Chapter Text
Colombia had a real way of changing a person. Aging them. Forcing them to bend and adapt to a series of problems that never seemed to go away. Each day, made to wake up and toe a moral line that one never thought they’d have to face, let alone come near. It had been three years since Javier Peña had moved to Colombia to take a new position at the DEA field office in Bogotá, and he had started to feel the weight of that shift in consciousness nearly 18 months ago. Now he was just tired. Fucking exhausted.
Javier leaned back in the rickety hard plastic chair he was currently occupying and stared absently up at the plaster ceiling, one of the nails valiantly holding his seat together digging into his thigh. He had started taking a good number of his lunches here in the office of Major Horacio Carrillo while on assignment in Medellín, and he savored them. Although he would always be a gringo here— just an American despite the brown of his skin, the language he spoke and his Mexican heritage— the occasional jabs from Carrillo were a welcome respite from the often open hostility from both the Mil Group and the CIA guys back in Bogotá. On some of the darker days of his time in Colombia so far, Javier had felt, or maybe known, that Carrillo was essentially the only person in the entire country that he was able to trust in and rely on with his life. Which, seemingly more often than not, is what was at stake.
“Y además,” Javier shifted his eyes toward Carrillo, who was leaning over his desk, fruitlessly examining aerial images of possible cocaine lab locations. “I’ve got to catch a flight back to the capital tonight. We’ve got a new agent starting in a few days.”
“Ah, sí, un otro más gringo,” Carrillo sighed, looking up. “Do you think they’re just sending him down here to reign you in?”
Javier sat back in his chair. Either that or Washington thinks the extra manpower will actually get them somewhere against the narcos. “Who knows. Probably. I guess he made a bit of a name for himself working in Miami, but he hasn’t been an agent for very long. I think shit down here is going to be a rude awakening for him.”
Carrillo finally abandoned the photos, arranging them into a stack before sitting down behind the desk and locking eyes with Javier. “Well, as long as he doesn’t get in our way.”
* * *
Javier rushed into the embassy building a few mornings later filled with anxious energy, his mind racing over the information that both Helena and Suárez had supplied him with the night before. If that many narcos were meeting up in Medellín and were also paying for that many girls to be there, there was a good possibility that some major changes were about to happen amongst the narcotraficantes , and they might be distracted enough to have their guard down. No arrests or busts were going to get approved, the DEA didn’t have enough political influence or solid evidence on any of the men rumored to be attending the meeting, but this was the best chance at getting intel that Javier had gotten in what seemed like months. He rounded the corner to the Ambassador’s office and pushed through the heavy doors, going straight to the assistant’s desk and leaning over the polished wood.
“Colleen, good morning, you're looking wonderful today and I need a meeting with Noonan as soon as possible,” he rushed out in one breath. “Or now. Now would be good.”
Colleen typed out a few more words on her keyboard before looking up at Javier, accustomed to and unphased by his attempts at flattery. “Oh good, you’re here. She just finished up with a meeting and can probably see you soon but—”
Stepping away from the desk, Javier angled his thumb toward the office and nodded his head. “Perfect, so I’ll just head in then—”
“Your new partner just arrived. The car they sent to pick him up buzzed in through the main entrance right before you came in.”
Fuck. Now was not the time for this. He scrubbed his hand over his face. “Shit. Okay, I’ll—”
Colleen giggled. “Did you forget he was arriving today, Javier?”
“No, I just. Shit.”
Javier turned and stalked off down the hallway back toward the entrance to the embassy, where the government SUV that had picked up the new agent would be dropping him off. He hadn’t necessarily forgotten about the arrival of his new partner, but the rush of fresh leads and the promise of much-needed new intel had pushed any thought of the arrival to the back of his mind. He didn’t have time to play both tour guide and babysitter to some fresh-faced idiot who didn't know fuck-all about how things actually worked down here. Wonderful.
Shouldering through the main entrance to the building, he came to stand at the top of the stairs and watched as the vehicle carrying his new partner rolled to a stop and the passenger door opened up, the man climbing out.
Fuck.
