For @narcosfandomdiscord Book of Balancing In Between: Fanwork whose setting is in a liminal space (i chose the carniceria after-hours)
Warnings: 18+, language, light angst, emotional hurt/comfort, reader is the oldest Reyes sister
Word Count: 2k
A/N: MAAAAAAAAN it's been a while since i've written for Bishop and i simply just love giving him complicated relationships with Reyes Women.
You knew better than to sit with your back to the door no matter where you were or what time it was. But, after how the last few weeks had gone you were too tired to think about it. You were too tired to think about it, it was two in the morning, and out of all the places in the world to sit with your back to the door you figured that Felipe’s shop was one of the safest. So there you were, camped out at one of the small tables inside the shop with your back to the door.
It'd been a long time since you made a point to notice the sound of motorcycle engines. It was like having the fan on at home or the window down in the car as you drove, noise that you heard but never really listened to. The sound of the bike engine went in one ear and right out the other, but the shifting lights and shadows of the singular headlight coming through the front windows of the shop are what caught your attention. Then you heard the rest of it.
Taking a deep breath, you wiped at the tears in your eyes, the ones smeared across your cheekbones. Raking your fingers back along the sides of your head, you tried to take breaths deep enough to get your heartrate and your breathing back on track.
The sound of the engine went away, the light streaming through the window went away too and sent all of the shadows running with it. You sat perfectly still, and within seconds, right on cue, the bells above the door chimed as someone pushed it open.
The pacing of his strides gave it away before he even opened his mouth to speak. “Shouldn’t turn your back on the bad guys, querida,” he said, resting his hand on your shoulder.
Something about the feeling of the callouses on his palm against the exposed skin of your shoulder was more comforting than usual. Reaching up, you threaded your fingers with his. “Only bad guys who come here tend to be pretty good to me, so I think I’ll be alright.”
His hand fell away from your shoulder as he walked to sit across from you, and you begrudgingly let his hand slip out of yours. Leaning back in the chair, you watched as Bishop sat down across from you. Once he sat, he immediately leaned forward onto the table, hands resting in the center of it close enough for you to hold if you wanted to.
There was something so familiar about the way he looked in the patchy light coming through the windows from the streetlamps outside. It reminded you of when you’d first met, first really gotten to know each other. A lot had changed since then, and it reminded you of all that too.
“What’re you doing here, Obispo?” you asked, mirroring his position but not taking his hands in yours again just yet.
“You weren’t home,” he offered up simply.
You chuckled. “And why were you—”
“Because you didn’t stop by the clubhouse.” He pulled his phone from his kutte and tossed it onto the table. “And you didn’t answer your phone.”
Tears were gathering in your eyes again but you still smiled at him. “Something going on that I should know about, then?” you asked, already knowing the answer.
Bishop looked at you, studied the expression on your face. He could see the puffiness of your eyes, the way that the tears beginning to creep over the edge were not the first ones that you’d shed for the night. He saw the tiredness in your eyes, even though only the smallest traces of light were hitting your face.
“Why here?” he asked, completely avoiding your question.
“What?”
He made a tiny gesture, a flick of his hand motioning to the expanse of the shop. “Why do you end up here at three in the morning when shit goes sideways?”
You chuckled. “It’s only two in the morning, first of all.”
“You know—”
You pointed to his kutte. “Can I?”
There was a pause, and the look on Bishop’s face let you know that he was contemplating holding out on you until he got some answers from you, but he’d never been good at turning you away. Reaching back into his kutte, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes and lighter. You watched as he went through the motions that were so second-nature to him now, placing it between his lips and sparking the lighter, waiting to make sure it’d catch. He pulled one drag off of it before holding it out to you. You let your fingers touch for a second longer than necessary before taking it.
The inhale that you took off the cigarette in your hand was the steadiest one that you’d taken for most of the night. You tried to savor it, the steadiness and the burn you felt. Closing your eyes, you let your breath sneak back out one calculated centimeter at a time.
Finally opening your eyes again, you found Bishop still staring at you, that same unique mix of anger and concern in his eyes that never truly seemed to go away. “The worst thing happened here,” you said, quieter than you intended.
Bishop’s frown deepened in a way you didn’t know was physically possible. Nodding, he kept his voice just as quiet as yours as he said, “I know.”
You brought the cigarette back to your lips for a moment to buy you some time. “So now, when other bad things happen, sometimes I’ll come here. Get some perspective…or some shit like that.”
The tacked-on ending got weary but genuine chuckles out of both of you. “Right. Some shit like that.” Bishop took a moment to light up a cigarette of his own. “Still don’t like it.”
You hummed in amusement. “You don’t have to.”
“I do if you’re gonna keep comin’ here.”
“Only if you’re gonna keep comin’ after me.”
It was a sweet moment, one of small smiles and tendrils of smoke making it even harder to get a clear picture. But you each knew how the other looked even in pitch black darkness. There was a warmth about it, separate from the scorch down the back of your throat. You almost wanted to reach out with your free hand to take his.
But then the moment passed. Pressing the knuckle of your thumb across your brow, you asked, “So, did you come hunt me down tonight to tell me something that I already know?”
His expression faltered. “I didn’t think—”
“You didn’t think I would’ve known by now that my brother got shot?” Ash fell from your cigarette onto the table, a mess you’d be sure to clean before Felipe found his way back to the shop again. “You didn’t think that between the hospital, and his girlfriend, and my other brother that’s part of your fucking club,” your palm slammed down on the tabletop, causing it to rattle, “You didn’t think that with all of that, I wouldn’t find out?”
“Querida, I—”
“Ah-ah,” you shook your head. “You didn’t come here to break the news to me, Obispo. When you called me a few hours ago? That was to try and break the news. And you were still too late on that, by the way. But the rest of it? Showing up to my house? Here? You only go that far when you know you’re up shit creek with no fucking paddle in sight.”
Neither of you said anything then. The longer you looked at Bishop, the less you felt that you knew what he was thinking. If tradition held, he was probably trying to come up with excuses for a few things: why EZ got shot, why he wasn’t the one to tell you, and why there wasn’t blood running down the streets of Santo Padre yet. You didn’t need the laundry list for it all, but you’d played games like this with him enough now to at least be curious about the answers.
The same thing happened when you found out Ezekiel had killed a cop and was going to prison, and when Angel was joining the club, then again when Angel was looking down the pipe at eighteen months in Chino, then again when you heard that not only was Ezekiel getting out of prison, but he was getting out of prison and funneling himself right into the club alongside his brother. The same song and dance again and again over the years, and to think that neither of you would’ve had to learn the steps if Bishop hadn’t found you here, alone in the shop in the middle of the night, scrubbing at the floor because you were convinced that the last of your mother’s blood still hadn’t been washed away after the police department left.
Clearing his throat, he started again. “I didn’t think that you should be alone.” He paused, waiting for you to start right up again. When you didn’t, he continued, but tentatively. “I’m sorry that you head to hear it from…” he trailed off, realizing that you hadn’t said through which avenue you found out.
“Gaby,” you filled in the blank, shaking your head as you remembered the sheer terror in her voice.
“I’m sorry about that.” He sounded genuine as he was saying it. Before the scoff in the base of your throat could make its way out, he said, “I am. But would hearing it from me have felt any better? Would you have ended up,” he gestured to the carnicería with both hands this time, “anywhere else?”
You chuckled, a bitter sound. “You almost had a decent apology going for a second there.”
He took a deep breath, and you could see it on his face that he was actively fighting the urge to say the first thing that came to his mind. “I am sorry. And I am fucking here. And if you ask me to do something for you right now, I’ll do it.” He waited for you to look him in the eyes again. “What do you want right now?”
Pulling every last bit you could from your cigarette, you snubbed it out. Smoke cascaded from between your lips as you sighed. Leaning forward, you dropped your head into your hands as you tried to wrap your head around Bishop’s question, about what your answer to it was.
“Where’s Ezekiel?” you asked.
“Out of town. Gaby’s with him.”
You nodded, hands dropping back to the tabletop. “Right.”
He covered one of your hands with his. “What do you want right now?”
You focused on the warmth seeping from his palm into the top of your hand. You zeroed in on the way he dragged the pad of his thumb across your knuckles. Looking at his face, you felt yourself getting pulled underneath the waves of desperation in his eyes. He always looked so sad, and so earnest about it. And the undertow of it all always seemed to get you.
Turning your hand, you interlocked it with his. “I don’t know.”
“Thought this place was supposed to give you some perspective?” he asked, a twinge of a smile on his face.
It got you to laugh if nothing else. Giving his hand a gentle squeeze, you said, “Maybe I just gotta sit here a little longer.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
He squeezed your hand before standing up. You tilted your head to the side as you watched him walk deeper into the shop. “What’re you doing?”
He crumbled the last of his cigarette into the small trash can by the bookshelf. Picking it up, he brought it over to the table where the two of you were sitting. “Cleaning this up before you forget,” he said as he swiped the butt of your cigarette and the ashes from it into the trash can. Once he brought it back to its rightful spot, he sat down across from you again. “And I’ll sit with you.” He watched as the tears started welling in your eyes again. “And I’ll bring you home before Felipe comes back.”
You managed a smile, and despite all the mess and the hurt, you felt a little bit of relief at his offer. Nodding, you gave a soft but sincere, “Thank you.”
He took your hand in his. “Whatever you need.”
(divider by @silkholland 💞)
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Saalud a mi gente! We in the Narcos Fandom Forever discord server are excited to bring another 30-day challenge: a multifandom event that we’re nevertheless calling Narcovember. Despite its name, this is open to ALL FANDOMS, NOT JUST NARCOS. Creators are encouraged to submit fanworks (fic, art, gifs, vids, op-eds) for any fandom your heart desires!
This event's format is a bit unconventional. Instead of a prompt for each day of the month, there's a Prompt Roulette Wheel and a Prompt Index (☟ below) featuring numbered items with three prompts each. Every day you'll spin the wheel. The number that comes up on the spin corresponds to a number on the index where you can then pick one of the three prompts.
So for example, say on day one, I spin the wheel and get number 8. I’d go to 8 on the index (titled These Damn Restraints). Of those three prompts, I like Yikes best so that's my day one prompt. Next day, I spin and get 14. I find 14 on the index (Decisions, Decisions, Decisions) and pick one of those for day two's prompt. And so on. Note: If, on Day 2, instead of 14 I got 8 again, I’d spin the wheel again to get a new number. If, for whatever reason, you don’t want to spin twice, you can choose another prompt from that "Book of" that you haven't used (e.g. Day 1, I chose Yikes. So Day 2, I’d go for, "Now you know why I never say anything.") Ideally, we think it’s more fun to not repeat index items, but ultimately it’s dealer’s choice. Aka we're not about to get real fascist policing, aint nobody got time for that.
