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bugrry · 3 days

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1. tie the knot

javier peña x f!reader* | chapter one of let us pretend

summary: peña has been back in Texas for all of five minutes, thinking he wants a simple life. but, when steve offers him the chance to gather information on a potential new player, he jumps at the chance. the only problem is, to do so, he'll need to go undercover with a female agent—and pretend to be her husband.

wordcount: 4.6k chapter themes: fake dating/relationship/marriage, forced proximity / sharing one bed, colleagues to lovers, no use of Y/N, *female agent has a nickname (sunny) for use undercover. an: this week i am full of surprises. welcome to the world of let us pretend. this chapter might not feel different from htcu, but it is.

All he has to do is pretend. Put on an act.

It’s simple on paper. Easy. A thing he’s already a master in, something he has never found particularly difficult or hard: pretending.

Javi, after all, had had always been pretty good at concealing, at masking—

“Y’need to pretend to be married.”

Faking being a husband was a new one.

Having lived with far too many emotions for so long, it’s not hard for him to fake nonchalance.

Colombia had been his school. The place where he collected his degree—days of pretending he was okay. Hiding the fact he couldn’t sleep the horrors away, that he wasn’t falling apart at the seams. That stress wasn’t making him chain smoke and the pressure wasn’t making him sink his cock into women he couldn’t save.

He picked up his doctorate when he returned home. When ranch life had felt so fucking dull it made him want to pick the smoking habit back up, just for something to do. When he saw boats that made his insides twist, but found he had to wear a smile. Hiding, as expertly as he could, so he didn’t bristle each time someone called him a hero—when all he wanted was a drink, a fuck or a newspaper.

Mostly, Javi had become a master in squirrelling away the fact he saw every minute of the hours at night, feeling nothing short of relief when his alarm chimed so he could get out of his homemade prison.

Bluffing had always been a skill of his. But, this, this was new to him. His bluffing had never required him to wear something shiny on his left hand and—

“And, Jav. Try not to fuck her.”

He’s not surprised that Steve heads up a department in Miami—or that he’s happy and content.

From the moment the two of them reunited, he took in the glow on his old partner’s skin (the one he strongly suspects isn’t just from the sun) and listened as he heard short (in Murphy’s opinion) stories about his daughter growing older.

Javi couldn’t relate—not that he’ll admit it. Just another thing he disguises. Smothers his face in what he assumes is what happiness looks like, wears it like an accessory, something akin to wearing a jacket, rather than actually feeling it.

Picking up a ring, rotating it between his thumb and finger, he snorts. “Wouldn’t be very husband-like of me, if I didn’t, would it?”

He’s nudged. An intentional elbow to the side sparks a grin as he places the ring back into its velvety spot.

Because none of them look right. None seem right—even for a fake thing.

“Fake husband. And don’t fuck this up.”

“I’m hearing a lot of don’ts and not a lot of do’s, Murphy. What the fuck is it you want me to do?”

He’s already been told, informed. Briefed.

Tricked in fact. Requested down here for an opinion, but when his worn-in soles landed in the office of his former colleague, it unravelled into something so much more.

Handed a file—one he knows everyone expects he won’t read—and given a rundown of what the operation is supposed to look like. But Javi knows better. Had known it too. Even suspects, Murphy does too.

One thing Colombia has taught him is that plans don’t mean shit, not when you’re up against an ever-evolving problem.

You don't just want me here for a consult, do you, Murph? Was hopin’ you were bored in Texas.

He suspects that’s why his Pop had given him an arched brow, an expression that was accompanied by pinched lips when he’d first mentioned it. Even his assurance that it’ll be a few days—just helping Steve out was met with a look Javi hadn’t banked on. Realising as he stood admiring wedding rings that his Pop had figured it out long before him.

At least now he understands why he got the Chucho-treatment—not quite quiet, but not quite the same treatment from him that he did the day before.

Instead, that kind of treatment that pierced itself into him, attempted to bury itself inside of him and made guilt flood through him like a poison.

Even if once before he would struggle with it, found himself desperate to apologise—make it up to his Pops—he didn’t this time. Because Javi already struggled. Already grown tired of itching for something.

So, he said nothing. Because he knows Murphy wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t need him.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Murphy closes his eyes. The same noticeable twitch in his fingers and chewing inside his cheek that Javier can relate to: the sign of a recent quitter, and one attempting to use gum as a replacement.

Needing too.

“Where is she, anyway?” he asks, shifting the conversation, suppressing a yawn.

