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The heat of Colombia was an entity that made itself all too easy to pierce your skin and drive a man mad, something that rolled wave after wave with a weight like lead until your body dragged and each breath was suffocated. It became even easier for it to poison your veins the moment you stopped fighting it – the moment you surrendered and succumbed to its breach – and Stephen Murphy had waved that white flag a long time ago.
His fight had been short lived for whatever it had been worth, and he wouldn’t even call it a valiant one. Steve Murphy was never a man to give up so quickly, so easily, but every person had their breaking point no matter how many things or lives were on the line. The specific memory of when he’d laid down his arms was neither tangible nor present within his mind despite the numerous times he’d dug deeper and how many sleepless nights he’d spent wracking himself into exhaustion.
It had teased him like the tremors before an earthquake for so long into unsteadiness that when the crust finally cracked open and swallowed him whole the time to call out for help had already passed. He remembers being trapped within those shaking walls without a voice, spiraling further and further until the light was no more, when salvation had fallen out of his reach. Then the water had begun to trickle at his feet so desperately trying to find cracks in the wall that a thankfulness had befallen him, all the overwhelming breadth of the heat burning at his skin quickly fading as the coolness rose to encompass him. His relief had only been but an exhale before the panic of being drowned set in when the water never stopped but kept flooding. It suffocated him as it started to lift his struggle from deep between the shaking walls, the heat returning to and claiming every inch of his skin like they were meant to be a pair. When the water broke through that crack in the crust, Steve broke with it, gasping and trying to shake the weight from crushing him. He was stuck at the top of a tsunami riding a wave that never seemed to crest as it destroyed everything in its path.
Steve Murphy had not been born a quitter, but he had become one.
His nights had turned into him staring blankly at the ceiling with anger and pictures of bloodied bodies the only things swirling around in his mind as Connie clung to him like he was the last possession she owned. He had stopping caring about the hurt on her face each time he denied her conversation or pleasure and the worry each time he replaced his meals with a bottle of whisky. When they did make love, he was rough, not himself and only there to take, and when they did talk, he was short-tempered to the point where every remark from his mouth was a stinging bite. He remembers when their apartment grew silent, when her hands no longer touched him, and when he hadn’t felt anything but the prickles at his skin the day she left.
Every particle of his being was consumed and controlled by the Colombian heat to where he emanated nothing but the entity itself. It surrounded him in wet anger that left him emotionally unstable and utterly unpredictable – a ticking time bomb constantly moments away from exploding. His wave had not crashed yet, but everyone knew how much havoc the monstrosity would wreak.
The policemen of Colombia had begun to steer clear of Steve each time they happened to be at a scene together and no longer made fun of him for being a gringo even if the man couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it wasn’t out of respect; it was out of fear. They feared a man who couldn’t speak more than a few words of their language simply because of the lingering heat he left behind with each step his weighted feet took. People at the office who had been so lively and considerate before had suddenly ceased their kindness when Steve stepped into work. They no longer said hello, bid farewell and goodnight, and refrained from patting him on the back after a job well done. Things so normal, so harmless, that everyone had been doing before had suddenly become taboo when it came to Steve. Tasks as simple as asking him to look over something whether it be a report or intel was now seen as poking the bear, each person approaching him slowly and mustering their best quiet, non-threatening voice when asking a favor.
Javier Peña was the worst of them all. He made it so much easier for that heat to sneak under his skin and sink so far down that Steve feared he’d never be able to rid himself of it.
He could never tell if Javier had found some sort of mirth in antagonizing him or if it was simply his way of getting rid of the heat claiming his own skin that Steve felt each time their arms brushed. Javier had much thicker skin than he, much more resilience, but he had also been battling here alone for longer than Steve could ever handle. He could see the way Javier still fought the heat each time it crept along his arms or melted into his bones, could feel his pain each time his efforts weren’t enough. He had to wonder how much longer Javier could take before he too waved his white flag.
Carefulness had always been what he strove for when it came to working with his partner. It didn’t matter to him if the police or people from the office became aware of the heat’s effects on him or how unfriendly it made him; if he couldn’t get along with his partner and trust him, then they were all doomed. It had happened a few times, the outbursts, in the office or on stakeouts or even in one of their apartments. The heat had been so unnervingly prevalent those days that Steve couldn’t stop itching, and Javier simply wouldn’t stop poking.
It always started and ended the same way, their arguments and sometimes fights, and the people around them could always feel the spark in the air just moments before it ignited. Javier would push with bite after bite until the heat boiled dangerously under Steve’s skin and he exploded. He’d expel everything – the hate and anger running hot through his veins and his frustration at always being in the bottom – in a yelling match that often led to them both getting handsy. They’d only land a punch or two before someone was shouting for them to stop or Trujillo jumped in to pull Steve away; sometimes he would even realize himself what they were doing and seeing Javier’s angered pout made him hold his fists at his side. Javier would storm out then with his string of Spanish curses and his face pulled into something nasty, and he’d go fuck the life out of some prostitute before returning hours later with the tension no longer highly strung in his shoulders.
He never had wanted to hurt the man, but the Colombian heat was too possessive and unrelenting.
Javier wasn’t always trying to antagonize him or let off his own steam, rather, he seemed to take note when Steve’s battles were being fought harsher. He often spoke to him quietly and with a calming tone when the buzz of heat around his head was too loud and filled his coffee mug when the weight wore his limbs to nothing more than heavy rocks. Javier was attentive when it came to Steve, more aware of his emotions and where they’d go than Steve was himself and knew every moment when the heat sunk under his partner’s skin began to boil. Hell, Steve would even guess that Javier knew Steve was losing his battle before he did, perhaps even the second he first raised his flag in surrender.
Today is much like that, but it’s also unlike any other wave Steve had felt before.
They had been on La Quica’s trail all morning and now into the afternoon, tracking him from Blackie’s phone and taunting him with repeated calls. Steve’s blood was boiling, it had been since the moment he’d woken before the sun rose, and the heat was so palpable that he felt he could tear it in clumps from his skin. He had tried a few times to wipe his palm down anything that was exposed to the harsh air expecting to pull it away, but all he got were streaks of sweat. Drops of it dripped from his nose and chin, rolled teasingly down the expanse of his back, clung unrelenting to each strand of his hair, and bled through every fiber of his clothes. Even the air was suffocatingly hot and thick with each breath he drew in. No matter where he was, in front of a fan or not, and no matter what he did – Steve could not find any relief or shelter from Colombia’s swelter.
