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ev-pierce-writes · 3 years

Text

Bolero

Javier PenaxReader pairing

Rating: Explicit (duh)

7.4 K

What starts as just a job as an informant quickly turns into an attraction to Agent Javier Peña.

Essentially what I think it's like to dance with Javi. Plus having sex.

If you want to listen to the song I picture them dancing to it's called Dos Gardenias by Buena Vista Social Club. I know it didn't come out until the 90s but I really don't care.

___

You didn't like this part of the job. Hated it, actually. Your feet hurt in your heels and the humidity was making you sweat. But tips were tips, even if it involved fake flirting with old men.

The music ended and José spun you into a dip as the small crowd clapped. José was an excellent dancer and he made for a good partner when it came time to actually perform for the guests, rather than try to drag them onto the dance floor. Most people assumed you were a couple you danced so in sync, but it wasn't like that.

He was a good friend though. He'd gotten you the job at the bistro, and for the small pain of three choreographed dances a night plus a few private salsas, you were paid handsomely. Of course, this wasn't your dream, performing in a smoky, humid bar for tourists and old handsy men. You would rather be on the stage as a professional, performing only for the people who could afford a ticket, not just a watered-down tequila. But work was work and money was money.

Now your least favorite part. You leaned an elbow on the bar, sweeping the crowd for whatever gringo looked the least gross. The manager insisted you interacted with the customers, reeling them in with a sexy pose and a few awkward steps on the dance floor. They tended to drink more when you did that, which was good for the bar, and you usually ended up with a couple of extra bills in your hand, which was good for you. So you complied.

An older, slightly less creepy-looking gentleman had caught your eye, and you were about to approach when you felt a gentle hand on your elbow.

"Mind teaching me a few of those steps you just did?" The music was starting up again with a bolero, your cue to find the dance floor, so you figured you'd comply with the request. Except when you looked into the face of the stranger who had spoken those words, you were taken aback. He was young, or at least younger than most of the men in here, and taller too. Shining from his tanned face were chocolatey brown eyes, surprisingly sincere and kind. His dark hair was combed into place, though a few stray curls peeked out from behind his ears and at the base of his neck.

"Sí, señor." The Spanish came out as a force of habit, though he had addressed you in English and a perfect American accent. Men liked it when you spoke Spanish, even if they couldn't understand. It gave them the impression that you were exotic. But the man half expected that from you. He'd been watching you most of the night, analyzing the way you moved, the way you beguiled the guests into a dance and then a drink, the way you controlled a man's mood with the flick of your hips and slide of your hand up his arm. The perfect skill set of a secret plant.

Without any hesitation, the man took your hand in his and led you into the crowd of dancing people. He placed his other on your hip, though he left a respectful distance between the two of you. It was uncharacteristic of the guests to do so; they generally felt they had some right to press up against you as they stumbled around.

But this man was different. He already knew the three-quarter timing. He seemed a bit tense, like he was having trouble letting loose, but he wasn't clumsy at all. "I don't think you need my instruction," you said.

The man smiled, his mustache curling up to reveal a single dimple on his smooth cheek.

"No, hermana, I don't."

Maybe there was some Latino in that tan after all. But his reply caught you off guard. You hoped pulling you onto the dance floor wasn't his attempt at flirting. You'd made a pact with yourself to never sleep with the guests, and so far you'd held true.

But he wasn't flirting, though he desperately wanted to. You were exactly the type of girl he'd pick up on a boring night, or pay to have sex with him and share your secrets. But tonight was strictly business.

"Do you work here every night?" he asked. It was a strangely specific question, though maybe he was hoping to see you again, you thought.

"Only Thursday, Friday, Saturday," you replied. The bistro only ever needed you on the busiest nights of the week, which was fine with you. Three days of work made you plenty of money, and then you had the rest of the week off. "Why? Are you already planning a second dance?"

The man ignored his question to ask another of his own. "Do you make a lot of money?"

His questions were starting to sound a bit bizarre and he wasn't answering yours either. Why did he care what you made?

"Unless you're planning on hiring me and paying me more, I don't see why you need to know." It wasn't good to be snappy with paying customers, but this enigma of a man didn't seem like the average customer to you. And instead of getting defensive at your tone, his mood shifted quickly and he laughed. A deep, throaty laugh, just as gravely and melodious as his voice. He liked your confidence and your attitude. But then he was back to business just as quickly.

The man led you towards the back of the dance floor, away from the crowd and the watchful eye of the bartender, a move that made you worry and caused you to doubt his intentions. His eyes had gone serious, a wrinkle of concentration between his eyebrows and crowding out the kindness.

"Actually, I would like to hire you."

You came to a stop in surprise but the man pulled you forward, urging you to continue dancing so as not to draw attention to the pair of you. He drew you closer so he could speak directly into your ear, forcing you to breathe in his scent with the proximity, cologne and cigarettes and the saltiness of a light sweat.

"You have a club or something?"

He didn't answer your question, just asked more of his own. "Do you know runs this place?"

You shrugged. "I think his name is Manuel, but I've only met him once."

"Keep an eye out for him, will you? See when he comes and goes, if he gets any shipments or deliveries. I'll pay you for providing information."

It was your turn to finally get some answers. "Who are you?"

"My name is Javier Peña." Javier spun you out before pulling you back into his chest.

"Well, Señor Peña, I don't know who you think I am, but I am not a spy and I don't give a damn about what my employer does. So why do you care what he does?"

"Let's just say the government has a special interest in your employer. But we'd like to keep this little piece of knowledge under wraps."

You eyed Javier suspiciously. Why would the government be interested in what your boss did with his bistro? And why would this man, Javier Peña, trust you to deliver secrets? But again, money was money. Little did you know, Javier Peña was aware of your lack of loyalty to anyone, as long as they were paying you, and he gambled on this fact to ease you into a deal.

"How much are you offering?"

"I'll double whatever you make now."

Double? Mierda. "Bueno, double it is. Not sure what you expect me to find, but I'll keep my eyes open."

That full smile returned, white teeth and all. "Un secreto, sí?"

You nodded in return as the song came to an end. Letting go of your waist, Javier pulled a pair of aviators from the deep vee of his shirt and slipped them on before handing you a business card from the back pocket of his jeans. He instructed you to call him if you saw anything, anything at all. Javier gave you a salute and turned to leave, though not before asking you one more question.

"And your name?"

Now is when you usually lied, telling whatever slimeball you'd just swayed into oblivion a made-up name, like Rosa or Maria. But something about this time was different. This time, you gave him your real name.

"Adiós, bailarina," he said with a grin.

"Adiós, Señor Peña." It wasn't until you were home that you noticed he'd slipped a small stack of bills into your pocket.

---

Standing in the living room of your apartment, you held the card Javier had given you almost a week ago. You hadn't been exactly sure what he was asking you to look out for. You rarely saw your boss anyway. But then tonight, as you'd arrived at work, a truck had been parked by the employee entrance of the bistro. Manuel was still nowhere to be found, but stacks upon stacks of boxes were being unloaded into the dry storage of the kitchen. And you had taken note of it all.

Finally, you picked up the phone off its cradle and dialed the number on the card, wrapping the thick cord around your fingers as it rang. A moment of silence, and then a deep voice spoke on the other end of the line.

"Javier Peña speaking." It sounded like he had just woken up, his voice softer than you remembered and groggy as well. It was a bit late, after midnight, but you figured this was something he wanted to hear sooner rather than later.

"Hola, Senior Peña, it's me from the bistro." Another silence, some shuffling, and was that a voice in the background? "Did I wake you?"

"No, not at all. What's up?"

"You wanted to know if Manuel had a shipment, right?"

"Yes, yes, what did you see?"

"Hm, I could tell you. Or I could get my mi dinero first."

Javier sighed on the other end. "Right, of course. How much do I owe you?"

"Let's see, including tips, I made 300 this week."

"Fine, 300 pesos it is. Where can I meet you?"

"You want to meet right now?"

Apparently, he did. You gave him the address to a twenty-four-hour diner you liked and he hung up, saying he'd meet you there. You gathered your purse, double-checking that the small handgun you carried for self-defense was still there. Not that you were worried the mysterious Javier Peña was someone to be scared of. But better safe than sorry.

Ten minutes later, you stepped out into the heat of the summer air. The darkness of night did little to reduce the temperature, but the humidity had dissipated enough that you rolled the windows of the car down and blasted your music into the silent night.

Though you were sure you looked a bit frazzled and worn out when you parked, Javier only noticed the flush on your cheeks and the curl of your windswept hair as he watched you step out of the car through the window of the diner. You hadn't bothered to change out of your dress and heels from work, which left little to the imagination in the way of your long legs and curved waist. When he'd first approached you last week, he'd been polite and reserved, only letting his hands fall where they were meant to in a dance. But tonight, the ruching of your dress at your hips called out to be touched. Javier knew it was all part of your job, but part of him wished you'd dressed up like that just for him. He shook his head. He shouldn't be thinking about you like this.

A little bell jingled over the door as you drifted into the warm restaurant.

Javier steadied his hands and composed his face, not wanting to reveal the true thoughts running through his mind as you plopped into the booth seat across from him. He looked ready to get down to business, but you were hungry and held up a hand to silence him before he could begin to speak. The waitress came and took your order, a burger and fries, before turning to Javier. He relented to whatever game you were playing and ordered as well in perfect Spanish.

"Where are you from?" you asked as the waitress left to place your orders.

"This little meeting isn't about me," Javier replied, sounding a bit preoccupied, distracted even. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, exposing the smooth skin of his neck and chest, as if he'd dressed in a hurry.

"Eh, that's not very polite. Did I interrupt a little midnight date with your amorcita?" You were pretty sure that had been a woman's voice in the background when you called him earlier. His response, or lack thereof, told you everything you needed to know. Emboldened by his reaction, you continued on with your one-sided conversation.

"I love American food. Are burgers better in Texas? That is where you're from, no?"

The look of shock that flitted across Javier's face was enough to satisfy you and you leaned back in your seat with a smile. You tried your best not to show how pleased you were with his reaction, but your comment got you thinking about what he was like in bed. That was not a direction you needed your mind to wander, especially when it caused butterflies to flutter in your stomach.

"Okay, detective, I think that's enough. You want your money or not?" Though he acted annoyed, Javier was secretly impressed. What had given it away? His accent maybe?

"Sí, sí. Although I am a bit interested to know where my money is coming from."

"I told you. The government."

"You haven't really proven that to me though. Besides, what if you're trying to put my boss out of business? Then I'm out of a job. A good-paying job."

"I am trying to put your boss out of business." The withering look you gave Javier didn't put him off, though you wished it did. If looks could kill and all that. But it did provoke him to pull something from his back pocket and hold it up to your face. "DEA. You know what that is right?"

"Mierda, was it drugs in those boxes?" You couldn't help the shock that spread across your face.

"Maybe."

You pulled a notepad from your purse as the waitress returned with your food. In between bites, you read off of the notes you'd taken.

"I got to work at 4:30. The truck was already there. Manuel was not. Some men unloaded the boxes into the kitchen."

"How many."

"I don't know."

Javier raised his eyebrows. If he'd learned anything from this conversation it was that you were an observant person. He doubted that you hadn't bothered to count them. He had only to wait for you to continue on your own.

"Bueno, forty or so. This big," you indicated with your hands, about the size of the box the tomatoes came in.

"And it wasn't just food in there? You're sure it was something different than normal?"

"Come on, don't you trust me?"

"No," was his swift reply, though it was said with a smile.

"Alright, then. I looked in one. Not food, for sure."

Javier nodded in understanding and pulled a billfold from his back pocket, ready to hand over your cash.

"Espere, Señor, you think that's all I've got?" you said teasingly as you finished your fries and sucked the grease from your fingertips. "You really have no faith, dios mío."

Javier watched you intently, scrutinizing the way your tongue licked away the grease from your thumb. He took a deep breath that sounded like exasperation to you but was really meant to release an uncomfortable knot building in his stomach as he tried not to imagine what else your tongue could do.

"At 5:30, a woman named Victoria called looking for Manuel. No one answered the phone so I did. She left this message." You read directly from the notepad. "I like chocolate ice cream better than vanilla. Maybe you can take me to la heladería tomorrow."

"You're joking."

"Not at all. She said that," you said defensively. "Even gave me an address."

You ripped the paper from your notebook at handed it to Javier as he rubbed a hand along his strong jaw.

"So what are you going to do? Maybe a stakeout, arrest some people, wave your armas around?"

Javier rolled his eyes. "The DEA isn't all about stakeouts and guns. But no, we aren't going to do anything yet. There's no need to reveal our plant. And we don't want you to end up dead so don't get caught either."

"How reassuring. I'm glad the United States has me in their best interests," you deadpanned.

"Just keep doing what you're doing."

"Oh, so you want to see me again? Next time you can buy me a drink."

"Don't flatter yourself."

You laughed in response. Sure, this was all about money, but it was nice to have a real conversation with someone who was witty enough to keep up with your banter. But he was still too easy to tease and you took advantage of it. You liked the way his eyes narrowed and his brows creased when you got under his skin.

"You know, I'll just take it as a compliment that you're only paying me for information and not sex as well," you said as you stood, placing a couple of bills onto the table as a tip.

Javier groaned in frustration. Talking to you was like walking through a hailstorm of bullets. He was bound to get grazed no matter how careful he was. "Eh, mujer, give me a break, por favor."

And yet, despite his protests, Javier liked your sharp tongue. It intrigued him. Normally, he didn't care much about who his informants were or where they were from. But Javier was curious about you. You were smart, skilled, and good at influencing people to comply with your desires. And yet you spent your weekends on a sticky dance floor, performing for gringos like him.

The glittering smile you gave him as you left him sitting in the booth lit a small flame in his heart.

"Buenas noches, Señor Peña," you said to him as you left, almost out the door before he called your name. You turned back. "Qué pasa?"

"Javi. Just call me Javi."

---

Several weeks went by like this, with you calling Javier late at night to let him know what you'd seen. The check-ins came every Saturday, as the shipments had been consistent and seemed to run on a schedule. Eventually, you got comfortable enough to let Javier come to your apartment and exchange information for cash on your couch. You had no idea, but Javier was beginning to expect your calls, anticipating the ringing of his phone around midnight and hearing your voice on the other end.

But when you didn't check in one week, he began to worry. It was past one in the morning. Surely you would have called by now. Maybe he had missed it? There was no way; he'd sat next to the phone all night. So Javier did something he never did. He called you instead. When you didn't answer, he started to suspect something was wrong. Javier told himself to calm down, that you had probably just forgotten, or that maybe nothing of note had happened this week, or you were already asleep. But he couldn't get it out of his mind that something had gone wrong, that you'd been found out and someone had hurt you.

It was nearly two when you finally got home. For some reason, the Saturday crowd had been extra lively tonight, keeping you much later than you wanted. As soon as you unlocked the door and stepped into your apartment, you pulled off your heels and unzipped your dress, peeling it from your sticky body right there in the living room. You needed a shower and you needed to call Javier, but all you wanted was sleep. It could wait until morning.

At last, you were ready for bed, windows pushed open to let in a breeze, sheets turned down, and in nothing but your dressing gown, when a knock sounded at your door. Who would be up at this time of night and disturbing your peace?

Looking through the peephole, you were shocked to find the last person on earth you expected to be standing in the hallway of your apartment building.

"Javi?" you said in confusion as you opened the door. He was leaning against the door frame, one hand on his hip, as if trying to look relaxed but totally failing at it. On Javier's face were written lines of worry, but they relaxed at the sight of you. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh, good, you're home. I was worried."

Maybe it was the exhaustion fogging your brain, but he sounded genuinely distressed. The normally confident, almost arrogant Javier had been replaced with someone entirely different. "Sí, of course I'm home, where else would I be?"

"Well, you didn't call. And then you didn't answer your phone. So I was worried something had happened." Javier had managed to miss the state of your dress, or lack thereof, when you had first opened the door. But now, he noticed you wore a cream-colored dressing gown and little else. One sleeve had slipped off your shoulder in your hurry to dress, revealing the lack of anything beneath.

Javier's breath hitched in his throat as he desperately tried to tear his eyes away from your shoulder. It was a just shoulder, for god's sake. It's not like you were standing naked in front of him. But then he was thinking about you naked and that was an even bigger problem.

