UPDATE: 22 May 2018 My apologies to anyone who read the first 3 "chapters" when they were first published. I've combined and improved them with this revision. I've always been certain of where this is heading, but I was having a terrible time getting out of the snowbank. We're on our way now, but I must ask you to start over.
Also, Aviso: this is going to be a very long fic. It was already substantial, but Javier just whispered in my ear (ooo! -shivers- Do that again, cariño!) about a twist at what was going to be the end, that's going to extend it even further. Unfortunately, my fulltime+ job leaves little time for writing, so it's going to take a while to get it done. Your patience is appreciated, and will hopefully be rewarded. (Damn that hitman, anyway. If he weren't so damn delicious, I'd wash my hands of him.)
I hate begging for reviews, but your encouragement along the way would also be greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think!
Author's Note: I'm writing this story after Season Two of Good Behavior, and before there has been any word (that I have heard) about renewal for a third. So there's the setting: Javier and Letty were last seen drifting west on a desert breeze with Teo's coke. This fic takes up a few months later.
Disclaimer: as much as I might wish otherwise, these characters do not belong to me. I'm just playing with them.
Content Warnings: non-graphic sex, some non-consensual
Non-graphic violence, some against women, and its aftermath
A little blood and some medical stuff
And if you get past all that, there's some occasional curse words!
Prologue
The crash of thunder directly overhead jolted Letty out of a deep, dreamless, exhausted sleep, and she jerked upright, her gasp turning an instant later into a low cry of pain as the multitude of bruises and other injuries let her know she Should Not Have Done That. As she caught her breath, memory clicked at the same moment she registered what her hand was resting on, and she twisted around to peer anxiously down at Javier's face in the dim morning light. He hadn't moved all night, and his skin, under its own bruise collection, was far too pale and waxy for anything approaching comfort. But...
She lightly placed her fingers across his parted lips, wilting in relief when she felt the soft whisper of his worryingly rapid, shallow breath; then she laid her head again on his chest, closing her eyes, drinking in and taking strength from his miraculously strong, regular heartbeat. He lived. He'd survived the night.
Pushing herself painfully up again, she began checking on his makeshift bandages, ignoring the bedraggled chicken on Javi's far side. The hen watched her every move through suspicious, beady eyes, clucking softly, apparently thinking it was supervising. His crushed left hand, deeply bruised and apparently stomped on, seemed no less swollen – but no more so – than before. Two of the bandages – one on his left shoulder, and the terrifying tiny hole in his upper abdomen – seemed OK, with no fresh blood; but the third – the through-and-through on his right thigh – showed spots of bright red among the brown. Letty stared at it, horrified... then took a deep breath and forcefully decided it wasn't worth panicking about, for the simple reason that she quite literally could do nothing about it. Both her blouse and his shirt – the only cleanish cloths within miles – had been pressed into service the night before as the bandages he already wore.
Something hit the back of her hand, startling her again before she realized it was a raindrop. The storm presaged by the thunder that woke her was rolling in fast, rapidly building a staccato drumbeat on the ruined roof of the derelict chicken coop that was their laughable shelter. Letty craned her neck and surveyed that roof warily, but it seemed to be holding; only a few leaks, thankfully none dripping on Javi.
She turned and looked through the opening, watching as the rain blotted out further, and then nearer, objects. It was falling hard – which hopefully meant it wouldn't last long. "Water water everywhere," she whispered, licking her lips as she realized her thirst. Then she added, disgusted, "Letty Raines, try not to be such a fucking idiot. You're in a fucking trash dump." She pushed to her feet, groaning, then duckwalked under the low roof to the gaping entrance. A quick survey of nearby piles of garbage revealed half a dozen large, empty, plastic water bottles, and she marked their locations before splashing out to collect them.
Back inside with her haul, she briefly held each one sideways under the mini waterfall by the doorway to rinse off their necks – probably a useless gesture but it made her feel like she was being sensibly cautious – and then placed them about to fill from the drips. Then she settled by Javier's side again – across from the chicken – and rested her hand once more on her lover's chest, feeling for the faint rise and fall as if her own life depended on it too. She pulled her knees up against her own chest, rested her forehead on them – and then the memories and the tears flooded in.
