DEL RIO, jacinto rafael

TAKE WHAT IS LEFT OF ME

AND MAKE IT A BEAUTIFUL MELODY

JACINTO RAFAEL DEL RIO
YOU'D BE MY REMEDY

twenty four ,.,., fordham ,.,., spy ,.,., matt bomer
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one mile
i feel like a loser i feel like i'm lost i feel like i'm not sure if i feel anything at all

jace had always been the type of kid that could slip out of tight situations. he had the ability to talk his way out of things, get out of trouble, it all came rather easily to him. then again, it sort-of had to when it came to, if he wanted to continue going to school.

"my mom's working long hours, my neighbor signed my permission slip, is that okay?"

"my dad passed away when i was little, in a plane crash. that's why he's not around."

"something fun i did this weekend? oh, my mommy took me to the zoo!"

his mother didn't take him anywhere. his father didn't die in a plane crash. he didn't really know why he had never even seen yesenia and marcelino del rio, but that was just how things were.

his "neighbor" was a fordham agent that took care of him. he was the only adult that jace remembered that stayed at home with him. at five years old, he'd never had a mommy or a daddy - they were abstract concepts and people that came in cars to pick up his friends at school and suits that stood in front of the classroom with their briefcases on career day to talk about their boring lives and boring jobs.

jace was leaving school that year. at the end of the year, he'd be leaving and going to fordham headquarters. he didn't know why he couldn't go now, his mind curious about what this fordham place was and why he couldn't go and why he was going in the first place, but his "neighbor" wasn't exactly the type to give up information.

jace's ability to slip in and out of situations also transferred into gym. dodgeball was his best sport. he could dodge and throw at the same time, and he was always the first chosen when the class was making teams. he was good at kickball and baseball, too - he was overall good at sports.

one day, their teacher had told them that they needed to do "state mandated fitness tests". most of the children whined but jace saw it as a way to show off. he was good at things like that, like push ups and curl ups. the only thing he was worried about was the fact that they had to run a mile on the outdoor track. he didn't know if he didn't. most of the other kids couldn't either, but that didn't matter.

he was always told not to hold himself to other people's standards, and he took those words to heart.

his name was late in the group - rio was counted, not del - and he was one of the very last kids to go. the last group of seven, he was on the end, and he was kind-of ready. to a five year old the track looked huge, and the others were whining. it was about time, and if you could complete it at all. some of the girls were whining about how they would sweat, and jace found them highly annoying. who cared about sweat?

the whistle blew and they all took off. he was the fastest, clearly, and he wasn't even going at full speed. he was going to run at this speed the entire time, because that way he wouldn't get tired or fall behind. already, half way around the track, he was one of the only two still running. she was a girl, with her hair in a ponytail, and she looked like she was about to keel over and face plant right where she was running.

jace wasn't even slightly tired. he sprinted the rest of the way, wanted to get it over with, and went straight to the water fountain. when the teacher let them all cool down and then sit on the bleachers, he found that he had the fastest time. hmm. maybe he was a good runner after all.

two miles
but believe me i'm not hopeless i just need someone to love

jace was seven and by the age of seven he'd learned two things.

one: not everything was as it seemed in his world.

and two: he didn't live in the same world as everyone else.

maybe he lived on the same earth, in the same hemisphere, country, state, city, borough, as thousands and millions and however many other people. but he didn't live in the same world as everyone else. a planet and a world ... they were two different things.

he didn't like the thought of it. he didn't like that he was different. he didn't like the thought of being different. he wanted to slink into the background and be some normal kid with a normal life and normal grades and a normal family. but, then again, so did the rest of the fordham kids, probably. weren't they all the same? kids with bad backgrounds coming from bad families and bad places that were given an opportunity to not die on the streets of hunger or to join a gang where they'd be shot in the middle of a turf war. he guessed he was lucky. that's what they were told. but were they really?

he didn't think that the way they were treated was okay. the one they were drilled mentally with schoolwork, physically with training, and in a million other ways. he knew that when they were all done training, the weak weeded out from the strong, they'd be sent off into the field and then they would probably see each other once or twice, maybe during the occasional required paperwork filling out stage after a particularly important job, after a debriefing.

they were at the indoor track, and were dealing with a coach yelling at them for being incapable of running more than one mile. he knew that half of them at least couldn't do it. he knew he could do it. he knew he could outrun this guy. he knew that the man had muscle, but when you were that short and bulky, the two cancelled out. when you were tall, you could run faster, easier. when you were short, you could move but you had to make up with speed to even the field out. when you were short and bulky, you couldn't run as fast as a taller person and you had extra weight. even though he was short, he could outrun this instructor.