Here's -> the roulette wheel. Or you can make your own! (Just make sure it has 30 slices.)
Use the hashtag #narcovember or tag us to submit your entries so we can reblog them! A note on the masterlist - bc of the Tumblr-imposed link limit, for now we'll only link the fic. BUT at the end of the month, there will be a comprehensive list with all the contributors’ blogs so ppl can find your other work easily.
Happy spinning, everybody!
❖ Prompt Index ❖
1 — Book of Genesis
Fanwork inspired by someone else’s fanwork (be sure to tag the creator of the OG work!)
“The fun begins here.”
Ghosts
2 — Book of Fuck-ups
Righteous indignation glo-up aka fanwork that corrects a plot misstep or writing blunder that bugs the shit outta you
“It’s not the what-ifs that fuck you up, so much as the what-might-have-beens.”
Bite
>>>>>>>>>> more prompts below the cut <<<<<<<<<<<<
3 - Book of Stuff That Goes in the Junk Drawer
Fanwork inspired by a song and include why the song sparked the idea (was it the lyrics, genre? something you thought a character would like? etc)
“It’s never too late to make history.”
Juice
4 — Book of the Uno-Card-Reverse
Fanwork based on your fav reverse/inverse trope**
“Evil isn’t always forever.”
Mirrors
5 — Book of Negative Spaces
Fanwork using a line from a diff show/movie as a prompt (e.g. line from Mad Men, “I don’t think of you at all” in a Narcos fic, line from Band of Brothers, “The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead,” in a Hannibal fic, etc etc)
“We gain more from our mistakes than our success, you know that?”
Pitch
6 — Book of (un)Consciousness
Fanwork inspired by a dream you’ve had (include 1-2 sentence summary of the dream at the beginning of the post)
“Just dream with me.”
Technicolor
7 — Book of Time-travel
Fanwork inspired by ancient mythology (Greek, Norse, aztec, celtic, etc. Bible counts as mythology, fuck it)
“It’s only a matter of time.”
Constellation
8 — Book of These Damn Restraints
Fanwork that ends with 2(+) characters trapped in a phone booth with no way out
“Now you know why I never say anything.”
Yikes
9 — Book of Fateful Conversations
Fanwork where the plot takes place entirely in the back of a cab OR where one character is the cab driver and the other is the passenger
“You'd be surprised what you can live with.”
Cursed
10 — Book of Nepo-baby Levels of Incompetence
Fanwork where character is in a profession they have no business being in with no prior training, so they fake knowing what they’re doing – like imposter syndrome except they’re just actually a fraud (e.g. Rust Cohle is a grief counselor, Richie Jerimovich is a hedge fund manager, Roman Roy is a beat cop)
“And who hasn’t believed a flattering lie?”
Evergreen
11 — Book of Pit Stops
Fanwork that starts with a character hitchhiking and getting picked up by another character(s)
“Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop.”
Rush
12 — Book of Balancing In Between
Fanwork whose setting is a liminal space (e.g. empty swimming pool, bar or arcade after hours, airport terminal, church confessional, empty elevator, Twin Peaks black lodge, John Wick continental bar, etc)
“Good things come in threes.”
Wire
13 — Book of in Urgent Need of Assistance
Fanwork where a character wakes up on an empty submarine, 300ft underwater, thinking they’re the only person aboard until they run into another character(s)
“One day I’ll wake up and it won’t hurt so much.”
Desperate
14 - Book of Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
Crossover for 2(+) fandoms you have used before but 2(+) characters you’ve never used or vice versa
“All we have are our choices.”
Crossroads
15 — Book of How tf Did We Get Here
Fanwork that starts off with 2(+) characters waiting in line at the DMV and ends in a completely different, totally unpredictable, why-and-how-tf-did-we-get-here place
“There’s a moon a mile from here and nobody home.”
Ambition
16 — Book of Locally Sourced
Fanwork that mimics a bottle episode, so the entirety of it takes place in a relatively mundane setting (e.g. the stockroom of a store, interrogation room, a hotel lobby, waiting room of a doctor’s office, etc etc)
“Make yourself comfortable while you can."
Notebook
17 — Book of Inception
Fanwork that provides an origin story for a character that doesn’t have one in canon
“It (he/she/they) made me who I am.”
Improvement
18 — Book of Mysteries
Fanwork where 2(+) characters have to escape a panic room. Depending on fandom, this can be like the innocent party version that you take your friends to for someone’s bday, or can be an actual doomsday shelter
“I thought they were with you!?"
Endurance
19 — Book of Near Misses
Fanwork with 2(+) characters from the same movie/show/book who’ve never met
“Looks like we missed our window.”
Rattled
20 — Book of Sleight of Hand
Fanwork of partners (romantic, profesh, or both) running into each other unexpectedly while both are doing something criminal/something they know they aren’t supposed to do (e.g. burying a body, carrying out a heist, meeting someone they shouldn’t)
“You can't ask the truth from someone who trades in lies.”
Brace
21— Book of Nerves of Steel
Fanwork where 2(+) characters do a B&E, but get stuck when the owner unexpectedly comes home, and they whisper-yell argue over how to get out
“You won't believe the day I just had.”
Cortisol
22 — Book of Identity Theft
Fanwork where 2(+) characters meet accidentally bc one has accidentally dialed the wrong number (e.g. Syd [The Bear] tries to call Carm to yell at him for Something Dumb He Did but ends up calling Cousin Greg [Succession] instead)
“I'm not the one.”
Brand
23 — Book of Just Chaos™️™️™️
Cracked crossover/ship with 2(+) characters from very diff genres (e.g. Dwight Schrute [The Office] & Tommy Shelby [Peaky Blinders], Frenchie [The Boys] x Penelope [Bridgerton], etc)
“You’re my idiot, forever.”
Untouchable
24 — Book of Revelation
Fanwork where 2(+) characters are stranded in the desert and in a sick twist, must decide which one of them to leave behind in order for the other(s) to be saved
“I like that I don't have to worry about you.”
Rapture
25 — Book of Reciprocity
Fanwork where 2(+) characters play poker (or any card game that has betting) but the chips are magic and the winner gets extra years of life instead of money (e.g. say, in poker, green chips = $500, blue chips = $1k, red chips = $2k, black chips = $5k. In this scenario, green chips = 6mos, blue chips = 1yr, red chips = 2yrs, black chips = 5yrs, etc)
“Fine, I'll do it myself.”
Quid-Pro-Quo
26 — Book of Abduction
Fanwork where 2(+) characters get kidnapped by a kooky cult, are thrown into the trunk of a car together and have to figure out how to escape
“Somebody has to be paying attention.”
Spiral
27 — Book of Caretaking
Fanwork where a character accidentally shoots/stabs/otherwise maims another character and has to perform first responder, triage levels of first aid to save them (dealer’s choice as to whether it's successful bc yolo)
“Don't make me take care of you.”
Ritual
28 — Book of Weaponized Passive Aggression
Fanwork where 2(+) characters attend a dinner party and witness that moment when a couple starts passive-aggressively arguing but not outright fighting in front of the whole table and it’s even more painfully awkward than if they just straight up fought OR the 2(+) characters are the ones arguing making everyone else uncomfortable asf
“I wish you the best and I hope you find it far from me.”
Attitude
29 — Book of the (un)Dead
Fanwork where a character dies and another character shepherds them to the afterlife like their own personal grim reaper
“We bury our dead alive.”
Siesta
30 — Book of There's No Place Like ...
Back from the dead: a character came back wrong or right, but either way, no one else knows how to handle it
“Even if you make it, you’ll never really go home.”
Homesick
**There will be a reverse trope list in another post for examples.
Raaaaaaa another Narcovember fic! Originally just going to be a normal fic, but then I wormed the prompt in and we're back! Fic number 15 @narcosfandomdiscord
Prompt #20, Book Of Sleight Of Hand: Brace
Word Count: 1.1K
Relationships: Charles "The Jackal" Calthrop/Rasmus
Warnings: None
~ Read the fic under the cut ~
It’s always the quiet moments that draw them in. Peter sits about, examining blueprints, mulls over documents on his computer or phone, while Rasmus takes to watching him, or making some food.
At least, that’s when they’re not entangled in work, or each other. When the quiet moments come, things are gentle, and, as Peter disarmingly feels, very romantic.
Rasmus hums to himself as he works, and every so often, they look up at each other, drinking in the moment, blushing and smiling like school kids. Of course, the feeling is not embarrassment, it’s the last thing akin to that.
The Jackal supposes… Well, he doesn’t know what to suppose anymore, switching between architecture and transactions, Dark Core and a surprisingly plain email account. He’s still playing his game, still working through his job. He has not stopped being an assassin just because of Rasmus–
And yet, and yet, he feels the pull, he feels both powerful and helpless, able to do as much or as little as he pleases. The taste of his lips, his body, all of him, is a powerful drug.
Worse than that is his smile. Just a flicker of it, a small laugh, a stupid little thought that only Rasmus is amused by… Oh, how intoxicating.
It’s the little things that make him want to drop those obligations and run. But his American hirer is counting on him, awaiting his shot against UDC.
In a few short days, he’ll be off somewhere else. Whether it’s back to Spain, or coasting in London, awaiting a new target…
His stomach lurches at the former. Wife and child, worrying about him, thinking about him constantly.
Meanwhile, he’s here, in Estonia of all places, basking in the sunlight that is Rasmus.
“I was thinking about this last night,” Peter says, and Rasmus looks up from the soup he’s started to boil, “Your name, Rasmus… Where does it come from? What sort of meaning does it have? Because Peter, god, it feels terribly ordinary.”
And it’s not like Charles is much better. Far too regal. He notes.
“Might be ordinary, but it’s you,” The blond chuckles, “And I love that. I love you. As for me?” He ponders it for a while, trying to trace it all back. “Rasmus… Well, it means ‘beloved’ if I remember correctly… And I’m Estonian, so it’d have to be Nordic.”
Every thought in Peter’s head proceeds to stop. The article he’s reading doesn’t even matter anymore. He goes as far as to shut his laptop, placing his hands over his knees. He then watches them as they shake.
It all makes sense. Of course, it does. Every hit that The Jackal is after, there’s always a plan, a method to his madness. But this? Angel, beloved, Rasmus, staring at him as his face starts to pale.
And even worse, he just… Says that. Three little words: Like icing sugar on a cake, like an afterthought.