Before he’d even got on the plane out here, he’d been tired. Already beginning to fray at the edges, sleep had already become an even more distant friend.

All of it had been made worse by the worried look on Pop’s face when he dropped him at departures. It thickened, slathered itself on his shoulders even more so when he calls him from Murphy’s office to tell him it’ll be three months.

“You managed longer than I thought, Javi.” “Pop…”

Even though he had known it wouldn't matter, he had still tried to explain it all over again. From the top. All softly, with patience—the phone receiver leaving an indent on his cheek as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Reminding his Pop that this time he was doing his friend a favour, that it was a one-time thing—a few months, at most.

It didn’t shift the tone—didn’t stop Javi from imagining the disappointed lines bleeding into worried ones, mixing with the ones caused by age. It didn't lessen the tightness over the phone, simmering in the miles of air, because they were both at a standstill in the centre of a formerly (albeit temporary) happy situation.

Sighing, Murphy drops his hand, pulling him back from his thoughts. “She’ll be here, alright.”

Javi snorts, swallowing.

Glancing back over another table, seeing other things, other accessories. Things that’ll help him blend, help the two of you blend. You and him, him and you—a person he knows the name of and nothing else.

Steve had shared that you were good, brilliant, the only one he’d trust. That you knew the work so far better than anyone.

He’d been about to begin unpicking those earlier statements when the door opened, blouse and black tailored trousers walking towards him.

It isn’t anything cliché.

Time doesn’t stop, the room doesn't silence, but something happens. Something shifts, changes—alters. Because instantly, Javi realises you’re pretty. A thought which confuses him, especially when it dawns on him that usually, it’s a woman's figure he notices and admires first, but he finds that it's your eyes that he lingers on.

And fuck do they cut into him.

Practically reach inside of him, before they go through him, digging into flesh and fucking bone.

Then, all at once, ceasefire. A chance to strengthen his façade as you turn to greet Murphy, a handshake, a sea of pleasantries. Enough chance to shove it down, whatever attempted to rise in him.

But, he swears he can still see them behind his lids. Something which makes his jaw tighten, teeth grind—

“You must be my husband,” you say, smirk sliding up into your cheek.

Your body suddenly turns to him, hand sticking out towards him, adding your name to the statement as though stamping it into the air and his body goes clammy, grows warm and makes him suddenly desperate for water, coffee or even whiskey.

Slipping his hand into yours, he’s not surprised to find that it’s soft, the right kind of warm. He’d suspected about as much from just appearances alone.

“Agent Murphy has told me a lot about you, Mr Peña.”

Running his tongue over the front of his teeth, he eyes you. “Think my wife should call me, Javi.”

Javi learns, rather quickly, that you have a nice voice.

It doesn’t grate, doesn’t annoy him—it’s informative, but there’s something else there, a playful edge, a little thing within you that hasn’t been crushed.

He remembers when he’d been as sprightly.

Rubs his forehead with the heel of his palm as he does, fingers desperate to clutch a pen, his jaw tightening as he thinks about how he could roll it in his fingers, hold it like he used to hold a smoke.

Fuck, he wishes he could chew his gum.

A thing which is slowly making him more tense.

Not that you seem to notice, too focused on getting him up to speed on the actual investigation. He’d read much of your notes before today, it was the next part he was more on edge by.

Because, whatever his earlier opinion of you was, he was getting the distinct impression you’d rather set your skin on fire than be fake married. A thing you stop trying to hide, your face displaying your disgust at it each time it is casually mentioned.

It was mandatory—Murphy’s words—for the two of you to get to know one another. A crash course, a 101 in the other. It’s told to you, that the two of you are going to be stationed in your new home for the next few weeks, starting from today. But, because they’re merciful—

“Wanted to make sure you had time to get to know one another. So, take the day—work can begin another day.”

“How nice of you, Murph,” he responds, words dipped in sarcasm. Briefly catching sight of you smirking as you study something on the table.

Javi had already imagined that—since it was recon, and more surveillance than anything else—for the most part, everything could remain the same. He learnt he was right moments later when it was confirmed his name would remain very much his own, and you were handed his surname like a gift you’d rather burn than accept.

It was you who had to surrender more.

“Y’need a new first name.”

If you were surprised, you didn’t show it. A sea of reasons given, the main one being if anyone asked around with a photo and your name, it would be easier to put two and two together. You lived here, for one.

You keep your eyes down, glancing over the table of possessions you’re allowed to borrow, to play dress up with. Fingers brushing over a watch (silver, a white face)—something haunting in your eye you’re quick to blink away when you meet Murphy’s stare.