"which one of you maggots thinks they can match with me?!" jace saw the spit flying out of the man's mouth and sneered disgustedly.

"i can." he didn't mean to say it out loud, it just sort-of ... happened.

"del rio, hm? i've heard of your cocky ass. let's see what you can do, boy."

first of all, jace wasn't cocky. he was self-aware. second of all, jace was now sure he could outrun this instructor. when jace was forced to prove himself, he did more than just prove himself. he showed off. he didn't like this man's attitude, superior or not. he didn't like the fact that he thought they could all be talked down to like a bunch of animals, sorry, maggots, as they had been called. he didn't appreciate that.

the man took the second inner-most ring on the track. ha. make it more obvious that you need an advantage, please, jace thought.

the whistle was blown and they took off. his instructor took off at a steady speed, and jace let him use up all his energy trying to stay ahead of him. in the midst of their second lap jace sprinted ahead, passing his instructor easily. the man had used up most of his strength beforehand, and didn't have it in him to compete with the smaller boy. jace won by a good minute, and when the man reached the end of the second lap, he was sputtering and breathing hard while jace had barely started to sweat, and was breathing slightly harder than normal.

"get ... outta my face ... little maggots!"

jace didn't think his smirk could get even bigger. another instructor came to take over to teach them how to run more than a mile while keeping their breathing even and while being able to dodge and weave while doing so. jace knew that, after he'd done what he just did, he would have no problem with this simple task.

three miles
so my situation's rough that just makes me a dumb human like you

jace was terrified. his first mission wasn't supposed to go wrong.

his cover wasn't supposed to be blown.

the adult that he had as a partner wasn't supposed to die on him.

this couldn't have gotten any worse.

pause. yes it could. the man chasing him now had a gun, and was firing at his heels. he'd spoken too soon. the tracker in his wrist, he'd pressed the button four times. they knew that he was in trouble. so where were they?

he was ten. he was too young to die. there was no way that he could die on a botched mafia mission. he had more skill than that. but running down empty suburb blocks wasn't exactly fun.

a) there were no people to hide behind. b) there was nothing to use as an obstacle. c) it was late at night so he couldn't go barging in on some civilian family's dinner. d) he didn't understand why this was happening or where his back up was. and e) he wished he was normal.

he was thoroughly put off field-ops forever. they could stick him wherever they wanted, but he wasn't going back into the field. not with an incompetent partner, not being briefed enough to handle the mission after it went to hell on his own, and he certainly wasn't being debriefed like how they'd explained the process went. it was supposed to be factual, without emotion, and in perfect detail.

how could he explain what happened without emotion? he had bullets whizzing past him and he was sure that people were hearing what was happening but they didn't want to do anything for fear of getting hurt themselves, he guessed. civilians were unpredictable. agents were not. criminals were not.

he was gulping down air way too quickly, not getting enough oxygen, and he could definitely feel that because of the way the breath rattled in his chest and caused his legs to burn unpleasantly. deeper breaths, in through his nose and out through his mouth. how did it work? it oxygenated the blood or something, caused it to flow better, caused it to give him more energy, to get the circulation to make his limbs move quicker. he'd learned this in science with his tutor about a year ago, when he'd been studying basic anatomy.

then all of a sudden, black vans came flying down the street. there were men in uniforms grabbing the men, and all of a sudden, jace was being grabbed too, but by a paramedic.

"are you alright, son?"

jace nodded, forcing tears into his eyes. "he was ch-chasing me and he was p-pointing that thing at me!" jace sobbed out. the woman hugged her closer to him and jace made sure to make whimpering noises so that she wouldn't check him over. she couldn't find the knife in his pocket, that wouldn't exactly make him look too innocent.