He loves me.
***
The Jackal attempts to summon up a sentence, a smile, a nod, anything.
Instead, he’s paralysed. Stuck there, having to brace himself for an impact that’s already made contact.
He’s managed to quell his shaking, biting the inside of his cheek to compensate. The words run through his head at a million miles an hour: I love that. I love you. Rasmus? It means ‘beloved’...
He runs a hand through his hair, mulling it all over now. There’s a part of him that’s ready for this conversation, ready to ask Rasmus to come over and soothe him, but by the time he’s snapped back to reality, he’s already there.
The blond sighs loudly, eyes downcast, but he reaches out for Peter’s hand, squeezing it. “That was probably poor judgement on my part.” He murmurs, “I’m not even drunk… Just– A lapse in the moment. But… It doesn’t mean it’s not true. I do love you, Peter. But you don’t have to say it back, because that’s scary, and that’s making a commitment, and, hell, you’ll be going in a few days–”
“I know.” The Jackal practically whispers, and Rasmus is just relieved to hear his voice again. “I know. On my end, I guess… It was very sudden. And in my brain, it was like everything shattered and then pieced itself back together again.”
He opts to rest his head on the other’s shoulder, keeping his hand in his as he closes his eyes. He takes a few deep breaths, the silence less overwhelming now, and he recalibrates.
He’s The Jackal. A fucking world-class assassin.
And whilst he feels the most human he’s ever been, it helps to remind himself of his purpose.
He supposes he can keep in contact with Rasmus, just in case. Just in case things don’t work out, just in case he’s ever visiting Estonia when he’s free from the clutches of it all, just in case he needs a break from Nuria.
He’s already taking a long break from her, and yet, her insistence on being in his life, well… It’s natural, but feels overbearing.
Rasmus is instead soft, comforting, electric, wild. A new journey in a place he’s never been, a new spark that he hasn’t felt for anyone, because his first and only love was declared by the fates to be a waitress.
But, that doesn’t make a wife, well, the be all and end all. If he can be an assassin without worry, then what’s the harm of two identities?
He opens his eyes now, nesting his head there, in safety.
“It makes sense, though, Rasmus. Everything makes sense with you. Your name, your smile, your infectious levels of positivity, beard, eyes– I feel like I’ve fallen under a spell with you. If Rasmus means ‘beloved’, then I won’t just… Leave that unfulfilled.”
Peter adjusts now, sitting upright and facing the other man, running his free hand gently across his cheek. He sighs, thinks it over, just briefly, seeing Rasmus’ eyes so wide, so adoring…
There’s no turning back on him now. Because, then, it’s not just betraying him, but also betraying a deep and joyous part of himself that’s been waiting to burst open again, into the light.
“Yeah?” The blond exhales with a smile.
“Yeah. I love you, Rasmus. I really do. And I’m sorry that I’ll be leaving in a few, but better to tell you now than never.”
The blond leans forward and pecks his lips, carding his fingers through his brown hair, “God, I’m so glad you did. I didn’t wanna pressure you, but it feels right. It feels good. And even if you have to go, long distance works just fine, doesn’t it?”
Peter chuckles and settles for a proper kiss, a heartfelt one, deeper, and the laugh is still rumbling through him.
“Oh, beloved,” He says when they part for air, “Long distance, short distance, any distance. If it’s for you, it’s just fine.”
And Rasmus is stuck there, speechless, blushing stunningly, and filled with nothing but adoration.
The coffee shop is deserted as per usual. Horacio is sure he's one of only a handful of people who keep the business running. It's why he makes sure to always leave his change in the tip jar and doesn't berate himself for ordering an extra pastry every now and then. He gets his coffee and is almost startled when he looks over at the corner and spots Kiara.
The two haven't had much interaction since his injury that he had treated at her hospital. He's seen her in passing a few times in his visits to a fellow soldier who was injured more severely in that explosion, but that had easily been over a month ago.
She glances up and the smile she gives him is ethereal. She lights up in a way he's not sure he deserves. Still, it gives his heart a flutter and he can't deny that he aches for the sensation.
"Fancy seeing you here," she says.
"I could say the same. This was starting to become my café, after all," he sits across from her, sipping his cortado.
"Oh, wow, mighty possessive of you." She clutches her hand to her chest in mock insult. "This place has the best iced coffees so I'm unapologetic at encroaching upon your territory."
His shoulders shake with silent laughter.
"How's your ribs?"
He makes a show of stretching to show that he's fully healed. "Good as new. The breathing exercises that you recommended did the trick."
Kiara flounces her hair sassily. "Well, what'd you expect from the world's best nurse to be?"
"Nothing but the excellent care you provided. If you're this good as a student, you're going to be an outstanding nurse."
Her smile is infectious and Horacio does nothing to stop himself from matching it with one of his own.
Flattered, she gives a meek "thank you."
The older lady who owns the coffee shop walks over to the front door and turns the "open" sign to "closed." When she looks over at the duo, she sends them a wink and tells them they can stay as long as they want before she retires to the upstairs unit that she's fashioned as her home.
Kiara takes another sip of her drink before asking, "How are things going with your job? No more explosions or stepping on to land mines, I hope?"
Horacio smugly shrugs as if to say, "hazard of the job."
"I'm afraid you met me at a time that might've mischaracterized my average day. Rare action moments aside, the job of a soldier is actually not all that interesting."
"So bore me." Kiara sits back in her seat. "Seriously, tell me about what you do."
He indulges her and the conversation flows naturally. He tells her his family background, how he hails from three generations of soldiers and how his enlistment stemmed from a sense of duty and not passion. "I'm content," he says. He tells her how his career started right after he finished high school and how his main responsibilities were that of a foot soldier. It's been several years since and now he has people under him that he commands but his job is mostly the same.
"I follow orders. I'm given tasks and I carry them out. Sometimes, I delegate, but my main challenge entails of following through on the action plans that have been set before me."
"Is that enough for you, though?"
Horacio pauses.
"Not that there's anything wrong with being the one to deliver action." She placates her statement gently, expressing herself with her hands. "I mean, you're the one serving the deliverables. You're literally at the front lines tangibly doing something to solve problems. Protecting people. Defusing danger. But can you see yourself doing that for the rest of your life? Could you ever see yourself being the person to create the plan? Being the person who acts on intel and makes the decisions?"
He ponders for a minute. Truly considers the challenge she's set before him because it's never occurred to him that this could fall in the realm of being a good soldier.
"I like having my boots on the ground-" he starts.
"Who says you have to give up one to have the other?"
He nods silently, thinking. He's never been questioned before on his aspirations. Challenged on what his definition of duty was and what it could be.
She shrugs her shoulders. "But, hey, what do I know? I'm just yapping. I've been scolded quite enough about sounding 'too idealistic.'"
Horacio shakes his head. "No. It's good to have varying perspectives. A person can't be well-rounded if they're unable to withstand their viewpoints being challenged."
A silence covers them without the unease that normally blankets two people who don't know each other very well.
"What about you?" Horacio asks.
"What about me?"
"Why nurse? Why not doctor? Why not be the person who makes the treatment plans and does the procedures?"
Kiara chuckles.
"What?"
"You're gonna think I'm a hypocrite," she admits.
He doesn't say anything at first. He waits for her insight.
"I mean, I'm kind of like you. I like having my boots on the ground. When a patient comes in, whether it's pneumonia or a stab wound, we're usually the first one that sees the patient. Triages them and assesses the damage. And even after the doctor has done their job, we're still the ones checking on the patients. Monitoring their progress. Catching the things that the doctors don't see because they're not the ones who has their eyes on them constantly."
"I can understand that. And it doesn’t make you a hypocrite, by the way. Truth be told, I think you just sold me on the route of nursing if I were medically inclined."
"Even when that includes giving sponge baths to bedridden old men who pretend like they're still virile enough to flirt with you?"
At that, Horacio grimaces. Kiara's laughter bounces off the walls of the empty café.
"This is nice," she sighs happily, sitting back in her seat.
Horacio raises his eyebrows.
"Making a friend. Getting to know someone," she supplies.
"I agree." He nods, relaxing his chair also.
After a moment, with only the slightest of hesitations, he later says, "I have a dilemma."
When the words first leave his mouth, he wonders if he should've spoken them. However, he can't deny the dose of happiness that hits him at how quickly she tunes in.
"Hit me," she says, her full attention on him.
"Earlier this week, I witnessed a fellow soldier doing something he shouldn't have. Technically, we work in different units so our paths don't cross that often. But we were conducting field work, and as a junior lieutenant, I'm expected to write detailed reports on the happenings during field work and include any and all of my observations. I feel at odds with whether I should let things be given that there were no major repercussions or whether I should say something, given the soldier's actions were irresponsible at best and potentially illegal at worst."
In an extra moment of vulnerability, Horacio adds softly, "I don't like feeling at odds."
Kiara gives him a soft, sympathetic smile and reaches her hand over to cover his.
"I don't like feeling at odds either," she says. "And you're right, you definitely do have a dilemma."
She takes a pause to gather her thoughts and his eyes peer into hers intensely, curious at the inner workings of her mind.
"I can't tell you what I'd do," she starts. "But I can tell you all the things that'd float through my mind as I try to find the answers."
He nods, almost imperceptibly.
"Well, I'd think about the gravity of the action. As a nurse, was this something that could've killed a patient? Is this something likely to happen again if I don't speak up? Is this a person that has integrity and trustworthiness? Someone that might've fucked up in the moment but the type of person to make things right and take responsibility for their actions? And then.. Well, I'd think about my own integrity, too. Am I hurting someone by saying something? Am I hurting someone if I don't say something? At the end of the day, the truth always finds the light of the day. How would the people around me feel if they found out I had been hiding something when I had the chance to use my voice? Shit… I know we haven't known each other for long, but.. I mean, your opinion of me matters to me. I'd think about how you'd feel if I did something that put my character into question."
Horacio's mind crawls out of its daze. Not only had his thoughts been centered on the pearls of her perspective, but it also had momentarily short-circuited as she told him just how much she valued his own character.
It's like there's a thick sludge that keeps his words at the back of his throat, and he has to fight through it to be able to speak again.
"And then, I would know," she finishes. "I'd think about you and then I'd know what the right decision is."
He clears his throat. Drinks the last sips of his now room temperature coffee and clears his throat again.
"I can't imagine you've ever been known to make a bad decision. Your mind works with a pristine sense of clarity."
Kiara shrugs. "I could make a joke and say that you would think that since I just said I value your opinion, but I'm gonna take the compliment like a champ because I say we're both pretty wise people."