For a whole month, Javier had gone without a woman in his bed and it wasn't until he saw you that he realized why. He wanted you, but in a way that was different from the way he wanted anyone else. He didn't want you for information or even a quick release, but something more intimate and intense. What was wrong with him? He had to leave before he said something he might regret. You were an informant, a contact, a player in this long game of chess, and nothing more.

"I'm gonna go," Javier said, finally looking away. He was acting strange, even your tired eyes could tell. He looked disheveled, the buttons of his salmon pink shirt left open at the top and half-tucked into his jeans. His hair was no longer combed flat, the way it usually was when you saw him. Instead, it stuck up in all manner of directions, curly and unruly. Javier rubbed the back of his head as he turned to go. You weren't sure what exactly compelled you, but you called out to him before he could leave.

"Do you want a drink?" So much for sleep.

Javier had been in your apartment plenty of times. So why did he suddenly not know what to do with himself? He stood stiffly in the living room, eyeing the discarded dress you hadn't picked up yet. When you handed him a glass of whiskey he barely noticed. His mind was clearly not in the apartment, though his body was. Finally, he sat on the couch, leaning his elbows on his knees, the glass balanced precariously in one hand.

Javier's thoughts drifted from one place to another, relief that you were fine, embarrassment for having thought that you weren't, bliss at your invitation inside, and then shame for having accepted.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked.

"Only if you share," you replied, sitting next to him on the couch with your own drink. The pair of you sat like that for a while, in complete silence, passing a single cigarette back and forth. Javier had no way of knowing but your thoughts followed a similar path to his, a rollercoaster masked by a sense of calm.

Your fingertips lightly grazed his as Javier passed you the cigarette. He watched you take a long draw, pulling the smoke deep into your lungs and letting it numb the strange feeling inside you. You were hyper-aware of Javier's presence beside you, his shoulder and knee barely grazing yours, even though you stared straight ahead at the clock on the wall. Three in the morning, it read. Perhaps it was something about the early morning hours, or the dim light of your living room, the only source from the kitchen, but the next words out of your mouth were the most sincere you'd ever spoken to him.

"Are you alright, Javi?"

"Sí."

"You don't seem alright." His voice was too calm. "Is it work?"

"No."

"Friends? Family?"

"No."

You paused, pretending to contemplate for a moment.

"Ah, I know. No pretty girls to warm your bed?" You couldn't help it, falling back into teasing him like that. But he didn't want to talk and it was the only way to draw him out.

"It's disturbing how observant you are," Javier said. It wasn't a true answer, but it was answer enough. He sighed and put the cigarette out before placing his head in his hands. "We aren't friends, you know."

It was a strange comment, almost like he was trying to convince himself of the fact, not you.

"Wow. I should be offended. But for your sake, I'll pretend like I'm not."

"That's not what I mean," Javier tried to explain. "I mean-- I mean I shouldn't be doing this." He waved his hand around as if it indicated anything about what 'this' was. But you understood. He shouldn't be accepting drinks after midnight and sharing cigarettes in dimly lit apartments. It was unprofessional. Then again, everything about your relationship was unprofessional, even the work only parts.

It had taken you a while to admit to yourself that you were attracted to Javier. But when you actually started to look forward to Saturday night, to your conversations, even though they revolved around your work, that's when you knew. It was something in the way he looked when he was listening to you, his eyes holding contact with yours, eyebrows furrowed, hand on his chin, that made you think maybe he felt the same way. His hands, what was it about them? They were big and strong and you hadn't yet forgotten the way they had held onto your waist as you danced the night you met.

Dance. You knew how to communicate with that. It was second nature. Perhaps it would let you both open up. So you stood and moved to the record player. The space wasn't big enough to truly dance, but you kept plenty of records on hand to practice new choreography alone. You pulled out your favorite, a gift from José, and carefully placed down the needle.

"The bolero is danced in 3/4 time," you said, holding out your hand to Javier. "But I think you knew that already."

Javier seemed to understand and only hesitated a moment. The music swelled and he took your hand in one of his, the other finding its place on your back between your shoulder blades. There wasn't much space to move, but he led you through the steps anyway. Rock forward, step right, rock back, step left. Repeat. Tonight, Javier held you close, your hips and chests pressed against one another in a way that was much different from the first time you'd danced. He was more relaxed as well, allowing his hips to move in time with yours. Javier leaned his cheek against yours.

When you'd invited him in for a drink, Javier hadn't been sure what your intentions were. He still wasn't, though something in the way you let his fingertips glide up and down your spine as you danced gave him an idea.

And yet, he couldn't read you at all, though it seemed he could have no secrets around you. You had picked up instantly on his strange mood and though he hated to admit it, he liked the way you were persistent in trying to draw him out from his shell. He found you alluring. You were beautiful, yes, and he imagined as he fell asleep at night what you might look like under your tight dresses and this deliciously thin robe. But he also liked you, liked talking to you, liked being around you, liked your incesant teasing.

The song ended and the next one started up again, but neither of you moved away. Somehow so starved for physical contact, you were drunk on one another's touch, swaying gently in the dark. "We shouldn't--" Javier tried to speak but you interrupted him.

"Stop with the should or should not, Javi. It's too late for that."

"Why did you invite me in?" Javier figured it was worth asking, just to be sure.

"Why did you show up at my apartment, uninvited, in the middle of the night?"

"Fuck," Javier cursed under his breath. "I'm tired of this. Your half-answers, my unanswered questions, dancing, literally dancing, around whatever truth there is between us. I just want to know what you're thinking and it's impossible to tell."

You were taken aback. You had been so preoccupied deciphering Javier for yourself you'd forgotten he was probably trying to do the same with you. The look in his eyes was desperate, needy, and untamed.

The sensible thing to do would be to kick him out, to end it here because this wasn't right. It wasn't professional. And it was breaking your biggest rule: never sleep with the customer. But you were anything but sensible with a drink swirling around your veins.

You pushed Javier away gently, and he looked slightly crestfallen before he saw what you did next. The drink may have given you a boost of confidence, but this desire was all your own. With a gentle tug at the tie of your robe, you let it fall from your shoulders, the silk pooling at your feet as you stood bare before him. Javier was frozen in place, but then his eyes widened in surprise before raking up and down your body unabashedly.

"Well, I guess that's some type of answer," he whispered. The clock ticked on the wall, counting down the moments.

"Your move, Javi." Your words stoked the flame in his heart that you'd lit so many weeks ago. But his brain struggled to keep up, still in shock at the sudden sight of you naked for him and him alone. He wanted to take in every inch of you and ravish you all at the same time.

Javier reached out a hand, hesitating slightly as if unsure if you were real or just a golden vision before him. In the dim light from the kitchen, you seemed to glow, wild hair swept behind your shoulders, chest rising and falling with anticipation. Finally, Javier's fingers made contact with your skin, the back of his knuckles gently grazing the plane of your stomach. You trembled when he finally offered you his touch, goosebumps following the path of his hand as he moved up your body toward the curve of your breast. His thumb brushed across your nipple, causing you to gasp and nearly jump out of your skin. But his hand didn't linger, instead tracing the lines of your sternum to your collarbone and up your neck.

Javier's hand found its place on your cheek, his thumb sweeping across the ridge of your cheekbone. You closed your eyes softly, relishing in the sensation of his skin on yours. His hand was calloused but surprisingly smooth, as if worn by years of the same work. You turned your face toward his hand, pressing your lips to his palm.

You kept your eyes closed, expecting him to kiss you, your lips burning with apprehension. But the kiss didn't come, only the soft sounds of him moving and his hand leaving your face. You opened your eyes, worried he'd changed his mind and was leaving you there vulnerable to the world.

Instead, you found him kneeled before you, like a subject before his queen.

A shiver had run down Javier's spine when you'd kissed his palm as he pictured placing his own lips to yours. But something about the way you looked in that moment, ethereal, celestial, divine, forced him to his knees in worship. He wanted to taste every inch of you, learn every curve and crevasse of your body. You were just as beautiful--no, even more beautiful--than he'd imagined alone in his bed at night. And here you were, offering up that smooth skin, those thighs, those lips. And he would fucking worship you.

One hand found your waist, gripping gently but firmly to hold you in place. The other pulled a knee over his shoulder, causing you to stumble forward and forcing you to grab onto Javier for stability. But his hands held you firmly as his fingers sunk into the flesh of your ass, pulling you closer to his face, mouth sinking into you fluttering lips.

You gasped, fingers tangling into Javier's unruly hair and holding on tight, the sensation of his tongue against your clit making your legs go weak. A groan came from between your thighs, sending vibrations through your core and twisting your stomach into knots.

"Fuck, just like I imagined," Javier mumbled under his breath.

Like he'd imagined?

"You've pictured this?" you managed to ask between breaths. You could barely speak, the moans tumbling from your mouth leaving little oxygen in your lungs for anything else.

"Amor, you send me to sleep at night and wake me up in the morning."

Oh mierda, his tongue was continuing to swirl around your clit, leaving you unable to control your thoughts or your movements. Your hips shifted of their own accord, grinding against Javier's face as he ate you out. At some point, he would need to come up for air, but for now, he was perfectly content to suffocate between your captivating legs, drinking in your scent and swallowing the taste of you.

Javier was guiding you languidly toward your climax, savoring every shudder and twitch he pulled from you. The muscles of your pelvic floor seized and you let out a delirious moan. The tension that preceded your orgasm curled up through your stomach and into your lungs, drawing the strength from your limbs. Suddenly unable to hold up your upper half, let alone stabilize your legs, you slumped forward, chin hanging heavily against your chest, hands sliding down Javier's back and gripping the fabric of his shirt.

"Javi, please, I can't hold on." You needed to sit, lay down, anything, before you collapsed in ecstasy here in the living room. At your words, Javier picked up the pace, taking you from a gradual climb to a swift ascent. His acceleration told you everything you needed to know. Come for him, and he'd take you to the bedroom.

So you did, your orgasm shuddering through you at a staggering pace. It rushed through you, searing and urgent, and something told you this was only the beginning. A warm-up of sorts, leaving you unable to stand yet shivering for more. The last waves of your orgasm spread through you, Javier drinking them from you until your trembling subsided and your breathing came back to normal. He caught you as you eased back into your body, picking you up by the waist and slinging you over his shoulder. You giggled at the sudden change of perspective, now hanging upside down with an excellent view of Javier's ass.

"What are you doing?"

Javier didn't answer.

With a flop, you landed on the bed on your back. Javier stood over you, taking in the sight of you. Little did he know, you were doing the same, even though he was still fully clothed. You sat up on the edge of the bed and tugged at his shirt, pulling it from his tight jeans. Javier undid the buttons, letting out a soft groan as you took advantage of his proximity to palm the bulge in his pants. You wanted a taste.

His shirt now discarded, you worked at the button of Javier's jeans, placing a soft kiss on his stomach as you tugged them down. No underwear, why weren't you surprised? Javier's fingers curled into your hair, taking hold with a gentle yet solid grip as you freed his cock from confinement, precum leaking from the swollen head.

You looked up through your eyelashes, wanting to watch Javier's face as you swiped your tongue across the tip of his length, savoring the taste and earning a strangled moan from Javier's mouth. His eyes sunk shut and the image of you in the diner, licking the grease from your fingers danced behind his eyelids. He realized he was about to have that fantasy fulfilled, about to know exactly what your tongue could do.

The expression on Javier's face and his tightening hands in your hair made your stomach flutter. The absolute control you held over this man was ten times more satisfying than manipulating those men in the bistro because you were enjoying this too. Lightly, you dragged your tongue up his quivering cock, causing Javier to buck his hips and let out a hiss of dissatisfaction.

"Mierda, princesa, you gonna take me or just make me beg for it all night."

"You know I like to tease you, Javi." But the time for teasing was over. With one hand wrapped around him, you took him into your mouth, lowering your head as far as your gag reflex would let you. You began to move slowly, Javier's hands still in your hair and guiding your movements. Your other hand reached up and fondled his balls, pinching and massaging the tender skin. The sensation sent Javier hurtling toward the edge and he began to thrust into your mouth, matching your pace. It was good, too good. He was going to cum soon if you kept going.

Suddenly, Javier pulled away with a grunt, panting your name.

"Fuck, princesa, you're gonna finish me off fast like that." His voice was ragged with hunger. He wanted to taste you again, feel himself inside you as you came. "I'm not done with you yet."

Javier untangled his hands from your hair and placed them tenderly on your shoulders before pushing you back onto the bed again. He grabbed your ankles and hooked them over his shoulders, giving him full access to your cunt which was aching in anticipation of his cock, the size of which you had just fucked with your mouth.

You could feel the heat of him, so close, but Javier took his time, kissing his way down your thighs, nipping and sucking at your sensitive skin until your legs shook. And still, he didn't slip inside you, instead caressing the tenderness of your stomach with his mouth. He'd kissed all the way up your body, from the jut of your hip bones to the freckle below your bellybutton to the supple fullness of your breasts. Javier's attentions left you squirming under his touch, but he wasn't done. He wanted to taste every inch of your exposed skin, both salty and sweet under his tongue.

Suddenly, Javier's touch left your body and he flipped you over. You squealed at the abrupt movement, your face in the pillows and hands gripping the sheets. Behind you came the sound of a condom opening. And then you could feel Javier hovering above you, his cock teasing your entrance, one hand on your hip and the other in your hair. And then his voice spoke next to your ear.

"Are you ready, princesa?" Javier asked, his voice heady and ragged.

"Fuck me, Javi." That was all the invitation he needed. Without a moment's hesitation, Javier lined himself up with your entrance and slammed into you. Your gasp of surprise, and all the screams that followed, dissipated into the pillows, muting the sounds that you knew would have been heard by the neighbors otherwise.

Javier crashed into you again, stretching and filling you more with each thrust. He started slow, savoring the feeling of your walls clenching around him. The hand in your hair pulled your head back, releasing the sounds trapped in the pillow to mingle with Javier's moans. The hand at your waist wrapped around to find your clit, his calloused fingers teasing the delicate bud, and Javier leaned over to run his tongue up your spine, chasing the shivers he was causing.

The combination of sensations, his tongue on your skin, fingers on your clit, cock buried deep in your pussy, built you again toward orgasm. You rose up onto all fours, trying to find that angle you knew would hit your g-spot, and Javier seemed to understand. He began to thrust harder and faster, rushing toward the edge he had narrowly avoiding sailing over when his dick had been in your mouth. But this was better, so much better. Javier's untangled his hand from your hair and wrapped his arm around your chest, lifting you so you were on your knees and pressed flush against his back.

This was it, the perfect angle. A tumble of incoherent Spanish curses flew from your mouth as Javier reached up to squeeze your tit in his large hand.

"Fuck, Javi, right there," you mumbled in between breaths. "Don't stop, please don't stop."

"Cum for me, princesa," Javier growled into your ear. "I won't cum until you do."

Javier's tongue flicked along your neck and up toward your ear, where he nibbled lightly. He thrust, deep and strong, into your trembling pussy and you came, in a searing white light of ecstasy. You choked out your sounds of pleasure, unable to breathe properly. As your walls clenched around his cock, your orgasm rushing in waves against him, Javier could hold it no longer. With a groan, he fell apart, grunting your name over and over as his twitching member spasmed inside you.

The two of you held still for a moment, unwilling and unable to move. Finally, Javier slipped out of you, leaving you feeling cold and empty. It didn't last long, however. Javier laid on the bed and pulled you down with him, holding you close to his chest. You curled against him, relishing in the warmth of his skin against the cool breeze drifting in through the open window.

"I have to admit, this isn't how I thought my night would end," Javier said. You giggled, still high on the euphoria of your second orgasm. The dopamine that clouded your brain began to clear and you looked into Javier's face, the tension and worry absent and replaced with a languid look of satisfaction and pleasure.

And then you realized something that made you sit straight up in bed. "You bastard," you said accusingly, pointing a finger at Javier's chest. He dragged a hand across his face.

"Oh mierda, what did I do now?"

"You never even kissed me."

It was true. He hadn't. He'd been so preoccupied with tasting the rest of you he'd failed to do the one thing he actually desired most.

"Alright, that's a valid accusation," Javier said, dragging you back down and rolling on top of you, pinning you to the bed. "I am a bastard, a lucky one."

Finally, with one hand on your face and the other lacing his fingers in yours, Javier kissed you. A real, proper kiss, teeth scraping your bottom lip and tongue gliding along yours. He kissed you until he could hold his breath no longer and then came back for more, tasting of your orgasm and the shared cigarette. At last, he pulled away and buried his face in your neck.