"they're bad men, and you helped us catch them! why don't you come to the ambulance, i can get you a nice warm blanket and some water, sounds good?" jace nodded, and walked over to the ambulance.

he hit the button four times, again. where were they?

and that's when he noticed it. a sleek blue car, it looked normal, but he could see one of his instructor's sitting in the front seat, beckoning him over. he waited until the woman went deeper into the ambulance to get a shock blanket, and slipped right out from underneath her less-than-watchful gaze.

he slipped into the back seat, and when the man saw his face, he smirked. "crying on the job?"

"maintaining a cover," jace immediately snapped. "took your time, huh?"

the man didn't respond, only snorting. jace felt the pain in his legs - three miles, nonstop, with a gun firing after him, he didn't even get the chance to cool down, and his legs ached. he couldn't wait to get back to headquarters, so that after his debriefing, he could take a long, warm bath. his muscles needed it.

four miles
i feel like a short stop along third base i may just help you but i still don't like your face

now, when his hands shook, it wasn't nerves. it was from the feeling of the bullet flying out of the gun, running through his hands through to his arms to his shoulders, through his blood and straight to his heart.

he was thirteen, and he had been permitted a gun - he wished he hadn't been. he was a good shot. he was. that didn't mean that he liked guns. that didn't mean that he wanted to use a gun. that didn't mean he wanted to come within twenty feet of a gun, really.

but the cia used guns. criminals used guns. he was a criminal too, right? right. so he should be using a gun. except he was thirteen and he knew he should be at some dumb school in some dumb class learning some lesson but he wasn't because he wasn't just anyone he was a fordham kids and fordham kids didn't get luxuries like that. they didn't get to feel normal or do normal things or do anything they wanted, really. they were controlled by the powers that be, those nameless dark faces that had their hands in everything and anything and controlled any and everyone and it wasn't right.

he clenched his fists and laced up his sneakers. it was late, it was late and it was dark and he was going to the indoor track in headquarters because the only thing he could do right now to wear himself out and clear his head was run. he could run away from anything and everything, at least that's he told himself.

it was stupidly symbolic, the brown track with the white lines and the green center. he could run as much as he wanted over and over again until he couldn't move and his legs ached and his lungs gasped for oxygen that couldn't claw it's way down his throat fast enough, and he would still be running in a circle. that's what being a fordham agent felt like. he was running in a never ending circle of violence and ops and covers and hi my name is *insert cover name here* and i'm *insert cover details here* and it was exhausting.

he wasn't happy. he wasn't happy in this stupid building with these stupid people and his stupid life. his feet pounded against the track, all out force with no thought of long distance. he was full out sprinting because maybe if he ran fast enough he'd be too tired to think of anything but that wasn't exactly how things worked. instead, thoughts came faster and more intense than before.

he killed a man, shot him in cold blood. it didn't matter that it was self defense. it didn't matter that the other man had a gun. it didn't matter that if he hadn't shot the man first, he probably wouldn't be alive right now. none of that mattered. that would be justifying it.

he was someone's son. someone's brother. someone's father. how would his little girl take it, hearing that daddy would never be coming home?

he was a killer, now. one man down, under his belt. his debriefing officer had told him that he should go take a load off, sneak a drink, and relax. he didn't have to be so tense. killing was normal, and one day, he'd be used to it. but he didn't want to be used to it. how could he sleep tonight? tomorrow night? ever? he was a horrible person. he was the reason a man was dead.

he wondered about himself. he was a bad person, right? a criminal. he wondered if he would be one of the cia kid's first kill or second kill or thirteenth or twentieth. he wondered if the fordham kids or the cia kids had it worse. fordham said that the cia abused their teen spies - but, then again, wouldn't the cia say that fordham abused their teen spies? wasn't it all political, bureaucratic bullshit, forcing children to be pitted against one another in this world-wide turf war? he couldn't believe that this was actually happening, and no government did anything to stop it. no, they promoted it. welcome to america, home of the free and the fucked up.

jace bit down on his lower lip. three laps without stretching. he was completely insane. he wouldn't be able to move tomorrow morning. he'd have to rub out the tenseness hiding in his calves, and tomorrow morning he'd be sore. so sore. was it worth it right now? he didn't know. his rational mind was hiding, lurking behind the panic of everything that happened. running was supposed to help. running was supposed to keep him grounded.

it did, in a way. feeling his feet pounding against something solid and tangible let him know that he wasn't going to float away on the winds. the fact that he needed proof of that, however, didn't say much for his mental state.