It cooked him from inside out, turning him slowly over a fire before slapping him on a grill and garnishing whatever was left with the hottest peppers known to mankind. His fingers would not stop twitching with the urge to peel his clothes off, and his skin would not stop itching with the want to appease every sticky molecule the sun thrust on him. He felt like his wave had crashed into a volcano that now encompassed his body and soul, flooding into his lungs and anchoring him in perpetual molten lava. It was impossible to escape.
Steve could sense that Javier had caught on to his situation within the first hour of them being in the Jeep this morning. He felt how cautious Javier was whenever he spoke and the eyes that would carefully watch him each time he’d turn to look out the window. It was appreciated, the way he kept feeding him cigarettes to keep his mind occupied before he exploded in a fit of rage on someone undeserving and how he would step in front of him and take the conversation somewhere else each time a policeman would approach them with new information. Steve could barely handle listening to Javier when the heat was bad enough where it would bite into his bones, but he certainly could not handle other men telling him how he should do his job. Most of them knew not to approach or speak to Steve nowadays, to just go to Javier, but some of them were new or had forgotten, and they had paid more than the price the times Javier hadn’t intervened in time. He couldn’t control himself anymore and didn’t really understand how, but he did know that unbridled rage and spontaneous violence were the dominants of his personality now. The scarce moments when Colombia’s heat would release him for only a second were the moments when he realized he hated himself for it.
He's leaning his back against the driver’s side door of their Jeep tapping his foot agitatedly in the dirt and listening to Javier speak to the men around them – too close around them. Their bodies felt close enough to him that his breaths came harder and felt claustrophobic, but they really weren’t that close at all only standing several feet from the Jeep itself. His arms are crossed over his chest and fingers dug into the inside of his armpits to keep them from scratching at his sticky skin or wiping at every bead of sweat he can feel sliding down his limbs. He constantly shifts his hips to unstick his jeans from clinging to places that make it even more uncomfortable to stand, irritation rising the more his balls stick to the inside of his thigh.
A flash of red from where Javier’s propped on the hood steals his attention from the murderous glare he’d been fixing his shoes. He’s ready to snap at whoever had interrupted his glowering, to put their face right under where he’d been staring but refrains when he’s met with Javier’s outstretched arm offering him his box of cigarettes. Steve takes them hurriedly, craving the distraction from lashing out on someone and realizes that Javier hadn’t even broken from his conversation with the men or his eye-contact to hand them over. He stops grinding his teeth then not even knowing he’d been doing it and feeling the ache in his jaw that suggested that that was all he’d been doing. A cigarette finds itself in his mouth as he returns to hating the ground thinking about how Javier knew he’d smoked the rest of his pack only minutes prior and that he needed another before he lost himself. The tiniest fraction of him calms with that thought blowing from his lips like the smoke that poisons him.
He only looks up again when the hum of Spanish around him ceases into an arid silence. A new cigarette dangles from his lips as he turns to face Javier thinking he missed an order or something important, but already finds the man looking right back at him. His face is pulled in trepidation as he picks Blackie’s phone up from the Jeep’s hood, a trickle of worry flashing through his eyes when he realizes Steve is looking at him. He brushes Javier’s worry off (something he had learned to grow used to) and averts his gaze to the man’s shoes as he listens to him punch in a number. Someone gives him an affirmation followed by quick typing on a keyboard that also sat on the Jeep’s hood being handled by one of the men from their office. The air grows even thicker, hotter, as the only sound filtering through the air is of a dialing tone.
Steve lets his eyes wander back up Javier’s body once he notes the man has turned around to lean his back against the vehicle, noting the areas where his shirt clings to his skin through patches of sweat. His fists clench hard when he hears Javier say La Quica’s name, a bloody and molten hatred flooding every one of his senses with a violent desire to hurt the man because of how much pain he had caused. He puffs out the last drag of his smoke and tries to block out the sweet allure of his partner’s voice; instead, he raises his gaze further up the man’s body to focus on the sliver of sweaty skin exposed at his chest. Steve would admit only to himself that Javier was an attractive man, one he did not mind becoming lost in, and often found himself staring longer than he meant to when his cigarettes failed in distracting him from the anger swimming in his veins.
He focuses on a bead of sweat forming at his temple and slowly watches its path as it slides down his face to catch on his jaw and roll off his chin. His thoughts turn to wonders of how salty Javier’s sweat would taste, how long it had been since he’d shaved from all the stubble marring his cheek, and whether he’d purr or not if he scratched at the hair on the back of his neck. Javier’s voice turns into nothing more than a delightful hum to his ears, a steady comfort as he examines how unruly the ends of his hairs curl with the growing moisture at his neck and how plush his lips look with the heat flushing his face. The weight of the heat crushing him lets up enough to allow him more than a staggered breath and a brief relief from the anger clenching in his fists. This always happened when he took the time and sought out distraction in Javier, something he didn’t do nearly as often for a fear of getting caught, but something about focusing on the man made everything lighter – cooler.
The sweet calm settling featherlight over his steaming body falters when Javier’s frame disappears from where his eyes had frozen, leaving him blinking in confusion at the now empty space of dirt in front of him and the sticking heat to unforgivingly return to his body. His senses feel dulled as his ears strain to hear the muffled jumbles of noise around him and the faded yet precious voice of someone near that Steve swears is calling right to him. His movements feel slugged by the heat emanating once more from him, almost like he was moving through Jell-O, as he tries to turn and find the source of that precious voice and figure out why everyone had suddenly moved from their positions. Even the cigarette dangling so prettily from his chapped lips struggles to stay in its place as Steve’s mind tries to snap itself out of the daze Javier’s trance had put him in and lift the weight of Colombia from sinking into his shoulders.