Javier hadn’t quite known what to expect from his new partner. He knew that Steve Murphy was young, nearly a decade younger than Javier himself. He knew that Murphy had only been an agent for a few years now, most of his busts had involved marijuana and washed-out rich white boys and hippies involved in small-scale operations and recreational usage. He expected his new partner to be a bit wet behind the ears, naive, and more than likely not ready for the wake-up call that was the Colombian cocaine trade. He expected to have to coddle the man. Keep him out of trouble, and more importantly out of the way, until he either learned the ropes or gave up and went back to Miami like a lot of the agents that wound up down here.
He had not expected this. Murphy was tall, long lean lines that sauntered over to the entrance where Javier stood, kicking out his feet with every step to stretch legs that had likely been cramped even in a Jeep. He was blonde, hair slicked back a little too much, in a way that when combined with his oversized suit spoke of an awkwardness stemming from a desire to impress. He had a crooked smile as he approached Javier with his hand stretched out in greeting, both self-sure and earnest in a way that was immediately disarming.
“Javier?”
He had certainly not been expecting the heat that rushed to his neck at the sound of Murphy’s warm, easy drawl speaking his name. Not a native of Miami then, his accent a bit too lilted to have been from somewhere near the coast; Appalachia, if Javier had to hazard a guess.
Javier cleared his throat and met Murphy’s eyes, shaking the offered hand. “Yeah, Javier Peña. I take it you’re my new partner then?”
“Yeah.” Steve chuckled, giving a slight squeeze to Javier’s palm. The heat returned to his neck. “Steve Murphy. Nice to meet you.”
Javier had always known and understood his attraction to men. Knew that most people didn’t comprehend it, wouldn’t accept it, and even if they did would never comprehend how he also was equally attracted to women—or potentially any person really. He knew what it meant to be a man who loved men at a time when AIDS was still plaguing the States. Knew what it meant in his line of work amongst the macho bullshit in all government enforcement agencies, and the added danger it could bring as a DEA agent in a foreign country with an already high price on his head. Javier had decided in his early days as an agent to keep quiet about this part of himself, maintaining an immensely private life outside of work. It had worked well for him. The whole “lone-wolf” schtick brought an air of authority that helped get shit done. Kept people out of the way. For a while it was even easy while he was engaged to Lorraine, sweet kind Lorraine, but that only lasted as long as the relationship did. Then it was back to clandestine meetings in the backs of bars with men who likely wouldn't remember much about him the next morning.
Since moving to Colombia, Javier had decided to avoid men— and relationships— in that capacity altogether, opting for hookups with the same women that the narcos frequented. It was safer this way. Easier. Sure it was slightly embarrassing, demoralizing even, to have to pay for sex with these women, but it was also a sure and steady thing. Knowing the locations of all the most frequented prostíbulos in the city was both helpful for the job and maintained his reputation with the guys at the embassy, and lots of the girls gave good information— sometimes good enough to earn them a signature from the Ambassador on their visas to a better life in America. It was a win-win in Javier’s book.
Three years of hyper-careful distancing, of building a protective shell around himself, and in the last thirty seconds, Javier could feel a small crack form. Small, but extant. Shit.
Another deep breath. “Bienvenidos a Colombia .” Letting go of Steve’s hand he turned back toward the building’s entrance. “C’mon. I’ll show you where everything is and then we’ve got a meeting with the Ambassador,” he added over his shoulder.
Murphy smiled. “Lead the way.”
* * *
Steve followed Peña around the twisting hallways of the American embassy building, taking in as much of the hasty tour as possible. There were the other DEA agents— technically his bosses, maybe, Steve wasn't quite clear on the details— who sat reading files with their feet up on the desk, looking pissed at Peña’s mention of new information that would be arriving. A quick trip down the hall brought them to a room that looked more like the control room for a NASA launch than office space in an embassy building in South America.
Peña sauntered up to the closest desk and came to a stop. “Jarheads, this is Murphy.” The men looked up from where they were sitting in their crisp military uniforms, their eyes flitting between the two agents with an air of apprehension. Peña glanced back to where Steve was standing, hands in his pockets. “Murphy, this is Mil group. They advise the Colombian military on communist threats in the countryside.”
Ah. So that explained all the fancy computers, close-cropped haircuts, and obvious sticks up asses.
Peña leaned forward, swiping one of the folders stacked on the desk. “Hey, those are classified!”