four. four miles. four miles wasn't enough, not nearly, but he couldn't run any farther. not without stretching. not without the pain already lacing it's way up his legs and the lack of oxygen making him almost dizzy. he almost laid right there on the ground of the track, but he forced himself to keep moving. back to his room, away from the track, away from the thought that he just killed a man. he'd deal. damnit, he'd stand up and be strong and sneak a drink and pretend like everything was perfect.

because that was the norm for spies, now, and he had one notch on a non-existent belt.

five miles
but believe me i'm not hostile i just want to hear you laugh

jace wasn't emotional. he didn't have the capacity, really, or so he told himself.

he didn't deal with it. any of it. he let all of it bubble under the surface and sit there, swarm like angry bees, and he'd run it out at some point, or explode and hurt someone in the process. not that that wasn't the usual for fordham kids. they all had issues, right? they were all there for a reason, right?

fordham headquarters was like the island of misfit toys.

it was on an op that he realized that maybe his lack of emotions wasn't exactly a "lack", and more of a "i have so many and they're all so intense that i shove them down and pretend that they don't exist type of situation".

he was gay - out since he was twelve, and didn't mind dropping that fact. homophobes didn't exist in his bubble. and if they did, then they were easily taken care of. he wasn't loud, but he knew how to rip someone down a peg or two when they were being stupid and/or ignorant.

he saw this amazingly hot guy at a bar while he and his partner were working, and he figured, what would a little fun hurt? he was eighteen, fake id in pocket, and really he couldn't care less. when the guy turned towards him, he realized - this was the man that they were supposed to be locating. he was a henchman to someone bigger, a pawn in a bigger picture, but weren't they all.

"someone looks lonely," jace said plainly as he sat down at the bar, right next to the man. the man had not a drink in sight, was twenty two years old, and jace wondered what had him sitting at the bar right now.

"maybe i like being alone." he said, turning to jace. bright green eyes stared back up at him, and he could almost feel his breath catch in his throat. oh, wow.

"no one likes being alone, love." jace smirked charmingly.

"alistair's the name." the man, alistair, said. wrong. his name was michael aberdeen.

"francisco," jace said charmingly. his cover - francisco alvarez.

why don't you come back to my hotel, francisco ... maybe our drinks will serve us better there," he said, and jace's insides practically melted.

"sure." he shot his partner a text saying that he'd be back at their hotel the next morning. an angry text back from their partner was received, but he didn't read it, for his phone was in his pocket and he wasn't going to check it.

that morning, he woke up in an empty bed with a note on the hotel notepad. "you were a good lay. stop hanging with top dogs with us, though. you'll wear out soon enough."

jace's stomach almost fell out. he showered, dressed in yesterday's clothes, and walked back to their hotel. pen in pocket in a zip log bag, picked up with a tissue, he tossed it at his partner's head. "there are finger prints on that."

there was no track in the area, no real place for him to run except for the hotel gym. jace had a deep, loathing hatred for treadmills, but he would deal. five miles - five miles at top speed on a hotel treadmill. he couldn't help it - he had basically just had his first time with a criminal, a criminal worse than him, and ... maybe he should stop running with the big leagues. maybe he should leave this stupid life in fordham and everything else he knew behind him. maybe he'd be happier. maybe he could find something better elsewhere. somewhere where five miles didn't have to be run on a hotel treadmill.

six miles
when i'm sarcastic like that that just makes me a dumb human like you

he was stupid to think that he could actually accomplish something like this. jace was nineteen, and every day was dragging more than the last.

he didn't sleep at night. when he did, it was broken and nightmare-filled, and no where near restful.

he trained until his bones were numb and his muscles ached, and he still felt like he could keep going, even if that would probably cause him more damage than good.

he worked ops, field missions and the like. a new cover each time, a new name, a new age even, a new past to go along. the same old smile, however, with the same old acting and everything else was the same except his actual identity. he found it all disgustingly tiring, and he couldn't help but feel fed up and worked to the bone.

he knew other agents had bigger problems. he knew that, he did. they were all in the same game, and if you were still sane, there had to be a flash point, a point where everything exploded and changed and you were left feeling like someone you didn't know anymore.

jace's flash point seemed to be the day that he found out about his parents.