You pulled the covers up and over the two of you. And then you wrapped your arms and legs around him, holding him to your chest as tightly as you could.

"Have any plans for tomorrow?" you asked.

Javier grinned into your shoulder. "Ready for round two already?"

"Only if we get to sleep in first."

"Anything for you, princesa."

#narcos #narcos fanfiction #javier pena #pedro pascal #"javi smut #javier pena x reader #I just want to dance with Javi is that too much to ask #reader #xreader

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guessimwritingficsagain · 4 years

Text

Delightful, chapter Four (Javier Peña x reader)

Author’s note : James wasn’t supposed to take so much space but I felt it’d be better if he was here in the end. Let’s say that Reader didn’t see Javier from the day after Carrillo’s death to a few months after Javier’s return in Colombia.

Previously : Chapter one, Chapter two, Chapter three

------

You woke up expecting him gone, as always, but walked into the kitchen to the smell of coffee. Peña was sitting on the couch, a cup in hand.

‘Still here ?’

Your voice was hoarse with sleep, so you went to get a cup of water. He got up and followed you, pouring you a mug of coffee and handing it to you.

‘Yeah. Thought I’d stick around, to thank you.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘Yes, babe, I do.’

He was chewing his bottom lip. You turned around. He was standing further than yesterday, a small fact for which you were glad, you mind briefly going back to that moment in bed. The shame didn’t sting as much. He looked better than the night before, even with his shirt crumpled and his hair all over the place. You never got to see him like this, you realized.

‘Listen,’ he continued ‘what I told you last night … I shouldn’t have said it. You don’t need to know about that shit.’

‘It’s okay, Javier.’

You held his gaze for a while before turning to look at your living room. You wondered if he was still looking at you. You felt like he was. You longed to know if he wanted to lean in and brush his lips on your neck as much as you wanted him to. To regain your focus, to prevent the feeling from drowning you, you asked the exact opposite of what was on your mind :

‘We’re friends, right ?’

You heard the mug being set down on the counter and felt Javier shift, get closer.

‘Well, you did finally learn my first name.’ He whispered, his breath hot on the side of your face. His torso was pressed on your shoulder now, and, just like last night, you regretted asking, not for the same reasons though.

Now that you were on the edge, you weren’t quite so sure you want to take the leap. He made the decision for you, anyway :

‘Yeah, you got me there, babe. We’re friends.’

You turned your head sharply at that, and found him close, closer than you’d ever been. His hand came to your shoulder, eyes heavy, and his thumb settled right there, on your naked skin. He kept going, seemingly unbothered, and leaned in :

‘If that’s what you want to be.’

He pressed a kiss to your temple then, as you grabbed one of his forearms like a lifeline. His moustache was soft against your skin and you wanted to stay in that moment forever. You were ready to take that leap, now, you realized. Your hand was about to move to his elbow to bring him closer when he whispered, lips still against your skin :

‘It’s better like that anyway.’

He gently took your hand, removed it from where it was grasping, and you let it fall at your side as you watched Javier Peña take his pack of cigarettes on the counter, light one, and announce :

‘See you around, babe.’

You didn’t see him for a year and then some, after that.

The bookshop was a quiet, nice little place where you sometimes lost yourself during the day when things in your mind got blurry. You’d found yourself here more and more, those days. You knew from Connie that things at work were insane, but you felt hurt by Peña’s silence. You hadn’t seen him, spoken to him, in six months.

You picked up a book you’d seen on those shelves countless times, in the English section, Women Who Run With the Wolves, and started reading random paragraphs here and there, when a voice interrupted :

‘It’s a good one, you should give it a shot.’

A man was standing there, at a respectable distance, a shy look on his face. You took a second to properly take him in : he cleaned up nice, was a gringo, obviously. Unsettled by your scrutiny, he put a hand through his blonde hair and explained :

‘I’ve seen you around before, and I’ve noticed we share some readings in common. So I thought I’d tell you about that one.’

‘You work here ?’ You asked.

‘No,’ he shook his head, ‘but I’m around a lot.’

You inspected him a bit more, trying to remember him - if he’d seen you around, you’d seen him around, obviously. Something was indeed vaguely familiar about him, so you took the bait, thinking what the hell :

‘Okay, so what’s it about ?’

He had some interesting things to say about it, and he spoke in a pleasant voice. You could tell he was used to talking to people, maybe in a professional way too : he had some kind of teacher thing going for him. When you asked, he confirmed : English teacher at university.

You crossed paths, after that, always falling in nice, uncomplicated conversations. Your mind supplied, once, as James was talking about his last class, that this man wouldn’t come home to tell you of colleague of his had died on the job. Your thoughts went to Peña, then, about the deafening silence, about what you saw on the news everyday.

What the hell, you thought again.

So when James asked you out for coffee, you said yes.

You settled into some kind of routine. It was nice, grounding, a good contrast to what was going on in the country. You’d still wake up, sometimes during the night, thinking Javier but you never picked up the phone to ask Steve or Connie, even though you grew more and more worried. You put all of that in the trashcan of denial, instead. Up until the day Pablo Escobar died.

You picked up the phone, that day, hands shaking and heart pounding and dialed Steve’s number. The second you heard him say

‘Murphy.’

You asked :

‘Javier, is he okay ?’

A silence, and then

‘They sent him back home.’

They sent him back home.

You felt cold. You felt lost. And then you felt nothing.

———

You woke up to someone pounding at your door, and that hadn’t happened for a long time. James, laying right next to you, startled awake and whispered :

‘Sweetheart, what’s going on ?’

You got up immediately, answering it’s fine without meaning it because with both Steve and Javier gone from the country you had no idea who was on the other side of that door. You put some clothes on, turning the light of the living room as you walked to the door and opened it carefully.

Javier Peña was standing there, and like he hand’t been gone for more than a year, like you hand’t called Steve like a fucking grieving widow after months of silence to hear Javier was back in the States, he asked :

‘Your couch is available ?’

You said yes, because you could never say no to Javier. James came out of the bedroom as Javier came in, wondering :

‘What is it, sweetheart ?’

His eyes were moving from Javier to you. You explained :

‘An old friend. He needs to sleep here. Go back to bed.’

Javier stood eerily still for a second, then extended his hand for James to shake. As they greeted each other, you went to make the couch, hands slightly shaking.

You let Javier settle on the couch, you let him reach your leg and squeeze it. You let him say :

‘I’m sorry.’

He knew that wouldn’t cut it. You let him have this moment of peace, though. You put a hand in his hair. You let go, eventually. Javier Peña was a thing of the past. You had something good going on, now.

Except he wasn’t a thing of the past, not anymore. He’d show up to sleep on your couch once in a while and you had to buy him a new toothbrush (you remembered how long it took you to throw the old one in the trashcan).

But, along with his toothbrush, you’d put Javier in the trashcan of denial, and now the lid was threatening to fly open. James had no problem with that mysterious man suddenly back into your life, even when he stopped by in the morning to bring you breakfast and found Javier here. When you finally had the courage to bring it up, he just explained I trust you. He was right to trust you, but you had some serious unpacking to do, some things to settle in yourself, and you didn’t want to.

Javier started showing up at the bar again, but you didn’t talk. That silence, that now defined your relationship, also put it in some kind of grey area, a neutral zone full of respectful distances and words about to burst but always contained. You didn’t exactly like it, but it was reassuring. You didn’t long for him the way you used to, because worry and anger had taken to much space in your non-relationship. It’d been easy to get angry, once you’d learnt Javier had been back for a while before he came to see you. You’d reasoned he didn’t care that much, after all. You’d allowed yourself to feel betrayed, even though that tiny voice always whispered you were being unfair, much like it had been whispering that at the beginning of your relationship with him.

Everything must come to an end, though, even grey areas and unspoken agreements to never speak. It came unexpectedly, as one evening, James and his coworkers came by for a few drinks. Those nights were always nice because his friends were sweet and James always kissed you softly every time he came to order drinks. Usually, you didn’t like showing affection in public, but in those moments, you found you liked it. This night, in this bubble of you and him, you could allow yourself to pretend Javier Peña wasn’t worming his way into your relationship. Right then, you could pretend you didn’t think about him too much. You could swallow down the guilt you felt because James hadn’t a jealous bone in his body while you sometimes thought things you shouldn’t be thinking. The only thing you’d been willing to unpack so far was what you felt about James. You knew you loved him. You’d said it before. You loved him in a quiet, tranquil way, not at all in the way you felt about Javier. But you loved him.

Javier sat down at the counter at some point during the night. You gave him a whisky, trying not to think too hard about the fact that this was the first time James and him were here at the same time, and then scolding yourself because there was nothing to be guilty of. James would still come to the counter to order something, he’d still kiss you, and Javier would still sit there in silence.

Except that didn’t happen : when you took your break, Javier followed you, and, as you were lighting your cigarette, one in his mouth already, he decided to leave the grey area, and the trashcan of denial too.

‘I’m sorry I left like that, babe. After the last time we spoke, things went to shit and I didn’t want to involve you, in any way. I did some questionable things, but they got the job done. I’m sorry I never called, though. They sent me back and I just didn’t know what to do with myself.’

Even though you had taken a deep breath and had convinced yourself you were going to be put together, especially because he’d chosen the night James was in the bar to tell you this, you broke :

‘I thought you were dead. I had to call Steve. I thought about going to the DEA’s office to ask …’

You weren’t quite crying but your your voice was longing. Javier brought a hand to the back of your neck, bringing you closer. He whispered in your hair :

‘I’m so sorry, babe. Never meant to leave you like that. I thought a clean break was better than some phone call once in a while. We’ve seen some shit together, and I just felt it’d be a mercy to let you get on with your life. Murphy called me on my bullshit, though. You’ve been so good to me, but I wasn’t sure you wanted me back into your life.’

You could tell he felt uncomfortable saying all of this. He never spoke that much. You couldn’t identify exactly what you were feeling but you could feel the wave of all of it coming crashing down on you.

Your fingers found his shirt and grabbed it, You started crying, then, because Javier was back.

———

You should have seen it coming but you didn’t. A month and a half later, while he was having a beer at your place, James announced :

‘We need to talk.’

And that took you by surprise (once again, it shouldn’t have). You’d came back to the counter that day with red eyes and had had to take a trip to the bathroom to fix yourself up. James never mentioned it but you blamed yourself for thinking he hadn’t seen it. But Javier had left right after your little talk so you’d convinced yourself the usual, comfortable bubble was back. And James never brought it up. Until this moment, you guessed.

You put the beer down, as he said :

‘I’m not Javier Peña.’

Your world tilted at that, a mix of shit and fuck and this is not what you think going through your head. James beat you to it, though :

‘I know nothing happened. You’re too good for that. But I heard you that day.’

Something clicked in your mind, something you’d overlooked because you’d been so caught up in Javier Peña you’d forgotten about that little detail. James explained, anyway :

‘Usually, when you take a break and I’m at the bar, I come with you. But he was there first. I didn’t mean to listen but … He called you babe, and you let him, and he grabbed you by the neck and you let him even though you won’t let me take your hand in public because you hate that kind of shit. I heard he’s DEA. I’m not DEA, shit …’

His laugh was bitter as he went on :

‘It’s not that I’m not Javier Peña. I’m the opposite of Javier Peña. I love you, and I know you love me. And I could keep going like that with you because I could settle. I don’t mind being the second choice. But you I know you, you can’t settle, not with him back. I know you. You never really told me about him but it’s obvious. We got a nice thing going, but, if I asked you to marry me …’

You found your tongue, at that point, and urgently asked, the dread filling you almost overwhelming :

‘Were you planning on ?’

‘Before Peña, yes. I thought you were it, for me. But now, I know you’d say no.’

You wanted to prove him wrong so bad, you wanted to say that Javier was just an old friend but James read you better than almost anyone. So he kissed you on the cheek, took his stuff, and left.

Javier, of course, came by a few days later, noticed James’ toothbrush gone and asked :

‘What happened ?’

You answered :

‘Life.’

Because you couldn’t answer ‘you’.

Chapter five

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Tag list (don’t hesitate to ask to be added)

@pedritobalmando @amidjarin @ajeff855 @justpedropascal @sara-alonso @sarahjkl82-blog

#narcos #Pedro pascal #Javier Pena #Javier Peña x reader #delightful

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scottymcgeesterwrites · 3 years

Text

Ambiguous

There has been something I need to write about and shout into the void. It has been tearing me apart, and I don’t know how people will react elsewhere, so I figured this was the safest place. This will be the soft reveal before even speaking about it to my friends. Or maybe I will never speak about it ever again. Maybe I will feel fine after writing it this way. For my entire life, people have mistaken me for being Indian, to the point where actual Indians walk up to me and start speaking in their dialect. My mile-long blank stare makes them realize that I am not Indian, and one of two things happen - they either apologize and explain they mistook me for Indian, or they exclaim, “You’re NOT Indian?”

I’m Cuban and Colombian. I grew up in New Jersey. I am an American citizen but it gets confusing when you take into account that my mother flew to Santiago, Chile to have me there because of a clinic that specialized in geriatric pregnancy at the time, so my “birthplace” reads Chile on my passport. That’s always a mouthful to have to explain and it further confuses people, so I end up saying, “I was born in New Jersey”. My skin tone is best described as ambiguous. I could be many things. I’ve gotten Middle Eastern, Indian, and specifically “Egyptian”. I have no idea why “Egyptian” but. Whatever. I have always lived in some liminal space where people ask the dreaded question, “What are you?” Now here’s the most frustrating thing of all - not everyone who has asked me that was white. Growing up, I thought that I could relate to someone who wasn’t white to understand how I feel. Black people have asked me that. Indian people have asked me that. Middle Eastern people have asked me that. Cubans and Colombians have asked me that. Throughout my youth, I was paranoid that maybe I was adopted or something, given how people didn’t seem to connect me with my parents. I was told that my Cuban side hails from Spain, but my Colombian side is shrouded in mystery. My dad never liked to talk about my family. I never knew anyone past my grandparents. Well, I did meet my great-grandmother once when I was seven, but she had practically turned back into a baby at that point, banging on the table demanding food and needing to be spoon-fed. My own people don’t recognize me, and they often say things like, “You don’t LOOK Latino!” or “What? You’re LATINO?” and the best one yet “You don’t SOUND Spanish!” The worst offenders, however, would laugh and say, “¡Pareces Hindu!” which means “You look Hindu!” Hindu is the religion, dumbass. Anyone, and I mean anyone, can be racist and slip some “micro-aggression”. I am not fluent in Spanish, but I can write and understand every word in Spanish. I often inadvertently offend Spanish-speaking people when I reply to them in English when they thought they were being sneaky by talking in Spanish around me. The reason I don’t speak Spanish as fast as my peers is because of two reasons: 1. My parents at the time when I grew up believed in the misconception and pseudoscientific belief that children will be “confused” if two or more languages are spoken in the house. 2. Central New Jersey, where I grew up, hadn’t yet seen many Hispanic people, so locals at the time often leered at people who spoke Spanish in public. When my mother took me to our local Gymboree, I spotted a butterfly and shouted in Spanish, “¡Mariposa! ¡Mariposa!”. The other mothers kept staring at me, and then distanced themselves from us. The weirdest thing ever was experiencing white people who studied the Spanish language better than me and making fun of me for actually being Spanish but being unable to speak it fluently. I had a crush on this girl whom I’ll call “Anjy” in freshman year of college. It took me until now to realize that I think she had a Latino fetish. Anjy only exclusively went out with Latino men, but never seemed to openly admit it. The only thing she did admit was that, “I can only be with a man who speaks Spanish. It’s so important to me.” So obviously I wasn’t a contender, despite being Latino. Anjy doesn’t have an ounce of Spanish in her. None. But she studied it since high school and fell in love with it and became Spanish’s #1 fan. I was so jealous of how fluent she was. She could roll her r’s and speak it beautifully. Since we became friends, I said to her, “Oh, I can finally practice my Spanish with someone!” We tried, but she laughed at me and said, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore. You sound like a gringo.” It’s a very topsy-turvy world where some white girl uses a derogatory term on me, a derogatory term from my culture that describes an outsider, used to describe me. She went to Costa Rica after we graduated, lived there for a few years, and came back home with a husband. (That’s when I fully realized just how much she fetishized us.) A few years ago, my now-fiancée gifted me a DNA test for my birthday. That came out of left field for me, and opened up a range of emotions that I wasn’t ready for. She said she remembered how I wondered aloud why I looked the way I looked and about my ancestry. I sat on the DNA test for a while.

