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Physical therapy wasn’t a cure-all for everything (regardless of what your physiotherapist would have you believe during your painful weekly sessions in his studio) but when it came to a shot-up thigh and shoulder, there, unfortunately, was no way around it on the way to recovery.
Logically, you knew the sessions and exercises were doing you good in the long run. That did not mean you had to enjoy them.
Whoever came up with the concept of physical therapy back in the day might have had good intentions at heart. But along with those good intentions, there must have been a quite sizeable sadistic streak. No one that didn’t take some pleasure in inflicting pain would have come up with such torturous regimes in the name of helping people.
”It’ll be nice. Getting out of the villa for a bit,” the other staff had said when you’d voiced your objections to going, claiming that it really wasn’t necessary and that if it were just exercises, you could easily print them out and do them in your room. You’d even stretch as far as getting a yoga mat.
The others didn’t realize that getting out of the house was, in fact, a big part of why you disliked the sessions so much. You didn’t like leaving the villa. At least not without the floppy-haired presence of your boss by your side. Being away from Javi made you jumpy – even more so since the attack – and you worried something bad might happen in your absence.
You had promised Javi after the accident that you wouldn’t take any more bullets for him. That was a promise you had every intention of breaking if the need arose. But breaking that promise would require you actually being within shielding distance of your boss. And driving 40 minutes into the next town over definitely didn’t count as within shielding distance.
In the beginning, you had tried to reason and rationalize your way out of attending each session. With little to no success. Javi quickly caught on to what you were doing and actively forbade you from not going – surprising you slightly by claiming a boss authority he’d seldom used before. Not only that… He had managed to rally the whole household into agreeing with him – which was less surprising considering the fondness Javi’s staff had for him. You were pretty sure that Manolo’s threat to hogtie you and toss you in the trunk of the car to drive you to your appointment himself had been a joke… but you weren’t quite sure enough to actually dare test that theory.
So each week, you found yourself tossing your gym bag into the backseat of the car with a sort of annoyed resignation, and as you drove off, you felt a lump of worry grow in the pit of your stomach.
The sessions followed an annoyingly familiar routine; get there, get changed, and make awkward small talk with your physiotherapist before he would put you through exercises that made your muscles shake and sweat bead on your forehead.
The worst part of the sessions, however, wasn’t the actual pain and exertion. It was just how little it took to bring those things about. It served as an effective but unwelcome reminder that despite all the time that had passed since you got shot, there were still limitations to what your body could do. Limitations that hadn’t been there before and limitations that made you worse at your job. The implications of that had worry clawing up your spine, extending its slimy cold tendrils from the worry lump you already carried in your stomach.
To escape those feelings, you worked yourself to the brink of exhaustion just to prove to the universe and yourself that you were still capable enough to look after Javi and protect him. And every week, you left the session without the reassurance you so desperately sought.
Today’s session had been no different than the others. Your physiotherapist had pushed you until you were just about ready to hand over your gun to him and beg him to just put you out of your misery.
It felt like it didn’t matter how much time you spent in that leg press, your right leg was still so much weaker compared to what it had used to be, and walking at any speed above a slow Sunday stroll still made you fall back into a limp. According to you, that was something you could live with since it didn’t really reduce your speed, but apparently limping was a bad habit that you needed to unlearn, one perfectly balanced step at a time.
The fine motor training and grip strength exercises for your left hand were, if possible, even more humiliating and each week you lied that the numbness really was getting better and that your hand felt much stronger now. Your physiotherapist was good enough at his job to see straight through that.
~~~~~~~~
You drove home as fast as you could, while still remaining within the speed limits.
It was a nice day and the route along the ocean provided a truly stunning view that you would have been better able to enjoy if you’d had company. Now, you just wanted to get home as quickly as possible.
When you pulled up in front of the big villa, you met Louisa, the housekeeper, outside the front doors with a large basket of laundry in her arms.
”Oh good, you’re back,” she said, and your hackles immediately went up and the lump of worry in your stomach immediately roared back to life after having slowly shrunk the closer you got to home.
”What’s wrong?” you demanded, irrationally fearing death and carnage even though the logical part of your brain supplied that Louisa wouldn’t be doing laundry in the midst of ongoing disaster. She took her job seriously, but not that seriously.
She noted your tone and gave you a smile that felt far too knowing.
”Nothing too big, or we would have called you, as promised,” she assured you, hoisting the basket onto her hip for support. ”But Mr. Gutierrez has been in a mood all morning. He refuses to tell us why. We were hoping he might talk to you.”