see, jace had gotten curious. he wanted to know why he didn't know, had never seen, and had never even heard of yesenia and marcelino del rio, bar seeing their names on his bloody birth certificate.

so he started digging, talking to a few people he wouldn't usually talk to, and using agency computers and resources. they had to be somewhere, right? they existed at some point.

his father was in spanish drug cartel business. killed by the cia, apparently, when jace was ... two, he figured out after a second of mental math.

his mother was harder to find. his mother worked for the cia at one point. she'd been a leak, however - a leak for the cartel that his father worked for. she'd died a year after she'd been found out, shot in the head by a sniper. he had been three.

before the cia could get their hands on jace at seven, fordham snagged him at five.

he felt disgusted. not only did he work for fordham, who were not the good guys, he had criminals, no, not even criminals, dead criminals for parents.

he'd felt inexplicably heavy. the track. the track would help, right? running helped, it did. it helped him clear his head, it helped him come up with a plan and get himself under control. he'd laced up his best running sneakers one too many times, and by now it felt like routine, to stand in the same place, to lace up the same sneakers, just to run on the same track.

one mile down in the blink of an eye, and he didn't feel any better. his feet pounded against the track, he was almost full out sprinting. two miles. three miles. four miles. his legs ached, but his breathing was steady. his mind wasn't clear, anything but. he thought about the suitcase that he had in his apartment - for he had gotten his own housing the day he hit eighteen and only returned to headquarters for ops or training, or more recently, research - under his bed, that he could easily fill up. new york was filled with transportation options, and it wasn't like he was short on money. busses, trains, planes - he could do this.

six, six miles, and he was jogging right off the track to get changed so that he could go back to his apartment. he was going to leave. he was going to go, he was going to close his eyes, point at a destination on a map, buy a train ticket and leave. he'd go wherever the winds took him - maybe he'd end up in california, that was far enough away from new york and fordham and all this business for his liking. he'd get his name changed - he had contacts, people that he could depend on to be silent for the right price. it was a good thing he was so charming, and that he didn't burn bridges. he might not have graduated high school, but he was smart when he wanted to be.

suitcase - check. money - check. he had a bank account but that didn't mean he was stupid. he had quite the amount of change in hidden in a safe in the back wall of his closet. cliche, but it wasn't like anyone would move sets of clothes and boxes all to check such a seemingly stupid place. bond movies and crime shows made everything easier for criminals today.

it was stupid of him to think that no one would be expecting him at grand central. he thought he could make it. he thought he could pull it. standing in the midst of the crowd looking ordinary was one of the instructors that had been hardest to him over the years. he walked over, and jace, the perfect image of a deer in headlights, was stuck in place. "funny meeting you hear. y'know, they said that you'd be trying to run, pull a dash. i told them you weren't that much of a coward. oh, del rio, how the mighty have fallen."

jace remembered outrunning this man when he had been ... seven? but the memory seemed tinny in retrospect, so far away, and he had been a totally different person at that point. he had felt on top of the world, so smart and secure, and now look where he was. pitching to run, and not even being able to succeed, but getting caught in the process and reprimanded and ridiculed by a man that really should've retired by now, seeing that he looked sixty five instead of fifty five.

"you're not unlike any of the rest, are you? you'll probably live your live doing this exact same job over and over again, dead by dirty five, no wife or kids to speak of." husband, jace thought dimly. "you'll see, you're just like the rest of us."

he said nothing as he was dragged away. that's what he was. the man was right. a coward, and nothing but a screwed up failure who'd probably die in the line of duty.

seven miles
why do i have this incredible need to stand up and say "please, pay attention!"

rti training - the worst, hardest, most important part of training a spy, according to their instructors. he hated the routine check up on how well they could resist interrogation.

jace was someone that never had problems with the physical aspect of their training. he excelled at it, in fact. things like running calmed him down - it was why, this morning, he'd run seven miles beforehand. he had to be calm and ready for this. he wished he was better mentally.

things like fighting, weapons training, he was all completely fine with - for the most part. sure, he hated guns, and he didn't use them period if he didn't have to, but that didn't mean anything. he knew people who didn't use knives period because they found them useless. jace just didn't use guns because ... well, it was a long story.

he was sitting in the stupid rti training rooms that looked like classic holding rooms - plain walls, huge two-way mirror, locked door, and the silver table in the middle of the room. two chairs - one on the other side of the table, and the one that he was currently handcuffed to.

he was already getting nervous. he could put on a good face in the middle of a cover, but holding one under interrogation had never been easy, if he managed. then again, he had only been caught like this once or twice, interrogated like this once, not counting fordham training sessions.

then an instructor walked in. he'd never seen the man before in his life, and he was quite built. jace sank into his chair a bit more, then forced himself to sit up, cocky face in place. he could do this.