He kept his head down, quickly flipping through the pages and scanning the documents. “Now they’re declassified.”
“That’s the ambassador’s call.”
“No problem,” Peña grumbled, closing up the file and holding it out to the man, only to yank it away and toss it haphazardly back on the pile when the official moved to reach for it. In the background, Steve chuckled. This guy was a fucking asshole. Perfect.
The rest of the day was a bit of a whirlwind for Steve, filled with his first meeting with Ambassador Noonan, where he learned he’d be going with Peña to Medellín to follow a lead he’d received that a bunch of kingpins would be having a joint meeting; and later, said trip. The subsequent flight and bumpy car ride left Steve rattled by the time they reached the Carlos Holguín School, the local base of operations for the Colombian National Police, the next morning. He had thought that the roads were awful in his native West Virginia, but those were like butter compared to the dirt roads here. God bless Eisenhower, presumably.
The shared trip did little in the way of divulging more about his new partner. Peña was quiet most of the way, if not gruff, flipping on the radio to a station playing cumbia the minute they got into the Jeep. If Steve had to hazard a guess he was probably uncomfortable, unused to sharing this space with someone else, and frustrated to have to work a new agent into the fold while also running interference between the CNP and his informant, all while investigating the biggest break the DEA had gotten in a while down here. That was fine. Steve didn’t need niceties. He was a big boy, could take care of himself. He was here to get a job done—put an end to the source of all the suffering he and Connie had witnessed in Miami— and he was going to fucking do it.
* * *
Javier leaned against the guard rail that ran alongside the salsamentaria outside of the hospital that they had driven Helena to, chain-smoking and numbly sipping the bottle of Quilmes that Carrillo had bought for him. The day had been incredibly difficult to get through and nearly ended disastrously.
They had luckily been able to secure a front-facing room at the hotel where the narcos were having their meeting and had spent the entire afternoon watching car after car roll up and the most deadly, rich, and powerful men quite possibly in the world step out of them. Imported European cars: Porsches, Mercedes, all bought with money stained with the blood of both Americans and Colombians alike. It was an overwhelming sensation, watching these men that he had heard about through an endless chain of reports and informants all under the same roof, interacting with an ease that betrayed the fact that they were unaware they were being watched. Luckily so, because if Javier were to take his sight and thoughts off of the narcos, he would have had to take note of the way that he and Murphy were pressed closely together to be able to see out of the thin hotel window, the heat seeping through the denim where the sides of their thighs were meeting.
Javier had also had to reign in Carrillo most of the day, whose desperation and inability to act knowing that every single one of the men he had been hunting for the past number of years were all under one roof, added with his annoyance of allowing yet another gringo into the fray was resulting in thinly-veiled hostility aimed at Murphy. “Carne fresca,” he had called him. Fresh meat. Which wasn't necessarily untrue, but could be easily misconstrued if Murphy were to work out the translation. Javier understood Carrillo’s raw desire to storm the entire building, regardless of consequences or manpower. He did. But he didn't have the time to deal with added complications today.
Things went fully off the rails when Helena failed to show at the agreed time, which almost immediately worried Javier. She was smart, too smart to run, and too smart to be caught outright unless she had pushed too hard to get solid enough information to earn her a visa, a thought which settled dark and ugly in his stomach. He waited alongside Carrillo and Murphy for nearly an hour past the scheduled meeting, pacing around the SUV they had parked outside of a nearby church to relieve the building adrenaline.
Carrillo stood, legs wide and hands braced on his hips. “They’re telling me the girl left a long time ago. She's already dead,” he said detachedly, clearly unswayed by the danger their informant had succumbed to, fine to let the chips fall where they may.
Javier looked around, rubbing the spot on his shoulder where his anxiety was slowly manifesting itself. “No, they wouldn’t kill her at the hotel.”
“Then they killed her somewhere else. She knew the risks.” But nobody ever understands what that risk truly means. Helena had taken this opportunity to try and earn a better life for herself and her child. Javier knew better than to think that their affairs had been what kept her coming back, but regardless, she had always been kind and gentle with him. She had always trusted him— a rare commodity in his life— and he didn’t want that trust to have been misplaced. This was the difficulty of involving oneself with informants: objectivity was difficult to maintain under moments of stress.
