#thought that migraine didn't apply to me because i didn't get them frequently or they weren't often disruptive

[lavender---sunshine]

Im on hour 24 of this migraine and have stopped focusing on pain management type solutions and I'm looking more into how to let the unending pain fuel me to commit atrocities I would be too cowardly to otherwise

[heresathreebee]

Garrote part 3

[Starz Power Diego Jimenez X Jazmine Mann (Black!OC)]

Word Count: 2,700 words

Warning(s): Rated Mature, language, partying, mentions of sex and drugs. Previous Masterlist Next

AN: I am constantly mere clicks away from releasing everything I have at once but I know if I do I will lose momentum for the plot. 

Edit: I. Forgot. The tags again.

@nicke0115 @1zashreena1 @mental-bycatch

The week that followed was heaven and hell. Diego went back to throwing parties nightly, fucking girls coked out of his mind, and in general trying to forgot all about Healy and his pretty bait, but Tommy Eagan was threatening war over a dead partner unless Alicia met his ridiculous demands. Thanks to Tommy's new right hand man, there was an opportunity to gain instead of lose now. All they had to do was wait and see if Dre could pull through. 

There were two new numbers in Diego's phone. One unsaved that sent cryptic messages about their deal, and the other marked as an emoji rather than a name. Jazmine's texts seemed forced– like she was reaching out on behalf of Healy's instructions. So of course Diego elected to simply ignore them both. They were buzzkills anyways. 

Diego was showing something important on his phone to his sister when Jazmine sent another text. 

Remember when you scared off Haagen? I miss that every time I see him. 

On the other end of the line, Jazmine felt pathetic sending the text. Healy hadn't even asked her to write this time, she was just so… bored. She hadn't been sleeping well, pulling double shifts involuntarily since her boss found out she closed the store when her coworker didn't show up. She carried her stress in her shoulders– the tightness in her neck caused her daily migraines and there was a new pinching sensation between her shoulder blades to accompany the rest of her pain. In the shower, she massaged whatever she could reach and thought of Diego's big hands doing it for her. 

She literally shook herself to clear the thought and pelted the shower curtain with water in the process. Diego Jimenez wasn't some faux bad boy with a secret soft side– he was the leader of a cartel. If he hadn't killed people himself, he definitely had people killed for him. He was beyond dangerous to even fantasize about. 

DING-DING. 

Her phone called out to her from the bathroom counter and she realized it was past time to get out. Her fingers were pruned to the point of over-sensitivity and there was a rapidly closing window to apply the leave-in conditioner to the best of its use. Still, she wiped her hands on the towel to read the text. 

Come out and party. Wear something nice. 

Alicia boxed his ear over the last sentence but he brushed her off. Jazmine declined anyways claiming exhaustion and went to bed. There were people to socialize with already– what was the absence of one little minimum wage laborer going to do?  Apparently she was important enough to occupy a corner of Diego's head. He was still bent about the way she had reacted to his identity. Who the hell did she think she was? As they discovered in the ungodly hour after the party ended, she was also important enough to drag Healy out of whatever hole he hid in. 

"Diego, we need to talk." 

Alicia had gone home– Diego expected she would likely never attend another one of her brother's parties as it wasn't her brand of debauchery– and she'd cleared the place out in her disgust, so his penthouse was empty for once. 

"What's the matter," Diego poured himself yet another drink, "am I not being a good boyfriend?" 

"We don't care what you do when you're not operating," Healy reprimanded. "But we need you to cooperate. Be a presence in Jazmine's fake life. You've been established as a rival for her affections, and you need to become an obstacle standing between the bait and the target. Jazmine walks home from work every single morning by herself. I don't know if you noticed it's been pouring buckets for three days straight." 

Healy almost sounded like he was shaming Diego. It wasn't his fault she was poor. She wasn't his real girlfriend and therefore not his real problem. "Please don't make me regret making this deal, Diego. We will never get an opportunity to dismantle Haagen like this again. Need I remind you that you've got a missing child on your hands?" 

Diego glared fiercely over the rim of his cup. Healy smoothed his hands down the front of his shirt and returned to his neutral position as righteous commander. 

"Schedule more time to spend with Jazmine, especially in public spaces. We have it on good authority that Haagen is going to put a detail out to give him updates on Jazmine in the near future, and he needs to see you in these updates." Healy turned on his heel and reached the elevators, stopping them from closing dramatically and fixing Diego with a stare. "And no more ignoring us." 

Jazmine woke up the next morning to one new notification. 

I'm coming over. 

