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Another Christmas had rolled around in Bogotá and although it was mostly business-as-usual for the DEA, the Embassy encouraged all staff to let their hair down the week before the big day. It had been yet another fraught and stressful year of close calls where Escobar was concerned, so one night off wasn’t going to make much difference in the grand scheme of things. The sicarios and the drugs would still be there tomorrow, unfortunately.
Enforced fun was absolutely not on Javi’s or Steve’s list of preferred pastimes, particularly so for Javi. To say he loathed such events was an understatement and he would much rather be working, or jabbing pencils in his eyes, but they’d had their arms twisted by the Ambassador to at least put in an appearance and make an effort by joining in the team’s Secret Santa, for the sake of staff morale or some trite bullshit that Javi and Steve categorically did not buy. It felt more like punishment for the times they may have slightly bent the rules, which was probably closer to the truth. But to be fair to them, they had upheld their side of the deal and had grinned and bared it, with the soothing balm of a bottle of whiskey as compensation.
The party was in full swing and someone had found a tape player in one of the interview rooms, which now had Christmas tunes blaring out of it. People had started dancing and drunkenly singing along, which meant it was definitely time for Javi to make his excuses and get the fuck out of there. He was pretty sure he would never be drunk enough to cope with all of that.
He managed to escape the din with a deep sigh of relief and was just about to leave, before he double backed to his desk, realising he’d left his gun in his drawer. As much as he needed to get out of there fast, there was no way he was leaving that behind.
Upon opening his drawer, he was met with a small gift-wrapped box that definitely had not been there earlier in the day. He couldn’t help but immediately eye the item with suspicion, even though the rational part of his brain presumed this was in fact his Secret Santa gift. It was a sad state of affairs that his first thoughts were ‘Did someone sneak into the Embassy and leave it? Am I going to make a gruesome discovery upon opening it? Is it some sort of warning from Escobar?’, but that was the harsh reality of his life these days. He slowly picked up the box, examining it for several seconds and giving it a gentle shake, not really sure how that would help if it was anything untoward, but reassuring himself nonetheless.
“Fuck it,” he whispered and threw caution to the wind, loosening the decorative red ribbon and tearing off the shimmering gold paper.
He counted down from three in his head before lifting the lid of the box. What he found stopped him in his tracks, for entirely different reasons than he had feared. Nestled in the felt black lining was a lighter. Javi carefully removed it from the box to examine it more closely. It was a tortoiseshell design, with an intricate, embossed gold trim running around the edges. He turned it over in his hand several times, entranced by the light from his desk lamp dancing across the polished surface. It really was a thing of beauty and like no other lighter he’d ever owned, with perhaps the exception of the vintage hand-me-down given to him by his father when he was barely old enough to smoke, but it’s only real worth had been its sentimental value. This felt expensive, but not in a flashy way. It had clearly been picked out with great thought, by someone who knew him better than he ever would have dared to imagine.
Javi felt an aching knot pulling increasingly tighter somewhere between his chest and abdomen upon realising that there really only was one person this could be from. With that thought, he shoved the packaging back in the drawer and pocketed the lighter along with his gun, before heading out into the night, suddenly craving some fresh air.
Steve also having reached his limit on the festivities and small-talk was getting ready to leave, but was stopped by the security guard on duty at the reception desk. A parcel had been left for him.
“Who left this?” Steve queried, eyeing the package warily and furrowing his brow.
“No idea, isn’t that the whole point of Secret Santa?” the security guard replied in a sarcastic tone.
Steve gave a vague chuckle in response, although he was half-expecting the package to explode in his face, if truth be told. Given what had happened to poor Puff in the not-too-distant past, he couldn’t be too careful and decided to take it into one of the empty meeting rooms just in case.
Once he had closed the door behind him, he gave the parcel a final pat down, stopping mid-way through to laugh at his own paranoia.
He took a deep breath before mumbling “Only one way to find out.”
He began ripping off the sleek, silver wrapping to reveal an as yet unidentified object hidden beneath several layers of tissue paper. He unravelled the item from the paper, his movements suddenly freezing once he realised what it was.
“Huh,” was all he could muster in pleasant surprise, as he slowly digested this unexpected turn of events.