"jacinto del rio ... what a name. a name that was ran through our system." he said with a smirk on his face.

"really, now? and what exactly came up?"

"nothing out of the ordinary, really. you have a record so shiny mr clean would want to take credit for it."

"isn't that a good thing?"

"not exactly, mr del rio. because you see, we have people that have recognized your face. and not because they saw you in the local pathmark buying milk, either."

"is that right?"

"stop being smart, del rio. we know who you work for."

"well i'm unemployed right now but--"

"don't play with me, del rio!" the man suddenly roared, pounding his fist onto the table.

jace flinched back, sinking down, and then the man smirked.

"another failure on your record. weak, aren't you?"

he was still shaking inside, and his hand was too, which was the sound of the handcuff clinking quietly against the chair handle. the man laughed, and released him from the cuffs. "get out of my sight you waste of space."

he was sent back out into what they called the waiting room - with the group that had already gone on one end and the ones waiting to go on the other. there were very few still waiting - the ending of the alphabet.

he hated that. he hated that waiting out here made you more antsy and more nervous so that even if you knew when you were going you couldn't prepare yourself because name by name was called two by two and you got more and more nervous as your name got closer and closer to being called. he was a victim of anxiety in the worst of times, and in the most inconvenient of situations.

he couldn't handle mental pressure like that. he couldn't handle being interrogated. he wondered why he had even been let out onto the field with such a defect - probably because he didn't know much of anything, so even if he was successfully taken down, he didn't have much to offer.

"your hands are shaking."

he looked over to his left. a blonde with a cold, amused expression settled on his face had spoken.

"i know that." he snapped, clenching his hands into fists.

"you shouldn't snap at strangers like that. one day, it's going to be at the wrong person and they're going to pull a gun." he smirked almost dangerously. "james."

jace eyed him warily. "jace. nice to meet you?"

"drop the nice act, jace, we're all mad here."

jace shrugged. "did well on yours?"

james nodded. "they never go too far with me. they hear me snap at people and figure that no one would go too far."

so he's rabid, jace thought, and with-held a shrug. he was right. they were all mad here.

"you?"

"ah, not as well as you did."

"you bomb rti training, don't you?"

jace barks out a laugh. "every time, but you don't know that."

"my lips are sealed." he smirked, and jace felt like he could almost, maybe, try to trust him on that.

eight miles
it's the last thing i need to make myself see well that ain't my intention

he ran before an op. every time. maybe not the day of, but the night before, yes. eight miles on a quaint little park's track. one, two, three, six, seven, eight times around, and then he was calm enough to take the train back home.

he met james the morning of, to go over things one more time.

it was barely hours later that found them in the middle of a bar with a few too many italians for jace's taste.

cause a commotion - check. they'd gotten into a loud argument, jace acting drunken while james acted more angry at his brother's reckless behavior.

"he's always doing this! drunken, no good, piece of shit!" james said, almost spitting on the ground. jace wobbled as he sat down at one of the booths.

"go splash some water on his face, vin," one of the larger men said, bring james over to the other side of the bar for some 'man to man conversation'.

vinny tried to lug jace over to the bathroom, but jace made himself as heavy as possible, forcing his limbs to act as dead weight, even though what he really wanted to do was kick this man in the groin just to get his greasy, disgusting hands off of him.

he ended up giving up surprisingly quickly, to which jace had to hold back an eye roll. these men needed better henchmen. he was half-thrown into a booth, and the man muttered something in a heavy accent before lumbering off into the back.

taking this chance, jace slunk behind the bar, easily finding a box - an actual box filled with papers. numerical amounts, names, dates, and places lined the sheets, and he bit down on his lower lip as he searched out the specific six he needed.

once the copies he'd made - with an almost completely useless camera - were tucked into his jacket - fordham really could've given him a better way to stash them, but no, of course not, that would've been too convenient - he got back into the position he had been when the tub of lard had lumbered away.

just in time. he was back, with a glass of water. it took him ten minutes to get a glass of water? jace had to hold back a snort. that said a lot about the average iq of a person in this joint. he expected better from mobsters, but then again, he was used to thinking of people like al capone and jack cerone as the typical mob types, which, obviously, wasn't the case.

an hour later, and they were out. they were immediately pulled into hq to hand over what jace had gotten and to be debriefed. when the whirlwind was over and both of them were left exhausted - more from the paperwork than the actual op - james smirked.

