Work Text:
And there they go again.
Kev silently closes the door behind him, as if he does not want the world to notice he has been there. Javi couldn’t care any less about what they would think of him, of them, anyway. But instead of telling the old-woman next door that yes, he has just fucked another man, Espo stays there, all alone in his own apartment, sat on an arm of the couch where they both watched one of those cop movies that seemed as though they were made for the late hours in the night. That crappy movie aired some hours ago for the tenth time that year, even if they didn’t catch the end this time because they were already making out in Esposito’s bed. That crappy movie.
Javi just stares at the closed door, wearing nothing but his pajamas trousers, hearing nothing but a dripping tap somewhere and the hum of the fridge in the kitchen. Espo waits there for something, maybe for his own life to be amended, maybe for Ryan to turn back, maybe for him to stand up and make this all stop once and for all.
He just stays there, watching a closed door. Again.
Esposito learnt in his early years that he was not going to have the easy life. He realized it at the same time he realized it was far more difficult getting hard spying on girls after their swimming lesson than watching his own mates in the shower time. Far more difficult. Not that fucking with guys was going to be his problem, but he suddenly knew that it would be everybody else’s problem. Anyway, maybe the easy life was a little overrated, right?
After all, if he had wanted an easy life, he would definitely not have joined the military academy. But as his mama always had said “you’re far more stubborn than this, Javi”, and Javi knew it was easier to blame life for being so hard, rather than blaming himself for not living it as he would love to. Suddenly, a career in the Army seemed like a pretty good idea, and the “those years were worth it, man” he always answered when asked, killed every doubt about it. Somehow, it was worth it –he learnt how to care for his team & other people and this led him to what he wanted to do for a living, and that was a pretty good realization, wasn’t it?
But then, he understood what it truly would mean learning to serve people. That since his academy years there would always be that very first rule written in golden letters –“don’t ask, don’t tell”. Better never ask, and far better never ever tell. If he wanted those years to end up well, he would always have to keep it as a reminder of what he was meant to do with his not-that-easy life. Silence.
Those were intense years of training, of realizing his own limits, of getting to know his own aim in life. And then, there were years of secret nights with no names, no faces, no questions –just bodies having desperate and silent sex without mornings, coffees and greetings. Don’t ask, don’t tell, and everything could work fine if he did not mess with the fragile work/personal-life balance. He convinced himself that it was not a real problem for him, since he had never been that open with his own business. And he was pretty sure as well that love was a little bit overrated those days.
Life just kept on happening those years.
It was when he got back to the city after taking the opportunity to join the police corps, that he realized how much he had missed NY. That false but comforting feeling that he could hide everywhere, like he could be anybody anywhere he went, after long hours of paper work or chasing people around the streets. After all those years, he could finally feel that the fragile balance between work and life was not that fragile anymore. That he could wake up with a man, make coffee for him, and be in the precinct some hours after with nobody actually caring. It surprised him how much he had missed the feeling of being somehow protected from himself.
And then, when he started to think that maybe his life had gotten a little easier, it happened –he met Ryan. He met his crappy jokes, his caffeine addiction, his inability to stand two glasses of whisky (“hey, man?, what’s wrong with ya? Ain’t you Scottish or something?”). Espo suddenly came across with Ryan and his hideous couch, his passion for lost causes and all the things Javi had never been interested in before, but all of sudden became intrigued by (“hey, bro, you do like old movies, right?” “Uh-huh?”). One day, Javi met Ryan, and then he wanted to ask and tell the world to him.
Theirs was one of those friendships in which the awkward-strangers phase only lasted one day. After being assigned as partners, without knowing each other, they agreed that a couple of beers after work couldn’t harm anyone. The couple-of-beers thing ended up being a few beers more, with embarrassing stories of themselves included and with Javi being left with a feeling that he had known Kev all his life. After that, everything went smoothly between them, like they were just childhood friends reunited again. Espo let Kevin surround him with the cute freaky things he loved, and Kev in exchange gave Javi the last one thing he had never had –somebody to depend on.