"Oh shit." The woman threw herself out of bed and looked around. This wasn't fair. Cleaning day was a bi monthly ritual where she took a day off to deep clean the entire apartment, blasting music and stepping around her dog to get things done. Hercules wandered into her bedroom looking chipper as ever. "I guess we better get started then, huh?" 

The fucker showed up on her doorstep not ten minutes after she got out of bed– she wasn't even dressed for the day. Her hands nervously tried to cover the broth stain on her jeans as she cleared a space for him to sit and wait while she finished her morning routine. She worried while brushing her teeth that Diego might be a psycho like her last boyfriend. Psycho enough to kick her overly friendly pet, but no sound of yelps filtered through the paper thin walls and when she finally emerged, the pit-bull was settled with her head on his lap. 

Diego turned his head at the sound of a huge sigh. Jazmine was gazing at him but quickly turned when she realized she'd been caught. She began to flit about the room, picking up lost things and piling them up until she could figure out what items went where. He watched, making absolutely no move to help other than keeping the dog out of the way. Hercules– as the tag on her collar read– laid as much in his lap as he would allow. 

"Buena perro," he muttered, and if she still had a tail, she would have wagged it. Growing bored, Diego rose and stalked over to the fridge. "Do you have anything to eat?" 

The white void in the fridge answered for her, but she still called out, "no, it's empty." 

"I'm ordering pizza." 

"What about Chinese?" 

Diego looked at the lonely, days-old Chinese boxes in the fridge and shivered. "I'm getting pizza." She didn't complain. He returned to the couch to do just that. Distractedly, he admired the curve of her spine as she bent over. She wore jeans again and another band shirt, this time it was a baggy Chicago thing. He licked his lips thinking about taking them off her. 

Healy’s meddling had repercussions– mainly that it would made taking girls home harder, or at least less frequent. Diego still felt great suspicion towards this Jazmine, but it didn’t stop his body from wanting her under him. Or over him, on him, riding him… he tried to blink the images out of his head. 

“What kind of dirt does Healy have on you?,” he found himself asking. “My sister and I have been dying to know.” 

Jazmine shrugged, keeping her back to him. “No dirt.” 

“So you’re just helping out of the goodness of your heart?” Pizza arrived in time for her not to answer, and they returned to their positions for further interrogation. “Anything to get that creep Haagen away from you for good? Or are you an agent as well?” 

“No,” she said. She slipped rubber gloves on to begin maintenance on the tower of dishes piled on the side of the sink. She seemed to live alone– there was no reason to have so many dishes. Maybe he had been wrong in his assessment from earlier? Or maybe she was just a hoarder. “To tell you the truth, I’m about as fond of Healy as I am Haagen. I take that back– Healy’s a step up but not by much.” 

“Because you don’t trust him?” 

“I don’t know…” That mountain of plates and glasses seemed to disappear quicker than he expected and she began to scrub out the sink and the cleared counters, grunting with effort as she did so. “I trust I know the kind of man Haagen is, more so than I do with Healy. Partnerships like the one I have with Healy– they’re subject to change, and not always for the better. He’ll always do what’s in his best interest. What’s good for him is good for me.” 

For Now. The implication that she may harbor the same feelings towards Diego was not lost on him. In fact, he stood up from the couch and approached the windows with their blinds down to peek out at the street. There was nothing quite so conspicuous as a black SUV with a mean mugging thug staring back at him. Even his own protection didn’t roll that sloppily. 

Jazmine objected to the windows being opened but Diego insisted. “Need our relationship on display, right? Haagen’s got to know I’m here.” 

She relented quickly and threw her gloves aside, plopping her butt on the couch to rest a moment. The leftovers in the box were room temperature but she hardly seemed to mind. God, he wanted to run his hand up her shirt just to see if she was wearing a bra. They twitched in his lap and he realized there was no way she missed the hunger in his gaze as he did. 

“Did you bring those beers,” she laughed as she noticed the case on the coffee table for the first time. “Can I have one?” 

The beer seemed to quell the tiny tremor in her fingers. She kicked her feet up on the coffee table permitting Diego to do the same. "What the hell are we even doing? Hanging out? What exactly is this accomplishing?" 

Jazmine gave it some thought as she took a pull from her drink. "Putting on a show. We need Haagen to think I'm in love with you, like you're no good but I'm not ready to let you go for something 'better.'" 

"And Haagen is something," Diego put his fingers up like claws, "better." 

"He certainly needs to think he is." She noticed Hercules whining and let her out the door unaccompanied. "We've got his 'gentleman' ego to work with." 

Diego followed her to the window and grasped her hips from behind. She half turned, gazing up at him with a question in her eyes. He leaned into her space to whisper into her ear. 