Folding his arms, Steve sighs. “Jus’ something you’ll answer to. That can be used in public.”

Javi watches you smirk, something secretive, a hidden joke simmering between the two of you—leaving him very much out in the cold of it.

After a beat, you lick your lips.

“Sunny,” you reply, lifting your eyes, digging each syllable of the name you’re going to use into him.

“Let me guess you’re someone’s ray of sunshine?”

He doesn’t mean for it to fall out laced in bitterness, but it does all the same. His mouth tilted into a smirk, your eyes hardening as you placed down a pair of earrings you’d picked up.

“Think it’s more because of my sunny disposition.” He snorts, watching you move around the table. “It’s a family nickname—I’ve… I’ve always been called it, so, I’ll answer to it.”

Swallowing, Javi lets his eyes wander to the wall of the room.

“Alright, you two. You need to sell it, y’hear me?”

“Then we need money.” It’s short, stern, the way you deliver it, head tilted and face unreadable. “We’ll be sniffed out immediately without it. These people deal in money, not handsome faces.”

"So, you think I'm handsome?"

The roll of your eyes doesn't dispute it, not as you direct your attention back to Murphy.

Who, until now, Javi hadn't realised (with his hands on his hips) how big boss Murphy looked as he whispered fine, or how much it rather annoyed him. How it would be quite easy to give him a shove. More so when he’s handed a new phone, a set of documents, credit cards and given more instructions he wishes he could shove down his throat.

He almost gets close enough to do both when briefing ends and he’s handed the keys to the hotel suite they’d be living in—their story simple, easy:

“We have a fake house for you both being made ready as a cover story, but for now you’re both in the hotel. Prime location. Beach views, and very much in reach to the top places the targets visit.”

And, Murphy hadn’t been lying.

It did have good views, the suite was even nice—really nice.

Almost too nice for a little surveillance, a little fake marriage and a drug bust. But, he didn’t complain, barely said a thing in the ride over, or when you wheeled your own case. He even remained silent when you refused to look at him in the elevator or on the walk to the room, and even when the two of you entered.

In fact, the first words he said were: “You gotta try and look at me like you don’t wanna peel my skin off. You know, if you want this to work.”

He expects it; braces for it, the tongue lashing, an icy stare. Picturing you as the kind of woman who is already to sharpen your tools and pierce him with them when he blinks. But, you don’t.

If anything, Javi watches in slow motion as your shoulders sink, your cogs turning before your expression softens.

“You’re right—I’m… sorry.”

Biting the inside of his cheek, he nods. “There’s one bed.”

“Well. We can sleep in the same bed, Peña. We’re adults. However, for your sake, I’m going to put a pillow between us.” Your eyes sweep over him, cold, drowning him in a chill. “Two actually.”

“You a cuddler, or something?”

Smiling, you sigh. “No. The pillow is so that if you roll over all sleepy and desperate for some affection, I won’t have to cut you. Because if you touch me, that is what will happen.”

“How are we meant to sell we’re in love if I can’t touch you?”

“Oh, out there, you can touch me. In here, no.”

His snort rumbles from his chest. Tugged up, wrenched from some cobweb-filled depth, as you smile. Nothing big, nothing life-changing, but a start—the beginning of a level-playing field.

“What kind of touching, cariño?”

Jaw tightening, you smirk—but it’s cold.

He suspects you’re used to charm. Easily able to disable it, switch it off, unfazed by his gaze or the edge of his words. If anything, you seem really fucking bored of it—something he’s not sure if he admires or despises.

“Nothing like you used to pay for, Peña.”

Before he’s even recovered, he learns that you take things seriously.

Your bag opens, pulling out a notebook—upside down cursive etched over a page, your eyes scanning over it, before you ask if he’s ready. He’s barely able to ask for what, when you begin firing things at him.

Favourite food. Comfort film. Where did we meet? What song do you sing in the car when I’m not around? Are you allergic to anything?

The list goes on, and on. The more things continue to run out of your mouth, the more he begins to admire you—to settle into some comfort that you want to do this properly. That you’re going to take it seriously too, something he wants.

Needing it to matter.

Needing to have something work out easily, not have it all end for nothing.

The only time you pause is for a dinner—room service, his treat and his choice. A way of providing proof that he’d been listening, paying attention—somehow wanting to prove something to you, even if he’d known you for only half a day.

“So, how did Murphy get you on this?”

He studies the way you cross your leg over the other, the base of your heel tapping against the carpet—all very much guarded, on edge.