They both knew at the same time they had fallen for each other. It happened on a rainy day of just hanging out and doing nothing in particular. Javier left a little earlier because he couldn’t stand the atmosphere between them any longer. The worst thing about knowing was knowing –that they had inevitably fallen for each other, and that turning back was a difficult thing to do. So, after some days of out-of-normal awkwardness, they ended up spending another rainy night together in Espo’s bed. And that felt perfectly okay.
Espo learned then that Kevin had fallen for guys before, but he had never had the bravery to have what he wanted with them. Ryan wanted it to be clear that he would have never kissed Esposito if he hadn’t put his lips on his first (the raindrops hitting the windows, the silence between them, the glances, and Javi slowly approaching Kev’s face to kiss him like there was no more universe than the one inside his flat). That rainy first night, they had wild and needy sex, because they were both far too afraid to ask if there was going to be another time together. That night finished as all their nights together ended –with Javi sitting on the arm of his couch, with the door closed and no goodnight-kiss. Each night he would ask himself what kind of a coward he was for not being able to face his partner and tell him he wasn’t going to be his partner inside a closet. He didn’t get a good night sleep those nights, and neither did Kevin.
The series of cycles –as Javi likes to call it- began after that. The next day of work they wouldn’t talk unless it was extremely necessary, which worried the whole station. Kevin would talk out loud about some nice chick he had met, and Javier would hear about it. Then, some days of awkwardness after, little by little they would start talking non-sense like they used to. Beers would be welcomed after that, along with nights watching games or TV in each other’s apartments. And then, one night or the next, they would realize how much they had fallen for each other. And that night they would stay longer in Esposito’s flat.
When Ryan presented him Jenny, Javier thought that it would mean the end of them both. It wasn’t like she was the first woman he has ever been introduced to by Kevin, but there was something special about her that made Espo think. Or maybe something special about him. The way he held her hand, unconsciously begging Javi that the thing between them two had to stop.
Never stopped, though. There were still nights in Javi’s flat in which they both were who they wanted to be. And then Kev would return to Jenny’s arms surrounded by an ocean of doubts, fears and regrets, while Javi would stand there, all alone on the couch, watching a closed door.
Esposito knew it was all his fault, though. Not that Kev isn’t a coward too for not facing up to who he really is, but he admits it –how much of a coward he has been all his life. Before leaving those nights, just before opening the front door, Ryan always stares at Javi with that look in his eyes that asks with no words. That look of “stop me, please”. Esposito knows the situation is his entire fault because he knows what to do, but still he doesn’t act.
Kevin needs Javier to put his lips on his and kiss him. Kev needs Javi to step forward and tell him that everything is going to be fine for them both as long as they are together. Because Ryan would leave it all if Espo told him to, but he just needs him to do it. Esposito never does, and Ryan always closes that door with a knot in his stomach that Javi feels completely guilty for.
But Javi cannot help it, he has never been trained to speak. To ask and tell. He has grown up in a philosophy in which the silence has always been better than the words, and he cannot help it when he thinks that being true to himself and Ryan would not cause but problems.
The damned “don’t ask, don’t tell” that he cannot get rid of, even though he has always wanted to ask and tell the world to Ryan.
Because the truth is that he would never get tired of asking those tiny questions he has never asked him before. Like who his first crush was, or if it is totally true that Esposito was his very first time with a man. Javier feels like he knows everything about Ryan, but then he still feels like he is missing the most important part of him. That there is a part of Kevin still out of his reach that Espo is too afraid to ask about.
He also would ask Ryan why him. Why would he let Javi enter his life if he was too afraid of what was going to happen afterwards. Esposito knows there was some kind of breaking point in that first beers night in which Kev could have told him “I gotta go home”, and then everything would have been different between them. He would ask him again and again why he did not stop there, why he brought them back to where they were, why he let all of this be so painful for them both. Why did Kevin let him fall in love with him?