I stared at it.

I held the kit in my hands.

I opened it and closed it. What if I really was Indian? What if I found out something that made me feel so much worse? But how bad could it be? I was also wary about the company keeping my DNA for nefarious reasons. However, luckily enough, my fiancée had bought the kit from AncestryDNA - the one DNA company that has responded to people saying they would delete their DNA at their request. I bit the bullet and sent my sample. When the test came back, I opened it up and everything made sense. It made so much sense that I laughed out loud. It’s so funny how nobody has guessed the only other possibility for my skin tone that is what I actually am. I am pretty much half native to the Americas. I’m not sure what that’s called. Native American seems to be associated exclusively to North America. So Native South American? Native to the Americas? Native American (et al)? The Colombian side can be traced through turmoil in South America, up through Mesoamerica, and into North America. So many spots lit up all over the Americas. And like the Cuban side said, I was indeed from Spain as well. I was split right down the middle. 50/50. The native side and the European side were practically screaming at each other in my genes. I felt as though a great weight had been lifted from me that I didn’t even know was there. I knew for a fact that I was my parents’ son. I had an explanation for why I look the way I look, and it made sense and it was obvious. It didn’t end there though. I didn’t feel Native American. I had no cultural connection to anything “native”. I tried thinking in terms of my personality though. I always had a strong belief in saving the land and respecting the dead. I did vandalize a construction site back in my high school days to preserve farmland. My family did like to decorate the house with Aztec and Mayan statues. Aside from that though, I had about as much personal connection to native culture as Olive Garden does to Italy. The thing about my parents being from Cuba and Colombia is that those were two very violent and turbulent places in the past century. After I tell people where my families hail from, they always asked me with wide-eyes, “Oh have you been there???” Well, I dunno man. If you have any inkling of what’s going on the world you would know the awkward relationship that the United States has had with Cuba, and what it means to be a fucking exile. And the fact that Colombia has seen gang wars for the entirety of my life. So no. I haven’t. When I was a little boy I asked my parents if we would ever visit Colombia or Cuba, but they told me we shouldn’t go back. Colombia was violent, and Cuba’s government watched everyone. My mother was afraid of what would happen if she tried going back. Maybe they wouldn’t let her, or us. Maybe they’d let us through but I wouldn’t even be allowed to return if they knew I was the son of an exile. Worse yet, they might detain my mother. You never know when your family had beef with the government and was told to leave. And what really drives a knife in my heart is hearing people ask that really annoying question. “Have you visited???” As if they were hot and exotic touristy locales. No. Because my parents were forced to flee, because they needed a better life. “Wouldn’t your mom love it if you got married in Cuba? She would get to visit her home!” You don’t get the trauma she has. You don’t understand how much of a toll it would take on her to return home and see all the things she once knew and love gone or tarnished. She received word recently that the farmhouse she grew up in now became a restaurant. The house that my grandfather built by hand. Strangers now sit and eat there. Maybe tourists. The hotel that my great-grandfather used to own now doesn’t belong to us anymore - the government said it was theirs. There is nothing for her to go back to but loss. I felt distraught when I saw a former college classmate who has become an Instagram influencer immediately visit Cuba once travel restrictions were eased. She posted all about it and acted as if she were an expert about it. She used to be a lawyer in Washington D.C. until she decided to “take hold of her life” and “follow her dream” and go to Bali and now lives everyday in tropical paradise. It seemed like some people were pointing out the hypocrisy in her posts about life given the lifestyle she leads, since she felt the need to say something about it. She made a video where she tried to relate to her followers. She said how “it’s still hard” for her, that she “has to work every day”, and meanwhile literally the next fucking day she posts a picture of her having lunch by a waterfall, or napping in her hammock by the beach. But when she visited Cuba, and took pictures and wrote a long post about the country, I just lost it. She met up with some other white Instagram influencer friend, and they took selfies at a café and lectured about the region and--- That’s supposed to be my country, my culture. I’m supposed to feel that way about my people, not you. I went to a wedding recently in July. This black man slapped me on the back after I cracked a joke and said, “Hey, where you from?”

“New Jersey.” He laughed. “No, but really though. Where are you from?” “New Jersey.” “I mean originally. Your background. What are you?” It was the first time I had been asked that question since I got back my DNA test results, and for some reason it hit me so much differently.

I really wanted to say, “I don’t know.” It’s ironic how knowing what I am made me feel more confused, more alone and more isolated than ever before. I am bad at speaking Spanish, and when I try to practice with other Spanish-speaking people they laugh at me and say, “You sound like a gringo” and say they can’t bear to practice with me. I don’t look Latino. I might look Indian or I might look Middle Eastern. With me, everyone assumes things about me, no matter what they are. Some people have the luxury of automatic and unspoken assumptions about their background. Then there’s me. Not quite tan, not quite white. I don’t raise enough suspicion at the airport to warrant a search but at the same time I have to jump over one extra hurdle when they ask me one extra question: “Where are you from?” or “How long are you staying here?” or “What are you here for?” It’s very subtle and deceptively innocent. Nobody else who is pasty white gets asked any questions. They just stamp their passport and wave them away. I’m just ambiguous enough to warrant that extra step - just in case, you know? I envy people so much who can have a clear culture and place to point and say, “I’ve been there. I’ve been where I come from.” I envy people who can recognize all the idiosyncrasies of their family’s region. I don’t belong to any country or culture or identity. There are only a few scant pieces of culture that my parents passed on to me. “Oh, on Christmas we do this” or “We say this once and a while. That was a common expression there.” I envy people with huge families who have not been estranged by government and bloodshed or lost to time. I envy people who can trace their families back to their grandfathers and great-grandfathers and great-great-grandmothers. As a kid I wish I was able to say something like, “My great-granddaddy fought Nazis in the war!” I will never know anyone beyond that one old great-grandmother who no longer recognized anyone’s face. Everyone else is a name on a tombstone, or a whisper in vague oral history. I envy people who can firmly say, “I am *insert nationality here*” Because I always mumble at that phrase. I am. . .a. . . I am from. . . . uh I am. . . I am.

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boogiewrites · 4 years

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Never Break the Chain Pt. 4

Part 4 of 5

Characters: Javier Peña x OFC

Summary: Esme is left with the harsh reality of her feelings with Javi and what loving him means. Lead by her heart and her gut she leaps into action to try to secure her hopes of having a future with him. But in their line of work, things can take a turn for the worse in a second.

Warnings/Tags: Injury. Canon Typical Violence. Life or Death.

Click on my icon then go to my Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.) Please like, comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! It helps out us writers A LOT!

To hold herself together in times of distress Esme had to fall apart from time to time when she was alone. Tonight was going to be one of those times. She secluded away in her small hideaway in the mountains. She had always enjoyed her own company, knowing the difference between being alone and being lonely, but the latter was heavy on her back as she sat red-eyed on the bed, looking out the plantation shuttered double doors in her bedroom.

Her mind couldn’t decide if talking to Javi had been a mistake or not. She felt every buried emotion in a rush that left her a sloppy, blotchy mess. There was no one around for kilometers to hear her, so she let it all out. The rosary she’d mentioned to Javi was occupying her hands as she bounced her legs, full of anxious energy.

Before, the consequences of knowing Javi were something she could deflect, although the coincidence of knowing a cop from over four thousand km away from her childhood would be a hard sell, she hadn’t worried drastically about it. The more intricate reality of how she felt about him was what she was wrestling with. The fact that she had seen him, touched him, talked to him were no longer what ifs’ or fantasies but hard facts. The fact she was struggling with most intensely was that she was still very much in love with him. Before he was a memory, a myth, a story to be told over drinks. He was now the man in the next town over, sharing her same sentiment in both love and life. They weren’t kids anymore, he’d been right about that. Which meant seeing their lives for what they were in the harsh light of day and not through rose-colored glasses. Where they had wanted to be was no longer a thing to strive for, it’d become a prison of their own making.

She didn’t know if it was her body getting worn or the years of repressed emotions that made her feel so damned exhausted. The thought of going back into the den of the same men that wanted her one love dead suddenly wasn’t as easy to sit with. There were real consequences now. For both of them.

Perhaps it was paranoia, but it’s kept her alive this long. She had her bug-out bag by the bed, rosary wrapped around her wrist, and slept with her shoes on. She rubbed the wooden beads like a worry stone; even though she hadn’t been sure what she believed in for many years. Especially not after the things she’d seen, or the things she’d done. There was a strange comfort knowing Javi had a similar sort of experience. Even if she wouldn’t have wished it on anyone. Maybe he would understand. Maybe he was just as tired as she was. Maybe… she had some hope for a future. She had to talk to him again. This time with a purpose, to ask him to leave with her instead of abandoning him again.

———

As she had following every breakdown, she’d dusted herself off and got back to it the next morning.

In a dress and heels that said, ‘Don't fucking question me.’ She walked into the stone-columned entryway in a powerful man's home. It was a nice morning, not a trace of her collapse the night before remained on her face. She sat poised, with understated jewels glinting in the sun. Yet, her favorite accessories were hidden in places the sun wouldn’t hit, those were her weapons.

She had been establishing herself to get to this client, networking, and performing feats to gain trust in a trust-less circle. Playing it cool, she kept her face set into a lovely neutral but curious. It was a grand promise of cash. She found herself in the right spot for the rule as old as time; supply and demand. If she could seize the articles that had been taken from their owners, she would be compensated with a bigger payday than she’d ever encountered. The sentimentality of the pieces, the danger in the retraction, and the previous failures of those that had come before her secured the pay to be something someone like her could not resist.

“They were in my family... generations ago… before their family decided to fuck over mine we were joined by marriage, then by blood. We have not been able to get them through legal or... other means. But you, Estelle, I believe you have a chance to be successful.”

It was flattering but she was already decided by her motives. Enough money to run. And far. Not to mention a comfortable life on the other side when she sold what she’d accumulated over the years and combined with her savings. She’d played it smart the last few years and pulled the plug on the extravagant lifestyle that had beckoned her to this sort of work in the first place. She saw it as a sign, a dazzling neon one directing her to do it. So with a smile and a handshake, she did.

These people she operated with were not the cartel, but that did not make them just as dangerous. They had their hands in every sort of money stream and political influence. They couldn’t go into this location she was to infiltrate guns blazing, they had to have more finesse and mystery. Which is why they hired out. No connections made for less chance of blowback and made it easier to deny the job was them. And by the time they had to worry about such things, she’d be long gone.

She was being personable, enjoying a cocktail by a sapphire-blue pool and eavesdropping on the conversations around her. While ignoring the guy trying to impress her that had perched next to her she was tuned in to the young man that had a two-way radio by the stone fence that enclosed the pool.

They spoke English from time to time which she found unusual. But if they were looking to not be understood it wasn’t the worst approach. The staff here wouldn’t be able to understand them. Most of the men presumably wouldn’t recognize it either. Esme however spoke fluent English. She was raised by a Mexican mother who pushed her to speak English to fit in in Texas. At home, she was one person, a fluent tongue, and outside she was the brown girl that was berated with “HABLA ENGLAISH?” By every white woman she ran into. It had saved her more than once; when she was younger and especially now.

“The pigs are out today.” A statement she knew wasn’t about the animal was caught.

“Pigs are out every day.”

“They think they’re up to something.”

Esme knew that the people that were being referred to were the drug runners. These mining types didn’t pay much mind to cops, they paid them off when they needed and they were mostly left alone. When you have the foresight to build a public image with legal means of income, it’s easier to hide the sketchy shit.

“The gringo is asking questions.”

One of the white boys must have been trying to gather intel in the force. It could be Javier's partner but she couldn’t know for sure.

“Boss? Do we need to let the boys in town know? Is there going to be anything we don’t want them getting mixed up in?”

He thinks for a moment, Esme seeing him out of the corner of her eye, a squint down the mountain and onto the sprawling city below. “Our boys are in the east today, yes?” a pause and a nod of acknowledgment. “Tell them to come home.”

With that order, her jaw tightens. Esme knew something was going to happen. These men might not be narco’s but they certainly knew them, and ordinarily, they would tip the other off to trouble. Business going as usual was best for all involved. Normally she’d head back to her hideaway, let it all play out. But she knew if there was some trap that Javi’s partner might be falling into, that meant trouble for Javi. She couldn’t stand by idly and wait with that knowledge.

She remained composed, finishing her drink before a schmoozy goodbye, a promise to catch up as soon as plans were made. She acted nonchalant until she was past all the checkpoints, she knew better than to act in any sort of rush. Her little cabana was tucked away out of sight from the road between the deeply nooked mountain homes of powerful men and the city. She tried calling into town, a risk she was willing to take while she scurried to change her clothes and add a gun to her ensemble. She asked for Pena first. When she was informed he was not there she asked for his partner, and the same answer found her. She hung up swiftly, heavily armed but light on information. She knew the east side of the city would be the smallest area she could narrow it down to. She hoped her mind didn’t fail her at calculating where to go.

On her motorbike she darted about the streets, eyes peeled, heading by Javi’s place and finding his car gone, and the oil spots now dry, in its wake. He hadn’t been home in a while. Was it the smartest idea to break into an officer’s apartment? No. But was she? Yes. Javi had always been a researcher, if they were going to be zeroing in on a place, he would’ve been to it already. He was an active learner, not passive. He’d never be satisfied with being told what to do, he had to get in and see, touch, taste, and smell for his own opinion to be formed. She took a quick loop around, finding nothing out of the ordinary and circling back to the front door. The place was nicer than she’d expected, it did smell like liquor and cigarettes but so did he off hours. A little mirror and a catch-all basket by the door on a small table was her target, and inside were matchbooks, places she��d watched him go before buried beneath but one she wasn’t as familiar with on top. A pool hall, which wasn’t Javier’s style, sat like a sore thumb. She took the hint, this must’ve been the place they were headed, or at least close to it. She pulled her hair back and looked at herself once in the mirror before a nod to reassure herself and once again she was back out among the busy streets.

She pulled up and parked by a small marketplace, a casual place to leave her bike while she set off on foot, eyes behind her glasses ready to pick up any little nuance. Sadly seeing a guy with an automatic rifle wasn’t automatically a tell for narco behavior, this part of town was rough, you had to defend yourself. The uptick in the number of guys sauntering in the streets with them did however raise a red flag. She took to the rooftops with light feet, sneaking about and hopping from ledge to tin roof, shimmying up pipes and broken walls to scan. Not many were out on their rooftops, making it easy for her to cover lots of space fast, but that was also a bad sign. Like before a natural disaster happens, the animals clear out. The sentiment was the same.

She found a nice place to camp out, shaded by the sun and out of sight of the street on a corner near the pool hall. She could hear the static of a two-way radio a few buildings over from time to time, each time it made her jolt and she was growing impatient. The only thing that kept her calm was that she hadn’t heard any gunshots, and even that was grasping at straws. She eyes a few streets down, higher-end vehicles in red and blue, one after another. This meant one of two things, narcos or cops. She leaves the safety of her cubbyhole and crawls about to find a way to move quickly. She wasn’t being the most stealthy, leaping from ledges, but she had to follow the cars. Her instincts had been right.

Men in and out of uniform pile out, talking quietly, moving swiftly. Now she had to worry about staying out of sight as she got closer. She saw men on the rooftops she hadn’t noticed before, with sights on their guns and she would bet itchy trigger fingers. The static of a distant radio blurts out, a hushed voice in Spanish says “They’re here. Moving into position.”

It was a trap. The situation made her stomach drop and her pulse quicken. She wanted to be close, to warn them… well, to warn Javi. She was about to insert herself into the narco’s game and that would put a huge target on her back. It would potentially ruin her chances of booking this career-ending job she’d landed. She pulls out her gun, switching the safety off, and lowering herself with burning thighs as she used all her slyness. She could get away with it if she was smart about it... and killed all the witnesses.

She knew between the choices of standing by and watching Javi die, or intervening and getting ousted, she could only live with herself in one of those situations. Better to go out fighting for someone she loved than to be a coward and die with regrets. She jumps ahead, closer to where they seemed to be funneling to, various bursts of static around her as she studies to keep a close eye on not coming across anyone lurking.