Chapter One
Los Angeles was a blast. Letty was having The Time Of Her Life, and she knew it. She and Javier blew in on a desert wind and checked themselves into the Hilton under the names Diego and Lori Menendez, stashed the cocaine in another storage unit with some random junk in front as camouflage, and set out to thoroughly enjoy themselves. Javier had wanted to get rid of the coke as quickly as possible, selling it all at once to let others deal it, but Letty convinced him they'd make twenty or thirty times more distributing it themselves, so he reluctantly went along.
They hit a nearby club the first night, and Letty discovered to her surprise that Javier could dance. He quickly taught her the moves he'd grown up with, and she taught him the ones she knew. Before long they owned whatever dance floor they stepped onto, choosing a different one each night. And with it, they rapidly collected a wide circle of acquaintances, and began making careful sales.
One morning a few days after their arrival, Letty was floored to find out that Javier had literally never once ridden on a roller coaster, and without a word she hopped up, dragged him out of his chair, and took him to Knott's Berry Farm pronto. The silly grin plastered on his face for the rest of the day meant more to her than all the diamonds she'd ever stolen. After that, they went to a theme park or the like every few days, seeking out a new one each time until they had hit every coaster in southern California.
And so they settled into their new life, doing whatever they felt like: shopping, sightseeing, spas, clubs, fancy restaurants and burger joints. As for their former livelihoods, they reached an unspoken truce. If they parted ways and each did their own thing for a few hours once in a while, neither of them asked the other what they had been up to. And both ignored new clothes, jewelry, cash or other items that regularly showed up, except to complement them. There was one solemn promise that Letty did make, and keep, however: she never touched the cocaine, nor any drugs, nor any hard liquor, sticking to the agreed few glasses of wine a day.
Yes, LA was sweet indeed.
Until they met Juan.
.
.
Juan presented himself as a hard-charging finance whiz in his late twenties, slickly handsome and proud of his Mexican heritage. He had purchased the usual small amounts of cocaine from them two or three times before. This time, though, he wanted about four times as much, saying he was going on a trip and wanted to stock up. Something about the whole deal put Javier on edge, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. So he and Letty met Juan at a cheap hotel as agreed to do the deal.
Juan was being pushy – too pushy, speaking in rapid Spanish to "Diego" while ignoring "Lori". His six-foot frame was restless, his long fingers repeatedly fidgeting with his watch and cufflinks. He kept asking about their source, wanting to know the ultimate origin of the goods. Javier changed his mind on the deal and raised his hand to scratch his head, sending Letty their private Abort signal – but it was too late.
The door burst open behind them, two more men charging into the room. As Javier and Letty whirled around, she saw Juan pull out a pistol from the corner of her eye. Even as she screamed "Babe – look out!", the butt of the gun met the back of Javi's head with a sickening thunk, and he collapsed. Letty lunged to grab him, never seeing the second pistol that connected with her own head, and she fell on top of her lover, spiraling down after him into the blackness.
.
.
Cold water poured over their faces from a bottle woke them up. They were seated, slumped onto cold metal folding chairs, facing each other, their wrists and ankles secured tightly to their seats with fat, unbreakable cable ties. They looked frantically around, seeing nothing but bare walls and cement floor, and a single garage-style door. They were apparently in a large, empty storage unit. Letty noticed that her feet were bare – then that Javi's were, too, and their jewelry had been removed, as well. Her skirt pockets also felt empty – her wallet and phone were gone. His too, probably.
Juan was standing just to one side, watching back and forth as they got their bearings. Two other men – apparently the ones who had burst into the hotel room – were standing near the door. Juan walked to the wall and put the empty water bottle on the floor, then turned to one of the others. "Tomás?" This man, even taller and thinner than Juan, and dressed in a designer three-piece suit, said nothing, but jerked his chin at the two prisoners, and Juan turned back obediently.
