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blackssuunn-mandoandyodito · 4 years

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Tabaco y Brea

A Javier Peña fanfic

Pairing: Javier Peña x reader

Warnings: slight angst, slight fluff, sweating?, swearing, running?, somebody needs to explain this to me please.

Word count: 2.5 k

A/N: alright friends, this is the first chapter of a series I’m working on. As you can see, it’s called Tabaco y Brea. If you have any questions, hit me up. I hope you like this, enjoy!

Chapter 1: Stuffy basement

Bogotá was a sight that you had yet to stop being amazed at. Walking through its streets for the first time all those months ago almost brought tears to your eyes. Growing up in the United States and thinking that you may never get out of there gave you little to no reference in this country's culture, although your father being Mexican helped you master Spanish and he showed your way to dance. Early 1981 was not a great year to be in Colombia, but you were here as a DEA agent after all, not as a tourist. You could feel things getting bigger, and you weren't sure how you'll be able to handle it.

As you kept walking, you asked yourself the same question of your everyday life. Why the fuck did you choose to live so far away from the Embassy?

(You knew the answer, but it didn’t make mornings easier)

The heat made your clothes cling to you with sweat, your hair even in a ponytail was soaked and the headache was just getting stronger the more you walked through the avenue.

And you were late, dammit!

Your heels could be heard as you started to run to catch the bus, gripping your purse as if life depended on it. With the amount of money they paid you, you could easily afford a car, but attracting that much attention wasn't a great idea. You still couldn't understand how the narcos hadn't managed to get your information.

The bus was already at the bus stop when you turned the corner, and you didn't know if you could make it.

"Ey! Ey! Esperen!" (Hey! Hey! Wait!) You started waving your hand towards it, seeing that the last person in line was hopping on. The driver, thankfully, saw you and waited. You started running faster and finally climbed the stairs. It was packed.

Well, it seemed that you'd go standing.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

You seriously didn't think you could get more soaked from the heat, sweat even more than you already were.

You were wrong.

When you got to the Embassy, the entire back of your shirt was plastered to your body. Your thighs were starting to get grazed because of your skirt and your hair was all frizzy and probably resembled a nest of birds.

You took a deep breath, tried to fix your hair a little bit, and pushed the door. Nobody even glanced at you, and you were glad. If anybody dared to even look at you funny, you were going to lose it.

"Ey compañera. Mala mañana?" (Hey partner. Bad morning?)

Oh, just what you needed.

"¿Qué quieres Peña?" (What do you want Peña?) you rolled your eyes at him. He didn't look much better than you anyway. His pink shirt was sticking to his chest, even though he had several buttons open, letting you see his wet neck. His face was sweaty too, with rosy cheeks and his hair sticking to his forehead.

You arched your eyebrow. "No tienes mucho mejor aspecto que yo Javier" (You don’t look much better than I do Javier)

He gave a soft laugh, the idiot. You weren't in the best of moods to handle him, so you turned around and walked to your desk, then sat down with a grump.

"Vamos nena, alégrate un poco" (Come on baby, lighten up a little) you glared at him and started reading through the papers you had to check today. It was usually yours and Javier's, that asshole didn't do any of his own paperwork and you were stuck doing both almost all the time. Carina had given you a weird stare the first time you were ranting about it to her, but you were sure you didn't want to know what she was thinking. It was nothing that you didn't know anyways.

Once he realized you were definitely not in the mood for your usual banter, he stopped and sat down in his desk,at the right from yours. Silence (or as much silence as an office can have) settled and the sounds of sheets of paper turning and Javi working with his typewriter slowly calmed you and helped you concentrate with what you were reading. The fan that barely provided you of fresh air at least served as background noise for the amount of stuff that your mind was processing, and it even cooled you down a little bit. The headache was gone and so was the bad mood. After some time had passed and you weren't sweating as much as before, you asked yourself what on Earth was Javi doing if you had his paperwork at your desk.

"Hey Javi, what are you doing? At least have the decency to offer help!" you said as he turned to look at you. He smiled, noticing your mood improvement. Pulling his chair with him, he crossed the little space between your desks and opened the folder that he had been looking at.

"There's the Bera I know" You tried to hide a smile at the nickname. "I got some intel that could help us with this bullshit"

His voice, all business know, gave you a sense of peace. Even if he was a little shit most of the time, he was the only one who had been with you since you arrived back in 1979. He didn't have much more experience than you back then, had only been in Colombia for a couple of months himself, but he knew his way around better than you. He taught you the things you didn't know, and if neither of you did then you figured them out together.