"you play a good drunk way too easily."

jace muttered under his breath at him as they walked out of hq together, for it was all he could do to keep himself from smacking the taller man upside the head.

nine miles
i feel like an artist who's lost his touch he likes himself in his art

there were certain days where jace felt like he couldn't get up in the morning. they'd been happening more and more, and james had been part of the person kicking his ass into not staying in bed all day when he wasn't on assignment.

he'd had to go undercover more times than he could count on both his fingers and toes, and that was normal. he was a spy - an undercover agent most if not all the time. that was just how things were, simple and not at all problematic because that way, his true identity didn't have people chasing after it. his face did, but that wasn't exactly a big deal, since there were a million people in new york with tan skin and blue eyes and dark hair, and he certainly knew how to blend in.

but there were those times when being out and proud didn't exactly help him when going undercover. more than once, he'd had to go undercover as a stripper, and of course, he had to be one of the ones that didn't mind if their clients got a little "hands-on" as his bosses had said in the past. maybe, just maybe, that bothered him. but the word "no" did not exist in his line of work. because "no" meant disobedience, and disobedience meant "maybe it's best if we get someone else to take your place" and that meant that he was now expendable. so "lower" missions, with "lower" people, with a "higher" death rate. he had watched it happen.

and so he would be the one that got to spend a night with those politicians with their scandals that called in for men because they were so far in the closet that their wives couldn't see them when they looked for a tie to match their daily suit.

however, there was always one that made everything feel like it wasn't worth it. he was used to being treated like garbage by people with that agenda. after all, that was what they paid for. a paid whore, james had called him before he'd seen that this was actually something that didn't roll off his back like almost everything else could if he pushed hard enough. it wasn't like james was far off, either.

he'd pour him a shot those nights when he couldn't get himself out of his own mind without asking for help, more than one in fact, because his cupboards were well stocked. jace didn't ask because it wasn't his place, but he worried some days.

he didn't give advice. in fact, he probably didn't even know how to. it wasn't like he had a girlfriend to worry about, about what she would think he did for his job and how she didn't say no, because no one except those in his exact same position knew that there was no saying no if he didn't want to look bad. and as much as he wanted out if this life, this work, he didn't want his out to be six feet underground in a wooden box.

he didn't run in the days after, maybe because he wanted to take it easy or maybe just because he didn't think he didn't deserve being calm in those moments. teaching himself a lesson in some sick and twisted way, when there really was no lesson to be taught, because this wasn't his fault - that was the only helpful thing that james had ever said. that none of this was any of their faults. they had been dragged in, chosen, and it wasn't any of their faults because they couldn't have done not a single thing. he had always been so vehement about things like this, and when he spoke, he almost wanted to believe him.

it was the day after one particular incident that he had forced himself up, out of bed, and onto fordham's track.

thirty, with a wife and twins on the way. and he was sleeping with jace, after paying whatever the amount was? how? why? was he not happy? he guessed that having the two kids, dog, and white picket fence life of a politician wasn't exactly cutting it for him.

but in his briefcase had been papers with names and dates - names and dates that he shouldn't know or have. that's what jace had taken.

his feet were pounding against the track after warming up - this run wasn't going to be easy. steady speed the entire time, to see how far he could be. his body ached before he even started on the track but did that really matter? he was twenty three and this was his life. it was miserable and lonely and so wrong in so many ways.

nine miles, and by that point, he couldn't go any farther. he limped over to the showers, and took one in frigid temperatures. hot water would've been the better choice, to soothe tense muscles instead of locking them into place, but cold water helped clear his head. he'd deal with the consequences later. nine miles, and his head was still swimming.

maybe running just wasn't enough anymore.