The feelings of impending doom subsided slightly, but the frown remained on your brow. You still needed more information before the worry would completely disappear. Javi was seldom in a mood. Deciding to bypass the question of why Louisa thought you would be the right choice for anyone to talk to about how they were feeling, you instead decided to go with the more pressing question.
”Where is he?”
Louisa nodded her head towards the side of the house.
”He said something about going down into the orchard for some target practice. Manolo’s with him.”
”Thank you,” you told her, locking the car before you turned and headed in the direction she’d just indicated.
”Try and bring him back! He hasn’t eaten anything,” Louisa called after you and you raised a hand to show you’d heard her.
~~~~~~~~
Your muscles protested as you made your way over the uneven ground of the orange tree orchard. It wouldn’t have been so bad on a normal day, but you were still feeling worn out from the training session and the roots of the trees had pushed the ground up into a treacherous pattern of tripping risks.
You would much have preferred to go find Javi in his movie den. Wrapped up in a blanket and watching a movie that would have given you some sort of clue as to what was bothering him. Javi had a movie for every occasion and emotion. It hadn’t been an active choice you made to attempt to memorize them, but you had seen Javi in various states in that movie den and – in true Javi fashion – there wasn’t a single one of those states where he didn’t also spend at least five minutes talking about whatever movie was on and what feelings it inspired in him. If you had actually written it all down, it would have made an excellent catalog for understanding Javi Gutierrez.
But outside of the den, you had to play it by ear.
The sound of shots fired reached you well before you got to the part of the orchard that Javi had turned into a makeshift shooting range – down by the ocean and away from any roads. You found Manolo a few seconds later, leaning against an orange tree with a bored expression. He was without Javi.
Manolo spotted you when you approached and immediately held his hands up in defense when he saw your disapproving frown.
”I tried!” he told you ”But he’s refusing to let anyone join him. This is as close as I was able to get.”
Another couple of shots rang out and Manolo looked back over his shoulder.
”But I wouldn’t worry too much. The mood he’s in, I pity anyone who attempts something.”
”What the hell happened when I was gone?” you asked.
Manolo shrugged.
”Hell if I know! He came out of his room about as pleasant as a thunderstorm this morning after you’d left.
You rubbed a hand over your mouth and let out a slow sigh.
”I’ve got it from here. Go back to the house and ask them to start preparing lunch. I’ll see if I can lure him back.”
Manolo nodded before heading back the way you’d come.
You moved in the opposite direction, towards the sound of gunshots. On a whim, you reached up and plucked two ripe oranges from a tree. The thing about thunderstorms was that often you had to just let them run their course. The thing about Javi was that he could usually be bribed with something sweet and orange-flavored.
~~~~~~~~
Javi was facing away from you when you approached, his broad shoulders tense and seeming to stretch the orange fabric of his shirt even more than usual. You didn’t need to see his face to know that he was still in a bad mood. It was evident in the way he carried himself and in the way he cocked the rifle in his hands like he was half-tempted to break it in two.
You leaned against one of the orange trees and watched him line up his shots, hitting each target dead in the center. Javi was a man of many contradictions and you never could quite wrap your mind around the fact that a man with such a soft heart could fire a gun with such deadly accuracy. A deadly accuracy that you had your life to thank for.
The recoil of the rifle hit Javi’s shoulder, but he stood steady as the empty can flew into the air. Another excellent shot. Although, Javi didn’t seem at all encouraged by his own skill. He just sighed heavily before turning around.
He did a double-take when he spotted you, the thunder of his face momentarily giving way to surprise and slight confusion.
”You’re supposed to be in town until lunch,” he said, his voice just a touch rougher than usual, betraying his mood. His eyebrows drew together in a frown again and he shifted a little awkwardly, as if he was suddenly uncomfortable by the weapon in his hands despite how natural he’d looked holding it mere moments ago.
”Yep. And if you check your watch, you’ll see that I have been,” you answered, nodding towards the expensive piece hugging his tanned wrist.
Javi did as told and looked down at the watch. The realization that lunch had already come and gone seemed to take him by surprise. When he appeared a little unsure what to do with this newfound information, you decided to help him out.
”Fruit break?” you asked, holding up two oranges. Javi looked between the oranges and you before eventually nodding.
”Like we are at daycare,” Javi mumbled and you weren’t sure if it was in approval or not. But he did set the weapon down and moved to take the orange from your hand, at least so you counted it as a win.
Javi found a spot at the base of one of the trees where the branches provided just a bit of shelter from the sun and he sat down, stretching his legs out in front of himself in the grass.
You joined him and, by some miracle, you managed to hold back the pained grunt from the stretch of your leg as you sat down in a much less graceful fashion than Javi. You leaned back against the tree trunk and waited for Javi to speak. He always did.