"And what is that intel, agent Peña?" you teased him. You weren't oblivious to his ways of fishing out info, of course. He smacked you lightly in the arm and showed you the papers.

"A cottage on the outside of Cali seems to be a type of safehouse for Escobar's merca," he says while pointing at the pictures that were inside the folder "if this is true, we need to do a raid soon, but we have to make sure the intel is right before we take that risk"

The cottage was small, nobody would pay attention to it if they were walking past. It looked like an abandoned house, and you knew that was exactly what Escobar's men were hoping for. Although you were surprised they were stupid enough to have something even remotely close to a city, that didn't sound right.

You nod, "so that means...?"

He looks at you with a glint of mischief in his eyes.

"That means we need to stay for a few days in Cali, nena"

You have to grip your chair to physically restrain yourself from jumping of happiness. You loved Cali, the very few occasions you had free time you took a bus there (9 hours and all) and spent the nights in the dancing clubs. Cali gave you a sense of love and alleviated the homesick feeling that had been nagging you for years. It reminded you of your father even if this wasn't his country.

"Are you serious? Don't play with me Javi" he nodded.

"You know I don't play with this shit", his voice sounded serious, almost offended.

He knew how much you enjoyed being there, but you also knew he took his work very seriously. In both cases, you doubted he would joke about something like that, but it was almost too good to be true to believe it that easily.

You started to plan things in your head. Where would you stay? Close to the cottage? Close to downtown Cali? Would you have any free time to enjoy the pleasures of Cali nights? You hoped so because if not you were going to explode.

"So when do we leave then?" you look him in the eyes, a grin spread big on your face.

"It depends", your smile fell. "We have to welcome the new gringo, remember?"

Ugh, yes. You forgot about that.

"So when does he arrive?"

Javi shrugged. "I'm not sure, but it will be this or the next week."

You weren't sure if bringing someone else to this shitshow was a good idea. Enough lives have been lost to this war, and you didn't see the point of putting at risk another one.

"Will we take him with us?"

“He's not very good with Spanish"

Your smile returned, this time for entirely different reasons. "So we're gonna have some fun with him?"

Javi looked at you, amusement in his eyes. He shook his head.

"I don't think that's a good idea muñeca, he's coming with his wife" (doll)

You got the message, even if he didn't say it out loud. He has a family, something to lose. You don't, not really. Besides your own lives, that is. If you want to play Russian roulette with them, it's your problem. But the new guy had someone to come back to.

So, helping the gringo it was.

"What's his name again?" you ask. You had read about him a few weeks back when they told you he was coming. But you didn't even remember he was coming, much less were you going to remember his name.

"Steve Murphy" Oh yeah, it sounded familiar now. "He did his training directly at Quantico, so he must be good"

That you remembered. He was one of those guys who spent the 18 weeks (although you knew they were only 13 if you did it there) of DEA training in Quantico, inside the U.S. Marine Corps Base and next to the FBI academy. They weren't common here, you and Javi had done it elsewhere.

"So after we pick him up, we plan this shit out, right?"

Javi nodded. "I hope so"

He went back to his desk and you kept going through the paperwork. It was not an easy task, but that one time you made Javier do his own, he had taken so much time to do it that you passed the deadline and the boss ripped you both a new one. After that, you did a silent agreement where you did it all, Javier providing all info necessary and taking the blame if anything was wrong, even if it didn't happen frequently. He'd bring you Colombian coffee when the weather wasn't as hot as now, he knew you didn't like the one at the office and thought it "tasted like dirt", he would listen to you rant about certain reports and say whatever he thought you needed to hear in those moments.

You enjoyed spending your time with him, even if most of it you were arguing about something.

The day passed rather quickly, with so much to do you didn't even have time to glance at your watch or even the clock hanging in the opposite wall.

Soon, it was time to leave again, but you hadn't finished your work and it was due to a couple of days. You hated doing things just before delivery time, so you decided you were going to stay and work some more. It wasn't like someone was waiting for you anyways.

Half of the work was done, so you weren't going to stay much. Just enough so you could go back and finish tomorrow.

"Ey compañera, hora de irnos" (Hey partner, time to go) Javier sounded tired, and you figured trying to find leads and speaking all day with your superiors was exhausting too. You hated doing the calls, so he took that one for both of you.

"No me iré Javi, debo avanzar un poco con esto" (I won’t leave Javi, I need to get ahead with this) He frowned at you, with his beige jacket already in his hands. You figured you looked tired too, all day reading was doing an impact in your eyes.