He was holding a black leather camera case, which had a detachable strap that he quickly deduced he’d be able to use on his camera by itself, or with the case if he wanted to. He ran his fingers across the soft yet durable material, smiling to himself as the comforting smell of brand-new leather filled the room. It was much better quality and sturdier than his current strap, which he had complained on several stakeouts was tatty and on the verge of snapping. He’d also mentioned how his camera was starting to become scratched from all the wear and tear it had endured since he had arrived in Colombia, so the case was the perfect solution. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d received such a thoughtful gift.
Steve’s breath hitched in his throat and his mouth suddenly felt dry as it dawned on him that there was only one person he’d had those conversations with, that there was only one person who could possibly have known those details. He picked up his present and headed outside, wondering if said person was still around somewhere.
“You wouldn’t have had anything to do with this, would you?” Steve queried, holding his gift aloft in his hand as he made his way down the Embassy steps.
“I’m pretty sure that’s classified intel under the rules of the game, Murphy. They don’t call it Secret Santa for nothing,” Javi replied from the bottom of the steps, where he was casually leaning against the wall, trying his hardest to remain deadpan, although he could feel his lip muscles twitching despite himself.
Steve, on the other hand, was less restrained and snorted loudly before shaking his head at his partner’s woeful performance.
“Hmm is that so?” he mocked, unable to stop his smile widening as he tried and failed to catch Javi’s eye.
To the casual observer, Javi could pull off a relatively convincing poker face, but to someone who had spent as much time with Javi as Steve had, it didn’t wash. It was all in the subtle eye movements, in the way that he couldn’t fully commit to eye contact when he was – not necessarily lying but – holding something back, or being economical with the truth.
“Yep…although, if I was, hypothetically speaking, in the business of rule breaking, I could ask you the same about this,” Javi retorted, as he pulled his new lighter out of his jacket pocket and made a show of holding it up for Steve to see, before putting it to use on the fresh cigarette that was now dangling between his lips.
“You could, but that’d be downright unAmerican, wouldn’t it, Javi?” Steve shot back playfully with a mischievous smirk, which quickly turned into a wide grin as he already knew he’d won this particular round of their sparring.
Javi’s façade broke down further at that blow, as he almost choked on the smoke of his cigarette and felt his shoulders begin to shake.
“Fucker,” he scoffed under his breath, as he wondered how long Steve had been waiting to use that one on him. He suspected a while.
“Well, of course. In that case, my lips are sealed,” Javi continued, before taking another drag as his eyes lingered on Steve.
Steve was still smirking like the cat that got the cream, although his smile faded the longer they held eye contact. The atmosphere had subtly shifted, although it was a familiar heady type of tension that had been gradually building over time. The type of tension that hangs heavy in the air like charged static, liable to ignite at any moment if the conditions are right.
Steve reached for his own pack of cigarettes and pulled one out and up to his mouth. Quickly taking the hint, Javi leaned forward closing the gap between them and held out the lighter. He willed his hand to remain steady as he flicked the ignition button a couple of times, his fingers lightly brushing against Steve’s for a brief moment as he shielded the flame from the cool night air. Success. Steve awkwardly mumbled his thanks before taking a drag and exhaling, Javi still close enough for some of the smoke to blow into his face. His breathing stuttered as an intoxicating mix of the cigarette and Steve’s whiskey-tinged breath and aftershave hit his senses all at once, torn between wanting to lean closer and retreating to a safer distance.
For a moment, Javi did neither, instead staring intently at the ground whilst rolling his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. He could sense Steve was still watching him, waiting to see what his next move was going to be. Javi gulped and took a deep breath, before lifting his head back up again to meet Steve’s gaze. The twinkling lights from the nearby Christmas tree reflected in Steve’s eyes, making the steel-blue of his pupils pop against their dark surroundings and almost caused Javi to lose his train of thought.
“Wanna get out of here and grab a drink?” Javi eventually asked, his own eyes barely blinking now as they firmly locked on to Steve’s.
“Thought you’d never ask,” Steve replied definitively, his smirk returning as he immediately threw his cigarette to the floor and stubbed it out with his foot.
“Don’t get too cocky, Murphy. You’re buying the first round,” Javi replied, as they walked out into the night; neither quite sure what chain reaction they had finally sparked, but no longer able to deny they were both curious to find out.