Except for today, apparently.
He just peeled his orange quietly, building a small tower next to him from the discarded pieces. You watched him, a little uncomfortable by this change to your usual dynamic.
In the end, you felt compelled to break the silence.
”So…” you began tentatively. ”I know it’s not my place to ask but…”
”But I have been an asshole today,” Javi supplied matter of factly and without any heat behind the words.
”I wasn’t gonna say that,” you softly protested, bumping your shoulder lightly against his. ”But the others noticed you’ve been less cheerful today. Did something happen?”
Javi looked down at the half-peeled orange in his hands and let out another long sigh.
”I got rejected.”
For one confusing moment, you were hit with a flash of jealousy, mingled with the disbelief that anyone would turn Javi down. Then something clicked in your mind and you remembered something Javi had mentioned a few weeks ago about submitting…something. You were embarrassed to admit that you hadn’t been paying it the attention it fully deserved, but in your defense, you had been trying to navigate the car through town at rush hour. And your main objective was to keep him alive, even if you enjoyed hearing about his creative endeavors too.
Javi peeled away one of the segments from the rest of the orange and pushed it past his lips in a way that might have looked suggestive, if it hadn’t been for the sad expression on his face.
”I thought they would like it,” he said morosely. ”I worked on it for months and…” He sighed again. ”Maybe I’m shit.”
”Hey now! That’s not true.” you protested, perhaps a little louder than intended. But if there was one thing you were certain of in this world, it was that Javi wasn’t shit. Far far far from it.
Javi looked up, a little surprised by the heat behind your protest, but then the corner of his mouth twitched and the frown lines on his face smoothed out just a little.
”You haven’t even read it,” he pointed out
”I don’t need to read a script to know you’re not shit, Javi,” you countered, leaning back against the tree trunk.
Javi scoffed slightly, but the look he gave you was grateful.
”There’s a scene in Snake Eyes…” he said, slowly, peeling away another segment of the orange in his hands.
”The corridor scene at the end,” you replied without thinking and Javi whipped his head around to look at you with surprise.
”Yes…” He didn’t have to voice the how the fuck did you know? It was clear in his eyes. You shrugged.
”It’s the best scene of the movie,” you explained, simply. That simple statement wasn’t enough for Javi. He was watching you, waiting for you to elaborate. You felt a little foolish but then you tried to put into words what it was that had captured your interest about that scene in particular, when you and Javi had watched it a couple of weeks back. ”In the scene…the closer Rick gets to Julia… to the woman he’s supposed to protect, the more danger he’s putting her in. He doesn’t realize it at first. He just wants to make sure she’s okay. But then sees Kevin’s shadow, and he knows he’s fucked up…but he keeps walking anyway.”
”Why does he keep walking?” Javi asked, his eyes wide and earnest, full of curiosity for something you couldn’t quite put a name to.
”Because… because if he’s gotten this close, he might as well use his body to shield her from the bullets.”
”He doesn’t have to, though,” Javi told you. ”Just having him there helps her figure out what she needs to do.” The smile he gave you next was unnervingly soft and you felt stupid, because you knew there was something in his expression that you were missing.
Javi waited for you to say something more but you didn’t know how to best respond to either the statement or the smile, so you blinked and looked away from his face.
You heard the soft exhale and then Javi too leaned back to rest his back against the tree trunk. But there were too much shoulders and not enough tree trunk so the movement brought him flush against your side. Javi didn’t seem bothered but you felt your heart speed up in a way that couldn’t possibly be healthy.
”I interrupted you,” you said, grasping for some kind of distraction. Javi frowned for a moment before you reminded him. ”You were going to tell me something about the scene too.”
”Oh right,” Javi said, and you regretted bringing it up when you felt his shoulders slump and heard the enthusiasm slowly drain from his voice. ”The script.”
If you’d had more space to swing your arm, you would have punched yourself in the face for bringing Javi’s mood down again. Why exactly had the staff trusted you with cheering Javi up and bringing him back to the house again?
”I wanted to write something like it,” Javi confessed. ”Not the exact same scene obviously, but something with that kind of tension… I tried to but… but they said my script was ‘all flash and no heart’…” You heard Javi swallow and his next exhale sounded shaky.
You knew how much writing meant to Javi, how much pride he took in creating, and how much he admired those who had succeeded with their art. Someone having the audacity to tell Javi he was all flash and no heart made you want to shoot their kneecaps to smithereens. Even if you gathered up all of the movie industry, they combined wouldn’t have as much heart and love as Javi did.
Javi picked at the last bit of orange, his head bent in shame, and fury simmered hot in your gut.
