Work Text:
Jonathan Pine is running for his life.
Legs and heart pumping, lungs straining, sweat dripping into his eyes. His feet thump rhythmically, eyes fixed ahead on his goal. He just has to make it a few more hundred meters. He grits his teeth, ignores the burn of his thighs and calves, the drag of his breath, and forces himself on.
Closer. Closer. Another few moments, seconds only-
The treadmill bleeps, flashes a congratulatory message. Pine lets himself slow to a walk, chest heaving, and links his hands behind his head as he sucks in air.
New record.
The other early morning denizens of the gym hassle him in almost-affectionate Spanish. Pretending less understanding than he actually has is automatic by now and he nods and smiles and shrugs good-naturedly in return, draining his water bottle and slinging a towel around his neck.
The walk back to the apartment is almost pleasant before the heat of the day, sun hitting skin long since tanned to a warm golden-brown. Teddy says his hair is going gold too, lightening back to the honey-coloured curls he had in his youth; Pine maintains he’s just going grey.
Breakfast is ready when he lets himself in. Teddy glances up at the sound of the door, ever wary, but relaxes when he sees Pine and gives him a thorough once-over instead, eyes glittering. Something about the predatory look highlights his resemblance to Roper, not helped by the beard or the fact that his hair is currently pulled back out of his face.
“Come and get it while it’s hot,” he says in English, almost a purr.
Obediently, Pine goes into the kitchen and snags a plate. He stays on the other side of the counter, respectful of Teddy’s stated dislike of the smell of him straight from the gym, but makes sure he makes appreciative noises over the food. Teddy watches him eat, inscrutable as a cat, and shoos him off to shower after he’s finished.
The back of Pine’s neck prickles, and it’s hardly a surprise when Teddy slips into the shower with him a few minutes later, all long limbs, and kisses him briefly before sinking to his knees.
“My hair was already up,” Teddy says by way of explanation a little while later, scrubbing a towel over his shoulders.
“Oh, of course, pure expediency,” Pine agrees, catching him by the back of the neck for another quick kiss. “You’re working tonight, yes?”
“Yes,” Teddy confirms. “And Ronaldo should be there.”
“It’d be nice to be able to give Sally some good news.”
Pine gets dressed and picks up his work bag and tennis racket, taking them down to the car. He drives across the city to the exclusive resort he works at, and spends the rest of the morning and afternoon on the tennis court. Toby Monroe teaches twelve clients the difference between fore- and backhand, plays three and a half matches, and gently rebuffs the advances of five women, two men and a gaggle of passing teenage girls, who linger outside the fence unsubtly ogling his ass. They scatter like birds as soon as he comes over to offer them a lesson, giggling and whispering, and he watches them go with some amusement and a faint sense of smugness.
He stays a little longer to make himself useful around the resort, endearing himself to his coworkers, and by the time he gets home the apartment is empty, Teddy already off on-shift. Pine showers again and gets changed, catches up on the news, reads a few chapters of his book, has a bit of supper, and then heads out.
There are any number of white men and British expats here, but ones who speak fluent Spanish and associate with a Latino man called Eduardo are considerably fewer, which is why Pine is careful to do neither. He leaves Teddy alone when he’s working and if anyone else at the bar were asked, all they’d be able to say is that yes, maybe a boyfriend was mentioned at some point, but they don’t even know what he looks like.
He loiters under a streetlight, partly because the shadows should obscure his features and partly because he thinks it’s a fun cliche. Teddy clocks him almost instantly and comes sauntering over, amused.
Pine may get regularly hit on by bored tourists, but Teddy at work draws admirers like flies to honey. He’s got his hair down and it curls past his ears and down along his jaw, softening the sharp angles of his face. The dangly earring he wears glints tantalisingly in the shadows of his hair, sometimes threatening to tangle in it, and is echoed by the gleam of metal around his neck, necklaces on full display above the low, sheer neckline of his shirt.
“Hi, Lalo,” Pine says when Teddy gets close, settling a possessive arm around his waist. It’s a fun little nickname, and he likes the sound of it in his mouth.
“Joaquin,” Teddy returns lightly. He puts a hand on Pine’s chest, looks at him from under his lashes. “Would you like to stay out a little longer?”
Nothing urgent, then. If Ronaldo had had anything important to say, Teddy would have hustled him straight back home. Ronaldo’s a mid-level local gang member and Teddy’s contact, and Teddy assures Pine that if Roper or any of his entourage so much as pass through Colombian airspace, Teddy will be informed. He had to throw his weight around a little at first, much like Pine back in Devon, but as he wants information rather than to take over territory he’s been able to establish himself harmoniously enough.
Roper is back in England, his operations in Colombia likely concluded, but it pays to keep an ear to the ground. Sally is in Mexico, too aware that Mayra Cavendish knows her voice and her history with Alex Goodwin to return to the UK, and tragically vindicated by what happened to Basil and to Burr; she’s keeping an eye on Europe as best she can with the help of a few friends back at home, but so far Roper is behaving like a model citizen, not even a holiday abroad.
One day though, he’ll slip up. He has to. And Pine will be waiting.
In the meantime though, he’s managed to cobble together something like a normal life from the scraps and tatters Roper tried to leave him with, and damned if he isn’t going to live it.
“Yes,” he says, answering Teddy’s question, and Teddy smiles.