Everything crashes into him at once like the explosion of pins at the end of the lane when you throw a strike, loud and brilliant. The sounds of vehicles and motorbikes starting up around him rumble through the air to mix with the clicks of guns cocking and the shouts of unknown commands in Spanish. Men scramble around him with urgency speaking rapidly into their radios and jumping into trucks while slinging gun straps over their shoulders. Steve stands their frozen without a fucking clue as to what is going on, wondering what he could have possibly missed, and wipes the sweat pooling at his brow.
“Murphy!” that sweet voice shouts from his right. The cigarette falls forgotten from his lips as he whips his head around to find Javier halfway in the passenger seat with his head sticking up over the top of the Jeep. He’s staring at Steve impatiently with his face lit up in excitement and his eyes holding a sort of trepidation. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asks harshly, “let’s fucking go!”
Steve blindly reaches for the driver’s door as he watches Javier climb the rest of the way in pulling his gun from his waistband and raising the radio to his mouth. He shakes his head once he gets the door open to try and rid himself of the images of Javier his brain had been procuring moments ago and the scenarios he desperately tried to keep only in his dreams at night; something important was happening, and he needed to focus on the job rather than his partner for once.
He fumbles with the keys in the ignition straining to understand the conversation Javier’s having on the radio with a voice he doesn’t recognize, but the urgency in both of their voices made it even more difficult for him to pick out words. His skin feels sticky again with little prickles of the heat clinging to every hair on his body, a buzz of anticipation and confusion burning hot beneath even that. He feels like a goddamn host with the sun as his parasite.
“We have a mark on his location,” Javier says setting the radio in his lap as the other voice grows silent, “fucker was dumb enough to keep answering the phone even though he was getting paranoid.” Steve clenches his hands on the wheel as they sit there unmoving and waiting for the line of trucks in front of them to clear out. He wasn’t sure where he was supposed to be going or what the plan even was, but he finds himself guessing that Javier had said what he did because he knew Steve hadn’t been listening to anything. “Follow them,” he points to one of the trucks going the opposite way of the others, and Steve obliges. “We’re going to try and circle him so he can’t slip away. There’re forces on the other side of this area also closing in, and we’re spreading out on our end. I think we’re finally going to get him Murph.”
Steve’s body begins to run on the autopilot he’d found himself in months before Connie left – an autopilot that made him viciously dangerous. His hands clench around the steering wheel again, knuckles turning white, as he blindly follows the truck in front of him. All the sounds around him have turned into nothing but background noise; the occasional command or ask from the radio mixes with Javier’s voice into quiet mumbles and the lives of car engines a simple drone in the back of his head. He can vaguely make out Javier’s arm in the corner of his vision pointing a direction to tell him where he wants to go, but Steve’s already turning that way as if he just knew.
A ringing echoes continuously within the walls of his skull as his sight narrows into a focus of red rage. He clenches his fists again, purposefully digging his nails into his palms, and grinds his teeth so hard together he may as well have broken his jaw. The sweat dripping from his skin is like acid as it falls from him and bubbles achingly into the thread of his jeans. His skin feels like it’s boiling at the surface or melting into his bones, and it only becomes that much ore unbearable when La Quica flits through his mind.
The rage seeps into his fingertips and burns holes through his chest, sending his vision into images of his hands covered in the sicario’s blood as he prolongs his suffering as much as he can. His breathing quickens into harder breaths the more he thinks about it, about killing La Quica once and for all, and doing it in a way that hurts the most. La Quica had caused so much pain and suffering throughout Colombia and in Steve himself, killing almost as many as cocaine had itself and being responsible for too many innocent deaths that proved nothing but power. Steve thought about the children he’d murdered, the families, and the victims of the plane he’d set up to go down. That man deserved more than death in his eyes, and the angry hot liquid of his fury burning through his veins made him believe it would happen.
A touch near his elbow has his body jerking in surprise and the angered haze in front of him to clear enough for him to realize Javier was speaking. He blinks from the road to glance at him, only being able to make out the returned worry in his face with how much heat clouded him and feels a relief on his skin where the man’s fingers had been. “I asked if you were okay,” he repeats calmly, the urgency and harshness from before completely evaporated, but Steve can still hear the wariness in his voice. “You’ve been acting differently today,” he says even quieter, like he was afraid Steve would slam on the breaks and yell at him for even asking.
He doesn’t blame him because that’s what Steve would have done and has done before. Javier had stopped asking him the question a long time ago when Steve’s replies became either nothing at all or a crude shout of why the fuck it even mattered. He can’t remember the last time he truly felt okay, or when his chest began to feel tight each time Javier showed that he did care just by asking.
Steve doesn’t give him an answer besides the pursing of his lips as he clenches his hands once more despite the ache in his joints now forming. He didn’t have anything to say, an honest answer, or a lie that Javier wouldn’t be able to see through, so he narrows his eyes on the road again and uses everything in him to ignore whatever sadness Javier is sporting. The heat washes over him once more in angered silence, Steve letting it without giving any fight, and concentrates all of it into imagining what he’s going to do to La Quica when they find him.
Excited shouts crackle through the radio in Javier’s lap, but they’re speaking too hurried and overlapping over other voices that Steve can’t understand what’s going on. He opens his mouth to ask Javier what they’re saying when he sees it happening right in front of them. The few trucks he’d been following are slamming on their breaks one after the other and throwing their gears into park while other men come from the sides on motorbikes to draw their guns. He strains to see what’s happening beyond the cluster of vehicles that still have men in them when he catches sight of a curly-haired head that makes his vision go burning white. There, standing fearful and feeling trapped right in front of the leading truck is La Quica, struggling to find an exit away from them.
Steve is out of their Jeep before the damn thing even comes to a complete park, scrambling toward the man before he gets away, blinded by the white fury raging through his body. He can barely see anything other than that head of curls before him as he fumbles through the maze of car doors opening and Colombian policemen finally filtering out of the protection of their vehicles. The ringing in his head returns tenfold, every yell around him feeling more distant than ever and Javier shouting his name from behind him almost a faint whisper to his ears.