”I could make them disappear,” you told him. It wasn’t a joke. Even though you would probably have gotten cold feet eventually, right now you wanted nothing more than to bury whoever had made Javi doubt himself.
Javi gave you a somewhat disbelieving look but you stood your ground.
”These people are obviously idiots. I doubt anyone would miss them,” you told him.
That made one corner of Javi’s mouth curve up, just a fraction. Pleased with the reaction, you kept going.
”What has everyone said who’s read your script before?” you asked. Javi answered something unintelligible.
”What was that, Javi?”
”That it was good,” Javi repeated, a little louder, the other side of his mouth curving up to join the first.
”Exactly! And if this asshole that read it last can’t see how incredible you are… then they don’t deserve you or your script!”
Javi turned his head just enough so he could meet your gaze again.
”Thank you,” he mumbled with a small but sincere smile.
You knew it wasn’t enough, that Javi would probably revisit the doubt later on one of his wine benders, but with the immediate crisis averted and with his mood less cloudy than before, you turned your attention to the orange still held unpeeled in your hand. Javi had already finished eating his and you decided that you could use a snack too. You hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and your stomach was bound to start rumbling any minute now.
Your hand shook when you held the orange up to peel it, and despite your best efforts to hide it, Javi saw. He didn’t comment on it but you knew he saw.
Suddenly, irrationally afraid that your fingers wouldn’t be strong to breach the skin of the orange, you lowered it back onto your lap to save yourself the risk of embarrassment. A bodyguard that couldn’t peel an orange. What a fucking joke that would be!
Before the doubts and self-deprecation could fully wrap their unpleasant vines around you, you felt a warm hand gently easing your grip on the orange.
”No sense in both of us getting our fingers sticky,” Javi reasoned in a voice that sounded far too casual. But you felt relieved all the same.
You watched him build a second tower of orange peels next to his own. The smell of the fresh fruit mingled with the scent of Javi’s shampoo and you had to tamper down the sudden urge to bury your nose in the soft curls just behind his ear and hide.
Perhaps sensing the shift in your respective moods, Javi cleared his throat as he handed you the first piece of peeled orange.
”How did your training session go today?” he asked.
Your first impulse was to lie, pretend that everything was fine and back to normal. To spare Javi the troubles of your mind. But there was something about the way Javi was watching you that made you hesitate. Javi had been open with you just now about something vulnerable and personal. And you decided to trust him by doing the same.
”I don’t feel like I’m making much progress…” you admitted as he handed you the rest of the peeled orange. ”I train and train but my leg still cramps up sometimes when I run and this… I can’t get it to stop.” You held out your hand in front of him. It shook with small tremors, and the more you watched it the more you hated it.
Javi watched it too, and after a couple of seconds he reached out and took your hand in his. The shaking didn’t stop, but it was less noticeable with the warmth of the orange sticky fingers gently enveloping yours.
”It’s okay,” he said, fingers slowly beginning to massage and rub small circles against the palm of your hand. It felt nice.
”Not really,” you disagreed. ”I’m supposed to look after you, keep you safe.”
”You are keeping me safe,” he assured you.
You didn’t know what to respond to that. Didn’t want to start an argument that you knew you could never win. You could have done every wrong thing in the book and Javi would still have refused to give you anything but stellar reviews. It was both sweet and troubling at the same time.
”I’ll do it better,” you eventually settled on, and you were grateful when Javi didn’t protest.
Silence fell between the two of you and you both stared out across the slope between the trees and down towards the ocean. The sunlight hitting the waves made the bay look like it was filled with molten silver. The view was nothing short of magical.
Javi was still massaging your hand, easing the tension with the pad of his fingers. The trembling had stopped but you secretly hoped Javi wouldn’t notice.
”Maybe I should have added more of this to the script,” Javi mused a while later.
You weren’t sure to what he was referring exactly at first so you made a questioning hum. But Javi didn’t elaborate. Just leaned a little closer to your side. For a brief moment, you toyed with the idea of what he would do if you raised your arm, wondered how soft his hair would feel against your jaw if he decided to shift closer.
But your arm stayed where it was, firmly pressed against your side, tethered there by invisible restraints.
Regardless of what Javi might think… this wasn’t what he needed in his movie or his life. And it would do you both good to remember that.
”We should get back to the house,” you said softly, and your voice came out sadder than intended.
”Can we stay?” he asked, and maybe you were imagining it, but you thought he sounded a bit sad too. ”Just a little longer?”
You looked down at your hands. Javi’s fingers had stopped moving but his hand still held yours. You sighed softly.
”Okay, just a little longer.”