Javier and Letty stared at one another, both frightened, thinking rapidly. "Shh," he mouthed at her. "Let me lead." She nodded, clamping her lips together.
What followed was confusingly slipshod. Juan kept asking where they had gotten the coke, who was their supplier, where did it come from; punctuating the questions with punches and slaps to Javi's head and torso. But he didn't seem to be leading to anything else, just focused on the one thought. There was no backup, no rights, no handcuffs. Javier glanced repeatedly at Tomás by the door, evidently some kind of superior over Juan, then made a decision.
"You're not cops. You're not feds. You're not the law – any law," he said flatly, in English for Letty's benefit.
"Oh, great observation, Diego," was the sarcastic reply. "You're so very smart, aren't you?"
"Then what the fuck do you want?"
"What do I WANT?" Javier jerked his head around when he realized it was Tomás who had answered. He stalked forward to loom over Javier, Juan practically scrambling out of the way. "You come into MY turf, start taking over MY customers, and you think you can just waltz away with them and nothing's gonna happen to you?"
OK. This was a turf war. He could handle this. Javier started talking rapidly, switching languages frequently to keep the other men off-balance. "Look, amigos, it's not what you think. We're not staying in this business. Me and Le-Lori," oops, "we just fell into a few bricks, that's all. Once they're gone, they're gone. We don't have a supplier. We're just unloading this one little bit, then we're gone, man. It's your turf. You can have all your customers back, no problem."
Tomás obviously didn't believe him, and kept asking, over and over. Javier had to go into more detail about finding the coke, filling in the story. "It was an old friend who was moving it, on the East Coast. He died suddenly, in a car accident, and I found the last shipment. I have no idea where it came from, who his suppliers were." Not technically true, as he was well aware of the origin, but he had no names – nor would he have given any up. "We just wanted to move this cache, make some money, then we're moving on."
"And I'm supposed to believe this?" Tomás stood back a minute, staring, stroking his mustache, then swung around and turned to Letty. "Maybe your girl will tell me the truth." He walked around behind her chair and leaned over, massaging her shoulders, leering down her blouse. "How 'bout it, baby? Where'd you get the stuff?" He suddenly leaned over and licked her cheek as she flinched away.
"I don't know. I never knew where it came from. All I know is that's all there is. Diego's telling you the truth."
"Look, man," Javier cut in. "Enough. We'll give you all the rest of it. You can have it. Just let us go. We'll drive out of LA tonight and you'll never see us again."
They went back and forth a few times while he tried to convince their captors of their sincerity. Finally Tomás yelled suddenly, "Then where the fuck is it?" and Javier gave him the address of their storage unit and the access code to the gate. The man stared at him a minute, then said with a sick smile, "Stay right there. We'll be back." He motioned the third man, who had stayed silently by the door all this time, to stay and watch the prisoners, and he and Juan went out.
Javier and Letty stared at each other. "You all right?" he asked.
"Yeah. But he seriously needs to use some mouthwash." She didn't ask back, staring at one purpling bruise on his cheek. "How much is left?"
He snorted. "About half." Glancing at the watching goon, he didn't say aloud what he was thinking: I hope it's enough to satisfy this asshole. He looked back at Letty, who nodded at him, reading his mind. If letting go of the remains of their stash was what it took to get away, so be it. Time to move on.
Forty minutes crawled by as they waited in silence. Finally they heard a car drive up and stop outside the door, and the two dealers walked back in. Juan was carrying the bag of coke, and he almost threw it at them, but placed it on the floor instead. "This is it?" he yelled. "This is all you've got? Where's the rest?"
They went into it again, Javier repeating for the hundredth time that this little stash was all they ever had or ever would. "Just take it, and let us go. No hard feelings," he almost pleaded with them.
They stared at Javier for several long seconds, then Tomás started laughing, mean and unbalanced, enjoying whatever little joke he'd thought of. Juan and the other goon joined in, a little nervously.
"Oh, you're leaving LA, all right," Tomás informed the pair silkily. "But you're not driving out. You're coming with us."
"Where? What more do you want? You've got it all," Javier said a little desperately.