Horacio shoots back. "I could make a toast right now to "wise people" but I'm afraid Senorita Rosales would not be too happy if I summoned her back down here to refill our cups."
Their laughs intermingle and cover the café's four walls with dulcet tones of a growing bond.
Pairing: Andrea Nuñez & David Barrón (+ some implied Dinarrón)
Prompt: "All we have are our choices" and Crossroads - for @narcosfandomdiscord Narcovember - #14 Book of Decisions Decisions Decisions
Word count: ≈ 4.2K
Note: shoutout to the homie @rerorero-my-cherry whose discord tonteria, talking about skipping off to Mexico to escape fascism somehow sparked the idea for this fic and I can't even explain how or why😂
TWs: Canon-consistent violence, descriptions of violent acts, smoking
There was no possible universe in which he was brought here by conscience. So naturally, she was dying to know the real reason they were meeting now under this bridge...
Andrea gets a mysterious call from a potential new informant one day with information on notoriously corrupt politician and money launderer, Carlos Hank Gonzalez. She agrees to a late-night meeting on the US side of the border, so she can get all the tea, and boy is that tea scalding. (This ended up entirely too long but here you go world.)
⁂
Andrea checks her watch. Almost midnight. The road is quiet, cars passing by every fifteen minutes. The thinnest nail clipping of the moon is out and her informant is over a half an hour late. The lone street light flickering on the overpass above feels like a doomsday clock urging her to cut her losses and go home.
Really, loitering at this fork in the road under a highway bridge isn’t the most sensible idea, not when people were being gunned down in the streets in broad daylight and the cartels were using the bodies of their victims to send telegrams to each other. At least she had enough sense to insist the meeting take place on the US side of the border where her death would at least be investigated should things end badly. Just a few miles from Tecate, she’d found an unmonitored stretch of border the gringos hadn’t fenced off yet a few months ago and had been using it to touch base with informants.
It’s for this reason Salgado is always telling her she’s a clever girl with no sense. And also that if she’s senseless enough not to listen to him, as La Voz’s editor and her boss, he makes no bones about using it to his advantage. And he had - a series of groundbreaking stories about the hipódromo, Carlos Hank Gonzalez, and the AFO were enough to prove her senselessness enough of an asset, no matter how much of a danger it posed. Until the day you don’t come back, he’d note ominously.
But if not her, then who? The job was easier to do if you knew you were already dead. She did. She also didn’t think about it too much. Plus, this lead was too big to pass up. The call with the tip-off had come directly to her desk, an anonymous insider allegedly high enough in the AFO to know all about Gonzalez’s dealings not just with the Arellano family but with Amado Carrillo Fuentes in Juarez; news she wasn’t yet privy to but that made enough sense to catch her attention. And that’s how she ends up on these back-country, dirt roads in the middle of the night.
Of course, she knows it could be a trap too - she’s senseless, not stupid. She knows full well this little rendezvous could be no more than someone making good on a bounty for the head of any journalist from La Voz. She couldn’t even bring herself to revel in the I told you so, when the street edict came down from the AFO after Salgado enacted the policy of removing writers’ names from the bylines, even if she did tell him it was a short-term solution to a long term problem. It was even shorter than they bargained for because within a week of implementing the policy, the AFO had branded anyone who came in and out of that office fair game. Normally she wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to retroactively gloat, but this time it didn’t seem fair. Salgado did his best to protect them and it earned the whole staff a scarlet letter. But who’s fault was that really? So she left well enough alone, like she never had an opinion on the matter to begin with.
So yeah, the prospect of this being a trap had occurred to her. More than once. And the longer she sits here, leaning against the hood of her station wagon, checking her watch, the more the possibility keeps rearing its ugly head. Right on cue, the sound of footsteps crunching on gravel has her going for the handgun in her waistband and spinning around to greet the void of what she hoped would be empty space under the bridge.
“Hello? Who’s there?” She does her best to breathe, keep calm, as she anchors the gun in both hands, aiming for the shadows.“Dejate ver. Muestrate si no quieres tomarte una bala en el culo.”
A pair of raised hands are the first things to emerge followed by a modestly dressed man with a clean-cut crop of dark hair, dark eyes, and a sharply drawn mustache that gives him the look of a French nobleman caught in the wrong timeline. Her stomach drops several floors and liquifies into a puddle on the ground as it sinks in, just who he is. She’d give anything not to but there’s no eradicating the sense of recognition.
So this is it then. The end of the line.
She’d pictured it just like this. In fact the scene is so familiar, she feels the distinct impulse to laugh at just how much of a cliche she’s about to be. Because as much as she can acknowledge the possibility - meeting a grisly, undignified end, painted somewhere on the streets of a city she’s fought for and loved, just another macabre telegram - she’s also struck by the kind of shame that accompanies shattered hubris. That, somewhere along the way, she mistakenly bought into a brand of exceptionalism she always hoped to avoid, one might call it downright American. Rationally, she’s known the odds, even accepted them. And yet somehow it was still something that only happened to other people.
What a fool. She’d kick herself if she wasn’t about to die. Or maybe … How fast could this guy move? How quick could his hands be? Maybe she’d turn her gun on herself, get a shot off before he could get his out. Take things on her own terms. Not that she can even see a gun. But she doesn’t need to, to know it’s there, tucked in his waistband right at the base of his back.
After all, he is the AFO’s top sicario, David Barrón Corona. One of the most lethal men in Tijuana. Maybe all of Mexico. She’s only ever seen him at a distance, through a telephoto lens or in grainy photographs developed thereafter, but she could recite a list of his exploits from memory like a kid in some perverse spelling bee: the shootout at Christine’s, the airport massacre, the assassination of Ocampo, the shootout at the Belmont cafe. The man’s resume is a mile long and filled with nothing but death.
In her experience, meeting monsters like this tended to be unsettling for how boring and anticlimactic they always seemed to be. He appears no different. Just a man walking on two legs, with two eyes to see, and those eyes aren’t even crazed or rage-filled or brimming with hate. Whenever she came face to face with someone like him, it tended to incite within her a twinge of irritation that they couldn’t do everyone the courtesy of coming with some kind of warning label.
One of her hands drops and she walks toward him, gun drawn as she cocks the hammer and fires a warning shot into the ground next to him with an ease that surprises even her. He barely flinches. It’s obviously not his first rodeo. Which, yes, is to be expected but the stillness of him is still downright chilling.
His posture is relaxed, hands up in an effort to suspend hostilities. She’s decidedly unmoved in her hostility.
“Y’know,” he attempts to reassure her, “if I wanted to kill you, ya estarías en el piso, desangrándote en la tierra,” but it looms more like a threat.
It catches her off guard though, how much softer, gentler his voice is than she expected. It’s almost enough to disarm her entirely until she remembers all the coroner’s reports and crime scene photos she’d come across in her research. His handiwork. Well-executed executions, meted out with such quiet indifference he could’ve been telling them a bedtime story. This is who she’s dealing with.
“O sí? Pues soy yo ya quien tiene la pistola. So start talking, cabrón antes que te dé por el culo,” she flicks her wrist, pointing the gun barrel at the gravel disturbed by the first shot, “with another one of those.”
He chuckles, “Usually when people, civvies especially, say that,” making sure to keep his hands up, careful not to make any sudden movements, “no les creo. Pero a ti? A ti te creo.”
“Arre. So, if you’re really not here to kill me, fuiste tu con quien hablé por el telefono?”
He gives a stiff nod.
Andrea cocks her head to one side, examining him in the flickering street lamp light. He’d be handsome were it not for the vacuum in his eyes, no warmth, no life, yet here he was, breathing and blinking and talking all the same. There was no possible universe in which he was brought here by conscience. With what she knew, he was likely immune to that particular plague. So naturally, she was dying to know the real reason they were meeting now under this bridge, at this dirt crossroads, near the dirt town of Tecate.
“Do I, uh, have to keep these,” he looks right, then left, at each of his arms, “up the whole time?”
She considers the risk for a moment, ultimately deciding to let him but refuses to drop her gun. His hands come swinging down by his sides apparently unbothered by the fact that he remains caught in her crosshairs. Yeah, clearly not his first rodeo. Not even his second. Or third.
He meets her eyes but says nothing and the silence starts to feel like a third party in the conversation that just won’t shut up. Andrea taps her foot impatiently but he doesn’t seem to get the memo that this is the part where he’s supposed to do the talking.
“Alright.” She exhales crossly, rolling her eyes. “What did you want to talk about? On the phone you said something about Hank and Juarez?”
“That’s right.” Barrón takes a few steps closer, hands now clasped together at his waist, no more troubled by the gun than when he was further away. “He’s been working with Amado since he took over. Cleaning his money.”
“I don’t understand. Wasn’t he already doing that for the Arellanos?”
He nods.
“Wait, but that doesn’t make any sense. Why would he align himself with warring plazas?”
Looking down, Barrón shrugs, “That’s above my pay grade,” kicking a rock across the dirt, dust trailing behind it like a tiny, terrestrial shooting star. “I’m not that high on the food chain.”
She regards him skeptically, brows crinkling.
His tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth, “I can only guess,” seeming to take the cue this time. “He’s probably too high-profile for either plaza to fuck with, so big homie can afford to do business with both. But I doubt Sr. Kingpin Accountant accounted for the heat it’d bring back on him with all the, uh– y’know, scrutiny.”
Grinding her teeth, Andrea snorts. Scrutiny was both a succinct and delightfully vanilla way of saying, ‘global attention thanks to all the bodies of the streets.’ But the implications of Hank laundering money for Juarez were big. He might be playing the plazas off each other, biding his time until a victor emerges, one he’ll be all too happy to chuck right under the bus the minute the political machine decides it needs to offer up its next sacrificial lamb to the gringos. Standing there, trying to put all these new pieces together, Andrea suddenly remembers the pack of cigarettes in the pocket of her flannel and wishes she’d thought to smoke one before they’d started talking. She can’t afford the distraction of lighting one up now, what with having to keep the gun in place.
“Alright, so he’s doing business with both plazas. How the hell do you know this? You said it yourself, you’re not that high up on the food chain.”
He seems to bristle at this, throwing her a sideways glance through half-lidded eyes, face overtaken by a dangerous, far-away look that spooks her even more than the gun at his back. “Why would you need to know that to write your little story.”
Interesting. Something personal, perhaps. She’d get it out of him one way or another. But later.
“Well,” she grips the gun even tighter, knuckles going white and she hopes that by keeping her voice level, he can’t sense how scared she is, “it’s not going in an article per se. But for reasons that I hope would be obvious? I can’t identify you as a source. You’ll have to remain anonymous.”