ten miles
but not his art too much but believe me i got something i just don't know how to say

rain was pouring.

it was probably five in the morning and the sun had just begun to peak out from the other side of the world. it was at that weird point when the sky was a box of crayons, colors mixed together in every direction. not that it mattered much.

it was stupid, him thinking that he could actually do that.

he'd met someone. right - he'd met someone. he hadn't even told james yet, if only because he didn't want to get laughed at.

he had no idea what he was doing. he walked around like he owned the place but that was all acting. he pretended to be confident because that's what he needed to do to pass through a job. he did what he had to do under cover, under the covers, because that was his life. he didn't have a choice.

but all of that led to scars, both physical and mental.

and the guy? owned a bloody flower shop.

jace couldn't do this. he couldn't do this to himself, and he couldn't do this to that poor man - dmitri, his name was dmitri - and damnit what had jace even been thinking?

he hadn't. that was the problem. damnit.

he'd laid in bed for hours. he couldn't sleep, not a wink, and he usually could after being debriefed. he was too tired to do anything else, usually. but that didn't really matter, did it? especially when you had a pair of multi-colored eyes stuck in your head. his eyes had been sort-of like those children's toys with the thousands of colors that looked different every time you twisted it.

oh, he was so screwed.

his feet pounded against the pavement, the circle drawn into the ground beneath his feet forming a path that he would run until he couldn't run anymore. he had to get that out of his head, he had to get him out of his head.

jace didn't believe in that love at first sight bullshit. he didn't think that connections so strong happened so quickly. but then what was this? okay, it wasn't love. jace didn't even know what love was, what love felt like, unless it was at the bottom of a carton of ben and jerry's, and on a darker day, the bottom of a glass bottle.

but that brief connecting of their eyes, the force that caused him to write down his personal number on the back of the man's business card? that wasn't just anything.

he was real classy. however, dmitri's catch in breathing and reddened cheeks had to mean something. right? attraction in the least. anything.

two.

but it wasn't like he wanted that anyway. he didn't need dmitri to even be slightly interested. he needed nothing from him, other than for him to continue his normal life as a normal civilian, jace-free.

there was a reason that most fordham agents dated within the "company". there was a reason that the rest of them were alone. and then there was the one or two who had been widowed or were on their way crash-course style to becoming widowed because nothing happy ever stayed that way for long.

according to james.

three, four, five. his legs ached, but it was a positive thing. it meant that he could figure things out, it meant that he would be calm enough and distracted enough for his mind to be logical when he was incapable. because he was incapable.

that guy probably wouldn't want to end up with a screw-up like him anyway. jace had way too much baggage for any relationship to handle. he'd end up alone, he'd accepted that fact. it was what led to him trying to run, to try to out-run that little piece of his destiny that was super-glued to his forehead.

and then dmitri happened.

he wondered what his parents would think of him right now.

he wondered what james would think of him right now.

all three would probably think he was pathetic. he didn't need people. he didn't need anyone, really. he had no emotions to speak of. right? wasn't that how it was?

wasn't that what he was hoping for? what he said over and over and over again and crossed his fingers on?

his lungs expanded. he didn't feel like he was getting enough air. six, seven, eight, nine. everything ached, and his thoughts became even more scattered.

he bit down on his tongue.

ten, ten and a quarter, ten and a ha--

he tripped, fell to his knees. his hands were scratched, jagged pebbles scraping at soft flesh. his knees were probably in the same state. his hair soaked and heavy stuck to the back of his neck, and rain dripped off the tip of his nose, from everywhere. his clothing stuck to his body, rain water mixing with sweat and the tears on his face that weren't tears, that couldn't be tears because he was jacinto rafael del rio and he shouldn'tcouldn'twouldn't be crying because this was not that serious.

except it was.

it was and he couldn't explain it, not even to himself, how he could come up with excuses not to be with someone, that they wouldn't want him, that he would be endangering them, but that maybe at some point they would become just that, excuses, not fact, but words that kept him from trying to actually be happy for once in his miserable life.

his legs ached, his head ached, his lungs ached, his heart ached. ten miles didn't help. nothing would "help".

he had to stop thinking and just ... do. be. go out on a limb and not over think. that's what "happiness" was, right? not doing, not actually trying, just ... being? it sounded miserable.

then again, what exactly did he have to lose?