in the country, just as you had also gone on your fair share. So why was your head suddenly picturing him... lying there... injured, or worse... dead. 

The number of bodies you’d stared at, lying in the streets in a macabre tableau that had become all too familiar by now - all part of this fucking job. A job you signed up for, hoping to vanquish the bastards who had taken so much from you and those you loved… yet, every day, it seemed you had failed as more and more innocent people suffered… and to think, that Javi - the man you loved more than anything - who you had neglected terribly to the point you couldn't actually remember the last time you’d woken up next to each other - could be amongst them… 

It brought you to your knees. 

“Whoah, y/n. Easy. What’s wrong?” 

Steve’s voice sounded distant, as if you have been submerged beneath water. Yet, you could tell he was beside you, dropping down onto the kerb before hauling you close. The warmth of his touch was enough to tether you to him, to reality, as everything around you seemed to spin in dizzying circles.

You could feel it as his hands rose, cupping your cheeks, turning your head and trying to get you to look at him. 

When you finally did, he could see immediately that your eyes were glassy, like you weren’t really seeing or hearing him. 

He knew that look. 

“Y/N,” Steve murmured in a soothing voice. “Y/N, look at me. Look at me.” 

He paused, waiting until your eyes trained themselves on his face, some of the cloudiness starting to dissipate. 

“Good, that’s good. Now breathe. Just breathe,” he instructed, taking a few deep breaths himself to show you how.

It took you a moment or two, but you eventually became fully aware of your surroundings and what your friend was telling you to do. 

Following his lead, you took a few shuddering breaths, then a few more. You kept breathing until you could feel the racing of your heart slow and the fear that had felt crippling just moments before begin to ease.

You were exhausted.

Wiping at your face, you tried to banish the tears that had left a salty trail burning down your cheek.

Steve doesn't say anything for a long minute, instead choosing to pull you into his side and light up a cigarette, which he was quick to offer you.

“T... thank you.”

You sat like that for a while... just watching people and cars passing by, smoking like two people on a perfectly ordinary break.

No one bothered to stop and ask you two questions. Hell, no one even shot a glance in your direction, everyone too busy with their own business to stop and give a shit about yours.

So you sat. 

And smoked. 

And said nothing... not until the cigarette was nothing more than a stub.

Steve was quick to take it from you, before it could burn your fingers. Tossing it aside, it had clearly served its purpose. 

He stood and offered you a hand. 

His face left no room for debate as he stated calmly, “Come on, I’m taking you home. Now.” 

“Come on. A couple more steps, Y/N,” Steve urged, guiding you up the stairs to your apartment. 

His hand was warm, firm even, as it pressed against your lower back. 

He’d been like this since the moment you’d left the embassy, steering you and hovering over you like he expected you to simply topple over at the slightest breeze. 

It was touching, yet irritating all at once - a sentiment you were too busy trying to put one foot in front of the other to even attempt to unpack. You were also just too goddamn tired. 

“Here we are.” Steve’s words startled you. “Home sweet home.” 

You didn’t remember giving him the keys, but you must have as he opened the door a second later and herded you inside. 

There was emotion in your throat - threatening to spill from you. You were holding on by a thread and he knew it. Just as Carillo knew it, and possibly Connie too - 

Wait, Connie?

You blinked as you realised that at some point the woman had also entered your home, most likely having been summoned by Steve on the drive home. 

You wanted to feel guilty at the thought of her being dragged into your mess, but you were honestly too tired to feel anything other than grateful as she hurried over to you, offering you a cup of what you assumed was tea, as well as two pills. 

To help take the edge off, she explained, urging you to take them. Doctor’s orders. 

It was impossible to miss the way that they were both staring at each other - sharing anxious glances as you swallowed the tablets and dutifully sipped the tea. 

They were worried about you. Hell, you were worried about you, and Javi, and Steve, and everyone else you loved and cared about - that was what had got you in this mess in the first place. 

Damn it.

You heard them say as much as you marched yourself to your bedroom, claiming you were going to try and get some rest whilst you waited for news. 

If they bought it, you couldn’t tell, but neither protested as you left them. 

They simply let you go, allowing you the space and privacy to crawl into your bedroom, bury yourself in the unmade sheets, and lie down for a while. The medication had clearly started to work as you felt heavy... tired... 

Lying there, you could hear their voices... faint murmurs drifting down the hall. 

You caught only snippets as they tried and failed to keep their voices down, just as your parents had once done when you were just a kid. Still, despite their efforts, you caught enough to know that there was still no word from Javi, or about the raid he went on. 

“-called Javi- no reply.”

“Carillo - try again -”

“-worried about her - stressed.” 

Eventually, the words began to fade away, replaced instead by your body's sudden need to sleep. It was pointless to fight the drugs now in your system, or the comfort of being wrapped in the bed sheets that still smelled of Javi... not even you were strong enough to fight it as you felt yourself drifting off into sweet oblivion.

"Sweetheart?"

You must have still been dreaming - that was the thought that crossed your mind as you swore you heard Javi's voice.

"Javi?" you moaned, fighting against the grogginess that greeted you as you tried to open your eyes.

Despite the fact it was clearly now dark out, you could easily make out the face in front of you, illuminated from behind by the bedside lamp. The sight was almost angelic - as if some divine being had deigned to answer your prayers and return the love of your life back in to your arms.

“It's ok, I'm here, sweetheart,” Javi purred again, brushing your hair back behind your ear and pulling you close. “I’m right here, ok? In one piece - promise. The raid went off without a hitch. Even snagged ourselves a new asset for you to take a crack at.”

Your eyes shimmered with tears as you quickly burrowed into his chest. You didn't really hear what he was saying, too busy focusing on the fact that he was here to say it at all - here - alive - in your arms. 

The reality hit you as you began to let it pour out of you: how relieved you were, how much you loved him. You also grumbled something about fucking telling you when he next decided to run off on a raid without so much as 'goodbye' - else you’d shoot him yourself. 

“I’m sorry, carino. I am.”

And you believed him. 

"I love you, Javi. So much."

"I love you too," he purred, "and I'm so sorry, I knew you were struggling, but when Steve told me-"

He didn't get to finish whatever the hell he'd been about to say. You didn't let him.

Instead, your lips surged hungrily towards his and as only Javi could, he kissed you back, soft and slow... as if desperate to reassure you through actions alone.

You felt him chuckle into your mouth as you grew impatient, grinding your hips against him in a silent plea for him to fill you. To join you. To bury himself, and the day you'd both had, in a moment of bliss.  

It was a special kind of neediness, reserved for just him, and one that was only sated once he had fully joined with you, as one being. Safe. Whole.

Yes, in an ideal world he would have waited until after talking to you to lose himself in such a way. After all, Steve and Connie had filled him in on the troubling turn of events that his absence today had triggered - and he'd be lying if he said the idea didn't scare him shitless, that you had broken down so completely...

He could only thank God that Steve had been there for you - especially when he couldn't be himself.

But he was here now... and you had time to start trying to make sense of this mess. Together. Carillo had assured him of that, informing him in no uncertain terms that you both had the next few days off from work. He didn't want to see either one of you back in the office until you'd begun to sort through the mountain of shit you were buried under.

So, yes. If you wanted to lose yourself for tonight, to use him to forget the world outside for a perfect moment, then he was only too happy to oblige.

He’d wait until the morning to have a proper conversation. 

He’d go down and whip you up some breakfast before trying to get you to open up to him about everything that had happened today… about the worries and concerns you’d been keeping locked away inside of you.