“You don’t gotta do that on my account.”
Practically gagging on disbelief, she manages to sputter out, “For you? What are you kidding?” before regaining her composure. “I mean– well frankly, you’re a criminal, a killer at that, putting a rival cartel in the headlines, so it’s more an issue of self-interest. Now, I know doing something like this does nothing but put you at risk but my readers won’t know that. So, telling me how exactly you found out about all this would lend you more credibility as a source. O sea significa que podemos confiar más en lo que me has dicho.”
This seems to wound him privately somehow like he’s taken it worse than the bullet she’d fired. But whatever it stirs in him is gone before she gets a chance to interrogate it further.
No less relentless, it is enough for her to ease up on her delivery. “So do you have proof? Something concrete that I can take back to my editor?”
His hand goes in his pocket and he begins digging around for something. Andrea’s whole body stiffens and she takes a step back, arm straightening to retrain the gun on him more decisively. If he notices, he doesn’t show it as he continues fishing around in his pocket until he finally brings out a few folded documents along with a bag of rolling papers. He takes a pre-rolled cigarette out of the bag, popping it between his lips while reaching out to pass her the documents. A few hesitant steps forward, she lowers the gun slowly snatching the papers from his hands quickly before scurrying back again. Her head bobs up and down between watching him and trying to read what’s on the page in front of her.
“What are these,” she flips through a few pages, “business licenses?”
“Among other things.”
She skims the first document and for the first time she feels like this whole thing might not be a trap. Fixing him with the coldest, most I-will-kill-you stare she can manage, “I’m taking a big risk, doing this. No me hagas arrepentirme o te arrepentiras, lo prometo,” she flicks the safety on and puts the gun in her waistband, in front so he knows she still has easy access.
Bowing his head, Barrón agrees, "Noted," cracking a small smile, something akin to respect or maybe admiration and it’s the first time his face displays any emotion. It puts her a little more at ease.
Both hands now free, Andrea combs through the documents, a few loose, the rest stapled together, some with carbon copy backings, and skims for the highlights - important phrases, dates, places, signatures - until she finds a signature at the bottom of a business license for an aeronautic manufacturing company.
“A shell company,” Barrón confirms her suspicions before they’re even fully formed. “Makes specialty parts for small planes. Like Cessnas.”
She flips to the next page, documents showing ownership stakes in the casino at the hipódromo along with two of the Arellanos’ discotheques. Flipping through the rest, it’s more of the same, SEC and CNBV registrations for shell corporations, licenses for legitimate businesses, and share certificates, none of them bearing Carlos Hank’s name but nonetheless tying him to both Tijuana and Juarez by a signature almost as important: Carolina Vera. His lawyer. She was all over these documents.
Speechless, Andrea’s head rises slowly to look at Barrón. When she said proof, she wasn’t expecting it to be this monumental. The cynic in her kicks up, wondering if it isn’t just a more elaborate trap designed to lull her in a state of submission before the jaws snap shut for good.
“It gets better," he says, examining his zip-o lighter before flicking the top back and forth a few times with his thumb.
Which reminds her, in desperate need of a cigarette, Andrea folds the papers up and sticks them in the back pocket of her jeans and then feverishly digs around the pocket of her shirt for her pack. Once retrieved, she flicks her lighter several times, sparks flying at the end of the cigarette in her mouth, until finally a little bloom of flame appears out of the corner of her eye to light it for her. He's a smooth motherfucker, she'll give him that, although strangely, there was nothing smug about it. He brings it back, cradling the flame with his other hand to light his own. After a first drag, Andrea dips her head back, a cyclone of smoke pouring from her lips while she exhales in relief.
“How,” snapping forward again, she takes another drag before asking, voice thick, each word encased in smoke, “does this get any better?”
“I have another source.”
“What? Who?”
“Cristina Palacios Hodoyan.”
“No me digas." The shock has her nearly wheezing the words and her eyes are wide, almost feral with curiosity. “You know where she is?”
He smirks. “Who do you think hid her?”
“What? So– but wait, so you didn’t—y’know. Her sons?”
Suddenly he can’t meet her eyes and she can’t wipe the image of the bridge from her mind - the row of lifeless bodies strung up, punishment para los soplones, whose biggest crime was usually no more than bearing witness to things she never agreed to see in the first place. That Alex and Alfredo were more involved in the extracurricular activities didn’t change the fact that they were just boys.
Perhaps trying to get a read on Andrea or maybe just hoping to fill the silence, Barrón offers, “Everyone assumed- and for good reason. But that time wasn’t me. I was in San Diego, trying t–”
“Save it.” With one look, she skewers him, eyes narrowed, mouth tight, not here for his bullshit. “Vete alaverga con esa ‘that time.’ How many other times was it you, huh?”
Meeting her eyes again like he recognizes his mistake, he responds matter-of-factly, “Plenty,” head held high, no attempt at contrition, false or otherwise.
Still, she’s expecting him to plead his case, so she waits for the explanation, the mental gymnastics, the cognitive dissonance, the rationalization for every single horrific act of violence wrapped up in that plenty. After standing there, watching each other in silence for who knows how long, she realizes there won’t be any of that. And up sprouts the tiniest kernel of respect that she already hates for being there. But she can’t help it. David Barrón could be called a lot of things but a hypocrite wasn’t one of them. She rolls her eyes because christ, who needs heroes when the bar is this high.
She mumbles to herself, “There’s a fire sale and everything must go,” but before he can voice the look of pure confusion on his face, she’s onto the next question, something tugging at the back of her mind since he first stepped out of the shadows of the overpass. “So, what’s in this for you? Why are you telling me all of this?”
Gaze shifting off to the light polluted horizon, he goes quiet. Eventually he just says, “That’s a big question.”
If this was a television interview, the broadcast would’ve been cut for all the dead air between them but she just waits, hoping he might give her just a little more, something to put this whole bizarre night into perspective.
“It’s just—” he shakes his head, “the way I come up—” putting his smoke to his lips and taking a pull so long, she wonders if maybe the question hasn’t short-circuited him a bit.
“Gettin’ into all this,” he waves his hand around at nothing in particular, a party streamer of smoke left behind its path, “wasn’t really a choice for me. Not like how it is here. Now in this new– whatever. Era. It wasn’t supposed to go this way. We were supposed to legitimize. Climb outta this ditch, not dig it deeper.
“This? What do you mean?”
“The game,” he huffs in a moment of frustration, the only emotion he’s let escape so far. “Used to be no civvies, no bystanders, no regular folk. If you was in the game, you get popped on the street, well okay, you knew what you signed up for. But all this other– truth is, man, I’m just tired. Tired of the game, the life, tired of doing all this shit just to be someone’s second choice.”
It was the most he’d spoken the entire time and she didn’t want to interrupt for fear he’d clam up again and go back to nods and one-word answers, but she’d have to start asking some follow-up questions if he didn’t start putting some names to these pronouns.
“I tried to save him, y’know, for her.” He keeps going, face fixed with a thousand yard stare so vacant and icy, he might’ve had the surface of the moon in his eyes. “But I couldn’t. Maybe I didn’t want to. She knows I tried but maybe she knows that too.”
“Hm.” Crossing her arms, one hip cocked out to the side, Andrea examines the end of her cigarette before holding it off to the side and tapping it with her finger. “So the rumors were true. You and Enedina.”
“I thought it’d be different.” Barrón turns back to her, flashing a nihilistic smirk that reveals how broken he is. “But the things she’s asked me to do,” he shakes his head, “I don’t know. The game ain’t in me no more. And this last one, well—”
“This last one?”
“Your editor. He was greenlit.”
It takes a moment to register. When it finally does, Andrea feels like someone’s pressed pause on reality only to start playing it again in slow motion.
“Y— you mean, my—? uh, Salgado? Ramon?
“Pues, sí.”
“You’re certain?”
“Mhm. My next mark.”
“Hijoueputa,” she mutters. “No es posible.”
Stamping his cigarette out in the dirt with the heel of his wingtip, he nods. “Best believe it.”
“Well— so what? Are you still gonna go after him?” Andrea’s getting more panicked by the second, her fingers finding the grip of her gun.
Chuckling, Barrón puts a hand up in gentle protest, “Nah, chill.”
For some inexplicable reason, she listens to him.“Fine. So, what’re you gonna do then?”
”Something I’ve never done in my whole life.”
“What’s that?”
“Miss.”
Andrea appears to take some comfort in this as her shoulders drop, a breath escaping that she didn’t even know she was holding. Remembering her cigarette, she takes a last drag while noting dryly, “You know, you can never go back.”
A blank look from him is the only response she gets.
“If you do that— y’know, miss. The minute I talk to Cristina, the minute I write this, they’ll probably figure out it’s you. You can never go back.”
Barrón just shakes his head, resigned. “No, ma’am.”
“No? What, no? If they find out you’re my source, they’ll kill you.”
“Of course. I know how they’ll do it too.” He says it with a twinge of pride that reminds Andrea exactly who she’s talking to. “It’ll be someone I know. I’ll see it coming. They’ll want me to see it coming. Cause they know I know.”
Despite this reminder of who he is, what he’s done, she can’t quash that kernel of respect that’s been planted. Even if he wanted to atone, he had enough respect not to insult her by trying to. Nor did he feel sorry for himself that he probably didn’t deserve to. It was a display of accountability she rarely saw from someone as morally bankrupt as he’d had to be. Until now anyway. And this makes her feel, in spite of herself, almost sorry for him. “You’re not scared?”
“Sure. Wouldn’t you be?”
“Well, of course,” she shrugs, twisting the filter of her cigarette until the cherry and remaining tobacco fall out before tossing it behind her. “But I w–“
“But you wouldn’t deserve it. And it’s true, I got it coming. Made my own bed as they say. But I can still be scared. Even if I know, at the end of the day, all we have are our choices.”
Andrea smirks, crossing her arms, looking down at the ground to push some dust around with the toe of her boot, unsure what to say next. When she looks back up, he’s already walking away, hands in his pockets, leisurely like he’s got nowhere to be, back to the shadowy spot under the bridge he came from. She wondered if his car was parked there or somewhere else. Or maybe he’s just some visiting ghost of Christmas past and she’ll wake up from this dream.
”Hey,” she calls out.
Just before he reaches the edge of the void, he spins around on his heels, hands still in his pockets, eyebrows raised, and waits.
“For what it’s worth– well, you do have it coming. But … I hope you find your way to some peace somehow.”
The unexpected happens then. He smiles. But this time it travels up his face all the way to his eyes, lighting them up. It might be as rare as a passing comet. So there are signs of life, after all.