She sees that shiny, coiffed head of black hair she’d wanted to run her hands through just days before, the lean build and tight jeans wrapped up in a bulletproof vest. His head was on a swivel, she knew he could look after himself but wasn’t about to take chances. She finds a man on his stomach, gun through a small slot in the wall, and aimed in their direction. She takes her moment patiently, padding foot over foot closer and closer with her gun drawn and her knife at the ready in the other hand. He wore no identifying markings, he wasn’t one of them, he might’ve heard her if he was. He was too zeroed in, potentially coked up so she had to act discreetly. She paused until that coke nose of his itched, hand off the trigger for only a few seconds before she latched and covered his mouth, head back and stabbing in deep to keep him making any sounds. It’s not that she wanted to kill him, she just saw no other way for this interaction to go down.

From here she had a better vantage point and was trying hard to look away from Javi and keep her eyes on every alley and rooftop. She lines up her eye with the scope, seeing it was aimed right at the group, she notices a man across from her, just a slight bit of an angle, an accomplice she assumed. The group moved forward, inching closer to being in between the two guns' direct line of sight. There wasn’t even a need for the sights at this point, a spray could take most of them out in a few seconds. These were calculated kills.

“Dibs on the gringo.” a crackle over the radio in Spanish, then another, “Which? There’s so many.” a hiss of laughter and she hears it from the other side of a half wall. They must’ve had multiple men camped out, she knew they intended to kill as many as possible. She couldn’t scream out, she couldn’t shoot them, she had to find that millisecond between when they would shoot and let their position be known. “When they get to the cars. Wait. Then fire.”

“What if I don’t fuckin’ want to? I want to shoot this smug look off this mother fucker’s face.”

“We won’t get them all if you don’t wait.”

She had pieces of information and tried to see the whole picture. She believed in the car there was a remote bomb being held by one of these sicarios. It’d take a good piece of them out and render them blind. It was a plan that had worked many times, but this time she’d be happy to fuck up a well-laid plan.

“Get the white boy, he’s been snooping. I got the mustache. Asshole fucked my sister.” If this had been any other situation it would’ve made her laugh, or at least crack a smile. But now it gave her a target, a plan of action.

“Maybe if your sister wasn’t a whore.” one laughs then a hiss follows throughout the rooftops among the static.

“Fuck you, man. Shut up or I’ll make sure you get shot today too.”

She moved as quickly as she could, having to backtrack to not be seen and climb over the wall to sneak up on the boy who was claiming Javi as a prize. She hunched over him, taking a chance at being seen, but since she couldn’t make out the placements of any of the other voices, she took her chances. A tension-filled hush fell across the street, no one but the cops out now. She waited for the man to readjust his arm, a sure sign of pulling the trigger shortly. They were holding their breath for the bomb, and she was assuming it was the double-parked cars, waiting for the group to get between them and hit them from all angles.

He swallowed, then popped his neck, settling down, face away from the hole he aimed out of and she took only a second to make up her mind. She shot him in the head as he braced himself.

“TRAP!” she screamed with all the force she could manage, tasting blood as she hit the ground, the cops now on high alert to the rooftops, and the guns fired. She’d given them enough time to duck for cover, having to take out the gunfire from one side of the street herself. She heard the bullets whizzing by as she hunched and ran down to the street, an alleyway where Javi had huddled down a moment before she saw the men barrel down the stairs opposite them. They’d had the same idea. “JAVI!” she screams, gun out and trying to peak from behind a dumpster.

His eyes were wild for the second he met hers. Confusion is all that read on his face, unable to answer under the gunfire.

“FOLLOW ME!” she shouted, firing off rounds to cover him as she motioned him towards her.

“You wanna explain-?” He’s caught off by the bombs in the street going off, knocking him back.

“SHUT UP AND RUN!” she shouts, shoving him forward, “You’re surrounded. Head West!” it’s all they needed, him hitting the pavement as hard as he could and her grabbing him by the vest to jerk him the way she needed. She hoisted him up against walls, all while hearing the men shouting and the stray spray of bullets hitting the corners they’d just passed. She knew they weren’t concentrated west, the men would instinctively run east towards the station, towards the backup, but she knew better.

She raced ahead, a small blocked-off space high up is what she yanks him down into. They don’t speak for a moment, catching their breath and her pushing him down to look out to see if anyone had been able to keep up with them.

“Now can I ask a fucking question?!” he rasps out.

“I got wind of something going down in the east today. So I came. And you should be kissing my ass for saving yours!”

“We were about to-”

“About to get blown the fuck up. Whatever you thought that was, it was a trap.”

“How did you know?” his eyes narrowed at her accusingly.

“I know that look and no, I’m not working with the narcos. I overheard some cronies at my meeting this morning. I narrowed down the options, ran across town and scoped it out, took out two guys, and then...lit the keg and ran.”

He blinks rapidly in response, processing the information.

“Yeah, you’re welcome. They wanted to kill you and your partner pretty bad.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

“Apparently you fucked one of their sisters?”

"I stand by my response.”

She smiles at him, something he doesn’t expect. He doesn’t have time to react until a few stray bullets hit something near them causing them to hunker down again.

“You could’ve gotten killed you know.”

“I’ve done it before.”

“Not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.” she rolls her eyes.

“I’m serious.” he grabs her wrist. “I have to deal with you being with these other... assholes and not the ones I deal with. Don’t make me worry twice about you.”

“I’m a big girl. I can handle it. I promise. I wasn’t about to let you walk into an ambush.” she states defensively.

“I’ve made it out before.” he huffs defensively.

“You will until one day you won’t.” when she meets his eyes again, after seeing his soot-covered knuckles wrapped around her wrist, she adds “If I can keep your ungrateful ass around long enough to make up for all the shit I put you through I’m gonna do it.”

He looks her up and down, but not how he had countless times with women, but biding his time to figure out what about that statement he wanted to ask her first. “What do you want me around for if you’re not gonna be there?” It was direct and hurtful, but also a fair point.

She stops looking out and meets his dark eyes to hers, she looked almost offended. “I want to be around,” she says softly. “I just wasn’t sure how.”

“Stay with me. Stop running. I’ll keep you safe.” he moves his hand from her wrist to interlock his fingers into hers.

“Over 20 years and you still haven’t come up with anything else?” she jokes and squeezes his hand. “I did want to talk to you about it. About… us...” she spoke softly and paused, ears perked up to the movement outside.

“What do y-”

“Shh.” a quick and low serious squeeze of his hand. “Someone’s close.”

“Where the fuck are you Javi?” blares out over his radio on his chest. Not a second later, bullets are coming through the back of their hiding spot, scrambling to get out, despite her fighting him, he covers her.

“Rooftop. West.” is grunted out as he and Esme wrestle to be the one to shoot the perpetrator.

She hits his chest and then right in the head, falling in a slump before she notices Javi is no longer hovering and trying to keep her down. A quick turn, intaking the rest of the space, knowing more would be on their way soon, and whether they were cops or sicarios she couldn’t let them find her. In her rush she hasn’t noticed Javi on the ground, she sees his face for only a second, slightly confused before looking at up her the moment she sees his side and hands covered in blood.

“Oh fuck, Javi... no.” She spits out and immediately ducks over him

“S’not... good news sweetheart.” He gives her a smirk, one she’d seen a thousand times on a younger version of his face. She knew with that expression alone it was indeed not good.

She doesn’t get time to react, to even breathe before more shots make her go into survival mode. She covers him, dragging him to a nearby brick wall to at least be safe from one side while she covered the others.

“Can you watch behind me while I look at this?”

“Yeah.” A pause while he holds his gun out. “I can try.”

“Was that your partner on the radio?”

“Yeah should be here soon.”

“Let’s hope so.” She grits her teeth and can’t tell if the shot went straight through, which meant he would probably be okay if it hit in and was now embedded in his stomach. Either way, this wasn’t ideal, to say the least.

“There’s-“

Before he gets it out she’s turned and shooting more men trying to get on the roof, none having the foreign blonde hair and pale skin of his partner.

“You should get out of here... y’know. They’ll ask questions.”

“I’m not leaving you.” She applies pressure to his side and he lets his head fall back to the wall with a heavy breath.

“Now is a hell of a time to start.”

She gives him a hard brow but would normally laugh because he had a point. “I never... ugh.” She grunts in frustration, shooting another man a few rooftops over. “I never wanted to leave you.” She continues trying to figure out the best way to slow the bleeding down. “It's the last thing I wanted to do. You know that right?” She asks to receive no response.

She sees he’s lost consciousness. Now it was proving to be worse than she had hoped. Cursing under her breathe, fighting back tears, the burning making a splitting headache form in her forehead, she uses the only thing in sight she can, taking her shirt off and ripping it tie a makeshift tourniquet around him.

She hears a bark from a man that sounds almost familiar and a dead giveaway as a cop. His partner was almost there. “You’ll be fine Javi.” She whispers, not knowing if she believed it or if he could even hear her. She kisses his cheek and holds his head close for a moment. A few seconds of kissing his hair, trying to forge a deep memory from a rushed moment. Just in case.

“JAVI?!” She hears shouted.

“UP HERE!” she shouts, knowing she had to get away but wasn’t going to leave him until she had to. She was soon not given a choice when orders were barked at her on sight.

She used her savvy, knowing how to get away, even if it was a stretch. “He’s shot.” She says backing away with her hands up to the edge of the roof. “Murphy, please don’t let him die.” She begs as the man’s face softens for a moment, she recognized he must have understood who she was.

The man coming up behind him however didn’t. He fires off a shot, hitting her and forcing her to make an abrupt jump from the rooftop.

“SHIT!” Murphy barks again and shoves the other man’s gun to aim down at the ground. “Don’t shoot HER!” He shouts in the man’s face. “She was helping him! Can’t you see that?!” He runs to the edge, looking down and seeing nothing but a dumpster and a few drops of blood on the pavement. Javi had been right. She was good.

@jaegeeeeer @likedovesinthewnd @inkededucatednnerdy @biharryjames @ladamari68 @past-romantic @weliketomoveit @shikin83

#Javier Pena #Javier Pena Fanfic #javier pena x reader #javier pena fic #javier pena fan fic

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pwchronicle · 6 years

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Major League Wrestling “SuperFight” and “Fusion” TV Taping Report February 2nd in Philadelphia, PA

MLW came to the 2300 Arena tonight for the first time since their 2017 relaunch that has led to running events across the country, a weekly TV show, and a fruitful relationship with their cable home beIN Sports that has led to live shows airing on nights like this. They ended up drawing a large crowd, and I was impressed by the clean, slick-looking ring, the entrance setup, and the different kind of pre-show playlist (Tyler the Creator, Ghostface Killah, etc.). Before matches got underway, ring announcer Timothy Barr (also of EVOLVE and WWN) and correspondent Kacey Lennox threw shirts out to the crowd. Rich Bocchini and Matt Striker handled commentary from ringside. Two matches were taped starting at 7:30 PM prior to SuperFight going live on TV.

1. Rich Swann beat Lance Anoa’i when Anoa’i missed a 450 splash and Swann rolled him up afterward. Swann very gradually played more of the heel here, and he just barely used the bottom rope for leverage for his pin. Anoa’i, who had a tribute for Roman Reigns on his shorts, impressed the crowd with his agility.

2. Alexander Hammerstone beat Ariel Dominguez with a sit-out side slam from a vertical suplex position. Hammerstone, a newcomer to MLW from Phoenix, AZ who has wrestled out west a lot, looked like a taller Tyler Durden and towered over Dominguez, who I believe is mainly used in positions like this. Hammerstone dominated him, from a massive release German suplex, to a delayed pump handle exploder suplex, to quickly killing Dominguez’s comeback with a forearm strike. Hammerstone truly has shoulders like boulders.

After this came the live TV airing of SuperFight, with perhaps the three most heavily advertised matches on the card. Teddy Hart and Davey Boy Smith Jr. (with Brian Pillman Jr.) won the MLW World Tag Team Titles from Pentagon Jr. and Rey Fenix in a predictably crazy opener. Cool to see Smith come out with a bulldog, in addition to Hart with his cat. Despite some slight miscommunication and loose rules, the crowd was very much into this. Both teams came off as beloved, though the new Hart Foundation used plenty of dirty tactics: Pillman pulling the ref out during a pin count, Smith unmasking Pentagon, and Hart giving Fenix a low blow prior to the spectacular finish. Hart Foundation dripping in gold. Kotto Brazil and Ricky Martinez received a big spotlight for their grudge match, and I thought they worked pretty hard, but I didn’t think this match didn’t have the same level of star power to draw in the crowd more, and I thought the finish (Selina De La Renta spraying something in Brazil’s good eye) was fairly silly. Low Ki, De La Renta’s other client and the man “undefeated in MLW for 15 years” defending his MLW World Heavyweight Title against Tom Lawlor went by quicker than I anticipated, but I thought these two made the most of their time. Big fight feel, Low Ki punching through a door, and Lawlor getting the victory and the title via choke out. With a lot of his other MMA-to-pro wrestling contemporaries signed with WWE, Lawlor really seems to be making a name for himself outside of the corporate behemoth. Following these three bouts (matches 3-5), they put on several more matches for later editions of MLW Fusion.

6. Mance Warner beat Jimmy Yuta with a lariat. I think Wheeler Yuta has been here, as Jimmy, since the relaunch, whereas Warner was making his much-promoted MLW debut, dressed up like Bunkhouse Buck. More of a showcase match for Warner, as he took the action to the floor and made it into a bit of a brawl. He pulled out his patented eye poke and delivered a running knee lift prior to the finish. Afterward, Kacey Lennox interviewed Warner on the stage, and he cut a promo into the camera that the crowd couldn’t hear.

7. Jacob Fatu & The Almighty Sheik beat two enhancement wrestlers after Fatu pinned one of them after a big moonsault. Fatu is another member of the Anoa’i family, new to MLW, and borrowing a lot of his look from Umaga. This Sheik would be the same Sheik who held the NWA World Heavyweight Title under auspicious means. These two were announced as representing a new unit called Contra, and they decimated their opponents, with Sheik using a spike during the match. They appeared to be a throwback to the likes of the the original Sheik, Bruiser Brody, and the like, as they just kept causing chaos after the match. The opponent who wasn’t pinned was the recipient of a fireball from Sheik, Fatu did a moonsault on the other guy again as he was being stretchered out of the ring, and then this poor guy was slammed on the floor, all while the timekeeper kept ringing the bell in his failed attempts to control the action.

- They aired the backstage confrontation between The Hart Foundation and Maxwell Jacob Friedman, that I understand aired during the live airing. Good reception from the crowd.

8. Myron Reed beat DJZ with a rollup reversal with a handful of tights. To be fair, DJZ had a hold of Reed’s tights on his initial rollup attempt, but Reed was subtly acting heel in the match. Very slick and athletic action from both of these guys.

9. Ace Romero beat Simon Gotch by disqualification. Gotch has changed up his hairstyle and did away with his old mustache, and he was also announced as representing Contra. Romero was more popular here, though I’m not sure how well the crowd received these two odd bodies. Gotcha and Romero both fought hard like it was a grudge match, leading to Romero bleeding from the nose, but it all ended with Jacob Fatu and Almighty Sheik coming back out to attack Romero. Sheik spiked Romero’s head, drawing even more blood, as Gotch took the mic and directed his two colleagues. He said the three of them are the new global merchants of violence, demanding the crowd to carve this moment in their flesh so as to remember it (no thanks, we have phones). Gotch promised that they would burn professional wrestling to the ground and remake it in their image. He proclaimed themselves Contra, and that the hostile takeover has begun.

- Barr announced that MLW would return to the 2300 Arena on June 1st. This led into a very brief intermission, during which Teddy Hart made himself available to fans.

10. Ace Austin beat Rich Swann after a backwards top rope splash. Solid action that won the crowd over, though I thought they dueling dropkicks and dueling kip ups were really silly, trying for the type of stuff Ricochet and Will Ospreay did to much greater effect. The finish was hampered by a really awkward three-count, as if the ref forgot this was the finish. Afterward, Rich Bocchini got into the ring to speak with Swann, who slapped the ref to the mat. Bocchini tried asking Swann about his change in attitude, but Swann just shoved him down and proceeded to jaw with fans at ringside.