"Those eyes Healy thinks Haagen sent to watch you? Well they're watching right now, and they're not being subtle about it." 

She doesn't try to look like he expected her to. Instead, she stepped away from him and pointedly crossed her arms. "You don't look very comfortable if you're still wearing that." 

She nodded her head at his coat. 

"So take it off me." 

That startled her. Jazmine's eyebrows lifted, and her feet shuffled when he gave her nothing but a smirk in return. Finally, she did as he suggested. She did not miss the way his hands seemed to brush lightly over her rib cage. These small, fleeting touches that left her breath audible and her stomach warm. He didn't even give her a chance to put the coat on the hangar when he dragged her back against him. 

"What are you doing?" She didn't mean to sound breathless, turning her head to the side and exposing more of her neck at the behest of his pushy nose and allowing him to trail kisses on her skin. 

"Putting on a show," he said against the shell of her ear. 

He felt her stiffen a little against him. The tent on his pants was preventing a lot of important blood from entering his brain, but he was conscience enough to feel how conflicted she was. Diego slipped his hand up her shirt like he wanted, cupping her bare breast and sucking a mark into her neck. She allowed it, but it felt more like compliance than enjoyment. All at once and against the protest of his body, he let her go. He watched her shoulders relax and her hands find a home beneath her armpits. 

Jazmine nodded in answer to a question left unasked. She did grab his hand and pull him away from the window, backwards into the tiny hall separating the front room from the bedroom and bathroom. She dropped his hand as soon as they were out of sight of the window. 

"I appreciate the enthusiasm," she said. "Just hang out for twenty more minutes and you can leave. I'll text you tomorrow and we can makes plans for another 'show.' You can stay in my room while I clean the bathroom." 

Diego sat heavily on her bed. Just as he was about to get comfortable, someone knocked at the front door. Jazmine brushed invisible dirt from her knees as she got up to see who it was. He followed from a distance. The peep hole was almost out of her reach, but she stood on her toes to see outside. Suddenly, the woman looked back at him with wide eyes. It's Haagen, she mouthed. As soon as her head was turned to the task of confronting him, she missed the part where Diego began to undress. 

"Hey!" She flung the door open and yelped when Hercules barreled through her legs to get inside. "You... found my dog!" 

"Indeed," Haagen said, folding his hands over his heart. "I saw this poor creature wandering and I returned him using the address on its collar. I am astounded to learn that he belongs to you." Nice cover story. The man continued, "since you have the day off, I was wondering–" 

Haagen's wondering was cut off by the appearance of a half naked boyfriend. Diego wound his arm around Jazmine and leaned down so he could engulf her clothed nipple with his hot mouth. She gasped, pushing his head away on instinct and he pressed her into his side like a vice. 

"Come back to bed, baby," he purred, then pretended to take notice of Haagen watching in the doorway. "Oh, you're that guy, right? James, Jeff, Jebediah or whatever." 

"Jeremy," the man hissed through his teeth. "Hello Di-e-go." 

"Right right right." An embarrassed Jazmine buried her face into Diego's nude shoulder, acting unconsciously but playing into her role perfectly. "Kinda crazy how I start hearing about you and then all of a sudden you're showing up on my girl's doorstep, isn't it?" 

Haagen made a move to defend himself but Jazmine was quicker. "He found the dog, honey! Jeremy was just bringing her home, he didn't know I lived here." 

"Right," Haagen cleared this throat. 

Diego's smile bordered on a threatening mania-- there were far too many teeth displayed to suggest any sort of friendliness. "Life is so full of strange coincidences…" 

No one missed the way he squeezed Jazmine harder. It sent a message to be sure. Vague enough for Haagen to infer whatever he deemed necessary to the story in his head. It was quite brilliant actually. 

"Well I ought to," Haagen swallowed, "leave you to it then. I'll see you around the shop, then?" 

"Bye–" she barely managed to say before Diego dragged her into the apartment and slammed the door shut. He kept dragging her all the way back to her bedroom, and all the while she protested being treated like a misbehaving child. It wasn't until he'd slammed the door and collected his shirt from the floor that she realized what exactly had transpired. 

"Oh." She brushed the frizzing curls invading her eyes, "oh that was perfect. Healy was right to pick you." 

Diego rolled his shoulders once his shirt was tucked back into place. "Come over tonight. I'll text you my address and we can capitalize on this. Wear something nice." 

She was about to protest his leaving but realized it wouldn't matter. If Haagen expected a fight from the noises he'd heard, he would probably just assume it had ended quickly if he saw Diego storm out alone. He crafted his own version of events. She let the pieces fall where they lie and made arrangements to meet Diego tonight.