“If we’re going back, we go back now,” Murphy added from where he was sprawled across the hood of the Jeep.
Javier shifted slowly to meet Murphy’s gaze and was reminded that this was the man’s first full day on the job in a foreign country where every DEA agent had a standing price on their head. Something he likely wasn’t even aware of yet. Murphy had trusted Javier as his partner and guide with little fuss, despite being taken halfway across the country and thrown into a joint operation with the CNP. He wanted to earn the trust that Murphy and Helena had shown him.
He turned and immediately grabbed Carrillo to go and track down Helena, leaving Murphy safe with Carrillo’s men. “You stay here in case she shows up,” he yelled back to where his partner was still leaning, looking dazed. “We’re gonna go find her.”
They had been able to find Helena in time, but after seeing her bruised and battered body on the dirty mattress in the corner of the caleta, it didn’t feel like much of a win. Javier shifted, feeling his cigarette starting to burn his fingers, and tossed it on the pavement to stamp it out. He pulled out another, having lost count after his fifth, and pointedly did not meet Carrillo’s gaze from where he was leaning back in a plastic chair outside of the entrance to the shop. During the daytime, people might sit here on their breaks, sipping cold drinks from the store and chatting while their children played in the road. What a stark contrast the night can bring.
On the other side of the road where the police trucks were parked, another SUV pulled up and rolled to a stop. The sounds of slamming doors could be heard as the men piled out.
“Where the fuck’s Peña? ¿Dondé está Peña? ” came a rushed voice, loud over the other murmuring policemen who were happy simply to have made it through another day.
“Por allá.”
Javier turned to see Murphy hurriedly stalking toward where he and Carrillo were sitting. He took a long final drag of the cigarette he was holding and threw it to the ground as Javier shifted his body back away from the road, unable to meet his partner’s eyes.
Murphy strode up to Javier, his voice clipped. “How is she?”
“Sedated.”
“She gonna be okay?”
“Physically, yeah.” Javier breathed out another puff of smoke, keeping his head down. Helena’s wounds would heal and she would be given medicine to help block the pain she was in. But you don’t just bounce back after an encounter with sicarios like the one she had just had. He had seen other cops, experienced agents shaken to their core after run-ins with the cartel— let alone a civilian. “Mentally, I haven’t got a fucking clue.”
Murphy paused for a moment, taking that in. He kicked at the small pile of cigarette butts that had accumulated next to Javier’s boot and then straightened to his full height. “You left me behind on purpose.”
“Look, man—”
“If we’re gonna be partners, I don’t get left behind,” the tone of his voice forced Javier to meet Murphy’s eyes. His face was pallid, washed out by the yellowed fluorescent light pouring from the shop window, stark against the black of the night around them. But there was a spark in his eyes. A fury that demanded attention and spoke of desperation and dedication that Javier hadn’t noticed before and hadn't expected out of his new partner. That’ll happen when you avoid interaction. “I didn’t come all the way down here, Peña, to sit on the fucking sidelines,” he spat. “Whatever’s going on here,” he glanced between Javier and where Carrillo was perched and then fully turned toward his partner, stepping in close. Close enough to smell the stale sweat from the day, the tobacco on his breath. “I’m in all the way. Is that understood?”
Javier took a deep drag of his cigarette, angling his head to blow the smoke while maneuvering his way around Murphy’s broad frame. “Understood,” he breathed, reaching for and handing Murphy the last of his beer, likely warm by now. “I hope you know what that means.”
He watched as Murphy brought the bottle to his lips and took a sip, maintaining their eye contact, standing his ground. Javier felt the heat from the day before return to the back of his neck.
God, I need some fucking sleep.
* * *
Javier arrived home a few hours later, having caught a red-eye flight back to Bogotá with Murphy. He lingered at the embassy for a little while to send off the reports they had written up on the plane and to clear his head, calling a cab for the other man as all the other embassy staff who could have given him a ride had long since gone home. He finally wrapped up sometime later and made his way back to his apartment, heading straight for bed the moment he keyed open the door. Exhausted, he kicked off his boots and jeans, pulled his shirt over his head, and slipped on a pair of loose boxers to sleep in before all but collapsing on the mattress. He expected sleep to come quickly after the day’s events, but it did not. Instead, his mind raced, replaying the conversation he’d had with Murphy over and over.