“You can tell it’s my first, can’t you?”

Javi smiles, making it softer purposefully. “A little.”

“He said you were good,” you sigh, placing your napkin down. “I assume I was chosen because it was easy. Y’know, than someone with… higher priorities. Plus, I already know the case. Guess it just made sense to send me.”

Nodding, he watches as you avoid his sight, focusing instead on the swirls in the carpet. Something ticking in your pretty little head, it forcing your nostrils to flare, for your jaw to tighten—and he’s watching it happen, practically feeling the air around you begin to vibrate from it all.

“M’not gonna let anything happen to you, Sunny. You know that right?”

That does it. Further digs in the hatred you’re feeling tenfold because the use of your new name makes you flinch. And he knows, like he had suspected earlier that it means more than just a name. Especially from the look on your face.

At first, your expression is soft, almost mask-less—no walls, no defence. Then, like magic, it shifts. It drapes down, rebuilds, and suddenly there within seconds, the same expression he’s been working with since introduction.

“I have heard how you take care of the women who work with you.”

Picking up your drink, and stirring the straw, you let your eyes meet his. The small wooden table suddenly even smaller—the large suite, suddenly constricting in a way he hadn’t expected so far.

“S’not what I meant.”

“I know.” It’s curt, your reply. Clearing your throat, you snort, “You are handsome. I can see why you did so well. And, I might not need to say this, but I need you to know I like my job, and I don’t require that kind of care.”

Rubbing his jaw, he sighs. “That so?”

“I have something that can help with that. It doesn’t talk. It doesn’t need to remind it that it’s ‘so big’, and it doesn’t need me to call it baby. It just hums—politely—and makes my thighs shake. I just need you to be with me in this.”

He snorts, draining the rest of his glass. The ice clangs just before he places it back down on the table. “You bring it with you, your something?”

Licking your lips, your mouth slides into your cheek. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Steve had told you his credentials—how he worked, how smart he was. How easily he was able to decipher a read on someone.

He did also mention much of Peña’s backstory—including his rich history with the opposite sex. A thing you hadn’t wanted to let escape out coated in catty and wrapped in bitchy. And yet, it had all the same.

You did want to get on with him, you admired him after all. Hearing the truths from Steve made the things that swirled like gossip even more impressive.

But, in all of the briefings you’ve had before agreeing to this, your boss had failed to mention that it wasn’t just the man’s tongue that got women to confess all their secrets, but his ridiculously handsome face too.

The one that keeps turning towards you—eyes concentrated in on you as though you’re the most interesting thing he’s ever had the chance to listen to.

But, it wasn’t just that. It’s that he’s quick-witted, observant, and it most definitely doesn’t help that he’s all broad shoulders and brown eyed. That, in part, you thought you could handle.

Then, he’d flirted.

On any other day, in any other place, you’re sure you’d have melted. Likely leant forward, elbow on your knee, tracing your bottom lip with your finger just to make his eyes drop to your mouth.

But, this isn’t any other day—it’s work, a job, one that requires him (in part) to be a flirt.

Clearing your throat, you smear on a smile. “You not tried to date since you’ve been home?”

His face hardens, just slightly.

It pinching, eyes more so than anywhere else—his smile falling, descending to a thin line as he traces his teeth with his tongue. Then, his eyes shift into an entirely different brown, an explosion of shades swirling—flecks of gold and sadness-infused umber.

“No.”

Nodding, you pick at some salad on the side of your plate. “Probably a good job—don’t need any angry people coming for me when I’m curled up on your arm.”

He snorts, but it doesn’t flutter over his face. His hand remains balled up, resting on the arm of the chair—something more there, prodding, needling him. He may be so easily able to read you, but you’re sure he’s about as clear as a warm day himself.

Landing his gaze back on you, you feel it linger, hover—before it begins to slip down from your eyes, landing somewhere at your neck, before the buttons off your shirt. Something warming inside of you, flooding out, spreading across your skin as you try your damnest to level your breathing.

“Got any more questions?”

“Plenty,” you reply, almost catching the y on your teeth before placing a light smirk out over your lips, letting it move across your face.

Gesturing, Peña licks his lips and so you begin with more. Not needing the book now, just working your way through the things which populate, which appear like bubbles he bursts with his answers.

He’s open about some things more than others. The two of you covering family quickly, childhoods even quicker. You both discreetly avoid too many details of Colombia, about the things you’d already heard in chunks from your superior.

Your 101 beginner class in your new husband proving to be easier to understand than your field handbook—although, you supposed the intermediate and expert levels to him would be far harder to crack.