His skin is on fire, the heat dripping from his fingertips like venom and surface erupting in flames like he was the source of everything hot. He watches the fear in La Quica’s eyes as they widen when Steve draws near, finally fishing his gun out of his waistband, but he has no intention of pulling the trigger. La Quica turns quickly to run the other way, only making it a few steps before he’s skidding at the sight of Colombian men approaching with their guns drawn. He takes two steps back toward Steve glancing in every direction for a way out but trips over the curb in the process, falling onto his back with a grunt.
Steve’s a foot away from him then, clutching his gun dangerously in his hand with the heat of the sun surrounding him and a viciousness clear in his face. La Quica cowers below him throwing his hands out in front of him as surrender when Steve fists a rough grip into his shirt, and his wave finally crests. He digs a knee into his gut with images of bloodied faces and blank stares filtering through his fury, remembrances of all that this man had done and what Steve wanted to leave him as. He punches the butt of his gun across his face with a boost of power he hadn’t known he possessed, numb to the sting in his knuckles and the sharp pain fizzling through his wrist. The sharp cry following his blow only fuels his blinded rage, and Steve draws his arm back to do it again and again until every last drop of heat left his body.
His punch meets only the air when two strong arms grip around his throat and neck pulling him off and away from the man with a strange gentleness in the contact. He tries to scramble forward and break free from whoever is dragging him backward because he wasn’t done yet – not until his hands were covered in blood that didn’t belong to him. It didn’t matter if the arms around him were simply holding and not trying to hurt him, it mattered that he was being dragged away from something he so desperately needed to do. His strength returns with a burst of heat swirling in his stomach and a need to just hurt rushing to his hands. He kicks his heel into one of the shins behind him and uses the man’s stumble to jab his elbow up into his jaw, relishing in the feel of expelling every ounce of violence from his veins. It was more spur of the moment that has Steve turning around to punch the man because he very well could have just lurched forward back onto La Quica, but his anger makes him drive the butt of his gun against his captor’s face as well.
He’s ready to return to La Quica’s cowering figure when his contact makes the man stumble backward and fall onto the dirt with a choked noise, but the familiar groan of his partner’s precious voice filters through his ringing ears and the white rage blinding him starts to blink out of focus. The coils heating in his stomach drop to a heavy guilt and the anger dripping from his fingertips turn regretful when Javier comes into focus on the ground before him, his eyes wide and hand cupping his cheek. All the heat steaming from his body suddenly evaporates into a dull warmth settled atop his bones with the realization of what he’d done – who he’d struck. A breath silently leaves his mouth. He hadn’t meant to hurt Javier; it was never his intention to hurt the man.
A brief hurt shock flashes through Javier’s wide eyes before their narrowing with a flood of saddened anger. “Take a walk Murphy,” he grits from between his teeth with his hand still cradling his face. Steve chances a quick look to the men around them, finding all their eyes pointedly fixed on anything but him. They were all afraid.
His mouth falls open in search of an apology as he takes a step forward to help the man up – to at least do something for once that didn’t end in hurt. “Javi,” is the only choked word that slips quietly from his mouth, his mind finally deciding to fumble through the thick heat it resides in. Javier rises quickly to his feet only to slap Steve’s proffered hand away and shove a palm harshly at the man’s chest before pointing off somewhere that was sure far away from any of them.
“Take a fucking walk Steve,” he nearly growls with a look of betrayal on his face and a dangerous heat in his eyes. It hurt Steve to see his partner looking at him in such a way, to know that he deserved every ounce of it, and that he was the one who put the purpling blotch blooming over his cheekbone.
So, Steve turns around and takes a walk, feeling the heat of Colombia weighing down and burning him harsher than it ever had before.
He finds himself in a dusty and deserted alleyway between a few poor-standing buildings, their walls painted in cracks and roofs sagging inward. It’s hard to tell whether people still inhabit the shambled homes, but Steve knew it wouldn’t be a surprise if a head poked out of one of the shattered windows. Stacks of broken crates line the cracked walls and broken bottles of booze litter the dirt ground in plenty, giving Steve something to kick around as he paces around the deserted area. He doesn’t know how long he had been walking, how far he was from Javier and the other men, but something about the saddened sight around him made his feet decide they didn’t want to go any further.
His knuckles sting from where he’d made contact with both faces and fingers aching in a strange way from how they’d been jammed around his gun. The heat weighs heavy on his shoulders and drips down the length of his arms, but a thick guilt sinks low into his stomach drowning out any warmth that encapsulated his being. He clenches his fists numerous times as he paces through the dirt and absently kicks broken bottles, doing absolutely anything to rid himself of the anger that overtook him and trying to distract himself of the hurt anchored in his chest. The urges he had to hurt someone – something – has already left him before he reached the alley, but all the pent-up rage he’d faced earlier continued to seethe dangerously along his bones. It made his hatred for himself float to his surface all sticky and suffocating, and Steve claws at himself to get rid of it.
He refrains from kicking the next bottle he happens upon in his path, rather, picking it up swiftly and lobbing it at the cracked wall closest to him. The way it shatters in a glass explosion flushes a flurry of excitement through Steve, so he does it again and keeps doing it until no more bottles lie near him. Heat prickles against his skin once more as he lashes out to expel it from his body, beads of sweat dripping from his face and soaking through his clothes. He kicks into a pile of crates toppled against one of the buildings breaking the withered wood from the nails holding the figures together and stomping every surface into splintered planks. A rush of relief bursts through him as he dispels the rage from before, coughing it up each time he broke or hit something until only an ounce of it stubbornly remained latched beneath his nails.
His fist suddenly collides with the wall before him. It stings his knuckles more – the punch – and he breathes in the dusty cloud his punch had produced with something harsh clawing at his ribcage. Javier’s groan echoes through his head as an image of his shocked face and blossoming bruise flash behind his eyes, a reminder of how destructive he was. He falters back a few steps to see the broken crates around him and the shattered glass littered everywhere realizing that he’d allowed the heat, his anger, to overcome him once again.
An exhale leaves him as he steps even further back, a mix between disappoint and hatred in himself, before stumbling to the ground in a puff of dirt. He remains sat on the ground with sweat dripping down the side of his face and his fingers trembling with something he can’t name. He still feels hot – he always did – but it wasn’t the burning weight that drove him into senselessness and worked up his insides, rather, just the sun laying its rays on him. He can’t discern whether the pressure and leak behind his eyes is from the dirt filtering through the air around him or his emotions finally catching up to compensate for all the times he’d tucked them away in favor of just being angry.