"What do you mean you're not leaving? You just spent 12 hours doing paperwork, you need to rest"

You sighed. He was right, you knew that, but you wouldn't be able to finish if you didn't stay.

Seeing he wasn't going to get an answer because you were stubborn and ignored him if you had already made a decision, he hung up his jacket again and pulled his chair close to your desk. Then, glaring at you, he sat down and propped his elbows in the table, letting his face fall between his hands.

A few minutes passed, and you were starting to get uneasy under the power of his stare.

"Javi? What are you doing?"

He didn't answer.

"What?" you asked, defensively. "Do I have something on my face?"

He shook his head, still not saying anything.

"Javier!"

He started laughing at your bothered yell, finally releasing you from the pinned look he was giving you. You let out a frustrated sigh, understanding what were his intentions.

"You're gonna glare me into leaving, aren't you?"

His nod was your only answer, accompanied by a grin spread across his face.

The thing about your relationship was that even if you fought almost every day for the stupidest things, he took care of you. He made sure you got rest, ate decent food, got home safe. He protected you in the raids, even if you weren't his main focus. And you did your best to take care of him too, but he wouldn't let you.

At least not like you wanted.

He would go almost every weekend to search for the love you were so willing to provide for him in other women, in his so-called informants. And it hurt you, more than anything else.

You smiled at him.

"Let's go"

He smiled too, standing up. You saved your files in one of the drawers, took your coat, and rounded your desk.

Out of the office, everything was silent. The sun had already set, leaving you at the darkness of the night. You checked your watch. It was...11 PM already, damn. You didn't know it was that late.

"I'll drop you off at your home", his voice was soft.

You nodded, not trusting your voice. Everything with Javi was difficult at night. You were looser because of the tiredness, fed up with everything. You wished to be between his arms, it was the only thing you asked for. But you knew you couldn't.

Both of you climbed into his Jeep, and he drove off to your apartment.

"Why did you choose to live far from the Embassy anyways?"

He had asked the same question a thousand times before, and it was always the same answer. He never looked at you when he said it, his attention straight out the windshield. You couldn't figure out why he kept doing it, no matter how much you tried, no matter how much time you spent thinking about it.

"I wanted to get to know Colombia, not just the stuffy low-rise bunker in the basement of the U.S. embassy."

Once you got to the apartment complex, he parked his car and stretched to open your door.

"Good night compañera" (partner)

You smiled in response, took your purse and jumped out of the car. Feeling his stare boring into your back as you walked to the door, you got out your keys and turned around.

Once you waved him goodbye, he bowed his head and turned on the engine leaving with a creak of tires.

"Good night Javi"

Tag list: @dynphomaniac

#javier peña #javier peña x reader #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #javier peña x you #pedro pascal x you #narcos #narcos fanfic #reader insert #pedro pascal fanfiction #tagging is hard #my writing #tabaco y brea

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vintage-every-day · 7 years

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An American in London: Betsy Blair first met Gene Kelly at an audition. She didn't just get the part - she got the man.

https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,3604,480424,00.html

Betsy Blair recalls the moment Gene Kelly proposed to her. "It was in front of the Plaza Hotel in New York. We were sitting by the fountain and he said he couldn't leave me to the mercy of New York when he went to Hollywood. I said yes immediately. I didn't have any reservations at all. You don't when you're in love."

Blair had met Kelly two years earlier at an audition when she was 15. She had inadvertently turned up a day early and had spoken to a man moving tables and chairs. "I thought he was a busboy. I said, 'I'm here to see Mr Rose' and he asked me if I was a dancer. I said I was and he told me the audition was the following day. I fished the card out of my bag and sure enough it was, so I thanked this busboy and started to leave. Then he said, 'Are you a good dancer?' I turned round and said, 'Very.' The next day, I went to the audition and it was Gene moving the tables and chairs around. He was the choreographer."

Blair got the job and fell in love, spending the next two years working in nightclubs and on Broadway in musical comedies and in theatre. It was a big change for someone who had grown up in smalltown New Jersey. "I used to enter amateur shows, and being from the neighbourhood and being only nine, I won one. The prize was $20, which was a lot of money in the 30s. The man who ran the show spoke to my mother and it turned out it wasn't such an amateur show so I joined his troupe and I got paid $5 every Thursday. That was my first professional engagement. Then it all sort of happened."