"Me? I don't want anything." Tomás stepped behind Letty again and leaned over her, caressing her shoulders lasciviously, staring at Javier to enjoy his coming reaction.
"Your uncle wants to talk to you... Javier Pereira," he hissed out Javier's real name with relish.
.
.
Letty was floating, caught somewhere between awake and asleep, bobbing gently between the two. Wait, what had she been dreaming? Javi and Jacob and dinner in the house he had bought her? And with the question, she realized she was awake, but didn't want to open her eyes just yet. She became aware of four things nearly simultaneously. One, somewhere very close by was a noisy engine roaring away; two, that engine was apparently making the surface she was laying on vibrate; three, she was massively uncomfortable, especially her arms; and four, she had a splitting headache, throbbing in time to the engine. It was the last that finally drove her all the way to consciousness, and she opened her eyes to a world that at first made no sense at all.
She was gagged, for one, with a nasty, oily rag stuffed into her mouth and held in place with another tied around her head. Her arms were bound behind her with a cable tie – she could feel it digging into her wrists – and laying half on them, half on her side, was the source of the discomfort. Her legs were similarly bound around the ankles, and she was still barefoot. A quick mental check of the rest of her clothes – a mid-length skirt, blouse, short denim jacket, underclothes – seemed unmolested, if a little crooked from the handling she had obviously endured. And she was stuffed into... what, exactly? Peering upward, she fought for a moment to identify surfaces and objects, then focused on a rounded square of glass, and beyond it blue sky, and then it made sense. She was lying on the floor in the back of a tiny (probably single-engine) airplane, behind the two seats. As her head was directly behind – nearly under – those seats, she couldn't see who was sitting in them. The plane was most definitely in the air.
She then registered warmth behind her back, and cloth brushing her fingers, and twisted around to see. It was Javier, lying on his back, bound and gagged as she was, still unconscious. With the sight, recent memory finally returned.
Back in the storage unit, Javier had attempted to deny his real name, but Tomás had sneered that off – Javi's instant reaction to hearing it had already given him away. So he'd switched tacks, asking and finally nearly pleading with their captors to let Letty go, as she was innocent, having nothing to do with his family. Tomás had let him beg for a while, appearing to consider the possibility while looking her over insultingly, stroking his mustache with finger and thumb – and then abruptly grinned evilly. "Nah," he said to Javier. "She's coming with us. She's my reward, for finding you and turning you over to your uncle. You're going to get what you deserve." And he'd ended with a string of Spanish that Letty decided she was glad she couldn't translate, from the look on Javi's face. Then all at once Juan was there with a rag and a bottle – chloroform, apparently – knocking a struggling Javi out with a few drops before holding it over her own nose and mouth, and the world fell away.
Letty wormed around until she was lying on her side in the tiny space, facing Javi, then inched over and began gently butting the side of his head with her forehead. It took a couple of minutes and increasingly insistent bumps before he began stirring. She lay back and watched the side of his face as he struggled his way to consciousness, his eyes at last flying open, and he fought against his bonds for a moment before realizing they were holding. He looked wildly around before his gaze came to rest on her own face, and she saw memory returning behind his eyes before they closed again in what seemed like anguish. So she butted his cheek again with her forehead.
He looked up at the ceiling, seeming to click on their surroundings faster than she had, then he wormed around till he was lying on his side, facing her. His face clouded over again with what was definitely anguish this time, his eyes trying to pass a message. I'm sorry, baby. I'm so very sorry. You shouldn't be here in this hell.
She raised her head at that, giving him the fiercest stare she could, then shook her head violently. Fuck that noise, Mister Pereira, she thought hard at him, wishing he could read her mind. I chose this life. No regrets.
Whether he got that message or not, she couldn't tell, but his face slowly relaxed, his eyes crinkling, and she could tell he was smiling at her defiance under his gag. He brought his own forehead to touch hers, gently, almost like a kiss. And then they simply lay there, drowning in each others' eyes, for what each of them was terribly afraid would be the last time ever.
The engine's whine dropped a note, and the floor tilted as they began their descent. Wherever they were headed, they had arrived.