A weariness sinks over him as sweat rolls down his back and matts damp hairs to the back of his neck. He breathes shakily with the tremble in his fingers still present like they used to after he’d drank too much coffee. A sort of melancholic melody winds itself around his head and washes into his ears, feeling the hollow he felt in himself deepening further with sullenness. He crosses his legs and sets his elbows atop his knees to rest his head in his hands, fisting his fingers into his sweat-soaked hair simply to shut himself away.
His eyes fall close sometime after that between clenching his fists in his hair and coughing the dusty air out of his lungs, but he doesn’t realize how much time has passed until his neck starts to ache from his position. He drags a palm down his face, ignoring the dirt mixing with his sweat and the unkemptness of his hair, to rest his chin in his hand and look down the length of the alley he’d yet to reach. The faint sound of shoes digging into the dirt from the end he came from piques his interest, but he doesn’t dare look to see who’s joined him in his wallowing. He knows Javier is the one walking toward him no matter how hard he wished the man would turn around.
The crunch of glass under a shoe only a few feet from him now makes him briefly close his eyes once more as he prepares himself for Javier’s lecture and anger – whichever comes first. He never hears it though, only the halting of Javier’s footsteps and the flick of a lighter as the man lights a cigarette. Javier takes a few inhales of the smoke before sitting beside Steve in much the same manner and barely touching their knees together. A coolness rushes through Steve at the slight contact, drawing a sliver of a shiver through his shoulders.
He flinches when something small suddenly lands in his lap – a quick glance showing him it’s the box of cigarettes Javier had given him earlier – but he makes no move to touch or acknowledge them. “You left those in the Jeep,” Javier says almost monotonously around his own cigarette, only a sliver of exhaustion creeping into his voice. Steve stares at them for a long moment, regarding, before blindly tossing them back toward the man.
“They’re yours,” he mumbles from behind his fingers.
Javier huffs at him clouding his face in smoke and tucks the box into Steve’s breast pocket, his touch lingering a little longer than Steve thought necessary. “And I gave ‘em to you, so that means they’re yours now,” is his reply, said absently and without much emotion.
Steve doesn’t pay them any mind or think too hard about the brush of Javier’s fingertips over the front of shirt; instead, he focuses his gaze on a door barely hanging on its hinges at the corner of one of the buildings. He squints at it, wondering what the door could lead to or what it had previously housed. It looks rotted and withered (much like the rest of the place) and Steve felt its sagging stature reflected within his own self. A single tap at his knee steals his attention from the sorry door, but he tries his damnedest not to turn around to completely face the man – a guilt of what he’d left on his cheek still racing through his mind. Javier’s hand is hovering near his knee offering his half-smoked cigarette with a slight twitch in his thumb. Steve hesitates before taking it, trying and failing to hide the tremble still in his hands, and doesn’t miss the way Javier hovers again until he’s pulling away.
“They’re taking him down to the jail now. I was promised maximum security, whatever the fuck that means,” Javier says quietly beside him. Steve closes his lips around the cigarette and draws in a breath with his eyes closed, focusing on trying to get even a hint of the taste Javier’s mouth could have left on it. “They want to keep him for the rest of the night and deal with their own business, but they promised we could come in in the morning and do our own questioning.” Steve hums along quietly to show he’s listening with a distaste at how nonchalantly Javier is speaking to him like nothing had happened. He smokes quietly with his eyes trained on the ground waiting for an indication that Javier’s ready to return to their office. “Hey,” he suddenly says with a little more harshness than before after a long silence, “will you fucking look at me already.”
Steve sighs heavily at the request but doesn’t make a move to obey. He takes several long drags of the cigarette to finish it off before driving it into the dirt ground. Something like dread catches in his throat as he blinks slowly to gain even an ounce of confidence to face him – to face what he’d done. He turns finally to look at the man, first meeting his narrowed eyes that aren’t shrouded in anger or accusatory, but almost soft. A frown quickly takes residence on his mouth as he maps the places he’d struck, his lips curling downward and brows furrowing with the contrast of colors painted over him. His skin is glistening with sweat and curled hair matted strangely against his forehead, but the plainness of his appearance does nothing to alleviate the punch in Steve’s gut. A purpling and strange shape mars his cheek with a sharp redness curling down his jaw along with a mark beneath his chin from where he’d elbowed him.
His exhale is breathy, full of regret, and his fingers twitch with a want to brush over each bruise tenderly with apology. “Javi,” he whispers with a sliver of pain tainting his voice, “I – I’m sorry Javier. I’m so sorry. I didn’t – I never meant to—”
“Stop it,” Javier interrupts, the softness in his eyes turning into something more commanding, more absolute, “just fucking stop.” He fishes the box of cigarettes from Steve’s pocket for only a moment to steal one of the sticks, lighting it quickly, before tossing it back haphazardly into Steve’s lap. The air around them seems to have morphed into something much thicker with tension and an unease that has heat prickling again down Steve’s arms – something he no longer wanted to feel. His eyes continue to take note of the discoloration in Javier’s cheek as the man takes several sharp drags from his cigarette, his eyes narrowed almost cruelly at the dirt near his feet before he’s looking up to Steve again. “I knew what would happen and what you were capable of doing the moment I thought about putting my hands on you, but no one else was going to step in. They were going to let you beat him to death because you can’t fucking control yourself, and they all know it. I don’t care that you hit me, Hell, I fucking deserve it for intervening when you get like that, but I don’t want you moping around the rest of the day feeling bad about it. You don’t get to fucking apologize Steve; you need to ask for help.”
Steve barely opens his mouth with the remnants of his previous apology still at his lips, but he licks them away upon replaying Javier’s words in his head and seeing the softness return in his face. The pressure behind his eyes increases with the weight of the word’s meaning because he knew he needed help when the heat got too much for him to handle but hearing it from Javier made it more real – more important. It showed that he did care about him and not just their fragile work relationship. Steve’s chest squeezes with the thought.