Her second job was as a child photographic model. Then, with a schoolteacher mother and a father who sold insurance, Blair was set for university, winning a scholarship. But on the way back from a college interview - where she was told to come back the next year because she was too young - she saw an advertisement for dancers in a nightclub show. "I got off the train and said to my mother that I was going and I didn't care what Daddy said. So we convinced my father that because I was going to make $35 a week - more money than my brothers, who had been to university, were making - I would save and go to university the next year."

It was when that nightclub closed that Blair auditioned for another and met Kelly. "When I think about it now, that year and a half [in New York] was incredible but when you're young, nothing is surprising. You don't judge it, you don't think about it, it's just so much fun and so beautiful. I wasn't blasé about it - it was just what was happening."

After their honeymoon, Blair and Kelly arrived in Hollywood on December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Contracted to David Selznick and unlikely to be drafted early, Kelly (who was 29) was yet to make a movie, so he sold war bonds while Blair volunteered in a hospital. However, it wasn't long before MGM asked him to be in For Me and My Gal and made a deal with Selznick to take over half of his contract. It was the birth of not just one of Hollywood's most talented stars, but of an icon too.

For Blair, however, Kelly was simply her husband. "I loved his work and he was a great dancer and he was also a really interesting, educated fellow. The fact that he was a star didn't matter to me. I was a snippy kid, I never thought of him as an icon."

Kelly made three movies before he went into the US Navy's photographic unit, a posting that frustrated him since, Blair says, he wanted to fight. Blair herself had moved from Hollywood back to New Jersey with their baby daughter, Kerry, understudying for the part of Laura in the first production of The Glass Menagerie on Broadway. Kelly was on the verge of being shipped to the Pacific when the atom bomb was dropped on Japan.

When the war finished, the family returned to the west coast. It was then that Kelly's career went meteoric, the high points of which included: Anchors Aweigh, for which he earned a best actor Oscar nomination; Ziegfeld Follies with Fred Astaire; The Pirate, in which he reprised his For Me and My Gal partnership with Judy Garland; On the Town; An American in Paris, for which he won a special Academy award; and Singin' in the Rain, which he acted in, co-directed and choreographed.

Throughout this was Blair. Didn't she feel that she was in his shadow? "Not at all. I did mean, sometime in the future, to be a serious actress but I had so much time. It didn't occur to me that this life would interfere, that I should be in New York if I wanted to be a serious actress." (This life included hosting legendary parties attended by the likes of Noel Coward, Garland and Frank Sinatra.)

Blair's life, which she calls "almost boring because it was so wonderful", changed when the Senate investigations subcommittee under the leadership of Joseph McCarthy started its witchhunts into "un-American activities". She and Kelly were both left-wing and even though she didn't suffer as much as others, she finds it hard to talk about now. "To be very left-wing in Hollywood was to work for the unions, to work for the blacks, the ordinary things that are social democratic principles. It was, if you were a writer, to try and write a film in which black people had a dignified position rather than just servants. At the time, you weren't to say you were a communist or you weren't a communist - they had no right to ask. I think now that the committee knew from the FBI who was a communist and who wasn't and they didn't call anyone who wasn't. I wasn't that important that I would have been called but it was an incomprehensible time."

In 1957, the year after she was nominated for a best actress Oscar for her role in Marty, Blair's marriage to Kelly ended, after which she moved to Paris. She will say nothing about their divorce other than, "I have nothing bad to say about Gene in any way. I can't, in a little interview, explain the complications of what I needed and what he needed. We were married 16 years and it just came to an end."

In Gene Kelly: Hollywood Greats - the accomplished and delightful biography of the star - Blair says she didn't want to be "an idolised little girl any more". Aside from that, she keeps her counsel.

In the five years she spent in France, Blair worked more than she had before or since, including appearing in Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido (The Cry). It was while filming at Pinewood that she met her second husband, Karel Reisz, who directed Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. They married in 1963.

Now in her late 70s and living in north London, Blair is still luminous. In a long velvet dress and drinking Diet Coke out of a silver tankard, she still has a sparkle in her eyes, at once dignified and mischievous. It may have been this that Stephen Daldry saw when he cast her in his new film, The Hours. "He called me up and asked me to have lunch. So I went thinking it must be Meryl Streep's mother and I can do that - we both come from New Jersey - but it wasn't. I play Julianne Moore's character in 50 years' time.

"You never stop wanting to act but I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it. I've often thought I was very lucky. To grow up in a small town is very lucky, to get all those real life values. Then I was in New York when you could still go walking in Central Park. And then to be in Hollywood and then Paris. Then to come and live here for the rest of my life. The timing of things has been very fortunate."

#betsy blair #Gene Kelly #vintage

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