Esposito would ask him out if he had the guts to do so. Not because he would like to ensure that Ryan is all his, but because he wants lots of little things with Kevin.
Javier does not expect huge things from life, he would be pretty happy if he could ask Kev to get up from bed and turn off the light for him because he is too lazy to do so. He would like him to take his hand, not necessarily in public, but in the privacy of his own home. Just so he’d know how it feels to entwine fingers with someone you love. He wants to ask Ryan if he wants toast with his coffee in the morning, or if he can take the first turn in the shower. He just wants to ask him to hurry up because they’re going to be late for work again. He wants to totally ask him to move in with him because his flat is nearer the station and everything would be easier, you know.
But he cannot ask, and neither tell, and that is truly the pity because he would tell him that he is by far the most awesome person he has ever met in life, even if the words sound crazily cheesy in his own mind. But the fact is that Kevin is the most awesome person he has ever met, so, hey, man, there is nothing wrong and nothing untrue in those words and Javi is above all a soldier of the truth. Esposito would like to tell him how he knows already that he is never going to meet anyone like Ryan and that suddenly feels surprisingly okay. Because, you know, people are supposed to meet that one person in their lives who would make their world turn around, and it feels incredibly okay that Ryan is Javi’s one. Even though he is never going to have him, even though he always feels like crap when he leaves him all alone in his own home, even though they are never going to sit and speak about everything they have to speak about. Even though everything, if someone is supposed to change his world, Javi is more than okay with the fact that Kev has been the one to do so.
Javi is not so stupidly romantic not to know that his own life will stabilize somehow eventually, and that in letting his own life stabilize he must let go of Kev. Javi already knows that he will meet someone -some nice guy from a nice family- who will make his life easier, and then everything will be more than okay. But he is completely certain as well, that he will sit on his nice couch on a nice Sunday morning and be thankful for having met Ryan. It’s a fact (and he will never be so crazy as to deny it). It’s a fact that he feels and always will feel lucky for having met Kevin Ryan, because, oh, man, he is absolutely the most awesome person in the entire world, and that’s something you must feel lucky for.
Maybe in another life, where Esposito never went to that military school, he would have told Ryan the list of things he likes about him. The grimace he makes just before eating a slice of pizza, his oh-fuck-hot-coffee! frown, the sound of his steps around Javi’s flat just before falling on the sofa, the crappy comments about what’s on TV, the way he smiles at Espo’s crappy comments about what’s on TV, his lips just before kissing them, his voice just before he’s kissed, his blue eyes –oh, god-, his blue eyes! Yes, maybe in another world, with Espo actually having the guts to face the sort-of-closeted-case of them both, he would have told him how much he loves him. Well, fuck, not only him, but actually all-about-him: How he seems to know about everything, and is yet so willing to know more, how he seems so fragile and shy and naïve and yet Kevin can surprise him with his games in bed, how he seems to care about their fragile relationship, and then not care, and then start caring again.
The night feels heavy on Esposito’s shoulders as there is too much silence fulfill it. Damn it, he never remembered to fix that tap –drop, drop, drop-, the fridge makes its regular bzzzz again –“hey, bro, that fridge’s about to take off, right?”- and Kev must have left a light on before running away. Running away from him.
- Fuck.
Because if Esposito wasn’t about to run away from who he is –who they are-, he would ask him to stay, he would tell him how much he loves his deep, naïve blue eyes. If he had the guts to stand up and face all the things they are trying to avoid, he would ask him to love him, he would tell him to stay. But whatever, right?, it’s not that easy to make that don’t ask, don’t tell thing in his head simply go away. So another Sunday of not thinking of anything but Kev, another Monday of distance, another awkward Tuesday, another day-to-come with intense glances and desperate sex in his home, waiting for that fragile relationship of theirs to fall apart, and then… well, and then start to do something with his life, Espo guesses.