He breaks the contact he’d been holding with Javier to wipe the sweat from his forehead and rid the backs of his hands of the dirt that had begun to stick to them on his jeans. His fingers jerk at the sting of pain crawling up his forearm when his knuckles brush over the material still raw and dully aching from the several things he’d made contact with earlier. He nearly flinches once more when Javier hesitantly touches him, taking his hand with his fingertips and turning it over to examine. Steve watches his brows furrow as he sighs around the cigarette still posed between his lips with a squint at the reddened marks littering his skin. A shiver races its way up his spine when Javier draws his thumb lightly over his knuckles, a tiny smatter of blood smearing across them as he does so and feels relieved at the gentleness his touch exudes. He hadn’t even realized he’d torn his skin no matter how small it had been. “This is why we keep our hands to ourselves,” Javier mutters with an edge to his voice that sounds like mocking.
Steve takes his hand back from him immediately missing the absence of warmth Javier’s touch has brought but also fearful of basking in it too long. The heat he experienced with Javier was never as volatile or exhausting as the Colombian sun, but it left him tingling and stuck with the remnants of it for far longer than the outside rays ever could. He wipes his hands against his jeans again – this time more carefully – before standing up with a flush in his face. “I, um,” he starts and clears his throat, “I think we better head back to the office. Someone’s bound to have our necks if we don’t fill out any paperwork for today.”
He makes it a few steps passed Javier when he hears the crunch of dirt as the man also stands to follow him. “Steve,” he hears quietly from behind him, a sort of defeat and pleading seeping into his voice. He hesitantly comes to a stop with his eyes blinking closed briefly; he didn’t like the way Javier had said his name, and he didn’t want the man to berate him anymore or tell him how unhinged he’d become. Steve knew how sporadic and untrustworthy the Colombian heat had morphed him into. He didn’t need his partner to tell him that, and he certainly couldn’t look the man in the eyes anymore without feeling guilty about how hard he’d fallen. It broke him to see disappointment in the face he only ever wanted to please.
The only thing he’s able to see once he finally turns around is Javier flick his unfinished cigarette to the side before he’s encapsulated in a tight hold. Arms wrap firmly around his waist and back to pull him flush against Javier’s sweaty body, and the breath of shock Steve releases turns quickly into a desperate cry of security as the embrace washes over him. He lets his forehead drop to Javier’s shoulder and rests his temple just below the man’s ear, his own arms quickly coming up from his sides to mirror the ones holding him. He wishes that for once – just once – he could be the shorter of the two so he could bury himself in Javier’s chest without aching his back and just be smothered in the warmth he’s exuding.
It's hot between them almost as if they were standing only a few feet from the sun or like they were two separate flows of lava somehow coming together in the middle to make an even bigger stream. It isn’t the sticky, heavy, or angered heat that Steve grew to dread and keep patches of on him at all times – it’s comforting. It was the kind of heat you felt tingling all over your body laying in bed after a particularly good fuck or the kind that flushed all over when someone you fancied said they liked your shoes.
Steve’s breaths feel labored with the force of it crowding around him and clawing to get under his skin. He welcomes its presence – the safety and comfort it offered – and sighs a quiet relief when it flushes through his system quickly to rid his veins of all he’d grown to hate. He no longer feels the tension strung in his shoulders or the agitated twitching of his muscles that the Colombian heat brought; not even the weight of the sun’s rays can lay on Steve’s back when Javier’s arms are around him. The pressure behind his eyes returns when he feels it all seep from his fingertips in tiny drops. Every last sliver of haunting heat, dangerous anger, and splinter that cut him into the man that needed to ask for help rushes from his body like the tsunami’s waves finally receding.
Steve clutches at the material beneath his palms tighter.
They have never been this close before or even touched the other for longer than what was necessary. It was always a hand shake or a squeezed shoulder as a silent question of if the other was fine, but their relationship had never really gone beyond that. There had been times when Steve wanted to hug Javier or wanted the man to hug him – times when Javier walked into the office with nightmarish ghosts haunting his features that Steve couldn’t bear to see – but he had never given into them. He wonders now why Javier had decided to snatch him into his arms unprompted to simply hold him there when it was something they had never done before. He thinks maybe it’s the same reason that had Javier giving him his cigarettes earlier. The same reason that had Javier speaking to him gently whenever he was overheated. The same reason that had Javier telling him to ask for help.
It isn’t longer than a few minutes that they stand there with their arms around each other, but each passing second feels longer than the last to Steve. He hadn’t been touched properly, caringly, since long before Connie had left and even then, it hadn’t held the same significance as it does from Javier now. He smells like smoke and whisky (a walking bar really) mixed with a sweaty musk that has Steve taking in a deep breath of just him. It makes him want to turn his head into Javier’s neck to lick the sweaty lines there and press his lips to his warm skin just to taste what sometimes visited his dreams.
Javier chooses that moment to start pulling away from their sweaty heat of embrace taking his hands slowly from around their perch to hover at Steve’s hips. A slight of panic floods into Steve’s system when Javier takes a step back with a fear of never having this comfort again or the brief shield from Colombia’s sun. An urge to tug Javier back into him – into their embrace – eats harshly at him. He wants to clutch at him and plead ‘not yet’ or ‘just a few more minutes’, but he doesn’t. Steve lets him go.
He drops his arms back to his sides with an ounce of hesitation as he lifts his head from its rest against the man, but his movements falter when Javier’s thumb brushes lightly over his jaw. It happens before he can fully register what Javier’s doing, a quick kiss pressed into his temple just at the end of his brow, and it’s a persistent touch of his lips like Javier had really wanted him to feel it. Steve’s breath catches in his throat at the simple act even as Javier’s hands leave him entirely to fish into his breast pocket for another cigarette since he flicked his last one away. There was no meaning, no weight, and no real reason behind Javier giving his temple a quick peck other than maybe it saying that everything was going to be okay, but it still sparks something inside Steve nonetheless. He feels himself catch fire, alit with Javier’s flames, and lets it scorch him until he’s nothing but ash and smoke – smoke that he wants to taste at Javier’s lips rather than watch swirl into the air.