In this part of the world Pine would never say he was a good dancer, but he has a decent sense of rhythm and a solid awareness of his body and how it moves through space. Dancing with Teddy always reminds him of the hotel, cigar smoke and champagne, the realisation that the flaw in his alias was that he could be dispensed with in one way or another as soon as the money came through. Roxana in that blue dress had been a vision, but the revelation had been Teddy coming to join them on the dancefloor, and the shifting, fluid dynamic that had arisen from the beat of the music and the heat and press of their bodies.
It’s easier now, less complicated, the lines of Teddy’s body against his and the way they move together familiar. It’s not a surprise to find himself enjoying it, and he no longer has to try and map out the edges of where false flirting gives way to real desire. If Roper did smugly, systematically do his best to tear Pine apart, at least that did serve to reveal the truth behind the masks, and ensured that he stitched things cleanly and deliberately as he put himself back together.
He retires for a drink after a while, and settles in to watch Teddy interact with others; the bartender, other patrons, hopeful new dance partners. He turns that sleek, feline charisma on each person in turn, dark eyes intent, leaning in close, and they fall one by one like toy soldiers. Even as Pine habitually scans their environment for potential danger, Teddy tugs on his attention like a magnet.
A few noses and arms have been broken in the recent past, belonging to men who took exception to them dancing or even merely existing together. Pine’s instinct is still to deflect, to defuse, to rise above, but Teddy is quick and brutal and far more direct. Sometimes they go to specific bars for a sense of security, but for the most part they go whereever they want in no particular pattern; it does Teddy’s fledgling reputation no harm for him to be associated with casual violence, meted out to the deserving.
Teddy dances with a few women - lithe and gorgeous and bare-limbed in the warm night, jewellery glittering and hair brushing their necks - and then a man, smooth-cheeked and agile, the pair of them easily swapping the lead back and forth. Pine knows Teddy can see him watching, the hands he has on the man’s hips, the easy way their bodies slide together and apart again, and Teddy shoots him a wink once over his partner’s shoulder, dark eyes on Pine’s.
The man lingers when the song ends, says something to Teddy with a hand on his chest while Teddy tilts his head towards him. The flash of his smile is quick and sly, but he shakes his head, and the man pats him once more on the chest and slips away.
“An indecent proposal?” Pine asks when Teddy slinks over, and Teddy smirks.
“An intriguing proposition that I, sadly, had to refuse.”
“Would you like me to make it clear why that was?” Pine offers, settling a hand low on his back, and Teddy plucks the glass out of his hand, downs the rest of his drink, and tugs Pine with him back up and onto the dancefloor.
“Yes,” Teddy says belatedly, reaching a languid arm up to curl around Pine’s neck. “Show them that you’re mine.”
“I’ll show them that you’re mine,” Pine agrees, mouth by his ear.
The rest of the night passes in a blur of heat and music, Teddy a line of sinuous muscle in his arms or at his back. They move together, music running through them, enjoying the rhythm and the atmosphere and each other, desire a promise woven through it all. Teddy catches Pine yawning one too many times and starts them heading for home, teasing him about being an old man, and Pine plays it up all the way to their front door, ambling and slow, then pins Teddy to the closed door once they’re inside.
“Oh? Feeling reinvigorated?” Teddy asks, eyes glittering in the dark.
“Extremely,” Pine says, and kisses him, and Teddy buries a hand in his hair and wraps an enthusiastic leg around his hip.
Later, Pine dreams about the jungle. About the faces of the child soldiers, indistinct in the twilight of memory, except for those few who look like Tavo or Danny or Waleed’s children, only ever seen in pictures and video on his phone. He dreams about the bullets, and the blood, and the jungle simultaneously becomes a desert, the burned out shell of a Syrian village or the ruins of an Iraqi town. Burr is standing silently beside him, just visible out of the corner of his eye, shaking her head, and Roper’s voice booms out from behind him telling him that there’s nothing like the smell of napalm at night.
He wakes with the sensation of falling back into his own body and lurches upright, heart galloping, fresh sweat cooling on his chest. Teddy’s hand locks gently around his forearm, a tether, and Pine scrubs his hands over his face and through his hair.
He goes and washes his face, avoiding his own eyes in the mirror, and then splashes some water over his torso as well, patting it dry again with a towel. When he goes back to bed Teddy puts a hand on his shoulder and Pine turns gratefully into the touch, the comfort, even though he wants to reject it.
He wants to run - away, or just to do something or tire himself out. He wants to log into his laptop and scour all the scant information they have once again for something he’s missed. He wants to phone Sally and demand she give him something concrete to work from, some lead to chase. He wants Rex, or Burr, or Basil to tell him what to do, what the next steps are.
Teddy slings an arm and a leg around him, hand coming to rest at the back of his head, spanned across his skull, cradling it. Pine tucks his head in against his shoulder and tries to think about nothing, to focus on the scent of Teddy’s skin instead of thinking about everything that he still has to do and everything that went wrong.
Teddy is here. Sally is alive, and has people helping her. Martin and Tavo and Clara and Consuelo are all, as far as they know, alive and working to help people as much as they can. It’s not hopeless. Roper may have won a battle but he hasn’t won the war yet.
Teddy is murmuring a prayer in Spanish, a habit left over from his time in the monastery when he couldn’t sleep. He knows better than to try and offer soothing words, the same way Pine doesn’t try to comfort him with nonsense when it’s his turn for nightmares. They both of them know that silence is sometimes more of a comfort than inane platitudes, and that wordless acceptance, the mere fact of their continuing presence despite it all, is a better balm still.
Teddy is alive, and here with him. It’s not enough, but it’s something, and far better than the alternative.
Pine breathes him in, and feels his warmth, and listens to him breathe in turn, and tries to let it lull him back to sleep.