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Written for @narcosfandomdiscord Book of Inception: fanwork that provides an origin story for a character that doesn't have one & "He made me who I am" & improvement
Warnings: 18+, language
Word Count: 2.4k
A/N: the way that the last week or so has gone really just zapped all the motivation and creativity out of me, so getting this written really fought me every step of the way lmao. but i will say, that thinking about Jake Seresin in high school was fun. giving him a brother was also fun. going three for three on these prompts was challenging and rewarding and fun. and now i want to revisit these two at some point because idk i have issues lmao
You knew from the second that you’d walked into The Hard Deck that night that he didn’t remember you. Part of you didn’t really blame him, high school being such a distant memory for all of you now. Not just in years, but in all the experiences you’d packed into those years as well. From one standpoint you understood it…sort of.
From another standpoint you couldn’t believe that he could look you in the face and not say a word, not have even the tiniest flicker of recognition. He had looked right at you, and moved right on along to the next person. No matter how much things changed, they always stayed the fucking same.
It wasn’t until everyone was sitting out on the beach after the football game that the two of you even had a real conversation. Up until that point everyone had been running circles around each other, and you had much bigger things to worry about than Jake Seresin’s recollections of you, or lack thereof.
You were mid-conversation with Bob and Natasha when you noticed that neither of them were really looking at you anymore. You searched their faces, trying to figure out what it was that they were looking at.
Natasha leaned back, palms sinking into the sand as she said, “Bagman, six o’clock and incoming.”
You rolled your eyes, still not turning around to look at him. “Man knows how to ruin a good day.”
You didn’t have to look back to know how close he was, the tilts of Bob’s and Natasha’s head spelling out that information for you. His footfalls were nearly silent on the sand. Without realizing it, the closer he got, the deeper you pushed your fingertips into the sand like you were searching for something to grip onto.
Suddenly you were cast in Hangman’s shadow as he stood directly behind you. You shut your eyes for a moment, the longest blink ever as you tried hard to bite your tongue.
“Ladies,” he said, and you didn’t have to be looking at him to know exactly what his face looked like. “Bobby.”
Natasha was squinting against the sun but she still pulled a bit of a face. “It’s a good day, Hangman,” she said with just enough warning in her tone. “Let’s keep it that way.”
He chuckled, and you could see from the movement of his shadow that he was holding his hands out. “Every day at Top Gun is a good day, Phoenix. Thought you would’ve known that already.”
You were hoping that it was just going to be a quick thing, an in-passing comment that he made because he simply couldn’t bring himself to walk by your little trio without saying anything. But of course it wasn’t. Somehow the shift went from Natasha making extremely thinly veiled comments to the effect that Jake should hit the goddamn bricks, to him plopping down on the ground right there with you. He wedged himself right there between you and Bob like he had been there the whole time.
It didn’t take very long after that for Natasha to find a reason to leave. And wherever Natasha went, Bob was only ever a few steps behind. That left it with just you and Jake and the ocean that was slowly beginning to calm in front of you. It was a scene that could’ve been a peaceful one if the man sitting next to you had any interest in that.
Legs bent and pulled up towards you, you draped your arms across your knees. You were staring out at the receding waves as you asked, “To what do I owe the pleasure, Seresin?”
You could feel him staring at you and you made a point to not return the gesture. “Where’d you say you were from?”
You shook your head. “I didn’t. Also don’t think you’ve actually asked me a question directly the entire time we’ve been here.” You cast him a glance. “Too busy giving Rooster a hard time.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly at you like he was studying you, but there was still a smirk on his face. The more time you spent around him, the more you wondered if that was just what his face defaulted to these days. He leaned back on his palms, legs stretched out in front of him.
“Wasn’t until I heard Phoenix call you by your last name earlier that I realized—”
“Wow,” you barked out with a laugh, unable to stop yourself. “You’ve been running drills and sitting in class with me for how long and it took until today for you to recognize me? No sense of déjà vu sitting two rows over from me and picking on other kids in class? Nothin’ jogged your memory even a little?”
He leaned back, brows meeting for a moment. “When did you—”
“The first night we all got here!” you said, gesturing emphatically at nothing.
The smirk instantly returned to his face. “I’m that memorable, huh?”
You rolled your eyes and shook your head. “Fuck off.”
“What? C’mon, you can’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“No?” he asked, chuckling like he knew better than to believe you. A lot of confidence in your character for someone who only remembered who you were within the last two hours.
“No. Being mad would suggest that I’m somehow surprised that you’re still the way that you are. And I’m definitely…not.” You sighed. “You’re still Jake Seresin. Only difference now is—”
“My rank? The number of confirmed kills I have?” he tried to fill in the blanks, cocky as he’d ever been.
You looked at him. “Only difference is now you’re old enough to know better.” You saw the way he rolled his eyes at you and couldn’t help but to say, “I don't get you, Jake.”
The look on his face let you know that it had been a long time since someone referred to him by just his first name, not his last or his callsign. There was something intimate about it in a way. You wouldn't have given it any thought if he hadn't flinched at it.
He recovered as quickly as he could, that air of nonchalance reappearing around him. “I'm no Mystery Man.” He held his hands out in a brief gesture, like an invitation to scan him over. “What you see is what you get.”
It wasn't untrue. Jake Seresin had never been the type of person who lived a double life. Who he was around you was exactly who he was around everyone else. Maybe when it was just him, when there was no one else in the room looking to him or expecting anything from him, he was a different person. Not that it mattered—the world was never going to know. Reaching as far back as you could in your brain for memories of him, he'd always been some version of the man sitting in the sand next to you. He was just looking a little more refined these days.
You had just been hoping, when you'd seen him again, that maybe he would've changed by now. Nothing would be different if he wasn't different, but it would've been nice if it could be. The longer you looked at him, the more you tried to un-blur all of the memories that you hadn't bothered to tap into in a long time.
“How's your brother these days?” you asked, diverting course just slightly.
The question was immediately met with an eye-roll. “Fine.”
You had to let out a quiet laugh at that. “Yeah? That good, huh?”
He shrugged. “You want the play-by-play or something?” He shook his head, looking out at the ocean instead of at you. “He's fine.”
“You two not get along anymore or something? I thought you were both—”
“I see him on holidays. We text on birthdays. He is off doing…whatever he does.”
You hadn't expected the tension. From what you remembered, the two of them had gotten along well enough. His brother was a few years ahead of both of you, in his senior year of high school when the two of you were freshman. But he'd always been nice, nicer than Jake had been anyway. But they ran in a lot of the same circles, played a lot of the same sports, and they seemed to have a relatively good time doing it. Judging by the way that Jake was avoiding looking in your direction, you were now wondering if you were misremembering it all.
“We're grown-ups now, you know,” you offered up finally. “If you don't want to talk about him you can just say that.”
He flipped it right back on you. “We're grown-ups now, I can answer questions about Tommy if you have them.”
You laughed quietly and shook your head. “I can see that. The answers you've given so far have been so thorough and paint such a clear picture.” It got him to laugh even though you could tell that he didn’t want to give you the satisfaction. After a moment you cleared your throat. “You guys just seemed to get along back then, is all.”
Now he was looking at you again. “Yeah, Tommy got along with everyone back then—still does.”
You hummed in amusement. “Guess that trait isn't a genetic one, then.”
He cracked a small grin as he swatted sand at you. “Funny.” There was a pause, and you were waiting for him to pick something else to talk about, or for him to just get up and leave. Instead, he gave himself a moment and then said, “Tommy graduated with a full ride, but even when he was gone somehow I was still…” he trailed off. “Navy was the first place I wasn't a legacy kid. No footsteps to follow. Just me.”
“Hmm,” you nodded, not sure what you really wanted to say in response to that.
He caught your uncertainty. “What?”
“Nothing, I just…you wanna say that your brother, your family, your whoever was why you were like that back then. Fine, I get that, kind of. But then why,” you curled your fingers into the sand, “are you still up to all the same shit?”
“I'm not—”
“You are.” The laugh you let out was dry. “I'm one of the only people here that you can't lie to about that. I knew you back then, and I know you now, and from what I've seen? Not much has changed.”
The pinch of his brows let you know that what you were saying was getting to him, whether he admitted to it or not. He tried to hide it, and was semi-successful at it—it probably would've fooled someone else. “If it ain't broke—”
You didn't let him get to the end of the sentence. “There's always room for improvement.”
You were used to laughing at your own little one-liners, but Jake laughing at them too was new, especially when they were at his expense. Whatever the two of you were doing in that moment, it was the closest to being friends that you'd ever been. It was still a stretch but it was something.
“I don't know, you stack my resumé up against anyone else's here and I'd say I'm about as improved as it gets.”
“I think the one thing that could definitely still do with some improving is your humility,” you rebutted with a laugh. You geared up to hear some comment about how there was no need to be humble if he could back up everything that he was saying. When he didn’t, you said, “And, if you feel like taking suggestions—”
“You got another one for me?” he joked.
You laughed. “Yeah, of course.” You cleared your throat. “You said it yourself that this is the one place where none of that other stuff matters, like it never happened. So maybe, when you get a chance, you should get around to dropping all the bitterness that goes along with the brotherhood rivalry.” You shrugged, offering a small smile. “Cocky doesn't pair well with the sad, ‘He made me who I am,’ shtick.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise as he laughed. “You're meaner than I remember.”
“Yeah, that's because you don't remember me,” you said, the lift at the ends of your lips taking the sting out of your words.
The look of surprise didn’t fade from his face, neither did the amusement. “Damn.”
You still had a smile on your face as you stood back up. Brushing the sand off the backs of your legs, you looked at him. It was a strange feeling, caught between remembering how things were back then and knowing how they were now. A lot of things hadn't changed, clearly, but the circumstances certainly had. You wanted more of it to be different, but there was no saying it so plainly.
“You heading back?” you asked, standing completely upright.
He looked up at you from where he was sitting. Shaking his head, he replied, “Not yet.”
You cocked your head to the side, folding your arms over your chest. “Going to sit out here with your thoughts?”
He chuckled and shrugged. “Well, you did give me a lot to think about.”
“Don't think too hard,” you joked as you started to walk away, “otherwise smoke’ll start coming out of your ears.”
“Your concern is touching!” he called after you, laughing as he spoke.
Turning around to face him, you continued walking away. “Guess I'm just too sentimental for my own good!” you replied, throwing your hands up in apparent exasperation with yourself.
You could still see the grin on his face as you turned back around. Even with your back to him, you still found yourself smiling too. You knew better than to get your hopes up for much, but there was still part of you that was thinking that maybe there was still a chance for things to start changing before all was said and done.