“You’re right,” Javier says around the cigarette, and he looks completely unfazed by his actions and what they’re doing to Steve, “we should go back and do something so we don’t get our asses chewed tomorrow. You catch one of the bad guys, but God forbid if you don’t do your paperwork.” He says it with a quiet chuckle, the smoke curling around his face like it always did and wipes a hand at the mess of sweaty curls matted at his forehead. “Come on then.”
Javier turns to leave the alleyway and make the walk back to their Jeep unless he drove it up here, but Steve isn’t ready to leave yet. He doesn’t want to go back to feeling tension in his shoulders and thick in the air always around him or claw at the heat when it eventually anchored into his bones again. He doesn’t want to abandon the short wave of comfort Javier had bathed him in, rather, he wants to drown in it. He doesn’t want to feel anything besides Javier’s warmth cleansing him, and he doesn’t want to be anywhere besides in the touch that always cured him. “Javi,” he suddenly calls with a voice full of surety and lacking the weakness he’d had on the ground.
Javier hesitates when he turns back to him much like Steve had when he’d tried to leave with a carefulness in his eyes and his jaw set hard. “If you fucking apologize to me one more goddamn time Murphy it’s going to be my fist in your face, and you can walk back to the damn office for all I care.”
Steve shakes his head as he fiddles with his fingers trying to figure out what to do with his hands and what the Hell he’s going to say. He opens his mouth a few times with nothing to show for it before throwing his hands in the air and stuffing them in his pockets. Javier’s face softens seeing Steve struggle helplessly and takes a step back toward him as he waits patiently for whatever it is the man wants to say.
“I--,” Steve starts with his eyes boring into the dirt at his feet and his skin working up a nervous sweat, “I need help Javi, I do, and I know that. I haven’t been able to figure out let alone understand what exactly it is I’m needing that help with or how to find it, but I need it.” He takes a breath not really knowing what he’s saying or what his end goal is, but he’s able to meet Javier’s eyes then with a want to be held again. “I don’t know how to ask or how to fix, Connie leaving was proof enough for that, but I don’t want you leaving too just because I can’t take care of myself. I could handle losing her, but I don’t think I could handle losing you too. I just – I need – fuck. Help me, please.”
Javier regards him silently for a handful of seconds, looking at Steve and his lost expression with something unreadable on his face. Steve was tired of simply staring though; he wanted to do. “Steve,” he says quietly, almost a whisper in the silence around them in the abandoned alley. He doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t even make a move to say anything else, but Steve still stands there – waiting and desperate for a touch that will make him believe it will be okay.
He watches him inhale a long drag – the way his lips purse, how his fingers twitch when his hand comes back down to his side, how he holds the smoke in for as long as he can, and how it swirls faintly around his head to paint him in a daze. His breath releases when Javier finally takes a step forward to stand before him again with the tips of their shoes nearly touching. He places a palm over Steve’s chest just to run it up the length of his shirt and catch a bed of sweat trickling down his neck with his thumb. “You forget what partners are for, Murph?” he asks sticking the cigarette in Steve’s face like it were his finger and Steve was a child about to be scolded, “they’re not supposed to just watch each other’s backs and fill out paperwork together; they’re supposed to take care of each other.” Javier cups his cheeks then with the cigarette butt poking into his skin and the smoke curling between them. Steve feels his breath catch again as Javier’s warmth blooms across his face, but there’s a caution in the man’s eyes like he wasn’t sure if this kind of touching was allowed or welcomed.
“It’s my job Steve. I’m supposed to be taking care of you, and I haven’t been doin’ that for a long time now,” a twinge of shame in his quiet voice, but Steve would never blame him for how far he’d fallen, “I know there’s a lot of times when we don’t see eye-to-eye or argue because there’s just nothing else to do, but dammit Steve I want to change that. I need to change it.” He licks his lips with words he hasn’t said yet, maybe never will, but Steve wants to change it too. He always has. “Tell me how I can help you and I’ll do it. I’m tired of seeing you lost in your own head each time I look at you.”
Steve feels breathless with Javier’s eyes searching his face and his hands holding him so gently. He never knew the man to forget about a smoke once he’d started one, but the cigarette still rests unimportant against his cheek. “I don’t know,” and he really doesn’t.
Javier licks his lips with a quiet sigh, shifting on his feet. “You…it helped when I hugged you, didn’t it?” he asks with the hint of a knowing smile teasing at the corner of his mouth. Steve nods slowly with a light flush coloring his cheeks, realizing that Javier had noticed how he’d melted into the embrace like syrup over pancakes. He’s brought closer into Javier’s space, their chests barely touching and hips almost bumping together. It’s warm, comforting even to be so near him, but it’s nothing like how he was held before. Javier’s eyes seem to notice the smoke wisping at Steve’s cheek before his gaze flicks toward it and then he’s taking his hand away. “These usually help you when you’re all strung. Here.”
Steve takes it without a second thought instantly missing the warmth of the hand at his cheek. He closes his mouth around the butt of it and breathes in the smoke thinking of Javier’s lips being in the same place only a minute before. A desire and wonder of what they taste like rushes through him like the small cloud he exhales, causing him to swallow something nasty down his throat that he isn’t sure should ever reach the surface. He’d vowed a long time ago that he wouldn’t let anything he felt in his chest get in the way of their already strained relationship no matter how badly it ached him.
His gaze focuses on Javier once more when he realizes he’d begun to stare mindlessly at a bead of sweat streaking a trail down the glistening neck before him, but the man isn’t meeting his eyes either. Javier’s studying Steve with a peering look, fixed and stuck on something that isn’t his eyes and lay below his nose. He purses his lips around the cigarette as he takes in a leveled inhale watching the way those brown eyes track the movement, and Steve almost falls to his knees with a revelation that leaves him nearly breathless. Javier’s staring at his mouth with an entranced look in his eyes and a want burning lightly pink high in his cheekbones.
It feels like he’s drowning again in his own tsunami wave with the desire to kiss Javier filling his lungs and a feeling that he may want the same dragging him further away from the surface. His own eyes drop to Javier’s mouth turned into a little pout, no doubt from Steve’s behavior, and suddenly the answer he’d been unsure of punches him so hard that he can feel its shockwaves wrack through every inch of his body. What he needed was right in front of him still cradling half of his face and promising to do whatever it took to help him. He needed to kiss the man, and he was tired of standing here just waiting for it to happen.