I’m in all the way. Is that understood? That had been the last thing that Murphy had said to him for the rest of the night, aside from any necessary conversation, apparently content to let Javier stew over his actions. And stew Javier had.
The thing was that for all of his lone wolf posturing— something that was borne out of necessity but had become a comfortable shell to hide behind— Colombia had made Javier crave closeness. The constant string of losses of life and battles against the narcos had made a sense of grief and loneliness settle deep in his bones that was becoming ever-difficult to shoulder alone. The regular string of girls that Javier kept were fun, sure, and good for work as well, but the moment they were finished would grab their bag and leave like clockwork. In their absence, the full weight of isolation would hit and nearly outweigh the entire enterprise.
Helena had been different. She was always so sweet and so kind. Would sit and talk and laugh with Javier, ask him about work, or tell him about whatever new milestone her kid had passed like a friend might, even though she was really only there for a fuck and to slip him information. She would kiss him before leaving, like someone who actually cared.
When Helena had turned up missing after the hotel meeting Javier had panicked, afraid of losing what increasingly felt like one of his last human connections. His panic had bled into his treatment of Murphy, unwilling to increase his potential body count for that night to two, and if he was honest with himself, wanting to shield the man from the horrors of the job. Unwilling to carry the blame of setting yet another agent on the path that Javier himself was careening down.
But that wasn’t fair, wasn’t Javier’s choice to make. Steve had more than proven himself as a worthy partner, ready to roll with the punches that were thrown at him from the start. When Javier had left him behind to go search for Helena, he had expected little fuss about the decision, relief even, to be kept away from the danger they were assuredly walking into. But there was a barely-restrained fury in Murphy’s eyes when he later confronted Javier. It was a righteous anger that Javier recognized because he had felt it himself countless times over the past three years. He knew that Murphy had lost his partner while on a bust in Miami. He wondered what else the cocaine trade had taken from him.
Javier rolled onto his back, resolving himself to clean up his act with Murphy, and let the man do the work he had come to Colombia for. Let his abilities have a chance to speak for themselves.
He brought his arm up and rubbed his eyes and then rested his hand on his stomach, lightly scratching there. Despite the tired ache of his body and resolution of the day’s events, Javier’s brain still felt like a livewire with residual anxieties struggling to fade away. He let his hand slide down to palm himself through his boxers for a few moments, and then slipped his fingers underneath the band. There was one surefire way of tiring himself out.
He ran his hand down along the inside of his thigh and then back up to grip at the base of his cock, savoring the rough tug of a too-dry palm as he slid his hand along the length. He was already half-hard, his body apparently just as eager as his mind was to rid itself of pent-up energy.
Allowing his eyes to drift closed, Javier tried to conjure up images of one of the last girls he had paid for time with. He slid his fist to the end of his cock and used his index finger to gather the precome that had begun to gather at the slit, shuddering as he moved to coat his length in one long downstroke.
Vanessa had been fun, even though she hadn’t had any new information on the sicarios that frequented the brothel she worked in. She was everything Javier enjoyed in a woman: long and lean, with a softness that smoothed out her frame. He loved being able to grab onto her ass while she bounced in his lap, or run his fingers over her soft belly as he fucked into her slowly. That night she had arrived with an agenda, quickly stripping his clothes and pushing him down onto the leather couch the minute she arrived. She had stayed clothed herself, kneeling astride him and grabbing a fistful of his curls. She pulled hard, tilting his head back and looking down at him while instructing Javier to finger her open. When she decided he had done enough she rocked her hips down, riding him hard and fast while whispering absolute filth in his ear as he bit into her shoulder to stave off coming for as long as he could. “So good, baby. You fill me up so well, Javier.”
Tonight he didn't bother trying to hold off, his hand moving rapidly over his cock and his hips raising off of the mattress in half-thrusts to match the pace. His other hand ran over his neck and chest before moving down to pull at his balls, and a whine caught in his throat.
When Javier’s whimpers and groans had become a near-constant moan and the hands on her hips had begun to shake, Vanessa had pulled off of his length, causing him to curse. She wrapped her slender fingers around him and jerked him off mercilessly. Her other hand settled firmly under his jaw and forced his chin upward to meet her gaze. “Are you gonna come, cariño ?”