There was still the very large possibility that things would continue to be the same as they ever were. You knew that. But, the same way you'd been wanting things to be different the first night you turned up at The Hard Deck, you still wanted things to be different now. It felt a little more attainable now than it had then. And, if nothing else, at least you knew that this time everything was going to be a bit more memorable.
(divider by @inklore 🩶)
TGM Taglist: @garbinge @proceduralpassion @cositapreciosa @justreblogginfics (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)
Written for @narcosfandomdiscord 's Book of Abduction: "Somebody has to be paying attention."
Warnings: 18+, language, established relationship, fluff
Word Count: 1.5k
A/N: despite the name of the prompt, no one is getting abducted in this fic 😂 idk what it is about Bradley Bradshaw but whenever i want to write a fluffy fic with that man i put him in the kitchen alongside his partner. don't ask me why my brain always goes there because i just Don't Know lmao
When the two of you had gotten everything set out on the counter to make dinner, you had been asking yourself why you didn’t cook together more often. Most day-to-day things you tackled together, things like grocery shopping and laundry. Even so, whenever one of you was cooking, it was always just one of you. You could try to chalk it up to work schedules or one of you not bothering to ask the other for help because it was just part of the routine now, but there was no actual reason for it.
Things had been going fine for the first fifteen minutes while you were prepping everything. You couldn’t help but to rag on him a little bit about his knife skills, remarking that it was pretty impressive that he managed to do all of that without chopping the tip of his fingers off like you’d thought he would.
He’d laughed and shaken his head at you, but it didn’t pry his focus away from what he was doing. If anything, now he was even more determined to stay dialed in and not mess up in front of you—he didn’t want to give you the satisfaction of getting exactly what you were waiting for. His competitive streak followed him home form the base, but he was fortunate in that most times you found it to be a little endearing or at least amusing.
The two of you playing chef was going fine until you’d started to sauté everything together in the pan on the stove. For the first two minutes you were perfectly focused on that while Bradley busied himself getting the bowls and silverware. The two of you were moving around each other without any issues, each in your own lane, until you felt him stop and linger behind you.
Turning your head, you saw him looking over your shoulder, watching as you deftly moved the noodles and vegetables around in the pan. You laughed, raising your eyebrows at him. “Can I help you with something, Bradshaw?”
His eyes drifted from the pan on the stove to your face, and once he was looking at you, a smirk immediately pulled at the end of his mouth. “No, but looks like I could help you with something.”
You rolled your eyes, but still smiled. “And what’s that?”
He nodded towards the pan. “You missed one.”
The laugh you let out was equal parts humor and sarcasm. “I missed one?”
“Yeah,” he replied as plain as ever.
You made a brief gesture towards the pan that was sizzling nicely on the stove. “Where? I would love if you could point it out.”
“If you can’t see it,” he shook his head admonishingly as he placed his hand on your hip, “then I don’t think I can help you.”
You turned the rest of your body to follow your head and Bradley made sure his hand didn’t stray from your hip as you did so. Once you were facing him, your back to the stove, you held out the chopsticks that were in your hand. Pushing them towards him, you lifted your eyebrows in a way to wordlessly communicate that he was more than welcome to take care of it himself.
He held his hands up, palms facing you. “No, no. You said that I could help with the prep and then you’d handle this part. Your words. I wouldn’t wanna take that away from you.”
The false sincerity that he said it with got you to break your silence with another laugh. “Yeah, okay. I’m sure that’s what it is. Chivalry, or whatever your approximation of that is.”
“I’m very chivalrous.”
You cocked an eyebrow. “Is that your final answer?”
He mirrored your expression. “What else would it be?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” you dragged the word out for all it was worth before pointing at him aggressively with your chopsticks. “Maybe you don’t want to admit that you still haven’t learned how to cook using chopsticks.”
He waved you off as though you’d said something ridiculous, but he didn’t reach for them to prove you wrong. That’s how you knew you had him, because if there was one thing that Bradley Bradshaw was always going to do, it was take advantage of an opportunity to be right in any debate that the two of you got into a home.
“Go ahead,” you held your hand out, palm-up with the chopsticks resting across it like a peace offering. “Prove me wrong.”
Bradley looked at your hand, and then at you. He saw the smirk that was on your face, and even though he was shaking his head at you, the warm smile that was crossing his face was giving you a different message entirely. While Bradley might’ve been the one out of the two of you known for being stubborn, especially outside the four walls of your shared apartment, you knew how to give him a run for his money on that. More often than not you were happy to go with the flow, but when you decided that you were going to pick a point and stand on it, Bradley hardly ever stood a chance. Lucky for him you usually only used those powers in small, silly debates like the one you were currently in.
“I don’t have to prove anything to you,” he finally said, grin splitting a little wider.
You barked out a laugh, head dropping back as you did so. “Really?” Instead of giving you a verbal response, he just kept the smile on his face as he shrugged at you, like he was daring you to try something else. As tempting as it was to take the bait, you shook your head at him. “You know, I tried to be so nice and invite you to cook with me. And this is what I get!”
“Invite me?” he parroted back incredulously, trying not to laugh. “Invite me to cook with you, my own girlfriend? In our own kitchen? In our own apartment?” Taking his hand off of your hip, he pressed it against his own chest with the type of dramatics he saved just for you. “How did I get so lucky?”
You were both breaking down into fits of laughter as you said, “Keep asking your—”
The rest of your sentence was drowned out by the sound of the smoke detector in your apartment going off. Both of you looked around, and while it wasn’t bad at all, the alarm in your apartment had always been on the sensitive side—luckily your neighbors had yet to complain.
“Shit!”
“Fuck!”
You both cursed at the same time, still laughing as you each made yourselves busy trying to get the alarm to shut off again. You turned off the stove, moving the stir-fry pan to the cool burner at the back of the stove. Bradley swiped the dish towel off the counter and went over to stand underneath the smoke detector. Unfolding the towel all the way, he flapped it in an attempt to get the smoke to dissipate enough for the incessant beeping to stop. It only took about thirty seconds for it to stop, but it felt like so much longer when the noise wouldn’t abate.
Once it did, Bradley tossed the towel so that it was draped over one shoulder. “You’re welcome.”
You laughed as you checked to see if any real damage had been done to what the two of you had been planning to eat for dinner. A few noodles on the bottom of the pan caught the worst of it, but it wasn’t unsalvageable.
“This is why I cook alone,” you said as you tentatively turned the stove back on, using your chopsticks to pick out the few pieces that were just a little too crispy to keep and tossing them in the trash with expert precision.
He chuckled as he walked up behind you, his chest pressing against your back as he loomed over your shoulder again. “What’s that supposed to mean? Like this happens to you all the time.”
You shook your head at him. “Well somebody has to be paying attention, and clearly we can’t—”
“If I remember correctly,” he interjected, and you could feel the tickle of his breath against your skin as he spoke, “this all got started because I was paying attention.”
You hummed in amusement. “That’s how you remember it, huh?”
He nodded before pressing a quick kiss to the side of your head. “Yep.” Another kiss. “You’re welcome.”
You could feel the way he was leaning in for another kiss, and before he could you reached behind you with the hand that wasn’t holding your chopsticks and playfully pressed your palm to his forehead, lightly pushing him back away from you.
“No more distracting me—we’ll set off the smoke alarm again.”
He laughed as he took a step back, leaving a small gap between you. “Worth it.”
Top Gun Maverick Taglist: @garbinge @justreblogginfics @proceduralpassion (If you'd like to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)
For @narcosfandomdiscord Book of In Urgent Need of Assistance: "One day I'll wake up and it won't hurt so much." and Desperate
Warnings: 18+, language, angst, smoking/weed, mentions of injury/violence, Jax Slander
Word Count: 3k
A/N: Claire Morrow IS my Roman Empire. i think about her constantly. i have yet to come up with a longfic plot for her, so for now i just keep putting her in angsty little one-shots and calling it a day
By the time they had gotten back to her apartment, Claire hadn't been expecting Jax to wait around for her. It would be far from the first time that he stormed out of her place before they got the chance to talk about everything that was going on. Sometimes she wondered if it was a purposeful move on his part—a way to avoid having to tell her things that he didn’t want her knowing, or hearing about things that he wanted no part of. Other times she simply didn't believe that her brother was that smart.
But there he was, sitting at the tiny table that was in her kitchen. He heard her as she entered the room, but he didn’t turn to look at her. It wasn’t until she was sitting on the chair kitty-corner to his that he deemed to look at her at all. It was the first time in a long time that she had seen anything resembling sympathy on his face, more specifically sympathy that was meant for her. Must've been the bruises littered across her cheek that was catching the light.
She pulled one leg up so that her foot was resting on the edge of the seat of her chair. Wrapping her arms around her bent leg, she rested her chin on top of her knee. There were plenty of things that she wanted to say, but past experiences with everyone in her family had taught her that the second she opened her mouth, their tirades would come. So now, she waited.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Jax finally asked, taking his baseball cap off and tossing it onto her table as he did.
Claire didn’t answer right away, feeling like the question was more rhetorical than anything, like Jax was just coming out of the gate with that to tee himself up nicely for the rest of his rant about what exactly he thought she had been thinking. She sat silently, not breaking eye contact with him even as she reached for the joint and lighter that were on her kitchen table.
Jax raised his eyebrows. “Nothing? You got nothin' to say for yourself?”
“Oh, sorry,” she said, sarcasm etched deep into her tone as she placed the joint between her lips. Flicking the lighter, she spoke around it, words muffled but still plenty clear enough for Jax to hear what she was saying. “Didn’t sound like a question you really wanted my answer to.”
“I can't wrap my head around it. So please,” he held his arms out slightly, “explain.”
Claire nodded but she didn’t get around to answering his question right away. She inhaled deeply off the joint in her hand, letting it crawl down the column of her throat and linger there for a few long seconds before allowing it to slip out as smoke between her lips. For a brief moment she contemplated extending it in an offer to Jax, but thought better of it quickly and kept it for herself.
“It's been an absolute shitshow on set,” she told him, making a point not to look him in the eyes as she did.
“Since when do you care what happens at the fucking porn studio?”
She gestured towards the door angrily with her hand that was holding the joint. “Since Luann asked me for some fucking help!”
He scoffed. “So you thought—”
“I thought,” she cut him off, “that I would help out since all anyone in the club ever does is show up to gawk at the girls. I helped her shoot. I helped her edit. Then all this shit with Georgie started popping off and all the girls started freaking the fuck out.”