He’s unmarried, not dating—there’s his dad, a sea of distant family and a town full of people whom his father would class as family. You suspect some guilt there, it layered between the conversation on his dad, and the one which followed when you’d asked if the ranch would be okay without him.

“—My Pops has had help for a long time. One of them has been promoted. He… He works there full time now.”

Even if he had tried to say it simply, it was laced in bitterness—not from jealousy, you suspect from the sadness that had poisoned over time. A well stuffed with things which had rotted and gone mouldy over time.

Upon sight of him this morning, you had known you’d need to be clever, smart—find ways to compartmentalise it all. Because, when he traces his nose with his finger, when his eyes widen a little more than normal—coffee-brown all but drowning you—you had known it would be hard otherwise.

Something there, niggling, piercing through.

“Any lovers I need to be aware of?”

Smiling, you slide your feet from your heels, pulling your legs up more, swallowing. “No, you’re good.”

“Any potential risks I need to be aware of—anyone who’ll call into question your new name?”

Your stomach knots, uncomfortably so. A thing balling inside of you, that same fear you’d been plucking at for days—ever since Steve had suggested your name, thrown it out on the conference table with a bunch of greedy eyes seated around it.

“No, I… you have nothing to worry about.”

He looks at you, lets it hover, hold. Something there, trying to disguise itself in the way he narrows his eyes a fraction, in the way his lips pinch together—the way his brain seems to whir like a fan that can be heard even across the table.

When you yawn, he makes a move to tidy up the plates for the tray—batting your hand away. “I’ve got it, cariño.”

“Cariño?”

Your cheeks are warm, more so under his stare. Easily able to smother it the first time, but found it difficult the second. It’s all wide, blooming—it tracing your eyes before it sweeps back to the tray.

“Gotta call my wife something original, special.”

“I’m hardly special, Peña.”

“If I’ve married you, you’re special.”

Clamping your mouth shut, you say nothing.

Something churning, a horribleness that you know stems from the fact this isn’t real. None of it. The niceness, the ring on your finger—the one your finger slides up your palm to brush over, to trace.

The one which didn’t have a home there this morning, but now sits like it’s always supposed to. Your stare on his back as he goes to the door, pushing the metal tray, the jingling of plates and glass sounding out as your heartbeat pounds in your ears, your cheeks burn in embarrassment.

It continues to hammer when your back flattened against the bathroom door—safe amongst marble, mirrors and an array of complimentary products which covered most of the sink.

Only as you begin to undress and change for bed, does it lessen, does your composure return back to you. The mask which you so delicately applied, the one which had taken more words of encouragement in your bathroom mirror this morning than you’d thought.

Because, it isn’t that you thought you couldn’t do this—but rather why would you?

This isn’t your expertise. Not your usual field of knowledge. The last time you’d even been on a date had been at least over a year ago, and the last time you’d lived with a man had been so long ago you were worried you’d wake tomorrow and learn you have habits you weren’t aware of.

Did you kick in your sleep?

Did you grind your teeth?

“Cariño?” Peña calls out, knuckles tapping on the door. “You good in there?”

No, you want to reply. Hands gripping the sink basin, staring at your makeup-less face and the nightie he was about to see you in.

“Yeah,” you call out, washing your hands, and flushing the toilet before unlocking the door, and emerging.

He’s polite enough to not drink you in, even if you're sure he’s craning his neck not to do so.

“Look. Before you crack your neck from not doing so.”

Smirking, he traces his fingers across his chin, before slowly dropping his eyes.

And you feel them.

Warm. Hot. Sliding over your neck, collarbone, down the silk which covers your chest, abdomen and most of your thighs, before he’s running his vision back up.

“Better?”

“Nice legs.”

Narrowing your eyes, you straighten your spine. “Try not to dream about them, and Peña?”

He hums.

“Try to remember you’re not actually married, don’t want you falling for the fantasy we’re putting on. Hate to break your heart.”

Leaning against the doorframe, staring at you, you somehow manage to level your breath. “If it’s you breaking my heart, Sunny. I might just let you.”

Your mouth almost falls open. Almost.

Something you think he's aware of from the way he smiles, from the way he drinks you in before he whispers about getting passed.

Then, you're alone.

Filling your lungs with a breath, staring around the room not sure how you're going to make it a week not cracking, never mind more.

CHAPTER TWO ->

AN: tag list won't be around from chapter two, thank you for letting me tell the story how i always envisioned. your kindness is appreciated.