11. Davey Boy Smith Jr. & Brian Pillman Jr. beat Tommy Dreamer & The Sandman after Smith powerbombed Dreamer onto two chairs. Smith and Sandman were the respective mystery partners for the feuding Pillman and Dreamer. Pillman cut a promo before introducing Smith, saying he wasn’t going to bring out an old ECW junkie. He channeled his father’s first promo in ECW (which I happened to rematch recently), calling the crowd smart marks and saying he was exercising his constitutional rights to pick an appropriate partner, in the city where the Constitution was written. Good delivery from him despite not having as hoarse a voice. Sandman did his full entrance (a lot of MLW entrance music is actual songs with the lyrics removed), and for some reason Teddy Hart came through the crowd with his cat, walking right past me and walking around the front row of fans while still behind the barricade. Sandman acted like he hurt his hand from chopping Pillman, and I felt he really showed his age here, even more so than in his recent ROH appearances. Dreamer was more of the workhorse for his team, including taking a delayed vertical suplex from Smith. Sandman even complimented Smith’s strength. Sandman eventually started chasing Pillman around the ring as Pillman retrieved various plunder from under the ring, ending with him pulling the Blue Meanie out from under the ring; he ultimately just punched Pillman after being used as a shield from Sandman. After the finish, there was a standing ovation for Dreamer, partially encouraged by the announce team.

12. Gringo Loco beat Puma King after a Spanish Fly off the top turnbuckle. It sounded like Barr mixed up the order of his ring announcements for these two heavyset luchadors. I thought they worked quite well together and came off well, up until the finish when Puma King kept slipping off the top and had to get back up for it.

- Barr announced that Teddy Hart would defend the MLW World Middleweight Championship against Maxwell Jacob Friedman in the main event. Hart came off as the crowd favorite as Barr gauged who they predict would win.

13. Rey Horus beat Aerostar with a victory roll bomb off the top turnbuckle. I thought this had the slickest, cleanest wrestling out of any match on the card. Very strong stuff from both guys. Aerostar wrestled with lights on his mask and gear, which was different. Both luchadors showed respect to each other afterward, may they find solace outside of the Temple.

- Barr announced that tonight set a new box office record for MLW, and he thanked the crowd on behalf of the everyone.

14. Teddy Hart beat Maxwell Jacob Friedman to retain the MLW World Middleweight Title with a springboard twisting senton. MJF cut a promo before Hart came out, claiming that if you like ECW, you’re white trash. He called Hart a jailbird, claimed he never officially lost his title, and challenged Hart to come out on his own without Smith and Pillman. Hart did so, but he still came out with his cat, who he placed on the top turnbuckle during in-ring introductions. Much like in the tag title match earlier in the night, these two loved their piledrivers. MJF countered Hart’s big moves by grounding him with headlocks. The ref went down when MJF collided with him (barely, from the looks of it) after Hart had hit him with a Canadian Destroyer. With the ref down, MLF attempted to use a chair, but Hart kicked him in the groin and used the chair himself. He then gave MJF an electric chair lung blower prior to the finish. Good main event with good character work that ended the night on a high note.

By all accounts, this was a pretty successful excursion to Philadelphia, especially given the purported business and the return date. For a company that bills itself as Major League and has such slick production, there were lots of moments in matches that felt off or awkward, including two botched finishes. They ultimately shouldn’t matter as much if they don’t repeat too often, and they likely don’t leave that big an impression on the majority of the live crowd and television audience. The title changes during the live airing say a lot about who the top stars are, and possibly what the future may hold for Pentagon Jr. and Rey Fenix. This card still made a good impression on me that will keep me focused on Fusion and the return date in June.

#wrestling #MLW #major league wrestling #mlw fusion #MLW SuperFight #superfight #fusion

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thenightowlintown · 3 years

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Written to satisfy the queries non Bisaya speaking readers who have been wondering what's happening here. To let them have a feel of the eerie atmosphere that have engulfed us.

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DON'T OPEN THE DOOR!

By: Gringo Villa

When you hear a mysterious knock on the door in the dead of night, whatever happens don't open it. Call the police and cry aloud for help! It's "MANUKTOKAY" the killer!

These chilling words of caution have been ringing in the ears and minds of the people in Misamis Occidental since March this year.

It all started with reports of strange knocking on doors in the middle of the night - by unknown beings hiding in the shadows. The riddle of the manuktokay or door knocker becomes viral in social media - when rumor turns into horror.

On a stormy night of March 31, 2021, a young mother and her 7 year old son were attacked at home and murdered in cold blood. The suspect is the fabled manuktokay.

The mother sustained no less than 20 stabwounds while the child had 3. There were signs of forced entry and more than one perpetrators. Up to now the case remains unsolved despite the 200k reward.

The heinous crime took place in a ricefarm village of Nailon, Tudela, Misamis Occ.

Days later 2 strangers were caught by the police in the same place for violating the curfew. Both dressed in black and physically fitting the discription of the manuktokay.

Besides unlicensed pistols, curious objects were also found in their posession including amulets and keirchiefs scribbled with latin words and occult symbols.

This phenomenon must be the handiwork of a satanic cult group. The alarmed people immediately conclude.

With the capture of these two, the nightly knocking is expected to stop but instead it becomes more frequent and even spread to

nearby localities. The culprits must be many.

From Tudela to Clarin and Ozamiz, the manuktokay sow terror to residents of these once sleepy towns robbing them of sleep. Facebook is flooded with posts on sightings and encounters of the manuktokays, including narrow escapes of would be victims.

They tell of superhuman traits and incredible agility of the intruders making them impossible to catch. It's disheartening to think that what we are after are not mere humans after all - but monsters from the realm of darkness.

From video clips you can hear the loud knocking and banging accompanied by hysterical cries of terrified occupants. Commotions here and there as police and locals chase the manuktokays - but captured none.

Another night is coming soon. As the color of darkness grows deeper, the claws of anxiety also tighten their grip on human senses. Children tearfully grope for their mothers.

They will never forget this macabre experiece for as long as they live.

Somewhere out there, otherworldly beings, minions of the devil are prowling in the dark - seeking for blood. You see their creepy silhouettes in your nightmare.

The stricken people clamor for leaders to do something and to you they are begging; "Please pray for us!"

#philippines #occult #paranormal #mystery #I've experienced this and it's really horrifying #send prayers #kulto

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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Five Midnights Author Ann Dávila Cardinal Talks YA Horror

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Looking for a spooky read for October? Look no further than Ann Cardinal's YA horror Five Midnights.

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When you’re looking for a creepy read this October, you might turn to your typical Stephen King or get nostalgic with a tattered copy of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. However if you’re looking for something different – something with a moody atmosphere, a culturally significant monster and enough drama to cement the story in reality – you’d be looking for a copy of Five Midnights by Ann Dávila Cardinal.

Lupe is visiting her uncle in Puerto Rico when she learns of a series of murders of young men in the area. The murders appear to casualties of living a life of drug use, until another unsettling pattern emerges. All the young men were childhood friends.

What follows is a story steeped in lore – introducing a boogeyman of sorts called El Cuco, who pointedly preys on kids and has a particular affinity for those enshrined in the world of drugs.

Themes of cultural identity and the true monster of addiction are explored here. It’s not just an actual monster stalking these kids, but the grounded reality of an island on hard times, where teens can easily fall into the world of drugs in order to escape. Some blame these hard times on gringos, which makes Lupe’s time challenging as she appears white. She butts heads with a girl named Marisol, whose anger is a short fuse ready to go at any time.

Parallel to Lupe’s story is Javier, a Puerto Rican teen caught up in the issues of a life post-drug use, seeing his friends preyed upon by a mysterious assailant. His side of the story is very touching – he’s a good kid who still continues to struggle with leaving his addictions behind. When it becomes clear that he’s on the list of kids being killed, the proverbial ticking clock counting down to his 18th birthday ups the stakes.

All this supernatural and realistic horror is tied together with a truly lovely portrayal of Puerto Rico, described in such detail as to put you on the very streets that Lupe and Javier walk down. Cultural significance, like with funerary services being more lighthearted and celebratory rather than grim, round out this story. You can taste the food they describe, while also feeling the cold claws of a hungry monster reach for your back.

We talked with Cardinal about her book and dove into the supernatural side of Puerto Rico in Five Midnights.

Den of Geek: Lupe’s cultural identity is a major issue for her to deal with throughout the book, as she figures out her roots but also deals with people lumping her in with the white people they see as having ruined Puerto Rico. I noticed in your bio you describe yourself as “Gringa-Rican” just like Lupe. Are her experiences based on your own?

Cardinal: Only the spirit of them. My Puerto Rican family embraced me at the worst time of my life, when my mother was incapable of parenting me, and they accepted me totally and completely. The judgement I felt as a gringa was from outside of my family, and I was generally young enough it bounced off. It wasn’t until I was older and tried to own this identity that I got the worst kind of “you don’t belong” response. Not as much from people on the island, more from the community on the mainland, and, if I’m being honest, from within myself. But with age I’ve come to peace with that. I know that the island runs through my veins next to my father’s blood. I feel closest to that side of my family because of what they got me through and if I’m not Puerto Rican enough for some people, that’s okay. But it took me years to get here and I wanted Lupe to come to that understanding at a younger age.

Part of what I loved about this book was the authentic nature in the description of Puerto Rico. Even when a funeral is taking place, there’s clear cultural significance tied to it. Javier describes the PR version of a funeral, with its laughter and food -- as a more honest experience than the American version.

I’m so glad you felt I captured that. Puerto Rican culture is so honest and rich it reaches beyond death. And so many things that are whispered about here, are not there. When you gain weight they say, “Ay m’ija! You’re getting fat!” This is not considered hurtful, simply truthful and said out of affection and concern. And food? Well, food is at the center of every family gathering. My editor at Tor Teen, Ali Fisher, really pushed me to describe the food. “Make my mouth water and run out for alcapurrias!”

I think you made some nice commentary here on mental health with Javier’s mother and Marisol’s blackout rages. Was this the intention with these two characters?

Without giving away too much, Marisol’s fits come from outside of her, they are not a mental health issue. She is an angry character at her core, yes, but for good reason. At this point in my life Marisol is the one I identify with the most. Puerto Ricans are American citizens, but you’d never know it from how they’ve been forgotten. Marisol has a right to be pissed, but, as you find out through the book, there is more to her rage than just colonization.

But Javier’s mother? She’s the opposite in some ways. She’s what I imagine comes from living in a land of denial, something that can particularly happen in families struggling with addiction. She misunderstands the difference between a positive attitude and sticking your head in the sand. I feel badly for her more than any of the other characters. She was tough to write.

As a recovering drug addict, Javier made an especially sympathetic character, especially each crucial time his sobriety is tested. Why do you think it’s important to have a character like this -- who might otherwise be painted “a bad guy” -- in YA fiction?

Addiction is a disease that takes control of your body and mind like a parasite (sorry, horror writer, you know). To battle that monster so young is so incredibly difficult. It was very, very hard to push him to the point of using, but I felt it necessary for the story, and, honestly, for it to be realistic. I wanted teen readers to see that these are not just adult problems, they can come quite young. Addiction is a foe that never quite goes away, just lays dormant in our mind and bodies. I wanted the reader to feel for Javier—and Izzy and Lupe’s father, for that matter—to understand what that pull was for him when all hell was breaking loose and he just wanted to escape. He’s the most vulnerable character in many ways, so if a junkie is often depicted as “bad” I’m glad I had the opportunity to show the humanity of one.

It seems to me that El Cuco represents the perfect last coming-of-age hurdle for the kids before they turn 18. What made you decide on El Cuco as your monster?

I find him fascinating. Parents threaten their kids with, “if you don’t behave, El Cuco is going to get you!” What a dark and horrifying thing to say, but it seemed particularly poignant from the teen perspective, kind of like their parents’ last-ditch effort to assert power over their lives, particularly when they see them heading in a bad direction. Then I wondered, what if it went terribly wrong?

What theme would you like to resonate most with your young readers?

That identity is yours to decide. What you are inside is what you are, no matter what anyone tells you. And addiction is a monster that can be overcome if you’re willing to come face-to-face with it, and having family—chosen or blood—behind you is invaluable.

Thank you for your time. I enjoyed reading Five Midnights!

Thank you! I loved your excellent questions and appreciate your thoughtful reading of the book!

Five Midnights was published June 4, 2019 by Tor Teen. Find out more about it here.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Interview Bridget LaMonica

Oct 14, 2019

Young Adult Fiction

Tor Teen

from Books https://ift.tt/31h0Wn8

#aion-rsa #Books

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rissaroundtheworld · 7 years

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The Journey to Colombia: How a One Day Trip Turned into Four, and All of the Rules We Broke Along the Way

It feels like we just arrived in San Blas, but here we are in Cartagena, Colombia. This trip is one of both personal necessity and immigration law evasion: Nate recently invested in some property in Medellin and needed to oversee the final stages of the renovation, and I decided that would be the perfect opportunity to go back home and see my family and friends. Seems like a simple idea, but this is Panama! Land of beautiful beaches and nonsensical rules. The country recently introduced a law stating that foreigners must leave the country every six months, and that when we leave, we must stay out for a month. This is incredibly inconvenient when you're operating a semi-illegal business (1) in said country. But, we decided to make the best of it and get some (actual) sailing and some new adventures under our belt. I'll briefly describe our original plan, and then go into detail on exactly how this all changed, how we're now 4+ days into this journey, and I will even number all of the rules we broke while doing so (see #1 above).

THE ORIGINAL PLAN (OP) We wrapped up our final charter, a really really fun group who indulged my love of Bananagrams and also brought me sliced bread. At this point, this (or ice cream) may be the way into my icy cold heart. We spent a few days regrouping, during which we mostly ate leftovers, didn't wash dishes, and watched a ridiculous amount of my new favorite show, Qi. Our plan was as follows: knock off a few "must-do" items prior to leaving, including laundry, obtaining food (don't mistake this for grocery shopping, that would give you a false impression of the ridiculous lengths we go to to get food here), doing a few things on the internet, and getting our exit paperwork: a small but very important document called a Zarpe. The Zarpe (the only item on this list that absolutely could not be skipped) would be obtained on an island in northern San Blas called Por Venir, and from there we would sail directly across the ocean to Cartagena, Colombia. The trip would be non stop for about 36 hours, and when we arrived we would immediately go out to eat and I wouldn't cook the food and I wouldn't do the dishes and we would walk on solid ground and maybe I would even wear pants. Maybe. Easy, yeah! ... no.

Day 0: Gringos love the internet

While we were regrouping, we were fairly close to Por Venir (the check out point), but we REALLY needed to do some internet work (part of which was looking at the weather to know exactly when to leave), and so we decided to make the half day sail down to Green Island, where we knew we could (usually) get 3G. A quick note on Panamanian internet: first of all, 3G is a real luxury that should not be taken for granted (don't even begin to dream about 4G you goofballs.) Secondly, the cell phone plans here are different than those in the states. You pay per gigabyte by purchasing cards with a certain value associated with them. If you're running low you can sign onto the internet and re-up, but if you run out entirely... you're completely screwed because, guess what, you don't have internet! A stellar business model if I've ever heard of one. We've always felt pretty safe as we have 3 devices on board: two phones and a small wireless device which takes the same sim card. When one runs out, one of the others saves the day. But, fairly quickly into our stay in San Blas, Nate's phone decided to pull a Chris Cornell (too soon?!?) and is no longer with us. And as you may have gleaned by now... phone stores are DEFINITELY not a thing here here. So, down to 2 devices. A few days before our charter guests arrived, our wifi device decided to lock our account. Now our gringo-born thirst for internet was residing entirely in the hands (case?) of my little iPhone 5S. We sailed far away from the checkout point, signed online... and realized my phone was out of data. Zero devices. We both sat in front of our respective electronics repeating back and forth "hey mine's not working, is yours?" "You're taking up too much data, sign off so I can send this email." "Is Instagram really that important right now?" "Raise your phone up the mast, it probably just needs to be higher." Until, finally, we had to accept our fate: an internet-free evening. A box of wine and a kayak trip masked our frustration, and the next day we decided to backtrack entirely and just begin the process of checking out.