Javier squeezed his eyes shut, and then suddenly it was Murphy’s hand on his cock mercilessly wringing him toward orgasm, sporting the same calloused roughness that only builds up from gripping a gun as his own. It was Murphy’s husky drawl that was whispering, demanding, in his ear come for me Javier, against which he stood no chance. His senses turned to static and his entire body contracted as he came harder than he could remember in a long time.
It took him a few moments and heavy breathing to come back down before the full weight of what had just happened registered.
Fuck.
Heaving himself out of bed, Javier ambled to the bathroom off of the bedroom and wet a washcloth to wipe down his stomach before washing his hands. Leaning down, he let the cold water pool in his hands and splashed it over his face, then looked up to meet his reflection in the mirror. What the fuck was his problem, getting off to the thought of his new partner? He turned and dried his hands on a towel hanging on the back of the door and returned to bed, slipping his boxers back on. Sighing, Javier rolled onto his side and shoved his arm under one of the pillows. He knew that the loneliness of the job had been fraying his nerves as of late and that Murphy was a new— and handsome— face, but he normally had more control over himself.
For the second time that night, Javier resolved to do and be better with Murphy, and also to call one of the girls this weekend to blow off some apparently much-needed steam.
* * *
Javier dragged himself out of bed a few hours later, absolutely exhausted but resolved to get to the office early so he could settle into the day and get his bearings before Murphy arrived. He showered in the coldest water he could stand as quickly as he could, then dressed in his usual jeans and button-up, pulling on a jacket. He stopped off in the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee and drank it black, savoring the burn on his throat and the promise of caffeine in his system. He didn’t bother with breakfast, opting instead to grab some arepas from the little stand near the embassy on his drive into work as a peace offering and silent apology for his partner. Javier wasn't quite sure how he was planning on facing Murphy later but figured that a few hours of quiet plus a gift of greasy, starchy food was a step toward absolving his myriad of sins from the day before.
He arrived at the embassy building not long after, grabbing the bag of food from the passenger seat and wrapping it up tight to keep fresh before walking inside. As far as he could tell, he was one of the first ones there that morning. He nodded to the handful of other early arrivals he saw shuffling through the corridor or hunched over desks, but no one stopped to chat. Whether they were there to get ahead of schedule or for reasons similar to Javier, people who arrived at work at this time knew to generally steer clear of one another until the day truly started.
Reaching the DEA offices at the end of the hall, Javier strode up to his desk and tossed the greasy bag onto its surface. He turned, setting his hands on his hips, and surveyed the disorganized mess of the small room, resolving himself to clear off one of the desks currently operating as space for file overflows for his partner to use. As he moved to grab one of the cardboard boxes stacked along the wall, he glanced into the adjoining meeting room. There was Murphy, standing in front of a large whiteboard, taping up pieces of paper. Slightly dumbfounded, Javier straightened and grabbed the bag of food before shuffling over to the next room, mouth agape and brows furrowed.
As he entered the room and took in the scene before him— rolls of film on the table, piles of pictures, and news clippings were strewn about— Murphy turned around. “Welcome to the Medellín cartel,” he smiled, looking proud.
Javier smirked and stepped forward. On the whiteboard was a chart detailing all of the drug lords and sicarios they had seen at the hotel meeting, aligned to show their relation to the hierarchy. Murphy must’ve been working on this all night, getting the shots from the day before developed, compiling files, and coming to the conclusion that they, along with Carrillo, had witnessed the formation of a super cartel. Who knows how long he had then been in this office, organizing all the information and taping everything up on the board. Once again, exceeding Javier’s expectations.
He moved in close and grabbed the red pen that was inside of Murphy’s chest pocket, shifted to cross out the men that had either been taken out or apprehended by Carrillo, replaced the cap, and then slid the pen back where it had been. Murphy met Javier’s eyes and smiled, and despite his mussed hair and the tie over his shoulder, his eyes were bright. He looked a bit like a puppy that way: happy and proud of the work he had done.
Javier shifted his weight and handed Murphy the bag of food he had brought for him, returning the smile with a grin of his own. “Good work, partner.”