He expels the remaining smoke from his lungs and doesn’t even bother tossing the damn cigarette as he takes ahold of Javier’s face and pulls the man closer. The shocked inhale Javier takes when their lips barely brush is felt beneath Steve’s fingertips in the slight jump of his skin, but he makes no move to escape the hold Steve doesn’t want to let go of. He doesn’t press forward or lean back, still trying to gauge Javier’s reaction, and takes his time to relish in the numbness of their breaths softly mingling together. The thumb at his cheekbone traces a line up toward the corner of his eye until a palm starts slowly feeling its way to the small hairs at the back of his neck. He can feel Javier watching him even in their already close proximity and feels a shiver race up his spine at the fingers playing with the tufts of damp hair at his neck, but he still can’t decide if pushing further forward was what was wanted or not.
Javier makes the decision for him by pulling at his neck and slotting their lips fully together in a gentle kiss, almost as if he too was unsure. Steve gasps softly through his nose at the contact but meets the kiss immediately, grasping onto Javier and feeling a hand sneak to the small of his back. He sighs quickly into the touch and at the tongue tentatively poking at his lips that he wished hadn’t been so chapped, but he grants him access nonetheless. Javier tastes like cigarettes, the cheap coffee back at the office, and the bottle of whisky he always kept hidden in the drawers of his desk as he licks into Steve’s mouth taking in every inch of him like he needed to be devoured.
He's surprised by how sweet and delicate Javier is with his hands and his mouth as he kisses and holds him. He had always seen the way he kissed or touched women at the clubs they sometimes visited, how aggressive and there for taking he was, not to mention the images he conjured whenever Javier would recount his recent visit to one of many whore houses. Javier was never gentle when it came to loving or any affectionate detail, but he was treating Steve as if he were his most precious China dish in the entirety of his cupboards. It draws another sigh from him and makes his knees weak.
He feels drained when Javier pulls back enough to just let their lips touch as he breathes – drained of all his worries, anxieties, anger, stressors – and it’s the freest he had ever felt from the Colombian heat. Everything that ached and sunk into his bones vanished the moment Javier closed the space between them, and Steve can’t even feel a speck of it inching back into him.
His bottom lip is drawn lightly between Javier’s teeth before he’s kissing lightly along his jaw and up until he reaches his temple. Javier noses him as he plays with the hair between his fingers and runs his palm up Steve’s back. “Does this help you, Steve?” he whispers into his skin with curiosity, “is this what you need?”
All Steve can manage is a quiet grunt before Javier’s pecking at the corner of his mouth and fitting their lips together again. His hands manage to find their way into the damp curls of Javier’s messy hair where he scratches and gently tugs, swallowing every breathy noise that escapes the man each time he does so. He feels a yearning bubble deep in his stomach when Javier bites at his lip, and its something stronger than even the pang of jealousy that always overtook him every time he watched his partner feel up another woman. It made him want more – more of Javier and more of the tenderness seeping into him – and it was something he never got from Connie in all their years together.
The sound of tires crunching over dirt have both men springing from each other like children caught in the act of breaking a rule with both their chests rising faster than normal and breaths panting in anxiousness. Steve catches a glance at Javier, finding his cheeks flushed and lips shining with saliva as he wipes his palms over his jeans, and notices a sort of glaze leaving his eyes each time he blinks like he’d been lost in a trance. He realizes his hands are shaking at his sides and wipes the spit from his own lips when he remembers the cigarette between his fingers, astonished that he hadn’t dropped the damn thing. He takes a few steps forward to hand whatever little was left of it to Javier who mutters a quiet, “thanks.”
A Colombian police vehicle comes into view from the end of the alley both men had entered from, and it stops suddenly when its driver notices them standing there. One of the men sitting in the back of the vehicle stands and shouts something to them in Spanish as Javier takes a long pull from the cigarette and tosses it. “Sí, lo encontré. Volveremos ahora,” he yells back waving them off. They stand there in silence until the vehicle disappears and Javier finally sighs. “We should go back now and do paperwork. I’ve had enough of this fucking shit. I just want to lay in bed and feel like I’ve accomplished something for once,” he mutters and turns to head back down the alley.
Too many things decide to race through Steve’s head in that moment that have him rooted to his spot in the dirt. He didn’t know how Javier felt about what just happened, if it would ever happen again, if he did it just to make Steve forget about shit for once, and why the heat hadn’t returned to his body yet. All he felt was an electric thrumming beneath his skin and a rapid beating in his chest; his lips tingled, and his body wet with sweat, but he didn’t feel hot at all. “Javi—”
“Christ, Steve,” he interrupts, stopping in his stride and turning again toward him with his fingers pinched at the bridge of his nose, “can we just talk about it after we go home? You know, later?” Something in Steve’s expression must soften Javier’s need to escape the situation because his hand drops from his face and a defeated sigh falls from his lips. He squints at the sky for a few seconds with his hip slightly popped like he was thinking real hard about something before he’s sighing again and walking back over to Steve. Javier kisses him quickly, unexpectedly, and Steve still can’t seem to find any of the words he wants to say to him. “I would’ve done all that – more – under any circumstance. Even the normal ones,” he says quietly with a timid honesty that Steve had never heard from the man before. Javier looks at him then like he really was that special piece of chinaware in his cupboard and swallows something deep in his throat. “I stopped looking for an excuse and a reason in wanting to kiss you a long time ago, and it sure doesn’t mean I need a reason to now because I don’t; I never did. You were reason enough for me.”
Everything Steve has ever felt gets caught in his chest then as he slowly raises his hands to cover the ones Javier has on his face. He runs his thumbs over his knuckles, feeling the dull ache in his own, and decides that this time there are no words he can say that would ever describe the way he was feeling. “Yeah,” he manages, “okay. Later.”
Javier smiles at him before taking his hands away, the kind of smile he only ever saw when you got enough liquor in the man to make him forget life and said something he truly thought was funny. It warmed every ounce of him not like the heat of Colombia did but like a cup of fresh caf on the coldest day of the year.
And Steve wouldn’t have minded being hot every second of the rest of his life if he got to see that treasure every day.