Day 1, take 1: Getting a Zarpe in a really hot place I'm not entirely sure how much of our previous experiences were illegal, but we had to rewrite our alibi for when we met with the migration officer, so I have reason to believe we've been a bit naughty. (2) I chose not to inquire too far into this. Luckily, when being asked difficult and important questions by a foreign official in another country, you can play the language barrier card! When he asked how long we've been here, I stared blankly and said "uhhh... no entiendo?" He seemed satisfied with my response. (3) We laid out our passports, all the necessary documents, and requested our Zarpe. My blank stare was promptly returned to me and the officer said that they no longer issued Zarpes. He pointed to a door which had cleared once said "maritime migration (migración marítima)" but had been hastily painted over with a nearly sheer coat of white paint. He explained to us that the migration officials found Por Venir to be too hot... so they left. You read that correctly. An official government organization (in a tropical country close to the equator!) closed their doors due to heat. Oh, Panama. The migration officer laid out our options for us. Option 1: backtrack another 50+ miles to Puerto Lindo, a fairly disgusting place which we had already visited, get our Zarpe, and then head straight across to Colombia from there. Option 2: rather than sail directly across the ocean to Cartagena, we could first sail south to the Panamanian/Colombia border (think Darien Gap! Yay human trafficking!), obtain our Zarpe there (he said he was PRETTY sure we could, but wouldn't commit 100%), and then sail north to Cartagena. Essentially taking the tangent of a triangle rather than the hypotenuse (I've been kind of bored and reading an Applied Physics book). Option 3: Roll the dice and head to Colombia without a Zarpe, and deal with the repercussions when we get there. The migration officer seemed particularly excited about option 3 and kept suggesting we try while grinning and shrugging his shoulders, but for some strangely rational reason we opted for option two. A new place, a new adventure(!!), and a longer but more broken up trip.

Day 1, take 2: An uneventful journey to the middle of nowhere

The second first day of our journey was incredibly unusual. What I mean by that is, nothing went wrong. We woke up on time. We made a healthy breakfast while the sun was rising, and as soon as we had a little light we headed out. We had some wind. When we didn't, the engines cooperated. The weather was beautiful, the journey was long (12 hours) but pretty, and we reached our destination, Los Pinos, just before sunset. We caught a great tuna on the way, and we had some cheese that needed to go soon, so we enjoyed some perfectly seared tuna with a side of disgustingly unhealthy mac and cheese. Balance, right?

Days 2 and 3: To Zarpe or not to Zarpe

Day 2 began with a bang, literally. Our intentions to wake up early were aided by a small and yet unresolved bug issue. The actual event is still unclear, but it resulted in two grown adults flailing around a tiny bedroom, jumping and throwing things and falling into doors. We might have bruises, and in true Nomad form minimal clothes were involved. I truly wish I could have been a fly (or the potential cockroach in question) on a wall for this one. The perp was never found and we quickly realized that going back to bed was not an option, so we pulled up the anchor and headed out around 4 am. Our destination was Puerto Obaldia, where we were prepared to either get our Zarpe or decide how many more immigration laws we were willing to roll the dice on. This leg was only about 6 hours and I spent four of them asleep on the couch, so it felt like we arrived there in the blink of an eye! Now was the tricky part: could we get a Zarpe? The conversation with migration in Por Venir was entirely in Spanish, and though we're both pretty good, there is always a risk of miscommunication. There's also always a risk that we heard correctly, but the migration officer didn't actually know/wasn't telling the truth/just didn't actually care (the last being most likely). Finally, it was Sunday, - would it even be open, or would all of Panama be observing the Sabbath!? We pulled up to the dock and walked around what felt like a seriously hopping town compared to what we've been used to, which means there were actual people and restaurants with chairs and probably menus, and even a store or two! What would we ever do!? But we were there to conduct business, so we walked directly to migration. The office was very clearly closed, so we asked the locals whether it was permanently closed, just closed because it was Sunday, or if the officials were maybe just taking a siesta. They yelled across to a restaurant (walls here are lacking), and we were delighted to hear that they would be opening in just a few hours. Apparently, migration only opens when a plane is arriving, or sometimes whenever they feel like it, but we luckily showed up on a flight-friendly day (where they fit an airport on this tiny island is still an unsolved mystery). We decided to sit down at the restaurant and grab a beer to celebrate possibly being able to continue our arduous journey. At this point, we were sure of one thing: we were not turning back. If they wouldn't issue us a Zarpe, we were going to go for option 3: just head to Colombia and hope we could bribe the officials into letting us in without arresting us (4). We sat down for a beer (which they didn't have), and immediately a Panamanian man sat down next to us. He said "I think I can help you" and slapped a badge down in front of us that said "migración marítima." Would this man give us our Zarpe?! We were skeptical, but it seemed like this might be our guy. Anyone with a badge has to be legit, right? The badge carrying "official" suggested that we let a small child take all of our important, irreplaceable documents to go make copies, which of course we agreed to. She returned and charged us $2 for about 5 pieces of paper, little nina hustler. The "officer" then suggested we follow the reggaeton music which was reverberating throughout the entire island if we wanted a beer (they were NOT observing the Sabbath), so we did. We enjoyed a few Balboas and lost at least a small amount of hearing while watching the clearly intoxicated locals groove/fall all over the place. Growing impatient, we took our beers over to the migration officer and asked if he would just help us now. Surprisingly, he agreed, and opened the migration office for us. We continued to enjoy our beverages while paying for an alarming amount of stamps. The only question the officer had for us (me) was "eres un actriz?" (Are you an actress?) to which I responded "no" and we both moved on. Finally, over a million(ish) stamps later we were handed our paperwork. The next step was to bring some paperwork over to the machine gun-wielding military police, where they would continue to add to our stamp collection and then inspect our boat. Though we had nothing to hide (....5?), we were hoping that we wouldn't have to deal with them pulling apart the boat and leaving us to put it back together. We had another country to get to!

The two officers jumped in the dingy and we drove them to Nomad. Upon arrival, we politely asked them to remove their shoes as we don't wear shoes on the boat. The plainclothes officer was happy to oblige, but the officer in full military regalia said he couldn't take his shoes off. Since he was military we assumed he was just going to come and dirty our floors, but instead he chose to stay in the dingy and simply ignore his work obligations (6). We rewarded him with some tuna (7?). The plainclothes officer boarded the boat, looked at absolutely nothing, then began to pry into our personal lives. Where we were from? Were we married? What were our full names so we could be friends on Facebook? (I am not kidding) Pleased with the acquisition of my WhatsApp number and two new social media contacts, he thanked us, told us to get married, and then left. And thus, our formal exit of Panama was successful. This was now early afternoon, and we had decided to relax and not sail the following day. Our current anchorage in front of Puerto Obaldia was not terribly inviting, and we knew there was a better island right around the corner.... but around the corner was Colombia. And there wasn't a check-in point, so technically, we were illegally crossing the border. Luckily, we both like to live dangerously, so on day 3 we spent 24+ hours unaccounted for in the country of Colombia, exploring the funky little area called Sapzurro (8). We hoped to find internet to check the weather, but this was clearly not an option here. We settled for ice cream and a beer (we've now switched from Balboa to Club Colombia), and enjoyed these luxuries while watching a bunch of Colombian toddlers grooving with moves I can't even dream of having. A miscommunication lead to me being left alone in Sapzurro while Nate had the dingy, which helped me semi accomplish my goal of hitchhiking! I won't give boat hitchhiking the same merit as with a car, but I did put myself at the mercy of a group of Argentinians (hi Pablo!) who kindly brought me back to my own boat just before I began to get nervous. Inspired by our time in town, we listened to the full Shaggy album before going to bed early to prepare for our final and longest leg of the trip.

Day 4: The final countdown

Day four was my day of most trepidation. We expected at least a full 24 hour sail, and due to the lack of internet/basic civilized things in Sapzurro, we weren't entirely sure of the weather. The only overnight sail I had participated in was from Bocas del Toro to Puerto Lindo, and there were a total of 5 people on the boat. We each took two hours shifts overnight, meaning only one shift each, but we were all still miserable by the next morning. Someone left the Hozier album on repeat for 2 straight shifts, and though I think its a great album, "Take Me To Church" now makes me want to throw myself into the depths of the ocean. This time, we only had the two of us to make it through the long night. Luckily, we had a LOT of daylight thanks to our 5 AM alarm (no one will believe me, but I've actually been waking up early nearly everyday! Its a whole new me!) We began our venture up the coast of Colombia, still very much illegal aliens. (9) Living on the edge! Entertainment options on the boat while on passage are fairly limited, so the goal is to fish. We "troll" - I always thought this meant the laborious process of obtaining every ounce of someone's personal information on the internet, but apparently it also means dragging fishing lines behind your boat. Neither of these things have anything to do with actual trolls, which I still find bothersome. About halfway through the day one of the lines started ripping, and for some still unknown reason Nate suggested I reel it in. Let me give you a quick run-down on my fishing experience: Prior to this new boat life, I had fished zero times ever. On our first passage, I was asked to reel in one of the lines to check for weeds. There was a tuna on my line, and I was so inexperienced that I didn't know until it was practically hanging off the edge of my rod. This should teach you that A) I don't know a goddamn thing about fishing, and B) this was now how I expected all fishing to be. As usual... joke’s on me. The fish on this line was a mother-effing marlin! As I began to reel it in it jumped out of the water, and I was pretty sure it was either a whale or an alien spacecraft. Nate estimated it to be 400 lbs or so. Surprisingly, he continued to deem me capable of reeling it in, and I fought this thing with everything I had (which was not impressive whatsoever). When I started really struggling, I was given the job of driving the boat while Nate pulled the fish in... an equally questionable distribution of power. The privileges one receives when there are no better alternatives! We hoped to get the marlin close enough to the boat to get a picture and we came really, really close, but we lost him in the last minute. About 30 minutes later, we rinsed and repeated. Let me just say - my right arm got a serious workout today!

Finally we nailed ourselves another tuna, so I think its fair to say we'll be devouring sushi in the near future. The rest of the ride was, once again, uneventful. The bat shit amazing seasickness patch that our prior guest Kristin shared with me (THANK YOU KRISTIN) was a complete lifesaver - turns out when you're not curled up in a ball of agony, sailing is actually quite fun! (Sidenote: currently seeking individuals with low co-pays to commit insurance fraud and get me more, any takers!?) The only thing better than traveling to a new place is being able to do it in your home. No need to pack, just bring it all! So I relaxed, did some leisure reading, continued my study of applied physics, made some hemp bracelets, ate a lot of food because there wasn't much else to do, took catnaps for the same reason, and marveled at the beautiful night with a super bright moon.

We saw dolphins and whales, zero other human beings, took 2-3 hour night shifts which felt like forever... but we made it. We're exhausted, cranky, and sweltering in this heat (we both agreed that we miss the temperatures in San Blas, which are generally in the mid nineties and 70+% humidity - that should say a lot). We have a lot of work to do while we're here, but have built in plenty of time for play - Cartagena is a really fun city with lots to do (and 3G everywhere!!!!) So adios for now my friends, but thanks to being in civilization - talk soon!!

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justanearth-boundmisfit · 7 years

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I feel like everyone moved on from being angry at Cas dying again and is focused on the cockless bullshit from jibcon... we learned nothing important and it all became a shipping thing again. Like did anyone even ask Misha how he felt at his character bring killed again??? No it was "Destiel this and Jensen that" like most of fandom is so fucking pathetic & obsessed over these fucking gringos... I for one am not forgiving TPTB or forgetting the shit they pulled again

im so over this fucking jibcon bullshit… i was keeping up with a bit of it and we learned nothing important about cas!!! just some vague ass answer about him possibly returning and being in that dumbass scooby-doo ep (y'all can keep that) like???? that’s it??? i felt so bad that misha also has to pretend to be ok & happy after being fired yet again like when will the man catch a break??

Hello there! I guess this 2 messages are from the same anon, if not, sorry. But the topic is the same. I just posted a mini rant about this, before reading your message, and I’m so glad I’m not alone in seeing how fucked up everything was. I’m going to say that I’m not part of this fandom anymore, I think totally different from 99% of them, and I can’t understand how they can forget how they made us cry and feel incredible pain with Cas’s death. I get that people wanted a distraction, I GET THAT, but to erase everything for a drunk man on a stage? Smh.

We lost the opportunity of so many questions, so many reactions. And don’t tell me please that Misha was on board with what jinsing was doing because he tried to tone it down several times and nothing worked. I felt sorry for Misha really. I know he laughed, but there were times when he was really: wtf?

I like Jibcon, don’t get me wrong, I always felt that it was the only convention where the cast could be a little more free, and have a couple of great days with the fans. Everything is always lighter at Jibcon. But this year I don’t know if J2M answered one fricking question. It was really evasive on purpose and the thing with the alcohol, I didn’t understand at all.

Listen, I’m not being all shocked about drinking, I have my drunk stories too, but I’m not a 38 (?) years old actor who has to be on a stage answering questions, and in general being awake for people that payed thousands of dollars to be there. How could you start drinking “apple juice” from 9 am onwards? What’s the matter there? Why everyone seem to approve of this. Again a mystery,

I guess the spn fandom cares more about ships, no matter what. They don’t love the characters or the actors, they love the possibility of them fucking. There I said it, is all that there is. Is all that I’m seeing.

As I say before to each its own. I’m gonna stay in this corner of tumblr with my little blog about Misha and suffering about Cas.

I’m stupid like that. Take care anon!

#Anonymous #it makes me really sad how people forget so easily #ranty replies #rant #opinions #wanky wank #negativity for ts #wank for ts

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theliterateape · 5 years

Text

The Mysterious Crack House Tavern

By David Himmel

This piece was originally written and performed for Truth or Lie in July 2019. Everything you are about to read is 100 percent true.

It was a Friday night and Zigler and I had had a long week at the day job of producing corporate communications for the MGM Mirage company. We were weighed down with corporate drone annoyances, family drama, relationship woes, financial uncertainty, and the general frustration of living in mid-2000s America. We needed to shed our skin and relieve our minds. Too many weeks had been like the one we just had. Too restricted, too prescribed, too… everyday. We needed trouble. We needed uncertainty.

“Let’s go out tonight,” I said to Zigler as he crushed another can of Diet Coke in his office in an attempt to stay engaged with his professional duties.

“Yeah. But let’s go somewhere we’ve never been,” he said.

“Works for me.”

I returned to my desk where I crushed another can of Red Bull in an attempt to stay awake just enough to make it look like I was engaged with my professional duties.

We ducked out a little before five and headed home to change out of our suits and into jeans and T-shirts. Zigler met me at my place. We grilled up a couple of cheeseburgers and bell peppers and had a few Miller Lites as we lined our stomachs with our feet resting on the first step of my backyard pool. (This was back when a twenty-something bonehead could afford to buy a decent house with a decent pool in his backyard.)

“Let’s go downtown,” I said. “But not Fremont Street. Not the hipster bars either. Too many people we know there.”

“And I want to go somewhere new. I’m feeling claustrophobic,” Zigler said.

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll go a little farther north-east. Undiscovered territory.”

“Perfect.”

With the stealth and precision of a ninja assassin, I puked.

We made a couple quick stops at some dingy casino bars and chatted with a few of the patrons. Most were two-thirds in the bag from a long day of being hunkered over the bar’s recessed poker machines. Like the guy in the sunglasses who called himself Shades because, he told me, he carried a blade. I told him that didn’t make sense. Then he showed me the blade. I told him it still didn’t make sense. Then he stabbed it into the bar’s wood. We headed out after that. Well, after we had two more beers with him.

We then found ourselves in a predominantly Mexican bar. I say predominantly because we were the only gringos in it. And I know it was specifically Mexican because of the Mexican flags covering almost every inch of every wall in the joint.

The place was packed. A hard-rocking mariachi band was tearing up the stage. It was a squeeze to get on the dancefloor where men and women were moving in perfect choreography. Cowboy boots, cowboy hats, traditional western Mexico fashion… Zigler and I and our freestyle dancing, Chuck Taylor shoes and punk band T-shirts did not belong there, though we were perfectly welcomed. The music was loud. No one spoke a word of English to us — and our Spanish was pure shit at best — yet we managed enough of a conversation with several revelers to share a few drunken hugs and buy each other a few rounds of Tecate.

Then someone ordered us tequila shots. Back then, I couldn’t handle shots. Strange, I know, that it took me until my thirties to be man enough to hold down a shot of anything. Zigler wasn’t a hard liquor guy at all. But we didn’t want to be rude. I forced mine back. Zigler tried to charm his way out of taking his. It wasn’t working. I took his and handed him my car keys. “You have to drive now,” I said. Then, with the stealth and precision of a ninja assassin, I puked. The tequila, the Tecate, the Miller Lites, and a few bits of mostly chewed burger and bell peppers… I puked it all up at my feet standing there at the bar. I grabbed a stack of cocktail napkins and dropped them at my feet. I mean, to leave it there would have been disgusting. No one saw a thing.

I ordered more beer and we returned to the dance floor.