“We took care of that.” Jax said it like it was a declaration.
Claire laughed in his face before taking another drag. “Yeah, and then Lyla came in with her nose nearly broken. So, you know,” smoke came out in tendrils with each word she said, “Luann started to think that maybe whatever you did, didn't work.”
“So she asked you?”
“No. She didn’t ask anyone, but I knew that she really didn’t want to ask you again.” She saw the way that indignant confusion went across Jax's face. “Come on, Jax. You guys have been treating her like absolute shit throughout this whole thing. And then you act like you're doing her a favor.” She shook her head, tone dropping to a mutter. “Par for the fucking course.”
“What's your fucking problem?”
She shook her head, kicking off with a lie before getting to the truth. “I don’t have a problem. And now, thanks to me, you and Luann and all the fucking girls at Cara Cara have one less to deal with too.” She stood up. “You're welcome.” She turned and headed for the fridge.
Jax watched from the table as she dug around in her refrigerator. When she popped back up into view again, she had a box of takeout in her hand. Swinging the door shut, she grabbed a fork from the drawer. She tucked into her food without even bothering to heat it up. Even if the day had been a better one, she wouldn't have put that minimal amount of time into prepping the food for herself. She paid no mind to the way that her brother was looking at her as she shoveled one forkful of rice after another into her mouth. Now that her adrenaline had runs its course, all those pesky little sensations like hunger and exhaustion and pain were starting to creep back in.
Silence settled between them again as Claire stood and leaned back against her counter while Jax stayed seated at her table. As Jax watched her, he couldn’t quite remember the last time it was just the two of them existing alone together like this. One of them was always traveling with a crowd—usually Jax. And, more often than not, wherever Claire was, Clay or Gemma wasn't far. It was never just them, and as Jax continued to sit and watch her, he didn’t know what to make of any of it.
He fussed with his cap that was still on top of her table. He knew that there were things that he wanted to say to her, but now it all just came through like static on the radio, one thought not discernible from the next.
“Do you realize,” Claire spoke up, some rice still tucked in her cheek as she spoke, “that everyone just is doing shit to try and keep you happy? Or,” she scoffed, “the closest thing to it?”
Jax shook his head. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Right now, specifically, I'm talking about Luann and the girls. They've been losing it but didn’t want to tell you because they didn’t want you getting upset again. They all feel like they owe you. And you,” she paused, looking at the container of food in front of her, unable to look him in the eye as she said, “you eat that type of shit right up.” She pushed rice around with her fork. “You always have.”
He shook his head, working overtime to not consider the fact that his sister was absolutely correct in everything that she was saying. He didn’t want his world put off-kilter so much. “You're insane.”
Claire scoffed, finally looking at him again. “Yeah, it's in the fucking genes.” She took another bite, granting herself a brief reprieve before asking, “You really going to sit there and pretend you don't know what I'm talking about?”
Jax had no problem lying, to anyone really, but especially to Claire. He'd done it outright and by omission their entire lives. The levels of success varied, but it never stopped him from trying. But now, for some reason, he found himself having a hard time faking genuine denial with her. Maybe it was because for the first time in a long time she was being honest with him too. Real honesty, not the type she usually doled out that was cloaked by layer after layer of sarcasm and well-timed jokes.
He rapped his knuckles lightly against the top of the table as he tried to figure out what he wanted to say. “I don't—"
“Forget about Luann and the girls. What,” she huffed, setting her food on the counter and going back to where she'd been sitting before, “what about me?”
He shook his head in confusion. “What about you?”
She jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards the door. “I'm the one who went and took care of shit tonight, Jax. I'm the one who rolled up to Georgie's fucking house with a crowbar and—”
“A fucking crowbar? Jesus Christ, Claire—”
She continued on like he hadn't spoken. “And you still haven't asked me if I'm okay.”
He gestured to her face. “I can see the answer to that.”
She shook her head, disgust on her face. “Don't do that.”
“What?”
“You know what.” She let that statement hang in the air. “They do all that shit to try and keep you happy. Mom does, the club does. And, as much as I hate it, so do I.”
Jax laughed before he could stop himself. She almost had him. Until those last three words, he was taking everything that she was throwing at him. But that was just a tad too far for him to believe. For as long as he could remember, she'd been a thorn in his side and she loved every second of it. He'd chalked some of it up to typical younger sibling things, the kind of stuff that Thomas probably would've done too if he'd gotten the chance. But then the rest of it? It felt like jealousy, maybe, or even just a desire to nettle him for pure enjoyment on her end. Sometimes he chalked it up to the crazy she must've inherited from Gemma.
But in that moment, the look in her eyes almost seemed heartfelt. If he'd been anyone else he would've taken her at her word but he knew better. He'd watched her grow up, seen the way that she was always so easily able to get what she wanted from Clay and Gemma. Jax and his happiness were the furthest things from her mind.
“You've never given a shit about that.”
Propping her elbows harshly on the table, she raked her fingers back through her hair. It still wasn't completely dry from the shower and left a traces of residue between her fingers. “I've never been able to figure out how to do it, but that doesn't mean that I've never given a shit.” Looking at him, she felt the familiar burn of tears growing in her eyes. “For a long time I tried so hard to just get you…get you to fucking like me. When we were kids I tried so hard. And then I stopped because it wasn't working and you were so mean. I stopped and I tried not to care anymore and I tried to give up. I just kept telling myself, ‘One day I'll wake up and it won’t hurt so much.’ But it never happened. It still does.” She shook her head, just as much at herself and the emotions welling in her chest as at Jax. “And when Luann asked me for my help at the studio, I thought that maybe that would do it, you know? And maybe if I took care of Georgie and you saw that I can pull my weight, then maybe you'd get around to caring about me.”
“It's not—”
“You know how much it sucks, how…how fucking pathetic it feels, that some days I’m trying as hard as those fucking Crow Eaters to get you to give a shit about me? You know how sad and desperate that makes me feel? You talk all that shit about family with the guys in the club, those people you call brother just because they have the same piece of leather on their backs. But then, when it comes to your real actual family…this is all you have left for me? Those guys might be in your club but you're my brother.”
He could tell by the tremble in her fingertips that those were words she had been sitting on for a long time. They'd burrowed and made a home deep down in her chest and she had been content to leave them in hibernation indefinitely. He felt bad, angry too. It wasn't the first or the last time that she made him feel like an idiot, either.
Claire couldn’t make herself look at him. Real vulnerability was something that was so hard to come by in their family, and now that she felt the sinking pit in her stomach she started to understand why. There was a tiny part of her that wanted to take it all back, but it was too late now—she was probably better for it.
He'd never given much thought to whether or not Claire cared about being liked, by him or by anyone else. She certainly never acted like it was a concern of hers. Plus, in his mind, when it came to family it didn't really matter how much someone liked you, because at the end of the day they loved you and that would always outweigh everything else. That's how their family always ended up back in the same messes—no matter the anger, they would always show up at the eleventh hour. What else mattered?
Claire sniffled quietly as she tried to wipe at her face as casually as possible. “Now look who has nothing to say,” she forced out. Leaning back in her chair, she said, “Next time, just fucking say thank you and ask if I'm okay. It's a, a decent place to start.”
The discomfort that was burning a trail down the back of Jax's neck was telling him that this was one of those times when he should be apologizing, but that type of thing had never been his strong suit. This was one of the few times that he wished he was a little better at it.
“This isn't the kinda shit you should be handling on your own,” he told her, voice gentler than it'd been so far as he nodded towards the bruises on her face.
Claire could see it on his face that he was trying. And if she had been less exhausted, if she'd been in a more forgiving mood, she would've given him credit for that. But the Morrow in her was getting the best of her and she wasn’t about to hand him any kind of participation trophy after everything that had happened.
“You're telling me that if I'd called, you wouldn't have sent me to voicemail?”
He sank back in his chair as though her words had physically pushed him away. “This what you're always thinking about whenever you call me?”
She shrugged. “I don't know. Usually it doesn't…” she trailed off, wanting to find the right words. “The stakes felt higher this time, I guess.”
Quiet washed over them again. Claire switched back and forth between looking at the tabletop, and looking at her brother. She was fairly positive that Jax hadn't ever let her go this long uninterrupted. It felt like the first time she was ever able to lead a conversation with him. She had no idea what good it would do, if any, but it was something at least. Part of her was still just stuck on the fact that he had stayed and waited. It wasn't necessarily any great feat, but for Jax it was something close.
“I'm glad you're alright,” he said with a nod. When Claire nodded back at him in response, a small smirk crossed his face as he said, “I'm glad you beat Georgie's ass, too.”
Claire didn’t want to, but she found herself laughing with him for the moment. It helped shed some of the weight that had been crushing her chest. “It felt kinda good. Lyla's busted nose is nothing compared to what his looks like now.”
Jax chuckled and for a moment they seemed like a pair of teenagers, talking to each other about the things they could never tell their parents. It was the kind of moment they never had when they were actual teenagers. It was refreshing in its own way, even if they were still avoiding the gaping wound of a problem between them.
“Did you tell Luann?”
Claire shook her head. “No. Did you tell Clay or—”
“Hell no,” he stopped her sentence short. “Neither of us would hear the end of it. I'd lay low ‘til those fade.”
She grazed her fingers over the slightly raised skin of her cheek. “Right.”
The exhaustion of the evening was starting to hit Jax, too. It felt useless to ask, but he still did. “Need anything?”
She shook her head. “I'm good.”
“You sure? I can stay.”
She laughed, and the sound was as humorous as it was sad. “Don't. It's fine.”
Jax frowned but he didn’t fight her on it. Reaching to grab his baseball cap of her table, he spoke as he pulled it down onto his head. “Alright. I'm gonna head out, then.”
Claire nodded, watching him as he walked around the table. “Night.”
“Night.” He rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment as he walked by. “Call me tomorrow, let me know how shit goes at the studio.”
“Sounds good.”
Jax paused when he was halfway out the door of her apartment. “Claire?”
She raised her eyebrows, and Jax saw every ounce of tiredness that she was weighing on her. “Yeah?”
“Thanks, and…” he trailed off, knowing how he should end the sentence and still not able to say it.
There would be time for more fights about it another day, so Claire let this one go for the sake of her own sanity. “Yeah. I'll call you tomorrow.”
She wasn't able to fully slump back in her chair until she heard Jax's bike start up and then fade into the distance. Once it was silent in her apartment and on the lot again, she all but melted into the seat of her chair, wanting nothing more than to go to bed and disappear under the covers, but feeling like she couldn’t make the last of the trek to do so.
(divider by @thecutestgrotto 💞)
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