On nights like this, we never wanted to spend too much time in one place, so after a little more dancing and a few more beers, we headed out. Zigler drove about two blocks before whipping into a large half-concrete half-gravel parking lot. We were on the edge of downtown just under the U.S. 95. Other than that landmark, we weren’t quite sure where we were. We’d never been to this dusty nook of town.

The building looked like a bunker. Metallic gray siding covered the exterior. The small glass block windows were six-feet up. Through them, we could see what looked like flashing disco lights. That’s what attracted Zigler.

“Let’s keep dancing,” he said.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Try not to puke here.”

“You saw that!?”

“C’mon, man. I know how you operate.”

Zigler and I entered and froze. Standing no more than three feet from the entrance we silently — telepathically — debated if we should make it an exit.

This bar was not the disco party we expected. There was no music. There was no dance floor. There were no tables or chairs or barstools. There was a small bar at the back with a light machine resting on its corner. About a dozen-and-a-half people meandered the open floorplan or sat on the floor with their backs against the wall watching the lights. It was eerily quiet. The most prominent sound was the whirring of the light machine.

“What the hell?” I asked him really, really quietly.

“I don’t know,” he said in the same whisper

We stood there a moment more. We did not belong here. That was obvious. There was something happening that was otherworldly to us. We should have been drawing attention but the zombie patrons paid us no mind. Weird as it was, this was the kind of uncertainty we were seeking.

“Get us some beers,” Zigler said. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

He disappeared to my right. I headed straight back to the bar. The bartender looked at me. I waited for some kind of greeting like, “What’ll it be?” or “Yeah, what!?” but I got nothing. Just a dead-eye stare.

“Two Miller Lites?”

The bartender looked at me strangely, almost surprised then retrieved two tall cans. “Four dollars.”

“I will cut off your fucking ears.”

I gave him a five.

I sipped my beer and studied the scene. Of the twenty or so people in the room, only three were drinking. Sort of. They were gathered together kitty-corner from me, slumped along the wall barely moving, gazing at the yellowed linoleum tile. From where I stood, everyone had the same dead-eye look of the bartender. These people weren’t drunk. They were whacked out on some other substance.

Then two of the meandering zombies dragged themselves toward me. I was in the most unfamiliar territory I’d ever been in in my entire life. It had always been a talent of mine, and Zigler’s, to adapt to any situation and make would-be enemies into friendlies. But this was different and I wasn’t sure why, and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen or what I needed to do.

Just as the zombies were about to reach me they scattered. Zigler had returned from the bathroom and had scared them off. I handed him his beer.

“Go to the bathroom,” he said to me.

“I don’t have to—”

“Go,” he interrupted.

“Why?”

“Go. But use the women’s bathroom.” Zigler and I had been best friends long enough and been in enough strange situations that we trusted each other completely. But I was suspect of this suggestion. “Go. Women’s room. And leave your beer.”

“So you can drink it? I know how you operate.” I headed off.

I slowly pushed open the door to the women’s restroom. “Hello?” I called out. No one answered so I pushed the door open completely and entered a small area with another door that led into the actual bathroom. So I slowly pushed that door open.

Standing there was the largest, most ferocious looking man I’d ever seen. He stood at least seven-feet tall, his bald head was the diameter of my chest. His raven-black skin glistened with sweat — streams tearing down his bare bulging arms. His eyes were not glassy like the others out there but had a fiery focus that raised the hair on my neck and caused my goosebumps to cower. He blocked the entire way into the bathroom. A hulking human eclipse of the ladies’ room. Standing in front of him was a tiny blond woman. She came just to his belly. Her skin was sickly pale, her eyes glassy and sunken like her cheeks. As I sized up the beast-man, she darted around me and locked the door behind me. I was trapped. She returned to him.

Together, they looked like Krang from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You know, the gross-looking brain thing floating in the stomach of a monstrous, superpowered machine-man. Or like the little laughing pet thing that sits near Jabba the Hut in Return of the Jedi.

“Uh, I’m in the wrong bathroom,” I said with as much confidence as I could, which was none.

“Are you gonna buy some crack?” The beast-man boomed.

“What? No. I—”

“You’re here. You better buy some crack. Now.”

“I really don’t have the money, just this beer.”

The blond tweaker lunged at me and stuck her face up toward mine. Her eyes came alive. She was all of the intensity within a two-mile radius.

“I will cut off your fucking ears.”

I didn’t break from her stare for what felt like days. When I looked up to the beast-man he smiled an evil grin. “She’s not fucking around.” She produced a knife that made the one Shades jabbed into the bar look like an antique butter knife.

I laughed thinking of that scene in Crocodile Dundee: “That’s not a knife; this is a knife.” That disturbed them, intensifying the situation.

“I’d better not. You don’t want to waste good crack on me. And my ears… they’re terrible.” I said all this backing up to the locked door. I whipped around as fast as I could and unlocked it and bolted out. I thought for sure they were following me but I didn’t look back. I sprinted the few yards to Zigler at the bar. He was laughing hysterically.

“What the fuck!?”

“She threaten to cut your ears?”

“Yes!” He laughed harder, doubled over even. His laughing, my yelling and still, not a single patron raised an eye to us. And the beast-man and blond tweaker remained in the bathroom. “Really, what the fuck was that?”

“I have no idea. We should probably go.”

The drive back to my house was made with alcoholic care. It was hard to do because we were both laughing so hard.

“That was a crack house, right?” I asked.

“Seemed like it.”

“A crack house tavern. Wow.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Here’s the thing that confuses me the most: Why were you in the women’s restroom?”

Zigler just laughed.

Truth or Lie is the only live it show that showcases non-fiction and fiction stories and tellers, bridging the gap between storytelling and theater. It is hosted by two-time Moth Grand Slam Champion Sarah Bunger. The event features five to six story tellers spinning true or fictive tales and leaving the audience to wonder, truth or lie?

First Sunday of every month 7 p.m. Firecat Projects in Bucktown (2124 N. Damen)

Interested in lying to us? Submit a writing sample to [email protected]. Pieces must be 8–12 minutes and can be 'truths' or 'lies' (ie creative nonfiction or fiction).

#Truth or Lie #Firecat Projects #Live Lit #Mike Zigler #Downtown Las Vegas #Crack

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alegriaspain · 6 years

Text

What Are False-Flag Ops, and Why?

False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as if they are being carried out by someone else. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one’s own.

The term comes from the days of wooden ships, when a ship would fly the flag of its enemy before attacking one of its own navy’s vessels, with the aim of creating a provocation to justify a false counterattack. Because the enemy’s flag was displayed it was called a “false flag” attack. Flash forward a couple of centuries. The term “false flag” has become a metaphor for any attack carried out clandestinely on one’s own forces and cloaked in the colors of an enemy in order to justify an unjustifiable “counter-attack,”–an intentional own goal, if you will.

People who denounce these events are frequently called “conspiracy theorists,” derided as being paranoid, fear mongers, and irrational, sometimes rightfully so. But when it comes to being suspicious of a potentially deceitful authority, that skepticism should be warranted; especially if there is a historical precedence. Often theories about government operations that sound the most heinous or absurd are those where the most scrutiny should be applied. (Source: Gaia.com.)

In this article we’re going to discuss two kinds of false-flag operations, those that have been confirmed and acknowledged later by their authors and those which show all the symptoms of false flags but whose authorship is still in doubt. The former will serve to establish the veracity of the phenomenon. The latter are more interesting.

Who Does It? A Prime Example

Due to the clandestine nature of their work, we can’t really produce a definitive list of the false flaggers in the world, past and present. But, given the opacity, low cost and terrifying efficiency of basic false-flag jobs, it’s safe to assume there are many.

Here we’re going to confine ourselves to those carried out by our very own British and American “intelligence” services, MI6 and the CIA. We can trace their modus operandi from the end of World War II and follow it down to our own days.

As the war was ending in 1945 Churchill’s secret service, foreseeing possible future dangers, created secret arms caches and clandestine military organizations–so-called “stay-behind units”–all over Europe against the possibility of a Russian military takeover attempt. These groups included all sorts of anti-communists, including recently-recycled high-ranking Nazis. The CIA got involved early on, first with financing, then eventually spearheading the project. On 27 January 1949 Sir Stewart Menzies, head of MI6, set out the grand strategy in a top secret and personal letter to Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian Socialist Prime Minister who was later to become secretary-general of Nato. It was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that assumed command of the stay-behind movement and its derivatives.

This sounds like a boring story of corporate restructuring until we consider the unspeakable atrocities carried out over the following four decades in the name of “anti-communism” during Operation Gladio, as the NATO-run terrorist enterprise came to be known. What was the rationale for all this mayhem in the middle of the world’s most civilized continent? The thinking went that blaming all the senseless bloodshed on left-wing extremists would convince European citizens to reject Communist election candidates, who had gained credibility for their role in the fight against Nazism. This was particularly the case in Italy and Greece. It sounds ridiculous, but there you have it. As we shall see, the same twisted ideology could have been at work 30 years later in the United States.

Operation Gladio

Operation Gladio was one of the most egregious terror campaigns of the 20th century. Though it was massively important for its extension all across Europe, for its long lifetime, its heinous tolls in human life and its authorship under the umbrella of NATO, the operation was virtually buried in international news coverage, especially in the United States. For example, did you ever hear of it?

Among Gladio’s most notorious operations was the Bologna Massacre, the suitcase bombing of the Bologna train station in summer of 1980 which resulted in 80 dead and some 200 wounded. Vicious, seemingly senseless assassinations were also carried out in other countries, notably in the Brabant province of Belgium between 1982 and 1985 where 28 men, women and children were murdered at random. The attacks included senseless gun killings in supermarkets, whose victims on one occasion were a whole family of five.

The Gladio terrorist attacks remained inexplicable mysteries and rumors for years, until 1990, when Italian president Giulio Andreotti revealed the existence and structure of the Gladio group, which included right-wing terrorists of all stripes, as well as elements from the Italian–and other European countries’–armed forces. At the head of the operation, according to Andreotti, were NATO and the CIA. Andreotti’s declarations were confirmed by an Italian judge and the former head of Italian counterintelligence.

Why wasn’t this seemingly earth-shaking news–NATO, the world’s most important international military security organization organizing terrorist attacks against civilian European objectives–lavishly disseminated by news organizations around the world? Not only was it not disseminated; it was hushed up. Power has its ways and means.

What’s Going on Here?

Inevitably, the question arises: What possible reason can there be for such horrendous and apparently random violence, perpetrated under the auspices of NATO and the American and British clandestine services? It is the Italian terrorist, Vincenzo Vinciguerra, author of some of Gladio’s most sanguinary actions, who gives us the most convincing answer from his prison cell:

When you were on the Right you were not supposed to attack the State or its representatives. You were supposed to attack civilians, women, children, innocent people from outside the political arena. For one simple reason: To force the Italian public to turn to the State, turn to the regime and ask for greater security. This was precisely the role of the right in Italy. It placed itself at the service of the State which created a strategy aptly called the ‘Strategy of Tension’ insofar as they had to get ordinary people to accept that at any moment over a period of 30 years, from 1960 to the mid-eighties a State of emergency could be declared. So, people would willingly trade part of their freedom for the security of being able to walk the streets, go on trains or enter a bank. This is the political logic behind all the bombings. They remain unpunished because the state cannot condemn itself. Source: Gladio Timelines

(In April of 2018 I posted a four-part article on Operation Gladio, which you can find here.)

A False Flag on the High Seas

Another on-the-record false-flag operation was The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, in 1964, a major turning point in United States military involvement in Vietnam. As a result of President Lyndon Johnson’s false announcement to the nation of August 4, 1964, that the USS Maddox had come under attack by Vietnamese torpedo ships. This seemingly insignificant lie gave rise to the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which laid the foundations for 11 more years of war, thousands of American dead and maimed—and millions of Vietnamese. The familiar pretext of the communist threat was used once again, this time to justify a despicable unprovoked war on a little sovereign country in far-off Southeast Asia. (Source: Ohio History Central.org)

The Chilean Coup, 1973

Veteran investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh’s 1983 book, The Price of Power, Henry Kissinger in the Nixon White House, illuminates the role played by the American government in surreptitiously sponsoring the military coup that deposed Chile’s democratically-elected president, Salvador Allende, on September 11, 1973, and gave way to a sanguinary military dictatorship that lasted 26 years. It was a classic false-flag operation. From the announcement of Allende’s electoral victory, the Nixon-Kissinger White House felt the imperious necessity to get rid of Allende. (He was to die on the first day of the coup in the takiing of the Palacio de la Moneda. It’s not clear if he was shot by the golpistas or shot himself.) Even before his first legislature convened the CIA was busily distributing arms, money and promises to right-wing elements both inside and outside the Chilean military. All of this activity meticulously adhered to the gringos’ “plausible deniability” procedures. After the coup was over and the military dictatorship installed the Americans solemnly declared that they had nothing to do with it.

How to Spot Them

The catalyst is typically a spectacular event, which is followed by immediate media saturation. Of course this is the nature of news, but there are a few warning signs of a plotted false flag. If the major news outlets are all in sync, reporting on the event without thoroughly vetting the information then there is cause for concern.

Within a relatively short period of time a scapegoat will be named, establishing an enemy with no trial nor investigation into other possibilities. The case will be closed, government action will ensue, and someone will reap a profit.

Be suspicious of any invasion, bombing, or “terrorist attack,” especially if it seems counterproductive for the country or entity that supposedly launched it. In all likelihood it was launched by someone else.

Is the attack used as justification for a fraudulent “counter-attack?” This is usually the case.

Place the attack in the context of the known agendas of different countries or entities. Ask yourself who has something to gain from this attack, even if it’s only to discredit an enemy.

If the false-flag attack is blatantly obvious–to the point or ridiculous–from the point of view of an impartial outside onlooker, it can still be useful to a government wanting to influence its own population, either to frighten them or otherwise prepare them psychologically for the “counter-attack.” People tend to believe what the want to believe or are told to believe, not what they see.

These scenarios work best when the stakes are high. The greater the shock value, the less likely people are to question the authenticity of the event. If someone dares to question the mainstream’s version, they’re labeled crazy, insensitive or unpatriotic. Skeptics are denounced as conspiracy theorists who are disloyal to their country in a time of attack.

September 11, 2001 Attacks — Was 9/11 a False Flag?

Here’s a quick summary of the 9/11 attacks from The Conspiracy Project.org:

First off, for those of you entering the rabbit hole for the first time, a false flag operation is defined as: “A horrific, staged event – blamed on a political enemy and used as a pretext to start a war or enact Draconian laws in the name of National security.”

Were the September 11 attacks a False Flag Operation? Would governments really do this? The short answer is, yes. They do it all the time. So were the September 11 attacks a false flag operation?

Part one of the false flag definition: Did Americans rally against the enemy that the government said attacked us? We sure did. Everyone wanted the head of Saddam Hussein on a stick. Thousands died trying to find the “weapons of mass destruction” Bush and Cheney swore were in Iraq. Of course, there were no weapons. And it turns out Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks.

Part two: Did Americans willingly give up some of their freedoms for a little security? Sure did. Even though the Patriot Act was started before 9/11, it was continued by Bush and Obama under the banner of “National Security.”

The now infamous NSA wiretapping of every single American (completely against the Constitution) was welcomed by many citizens as, again, necessary for our protection.

President Obama decreed it okee dokee to assassinate Americans who are suspected of a crime. And Americans can now be detained indefinitely without a trial.

Where is the outrage!? The Constitution – the law of the land – is no more!

Where is the evidence of a false flag op? Well, most of it has been covered up. Or at least they’ve tried to. For a great in-depth listing of all the evidence of a coverup check out the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth website. 2,000 architects and engineers say the government explanation for the buildings collapse was impossible.

But whether or not the attacks prove out to be an inside job, the results are very clear.

We’ve been “false flagged” once again.

What Are We Entitled To?

Are we entitled to affirm that 9/11 was an inside job or that President Kennedy was murdered by a cabal of agencies from within his own country? Of course not. But we are entitled to doubt, and to keep on digging. Yes, there are conspiracy theories. But there are also conspiracies.

###

Read more rantings in my ebook, The Turncoat Chronicles.

Thanks for liking, commenting and sharing.

False Flags–Whodunnit? What Are False-Flag Ops, and Why? False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as if they are being carried out by someone else.

#American False Flags #Government Sponsored Terrorism #Homemade Terrorism #Terror Attack Deception

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